That is why praying with your eyes closed is not advised. This is a great video reminding us about the dangers of imagination during prayer. God bless everyone!
As a man who grew up as a very imaginative boy and a very visual learner being a comic-book artist ( now aspiring iconographer ) this takes some learning One thing that helps that I learned from Abbot Heiromonk Rafailo of Podmaine Monastery is to focus and turn our ears towards the words we say and listening to them while we pray If you have any other suggestions I would be more than appreciative and thankful Thank you Father May it be blessed 🌴🌴🌴
This is really helpful. I don’t think I could be Orthodox if the Church weren’t cautious about this kind of thing. We can see, easily, how delusion is mistaken for holy experiences. It doesn’t just happen in Christianity, it happens in any religion or cult where people are seeking those experiences.
Learning that demons can place unwanted thoughts in the mind and manipulate feelings has been an important revelation to me. It is good to pray about every encounter, every external thought that comes to mind, every image that suddenly appears in one’s mind. It is good to test all things in the name of the Lord.
Thank you for this Video. This is what I love about the orthodox way, is that it teaches us to be very cautious with dreams and visions. I was reading one of the saints lives and the elder would say “Delusion my boy!”. I keep this in my mind whenever something “spiritual happens” Thank you for these videos 🙏
Je ne suis pas orthodoxe mais je suis d'accord avec ce qui est dit ici. Avec ou sans l' "aide" de démons, je crois que nous sommes tous assez sales pour souiller les choses les plus sacrées , surtout lorsque nous lâchons la bride à notre imagination.
Thank you, Father! May God give us the strength we need to abandon the things we are emotionally tied to and fully conform/join ourselves to the Orthodox Christian Faith.
Thank you Father. I’ve directly experienced demonic deception that did indeed seem like a divine message. Whited out vision. Booming message, not subtle at all - justifying my decent down a dark path. Since becoming Orthodox I realized it was 100% prelest, even tho it felt 100% real. It really was indistinguishable.
3:16-4:00. this thank you for describing it. i adopted Paul’s mentality, i questioned them and asked “who is Jesus?” if i get silence i pray as if im about to lose my life and if necessary i’ll use words. “it is written.”
Thank you, Father. I am a former Catholic nun of 2 different orders, one active and one contemplative where we lived a semi eremitical life, similar to the Carthusians. We did the exercises of . Ignatius and practiced meditation. I never saw it bear any fruit. On the contrary, I saw how much the imaginative experiences created a false humility and spiritual life often designating certain sisters as being 'so holy which creates a lot of pride and feeds the ego. Sadly the Catholic Church has lost its connection to the early Church Fathers thus resulting in a lot of delusion because they don't have the gift of discernment. As one person commented they have 'spiritual directors' which can not be compared to the Spiritual Fathers in the Orthodox Church who have reached Theosis and are able to discern the spirits and thoughts. Just by the Catholics calling them directors rather than Fathers creates an entire different meaning for their role in the Church.
@@marieegypt7091 Thank you for the comment. I’m going to be doing a series of interviews with parishioners from various backgrounds, including a former Roman Catholic. I’d love to hear more about your experiences. Please let me know if you’d be interested in sharing them with me to help me prepare for that interview!
This teaching helped me soooo much, i have been asking how dangerous is imaginative prayer? For sometime now and in the grace of God, this video was revealed to me, Glory to God.
Dear Father. I am glad watching this video. It is a crucial difference between orthodox spirituality and roman catholic. However, let me say, that even in preparation for prayer, we need to stop all the imagination. Preparation for prayer, is prayer itself. As proskomidi is part of the Liturgy. We can't separate them rationally. If you ask to any Geronda or Gerondisa of Elder Ephraim monasteries they will tell you that the use of imagination in any time of prayer is wrong. Indeed, before the ancestral sin of Adam and Eve, they didn't have imagination. All holy fathers explain this. Imagination comes after the fall. However, as you said, we need to purify our hearts, by the grace of God, in order to use spiritually the imagination.
