ORTHODOXY

and The Religion

of the Future

by Hieromonk Seraphim Rose

SAINT HERMAN OF ALASKA BROTHERHOOD

PLATINA, CALIFORNIA 1979
 First printing: April 1975
Second printing: August, 1975
Third printing: May, 1976
Fourth printing (Revised edition): March, 1979

Copyright 1979 by the

St. Herman of Alaska Brotherhood

Library of Congress Catalog Card Number:

75-16940
 ao

HOW NARROW IS THE GATE, and strait is the

way that leadeth to life: and few there are that find it!
Beware of false prophets, who come to you in the
clothing of sheep, but inwardly they are ravening
wolves. By their fruits ye shall know them... Not
everyone that saith to Me, Lord, Lord, shall enter
into the Kingdom of heaven: but he that doth the will of
My Father Who is in heaven, he shall enter into the
Kingdom of heaven. Many will say to Me in that day:
Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Thy name, and
cast out devils in Thy name, and done many miracles
in Thy name? And then will | profess unto them, |
never knew you: depart from Me, ye that work iniqui-
ty. Every one therefore that heareth these My words,
and doth them, shall be likened to a wise man that
built his house upon a rock.
Matt. 7:14-16, 21-14
 Preface

Every heresy has its own "spirituality," its own

characteristic approach to the practical religious
life. Thus, Roman Catholicism, until recently, had
a clearly distinguishable piety of its own, bound up
with the "sacred heart," the papacy, purgatory and
indulgences, the revelations of various "mystics,"
and the like; and a careful Orthodox observer could
detect in such aspects of modern Latin spirituality the
practical results of the theological errors of Rome.
Fundamentalist Protestantism, too, has its own ap-
proach to prayer, its typical hymns, its approach to
spiritual "revival;" and in all of these can be detect-
ed the application to religious life of its fundamental
errors in Christian doctrine. The present book is a-
bout the "spirituality" of Ecumenism, the chief here-
sy of the 20th century.
Until recently it appeared that Ecumenism was
something so artificial, so syncretic, that it had no
Spirituality of its own; the "liturgical" agenda of E-
cumenical gatherings both great and small appeared
to be no more than an elaborate Protestant Sunday
service.
But the very nature of the Ecumenist heresy —
the belief that there is no one visible Church of
Christ, that it is only now being formed — is such
that it disposes the soul under its influence to certain
spiritual attitudes which, in time, should produce a
typical Ecumenist "piety" and "spirituality." In our
day this seems to be happening at last, as the Ecu-
3
menical attitude of religious "expectancy" and
"searching" begins to be rewarded by the activity of
a certain "spirit" which gives religious satisfaction
to the barren souls of the Ecumenist wasteland and
results in a characteristic "piety" which is no longer
merely Protestant in tone.
This book was begun in 1971 with an examination
of the latest "Ecumenical" fashion — the opening of a
"dialogue with non-Christian religions." Four chap-
ters on this subject were printed in The Orthodox
Word in 1971 and 1972, reporting chiefly on the events
of the late 1960's up to early 1972. The last of these
chapters was a detailed discussion of the "charisma-
tic revival" which had just then been taken up by sev-
eral Orthodox priests in America, and this movement
was described as a form of "Ecumenical spirituality"
inclusive of religious experiences which are distinct-
ly non-Christian.
Especially this last chapter aroused a great
deal of interest among Orthodox people, and it helped
to persuade some not to take part in the "charisma-—
tic" movement. Others, who had already participated
in "charismatic" meetings, left the movement and con-
firmed many of the conclusions of this article about
it. Since then the "charismatic revival" in "Ortho-—
dox" parishes in America, judging from Fr.‘ Eusebius
Stephanou's periodical The Logos, has entirely adopt—’
ed the language and techniques of Protestant revival-
ism, and its un—Orthodox character has become clear
to any serious observer. Despite the Protestant
mentality of its promoters, however, the "charisma—
tic revival" as a "spiritual" movement is definitely
something more than Protestantism. The characteri_
zation of it in this article as a kind of "Christian"
mediumism, which has been corroborated by a number
of observers of it, links it to the new “Ecumenical
4
spirituality" out of which is being born a new, non-
Christian religion.
In the summer of 1974, one of the American
monasteries of the Russian Church Outside of Russia
was visited by a young man who had been directed to
one of its monks by the "spirit" who constantly at-
tended him. During his brief visit the story of this
young man unfolded itself. He was from a conserva-
tive Protestant background which he found spiritually
barren, and he had been opened up to "spiritual" ex-
periences by his Pentecostalist grandmother: the mo-
ment he touched a Bible she had given him, he re-
ceived "spiritual gifts" — most notably, he was at-
tended by an invisible "spirit" who gave him precise
instructions as.to where to walk and drive; and he
was able at will to hypnotize others and cause them to
levitate (a talent which he playfully used to terrorize
atheist acquaintances). Occasionally he would doubt
that his "gifts" were from God, but these doubts were
overcome when he reflected on the fact that his spiri-
tual "barrenness" had vanished, that his "spiritual
rebirth” had been brought about by contact with the
Bible, and that he seemed to be leading a very rich
life of prayer and ''spirituality.'' Upon becoming ac-
quainted with Orthodoxy at this monastery, and espe-
cially after reading the article on the "charismatic
revival," he admitted that here he found the first tho-
rough and clear explanation of his "spiritual" experi-
ences; most likely, he confessed, his "spirit" was an
evil one. This realization, however, did not seem to
touch his heart, and he left without being converted to
Orthodoxy. On his next visit two years later this man
revealed that he had given up "charismatic" activities
as too frightening and was now spiritually content
practicing Zen meditation.
 This close relationship between "Christian" and
"Eastern" spiritual experiences is typical of the "E-
cumenical" spirituality of our days. For this second
edition much has been added concerning Eastern reli-
gious cults and their influence today, as well as con-
cerning a major "secular" phenomenon which is help-
ing to form a "new religious consciousness" even a-
mong non-religious people. None of these by itself,
it may be, has a crucial significance in the spiritual
makeup of contemporary man; but each one in its own
way typifies the striving of men today to find a new
spiritual path, distinct from the Christianity of yes-
terday, and the sum of them together reveals a fright-
ening unity of purpose whose final end seems just now
to be looming above the horizon.
Shortly after the publication of the article on
the "charismatic revival," The Orthodox Word re-
ceived a letter from a respected Russian Orthodox
ecclesiastical writer who is well versed in Orthodox
theological and spiritual literature, saying: "What you
have described here is the religion of the future, the
religion of Antichrist.'' More and more, as this and
similar forms of counterfeit spirituality take hold
even of nominal Orthodox Christians, one shudders to
behold the deception into which -spiritually unpre-
pared Christians can fall. This book is a warning to
them and to all trying to live a conscious Orthodox
Christian life in a world possessed by unclean spir-
its. It is not an exhaustive treatment of this religion,
which has not yet attained its final form, but rather a
preliminary exploration of those spiritual tendencies
which, it would indeed seem, are preparing the way
for a true religion of anti-Christianity, a religion
outwardly "Christian," but centered upon a pagan
"initiation" experience.
 May this description of the increasingly evident
and brazen activity of satan, the prince of darkness,
among "Christians," inspire true Orthodox Chris-
tians with the fear of losing God's grace and turn
them back to the pure sources of Christian life: the
Holy Scriptures and the spiritual doctrine of the Holy
Fathers of Orthodoxy!
 Contents

Preface
Introduction
1. The "Dialogue with Non-Christian
Religions" 11
2. "Christian" and Non-Christian
Ecumenism 17
3. "The New Age of the Holy Spirit" 21
4. The Present Book 23
I. The "Monotheistic" Religions. Do We
Have the Same God that Non-Christians
Have? 25
II. The Power of the Pagan Gods: The As-
sault Upon Christianity. 32
. The Attractions of Hinduism 33
. A War of Dogma 38
. Hindu Places and Practices 41
. Evangelizing the West 46
. The Goal
JAKUN- of Hinduism: The Universal
Religion 52
III. A Fakir's "Miracle" and the Prayer
of Jesus. 56
IV. Eastern Meditation Invades Christianity 62
1. "Christian Yoga" 64
2; "Christian Zen" 69
Je Transcendental Meditation 72
V. The "New Religious Consciousness." The
Spirit of the Fastern Cults in the 1970's. 79
Hare Krishna in San Francisco
1. l 81
2: Guru Maharaj-ji at the Houston
Astrodome 83
3. Tantric Yoga in the Mountains of
New Mexico 86
4. Zen Training in Northern California 89
5. The New "Spirituality" vs. Christianity 95
V — . "Signs from Heaven:" An Orthodox Chris-
tian Understanding of Unidentified Flying
Objects (UFOs) 98
1. The Spirit of Science Fiction 100
2; UFO Sightings and the Scientific
Investigation of Them 106
3. The Six Kinds of UFO Encounters 114
4. Explanation of the UFO Phenomena 128
5. The Meaning of UFOs 139
VII. The "Charismatic Revival" as a Sign of
the Times 146
ls The 20th-century Pentecostal Move-
ment 148
2. The Ecumenical Spirit of the "Charis-
matic Revival" 151
3. "Speaking in Tongues" 156
4. "Christian" Mediumism 160
5 . Spiritual Deception 176
A. Attitude toward "Spiritual" Ex-
periences 179
B. Physical Accompaniments of
"Charismatic" Experiences 185
9
 C. "Spiritual Gifts" Accompanying
"Charismatic" Experiences - 192
D. The New ''Outpouring of the Holy
Spirit" 198
VIII. Conclusion: The Spirit of the Last Times 204
1. The "Charismatic Revival" as a
Sign of the Times 204
. A "Pentecost without Christ" 205
. The "New Christianity" 208
. "Jesus Is Coming Soon" 211
. Must Orthodoxy Join the Apostasy? 215
>
wI. "Little Children, It is the Last
Hour" (I John 2:18) 219
2. The Religion of the Future 223
Epilogue: Towards the 1980's. Jonestown
and the 1980's. 230
Index 236

10
 Introduction

1. The "Dialogue with Non-Christian Religions"

OURS IS A spiritually unbalanced age, when

many Orthodox Christians find themselves tossed to
and fro, and carried about with every wind of doc-
trine, by the sleight of men, and cunning crafti-
ness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive (Eph. 4:
14). The time, indeed, seems to have come when men
will not endure sound doctrine, but after their own
lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, hav-
ing itching ears; and they shall turn away their
ears from the truth, and shall be inclined unto fa-
bles (II Tim. 4:3-4).
One reads in bewilderment of the latest acts and
pronouncements of the ecumenical movement. On the
most sophisticated level, Orthodox theologians repre-
senting the American Standing Conference of Ortho-
dox Bishops and other official Orthodox bodies con-
duct learned "dialogues" with Roman Catholics and
Protestants and issue "joint statements" on such sub-
jects as the Eucharist, spirituality, and the like —
without even informing the heterodox that the Ortho-
dox Church is the Church of Christ to which all are
called, that only her Mysteries are grace-giving, that
11
Orthodox spirituality can be understood only by those
who know it in experience within the Orthodox
Church, that all these "dialogues" and "joint state-
ments" are an academic caricature of true Christian
discourse — a discourse which has the salvation of
souls as its aim. Indeed, many of the Orthodox par-
ticipants in these "dialogues" know or suspect that
this is no place for Orthodox witness, that the very
atmosphere of ecumenical "liberalism" cancels out
whatever truth might be spoken at them; but they are
silent, for the "spirit of the times" today is often
stronger than the voice of Orthodox conscience. (See
Diakonia, 1970, no. 1, p. 72; St. Vladimir's Theo-
logical Quarterly, 1969, no. 4, p. 225; etc.)
On a more popular level, ecumenical ''conferen-
ces" and ''discussions" are organized, often with an
"Orthodox speaker" or even the celebration of an
"Orthodox Liturgy." The approach to these "'confer-
ences" is often so dilettantish, and the general atti-
tude at them is so lacking in seriousness, that rather
than advance the "unity" their promoters desire, they
actually serve to prove the existence of an impassa-
ble abyss between true Orthodoxy and the ''ecumeni-
cal" outlook. (See Sobornost, Winter, 1978, pp.
494-8, etc.)
On the level of action, ecumenical activists take
advantage of the fact that the intellectuals and theolo-
gians are irresolute and unrooted in Orthodox tradi-
tion, and use their very words concerning "'funda-
mental agreement" on sacramental and dogmatic
points as an excuse for flamboyant ecumenical acts,
not excluding the giving of Holy Communion to here-
tics. And this state of confusion in turn gives an op-
portunity for ecumenical ideologists on the most pop-
ular level to issue empty pronouncements that reduce
basic theological issues to the level of cheap comedy,
12
as when Patriarch Athenagoras allows himself to say:
"Does your wife ever ask you how much salt she
should put in the food? Certainly not. She has the
infallibility. Let the Pope have it too, if he wishes"
(Hellenic Chronicle, April 9, 1970).
The informed and conscious Orthodox Christian
may well ask: where will it all end? Is there no limit
to the betrayal, the denaturement, the self-liquidation
of Orthodoxy?
It has not yet been too carefully observed
where all this is leading, but logically the path is
clear. The ideology behind ecumenism, which has in-
spired such ecumenistic acts and pronouncements as
the above, is an already well-defined heresy: the
Church of Christ does not exist, no one has the
Truth, the Church is only now being built. But it
takes little reflection to see that the self—liquidation
of Orthodoxy, of the Church of Christ, is simultane-
ously the self-liquidation of Christianity itself; that if
no one church is the Church of Christ, then the com-
bination of all sects will not be the Church either,
not in the sense in which Christ founded it. And if all
"Christian" bodies are relative to each other, then
all of them together are relative to other "religious"
bodies, and "Christian" ecumenism can only end in a
syncretic world religion.
This is indeed the undisguised aim of the ma-
sonic ideology which has inspired the Ecumenical
Movement, and this ideology has now taken such pos-
session of those who participate in the Ecumenical
Movement that "dialogue" and eventual union with the
non-Christian religions have come to be the logical
next step for today's denatured Christianity. The fol-
lowing are a few of the many recent examples that
could be given that point the way to an "ecumenical"
future outside of Christianity.
13
 l. On June 27, 1965, a "Convocation of Religion.
for World Peace" was held in San Francisco in con-
nection with the 20th anniversary of the founding of
the United Nations in that city. Before 10,000 spec-
tators there were addresses on the "religious" foun-
dation of world peace by Hindu, Buddhist, Moslem,
Jewish, Protestant, Catholic, and Orthodox repre-
sentatives, and hymns of all faiths were sung by a
2000-voice "interfaith" choir.
2. The Greek Archdiocese of North and South
America, in the official statement of its 19th Clergy-
Laity Congress (Athens, July, 1968), declared: ''We
believe that the ecumenical movement, even though it
is of Christian origin, must become a movement of all
religions reaching towards each other."
3. The "Temple of Understanding, Inc.,'' an A-
merican foundation established in 1960 as a kind of
"Association of United Religions" with the aim of
"building the symbolic Temple in various parts of the
world" (precisely in accord with the doctrine of
Freemasonry), has held several "Summit Conferen-
ces.'' At the first, in Calcutta in 1968, the Latin
Trappist Thomas Merton (who was accidentally elec-
trocuted in Bangkok on the way back from this Con-
ference) declared: "We are already a new unity. What
we must regain is our original unity.’ At the second,
at Geneva in April, 1970, eighty representatives of
ten world religions met to discuss such topics as
"The Project of the Creation of a World Community.of
Religions;'' the General Secretary of the World Coun-
cil of Churches, Dr. Eugene Carson Blake, delivered
an address calling on the heads of all religions to u-
nity; and on April 2 an "unprecedented" supra-con-
fessional prayer service took place in St. Peter's
Cathedral, described by the Protestant Pastor Babel
as "a very great date in the history of religions," at
14
which "everyone prayed in his own language and ac-
cording to the customs of the religion which he re-
presented" and at which "the faithful of all religions
were invited to coexist in the cult of the same God,"
the service ending with the "Our Father" (La Suisse,
April 3, 1970). Promotional material sent out by the
"Temple of Understanding" reveals that Orthodox del-
egates were present at the second "Summit Confer-
ence" in the United States in the autumn of 1971, and
that Metropolitan Emilianos of the Patriarchate of
Constantinople is a member of the Temple's "Inter-
national Committee." The "Summit Conferences" of-
fer Orthodox delegates the opportunity to enter dis-
cussions aiming to "create a world community of reli-
gions," to. "hasten the realization of mankind's dream
of peace and understanding" according to the philoso-
phy of "Vivekananda, Ramakrishna, Gandhi, Schweit-
zer,'' and the founders of various religions; and the
delegates likewise participate in "unprecedented" su-
pra-confessional prayer services where "everyone
prays according to the customs of the religion he re-
presents." One can only wonder what must be in the
soul of an Orthodox Christian who participates in
such conferences and prays together with Moslems,
Jews, and pagans.
4. Early in 1970 the WCC sponsored a confer-
ence in Ajaltoun, Lebanon, between Hindus, Bud-
dhists, Christians, and Moslems, and a follow-up
conference of 23 WCC "theologians" in Zurich in June
declared the need for "dialogue" with the non-Chris-—
tian religions. At the meeting of the Central Commit-
tee of the WCC at Addis Ababa in January of this
year, Metropolitan Georges Khodre of Beirut (Ortho-
dox Church of Antioch) shocked even many Protestant
delegates when he not merely called for "dialogue"
with these religions, but left the Church of Christ far
15
behind and trampled on 19 centuries of Christian tra-
dition when he called on Christians to "investigate the
authentically spiritual life of the unbaptized" and en-
rich their own experience with the "riches of a uni-
versal religious community" (Religious News Ser-
vice), for "it is Christ alone who is received as light
when grace visits a Brahmin, a Buddhist, or a Mos-
lem reading his own scriptures" (Christian Century,
Feb. 10, 1971).
5. The Central Committee of the World Council
of Churches at its meeting in Addis Ababa in January,
1971, gave its approval and encouragement to the
holding of meetings as regularly as possible between
representatives of other religions, specifying that
"at the present stage priority may be given to bilat-
eral dialogues of a specific nature." In accordance
with this directive a major Christian-Moslem "dia-
logue" was set for mid-1972 involving some forty re-
presentatives of both sides, including a number of
Orthodox delegates (Al Montada, January-February,
1972, p. 18).
6. In February, 1972, another "unprecedented"
ecumenical event occurred in New York when, ac-
cording to Archbishop Iakovos of New York, for the
first time in history, the Greek Orthodox Church
(Greek Archdiocese of North and South America) held
an official theological "dialogue" with the Jews. In
two days of discussions definite results were a-
chieved, which may be taken as symptomatic of the fu-
ture results of the "dialogue with non-Christian re-
ligions:"" the Greek "theologians" agreed "to review
their liturgical texts in terms of improving referen-
ces to Jews and Judaism where they are found to be
negative or hostile" (Religious News Service). Does
not the intention of the "dialogue" become ever more

16
obvious? — to "reform" Orthodox Christianity in or-
der to make it conformable to the religions of this
world.
These events were the beginning of the ''dia-
logue with non-Christian religions" at the end of the
decade of the 1960's and the beginning of the 1970's.
In the years since then such events have multiplied,
and "Christian" (and even "Orthodox"') discussions
and worship with representatives of non-Christian
religions have come to be accepted as a normal part
of contemporary life. The "dialogue with non-Chris-
tian religions" has become part of the intellectual
fashion of the day; it represents the present stage of
ecumenism in its progress towards a universal reli-
gious syncretism. Let us now look at the "theology"
and the goal of this accelerating "dialogue" and see
how it differs from the ''Christian" ecumenism that
has prevailed up to now.

2. "Christian" and Non-Christian Ecumenism

"Christian" ecumenism at its best may be seen

to represent a sincere and understandable error on
the part of Protestants and Roman Catholics — the
error of failing to recognize that the visible Church
of Christ already exists, and that they are outside it.
The "dialogue with non-Christian religions," howev-
er, is something quite different, representing rather
a conscious departure from even that part of genuine
Christian belief and awareness which some Catholics
and Protestants retain. It is the product, not of sim-
ple human "good intentions,''but rather of a diabolical
"suggestion" that can capture only those who have al-

17
ready departed so far from Christianity as to be vir-
tual pagans: worshippers of the god of this world,
satan (II Cor. 4:4), and followers of whatever intel-
lectual fashion this powerful god is capable of inspir-
ing.
"Christian" ecumenism relies for its support
upon a vague but nonetheless real feeling of ''common
Christianity" which is shared by many who do not
think or feel too deeply about the Church, and it aims
somehow to "build" a church comprising all such in-
different "Christians." But what common support can
the ''dialogue with non-Christians" rely on? On what
possible ground can there be any kind of unity, how-
ever loose, between Christians and those who not
merely do not know Christ, but — as is the case with
all the present-day representatives of non-Christian
religions who are in contact with Christianity — de-
cisively reject Christ? Those who, like Metropolitan
Georges Khodre of Lebanon, lead the avant-garde of
Orthodox apostates (a name that is fully justified
when applied to those who radically "fall away" from
the whole Orthodox Christian tradition), speak of the
"spiritual riches" and "authentic spiritual life" of the
non-Christian religions; but it is only by doing great
violence to the meaning of words and by reading his
own fantasies into other people's experience that he
can bring himself to say that it is "Christ" and
"grace" that pagans find in their scriptures, or that
"every martyr for the truth, every man persecuted
for what he believes to be right, dies in communion
with Christ."* Certainly. these people themselves
(whether it be a Buddhist who sets fire to himself, a
Communist who dies for the "cause" in which he sin-
cerely believes, or whoever) would never say that it

* Sobornost, Summer, 1971, p. 171.

18
is "Christ" they receive or die for, and the idea of an
unconscious confession or reception of Christ is a-
gainst the very nature of Christianity. If a rare non-
Christian does claim to have experience of "Christ,"
it can only be in the way which Swami Vivekananda
describes: "We Hindus do not merely tolerate, we u-
nite ourselves with every religion, praying in the
mosque of the Mohammedan, worshipping before the
fire of the Zoroastrian, and kneeling to the cross of
the Christian" — that is, as merely one of a number
of equally valid Spiritual experiences..
No: "Christ," no matter how redefined or rein-
terpreted, cannot be the common denominator of the
"dialogue with, non-Christian religions," but at best
can only be added as an afterthought to a unity which
is discovered somewhere else. The only possible
common denominator among all religions is the totally
vague concept of the ''spiritual,'' which indeed offers
religious "liberals" almost unbounded opportunity for
nebulous theologizing.
The address of Metropolitan Georges Khodre to
the Central Committee meeting of the WCC at Addis
Ababa in January, 1971, may be taken as an early,
experimental attempt to set forth such a "spiritual"
theology of the "dialogue with non-Christian reli-
gions.""* In raising the question as to "whether
Christianity is so inherently exclusive of other reli-
gions as has generally been proclaimed up to now,"
the Metropolitan, apart from his few rather absurd
"projections" of Christ into non-Christian religions,
has one main point: it is the "Holy Spirit," conceived
as totally independent of Christ and His Church, that
is really the common denominator of all the world's
religions. Referring to the prophecy that I will pour

* Full text in ibid., pp. 166-174.

19
out My Spirit uponall flesh (Joel 2:28), the Metro-
politan states, "This must be taken to mean a Pente-
cost which is universal from the very first... The
advent of the Spirit in the world is not subordinated
to the Son... The Spirit operates and applies His
energies in accordance with His own economy and we
could, from this angle, regard the non-Christian re-
ligions as points where His inspiration is at work"
(p. 172). We must, he believes, "develop an ecclesi-
ology and a missiology in which the Holy Spirit occu-
pies a supreme place" (p. 166).
All of this, of course, constitutes a heresy
which denies the very nature of the Holy Trinity and
has no aim but to undermine and destroy the whole i-
dea and reality of the Church of Christ. Why, indeed,
should Christ have established a Church if the Holy
Spirit acts quite independently, not only of the
Church, but of Christ Himself? Nonetheless, this
heresy is here still presented rather tentatively and
cautiously, no doubt with the aim of testing the re-
sponse of other Orthodox "theologians" before pro-
ceeding more categorically.
In actual fact, however, the "ecclesiology of
the Holy Spirit" has already been written — and by
an "Orthodox" thinker at that, one of the acknow-
ledged "prophets" of the "spiritual" movement of our
own day. Let us therefore examine his ideas in order
to see the picture he gives of the nature and goal of
the larger "spiritual" movement in which the "dia-
logue with non-Christian religions" has its place.

20 ©
 3. "The New Age of the Holy Spirit"

Nicholas Berdyaev (1874-1949) in any normal

time would never have been regarded as an Orthodox
Christian. He might best be described as a gnostic-
humanist philosopher who drew his inspiration rather
from Western sectarians and "mystics" than from any
Orthodox sources. That he is called in some Ortho-
dox circles even to this day an "Orthodox philoso-
pher" or even "theologian," is a sad reflection of the
religious ignorance of our times. Here we shall
quote from his writings.*
Looking with disdain upon the Orthodox Fathers,
upon the "monastic ascetic spirit of historical Ortho-
doxy,"' indeed upon that whole "conservative Christi-
anity which ... directs the spiritual forces of man
only towards contrition and salvation," Berdyaev
sought rather the "inward Church," the "Church of
the Holy Spirit," the "spiritual view of life which, in
the 18th century, found shelter in the Masonic lod-
ges." "The Church," he believed, "is still in a
merely potential state," is ‘incomplete; and he
looked to the coming of an "ecumenical faith," a "full-
ness of faith" that would unite, not merely different
Christian bodies (for "Christianity should be capable
of existing in a variety of forms in the Universal
Church"), but also "the partial truths of all the here-
sies" and "all the humanistic creative activity of mo-
dern man ... as a religious experience consecrated
in the Spirit." A "New Christianity" is approaching,
a "new mysticism, which will be deeper than religions
and ought to unite them." For "there is a great spiri-

* As cited in J. Gregerson, "Nicholas Berdyaev,

Prophet of a New Age," Orthodox Life, Jordanville,
N.Y., 1962, no. 6, where full references are given.

21
tual brotherhood ... to which not only the Churches
of East and West belong, but also all those whose
wills are directed towards God and the Divine, all in
fact who aspire to some form of spiritual elevation"
— that is to say, people of every religion, sect, and
religious ideology. He predicted the advent of "a new
and final Revelation." "the New Age of the Holy Spir-
it," resurrecting the prediction of Joachim of Floris,
the 12th century Latin monk who saw the two ages of
the Father (Old Testament) and the Son (New Testa-
ment) giving way to a final "Third Age of the Holy
Spirit." Berdyaev writes: "The world is moving
towards a new spirituality and a new mysticism; in it
there will be no more of the ascetic world view."
"The success of the movement towards Christian uni-
ty presupposes a new era in Christianity itself, a new
and deep spirituality, which means a new outpouring
of the Holy Spirit."
There is clearly nothing whatever in common
between these super—ecumenist fantasies and Ortho-
dox Christianity, which Berdyaev in fact despised.
Yet anyone aware of the religious climate of our
times will see that these fantasies in fact correspond
to one of the leading currents of contemporary reli-
gious thought. Berdyaev does indeed seem to be a
"prophet," or rather, to have been sensitive to a cur-
rent of religious thought and feeling which was not so
evident in his day, but has become almost dominant
today. Everywhere one hears of a new "movement of
the Spirit," and now a Greek Orthodox priest, Father
Eusebius Stephanou, invites Orthodox Christians to
join this movement when he writes of "the mighty out-
pouring of the Holy Spirit in our day" (The Logos,
January, 1972). Elsewhere in the same publication
(March, 1972, p. 8), the Associate Editor Ashanin
invokes not merely the name, but also the very pro-
22
gram, of Berdyaev: "We recommend the writings of
Nicholas Berdyaev, the great spiritual prophet of our
age. This spiritual genius ... [is] the greatest theo-
logian of spiritual creativeness... Now the cocoon of
Orthodoxy has been broken... God's Divine Logos is
leading His people to a new understanding of their
history and their mission in Him. The Logos [is the]
herald of this new age, of the new posture of Ortho-
doxy."

4. The Present Book

All of this constitutes the background of the

present book, which is a study of the "new" religious
spirit of our times that underlies and gives inspira-
tion to the "dialogue with non-Christian religions."
The first three chapters offer a general approach to
non-Christian religions and their radical difference
from Christianity, both in theology and in spiritual
life. The first chapter is a theological study of the
"God'' of the Near Eastern religions with which
Christian ecumenists hope to unite on the basis of
"monotheism." The second concerns the most power-
ful of the Eastern religions, Hinduism, based on a
long personal experience which ended in the author's
conversion from Hinduism to Orthodox Christianity; it
also gives an interesting appraisal of the meaning for
Hinduism of the "dialogue" with Christianity. The
third chapter is a personal account of the meeting of
an Orthodox priest-monk with an Eastern "miracle-
worker" — a direct confrontation of Christian and
non-Christian "spirituality."
The next four chapters are specific studies of
some of the significant spiritual movements of the
23
1970's. Chapters Four and Five examine the "new
religious consciousness" with particular reference to
the "meditation" movements which now claim many
"Christian" followers (and more and more "ex-Chris-—
tians"). Chapter Six looks at the spiritual implica-
tions of a seemingly non-religious phenomenon of our
times which is helping to form the "new religious
consciousness" even among people who think they are
far from any religious interest. The seventh chapter
discusses at length the most controversial religious
movement among "Christians" today — the "charis-—
matic revival" — and tries to define its nature in the
light of Orthodox spiritual doctrine.
In the Conclusion the significance and goal of
the "new religious consciousness" are discussed in
the light of Christian prophecy concerning the last
times. The "religion of the future" to which they
point is set forth and contrasted with the only reli-
gion which is irreconcilably in conflict with it: true
Orthodox Christianity. The "signs of the times," as
we approach the fearful decade of the 1980's, are all
too clear; let Orthodox Christians, and all who wish
to save their souls in eternity, take heed and act!

24
 I. The “Monotheistic’’

Religions

DO WE HAVE THE SAME GOD

THAT NON-CHRISTIANS HAVE?

"The Hebrew and Islamic peoples, and Chris-

tians ... these three expressions of an identical
monotheism, speak with the most authentic and
ancient, and even the boldest and most confiderit
‘voices. Why should it not be possible that the
name of the same God, instead of engendering ir-
reconcilable opposition, should lead rather to
mutual respect, understanding and peaceful coex-
istence? Should the reference to the same God,
the same Father, without prejudice to theological
discussion, not lead us rather one day to discov-
er what is so evident, yet so difficult — that we
are all sons of the same Father, and that, there-
fore, we are all brothers?"
Pope Paul VI, La Croix, Aug. 11, 1970.

ON THURSDAY, April 2, 1970, a great reli-

gious manifestation took place in Geneva. Within the
framework of the Second Conference of the "Associa-
tion of United Religions," the representatives of ten
25
great religions were invited to gather in the Cathe-
dral of Saint Peter. This "common prayer" was
based on the following motivation: ''The faithful of all
these religions were invited to coexist in the cult of
the same God''! Let us then see if this assertion is
valid in the light of the Holy Scriptures.
In order better to explain the matter, we shall
limit ourselves to the three religions that have histo-
rically followed each other in this order: Judaism,
Christianity, Islam. These three religions lay claim,
in fact, to a common origin: as worshippers of the
God of Abraham. Thus it is a very widespread opin-
ion that since we all lay claim to the posterity of A-
braham (the Jews and Moslems according to the flesh,
and Christians spiritually), we all have as God the
God of Abraham and all three of us worship (each in
his own way, naturally) the same God! And this same
God constitutes in some fashion our point of unity and
of "mutual understanding," and this invites us to a
"fraternal relation," as the Grand Rabbi Dr. Safran
emphasized, paraphrasing the Psalm: "Oh, how good
it is to see brethren seated together..."
In this perspective it is evident that Jesus
Christ, God and Man, the Son Co-eternal with the
Father without beginning, His Incarnation, His Cross,
His Glorious Resurrection and His Second and Ter-
rible Coming — become secondary details which can-
not prevent us from "fraternizing'’ with those who
consider Him as "a simple prophet" (according to the
Koran) or as "the son of a prostitute" (according to
certain Talmudic traditions)! Thus we would place
Jesus of Nazareth and Mohammed on the same level.
I do not know what Christian worthy of the name
could admit this in his conscience.
One’ might say that in these three religions,
passing over the past, one could agree that Jesus
26
Christ is an extraordinary and exceptional being and
that He was sent by God. But for us Christians, if
Jesus Christ is not God, we cannot consider Him ei-
ther as a "prophet" or as one "sent by God," but only
as a great imposter without compare, having pro-
claimed Himself "Son of God," making Himself thus
equal to God! (St. Mark 14:61,62) According to
this ecumenical solution on the supra-confessional
level, the Trinitarian God of Christians would be the
same thing as the monotheism of Judaism, of Islam, of
the ancient heretic Sabellius,of the modern anti-Tri-
nitarians, and of certain Illuminist sects. There
would not be Three Persons in a Single Divinity,
but a single Person, unchanging for some, or succes-
sively changing "masks" (Father-Son-Spirit) for oth-
ers! And nonetheless one would pretend that this was
the “same God"!
Here some might naively propose: "Yet for the
three religions there is a common point: all three
confess God the Father!" But according to the Holy
Orthodox Faith, this is an absurdity. We confess al-
ways: Glory to the Holy, Consubstantial, Life-giving
and Indivisible Trinity.'' How could we separate
the Father from the Son when Jesus Christ affirms
I and the Father are One (St. John 10:30); and St.
John the Apostle, Evangelist, and Theologian, the A-
postle of Love, clearly affirms: Whosoever denieth
the Son, the same hath not the Father (1 John 2:23).
But even if all three of us call God Father: of
whom is He really the Father? For the Jews and the
Moslems He is the Father of men in the plane of crea-
tion; while of us Christians He is the Father of our
Lord Jesus Christ by adoption (Eph. 1:4,5) in the
plane of redemption. What resemblance is there,
then, between the Divine Paternity in Christianity and
in the other religions?
27
 Others might say: "But all the same, Abraham
worshipped the true God; and the Jews through Isaac
and the Moslems through Hagar are the descendants
of this true worshipper of God.'' Here one will have
to make several things clear: Abraham worshipped
God not at all in the form of the unipersonal monothe-
ism of the others, but in the form of the Holy Trinity.
We read in the Holy Scripture: And the Lord appeared
unto himat the Oaks of Mamre ... and he bowed him-
self toward the ground (Gen. 18:1,2). Under what
form did Abraham worship God? Under the uniper-
sonal form, or under the form of the Divine Tri-uni-
ty? We Orthodox Christians venerate this Old Testa-
ment manifestation of the Holy Trinity on the Day of
Pentecost, when we adorn our churches with boughs
representing the ancient oaks, and when we venerate
in their midst the icon of the Three Angels, just as
our father Abraham venerated it! Carnal descent
from Abraham can be of no use to us if we are not re-
generated by the waters of Baptism in the Faith of A-
braham. And the Faith of Abraham was the Faith-in
Jesus Christ, as the Lord Himself has said: Your
father Abraham rejoiced to see My day; and he saw
it and was glad (St. John 8:56). Such also was the
Faith of the Prophet-King David, who heard the heav-
enly Father speaking to His Consubstantial Son: The
Lord said unto my Lord (Ps. 109:1; Acts 2:34). Such
was the Faith of the Three Youths in the fiery fur-
nace when they were saved by the Son of God (Dan. 3:
25); and of the holy Prophet Daniel, who had the Vi-
sion of the two natures of Jesus Christ in the Mystery
of the Incarnation when the Son of Man came to the
Ancient of Days (Dan. 7:13). This is why the Lord,
addressing the (biologically incontestable) posterity
of Abraham, said: If ye were the children of Abra-
ham, ye would do the works of Abraham (St. John 8:
28
39), and these "works" are to believe on Him Whom
God hath sent (St. John 6:29).
Who then are the posterity of Abraham? The
sons of Isaac according to the flesh, or the sons of
Hagar the Egyptian? Is Isaac or Ishmael the poster-
ity of Abraham? What does the Holy Scripture teach
by the mouth of the divine Apostle? Now to Abraham
and his seed were the promises made. He saith not,
And to seeds, as of many; but as of one, And to thy
seed: which is Christ (Gal. 3:16). And if ye be
Christ's, thenare ye Abraham's seed, and heirs ac-
cording to the promise (Gal. 3:29). It is then in Je-
sus Christ that Abraham became a father of many na-
tions (Gen. 17:5; Rom. 4:17). After such promises
and such certainties, what meaning does carnal de-
scent from Abraham have? According to Holy Scrip-
ture, Isaac is considered as the seed or posterity,
but only as the image of Jesus Christ. As opposed
to Ishmael (the son of Hagar; Gen. 16:1ff), Isaac was
born in the miraculous "freedom" of a sterile mother,
in old age and against the laws of nature, similar to
our Saviour, Who was miraculously born of a Virgin.
He climbed the hill of Moriah just as Jesus climbed
Calvary, bearing on his shoulders the wood of sacri-
fice. An angel delivered Isaac from death, just as an
angel rolled away the stone to show us that the tomb
was empty, that the Risen One was no longer there.
At the hour of prayer, Isaac met Rebecca in the plain
and led her into the tent of his mother Sarah, just as
Jesus shall meet His Church on the clouds in order to
bring Her into the heavenly mansions, the New Jeru-
salem, the much-desired homeland.
No! We do not in the least have the same God
that non-Christians have! The sine qua non for
knowing the Father, is the Son: He that hath seen Me
hath seen the Father; no man cometh unto the Fath-

29
er, but by Me (St. John 14:6,9). Our God is a God
Incarnate, Whom we have seen with our eyes, and our
hands have touched (1 John 1:1). The immaterial be-
came material for our salvation, as St. John Damas-
cene says, and He has revealed Himself in us. But
when did He reveal Himself among the present-day
Jews and Moslems, so that we might suppose that they
know God? If they have a knowledge of God outside of
Jesus Christ, then Christ was incarnate, died, and
rose in vain!
No, they do not know the Father. They have
conceptions about the Father; but every conception
about God is an idol, because a conception is the
product of our imagination, a creation of a god in our
own image and likeness. For us Christians God is
inconceivable, incomprehensible, indescribable,
and immaterial, as St. Basil the Great says. For
our salvation He became (to the extent that we are u-
nited to Him) conceived, described and material, by
revelation in the Mystery of the Incarnation of His
Son. To Him be the glory unto the ages of ages. A-
men. And this is why St. Cyprian of Carthage affirms
that he who does not have the Church for Mother,
does not have God for Father!
May God preserve us from the Apostasy and
from the coming of Antichrist, the preliminary signs
of which are multiplying from day to day. May He
preserve us from the great affliction which even the
elect would not be able to bear without the Grace of
Him Who will cut short these days. And may He pre-
serve us in the "small flock," the "remainder accord-
ing to the election of Grace," so that we like Abraham
might rejoice at the Light of His Face, by the prayers
of the Most Holy Mother of God and Ever-Virgin
Mary, of all the heavenly hosts, the cloud of witnes-—
ses, prophets, martyrs, hierarchs, evangelists, and
30
confessors who have been faithful unto death, who
have shed their blood for Christ, who have begotten
us by the Gospel of Jesus Christ in the waters of
Baptism. We are their sons — weak, sinful, and un-
worthy, to be sure; but we will not stretch forth our
hands toward a strange god! Amen.

Father Basile Sakkas

La Foi Transmise, April 5, 1970

31
 IL, The Power of the

Pagan Gods

HINDUISM'S ASSAULT
UPON CHRISTIANITY

All the gods of the pagans are demons.

Psalm 95:5

The following article comes from the experi-

ence of a woman who, after attending high school in
a Roman Catholic convent, practiced Hinduism for
twenty years until finally, by God's grace, she was
converted to the Orthodox Faith, finding the end
of her search for truth in the Russian Church Out-
side of Russia. She currently resides on the West
Coast. May her words serve to open the eyes. of
those Orthodox Christians who might be tempted to
follow the blind "Liberal" theologians who are now
making their appearance even in the Orthodox
Church, and whose answer to the assault of neo-pa-
ganism upon the Church of Christ is to conduct a
"dialogue" with its wizards and join them in wor-
shipping the very gods of the pagans.

