The Soul After Death

In order to understand what is the realm into which the soul enters at death, we must look at it in the whole context of man’s nature. We shall have to know of man’s nature before his fall, the changes it underwent after the fall, and the capabilities man has for entering into contact with spiritual beings.

Perhaps the most concise Orthodox discussion of these subjects is to be found in the same book of Bishop Ignatius Brianchaninov which we have already quoted concerning the Orthodox doctrine of angels (Vol. III of his Collected Works). Bishop Ignatius devoted one chapter of this book to a discussion of “the sensuous perception of spirits” — that is, angelic and demonic apparitions to men. In what follows we shall quote this chapter, which gives the Orthodox Patristic teaching, soberly and precisely handed down by one of the great Orthodox Fathers of modern times. (Titles added by translator.)

1. Man’s Original Nature

“Before the fall of man, his body was immortal, a stranger to infirmities, a stranger to its present crudeness and heaviness, a stranger to the sinful and fleshly feelings that are now natural to it (St. Macarius the Great, Homily 4). His senses were incomparably more subtle, their activity was incomparably broader and totally free. Being clothed with such a body, with such organs of sense, man was capable of the sensuous perception of spirits, to which rank he himself belonged in soul; he was capable of communion with them, of that Divine vision and communion with God which is natural to holy spirits. The holy body of man did not serve as a hindrance to this, did not separate man from the world of spirits. Man, clothed in a body, was capable of dwelling in paradise, in which now only saints, and only in their souls, are capable of remaining, into which the bodies of the saints also will ascend after the resurrection. Then these bodies will leave in the grave the crudeness which they assumed after the fall; then they will become spiritual, even spirits, in the expression of St. Macarius the Great (Homily 6, ch. 13), and will manifest in themselves those qualities which were given them at their creation.2 Then men will again enter the rank of the holy spirits and will be in open communion with them. We may see an example of the body that will be at the same time both body and spirit in the body of our Lord Jesus Christ after His resurrection.

2. The Fall of Man

“By the fall both the soul and body of man were changed. In the strict sense the fall was for them also a death. That which we see and call death is in essence only the separation of the soul from the body, both of which had already before this been put to death by an eternal death! The infirmities of our body, its subjection to the hostile influence of various substances from the material world, its crudeness — these are a consequence of the fall. By reason of the fall our body entered into the same rank as the bodies of animals; it exists with an animal life, the life of its fallen nature. It serves for the soul as a prison and tomb.

“These expressions we have used are strong. But even so they do not adequately express the descent of our body from the height of the spiritual condition to the fleshly condition. One must cleanse oneself by careful repentance, one must feel at least to some degree the freedom and height of the spiritual condition, in order to acquire an understanding of the miserable condition of our body, the condition of its deadness caused by estrangement from God.

“In this condition of deadness, by reason of their extreme crudeness and coarseness, the bodily senses are incapable of communion with spirits, they do not see them, do not hear them, do not sense them. Thus the blunted axe is no longer capable of being used according to its purpose. The holy spirits avoid communion with men who are unworthy of such communion; while the fallen spirits, who have drawn us into their fall, have mingled with us and, so as the more easily to hold us in captivity, strive to make both themselves and their chains unnoticeable to us. And if they do reveal themselves, they do it in order to strengthen their dominion over us.

“All of us who are in slavery to sin must understand that communion with holy angels is unnatural to us by reason of our estrangement from them by the fall; that what is natural to us, for the same reason, is communion with the fallen spirits, to whose rank we belong in soul; that the spirits who appear sensuously to men who are in a state of sinfulness and fall, are demons and not in the least holy angels. ‘A filthy soul,’ said St. Isaac the Syrian, ‘does not enter the pure realm and is not joined to holy spirits’ (Homily 74). Holy angels appear only to holy men who have restored communion with God and with them by a holy life.3

3. Contact with Fallen Spirits

“Although the demons, in appearing to men, usually assume the appearance of bright angels in order to deceive the more easily; although they also strive sometimes to convince men that they are human souls and not demons (this manner of deception at the present time is in special fashion among demons, due to the particular disposition of contemporary men to believe it); even though they sometimes foretell the future; even though they reveal mysteries — still one must not trust them in any way whatsoever. With them truth is mixed with falsehood; truth is used at times only for a more convenient deception. Satan is transformed into an angel of light, and his ministers as the servants of righteousness, said the Apostle Paul (II Cor. 11:14,15)” (Bishop Ignatius, Collected Works, vol. III, pp. 7-9).