Outside of prayer experience: be wary also of creative, enabling, ego flattering, narratives of negative accusations and exorcise, “Let God Arise, Let His Enemies be Scattered, Let those who hate Him flee from before His Face.” You might see this in groups and cults trying to mean to protect a leader and their association with the leader or significant person.
Can we lean on 1 John 4:1-3 (NIV) - "Every spirit that acknowledges that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, but every spirit that does not acknowledge Jesus is not from God."?
This topic of Roman Catholic Mystic "saints", is a topic that has been brought up a few times on Jay Dyer's content (I am not sure if you know who he is, but he is a pretty well known Orthodox apologist). Its gets worse and worse the more you look into these so called saints. Even The Sacred Heart Devotion (I have heard that Orthodox may view it as Nestorian?), comes from one of these absurd experiences from a Roman Catholic saint. It comes from a woman who really believed that The Lord asked her to carve his name into her chest with a knife! These things are clearly demonic delusions.
The Orthodox Church doesn’t view the Sacred Heart as Nestorian per se, this is a modernist understanding of the Roman practice. The Orthodox objection(s) to it is that it’s a post-schism devotion, it’s unknown to the first millennium church in both east and west, and it comes from a person who the Church does not consider a Saint.
@@awake3083 The way ive seen the argument formulated, is that offering prayers to a certain "part" of Christ, rather than Christ himself, is Nestorianism. Im pretty sure that Roman Catholics also devote prayers to Christ's hands and his face. Even if its not completely Nestorian, it is an odd practice. And obviously, the practice came from a woman who was suffering from prelest, so it cannot be right.
@@haydeen6535 I agree that the Roman Church has devised many strange devotions and developments after the schism and it is no question that Margaret Mary was under some form of prelest when receiving her ‘visions’ (hell, if you look into the history of the practice you can find many Roman hierarchs and even a pope rejecting it). Rome, after sanctioning the practice, has stated that they do not adore the real physical heart of Jesus but a symbolic one which represents His love for humanity. However, if one reads the works of Margaret they will quickly see that she was indeed directing devotion to Christ’s real physical heart in heaven. Roman Catholics today will probably give you mixed answers on what exactly they’re adoring and this confusion amongst them is probably why the Orthodox won’t take them seriously. In the end, the Sacred Heart is indeed an erroneous practice that should be shunned whenever possible.
I may be being unfair in my assessment of the book cited by Fr. Paul, as I have only read one review of the book, saying that the book aims to promote a greater understanding for ecumenical dialog. I don't see how this is possible, since Orthodox spirituality is the opposite of Western spirituality (Latin or Protestant). They are irreconcilable, all the more so because the question of spirituality and prayer in the Orthodox Church are dogmas. Unfortunately, it is common in North American Orthodoxy to question certain things that are peaceful for Easterners, for example, the fact that the Synod of 1351 is recognized as an Ecumenical Council. But even if someone questions the titular status of this synod, the fact is that it is on a par in terms of importance and authority with the other eight OEcumenical Councils of the Church. Therefore, hesychasm is the core of Orthodox spirituality, both for the laity and for the clergy and monks. And how good that this is the teaching of the Church. I come from a very complicated Protestant background in this sense of “supernatural experiences”, but I have witnessed equally terrible situations among Roman Catholics. One of them was so out of his mind that he said he had “evangelized to a demon” who appeared in his room, and that the demon had “repented”.
@@SolidSnake0 A Comparison: Francis of Assisi and St. Seraphim of Sarov. There's also a in depth discussion on it in Blessed Seraphim Rose's Orthodox Survival Course.
Ok. Now I'm wondering what is meant by imagination. Does he mean like dreaming while asleep or something. What would imagination during prayer even mean? Like the mind wandering or something? The way he is describing imagination is nothing like anything I've ever done at any point in my life. Seeing things? Hearing things?
@SolidSnake0 huh? I've never run into imaginary prayer or whatever. He talks about imagination like it is dreaming awake or something. In my mind, imagination is like making up a story. Are there people who imagine things and actually think they see things and hear things? Does he mean like eyes open or closed? This is far from my experience. But I guess some people have like pictures in their imagination?
@@lucduchienthe warning is against catholic style mysticism. Which is completely demonic. And the method all Catholic mystics use to engage in it is imaginative prayer.