32
 l. The Attractions of Hinduism

I WAS JUST sixteen when two events set the

course of my life. I came to Dominican Catholic Con-
vent in San Rafael (California) and encountered
Christianity for the first time. The same year I also
encountered Hinduism in the person of a Hindu. monk,
a Swami, who was shortly to become my guru or
teacher. A battle had begun, but I wasn't to under-
stand this for nearly twenty years.
At the convent I was taught the basic truths of
Christianity. Here lie the strength of the humble and
a snare to the proud. St. James wrote truly: God re-
sisteth the proud, and giveth grace to the humble
(4:6).. And how proud I was; I wouldn't accept origi-
nal sin and I wouldn't accept hell. And I had many,
many arguments against them. One Sister of great
charity gave me the key when she said: "Pray for the
gift of faith." But already the Swami's training had
taken hold, and I thought it debasing to beg anyone,
even God, for anything. But much later, I remem-
bered what she had said. Years later the seed of
Christian faith that had been planted in me emerged
from an endless sea of despair.
In time the nature of the books that I brought
back to school with me, all in plain covered wrap-
pers, was discovered. Books like the Bhagavad Gita,
the Upanishads, the Vedantasara, the Ashtavakra
Samhita... In part my secret was out, but nothing
much was said. No doubt the Sisters thought it would
pass, as indeed most of the intellectual conceits of
young girls do. But one bold nun told me the truth.
It's a very unpopular truth and one that is rarely
heard today. She said that I would go to hell if I
died in Hinduism after knowing the truth of Christian-
ity. Saint Peter put it this way: For by whoma man is
33
overcome, of the same also he is the slave. For if,
flying from the pollutions of the world, through
the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ,
they be again entangled in them and overcome, their
latter state is become unto them worse than the
former. For it had been better for them not to have
known the way of justice, than after they have
known it, to turn back from that holy commandment
which was delivered to them (11 Peter 2:19-21). How
I despised that Sister for her bigotry. But if she
were alive today I would thank her with all my heart.
What she told me nagged, as truth will, and it was to
lead me finally to the fullness of Holy Orthodoxy.
The important thing that I got at the convent
was a measuring stick, and one day I would use it to
discover Hinduism a fraud.
The situation has changed so much since I was
in school. What was an isolated case of Hinduism has
developed into an epidemic. Now one must have an
intelligent understanding of Hindu dogmatics if one is
to prevent young Christians from committing spiritual
suicide when they encounter Eastern religions.
The appeal of Hinduism is full spectrum; there
are blandishments for every faculty and appeals to
every weakness, but particularly to pride. And being
very proud, even at sixteen, it was to these that |
first fell prey. Original sin, hell, and the problem of
pain troubled me. I'd never taken them seriously be-
fore I came to the convent. Then, the Swami pre-
sented an "intellectually satisfying" alternative for
every uncomfortable Christian dogma. Hell was, af-
ter all, only a temporary state of the soul brought on
by our own bad karma (past actions) in this or in a
former life. And, of course, a finite cause couldn't
have an infinite effect. Original sin was marvelously
transmuted into Original Divinity. This was my birth-

34
right, and nothing I could ever do would abrogate
this glorious end. I was Divine. I was God: "the
Infinite Dreamer, dreaming finite dreams."
As for the problem of pain, the Hindu philosophy
known as Vedanta has a really elegant philosophical
system to take care of it. In a nutshell, pain was
maya or illusion. It had no real existence — and
what's more, the Advaitin could claim to prove it!
In another area, Hinduism appeals to the very
respectable error of assuming that man is per-
fectable: through education (in their terms, the guru
system) and through "evolution" (the constant pro-
gressive development of man spiritually). An argu-
ment is also made from the standpoint of cultural re-
lativity; this has now assumed such respectability
that it's a veritable sin (with those who don't believe
in sin) to challenge relativity of any sort. What could
be more reasonable, they say, than different nations
and peoples worshipping God differently? God, after
all, is God, and the variety in modes of worship make
for a general religious "enrichment."
. But perhaps the most generally compelling at-
traction is pragmatism. The entire philosophical con-
struct of Hinduism is buttressed by the practical re-
ligious instructions given to the disciple by his guru.
With these practices the disciple is invited to verify
the philosophy by his own experience. Nothing has to
be accepted on faith. And contrary to popular no-
tions, there aren't any mysteries — just a tremen-
dous amount of esoteric material — so there simply is
no need for faith. You are told: "Try it, and see if it
works." This pragmatic approach is supremely tempt-
ing to the Western mind. It appears so very "'scien-
tific."' But almost every student falls right into a kind
of pragmatic fallacy: i.e., if the practices work (and
they do in fact work), he believes that the system is
35
true, and implicitly, that it is good. This, of course,
doesn't follow. All that can really be said is: if they
work, then they work. But missing this point, you
can understand how a little psychic experience gives
the poor student a great deal of conviction.
This brings me to the last blandishment that I'll
mention, which is "spiritual experiences." These are
psychic and/or diabolic in origin. But who among the
practitioners has any way of distinguishing delusion
from true spiritual experience? They have no mea-
suring stick. But don't think that what they see, hear,
smell and touch in these experiences are the result of
simple mental aberration. They aren't. They are
what our Orthodox tradition calls prelest. It's an
important word, because it refers to the exact condi-
tion of a person having Hindu "spiritual experien-
ces." There is no precise equivalent to the term
prelest inthe English lexicon. It covers the whole
range of false spiritual experiences: from simple il-
lusion and beguilement to actual possession. In every
case the counterfeit is taken as genuine and the over-
all effect is an accelerated growth of pride. A warm,
comfortable sense of special importance settles over
the personin prelest, and this compensates for all
his austerities and pain.*
In his first Epistle, Saint John warns the early
Christians: Dearly beloved, believe not every spir-
it, but try the spirits if they be of God... (4:1).
Saint Gregory of Sinai was careful to instruct
his monks on the dangers of these experiences: "All
around, near to beginners and the self-—willed, the
demons are wont to spread the nets of thoughts and
——_—_—————

* Further on prelest, see below, p. 176ff.

36
pernicious fantasies and prepare moats for their
downfall..." A monk asked him: "What is a man to do
when the demon takes the form of an angel of light?"
The Saint replied: "In this case a man needs great
power of discernment to discriminate rightly between
good and evil. So in your heedlessness, do not be
carried away too quickly by what you see, but be
weighty (not easy to move) and, carefully testing ev-
erything, accept the good and reject the evil. Always
you must test and examine, and only afterwards be-
lieve. Know that the actions of grace are manifest,
and the demon, in spite of his transformations, cannot
produce them: namely, meekness, friendliness, humi-
lity, hatred of the world, cutting off passions and lust
— which are the effects of grace. Works of the de-
mons are: arrogance, conceit, intimidation and all e-
vil. By such actions you will be able to discern
whether the light shining in your heart is of God or of
satan. Lettuce looks like mustard, and vinegar in
color like wine; but when you taste them the palate
-discerns and defines the difference between each. In
the same way the soul, if it has discernment, can
discriminate by mental taste the gifts of the Holy
Spirit from the fantasies and illusions of satan."
The misguided or proud spiritual aspirant is
most vulnerable to prelest. And the success and
durability of Hinduism depends very largely on this
false mysticism. How very appealing it is to drug
using young people, who have already been initiated
into these kinds of experiences. The last few years
have seen the flowering and proliferating of Swamis.
They saw their opportunity for fame and wealth in
this ready-made market. And they took it.

37
 2. A War of Dogma

TODAY CHRISTIANITY is taking the thrusts

of a foe that is all but invisible to the faithful. And if
it can, it will pierce to the heart before declaring its
name. The enemy is Hinduism, and the war being
waged is a war of dogma.
When Vedanta Societies were founded in this
country, around the turn of the century, first efforts
were directed to establishing that there was no real
difference between Hinduism and Christianity. Not
only was there no conflict, but a good Christian would
be a better Christian by studying and practicing the
Vedanta; he would understand the real Christianity.
In early lectures, the Swamis attempted to
show that those ideas which seemed peculiar to
Christianity — like the Logos and the Cross — really
had their origin in India. And those ideas which
seemed peculiar to Hinduism — like rebirth, trans-
migration of the soul and samadhi (or trance) were
also to be found in Christian scripture — when it was
properly interpreted.
This kind of bait caught many sincere but mis-
guided Christians. The early push was against what
might be called "sectarian'' dogmas, and fora so-
called scientific religion based on a comparative stu-
dy of all religions. Primary stress was always on
this: there is no such thing as difference. All is One.
All differences are just on the surface; they are ap-
parent or relative, not real. All this is clear from
published lectures that were delivered in the early
1900's. Today we are in great danger because this
effort was so very successful.
Now common parlance has "dogma" a derisive
term. But this scorn could not have originated with
those who know that it refers to the most precious
38
heritage of the Church. However, once the bad con-
notation became fixed, the timid, who never like to be
associated with the unpopular, began to speak of
"rigid dogma," which is redundant but bespeaks dis-
approval. So the attitude was insidiously absorbed
from ''broad-minded" critics who either didn't know
that dogma states what Christianity is, or simply
didn't like what Christianity is all about.
The resulting predisposition of many Christians
to back down when faced with the accusation of hold-
ing to dogma has given the Hindus no small measure
of help. And aid from within had strategic advan-
tages.
The incredible fact is that few see that the very
power that would overturn Christian dogma is itself
nothing but an opposing system of dogmas. The two
cannot blend or "enrich" each other because they are
wholly antithetical.
If Christians are persuaded to throw out (or
what is tactically more clever) to alter their dogmas
to suit the demand for a more up-to-date or "univer-
sal" Christianity, they have lost everything, because
what is valued by Christians and by Hindus is imme-
diately derived from their dogmas. And Hindu dogmas
area direct repudiation of Christian dogmas. This
leads us to a staggering conclusion: What Christians
believe to be evil, Hindus believe to be good, and
conversely: What Hindus believe to be evil, Chris-
tians believe to be good.
The real struggle lies in this: that the ultimate
sin for the Christian, is the ultimate realization of
good for the Hindu. Christians have always acknow-
ledged pride as the basic sin — the fountainhead of
all sin. And Lucifer is the archetype when he says:
"I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne a-
bove the stars of God. I will ascend above the
39
clouds; I will be like the Most High." On a lower
level, it is pride that turns even man's virtues into
sins. But for the Hindu in general, and the Advaitin
or Vedantan in particular, the only "sin" is not to
believe in yourself and in Humanity as God Himself.
In the words of Swami Vivekananda (who was the
foremost modern advocate of Vedanta): "You do not
yet understand India! We Indians are Man-worship-
pers after all. Our God is Man!" The doctrine of
mukti or salvation consists in this: that "Man is to
become Divine by realizing the Divine."
From this one can see the dogmas of Hinduism
and Christianity standing face to face, each defying
the other on the nature of God, the nature of man and
the purpose of human existence.
But when Christians accept the Hindu propagan-
da that there is no battle going on, that the differen-
ces between Christianity and Hinduism are only ap-
parent and not real — then Hindu ideas are free to
take over the souls of Christians, winning the battle
without a struggle. And the end result of this battle
is truly shocking; the corrupting power of Hinduism is
immense. In my own case, with all of the basically
sound training that I received at the convent, twenty
years in Hinduism brought me to the very doors of the
love of evil. You see, in India "God" is also wor-
shipped as Evil, in the form of the goddess Kali. But
about this I will speak in the next section, on -Hindu
practices.
This is the end in store when there is no more
Christian dogma. I say this from personal experi-
ence, because I have worshipped Kali in India and in
this country. And she who is satan is no joke. If
you give up the Living God, the throne is not going
to remain empty.

40
 3. Hindu Places and Practices

IN 1956 I did field work with headhunters in the

Philippines. My interest was in primitive religion —
particularly in what is termed an "unacculturated" a-
rea — where there had been few missionaries. When
1 arrived in Ifugao (that's the name of the tribe), I
didn't believe in black magic; when I left, I did. An
Ifugao priest (a munbaki) named Talupa became my
best friend and informant. Intime I learned that he
was famous for his skill in the black art. He took me
to the baki, which is a ceremony of ritualistic magic
that occurred almost every night during the harvest
season. A dozen or so priests gathered in a hut and
the night was spent invoking deities and ancestors,
drinking rice wine and making sacrifices to the two
small images known as bulol. They were washed in
chicken blood, which had been caught in a dish and
used to divine the future before it was used on the
images. They studied the blood for the size and num-
ber of bubbles in it, the time it took to coagulate; al-
so, the color and configuration of the chicken's or-
gans gave them information. Each night I dutifully
took notes. But this was just the beginning. I won't
elaborate on Ifugao magic; suffice it to say that by
the time I left, I had seen such a variety and quantity
of supernatural occurrences that any scientific ex-
planation was virtually impossible. If I had been
predisposed to believe anything when I arrived, it
was that magic had a wholly natural explanation. Al-
so, let me say that I don't frighten very easily. But
the fact is that I left Ifugao because I saw that their
rituals not only worked, but they had worked on me —
at least twice.
41
 I say all this so that what | say about Hindu
practices and places of worship will not seem incre-
dible, the product of a "heated brain."
Eleven years after the Ifugao episode, I made a
pilgrimage to the Cave of Amarnath, deep in the Him-
alayas. Hindu tradition has it the most sacred place
of Siva worship, the place where he manifests him-
self to his devotees and grants boons. It is a long
and difficult journey over the Mahaguna,a 14,000 foot
pass, and across a glacier; so there was plenty of
time to worship him mentally on the way, especially
since the boy who led the pack pony didn't speak any
English, and I didn't speak any Hindi. This time I
was predisposed to believe that the god whom I had
worshipped and meditated on for years would gra-
ciously manifest himself to me.
The Siva image in the cave is itself a curiosity:
an ice image formed by dripping water. It waxes and
wanes with the moon. When it is full moon, the natu-
ral image reaches the ceiling of the cave — about 15
feet — and by the dark of the moon almost nothing of
it remains. And so it waxes and wanes each month.
To my knowledge, no one has explained this phenome-
non. I approached the cave at an auspicious time,
when the image had waxed full. I was soon to worship
my god with green coconut, incense, red and white
pieces of cloth, nuts, raisins and sugar — all the ri-
tually prescribed items. I entered the cave with
tears of devotion. What happened then is hard to de-
scribe. The place was vibrant — just like an Ifugao
hut with baki in full swing. Stunned to find it a place
of inexplicable wrongness, I left retching before the
priest could finish making my offering to the great ice
image.
The facade of Hinduism had cracked when I en-
tered the Siva Cave, but it was still some time before
42
I broke free. During the interim, I searched for
something to support the collapsing edifice, but I
found nothing. In retrospect, it seems to me that we
often know something is really bad, long before we
can really believe it. This applies to Hindu "spiritual
practices" quite as much as it does to the so-called
"holy places."
When a student is initiated by the guru, he is
given a Sanskrit mantra (a personal magic formula),
and specific religious practices. These are entirely
esoteric and exist in the oral tradition. You won't
find them in print and you are very unlikely to learn
about them from an initiate, because of the strong ne-
gative sanctions which are enforced to protect this
secrecy. In effect the guru invites his disciple to
prove the philosophy by his own experience. The
point is, these practices doin fact work. The student
may get powers or "'siddhis."" These are things like
reading minds, power to heal or destroy, to produce
objects, to tell the future and so on — the whole gam-
ut of deadly psychic parlor tricks. But far worse
than this, he invariably falls into a state of prelest,
where he takes delusion for reality. He has "'spiri—
tual experiences" of unbounded sweetness and peace.
He has visions of deities and of light. (One might re-
call that Lucifer himself can appear as an angel of
light.) By "delusion" I don't mean that he doesn't
really experience these things; I mean rather that
they are not from God. There is, of course, the phi-
losophical construct that supports every experience,
so the practices and the philosophy sustain each oth-
er and the system becomes very tight.
Actually, Hinduism is not so much an intellectu-
al pursuit as a system of practices, and these are
quite literally — black magic. That is, if you do x,
you get y: a simple contract. But the terms are not
43
spelled out and rarely does a student ask where the
experiences originate or who is extending him credit
— in the form of powers and "beautiful" experiences.
It's the classical Faustian situation, but what the
practitioner doesn't know is that the price may well
be his immortal soul.
There's a vast array of practices — practices
to suit every temperament. The chosen deity may be
with form: a god or goddess; or formless: the Abso-
lute Brahman. The relationship to the chosen Ideal
also varies — it may be that of a child, mother, fath-
er, friend, beloved, servant or, in the case of Adva-
ita Vedanta, the "relationship" is identity. At the
time of initiation the guru gives his disciple a mantra
and this determines the path he will follow and the
practices he will take up. The guru also dictates how
the disciple will live his everyday life. In the Vedan-
ta (or monistic system) single disciples are not to
marry; all their powers are to be directed towards
success in the practices. Nor is a sincere disciple
a meat eater, because meat blunts the keen edge of
perception. The guru is literally regarded as God
Himself — he is the disciple's Redeemer.
At base, the many "spiritual" exercises derive
from only a few root practices. I'll just skim over
them.
First, there's idolatry. It may be the worship
of an image or a picture, with offerings of light,.cam-
phor, incense, water and sweets. The image may be
fanned with a yak tail, bathed, dressed and put to
bed. This sounds very childish, but it is prudent not
to underestimate the psychic experiences which they
can elicit. Vedantic idolatry takes the form of self-
worship — either mentally or externally, with all the
ritualistic props. A common aphoristic saying in In-

44
dia epitomizes this self-worship. It is So Ham, So
Ham, or "I am He, I am He."
Then there's Japa, or the repetition of the San-
skrit mantra given to the disciple at his initiation. In
effect, it's the chanting of a magic formula.
Pranayama consists in breathing exercises used
in conjunction with Japa. There are other practices
which are peculiar to the Tantra or worship of God
as Mother, the female principle, power, energy, the
principle of evolution and action. They're referred
to as the five Ms. They're overtly evil and rather
sick-making, so I won't describe them. But they,
too, have found their way to this country. Swami Vi-
vekananda prescribed this brand of Hinduism along
with the Vedanta. He said: "I worship the Terrible!
It is a mistake to hold that with all men pleasure is
the motive. Quite as many are born to seek after
pain. Let us worship the Terror for Its own sake.
How few have dared to worship Death, or Kali! Let
us worship Death!" Again, the Swami's words on the
goddess Kali: "There are some who scoff at the exis-
tence of Kali. Yet today She is out there amongst the
people. They are frantic with fear, and the soldiery
have been called to deal out death. Who can say that
God does not manifest Himself as Evil as well as
Good? But only the Hindu dares worship Him as the
Evil. "*

* Editors’ note: Few, even of those most desirous of

entering into 'dialogue' with Eastern religions and of
expressing their basic religious unity with them, have
any at all precise conception of the pagan religious
practices and beliefs from whose tyranny the blessed
and light yoke of Christ has liberated mankind. The
goddess Kali, one of the most popular of Hindu dei-
ties, is most commonly depicted in the midst of a riot
45
 The great pity is that this one-pointed practice
of evil is carried on in the firm conviction that it's
good. And the salvation that is vainly sought through
arduous self-effort in Hinduism can only be wrought
by God through Christian self-effacement.

4. Evangelizing the West

IN 1893 AN UNKNOWN Hindu monk arrived at

the Parliament of Religions in Chicago. He was Swa-
mi Vivekananda, whom I have mentioned already. He
made a stunning impression on those who heard him,

of blood and carnage, skulls and severed heads hang-

ing from her neck, her tongue grotesquely protruding
from her mouth thirsting for more blood; she is ap-
peased in Hindu temples by bloody offerings of goats
(Swami Vivekananda justifies this: "Why not a little
blood to complete the picture?") Of her Swami Vive-
kananda, as recorded by his disciple 'Sister Nivedi-
ta,’ said further: "I believe that she guides me in ev-
ery little thing that I do, and does with me what she
will," and at every step he was conscious of her pre-
sence as if she were a person in the room with him.
He invoked her: ''Come, O Mother, come! for Terror
is thy name;"' and it was his religious ideal "to be-
come one with the Terrible forevermore." Is this,
as Metropolitan Georges Khodre tries to persuade us,
to be accepted as an example of the "authentically
spiritual life of the unbaptized," a part of the spiritu-
al "riches" which we are to take from the non-Chris-—
tian religions? Or is it not rather a proof of the
Psalmist's words: The gods of the pagans are de-
mons ?
46
both by his appearance — beturbaned and robed in
orange and crimson — and by what he said. He was
immediately lionized by high society in Boston and
New York. Philosophers at Harvard were mightily
impressed. And it wans't long until he had gathered
a hard core of disciples who supported him and his
grandiose dream: the evangelizing of the Western
world by Hinduism, and more particularly, by Vedan-
tic (or monistic) Hinduism. Vedanta Societies were
established in the large cities of this country and in
Europe. But these centers were only a part of his
work. More important was introducing Vedantic
ideas into the bloodstream of academic thinking.
Dissemination was the goal. It mattered little to Vi-
vekananda whether credit was given to Hinduism or
not, so long as the message of Vedanta reached ev-
eryone. On.many occasions he said: Knock on every
door. Tell everyone he is Divine.
Today parts of his message are carried in pa-
perbacks that you can find in any bookstore — books
by Aldous Huxley, Christopher Isherwood, Somerset
Maugham, Teilhard de Chardin, and even Thomas
Merton.
Thomas Merton, of course, constitutes a special
threat to Christians, because he presents himself as
a contemplative Christian monk, and his work has al-
ready affected the vitals of Roman Catholicism, its
monasticism. Shortly before his death, Father Mer-
ton wrote an appreciative introduction to a new
translation of the Bhagavad Gita, which is the spiri-
tual manual or "Bible" of all Hindus, and one of the
foundation blocks of monism or Advaita Vedanta. The
Gita, it must be remembered, opposes almost every
important teaching of Christianity. His book on the
Zen Masters, published posthumously, is also note-
worthy, because the entire work is based on a

47
treacherous mistake: the assumption that all the so-
called "mystical experiences" in every religion are
true. He should have known better. The warnings
against this are loud and clear, both in Holy Scrip-
ture and in the Holy Fathers.
Today I know of one Catholic monastery in Cal-
ifornia where cloistered monks are experimenting
with Hindu religious practices. They were trained by
an Indian who became a Catholic priest. Unless the
ground had been prepared, I think this sort of thing
couldn't be happening. But, after all, this was the
purpose of Vivekananda's coming to the West: to pre-
pare the ground.
Vivekananda's message of Vedanta is simple e-
nough. It looks like more than it is because of its
trappings: some dazzling Sanskrit jargon, and a very
intricate philosophical structure. The message is es-
sentially this: All religions are true, but Vedanta is
the ultimate truth. Differences are only a matter of
"levels of truth." In Vivekananda's words: "Man is
not travelling from error to truth, but climbing up
from truth to truth, from truth that is lower to truth
that is higher. The matter of today is the spirit of
the future. The worm of today — the God of tomor-
row." The Vedanta rests on this: that man is God.
So it is for man to work out his own salvation. Vive-
kananda put it this way: "Who can help the Infinite?
Even the hand that comes to you through the darkness
will have to be your own."
Vivekananda was canny enough to know that
straight Vedanta would be too much for Christians to
follow, right off the bat. But "levels of truth" pro-
vided a nice bridge to perfect ecumenism — where
there is no conflict because everyone is right. In the
Swami's words: "If one religion be true, then all the
others also must be true. Thus the Hindu faith is
48
yours as much as mine. We Hindus do not merely tol-
erate, we unite ourselves with every religion, pray-
ing in the mosque of the Mohammedan, worshipping
before the fire of the Zoroastrian, and kneeling to the
cross of the Christian. We know that all religions a-
like, from the lowest fetishism to the highest abso-
lutism, are but so many attempts of the human soul to
grasp and realize the Infinite. So we gather all these
flowers and, binding them together with the cords of
love, make them into a wonderful bouquet of worship."
Still, all religions were only steps to the ulti-
mate religion, which was Advaita Vedanta. He had a
special contempt for Christianity, which at best was
a "low truth" — a dualistic truth. In private conver-
sation he said that only a coward would turn the other
cheek. But whatever he said about other religions,
he always returned to the necessity of Advaita Ve-
danta. "Art, science, and religion," he said, "are
but three different ways of expressing a single truth.
But in order to understand this we must have the the-
ory of Advaita."
The appeal to today’s youth is unmistakable.
Vedanta declares the perfect freedom of every soul to
be itself. It denies all distinction between sacred
and secular: they are only different ways of expres-
sing the single truth. And the sole purpose of reli-
gion is to provide for the needs of different tempera-
ments: a god and a practice to suit everyone. Ina
word, religion is ''doing your own thing,"
All this may sound far-fetched; but Vivekananda
did an effective job. Now I'll show how successful he
was in introducing these Hindu ideas into Roman
Catholicism, where his success has been the most
striking.
Swami Vivekananda first came to America to
represent Hinduism at the 1893 Parliament of Reli-
49
gions. 1968 was the 75th anniversary of this event,
and at that time a Symposium of Religions was held
under the auspices of the Vivekananda Vedanta Soci-
ety of Chicago. Roman Catholicism was represented
by a Dominican theologian from De Paul University,
Father Robert Campbell. Swami Bhashyananda o-
pened the meeting with the reading of good-will mes-
sages from three very important people. The second
was from an American Cardinal.
Father Campbell began the afternoon session
with a talk on the conflict of the traditionalist versus
the modernist in modern Catholicism. He said: "In
my own university, surveys taken of Catholic student
attitudes show a great swing towards the liberal
views within the last five or six years. I know that
the great Swami Vivekananda would himself be in fa-
vor of most of the trends in the direction of liber-
al Christianity." What Father Campbell apparently
didn't know was that the modernistic doctrines he de-
scribed were not Christian at all; they were pure
and simple Vedanta.
So there will be no question of misinterpreta-
tion, I shall quote the Father's words on the modern-
ists' interpretation of five issues, just as they ap-
peared in three international journals: the Prabuddha
Bharata published in Calcutta, the Vedanta Kesheri
published in Madras, and Vedanta and the West, pub-
lished in London.
On doctrines: "Truth is a relative thing, these
doctrines and dogmas (i.e., the nature of God, how
man should live, and the after-life) are not fixed
things, they change, and we are coming to the point
where we deny some things that we formerly affirmed
as sacred truths."
On God: "Jesus is divine, true, but any one of us
can be divine. As a matter of fact, on many points,
50
I think you will find the liberal Christian outlook is
moving in the direction of the East in much of its phi-
losophy — both in its concept of an impersonal God
and in the concept that we are all divine."
On Original Sin: ''This concept is very offen-
sive to liberal Christianity, which holds that man is
perfectable by training and proper education."
On the world: ''...The liberal affirms that it
can be improved and that we should devote ourselves
to building a more humane society instead of pining to
go to heaven."
On other religions: "The liberal group says:
‘Don't worry about the old-fashioned things such as
seeking converts, etc., but let us develop better re-
lations with other religions.'"
So says Father Campbell for the modernistic
Catholics. The modernist has been led like a child by
the generous offer of higher truth, deeper philosophy
and greater sublimity — which can be had by merely
subordinating the living Christ to modern man.
Here, then, we see the spectacular success of
Hinduism, or Swami Vivekananda, or the power be-
hind Vivekananda. It's made a clean sweep of Roman
Catholicism. Her watchdogs have taken the thief as
the friend of the master, and the house is made deso-
late before their eyes. The thief said: "Let us have
interfaith understanding,'' and he was through the
gate. And the expedient was so simple. The Chris-
tian Hindus (the Swamis) had only to recite the Ve-
danta philosophy using Christian terms. But the
Hindu Christians (the modernistic Catholics), had to
extrapolate their religion to include Hinduism. Then
necessarily, truth became error, and error, truth.
Alas, some would now drag the Orthodox Church into
this desolate house. But let the modernists remem-
ber the words of Isaiah: Woe unto them that call e-
51
vil good and good evil; that put darkness for
light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for
sweet and sweet for bitter! Woe unto them that are
wise in their own eyes, and prudent in their own
sight! (Is. 5:20-21)

5. The Goal of Hinduism: The Universal Religion

I WAS AMAZED to see the inroads that Hindu-

ism had made during my absence from Christianity. It
may seem odd that I discovered these changes all at
once. This was because my guru held dominion over
my every action and all this time I was, quite literal-
ly, "cloistered," even in the world. The Swami's se-
vere injunctions kept me from reading any Christian
books or speaking with Christians. For all their
pretentious talk that all religions are true, the Swa-
mis know that Christ is their nemesis. So for twenty
years I was totally immersed in the study of oriental
philosophy and in the practice of its disciplines. I
was ordered by my guru to get a degree in philosophy
and anthropology, but these were only avocations that
filled time between the important parts of my life:
time with Swami and time with the teachings and
practices of Vedanta..
Swami Vivekananda's mission has been fulfilled
in many particulars, but one piece is yet to be accom-
plished. This is the establishing of a Universal Re-
ligion. In this rests the ultimate victory of the Devil.
Because the Universal Religion may not contain any
"individualistic, sectarian" ideas, it will have noth-
ing in common with Christianity, except in its seman-
tics. The World and the Flesh may be fires in the
stove and the chimney, but the Universal Religion will
52
be a total conflagration of Christianity. The point of
all this is that the Jesuit priest Teilhard de Chardin
has already laid the foundation for a "New Christia-
nity," and it is precisely to Swami Vivekananda's
specifications for this Universal Religion.
Teilhard de Chardin is an anomaly because, un-
like traditional Roman theologians, he is highly ap-
preciated by scholarly clergy who, in charity, I be-
lieve don't have any idea what he is talking about.
Because Teilhard's ideas are to a great extent pla-
giarisms from Vedanta and Tantra gummed together
with Christian-sounding jargon and heavily painted
with evolutionism.
Let me quote one example from him: "The world
I live in becomes divine. Yet these flames do not
consume me, nor do these waters dissolve me; for,
unlike the false forms of monism that impel us through
passivity towards unconsciousness, the pan—Chris-—
tianism I am finding places union at the term of an
arduous process of differentiation. I shall attain the
spirit only by releasing completely and exhaustively
all the powers of matter... 1 recognize that, follow-
ing the example of the incarnate God revealed to me
by the Catholic faith, I can be saved only by becoming
one with the universe." This is outright Hinduism.
It has a little bit of everything in it — a recognizable
verse from an Upanishad and pieces from several of
the philosophical systems along with their practices.
In a press conference given by Father Arrupe,
General of the Society of Jesus, in June of 1965,
Teilhard de Chardin was defended on the grounds that
"he was not a professional theologian and philoso-
pher, so that it was possible for him to be unaware of
all the philosophical and theological implications at-
tached to some of his intuitions." Then Father Ar-
rupe praised him: ''Pere Teilhard is one of the great
53
masters of contemporary thought, and his success is
not to be wondered at. He carried through, in fact,
a great attempt to reconcile the world of science with
the world of faith.'' The upshot of this reconciliation
is a new religion. And in Teilhard's words: "The new
religion will be exactly the same as our old Christi-
anity but with a new life drawn from the legitimate e-
volution of its dogmas as they come in contact with
new ideas." With this bit of background let us look at
Vivekananda's Universal Religion and Teilhard's
"New Christianity."
The Universal Religion as proposed by Viveka-
nanda must have five characteristics. First, it must
be scientific. It will be built on spiritual laws.
Hence, it will be a true and scientific religion. In
effect, both Vivekananda and Teilhard use theoretical
scientism as an article of their faith.
Second, its foundation is evolution. In Teil-
hard's words: "A hitherto unknown form of religion —
one that no one could yet have imagined or described,
for lack of a universe large enough and organic e-
nough to contain it — is burgeoning in men's hearts,
from a seed sown by the idea of evolution." And a-
gain: "Original sin... binds us hand and foot and
drains the blood from us" because "as it is now ex-
pressed, it represents a survival of static concepts
that are an anachronism in our evolutionist system of
thought." Such a pseudo-religious concept of '"evo-
lution," which was consciously rejected by Christian
thought, has been basic to Hindu thought for millenia;
every Hindu religious practice assumes it.
Third, the Universal Religion will not be built
around any particular personality, but will be found-
ed on "eternal principles." Teilhard is well on his
way towards the impersonal God when he writes:
"Christ is becoming more and more indispensable to

54
me ... but at the same time the figure of the histori-
cal Christ is becoming less and less substantial and
distinct to me." ''...My view of him is continually
carrying me further and higher along the axis of (I
hope!) orthodoxy.'' Sad to say, this non-historical
"Christ" spirit is Hindu orthodoxy, not Christian.
Fourth, the main purpose of the Universal Reli-
gion will be to satisfy the spiritual needs of men and
women of diverse types. Individualistic, sectarian
religions cannot offer this. Teilhard believed that
Christianity did not fit everybody's religious aspira-
tions. He records his discontent in these words:
"Christianity is still to some extent a refuge, but it
does not embrace, or satisfy or even lead the 'mod-
ern soul' any longer."
Fifth and final, within the Universal Religion
(or New Christianity) we are all wending our way to
the same destination. For Teilhard de Chardin it is
the Omega Point, which belongs to something that is
beyond representation. For Vivekananda it is the Om,
the sacred syllable of the Hindus: "All humanity, con-
verging at the foot of that sacred place where is set
the symbol that is no symbol, the name that is beyond
all sound."
Where will it end, this deformation of Christi-
anity and triumph of Hinduism? Will we have the Om,
or will we have the Omega?

55
 Tl, A Fakir’s “Miracle”

AND THE PRAYER OF JESUS

By Archimandrite Nicholas Drobyazgin

The author of this testimony, a new martyr of

the Communist Yoke, enjoyed a brilliant worldly
careeras a naval commander, being also deeply in-
volved in occultism as editor of the occult jour-
nal Rebus. Being saved from almost certain death
at sea bya miracle of St. Seraphim, he made a pil-
grimage to Sarov and then renounced his worldly
career and occult ties to becomeamonk. After be-
ing ordained priest, he served as a missionary in
China, India and Tibet, as the priest of various
embassy churches, and as abbot of several monas-
teries. After 1914 he lived at the Kiev Caves Lav-
ra, where he discoursed to the young people who
visited him concerning the influence of occultism
on contemporary events in Russia. In the autumn
of 1924, one month after he had been visited by a
certain Tuholx, the author of the book Black Magic,
he was murdered in his cell "by persons unknown,"
with obvious Bolshevik connivance, stabbed by a
56
dagger with a special handle apparently of occult
significance.
The incident here described, revealing the
nature of one of the mediumistic "gifts" which are
common in Eastern religions, took place not long
before 1900, and was recorded about 1922 by Dr.
A.P. Timofievich, lately of Novo-Diveyevo Convent,
N.Y. (Russian text in Orthodox Life, 1956, no. 1.)

ON A WONDROUS early tropical morning our

ship was cleaving the waters of the Indian Ocean,
nearing the island of Ceylon. The lively faces of the
passengers, for the most part Englishmen with their
families who were travelling to their posts or on
business in their Indian colony, looked avidly in the
distance, seeking out with their eyes the enchanted
isle, which for practically all of them had been bound
up since childhood with so much that was interesting
and mysterious in the tales and descriptions of trav-
ellers.
The island was still scarcely visible when al-
ready a fine, intoxicating fragrance from the trees
growing on it more and more enveloped the ship with
each passing breeze. Finally a kind of blue cloud lay
on the horizon, ever increasing in size as the ship
speedily approached. Already one could notice the
buildings spread out along the shore, buried in the
verdure of majestic palms, and the many-colored
crowd of the local inhabitants who were awaiting the
ship's arrival. The passengers, who had quickly be-
come acquainted with each other on the trip, were
laughing and conversing animatedly with each other
on the deck, admiring the wondrous scene of the
fairy-tale isle as it unfolded before their eyes. The
57
ship swung slowly around, preparing to moor at the
dock of the port city of Colombo.
Here the ship stopped to take on coal, and the
passengers had sufficient time to go ashore. The day
was so hot that many passengers decided not to leave
the ship until evening, when a pleasant coolness re-
placed the heat of the day. A small group of eight
people, to which I joined myself, was led by Colonel
Elliott, who had been in Colombo before and knew the
city and its environs well. He made an alluring pro-
position. "Ladies and gentlemen! Wouldn't you like
to go a few miles out of town and pay a visit to one of
the local magician-fakirs? Perhaps we shall see
something interesting." All accepted the colonel's
proposition with enthusiasm.
It was already evening when we left behind the
noisy streets of the city and rolled along a marvel-
lous jungle road which was twinkling with the sparks
of millions of fireflies. Finally, the road suddenly
widened and in front of us there was a small clearing
surrounded on all sides by jungle. At the edge of the
clearing under a big tree there was a kind of hut,
next to which a small bonfire was smouldering and a
thin, emaciated old man with a turban on his head sat
cross-legged and with his unmoving gaze directed at
the fire. Despite our noisy arrival, the old man con-
tinued to sit completely immovable, not paying us the
slightest attention. Somewhere from out of the dark-
ness a youth appeared and, going up to the colonel,
quietly asked him something. In a short while he
brought out several stools and our group arranged it-
self in a semi-circle not far from the bonfire. A
light and fragrant smoke arose. The old man sat in
the same pose, apparently noticing no one and noth-
ing. The half-moon which arose dispelled to some
extent the darkness of the night, and in its ghostly
58
light all objects took on fantastic outlines. Involun-
tarily everyone became quiet and waited to see what
would happen.
"Look! Look there, on the tree!" Miss Mary
cried in an excited whisper. We all turned our heads
in the direction indicated. And indeed, the whole
surface of the immense crown of the tree under which
the fakir was sitting was as it were gently flowing in
the soft illumination of the moon, and the tree itself
began gradually to melt and lose its contours; literal-
ly, some unseen hand had thrown over it an airy cov-
ering which became more and more concentrated with
every moment. Soon the undulating surface of the sea
presented itself with complete clarity before our as-
tonished gaze. With a light rumble one wave followed
another, making foaming white-caps; light clouds
were floating in a sky which had become blue.
Stunned, we could not tear ourselves away from this
striking picture.
And then in the distance there appeared a white
ship. Thick smoke poured out of its two large smoke-
stacks. It quickly approached us, cleaving the wa-
ter. To our great amazement we recognized it as our
own ship, the one on which we had come to Colombo!
A whisper passed through our ranks when we read on
the stern, traced out in gold letters, the name of our
ship, Luisa. But what astounded us most of all was
what we saw on the ship — ourselves! Don't forget
that at the time when all this happened cinematogra-
phy hadn't even been thought of and it was impossible
even to conceive of something like this. Each of us
saw ourselves on the ship's deck amongst people who
were laughing and talking to each other. But what
was especially astonishing: I saw not only myself, but
at the same time the whole deck of the ship down to
the smallest details, as if ina bird's-eye view —

59
which of course simply could not be in actuality. At
one and the same time I saw myself among the pas-
sengers, and the sailors working at the other end of
the ship, and the captain in his cabin, and even our
monkey "Nelly," a favorite of all, eating bananas on
the main mast. All my companions at the same time,
each in his own way, were greatly excited at what
they were seeing, expressing their emotions with soft
cries and excited whispers.
I had completely forgotten that I was a priest-
monk and, it would seem, had no business at all par-
ticipating in such a spectacle. The spell was so pow-
erful that both the mind and the heart were silent. My
heart began to beat painfully in alarm. Suddenly |
was beside myself. A fear took hold of my whole be-
ing.
My lips began to move and say: "Lord Jesus
Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner!"
Immediately I felt relieved. It was just as if some
mysterious chains which had bound me began to fall
away. The prayer became more concentrated, and
with it my peace of soul returned. I continued to look
at the tree, and suddenly, as if pursued by the wind,
the picture became clouded and was dispersed. I saw
nothing more except the big tree, illuminated by the
light of the moon, and likewise the fakir sitting in si-
lence by the bonfire, while my companions continued
to express what they were experiencing while gazing
at the picture, which for them had not been broke
off. me
But then something apparently happened to the
fakir also. He reeled to the side. The youth ran up
to him in alarm. The seance was suddenly broken up.
Deeply moved by everything they had experi-
enced, the spectators stood up, animatedly sharing
their impressions and not understanding at all why
60
the whole thing had been cut off so sharply and unex-
pectedly. The youth explained it as owing to the ex-
haustion of the fakir, who was sitting as before, his
head down, and paying not the slightest attention to
those present.
Having generously rewarded the fakir through
the youth for the opportunity to be participants of
such an astonishing spectacle, our group quickly got
together for the trip back. While starting out, I in-
voluntarily turned back once more in order to imprint
in my memory the whole scene, and suddenly — I
shuddered from an unpleasant feeling. My gaze met
the gaze of the fakir, which was full of hatred. It was
but for a single instant, and then he again assumed
his habitual position; but this glance once and for all
opened my eyes to the realization of whose power it
was that had produced this "miracle."

Eastern "spirituality" is by no means limited

to such mediumistic "tricks" as this fakir prac-
ticed; we shall see some of its more sincere as-
pects in the next chapter. Still, all the power
that is given to the practitioners of Eastern re-
ligions comes from the same phenomenon of medium-
ism, whose central characteristic is a passiveness
before "spiritual" reality that enables one to en-
ter into contact with the "gods" of the non-Chris-
tian religions. This phenomenon may be seen in
Eastern "meditation" (even when it may be given
the name of "Christian"), and perhaps even in those
strange "gifts" which in our days of spiritual
decline are mislabeled "charismatic"...

61
IV. Eastern Meditation Invades

C hristianity

AS AN ANSWER to the question of the possibi-

lity of a "dialogue" of Orthodox Christianity with the
various non-Christian religions, the reader has been
presented the testimony of three Orthodox Christians
who confirm, on the basis of Orthodox doctrine and
their own experience, what the Orthodox Church has
always taught: that Orthodox Christians do not at all
have the "same God" as the so-called '"monotheists"
who deny the Holy Trinity; that the gods of the pagans
are in fact demons; and that the experiences and pow-
ers which the pagan "gods" can and do provide are
satanic in nature. All this in no way contradicts the
words of St. Peter, that God is no respecter of per-
sons: but in every nation he that feareth Him and
worketh righteousness is acceptable to Him (Acts
10:34-5); or the words of St. Paul, that God in
times past suffered all nations to walk in their
own ways. Nevertheless He left not Himself with-
out witness, in that He did good, and gave us rain
from heaven, and fruitful’ seasons, filling our
hearts with food and gladness (Acts 14:17). Those
who live in the bondage of satan, the prince of this
62
world (John 12:31), in darkness which is unenlight-
ened by the Christian Gospel — are judged in the
light of that natural testimony of God which every man
may have, despite this bondage.
For the Christian, however, who has been giv-
en God's Revelation, no "dialogue" is possible with
those outside the Faith. Be ye not unequally yoked
with unbelievers: for what fellowship hath right-
eousness with unrighteousness? and what communion
hath light with darkness? and what concord hath
Christ with Belial? or what part hath he that be-
lieveth with an infidel?... Wherefore come out
from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord
(II Cor. 6:14-17). The Christian calling is rather
to bring the light of Orthodox Christianity to them,
even as St. Peter did to the God-fearing household of
Cornelius the Centurian (Acts 10:34-48), in order to
enlighten their darkness and join them to the chosen
flock of Christ's Church.
All of this is obvious enough to Orthodox Chris-
tians who are aware of and faithful to the Truth of
God's Revelation in the Church of Christ. But many
who consider themselves Christians have very little
awareness of the radical difference between Christi-
anity and all other religions; and some who may have
this awareness have very little discernment in the
area of "spiritual experiences" — a discernment that
has been practiced and handed down in Orthodox Pa-
tristic writings and Lives of Saints for nearly 2000
years.
In the absence of such awareness and discern-
ment, the increasing presence of Eastern religious
movements in the West, especially in the past decade
or two, has caused great confusion in the minds of
many would-be Christians. The case of Thomas Mer-
ton comes immediately to mind: a sincere convert to
63
Roman Catholicism and Catholic monasticism some
forty years ago (long before the radical reforms of
Vatican II), he ended his days proclaiming the equal-
ity of Christian religious experiences and the exper-
ience of Zen Buddhism and other pagan religions.
Something has "entered the air" in these past two de-
cades or so that has eroded whatever remained of a
sound Christian outlook in Protestantism and Roman
Catholicism and now is attacking the Church itself,
Holy Orthodoxy. The "dialogue with non-Christian
religions" is a result rather than a cause of this new
"spirit."
In this chapter we shall examine some of the
Eastern religious movements which have been influ-
ential in the 1970's, with special emphasis on the at-
tempts to develop a syncretism of Christianity and
Eastern religions, particularly in the realm of "spir-
itual practices." Such attempts more often than not
cite the Philokalia and the Eastern Orthodox tradi-
tion of contemplative prayer as being more kin to
Eastern spiritual practices than anything that exists
in the West; it is time enough, then, to point out
clearly the great abyss that exists between Christian
and non-Christian "spiritual experience," and why
the religious philosophy that underlies this new syn-
cretism is false and dangerous.

