“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

Only monks could afford it, and there were thousands of different groups scattered throughout Europe. There were equally as many long-forgotten communities, in which hermits of every sect imaginable squatted in caves in given areas. People of solitary nature born in medieval times had to make their own structures, and if they were not hermits or monks, they were outlaws of one kind or another, frequenting the woods, which were often full of semi-permanent but isolated communities—men and women who preyed upon travelers, for example.

In some ways the monks and the outlaws had much in common: a desire for privacy, a bent for independence, an unconventional curiosity, and yet a need for some kind of communal existence, for there was no technology to support such people.

Often there was little difference between the outlaws and the monks, and fanatic roving bands of monks often went through isolated communities or farmlands with a vengeance.