The Testimony of Scripture (4:5) James 4:5 is a minefield of unresolved problems open to the public. But the place of the verse in Jacob's argument is quite reasonable, and its purpose is expressed quite clearly. For example, it is quite clear what the author wants to bring to

Foreword

1. Some aspects of modern experience

1.1. out-of-body experience

1.2. Meeting with others

1.3. "Luminous Creature"

2. Orthodox teaching about angels

3. Appearances of angels and demons at the hour of death

4. Modern experience of "Sky"

5. Air realm of spirits

5.1. The original nature of man

5.2. Fall of man

5.3. Contact with fallen spirits

5.4. Opening feelings

5.5. The danger of contact with spirits

5.6. Some practical advice

5.7 Conclusion

6. Air trials

6.1. How to understand tollhouses

6.3. Ordeals in the Lives of the Saints

6.4. Modern cases of passing ordeals

6.5. Ordeals endured before death

6.6. private court

6.7. Ordeals as a touchstone of the authenticity of posthumous experience.

6.8. The Teaching of Bishop Theophan the Recluse on Air Ordeals

7. Out-of-Body Experiences in Occult Literature

7.1. Tibetan Book of the Dead

7.2. The Writings of Emmanuel Swedenborg

7.3. The "Astral Plane" of Theosophy

7.4. "Astral Projection"

7.5. "Astral Journey"

7.6. Conclusions regarding the "out-of-body region"

7.7. Notes on "reincarnation"

8. Authentic Christian experiences of heaven

8.1. Location of Heaven and Hell

8.2. Christian Experiences of Heaven

8.3. Properties of the true experience of heaven

8.4. Notes on the Vision of Hell

9. The meaning of modern "post-mortem" experiments

9.1. What do modern experiments prove?

9.2. Connection with the occult

9.3. Occult teachings of modern researchers

9.4. "Mission" of modern "post-mortem" experiments

9.5. Christian attitude towards death

10. A summary of the Orthodox teaching on the posthumous fate of the soul

10.1. The Beginning of Spiritual Vision

10.2. Encounter with spirits

10.3. First two days after death

10.4. ordeal

10.5.Forty days

10.6. State of mind before the Last Judgment

10.7. Prayer for the dead

10.8. What can we do for the dead?

10.9. Resurrection of the body

Appendix 1. Teachings of St. Mark of Ephesus on the state of the soul after death

Annex 1.2. From the second discourse on purgatory fire

Appendix 2 Some Recent Orthodox Responses to the Afterlife Debate

Annex 2.1. The Mystery of Death and the Afterlife

Annex 2.2. Return from the dead in modern Greece

Annex 2.3. Dead" are in modern Moscow [2]

Annex 3. Reply to criticism

Annex 3.1. "Contradictions" of Orthodox literature about the state of the soul after death

Annex 3.2. Is there an “out-of-body” experience (before or after death) and an “other world” where souls live?

Annex 3.3. Does the soul "sleep" after death?

Appendix 3. 4. Is the "ordeal" fiction?

Annex 3.5. Conclusion

Appendix 4. Added to the second (posthumous) edition of the book in English.

A certain man was rich, dressed in purple and fine linen, and feasted splendidly every day. There was also a certain beggar, named Lazarus, who lay at his gate in scabs and desired to feed on the crumbs falling from the rich man's table, and the dogs, coming, licked his scabs. The beggar died and was carried by the angels to the bosom of Abraham. The rich man also died, and they buried him. And in hell, being in torment, he lifted up his eyes, saw Abraham afar off and Lazarus in his bosom, and crying out, said: Father Abraham! have mercy on me and send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue, for I am tormented in this flame. But Abraham said: child! remember that you have already received your good in your life, and Lazarus - evil; now he is comforted here, while you suffer; and besides all this, a great chasm has been established between us and you, so that those who want to pass from here to you cannot, nor can they pass from there to us. Then he said: So I ask you, father, send him to my father's house, for I have five brothers; let him testify to them that they also do not come to this place of torment. Abraham said to him: They have Moses and the prophets; let them listen. He said: No, Father Abraham, but if anyone from the dead comes to them, they will repent. Then [Abraham] said to him: if they do not listen to Moses and the prophets, then if someone rises from the dead, they will not believe. /OK. 16, 19-31/

4. Modern experience of "Sky"

5. Air realm of spirits

5.1. The original nature of man

5.2. Fall of man

5.3. Contact with fallen spirits

5.4. Opening feelings

5.5. The danger of contact with spirits

5.6. Some practical advice

5.7 Conclusion

6. Air trials

6.1. How to understand tollhouses

6.3. Ordeals in the Lives of the Saints

6.4. Modern cases of passing ordeals

6.5. Ordeals endured before death

6.6. private court

6.7. Ordeals as a touchstone of the authenticity of posthumous experience.

6.8. The Teaching of Bishop Theophan the Recluse on Air Ordeals

7. Out-of-Body Experiences in Occult Literature

7.1. Tibetan Book of the Dead

7.2. The Writings of Emmanuel Swedenborg

7.3. The "Astral Plane" of Theosophy

7.4. "Astral Projection"

7.5. "Astral Journey"

7.6. Conclusions regarding the "out-of-body region"

7.7. Notes on "reincarnation"

8. Authentic Christian experiences of heaven

8.1. Location of Heaven and Hell

8.2. Christian Experiences of Heaven

8.3. Properties of the true experience of heaven

8.4. Notes on the Vision of Hell

9. The meaning of modern "post-mortem" experiments

9.1. What do modern experiments prove?

9.2. Connection with the occult

9.3. Occult teachings of modern researchers

9.4. "Mission" of modern "post-mortem" experiments

9.5. Christian attitude towards death

10. A summary of the Orthodox teaching on the posthumous fate of the soul

10.1. The Beginning of Spiritual Vision

10.2. Encounter with spirits

10.3. First two days after death

10.4. ordeal

10.5.Forty days

10.6. State of mind before the Last Judgment

10.7. Prayer for the dead

10.8. What can we do for the dead?

10.9. Resurrection of the body

Appendix 1. Teachings of St. Mark of Ephesus on the state of the soul after death

Annex 1.2. From the second discourse on purgatory fire

Appendix 2 Some Recent Orthodox Responses to the Afterlife Debate

Annex 2.1. The Mystery of Death and the Afterlife

Annex 2.2. Return from the dead in modern Greece

Annex 2.3. Dead" are in modern Moscow [2]

Annex 3. Reply to criticism

Annex 3.1. "Contradictions" of Orthodox literature about the state of the soul after death

Annex 3.2. Is there an “out-of-body” experience (before or after death) and an “other world” where souls live?