1. "Christian Yoga"

HINDU YOGA has been known in the West for

many decades, and especially in America it has given
rise to innumerable cults and also to a popular form
of physical therapy which is supposedly non-religious
in its aims. Nearly twenty years ago a French Bene-
64
dictine monk wrote of his experiences in making Yoga
a "Christian" discipline; the description that follows
is taken from his book. *
Hindu Yoga is a discipline that presupposes a
rather abstemious, disciplined life, and is composed
of breath control and certain physical postures which
produce a state of relaxation in which one meditates,
usually with the help of a mantra or sacred utterance
which aids concentration. The essence of Yoga is not
the discipline itself, but the meditation which is its
end. The author is correct when he writes: "The
aims of Hindu Yoga are spiritual. It is tantamount to
treason to forget this and retain only the purely phy-
sical side of this ancient discipline, to see in it no
more than a means towards bodily health or beauty"
(p. 54). To this it should be added that the person
who uses Yoga only for physical well-being is al-
ready disposing himself towards certain spiritual at-
titudes and even experiences of which he is undoubt-
edly unaware; of this more will be said below.
The same author then continues: ''The art of the
yogi is to establish himself in a complete silence, to
empty himself of all thoughts and illusions, to discard
and forget everything but this one idea: man's true
self is divine; it is God, and the rest is silence" (p.
63).
This idea, of course, is not Christian but pa-
gan, but the aim of "Christian Yoga" is to use the
technique of Yoga for a different spiritual end, for a
"Christian" meditation. The object of the Yoga tech-
nique, in this view, is to make one relaxed, content,
unthinking, and passive or receptive to spiritual i-
deas and experiences. "As soon as you have taken up

* J.-M. Dechanet, Christian Yoga, Harper & Row,

N.Y., 1972; first English translation, 1960.
65
the posture, you will feel your body relaxing and a
feeling of general well-being will establish itself in
you" (p. 158). The exercises produce an "extraor-
dinary sense of calm" (p. 6). "To begin with, one
gets the feeling of a general unwinding, of a well-
being taking hold, of a euphoria that will, and in fact
does, last. If one's nerves have been tense and over-
strung, the exercises calm them, and fatigue disap-
pears in a little time" (p. 49). "The goal of all his
[the yogi's] efforts is to silence the thinking self in
him by shutting his eyes to every kind of enticement"
(p. 55). The euphoria which Yoga brings "could well
be called a 'state of health' that allows us to do more
and do it better on the human plane to begin with, and
on the Christian religious, spiritual plane after-
wards. The most apt word to describe it is content-
edness, a contentedness that inhabits body and soul
and predisposes us ... toward the spiritual life" (p.
31). One's whole personality can be changed by it:
"Hatha Yoga influences character to the good. One
man, after some weeks of practice, admits he no long-
er knows himself, and everyone notices a change in
his bearing and reaction. He is gentler and more un-
derstanding. He faces experience calmly. He is con-
tent... His whole personality has been altered and he
himself feels it steadying and opening out; from this
there arises an almost permanent condition of eupho-
ria, of 'contentedness.'"' (p. 50).
But all of this is only a preparation for a "spir-
itual" aim, which begins to make itself felt in a very
short time: ''By becoming contemplative in a matter of
weeks, my prayer had been given a particular and
novel cast" (p. 7). Becoming extraordinarily calm,
the author notices "the ease I felt in entering into
prayer, in concentrating on a subject" (p. 6). One
becomes "more receptive to impulses and promptings
66
from heaven" (p. 13). "The practice of Yoga makes
for increased suppleness and receptivity, and thus
for openness to those personal exchanges between
God and the soul that mark the way of the mystical
life" (p. 31). Even for the "apprentice yogi" prayer
becomes "sweet" and "embraces the whole of man"
(p. 183). One is relaxed and "ready to tremble at the
touch of the Holy Ghost, to receive and welcome what
God in his Goodness thinks fit to let us experience"
(p. 71). "We shall be making our being ready to be
taken, to be seized — and this is surely one of the
forms, in fact the highest of Christian contemplation"
(p. 72). "Every day the exercises, and indeed the
whole ascetic discipline of my Yoga, make it easier
for the grace of Christ to flow in me. I feel my hun-
ger for God growing, and my thirst for righteous-
ness, and my desire to be a Christian in the full
strength of the word" (p. 11).
Anyone who understands the nature of prelest
or spiritual deception (see below, pages 176-9) wili
recognize in this description of "Christian Yoga"
precisely the characteristics of those who have gone
spiritually astray, whether into pagan religious ex-
periences or sectarian "Christian" experiences. The
same striving for "holy and divine feelings," the same
openness and willingness to be "seized" by a spirit,
the same seeking not for God but for "spiritual con-
solations," the same self-intoxication which is mis-
taken for a "state of grace," the same incredible ease
with which one becomes ''contemplative"’ or ''mysti-
cal," the. same ''mystical revelations" and pseudo-
spiritual states. These are the common character-
istics of all who are in this particular state of spiri-
tual deception. But the author of Christian Yoga, be-
ing a Benedictine monk, adds some particular ''medi-
tations'' which reveal him as fully in the spirit of the
67
Roman Catholic "meditation" of recent centuries, with
its free play of fantasies on Christian themes. Thus,
for example, having meditated on a theme of the
Christmas Eve mass, he begins to see the Child in
the arms of His Mother: "I gaze; nothing more. Pic-
tures, ideas (associations of ideas: Saviour—King-
Light-Halo-Shepherd-Child-Light again) come one af-
ter the other, march past... All these pieces of a sa-
cred puzzle taken together arouse one idea in me...
a silent vision of the whole mystery of Christmas"
(pp. 161-2). Anyone with the slightest knowledge of
Orthodox spiritual discipline will see that this pitia-
ble "Christian yogi" has fallen handily into a trap set
by one of the lesser demons that lie in wait for the
seeker of "spiritual experiences:"' he has not even
seen an "angel of light," but has only given way to his
own "religious fancies," the product of a heart and
mind totally unprepared for spiritual warfare and the
deceptions of the demons. Such "meditation" is being
practiced today ina number of Roman Catholic con-
vents and monasteries.
The fact that the book concludes with an article
by the French translator of the Philokalia, together
with excerpts from the Philokalia, only reveals the
abyss that separates these dilettantes from the true
spirituality of Orthodoxy, which is totally inaccessi-
ble to the modern "wise men" who no longer under-
stand its language. A sufficient indication of the au-
thor's incompetence in understanding the Philokalia
is the fact that he gives the name "prayer of the
heart" (which in Orthodox tradition is the highest
mental prayer, acquired by very few only after many
years of ascetic struggle and being humbled by a true
God-bearing Elder) to the easy trick of reciting syl-
lables in rhythm with the heartbeat (p. 196).
68
 We shall comment more fully below on the dan-
gers of this "Christian Yoga" when noting what it
possesses in common with other forms of "Eastern
meditation" which are being offered to Christians to-
day.

2. "Christian Zen"

AN EASTERN religious practice on a more

popular level is offered in the book of an Irish Cath-
olic priest: William Johnston, Christian Zen.* The
author starts from basically the same place as the
author of Christian Yoga: a feeling of dissatisfaction
with Western Christianity, a desire to give it a di-
mension of contemplation or meditation. ''Many peo-
ple, discontented with old forms of prayer, discon-
tented with the old devotions that once served so
well, are looking for something that will satisfy the
aspirations of the modern heart" (p. 9). "Contact
with Zen ... has opened up new vistas, teaching me
that there are possibilities in Christianity I never
dreamed of." One may "practice Zen as a way of
deepening and broadening his Christian faith" (p. 2).
The technique of Japanese Zen is very similar
to that of Indian Yoga — from which it is ultimately
derived — although it is rather simpler. There is the
same basic posture (but not the variety of postures of
Yoga), breathing technique, the repetition of a sacred
name if desired, as well as other techniques peculiar
to Zen. The aim of these techniques is the same as
that of Yoga: to abolish rational thinking and attain a

*Harper &Row, New York, 1971.

69
state of calm, silent meditation. The sitting position
"impedes discursive reasoning and thinking" and ena-
bles one to go ''down to the center of one's being in
imageless and silent contemplation" (p. 5) to "a deep
and beautiful realm of psychic life" (p. 17), to "deep
interior silence" (p. 16). The experience thus at-
tained is somewhat similar to that achieved by taking
drugs, for "people who have used drugs understand a
little about Zen, since they have been awakened to the
realization that there is a depth in the mind worth ex-
ploring" (p. 35). And yet this experience opens up
"a new approach to Christ, an approach that is less
dualistic and more Oriental" (p. 48). Even absolute
beginners in Zen can attain "a sense of union and an
atmosphere of supernatural presence" (p. 31), a sa-
voring of ''mystical silence" (p. 30); through Zen, the
state of contemplation hitherto restricted to a few
"mystics" can be ''broadened out," and "all may have
vision, all may reach samadhi" (enlightenment) (p.
46).
The author of Christian Zen speaks of the re-
newal of Christianity; but he admits that the experi-
ence he thinks can bring it about may be had by any-
one, Christian or non-Christian. "I believe that
there is a basic enlightenment which is neither
Christian nor Buddhist nor anything else. It is just
human" (p. 97). Indeed, at a convention on medita-
tion at a Zen temple near Kyoto "the surprising thing
about the meeting was lack of any common faith. No
one seemed the slightest bit interested in what anyone
else believed or disbelieved, and no one, as far as I
recall, even mentioned the name of God" (p. 69).
This agnostic character of meditation has a great ad-
vantage for "missionary" purposes, for "in this way
meditation can be taught to people who have little
faith — to those who are troubled in conscience or
70
fear that God is dead. Such people can always sit and
breathe. For them meditation becomes a search, and
I have found ... that people who begin to search in
this way eventually find God. Not the anthropomor-
phic God they have rejected, but the great being in
whom we live, move, and are" (p. 70).
The author's description of the Zen "enlighten-
ment" experience reveals its basic identity with the
"cosmic" experience provided by shamanism and many
pagan religions. "I myself believe that within us are
locked up torrents and torrents of joy that can be re-
leased by meditation — sometimes they will burst
through with incredible force, flooding the personali-
ty with an extraordinary happiness that comes from
one knows not where" (p. 88). Interestingly, the au-
thor, on returning to America after twenty years in
Japan, found this experience to be very close to the
Pentecostal experience, and he himself received the
"Baptism of the Spirit" at a "charismatic" meeting
(p. 100). The author concluded: "Returning to the
Pentecostal meeting, it seems to me that the imposi-
tion of hands, the prayers of the people, the charity
of the community — these can be forces that release
the psychic power that brings enlightenment to the
person who has been consistently practicing zazen"
(pp. 92-93). We shall examine in the seventh chapter
of this book the nature of the Pentecostal or "charis-—
matic" experience.
Little need be said in criticism of these views;
they are basically the same as those of the author of
Christian Yoga, only less esoteric and more popular.
Anyone who believes that the agnostic, pagan experi-
ence of Zen can be used for a "contemplative renewal
within Christianity" (p. 4) surely knows nothing what-
ever of the great contemplative tradition of Ortho-
doxy, which presupposes burning faith, true belief,
71
and intense ascetic struggle; and yet the same author
does not hesitate to drag the Philokalia and the
"great Orthodox schools" into his narrative, stating
that they also lead to the condition of "contemplative
silence and peace" and are an example of "Zen within
the Christian tradition" (p. 39); and he advocates the
use of the Prayer of Jesus during Zen meditation for
those who wish this (p. 28). Such ignorance is pos-
itively dangerous, especially when the possessor of it
invites the students at his lectures, as an experiment
in "mysticism," to "sit in zazen for forty minutes
each evening" (p. 30). How many sincere, misguided
false prophets there are in the world today, each
thinking he is bringing benefit to his fellow men, in-
stead of an invitation to psychic and spiritual disas-
ter! Of this we shall speak more in the conclusion
below.

ő. Transcendental Meditation

THE TECHNIQUE of Eastern meditation known

as "Transcendental Meditation" (or "TM" for short)
has attained such popularity in a few years, especial-
ly in America, and is advocated in such an outra-
geously flippant tone, that any serious student of con-
temporary religious currents will be inclined at first
to dismiss it as merely an over-inflated product of A-
merican advertising and showmanship. But this would
be a mistake, for in its serious claims it does not dif-
fer markedly from Yoga and Zen, and a close look at
its techniques reveals it as perhaps more authenti-
cally "Eastern" than either of the somewhat artificial
syncretisms, "Christian Yoga" and "Christian Zen."

72
 According to one standard account of this move-
ment, * "Transcendental Meditation" was brought to
America (where it has had its most spectacular suc-
cess) by a rather "unorthodox" Indian Yogi, Mahari-
shi Mahesh Yogi, and began to grow noticeably about
1961. In 1967 it received widespread publicity when
the popular singers known as the "Beatles" were con-
verted to it and gave up drugs; but they soon aban-
doned the movement (although they continued to medi-
tate), and the Maharishi hit his low point the next
year when his American tour, together with another
convert singing group called the "Beach Boys," was
abandoned as a financial failure. The movement it-
self, however, continued to grow: By 1971 there
were some 100,000 meditators following it, with 2000
specially-trained instructors, making it already by
far the largest movement of ''Eastern spirituality" in
America. In 1975 the movement reached its peak,
with about 40,000 trainees a month and upwards of
600,000 followers in all. During these years it was
widely used in the Army, public schools, prisons,
hospitals, and by church groups, including parishes
of the Greek Archdiocese in America, as a supposed-
ly neutral form of ''mental therapy" which is compati-
ble with any kind of religious belief or practice. The
"TM" course is one especially tailored to the Ameri-
can way of life and has been sympathetically called "a
course in how to succeed spiritually without really
trying" (p. 17); the Maharishi himself calls it a tech-
nique which is "just like brushing your teeth" (p.

* All citations in this section are from Jhan Robbins

and David Fisher, Tranquillity Without Pills (All
about Transcendental Meditation), Peter H. Wyden,
Inc., N.Y., 1972.

13
104). The Maharishi has been strongly criticized by
other Hindu Yogis for cheapening the long tradition of
Yoga in India by making this esoteric practice avail-
able to the masses for money (the charge in 1975 was
$125 for the course, $65 for college students, and
progressively less for high school, junior high
school, and very young children).
In its aims, presuppositions, and results, "TM"
does not differ markedly from "Christian Yoga" or
"Christian Zen;" it differs from them chiefly in the
simplicity of its techniques and of its whole philoso-
phy, and in the ease with which its results are ob-
tained. Like them, "TM does not require any belief,
understanding, moral code, or even agreement with
the ideas and philosophy" (p. 104); it is a technique
pure and simple, which "is based on the natural ten-
dency of the mind to move toward greater happiness
and pleasure... During transcendental meditation
your mind is expected to follow whatever is most na-
tural and most pleasant" (p. 13). "Transcendental
meditation is a practice first and a theory after-
wards. It is essential at the beginning that an indivi-
dual does not think intellectually at all" (p. 22).
The technique which the Maharishi has devised
is invariably the same at all "TM" centers throughout
the world: After two introductory lectures, one pays
the fee and then comes for "initiation," bringing with
him a seemingly strange collection of articles, always
the same: three pieces of sweet fruit, at least six
fresh flowers, and a clean handkerchief (p. 39).
These are placed in a basket and taken to the small
"initiation room," where they are placed on a table
before a portrait of the Maharishi's guru, from whom
he received his initiation into yoga; onthe same table
a candle and incense are burning. The disciple is a-
lone in the room with his teacher, who is himself re-
74
quired to have received initiation and to have been
instructed by the Maharishi personally. The cere-
mony before the portrait lasts for half an hour and is
composed of soft singing in Sanscrit (with meaning
unknown to the initiate) and a chanting of the names of
past "masters" of Yoga; at the end of the ceremony
the initiate is given a "mantra," a secret Sanscrit
word which he is to repeat ceaselessly during medi-
tation, and which no one is to know except his teach-
er (p. 42). The English translation of this ceremony
is never revealed to initiates; it is available only to
teachers and initiators themselves. It is contained in
an unpublished handbook called ''The Holy Tradition,"
and its text has now been printed by the "Spiritual
Counterfeits Project" in Berkeley as a separate pam-
phlet. This ceremony is nothing but a traditional Hin-
du ceremony of worship of the gods (puja), including
the deified guru of the Maharishi (Shri Guru Dev) and
the whole line of "masters" through which he himself
received his initiation. The ceremony ends with a
series of twenty-two "offerings" made to the Mahari-
shi's guru, each ending with the words "To Shri Guru
Dev I bow down." The initiator himself bows down
before a portrait of Guru Dev at the end of the cere-
mony and invites the initiate to do likewise; only then
is the latter initiated. (The bowing is not absolutely
required of the initiate, but the offerings are.)
Thus the modern agnostic, usually quite una-
wares, has been introduced to the realm of Hindu re-
ligious practices; quite easily he has been made to do
something to which his own Christian ancestors, per-
haps, had preferred torture and cruel death: he has
offered sacrifice to pagan gods. On the spiritual
plane it may be this sin, rather than the psychic tech-
nique itself, that chiefly explains the spectacular
success of "TM."
75
 Once he has been initiated, the student of "TM"
meditates twice daily for twenty minutes each time
(precisely the same amount recommended by the au-
thor of Christian Yoga), letting the mind wander
freely, and repeating the mantra as often as he thinks
of it; frequently, one's experiences are checked by
his teacher. Quite soon, even on the first attempt,
one begins to enter a new level of consciousness,
which is neither sleep nor wakefulness: the state of
"transcendental meditation." "Transcendental medi-
tation produces a state of consciousness unlike any-
thing we've known before, and closest to that state of
Zen developed after many years of intense study" (p.
115). "In contrast to the years that must be spent to
master other religious disciplines and Yoga, which
offer the same results that TM proponents claim,
teachers say TM can be taught in a matter of minutes"
(pp. 110-111). Some who have experienced it de-
scribe it as a "state of fulfillment" similar to some
drug experiences (p. 85), but the Maharishi himself
describes it in traditional Hindu terms: "This state
lies beyond all seeing, hearing, touching, smelling,
and tasting — beyond all thinking and feeling. This
state of the unmanifested, absolute, pure conscious-
ness of Being is the ultimate state of life" (p. 23).
"When an individual has developed the ability to bring
this deep state to the conscious level on a permanent
basis, he is said to have reached cosmic conscious-
ness, the goal of all meditators" (p. 25). In the ad-
vanced stages of "TM" the basic Yoga positions are
taught, but they are not necessary to the success of
the basic technique; nor is any ascetic preparation
required. Once one has attained the "transcendental
state of being," all that is required of one is twenty
minutes of meditation twice daily, since this form of
meditation is not at all a separate way of life, as in
76
India, but rather a discipline for those who lead an
active life. The Maharishi's distinction lies in having
brought this state of consciousness to everyone, not
just a chosen few.
There are numerous success stories for "TM,"
which claims to be effective in almost all cases: drug
habits are overcome, families are reunited, one be-
comes healthy and happy; the teachers of TM are con-
stantly smiling, bubbling over with happiness. Gen-
erally, TM does not replace other religions, but
strengthens belief in almost anything; "Christians,"
whether Protestant or Catholic, also find that it
makes their belief and practice more meaningful and
deeper (p. 105).
The swift and easy success of "TM," while it is
symptomatic of the waning influence of Christianity on
contemporary mankind, has also led to its early de-
cline. Perhaps more than any other movement of
"Eastern spirituality," it has had the character of a
"fad," and the Maharishi's announced aim to "initiate"
the whole of humanity is evidently doomed to failure.
After the peak year of 1975, enrollment in "TM"
courses has steadily declined, so much so that in
1977 the organization announced the opening of a
whole new series of "advanced" courses, obviously
devised in order to regain public interest and enthu-
siasm. These courses are intended to lead initiates
to the ''siddhis" or "supernatural powers" of Hindu-
ism: walking through walls, becoming invisible, levi-
tating and flying through the air, and the like. The
courses have generally been greeted with cynicism,
even though a "TM" brochure features a photograph of
a "levitating" meditator (see Time Magazine, August
8, 1977, p. 75). Whether or not the courses (which
cost up to $3000) will produce the claimed results —
which are in the province of the traditional "fakirs"
77
of India (see above, pp. 56-61) — "TM" itself stands
revealed as a passing phase of the occult interest in
the second half of the 20th century. Already many
examples have been publicized of "TM" teachers and
disciples alike who have been afflicted with the com-
mon maladies of those who dabble in the occult: men-
tal and emotional illness, suicide, attempted murder,
demonic possession.
In 1978 a United States Federal court came to
the decision that ''TM" is indeed religious in nature
and may not be taught in public schools.* This deci-
sion will undoubtedly further limit the influence of
"TM," which, however, will probably continue to ex-
ist as one of the many forms of meditation which many
see as compatible with Christianity — another sad
sign of the times.

* See TM in Court: The complete text of the Feder-

al Court's opinion in the case of Malnak v. Maharishi
Mahesh Yogi; Spiritual Counterfeits Project, P.O.
Box 4308, Berkeley, Ca., 94704; $2.00 postpaid.

78
 V. The “New Religious
Conctousness”’

THE SPIRIT OF THE EASTERN CULTS

IN THE 1970's

THE THREE KINDS of "Christian meditation"

described above are only the beginning; in general, it
may be said that the influence of Eastern religious i-
deas and practices upon the once-Christian West has
reached astonishing proportions in the decade of the
1970's. In particular America, which barely two de-
cades ago was still religiously "provincial" (save in
a few large cities), its spiritual horizon largely lim-
ited to Protestantism and Roman Catholicism — has
seen a dazzling proliferation of Eastern (and pseudo-
Eastern) religious cults and movements. l
The history of this proliferation can be traced
from the restless disillusionment of the post-World
War II generation, which first manifested itself in the
1950's in the empty protest and moral libertinism of
the "beat generation," whose interest in Eastern re-
ligions was at first rather academic and mainly a sign
of dissatisfaction with "Christianity." There followed
a second generation, that of the "hippies" of the
1960's with its "rock" music and psychodelic drugs
and search for "increased awareness" at any cost;
now young Americans plunged wholeheartedly into po-
79
litical protest movements (notably against the war in
Vietnam) on the one hand, and the fervent practice of
Eastern religions on the other. Indian gurus, Tibet-
an lamas, Japanese Zen masters, and other Eastern
"sages" came to the West and found a host of ready
disciples who made them successful beyond the
dreams of the westernized swamis of preceding gen-
erations; and young people travelled to the ends of
the world, even to the heights of the Himalayas, to
find the wisdom or the teacher or the drug that would
bring them the ''peace" and "freedom" they sought.
In the 1970's a third generation has succeeded
the "hippies." Outwardly quieter, with fewer "de-
monstrations'' and generally less flamboyant behav-
ior, this generation has gone more deeply into East-
ern religions, whose influence now has become much
more pervasive than ever before. For many of this
newer generation the religious ''search" has ended:
they have found an Eastern religion to their liking
and are now seriously occupied in practicing it. A
number of Eastern religious movements have already
become "native" to the West, especially in America:
there are now Buddhist monasteries composed entire-
ly of Western converts, and for the first time there
have appeared American and other Western gurus and
Zen masters.
Let us look at just a few pictures — descrip-
tions of actual events in the early and mid-1970's —
which illustrate the dominance of Eastern ideas and
practices among many young Americans (who are only
the "avant-garde" of the youth of the whole world).
The first two pictures show a more superficial in-
volvement with Eastern religions, and are perhaps
only a leftover from the generation of the 1960's; the
last two reveal the deeper involvement characteristic
of the 1970's.
80
 1. Hare Krishna in San Francisco

"On a street bordering Golden Gate Park in the

Haight-Ashbury section of San Francisco stood the
Krishna Consciousness temple... Above the entrance
to the temple were the two-foot-high wooden letters
‘Hare Krishna.’ The large storefront windows were
covered with red and orange patterned blankets.
"The sounds of chanting and music filled the
street. Inside there were dozens of brightly-colored
paintings on the wall, thick red rugs on the floor, and
a smoky haze in the air. This smoke was incense, an
element of the ceremony in progress. The people in
the room were softly chanting barely audible Sanskrit
words. The room was nearly full, with about fifty
people who all appeared to be young sitting on the
floor. -Assembled in front were about twenty persons
wearing long, loose-fitting orange and saffron robes,
with white paint on their noses. Many of the men had
shaved their heads except for a ponytail. The women
with them also had white paint on their noses and
small red marks on their foreheads. The other young
persons in the room appeared no different from other
denizens of the Haight-Ashbury, costumed in head-
bands, long hair, beards, and an assortment of rings,
bells, and beads, and they were also enthusiastically
participating in the ceremony. The ten or so persons
sitting in the rear appeared to be first-time visitors.
"The chanting ceremony (mantra) increased in
tempo and in volume. Two girls in long saffron robes
were now dancing to the chant. The leader of the
chant began to cry the words (of the chant in San-
skrit)... The entire group repeated the words, and
attempted to maintain the leader's intonation and rhy-
thm. Many of the participants played musical instru-
ments. The leader was beating a hand drum in time
81
with his chanting. The two swaying, dancing girls
were playing finger cymbals. One young man was
blowing a seashell; another was beating on a tambou-
rine... On the walls of the temple were over a dozen
paintings of scenes from the Bhagavad-Gita.
"The music and the chanting grew very loud and
fast. The drum was ceaselessly pounding. Many of
the devotees started personal shouts, hands up-
stretched, amidst the general chant. The leader
knelt in front of a picture of the group's ‘spiritual
master' on a small shrine near the front of the room.
The chanting culminated in a loud crescendo and the
room became silent. The celebrants knelt with their
heads to the floor as the leader said a short prayer
in Sanskrit. Then he shouted five times, 'All glories
to the assembled devotees,' which the others repeated
before they sat up."'*
This is one of the typical worship services of
the "Krishna Consciousness" movement, which was
founded in America in 1966 by an Indian ex-business-—
man, A.C. Bhaktivedanta, in order to bring the Hindu
discipline of bhakti yoga to the disoriented and
searching young people of the West. The earlier
phase of interest in Eastern religions (in the 1950's
and early 1960's) had emphasized intellectual inves-
tigation without much personal involvement; this new-
er phase demands wholehearted participation. Bhakti
yoga means uniting oneself to one's chosen "god" by
loving and worshipping him, and changing one's whole
life in order to make this one's central occupation.
Through the non-rational means of worship (chanting,
music, dance, devotion) the mind is "expanded" and

* Charles Glock and Robert Bellah, The New Reli-

gtous Consciousness, University of California Press,
Berkeley, 1976, pp. 31-32.
82
"Krishna consciousness" is attained, which — if e-
nough people will do it — is supposed to end the trou-
bles of our disordered age and usher ina new age of
peace, love, and unity.
The bright robes of the ''Krishnas" became a
familiar sight in San Francisco, especially on the day
every year when the immense idol of their "god" was
wheeled through Golden Gate Park to the ocean, at-
tended by all the signs of Hindu devotion — a typical
scene of pagan India, but something new for "Chris-—
tian! America. From San Francisco the movement
has spread to the rest of America and to Western Eu-
rope; by 1974 there were 54 Krishna temples
throughout the world, many of them near colleges and
universities (members of the movement are almost all
very young).
The recent death of the founder of the movement
has raised questions about its future; and indeed its
membership, although very visible, has been rather
small in number. As a "sign of the times," however,
the meaning of the movement is clear, and should be
very disturbing to Christians: many young people to-
day are looking for a "god" to worship, and the most
blatant form of paganism is not too much for them to
accept.

2. Guru Maharaj-ji at the Houston Astrodome

By the fall of 1973 a number of Eastern gurus of

the newer school, led by Maharishi Mahesh Yogi with
his "TM," had come to the West and gathered a fol-
lowing, only to fade from the public eye after a brief
reign in the glare of publicity. Guru Maharaj-ji was
the most spectacular and, one might say, outrageous

83
of these gurus. Fifteen years old, he had already
been proclaimed to be "God," his family (mother and
three brothers) was the "Holy Family," and his or-
ganization (the "Divine Light Mission") had communi-
ties (ashrams) all over America. His 80,000 follow-
ers ("premies"), like the followers of Krishna, were
expected to give up worldly pleasures and meditate in
order to attain an "expanded" consciousness which
made them perfectly peaceful, happy, and "'blissed
out" — a state of mind in which everything seems
beautiful and perfect just the way it is. Ina special
initiation at which they "receive the knowledge," dis-
ciples are shown an intense light and three other
signs within themselves, which later they are able to
meditate on by themselves (The New Religious Con-
sciousness, p. 54). In addition to this "knowledge,"
disciples are united in believing that Maharaj-ji is
the "Lord of the Universe" who has come to inaugu-
rate a new age of peace for mankind.
For three days in November, 1973, the "Divine
Light Mission" rented the Houston Astrodome (an im-
mense sports arena entirely covered by a dome) in
order to stage ''the most holy and significant event in
the history of mankind." "Premies" from all over the
world were to gather to worship their "god" and be-
gin the conversion of America (through the mass me-
dia, whose representatives were carefully invited) to
the same worship, thus beginning the new age of man-
kind. Appropriately, the event was called "Millenium
ee Pe

Typical of Maharaj-ji's convinced disciples was

Rennie Davis, leftist demonstrator of the 1960's and
one of the "Chicago Seven" accused of inciting riots
at the 1968 Democratic National Convention. He spent
the summer of 1973 giving press conferences and
speeches to whoever would listen, telling America:
84
"He is the greatest event in history and we sleep
through it... I feel-like shouting inthe streets. If
we knew who he was, we would crawl across America
on our hands and knees to rest our heads at his
feet .‘'*
Indeed, the worship of Maharaj-ji is expressed
in a full prostration before him with one's head to the
ground, together with a Sanskrit phrase of adoration.
A tremendous ovation greeted his appearance at "Mil-
lenium '73," he sat atop a tall throne, crowned by an
immense golden "crown of Krishna," as the Astro-
dome scoreboard flashed the word "G-O-D." Young
American "premies" wept for joy, others danced on
the stage, the band played ''The Lord of the Universe"
— adapted from an old Protestant hymn (The Spiri-
tual Supermarket, pp. 80,94).
All this, let us say again — in "Christian"
America, This is already something beyond mere
worship of pagan ''gods.'' Until a very few years a-
go such worship of a living man would have been in-
conceivable in any "Christian" country; now it has
become an ordinary thing for many thousands of reli-
gious "seekers" in the West. Here we have already
had a preview of the worship of Antichrist at the end
of the age — the one who will sit in the temple of
God, setting himself forthas God (II Thes. 2:4).
"Millenium '73'' seems to have been the peak of
Maharaj-ji's influence. As it was, only 15,000 fol-
lowers attended it (much less than expected), and
there were no "miracles" or special signs to indicate
the "new age" had actually begun. A movement so
dependent on media publicity and so much bound up
with the popular taste of a particular generation (the

* Robert Greenfield, The Spiritual Supermarket,

Saturday Review Press, New York, 1975, p.43.

85
music at ''Millenium '73'' was composed mostly of the
popular songs of the ''counter-culture" of the 1960's)
can expect to go out of fashion rather quickly; and the
recent marriage of Maharaj-ji to his secretary has
further weakened his popularity as a "god."
Other of the "spiritual" movements of our times
seem to be less subject to the whims of popular fash-
ion and more indicative of the depth of the influence
which Eastern religions are now attaining in the
West.

3. Tantric Yoga in the Mountains of New Mexico

Ina grassy meadow at the 7500-foot elevation

in the Jemez mountains of northern New Mexico, a
thousand young Americans (most of them between the
ages of 20 and 25) gathered for ten days of spiritual
exercises at the time of the summer solstice in June,
1973. They arise at four a.m. every day and assem-
ble before sunrise (wrapped in blankets against the
morning frost) to sit on the ground in rows in front of
an outdoor stage. Together, they begin the day with
a mantra in Punjabi (a Sanskritic language) in order
to "tune in" to the spiritual practices that are to fol-
low.
First there are several hours of kundalini yoga
— a series of strenuous physical exercises, chant-
ing, and meditation aimed at acquiring conscious con-
trol of body and mind processes and preparing one
for "God realization." Then there is the ceremony of
the raising of two flags: the American flag and the
"flag of the Aquarian nation" — this "nation" being
the peaceful people of the "Aquarian Age" or milleni-
um for which this cult is preparing — accompanied by
86
the singing of ''God Bless America" and a prayer for
the American nation. After a vegetarian meal (typical
of almost all the new cults) and lectures on spiritual
and practical subjects, all prepare for a long session
of tantric yoga.
Tantric yoga has been little heard of and almost
never practiced in the West up to now. All authorities
agree that it is an extremely dangerous exercise,
practiced always by male and female together, that e-
vokes a very powerful psychic energy, requiring
close supervision and control. Supposedly, there is
only one master of tantric yoga living on the earth at
any one time; the exercises at "Solstice" in New
Mexico were led by the "Great Tantric" of our days,
Yogi Bhajan.
All, dressed identically in white, sit down in
long, straight lines, men opposite women, packed
shoulder-to-shoulder down the lines and back-to-
back with the next line. About ten double lines
stretch out from the stage, each 75 feet long; assis-
tants make sure the lines are perfectly straight to
assure the proper "flow"of the yogic "magnetic field."
The chanting of mantras begins, with special
chants invoking a departed guru who is Yogi Bhajan's
"special protector." The Yogi himself, an impressive
man — six feet four inches tall with a great black
beard, dressed in white robe and turban — appears
and begins to speak of his dream for "a new beautiful
creative nation" of America which can be built by the
spiritual preparation of people today; the tantric ex-
ercises, which are a key in this preparation, trans-
form people from their usual "individual conscious-
ness" to "group consciousness" and finally to "uni-
versal consciousness."
The exercises begin. They are extremely diffi-
cult, involving strong physical effort and pain and e-
87
voking strong emotions of fear, anger, love, etc.
Everyone must do exactly the same thing at the same
time; difficult positions are held motionlessly for long
periods; complicated mantras and exercises must be
executed in precise coordination with one's partner
and with everyone in one's own row; each separate
exercise may take from 31 to 61 minutes. Individual
awareness disappears in the intense group activity,
and strong after-effects are felt — physical exhaus-
tion and sometimes temporary paralysis, emotional
exhaustion or elation. Further, since no one at "Sol-
stice'' is allowed to converse with anyone else, there
is no opportunity to make rational sense of the exper-
ience by sharing it with others; the aim is to effect a
radical change in oneself.
Following afternoon classes-in such subjects as
Oriental arts of self-defense, practical medicine and
nutrition, and the running of an ashram, there is an
evening session (after another meal) of "spiritual
Singing:'' Sanskrit mantras are sung to current folk
and "rock" music, "rock festival" and "joyful wor-
ship'' in a foreign tongue are joined together — part
of Yogi Bhajan's effort to make his religion "native
American" (The New Religious Consciousness, pp. 8-
18).
_ The religion described above is a modern adap-
tation of the Sikh religion of northern India, joined to
several practices of yoga. Called the '3HO" (Healthy
—Happy-Holy Organization), it was founded in 1969 in
Los Angeles by Yogi Bhajan, who originally came to
America to take up a teaching position and only inci-
dentally became a religious leader when he discov-
ered that his courses in yoga appealed to the "hip-
pies" of southern California. Combining the "'spiritu-
al" search of the "hippies" with his own knowledge of
Indian religions, he formed an "American" religion
88
that differs from most Eastern religions by its em-
phasis on a this—worldly practical life (like the Sikhs
in India, who are mostly a merchant class); marriage
and a stable home life, responsible employment, and
social service are required of all members.
Since its foundation in 1969, ''3HO" has expand-
ed to over 100 ashrams (communities which serve as
gathering-places for non-resident participants) in A-
merican Cities, as well as a few in Europe and Japan.
Although externally it is quite distinct from the other
new Eastern cults (full members of the cult formally
become Sikhs and thereafter wear the characteristic
Sikh turban and white clothing), '3HO" is one with
them in appealing to ex-"hippies,'' making an "ex-.
panded" (or "universal" or "'transcendental") con-
sciousness its central aim, and in seeing itself as a
Spiritual "avant-garde" that will bring about a new
millenial age (which most groups see in astrological
terms as the "Aquarian Age").
As acult that advocates a relatively normal life
in society, "3HO" is still just as much a "sign of the
times" as the Hindu cults that promote an obvious
"escapism;" it is preparing for a "healthy, happy and
holy" America totally without reference to Christ.
When convinced and "happy" Americans speak calmly
about God and their religious duties without mention
of Christ, one can no longer doubt that the "post-
Christian" age has come in earnest.

4. Zen Training in Northern California

In the forested mountains of northern Califor-

nia, in the shadow of immense Mount Shasta — a "ho-
ly" mountain to the original Indian inhabitants, and
long a center of occult activities and settlements,
89
which are now once again on the increase — there
has been since 1970 a Zen Buddhist monastery. Long
before 1970 there had been Zen temples in the larger
cities of the West Coast where Japanese had settled,
and there had been attempts to start Zen monasteries
in California; but "Shasta Abbey," as it is called, is
the first successful American Zen monastery. (In
Zen Buddhism a "monastery" is primarily a training
school for Zen "priests," both male and female.)
In Shasta Abbey the atmosphere is very order-
ly and businesslike. Visitors (who are allowed to
take guided tours at restricted times, but may not
fraternize with the residents) find the monks or train-
ees in traditional black robes and with shaved heads;
everyone seems to know exactly what he is doing, and
a clear sense of seriousness and dedication is pre-
sent.
The training itself is a strict five-year (or
more) program which allows graduates to become
"priests" and teachers of Zen and to conduct Bud-
dhist ceremonies. As at secular schools, trainees
pay a fee for room and board ($175 a month, payable
in advance for each month — already a means of
weeding out unserious candidates!), but the life itself
is that of "monks" rather than students. Strict rules
govern dress and behavior, vegetarian meals are eat-
en in silence communally, no visitors or idle conver-
sations are allowed; life centers about the meditation
hall, where trainees eat and sleep in addition to me-
ditating, and no non—Zen religious practices are al-
lowed. The life is a very intense and concentrated
one, and every event of daily life (even washing and
toilet) has its Buddhist prayer, which is recited si-
lently.
Although the Abbey belongs to a "reformed"
Soto Zen sect — to emphasize its independence from
90
Japan and its adaptation to American conditions of
life — rites and ceremonies are in the Japanese Zen
tradition. There is the ceremony of becoming a Bud-
dhist, equinox rites celebrating the ''transformation
of the individual,'' the ceremonial "feeding of hungry
ghosts" (remembrance of the dead), the "Founder's
Day" ceremony of expressing gratitude to the trans-
mitters of Zen down to the present master, the festi-
val of Buddha's enlightenment, and others. Homage
is paid by bowing down before images of Buddha, but
the primary emphasis of the teaching is on the ''Bud-
dha-nature" within one.
The Zen Master at Shasta Abbey is a Westerner
and a woman (Buddhist practice permitting this): Jiyu
Kennett, an Englishwoman born of Buddhist parents in
1924, who received Buddhist training in several tra-
ditions in the Far East and "ordination" at a Soto
Zen monastery in Japan. She came to America in
1969 and founded the monastery the next year with a
few young followers; since then the community has
grown rapidly, attracting mostly young men (and wo-
men) in their twenties.
The reason for the success of this monastery —
apart from the natural appeal of Zen to a generation
sick of rationalism and mere outward learning —
seems to lie in the mystique of "authentic transmis-
sion" of the Zen experience and tradition, which the
"Abbess" provides through her training and certifi-
cation in Japan; her personal qualities as a foreigner
and a born Buddhist who is still in close touch with
the contemporary mind (with a very "American" prac-
ticality), seem to seal her influence with the young
American convert generation of Buddhists.
The aim of Zen training at Shasta Abbey is to
fill all of life with "pure Zen." Daily meditation (at
times for as much as eight or ten hours in one day) is
91
the center of a concentrated, intense religious life
that leads, supposedly, to “lasting peace and harmony
of body and mind.'' Emphasis is on "spiritual
growth," and the publications of the Abbey — a bi-
monthly journal and several books by the Abbess —
reveal a high degree of awareness of spiritual posing
and fakery. The Abbey is opposed to the adoption of
Japanese national (as opposed to Buddhist) customs;
warns of the dangers of "guru-hopping" and falsely
worshipping the Zen Master; forbids astrology, for-
tune-telling (even the I Ching), astral travelling and
all other psychic and occult activities; mocks the ac-
ademic and intellectual (as opposed to experiential)
approach to Zen; and emphasizes hard work and rigo-
rous training, with the banishing of all illusions and
fantasies about oneself and "spiritual life." Discus-
sions on "spiritual" matters by young Zen "priests"
(as recorded in the Abbey's Journal) sound, in their
sober and knowledgeable tone, remarkably like dis-
cussions among serious young Orthodox converts and
monks. In intellectual formation and outlook, these
young Buddhists seem quite close to many of our Or-
thodox converts. The young Orthodox Christian of to-
day might well say: ''There, but for the grace of God,
I myself might be," so convincingly authentic is the
spiritual outlook of this Zen monastery, which offers
almost everything the young religious seeker of today
might desire — except, of course, Christ the true
God and the eternal salvation which He alone can
give.
The monastery teaches a Buddhism that is not
"a cold and distant discipline," but is filled with
"love and compassion." Contrary to the usual expo-
sitions of Buddhism, the Abbess emphasizes that the
center of Buddhist faith is not ultimate "nothing-
ness," but a living "god" (which she claims to be the
92
esoteric Buddhist teaching): "The secret of Zen...
is to know for certain, for oneself, that the Cosmic
Buddha exists. A true master is he or she who does
not waver in his certainty of, and love for, the Cos-
mic Buddha... I was overjoyed when I finally knew
for certain that He existed; the love and gratitude in
me knew no bounds. Nor have I ever felt such love
as came forth from Him; I so want everyone else to
feel it too."*
There are presently some seventy priest-train-
ees at Shasta Abbey and its "branch priories," chief-
ly in California. The monastery is now in a state of
rapid expansion, both on its own grounds and in its
"mission" to the American people; there is a growing
movement of lay Buddhists who make the Abbey their
religious center and often come there, together with
psychologists and other interested persons, on medi-
tation retreats of varying lengths. With their publi-
cations, counselling and instruction in California ci-
ties, a projected children's school and a home for the
elderly — Shasta Abbey is indeed progressing in its
aim of "growing Zen Buddhism in the West."
Towards Christianity the Abbess and her disci-
ples have a condescending attitude; they respect the
Philokalia and other Orthodox spiritual texts, re-
cognizing Orthodoxy as the closest to them among
"Christian" bodies, but regard themselves as being
"beyond such things as theologies, doctrinal disputes
and ‘isms,'' which they regard as not belonging to
"True Religion" (Journal, Jan.-Feb., 1978, p.54).
Zen has, in fact, no theological foundation, re-
lying entirely on "experience" and thus falling into
the "pragmatic fallacy" that has already been noted

* The Journal of Shasta Abbey, Jan. — Feb., 1978,

p. 6.
93
earlier in this book, in the chapter on Hinduism: "If
it works, it must be true and good." Zen, without
any theology, is no more able than Hinduism to dis-
tinguish between good and evil spiritual experiences;
it can only state what seems to be good because it
brings "peace" and "harmony,'' as judged by the na-
tural powers of the mind and not by any revelation —
everything else it rejects as more or less illusory.
Zen appeals to the subtle pride — so widespread to-
day — of those who think they can save themselves,
and thus have no need of any Saviour outside them-
selves.
Of all of today's Eastern religious currents,
Zen is probably the most sophisticated intellectually
and the most sober spiritually. With its teaching of
compassion and a loving "Cosmic Buddha," it is per-
haps as high a religious ideal as the human mind can
attain — without Christ. Its tragedy is precisely
that is has no Christ init, and thus no salvation, and
its very sophistication and sobriety effectively pre-
vent its followers from seeking salvation in Christ.
In its quiet, compassionate way it is perhaps the sad-
dest of all the reminders of the 'post-Christian''
times in which we live. Non-Christian "spirituality"
is no longer a foreign importation in the West; it has
become a native American religion putting down deep
roots into the consciousness of the West. Let us be
warned from this: the religion of the future will not
be a mere cult or sect, but a powerful and profound
religious orientation which will be absolutely con-
vincing to the mind and heart of modern man.

