The Spiritual Tradition in Eastern Christianity: Ascetic Psychology, Mystical Experience, and Physical Practices 9042932848, 9789042932845

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David T. BRADFORD

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THE SPIRITUAL TRADITION IN EASTERN CHRISTIANITY

STUDIES IN SPIRITUALITY SUPPLEMENTS Edited by Kees Waaijman — Hein Blommestijn — Inigo Bocken Titus Brandsma Institute — Nijmegen — The Netherlands

TITUS BRANDSMA INSTITUTE STUDIES IN SPIRITUALITY Supplement 26

tHe SBIR VAL TRADITION AN FAS TERN CHRISTIANITY

Ascetic Psychology, Mystical Experience, and Physical Practices by David T. Bradford

PEETERS LEUVEN - PARIS - BRISTOL, CT 2016

© 2016, Peeters, Bondgenotenlaan 153, B-3000 Leuven

ISBN 978-90-429-3284-5 D/2016/0602/126

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‘Hold tight, for this is where we climb up’. The Divine Comedy (Inferno XXXIV, 82)

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Preface

1

Chapter 1 — The Powers of the Soul 1.1 The Incensive Power 1.2 The Desiring Power 1.3. The Intellect 1.4 Image and Archetype 1.5 Brightly Shining Mind

he 9 10 iB: 14 15

Chapter 2 — The Heart 2.1 Spiritual Anatomy 2.2 Hesychast Prayer 2.3. Four Phases of Prayer

17 18 18 20

2.4

ea

Intracorporeal Space

2.5

Posture and Respiration

24

2.6

Attention

29

2.7 2.8

Two Patterns of Autonomic Arousal Parallels in Other Traditions

31 36

2.9

The Influence of Sufism

40

Chapter 3 — The Luminous Presence 3.1 Properties of the Luminous Presence 3.2 The Hesychast Controversy 3.3. Divine and Demonic Visions 3.4 Four Kinds of Luminous Visions 3.5 Focal-Extracorporeal Light 3.6 Global-Extracorporeal Light 3.7. Corporeal Light 3.8 Intracorporeal Light 3.9

A Complex Visionary Experience

3.10 Chromatic Visionary Light 3.11 Visionary Light and Divine Omnipresence Chapter 4 — Sleep, Dreams, and Prayer 4.1 Prayer During Sleep 4.2 Sleep Deprivation

45 45 53 57 59 65 69 71 78 79

81 84 93 94 100

VII

4.3 4.4 4.5 4.6 4.7

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Dream Interpretation Visions and Revelations While Asleep

Illustration of Prayer While Dreaming Illustration of Mystical Experience While Asleep Dreamless Sleep and Mystical Experience

104 108 110 1d? 121

Chapter 5 — The Spiritual Senses 5.1 Spiritual Perception 5.2 Sensory Perception 5.3. One and Many 5.4 Mystical Synesthesia 5.5 Spiritual Odor 5.6 Smell and Demonic Entrapment

127 129 136 137 139 141 154

Chapter 6 — The Passions 6.1 Eight Dispositions 6.2 The Five Hindrances

161 161 165

6.3 6.4 6.5 6.6

The Constructing Activities The Demons Anchorite and Cenobite Psychotherapy of the Passions

168 170 175 178

6.7 6.8

Illustration of Evagrian Psychotherapy Demons, Delirium, and Migraine

187 188

Chapter 7 — Stillness and Dispassion 7.1. The Delicacy of Stillness 7.2 Nipsis and Attention 7.3 Nipsis and Emotion 7.4 Nipsis and Memory 7.5 The Permanence of Dispassion 7.6 A Dispassionate ‘Fool’

195 197 199 202 204 206 208

Chapter 8 — Acedia 8.1 Depleted Fervor 8.2 Acedia and Physical Symptoms

217 217 219

Chapter 9 — Pride and Vainglory 9.1 Vainglory and Social Display 9.2 Clothing and Other Possessions 9.3. Vainglory and Cognition 9.4 A Psychosis of Pride and Vainglory

223 223 225 226 aay

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Chapter 10 — Fornication 10.1 Morbid Defluxions 10.2 Intoxication and Sexual Fantasy 10.3. Fornication and Sense-Desire

Chapter 11 — Gluttony 11.1 Diverse Expressions of Gluttony 11.2 Fasting 11.3 A Syndrome of Ascetic Fasting 11.4 The Precedence of Gluttony over Fornication

11.5 The Desire for Immortality

IX Zoi 231 234 235

237 9237 238 242 243 245

Chapter 12 — Physical Practices 12.1 Surface and Depth Interventions 12.2 Discomfort and Pain 12.3. The Prostration 12.4 Face, Eyes, and Gaze

247 248 on 255 258

Chapter 13 — Evagrius on Impassioned Mental Activity 13.1 Thoughts 13.2 Illustration of Objective Perception

263 263 265

Chapter 14 — Images of Bodily Corruption 14.1 The Buddhist Meditation on Foulness

14.2 The Ascetic Utility of Raw Emotion

24 272 277

Chapter 15 — Maximos on Impassioned Mental Activity 15.1 Conceptual Images 15.2 Illustration of Objective Perception

279 219 282

Chapter 16 — Religious Weeping

285 286 288 289 Pa)

16.1 16.2 16.3 16.4

Tears Weeping Isaac the Syrian on Tears Permanent Autonomic Change

Chapter 17 — The Body in Dreams and Fantasy 17.1 The Imaginal Body 17.2 A Principle of Mental Transformation

299 Pash 302

x

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Chapter 18 — The Deified Body 18.1 The Flesh 18.2 Weightiness 18.3 Illusory Movement 18.4 Weightiness and Cosmology

305 309 310 eh 317

Chapter 19 — The Remembrance of Death 19.1 Fear and Love 19.2 An Imaginal Practice 19.3 The Thought of Death 19.4 Change in the Practice 19.5 An Imitation of Christ

321 321 322 O23 326 328

Chapter 20 — Three Forms of Mystical Experience

331 331 ap 336 ee

20.1 Near-Absorption 20.2 The Ecstatic Vision

20.3 The Imageless Grasp 20.4 Mystical Experience in Temporal Perspective Chapter 21 — Maximos on Dispassion and Deification 21,1

Eros

21.2 Preliminary Dispassions 21.3 Advanced Dispassions

21.4 Inhibition of Perceptual Experience 21.5

Deification

349 350 352 355 356 358

References

361

Appendices

395

Appendix Appendix Appendix Appendix Appendix

Index

A: B: C: D: E:

Sources and Terms Ascetic Theologians Biographical Chronology of Symeon the New Theologian Visionary Mysticism in Symeon the New Theologian Deification and Cognitive Inhibition in Maximos the Confessor

eed 401 403 409

415 419

PREFACE

Ascetic psychology tefers to a body of conceptual teachings that has been taught and embraced by ascetics. This is a psychology of radical personal transformation that extends to the limit of the humanly possible. It is an applied psychology allied with a program of mental and behavioral interventions. One of its main purposes is to expose the passions that stir the body and inform the sense of personal identity. Ascetic psychology serves spiritual goals of the highest order and provides objective reference points to measure the effectiveness of its application. Two of its principal reference points are the psychosomatic condition of dispassion and the mystical experience of deification. Ascetic psychology is centuries old. New developments have been variations on old themes, and old themes have undergone refinements and shifts in emphasis without their original shapes dissolving. Continuity in the area of direct experience accounts for such coherence, which has been guided but not determined strictly by the transmission of ideas. Ascetic psychology is represented in two bodies of theory, which I call Christian-Platonist Psychology and Christian Process Psychology. In the first, ideas and aspirations native to the Platonist tradition have been adapted to the devotional, penitential, and theistic orientation of the Christian faith. A leading

example is Plato’s concept of the tripartite division of the soul. The Platonist psychology is the most speculative, systematic, and widely embraced of the two theories. The process psychology evolved between the fourth and eighth centuries, and then partly faded from use.' It must be reconstructed from writings in which virtuoso ascetics report observations based on introspection and ascetic practice. The process psychology delineates serial change in the form and content of mental activity over brief intervals of time, beginning with subliminal impulses that initiate streams of feelings, thoughts, and images. It is applied in media res when introspection reveals mental content and the ascetic must act to shape or inhibit it. Unless it is turned from its habitual course, mental process binds the inattentive ascetic to the passions and obscures the true nature of objects. The Platonist psychology provides a structural model of the soul. The 1

D.T. Bradford, ‘Comparable process psychologies in Eastern Christianity and Early Buddhism’, in: Chromatikon VII: Yearbook ofPhilosophy in Process (2011), 87-102.

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process psychology describes the pattern of change that animates mental life. The theories are complementary rather than contrary. They share terms, concepts, and goals. In good measure, this is due to the formative influence of Evagrius Ponticus, the great fourth-century ascetic and mystical theologian. The dived ascetic life is not a stepwise course of irreversible stages. It is a recursive path and a progressively refined struggle in which the repetitive and the familiar are balanced with the novel and the creative. Its complexity and unpredictability resist schematic interpretations. Nevertheless, I will set the book’s five main themes in a simple narrative that portrays the desirable and general direction of the ascetic life as lived over years or decades. The first theme is the soul, the second is the passions, and the third, fourth, and fifth are asceticism, dispassion, and deification. The ascetic faces the refractory problem of a disorganized and troubled soul. He is subject to deviations from the kinds of behavior and mental activity that promote virtue, spiritual knowledge, and presence of mind.” His problem is the passions. In order to address and possibly overcome the problem, he applies special interventions that have the power to inhibit and modify the passions. These interventions are the mental and behavioral strategies and routines of ascetic practice. His goal in applying the interventions is to establish a superbly balanced condition called dispassion. This new status quo of the mind and the body is conducive to several forms of mystical experience, first among which is deification. The book includes many studies in which I compare ascetic and mystical experiences in Eastern Christianity and those reported in several non-Christian traditions. Most of the comparisons draw on early Buddhism as represented in the Pali scriptures of the Theravada tradition. I have also developed neuropsychological interpretations that identify physical processes that may contribute to the occurrence of certain ascetic and mystical experiences. The causal implications of these interpretations have little bearing on the evident meaning and profundity of the experiences in question. I view the neuropsychological interpretations as a rigorous form of description that takes shape based on the methodological principles and the materialistic presuppositions of empirical science. In some instances, the interpretations have persuasive explanatory power. In most

cases, they provide ancillary details that help to promote a relatively comprehensive understanding of the phenomena in question. A primary goal of my method *

Apart from Amma Theodora, Shirin, and Hildegard of Bingen, the dozens of ascetics discussed in the book are men. For this reason I typically use masculine pronouns when referring to ascetics in general. For women ascetics in early asceticism and in the Byzantine period, see S. Elm, ‘Virgins of God’: The making ofasceticism in late antiquity, Oxford: Clarendon, 1994; S.P. Brock & A.S. Harvey, Holy women of the Syrian Orient, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1987; and A.-M. Talbot, Holy women ofByzantium: Ten saints’ lives in English translation, Washington, DC: Dumbarton Oaks, 1996.

PREFACE

3

is comprehensive, multidisciplinary description. The neuropsychological explanations are subsumed in the broader project of developing an ever-deepening understanding of the spiritual phenomena of interest.> This requires the use of several technical lexicons and sometimes involves implicit appeals to irreconcilable theoretical assumptions. Certain strands of description may conflict with others, which heightens conceptual tension and enhances the range of understanding. Intersecting interpretations create illuminating patterns and may release intuitions that bind seemingly divergent strands of description. I am systematic when writing on topics that can be framed systematically, but I refuse to force conceptual closure on experiences that surpass the reach of reasoning and exceed the limit of common feeling. The book’s phenomenological orientation is reflected in the extensive use of quotations from primary ascetic and mystical texts. I would like the ascetics to speak for themselves, so there are a great number of quotations. J am aware that empathy and labor are required to adapt current understandings of the mind and the brain to the ascetics’ manner of life and the extraordinary nature of their experiences. The phenomenological analysis of primary texts promotes such an adaptation, a task that is helped by appeals to current psychological theories. Primary texts are the base material of the book’s phenomenological analyses,

and these analyses become the subject matter of its neuropsychological interpretations. I would say that ascetic psychology can provide emotional resilience and intellectual discernment in facing the personal consequences of present dangers. Among the dangers are terrorism, irrational financial markets, unguarded atomic and biological weapons, and incurable diseases that fly by plane across oceans and continents. Globalization intensifies these dangers and increases the speed of their development. Utopian fantasies of endless growth clash with the atavistic recurrence of the most primitive forms of violence. A subtle danger is the pandemic of psychological dissociation resulting from widespread immersion in virtual reality and the addictive use of communication technologies. Our time in history seems an elaborately masked, marginally restrained chaos, which has 3

The distinction between ‘explanation’ and ‘understanding’ (verstehen) is a prominent concern

in phenomenological psychology, psychiatry, and philosophy, e.g., K. Jaspers, General psychopathology (trans. J. Hoenig & M.W. Hamilton), Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1963; H. Spiegelberg, Phenomenology in psychology and psychiatry: A historical introduction, Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 1972; E.W. Straus, Phenomenological psychology: The selected papers of Erwin W. Straus (trans. E. Eng), New York: Basic Books, 1966; and G. Thines, Phe-

nomenology and the science of behavior, London: Allen & Unwin, 1977. Briefly, ‘explanation’ is concerned with physical mechanisms and processes and the empirical determination of the cause of overt change. ‘Understanding’ is based on scholarly learning in the human sciences and admits empathic engagement as a source of information.

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affected the natural world in causing irreversible and eventually catastrophic climate change. Statements of this kind may be considered inappropriate in a scholarly and scientific work that attempts to set new standards in a thriving field and seeks to show ascetic psychology in a uniquely informed light. Such statements may invite charges of antiquarianism or sanctimoniousness, or suggest

a stance of fearful withdrawal with hints of apocalyptic thinking. The devil’s advocate of my ‘Cassandra’ might ask: Is ascetic psychology not moralistic and benighted to the extent of confusing facts and fantasy? Are the ascetics not purveyors of pre-modern social and historical realities, and nothing more? Have they not dressed the pathologies of masochism, denial, and delusion in religious

clichés? Do their claims not rise to the level of psychosis in reports of mystical experience? One response to these rhetorical questions is the book itself. Another is the fable of the outbound passengers who believe the houses on shore are actually shrinking as their rudderless ship is drawn into the tidal furor of night.

CHAPTER 1

THE POWERS OF THE SOUL

The soul is a system formed of three powers. The incensive power is responsible for anger and irritability and for positive attributes such as perseverance in meeting difficult challenges. The desiring power is appetitive in nature, as reflected in its drive-like characteristics and mediation of hunger and libido. The spiritual power is the intellect, which mediates virtuous intentions and inspires ascetic fervor. The desiring and the incensive powers blunt the force of the intellect and obscure its moral guidance. Their unchecked activity brings disorder to the soul and results in the ascetic’s subjection to the passions and alienation from God. The optimal psychological condition involves their working in concord under the spiritual direction of the intellect. In subduing the desiring and the incensive powers, the ascetic promotes the intellect’s dominance.! The concept of the tripartite soul was adopted from Plato, as was a second way of dividing the soul in which the desiring and the incensive powers are grouped as its passible aspect. The passible powers are impressionable and responsive to worldly contingencies. Nikitas Stithatos wrote: “The tripartite deiform soul possesses two aspects, the one noetic [intellectual] and the other

passible’.? The soul is deiform in being a divine creation. Gregory Palamus developed the point: “The soul by virtue of its creation as a deiform and intellective entity possesses an intrinsic power of desire and an intrinsic incensive power’ (227). Not only is the soul divine at its point of origin; its divine nature '

For the tripartite division of the soul and a discussion of power, see appendix A, which also includes a list of ascetic terms in English and in their original languages. Apart from several exceptions, only the English translations are used in the text. The terms are italicized when first used and not thereafter. The names and dates of the ascetics discussed or quoted in the book are listed in appendix B. In citing parts of the book, the chapter number is given first, followed by the section number in parentheses. For example, ‘ch. 4(5)’ refers to section 5 of chapter 4.

2

G.E.H. Palmer, P. Sherrard, & K. Ware (Trans.), The Philokalia: The complete text compiled

by St. Nikodimos of the Holy Mountain and St. Makarios of Corinth. Vol. 4, London: Faber &

Faber, 1995, 141. From this point, the P/ilokalia will be referred to as Phil., followed by the

volume number and the page citation.

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can be realized in this life when the passible powers conform with the intellect rather than resist its guidance. The passible powers mediate pain and pleasure. Maximos wrote: “The dominion of pleasure and pain clearly applies to what is passible in human nature’ (Phil. 2, 246). He spoke of a ‘pleasure-pain syndrome’ in which the two hedonic tones oscillate, and pain is the ultimate winner: Humans have ‘submitted to the syndrome of pleasure freely chosen, followed by pain imposed against one’s will’ (244, 246). The ascetic must ‘fight unremittingly against pleasure and distress’

(233). The ensuing struggle prepares the soul for a pleasure “beyond nature’: ‘the divine and inconceivable pleasure which God naturally produces in those found worthy of being united with Him through grace’ (240). The absence of grace is itself painful: an ‘indescribable pain brought about by the privation of such pleasure’ (240).?

Vital needs are imposed and satisfied through the passible powers, which are also responsible for the decline and the corruption of the body. Nikitas wrote: It is by this aspect that the soul fosters nutrition and growth; and in this way it breathes the air, experiences cold and heat, and receives sustenance for self-pres-

ervation, life, growth, and health. (Phil. 4, 117)

The bodily effect of the powers may be good or ill depending on the individual’s moral disposition. Gregory of Sinai wrote: ‘Inner disposition changes outward nature, and acts of moral choice alter the way that nature functions’ (243).

Physical health depends on the powers’ conformity with virtue. Philotheos wrote: ‘All the commandments of the Gospel legislate for the tripartite soul and make it healthy through what they enjoin. They not merely seem to make it healthy, but they actually have this effect’ (Phil. 3, 21). The soul sustains the organism. Its relationship with the physical body is analogous to God’s relationship with His creation. Maximos wrote: As God does with respect to the whole of creation, so does the soul with respect to the body: it energizes and impels each member of the body in accordance with the energy intrinsic to that member.‘ (227)

The soul is intrinsically psychosomatic. >

For a comparison of the role of suffering in the Philokalia and in several modern forms of psychotherapy, see C.C.H. Cook, “Healing, psychotherapy, and the Philokalia’, in: B. Bingaman & B. Nassif (Eds.), The Philokalia: A classic text of Orthodox spirituality, New York: Oxford University Press, 2012, 230-239. Maximos’s analogy recalls the Timaeus, in which the demiurge creates a universe animated with a soul. Hartshorne reworked Plato’s image and, like Maximos, likened God’s relationship with the world to the soul’s relationship with the body; see C. Hartshorne, Man’s vision of God, and the logic of theism, Chicago: Willett, Clark and Co., 1941.

THE POWERS

OF THE SOUL

3

Excessive stimulation of the passible powers has predictable consequences. Maximos wrote: “When the desiring aspect of the soul is frequently excited, it implants in the soul a habit of self-indulgence’ (Phil. 2, 77). Continued selfindulgence leads to “distress and pain’ (76). In comparison, ‘when the incensive power grows strong, it imagines things that cause fear’, and when it is ‘constantly stimulated, it becomes in the end cowardly and unmanly’ (77). These are different results, although each is caused by excessive stimulation and ends in a vicious circle. Excessive stimulation of the desiring power promotes a kind of addiction, ‘a habit of self-indulgence’ (77). Prolonged activity of the incensive

power leads to a paranoid response when fear and cowardice give way to the countervailing feelings of anger, hatred, and unreasonable competitiveness, which may later stimulate another round of fear and cowardice. The passible powers operate in the visible world of the material order, the fallen world of ordinary experience. The body is a creature at home in this world when it succumbs to undisciplined passible powers. The intellect is native to the invisible world of spiritual realities, which is superior for its immaterial nature. The distinction between the passible powers and the intellect represents a dualistic cut through the soul that mirrors the metaphysical arrangement of the cosmos. Its precedent is Plato’s ‘two-world ontology’.’ In his Phaedo, the body corresponds with the ‘seen’ and the soul corresponds with the ‘not seen’, where ‘seen’ refers to what is ‘perceived through the senses’. “When using the body as an instrument of perception’, Socrates tells Cebes, ‘the soul is dragged by the body into the regions of the changeable, and wanders and is confused; the world spins around her, and she is like a drunkard when under their influence’.’

What Socrates said about the body the Christian ascetic would say about the disturbance caused by the passible powers. Evagrius may have read Socrates’s instruction; he said the intellect ‘wanders when impassioned’.® ‘From the beginning’, wrote Symeon the New Theologian, ‘God created two worlds, the visible and the invisible’.? The worlds are sharply divided:

‘The immaterial is separated from the material. It has no place, being

>

6

J.D.G. Evans, A Plato primer, Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2010, 81.

B. Jowett (Trans.), The Apology, Phaedo and Crito ofPlato (The Harvard Classics. Vol. Il, Part 1, ed. C.W. Eliot), New York: Collier & Son, 1909-1914, para. 303, 305, 311. Accessible at:

www.bartleby.com/2/1. 7 Jowett, The Apology, Phaedo and Crito of Plato, para. 311. 8

Kephalaia Gnostika 1.85, from: L. Dysinger (Trans.), St. Evagrius Ponticus (345-399): Gnostikos [GPG 2431] and Kephalaia Gnostika (1990). Accessible at: http://www.l|dysinger.com/ Evagrius/ 02_Gno-Keph/00a_start.htm.

9 J.A. McGuckin (Trans.), Symeon the New Theologian: The practical and theological chapters and the three theological discourses, Kalamazoo, MI: Cistercian Publications, 1982, 69.

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illimitable’.!° ‘There is no full union or understanding or communion between the two [worlds], either from the intelligible to the sensible, or from the sen-

sible to the intelligible’.!! The worlds are not entirely irreconcilable, although each obscures awareness of the other. Symeon wrote:

7

When the mind moves from visible realities to those that cannot be seen, no

longer resting in sensible things but in those that transcend the senses, then this makes us oblivious to all that we have left behind.!”

Similarly, spiritual entities are indiscernible when one rests in sensible things. Isaac the Syrian wrote: ‘Every thing that is above another [in belonging to a higher, spiritual order] is concealed from what is beneath it’.’° The passible powers are bound to material contingencies. What meets the senses and satisfies basic needs is their main point of focus. The passible powers can be mollified and trained, and their expressions can be delayed, but these effects will be in the service of goals whose realization can be conceived or imagined in the present. In contrast, the intellect is an intrinsic standard of virtue. It monitors the passible powers through the lens of eternal verities and causes the ascetic to consider himself and his circumstances independently of immediate material contingencies. In this respect, the activity of the intellect is like the cognitive process called metacognition, which provides abstract, relatively objective perspectives on present mental activity.!4 The intellect tests present behavior against its value at Christ’s return and the imposition of the final judgment. The timing and the outcome of these events are unknown, and the nature of afterlife existence is obscure: ‘Scripture has declared to us that the good things to come are incomprehensible, and have no similarity to anything here’.!* The intellect points the ascetic toward the end of time. Its operations span a trajectory whose terminus is mysterious. The intellect and the passible powers operate in accord with different temporal parameters. '0 G.A. Maloney (Trans.), Hymns of divine love by St. Symeon the New Theologian, Denville, NJ: Dimension, 1976, 200.

"' McGuckin, Symeon the New Theologian, 69. % Thid., 56. Holy Transfiguration Monastery, The ascetical homilies of Saint Isaac the Syrian (2" ed.), Brookline, MA: Holy Transfiguration Monastery, 2011, 252. J.H. Flavell, “Metacognition and cognitive monitoring: A new area of cognitive-developmental inquiry’, in: American Psychologist 34 (1979), 906-911; D. Fernandez-Duque, J.A. Baird, & M.I. Posner, “Executive attention and metacognitive regulation’, in: Consciousness and Cognition 9 (2000), 288-307; R.F. Jarman, J. Vavrik, & P.D. Walton, ‘Metacognitive and frontal lobe

processes: At the interface of cognitive psychology and neuropsychology’, in: Genetic, Social, and General Psychology Monographs 121 (1995), no.2; T.W. Schmitz, T.N. Kawahara-Baccus, &

S.C. Johnson, ‘Metacognitive evaluation, self-relevance, and the right prefrontal cortex’, in: Neuroimage 22 (2004), 941-947.

Isaac the Syrian, The ascetical homilies [Holy Transfiguration Monastery], 121.

THE POWERS

OF THE SOUL

9

Conflict among the powers is characteristic of human psychology and creates the need for ascetic practice. The convergence of the passible powers under the sway of the intellect is an inspired condition sought through the routines of mental and physical asceticism. A most valuable outcome of their convergence is dispassion: a primary goal of ascetic practice and the psychological condition that anticipates the experience of deification.!® Deification fulfills the promise implied in Athanasius’s dictum: ‘God became man that we may be made gods’.!7 A scriptural precedent of the dictum is a verse in Psalms: “You are gods, all of you sons of the Most High’ (82:6). The verse reappears in words attributed to Jesus: ‘Is it not written in your laws, “I have said, You are gods”? (Jn 10:34).

1.1 The Incensive Power

The incensive power in full display makes a person ‘angry without calculation’.'® Gregory of Sinai mentioned its expressions of ‘shouting, bad temper, [...] conceit, and boastfulness’ (Phil. 4, 226). The incensive power mediates competitiveness, combat furor, and the need and feeling of honor, possibly at the cost of

social cohesion and the well-being of others. The risks of the incensive power include irrationality and emotional disturbance, which destroy self-possession and ruin opportunities for prayer. The unchecked incensive power leads to morally rudderless behavior. The incensive power promotes the positive characteristics of courage, heroism, and perseverance. It provides the ascetic with ‘patient endurance of the tribulations of the flesh’.'? It acts as a constraining force during experiences that would otherwise jeopardize the coherence of personal identity and reduce the motive force of the intellect. Intoxication and strong emotion are two examples. Pleasure weakens and can erase the sense of personal identity; the incensive power acts in opposition to preserve its stability. The incensive power promotes fearlessness in combating demons and in resisting impassioned mental activity.“? Diadochos wrote: ‘A controlled incensive power is a weapon implanted in our nature by God’ (Phil. 1, 272). Evagrius 16 N. Russell, The doctrine of deification in the Greek patristic tradition, New York: Oxford Uni-

versity Press, 2004. 17 A. Robertson (Ed.), Select writings and letters ofAthanasius, Bishop ofAlexandria. Vol. 4, Series 2: Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1957, 65.

18 G.M.A. Grube & C.D.C. Reeve (Trans.), Plato: Republic, Indianapolis, IN: Hackett, 1992, 117.

'9 Isaac the Syrian, The ascetical homilies, 123. 20 For Christian demonology, see ch. 4(5), 6(4, 8), 17. For demons in the Greek and the Roman worlds, see G. Luck, Arcana Mundi: Magic and occult in the Greek and Roman worlds, Balti-

more, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1985.

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wrote: ‘The nature of the irascible power is to fight against the demons and to struggle over any sort of pleasure’.*! Hesychios referred to the incensive power in saying that the ascetic engaged in ‘spiritual warfare [...] should possess the power of rebuttal so that, whenever he recognizes the devil, he may at once repulse him angrily’ (PAil. 1, 165). Nikitas advised ascetics to take advantage of ‘an opportunity for the incensive and virile aspect of the soul to prove its mettle by reacting with wrath and violence against the demons that threaten it formidably’ (Phil. 4, 105). If demons should adopt ‘a perceptible appearance’, one should ‘actually strike back at them’ (105). Theodoros viewed the incensive power as a compelling force that rouses the body and focuses the mind as the ascetic presses toward ‘purification from vicious habits’ and the ‘acquisition of the virtues’ (Phil. 2, 38). The power

encourages ‘continuous striving toward primal goodness’, a lodestar discerned through the intellect (38). It is felt as “an energetic and effective impulsion

toward the objects of aspiration, persistent, relentless, and unarrested by any practical difficulty, pressing forward impetuously and undeviatingly’ (38).

1.2 The Desiring Power

The desiring power conveys sensory impressions and serves emotional and bodily gratification. It motivates the pursuit of appetitive objects and shapes social behavior directed toward material rewards. Its medium, wrote Maximos, is ‘sensual pleasure, which is intricate, convoluted and intertwined in many ways

with every sensory object’ (Phil. 2, 199). Suffering serves ascetic goals in halting the desiring power’s momentum. To an extent, suffering is spiritually advantageous: ‘He who longs for the true life knows that all suffering, whether sought or unsought, brings death to sensual pleasure, the mother of death’ (198-199).

But suffering is not a final goal; both suffering and pleasure vitiate dispassion. Beneficial expressions of the desiring power in ordinary life are not often mentioned, consistent with the tradition’s ascetic orientation. Theodoros, in listing

the power’s ‘virtues’ when it is governed by the intellect, spoke of ‘love, selfrestraint and self-control’ (18).

Gregory of Sinai described an affective syndrome caused by the desiring power. He called it ‘the energy of delusion’: The energy of delusion is the passion for sin, inflaming the soul with thoughts of sensual pleasure and arousing phrenetic desire in the body for intercourse with other bodies [...]. It is entirely amorphous and disordered, inducing a mindless 21

R.E. Sinkewicz, Evagrius ofPontus: The Greek ascetic corpus, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003, 102.

THE POWERS OF THE SOUL

Aba

joy, presumption and confusion, accompanied by a mood of ill-defined sterile levity, and fomenting above all the soul’s appetitive power with its sensuality. It nourishes itself on pleasure, aided and abetted by the insatiable belly [...] so that little by little the disposition to self-indulgence expels all grace from the person thus possessed. (Phil. 4, 262)

Apart from its moral emphasis, Gregory’s description is like a clinical outline of the symptoms of mania. The analogy is consistent with the desiring power" S mediation of emotion and mood.” Diadochos described an emotional condition like Gregory’s ‘energy of delusion’ (Phil. 4, 262). Its effects include a mood of ‘seductive sweetness’ in which ‘joy, amorphous and disordered’, disorganizes the mind (262). Diadochos called

this condition ‘the illusion of grace’ and said it occurs in the liminal state when the ascetic attempts prayer before falling asleep. Its occurrence is coordinated with sleep pressure and possibly the breakthrough of REM-related emotion. Diadochos’s ‘illusion of grace’ is a parasomnia; Gregory’s ‘energy of delusion’ is an affective syndrome (Phil. 4, 262; Phil. 1, 262). The similarity of their descriptions suggests that comparable brain states are present in the two conditions.

1.3 The Intellect

The intellect is a moral light and the source of virtuous intentions. It is the point where God intersects the soul. Symeon the New Theologian wrote: “The intellect is immaterial and bodiless. When contained not by walls but by the divine Spirit, it is firmly established in its natural condition and converses with God’.”? Gregory of Sinai said the ‘intellect expresses itself through consciousness’ (Phil. 4,

218). Nikitas highlighted the conscious nature of intellectual activity: “For the image of God is the noetic soul, the intellect and the consciousness, which form one indivisible nature’ (141). The ‘noetic soul’ is the consciously active intellect

and the medium of intellectual insight into spiritual realities. The ascetic allows the intellect to rule the soul through resisting the cravings engendered by the passible powers. Guided by the intellect, the soul arrives at unity, coherence, and single-pointed attention on God. Maximos said the ascetic 22 For the potential religious signifcance of mania, see D.T. Bradford, ‘A therapy of religious imagery for paranoid schizophrenic psychosis’, in: M.H. Spero (Ed.), Psychotherapy of the religious patient, Springfield, IL: Thomas, 1985, 154-180; and D. Lukoff, “Transpersonal perspectives on manic psychosis: Creative, visionary, and mystical states’, in: Journal of Transpersonal Psychology 20 (1988), 111-139.

23 A. Golitzin, St. Symeon the New Theologian. On the mystical life: The ethical discourses. Vol. 2: On virtue and Christian life, Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir's Seminary Press, 1996, 177.

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disposed in this manner has ‘reintegrated himself with his own being’ (PAil. 2, 196). His point was recapitulated centuries later when Palamus advocated the ‘reconvergence of all the soul’s powers in the intellect’ (Phil. 4, 319). The ascetic enjoys re-integration and re-convergence.”4 He does not arrive at the wholly new but is restored to psychological conformity with God, which is the native condition of human nature. The ascetic circles back to recover the condition of the soul prior to its adulteration with passions. Peter of Damaskos mentioned the opposite condition in describing the demonic force of the passions: ‘For all that the demons produce is disorderliness’ (Phil. 3, 206). The reconvergence of the

powers is a process of simplification in which the disordered soul is composed in states of self-recollection. On this basis, impassioned mental content is deflected or inhibited, and virtuous intentions arise spontaneously.”” The intellect both compels and draws mental process toward higher degrees of integration. In this life, perfect coherence is a form of knowledge, a transient state in which the

intellect reveals the presence of God. The intellect enables the ascetic to discern in scripture the thread of narrative unity whose inflexion points are the creation, the Incarnation, and Christ’s return. In recognizing the plan of salvation, the ascetic knows his place in the unfolding of time.*° A principal method of scriptural exegesis has been the interpretation of metaphors and symbols whose meanings intersect to show how providence is active in history and the natural world.”” A meditative state of mind enhances the intellect’s interpretive power and is conducive to forms of mystical experience initiated through scriptural study. Isaac the Syrian wrote: Those who in their way of life are led by divine grace to be enlightened are always aware of something like a noetic ray of light running between the lines [of scripture and other religious texts], which enables the mind to distinguish words spoken simply from those spoken with great meaning for the soul’s enlightenment.?®

24 ‘Recony ergence’ ’ and and ‘reintegration’ ‘rei ion’ are reminiscent ini Plotinus’ concept of eh ‘turning’ ing’ (epistro(epi of f Plotinus’s phe), which Cox described as ‘a looking within that is a return to our true selves’ (P. Cox,

Biography in late antiquity: A quest for the holy man, Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1983, 120). 25

Methods for deflecting and inhibiting undesirable mental content are addressed in Christian process psychology (see Bradford, ‘Comparable process psychologies in Eastern Christianity and Early Buddhism’).

26

E. Cousins, “The fourfold senses of scripture in Christian mysticism’, in: $.T. Katz (Ed.),

Mysticism and sacred scripture, New York: Oxford University Press, 2000, 118-137. ” A.N. Wilder, Early Christian rhetoric: The language of the Gospel, Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 197-1 28

Isaac the Syrian, The ascetical homilies [Holy Transfiguration Monastery], 117.

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Intellectual activity can surpass abstract verbal reasoning. Its higher reaches differ from theological discourse; its expressions in individual cases may engage such discourse hardly at all. Ascetics have stressed these points in different ways. Gregory of Sinai said: “Mere skill in reasoning does not make a person’s intelligence pure’; ‘apodictic skill is not a matter of verbal dexterity’ (Phil. 4, 212, 245). Gregory Palamus wrote: “Theology is as far from the vision of God, and as distinct from intimate conversation with God, as knowledge is from possession; to say something about God is not equivalent to a meeting with God’.”® Isaac the Syrian said the ascetic is not ‘a vendor of words’.°° Intellectual activity is emotionally colored and delivers insight with the certainty and suddenness of intuitive knowledge. Similarly, sensory perception delivers its content immediately, and thus the characterization of the intellect as a spiritual ‘sense’. Plotinus made this point in saying that the intellect ‘seems like a thing of sense because it is immediately perceived’! The intellect is the means of perceiving and feeling the manifold presences, forces, and processes of the invisible world. The spiritual realities composing this world were variously conceived, within somewhat narrow margins. Evagrius, in describing natural contemplation, was systematic in outlining a hierarchical cosmic arrangement that culminates in stellar forces and angelic principles.°? Maximos adopted ‘principles’ and also spoke of ‘archetypal realities’ that subsist in ‘the realm of intelligible realities [accessible] by means of contemplation’

(Phil. 2, 197). The philosophical erudition apparent in Evagrius’s and Maximos’s presentations is absent from the bulk of ascetic writings. “Presences’ and ‘forces’ are better suited than ‘principles’ to convey the composition of the invisible world as it has been experienced by most ascetics. Philosophical training can bias description of the invisible world toward abstract and systematic presentations. Polemical intent can sharpen the bias. But erudition and philosophical training are not an impassible divide that determines the way the invisible world is experienced and described. Folk belief, scriptural imagery, and the archetypal imagination have been influential. Evagrius was no less serious about demons than the principles that order ‘the worlds that have been or will be’.*°

29 Cited in J. Meyendorff, A study of Gregory Palamus, Yonkers, NY: St. Vladimir's Seminary Press, 1998, 168.

30 Tsaac the Syrian, The ascetical homilies [Holy Transfiguration Monastery], 147. 31 J. Katz, The philosophy ofPlotinus: Representative books from The Enneads, New York: AppletonCentury-Crofts, 1950, 146. > 32 D.T. Bradford, ‘Evagrius Ponticus and the psychology of “Natural Contemplation” , in: Studies in Spirituality 22 (2012), 109-125. 33, Evagrius Ponticus, Kephalaia Gnostika 11.30 (Dysinger], part 1.75.

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1.4 Image and Archetype Intellect, image, and archetype have served as points of semantic triangulation that draw on scripture and philosophical sources to sharpen the description of the soul and the content of spiritual experience. The terms have been used interchangeably despite differences in their respective sources and conceptual nuances. The intellect is the image of God, and the image’s exemplar is the divine arche-

type. Gregory Palamus said the intellect is “created in God’s image’, and ascetics whose souls conform with the image ‘are restored to their original state and assimilated to their Archetype’ (Phil. 4, 319, 362). The assimilation is compelled

by the ‘sublime Eros or intense longing’ that the Archetype infuses in the image (362). Such ‘longing is — and is called — the Holy Spirit’ (362). The Spirit medi-

ates the assimilation such that the image mirrors its exemplar. Nikitas wrote: God ‘is primordial Intellect’ and ‘our intellect is an image of God’ (140, 143). ‘Man is created in the image of God [...] by virtue of the spiritual nature of the intellect’ (139-140). It is through the intellect that ‘the

soul communicates with spiritual and divine powers and [...] ascends naturally to God as to its archetype’ (141-142). The ascetic whose soul replicates ‘the divine image [...] is so commixed with God, and God with him, that each

reposes in the other’ (139).

The image of God is dispassionate like its exemplar. Isaac the Syrian wrote: ‘We believe that God created His image passionless — yet I do not mean His image in reference to the body, but to the soul, which is invisible; for every image is taken from a prototype’.** In approximating the image of God, the ascetic attains dispassion.

The ‘image’ and the ‘likeness’ of God have been finely distinguished in theological anthropology.” But the distinction is not emphasized or much elaborated in ascetic writings. For Diadochos, the image is what remains in human nature of its prelapsarian purity. Baptism is instrumental in its cleansing and repair, and Jesus Christ is its perfect realization. The likeness is a closer approximation of God which was lost to humans due to Adam’s disobedience and which is yet attainable through virtuous effort and a mystical experience that Diadochos called ‘the illumination of the Holy Spirit’ (Phil. 1, 288). The ascetic concept of the image of God resembles the concept of the Se/f in Analytical Psychology.*° The Self is the central archetype, the most encompassing *4 Isaac the Syrian, The ascetical homilies [Holy Transfiguration Monastery], 128. *° Gn 1:26; see L. Thunberg, Microcosm and mediator: The theological anthropology of Maximos the Confessor, Chicago: Open Court, 1995. *° C.G. Jung, Psychology and alchemy (The collected works of C.G. Jung. Vol. 12, trans. R.F.C. Hull), Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1968 (orig. publ. 1952); Idem, The archetypes of

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integrative factor of the objective psyche. It is not an outcome of learning or personal effort but an inherent factor that organizes psychological process. It shapes the pattern of psychological change called individuation, which brings subliminal latencies into consciousness as a means of complementing or compensating the ego perspective.*’ Its activity is apparent in both the normal psyche and conditions involving neuropsychological impairment.** Similarly, the image of God inhibits, shapes, and may surpass the ego-oriented motives of the passible powers, allowing spiritual concerns to rule the soul. The disclosure of the Self during individuation promotes wholeness of personality rather than moral perfection. This represents a sharp difference between individuation and a primary goal sought by the ascetic.*? Analysts view the pursuit of moral perfection as self-defeating or potentially harmful because it constellates an evil or destructive factor whose unconscious status is retained to the extent that its negative qualities are projected onto others. The pursuit of moral perfection can engender a compensatory complex called the Shadow, which motivates morally compromised behavior and draws power and autonomy from its archetypal base.*°

1.5 Brightly Shining Mind

The intellect, as conceived in ascetic psychology, has similarities with the Buddhist concept of the mind, which a Western scholar defined as ‘the core of [...]

personality around which all personal processes revolve’.“! Similarly, the intellect the collective unconscious (The collected works of C.G. Jung. Vol. 9, pt 1, trans. R.F.C. Hull),

Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1968 (orig. publ. 1954). 37 CG. Jung, Psychological types (The collected works of C.G. Jung. Vol. 6, trans. R.F.C. Hull),

Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1971 (orig. publ. 1960). 38 [D,T. Bradford, ‘Archetypal hallucinations in brain damage’, in: Quadrant 28 (1998), 63-82;

Idem, ‘Neuropsychology of the archetype of the self, in: Quadrant 34 (2004), 63-81. 3? Analysts have insisted on the difference between the telos of individuation and the religious goal of moral perfection. (See J.P. Dourley, The illness that we are: A Jungian critique of Christianity, Toronto: Inner City, 1984; E.F. Edinger, The new God-image: A study in Jung's key letters concerning the evolution of the Western God-image, Wilmette, IL: Chiron, 1996; E. Neumann, Depth psychology anda new ethic, Boston: Shambhala, 1990 [orig. publ. 1969)).

40 Jung, Psychological types. Jung drew on the phenomenology of the Shadow complex in critiquing the doctrine of the privatio boni: Evil is without substance and is the privation of the good. Jung’s correspondence with the Dominican priest and theologian Victor White takes one deeply into this debate (G. Adler [Ed.], C.G. Jung letters. 1: 1905-1950, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, Vol. 1 [1905-1950] 1973; Vol. 2 [1951-1961] 1975).

41 REA. Johansson, The dynamic psychology of early Buddhism, London: Curzon, 1979, 142. Apart from ‘mind’, other translations of citta include ‘thought’, ‘train of thought’, ‘frame of mind’, ‘mind-set’, and ‘heart.’ ‘Mind’ is problematic for connoting an immutable substance.

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is the source of spiritual values and intentions and the one reliable center amid the change induced by the passible powers. The mind, when brightly shining, can ‘pierce spiritual ignorance, draw knowledge, and realize nibbana provided it is well directed’.4* The ascetic who hones and rightly applies the mind is released from craving.” Similarly, the intellect is the medium of salvific awareness.

The mind is a semi-permanent factor whose activity spans the iterating cycles of personality formation that give rise to the sense of self.“4 It is portrayed in commentaries as a perduring factor that passes from life to life. The persisting nature of the mind recalls the permanency of the intellect, a power whose fullest realization occurs in postmortem existence. Pure intentions and the attitude and practices of penitence are means of disclosing the intellect in its pristine nature. Preceding its clear and persuasive disclosure, the intellect rests in latency like a potentiality awaiting activation. The

analogous concept in Buddhist psychology is /ife-continuum, which is the mind’s resting state in dreamless sleep and between cycles of personality formation.*

42

See RE. Gombrich, How Buddhism began: The conditioned genesis of the early teachings, New Delhi: Munshiram Manoharlal, 1996. P. Harvey, The selfless mind: Personality, consciousness and nirvana in early Buddhism, Richmond Surrey, UK: Curzon Press, 1995, 166.

J.T. Ergardt, “The concept of citta in some early Buddhist texts and Jung’s Analytical Psychology’, in: N. Katz (Ed.), Buddhist and Western psychology, Boulder, CO: Prajna, 1983, 39-68. For ‘personality formation’, see ch. 6(3). “> Harvey, The selfless mind.

CHAPTER 2

THE HEART

The spiritual power is called the Heart. Cassian brought heart-centered spirituality to Gaul after training with Evagrius and other ascetics in Egypt.! Where Evagrius spoke of the ‘intellect’, Cassian used ‘heart’, presumably to hide his sources when Origenist elements in Evagrian theology were viewed as heretical. The likeness of ‘heart’ and ‘intellect’ is apparent from instances of literary parallelism, as when Diadochos wrote: “Grace dwells in the depths of the intellect, while the wicked [demons] cluster round only the outside of the heart’ (Phz/. 1,

263). The terms’ connotations differ when ‘heart’ conveys an emotional resonance and ‘intellect’ refers to the cognitive aspects of spiritual experience. In emphasizing ‘heart’, Cassian identified a stream of spirituality spanning Jewish piety and early Christian monasticism.” The corresponding emotions constitute compunction, which is not a set of independent feelings but an evolving process of psychological and spiritual change.’ The concept of the heart is introduced in the first section of this chapter. Heart-centered hesychast prayer, particularly its verbal aspect, is discussed in the second. Four phases of hesychast prayer are described in the third section. The effect of prayer in establishing an intracorporeal focus of attention is addressed in the fourth. Certain postures and patterns of respiration are recommended elements of heychast prayer; their neuropsychological effects are examined in the fifth section. The role of attention in prayer is addressed from a cognitive perspective in the sixth. The somatic effects of hesychast prayer, particularly in the autonomic nervous system, are examined in the seventh section. In the eighth 1

C, Stewart, Cassian the Monk, New York: Oxford University Press, 1998. Cassian never mentions Evagrius by name, but the timing of his stay in Egypt (from the mid-380s until 399-400) and the locations he visited, as well as his clear reliance on Evagrian teachings, point to his having known personally the great ascetic theologian. Apart from substituting ‘heart’ for ‘intellect’, Cassian replaced the Evagrian term apatheia (‘dispassion’) with puritas cordis (‘purity of heart’). 2H. Waddell, The desert fathers, London: Constable, 1936; B. Ward, The sayings of the desert fathers: The alphabetical collection, London: Mowbray, 1975. 3 J, Hausherr, Penthos: The doctrine of compunction in the Christian East, Kalamazoo, MI: Cistercian Publications, 1982; also ch. 16(1,3).

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section these effects are identified in mystical experiences reported by the English hermit Richard Rolle and the Indian ascetic Ramakrishna. The concluding section is a comparison of the hesychast prayer routine and the practice of silent dhikr taught by the Sufi shaykh Abdul Khaliq. DAzkr, meaning recollection, involves the recitation of divine names as a form of meditation.

2.1 Spiritual Anatomy

The contemplative tradition of hesychasm did not develop the concept or the imaginal outline of a subtle body to the extent found in Asian traditions, although it moved in this direction in attributing spiritual power to the cardiac organ.‘ The heart became an esoteric symbol with anatomical implications. In order to follow this development, the intellect or spiritual heart must be distinguished from the cardiac organ, which was viewed as the functional medium of intellectual operations. ‘Our heart’, wrote Palamus, ‘is the shrine of the intelligence and the chief intellectual organ of the body’: Since our soul is a single entity possessing many powers, it utilizes as an organ the body that by nature lives in conjunction with it. What organ, then, does the power of the soul that we call ‘intellect’ make use of when it is active? No one has ever supposed that the mind resides in the finger-nails or the eye-lashes, the nostrils or the lips. But we all agree that it resides within us [...]. For some locate it in the head, as though in a sort of acropolis; others consider that its vehicle is the

centermost part of the heart, that aspect of the heart that has been purified from natural life. We know very well that our intelligence is neither within us as in a container — for it is incorporeal — nor yet outside us, for it is united to us; but it

is located in the heart as in its own organ. (Phil. 4, 334)

The heart-centered spiritual anatomy developed in hesychasm was compatible with contemporary medical opinion.’ As ‘the heart is the source of life and warmth in the body’, wrote Nikiphoros the Monk, so the intellect enlivens the soul through activating the heart (Phil. 4, 205).

2.2 Hesychast Prayer The goal of hesychasts, wrote Gregory Palamus, is ‘to bring their intellect back

from distractions and to enclose it within their body, and particularly within For the subtle body in Hindu and in Buddhist Tantra, see A. Bharati, The Tantric tradition, Garden City, NY: Anchor, 1965.

EB. Alberti, Matters ofthe heart: History, medicine, and emotion, New York: Oxford University Press, 2010.

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that innermost body within the body that we call the heart’ (Phil. 4, 334). The notion of situating the intellect within the body was first suggested by John Climacus: “The cell of the hesychast is the confines of his body; he has within a shrine of knowledge’; “A hesychast [...] strives to confine his incorporeal being within this bodily house’.° Climacus advised ascetics to ‘withdraw into your heart’ in order to avoid ‘self-display’.’ The enclosing of the intellect is a process of ever-deepening self-recollection. One of its central cognitive elements is the recitation of the ‘Prayer of Jesus’. The Prayer evolved historically from simple, monologic pleas for divine mercy to overlapping verbal formulas charged with feeling and layered with Christological content.® Its basic form is: “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me’; to which a final qualifier is sometimes added: ‘Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner’.

The Prayer is recited continuously, allowing the hesychast, in the words of Theoliptos, to ‘stand aloof from desire for earthly things’ (PAil. 4, 189). Certain psychological events follow in sequence, granted the guarding of the heart. Such guarding is an attentional practice involving the vigilant acknowledgment of distracting mental activity paired with the voluntary and eventually the automatic inhibition of fantasy and rumination. Granted expertise in guarding the heart, the ascetic attains stillness, a tenuously maintained state of dispassion and the ideal baseline condition of everyday life. Stillness promotes unwavering concentration on the Prayer and sensitizes the ascetic to ideas and feelings that mediate contact with spiritual realities. In stillness, the heart can become an epiphanic organ and reveal the ecstatic effulgence of Christ.? In neuropsychological terms, the recitation of the Prayer involves a motor element apart from any effects associated with its conceptual or emotional content. This also applies when the recitation is subvocal and the Prayer is ‘heard’ based on inner speech. The motor element is not the whole of the routine but 6

L. Moore (Trans.), St. John Climacus: The ladder of divine ascent, Boston: Holy Transfiguration Monastery, 1979, 198, 199.

Lei

bids 725

8

J. Hausherr, The name ofJesus: The names ofJesus used by early Christians. The development of “the Jesus Prayer”, Kalamazoo, MI: Cistercian Publications, 1978. For a concise history of the

development of the Prayer from its origins to the eighteenth century, see K. Ware, “The hesychasts: Gregory of Sinai, Gregory Palamus, and Nicolas Cabasilas’, in C. Jones, G. Wainwright & E. Yarnold (Eds.), The study of spirituality, New York: Oxford University Press, 1986, 242-254; Idem, “The hesychast revival’, in Jones, Wainwright & Yarnold, The study of spirituality, 255-258; Idem, “The origins of the Jesus Prayer: Diadochos, Gaza, Sinai’, in Jones,

Wainwright & Yarnold, The study ofspirituality, 175-184. My main focus is the Prayer’s use

9

during the medieval period and later, not its early practice (in rudimentary forms) between the fifth and eighth centuries. For stillness, dispassion, and guarding the heart, see ch. 7.

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a means of instigating a broader pattern of activity. The shift from overt motor activity to inner speech would correspond with diminished activity in the motor cortex and continued involvement of anterior frontal areas, particularly in the

left cerebral hemisphere. The repetitive nature of the Prayer recalls the ‘murmuring’ (japa) of mantras in Samkya-Yoga.!° A closer comparison could be drawn between recitation of the Prayer and the Pure Land Buddhist practice called nembutsu, which is the chanting of Amida’s sacred name. Nembutsu expresses ‘shinjin or inward faith in the compassionate Other-power of Amida’, the Sambhogakaya Buddha.'? The likeness may extend beyond the psychological and neuropsychological similarities. In his comparative study of Christian theology and Pure Land belief, the theologian John Cobb wrote: ‘Amida is Christ. That is, the feature of the totality of reality to which Pure Land Buddhists refer when they speak of Amida is the same as that to which Christians refer when we speak of Christ’;!2

2.3 Four Phases of Prayer

The emotional and the visionary events associated with hesychast prayer have usually been described in general terms, or conveyed in adulatory exclamations with little detail. A sense of the esoteric surrounds these events. Theoliptos’s outline is important for sketching their full sequence. Four phases of prayer can be discerned, preceded by extensive preparatory mental work. In describing the preparatory work of purifying the heart of worldly influences, Theoliptos said that the intellect must ‘spurn mental fantasies of delectation’ and “quell selfindulgent thoughts’ (Phil. 4, 188). The result is a state of mental ‘simplicity’:

For when the intellect remains free from fantasy and image, not permitting itself to be shaped or stamped either by the taints of sensual pleasure or by thoughts full of desire, then it is in a state of simplicity. (188-189)

The state of simplicity is present when the intellect ‘concentrate[s] its vision’, ‘invoke[s] the Lord’s name [...] with continual recollectedness’, and realizes '0 L.W. Pfleuger, “Discriminating the innate capacity: Salvation mysticism of classical SamkyaYoga’, in: R.K.C. Forman (Ed.), The innate capacity: Mysticism, psychology, and philosophy, New York: Oxford University Press, 1998, 45-81. "tS. Odin, ‘God as peace-bestowing Buddha/Christ: An amplification of Cobb’s contribution to dialogue between Christianity and Shin Buddhism’, in: D.R. Griffin (Ed.), Deep religious pluralism, Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2005, 69-90, 10. '* J.B. Cobb, Beyond dialogue: Toward a mutual transformation of Christianity and Buddhism, Philadelphia: Fortress, 1982, 128.

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‘mindfulness of God’ (184, 189). Through the suppression of undesirable mental content, the intellect exercises veto power over ordinary mental activity. What begins as the suppression of particular ideas, fantasies, and feelings concludes in the inhibition of ordinary mentation generally. The effectiveness of such inhibition is time-limited; it anticipates mental activity of another kind, as reflected in the breakthrough reported in the second phase of prayer. In the first phase, the hesychast feels an attraction for an object not of this world: the ‘divine Logos’ invoked through his ‘cry’ (Phil. 4, 189). The attraction

occurs when ‘the cry of the prayer that cries within you releases divine love’ (189). ‘Cry’ suggests a voluntary mustering of feeling preliminary to the intensification and the release of spontaneous feeling (189). This germ of emotion sets in motion the subsequent phases of praying. That it must in some instances be initiated voluntarily signals a passing demand for artificially evoked emotion. The voluntary cry of feeling then becomes involuntary. The second phase begins when the attraction felt by the hesychast ‘awakens the intellect, revealing to it what is hidden’ (Phil. 4, 189). “Wisdom” is born as a consequence: “The intellect, united with love, gives birth to wisdom, and

through wisdom proclaims the esoteric meaning of things’ (189). The same message is conveyed in another remark: “The divine Logos [...] lays hold of the noetic power of the intellect [...] and fills it with divine knowledge’ (189).

The soul opens like a chasm, and the hesychast enters the invisible world whose forces, images, and presences provide the meaning and disclose the purpose of all things mundane. Hesychasts typically claim that surpassing forms of prayer are deprived of mental activity other than feeling and honed attention. The

claim helps protect them from over-involvement in the imagination. It also masks a sequence of events that is richer in possibilities than their presentations generally allow. The initial breakthrough in prayer—when the invisible world opens to the hesychast’s awareness and ‘the esoteric meaning of things’ becomes clear—reveals an expansive field of imaginal and emotional possibilities (189). This is one of the transformations effected through prayer. The third phase of prayer is initiated when the Logos “brings to perfection your inner state, confer[ing] the gift of virtue’ (Phil. 4, 189). The psychological change realized in this phase is a dispositional transformation that erases the person’s usual sense of bearing multiple, conflicting centers of motivation. The hesychast is now different than his ordinary self. “Virtue’ does not refer to separable values that meet a certain moral standard; it indicates a dispositional change through which the hesychast discerns the subjectively situated source of all particular virtues. Virtue is a state of mental activity allied with what Nikitas called an ‘inner consciousness’ (97). It is ‘the restoration of the soul’s powers to

their former nobility and the convergence of the principal virtues in an activity

that accords with [their divine] nature’ (97).

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The fourth phase begins when the Logos ‘vivifies light-generating love and brings it to the enraptured intellect as it sleeps a sleep free from all desire for anything earthly’ (PAil. 4, 189). Light-generating love is visibly manifested love. It is specifically the luminous divine presence, and its appearance coincides with rapture. Hesychasts dwell little on any post-mystical phases of the prayer routine. Darker notes would have to be sounded: daunting notes of the pain of separation from light-generating love.

2.4 Intracorporeal Space The prayer routine is extraordinary in establishing an intracorporeal focus of attention that eventually becomes the locus of mental activity. The hesychast attends to ‘his chest or his navel’ or, as said in another text, ‘your belly or your navel’ (Phil. 4, 338). The area of interest is within the lower thoracic and the

upper abdominal cavities. This is unusual and unlike the way attention is ordinarily distributed on or around the body. The body’s attentional surround usually rests on the skin, or marginally penetrates the musculoskeletal system. Attention of this scope and quality is diffuse and usually subliminal, although it narrows and enters consciousness, and does so automatically, when an external stimulus touches the body or threatens harm. In general, the attentional surround favors the upper body (especially the face and head) rather than lower areas. In the hesychast prayer routine, the attentional surround is constricted, honed, and focused, and subjective experience is altered accordingly. Attention is detached from external objects, including the external bodily configuration,

and intentionally lowered and incorporated. Nikiphoros advised the hesychast to ‘put pressure on your intellect and compel it to descend with your inhaled breath into your heart’ (Phil. 4, 205, 206).

In this manner, the hesychast avoids distractions generated by the ‘discursive faculty [...] centered in your breast’ (206). Nil Sorsky described prayer as ‘the pushing of the mind down into the heart’; such ‘work’ is “difficult to accomplish for beginners, but also for well-advanced persons’.!* The intellect, understood as the center of conscious mental activity, follows the path of attention and comes to be situated in the designated thoracic and upper abdominal area. An intracorporeal area that usually feels dense, impenetrable, and massive seems to become cavernous, hollow, or otherwise changed. An intracorporeal space opens and becomes the seat of mentation and a source of spiritual feeling. An imaginal perception of intracorporeal space replaces the opaque dense viscera. The change 'S G.A. Maloney (Trans.), Nil Sorsky: The complete writings, New York: Paulist Press, 2003, 55, 56.

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is described in a prayer manual: ‘For as soon as the intellect attains the place of the heart, at once it sees things of which previously it knew nothing. It sees the open space within the heart’ (Phil. 4, 73).

The sensory receptors in the intracorporeal area of attentional focus lack the fineness of discrimination of the receptors in striated muscle and the skin. The ‘inside of our body’ is normally sensed as an undifferentiated ‘heavy mass. [...] All other [bodily] sensations are felt very near the surface’.'4 The localization

of sensation inside the body is correspondingly difficult; moreover, in deeply situated intracorporeal areas of the body, ‘referred’ sensation is misleading in creating a locus of perception that does not coincide with the location of the physical stimulus. In the process of opening an intracorporeal space, the hesychast tests the limit of imaginal perception and surpasses ordinary interoceptive sensory experience. The limit-testing bears potential mystical significance. The ‘open space’ mentioned in the prayer manual is initially characterized by ‘darkness and impenetrable density’ (Phil. 4, 73). It later becomes ‘entirely luminous and full of illumination’ when the hesychast envisions the divine presence as intracorporeal light.!° In his review of research on visceral cognition and visceral illusions, Adam emphasized the ‘numerous findings on the preponderant role of the subdominant [right] hemisphere in visceral perception’.!° The trained hesychast is expert in sensing, suppressing, and imagining change in the area of the viscera, which suggests that he engages mental and emotional processes in which the right cerebral hemisphere is dominant. This impression has implications for the physical consequences of the prayer routine. For example, the inter-hemispheric dominance pattern enhances the perception of heart rate, which would allow the hesychast greater control in slowing his heart and establishing the calm state of self-recollection characterized as stillness. The dominance pattern favoring the right cerebral hemisphere has bearing on the emotional experience of hesychast prayer. A brief review will help make this clear. Multiple cortical and subcortical areas are engaged during emotional experience. Motor centers like the cerebellum are also activated, which supports the commonsense view that emotional experience can lead directly to action.'’ The valence theory of emotion, which recent research supports, holds that the cerebral hemispheres are specialized for positive and negative emotional experience: 4 P. Schilder, The image and appearance of the human body, London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1950, 294. 15. Tbidem. For intracorporeal luminosity, see ch. 3(4, 8).

16 G. Adam, Visceral perception: Understanding internal cognition, New York: Plenum Press, 1998, 148. 17 G.P. Lee et al., ‘Neural substrates of emotion as revealed by functional magnetic resonance imaging’, in: Cognitive and Behavioral Neurology 17 (2004), 9-17.

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A relatively heightened level of activity in certain areas of the left cerebral hemisphere is associated with positive (approach-oriented) emotion, and relatively heightened activity in the right hemisphere corresponds with negative (withdrawal-oriented) emotion.!® Another theory highlights hemispheric differences in the level of emotional processing: The right hemisphere directly mediates the identification and comprehension of both positive and negative emotion, while the left hemisphere contributes higher-level (verbal) processing of the emotional information that passes into this hemisphere by way of the corpus callosum and other inter-hemispheric pathways.’? Points from the two theories can be combined to outline some possible neuropsychological consequences of the hesychast prayer routine. In the hesychast’s case, the higher-level processing is constrained and specialized in being limited to the words and the rich semantic content of the Jesus Prayer. The Prayer is like a sculptor; the influx of emotion it stimulates is like the sculptural medium. Granted immersion in the Prayer’s verbal and conceptual demands, the nature or valence of this medium is twofold: It is negative or painful, perhaps more so than it is positive, granted the predictable associations to Jesus’ suffering and the hesychast’s desire for penitence. But the avoidance-related qualities of the practice of the Prayer are embraced rather than rejected because the Prayer’s content highlights the salvific power of the recipient of the hesychast’s devotion. ‘Jesus Christ’ signals the saving presence of the Lord, which may be felt in the moment. In other words, the painful emotion can be transformed to the extent it conforms with the Prayer’s semantic content. What begins as painful or aversive can eventually become positive and attractive.”°

2.5 Posture and Respiration Posture and the pattern of respiration are central elements of the hesychast prayer routine. In general, a slow, shallow pattern of respiration is recommended.

'8 T. Canli et al., ‘Hemispheric asymmetry for emotional stimuli detected with fMRI’, in: Neuroreport 9 (1998), 3233-3239; J.D. Herrington et al., “Localization of asymmetric brain func-

tion in emotion and depression’, in: Psychophysiology 47 (2010), 442-454; J. van Honk & J.L.G. Schutter, “From affective valence to motivational direction: The frontal asymmetry of emotion revisited’, in: Psychological Science 17 (2006), 963-965; R.P. Walters et al., ‘Lateral-

ized visual hallucinations: An analysis of affective valence’, in: Applied Neuropsychology 13 (2006), 160-165. E.R. Shobe, ‘Independent and collaborative contributions of the cerebral hemispheres to emotional processing’, in: Frontiers of Human Neuroscience 8 (2014), 230. Published online April 22, 2014. doi: 10.3389/fnhum.2014.00230. 20

The emotional transformation outlined here corresponds with the shift from negative to positive fervor during extended periods of prayer. See ch. 2(7).

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Nikiphoros advised breathing only through the nose.?! A prayer manual tells the hesychast to ‘restrain the drawing-in of breath through your nostrils, so as not to breathe easily’ (Phil. 4, 72). Gregory of Sinai said ‘holding the breath helps to stabilize the intellect, but only temporarily, for after a little it lapses into distraction again’ (277). Recitation of the Prayer of Jesus is coordinated with

the pattern and the pace of respiration. The eyes are shut or prayer is conducted in darkened surroundings such as a ‘quiet and dimly lit cell’.?? Similar advice was given by the eighth-century ascetic Joseph the Visionary: ‘Lock all the doors of your cell, go into the inmost part, and sit in darkness and stillness, where you cannot even hear the sound of a bird’.”’ Sensory stimulation is reduced in such circumstances, allowing the hesychast to focus with intensity and clarity on his prayer and pattern of respiration. The breathing routine resembles the practice of ‘embryonic breathing’ in the Ge Hong tradition of Taoism: This can be done by breathing gently, in through the nose (which corresponds to Heaven) and out through the mouth (the Earth). This procedure is called

‘harmonizing the breath’, and purifies it, as well as increasing and intensifying it. To this end, one ‘nourishes one’s breath’ by keeping it ‘pent up’ as long as possible. This is “embryonic breathing’, comparable to that of the embryo in its mother’s womb. Thus increased, breath gives extraordinary power.”4

Such power comes from restoring a proper balance of the qi energy, the Primordial Breath that circulates in the cosmos and its microcosmic equivalent, the human body. The gi can be conceived along pantheistic lines; it must not be equated with the Christian understanding of the Spirit. The hesychast and the Taoist respiratory patterns may be alike, but this does not mean they serve the same outcomes. Similar physical practices, with comparable neuropsychological results, can yield divergent spiritual outcomes based on their respective interpretive frameworks. The Taoist adept’s rejuvenated physical body is unlike the resurrected body the hesychast discerns through personal experience of deification. The adept’s rejuvenation results from his esoteric manipulations of the qi. 21 E, Kadloubovsky & G.E.H. Palmer, Writings from The Philokalia on prayer of the heart, London: Faber and Faber, 1979. 22 Kadloubovsky & Palmer, Writings from The Philokalia on prayer of the heart, 195. 23 B.E. Colless, The wisdom ofthe pearlers: An anthology ofSyriac Christian mysticism, Kalamazoo, MI: Cistercian Publications, 2008, 144. Joseph’s time and place were distant from the world of later hesychasts. He was raised by Zoroastrian parents and settled in northern Iraq after gaining freedom from his Arab master. 24 |. Robinet, Taoism: Growth of a religion, Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1997, 107. The embryo and its formation are recurrent motifs in Taoism. In general, they symbolize bodily and spiritual renewal and a corresponding increase in longevity, and the dulling, dissipation, and cessation of distracting stimuli during meditation.

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In contrast, deification is a gratuitous action, a divine gift. More generally, the subtle body developed in Taoism is baroque in its complexity; the hesychast subtle body is relatively simple. The hesychast sits low to the ground, his head inclined toward his knees.

Gregory of Sinai advised using a stool about nine inches in height.” Callistus and Ignatius spoke of a ‘low stool’ and recommended that the hesychast place his head between his knees.*° Nil Sorsky spoke of ‘inclining our head and neck’.?” Another hesychast said: ‘Rest your beard on your chest’.”® Brianchaninov said: ‘Bend your head down, and gather your mind into your heart’.” The posture is traceable over centuries, beginning with the prophet Elijah who ‘climbed to the top of Carmel, crouched down to the earth, and put his

head between his knees’ (1 Kgs 18:42).°° It is mentioned in the Talmud in the

context of religious weeping, comparable to the weeping experienced by the hesychast.?! Gregory Palamus provided a psychological rationale for the posture: Outwardly curling himself—so far as is possible—into the form of a circle, in conformity with the mode of action that he tries to establish in his intellect, he also, through this same position of his body, sends into his heart the power of the intellect that is dispersed outwardly when his gaze is turned outward. (Phil. 4, 338)

The hesychasts’ intent is to ‘collect our intellect, outwardly dispersed through the senses, and bring it back within ourselves—back to the heart, the shrine of

the thoughts’ (334). The posture reduces distractions and establishes ‘rigorous watchfulness’ (334). Its cognitive effect is enhanced through monitoring and

regulating the pattern of respiration. Palamus recommended ‘slowing down the rhythm of breathing’ (290). The ‘beginner’ in particular must ‘pay attention to the exhalation and inhalation of their breath, and restrain it a little’ (337). “This

control of the breathing may, indeed, be regarded as a spontaneous consequence of paying attention to the intellect’ (337). In their manner of breathing, hesychasts ‘are able to prevent their intellect from going out to external things, to keep it uncompounded, and to gather it into what St. Dionysios called a state of “unified concentration” (337). Palamus hinted of an exercise in which the

K. Ware, The power of the name: The Jesus Prayer in Orthodox spirituality, Oxford: SLG Press,

1996.

6 Kadloubovsky & Palmer, Writings from The Philokalia, 195. *7 Maloney, Nil Sorsky, 57. 28

Tbid., 72.

”

|. Brianchaninov, On the Prayer ofJesus, Berwick, MN: Ibis, 2006, 63.

For an early painting of a hesychast positioned like Elijah, see J. Meyendorff, St. Gregory Palamas and Orthodox spirituality, Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1974, 90. 31

M. Idel, Kabbalah: New perspectives, New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1988.

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hesychast imagines his breath moving in a circular pattern, where ‘circular’ refers

to both the geometric form and the imaginal ingathering of previously dispersed attention in a manner that follows the inward flow of breath. Gregory Palamus also drew on Pseudo-Dionysios in explaining the significance of the posture and the respiratory pattern: The intellect functions, first, by observing things other than itself [...] and this is what St. Dionysios the Great calls the intellect’s ‘direct movement.’ Secondly, it

returns to itself and operates within itself, and so beholds itself; and this is called by St. Dionysios the intellect’s ‘circular movement’. (336)?

‘Direct’ refers to the dispersion of attention when mental activity is biased toward worldly concerns. External objects iterate through awareness, preventing a contemplative frame of mind. ‘Circular’ indicates an introversive focus and enhanced concentration. The posture and the pattern of breathing were said to have a direct influence on the mental state: “Our inner being naturally adapts itself to outward forms’ (338). The hesychast’s body is a material realization of

a mystical form of cognition. The prayer routine would have certain physiological consequences. The posture applies mechanical pressure on the diaphragm and attenuates the depth and the ease of respiration. It promotes postural hypotension, which the hesychast would experience when he stands after praying. The position of the head could reduce cerebral venous flow and possibly lead to the pooling of blood and ischemia. The posture and the slow, shallow manner of breathing would predispose to reduced blood oxygen or cerebral hypoxia. The hypoxia could set in motion a cascade of physiological effects such as the compensatory process of peripheral vasodilatation, leading to the sensation of bodily warmth reported during certain phases of hesychastic prayer.’? Granted prolonged hypoxia, cortical structures most sensitive to oxygen deprivation function erratically, particularly the mediotemporal limbic structure called the hippocampus.** Hippocampal dysfunction bears hallucinatory potential in circumstances of intense emotion. A remark made by Nil Sorsky is consistent with the hallucinatory 32 The distinction between ‘direct’ and ‘circular’ movement recalls the Neoplatonist concepts of exitus and reditus: Intellect’s emanation from the One, its dispersion in material forms, and its ‘turning back’ (epanastrophe) to contemplate its source. See Katz, The philosophy of Plotinus. 33 MLE. Groer & M.E. Shekleton, Basic pathophysiology: A conceptual approach, Toronto: Mosby, 1979; for body temperature and prayer, see ch. 2(7). 34 CB. Saper, ‘Brain stem modulation of sensation, movement, and consciousness’, in: E. Kandel, J.H. Schwartz, & T.M. Jessell (Eds.), Principles of neural science, New York: McGraw-Hill,

2000, 8389-909; see S. Arzy, M. Idel, T. Landis, & O. Blanke, “Why revelations have occurred on mountains? Linking mystical experiences and cognitive neuroscience’, in: Medical Hypotheses 65 (2005), 841-845.