“A general rule for all men is by no means to trust the spirits when they appear in sensuous form, not to enter into conversation with them, not to pay any attention to them, to acknowledge their appearance as a great and most dangerous temptation. At the time of this temptation one should direct one’s mind and heart to God with a prayer for mercy and for deliverance from temptation. The desire to see spirits, curiosity to find out anything about them and from them, is a sign of the greatest foolishness and total ignorance of the Orthodox Church’s traditions concerning moral and active life. Knowledge of spirits is acquired quite differently than is supposed by the inexperienced and careless experimenter. Open communion with spirits for the inexperienced is the greatest misfortune, or serves as a source of the greatest misfortunes.

“The Divinely-inspired writer of the book of Genesis says that after the fall of the first men, God, in pronouncing sentence on them before banishing them from paradise, made for them garments of skins, and clothed them (Gen. 3:20). The garments of skins, in the explanation of the Holy Fathers (St. John Damascene, Exact Exposition of the Orthodox Faith, Book 3, ch. 1), signify our coarse flesh which, at the fall, was altered: it lost its subtlety and spiritual nature and received its present crudeness. Although the original reason for this change was the fall, still the change occurred under the influence of the Almighty Creator, in His unutterable mercy towards us, and for our great good. Among the other consequences, profitable for us, which come from the condition in which our body now is, we should indicate this one: through the crudeness of our body we have become incapable of the sensuous perception of the spirits into whose realm we have fallen.... The wisdom and goodness of God have placed an obstacle between men, cast down to earth from paradise, and the spirits who had been cast down to earth from heaven; this obstacle is the coarse materiality of the human body. Thus do earthly rulers separate evil-doers from human society by a prison wall, lest they harm this society according to their own desire and corrupt other men. (St. John Cassian, Conference 8, ch. 12.) The fallen spirits act on men, bringing them sinful thoughts and feelings; but very few men attain to the sensuous perception of spirits” (Bishop Ignatius, pp. 11-12).

“The soul, clothed in a body, closed off and separated by it from the world of spirits, gradually trains itself by the study of God’s law, or, what is the same thing, by the study of Christianity, and acquires the capability to distinguish good from evil (Heb. 5:14). Then the spiritual perception of spirits is granted to it, and, if this is in conformity with the purposes of God Who guides it, the sensuous perception of them also, since delusion and deception are for it now much less dangerous, while experience and knowledge are profitable.

“At the separation of the soul from the body by visible death, we again enter into the rank and society of spirits. From this it is evident that for a successful entry into the world of spirits it is essential to train oneself in good time in the law of God, that it is precisely for this instruction that there has been furnished us a certain amount of time, determined for each person by God for his pilgrimage on earth. This pilgrimage is called earthly life.

4. The Opening of the Senses

“Men become capable of seeing spirits by a certain alteration of the senses, which is accomplished in a way that is unnoticeable and inexplicable to a man. He only notes in himself that he has suddenly begun to see what before this he had not seen and what others do not see, and to hear what before this he had not heard. For those who experience in themselves such an alteration of the senses, it is very simple and natural, even though not explainable to oneself and others; for those who have not experienced it, it is strange and not understandable. In the same way, it is known to all that men are capable of being immersed in sleep; but what kind of phenomenon sleep is, and in what way, unnoticed to oneself, we pass over from a condition of wakefulness to a condition of sleep and self-forgetfulness — this remains a mystery for us.

“The alteration of the senses by which a man enters into sensuous communion with the beings of the invisible world is called in Sacred Scripture the opening of the senses. The Scripture says: Then the Lord opened the eyes of Balaam, and he saw the angel of the Lord standing in the way, with his drawn sword in his hand (Numbers 22:31). Being surrounded by enemies, the Prophet Elisha, in order to calm his frightened servant, prayed and said: Lord, open his eyes that he may see. And the Lord opened the eyes of the young man, and he saw; and behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire round about Elisha (IV Kings 6:17-18).” (See also Luke 24:16-31.)

