"people and demons" The demonic world and its impact on humans On the special opposition of fallen spirits to prayer
Date of publication or update 05/01/2017
IV. Images of the influence of evil spirits on people.
As already written above, the demons brought down all their anger and hatred on man, who is the image of God. All their efforts are aimed at destroying as many human souls as possible. Why do they use all their capabilities and strength?
“The devil tortures from everywhere,” says St. Gregory the Theologian, - looks out for where to overthrow, where to wound and find what is unprotected and open to attack; the more purity it sees, the more it strengthens to defile... The evil spirit takes on a double image, spreading first one or the other net: it is either the deepest darkness (obvious evil), or it turns into a bright angel (hides behind the appearance of goodness and deceives the minds a gentle smile), which is why special care is needed so as not to encounter death instead of light.” The holy Apostle Paul also warns about the need for special care and vigilance, saying that Satan himself will be transformed into an angel of light, no matter what, if his servant is transformed as a servant of righteousness, his death will be according to work (2 Cor. 11:14-15 ).
In the fight against a person, fallen spirits affect his body, mental, sensory and volitional spheres.
Demons can kill people (Tov. 3, 8), make them sick and enter them (that is, take over their body).
Demons enter the interior of the human body with their entire gaseous being, just as air enters it. We find a detailed description of this fact in Motovilov’s story about how an unclean spirit took possession of his body and tormented him for many years.
The demon, having entered a person, does not mix with the soul, but remains in the body, violently possessing soul and body. According to the instructions of St. Ignatius Brianchaninov, “gases have a special development of the property of elasticity, that is, the property of taking on different volume measures; It is obvious that demons also have this property, according to which many of them can be housed in one person, as the Gospel speaks about this (Luke 8:30).” Having entered a person, according to the testimony of St. John Cassian, “demons bring a terrible darkness to the rational feelings of the soul; [this happens] like the phenomena that occur from wine, fever or excessive cold.” But he cannot make our soul his container. “Unclean spirits,” asserts the same saint, “cannot penetrate the bodies of those possessed by them unless they first take possession of their minds and thoughts.
Having stripped their minds of the clothing of the fear of God, the memory of God, evil spirits attack them as disarmed and deprived of God’s help and God’s protection, and therefore conveniently defeated and, finally, setting up dwellings in them, as if in the possession presented to them.” St. also speaks about this. Gregory the Theologian: “The devil cannot take possession of us completely by any means: if he strongly takes possession of some, then only by his own will he takes possession without resistance” (James 4:7). Thus, from all of the above, we can conclude that the direct possession of an evil spirit in a person occurs only with the special connivance of the Lord and is often a consequence of the passionate and frivolous life of a sinner.
Not possession, but the possession of a person through the external subordination of the forces of the soul to his demonic will is observed much more often than possession. A typical example of this is Judas. The words of the Gospel about Satan going into Judas (Luke 22:3) should not be understood to mean that Judas became possessed in the full sense of the word. St. John the Theologian says that through the passion of the love of money, Satan first penetrated the disciple’s soul (John 12:6), then he more fully took possession of his heart (John 13:2) and finally decisively moved into him (John 13:27). Here is a vivid example of the demon’s gradual takeover of the soul of a sinner through the ever-increasing passion of love of money.
One of the main images of the influence of unclean spirits on people is the impact on their mental sphere by introducing various sinful thoughts there. Being out of reach of a person’s bodily senses, demons, influencing his mind, bring there various thoughts, which the individual, who does not lead a spiritual life, accepts as his own. And if he accepts them and agrees with them, then through this he becomes a conductor of someone else’s evil will, which gradually takes possession of him completely. “Often,” says Anthony the Great, “being themselves invisible, [evil spirits] present themselves as reverent interlocutors in order to deceive with the likeness of an image and draw those deceived by them into whatever they want.”
Orthodox asceticism even has special terms to denote the effects exerted by the spirits of evil on the human soul. These are “thoughts” or images rising from the lower regions of the soul, from the subconscious, then - “pretext”, not so much “temptation”, but the presence of an extraneous thought that came from outside and was introduced into consciousness by a hostile will. “This is not a sin,” says St. Mark the Ascetic, but a testimony of our freedom.” Sin begins only with “combination”, with the attachment of the mind to an incoming thought or image, or, rather, it is some interest or attention, already indicating the beginning of agreement with the enemy’s will, for evil always presupposes freedom, otherwise it would only be violence, possessing a person from the outside.
Demons, knowing that people love the truth, take on the guise of truth and by this means pour poison into their followers. This is how the devil once deceived Eve, telling her not his own words, but allegedly repeating the words of God, while perverting their meaning (Gen. 3:1). So he seduced Job’s wife, teaching her excessive love for her husband, and hence blasphemy against God: “You say a certain word (blaspheme) against the Lord and die” (Job 2:9), she said, believing that this was blasphemy against God. a person immediately undergoes death and thereby ends his grave earthly torment. Thus the devil deceived and deceived all people, perverting the essence of things, and drew everyone into the abyss of evil.
However, it should be noted that when fighting with us, demons do not know the disposition of our hearts, cannot read our thoughts, but from the words that we utter in conversation, from the actions of the external person during conversations, “standing up, sitting, walking, looking at us - they see it as flattering.” all day long (Ps. 37:13) is our internal structure, so that during prayer we can darken our mind with evil thoughts corresponding to the disposition of passion” (St. Evagrius the monk). This is what St. says about this. Isidore Pelusiot: “The devil does not know what is in our thoughts, because it exclusively belongs to the power of God alone; but by bodily movements he senses thoughts. Will he see, for example, that another is looking inquisitively and saturating his eyes with alien beauties? Taking advantage of his dispensation, he immediately incites such a person to commit adultery. Will he see the one overcome by gluttony? He will immediately vividly present to him the passions generated by gluttony, and will help him to bring his intentions into action. Encourages robbery and unjust acquisition." The ascetic Christ God equalizes the strength of those who are fighting and tames the ferocious rage of evil spirits, who, without God’s permission, cannot tempt people, as can be seen from the life of Job. Even the demons themselves do not have the power to enter into a herd of pigs, and the Lord does not allow them to tempt a person beyond his strength. But in the struggle it gives the Christian strength that gives him the opportunity to emerge victorious.
In addition to the mental sphere, fallen spirits can also attack the sensual and volitional side of the human soul. This is what St. Petersburg writes about this. Neil of Sinai: “When the envious demon does not have time to set the memory in motion, then he acts on the blood and juices in order to create imagination in the mind through them and fill it with images.” By influencing the body, the demon arouses in a person feelings of lust, rage, anger, etc. This is clearly seen in the example of St. Justina, in which a demon sent by a sorcerer incited feelings of lust and sensuality, but was driven away by the saint’s prayer.