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potential and the feeling of dreaminess associated with erratic hippocampal functioning: ‘Dreamy fantasies occur when the mind rests in the heart and generates the prayer of the heart’.*’ Hughlings Jackson similarly spoke of a ‘dreamy state’ resulting from mediotemporal dysfunction in persons with epilepsy.*° The cascade of effects initiated by hypoxia could extend to spreading depression, which refers to depressed function in posterior cortical cells resulting from

an advancing wave of cellular depolarization caused by reduced blood oxygen.*” Spreading depression establishes conditions conducive to unformed visual hallucinations, recalling hesychasts’ reports of luminous visions during prayer.*® Brianchaninov and Gregory of Sinai mentioned the possibility of physical pain during prayer. Gregory said: “Your body and heart begin to feel pain because of the intense concentration’ (Phil. 4, 269). This is probably the only mention of cardiac pain in hesychast texts. It may refer to angina. Brianchaninov wrote: ‘Feeling pain in the shoulders and often afflicted with headache, endure this with perseverance and zeal’.*? The ‘headache’ is likely musculoskeletal pain or a consequence of cerebral hypoxia, in each case a result of prolonged use of the posture. Ware likened the hesychast posture to ‘the “lotus” position in Yoga, where the back is straight’.*° In fact, the lotus position allows more ease of respiration and greater expansion of the lungs, and also creates less pressure on the diaphragm. The lotus position and the hesychast posture described in traditional texts would have different physiological consequences. Possible historical links between yoga and Hesychasm have not been thoroughly examined. Information about yoga that may have penetrated hesychast circles as it approached its classical phase under the influence of Nikiphoros the Monk, Gregory of Sinai, and Gregory Palamus would probably have been channeled through Sufis.4! Muslims in India had been interested in Hindu mysticism and its likenesses with Sufism since before the Muslim conquests of the twelfth century. The Central Asian Muslim 95wn Maloney, Nil Sorsky, 57. 36 J. Hughlings Jackson, Selected writings ofJohn Hughlings Jackson. Vol. 1: On epilepsy and epi-

leptiform convulsions, New York: Basic Books, 1958; R.E. Hogan & K. Kaiboriboon, ‘The “dreamy state”: John Hughlings Jackson’s idea of epilepsy and consciousness’, in: American 37

Journal of Psychiatry 160 (2003), 1740-1747. R.J. Do Carmo (Ed.), Spreading depression, New York: Springer, 1992; K. Eikermann-Haerter &

C. Ayata, ‘Cortical spreading depression and migraine’, in: Current Neurology and Neuroscience Reports 10 (2010), 167-173; G.G. Somjen, P.G. Aitken, G.L. Czeh, O. Herreras, J. Jing, & J.N. Young, ‘Mechanisms of spreading depression: A review of recent findings and a hypothesis’, in: Canadian Journal of Physiology and Pharmacology 70 (1992), 48-54. 38

For luminous visions of the divine presence, see ch. 3(1,4—8), 20(2).

39

Brianchaninov, On the Prayer ofJesus, 63.

40 Ware, ‘The hesychasts’, 244. “’

Parallels between Sufi and hesychast practices are discussed in the ninth section of this chapter.

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scholar Alberuni, a pioneer of Hindu—Muslim interaction who died in 1048, translated into Persian Patanjali’s foundational text, the Yoga Sutras.?? The Indian Sufi Mu’in al-Din Chisti, who died in 1236, was credited with writing the encyclopedic Treatise on Nature of Yoga, which emphasized the compatibility of Islamic and Indian mysticism.*? Likenesses between Sufi practices and the varied forms of yogic meditation do not necessarily indicate direct historical links, such

as one tradition borrowing from the other. In Ernst’s view, ‘there are a number of reasons for being extremely cautious about any sweeping generalizations regarding connections between Sufism and yoga’. ‘The argument for yogic “influence” on Sufism is not based on anything that Sufis were aware of’.* Perhaps some knowledge of Indian religions was available well before Muslim informants entered the West. Clement of Alexandria had read or heard of yogic practitioners, Indian ascetics, and the Buddha.“ In his letter to Laeta, St. Jerome

said: “From India, from Persia, from Ethiopia we daily welcome monks in crowds’.‘” Jerome, who died in 420, probably exaggerated, though he may have had a better idea of Asian geography and political boundaries than Clement, who died in 215. Clement knew of ‘gymnosophists’ (yogis) in north Africa; possibly Jerome did as well. But this does not mean that they or other Christians knew or understood the related doctrinal teachings.

2.6 Attention

The attentional demands of hesychast prayer are subtle and difficult. Three can be distinguished. The first involves heightened vigilance for mental content that would distract from one-pointed focus on the Prayer. This is a matter of 42 W/. Dalrymple, ‘Under the spell of yoga’ [Review of the books Yoga: The art of transformation; The Khecarividya of Adinatha: A critical edition and annotated translation of an early text of Hathayoga; Sinister yogis; Warrior ascetics and Indian Empires]. New York Review of Books, March 6, 2014, 30-33. Accessible at: http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2014/mar/06/

under-spell-yoga/. 3 Tbidem. 44 CW. Ernst, Sufism: An introduction to the mystical tradition ofIslam, Boston: Shambhala, 2011, 110.

45 Tbid., 111. See Idem, ‘Situating Sufism and Yoga’, in: Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society 15 (2005), 15-43. 46 P. Kirby (Ed.), Clement of Alexandria: The stromata, or miscellanies (2002), Book I, ch. 1.

Accessible at: Early Christian Writings, http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/text/clementstromata-book1.html. 47 P Schaff, & H. Wace (Eds.), Jerome: Select work and letters (The Post-Nicene Fathers ofthe Christian Church, Vol. 6, Series 2), Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1994, Letter CVII. Accessible at:

hetp://www.tertullian.org/fathers2/NPNF2-06/Npnf2-06-03.htm#P3757_1005453.

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scanning and screening for undesirable mental content. The second involves the suppression of disturbing content for the purpose of maintaining stillness. This is analogous to the process of attentional disengagement in spatial tasks when an existing target is released from focal attention, allowing the resumption of

vigilance for new targets.“ The third demand involves one-pointed focus on the Prayer’s semantic content. In neuropsychological terms, this is an executive task in which emotionally keyed, morally attuned attention is directed to the words of the Prayer and the manner of their recitation. The ascetic intends to bring his feelings and sense of personal identity into conformity with the meaning of the Prayer, that he might approximate the felt presence of Christ. In part, this is a penitential exercise in which personal sinfulness is acknowledged and reconciled through the saving action of Christ. The third demand implicates fronto-limbic activity, particularly in anterior paralimbic structures that contribute to empathic communion and the formation of moral appraisals and feelings like guilt.4? These structures might be said to inform conscience. In particular, the anterior cingulate contributes to the ‘assessment of motivational content and assigning emotional valence to internal and external stimuli’.°? The Prayer is highly motivating; its semantic content is an array of internal stimuli that are variously charged with either positive or negative emotion. Activity in the anterior cingulate also encourages spontaneous ‘vocalizations associated with expressing [one’s] internal state’, particularly in circumstances of emotional arousal which issue in extremes of pleasure or pain.?! The Prayer is recited often and for extended periods, silently or sotto voce, to the point of becoming automatic or wholly spontaneous, which suggests another contribution of the anterior cingulate in shaping the prayer experience. Hesychast prayer can be defined as the mounting of attention to the end of controlling mental content in the service of spiritual intentions. The neuropsychological interpretations concerned with posture, respiration, hypoxia, and attention provide but one perspective on hesychast prayer. The ‘8 The disengagement is an operation of the ‘orienting’ system in the right-parietal area of the attentional network. See M.I. Posner, ‘Attention in cognitive neuroscience: An overview’, in: M.S. Gazzaniga (Ed.), The cognitive neurosciences, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1996, 615-624; M.I. Posner, & S.E. Petersen, “The attention system of the human brain’, in: Annual Review of Neuroscience 13 (1990), 25-42. 49

H.R. Heekeren et al., ‘An fMRI study of simple ethical decision-making’, in: Neuroreport 14 (2003), 1215-1219; J. Moll et al., “The neural correlates of moral sensitivity: A functional

magnetic resonance imaging investigation of basic and moral emotions’, in: Journal of Neuroscience 22 (2002), 2730-2736; L.M. Shin et al., ‘Activation of anterior paralimbic structures during guilt-related script-driven imagery’, in: Biological Psychiatry 48 (2000), 43-50. 50

O. Devinsky, M.J. Morrell & B. Vogt, ‘Contributions of anterior cingulate cortex to behavior’, in: Brain 118 (1995), 289.

>! Tbidem.

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most important perspective involves the ascetic’s expertise in turning the speci-

fied neuropsychological changes to the desired spiritual use. The interpretations provide a two-dimensional snapshot of the hesychast’s experience and goals. A full portrait must resort to the personal experience of virtuoso practitioners.

2.7 Two Patterns of Autonomic Arousal

The hesychast prayer routine can induce two patterns of autonomic arousal. The first will be called stillness in keeping with traditional descriptions of the state of equanimity and calm sought through prayer. Stillness allows for the effective guarding of the heart and eases the transition into surpassing forms of prayer. It is correlated with marked parasympathetic dominance. Calming meditative practices of this kind “decrease muscle tone and induce a hypometabolic state of decreased oxygen consumption, carbon dioxide production, and respiratory rate’.°* The second pattern, which I call fervor, is associated with the dominance and the heightening of activity in the sympathetic branch of the autonomic system. Stillness and fervor are reciprocally related and may oscillate when autonomic homeostasis is disturbed and one branch of the system is relatively intensely aroused for a prolonged period. The stillness of absorption in the Prayer anticipates the sudden onset of fervor, and fervor can resolve gradually into a subsequent phase of stillness. Shifts of this nature are called ‘rebound’ effects.” Stillness is the most common pattern, or at least the one described most often in ascetic writings. Modulated rebound effects can truncate an aroused state and initiate the normal autonomic status quo. Symeon the New Theologian referred to such a change in describing the dissipation of fervid visionary states followed by the resumption of a less tumultuous condition. He found such results deeply disappointing, a fall from the grace of contact with God. He said ‘relaxation extinguishes’ the immediate experience of God, as do ‘one’s own concerns and the solicitude for life’.>4

‘Relaxation’ signals the reversal of intense sympathetic dominance and the resumption of an approximately normal autonomic status quo. Fervor has two main expressions. It is either ‘positive’ or ‘negative’ depending on its experiential qualities. Positive fervor engages ecstatic emotion and may 52 R. Fischer, ‘Toward a neuroscience of self-expression and states of self-consciousness and interpreting interpretations’, in: B.B. Wolman & M. Ullman (Eds.), Handbook of states of consciousness, New York: Van Norstrand,

1986, 20.

53 E, Gellhorn, Principles of autonomic-somatic integrations: Physiological basis and psychological and clinical implications, Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 1967; E. Gellhorn & W.E, Kiety, ‘Mystical states of consciousness: Neurophysiological and clinical aspects’, in:

Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease 154 (1972), 399-405.

54 St. Symeon the New Theologian, Hymns of divine love [Maloney], 81.

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result in the luminous vision of the divine presence. Negative fervor imposes a sense of intense struggle. It is an uncomfortable, even painful, state of tension and arousal. Positive fervor and negative fervor can overlap, or occur in sequence. It appears that only negative fervor occurs entirely independently. Gregory of Sinai captured features of negative fervor in describing the arduous struggle faced by the hesychast in his effort to attain stillness: “Your intellect becomes exhausted through calling upon God [...] and your body and heart begin to feel pain because of the intense concentration’ (Phil. 4, 269). Other ascetics spoke of the pain and emotional turmoil of negative fervor. Brianchaninov said: “The gift of attentive prayer is usually preceded by special sufferings and upheavals of the soul’.»* Nil Sorsky said: “The mind is worn down and weakened by toil and [...] the body and heart feel a certain sickness’.*°

The most prominent physical signs of fervor are prodigious weeping and elevations in heart rate and body temperature, all of which are identified as evidence of the ‘warmth of the heart’.°” Callistus and Ignatius, quoting Isaac the Syrian, described ‘sensible signs’ of the warming: Love for God is naturally ardent and when it fills a man to overflowing, leads the

soul to ecstasy. Therefore the heart of a man who experiences it cannot contain

> Brianchaninov, On the Prayer ofJesus, 66. °6 Maloney, Nil Sorsky, 57. The weeping, emotional turmoil, and feelings of sinfulness in extreme expressions of negative fervor have similarities with paroxysmal attacks in dacrystic (‘crying’) epilepsy (D. Luciano, O. Devinsky, & K. Perrine, “Crying seizures’, in: Neurology 43 [1993], 2113-2117; M.L. Offen et al., “Dacrystic epilepsy’, in: Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery & Psychiatry 38 [1976], 829-834; T.S. Walczak & A. Bogolioubov, “Weeping during psycho-

5 MN

genic nonepileptic seizures’, in: Epilepsia 37 [1996], 208-210). Possible examples of dacrysticlike symptoms are apparent in John Climacus’s report of the penitential behavior of monks in the ‘Prison’, which was apparently an actual place located in Alexandria (see J. Chryssavgis, John Climacus: From the Egyptian desert to the Sinai mountain, Fanham, UK: Ashgate, 2004). The point is not to equate the two types of experience but to highlight a clinical analogy that suggests similarities of an anatomical (mediotemporal) and an electrophysiological (rhythmic discharge) kind. Comparable emotional and physical responses may occur in negative fervor and in a dacrystic attack without their sharing a common epileptic etiology. A study showing the self-induction of simple partial seizures in expert meditators tends to support this impression (P. Nicholson, ‘Does meditation predispose to epilepsy? EEG studies of expert meditators self-inducing simple partial seizures’, in: Medical Hypotheses 66 [2006], 674-676; H. Jaseja, ‘Meditation may predispose to epilepsy: An insight into the alteration of brain environment induced by meditation’, in: Medical Hypotheses 64 (2005), 464-467). Phil. 4, 270. For religious weeping, see Hausherr, Penthos; K.C. Patton & J.S. Hawley (Eds.), Holy tears: Weeping in the religious imagination, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2005, and particularly K. Ware, ““An obscure matter”: The mystery of tears in Orthodox spirituality’, in: Patton & Hawley, Holy tears, 242-254; and ch. 16.

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or bear it, but undergoes an extraordinary change [...]. Its sensible signs are the following: man’s face becomes joyous and aflame and his body is warmed.*®

The hesychast’s temperature rises. His ‘body is warmed’ and his ‘face’ is ‘aflame’.> His florid complexion is an overt sign of fervor. The warmth and the flushing result from capillary dilation, a natural consequence of intense sympathetic arousal.© ‘Some [hesychasts] leave their prayer as if it were a hotly heated bath-house’.°! The elevated body temperature associated with positive fervor was reported centuries before the medieval hesychast movement. Diadochos of Photike described several stages in the ascetic’s assimilation of divine grace, a process in which the Spirit ‘paints the divine likeness over the divine image in us’ (PAil. 1, 288). The image is ‘given to us at once, when grace renews us in the actual waters of baptism’, but the acquisition of ‘our likeness to God requires our cooperation’ (288). The conformity of the image and the likeness is characterized by ‘a feeling which words cannot express’: ‘If, then, a man begins to make progress in keeping the commandments and calls ceaselessly upon the Lord Jesus, the fire of God’s grace spreads even to the heart’s more outward organs of perception’ (285). In time, one’s ‘whole being’ is subject to ‘warming’ (285).°

John the Venerable, writing in the eighth century, described an elevation in body temperature that occurs in the middle or ‘psychical’ stage of the mystical life: “Grace [...] works up a fervent heat in his heart, and his body and soul are enkindled so

that he supposes that every part of him is being consumed in the blaze’.©? John made an unusual observation that is not mentioned in the later hesychast literature: Whenever you perceive such [a change in temperature] in only one of your members or in only one of the places on your body, then that comes from the Adversary. If he scrapes your head as if with a hand, or if he clings to your heart, or belly, you have the feeling in your body that you are being stung.

8 Kadloubovsky & Palmer, Writings from The Philokalia, 258. Facial appearance was viewed as an overt expression of the soul and particularly of the intellect. See ch. 12 (4).

°° Tbidem. 60 A.W. Cowley & K.G. Franchini, “Neurogenic control of blood vessels’, in: D. Robertson, P.A. Low, & R.J. Polinsky (Eds.), Primer on the autonomic nervous system, New York: Academic Press, 1996, 49-55. 61

Maloney, Nil Sorsky, 54. The temperature change associated with fervor resembles the phenom-

enon called incendium amoris in Western Christianity. See J.H. Thurston, The physical phenomena of mysticism, London: Burns Oates, 1952.

62 The Buddhist correlate of the hesychast concept of the heart is the manipura cakra: the heart center of the tantric subtle body (P. Rawson, The art of Tantra, Greenwich, CT: New York Graphic Society, 1973). The cakra’s symbol is fire. Its activation results in transcendent experience and elevates body temperature.

6 Colless, The wisdom of the pearlers, 157. 64 Tbid., 156-157.

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John distinguished focal and global elevations in body temperature. The first is demonic and brings ‘mental derangement and coldness of impulses, or else turmoil’.® The second ‘is associated with tranquility and pleasure’.® John’s distinction matches the distinction between the emotional changes associated respectively with negative and positive fervor. The Adversary’s touches may represent a transient somatoform disorder, specifically a conversion reaction involving cutaneous, nociceptive, and tactile symptoms. As focal effects, such symptoms are unlike the whole-body temperature change associated with divine intervention. Gregory of Sinai described the positive fervor that results from recitation of the Prayer of Jesus, ‘the noetic prayer that the Spirit activates in the heart’ (Phil. 4, 263). In subduing the passible powers, he said, the Prayer dampens ‘the passions’: The prayer itself, progressively quickened in the fire of spiritual joy, draws the intellect along with it and welds it to the invocation of the Lord Jesus and to union with Him [...]. Sometimes, as the passions subside through the ceaseless

invocation of Jesus Christ, a divine energy wells up in the heart, and a divine warmth is kindled. (Phil. 4, 263)

The heart channels the emotion generated through ‘union’ with Christ (263). The emotion is understood as a ‘divine energy’ that courses through the heart and warms the body (263). The culminating effect of prayer is the alignment of the passible powers, and thus the body, with the exultant condition of the heart. Gregory described the ecstatic aspect of positive fervor: The force which keeps his mind collected flees from him and he is as one out of his mind [...]. Even when absent, he converses as if present though unseen. His knowledge and sight naturally cease, and he no longer feels his movements among

sensory objects. Even if he does something, he is not aware of it, for his mind is on high in contemplation, and his thought always seems to be conversing with someone else.°”

The fervid hesychast is entirely preoccupied with subjective phenomena. ‘He no longer feels his movements’; his ‘sight naturally cease[s]’; he is deaf and dumb

to worldly ‘knowledge’. He of “detaching the senses from in ‘spiritual intoxication’, he inhabitants.’° He passes into

is ‘transport[ed] beyond the sense-world’ by means their involvement with visible things’.® Immersed enters the invisible world and ‘converses’ with its a state of ecstatic dissociation.

On Tbidig 157s 6° Tbidem. °” Kadloubovsky & Palmer, Writings from The Philokalia, 258.

68 Tbidem. 6 ®

[bid 222. Mbids 222, 258:

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Isaac the Syrian described a mystical state of emotional intimacy with God

in which joy and suffering commingle. His description mixes metaphorical and concrete references to heart rate and body heat: With their sharp warmth this suffering and joy burn and scorch the body, drying

it up at the seething infusion of blood which provides heat and spreads through the veins; for the flame of the mind’s stirring[,] as a result of the fervour of the hidden ministry[,] heats up the body’s constitution.’!

The ‘ministry’ is a divine intervention that inspires fervor and elevates the ascet-

ic’s body temperature and heart rate.”” Isaac lived centuries before the flowering of the hesychast movement, although he was hesychast-like in his outlook and

practice. His description matches expectations for positive fervor. Seraphim of Sarov spoke of an elevation of body temperature resulting from an influx of the Spirit. He explained the effect to Nicholas Motovilov: This warmth is not in the air but in ourselves [...] Hermits, men and women,

warmed by this heat, do not fear the winter’s cold. They are clothed as if in warm furs by the clothing of grace made by the Holy Spirit.’

The vision of the divine presence is a possible consequence of positive fervor.” The visions reported by Symeon the New Theologian—a hesychast ante litteram—were teliably associated with weeping. Related features included elevated heart rate and elevated body temperature. Symeon wrote: “The tremendous marvel [of such a vision] causes my heart to beat faster’; meanwhile he would

‘perceive a divine warmth’ and ‘shiver all over’.”” The dilation of the peripheral vasculature secondary to fervor causes warmth and perspiration, and the evaporation of perspiration results in a cooling effect that leads to shivering. The hallucinatory potential of the prayer routine implies that hesychasts have been more likely to perceive luminous visions compared with ascetics who use different strategies of prayer. The point has theological significance. The doctrine of divine energies has been encouraged and supported by hesychasts’ reports of visionary light.’° Light of this nature is a vision of the energies. The prayer 71H. Alfeyev, The spiritual world of Isaac the Syrian, Kalamazoo, MI: Cistercian Publications, 2000, 246.

72 Tbidem. 73 §. Bolshakoff, Russian mystics, Kalamazoo, MI: Cistercian Publications, 1977, 138. 74 For visionary phenomena, see ch. 3, 5(1), 20(2).

75 Maloney, Hymns of divine love, 12; C.J. deCatanzaro, Symeon The New Theologian: The Discourses, New York: Paulist Press, 1980, 363.

76 V. Lossky, The mystical theology of the Eastern Church, Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir's Seminary Press, 1976; Meyendorff, St. Gregory Palamas and Orthodox spirituality; \dem, Byzantine theology: Historical trends and doctrinal themes, New York: Fordham University Press, 1979; Idem, A study of Gregory Palamus, Yonkers, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1998. Also see ch. 3(2).

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routine and its consequences have shaped doctrine; praxis has influenced speculative theology. Hesychasts’ reports of the hallucinatory consequences of positive fervor have promoted visual perception as a medium of mystical experience and spiritual learning.

2.8 Parallels in Other Traditions

The autonomic and hallucinatory features of fervor are apparent in Asian traditions and in Latin Christianity. Two cases will be examined: the English hermit Richard Rolle and the modern Indian saint Ramakrishna. Ramakrishna’s fervid response of perspiring blood is compared with the religious stigmata in the final part of this section. Rolle described the staged onset of spells of exaltation and elevated body temperature. His fervor coincided with auditory hallucinations rather than visions: Suddenly I felt within myself an unusually pleasant heat. At first I wondered where it came from, but it was not long before I realized that it was from none

of His creatures but from the Creator himself. It was, I found, more fervent and

pleasant than I had ever known. But it was just over nine months before a conscious and incredibly sweet warmth kindled me, and I knew the infusion and understanding of heavenly, spiritual sounds, sounds which pertain to the song of

eternal praise, and to the sweetness of unheard melody; sounds which cannot be known or heard save by him who has received it.”

Rolle perceived ‘song’, ‘praises’, and ‘melody’, recalling the Shakers’ reception of gift songs.’® The melodic nature and the category-specific religious content of his mystical perceptions suggest a distinct kind of musical hallucination.”? He first sensed ‘unusually pleasant heat’ three years following his commitment to ascetic life, which implies that the hallucinatory praises and the ‘incredibly sweet warmth’ occurred during his fourth year of ascetic practice.®° The ‘spiritual sounds’ and ‘unheard melody’ were probably release hallucinations resulting from the sensory deprivation of living as a hermit in rural seclusion.8! Some such ”” C. Wolters, Richard Rolle: The fire of love, Baltimore, MD: Penguin, 1972, 93. ’® Ibidem; E.D. Andrews, The people called Shakers: A search for the perfect society, New York: Dover, 1963. 79 S. Evers & T. Eliger, “The clinical spectrum of musical hallucinations’, in: Journal of Neurological Science 15 (2004), 55-65. 80 Wolters, Richard Rolle, 93. 81 Tbidem; S. Evers, ‘Musical hallucinations’, in: Current Psychiatry Reports 8 (2006), 205-210.

Hallucination is an ongoing potential in perceptual life that is constrained by endogenous inhibitory processes (R.-P. Behrendt, ‘Underconstrained perception: A theoretical approach to

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melodies may have been reawakened perceptible memories. His memories of religious music were prepotent due to his religious training and enthusiasm, and thus were more likely to recur compared with memories of secular music. Ramakrishna, an expert yogin, was subject to the signs of positive fervor reported in hesychast writings. He readily entered meditative states in which his heart rate and respiratory rate were markedly lowered.*? Observers noticed that his face and chest were brightly flushed after periods of meditation. He attributed his ecstatic experiences to the activation of the heart chakra of his subtle body: When the mind learns to dwell there [in the heart], a man has his first spiritual awakening. He has the vision of light all around him. Seeing this light, he marvels

and cries: ‘Ah, what joy!’®?

Ramakrishna’s meditations occasionally evolved into ecstatic visions of the luminous presence of Kali. Like the light envisioned by hesychasts, Kali’s luminous epiphanies did not usually constitute a recognizable configuration.*4 In one vision, Ramakrishna perceived photopsia-like ‘particles of light like groups of fire-flies’.®° In another vision, he saw ‘bright waves of light like molten silver’ .*° In a ‘wonderful vision of [...] the Light that is Mother [Kali]’, he perceived ‘a boundless [...] conscious sea of light [...] with a continuous succession of efful-

gent waves coming forward, raging and storming from all sides with great speed’.8” Oddly, the motion of the luminous waves is like the concentric and

centripetal rush of waves seen from ships in the eye of a hurricane.** Watery or liquid visionary light is extremely rare in Eastern Christian mystical literature. Probably the only examples are Symeon the New Theologian’s accounts of envisioning ‘luminous water’ while gazing on moving water in actual fountains.*? Ramakrishna experienced his luminous visions as the presence of a personal god, comparable to Symeon’s and the hesychasts’ vision of the luminous presence of Christ. the nature and function of verbal hallucinations’, in: Comprehensive Psychiatry 39 {1998}, 236-248). Release hallucinations are discussed in ch. 3(2).

82 §. Nikhilananda, Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, New York: Ramakrishna-Vivekananda Center, 1942.

83 C. Isherwood, Ramakrishna and his disciples, Hollywood, CA: Vedanta Press, 1965, 63. 84 See ch. 3(1). 85 Nikhilananda, Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, 433; J.F. Amos, ‘Differential diagnosis of common etiologies of photopsia’, in: Journal ofAmerican Optometry Association 70 (1999), 485-504.

86 Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, 444. 87 Tbid., 433. 88 B, Larson, Jsacc’s storm: A man, a time, and the deadliest hurricane in history, New York: Vintage, 2000.

89 deCatanzaro, The discourses, 372-373; McGuckin, Symeon the New Theologian, 67.

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Ramakrishna’s experiences of negative fervor were exceptionally intense. A follower wrote: ‘The acute pain of separation from Krishna made him weep, reject all food, and even sweat blood from the pores of his body’.”° Crises of this nature recall Jesus perspiring blood before he was accosted in the Garden of Gethsemane (Lk 22:44). As a medical symptom, sweating blood is called ‘hematidrosis’.°! In the ascetic context, it represents a stress response associated with the fervor that occurs when the ascetic’s devotion is tested against the possible loss of the beloved Person.?* Hematidrosis may have religious significance as a physiological contribution to the physical wounds in some cases of the stigmata. In medical cases, blood is sweated from the scalp, palms, trunk, soles, or legs. Bloody tears have been reported. In most cases of the religious stigmata, the wounds are intermittent and leave little or no trace between episodes, comparable to the intermittent nature of hematidrosis.?? Physicians have observed the anatomical spaces where blood pools and opens into the follicular canals or onto the skin surface; these spaces ‘disappear’ after the episode of hematidrosis.™ Such medical findings are consistent with the Vatican examiner’s description of Padre Pio’s wounds: “The “stigmata” on the hands are very visible, caused, I think, by a bloody exudation: There is absolutely no opening or breaking up of the tissues’.”? A review classified cases of hematidrosis in terms of several causative factors: “Acute fear and intense mental contemplation were found to be the most frequent inciting causes’.°° Certainly ‘intense mental contemplation’ applies to stigmatics, who identify over years and decades with images of the crucified Jesus. But fear is not a critical motivation in stigmatics, unless it is fear of losing the object of their devotion. The stigmata is a psychosomatic event: a concrete convergence of the body and the soul. It is not reducible to a medical problem, although it will involve medically significant bodily changes. In noting similarities between stigmatic wounds and the lesions found in hematidrosis, I do not mean to imply that this particular medical reaction is the exclusive cause of stigmatic wounds. The point °° C. Isherwood, Ramakrishna and his disciples, Hollywood, CA: Vedanta Press, 1965, 115. °! HR. Jerajani et al., ‘Hematohidrosis — a rare clinical phenomenon’, in: Indian Journal of Dermatology 54 (2009), 290-292; J. Manonukul et al., ‘Hematidrosis: A pathologic process or stigmata. A case report with comprehensive histopathologic and immunoperoxidase studies’, in: American Journal of Dermatopathology 30 (2008), 135-139. 92 See ch. 8(2), where acedia is interpreted as a physiological stress response triggered by a spiritual crisis. 93 R. Biot, The enigma of the stigmata, New York: Hawthorn Books, 1962. 4 Manonukul et al., ‘Hematidrosis’, 135. » F Castelli, Padre Pio under investigation: The secret Vatican files, San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 96

PADIS PAN" J.E. Holoubek & A.B. Holoubek, “Blood, sweat and fear: A classification of hematidrosis’, in: Journal of Medicine 27 (1996), 115-133: 115.

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is to show by example that the wounds in individual stigmatics will be like the lesions associated with one or another medical reaction, and that both the wounds and the lesions will have a similar appearance and course. In some cases the reaction may be hematidrosis; in others it may involve a different physiological process such as local inflammatory reactions driven by the immune system and primed by the stress of intense devotion.” The deepest empirical problem in understanding the stigmata concerns the subliminal selection of lesion sites whose locations match those of the wounds in images of Jesus. A physiological response is channeled in a manner that mimics images of the crucified Jesus. A mediating factor must be involved such that

intense devotion, focused on images of the Crucified, engages a physiological reaction whose normal course can lead to lesions situated in about the same locations as the wounds of Jesus. Apart from the power to stir intense devotion,

the mediating factor must be psychosomatic in nature, allowing it to coordinate the physiological reaction and the emotional response of sacrificial devotion. The factor binds psyche and soma; it has the dual expression we identify as ‘mind’ and ‘body’. It can be conceived in at least three ways: A Christian would think of the image of God.?* The stigmatic views the crucified Jesus as the perfect expression of this image. A neuropsychologist would focus on the neuromatrix: a genetically determined schema of the morphological characteristics of the physical body, which can have the psychological effect of sustaining the experience of limbs that have been amputated and, in the case of congenital dysplasia, creating an experience of limbs that never actually existed.” Finally, an archetypal psychologist would consider the mediating factor an organizing process in the objective psyche with ‘psychoid’ characteristics.'°° A constellated archetype is psychologically territorial; the stigmatic is utterly devoted to the Crucified, and such devotion engages a selection process that triggers a physiological reaction whose clinical expression is anatomically suited to replicate wounds in images of Jesus.

7 See E. Panconesi & G. Hautmann, ‘Stress, stigmatization and psychosomatic purpuras’, in: International Angiology 14 (1995), 130-137; O.D. Ratnoff, “The psychogenic purpuras: A review of autoerythrocyte sensitization, autosensitization to DNA, “hysterical” and factitial bleeding, and the religious stigmata’, in: Seminars in Hematology 17 (1980), 192-213. 98 For the image of God in ascetic psychology, see ch. 1(3). 99 R. Melzack, ‘Phantom limbs and the concept of a neuromatrix’, in: Trends in Neuroscience 13 (1990), 88-92. 100 For scientific and psychological views on the ‘psychoid’ nature of the archetype, see H. Atmanspacher & C.A. Fuchs (Eds.), The Pauli-Jung conjecture and its impact today, Exeter, UK: Imprint Academic, 2014. The topic is discussed briefly in ch. 6(6). The stigmata is compared with ascetic interventions in ch. 12(1).

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The stigmata is to be interpreted in the same way as Ramakrishna or some other ascetic sweating blood is interpreted. These are fervid stress responses that occur when the ascetic’s devotion is tested against the demands of the divine object of love. In cases of the stigmata, it is meaningless to seek a miraculous cause of a physical nature; the physical cause will be a known medical syndrome that develops in accord with the possibilities of its normal symptoms and course. This point has no bearing on the spiritual significance of the stigmata. The stigmatic has, in a particular and limited way, incorporated the incarnate God in the sense of developing wounds like those in images of Jesus. The medical etiology is a peripheral question, a matter of scientific rather than psychological or theological interest. The important question is mysterious, and it concerns the selection process through which a mediating factor brings psyche and soma into conformity such that the lesions in a medical reaction replicate the locations of the wounds in images of the crucified Jesus.

2.9 The Influence of Sufism

In seeking external factors that may have shaped the hesychast prayer routine and the related spiritual anatomy, a useful approach is to consider the flowering of Sufism along the Silk Road beginning in the tenth century. The Silk Road was not a single road. It forked and meandered, and its passage through Central Asia included three major routes. Its destinations in the West included Antioch, Aleppo, and Edessa. A recent view is opposed to the common opinion that the Silk Road reached into the West; its western terminus may have been Persia

rather than within the Roman Empire.'°! The major influence of the Silk Road was not as a commercial route but as a means for the dissemination of culture by officials, refugees, and traders. Such cultural influences included religious

ideas and practices. Nestorian Christianity moved east along the Silk Road beginning in the

fifth century to become the official Christian doctrine across Central Asia.!° Evagrius’s writings, translated by the seventh-century abbot Babai, ‘decisively influenced the spirituality of the Persian Sufis’.'°> Early Sufi writings mention Jesus and Christian ascetics.!°* The Silk Road can be understood as a cultural

'0l_V. Hansen, The Silk Road: A new history, New York: Oxford University Press, 2012. 1

R. Foltz, Religions of the Silk Road (2 ed.), New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010.

'9 J.E. Bamberger, Evagrius Ponticus: The Praktikos and Chapters on Prayer, Kalamazoo, MI: Cistercian Publications, 1978, li.

104 R.A. Nicholson, The mystics of Islam, London: Bell, 1914, 10.

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amalgam in which religious ideas spanning Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, and indigenous shamanistic practices mingled and sometimes merged.!% Charismatic Sufi shaykhs traveled the Silk Road in caravans, spreading their teachings and establishing religious centers in Central Asia.!° As early as the tenth century, Sufis branched out from important centers of learning in Bokhara and Samarkand to pursue organized programs of evangelism. A tenth-century Sufi commentary describes ‘the third stage of the mystic’s spiritual journey [...] in vivid missionary terms as that of a “Director of Souls”, who “like a cameldriver speeds everyone to his home”’.'°” ‘The missionary effectiveness of Sufis lay more in example than in evangelism’.!°° Their asceticism ‘was visible proof of holiness’ for Karakhanid Turks, who crossed the border of the ‘Abassid empire at the turn of the first millennium and entered the region north of the Oxus, where they dominated a strategic section of the Silk Road’.! Another Turkic tribe, The Seljuks, who overran the Karakhanids, may have been Nestorian Christian, but when they captured Baghdad in 1055 they arrived as Sunnite Muslims. ‘The pax mongolica established in the thirteenth-century conquest of Chinggis Khan and his successors was a boon to overland trade’.'!° Papal missions to Asia began in the mid-thirteenth century. The Franciscan monk John of Plano Carpini was first to reach Mongolia.''! Arriving at the imperial court, ‘the good Catholic was astounded to find himself surrounded by Nestorian Christians’.!!” As late as the fourteenth century, Catholic missionaries were invited into the empire of the Mongol Khan. Amid warfare and shifting political alliances, Christian missionaries (Catholic, Russian Orthodox, Nestorian) competed with

Islam for influence ‘well into the fourteenth century. Their major rivals appear

105 An example of merging is found in the records of the Franciscan missionary William of Rubruck, whose travels in Asia took place from 1253 through 1255. His account of Nestorian belief and practices among the Christian Uighurs is harsh. Their ‘priests dressed like Buddhists, denied that God ever took upon him human nature, and filled the churches with felt images

of the dead. They [...] ate meat on Friday, did not practice confession, and recited the offices in Syriac, a language they did not understand’ (S.H. Moffett, A history of Christianity in Asia. Vol. 1: Beginnings to 1500, Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books,

1998, 411). For Rubruck, the

Nestorians were heretics. His report is biased but true in representing ‘a Christianity weakened by isolation, superstition, and syncretism’ (411).

106 Foltz, Religions of the Silk Road. 107 N Moffett, A history of Christianity in Asia, 384.

108 109 0 111 2

Tbidem. Tbidem. Foltz, Religions of the Silk Road, 101. Moffett, A history of Christianity in Asia, 407. Thid., 408.

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to have been independent Sufi shaykhs’.!!? Over several centuries and at multiple points along the Silk Road, an exchange of religious ideas and practices between Christians and Sufis would have been inevitable. Abdul Khalig al-Ghujduvana, a famous twelfth-century Sufi shaykh of the Naqshbandiyya order, introduced a form of prayer that closely resembles the hesychast’s.'!4 He was born and educated in Uzbekistan, and later established a school in Damascus. His disciples spread his teachings on silent dhikr as far eastward as Central Asia. The respiratory rate is slowed in the dhikr taught by Abdul Khalig and his disciples. Breath-holding is recommended, recalling Gregory of Sinai’s advice about ‘holding the breath’ (Phil. 4, 277). The pattern of respiration is synchronized with the recitation of holy names. Elevated body temperature is reported during dhikr. The Sufi practices called ‘safeguarding the breath’ (osh dar dam) and ‘safeguarding the heart’ (nighah dasht) are virtually

identical to the hesychast ‘guarding of the heart’. The possibility of dhikr causing hypoxia is implied in the breath-holding technique (aided by holding the tongue against the roof of the mouth); it is also suggested by the report that the shaykh was initiated into silent dhikr when he followed his teacher’s advice to pray while submerged in water. D/ikr can eventuate in mystical awareness of the divine Oneness. Abdul Khaliq refined rather than invented the practice of dhikr, which was used by earlier Sufis and well established by the eleventh century.!* Thubron spoke with a Sufi who practiced the dhikr taught by Abdul Khaliq. He told Thubron of five ‘points in the body, special points — we call them latoif’.!'° The points are located in the chest and correspond with Moses, Abraham, Jesus, Joseph, and Muhammad, respectively. The fifth, in the heart, is the point of Muhammad. Attention is directed among the points in an orderly manner: At each place we think the name of Allah five thousand times — to speak His greatness — until twenty-five thousand times in all. Then, the saint said, it will no longer be the worshipper who thinks the words, but his heart as it beats will be uttering the name of Allah. His soul is lifted above, while his body remains here.!!7

The Sufi’s description of prayer is like the hesychast’s. For example, Hesychios said that ‘attentiveness is the heart’s stillness, unbroken by any thought. In this "3 Foltz, Religions of the Silk Road, 116.

"4 M.H. Kabbani, Classical Islam and the Naqshbandi Sufi tradition, Fenton, MD: Islamic Supreme Council of America, 2004; World of Tasawwuf, Sufis, Shaykhs, Saints and Scholars. Abd'al-Khaliq al-Ghuddawani (n.d.; Accessible at: http://www.spiritualfoundation.net/ sufisshaykhs3. htm#112000135). "> Ernst, Sufism, 92.

"6 C, Thubron, Shadow of the Silk Road, New York: Harper, 2006, 215. "7 Tbidem.

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stillness the heart breathes and invokes, endlessly and without ceasing, only Jesus Christ who is the Son of God and Himself God’ (Phil. 1, 163).

The hesychast’s and the Sufi’s practices promote the same kind of automaticity through similar mental and physical routines. Both rely on auditory-verbal imagery. Theological reflection would meaningfully highlight sharp distinctions: Is Allah not different than Christ? Are ‘Jesus’ and ‘Allah’ not different kinds

of references? But technical considerations of this nature tend to fall away in the actual practice of the prayer routines. Personal experience can lead to experiencing ‘Jesus’, ‘Christ’, ‘Muhammad’, and ‘Allah’ as curative, magical, or numinous symbols. In a pars pro toto manner, the words acquire autonomous power. The neuropsychological outlines of the practices are alike. The conceptual distinctions between the recited names would not count as critical neuropsychological factors, granted the names’ comparable semantic breadth and their power to elicit comparably intense and similar kinds of feelings. Nikiphoros the Monk, who flourished in the thirteenth century, and Gregory of Sinai, who died in 1346, represent high-water marks in the hesychast movement. Gregory Palamus, the movement’s major apologist, died in 1359. Abdul Khalig was active in the twelfth century. In seeking historical links that may explain the similarities between the Sufi and the hesychast forms of prayer, I propose multiple contacts between pious Christians and Sufis of the Naqshbandiyya order between the twelfth and fourteenth centuries. A likely channel of communication was conversations between Abdul Khaliq’s disciples and hesychasts and other Christians whose paths intersected along the Silk Road in the Near or Middle East. Certainly the hesychasts were prepared to assimilate and to adapt elements of the Sufi routine that served their purposes. It was in the seventh century that John Climacus wrote: “Let the remembrance of Jesus be present

with each breath and then you will know the value of stillness’.!'8 Ware proposed non-Christian parallels of the hesychast prayer routine: “There are striking parallels between the “method”, as found in Nikiphoros, and the techniques used in Yoga and Sufism, which also involve control of the breathing and concentration of the attention upon specific psychosomatic centers. It is possible that the Byzantine Hesychasts were influenced by the Sufis, but conclusive evidence of this is so far lacking’.!'? More recently, Ware focused on influences possibly rooted in Sufi practice:'*? ‘Some kind of immediate interaction does 18 John Climacus, The ladder of divine ascent [Moore], 217. 119 Ware, ‘The hesychasts’, 246.

120 K, Ware, ‘Identity and difference in the spiritual life: Hesychasts, yogis, and sufis’, in: Athens Dialogues E-Journal (2010). Accessible at: http://athensdialogues.chs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/ Web-Objects/athensdialogues.woa/wa/dist?dis=71. Ware first proposed a connection with Sufism in: K. Ware, ‘Praying with the body: The hesychast method and non-Christian parallels’, in: Sobornost 14 (1992) no. 2, 6-35. In both articles he restates a view proposed by Meyendorff

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indeed seem possible’; “We do not know at what date and in what places the two sides came first in contact, nor which side was influencing the other’.'”! I have proposed answers to these questions. Ware also said: ‘The decisive criterion [of difference between the traditions’

respective forms of prayer] is not just outer technique but inner content, not just how we pray but to whom’.'”? The criterion may be less important than he thinks. Theological distinctions of importance from the perspective of normal mental status will shift, falter, or dissolve in the mystical states induced by the prayer routines. Semantic differences on points of theology may have little influence on experiences that are said post hoc to verify and confirm the differences. Intense emotion in profound devotional experiences can minimize or erase differences in content, comparable to a wind that bends all that stands before it. This is not to imply that such experiences are exactly alike in emotional content, although they do gravitate toward a limited number of emotional primes. It is in conceiving the experiences in terms of different philosophical or theological systems that serious dissension arises. Ware distinguished ‘outer technique’ and ‘inner content’. There is a third category of the form of the prayer experience, which concerns its cognitive and perceptual mediums. Technique can dictate form, which then delimits content. Perhaps I ‘hear’ a communication

if the

routine is auditory-verbal, or ‘see’ a communication if the routine involves meditation on an icon. The seeing and the hearing represent different forms, which demarcate differences in content, although overlap is often predictable.

(A study of Gregory Palamus, 139-140), which appeared originally in the 1959 French edition of Meyendorff’s book.

"1 Ware, ‘Identity and difference in the spiritual life’, 122 Tbidem.

CHAPTER 3

THE LUMINOUS

PRESENCE

The topic of this chapter is the vision of the luminous presence of God. The vision’s perceptual, emotional, and cognitive features are described in the first section. The second draws on the terms of the fourteenth-century Hesychast controversy to show that the vision is a hallucination. Divine and demonic visions are distinguished in the third section. The fourth is a phenomenology of the four kinds of luminous visions. Each of the next four sections addresses in closer detail one of the four visions. The perceptual aspects of one of Symeon the New Theologian’s most important ecstatic visions are analyzed in the ninth section. As a point of contrast with the luminous vision, Pachomius’s ‘great

revelation’ is analyzed in the tenth section.' The visionary experience of allencompassing light is interpreted in the final section as the perceptual realization of the theological attribute of omnipresence.

3.1 Properties of the Luminous Presence

An analysis of firsthand mystical accounts in the ascetic literature has led to my formulation of eight properties of the light perceived in ecstatic visions of the divine presence. ‘Firsthand’ designates authentic accounts as opposed to those written strictly for hagiographic, polemical, or instructional purposes.” Symeon the New Theologian’s accounts form a large share of the authentic ones. Several modern accounts have also been used. One was written by Richard Bucke and discussed by William James.* Others were drawn from personal interviews with 1A. Veilleux, Pachomian koinonia. Vol. 1. The Life of Saint Pachomius and his disciples, Kalamazoo, MI: Cistercian Publications, 1980, 95-97.

2

|follow William James, who spoke of ‘genuine first-hand religious experience’ (W. James, The varieties of religious experience: A study in human nature. Being the Gifford Lectures on natural religion delivered in Edinburgh in 1901-1902. The Electronic Classics Series, ed. Jim Manis,

3

Pennsylvania State University, 2002 [Orig. publ. 1902], 328. Accessible at: http://www2. hn.psu.edu/faculty/jmanis/wjames/varieties-rel-exp.pdf). Ibid., 386-387.

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a Christian ascetic. Light mysticism is common in both indigenous and major religious traditions, but not all variants are alike.* A neuropsychological perspective proved helpful for providing terms that allow one to probe aspects of the vision that might not otherwise be apparent.’ The eight properties are: 1. The light is not modeled after recognizable physical configurations. Its shape is described in neuropsychological terms as simple rather than complex, or unformed rather than formed. pe The spatial dimensions of the light vary within and across individual visions. 3. The light is qualitatively the same throughout. It does not show gradations of intensity. 4. The light is unaffected by its surround and constrained only by the selfdetermined margin of its radiance. It does not cast shadows or illuminate the ambient darkness. 5. The light is achromatic. The accounts do not mention color. 6. The sanctity and the purity of the light are self-evident. The emotion of the vision is imbued with a moral quality. 7. The light is knowing and strangely personal. 8. The light is recognized as self-illuminating rather than derivative of an external source. Properties 1-5 represent the light’s perceptual features. Properties 6 and 7 are discerned based on feeling. Property 8 is an intuitive summation of the other properties; it is an instance of mystical theology and specifically a recognition of the Creator. Self-illumination is a perceptual analogy of the theological attribute of aseity: ‘a characteristic of being self-derived in contrast to being derived from or dependent on another, hence predictable only of God in classical theology’.® What is renewed based only on its own resources is uniquely creative, and alien on human terms. The light constitutes the divine presence. It is not an empty sign of something that stands behind it. The perceptual properties (1-5)

M.T. Kapstein (Ed.), The presence of light: Divine radiance and religious experience, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2004; B.G. Myerhoff, ‘Peyote and the mystic vision’, in: K. Berrin (Ed.), Art of the Huichol Indians, New York: Abrams,

1978, 56-70; M. Pulver, ‘The

experience of light in the Gospel of St. John, in the “Corpus hermeticum”, in Gnosticism, and in the Eastern Church’, in: J. Campbell (Ed.), Spiritual disciplines. Papers from the Eranos Yearbooks, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1970, 239-266.

Guidelines for such an analysis are outlined in D.T. Bradford, ‘Neuropathography: Origins and methodology’, in: Perceptual and Motor Skills 103 (2006), 471-485; and Idem, ‘Emotion in mystical experience’, in: Religion, Brain, and Behavior 3 (2013), 103-118 (accessible at:

°

http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/2153599X.2012.703004). V.A. Harvey, A handbook of theological terms, New York: Macmillan, 1964, 31.

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embody the presence and convey its sanctity and purity (6), its personal quality (7), and its creative self-illumination (8).

Property 3 (qualitative sameness) and property 4 (independence of the surround) are highly distinctive. They are unlike the features of incandescent lights, which interact with their surround and show varied gradations of intensity. In ordinary visual perception, an object defined by properties 3 and 4 would be two-dimensional or very shallow in depth. Shallow space is characteristic of visual hallucination and reflects the limbic transition in perceptual process.’ Property 2 (variable size) and property 5 (achromatic) are unusual, but not as strange as properties 3 and 4. Incandescent lights typically have color shading and preserve at least some continuity or predictability in shape or size. Properties 1-5 create an unusual presence indeed, if the point of comparison is ordinary visual experience. In perceptual terms, the luminous presence is a colorless, relatively formless configuration of variable size. It is shallow in depth and does not interact with its surround. It is otherworldly. A light of this nature, when imbued with properties 6-8, is holy, strange, and personal, as well as cognizant and creative, all to a stunning degree. A minor variant of these effects is the gasp and swoon induced by exceedingly beautiful art. The light’s perceptual effects are independent of its surround, enhancing its otherworldly quality. It neither casts shadows nor illuminates nearby objects. The fourth property is apparent in one of Symeon’s accounts: I was seated in the light of a lamp [...] occupied in reading [...] but while I was

there surrounded by darkness You appeared as light, illuminating me completely from your total light. [...] Neither the darkness extinguished your light com-

pletely, nor did the light dissipate the visible darkness, but they were together, yet completely separated’.®

Symeon developed an anagogical interpretation of this vision in which the light is the presence of Christ and the ambient darkness is symbolic of the moral darkness of the sinful world (Jn 1:3—5, 10-12). The shadowless quality of visionary scenes is reported in the Buddhist ‘Flower Garden’ tradition in which the heavenly Dharma-realm (dharmadhatu) is apparent to the visionary eye ‘as a universe of radiance, [of] luminosity with no shadows’.?

The achromatic quality of the light is implied by the absence of accounts in which it is described as colorful. Only John the Visionary noted explicitly the 7

J.W. Brown, The life of the mind: Selected papers, Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum, 1988; Idem, The self-embodying mind: Process, brain dynamics and the conscious present, Barryton, NJ: Station Hill, 2002; RH. Previc, ‘The neuropsychology of 3-D space’, in: Psychological Bulletin 124 (1998), 123-164.

Hymns of divine love [Maloney], 135-136. 9

P. Williams, Mahayana Buddhism: The doctrinal foundations, London: Routledge, 1994, 123.

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light’s lack of color: ‘There are no shapes or forms of anything material, or number or colour’.!° He probably spoke from personal experience, judging from remarks about his ‘faculty of vision’ and the ‘impulses that arise during prayer, accompanied by light’.!! Occipital neurons that code for color are silent during the vision, and verbal and mnemonic processing plays a relatively minor role. In general, the colorful visions reported by Christians in the West are not “mystical’ if the criterion is the vision of the luminous deity described in Eastern ascetic writings. Benz’s survey of Christian visionary mysticism is limited mostly to Western examples. It includes accounts of colorful visions that were elaborated after the visions’ occurrence, usually for the purpose of bringing their meaning and form into congruity with theological concepts or biblical imagery. For example, Hildegard of Bingen’s visions, which were probably migrainous in origin, were colorful and elaborated on a post-visionary basis.'* Neuropsychological effects of an arteriovenous malformation probably contributed to Swedenborg’s colorful, highly elaborated visions.“ The seventh property is an essential element of contact with the personal God regardless of whether the contact includes perceptual phenomena such as a vision. It merits close attention: The light is knowing and strangely personal. Symeon the New Theologian wrote a description of a way in which the property is experienced: He knows, and is recognized, and is perceived as knowing. For the one who is known by God knows that he is known, and he who sees God knows that God sees him.!°

An interpretive rewording of the account helps to clarify its meaning despite dulling Symeon’s style: ‘In knowing God the mystic knows that God knows him’. Here is another version: “God and the mystic are joined in mutual recognition; each knowing the other, each knowing himself as known’. The same effect was reported by a young man who came for psychotherapy with the goal of entering mainstream life after practicing strict asceticism for four years. He nearly replicated Symeon’s words and also amplified them in a way that shows '0 §. Brock (Trans.), The Syriac Fathers on prayer and the spiritual life, Kalamazoo, MI: Cistercian Publications, 1987, 322. ‘Valid 319.322: E. Benz, ‘Color in Christian visionary experience’, in: Color symbolism: Six excerpts from the Eranos Yearbook 1972, Dallas, TX: Spring, 1977, 81-128. Bradford, ‘Neuropathography’. D.T. Bradford, Interpretive reasoning and the Halstead-Reitan tests, Brandon, VT: Clinical

Psychology Publishing Co., 1992; Idem, ‘Neuropsychology of Swedenborg’s visions’, in: Perceptual and Motor Skills 88 (1999), 377-388. 15

A. Golitzin, St. Symeon the New Theologian. On the mystical life: The ethical discourses. Vol. 1: The Church and the last things, Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir's Seminary Press, 1995, 123.

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that the mystic’s experience of knowing God is a function of God knowing the mystic. The man had not heard of Symeon, nor was he versed in Christian mysticism. I quote from his account: I know that I am known, and my being known is the means of my knowing.

Ordinary consciousness is darkened in this encounter, swallowed but not blinded, for the internal dynamism of divinity is the means of knowing both Him and

oneself.1°

The account can be reworded to reveal certain nuances: ‘In knowing God, one is within God; and in knowing oneself, one knows that God is making it possible’. The final clause of the account adds a note missing from Symeon’s description: ‘for the internal dynamism of divinity is the means of knowing both Him and oneself’. The mind is wholly enveloped; its operations are sustained by God. The clause conveys the dynamism of the experience, which is not a still pool of contemplative awareness. It is more akin to holding firm against a running tide. The two brief accounts are not wordplay and reification. They portray moments of introversive awareness in which personal identity is erased and oddly restored as it forms and reforms in the presence of God. The accounts can be applied as leverage points in addressing current portrayals of the self. They are an implicit critique of nihilistic postmodern attacks on substantialist notions of the self. They display the superficiality of popular notions of a self destined for endless ‘personal growth’. They are discomforting whispers in the ear of self-possessed masters of instrumental reasoning: ‘Is that all you have to show?” The presence is a sentient agent, a cognizant subject, a luminous person. These designations represent efforts to portray succinctly the union of the personal and the knowing qualities of the luminous presence. The relationship of the qualities is like that of monozygotic twins the moment before mitosis. Any distinctions that set the qualities apart are embedded in the indivisibility of the presence. The indivisibility is itself perceptually apparent; this is an esoteric meaning of the third property: The light is qualitatively the same throughout. One can wander forever in the presence, basking in cataracts of beauty, without stumbling on a fixed distinction. Visionary light in mystical experience can be knowing without being a personal agent. In Kashmiri Hindu Tantra, for example, the transcendent consciousness sought through meditation and metaphysical study is luminous and selfcognizant, but it is not the personal God.” Both the tantrika and the Christian 16 D.T. Bradford, ‘The self in mystical perspective’, in: P. Howell & J. Hall (Eds.), Sedf through art and science, Bloomington, IN: 1* Books Library, 2001, 138.

17 PE. Muller-Ortega, ‘Luminous consciousness: Light in the Tantric mysticism of Abhinavagupta’, in: M.T. Kapstein (Ed.), The presence of light: Divine radiance and religious experience,

Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2004, 45-80.

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perceive a light whose impact bears ultimate significance. Their respective experiences do not represent different categories of mysticism. They participate in the same mystical process, only they enter the process at different phases of its development. The tantrika perceives the presence past the point of its earliest possible inception in conscious awareness, when successive phases of differentiation have dissolved its original unity and its qualities of sentience and personhood have become distinct. The personal quality has dissipated, disappeared, or failed to draw attention, or it may have been wittingly screened from conscious awareness. The qualities part, but sentience lingers, as the comparison shows. This implies that the personal quality is preliminary to sentience; it is lodged deeply in the energic core of the process, and sentience is one of its evolved expressions. Sentience is a downstream consequence of the personal nature of the presence. To this point, the goal has been to analyze a certain cognitive dimension of mystical contact. Now, to shift registers, the conclusion can be framed in theological terms: God is a Person unto Himself. He is the Son, and on this basis He becomes a sentient agent in His worldly presence.'® This is the Christological meaning of mystical contact with the presence. Ascetics from different traditions cultivate different mind-sets, which shape attention in ways that variously open, shutter, and bias mystical awareness.!? Wholly open, utterly neutral attention is merely a fantasy, or else mystical experience is a complete opening and an accurate grasp of the basic structures of ultimate meaning. The Christian mystic can say that God the personal agent is known through participation in His presence at its earliest point of inception in conscious awareness. The presence can be described as the ultimate gestalt; any

distinctions that divide it derive from the original whole. Sentience and personhood are ubiquitous qualities in normal interpersonal relationships, at least those with a trace of empathy. One believes that friends and family are persons; they are not computer simulations or robotic mimes of one’s thoughts and feelings. The belief is supported by countless clues ranging from gestures to voice intonation. Moreover, ideas move between minds, strengthening the belief that the privacy of minds can be bridged to the end of creating a common, shared experience. These beliefs pass as common sense. The conclusion applies to Christian devotional mysticism. It is incompatible with the Vedantic position in which the formless aspect of the impersonal, all-knowing Brahman is fundamental, while its formed appearance as the personal God is a derivative phase of its self-disclosure. In its base state, which is formless (irguna), Brahman is characterized by cit, a kind of reflexive or self-aware consciousness. For additional detail, see ch. 4(7).

‘Attitudinal perspective’ could substitute for ‘mind-set’. Another alternative is habitus, a term in medieval Western theology for ‘a disposition, power, or act of the soul itself’ (E. Farley,

‘Theology and practice outside the clerical paradigm’, in: D. Browning [Ed.], Practical theology, San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1982, 21-41: 23).

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Their general relevance is clear from their obviousness. In neuropsychological parlance, such beliefs are attributed to a cognitive capacity called Theory ofMind (ToM). The scientific definitions of ToM vary within a narrow range. Here are three examples: ToM is ‘the ability to model the mental states of others’;?° ‘to understand and reason about the beliefs of others’;?! ‘to consider and understand other people’s desires and intentions as distinct from one’s own’.”? Minds are separable and independent, yet one can share the content of other minds and invite other persons into the privacy of one’s own mind. ToM is a highly sophisticated capacity and probably an exclusively human possession. It is easy to see how its activity can go awry and its delicacy can give way to abnormalities. In its complexity, ToM is the opposite of the reflex arc, which is simple, automatic, and subliminal in its operation. The neural network mediating ToM spans the medial prefrontal regions, the temporal poles, and the superior temporal sulcus extending into the temporo-parietal junction. Crime, suffering, and interpersonal problems are outcomes of believing that one’s own mind differs greatly from the minds of other people. Here are three examples: The master believes his slave is chattel, merely an extension of his sense of agency, as if a truncated ToM prevented his recognizing the slave’s humanity. A primary symptom of autism is a disordered ToM; the related social failures are obvious.”’ The severely autistic child treats even his or her parents as if they were ‘things’. A sociopath manipulates the ToM of others, who love him, vote for him, or buy his financial products without realizing that his ToM is not constrained by the moral principles that guide their thinking. A moral dimension inheres in the network’s operation. ToM makes it possible to anticipate and evaluate the effect of treating others well or poorly. This entails the reversals of perspective in which one sees the effect of one’s behavior as it is experienced in the minds of other people. The ‘golden rule’ acquires weight and value by merit of ToM. Absent a normal ToM, the rule may be a ‘nice’ idea, but it lacks personal evidentiary power and can become a compelling inner necessity only when deviations from the rule are met with discipline and punishment. And what is the golden rule but a dilute secular version of the 20K. Vogeley et al., ‘Mind reading: Neural mechanisms of theory of mind and self-perspective’, in: Neuroimage 14 (2001), 170-181: 170.

21M. Siegal & R. Varley, ‘Neural systems involved in ‘theory of mind’, in: Nature Reviews Neuroscience 3 (2002), 463-471: 463. See L. Fogassi & V. Gallese, “The neural correlates of action understanding in non-human primates’. In: M.U. Stameniv & V. Gallese, Mirror neurons and

the evolution of brain and language, Philadelphia: John Benjamins, 2002, 13-35. 22 FB Kobayashi & E. Temple, “Cultural effects in the neural basis of theory of mind’, in: Progress in Brain Research 178 (2009), 213-223: 213.

23 S$. Baron-Cohen, Mindblindness: An essay on autism and theory of mind, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1997.

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Gospel precept to love one another as He has loved us? ToM is the patch of soil (the cognitive medium) in which the precept can grow and come to mental fruition. The network mediating ToM can be interpreted as evidence of divine immanence: evidence of the capacity to engage in personal relationships with the desire to extend to others the kind of loving treatment one would like to receive oneself. In Palamite theology, God acts on physical substance through His energies, which have the trinitarian structure of His nature.** The Spirit, ever extending the Father’s reach, acts through ToM to convey an emotional stance whose perfect embodiment is the Son. The ToM network is uniquely suited to mediate awareness of the knowing and personal qualities of the presence. Certain predictions follow from this assumption. The network’s activity level during mystical experience would indicate the degree to which the mystic recognizes the presence as a personal agent. Such an experience would be highly motivating; the mystic would subsequently feel compelled to encounter the presence at ever deeper emotional levels. Relatively diminished activity in the network, or little at all, would signal a mystical

experience that differs in kind from contact with the presence of God. The ToM’s role in religious belief has been investigated in neuropsychological studies. The results of these studies are said to bolster an evolutionary perspective, as reflected in the following quotation: Contemporary psychological theories consider religious belief and behavior as complex brain-based phenomena that may have co-emerged in our species with novel cognitive processes for social cognition, such as Theory of Mind, and successfully engaged fundamental cognitive mechanisms, such as memory.”

A technically sophisticated study concluded: ‘Our results are unique in demonstrating that specific components of religious belief are mediated by well-known brain networks’, a prime example being “ToM-related prefrontal and posterior regions’.”° “The findings support the view that religiosity is integrated in cognitive processes and brain networks used in social cognition, rather than being sui

generis.’ Another study drew a similar conclusion: “The difference between belief and disbelief appears to be content-independent’.”* In other words, the 4

For energies, see ch. 3(2). For their trinitarian structure, see Meyendorff, A study of Gregory Palamus, 214-220.

25

D. Kapogiannis et al., “Cognitive and neural foundations of religious belief, in: PNAS

106

(2009), 4876-4881: 4876.

6 7

Tbidem. Thid., 4879.

*8 S. Harris et al., “The neural correlates of religious and nonreligious belief, in: PLoS ONE 4 (2009), 1-9: 2. See D. Kapogiannis et al., ‘Brain networks shaping religious belief, in: Brain Connectivity 4 (2014), 70-79.

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networks mediating belief and disbelief, respectively, do not vary according to whether or not their content isreligious in nature. Studies of this kind have no known bearing on mystical experience and mystical theology. They contradict the fundamentalistic assumption that God implants in humans a materially indiscernible organ of supernatural insight that allows them to receive His messages and to adopt corresponding beliefs. Scholars who reject the assumption will not be surprised to learn that the networks meditating religious belief are content-independent. The studies do not distinguish dogmatic formulations and ordinary religious beliefs, nor do they consider the power of the contexts in which the beliefs are felt, thought, or sung. Chanting a creed during liturgy is

different than lying in a neuro-imaging scanner and pressing a button to indicate agreement with a statement like this: “The Biblical God really exists’.”? The two experiences hardly bear comparison. The adaptive advantages of ToM might be welcome news in religious quarters. A certain biological process (the ToM network) has evolved in ways that encourage humans to view each other as persons meriting kindly if not loving treatment. A theologian could say that energies have promoted the replication and successive refinements of the network and that they continue to shape its ontogenetic development, biasing its expression toward positive interpersonal recognition. Of course, humans can effectively combat the bias, which is another

version of the old news that human nature is fallen and in need of outside help. The network’s operation can be understood as a functional expression of a loving Creator and a cognitive display of His presence.

3.2 The Hesychast Controversy

Gregory Palamus, a monk of Mt. Athos, and Barlaam the Calabrian, a learned Italian cleric, debated the metaphysical status of the visionary light reported by hesychasts.*° An implicit assumption on both sides was a dualism whereby the light is either material or non-material, physical or spiritual, created or uncreated, ‘noetic’ and ‘intelligible’ or nothing more than a consequence of photons striking the retina. For Palamus and later Orthodox theology, the light is composed of the uncreated energies of the triune God. The energies are not the essence of God, His inaccessible and hidden nature. They are neither divine emanations nor intermediaries between God and the world. They are visible displays of God-in-action and retain the trinitarian structure of their source. A modern 29

Harris et al., ‘The neural correlates of religious and nonreligious belief’, 7.

30 Meyendorff, St. Gregory Palamas and Orthodox spirituality; \dem, Byzantine theology; Idem, A study of Gregory Palamus.

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advocate of the Palamite position wrote: “What enables us to see the divine light is not the organs of sense-perception by virtue of their own intrinsic power, but rather the grace of God that is active within us’.*' As in this example, the dualism is echoed time and again in theological explanations and mystical accounts of the visionary light, both before and after the synod in 1341 and the councils of 1347 and 1351 that upheld the Palamite position. It can be resolved by considering in scientific terms what is meant by ‘perception’. The light of the presence is a visual perceptual phenomenon, and its appearance signals activity within the visual perceptual system. This does not mean it is a sensory perceptual phenomenon. The distinction turns on the absence of a physical stimulus situated external to the body in the case of the luminous vision. The vision occurs spontaneously, apart from stimulation of the sensory end-organs, and is correlated with physiological change in the neural substrate of visual experience. It is, as such, hallucinatory: a hallucination of mystical significance. It depends on aspects of the visual system that are retrochiasmic (‘behind’ the optic chiasm) and more deeply interior to the system than the lateral geniculate. It does not result from photons striking the retina. In traditional terms, the perception of the luminous divine presence is mediated through

the spiritual sense of vision. Scholars who reject the term ‘hallucination’ because of its commonsense and medical connotations of pathology may want to reconsider the reasoning that led to such a decision. Hallucination is an ongoing potential in perceptual life that is constrained by endogenous inhibitory processes.*” In part, inhibition is established by a constant, marginally predictable stream of ambient sensory stimulation. When the latter is eliminated or sharply reduced, inhibition weakens and release hallucinations can be generated in the posterior cortex.*> Posterior areas can be deprived of stimulation based on structural damage that blocks or impedes the flow of sensory information within the brain. Voluntary measures—such as certain prayer or meditation routines, and life under conditions of restricted environmental stimulation—can reduce afferent flow to the extent of depriving posterior areas of the stimulation required to inhibit the occurrence of hallucination.*4 31

Ware, “The hesychasts’, 252.

>? Behrendt, ‘Underconstrained perception’; Brown, The life of the mind. °° -J.W. Lance, ‘Visual hallucinations and their possible pathophysiology’, in: J.D. Pettigrew, K.J. Sanderson, & W.R. Levick (Eds.), Visual neuroscience, New York: Cambridge University Press, 1986, 374-380; M.S. Vaphiades, G.G. Celesia, & M.G. Brigell, ‘Positive spontaneous

visual phenomena limited to the hemianopic field in lesions of central visual pathways’, in: 34

Neurology 47 (1996), 408-417. P.E. Kubzansky, “The effects of reduced environmental stimulation on human behavior:

A review’, in: A.D. Biderman & H. Zimmer (Eds.), The manipulation of human behavior, New York: Wiley, 1961, 51-95.

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The areas are then released from inhibition and respond with a heightened level of activity. Release hallucinations are not specific to neurological disorders, mental illness, or the ascetic life. Simple and complex visual hallucinations occur within

a day of beginning to wear a blindfold.** In a mirror-gazing procedure called the psychomanteum, normal subjects experience multisensory hallucinations within 60-90 minutes.*° Hallucinations in the Charles Bonnet syndrome (a condition involving visual loss) occur in at least 34% of patients, including those with visual acuity as near normal as 20/40.°” Auditory hallucination is fairly common in the normal population; estimates range from 10%-17%.** The voices heard by normal persons and patients with schizophrenia or dissociative disorder can be indistinguishable.*? Conditions of restricted environmental stimulation involving extended periods of silence, limited or mostly invariable visual stimulation, and reduced social

contact can prompt release hallucinations. Conditions of this nature have been sought by ascetics, particularly solitaries, throughout the history of the tradition. The Vita of Anthony the Great includes reports of probable release hallucinations. Athanasius’s hagiographic intent does not mean these reports are simply fantastic embellishments. Anthony secluded himself for years in an abandoned fort, ‘build[ing] up the entrance’ to occlude light and prevent intrusion.“? The aberrant perceptions mentioned in the Vita are predictable consequences of his manner of life. They include: musical hallucinations (‘the music of harp and voices’); a luminous scotoma (an illusory ‘great silver dish’); auditory-verbal hallucinations of demons; solid objects that appeared porous or displayed the shape-shifting phenomenon called metamorphopsia; and also echo de la lecture (‘while [...] reading they [the demons] repeat many times, like an echo, what is

35 LB. Merabet et al., “Visual hallucinations during prolonged blindfolding in sighted subjects’, in: Journal of Neuro-Ophthalmology 24 (2004), 109-113.

36 D.B. Terhune & M.D. Smith, “The induction of anomalous experiences in a mirror-gazing facility’, in: Journal of Nervous and Mental Diseases 194 (2006), 415-421.

37 G. Gilmour, C. Schreiber, & C. Ewing, ‘An examination of the relationship between low vision and Charles Bonnet syndrome’, in: Canadian Journal of Ophthalmology 44 (2009), 49-52. 38

T.B. Posey & M.E. Losch, “Auditory hallucinations of hearing voices in 275 normal subjects’, in: Imagination, Cognition and Personality 3 (1983), 9-113; R.P. Bental & P.D. Slade, ‘Relia-

bility of a scale measuring disposition toward hallucination: A brief report’, in: Personality and Individual Difference 6 (1985), 527-529.

39 A. Moskovitz 8& D. Cortens, ‘Auditory hallucinations: Psychotic symptoms or dissociative experience?’, in: Journal of Psychological Trauma 6 (2008), 35-63. 40

P. Schaff & H. Wace (Eds.), Athanasius: Select works and letters (The Nicene and post-Nicene fathers, Vol. 4, Series 2), Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1976, 199.

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read’).4! Anthony’s confronting and mastering such symptoms was a necessary preliminary to his forming a new self in alliance with the then-embattled Christian God.” | Isaac the Syrian outlined in clear language the association of hallucination and the ascetic’s exposure to ‘desert wilderness and places far removed from men’. Evagrius recognized the phenomena of release hallucination and fantasy perceptions generated by extended exposure to the constrained and highly predictable sound-wave environments called ‘white noise’: ‘It is necessary to realize that the demons use exterior things to provoke a fantasy, like the sound of the waves in the case of sailors’.44 The sound of waves can function like white noise, which the demons use to release imaginal perceptions. The term ‘hallucination’ establishes a meaningful context for the examination of the form and content of the luminous presence, which can lead to deeper understanding of the repercussions of the vision in doctrinal teachings. For example, the unformed or non-configural nature of the luminous presence has

been interpreted as evidence of the simple nature of deity. A categorical distinction between hallucination and the luminous vision favors a narrow conceptual frame of reference. Comparative studies that might disclose unique characteristics of the divine presence are blocked on this basis. Worry over ‘hallucination’ may also reflect territoriality, the drive to protect specialized areas of interest. Such worry may be rooted in the concern that the distinction between mystical experience and pathological experience makes no sense. The concern can rise to the level of fear, at which point the fallback position is a dualism in which the categories of the mystical and the pathological are mutually exclusive. The strength of this solution is based on a preconceived confessional stance, a resistance to obvious similarities, or a metaphysical dualism that minimizes divine immanence and requires the breakthrough of mystical contact to override the otherwise impenetrable barrier between the divine and the human. To be clear, mystical experience is the superordinate category; pathological experience is a tidewater that can overflow the lacustrine margins of the mystical. The tradition is based on the Incarnation, the embodiment of God portrayed in scripture. Faith is said to confirm the teaching. Did Jesus rely on a human brain or did he require a supernatural organ of insight to recognize the Father? The first alternative is consistent with accepted doctrine. Does one prefer a brainless Christ—perhaps a Docetist Christ: an apparent human being; or an 41 4 43 44

Schaff & Wace, Athanasius, 203, 199, 203. For the theme of self-transformation in ancient and modern asceticism, see R. Valantasis, The

making of the self: Ancient and modern asceticism, Cambridge: James Clarke & Co, 2008. Isaac the Syrian, The ascetical homilies (Holy Transfiguration Monastery], 305. Evagrius of Pontus, The Greek ascetic corpus [Sinkewicz], 156.

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Apollinarian Christ, whose divine mind is paired with the body and emotions of a human; or a Eutychian Christ, whose divinity overwhelms his humanity?“ Might not God, in His general providence, constrain the brain to portray in naturally disposed ways His traces as a luminous presence? General providence concerns God's government (gubernatio) of nature, man, or history; in the present case, this would be His ‘working in and through the natural order, as when he

makes rain fall on the just and on the unjust’.“ Here, ‘makes’ does not refer to causation that abrogates empirical laws, an example being a miracle. The brain. belongs to the category ‘nature’. Its capacity to mediate visions of the presence can be understood as a religious predisposition of a neuropsychological kind. A motivation to reject the present line of reasoning is fear that these luminous traces are reducible to neural structure and the flow of chemicals across synaptic junctions. To act on this fear is to honor the hubris that inevitably marks the endeavor of empirical science. Empirical science is a unique, adamantly rigorous form of description, its conflation of ‘cause’ and ‘description’ notwithstanding. Mystical accounts of divine traces are also description and will only be improved by admitting other forms of description, allowing that all descriptions are acknowledged as conventional wanderings in the zone of the unknowable. One must begin along the via negativa, mounting description on description until an indescribable contour is limned by the mutual refraction of multiple beams of understanding.

