On the Jesus Prayer (Part 4)

Section II. On Spiritual Delusion

Disciple. Give an exact and detailed account of spiritual delusion. What is spiritual delusion?

Elder. Spiritual delusion is the corruption of human nature by falsehood. Spiritual delusion is the condition of all mankind without exception, produced by the fall of our forebears. We are all in spiritual delusion.181 To know this is the greatest safeguard against spiritual delusion.[1] The greatest spiritual delusion is to consider oneself free from delusion. We are all deceived, all beguiled, all in a false condition, all in need of liberation by truth. The Truth is our Lord Jesus Christ (Jn. 8:32, 14:6). Let us make our own this Truth by faith in it; let us cry out to this Truth in prayer—and it will draw us from the abyss of self-deception and delusion by demons. Our condition is grievous! It is a prison, from which we pray that our soul be brought out, “to confess” the name of the Lord (Ps. 141:8). It is that dark land into which our life has been cast down by the enemy who envied us and pursued us (Ps. 142:3). It is the carnal mind (Rom. 8:6) and the knowledge falsely so called (1 Tim. 6:20), with which all the world is infected—a world that does not acknowledge its own sickness, but proclaims it to be flourishing health. It is “flesh and blood,” which “cannot inherit the Kingdom of God” (1 Cor. 15:50).[2] It is eternal death, healed and abolished by the Lord Jesus, who is “the resurrection and the life” (Jn. 11:25). Such is our condition. To behold it is a new occasion for weeping. With weeping let us cry out to the Lord Jesus, that He draw us out of the prison, lift us from the depths of the earth, and snatch us from the jaws of death. “Our Lord Jesus Christ,” says the Venerable Symeon the New Theologian, “descended to us for this reason: He desired to deliver us from captivity and from the worst spiritual delusion.”182

Disciple. This explanation is not sufficiently accessible to my understanding: I have need of an explanation more simple, more within my comprehension.

Elder. “Falsehood” was the instrument used by the fallen angel to destroy the human race (Gen. 3:13). For this reason the Lord called the devil “a liar, the father of lies, and a murderer from the beginning” (Jn. 8:44). The Lord joined the concept of falsehood closely to the concept of murder: for the latter is the inevitable consequence of the former. The word “from the beginning” indicates that from the very beginning, falsehood served as the devil’s instrument for the murder of men, and constantly serves him as an instrument for murder—for the destruction of mankind. The beginning of all evils is a false thought! The source of self-deception and demonic delusion is a false thought! The cause of every kind of harm and ruin is a false thought! Through falsehood the devil struck mankind with eternal death in its very root—in our forebears. Our forebears were deluded — that is, they acknowledged falsehood as truth, and accepting the lie under the guise of truth, they damaged themselves irremediably with mortal sin, as our foremother herself attested. “The serpent deceived me,” she said, “and I ate” (Gen. 3:13). From that time our nature, infected with the poison of evil, strives both “voluntarily” and “involuntarily” toward evil that presents itself as good and pleasure to the corrupted will, the distorted mind, and the distorted feeling of the heart. Voluntarily: because there still remains in us a remnant of freedom in the choice of good and evil. Involuntarily: because this remnant of freedom does not act as full freedom; it acts under the inescapable influence of corruption by sin. We are born thus; we cannot but be so: and therefore all of us, without any exception, are in a condition of self-deception and demonic spiritual delusion. From this view of the condition of mankind in relation to good and evil—a condition that by necessity belongs to every human being—flows the following definition of delusion, explaining it with full adequacy: “spiritual delusion is the appropriation by man of falsehood, accepted by him as truth.” Delusion acts first upon the manner of thinking; having been accepted and having perverted the manner of thinking, it immediately communicates itself to the heart, perverting the feelings of the heart; having seized the substance of man, it spreads over all his activity, poisoning even the body, as inseparably bound to the soul by the Creator. The condition of spiritual delusion is a condition of destruction or eternal death.

