Having spoken of the control of the external senses, we must now speak of how to control the imagination and memory, because, in the opinion of almost all philosophers, imagination and memory are nothing but the impression of all those sensible objects which we have seen, heard, smelled, tasted, touched. It may be said that imagination and memory are one internal general sense, which imagines and remembers everything that the external five senses have previously had to feel. And in a certain way the external senses and sensible objects resemble a seal, and the imagination resembles the impression of a seal.

Imagination and memory are given to us in order that we may use their services, when our external senses are at rest, and we do not have before us those sensual objects which have passed through our senses and have been imprinted in them (imagination and memory). Not being able always to have before us the objects which we have seen, heard, tasted, smelled, and touched, we call them before our consciousness by means of the imagination and memory in which they are imprinted, and thus examine and discuss them, as if they were outwardly inherent in us.

For example, you once visited Smyrna and then left it again, and you no longer see it with the external sense of your eyes; however, when you wish, you imagine Smyrna with your inner feeling, that is, with your imagination and memory, you imagine and re-examine it as it is, in its own form, size, and disposition. This does not mean that your soul goes out of you and passes into Smyrna, as some ignoramuses think, but you see in yourself the image of Smyrna, imprinted in you.

This imagination of sensible objects greatly annoys and causes much trouble to those who are zealous to always be with God, for it diverts attention from God and leads it to vain things, and among them to sinful things, and thus disturb our inner good mood. We suffer from this not only in reality, but also during dreams, from which the impression often lasts for more than one day.

Since imagination is an irrational force, acting for the most part mechanically, according to the laws of the combination of images, and spiritual life is an image of pure freedom, it goes without saying that its activity is incompatible with this life, and I am compelled to offer you a few guiding remarks on this subject.

1) Know that just as God is beyond all senses and everything sensible, beyond all kind, color, measure and place, is completely without image and without form, and although He is everywhere, He is above all, He is also beyond all imagination. "No imagination has a place in relation to God, for He is above all thought and dwells above all" (Ignatius and Kallistos, ch. 65, at the end of the Philokalia). From this it follows that imagination is a power of the soul that by its nature does not have the ability to dwell in the realm of unity with God.

2) Know that Lucifer, the first of the Angels, being before above all irrational imagination and beyond all form, color and feeling, as a mental mind, immaterial, formless and incorporeal, when he later dreamed and filled his mind with images of equality with God, descended from this formless, indifferent, passionless and simple immateriality of the mind into this many-looking, multi-component and debilitated imagination, as many theologians believe, and thus, from an angel formless, immaterial, and passionless, he became the devil, as it were, material, multiform, and passionate. But as he became, so did his servants, all the demons, about which we read the following judgment in Gregory the Sinaite: "They were once minds, but, having fallen from this materiallessness and subtlety, they acquired a certain material debility, each becoming embodied according to his rank, degree and actions that qualified him. As a result of this, they, too, like men, having lost the angelic sweetness, were deprived of divine pleasure and were condemned to find pleasure in earthly things, just as we are, having become as it were material through the habit of material passions" (ch. 123 in the Philokalia). For this reason, the devil is called by the Holy Fathers a painter, a serpent of many kinds, feeding on the earth of passions, a dreamer, and other similar names. The Word of God depicts him as a corporeal dragon, with a tail, ribs, neck, nose, eyes, jaws, lips, skin, flesh, and other similar members. (See about this in chapters 40 and 41 of the righteous Job). From this, beloved, understand that since the manifold fantasy is an invention and creation of the devil, it is highly desirable for him and is suitable for our destruction. The Holy Fathers rightly call it a bridge through which soul-killing demons pass into the soul, mingle with it, and make it a hive of drones, a dwelling place for terrible, evil and God-defying thoughts and all kinds of impure passions, spiritual and physical.

3) Know that, according to St. Maximus, the great theologian, even the first-created Adam was not created by God imaginary. His mind, pure and seeless, being also in its activity by the mind, did not itself take on a form or image from the influence of the senses or from the images of sensible things; but, not using this lower power of imagination, and not imagining either the outline, or the appearance, or the size, or the color of these things, he contemplated with the higher power of the soul, i.e., thought, purely, immaterially, and spiritually, only the pure ideas of things, or their mental meanings. But the murderer of man, the devil, just as he himself fell from the dream of equality with God, so he brought Adam to the point where he began to dream with his mind of equality with God and fell from such a dream of his; and for this reason he was thrown from that mental life, equal to the angels, pure, rational and without distinction, into this sensual, multi-component, multi-form, immersed in images and dreams, into the state of irrational animals. For to be immersed in images or to live in them and under the influence of them is the property of irrational animals, and not of rational beings.

And after man has fallen into such a state, who can say into what passions, into what ill-temper, and into what delusions he has been led by his imaginary dreams? He filled moral teaching with various deceptions, physics with many false teachings, theology with obscene and absurd dogmas and fables. And not only the ancients, but also the modern thinkers, wishing to be curious and to speak about God and about the divine, simple and inaccessible to imagination and fantasy mysteries (for in this work the higher power of the soul, the mind, should work), and having begun this work before purifying their minds of passionate views and imaginary images of sensible things, they found falsehood instead of truth. And, what is especially miserable, they have embraced their lies in the arms of their souls and hearts and hold them tightly, as the truth expressing reality. And thus, instead of theologians, they appeared with fabulous words, betraying, according to the Apostle, into an unskilled mind (Romans 1:28). (See Isaac the Syrian at the end of the Epistle to St. Simeon, fol. 55).

