Orthodoxy and the Religion of the Future

by Seraphim Rose

  4. An Orthodox Christian in California relates a private encounter with a “spirit-filled” minister who has shared the same platform with the leading Catholic, Protestant, and Pentecostal representatives of the “charismatic revival”: “For five hours he spoke in tongues and used every artifice (psychological, hypnotic, and ‘laying on of hands’) to induce those present to receive the ‘baptism of the Holy Spirit.’ The scene was really terrible. When he laid hands on our friend she made guttural sounds, moaned, wept, and screamed. He was well pleased by this. He said she was suffering for others — interceding for them. When he ‘laid hands’ on my head there was a presentiment of real evil. His ‘tongues’ were interspersed with English: ‘You have the gift of prophecy, I can feel it.’ ‘Just open your mouth and it will flow out.’ ‘You are blocking the Holy Spirit.’ By the grace of God I kept my mouth shut, but I am quite certain that if I had spoken, someone else would have ‘interpreted.’” (Private communication.)

  5. Readers of The Orthodox Word will recall the account of the “prayer-vigil” held by the Syrian Antiochian Archdiocese of New York at its convention in Chicago in August 1970, where, after a dramatic and emotional atmosphere had been built up, young people began to “testify” how the “spirit” was moving them. But several people who were present related later that the atmosphere was “dark and ominous,” “stifling,” “dark and evil,” and by a miraculous intercession of St. Herman of Alaska, whose icon was present in the room, the whole meeting was broken up and the evil atmosphere dispelled (The Orthodox Word, nos. 33–34, 1970, pp. 196–99).

  There are numerous other cases in which people have lost interest in prayer, reading the Scriptures, and Christianity in general, and have even come to believe, as one student did, that “he would not need to read the Bible any more. God the Father would himself appear and speak to him” (Koch, p. 29).

  We shall yet have occasion to quote the testimony of many people who do not find anything negative or evil in their “charismatic” experience, and we shall examine the meaning of their testimony. However, without yet reaching a conclusion as to the precise nature of the “spirit” that causes “charismatic” phenomena, on the basis of the evidence here gathered we can already agree this far with Dr. Koch: “The tongues movement is the expression of a delirious condition through which a breaking in of demonic powers manifests itself “ (Koch, p. 47). That is, the movement, which is certainly “delirious” in giving itself over to the activity of a “spirit” that is not the Holy Spirit, is not demonic in intention or in itself (as contemporary occultism and satanism certainly are), but by its nature it lays itself particularly open to the manifestation of obvious demonic forces, which do in fact sometimes appear.

  This book has been read by a number of people who have participated in the “charismatic revival”; many of them have then abandoned this movement, recognizing that the spirit they had experienced in “charismatic” phenomena was not the Holy Spirit. To such people, involved in the “charismatic” movement, who are now reading this book, we wish to say: You may well feel that your experience in the “charismatic” movement has been largely something good (even though you may have reservations about some things you have seen or experienced in it); you may well be unable to believe that there is anything demonic in it. In suggesting that the “charismatic” movement is mediumistic in inspiration, we do not mean to deny the whole of your experience while involved in it. If you have been awakened to repentance for your sins, to the realization that the Lord Jesus Christ is the Saviour of mankind, to sincere love for God and your neighbor — all of this is indeed good and would not be lost by abandoning the “charismatic” movement. But if you think that your experience of “speaking in tongues,” or “prophesying,” or whatever else of the “supernatural” that you may have experienced, is from God — then this book is an invitation for you to find out that the realm of true Christian spiritual experience is much deeper than you have felt up to now, that the wiles of the devil are much more subtle than you may have imagined, that the willingness of our fallen human nature to mistake illusion for truth, emotional comfort for spiritual experience, is much greater than you think. The next section of this chapter will discuss this in detail.