Since the fall of man, the devil has had constant free access to him.183 The devil has a right to this access:[3] man voluntarily subjected himself to his authority by obeying him, having rejected obedience to God. God has redeemed man. The redeemed man is granted the freedom to obey either God or the devil; and in order that this freedom may manifest itself without compulsion, the devil is permitted access to man. It is very natural that the devil employs every effort to keep man in his former relation to himself, or even to bring him into greater subjection. For this he employs his former and constant weapon—falsehood. He strives to beguile and deceive us, relying on our condition of self-deception; he sets in motion our passions—these diseased cravings—and clothes their ruinous demands in the appearance of goodness, endeavoring to incline us to satisfy the passions. One who is faithful to the Word of God does not permit himself such satisfaction, bridles the passions, repels the attacks of the enemy (Jas. 4:7): acting under the guidance of the Gospel against his own self-deception, taming the passions, thereby gradually destroying the influence of the fallen spirits upon himself, he little by little passes out of the condition of delusion into the realm of truth and freedom (Jn. 8:32), the fullness of which is given by the overshadowing of Divine grace. One who is unfaithful to the teaching of Christ, who follows his own will and reason, submits to the enemy and passes from the condition of self-deception to the condition of demonic delusion, losing the remnant of his freedom and entering into full subjection to the devil. The condition of people in demonic delusion is very varied, corresponding to the passion by which man is beguiled and enslaved, and to the degree in which he is enslaved to it. But all who have fallen into demonic delusion—that is, who through the development of their own self-deception have entered into communion with the devil and into subjection to him—are in delusion, are temples and instruments of demons, victims of eternal death, destined for life in the prisons of hell.

Disciple. Enumerate the kinds of demonic delusion that arise from incorrect practice of prayer.

Elder. All forms of demonic delusion to which the ascetic of prayer is subject arise from the fact that repentance has not been laid as the foundation of prayer, that repentance has not been made the source, the soul, and the goal of prayer. “If anyone,” says the Venerable Gregory of Sinai in the article cited above, “with self-assurance founded on self-conceit,184 imagines that he will attain to high states of prayer, and has developed a zeal not genuine but satanic, the devil easily entangles him in his nets as one who is his own servant.” Everyone who strives to enter the marriage feast of the Son of God not in the pure and bright garments fashioned by repentance, but directly in his own rags—in a condition of senility, sinfulness, and self-deception—is cast out into the outer darkness:[4] into demonic delusion. “I counsel you,” the Saviour says to one called to mystical priesthood, “to buy from me gold refined in fire, that you may be rich; and white garments, that you may be clothed, so that the shame of your nakedness may not be revealed; and anoint the eyes of your senses” and the eyes of your mind “with the eye-salve” of tears “that you may see. Those whom I love I reprove and discipline. Be zealous, therefore, and repent” (Rev. 3:18–19). Repentance and all that constitutes it—contrition or anguish of spirit, weeping of the heart, tears, self-condemnation, the remembrance and foretaste of death, of God’s judgment and eternal torments, the sense of God’s presence, the fear of God—are gifts of God, gifts of great worth, gifts that are primary and foundational, pledges of higher and eternal gifts. Without receiving them first, the bestowal of subsequent gifts is impossible. “However exalted our ascetic struggles may be,” said Saint John of the Ladder, “if we have not acquired a suffering heart, these struggles are both false and vain.”185 Repentance, contrition of spirit, and weeping are signs—they are testimony to the correctness of the ascetic struggle of prayer;[5] their absence is a sign of deviation into a false direction, a sign of self-deception, delusion, or barrenness. The one or the other—that is, delusion or barrenness—are the inevitable consequence of incorrect practice of prayer; and incorrect practice of prayer is inseparable from self-deception.

