Unlike the villagers, Perm sorceresses are not only engaged in corruption, but also actively invade politics. Under the leadership of Irina Cherepanova, they create an image for politicians. According to Cherepanova, all candidates for deputies who turned to witch scientists for help ended up in the Duma or the local Legislative Assembly. So there is nothing to be surprised at the strange behavior of some people's deputies. This is only a side effect of their appeal to witches and sorcerers."33

And yet it is noteworthy that some psychics and "healers", even without initiation into the cult of Lucifer and without concluding an official transaction for the sale of their souls, by their influence on a person cause the same consequences and symptoms that determine the "corruption" caused by real servants of Satan who have received cult initiation. This observation allows us to conclude that even with the help of specific manipulations of psychics and other "healers", the doors are opened for the entry of demons into people's bodies, which will be discussed in more detail below.

DOORS FOR THE ENTRY OF THE EVIL ONES

"Unconscious sorcerers" can be divided into two subgroups:

1st subgroup: these are those who believe that their paranormal abilities are of natural origin, that is, inherent in human nature. Some of them believe that these abilities (in Hinduism and some occult practices they are called siddhis) can be developed with the help of various occult methods and yoga exercises, while others believe that the energy necessary for extrasensory influence can be obtained from space. To do this, you just need to learn how to accumulate it. It should be noted that among the unconscious sorcerers, psychics and "healers," there is a fairly large category of naïve and, in general, not bad (according to worldly estimates) people who, being ignorant of Christian teaching, do not guess whose power they influence people and what is the mechanism of this influence. According to our observations, many of them are guided by good intentions to help their neighbors, which the demons do not hinder, preferring to disguise themselves for the time being. They reveal themselves only when they are sure that the "fish" will not get off the hook.

Paisius the Athonite also told about one of these unconscious sorcerers-psychics: "Once, when I lived in the kaliva of the Holy Cross, a visitor came to me and knocked with an iron riveter near the gate. When I looked out of the window, a terrible sight appeared before my eyes! I saw a man who was followed by a whole phalanx of demons. He was surrounded by a whole black swarm of demons! It was the first time I had seen a man under the power of so many unclean spirits. This unfortunate man was a psychic."34

2nd subgroup: these are those who, considering themselves Christians, sincerely believe that their supernatural abilities have been received by them from God. My personal experience shows that it is almost impossible to convince such people that their psychic abilities have nothing to do with God and, moreover, that their origin is undoubtedly demonic. Such "healers" sometimes diligently go to church, pray at home, observe some other church regulations, and even send their patients to be baptized or receive communion. At the same time, they naively believe that all this confirms and guarantees the divinity of the origin of their healing gift. However, it should be remembered that neither the reading of prayers nor any ritual actions is a guarantee that the person performing them is pleasing to God. Such a guarantee can be:

first, only a God-pleasing and, moreover, in the full sense ascetic life, a life in keeping all the Commandments of God, for God said: "Whosoever shall break one of these least commandments, and thus teach men, shall be called the least in the Kingdom of Heaven" (Matt. 5:19);

secondly, living in full accord with the teaching of the Church, as Christ Himself testifies: "He who hears you (that is, the apostles and their disciples, the teachers of the Church. — Author.) He hears Me, and he who rejects you rejects Me; but he who rejects Me rejects Him who sent Me" (Luke 10:16).

None of the so-called "Orthodox healers" has the slightest relation to such a life, and the fact that they, in performing their manipulations, use the reading of Orthodox prayers, surrounding themselves with crosses, icons and candles, should not confuse and deceive us, because the prayers of such people are an abomination before God, as the Creator Himself says through the prophet Isaiah: "And when you stretch out your hands, I shut My eyes from you; and when ye multiply your supplications, I hear not" (Isaiah 1:15), and the Psalmist adds: "... let his prayer be for sin" (Psalm 108:7). As we can see, not every prayer is accepted by God.

I will give an example of how sometimes "supernatural abilities" can be instantly revealed in people, and how deftly demons know how to use almost universal (atheists did not work in vain!) spiritual illiteracy.

At the very beginning of "perestroika," a middle-aged woman from the Komi Republic came to me for confession, who about a year ago had visited a church for the first time in her life, where she had bought several icons and prayer books. At home, she hung the icons in the corner and was just about to pray, when suddenly her neighbors, an elderly couple, came to her. Seeing icons in the corner, they began to wonder: what is it? As the woman explained, no one from their village had ever been to the church, because the nearest one was at least three hundred kilometers away. She answered their questions as best she could and offered to pray together using the prayer book she had just bought. The neighbors stood next to her, and for the first time in her life she began to read prayers for him. The next day they came again and said that both of them had gone away from her pains after her prayers the day before: in her husband's ear,

and in the wife's lower back.