3.3 Divine and Demonic Visions

Not all luminous visions are divine. Divine and demonic visions can be distinguished based on their respective kinds of emotion and the presence or absence of religious weeping. In Symeon the Studite’s view, “demonic disturbances’ have occurred ‘if, while you are praying, you feel frightened [...and] a light shines around you’ (Phil. 4, 61). Other demonic effects include unformed auditory

hallucinations as when the ascetic ‘hears some noise’, and also ‘alarms and excursions’ that disrupt the flow of mental activity (61). The divine presence is a

different kind of phenomenon: ‘If as you pray, another light, beyond description, appears to you, and your soul is filled with joy, and you feel desire for 45 For the Christological positions of gnostic Docetists, Bishop Appolinaris, and Archimandrite Eutyches, see J. Pelikan, The Christian tradition: A history of the development of doctrine. Vol. 1: The emergence of the Catholic tradition (100-600), Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1971.

46

A. Richardson & J. Bowden (Eds.), The Westminster dictionary of Christian theology, Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1983, 478.

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higher things, and tears of compunction flow, know that this is a divine visita-

tion and succour’ (61). Mental process is disorganized in demonic attacks: Fear, distractions, flights of thought, and other ‘alarms’ coincide with hallucinatory

phenomena in more than one perceptual modality. The Studite likened demonic fright to a ‘hobgoblin’ that scares a child (61). As the child seeks solace from its

parent, so the ascetic who ‘resorts to God through prayer’ can “escape the fear which the demons provoke’ (61). Nikitas’s outline of demonic disturbances is like the Studite’s:

The spirits of evil are extremely frightened by the grace of the divine Sprit when it is abundantly present in us or when we have been cleansed through meditation and pure prayer. Not daring to invade our inner sanctuary when we are illumined from that source, they try to alarm and trouble us by means of fantasies, fearful noises and meaningless screams, so as to divert us from vigil and prayer. They do not spare us even when we allow ourselves a little sleep on the ground; begrudging us the slightest rest from our labours, they set upon us and dash sleep from our eyes with some commotion or other, thinking by such means to make our life more difficult and painful. (Phil. 4, 104-105)

The location and form of demonic phenomena correspond with the degree of the ascetic’s contemplative absorption in ‘the grace of the divine Spirit’ (104).

In deepening his contemplation, the ascetic ‘transcend[s] the body’s low estate’ (105). He finds that somatic awareness dissipates and that his sense of personal

identity becomes thin, like a reed. These conditions promote the projected placement of demons, who shift their arena of activity to the ambient environment from the mental space of the ascetic’s own mind. They escalate their attack through adopting ‘a perceptible appearance’; they ‘take on a subtle bodily form’ (105). They appear in ambient space and signal their presence in hallucinations of “fearful noises and meaningless screams’ and in ‘some commotion or other’ (105). Hallucinations of this nature show that the demons are no longer satisfied

with affecting the ascetic’s thinking and feelings. They move instead to other areas of neuropsychological activity and “disturb the soul’s organs of perception’; they set about “deceiving our senses’ (105). In prospect and in fact, this is a

frightening development. The ascetic’s sense of subjective privacy is virtually destroyed. The projected placement of demons is correlated with the intensity of the fear they inspire. Within a century of Nikitas’s death, Gregory of Sinai described the unformed auditory hallucinations that occur in ascetics ‘whose minds are absorbed in contemplation’ as ‘fear-inspiring similitudes of thunder and lightning, tempests and alarms’ (Phil. 4, 243). The Studite’s, Nikitas’s, and Gregory’s descriptions of

demonic auditory hallucinations are similar and at points the same. Their common use of ‘alarms’ supports the impression of an intact line of tradition concerned with the psychological risks of mental asceticism and contemplative

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experience. The sounds they mentioned are like the ‘crude akoasmic noises such as buzzing, roaring sounds, bells ringing, and the like’ which Critchley identified in temporal-lobe cases.4” The unformed auditory hallucinations reported by the ascetics correspond with activity in the primary temporal cortex. In many instances, they have probably been release hallucinations associated with focal cortical inhibition induced by mental asceticism. Prolonged visionary experience of the divine presence poses risks. Symeon the Studite said: ‘Should this state continue for a long time, recapture your intellect in case something more happens to you because of the anguish of your tears, and submit it to some physical activity, thereby humbling yourself (Phil. 4, 61). ‘Anguish’ is not ordinary sadness, guilt, or grief. It is an evolving set of feelings called penitence, which equally humbles and exalts the ascetic. One of its basic emotional elements is the mystical feeling of ‘sweetness’.4® In saying ‘in case something more happens to you because of the anguish’, the Studite did not mean that a terrible event might suddenly befall the ascetic, or that he might inflict self-punitive mortifications in response to common grief (61). The father meant to help the ascetic taper the vision’s initial impact, such that he might

sustain at moderate intensity his joy and desire for higher things. To this end, he advised the ascetic to collect himself (‘recapture your intellect’) and to divert

his attention to a simple manual task (61). Were the experience overly prolonged and unchecked by such monitoring, the ascetic would likely succumb to an emotional transformation in which the feeling of sweetness gives way to vehement grief and pain, signaling the absolute end of the mystical experience.” 3.4 Four Kinds of Luminous Visions

Six factors hamper the development of a phenomenology of the ecstatic vision of the divine presence: 1. The experience combines the intimacy of devotional mysticism and the otherness of the divine presence. Both preclude neutral observation and make it difficult to provide a detailed verbal description. 47 M. Critchley, ‘Neurological aspects of visual and auditory hallucinations’, in: British Medical Journal2 (1939), 634. 48 For three examples of the mystical feeling of sweetness spanning the fourth and the nineteenth centuries, see Bolshakoff, Russian mystics, 137; Symeon the New Theologian, The discourses

[deCatanzaro], 201; and G.A. Maloney, (Trans.), Pseudo-Macarius: The fifty spiritual homilies

49

and the great letter, New York: Paulist Press, 1992, 81. The antithetical transformation of emotion (from sweetness to grief and pain) has been termed mystical enantiodromia (Bradford, ‘Emotion in mystical experience’). Pain can also evolve into sweetness.

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2. The experience is a kind of gnosis. Its esoteric nature can inhibit the ascetic from sharing its fine details. 3. Aspects of the experience are ineffable, which can block its presentation in conversation or in print. 4, ‘Word magic’ contributes to the secrecy in that a verbal description of the experience can elicit a portion of the event’s original emotional power. Wariness of such intensity can inhibit the ascetic from telling or writing of

the experience.” 5. The experience exposes the ascetic to superlative beauty and purity. He will feel humble and impure as a consequence. Sharing the experience highlights his unworthiness, risks the sin of pride, and feels blasphemous.

6. The fact and the meaning of the experience have been transmitted orally, passing along what Symeon the New Theologian characterized as a ‘golden chain’ of knowing figures whose spiritual authority has come through direct experience rather than priestly ordination.’! An esoteric oral tradition may not fully surface in print. Granted these factors, I distinguish four kinds of luminous visions. Their names

indicate the size and the position of the light relative to the ascetic’s body:

1. Focal-extracorporeal light is of small proportions and located outside the ascetic’s body. 2. Global-extracorporeal light is relatively expansive compared with focal-extracorporeal light and may fully illuminate ambient space. 3. Corporeal light shines from the surface of the ascetic’s body or clothing. 4. Intracorporeal light appears to illuminate the ascetic’s body from within. The extracorporeal visions are the most common. The intracorporeal vision is rare. The several types are not mutually exclusive. A particular vision may have a single type oflight, or two may coincide, or three may occur in sequence. The sequence 1—4 corresponds with successive increases in neuropsychological complexity and increasingly severe disturbance in the experience of self-embodiment. The point can be made in religious terms: The sequence 1—4 traces progressive degrees of absorption in the presence of God. In the focal-extracorporeal vision (1), the presence is situated at a distance. In the intracorporeal vision

(4), the body is infused with the luminous presence. The sequence 1—4 marks °0 Names are symbols, not empty signs of something standing behind them. The power named inheres in its name; thus, in using the name one evokes, imbibes, or manipulates the power,

and is affected by the power in return. This can be dangerous when the power is a spirit, a demon, or God. Sacramental action that transforms the actors can be understood on this basis.

°! McGuckin, Symeon the New Theologian, 73.

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the graduated dissolution of normal mental status and parallels a progressive release from the psychological constraints that prevent one from becoming like God. The skin is a critical margin. In the two extracorporeal visions, the light appears external to the skin; in the corporeal and the intracorporeal visions, the light alters or passes through it. The extracorporeal visions form a pair, as do the corporeal and the intracorporeal visions. The transition from the first pair into the second marks a quantum leap in phenomenology. But this is only natural. In fact, the skin is a protective barrier that prevents blows and pathogens from affecting the integrity of the organism. It has an analogous role in visionary experience: When the luminous divine presence appears outside the skin, one more nearly retains his normal sense of being an independent, embodied agent. When the presence appears on or within the skin, it has begun to substitute for one’s self and body. Of the four visions, the ascetic perceiving focal-extracorporeal light is most like his ordinary self. He retains awareness of his body’s weight and configuration and is able to recognize his location relative to other objects in the environment. The locus of his sense of self remains situated in his physical body. Focal-extracorporeal light feels supernatural, but it functions in the field of awareness like an ordinary object. It is ‘here’ rather than ‘there’; it is one form among others. These observations also apply to the global-extracorporeal vision except for occasions when the light fills most or all of ambient space, in which case the vision explodes the preexisting gestalt formed of surrounding physical objects and the space containing them. In comparison, the corporeal and the intracorporeal visions alter or prevent the normal experience of occupying a physical body in a recognizable physical surround. In describing the vision as esoteric, I do not mean a secret tradition of visionary light and coded knowledge has been cultivated and protected from outsiders. Few receive the vision, but its general availability is emphasized by all ascetics. The sense of the esoteric is an immediate personal consequence of undergoing a rare, treasured, mysterious event that requires specialists (virtuoso ascetics) to fully interpret its meaning. Any secrecy that flows from its esoteric nature is enforced by the beauty, power, and purity of the presence. Fear and turmoil also play a role. Unable to identify the presence on the occasion of its sudden appearance, Symeon once ‘burst into tears being unaware of who is there’.”” Frank secrecy based on the esoteric nature of mystical experience is mentioned infrequently in traditional writings. Harmless and Fitzgerald, speaking of Evagrius’s ‘cultivated obscurity’, quoted a passage from his Praktikos: ‘Some of these mysteries will be kept in concealment and others alluded to only obscurely, 52

St. Symeon the New Theologian, Hymns of divine love [Maloney], 81.

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but yet so to keep them quite clear to those who walk along the same path’. Similarly, in his treatise On Thoughts Evagrius wrote: ‘Our holy priest hindered me [from revealing how demons ‘recognize the mental representations in the heart’], saying it is inappropriate for such things to be made public’.*4 A related remark occurs in his commentary on Psalm 118: ‘It is dangerous not only to

speak less, but also the truth when it is not fitting to proclaim everything’.”” In the case of Isaac the Syrian, consider Homily 18: “But as to what is the cause [manner, way] of this second [kind] of prayer and how one continues in it free [of the employment] of all violent effort, this I have not thought it right to reveal, either by divulging its method through word of mouth or by writing’.*° In his Mystical Discourses, John of Dalyatha referred obliquely to the words a mystic ‘cried out’ during prayer: They ‘should not be passed on in writing, or else I will come under censure from the Initiated for daring to reveal the unwritten mysteries’.*’ John’s worry was not simply to keep silent about an intimate

mystery; he wanted to avoid ‘being considered by the weak to be raving mad’.® His reservations highlight a distinction between secrecy born of the experience’s esoteric nature and a calculated secrecy for the purpose of preserving one’s public image. The first is specific to the mystical experience; the second concerns John’s social persona. Other distinctions are implied, such as secrecy compelled by the intrinsic obscurity of mystical content, and the secrecy that allows one to avoid the predictable collision of mystical content and common sense during ordinary conversation. The esoteric nature of mystical experience is distinct from the secrecy that often surrounds it. The esoteric (in general) is reserved to specialists. Its technical

or hidden nature would be obscure, misused, or misunderstood were it revealed to the uninitiated, and for this reason it is kept secret. Secrecy, in this case, is a

function of esotericism, and the same can be said for secrecy surrounding mystical experience: Such experience is esoteric, and the secrecy surrounding it is a function of its esoteric nature. In comparison, an ordinary secret is usually kept secret for reasons unrelated to any esoteric qualities of the secret information. Some of the ‘worst’ secrets are common, and the secrecy is motivated by common emotions such as embarrassment or shame. °3 W. Harmless & R.R. Fitzgerald, “The sapphire light of the mind: The Skemmata of Evagrius Ponticus’, in: Theological Studies 62 (2001), 507.

Evagrius of Pontus, The Greek ascetic corpus [Sinkewicz], 179. °°

” 8

+L. Dysinger (Trans.), St. Evagrius Ponticus (345-399): Scholia on the Psalms (CPG 2455] (1990), part 7 (on Ps 118:11). Accessible at: http://www.|dysinger.com/evagrius/08_Psalms/ 00a_start.htm.

Isaac the Syrian, The ascetical homilies [Holy Transfiguration Monastery], 218. Colless, The wisdom of the pearlers, 159. Tbidem.

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At this point it is pertinent to mention empirical research showing that mystical experience (in ordinary persons rather than professional religious) is both common and kept secret. Surveys conducted over thirty years show ‘that 35% of persons sampled affirm some intense spiritual experience, felt by researchers to measure mystical and/or numinous experience. At a minimum, then, the reports of such experiences have been clearly and conclusively established in survey studies to be statistically quite common among normal samples’.*° Analyses of the survey data reveal two general factors: One refers to contact with an inhuman spiritual presence; the other concerns an experience of wholly encompassing unity. Notably, ‘persons do ot talk about their experiences with oth-

ers’.°° In some instances, the pattern of silence extends to childhood.*! This state of affairs leads to the impression that mystical experience only seems esoteric (rare, reserved to specialists, and not readily understood) when, in fact, it is the secrecy about such experience that leads to this impression. The problem with this impression is that the empirical research relies on broad, imperfect categories (e.g., different spiritual phenomena may qualify as an ‘inhuman spiritual presence’, and some experiences of encompassing unity are unrelated to divinity). Additional distinctions are required to clarify the matter: Mystical experience is a broad category that includes types that vary formally and qualitatively. Some types are common, occur in persons with little or no ascetic training, and are kept secret by those to whom they occur. Other types, nearer the apex of contact with ultimate meaning, occur rarely and generally in trained specialists. The latter types are truly esoteric, and the secrecy that surrounds them is related to their rarity and the likelihood of their ineffability. Ineffability is a complex topic, ramified in its causes and expressions. I will simply list five causes possibly associated with the ineffability of the devotional experience of the luminous presence: 1. The experience imposes a profound sense of humility that sets checks and boundaries on what the mystic is willing to say. Blasphemy may seem an immediate risk. In Isaac the Syrian’s words, ‘Perception of God is an abyss of humility’.6? One is reduced in importance, and glories in the reduction. To speak aloud, attempting description, breaks and taints the fullness and purity of the presence.

59 B. Spilka et al., The psychology of religion: An empirical approach (3" ed.), New York: Guilford Press, 2003, 311.

Coo[bidiy 312. 61 K, Tamminen, Religious development in childhood and youth: An empirical study, Helsinki: Suomalainen Tiedeakatemia, 1991. 62

Tsaac the Syrian, The ascetical homilies, 448.

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. The emotional intensity of the experience may disturb verbal process to the extent of preventing the mystic from telling what has happened. Literal speechlessness may be in question. The upsurge of emotion (its positive quality, not only its intensity) may correspond with an inter-hemispheric asymmetry of function in which relatively heightened activity in the right cerebral hemisphere inhibits contralateral activity in the language axis.° . Ordinary concepts are incompatible with the conceptual and emotional lineaments of the experience. Reasoning bends away or collapses like a mannequin without an armature. An aporia, a puzzling and ‘irresolvable dilemma’, turns the effort to describe the experience into an insuperable challenge, particularly when the theological discourse native to the ascetic’s tradition is not allowed to transgress the principles of noncontradiction, the excluded middle, and the double negation.® The experience tests the tensile strength of these principles of logic. . Ineffability may have a mnemonic dimension: I cannot describe what I do not remember. This is the effect called ecstatic amnesia: a transient and moderately dense anterograde amnesia caused by intense devotional experiences. The onset and the duration of the syndrome coincide with the apex of union with a personal God.

. Finally, the ineffability of the experience can result from the weakening or

the nullification of the integrity of self-embodiment.®° The mystic’s sense of personal identity is thereby changed. Who could have this experience, that this same person might return and explain it? For the person who returns, language poses an unfamiliar challenge. Words may sound and feel strange, and their meanings may seem remote and inconsequential. Analogies of this circumstance are stepping from a steamer as an immigrant, and handling tools for which one has no talent.

63

For functional asymmetry, see J.D. Herrington et al., “Localization of asymmetric brain function in emotion and depression’, in: Psychophysiology 47 (2010), 442-454; J. van Honk & J.L.G. Schutter, ‘From affective valence to motivational direction: The frontal asymmetry of emotion revisited’, in: Psychological Science 17 (2006), 963-965; R.P. Walters et al., ‘Lateralized visual hallucinations: An analysis of affective valence’, in: Applied Neuropsychology 13

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(2006), 160-165. M.A. Sells, Mystical languages of unsaying, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994, 2; for mystical discourse and the logical principles, see F. Staal, Exploring mysticism: A methodological

65

essay, Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1975. For ecstatic amnesia, see ch. 5(5). For altered self-embodiment in mystical experience, see ch. 18.

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3.5, Focal-Extracorporeal Light

Symeon used certain key words in describing his spiritual experiences: sun, star, flame, glimmer, light, ray, fire, flash, and lightning. He referred less often to rounded, cooler images like ‘pearl’ and ‘moon’. ‘Light’, ‘ray’, and ‘fire’ occur

with considerable frequency, to the extent of serving as terms of his mystical theology. The words usually function as metaphors, as when ‘ray’ and ‘fire’ indicate a movement of the Spirit ‘within, somewhere in your heart’.“® Such a movement is invisible. In other instances, the words are literal references to the shape, intensity, or movement of hallucinatory light. The light was subject to change during some visions: descending, expanding, or possibly dimming or increasing in intensity. In rare cases, he perceived the light ‘turning’, ‘gyrating’, ‘swirling’, or ‘flying around’, implying a three-dimensional spatial frame.”° The great majority of his visions included a single light.”! Symeon was awed by the beauty of a pearly, lustrous ‘spherical light’ he likened to ‘the moon in full brilliance’.”” He compared other spherical lights to the ‘sun’ or the ‘solar disc’.’? His visions of the solar and the lunar forms elicited deep aesthetic emotion. The spherical forms were the most sculptural of his visions; their three-dimensionality was correlated with the aesthetic quality of beauty. Symeon mentioned his intention to reach and touch a lunar form but said he was restrained from doing so. This was an instance of motor arrest. A related effect, called speech arrest, is usually associated with thought deletion. Symeon described an example of these effects: When ‘the greatness of Your glory overwhelms me’, it ‘leaves my soul and my mind speechless, my actions and all my

thoughts cease’.”4 Pachomius used thought deletion as a criterion to distinguish divine and demonic apparitions. Demons would ‘deprive him of his thoughts’ or ‘take the thoughts away from his mind’ when they intended to trick him

9

E.g., The discourses [deCatanzaro], 376; D.K. Griggs (Trans.), Divine eros: Hymns of St.

Symeon the New Theologian, Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir's Seminary Press, 2010, 163; Hymns of divine love [Maloney], 67, 153, 251. 68

Griggs, Divine eros, 163.

6 E.g., Hymns of divine love [Maloney], 151. 70 E.g., Hymns of divine love, 67. 71 Many of the shapes and patterns of movement described by Symeon are like the form constants identified in: H. Kluver, Mescal and mechanisms of hallucinations, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1966. Such forms and movements are common across hallucinatory states involving unformed or simple visual images, regardless of their etiology. E.g., Hymns of divine love, 153, 251.

7 73 E.g., Hymns of divine love, 12, 68, 189, 218, 252. 74

Hymns of divine love, 48.

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into believing they were Christ.”° All these effects commonly occur during hallucinations. . Symeon wrote:

‘I do not perceive noises,

I do not hear voices’ when the

luminous presence ‘converses with me, enlightens me, looks at me and | also look at it’.”° What he described was the experiential effect of the inhibition of acoustic stimuli, a common feature of auditory hallucination. In other passages, he said Christ ‘speaks to me’ and ‘spoke in me’.”” ‘Speaks to me’ and ‘spoke in me’ may represent distinct forms of perception. The first suggests that the voice was emitted from extracorporeal space, like a hallucination. The second implies that Symeon perceived the voice within mental space, like a pseudohallucination. The first kind of perception is wholly spontaneous, but a pseudohallucination allows some measure of control or manipulation on the part of the person who perceives the sound. The two forms of perception lie on a continuum; one can grade into the other. In several visions Symeon perceived a ‘cloud’ that blocked or dimmed another light behind it.78 The effects of dimming and blocking imply that the cloud was an obscured area of his visual field, comparable to the shifting, variably edged scotomas that occur in the aura of a seizure or a migraine. But Symeon’s ‘cloud’ references are not only perceptual description; they bear scriptural associations and theological significance and in these several ways were overdetermined. ‘Cloud’ alludes to Mt. Sinai where Moses encountered ‘peals of thunder and lightning, and a heavy cloud over the mountain’ (Ex 20:16). The scripture’s

significance for Symeon was probably enhanced by his familiarity with On the Life ofMoses, where Gregory of Nyssa considered ‘the meaning of Moses “being within the cloud and seeing God there”’.”” Gregory Nazianzus, another Cappadocian, alluded to the same scripture in discussing ‘contemplation’: “Where the commandments are observed, there is cleansing of the flesh, that cloud that blocks the soul’s vision and keeps it from seeing clearly the rays of divine illumination’.8° Here, ‘cloud’ is paired with ‘flesh’, indicating the burdensome, impassioned qualities of the human being, ‘a changeable animal with a nature always in flux’.8! ‘Cloud’ occurs in Evagrius’s Kephalaia Gnostika, also with a negative meaning: The ascetic who succumbs to the demons’ ‘slanders’ feels that 75

Veilleux, Pachomian Koinonia. Vol. 1, 166, 356. Colless (The wisdom ofthe pearlers, 22) thinks

such examples refer to loss of consciousness, but thought deletion does not entail loss of consciousness. 7° ”

Hymns of divine love, 81. E.g., The discourses [DeCatanzoro], 375; Hymns of divine love [Maloney], 251.

78 ” 80 a

E.g., Hymns ofdivine love, 67. A. Meredith, Gregory of Nyssa, London: Routledge, 1999, 105. B.E. Daley, Gregory of Nazianzus, London: Routledge, 2006, 131. Tbidinlan

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‘a cloud attaches to the mous and chases the nous far from contemplation’.®? Elsewhere, Evagrius used ‘cloud’ in positive terms consistent with Gregory of Nyssa’s interpretation of the events on Sinai: ‘The intelligible cloud is the reasoning nature’; it is ‘spiritual contemplation which contains within it the logoi of providence and the judgment of those who are on earth’.§> In using ‘cloud’, Symeon referred to Exodus and probably alluded to the Cappadocians. His having wittingly alluded to Evagrius is doubtful. In several of Symeon’s accounts, the presence appears as a ray or a star situated above the horizontal meridian of his visual field, which suggests an altitudinal bias in the light’s initial location. It would then increase in scope and brilliance, reaching its apogee before dimming or becoming obscured by a cloud. It would then descend and pass into Symeon’s mind and body, not as a visible light but as the invisible presence. Such accounts illustrate a reciprocal relationship between the visibility of the presence and its proximity to Symeon’s body. A general rule may be in question: The visibility of the divine presence is inversely correlated with its distance from its recipient’s body. These are intense experiences; Symeon’s reports are not entirely coherent. Here is a summary

description: You who at first shone above me and then one day hid Yourself, and who, afterwards, enveloped me completely with Your rays, I suddenly contemplate You completely present in me, You at first having appeared suddenly above, then hidden behind

a cloud, deprived of its rays like the sun. Yes, as this star shows itself to whomever contemplates it, and then, especially, all see it completely so to say, similarly, You also show Yourself hidden within me, yes seen, You the inaccessible one, to the eyes of my intellect. How? You know it -, gradually increasing, redoubling with

light, redoubling with brilliancy.*4

‘Ray’ and ‘star’ are double references: Each refers to a focal-extracorporeal light and a subjective experience without a hallucinatory accompaniment. The divine presence retained its identity across its diverse manifestations; thus Symeon equated the ray (star) and the invisible presence. It was after he perceived the light and was ‘enveloped’ that he discovered God ‘completely present in me’.®° This was not an unusual sequence; other accounts report variations of the pattern: The light ‘appeared from above, much greater than the sun’; or it ‘appeared [...] as a flash [...] then became a little cloud, which was in the form of fire

which came down and settled over’ his head; or, ‘under the appearance of a cloud, luminously it swooped down on me and made me cry out, for I was in 82

Evagrius Ponticus, Kephalaia Gnostika [Dysinger], III.9.

83

[bid., V.13, 16.

84 Hymns of divine love [Maloney], 52 [Hymn 15]; see Griggs, Divine eros, 83.

85 Hymns of divine love, 52.

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terror’.®° In experiences of this nature, religious meaning inheres in all the perceptual details and unfolds as the mystical process advances, granted a time frame

of possibly seconds.°®” The altitudinal bias favoring the light’s upward location suggests the possibility that Symeon induced some mystical visions by gazing upward and imploring God to display a greater share of His presence, analogous to clinical cases in

which gaze is used for the self-induction of ecstatic seizures.** His desire to induce visions or to have one return after it dissipated is apparent in statements like this: “When I strive energetically and with force ask it [the divine presence]

to shine or better to make itself more clearly to be seen from on high, it separates me from all things below and unites me with its unspeakable brilliance’. In one account, Symeon explained that the ascetic’s moral status corresponds with the size of the light he envisions. In Hymn 25, Christ tells Symeon: For I am truly seen, I am benevolently shown according to the receptivity of each human being. When I change form it is not I who experience the change, but those who see are deemed worthy to see Me in this way. For otherwise they are not able to see Me nor do they receive any more, and because of this they sometimes contemplate a sun when they have a purified mind, and sometimes a star when they find themselves under the gloom and night of this body.”°

Persons with a ‘purified mind’ may be shown a ‘sun’, but those mired in the ‘night of the body’ can see only the smaller form of a star.?! Symeon insinuated a moral dimension in perceptual experience. The size differential depends entirely on the visionary; the luminous deity is ever the same. Gregory Palamus addressed the essential continuity of the divine presence across variations in its appearance: ‘Is it not clear that the divine light is always one and the same, ye

Sibid.,.65,"1 35,081.

87 This type of vision is compatible with the diagnostic impression of a discharging lesion in the inferior aspect of the posterior cortex, granted the light’s initial appearance in Symeon’s upper visual field. Excitation would spread in an anterior direction, activating limbic areas that mediate intense emotion and the recovery of the memories that provide the conceptual content of a religious interpretation. In referring to a time frame of seconds, I extrapolate in gross terms from studies of the propagation speed of epileptiform activity (e.g., M. Zhang et al., ‘Propagation of epileptiform activity can be independent of synaptic transmission, gap junctions, or diffusion and is consistent with electrical field transmission’, in: Journal of Neuroscience 34 [2014], 1409-1419). For the relationship of seizure experience and Symeon’s visionary mysticism, see ch. 5(5).

88 H.B. Asheim & E. Brodtkorb, ‘Partial epilepsy with “ecstatic” seizures’, in: Epilepsy and Behavior4 (2003), 667-673; C.D. Binnie, ‘Self-induction of seizures: The ultimate non-compliance’,

in: Epilepsy Research Supplement 1 (1988), 153-158. 8° Hymns ofdivine love, 251. ° Tbidem. °! Tbidem.

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whether it be that which the Apostles saw on Tabor, or that which purified spirits now see, or that of the very reality of eternal blessedness to come?’.”” 3.6 Global-Extracorporeal Light

An example of the global-extracorporeal vision was reported by a young woman who described repeated experiences during meditation when she would pass at great speed through thick black space, barely avoiding being crushed by enormous angular forms, until she arrived before a glowing light with a human-like configuration. Its surroundings were entirely dark. The outlines of a head, arms, and legs were apparent. Internal details such as a mouth or eyes were absent. The figure was turned slightly from a frontal perspective. It radiated a soft, colorless, vaguely pulsing light. It did not show internal gradations of intensity that might suggest variable heat or shading. The light was invariable in intensity: a wholly luminous figure. It was recognized as its own source of illumination. It was unearthly, fascinating, and attractive. It was deeply calming rather than unsettling or exciting. She melted away and was also uplifted in inspiration. She felt a closer approach would be dangerous and would lead to immediate physical death, yet approach was dearly sought by the visionary. She felt that she herself and all else were partial, incomplete, and compromised compared with the luminous figure. The figure conveyed a charisma of knowledge that encompassed both particulars and the general. Its love touched the visionary’s love such that dissolving in the light was understood as the highest goal, attainment of which would be irreversible. Her yearning and longing, she said, ‘tore my heart apart’. She welcomed the pain and wept in gratitude. Turning from the light, less from fear than from an obscure sense of duty, she methodically executed the final steps of her meditation and returned to the ordinary waking world. Her longing was maintained after her withdrawal. Her account is valuable for describing in detail the light’s perceptual qualities and the emotion resulting from direct contact with the presence of the luminous deity. The light varies in size across individual experiences of the global-extracorporeal vision. In some cases, it encompasses most of the visual field. Symeon the New Theologian’s accounts include examples, as when he described: ‘a flood of divine radiance’ that ‘filled all the room’; luminous ‘rays’ that increased in size and ‘redoubled in brilliance’ until they ‘enveloped me completely’; a ‘cloud of light’ that ‘surrounds me entirely’; and a ‘sweet light’ that ‘becomes a big flame

which reaches the heavens’.”’ 92 Cited in Meyendorff, A study of Gregory Palamus, 194. 93 The discourses [deCatanzaro], 245; Hymns of divine love [Maloney], 52, 67, 81.

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An uncommon variation of the global-extracorporeal vision is comparable to the clinical phenomenon of amaurosis, in which the visual field is entirely illuminated while the affected person suffers a transient loss of vision based on change in the central nervous system rather than in the eye. I find examples only in Symeon; they appear to involve ‘whiteout’ more often than the dark visual emptiness (visual nulle) that is another manifestation of amaurosis.” The impression of amaurosis is strengthened by Symeon’s reports of envisioning a ‘cloud of light’ at the onset of some visions.”? Granted the visionary context, the ‘cloud’ is like a luminous scotoma, understood as a forme fruste of amaurosis. I step from the ascetic literature to an example of the global-extracorporeal vision reported by R.M. Bucke, a medical doctor and a prominent figure in the psychological study of religion. He was 35 at the time and riding in a hansom. He felt ‘calm and peaceful’ after dining with two friends: All at once, without warning of any kind, I found myself wrapped in a flamecolored cloud. For an instant I thought of fire, an immense conflagration somewhere close by in that great city; the next, I knew that the fire was within myself.

Directly afterward there came upon me a sense of exultation, of immense joyousness accompanied or immediately followed by an intellectual illumination impossible to describe. Among other things, I did not merely come to believe, but I saw that

the universe is not composed of dead matter, but is, on the contrary, a living Presence; I became conscious in myself of eternal life. I saw that [...] the foundation

principle of the world, of all the worlds, is what we call love.°°

The mystical process in Bucke’s experience advanced in a series of four transitions. The first was apparent in the appearance of global-extracorporeal light: the luminous cloud that surrounded him. He assumed the light was an actual fire before realizing its subjective spiritual origins: ‘the fire was within myself.” The change in perspective reflected the transition from a state in which his sense of personal identity was sufficiently nullified to erase the difference between ‘inner’ and ‘outer’ into a second state that reestablished the boundary between inner and outer and supported his personal awareness of the mystical phenomena. The third transition was apparent in an influx of ecstatic emotion: exultation,

immense joy, and a love that imbued him and his surroundings. The fourth, specifically cognitive transition was apparent in an ‘intellectual illumination’: ‘the universe is not composed of dead matter, but is, on the contrary, a living 4 °

E.g., The discourses, 245. E.g., Hymns of divine love, 67.

°° W. James, The varieties of religious experience: A study in human nature. Being the Gifford Lectures on natural religion delivered in Edinburgh in 1901-1902. The Electronic Classics Series, ed. Jim Manis, Pennsylvania State University, 2002 (Orig. publ. 1902), 306-307.

”

Tbid., 306.

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Presence’.”® The emotional and the cognitive aspects of Bucke’s experience were reciprocal subprocesses of a single mystical process that culminated in the realization that the Presence that imbues the world is ‘eternal’ and has the nature of ‘love’.”? Bucke’s awareness of the world’s composition as a ‘living Presence’ rather than “dead matter’ suggests a panentheism that allows a measured identity between God and the world.!® The passage is neutral with respect to the idea of an eternal soul.

3.7 Corporeal Light Corporeal luminosity is an ancient and widespread religious motif. Archaic-era pictographs in Texas and Puebloan art in the American Southwest show glowing personages—shamans, spirits, and kachinas—radiating lines and undulating waves of light.'°' The Taoist sage, as described in the contemplative neiguan tradition of the Tang dynasty, shines with light after his heart (xi) is purified of thought and feeling, aided by breath control.’ A clinical analogy of corporeal light is the corona phenomenon in which portions of the migraineur’s body shine with an aura of light.!% An example of corporeal light is Pseudo-Macarius’s vision of ‘a splendid robe’, ‘brilliant like lightning’ and ‘not made by human hands’; the ‘man clothed in it was amazed and struck with awe’.!°4 The man was undoubtedly the author, 8 Tbidem. ° Tbidem. 100 For panentheism, including in Eastern Christian theology, see P. Clayton & A. Peacocke (Eds.), In whom we live and move and have our being: Panentheistic reflections on God's presence

in a scientific world, Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2004. 10 J.J. Brody, Anasazi and Pueblo painting, Albuquerque, NM: University of New Mexico Press, 1991. 10:=wy Robinet, Taoism, 206. A comparative study of the xin and the hesychast understanding of ‘heart’ would show a number of likenesses. See H.H. Oshima, “A metaphorical analysis of the concept

10. ow

of mind in the Zhuangzi’, in: V.H. Mair (Ed.), Experimental essays in Zhuangzi, Dunedin, FL: Three Pines Press, 2010, 68-82. K. Podoll, & D. Robinson, ‘Corona phenomenon as visual aura symptom in migraine’, in:

Cephalagia 21 (2001), 712-717; K. Podoll, D. Robinson, & V. Nicola, “The theosophists’ aura vision and the visual migraine aura: A phenomenological comparison’, in: Neurology, Psychiatry and Brain Research \\ (2004), 171-178. 10 >

Pseudo-Macarius, The fifty spiritual homilies and the great letter [Maloney], 81, 82, 83. The Spiritual Homilies was transmitted under the name of Macarius the Great, but was probably written by the fourth-century Syrian monk Symeon of Mesopotamia (C. Stewart, ‘Working the earth of the heart’: The Messalian controversy in history, texts, and language to AD 431, New York: Oxford University Press, 1991). Recognizing the misattribution, scholars refer to the author as ‘Pseudo-Macarius’. The ‘robe of glory’ is a recurrent motif in Syriac ascetic writings, with Ephrem the Syrian’s work including many examples (S. Brock, The luminous eye of the soul:

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whose humility prevented his describing his experiences in the first person. Comparable experiences occur during certain Asian forms of meditation. A relatively complex example, reported by an advanced tantrika, involved an incipient out-of-body experience combined with an unformed auditory hallucination of ‘roaring’: ‘[...] the illumination grew brighter and brighter, the roaring

louder, I experienced a rocking sensation and then felt myself slipping out of my body, entirely enveloped in a halo of light [...] bathed in light and in a state of exaltation and happiness impossible to describe’.!” The vision of corporeal luminosity occurs during the insight (vipassana) meditation taught in the Abhidhamma tradition. It marks an advanced phase of meditation, when the conditioned and contingent nature of phenomena is observed directly. The luminosity is an aura of light (obhasa) emanating from the body. Notably, its perception is considered an ‘imperfection of insight’ and an ‘obstacle to progress’.!°° The emotions accompanying the vision are generally positive. Those to the side of quietude are ‘tranquility’, ‘equanimity’, and ‘mindfulness’; those of an activating nature include ‘zest’, ‘happiness’, and ‘exertion’.!°7 All feelings along this continuum stimulate enjoyment and attachment, and on this basis they encourage clinging and hinder one from pressing onward to relatively advanced transitions of insight. In pressing forward, one

must consider present experience in terms of the three marks of conditioned phenomena. Even these subtle elevating states are impermanent and subject to destruction. They are conducive to suffering (based on clinging) and without a perduring core of self or substance that retains its nature over time. The bodily aura is like the tantrika’s ‘halo of light’ and Pseudo-Macarius’s vision of corporeal luminosity.'°8 The similarity of the visual phenomena in the three experiences hardly diminishes their differences. Each is a distinct form. They differ in complexity, in purpose, and in the degree to which self-embodiment and personal identity are retained or disintegrate. The tantrika’s experience is highly complex. The auditory and vestibular phenomena of ‘roaring’ and ‘rocking’ do not occur in

the other two experiences.'” The subtlety of emotion in the Buddhist experi-

105 '06

107 108 '©

The spiritual world vision ofSaint Ephrem the Syrian, Kalamazoo, MI: Cistercian Publications, 1992). The corresponding mystical phenomena are neglected when the motif is interpreted as simply a literary figure. G, Krishna, Kundalini, the evolutionary energy in man, Berkeley, CA: Shambhala, 1971, 61, 66. B. Bodhi (Ed.), A comprehensive manual of Abhidhamma: The Abhidhammattha Sangaha of Acariya Anuruddha, Onalaska, WA: BPS Pariyatti Editions, 2000, 351, 352. Thid., 350. Krishna, Kundalini, the evolutionary energy in man, 61. Tbidem. For vestibular contributions to mystical experience, see the introductory section of ch. 18.

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ence is obvious, as is the demand for a refined quality of attention that keeps one from settling in penultimate states. This contrasts with the blunt emotional power of the Christian’s and the tantrika’s respective experiences. PseudoMacarius was ‘amazed and struck with awe’; the tantrika felt ineffable ‘exaltation and happiness’.'!? Virtuoso ascetics are careful in naming the qualitative features of mystical experience. Awe is distinctive. Granted its mystical context, PseudoMacarius’s awe is unlike the awe evoked by the sublime, which the Romantic poet feels when facing the massive proportions and the unbridled forces running rampant in natural settings. Though not specific to theistic traditions, awe resonates with the sense of a divine Subject whose might and beauty are overwhelming. Amazement and awe can grade into exaltation; only infrequently do they lead to happiness. Most often they evolve in the opposite direction and promote trepidation, fear, or penitence, and possibly a lifelong stance of humility. When exaltation and happiness are the core emotions of a devotionally oriented mystical experience, they usually constitute its penultimate phase, which is followed in the terminal phase by painful and sweet emotions such as loss and yearning. In comparing all three experiences, the tantrika’s is the most complex and dramatic and the most acutely disruptive of the normal status quo of selfembodiment. The Buddhist’s is the most refined and subtle, both cognitively and emotionally. The Christian’s experience preserves, at least to some extent, the ordinary sense of self-embodiment and the integrity of personal identity while imposing on the ascetic an acute awareness of his creaturely status. The Christian does not become a god, unlike the tantrika who replicates through meditative procedures the properties of his tutelary figure, nor is he reduced to the bundles of habits which, in the Buddhist’s view, constitute personal identity and mediate personal experience.'"! The mystical experiences of Nicholas Motovilov and Seraphim of Sarov are linked examples of the corporeal vision. Standing in the snowy forest outside Seraphim’s hermitage, they perceived each other and the surrounding forest bathed in the luminous presence. Their visions of corporeal light coincided with their perception of expansive global-extracorporeal light. Motovilov’s account is 110 Thid., 66; Pseudo-Macarius, The fifty spiritual homilies and the great letter [Maloney], 82. 111 ‘Bundles of habits’ is my rendering of the term groups ofgrasping (upadana-khandhas). Each group is a process, and each process conditions the others. Their mutual operation constitutes personality formation and creates the sense of personal identity. The groups include: rupa (‘form’, usually referring to the body); vedana (‘feeling’, the hedonic coloring of an experience); sanna (‘cognition’, which recognizes and interprets); sankharas (‘constructing activities’, of which there are several, the most important of which is cetana or volition); and vinnana

(‘consciousness’, which discerns an object’s parts, analogous to recognizing the internal aspects

of a gestalt). In these matters, Harvey (The selfless mind) is a valuable resource. The constructing activities, particularly cetana, are discussed in ch. 6(3).

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the more splendid and amazing for avoiding theological discussion and adhering to phenomenological description. One of its remarkable features is unique among accounts of deification: Motovilov’s and Seraphim’s visions occurred simultaneously, as if they perceived the same light, at the same time, from different spatial perspectives. Motovilov’s account begins with his asking Seraphim: ‘How am I to know that I am in the grace of the Holy Spirit?’; ‘I do not understand how I can be firmly assured that I am in the Spirit of God. How can I myself recognize His true manifestations? [...] My need is to understand this well’.!!* The account

proceeds as follows: Father Seraphim took me firmly by the shoulders and said: “We are both now in the Spirit. Why do you not look at me?’ ‘T cannot look at you, Father, because lightning streams from your eyes. Your face is brighter than the sun and my eyes cannot bear it!’ ‘Do not be afraid, Lover of God. You are now shining as brightly as I am. You

too are now in the fullness of the Spirit, otherwise you would not see me as I am. Come, look at me in the eyes. Look simply, without fear. The Lord is with us.’ After these words I looked in his face and even greater reverential awe came over me. Picture in the midst of the sun at its midday brightest the face of the man who talks to you. You see the movements of his lips, the changing expression of his eyes. You hear his voice and feel someone grasp your shoulders. You do not see the hands, you do not even see yourself or his figure, but only blinding light spreading for

several meters round and throwing a brilliant radiance on the snow covering the

meadow and the snow falling down on the great staretz. Picture my state then! ‘How do you feel now?’ Father Seraphim asked.

‘Extremely well!’ ‘But well in what way? How, in particular?’

I answered: ‘I feel such a stillness and peace in my soul that I cannot express in words!’ ‘What else do you feel?’ asked Father Seraphim. ‘An extraordinary sweetness!’ I replied. “What else do you feel?’

‘An overwhelming joy in all my heart!’ ‘What else do you feel, my son?’ I answered: ‘An extraordinary warmth!’ "2 A.F, Dobbie-Bateman, ‘St. Seraphim of Sarov’, in: G.P. Fedotov (Ed.), The way of a pilgrim and other classics of Russian spirituality, Mineola, NY: Dover, 2003, 242-279: 273-274.

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;

, mae But what warmth, my son? We are in the forest. It is winter now. The snow is under our feet. We are covered with snow and it still falls on us. What warmth could there be?’ I answered: ‘Such as there is in the bath-house, when water is poured on the hot stones and the steam rises in a cloud.’ ‘And the smell?’ he asked me. ‘Is it also like a bath?’

‘No!’ I replied. “There is nothing on earth like this wonderful perfume. When my mother was still alive, I liked to go to dances and went to parties and balls. My mother would sprinkle me with a perfume which she bought at the best fashion-shops in Kazan. But those perfumes never smelled like this!’ Father Seraphim, smiling kindly, said: ‘My son, I know it just as you do, but I asked you about it for a purpose. It is the very truth, my son! No scent on earth can be

compared with the perfume we smell now because we are surrounded with the perfume of the Holy Spirit. What earthly thing can be like it? Take note, Lover of God, you have told me it is warm around us like in the bath-house, but look around. The snow has not melted on either of us, or under our feet. The warmth is not in the air but in ourselves. This warmth is that for which the Holy Spirit makes us ask the Lord in prayer: “Warm me with the heat of your Holy Spirit”. The Lord meant exactly this state when He said: “There are some here present who will not taste death until they see the Kingdom of God coming in power”’.!!°

Their experiences were alike: the sensations of heat and odor, the perception of visionary light, the feeling of ecstatic emotion. Seraphim queried Motovilov and confirmed the similarity of their experiences: “You are now shining as brightly as I am. You too are now in the fullness of the Spirit [...]. I know it just as you do’.!!4 He acknowledged the appealing odor and the similarity of emotion. Joy and sweetness are emotional primes of devotional mysticism. Olfactory hallucination (‘wonderful perfume’) is a recognized but uncommon element of ecstatic prayer.!!* Abba Daniel told Cassian of ‘odors that go beyond the sweetness of human making’.!'° Motovilov’s and Seraphim’s experiences were unusual in combining stillness and fervor: the two patterns of autonomic arousal identified in hesychast prayer.'!” Fervor represents the ergotropic aspect of prayer and is associated with the centrally mediated hyperarousal of the sympathetic branch of the autonomic system. In the case of Motovilov and Seraphim, its experiential features included 13 The translation presented here is based on Bolshakoff, Russian mystics, 135-139; DobbieBateman, ‘St. Seraphim of Sarov’, 273-277.

114 Dobbie-Bateman, ‘St. Seraphim of Sarov’, 274. 15 Bolshakoff, Russian mystics, 138. 116 B. Ramsey (Trans.), John Cassian: The conferences, New York: Newman Press, 1997, 157. 117 See ch. 2(7).

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visual hallucination, elevated body temperature, and a degree of excitement. Stillness, prayer’s trophotropic aspect, involves hyperarousal of the system’s parasympathetic branch. Its emotional features were ‘stillness and peace’, and its cognitive aspect was apparent from the men’s ability to converse cogently in the

extraordinary circumstances of mystical experience.'!® It seems, then, that the opposing branches of their respective autonomic systems settled into a symmetrical balance. The deification of Motovilov and Seraphim can be described as a balanced mysticism, a delicate physiological equilibrium.'!” Two points merit close examination: Motovilov’s and Seraphim’s mystical experiences occurred simultaneously, and their emotional responses were basically the same. Their physical proximity, mutual attention, and intense personal relationship may have affected the timing of their visions and brought their emotions into sync. Certain details in Motovilov’s account support the impression that a neuropsychological factor, common to both men, synchronized their experiences and constrained their emotions along similar lines. They stood faceto-face, in close proximity, and could easily see one another. They were in direct physical contact: ‘Seraphim took me firmly by the shoulders’.!2° They were bound in the way of a spiritual father and his disciple. Seraphim was a revered father who lived as a hermit. Motovilov had been his disciple for years. Love, trust, and empathy formed the texture of their relationship. Seraphim’s ques-

tions show that he discerned the content of Motovilov’s experience before it was fully reported, as if he had read Motovilov’s mind. These details highlight the visual and emotional and the action-oriented aspects of their encounter; as such,

they support the interpretation that their experiences coincided in time and emotion because of simultaneous and comparably intense activity in their respective mirror neuron systems. Mirror neurons are similarly active whether one observes a goal-directed action or executes the same or a similar action oneself, 118 Dobbie-Bateman, ‘St. Seraphim of Sarov’, 275.

"19 The interpretaion of their experiences as a delicate physiological equilibrium recalls a study of Brahmakumaris Raja yoga, which ‘revealed that changes in autonomic variables suggestive of both activation and relaxation occurred simultaneously in different subdivisions of the autonomic system’ (S. Telles & T. Desiraju, ‘Autonomic changes in Brahmakumaris Raja yoga meditation’, in: Jnternational Journal of Psychophysiology 15 [1993], 147-152, 147; also see S. Telles, R. Nagarathna, & H.R. Nagendra, ‘Autonomic changes during “OM” meditation’, in: Indian Journal of Physiology and Pharmacology 39 [1995], 418-420). This is an unusual finding, although the ‘relaxation’ model (in which meditative states generally are characterized by parasympathetic dominance) has been challenged (e.g., J.C. Corby et al., ‘Psychophysiological correlates of the practice of Tantric Yoga meditation’, in: Archives of General Psychiatry 35 [1978], 571-577). The yoga study used highly experienced subjects (unlike most comparable studies), which suggests that its findings are specific to persons deeply immersed in their spiritual disciplines. Certainly this applies to Motovilov and Seraphim. '20 Dobbie-Bateman, ‘St. Seraphim of Sarov’, 274.

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as if one were able to experience a gesture that is executed by a person other than oneself.'*! Mirror neurons form a cortical network, mostly in the right cerebral hemisphere, that mediates the empathic grasp of a person’s intentions and emotional state based on observing the person’s actions.!22 The system’s highest level of integrative processing occurs in the ventromedial premotor cortex: the site of convergence for streams of information concerned with personal emotion, motor representations, and the perception of emotive faces.'”* The system’s mediation of social emotions such as empathy has been widely reported; its sensitivity to face-to-face encounters has been noted as well.!?4 The mirror neuron system is also thought to mediate ‘tactile matching’, when one perceives a touch

actually applied to another person.'*? The present interpretation is limited in 121 VW. Gallese & A. Goldman, ‘Mirror neurons and the simulation theory of mind-reading’, in:

Trends in Cognitive Science 2 (1998), 493-501; Fogassi & Gallese, ‘The neural correlates of

action understanding in non-human primates’; J.M. Kilner & R.N. Lemon, “What we know currently about mirror neurons’, in: Current Biology 23 (2013), R1057-R1062. 122

M. Iacoboni, ‘Imitation, empathy, and mirror neurons’, in: Annual Review of Psychology 60 (2009), 653-670; C. Keysers et al., “A touching sight: SII/PV activation during the observation and experience of touch’, in: Neuron 22 (2004), 335-346; M. Iacoboni & M. Dapretto, ‘The mirror neuron system and the consequences of its dysfunction’, in: Nature Reviews. Neuroscience 7 (2006), 942-951. The system spans the inferior frontal gyrus, the adjacent

central premotor cortex, and the inferior parietal lobule. Its main visual input originates in the superior temporal sulcus (Iacoboni & Dapretto, “The mirror neuron system’). Research on the mirror neuron system is important for religious studies in providing empirical support for Girard’s theory of mimesis (see R. Girard, Things hidden since the foundation of the world, Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1987). V. Gallese (‘The two sides of mimesis: Girard’s mimetic theory, embodied simulation, and social identification’, in: Journal of Consciousness Studies 16 [2009], 1-24) recognized this connection but did not develop its implica-

tions. See S.R. Garrels, Mimesis and science: Empirical research on imitation and the mimetic theory of culture and religion, East Lansing, MI: Michigan State University Press, 2011. 23 L. Carr et al., ‘Neural mechanisms of empathy in humans: A relay from neural systems for imitation to limbic areas’, in: Proceedings of the National Academy of Science 100 (2003), 5497-5502; V. Gallese et al., ‘Action recognition in the premotor cortex’, in: Brain 119 (1996),

12 is

593-609; L. Fadiga et al., “Visuomotor neurons: Ambiguity of discharge or “motor” perception’, in: International Journal of Psychophysiology 35 (2000), 165-177; K.R. Leslie, $.H. JohnsonFrey, & S.T. Grafton, ‘Functional imaging of face and hand imitation: Towards a motor theory of empathy’, in: Neuroimage 21 (2004), 601-607; G. Rizzolatti & L. Craighero, “The mirror-neuron system’, in: Annual Review of Neuroscience 27 (2004), 169-192. A. Corradini & A. Antonietti, ‘Mirror neurons and their function in cognitively understood empathy’, in: Consciousness and Cognition 22 (2013), 1152-1162; M. Schulte-Riither et al.,

12 Wn

‘Mirror neuron and theory of mind mechanisms involved in face-to-face interactions: A functional magnetic resonance imaging approach to empathy’, in: Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience 19 (2007), 1354-1372. Keysers et al., ‘A touching sight’; see C. Keysers 8& V. Gazzola, ‘Expanding the mirror: Vicarious activity for actions, emotion, and sensations’, in: Current Opinions in Neurobiology 19 (2009), 666-671.

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scope. It does not account for the visionary light, the pleasing odor, or the qualitative features of their emotion. It does account for the simultaneity of their experiences and the near-equivalence of their emotional responses. Motovilov and Seraphim felt the same, at the same time, while basking in the presence. !7¢

3.8 Intracorporeal Light

The perception of intracorporeal light is the strangest of the four kinds of visions. There are few accounts; none is particularly detailed.'?” Symeon described an example in which a focal light seen ‘from afar’ evolved into intracorporeal light: ‘He made me as though I were all fire. And He showed me myself as light and I became that which I saw and I had contemplated from afar’.!?8 Symeon’s enthusiasm prevented his providing additional detail. He did not mention any gradations of luminous intensity or the body parts illuminated. Another account of the intracorporeal vision is found in a treatise misattributed to Symeon. Notice that the light is limited in spatial extent and pervades only a portion of the interior of the body: For as soon as the intellect attains the place of the heart, at once it sees things of

which it previously knew nothing. It sees the open space within the heart and it beholds itself entirely luminous. (Phil. 4, 73)

In hesychast spiritual anatomy, the ‘place of the heart’ is within the lower tho-

racic and the upper abdominal area.!? It is fair to assume that the intracorporeal 126 The interpretation simplifies a complex interpersonal event. Two additional systems complement the mirror neuron system in mediating understanding of other persons’ ideas, feelings, and bodily states. One is affective in nature and centered in the insular and anterior cingulate cortices (C. Lamm & T. Singer, “The role of anterior insular cortex in social emotion’, in:

Brain Structure and Function 214 [2010], 579-591). The other system, which is cognitive in

nature and called Theory of Mind, mediates the capacity to grasp that others have minds of their own and that their ideas and feelings may differ from one’s own (see ch. 3[1]). The lat-

ter system probably contributed to Seraphim’s discerning Motovilov’s experience before it was reported. In technical literature, the system’s operation is characterized as ‘mind reading’ (e.g., Vogeley et al., “Mind reading’). 127 Nikitas’s report of Symeon the New Theologian’s deifying corporeal and intracorporeal vision is detailed and beautiful and in some respects like Motovilov’s mystical account (R.P.H. Greenfield [Trans.], Niketas Stethatos: The life of Saint Symeon the New Theologian, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2013, 155-157). It is also hagiographic, inconsistent with the chronology of Symeon’s life as a visionary, and amplified well beyond what is found in authentic accounts. Its chief value, apart from its beauty and theological elaboration, is to show that these types of visions coincide with ecstatic emotion and a dramatic alteration of the body-image. 128 Hymns of divine love [Maloney], 168. "29 See ch. 2(4).

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light shines from within some or most of the upper body. Similarly, the light shines from the upper body in the corporeal vision. An example is Motovilov’s and Seraphim’s visionary experiences in which the chest and the face were particularly important.'*° It seems, then, that in both the corporeal and the intracorporeal visions the light’s location reflects a visuospatial bias favoring the upper body. The same effect is apparent in autoscopic (doppelgdnger) hallucinations in which one’s body image is projected into extracorporeal space and envisioned as an object in the outer world. In more than 50% of cases, only the upper part of the body image is perceived.!?! Arzy and colleagues, focusing on mystical accounts in ecstatic Kabbalah, concluded that visions of luminous supernatural figures are autoscopic hallucinations.'*” If the autoscopic hallucination is a meaningful analogy of the vision of the divine presence as intracorporeal light, one can say that the presence is not simply a light with extraordinary qualities. It is a kind of body: one’s own body in luminous form.

3.9 A Complex Visionary Experience

A mystical experience reported by Symeon the New Theologian illustrates four transitions among three types of visionary light. At the time, he was twenty years old and a disciple of Symeon the Studite. He would enter monastic life six years later. His account is similar to the apostle Paul’s conversion experience and resembles the biblical account of Stephen’s vision at the time of his martyrdom.!*3 The historical circumstance of Stephen’s vision was the visionary mysticism of the early Jerusalem church, which suggests that the highly elaborated biblical rendition of his discourse and martyrdom had as its nucleus one or more

130 Bolshakoff, Russian mystics; Dobbie-Bateman, ‘St. Seraphim of Sarov’. 131 [E.T. Bradford, ‘Autoscopic hallucinations and disordered self-embodiment’, in: Acta Neu-

ropsychologica 3 (2005), 120-189. 132 §. Arzy, M. Idel, T. Landis, 8 O. Blanke, ‘Speaking with oneself: Autoscopic phenomena in writings from the ecstatic Kabbalah’, in: Journal of Consciousness Studies 12 (2005), 4-30.

133 1 Cor 9:1; 15:3-8; Gal 1:11-16; Acts 9:3-9; 7:54-60; 22:6-21, 26:12—-18. For an interpretation of Symeon’s vision in terms of scriptural imagery and eschatological concepts, see A. Louth, ‘Light, vision, and religious experience in Byzantium’, in: M.T. Kapstein (Ed.), The

presence of light: Divine radiance and religious experience, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2004, 85-104. Scriptural images and phrases were commonly used in describing personal mystical experience. This does not imply that the corresponding mystical accounts are simply literary productions. The forms of mystical experience are limited in number; points of commonality are expected across all expressions of a single form, including those described in scripture. The use of scriptural images and phrases functioned as a stamp of authority and showed humble reliance on sanctioned ideas in describing personal mystical experience.

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actual mystical accounts.!*4 In the following quotation, I have deleted the parts of Symeon’s account that are not concerned with visual features. Bracketed numbers indicate the onset of a different type of light and are used to organize the subsequent analysis: One day, as I stood and recited, ‘God have mercy upon me, a sinner’, speaking these words within my mind rather than with my mouth, [1] a divine radiance appeared suddenly from above, [2] filling the entire room. [...] I saw nothing but light around me. [...] I was in the presence of immaterial light and [3] seemed to

have been transformed into light myself. [...] My mind then ascended to heaven where [4] I saw yet another light, which was clearer than the one close at hand.

In a wonderful manner there appeared to me, standing close to that light, the saint I have mentioned, the old man equal to angels.!%

Here is an analysis of the course of this highly dynamic event: [1] A focalextracorporeal light appeared in Symeon’s upper visual field. [2] It expanded, becoming a relatively expansive global-extrapersonal light. [3] Corporeal light was next apparent when Symeon perceived that he himself was illuminated: ‘I [...] seemed to have been transformed into light myself .!%° His ‘mind then

ascended to heaven’.'*” In other words, he felt spiritually exalted, surpassed the limitations of somatic awareness, and experienced a vestibular-motor hallucination of upward bodily movement. He rose to a position in proximity to the original global-extracorporeal light, which was now ‘close at hand’.!*8 [4] From

this position he perceived a second focal-extracorporeal light that he identified as

his spiritual father: ‘the saint I have mentioned, the old man equal to angels’.'*? The second light was farther and also ‘clearer’ or more highly differentiated than the first light, which fully illuminated the surrounding area.!“° The primacy, the scope, and the effulgence of the encompassing global-extracorporeal light signaled its identity as the presence of Christ. The proximity of the second focalextracorporeal light to the blazing light of Christ was evidence of the father’s holiness. The initial appearance of light in Symeon’s upper visual field suggests a relative heightening of activity in the inferior cortico-visual system.'4! The prominence of the upper visual field is consistent with the mythological cartography assumed 134M. Goulder, St.Paul versus St. Peter: A tale of two missions, Louisville, KY: Westminster John 135 136 137 138 139 140

Knox Press, 1995. The discourses [deCatanzaro], 245-246. Thid., 245. Tbidem. Tbid., 246. Tbidem. Tbhidem.

'4l Previc, “The neuropsychology of 3-D space’.

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in scripture and accepted by Symeon, in which Christ, heaven, and the angels are located above the earth’s surface.!# The relatively small light that Symeon identified as his spiritual father was alongside the global-extracorporeal light that appeared earlier. There were now two lights rather than one, reflecting the palinopsic effect of the multiplication of visual images.'4* The doubling occurred in tandem with two additional effects: The first was an increase in visuospatial modeling (the second light was ‘clearer’); the second involved the shift from a proximal to a relatively distant spatial frame (the smaller, clearer light was farther than the one at hand).!“4 In

general, the vision’s final phase showed a progressive increase in visuospatial differentiation and configural modeling. This implies a cumulatively greater scope of cortical processing as the vision evolved, which was correlated with Symeon’s appeal to memory in identifying the focal light as his spiritual father. The internal transitions in Symeon’s vision reflect its evolving nature. The ‘great rapidity’ of an experience of this kind masks its internal complexity.!* But the point applies to most mystical experiences. A nucleus of meaning evolves over a series of transitions, variously pooling in moments of stasis and passing forward as a line of emotional power and perceptual change. An analysis that focuses on the temporal unfolding of a mystical experience is analogous to studying individual frames of a movie, only the ‘frames’ of a mystical experience merge one into another in a smoothly developing continuum. But the analogy fails for implying a segmented structure. A mystical process is like a standing wave: an advancing point whose repercussions trail multiple kinds of change. A key to understanding a mystical process is to begin with this assumption: A mystical experience is a time-locked event whose features and transitions form the subjective aspect of a single evolving process.

3.10 Chromatic Visionary Light The visionary light of the presence is unformed, achromatic, unaffected by its surround, and homogeneous in luminous intensity. Pachomius’s ‘great revelation’ 142 PG, Milanesi, ‘Neurophilosophy and the distal hyperuranic world: Fred Previc’s space of the gods (and of men)’, in: Functional Neurology 25 (2010), 121-128; F.H. Previc, “The role of the extrapersonal brain systems in religious activity’, in: Consciousness and Cognition 15 (2006),

500-539. 143 ED.T. Bradford, ‘Neuropsychology of palinopsic hallucinations’, in: Acta Neuropsychologica \ (2003), 97-107; P. Brugger et al., ‘Polyopic heautoscopy: Case report and review of the literature’, in: Cortex 42 (2005), 666-674. 144 The discourses [deCatanzaro], 246.

'45 Hymns of divine love [Maloney], 80.

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differs from the luminous vision on all these counts.!4° The revelation appears in The Bohairic Life, which describes the early years and the later work of the founder of Christian coenobitic monasticism. The revelation falls into two parts. The first was a visual hallucination of colorful light. The second was complex and emotional, and its duration was relatively extended. The revelation was also unusual in having high visual resolution, engaging several sensory modalities, and conveying a dramatic narrative that included conversations with supernatural figures. The revelation can be understood in processual terms such that the first part was the nucleus that evolved into the second, which Pachomius

and the elders of the community elaborated and interpreted. Here is the revelation’s first part: Looking toward the east wall of the sanctuary,

[he saw the wall] become all

golden; and on it there was a large icon, like a large picture [of someone] wearing a crown on [his] head. That crown was glorious in the extreme; all around its

sides were multicolored images which resembled precious stones.!4”

Pachomius’s perception of the color gold was likely a hallucination of surface color, which is a two-dimensional color field that retains ‘a frontal parallel character’ and may not adhere to a physical surface.!4* This image was the initial, simple, and largely unemotional phase of the revelation, which evolved quickly, perhaps instantaneously, into the configural but indefinite ‘large picture’.!4? To the margin of the picture were jewel-like chromatic lights, which suggests the sparkling, flaming, flickering photisms that occur during stimulation of certain parts of

the occipital lobe. At this point in the text, we learn from an interpolation that the ‘precious stones’ symbolize a list of virtues such as faith, goodness, fear, and

mercy.!*° The account continues with the revelation’s second part, in which Pachomius perceives and converses with “two great and very august archangels’: Pachomius went on praying and imploring [God] in these terms: “Lord, may your fear descend on us all forever, so that we may not sin against you all our life long’. [...] Then the archangels said to him, ‘You cannot endure the fear of the Lord as you request’. He answered, “Yes, I can, by God’s grace’. And at once the ray of fear, after the manner of the sun rising on the entire world, and without leaving its place, moved gradually forward toward him. That shining ray was very green and its sight wonderfully terrifying. When fear touched him, it pinched all his 146 Veilleux, Pachomian Koinonia. Vol. 1, 95-97. 147 Thid., 95.

'48 J. Lange, ‘Agnosia and apraxia’, in: J.W. Brown (Ed.), Agnosia and apraxia: Selected papers of Liepmann, Lange, and Potzl, Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum, 1988, 43-228: 51.

149 Veilleux, Pachomian Koinonia. Vol. 1, 95. A bik 95!

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members, his heart, his marrow, and his whole body; and at once he fell to the ground and began to writhe like a living fish. His soul grew very sad and he fainted away toward death. [...] He cried out, ‘Have mercy on me, my Lord Jesus

Christ!’ At once the ray of fear retreated gradually until it returned to its place. Then the sheen of mercy moved toward him like a rich holy chrism. When mercy reached him he was comforted [...] and he rested a while.!5!

Pachomius’s falling and writhing are consistent with his having a convulsion. The clasp-like ‘pinching’ of his ‘members’ and ‘whole body’ probably refers to the tonic phase of a generalized seizure.!°? He ‘cried out’, suggesting an ejaculatory utterance as occurs during ictal onset.'*? His need of rest recalls the fatigue that occurs in the post-ictal phase of a generalized seizure. Fear and terror are the most common seizure-related emotions.!°4 In Pachomius’s case, fear was followed by a comforting ‘sheen of mercy’; in other words, the emotional tone of the revelation was reversed, consistent with the phenomenon of mystical

enantiodromia in which intense negative emotion evolves into its opposite.!*° The ‘ray of fear’ that struck Pachomius was ‘very green and its sight wonderfully terrifying’.!°° Whether ‘green’ is a literal description or metaphoric, I cannot say. Among monks living in the desert, the color is a viable symbol of abundance and fertility. The pairing of the color green and ‘wonderfully terrifying’ is not odd: The fear of God was a Pachomian teaching, an essential basis of spiritual growth and greater intimacy with the Lord.'*” The light of the ‘sun’ expanded (‘moved gradually forward toward him’) until it filled ‘the entire world’.'*8 This is consistent with the encompassing nature of visionary light in the globalextracorporeal vision. ‘Sun’ suggests the color yellow; it may indicate xanthopsia, a bias toward long wavelength colors like yellow, which may occur during early recovery from occipital lesions that result in cortical blindness.!°? The neuropsychological setting of the revelation was the prodrome, the aura and the ictus, and the post-ictal phase of a seizure. The overall sequence of events can be interpreted as follows: Pachomius passed into the prodromal state coincidentally with hallucinating the color gold and a kind of figure. He retained consciousness but was dissociated, and was prone to subsequent hallucinatory ‘51 Thid., 95-96. 152. Tbids;..96. 3 Tbidem. 154 ED, Williams, ‘The structure of emotions reflected in epileptic experience’, in: Brain 79 (1956), 29-67.

155. 156 157 8 159

Pachomian Koinonia, 96; Bradford, ‘Emotion in mystical experience’. Pachomian Koinonia, 96. Tbidem. Tbidem. Brown, The life of the mind.

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experience based on a lowered level of consciousness. Mental activity of this kind is reported in persons with temporal lobe epilepsy.'® In the revelation’s second part, he witnessed the unfolding of the imagery that appeared initially in the first part. He was next struck with fear, an aura-related emotional phenomenon.

He then began convulsing, indicating ictal onset. After he recovered later in the day, he ‘related these things in private to some ancient fathers’, laying groundwork for the elaboration of his prodromal imaginal experience.'°! Pachomius’s revelation was not unique in his experience: He ‘had some [other] terrifying apparitions and revelations’ .!° 3.11 Visionary Light and Divine Omnipresence Wholly encompassing global-extracorporeal light fully pervades visual space. What the eyes might otherwise see is replaced with light. The light is omnipresent with respect to the visual field. But the perceived extent of the light can extend beyond the visual field and seem to fill an infinite expanse of space. In this case, the light is circumambient; it is omnipresent stricto sensu. The experience entails a pure

spatial perception unimpeded by discrete objects and the sensory constraints that shape ordinary visual perception. A spatial perception of this nature presumably entrains the hallucination of global-extracorporeal light, such that the space revealed is intrinsically luminous. Space yawns like a chasm of light. The emotional aspect of the perception is profound. Ecstasy is commonly reported.!% In classical theism, omnipresence is a theological attribute, an inherent property of deity.’ ‘Ubiquity’ and ‘immensity’ have been used as synonyms of ‘omnipresence’. The attribute has usually been interpreted qualitatively as God’s 16 P. Gloor, ‘Experiential phenomena of temporal lobe epilepsy: Facts and hypotheses’, in: Brain 113 (1990), 1673-1694; Hughlings Jackson, Selected writings. 16

Pachomian Koinonia, 96.

' Thid., 94. A. Golitzin (The form of God and the vision of the glory: Some thoughts on the anthropomorphite controversy of399AD {1998}, Accessible at: http://www.marquette.edu/maqom/morphe. html) questioned the authenticity of Pachomius’s visions reported in the Bohairic Life: ‘To what degree these represent actual visions enjoyed by Pachomius [...] I shall leave to the experts’ (15). The cited expert ‘dismisses [...] the visions as of suspect veracity’, believing they are ‘later additions borrowed from popular Christian apocalyptic materials’ (50). I would say that Pachomius’s great revelation was an actual vision. The question is not about authenticity but the way Pachomius and the elders elaborated the vision’s content in a manner consistent with current belief. 16 w Mystical forms of spatial perception in the Buddhist and the Vedantic traditions are illustrated and analyzed neuropsychologically in D.T. Bradford, ‘A critique of “Neurotheology” and an examination of spatial perception in mystical experience’, in: Acta Neuropsychologica 10 (2012), 109-123. 164 Harvey, A handbook of theological terms.

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guiding presence throughout the world, independent of time and place. The present understanding of omnipresence adjusts the angle of interpretation in valuing perception and feeling over abstract concepts. Thus, the experience of wholly encompassing extracorporeal light is understood as the perceptual realization of divine omnipresence. ‘Omnipresence’ indicates the spatial presence of deity envisioned as a field of light imbued with ecstatic emotion. All is illuminated; God is omnipresent. The attribute of omnipresence is like a conceptual rendering of the perceptual qualities of the vision. Mystical experience of this kind may have served as a model in conceiving the theological attribute. To press the point, the concept of divine omnipresence may be a reification of the mys-

tical experience of wholly encompassing luminous space. In ordinary experience, an object’s location determines its place, and a change in its location incurs temporal duration. Divine omnipresence supersedes these characteristics of ordinary objects. Its temporal aspect is simultaneity, and its location is all over. In ordinary experience, a perceptual object is a figure set against its ground. But figure and ground are indistinguishable in the perception of divine omnipresence. The all-pervasive presence occupies the entire spatial field. Were omnipresence detected apart from mystical experience, it would barely draw attention; were it to hold attention, it would do so only momentarily because its indeterminate internal nature would annul focal attention. The sameness of the field through-and-through precludes the perceptual contrasts that allow ordinary objects to come forward of their ground and hold attention. One analogy is snow blindness; another is white noise. Were divine omnipresence detected in ordinary experience, it would hardly stir an eye blink. Another approach to the indiscernible nature of divine omnipresence relies on the neuropsychological concept of habituation. This principle of learning holds that when a stimulus is repeated often enough, it will eventually cease to elicit a response, at which point the organism has habituated to the stimulus. The principle has been applied in interpreting ‘the discrepancy between the assertion that God is everywhere and eternally present, and the inability to become aware of His presence’.!© ‘We submit’, wrote the authors of this study,

‘that if God is eternally present and unchangeable, then by the process of neuronal habitation, an individual can be “unaware” of the presence of God’.!%

Extraordinary forms of spatial perception have been reported for centuries in Asian traditions.!©” The Buddha may have learned about them from his 165 D.A. Drubach & D.O. Claassen, ‘Perception and the awareness of God: The importance of neuronal habituation in the context of the Jewish and Christian faiths’, in: Journal of Religion and Health 47 (2008), 541-548. 166 Tbid., 541. 167 Bradford, ‘A critique of “Neurotheology”’.