The most dangerous incorrect mode of prayer consists in the following: the one who prays composes by the force of his imagination fantasies or pictures, drawing them in appearance from Holy Scripture but in reality from his own condition, from his own fall, his sinfulness, his self-deception—and with these pictures he flatters his self-conceit, his vainglory, his pride, deceiving himself. It is evident that everything composed by the fantasy of our fallen nature—a nature perverted by the fall—does not exist in reality; it is fiction and falsehood, so characteristic of, so beloved by, the fallen angel. The fantasist, from the very first step on the path of prayer, departs from the realm of truth and enters the realm of falsehood, the realm of Satan, and voluntarily submits to the influence of Satan. Saint Symeon the New Theologian describes the prayer of the fantasist and its fruits thus: “He raises to heaven his hands, his eyes, and his mind, imagines in his mind—like Klopstock and Milton—divine counsels, heavenly goods, the orders of the holy Angels, the dwellings of the saints; in short, he gathers in his imagination all that he has heard in the Divine Scripture, he contemplates these things during prayer, gazes up at heaven, and by all this stirs his soul to Divine longing and love; sometimes he sheds tears and weeps. In this way his heart gradually becomes inflated without his mind perceiving it; he supposes that what he is doing is the fruit of Divine grace for his consolation, and prays God to grant him always to remain in this activity. This is a sign of delusion. Such a person, even if he keeps complete silence, cannot but fall into mental disorder and madness. And if this does not happen to him, it is still impossible for him ever to attain spiritual understanding, virtue, or dispassion. In this way were deluded those who saw light and radiance with these bodily eyes, who smelled fragrances with their nostrils, who heard voices with their ears. Some of them went mad and wandered in their mental disorder from place to place; others received a demon that had transformed itself into a bright Angel, were deluded, and remained uncorrected to the very end, accepting no counsel from any of the brethren; some of them, prompted by the devil, killed themselves;[6] some cast themselves into abysses; others hanged themselves. And who can enumerate the various delusions of the devil by which he deceives—delusions that are beyond telling? Nevertheless, from what we have said, every intelligent person can learn what harm comes from this mode of prayer. But if any of those who employ it do not suffer any of the above-mentioned calamities because they live in community with the brethren—since such calamities befall chiefly hermits who live alone—such a person spends his entire life without progress.”186