  As to the precise nature of the “tongues” that are being spoken today, probably no simple answer can be given. We know quite certainly that in Pentecostalism, just as in spiritism, the elements of both fraud and suggestion play no small role, under the sometimes intense pressures applied in “charismatic” circles to force the phenomena to appear. Thus, one member of the largely Pentecostal “Jesus Movement” testifies that when he spoke in tongues “it was just an emotional build-up thing where I mumbled a bunch of words,” and another frankly admits, “When I first became a Christian the people that I was with told me that you had to do it. So I prayed that I could do it, and I went as far as copying off them so they would think that I had the gift” (Ortega, p. 49). Some of the supposed “tongues” are thus doubtless not genuine, or at best the product of suggestion under conditions of emotional near-hysteria. However, there are actually documented cases of Pentecostal speaking in an unlearned language (Sherrill, pp. 90–95); there is also the testimony of many concerning the ease and assurance and calmness (without any hysterical conditions at all) with which they can enter into the state of “speaking in tongues”; and there is a distinctly preternatural character in the related phenomenon of “singing in tongues,” where the “spirit” also inspires the melody and many join in to produce an effect that is variously described as “eerie but extraordinarily beautiful” (Sherrill, p. 118) and “unimaginable, humanly impossible” (Williams, p. 33). It would therefore seem evident that no merely psychological or emotional explanation can account for much of the phenomena of contemporary “tongues.” If it is not due to the working of the Holy Spirit — and by now it is abundantly evident that it could not be so — then today’s “speaking in tongues” as an authentic “supernatural” phenomenon can only be the manifestation of a gift of some other spirit.

  To identify this “spirit” more precisely, and to understand the “charismatic” movement more fully, not only in its phenomena but also in its “spirituality,” we shall have to draw more deeply from the sources of Orthodox tradition. And first of all we shall have to return to a teaching of the Orthodox ascetic tradition that has already been discussed in this series of articles, in explanation of the power which Hinduism holds over its devotees: prelest, or spiritual deception.

  5. Spiritual Deception

  The concept of prelest, a key one in Orthodox ascetical teaching, is completely absent in the Protestant-Catholic world which produced the “charismatic” movement; and this fact explains why such an obvious deception can gain such a hold over nominally “Christian” circles, and also why a “prophet” like Nicholas Berdyaev who comes from an Orthodox background should regard it as absolutely essential that in the “new age of the Holy Spirit” “there will be no more of the ascetic worldview.” The reason is obvious: the Orthodox ascetic worldview gives the only means by which men, having received the Holy Spirit at their Baptism and Chrismation, may truly continue to acquire the Holy Spirit in their lives; and it teaches how to distinguish and guard oneself against spiritual deception. The “new spirituality” of which Berdyaev dreamed and which the “charismatic revival” actually practices, has an entirely different foundation and is seen to be a fraud in the light of the Orthodox ascetical teaching. Therefore, there is not room for both conceptions in the same spiritual universe: to accept the “new spirituality” of the “charismatic revival,” one must reject Orthodox Christianity; and conversely, to remain an Orthodox Christian, one must reject the “charismatic revival,” which is a counterfeit of Orthodoxy.

  To make this quite clear, in what follows we shall give the teaching of the Orthodox Church on spiritual deception chiefly as found in the 19th-century summation of this teaching made by Bishop Ignatius Brianchaninov, himself an Orthodox Fathe
r of modern times, in volume one of his collected works.

