I am a believer, my husband is not, but his parents are believers. They often turn to a certain person who has supernatural abilities: he determines the causes of diseases, cures with his methods. The husband is even going to take a training course with him. Can faith in God be combined with turning to such people?

No, faith in God cannot be combined with an appeal to such people. Most likely, your husband's parents only consider themselves believers, but they do not believe in God, but in the person who promises them healing. The nature of the "supernatural abilities" of those people who today call themselves healers, psychics, etc. (at different times they both name and manifest their "abilities" in different ways) has been known since ancient times. And the attitude towards them in the Holy Scriptures is expressed very definitely: "Everyone who does these things is an abomination to the Lord" (Deuteronomy 18:10-13).

The Holy Fathers of Orthodoxy unanimously testify that "supernatural abilities," if they are not banal charlatanism, have a demonic nature and human pride is a "breeding ground" for them.

The Bible speaks no less clearly about those who turn to the bearers of "secret knowledge" and "gifts" for help: "And if any soul has turned to those who summon the dead, and to sorcerers, to go after them in fornication, I will set my face on that soul, and will cut him off from among his people" (Lev. 20:6).

Spiritual laws operate regardless of the reason for which a person turns to psychics: out of ignorance or out of a desire to get what he wants faster and more surely – health, money, someone else's husband... Experience shows that all these appeals end tragically: the "gone" bodily diseases return in an even more severe form, very often a person has deviations in the psyche, mental illnesses, and his whole life is destroyed. As a rule, the life of a psychic also ends terribly: the one who is called in the Gospel a murderer, a liar and the father of lies (John 8:44) – the devil – laughs at the one who believes him, destroys a person in earthly life and throws him into hell after death. And the Church, warning about this, does not "fight with competitors," as the same healers and "bioenergetics" tell their clients, but seeks to warn people: do not touch what is deadly.

The only possible path for a person who considers himself a believer is to follow Christ, to trust God, who gives us everything we need for our salvation. Sometimes you have to bear the cross of illness and sorrows with patience. But God is faithful, says the Apostle, Who will not suffer you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but when you are tempted He will also give you relief, so that you may be able to endure (1 Corinthians 10:13).

I have an acquaintance who lives in the village, a good, kind person. The Church loves its own and helps as much as it can. But at the same time he also believes in astrological forecasts, all kinds of fortune-telling and fortune-tellers, healers and receives them, consults with them and listens to their advice, sends his acquaintances to fortune-tellers and healers (because "they help"), prays to the stars, the sun and the moon... He says that he sees "holy" dreams, God, the Mother of God. When I suggested that she talk to the priest about all this, she objected to me that she did not believe in priests. What to do? What is happening to my friend?

In replying to your letter, I will begin "from the end." Disbelief in the words of the divinely inspired Holy Scriptures, in God Himself, is really terrible evidence that a person who considers himself a believer, an Orthodox, is in a deluded state. Disbelief in God, falling away from His Church is precisely the final, final stage of that terrible spiritual illness that is commonly called prelest (various kinds of visions and "holy dreams" are also its manifestations). It is not by chance that the enemy of the human race is called the evil one: constantly deceiving a person, step by step, he leads him to destruction, but at first this deception is not easy to recognize. When a person comes to such a state as you describe, the devil's influence on him is obvious to everyone, except for the most deluded one.

Unfortunately, the disease referred to in your letter is now very widespread, especially in rural areas, where there has been no normal church life for almost a century, where people are drawn to God, but due to their own ignorance and ignorance (and sometimes even ill will!) of those who undertake to teach them – the same village "healers", healers, etc. – receive an initially distorted view of spiritual life. Indeed, how else can we explain the trust in fortune-tellers and sorcerers that they feel when they call themselves Orthodox people? In the Holy Scriptures, both in the Old and New Testaments, there are words that do not admit of double interpretation: "There shall not be found among you one who leads his son or daughter through the fire, a soothsayer, a diviner, a fortune-teller, a sorcerer, a charmer, a summoner of spirits, a sorcerer, and one who inquires of the dead. For everyone who does these things is an abomination to the Lord (Deuteronomy 18:10-12). But the fearful, and the unfaithful, and the filthy, and the murderers, and the fornicators, and the sorcerers, and the idolaters, and all the liars, shall have a portion in the lake that burneth with fire and brimstone. This is the second death (Rev. 21:8). No matter what these "sorcerers" and "fortune-tellers" call themselves in our time – healers, psychics, astrologers, no matter how they prove their "good intentions" – this is a deception, without which "a murderer from the beginning" (John 8:44) cannot take possession of people's souls. And if we do not believe the words of God Himself, can we call ourselves Orthodox?

The unconditional prohibition of the Church to turn to fortune-tellers and sorcerers is a concern for the spiritual safety of people, based on its two-thousand-year real spiritual experience, and it is as follows: turning to divination leads to a speedy spiritual and sometimes physical death. I repeat: this is the experience of the entire Orthodox Church, regardless of the century, country, locality, in what form this appeal to demonic forces takes place, and regardless of the names under which they appear.

Why do many people claim that turning to healers "helps"? Our contemporary, the Athonite Elder Paisius, to whom both the "healers" themselves and their victims often turned, testifies: "The devil can never do anything good. He can only 'cure' those diseases that he causes." According to the elder's observation, the demons, "cast out" by divination, inevitably pass on to the relatives of the "healed". This is how the need arises to "treat" children, spouses, acquaintances – a terrible vicious circle arises, in which people find themselves completely under the demonic influence.

This observation has been repeatedly confirmed by doctors, specialist doctors: each of them knows cases when, after treatment by "healers", the patient received some relief, but then inevitably the disease returned, new mental and physical ailments arose, and such that medicine could no longer help...