Deliverance from spiritual illness can be accomplished by God's mercy only by a spiritual ascetic, completely immersed in prayer, love for God, for people, and not every pastor can cure such a sick person, which is confirmed by the words of our Lord Jesus Christ: "This kind cannot come out except from prayer and fasting." (Mark 9:29).

Mental illnesses can be treated in psychiatric hospitals and at home with medications, physiotherapy, labor, and psychoanalysis.

It happens that a person is simultaneously sick with spiritual and mental illness. It is extremely difficult to treat such patients, in my practice there have been no cures. In addition, seeing a spiritual illness, a modern doctor will not distinguish it from a mental illness, and if he does, he cannot say: "Go to the priest." It is necessary to note something else: a person who suffers from a spiritual illness – demonism – will never want to be healed by a priest.

Those who were mentally ill at certain moments in their lives created works of genius (Vrubel, Garshin, etc.) or, coming to the Church, became deeply religious people, recovered, they were helped by spiritual guidance, prayer and the Orthodox spirit of the Church itself. At various times, the spiritual leaders of many communities sent their spiritual children to me for consultation or treatment, and many of them later became wonderful priests, monks, nuns, and artists. Illness was overcome by faith in God."

The question was asked: do healthy people exist at all? Dmitry answered: "Strange question. Of course, there are, and most of them, but many have their own peculiarities, maybe even oddities; These are not mental illnesses. Sometimes these are slight shifts in the psyche, which can be called "mental runny noses", caused by strong tension, shocks, disorders. They can turn into serious mental illness if the necessary measures are not taken in advance. Some oddities of a person are the result of upbringing, the influence of the environment, a difficult childhood, harmful communication with bad people. The influence of faith and the Church is especially fruitful for such people, they get rid of their insignificant ailment or oddities, in advanced cases psychoanalysis helps, quickly relieving the patient of these frivolous, but restless habits, oddities, bad character traits."

"I agree with many things," said Fr. Arseny, "but I will add to what you have said: spiritual illness, unlike mental illness, is terrible in that under the influence of dark forces it is contagious and spreads with the speed of an epidemic. Take our "leaders" in the past, they were seriously spiritually ill, dark forces completely took possession of their souls, evil filled their whole being, and they infected the souls of millions of people with it, and the result was the creation of the Gulag. The famous aphorism expressing the rule of evil: "Here the power is not Soviet, but Solovetsky" symbolizes the millions of tortured in the camps, shot, starved, frozen, and all these unfortunates went through brutal torture and humiliation. The destruction of churches, the mass extermination of bishops, priests, deacons, and believers could occur only because the "microbe" of dark malice was thrown by the "leaders" into the human mass.

Their faith in demonic Evil had no boundaries, millions of people infected with evil supported the "cult of personality", participated in repressions, denunciations, created the Gulag and worked in it, not understanding in the name of what they inflicted torture, killed people. Or rather, they understood: it is necessary to denounce, kill, torture, this is what the supreme Evil demands, which means that it is necessary and useful; and only when they themselves were interrogated and tortured in the Gulag did they see the light, beginning to "recover", but not all of them.

These people were terminally ill with Evil – possessed by demons.

In the camp, I had occasion to meet with prisoners who had previously been at the heights of power, informers, and even former interrogators infected with evil. Kindness, kind words, and help were able to save their souls, help them realize the sinfulness of what they had done earlier and lead them to God, but it was a difficult path for them and no less difficult for those who helped them. If they broke with Evil and came to God, faith, and the Church, then nothing could force them to turn away from the chosen path.

Среди заключенных уголовников была особая прослойка, называемая “лагерной шпаной”, вившаяся около крупных рецидивистов, “воров в законе”, и жившая за счет мелких краж, подачек с “барского стола” сильных и жестоких преступников, издевательств и ограбления слабых. Заключенные из “лагерной шпаны” не имели ни капли совести, демоническое зло являлось в них основой жизни; вытравить, удалить его не представлялось возможным. Крупный рецидивист, “вор в законе”, как правило, был одаренным, умным человеком, пошедшим по дороге зла; с этими людьми можно было говорить, что-то доказать им, и они довольно часто обращались к вере. Мне неоднократно приходилось исповедовать их, причем исповеди носили глубоко проникновенный характер, полный искренности и желания примириться с Богом.

Демоническое зло распространяется подобно эпидемии, и в большой степени этому способствуют книги, газеты, журналы, радио и особенно быстро нарождающееся и распространяющееся телевидение. Все это свободно входит в дом человеческий и отравляет душу ребенка, юноши, взрослого человека”.

В третий мой приезд с Дмитрием состоялся интересный разговор о христианском студенческом кружке, членами которого в прошлом были мы оба.

“Христианские студенческие кружки образовались в 1916–1918 гг., – говорил Митя, – во многих высших учебных заведениях Москвы, Ленинграда, Киева, Самары и в других городах. Первоначальным их организатором был Владимир Марцинковский, отчества не помню. В задачу кружков входило изучение Евангелия и Ветхого Завета. Группы состояли из 15–20 человек, в основном это была студенческая молодежь, но были люди и старшего возраста. Состав был крайне “разношерстный”: православные, католики, баптисты, протестанты, евангелисты. Наличие студентов разных конфессий налагало определенный отпечаток на деятельность кружковцев, но ни в какой мере не сказывалось на дружеских отношениях друг с другом. По моему мнению, – сказал Митя, �

Обыкновенно член кружка брал определенный текст Священных книг, прорабатывал его дома и на следующем собрании делал сообщение и тут же давал свое толкование. Бывало, что руководитель кружка рекомендовал (никаких принуждений не было) двум или трем кружковцам изучить один и тот же текст, дать толкование и на следующем собрании всем трем выступить со своими сообщениями, после чего начиналось общее обсуждение и выяснялось, кто наиболее правильно “раскрыл” отрывок, взятый из Евангелия или Ветхого Завета”.