Annex 3.3. Does the soul "sleep" after death?

Appendix 3. 4. Is the "ordeal" fiction?

Annex 3.5. Conclusion

Appendix 4. Added to the second (posthumous) edition of the book in English.

A certain man was rich, dressed in purple and fine linen, and feasted splendidly every day. There was also a certain beggar, named Lazarus, who lay at his gate in scabs and desired to feed on the crumbs falling from the rich man's table, and the dogs, coming, licked his scabs. The beggar died and was carried by the angels to the bosom of Abraham. The rich man also died, and they buried him. And in hell, being in torment, he lifted up his eyes, saw Abraham afar off and Lazarus in his bosom, and crying out, said: Father Abraham! have mercy on me and send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue, for I am tormented in this flame. But Abraham said: child! remember that you have already received your good in your life, and Lazarus - evil; now he is comforted here, while you suffer; and besides all this, a great chasm has been established between us and you, so that those who want to pass from here to you cannot, nor can they pass from there to us. Then he said: So I ask you, father, send him to my father's house, for I have five brothers; let him testify to them that they also do not come to this place of torment. Abraham said to him: They have Moses and the prophets; let them listen. He said: No, Father Abraham, but if anyone from the dead comes to them, they will repent. Then [Abraham] said to him: if they do not listen to Moses and the prophets, then if someone rises from the dead, they will not believe. /OK. 16, 19-31/

Foreword

This book has a twofold purpose: firstly, from the point of view of the Orthodox Christian doctrine of the afterlife, to provide an explanation of the modern "post-mortem" experiences that have aroused such interest in some religious and scientific circles; secondly, to cite the main sources and texts containing Orthodox teaching about the afterlife. If today this teaching is so poorly understood, it is largely a consequence of the fact that in our "enlightened" times these texts are forgotten and completely "out of fashion." We tried to make these texts more understandable and accessible to the modern reader. Needless to say, they are infinitely deeper and more useful reading than the now popular books about "post-mortem" experiences, which, even if they are not just an ordinary sensation, still can not be anything but spectacular. , because they do not have a whole and true doctrine about the afterlife.

The Orthodox teaching presented in this book will undoubtedly be criticized by some as being too simple and naive for a person of the 20th century to believe in. Therefore, it must be emphasized that this teaching is not the teaching of a few isolated or atypical teachers. Orthodox Church, but the teaching that the Orthodox Church of Christ offered from the very beginning, which is expounded in countless patristic writings, in the lives of the saints and the divine services of the Orthodox Church, and which the Church continuously transmits down to our days. The "simplicity" of this doctrine is the simplicity of the truth itself, which - whether it be expressed in this or that teaching of the Church - proves to be a refreshing source of clarity amidst the confusion caused in modern minds by various errors and empty speculations of recent centuries. In each chapter of this book, an attempt is made to point to patristic and hagiographic sources containing this teaching.

The main source of inspiration for writing this book was the writings of Bishop Ignatius (Bryanchaninov), who was perhaps the first major Russian Orthodox theologian who directly dealt with precisely the problem that has become so acute in our day: how to preserve genuine Christian tradition and teaching in the world, who have become completely alien to Orthodoxy and strive either to refute and reject it, or to reinterpret it in such a way that it becomes compatible with the worldly way of life and thinking. Keenly aware of the Roman Catholic and other Western influences that were striving to modernize Orthodoxy even in his own day, Bishop Ignatius prepared for the defense of Orthodoxy both through an in-depth study of Orthodox primary sources (whose teaching he absorbed in a number of the best Orthodox monasteries of his time), and by getting acquainted with the science and literature of his time (he studied at a military engineering school, and not at a theological seminary). Armed thus with the knowledge of how Orthodox theology, and secular sciences, he devoted his life to defending the purity of Orthodoxy and exposing modern deviations from it. It would not be an exaggeration to say that in none of the Orthodox countries of the 19th century was there such a defender of Orthodoxy from the temptations and errors of modern times; he can only be compared with his compatriot, Bishop Theophan the Recluse, who did the same, but stated in a simpler language.

One volume of the collected works of Bishop Ignatius (volume 3) is specifically devoted to the church's doctrine of the afterlife, which he defended against Roman Catholic and other modern distortions. It is from this volume that we mainly took for our book a discussion of such issues as ordeals and the appearance of spirits - teachings that, for a number of reasons, the modern mind cannot accept, but insists on their reinterpretation or complete rejection. Bishop Theophan, of course, taught the same thing, and we also took advantage of his words; and in our century, another outstanding Russian Orthodox theologian, Archbishop John (Maximovich) of blessed memory, repeated this teaching so clearly and simply that we used his words as the basis for the final chapter of this book. The fact that the Orthodox teaching about the afterlife has been so clearly and clearly expounded by the outstanding modern teachers of Orthodoxy down to our days is of great benefit to us, who are striving today to preserve patristic Orthodoxy, not simply by the correct transmission of words, but more than that, by a truly Orthodox interpretation of these words.

In the book, in addition to the Orthodox sources and interpretations mentioned above, we make extensive use of modern non-Orthodox literature on "posthumous" phenomena, as well as a number of occult texts on this issue. In this we followed the example of Vladyka Ignatius - to expound false teachings as fully and impartially as necessary to expose their falsity, so that Orthodox Christians would not be tempted by them; like him, we have found that non-Orthodox texts, when it comes to describing actual experience (rather than opinions and interpretations), often provide stunning confirmation of the truths of Orthodoxy. Our main goal in this book has been to give as detailed a contrast as necessary to show the complete difference between Orthodox teaching and the experience of Orthodox saints, on the one hand, and occult teaching and modern experiences- with another. If we were simply to present the Orthodox doctrine without this opposition, it would be convincing only to a few, not counting those who already held these convictions; but now perhaps even some of those who are involved in modern experiences are aware of the great difference between them and truly spiritual experiences.