But ortodox Christians use images wich are iconos wich is a way of imagination. They help us to feel near or introduce to God , Jesus human being with a Face that artist imagined
Completely false comparison. First off you, clearly know nothing about Orthodox iconography because our images unlike yours are not figments of an artists imagination. They're all based on the image of Jesus's face he imprinted on the sacred cloth. And second off there's no comparison between a still image and someone actively imagining things. Lastly iconographers are not artist and aren't there to paint pretty pictures that pleases you. You want to debate the topic, but you're Completely ignorant on all of it.
Cannot help but notice that all your good guys are Orthodox and all your bad guys are Roman Catholic. As a corrective, I would just say that we Catholics all agree that St Seraphim and St Francis were both validly baptised. What you Orthodox believe is anybody’s guess.
Dear father, how ca I reach out to you? I bet you receive tens or hundreds of emails a day. If you do receive this message I would greatly appreciate if you could share your email. Your blessings!
There is a Russian proverb that goes "God is everywhere, except fantasy" which perfectly talks about this. Good video Father!
That is why praying with your eyes closed is not advised. This is a great video reminding us about the dangers of imagination during prayer. God bless everyone!
As a man who grew up as a very imaginative boy and a very visual learner being a comic-book artist ( now aspiring iconographer ) this takes some learning
One thing that helps that I learned from Abbot Heiromonk Rafailo of Podmaine Monastery is to focus and turn our ears towards the words we say and listening to them while we pray
If you have any other suggestions I would be more than appreciative and thankful
Thank you Father
May it be blessed
🌴🌴🌴
This is really helpful. I don’t think I could be Orthodox if the Church weren’t cautious about this kind of thing. We can see, easily, how delusion is mistaken for holy experiences. It doesn’t just happen in Christianity, it happens in any religion or cult where people are seeking those experiences.
The fact that Orthodoxy has the concept of "prelest" was when I knew it was definitely the Truth. "Test the spirits" indeed
Learning that demons can place unwanted thoughts in the mind and manipulate feelings has been an important revelation to me. It is good to pray about every encounter, every external thought that comes to mind, every image that suddenly appears in one’s mind. It is good to test all things in the name of the Lord.
Thank you for this Video. This is what I love about the orthodox way, is that it teaches us to be very cautious with dreams and visions. I was reading one of the saints lives and the elder would say “Delusion my boy!”. I keep this in my mind whenever something “spiritual happens”
Thank you for these videos 🙏
Je ne suis pas orthodoxe mais je suis d'accord avec ce qui est dit ici. Avec ou sans l' "aide" de démons, je crois que nous sommes tous assez sales pour souiller les choses les plus sacrées , surtout lorsque nous lâchons la bride à notre imagination.
Many have car insurance and some even have life insurance, we orthodox christians have CHRIST Insurance 😊⛪️♥️🇬🇷
That’s a good one 😂.
Thank you, Father! May God give us the strength we need to abandon the things we are emotionally tied to and fully conform/join ourselves to the Orthodox Christian Faith.
Thank you Father. I’ve directly experienced demonic deception that did indeed seem like a divine message. Whited out vision. Booming message, not subtle at all - justifying my decent down a dark path.
Since becoming Orthodox I realized it was 100% prelest, even tho it felt 100% real. It really was indistinguishable.
God bless orthodoxy amen Jesus ❤
Thank you so much! I've ordered the book.
Its an excellent book Fr., Very helpful as someone that came from a papal background.
3:16-4:00. this thank you for describing it. i adopted Paul’s mentality, i questioned them and asked “who is Jesus?” if i get silence i pray as if im about to lose my life and if necessary i’ll use words. “it is written.”
Thank you for your words on this topic Father.
Thank you, Father. I am a former Catholic nun of 2 different orders, one active and one contemplative where we lived a semi eremitical life, similar to the Carthusians. We did the exercises of . Ignatius and practiced meditation. I never saw it bear any fruit. On the contrary, I saw how much the imaginative experiences created a false humility and spiritual life often designating certain sisters as being 'so holy which creates a lot of pride and feeds the ego. Sadly the Catholic Church has lost its connection to the early Church Fathers thus resulting in a lot of delusion because they don't have the gift of discernment. As one person commented they have 'spiritual directors' which can not be compared to the Spiritual Fathers in the Orthodox Church who have reached Theosis and are able to discern the spirits and thoughts. Just by the Catholics calling them directors rather than Fathers creates an entire different meaning for their role in the Church.