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Brahmanical teachers.!°° An example is the third formless meditation, which mediates awareness of the ‘base of the infinity of space’.!©? The monk Sariputta provides the following description in the Samyutta Nikaya: Here, friend, with the complete transcending of perceptions of forms, with the passing away of perception of sensory impingement, with nonattention to percep-

tions of diversity, aware that “space is infinite,” I entered and dwelled in the base of the infinity of space.!”°

When ‘sensory impingement ceases, an unbroken spatial field substitutes for ‘perceptions of diversity’. The spatial field fills and literally expands awareness, and reaches its /imit during the subsequent, relatively advanced formless meditation. This experience is consistent with a dissociation of visual and spatial representations such that space alone is the ‘object’ of experience; meanwhile visual representations are inhibited. The result is an unbounded awareness of circumambient space, unmediated by discrete perceptual objects. Mundane phenomena, which appear within the spatially delimited frame of egocentric space, are surpassed. '7! Mystical accounts of the perception of divine omnipresence are rare among Christian ascetics. The tradition provides little in the way of concepts that might adequately describe this extraordinary spatial experience or guide ascetics in pursuing it. Images of air, cloudless skies, open spaces, unimpeded vistas, desert vastness, and ocean depths are means of conveying the experience of infinite circumspatial awareness. Evagrius may have referred to such an awareness in mentioning the perception of a ‘sky’-like region during the superior form of natural contemplation (theoria physike): ‘In pure thoughts [there] is imprinted

168 DJ. Kalupahana, A history of Buddhist philosophy: Continuities and discontinuities, Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1992.

'© A. Govinda, The psychological attitude of early Buddhist philosophy and its systematic representation according to Abhidhamma tradition, New York: Weiser, 1974; H.V. Guenther, Philosophy and psychology in the Abhidharma, Berkeley, CA: Shambhala, 1976; Harvey, The selfless mind. 17 B. Bodhi (Ed.), Jn the Buddha’s words: An anthology of discourses from the Pali Canon, Boston: i=

17

Wisdom Publications, 2005, 297. For the dissociation of visual and spatial representations, see: M.J. Farah, “The neural base of

mental imagery’, in: Trends in Neurosciences 12 (1989), 395-399; M.J. Farah et al., ‘Visual

and spatial mental imagery: Dissociable systems of representation’, in: Cognitive Psychology 20 (1988), 439-462; C.T. Luzzatti et al., “A neurological dissociation between preserved visual and impaired spatial processing in mental imagery’, in: Cortex 34 (1998), 561-469. For spatial frames, see V. Jagaroo, “Towards an analytical framework for the visuospatial domain: Spatial reference frames, cognitive operations, and neural systems’, in: Journal of Clinical and Experimental Neuropsychology 21 (1999), 134-146; J.F. Stein, ‘Space and the parietal association areas’, in: J. Paillard (Ed.), Brain and space, New York: Oxford University Press, 1991, 185-222.

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a splendid sky to see and a spacious region’.'”? In another example, John the Venerable described the spatial quality of the ‘hidden nature’ of God, likening it to the ‘Sea’: ‘the source of all worlds and the sustainer of all that is, containing and concealing all in your immense abyss’.!”3 John was probably a practicing mystic, which leads me to think he had two purposes in using ‘Air’ as a name for God: It was a customary way of designating God-the-Spirit and a metaphor of the mystical perception of divine omnipresence: They also designate you Air, Inspiration of all life, and Breath; they come and go

in the midst of you with no obstruction to their progress, though it is not that they are penetrating and passing through you as the air, but that you are extended in them unimpededly, and they move around without hindrance this way and that in your extension within them.!74

The passage falls into two parts. The first is a list of names or figures of the Spirit: Air, Breath, and Inspiration. The second begins ‘they come and go in the midst of you’.'”? John then qualifies his use of language, saying in effect that he will avoid figurative speech and shift registers entirely: ‘not that they are penetrating and passing through you as [real, atmospheric] air’.!”° The rest of the passage is an eloquent description of the perception of an ultra-fine spatial reality that extends throughout material forms and empty space. This is an ‘immense’ reality and like an ‘abyss’ in its scope and quality as all-containing.!”” It is invisible or ‘hidden’ from physical eyes.'”® It allows ease of movement (‘they move around without hindrance’), which suggests a corresponding feeling of freedom.'”? This reality is the ‘source’ and the ‘sustainer’ of all it contains.'®° As such, it is a mother-like aspect of God that John called ‘Genetrix’.!*!

What is the shape and the density of the space that John characterized as Air? Is it spherical, oblate, or disc-like in the manner of a sweeping gaze over the horizon? Is the space uniformly composed and homogeneous throughout, or is it internally differentiated such that some regions are relatively dense compared with others? John wrote: “You are extended in them unimpededly, and they 172 Byagrius Ponticus, Kephalaia Gnostika [Dysinger], part V.39; see Bradford, ‘Evagrius Ponticus and the psychology of “Natural Contemplation”. '73 Colless, The wisdom of the pearlers, 167. 174 Thidem. 175 Tbidem.

176 77 178 '79 180

Tbidem. Thidem. Tbidem. Tbidem. Tbidem. 18" Thid.,9168:

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move around without hindrance [...] in your extension within them’.'** Objects internal to the space do not resist it, and the space equally penetrates all objects. John’s description implies uniformity of composition. Does the space have a discernible margin: a limit that confirms the totality of its content? Is its limit set by a factor that both pervades it and subsists beyond it: a factor which John the Venerable described as ‘the sustainer of all that is, containing and concealing

all’ in the immensity of its ‘abyss’?!®? In the latter scenario, the perceptual awareness of infinite space is coterminous with divine omnipresence, and beyond the margin is a factor that remains absconditus despite its qualified residence in the extensible world.!*4 Joseph the Visionary, who was active about the time of John the Venerable, referred to a mystical form of spatial perception in his description of the fourth and fifth ‘signs’ of inspiration by the Spirit.’®° The signs occur when the ascetic has embraced and surpassed the state of ‘serenity’ and entered the ‘sphere of spirituality’.'®° The signs are not mutually exclusive; they overlap, the fourth grading into the fifth. In the fourth, ‘the inner door of the heart is opened, wherein is hidden Christ our Lord, whose dwelling-place is spiritual and spacious, and sight of whom is light that is ineffable’.'*” The fourth sign does not

entail the full exposure of divine luminosity, unlike the fifth, which involves a luminous vision, apparently of global-extracorporeal light: the ‘light in the sphere of spirituality’, the ‘illuminated vision of your mind’.'8* From ‘this glori-

ous and holy vision you will pass into wonderment over that spacious world,

*82" Thid.slG7.

183 Tbidem. 184 The ‘margin’ that sets the limit of divine omnipresence and defines the totality of extensible existence recalls the concept of bhuta-koti in the Buddhist Prajna tradition. The term means ‘reality-limit’ or the ‘absolute limit of perception’ (F.J. Streng, ‘Realization of Param Bhutakoti {ultimate reality-limit] in the Astasahasrika Prajnaparamita Sutra’, in: Philosophy East and West 32 [1982], 91-98). The bodhisattva remains to our side of the reality-limit in order to bring

other humans to enlightenment; she “does not go forth from the triple world, and does not wake up to the reality-limit’ (E. Conze, The perfection of wisdom in eight thousand lines and its verse summary, Berkeley, CA: Four Seasons Foundation, 1973, 87). Crossing the limit is tantamount to attaining nirvana, of the inferior Hinayana kind. In using ‘margin’, I import the concept of the reality-limit and apply it in a Christian mystical context. Thus, God, in His omnipresence, pervades the extensible world and is detected through the mystical awareness of infinite space; yet He also subsists beyond the margin or reality-limit, in which case

'85 186 '87 '88

He is strictly absconditus, utterly hidden. Matters of the kind discussed in this section are literally at the outermost boundary of human perception. Tbid., 145-148. Tbid., 144. Tbid., 146. Tbid., 147.

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the boons of which are inexpressible’.'®? The passage into the spacious world is to enter the dwelling-place of Christ. Such is the vision of luminous omnipresence. Where Colless’s translation has ‘that spacious world, the boons of which are inexpressible’, Olickal’s has ‘that broad world, the benefits of which are ineffable’.!? I would say that both ‘spacious’ and ‘broad’ refer to a spatial perception that is voluminous, expansive, all-encompassing. The transition from the fourth to the fifth sign, which ‘raises you up and makes you participate in the holy light of the vision of Christ’, entails a ‘gradual ascent’.!! ‘Ascent’ indi- — cates an elevation in the order of being, which is paired with a perceptual response that implicates spatial representations.!* Joseph the Visionary, John the Venerable, and Evagrius are spokesmen for a mystical form of spatial perception that their tradition has hardly recognized. The mystical perception of omnipresence is an intrinsically obscure phenomenon. Several analogies may help to illuminate its features. The first is the nineteenth-century scientific concept of aether: a homogenous, non-material substance that fills empty space and transmits light and electromagnetic forces. Its properties recall John the Venerable’s description of God-as-Air: “They come and go in the midst of you with no obstruction to their progress’.!°? The concept of aether recalls Aristotle’s explanation of visual perception: A transparent medium spread throughout space transmits information from an object to the eyes that see it.!°* The medium is apparent as air on a clear day. One senses the 189 Tbid., 146-147. Brock remarked about John the Visionary: ‘It is clear that his writings are based on personal experience’ (S. Brock, “The Syriac tradition’, in: C. Jones (Ed.), The study ofspiritu-

1s So

ality, New York: Oxford University Press, 1986, 213). In John the Visionary, the passage into the spacious world follows a series of contemplations that replicate (approximately) those outlined by Evagrius (Bradford, ‘Evagrius Ponticus and the psychology of “Natural Contemplation”’). For an outline of the stages of the mystical path in John and other ascetics in Syriac monastic writings, see B.E. Colless, ‘Syriac mysticism’, in: J.A. Lamm (Ed.), The WileyBlackwell companion to Christian mysticism, New York: John Wiley & Sons, 2012, 177-189. T. Olickal, The three stages ofspiritual realization according to Joseph Hazzaya, Changanassery, India: HIRS Publications, 2000, 213. Both Colless and Olickal relied on the same text: A. Mingana (Trans.), ‘Book of questions and answers, by Abdisho (Joseph) Hazzaya’, in: Idem (Ed.), Early Christian mystics: Woodbrooke Studies, Vol. VI, Cambridge: Heffer & Sons, 1934,

275 [folio 157a]. The theological analysis of texts of this nature must be complemented with psychological interpretations that capture the experiential correlates of the theological ideas. This is not a legitimate exercise in certain areas of study (e.g., systematic theology), but is

required in the study of ascetic and mystical experience. Olickal, The three stages of spiritual realization, 213. 192 The perception of spiritual ascent is correlated with the structure of the cosmos; heaven is 19

—

elevated relative to the earth. See ch. 18(4). 193 Dw Colless, The wisdom of the pearlers, 167. 194 C, Rowe, ‘Concepts of colour and colour symbolism in the ancient world’, in: Color symbol-

ism: Six excerpts from the Eranos Yearbook 1972, Dallas: Spring Publications, 1977, 23-54.

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celestial High God behind these quasi-scientific descriptions: a deity who observes us in his sky-clear gaze and who tends to shrink away and disappear, becoming the deus otiosus.! A clinical analogy of the mystical perception is a symptom of Cotard’s syndrome called the delusion of enormity.!°° The patient feels he has ‘undergone a massive increase in size’ and may say he ‘fills up the entire room or is as large as the earth or perhaps even the entire universe’.'?” The literature is unclear whether the sense of enormity is a perceptual event or simply a conceptual outgrowth of the patient’s nihilistic belief that he is already dead. Granted a perceptual event, the enormity and the mystical perception are comparable in form but different in emotional tone. The Cotard’s patient is melancholic; the mystic is ecstatic. The mystical perception is the more complete expression; the pathological variation shows that the perceptual and the emotional streams are potentially dissociable subprocesses of a single mystical process. Another clinical analogy concerns a thirty-three-year-old man I examined eighteen years after he sustained an accidental gunshot wound above his right ear.!°8 His medical recovery was long since past, yet the perceptual, emotional, and mental consequences of his injury were apparent in mental and perceptual symptoms that matched a cosmogonic myth in the Book of Formation (Sefer Yetsirah).'?? This important text in Jewish mysticism was written in Palestine between the second and the sixth century and may have served contemplative purposes in small groups of mystics. It became a primary source in medieval kabbalist circles. The text portrays Adam Kadmon—the ‘Primordial Man’, understood as the divine creative power and the prototype of human beings— ‘> For the celestial High God, see M. Eliade, Patterns in comparative religions, New York: Sheed & Ward, 1958, 38-123.

96 M.D. Enoch & W.H. Trethowan, Uncommon psychiatric syndromes (24 ed.), Bristol, UK: John Wright, 1979; A.B. Joseph, ‘Cotard’s syndrome in a patient with coexistent Capgras’ syndrome, syndrome of subjective doubles, and palinopsia’, in: Journal of Clinical Psychiatry 47 (1986), 605-606. 19 R. Noll, The encyclopedia ofschizophrenia and other psychotic disorders (3 ed.; forew. L. George), New York: Infobase Publishing, 2007, 120. 19; o-) His neurological examination was normal apart from an old burr hole in the right temporoparietal area. His CT scan showed evidence of a right temporo-parietal craniotomy with underlying parenchymal damage. His EEG did not show epileptiform activity but did suggest structural damage in the posterior area of the right cerebral hemisphere. Audiometry showed both high- and low-frequency losses for the left ear, possibly reflecting damage to the transverse gyrus along the surface of the right temporal lobe. Toxicology screening for illicit drugs was negative. 199 D.R. Blumenthal, Understanding Jewish mysticism: A source reader. The Merkabah tradition N

and the Zoharic tradition, New York: Ktav Publishing House, 1978; W.W. Westcott (Trans.),

Sepher yetzirah: The book offormation, and the Thirty-two paths of wisdom, London: Theosophical Publishing Society, 1893.

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within a cubical form that expands toward infinity, in this manner creating and setting the boundaries of the cosmos. Similarly, the patient explained that ‘the universe is geometric, a perfect cube’, and he is at the center of this ‘giant filled cube, perfectly and right in the middle of a vast cubic area which reaches for a quadrillion miles in area’.?°° He perceived the form streaming into infinite distances and sought through prayer to maintain his position at its center. He would recite sotto voce a three-word prayer: ‘seven of center’, a phrase with magical power. He explained that ‘seven’ indicates the ‘seven days of creation’ © and that his reciting the prayer situates him at the center of the cosmogonic process displayed in the cube’s expansion. He also spoke of the ‘spirits and brethren’, which he called ‘the colors’. These were visual colors he perceived in lucid dreams. They would ‘flow and touch’ and circulate through ‘all the realms’. The ‘mating’ or convergence of ‘contrasting colors’ generated new shades. He yearned to merge with the colors; in doing so, he felt exalted and was ‘married with all the realms’. His prayer and colors recall the work of certain Provencal kabbalists in the medieval period. They drew on the Book of Formation in developing a mysticism of color and luminous aether.*”! In their system, two base colors break forth from the primordial aether, their original state of potentiality, and differentiate into an infinite number of additional colors. This is a process of internal articulation within the Godhead prior to our world’s creation.

The patient completed high school and lived an impoverished, isolated existence. Certainly he was unfamiliar with ancient texts and scholarly work concerned with the Adam Kadmon of the kabbalists, the Anthropos of the gnostics, the Purusha of the Vedic tradition, and other creator gods who have been imagined as the macrocosmic equivalent of our human body and selves. Such parallels suggest the influence of an archetypal factor: a principle of organization that motivates and shapes these images and narratives and that can do so, as the present case shows, spontaneously and independently of exposure to the relevant literary material.*”” The patient’s neurological history and pattern of 200 Bradford, ‘Archetypal hallucinations in brain damage’, 70. All the quotations in this and the following paragraph are the patient’s own words. 201 G. Scholem, Origins of the Kabbalah, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1987, 199-

364. 202 The psychological function of this archetypal factor is to personalize God, rendering the abstract as concrete, vital, and accessible (C.G. Jung, ‘A psychological approach to the dogma of the Trinity’ [1948], in: R.RC. Hull [Trans.], The collected works of C.G. Jung. Vol. 11,

Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1969, 107-200). The personalization is based on the imagined likeness of two kinds of bodies: the meager human body and the ‘body’ of God. Traces of the factor can be discerned in images of Christ Pantocrator, who sustains and governs the world.

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symptoms imply that the perceptual aspect of the mystical perception of allencompassing, seemingly infinite divine space is associated with unusual (in his case, abnormal) activity in the central aspect of the right cerebral hemisphere, paired with any unilateral or contralateral effects that occur simultaneously with the unusual activity. Expressions of the archetypal factor are apparent in the Christian anthropomorphite controversy in fourth-century Egypt. The anthropomorphites were accused of worshiping God in human form by ascetics and theologians who limited mystical contact to non-visual prayer and endorsed a theology of God’s simple, unformed

nature. Attacking the anthropomorphites,

Cassian wrote:

‘Nothing of this sort could be the case with that immeasurable and incomprehensible and invisible majesty — that it could be circumscribed in a human form and likeness, that indeed a nature which was incorporeal and uncomposed and

simple could be apprehended by the eye or seized by the mind’.*°? Hearing this news, an elderly abba named Serapion was crushed, and his manner of prayer was ruined: “Woe is me, wretch that I am! They have taken my God from me’.°4 Other groups about this time, including gnostics and Jewish Merkabah mystics, were similarly influenced by the archetypal factor, which was apparently constellated on a broad cultural scale for several centuries beginning with intertestamental apocalyptic literature.?” Indeed, the intense resistance of the anthropomorphites’ opponents suggest the prior constellation of the archetype. The anthropomorphite controversy has been subject to a revisionary interpretation over the past several years, leading to a view that is quite in line with the present focus on the divine presence and the perception of circumambient, possibly luminous space.”°° The divine ‘body’ that attracted at least some of these ascetics was probably not an image resembling a human but the ‘glory’ or luminous presence of God. The anthropomorphites were not as concrete as their opponents assumed. Rather than a human-figured God, they sought direct experience of His luminous presence. In the terms of this book, they sought the perception, feeling, and knowledge conveyed in the vision of global-extracorporeal light.

203 Ramsey, John Cassian: The conferences, 372. 4 Thidsn3 73s

20 See N. Cohn, Cosmos, chaos and the world to come: The ancient roots of apocalyptic faith, New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1993. 6 Golitzin, The form of God and the vision of the glory; Idem, ‘A monastic setting for the Syriac Apocalypse of Daniel, in: R.D. Young & M.J. Blanchard (Eds.), To train his soul in books:

Syriac asceticism in early Christianity, Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 2011, 66-98; P.A. Patterson, Visions of Christ: The anthropomorphite controversy of399 CE, Tubingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2012.

CHAPTER 4

SLEEP, DREAMS, AND PRAYER

Christ’s return was expected soon after His resurrection, when an apocalypse would usher in other endtime events. In the press of these expectations, the apostle Paul advised his followers to ‘pray ceaselessly’.! Time passed without material evidence of Christ’s return, and Paul’s words acquired scriptural authority. His advice was interpreted literally by Alexander the Sleepless (Akoimetes). In one monastery, he established fourteen daily offices (in contrast with the seven appointed during the same period by Basil the Great); in others, perpetual psalmody and prayer were conducted by several choirs.” In the third century, Origen likened prayer to good deeds and compared a virtuous life to ceaseless prayer.’ His standard was a commonsense compromise suitable for the average, extroverted Christian. Te Book of Steps, a fourth-century pastoral work, distinguished the Upright, who ‘pray three times a day’, and the Perfect, who ‘pray unceasingly’.4 Groups affiliated with this book’s intended audience determined that dreams were a form of prayer, and because we dream while asleep, excessive sleep was considered a spiritual discipline.’ In the seventh century, Dadisho said ‘prayer without ceasing and without distraction’ was among the ‘most comprehensive of all commandments’ and a necessity for ascetics who pursue ‘the way of life of the Spirit’. The goal of ceaseless prayer remained in force in ascetic circles, although ascetics differed in how abstractly they interpreted the apostle’s 1

1 Thes 5:17. Other texts were used to support ceaseless prayer; most have the context of messianic expectation. In the parable of the corrupt judge, Jesus tells the disciples they ‘ought always to pray’, to be ready ‘when the Son of Man comes’ (Lk 18:1,7—8; see Lk 21:36). In Gethsemane, after the three disciples had fallen asleep, Jesus said: “Watch and pray that you may not enter into temptation’ (Mt 26:41).

2

R. Finn, Asceticism in the Graeco-Roman world, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009, 142-143.

3

J, O’Meara (Trans.), Origen: Prayer. Exhortation to martyrdom, Westminster, MD: Ancient Christian Writers, 1954.

4

R.A. Kitchen & M.EG. Parmentier, The Book of Steps: The Syriac Liber Graduum, Kalamazoo, MI: Cistercian Studies, 2004, 79.

>

Ibid., xx.

6

Brock, The Syriac Fathers on prayer and the spiritual life, 309.

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instruction. More than a recommendation, it was an injunction with scriptural authority. One of the principal means of its enactment was to extend the nightly vigil such that sleep would not interfere with prayer. The first section of this chapter addresses the obvious conflict between ceaseless prayer and the need for sleep. It concludes that ascetics have used lucid dreaming as a medium of prayer. The second section considers the physiological and psychological consequences of the practice of sleep deprivation. The third reviews and illustrates the ascetic classification and interpretation of dreams. The fourth is an analysis of an example of prayer while dreaming reported by Symeon the New Theologian. The fifth is an analysis of one of the most unusual mystical experiences in the ascetic literature: Isaac the Syrian’s experience, while asleep, of ‘awestruck wonder’. The final section examines the idea of a mystical

potential embedded in dreamless sleep that may be realized in conscious awareness during a sudden transition into wakefulness.

4.1 Prayer During Sleep

Philotheos spoke of the spiritual potential of sleep, dreaming, and the nighttime offices: ‘It is particularly at night that the intellect grows lucid in its radiant contemplation of the divine realities’ (Phil. 3, 27). Isaac the Syrian described an efflorescence of inspired feelings that might occur during sleep: Long before we are minded to go to sleep, let us ponder upon the glorifications

and our psalm-singing and our readings from the holy Scripture, [...] and let us furnish our treasury [memory] with every sort of beautiful thing. Then sleep will overtake us while we are full of the recollection of God, and our soul will be aflame with much ardent longing for things that are good; because God’s grace surrounds us in our sleep and pours forth upon us gifts, even when we slumber.’

The benefits of nighttime practice are set against the risk of demonic influences when dreams await and the world is shrouded in darkness.’ The mind trained on God during sleep is protected from demonic influences. John the Venerable 7 8

Isaac the Syrian, The ascetical homilies (Holy Transfiguration Monastery], 552-553. Pagan magic roused the demons and was typically performed at night, under the cover of darkness (see S. Benko, Pagan Rome and the early Christians, Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1986). The very darkness of night was a danger. Isaac the Syrian wrote: ‘The enemy’s deception are a night, as Paul also said, “We are not children of the night, but children of the day,” since the Son of God is the Day, but Satan is night’ (Isaac the Syrian, The ascetical homilies, 58; 1 Thes 5:5). This is a moral and allegorical interpretation based on

points of symbolic equivalence. As night is poised against day, and darkness against light, so Satan is poised against the Son.

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said: “Happy is he who combines thinking of you with his sleeping, for the demons that defile the slothful with fetid fantasies withdraw in terror from him’. The ascetic arms himself against worry by repeatedly invoking the Lord’s protection. John Climacus wrote: ‘Always let the remembrance of death and the Prayer of Jesus, being of a single phrase, go to sleep with you and get up with you; for you will find nothing to equal these aids during sleep’.!° In Climacus’s view, mental activity during sleep conforms with the prayers that precede it: ‘It may happen that continuous meditation on passages of the © Psalms is prolonged into the hour of sleep’; “The soul which has spent all day unceasingly engaged with the word of the Lord will love to be occupied with it in sleep’.'’ Babai drew a similar conclusion: Occupy yourself in the recitation of psalms, in words of prayer, in thinking of God. When you are struggling to go to sleep, meditate on whichever of these is in your heart as you go to sleep, and if such things pass the night in your soul, then the demon cannot attack your sleep and mislead you with foul dreams.!*

Climacus and Babai can be understood as follows: When memory is saturated with the semantic content and the auditory imagery of nighttime prayers, such prayers can be prolonged after falling asleep. Their overlearned status, conceptual simplicity, and distinctive feelings promote automatic recitation during wakefulness and encourage mental repetition during sleep, dreaming, and altered states. These qualities can also provoke spontaneous prayer during the hypnopompic state. The author of The Way of a Pilgrim recited the Prayer of Jesus throughout the day: ‘Early one morning’, he said, ‘the Prayer woke me up’.’° Other ascetics assumed that prayer can occur during sleep. The Letter to Cyriacus, a sixth-century Persian Christian work, includes the following advice:

Make it your care to pray without ceasing, for prayer is light to the soul, and it acts as a guard to the body. Pray not just when you are standing in prayer, but also when you are moving around or doing something, and even when you are asleep, and when you are eating."

Athanasius attributed comparable remarks to Anthony the Great: When you go to bed [...] recall the blessings and generous providence of God;

be filled with holy thoughts and great joy. Then, while your body sleeps, your 9

Colless, The wisdom of the pearlers, 165.

10 John Climacus, The ladder of divine ascent [Moore], 112. mW 1135-130:

12. Brock, The Syriac Fathers on prayer and the spiritual life, 151. 13. RLM. French, The Way ofa Pilgrim and The Pilgrim Continues His Way, New York: HarperOne, 1991, 14. 14 Brock, The Syriac Fathers on prayer and the spiritual life, 149.

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soul will keep watch [...] and in your sleep you will continue consciously to glorify the God of all with the strength of your soul.'°

Cassian told Abba Daniel about occasions when he and Germanus were ‘filled with gladness of heart and a kind of unspeakable joy’: “Pure and ready prayer would also be uttered, and a mind that was full of spiritual fruit would make supplication and would sense that its effectual and swift prayers were attaining to God even during sleep’.!° Philemon told ascetics to ‘fulfill the apostolic command’ to pray ceaselessly, including during sleep: Without interruption, whether asleep or awake, eating, drinking, or in company,

let your heart inwardly and mentally at times be meditating on psalms, at other times be repeating the prayer, “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy upon me’. (Phil. 2, 348)

Philemon’s advice for a brother troubled by the ‘vain fantasies’ of dreams implies that prayer before sleep can either continue uninterruptedly to the point of awakening or resume automatically after a period of dreamless sleep: Before going to sleep, say many prayers in your heart [...]. If you possibly can, sleep only after reciting the psalms and after inward meditation. Don’t be caught off your guard, [...] but lie down meditating on the thought of your prayer, so that when you sleep it may be conjoined with you and when you awake it may commune with you. (348)

Isaac the Syrian recognized prayer during sleep as a benefit of having ‘attained to the perfect love of God’: ‘that which brings [the ascetic] to the recollection

of God is never absent from him; wherefore even in sleep he converses with God’.'” A fifth-century treatise attributed to John the Solitary advocates ‘continual prayer which has no stopping point’: ‘Constancy in prayer is the fulfillment of all the commandments — and this is the figurative cross about which our Lord spoke: Everyone who takes it up and follows me will inherit eternal life’.'® Constant prayer, even during sleep, is a mark of perfect love and is analogous to bearing the Cross. This is not to emphasize suffering, but to imply a foothold in eternal life. Nikitas mentioned the features of continuous prayer during sleep: Unceasing prayer is prayer that does not leave the soul day or night. It consists not in what is outwardly perceived [...] but in our inner concentration on the

5 Schaff & Wace, Athanasius: Select works and letters, 355. 16 John Cassian, The conferences [Ramsey], 155.

7 Alfeyev, The spiritual world of Isaac the Syrian, 140. Brock, The Syriac Fathers on prayer and the spiritual life, 182.

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intellect’s activity and in mindfulness of God born of unwavering compunction; and it can be perceived noetically by those capable of such perceptions.!

Both Nikitas and Anthony claimed that the ascetic is aware of praying while asleep. He retains some form of conscious awareness. Anthony said, ‘You will

continue consciously to glorify the God’.”” Nikitas made the point in writing that unceasing prayer is ‘perceived noetically’ (Phil. 4, 128). The reports of praying while asleep can be understood in three ways; none allows for ceaseless prayer throughout the entire period of sleep. In the first, prayer occurs during dreams in REM sleep. In the second, it occurs during the ruminative, non-visual dreams in slow-wave sleep. REM-related dreams are fluid and often chaotic, and the dreamer’s sense of self is malleable. Such dreams allow for intense emotion but generally not for the superlative states of mind attributed to ceaseless prayer. Dreams in slow-wave sleep may allow for verbal prayer but generally not for the emotion attributed to ceaseless prayer.*! In the third interpretation, prayer occurs during lucid dreaming. A number of ascetics acknowledged the spiritual significance of lucid dreaming. Indeed, lucid dreaming has been a field for ascetic mental interventions. Evagrius referred to the lucid dreamer’s calm self-awareness in his claim that dispassion is manifest in “our dreams’ when we ‘remain in a state of tranquility in the presence of images [...] during sleep’.7* Nikitas and Anthony remarked on the dreamer’s awareness of praying while asleep, consistent with the interpretation that lucid dreaming is the medium of this form of prayer. John the Solitary referred to lucidity in his remark about persons ‘who see a dream’: ‘If they realize in their dream that they are just seeing a dream and not reality, then they will not be led astray by what they see. The same applies to the person who is [...] aware that he lives in this world in a state of deception’.”’ In John’s anal-

ogy, the lucidity of lucid dreaming is like mindful awareness of the impassioned, deceptive nature of ordinary waking life. Isaac the Syrian’s recommendation that the ascetic resist impassioned mental activity during sleep assumes the presence of preexisting lucidity: “Be prepared to resist thoughts not only when you pray, but also during every work that you do, and even when you are sleeping’.”* Isaac 19 Phil. 4, 128. Nikitas distinguished ceaseless prayer and ‘outwardly perceived’ prayer, which is apparent in physical gestures and ‘verbal utterance’ (Phil. 4, 128). The distinction was ancient in Nikitas’s day and has been a constant in ascetic psychology. Brianchaninov, in the nineteenth century, distinguished ‘bodily prayer’ and ‘spiritual prayer [...] inspired by divine grace’ (Brianchaninov, On the Prayer ofJesus, 54). The former is a necessary preliminary of the latter. 20 Athanasius: Select works and letters, 355. 21

For mentation during slow-wave sleep, see ch. 4(7).

22. Evagrius Ponticus, The Praktikos and Chapters on Prayer [Bamberger], 31, 33-34. 23 Brock, The Syriac Fathers on prayer and the spiritual life, 94. 24 Isaac the Syrian, The ascetical homilies [Holy Transfiguration Monastery], 564.

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also said that when evil ‘befalls us in our sleep’ we must ‘understand it immediately and recollect ourselves and perceive that in this night God’s overshadowing was far from us’.? Such understanding and self-recollection imply lucidity. In this matter, Isaac followed Diadochos, who referred to lucidity in saying that the ascetic ‘recognizes them [demonic dreams] for what they are and awakens the body from its dreams’ (Phil. 1, 264). I conclude that the ascetics’ claim of praying during sleep refers to actual prayer during lucid dreaming. Lucid dreaming is rare. Its importance in ascetic psychology warrants a consideration of its neuropsychological features. Ordinary dreams (as occur in REM sleep) are highly changeable and often tumultuous and bizarre. The dreamer is unaware of dreaming and lacks the critical perspective and the quality of attention needed to reflect on the dream content. In ordinary dreaming, the precuneus and the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex are deactivated, which permits other regions to generate the hallucinatory content and other features of ordinary dreams.”° Lucid dreams have features of both ordinary dreams and waking consciousness. The dreamer is aware of dreaming, has access to memory, can attend for relatively prolonged periods, and is able to control the action within the dream on a volitional basis. The wake-like clarity of lucid dreaming corresponds with activation in frontal and frontolateral regions.”” Volitional control of the flow of imagery is associated with activation in the frontal cortex.”* In reflecting on the dream content, the dreamer exhibits metacognition: a cognitive process mediated by the anterior frontal lobe that allows one to step aside from immediate phenomena and consider the goals and success of current plans and intentions.” Case studies have shown that lucid dreaming is associated with activity in a specific cortical network. The key regions in this network include the right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, which mediates metacognition and working memory; the bilateral frontopolar areas, which contribute to the evaluation of one’s 49 Thid3553. 26 P. Maquet et al., ‘Functional neuroanatomy of human rapid-eye movement sleep and dreaming’, in: Nature 383 (1996), 163-166. 27

28

29

U. Voss et al., “Lucid dreaming: A state of consciousness with features of both waking and non-lucid dreaming’, in: Sleep 32 (2009), 1191-2000. D.H. Shapiro et al., ‘Exploring the relationship between having control and losing control to functional neuroanatomy within the sleeping state’, in: Psychologia 38 (1995), 38133-38145. J.H. Flavell, “Metacognition and cognitive monitoring: A new area of cognitive-developmental inquiry’, in: American Psychologist 34 (1979), 906-911; D. Fernandez-Duque, J.A. Baird, & M.I. Posner, “Executive attention and metacognitive regulation’, in: Consciousness and Cognition 9 (2000), 288-307; R.F. Jarman, J. Vavrik, & P.D. Walton, ‘Metacognitive and frontal lobe processes: At the interface of cognitive psychology and neuropsychology’, in: Genetic, Social, and General Psychology Monographs 121 (1995), no. 2.; T.W. Schmitz, T.N. Kawahara-Baccus & S.C. Johnson, ‘Metacognitive evaluation, self-relevance, and the right prefrontal cortex’, in: Neuroimage 22 (2004), 941-947.

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own thoughts and feelings; and the precuneus, which ‘has been implicated in

self-referential processing’ as reflected in the first-person perspective and the experience of agency.*° The respective lexicons of the neuropsychologist and the ascetic differ, yet points of overlap are apparent between the cognitive processes in lucid dreaming and those that inform the tactics of ascetic mental training.?! In general, these processes pertain to the highest levels of cortical functioning: those that mirror the self in introspective examination. By means of metacognition the ascetic can adjust his present perspective in terms of the categories of value and behavior he has adopted from traditional teachings and has charged with personal aspirations. Self-referential processing (the portrayal of one’s thoughts and feeling in conscious awareness) is critical for the moral appraisals routinely practiced by ascetics.** All such processes require proficient working memory in which sustained attention is directed at will to the representations that advance productive mental activity. The ascetic relies on his sense of agency in promoting his difficult tactics, with goals ranging from the suppression of undesirable mental content to the induction of passivity in the face of divine inspiration. Stripped of agency, he is easily distracted and becomes a pawn of fantasy. Ascetic mental training may promote expertise in the cognitive processes that also underlie lucid dreaming. I would hypothesize that the ascetic’s habitual exercise of these processes increases the likelihood of their occurring in later dreaming. A possible result is that the ascetic experiences lucid dreaming more often than ordinarily expected. Mental asceticism changes the mind; occasions of lucid dreaming increase accordingly. There is a corollary of this assumption: Ascetic mental training can increase the frequency of relatively heightened activity in the network of cortical regions that underlies lucid dreaming.» 30M. Dresler et al., ‘Neural correlates of dream lucidity obtained from contrasting lucid versus non-lucid REM sleep: a combined EEG/fMRI case study’, in: Sleep 35 (2012), 1020. 31 Many forms of mental training are considered in this book. Examples include the hesychast prayer routine (ch. 2), the simplifying of mental process through mpsis (ch. 7), the training

32

of the imagination in the remembrance of death (ch. 19), and the inhibition of undesirable mental content in the course of exercising the advanced dispassions (ch. 21). For moral appraisals and self-examination, see ch. 7(3), which concerns the revelation of

thoughts to the spiritual father. 33 Baddeley’s theory of working memory provides another way of interpreting the cognitive aspect of prayer during sleep. (See A.D. Baddeley, Working memory, thought and action, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007.) It is a modular theory, widely accepted in Cognitive Psychology, and is descriptive rather than explanatory. Its application is limited to the verbal aspect of prayer; it provides no help in understanding prayer’s emotional dimension. Baddeley’s terms are italicized in the following interpretation: The aspect of memory called the central executive monitors and directs prayer during wakefulness. It coordinates activity in the two subsystems of the phonological loop: the articulatory rehearsal component and the phonological

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The examination of lucid dreaming helps to clarify a famous statement of Evagrius’s. Praktikos 64 reads: ‘It is a proof of impassibility when the mind has begun to see its own light and remains still before the apparitions occurring during sleep and looks upon objects with serenity’.*4 I interpret the statement as a description of the calm self-awareness of lucid dreaming; thus the references to impassibility, serenity, and stillness. But the meaning of the mind’s own light is another matter. Exceptional brightness and visual clarity are reliable features of lucid dreaming.*’ The neural base of these effects is in the visual system. A study of lucid dreaming showed heightened activity in the occipitotemporal cortices and bilateral cuneus: structures that form part of the ventral stream of visual processing and contribute to the conscious awareness of visual perception.*° The mind’s own light may be the brightness of imagery in the ascetic’s prayerful lucid dreaming.*” 4,2 Sleep Deprivation Sleep deprivation has been a regular and highly valued practice, and the vigil has been the chief means of enforcing it.** Evagrius said, “Bear gladly with sleep deprivation’.*? He slept about four hours at night and remained awake during the daytime. His Coptic biography reports that he resisted sleep by walking in his courtyard ‘meditating and praying’.*° Evagrius may have meant to follow the

34

35

store. Waking prayer is repeated (articulated) often; the rehearsal component is activated on this basis, and the phonological store is filled to the point of saturation. This promotes longterm storage of the prayer based on activity in the episodic buffer. Later, during dreaming, the central executive is engaged spontaneously, which draws content from long-term memory into the phonological loop, reviving the earlier prayer and prompting the later sense that prayer continued uninterruptedly throughout the period of sleep. Evagrius of Pontus, The Greek ascetic corpus [Sinkewicz], 109. C. Green, Lucid dreams, London: Hammish Hamilton, 1968.

36 Dresler et al., “Neural correlates of dream lucidity’. 37 Evagrius’s use of ‘light’ (pheggos) in describing the mind’s intrinsic luminosity may derive from the ‘Glory’ tradition of apocalyptic and early Christology (Golitzin, The form of God and the vision of the glory, 73-74). A historical derivation of this nature does not contradict the present interpretation of luminosity in lucid dreaming. What in one context is a scriptural or a theological reference may, in the mystical context, represent an immediate perceptual, emotional, or ideational event. Multiple currents (cultural, textual, mystical) that run in parallel 38

39 40

or occasionaly merge may yet retain their respective fields of reference. For sleep deprivation in the Western ascetic tradition during the medieval period, see J. Kroll & B. Bachrach, The mystic mind: The psychology of medieval mystics and ascetics, New York: Routledge, 2005. Evagrius of Pontus, The Greek ascetic corpus, 11.

C. Stewart, ‘Imageless prayer and the theological vision of Evagrius Ponticus’, in: Journal of Early Christian Studies 9 (2001), 185.

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example of his father at Kellia, Makarios of Alexandria, who for twenty years ‘snatched some sleep by leaning against a wall’. Cassian advised four hours sleep at night.*! Symeon the New Theologian napped a couple hours in the daytime and slept about three hours during the night. Callistus and Ignatius recommended ‘five or six hours’ of sleep. Posture during sleep is both an ascetic austerity and a symbolic gesture. Lying down while asleep is like the repose of death. In contrast, angels are ever awake and constantly alert in their praise of God. The ascetic is called to emulate the angels. The early literature includes examples of sleep-related postural practices. Theodoulos “fasted every day, never wore shoes, never slept lying down’. Euthymius’s posture during sleep was mentioned by Cyril of Scythopolis: ‘We never knew him to sleep on his side, but sometimes he would snatch a little sleep when seated and at other times, grasping with both hands a rope hanging from a corner of his cell, would take a little sleep out of physical necessity’. A ‘bronze tablet’ shown Pachomius in an ‘angelic vision’ said his monks should ‘not recline at full length [during sleep], but let them take their rest sitting down on their coverlets thrown over the backs of chairs’.“° The standing austerities of Indian sadhus match some of these early Christian practices. Like many ascetics, Mark the Ascetic recommended “all-night vigils’ (Phil. 1,

153). Martyrius said that monks ‘should especially display our eager readiness by our watchfulness in singing psalms and in praying during the long vigil that lasts the entire night, after the example that our Lord taught us when he went up alone to the mountain’.*” The ascetic must resist the ‘sweetness’ of ‘the deep sleep of night’ and the ‘darkness [that would otherwise] hold sway over us’.“8 In fighting sleep, the ascetic resists the ‘Son of Darkness [who] wants to make us

children of the dark like himself“? The Evil One ‘prowls’ the night and tries to ‘submerge us in his own darkness’.”” Nighttime is not simply analogous to the Evil One’s moral darkness; it is his natural habitat and shares his qualities. The dark hours display his presence. 41 Stewart, Cassian the Monk. 42 A. Golitzin, St. Symeon the New Theologian. On the mystical life: The ethical discourses. Vol. 3: Life, times, and theology, Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1997.

43 Kadloubovsky & Palmer, Writings from The Philokalia on prayer of the heart, 196. 44 J. Wortley [Trans.], The Spiritual Meadow [Pratum Spirituale] by John Moschos [also known as John Eviratus], Kalamazoo, MI: Cistercian Publications, 1992, 15.

45 RM. Price (Trans.), Lives of the monks ofPalestine by Cyril Scythopolis, Kalamazoo, MI: Cistercian Publications, 1991, 29-30. 46

FT. Meyer (Trans.), Palladius: The Lausiac history, New York: Newman Press, 1964, 92.

47 Brock, The Syriac Fathers on prayer and the spiritual life, 229; Lk 6:12) 48 Brock, The Syriac Fathers, 228. 49° Tbid., 230. ®- Ibids:230, 235

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The all-night vigil has been widely praised for refining the intellect and providing opportunities for contemplation. ‘Do not imagine’, wrote Isaac the Syrian, ‘that among all the works of monasticism there is any practice greater than the night vigil’.>! Theodoros wrote: “We have been instructed to keep vigil [...] at all times. A monk who keeps vigil refines his mind for contemplation, whereas much sleep coarsens the intellect’ (Phil. 2, 20). Gregory of Sinai mentioned the

‘greater inner stability’ that comes from ‘unbroken prayer’: “The programme is to stand and keep vigil uninterruptedly throughout the night’ (Phil. 4, 234). Hesychios encouraged ascetics to persist in their practice of the all-night vigil: If you want never to be wounded, do not succumb to sleep. There are only two choices: to fall and be destroyed, stripped of all virtue; or, armed with the intellect, to stand firm through everything. For the enemy and his host stand always ready for battle. (Phil. 1, 178)

Pachomius’s spiritual father, Palamon, prescribed ‘an exhausting ascesis’ to prevent sleep during the weekly all-night vigil, following a routine of ‘prayer, recitations and numerous manual labors’; ‘and if they saw that sleep was still overtaking them they would go out to the mountain outside their cell, and carry sand in baskets from one place to another, giving their bodies labors so as to stay awake to pray to God’.” Humans are subject to the troughs and peaks of biorhythmic variations.” The 24-hour circadian rhythm organizes wakefulness and sleep, and within this rhythm runs an ultradian rhythm (the basic rest-activity cycle) of 60-90 minutes in duration.** The shorter rhythm governs the REM-NREM sleep cycle and affects imaginal activity and a variety of cognitive functions throughout the day.”’ Sleep need is genetically determined; 7—8 hours is the average.*° ‘Short sleepers’ need far less than average, granted individual variation in the need for sleep.”” Sleep deprivation creates a debt that increases the need of extra sleep on future occasions. Practiced on a long-term basis, it can shape the architecture of sleep in ways that promote parasomnias and increase the likelihood of hallucinations. It can also lead to a rebound in which dreams can become bizarre or °! Isaac the Syrian, The ascetical homilies [Holy Transfiguration Monastery], 222. >? Veilleux, Pachomian Koinonia. Vol. 1, 32, 33. > R. Broughton, ‘Biorhythmic variations in consciousness and psychological functions’, in: Canadian Psychological Review 16 (1975), 217-239. 54 N. Kleitman, Sleep and wakefulness, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1963. 55 M. Hayashi, K. Sato, & T. Hori, “Ultradian rhythms in task performance, self-evaluation, and EEG activity’, in: Perceptual and Motor Skills 79 (1994), 791-800.

*© A. Rechtschaffen & J. Siegel, ‘Sleep and dreaming’, in: E. Kandel, J.H. Schwartz, & T.M. Jesell (Eds.), Principles of neural science, New York: McGraw-Hill, 2000, 936-947. 7

T. Roth & T. Roehr, ‘Disorders of sleep and wakefulness’, in: Kandel, Schwartz, & Jesell,

Principles of neural science, 948-959.

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unusually chaotic and the amount of time spent dreaming is increased. The ascetic tradition has promoted chronic sleep deprivation, striking at a vital biological necessity. There is possibly an interaction between the practice of sleep deprivation and the passion of sadness in ascetics prone to endogenous depression.°8 One such form of depression is Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD), which is associated

with reduced exposure to sunlight during winter but which can also occur in summer.” Prevalence estimates vary from 0% to 9.7%; the latitude of a subject population is related to its prevalence rate.®° | assume that some ascetics in the grip of the passion of sadness were suffering from the depression or melancholia of SAD. A carefully administered routine of sleep deprivation is an alternative treatment or ‘chronotherapy’ for SAD.°! This leads to a supposition: The occasional regimen of sleep deprivation resulting from keeping the all-night vigil, paired with regular sleep restriction resulting from saying the night and morning offices, has functioned as a treatment for SAD in some susceptible monks, or as an inoculation against its occurrence. The mental and the emotional consequences of the ascetic intervention of

sleep deprivation have been interpreted in religious ways. One example involves the torpor, fatigue, and poor concentration attributed to acedia. In many cases,

such effects have probably been the direct result of sleep deprivation. Another example concerns Basil of Caesarea, the influential theologian who established coenobitic monasticism in the eastern Mediterranean basin. He advised sleep deprivation to counteract demonically inspired sexual dreams and to halt their future occurrence.© The irony is that Basil’s pastoral advice would increase the probability of future ‘demonic’ phenomena through encouraging bizarre and more frequent oneiric attacks once REM rebound compensated for the sleep deprivation he recommended.® REM breakthrough during wakefulness might also be expected, such that the monk or nun would be subject to waking dreams, in which case ‘demons’ might seem to approach in broad daylight.°* But the 8 For the passion of sadness, see ch. 6(1), 8(1). °° A. Magnusson & D. Boivin, ‘Seasonal affective disorder: An overview’, in: Chronobiology International 20 (2003), 189-207. 60 A. Magnusson, ‘An overview of epidemiological studies on seasonal affective disorder’, in: Acta Psychiatrica Scandinavica 101 (2000), 176-184.

61 A, Germain & D.J. Kupfer, ‘Circadian rhythm disturbances in depression’, in: Human Psychopharmacology 23 (2008), 571-585.

6

Elm, Virgins of God’.

63

TJ. Takeuchi, A. Miyasita, M. Inugami, & Y. Yamamoto, ‘Intrinsic dreams are not produced

without REM sleep mechanisms: Evidence through elicitation of sleep onset REM periods’, in: Journal of Sleep Research 10 (2001), 43-52. 64 TA. Nielsen, ‘A review of mentation in REM and NREM sleep: “Covert” REM sleep a possible reconciliation of two opposing models’, in: Behavior and Brain Science 23 (2000), 851-866.

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scientific interpretation of Basil’s advice is not the full story. The frustrated demons, initially beaten back by sleep deprivation, were expected to mount dire counterattacks, Their later influence in an upsurge of disturbing dreams or hallucinations would indicate to the ascetic that the earlier intervention of sleep deprivation was successful. Counterattacks, enjoined by flawed human nature, were predictable. This is not to paint a wholly negative picture of the practice of sleep deprivation. A person’s sleep need can change based on age. Wakefulness during the early morning hours would allow the ascetic to take advantage of the peaks of ultradian cycles, which can promote a heightening of attention, mindful reflection, and calm. Perhaps the ascetic pursuit of dispassion reduces sleep need through reshaping temperament, altering motivations, and affecting hormonal balance. Studies suggest that sleepiness is attenuated after several days of an intervention involving a pattern of sleep deprivation and partial sleep restriction. Certain behavioral effects of the intervention tend to stabilize and are followed by recovery when normal sleep is restored.®

4.3 Dream Interpretation There is continuity across the centuries in ascetic dream interpretation based on the continuing influence of Evagrius’s and Diadochos’s interpretive theories. In ascetic psychology, dream imagery reflects the dreamer’s spiritual condition, moral status, and ascetical expertise. The soul’s powers differentially affect the composition of a dream, and individual dreams show the powers’ respective levels of dominance. A minority of dreams was regarded as divinely inspired. Most dreams were viewed as the work of demons; others were interpreted in a proto-Freudian way as the expression of emotional conflicts stimulated by the passions. The idea of ‘day residue’ was generally accepted, as reflected in Symeon the New Theologian’s ‘true inference about dreams and visions’: “What occupies the soul here, and enters it while it is awake, still occupies its imagination and thoughts during sleep. The soul is still engaged in human affairs even though

its imagination is then occupied in dreams’.*” A review of dream interpretation throughout the ascetic tradition shows that dreams have been evaluated based on one or more of five criteria: (a) feeling

® J.J. Pilcher & A.I. Huffcutt, “Effects of sleep deprivation on performance: A meta-analysis’, in: Sleep 19 (1996), 318-326.

°° P. Philip et al., “Acute versus chronic partial sleep deprivation in middle-aged people: Differential affect of performance and sleepiness’, in: Sleep 35 (2012), 997-1002.

8” McGuckin, Symeon the New Theologian, 90.

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content;

105

(b) the visual resolution or sharpness of the imagery; (c) memory

for the dream imagery after awakening; (e) the stability of the imagery over the course of individual dreams; and (d) lucidity, as reflected in the dreamer’s wit-

tingly intervening to change a dream. There is overlap between certain of these criteria and those used in scientific research to distinguish the formal properties of dreams. An example is the stability of the imagery in individual dreams.® In ascetic psychology, the static quality of dream imagery indicates the dream’s positive, spiritual value. The criterion has religious resonance as an analogy of the theological attribute of immutability. In classical theology, God is unchanging; analogously, dreams with fixed or unchanging images reflect divine activity. A longitudinal study of dreams in children showed a relatively high number of scenes with static images.° Static imagery in childhood dreams and in spiritually desirable dreams in adults may reflect comparable patterns of electrophysiological activity. A second hypothesis is that the status of the passions in static childhood dreams is like their status in the spiritually desirable dreams of ascetics. This gives a surprising meaning to the biblical passage about children inheriting the kingdom of heaven (Mk 10:14 and parallels). Diadochos wrote:

The dreams which appear to the soul through God’s love are unerring criteria of its health. Such dreams do not change from one shape to another; they do not shock our inward sense, resound with laughter or suddenly become threatening. But with great gentleness they approach the soul and fill it with spiritual gladness. As a result, even after the body has woken up, the soul longs to recapture the joy given it by the dream. (Phil. 1, 264)”°

Diadochos highlighted three indications of good spiritual health. The first is the feeling of joy, which may linger after the dreamer awakens. The second and the third are correlated. The dream images remain stable; they are not readily transformed. Similarly, the dreamer remains emotionally stable. Nothing occurs that might ‘shock our inner sense’ or prove unsettling or ‘threatening’ (264). Not that joy is the only spiritually healthy emotion: “There are times when even good dreams do not bring joy to the soul, but produce in it a sweet sadness and tears unaccompanied by grief. But this happens only to those who are far advanced in humility (264).

68

J.A. Hobson, The dreaming brain, New York: Basic Books, 1988.

6° D. Foulkes, Children’s dreaming and the development of the unconscious, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1999.

70° Maximos wrote little on dreams. He followed Diadochos in saying: ‘Once the soul starts to feel its own good health, the images in its dreams are also calm and free from passion’ (Phil. 2, 63).

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Diadochos described demonically inspired dreams, the ‘opposite’ of those reflecting good health: They do not keep the same shape or maintain a constant form for long. [...] They shout and menace, often transforming themselves into soldiers and sometimes deafening the soul with their cries. But the intellect, when pure, recognizes

them for what they are and awakes the body from its dreams. Sometimes it even feels joy at having been able to see through their [the demons’] tricks; indeed it often challenges them during the dream itself and thus provokes them to great anger. (264)

In dreams of this nature, the imagery is unstable and the emotion is tumultuous and subject to sudden shifts. ‘Menace’, ‘soldiers’, and ‘anger’ show that the

content and the motive force of such dreams are based on the soul’s incensive

power. Diadochos referred to lucidity in saying that the dreamer must ‘see through their tricks’ and ‘challenge them’ (264).

Evagrius gave examples in which the desiring power mediates the images and feelings in dreams: When in the fantasies that occur during sleep the demons attack the concupiscible

[desiring] part and show us with our ready consent encounters with friends, banquets with relatives, groups of women, and other such things which offer pleasures,

we become sick in this part and the passion grows in strength.”!

Such dreams are not simply a compensation for the privations of the ascetic life. They strengthen the desiring power, which becomes ‘sick’ from an excess of ‘pleasures’.’* Future dreams of the same kind are more likely to occur. Evagrius analyzed dreams in terms of their visual resolution, as reflected in the detail and the clarity of their images. The presence of face imagery was particularly important: Natural processes which occur in sleep without accompanying images of a stimulating nature are, to a certain measure, indications of a healthy soul. But images that are distinctly formed are a clear indication of sickness. You may be certain that the faces one sees in dreams are, when they occur as ill-defined images, symbols of former affective experiences. Those which are seen clearly, on the other hand,

indicate wounds that are still fresh.’

‘Natural processes’ are involuntary behavioral or physiological changes.’4 Nocturnal arousal is an example. The ‘stimulating nature’ of a dream indicates the aggravation of a passion, which taints the natural process and renders it morally | The Praktikos and Chapters on Prayer [Bamberger], 31. ”? Tbidem. 73 Tbidem. 74 Tbidem.

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suspect.” Were arousal paired with ‘images of a stimulating nature’, the dreamer would incur moral culpability for the loss of self-control.”° Absent the stimulating imagery, the change is undesirable but morally benign. It is an ‘unintelligible natural reaction’.’” The emotional ‘wounds’ mentioned by Evagrius vary from minor hurts to emotional traumas.’® The origin of wounds is ‘affective experiences’ in interpersonal settings.””? Wounds spoil dispassion and affect dream imagery in particular ways. The ‘distinctly formed’ quality of the dream images, particularly face images, corresponds with the impassioned or unhealthy state of the dreamer. This applies especially to dreamers who have incurred ‘fresh’ or recent wounds.®° Evagrius’s observation linking face imagery and negative emotion of interpersonal origins has some empirical support. In one study, face imagery and ‘negative self-feeling’ had a positive correlation in the dreams of men.®! In another study, the proportion of face imagery in dreams had positive correlations with measures of interhemispheric EEG coherence, which assesses integrative functioning among brain regions in both cerebral hemispheres.®* This suggests that face imagery is related to cortical arousal and the extent of neural integration. Diadochos wrote: “The safest rule is never to trust anything that appears in our dreams. For dreams are generally nothing more than images reflecting our wandering thoughts, or else they are the mockery of demons’ (Phil. 1, 264). This can stand as a general summary of the ascetic evaluation and understanding of dreams. ‘Thoughts’ is an Evagrian term that refers to passion-infused mental contents: “The matter of the flesh constitutes the nourishment of thoughts’.®? A thought can be an abstract idea, or formed of perceptual imagery: ‘among thoughts, some come to us as animals, others as human beings’ .*4 In Evagrian

psychology, mental representations based on visual perception are stored in 7 Tbidem. 76 Tbidem. 77 Tbid., 176. ‘The Pali Canon has nothing to say about dreaming, except to rule that for a monk to emit semen during a dream, being an involuntary action, does not constitute an offense’ (R. Gombrich, What the Buddha taught, London: Equinox, 2009, 66).

78 The Praktikos and Chapters on Prayer [Bamberger], 31. ”? Tbidem. 80 Tbidem. 81

TA. Nielsen & V. Chenier, ‘Variations in EEG coherence as an index of the affective content

of dreams from REM sleep: Relationships with face imagery’, in: Brain and Cognition 41 82

83

(1999), 200. Nielsen & Chenier, ‘Variations in EEG coherence’; also see M. Miyakoshi, N. Kanayama, T. lidaka, 8&¢ H. Ohire, ‘EEG coherence of face-specific self-representation’, in: Neuroimage 50 (2010), 1666-1675. Evagrius of Pontus, The Greek ascetic corpus [Sinkewicz], 29. For ‘thoughts’, see ch. 13.

e4 -Tbids1214:

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memory. They impose perceptible thoughts and also compose the imagery of visual dreams. They ‘wander’ because they are unstable and motivated by the passions (Phil. 1, 264). Mocking dreams are chaotic, disturbing, and senseless, reflecting the demons’ efforts to inspire fear and cravings.

4.4 Visions and Revelations While Asleep Nikitas Stithatos, a disciple of Symeon the New Theologian, expanded and codified his master’s theory of sleep-related mentation. Symeon’s phenomenology of dreams was relatively simple: He distinguished dreams and visions, and used ‘revelation’, ‘contemplation’, and ‘true apparition’ as synonyms of ‘vision’. Nikitas recognized the category of dreams and distinguished two forms of visions, yielding a threefold classification of sleep-related experience: dreams, visions, and revelations. The imagery in dreams is the most mobile and fluid; the imagery in revelations is the least so. Dreams ‘pertain to materialistic sensuallyminded people [...]. Their dissolute, passion-polluted mode of life darkens their intellect, and they are mocked and spellbound by the demons’ (Phil. 4, 124— 125; see Philippians 3:19). Visions occur in persons who are ‘well-advanced on the spiritual path, who have cleansed the soul’s organs of perception. Beneficially assisted by things visible they ascend to the ever-increasing apprehension of things divine’ (125). Revelations, the most elevated form of oneiric experience, are received by ‘those who are perfect, who are energized by the Holy Spirit, and whose soul through mystical prayer is united with God’ (125). Here is Nikitas’s full description of the three forms of sleep-related mentation: The images that visit us during sleep are either dreams, or visions, or revelations. To the category of dreams belongs everything in the image-forming faculty of the intellect that is mutable — all that makes it confused and subject to constantly altering states. We have nothing to gain from such images and if we are sensible we should ignore them — indeed, they disappear of their own accord as soon as we are awake. Visions on the other hand are constant; the one does not change into another, but they remain imprinted upon the intellect unforgettably for many years. Those that disclose the upshot of things to come, and assist the soul by inspiring it with compunction and the sight of fearful wonders, make the beholder reflective and strike him with awe on account of their constancy and their fearsome nature. Revelations occur when the purified and illumined soul is able to contemplate in a way that transcends normal sense-perception. They have the force of things and thoughts miraculous and divine, initiating us into the hidden mysteries of God, showing us the outcome of our most important problems and the universal transformation of things worldly and human. (Phil. 4, 124) 8 McGuckin, Symeon the New Theologian, 90-91.

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Dreams form a distinct category. Visions and revelations lie on the same continuum.*° Dreams are born of the ‘image-forming faculty of the intellect’; they are ordinary visual dreams as occur in REM sleep (Phil, 4, 124). The dreamer feels that dreams are her own creation. In comparison, visions are REM-related dreams with atypical features. Constancy of form is one feature; the type and the intensity of emotion are others; and the exceptionally memorable quality of visions is yet another. “Things to come’ does not pertain to precognition; supernormal powers have not been of particular interest in the ascetic tradition.®” ‘Things to come’ concerns matters of collective importance such as endtime events (124). In the ‘fearsome nature’ of their content, visions have an intense

impact. ‘Awe’, ‘wonder’, and ‘compunction’ are mentioned (124). The content of visions may derive from scripture. A revelation zs oneiric contemplation. It feels objective, as if it were received from outside oneself. It does not replicate memories based on ‘normal senseperception’, nor does it transmogrify content in easily recognizable ways (Phil. 4, 124). Revelations have an archetypal character in disclosing patterns of ‘universal transformation’ (124). They provide support in addressing ‘our most important problems’ through setting them in a context that reflects basic patterns of human existence (124).

Visions and revelations have self-evident spiritual value. Their rarity might lead one to suppose that Nikitas’s descriptions are fanciful. I close with a dream reported by a personal patient that meets Nikitas’s criteria for an oneiric revelation. This young woman dreamt of an old yoke suitable for oxen. It rested on a plinth in a round, stone sanctuary surmounted by a cupola. Wooden boxes placed around the yoke overflowed with jewels. Brocade, strings of pearls, and worn traces were draped over the yoke. The room was comfortable in the manner of 86 The continuity of visions and revelations was discussed by Isaac the Syrian, whose explanation of these forms of dreaming overlaps Nikitas’s (see The ascetical homilies [Holy Transfiguration Monastery], 305).

87 Phil. 4, 124. There are exceptions. For example, Isaac the Syrian explained how the soul of a living person can see another soul at a distance (The ascetical homilies, 253-254). His point

was not to commend ‘the clairvoyant eye of insight’ (253). He was engaged in a metaphysical discussion about the manner of communication between the orders of beings (souls, angels,

and demons) and the role of the body in promoting or blocking such communication. Early references to supernormal powers combine a hagiographic tendency and a commendation of a father’s discernment. For example, Pachomius knew without asking about a theft of figs; ‘the

brothers marveled at [...] his perfect clairvoyance’ (Veilleux, Pachomian Koinonia. Vol. 1, 94).

The Lives of Cyril of Scythopolis reports a number of instances of clairvoyance. In some, future facts are foretold, such as the founding of a monastery. In others, a father demonstrates exceptional discernment (diakrisis) regarding the psychology of other monks. He might ‘see the movements of the soul [...] and the thoughts each person was wrestling with’ based on ‘the appearance of the body’ (Price, Lives of the Monks of Palestine by Cyril Scythopolis, 42).

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stone churches in warm climates. Diffuse light filled the room from above. Nothing moved or changed, and she remained perfectly still. It seemed that time was suspended. The calm and peacefulness she felt during the dream continued for some time after she awakened. She felt during the dream that the yoke conveyed the sense of hard work that was now complete, allowing for rest. She felt after awakening that her present misery was a harbinger of a new, more secure life path. She drew strength from the dream and felt that it was a gift. She had been recording her dreams on a daily basis for months and could not see how the image of the yoke cohered with her ongoing series of dreams. Nor could she think of events that might have stimulated such imagery. She sought in books for information that could be used to amplify the dream’s meaning, and so came to verses in the gospel of Matthew: Come to me, all you who are weary and find life burdensome, and I will refresh you. Take my yoke upon your shoulders and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble of heart. Your souls will find rest, for my yoke is easy and my burden is light. (11:28-30)

She had not heard of the book of Sirach, in which a feminine presence identified

as Wisdom likens herself to a yoke and promises her followers ‘silver and gold’ (51323);

4.5 Illustration of Prayer While Dreaming

Symeon the New Theologian reported a dream in which he was victorious over demons that attempted to afflict him with ‘the passion of pollution’, representing lust, sexual arousal, or emission.*® He was 27 at the time and had recently entered monastic life. The dream assumed special importance in his later reflections, to the extent of altering his theology. His view of Christ’s spatial location and scope of influence was changed; rather than residing in a concretely imagined heaven, He intervened directly in Symeon’s body. Christ became an incorporated locus of bodily control. The dream occurred later the same evening as one of Symeon’s most important mystical experiences.® His victory in the dream was ‘something yet more extraordinary’ than the earlier vision.”® The emotion in the dream was less intense than the ecstatic emotion of the mystical experience. It was the dream’s theological implications that made it critically important. 88 The discourses [deCatanzaro], 363. For the timing of the vision and the dream, see and compare The discourses [deCatanzaro],

362-363 (lines 114-139) and 245-246 (lines 89-118). The discourses, 363.

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gta

Here is Symeon’s dream report. In the first sentence, ‘vision’ refers to his earlier mystical experience: Then, as I reflected on the meaning of the vision, something yet more extraordinary than all this took place. While I was being tempted by evil demons in my sleep, and being drawn by their machinations to a passion of pollution, I resisted mightily and called to Thee, the Lord of light, for help. So I awakened and

escaped without harm from the hands of the tempters. I was amazed at myself how I had shown firmness and courage, and even more that I had not been moved toward passion. I thought “How did this unaccustomed triumph happen, that I should resist even while asleep and prevail over my adversaries and enemies, and

win an unexpected mighty victory through Christ?? What a marvel! At once I realized that He whom I had thought to be in heaven was within me; I mean Thee, O Christ, my Creator and King! And then I knew that the victory was Thine, which Thou gavest me to overcome the devil.”

Symeon’s dream probably occurred during the early morning hours before

awakening, when the highest probability of REM sleep is expected.” In males, an erection accompanies every period of REM sleep, ‘whether it [the concurrent dream] contains erotic scenes or not, and independent of the dreamer’s age,

from birth to old age’.?? The arousal is automatic and keyed to the sleep stage. Judged by ascetic standards, the physiological response and its mental correlates have moral and spiritual significance as demonic effects and expressions of the passion of fornication. Symeon’s arousing dream was inspired by lascivious

demons whose presence was signaled by tumescence and desire. The ‘hands of the tempters’ promoted the ‘passion of pollution’.*4 Symeon ‘resisted mightily’ and ‘called’ on Christ for help; then, in an ‘unaccustomed triumph’, he passed safely into wakefulness without being ‘moved by passion’.”” He ‘resisted [and] triumphed

[...] even while asleep’ and felt ‘amazed at [his] firmness and

courage’.°° He announced his discovery: ‘He whom | had thought to be in heaven was within me’.”” Christ inhabited his body. Ascetic theologians differ on the exact role of demons in sexual dreams and fantasy. Maximos

distinguished three basic views (Phil. 2, 79). In the first,

demons affect the genitals; this arouses the passion that stimulates the memory 1

Tbidem.

2

For sleep architecture, the timing of REM onset, and the physiology of dreaming, see Hobson,

The dreaming brain; M. Jouvet, The paradox of sleep: The story of dreaming, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2001.

3 Jouvet, The paradox ofsleep, 169. 94 The discourses, 363. 95 Tbidem. 96 Tbidem. 97 Tbidem.

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of the woman who appears in imaginal imagery. In the second, demons appear in the imaginal imagery ‘in the guise of a woman’; afterward they affect the genitals, which stirs passion and activates additional memory images (79). In the third view, the demon is the passion; its presence stirs the corresponding passion in the individual whose disturbed soul proceeds to generate sexual images based on memory. The third view is the most modern in not distinguishing the demon as a strictly supernatural agent. Symeon’s interpretation is most like the second view. His ‘evil demons’ were probably not visualized as supernatural agents; they were felt during the dream and after awakening as evil forces that were disguised as the figures he recognized as ‘tempters’.”® The gender of Symeon’s tempters is a point of interest. A corresponding question concerns his own gender identity. In general, the demons form a gender-neutral collective with masculine characteristics, although a particular demon might break from the pattern of anonymity and demonstrate independence, or perhaps adopt a feminine form.?? Symeon’s gender identity is uncertain; his writings imply that heterosexuality should not be taken for granted. Scholars have let the matter pass, at the same time resisting the sexual implications of a number of passages. An exception is Turner’s remark about the possibility of ‘homosexual misconduct’ in Symeon’s youth.!” In scholarly work, Symeon’s references to the penis, emission, and masculine figures (including Christ) in erotic

circumstances have been bowdlerized, minimized, or interpreted in strictly symbolic terms.'°! The interpersonal circumstances that contributed to the shame and guilt that Symeon attributed to his behavior during young adulthood have

not been closely examined.'® I agree with McGuckin who said that Symeon often insists, throughout his writing, at a somewhat dissolute life [...] and later in his Hymns he confesses to having committed all manner of sins [...]. Com-

mentators have often taken this as a fopos, a sign of humility, accusing himself of every sexual license possible, but Symeon himself seems to have no illusions about 8

Ibidem.

For demons, see ch. 6(4, 8). For an example of the demons’ fluidity of gender, see the ‘demon

bride’ (the devil disguised as a lady pilgrim) that tempted Abba Macarius (A.G. Elliott, Roads to paradise: Reading the lives of the early saints, Hanover, NH: University Press of New England,

1987).

100

H.J.M.Turner, St. Symeon the New Theologian and spiritual fatherhood, Boston: Brill, 1990, 44. Van der Aalst, citing Turner, draws the same inference: A.J. van der Aalst, “The palace

101

and the monastery in Byzantine spiritual life c. 1000’, in: A. Davids (Ed.), The Empress Theophanio at the turn of the first millennium, New York: Cambridge University Press, 2002, 326. Exceptions to this observation are rare (D. Krueger, ‘Homoerotic spectacle and the monastic body in Symeon the New Theologian’, in: V. Burrus & C. Keller [Eds.], Toward a theology of Eros: Transfiguring passion at the limits of discipline, New York: Fordham University Press, 2006, 99-118).

'02 E.g., Hymns of divine love [Maloney], 55.

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his earlier life, and places such emphasis on the virtue of repentance that we should take him more seriously than presuming he was the innocent youth of the pious biography.!°

The homoerotic, frankly sexual images in Symeon’s writings support the impression of homosexuality.!°* The sopos of ‘nuptial union’ cannot reasonably accom-

modate all such images and metaphors.’ Symeon considered himself ‘terribly defiled’; he called himself a “sodomite in deed and desire’ who engaged in ‘debaucheries’, ‘impure embraces’, ‘terrible pleasures’, ‘shameful actions’, and ‘erotic passions of carnal pleasure’, in this way garnering the shame and guilt that troubled him long after entering monastic life.!°° ‘How is it’, he wrote, ‘that we wretches can love humans more than you and even become, unfortunately, their slaves, in order to receive from them little and ephemeral gifts and to them we give over our wretched souls and our bodies to be abused as vessels of little value?’.'°” The passage hints of insistent older men who lure and coax with gifts, that Symeon might become the vessel of their pleasure. He paid a social toll for his behavior: ‘Others slandered me by their slanders with everyone, saying that I indulged in all vices; [...] and unceasingly they continued to slander me by their words until I would yield to their views’.'° For about six years before entering monastic life at 26, Symeon “managed a patrician’s household, attending to affairs in the palace, engaged in worldly demands’; he ‘lived in the midst of the city [...] carrying out all the duties and activities that pertain to life’.'°? This was the likely period of sexual indulgence. Since about age 14, he had sought the counsel of Symeon the Studite, an exemplary moral figure. His first mystical vision, which occurred at 20, was a beacon of holiness and purity. The moral framework that intensified Symeon’s shame and guilt was already set and fixed during the period when he acted

against it.'!° Symeon described himself in young adulthood in ways compatible with contemporary notions of unmanliness: ‘I liked [...] the finery of clothing, the 103 JA. McGuckin, ‘Symeon the New Theologian’s Hymns ofdivine eros: A neglected masterpiece of the Christian mystical tradition’, in: Spiritus 5 (2005), 200.

104 E.g., Golitzin, Ethical discourses. Vol. 1, 150-151. 105 For gender and the motif of nuptial union, see P. Halsall, Wedded to Christ: Nuptiality and gender reversal in the Lives of Byzantine male saints. Paper presented at the Byzantine Studies Conference, Madison, WI, September 1997.

106 Hymns of divine love [Maloney], 93, 132, 138, 202. Be Tbids'202. WP Ibid 192: 109 The discourses [deCatanzaro], 247-248.

110 For Symeon’s biographical chronology, see appendix C. For additional detail about this period of his life, see the Note in the appendix.

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customs of comfort’; ‘the good avoided me on account of my exterior

appearance’.'!! ‘Some people felt I was handsome, elegant in body, manner and gait, and harbored evil suspicions about me’.'!* Gait drew social attributions. The manly man walked in a stately, measured fashion; probity and confidence were expressed in a gait of ‘controlled stiffness’ reminiscent of the gravity of public figures in diplomatic settings.!'* The unmanly gait was fluid and relaxed and associated with femininity, sexual license, self-indulgence, and the behavior

of eunuchs. I will not pursue an argument for Symeon’s having been a eunuch except to agree with Krueger: “The evidence for castration is far from certain’.''* None of the anatomical or physiognomic stigmata of the elderly eunuch are applied to the living Symeon in his or others’ writings.'!? Nikitas reported a posthumous miracle in which Symeon appeared as ‘a respectable and dignified-looking eunuch with a particularly angelic appearance’.!!° Nikitas, following scripture, was affirming Symeon’s purity and his having entered heaven (Mt 19:12). He was not saying Symeon was literally a eunuch. Symeon’s fifteenth Hymn blends the sacred and the profane in a strange mixture of sexual images and theological concepts. Its enthusiasm and leaps in content display a loosening of associations. The Hymn can be interpreted as an illustration of homoerotic phallocentrism. In deification, he wrote, the penis is

‘honorable’ and no longer ‘a shameful member’.'!” Its ‘seed’ appears in the ‘soiled garments’ of the sensual-minded and is a carnal analogy of the ‘seed’ of the ‘One who sows the seed in divine union, divine seed, made, amazingly, according to the image of God’.'!® Apropos of semen and genitalia, Symeon added: “See Christ in the womb of His mother; picture to yourself the interior of this womb’.'!? He then spoke of an outstanding person who received divine seed through deification, namely his spiritual father who “did not blush before the members of anyone, neither to see other men naked, nor to show himself naked’.'*? Symeon’s intent in the Hymn was to shock the reader and to use "| Hymns of divine love, 91.