Influencing the volitional sphere of the human soul, the demon, as it were, deprives a person of strength, energy, the ability to take decisive actions and any action in general, but again, during prayer, he leaves, being defeated by the power of Christ.
Evagrius the monk writes that demons differ in the degree of evil and strength, performing different ministries. This is confirmed by St. John Cassian, saying that “some of them delight in unclean and shameful lusts, others love blasphemy, others anger and rage, others are consoled by sadness, others by vanity and pride - and each instills that passion in human hearts with which he himself personally delights; but not all together excite passions, but alternately, depending on how the time, place and acceptability of the tempted require.” The same ascetic testifies to the spiritual invisible warfare: “The weakest spirits are allowed to attack the new and weak, and when these are defeated, then the strongest are sent,” but this happens as the spiritual strength of the warrior of Christ increases.
Demons have a kind of “specialization”; being in evil, they have some freedom, because they can choose from many evils the one that is most pleasant for them. They live by this passion, they try to kindle it in a person, through this gaining access to his soul and body. In addition, it is quite acceptable to assume that demons can be nourished and strengthened by human energy transformed in passionate pleasure. If, according to St. John of Damascus, Angels “contemplate God as far as is possible for them, and have this as food,” then demons, for whom contemplation is impossible, apparently can receive energy indirectly, through a person, adapting his energy for their nutrition. To do this, they must first liken the person to themselves, thereby gaining access to his soul. A passionate and sin-loving person is an excellent breeding ground for fallen spirits. Inflating the energy of passions in him, devouring his vital forces, the demon feeds and strengthens in such an environment. In addition, having taken possession of a sinner, the fallen spirit uses his body as a tool to obtain greater pleasure from passion. This is another reason why a passionate and sin-loving person is literally surrounded by demons.
At the same time, it should be noted that fallen spirits can endow their servants with a special demonic type of energy, which allows obedient executors of the will of the forces of evil to work tirelessly in the field of multiplying sin. But due to their destructive nature, demons, deprived of the ability to create, ultimately destroy their followers.
The Lord allows the evil will of demons to manifest itself, since He does not violate the freedom of any rational being. At the same time, He always limits the harmful actions of the spirit of malice, directing them to the good of people. While after the deception of our first parents the devil more and more extended his power and dominion over people, the Lord, for His part, prepared everything to completely shake and overthrow this power, which was accomplished by the Son of God who came to earth, who, having destroyed kingdom of the devil, founded His Holy Church. He has given the true believers the power to resist and dominate the spirits of evil. “That Christ was born to crush demons,” wrote St. Justin, addressing the pagans, - this and now you can learn from what is happening before your eyes. For many of our Christians have healed and are now still healing many people possessed by demons both throughout the world and in our city, conjuring in the name of Jesus Christ, crucified under Pontius Pilate... thereby defeating and driving out the demons that have taken possession of people.”
Waging constant and bitter warfare with believers in Christ, the spirit of malice, however, never violates human freedom, resorting to enchanting seductions and crafty advice and persuasion. Therefore, with the help of God’s grace, a Christian can successfully repel all enemy attacks through the heartfelt invocation of the name of Jesus, the sign of the cross, from which demons tremble. During persistent demonic warfare, prayer and fasting are necessary, which support and strengthen the strength of the soul, as well as spiritual wakefulness (the fight against sinful thoughts), in which it is easier for the spiritual fighter to notice all the tempting devil’s tricks and repel them in time. The Savior Himself taught the rule on how to cast out evil spirits: This generation can be cast out by nothing except through prayer and fasting (Mark 9:29).
The Lord allows temptations of the devil, firstly, to shame and humiliate the devil and, secondly, to test and strengthen the will of His followers in goodness. In the fight against demonic temptations, ascetics gain spiritual experience, recognize their spiritual illnesses and, by healing them, improve in goodness. “God is a lover of mankind,” writes St. Basil the Great, “uses the cruelty of demons to heal us, just as a wise doctor uses the venom of a viper to heal the sick.” St. John Chrysostom on this occasion says the following: “If anyone asks why God did not destroy the ancient tempter, we will answer that He did this out of nothing other than out of great care for us. For if the evil one had taken possession of us by force, then this question would have some validity. But since he does not have such power, and can only incline us to himself, while we may not be inclined, then why do you eliminate the reason for merit and reject the means to achieve crowns?.. For this purpose God left the devil - so that those who had already been defeated by him deposed him, and the valiant had the opportunity to discover their (firm) will... The devil is evil for himself, and not for us: because, if we want, we can acquire a lot of good through him, of course, against his will and desire, which is where the special miracle and extraordinarily great love of God is revealed... When the evil one frightens and confuses us, then we come to our senses, then we recognize ourselves, and then we resort to God with great zeal.” According to Saint Justin, God, for the sake of Christians, “slows down to bring about the confusion and destruction of the Universe, so that there are no more evil angels or demons,” the end of whose destructive activity will be the final condemnation of evil spirits to eternal hellish torment.
Sacrifices. According to St. Basil the Great: “All the idols to which the pagans worship are invisibly cohabiting and co-present with certain demons who find pleasure in unclean sacrifices.”
The power of demons over the statues dedicated to them is clearly revealed by the content of the narrative that we read in the book of Kings (1 Samuel 5:2-3). Foreigners captured the ark of the Lord and placed it in the temple of their god Dagon. Entering the next morning, they found the statue of Dagon fallen on its face. The image visible to all was Dagon; the one who fell on his face was a demon, overthrown by the glory surrounding the ark of God. It was he who fell on his own face, and with him he overthrew and overthrew the visible thing.
For this reason, those who eat food sacrificed to idols are recognized as participants in the meal of demons (1 Cor. 10:21).
As we see from the above, the prince of this age not only invisibly captivated people with his thoughts, but also entered into open communication with them, making prophecies from idols. In this he was helped by such obvious villains as the well-known from history Iannias and Zamri and other wise men, priests, astrologers and sorcerers. The delusion of people was supported by miracles and demonic prophecies.
Rebellious and hostile authorities willingly and hastily perform such services in order to increase the number of participants in their destruction.
In addition, for the false miracles they performed, people brought them sacrifices, so beloved by demons, and gave them divine honors, thereby satisfying satanic pride.
Communion with Christ frees believers from the power of the devil, but this only with the most perfect faith; and since perfection is not achieved by everyone, the power of the devil in the world continues over the imperfect according to their passion, as well as over those who do not believe in Christ. Thus, only believers are given the opportunity to be liberated from the power of the devil as a result of the Savior’s merits on the cross. This possibility is realized according to the measure and degree of faith and moral improvement of a person. That is why, although the victory of Christ over the prince of peace was actually accomplished by the death and resurrection of Christ, the Church of Christ, in its temporary and gradual development in the world, is still a militant Church and will remain so until the end of the world and the Last Judgment.
