By St. Nikolai Velimirovich
MYSTAGOGY
ΕΛΛΗΝΙΚΑ ΓΙΑ ΤΟ ΘΕΜΑ, ΕΔΩ
Spiritists of our day accept every manifestation from the spiritual world as though sent by God, and immediately they boast that God has been "revealed" to them. I knew an eighty year old monk whom everyone respected as a great spiritual director. To my question: "Have you ever in your life seen anything from the spiritual world?", the monk answered me, "No, never, praise be to God's Mercy." Seeing that I was astonished at this, he said, "I have constantly prayed to God that nothing appear to me, so that, by chance, I would not succumb to pride and receive a fallen devil as an angel. Thus far, God has heard my prayers." This recorded example shows how humble and cautious the elders were. The devil, clothed in the light of an angel, appeared to a certain monk and said to him: "I am the Archangel Gabriel and I am sent to you." To that, the brother responded, "Think! Were you not sent to someone else, for I am not worthy to see an angel?" The devil instantly became invisible and vanished.
ΕΛΛΗΝΙΚΑ ΓΙΑ ΤΟ ΘΕΜΑ, ΕΔΩ
Spiritists of our day accept every manifestation from the spiritual world as though sent by God, and immediately they boast that God has been "revealed" to them. I knew an eighty year old monk whom everyone respected as a great spiritual director. To my question: "Have you ever in your life seen anything from the spiritual world?", the monk answered me, "No, never, praise be to God's Mercy." Seeing that I was astonished at this, he said, "I have constantly prayed to God that nothing appear to me, so that, by chance, I would not succumb to pride and receive a fallen devil as an angel. Thus far, God has heard my prayers." This recorded example shows how humble and cautious the elders were. The devil, clothed in the light of an angel, appeared to a certain monk and said to him: "I am the Archangel Gabriel and I am sent to you." To that, the brother responded, "Think! Were you not sent to someone else, for I am not worthy to see an angel?" The devil instantly became invisible and vanished.
The Super-Natural
DEATH TO THE WORLD (from here)
"As
the present world approaches its end, the world of eternity looms
nearer.... The end of the world merges with the beginning of eternal
life.... The spiritual world is moving itself closer to us, manifesting
itself through visions and revelations." +Saint Gregory the Dialogist
THE
OTHER WORLD is "breaking into" this world and giving hints of
existence. God and His angels send their grace to suffering souls who
seek truth amidst lies and chaos. And meanwhile, Satan and his fallen
angels are revealing themselves to people who seek after signs,
"spiritual" experiences, phenomena, power, and false manipulation of the
created order. In the past, demons appeared and deceived people under
the guise of "gods," being worshipped through statues and oracles. In
the modern Western world, under many guises: as "angels of light," as
"UFO's," as "charismatic" experiences, and even as "Bigfoot," (some
people see blinding light when they see "Bigfoot," which doesn't make
sense if he were just an animal). And sometimes they reveal themselves
as the malicious spirits they are. Satan is now walking naked into human
history. Some people who read this have had contact with dark
spirits, either in their true form or under the guise of light, as in
"white magic" (see the article "Never Kneel" in issue no. 4 of D.T.T.W.).
Nowadays,
many people have had their spiritual senses opened up, either through
drugs or through phsychic/occult practices, or a combination of both.
As the ancient God-illumined teachers say, however, there is nothing
particularly special or important about the sensuous perception of
spirits, and in fact it can be very dangerous (see the article on the
"Opening of the Senses" in this issue). Let no one be deceived by the
hazy, soft-focus false mysticism that is being propagated on the
best-seller list of your local bookstore. There is a dark side as well
as a light side. The dark side often tries to mask itself as the light
side to the spiritual realm. The dark side may pretend that it cares
about our welfare. But it doesn't. It wants to destroy us, to corrupt
our nature, to turn us into horrible spiritual freaks and mutants, just
like the fallen angels who turned away from God.
That
is why we must seek, not experiences, but truth. God is Truth, and the
Truth is a Person, Jesus Christ. And He alone can deliver us from
deception. Not all those who read this have had a sensuous perception
of spirits. Some have experienced the grace of God without seeing or
hearing Him, but they know it's real. And some have experienced the
working of the demons without seeing or hearing them, and they know
that that's real, too. Some, having turned away (or been turned away by
others) from the presence of God, have felt the dark despair which is
more than despair, and which has crossed over the border from the
natural to the infernal realms. This state of despair is magnified by
the demons, who try to lead us to kill ourselves, because they know
that suicide is the one sin for which IT'S TOO LATE to repent (see "Suicide: the Last Genocide" in issue no.4).
In this issue, we have alternated accounts of the light side (God and
His Angels) with accounts of the dark side (Satan and his minions), so
that people will see as graphically as possible the huge difference
between the two. Between these two there is a great gulf fixed, which is
impossible to Cross after we die.
Click: A Deer Lost in Paradise
An Orthodox spiritual father comments on 12-year-old Akiane “Orthodoxy and the Religion of the Future”
LIVE, BEYOND THE LIMITS!
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