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...

There is one more (main) reason for turning to fortune-tellers and sorcerers: a person's selfish attachment to earthly life and its pleasures, an unwillingness to live according to God's commandments and to bear for His sake at least a small labor of patience in the illness of the body for the salvation of one's immortal soul. The Lord Himself said: "What shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?" (Matt. 16:26). However, people often opt for quick and temporary relief. They turn to sorcerers and the deluded because "the gifts of the devil are cheap and easy to acquire."20

Indeed, the Church tells us that healing is necessarily the fruit of efforts, the fruit of a long work to correct oneself. The priest, as a rule, advises the patient himself and his relatives to resort to the sacrament of Repentance, fasting, prayer. He does not hide the fact that it is difficult. But the one who nevertheless decides to go to the "grandmother" does not want to work: he chooses a purely external action, without effort, without changing his heart disposition.

We should not be deceived by the fact that often the so-called "folk healers" use icons and candles. It is known that Satan himself is able to take the form of an angel of light (cf. 2 Cor. 11:14). Healers, on the other hand, often send those who come to them to church, even recommend that they be baptized, take communion, but at the same time they categorically forbid mentioning their "help" in confession. Can a person who does a good deed in the name of God advise him to lie in confession, to lie to God? The thing is that the devil gives his power to those who serve him. And what can be more pleasing to the devil than to mock the holy?

For our salvation, two forces are necessary: the good will of man himself and the grace-filled help of the Lord to everyone who turns to Him with trust. This help – Divine grace – is given only in the sacraments of the Church, the most important of which are Repentance and Communion. The Holy Fathers affirm – and this is again the experience of the entire Church – that the Lord Himself acts incomprehensibly in the sacraments, even if the priest for some reason in some way unworthily fulfills his ministry. Therefore, it is impossible to distance oneself from God and His Church of one's own free will, according to the word of the Lord: "I will build My Church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it" (Matt. 16:18).

And finally: is it possible to get out of the state of delusion? There is only one – through sincere repentance and the acquisition of humility. A choice must be made. If there is faith and trust in God, He is able to heal any ailment.

It is very heavy on the soul. Recently I began to think about life, about the Lord, about my loved ones, about faith, but apparently it was too late... I read on the Internet that not every church can be attended. It got even worse... I am afraid of death in panic, I am afraid of dying in a non-Christian way, the only hope is that the Lord will have mercy. Tell me how to live?