However, the very fact that a significant part of this book is devoted to a discussion of both Christian and non-Christian experiences means that not everything here is a simple exposition of the Church's teaching about life after death, but that the author's interpretation of these various experiences is also given. And as regards the interpretations themselves, of course, there is room for legitimate differences of opinion among Orthodox Christians. We have tried, as far as possible, to give these interpretations in conditional form, without trying to define these aspects of experience in the same way that one can define common doctrine Churches about the afterlife. In particular, with regard to occult experiences “out of the body” and in the “astral plane”, we simply presented them in the form in which they were presented by their participants themselves, and compared them with similar cases in Orthodox literature, without trying to accurately determine the nature these experiences; but we accept them as real experiences in which there is actual contact with demonic forces, and not as mere hallucinations. Let the reader judge for himself how fair this approach is.

It should be clear that this book by no means claims to be an exhaustive presentation of the Orthodox doctrine of the afterlife, it is only an introduction to it. However, in fact, there is no complete teaching on this issue, just as there are no Orthodox experts in this field. We, who live on earth, can hardly even begin to comprehend reality. spiritual world until we live there. This is a process that begins now, in this life, and ends in eternity, where we will contemplate face to face what we now see as if through a [dull] glass, guesswork (1 Corinthians 13:12). But the Orthodox sources to which we have pointed in this book give us the basic outline of this teaching, sufficient to induce us not to acquire an exact knowledge of what is, after all, outside of us, but to begin the struggle to achieve goals Christian life– the Kingdom of Heaven, and avoid the demonic traps that the enemy of our salvation places on the path of Christian struggle. The other world is more real and closer than we usually think, and the path to it opens up to us through a life of spiritual achievement and prayer, which the Church has given us as a means of salvation. This book is dedicated and addressed to those who want to lead such a life.

1. Some aspects of modern experience

Quite unexpectedly, the question of the afterlife has gained wide popularity in the West. In particular, over the past two years, a number of books have appeared, the purpose of which is to describe the "post-mortem" experience. They are written either by famous scientists and doctors, or have received their full approval. One of them, the world-famous physician and "expert" on death and dying, Elizabeth Kubler-Ross, believes that these studies of post-mortem experiences "enlighten many and confirm what we have been taught for two thousand years: that there is life after death."

All this, of course, represents a sharp departure from the hitherto prevailing view in medical and scientific circles, when, in general, death was treated as a taboo, and any thought of an afterlife existence was dismissed as belonging to the realm of fantasy or superstition or, in at best, as being a matter of private faith, which does not have any objective evidence under it.

The apparent, external reason for this sudden change of mind is simple: new methods of resuscitation of the clinically dead (in particular, by stimulating a cardiac arrest) have been found to last years wide application. Thanks to this, so many people who were practically dead (without a pulse or heartbeat) were brought back to life, and so many of them are now openly talking about it, because the taboo on this topic and the fear of being branded as crazy have lost their strength.

But for us the greatest interest represents the inner cause of this change, as well as its "ideology": why has this phenomenon become incredibly popular, and in terms of what religious or philosophical point of view is it usually understood? It has already become one of the signs of the times, a symptom of the religious interest of our day; what is its significance in this case? We will return to these questions after a thorough study of the phenomenon itself.

But first we must ask: on what should we base our judgments about this phenomenon? Those who describe it do not themselves have a clear interpretation of it; often they look for it in occult or spiritualistic texts. Some religious people(as well as scientists), feeling threatened by their established beliefs, simply deny these experiences in the form in which they were described, usually referring them to the realm of hallucinations. So did some Protestants who are of the opinion that the soul after death is in an unconscious state, or that it immediately goes to "abide with Christ"; similarly, convinced atheists reject the idea that the soul continues to exist at all, despite any evidence presented to it.

But these experiences cannot be explained simply by denying them; they must be properly understood both in themselves and in the whole context of what we know about the posthumous fate of the soul.

Unfortunately, some Orthodox Christians, influenced by modern materialistic ideas that seeped through Protestantism and Roman Catholicism, have also received a rather vague and indefinite idea of ​​the afterlife. The author of one of the new books about the afterlife set out to find out the opinion of various sects about the state of the soul after death. Thus, he approached a priest of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese and received in response a very general idea of ​​the existence of heaven and hell, but he was told that Orthodoxy does not have "any concrete idea of ​​what the future is." The author could only conclude that "the view Greek Orthodoxy for the future seems unclear” (p. 130).

In fact, Orthodox Christianity has a very clear teaching and view of afterlife starting from the moment of death. This teaching is found in Holy Scripture(interpreted in the entire context of Christian teaching), in the writings of the Holy Fathers, and especially with regard to the specific experiences of the soul after death (in numerous lives of the saints and anthologies devoted to personal experiences of this kind). The entire fourth book of the "Conversations" of St. Gregory the Great (Dvoeslov), Pope of Rome († 604), for example, is dedicated to this. In our day, an anthology of such experiences has been published in English, drawn both from the ancient lives of the saints and from recent reports. And quite recently, a wonderful text was published in translation into English, written in late XIX century by a man who came back to life thirty-six hours after death. Thus, Orthodox Christian has at its disposal the richest literature, with the help of which it is possible to understand the new "post-mortem" experiences and evaluate them in the light of the entire Orthodox teaching on life after death.

The book that sparked modern interest in the subject was written by a young Southern psychiatrist and published in November 1975. He knew nothing at the time of other studies or of the literature on the subject, but as the book was being printed it became clear that it was of great interest and that much had already been written on the subject. The tremendous success of Dr. Moody's book (more than two million copies sold) made the experience of the dying public, and over the next four years a number of books and articles about the experience appeared in print. Among the most important are the papers (book in progress) by Dr. Elisabeth Kubler-Ross, whose findings confirm those of Dr. Moody, and the research studies of Drs. Osis and Haraldson. Dr. Moody himself wrote a sequel to his book (Reflections on Life After Life, Bantam-Mockingbird Book, 1977) containing additional material and further reflections on this issue. The findings contained in these and other new books (all of which are basically in agreement on the phenomenon under consideration) will be highlighted below. To begin with, we will focus on Dr. Moody's first book, which approaches the whole subject in a very objective and systematic way.