And so, my brother, if you wish to be easily and conveniently freed from such errors and passions, if you seek to avoid the various snares and snares of the devil, if you desire to unite with God and to obtain the divine light and truth, courageously enter into battle with your imagination and fight it with all your strength, in order to expose your mind from all forms, colors and outlines, and in general from all imagination and memory of sensual things, both good and bad. For all this is a stain and obscuration of the purity and brightness of the mind, a whitening of its immateriality, and a guide to the passion of the mind, since almost no passion of the soul and body can approach the mind except through the imagination of the sensual things corresponding to them. Strive to keep your mind colorless, without image, without form, and pure, as God created it.

But you cannot attain this otherwise than by returning your mind to yourself, enclosing it in the narrow place of your heart and of the entire inner man, and teaching it to remain there inwardly, now in secret prayer, exclaiming with an inner word: Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, now paying attention to yourself and reasoning with yourself, and above all contemplating God and resting in Him. For just as a serpent, when it is necessary for it to throw off its old skin, goes and with effort squeezes itself through some narrow passage, as the natural scientists say, so the mind, squeezing through the narrowness of the heart and prayer of the mind, casts off the garments of the imagination of sensual things and evil sensual impressions, and becomes pure, bright and fit for union with God, for the sake of likeness to Him, which he perceives through this. Again, just as water, the more it is crowded in narrow passages, the more strongly it presses and rushes upward, so the mind, the more constrained it is by the innermost instruction in the heart and by the attention it receives, the more refined and stronger it becomes, and, rushing to grief, the more inaccessible it is to every passion and every pretext of thoughts, and to every image of things, not only sensual, but also mental. since in this case they remain outside and cannot enter inside. I will offer another comparison, even more appropriate. Just as the rays of the sun, being scattered in the air and separated from each other, are not so bright and calorous, but being concentrated in one point by means of certain glasses, they give dazzling light and incendiary warmth, so the mind, being gathered in the center of the heart by attention and secret teaching, becomes luminous and scorching, dispersing material and passionate darkness, and scorching and destroying all similar images and movements.

This is the first and foremost way of dealing with imagination and memory, which you, my beloved, must keep continuously. With it you will not only correct these spiritual powers, but you will erase in them all traces and remnants of previously perceived impressions and images of sensual things that excite and nourish the passions. But the more effective and fruitful this method is, the more difficult it is, and the more difficult, the less willing it is now to use it, not to say – the fewer who believe in its power, especially among the sages and teachers, not only secular, but also spiritual, who, not wishing to believe the teaching of the Holy Spirit and so many holy fathers, who indicate this method in the most precious book of every honorable stone, "Philokalia", they are righteously deprived of the fruits of the Spirit, which many unlearned and even illiterate are vouchsafed to receive. For, according to the word of the Saviour, God hid them from the wise and prudent, and revealed them unto babes (Luke 10:21); for those who do not believe in the power of this mental work and do not take it up, they cannot understand how beneficial it is, according to the words of the prophet: "If ye do not believe, you will understand less" (Isaiah 7:9).

When you see that your mind is tired and can no longer stay inside your heart in prayer of the mind and heart, then use the second method to do this, namely, allow it to go outside and have room in divine and spiritual reflections and contemplations, both those taught by the Holy Scriptures and those to which God's creation gives occasion and inspires. Such spiritual reflections, being akin to the mind in their subtlety and immateriality, do not cause it to become numb and do not shackle it in the external, but on the contrary, having satisfied to the extent of its thirst for free movement in its sphere, their content disposes it again to return more quickly within the heart, to unity with God through immersion in the mental memory of Him alone. That is why the divine Maximus says that "one deed cannot make the mind impassible, if it does not enter into various spiritual contemplations." Beware, however, in God's creations, in material objects and in animals, to dwell on one physical side of them while you are still passionate. For in such a case, the mind, not yet being free from passionate gazing at sensible things, instead of being transferred from them to the spiritual and immaterial thoughts hidden in them, will be carried away by their outward beauty and ostentation alone, and, enjoying it, may accept false teachings about them and passionate dispositions towards them, according to the words of St. Maximus. how so many and so many natural philosophers have suffered.

Or use the third method to bring rest and repose to your mind, namely, undertake to meditate on the mysteries of the Lord's life and sufferings, i.e. on His birth in the cave, circumcision, the ordination before God to meet Him, the baptism in the Jordan, the forty-day fast in the wilderness, His preaching of the Gospel, the manifold miracles performed by Him, the Transfiguration on Tabor, the washing of the disciples' feet and the giving them the sacraments at the Supper, about His betrayal, about His suffering, His cross, burial, resurrection and ascension to heaven, about the manifold tortures of the martyrs and the many years of strict feats of the venerable fathers.