94
 5. The New "Spirituality" vs. Christianity

Other examples of the new Eastern cults in the

West could be multiplied; each year finds new ones,
or new transformations of old ones. In addition to the
overtly religious cults, the last decade especially has
seen an increase of secular "consciousness cults,"
as one popular newsmagazine calls them (U.S.News and
World Report, Feb. 16, 1976, p. 40). These ''mind-
therapy" groups include the "Erhard Seminars Train-
ing" established in 1971, "Rolfing," "Silva Mind Con-
trol," and various forms of "encounter" and ''biofeed-
back," all of which offer a "release of tensions" and
a "tapping of the hidden capabilities" of man, ex-
pressed in a more or less plausible 20th-century
"scientific" jargon. One is reminded also of other
"consciousness" movements that have become less
fashionable today, from "Christian Science" to "Sci-
ence of Mind" to "Scientology."
All these movements are incompatible with
Christianity. Orthodox Christians must be told ab-
solutely to stay away from them.
Why do we speak so categorically?
1. These movements have no foundation in
Christian tradition or practice, but are purely the
product of Eastern pagan religions or of modern spi-
ritism, more or less diluted and often presented as
"non-religious." They not only teach wrongly, not in
accordance with Christian doctrine, about spiritual
life; they also lead one, whether through pagan reli-
gious experiences or psychic experiments, into a
wrong spiritual path whose end is spiritual and psy-
chic disaster, and ultimately the loss of one's soul e-
ternally.
2. Specifically, the experience of "spiritual
quietness" which is given by various kinds of medita-
95
tion, whether without specific religious content (as is
claimed by "TM," some forms of Yoga and Zen, and
the secular cults) or with pagan religious content (as
in Hare Krishna, the "Divine Light Mission," "3HO,"
etc.), is an entrance to the "cosmic" spiritual realm
where the deeper side of the human personality en-
ters into contact with actual spiritual beings. These
beings, in man's fallen state, are first of all the de-
mons or fallen spirits who are closest to man.* Zen
Buddhist meditators themselves, despite all their
cautions about spiritual "experiences," describe
their encounters with these spirits (mixed with human
fantasies), all the while emphasizing that they are not
"clinging" to them.**
3. The "initiation" into experiences of the psy-
chic realm which the "consciousness cults" provide
involves one in something beyond the conscious con-
trol of the human will; thus, once having been "initia-
ted," it is often a very difficult thing to untangle one-
self from undesirable psychic experiences. In this
way, the "new religious consciousness" becomes an
enemy of Christianity that is much more powerful and
dangerous than any of the heresies of the past. When
experience is emphasized above doctrine, the normal
Christian safeguards which protect one against the
attacks of fallen spirits are removed or neutralized,
and the passiveness and "openness" which character-
ize the new cults literally open one up to be used by

* See Bishop Ignatius Brianchaninov's exposition of

the Orthodox teaching on the spiritual and sensuous
perception of spirits and the opening of man's "doors
of perception," in The Orthodox Word, no. 82, 1978.
** See Jiyu Kennett, How to Grow a Lotus Blossom,
Shasta Abbey, 1977 — a Zen Master's description of
her near-death visions.
96
demons. Studies of the experiences of many of the
"consciousness cults" show that there is a regular
progression in them from experiences which at first
are "good" or "neutral" to experiences which become
strange and frightening and in the end clearly demon-
ic. Even the purely physical side of psychic disci-
plines like Yoga are dangerous, because they are de-
rived from and dispose one towards the psychic atti-
tudes and experiences which are the original purpose
of Yoga practice.
The seductive power of the "new religious con-
sciousness" is so great today that it can take posses-
sion of one even while he believes that he is remain-
ing a Christian. This is true not only of those who
indulge in the superficial syncretisms or combina-
tions of Christianity and Eastern religions which
have been mentioned above; it is true also of an in-
creasing number-of people who regard themselves as
fervent Christians. The profound ignorance of irue
Christian spiritual experience in our times is pro-
ducing a false Christian "spirituality" whose nature
is closely kin to the "new religious consciousness."

In Chapter VII we will take a long and careful

look at the most widespread current of "Christian
spirituality" today. Init we will see the frightening
prospect of a "new religious consciousness" taking
possession of well-meaning Christians, even Ortho-
dox Christians — to such an extent that we cannot
help but think of the spirituality of the contemporary
world in the apocalyptic terms of the "strong delu-
sion" that will deceive almost all of mankind before
the end of the age. To this subject we shall return at
the end of this book.

97
 VI. ‘Signs from Heaven”

AN ORTHODOX CHRISTIAN UNDERSTANDING

OF UNIDENTIFIED FLYING OBJECTS (UFOs)

The post-World War II decades that have wit-

nessed the astonishing increase of Eastern religious
cults and influence in the West have also seen the be-
ginning and spread of a parallel phenomenon which,
although at first sight it seems totally unrelated to
religion, on closer examination turns out to be just as
much a sign of the "post-Christian'' age and the "new
religious consciousness" as the Eastern cults. This
phenomenon is that of the "unidentified flying objects"
which have supposedly been seen in almost every part
of the world since the first "flying saucer" was spot-
ted in 1947.
Human credulity and superstition — which are
no less present today than at any time in human his-
tory — have caused this phenomenon to be connected
to some degree with the "'crack-pot fringe" of the cult
world; but there has also been a sufficiently serious
and responsible interest in it to produce several gov-
ernment investigations and a number of books by re-
putable scientists. These investigations have come to
no positive result in identifying the objects as physi-
98
cal reality. However, the newest hypotheses made by
several scientific investigators in order to explain
the phenomena actually seem to come closer toa sa-
tisfactory explanation than other theories that have
been proposed in the past; but at the same time, these
newest hypotheses bring one to the "edge of reality"
(as one of the new scientific books on them is called),
to the boundaries of psychic and spiritual reality
which these investigators are not equipped to handle.
The richness of Scriptural and Patristic knowledge
precisely of this latter reality places the Orthodox
Christian observer ina uniquely advantageous posi-
tion from which to evaluate these new hypotheses and
the "UFO" phenomena in general. .
The Orthodox Christian observer, however, is
less interested in the phenomena themselves than he
is in the mentality associated with them: how are
people commonly interpreting UFOs, and why? Among
the firstto approach the UFO question in this mañ-
ner, in a serious study, was the renowned Swiss
psychologist C. G. Jung. In his book of 1959, Fly-
ing Saucers: A Modern Myth of Things Seen in the
Skies, he approached the phenomena as primarily
something psychological and religious in meaning; and
although he himself did not -attempt to identify them as
"objective reality," he nonetheless did grasp the
realmof human knowledge to which they actually be-
long. Today's investigators, while starting from the
"objective" and not the psychological side of the
question, have also found it necessary to put forth
"psychic" hypotheses to explain the phenomena.
In approaching the religious and psychological
side of UFO phenomena, it is important for us, first
of all, to understand the background in terms of which
"flying saucers" have generally been interpreted (by
those who believe in their existence) from the time of
99
their first appearance in the 1940's. What were men
prepared to see in the sky? The answer to this
question may be found in a brief look at the literature
of popular "science fiction."

1. The Spirit of Science Fiction

Historians of science fiction usually trace the

origins of this literary form back to the early 19th
century. Some prefer to see its beginning in the
short stories of Edgar Allen Poe, which combined a
persuasive realism in style with a subject-matter al-
ways tinged with the "mysterious" and occult. Others
see the first science fiction writer in Poe's English
contemporary, Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley (wife of
the famous poet); her Frankenstein,
or the Modern
Prometheus, combines fantastical science with occult-
ism in a way characteristic of many science-fiction
stories since then.
The typical science-fiction story, however, was
to come with the late 19th and early 20th centuries,
from Jules Verne and H.G. Wells to our own days.
From a largely second-rate form of literature in the
American periodical "pulps" of the 1930's and '40's,
science fiction has come of age and become a respec-
table international literary form in recent decades.
In addition, a number of extremely popular motion
pictures have shown how much the spirit of science
fiction has captivated the popular imagination. The
cheaper and more sensational science-fiction movies
of the 1950's have given way in the last decade or so
to fashionable "idea" movies like 2001: A Space Odys-
sey, Star Wars, and Close Encounters of the Third

100
Kind, not to mention one of the most popular and long-
lived American television series, "Star Trek."
The spirit of science fiction is derived from an
underlying philosophy or ideology, more often implied
than expressed in so many words, which is shared by
virtually all those who create in science-fiction
forms. This philosophy may be summed up in the fol-
lowing main points:
1. Religion, in the traditional sense, is absent,
or else present in a very incidental or artificial way.
The literary form itself is obviously a product of the
"post-Christian" age (evident already in the stories
of Poe and Shelley). The science-fiction universe is
a totally secular one, although often with "mystical"
overtones of an occult or Eastern kind. '‘''God,"' if
mentioned at all, is a vague and impersonal power,
not a personal being (for example, the "Force" of
Star Wars, a cosmic energy that has its evil as well
as good side). The increasing fascination of contem-
porary man with science-fiction themes is a direct
reflection of the loss of traditional religious values.
2. The center of the science-fiction universe
(in place of the absent God) is man — not usually man
as he is now, but man ashe will "become" in the fu-
ture, in accordance with the modern mythology of e-
volution. Although the heroes of science-fiction sto-
ries are usually recognizable humans, the story in-
terest often centers about their encounters with va-
rious kinds of “supermen" from "highly-evolved"
races of the future (or sometimes, the past), or from
distant galaxies. The idea of the possibility of "high-
ly-evolved" intelligent life on other planets has be-
come so much a part of the contemporary mentality
that even respectable scientific (and semi-scientific)
speculations assume it as a matter of course. Thus,

101
one popular series of books (Erich von Daniken, Cha-
riots of the Gods?, Gods from Outer Space) finds
supposed evidence of the presence of "extraterres—
trial" beings or "gods" in ancient history, who are
supposedly responsible for the sudden appearance of
intelligence in man, difficult to account for by the u-
sual evolutionary theory. Serious scientists in the
Soviet Union speculate that the destruction of Sodom
and Gomorrah was due to a nuclear explosion, that
"extraterrestrial" beings visited earth centuries a-
go, that Jesus Christ may have been a "cosmonaut,"
and that today ''we may be on the threshold of a 'se-
cond coming' of intelligent beings from outer space.''*
Equally serious scientists in the West think the exis-
tence of "extraterrestrial intelligences" likely e-
nough that for at least 18 years they have been trying
to establish contact with them by means of radio tele-
scopes, and currently there are at least six searches
being conducted by astronomers around the world for
intelligent radio signals from space. Contemporary
Protestant and Roman Catholic "theologians" — who
have become accustomed to follow wherever "sci-
ence" seems to be leading — speculate in turn in the
new realm of "'exotheology" (the "theology of outer
space") concerning what nature the "extraterrestri-
al" races might have (see Time magazine, April 24,
1978). It can hardly be denied that the myth behind
science fiction has a powerful fascination even among
many learned men of our day.

* Sheila Ostrander and Lynn Schroeder, Psychic

Discoveries Behind the Iron Curtain, Bantam
Books, 1977, pp. 98-99. See articles in Russian
of Dr. Vyacheslav Zaitsev, "Visitors from Outer
Space," in Sputnik, Jan., 1967, and "Temples and
Spaceships," Sputnik, Jan., 1968.
102
 The future "evolved" beings in science fiction
literature are invariably seen as having "outgrown"
the limitations of present-day humanity, in particular
the limitations of "personality." Like the "God" of
science fiction, "man" also has become strangely im-
personal. In Arthur C. Clarke's Childhood's End,
the new race of humans has the appearance of chil-
dren but faces devoid of personality; they are about
to be guided into yet higher "evolutionary" transfor-
mations, on the way to becoming absorbed in the im-
personal "Overmind." In general the literature of
science fiction — in direct contrast to Christianity,
but exactly in accordance with some schools of East-
ern thought — sees "evolutionary advancement" and
"spirituality" in terms of increased impersonality.
3. The future world and humanity are seen by
science fiction ostensibly in terms of "projections"
from present-day scientific discoveries; in actuality,
however, these "projections" correspond quite re-
markably to the everyday reality of occult and overtly
demonic experience throughout the ages. Among the
characteristics of the "“highly-evolved" creatures of
the future are: communication by mental telepathy, a-
bility to fly, materialize and dematerialize, transform
the- appearances of things or create illusionary
scenes and creatures by "pure thought," travel at
speeds far beyond any modern technology,:to take
possession of the bodies of earthmen; and the ex-
pounding of a "spiritual" philosophy which is "beyond
all religions" and holds promise of a state where
"advanced intelligences" will no longer be dependent
on matter. All these are the standard practices and
claims of sorcerers and demons. A recent history of
science fiction notes that "a persistent aspect of the
vision of science fiction is the desire to transcend
normal experience ... through the presentation of
103
characters and events that transgress the conditions
of space and time as we know them."'* The scripts of
"Star Trek" and other science-fiction stories, with
their futuristic "scientific" devices, read in parts
like excerpts from the lives of ancient Orthodox
Saints, where the actions of sorcerers are described
at a time when sorcery was still a strong part of pa-
gan life. Science fiction in general is usually not ve-
ry scientific at all, and not really very "futuristic"
either; if anything, it is a retreat to the ''mystical"
origins of modern science — the science before the
age of the 17th and 18th century "Enlightenment"
which was much closer to occultism. The same his-
tory of science fiction remarks that "the roots of sci-
ence fiction, like the roots of science itself, are in
magic and mythology" (Scholes and Rabkin, p. 183).
Present-day research and experiments in ''parapsy-
chology" point also to a future connection of "'sci-
ence" with occultism — a development with which
science-fiction literature is in full harmony.
Science fiction in the Soviet Union (where it is
just as popular as in the West, although its develop-
ment has been a little different) has exactly the same
themes as Western science fiction. In general, ''me-
taphysical"' themes in Soviet science fiction (which
labors under the watchful eye of "materialist" cen-
sors) come from the influence of Western writers or
from direct Hinduinfluence, as in the case of the writ-
er Ivan Efremov. The reader of Soviet science fic-
tion, according to one critic, "emerges with a vague
ability to distinguish the critical demarcations between
Science and Magic, between scientist and sorcerer,

* Robert Scholes and Eric S. Rabkin, Science Fic-

tion: History, Science, Vision, Oxford University
Press, 1977, p. 175.
104
between future and fantasy." Science fiction both
East and West, says the same writer, like other as-
pects of contemporary culture, "all confirm the fact
that the higher stage of humanism is occultism."*
4. Almost by its very nature as "futuristic,"
science fiction tends to be utopian; few novels or sto-
ries actually describe a future perfect society, but
most of them deal with the "evolution" of today's so-
ciety into something higher, or the encounter with an
advanced civilization on another planet, with the hope
or capability of overcoming today's problems and
mankind's limitations in general. In Efremov's and
other Soviet science fiction, Communism itself be-
comes "cosmic" and "begins to acquire nonmaterial-—
istic qualities," and "the post-industrial civilization
will be Hindu-like'' (Grebens, pp. 109-110). The
"advanced beings" of outer space are often endowed
with ''saviour"'-like qualities, and the landings of
spacecraft on earth often herald "apocalyptic" events
— usually the arrival of benevolent beings to guide
men in their "evolutionary advancement."
In a word, the science-fiction literature of
the 20th century is itself a clear sign of the loss of
Christian values and the Christian interpretation of
the world; it has become a powerful vehicle for the
dissemination of a non-Christian philosophy of life
and history, largely under open or concealed occult
and Eastern influence; and in a crucial time of crisis
and transition in human civilization it has been a
prime force in creating the hope for and actual ex-
pectation of "visitors from outer space" who will
solve mankind's problems and conduct man to a new

* G. V.Grebens, Ivan Efremov's Theory of Soviet

Science Fiction, Vantage Press, New York, 1978,
pp. 108, 110.
105
"cosmic" age of its history. While appearing to be
scientific and non-religious, science-fiction litera-
ture is in actuality a leading propagator (in a secular
form) of the ''new religious consciousness" which is
sweeping mankind as Christianity retreats.
All of this is a necessary background for dis-
cussing the actual manifestations of "Unidentified
Flying Objects," which strangely correspond to the
pseudo-religious expectations which have been a-
roused in ''post-Christian" man.

2. UFO Sightings and the

Scientific Investigation of Them

Although fiction, one might say, has in a way

prepared men for the appearance of UFOs, our un-
derstanding of their "objective" reality obviously
cannot be derived from literature or human expecta-
tions and fantasies. Before we can understand what
they might be, we must know something of the nature
and reliability of the observations which have been
made of them. Is there really something "out there"
in the sky, or is the phenomenon entirely a matter of
misperception on the one hand, and psychological and
pseudo-religious wish fulfillment on the other?
A reliable outline of UFO phenomena has been
given by Dr. Jacques Vallee, a French scientist now
living in California who has advanced degrees in as-
trophysics and computer science and has been in-
volved in the scientific analysis of UFO reports for a
number of years. His testimony is all the more valu-
able to us in that he has studied closely UFO sight-
ings outside of the United States, especially in
France, and is thus able to give a fair international
picture of their distribution.
106
 Dr. Vallee finds* that although strange flying
objects have been observed at various times in past
centuries, their ''modern history" as a mass pheno-
menon begins in the years during and just after World
War II. American interest began with the sightings
in 1947, but there were a number of sightings before
that in Europe. In World War II many pilots reported
strange lights which seemed to be under intelligent
control (p. 47), and in 1946, particularly in July,
there were a whole series of sightings in Sweden and
other northern European countries (pp. 47-53).
Sightings in this "Scandinavian wave" were interpre-
ted first as "meteors," then as "rockets" (or "ghost
rockets") or "bombs," and finally as some "new type
of aircraft" capable of extraordinary movements in
the sky but leaving no trace on the ground even when
they seemed to land. The European press was full of
reports of this wave of sightings, and everyone in
Sweden was talking of them; some thousands of sight-
ings were reported, but not once was the hypothesis
of "extraterrestrial" or "interplanetary" origin sug-
gested. Dr. Vallee concludes that the "wave" was
caused by actually existing but unidentified objects
and not by any previously existing "UFO rumor" or
expectation of "visitors from outer space" (p. 53).
In this and succeeding "Saucer waves" he finds a to-
tal absence of any correlation between widespread
interest in science fiction and peaks of UFO activity;
earlier, also, there had been no "saucer wave" at the
time of the American panic over Orson Welles' 1938
radio adaptation of H. G. Wells' War of the Worlds.

* UFOs in Space: Anatomy of a Phenomenon, Ballan-

tine Books, N.Y., 1977 (first published by Henry
Regnery Company, 1965), page numbers as indicated
in parentheses in text above.
107
He concludes that "the birth, growth and expansion
of a UFO wave is an objective phenomenon indepen-
dent of the conscious or unconscious influence of the
witnesses, and their reactions to it" (p. 31).
The first publicized sighting in the United
States occurred in June, 1947, when Kenneth Arnold,
a salesman flying his own plane, saw nine disc-like
objects, looking something like "saucers," flying
near Mt. Rainier in Washington State. The newspa-
pers picked up the story, and the "flying saucer" era
began. Interestingly, however, this was not actually
the first American sighting at all; other unpublicized
sightings had been made in the months before this.
There was also a UFO wave (with fifty reports) in
Hungary early in June. Therefore, the 1947 sight-
ings cannot all be set down to hysteria over the Ar-
nold incident. There were a number of other sight-
ings inthe American wave of 1947, chiefly in June,
July, and August. Although some newspapers specu-
lated on "interplanetary visitors," these sightings
were taken seriously by scientists, who assumed they
were the result of advanced human technology, most
likely American, or perhaps Russian (pp. 54-57).
A second wave occurred in July, 1948, with
sightings in America and France. In the United
States there was a spectacular night sighting made by
the pilots of an Eastern Airlines DC-3 plane of a tor-
pedo-shaped craft with two rows of "portholes," sur-
rounded by a blue glow and with a tail of orange
flames, which maneuvered to avoid collision and dis-
appeared. In August of the same year there were ma-
ny sightings in Saigon and other parts of Southeast
Asia of a "long fish-like object" (pp. 57-59).
1949 saw reports of strange discs and spheres
in Sweden and more UFOs in America, including two
observations by trained astronomical observers (pp.
108
60-62). Small UFO waves, as well as isolated sight-
ings, continued in 1950 and 1951, especially in the U-
nited States, but also in Europe (pp. 62-65).
In 1952 the first real international UFO wave
occurred, with many sightings in the United States,
France, and North Africa. At the peak of the wave,
two sensational sightings were made above the Capi-
tol and the White House in Washington, D.C. (an area
under constant control by radar). In September there
was a wave encompassing Denmark, Sweden, and
northern Germany and Poland. At the same time in
France the first UFO "landing" was reported, togeth-
er with a description of "little men" (pp. 65-69).
In 1953 there were no waves, but there were a
number of individual sightings. The most remarkable
one occurred in Bismarck, North Dakota, where four
objects hovered and maneuvered over an air filter
station for three hours at night; an official report of
this event consisted of several hundred pages, with
accounts from many witnesses, mainly pilots and mil-
itary personnel (pp. 69-70).’
1954 saw the largest international wave yet.
France was literally inundated with sightings, with
dozens of reports every day in September, October,
and November. In the French wave the problems fac-
ing a serious scientific investigation of UFO pheno-
mena are well demonstrated: ''The phenomenon was so
intense, the impact on public opinion so deep, the
newspapers’ reaction so emotional that scientific re-
flexes were saturated long before a serious investi-
gation could be organized. As a result, no scientist
could risk his reputation by studying openly a pheno-
menon so emotionally distorted; French scientists re-
mained silent until the wave passed and died" (p. 71).
During the French wave, the typical character-
istics of later UFO encounters were often present:
109
UFO "landings" (with at least some circumstantial e-
vidence of them), beams of light issuing from the UFO
to the witness, stoppage of motors in the vicinity of
sightings, strange small beings in "diving suits," se-
rious psychic and physical harm to witnesses.
Since 1954 many sightings have been made every
year in various countries, with major international
waves in 1965, 1967, and 1972-3; sightings have been
especially numerous and profound in their effects in
South American countries.
The best known government investigation of
UFOs was that undertaken by the United States Air
Force shortly after the first American sightings in
1947; this investigation, known from 1951 on as "Pro-
ject Blue Book," lasted until 1969, when it was aban-
doned on the recommendation of the "Condon Report"
of 1968 — the work of a scientific committee led bya
noted physicist of the University of Colorado. Close
observers both of ''Blue Book" and the Condon Com-
mittee, however, have noted that neither of them took
UFO phenomena seriously and that their main occupa-
tion was more the "public relations" task of explain-
ing away mystifying aerial phenomena in order to
calm public fears about them. Some "Flying Saucer"
groups claimed that the United States government was
using these investigations as a "cover-up" of its own
knowledge of the "real nature" of UFOs; but all evi-
dence points to the fact that the investigations them-
selves were simply careless because the phenomena
were not taken seriously — especially after some of
the stranger UFO stories had begun to make the sub-
ject distasteful to scientists. The first director of
"Blue Book," Captain Edward Ruppelt, admitted that
"had the Air Force tried to throw up a screen of con-
fusion, they couldn't have done a better job... The
problem was tackled with organized confusion... Ev-
110
erything was being evaluated on the premise that
UFOs couldn't exist."* The Condon Report contains
some classic "explanations" of UFOs; one, for exam-
ple, states that "this unusual sighting should there-
fore be assigned to the category of some almost cer-
tainly natural phenomenon which is so rare that it ap-
parently has never been reported before or since."
The chief scientific consultant of "Blue Book" for
most of its 22 years, Northwestern University astro-
nomer J. Allen Hynek, openly calls the whole thing "a
pseudo-scientific project .""**
In its 22 years of investigations, such as they
were, "Project Blue Book" collected over 12,000
cases of puzzling aerial phenomena, 25% of which re-
mained "unidentified" even after its often strained
"explanations.'' Many thousands of other cases have
been and are being collected and investigated by pri-
vate organizations in the United States and in other
countries, although almost all government organiza-
tions refrain from comment on them. In the Soviet
Union the subject was first given public mention
(which means government approval) in 1967, when
Dr. Felix U. Ziegel of the Moscow Institute of Avia-
tion, in an article in the Soviet magazine Smena,
stated that "Soviet radar has picked up unidentified
flying objects for twenty years."'*** At the same time

* Ruppelt, Report on Unidentified Flying Objects,

Ace Books, New York, 1956, pp. 80, 83.
** Hynek, The UFO Experience: A Scientific Inqui-
ry, Ballantine Books, New York, 1977, pp. 215, 219.
*** "UFOs, What Are They?" in Smena, Apr. 7, 1967.
See also his article "Unidentified Flying Objects" in
Soviet Life, Feb., 1968; Ostrander and Schroeder,
Psychic Discoveries Behind the Iron Curtain, pp.
94-103.
111
there was a Soviet scientific conference "On Space
Civilizations," led by the Armenian astronomer Vic-
tor Ambartsumyam, which urged a preliminary study
of the scientific and technical problems of communi-
cating with such "civilizations," whose existence is
taken for granted. The next year, however, the
subject of UFOs became once more forbidden in the
Soviet Union, and since then Soviet scientists have
told of their researches and hypotheses only unoffi-
cially to Western scientists.
In the United States, the subject of UFOs re-
mains somewhat "off-limits" for military and scienti-
fic men, but in recent years an increasing number es-
pecially among younger scientists have begun to take
the subject seriously and come together to discuss it
and suggest means of researching it. Drs. Hynek and
Vallee speak of an "invisible college" of scientists
who are now actively interested in UFO phenomena,
although most of them do not wish their names public-
ly associated with the subject.
There are, of course, those who continue to de-
ny the phenomenon altogether, explaining it as mis-
perceptions of natural objects, balloons, airplanes,
etc., not to mention hoaxes and psychological "pro-
jections."" One of these, Philip Klass, takes delight
in "debunking" UFOs, investigating some of the sight-
ings and finding them to be either natural phenomena
or frauds. His study has convinced him that "the i-
dea of wondrous spaceships from a distant civiliza-
tion really is a fairy story that is tailored to the a-
* Felix Ziegel, "On Possible Exchange of Information
with Extra-Terrestrial Civilizations," paper pre-
sented at the All-Union Engineering Institute in Mos-
cow, March 13,1967; Psychic Discoveries, p. 96.

112
dult mentality.""* Such hard-headed investigators,
however, usually restrict themselves to cases where
actual physical proof of a UFO has been left (the
so-called "Close Encounters of the Second Kind," as
we shall see below); and even staunch defenders of
their reality are forced to admit that there is very
little of this even in the most convincing UFO sight-
ings. The one thing that has persuaded a number of
scientists in recent years to take the phenomena ser-
iously is not the physical proof of them, but the fact
that many serious and reliable people have seen
something which cannot be explained and which of-
ten has a powerful effect upon them. Dr. Hynek
writes of his investigation: "Invariably I have had
the feeling that I was talking to someone who was de-
scribing a very real event. To him or her it repre-
sented an outstanding experience, vivid and not at all
dreamlike, an event for which the observer was usu-
ally totally unprepared — something soon recognized
as being beyond comprehension"
(The UFO Experience,
p. 14).
This combination of the often intense reality of
the experience of encountering a UFO (especially in
the "Close Encounters"), and the almost total lack of
physical evidence of it — makes the investigation of
UFOs by nature not chiefly an examination òf physi-
cal phenomena but more an investigation of the human
reports of it, their credibility, consistency, etc. Al-
ready this places the investigation somewhat in the
realm of psychology, and is enough to tell us that the
approach solely in search of "physical proof" is an
inadequate one. However, Mr. Klass' opinion that

* Philip J]. Klass, UFOs Explained, Random House,

New York, 1974, p. 360.

113
the "wondrous spaceships" are a "fairy story for a-
dults'' is perhaps also not far from the truth. One
thing is the observations made of UFOs, and quite
another is the interpretation which people give
their (or others') observations — the former could be
real, and the latter a "fairy story" or a myth of our
times.
Dr. Hynek has dore much to remove some of the
common misconceptions about UFO sightings. Thus,
he makes it clear that most UFO sightings are not re-
ported by cultists, unstable or uneducated people.
The few reports made by such people are usually
easily identified as unreliable and not further inves-
tigated. But the most coherent and articulate reports
come from normal, responsible people (often with sci-
entific training), who are genuinely surprised or
shocked by their experience and simply don't know
how to explain it (The UFO Experience, pp. 10-11);
the stronger the experience and the closer the UFO
is seen, the less willing the witnesses are to report
it at all. UFO records are a collection of "incredible
tales told by credible persons," as one Air Force
general has remarked. There can be no reasonable
doubt that there is something behind the many thou-
sands of serious UFO reports.

3. The Six Kinds of UFO Encounters

Dr. Hynek, who has studied the question more

thoroughly than any other distinguished scientist, has
conveniently divided UFO phenomena into six general
categories.* The first, "Nocturnal Lights," is the

* The Hynek UFO Report, Dell Publishing Co., New

York, 1977, chs. 4-9; The UFO Experience, chs. 5-10.
114
one most commonly reported and the least strange of
all. Most such reports are easily explained as hea-
venly bodies, meteors, etc., and are not considered
UFOs. Truly puzzling Nocturnal Lights (those that
remain unidentified"), which seem to display intelli-
gent action but are not explainable as ordinary air-
craft, are often seen by multiple witnesses, including
police officers, airplane pilots, and airport tower
operators.
The second category of UFOs is "Daylight
Discs," whose behavior is close to that of Nocturnal
Lights. These are the original "flying saucers," and
in fact almost all of the unidentified sightings in this
category are of discs which vary in shape from cir-
cular to cigar-shaped. They are often metallic in
appearance, and are reported as capable of extreme-
ly rapid starts and stops and high speed, as well as
maneuvers (such as sudden reversals of direction and
motionless hovering) that are beyond the capacity of
any present aircraft. There are many purported pho-
tographs of such discs, but none of them is very con-
vincing owing to the distance involved ard the possi-
bility of trick photography. Like Nocturnal Lights,
UFOs in this category are almost always reported as
being totally noiseless, and sometimes two or more of
them are seen.
The third category is that of 'Radar-Visual"
reports — that is, radar sightings that are confirmed
by independent visual observation (radar by itself be-
ing subject to various kinds of misperceptions). Most
of these cases occur at night, and the best cases in-
volve simultaneous sightings by airplanes (sometimes
purposely despatched to follow the UFO) at fairly
close range; in these cases the UFO always outma-
neuvers the airplane, sometimes following it, and fi-
nally disappears ina burst of speed (up to 4000 miles
115
and more per hour). Sometimes, as in categories 1
and 2 also, the object seems to divide and become two
or more distinct objects; and sometimes clear visual
sightings of such objects by pilots in the air are not
picked up by radar at all. Sightings in this category,
just as in the first two, last from between a few min-
utes to several hours.
A number of cases in the first three categories
are well documented, with numerous reliable, exper-
ienced, and independent witnesses. Still, any one
case, as Dr. Hynek notes, might be caused by some
extremely unusual set. of circumstances and not by
some new and totally unknown phenomenon. But when
many well-documented cases, all similar to each oth-
er, accumulate, the chances that they are all unusual
misperceptions of familiar objects becomes very
small (The UFO Experience, p.92). This is why seri-
ous UFO investigators are now concentrating on the
collection of a number of well-documented cases, and
the comparison of numbers of reliable testimonies al-
ready begins to show definite patterns of UFO activi-
ty.
The emotional response of those who have wit-
nessed UFOs of the first three categories is one of
simple perplexity and puzzlement; they have seen
something whose behavior seems totally unexplaina-—
ble, and they are left with a tantalizing desire to see
it "just a little closer." Only ina few cases — gen-
erally involving pilots who have tried to pursue the
unidentified objects — has something like real fear
been experienced at the encounters with something
that seems intelligently directed and possessing a
technology in advance of anything known today. In
cases involving "Close Encounters," on the other
hand, the human response becomes much deeper and

116
the "psychic" side of the phenomena more pro-
nounced.
"Close Encounters of the First Kind" (CE-I)
are sightings of a luminous object at close range (a-
bout 500 feet or less), the light being sometimes very
bright and casting luminescence on the ground below.
When the shape of the object is described, it is gen-
erally stated to be oval, sometimes with a dome on
top, and the lights are often described as rotating,
usually in a counterclockwise direction. The objects
often hover close to the ground, without sound or (oc-
casionally) with a humming sound, sometimes moving
close to the ground over considerable distances, and
eventually taking off extremely rapidly, soundlessly,
and usually straight up. There are numerous multi-
ple-witness accounts of such "Close Encounters,"
these accounts are invariably quite similar to each
other, as though it is indeed one and the same object
(or similar objects) that is being observed in all
well-documented cases. Typically, these cases oc-
cur at night in sparsely settled areas and there are a
small number of witnesses for each sighting (an ave-
rage of three to four in the cases examined by Dr.
Hynek).
l "Close Encounters of the First Kind" are al-
ways awesome and often frightening, but lẹave no
visible marks; witnesses are usually so overwhelmed
by the experience that they neglect to take photo-
graphs of the object even when a camera is nearby.
Typical of the effect on witnesses is this comment in
a 1955 UFO report: "I can assure you, once anyone
has seen an object such as this so closely and for a
period of even one minute, it would be etched in their
memory for all time" (The Hynek UFO Report, p. 145).
The experience is so unusual that witnesses are often

117
not believed when they report it — a fact that causes
many to report it only confidentially, after many
years,or not at all. The experience is intensely real
to those who experience it — but largely unbelievable
to others.
A typical "Close Encounter of the First Kind"
involved two Portage County, Ohio, deputy sheriffs
in 1966. About 5 a.m. on the morning of April 16, af-
ter stopping to investigate a parked car on a country
road, they saw an object "as big as a house" ascend-
ing to tree-top level (about 100 feet). As it ap-
proached the deputies it became increasingly bright,
illuminating the area all around, then stopped and
hovered over them with a humming sound. When it
moved away they pursued it for some 70 miles into
Pennsylvania, at speeds of up to 105 miles per hour.
Two other police officers saw the object clearly at a
higher elevation before it went straight up and disap-
peared about dawn. Congressional pressure forced
"Project Blue Book" to investigate this case; it was
"explained" as an “observation of Venus," and the
officers who saw it were subjected to considerable
ridicule in the press, leading to the breakup of one
officer's family and the ruin of his health and career
(The UFO Experience, pp. 114-124). Personal trage-
dies of this kind among people who have "Close En-
counters" with UFOs are socommon that they should
definitely be included in the "typical characteristics"
of this phenomenon.
"Close Encounters of the Second Kind" (CE-11)
are essentially similar to CE-I experiences, with the
one difference that they leave some striking physical
and/or psychological effect of their presence. These
effects include marks on the ground, the scorching or
blighting of plants and trees, interference with elec-
trical circuits causing radio static and the stoppage
118
of automobile engines, discomfort to animals as evi-
denced by strange behavior, and effects on humans
which include temporary paralysis or numbness, a
feeling of heat, nausea, or other discomfort, tempor-
ary weightlessness (sometimes causing levitation),
sudden healings of sores and pains, and various psy-
chological and physical after-effects, including
strange marks on the body. This kind of UFO en-
counter gives the greatest possibility for scientific
investigation, since in addition to human testimony
there is physical evidence that can be examined; but
little investigation has actually been undertaken, both
because most scientists are afraid to get involved in
the whole question of UFOs, and because the evidence
itself is usually inconclusive or partially subjective.
One catalog has been compiled of over 800 cases of
this type in 24 countries (The Hynek UFO Report, p.
30). No actual "piece" of a UFO has ever been au-
thenticated, however, and the markings left on the
ground are often as baffling as the sightings them-
selves. The most frequent marking left on the ground
after a sighting (the UFO itself having been seen ei-
ther on the ground or just above it) is a burned, de-
hydrated, or depressed area in the shape of a ring,
usually 20 to 30 feet in diameter and 1 to 3 feet thick;
these "rings" persist for weeks or months and the in-
terior of the ring (and sometimes the whole circle) is
reported to be barren for a season or two after the
sighting. A few chemical analyses of the soil in such
rings have produced no definite conclusions as to the
possible origin of this condition.
"Close Encounters of the Second Kind" often
happen to persons during the night in isolated sec-
tions of road. In many similar cases a glowing ob-
ject lands ina field nearby or on the road in front of
an automobile or truck, the engine and headlights on
119
the automobile fail, and the occupants become terri-
fied until the UFO leaves, often shooting suddenly
straight up without a sound; the engine of the vehicle
then can operate again, and often comes on by itself.
The strangest of all UFO reports are those that
deal with "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" (CE-
III) — that is, UFO experiences involving "animated
beings" ("occupants" or "humanoids"). The first
thought of many people when hearing of such reports
is to picture "little green men" and dismiss the whole
phenomenon as unbelievable — a hoax or hallucina-
tion. However, the success of the recent American
science-fiction film, named precisely for this cate-
gory of UFO phenomena Close Encounters of the
Third Kind (for which Dr. Hynek served as technical
consultant), together with evidence of the Gallop Poll
in 1974 that 54% of those who are aware of UFOs be-
lieve that they are real, and 46% of all those inter-
viewed believe in intelligent life on other planets*
(the percentage today would certainly be greater) —
point to the rapidly increasing acceptance by contem-
porary men of the possibility of actual encounters
with "non-human" intelligences. Science fiction has
given the images, "evolution" has produced the phi-
losophy, and the technology of the "space age" has
supplied the plausibility for such encounters.
Astonishingly, these encounters seem actually
to be occurring today, as attested by the evidence of
many believable witnesses. Of crucial importance,
therefore, is the interpretation that must be made
of these occurrences; is the reality behind them an
eg ee
* J. Allen Hynek and Jacques Vallee, The Edge of Re-
ality: A Progress Report on Unidentified Flying
Objects, Henry Regnery Co., Chicago, 1975, pp. 289-
290.
120
actual contact with "visitors from outer space," or is
this only an explanation provided by the ''spirit of the
times" for a contact of a different kind altogether? As
we shall see below, today's scientific investigators
of UFOs have already asked these questions.
Dr. Hynek admits his own repugnance to face
the possibility of CE-II1 experiences: "To be frank,
I would gladly omit this part if 1 could without of-
fense to scientific integrity" (The UFO Experience,
p. 158). However, since his aim is scientific objec-
tivity, he finds it impossible to ignore the well-docu-
mented cases, from believable witnesses, of this
strange phenomenon. Of nearly 1250 "Close Encount-
ers'' reported in a catalog by Dr. Jacques Vallee,
750 report the landing of a craft, and more than 300
of these report "humanoids" in or about the craft;
one-third of all these are multiple-witness cases
(Ibid., p. 161).
In one "humanoid" case, which occurred in No-
vember, 1961, in one of the northern plains’ states in
the U.S.A., four men were returning from a hunting
trip late at night, when one of the men noticed a flam-
ing object coming down, as if it were an airplane
crashing about a half mile up the road from them.
When they reached the site of the "crash," all four
men saw a silo-shaped craft in a field, sticking in the
ground at an angle, with four seemingly human figures
standing around it (this was at a distance of about 150
yards). They flashed a light on one of the figures,
who was about 43 feet high and wearing what looked
like white coveralls; he made a gesture to the men to
stay back. After some hesitation (still thinking it was
a plane crash), they went to a nearby town for a po-
lice officer, and when they returned they saw only
some small red lights, something like automobile
lights. They drove into the field with the officer and
121
followed the lights, only to discover that they sudden-
ly disappeared, leaving no tracks whatsoever, despite
the muddiness of the field. After the puzzled police
officer left, the men again saw the "silo" coming down
out of the sky with a reddish glow. Instantly after
the object "landed," two figures were visible next to
it; a shot was fired (although none of the men admitted
to firing it) and one of the figures was "hit" in the
shoulder with a thud, and spun around and down to his
knees; in panic the men ran to their car and raced
off, agreeing among themselves not to mention the in-
cident to anyone. They returned home with a strange
feeling that there was some period of time "lost" dur-
ing the night. The next day one of the men was visited
at his work by several well-groomed "'official-look-
ing" men, who asked him questions about the incident
(but without mentioning the shooting) and then took
him in their car to his home, where they questioned
him about his clothes and boots and then left, telling
him not to say anything about the incident to anyone.
The hunter assumed these men were United States Air
Force investigators trying to conceal some new ''se-
cret device," but the men never identified themselves
and never contacted him again. All four men were ex-
tremely shaken up by the incident, and after six years
one of them felt compelled to tell the whole story to a
U.S. Treasury agent (Edge of Reality, pp.129-141).
The main incidents in this story are typical of
many ''Close Encounters of the Third Kind." A little
different case of this sort is the famous UFO "land-
ing" at Kelly, a small town near Hopkinsville, Ken-
tucky, which was investigated extensively by the po-
lice, Air Force, and independent researchers. In
the evening and night of August 21, 1955, seven a-
dults and four children in one farm household had a
prolonged encounter with "humanoids." The incident
122
began at seven o'clock, when the teen-aged son of the
family saw a flying object "land" behind the farm-
house. No one believed him, but an hour later a "lit-
tle man" emitting a "strange glow" came walking
toward the house with its hands raised. Two of the
men in the house, out of fear, shot at the creature
when it was 20 feet away; it somersaulted and disap-
peared in the dark. Soon another similar creature
appeared at a window; they again fired at it, and a-
gain it disappeared. Going outside, the men shot at
another creature with a claw-like hand which they
saw on the roof; still another on a tree nearby floated
to the ground when it was hit. Other creatures also
were seen and hit (or perhaps the same creatures
reappearing), but the men saw the bullets seem to ri-
cochet off from them and have no real effect; the
sound was like shooting into a bucket. After firing
four boxes of shells with no effect, all eleven people,
thoroughly terrified, drove to the Hopkinsville police
station. The police arrived at the farmhouse after
midnight and made a thorough search of the premises,
finding a few unusual markings and seeing several
strange "meteors" that came in the direction of the
farmhouse, but discovering no "creatures." After
the police left, the creatures reappeared, causing
more consternation in the household.
The "humanoids" in this case were described as
being about 33 to 4 feet tall, with huge hands and
eyes (without pupils or eyelids), large pointed ears,
and arms that hung to the ground. They seemed to
have no clothing but to be "'nickel-plated.'' They ap-
proached the house always from the darkest side and
did not approach when the outside lights were turned
on.*

* Vallee, UFOs in Space, pp. 187-191; Hynek, The UFO

123
 Dr. Hynek sharply distinguishes between "Close
Encounters of the Third Kind" and "contactee" cas-
es. "Contactees' have repeated encounters with UFO
beings, often bringing pseudo-religious messages
from them about "highly-evolved'' beings on other
planets who are about to come to bring "peace on
earth," and are often connected with UFO religious
cults. Ordinary CE-III experiences, on the other
hand, are in general very similar to other "Close En-
counters;" they occur to people of similar occupa-
tions and reliability,
are just as unexpected,
and pro-
duce the same kind of shock at the sight of something
so unbelievable. The "occupants" who are seen (usu-
ally from a little distance) are often reported as
picking up samples of earth and rocks, showing a
seeming interest in human installations and vehicles,
or "repairing" their own craft. The "humanoids" are
described as having large heads with largely non-hu-
man features (no eyes or large eyes widely spaced,
small or no nose, a bare slit for a mouth), spindly
legs, no neck; some are reported to be of human
size, others about 33 feet high, as in the Kelly-Hop-
kinsville incident. Recently a new catalog of over
1000 CE-III cases has been compiled (Hynek, The
UFO Experience, p. 31).
There have been a number of cases, seriously
reported by seemingly reliable people, of "“abduc-
tions" by UFO occupants, usually for purposes of
"testing." Almost all eviden of ce
these cases (if we
exclude ''contactees") has been obtained by regres-
sive hypnosis; the experience is so traumatic to the
witness esthe conscious mind does not remember
that
it, and it is only some time later that such people a-
gree to be hypnotized in order to explain some mys-

Experience, pp. 172-177.