@@marieegypt7091 Thank you for the comment. I’m going to be doing a series of interviews with parishioners from various backgrounds, including a former Roman Catholic. I’d love to hear more about your experiences. Please let me know if you’d be interested in sharing them with me to help me prepare for that interview!
@@frpaul Yes, Father. If I can be helpful I will.
@@marieegypt7091 My email is at the bottom of this page. Feel free to share some of your story! sppoc.org/contactfrpaul/
This teaching helped me soooo much, i have been asking how dangerous is imaginative prayer? For sometime now and in the grace of God, this video was revealed to me, Glory to God.
Dear Father. I am glad watching this video. It is a crucial difference between orthodox spirituality and roman catholic. However, let me say, that even in preparation for prayer, we need to stop all the imagination. Preparation for prayer, is prayer itself. As proskomidi is part of the Liturgy. We can't separate them rationally. If you ask to any Geronda or Gerondisa of Elder Ephraim monasteries they will tell you that the use of imagination in any time of prayer is wrong. Indeed, before the ancestral sin of Adam and Eve, they didn't have imagination. All holy fathers explain this. Imagination comes after the fall. However, as you said, we need to purify our hearts, by the grace of God, in order to use spiritually the imagination.
You are not being polemical. It is a reality very well described. Thank you.
Thank you. 🙏✝️🙏
Thank you Fr
Great video, Father!
Love you for that Paisie Olaru Icon you have there...
Outside of prayer experience: be wary also of creative, enabling, ego flattering, narratives of negative accusations and exorcise, “Let God Arise, Let His Enemies be Scattered, Let those who hate Him flee from before His Face.” You might see this in groups and cults trying to mean to protect a leader and their association with the leader or significant person.
That was very helpful. Thank you!
Can we lean on 1 John 4:1-3 (NIV) - "Every spirit that acknowledges that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, but every spirit that does not acknowledge Jesus is not from God."?
💫💫💖💙💖💫💫
This topic of Roman Catholic Mystic "saints", is a topic that has been brought up a few times on Jay Dyer's content (I am not sure if you know who he is, but he is a pretty well known Orthodox apologist). Its gets worse and worse the more you look into these so called saints. Even The Sacred Heart Devotion (I have heard that Orthodox may view it as Nestorian?), comes from one of these absurd experiences from a Roman Catholic saint. It comes from a woman who really believed that The Lord asked her to carve his name into her chest with a knife! These things are clearly demonic delusions.
Ufff Lord have mercy... Is it possible you post links of those videos from Jay Dyer?
Thank you+
The Orthodox Church doesn’t view the Sacred Heart as Nestorian per se, this is a modernist understanding of the Roman practice. The Orthodox objection(s) to it is that it’s a post-schism devotion, it’s unknown to the first millennium church in both east and west, and it comes from a person who the Church does not consider a Saint.
In my experience, links get your comment shadow banned. Even ones to youtube itself. 🤷♀️
@@awake3083 The way ive seen the argument formulated, is that offering prayers to a certain "part" of Christ, rather than Christ himself, is Nestorianism. Im pretty sure that Roman Catholics also devote prayers to Christ's hands and his face. Even if its not completely Nestorian, it is an odd practice. And obviously, the practice came from a woman who was suffering from prelest, so it cannot be right.
@@haydeen6535 I agree that the Roman Church has devised many strange devotions and developments after the schism and it is no question that Margaret Mary was under some form of prelest when receiving her ‘visions’ (hell, if you look into the history of the practice you can find many Roman hierarchs and even a pope rejecting it). Rome, after sanctioning the practice, has stated that they do not adore the real physical heart of Jesus but a symbolic one which represents His love for humanity. However, if one reads the works of Margaret they will quickly see that she was indeed directing devotion to Christ’s real physical heart in heaven. Roman Catholics today will probably give you mixed answers on what exactly they’re adoring and this confusion amongst them is probably why the Orthodox won’t take them seriously. In the end, the Sacred Heart is indeed an erroneous practice that should be shunned whenever possible.