12 The discourses, 244. '13_K.M. Ringrose, The perfect servant: Eunuchs and the social construction ofgender in Byzantium, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2003, 75. 'l4 Krueger, ‘Homoerotic spectacle and the monastic body in Symeon the New Theologian’, 111. "5 J.D. Wilson & C. Roehrborn, ‘Long-term consequences of castration in men: Lessons from the skoptzy and the eunuchs of the Chinese and Ottoman courts’, in: The Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism 84 (1999), 4324-4331.

16 Greenfield, Niketas Stethatos: The life of Saint Symeon the New Theologian, 365. "7 Hymns of divine love [Maloney], 54.

18 [pide 55: 1 Tbidem. 120) Thidd. 156:

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graphic images in conveying points about deification.!*! But I doubt that rhetorical strategy can account for the mixture of charged content. The possibility that he wittingly appealed to the Stoic concept of the logos spermatikos seems remote. The sexual content in Symeon’s writings on mystical experience can be understood as both concrete and figurative: concrete in drawing on personal experiences he found shameful and sinful, and figurative in the sense of his using the emotions and the sensory perceptions of earlier romantic and homoerotic contacts as analogies and conceptual models in his descriptions of mystical experience. Overlap is likely, such that certain of the emotions and sensory perceptions also occurred in mystical experience. He used orgasmic emotion in this manner.'”* There are parallels of Symeon’s sexual imagery in non-Christian mystical traditions. The Indian saint Ramakrishna remarked: ‘I have seen with my own eyes that God dwells even in the sexual organ’.'”° In speaking of deification, Symeon wrote: “When we are united to God we shall at the same time become gods, not looking upon the indignity of the body at all, but completely made like Christ in the whole body, and each of our members shall be the whole Christ. [...] And so thus you well know that both my finger and my penis are Christ’.!*4 I do not intend a cartoon of the youthful Symeon, but certain impressions are unavoidable. One must read his self-descriptions while avoiding both the religious interpretations that identify a cardboard saint and the ultra-cautious historical interpretations that quibble over individual words but fail to grasp a whole picture that makes psychological sense. The tempters in his dream were probably masculine, in keeping with his gender identity. The thrill of victory over their enticements would have led him to feel that he had overcome a troubling phase of his personal history. The great importance he assigned the dream supports this impression.

The dream changed Symeon’s theology: ‘He whom I had thought to be in heaven was within me’.'”’ His discovery is to be interpreted concretely: “Within me’ refers to his body, where Christ intervened to quell libido and terminate physical signs of arousal. Symeon’s plea—‘I resisted mightily and called to Thee’—invited Christ to enter his body, whereupon He assumed the local dimensions of Symeon’s physical form. Christ’s perceived sphere of influence had expanded. As Christ the Son was incarnate in Jesus, so He entered and 121 For theological aspects of this Hymn, see H. Alfeyev, St. Symeon the New Theologian and Orthodox tradition, New York: Oxford University Press, 2000, 266-269. 122 Hymns of divine love, 54f., 237; Ethical discourses. Vol. 3 [Golitzin], 92.

123 P. Heehs (Ed.), Indian religions: A historical reader of spiritual expression and experience, London: Hurst, 2002, 443.

'24 Griges, Divine eros, 87. 125 The discourses, 363.

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exerted a beneficial effect on Symeon’s body. What Symeon discovered was a downstream ripple of the Incarnation. He was no longer the sole owner and agent of his body: Christ was incorporated as a cause of somatic change. Who, then, was the owner of Symeon’s body? Himself or Christ? ‘Ownership’ is a basic category of the normal experience of self-embodiment. 126 In general, an intact sense of self is contingent on perceiving and controlling the body as one’s possession and living instrument. Symeon’s new theological outlook, in which Christ was the dominant force within his body, entailed a rejection of normally disposed self-embodiment as conceived in modern times. Beliefs and experiences of this kind have significant psychological implications. Their clinical analogies are passivity experiences such as the delusion of control by supernatural agents.!?” Through Symeon’s incorporation of Christ, preverbal, automatic, merely physiological aspects of bodily functioning were subsumed within the sphere of divine influence. His body, in its rudimentary level of functioning, became an intimate theatre of sin and demonic forces. Psychological

circumstances of this nature create an intense moral burden, which is amplified repeatedly when automatic physiological processes (such as arousal during REM sleep) disturb and disrupt the restraints imposed by moral considerations. Religious prohibitions against such automatic changes set the stage for repeated instances of failure. The failures intensify the feelings of guilt and shame and promote repeated cycles of penitence. This is a self-reinforcing psychodynamic in which an individual’s sense of identity becomes highly constrained and colored with harsh, punitive emotion. ‘I am a worm, not a man’ (Ps 22:6). It seems

that only God has the reach and power to effect meaningful change, to break through the moral darkness that enchains the guilty person who lapses away in shame.

126 For ownership as a basic category of self-embodiment, see: V. Lunn, ‘Autoscopic phenomena’, in: Acta Psychiatrica Scandinavica 46 (1970) Suppl. 219, 118-125; Melzack, ‘Phantom limbs and the concept of a neuromatrix’. Focal neurological damage in the medial frontal cortex and the body of the corpus callosum can erode the sense of ‘owning’ one’s hand or arm. An example is the ‘alien hand syndrome’ in which the person feels that this part of his body is not his own and may instead belong to someone else (G. Goldberg, ‘From intent to action: Evolution and function of the premotor systems of the frontal lobe’, in: E. Perecman [Ed.], The frontal lobes revisited, New York: IRBN Press, 1987, 273-306). The affected hand may engage in

morally objectionable behavior, which the patient restrains and seeks to correct with his other arm (P.G. Gasquoine, ‘Bilateral alien hand signs following destruction of the medial frontal cortices’, in: Neuropsychiatry, Neuropsychology, and Behavioral Neurology 6 [1993], 49-53). The

syndrome has been used as a clinical analogy in developing a neuropsychology of the ascetic’s experience of the autonomy of demons (D.T. Bradford, “Brain and psyche in early Christian asceticism’, in: Psychological Reports 109 [2011], 461-520).

'27 C.D. Frith, The cognitive neuropsychology ofschizophrenia, Hove, UK: Erlbaum, 1992.

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Tae,

4.6 Illustration of Mystical Experience While Asleep

Isaac the Syrian reported a mystical experience that evolved over a series of sleeprelated phases and culminated in the state of ‘awestruck wonder’.!*8 This is possibly the most unusual, protracted, and neuropsychologically complex mystical experience reported in the ascetic literature. Here is Isaac’s account: I myself know a man who even during sleep was seized with awestruck wonder at God through sheoria on something from the material of his evening’s reading. And while his soul was astonished at the material of this divine vision, he perceived as it were that for a long time he was dwelling upon the thoughts of his sleep and delving into the marvel of that vision. It was, indeed, in the very deep of night when suddenly he awoke from his sleep, his tears flowing like water and falling even to his chest. His mouth was filled with glorifications and his heart mused long upon that divine vision with sweetness that knew no satiety. From that abundance of tears, which without measure were shed from his pupils, and from the stupefaction of his soul, whereby all the members of his body became limp, and of his heart, wherein a certain sweetness throbbed, he was not even able to perform his usual liturgy of night prayer. Only with difficulty could he utter a psalm at daybreak, so overwhelmed was he by the multitude of his tears which gushed involuntarily from the fountains of his eyes, and by the other things.!”

‘I myself know a man’ was a predictable and suitably humble way of describing personal spiritual experience. Isaac described his own experience. Its setting ‘is apparent from the remark: ‘he was not even able to perform his usual liturgy of night prayer’. Isaac referred to either the vigil or a single service that merged the midnight office and the vigil. The vigil is customarily followed by the morning office when, as Isaac wrote, ‘a psalm [is said] at daybreak’. These observations support the impression that Isaac’s experience occurred between about midnight and dawn. Its full development may have lasted hours. Isaac was ‘seized with awestruck wonder’ while asleep. This was preceded and prompted by sheoria, his contemplation of the “evening’s reading’. His use of ‘vision’ shows that it is synonymous with ‘theoria and that both refer to the state of awestruck wonder. ‘Theoria derived from Evagrius, whose writings on natural contemplation (theoria physike) outline its two forms.!°° One form, which

Evagrius called ‘second contemplation’, is preliminary; the other, called ‘first contemplation’, is spiritually superior. The preliminary contemplation involves reflection on scripture and ancient Christian writings. Such reflection discloses the world’s hidden forces and teleological purposes. The objects contemplated 128 Tsaac the Syrian, The ascetical homilies (Holy Transfiguration Monastery], 552. 129 Tbidem. 130 Bradford, ‘Evagrius Ponticus and the psychology of “Natural Contemplation”.

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are composed of both matter and spirit; on this basis they can be detected through perceptual (imaginal) means. Because the objects of the superior contemplation are purely spiritual, they are perceptually indiscernible. The two forms of contemplation lie on a single experiential continuum. The ascetic can advance smoothly from the preliminary to the higher form, or slide from the higher to the lower. The fluidity of movement along the continuum merits an extended comment, because it is contrary to the common schematic outlines in which contemplative advance is treated as a clear unidirectional development. In Reflections (1.22),

Evagrius described the fluidity of the transitions between the two forms of theoria, and between them and ordinary mentation: Sometimes the mind moves from one mental representation to another, sometimes from one contemplative consideration to another, and in turn from a contempla-

tive consideration to a mental representation. And there are also times when the mind moves from the imageless state to mental representations or contemplative considerations, and from these it returns again to the imageless state. This happens

to the mind during the time of prayer.'*!

Normal mentation and the natural contemplations are not fixed, inviolable states. Their continuity is such that alternation and overlap are predictable. The model of a hierarchical arrangement, in which the states are sharply demarcated in stair-step fashion, is contrary to direct experience.

Isaac’s reference to ‘the material engaged initially in the preliminary to the higher form. He would have liminary contemplation (as occurs

of his evening reading’ shows that he was contemplation. Only later did he advance entertained perceptual images in the prewhen reading scripture and picturing its

images and metaphors), but not during the vision. His experience of awestruck

wonder was an emotional but not a perceptual phenomenon. In Isaac’s words, ‘divine vision [...] is a non-sensory revelation of the mind’.'? Another passage

in the Ascetical Homilies is clear in denying that the divine vision is a perceptual event: But sometimes a certain divine vision is born of prayer, and the prayer of a man’s lips is cut short, and stricken with awe by this vision he becomes as it were a body bereft of breath. This (and the like) we call the divine vision of prayer, and not, as

fools affirm it to be, some image and form, or a representation of the imagination.!99

The vision has breath-stealing power, comparable to the gasp that attends surpassing aesthetic experience. Awe is awe, but there are gradations: ‘In the divine '3! Evagrius of Pontus, The Greek ascetic corpus [Sinkewicz], 213. '3? Tsaac the Syrian, The Ascetical Homilies [Holy Transfiguration Monastery], 236. 133 Tbid., 238.

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vision of prayer, there exists measures and distinction of gifts’.!34 In utmost awe,

‘there is no prayer: that state is above prayer’ .!* Here is a diachronic analysis of the events discussed thus far: Initially, Isaac was occupied with ‘the material of his evening’s reading’.!9° He was engaged in the preliminary contemplation. He then fell asleep, passing gradually (and probably within an hour) into slow-wave sleep, as normally occurs as sleep deepens. Later, during sleep, he entered the superior contemplation, the vision of awestruck wonder. This state resolved as Isaac passed into a lucid dream in which he reflected on the vision: ‘And while his soul was astonished at the meditation of this divine vision, he perceived as it were that for a long time he was dwelling upon the thoughts of his sleep and delving into the marvel of that vision’.!97 He felt ‘astonished’ while ‘delving into the marvel of that vision’.!3® He was sufficiently self-aware to reflect on the vision; meanwhile, its feeling lingered.!*° The wonder and the astonishment were emotional residue of the earlier state,

like the wake left from a passing ship. Here is an interpretive rewording of Isaac’s account of the vision and its immediate aftermath: ‘I was entirely immersed in the vision, and I continued to feel astonishment and wonder after becoming sufficiently self-aware to reflect and marvel over it’. At this point Isaac had transitioned across four states: normal waking consciousness, dreamless sleep, the unusual sleep-related state of awestruck wonder, and lucid dreaming. He had not fully and normally awakened. He subsequently passed from lucid dreaming into either normal wakefulness or a liminal state bordering full waking consciousness. The passage was instantaneous: ‘suddenly he awoke’.!*° The state that evolved from lucid dreaming is implied by Isaac’s remark that ‘all the members of his body became limp’.'4! In the present setting, limpness cannot be explained simply on the basis of fatigue associated with overwrought emotion. It suggests atonia, which can be understood in two related ways: as the temporary paralysis that coincides with REMrelated dreaming; or as the atonia of ‘sleep paralysis’, a parasomnia in which normal sleep architecture is disrupted and a person awakens, recovers self-awareness, and recognizes that he cannot move.'” In certain respects, this person is both asleep and awake; he hovers on the liminal margin, awake to his surroundings f* Toid., 209.

135 EY 137 138 139 140 141 142

Tbidem. ibid, 552. Tbidem. Tbidem. Tbidem. Tbidem. Thidem. Roth & Roehr, ‘Disorders of sleep and wakefulness’.

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but in a brain state like dreaming. I think Isaac passed from lucid dreaming into a liminal state characterized by atonia and the continuation of the intense emotion of contemplation. These were the emotional and the behavioral expressions of ‘the stupefaction of his soul’.!* The impression of atonia is strengthened by another of Isaac’s mystical accounts: Suddenly and without warning a fountain springs up in his heart gushing forth sweetness: his members grow feeble, his eyesight is veiled [...] and his thoughts are altered so that because of the joy which surges throughout his entire body, he cannot

make

prostrations. A

‘His members grow feeble’ is like ‘the members of his body became limp’.!*° Once again, it oversimplifies a complex sequence of neuropsychological events to say that these statements are self-evident descriptions of fatigue following intense emotion. Difficulty sustaining an upright posture during mystical experience is mentioned rarely in the traditional literature, apart from exceptions in Syriac and early Egyptian writings. John the Venerable, who by all appearances was a practicing mystic, described two examples specific to the middle or ‘psychical’ stage of the mystical life. Here is the first: The Spirit ‘stirs up hot fiery impulses in his heart in the love of Christ, and his soul is set on fire, his limbs are paralyzed and he falls on his face’.!4° A similar report circulated about Abba Silvanus,

who was ‘rapt in ecstasy and fell with his face to the ground’.!4” John’s second example captures the experience’s exuberance: Love bursts forth within the heart [...] and burns the whole body with the force of love. So the person is not able to stand upon his feet but falls on his face as if dead [...] and he is in an absolute frenzy. He thinks he and everything around

him is ablaze, from the living fire that is blown by the One who lives eternally.'“8

In another example, Joseph the Visionary described the pressure of inspiration when spiritual ‘thoughts’ are prolific and the tearful ascetic feels intense ‘humility’: ‘Many a time from the vehement force of these operations a person falls to the ground and remains there for a day or two without being able to rise, since

the body cannot stand before this joy’.! All these examples differ from the 143 144 '45 146 47 '48

Tsaac the Syrian, The ascetical homilies (Holy Transfiguration Monastery], 552. Alfeyev, The spiritual world of Isaac the Syrian, 244. Thidem. Also see The ascetical homilies, 552. Colless, The wisdom of the pearlers, 156. Ward, The sayings of the desert fathers, 232. Thid., 158. This is an example of the mystical state of fervor (see ch. 2[7]).

19 Tbid., 145.

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atonia in Isaac’s account; they do not occur during sleep or the liminal state.

They are like syncope in a person who is faced with emotionally devastating circumstances, only the mystic feels exalted rather than horrified. If Isaac’s nighttime experience of awestruck wonder is taken as a guide, then sleep-related mysticism of this kind engages a series of physiological changes in brainstem structures that cause sleep paralysis and atonia in REM sleep. This series of changes, which is normally responsible for an uncomplicated

passage from the sleep stage associated with dreaming to normal waking consciousness, was disorganized in Isaac’s night of wonder, such that he passed from dreaming into a liminal state in which the atonia of the earlier stage was continued. The continuation of atonia was correlated with the prolongation of his earlier feeling of a ‘sweetness that knew no satiety’.!°° The heightened arousal keyed to prodigious weeping also continued, as reflected in Isaac’s throbbing heart and ‘multitude of tears’ and his difficulty in reciting the

morning office.'?! Here is a summary of the transitions during Isaac’s night of wonder: He passed from normal waking consciousness into dreamless sleep, and then into the mystical state of awestruck wonder, which terminated abruptly when he began lucid dreaming. He then entered a liminal state with the features of atonia and heightened positive emotion. Afterward he passed into normal waking consciousness and remained overcome with emotion.

4.7 Dreamless Sleep and Mystical Experience The analysis of Isaac’s experience of ‘awestruck wonder’ serves to introduce a broader consideration of the relationship of mystical experience and dreamless sleep. The goal is to explore the idea of a mystical potential in dreamless sleep that is realized in conscious awareness during the transition into wakefulness. I will develop a three-part comparison of Isaac’s awestruck wonder, a colleague's report of a sleep-related mystical experience, and a passage about dreamless sleep in the Mandukya Upanisad, a prose Upanisad written about the beginning of the Common

Era. The passage distinguishes three mental states: wakefulness,

dreaming, and dreamless sleep.'”” A fourth state, representing the highest mystical

150 The ascetical homilies, 552. 51 Tbidem.

152 P, Olivelle, Upanisads, New York: Oxford University Press, 1996, 289. For related passages on dreamless sleep, see ibid., 25-26 (Brhadaranyaka Upanisad 2.1.19) and 174 (Chandogya

Upanisad 8.11.1).

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attainment, is ‘beyond thought and speech’ and ‘beyond the distinction of consciousness and unconsciousness’ .!*? In the traditional view, a mental state is not merely a personal psychological event; it is the access point to a corresponding metaphysical realm. In entering the state, the ascetic participates in the related order of being.'** The state (realm) of dreamless sleep has been characterized as ‘the metaphysical Unconscious, out of which everything originates, and into which everything enters. It pervades the other two states [of wakefulness and dreaming] and always stays

in their background’.!* The several states differ in their respective degrees of differentiation. In dreamless sleep, for example, ‘all plurality becomes one’, and Brahman reigns pure and simple.'*° Brahman is the blissful, intrinsically conscious substance of being. It has countless manifestations and sustains the whole of things both collectively and individually. In devotional mysticism, it is experienced and personified as the divine creator. In his commentary on Badarayana’s Vedanta Sutras, Sankara wrote: ‘the soul in the condition of dreamless sleep is resolved into an intelligent entity’, namely Brahman; and the ‘elements’ (ether, air, fire, water, earth) that constitute forms are ‘merged in it in such a way as to continue to exist in a seminal condition’.!*” The Mandukya Upanisad identifies a mystical potential in dreamless sleep that permits the mystic’s participation in Brahman. This prime reality is called ‘the Whole’, which conveys “completeness, wholeness, and health’ and refers to ‘a higher-level totality that encompasses the universe’.!°° Brahman derives from the root brh, ‘to grow’, which ‘suggests that the ultimate does not have to be

conceived as something static, finished or fixed’.!°? The tradition’s great dictum appears in the Mandukya Upanisad: “Brahman is this self’, where ‘self’ is a translation of atman.'©° The atman is not the ego

or the soul; it is ‘not an individual entity, indeed entity of any sort, since it has no space-time connotation’.!°! It ‘is the very principle of conscious awareness 153 PT. Raju, Structural depths ofIndian thought, Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1985, 31; P. Bowes, ‘Mysticism in the Upanisads and in Sankara’s Vedanta’, in: K. Werner

(Ed.), The yogi and the mystic: Studies in Indian and comparative mysticism, Richmond Surrey, UK: Curzon Press, 1994, 59. '4 Tn reviewing this aspect of Upanisadic teachings, Gombrich wrote: ‘Ontology is merged (we might say confused) with epistemology’ (How Buddhism began, 32). '55 Raju, Structural depths of Indian thought, 31. 156 Tbidem. '57 G, Thibaut (Trans.), The Vedanta Sutras of Badarayana with commentary by Sankara (2 vols.), New York: Dover, 1962, I, 60; II, 371.

158 Olivelle, Upanisads, 289, 297. 5) Bowes, ‘Mysticism in the Upanisads and in Sankara’s Vedanta’, 56.

160 Olivelle, Upanisads, 289. 161 Bowes, ‘Mysticism’, 58.

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and as such it is self-aware’.!© It has ‘self-existent being’, and ‘in this sense of completeness of being it is also ananda, often translated as bliss, but better as

delight’.'°° The atman is not a god, although anthropomorphism and theistic metaphors have informed its description. Dreamless sleep is described in the Upanisad as: the state of deep sleep — deep sleep is when a sleeping man entertains no desires or sees no dreams —; becomes one, and thus being a single mass of perception;

consisting of bliss, and thus enjoying bliss [...]. He is the Lord of all; he is the knower of all; he is the inner controller; he is the womb of all — for he is the

origin and knower of beings.!&

Were the ascetic to realize the mystical potential in dreamless sleep, he would feel ecstatic emotion (‘bliss’) and his cognitive status would conform with a kind of omniscience (‘knower of all’). This is a unitary state in that the ascetic

‘becomes one’, like ‘a single mass’. He is not entirely unconscious: In becoming ‘a single mass of [...] bliss’ he is also able to enjoy it. This reflexive or self-aware quality, called cit or ‘consciousness’, is a cardinal attribute of the atman. To speak of “conscious experience’ in dreamless sleep does not conform with scientific thinking, much less with common sense. Apart from visual dreaming in REM sleep, the remaining form of sleep-related mentation is non-visual dreaming in slow-wave sleep. Dreams of this nature are usually comprised of ruminative thinking and devoid of intense emotion.'® A colleague’s sleep-related mystical account is helpful in developing the proposal of a mystical potential in dreamless sleep. The onset of her experience coincided with her sudden passage from dreamless sleep into full waking consciousness. She was entirely unconscious, asleep and not dreaming; then she was alert and fully aware of her surroundings, and shortly began laughing. She emphasized the suddenness of awakening (‘as if a switch were thrown’), her instant

mental clarity, and the sharpness of her attention when she scanned the objects in the room. The period of time that is normally required for the transition from sleep into wakefulness was truncated. Isaac made a similar observation: ‘suddenly

162 163 164 165

Tbidem. Tbid., 58-59. Olivelle, Upanisads, 289. Some reports of dreams in non-REM sleep are indistinguishable from those obtained in REM sleep (Hobson, The dreaming brain). Jouvet ‘believes that dream recall during slow-wave [nonREM] sleep could be recall from previous paradoxical [REM] sleep’ (Jouvet, The paradox of sleep, 104). Granted exceptions, the present outline of the difference between dreams in REM

and in non-REM sleep is generally correct. In any case, the difference does not have particular importance for the discussion because the proposed mystical potential in dreamless sleep is, upon its realization, unlike normal dreams regardless of the sleep stage in which they occur.

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he awoke from his sleep’.!°° My colleague estimated her experience’s clockduration as several seconds. She also said it felt ‘timeless’. After some moments she was able to reflect and to render her experience in words. She described its cognitive aspect as ‘completeness’. She felt there was nothing of greater inclusiveness that could possibly be known. She did not have a new idea, even a very abstract one; ‘completeness’ referred to a sense of all-knowing awareness, comparable to the ‘knower of all’ status of the atman and the characterization of Brahman as ‘the Whole’.!°” ‘Completeness’ also recalls the Upanisad’s expression ‘single mass of perception’ and the encompassing nature of the corresponding realm.!°8 The scripture’s use of ‘origin’ and ‘womb’ convey the related nuance that through this state one touches the matrix from which forms arise and acquire animation.'® My colleague described her experience’s emotional aspect as ‘joy and ‘fulfillment’, analogous to the bliss of atman and Isaac’s report of ‘the sweetness that knew no satiety’.!”° She described a profound sense of peacefulness, a lucent richness at the core. She said her laughter was a spontaneous expression of ‘joy’. The emotion lingered at lesser intensity for minutes; the cognitive aspect of completeness dissolved almost immediately. A physiological event aligned with dreamless sleep could not be the subject of experience. Mere physiology is not an experience. But it could, in principle, cause an experience that is described as awestruck wonder, joy and completeness, and participation in the blissful consciousness of the atman. The physiological event would represent a potential that might develop to the point of imposing the distinctive psychological effects of a mystical experience. It appears that a critical factor in provoking the experience is the instantaneity or nearinstantaneity of awakening. Judging from Isaac’s account and my colleague’s report, it is in the minutes or hours after awakening that the original and full realization of the mystical potential is adapted to the serial constraints imposed in normal waking consciousness. The realization unfolds and differentiates from its original unitary or ‘mass’-like form.'’' The realization itself is preverbal; in this sense, it is ineffable, although in the minutes or hours after awakening it

becomes an object of reflection that can partially be rendered in words. It was only after his contemplation that Isaac was able to “delve into the marvel of that vision’. !72

166 Tsaac the Syrian, The ascetical homilies [Holy Transfiguration Monastery], 552. '67 Olivelle, Upanisads, 289, 297. 168 Thid., 289.

169 Thidem.

170 Tsaac the Syrian, The ascetical homilies, 552. 71 Olivelle, Upanisads, 289. 172 The ascetical homilies, 552.

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The further unfolding of the realization over coming months and years imposes a considerable time lag between the realization itself and its subsequent differentiated forms. This imbues the original experience with the feeling of something remote and past. The difference between the realization, its early unfolded form, and its later differentiated form is like the difference between ‘I am lost in what is happening’, ‘I grasp what it was about’, and ‘I remember that event and continue to probe for its deeper meaning’. The immensity, wonder, and sweetness begin to fade. Intuitive certainties born of the realization become ideas about its meaning. Feelings, judgments, and convictions substitute for immediate inestimable value. A feeling of yearning imbues the memories of the realization. Can it be that the moment of glory is irretrievable? This emotional circumstance primes a feeling of nostalgia: a special nostalgia that harkens to distant chords of absolute fullness, a heavenly kingdom, or proximity to a

god of superabundant richness. In retrospect, the realization of the mystical potential becomes like the trailing scent of a perfume when the person wearing it has already passed. The scent enlivens memory, but not to the point of restoring the earlier face-to-face encounter.!”° The near-instantaneous transition from dreamless sleep into the mystical realization provides a hint about the realization’s possible physiological basis. In normal awakening from non-REM sleep, which requires at least several minutes, the firing rate of sleep-promoting neurons in the preoptic area falls sharply, and

this overlaps a steep rise in the firing rate of wake-promoting neurons in the basal forebrain.!”4 The overlap is responsible for the gradual nature of the state transition. In the case of the potential’s realization, there would not be such an overlap, which would cause a near-instantaneous state transition and possibly lead to the mystical experience. The present analysis could be said to err in conflating theistic and non-theistic experiences. Isaac was concerned with God; my colleague was not, nor were the sages who were responsible for the Upanisad. But the matter of interest is '73 Tn developing the distinction between the immediate mystical realization and its subsequent differentiation, I profited from two essays by Jason Brown: ‘Simultaneity and Serial Order’ and ‘The Inward Path: Mysticism and Creativity’ (J.W. Brown, Neuropsychological foundations ofconscious experience, Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium: Chromatika, 2010, 25-50, 321-346). Other works provide a general background to Brown’s microgenetic theory (J.W. Brown, Process and the authentic life: Toward a psychology of value, Heusenstamm, Germany: Ontos Verlag, 2005; see D.T. Bradford, ‘[Review of Brown, J.W. (2005). Process and the authentic life. Toward a

psychology of value|’, in: Acta Neuropsychologica 4 [2005], 90-102; Idem, ‘Microgenesis and the mind/brain state: interviews with Jason Brown’, in: Mind and Matter. An Interdisciplinary Journal of Mind-Matter Research, \1 [2013], 183-203). For scientific work pertinent to the

theory, see R.E. Hanlon (Ed.), Cognitive microgenesis: A neuropsychological perspective, New York: Springer, 1991. 174 CB. Saper et al., ‘Sleep state switching’, in: Neuron 68 (2010), 1023-1042.

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the phenomena of a certain mystical realization rather than the conceptual qualifications that flow from a theological perspective or a confessional stance. The question of whether Isaac’s experience differs from the other mystical experiences leads into the problem of religious pluralism, where I will not go.'” I will instead quote two parallel theological affirmations in Isaac’s Ascetical Homilies: ‘God has no need of anything’; He ‘does not acquire something that He does not have, or lose what He has, or supplement what He has, as do created things. But what God has from the beginning, He will have and has

forever’.!’° The affirmations conform with my colleague’s report of absolute completeness and the atman’s status as the self-existent Whole.

5 See D.R. Griffin (Ed.), Deep religious pluralism, Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2005.

76 Isaac the Syrian, The ascetical homilies (Holy Transfiguration Monastery], 160, 388.

CHAPTER 5

THE SPIRITUAL SENSES

The concept of the spiritual senses passed from Plato to Origen and from Origen to Evagrius, through whom it entered the ascetic tradition.! One of the earliest references is Evagrius’s explanation of ‘the smell that prevails among the demons’: “A strong stench accompanies them, whereby they set in motion our passions. They are easily recognized by those who have received from the Savior the power of perceiving the odor’.* As the Savior is spiritual, so is the sense He confers. In a parallel passage, Evagrius mentioned ‘the evil smell of the demons,

who are perceived as they draw near and affect the soul with the passions of its assailants’.* In both cases, it is the sense of spiritual olfaction that mediates the

perception of odor. Evagrius distinguished sensory perception and the spiritual senses in a way that was retained and elaborated in the later tradition. He wrote: “The organs of sense and the nous partake of sensible [things]; but the mous alone has the

intellection of the intelligible’.4 In other words, the activity of the physical senses (mediated by the ‘organs of sense’) inevitably engages spiritual perception (mediated by the mous or intellect), but spiritual perception operates alone when spiritual (‘intelligible’) objects are detected. This implies that the possible objects of the spiritual senses are greater in number and kind compared with the objects accessible through sensory perception. The passage also suggests that sensory perception is aided by the spiritual senses. The context of the passage is Evagrius’s presentation of ‘natural contemplation’ (theoria physike) and the difference between its preliminary and its superior forms.’ In the preliminary form, called ‘second contemplation’, spiritual and sensory perception mingle. In the superior form, called ‘first contemplation’, only spiritual perception is operative. 1

PL. Gavrilyuk & S. Oakley, ‘Introduction’, in: Idem (Eds.), The spiritual senses: Perceiving

God in Western Christianity, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011, 1-19; M.J. McIn-

roy, ‘Origen of Alexandria’, in: Gavrilyuk 8 Oakley, The spiritual senses, 20-35.

Evagrius Ponticus, Kephalaia Gnostika, V.78 [Dysinger]. The Praktikos and Chapters on Prayer [Bamberger], 26. Kephalia Gnostika [Dysinger] 1S. Wn NH WB &

Bradford, ‘Evagrius Ponticus and the psychology of “Natural Contemplation”.

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Within decades of Evagrius’s death, Diadochos discussed ‘the perceptive faculty of the intellect’ and presented an understanding of the indivisible nature of the spiritual senses, which remained intact over coming centuries: Divine knowledge [...] teaches us that the perceptive faculty natural to our soul is single, but that it is split into two distinct modes of operation as a result of Adam’s disobedience. This single and simple perceptive faculty is implanted in the soul by the Holy Spirit; but no one can realize this singleness of perception except those who have willingly abandoned the delights of this corruptible life [...]. Only in such men does the intellect [...] act with its full vigor so that it is

capable to perceiving ineffably the goodness of God. (Phil. 1, 259)

The ‘perceptive faculty’ of the soul is ‘single’ in its essential spiritual nature, although Adam’s fall, in changing human nature, insinuated a division between sensory and spiritual perception. This initial division implied yet further divisions among the five sensory perceptual modalities. The spiritual senses, in their natural state, are united and merged, allowing contact with the indivisible God. Another early presentation of the spiritual senses is found in The Book of Steps, a fourth-century Syriac work in which the author contrasts “exterior sense perception’ and the ‘interior organs’ or ‘senses of the soul’.® The ‘inner eyes and ears’ allow one to ‘see or hear the hidden things’: ‘things which appertain to the world of truth and the invisible’.’? The ‘exterior person’ (referring to both ordinary sensory perception and the ‘external mind’ of extroverted individuals) has ‘a feeling for the things of this world [...] but for the rest they do not see and hear or understand anything, that is, anything the body and the flesh cannot hear and see’. Remarkable continuity is apparent over centuries of descriptions of the spiritual senses and their relationship with ordinary sensory perception. The basic tenets of the ascetic psychology of the spiritual senses are: The spiritual senses establish the possibility of sensory perception, and both kinds of perceptual process are expressions of a single spiritual capacity. The operations of sensory perception exercise and divide this capacity based on contact with physical objects. The tenets can be rephrased in a way that emphasizes the essentially spiritual nature of all perceptual phenomena: Perceptual events of a spiritual nature evolve and differentiate into the forms detected through sensory perception. The first section of the chapter is a review of the ascetic psychology of the spiritual senses. The phenomena of spiritual perception are to some extent translated into modern terms. Symeon the New Theologian’s understanding of sensory perception is presented in the second section. The third is an analysis of

6

Kitchen & Parmentier, The Book of Steps, 316, 317.

/\

Thidewsua

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Symeon’s writings on the respective roles of the spiritual senses and sensory perception in the mystical experience of Christ the Logos. In the fourth section, the ascetic psychology of the spiritual senses is used to explain mystical synesthesia. This is a rare mystical phenomenon in which a hallucination in one perceptual modality overlaps or coincides with another imaginal event mediated through a different modality. The fifth section includes a brief review of different kinds of spiritual odors and an extended neuropsychological analysis of an instance of spiritual olfaction in which Symeon smelled burnt meat while envisioning the presence of God. The final section is an excursus in which I illustrate a presentday application of the spiritual sense of olfaction.

5.1 Spiritual Perception The spiritual senses are the soul’s perceptual organs. They extend the reach of the intellect like teloceptors directed toward the ‘intelligible elements’ of the invisible world.® Spiritual perception is analogous to sensory perception in having five modalities and in conveying qualities like those mediated through sensory perception. Pseudo-Macarius spoke of the ‘five rational senses of the soul’.? Gregory of Sinai conveyed these points in writing: The physical senses and the soul’s powers have an equal and similar, not to say,

identical mode of operation, especially when they are in a healthy state; for then the soul’s powers live and act through the senses, and the life-giving Spirit sustains them both. (Phil. 4, 233)

Sensory perception is not simply analogous to spiritual perception in having several modalities and conveying comparable qualities. The two forms of perception have ‘identical mode[s] of operation’ and both are sustained by the strictly spiritual factor of ‘the life-giving Spirit’ (Phil. 4, 233). In the healthy soul, sensory perception extends spiritual perception into the ambient physical world. Traditional texts enumerate five spiritual senses, but emphasize vision and audition. This is consistent with the evaluation of the physical senses in ascetic psychology. Nikitas wrote: Among the senses, sight and hearing possess a certain noetic quality and are more intelligent and masterful than the other three senses, taste, smell and touch, which are mindless and gross, and wait on the higher senses. [...] Taste, smell, and touch

are more animal-like or, quite simply, baser and more slavish than sight and hearing. (Phil. 4, 80) 8

9

St. Symeon the New Theologian, The ethical discourses. Vol. 1 [Golitzin], 176.

Pseudo-Macarius, The fifty spiritual homilies and the great letter [Maloney], 53.

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Nikitas contrasted the ‘noetic’ quality of the two privileged senses and the ‘animal-like’ nature of the other modalities. Their noetic quality is based on the relatively greater extent of their processing in the association cortex, and the correspondingly greater number of synapses that raw sensory information must traverse before assuming the status of a conscious percept. Olfaction is the least noetic sense because a single level of synapses separates end-organ stimulation and the information’s arrival in the brain. Odor is represented in phylogenetically primitive areas compared with those that mediate sight and hearing. Even a sensory modality as minimally noetic as gustation is directed by the spiritual senses. Diadochos wrote: The perceptive faculty of the intellect consists in the power to discriminate between the tastes of different realities. Our physical sense of taste, when we are healthy, leads us to distinguish unfailingly between good food and bad, so that we want what is good. (Phil. 1, 261)

Apart from its power of discrimination, spiritual perception is evaluative in biasing food choice toward what is good for the body. Smells and tastes perceived in dreams are mediated through the corresponding spiritual senses. Consider the example of Cyril of Scythopolis, who was afflicted with writer’s block before beginning his Lives. He dreamt that the holy Euthymius anointed his mouth with an oil that smelled and tasted sweet: “As a result, when I awoke [...], I still had that spiritual fragrance and sweetness on

my lips and mouth, and immediately began the preface of the present work’.!° The hagiographic aspect of the Lives does not necessarily imply that Cyril’s dream is a fabrication. The dream shows the continuity of spiritual perception across the states of wakefulness and dreaming. It supports the ascetic view that spiritual perception can operate subliminally, independently of volition. Oneiric gustatory or olfactory perception is rare, which suggests the power of Cyril’s dream to alter his subsequent state of mind. It effected a breakthrough in writer’s block, as he himself described. The mere operation of the spiritual senses is morally neutral; it is their content that varies in value. Spiritual olfaction mediates the odor of unearthly perfumes, not only the stench of demons. If the ascetic ‘hears’ auditory-verbal imagery emitted by Christ, spiritual audition has made it possible. The perception of the luminous divine presence, as reported by Symeon and hesychasts, is mediated by spiritual vision. The spiritual senses can be understood as the soul’s imaginal capacity, particularly when the imagination operates spontaneously and stirs surprise, creativity, and intense emotion. The imagination is the source of mental forms whose irreal 10 Price, Lives of the monks of Palestine by Cyril Scythopolis, 83.

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quality is based on their deviation from plainly identifiable concrete percepts. Imaginal content is variously oneiric, hallucinatory, or derived from fantasy; the

modalities content is tent is felt stunningly

of its presentation are the spiritual senses. The value of a particular correlated with its feeling of objectivity. Relatively insignificant conas ‘mine’; its origin is strictly personal. Wholly spiritual content feels objective, and its objectivity signals the presence of a spiritual entity.

‘Angels’, wrote Isaac the Syrian, ‘manifest themselves through a vision involving

the [spiritual] senses for the comfort and encouragement of the simple. Indeed, such visions are even seen by impure men’.'! Another class of spiritual content is formed of demons, which Isaac said ‘you should see with your eyes [spiritual vision] and hear with your ears [spiritual audition]’.!* Spiritual audition is relatively uncommon. Apart from demonic noise, it also mediates heavenly sounds patterned after religious music. A prayer attributed to John of Apamea mentions the ‘ears of the soul’ hearing the ‘awesome cry of the supernal hosts’ and ‘the psalmody and halleluiahs that are heard at this time by the minds of the saints’.'9 An analogy is the musical hallucination. The author of the 7heoretikon commented on the restraints placed on the intellect when it is ‘joined and mingled with the body’ (Phil. 2, 39). The imagination allows the embodied intellect a greater measure of freedom than it would have ordinarily. The intellect ‘requires [...] the imagination, which by nature uses images, and shares in material extension and density. Accordingly, the intellect

while in the flesh needs to use material images in order to apprehend intelligible forms’ (39). In other words, imaginal images provide access to the spiritual world. The famous ascetic Julian Saba of Edessa was reported to live constantly in his visions.’? This is to say that autonomous imagination, mediated through the spiritual senses, supplanted sensory perception as his dominant perceptual mode. The imaginal image of a spiritual object retains its spiritual status regardless of whether it appears within mental space or extracorporeally. Ascetic psychology does not endorse the psychiatric criterion whereby ‘fantasy’ is located within mental space but ‘hallucinations’ appear external to the body. In reflecting on his visions of the luminous divine presence, Symeon the New Theologian wrote:

Mt 12 13 14 15

Thid.:237;, Isaac the Syrian, The ascetical homilies [Holy Transfiguration Monastery], 409. Brock, The Syriac Fathers on prayer and the spiritual life, 184. Richard Rolle’s hallucinations of religious music are discussed in ch. 2(8). A. Véobus, History of asceticism in the Syrian Orient: A contribution to the history of culture in the Near East, Vol. 2: Early monasticism in Mesopotamia and Syria, Louvain: Peeters, 1960 (Corpus Scriptorum Christianorum Orientalium, 197).

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God or God’s glory [...] was being shown to me sometime in one way, sometimes in the other. [...] I had frequently seen a light, at times within, when my soul had enjoyed calmness and peace. At times it appeared to me externally, from afar.'°

The divine presence retains the same identity regardless of the spatial location of its light. The neural representation of a spiritual sense overlaps the area of the brain that mediates sensory experience in the same perceptual modality. For example, visual imagination and visual perception draw on overlapping neural substrates.'? What is missing from spiritual perception that is present in sensory perception is stimulation of the sensory end-organs and the subsequent afferent flow of information to higher centers of the brain. The invisible world disclosed through the spiritual senses is perceived through autonomous imagination when it is deprived of the sensory stimuli that constrain and shape ordinary sensory perceptual experience. The principle of perceptual equivalence postulates a common neural substrate for sensory perception and mental imagery.'® A recent study supports the conclusion that the principle ‘generalizes to spontaneously generated visual experience during sleep’.’? These lines of thought and study show that ‘perception’ represents a single continuum. Commonsense distinctions among its varieties (sensory perception, hallucination, and mental imagery in dreams and fantasy) are somewhat arbitrary. Our conviction in their accuracy is based partly on consensual validation. The ascetic concept of the spiritual senses is consistent with this line of thought, primarily for emphasizing the continuity of sensory and spiritual perception and the latter’s formative role in all forms of sensory experience. The spiritual senses mediate the experience of sacred objects, revealing the spiritual presences that inhabit or hover in their vicinity. Relics visited at pilgrimage sites are perceptually detectable sacred objects.2° A consecrated host imbued with the ‘real’ presence is another example. A sacred object may shine, levitate, or change shape, and fill each person’s need in a tailored way.?! The 16

The discourses [deCatanzaro], 364.

Farah, “The neural base of mental imagery’. '8 R.A. Finke, Principles of mental imagery, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1989; C.W. Savage, ‘The continuity of perceptual and cognitive experiences’, in: R.K. Siegel & L.J. West (Eds.), Hallucinations: behavior, experience, and theory, New York: Wiley, 1975, 257-289. T. Horikawa et al., “Neural decoding of visual imagery during sleep’, in: Science 340 (2013), 642. 20 See Brown’s discussion of praesentia, the physical presence of the holy at pilgrimage sites: P. Brown, The cult of the saints: Its rise and function in Latin Christianity, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1981. 21

Phenomena of this nature are demonstrable based on certain methods of prayer and meditation. For example, see D.T. Bradford, ‘Sacramental meditation’, in: Journal of Pastoral Care and Counseling 67 (2013) no.3, 1-13.

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physical form of a sacred object is neither matter nor spirit, but an envelope in which these categories mingle and merge. It is a structural skein porous to spiritual presence: a pattern of divine ‘energies’, the Orthodox theologian might say.” The sacred object, in its agency, can act for good or ill depending on the intentions of the person who sees or handles it. It may seem invisibly sheltered as if it were taboo. A physical form becomes a sacred object when the affected person transitions from the mundane psychological perspective into an archaic imaginal system, such as the mythological narrative that informs the doctrinal content of the person’s faith. The system is archetypal in form and force and can stimulate perception and feeling in ways that confirm the spiritual reality of

the sacred object. The tension implicit in discursive reasoning eases, allowing an infusion of religious meaning. What is nonsense from the ordinary perspective becomes an orderly arrangement of deeply affecting symbols. A single, indissoluble spiritual reality is there before one’s eyes: neither matter nor spirit, but both, at once, together, with the world bending around it like a sail in gale-force wind that settles into an impossible stasis. In the moment, these changes make sense and can be discussed in a reasonable manner. Such is mythological thinking, a propensity of the soul that has the ‘power to produce corresponding experience’.”’ The change that makes a physical form sacred is analogous to a transubstantiation that turns bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ. In the seventh century, theological debate concluded with the view that the species of bread and wine are substantially converted. Their outward properties (‘accidents’ in Aristotelian terms) remained the same, while their essence became the substance of the flesh of Christ. “Transubstantiation’ was first used in 1140, and a

dogma promulgated in 1215 stated that ‘the body and blood [of Jesus Christ] are truly contained in the Sacrament of the Altar under outward appearances of bread and wine, the bread having been transubstantiated into the body and the 22 Lossky, The mystical theology of the Eastern Church; Meyendortt, Byzantine theology. 23M. Smith, Jesus the magician, San Francisco: Harper, Row, 1978, 100. Morton Smith’s full remark is: ‘One terrible trait of mythological thinking is its power to produce corresponding experience’ (100). Mythological thinking has been explained in different ways; a single logic may not account for all its operations. Focusing on the archetypes of the objective psyche, Jung identified a number of mythological images and narratives (see The archetypes of the collective unconscious). Cassirer spoke of universal cognitive structures that impose perspectives that arrange mythological ideas in certain patterns (E. Cassirer, Language and myth, New York: Dover, 1946). Levi-Strauss analyzed patterns of thinking in which mythological narratives explain social structure and daily practices (C. Levi-Strauss, Structural anthropology, New York: Basic Books, 1963). In general, archetypal narratives are too abstract and loosely plotted to explain the details of the social phenomena that interested Levi-Strauss. Cassirer is strong on the cognitive aspect of what Jung described in emotional detail. Jung is superior in capturing the imaginal features of autonomous imagery.

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wine into the blood’.*4 Eucharistic miracles and the devotional experience of believers swayed the theological debate. Such conditions are fertile ground for the operation of the spiritual senses. Another spiritual sense should be added to the usual five: the spiritual sense of spatial perception, which establishes the possibility of perceiving invisible, locally situated spiritual presences.”? Perceptual experiences of this nature are usually subtle and fleeting to the point of hardly drawing attention, which makes it less likely they will have sufficient impact to lodge in memory. The spiritual presence (possibly identified as an angel, a demon, a deceased teacher, or the Lord Himself) is a precisely located, virtually palpable zone of empty space. This zone is attributed with agency and may feel charged with evil or benevolent intentions. Its configuration may vary in density, swirl or rotate, or possibly undulate like windblown drapes. Such shapes and patterns of movement are apparent from gradations of luminosity on the surface of the presence or within its interior, analogous to highlights on the surface of material forms. A presence tends to assume visual features, in which case one ‘sees’ what moments before was invisible. Spiritual presences also appear in extracampine space, the area of ambient space external to the visual field.2° For example, a presence approaching from behind is perceived behind the head. The perception of an invisible spiritual presence is like the autoscopic hallucination called the feeling ofpresence. In strictly perceptual terms, the spiritual presence is like any other object

detected in this type of hallucination.”” An imprecise and indeterminate use of terms is said to characterize the treatment of the spiritual senses in Western Christianity: “The Christian vocabulary of non-physical perception is extremely fluid, exasperatingly so’; the writings show a ‘relatively imprecise use of sensual language’.** The situation has been different in the ascetic psychology of the Christian East, where the problem is the sparseness of detail in discussions of the spiritual senses, not imprecision in the use of terms. I would say the spiritual senses have been taken for granted to

24 J. Pelikan, The Christian tradition: A history of the development of doctrine. Vol. 3: The growth of medieval theology (600-1300), Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1978, 204-205. 25 I understand space as the primary perceptual category because it establishes the possibility of the appearance of locally situated objects regardless of whether they are visible or invisible, real or irreal, or appear within or outside the body. 26 For extracampine spatial perception, its neuropsychology, and examples of its role in mystical experience, see Bradford, ‘A critique of “Neurotheology”’. 27

8

For a review of the autoscopy literature, see Bradford, “Autoscopic hallucinations and disordered self-embodiment’. The neuropsychology of the feeling of presence has been used to interpret the appearance of invisible spiritual teachers as described in writings of the ecstatic Kabbalah in the thirteenth century (Arzy et al., “Speaking with oneself). Gavrilyuk & Oakley, ‘Introduction’, 2.

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the extent that extended analyses have been found unnecessary. What is common and familiar, a predictable feature of everyday life, is simply another passing regularity; not often will it become a subject of analytical discussion. Of necessity, talented ascetics and mystics have been skillful or expert in eliciting, suppressing, and manipulating images in fantasy and pseudo-hallucination and in dreams, hypnogogia, and mystical experience. Such expertise and skill depend on ready access to the modes of perception called the spiritual senses. Here are eight examples examined in this book: the manipulation of lucid dreaming for ascetic purposes (ch. 4[1]); the use of dream imagery in combating sexual arousal (ch. 4[5]); the voluntary re-location of mental activity from within the head to areas internal to the mid-body (ch. 2[4]); the use of imaginal (quasi-anatomical) images in developing contemplative prayer (ch. 2[1,2,5]); the creation and the

manipulation of imaginal images in order to combat demonic mental representations in fantasy (ch. 6[6]); the inhibition of imaginal images in developing

meditative prayer and in preparing the mind for the experience of deification (ch. 2[3,6]; 20[3]); the creation of imaginal images with mythological content

(such as hell and scenes of afterlife punishment) for the purpose of inspiring penitence (ch. 19[2]); and the assessment of imaginal images based on their moral dimension and their reflection of either benign or harmful qualities (ch. 2[6], 3[2], 7(2], et passim).

I doubt that most ascetics in the West have used terms in imprecise and indeterminate ways in describing the spiritual senses. For an example of precision in the use and the analysis of the spiritual senses, consider the Spiritual Exercises of Ignatius Loyola. He appeals often and clearly to imagination, mental representations, the ‘mind’s eye’, and the spontaneous appearance of images.”? Such images are the focus of interest when the ‘intellect [...] recalls and

reviews’ them during colloquies with Christ. In the fifth exercise, for example, one perceives the ‘representation of place. Here it will be to see in imagination the length, breadth, and depth of hell’, where one perceives ‘the great fires’, ‘the wailing’, ‘the smoke’, and the ‘taste of bitter things,’ and where one uses

‘the [spiritual] sense of touch to feel how the flames surround and burn souls’.*°

These are not metaphors or parables awaiting theological interpretation. They are concrete images and elements of a structured exercise for training spiritual perception. Their use is meant to change the soul and refine the moral outlook.

29 A. Mottola (Trans.), The Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius, Garden City, NY: Image, 1964, 54. 9%

Ibid., 38,259:

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5.2 Sensory Perception In presenting a psychology of the spiritual senses, Symeon’s chief problem was to reconcile two seemingly irreconcilable positions. The first is a point of doctrine, belief, and feeling: God is a unity and sustains all mental activity. The second is an empirical observation: There are five sensory modalities that mediate a great diversity of content. How might God, an indivisible unity, provide for sensory perception? Symeon addressed the problem most explicitly in the following passage, which begins with the theological claim that God ‘abides [...] without

alteration and is the Same’: It is thus that man, created according the image and likeness of God, is also hon-

ored. He possesses a single perception in a unified soul and intellect [...]. While this perception is divided up five ways according to the physical necessities of the body, it manifests its activity by changing unchangeably, such that it is not sight which sees, but the soul which sees by means of sight, and the same holds true for hearing and smelling, for tasting, and for distinguishing by touch.?!

The soul, because it is modeled after God, remains ‘without alteration’ during sensory perception.” As God is always ‘the Same’, the soul (particularly the intellect) must likewise remain a stable, integral whole even when it seems dis-

persed and fragmented in the course of sensory perception. To make this possible, God ‘honored’ the soul with ‘a single perception’, which is a germinal perceptual capacity that retains its God-like unity even when its expressions are ‘divided up five ways according to the physical necessities of the body’. This capacity ‘manifests its activity by changing unchangeably’; it retains its intrinsic unity despite being subject to change based on sensory contacts.** It remains the same, like ‘the Same’, despite its surface differentiation.“

Symeon comes to the cusp of his explanation’s most important psychological implication: In any given percept, the soul’s germinal perceptual capacity—the ‘single perception’ it was given by God—is responsible for the coherence of sensory perceptual phenomena that are otherwise dispersed, disunited, and ‘divided up five ways according to the physical necessities of the body’.*° In other words, the ‘single perception’ is a process of synthesis that renders dispersed sensory features as integral percepts. Symeon’s explanation circles around what neuroscience calls the ‘binding problem’: the problem of how diverse sensory features, processed in the brain in a distributed way, are conjoined in a single 31

The ethical discourses. Vol. 1 [Golitzin], 122.

32"

Tide 123%

33, Tbidem. 34

Tbid., 122.

35

Tbidem.

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integral percept.*° Symeon’s solution is metapsychological: The intellect, through its ‘single perception’, synthesizes sensory perceptual information consistent with its own unified nature.*” It is the binding agent responsible for conscious awareness of internally integrated percepts. What would otherwise remain a dispersed manifold of sensory features—angles, shading, texture, and other rudimentary features processed in primary sensory cortices—is made to cohere in a single unified image. 5.3 One and Many

The unity of the spiritual senses is preserved without accompanying differentiation when wholly spiritual objects are experienced: With regard to spiritual matters, however, the soul is no longer obliged to discern through the windows of the senses. It no longer seeks to open the eyes in order to see or contemplate some existing thing, nor the ears in order to admit discourse. Neither does it require lips or tongue in order to distinguish sweet from bitter, nor hands in order to know by means of them what is rough or soft, or smooth. Rather, perception goes outside all of these and is gathered together wholly within the intellect, as being naturally consequent upon the latter and inseparably one with it. To put it more precisely, it possesses the five senses within itself as one rather than several.*8

In spiritual matters, when ‘the soul is no longer obliged to discern through the windows of the senses’, it convenes and integrates its perceptual processes. The diversification of the senses mandated in mundane perception reverts to undivided unity. This convergence of the senses is their assimilation into the single germinal capacity that God has bestowed on the soul. Symeon described the integration of the senses during ‘contemplation’ of Christ:

So it is that those who have been deemed worthy see by means of all their [spiritual] senses Him Who is all-good and yet transcends every good thing. As by a single perception compounded of many senses they grasp Him Who is Himself both One and Many. They have recognized, and daily recognize, through the different facets of that one perception, that these many and varied good things are at once as one.” 36 A. Treisman, ‘The binding problem’, in: Current Opinion in Neurobiology 6 (1996), 171-178; A. Revonsuo & J. Newman, ‘Binding and consciousness’, in: Consciousness and Cognition 8 (1999), 123-127.

37

The ethical discourses. Vol. 1, 122.

38

[bid., 122f.

39

Ibid., 124; also see The ethical discourses. Vol. 2, 177.

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Having contemplated Christ, the ascetic can subsequently ‘recognize’ that the ‘many and varied good things [of the everyday world] are at once as one’. He

knows and feels that the objects around him are faces of a fully encompassing whole. The Many are perceived against and within the ground of the One. What is strange and profound is that particular objects retain their distinctiveness despite their encompassing unity. The mystical event opens a dual awareness such that subsequent experience displays two basic dimensions: a divine ‘background’ animates the ‘foreground’ of ordinary life. Symeon implied that the mental process that allows the recognition is a residual cognitive effect of the earlier contemplation. Symeon described this manner of contemplation in a striking passage from

his Practical and Theological Chapters. He usually wrote as a cataphatic theologian who put his lyrical talent in service of describing the positive characteristics of God. In this passage he wrote as a theologian of the via negativa and emphasized the ‘blindness’ required of ascetics who would contemplate the One: He who is blind before the One is absolutely blind before all things, but he who sees in the One is in the contemplation of all things. He abstains from the con-

templation of all things and enters into the contemplation of all things, and is outside all that can be contemplated. Being within the One such a man sees all

things, and being within all things sees nothing of any of them.*°

Symeon did not mention in this passage that subsequent to contemplation, ordinary things shine, each with its individual light, and meanwhile they maintain their status as indiscernible units of an encompassing whole. Jacob Boehme, alluding to scripture, described such an occasion as ‘the time of the lilies’.*! The capacity to recognize encompassing unity and simultaneously to attend

to the distinctive qualities of particular objects may represent a mystically induced change in the attentional system. Two aspects of the system would be aroused simultaneously and to equal degrees: the alerting (vigilance) aspect and the executive (detecting) aspect.’ Sustained alertness would allow for diffuse

attention on the whole of the ambient environment; meanwhile, the executive aspect would allow the ascetic to attend selectively and to focus on particular objects. The maintenance of a high level of vigilance is usually associated with reduced activity in the executive aspect of attention.*? The mystical outcome is contrary to their normal relationship, as could only be expected. 40 McGuckin, Symeon the New Theologian, 46; also see 63-64. 41 W.D. Furry, The aesthetic experience: Its nature and function in epistemology, Baltimore, MD: Review Publishing Co, 1908, 104; Lk 12:27. 42 Posner, “Attention in cognitive neuroscience’; Posner & Petersen, “The attention system of the human brain’. 43

R.M. Cohen et al., “Functional localization of sustained attention’, in: Neuropsychiatry, Neuro-

psychology, and Behavioral Neurology 1 (1988), 3-20.

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Symeon referred to an ancient philosophical problem in speaking of Christ as ‘both One and Many’. From whence comes multiplicity, if all derives from an absolute unity? How might the many devolve to unity, as occurs in the contemplation described by Symeon? His answer is Christ the Logos, the generative source of forms that remains indivisible and whole. Maximos spoke of a similar unifying intuition: “The whole Logos of God is neither diffuse nor prolix but is a unity embracing a diversity of principles, each of which is an aspect of the Logos’ (Phil. 2, 142). In presenting their mysticism of Christ the Logos, neither Symeon nor Maximos refer to Jesus. Their concern was a creative principle whose philosophical elaboration was more important than the emotional color of a devotional mysticism focused on a historical person.

5.4 Mystical Synesthesia

The psychology of the spiritual senses can be used to explain a phenomenon that I call mystical synesthesia. This is a feature of mystical experiences in which a hallucination in one perceptual modality coincides or is replaced with another imaginal event mediated by a different modality. Continuity of religious meaning links the first event and the second; the second reiterates, extends, or reformulates the meaning of the first. The events are distinct and

yet confluent phases of a single evolving process. The unity of the spiritual senses is retained to some degree, which promotes continuity of meaning throughout the experience’s duration; meanwhile, the engaged senses are partially differentiated, as required for the creation of distinct mental representations and hallucinatory images. Mystical synesthesia lies midway along a perceptual continuum that extends from the veridical perception of physical objects to a non-compound experience such as an intuitive grasp of divine unity. It shares its ‘between’ quality with hallucination, dreams, and perceptual events during liminal states of consciousness. Self-awareness becomes malleable and porous to subjective influences. The sense of personal identity is subject to sudden change compared with its coherence and stability during periods of normal waking consciousness. An example of mystical synesthesia is Symeon the New Theologian’s report of perceiving the luminous presence of Christ while hearing auditory imagery of Christ speaking. On other occasions, his prayerful, possibly hallucinatory

44° The ethical discourses. Vol. 1, 124; W. Burkert, Greek religion, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1985. 45

The discourses [deCatanzaro], 375-376.

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dialogue with Christ culminated in the vision of His luminous presence.*° In such instances, auditory-verbal imagery—his own or Christ’s—coincided with a visual hallucination of the presence.*” A scriptural account of the apostle Paul’s conversion experience illustrates the main elements of mystical synesthesia: As I was traveling along, approaching Damascus around noon, a great light from the sky suddenly flashed all about me. I fell to the ground and heard a voice say to me, ‘Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?’ (Acts 22:6-7)

The identity of the ‘great light’ was made clear in an auditory hallucination: ‘T am Jesus, the Nazorean, whom you are persecuting’ (22:8). A message implied

in the voice is that Paul’s persecution of the fledgling Christian communities was simultaneously an attack on the One whom they worshiped. Such is the Body of Christ that He suffers within His followers’ suffering. The vision and the voice were reciprocal manifestations of the same divine source. They were twinned epiphanies: two aspects of one synesthetic mystical experience. They were divine displays and expressions of judgment on Saul’s persecution of Christians. They provided opportunity for reconciliation with Christ. The voice was a verbal amplification of the emotional impact of the Christ’s luminous arrival. An evolving mystical process catalyzed the experience’s visual aspect and then engaged its auditory-verbal aspect in a correspondence of meaning. As with ordinary synesthesia, this entailed perceptual generalization with the added element of the continuity of religious meaning.*® Mystical synesthesia is apparent in other traditions. It is a general rather than a local or idiosyncratic mystical effect. Wolfson highlighted an important example in Jewish prophecy and mysticism. He spoke of a “convergence of two epistemic modes, the auditory and the visual’, which is ‘brought out most strikingly 46 E.g., B. Krivocheine, In the light of Christ: Saint Symeon the New Theologian (949-1022). Life Spirituality — Doctrine, Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1986, 21. 47

For other examples of auditory-verbal communications from Christ, in some cases in the context of visionary experience, see The discourses, 201, 202, 375-376); The ethical discourses. Vol. 2, 54, and Hymns of divine love [Maloney], 252, 281.

48

Paul’s conversion experience has been interpreted as an ‘ecstatic seizure’ (e.g., J.D. Bullock, ‘The blindness of Saint Paul’, in: Ophthalmology 85 [1978], 1044-1053; D. Landsborough,

‘St. Paul and temporal lobe epilepsy’, in: Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery, & Psychiatry 50 [1987], 659-664). The conflation of mystical experience and seizure experience is critiqued

in Bradford, ‘Emotion in mystical experience’. Elliott’s interpretation of Paul’s conversion experience as a complicated migraine attack (R.H. Elliott, ‘Migraine and mysticism’, in: Postgraduate Medical Journal 8 [1932], 494-459) is critiqued in Bradford, ‘Neuropathography’.

Paul’s blindness (‘I could not see because of the brilliance of the light’) is like the amaurosis (transient visual loss) that can accompany the vision of global-extracorporeal light (Acts 22:11; see ch. 3[6]).

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in the verse “And the people saw the voices” (Ex 20:15), a locus classicus in

Jewish sources to affirm the phenomenon of synesthesia as a supreme religious experience’. The neuropsychological interpretation of ordinary synesthesia probably applies to its mystical variant. Ordinary synesthesia is attributed to multisensory neurons at several cerebral levels.*” The measurable inhibition of neocortical structures during synesthetic experience supports the interpretation that the sensory integration responsible for synesthesia has limbic origins. The intense, often ecstatic emotion of mystical synesthesia suggests that overlapping subcortical (limbic) mechanisms contribute to both common synesthesia and its mystical variant. 5.5 Spiritual Odor

Spiritual odors of a pleasing nature are associated with excellence of virtue and benevolent spiritual forces. Aversive spiritual odors signal impassioned attachments and demonic effects. The ascetic psychology of spiritual odors parallels the meaning of physical odors in the ancient world: “The ancient Mediterranean world, despite its diverse cultures, shared a sensibility that identified sweet smells with goodness, beauty, and divinity, while bad smells signaled decay, corruption, and mortality’.*! Smell and feeling are reciprocal processes that converge when an odor is intense. The moral dimension of an odor adds to its emotional weight. Consider the disgust and moral opprobrium that surround a urine-stained beggar who importunes nicely dressed workers in the financial district. This common occurrence in urban environments recalls a fifth-century Syrian account in which a frustrated demon threatened an advanced ascetic with a foul-smelling odor with the aim of eliciting his shame and social ostracism.°2 4

B.A. Wolfson, Through a speculum that shines: Vision and imagination in medieval Jewish mysticism, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1994, 160. The Douay-Rheims translation of verse 18 (rather than 15) matches Wolfson’s translation of the biblical text.

50 R.E. Cytowic & F.B. Wood, ‘Synesthesia II: Psychophysiological relations in the synesthesia of geometrically shaped taste and colored hearing’, in: Brain and Cognition 1 (1982), 36-49; B.E. Stein & M.A. Meredith, The merging of the senses, Cambridge, MA: Bradford Books, 1993; K. Schilitz et al., ‘Neurophysiological aspects of synesthetic experience’, in: Neuropsychiatry and Clinical Neuroscience 11 (1999), 58-65.

51 §.A. Harvey, ‘Housekeeping. An ascetic theme in late antiquity’, in: R.D. Young & M.J. Blanchard (Eds.), To train his soul in books: Syriac asceticism in early Christianity, Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 2011, 149; Ead., Scenting salvation: Ancient Christianity and the olfactory imagaintion, Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2006.

52 RM. Price (Trans.), A history of the monks of Syria by Theodoret of Cyrrhus, Kalamazoo, MI: Cistercian Publications, 1985, 143.

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Nikitas designated sight and hearing as the most ‘intelligent and masterful’ of the five perceptual modalities (Phil. 4, 80). Smell is ‘more animal-like or, quite simply, baser and more slavish’ (80). Taste, touch, and smell are ‘mindless and gross, and wait on the higher senses’ (80). In Nikitas’s critique, smell waits on the higher senses and follows their lead in determining the value of its perceptible objects: ‘For we first see and hear, and then, through the agency of mind, we lay hold of what is before us and smelling it, finally taste it’ (80).

Nikitas devalued smell. I would say its baseness establishes its quickness and accuracy in communicating spiritual meaning. It can set the emotional tone and the moral status of environments and objects with a prominent physical odor. Smell does not wait on the higher senses; it rushes to establish values peculiar to its frame of reference. Smell is not an inferior member of the set of perceptual senses; it completes the set by compensating for the bias of sight and hearing. In Nikitas’s words, the ascetic’s challenge is to ‘refer the activities of the outer senses back to their inner counterpart’; one must ‘expose your sense of smell to the understanding of the intellect’, at which point olfactory experience can mediate contact with spiritual entities of the invisible world (80). Hillman developed the idea of the spiritual dimension of odor. He appealed to Hartshorne’s philosophy of sensation*? in speculating that smells are presentations of the prime reality of the spirit: Emotion stirred by scent is particularly powerful because scent is the privileged manifestation of spirit. Scent caused emotions would be direct encounters with the spirit, or qualifying essence, of an object. The pneumatic source of emotion would be physically inhaled. This says that each object has its own ‘air’, its own ‘smell’, or affective quality which is its spirit. Such speculations are in line with Hartshorne’s thesis of an ‘affective continuum’ (an objective realm of sensory and feeling qualities) which is the realm of the spirit. Cannot Gestalten in the field [of perception] be patterned for the nose as well as for the eye or ear? We might

hazard it a little farther by saying that emotion, as the vision of the psyche which perceives an objective world of value facts, discerns spiritual qualities by means of a subliminal sense of smell. [...] Because our olfaction is underdeveloped, it may

work in an unconscious and instinctive manner; it may arouse interest and give

information below the threshold of awareness. The ‘spirit’ of a place or object might actually be sniffed out and breathed in, just as the early Greeks and the Arabic physicians conceived it.*4

>

C. Hartshorne, The philosophy and psychology of sensation, Chicago: University of Chicago

54

J. Hillman, Emotion: A comprehensive phenomenology of theories and their meanings for therapy, Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 1992, 235.

Press, 1934.

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Perception and emotion reveal the presence of their common spiritual substrate. They are two doors to one room rather than two rooms with a common door. Jung highlighted three marks of the ‘room’ of the spiritual realm: The hallmarks of the spirit are, firstly, the principle of spontaneous movement and activity; secondly, the spontaneous capacity to produce images independently of sense perception; and thirdly, the autonomous and sovereign manipulation of these images. This spiritual entity approaches primitive man from outside; but with increasing development it gets lodged in man’s consciousness and becomes a subordinate function, thus apparently forfeiting its original character of autonomy.»

A restoration of the ascetic experience of the spiritual senses would require a

revival of their autonomy.” The great majority of the references to spiritual odors in the ascetic writings are metaphors or literary motifs for the special properties of religious experience. Many allude to scriptural passages or copy them exactly. Such references do not concern actual olfactory experience. Exceptions to the rule are prominent for their rarity. An example is Abba Daniel’s response to Cassian’s and Germanus’s report of feeling “unspeakable joy’ on the occasions they received ‘the grace and mercy of God’.”” Daniel assumed that their experiences were like his own: We are often suddenly filled in these visitations with odors that go beyond the sweetness of human making, such that a mind which has been relaxed by this delightful sensation is seized with a certain spiritual ecstasy and forgets that it is dwelling in the flesh.>8

Daniel’s visitations differed in form and possibly intensity compared with the experience reported by Cassian and Germanus. Is unspeakable joy less intense that ecstasy? Daniel’s perception of a pleasing odor marked the onset of his elevating experience. His mind would relax at the time of the hallucination and pass into ecstasy. Another change coincided with the odor and the emotion: He felt he was no longer ‘dwelling in the flesh’; his sense of self-embodiment would lapse.’ Daniel appears to have described what Hughlings Jackson called an 55 C.G. Jung, ‘The phenomenology of the sprit in fairytales’ (1948), in: R.AC. Hull (Trans.), The collected works of C.G. Jung. Vol. 9; Part 1, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1971, 212. 56 A program for restoring the ascetic experience of the spiritual senses is outlined in the sixth section of this chapter. For a psychotherapy that is consistent with such a revival and that incorporates other ideas and motivations native to ascetic psychology, see D.T. Bradford, ‘A certain form of psychotherapy (kenosis, prajna, Jung, and Hillman)’, in: G. Defer, Z. Wang, & M. Weber (Eds.), The roar of awakening: A Whiteheadian dialogue between Western psychotherapies and Eastern worldviews, Heusenstamm, Germany: Ontos Verlag, 2009, 201-218. 57 John Cassian, The conferences [Ramsey], 155. 78> Wbidi157.

»° Tbidem.

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uncinate fit (the uncus being a structure within the olfactory cortex). Symptoms

of such a seizure include olfactory hallucination (appealing odors have been reported); the ‘dreamy state’, which does not involve a loss of consciousness; and a ‘kind of double consciousness’ that permits awareness of the ambient environment while the imagination moves effortlessly among inner images.°° Double consciousness provides the enjoyment of an apparently supernormal level of awareness. In general, actual spiritual olfaction occurs in three settings: in the ascetic’s battle with impassioned demons; in acute grief as occurs in response to a beloved monk’s death; and in near-death circumstances such as witnessing a martyrdom, waiting to be martyred oneself, or envisioning the martyr’s destination of heaven.®! Examples of demonically inspired odor are mentioned elsewhere. In the following review, I give illustrations of the second and the third kinds of olfactory experience before turning to a unique example of spiritual olfaction in a mystical account written by Symeon the New Theologian. An example of the second kind of experience appears in Gregory the Great’s account of the death of the monk Servulusas: His soul departed this mortal life: at which time all that were present felt a pleasant

and fragrant smell [which] never went away, but they felt it continually until the time of his burial.

The pleasing odor corresponded with the soul’s departure and the unsettling liminal state between death and burial. It ceased when the monk’s burial sealed his passage from ordinary life to another world. The other monks’ collective hallucination is reminiscent of the grief hallucination, which occurs to the bereaved

in the emotional context of melancholia.™ It differs from the grief hallucination because the monks felt sweet sadness as well as relief and joyful anticipation of the rewards that Servulusas would receive in the afterlife. The third kind of experience is reported in authentic accounts of early martyrdoms. I have chosen two examples from the ‘most reliable’ accounts.® The earliest involves Bishop Polycarp’s martyrdom on February 20, 155: 6° Hughlings Jackson, Selected writings, 467. 6! D.T. Bradford, ‘Early Christian martyrdom and the psychology of depression, suicide, and 62 63 64

65

bodily mutilation’, in: Psychotherapy 27 (1990), 30-41. For examples of olfactory experience of the first kind, see the preface and section 1 of ch. 5. Thurston, The physical phenomena of mysticism, 223. C. Baethge, ‘Grief hallucinations: True or pseudo? Serious or not? An inquiry into psychopathological and clinical features of a common phenomenon’, in: Psychopathology 35 (2002), 296-302; L.A. Wells, “Hallucinations associated with pathological grief reaction’, in: Journal of Psychiatric Treatment and Evaluation 5 (1983), 259-261. H. Musurillo (Trans.), The acts of the Christian martyrs, Oxford: Clarendon, 1972, p. xii.