Because of the atoning merits of Jesus Christ, we can overcome the devil. Its influence on people is weakened, especially on those who are crucified to Christ “with their passions and lusts.” Only through sin and passions do demons cling to the soul, and while it is in sin, it is blinded by them. St. Gregory of Nyssa says: “When our nature fell into sin, God did not leave our fall by His Providence, but to help everyone’s life he assigns a certain Angel from among those who have accepted an incorporeal nature, but on the opposite side, the corrupter of nature contrives to do the same through some evil one and a malevolent demon who would harm human life. A person, being among an Angel and a demon, himself makes one stronger than the other, choosing a teacher from the two with his free will. The Good Angel foretells the good of virtue to the thoughts, and the other shows material pleasures from which there is no hope for good.”
As we see, the final choice of good and evil always remains with the person himself. And if he accepts the side of the Angel of Light, a Christian easily defeats the fallen spirit. The Holy Fathers and teachers of the Church show us the following means to fight the devil: faith, the word of God, calling on the name of Christ our Savior, fear of God, humility, sobriety, prayer, the sign of the cross. Every Christian can directly use these means in the fight against demons; There are also those that can be used through the clergy; this is repentance with Communion of the Holy Mysteries of Christ and spells read over those suffering from unclean spirits. “When people of prayer (praying Christians) courageously endure temptations, repent of their sins, complacently endure insults, remain in prayer,” testifies St. John of Carnath, “the demons are tormented, tormented and crying, but people are not allowed to see this, lest they become arrogant.” Prayer, which promotes the outpouring of the grace of the Holy Spirit on a person and connects him with God, burns demons and, not tolerating the fire of grace, they run away from the one praying with screams. That is why, in any temptation, it is necessary to rise to prayer, which gives us God’s help, with which we are invincible.
Just as spirits have an influence on matter, so substance has an influence on spirits. In church practice, the repellent effect of incense on evil spirits is known. The beneficial effect of holy relics, miraculous icons and even the clothes of saints, whose presence evil spirits cannot stand, is also noted. All this is connected with the grace that emanates from them and burns the demons.
It is known that holy ascetics, even in earthly life, received power over unclean spirits. Thus, in the lives of St. Andrey, MC. Juliana and St. Anthony the Great we read that they even subjected evil demons to be beaten. The lives of the saints are filled with evidence of the victory of the transfigured man over unclean spirits.
On the nature of fallen spirits
“Fallen angels” (demons, or demons) carry within themselves all the properties inherent in angelic nature.
Saint Demetrius of Rostov points out that first “Angels were created in the image and likeness of God, just as man was subsequently created.” Angels were created immortal, intelligent, incorporeal, capable of singing - as St. Athanasius the Great.
While the devil was an Angel of God, he lived in Heaven, that is, in the spiritual world, with other Angels. But, as the prophet Ezekeel says (28:17), because of his beauty his heart became proud and because of his vanity he destroyed his wisdom. Having been created good, the former Angel of his own free will became “Satan” ( enemy God) and the “devil” ( slanderer for the goodness of God). By slandering God and, at first, by the impunity of his proud resistance to God, he seduced many other Angels and drew them along with him. The Lord decided to stop the spread of evil through the Angels who remained faithful to Him. Archangel Michael defeated the slanderer with a call to all the Angelic Heavenly Forces to remember the fact of their creation: “ Who from Angels can create them, Angels, like God created them?
The angel-demons infected with pride could not tolerate the truth of these words. Like swords and spears, the words of God’s Truth pierced their beings and forced them to leave the world of the celestials forever and, by God’s command, to find themselves in world under heaven. From now on, their place of residence is the celestial space, i.e. the entire visible space, our earthly air, the earth and its underworld - the interior of the earth.
The Lord and His faithful Angels reside in a world inaccessible to the influence of demons. Therefore, the demons turned all their anger towards man, who is the image of God, and, knowing that the Lord loves His creation, they strive to harm him as much as possible.
From the lives of the saints, it is clear that the head of the fallen angels, Satan, until the coming of the Antichrist, remains in hell - in the core of the earth, and on the earth's surface, in the air, and in the water environment, demons act under the control of their “princes,” that is, the fallen angels of the highest hierarchies who descend to hell to receive Satan's orders and report their actions to him.
Why and how demons do evil
Everyone knows what it is urgent need. We have many needs, but urgent There are significantly fewer of them. This is something you cannot live without.
Demons also have this urgent need. They do not need food, sleep or rest. They need do evil. Demons think of nothing but evil, and find no peace or pleasure in anything except evil activity. The feeling of good, like the Kingdom of God, is hateful to them. Frenzied hatred of God is expressed by terrible and incessant blasphemy, opposition and irreconcilable enmity. Not being able to commit carnal sins physically, they commit them in dreams and carry them out through people. They have internalized carnal vices into their disembodied nature and developed in themselves sins that are unusual for them, much more than people. Driven by insatiable malice towards the human race (Job 1:7), demons are the sources of various diseases and torments of people and animals, and in general of all nature on earth.
The Holy Scriptures contain many examples of the influence of Satan and his servants, demons, on the human body and soul. In the 4th chapter of the Gospel of Matthew, we read how the devil, tempting the Lord Jesus Christ, with his power carries Him either to the roof of the temple or to a high mountain. The Book of Job tells how the devil sends fire on a flock of sheep and shepherds, causes a hurricane that destroys the house where Job’s children are gathered, and they die (1, 9). In the Book of Tobit, a demon named Asmodeus kills seven husbands...
But, perhaps, the most terrible effect of demons on a person, which is described in the Holy Scriptures, is their entry into his insides. The demon, having entered a person, does not mix with the human soul, but, being in the body and soul, forcibly takes possession of them. This is demonization, or obsession. In the Gospel of Luke (8:30) we read that many demons can be present in one person. Our Lord Jesus Christ throughout the entire gospel history constantly casts out demons from people (Matthew 8:28-34; 9:32-33; Mark 1:23-26; 9:17-29; Luke 11:14 and etc.).
But how does a demon possess a person?
How does a demon possess a person?
As the holy fathers teach, the demon, before moving into a person, prepares the “soil.” The main way they influence is instilling in a person your thoughts under the guise of his own. They do this very carefully, applying their thoughts to the thoughts of a person, so that it is not noticeable how the thoughts they inspire are woven into human consciousness. They gradually accustom people to think and desire only sinful things, making them similar to themselves. By subjugating the mind and will of a person, demons strive to take possession of his body. This becomes possible when the grace of God departs from the incorrigible sinner not for destruction, but for punishment. Now demons can enter his body and control him. And there is no crime or atrocity that a possessed (in modern terms, “zombified”) person could not commit, if not for God’s Providence, which sets external limits to demonic power.