124
terious "time loss" in connection with their "Close
Encounter" experience — the first part of which they
do remember.
One of the best known "abduction" cases oc-
curred at about midnight on September 19,1961, near
Whitfield, New Hampshire. It was made the subject
of a book by John Fuller (The Interrupted Journey),
which was printed in a condensed form in Look maga-
zine. On this night Barney and Betty Hill were re-
turning from a vacation trip: when they saw a descend-
ing UFO which landed right in front of their car on a
side road. Some "humanoids" approached them, and
the next thing they remembered, it was two hours lat-
er and they were 35 miles farther down the road,
This amnesia bothered them, leading to physical and
mental disorders, and they finally went to a psychia-
trist. Under hypnosis they both independently re-
lated what had happened during the missing time.
Both stated that they had been taken aboard the
"craft" by the "humanoids" and given physical exami-
nations, with samples taken of fingernails and skin.
They were released after being given the hypnotic
suggestion that they would remember nothing of the
experience. Under hypnosis they related the ex-
perience with great emotional disturbance (The UFO
Experience, pp. 178-184).
In a similar case, at 2:30 a.m. on December 3,
1967, a policeman in Ashland, Nebraska, saw an ob-
ject with a row of flickering lights in the road, which
took off into the air when he approached it. He re-
ported a "flying saucer" to his superiors and went
home with a strong headache, a buzzing noise in his
ears, and a red welt below the left ear. Later, it was
discovered that there had been a period of twenty
minutes that night of which he remembered nothing;
under hypnosis he revealed that he had followed the
125
UFO, which again landed. The occupants flashed a
bright light at him, and then took him aboard their
"craft," where he saw control panels and computer-
like machines. (An engineer in France had seen
something similar when he was "abducted" for 18
days.) The "humanoids," wearing coveralls with a
winged-serpent emblem, told the policeman that they
came from a nearby galaxy, had bases in the United
States, and operated their craft by "reverse elec-
tromagnetism;"' they contact people by chance and
"want to puzzle people." They released the man, tel-
ling him "not to speak wisely about this night" (The
Invisible College, pp. 57-59).
At first sight, such incidents seem simply un-
believable, like some strange cases of hallucination
or disordered imagination. But there have been too
many of them now to dismiss them quite so easily. As
reports of encounters with actual physical aircraft,
to be sure, they are not very convincing. Further,
psychiatrists themselves caution that the results of
"regressive hypnosis" are very uncertain; the person
being hypnotized is often not capable of distinguishing
between actual experiences and ''suggestions" planted
in his mind, whether by the hypnotist or by someone
else at the time of the supposed "Close Encounter."
But even if these experiences are not fully "real" (as
objective phenomena in space and time), the very fact
that so many of them have been "implanted" in human
minds in recent years is already significant enough.
Without doubt there is something behind the "abduc-
tion" experiences also, and recently UFO investiga-
tors have begun to look in a different direction for an
explanation of them.
Such experiences, and especially the "Close
Encounters" of the 1970's, are noticeably bound up

126
with "paranormal" or occult phenomena. People
sometimes have strange dreams just before seeing
UFOs, or hear knocks on the door when no one is
there, or have strange visitors afterwards; some wit-
nesses receive telepathic messages from UFO occu-
pants; UFOs now sometimes simply materialize and
dematerialize instead of coming and going at great
speeds; sometimes "miraculous healings" occur in
their presence or when one is exposed to their
light.* But "Close Encounters" with UFOs have also
resulted in leukemia and radiation sickness; often
there are tragic psychological effects: personality
deterioration, insanity, suicide.
**
The increase of the "psychic component" in
UFO sightings has led researchers to seek similari-
ties between UFO experiences and occult phenomena,
and to seek the key to understanding UFOs in the
psychic effects they produce (The Invisible Coliege,
p. 29). Many researchers note the similarity between
UFO phenomena and 19th-century spiritism, which al-
so combined psychic phenomena with strange physical
effects, but with a more primitive "technology." In
general, the 1970's have seen a narrowing of the gap
between the "normal" UFO phenomena of the past and
the UFO cults, in accordance with the increased re-
ceptivity of mankind in this decade to occult practic-
es.

* Jacques Vallee, The Invisible College, E.P. Dut-

ton, Inc., New York, 1975, pp.17, 21.
** John A. Keel, UFOs: Operation Trojan Horse, G.P.
Putnam's Sons, New York, 1970, p. 303.

127
 4. Explanation of the UFO Phenomena

Dr. Jacques Vallee's newest book on UFOs, The

Invisible College, reveals what reputable scientific
researchers are now thinking about them. He be-
lieves that we are now "very close" to understa nding
what they are. He notes that the idea of "extrater-
restrial" intelligent life has in a few years become
astonishingly fashionable, among scientists as well as
fortune tellers, as a result of "a great thirst for con-
tact with superior minds that will provide guidance
for our poor, harassed, hectic planet" (p. 195). He
significantly sees that the idea of visitors from outer
space has become the great myth or "wonderful un-
truth" of our times: "It has become very important
for large numbers of people to expect visitors
from outer space" (p. 207, emphasis in fhe original).
Yet he finds it naive to believe in this myth:
"This explanation is too simple-minded to account for
the diversity of the reported behavior of the occu-
pants and their perceived interaction with human be-
ings" (p. 27). Dr. Hynek has noted that in order to
explain the various effects produced by UFOs, we
must assume that they are "a phenomenon that un-
doubtedly has physical effects but also has the attri-
butes of the psychic world" (The Edge of Reality, p.
259). Dr. Vallee believes that "they are constructed
both as physical craft (a fact which has long ap-
peared to me undeniable) and as psychic devices,
whose exact properties remain to be defined (The In-
visible College, p. 202, emphasis in the original).
Actually, the theory that UFOs are not physical craft
at all, but some kind of "paraphysical" or psychic
phenomenon, was suggested by a number of research-
ers in the early 1950's; but this opinion was largely
submerged later, on the one hand by the cultists, with
128
their insistence on the "extraterrestrial" origin of
UFOs, and on the other hand by the official govern-
ment explanations, which corresponded to the wide-
spread popular view that the whole phenomenon was
imaginary (Keel, UFOs: Operation Trojan Horse, pp.
38-41). Only lately have serious investigators begun
to agree that UFOs, while having certain "physical"
characteristics, cannot at all be explained as some-
body's "space ships," but are clearly something of
the paraphysical or occult realm.
Why, indeed, are so many UFO "landings" pre-
cisely in the middle of roads? Why do such fantasti-
cally "advanced" craft so often need "repairs"? Why
do the occupants so often need to pick up rocks and
sticks (over and over again for 25 years!), and to
"test'’ so many people — if they are actually recon-
naissance vehicles from another planet, as the “hu-
manoids" usually claim? Dr. Vallee well asks wheth-
er the "visitors from outer space" idea might net
"serve precisely a diversionary role in masking the
real, infinitely more complex nature of the technology
that gives rise to the sightings?" (The Invisible Col-
lege, p. 28). He believes "we are not dealing with
successive waves of visitations from space. We are
dealing with a control system" (p. 195). "What takes
place through close encounters with UFOs is control
of human beliefs" (p. 3). "With every new wave of
UFOs, the social impact becomes greater. More
young people become fascinated with space, with psy-
chic phenomena, with new frontiers in consciousness.
More books and articles appear, changing our cul-
ture" (pp. 197-8). In another book he notes that "it
is possible to make large sections of any population
believe in the existence of supernatural races, in the
possibility of flying machines, in the plurality of in-
habited worlds, by exposing them to a few carefully
129
engineered scenes, the details of which are adapted
to the culture and superstitions of a particular time
and place.''*
An important clue to the meaning of these "en-
gineered scenes" may be seen in an observation often
made by careful observers of UFO phenomena, espe-
cially CE-III and "contactee" cases: that they are
profoundly "absurd," or contain at least as much ab-
surdity as rationality (Vallee, The Invisible Col-
lege, p. 196). Individual "Close Encounters" have
absurd details, like the four pancakes given by a UFO
occupant to a Wisconsin chicken-farmer in 1961;**
more significantly, the encounters themselves are
strangely pointless, without clear purpose or mean-
ing. A Pennsylvania psychiatrist has suggested that
the absurdity present in almost all UFO close en-
counters is actually a hypnotic technique. "When
the person is disturbed by the absurd or contradic -
tory, and their mind is searching for meaning, they
are extremely open to thought transference, to re-
ceiving psychic healing, etc." (The Invisible Col-
lege, p. 115). Dr. Vallee compares this technique
to the irrational koans of Zen Masters (p. 27), and
notices the similarity between UFO encounters and
occult initiation rituals which "open the mind" to a
"new set of symbols" (p. 117). All this points to what
he calls "the next form of religion" (p. 202).

* Vallee, Passport to Magonia, Henry Regnery Co.,

Chicago, 1969, pp. 150-1.
** Vallee, Passport to Magonia, pp. 23-25. One.-of
the pancakes was actually analyzed by the Food and
Drug Laboratory of the U.S. Department of Health,
Education, and Welfare, and was found to be "of ter-
restrial origin."

130
 Thus, UFO encounters are but a contemporary
form of an occult phenomenon which has existed
throughout the centuries. Men have abandoned Chris-
tianity and look for "'saviours" from outer space, and
therefore the phenomenon supplies images of space-
craft and space beings. But what is this phenomenon?
Who is doing the "engineering," and to what purpose?
Today's investigators have already supplied the
answers to at least the first two questions, although,
being without competence in the realm of religious
phenomena, they do not fully understand the signifi-
cance of what they have found. One investigator,
Brad Steiger, an lowa college professor who has
written several books on the subject, after a recent
detailed study of the Air Force "Blue Book" files,
concluded: "We are dealing with a multi-dimensional
paraphysical phenomenon, which is largely indigenous
to planet earth" (Canadian UFO Report, Summer,
1977). Drs. Hynek and Vallee have advanced the hy-
pothesis of ''earth-bound aliens" to account for UFO
phenomena, and speculate on "interlocking universes"
right here on earth from which they might come, much
as "poltergeists'' produce physical effects while re-
maining themselves invisible. John Keel, who began
his UFO investigation as a sceptic and is himself an
agnostic in religion, writes: "The real UFO story ...
is one of ghosts and phantoms and strange mental ab-
berrations; of an invisible world which surrounds us
and occasionally engulfs us... It is a world of illu-
sion ... where reality itself is distorted by strange
forces which can seemingly manipulate space, time,
and physical matter — forces which are almost en-
tirely beyond our powers of comprehension... The
UFO manifestations seem to be, by and large, merely
minor variations of the age-old demonological pheno-

131
menon" (UFOs: Operation Trojan Horse, pp. 46, 299).
In a recent bibliography of UFO phenomena prepared
by the Library of Congress for the United States Air
Force Office of Scientific Research, the introduction
states that "Many of the UFO reports now being pub-
lished in the popular press recount alleged incidents
that are strikingly similar to demonic possession and
psychic phenomena which have long been known to
theologians and parapsychologists."* Most UFO re-
searchers are now turning to the occult realm and to
demonology for insight into the phenomena they are
studying.
Several recent studies of UFOs, by evangelical
Protestants, put all this evidence together and come
to the conclusion that UFO phenomena are simply and
precisely demonic in origin.** The Orthodox Chris-
tian investigator can hardly come to a different con-
clusion. Some or many of the experiences, it may be,
are the result of hoaxes or hallucinations; but it is
simply impossible to dismiss all of the many thou-
sands of UFO reports in this way. A great number of
modern mediums and their spiritistic phenomena are
also fraudulent; but mediumistic spiritism itself, when
it is genuine, undeniably produces real "paranormal"
phenomena under the action of demons. UFO pheno-
mena, having the same source, are no less real.

* Lynn G. Catoe, UFOs and Related Subjects: An An-

notated Bibliography, U.S. Government Printing
Office, Washington, D.C., 1969.
** Clifford Wilson and John Weldon, Close Encount-
ers: A Better Explanation, Master Books, San Die-
go, 1978; Spiritual Counterfeits Project Journal,
Berkeley, Calif., August, 1977: "UFOs: Is Science
Fiction Coming True?"

132
 Case histories of people who have been drawn
into contact with UFOs reveal the standard charac-
teristics which go with involvement with demons in
the occult realm. A police officer in southern Cali-
fornia, for example, began to see UFOs in June,
1966, and thereafter saw them frequently, almost al-
ways at night. After one "landing" he and his wife
saw distinct traces of the UFO onthe ground. "Dur-
ing these weeks of tantalizing sightings, I became to-
tally obsessed with the UFOs, convinced that some-
thing great was about to happen. I abandoned my dai-
ly Bible reading and turned my back on God as I be-
gan reading every UFO book I could lay my hands on
... Many nights I watched in vain, trying to mentally
communicate with what I then thought were extrater-
restrial beings, almost praying to them to appear and
establish some sort of contact with me." Finally he
had a "Close Encounter" with a "craft" some 80 feet
in diameter, with rotating white, red, and green
lights. It sped off and left him still expecting some-
thing "great" to happen — but nothing ever did hap-
pen, the UFOs ceased appearing, and in his frustra-
tion he turned to alcohol, depression, and thoughts of
Suicide, until his conversion to Christ ended this
period of his life. People who have actually contacted
the UFO beings have much worse experiences; the
beings some times literally "possess" them and try to
kill them when they resist (UFOs: A Better Explana-
tion, pp. 298-305). Such cases effectively remind
us that, quite apart from the meaning of UFO pheno-
mena as a whole, each UFO "Close Encounter" has
the specific purpose of deceiving the individual who
is contacted and leading him, if not to further ''con-
tacts" and spreading of the UFO "message," then at
least to personal spiritual confusion and disorienta-
tion.

133
 The most puzzling aspect of UFO phenomena to
most researchers — namely, the strange mingling of
physical and psychic characteristics in them — is no
puzzle at all to readers of Orthodox Spiritual books,
especially the Lives of Saints. Demons also have
"physical bodies," although the "matter" in them is of
such subtlety that it cannot be perceived by men un-
less their spiritual "doors of perception" are op-
ened, whether with God's will (as in the case of ho-
ly men) or against it (as inthe case of sorcerers and
mediums). * |
Orthodox literature has many examples of de
monic manifestations which fit precisely the UFO pat-
tern: apparitions of "solid" beings and objects (whe-
ther demons themselves or their illusionary crea-
tions) which suddenly "materialize" and "demateria-
lize,'' always with the aim of aweing and confusing
people and ultimately leading them to perdition. The
Lives of the 4th-century St. Anthony the Great (East-
ern Orthodox Books, 1976) and the 3rd-century St.
Cyprian the Former Sorcerer (The Orthodox Word,
1976, no. 5) are filled with such incidents.
The Life of St. Martin of Tours (+397) by his
disciple, Sulpicius Severus, has an interesting ex-
ample of demonic power in connection with a strange
"physical" manifestation which closely parallels to-
day's UFO "Close Encounters." A certain youth
named Anatolius became a monk near St. Martin's
monastery, but out of false humility he became the

* The Orthodox doctrine of demons and angels, their

manifestations and the human perception of them,:as
summarized by the great Orthodox Father of the 19th
century, Bishop Ignatius Branchaninov, is set forth
in the book The Soul After Death, St. Herman Broth-
erhood, Platina, California, 1979.
134
victim of demonic deception. He fancied that he con-
versed with "angels," and in order to persuade oth-
ers of his sanctity, these "angels" agreed to give him
a ''shining robe from out of heaven" as a sign of the
"Power of God" that dwelt in the youth. One night a-
bout midnight there was a tremendous thudding of
dancing feet and a murmuring as of many voices in the
hermitage, and Anatolius' cell became ablaze with
light. Then came silence, and the deceived one e-
merged from his cell with the "heavenly" garment.
"A light was brought and all carefully inspected the
garment. It was exceedingly soft, with a surpassing
luster, and of a brilliant scarlet, but it was impossi-
ble to tell the nature of the material. Atthe sametime,
under the most exact scrutiny of eyes and fingers it
seemed to be a garment and nothing else." The fol-
lowing morning, Anatolius' spiritual father took him
by the hand in order to lead him to St. Martin to dis-
cover whether this was actually a trick of the devil.
In fear, the deceived one refused to go, "and when he
was being forced to go against his will, between the
hands of those who were dragging him the garment
disappeared." The author of the account (who either
witnessed the incident himself or had it from eyewit-
nesses) concludes that ''the devil was unable to keep
up his illusions or conceal their nature when they
were to be submitted to Martin's eyes." "It was so
fully within his power to see the devil that he recog-
nized him under any form, whether he kept to his own
character or changed himself into any of the various
shapes of ‘spiritual wickedness'''— including the
forms of pagan gods and the appearance of Christ
Himself, with royal robes and crown and enveloped in
a bright red light.*

* F.R. Hoare tr., The Western Fathers, Harper

135
 It is clear that the manifestations of today's
"flying saucers" are quite within the "technology" of
demons; indeed, nothing else can explain them as
well. The multifarious demonic deceptions of Ortho-
dox literature have been adapted to the mythology of
outer space, nothing more; the Anatolius mentioned a-
bove would be known today simply as a "'contactee."
And the purpose of the "unidentified" object in such
accounts is clear: to awe the beholders with a sense
of the "mysterious," and to produce "proof" of the
"higher intelligences" ("angels,'' if the victim be-
lieves in them, or ''space visitors" for modern men),
and thereby to gain trust for the message they wish to
communicate. We shall look at this message below.
A demonic "kidnapping" quite close to UFO "ab-
ductions" is described in the Life of St. Nilus of So-
ra, the 15th-century founder of Skete life in Russia.
Some time after the Saint's death there lived in his
monastery a certain priest with his son. Once, when
the boy was sent on some errand, "suddenly there
came to him a certain strange man who seized him and
carried him, as if on the wind, into an impenetrable
forest, bringing him into a large room in his dwelling
and placing him in the middle of this cabin, in front of
the window." When the priest and the monks prayed
for St. Nilus' help in finding the lost boy, the Saint
"came to the boy's aid and stood before the room
where the boy was standing, and when he struck the
window-frame with his staff the building was shaken
and all the unclean spirits fell to the earth." The
Saint told the demon to return the boy to the place
from which he had taken him, and then became invisi-
ble. Then, after some howling among the demons,
"the same strange one seized the boy and brought him

Torchbacks, New York, 1965, pp. 36-41.

136
to the Skete like the wind ... and placing him on a
haystack, he became invisible." After being seen by
the monks, "the boy told them everything that hap-
pened to him, what he had seen and heard. And from
that time this boy became very humble, as if he had
been stupefied. The priest out of terror left the
Skete with his son.''* Ina similar demonic ''kidnap—
ping" in 19th-century Russia, a young man, after his
mother cursed him, became the slave of a demon
"orandfather" for 12 years and was capable of ap-
pearing invisibly among men in order to help the de-
mon sow confusion in their midst.**
Such true stories of demonic activity were com-
monplace in earlier centuries. It is a sign of the spi-
ritual crisis of today that modern men, for all their
proud "enlightenment" and "wisdom," are becoming
once more aware.of such experiences — but no long-
er have the Christian framework with which to ex-
plain them. Contemporary UFO researchers, seeking
for an explanation of phenomena which have become too
noticeable to overlook any longer, have joined today's
psychic researchers in an attempt to formulate a "u-
nified field theory" that will encompass psychic as
well as physical phenomena. But such researchers
only continue the approach of "enlightened" modern
men and trust their scientific observations to give
answers in a spiritual realm that cannot be ap-
proached "objectively" at all, but only with faith. The
physical world is morally neutral and may be known
relatively well by an objective observer; but the in-

* The Northern Thebaid, St. Herman of Alaska Bro-

therhood, 1975, pp. 91-92.
** S, Nilus, The Power of God and Man's Weakness (in
Russian), St. Sergius' Lavra, 1908; St. Herman Bro-
therhood, 1976, pp. 279-98.
137
visible spiritual realm comprises beings both good
and evil, and the "objective" observer has no means
of distinguishing one from the other unless he accepts
the revelation which the invisible God has made of
them to man. Thus, today's UFO researchers place
the Divine inspiration of the Bible on the same level
as the satanically inspired automatic writing of spi-
ritism, and they do not distinguish between the ac-
tions of angels and those of demons. They know now
(after a long period when materialistic prejudices
reigned among scientists) that there is a non-physical
realm that is real, and they see its effects in UFO
phenomena; but as long as they approach this realm
"scientifically," they will be just as easily deceived
by the unseen powers as the most naive "contactee."
When they try to determine who or what is behind the
UFO phenomena, and what the purpose of the pheno-
mena might be, they are forced to indulge in the wild-
est speculations. Thus Dr. Vallee confesses himself
baffled whether the source of UFO manifestations
might be a morally neutral "unattended clockwork," a
benevolent "solemn gathering of wise men" (as the
"extraterrestrial" myth would have us believe), or "a
terrible superhuman monstrosity the very contempla-
tion of which would make a man insane," that is, the
activity of demons (The Invisible College, p. 206).
A true evaluation of the UFO experience may be
made only on the basis of Christian revelation and
experience, and is accessible only to the humble
Christian believer who trusts these sources. To be
sure, it is not given to man entirely to "explain" the
invisible world of angels and demons; but enough
Christian knowledge has been given us to know how
these beings act in our world and how we should re-
spond to their actions, particularly in escaping the
nets of the demons. UFO researchers have come to
138
the conclusion that the phenomena they have studied
are essentially identical with phenomena that used to
be called ''demonic;"' but only the Christian — the Or-
thodox Christian, who is enlightened by the Patristic
understanding of Scripture and the 2000-year experi-
ence of Saints' encounters with invisible beings — is
able to know the full meaning of this conclusion.

ô. The Meaning of UFOs

What, then, is the meaning of the UFO phenome-

ma of our time? Why have they appeared just at this
time in history? What is their message? To what fu-
ture do they point?
First, UFO phenomena are but one part of an
astonishing outpouring of "paranormal" events —
what just a few years ago most people would have
considered as "miracles." Dr. Vallee, in The Invi-
stble College, expresses the secular appreciation of
this fact: "Observations of unusual events suddenly
loom into our environment by the thousands" (p. 187),
causing "a general shifting of man's belief patterns,
his entire relationship to the concept of the invisible"
(p. 114). "Something is happening to human con-
sciousness" (p. 34); the same "powerful force [that]
has influenced the human race in the past is again in-
fluencing it now" (p. 14). In Christian language this
means: a new demonic outpouring is being loosed upon
mankind. In the Christian apocalyptic view (see the
end of this book), we can see that the power which
until now has restrained the final and most terrible
manifestation of demonic activity on earth has been
taken away (II Thes. 2:7), Orthodox Christian gov-
ernment and public order (whose chief representative
139
on earth was the Orthodox emperor) and the Orthodox
Christian world view no longer exist as a whole, and
satan has been "loosed out of his prison," where he
was kept by the grace of the Church of Christ, in or-
der to "deceive the nations" (Apoc. 20:7-8) and pre-
pare them to worship Antichrist at the end of the age.
Perhaps never since the beginning of the Christian
era have demons appeared so openly and extensively
as today. The "visitors from outer space" theory is
but one of the many pretexts they are using to gain
acceptance for the idea that "higher beings" are now
to take charge of the destiny of mankind.*
Second, UFOs are but the newest of the medium-
istic techniques by which the devil gains initiates
into his occult realm. They are a terrible sign that
man has become susceptible to demonic influence as
never before in the Christian era. In the 19th centu-
ry it was usually necessary to seek out dark seance
rooms in order to enter into contact with demons , but
now one need only look into the sky (usually at night,
it is true). Mankind has lost what remained of basic
Christian understanding up to now, and now passively
places itself at the disposal of whatever "powers"
may descend from the sky. The new film, Close En-
counters of the Third Kind, is a shocking revelation
of how superstitious "post-Christian" man has be-
come — ready in an instant and unquestioningly to be-
lieve and follow hardly-disguised demons wherever
they might lead. **

* Many of the reports of "Bigfoot" and other "mon-

sters" show the same occult characteristics as UFO
sightings, and often they occur in connection with
such sightings.
** Two other recently-discovered "paranormal" phe-
nomena reveal how boldly the demons are now making

140
 Third, the "message" of the UFOs is: prepare
for Antichrist; the "saviour" of the apostate world is
coming to rule it. Perhaps he himself will come in
the air, in order to complete his impersonation of
Christ (Matt. 24:30; Acts 1:11); perhaps only the
"visitors from outer space" will land publicly in or-
der to offer "cosmic" worship of their master; per-
haps the "fire from heaven" (Apoc. 13:13) will be only
a part of the great demonic spectacles of the last
times. At any rate, the message for contemporary
mankind is: expect deliverance, not from the Chris-

use of physical means (in particular, modern techni-

cal devices) in order to enter into contact with men.
(1) One Latvian researcher (now followed by others)
has discovered the phenomenon of mysterious voices
which appear unexplainably on tape-recorders, even
when the recording is done under clinical conditions
in a totally soundless atmosphere, with results very
similar to those of seances. The presence of a medi-
um or "psychic" in the room seems to help the pheno-
menon (Konstantin Raudive, Breakthrough: An Amazing
Experiment in Electronic Communication with the
Dead, Taplinger Publishing Co., New York, 1971).
(2) Metallic-voiced "space people" for some time have
supposedly been using the telephone to communicate
with both "contactees'' and UFO researchers. The
possibility of a hoax in such a phenomenon, of course,
is high. But in recent years the voices of the dead,
convincing to those who are contacted, have been
heard in telephone conversations with their loved
ones. It can hardly be denied, as the reporter of
this phenomenon notes, that "the demons of old are
marching among us again" — to a degree unheard of
in the past (Keel, UFOs: Operation Trojan Horse, p.
306).
141
tian revelation and faith in an unseen God, but from
vehicles in the sky.
It is one of the signs of the last times that there
shall be terrors and great signs from heaven (Luke
21:11). Even a hundred years ago Bishop Ignatius
Brianchaninov, in his book On Miracles and Signs
(Yaroslavl, 1870, reprinted by Holy Trinity Monas-
tery, Jordanville, N.Y., 1960), remarked on "the
striving to be encountered in contemporary Christian
society to see miracles and even perform miracles...
Such a striving reveals the self-deception, founded
on self-esteem and vainglory, that dwells in the soul
and possesses it" (p. 32). True wonderworkers have
decreased and grown extinct, but people "thirst for
miracles more than ever before... We are gradually
coming near to the time when a vast arena is to be o-
pened up for numerous and striking false miracles, to
draw to perdition those unfortunate offspring of
fleshly wisdom who will be seduced and deceived by
these miracles" (pp. 48-49).
Of special interest to UFO investigators, "the
miracles of Antichrist will be chiefly manifested in
the aerial realm, where satan chiefly has his domin-
ion. The signs will act most of = on the sense of
sight, charming and deceiving it. . John the Theo-
logian, beholding in revelation the ee that are to
precede the end of the world, says that Antichrist
will perform great signs, and will even make fire to
come down out of heaven upon the earth in the sight
of men (Apoc. 13:13). This is the sign indicated by
Scripture as the highest of the signs of Antichrist,
and the place of this sign is the air: it will be a
splendid and terrible spectacle" (p. 13). St. Symeon
the New Theologian for this reason remarks that "the
struggler of prayer should quite rarely look into the
sky out of fear of the evil spirits in the air who cause
142
many and various deceptions in the air" (Philokalia,
"The Three Forms of Heedfulness"). "Men will not
understand that the miracles of Antichrist have no
good, rational purpose, no definite meaning, that they
are foreign to truth, filled with lies, that they are a
monstrous, malicious, meaningless play-acting, which
increases in order to astonish, to reduce to perplexi-
ty and oblivion, to deceive, to seduce, to attract by
the fascination of a pompous, empty, stupid effect" (p.
11). "All demonic manifestations have the character-
istic that even the slightest heed paid to them is dan-
gerous; from such heedfulness alone, allowed even
without any sympathy for the manifestation, one may
be sealed with a most harmful impression and sub-
jected to a serious temptation" (p. 50). Thousands of
UFO "contactees" and even simple witnesses have
experienced thé’ dreadful truth of these words; few
have escaped once they become deeply involved.
Even the secular investigators of UFO pheno-
mena have seen fit to warn people against their dan-
gers. John Keel, for example, writes: 'Dabbling
with UFOs can be as dangerous as dabbling with
black magic. The phenomenon preys upon the neuro-
tic, the gullible, and the immature. Paranoid-schi-
zophrenia, demonomania, and even suicide can result
— and has resulted in a number of cases. A mild cu-
riosity about UFOs can turn into a destructive obses-
sion. For this reason, I strongly recommend that
parents forbid their children from becoming involved.
Schoolteachers and other adults should not encourage
teen-agers to take an interest in this subject" (UFOs:
Operation Trojan Horse, p. 220).
In a different place Bishop Ignatius Briancha-
ninov recorded with awe and foreboding the vision of
a simple Russian blacksmith in a village near Peters-
burg at the dawn of our present age of unbelief and
143
revolution (1817). In the middle of the day he sud-
denly saw a multitude of demons in human form, sit-
ting in the branches of the forest trees, in strange
garments and pointed caps, and singing, to the ac-
companiment of unbelievably weird musical instru-
ments, an eerie and frightful song: "Our years have
come, our will be done!''*
We live near the end of this fearful age of de-
monic triumph and rejoicing, when the eerie "human-
oids" (another of the masks of the demons) have be-
come visible to thousands of people and by their ab-
surd encounters take possession of the souls of those
men from whom God's grace has departed. The UFO
phenomenon is a sign to Orthodox Christians to walk
all the more cautiously and soberly on the path to
salvation, knowing that we can be tempted and se-
duced not merely by false religions, but even by
seemingly physical objects which just catch the eye.
In earlier centuries Christians were very cautious
about strange and new phenomena, knowing of the de-
vil's wiles; but after the modern age of "enlighten-
ment'' most people have become merely curious about
such things and even pursue them, relegating the de-
vil to a half-imaginary realm. Awareness of the na-
ture of UFOs, then, can be a help in awakening Or-
thodox Christians to a conscious spiritual life and a
conscious Orthodox world-view that does not easily
follow after the fashionable ideas of the times.
The conscious Orthodox Christian lives in a
world that is clearly fallen, both the earth below and
the stars above, all being equally far from the lost
paradise for which he is striving. He is part of a
suffering mankind all descended from the one Adam,

S. Nilus, Svyatynya
ka
pod Spudom,
n
Sergiev Posad,
1911, p. 122.
144
the first man, and all alike in need of the redemption
offered freely by the Son of God by His Saving Sacri-
fice on the Cross. He knows that man is not to "e—
volve" into something "higher," nor has he any rea-
son to believe that there are "highly evolved" beings
on other planets; but he knows well that there are in-
deed "advanced intelligences" in the universe besides
himself: these are of two kinds, and he strives to live
so as to dwell with those who serve God (the angels)
and avoid contact with the others who have rejected
God and strive in their envy and malice to draw man
into their misfortune (the demons). He knows that
man, out of self-love and weakness, is easily inclined
to follow error and believe in "fairy tales" that pro-
mise contact with a "higher state" or "higher beings"
without the struggle of Christian life — in fact, pre-
cisely as an escape from the struggle of Christian
life. He distrusts his own ability to see through ihe
deceptions of the demons, and therefore clings all the
more firmly to the Scriptural and Patristic guidelines
which the Church of Christ provides for his life.
_ Such a one has the possibility to resist the re-
ligion of the future, the religion of Antichrist, in
whatever form it may present itself; the rest of man-
kind, save by a miracle of God, is lost.

145
VIL The “Charismatic Revival’

AS A SIGN OF THE TIMES

Costa Detr took the mike and told us how his

heart was burdened for the Greek Orthodox Church.
He asked Episcopalian Father Driscoll to pray that
the Holy Spirit would sweep that Church as He was
sweeping the Catholic Church. While Father Dris-
coll prayed, Costa Deir wept into the mike. Follow-
ing the prayer was a long message in tongues and an
equally long interpretation saying that the pray-
ers had been heard and the Holy Spirit would blow
through and awaken the Greek Orthodox Church... By
this time there was so much weeping and calling out
that I backed away from it all emotionally... Yet I
heard myself saying a surprising thing. 'Some day
when we read how the Spirit is moving in the Greek
Orthodox Church, let usremember that we were here
the moment that it began.'*

* Pat King, in Logos Journal, Sept.-Oct., 1971, p.

50. This "international charismatic journal" should
not be confused with Fr. E. Stephanou's Logos.
146
 SIX MONTHS after the event here described
occurred at an interdenominational "charismatic"
meeting in Seattle, Orthodox Christians did indeed
begin to hear that the "charismatic spirit" was mov-
ing in the Greek Orthodox Church. Beginning in Jan-
uary, 1972, Fr. Eusebius Stephanou's Logos began
to report on this movement, which had begun earlier
in several Greek and Syrian parishes in America and
now has spread to a number of others, being actively
promoted by Fr. Eusebius. After the reader has read
the description of this "spirit" from the words of its
leading representatives in the pages that follow, he
should not find it difficult to believe that in very fact
it was evoked and instilled into the Orthodox world by
just such urgent entreaties of "interdenominational
Christians." For if one conclusion emerges from this
description, it must certainly be that the spectacular
present-day "charismatic revival" is not merely a
phenomenon of hyper-emotionalism and Protestant re-
vivalism — although these elements are also strongly
present — but is actually the work of a "spirit" who
can be invoked and who works "miracles." The ques-
tion we shall attempt to answer in these pages is:
what or who is this spirit? As Orthodox Christians
we know that it is not only God Who works miracles;
the devil has his own "miracles," and in fact he can
and does imitate virtually every genuine miracle of
God. We shall therefore attempt in these pages to be
careful to try the spirits, whether they are of God
(1 John 4:1).
We shall begin with a brief historical back-
ground, since no one can deny that the "charismatic
revival" has come to the Orthodox world from the
Protestant and Catholic denominations, which in turn
received it from the Pentecostal sects.

147
 1. The 20th-century Pentecostal Movement

THE MODERN Pentecostal Movement, although

it did have 19th-century antecedents, dates its origin
precisely to 7 p.m. on New Year's Eve of the year
1900. For some time before that moment a Methodist
minister in Topeka, Kansas, Charles Parham, as an
answer to the confessed feebleness of his Christian
ministry, had been concentratedly studying the New
Testament with a group of his students with the aim of
discovering the secret of the power of Apostolic
Christianity. The students finally deduced that this
secret lay in the "speaking in tongues" which, they
thought, always accompanied the reception of the Holy
Spirit in the Acts of the Apostles. With increasing
excitement and tension, Parham and his students re-
solved to pray until they themselves received the
"Baptism of the Holy Spirit" together with speaking
in tongues. On December 31, 1900, they prayed from
morning to night with no success, until one young
girl suggested that one ingredient was missing in this
experiment: "laying on of hands." Parham put his
hands on the girl's head, and immediately she began
to speak in an "unknown tongue." Within three days
there were many such ''Baptisms," including that of
Parham himself and twelve other ministers of various
denominations, and all of them were accompanied by
speaking in tongues. Soon the revival spread to Tex-
as, and then it had spectacular success at a small
Negro church in Los Angeles. Since then it has
spread throughout the world and claims ten million
members.
For half a century the Pentecostal Movement
remained sectarian and everywhere it was received
with hostility by the established denominations. Then,
however, speaking in tongues began gradually to ap-
148
pear in the denominations themselves, although at
first it was kept rather quiet, until in 1960 an Epis-
copalian priest near Los Angeles gave wide publicity
to this fact by publicly declaring that he had received
the "Baptism of the Holy Spirit" and spoke in
tongues. After some initial hostility, the ''charis~
matic revival" gained the official or unofficial ap-
proval of all the major denominations and has spread
rapidly both in America and abroad. Even the once
rigid and exclusivist Roman Catholic Church, once it
took up the "charismatic renewal" in earnest in the
late 1960's, has been enthusiastically swept up in
this movement. In America, the Roman Catholic
bishops gave their approval to the movement in 1969,
and the few thousand Catholics involved in it then
have since increased to untold hundreds of thousands,
who gather periodically in local and nationwide ''cha-
rismatic" conferences whose participants are some-
times numbered in the tens of thousands. The Roman
Catholic countries of Europe have also become enthu-—
siastically "charismatic," as witnessed by the "cha-
rismatic" conference in Summer, 1978, in Ireland,
attended by thousands of Irish priests. Not long be-
fore his death Pope Paul VI met with a delegation of
"charismatics" and proclaimed that he too is a pen-
tecostal.
What can be the reason for such a spectacular
success of a "Christian" revival in a seemingly
“post-Christian"’ world? Doubtless the answer lies
in two factors: first, the receptive ground which con-
sists of those millions of "Christians" who feel that
their religion is dry, over-rational, merely external,
without fervency or power; and second, the evidently
powerful "spirit" that lies behind the phenomena,
which is capable, under the proper conditions, of
producing a multitude and variety of "charismatic"
149
phenomena, including healing, speaking in tongues,
interpretation, prophecy — and, underlying all of
these, an overwhelming experience which is called
the "Baptism of (or in, or with) the Holy Spirit."
But what precisely is this "spirit"? Signifi-
cantly, this question is seldom if ever even raised by
followers of the "charismatic revival;'' their own
"baptismal" experience is so powerful and has been
preceded by such an effective psychological prepara-
tion in the form of concentrated prayer and expecta-
tion, that there is never any doubt in their minds but
that they have received the Holy Spirit and that the
phenomena they have experienced and seen are exact-
ly those described in the Acts of the Apostles. Too,
the psychological atmosphere of the movement is often
so one-sided and tense that it is regarded as the very
blasphemy against the Holy Spirit to entertain any
doubts in this regard. Of the hundreds of books that
have already appeared on the movement, only a very
few express any even slight doubts as to its spiritual
validity.
In order to obtain a better idea of the distinc-
tive characteristics of the "charismatic revival," let
us examine some of the testimonies and practices of
its participants, always checking them against the
standard of Holy Orthodoxy. These testimonies will
be taken, with a few exceptions as noted, from the a-
pologetical books and magazines of the movement,
written by people who are favorable to it and who
obviously publish only that material which seems to
support their position. Further, we shall make only
minimal use of narrowly Pentecostal sources, confin-
ing ourselves chiefly to Protestant, Catholic, and
Orthodox participants in the contemporary ''charis-
matic revival."