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The fire, making the appearance of a vault, like the sail of a vessel filled by wind,

made a wall round about the body of the martyr [and] we perceived such a fragrant smell as if it were the wafted odor of frankincense or some other precious spice.%

A similar report occurs in eyewitness accounts of the deaths of the martyrs of Vience and Lyon in 177: “They went out rejoicing, glory and grace being blended in their faces [...] and they were fragrant with the sweet odor of Christ, so that some even supposed that they had been anointed with earthly ointment’.“” Symeon the New Theologian reported perceiving an aversive odor during a mystical experience of Christ. This was a complex experience, more so than most of his visions. It was also unusual because the balance of emotion favored fear and dread. Symeon ‘pour[ed] forth tears of great compunction’, felt ‘fright’ and emotional turmoil, and was able to ‘hear’ Christ’s ‘voice’.°® He then envisioned certain luminous forms in a three-step sequence: first was a ‘ray’; second was a ‘flash’ or a ‘glimmer’; and third was a ‘cloud in the form of fire’. Strikingly, he also perceived ‘an odor’ that he identified as the ‘smell of burnt flesh’, ‘like meat burnt on a fire’. All this occurred because Christ ‘yielded to the prayers’ of Symeon’s spiritual father. The odor of burnt meat cannot be explained as a symbol of spiritual purgation, an analogy of sacrifice with burnt offerings, or an allusion to particular scriptural passages. It is all these and more; specifically, it is one element of a coherent set of neuropsychological features that suggests a complex partial seizure. The particular odor has been reported as an experiential aspect of temporal lobe seizures.”° It is highly suggestive and possibly pathognomonic of an aura phenomenon. 6° Thurston, The physical phenomena of mysticism, 222. © Abid.,,.223; 68

In this section, the quotations from Symeon’s account of the mystical experience that included an odor are based on three English translations of Hymn 55 (lines 82-92): Griggs, Divine

eros, 391; Krivocheine, In the light of Christ, 210; and Maloney, Hymns of divine love, 281. All the translations were based on J.J. Koder (Trans.), Symeon le Nouveau Théologien, Hymns (XLI-LVIJ), Paris: Cerf, 1973 (Sources Chrétiennes 196). Maloney’s and Krivocheine’s trans-

lations are very similar, and Krivocheine’s is especially fluent. Griggs’s deviates from theirs in a number of ways. I favored Maloney’s and Krivocheine’s translations at points that required a decision about the correct word to use. 69 There is another example of the odor of burnt flesh in the context of mystical experience. The deacon Lawrence’s martyrdom by fire in 258, as described by Prudentius 150 years later, resulted in the noxious odor of burning flesh (H.J. Thomson

[Trans.], Prudentius. Vol. I,

Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1995). In Prudential’s poem, the bystanders smelled Lawrence’s body actually burning. The odor was a sensory perceptual phenomenon, not an example of spiritual olfaction, in which a correlated sensory stimulus is absent. 70 V. Acharya, J. Acharya, & H. Luders, ‘Olfactory epileptic auras’, in: Neurology 51 (1998), 56-61; C. Chen et al., ‘Olfactory auras in patients with temporal lobe epilepsy’, in: Epilepsia 44 (2003), 257-260; R. Joseph, Neuropsychiatry, neuropsychology, and clinical neuroscience:

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Other features of Symeon’s mystical experiences support the impression of their having an ictal basis or occurring as an aura:’! . hallucinations of unformed light”? . tunnel vision”?

. vertigo and dizziness 74 . the visual phenomena of amaurosis and scotomas 75 . ecstatic emotion 76 fear and terror’’ . arrest of motor activity and mental process 78 . autoscopic phenomena, including the feeling of presence and the out-ofbody experience”?

Emotion, evolution, cognition, language, memory, brain damage, and abnormal behavior, Baltimore, MD: Williams & Williams, 1996. 71

72

73

For each feature, citations to Symeon’s writings are followed by citations to scientific articles that address the feature’s neuropsychological significance. The full set of features is shown in tabular form in appendix E. E.g., Hymns of divine love [Maloney], 135-136; Gloor, ‘Experiential phenomena of temporal lobe epilepsy’. Griggs, Divine eros, 67; C.G. Bien et al., “Localizing value of epileptic visual auras’, in: Brain 123 (2000), 244-253.

74 Hymns of divine love [Maloney], 37; R. Erkwoh & E.M. Steinmeyer, ‘Phenomenology of simple partial seizures’, in: Seizure 5 (1996), 283-289.

®

E.g., The discourses [deCatanzaro], 245; Hymns of divine love [Maloney], 52, 67, 81; S. Svein-

bjornsdottir & J.S. Duncan, ‘Parietal and occipital lobe epilepsy: A review’, in: Epilepsia 34 (1993), 493-521. 7° The discourses (deCatanzaro], 200, 245-246; O. Devinsky & G. Lai, ‘Spirituality and religion ”

in epilepsy’, in: Epilepsy and Behavior 12 (2008), 636-643. E.g., The discourses [deCatanzaro], 200; F. Cirignotta, C.V. Todesco, & E. Lugaresi, “Temporal

lobe epilepsy with ecstatic seizures (so-called Dostoevsky epilepsy)’, in: Epilepsia 21 (1980), 705-710; H. Gastaut, “Fyodor Mikhailovitch Dostoievsky’s involuntary contribution to the symptomatology and prognosis of epilepsy’, in: Epilepsia 19 (1978), 186-201; Idem, ‘New comments on the epilepsy of Fyodor Dostoievsky’, in: Epilepsia 25 (1984), 408-411; A. Ogata & T. Miyakawa, ‘Religious experiences in epileptic patients with a focus on ictus-related episodes’, in: Psychiatry and Clinical Neuroscience 52 (1998), 321-325; F. Picard & A.D. Craig,

‘Ecstatic epileptic seizures: A potential window on the neural basis for human self-awareness’, in: Epilepsy and Behavior 16 (2009), 539-546. 78 E.g., Hymns ofdivine love [Maloney], 48, 189; R.D.G. Blair, “Temporal lobe epilepsy semiology’, in: Epilepsy Research and Treatment, 2012. 79

E.g., The discourses [deCatanzaro], 246; O. Blanke et al., ‘Out-of-body experience and autoscopy

of neurological origin’, in: Brain 127 (2004), 1-16; O. Blanke et al., “Stimulating illusory own-body perceptions’, in: Nature 419 (2002), 269-270; A.-M. Landtblom, “The “sensed pres-

ence”: An epileptic aura with religious overtones’, in: Epilepsy & Behavior 9 (2006), 186-188.

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9. elevated heart rate and elevated body temperature®® 10. pericardial sensations and the gastrointestinal effects of ‘choking’ and ‘churning bowels’®! I would say the majority of these features are unknown or rare in the mystical literature of the major traditions. Yet all occur in the experience of epileptic seizures. Multiple features occurred in individual experiences. For example, in one vision Symeon perceived the presence as a ‘star’ whose small size led him to assume that it appeared ‘in the distance’. Its luminosity increased in ‘greatness’, becoming ‘like a large sun’. After reaching its apogee in size and luminosity, the presence invisibly entered his body where it disturbed his bowels and created an emotional experience in his ‘heart’: What is this great marvel that I consider in my own interior and which I do not understand, and which remains hidden in me? As a star indeed, I see it which rises in the distance, then it becomes like a large sun which has not, in its greatness, either measure or weight or limit; its ray rises small and then makes itself be seen

as a flame in the center of my heart and my bowels, turning without stopping, and illuminating all the interior of my entrails and rendering them light.*”

The presence retained the same identity despite a change in its field of display. Initially a focal-extracorporeal light, it became global. The increase in size coincided with emotional and gastrointestinal effects when it set his heart and bowels in motion. As a visual phenomenon, the presence was luminous, and Symeon retained the idea of light in speaking of his affected bowels as if they, too, were illuminated. In this Hymn as in others, his report of mystical phenomena is followed by a theological explanation. Symeon brought lyrical talent and theological reasoning to bear in modulating and conveying phenomena that at the time of occurrence were strange, disturbing, and inexplicable. This is an intellectual endeavor and a mark of his creativity. In another visionary experience, Symeon was ‘seized with vertigo (z/ligio)’ and experienced ‘dizziness’.*? His disordered equilibrium coincided with tunnel 80

E.g., Hymns of divine love [Maloney], 12; The discourses [deCatanzaro], 363; D.R. Fish et al.,

‘Clinical responses to electrical brain stimulation of the temporal and frontal lobes in patients with epilepsy: Pathophysiological implications’, in: Brain 116 (1993), 397-414. 81

Hymns of divine love [Maloney], 12, 80, 107, 156; The discourses [deCatanzaro], 363; C. Di

Bonaventura et al., ‘Symptoms of focal sensory seizures: Clinical and electroencephalographic features’, in: Seizure 14 (2005), 1-9; Fish et al., ‘Clinical responses to electrical brain stimulation’.

82 Hymns ofdivine love [Maloney], 107. In another Hymn, Symeon said the Divine Spirit ‘dwelt within my bowels’ (239; also see 156). 83

Ethical discourses. Vol. 3 [Golitzin], 85; Griggs, Divine eros, 67; Hymns ofdivine love [Maloney],

37.

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vision: ‘I am far from the unapproachable fire, and standing in the middle of darkness, and hidden in it, as a result I become dizzy, as though seeing through a tiny hole’.®* In other words, he perceived a small light as if in the distance (‘I am far from the unapproachable fire’); the light appeared within a constricted visual field (‘as though seeing through a tiny hole’); and outside his constricted visual field was darkness (‘I am [...] standing in the middle of darkness’). These

perceptual effects are reported in the aura of temporo-occipital seizures.*° Symeon was relieved that the luminous presence kept its distance: ‘I tremble lest I receive more and He should absorb me’.®° He was ‘struck down with astonishment’ and ‘oppressed by trembling, even though I see but one drop from an abyss’.*7 Some of Symeon’s accounts reflect a lowering of the level of consciousness, but none report a frank loss of consciousness. Though ‘completely lost to the world’, he would not be rendered unconscious.*® Moreover, he insisted that the experience of deification occurs in conscious awareness.®’ A clear implication of his one description of generalized (‘grand mal’) seizures is that he was vot similarly afflicted.”° In describing mystical experience, he used ‘fell’ and ‘fall’ in two ways: as a concrete reference to making a prostration and in a figurative sense indicating how mightily he was affected.?! These observations are consistent with the impression of complex partial seizures, which do not entail a convulsion or eventuate in a complete loss of consciousness. Individual seizures of this type show many or most of the listed features. Symeon’s mystical visions were reliably associated with spontaneous weeping. The corresponding emotions of penitence often graded into ‘joy and delight’.”” Such weeping recalls the dacrystic seizure, but its diagnostic significance is reduced by the fact that tears has been a common practice throughout the tradition.’ Symeon wrote beautiful descriptions of envisioning ‘luminous water’ while gazing on the moving water in actual fountains.*4 This kind of vision apparently Griggs, Divine eros, 67.

Bien et al., “Localizing value of epileptic visual auras’. Divine eros, 67. 87 Tbidem. Hymns of divine love [Maloney], 45; also see 67. ® E.g., ibid., 261, 264. °° ‘Tbid., 184. Ibid., 252; McGuckin, Symeon the New Theologian, 87; for a possible exception, see The 9

discourses [deCatanzaro], 200. The discourses, 200.

4

T. Burghardt et al., “Crying with sorrow evoked Disorders 15 (2013), 72-75; W.O. Tatum & T. lobe seizures and Wada testing’, in: Epilepsy and The discourses, 372-373; McGuckin, Symeon the

by electrocortical stimulation’, in: Epileptic Loddenkemper, ‘Crying with left temporal Behavior 18 (2010), 303-305. New Theologian, 67.

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occurred more than once in late adolescence or young adulthood, before he entered monastic life. The form and setting of the visions as well as their age of onset suggest the possibility of visual-sensitive (‘reflex’) seizures.°> Symeon perceived ‘rays’ and ‘lightnings’ and was ‘washed in luminous water’; he merged with the luminous water and became a radiant protean substance circulating in feelings of ‘amazement’.”® His accounts have scriptural associations.” The vision also bears liturgical implications as a hallucinatory realization of baptism in the sanctified water of the font. Symeon likened the vision of the ‘divine and all luminous’ Spirit to the piscine, an ancient, variably shaped font.°® Symeon interiorized, through visionary means, the spiritual effect of baptism; his experience

of luminous water was a personal sacrament and the realization, in the present, of an eschatological transformation.” This kind of vision is rare. Ido not know of other examples of liquid visionary light in the ascetic writings of the Christian East. Symeon’s vision closely resembles the aura-related experiences of a contemporary writer with temporal lobe epilepsy who described her own visions of luminous water: I am suddenly serene [...] rising. There is unseen life, the illuminated world,

shimmering, flooded with more light than seems possible, rushing into my palms and the soles of my feet, the air liquid with light, so much I should be able to scoop it into my hands like water. It fills the corner of the room, runs down the walls, I am ecstatic.!

Symeon’s descriptions of the vision of luminous water are too sparse to place confidence in their diagnostic implications. Enthusiastic metaphoric descriptions 9% R. Guerrini & P. Genton, ‘Epileptic syndromes and visually induced seizures’, in: Epilepsia 45 (2004) Suppl. 1, 14-18; S. Ricci & F. Vigevano, ‘Occipital seizures provoked by intermittent light stimulation: Ictal and interictal findings’, in: Journal of Clinical Neurophysiology 10 (1993), 197-209; S.S. Seshia & L. Carmant, ‘Visual-sensitive epilepsies: Classification and review’, in: Canadian Journal of Neurological Science 32 (2005), 298-305; A. Verrotti et al.,

‘Photosensitivity and epilepsy’, in: Journal of Child Neurology 19 (2004), 1-8; J.W. Wheless & H.L. Kim, ‘Adolescent seizures and epilepsy syndromes’, in: Epilepsia 43 (2002) Suppl. 3, 33-52; A.D. Yalcin, A. Kaymaz, & H. Forta, ‘Reflex occipital lobe epilepsy’, in: Seizure 9 (2000), 436-441; B.G. Zifkin & D. Kasteleijn-Nolst Trenite, “Reflex epilepsy and reflex seizures of the visual system: A clinical review’, in: Epileptic Disorders 2 (2000), 129-136. °°

McGuckin, Symeon the New Theologian, 67.

97 Eig, Jn 4:10, 14.

8 Hymns of divine love [Maloney], 231. °° For the eschatological dimension of liturgy and ascetic and mystical experience, see A. Golitzin, “Earthly angels and heavenly men”: The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha, Niketas Stethatos, and the tradition of “interiorized apocalyptic” in Eastern Christian ascetical and mystical literature’, in: M. Himmelfarb (Ed.), Ascent to heaven in Jewish and Christian Apocalypse, New York: Oxford University Press, 1993, 125-153.

100 M. Greenberg, ‘The hallucinators among us’, in: New York Review ofBooks 60 (2013), 41-43.

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of the theological importance of baptism may be in question rather than literal accounts of mystically significant aura phenomena. In the context of other clinical observations, his account of luminous water is suggestive but not pathognomonic of seizure-related experience. Nikitas mentioned Symeon’s irresistible urge to write: He would write down compulsively, day and night, the mysteries that the divine

Spirit supplied his intellect. For the Spirit that pulsed and throbbed within him would give him no respite at all until he had set down in writing what It said and inspired in him.!?!

Nikitas’s observation recalls a symptom of temporal lobe epilepsy called hypergraphia. The affected person’s compulsively written texts show repetitiveness, logorrhea, and a viscous adherence to overworked content; the formulistic use of metaphors and phrases; over-personalization and ideas of reference; an inflexible, possibly irritable emotionality; and identification with God or divine

purposes, all in the setting of moral, religious, and cosmic preoccupations. It is striking to find traces of these qualities in the writings of a person of such intelligence, fluency, and literary talent as Symeon.'® Nikitas’s Vita is hagiographic, which makes the evidence for hypergraphia less than convincing. Symeon was an ascetic and mystical theologian and also an abbot or hegumen; of course he wrote on topics of a religious, moral, and cosmic nature. Hypergraphia may characterize a small portion of his writing, but the term does not apply generally. An analysis of Symeon’s second major mystical experience suggests that he succumbed to a transient anterograde amnesia during the central moments or minutes of mystical union with Christ.!% I call this effect ecstatic amnesia and liken it to ictal amnesia, which prevents a person from remembering what 10! Niketas Stethatos, The life of Saint Symeon the New Theologian [Greenfield], 317-319. 102 1H. Naito & N. Matsui, “Temporal lobe epilepsy with ictal ecstatic state and interictal behavior of hypergraphia’, in: Journal ofNervous and Mental Disease 172 (1988), 123-124; H.S. Sach-

dev & S.G. Waxman, ‘Frequency of hypergraphia in temporal lobe epilepsy: an index of interictal behavior syndrome’, in: Journal ofNeurology, Neurosurgery, and Psychiatry 44 (1981), 358-360; S.G. Waxman & N. Geschwind, “Hypergraphia in temporal lobe epilepsy’, in: Neurology 24 (1974), 629-636; Idem, “The interictal behavior syndrome of temporal lobe epilepsy’, in: Archives of General Psychiatry 32 (1975), 1580-1587. 103

Among his Hymns, the twenty-first includes examples (Hymns of divine love [Maloney], 95-106). Some of this Hymn is a rant against ecclesiastical authorities, especially Stephen of Nicomedia, the synkellos or chancellor to the patriarch, who challenged Symeon to explain a point about Trinitarian doctrine involving the separation of the Son and the Father (Niketas Stethatos, The life ofSaint Symeon the New Theologian (Greenfield, 173]). Symeon’s anger and indignation may partly account for the Hymn’s hypergraphic qualities.

104 The discourses [deCatanzaro], 198-201.

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occurred during the aura of a seizure.'° Symeon’s account is clear: It was affer

the ‘infinite light’ of the divine presence had ‘gently and gradually faded’ that

he ‘regained possession of myself and realized what its power had suddenly done

to me’, !° Only then did he feel the ‘amazement’, ‘joy, and ‘sweetness’ that

lingered from his prior union with Christ.!°” The central elements of his experience were lost to memory because mnemonic processing failed at the onset of ecstatic emotion. A full analysis of Symeon’s loss and recovery of memory begins with the following observation, embedded in his account: ‘When that infinite light [...]

faded and, as it were, had withdrawn itself, I regained possession of myself and realized what its power had suddenly done to me’.!°° Symeon was initially disoriented to place and person: ‘I forgot the place where I stood, who I was, and where’.'°? Afterward, when he ‘regained possession’ of himself, he became

aware of the ‘amazement’, ‘joy’, and ‘sweetness’ that lingered in the wake of his union with the luminous presence of Christ.!!° In regaining possession of himself, he recovered from a transient anterograde amnesia. The amnesia was

not particularly dense; he could recall some aspects of his prior contact with Christ. The temporal boundaries of the amnesia were set by the ecstatic display of visionary light and his later recovery of normal conscious awareness. Memory processing resumed, allowing Symeon to retrieve and to begin to feel the emo-

tional residue of mystical union, at which point he ‘realized what its power had suddenly done to me’.''! Symeon described his experience’s highest emotional pitch: ‘I was, as it were, in ecstasy’; and it would have been the intensity and possibly the quality of the emotion that induced the amnesia, analogous to situationally induced amnesia resulting from the overwhelming emotion of a traumatic event.'!? Emotional trauma can alter or damage hippocampal cells, which play a critical role in memory. Chronic over-activation of the medial temporal lobe and hippocampus leads to long-term damage of these

105 R. Schulz et al., ‘Amnesia of the epileptic aura’, in: Neurology 45 (1995), 231-235; A.Z. Zeman, S.J. Boniface, & J.R. Hodges, “Transient epileptic amnesia: A description of the clinical and neuropsychological features in 10 cases and a review of the literature’, in: Journal of Neurology,

Neurosurgery & Psychiatry 64 (1998), 435-443. 106 The discourses, 201. 107 Tbhidem. 108 Tbidem. 109 Tbid., 200. 110 Tbid., 200, 201.

mm Thids 201.

112 Tbid., 200; D.S. Charney et al., ‘Psychobiologic mechanisms of posttraumatic stress disorder’, in: Archives of General Psychiatry 50 (1993), 295-305; Joseph, Neuropsychiatry, neuropsychology, and clinical neuroscience, 210.

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structures.'!? The comparison of Symeon’s experience and the effects of trauma suggests that mystical experience of this kind can create a deficit in hippocampal functioning and, on this basis, affect the mystic’s memory of the experience. Symeon’s transient amnesia is also comparable to ictal amnesia, which prevents a person from registering memories of events that occur during a seizure aura. The structural base affected in ictal amnesia involves the medial temporal lobe and particularly the hippocampus; the same structures and processes may be involved in the ecstatic amnesia associated with some mystical experiences. The proposed phenomenon of ecstatic amnesia recalls Mandell’s unelabo-

rated remark linking mystical experience and hippocampal dysfunction.'!* Trading a neuropsychological deficit for a mystical experience may seem a reasonable expediency when the whole of one’s life is dedicated to surpassing the limits of worldly contingencies and discovering a sacred constancy. Symeon concluded his mystical account as follows: “So severe was the grief and pain that overcame me that I am at a loss properly to describe how great it was. A varied and most vehement pain was kindled like fire in my heart. Imagine [...] the pain of being separated from it, the infinity of love, the greatness of my passion, the sublimity of this greatest of blessings!’.!'° The memorial quality of union helps to explain the pathos, grief, and longing that inform mystical traditions whose dominant feature is devotion to the personal God. If union delivers God, then God is just a memory, at least in mystical experiences that impose ecstatic amnesia. Symeon described periods of days’ duration in which he experienced relatively extended spells of dysphoria punctuated with hopefulness and exhilaration. These periods appear to have anticipated the occurrence of mystical experience.''© They were characterized by a sharp sense of expectancy in divine intervention. Symeon anticipated an imminent personal transformation and a widespread, indescribable, possibly catastrophic change. He hinted that the change was messianic in nature.''” These periods can be interpreted as a prodromal effect or as an intermittent inter-ictal dysphoric syndrome that has been shaped and colored with theological ideas and religious feelings native to

"3 Previc, “The role of the extrapersonal brain systems in religious activity’; B.S. McEwen, ‘Plasticity of the hippocampus: Adaptation to chronic stress and allostatic load’, in: Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences 933 (2001), 265-277. "4 A.J. Mandell, ‘Toward a psychobiology of transcendence: God in the brain’, in: J.M. Davidson & R.J. Davidson (Eds.), The psychobiology of consciousness, New York: Plenum, 1980, 379— 464. "5 The discourses, 201. 6

E.g., Hymns of divine love, 36.

7 E.g., Hymns of divine love, 31.

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Symeon’s time and place.''’ Symeon portrayed himself during the dysphoric spells as agitated, ruminative, and anxious. He felt alienated from himself (depersonalization) and found the world inexplicably strange (derealization).

He asked, “What lips would utter what one can see taking place in me, happening all day long?’; “What does this strange thing mean, this thing happening in me? What would this terrifying prodigy that is now accomplished signify?’.!!? His dark expectations during dysphoric spells were punctuated with periods of ‘sudden’, spontaneously elevated mood when he felt ‘sweetness’, ‘all divine’, and “joy, with total eagerness’.'*° He said the ‘sudden change, strange transformation, which takes place in me is inexpressible’.!*!

The diagnosis of historical figures risks medical reductionism.!7* Cultural differences can cloud the meaning of clinical observations that are clear in one’s own time and place. Granted these reservations, the observations reviewed here form a coherent clinical picture. Symeon’s mystical visions were formed of experiential phenomena in the aura or the ictus of complex partial seizures. In terms of localization, the picture suggests a discharging lesion in the posterior area of the right cerebral hemisphere. But a diagnostic impression is only the beginning of a deeper exploration. The important question concerns what Symeon made of these phenomena before, during, and after their occurrence such that he became a virtuoso of the ascetic life, a lyrically talented mystical theologian, an abbot and a monastic reformer, and a person of such perseverance that he established a new monastery and resumed life as a monastic leader following his condemnation, imprisonment,

and exile. These matters cannot be properly framed in the context of a body-spirit dualism in which God operates independently of the brain. Secular Psychology, in its methods and presuppositions, is without the means of deciding them. One might turn instead to a Carthusian novice conference in which the ‘night’ of despair and spiritual testing is recognized as adopting frank pathological symptoms: Sometimes, the pathological tendency gives way under the action of the night, and disappears, leaving the soul transparent to the Spirit of God. In this case, it

18 PD, Blumer, ‘Epilepsy and suicide: A neuropsychiatric analysis’, in: M. Trimble & B. Schmitz (Eds.), The neuropsychiatry ofepilepsy, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002, 107-116; D. Blumer & L.L. Altschuler, ‘Affective disorders’, in: J. Engel & T.A. Pedley (Eds.), Epilepsy: A comprehensive textbook, Philadelphia: Lippincott-Raven, 1997, 283-299; D. Blumer, G. Montouris, & K. Davies, ‘The interictal dysphoric disorder: Recognition, pathogenesis,

and treatment of the major psychiatric disorder of epilepsy’, in: Epilepsy and Behavior 5 (2004), 826-840. 119 Griggs, Divine eros, 65; Hymns of divine love [Maloney], 36.

120 Hymns ofdivine love, 31. '21 Tbidem. 122 A. Beveridge, ‘Diagnosis of historical figures’, in: Journal ofMedical Biography 12 (2004), 126127.

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seems that the suffering has been increased and the trial prolonged by the pathological tendencies, but that, in the end, they have been the means of progress, by forcing a deeper descent into oneself in order to assume them, and into Christ in

order to surmount them, in a more complete poverty and abandon.'*°

The ascetic must accept rather than surmount poverty and sense of abandon are enhanced. symptoms to the end of greater self-abandon agerandizing aspirations; and so he came to

his pathology. By such means his Symeon assumed his burden of and the impoverishment of selfwrite, and only in late life was

able to write, his second Thanksgiving, a beautiful resume of his spiritual life.124

The Thanksgiving is a retrospective reflection filled with gratitude, tranquility, and warmth. The emotional turmoil abundantly represented in his Hymns is no more. His anger, bitterness, and sarcasm have subsided. His past indignation and vindictiveness are absent. His fiery prophetic voice has been abandoned. He adapted his pathology to his spiritual aspirations and triumphed with the help of age. The novice conference includes this remark: “Beautiful triumphs are disguised beneath the thickest veil of mysterious and often painful darkness’ .!”° Symeon identified and assimilated the spiritual aspect of his experiences of pathology.!*° This could pass as a definition of sainthood.

5.6 Smell and Demonic Entrapment

Olfactory perception directs the intellect toward the spiritual qualities embodied in objects imbued with a physical odor. Its activity can widen and deepen, and open a band of information specific to spiritual olfaction. The twinned activity of the sensory and the spiritual channels embed the intellect in real-world environments, extending its sensitivity to a gaseous band of experience. Like the 123A Carthusian, Interior prayer: Carthusian novice conferences, Kalamazoo, MI: Cistercian Publications, 1996, 154-155. '24 Symeon the New Theologian, The discourses [deCatanzaro], 368-378. Converging textual and psychological evidence suggests that the Thanksgiving was written after 1009, when Symeon was exiled on the Asiatic coast of the Bosphorus. See the biographical chronology in appendix D. 125 A Carthusian, Interior prayer, 155.

'26 For reviews on epilepsy and spiritual experience, see Devinsky & Lai, ‘Spirituality and religion in epilepsy’; E.F. Kelly & M. Grosso, ‘Mystical experience’, in: E.F. Kelly et al. (Eds.), Irreducible mind: Toward a psychology for the 21" century, Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2007, 495-576; P. McNamara, The neuroscience of religious experience, New York: Cambridge University Press, 2009; and S.C. Schachter, ‘Religion and the brain: Evidence from temporal lobe epilepsy’, in: P. McNamara (Ed.), Where God and science meet: How brain and evolution-

ary studies alter our understanding of religion, Westport, CT: Praeger, 2006, 171-188. For the distinction between mystical emotion (including ecstasy) and emotion in the ecstatic seizure, see Bradford, ‘Emotion in mystical experience’.

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other spiritual senses, olfactory perception initiates a spiritual contact through stimulating the creative power of the imagination. Imaginal images are cued by odor and may be supplemented with virtual tunes, tastes, and touches. The spiritual utility of the imagination is discussed in the Theoretikon, a text attributed to Theodoros the Great Ascetic but written centuries after his death: When speaking of the senses, the imagination and the intellect, it has to be said that the energy of the intellect is blunted by being joined and mingled with the body. As a result, it cannot have direct contact with intelligible forms, but requires, in order to apprehend them, the imagination, which by nature uses images, and shares

in material extension and density. Accordingly, the intellect while in the flesh needs to use material images in order to apprehend intelligible forms. (Phil. 2, 39) The intelligible forms mentioned in the Theoretikon include demons, which

entrap the soul and bend the intellect’s aspirations toward inferior values. In this section I present an exercise in applied ascetic psychology in which spiritual olfaction is used to discover the passions active in certain real-world environments. I assume, as did Theodoros and other ascetics, that the spiritual

senses operate through the medium of spontaneous imagination. In the present case, odor and imagination are used as demon-revealing mediums. The environments in question are large department stores, which use artificial scents to elicit moods and emotions that imbue the store with value, to the end of compelling

the customer to buy products. In practice, perception of the scent engages spiritual olfaction, and the activity of spiritual olfaction releases fantasy. The fantasies may be odorous, tactile, auditory, or gustatory, but most will be visual. The distinctive odors detected in large department stores are known as ‘signature scents’ and ‘olfactory logos’, and their use is called ‘olfactory branding’ .'”” A company uses the same scent in all its stores, analogous to the uniformity of color, shape, taste, and texture of billions of McDonald’s hamburgers. Some

scents are chemical concoctions that approximate natural odors; others are unlike any odor found in nature. The ‘seasonal smells’ of cinnamon and evergreen are commonly used during Christmas holidays. The means of dispersing a scent range from pumping gas ‘through a hole in the wall’ to technical systems such as ‘flat-line, cold-air diffusion technology’. A signature scent may vary 127 The advertising material quoted in this paragraph, the next one, and in the present footnote will not be cited. The focus is department stores, but signature scents are also used in hotels, cars, and financial institutions. Banks have employed scents that are meant to inspire ‘trust’. Stores selling bedding have used scents that are supposed to elicit ‘the feeling of coming home’. The exercise developed in this section could be applied in settings other than department stores, although spiritual senses other than olfaction might need to take priority. For research on olfactory branding, see A. Krishna (Ed.), Sensory marketing: Research on the sensuality of products, New York: Routledge, 2010.

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depending on the targeted area. An odor ‘trigger’ outside the store ‘lures’ customers into the ‘entrance zone’; another scent might be used in the “middle zone’ or to frame a seasonal display. Odors are matched with customer profiles, which are based on demographics and patterns of buying. The signature scent is meant to complement the store’s décor, displays, and music. It is one element of a total environment: ‘Imagine being able to enhance your brand on every sensory level. Imagine if you could continue connecting with customers long after you’ve closed your doors’. The scent clings to hair and clothing; the customer smells of the store after departing. The scent activates the ‘nose brain’, the phylogenetically primitive rhinencephalon; in doing so, it stimulates emotion and the recovery of autobiographical memories. Humans habituate quickly to olfactory experience, allowing the odor to work subliminally. Scents produce ‘positive results in the bottom line with customers lingering longer in retail stores, and the longer they stay the more likely they are to purchase’. Customers ‘exhibit higher levels of approach and impulse buying behavior when scent fragrance is added to the shopping experience’. Total environments like the department store are means of psychological control. Their power rests on a conspiracy of the senses in which all ambient perceptual phenomena work in concert to direct individuals and groups toward predetermined goals. Dictators in the twentieth century raised this insidious art to heights of awful aesthetics. Total environments were described by the critics Adorno and Horkheimer. Several summary passages in their essay, “The Culture Industry,” are applicable to the department store and the kinds of experience it can create:

1. “The idolization of the cheap involves making the average the heroic’. “The stronger the position of the culture industry becomes, the more sum-

marily can it deal with consumers’ needs, producing them, controlling them, disciplining them, and even withdrawing amusement’. 3. “The result is the circle of manipulation and retroactive needs in which the unity of the system grows ever stronger’.

4, ‘Anyone who doubts the power of monotony is a fool’.!?8 ‘Monotony’ is prescient in pointing toward the current homogenization of culture. Its psychological correlate is dissociation, in which the matrix of feelings and sensations generated through self-embodiment is dulled, vitiated, or divorced

from the sense of personal identity. Illusory perceptions and grandiose wishes grow under such conditions, which allows total environments to work their "8 T. Adorno & M. Horkheimer, ‘Selections from “The culture industry: Enlightenment as mass deception”, in Dialectic of enlightenment’, in: R.S. Gottlieb (Ed.), An anthology of Western Marxism, New York: Oxford University Press, 1989, 180, 183, 186, 189.

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magic. Ascetics in ancient times worried about visions of demons and the powers of the Prince of Evil; now we have the King of Markets and the lulling promises of neatly packaged passions. The ascetic writings include many examples of irascible, targeted responses to demonic threats.!”° Strategies and tactics were employed to meet the challenge. Now we have the soporific of purchasing misinformed wishes. The goal of olfactory branding is to produce an affective state and a stimulus hunger that encourage the purchase of products. The products acquire a value exceeding their actual benefits based on their stirring illusory beliefs about one’s body, power, and personality. The signature scent is a form of emotional entrapment, which the ascetic views as a moral challenge because it aggravates the passions. A demon of avarice (remotely located in corporate offices and marketing agencies) lords over its minions: the demons of pride, vainglory, and fornication,

which enliven the store and cast a lulling spell of monetized pleasure. Ascetic psychology is insistent that the challenge must be met immediately, when it is imminent rather than fully apparent. The spiritual senses must be primed before entering the store, and this comes about as a natural consequence of evoking through prayer the calm and vigilance of nipsis.'°° The scent is allowed to set the spiritual senses in motion and stimulate the imagination. The spiritual senses are activated in two steps. Both involve a fantasy response to the store’s physical environment. The first step normally passes subliminally but is readily brought to consciousness. The second requires skill and daring. Each step is a phenomenological exploration in which the spiritual senses and sensory perception operate concurrently. In the first, the imagination awakens to the store’s multitude of perceptual cues. Ideas and feelings trail the newly activated fantasy, supplementing its meaning. In the second, the fantasy imagery is objectified and situated in ambient space as if it were hallucinatory. Both kinds of fantasy activity were recognized by Husserl: There are reasons why, in phenomenology as in all eidetic sciences, representations, or, to speak more accurately, free fancies, assume a privileged position over against

[sensory] perceptions, and that [is the case] even in the phenomenology of percep-

tion itself, excepting of course that of sensory data.'*! Here as a challenge to spontaneity there opens a chasm which may be crossed only in the essentially new form of realizing action and creation, wherein the power to hallucinate at will must be taken into account.!*? 129 See ch. 13(2). 130 Mipsis is addressed in ch. 7(2,3,4).

131 B, Husserl, Ideas: General introduction to pure phenomenology (trans. W.R.G. Gibson), New York: Macmillan, 1975 (orig. publ. 1913), 182. 132 Tbid., 288.

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The desired fantasy activity must be ‘free’ or spontaneous, or else it displays the tedious, emotionally encumbered residue of personal wishes.'%* In the first passage, the qualifying phrase ‘excepting of course that of sensory data’ implies that the fantasy activity is to run concurrently with close attention to the perceptual forms of the store environment.!*4 These forms are the ‘sensory data’ mentioned by Husserl: the stimulus points that release and constrain the flow of images. The second step heightens the objectivity of the demonic combatants by situating them in ambient space. There is little sense in characterizing the combatants because they vary depending on person and circumstance. There is little reason to suspect they look as they did in centuries past when a demonic iconography was shared by most ascetics. At present, the burden of achieving clarity is greater than the burden in centuries past. The containing forms of demonic effects and the rapidity of their transformation have increased in tandem with the increasing speed and the multiplication of the means of electronic communication. The world is afloat in virtual reality, saturated in streaming images; the venues of demonic display have multiplied accordingly. In meeting the combatants, the vigorous resistance of a method like Evagrius’s counterstatement is ill-advised. In the present method, the incensive power is engaged little or not at all. The goal is not to vanquish the demons (a gambit

that plays to their strength), but to see their activity and so drain the store of its masquerade of attractions. The method can inspire an ironic sense of the gulf between fact and fantasy. It can stir feelings of poignancy and charity over a dreamlike reality that is generally accepted as entirely real. It can also elicit anxiety over the contrast between the scripted feelings engendered by the store environment and the cheapening of human lives when demonic forces impose illusory beliefs and reduce personal authenticity to a purchase decision. The present method both resembles and differs from the practices in Archetypal Psychology called personifying and seeing through.'* In personifying, mythological narratives and iconography are brought to bear in clothing archetypal complexes in ways commensurate with their autonomy and motive power. The experience of being moved by images becomes a medium of insight and personal change. Personifying can lead to luxuriating in images, which may have attractive and possibly godly forms. In comparison, the present method is relatively neutral, even sterile, in its approach to images. Its ‘hands-off attitude is allied with a stable, first-person perspective. The practitioner is granted little leeway to inhabit or to invoke the figures that carry forward the fantasy. In seeing 2 Tbidyons2. 134 Thidem. '95 J. Hillman, Re-visioning psychology, New York: Harper & Row, 1975, 12-17, 140-145.

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through, conceptual reasoning helps in understanding images, and the mythological amplification of such images requires considerable learning. Metaphor and the polyvalence of words and phrases are used to drive forward a process that deepens an image’s meaning. In comparison, the present method is less sophisticated; conceptualization is less important than the mere exposure of images. Hillman wrote: “The movement [of seeing through] becomes an infinite

regress which does not stop at coherent or elegant answers’.'°° Such a movement is like a turning spiral whose apical opening opens to yet another spiral; one turns and turns, and the floor of the psyche seems to recede ever downward. In comparison, in the present method an infinite regress is neither sought nor expected, and the elegance and coherence of an answer instantly makes it suspect. Demonic fantasy has countless faces. It is straggling and redundant as often as its mercurial forms shine with the glare of abundant appetites. Less often, it moves in a linear cascade directed toward a central hidden image. Fatuous entertainment is expected more often than a hidden truth, granted the practitioner is well enough acquainted with his or her own psychology to distinguish its imaginal reflections and the spontaneous appearance of demonically inspired factors. The present method and seeing through might seem to agree on an important point, which Hillman expressed as follows: “We justify the activity by appealing to an ultimate hidden value that can never fully come out but must remain concealed in the depths in order to justify the movement. This ultimate hidden value justifying the entire operation can also be called the hidden God (deus absconditus), who appears only in concealment’.'*’ The present method differs from seeing through on this point because the hidden value is neither sought nor expected. This is not because it is unobtainable but because it is already present in the nipsis with which one begins the exercise. Vipsis nullifies fatuous attractions and does so without the application of will and effort. It is a colorless beacon, a wordless critique, a panoramic glance, a serene buoy that rides all tides. It is a subtle spatial surround that muffles noise. It is the origin of the discernment (diakrisis) that pierces protean fantasies and raises them into conscious awareness.

136 Tbid., 140. 137 Tbidem.

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CHAPTER 6

THE PASSIONS

The passions collectively are reviewed in the first section of this chapter. In the second and third sections, they are compared with analogous concepts in early Buddhist psychology. A discussion of the passions inevitably entails an examination of the demons, which are interpreted in the fourth section as supernatural presences and psychological factors with possible somatic consequences. The

anchorite’s and the cenobite’s respective struggles with the passions are distinguished in the fifth section. Evagrius’s psychotherapeutic techniques for combating demonic passions are reviewed in the sixth. The seventh is an analysis of a complex example of Evagrian psychotherapy. The final section focuses on demonic contacts of a visual or a tactile nature and considers medical conditions that may have influenced Evagrius’s experience and conception of demons.

6.1 Eight Dispositions

The passions are the eight sinfully inclined dispositions that Evagrius classified and described with clinical precision. I use ‘disposition’ to convey their variously attitudinal, habitual, trait-like, psychosomatic, and subliminally motivating quali-

ties. The expressions of the respective passions have been given names: gluttony, fornication, and avarice; anger, vainglory, and pride; and acedia, a condition of diminished spiritual fervor that is distinct from the passion of sadness. Evagrius mentioned but did not regularly emphasize the additional passion of jealousy, which combines with pride and vainglory to form ‘the three-strand chain of vices, the threefold poisonous mixture’. The passions engage the appetites and disturb bodily calm. They blunt attention, cloud moral intent, and adulterate the purity of prayer. They suppress the activity of the intellect and bring disorder to the soul. In Evagrius’s words, the

1

Evagrius of Pontus, The Greek ascetic corpus [Sinkewicz], 64; also see 61, 65.

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intellect ‘wanders when impassioned but ceases from distraction when it becomes impassible’.* Certain passions are mutually opposed. Others are mutually supportive; in succumbing to one, the ascetic more easily passes into the other. The most basic passions are gluttony, avarice, and vainglory. The remaining passions devolve selectively from one or another of these three. The passion of fornication follows on the heals of gluttony.* Sadness results from the frustration a person feels when he is deprived of the gratifying objects whose acquisition is compelled by avarice; prolonged sadness then encourages the passion of pride. A self-analysis that aims to probe impassioned mental and emotional activity can usefully begin with a consideration of gluttony, avarice, and vainglory. Individual passions tend to correspond with a particular power. Passions that affect the desiring power, the soul’s appetitive aspect, are treated with physical asceticism. Treatments for the passions that attack the incensive power are subjective in nature. For example, patience and compassion are used to resist the passion of anger. Evagrius likened the passions of the intellect to ‘birds’, the passions of the incensive power to ‘animals’, and the passions of the desiring power to ‘beasts’. These were symbolic equations rather than figures of speech, and would have been useful in the interpretation of dreams, fantasy, and scripture. Evagrius and later ascetics grouped the passions in two categories: those that affect the human (‘rational’) aspect of our nature, and those that engage our

animal-like (‘irrational’) tendencies.’ For example, pride and vainglory are specific to our rational nature, but we share with animals the passions that promote anger and lust. Were he alive today, Evagrius might look favorably on the presupposition in evolutionary psychology that our affective tendencies evolved from precursors in ‘lower’ mammals and our ancestors in the genus Homo.° It would allow him to say that pride and vainglory, despite seeming strictly human, are apparent in the animal world; for example, in grooming behavior and violent displays of fitness. He might use the evolutionary presupposition to support his belief in the salvific power of the intellect: an aspect of our nature that is Godgiven rather than an evolutionary outcome of our animal nature. Were the evolutionary psychologist to say that the intellect shares the same precursors as the passions, Evagrius might counter with a rebuttal similar to Tertullian’s: ‘let all those (worthies ...), too, who have predetermined the character of the human

WwW &® VW n N

Kephalaia Gnostika 1.85 [Dysinger]. For the relationship of gluttony and fornication, see ch. 11(4). Kephalaia Gnostika 1.53. Evagrius of Pontus, The Greek ascetic corpus [Sinkewicz], 165. J.H. Barkow, L. Cosmides, & J. Tooby, The adapted mind: Evolutionary psychology and the generation of culture, New York: Oxford University Press, 1995.

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soul from the condition of brute animals, be quite sure that it is themselves

rather who are alive in a heartless and brainless state’. The evolutionary psychologist’s appeal to early precursors in explaining the passions is reminiscent of Gregory of Nyssa’s proposal that ‘the first beginnings of the constitutional liability to passion’ is found in ‘qualities with which brute life was armed for self-preservation’; such qualities, ‘when transferred to human life, became passions’.8 Unlike the evolutionary psychologist (but consistent with my extrapolation of Evagrius’s thinking), Gregory would reject the idea that all aspects of the soul have the same primeval heritable origins. The intellect, because it is ‘fashioned in the Divine likeness’, would be excluded: ‘It is not allowable to ascribe the first beginnings of the constitutional liability to passion to that [element of] human nature which was fashioned in the Divine

likeness’.? The names and the expressions of the eight basic passions remained fairly constant throughout the history of the Eastern tradition. The ‘six universal passions’ identified by Gregory of Sinai differ somewhat from the Evagrian passions based on their specificity in “destroy[ing] the state of inner stillness’ (Phil. 4,

235). Peter of Damaskos listed 298 passions ‘named in the Holy Scriptures’ (Phil. 3, 205-206). This kind of scholastic multiplication of the passions is extreme and uncommon. The term for a particular passion does not indicate the passion’s sole expression. For example, avarice concerns greed for material objects, but is also a subtle form of acquisitiveness that compromises the virtues of charity and personal sacrifice. Sexual addiction and lewd behavior are expressions of fornication, as is the titillation of noticing an attractive body. The colorful tennis shoes stolen by a criminal display vainglory, as do the jeans and tee-shirts worn by titans of silicon-based industries who flout their prominence with common touches. The gourmand’s refined taste and the bulimic’s compulsion to gorge are expressions of gluttony, as is the pleasure of eating more than is needed to taper the pang of hunger. What is morally innocuous in secular life is extreme for the ascetic, who followed scripture in believing that impassioned thoughts and actions are equally subject to judgment (e.g., Jer 17:10; 1 Cor 4:5). Mark the Acetic wrote that God ‘rewards at their proper value not only our actions but also our voluntary thoughts and purposes’ (Phil. 1, 141). The effectiveness 7

8

P. Holmes (Trans.), ‘A treatise on the soul’, in: A. Roberts & J. Donaldson (Eds.), The Ante-

Nicene Fathers: Translation of the Fathers down to A.D. 325. Latin Christianity: Its founder,

Tertullian, New York: Scribner, 1903, 194. WW. Moore & H.A. Wilson (Trans), ‘On the making of man’, in: P. Schaff& H. Wace (Eds.),

Select library of Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers of the Christian Church. Vol. 5: Gregory of

Nyssa: Dogmatic treatises, etc., New York: The Christian Literature Co., 1893, 407.

9

Ibid., 408.

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of mental asceticism is based on the depth of the ascetic’s introspective analysis. Combat with the overt behavioral expressions of a passion is less difficult than striking at its psychological root. The passions are deformations of our natural state, where ‘natural’ refers to spontaneous conformity with divine intentions. Our natural state is our original state, as symbolized by Adam before his fall. It is also a mode of experience that motivates and provides the direction of the ascetic life. Maximos said: ‘When God the Logos created human nature [...] He implanted in it a certain

noetic capacity through which it could enjoy Him in an inexpressible way. By this capacity I mean the intellect’s natural longing for God’ (Phil. 2, 243). The ascetic seeks, as his experiential norm, the soul’s original state. He seeks a new status quo that is also primeval. In a striking statement about the passions, Isaac the Syrian wrote:

When we wish to give a collective name to the passions, we call them world. And when we wish to designate them specifically according to their names, we call them passions. The passions are portions of the course of the world’s outward flow;

and where the passions cease, there the world’s outward flow stands still.'°

This is a statement about the meaning of technical terms: Passions and world are synonymous, but passion (singular) indicates one or another of several impassioned dispositions (anger, avarice, pride, etc.). It is also a psychological statement: The passions, in flowing, constitute the world, the full range of our possible experiences. In Isaac’s usage, world is not the empirical world examined by physicists; it is the blooming confusion of lived experience that the body and the mind meld into gestalts that seem imminently real and sensible. The psychological entity called the ‘self’ is one such gestalt. Upon realizing the cessation of the passions, one discovers that the ‘world’s outward flow stands still’. The world ends, its change or motivational flow having ceased; and the ascetic may enjoy an extraordinary experience of temporal duration. The third sentence of Isaac’s statement (beginning “The passions are portions of the world’s outward flow’) has a deep likeness to a famous statement attributed to the Buddha in the Samyutta Nikaya: As to the end of the world, friend, where one is not born, does not age, does not die, does not pass away, and is not reborn — I say it cannot be known, seen, or reached by traveling. However, friend, I say that without having reached the end of the world there is no making an end to suffering. It is, friend, in just this

fathom-long carcass endowed with perception and mind that I make known the world, the origin of the world, the cessation of the world, and the way leading to the cessation of the world. '© Isaac the Syrian, The ascetical homilies [Holy Transfiguration Monastery], 125.

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The world’s end can never be reached

By means of traveling, Yet without reaching the world’s end There is no release from suffering.!!

The body is a fathom long and is destined to become a carcass. Its sad, natural end belies its critical role in mediating, through mental and perceptual activity,

insight into the world’s arising and cessation. Here, world (loka) refers to the lived world of human experience, the world constituted by the six sense bases (the usual five, plus the mind). One does not arrive at the world’s end by train, car, or foot; death is not the final terminus. Rather, in this fathom-long organism, and due to its capacities of mind and perception, one can reach the world’s end by peering open-eyed at the root psychology of the full range of possible experiences. The insight liberates from the passions that grip emotion and misinform perception and mental activity. In bringing to a close the psychological processes that constitute the world, one ‘makes an end to suffering’ and arrives at a moment in which the dynamism of change is sheathed in a single devouring insight.’

6.2 The Five Hindrances

Certain passions correspond with the five hindrances identified in early Buddhist psychology. The hindrances are characterized in scripture as ‘obstructions’, ‘corruptions’, ‘defilements’, and ‘weaknesses of wisdom’ that prevent the mind from becoming ‘malleable’, ‘wieldy’, ‘radiant’, and ‘properly fit for work’.'? The hindered mind is ‘brittle’ and ‘careless’ and adulterated with foreign elements. The unhindered mind is readily workable, like pure gold.'4 The hindrances encircle the mind, preventing the insight, the objectivity, and the meditative calm that release the ascetic from the clinging that fixes attention on passing forms and feelings. The hindrances are like sleep in numbing the sensory faculties: ‘When the five faculties are awake the five hindrances are asleep, and

when the five hindrances are asleep the five faculties are awake’.'? Certain hindrances, like certain passions, grade into character traits. |

Samyutta Nikaya (1, 62), in: B. Bodhi, The connected discourses of the Buddha: A translation of the Samyutta Nikaya, Boston: Wisdom Publications, 2000, 158. For another translation of this passage and additional commentary, see Gombrich (How Buddhism began, 93-95; What the Buddha taught, 68).

12 Samyutta Nikaya [Bodhi], 158. 13 E.g., Samyutta Nikaya [Bodhi], 1590. 14 Evagrius used ‘beaten gold’ as a metaphor for the ‘perseverance’ and the ‘fervent work’ of the prayer and asceticism that combat acedia (Evagrius of Pontus, The Greek ascetic corpus [Sinkewicz], 64). 5 Tbid., 346.

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In Buddhist scripture, the mind is likened to a pellucid pool of water, and the hindrances are compared with several ways the water can become disturbed or contaminated.!° For example, the pool that is turbulent due to ambient heat

is like the hindrance called i//-will. Expressions of this hindrance range from mild irritation to hatred. The comparable Christian passion is anger. The pool disturbed by wind is like the hindrance called worry-and-flurry

or restless worry-and-remorse.'’ “Worry and ‘remorse’ highlight the hindrance’s likeness to the passion of sadness. The anxiety that can mask overt displays of sadness is apparent in the ‘flurry’ caused by the hindrance. ‘Restless’ captures the agitation that accompanies sadness as it deepens into the syndrome of anxious depression and evolves toward the deadening state of melancholia.'* A mossy, brackish pool is like the hindrance called sloth-and-torpor or dullnessand-drowsiness.'° ‘Sloth’ and ‘dullness’ refer to a deteriorated quality of mental activity; ‘torpor’ and ‘drowsiness’ are its somatic correlates. The Christian analogy is acedia, a particularly disabling passion, which Evagrius described as ‘most oppressive of all the demons’, ‘accustomed to enveloping the entire soul and stran-

gling the mind’.”° Similarly, sloth-and-torpor is viewed as the most disabling hindrance: ‘the one which most hinders the suspension of the other defilements, thus preventing the radiance of the brightly shining citta [from] pervading the whole mind’.”! In other words, when the ascetic’s training is blocked by slothand-torpor, his citta or enlightenment potential shrivels to the point of insensibility and is no longer brightly shining. The crippling effect of the hindrance is not limited to mental activity; it shapes the ascetic’s moral outlook and behavioral tendencies through enhancing the defilements of desire, attachment, greed, hate, and delusion. There is another parallel between acedia and sloth-and-torpor: The antidote for the hindrance is like a treatment for acedia. The contemplation that '6 S. Shaw, Buddhist meditation: An anthology of texts from the Pali canon, New York: Routledge, 2006, 39-41.

'7_M. Walshe, The Long Discourses of the Buddha: A translation of the Digha Nikaya, Boston: Wisdom Publications, 2012. The term for this hindrance is sometimes translated as ‘vacillation’ (Harvey, The selfless mind), which implies emotional ambivalence, a possible mental effect of the hindrance.

For the comorbidity of anxiety and depression, see $.M. Monroe, ‘Psychosocial factors in anxiety and depression’, in: J.D. Maser & C.R. Cloninger (Eds.), Comorbidity of mood and anxiety disorders, Washington, DC: American Psychiatric Press, 1990, 463-497.

'9 Walshe, The Long Discourses of the Buddha.

21

Evagrius Ponticus, The Praktikos and Chapters on Prayer [Bamberger], 26; The Greek ascetic corpus [Sinkewicz], 104. For acedia, see ch. 8. Harvey, The selfless mind, 172. For citta (‘mind’, ‘mind-set’, or ‘heart’ understood as the seat of emotions), see ch. 1(5), where its likeness to the intellect is developed. The citta, when

brightly shining, is the ‘enlightenment-potential in all beings’ (ibid., 166).

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overcomes sloth-and-torpor involves the perception of visionary light, which ‘leads to a state where “with an open citta which is not overgrown, one develops a radiant [...] citta”’.”* In other words, the luminous perception dampens the hindrance and purifies and activates the citta. Similarly, the compatibility of acedia and the luminous vision was a matter of concern for monks associated with Evagrius. The monks doubted that lingering thoughts of acedia could ‘disturb [the monk’s] state and at the time of prayer darken the holy light in his

eyes’.”* They thought the vision could occur despite the presence of acedia and believed it could effectively combat the passion. Their view resembles the Buddhist’s. Evagrius did not make his position clear. I suspect he found the monks’ concern academic and a reflection of insufficient emphasis on praktike. Certainly acedia and the vision are incompatible. Only upon acedia’s disappearance and the inhibition of other passions can the ascetic pass into apatheia, the condition

that primes the ascetic for pure prayer and creates the possibility of his receiving the vision. A pool of water stained with dye is like the hindrance called /onging-anddesire. This is a nonspecific longing and desire for experiences mediated through sensory objects; it is not limited to greed. The hindrance overlaps the passion of avarice, which drives the need and the acquisition of unnecessary material goods. Awakening from temporary gratifications, the passion motivates additional acquisitive behavior and contributes to the display of social power. In comparison with avarice, the hindrance is relatively subtle and pervasive in promoting a craving for sensory experience. It approximates Isaac the Syrian’s

understanding of possessiveness, which compels ‘the acquisition of anything whatever which your soul clings to’.*4 The passion of avarice can be understood as a highly targeted expression of the hindrance of longing and desire. Christian ascetic psychology could usefully expand its understanding of avarice through incorporating the Buddhist hindrance. The desire for unnecessary material goods would represent but one aspect of the passion, the deepest expression of which would be the craving for sensory experience. A clinical analogy of the hindrance and its Christian variant is stimulus-seeking behavior in Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD).” In ADHD the temporary calming and focusing effects of sensory stimulation inevitably give way to the underlying problem of impulsivity, which might be said to set in motion additional longing and desire. The affected person’s impulsive acquisition of material objects can 22 Harvey, The selfless mind, 172. 23 24

L. Dysinger (Trans.), St. Evagrius Ponticus (345-399) ; Antirrhetikos (2001), 6.16. Accessible at:

http://www. |dysinger.com/evagrius/07_Antirrhet/00a_start.htm. tirrhetikos. Also see ch. 20(2). Tsaac the Syrian, The ascetical homilies (Holy Transfiguration Monastery], 142.

25 R.A. Barkley, ADHD and the nature of self-control, New York: Guilford, 1997.

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be understood not simply as an enactment of avarice but as the reflection of a need for the sensory stimulation provided through ‘things’. By no means is longing-and-desire exclusive to ADHD. The clinical analogy highlights certain properties of a volitional disposition that defines the norm. The fifth hindrance, called doubt, is likened to a bowl of water set in dark-

ness. It has a subtle relationship with the passions of pride and vainglory. These passions are expressions of an ego inflation that springs from false belief about one’s superior moral purity and spiritual knowledge. ‘Doubt’ is their psychological correlate: The hindrance represents a nucleus of spiritual ignorance, which drives a compensatory process that results in a false conviction about one’s exalted spiritual status. It is no surprise that the Christian passions have Buddhist correlates. The ascetic pursuit is a religious universal. One might say it expresses a drive. 6.3 The Constructing Activities In creating psychological disturbance and impeding spiritual progress, the passions are like the constructing activities identified in Buddhist psychology. This set of psychological activities composes one of the five groups of grasping, which collectively constitute the process of personality formation. ‘Personality formation’ can be defined as mind-and-body coincident with the ambient world on the momentary occasions of their co-occurrence. All arises at once, and serial occasions of personality formation create the sense of personal continuity. This process is the chief example and expression of dependent origination, which is the governing principle of Buddhist psychology and one of the Buddha’s cardinal insights.”° In the West, ‘personality’ connotes trait, temperament, and interpersonal style. Buddhist psychology recognizes all such influences and evaluates them in terms of the three marks of conditioned phenomena:

Each is impermanent,

without substantial being, and characterized by the unease, frustration, or suffering indicated by the term dukkha. The Christian ascetic might say that the three marks characterize the operation and the consequences of the passions. A Western scholar defined the constructing activities as ‘unconscious dynamic tendencies and volitions such as instincts, also decisions and aspirations’.?” Such 6

Gombrich, What the Buddha taught; S. Hamilton, Early Buddhism: A new approach. The I of the beholder, New York: Routledge, 2000. ‘Personality formation’ is Harvey’s term (see The selfless mind).

27

K. Werner, ‘Glossary’, in: Idem (Ed.), The yogi and the mystic: Studies in Indian and comparative mysticism, Richmond Surrey, UK: Curzon Press, 1994, 185.

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tendencies include psychodynamics, the wellspring of base emotions and driverelated motivations. In Christian ascetic psychology, the clearest analogies of these tendencies and volitions are the passions of gluttony, fornication, sadness,

and anger. In comparison, pride, vainglory, and avarice are relatively highly mediated passions in drawing on social factors that promote struggles for dominance and motivate competition for resources when supply exceeds demand. The central constructing activity is will (cetana), the influence of which closely resembles the impact of the passions. This is ‘will’ in a special, rudimentary sense that does not rise to the level of volition, where ‘volition’ is understood as a targeting process aimed at fulfilling a conscious intention. In Buddhist psychology, will is energizing, motivating, and subliminally formative in shaping experience. A traditional metaphor of will is ‘the momentum that keeps a freerolling wheel turning’.*® Will is likened to a head carpenter in its integrative effect of “co-coordinating’ and ‘marshalling associated states’.”? Similarly, indi-

vidual passions impose corresponding mental states and requisition the psychological means of seeking and acquiring objects that promise satisfaction. Will is ‘the endeavoring, reaching-out aspect of mind, and so is seen [...] to consist of “strivings” (aywhana)’.°° Will is an ever-present impulsion that orients toward mental and perceptual forms: toward sights, sounds, smells, tastes, and touchables. Will is generic in its targets and can blind the ascetic to the momentary and insubstantial nature of the forms and feelings that compose personal experience. The passions function similarly in motivating a continuous search for diverse forms of satisfaction. Like the passions, will is restless and relentless in pursuing points of contact and satiation.

Will leads to action, which generates karmic results. In the Suttas, will is seen as equivalent to karma, as when the Buddha said: ‘I say cetana is karma; having willed, one performs an action by body, speech or mind’.?! Will initiates and informs karma-laden action, and in driving action it prevents release from the 28

Harvey, The selfless mind, 123.

29 Tbidem. 39 Tbidem. 31

Cited in ibid., 123. Gombrich discussed the meaning of this famous passage in the Anguttara

Nikaya. In the following quotation, he uses ‘intention’ rather than ‘will’ as the translation of cetana: ‘The Buddha defined karma as intention; whether the intention manifested itself in physical, vocal or mental form, it was the intention alone which has a moral character’ (Gombrich, How Buddhism began, 51). ‘The Buddha’s re-definition of ‘action’ [karma] as ‘intention’

[...] ethicized the universe’ (ibid.). Elsewhere, Gombrich glosses ‘karma’ as ‘morally relevant

volition’ (What the Buddha taught, 197). ‘Since ethics cannot work unless agents have free

will, karma is an indeterminate process. On the other hand, it can also not be a random process, otherwise there would be no guarantee of a connection between action and result’

(196). Considerations of this nature recall centuries of Christian debate on the topics of ‘free

will’ and ‘predestination’.

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round of rebirth. Analogously, without the love of God that inspires spiritual aspirations and motivates ascetic practice, the Christian ascetic is faced with a

futile round of searching whose outcome is His absence. The dispassionate Christian ascetic arrives at mental and emotional proximity to God. He is free from the inconstancy and disturbance engendered by the passions. Similarly, the Buddhist ascetic who attains insight into the true nature of phenomena overcomes the ‘diversity of passions’ and secures release from rebirth.** He has discerned the nature of will and is no longer its slave. 6.4 The Demons

In ascetic psychology, technical discussions of the passions merge with Christian demonology.** The interwoven character of these two branches of ascetic psychology is present throughout the traditional writings. An impassioned change in the mind or the body reflects the ingress of the corresponding demons. Individual passions vary in the intensity of their expression. Expressions that disrupt the stream of mental activity, counteract virtuous intentions, or erode the ascetic’s sense of personal identity are evidence of demonic phenomena. Spontaneity is a telling feature of demonic phenomena; it is the spontaneity of an undesirable mental or physical change that marks it as demonic. Spontaneity reflects the demons’ autonomy and implicates their supernatural status. A psychological factor related to the demons’ autonomy is the ascetic’s effectiveness in manipulating present mental activity. The point can be framed in neuropsychological terms: The power of demons is correlated with the ascetic’s sense of agency. Agency is the felt power to intend and to will an outcome, whether the outcome is purely mental or involves an overt physical intervention. The ascetic who is passive in the sphere of mental and especially imaginal activity demonstrates a diminished sense of agency. His passivity promotes demonic action, where ‘action’ refers to demonic phenomena that feel empirically real and capable of affecting physical matter. A strong argument against the interpretation of ascetic psychology as quietism is the ascetics’ reiterated point that one must cultivate and demonstrate a sense of agency in most all areas of mental training.*4 Samyutta Nikaya [Bodhi], p. 630 et passim. 33D. Brakke, Demons and the making of the monk: Spiritual combat in early Christianity, Boston: 32

Harvard University Press, 2006. For a history of ideas and images concerned with demons,

34

the devil and evil, from antiquity through early Christianity, see J.B. Russell, The Devil: Perceptions ofevil from antiquity to primitive Christianity, Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1977; and Satan: The Early Christian tradition, Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1981. The concept of ‘agency’ is introduced in this chapter and developed in chapter 21(2). It is used as a heuristic to interpret demonic phenomena in Bradford, ‘Brain and psyche in early Christian asceticism’.

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Demons can be seen and heard, working their power through both hallucinations and fantasy images: While one of the brothers was keeping vigil at night, the demons formed for him terrifying fantasies, not only in his outward eye but also in his inner sight so that during the following night, struggling with anxiety, he ran the risk of losing his wits, and for several nights the battle was waged against the soul.*°

The demons may attack the body directly, in ways that circumvent mental actiyity: ‘like wild beasts they will come upon you and maltreat your entire body’.*° The demon of fornication can ‘touch even the flesh, inducing within it an irrational burning’.*” The sensation is ‘irrational’ because it is subliminal in origin and arises spontaneously from the soul’s desiring power. Demons live in the mind and also in mere physiology. But not all physiological effects are demonic.

Some are ‘unintelligible natural reaction[s]’, where ‘unintelligible’

means involuntary, morally benign, and without distinctly spiritual meaning.*® In early belief, the demons were thought to affect their victim’s body only

after they had overtaken the soul. Abba Serenus told Cassian and Germanus: ‘It is certain, then, that unclean spirits cannot penetrate those whose bodies they will lay hold of unless they have first possessed their minds and thoughts’.*? This implies that demonic bodily effects are psychosomatic in origin. They originate in the soul before shifting their medium of operation. The soul-to-body transition is like the point in a chronic stress reaction when the related physiological changes are responsible for medical symptoms in a weak organ system. The hostility of the demons is related to the ascetic’s effectiveness in suppressing instinctual tendencies. Such tendencies are exacerbated by the moral strictures and the physical privations of the ascetic life. Frightening dreams are symbolic illustrations of the demons’ anger and resentment over their suppression. Evagrius mentioned anchorites who in dreams ‘fight with winged asps, are encircled by carnivorous wild beasts, entwined by serpents, and cast down from high mountains. It sometimes happens that even after awakening they are again encircled by the same wild beasts and see their cell all afire and filled with smoke’.*° The frightening dreams evolve into equally frightening hypnopompic hallucinations. I have said that the hostility of demons is related to the ascetic’s effectiveness in suppressing instinctual tendencies. But this is too narrow a conclusion; not

35 Evagrius of Pontus, The Greek ascetic corpus [Sinkewicz], 54. 36

Tbid., 203.

37 Tbid., 163. 38 Tbid., 176. 39 John Cassian, The conferences [Ramsey], 262. 40

Evagrius of Pontus, The Greek ascetic corpus (Sinkewicz], 172.

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only are instinctual tendencies in question, but so is any tendency of thought or feeling that is rejected, suppressed, or effectively inhibited. Tailoring their interventions to the psychological principle of compensation, the demons work to counteract the ascetic’s highest priorities.1 Two such priorities overlap and are reciprocal: the worship of God, and personal conformity with divine purity. Not surprisingly, Evagrius emphasized the speed and power of the demons of blasphemy and impurity: “Watch carefully and you will discover the two swiftest demons — they are nearly more swift than the speed of thought. Their names: the demon of impurity and the demon of blasphemy’.*” Elsewhere Evagrius linked blasphemy and impure thoughts: “Let us not be upset by that demon who snatches away the intelligence to blasphemy and to those phantasies of a prohibited sort — too sordid to so much as mention’.*? Here, a single demon (rather than two) is responsible for the onslaught: The demon of blasphemous thoughts discolors the purity of the mental image of God and brings in its train impure thoughts, as if the one demon (blasphemy) has a twin with comparable interests (sordid, impure thoughts). The demon of blasphemy can attack violently and disrupt concentration through automatic thinking and unbidden auditory images. John the Venerable said this demon ‘will cling to a brother any time, and blaspheme while the brother is praying, chanting, reading, praising,

celebrating the life-giving mysteries, or partaking of them’.“* It ‘produc[es] blas-

phemous voices in the soul’, which lead the ascetic to ‘think that these outrageous blasphemies are impulses of its own [soul]’.*° At this juncture, the ascetic’s challenge is to distinguish his self-determined intent and the automatic display of compensatory demonic actions. Another example of compensation is the demons’ intolerance of the ascetic’s suppression of perceptual distractions during the state of pure prayer. The quiescence and purity of the state is based in part on the inhibition of perceptual distractions. The demons attempt to destroy the state through stimulating chaotic perceptual experience: “Crashing sounds and roars and voices and beatings — all

‘| Compensation is understood in Jungian theory as an involuntary psychological process that reverses present values and alters personality based on their representing a maladaptive orientation to present circumstances Jung, Psychological types, pars. 693ff., 708f.). The meaning is somewhat different in ascetic psychology. The ascetic lives in ways that are maladaptive relative to the needs and values of worldly life. Vows of poverty and celibacy are examples. What is maladaptive in the world can be an effective ascetic strategy. Thus, an adaptive ascetic strategy, in countering a worldly attitude, may stimulate a compensatory response that promotes worldly adaptation but alienates the ascetic from his primary goals. 42 Evagrius Ponticus, The Praktikos and Chapters on Prayer [Bamberger], 30. @ {bid.,.2g, 44

Colless, The wisdom of the pearlers, 97.

45

[bid., 97-98.

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of these, coming from the devils, are heard by the man who pursues the practice of pure prayer’.“° In this example, the demons do not counteract the emotional tone or the specific content of mental activity; they engage the perceptual process in ways that are disruptive of calm, quiet self-recollection. Evagrius’s On the Eight Thoughts was written for ascetics ‘still engaged in the initial stages of the struggle against the passions’.*” ‘Demon’ occurs but once in the entire work, which is ‘in stark contrast with [his] other treatises where the

terms “demon” and “demonic” are ubiquitous’.** The difference in the frequency rates can be interpreted in two ways. The first interpretation is ahistoric and relatively superficial: In addressing advanced ascetics, Evagrius objectified sinful thoughts and emotions, describing them as demonic or identifying them as demons. He felt that the advanced ascetic would profit from relying on the defense measure of projection, which prompts him to imagine or to pretend that the troubling aspects of his personal psychology are affected by irreal demons. The idea of demons provides the advanced ascetic with leverage in distancing himself from disturbing thoughts and emotions. The novice need not be bothered with this technique; he should think in terms of his own personal difficulties rather than conceiving them as demonically inspired afflictions. Thus, in addressing novice ascetics Evagrius found is unnecessary to speak of demons. The second interpretation captures the extremity of mental asceticism and reflects greater psychological acumen than the first: Evagrius understood that the advanced ascetic realizes through direct experience that the difficulties he encounters are rooted in collective factors whose origin is independent of personal psychology. These factors are called ‘demons’. The novice has not made this discovery; his introspective analyses have yet to probe the collective roots of personal psychology. In not using ‘demons’ in an introductory treatise, but using it profusely in specialized works, Evagrius demonstrated skill-in-means, a pedagogical method recognized in the Buddhist Prajna tradition: He tailored wisdom teachings to his particular audiences, the better to promote their salvation.” In the hands of virtuoso ascetics, Christian demonology is a technical analysis of the most refractory and autonomous factors of the psyche. It is a psychology of the dark aspect of any archetypal process, but principally of the Shadow, an aspect of the psyche that is shaped, aggravated, and constrained by taboo, suppression, and moral strictures. It is also an applied psychology in that its 46 Evagrius Ponticus, The Praktikos and Chapters on Prayer [Bamberger], 71. 47

Evagrius of Pontus, The Greek ascetic corpus [Sinkewicz], 68.

#8. Ibid. 773! 49 Williams, Mahayana Buddhism. For Evagrius’s pedagogical strategies, also see D. Brakke, ‘Mystery and secrecy in the Egyptian desert: Esotericism and Evagrius of Pontus’, in: C.H. Bull, LI. Lied, & J.D. Turner (Eds.), Mystery and secrecy in the Nag Hammadi collection and other ancient literature: Ideas and Practices, Herndon, VA: Brill, 2011, 205-219.

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development has been for practical purposes rather than scientific experiments or theoretical delectation. Its main purpose is to combat the subjective constraints on mental freedom that prevent dispassion and impede the acquisition of virtue. It is salutary: ‘Knowledge of these things and their practical application purifies the heart’.*? The concept of ‘demons’ is both useful and antiquated. It is useful in signaling a certain strain of spirituality that passed from the ancient world into Christianity, where it thrived in ascetic psychology. It is antiquated in having been replaced by theories and technologies that are used to explain and to manipulate the same factors that are called ‘demons’ in ascetic psychology.”! Ascetic psychology is less systematic than current theories, although it has some measure of predictive power. Its approach is qualitative rather than numerical, idiographic rather than nomothetic. Its ‘technology’ is limited to the practices of mental and physical asceticism and the words and instructive actions of virtuoso ascetics.

The monastic setting of Christian demonology reduces the breadth of its current application. One might imagine a demonology suited to the post-modern era in the developed world. Its students would report on depth-probes of the psyche and its collective representations and on the factors that bind humans to their animal ancestors or motivate their search for the better angels of their nature. A demon reigning at the present time is avarice, its power intensified by the economic process of globalization. Its seesaw course is seeded with corruption, global recessions, despoliation of raw land, and social stratification com-

parable to the Middle Ages. Its vehemence is disguised by fantasies of infinite growth. The demon of avarice is a raging bull: the totem portrayed in a famous sculpture in New York’s financial district. Another reigning demon is acedia, which works through multitudes of media-produced simulacrums to impose an epidemic of psychological dissociation. The cardinal symptom is the erosion of the mind—body union and the breakdown of personal attunement to immediate concrete circumstances. A correlated symptom is the disintegration of the barrier between the public and the private. The fully embodied human is increasingly a curiosity in urban settings. Unwitting humans visit with ‘friends’ while strolling robotically with their infants. Electronic access trumps survival needs in physically dangerous situations. Occasions when the cocoon of virtual reality 50 51

Evagrius of Pontus, The Greek ascetic corpus [Sinkewicz], 61. Hausherr drew a similar conclusion: ‘the “demonism” of the Fathers accentuates the depth of their psychological insights. Lower than the psychic elements, even those which are not noticed, is a force, or rather, a series of forces — formidable foes! Moderns undoubtedly refuse to call these obscure powers demons or spirits. But a change of names essentially neither suppresses nor transforms the reality’ (I. Hausherr, Spiritual direction in the early Christian East, Kalamazoo, MI: Cistercian Publications, 1990, 87-88).