In special cases, for admonition and correction, God allows demons to inhabit a believer, a church person...
...There are people in whom the presence of demons happens open. These are the most terrible and difficult cases: when someone else’s evil will, using the human body and forcing it to scream in a voice that is not its own, hit the floor and throw itself at people, perform all sorts of ugly actions - everything that we call madness. Such people are usually no longer helped by the prayers of loved ones or holy water prayers - they need special church help.
And of course, no psychiatry, no “white magic”, no psychics or “non-traditional”, “folk” healers will be able to help these unfortunate people.
Psychiatrists treat the possessed as people with ordinary mental damage - they “treat” them with pills and injections...
One spiritual writer reports an interesting fact from Russian history. “Modern godless psychiatry,” he writes, “does not know how to distinguish a neurotic patient from a possessed person. In pre-revolutionary Russia, methods were known that made it possible to do this without error. One of them: ten glasses are placed in front of a person suspected of being possessed. Nine of them are with holy water, one is with plain water. The possessed person, no matter how many attempts he makes, will always choose a glass of plain water.”
Such people can only be helped by clergy of the Orthodox Church, experienced in spiritual life and having a special blessing from the hierarchy. They apply the church practice of so-called “reading” to demon-possessed people, which includes special prayers and sacred rites.
However, the following must be said about clearly possessed people: they are under the special providence of God, for a possessed person always knows about his disastrous state and always wants to get rid of the evil living in him. Only he himself, by his own will, is no longer able to do this. As paradoxical as it may sound, a demoniac has an advantage over an inveterate sinner: a drunkard, a fornicator, a covetous person. The possessed person wants to get rid of evil, but the sinner does not always want to stop sinning. True, on the other hand, a sinful person still has freedom of choice, free will, while the will of the possessed is controlled by the demon.
"Mild" obsession and constant unhappiness
Just as physical illnesses can have different forms and stages, so the spiritual illness we are talking about - obsession, or demonization - has its own different degrees. Everyone will agree: it is one thing when a person cannot stay in church for a long time (he is tempted to leave), and quite another thing when he barks and writhes in horror under the sign of the cross. Of course, the first case is “just” the initial degree of obsession. We'll talk about it now.
Experience shows that such initial obsession in recent years it has become an increasingly widespread phenomenon.
Non-church people constantly claim that they “don’t wish harm on anyone,” and therefore they wonder why God is punishing them, why doesn't stick life. They do not consider their sins, which they managed to hide from people, as evil and therefore do not even remember them. For example, the sin of killing a conceived baby in the womb - abortion - in the era of godless authorities was declared not a sin, not a crime, but a “physiological intervention.” And so, to this day, elderly women, child killers, who have made their husbands and other loved ones accomplices in the crime, still come to church - and they are sincerely perplexed: where do they get depression from, why does such melancholy begin in the church, some incomprehensible tears appear, it becomes stuffy, like before fainting?..
Passions and vices that have become so familiar that they can no longer be separated from a person’s personality (smoking, foul language, “everyday” lies, self-pity, lustful thoughts, passion for television, continuous condemnation of one’s acquaintances...) create fertile ground for episodic or gradually passing in the constant influence of demons on him.
As soon as such a person comes to a temple where services are held with reverence, he immediately begins to feel yourself bad. He is stuffy (from the incense), hot, and dark, lacking light and air. And if the parishioners also pray fervently, then during the Cherubic or Eucharistic canon, or even during the sermon calling for repentance, such people, for no apparent reason, begin to have an attack of coughing, hiccups, yawning, they make unnatural cries and even they faint: with some terrible (so everyone shudders) roar they fall to the floor...
Once, twice, three times - and the unfortunate (or unfortunate woman) begins to guess that something extraordinary is happening to him. This happens not because the church is actually stuffy and dark, but because of the proximity of the Holy Place: icons, relics of God’s saints, and most importantly, the Body and Blood of Christ. He makes a terrible discovery: “So, I feel bad where the Shrine is, where God is... What then am I like? What happened and is happening to me?
Cases of constant failures, misfortunes and illnesses that occurred as a result of the “slander of the enemy,” that is, due to the evil action of a sorcerer (psychic, hypnotist, sorcerer), are caused by the same human condition as cases with “slightly” possessed people. This is a graceless, non-church life, unrepentant sins (sometimes terrible, but not realized), anger at enemies, with bitterness, when in the soul there is an absolute impossibility of forgiveness, and again - sinful passions and vices.
It would be good if among the acquaintances of such an unfortunate person there was at least one who would advise him to turn to an Orthodox priest! ...