“From the quoted places of Sacred Scripture it is clear that the bodily organs serve as it were as doors and gates into the inner chamber where the soul is, and that these gates are opened and closed at the command of God. Most wisely and mercifully, these gates remain constantly closed in fallen men, lest our sworn enemies, the fallen spirits, burst in upon us and bring about our perdition. This measure is all the more essential in that we, after the fall, find ourselves in the realm of fallen spirits, surrounded by them, enslaved by them. Having no possibility to break in on us, they make themselves known to us from outside, causing various sinful thoughts and fantasies, and by them enticing the credulous soul into communion with them. It is not permitted for a man to remove the supervision of God and by his own means (by God’s allowance but not by His will) to open his own senses and enter into visible communion with spirits. But this does happen. It is obvious that by ones own means one can attain communion only with fallen spirits. It is not characteristic of holy angels to take part in something not in agreement with the will of God, something not pleasing to God....

“What attracts men into entering into open communion with spirits? Those who are light-minded and ignorant of Christianity in action are attracted by curiosity, by ignorance, by unbelief, without understanding that by entering into such communion they can cause themselves the greatest harm” (pp. 13-14).

“The idea that there is anything especially important in the sensuous perception of spirits is a mistaken one. Sensuous perception without spiritual perception does not provide a proper understanding of spirits; it provides only a superficial understanding of them. Very easily it can provide the most mistaken conceptions, and this indeed is what is most often provided to the inexperienced and to those infected with vain-glory and self-esteem. The spiritual perception of spirits is attained only by true Christians, whereas men of the most depraved life are the most capable of the sensuous perception of them.... A very few people are capable of this by their natural constitution,4 and to a very few the spirits appear because of some special circumstance in life. In the latter two cases a man is not subject to blame, but he must make every effort to get out of this condition, which is very dangerous. In our time many allow themselves to enter into communion with fallen spirits by means of magnetism (spiritism), in which the fallen spirits usually appear in the form of bright angels and deceive and delude by means of various interesting tales, mixing together truth with falsehood; they always cause an extreme disorder to the soul and even to the mind” (p. 19).

“Those who see spirits, even holy angels, sensuously should not have any fancies about themselves: this perception alone, in itself, is no testimony whatever of the merit of the perceivers; not only depraved men are capable of this, but even irrational animals (Numbers 22:23)” (p. 21).

5. The Danger of Contact with Spirits

“The perception of spirits with the eyes of sense always brings harm, sometimes greater and sometimes less, to men who do not have spiritual perception. Here on earth images of truth are mixed together with images of falsehood (St. Isaac the Syrian, Homily 2), as in a land in which good is mixed together with evil, as in the land of banishment of fallen angels and fallen men” (p. 23).

“One who perceives spirits sensuously can easily be deceived to his own harm and perdition. If, on perceiving spirits, he shows trust or credulity towards them, he will unfailingly be deceived, he will unfailingly be attracted, he will unfailingly be sealed with the seal of deception, not understandable to the inexperienced, the seal of a frightful injury in his spirit; and further, the possibility of correction and salvation is often lost. This has happened with many, very many. It has happened not only with pagans, whose priests were for the most part in open communion with demons; it has happened not only with many Christians who do not know the mysteries of Christianity and out of some circumstance or other have entered into communion with spirits; it has happened with many strugglers and monks who have perceived spirits sensuously without acquiring spiritual perception of them.

“The correct, lawful entry into the world of spirits is provided only by the doctrine and practice of Christian struggle. All other means are unlawful and must be renounced as worthless and ruinous. It is God Himself Who leads the true struggler of Christ into perception (of spirits). When God is guiding, the phantoms of truth, in which falsehood clothes itself, are separated from truth itself; then the struggler is given, first of all, the spiritual perception of spirits, revealing to him in detail and with precision the qualities of these spirits. Only after this are certain ascetics granted the sensuous perception of spirits, by which the knowledge of them attained by spiritual perception is completed” (p. 24).

6. Some Practical Advice

Bishop Ignatius takes from the discourse of St. Anthony, in St. Athanasius’ Life of him (already mentioned above as a chief source of our knowledge of the activity of demons), practical advice for Christian strugglers on how to behave with regard to sensuous perceptions of spirits if they should happen to occur to one. This is of extreme value to all who wish to lead a true Christian spiritual life in our own days, when (for reasons we shall try to explain below) the sensuous perception of spirits has become much more common than heretofore. St. Anthony teaches:

“You must know the following for your protection. When any kind of vision presents itself, do not become frightened, but no matter what kind of vision it might be, manfully ask it first of all: ‘Who are you, and where do you come from?’ If it is a manifestation of saints, they will calm you and will turn your fear into joy. But if it is a demonic apparition, when it encounters firmness in your soul it will immediately waver, because the question serves as a sign of a brave soul. By asking such a question, Joshua son of Nun became convinced of the truth (Joshua 5:13), and the enemy did not hide from Daniel (Daniel 10:20)” (Bishop Ignatius, pp. 43-44; Life of St. Anthony, English edition of Eastern Orthodox Books, p. 29).