Over the past ten yo dr Moody collected personal testimonies from about one hundred and fifty people who either experienced death or near death themselves, or told him about the experiences of others during dying. From this number, he selected about fifty people with whom he had detailed conversations. He tried to be objective in presenting these materials, although he admits that the book "naturally reflects the background, opinions, and prejudices of its author" (p. 9), who is religiously a Methodist with rather liberal views. Indeed, the book as an objective study of "posthumous" phenomena suffers from a number of shortcomings.

First, the author does not give a single complete death experience from beginning to end, only giving excerpts (usually very short) of each of the fifteen individual elements that form his model of a complete death experience. But in fact, the experiences of the dying, as described in this and other published books, are often so different from each other in detail that an attempt to include them all in one model seems premature at best. Dr. Moody's model seems at times artificial and far-fetched, although, of course, it does not diminish the value of the factual evidence he cites.

Secondly, Dr. Moody brought together two rather different phenomena: the actual experience of "near death" and the experience of "approaching death." He recognizes the difference between them, but argues that they form a "one" (p. 20) and should be studied together. In those cases where the experience that begins before death ends with the experience of death itself (regardless of whether the person in question was revived or not), there are indeed “single” experiences, but some of the phenomena he describes (very quick recollection of life events at the moment of danger drowning, the experience of "going into a tunnel" while being given an anesthetic like ether) have been quite often experienced by people who have never experienced clinical death, and therefore they may belong to "a model of some wider experience and can only occasionally accompany dying" . Some of the books now published are even less selective in their choice of material and lump together experiences of being "out of the body" and actual experiences of death and dying.

Thirdly, the very fact that the author approaches these phenomena “scientifically”, without having a clear idea in advance of what the soul is actually exposed to after death, causes various misunderstandings and misunderstandings about these experiences, which cannot be eliminated by a simple accumulation of descriptions. ; those who describe them inevitably add their own interpretation. The author himself admits that it is virtually impossible to scientifically study this issue; and, indeed, he turns to the original experience for its explanation in such occult writings as the writings of Swedenborg or the Tibetan Book of the Dead, remarking that he now wants to take a closer look at "the vast literature on paranormal and occult phenomena in order to expand his understanding of the phenomena being studied” (p. 9).

All this leads to the fact that we cannot expect too much from this and other similar books - they will not give us a complete and coherent idea of ​​\u200b\u200bwhat happens to the soul after death. Yet there are quite a few factual near-death experiences here and in other new books that deserve serious attention, especially since some interpret these experiences as hostile to the traditional Christian view of the afterlife, as if they disproved the existence of either paradise, or - especially - hell. How are we to understand these experiences?

Those fifteen elements which Dr. Moody describes as belonging to the complete experience of dying can, for the purposes of our presentation, be reduced to a few basic properties, which will be set forth here and compared with the Orthodox literature on the subject.

This man left such a significant mark in esotericism, mysticism, science and literature that even after almost three hundred years he is interesting to posterity. We are talking about Emmanuel Swedenborg.

He was born on January 29, 1688 in the family of a bishop and was brought up in deep religious traditions. Already at the age of four, he was very interested in the mysteries of religion, angels and heaven.

In the Uppsala school, he was distinguished by diligence, perseverance, as well as meekness and kindness of heart. In 1710, when the plague broke out, he left Sweden and spent four years at the best universities in England, France, Holland and Germany, devoting his time mainly to physics, mathematics, chemistry and other natural sciences, but nowhere did he miss the opportunity to study in depth. study theology.

In 1714 he returned to Uppsala and published a collection of his poems in Latin, who deserved very flattering reviews, and soon became famous for his essays on mathematics and physics.

King Charles XII of Sweden drew attention to the young scientist and in 1716 appointed him an adviser to the Royal Mining College. In 1718, at the siege of Friederiksgall, Swedenborg brilliantly proved that he could put his knowledge into practice in mechanics, delivering two galleys, five large boats and one boat by land, through mountains and valleys - from Stremstadt to Idefiol - at a distance of 2.5 Swedish miles.

He has published many scientific works covering an unusually wide range of topics: soil and mud, stereometry, sound reflection, algebra and calculus, blast furnaces, astronomy, economics, magnetism and hydrostatics.

He founded the science of crystallography and for the first time formulated the nebular cosmogonic theory (the hypothesis of the origin of solar system from the gas cloud). For many years he studied human anatomy and physiology and was the first to discover the function of the endocrine glands and the cerebellum.

Fluent in nine languages, he was an inventor and a skilled craftsman: he made microscopes and telescopes, designed a submarine, air pumps, musical instruments, a glider and equipment for mines; took part in the design of the world's largest dry dock; created an auditory tube, a fire extinguisher and a steel rolling mill; studied printing and watchmaking, engraving and mosaics and much more; leading scientists sought his friendship and turned to him for advice. He was elected a member of the majority learned societies and academies of sciences, including St. Petersburg, and in 1719 he was awarded the title of nobility and regularly met in the Sejm.

By the age of fifty, Swedenborg was at the pinnacle of fame as a brilliant scientist who made a huge contribution to the science of Sweden. He mastered all the natural sciences known in his time and was on the verge of a great study: the spiritual world of man.

The scientist began by making an overview of all contemporary knowledge in the field of psychology, and subsequently published it in several volumes.

He began to write down and interpret his own dreams; developed a technique for holding the breath (similar to yoga) and focusing attention inward, which made it possible for him to observe subtle, symbol-forming processes in the brain.

Gradually, in certain states, he felt that other entities were present inside him, and claimed that since April 1744 he had been in constant contact with the world of spirits.

In 1747, Swedenborg unexpectedly asked for his resignation from all positions and devoted his life to divination and mysticism. And then the biography of the brilliant scientist, about which everything is thoroughly known, ended, and another, mysterious one began, causing a lot of speculation and controversy. The beginning of the first biography and the end of the second are known, but one can guess about the middle by getting acquainted with his diaries.

“Subsequently, the gaze of my spirit was often opened, so that in the middle of the day I could see what was happening in the next world, and I could speak with spirits as with people.”

Swedenborg did not stop communicating with spirits until the end of his life - until 1772. He claimed to have seen people he could not know, for example, Virgil and Luther.

