Today’s world becomes totally demoniac

The Gadarene Demoniac. A literary miniature. Photo: elohov

The theme of this Sunday’s Gospel reading, which tells the story of how the Lord drove a legion of demons out of the Gadarene demoniac, goes far beyond the limits of the Gospel narrative itself. Many insightful and well-written books have been published on the subject of demonic possession. However, most of them are confined to a narrow anthropological framework and fail to provide a broader understanding of this phenomenon.

When I was a student at a secular university, I remember how our professors would tell us about the views of ancient people, who attributed all kinds of madness, paralysis, epilepsy, and even physical illnesses to demonic possession. In their opinion, all of this was a result of superstition and the underdevelopment of medicine.

But later, when I became familiar with the works of Mircea Eliade and other religious scholars, I realized that the world of the ancient person, populated as it was by a multitude of spirits, was not as primitive as it might seem. And Chinese, and indeed Eastern medicine in general, which understands human nature in a completely different way, is not nearly as naive or foolish as it is often depicted by educated European doctors.

Western science, fixated on matter, undoubtedly sees the causes of all our problems solely within it.

That’s why it treats the human being exclusively with chemistry and scalpels. But it is possible that an Aleut or African shaman can see the world much more deeply than a medical professor at any European university.

The Bible teaches us that the world is what God created from nothing. That is, in its essence and in its very being, everything around us, including ourselves, is the manifestation of nothingness in time, sustained by the creative energy of God. In God's Creation, both Good and Evil are present. But Evil is not a creation of the Creator; it is a mutation of Good, which has taken on a rebellious, godless will. The Church also teaches us that diseases and death itself are the result of the Fall, and thus are the actions of the energy of evil on the damaged nature of humanity, manifesting, among other things, in the form of illness.

For ancient peoples, this evil that entered human nature was not depersonalized; it had an intelligent force, and one had to somehow come to terms with it. Ancient healing magical practices were a kind of contract between the shaman and the spirits who specialized in certain diseases. And this practice, as we would say today, "worked" and yielded results. There is undeniable evidence of this.

Magic has power and strength, especially where it is not counteracted by the power of God’s grace.

Before the coming of Christ into the world, man was in complete subjection to evil spirits. But after receiving the opportunity to renew his nature through the sacraments of baptism and chrismation, the fallen spirits no longer have the power they once had before Christ's Resurrection. They no longer act on man from within, but they still have the ability to affect his body, causing illness, and to influence his mind, to the extent permitted by God. This power remains, especially when a person himself creates all the conditions for this with his way of life.

Now, much depends on the person themselves regarding what will happen in their life. St. Porphyrios of Kavsokalyvia teaches that the world of good and evil has a kind of wave-like nature. "If we are attuned to good, we ‘catch’ the waves of good. Conversely, if our receiver is tuned to evil, we will catch the waves of evil." Elder Paisios of Mount Athos spoke of the same. We also see that the spirit of a person can be "contagious" and transmit the energy of their inner state to those around them, thus infecting those who are close by.

Father Porphyrios advised a close relative of a person suffering from neurosis to be cautious to avoid being "infected". When asked how this could happen, since the illness is not contagious, he replied: "It’s not exactly as you say. The immaterial microbes of neurasthenia fly around, like mosquitoes, attack the soul and infect it. It is good to help a person suffering from a nervous illness. But in offering help, you must, through the grace of Christ, protect your soul from being infected."

The influence of the environment, it turns out, can also be contagious. When a doctor works in a psychiatric clinic, his work can affect the state of his own mind. The same can be said for prison workers. On the other hand, living in the presence of a spiritually gifted elder makes his disciples participants in the energy of Grace that flows from the deified heart of the spiritual father.

The main battle between the devil and man takes place on the field of thought and feeling.

We pay little attention to the fact that demonic possession in a person is not always expressed in the form described to us by the model of the Gadarene demoniac. A person can catch the "devilish virus" in the form of an idea, a dream, a judgment and begin to build their aggressive, demon-like behaviour according to the virus that has infected their reasoning. Moreover, these viruses can be spread by Satan, like an epidemic, and have the character of a mass darkening of the minds of many people.

It is on this idea-epidemic principle that all revolutions are built. Regardless of how tragic their results may be, people infected with the virus of revolutionary thinking are no longer capable of repentance. All their misfortunes and problems will be seen only in one thing – the lack of enough revolutionary momentum, even if it destroys them.

But even for those who live, seemingly, spiritually sober lives, the mind remains the main source of demonic infection. "He who has ears to hear, let him hear." A person who is on the path to salvation must try to do everything possible to avoid even the slightest evil thoughts. One such thought is enough to cloud the soul in darkness. The attention of a spiritual person must be fixed on only one thing – Christ. To live in such a way that the mind never for a moment strays from Christ is, in essence, the highest skill in Orthodox navigation.

The reaction to the entire external sequence of events should be not one of rational-reflexive thought, but one of prayer. While the mind lives in Christ, reason can attend to external matters, but it will remain free from troubling thoughts.

This pertains not only to the state of our soul and psyche but also to our physical body. As long as the mind harbours thoughts of illness and pain, suffering will persist. Such thoughts turn life into hell. If we want to put an end once and for all to emotional torment and suffering, we must rid ourselves of these thoughts. These are bad habits of our mind that cling to this world, and our body, too, is part of this world. Only by freeing ourselves from such attachments through persistent and diligent prayer can we begin to glimpse the first signs of our true nature of spirit and its freedom in Christ.

Pain will not go away, but the attachment to pain, the clinging of our mind to it, will completely disappear.

This is a challenging task. It is impossible to achieve this by our own efforts; we need the help of the One "for whom all things are possible". But this help can only be received when, day by day, moment by moment, we tear sticky thoughts away from the earth to which they are constantly drawn. Constant standing in prayer with undistracted thoughts—that is the essence of the Christian spiritual struggle. Constant means not "from time to time" but always, everywhere and in everything. Only in this way can any passion be transformed into prayer. "Thoughts are the bullets of evil with which we are killed." And the devil shoots at us with them not occasionally, but constantly. Accordingly, the answering machine-gun fire in the form of unceasing prayer should also never сease in us.

The world today has become completely demoniac. People have forgotten a simple truth. Whatever they acquire or lose in this world, the result will always be zero. We cling to the world and try to stand firmly on it with our feet, while this brief life has been given to us only so that we can gain grace in our souls. If we manage to do this, even to a small degree, then evil thoughts will fade from our souls like sparks in water. Such a person will no longer need to fight thoughts, because they no longer arise within them.

Salvation is the thoughtless dwelling in the grace of the Holy Spirit. This is what is called dispassion in Orthodoxy. Everything that lies below this level, to one degree or another, undoubtedly requires spiritual healing and care.

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