Spiritual deception
Gamma Gamaliel
Shipmate
in Purgatory
This thread is a spin off from the 'Faithful but deceived' one.
That thread focused, at least initially in issues of biblical translation and interpretation.
I'd like to approach this from a broader perspective if I may. It's wider than how we interpret the scriptures.
The Russians have a term, prelest which can be translated, I think, as spiritual deception, perhaps mixed with an element of spiritual pride.
We can all be prone to this.
At the risk of sounding judgemental, let me give an example from my own context. I know a chap from an Eastern European country who is following some kind of 'vow' he's made to attend as many Divine Liturgies as he possibly can.
He lives in a city about an hour and a half away by train from our parish and sometimes either walks or gets the bus from the station along the complicated route to our chapel-of-ease for midweek communion. Myself and others have sometimes given him a lift.
He seems to hurtle around the country attending Liturgies wherever they may be found. He isn't in a well paid job
About a year ago I mentioned I'd been to an ecumenical conference. He liked the idea and felt that ecumenical dialogue was very important. Agreed.
He texted me the other day asking for the details of this particular event. I'm unable to attend this year but forwarded the details.
He immediately responded by telling me he couldn't go because it was too expensive, he only had £X in his bank account and had debts.
I replied that he'd probably be better seeking to reduce those debts and building up his funds in some way rather than considering attendance at conferences for the time being. There might be cheaper day long ones he could attend in due course.
I hasten to add he hasn't asked me for money.
I didn't suggest that it might be a bright idea to stop hurtling round the country at considerable expense attending every single Divine Liturgy there might be.
I wouldn't be surprised if he's got some kind of priestly blessing for this, in which case I question the priest's judgement.
But I don’t know.
Back in my charismatic evangelical days people often embarked on audacious or somewhat unwise schemes under the impression that God was calling them to do so.
Other than the application of 'sanctified common sense', how do we deal with this sort of thing?
That thread focused, at least initially in issues of biblical translation and interpretation.
I'd like to approach this from a broader perspective if I may. It's wider than how we interpret the scriptures.
The Russians have a term, prelest which can be translated, I think, as spiritual deception, perhaps mixed with an element of spiritual pride.
We can all be prone to this.
At the risk of sounding judgemental, let me give an example from my own context. I know a chap from an Eastern European country who is following some kind of 'vow' he's made to attend as many Divine Liturgies as he possibly can.
He lives in a city about an hour and a half away by train from our parish and sometimes either walks or gets the bus from the station along the complicated route to our chapel-of-ease for midweek communion. Myself and others have sometimes given him a lift.
He seems to hurtle around the country attending Liturgies wherever they may be found. He isn't in a well paid job
About a year ago I mentioned I'd been to an ecumenical conference. He liked the idea and felt that ecumenical dialogue was very important. Agreed.
He texted me the other day asking for the details of this particular event. I'm unable to attend this year but forwarded the details.
He immediately responded by telling me he couldn't go because it was too expensive, he only had £X in his bank account and had debts.
I replied that he'd probably be better seeking to reduce those debts and building up his funds in some way rather than considering attendance at conferences for the time being. There might be cheaper day long ones he could attend in due course.
I hasten to add he hasn't asked me for money.
I didn't suggest that it might be a bright idea to stop hurtling round the country at considerable expense attending every single Divine Liturgy there might be.
I wouldn't be surprised if he's got some kind of priestly blessing for this, in which case I question the priest's judgement.
But I don’t know.
Back in my charismatic evangelical days people often embarked on audacious or somewhat unwise schemes under the impression that God was calling them to do so.
Other than the application of 'sanctified common sense', how do we deal with this sort of thing?
Comments
For what it's worth, I knew someone at university who graduated with a good degree and good career prospects, but who was also at a high level in his sport. He subsisted on casual work for many years to focus on training for his sport, in the hope of reaching Commonwealth / Olympic standards. He reached neither. He's still very fit and active (now in his early 60s) but he hasn't had a career, or a serious relationship. He seems perfectly happy with the way his life has gone, and I suspect I can't be the only one of his contemporaries to look at him and envy his ongoing vitality.
Should someone have "dealt" with him and urged him towards career / pension pot / wife and kids?
That made me smile, especially the implied contrast to 'ongoing vitality' :-) I blew up my career (so I suppose at least I had one, for a bit), and my life doesn't make a lot of sense in that area. If I were a mother, and not a father, it would 'look' rather more intelligible - which probably says a lot about how shallow are my modern-man credentials.
I am thinking about your friend, @Gamma Gamaliel , and also about my kids who are in one of those 'what am I going to do with my life' periods which come up at certain ages. If God is real, I guess he will meet your friend, and my kids, and me, doing what we happen to be doing - and maybe that 'what' as a lot more arbitrary and beside-the-point than we like to think it is while we are agonising about 'choosing' it.