According to Swedenborg's repeated and serious assurances, his soul and spiritual body renounced their natural flesh, and in this state he visited other heavenly bodies and the sky, and there he talked for a long time with spirits, angels, Christ, and even with the Most High. From them he received an order to distribute in print the results of his conversations and observations in transcendental spheres.

Since that time, he has published many volumes in which he described his wanderings, observations and conversations in the world of spirits. And the main meaning of his books is as follows: there will be new Jerusalem, the Savior will create new Church in spirit and truth, because old church fell into disrepair over the centuries.

He described "observations" in the world of spirits: about the state of the soul after death, the way of life of spirits, about the special relationships of spirits among themselves, etc.; wrote about celestial bodies in topographic, physical and moral aspects.

After 1743, Swedenborg had the gift of clairvoyance, which amazed everyone even more than his former abilities. He began to see what will happen in the future, and what is happening at this moment in distant places.

For example, while in Gothenburg, he told his friends that a fire started in Stockholm, which stopped three buildings before his house.

Two days later it turned out that everything that Swedenborg described happened exactly as it happened. Swedenborg told the widow of the Dutch ambassador in Stockholm exactly where the important document of her late husband was kept.

The story connected with the Queen of Sweden is very curious. Having invited Swedenborg to her place, the queen asked him to explain to her why her brother, Wilhelm of Prussia, who had already died by that time, had not answered one of her important letters at the time.

Swedenborg, after "talking" with the deceased, after 24 hours gave her an explanation, from which she, to her extreme amazement, realized that Swedenborg knew the contents of the letter, which only she and her brother knew.

There are also many stories about Swedenborg's ability to foresee the future. So, he predicted the day and hour of the end of one sea voyage.

The surprising thing was that the period he predicted was shorter than that which was real for this trip, even under favorable circumstances.

Nevertheless, the ship came into port according to Swedenborg's prediction. He also predicted the dates of death, and surprisingly accurately.

Swedenborg is the creator of the doctrine of the world of spirits, i.e. the states of the souls of the dead that they go through after death in order to prepare themselves for either heaven or hell.

“The world of spirits is not heaven and not hell, but the middle place and the middle state between heaven and hell,” Swedenborg wrote in one of his books, published in London in 1753, “a person first of all comes there after his death, and according to after serving a certain term there, in accordance with his life in the world, he either ascends to heaven, or falls into hell ...

The duration of stay in this world is not determined; some only enter it in order to be immediately either taken up to heaven or cast down into hell; others stay here for a few weeks, others for many years, but not more than thirty.

Swedenborg teaches that originally there were no angels or devils: they are all former people.

"IN Christian world they do not know at all that heaven and hell are inhabited by the human race; they think that angels were created from the very beginning, and thus the sky came into being, and also that the devil or satan was bright angel, but later for disobedience he was overthrown along with his retinue, through which hell arose. The angels are greatly surprised that such a belief exists in the Christian world.” Therefore, wrote Swedenborg, they want him to tell how everything really works.

How do spirits communicate with people? Swedenborg wrote: “The conversation of angels and spirits with a person is heard as clearly as the conversation of a person with a person, but no one from those present hears it, except only the one with whom the conversation is going on.

The reason for this is that the speech of an angel or soul first reaches the thoughts of a person, and from there inner path reaches his organ of hearing, so that this latter is set in motion from within...

But at present, it is rarely given to anyone to speak with spirits, because. this is dangerous: in this case, the spirits will know that they are with a person, which they otherwise do not know: meanwhile, the nature of evil spirits is such that they harbor a mortal hatred against a person and seek nothing more than to destroy his soul, so is the body."

Swedenborg's teaching in the middle of the 19th century. served as the basis for spiritism. His book: "De Caelo et Ejus Mirabilibus et de inferno. Ex Auditis et Visis" (London, 1758), translated into various European languages, was accepted by spiritualists as a guide for conducting spiritualistic sessions and as evidence of a person capable of penetrating into the mysterious world of spirits, to observe their life, and as a kind of perfect scientific theory, an explanation to a mere mortal of what he cannot understand.

Swedenborg was either accepted with a bang (for example, on the basis of his teachings they created a special religion - the "Church of the New Jerusalem"), or terribly criticized. In 1766, Immanuel Kant wrote an article about Swedenborg in which he openly declared him insane.

But what kind of person is Immanuel Kant himself? Stefan Zweig gave Kant a killer characterization that makes one not take seriously what he said about Swedenborg: "... An unprejudiced eye must finally see the fatal consequences of this intrusion of dogmatic reasoning into the field of poetry. Kant, in my deepest conviction, tied hand and foot pure creativity of the classical era, suppressed it with the constructive mastery of his thinking and, pushing the artists onto the path of aesthetic criticism, caused immeasurable damage to the joyful-sensual acceptance of the world, the free flight of the imagination.

He suppressed pure poetry for a long time in every poet who came under his influence, and how could this brain in human form, this embodied reason, this gigantic glacier of thought, fertilize the fauna and flora of the imagination? How could this very lifeless man, who had depersonalized and turned himself into an automaton of thought, a man who had never touched a woman, never once traveled beyond the boundaries of his provincial town ... how could, one wonders, this sterile nature, this one devoid of any spontaneity, in the frozen system of the transformed mind (the genius of which lies precisely in this fanatical constructiveness) ever to impregnate the poet, through and through the sensual being, drawing inspiration from the holy vagaries of chance, driven by enduring passion into the realm of the unconscious? .. "

The cold mind of Kant was not able to understand poetry, just like Swedenborg - a poet gifted with the richest imagination, for whom everything that he created in the second half of his life came from feeling, from the heart, from the unconscious ...

The passage through ordeals, which is a kind of touchstone of a genuine after-death experience, is not mentioned at all in modern cases, and it is not necessary to look far for the reason for this. By many signs - the absence of Angels coming for the soul, the absence of judgment, the frivolity of many stories, even the very shortness of time (usually five to ten minutes instead of several hours or days, as in the lives of saints and other Orthodox sources) - it is clear that modern cases , although they are sometimes striking and not explained by natural laws known to medicine, they are not very deep. If these are really death experiences, then they include only the very beginning of the post-mortem wandering of the soul; they take place, as it were, in the hallway of death, before the judgment of God on the soul becomes final (the evidence of this is the coming of the Angels for the soul), while the soul still has the opportunity to return naturally to the body.
However, we still need to find a satisfactory explanation for the experiences that are happening today. What are these beautiful landscapes that appear so often in the described visions? Where is that “heavenly” city that many have also seen? What is all this "out-of-body" reality that people certainly come into contact with in our time?
The answer to these questions can be found in a fundamentally different literature: the already mentioned Orthodox sources - literature, also based on personal experience, moreover, much more thorough in its observations and conclusions compared to today's descriptions of "after-death" experience. This is the literature that Dr. Moody and other researchers are referring to. In it, they find truly amazing parallels with clinical cases that have aroused in our time an interest in life after death.