150
 2. The "Ecumenical" Spirit of the
"Charismatic Revival"

BEFORE QUOTING the "charismatic" testimon-

ies, we should take note of a chief characteristic of
the original Pentecostal movement which is seldom
mentioned by "charismatic" writers, and that is, that
the number and variety of Pentecostal sects is aston-
ishing, each with its own doctrinal emphasis, and
many of them having no fellowship with the others.
There are "Assemblies of God," "Churches of God,"
"Pentecostal" and "Holiness" bodies, "Full Gospel"
groups, etc., many of them divided into smaller
sects. The first thing that one would have to say a-
bout the "spirit" that inspires such anarchy is that it
certainly is not a spirit of unity, in sharp contrast to
the Apostolic Church of the first century to which the
movement professes to be returning. Nevertheless,
there is much talk, especially in the "charismatic re-
vival" within the denominations in the past decade, of
the "unity" which it inspires. But what kind of unity
is this? — the true unity of the Church which Ortho-
dox Christians of the first and twentieth centuries a-
like know, or the pseudo-unity of the Ecumenical
Movement, which denies that the Church of Christ
exists?
The answer to this question is stated quite
clearly by perhaps the leading "prophet" of 20th-cen-
tury Pentecostalism, David Du Plessis, who for the
last twenty years has been actively spreading news of
the ''Baptism of the Holy Spirit" among the denomina-
tions of the World Council of Churches, in answer to
a "voice" which commanded him to do so in 1951.
"The Pentecostal revival within the churches is gath-
ering force and speed. The most remarkable thing is
that this revival is found in the so-called liberal so-
151
cieties and much less in the evangelical and not at all
in the fundamentalist segments of Protestantism. The
last-mentioned are now the most vehement opponents
of this glorious revival because it is in the Pente-
costal Movement and in the modernist World Council
Movements that we find the most powerful manifesta-
tions of the Spirit" (Du Plessis, p. 28).*
In the Roman Catholic Church likewise, the
"charismatic renewal" is occurring precisely in
"liberal" circles, and one of its results is to in-
spire even more their ecumenism and liturgical
experimentation ("guitar masses" and the like);
whereas traditionalist Catholics are as opposed to
the movement as are fundamentalist Protestants.
Without any doubt the orientation of the "charismatic
revival" is strongly ecumenist. A "charismatic" Lu-
theran pastor, Clarence Finsaas, writes: "Many are
surprised that the Holy Spirit can move also in the
various traditions of the historic Church ... whether
the church doctrine has. a background of Calvinism or
Arminianism, this matters little, proving God is big-
ger than our creeds and that no denomination has a
monopoly on Him" (Christenson, p. 99). An Episco-
palian pastor, speaking of the "charismatic revival,"
reports that "ecumenically it is leading to a remarka-
ble joining together of Christians of different tradi-
tions, mainly at the local church level" (Harper, p.
17). The California "charismatic" periodical Inter-
Church Renewal is full of "unity" demonstrations such
as this one: "The darkness of the ages was dispelled
and a Roman Catholic nun and a Protestant could
love each other with a strange new kind of love,"

*Most books will be cited in this article only by auth-

or and page number; full bibliographical information
is supplied at the end of the article.
152
which proves that "old denominational barriers are
crumbling. Superficial doctrinal differences are be-
ing put aside for all believers to come into the unity
of the Holy Spirit." The Orthodox priest Fr. Euse-
bius Stephanou believes that "this outpouring of the
Holy Spirit is transcending denominational lines...
The Spirit of God is moving ... both inside and out-
side the Orthodox Church" (Logos, Jan., 1972, p.12).
Here the Orthodox Christian who is alert to
"try the spirits" finds himself on familiar ground,
sown with the usual ecumenist cliches. And above all
let us note that this new "outpouring of the Holy
Spirit," exactly like the Ecumenical Movement itself,
arises outside the Orthodox Church; those few Or-
thodox parishes that are now taking it up are obvi-
ously following a fashion of the times that matured
completely outside the bounds of the Church of
Christ.
But what isit that those outside the Church of
Christ are capable of teaching Orthodox Christians?
It is certainly true (no conscious Orthodox person
will deny it) that Orthodox Christians are sometimes
put to shame by the fervor and zeal of some Roman
Catholics and Protestants for church attendance,
missionary activities, praying together, reading the
Scripture, and the like. Fervent non—Orthodox per-
sons can shame the Orthodox, even in the error of
their beliefs, when they make more effort to please
God than many Orthodox people do while possessing
the whole fullness of apostolic Christianity. The Or-
thodox would do well to learn from them and wake up
to the spiritual riches in their own Church which they
fail to see out of spiritual sloth or bad habits. All
this relates to the human side of faith, to the human
efforts which can be expended in religious activities
whether one's belief is right or wrong.
153
 The "charismatic" movement, however, claims
to be in contact with God, to have found a means for
receiving the Holy Spirit, the outpouring of God's
grace. And yet it is precisely the Church, and noth-
ing else, that our Lord Jesus Christ established as
the means of communicating grace tomen. Are we to
believe that the Church is now to be superceded by
some "new revelation" capable of transmitting grace
outside the Church, among any group of people who
may happen to believe in Christ but who have no
knowledge or experience of the Mysteries (Sacra-
ments) which Christ instituted and no contact with the
Apostles and their successors whom He appointed to
administer the Mysteries? No: it is as certain today
as it was in the first century that the gifts of the
Holy Spirit are not revealed in those outside the
Church. The great Orthodox Father of the 19th cen-
tury, Bishop Theophan the Recluse, writes that the
gift of the Holy Spirit is given "precisely through the
Sacrament of Chrismation, which was introduced by
the Apostles in place of the laying on of hands" (which
is the form the Sacrament takes in the Acts of the A-
postles). "We all — who have been baptized and
chrismated — have the gift of the Holy Spirit ... even
though it is not active in everyone." The Orthodox
Church provides the means for making this gift ac-
tive, and "there is no other path... Without the Sa-
crament of Chrismation, just as earlier without the
laying on of hands of the Apostles, the Holy Spirit
has never descended and never will descend.*

* Bishop Theophan the Recluse, What Is the Spiritu-

al Life, Jordanville, N.Y., 1962, pp. 247-8 (in Rus-
Sian). Fr. Eusebius Stephanou (Logos, Jan., 1972,
p. 13) attempts to justify the present-day ‘reception
of the Holy Spirit' outside the Church by citing the

154
 In a word, the orientation of the "charismatic
revival" may be described as one of a new and deeper
or "spiritual" ecumenism: each Christian "renewed"
in his own tradition, but at the same time strangely
united (for it is the same experience) with others e-
qually ''renewed" in their own traditions, all of which
contain various degrees of heresy and impiety! This
relativism leads also to openness to completely new
religious practices, as when an Orthodox priest al-
lows laymen to "lay hands" on him in front of the Roy-
al Gates of an Orthodox church (Logos, April, 1972, p.
4). The end of all this is the super-ecumenist vision
of the leading Pentecostal "prophet," who says that
many Pentecostals ''began to visualize the possibility
of the Movement becoming the Church of Christ in the
closing days of time. However, this situation has
completely changed during the past ten years. Many
of my brethren are now convinced that the Lord Jesus
Christ, the head of the Church, will pour out His
Spirit upon all flesh and that the historic churches
will be revived or renewed and then in this renewal
be united by the Holy Spirit" (Du Plessis, p. 33).
Clearly, there is no room in the "charismatic reviv-
al" for those who believe that the Orthodox Church is
the Church of Christ. It is no wonder that even some
Orthodox Pentecostals admit that in the beginning

account of the household of Cornelius the Centurion

(Acts 10), which received the Holy Spirit before
baptism. But the difference in the two cases is cru-
cial: the reception of the Holy Spirit by Cornelius
and his household was the sign that they should be
joined to the Church by Baptism, whereas contempo-
rary Pentecostals by their experience are only con-
firmed in their delusion that there is no one saving
Church of Christ.
155
they were "suspicious of the Orthodoxy" of this
movement (Logos, April, 1972, p. 9).
But now let.us begin to look beyond the ecumen-
istic theories and practices of Pentecostalism to that
which really inspires and gives strength to the
"charismatic revival:" the actual experience of the
power of the "spirit."

3. "Speaking in Tongues”

IF WE LOOK carefully at the writings of the

"charismatic revival," we shall find that this move-
ment closely resembles many sectarian movements of
the past in basing itself primarily or even entirely on
one rather bizarre doctrinal emphasis or religious
practice. The only difference is that the emphasis
now is placed on a specific point which no sectarians
in the past regarded as so central: speaking in
tongues.
According to the constitution of various Pente-
costal sects, "the Baptism of believers in the Holy
Ghost is witnessed by the initial physical sign of
speaking with other tongues" (Sherrill, p. 79). And
not only is this the first sign of conversion to a Pen-
tecostal sect or orientation: according to the best
Pentecostal authorities, this practice must be contin-
ued or the "spirit" may be lost. Writes David Du
Plessis: "The practice of praying in tongues should
continue and increase in the lives of those who are
baptized in the Spirit, otherwise they may find that
the other manifestations of the Spirit come seldom or
stop altogether" (Du Plessis, p. 89). Many testify,
as does one Protestant, that tongues "have now be-

156
come an essential accompaniment of my devotional
life’ (Lillie, p. 50). And a Roman Catholic book on
the subject, more cautiously, says that of the "gifts
of the Holy Spirit" tongues "is often but not always
the first received. For many it is thus a threshold
through which one passes into the realm of the gifts
and fruits of the Holy Spirit" (Ranaghan, p. 19).
Here already one may note an overemphasis
that is certainly not present in the New Testament,
where speaking in tongues has a decidedly minor sig-
nificance, serving as a sign of the descent of the Holy
Spirit on the Day of Pentecost (Acts 2) and on two
other occasions (Acts 10 and 19). After the first or
perhaps the second century there is no record of it in
any Orthodox source, and it is not recorded as oc-
curring even among the great Fathers of the Egyp-
tian desert, who were so filled with the Spirit of God
that they performed numerous astonishing miracles,
including raising the dead. The Orthodox attitude to
genuine speaking in tongues, then, may be summed up
in the words of Blessed Augustine (Homilies on John,
V1:10): "In the earliest times the Holy Spirit fell
upon them that believed, and they spake with
tongues which they had not learned, as the Spirit
gave them utterance. These were signs adapted to
the time. For it was fitting that there be this sign of
the Holy Spirit in all tongues to show that the Gospel
of God was to run through all tongues over the whole
earth. That was done for a sign, and it passed a-
way." And as if to answer contemporary Pentecostals
with their strange emphasis on this point, Augustine
continues: "Is it now expected that they upon whom
hands are laid, should speak with tongues? Or when
we imposed our hand upon these children, did each
of you wait to see whether they would speak with

157
tongues? And when he saw that they did not speak
with tongues, was any of you so perverse of heart as
to say 'These have not received the Holy Spirit'?"
Modern Pentecostals, to justify their use of
tongues, refer most of all to St. Paul's First Epistle
to the Corinthians (chs. 12-14). But St. Paul wrote
this passage precisely because "tongues" had become
a source of disorder in the Church of Corinth; and e-
ven while he does not forbid them, he decidedly
minimizes their significance. This passage, there-
fore, far from encouraging any modern revival of
"tongues," should on the contrary discourage it —
especially when one discovers (as Pentecostals them-
selves admit) that there are other sources of speak-
ing in tongues besides the Holy Spirit! As Orthodox
Christians we already know that speaking in tongues
asatrue gift of the Holy Spirit cannot appear a-
mong those outside the Church of Christ; but let us
look more closely at this modern phenomenon and see
if itpossesses characteristics that might reveal from
what source it does come.
If we are already made suspicious by the exag-—
gerated importance accorded to "tongues" by modern
Pentecostals, we should be completely awakened a-
bout them when we examine the circumstances in
which they occur.
Far from being given freely and spontaneously,
without man's interference — as are the true gifts of
the Holy Spirit — speaking in tongues can be caused
to occur quite predictably by a regular technique of
concentrated group "prayer" for it accompanied. by
psychologically suggestive Protestant hymns ("He
comes! He comes!"), culminating in a "laying on of
hands," and sometimes involving such purely physical
efforts as repeating a given phrase over and over a-
gain (Koch, p. 24), or just making sounds with the

158
mouth. One person admits that, like many others, af-
ter speaking in tongues "I often did mouth nonsense
syllables in an effort to start the flow of prayer-in-
tongues" (Sherrill, p. 127); and such efforts, far from
being discouraged, are actually advocated by Pen-
tecostals. "Making sounds with the mouth is not
‘speaking-in-tongues,' but it may signify an honest
act of faith, which the Holy Spirit will honor by giv-
ing that person the power to speak in another lan-
guage" (Harper, p. 11). Another Protestant pastor
says: "The initial hurdle to speaking in tongues, it
seems, is simply the realization that you must ‘speak
forth'... The first syllables and words may sound
strange to your ear. They may be halting and inarti-
culate. You may have the thought that you are just
making it up. But as you continue to speak in faith
... the Spirit will shape for you a language of prayer
and praise" (Christenson, p. 130). A Jesuit "theo-
logian" tells how he put such advice into practice:
"After breakfast I felt almost physically drawn to the
chapel where I sat down to pray. Following Jim's
description of his own reception of the gift of
torigues, I began to say quietly to myself ‘La, la, la,
la.’ To my immense consternation there ensued a ra-
pid movement of tongue and lips accompanied by a
tremendous feeling of inner devotion" (Gelpi, p. 1).
Can any sober Orthodox Christian possibly con-
fuse these dangerous psychic games with the gifts of
the Holy Spirit?! There is clearly nothing whatever
Christian, nothing spiritual here in the least. This
is the realm, rather, of psychic mechanisms which
can be set in operation by means of definite psycholo-
gical or physical techniques, and "speaking in
tongues" would seem to occupy a key role as a kind of
"trigger" in this realm. In any case, it certainly
bears no resemblance whatever to the spiritual gift
159
described in the New Testament, and if anything is
much closer to shamanistic "speaking in tongues" as
practiced in primitive religions, where the shaman or
witch doctor has a regular technique for going into a
trance and then giving a message to or from a "god"
in a tongue he has not learned.* In the pages that
follow we shall encounter "charismatic" experiences
so weird that the comparison with shamanism will not
seem terribly far-fetched, especially if we under-
stand that primitive shamanism is but a particular ex-
pression of a "religious" phenomenon which, far from
being foreign to the modern West, actually plays a
significant role in the lives of some contemporary
"Christians:" mediumism.

4. "Christian" Mediumism

ONE CAREFUL and objective study of "speaking

in tongues" has been made by the German Lutheran
pastor, Dr. Kurt Koch (The Strife of Tongues). Af-
ter examining hundreds of examples of this "gift" as
manifested in the past few years, he came to the con-
clusion, on scriptural grounds, that only four of these
cases might be the same as the gift described in the
Acts of the Apostles; but he was not sure of any of
them. The Orthodox Christian, having the full pa-
tristic tradition of the Church of Christ behind him,
would be more strict in his judgment than Dr. Koch.
As against these few possibly positive cases, howev-
er, Dr. Koch found a number of cases of undoubted
demonic possession— for "speaking in tongues" is in
fact a common "'gift" of the possessed. But it is in

* See Burdick, pp. 66-67.

160
Dr. Koch's final conclusion that we find what is per-
haps the clue to the whole movement. He concludes
that the "tongues" movement is not at all a "revival,"
for there is in it little repentance or conviction of
sin, but chiefly the search for power and experience;
the phenomenon of tongues is not the gift described in
the Acts, nor is it (in most cases) actual demonic
possession; rather, "it becomes more and more clear
that perhaps over 95% of the whole tongues movement
is mediumistic in character" (Koch, p. 35).
What is a "medium"? A medium is a person with
a certain psychic sensitivity which enables him to be
the vehicle or means for the manifestation of unseen
forces or beings (where actual beings are involved,
as Starets Ambrose of Optina has clearly stated,*
these are always the fallen spirits whose realm this
is, and not the "spirits of the dead" imagined by spi-
ritists). Almost all non-Christian religions make
large use of mediumistic gifts, such as clairvoyance,
hypnosis, "miraculous" healing, the appearance and
disappearance of objects as well as their movement
from place to place, etc.
-~ It should be noted that several similar gifts have
also been possessed by Orthodox Saints — but there
is animmense difference between the true Christian
gift and its mediumistic imitation. The true Christian
gift of healing, for example, is given by God directly
in answer to fervent prayer, and especially at the
prayer of a man who is particularly pleasing to God,
a righteous man or saint (James 5:16), and also
through contact in faith with objects that have been
sanctified by God (holy water, relics of saints, etc.;
see Acts 19:12; II Kings 13:21). But mediumistic

* V.P. Bykov, Tikhie Priyuty, Moscow, 1913, pp.

168-170.
161
healing, like any other mediumistic gift, is accom-
plished by means of certain definite techniques and
psychic states which can be cultivated and brought
into use by practice, and which have no relation
whatever either to sanctity or to the action of God.
The mediumistic ability may be acquired either by in-
heritance or by transference through contact with
someone who has the gift, or even through the read-
ing of occult books.*
Many mediums claim that their powers are not at
all supernatural, but come from a part of nature about
which very little is known. To some extent this is
doubtless true; but it is also true that the realm from
which these gifts come is the special realm of the fal-
len spirits, who do not hesitate to use the opportunity
afforded by the people who enter this realm to draw
them into their own nets, adding their own demonic
powers and manifestations in order to lead souls to
destruction. And whatever the explanation of various
mediumistic phenomena may be, God in His Revelation
to mankind has strictly forbidden any contact with
this occult realm: There shall not be found among
you any one that useth divination, one that prac-
tiseth augury, or an enchanter, ora sorcerer, ora
charmer, or a consulter witha familiar spirit, or
a necromancer. For whosoever doeth these things is
an abomination unto the Lord (Deut. 18:10-12; see
also Lev. 20:6).
In practice it is impossible to combine medium-
ism with genuine Christianity, the desire for medium-
istic phenomena or powers being incompatible with
the basic Christian orientation toward the salvation

* See Kurt Koch, Occult Bondage and Deliverance,

Kregel Publications, Grand Rapids, Mich., 1970, pp-
168-170.

162
of the soul. This is not to say that there are not
"Christians" who are involved in mediumism, often
unconsciously (as we shall see); it is only to say that
they are not genuine Christians, that their Christia-
nity is only a “new Christianity" such as the one
Nicholas Berdyaev preached, which will be discussed
again below. Dr. Koch, even from his Protestant
background, makes a valid observation when he notes:
"A person's religious life is not harmed by occult-
ism or spiritism. Indeed spiritism is to a large ex-
tent a 'religious' movement. The devil does not take
away our '‘religiousness'... [But] there is a great
difference between being religious and being born a-
gain by the Spirit of God. It is sad to say that our
Christian denominations have more 'religious' people
in them than true Christians.'"'*
The best-known form of mediumism in the mod-
ern West is the spiritistic seance, where contact is
made with certain forces that produce observable ef-
fects such as knockings, voices, various kinds of
communications such as automatic writing and speak-
ing in unknown tongues, the moving of objects, and
the apparition of hands and "human" figures that can
sometimes be photographed. These effects are pro-
duced with the aid of definite attitudes and techniques
on the part of those present, concerning which we

* Kurt Koch, Between Christ and Satan, Kregel Pub-

lications, 1962, p. 124. This book and Dr. Koch's
Occult Bondage offer a remarkable confirmation,
based on 20th—-century experience, of virtually every
manifestation of mediumism, magic, sorcery, etc.,
that is found in the Holy Scriptures and the Orthodox
Lives of Saints — the source of all of which, of
course, is the devil. On only a few points will the
Orthodox reader have to correct his interpretations.
163
shall here quote one of the standard textbooks on the
subject.*
l. Fassivity: "A spirit's activity is measured.
by the degree of passivity or submissiveness which
he finds in the sensitive, or medium." 'Mediumship
. may by diligent cultivation be attained by anyone
who deliberately yields up his body, with his free
will, and sensitive and intellectual faculties, to an
invading or controlling spirit."
2. Solidarity in faith: All present must have
a "sympathetic attitude of mind in support of the me-
dium;"' the spiritistic phenomena are "facilitated by a
certain sympathy arising from a harmony of ideas,
views and sentiment existing between the experiment-
ersand the medium. When this sympathy and harmony,
as well as the personal surrender of the will, are
wanting in the members of the 'circle,' the seance
proves a failure." Also, "the number of experiment-
ers is of great importance. If larger, they impede
the harmony so necessary for success."
3. All present "join hands to form the so-called
magnetic circle. By this closed circuit, each mem-
ber contribures the energy of a certain force which is
collectively communicated to the medium." However,
the "magnetic circle" is required only in less well-
developed mediums. Mme. Blavatsky, the founder of
modern ''theosophy,"' herself a medium, later laughed
at the crude techniques of spiritism when she en-
countered much more powerful mediums in the East,
to which category also belongs the fakir described in
Chapter III.

* Simon A. Blackmore, S.J., Spiritism Facts and

Frauds, Benziger Bros., New York, 1924: chapter
IV, "Mediums," pp. 89-105 passim.

164
 4. "The necessary spiritistic atmosphere is
commonly induced by artificial means, such as the
singing of hymns, the playing of soft music, and even
the offering of prayer."
The spiritistic seance, to be sure, is a rather
crude form of mediumism although for that very
reason its techniques are all the more evident — and
only rarely does it produce spectacular results.
There are other more subtle forms, some of them go-
ing under the name of "Christian." To realize this
one need only look at the techniques of a "faith-heal-
er" such as Oral Roberts (who until joining the Meth-
odist church a few years ago was a minister of the
Pentecostal Holiness sect), who causes "miraculous"
healings by forming an actual "magnetic circle" com-
posed of people with the proper sympathy, passivity,
and harmony of "faith who put their hands on the tel-
evision set while he is on the air; the healings can e-
ven be brought about by drinking a glass of water that
has been placed on the television set and has thus ab-
sorbed the flow of mediumistic forces that have been
brought into action. But such healings, like those
produced by spiritism and witchcraft, can take a
heavy toll in later psychic, not to mention spiritual,
disorders.*
In this realm one must be very careful, because
the devil is constantly aping the works of God, and
many people with mediumistic gifts continue to think
they are Christians and that their gifts come from the
Holy Spirit. But is it possible to say that this is true
of the "charismatic revival" — that it is in fact, as
some say, primarily a form of mediumism?

* On Oral Roberts, see Kurt Koch, Occult Bondage,

pp. 52-55.

165
 In applying the most obvious tests for medium-
ism to the "charismatic revival," one is struck first
of all by the fact that the chief prerequisites for the
Spiritistic seance described above are all present at
"charismatic" prayer meetings, whereas not one of
these characteristics is present in the same form or
degree in the true Christian worship of the Orthodox
Church.
1. The "passivity" of the spiritistic seance cor-
responds to what "charismatic" writers call "a kind
of letting go... This involves more than the dedica-
tion of one's conscious existence through an act of
will; it also refers to a large, even hidden area of
one's unconscious life... All that can be done is to
offer the self — body, mind, and even the tongue —
so that the Spirit of God may have full possession...
Such persons are ready — the barriers are down and
God moves mightily upon and through their whole be-
ing" (Williams, pp. 62-63; italics in the original).
Such a "spiritual" attitude is not that of Christianity;
it is rather the attitude of Zen Buddhism, Eastern
"mysticism," hypnosis, and spiritism. Such an exa-
gerrated passivity is entirely foreign to Orthodox
spirituality, and is only an open invitation to the ac-
tivity of deceiving spirits. One sympathetic observer
notes that at Pentecostal meetings people speaking in
tongues or interpreting "seem almost to go into a
trance" (Sherrill, p. 87). This passivity is so pro-
nounced in some "charismatic" communities that they
completely abolish the church organization and any
set order of services and do absolutely everything
as the "spirit" directs. E
2. There is a definite "solidarity in faith" —
and not merely solidarity in Christian faith and hope
for salvation, but a specific unanimity in the desire
for and expectation of "charismatic" phenomena. This
166
is true of all "charismatic" prayer meetings; but an
even more pronounced solidarity is required for the
experience of the "Baptism of the Holy Spirit," which
is usually performed ina small separate room in the
presence of only a few who have already had the ex-
perience. The presence of even one person who has
negative thoughts about the experience is often suf-
ficient to cause the "Baptism" not to occur — exactly
in the way that the misgivings and the prayer of the
Orthodox priest described above (pp. 60-61) was e-
nough to break up the impressive illusion produced by
the Ceylonese fakir.
3. The spiritistic "magnetic circle" corre-
sponds to the Pentecostal "laying on of hands," which
is always done by those who themselves have already
experienced the "Baptism" with speaking in tongues,
and who serve, in the words of Pentecostals them-
selves, as "channels of the Holy Spirit" (Williams,
p. 64) — a word used by spiritists to refer to medi-
ums.
4. The "charismatic," like the spiritistic, "at-
mosphere" is induced by means of suggestive hymns
and prayers, and often also by hand-clapping, all of
which give "an effect of mounting excitement, and al-
most intoxicating quality" (Sherrill, p. 23).
It may still be objected that all these similari-
ties between mediumism and Pentecostalism are only
coincidental; and indeed, in order to show whether or
not the ''charismatic revival" is actually mediumistic,
we shall have to determine what kind of "spirit" it is
that is communicated through the Pentecostal "chan-
nels." A number of testimonies by those who have
experienced it — and who believe that it is the Holy
Spirit — point clearly to its nature. "The group
moved closer around me. It was as if they were
forming with their bodies a funnel through which was
167
concentrated the flow of the Spirit that was pulsing
through the room. It flowed into me as I sat there"
(Sherrill, p. 122). At a Catholic Pentecostal prayer
meeting, ''upon entering a room one was practically
struck dead by the strong visible presence of God"
(Ranaghan, p. 79). (Compare the "vibrant" atmos-
phere at some pagan and Hindu rites; see above, pp.
41-42.) Another man describes his "Baptismal" ex-
perience: "I became aware that the Lord was in the
room and that He was approaching me. I couldn't see
Him, but I felt myself being pushed over on my back.
I seemed to float to the floor..." (Logos Journal,
Nov.-Dec., 1971, p. 47). Other similar examples
will be given below in the discussion of the physical
accompaniments of "charismatic" experience. This
"pulsing," "visible," "pushing" spirit that ''approach-
es" and "flows" would seem to confirm the medium-
istic character of the "charismatic" movement. Cer-
tainly the Holy Spirit could never be described in
these ways!
And let us recall a strange characteristic of
"charismatic" speaking in tongues that we have al-
ready mentioned: that it is given not only at the initial
experience of the "Baptism of the Holy Spirit," but is
supposed to be continued (both in private and public)
and become an "essential accompaniment" of religious
life, or else the "gifts of the Spirit" may cease. One
Presbyterian "charismatic" writer speaks of the spe-
cific function of this practice in "preparing" for
"charismatic" meetings: "Often it is the case that ...
a small group.will spend time ahead praying in the
Spirit [i.e., in tongues]. In so doing there is great-
ly multiplied the sense of God's presence and power
that carries over into the gathering." And again:
"We find that quiet praying in the Spirit during the
meeting helps to maintain an openness to God's pre-
168
sence..." for "after one has become accustomed to
praying in tongues aloud ... it soon becomes a possi-
bility for one's breath, moving across vocal chords
and tongue, to manifest the Spirit's breathing, and
thereby for prayer to go on quietly, yet profoundly,
within" (Williams, p. 31). Let us remember also that
speaking in tongues can be triggered by such artifi-
cial devices as ''making sounds with the mouth" — and
we come to the inevitable conclusion that ''charisma-
tic" speaking in tongues is not a "gift" at all but a
technique, itself acquired by other techniques and in
turn triggering still other "gifts of the Spirit," if one
continues to practice and cultivate it. Do we not
have here a clue to the chief actual accomplishment of
the modern Pentecostal Movement — that it has dis-
covered a new mediumistic technique for entering
into and preserving a psychic state wherein mira-
culous "gifts" become commonplace? If this is true,
then the "charismatic" definition of the "laying on of
hands" — "the simple ministry by one or more per-
sons who themselves are channels of the Holy Spirit
to others not yet so blessed," in which "the impor-
tant thing [is] that those who minister have them-
selves experienced the movement of the Holy Spirit"
(Williams, p. 64) — describes precisely the trans-
ference of the mediumistic gift by those who have
already acquired it and have themselves become me-
diums. The "Baptism of the Holy Spirit" thus be-
comes mediumistic initiation.
Indeed, if the "charismatic revival" is actually
a mediumistic movement, much that is unclear about it
if it is viewed as a Christian movement, becomes
clear. The movement arises in America, which fifty
years before had given birth to spiritism in a similar
psychological climate: a dead, rationalized Protestant
faith is suddenly overwhelmed by actual experience of
169
an invisible "power" that cannot be rationally or sci-
entifically explained. The movement is most success-
ful in those countries which have a substantial histo-
ry of spiritism or mediumism: America and England
first of all, then Brazil, Japan, the Philippines, black
Africa. There is scarcely to be found an example of
"speaking in tongues" in any even nominally Chris-
tian context for over 1600 years after the time of St.
Paul, and even then it is an isolated and short-lived
hysterical phenomenon precisely until the 20th-centu-
ry Pentecostal Movement, as the scholarly historian
of religious "enthusiasm" has pointed out;* and yet
this "gift" is possessed by numerous shamans and
witch doctors of primitive religions, as well as by
modern spiritistic mediums and the demonically pos-
sessed. The "prophecies" and "interpretations"
at "charismatic" services, as we shall see, are
strangely vague and stereotyped in expression, with-
out specifically Christian or prophetic content. Doc-
trine is subordinated to practice: the motto of both
movements might be, as "charismatic" enthusiasts say
over and over again, "it works" — the very trap into
which, as we have seen, Hinduism leads its victims.
There can scarcely be any doubt that the "charismat-—
ic revival," as far as its phenomena are concerned,
bears a much closer resemblance to spiritism and in
general to non-Christian religion, than it does to Or-
thodox Christianity. But we shall have yet to give
many examples to demonstrate just how true this is.
Up to this point we have been quoting, apart
from Dr. Koch's statements, only from those favora-
ble to the "charismatic revival," who only give their

* Ronald A. Knox, Enthusiasm, A Chapter in the His-

tory of Religion, Oxford (Galaxy Book), 1961, pp.
550-551.
170
testimonies of what they imagine to be the workings of
the Holy Spirit. Now let us quote the testimony of
several people who have left the "charismatic" move-
ment, or refused to enter it, because they found that
the "spirit" that animates it is not the Holy Spirit.
1. "In Leicester (England) a young man reported
the following. He and his friend had been believers
for some years when one day they were invited to the
meeting of a tongues-speaking group. The atmosphere
of the meeting got a hold on them and afterwards they
prayed for the second blessing and the baptism of the
Holy Spirit. After intensive prayer it was as if some-
thing hot came over them. They felt very excited in-
side. For a few weeks they reveled in this new ex-
perience, but slowly these waves of feeling abated.
The man who told me this noticed that he had lost all
desire to read the Bible and to pray. He examined
his experience in the light of the Scriptures and re-
alized that it was not of God. He repented and de-
nounced it... His friend on the other hand continued
in these 'tongues' and it destroyed him. Today he will
not even consider the idea of going on further as a
Christian" (Koch, p. 28).
= 2. Two Protestant ministers went to a "charis—
matic'’ prayer meeting at a Presbyterian church in
Hollywood. ''Both of us agreed beforehand that when
the first person started to speak in tongues, we
would pray roughly the following, ‘Lord, if this gift
is from you, bless this brother, but if it is not of you,
then stop it and let there be no other praying in
tongues in our presence.’ ...A young man began the
meeting with a short devotion after which it was open
for prayer. A woman started to pray fluently in a
foreign language without any stammering or hesita-
tion. An interpretation was not given. The Rev.B.
and I started to pray quietly as we had agreed earli-
171
er. What happened? No one else spoke in tongues al-
though usually in these meetings all of them, except
for an architect, pray in unknown tongues" (Koch, p.
15). Note here that in the absence of the mediumistic
solidarity of faith, the phenomena do not appear.
3. "In San Diego, California, a woman came for
counseling. She told me of a bad experience that she
had had during a mission held by a member of the
tongues movement. She had gone to his meetings in
which he had spoken about the necessity of the gift of
tongues, and in an after-meeting she had allowed
hands to be laid on herself in order to receive the
baptism of the Holy Spirit and the gift of speaking in
tongues. At that moment she fell down unconscious.
On coming round again she found herself lying on the
floor with her mouth still opening and shutting itself
automatically without a word being uttered. She was
terribly frightened. Standing around her were some
of the people who were followers of this evangelist
and they exclaimed, 'O sister, you have really spoken
wonderfully in tongues. Now you have the Holy Spir-
it.' But the victim of this so-called baptism of the
Holy Spirit was cured. She never again returned to
this group of tongues—speakers. When she came to me
for advice she was still suffering from the bad after-
effects of this 'spiritual baptism'" (Koch, p. 26).
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 representa-
tives of the "charismatic revival:" "For five hours he
spoke in tongues and used every artifice (psychologi-
cal, 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,

172
moaned, wept, and screamed. He was well pleased
by this. He said she was suffering for others — in-
terceding 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 An-
tiochian 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," "stif-
ling," "dark and evil," and by a miraculous interces—
sion 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, 1970,
no. 4-5, pp. 196-199).
There are numerous other cases in which peo-
ple have lost interest in prayer, reading the Scrip-
tures, 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 testimo-
ny of many people who do not find anything negative
or evil in their "charismatic" experience, and we
shall examine the meaning of their testimony. How-
ever, without yet reaching a conclusion as to the pre-
cise nature of the "spirit" that causes "charismatic"
phenomena, on the basis of the evidence here gath-

173
ered we can already agree this far with Dr. Koch:
"The tongues movement is the expression of a deliri-
ous 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, re-
cognizing 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 "charisma-
tic" 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 me-
diumistic in inspiration, we do not mean to deny the
whole of your experience while involved init. If you
have been awakened to repentance for your sins, to
the realization that the Lord Jesus Christ is the Sav-
iour of mankind, to sincere love for God and your
neighbor — all 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 ex-
174
perience 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, e-
motional comfort for spiritual experience, is much
greater than you think. The next section of this chap-
ter 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 Pente-
costalism, 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 1 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 genu-
ine, or at best the product of suggestion under condi-
tions of emotional near-hysteria. However, there
are actually documented cases of Pentecostal speak-
ing in an unlearned language (Sherrill, pp. 90-95);
there is also the testimony of many concerning the
ease and assurance and calmness (without any hys-
terical 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 phe-
nomenon 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 "un-
175
imaginable, humanly impossible" (Williams, p. 33).
It would therefore seem evident that no merely psy-
chological 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 au-
thentic "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 "spirituali—
ty," 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 as-
cetic tradition that has already been discussed in this
series of articles, in explanation of the power which
Hinduism holds over its devotees: prelest, or spiri-
tual deception.

5. Spiritual Deception

THE CONCEPT OF PRELEST,a key one in Or-

thodox ascetical teaching, is completely absent in the
Protestant-Catholic world which produced the "'char-
ismatic'' 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 world view.'' The reason
is obvious: the Orthodox ascetic world view gives the
only means by which men, having received the Holy
176
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 a-
gainst 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 uni-
verse: to accept the "new spirituality" of the "char-
ismatic revival," one must reject Orthodox Christi-
anity; and conversely, to remain an Orthodox Chris-
tian, 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-centu—
ry summation of this teaching made by Bishop Igna-
tius Branchaninov, himself an Orthodox Father of
modern times, in volume one of his collected works.
There are two basic forms of prelest or spiri-
tual 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), en-
tered on the solitary life unprepared and against the
counsel of his abbot, and soon he heard a voice pray-
ing 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
177
his spiritual wisdom and the "gifts of the Holy Spirit"
which he seemed to possess, including "prophecies"
which were always fulfilled. The deceit was uncov—
ered 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, af-
ter 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 lead the deluded as-
cetic finally to insanity or suicide.
But there is another more common, less spec-
tacular form of spiritual deception, which offers to
its victims not great visions but just exalted "reli-
gious 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 unwav-
eringly the teaching of the Orthodox Church but on
some tradition or other has thought out his own arbi-
trary judgment.or has followed a non-Orthodox teach-
ing — is in this state of deception." The Roman
Catholic Church has whole spiritual manuals written
by people in this state; such is Thomas a Kempis' Im-
itation of Christ. Bishop Ignatius says of it:
"There reigns in this book and breathes fromits pages

178
the unction of the evil spirit, flattering the reader,
intoxicating him... The book conducts the reader di-
rectly to communion with God, without previous puri-
fication 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. Kont-
zevitch, the great transmitter of patristic teaching,
has written,* is that "the ascetic, striving to kindle
in his heart love for God while neglecting repent-
ance, exerts himself to attain a feeling of delight, of
ecstasy, and as a result he attains precisely the op-
posite: 'he enters into communion with satan and be-
comes infected with hatred for the Holy Spirit' (Bish-
op Ignatius)."
And this is the actual state in which the follow-
ers of the "charismatic revival," even without sus-
pecting 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 Ho-
ly Mysteries of the Church, and the spiritual teaching
handed down by the Holy Fathers from Christ and His
Apostles — the followers of the "charismatic" move-
ment have no means of distinguishing the grace of God
from its counterfeit. All "charismatic" writers show,

* See The Orthodox Word, 1965, no. 4, pp. 155-158.

179
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 Ortho-
dox Father of the West, who wrote with great dis-
cernment 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 miracu-
lous 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..."*
The 18th-century Swedish "visionary," Emanuel
Swedenborg — who was a strange forerunner of to-
day'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 exper-
ience has been recently confirmed by the findings of a
clinical psychologist in his work with "hallucinating"
patients in a state mental hospital in Ukiah, Califor-
nia. This psychologist took seriously the voices
heard by his patients and undertook a series of "dia-
logues" with them (through the intermediary of the

* Conference XV:2, in Owen Chadwick, Western 4s-

ceticism, Philadelphia, Westminster Press, 1958,
p. 258.
180
patients themselves). He concluded, like Sweden-
borg, that there are two very different kinds of "be-
ings" 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 pa-
tient for considering them. They find a weak point of
conscience and work on it interminably... The voca-
bulary and range of ideas of the lower order is limit-
ed, 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 irreli-
gious or antireligious... To one person they appeared
as conventional devils and referred to themselves as
demons...
"In direct contrast stand the rarer higher-or-
der hallucinations... This contrast may be illustrat-
ed 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 en-
tered a world of powerful numinous experiences...
[Once] a very powerful and impressive Christlike fi-
gure 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 or-
der 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

181
strangely gifted, sensitive, wise, and religious."'*
Any reader of the Orthodox Lives of Saints and
other spiritual literature knows that all of these spi-
rits — both "good" and "evil," the "lower" with the
"higher" — are equally demons, and that the discern-
ment between true good spirits (angels) and these evil
spirits cannot be made on the basis of one's own feel-
ings or impressions. The widespread practice of
"exorcism" in "charismatic" circles offers no guar-
antee whatever that evil spirits are actually being
driven out; exorcisms are also very common (and
seemingly successful) among primitive shamans,**
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" move-
ment on the whole is firmly oriented against contem-
porary occultism and satanism. But the more subtle
of the evil spirits appear as "angels of light" (11
Cor.11:14), anda great gift of discernment, together
with a deep distrust of all one's extraordinary "spir-
itual" experiences, is required if a person is not to
be deceived. In the face of the subtle, invisible ene-
mies who wage unseen warfare against the human
race, the naively trusting attitude towards their ex-
periences of most people involved in the "charisma-—
tic" movement is an open invitation to Spiritual de-
ception. One pastor, for example, counsels medita—

* Wilson Van Dusen, The Presence of Other Worlds,

Harper & Row, New York, 1974, pp. 120-125.
** See 1.H. Lewis, Ecstatic Religion, An Anthro-
pological Study of Spirit Possession and Shaman-
ism, Penguin Books, Baltimore, 1971, pp. 45, 88,
156, etc., and illustration 9.
182
tion 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 spiritu-
ality knows that, for example, ''at the beginning of the
monastic life some of the unclean demons instruct
[novices] in the interpretation of the Divine Scrip-
tures ... 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 obvi-
ously 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. Sera-
phim). 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 spi-
ritual 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 prac-
tice and has attained great sanctity can presume to do
this.
How is the Orthodox Christian prepared to with-
stand deception? He has the whole body of God-in-
spired patristic writings which, together with Holy
Scripture, present the judgment of Christ's Church
for 1900 years with regard to virtually every con-
ceivable spiritual and pseudo-spiritual experience.
183
Later we shall see that this tradition has a very defi-
nite judgment precisely on the chief question the
"charismatic" movement raises: concerning the pos-
sibility of a new and widespread "outpouring of the
Holy Spirit" in the last days. But even before con-
sulting the Fathers on specific questions, the Ortho-
dox Christian is protected against deception by the
very knowledge that such deception not only exists,
but is everywhere including within himself. Bishop
Ignatius writes: "We are all in deception. The know-
ledge of this is the greatest preventative against de-
ception. It is the greatest deception to acknowledge
oneself to be free of deception." He quotes St. Gre-
gory the Sinaite, who warns us: "It is not a little la—
bor to attain the truth precisely and to make oneself
pure of everything that opposes grace; because it is
usual for the devil to show his deception, especially
to beginners, in the form of truth, giving a spiritual
appearance to what is evil." And "God is not angry
at him who, fearing deception, watches over himself
with extreme caution, even if he should not accept
something which is sent from God... On the contrary,
God praises such a one for his good sense."
Thus, totally unprepared for spiritual warfare,
unaware that there is such a thing as spiritual decep-
tion of the most subtle sort (as opposed to obvious
forms of occultism), the Catholic or Protestant or un-
informed Orthodox Christian goes to a prayer-meet-
ing to be "baptized (or filled) with the Holy Spirit."
The atmosphere of the meeting is extremely loose,
being intentionally left "open" to the activity of some
"spirit." Thus do Catholics (who profess to be more
cautious than Protestants) describe some of their
Pentecostal gatherings: "There seemed to be no bar-
riers, no inhibitions... They sat cross-legged on the
floor. Ladies in slacks. White-robed monk. Ciga-
184
rette smokers. Coffee drinkers. Praying in free-
form... It occurred to me that these people were
having a good time praying! Is that what they meant
by the Holy Spirit dwelling amongst them?" And at
another Catholic Pentecostal meeting, "except for the
fact that no one was drinking, it seemed like a cock-
tail party" (Ranaghan, pp. 209, 157). At interdeno-
minational "charismatic" meetings the atmosphere is
likewise sufficiently informal that no one is surprised
when the "spirit" inspires an elderly woman, in the
midst of a fit of general weeping, to stand up and
"dance a little jig" (Sherrill, p. 118). To the sober
Orthodox Christian, the first thing noticeable about
such an atmosphere is its total lack of what he knows
in his own Divine services as genuine piety and awe,
proceeding from the fear of God. And this first im-
pression is only strikingly confirmed by observation
of the truly strange effects which the Pentecostal
"spirit" produces when it descends into this loose at-
mosphere. We shall now examine some of these ef-
fects, placing them before the judgment of the. Holy
Fathers of the Church of Christ.

