THE TEMPTATIONS OF DENIAL

Looking at such people, it is hardly possible to seriously say that there is no demonic influence that causes serious harm to a person. Then why did many atheist-minded researchers and ethnographers of the 18th and 19th centuries consider possessed (possessed) people to be deceivers? Undoubtedly, a special temptation for such researchers was the so-called whoopers. This temptation is based on real facts. The cliques very often pointed out (clicked) people who allegedly spoiled them with sorcery, but who in fact had nothing to do with it. For example, in the 16th and 17th centuries it was like this: "At the clique of a possessed woman, they took the person she accused and tortured him. Sometimes feigned cliques served as a tool for greedy voivodes and clerks. The latter deliberately encouraged them to accuse rich owners in order to find fault with them and rob the latter."1 Of course, such an attitude of the secular authorities to this phenomenon was very far from the correct, spiritual understanding of its essence.

Later, starting from the time of the church reforms of Peter I, an incorrect understanding of the nature of clique led to directly opposite, but just as wrong conclusions as before. As a result, in the 18th and 19th centuries, cliques began to be perceived as pretenders who, for some cunning purpose, pretended to be possessed, and therefore it was considered useful to flog them in order to knock the "crap" out of them. On May 13, 1773, a decree of the Holy Synod was issued, forbidding the clergy to sing molebens and read the Word of God over cliques and other corrupt people, about whom "nothing else should be considered than about outright pretense and deception, and superstition." Thus, the complete trust in the words of the cliques on the part of the secular authorities, which was observed in the Middle Ages from the eighteenth century onwards, was replaced by a complete rejection of the phenomenon of possession and possession. Moreover, under the pressure of the secular authorities (let me remind you that the Oberprocurator of the Holy Synod of that time – from 1763 to 1768 – Count I.I. Melissino did not hide his hatred of Christianity, he was a major mason and atheist), the Synod began to make corresponding statements...

But let us try to consider the essence of such a phenomenon as clique from two points of view: from spiritual and medical, since the symptoms of this "disease" are well known to any modern psychiatrist. And we will begin with the latter in order to conclude with a generalizing spiritual conclusion. So, let's look at the symptoms of the disease we are interested in, which usually manifests itself in two forms.

1. The first form is characterized by seizures of an epileptoid nature, although full-blown seizures, including tonic or clonic convulsions, involuntary urination, foam flow, and tongue biting, are rare. Everything that happened to a person during a seizure is usually completely amnesic – that is, forgotten. During a seizure, patients can pronounce complete phrases (the phenomenon of forced speaking), connected by a single storyline (confabulatory delusions in a state of absence - that is, turned off consciousness). Often phrases are pronounced in someone else's voice, for example, a fragile woman can hear a rough thick bass. In addition, patients sometimes demonstrate knowledge that does not correspond to their intelligence, development, social status and education, and also use absolutely uncharacteristic and previously unknown figures of speech. Thus, this disease should be attributed to an epileptoid with alternating personality syndrome (that is, replaced by another entity).

2. Another fairly common form of clique differs from the previous one in that the syndrome of alternating personality manifests itself against the background of relative preservation of consciousness and is also accompanied by the phenomenon of forced speaking. The latter phenomenon can be classified as one of the forms of motor automatism as part of the Kandinsky-Clérambault syndrome, characteristic of schizophrenia. When I asked whether the patient could stop the involuntary movement of the tongue by an effort of her will, I usually heard a negative answer. Patients assert that at this moment (that is, in a state of altered consciousness) their will is as if bound by someone else's will; His own consciousness seems to float away somewhere far away and observe everything that happens to his own body, as if from the outside. At the same time, the lungs, larynx, tongue and lips move by themselves, pronouncing phrases that the person himself would never say. Moreover, hearing phrases pronounced as if by himself (his mouth), the patient is horrified by what the tongue says, but he is not able to stop it. As in the more severe form described above, violent speech can be pronounced by someone else's voice, and even not corresponding to the sex of the patient. For example, a man can produce a female voice and, conversely, a woman can produce a male voice. This phenomenon was beautifully described back in the XIX century by the famous Russian psychiatrist Christopher Kandinsky. The milder form of motor automatism syndrome just described differs from the previous one in that the patient in some cases, although with great inner effort, is still able to stop his own tongue and keep it from involuntary blasphemy or terrible curses, which are disgusting to the patient himself.

Let us now try to sum up the first results and draw some conclusions from our observations of patients who have symptoms characteristic of clique. Without any doubt, the "alternative personality" that has a different intellect and knowledge, which makes the tongue of the "patient" move violently with the consciousness turned off or partially preserved, does not belong to the "patient" at all, but to the demon that has taken up residence in the body of this person. By innervating its lungs, larynx, tongue, and lips through sensory-telepathic stimulation (see below), the demon can speak in different voices, bark, grunt, or crow from the person in whom it has taken up residence. The Gospel speaks of this more than once. But we should well remember that all demons, like their leader Satan, are liars, for it is said: "When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh his own: for he is a liar, and the father of lies" (John 8:44). That is why in no case should you believe a whooper when it calls out the name of the person who allegedly sent a curse on it. The devil is a liar, and it is a real pleasure for him to slander an innocent, to quarrel friends or to destroy his family. As we can see, in the heat of the struggle with sorcerers, the medieval authorities were not up to the task, not understanding the simple Gospel truth about the falsehood of the devil and all the demons subordinate to him. The post-Petrine authorities were also wrong, considering all the cliques to be malingerers, although it is possible that there were such people.

UNEXPLAINED "DISEASES OF THE CENTURY"

So the problem that will be discussed in these pages is quite real, although not as simple as it seems at first glance. It is very old, but for us, people living in the vast expanse of the Orthodox empire destroyed at the beginning of the twentieth century, it is now becoming more acute than ever. Not only psychologists, but even just sensitive and observant people have long noticed that Orthodox peoples by their roots, and, first of all, the Russian people, experience a certain influence that is incomprehensible to psychologists. Its main symptoms are an amazing lack of will (abulia is a psychiatrist) and the inability to objectively see and understand the surrounding reality. If we add to these symptoms the widespread cowardice, the inability to protect one's neighbor from injustice, the inability to unite to counteract evil, isolation into oneself and one's problems, that is, a kind of mass autism (psychiatrist), then the picture from a psychological point of view is almost complete.

But this picture becomes even more bleak if you look at it from the perspective of psychiatry. There is no need to talk about the corresponding symptoms, it is enough just to look at the statistical data of the quantitative growth of psychiatric clinics in our country at least over the past 20 years. And then everything will become clear without words.

But there are also symptoms of a physiological nature. More and more often, doctors find themselves in a difficult situation, not being able to diagnose the patient. Inexplicable physical weakness, "chronic fatigue syndrome", terrible headaches leading to vomiting, pain in the heart and in other organs against the background of almost complete health, judging by the appropriate biochemical tests, as well as electrocardiograms, encephalograms, tomograms, endoscopic and other studies. All this puts doctors at a dead end. Treatment in such a situation is actually impossible due to the inability to determine the causes of the patient's painful condition. However, they still try to treat the patient. In such cases, the "treatment" is carried out by the famous "poke method". Even the diagnosis is made, albeit very conditionally, for the sake of preserving the doctor's professional reputation, since few of the modern aesculapii can admit that they are unable to make a diagnosis.

And, finally, there is one more phenomenon that fits into the framework of the strange impact that we are going to talk about later. We are talking about an unprecedented quantitative surge in deaths, the causes of which pathologists are unable to establish. Moreover, mysterious death unexpectedly overtakes not the old and sick in our time, but most often physically healthy and quite young people.