6.8. The Teaching of Bishop Theophan the Recluse on Air Ordeals

Bishop Ignatius (Bryanchaninov) was in Russia XIX centuries as a defender of the Orthodox doctrine of aerial ordeals, when unbelievers and modernists had already begun to laugh at him; no less firm defender of this doctrine was Bishop Theophan the Recluse, who regarded it as constituent part of the entire Orthodox teaching about invisible warfare or spiritual struggle with demons. Here we give one of his statements about ordeals, taken from the interpretation of the eightieth verse of Psalm 118: May my heart be blameless in Your statutes, so that I will not be put to shame.
"The Prophet does not mention how and where he will not be put to shame. The next disgrace happens during the uprising of internal wars ...
The second moment of shamelessness is the time of death and the passage of ordeals. No matter how wild the thought of tribulations seems to clever people, but passing through them cannot be avoided. What are these collectors looking for in those passing by? Whether or not they have their product. What is their product? Passion. Therefore, from whom the heart is immaculate and alien to passions, they cannot find anything in him to which they could become attached; on the contrary, the opposite virtue will strike them as with lightning bolts. To this, one of the scholars expressed the following thought: ordeals seem to be something terrible; for it is very possible that demons, instead of being terrible, represent something charming. Seductively charming, according to all kinds of passions, they present to the passing soul one after another. When, during the course of earthly life, the passions are expelled from the heart and the virtues opposite them are planted, then, no matter how charming you imagine, the soul, having no sympathy for it, passes it by, turning away from it with disgust. And when the heart is not purified, then to what passion it sympathizes most, the soul rushes there. Demons take her like friends, and then they know what to do with her. This means that it is very doubtful that the soul, as long as sympathy for the objects of any passions still remains in it, will not be put to shame at ordeals. The disgrace here is that the soul itself throws itself into hell.
But the final disgrace is on the Last Judgment, before the face of the all-seeing Judge ... ".

Metropolitan Macarius of Moscow. Orthodox dogmatic theology. SPb., 1883, vol. 2, p. 538.
Letters from St. Boniface, Octagon Books, New York, 1973, pp. 25-27.
"Psalm one hundred and eighteenth, interpreted by Bishop Feofan", M., 1891.

7. Out-of-Body Experiences in Occult Literature

Researchers of modern "post-mortem" experiences almost invariably turn to the form of literature that claims to be based on "out-of-body" experiences for explanation of these cases - occult literature from ancient times, from the Egyptians and the Tibetan "Book of the Dead", and up to to the occult teachers and experimenters of our day. On the other hand, hardly any of these teachers pays serious attention to the Orthodox teaching on life and death, or to the biblical and patristic sources on which it is based. Why so?
The reason is very simple: Christian teaching comes from God's revelation to man about the fate of the soul after death and focuses mainly on the final state of the soul in heaven or hell. Although there is also a large body of Christian literature describing what happens to the soul after death, based on first-hand information about the "post-mortem" experience or exit from the body (as shown in the previous chapter on ordeals, this literature definitely occupies a secondary place in comparison with the mainstream Christian doctrine of the final state of the soul). Literature based on Christian experience is useful mainly for understanding and more visual presentation. highlights Christian teaching.
In occult literature, the situation is just the opposite: the main emphasis is on the “out-of-body” experience of the soul, and its final state is usually left in uncertainty or is represented by personal opinions and conjectures, presumably based on this experience. Modern researchers are much more inclined to this experience of occult writers, which seems to them at least to some extent suitable for "scientific" research, than to the teaching of Christianity, which requires the participation of faith and trust, as well as the conduct of spiritual life in accordance with this teaching.
In this chapter we will attempt to point out some of the pitfalls of this approach, which is by no means as objective as some make it seem, and to assess the occult out-of-body experience from an Orthodox Christian perspective. To do this, we must get a little familiar with the occult literature used by modern researchers to understand the "post-mortem" experience.

7.1. Tibetan Book of the Dead

The Tibetan Book of the Dead is a Buddhist book from the 8th century, which may contain pre-Buddhist tradition from a much earlier time. Its Tibetan name is "Liberation by Hearing on the Post-Death Plane" and its English publisher defines it as a mystical instruction for guidance in the other world of many illusions and spheres. It is read at the body of the deceased for the benefit of his soul, because, as the text itself says , "at the time of death various deceptive illusions take place. " These, as the publisher notes, "are not visions of reality, but nothing more than ... (one's own) intellectual impulses that have taken a personified form. "In the subsequent stages of the 19-day "post-mortem" of the tests described in the book, there are visions of both "peaceful" and "evil" deities, all of which, according to Buddhist teaching, are considered illusory. (Below, speaking about the nature of this sphere, we will discuss why these visions are really mostly illusory .) The end of this whole process is the final fall of the soul and "reincarnation" (also discussed below), understood by Buddhist teachings as an evil that can be avoided through Buddhist training. K. Jung, in his psychological commentary on the book, finds that these visions are very similar to the descriptions of the afterlife in the spiritualistic literature of the modern West; both of them leave a bad impression due to the extreme emptiness and banality of messages from the "spirit world".
There are striking similarities between The Tibetan Book of the Dead and contemporary experience in two respects, which explains the interest in it of Dr. Moudy and other researchers. First, the impressions described there from being out of the body at the first moments of death are essentially the same as in modern cases (and also in Orthodox literature). The soul of the deceased appears as a "radiant illusory body", which is visible to other beings of the same nature, but not to people in the flesh. At first, she does not know if she is alive or dead; she sees the people around the body, hears the lamentations of the mourners, and has all the faculties of sense perception; its movements are not constrained by anything and it can pass through solid bodies. Secondly, “at the moment of death, the primary light appears,” which many researchers identify with the “luminous being” currently being described.
There is no reason to doubt that what is described in the Tibetan Book of the Dead is based on an out-of-body experience; but we shall see below that the present post-mortem state is only one of these cases, and we must warn against accepting any out-of-body experience as a revelation of what really happens after death. The experience of Western mediums may also be authentic, but they certainly do not convey real reports of the dead, as they claim.
There are some similarities between the Tibetan Book of the Dead and the much older Egyptian Book of the Dead. The latter describes how, after death, the soul goes through many changes and encounters many "gods". However, there is no living tradition of interpretation of this book, and without it, the modern reader can only guess at the meaning of some of these symbols. According to this book, the deceased alternately takes the form of a swallow, a golden falcon, a snake with human legs, a crocodile, a heron, a lotus flower, etc. and meets with various "gods" and otherworldly creatures ("four sacred monkeys", a hippopotamus goddess, various gods with the heads of dogs, jackals, monkeys, birds, etc.).
The sophisticated and confused experience of the "afterlife" kingdom described in this book differs sharply from the clarity and simplicity Christian experience. While this book may also be based on authentic out-of-body experiences, it is, like The Tibetan Book of the Dead, full of illusory visions and certainly cannot be used as a valid description of the state of the soul after death.