  There are two basic forms of prelest or spiritual deception. The first and more spectacular form occurs when a person strives for a high spiritual state or spiritual visions without having been purified of passions and relying on his own judgment. To such a one the devil grants great “visions.” There are many such examples in the Lives of Saints, one of the primary textbooks of Orthodox ascetical teaching. Thus St. Nicetas, Bishop of Novgorod (Jan. 31), entered on the solitary life unprepared and against the counsel of his abbot, and soon he heard a voice praying with him. Then “the Lord” spoke to him and sent an “angel” to pray in his place and to instruct him to read books instead of praying, and to teach those who came to him. This he did, always seeing the “angel” near him praying, and the people were astonished at his spiritual wisdom and the “gifts of the Holy Spirit” which he seemed to possess, including “prophecies” which were always fulfilled. The deceit was uncovered only when the fathers of the monastery found out about his aversion for the New Testament (although the Old Testament, which he had never read, he could quote by heart), and by their prayers he was brought to repentance, his “miracles” ceased, and later he attained to genuine sanctity. Again, St. Isaac of the Kiev Caves (Feb. 14) saw a great light and “Christ” appeared to him with “angels”; when Isaac, without making the sign of the Cross, bowed down before “Christ,” the demons gained power over him and, after dancing wildly with him, left him all but dead. He also later attained genuine sanctity. There are many similar cases when “Christ” and “angels” appeared to ascetics and granted astonishing powers and “gifts of the Holy Spirit,” which often led the deluded ascetic finally to insanity or suicide.

  But there is another more common, less spectacular form of spiritual deception, which offers to its victims not great visions but just exalted “religious feelings.” This occurs, as Bishop Ignatius has written, “when the heart desires and strives for the enjoyment of holy and divine feelings while it is still completely unfit for them. Everyone who does not have a contrite spirit, who recognizes any kind of merit or worth in himself, who does not hold unwaveringly the teaching of the Orthodox Church but on some tradition or other has thought out his own arbitrary judgment or has followed a non-Orthodox teaching — is in this state of deception.” The Roman Catholic Church has whole spiritual manuals written by people in this state; such is Thomas à Kempis’ Imitation of Christ. Bishop Ignatius says of it: “There reigns in this book and breathes from its pages the unction of the evil spirit, flattering the reader, intoxicating him.... The book conducts the reader directly to communion with God, without previous purification by repentance.... From it carnal people enter into rapture from a delight and intoxication attained without difficulty, without self-renunciation, without repentance, without crucifixion of the flesh with its passions and desires (Gal. 5:24), with flattery of their fallen state.” And the result, as I. M. Kontzevitch, the great transmitter of Patristic teaching, has written,11 is that “the ascetic, striving to kindle in his heart love for God while neglecting repentance, exerts himself to attain a feeling of delight, of ecstasy, and as a result he attains precisely the opposite: ‘he enters into communion with satan and becomes infected with hatred for the Holy Spirit’ (Bishop Ignatius).”

  And this is the actual state in which the followers of the “charismatic revival,” even without suspecting it, find themselves. This may be seen most clearly by examining their experiences and views, point by point, against the teaching of the Orthodox Fathers as set forth by Bishop Ignatius.

  A. Attitude toward “Spiritual” Experiences

  Having little or no foundation in the genuine sources of Christian spiritual experience — the Holy Mysteries of the Church, and the spiritual teaching handed down by the Holy Fathers from Christ and His Apostles — the followers of the “charismatic” movement have no means of distinguishing the grace of God from its counterfeit. All “charismatic” writers show, to a lesser or greater degree, a lack of caution and discrimination toward the experiences they have. Some Catholic Pentecostals, to be sure, “exorcise satan” before asking for “Baptism in the Spirit”; but the efficacy of this act, as will soon be evident from their own testimony, is similar to that of the Jews in the Acts (19:15), to whose “exorcism” the evil spirit replied: Jesus I know, and Paul I know; but who are you? St. John Cassian, the great 5th-century Orthodox father of the West, who wrote with great discernment on the working of the Holy Spirit in his Conference on “Divine Gifts,” notes that “sometimes the demons [work miracles] in order to lift into pride the man who believes himself to possess the miraculous gift, and so prepare him for a more miraculous fall. They pretend that they are being burnt up and driven out from the bodies where they were dwelling through the holiness of people whom truly they know to be unholy.... In the Gospel we read: There shall arise false Christs and false prophets....” 12