All the holy Fathers who have described the ascetic struggle of mental prayer forbid not only the composing of voluntary fantasies, but also the consenting in will and sympathy to fantasies and apparitions that may present themselves to us unexpectedly, independently of our will. And this does happen in the ascetic struggle of prayer, especially in hesychasm. “In no wise accept,” says the Venerable Gregory of Sinai, “if you see something whether with your bodily eyes or with the mind, whether outside you or within you—be it an image of Christ, or an Angel, or a saint, or if a light presents itself to you… Be attentive and cautious! Do not permit yourself to trust in anything, do not express sympathy or consent, do not hasten to entrust yourself to an apparition, even if it be true and good; remain cold toward it and aloof, always keeping your mind without images, forming no likeness within itself and imprinted by none. Whoever sees something in thought or sensibly, though it be from God, and hastily accepts it, easily falls into delusion—or at least reveals his inclination and susceptibility to delusion, as one who receives apparitions quickly and without reflection. A novice must direct all his attention to the single action of the heart, and consider that action alone as free from delusion—while refusing to accept the rest until such time as he enters into dispassion. God is not angered with one who, fearing delusion and watching himself with the utmost care, does not accept even something sent from God without having examined it with all thoroughness; on the contrary, God praises such a one for his prudence.”187 Saint Amphilochius, who entered monasticism from youth, was found worthy in his mature and elder years to lead the eremitic life in the desert.[7] Having enclosed himself in a cave, he practiced hesychasm and attained great progress. When “forty” years of his eremitic life were completed, an Angel appeared to him by night and said: Amphilochius! go to the city and tend the spiritual flock. Amphilochius remained watchful over himself and paid no heed to the Angel’s command. On the following night the Angel appeared again, repeated the command, and added that it came from God. And again Amphilochius rendered no obedience to the Angel, fearing to be deceived and recalling the words of the Apostle, that Satan also transforms himself into an Angel of light (2 Cor. 11:14). On the third night the Angel appeared once more, and having assured Amphilochius of his identity by glorifying God—which is intolerable to rejected spirits—took the elder by the hand, led him out of the cell, and brought him to a church that was nearby. The church doors opened of themselves. The church was illumined by a heavenly light; in it stood a multitude of holy men in white robes with sun-like faces. They ordained Amphilochius as bishop of the city of Iconium.188—In contrary conduct, the Venerables Isaakios and Nikita of the Kiev Caves, new and inexperienced in the eremitic life, fell into the most terrible calamity by rashly trusting in an apparition that presented itself to them.[8] To the first there appeared a multitude of demons in radiance: one of the demons took on the appearance of Christ, the rest the appearance of holy Angels. The second was deluded by a demon, first by a fragrance and a voice as if divine, and then by the demon appearing before him openly in the form of an Angel.189 Monks who are experienced in the monastic life—truly holy monks—fear spiritual delusion far more and trust themselves far less than novices, especially those novices who are consumed with fervor for ascetic struggle. With heartfelt love the Venerable Gregory of Sinai warns the hesychast—for whom his book is written—against spiritual delusion:[9] “I wish you to have a definite concept of delusion: I wish this with the aim that you may be able to guard yourself against it, lest in your striving, not illumined by proper knowledge, you cause yourself great harm and destroy your soul. The free will of man is easily inclined to communion with our adversaries—especially the will of the inexperienced, who are new to the struggle, as still possessed by demons.”190 How true this is! Our free will inclines, is drawn, toward delusion: for every delusion flatters our self-conceit, our vainglory, our pride.[7] “The demons are near and surround the novices and the self-willed, spreading nets of thoughts and ruinous fantasies, constructing abysses of falls. The city of novices—the entire being of each of them—is still in the hands of barbarians… Out of frivolity, do not quickly trust whatever presents itself to you, but remain “heavy”—retaining the good with much discernment and rejecting the evil… Know that the actions of grace are clear; the demon cannot impart them: he cannot impart either meekness, or quietness, or humility, or hatred of the world; he does not tame the passions and love of pleasure, as grace does.” His actions are: “puffing up”—arrogance, inflation—“pride, fearfulness, and in short all forms of wickedness. By the action you will be able to recognize the light that has dawned in your soul—whether it is of God or of Satan.”191 It must be known that such discernment is the possession of advanced monks, and in no way of novices. Venerable Sinait converses, though with a novice in the hesychast life, yet with one who by his monastic seniority and physical age was an elder, as is evident from the book.[10]

Disciple. Have you happened to see anyone who fell into demonic delusion from developing fantasy during the practice of prayer?

Elder. It happened to me. A certain civil servant living in St. Petersburg occupied himself with an intensified ascetic struggle of prayer and through it came to an extraordinary condition. He disclosed his struggle and its consequences to the then-priest of the Church of the Protection of the Mother of God in Kolomna. This priest, visiting a certain monastery of the St. Petersburg diocese, asked one of the monks of that monastery to converse with the civil servant. “The strange condition into which the civil servant has come through his struggle,” said the priest rightly, “can more readily be explained by the inhabitants of a monastery, as being more familiar with the details and contingencies of ascetic struggle.” The monk agreed. After some time the civil servant arrived at the monastery. I too was present at his conversation with the monk. The civil servant immediately began to recount his visions—that he constantly saw light coming from the icons during prayer, smelled a fragrance, tasted an extraordinary sweetness in his mouth, and so forth. The monk, having heard this account, asked the civil servant: “Has there not come to you the thought of killing yourself?” — “Indeed it has!” replied the civil servant, “I had already thrown myself192 into the Fontanka, but they pulled me out.” It turned out that the civil servant had employed the mode of prayer described by Saint Symeon, had inflamed his imagination and blood—a state in which a man becomes very capable of intensified fasting and vigil. To the condition of self-deception, voluntarily chosen, the devil added his own action—akin to that condition—and human self-deception passed into manifest demonic delusion.[11] The civil servant saw light with his bodily eyes; the fragrance and sweetness he experienced were also sensory. In contrast to this, the visions of saints and their supernatural states are wholly spiritual:193 the ascetic becomes capable of them only after the eyes of the soul are opened by Divine grace, whereupon the other senses of the soul also come alive, having until then remained inactive;194 the bodily senses of the saints also participate in the gracious vision—but only when the body has passed from the passionate state to the dispassionate state. The monk began to persuade the civil servant to abandon the mode of prayer he was using, explaining both the incorrectness of the method and the incorrectness of the condition that the method produced. With bitterness the civil servant resisted the counsel.[12] “How can I renounce manifest grace!” he objected.[13]