7.2. The Writings of Emmanuel Swedenborg

Another of the occult texts which is being studied by modern scholars offers more hope of being understood, for it is of modern times, is purely Western in thought, and purports to be Christian. The writings of the Swedish mystic Emmanuel Swedenborg (16881779) describe otherworldly visions that began to appear to him in the middle of his life. Before these visions began, he was a typical 18th-century European intellectual: a multilingual scientist, explorer, inventor, a man active in public life as an assessor of the Swedish Mining College and a member of the highest house of parliament - in short, Swedenborg - this is the "universal man" of the early period of the development of science, when it was still possible for one person to master almost all modern knowledge. He wrote about 150 scientific papers, some of which (for example, the four-volume anatomical treatise "The Brain") were far ahead of their time.
Then, in the 56th year of his life, he turned his attention to the invisible world and over the last 25 years of his life created a huge number of religious works describing heaven, hell, angels and spirits - all based on his own experience.
His descriptions of the invisible realms are frustratingly mundane; but in general they agree with the descriptions to be found in most of the occult literature. When a person dies, then, according to Swedenborg's story, he enters the "spirit world", located halfway between heaven and hell (E. Swedenborg "Heaven and Hell," New York, 1976, part 421). This world, although it is spiritual and immaterial, is so similar to material reality that at first a person does not realize that he has died (ch. 461); his "body" and feelings are of the same type as on earth. At the moment of death, there is a vision of light - something bright and foggy (ch. 450), and there is a "revision" of one's own life, its good and bad deeds. He meets friends and acquaintances from this world (ch. 494) and for some time continues an existence very similar to the earthly one - with the only exception that everything is much more "turned inward". A person is attracted by those things and people whom he loved, and reality is determined by thought: one has only to think about a loved one, and this face appears, as if on call (p. 494). As soon as a person gets used to being in the spirit world, his friends tell him about heaven and hell; then he is taken to various cities, gardens and parks (ch. 495).
In this intermediate spirit world, a person, in the course of training lasting anywhere from a few days to a year (ch. 498), is being prepared for heaven. But the sky itself, as Swedenborg describes it, is not too different from the world of spirits, and both are very similar to the earth (ch. 171). There are courtyards and halls, as on earth, parks and gardens, houses and bedrooms of "Angels", a lot of dress changes for them. There are governments, laws and courts - everything, of course, is more "spiritual" than on earth. There are church buildings and services there, the clergy there preach sermons and are embarrassed if one of the parishioners does not agree with him. There are marriages, schools, the education and upbringing of children, social life - in short, almost everything found on earth that can become "spiritual". Swedenborg himself spoke in the sky with many "Angels" (all of whom he believed were the souls of the dead), and also with the strange inhabitants of Mercury, Jupiter and other planets; he argued in "heaven" with Martin Luther and converted him to his faith, but could not dissuade Calvin from his belief in predestination. The description of hell also resembles some place on earth, its inhabitants are characterized by selfishness and evil deeds.
One can easily understand why Swedenborg was dismissed as mad by most of his contemporaries, and why, almost to the present day, his visions were rarely taken seriously. However, there were always people who admitted that despite the strangeness of his visions, he was indeed in touch with an unseen reality. His younger contemporary, the German philosopher Immanuel Kant, one of the founders of modern philosophy, took him very seriously and believed in several examples of Swedenborgian "clairvoyance" that were known throughout Europe. And the American philosopher R. Emerson, in his long essay about him in the book "The Chosen Ones of Mankind", called him "one of the giants of literature, which entire colleges of mediocre scientists will not measure." The revival of interest in the occult in our time has, of course, brought him forward as a "mystic" and "clairvoyant," not limited to doctrinal Christianity; in particular, researchers of "post-mortem" experiences find interesting parallels between their discoveries and his description of the first moments after death.
There can be little doubt that Swedenborg was in fact in contact with spirits and that he received his "revelation" from them. Studying how he received these "revelations" will show us what realm these spirits actually inhabit.
The history of Swedenborg's contacts with invisible spirits, described in detail in his voluminous Dream Diary and Spiritual Diary (2300 pages), corresponds exactly to the description of communication with air demons made by Bishop Ignatius. Swedenborg practiced one form of meditation from childhood, involving relaxation and full concentration; in time he began to see flames during meditation, which he trustingly accepted and explained as a sign of approval of his thoughts. This prepared him for the beginning of communication with the world of spirits. Later he began to dream of Christ; he was allowed into the society of "immortals", and gradually he began to feel the presence of spirits around him. Finally the spirits began to appear to him in the waking state. This first happened during his trip to London. Overeating one evening, he suddenly saw blackness and reptiles crawling over his body, and then a man sitting in the corner of the room, who only said: "Don't eat so much," and disappeared into the darkness. Although this phenomenon frightened him, he considered it to be something good because moral advice had been given to him. Then, as he himself said, “that same night the same man appeared to me again, but now I was no longer afraid. Then he said that he was the Lord God, the Creator of the world and the Redeemer, and that he had chosen me to explain to me what I should write on this subject; that same night, the worlds of spirits, heaven and hell were opened to me - so that I was completely convinced of their reality ... After that, the Lord opened, very often during the day, my bodily eyes, so that in the middle of the day I could look into another world, and in state of full wakefulness to communicate with angels and spirits.
It is quite clear from this description that Swedenborg was open to communication with the airy realm of fallen spirits, and that all his subsequent revelations came from the same source. The "heaven and hell" he saw were also parts of the airy realm, and the "revelations" he recorded are a description of his illusions, which fallen spirits, for their own purposes, often produce for the gullible. A look at some other works of occult literature will show us other aspects of this realm.