B. Physical Accompaniments of
"Charismatic" Experience

One of the commonest responses to the experi-

ence of the "Baptism of the Holy Spirit" is laughter.
One Catholic testifies: "I was so joyful that all 1
could do was laugh as I lay on the floor" (Ranaghan,
p. 28). Another Catholic: "The sense of the presence
and love of God was so strong that 1 can remember
sitting in the chapel for a half hour just laughing out
of joy over the love of God" (Ranaghan, p. 64). A
185
Protestant testifies that at his "Baptism" "I started
laughing... I just wanted to laugh and laugh the way
you do when you feel so good you just can't talk about
it. I held my sides and laughed until I doubled over"
(Sherrill, p. 113). Another Protestant: "The new
tongue I was given was intermingled with waves of
mirth in which every fear I had just seemed to roll a-
way. It was a tongue of laughter" (Sherrill, p. 115).
An Orthodox priest, Fr. Eusebius Stephanou, writes:
"I could not conceal the broad smile on my face that
any minute could have broken out into laughter — a
laughter of the Holy Spirit stirring in me a refresh-
ing release" (Logos, April, 1972, p. 4).
Many, many examples could be collected of this
truly strange reaction to a "spiritual" experience,
and some "charismatic" apologists have a whole phi-
losophy of "spiritual joy" and "God's foolishness" to
explain it. But this philosophy is not in the least
Christian; such a concept as the "laughter of the Ho-
ly Spirit" is unheard of in the whole history of
Christian thought and experience. Here perhaps
more clearly than anywhere else the "charismatic
revival" reveals itself as not at all Christian in reli-
gious orientation; this experience is purely worldly
and pagan, and where it cannot be explained in terms
of emotional hysteria (for Fr. Eusebius, indeed,
laughter provided "relief" and "release" from "an in-
tense feeling of self-consciousness and embarrass-
ment" and "emotional devastation"), it can only be due
to some degree of "possession" by one or more of the
pagan gods, which the Orthodox Church calls demons.
Here, for example, is a comparable "initiation" ex-
perience of a pagan Eskimo shaman: Not finding initi-
ation, "I would sometimes fall to weeping and feel un-
happy without knowing why. Then for no reason all
would suddenly be changed, and I felt a great, inex-
186
plicable joy, a joy so powerful that 1 could not re-
strain it, but had to break into song, a mighty song,
with room for only one word: joy, joy! And I had to
use the full strength of my voice. And then in the
midst of such a fit of mysterious and overwhelming
delight I became a shaman... I could see and hear in
a totally different way. I had gained my enlighten-
ment ... and it was not only I who could see through
the darkness of life, but the same bright light also
shone out from me ... and all spirits of earth and sky
and sea now came to me and became my helping spi-
rits" (Lewis, Ecstatic Religion, p. 37).
It is not surprising that unsuspecting ''Chris-—
tians," having deliberately laid themselves open to a
similar pagan experience, would still interpret it as
a "Christian" experience; psychologically they are
still Christians, although spiritually they have en-
tered the realm of distinctly non-Christian attitudes
and practices. What is the judgment of the Orthodox
ascetic tradition concerning such a thing as a" laugh-
ter of the Holy Spirit?" Sts. Barsanuphius and
John, the 6th-century ascetics, give the unequivical
Orthodox answer in reply to an Orthodox monk who
was plagued by this problem (Answer 451): "In the
fear of God there is no laughter. The Scripture says
of the foolish, that they raise their voice in laugh-
ter (Sirach 21:23); and the word of the foolish is al-
ways disturbed and deprived of grace." St. Ephraim
the Syrian just as clearly teaches: "Laughter and fa-
miliarity are the beginning of a soul's corruption. If
you see these in yourself, know that you have come to
the depths of evils. Do not cease to pray God that He
will deliver you from this death... Laughter removes
from us that blessing which is promised to those who
mourn (Matt. 5:4) and destroys what has been built
up. Laughter offends the Holy Spirit, gives no bene-
187
fit to the soul, dishonors the body. Laughter drives
out virtues, has no remembrance of death or thought
of tortures" (Philokalia, Russian ed., Moscow, 1913:
vol. 2, p. 448). Is it not evident how far astray ig-
norance of basic Christianity can lead one?
At least as common as laughter as a response to
charismatic "Baptism" is its psychologically close
relative, tears. These occur to individuals and,
quite often, to whole groups at once (in this case
quite apart from the experience of '"'Baptism"),
spreading infectiously for no apparent reason at all
(see Sherrill, pp. 109, 117). "Charismatic" writers
do not find the reason for this in the "conviction of
sin'' that produces such results at Protestant revi-
vals; they give no reason at all, and there seems to
be none, except that this experience simply comes
upon one who is exposed to the "charismatic" atmos-
phere. The Orthodox Fathers, as Bishop Ignatius
notes, teach that tears often accompany the second
form of spiritual deception. St. John of the Ladder,
telling of the many different causes of tears, some
good and some bad, warns: "Do not trust your foun-
tains of tears before your soul has been perfectly pu-
rified" (Step 7:35); and of one kind of tears he states
definitely: "Tears without thought are proper only to
an irrational nature and not to a rational one" (7:17).
Besides laughter and tears, and often together
with them, there are a number of other physical re-
actions to the "Baptism of the Holy Spirit," including
warmth, many kinds of trembling and contortions, and
falling to the floor. All the examples given here, it
should be emphasized, are those of ordinary Protest-
ants and Catholics, and not at all those of any Pente-
costal extremists, whose experiences are much more
spectacular and unrestrained.

188
 "When hands were laid on me, immediately it
felt as if my whole chest were trying to rise into my
head. My lips started trembling, and my brain start-
ed turning flips. Then I started grinning" (Rana-
ghan, p. 67). Another was "without emotion following
the event, but with great warmth of body and a great
ease" (Ranaghan, p. 91). Another gives this testi-
mony: "As soon as I knelt down I began to tremble...
All of a sudden 1 became filled with the Holy Spirit
and realized that 'God is real.' I started laughing
and crying at the same time. The next thing I knew 1
was prostrate before the altar and filled with the
peace of Christ" (Ranaghan, p. 34). Another says:
"As I knelt quietly thanking the Lord, D. lay pro-
strate and suddenly began to heave by the power of
someone unseen. By an insight that must have been
divinely inspired... I knew D. was being moved quite
visibly by the Holy Spirit" (Ranaghan, p. 29). Anoth~
er: "My hands (usually cold because of poor circula-
tion) grew moist and warm. Warmth enveloped me"
(Ranaghan, p. 30). Another: "I knew God was work-
ing within me. I could feel a distinct tingling in my
hands, and immediately I became bathed in a hard
sweat" (Ranaghan, p. 102). A member of the "Jesus
Movement" says: "Il feel something welling up inside
me and all of a sudden I'm speaking in tongues" (Or-
tega, p. 49). One "charismatic" apologist emphasiz-—
es that such experiences are typical in the "Baptism
of the Holy Spirit,'' which "has often been marked by
a subjective experience which has brought the recipi-
ent into a wonderful new sense of nearness to the
Lord, This sometimes demands such an expression of
worship and adoration as cannot be contained within
the usual restrictions imposed by the etiquette of our
western society! At such times, some have been
known to shake violently, to lift up their hands to the
189
Lord, to raise the voice above the normal pitch, or
even to fall to the floor" (Lillie, p. 17).
One does not know at what to marvel the more:
at the total incongruence of such hysterical feelings
and experiences with anything at all spiritual or at
the increbidle lightmindedness that leads such de-
ceived people to ascribe their contortions to the "Ho-
ly Spirit," to "divine inspiration,’ to the "peace of
Christ." These are clearly people who, in the spiri-
tual and religious realm, are not only totally inex-
perienced and without guidance, but are absolutely
tlliterate. The whole history of Orthodox Christi-
anity does not know of any such "ecstatic" experienc-
es produced by the Holy Spirit. It is only foolishness
when some "charismatic" apologists presume to com-
pare these childish and hysterical experiences, which
are open to absolutely everyone, with the Divine re-
velations accorded to the greatest Saints, such as to
St. Paul on the road to Damascus or to St. John the
Evangelist on Patmos. Those Saints fell down before
the true God (without contortions, and certainly with-
out laughter), whereas these pseudo-Christians are
merely reacting to the presence of an invading spi-
rit, and are worshipping only themselves. The Elder
Macarius of Optina wrote to a person in a similar
state: ''Thinking to find the love of God in consoling
feelings, you are seeking not God but yourself, that
is, your own consolation, while you avoid the path of
sorrows, considering yourself supposedly lost with-
out spiritual consolations."* If these "charismatic"
experiences are religious experiences at all, then
they are pagan religious experiences; and in fact they
seem to correspond exactly to the mediumistic initia-

* Starets Macarius of Optina, Harbin, 1940, p. 100

(in Russian).
190
tion experience of spirit-possession, which is
caused by "an inner force welling up inside attempt-
ing to take control" (Koch, Occult Bondage, p. 44).
Of course, not all "Baptisms of the Holy Spirit" are
as ecstatic as some of these experiences (although
some are evenmore ecstatic); but this too is in accord
with spiritistic practice: "When spirits find a medium
friendly or well-disposed in submissiveness or pas-
sivity of mind, they enter quietly as into their own
home; while, on the contrary, when the psychic is
less well-disposed from some resistance, or want of
passivity of mind, the spirit enters with more or less
force, and this is often reflected in the contortions of
the face and tremor of the medium's members" (Black-
more, Spiritism, p. 97).
This experience of ''spirit-possession," howev-—
er, should not be .confused with actual demonic pos-
session, which is the condition when an unclean spi-
rit takes up permanent habitation in someone and pro-
duces physical and psychic disorders which do not
seem to be indicated in "charismatic" sources. Me-
diumistic "possession" is temporary and partial, the
medium consenting to be used for a particular func-
tion by the invading spirit. But the "charismatic"
texts themselves make it quite clear that what is in-
volved in these experiences — when they are genuine
and not merely the product of suggestion — is not
merely the development of some mediumistic ability,
but actual possession by a spirit. These people would
seem to be correct in calling themselves "'spirit-
filled" — but it is certainly not the Holy Spirit with
which they are filled!
Bishop Ignatius gives several examples of such
physical accompaniments of spiritual deception: one,
a monk who trembled and made strange sounds, and i-
dentified these signs as the "fruits of prayer;" anoth-
191
er, a monk whom the bishop met who as a result of his
ecstatic method of prayer felt such heat in his body
that he needed no warm clothing in winter, and this
heat could even be felt by others. As a general prin-
ciple, Bishop Ignatius writes, the second kind of spi-
ritual deception is accompanied by "a material, pas-
sionate warmth of the blood;"' "the behavior of the as-
cetics of Latinism, embraced by deception, has al-
ways been ecstatic, by reason of this extraordinary
material, passionate warmth" — the state of such
Latin "saints" as Francis of Assisi and Ignatius
Loyola. This material warmth of the blood, a mark
of the spiritually deceived, is to be distinguished
from the spiritual warmth felt by those such as St.
Seraphim of Sarov who genuinely acquired the Holy
Spirit. But the Holy Spirit is not acquired from ec-
static "charismatic" experiences, but by the long and
arduous path of asceticism, the "path of sorrows" of
which the Elder Macarius spoke, within the Church of
Christ.

C. "Spiritual Gifts" Accompanying

"Charismatic" Experience

The chief claim of the followers of the "charis-—

matic revival" is that they have acquired "spiritual"
gifts. One of the first such "gifts" that becomes no-
ticeable in those "baptized with the Holy Spirit" is a
new "spiritual" power and boldness. What gives the
boldness is the definite experience which no one can
doubt that they have had, although one can certainly
doubt their interpretation of it. Some typical exam-
ples: "I do not have to believe in Pentecost, because
I have seen it" (Ranaghan, p. 40). "I began to feel
that I knew exactly what to say to others and what
192
they needed to hear... I found that the Holy Spirit
gave me a real boldness to say it and it had a marked
effect" (Ranaghan, p. 64). "I was so confident that
the Spirit would be true to his word that I prayed
without any if's. I prayed in will's and shall's and
in every other kind of declarative statement" (Rana-
ghan, p. 67). An Orthodox example: "We pray for
wisdom and suddenly we are wise in the Lord. We
pray for love and true love is felt for all men. We
pray for healings, and health has been restored. We
pray for miracles and, believing, we have seen mira-
cles happen. We pray for signs, and receive them.
We pray in tongues known and tongues unknown"
(Logos, April, 1972, p. 13).
Here again, a genuine Orthodox characteristic,
acquired and tested by long years of ascetic labor
and maturing in faith, is supposedly obtained instantly
by means of "charismatic" experience. It is true, of
course, that the Apostles and Martyrs were given a
magnificent boldness by the special grace of God; but
it is only ridiculous when every "charismatic Chris-
tian," without any notion of what Divine grace is,
wishes to compare himself to these great Saints. Be-
ing based on an experience of deception, "charisma-
tic" boldness is no more than a feverish, "revivalis—
tic" imitation of true Christian boldness, and it only
serves as another identifying mark of "charismatic"
deception. Bishop Ignatius writes that a certain
"self-confidence and boldness are usually noticeable
in people who are in self-deception, supposing that
they are holy or are spiritually progressing." "An
extraordinary pomposity appears in those afflicted
with this deception: they are as it were intoxicated
with themselves, by their state of self-deception,
seeing in it a state of grace. They are steeped in,
overflowing with high-mindedness and pride, while
193
appearing humble to many who judge by appearances
without being able to judge by fruits."
Beyond speaking in tongues itself, the most
common "supernatural" gift of those "baptized in the
Spirit" is the direct reception of "messages from
God'' in the form of "prophecies" and 'interpreta-
tions." One Catholic girl says of her "charismatic"
friends: "In some of them I witnessed the speaking in
tongues, some of which I have been able to interpret.
The messages have always been those of great solace
and joy from the Lord" (Ranaghan, p. 32). One "in-
terpretation" is summarized thus: "He was speaking
words from God, a message of consolation" (Rana-
ghan, p. 181). The messages are nothing if not bold;
at one meeting "still another young woman announced
a 'message from God,' speaking in the first person"
(Ranaghan, p. 2). A "charismatic" Protestant writes
that in such messages "God's Word is directly spok-
en!... The Word may suddenly be spoken by anyone
present, and so, variously, a 'Thus says the Lord'
breaks forth in the fellowship. It is usually in the
first person (though not always), such as 'I am with
you to bless you'" (Williams, p. 27).
A few specific texts of "prophecy" and "inter-
pretation" are given in the apologetical books of the
"charismatic" movement:
1. "Be like a tree swaying with his will, rooted
in his strength, reaching up to his love and light"
(Ford, p. 35).
2. "As the Holy Spirit came down upon Mary
and Jesus was formed within her, so the Holy Spirit
comes upon you and Jesus is in your midst" — given
in tongues by a Roman Catholic and "interpreted'" by
a Protestant (Ford, p. 35).
3. "The feet of him who walked the streets of
Jerusalem are behind you. His gaze is healing to
194
those who draw near but death to those who flee" —
this had special meaning for one member of the
prayer group (Ford, p. 35).
4. "I reach out my hand to you. You need only
take it and I will lead you" — this same message was
given a few minutes earlier to a Roman Catholic
priest in another room; he wrote it down and entered
the prayer room just in time to hear it uttered in ex-
actly the words he had written down (Ranaghan, p.
54).
5. "Do not worry, I am pleased with the stand
you have taken. This is difficult for you but will
bring much blessing to another" — this brought final
reassurance to one person present concerning a re-
cent difficult decision (Sherrill, p. 88).
6. "My wife walked in and began to play the or-
gan. Suddenly, the Spirit of God came upon her and
she began to speäk in tongues and prophesy, 'My son,
I am with you. Because you have been faithful in lit-
tle things I am going to.use you in a greater way. I
am leading you by the hand. I am guiding you, be not
afraid. You are in the center of My will. Do not
look to the right or to the left, but continue therein"
— this "prophecy" was accompanied by a "vision" and
was directly responsible for the founding of.a large
and influential Pentecostal organization, the "Full
Gospel Business Men's Fellowship International"
(Logos Journal, Sept.-Oct., 1971, p.14).
We may well believe, according to the testimony
of witnesses who find that such messages apply di-
rectly to them, that there is something preternatural
about a number of them, that they are not just ''made
up." But does the Holy Spirit use such artificial
methods to communicate with men? (The "spirits" at
seances certainly do!) Why is the language so mono-
tonous and stereotyped, sometimes worthy of the pen-
195
ny fortune-telling machines in American cafes? Why
are the messages so vague and dreamlike, sounding
indeed like trance-utterances'' Why is their content
always one of ''consolation," ''solace and joy," reas-
surance, precisely without prophetic or dogmatic
character — as if the "spirit,'' even like the "spirits"
at seances, were especially pleased with his non-de-
nominational audience? Who, after all, is the
strangely characterless "I" that speaks? Are we
wrong in applying the words of a true Prophet of God
to all this? — Let not your prophets that are in the
midst of you, and your diviners, deceive you... For
they prophesy falsely unto you in My name: I have
not sent them, saith the Lord (Jeremiah 29:8-9).
Just as one "baptized in the Spirit" usually car-
ries the ability to speak in tongues over into his pri-
vate devotions, and in general is aware that "the
Lord" is constantly with him, so too, even outside the
atmosphere of the prayer meeting he often has private
"revelations," including audible voices and tangible
"presences." Thus does the "prophet" of the "char-
ismatic revival" describe one of his experiences: "I
was awakened from a deep restful sleep by a voice
that seemed loud and clear ... distinctly saying: 'God
has no grandsons’... Then it seemed as if there was
someone in my room and the presence made me feel
good. Suddenly it dawned on me. It must be the Holy
Spirit who spoke to me" (Du Plessis, p. 61).
How can one account for such experiences? Bi-
shop Ignatius writes: "One possessed by this kind of
spiritual deception fancies of himself [the second
form of prelest is called 'fancy,' mnenie in Russian]
that he abounds in the gifts of the Holy Spirit. This
fancy is composed of false concepts and false feel-
ings, and in this character which it has it belongs
fully to the realm of the father and representative of
196
falsehood, the devil. One who, in praying, strives
to unveil in the heart the feeling of the new man, yet
does not have any possibility to do this, substitutes
for this feelings of his own invention, counterfeits, to
which the action of fallen spirits does not tarry to
join itself. Acknowledging his incorrect feelings,
both his own and those from the demons, to be true
and grace-given, he receives conceptions which cor-
respond to the feelings."
Precisely such a process has been observed by
writers on spiritism. For someone seriously involved
in spiritism (and not only mediums themselves), a mo-
ment comes when the whole false spirituality that cul-
tivates passivity of mind and openness to the activity
of "spirits," manifested even in such seemingly inno-
cent pastimes as the use of a ouija—board, passes o-
ver into the actual possession of this person by an
invading spirit, -after which undeniably 'supernatu—
ral" phenomena begin to appear.* In the "charisma—
tic revival" this moment of transition is identified as
the experience of the "Baptism of the Holy Spirit,"
which, when it is genuine, is precisely the moment
when self-deception becomes demonic deception, and
the "charismatic" victim is virtually assured that
from then on his deceived "religious feelings" can
expect a response from the "Spirit" and he will enter
a "life of miracles."

* See Blackmore, Spiritism, pp. 144-175, where an

example is given of a Catholic priest who was physi-
cally pursued by a ouija—board (propelled, of course,
by a demon) when he tried to give up using it!
197
 D. The New "Outpouring of the Holy Spirit”

In general, followers of the "charismatic revi-

val" have the feeling of being (as they constantly re-
peat) "Spirit-filled."" "I felt free, clean and a new
person and completely filled with the Holy Spirit"
(Ranaghan, p. 98). "Because of what was begun in
the baptism of the Spirit, I have now begun to see
more a vision of what life inthe Spirit is like. Itis
truly a life of miracles ... of being filled over and
over with the life-giving love of the Spirit of God"
(Ranaghan, p. 65). They invariably characterize
their "spiritual" state in similar words; a Catholic
priest writes, "whatever other particular effects may
have occurred, peace and joy seem to have been re-
ceived by all, almost without exception, of those who
have been touched by the Spirit" (Ranaghan, p. 185).
One inter-denominational "charismatic" group states
that the aim of its members is "to show and spread
Jesus Christ's Love, Joy and Peace wherever they
are (Inter-Church Renewal). In this "spiritual" state
(in which, characteristically, both repentance and
salvation are seldom mentioned), some rise to great
heights. In one Catholic the gift of the "Spirit" "has
risen within me to long periods (several hours) of
near ecstasy in which I'd swear I was experiencing
a foretaste of the Kingdom of Heaven" (Ranaghan, p.
103). Spectacular stories are told of deliverance
from drug addiction and the like. The Greek priest
Fr. Eusebius Stephanou summarizes this "spirituali-
ty'' by quoting a Roman Catholic priest who states
that the ''charismatic'' movement involves "a new
sense of the presence of God, a new awareness of
Christ, a greater desire to pray, an ability to praise
God, a new desire to read the Scriptures, the Scrip-
tures coming alive as the Word of God, a new eager-
198
ness to have others know about Christ, a new com-
passion for others and a _ sensitiveness to their
needs, a new sense of peace and joy..." And Fr.
Eusebius presents the ultimate argument of the whole
movement: ''The tree is known by its fruits... Do
these fruits demonstrate the presence of the Devil or
of the sanctifying Spirit of Christ? No Orthodox in
his right mind who has seen the fruits of the Spirit
with his own eyes can give a mistaken answer to this
question" (Logos, Jan., 1972, p. 13).
There is no reason to doubt any of this testimo-
ny. True, there is also much testimony — we have
given a few examples — that contradicts this and
states definitely that the ''spirit'' of the "charismatic
revival" is something dark and ominous; but still it
cannot be doubted that many followers of the ''charis—
matic revival" actually feel that it is something
"Christian" and "spiritual." As long as these people
remain outside the Orthodox Church, we might well
leave their opinions without comment. But when an
Orthodox priest tells us that sectarian phenomena are
produced by the Holy Spirit, and he even exhorts us:
"Don't be left out. Open your heart to the promptings
of the Holy Spirit and be part of the growing charis-
matic renewal" (loc. cit.) — then we have the right
and the duty to examine their opinions quite closely,
judging them not by the standard of the vague human-
ist "Christianity" which prevails in the West and is
prepared to call anything "Christian" that merely
"feels" so, but by the quite different standard of Or-
thodox Christianity. And by this standard there is not
one item in the above list of "spiritual fruits" but that
can be, and has been in the sectarian and heretical
movements of the past, produced by the devil appear-
ing as an "angel of light,'' precisely with the aim of
leading people away from the Church of Christ into
199
some other kind of "Christianity." If the "spirit"
of the "charismatic revival" is not the Holy Spirit,
then these "spiritual fruits" likewise are not from
God.
According to Bishop Ignatius, the deception
known as fancy "is satisfied with the invention of
counterfeit feelings and states of grace, from which
there is born a false, wrong conception of the whole
spiritual undertaking... It constantly invents pseudo-
spiritual states, an intimate companionship with Je-
sus, an inward conversation with him, mystical re-
velations, voices, enjoyments... From this activity
the blood receives a sinful, deceiving movement,
which presents itself as a grace-given delight... It
clothes itself in the mask of humility, piety, wisdom."
Unlike the more spectacular form of spiritual decep-
tion, fancy, while "bringing the mind into the most
frightful error, does not however lead it to deliri-
um,'' so that the state may continue for many years or
a whole lifetime and not be easily detected. One who
falls into this warm, comfortable, fevered state of
deception virtually commits spiritual suicide, blinding
himself to his own true spiritual state. Writes Bishop
Ignatius: ''Fancying of himself ... that he is filled
with grace, he will never receive grace... He who
ascribes to himself gifts of grace fences off from him-
self by this 'fancy' the entrance into himself of Divine
grace, and opens wide the door to the infection of sin
and to demons." Thou sayest, I am rich, and in-
creased with goods, and have need of nothing; and
knowest not that thouart wretched, and miserable,
and poor, and blind, and naked (Apoc. 3:17).
Those infected with the "charismatic" deception
are not only themselves "'spirit-filled;"' they also see
around them the beginning of a "new age" of the "out-
pouring of the Holy Spirit," believing, as does Fr.
200
Eusebius Stephanou, that "the world is on the thresh-
old of a great spiritual awakening" (Logos, Feb.,
1972, p. 18); and the words of the Prophet Joel are
constantly on their lips: I will pour out My Spirit
upon all flesh (Joel 2:28). The Orthodox Christian
knows that this prophecy refers in general to the last
age that began with the coming of our Lord, and more
specifically to Pentecost (Acts 2), and to every Or-
thodox Saint who truly possesses in abundance the
gifts of the Holy Spirit — such as St. John of Kron-
stadt and St. Nectarios of Pentapolis, who have
worked thousands of miracles even in this corrupt
20th century. But to today's "charismatics," mira-
culous gifts are for everyone; almost everyone who
wants to can and does speak in tongues, and there are
manuals telling you how to do it.
But what do the Holy Fathers of the Orthodox
Church teach us? According to Bishop Ignatius, the
gifts of the Holy Spirit “exist only in Orthodox
Christians who have attained Christian perfection,
purified and prepared beforehand by repentance."
They "are given to Saints of God solely at God's good
will and by God's action, and not by the will of men
and not by one's own power. They are given unex-
pectedly, extremely rarely, in cases of extreme need,
by God's wondrous providence, and not just at ran-
dom'' (St. Isaac the Syrian). "It should be noted
that at the present time spiritual gifts are granted in
great moderation, corresponding to the enfeeblement
that has enveloped Christianity in general. These
gifts serve entirely the needs of salvation. On the
contrary, ‘fancy’ lavishes its gifts in boundless abun-
dance and with the greatest speed."
In a word, the "spirit" that suddenly lavishes
its "gifts" upon this adulterous generation which,
corrupted and deceived by centuries of false belief
201
and pseudo-piety, seeks only a "sign" — is not the
Holy Spirit of God. These people have never known
the Holy Spirit and never worshipped Him. True
spirituality is so far beyond them that, to the sober
observer, they only mock it by their psychic and emo-
tional — and sometimes demonic — phenomena and
blasphemous utterances. Of true spiritual feelings,
writes Bishop Ignatius, "the fleshly man cannot form
any conception: because a conception of feeling is al-
ways based on those feelings already known to the
heart, while spiritual feelings are entirely foreign to
the heart that knows only fleshly and emotional feel-
ings. Such a heart does not so much as know of the
existence of spiritual feelings."

SOURCES CITED IN THE TEXT OF THIS

CHAPTER
Burdick, Donald W., Tongues — To Speak or not to
Speak. Moody Press, 1969.
Christenson, Larry, Speaking in Tongues. Dimension
Books, Minneapolis, 1968.
Du Plessis, David J., The Spirit Bade Me Go. Logos
International, Plainfield, New Jersey, 1970.
Ford, J. Massingberd, The Pentecostal Experience.
Paulist Press, N.Y., 1970.
Gelpi, Donald L., S.J., Pentecostalism, A Theolo-
gical Viewpoint. Paulist Press, N.Y., 1971.
Harper, Michael, Life in the Holy Spirit. Logos
Books, Plainfield, N.J., 1966. g
Koch, Kurt, The Strife of Tongues. Kregel Publica-
tions, Grand Rapids, 1969.
Lillie, D.G., Tongues under Fire. Fountain Trust,
London, 1966.
202
Ortega, Ruben, compiler, The Jesus People Speak
Out. David C. Cook Publishing Co., Elgin, Il.,
1972.
Ranaghan, Kevin and Dorothy, Catholic Pentecost-
als. Paulist Press, 1969.
Sherrill, John L., They Speak with Other Tongues.
Spire Books, Old Tappan, N.J., 1965.
Williams, J. Rodman, The Era of the Spirit. Logos
International, 1971.

203
 VILL Conclusion:

The Spirit of the Last Times

1. THE "CHARISMATIC REVIVAL" ASA

SIGN OF THE TIMES

To the very end of this age there shall not be

lacking Prophets of the Lord God, as also servants
of satan. But in the last times those who truly
will serve God will succeed in hiding themselves
from men and will not perform in their midst signs
and wonders as at the present time, but they will
travel by a path of activity intermixed with hu-
mility, and in the Kingdom of Heaven they will be
greater than the Fathers who have been glorified
by signs. Forat that time no one will perform be-
fore the eyes of men miracles which would inflame
men and inspire them to strive with zeal for ascet-
tc labors... Many, being possessed by ignorance,
will fall into the abyss, going astray in the
breadth of the broad and spacious path. l
Prophecy of St. Niphon of Constantia, Cyprus*

* Published in Russian with the writings of Sts. Bar-

sanuphius the Great and John, Moscow, 1855, pp. 654-
655.
204
 A. A "Pentecost without Christ"

FOR ORTHODOX CHRISTIANS present-day

"tongues," like those described in the New Testa-
ment, are also a "sign:" but now they are a sign, not
of the beginning of the Gospel of salvation for all
people, but of its end. The sober Orthodox Christian
will not find it difficult to agree with the apologists of
the "charismatic revival" that this new "outpouring of
the spirit" may mean indeed that "the consummation of
the age is at hand" (Fr. Eusebius Stephanou in Logos,
April, 1972, p. 3). Now the Spirit speaketh ex-
pressly, that in the latter times some shall depart
from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits,
and doctrines of devils (1 Tim. 4:1). In the last
days we shall see the spirits of devils, working
miracles (Apoc. 16:14).
The Holy Scriptures and Orthodox Fathers
clearly tell us that the character of the last times
will not at all be one of a great spiritual "revival,"
of an "outpouring of the Holy Spirit," but rather one
of almost universal apostasy, of spiritual deception
so subtle that the very elect, if that were possible,
will be deceived, of the virtual disappearance of
Christianity from the face of the earth. When the Son
of man cometh, shall He find faith on the earth?
(Luke 18:8.) It is precisely in the last times that
satan is to be loosed (Apoc. 20:3) in order to produce
the final and greatest outpouring of evil upon the
earth.
The "charismatic revival," the product of a
world without sacraments, without grace, a world
thirsting for spiritual "signs" without being able to
discern the spirits that give the signs, is itself a
"sion"of these apostate times. The ecumenical move-
ment itself remains always a movement of "good in-
205
tentions"' and feeble humanitarian ''good deeds;" but
when it is joined by a movement with "power," indeed
with all power and signs and lying wonders (II
Thes. 2:9), then who will be able to stop it? The
"charismatic revival” comes to the rescue of a
floundering ecumenism, and pushes it on to its goal.
And this goal, as we have seen, is not merely ''Chris—
tian" in nature — the "refounding of the Church of
Christ," to use the blasphemous utterance of Patri-
arch Athenagoras of Constantinople — that is only the
first step to a larger goal which lies entirely outside
of Christianity: the establishment of the "spiritual u-
nity" of all religions, of all mankind.
However, the followers of the "charismatic re-
vival" believe their experience is ''Christian;" they
will have nothing to do with occultism and Eastern
religions; and they doubtless reject outright the whole
comparison in the preceding pages of the "charisma-—
tic revival" with spiritism. Now it is quite true that
religiously the "charismatic revival" is on a higher
level than spiritism, which is a product of quite gross
credulity and superstition; that its techniques are
more refined and its phenomena more plentiful and
more easily obtained; and that its whole ideology
gives the appearance of being "Christian" — not Or-
thodox, but something that is not far from Protestant
fundamentalism with an added "ecumenical" coloring.
And yet we have seen that "charismatic" experi-
ence, and particularly the central experience of the
"Baptism of the Holy Spirit," is largely if not entire-
ly a pagan experience, much closer to "spirit-posses-—
sion" than to anything Christian. We know also that
Pentecostalism was born on the fringes of sectarian
"Christianity," where very little remains of genuine
Christian attitudes and beliefs, and that it was actu-
ally "discovered" as the result of a religious exper-
206
 iment, in which Christians do not participate. But it
was not until quite recently that it was possible to
find a clear testimony of the non-Christian character
of "charismatic" experience in the words ofa "char-
ismatic"” apologist. This apologist informs us that
the experience of the "Baptism in the Holy Spirit"
can indeed be had without Christ.
This writer tells the story of a person who had
received the "Baptism" with speaking in tongues and
was encouraging everyone to seek it. Yet he admitted
that repentance had not been part of his experience
and that not only had he not been delivered from sin-
ful habits, but even had no particular desire to be de-
livered from them. The writer concludes: "A pente-
cost without repentance — a pentecost without Christ
— that is what some are experiencing today... They
have heard of tongues, they wish to identify with a
Status experience, so they seek someone to lay on
hands for a quick, cheap, easy impartation which by-
passes Christ and His Cross." Nonetheless, this
writer admits that speaking in tongues is undeniably
"the initial consequence or confirmation" of the 'Bap-
tism in the Holy Spirit" (Harry Lunn, in Logos Jour-
nal, Nov.~Dec., 1971, pp. 44, 47).
Those who bring Christian ideas to the experi-
ence assume that the "Baptism in the Holy Spirit" is a
Christian experience. But if it can be given to those
who merely seek a cheap, easy status experience —
then there is no necessary connection whatever be-
tween this experience and Christ. The very possibil-
ity of an experience of a "Pentecost without Christ"
means that the experience in itself is not Christian
at all; "Christians ,¿" often sincere and well-meaning,
are reading into the experience a Christian con-
tent which in itself it does not have.

207
 Do we not have here the common denominator of
"spiritual experience" which is needed for a new
world religion? Is this not perhaps the key to the
"spiritual unity" of mankind which the ecumenical
movement has sought in vain?

B. The "New Christianity"

There may be those who will doubt that the

"charismatic revival" is a form of mediumism; that is
only a secondary question of the means or technique
by which the "spirit" of the "charismatic revival" is
communicated. But that this "spirit" has nothing to
do with Orthodox Christianity is abundantly clear.
And in fact this "spirit" follows almost to the letter
the "prophecies" of Nicholas Berdyaev concerning a
"New Christianity." It completely leaves behind the
"monastic ascetic spirit of historical Orthodoxy,"
which most effectively exposes its falsity. It is not
satisfied with the "conservative Christianity which
directs the spiritual forces of man only towards con-
trition and salvation," but rather, apparently believ-
ing like Berdyaev that such a Christianity is still "in-
complete," adds a second level of "spiritual" pheno-
mena, not one of which is specifically Christian in
character (although one is free to interpret them as
"Christian"), which are open to people of every de-
nomination with or without repentance, and which are
completely unrelated to salvation. It looks to "a new
era in Christianity, a new and deep spirituality, which
means a new outpouring of the Holy Spirit" — in com-
plete contradiction of Orthodox tradition and prophe-
cy.

208
 This is truly a "New Christianity" — but the
specifically ''new" ingredient in this "Christianity" is
nothing original or "advanced," but merely a modern
form of the devil's age-old religion of shamanistic
paganism. The Orthodox "charismatic" periodical
The Logos, recommends Nicholas Berdyaev as a "'pro-
phet" precisely because he was "the greatest theolo-
gian of spiritual creativeness' (Logos, March, 1972,
p. 8). And indeed, it is precisely the shamans of
every primitive tribe who know how to get in contact
with and utilize the primordial "creative" powers of
the universe — those "spirits of earth and sky and
sea" which the Church of Christ recognizes as de-
mons, and in serving which it is indeed possible to at-
tain to a "creative" ecstasy and joy (the ''Nietzschean
enthusiasm and ecstasy" to which Berdyaev felt so
close) which are unknown to the weary and half-
hearted "Christians" who fall for the "charismatic"
deception. But there is no Christ here. God has
forbidden contact with this "creative," occult realm
into which "Christians" have stumbled through ignor-
ance and self-deception. The "charismatic revival"
‘will have no need to enter a "dialogue with non-
Christian religions," because, under the name of
"Christianity," it is already embracing non-Christian
religion and is itself becoming the new religion which
Berdyaev foresaw, strangely combining "'Christian-
ity" and paganism.
The strange "Christian" spirit of the "charis-—
matic revival" is clearly identified in the Holy Scrip-
tures and the Orthodox patristic tradition. Accord-
ing to these sources, world history will culminate in
an almost superhuman "Christian" figure, the false
Messiah or Antichrist. He will be "Christian" in the
sense that his whole function and his very being will
center on Christ, Whom he will imitate in every re-
209
spect possible, and he will be not merely the greatest
enemy of Christ, but in order to deceive Christians
will appear to be Christ, come to earth for a second
time and ruling from the restored Temple in Jerusa-
lem. Let no one deceive you byany means, for that
day shall not come except there come a falling away
(apostasy) first, and that man of sin be revealed,
the son of perdition, who opposeth and exalteth
himself above all that is called God, or that is
worshipped, so that he as God sitteth in the temple
of God, showing himself that he is God... even him
whose coming is after the working of Satan with all
lying wonders, and with all deceivableness in them
that perish, because they received not the love of
the truth, that they might be saved. And for this
cause God shall send them strong delusion, that
they should believea lie: that they all might be
damned who believed not the truth, but had pleasure
in unrighteousness (II Thes. 2:3-4, 9-12).
The Orthodox teaching concerning Antichrist is
a large subject in itself and cannot be presented
here. But if, as the followers of the ''charismatic
revival" believe, the last days are indeed at hand, it
is of crucial importance for the Orthodox Christian to
be informed of this teaching concerning one who, as
the Saviour Himself has told us, together with the
"false prophets" of that time, shall show great signs
and wonders, insomuch that, if it were possible,
they shall deceive the very elect (Matt. 24:24).
And the "elect" are certainly not those multitudes of
people who are coming to accept the gross and most
unscriptural delusion that "the world is on the
threshold of a great spiritual awakening," but rather
the "little flock" to which alone our Saviour has pro-
mised: It is your Father's good pleasure to give
you the Kingdom (Luke 12:32). Even the true "elect"
210
will be sorely tempted by the ''great signs and won-
ders" of Antichrist; but most "Christians" will accept
him without any question, for his "New Christianity"
is precisely what they seek.

C. "Jesus Is Coming Soon"

Just in the past few years, significantly, the

figure of "Jesus" has been thrust into strange promi-
nence in America. On stage and in films long-stand-
ing prohibitions against portraying the person of
Christ have been abrogated. Sensationally popular
musicals present blasphemous parodies of His life.
The "Jesus Movement," which is largely "charisma-
tic" in orientation, spreads spectacularly among
teenagers and young people. The crudest form of A-
merican popular music is ''Christianized" at mass
"Jesus—Rock Festivals," and "Christian" tunes for
the first time in the century become the most popular
in the land. And underlying this whole strange con-
glomeration of sacrilege and absolute unenlightened
worldliness is the constantly reiterated expression of
seemingly everyone's expectation and hope: "Jesus is
coming soon."
In the midst of this psychic and "religious" de-
vastation of the American land, a symptomatic 'my-
stical'' occurrence has been repeating itself in the
lives of widely-separated Americans. An editor of a
"charismatic" magazine relates how he first encount-
ered this occurrence as told by someone at a gather-
ing of like-minded people:
"'My friend and his wife were driving up to Bos-
ton on Route 3, when they stopped to pick up a hitch-
hiker. He was young and had a beard, but he wasn't
211
dressed like a hippie. He got in the back seat without
saying much, and they drove on. After a while, he
quietly said, "The Lord is coming soon." My friend
and his wife were so startled that they each turned a-
round to look at him. There was no one there. Badly
shaken, they pulled into the first gas station they
came to. They had to tell someone else, no matter
what the reaction. As the attendant listened, he
didn't laugh. Instead, all he said was, "You're the
fifth car to come in here with that story.’
"As I listened, in spite of the hazy sunlight,a
chill began to creep up my backbone. Yet that was
only the beginning. One by one, around the circle,
others were led to recount similar incidents, until
there were six all told, across the length and breadth
of the country, and all had taken place within the past
two years" — in Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Duluth
(thirteen reports to the police in one night), New Or-
leans; sometimes the hitchhiker is a man, sometimes
a woman. Later an Episcopalian priest told the editor
of his own identical experience in upstate New York.
To the editor, this all indicates that in fact "Jesus is
coming soon" (David Manuel, Jr., in Logos Journal,
Jan.
- Feb., 1972, p. 3).
The careful observer of the contemporary reli-
gious scene — especially in America, where the most
popular religious currents have originated for over a
century — cannot fail to notice a very decided air of
chiliastic expectation. And this is not only true of
"charismatic" circles, but even of the traditionalist
or fundamentalist circles that have rejected the ''cha-
rismatic revival." Thus, many traditionalist Roman
Catholics believe in the coming of a chiliastic "Age of
Mary" before the end of the world, and this is only
one variant on the more widespread Latin error of
trying to "sanctify the world," or, as Archbishop
212
Thomas Connolly of Seattle expressed it fifteen years
ago, "transforming the modern world into the King-
dom of God in preparation for His return." Protes-
tant evangelists such as Billy Graham, in their mis-
taken private interpretation of the Apocalypse, await
the "millenium" when "Christ" will reign on earth.
Other evangelists in Israel find that their millenarian
interpretation of the "Messiah" is just what is needed
to "prepare" the Jews for his coming.* And the
arch-fundamentalist Carl McIntire prepares to build
a life-size replica of the Temple of Jerusalem in Flo-
rida (near Disneyworld!), believing that the time is at
hand when the Jews will build the very "Temple to
which the Lord Himself will return as He promised"
(Christian Beacon, Nov. 11, 1971; Jan. 6, 1972).
Thus, even anti-ecumenists find it possible to pre-
pare to join the unrepentant Jews in welcoming the
false Messiah — Antichrist — in contrast to the faith-
ful remnant of Jews who will accept Christ as the Or-
thodox Church preaches Him, when the Prophet Elijah
returns to earth.
It is therefore no great consolation for a sober
Orthodox Christian who knows the Scriptural prophe-
cies concerning the last days, when he is told by a
"charismatic" Protestant minister that "it's glorious
what Jesus can do when we open up to Him. No won-
der people of all faiths are now able to pray togeth-
er" (Harold Bredesen, in Logos Journal, Jan.-Feb.,
1972, p. 24); or by a Catholic Pentecostal that the
members of all the denominations now ''begin to peer
over those walls of separation only to recognize in
each other the image of Jesus Christ" (Kevin Rana-

* See for example Gordon Lindsay, Israel's Destiny

and the Coming Deliverer, Christ for the Nations
Publ. Do., Dallas, Texas, pp. 28-30.
213
ghan in Logos Journal, Nov.-Dec., 1971, p. 21).
Which "Christ" is this for whom an accelerated pro-
gram of psychological and even physical preparation
is now being made throughout the world? — Is this
our true God and Saviour Jesus Christ, Who founded
the Church wherein men may find salvation? Or is it
the false Christ who will come in his own name (John
5:43) and unite all who reject or pervert the teaching
of the one Church of Christ, the Orthodox Church?
Our Saviour Himself has warned us: Then if any
man shall say unto you, Lo, here is the Christ, or
there; believe it not. For there shall arise false
Christs, and false prophets, and shall show signs
and wonders, so as to lead astray, if possible,
even the elect. Behold I have told you beforehand.
If therefore they shall say unto you, Behold, he is
in the wilderness, go not forth; Behold, he is in
the inner chambers, believe it not. For as the
lightning cometh forth from the east, and is seen
even unto the west, so shall be the coming of the
Son of man (Matt. 24:23-27).
The Second Coming of Christ will be unmistaka-
ble: it will be sudden, from heaven (Acts 1:11), and it
will mark the end of this world. There can be no
"preparation" for it — save only the Orthodox Chris-
tian preparation of repentance, spiritual life, and
watchfulness. Those who are "preparing" for it in
any other way, who say that he is anywhere "here" —
especially "here" in the Temple of Jerusalem — or
who preach that "Jesus is coming soon" without warn-
ing of the great deception that is to precede His Com-
ing: are clearly the prophets of Antichrist, the false
Christ who must come first and deceive the world, in-
cluding all "Christians" who are not or do not become
truly Orthodox. There is to be no future "millenium."
For those who can receive it, the "millenium" of the
214
Apocalypse (Apoc. 20:6) is now; the life of grace in
the Orthodox Church for the whole "thousand years"
between the First Coming of Christ and the time of
Antichrist.* That Protestants should expect the "mil-
lenium" in the future is only their confession that
they do not live in it in the present — that is, that
they are outside the Church of Christ and have not
tasted of Divine grace.