Listening to the civil servant’s account of himself, I felt an inexpressible pity for him, and at the same time he seemed to me somehow comical. For example, he put the following question to the monk: “When from the abundant sweetness the saliva in my mouth increases and begins to drip on the floor—is that sinful?” Truly: those in demonic delusion arouse compassion, as persons who no longer belong to themselves, and who are held, as to mind and heart, captive to the evil, rejected spirit. They also present a comic spectacle: they are made an object of mockery by the evil spirit that has mastered them, which brought them to a state of humiliation by deluding them with vainglory and pride. Neither their captivity nor the strangeness of their conduct do the deluded understand, however evident that captivity and strangeness may be.

The winter of 1828–1829 I spent at Ploschansk Hermitage.195 At that time there lived there an elder who was in spiritual delusion.[14] He had cut off his hand at the wrist, supposing that he was thereby fulfilling the Gospel commandment, and recounted to everyone willing to listen that the severed wrist had become holy relics, that it was stored and venerated with due ceremony at Simonov Monastery in Moscow, that he—the elder—being in Ploschansk Hermitage five hundred versts from Simonov, could feel when the Simonov archimandrite and brethren were venerating the hand. The elder would fall into trembling, whereupon he began to hiss very loudly: he regarded this phenomenon as the fruit of prayer, but to observers it appeared as a distortion of self, worthy only of pity and laughter. Children living in the monastery as orphans amused themselves with this phenomenon and imitated it before the elder’s eyes. The elder fell into anger and rushed at one boy and then another, pulling them by the hair. No respected monk of the monastery could convince the deluded man that he was in a false condition, in a state of mental disorder.

When the civil servant had left, I asked the monk: “How did it occur to him to ask the civil servant about an attempt at suicide?” The monk replied: “Just as in the midst of weeping before God there come moments of extraordinary peace of conscience—in which lies the consolation of those who weep—so in the midst of the false pleasure afforded by demonic delusion there come moments in which the delusion seems to unmask itself, and gives one a taste of itself as it actually is. These moments are terrible! The bitterness they bring, and the despair produced by that bitterness, are unbearable. By means of this state into which delusion brings one, it would be easiest for the deluded person to recognize the delusion and take measures to heal himself. Alas! The beginning of delusion is pride, and its fruit is pride in abundance. The deluded man, who considers himself a vessel of Divine grace, despises the salutary warnings of those near him—as Saint Symeon observed. Meanwhile the fits of despair grow stronger and stronger; at last despair turns into madness and is crowned by suicide.”

At the beginning of the present century, a schema-monk named Theodosius was an ascetic at Sophroniev Hermitage,196 having attracted to himself the respect both of the brotherhood and of laypeople by his strict and exalted manner of life.[15] Once it seemed to him that he had been caught up to paradise. At the end of the vision he went to the abbot, recounted the miracle in detail, and added an expression of regret that in paradise he had seen only himself, and none of the brethren. This detail escaped the notice of the abbot: he assembled the brethren, and with contrition of spirit retold to them the vision of the schema-monk, urging them to a life more earnest and pleasing to God. After some time strange actions began to appear in the schema-monk’s conduct. The matter ended with him being found hanged in his cell.