7.3. The "Astral Plane" of Theosophy

Theosophy of the 19th and 20th centuries, which is a mixture of Eastern and Western occult ideas, teaches in detail about the airy realm, which it imagines to be composed of a series of "astral planes" ("astral" means "starry" is a fancy term referring to "aerial "reality). According to one exposition of this teaching, the astral planes constitute the dwelling place of all supernatural beings, the dwelling place of gods and demons, the void where thought forms dwell, the region inhabited by the spirits of air and other elements, and various heavens and hells with angelic and demonic hosts ... Prepared people consider that they can, with the help of rites, "climb up on the plane" and become fully acquainted with these areas. (Benjamin Walker, Beyond the Body: The Human Double and the Astral Planes, Routledge and Kegan Paul, London, 1974, pp. 117-118)
According to this teaching, the "astral plane" (or "planes" - depending on how this kingdom is viewed - as a whole or in separate "layers") is entered after death and, as in Swedenborg's teaching, there is no sudden change in state and no judgment; a person continues to live as before, but only outside the body, and begins to "pass through all the sub-planes of the astral plane on its way to the heavenly world." (A.E. Powell, The Astral Body, The Theosophical Publishing House, Wheaton, Ill., 1972, p. 123). Each subsequent sub-plane turns out to be more and more refined and "inward-facing"; passing through them, in contrast to the fear and uncertainty caused by Christian ordeals, is a time of pleasure and joy: “The joy of being on the astral plane is so great that physical life in comparison, it does not seem like life at all ... Nine out of ten return to the body with great reluctance ”(p. 94).
Invented by the Russian mediumist Helena Blavatsky at the end of the 19th century, theosophy was an attempt to provide a systematic explanation for the mediumistic contacts with the "dead" that had multiplied in the Western world since the outbreak of spiritualistic phenomena in America in 1848. Until now, her doctrine of the "astral plane" (for which there is a special name) is the standard used by mediums and other lovers of the occult to explain phenomena from the world of the spirits. Although theosophical books on the "astral plane" are characterized by the same "bad emptiness and banality" that, according to Jung, characterizes all spiritualistic literature, nevertheless, behind this triviality lies a philosophy of the reality of the other world, which resonates in modern research. The modern humanistic worldview is very favorable to such the other world which is pleasant rather than painful, which allows for a gentle "growth" or "evolution" rather than the finality of judgment, which provides "one more chance" to prepare for a higher reality, and does not determine the eternal destiny of behavior in earthly life. The teaching of Theosophy provides just what the modern soul needs and claims to be based on experience.
In order to give an Orthodox Christian answer to this teaching, we must carefully look at what exactly happens on the "astral plane"? But where are we going to look? The reports of mediums are notorious for their unreliability and vagueness; in any case, contact with the "spirit world" through mediums is too doubtful and indirect to be conclusive evidence nature of the other world. On the other hand, the modern "post-mortem" experience is too brief and not convincing to be a sure proof of another world.
But still there is an experience of the "astral plane", which can be studied in more detail. In Theosophical language, this is called "astral projection" or "projection of the astral body." By cultivating certain mediumistic methods, one can not only get in touch with disembodied spirits, as ordinary mediums do (when their séances are authentic), but actually enter into their realm of existence and "travel among them. One can be quite skeptical when hearing about such cases but it so happens that this experience has become a relatively common occurrence in our time - and not only among occultists. There is already an extensive literature, first-hand account of the experience of dealing with this area.

7.4. "Astral Projection"

Orthodox Christians are well aware that a person can indeed be raised above the limits of his bodily nature and visit the invisible worlds. The apostle Paul himself did not know whether he was in the body or ... out of the body when he was caught up to the third heaven (2 Cor. the sky (if his experience was really in the body) or in what kind of “subtle body” the soul could be clothed during its stay outside the body. It is enough for us to know that the soul (in some kind of "body"), by God's grace, can really be lifted up and contemplate paradise, as well as the airy realm of spirits under heaven.
In Orthodox literature, such a state is often described as being outside the body, as was the case with St. Anthony, who, as described above, saw ordeals while standing in prayer. Bishop Ignatius (Bryanchaninov) mentions two ascetics 19th century, whose souls also left their bodies during prayer - the Siberian elder Basilisk, whose student was the famous Zosima, and the elder Ignatius (St. Ignatius (Bryachaninov), Collection of Creations, vol. 3, p. 75). The most remarkable out-of-body event in Orthodox Lives is probably the case with St. Andrew, for Christ's sake, holy fools, of Constantinople (X century), who, at a time when his body was clearly lying on the snow of a city street, was lifted up in the spirit and contemplated paradise and the third heaven, and then part of what he saw was told to his student, who wrote down what happened ("Lives of the Saints", October 2).
This is given by God's grace and completely independent of human desire or will. But astral projection is an out-of-body experience that can be achieved and invoked through certain methods. It is a special form of what Vladyka Ignatius describes as “the opening of the senses,” and it is clear that since contact with spirits, except for the direct action of God, is forbidden to people, then the kingdom achieved by these means is not heaven, but only the celestial air space inhabited by fallen spirits.
The Theosophical texts that describe this experience in detail are so filled with occult opinions and interpretations that it is impossible to understand from them what the experience of this realm is. However, in the 20th century, there was a different kind of literature on this subject: in parallel with the expansion of research and experimentation in the field of parapsychology, some people discovered by chance or experimentally that they were capable of "astral projection", and wrote books recounting their experience in non-occult language. Some researchers have collected and studied accounts of out-of-body experiences and transmissions in scientific rather than occult language. Let's look at some of these books here.

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