D. Must Orthodoxy Join the Apostasy?

Today some Orthodox priests, led by Fr. Euse-

bius Stephanou, would try to persuade us that the
"charismatic revival," even though it began and most-
ly continues outside the Orthodox Church, is nonethe-
less "Orthodox," and we are even warned, "Don't be
left out." But no one who has studied this movement
in the works of its leading representatives, many of
whom have been quoted above, can have any doubt that
this "revival," in so far as it is "Christian" at all,
is entirely Protestant in its origin, inspiration, in-
tent, practice, "theology," and end. It is a form of
Protestant "revivalism,'' which is a phenomenon that
preserves only a fragment of anything genuinely
Christian, substituting for Christianity an emotional
"religious" hysteria whose victim falls into the fatal
delusion that he is "saved." If the "charismatic re-
vival'' differs from Protestant revivalism, it is only

* Such is the Orthodox teaching of Sts. Basil the

Great, Gregory the Theologian, Andrew of Caesarea,
and many other Fathers. See Archbishop Averky,
Guide to the Study of the New Testament, Part II (in
Russian), Jordanville, N.Y., 1956, pp. 434-438.
215
in adding a new dimension of crypto-spiritistic phe-
nomena which are more spectacular and more objec-
tive than mere subjective revivalism.
This evident fact is only strikingly confirmed by
an examination of what Fr. Eusebius Stephanou tries
to pass off for an "Orthodox awakening" in his peri-
odical The Logos.
This Orthodox priest informs his readers that
"the Orthodox Church is not sharing in the modern-
day Christian awakening" (Feb., 1972, p. 19). He
himself now travels about holding Protestant-like re-
vival meetings, together with the Protestant "altar
call," which is accompanied by the usual revivalistic
"sobs and tears" (April, 1972, p. 4). Fr. Eusebius
himself with typical revivalistic immodesty, informs
us that "I thank and praise God for shedding some of
the light of His Spirit into my soul in response to the
unceasing prayers I have been sending up night and
day" (Feb., 1972, p. 19); and later he openly de-
clares himself to be a "prophet" (April, 1972, p. 3).
He mentions nothing whatever of the Orthodox inter-
pretation of apocalyptic events, and yet he repeats
Billy Graham's fundamentalist Protestant interpreta-
tion of the "Rapture" that is to precede the "milleni-
um:" "The Great Tribulation day approaches. If we
remain true to Christ we will surely be caught up to
be with Him at the sound of the glad rapture-shout
and we will be spared the horrible destruction which
is to fall upon the world"* (April, 1972, p. 22). And
yet not even all fundamentalists are agreed on this

* Compare Billy Graham, Worla Aflame, Doubleday

(Pocket Cardinal Ed.), New York, 1966, p. 178; C.
H. Mackintosh, The Lord's Coming, Moody Press,
Chicago, pp. 30-31; and many other fundamentalists.
216
error,* which has no foundation in Holy Scripture**
and removes from those who follow it all necessity
for watchfulness against the deceit of Antichrist,
from which they imagine they will be spared.
All of this is not even pseudo—Orthodoxy; it is
just plain Protestantism, and not even the best kind of
Protestantism. One looks in vain in the Logos of Fr.
Eusebius Stephanou for anindication that his ''awaken-—
ing" is inspired by the sources of the Orthodox asce-
tic tradition: the Lives of Saints, the Holy Fathers,
the Church's cycle of services, the Orthodox inter-
pretation of Holy Scripture. Some Orthodox ''charis-—
matics," it is true, make use of some of these sourc-
es — but alas! they mix them together with "many
other books written by devout Christians involved
with the Charismatic movement" (Logos, March, 1972,
p- 16) and thus read them "'charismatically:" like all
sectarians, reading into Orthodox writings what they
have learned from their new teaching, which comes
from outside the Church.
It is true enough, to be sure, that an Orthodox
awakening would be much to be desired in our days,
when many Orthodox Christians have lost the salt of
true Christianity, and the true and fervent Orthodox
Christian life is indeed rarely to be seen. Modern
life has become too comfortable; worldly life has be-
come too attractive; for too many, Orthodoxy has be-
come simply a matter of membership in a church or-
ganization or the "correct" fulfillment of external
rites and practices. There would be need enough for

* See Kurt Koch, Day X, Kregel Publications, Grand

Rapids, Mich., p. 116-7.
** I Thes. 4:16-17 refers to the Second Coming of
Christ, which according to the Holy Fathers comes
after the "tribulation" and the reign of Antichrist.
217
a true Orthodox spiritual awakening; but this is not
what we see in the Orthodox ''charismatics." Just
like the "charismatic" activists among Protestants
and Roman Catholics, they are fully in harmony with
the spirit of the times; they are not in living contact
with the sources of the Orthodox spiritual tradition,
preferring the currently-fashionable Protestant tech-
niques of revivalism; they are one with the leading
current of today's apostate "'Christianity:"" the ecu-
menical movement. Early in 1978 Archbishop lakovos
of the Greek Archdiocese of North and South America
finally gave his official approval to the activities of
Fr. Eusebius Stephanou, including permission for him
to preach everywhere specifically on the "gifts of the
Holy Spirit;'' thus the church organization in its most
modernist and ecumenist figure joins hands with the
"charismatic revival," reflecting the deep kinship
that unites them. But true Christianity is not there.
There have been true Orthodox "awakenings" in
the past: one thinks immediately of St. Cosmas of
Aitolia, who walked from village to village in 18th-
century Greece and inspired the people to return to
the true Christianity of their ancestors; or St. John
of Kronstadt in our own century, who brought the
age-old message of Orthodox spiritual life to the ur-
ban masses of Petersburg. Then there are the Or-
thodox monastic instructors who were truly "Spirit-
filled" and left their teaching to the monastics as well
as the laymen of the latter times: one thinks of the
Greek St. Symeon the New Theologian in the 10th
century, and the Russian St. Seraphim of Sarov in
the 19th. St. Symeon is badly misused by the Ortho-
dox "charismatics" (he was speaking of a Spirit dif-
ferent fromtheirs!); and St. Seraphim is invariably
quoted out of context in order to minimize his empha-
sis on the necessity to belong to the Orthodox Church

218
to have a true spiritual life. In the "Conversation"
of St. Seraphim with the layman Motovilov on the "ac-
quisition of the Holy Spirit" (which the Orthodox
"charismatics" quote without the parts here itali-
cized), this great Saint tells us: "The grace of the
Holy Spirit which was given to us all, the faithful of
Christ, inthe sacrament of Holy Baptism, is sealed
by the sacrament of Chrismation on the chief parts of
the body, as appointed by the Holy Church, the eter-
nal keeper of this grace." And again: "The Lord
listens equally to the monk and the simple Christian
layman, provided that both are Orthodox."
As opposed to the true Orthodox spiritual life,
the "charismatic revival" is only the experiential
side of the prevailing "ecumenical" fashion — a
counterfeit Christianity that betrays Christ and His
Church. No Orthodox "charismatic" could possibly
object to the coming "Union" with those very Protes-
tants and Roman Catholics with whom, as the interde-
nominational "charismatic" song goes, they are al-
ready "one in the Spirit, one in the Lord," and who
have led them and inspired their "charismatic" ex-
perience. The "spirit" that has inspired the "charis-—
matic revival" is the spirit of Antichrist, or more
precisely, those "spirits of devils" of the last times
whose ''miracles'' prepare the world for the false
Messiah.

E. "Little Children, It is the Last Hour"

(I John 2:18)

Unknown to the fevered Orthodox "revivalists,"

the Lord God has preserved in the world, even as in
the days of Elijah the Prophet, seven thousand men
219
who have not bowed the knee to Baal (Rom. 11:4) —
an unknown number of true Orthodox Christians who
are neither spiritually dead, as the Orthodox ''char-
ismatics" complain that their flocks have been, nor
pompously ''spirit-filled,'' as these same flocks be-
come under "charismatic" suggestion. They are not
carried away by the movement of apostasy nor by any
false "awakening ,' but continue rooted in the holy and
saving Faith of Holy Orthodoxy in the tradition the
Holy Fathers have handed down to them, watching the
Signs of the times and travelling the narrow path to
salvation. Many of them follow the bishops of the few
Orthodox jurisdictions that have taken strong stands
against the apostasy of our times: the Catacomb
Church of Russia, the Russian Church Outside of
Russia, the True Orthodox Christians (Old Calendar-
ists) of Greece. But there are some left in other
jurisdictions also, grieving over the ever more evi-
dent apostasy of their hierarchs and striving some-
how to keep their own Orthodoxy intact; and there are
still others outside of the Orthodox Church who by
God's grace, their hearts being open to His call, will
undoubtedly yet be joined to genuine Holy Orthodoxy.
These "seven thousand" are the foundation of the fu-
ture and only Orthodoxy of the latter times.
And outside of genuine Orthodoxy the darkness
only grows. Judging from the latest "religious"
news, the "charismatic revival" may well be only the
faint beginning of a whole "age of miracles." Many
Protestants who have discerned the fraud of the
"charismatic revival" now accept as "the real thing"
the spectacular "revival" in Indonesia where, we are
told, there are really occurring "the selfsame things
that one finds reported in the Acts of the Apostles."
In the space of three years 200,000 pagans have been
converted to Protestantism under constantly miracu-

220
lous conditions: No one does anything except in abso-
lute obedience to the "voices" and "angels" who are
constantly appearing, usually quoting Scripture by
number and verse; water is turned into wine every
time the Protestant communion service comes around;
detached hands appear from nowhere to distribute
miraculous food to the hungry;a whole band of demons
is seen to abandon a pagan village because a ''more
powerful" one ("Jesus") has come to take their place;
"Christians" have a "count-down" for an unrepentant
sinner, and when they come to "zero" he dies; chil-
dren are taught new Protestant hymns by voices that
come from nowhere (and repeat the song twenty times
so the children will remember); "God's tape-record-
er" records the song of a children's choir and plays
it back in the air for the astonished children; fire
comes down from the sky to consume Catholic reli-
gious images ("the Lord" in Indonesia is very anti-
Catholic); 30,000 have been healed; "Christ" appears
in the sky and "falls" on people in order to heal them;
people are miraculously transported from place to
place and walk on water; lights accompany evangel-
ists and guide them at night, and clouds follow them
and give them shelter during the day; the dead are
raised.*
Interestingly, in some parts of the Indonesian
"revival" the element of ''speaking in tongues" is al-
most totally absent and is even forbidden (although it
is present in many places), and the element of medi-
umism seems sometimes to be replaced by a direct
intervention of fallen spirits. It may well be that this
new "revival," more powerful than Pentecostalism,

* See Kurt Koch, The Revival in Indonesia, Kregel

Publications, 1970; and Mel Tari, Like a Mighty
Wind. Creation House, Carol Stream, Ill., 1971.
221
is a more developed stage of the same ''spiritual"
phenomenon (just as Pentecostalism itself is more ad-
vanced than spiritism) and heralds the imminence of
the dreadful day when, as the "voices" and "angels"
in Indonesia also proclaim, ''the Lord" is to come —
for we know that Antichrist will prove to the world
that he is "Christ" by just such "miracles."
In an age of almost universal darkness and de-
ception, when for most "Christians" Christ has be-
come precisely what Orthodox teaching means by
Antichrist, the Orthodox Church of Christ alone
possesses and communicates the grace of God. This
is a priceless treasure the very existence of which is
not so much as suspected even by the "Christian"
world. The "Christian" world, indeed, joins hands
with the forces of darkness in order to seduce the
faithful of the Church of Christ, blindly trusting that
the "name of Jesus" will save them even in their apo-
stasy and blasphemy, mindless of the fearful warning
of the Lord: Many will say to Me in that day, Lord,
Lord, have we not prophesied in Thy name? and in
Thy name have cast out devils? and in Thy name
done many wonderful works? And then will I profess
unto them, I never knew you: depart from Me, ye
that work iniquity (Matt. 7:22-23).
St. Paul continues his warning about the coming
of Antichrist with this command: Therefore, breth-
ren, stand fast, and hold the traditions which ye
have been taught, whether by word, or our epistle
(II Thes. 2:15). There be some that trouble you,
and would pervert the Gospel of Christ. But though
we, oranangel from heaven, preach any other gos-
pel unto you than that which we have preached unto
you, let him be anathema. As we said before, so say
I now again: If any preach any other gospel unto

222
you than that ye have received, let him be anathema
(Gal. 1:8-9).
The Orthodox answer to every new "revival,"
and even to the final terrible "revival" of Antichrist,
"is this Gospel of Christ, which the Orthodox Church
alone has preserved unchanged in an unbroken line
from Christ and His Apostles, and the grace of the
Holy Spirit which the Orthodox Church alone commu-
nicates, and only to her faithful children, who have
received in Chrismation and kept the true seal of the
gift of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

2. THE RELIGION OF THE FUTURE

IT 1S DEEPLY INDICATIVE of the spiritual

state of contemporary mankind that the "charismatic"
and "meditation" experiences are taking root among
"Christians." An Eastern religious influence is un-
deniably at work in such "Christians," but it is only
as a result of something much more fundamental: the
loss of the very feeling and savor of Christianity, due
to which something so alien to Christianity as East-
ern "meditation" can take hold of "Christian" souls.
The life of self-centeredness and self-satisfac-
tion lived by most of today's "Christians" is so all-
pervading that it effectively seals them off from any
understanding at all of spiritual life; and when such
people do undertake "spiritual life," it is only as
another form of self-satisfaction. This can be seen
quite clearly in the totally false religious ideal both
of the "charismatic" movement and the various forms
of "Christian meditation:" all of them promise (and
give very quickly) an experience of "contentment" and
"peace." But this is not the Christian ideal at all,
223
which if anything may be summed up as a fierce battle
and struggle. The "contentment" and "peace" de-
scribed in these contemporary "spiritual" movements
are quite manifestly the product of spiritual decep-
tion, of spiritual self—satisfaction — which is the ab-
solute death of the God-oriented spiritual life. All
these forms of "Christian meditation" operate solely
on the psychic level and have nothing whatever in
common with Christian spirituality. Christian spiri-
tuality is formed in the arduous struggle to acquire
the eternal Kingdom of Heaven, which fully begins
only with the dissolution of this temporal world, and
the true Christian struggler never finds repose even
in the foretastes of eternal blessedness which might
be vouchsafed to him in this life; but the Eastern re-
ligions, to which the Kingdom of Heaven has not been
revealed, strive only to acquire psychic states which
begin and end in this life.
In our age of apostasy preceding the manifesta-
tion of Antichrist, the devil has been loosed for a
time (Apoc. 20:7) to work the false miracles which he
could not work during the "thousand years" of Grace
in the Church of Christ (Apoc. 20:3), and to gather in
his hellish harvest of those souls who "received not
the love of the truth" (II Thes. 2:10). We can tell
that the time of Antichrist is truly near by the very
fact that this satanic harvest is now being reaped not
merely among the pagan peoples, who have not heard
of Christ, but even more among "Christians" who
have lost the savor of Christianity. It is of the very
nature of Antichrist to present the kingdom of the
devil as if it were of Christ. The present-day
"charismatic" movement and "Christian meditation,"
and the ''new religious consciousness" of which they
are part, are forerunners of the religion of the fu-
ture, the religion of the last humanity, the reli-
226
gion of Antichrist, and their chief "spiritual" func-
tion is to make available to Christians the demonic
initiation hitherto restricted to the pagan world.
Let it be that these "religious experiments" are still
often of a tentative and groping nature, that there is
in them at least as much psychic self-deception as
there is a genuinely demonic initiation rite; doubtless
not everyone who has successfully "meditated" or
thinks he has received the "Baptism of the Spirit" has
actually received initiation into the kingdom of satan.
But this is the aim of these "experiments,"' and doubt-
less the techniques of initiation will become ever
more efficient as mankind becomes prepared for them
by the attitudes of passivity and openness to new "re-
ligious experiences" which are inculcated by these
movements.
What has brought humanity — and indeed
"Christendom" — to this desperate state? Certainly
it is not any overt worship of the devil, which is lim-
ited always to a few people; rather, it is something
much more subtle, and something fearful for a con-
scious Orthodox Christian to reflect on: it is the loss
of the grace of God, which follows on the loss of the
savor of Christianity.
In the West, to be sure, the grace of God was
lost many centuries ago. Roman Catholics and Pro-
testants today have not tasted of God's grace, and so
it is not surprising that they should be unable to dis-
cern its demonic counterfeit. But alas! The success
of counterfeit spirituality even among Orthodox
Christians today reveals how much they also have
lost the savor of Christianity and so can no longer
distinguish between true Christianity and pseudo-
Christianity. For too long have Orthodox Christians
taken for granted the precious treasure of their Faith
and neglected to put into use the pure gold of its
225
teachings. How many Orthodox Christians even know
of the existence of the basic texts of Orthodox spiri-
tual life, which teach precisely how to distinguish be-
tween genuine and counterfeit spirituality, texts
which give the life and teaching of holy men and wo-
men who attained an abundant measure of God's grace
in this life? How many have made their own the teach-
ing of the Lausiac History, the Ladder of St. John,
the Homilies of St. Macarius, the Lives of the God-
bearing Fathers of the desert, Unseen Warfare, St.
John of Kronstadt's My Life in Christ?
In the Life of the great Father of the Egyptian
desert, St. Paisius the Great (June 19), we may see
a shocking example of how easy it is to lose the grace
of God. Once a disciple of his was walking to a city
in Egypt to sell his handiwork. On the way he met a
Jew who, seeing his simplicity, began to deceive him,
saying: "O beloved, why do you believe in a simple,
crucified Man, when he was not at all the awaited
Messiah? Another is to come, but not He." The dis-
ciple, being weak in mind and simple in heart, began
to listen to these words and allowed himself to say:
"Perhaps what you say is correct.'' When he returned
to the desert, St. Paisius turned away from him and
would not speak a single word to him. Finally, after
the disciple's long entreaty, the Saint said to him:
"Who are you? I do not know you. This disciple of
mine was a Christian and had upon him the grace of
Baptism, but you are not such a one; if you are actu-
ally my disciple, then the grace of Baptism has left
you and the image of a Christian has been removed."
The disciple with tears related his conversation with
the Jew, to which the Saint replied: "O wretched one!
What could be worse and fouler than such words, by
which you renounced Christ and His divine Baptism?
Now go and weep over yourself as you wish, for you
226
have no place with me; your name is written with
those who have renounced Christ, and together with
them you will receive judgment and torments.' On
hearing this judgment the disciple was filled with re-
pentance, and at his entreaty the Saint shut himself
up and prayed to the Lord to forgive his disciple this
sin. The Lord heard the Saint's prayer and granted
him to behold a sign of His forgiveness of the disci-
ple. The Saint then warned the disciple: "O child,
give glory and thanksgiving to Christ God together
with me, for the unclean, blasphemous spirit has de-
parted from you, and in his place the Holy Spirit has
descended upon you, restoring to you the grace of
Baptism. And so, guard yourself now, lest out of
sloth and carelessness the nets of the enemy should
fall upon you again and, having sinned, you should in-
herit the fire of gehenna."
Significantly, it is among "ecumenical Chris-
tians" that the "charismatic" and "meditation" move-
ments have taken root. The characteristic belief of
the heresy of ecumenism is this: that the Orthodox
Church is not the one true Church of Christ; that the
grace of God is present also in other "Christian" de-
nominations, and even in non-Christian religions; that
the narrow path of salvation according to the teaching
of the Holy Fathers of the Orthodox Church is only
"one path among many" to salvation; and that the de-
tails of one's belief in Christ are of little impor-
tance, as is one's membership in any particular
church. Not all the Orthodox participants in the e-
cumenical movement believe this entirely (although
Protestants and Roman Catholics most certainly do);
but by their very participation in this movement, in-
cluding invariably common prayer with those who be-
lieve wrongly about Christ and His Church, they tell |
the heretics who behold them: "Perhaps what you say
227
is correct," even as the wretched disciple of St.
Paisius did. No more than this is required for an
Orthodox Christian to lose the grace of God; and
what labor it will cost for him to gain it back!
How much, then, must Orthodox Christians walk
in the fear of God, trembling lest they lose His
grace, which by no means is given to everyone, but
only to those who hold the true Faith, lead a life of
Christian struggle, and treasure the grace of God
which leads them heavenward. And how much more
cautiously must Orthodox Christians walk today above
all, when they are surrounded by a counterfeit Chris-
tianity that gives its own experiences of "grace" and
the "Holy Spirit" and can abundantly quote the Scrip-
tures and the Holy Fathers to "prove" it! Surely the
last times are near, when there will come spiritual
deception so persuasive as to deceive, if it were
possible, even the very elect (Matt. 24:24).
The false prophets of the modern age, including
many who are Officially "Orthodox," ever more loudly
announce the approaching advent of the "new age of
the Holy Spirit," the "New Pentecost," the "Omega
Point." This is precisely what, in genuine Orthodox
prophecy, is called the reign of Antichrist. It is in
our own times, today, that this satanic prophecy is
beginning to be fulfilled, with demonic power. The
whole contemporary spiritual atmosphere is becoming
charged with the power of a demonic initiation exper-
ience as the "Mystery of Iniquity" enters its next-to-
last stage and begins to take possession of the souls
of men — indeed, to take possession of the very
Church of Christ, if that were possible.
Against this powerful "religious experience"
true Orthodox Christians must now arm themselves in
earnest, becoming fully conscious of what Orthodox
Christianity is and how its goal is different from
228
that of all other religions, "Christian" or non-
Christian.
Orthodox Christians! Hold fast to the grace
which you have; never let it become a matter of habit;
never measure it by merely human standards or ex-
pect it to be logical or comprehensible to those who
understand nothing higher than what is human or who
think to obtain the grace of the Holy Spirit in some
other way than that which the one Church of Christ
has handed down to us. True Orthodoxy by its very
nature must seem totally out of place in these demonic
times, a dwindling minority of the despised and "fool-
ish," in the midst of a religious "revival" inspired by
another kind of spirit. But let us take comfort from
the certain words of our Lord Jesus Christ: Fear not,
little flock, for itis your Father's good pleasure
to give you the Kingdom (Luke 12:32).
Let all true Orthodox Christians strengthen
themselves for the battle ahead, never forgetting that
in Christ the victory is already ours. He has pro-
mised that the gates of hell will not prevail against
His Church (Matt. 16:18), and that for the sake of the
elect He will cut short the days of the last great tri-
bulation (Matt. 24:22). And in truth, If God be for
us, who can be against us? (Rom. 8:31.) Even in the
midst of the cruelest temptations, we are commanded
to be of good cheer; I have overcome the world (John
16:33). Let us live, even as true Christians of all
times have lived, in expectation of the end of all
things and the coming of our dear Saviour; for He
that giveth testimony of these things saith: Sure-
ly oe quickly. Amen. Come, Lord Jesus (Apoc.
22:20).

229
 Epilogue

JONESTOWN AND THE 1980's

This book has been deliberately "understated."

Our intention has been to present as calm and objec-
tive a view as possible of the non-Christian religious
attitudes which are preparing the way for the "'reli-
gion of the future;" we have hardly touched on some
of the "horror stories" that could be cited from some
of the cults mentioned in this book: true stories that
reveal what happens when one's involvement with the
unseen demonic powers becomes complete, and a man
becomes the willing tool of their evil purposes.
But then, on the eve of the publication of the
new edition of this book, the whole world was sudden-
ly made aware of one of these "horror stories:" the
mass suicide of Jim Jones and over 900 of his follow-
ers in the Marxist-religious commune of "Jonestown"
in the jungles of Guyana, South America.
No more striking ''sign of the times" could ‘be
imagined; Jonestown is a clear warning — and pro-
phecy — of the future of mankind.
The secular press, understandably, did not
know quite what to make of this monstrous event.
Some of the foreign press took it as merely another
230
example of American violence and extremism; the A-
merican press portrayed Jim Jones as a "madman,"
and the event itself as a result of the evil influence of
"cults; more honest and sensitive journalists admit-
ted that the magnitude and grotesqueness of the whole
phenomenon baffled them.
Few observers saw Jonestown as an authentic
sign of our times, a revelation of the state of contem-
porary humanity; but there are many indications that
it was indeed such.
Jim Jones himself was unquestionably in touch
with the mainstream of today's religious-—political
world. His religious background as a "prophet" and
"healer" capable of fascinating and dominating a cer-
tain kind of unsettled, "searching" modern man (chief-
ly lower-class urban blacks), gave him a respected
place in the American religious spectrum, rather
more acceptable in our more tolerant times than his
hero of an earlier generation, "Father Divine." His
innumerable "good deeds" and unexpectedly generous
gifts to the needy made him a leading representative
of "liberal" Christianity and drew the attention of the
liberal political establishment in California, where
his influence increased with every year. His person-
al admirers included the Mayor of San Francisco, the
Governor of California, and the wife of the President
of the United States. His Marxist political philosophy
and commune in Guyana placed him in the respectable
political avant-garde; the lieutenant governor of Cal-
ifornia personally inspected Jonestown and was fav-
orably impressed by it, as were other outside ob-
servers. Although there were complaints, especially
in the last year or two, against Jones' sometimes vio-
lent way of dominating his followers, even this aspect
of Jonestown was within the limits allowed by the lib-
eral West for contemporary Communist governments,
231
which are not looked on with too great disfavor even
for liquidating some hundreds or thousands or mil-
lions of dissenters.
Jonestown was a thoroughly ''modern," a tho-
roughly contemporary experiment; but what was the
significance of its spectacular end?
The contemporary phenomenon that is perhaps
closest in spirit to the Jonestown tragedy is one that
at first sight might not be associated with it: the swift
and brutal liquidation by the Cambodian Communist
government, in the name of humanity's bright future,
of perhaps two million innocent people — one-fourth
or more of the total population of Cambodia. This
"revolutionary genocide,'' perhaps the most deliberate
and ruthless case of it yet in the bloody 20th cen-
tury, is an exact parallel to the "revolutionary sui-
cide''* in Jonestown: in both cases the sheer horror
of mass death is justified as paving the way for the
perfect future promised by Communism for a "puri-
fied" humanity. These two events mark a new stage
in the history of the "Gulag Archipelago" — the chain
of inhuman concentration camps which atheism has
established in order to transform mankind and abolish
Christianity.
In Jonestown once again the incredible accuracy
of Dostoyevsky's 19th-century diagnosis of the re-
volutionary mind is proved: a key figure in his novel
The Possessed (more precisely, The Demons) is Kiril-
lov, who believes that the ultimate act proving that he
has become God is precisely suicide. "Normal" peo-
ple, of course, cannot understand such a logic; but
history is seldom made by "normal" people, and the

* The name given to it by Jones himself and the zeal-

ots who helped perform it; see Time magazine, Dec.
4, 1978, p. 20.
232
20th century has been par excellence the century of
the triumph of a "revolutionary logic" which is put
into execution by men who have become thoroughly
"modern" and have consciously renounced the values
of the past, and especially the truth of Christianity.
To those who believe in this "logic," the Jonestown
suicides are a great revolutionary act that "proves"
there is no God and point to the nearness of the world
totalitarian government whose "prophet" Jones him-
self wanted to be. The only regret over this act in
such minds was expressed by one of the residents of
Jonestown, whose last-minute note was found on
Jones' body: "Dad: I see no way out — I agree with
your decision —I fear only that without you the world
may not make it to communism."* All the assets of
the Jonestown commune (some seven million dollars)
were bequeathed to the Communist Party of the USSR
(The New York Times, Dec. 18, 1978, p. 1).
Jonestown was not the isolated act of a "mad-
man;"' it is something very close to all of us who live
in these times. One journalist sensed this when he
wrote of Jones (with whom he had some personal con-
tact in San Francisco): "His almost religious and de-
finitely mystical power, its evil well concealed, must
somehow be construed as a clue to the mystery that is
the 1970's" (Herb Caen, in The Suicide Cult, p. 192).
The source of this "mystical power" is not far
to seek. The religion of the "Peoples Temple" was
not even remotely Christian (even though Jim Jones,
its founder, was an ordained minister of the "Disci-_
ples of Christ"); it owed much more to Jones' spiritu-
alist experience of the 1950's, when he was forming
his world view. He claimed not merely to be the "re-
ee
eeree eee
* Marshall Kilduff and Ron Javers, The Suicide Cult,
Bantam Books, 1978, p. xiv.

233
incarnation" of Jesus, Buddha, and Lenin; he openly
stated that he was an "oracle or medium for discar-
nate entities from another galaxy."* In other words,
he gave himself over into the power of evil spirits,
who doubtless inspired his final act of "logical" mad-
ness. Jonestown cannot be understood apart from the
inspiration and activity of demons; this, indeed, is
why secular journalists cannot understand it.
It is all too likely that Jonestown is but the be-
ginning of far worse things to come in the 1980's —
things which only those with the profoundest and
clearest Christian faith can even dare think about. It
is not merely that politics is becoming "religious"
(for the massacres in Cambodia were acts performed
with "religious" — that is, demonic — fervor), or
that religion is becoming "political" (in the case of
Jonestown); such things have happened before. But
it may well be that we are now beginning to see, in
concrete historical acts, the particular blending of
religion and politics that seems to be required for the
zealots of Antichrist, the religious-political leader of
the last humanity. This spirit, to be sure, has al-
ready been present to some degree in the earlier to-
talitarian regimes of the 20th century; but the inten-
sity of fervor and devotion required for mass suicide
(as opposed to mass murder, which has been com-
mitted many times in our century) makes Jonestown a
milestone on the path to the approaching culmination
of modern times.
Satan, it would seem, is now entering naked in-
to human history. The years just ahead promise to.be
more terrible than anyone can now easily conceive.

* Neil Duddy and Mark Albrecht, "Questioning Jones-

town," in the periodical Radix, Berkeley, Ca., Jan.-
Feb., 1979, p. 15.
234
This one outburst of satan-inspired energy led nearly
1000 people to revolutionary suicide; what of the ma-
ny other enclaves of satanic energy, some much more
powerful than this small movement, that have not yet
manifested themselves?
A realistic view of the religious state of the
contemporary world is enough to inspire any serious
Orthodox Christian with fear and trembling over his
own Salvation. The temptations and trials ahead are
immense: Then shall be great tribulation, such as
was not since the beginning of the world to this
time, no, nor ever shall be (Matt. 24:21). Some of
these trials will come from the side of pleasing de-
ceptions, from the "signs and lying wonders" which
we begin to see even now; others will come from the
fierce and naked evil which is already visible in
Jonestown, Cambodia, and the Gulag Archipelago.
Those who wish to be true Christians in these fright-
ful days had better begin to become serious about
their Faith, learning what true Christianity is,
learning to pray to God in spirit and in truth, learn-
ing.to know Who Christ is, in Whom alone we have
salvation.

235
 Index

abductions, demonic 124, baptism

125, 126, 136 — "of the Holy Spirit" 71,
Advaitin 35, 40, 49 VII, 206, 207, 225
"Age of Mary" 212 — Orthodox 28, 31, 177,
Ambrose of Optina, Elder 226
161 Barsanuphius and John,
Andrew of Caesarea, St. Sts. 187, 204
215 Basil the Great, St. 30,
Antichrist 8, 30, 85, 140- 215
143, 145, 209-210, 213,. Berdyaev, Nicholas 21,
214, 216, 218, 221-2, 22, 23, 163, 176, 177,
223-4, 227 208, 209
Anthony the Great, St. Bhagavad Gita 33, 47, 82
134 Bhajan, Yogi 88
"Aquarian Age" 89 "Big Foot" 140
Arrupe, Fr., S.J. 53 Blackmore, Simon A.,
Athenagoras, Patriarch S.J., Spiritism Facts
13, 206 and Frauds 164, 197
Augustine, Blessed 157 Blake, Eugene Carson,
— Homilies on John 157 Dr. 14 o
Averky, Archbishop , Blavatsky, Madame 164
Guide to the Study of Bredesen, Harold 213
the New Testament 215 Buddha 91, 93, 94, 234
Buddhism (See also Zen)
Babel, Pastor 14 14, 15, 64, 90, 92, 93
236
Burdick, Donald W., lest) 36, 37, 43, 67;
Tongues — To Speak or 176-202, 209, 224
Not to Speak 202 — 'fancy' (mnenie) 196,
Bykov, V. P., Tikhie 200, 201
Priyuty 161 De Chanet, J.M., Chris-
tian Yoga 64ff
Caen, Herb 233 de Chardin, Teilhard 53,
Cambodia 232, 234, 235 54
Catacomb Church of Rus- Deir, Costa 146
sia 220 demons (fallen spirits,
Chadwick, Owen, Western satan, etc.) 9, 39, 62,
Asceticism 180 133-145, 161 , 162, 174,

"Charismatic" Movement, 182, 186, 209, 221,

"revival, etc. 6, 7, 8, 230, 234
22, 24, 61, 71, VII, Diakonia 12
VIII Disciples of Christ 233
Chrismation 177 "Divine Light Mission"
Christenson, Larry, 84, 96
Speaking in Tongues Dostoyevsky, F., The Pos-
202 sessed [The Demons] 232
Christian Beacon 213 Duddy, Neil and Mark Al-
Clarke, A.C., Child- brecht, "Questioning
hood's End 103 Jonestown" 234
"Close Encounters" 114ff Du Plessis, David 151,
Communism 231, 232, 233 156
Communist Party 233 — The Spirit Bade Me Go
Condon Report 110 202
Connolly, Thomas, Arch-
bishop of Seattle 213 Eastern religions 8, 23,
"Convocation of Religion II, III, IV, V, 98,
for World Peace" 14 166, 206, 223, 224
Cosmas of Aitolia, St. 218 Ecumenism 5-9, 11-27,
Cyprian of Carthage, St. 151-156, 206, 208, 227
30, 134 Efremov, Ivan 104, 105
Elijah, Prophet 213, 219
deception, spiritual (pre- Emilianos, Metropolitan
237
 15 Gregory the Theologian
"enthusiasm" 170 St. 215
Ephraim the Syrian, St. Gulag Archipelago 232,
187 235
evolution 35, 53,54, 101-
103, 105, 120 "Hare Krishna" sect 81,
exorcism 182 82, 84, 85, 96
Harper, Michael, Life in
Fakir 56ff, 77 the Holy Spirit 202
"Father Divine" 231 Hellenic Chronicle 13
Finsaas, Pastor Clarence Herman of Alaska, St.
152 173
Ford, J. Massingberd, Hinduism 14, 15, 23, II,
The Pentecostal Ex- III, 74, 77, 88, 94,
perience 202 168, 170, 176
Francis of Assisi 192 "hippies" 79, 88
Fuller, John, The Inter- hitchhiker, the vanishing
rupted Journey 120 211-213
fundamentalism, Protes- "humanoids" 120-126,129,
tant 206, 212, 213 144
Flying Saucers See UFOs Hynek, J. Allen, Dr.111-
131 passim
Gelpi, Donald L., S.J., — and Jacques Vallee,
Pentecostalism, A The- The Edge of Reality: A
ological Viewpoint 201 Progress Report on Un-
Georges (Khodre), Metr. identified Flying 0b-
15, 18, 19, 46 jects 120, 122, 128
genocide, "revolutionary" — The Hynek UFO Report
232 114, 117, 119
Graham, Billy, World A- — The UFO Experience: A
flame 216 Scientific Inquiry
Greek Orthodox Church 111-125 passim
13,14, 15, 16, 18, 22, hypnotism 130, 166
146 hysteria 186, 215
Gregory of Sinai, St. 36,
184 Iakovos, Archbishop 218
238
Ignatius (Brianchaninov), Kali, goddess 40, 45, 46
Bishop 96, 134, 142, Keel, John A., UFOs: 0-
143, 154, 177-179, 184, peration Trojan Horse
188, 191-2, 193-4, 196, 127, 129, 131-2, 141,
200, 201, 202 143
Ignatius Loyola 192 Kempis, Thomas a, Imi-
Illuminists 27 tation of Christ 178
Indonesia, "revival" in Kennet, Jiyu 91, 93, 96
220-221, 222 Kilduff, Marshall and Ron
initiation, mediumistic or Javers, The Suicide
demonic 43, 74-76, 77, Cult 233
169, 186, 190, 225, 228 Klass, Philip, UFOs Ex-
Inter-Church Renewal 197 plained 112, 113
Isaac of the Kiev Caves, Koch, Dr. Kurt 163, 165,
St. 178, 201 172, 173, 174
Islam (Moslem) 14,15,16, — Between Christ and
25-31, 62 Satan 163
— DayX 217
"Jesus Movement" 189, — Occult Bondage ana
211 Deliverance 162, 163,
Joachim of Floris 22 191
Joel, Prophet 201 — The Revival in Indo-
John Cassian, St. 180 nesia 221
John Climacus, St., Lad- — The Strife of Tongues
der 183, 188, 226 160, 202
John of Kronstadt, St. Knox, Ronald A., Enthu-
201, 218, 226 siasm, A Chapter in
— My Life in Christ 226 the History of Reli-
John the Theologian, St. gion 170
142 Kontzevitch, I.M. 179
Jones, Jim 230ff
Jonestown, Guyana 230ff La Suisse 15
Judaism (Jews) 14,15,16, laughter 185-188
1, 62, 213 Lausiac History 226
Jung, C. G., Flying Sau- Lenin 234
cers 99 Lewis, I. H., Festatic

239
 Religion, An Anthro- McIntire, Carl 213
pological Study of meditation 7, 24, 61, 65,
Spirit Possession and 67, 68, 69, 70, 72, 76,
Shamanism 182, 187 79, 91, 223, 227
Lillie, D.G., Tongues Un- mediumism 6, 57, 61, 132,
der Fire 202 140,160, 161, 191, 197,
Lindsay, Gordon, Isra- 208, 221, 234
el's Destiny and the Merton, Thomas 14, 47,
Coming Deliverer 213 63
Lives of the Saints 163, millenialism (chiliasm)
182, 183, 217, 226 212, 213, 216
Logos 6, 22, 23, 38, 146, millenium, Orthodox in-
153,155, 156, 183, 194, terpretation of the 214-
199, 205, 209, 216, 217 215
Logos Journal 145, 207, "Millenium '73'' 84-86
212, 213, 214 monasticism 47, 89, 90,
Lunn, Harry 207 91, 92, 183, 208, 218
Motovilov 219
Macarius of Optina, Elder
190, 192 Nectarios of Pentapolis,
Macarius the Great, St., St. 201
Homilies 226 New York Times 233
Mackintosh, C.H., The Nicetas of Novgorod, St.
Lord's Coming 215 177
magic 41, 43, 45, 56, 58, Nilus of Sora, St. 136,
104, 143, 163 137, 144
"magnetic circle" 164, Niphon of Constantia,St.,
165, 167 prophecy of 204
Mahara j-ji 84-86 Northern Thebaid 137
Maharishi Mahesh Yogi
73-77 passim, 83 occultism 56, 92, 100,
Manuel, David, Jr. 212 103-5, 127, 129, 131,
Martin of Tours, St. 134, 133,140, 162, 174, 180,
135 182, 206, 208
Marxism 231 Ortega, Ruben, The Jesus
Masonry 13, 14, 21 People Speak Out 203
240
Orthodox Word 6, 8, 36, Radix 234
96, 134, 173, 179 Ranaghan, Kevin and
ouija board 197 Dorothy, Catholic Pen-
tecostals 203
paganism 13, 14, 15, 18, "Rapture ,"' the 216
21, 32, 62, 64, 65, 83, Roberts, Oral 165
85, 95, 104, 206 Roman Catholicism 5, 11,
Paisius the Great, St. 14, 17, 32, 47, 48,49,
226, 228 50, 51, 53, 64, 68, 77,
"Parliament of Religions" 79, 102, 146,147,149,
46 150,152, 153, 157, 176,
Parnam, Charles 149 178,183, 184, 219, 225,
passivity 164, 166, 197 227
Pentecostalism 7, 20, 28, Russian Church Outside
71, VII, VIII of Russia 220
Peoples Temple 233
Philokalia 64, 68, 72, Sabellius 27
Safran, Rabbi 26
Paul VI, Pope 13, 25, St. Vladimir's Theolo-
149 gical Quarterly 12
possession, demonic 160, Sakkas, Fr. Basile 25-31
161,170,191, 197, 206 science-fiction 100-105
"Project Blue Book" 110, seances 163-166
111, 118, 131 Second Coming of Christ
prophecy, "charismatic" 214, 217
gift of 174, 194-5 Seraphim of Sarov, St.
Protestantism 5, 6, 11, 183, 192, 218
14,17, 045176 19% 102, — "Conversation" of 219
132,147, 150, 151, 153, shamans 160, 170, 182,
156,158, 176, 183, 184, 209
215, 217, 219,225, 227 — an Eskimo 186-7
psychic experiences 44, Shasta Abbey 89-93
70, 95, 97, 102, 111, Sherrill, John L., They
117,127, 128, 132,141, Speak with Other
159, 191 Tongues 203
Siva 42
241
Sobornost 12, 18 Unseen Warfare 226
spiritism 127, 132, 138,
165,166, 167, 169,170, Vallee, Dr. Jacques VI
175, 197, 206, 222 passim
Stephanou, Fr. Eusebius — and J. Allen Hynek,
G5. 225 146, 1475 153; The Edge of Reality,
154,186, 198, 199, 200, etc. 120, 121, 122,128
205, 215, 216,217, 218 — The Invisible College
suicide, "revolutionary" 126-130 passim, 138,
232, 235 139
Swedenborg , Emanuel — Passport to Magonia
180, 181 130
Symeon the New Theolo- — UFOs in Space: Anato-
gian, St. 142, 218 my of a Phenomenon
Syrian Antiochian Arch- 107, 123
diocese 173 Van Dusen, Wilson, The
"Symposium of Religions" Presence of Other
50 Worlds 182
Vatican II 64
Tari, Mel, Like a Mighty Vedanta 33, 35, 38, 40,
Wind 221 44, 47, 52
tears 188 Vivekananda, Swami 15,
Temple of Jerusalem 213, 19, 40, 45-52 passim
214
Theophan the Recluse, Williams, J. Rodman, The
Bishop, What is the Era of the Spirit 203
Spiritual Life? 154 World Council of Churches
Theosophy 164 14, 15, 16, 19, 151
"tongues," speaking in
148, 150, 156-161, 168, Yoga 64-67, 72, 86, 88,
170-176, 189, 205, 221 96, 97
Transcendental Meditation — "Christian" 64-69.
72-78, 83, 96 — Tantric 86-89
True Orthodox Christians
(Old Calendarists) 220 Zen yz 47, 64, 69-72, 89-
94, 96, 130, 166
UFOs VI Ziegel,.Fr. F.U. 111
242