Archpriest Georgy Vakhromeev,
rector of the Church of the Holy Life-Giving Trinity on Shabolovka, Moscow
________________
On the special opposition of fallen spirits to prayer
Fallen spirits fiercely oppose all the gospel commandments, especially prayer as the mother of virtues. The Holy Prophet Zechariah saw in his vision “Jesus, the great priest, standing before the angel of the Lord, and the devil standing right hand Him, you must resist Him.” (Zach. 3 :1 ) : So now the devil relentlessly confronts every servant of God with the intention of stealing, desecrating his spiritual sacrifices and not allowing him to sacrifice, stopping and destroying it. “Fallen spirits are tormented by envy of us,” said St. Anthony the Great, “and do not cease to set in motion all evil, so that we do not inherit their former thrones in heaven.” In particular, “the demon is very jealous,” said St. Neil of Sinai, “of a person praying, and uses all kinds of intrigues to frustrate his work.” The demon uses every effort to hinder prayer or to make it powerless and invalid. This spirit, cast out from heaven for pride and indignation against God, infected with incurable envy and hatred of the human race, infected with a thirst for the destruction of people, vigilantly, day and night, concerned about the destruction of people, it is unbearable to see that a weak and sinful person is separated from everything earthly by prayer. , enters into a conversation with God Himself and comes out of this conversation sealed with the mercy of God, with the hope of inheriting heaven, with the hope of seeing even one’s mortal body transformed into a spiritual one. This sight is unbearable for the spirit, which is forever condemned to grovel, as it were, in mud and stench, in thoughts and sensations exclusively carnal, material, sinful, which, finally, must forever be overthrown and imprisoned in hellish prisons. He rages, goes into a frenzy, deceives, hypocrites, commits villains. We must be attentive and careful: only when absolutely necessary, especially at the request of assigned obedience, can you give the time designated for prayer to another activity. Do not leave your prayers without the most important reason, beloved brother! He who abandons prayer abandons his salvation; He who does not care about prayer does not care about salvation; he who abandoned prayer denied his salvation. A monk must behave very carefully, because the enemy is trying to surround him on all sides with his machinations, to deceive, seduce, outrage, seduce him from the path prescribed by the Gospel commandments, and destroy him in time and in eternity. Such a fierce, malicious and cunning persecution of the enemy is soon observed by an attentive life; We will soon notice that at the very time when it is necessary to engage in prayer, he prepares other activities, presents them as both important and impatient of delay, just to take prayer away from the monk. The machinations of the enemy turn in favor of the diligent ascetic: constantly seeing a murderer nearby with a drawn dagger raised to strike, the helpless, powerless, poor in spirit monk continually cries out with tears to the omnipotent God for help and receives it. The rejected spirit, when it cannot take away the time designated for prayer, then tries to steal and desecrate the prayer while it is being performed. For this purpose, he acts with thoughts and dreams. He dresses his thoughts in the guise of truth in order to give them more strength and conviction, and he presents dreams in the most seductive painting. Prayer is stolen and destroyed when, during its performance, the mind does not heed the words of the prayer, but is occupied with empty thoughts and dreams. Prayer is desecrated when, during prayer, the mind, distracted from prayer, turns its attention to sinful thoughts and dreams represented by the enemy. When sinful thoughts and dreams appear to you, do not pay any attention to them. As soon as you see them in your mind, the more intensely close your mind in the words of prayer and beg God with the warmest and most attentive prayer to drive away your murderers from you. The evil spirit arranges its shelves with special skill. Ahead of him are thoughts clothed in all kinds of truth, and dreams that an inexperienced ascetic can mistake not only for innocent phenomena, but also for inspiration, for holy and heavenly visions. When the mind accepts them and, having submitted to their influence, loses its freedom, then the leader of the foreign army puts forward clearly sinful thoughts and dreams for the fight. “Dispassionate thoughts,” said the Monk Nilus of Sora, referring to the former great fathers, “will be followed by passionate ones: the allowed entrance of the first is the reason for the forced entry of the second.” The mind, as having arbitrarily lost its freedom in a collision with advanced forces, disarmed, weakened, captive, cannot in the least resist the main forces, is immediately defeated by them, subordinated, enslaved by them. During prayer, it is necessary to enclose the mind in the words of prayer, indiscriminately rejecting every thought, both obviously sinful and righteous in appearance. Any thought, no matter what his attire and armor, but if it distracts him from prayer, this thereby proves that he belongs to a foreign regiment and came uncircumcised, "blame Israel" (1 Sam. 17 :25 ) . The fallen angel bases his invisible warfare (struggle) with man with his own sinful thoughts and dreams on the mutual affinity of sins among themselves. This warfare does not cease either day or night, but it acts with special tension and fury when we stand up for prayer. Then, according to the expression of the holy fathers, the devil collects the most absurd thoughts from everywhere and pours them out on our soul. Firstly, he remembers to us and all those who offended us; insults and insults inflicted on us; tries to present in vivid painting retribution for them and presents resistance to them as a requirement of justice, common sense, public benefit, self-preservation, necessity. It is obvious that the enemy is trying to shake the very foundation of the prayerful feat - gentleness and meekness - so that the building erected on this foundation collapses by itself. This is how it happens, because someone who is malicious and has not forgiven his neighbor’s sins cannot concentrate during his prayer and come to tenderness. Angry thoughts dispel prayer; they carry it to the sides, just as a gusty wind carries the seeds thrown by a sower into his field, the soil of the heart remains unsown, and the intense labor of the ascetic remains in vain. It is known that forgiveness of insults and insults, replacing condemnation of neighbors with a merciful apology for them, and blaming oneself serve as the basis for successful prayer. Very often the enemy, at the very beginning of prayer, brings thoughts and dreams of earthly prosperity: either in a seductive picture he presents human glory as a fair or happy tribute to virtue, as if recognized and finally recognized by people who now come under its leadership, then in an equally seductive The picture presents an abundance of earthly means, on the basis of which Christian virtue should flourish and strengthen. Both of these paintings are false, they are depicted in opposition to the teachings of Christ, and cause terrible harm to the spiritual eye that looks at them and to the soul itself, which commits adultery from its Lord with sympathy for demonic painting. Outside the cross of Christ there is no Christian prosperity. The Lord said: “I do not accept glory from men... As much as you can believe, you accept glory from one another, and you do not seek glory other than from the one God.” (In. 5 :41, 44 ) . When doing all your good deeds “don’t be a hypocrite” (Matt. 6 :16 ) who do good for human glory, who receive human glory as a reward for their virtue and deprive themselves of the right to an eternal reward ( Matt. 6 :1-18 ) . “Don’t let your fool steal away”, that is, your own vanity, "What is your right hand doing", that is, your will, directed according to the Gospel commandments, “And your Father, who sees in secret, will reward you in reality” gift of the Holy Spirit ( Matt. 6 :3 ) . The Lord also said: “No one can work for two masters: either he will love one and hate the other: or he will stick to one, but begin to be careless about his friends: you cannot work for God and mammon.”, that is, property, wealth ( Matt. 6 :24 ) . “Unless he renounces all his possessions, he cannot be My disciple.” (OK. 14 :33 ) . It is worthy of note that the devil, tempting the God-man, offered Him the vainglorious thought of being glorified by a public miracle, and the dream of the most developed and powerful position. The Lord rejected both ( Matthew 4; Luke 4): He leads us to the highest success along the narrow path of selflessness and humility, and He Himself paved this saving path. We must follow the example and teaching of the Lord: reject thoughts of earthly glory, earthly prosperity, earthly abundance, reject the joy brought by such dreams and reflections, which destroy in us contrition of spirit, concentration and attention during prayer, introducing conceit and absent-mindedness. If we agree with vain, proud, selfish and peace-loving thoughts and dreams, do not reject them, but abide in them and enjoy them, then we enter into communication with Satan, and the power of God, which protects us, will retreat from us. The enemy, seeing the retreat of God's help from us, directs two heaviest battles at us: warfare with thoughts and dreams of fornication and warfare with despondency. Defeated by the first battle, deprived of the intercession of God, we do not resist the second battle. This is what the fathers said, that God allows Satan to trample on us until we humble ourselves. It is obvious that thoughts of remembrance, condemnation, earthly glory and earthly prosperity are based on pride. Rejection of these thoughts is rejection of pride. The rejection of pride is accomplished by the establishment of humility in the soul. Humility is Christ's way of thinking and that heartfelt guarantee that comes from this way of thinking, by which all passions are killed in the heart and erupted from it. The invasion of prodigal passion and the passion of despondency will be followed by an invasion of thoughts and feelings of sadness, unbelief, hopelessness, bitterness, darkness, blasphemy and despair. The pleasure of carnal lusts makes a particularly grave impression on us. The Fathers call them desecrators of the spiritual temple of God. If we delight in them, then the grace of God will retreat from us for a long time and all sinful thoughts and dreams will receive the strongest power over us. They will continue to torment and torment us until we again attract grace to ourselves through sincere repentance and abstinence from enjoying the enemy’s excuses. Experience will not fail to teach an attentive monk all this.