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implodes are reported: train wrecks, car accidents, and assaults and rape. The mind is increasingly a set of artificially induced ideas, images, and emotions that are delivered to bodies whose cardinal function is to chauffer preoccupied fields of awareness. Does it surprise that the epidemic of dissociation advances in tandem with the now-irreversible process of climate change? But a proper demonology would not amount to simply matching particular passions with one or another social or psychological ill. The demons, like the passions they engender and symbolize, are processes of change that shape personal impulses and broad social trends. They love to hide, and their pursuer must be as mercurial as the prey. The struggle between the ascetic mentality and the mirages induced by collective dissociation is no easy game.

6.5 Anchorite and Cenobite

Evagrius distinguished the anchorite’s and the cenobite’s respective struggles with demons. The anchorite’s struggle is relatively intense because it is almost entirely subjective: The war fought on the field of thoughts [is] more severe than that which is conducted in the area of things and events. For the mind is easily moved indeed,

and hard to control in the presence of sinful phantasies.”

The cenobite, who lives in community, is attacked indirectly through his exposure to negligent brethren. His moral challenges arise in the course of social exchanges and are raised to a higher power by the hot-house atmosphere of communal living. The cenobite’s combat is less intense for adopting concrete forms: The demons fight directly [literally, ‘naked’] against anchorites; but in the case of

those who practice virtue in monasteries or in communities they equip the most negligent among the brethren with their weapons. Now this second warfare is much lighter than the first, for there is not to be found on earth any human beings more embittered than the demons or who could undertake all at once the totality of their malevolence.”

The anchorite is a scout at the forward margin of the psychologically possible. His theatre of operations is accessible through introspection. The demons find this intolerable; their tendency is to hide in dark corners of the psyche. An irony the ascetic must grasp is that the secrecy of demons masks the redundancy and mundane content of their attacks. The demons resort to stealth because they are 52 The Praktikos and Chapters on Prayer [Bamberger], 29. 53 Evagrius of Pontus, The Greek ascetic corpus [Sinkewicz], 97.

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drudges of habit; their creativity is severely limited. They have this in common with the force of instinct; demons are allies of instinct. The emotional charge of tapping instinctual tendencies insinuates power in their fantasies and disguises the tedium of their attacks. The power of demons is further limited by their inability to probe the center of psychological activity whose collapse would ruin the ascetic: ‘The demons do not know our hearts, as some people think, for the Lord alone is a “knower of hearts”’.°4 The demons’ knowledge of the ascetic is incomplete and fallible: “They recognize the many mental representations that are in the heart on the basis of a word that is expressed and movements of the

body’.*°* In staging attacks, they rely on inferences based on their victim’s spoken words and overt behavior. This is an imperfect form of knowledge and represents a weakness on the part of the demons. It implies that the demons can be beguiled by words and repelled through actions, even when the ascetic’s words and actions are insincere and he has been weakened by redundant waves of demonic fantasy. The last resort of frustrated demons is to channel raw emotion. Their bitterness can mount to the point of their striking ‘all at once [with] the totality of their malevolence’.*° Isaac the Syrian recognized the fear inspired by demons and coached the ascetic to remember that divine providence prevents them from acting. He drew a sharp distinction between the imaginal appearance of demons and demonic actions that might result in actual harm: The Lord does not suffer the power of demons [...] to encroach upon His crea-

tion and do with it as they please. [...] And although you should see with your eyes and hear with your ears their threatenings, do not believe that they will

venture to act.”

The ascetic can justifiably take heart: Because ‘a divine nod from on high does not command or permit liberty to come into full sway’, the demons are limited to making threats that cannot be fulfilled.*® The ascetic, in the strength of his sense of agency, can suppress fear and arrive at the conviction that for all their noise and commotion, the demons cannot actually harm him. The status of personal agency is all-important in the practice of mental asceticism. It makes the difference between the psychotic experience of demons and the sophisticated strategy of engaging the soul’s demonic factors to the end of combating, changing, or suppressing them.

54

Tbid., 179; Acts 1:24; 15:8; Rom 8:27.

>

Evagrius of Pontus, The Greek ascetic corpus [Sinkewicz], 179.

©

abide 97:

*” Isaac the Syrian, The ascetical homilies [Holy Transfiguration Monastery], 409. 8 Tbidem.

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The distinction drawn in this section between the anchorite and the cenobite risks oversimplifying the ways of monastic life in early centuries. Overreliance on Evagrius’s writings can have the same effect. One must compensate for ‘the lingering influence exerted on the history of asceticism [and on the study of ascetic psychology] by the figure of the fourth-century ascetic monk’.®? Recognizable communities of persons devoted to the ascetic life evolved simultaneously in Egypt, Syria, and Palestine. ‘After 400, monasticism developed from these modest beginnings into a mass movement’. An early form of ascetic community was a variation on the household. Husband, wife, and possibly others followed a life of celibacy, prayer, and acts of charity within and beyond the home.°! These small groups apparently existed in villages before monasteries, lavras, and remote hermitages became the principal sites of the ascetic endeavor in Egypt.® In the Syrian Orient, the lay ascetic who ‘lives a life of continence, simplicity, and prayer without taking formal vows’ remained a part of ecclesiastical life after the monastic institution began to form. The ascetic ideal of the second-century Roman teacher Tatian included poverty, celibacy, and homelessness. A fourth-century example was Julian Saba, who rotated between his cave in Turkey, where he taught disciples, and isolated desert sites, and who also traveled farther afield, even to Mount Sinai.© Dadisho, a seventh-century Qatari who pursued the monastic life in Iraq,

distinguished cenobites who live in remote monasteries and community dwell-

ing monks who farm and welcome guests.® He also distinguished six categories of solitaries ranging from novices, who remain in community, to solitaries who

fend for themselves alone. One category is formed of itinerant solitaries. The Book ofSteps portrays the most advanced ascetics, called the ‘Perfect’, as wandering solitaries who live by the charity of Christian householders.*” The itinerant solitary in early Christian asceticism recalls the Hindu sadhu who has renounced °° Finn, Asceticism in the Graeco-Roman world, 61. 60

J. Binns, ‘Introduction’, in: R.M. Price (Trans.), Lives of the monks of Palestine by Cyril Scythopolis, Kalamazoo, MI: Cistercian Publications, 1991, x.

61 J.E. Goehring, Ascetics, society, and the desert: Studies in early Egyptian monasticism, Harrisburg: Trinity Press International, 1999. 62 A lavra is a settlement of monks whose private dwellings, grouped around a church or other community buildings, are situated in close enough proximity to “keep in touch with each other without distraction of mind’ (Ward, The sayings of the desert fathers, 7). In early Egyptian monasticism, this could mean a distance of several miles. 6 Brock & Harvey, Holy women of the Syrian Orient, 10. 64 W/£L. Petersen, Tatian’s Diatessaron: Its creation, dissemination, significance, and history in scholarship, Leiden: Brill, 1994 (Vigiliae Christianae Supplements 25). 6 Colless, The wisdom of the pearlers. 66 Brock, The Syriac Fathers on prayer and the spiritual life, 304-305. 67 Kitchen & Parmentier, The Book of Steps.

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the world and set about attaining liberation. Remotely, perhaps, there is a likeness to the ‘solitary buddha’ (pacceka-buddha) who has attained enlightenment outside the sangha and the usual channels of Buddhist teaching. The range of ascetic paths in early centuries implies that the related differences in social factors were correlated with markedly different psychologies. There is reason to accept this possibility, granted common threads of belief and motivation that span the monk of a busy monastery and the solitary ascetic who, emptying himself of worldly goods and values, takes to the road in direct emulation of scripture: ‘Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests, but

the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head’. The psychological meaning of the diversity of ascetic paths devolves to a matter of temperament, specifically the extent to which the ascetic is introverted or extroverted. The paths can be organized as a continuum that spans the highly introverted anchorite who lives alone in a remote setting and the extroverted monk who thrives in a large monastery. Dadisho’s classification of solitaries is instructive in this regard. It reflects the high value and the careful attention given the extreme associated with introversion.

6.6 Psychotherapy of the Passions Evagrius recommended six psychotherapeutic interventions as treatment for impassioned mental activity. Each is self-administered. The first intervention is used to overcome acedia, which afflicts the ascetic with diminished spiritual fervor: When we come against the demon of acedia, then with tears let us divide the soul

and have one part offer consolation and the other receive consolation.”°

The first intervention can be understood as a self-administered supportive psychotherapy. The second relies on emotional catharsis and is used to ready the mind for prayer: When you experience temptation, do not pray before you have directed some words of anger against the one causing the affliction. For when your soul is affected by thoughts [impassioned mental representations], it follows that your °° M. Wijayaratna, Buddhist monastic life according to texts of the Theravada tradition, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990. 69 For the ‘foxes’ pericope, see Lk 9:58. For ‘emptying’, see Phil. 2:7; and for a review of this important motif in Syriac Christianity, see S.P. Brock, ‘Radical renunciation: The ideal of msarrquta’, in: R.D. Young & M.J. Blanchard (Eds.), To train his soul in books: Syriac asceticism in early Christianity, Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 2011, 122133. 70

Evagrius of Pontus, The Greek ascetic corpus [Sinkewicz], 102. For acedia, see ch. 8.

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prayer is not pure. But if you speak some angry words against them, you confound

and dispel the mental representations coming from your adversaries. This is the natural function of anger, even in the case of good mental representations.”!

The ‘one causing the affliction’ is the representation of the person who is the target of the ascetic’s anger. Such anger-inducing representations are generated by demonic ‘adversaries’. Evagrius appealed to common sense in saying that anger can ‘confound’ and ‘dispel’ its mental targets. The catharsis releases the ascetic from the grip of the passion of anger. In using the third intervention, the ascetic prevents his attention from settling on impure representations and shifts it to pure representations as often as needed to defeat the targeted line of thought: One must try therefore in times of temptation to transfer the mind from an impure thought to another mental representation and from this to another, and so escape that evil taskmaster. If the mind does not move on, clinging to the

object, it is submerged in the passion.”

This is a variant of a technique used in the treatment strategy called cognitive

behavioral therapy.’ The fourth intervention relies on the tactic of counterstatement to combat impassioned mentation and demonic impulses. Evagrius selected 498 passages from scripture and grouped them according to the passions that the individual passages most effectively repel. Suitable passages ‘are dispersed throughout the Scriptures; and thus it is difficult to take our stand [against demonic provoca-

tion]. For this reason’, wrote Evagrius, ‘we have carefully selected the [right] words from the Scriptures’.”4 A suitable passage is said and directed against the sinful thought, image, or impulse: And so in the moment of battle, when the demons attack and hurl weapons against us, we too [like Christ], must speak out against them from the [text of] sacred Scripture. In this way the[ir] foul [tempting-]thoughts will not persist in us.”

It is most desirable to strike when the impulse or the mental content is incipient rather than fully developed: ‘For when sin has not [yet entered] the mind it is still possible to speak out against the evil, vanquishing it easily and rapidly’.”° To the extent that the intervention relies on suppression, its results would be short-lived. Evagrius recognized this likelihood: “But we know this, beloved: 2 72

UbidaalOs: Tbid., 170.

73 JS. Beck, Cognitive behavior therapy (2°4 ed.), New York: Guilford Press, 2011. 74

Evagrius Ponticus, Antirrhetikos [Dysinger].

75 Antirrhetikos, Prologue [Dysinger]. 76 Tbidem.

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that to the degree that we withstand them in battle and answer the demons back, they will be embittered’.”” The emotional context of a counterstatement can be dire, and the tactic a matter of verbal weaponry. As the demons inspire fear, so the ascetic must strike in fearful ways. Martyrius said ‘we become objects of fear for the demons as we arm our tongues with these words’ from scripture.’® In the fifth intervention, the ascetic musters and directs feigned anger against mental representations that embody the spontaneous, irrational anger inspired by demons. In this manner, the incensive power is enlisted against its own expressions: “The nature of the irascible part is to fight against the demons’.” Involuntary anger collapses in face of a purposeful, carefully calibrated anger that serves dispassion. Self-possession is recovered; clarity of attention and purity of intent resume. In Evagrius’s words, this is to ‘drive out a nail with a nail’; or in the modern colloquialism, ‘to fight fire with fire’.8° The intervention is a kind of homeopathic treatment in which artificial emotion dampens genuine emotion of the same kind. A manual written about seven hundred years after Evagrius’s death retains the basic outline of his teaching: “The intellect begins to be full of rancor against the demons and, rousing its natural anger against its noetic [spiritual] enemies, it pursues them and strikes them down’ (Phil. 4, 73).

This intervention is similar to systematic desensitization, a therapeutic technique used to treat anxiety disorders and phobias.®! Anxiety is an aversive state of physiological arousal that is incompatible with calm. It can be inhibited when the arousal-inducing object or circumstance is paired repeatedly with measures that induce calm. Anger, another a state of physiological arousal, is incompatible with the equanimity of dispassion and the contemplative state Evagrius called ‘true prayer’.®? The fifth intervention does not impose calm through overtly calming measures, but it can reduce or eliminate the arousing state of anger, leaving the ascetic calm and fit for prayer. The sixth intervention is a hazardous challenge to perseverance and mental suppleness. The ascetic creates a mental representation that elicits a passion incompatible with the passion that has instigated his present disturbing thoughts. The original passion is thereby inhibited, and the ascetic can then jettison the 77 Tbidem. Brock, The Syriac Fathers on prayer and the spiritual life, 224. Evagrius of Pontus, The Greek ascetic corpus [Sinkewicz], 102. For a related strategy in which

the incensive power is directed against the passion of fornication, see ibid., 163-164. 80 The Praktikos and Chapters on Prayer [Bamberger], 32. 8! J. Wolpe, The practice of behavior therapy, Columbus, OH: Allyn & Bacon, 1992. Evagrius: ‘No one who loves true prayer and yet gives way to anger or resentment can be absolved from the imputation of madness. For he resembles a man who wishes to see clearly and for this purpose he scratches his eyes’ (The Praktikos and Chapters on Prayer [Bamberger],

65).

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intervening passion, perhaps through the application of one of the other interventions. In Evagrius’s words, this is to ‘do the opposite’ of what the demons compel.*? Evagrius discussed pairs of incompatible passions. That one passion can oppose and counteract another passion is based on the nature of the demons that inspire them. Demons of one kind have enmity toward those of another kind, to the extent that the corresponding groups can be viewed as emotional opposites. This point has important implications for the ascetic struggle; it means that conflict among the demons threatens any conjoint operation they mount against the ascetic. The demons must not be imagined as disciplined troops awaiting a general’s order; they cannot tolerate an orderly chain of command. They form a loosely organized, easily fragmented confederation. They cannot create an enduring community of mutually adaptable forces. Teamwork among demons is characterized by fleeting alliances, self-seeking, and rivalry. On this basis their confederation can be divided and the demons turned against each other.*4 A demonic union is fleeting because it opposes the demons’ nature as forces aimed at the destruction of integral wholes. This includes the whole formed of their own alignment against the ascetic. The demons, in mounting a united front against the ascetic, obey ‘the law of convergence toward a single victim’.® They seek a scapegoat whose destruction would signal their victory over a mind directed at the most coherent and peaceful of wholes. Their manner of choosing a scapegoat is plagued by the same vagaries that determine all their actions. One day it is the ascetic’s pride, another day it is his humility; the list includes countless turns of feeling and character. Most troubling for the demons is the ascetic’s intent of reducing himself to the status of a servant of the invisible God, which

makes it difficult for them to find the traction needed to sustain a prolonged assault. In choosing a scapegoat they rely on a compass that aims consistently at idolatry, no matter how insignificant, petty, or good the idol. The ascetic, in his service, opposes individual instances and the entire psychology of idolatry. The demons gravitate toward idolaters but reserve special savagery for ascetics who attend to the invisible God. Their pattern of attack varies in terms of this distinction. The attacks faced by supplicants of the invisible God are pulsatory and acute. But idolaters are attacked on a relatively constant basis. Such constancy leads to their becoming habituated to demonic influence, which is the psychological basis of their coming to feel they are on the side of the angels. 83

Evagrius of Pontus, The Greek ascetic corpus [Sinkewicz], 101. Patanjali, in his Yoga Sutras

85

unfettered financial markets. R. Girard, J see Satan fall like lightning, Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2011, 19.

(II, 33), recommended the ‘implantation of the opposite thought’ when the yogi is troubled by persistent mental content that inspires doubt and disturbs a placid state of mind (M. Eliade, Patanjali and Yoga, New York: Schocken, 1975, 65). 84 The systemic nature of demonic groups has many analogies. An example is the dynamics of

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This is the normal state of possession, which is indiscernible to the possessed.

It could be conceived neuropsychologically in terms of the unchecked regularity of subclinical discharges from fronto-limbic areas whose experiential effects are demonic in nature despite receiving social, even society-wide approval. For the demons, all forms of idolatry are “open game’, and the ascetic who refuses to become their prey relies on weapons that are equally strong and fragile. Here is an irony of the struggle: The ascetic’s expertise and power increase in tandem with his weakness. His weakness is a martial spirit ever seeking and sinking into the invisible God. The one purpose demons have in common is to destroy the ascetic, thus even their temporary union poses a serious hazard. In Evagrius’s words, “The wicked demons draw to their aid demons even more wicked, and if they are opposed to one another in their dispositions they agree on one thing alone, the destruction of the soul’.8° Their agreeing on this one thing marks the onset of the most dire ascetic crisis. The crisis may last minutes or hours. Because demonic time flows at a variable, unpredictable pace (it can race, clot, or stop), the duration of the crisis may seem immeasurable. Inevitably, the demons divide against each other as mutual enmity destroys their temporary union. The crisis is resolved at the point of their division, and the ascetic is left with the manageable task of combating ‘normal’ demonic tactics. His future skirmishes will not come near the ferocity of the earlier crisis. Enmity is the demons’ defining characteristic and the basis of their inability to form an enduring union. For the ascetic, periods of demonic unanimity occur suddenly and feel entirely spontaneous. They blossom from a mimetic contagion in which the demons set about competing with each other until their emotion is whipped into a collective expression of malice. The demons then fall into alignment and act in concert, which means the ascetic’s subliminal psyche is armed to the teeth and launches attacks as if it were the hostile doppelgdnger of his fragile sense of Christian identity. The result is imminent shipwreck, although

the demons press for complete chaos. A crisis of this nature most always has psychosomatic effects. There is wisdom in Evagrius’s sixth psychotherapeutic intervention, the same wisdom Jesus conveyed to the scribes who accused him of expelling Satan by Beelzebub, the prince of demons:

How can Satan cast out Satan? Ifa kingdom is divided against itself, it cannot stand. And if a house is divided against itself, it cannot be maintained. And if Satan has

risen up against himself and is divided, he cannot endure and is finished.*”

86

Evagrius of Pontus, The Greek ascetic corpus [Sinkewicz], 105.

87

Mk 3:23-26.

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The question that introduces the passage is not ironic. It sets out as simply as possible the problem addressed in the following sentences. ‘Satan’, ‘kingdom’, and ‘house’ are parallel terms; ‘demons’ can be added to the list without altering its meaning. The demons cannot maintain a house or kingdom because enmity is their nature, and when they seem to support a system they do so with the ultimate intent of tearing it down. Their promise to build disguises their destructive intentions. The scribes’ accusation is nonsense. They assume a hierarchical arrangement in which the powers of evil willingly fall into obedience before a demonic king. Jesus’ response was not a mysterious parable but a succinct report based on the technical knowledge of ascetic psychology. The scribes, being scribes, relied on theory, which they used as a weapon of attack. Jesus relied on facts he secured on a firsthand basis. The virtuoso ascetic is not a hero, no matter the drama of the events portrayed.

It is an error to set the ascetic struggle in the frame of epic battles waged by semidivine heroes. The ascetic’s courage is unlike the mythic hero’s. Here, one must part company from hagiography and probe the psychology of the really lived ascetic life. The ascetic who weathers the crisis is the servant of a process of change in which he is reduced time and again to a minor role. He is not the protagonist; he has a walk-on part and avoids center stage. He is severely diminished, even broken, and this is paired with his conformity with the invisible God, which refines his sense of Christian identity, imposes limits on his suffering, and may lead to the acquisition of unusual powers. The virtuoso ascetic’s purported supernatural powers may reflect actual psychological changes. Some changes teach and comfort; others can tempt and seduce. Knowing the demons firsthand, the ascetic can as easily conjure them as confront them with might and

cunning—thus the importance of shunning displays of power and refusing invitations to act like a shaman. Strife has made the ascetic’s psyche unusually porous to the forces within, some of which may affect the physical world and other minds through undisclosed chains of indirect causation.*® 88 The so-called ‘forces within’ are generally outside the scope of conscious awareness and control. They are invisible, deeply situated predispositions and potentialities that favor particular mental and physical outcomes. The mental and the physical outcomes are meaningfully correlated and tend to occur simultaneously or in close temporal proximity. We do not know how the ‘forces’ affect the mind or the physical world, or the extent to which they do so. Physicists and psychologists exploring these questions favor the philosophical stance of dual-aspect monism, in which mind and matter are correlated expressions of a single underlying reality. The ascetic’s ‘supernatural’ power can be set in this context. I start with these assumptions: The monist’s underlying reality is a system composed of ‘forces’. The virtuoso ascetic is unlike most people in that he is highly porous to the forces and is able to retain and exercise intentionality while exposed to them. Others would fall asleep, succumb to unconsciousness, or become

confused, disoriented, or highly inattentive. The ascetic can wield intentionality and bend forces such that they affect the physical world and other minds through undisclosed chains of

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In the demonology of the sixth intervention and particularly in his warning about the demons’ ultimate intent of destroying the soul, Evagrius has painted a dark picture of the darkest zone of the psyche. The picture’s likeness to paranoid psychosis must not be misunderstood or exaggerated. The virtuoso ascetic wittingly dissolves the structure of personal identity, which releases chaotic activity in the base zones of the psyche. The animals of instinct rave and roar, the backside of culture is on view. All is exposed, tumbling from hiding places built of habit, etiquette, discipline, and law. The ascetic’s goal is not madness, although madness can occur as a transitional phase of an extended process of personal change. The transition is misconstrued as the dark night of the soul. A harsh spell of hopelessness and melancholia is a different kind of problem than a transition in which the fibers and deposits of the old life are dissolved. ‘Dark night of the soul’ is not a cliché, but it has the misfortune of being tied to schematic outlines that treat the ascetic life as a series of inevitable advances. These outlines, particularly those with four or more steps or stages, rest on the understandable need to bring order, hopefulness, and predictability to a manner of life plagued by risks, redundancy, and detours. ‘Exile’ and ‘return’ are often better analogies than ‘steps’ and ‘stages’. The Jews wandered for decades; even their leader was unable to enter the promised land. There is not an outline of the ascetic life that reliably or exactly predicts its course or outcome. For that matter, were there a current outline it would differ from those proposed in

centuries past. Secular life and the ascetic spirit are reciprocally related; the historical contingencies that determine the former influence the themes and struggles accentuated in the latter. The pace of history has quickened. Cascades of psychological change have passed through the inhabitants of the developed world. Technology has enforced much of the change. Many of it devotees are hypnotized by devices. Their glazed expressions in public places mirror inner states of dissociation. Their bodies are automatons tethered to virtual communities. They believe that security is based on secret passwords despite the fact that the zones of the public and the private are now mutually contaminated. Their nimble fingers pecking at tiny keyboards—a skill made possible by the opposable thumb—are a curious advance over our simian ancestors. They are initiates of the new religion of Digital Gnosticism, typing ‘abracadabra’ with the intent of passing through the magic doors of liquid-crystal displays and ending their solipsistic isolation. Technology causation. For scientific material pertinent to this line of thought, see H. Atmanspacher,

‘Dual-aspect monism a la Pauli and Jung’, in: Journal of Consciousness Studies 19 (2012), 1-23; and Atmanspacher & Fuchs, The Pauli-Jung conjecture and its impact today. For psychological material, see select chapters of E.F. Kelly et al. (Eds.), Irreducible mind: Toward a psychology for the 21" century, Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2007.

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cannot bury the demons; it speeds their ravages and multiplies their points of contact. Our time is different than those before. Are two or three catastrophes to be anticipated, or can we expect an incremental lurch toward irredeemable loss? Will the sea rise over the streets of New Jersey before Dionysios triggers the warranted panic? Will the citizens of Beijing suffocate en masse before the god’s drums and cymbals disturb the early morning darkness? Or will it all devolve very slowly, punctuated with waves of contagion, terrorist attacks, and new petroleum deals? ‘Dionysios’ is not an inconsequential metaphor. Signs of the god are increasingly dominating individuals, crowds, and societies. Two of his principal signs are pandemonium and deathly silence, which indicate possession by the god and alternate

in his presence.*? They can be observed when noise, dread, and horror give way to the silence of tombs and the flutter of muffled tears. Remember the ‘9/11’ and the Boston Marathon attacks; remember the crowds running from schools, theatres, and train stations when the shooting begins; remember the torture, the terror, and the genocidal crowding of starving populations. Remember the maenads, Dionysios’s early followers. Their physiognomy and postures are behavioral signs of the god. One sign is the frozen stare; another is heightened bodily tonus, at times resembling catatonia. The stare of shock is a consequence of participating in the god’s horrific ecstasies. In many cases it becomes the mask of melancholy silence. Heightened bodily tonus signals anxiety and panic, and predicts chronic stress reactions. The maenads’ nighttime routs hint of frightening dreams and coming sleep disorders of epidemic proportions. Many of the nightmares have already come true. The god is called Bromios, the ‘Roarer’, in which guise he

inspires fury and thudding blows, and the eerie bellowing of crowds.”? His forest haunts having been destroyed, he favors the sports arena, where he infuses enthusiasm and blood emotion. As the ‘Liberator’ he prances under the flag of freedom, which his followers confuse with intoxication.”! And so he guides drug cartels across seas and deserts to slums, playgrounds, and entertainment venues. As the ‘Loud Shouter’ he inspires human sounds in the midst of disaster and the clapped-out routines of politicians. He is the “Thunderer’, flaunting himself in the convulsive force of bombs and collapsing buildings.** He combs the detritus along shorelines after the blunt edge of typhoons has destroyed habitations and atomic facilities. Dionysios is the masked god, the god whose symbol is a mask, in which capacity he oversees drama and theatre.’’ He is the origin 89 W/E Otto, Dionysus: Myth and cult, Dallas: Spring Publications, 1981, 93-94. 9

Otto, Dionysus: Myth and cult, 93.

1 Tbidem. 2 Tbidem. °3 For Dionysios and tragedy, see Otto, Dionysus: Myth and cult, ch. 6.

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of tragedy, the open stage of hubris. His galvanic appearances are rendered theatrically when officious, smartly dressed broadcasters report cheerfully on natural and political disasters. On the night they murdered Pentheus his maenads suckled wild animals and drank milk that seemed to gush from the earth.” The milk is gone; his present followers create toxic effluvium and suck flammable gases. His ancient rites included the dismemberment of wild animals. Now the earth is being dismembered. The ascetic must see the god behind the mask and remember the madness that overcame Nietzsche when he stared him in the face. Heraclites saw and named him: “Hades and Dionysus, for whom they go mad and rage, are one and the same’.”” Hades reigns in the underworld, a stopping point for the Son of Man, who touched all upraised hands before exiting that dark, confusing place.?° The humans have loaded the gun and pulled the trigger. He can do little more than watch the passing bullet. His flag is a speck of light in scenes of awesome futility. The difficulty is not in detecting evidence of collective human failure; it is in establishing the time frame in which its real-world consequences will come to their natural end. ‘As for the exact day or hour, no one knows,

neither the angels in heaven nor the Son, but only the Father’ (Mt 24:36). Only a fool would watch the clock. But danger presents opportunities, not to mention the demand for creativity. Warriors know this from battle; ascetics know it from

the inside: Near is and difficult to grasp, the God.

But where danger threatens That which saves from it also grows.””

I refer to The Bacchae, Euripides’s late tragedy. See D. Mendelsohn, “The Bacchae: Ecstasy >

and terror’, in: New York Review of Books (Sept. 25, 2014), 82-83. Otto, Dionysus, 116.

6 J refer to icons portraying the ‘Harrowing of Hell’, Christ’s visit in the underworld after the Crucifixion. The image of touching hands is meant to suggest apocatastasis, the doctrine of universal salvation. Origen was first to formally develop the doctrine in a Christian context. But it has not been endorsed as true doctrine in the Eastern or the Western traditions. Ancient hymns and poetry in the Eastern Church concerned with Christ’s visit in Hades include many indications of this belief (H. Alfeyev, Christ the conqueror of Hell: The descent into Hades from the Orthodox perspective, Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2009). Does Justice outweigh Love, or does Love incorporate Justice in a manner that surpasses Justice’s immediate aims? I say “all upraised hands’. All hands whose posture indicates willingness and the acceptance of personal need are touched. This leaves open the question of whether other hands are clenched, withdrawn, or prepared to strike the Savior. 97

These are the first four lines of Novalis’s poem Patmos (M. Hamburger [Trans.], Friedrich Hélderlin, Poems and fragments, London: Anvil, 1994, 483).

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6.7 Illustration of Evagrian Psychotherapy I come to the most complex example of self-administered psychotherapy in the Evagrian corpus. A certain ascetic (presumably Evagrius himself), while ‘keeping vigil at night’, was attacked by ‘terrifying fantasies’ that were apparent to ‘his

outward eye’ as well as ‘his inner sight’.?® Over coming nights ‘the battle was waged against the soul’. He ‘struggled with anxiety’ and was fearful of ‘losing his wits’.!°° He executed a plan of intervention in a systematic manner under conditions that could induce panic or a delusional state in an untrained person. In the following passage, the bracketed numbers indicate the several steps of the intervention and are used to organize the subsequent analysis: [1] But the one at risk forced himself to restrain interiorly the ruling faculty of his mind, while having his soul depend on the giver of prayer; [2] bringing forward against himself the actions of his faults, he struggled to gaze within himself. Then, [3] diverting the soul’s attention to the fire of judgment, he instilled it with fear so that by striking fear with fear he might drive away his cowardice. And so it came about, just as the one who had experienced the warfare said. [4] For while

the demons were terrifying his soul in many ways, the sufferer besought God in prayer; and while they were distracting his soul with fantasies, he gathered up the mass of his faults and disclosed them to God who sees all. [5] And in turn, when

they tried to draw his eye from prayer, he countered with the fear of judgment and wiped out his fear of phantasms. For when one dimension of fear exceeded the other, it overcame error with the help of God. [6] When the soul was humbled by

the remembrance of its sins and awakened from sleep by the fear of judgment, it exhaled from its inward parts the terror of the demons. [7] But everything came

from grace from above: driving away the terrors of the demons and sustaining the soul that was falling, for “The Lord upholds all those who are falling and sets aright all those who are cast down’.!°!

(1) In preparing for the evening’s battle, the ascetic ‘restrain[ed] interiorly the

ruling faculty of the mind’ and readied himself to ‘depend on the giver of prayer’. In other words, he composed himself and focused his attention in readiness for calling upon God. His ‘ruling faculty’ or intellect had given way to generating fantasies. In calming himself and focusing attention, he allowed his intellect to revert to its pure state as the spiritual power of the soul. (2) He then ‘gazed within himself’, seeking personal ‘faults’. In other words, he ignored the

terrifying fantasies and sought to identify the sins and moral infractions that became evident as he reviewed his personal history. (3) He then considered and 98 Evagrius of Pontus, The Greek ascetic corpus [Sinkewicz], 54.

°° Tbidem. 100 Tbidem. 101 Tbid., 54-55.

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probably imagined ‘the fire of judgment’.! In other words, he tested his sins and infractions against their consequence in the final judgment. Among these infractions were the very fantasies and thoughts with which the demons were presently afflicting him. He felt fear in face of the anticipated judgment: a different kind of fear than the fear afflicted through demonic action. He set fear against fear: penitential fear against demonic fear. (4) He next “besought God in prayer’; and ‘gather[ing] up the mass of his faults’ he offered them to the One ‘who sees all’. In other words, he adopted a penitential stance and presented himself to the final arbiter. (5) The demons, in their imaginal manifestations,

persisted in trying ‘to draw his eye from prayer’, but he repeatedly “countered with the fear of judgment’. The intensity of penitential fear eventually exceeded ‘his fear of phantasms’. In other words, the ascetic fought distractibility through his continued focus on prayer, which heightened the intensity of his penitential remembrance of past infractions. In time, the intensity of penitential fear exceeded that of demonic fear. (6) The ascetic, once he was suitably ‘humbled’ through the continued practice of his intervention, ‘exhaled [...] the terror of the demons’.

And so he ‘awakened’ from the ‘sleep’ or spiritual nescience of his earlier enslavement to demonic fantasy. His intervention worked; his ‘cowardice’ vanished. The humility he felt matched his circumstance as a human in relationship with God. The reported exhalation — ‘the soul [...] exhaled from its inward parts the terror of the demons’ — may refer to the ascetic’s breathing a sigh of relief. (7) Finally,

he acknowledged that “everything came from grace from above’. He sought and found assistance ‘with the help of God’. In ‘seeing all’, God recognized true repentance and responded in a manner that matched its sincerity and thoroughness. Evagrius concluded the passage with a verse from Psalm 144: “The Lord upholds all those who are falling and sets aright all those who are cast down’. He appealed to a sanctioned text to show that the ascetic’s good fortune was neither happenstance nor the result of his own devices. It was the predictable consequence of a psychotherapeutic intervention that was enacted in a prayerful and penitential state of mind, and in stated reliance on the power of God. 6.8 Demons, Delirium, and Migraine

Demons can alter perception in each sensory modality. Their activity can be seen, heard, or smelled, and can also stimulate haptic experience. They can indirectly influence taste, granted their power to affect appetite and the choice of food.!™ '? For the ‘remembrance of death’ and Evagrius’s recommendation to imagine the trials and scenes of judgment, see ch. 19. '3 For demonic contacts based on visual, auditory, olfactory, and gustatory perception, see ch. 3(3), 4(5), 6(4,8), 11(1).

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The present section is focused on demonic contacts of a visual or a tactile nature. Medical conditions that may contribute to the perception of demons are considered. In saying “demonic contact’, I do not mean the figure of a demon is perceived in all instances. A skin lesion may have a demonic origin and yet not be associated with the perception of the responsible demon. The illustrations in this section are drawn from Evagrius’s writings. Evagrius spoke of “demons who become visible to us and [thus] tempt us to be terrified’.'°4 Their visibility is correlated with an intensification of the ascetic’s fear. Here are other examples of the fright caused by demonic fantasies: While one of the brothers was keeping vigil at night, the demons formed for him terrifying fantasies, not only in his outward eye but also in his inner sight so that during the following night, struggling with anxiety, he ran the risk of losing his wits, and for several nights the battle was waged against the soul.

The demons seen through ‘inner sight’ are fantasy images in mental space, while those visible to the ‘outward eye’ are hallucinations situated in extracorporeal space. All such perceptions are mediated through the spiritual sense of vision. An early father said ‘they attack us from outside, and they also stir us up from within’! Evagrius spoke of ‘phantasms’ that show ‘conversations with our friends, banquets with our relatives, whole choruses of women’.'°” Such complex fanta-

sies ‘constrain us to walk along precipitous paths where they have us encounter armed men, poisonous snakes and man-eating beasts’.!°° Ascetics are ‘filled with

terror before such sights, and fleeing we are pursued by the beasts and the armed men..!” Demonic fantasies during the day may evolve from the dreams of the preceding night: It sometimes happens that even after awakening they [‘the anchorites’] are again

encircled by the same wild beasts and see their cell all afire and filled with smoke. And when they do not give in to these fantasies nor fall into cowardice, they in turn see the demons immediately transform into women who conduct themselves with wanton indecency and wish to play shameful games.'!°

104 Evagrius Ponticus, Scholia on the Psalms [Dysinger], part 7 (Ps. 91:12). 105 Evagrius of Pontus, The Greek ascetic corpus [Sinkewicz], 54. 106 LD), Burton-Christie, The Word in the desert: Scripture and the quest for holiness in early Christian

monasticism, New York: Oxford University Press, 1993, 193.

107 108 109 110

Evagrius Ponticus, The Praktikos and Chapters on Prayer [Bamberger], 31. Tbidem. Tbidem. Evagrius of Pontus, The Greek ascetic corpus {Sinkewicz], 172.

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The demons are mercurial tricksters who adapt their attacks to the ascetic’s psychological weaknesses. Images of wanton women are likely to destroy concentration if beasts, smoke, and fire have not already done so.

The images in the preceding quotations are correlated with an exacerbation of the passible powers. Pathological disturbance in the irascible power is apparent from ‘armed men’, ‘cowardice’, ‘man-eating beasts’, and a monastic cell filled with smoke and fire. Other images reflect disturbance in the desiring power: ‘banquets’, ‘choruses of women’, ‘wanton indecency’, and ‘shameful games’. All the images display disorder in the soul’s irrational aspect when it operates independently of the regulating power of the intellect. Apart from skill in introspection, the ascetic must be a strategist in confronting demonic fantasies. The demon responsible for a recurrent fantasy must be tracked for days, and meanwhile the ascetic lays in wait and observes ‘where he starts from and where he ends, for he does not make this long circuit by chance or at random’.'!' The fantasy images must be remembered and their sequence analyzed. Special attention is given to the outcome or final scene of the fantasy, which Evagrius called ‘the place hidden by him’.'!* This ‘place’ is the customary terminus of the recurrent fantasy: its telos and most basic image. Later, when

the ascetic faces another round of the same fantasy, he must reveal to the demon its habitual moves and ‘put him to flight by exposing him with a word’: ‘It is

impossible for him to stand his ground after he has been openly exposed’.!!% The ‘proof of the ascetic’s success is the absence of the fantasy in the future.!™4 A demon cannot work effectively when its victim is fully conscious of its presence. Evagrius’s strategy is like the therapeutic technique of active imagination, in which the imaginal figures generated through spontaneous imagination are engaged in a serious way, with a temporary suspension of disbelief in their reality.!'? An obvious presupposition of Evagrius’s strategy is that fantasy is not a random display of images but an orderly and intrinsically meaningful process. Demons are active in the mind and also in mere physiology. They can attack the body directly: ‘like wild beasts they will come upon you and maltreat your entire body’.''® “Maltreat your entire body’ implies that demons can affect proprioception and induce nociceptive experience. The demon of fornication can ‘touch even the flesh, inducing within it an irrational burning’.!!” The sensation is irrational because it is merely physiological. wy 2 13 "4 >

Otay, Lo). Tbidem. Tbidem. Tbidem. Jung, The archetypes of the collective unconscious.

6 Evagrius of Pontus, The Greek ascetic corpus [Sinkewicz], 203. 17 Thid., 163:

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In some cases, medical factors are responsible for demonic perceptions. The first of three examples occurs in Antirrhetikos where Evagrius described ‘demons that fall upon the skin of the body scorching like flames with their touch and then leave circular marks like those made by a cupping instrument. These I have often seen with [my] eyes and been amazed’.!!8 In other words, the ascetic is

feverish as if he were scorched by flames. He develops skin lesions (‘circular marks’) and may envision demonic forms. Evagrius’s description suggests delirium and organic hallucinosis, perhaps associated with erythema multiforme.!!® Elsewhere in Antirrhetikos, he mentioned ‘the vision of disturbing and disgusting things that appear [to us] at night’.!7° Such ‘things’ concern vile demonic images. In ill persons subject to delirium, the darkness and fatigue that arrive with night worsen already compromised neuropsychological functioning, which can lead to confusion and frightening visual hallucinations. High fever makes such a scenario more likely. Evagrius’s appeal to firsthand information (‘I have often seen’) would refer to personal experience when he was ill and feverish, or to his imagining demons attacking a feverish monk other than himself.!?! The remaining examples of demonic attacks caused by medical illness involve two types of migraine. In the first type, the headache occurs but not a visual aura; in the second, called acephalgic migraine, a visual aura occurs but not a headache.'”* Evagrius described a group of demonic signs that suggests the first impression. He ‘often experienced’ the signs; he ‘learned this by frequent

observation’.!*? The signs follow a predictable course. Their onsetis gradual rather than paroxysmal. The responsible demon ‘presents himself to the brothers especially about the time of dawn’ and ‘sits in front of those engaged in reading and tries to seize their mind’.'4 The timing and the setting of the attack indicate that the demon is active during the vigil. The first sign is ‘unnatural and prolonged yawning’, which is a premonitory symptom in migraine.'” The 8 Evagrius Ponticus, Antirrhetikos [Dysinger], 2.65.

19 “Erythema multiforme is an acute disorder of unproven cause, but it behaves in some respects like an infection and can have a febrile onset. Vividly red, symptomless blotches erupt symmetrically on the limbs and characteristically produce a concentric play of color — the target lesion. The attacks are over within 2 to 6 weeks’ (A. Lyell, ‘Erythema multiforme’, in: T.B. Fitzpatrick et al. [Eds.], Dermatology in clinical medicine, New York: McGraw Hill,

1971, 598). 120 Antirrhetikos, 4.29. 121 Antirrhetikos, 2.65.

122 Headache Classification Subcommittee of the International Headache Society, “The international classification of headache disorders’ (2"4 ed.), in: Cephalgia 24 (2004) Suppl. 1, 9-160. '23 Evagrius of Pontus, The Greek ascetic corpus [Sinkewicz], 176.

124 Thid., 159, 176; also see 268. 125 B. Quintela et al., ‘Premonitory and resolution symptoms in migraine: A prospective study in 100 unselected patients’, in: Cephalgia 26 (2006), 1051-1060; G.G. Schoonman et al., “The

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next sign is ‘extreme coldness’ of the head and the eyelids, leading to ‘numbness and shivering’ of the ‘entire face’.!*° Demons were thought to be cold in nature; thus their touch can chill the victim. The coldness mentioned by Evagrius may represent a sensory aura or heightened sensitivity to cold based on the thermoregulatory dysfunction associated with migraine.'”” In time, the monk’s eyelids ‘slip over the pupil’ and become ‘fixed like ice’.!?® This observation may refer to a transient paralysis, another symptom in some instances of migraine. Another sign is increased ‘moisture’ or tearing, which is possibly an autonomic response related to migraine.!?? Evagrius said the demon ‘touches the interior of the mouth’, producing an oral sensation that can be understood as a migrainerelated paresthesia.!3° Another sign is ‘heaviness and numbness of the shoulders’, which may refer to tension in the muscular distribution of the trigeminal nerve, aggravation of which contributes to the onset and the pain of migraine.'*? Evagrius said the demonic attack prevents the ascetic from reading, suggesting poor concentration and possibly the aura symptom of transient aphasia.'** His description of the headache can be understood in terms of either the focal, pulsating pain of migraine, or the diffuse, band-like pain of a tension headache. The difference depends on the meaning of his remark: ‘the head feels as if it is being sucked by a cupping glass with a rasping sound’.!*? Were the ‘cupping glass’ small in coverage, the pain would be focal; were it as wide as the circum-

ference of the head, the pain would be relatively diffuse. Evagrius said the progression of demonic signs leads to ‘sleepiness and lethargy’ and eventually to ‘a deep sleep quite different from usual sleep’.'54 Somnolence is common during the resolution phase of migraine, but the diagnostic significance of this sign is prevalence of premonitory symptoms in migraine: A questionnaire study in 461 patients’, in:

Cephalgia 26 (2006), 1209-1213.

12) lo

Evagrius of Pontus, The Greek ascetic corpus [Sinkewicz], 176.

27 A.C. Gallup & G.G. Gallup, “Yawning and thermoregulation’, in: Physiology and Behavior 95 12 fo}

(2008) nos.1—2, 10-16. Evagrius of Pontus, The Greek ascetic corpus [Sinkewicz], 146; M.B. Russell & J. Olesen,

‘A nosographic analysis of the migraine aura in a general population’, in: Brain 119 (1996), 355-361; T.H. Lai, J.L. Fuh, & S.J. Wang, ‘Cranial autonomic symptoms in migraine: Characterization and comparison with cluster headache’, in: Journal ofNeurology, Neurosurgery, and

Psychiatry 80 (2009), 1116-1119. 12 13) o!

Evagrius of Pontus, The Greek ascetic corpus [Sinkewicz], 176. Russell & Olesen, “A nosographic analysis of the migraine aura in a general population’; Evagrius of Pontus, The Greek ascetic corpus [Sinkewicz], 176.

13

13 i) 133 13 ay

R. Nardone et al., “Trigemino-cervical reflex abnormalities in patients with migraine and cluster headache’, in: Headache 48 (2008), 578-585; Evagrius of Pontus, The Greek ascetic corpus [Sinkewicz], 160. Russell & Olesen, ‘A nosographic analysis’. Evagrius of Pontus, The Greek ascetic corpus (Sinkewicz], 176.

Ibid., 159, 176.

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complicated by Evagrius’s and his brothers’ baseline condition of sleep depriva-

tion, which is a common migraine trigger.!* In the second example of a demonic attack resembling migraine, Evagrius described hallucinations of unformed light like the migraine visual aura. He speculated on their etiology: A demon ‘stimulates a specific site in the brain and agitates the cerebral circulation’, which causes ‘palpitations of the blood vessels’ and results in visions of ‘a beam of light’ or ‘a light rushing at your eyes’ as if ‘a sword [were] drawn against you’.!*° In stimulating the vision, the demon intends for the ascetic to commit idolatry by misidentifying the light as the presence of God. Common visual auras in migraine include the scintillating scotoma, the luminous forms called fortification spectra, and sparkling or flashing photopsia.'°’ Some of these images are like Evagrius’s description, including ‘a sword drawn against you’, if the shape and movement of the ‘sword’ are understood as an evolving scotoma. A visual aura occurs in most attacks of migraine without headache.'%® Evagrius’s description of visual hallucinations like those in the migraine aura may refer to his own acephalgic migraines. The strength of this possibility is boosted by his history of ‘frequent’, presumably migraine headaches during the vigil.'*° The anatomical aspect of Evagrius’s explanation of the visual hallucinations resembles the modern understanding of the vascular contribution to migraine.!° His reference to palpitation in the cerebrovascular system suggests his familiarity with information provided by Galen about vascular and neuroanatomical dissections performed by Herophilus of Chalcedon (330-260 B.C.E.). Herophilus developed a pulse theory in which the vessels dilate and contract based on the flow of pneuma from the heart and throughout the body.'*! In a wonderful set of analogies, he correlated pulses with poetic meters (pyrrhic, trochaic, etc.) and developmental stages (infancy, childhood, adulthood, old age), establishing layers

135 AN. Hauge, M. Kirchmann, & J. Olesen, “Characterization of consistent triggers of migraine with aura’, in: Cephalgia (2010). [Published online ahead of print]. Abstract from: DOI:

10.1111/j.1468-2982.2009.01930.x; Quintela et al., ‘Premonitory and resolution symptoms in migraine’. 136 Evagrius Ponticus, The Praktikos and Chapters on Prayer [Bamberger], 67, 70; The Greek ascetic corpus [Sinkewicz], 200, 203.

137 RE. Cytowic, The neurological side of neuropsychology, Cambridge, MA: MIT, 1996. 138 Russell & Olesen, ‘A nosographic analysis’. 139 Evagrius of Pontus, The Greek ascetic corpus [Sinkewicz], 176. pathogenesis’, in: Lancet 339 (1992), 1202-1207; K. Eiker140 J.N. Blau, ‘Migraine: Theories of mann-Haerter & C. Ayata, ‘Cortical spreading depression and migraine’, in: Current Neurology

and Neuroscience Reports 10 (2010), 167-173. 141 FB Acar et al., ‘Herophilus of Chalcedon: A pioneer in neuroscience’, in: Neurosurgery 56 (2005), 861-867.

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of meaning in the interrelationship of the microcosm of the body and the macrocosm of the world.!* Evagrius was correct in supposing that focal neural stimulation can cause corresponding and distinctive perceptual effects, as when stimulation in certain areas of the brain results in visual hallucination. His etiological explanation draws on multiple types of causation. The brain is directly responsible for the visual imagery; it is the material cause of the hallucination, and demonic activity is its efficient cause. Evagrius’s explanation is contrary to a naive spiritual reductionism in which supernatural demons utilize nonphysical means of communication to convey supernatural imagery. The demon’s activity is contingent

on the ascetic’s sinful intentions and the impassioned nature of embodied existence. In this sense, the role Evagrius assigned demons allows for psychogenesis of a moral nature. His proto-neuropsychology was advanced compared with the explanations of demonic perception in the ascetic literature of his and later times. Other writers recognized two categories of causation: ‘a disease of the brain’ and ‘the action of a demon’.!# The dichotomy is like the psychiatric distinction between mental illnesses of an ‘organic’ or a ‘psychological’ nature, only substitute ‘demonic’ for ‘psychological’. Later ascetics and mystical theologians emphasized the supernatural aspects of Evagrius’s writings. His physiological interests were neglected, presumably because of their materialistic bias and the state of medical science.

2 H. von Staden, Herophilus: The art of medicine in early Alexandria. Edition, translation and essays, New York: Cambridge University Press, 1989.

3 Price, A history of the monks of Syria by Theodoret of Cyrrhus, 105; also see 103.

CHAPTER 7

STILLNESS AND DISPASSION

Dispassion counteracts the eight dispositions described in the preceding chapter. It opens a path to virtue and readies the mind for superlative forms of prayer. The roots of the Christian concept of dispassion extend to the Stoic concept of ataraxia (‘tranquility’) and the Platonist concept of apatheia (‘dispassion’).! Clement of Alexandria introduced dispassion as a principal goal of the ascetic life. His view was extreme, and Cynic in its outline: The Christian Gnostic is to become like Jesus, who ‘was entirely impassible; inaccessible to any move-

ment of feeling — either pleasure or pain’. Through Evagrius and other early ascetic theologians, dispassion acquired the penitential and devotional associations that surround its meaning in the later tradition. In Evagrius’s writings, Praktikos 81 is a clear illustration of the interwoven nature of the theistic, the penitential, and the devotional aspects of Christian dispassion. It merits analysis as a template that later ascetic theologians mostly adopted: Agape is the progeny of apatheia. Apatheia is the very flower of ascesis. Ascesis consists in keeping the commandments. The custodian of these commandments is the fear of God which is in turn the offspring of true faith.’

Evagrius has created a kind of formula that tracks nodal points of the ascetic life. A theistic context is assumed; faith occurs on this basis. Granted the purity and holiness of the object of faith, fear arises, and fear enjoins a penitential frame of mind that motivates adherence to the commandments. The commandments establish the baseline condition of ascetic practice, which corrects the human flaws whose presence generates penitence. On this basis, dispassion arises, 1 A.A. Long, Hellenistic philosophy: Stoics, Epicureans, Sceptics, Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1986; S. Rappe, Reading Neoplatonism: Non-discursive thinking in the texts of Plotinus, Proclus, and Damascius, New York: Cambridge University Press, 2007.

2

Kirby, Clement of Alexandria. Stromateis 6. For Clement's Cynic-influenced image of Jesus, see

3

Finn, Asceticism in the Graeco-Roman world. Evagrius Ponticus, The Praktikos and Chapters on Prayer [Bamberger], 36.

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from which love may then emerge. But the formula is not a list of sequential steps; it is best conceived as a circle that turns often during the ascetic life, usually without completing a cycle. Granted faith, the circle is set in motion, and fear evolves toward its opposite. The dominant emotion of one’s life may change, fear becoming love. This is a precarious process; a lifetime may be required before the circle completes a full rotation. The most consequential rotations are counterclockwise, deepening the exploration of the psyche’s variously sinister and benevolent recesses. In Evagrius’s writings, ‘stillness’ characterizes the overt aspects of the ascetic life as it should be lived daily. His references to stillness typically concern prac-

tical matters such as the importance of fasting, manual work, and avoiding visits from friends and family.‘ In the later tradition, ‘stillness’ retained the general meaning of the well-lived ascetic life and also acquired narrower, specifically cognitive meanings that are not regularly emphasized or elaborated in ascetic writings on dispassion. These meanings are all concerned with nipsis: a mental practice in which attention is trained and refined in the service of prayer. The practice of nipsis helps to create and to sustain the condition of stillness. ‘Nipsis is translated ‘vigilance’, ‘alertness’, and ‘watchfulness’, of which ‘vigi-

lance’ is the closest rendering of the practice’s cognitive aspect. The several words identify features of a cognitive process that is oversimplified in expressions like “paying attention’. John Climacus is significant among early ascetics for emphasizing the cognitive, ipsis-related dimension of stillness.” His writings on the topic suggest an effort to amplify an old term’s meaning. A century earlier, John the Solitary remarked on the cognitive aspect of vigilance and its downstream consequence of bodily calm: “Vigilance makes the understanding luminous, it keeps the intellect awake, it makes the body still’; ‘it is more beneficial than all other [ascetic] labors’ and should be practiced ‘even in preference to

fasting’.° In the first section of this chapter, the delicacy of stillness is contrasted with

the permanence of dispassion. In the second, mipsis is interpreted as a process of attentional training. The third section addresses the emotional and the moral dimensions of nipsis. The fourth is concerned with Gregory of Sinai’s conception of nipsis as a means of purifying memory. The fifth section is a concluding appraisal of the relationship of stillness and dispassion. The final section is focused on Symeon of Studite, the namesake and the spiritual father of Symeon the New Theologian. The New Theologian insisted that the Studite had attained 4 >

Evagrius of Pontus, The Greek ascetic corpus [Sinkewicz], 1-11. John Climacus, The ladder of divine ascent [Moore], 198, 199, 203, 206, 207.

°

Brock, The Syriac Fathers on prayer and the spiritual life, 87.

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permanent dispassion and gave striking examples to prove it. Scholars have identified the father as a ‘holy fool’ based on his reported behavior.’ 7.1 The Delicacy of Stillness

If his disciple Palladius was correct, Evagrius attained permanent dispassion three years before he died: ‘Near the time of his death, he [Evagrius] said: This:

is the third year that I am not tormented by carnal desires”’.® This was thirteen years after his anachoresis, his ‘withdrawal’ or entry into the ascetic life. In Praktikos, Evagrius suggested the possibility of permanent dispassion: ‘Anachoresis is sweet after the elimination of the passions’; “The virtues both purify the soul and remain with it once it has been purified’.? Similarly, Symeon the New Theologian told monks that dispassion could become their permanent possession based on penitence and strict asceticism.'° He insisted that his spiritual father’s dispassion was perfect and permanent. Regardless of circumstance, the father could ‘abide unharmed and be unmoved from the foundation and stability which is according to nature’."! A passage from Isaac the Syrian’s Ascetical Homilies suggests the possibility of permanent dispassion. He linked its attainment with subsequent mystical experience: When a man attains to purity from the passions, then things which eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor have gone up into the heart of a man that he should ask for them in prayer, are revealed to him through purity, which does not desist even for a moment from mysteries and spiritual visions.'*

Another passage from the Ascetical Homilies implies that stable, permanent dispassion is attainable: For the soul that once and for all has surrendered herself to God in faith, and has

received through much experience the taste of His help, will not take thought for herself again, but rather, she is stilled in awestruck wonder and silence, and has

no power to return to the ways and means of her own knowledge and to be engaged in them.”

8

Turner, St. Symeon the New Theologian; S. Ivanov, Holy fools in Byzantium and beyond, New York: Oxford University Press, 2006. Meyer, Palladius: The Lausiac history, 114.

9

Evagrius of Pontus, The Greek ascetic corpus [Sinkewicz], LO4 did

7

10 McGuckin, Symeon the New Theologian, 62.

1! Tyanov, Holy fools in Byzantium and beyond, 186; Golitzin, Ethical discourses. Vol. 2,79. 12 Tsaac the Syrian, The Ascetical Homilies [Holy Transfiguration Monastery], 554. 13, Tbid., 390.

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The experience of awestruck wonder is a conclusive initiation into a new way of life in which the ascetic ‘has no power to return to the ways and means’ of his earlier, impassioned manner of being. The experience confirms the success of his previous struggle for dispassion. Contrast the preceding views about the permanency of dispassion with Isaac the Syrian’s observation about the impossibility of enjoying perfect stillness: Even though a man who wishes to dwell in stillness abandons all things, takes concern for his soul alone, and is without any care for the things of this life, he will still be unable perfectly to perform the work of stillness.'4

Isaac recommended the solitary life because even cursory contact with lax monks or ordinary people can spoil stillness: “And in very truth, my brethren, association with those who have relaxed stillness is especially harmful’.!? Such contact is ‘sufficient to produce [...] turbidness and a chilling of his mind from things divine’.'°

The delicacy of stillness is such that a respected father worried that his practice of nipsis would be ruined if he went to urinate: ‘I tell you in very truth, that if I go out to pass water, I am shaken from my habit [of mind] and its order,

and I am hindered from my [spiritual] work and from the accomplishment of my rule of prayer’.'’ Another monk ‘suffered much affliction and turmoil’ when

helping a brother ‘would interrupt and disperse my stillness’.!® The father’s response to the monk’s problem captures the importance of stillness and the challenge of sustaining it: May that righteousness perish, and every form of mercy, love, compassion, or whatever is thought to be for God’s sake, which hinders you from your practice of stillness; [...] disperses your watchfulness; [and] abolishes the abstinence of

your senses.”

The tradition’s deeply contemplative nature is obvious. Strong measures are required to protect ipsis, that constant stillness might be ensured. John Climacus remarked on the impossibility of attaining perfect stillness. The following passage does not refer by name to nipsis but describes basic features of the practice: Constantly wrestle with your thought, and whenever it wanders call it back to you. God does not require from those still under obedience prayer completely free Ibid., 232. Isaac quoted other fathers on the difficulty of sustaining stillness and the ease with

which it is ‘dispersed’, see 229-231. bid:

220)

16 Tbidem. 17 Tbid., 230.

18 Tbidem. 19 Tbidem.

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of distractions. Do not respond when your thoughts are plundered, but take cour-

age, and unceasingly recall your mind. Inviolability is proper only to an angel.”°

Angels have perfect attention. Their contemplation is uninterrupted and of the highest quality. Their lives are constituted by attentive awareness of God. Ascetics have this capacity but lack its full development; their experience of stillness is transient and difficult to sustain. In Nikitas’s words, they have yet to become ‘angel-like souls [who] are ardent and clear-sighted in their devotion to divine

realities, as well as wise, gnostic and exalted in mystical contemplation’ (Phil. 4, 147). The ascetic who probes his soul in deep quiet is not himself an angel, although he can become ‘an earthly image of an angel’.”! The angels’ inviolable attention recalls a word of Evagrius’s: “Through true prayer a monk becomes equal to the angels in longing to see the face of the father who is in heaven’.”? Nipsis is an angel-making practice.” 7.2 Nipsis and Attention

The practice of nipsis is the cognitive aspect of stillness. What flows from stillness (deeds, feelings, ideas) are downstream

consequences of the practice.

‘Guarding the heart’, a synonym of mipsis, conveys the practice’s mixture of emotional and cognitive features. Nipsis screens undesirable mental content, and

in protecting awareness from distractions it promotes quietude. Isaac spoke of

ascetics engaged in nipsis who ‘stay three hours in one prayer and without effort possess a vigilant mind and no wandering of thoughts’. Nipsis is like the Buddhist practice of mindfulness.” Both are concerned with distractibility; both aim to stabilize attention. Gregory Palamus identified a central element of mipsis as ‘self-attentiveness’ and ‘rigorous watchfulness’ (Phil. 4, 334).

Evagrius meant something similar when he spoke of ‘observation’.”® Palamus 20 John Climacus, The ladder of divine ascent [Moore], 45.

een= lbid,, 199, 22

Evagrius of Pontus, The Greek ascetic corpus [Sinkewicz], 205; also see The Praktikos and Chapters on Prayer [Bamberger], 61, 68-69.

23 For ‘angelomorphism’ in the monastic literature, see Golitzin, “Earthly angels and heavenly men”; and ‘A monastic setting for the Syriac Apocalypse ofDaniel . The ascetic’s transformation into an angelic being bears eschatological implications. In mystical accounts with the ring of authenticity, the change is reported in brief, allusive remarks without extended theological

explanations. 24 Tsaac the Syrian, The ascetical homilies (Holy Transfiguration Monastery], 218.

25 A key reference in comparing nipsis and mindfulness is the Mahasatipatthana Sutta, an important discourse on the foundations of mindfulness (Walshe, The Long Discourses of the Buddha, 335-350). 26 The Greek ascetic corpus [Sinkewicz], 159-160.

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described a major obstacle to self-attentiveness in terms of inattention and distractibility: ‘Since the intellect of those recently embarked on the spiritual path continually darts away again as soon as it has been concentrated, they must continually bring it back once more’ (Phil. 4, 337). A Buddhist might give a similar description of the most common problem encountered in mindfulness. Nikitas focused on the use and quality of attention during the course of daily activities, apart from periods dedicated simply to prayer. He considered attentive self-observation one of the ‘basic principles of bodily discipline’ (Phil. 4, 154). A Buddhist, reading Nikitas’s instructions in the following passage, would recognize the meditative goal of “contemplating the body as body’, which is one of

the four foundations of mindfulness:”’ So long as we are learning the basic principles of bodily discipline, watching ourselves carefully when we taste food, or touch things, or gaze at beautiful objects, or listen to music or smell fragrances, we are under guardians and trustees; for we are still infants [...]. But when the time of such training is over and we have

attained dispassion, the Logos is born within us as a result of our purity of mind. (Phil. 4, 154)8

Whether tasting, touching, gazing, listening, or smelling, the ascetic must not fixate on individual sensory perceptions. He is to surround them with a scrim of attentive self-observation, on which basis he can monitor his responses in an emotionally neutral way. This net of attention prevents perceptions from hardening in conscious awareness; they are seen to arise and to dissipate, and are prevented from becoming repositories of personal desires and wishes. Such is the monitoring function of mipsis, which Nikitas characterized as ‘watching’.

The Buddhist analogy of such watchfulness is the ‘examining’ (vipassana) aspect of mindfulness.”” A consequence of the watching function of nipsis is subjective quietude, which settles consciousness when attention ceases its restless search. The Buddhist analogy of the quietude induced by mipsis is the ‘calming’ (samatha) aspect of mindfulness. *7 Walshe, The Long Discourses of the Buddha, 335. *8 As the quotation shows, Nikitas recommended the methodical application of mindfulness to the operation of the sensory modalities. A close parallel is the Buddhist goal of attending to the ‘sense-spheres’ during the formation of mental objects (Walshe, The Long Discourses of the Buddha, 342-343). 29 Shaw, Buddhist meditation. In speaking of the ‘monitoring’ function of nipsis and vipassana meditation, I use a neuropsychological term that refers to a form of cognitive control that enhances ‘novelty detection’ and prevents a ‘noisy internal miliew’ (R.T. Knight, M.F. Grabowecky, & D. Scabini, ‘Role of prefrontal cortex in attention control’, in: Advances in Neurology 66

[1995], 21). The medial and dorsolateral prefrontal cortices are particularly important in mediating this function (K.K. Ridderinkhof et al., “The role of the medial frontal cortex in cognitive control’, in: Science 306 [2004], 443-447).

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These specialized applications of mindful attention are not exclusive to Christian and Buddhist asceticism. The monitoring function of nipsis, which I liken to the examining aspect of mindfulness, was observed in Plotinus. Porphyry wrote: He was present at once to himself and to others, and he never relaxed his selfturned attention except in sleep: even sleep he reduced by taking very little food, often not even a piece of bread, and by this continuous turning in contemplation

to his intellect’.*°

Porphyry assumed that mindfulness enhanced Plotinus’s ability to constrain his appetite, which supported his limiting sleep to the desired length. In Nikitas’s view, the ascetic who masters the watching function of nipsis is dispassionate. From this point, the ascetic awaits a transformative intervention on the part of the Spirit: The Logos is born within us as a result of purity of mind, and He submits to the

law of the Spirit, so that He may redeem us who are under the law of the will of the flesh and may grant us the status of sonship. When this has taken place, the Spirit cries in our hearts, “Abba, Father!’, making this status known to us and revealing to us our intimate communion with the Father. (Phil. 4, 154-155)

The intervention embeds the ascetic in the internal process of the triune God. A consequence is a particular kind of prayer event: a cry born of intimate communion.

Apart from clarifying attention and inducing quietude, nipsis has the additional function of marshalling focal attention and directing its spotlight on predetermined mental content. A prime example of such content is the Prayer of Jesus.?! This function is unlike Buddhist mindfulness in that it constrains attention and causes it to settle on fixed content, which musters feeling and promotes its intensification. Nipsis veers from its basic likeness to mindfulness when it engages verbal process and serves the retrieval of mnemonic information. As these particular properties of nipsis show, it is an object-oriented mental practice compared with the objectless meditation of mindfulness. The neuropsychological aspects of the respective practices would also differ: “These phenomenological differences suggest that these various meditative states (those that involve focus

on an object and those that are objectless) may be associated with different EEG oscillatory signatures’. 30 J. Henderson (Trans.), Plotinus. Porphyry on Plotinus: Ennead I, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1989, 31.

31 For nipsis and the Prayer, see ch. 7(2-4).

32 A. Lutz et al., ‘Long-term meditators self-induce high amplitude synchrony during mental practice’ [electronic version], in: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 101 (2004) no.46, 16369-16373.

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7.3 Nipsis and Emotion

Evagrius wrote: ‘Attention in search of prayer will find prayer, for if anything else follows attention it is prayer’.*> The Three Methods ofPrayer, a manual written centuries after Evagrius’s death, incorporates his observation and extends it: Vigilance first goes on ahead like a scout and engages sin in combat. Prayer then follows afterwards, and instantly destroys and exterminates all the evil thoughts with which vigilance has already been battling, for attentiveness alone cannot exterminate them. (PAil. 4, 67)

The passage distinguishes two mental operations that are active in nipsis. The first (‘vigilance’) involves the scanning and targeting function of attention. In ‘go[ing] on ahead like a scout’, attention patrols mental space for distractions and sinful content. /Vipsis-related vigilance is a stable source of anticipation; sustained patience is implied.*4 The second operation (‘prayer’) is verbal and emotional. Silent or sotto voce appeals to God bring moral feeling to bear in resisting previously targeted content and in preventing it from contaminating awareness. In tandem, the two operations ensure the ‘purity of mind’ mentioned by Nikitas (Phil. 4, 154). Descriptions of the emotional aspects of nipsis mention fear, shame, and love. In Isaac’s view, fear and shame over personal sinfulness ‘impede the aberration of the mind’ and preserve the ‘holiness of his [the ascetic’s] conscience’.*’ These two

feelings are ‘like a veil that hangs over the hidden place of his thoughts’, filtering mental content, clarifying mépsis, and ensuring the purity of prayer.*° “Fear precedes love’, and love of God eventually substitutes for fear and shame.*” Love eases

the ascetic’s entrance into nipsis and is a virtually infallible monitor of its purity. In Isaac’s words, “When we attain to love, we attain to God’.*® The fear felt in beginning nipsis is a reflection of its moral dimension. It represents a desirable phase of a process of prayer that transforms the ascetic’s feelings toward God. John Climacus wrote on the emotional risk of mipsis: ‘He who is still troubled by bad temper or conceit, by hypocrisy and the remembrance of wrongs, should

33 Evagrius of Pontus, The Greek ascetic corpus [Sinkewicz], 209.

4 A scriptural root of the vigilance function of nipsis is the parable of the ‘ten bridesmaids who took their torches and went out to welcome the groom’: ‘Keep your eyes open, for you know not the day or the hour’ when ‘the reign of God’ begins (Mt 25:1.13). The groom had yet to arrive, highlighting the anticipatory focus of mipsis. When the intellect adopts a mental set defined by vigilance, it is an ‘eye’ open to the arrival of the reign of God. 9° Isaac the Syrian, The ascetical homilies (Holy Transfiguration Monastery], 116. Ato Ibid 105! 7 Tbid., 134. $8 Thidisi359.

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never set foot on the way to stillness lest he become deranged and nothing else’? The resistances encountered while practicing nipsis devolve from the passions. Unbridled passions incline the practitioner toward derangement; more

often they generate tiresome fantasies, redundant patterns of thought, and the transient passage of obscure urges through the mind and the body. The dire possibility mentioned by Climacus may seem false and dramatic, as if he meant to confound or frighten readers by inflating the niptic task of examining mental process and particularly conscience. But the challenges and risks are as he said. Their initial source is the Shadow complex, which is apparent as

an aversive barrier to a deeper passage into the autonomous psyche. Cassian made comparable warnings: not of madness but of the ascetic’s inability to tolerate the coenobium unless he commences, under expert guidance, the task

of examining himself that he might acquire ‘true humility of heart’ and ‘solid

and enduring peace’: In order to be able to arrive easily at this, they are taught never, through hurtful shame, to hide any of the wanton thoughts in their hearts but to reveal them to their elder as soon as they surface. [...] For they declare that it is an invariable

and clear sign that a thought is from the devil if we are ashamed to disclose it to an elder.*°

The disclosure in question is the revelation of thoughts to the spiritual father, which occasions the father’s demonstration of discernment. The father may also rely on direct insight of the heart, granted he has this charism. The disclosure is not a ‘confession’ that skirts the obvious and waxes and wanes in the relative importance of its content. Focus and concision have been developed through repeated self-examination. Practice does not make perfect; it does sharpen skill.

Nipsis is refined based on guidance received from the father. Ascetic theologians have differed on the recommended frequency of the revelation of thoughts. In the sixth century, Dorotheus of Gaza wrote: “We really need to scrutinize our conduct every six hours and see in what way we have sinned, since we sin so much and are so forgetful’ .*! Presumably, the observa-

tions drawn from introspective scrutiny would be told the father nearly as often. Symeon the Studite, who died about 986, said: ‘Each day you should reveal all your thoughts to your spiritual father’; “You must confess all the secrets of your heart, all that you have done from your infancy until this very hour, to your spiritual father or to the abbot’ (Phil. 4, 52, 53). Most ascetic theologians

39 John Climacus, The ladder of divine ascent [Moore], 203. 40 B. Ramsey (Trans.), John Cassian: The institutes, New York: Newman Press, 2000, 82, 83.

41 B.P. Wheeler (Trans.), Dorotheos of Gaza: Discourses and sayings, Kalamazoo, MI: Cistercian Publications, 1977, 175.

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commended the practice at least daily, or in the case of hesychasts living in remote cells or lavra, once per week.” The examination of mental process that meets niptic standards of quality is not limited to set routines or a set time, nor is it simply a matter of forming judgments about the moral aspect of particular thoughts. Raised to a high level, it draws on a carefully calibrated mental set that screens for impassioned mentation and enhances sensitivity to impulses that distract from a pellucid consciousness directed toward God. 7.4 Nipsis and Memory In Gregory of Sinai’s view, it is the corruption of human memory that causes the intellect to stimulate the distracting content that spoils mzpsis. Here is a summary of his analysis: The ‘distractive thoughts’ that disturb mipsis ‘arise and are activated in the soul’s intelligent faculty’ (PAi/. 4, 223). Such thoughts, he said, are ‘precursors of the passions’, which highlights the importance of attending to their inception and halting their proliferation. “The source and ground of our distractive thoughts is the fragmented state of our memory’ (222). Gregory did not use ‘memory’ as the word is used today; he was not concerned with the storage and retrieval of mnemonic information acquired in the course of everyday life. Rather, ‘memory’ refers to the divine image, the purified intellect, and the perfectly guarded heart.# Human memory was originally whole and simple; thus God was immediately accessible. Adam’s fall altered human cognition, making perfect ipsis impossible without divine assistance: The memory was originally simple and one-pointed, but as a result of the fall its natural powers have been perverted: it has lost its recollectedness of God and has become compound instead of simple, diversified instead of one-pointed. (222)

The corruption of memory is apparent from the diversity of mental representations that persistently crowd conscious awareness. /Vipsis purifies memory: “The memory is restored above all by constant mindfulness of God consolidated through prayer, for this spiritually elevates the memory from a natural to a supernatural state’ (223). Based on constant mindfulness, ‘we recover the origi-

nal state of our memory by restoring it to its primal simplicity (222-223). The restored memory mediates a form of knowledge that ‘was bestowed by God on the nature of rational beings at their very creation’.“4 Such knowledge “2 Hausherr, Spiritual direction in the early Christian East. ‘3 For ‘divine image’, see ch. 1(4); for ‘heart’, ch. 2(1); for ‘intellect’, ch. 1(3). The three terms

are virtually synonymous, at least in the context of ascetic psychology. “4 Tsaac the Syrian, The ascetical homilies (Holy Transfiguration Monastery], 395.

