The visible and invisible world
Now we are all witnesses of the rapid spread of occult and Eastern mystical ideas among people who are completely ignorant in the spiritual sense. Criticism of these ideas is possible only from some other spiritual position. In our case, this is the position of Orthodoxy. Therefore, it is natural to first study what the Church says about those goals and those means of achieving them that the Eastern and occult systems offer us. These systems, in general, call us to penetrate (mental or real-sensory) into the invisible world, promising us to find there the keys to our salvation. We will talk about the ways of such penetration here.
Every Orthodox Christian knows the Symbol of Faith, which says: "I believe in the One God, the Father Almighty, Creator of Heaven and Earth, visible to all and invisible." Already from these words it is clear that in addition to the visible and known world to all of us, there is also a certain invisible world - i.e. imperceptible by us neither by sight, nor by hearing, nor by touch, nor by smell, nor by taste. In short, this world is not available to our knowledge by definition. This inaccessibility might not worry us if the invisible world had nothing to do with our destiny. However, as Orthodox Christians and believing in God, believing in Him all our salvation from the vicissitudes of this temporary and perishable existence, as well as the character of our future eternal life, we trust in the invisible, for God himself is invisible to us directly. Besides,from the doctrine of our Church, we know about the existence of positive and negative influences emanating from this invisible world, about the presence in it of angelic and demonic creatures fighting for our soul. All these circumstances do not allow us to remain indifferent to the fact of the existence of the invisible world, and, moreover, make it seem reasonable and reasonable to strive to know this world in order to ensure our safety from its harmful influences. Isn't that how we protect ourselves from harmful climatic and other influences in this visible world, relying on a detailed and deep knowledge of the laws of the latter? After all, our entire human civilization and culture, which has so comfortably furnished our existence in the visible world, is based on science - i.e. on special procedures for cognition of this visible world and on their results. It is logical to assumethat applied to the invisible world, the same efforts could provide the same positive results.
So, the imperceptibility of this other, invisible world is the main obstacle to its knowledge, and the first step towards its study will be to find out why this world is invisible to us?
Why is the invisible world invisible?
As the Church teaches, the reason why we do not feel the invisible world is the fall of the first people, which qualitatively changed the state of their life, and after them, ours. In accordance with the changing state of life, the human body and its abilities have changed. Saint Ignatius Brianchaninov, referring to St. Macarius the Great writes: “Before the fall of man, his body was immortal, alien to ailments, alien to his real stoutness and heaviness, alien to sinful and carnal sensations that are now natural to him. His feelings were incomparably more subtle, their action was incomparably more extensive, completely free. Clothed in such a body, with such senses, a person was capable of sensing the vision of spirits … was capable of communicating with them, of that God-vision and communication with God, which are akin to holy spirits. … By the fall, both the soul and body of mankind have changed. In a proper sense, the fall was for them together and death. … In this state of death, due to extreme stupidity and rudeness, bodily senses are not capable of communicating with spirits, do not see them, do not hear them, do not feel them”(5, v.3, p.7-8).
Thus, before the Fall, man was able to directly perceive the invisible world; after the fall, he lost this ability. What is the reason for this loss? Saint Ignatius explains it this way: “after the fall of the first men, God, having pronounced judgment on them, even before their expulsion from paradise,“make them garments of leather and clothe them”(Genesis 3:21). Leather robes, according to the explanation of the Holy Fathers (St. John Damascene "Exact Exposition of the Orthodox Faith", book. 3, ch. 1) means our coarse flesh, which, when it fell, changed: it lost its subtlety and spirituality, got its real stoutness. Although the initial cause of the change was a fall, the change was made under the influence of the Almighty Creator, by His ineffable mercy to us, to our greatest good. … Through the admission of the weight of our body,we have become incapable of sensing the vision of the spirits into which we have fallen. Let us explain this. We have acquired, as it were, a natural attraction to evil. This attraction is natural to the fallen nature: this attraction is like the attraction of demons to evil; "The thought is close to a man diligently against wickedness from his youth" (Gen. 8:21). But good and evil are mixed in us: we are attracted now to evil, then, leaving this striving, we go to good. Demons, on the contrary, are always and completely directed towards evil. If we were in sensual communion with demons, then they, in the shortest possible time, would finally corrupt people, constantly instilling evil, clearly and incessantly contributing to evil, infecting with examples of their constant criminal and hostile activities to God. … In the shortest possible time, men, by success in evil, would become demons;repentance and rebellion from the fall would have been impossible for us. The wisdom and goodness of God put a barrier between people cast down to earth from paradise and spirits cast down to earth from heaven - the gross materiality of the human body. So earthly governments are separated by a prison wall the villain from human society, so that they do not arbitrarily harm this society and do not corrupt other people (St. Cassian's Interview VIII, ch. 12) (5, v. 3, p. 11).12) (5, vol. 3, p. 11).12) (5, vol. 3, p. 11).