Having learned the order, the rank and regulations that the enemy adheres to when fighting us, we can organize appropriate resistance. Let us not judge or condemn our neighbor under any pretext; we will forgive our neighbors all the gravest insults inflicted on us by our neighbors. Whenever a thought of malicious malice appears against a neighbor, we will immediately turn to God in prayer for that neighbor, asking him for God’s mercy in time and in eternity. Let us renounce our souls, that is, the search for human glory, the search for an overly comfortable earthly position, the search for all earthly advantages, and we surrender ourselves entirely to the will of God, thanking and praising God for our past and present, placing our future on Him. Let such behavior and our direction be a preparation for our prayer, the basis for our prayer. Before starting prayer, let us humble ourselves before our neighbors, accuse ourselves as having seduced and seduced them with our sins, begin our prayer with prayer for our enemies, unite ourselves in prayer with all humanity and beg God to have mercy on us along with all people, not because we are worthy to pray for humanity, but to fulfill the commandment of love, which lays down the law: "pray for each other" (Jacob 5 :16 ) . Although a true servant of God is allowed to struggle with the various causes of sin brought by Satan and arising from our nature damaged by the fall, the right hand of God constantly supports and guides him. The struggle itself brings the greatest benefit, providing the ascetic with monastic experience, a clear and detailed understanding of the damage to human nature, about sin, about the fallen angel, leading the ascetic to contrition of spirit, to weeping for himself and for all humanity. The Monk Pimen the Great told about the Monk John Kolov, a father filled with the grace of the Holy Spirit, that he begged God and the struggle in him caused by the ailments of a fallen nature or passions ceased. He went and announced this to a certain elder who had succeeded in spiritual reasoning, saying: “I see myself in indestructible calm, without any warfare.” The prudent elder answered John: “Go and pray to God that the battle will return, because because of the battle the soul comes to prosperity, and when the battle comes, do not pray that it will be taken away, but that the Lord will grant patience in the battle.”
Our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the principalities, against the powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in high places.(Eph. 6:12)
The battle of the Archangel Michael with Satan. Jacopo Tintoretto
In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit!
Today at the Liturgy a passage from the Gospel was read in which the Lord casts out the demon of dumbness from a sick person. Seeing this miracle, the Jews begin to denounce Christ for casting out demons by the power of the demonic prince. In this Gospel fragment, the Lord explains to us the destructiveness of the situation of a person who finds himself in the power of fallen spirits, and indicates the real power that can deliver a person from such slavery. Let us listen carefully to know how to protect ourselves from this scourge.
One day the Lord cast out a demon from a mute man. When the demon came out, the dumb man began to speak. Some Jews who witnessed the miracle considered Christ a sorcerer who acts by the power of a demonic prince.
Why do the Jews believe that it is possible to heal someone with the power of the demonic prince? The very appearance of this question suggests that such healings have occurred. They are still found today, otherwise people would not turn to sorcerers and psychics so often. But what is the actual spiritual nature of such phenomena?
The Church has long struggled with sorcerers and healers. Even in the Old Testament book of Leviticus it says: Whether it be a man or a woman, if they call forth the dead or cast magic, they shall be put to death: they shall be stoned, their blood shall be on them.(Lev. 20:27) Today the Church does not call for killing them, but it strongly does not recommend turning to such people for help. Fortune telling and turning to dark forces are a serious sin. If the price of achieving health is entering into forces that oppose God, then it is better to be sick.When does not the Kingdom of God dwell in a person, but the kingdom of demons? When he gave power to demons over himself with his sins and passions
The Lord explained to the Jews that demonic power does not drive demons out of a person: Every kingdom divided against itself will be desolate, and a house divided against itself will fall.(Luke 11:17) .
When does not the Kingdom of God dwell in a person, but the kingdom of demons? When he gave power to demons over himself through his sins and passions. How will demons themselves deprive themselves of the kingdom and destroy their home?
And if I cast out demons by the power of Beelzebub, by whose power do your sons cast them out? Therefore they will be your judges(Luke 11:19).
And how then do the apostles cast out demons in the name of Christ, if we assume that He Himself uses demonic power?
If I cast out demons with the finger of God, then, of course, the Kingdom of God has come to you(Luke 11:20).
The true power with which Christ casts out demons is the “finger of God,” the Holy Spirit.
When a strong man guards his house with arms, then his property is safe; when his strongest attacks him and defeats him, then he will take all his weapons in which he hoped and divide what was stolen from him(Luke 11:21).
Saint Theophan the Recluse explains: “This allegory explains how the Lord destroys the power of demons over souls. While the soul is in sin, it is possessed by its own evil spirit, although it does not always clearly show this. He is stronger than the soul, therefore he is not afraid of rebellion on its part, he dominates and tyrannizes over it without resistance. But when the Lord comes into the soul, attracted by faith and repentance, then he breaks all satanic bonds, casts out the demon and deprives him of all power over such a soul. And while that soul works for the Lord, demons cannot prevail over it, for it is strong in the Lord, stronger than them. When the soul makes a mistake and recoils from the Lord, the demon again attacks and overcomes, and it, poor thing, is worse than before. This is the universal invisible order of phenomena in the spiritual world."Faith, repentance and good deeds are what keep us from the power of demons
Saint Theophan also says what needs to be done to prevent demons from possessing a person: “If our intelligent eyes were opened, we would see a worldwide battle between spirits and souls: first one side, then the other, wins, depending on whether the souls communicate with the Lord faith, repentance and zeal for good deeds, or they lag behind Him through negligence, carelessness and lukewarmness towards good.”
Faith, repentance and good deeds are what keep us from the power of demons.
The Gospel begins with the words of Christ, summing up the discussion about the fight against demons: He who is not with Me is against Me; and whoever does not gather with Me scatters(Luke 11:23). In these words, Christ calls to gather together with Him, and not to scatter, as His enemies do.
