5390. There are other spirits again who correspond to filthy excretions, these being the kind who in the world were firmly set on taking vengeance. I have seen these in front of me, over to the left. Also corresponding to those filthy excretions are people who have debased spiritual ideas into filthy earthly ones. Spirits such as these have also approached me, bringing their foul thoughts with them. Those thoughts also led them to say things that were foul; and worse than that, they turned pure ideas towards unclean ones and converted them into the same. A large number of spirits like these have sprung from the lowest level of society; but they also came from other levels of people who in the world were among the higher-ranking. During their lifetimes the latter did not, it is true, express foul ideas in company, even though they thought them; they refrained from speaking what they thought, to avoid ill repute or loss of the friendships, material advantages, and important positions they enjoyed. Otherwise, when among others like themselves and at liberty to do so, they uttered the same kinds of things as those belonging to the lowest level of society. Indeed what they spoke was even fouler because they had an intellectual ability which they misused to defile even those holy ideas contained in the Word and religious teaching.