I may be being unfair in my assessment of the book cited by Fr. Paul, as I have only read one review of the book, saying that the book aims to promote a greater understanding for ecumenical dialog.
I don't see how this is possible, since Orthodox spirituality is the opposite of Western spirituality (Latin or Protestant). They are irreconcilable, all the more so because the question of spirituality and prayer in the Orthodox Church are dogmas.
Unfortunately, it is common in North American Orthodoxy to question certain things that are peaceful for Easterners, for example, the fact that the Synod of 1351 is recognized as an Ecumenical Council. But even if someone questions the titular status of this synod, the fact is that it is on a par in terms of importance and authority with the other eight OEcumenical Councils of the Church. Therefore, hesychasm is the core of Orthodox spirituality, both for the laity and for the clergy and monks.
And how good that this is the teaching of the Church. I come from a very complicated Protestant background in this sense of “supernatural experiences”, but I have witnessed equally terrible situations among Roman Catholics. One of them was so out of his mind that he said he had “evangelized to a demon” who appeared in his room, and that the demon had “repented”.
☦️✝️
I believe there a book that talks about the fractured mind from the Eastern Orthodox perspective. What is that book?
Where can I get the books you referenced?
Can you or someone link that article?
In my experience, links get your comment shadow banned. Someone may have already tried to send it to you. 🤷♀️
I just read the article about St Seraphim and the deluded Francis of Assisi last night! Everyone should read it.
What's the name of it if you wouldn't mind
God bless you 😊
@@SolidSnake0 A Comparison: Francis of Assisi and St. Seraphim of Sarov. There's also a in depth discussion on it in Blessed Seraphim Rose's Orthodox Survival Course.
@@NavelOrangeGazer thank you
@@SolidSnake0 God bless you brother
Ok. Now I'm wondering what is meant by imagination. Does he mean like dreaming while asleep or something. What would imagination during prayer even mean? Like the mind wandering or something? The way he is describing imagination is nothing like anything I've ever done at any point in my life. Seeing things? Hearing things?
You know exactly what he means. You don't need a long, legalistic definition for you to try to poke holes in.
like imagining Christ going through the passion while praying the rosary or something. Would probably be an example
@SolidSnake0 huh? I've never run into imaginary prayer or whatever. He talks about imagination like it is dreaming awake or something. In my mind, imagination is like making up a story. Are there people who imagine things and actually think they see things and hear things? Does he mean like eyes open or closed? This is far from my experience. But I guess some people have like pictures in their imagination?
@theheckplays2252 oh. Ok. That makes sense. I wouldn't ever think to do that or what the point would be.
@@lucduchienthe warning is against catholic style mysticism. Which is completely demonic. And the method all Catholic mystics use to engage in it is imaginative prayer.
Ignore every supernatural experince. God will get what he wants regardless.
Thank you father for helping me in my spiritual journey
But ortodox Christians use images wich are iconos wich is a way of imagination. They help us to feel near or introduce to God , Jesus human being with a Face that artist imagined
Completely false comparison. First off you, clearly know nothing about Orthodox iconography because our images unlike yours are not figments of an artists imagination. They're all based on the image of Jesus's face he imprinted on the sacred cloth. And second off there's no comparison between a still image and someone actively imagining things. Lastly iconographers are not artist and aren't there to paint pretty pictures that pleases you. You want to debate the topic, but you're Completely ignorant on all of it.
Yeah… like the other person said, icons are standardized.
Cannot help but notice that all your good guys are Orthodox and all your bad guys are Roman Catholic. As a corrective, I would just say that we Catholics all agree that St Seraphim and St Francis were both validly baptised. What you Orthodox believe is anybody’s guess.
Dear father, how ca I reach out to you? I bet you receive tens or hundreds of emails a day. If you do receive this message I would greatly appreciate if you could share your email. Your blessings!
sppoc.org/contactfrpaul/