What kind of gathering are we talking about? And what can we waste? This is how St. explains these words. Luka (Voino-Yasenetsky): “What does such a person waste? The precious treasures of your soul: that which is the only thing needed, everything that pleases God. It does not deepen faith, does not increase hope, does not acquire love, because there is no source of love in scientific knowledge. He who is preoccupied with himself, who relies on himself, does not have true hope in its highest form, hope in God. He who is busy with the aspirations of his life without Christ wastes everything he could have. He who is not with Christ is against Him. Terrible words: “To be against Christ is to be His enemy.” And what could be more disastrous and terrible for a person than to become one of the enemies of Christ?
There are only two paths: one to the right, the other to the left. To the right is the path indicated by the Lord, the path to the left is the path leading away from Him. And He is the Way, the Truth and the Life, and if we do not follow Him to the right, along the path that He showed us, then we are moving away from Him. The opposite of Christ is Antichrist. Going to the left, we follow the Antichrist. There is no middle way. We must choose one path: we must go to the right, follow the Lord Jesus Christ, and be with Him.We are called to gather up great spiritual treasures with Christ, with His gracious help
We are called to gather up great spiritual treasures with Christ, with His gracious help. Those who follow a different path waste all these treasures, increase their conceit, their arrogance, their pride, and pride is the main property of the devil. He who does not follow Christ inevitably, although people do not understand this, follows the devil.”
The state of sleep needs to be considered simply because we spend a third of our lives in it. The Holy Fathers see in dreams and awakenings images of the death and resurrection of man. The direct purpose of sleep is rest, restoration of physical and mental strength. It is rightly noted that in dreams our past life and what occupies us every day in a cheerful state are reflected in an altered form.
However, the content and meaning of dreams is not exhausted by this alone. In a dream, the soul does not sleep, but continues to live its own life, which is different from the waking state. A feature of sleep is that the mind stops working, or acts in short bursts. Along with reason, self-control and coherence of thoughts are lost, which can no longer form any long logical chains.
Feelings and passions continue to live, not restrained by reason, and find their expression in images, not only black and white, but also in color, which move, act, making up fragmentary pictures, and sometimes complex plots.
Fallen spirits have free access to a soul in a sleepy state, not protected by prayerful thoughts and the memory of God. Demons use sleep time to confuse, intimidate, desecrate a person’s soul, and develop his passions.
Who among us is not familiar with the nightmares that are part of the arsenal of demonic insurance? They are experienced by children from primary school age. The most common insurance topics: the appearance of monsters, snakes, wild animals, villains, unclean animals, persecution with attempted murder, a feeling of unreasonable fear, falling into the abyss, deformations of one’s own body, natural disasters with the danger of drowning , burn in fire, be buried alive. Evil spirits will not miss the opportunity to torment a Christian in a dream with experiences of what he fears most, the death of relatives, the loss of objects of affection, plunging his soul into grief and despair in a dream. If sleep is a prototype of death, then night insurance is a prototype of hellish torment.
Demons try to prophesy about the future in dreams, predict the imminent death of us and our loved ones, show acquaintances in an unsightly form, including clergy and even a confessor, and appear in the form of deceased relatives. In a dream, they show our soul seductive pictures and through this they draw it into fornication, vanity, anger, greed, inconspicuously cultivating these passions and desecrating the soul.
« Demons, having access to our souls while we are awake, also have it during our sleep. And during sleep they tempt us with sin, mixing their dreams with our dreams.».
The question arises: " Is it necessary to confess sins committed in a dream?“If in reality the soul is occupied mainly with thoughts, then in a dream their place is taken by images. The appearance of a thought is not considered a sin until the soul accepts it.
Likewise, the appearance of an image, even a sinful one, in a dream is not a sin. At this stage, we are still only spectators, tempted by demonic bait.
But as soon as the sleepy soul is drawn with desire to the object of temptation, we suddenly turn from a spectator into a participant in the scenario, and the soul is defiled by the corresponding passion and needs repentance. First of all, what has been said concerns prodigal sins. However, a sin committed in a dream, when the mind is inactive, cannot be equated with a sin committed in a normal state. You should not even retell the contents of these dreams at Confession, but only say that, in addition to other sins, you sinned with unclean and prodigal dreams. Penance for them, as a rule, is not assigned.
But after prodigal dreams, in which we were not only spectators, but also participants in the scenario, it is advisable to make several prostrations and read a prayer against night desecration from the Canon or Prayer Book.
When going to bed, it is recommended to sign the room on all sides with the sign of the cross with the prayer “May God rise again...” or with the troparia “Those who are protected by the Cross...” This simple measure will greatly reduce demonic temptations in a dream. The ancient Christian custom of sleeping in underwear serves the same purpose.
And now we move on to the most important thing. It turns out that even in a dream the soul can resist demonic temptations. For example, do not accept seductive images if you have a genuine inner disgust for them, not through the action of reason, but through the action of feeling. In this case, the soul remains an indifferent or hostile spectator in relation to such “pictures”.
I have already mentioned that the mind in a dream can act in short bursts. Often, a believer, during demonic insurance in a dream, suddenly remembers prayer, and this happens not only with saints, but also with ordinary believers, especially if, in a awake state, they set themselves the intention of performing prayer and the sign of the cross in a dream. Such an attitude can also arise involuntarily when reading stories from the life of St. Fathers who used these remedies against evil spirits.
If we sign what scares us with the sign of the cross with the prayer “In the Name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit” or “In the Name of our Lord Jesus Christ,” then the insurance item usually disappears, if not the first time, then the third or fourth, or awakening comes. Sometimes inside a dream you feel that the hand for the sign of the cross does not rise; it has to be raised with great effort, with the help of the other hand. If the fingers do not bend as needed, it is enough to draw a Cross with the whole brush. If this fails, you can blow in a cross shape, and even imagine the Cross with your mind - it works in any form.
This remedy, however, does not help the unbaptized and those who have unconfessed mortal sins on their conscience. It’s clear why: the power of God acts through the Cross. The first have not yet entered into a covenant with God, and the second have broken it of their own free will. Sometimes other prayers are remembered in a dream: to the Mother of God, the Cherubic Hymn, Easter chants, lines from the Psalms, and they also help to resist the enemy.
The appearance in dreams of insurance and demons in their own form, as well as in the images of snakes, unclean animals and monsters, and after them spectacles of hellish torment, is a common occurrence in the life of every zealous Christian who is not indifferent to his salvation. They do not contain the danger of falling into delusion, but they activate spiritual life, strengthen one’s faith, encourage diligent prayer, and assure one of the power of the sign of the cross. Such dreams can no longer be considered ordinary dreams.
At the same time, the soul passes into a special state - the state of vision. It is characterized by the fact that the body is in a state of sleep, and the consciousness begins to work very clearly. What is seen remains in the memory for many years, often for a lifetime, leaving a strong impression, while ordinary dreams are “empty and disorderly,” and we are not always in the morning we can remember them.