After relating how even St. Symeon the Stylite was once almost deceived by a demon who appeared to him in the form of an angel in a fiery chariot (Lives of Saints, Sept. 1), Bishop Ignatius warns the Orthodox Christians of today: “If the saints have been in such danger of being deceived by evil spirits, this danger is even more frightful for us. If the saints have not always recognized demons who appeared to them in the form of saints and Christ Himself, how is it possible for us to think of ourselves that we will recognize them without mistake? The sole means of salvation from these spirits is absolutely to refuse perception of them and communion with them, acknowledging ourselves as unfit for such perception and communion.

“The holy instructors of Christian struggle ... command pious strugglers not to trust any kind of image or vision if they should suddenly appear, not to enter into conversation with them, not to pay any attention to them. They command that during such apparitions one should guard oneself with the sign of the Cross, close one’s eyes, and in resolute awareness of one’s unworthiness and unfitness for seeing holy spirits, to entreat God that He might protect us from all nets and deceptions which are cunningly set out for men by the spirits of malice” (pp. 45-46).

Further, Bishop Ignatius quotes St. Gregory the Sinaite: “By no means accept it if you see anything sensuously or with the mind, inside or outside of you, whether it be an image of Christ or an angel or some saint, or if a light should be fancied or depicted by the imagination in the mind. For by nature it is characteristic of the mind itself to indulge in fantasies, and it easily forms the images it desires; this is usual in those who do not pay strict attention to themselves, and by this they do harm to themselves” (pp. 47-49).

Conclusion

In conclusion, Bishop Ignatius teaches: “The only correct entrance into the world of spirits is the doctrine and practice of Christian struggle. The only correct entrance into the sensuous perception of spirits is Christian advancement and perfection” (p. 53).

“When the time comes which is assigned by the one God and is known to Him alone, we will unfailingly enter the world of spirits ourselves. This time is not far from each of us! May the all-good God grant us to spend earthly life in such a way that during it we might break off communion with fallen spirits, and might enter into communion with holy spirits so that, on this foundation, having put off the body, we might be numbered with the holy spirits and not the fallen spirits!” (p. 67).

This teaching of Bishop Ignatius Brianchaninov, written over a hundred years ago, could well have been written today, so accurately does it describe the spiritual temptations of our own times, when the “doors of perception” (to use the phrase popularized by one experimenter in this realm, Aldous Huxley) have been opened in men to a degree undreamed of in Bishop Ignatius’ day.

These words scarcely need any commentary. The perceptive reader may already have begun to apply them to the “after-death” experiences we have been describing in these pages and thereby have begun to realize the frightful danger for the human soul which these experiences represent. One who is aware of this Orthodox teaching cannot but look in amazement and horror at the ease with which contemporary “Christians” trust the visions and apparitions which are now becoming so common. The reason for this credulity is clear: Roman Catholicism and Protestantism, cut off for centuries now from the Orthodox doctrine and practice of spiritual life, have lost all capability for clear discernment in the realm of spirits. The absolutely essential Christian quality of distrust of one’s “good” ideas and feelings has become totally foreign to them. As a result, “spiritual” experiences and apparitions of spirits have become perhaps more common today than at any other time in the Christian era, and a gullible mankind is prepared to accept a theory of a “new age” of spiritual wonders, or a “new outpouring of the Holy Spirit,” in order to explain this fact. So spiritually impoverished has mankind become, imagining itself to be “Christian” even while preparing for the age of demonic “miracles” that is a sign of the last times (Apocalypse 16:14).

Orthodox Christians themselves, it should be added, while theoretically being in possession of the true Christian teaching, are seldom aware of it, and often are as easily deceived as the non-Orthodox. It is time for this teaching to be recovered by those whose birthright it is!

Those who are now describing their “after-death” experiences reveal themselves to be as trusting of their experiences as any who have been led astray in the past; in all the contemporary literature on this subject, there are extremely few cases where a person seriously stops to question whether at least part of the experience might be from the devil. The Orthodox reader, of course, will ask this question and try to understand these experiences in the light of the spiritual teaching of the Orthodox Fathers and Saints.

Now we must go on and see what specifically happens to the soul, according to Orthodox teaching, when it leaves the body at death and enters into the realm of spirits.