  The 18th-century Swedish “visionary,” Emanuel Swedenborg — who was a strange forerunner of today’s occult and “spiritual” revival — had extensive experience with spiritual beings, whom he frequently saw and communicated with. He distinguished two kinds of spirits, the “good” and the “evil”; his experience has been recently confirmed by the findings of a clinical psychologist in his work with “hallucinating” patients in a state mental hospital in Ukiah, California. This psychologist took seriously the voices heard by his patients and undertook a series of “dialogues” with them (through the intermediary of the patients themselves). He concluded, like Swedenborg, that there are two very different kinds of “beings” who have entered into contact with the patients: the “higher” and the “lower.” In his own words: “Lower-order voices are similar to drunken bums at a bar who like to tease and torment just for the fun of it. They suggest lewd acts and then scold the patient for considering them. They find a weak point of conscience and work on it interminably.... The vocabulary and range of ideas of the lower order is limited, but they have a persistent will to destroy.... They work on every weakness and belief, claim awesome powers, lie, make promises, and then undermine the patient’s will.... All of the lower order are irreligious or antireligious.... To one person they appeared as conventional devils and referred to themselves as demons....

  “In direct contrast stand the rarer higher-order hallucinations.... This contrast may be illustrated by the experience of one man. He had heard the lower order arguing for a long while about how they would murder him. (But) he also had a light come to him at night, like the sun. He knew it was a different order because the light respected his freedom and would withdraw if it frightened him.... When the man was encouraged to approach his friendly sun he entered a world of powerful numinous experiences.... [Once] a very powerful and impressive Christ-like figure appeared.... Some patients experience both the higher and lower orders at various times and feel caught between a private heaven and hell. Many only know the attacks of the lower order. The higher order claims power over the lower order and, indeed, shows it at times, but not enough to give peace of mind to most patients.... The higher order appeared strangely gifted, sensitive, wise, and religious.”13

  Any reader of the Orthodox Lives of Saints and other spiritual literature knows that all of these spirits — both “good” and “evil,” the “lower” with the “higher” — are equally demons, and that the discernment between true good spirits (angels) and these evil spirits cannot be made on the basis of one’s own feelings or impressions. The widespread practice of “exorcism” in “charismatic” circles offers no guarantee whatever that evil spirits are actually being driven out; exorcisms are also very common (and seemingly successful) among primitive shamans,14 who also recognize that there are different kinds of spirits — which are all, however, equally demons, whether they seem to flee when exorcised or come when invoked to give shamanistic powers.

  No one will deny that the “charismatic” movement on the whole is firmly oriented against contemporary occultism and sat
anism. But the more subtle of the evil spirits appear as “angels of light” (II Cor. 11:14), and a great gift of discernment, together with a deep distrust of all one’s extraordinary “spiritual” experiences, is required if a person is not to be deceived. In the face of the subtle, invisible enemies who wage unseen warfare against the human race, the naively trusting attitude towards their experiences of most people involved in the “charismatic” movement is an open invitation to spiritual deception. One pastor, for example, counsels meditation on Scriptural passages and then writing down any thought “triggered” by the reading: “This is the Holy Spirit’s personal message to you” (Christenson, p. 139). But any serious student of Christian spirituality knows that, for example, “at the beginning of the monastic life some of the unclean demons instruct [novices] in the interpretation of the Divine Scriptures ... gradually deceiving them that they may lead them into heresy and blasphemy” (The Ladder of St. John, Step 26:152).

  Sadly, the attitude of the Orthodox followers of the “charismatic revival” seems no more discerning than that of Catholics and Protestants. They obviously do not know well the Orthodox Fathers or Lives of Saints, and when they do quote a rare Father, it is often out of context (see later concerning St. Seraphim). The “charismatic” appeal is chiefly one to experience. One Orthodox priest writes: “Some have dared to label this experience ‘prelest’ — spiritual pride. No one who has encountered the Lord in this way could fall into this delusion” (Logos, April 1972, p. 10). But it is a very rare Orthodox Christian who is capable of distinguishing very subtle forms of spiritual deception (where “pride,” for example, may take the form of “humility”) solely on the basis of his feeling about them without reference to the Patristic tradition; only one who has already fully assimilated the Patristic tradition into his own thought and practice and has attained great sanctity can presume to do this.