The state of vision should not be confused with the borderline state that sometimes occurs upon awakening: the body continues to sleep, but the consciousness begins to clear up. We hear and understand our surroundings fragmentarily, but we cannot move. However, there is no object of vision. Despite the strange sensations, this state does not carry anything related to spiritual life and does not leave any significant impressions behind it.
The transition to a state of vision occurs more easily in a dream than in reality, so it is not surprising that visions came to the prophets mostly during sleep. The dreams of the prophet Daniel, Joseph the Beautiful, the forefather of Jacob, as well as Pharaoh, the baker, the cupbearer and Nebuchadnezzar, although called dreams in Scripture, were actually visions. Visions come in different strengths. What we see hardly differs from a simple dream and belongs to their lowest category. Visions also differ in their origin. They can be from Grace and from demons. Seeing evil spirits in their vile form is in a sense a gift from God, just as the gift of God is simple sight, with the help of which we see both bad and good. For all their frightening ugliness and horror, these visions correspond to the truth and give us the opportunity to behave correctly and correctly assess what is happening.
Much more dangerous are dreams involving the Lord, the Mother of God, angels or saints. These visions can be caused by demons and contain lies. We have not seen real celestial beings, so it is difficult for us to identify a fake. At the same time, bewilderment arises: is it possible to sign them with the sign of the cross, like demons? What if they are real, and our action will look like an insult?
In this case, you need to make the sign of the cross with prayer over yourself, and ask the person who appears to glorify the Holy Trinity. After this, the demon will no longer be able to harm our soul, although events may develop differently.
Elder Paisios of Athos aptly called visions caused by demons “demonic television.” One must be firmly convinced that the Lord, the Mother of God, and the Angels, although they take care of all Christians, are not beginners.
This is not useful for beginners, primarily because of their uncontrollable pride. How many years will it take for a neophyte to notice his pride, understand its depth, find ways to combat it and drive it into at least some kind of framework? Such phenomena occur as isolated exceptional cases when a person converts to faith or when he is miraculously saved from mortal danger.
Those who converted to the Orthodox faith from other religions often do not want to recognize themselves as newcomers, but consider their Christianity to be a continuation of what they did before. This is deeply wrong. Orthodoxy is not united with any other religions, since it considers them delusions and heresies. The uniqueness of the true faith and the true Church are the dogmas of Orthodox Christianity. Truth cannot be a continuation of error. Such people need to start their journey from the very beginning, that is, from the parish church, and not from the monastery. And the more “successes” they managed to achieve in their previous religious practice, the more difficult it will be for them in Christianity.
Blessed visions do not depend on human will. And on the contrary: those visions that are caused at will are not blessed. One should be extremely careful in approaching spiritual phenomena that are not accompanied by prayer and the sign of the cross. Visions that we do not dare to unequivocally attribute to demons must be “neither accepted nor rejected,” postponing the final judgment about them for the future.
In many books about spiritual life we come across the instruction “not to believe in dreams.” What does this mean?
Not believing dreams means not being guided by them in life, not building relationships with others based on them, not looking for prophecies about future events in them, even if dreams sometimes come true. The fulfillment of dreams is not indisputable proof of their gracious origin; this can also occur through the action of demons. But at the same time, from dreams we can correctly judge the passions living in us and study the impact of fallen spirits on ourselves.
“Dreams can be considered witnesses to our moral state, which is not always visible in our waking state. Dreams are as our heart is. In a careless person, devoted to passions, they are always unclean, passionate: the soul there becomes a playground of sin. A person who has turned to the path of salvation and strives to cleanse his heart has both good and bad dreams, depending on what quality prevails in his soul or in what mood he falls asleep.”
By how often we dream of churches, worship services, clergy, sacred objects, how often we remember prayer in a dream, resist passions and feel like a believer in a dream, we can judge how deeply we are imbued with church life. It is dreams that often open our eyes to the love of sin and lack of faith living in the depths of our hearts, which in our waking state we hide not only from strangers, but also from ourselves.
A frequent guest in the dreams of a believer, along with the prodigal demon, is the blasphemous demon. He shows us in a distorted form what is connected with God and the Church. For example, in our dreams we see churches without crosses, or when we enter a church we find ourselves in a movie theater; on the icons we see scary faces instead of the faces of saints. In such a dream, all people can freely enter the altar, the choir can sing modern songs, a sexton can perform divine services instead of a priest, etc. Moreover, the demon arranges situations in the dream that force us to renounce our faith. In a dream, we can even endure torment for our faith.
Blasphemous dreams must be treated in the same way as blasphemous thoughts, that is, do not consider them your own. The need for repentance depends on whether we were spectators of the blasphemy or participants. In the latter case, at Confession one must repent of blasphemous dreams, without, however, retelling their content. The confessor can and should be told everything that we consider important and that he asks about, without concealment.
It is a fair opinion that a demon cannot fake an image of the Cross, but this only applies to a Cross of the correct shape and proportions. He does well with distorted and inverted crosses. Therefore, if in a vision we see a cross, we need to take a good look at it. Having given ourselves such an attitude in advance, we can hope that we will distinguish a fake. If we have not examined the Cross, but simply remember that it was there, this does not yet indicate the truth of the vision.
As we have already noted, sleep is a time of special influence of fallen spirits on us. After a night's sleep, bodily strength is restored, but the next morning the soul is very upset by demonic influences. It must be put in order with the help of morning prayer, and then get down to business. The state of the soul immediately after waking up refers to states of increased suggestibility, when prayer enters deeply inside us and has an effect throughout the day.
Sinful and vain thoughts have a similar effect at this time. Therefore, experienced prayer practitioners advise immediately after getting up, before the morning rule, already during washing and morning procedures, to begin reading the Jesus prayer or other short prayers.
What is said in this chapter does not apply at all to the ascetics of piety, who already live according to the laws of the Spirit, but to modern Orthodox Christians. For beginners who do not have spiritual prudence, dreams, for safety reasons, are better to be ignored and forgotten, according to the advice of Theophan the Recluse and St. Ignatius Brianchaninov. However, it is hardly possible not to notice dreams at all if we spend a third of our lives in this state.
In the Prayer Books, a repentant prayer is prescribed for cleansing from “unclean ghosts of the devil.” Why would this be necessary if dreams have no meaning at all? Finally, some dreams, regardless of our desire, make such a strong impression that they cannot be forgotten for years.
St. Theophan and St. Ignatius included chapters on the life of the soul during sleep in their spiritual works, apparently believing that this issue was important. One must think that they received information on this topic not only from the works of other authors, but also from their own observations of this condition.
Hegumen Boris (Dolzhenko) “TO A QUIET HAVEN”
Orthodox Bulletin "Rus-Front"