My Polish RC mate pointed me at St Rita (hopeless causes, difficult marriages...) a little while ago, and I note she was instructed by an Abbess to regularly water a dead twig. As is that way with hagiographies, it eventually bloomed - but when they don't, and for me they generally don't, the possibility of formation is still there. If I water my dead twigs, maybe I'll be in the right place and in the right state of mind to serve someone who happens to come by.
I think this is what I take from 'And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him'. The 'all things', if it is really 'all', includes weird stuff like your mate's railway pilgrimmages and my dead twigs, so long as we love God. That love might mean your mate thinking about his railway expendidature, if he has dependents, and means I have to think about my lack of income in the same way (I do have dependents, still, just about). But the Lord can still meet us both, and I don't think He cares too much about what we are doing - or even more strongly, he can bless our meaninglessness with surprise meaning, if that's what He wants to do.
I see possible misguidedness, but I’m not really seeing deception, unless it’s a form of self-deception. But even then, I wonder whether “deception” as typically used in English, accurately conveys what I think we’re talking about.
And a side note: I had to laugh when my device autocorrected prelest to predestination.
It’s also a matter of scale- for example an individual believing they are acting under the guidance of the Holy Spirit in a relatively minor matter such as a modest donation to a cause is in a very different league from someone who believes they are being guided to liquidate all their assets, give them away and “See what God does”. However, in both cases if the decision affects only the individual imo it is in a different category from a situation where other people are being affected as well.
I have over the years been on the receiving end of people telling me what they believe God wants in a situation and I’m definitely not comfortable with doing that myself. Only this week I saw someone I hadn’t had contact with for years who was very keen to tell me what God was calling them to do. It involves gathering other people and they thought a chance meeting with me might be a part of that. I know from all the hard won change I’ve managed as a result of seeing a spiritual director for almost 20 years that this is definitely not my thing and I was able to politely decline and wish them well. I just hope that anyone who does get involved lands in growth rather than damage.
Then we have the situation of discerning vocation. I’ve known people who truly believed they were called to a certain role. Some were, some perhaps were not. I can think of situations which ended well and others where damage was certainly done.
Surely for Christians we have each other to help with the discernment process?
When my husband and I applied to become mission partners we went through a lengthy process of discernment. It started with the sense of what we carried in our hearts, believing that the Holy Spirit was calling us. That progressed to talking with trusted wise friends who encouraged us to pursue it. Then our clergy met with us and encouraged us to proceed. Then we approached our sending agency, had two meetings and a whole weekend selection conference after which it was finally decided that we were indeed carrying a vocation. It all took a very long time and was one of the most profound experiences of my life.
Over-arching all of this is my commitment as a spiritual director myself to helping people notice what God might be doing in their own lives whether small scale or large scale and in any and every area be it relational, vocational or something else.
I think it is also sometimes translated as 'beguilement', 'enticement' or the temptations to a spirituality that seems enticing and panders to ones own spiritual self importance or enjoyment. What @MrsBeaky describes sounds as though it could be such, but who knows? How does one discern these things?
Somebody telling somebody else what they think God is telling the other to do is likely to be a warning light. So is an inner breathlessness rather than peace.
That said, I’m still not sure where the deception is in the example given in the OP. I’m not even sure is an example of a problem as such. It strikes me as something that may just be differing priorities and values, with impressions that may be based on incomplete information.
It certainly appears to be an obsession if it impacts his financial stability.
I didn't want to give examples from my evangelical charismatic past but something current.
The guy's not my friend, I've only met him a few times when his question for another Liturgy to attend brings him our way. He seems to attend but not always receive but that's not unusual in Orthodoxy.
Some Orthodox folk would probably tell me off for giving him as an example as whatever he is doing and why he's doing it should be a matter for him and his priest and not for others to speculate about.
Lord have mercy!
I have no idea why he's doing it or whether he thinks he'll collect Brownie points by doing so. It can't be doing his bank balance much good but then ...
Orthodox and RCs do some odd stuff. I chatted to an RC visitor to our parish recently who told me that priests sometimes set penances like sleeping on the floor for a season. I'd not heard of that. Although I have heard of Orthodox guys sleeping outside in their garden or back yard as some kind of ascetic practice.
A bloke who'd slept in a wooden boat 'out the back' before he was married told me that if we exercise a degree of privation it prevents something worse happening to us ... which did strike me as superstitious.
Let's reframe this thread about prelest - which both @Enoch and @Nick Tamen seem to have understood despite Nick's Calvinist search-engine ...
That's assuming I've understood it properly myself of course.
I think @MrsBeaky and @North East Quine make very valid points - as did @mark_in_manchester - and the issue of impact on other people is key, I think.
You made a jest about it. I responded with one.
It's called banter.
I'm not having a go at Calvin or the Reformed tradition.