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‘is naturally simple and undivided’.4° When memory is made whole, one result is a blaze of emotion. In Isaac the Syrian’s words: ‘Spiritual unity is an unsealed and perpetual recollection that incessantly blazes in the heart with ardent .*° longing’ Gregory’s account of the corruption and recovery of memory does not mention the fifth-century ascetic Diadochos of Photike, although he appears to have drawn on Diadochos’s On Spiritual Knowledge and Discrimination.” Diadochos said the ‘perceptive faculty natural to the soul is single’; but it has been divided -

into ‘distinct modes of operation as a result of Adam’s disobedience’, thereby losing its ‘single and simple’ character (259). In comments that anticipate the

later cult of the Holy Name, Diadochos said ‘the remembrance of the glorious and holy name of Lord Jesus’ allows the ascetic to overcome the divisions within mental process that prevent him from experiencing ‘joy’ and ‘perceiving ineffably the goodness of God’ (259). Such joy ‘fills both soul and body [and is] a true recalling of the life without corruption’ (259). Nor does Gregory mention Plato or Plotinus, which is not surprising considering their pagan status. But his account of the corruption and recovery of memory has similarities with Plato’s concept of anamnesis or the ‘recollection’ of Forms and with Plotinus’s portrayal of the philosopher’s ascent from this world of multiplicity to a simple awareness of the One. Plotinus’s portrayal is overtly experiential. His concern was a rapturous insight resulting from participation in the source of being: ‘Proximity to the One’ is a ‘beauty wonderfully great’ in mediating ‘a rapture such as that of a lover who sees his beloved object and rests within it’.“® Plato, in Phaedrus, turned an epistemological theory about universal forms of knowledge into a imaginative narrative. He developed a myth in which the ‘winged soul’ (understood as ‘the mind of the philosopher’) prac-

tices recollection: ‘drawing on the plurality of perceptions to combine them by reasoning into a single class’. This allows the soul to recover ‘the things which our [pre-incarnate] souls once saw during their journey as companions to a god’.””

On this basis, the soul is made ‘truly perfect’ and ‘stands on the outer edge of heaven’ where it attains a ‘view of things as they really are’.”' Analogously, ‘the

4 Jbid., 395-396. 46 Ibid., 118. 47 Phil. 1, 251-296. See K. Ware, “The origins of the Jesus Prayer’. 48 Katz, The philosophy of Plotinus, 144, 155. See J. Dillon, ‘Mysticism’, in: G.W. Bowerstock, P. Brown, & O. Graber (Eds.), Late antiquity: A guide to the postclassical world, Cambridge,

MA: Harvard University Press, 1999, 599--600. 49 ©, Partenie, Plato: Selected myths, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004, 75 [249b—c]. 50 Plato, Selected myths, 75 [249c]. 51

[bid., 72, 73, 75 [247b, 248a, 249c].

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mind of the philosopher uses memory to remain as close as possible to those things proximity to which gives a god his divine qualities’.*” Perhaps Gregory did draw from Plato and Plotinus and adapt their ideas to his personal interests. It may have worked like this: He retained the emphasis on memory and recollection but interpreted them differently than Plato. What for Plato was pre-incarnate knowledge became for Gregory the pure, simple awareness of God that our forbears enjoyed before the fall. Gregory retained Plotinus’s emphasis on emotion but ‘christianized’ his ascent to the One. To this mix he added the concept of an original sin that corrupted the initial purity of human memory and resulted in dispersed attention and mental slavery to impassioned distractions. Meanwhile, he retained as his dominant concern the

pastoral goal of promoting the practice of mipsis. This practice gravitates toward the ascetic’s deification, recalling Plato’s image of the philosopher whose mental work draws him to ‘the things proximity to which gives a god his divine

qualities’.* 7.5 The Permanence of Dispassion

Dispassion and stillness both overlap and differ. Their relationship and respective qualities are outlined in the following set of impressions: Dispassion is a stable homeostasis; the ascetic is changed definitively. Stillness entails the ongoing application of nipsis. It is subtle, delicate, and riddled with challenges. Stillness is constituted by nzpsis, which reduces distractions, elicits quietude, erases or depletes impassioned representations, and selectively engages verbal process during prayer. In stillness, the passions are diminished or impeded on a temporary basis; in dispassion they are overcome. Stillness is a cognitive feature of dispassion; dispassion is a comprehensive change that promotes stillness. Dispassion can become permanent; a period of stillness is the transient attainment of dispassion. Dispassion is like a plateau; stillness is like a way station along the path. The difference between stillness and dispassion is like the difference between a ‘state’ and a ‘trait’.>4 If | become angry because of automobile traffic, I have passed into a state of anger. But this does not necessarily mean that I have the trait of being an angry person. Stillness is a state; dispassion is like a trait that affects the whole personality. The present interpretation highlights differences in the stability and the temporal parameters of stillness and dispassion. It implies that enduring physiological 2 Ibid., 75 [249c]. 3

Thid., 75 [249c].

4 Mz Zuckerman, Psychobiology ofpersonality, New York: Cambridge University Press, 1991.

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change must occur before skill in attaining stillness evolves into the trait of dispassion. Dispassion is not measurable on a graduated scale. A ‘switch’ must have turned such that the organism is permanently different. The present distinction between dispassion and stillness recalls Praktikos 60 where Evagrius described dispassion (apatheia) as graduated or subject to degrees based on the presence and the strength of demonic attacks. In the absence of attack, the ascetic’s dispassion is ‘perfect’. Here is Dysinger’s translation: Perfect apatheia comes into being in the soul after it has defeated all the demons that oppose the praktike [...] perfect apatheia is relative to the force of the particular demon which is attacking at any given time.”

Sinkewicz’s translation of Praktikos 60 distinguishes ‘perfect’ and ‘imperfect’ dispassion. The latter is gauged based on the strength of the presently active demon: Perfect impassibility emerges in the soul after the victory over all the demons that oppose the practical life. Imperfect impassibility refers to the relative strength of the demon still fighting against it.*°

Evagrius’s concept of perfect dispassion corresponds with the present understanding of dispassion as an enduring and stable homeostasis. The imperfect varieties (of which there are many, granted the diversity of demons and their varied styles of attack) correspond with the present interpretation of stillness as

a temporary attainment of dispassion that is riddled with challenges. Dispassion is a remainder left after cravings have ceased. It is also positive in the sense that its spiritual rewards can compensate for previous suffering. Evagrius remarked: ‘Anachoresis is sweet after the elimination of the passions’.*’ Ease follows suffering. Isaac the Syrian told of a ‘respected elder’ visited by a young ascetic who was ‘exceedingly harassed by the many temptations of the

demons’.*® The elder described his struggle to attain dispassion. The consequences of his success included mystical experience: Know, child, that for thirty years |have made war with the demons, and until the time when I completed the course of twenty years, I had not received any help whatever. But thereafter, when another five had also gone by, I began to find rest. And as time continued slowly on its way, it increased. The seventh year slipped by, and after that, when I was in the eighth [7.e., the twenty-eighth year of practice], it was intensified to a much great degree. And now that the thirtieth year is 5

L. Dysinger (Trans.), St. Evagrius Ponticus (345-399): Praktikos (63-90). The signs ofapatheia

(1990). Accessible at: http://www.ldysinger.com/evagrius/01_Prak/00a_start.htm. °° Evagrius of Pontus, The Greek ascetic corpus [Sinkewicz], 108.

7” Jbid., 104. 58 Tsaac the Syrian, The ascetical homilies [Holy Transfiguration Monastery], 410.

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running past, and has already reached its end, rest has prevailed to such an extent that I do not even know to what measure it has advanced.’ And he added, “When

I wish to get up for my office, I am permitted to say a single Glory be; but for the rest, if I stand three days, I am in awestruck wonder with God, and feel not

weariness at all.>?

7.6 A Dispassionate ‘Fool’

Symeon the Studite was not a fictional embodiment of saintliness but a virtuoso ascetic with a sophisticated style of practice. The foolish aspects of his practice approximate the ancient image of the ascetic ‘athlete’ who trains constantly and tests himself against impassioned forces with which ordinary humans cannot compete. The Studite incorporated in striking ways some but not all of the qualities of the traditional Fool for Christ.°° The Book of Steps, a fourth-century pastoral work, portrays a kind of ascetic whose behavior and mind-set resemble the traditional fool: Let me describe for you a crazy person [...] a crazy one who treats himself with contempt and does not own a house or a wife and any property, not even [extra] garments besides his clothes, nor food apart from a day-to-day [supply ...]. When you see him talking insanely with everyone — and [if] he establishes a law for himself so that he may not become angry in order not to be found at fault, and [if] he despises the wisdom [of] the wise sage of the world and the philosopher because he is contemptuous of whatever is visible — say, “These [qualities] are mine, this is the madness of the apostles’.°!

Fools have appeared infrequently across the span of the tradition. They were relatively prominent in sixteenth-century Russia.®* Traces of the holy fool are apparent in other traditions, including the most radical of American Protestant movements. The eighteenth-century Shakers developed a ‘fool rite’: a spontaneous drama that was meant to mortify pride and induce humility. A medium might sing a “fool-song’, or a group of Believers might enact an imaginary drama °° Tbid., 410-411. Before passing into ‘awestruck wonder’, the father had completed only onethird of a kathisma, a set of psalms that is ordinarily recited in its entirety. The doxology (‘Glory be ...’) is said after completing each third. For awestruck wonder, see ch. 4(6,7), 20(1). 60

E.g., Ivanov, Holy fools in Byzantium and beyond; J.-C. Larchet, Mental disorders and spiritual healing: Teachings from the early Christian East, San Rafael, CA: Angelico Press, 2005, 126161. 6! Kitchen & Parmentier, The Book of Steps, 164. 62 §. Hackel, ‘The Eastern tradition from the tenth to the twentieth century: Russian’, in: C. Jones,

G. Wainwright, & E. Yarnold (Eds.), The study of spirituality, New York: Oxford University Press, 1986, 259-276.

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in which they would ‘drink’ the intoxicating ‘wine of the Kingdom’ and feel

‘quite merry’.

The holy fool is not a historical curiosity. I knew one: a bearded, red-haired, blue-eyed troubadour who sang hymns and recited psalms from memory while he waited for meals in the foul air of a psychiatric ward populated with urban ghetto residents. A priest had arranged his commitment to the insane asylum because his preaching and singing outside of church had disturbed parishioners coming for Sunday service. He had few belongings. His clothes were nearly rags. He radiated sweetness, benevolence, and charisma. Others felt the impact of his presence, even sociopaths. Rather than threaten him, beg food, or ridicule his pale complexion, they asked for his prayers. The police took this man to a hospital before his commitment to a psychiatric facility. Standing in front of a window at the end of a corridor, he hallucinated the fractured orb of the sun and simultaneously heard a voice that identified the solar image as a vision of God. In a kind of Evagrian antirrhesis, he reprimanded the vision and the voice. He said: ‘If you’re God, show me!’ Sufficient proof was not forthcoming; he literally turned away from the temptation, an invitation to vainglory, pride, and blasphemy. Perhaps he recalled the apostle Paul’s warning: ‘Satan himself masquerades as an angel of light’ (1 Cor 11:14). His stance was iconoclastic; even the most powerful of hallucinatory phenomena did not deceive him. Medical staff said he was psychotic, and perhaps he was; but I have not met psychotic persons whose insight allowed them to debate and counter the presumptive accuracy of their own psychotic symptoms. This man’s experience recalls the motif of the demonic vision in early monastic literature. Philoxenus of Mabbug told the cautionary tale of an ascetic who believed he saw ‘the glory of the great ones’ when Satan, who identified himself as the Spirit, appeared ‘in a form of light’ and demanded worship.™ Philoxenus contrasted the benighted ascetic’s response with a ‘famous anchorite’ who turned away from a comparable vision, as did the man of my acquaintance.® Symeon the New Theologian’s descriptions of the Studite’s ‘foolish’ behavior reveal a rare level of dispassion and unusual means of cultivating it.° The father 63 Andrews, The people called Shakers, 165, 168.

64 Golitzin, The form of God and the vision of the glory, 28. 6° Tbidem. 66 The descriptions also reflect the love and emulation the father inspired in his disciple. Symeon’s relationship with his father and namesake, Symeon the Studite, exemplifies the interpersonal structure of the father-disciple relationship. See Turner, St. Symeon the New Theologian and spiritual fatherhood. A broad presentation of spiritual fatherhood is Hausherr, Spiritual direction in the early Christian East. Similarities between the Studite’s and the New Theologian’s practices and spirituality are discussed in Alfeyev, St. Symeon the New Theologian and Orthodox tradition. Alfeyev’s broader aim is to establish Symeon’s orthodoxy on scriptural, patristic, and

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made himself the subject of his own ascetic experiments. He tested his dispassion in morally hazardous circumstances to the point of ‘pretend[ing] to be evil’.°” His purpose was to learn about the passions and to apply his knowledge in counseling others. He was ‘without passion, yet for the sake of the salvation and profit of many [he] pretend[ed] to be subject to some passion’.®* Through

such means he became a ‘spiritual physician’: It is just what we hear of physicians doing, and what we have heard about the

ancients. They cut up the dead in order to understand the body’s design, so that from those bodies they may learn what the inner parts of living men are and try to heal in others those afflictions which are not readily seen.

So it was with the father ‘who, from his experience, wants to heal the sufferings of the soul’.”? Symeon described the father as a doctor, which is the ‘dominant

model for the spiritual father in Climacus and Symeon, and indeed in Eastern

Christian literature generally from the fourth century onwards’.”! In Symeon’s view, the father was one of the rare saintly persons ‘whose sense is not redolent [...] of the sensuality of the world [...], whose minds are not

affected by visible things but departed from the lowliness of the body’.’* The father was able to ‘circulate in the world and dine with women, or converse with

them, and remain unsoiled both in his intellect and his perceptions’.’* He was one of the rare persons who are ‘equal to the angels, perfectly united to God, who have wholly possessed Christ in themselves by action and experience, by perception, knowledge, and contemplation’.’”4 A person like the father ‘lives according to God’ — and ‘God is without passion’.’? An ascetic who has ‘become such a person [...] will make no difference between male and female’: Instead, both living and conversing with men and women and kissing them, you will abide unharmed and be unmoved from the foundation and stability which is according with nature [...]. Before, however, you have attained to such a measure

liturgical grounds. His book and Turner’s outline the everyday schedule in the Studite’s and the New Theologian’s monasteries. 67 The discourses [deCatanzaro], 143.

68 Tbidem. © Golitzin, Ethical discourses. Vol. 2, 73. 7° Tbidem. K. Ware, ‘Foreword: The spiritual father in Saint John Climacus and Saint Symeon the New Theologian’, in: I. Hausherr, Spiritual direction in the early Christian East, Kalamazoo, MI: Cistercian Publications, 1990, xii.

7

The discourses [deCatanzaro], 143.

7 Golitzin, Ethical discourses. Vol. 2, 70. 74 The discourses, 143. 7 Ethical discourses. Vol. 2, 70.

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Ht!

and behold the life-giving mortification of Jesus, God, at work in your members, you will do well to flee sights which are dangerous.”

The father remained pure in mind and body despite challenges like those described in the following passage: It is not possible to soil the soul or reasoning faculty of a man who has received the grace to bear God even if his most pure body should chance to be wallowing, so to speak, in a swamp of human bodies — a situation, to be sure, which is unusual for a God-fearing people. Nor do I stop there, but even if such a man were to be confined with tens of thousands who were unbelieving and impious and debauched, and his naked body were to be in contact with their naked bodies, he would not be injured in his faith, nor estranged from his Master, nor forgetful of His beauty.”

Symeon exaggerated for rhetorical purposes, but not only to emphasize the father’s holiness. He probably also meant to stir disbelief in the father’s ‘immoral’ activities. In fact, the father would circulate in the city for pastoral rounds, joined by his young disciple.’* He probably used public baths, ministered to prostitutes, and engaged in social activities that other monks were obligated to avoid. He was suspected or accused of moral infractions and questionable behavior. The New Theologian was examined, jailed, and exiled partly as a result of bringing greater notice to the father through establishing his cult without the authorization of ecclesiastical authorities.” A passage from Symeon’s personal journals gives an idea of the kind of behavior that garnered the opprobrium of ecclesiastical officials: Thus it happened, even now in the final age, Symeon the holy, the pious Studite, he was not ashamed before the members of any person, neither to see any naked people, nor to show himself naked; he possessed Christ completely, and he was completely Christ himself, and all his own members and the members of every

76 The translation presented here is based on Golitzin, Ethical discourses. Vol. 2, 79-80; and

Ivanov, Holy fools in Byzantium and beyond, 186. The father’s intent and behavior in social settings that put ordinary Christians at moral risk recalls the class of ascetics The Book of Steps calls the ‘Perfect’. The perfect ascetic can ‘take up the misfortune of the sick and be all [things] to all [people]’ (Kitchen & Parmentier,

The Book of Steps, 123; see Rm 15:1,

1 Cor 9:22). Entering ‘the house of evil people he will convert them, and if they are not converted, he will not perish [from exposure to their evil] because he has become an adult in

the Spirit’ (124). 77 Golitzin, Ethical discourses. Vol. 2, 71. 78

The discourses [deCatanzaro], 199.

79 G.A. Maloney, The mystic offire and light — St. Symeon The New Theologian, Denville, NJ: Dimension, 1975; McGuckin, ‘Symeon the New Theologian’s Hymns of divine eros’; Turner,

St. Symeon the New Theologian and spiritual fatherhood.

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THE SPIRITUAL TRADITION IN EASTERN CHRISTIANITY

other, he always saw one and all as Christ, and he remained unmoved, innocent, and dispassionate.®°

The father could safely engage in circumstances of this nature because he was ‘dead to the world, wearing the flesh as dead and in every case inert with regard

to sin but alive to God, and moved and energized by Him’.*! In Symeon’s view, the father was not affected by passion released through erotic contact: Struck by God with foolishness, as Paul and any of God’s servants would say, here

is a man of desires, desires of the Spirit, he, who even if he consorts with them body to body can remain pure in the Spirit. For, once beyond the world and these earthly bodies of ours, there is no longer any yearning for fleshly experience, but

a certain dispassion. One who kisses this dispassion also gains life from their kiss. Even if you truly see such a one behaving disgracefully, as if deserting his practice, as if he were only pleasing himself, know that a dead body is doing this! I do not mean a body apart from its soul, by which it is moved, but apart from external

evil desire.*®?

80

The translation presented here is based on Griggs, Divine eros, 89; and Maloney, Hymns of divine love by St. Symeon the New Theologian, 56). 1 have not replicated the line breaks in Symeon’s poetry; they tend to obscure his meaning when he is read in English translation (for

the poetics of Symeon’s Hymns ofDivine Love, see McGuckin, ‘Symeon the New Theologian’s Hymns of divine eros, 188-190). I agree with McGuckin, who believes these writings were used as devotional aids, were shared among Symeon’s closest disciples, and were not meant for broader dissemination. For this reason, I describe Hymns as Symeon’s ‘personal journals’. 81

Golitzin, Ethical discourses. Vol. 2, 79.

82

The translation presented here is based on Griggs, Divine eros, 62-63; Ivanov, Holy fools in Byzantium and beyond, 186-187; and Maloney, Hymns of divine love, 33. In place of ‘consorts with them body to body’, Ivanov has ‘joining in intercourse’. In becoming a ‘dead body’, unresponsive to stimuli that might otherwise stir impassioned mentation and physical arousal, the Studite was like Symeon of Emesa and Andrew of Constantinople, two fools of the Byzantine period. “As for any bodies coming near to’ Symeon of Emesa, ‘his perception of them was like that which a corpse might have of another corpse’ (Turner, St. Symeon the New Theologian and spiritual fatherhood, 64). A prostitute, after trying unsuccessfully to arouse Andrew, said, ‘This fellow is a corpse, or a piece of wood that cannot feel, or else a stone that never moves’ (ibid.). “Dead body’ and ‘corpse’, as used in describing saintly fools, reverse the apostle Paul’s meaning: “Without law sin is dead, and at first I lived without law. Then the commandment came; with it sin came to life, and I died. The commandment that should have led to life

brought me death’ (Rom 7:8—10). In Paul, ‘death’ signals the inevitable failure of trying to accomplish one’s salvation based on the Law, independently of Christ. In comparison, the ascetic’s corpse-like status signals dispassion, alliance with the immutable God, and possibly a flaccid penis in conditions that would commonly lead to tumescence. There is a symbolic homology between the ascetic’s ‘dead’ body and the Hindu iconography of the corpse-like Siva upon whom dances the enlivening figure of Sakti (Bharati, The Tantric tradition). ‘Dead’

should be interpreted as ‘passive’: passive to the force of the Spirit in the case of the Christian, and of Sakti in the case of the Hindu tantrika.

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23

The preceding passage was written soon after the father died, when he ‘crossed

over the gloom of mortality’ and ‘left the whole world behind’.8 His bereaved

disciple was then ‘separated from my very sweet brother’.®4 Symeon’s grief released him from the guardedness, the instructional intent, and the rhetorical quality that characterized his earlier descriptions of the father’s behavior. I would say that such behavior included kissing, embraces, public nudity, and possibly frottage. The erotic aspect of the father’s practice is like a mild Christian variant of the ‘left-handed’ tantric rituals of maithuna.® In both practices, the passions of the body are harnessed and channeled for the purpose of self-examination

and spiritual experience.*° Evagrius’s observations about ascetic psychology subsequent to the attainment of dispassion can be used to interpret the Studite’s behavior. I begin with Evagrius’s distinction between the passions of the body and those of the soul: Those (viz. the demons) who preside over the passions of the soul hold out until

death; those that preside over those of the body withdraw more quickly.®”

The passions of the soul are apparent in the form and content of mental activity, and those of the body are apparent in behavioral and physiological changes governed by drive states. The two kinds of passion are reciprocally related; the passion of fornication, for instance, generates physical sensations and corresponding fantasies. Evagrius’s remark that the passions of the soul ‘hold out until death’ while those of the body ‘withdraw more quickly’ implies that the reciprocity can break down. In other words, the intensity of a drive state may grow strong while the corresponding mental representations become sparse and abstract, or the representations may proliferate while the motive power of the corresponding drive state is weak or absent. Evagrius said that the passions of the body withdraw as the acetic acquires expertise, but those of the soul can linger, even unto death. The reverse circumstance, in which the passions of the body remain in force while those of the soul have dissipated, is found in certain brain syndromes. Pathological laughter in frontal-lobe cases is an example; another is profuse tearfulness, without associated feelings of sadness, in pseudobulbar

83 Griggs, Divine eros, 62. 84 Thid., 64. 85 Bharati, The Tantric tradition.

86 The father’s liberty in erotic circumstances leads to new questions about the reasons for Symeon’s expulsion from the Monastery of Stoudios, where he lived in the father’s cell for nine months to a year when he first became a monk. Might the father, who would ‘consort with them body to body’, have enjoined similar training practices on the newly admitted young monk? (Ivanov, Holy fools in Byzantium and beyond, 186). 87 Evagrius of Pontus, The Greek ascetic corpus [Sinkewicz], 104.

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palsy.88 But one need not resort to pathological cases for illustrations of the discontinuity between the passions of the soul and those of the body. Ordinary denial and repression can blunt and erase the mental expressions of a passion without dampening the corresponding bodily response. The strength of the

correlation between the two kinds of passion may weaken with age. An advanced ascetic like the Studite is no longer compelled by drive states after the passions of the body have subsided. The passions of the soul meanwhile linger and continue to take form as mental representations. A virtuoso like the father uses these representations to ‘observe and learn the movements and activities of the passions: where they take their origins from, and by what remedies they are in turn dispersed’.?° His insight is thus enhanced, and he is better equipped to advise others. The father was not unconscious of the passions of the soul; he was ‘untroubled’ when using their representations: The soul possesses impassibility, not by virtue of the fact it experiences no passion with respect to objects, but because it remains untroubled even with regard to the memories of them.?!

The father’s experience of potentially arousing representations was free of sexual craving and the fantasies it engenders. He could consider objectively the representations because they were ‘simple’ rather than compounded with compelling personal needs. He could ‘contemplate’ or attend objectively to the representations because he had surpassed the need of fighting them: And so anachoresis is sweet after the elimination of the passions, for then the

memories [z.¢., mental representations] are only simple ones and the struggle no longer disposes the monk to combat but to the contemplation of it.??

The father could discern the germinal forms of passion that drive mental activity, engender representations, and compel behavior aligned with desire: When the mind is engaged in the warfare of the passions it cannot contemplate the reasons [/ogoz] of the warfare, for it is like one who fights in the night. But 88 A. Miller, H. Pratt, & R.B. Schiffer, ‘Pseudobulbar affect: The spectrum of clinical presentations, etiologies and treatments’, in: Expert Review ofNeurotherapeutics 11 (2011), 1077-1088. 89 Certain drive states would be expected to occur with less frequency and intensity in the elderly ascetic. Does this mean that advanced age makes for an easier transition into dispassion? Metabolism slows; caloric needs are reduced. Does this mean that the ascetic who was prey to gluttony in earlier years becomes less troubled by this bodily passion? Does the reduced possibility of acquiring power and prestige because of age or infirmity mean that the ascetic is less subject to mental representations associated with the passions of pride and avarice? Do age-related changes in strength and beauty affect the passion of vainglory? Or is the reverse true in each case? °° St. Symeon the New Theologian, Ethical discourses. Vol. 2 [Golitzin], 73. °! Evagrius of Pontus, The Greek ascetic corpus [Sinkewicz], 109.

2 Tbid., 104.

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Bale

when it has acquired impassibility, it will easily recognize the artifices of the

enemies.”

The ‘artifices of the enemies’ are the passions inspired by demons. Their blockades, masks, and diversions were transparent to the father’s discernment. He

enjoyed objective awareness of the full stream of mental process. On this basis he could exercise a genius for psychological insight.

22 Tid 47LEb.

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16 Tbidem. '7 Nyanatiloka, Buddhist dictionary: Manual ofBuddhist terms and doctrines (4" rev. ed.), Kandy, «

Sri Lanka: Buddhist Publication Society, 1980.

Isaac the Syrian, The ascetical homilies [Holy Transfiguration Monastery], 210. '? For nipsis, see ch. 7(2,3). °0 For prelest, see ch. 9(4).

CHAPTER 11

GLUTTONY

The first section of this chapter is concerned with the diverse expressions of gluttony. The mental and physical effects of fasting are considered in the second. In the third, ascetic fasting is conceived as a subcortical intervention that affects the drives of hunger and thirst and the related states of emotion. In ascetic psychology, gluttony is viewed as the root passion and fornication as its derivative. The precedence of gluttony over fornication is discussed in the fourth section. Finally, fasting in Christian asceticism is compared with the Jain practice of self-starvation, and both are contrasted with the Buddhist view on the desirable severity of physical asceticism. 11.1 Diverse Expressions of Gluttony Gluttony has diverse expressions, the most obvious of which is hunger. The passion also affects the experience of eating through motivating food choices that promote sinful defluxions. Examples include chilled water and solid or spicy foods (Phil. 4, 255). Dorotheus identified two forms of the passion: ‘the mad-

ness of the stomach’, which is ‘a disease or mania for packing the belly full of food’; and an epicurean phenomenon he characterized as ‘the madness of the palate’.! Ilias commented on the second: “Those who exhort us [...] to indulge

the pleasures of the palate, act like people who encourage us [...] to allow the impulses of the flesh to enter like a wild boar and devour our good thoughts like grapes’ (Phil. 1, 65). As fornication differs from ‘marital union’, so ‘eating

for pleasure’ differs from eating to ‘preserve the strength of the body’.’ Gustation is another expression of gluttony. Tasting food commandeers the other senses and narrows attention to the desiring power’s drive for varied forms of consumption. Ilias wrote: “When the sense of taste is the chief purveyor of pleasure, the other senses are bound to follow in its wake’ (Phil. 3, 64). Taste

1 Wheeler, Dorotheos of Gaza: Discourses and sayings, 217. 2 Ibidem.

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experience awakens the other senses and engages the passion of fornication, even ‘if the reproductive organs [...] appear to be unmoved and free from excitement’

(64). Neilos spoke of gluttony’s reciprocal relationship with other passions, particularly avarice: Avarice, anger and dejection are all offshoots of gluttony. For the glutton needs money first of all, so as to satisfy his ever-present desire — even though it can never be satisfied. (Phil. 1, 238)

Money is needed to buy the food that satisfies the passion of gluttony. The pursuit of money enlists avarice, and the absence of money stirs the passions of anger and sadness. Neilos developed a rudimentary economic theory in which commerce and the meaning of money were societal expressions of the passion of gluttony. The ascetic’s success in pacifying the passion of gluttony is a measure of the status of the desiring power. Elias the Presbyter wrote: “The state of the desiring aspect of the soul is revealed through food, gestures, and speech’ (Phil. 3, 65).

In arousing the desiring power, gluttony impedes the practice of prayer: ‘Strength to pray lies in the deliberate privation of food, and strength to go without food lies in not seeing or hearing about worldly things except when strictly necessary (43). Even a full stomach cannot satisfy the passion of gluttony, ‘for even when the body is sated, desire is unsatisfied’ (Phil. 1, 239). The passion simply proliferates into other forms of craving. Fasting is the ascetic means of addressing the passion of gluttony. Other benefits flow from its practice. In Evagrius’s words, ‘Fasting completely purifies your transgressions and sins; it exults the soul, sanctifies your way of thinking, drives away demons and prepares you to be close to God’.’ His view is no more extreme than later ascetics’ praise of fasting. 11.2

Fasting

The ascetic attitude toward fasting has mostly held constant, but the amount and the types of food available to monks have varied. Monastic foundation documents from the Byzantine period show that the diet varied based on the food and money given a monastery, on the fertility of agricultural land in neighboring communities or owned by the monastery, and on whether the monk was a hermit or lived in community.* The food provided in monasteries included Evagrius of Pontus, The Greek ascetic corpus [Sinkewicz], 10. 4

R. Morris, Monks and laymen in Byzantium, 843-1118, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002.

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bread, beans, oil, and wine, supplemented with vegetables. Cheese is mentioned.

Meat and fish were available mostly in charitable hostels attached to monasteries. Some monasteries owned animals, suggesting the consumption of dairy products and possibly meat. A hermit might subsist on beans. Medical opinion contributed to food choices. Galen followed Hippocratic writings in distinguishing four principles whose somatic expressions were the humors, manifested as heat, cold, moisture, or dryness. A certain balance of humors was sought through dietary choices that matched a food’s dominant humor and the gender and the activities of the person who consumed it. Warm, dry foods suited men, in keeping with ‘their warm, dry flesh’.» The cold and the moist, characteristic of females, eunuchs, and children, posed risks to the

male ascetic. Balanced foods included bread and wine. Dry foods such as lentils, pulse, radishes, and vetch were regular elements of the monastic diet.© Warm

foods included cabbage, mustard, and leeks. Fruit was cool and moist. The concern over food had social implications and mythological resonance during early periods. For example, the ‘grazers’ in sixth-century Judea ‘survive[(d] for many years on natural vegetation’.’ Their eating habits demonstrated staunch asceticism, resistance to the corrupt ways of urban society, and recovery of the pure state exemplified by the biblical garden.® Fasting is a carefully attended set of actions that is upheld by a fixed attitude and traditional teachings. The food eaten varies depending on a number of factors, but the principles of the discipline remain about the same. Fasting blunts

the appetitive drive of hunger, striking squarely at the passion of gluttony. It spans a range of deprivations from the masochistic to the medically innocuous, and may have beneficial physical effects. To the masochistic extreme are the starving monks in John Climacus’s ‘Prison’.? A less extreme example was Father Makarios, who told Evagrius, ‘For twenty full years I have not taken my fill of bread or water or sleep. I have eaten my bread by scant weight, and drunk my water by measure’.!° John Moschos’s account of Colon’s fasting reflects a measure of exaggeration: “This is the rule of life which he maintained for thirty-five years: 5 6

K.M. Ringrose, The perfect servant: Eunuchs and the social construction ofgender in Byzantium, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2003, 65. A. Bandy (Trans.), ‘Mamas: Typikon of Athanasios Philanthropenos for the monastery of St. Mamas in Constantinople’, in: J. Thomas & A.C. Hero (Eds.), Byzantine monastic documents:

A complete translation ofthe surviving founders’ typika and testaments, Washington, DC: Dumbar-

ton Oaks, 2000, 971-1041; J. Thomas & A.C. Hero, ‘Appendix B: The regulation of diet in

the Byzantine monastic foundation documents’, in: Byzantine monastic documents, 1696-1716. 7

Wortley, The Spiritual Meadow [Pratum Spirituale] by John Moschos, 15, 67.

8

See Elliott, Roads to paradise, 137-142.

9

John Climacus, The ladder of divine ascent [Moore].

10 Evagrius Ponticus, The Praktikos and Chapters on Prayer [Bamberger], 40.

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he partook of bread and water once a week, he worked unceasingly and he never

went out of the church’.’! Martyrius commended the fasting of Shirin, a Persian holy woman of the seventh century who lived a semi-anchoritic life, recited the monastic offices on a daily basis, and counseled lay persons and church officials. As a boy, Martyrius often visited this woman. His description conveys much about the motivation and the rationale of fasting as well as its goals and concrete details: Having completely stilled the desires of the belly (which prove extremely troublesome to most people) by means of sheer scorn, very much in conformity with her outstanding self-will, she appeased her belly’s continual hunger by just enough to support her body, and not at all in response to its desires; each evening she sustained herself with a small cake made out of pulse and some boiled vegetables. By means of this food, along with a drink of water, she supported her frame, while all the while her face was radiant with the grace of the Spirit who nourished her — so that everyone imagined that she was living off dainties, whereas in actual fact for much of the time she ate only once every four days, or even just once a week.”

The ‘desires’ and the ‘hunger’ of the belly are distinct phenomena.!* The first is a psychological force and the initial and major target of the intervention of fasting. The second is subsidiary, a somatic effect derivative of the passion of gluttony. Fasting is a physical intervention, but its psychological dimension, which is manifest in combating desires, is its most important aspect. For this reason, Shirin relied on ‘scorn’ and ‘will’ as the leading edge of her resistance to the passion. What and when she ate were not the basic issues. Eating served to appease hunger rather than to indulge in pleasure. Her diet (legumes, vegetables, water but not wine) and frequency of eating were not very unusual, at least among early ascetics. Her diet was probably synchronized with a liturgical calendar; thus, her fast was relatively extreme on certain days. Finally, Martyrius mentioned a marker indicating the effective application of fasting and the related attainment of personal conformity with the Spirit: “her face was radiant with the grace of the Spirit’.!° This is a trope that extends to Anthony the Great’s shining face when he emerged after years of self-imposed isolation. But the radiance of Shirin’s face was also a kind of stigmata, a physiognomic display of elevated spiritual status. Its neural cause was probably altered autonomic functioning leading to peripheral vasodilatation. The associated emotional state was likely one of exaltation. '! Wortley, The Spiritual Meadow [Pratum Spirituale] by John Moschos, 15.

'2 Brock & Harvey, Holy women of the Syrian Orient, 179-180. 13, Tbid., 179.

4 Tbidem. 5

Tbid., 180.

For the importance and the meaning of the face, see Ch. 12(4).

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241

Fasting—understood as ‘dietary restriction’ or reduced caloric intake with sufficient nutrition—affects one’s appearance and may have salutary effects on health. Bushell observed Coptic anchorites whose practice and religious outlook appear to run in unbroken continuity to early desert asceticism.'” The observable results of their fasting are like descriptions of favorable bodily changes described in early writings. The ideal of such favorable changes was Anthony, the patriarch of desert asceticism, as he was observed when he emerged from his cell after twenty years of seclusion: When they beheld him, they were amazed to see that his body had maintained its former condition, neither fat for lack of exercise, nor emaciated from fasting and combat with demons, but just as it was when they have known him previous to his withdrawal.

[...] He maintained an utter equilibrium [...] and received

a portion of that spiritual body which will be assumed in the resurrection of the just.'8

Granted hagiographic intent has shaped this passage, it may contain objectively accurate elements. In reviewing causal factors that may have contributed to Anthony’s reported appearance, Bushell mentioned dietary restriction, enhanced output of endogenous growth hormone, and a prolonged hypometabolic state.'® The so-called ‘starvation study’ conducted by Keys and his colleagues suggests that ascetic fasting can dampen the passion of gluttony and meanwhile exacer-

bate other passions.”° In other words, its outcome is mixed in that gluttony may be put to rest at the cost of stimulating other kinds of impassioned reactions. The subjects in the study were healthy, psychologically normal young adults. A baseline was established over three months of normal food intake. The semistarvation period lasted six months (food intake was reduced by half) and was followed by a three-month rehabilitation period. Among other changes, the authors observed the hoarding of food and non-food items; social withdrawal and isolation; decreased sexual interest; and emotional deterioration, reflected

in anxiety, depression, irritability, and outbursts of anger. The hoarding can be understood as an expression of avarice; the irritability and anger, as expressions of the passion of anger; and the depression and social withdrawal, as expressions

of acedia. 17 W7.C. Bushell, ‘Psychophysiological and comparative analysis of ascetico-meditational discipline: Toward a new theory of asceticism’, in: V.L. Wimbush & R. Valantasis (Eds.), Asceticism,

New York: Oxford University Press, 1998, 553-575.

18 R. Gregg (Trans.), Athanasius: The life of Anthony and the Letter to Marcellinus, New York: Paulist Press, 1980, 42. 19 Bushell, ‘Psychophysiological and comparative analysis’. 20 A. Keys et al., The biology of human starvation, Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 1950.

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Practices other than fasting can have the mixed result of dampening one passion and meanwhile causing impassioned counter-effects. An example is Basil of Caesarea’s recommendation to combat demonic dreams with sleep deprivation (see ch. 4[2]). This could lead eventually to an upsurge of disturbing dreams

and possibly hallucinations, which the ascetic would interpret as demonic in origin. Sleep deprivation also lowers the pain threshold, which would compromise the analgesic effect associated with penitential practices that involve repetitive, moderately intense blows to the body.”! On this basis, subsequent use of the practices would be more painful, suggesting a certain weakness of spirit and the need of a stalwart approach to additional harsh interventions. A mixed result, in which the suppression or mastery of one passion leads to impassioned or undesirable counter-effects, is not the ascetic’s intent but a consequence of normal biological process.

11.3 A Syndrome of Ascetic Fasting

Hunger is a consuming burden during the early stage of fasting.** It lessens during the later stage, which introduces feelings of calm, peacefulness, and spiritual elevation. In this respect, the ascetic in the later stage more closely approaches dispassion. The later stage reflects a re-patterning of activity in the subcortical (diencephalic) structures that monitor and signal hunger, thirst, and satiation, and mediate the physiology of the passion of gluttony. Fasting can be understood as a subcortical intervention that targets the homeostatic mechanisms and the vegetal functions responsible for hunger and thirst and the related states of emotion. The result of the ascetic intervention of fasting is a subcortical lesion, where ‘lesion’ refers to a local and reversible physiological change rather than structural damage. It is this lesion that mediates the spiritually advantageous symptoms of the later stage of fasting. There is reason, then, to speak of a ‘syndrome of ascetic fasting’, the consequence of the subcortical intervention of fasting. This is to bend the meaning of ‘lesion’ and ‘symptom’ such that their frame of reference is the spiritual goal of dispassion rather than mere pathology.

*1 S.H. Onen et al., “The effects of total sleep deprivation, selective sleep interruption and sleep recovery on pain tolerance threshold in healthy subjects’, in: Journal of Sleep Research 10 (2001) no.3, 5-42. For pain and hyperstimulation analgesia in physical asceticism, see ch. 12(2). *? Bushell, ‘Psychophysiological and comparative analysis of ascetico-meditational discipline’.

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11.4 The Precedence of Gluttony over Fornication In ascetic psychology, the passion of gluttony gives rise to the passion of fornication and is dominant over its expressions. This is clear from a number of texts. Cassian said he would ‘speak first about control of the stomach, the opposite of gluttony’; only afterward would he address ‘our second struggle [...] against unchastity and the desire of the flesh’ (Phil. 1, 73, 75). ‘No one whose stomach

is full can fight mentally against the demon of unchastity. Our mental struggle therefore must be to gain control of our stomach’ (74).

John Climacus said that the ascetic ‘who cherishes his stomach and hopes to overcome the spirit of fornication, is like one who tries to put out a fire with

oil’. He characterized gluttony as ‘that raving mistress’ whose ‘offspring is war against bodily chastity’.“4 He even emended a passage in the gospel of Matthew in order to emphasize gluttony’s influence on the passion of fornication: ‘Spacious and broad is the way of the belly that leads to the perdition of fornication, and many there are who go by it’.?? Climacus traced a smooth transmission of demonic power from the gut to the groin: ‘Know that often the devil settles in the belly [...]. But after one has taken food, this unclean spirit goes

away and sends against us the spirit of fornication’.”° Gregory Palamus generalized the effect of gluttony in saying that through ‘the belly [...] the law of sin exercises its dominion’ (Phil. 4, 338).

Isaac the Syrian spoke of ‘the fattening of the body, from which proceeds carnal desire’.?” He said, ‘What the flame of fire is to dry wood, this also is

bodily lust to a full belly’.2? Maximos made the same point in characterizing gluttony as ‘the mother and nurse of unchastity’ (Phil. 2, 63). Neilos drew a

similar conclusion: ‘Sexual desire is even more closely related to gluttony than are the passions of anger and dejection’ (Phil. 1, 239). ‘If lust is weak, it is

because the belly has been made to go in want; while if lust is easily excited, it is from the belly that it derives its strength’ (239). Nikitas’s position was like Neilos’s: ‘Avoid overeating, because this enkindles your lower organs’ (Phil. 4, 98). In Philotheos’s words, “We cannot when sated with food stand firm against

demonic principalities, against invisible and malevolent powers’ (Phil. 2, 19).

23 John Climacus, The ladder of divine ascent [Moore], 100. 24. Thid., 103: 25

Tbid., 103; Mt 7:13.

26

Tbid., 101.

ae

27M. Hansbury, On ascetical life: St. Isaac of Ninevah, Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir's Seminary Press, 1989, 13.

28 Isaac the Syrian, The ascetical homilies [Holy Transfiguration Monastery], 170.

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Evagrius focused on the cognitive precedence of gluttony in one of his gnomic formulations: ‘Fornication is a conception of gluttony’.” In other words, the passion of gluttony is conducive to mental activity (‘thoughts’) that promotes fantasies, feelings, and ideas aligned with the passion of fornication. Such mental

forms are conjured under the spell of gluttony. Gluttony is the root passion; fornication is its derivative. The reasoning is

utilitarian and linked with the practice of fasting: Fasting, in reducing food consumption, simultaneously diminishes libido; therefore, the passion of gluttony is fundamental, and fornication is secondary.*° The biological context of the reasoning is the reduction in libido that naturally follows prolonged periods of fasting.*! A presupposition of the ascetic view is that hunger and the intake of food can and should be markedly lowered, such that fornication (and other passions) might be weakened. The related virtue is mastery of a bodily need. Asceticism strikes at vital necessities in the service of spiritual goals. It is a counter-adaptive rebellion against the autocracy of fallen nature. The precedence of gluttony over fornication is consistent with Brown’s neuropsychological theory of the relationship of the drives of hunger and sex. In his view, hunger and the related motivational states are expressions of ‘the

foundational drive for self-replication [...] that sustains the life of the organism’.

This contrasts with the sexual drive, which ‘is derived secondarily from hunger and guarantees the replication (reproduction) of the species’.** Drive-based striving in support of self-continuance is fundamental; behavior and motivational states that promote genetic continuity differentiate from the drive for self-continuance. To an extent, Brown reverses the neo-Darwinian view in which all needs and desires revolve around genetic continuity, and group selection trumps the self-promoting goals of the individual organism. Brown’s position can be said to draw support from centuries of firsthand experience in the ‘laboratory’ of asceticism. The ‘drive for self-replication’ is like the passion of gluttony, and the drive for the ‘replication of the species’ is like the passion of fornication.*4

29

Evagrius of Pontus, The Greek ascetic corpus [Sinkewicz], 62.

30

For a historically oriented study of the relationship of sexuality and gluttony, see T.M. Shaw, Burden ofthe flesh: Fasting and sexuality in early Christianity, Minneapolis, MN: Augsburg Fortress Publishers, 1998. Keys et al., The biology of human starvation. J.W. Brown, Love and other emotions: On the process offeeling, London: Karnac, 2012, 29. Tbidem. Tbidem.

3! °° 33. 34

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11.5 The Desire for Immortality

The fervor that compels the practice of ascetic interventions can be unsparing. In the extreme, the continuance of the organism can become a minor concern.

There is not a self-evident line of separation between ‘normal’ and ‘masochistic’ interventions. They lie on a continuum of severity whose divisions are as variable as common sense, physical health, the propensity for anxiety, and the taste for danger. In the arena of physical asceticism, ‘normal’ and ‘pathological’ are second-order interpretations. They are not categories of unassailable accuracy or persuasive interpretive force. They must be set in contrast with the subjective directive to draw closer to God or ultimate reality and to bring the body into alignment with mental and moral purity. The present section uses the most extreme example of ascetic fasting to contrast the meaning and the significance of harsh interventions in three traditions. Ascetic fasting is pressed to the limit in the Jain practice of voluntary self-

starvation.*? Karma from past actions having been exhausted, and believing that food intake promotes additional karma because organisms are harmed when eaten, the advanced ascetic may seek to free his eternal essence from the prison of his body. To this end he practices self-starvation, which combines the desire for ultimate freedom with kindness toward all living creatures. The Jain and the Christian fast based on different religious rationales, yet both view the social ramifications and the insistent distractions of the body as encumbrances and bars of human imprisonment. The Jain fasts unto death for immediate and ultimate liberation. The Christian fasts for benefits in this life that nonetheless redound to his status in the hereafter. In the philosophical system embraced by the Jain, his eternal essence has been encased in coarse matter since the beginning of human existence. There is not a primordial embodied state worth recovering. For the Christian, there was such a pure, primordial condition; Adam lived it before his fall. This condition was spoiled but is yet recoverable in this life through asceticism and deification. In their respective ideas about the origin of all that surrounds them, the two ascetics find reason to differently gauge the extent of their fasting. The Jain would start fresh and arrive at the new. The Christian would take the time of a natural lifespan to recover what was established in the beginning. Both the Jain and the Christian are concerned with immortality: of the eternal essence in the case of the Jain, of the spiritual power of the soul in the case 35 J.D. Long, ‘The paradoxes of radical asceticism’, in: G. Defer, Z. Wang, & M. Weber (Eds.),

The roar of awakening: A Whiteheadian dialogue between Western psychotherapies and Eastern

worldviews, Heusenstamm, Germany: Ontos Verlag, 2009, 71-84; H. Zimmer, Philosophies of India, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1971.

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of the Christian. For both ascetics, austerities serve the goal of recovering, restoring, or renewing what is most purely spiritual in personal existence. As a point of comparison with the Jain’s and the Christian’s concern with immortality, consider a passage from the Samyutta Nikaya in which Mara, the ‘End-maker’ who binds humans to death, attempts to inspire doubt in the Buddha over his adopting the Middle Path after abandoning his six-year period of harsh austerities. Soon after the Buddha’s enlightenment, ‘a reflection arose in his mind thus: “It is good indeed that I am freed from that useless grueling asceticism!”’.3° The Buddha, having understood that Mara was trying to tempt him, responded in verse:

Having known as useless any austerity Aimed at the immortal state,

That all such penances are futile Like oars and rudder on dry land, By developing the path to enlightenment — Virtue, concentration, and wisdom —

I have attained supreme purity: You're defeated, End-maker!*”

The three-part comparison suggests a correlation: The ascetic’s concern with immortality is correlated with the harshness of his austerities. The more serious and avid the intent to attain immortality—in heaven, in a round of desirable rebirths, or in a new incorruptible body—the more readily the ascetic adopts and practices grueling austerities. The atheist bon vivant is to the opposite extreme of the immortality-seeking ascetic. His refinements, pleasures, and indulgence are practice for a dead end.

36 Samyutta Nikaya [Bodhi], 196. 37 Thid., 195-196.

CHAPTER 12

PHYSICAL PRACTICES

Most of the physical interventions of ascetic practice target the skin and the musculoskeletal system rather than deeply situated structures like the gut. In general, structures within intracorporeal space are not their area of focus. Most interventions call for activity in the distal areas of the body: the head, the legs, the arms and hands. In general, the tissue along or in close proximity to the body’s midline is not their central focus. The perceptual experience of most interventions is dominated by kinesthesia, proprioception, or cutaneous sensation. Interoception contributes little or none to the experience of most interventions. The skin is especially important as well as the tissue a little beneath it, which Schilder called ‘the sensitive zone one or two centimeters below the skin’. The skin’s contact with underlying bone accentuates and refines the tactile sensations resulting from surface interventions: “The relation of the bone-structure to the skin will give the final elaboration to all our tactile sensations and the perception of the body’.* The sensitive zone mediates a rich stream of information that informs the neural representation of the body image and the experience of self-embodiment.? In terms of their target areas, most interventions can be defined as surface interventions. Fasting, on the other hand, is a depth intervention in targeting certain visceral organs (mouth, esophagus, stomach, bowels) situated along and to either side of the midline. A phenomenology of physical asceticism is presented in the first section of this chapter. Its principles of organization concern, first, the anatomical distinction between ‘surface’ and ‘depth’ interventions, and second, the organ systems targeted by individual interventions. The discomfort and pain of using the interventions is discussed in the second section. The third section is focused on the religious prostration and includes a neuro-evolutionary interpretation of this common physical practice. The final section addresses the role and the meaning

1

Schilder, The image and appearance of the human body, 90.

&3

Whid. 87: Ibid., 90.

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of the face, the eyes, and the gaze in ascetic psychology. The practice called ‘guarding the eyes’ is interpreted on a neuropsychological basis.

12.1

Surface and Depth Interventions

Certain criteria were used in developing a list of ascetic interventions of a physical nature. An intervention must be volitional, voluntary, and require an overt behavioral response, and must also be applied systematically and on a regular basis. Ways of life that are continuous over long periods have been excluded. An ascetic who lives in the open air demonstrates a way of life; his enacting fifty prostrations each morning is an action sequence that meets the specified criteria. Fasting meets the criteria but is considered in chapter 11 rather than the present section. The prostration is included; its treatment in this section differs from its analysis in the third section of the chapter. Infrequent, spontaneous gestures that display a general attitude or habitus have been excluded. Gestures of this nature are often based on acute feelings of guilt, remorse, and penitence. Some are compulsive and may feel inspired by God. An example is Abba Moses ‘stuff[ing] his mouth with human excrement when a certain ‘dreadful demon once possessed him’.* According to Cassian, ‘this occurred [...] in swift punishment for a single word that he spoke a little

roughly when he was arguing with Abba Macarius’.? Moses had acted in an angry and prideful way, and failed to demonstrate the virtue of hospitality during Macarius’s visit. Cassian felt Moses’s gesture was inspired: “By the rapidity of his cure and through the author of the remedy the Lord showed that he had applied this purifying scourge as a grace — namely, so that the blemish of a momentary offense might not remain in him’.° Moses acted spontaneously, but not he alone: He enacted an impulse authored by God, as demonstrated by his success in erasing lingering traces of the passions that inflamed his inhospitable response to Macarius. His self-correction can be understood as a homeopathic remedy for coprolalia. His angry words were equivalent to a foul, immoral curse, granted ascetic standards of interpersonal behavior. To compensate for the sin of intemperate speech, he touched feces to his mouth, demonstrating a like-tolike intervention and removing ‘the blemish of a momentary offense’.’ Granted these criteria, here is a list of interventions reported in the ascetic writings of the Christian East: repeated series of prostrations; self-administered

Wn A N &

John Cassian, The conferences [Ramsey], 266. Ibidem. Ibidem. Ibidem.

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blows to the face or the chest; ‘binding the body with irons and troubling it with hair shirts’; plucking hair from one’s scalp or beard; sprinkling oneself with

dust; avoiding bathing and shaving and rarely changing into clean clothes; standing or kneeling for prolonged periods, or alternately standing and kneeling; averting one’s gaze from nearby persons or intently looking downward rather than ‘turn[ing] your glance to anything on earth or in heaven’; sleeping on the ground; ongoing sleep restriction and periodic sleep deprivation.® Relatively complex interventions combine two or more of the listed interventions. For example, in ‘beating the earth with your brow’ while lying ‘on the ground stretched out in the form of a cross’, the ascetic enacts body blows while positioned in prostration-like contact with the earth.? Notice that the listed interventions are predominately surface interventions. Plucking one’s hair—the only one meant to penetrate the body surface—hardly compares with Henry Suso’s eight-year practice of wearing on the bare skin of his back a small wooden cross punctured with nails and needles.'° In reviewing the list of interventions, flagellation is notable for its absence. The practice of administering blows to one’s head or chest has only a superficial resemblance to flagellation. The two practices’ respective qualities of sensation differ. Blunt force, in which pressure is distributed across the fist or the palm, is unlike the searing, pricking, or stinging sensations that result from using the whip. Even soft touches resulting from use of the whip will be sensed in multiple locations, perhaps as an irregular line of slightly uneven pressure. The surface dimensions of a focal lesion caused by the whip are smaller than the breadth of the fist or the palm. Body blows land on the chest or the head; in using the whip, the back is targeted. The flagellant cannot directly see the welts or the bleeding, and may keep them secret. One might say (and the flagellant might imagine) that he has been struck from behind, as if he were followed by a persecutor or attacked by a stealthy, predatory god. The welts or bruises from blows to the face or the head can be seen by others. They announce self-harm for the purpose of penitence. They are apparent to the community and function as a collective badge of penitence. As a perceptual phenomenon, the back is usually subliminal. This differs from the face and the head. As social beings, the head and particularly the face are where we live. ‘Our face is the badge of our identity’."!

8 Symeon the New Theologian, Ethical discourses. Vol. 2 [Golitzin], 95, 109. 9 Tsaac the Syrian, The ascetical homilies (Holy Transfiguration Monastery], 179. 10 He would ‘strike the cross with his fist driving the nails into his flesh where they remained stuck, so that he had to pluck them back out again with his clothing’ (F. Tobin [Trans.], Henry Suso: The exemplar, with two German sermons, New York: Paulist Press, 1989, 89).

11 Paul Ekman made this remark in his commentary on Darwin’s The Expression of the Emotions

in Man and Animals (C. Darwin, The expression of the emotions in man and animals [3"4 ed.,

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The index of Spidlik’s two-volume account of the spirituality of the Christian East does not contain the entry ‘flagellation’.!2 A comparable account of Western asceticism would include many.'? The comparison highlights a difference in the appraisal of the skin as a medium of ascetic intervention. A related difference between the two traditions is striking: “The phenomenon of stigmatization is unknown’ in the asceticism of the Christian East.!4 Rather than elevating the stigmata as a sign of devotion and a material emblem of the imitation of Christ, the Eastern tradition heralds bodily deification in the presence of the luminous deity as a sublime ascetic goal. The stigmata is a physical participation in the Cross; deification is a basking in the light of the Transfiguration. A basic distinction is at stake, and not only with respect to theological or scriptural emphasis. The stigmata is a depth intervention (at the hand of God, would say the stigmatic), and flagellation easily becomes one, granted the use of particular types of instruments and their application to bare skin. Both are intracorporeal interventions in penetrating the protective layer of tissue that helps to preserve bodily homeostasis. In comparison, bodily deification preserves or transforms this layer: either making it radiant or rendering it transparent to a light within the body. An hypothesis merits consideration: Persons and traditions whose emotional gravity tilts toward the Cross, particularly when this involves emulation of the Crucified, will favor depth interventions, while persons and traditions whose emotional gravity leans toward the transfiguration of Jesus or His appearance as the Risen Christ will favor surface interventions. The difference will be apparent in devotional practices and aesthetic preferences. A surface intervention can accidentally become a depth intervention. For example,

in describing the penitential acts of ascetics living in the ‘Prison’, John Climacus wrote: “Their breasts were livid from blows; and from their frequent beating of the chest, they spat blood’.!” The bruising is a surface intervention; spitting blood results from the accidental depth intervention of pulmonary bleeding, another result of the repeated blows. The ascetic who causes himself such harm does not target the internal organs or wittingly penetrate the skin. He uses a surface intervention in seeking local pain and deeper feelings of penitence. with an introduction, afterword and commentaries by Paul Ekman], New York: Oxford Uni-

versity Press, 1998, 326).

'2'T. Spidlik, The spirituality of the Christian East: A systematic handbook, Kalamazoo, MI: Cistercian Publications, 1986; Idem, Prayer: The spirituality of the Christian East (Vol. 2), Kalamazoo, MI: Cistercian Publications, 2005. E.g., A.W. Ramsey, ‘Flagellation and the French Counter-Reformation: Asceticism, social discipline, and the evolution of a penitential culture’, in: V.L. Wimbush & R. Valantasis (Eds.), Asceticism, New York: Oxford University Press, 1981, 576-587.

4 Ware, ‘The hesychast revival’, 253. 9 John Climacus, The ladder of divine ascent [Moore], 59.

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The surface intervention of prolonged standing accidentally becomes a depth intervention when the resulting lesions erode the skin, penetrate the sensitive

zone, and threaten sepsis and other disease. Symeon Stylites stood motionless on a pillar: “A malignant ulcer developed in his left foot [...] a great deal of puss oozes from it continually’.'° In another example, a patient of mine would stand for hours immersed in prayer despite paresthesias and open wounds in her feet resulting from injuries suffered in a fall. She identified the wounds as the stigmata and said the pain enhanced her self-sacrifice, to which Christ responded with a love greater than her own. Another patient ‘had the practice of standing motionless for over thirty hours continuously while praying [...] allowing his legs to become grossly edematous until the skin round his toes cracked.!? He developed cellulitis and thrombophlebitis, risking gangrene in the process. The practice of repeatedly enacting extended series of prostrations is distinctive in combining comparably severe surface and depth interventions. Apart from abrasions, bruises, calluses, and stress on the musculoskeletal system, the

practice imposes considerable cardiopulmonary demand. A fifth-century ascetic enacted 1,244 prostrations in sequence.'® A sixth-century ascetic enacted 1,800 in sets of a hundred.’ Isaac the Syrian, who praised ‘bodily toil’ in the pursuit of penitence, described a ‘holy brother’ whose ‘customary discipline’ during the vigil was interrupted repeatedly by fervid periods in which he would ‘suddenly leave off his rule [of verbal prayer], and falling upon his face would strike his head upon the ground a hundred times or more’.”? Each such period was followed by a set of a hundred prostrations. Practices related to the prostration were also enacted at high frequencies. Callistus and Ignatius, writing on the genuflection, a truncated variant of the prostration, appealed to ‘the ruling of the holy fathers’ in recommending ‘three hundred, which we practice on every day and night of the five weekdays’.*! It would be an error to assume that the high counts of prostrations in the ascetic literature are exaggerations based on the writers’ hagiographic intent. Similarly high counts are noted in other traditions. Thubron observed Buddhist pilgrims circumambulating Mt. Kailas by means of

the full-body prostration at altitudes as high as 18,600 ft.’ Fasting and sleep-related interventions are discussed in earlier chapters. Both are interventions of considerable depth. The later stages of fasting affect subcortical

16 Price, A history of the monks of Syria by Theodoret of Cyrrhus, 170. '7 Kroll & Bachrach, The mystic mind, 25. 18 A history of the monks of Syria by Theodoret of Cyrrhus [Price]. 19 The Spiritual Meadow [Pratum Spirituale] by John Moschos [Wortley]. 20 Tsaac the Syrian, The ascetical homilies (Holy Transfiguration Monastery], 177, 226.

21 Kadloubovsky & Palmer, Writings from The Philokalia on prayer of the heart, 213. 22. C, Thubron, To a mountain in Tibet, New York: Harper, 2011.

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structures that monitor and signal thirst, hunger, and satiation.*? Ongoing sleep restriction and the periodic sleep deprivation of keeping the all-night vigil engage medial structures that regulate ultradian rhythms. Such rhythms influence a number of organ systems and affect imaginal activity and a variety of cognitive functions.”4 In the location of their target structures and the breadth of their effects, fasting and the sleep-related interventions are the deepest of interventions.

12.2 Discomfort and Pain

Physical asceticism, like masochistic behavior, titrates the pain of its interventions. Awareness is dulled when occupied entirely with pain, and all-consuming pain is without redeeming psychological value. Only in the most harsh interventions is extreme pain regarded as spiritually valuable. In titrating pain, physical asceticism allows for the presence of mind that is required to offer the prayers that provide the interventions with meaning. The retention of presence of mind despite the discomfort or pain of ascetic interventions is strangely illustrated in certain practices of the Naga sadhus. Photos taken by a friend at the Kumbh Mela show a seated ascetic with his penis wrapped around a stick that is braced across his thighs. Another ascetic attached a bell to his penis with a string. Were the men to move, pain or ringing would occur, drawing their attention to an organ with a dual religious significance. It is the concrete embodiment of impassioned attachments, but also a lingam, a symbol of the god to whom the ascetics are devoted. The string, the bell, and the stick are devices of sublimation that redirect the ascetics’ attention to the divine prototype of creativity. The penis becomes a coincidence of opposites in symbolizing both undesirable urges and the divine power that promises release. The penis appears to have been an object of ascetic practice in the Christian tradition. A letter written in the twelfth century complained about the extreme practices of certain Fools for Christ: “Any disgusting and thrice-accursed wretch could be honored in Constantinople as a saint above the apostles and martyrs. It sufficed to hang bells from one’s penis, fetter one’s feet with chains, or hang ropes around one’s neck’.”” The author was either inventive and comic or had seen or heard of such a practice.

23 See ch. 11(3).

4 DS. Shannahoff-Khalsa & F.E. Yates, “Ultradian sleep rhythms of lateral EEG, autonomic, and cardiovascular activity are coupled in humans’, in: Jnternational Journal of Neuroscience 101 (2000), 21—43; see ch. 4(2).

* A.P. Kazhdan & A.W. Epstein, Change in Byzantine culture in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1985, 94.

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In some cases, the pain induced by surface interventions is distinctive for inducing hyperstimulation analgesia and related positive changes in mood, which can dampen the experience of physical pain and even make it pleasurable.2° An example is a series of moderately severe blows, which eventually elicits

only discomfort. Apart from hyperstimulation analgesia, repeated surface interventions that inflict mild discomfort are subject to habituation, such that the discomfort is acceptably neutralized or becomes subliminal. Fasting is an unusual depth intervention in that the pain caused by stomach contractions eventually ceases. The set-points for satiety and hunger are also changed.”” John Climacus described these effects: ‘He who burdens his stomach with food, distends his inside; but he who wars with his stomach contracts it.

And when the inside is contracted, then we cannot take much, and for the future we become fasters naturally’.”8 Surface and depth interventions vary in the quality of the pain they inflict. Transient surface pain is distracting, disconcerting, or stunning. Intense pain in the interior of the body is all-consuming; one folds around it as if he were imploding. Unlike interior pain, surface pain is rarely dense, massive, and weighty. The location of surface pain is easier to detect; the localization of interior pain can be difficult or erroneous due to the imprecision of nociceptive relay and the misleading clues of referred pain. Apart from traumatic injuries, the cause of deeply situated pain is invisible, which reinforces its preverbal nature and contributes to its emotional and conceptual impenetrability. In most surface interventions, the site and the cause of pain are visible; on this basis the pain and any related lesion are readily subject to interpretation. Surface pain can be understood and captured in words; it melds with personal identity and is felt as ‘mine’. This differs from marked interior pain, which feels alien to the sufferer.” In being ego-dystonic, marked interior pain is not felt as ‘mine’; it is a remote

rather than an essential element of personal identity. A psychological gradient passes from personal pain on or near the body surface to an impersonal interior pain imposed by the tyranny of mere physiology. Most austerities, being surface interventions, can effectively change the ascetic’s sense of personal identity. This section and the preceding one have focused on the perceptual and anatomical aspects of ascetic interventions. They do not provide a full picture, which requires the recognition that each intervention is a spiritual gesture in physical form. Such gestures turn the organism into a symbol, comparable to 26 Bushell, ‘Psychophysiological and comparative analysis of ascetico-meditational discipline’. 27 See ch. 11(2,3).

28 John Climacus, The ladder of divine ascent [Moore], 101. 29 1D. Bakan, Disease, pain and sacrifice: Toward a psychology of suffering, Boston: Beacon Press, D/A.

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works of performance art in which the artist’s body is like a canvas or a sculptural medium. Consider the example of John of Nicopolis, a former bishop who lived in the Laura of Saint Sabas. Ordained bishop against his wishes, John did not change his rule of monastic life but contended in the episcopal palace as in a monastery. In particular he abstained from washing, carefully avoiding not only being seen by another but also seeing himself naked; thinking of the nakedness of Adam and what is written in that passage, he judged abstaining from

washing one of the greatest virtues.*°

The passage in question tells of Adam and Eve spoiling their idyllic garden existence: ‘Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized that the were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made loincloths for themselves’ (Gen. 2:9, 3:7). They were banished from the Garden and denied fruit from the tree of life; toil, curses, and groans followed ever afterward.

John’s unwashed status and his worry and shame over nakedness constituted a gesture of penitence over the prideful overreaching that decisively changed human existence. Worry and shame over nakedness is found elsewhere in the ascetic literature, beginning with Amun

and Theodorus taking measures

not to see

themselves or one another naked while fording a stream.°! In the Gospel of Thomas, which dates from the second century, Jesus ‘promised to reveal himself when the disciples could undress without shame. This may allude to stripping for baptism; but equally and more probably it teaches sexual renunciation as the

reversal of the Fall’.* Another example (in this case a way of life rather than an isolated intervention) was Symeon the Stylite’s upright posture, which he sustained for years. His body was an axis mundi: a metaphysical pillar spanning earth and heaven. His standing was a coded reference: ‘For the devout ear, this word [‘standing’]

suggested a fundamental characteristic of the angels, the ministering spirits who “stand” continually before the divine presence’.*? Symeon’s standing also bears eschatological meaning: ‘I saw the dead, the great and the lowly, standing before the throne’ (Rev. 20:12). Symeon eventually contracted foot disease, but this was not reason to come down: “None of these afflictions has overcome his philosophy, but he bears them nobly’.** His static upright posture, elevated on high, indicated his passage into the spiritual world and displayed his power to mediate between ordinary humans and a higher authority, whether the authority was political in nature or as powerful as the incorruptible and changeless 3° Price, Lives of the monks of Palestine by Cyril Scythopolis, 221-222. 31 Schaff & Wace, Athanasius: Select works and letters, 60. Finn, Asceticism in the Graeco-Roman world, 83. Golitzin, ‘A monastic setting for the Syriac Apocalypse of Daniel, 75.

4 Price, A history of the monks of Syria by Theodoret of Cyrrhus, 170.

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God.*° An amazed visitor asked Symeon, ‘Tell me [...] are you a man or a bodiless being?’.° He asked if Symeon had surpassed embodied life and become an angelic being immersed in higher energies. Humans are four-footed in their appetites, no matter their two-legged outward form. In maintaining his perch, upright and unyielding, Symeon stood against the earth, against the world, against our animal nature. He was like the hummingbird whose stationary position masks the furor of its wings.

12.3 The Prostration

The meaning and power of the religious prostration can be understood more fully when it is set in a neuro-evolutionary perspective. The prostration and certain related behavioral responses can be interpreted as evolved derivatives of an archaic response that resembles ‘rituals of submission’ in lower mammals.*” I call the prostration’s most archaic form mystical cataplexy.** This is an involuntary response with predictable features. Symeon the New Theologian wrote a vivid description: When a man has within him the light of the all Holy Spirit, he cannot bear the sight and so he falls prostrate on the ground. He cries out and shakes, driven out

of his senses by immense fear. He is like someone who sees or feels something beyond nature, reason, and understanding.*”

Additional features of the archaic response include piloerection and profuse weeping.

A relatively evolved expression of the response is the orans posture in which the elbows are flexed and the hands supinated: a position that conveys welcome and receptivity to a superior force. In the most evolved expression, the hands or fingers are joined in prayer and supplication. The orans posture and folding the hands in prayer engage distal musculature in the upper body. The prostration engages the entire body, notably the legs and trunk and the midline musculature. The genuflection is midway between the archaic response and the folded hands. It subsumes elements of the archaic response in a voluntary enactment.

35 Brown, The cult of the saints.

36 Price, A history of the monks of Syria by Theodoret of Cyrrhus, 170. 37 W. Burkert, Creation of the sacred: Tracks of biology in early religions, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1996, 86.

38 D.T. Bradford, ‘Mystical cataplexy and the mammalian roots of an archaic religious response’, in: Acta Neuropsychologica 8 (2010), 196-198. 39 McGuckin, Symeon the New Theologian, 77.

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Behavioral traces of the archaic response are apparent in Cassian’s instructions on the proper manner of praying: Monks ‘do not immediately rush to kneel down’ after reciting a psalm; they ‘pray briefly’ and then ‘fall on the ground for a very short time, as if only adoring the divine mercy. Then they get up very quickly and, erect once more with hands outstretched as they had been when they were standing in prayer before, they linger over their prayers’.*° Theodoret of Cyrrhus described Symeon the Stylite’s unusual variant of the prostration: “He is exposed to all as a new and extraordinary spectacle — now standing for a long time, and now bending down repeatedly and offering worship to God’; ‘in bending down’, wrote Theodoret, ‘he always makes his forehead touch his toes’.4! A man next to Theodoret counted 1,245 such actions ‘before slackening and giving up count’. Symeon folded his body, demonstrating his submission to a higher power through reducing his height by half. The prostration increases the distance between

one’s body and the power,

granted the power’s location high along the terrestrial vertical. Greater distance symbolically ensures greater safety. A folded body is a smaller target. Symeon’s prostration may have been his personal version of a common routine that he accommodated to the space available on his pillar. Attending Matins at Mar Gabriel, a monastery founded in 397, the writer William Dalrymple saw ‘the congregation began a long series of prostrations: from their standing position, the worshipers fell to their knees, and lowered their heads to the

ground ’.*? John Moschos, traveling in the area in the sixth century, described

the same practice during Christian worship.** Symeon, who died in 459, flourished in a religious culture like that of Mar Gabriel. His intent, in lowering his head to the ground while standing, may have been to avoid lying flat or coming to his knees in order to keep from bumping into his few belongings. Isaac the Syrian highlighted the submissiveness of the prostration and its evolved expressions. Solitaries, he said, have been harmed when they abandoned the ‘venerable outward forms’ of prayer and failed to carry out those ‘things that are beneficial in the process of setting right all our corrupt state’.* Specifically, they ‘gave up the various acts of humility, prostrations, continual falling upon 40 Ramsey (Trans.), John Cassian: The institutes, 41. 41 Price, A history of the monks of Syria by Theodoret of Cyrrhus, 170.

“2 Tbidem. “3 W/. Dalrymple, From the holy mountain, New York: Vintage Books, 2012, 105. The Metropolitan of the Syrian Orthodox Church told Dalrymple of his plan to rebuild the monastery of Tel Ada, complete with a stylite’s pillar. A priest completing doctoral studies in Ireland was to become the new stylite. Other priests were prepared to fill in, should additional stylites be needed. “4 Wortley, The Spiritual Meadow [Pratum Spirituale] by John Moschos. Brock, The Syriac Fathers on prayer and the spiritual life, 289.

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the ground, a suffering heart, and the submissive postures appropriate to prayer, modest standing, hands clasped in submissive fashion, or stretched out to heaven, the senses respectful during prayer’.4° Such postures and behavioral sequences are unlike an actor’s behavior; they preclude psychological distance between an action and its author. They are without rhetorical intent, apart from persuading God of their sincerity. They embody a new psychological status quo, granted the authenticity of the corresponding emotion. All these responses function as rituals of submission, analogous to the behavior of mammals who must navigate social encounters that promise danger or appetitive rewards. This is most obviously the case in the archaic response, which is strictly involuntary. A spiritual power is immediately present and possibly envisioned, heard, touched, smelled, or tasted. It contacts the human in a bolt of power. Rudolf Otto must be referenced at this point: The emotional ambience of mystical cataplexy is fear, fascination, and the numinosity of the wholly other.*7 Van der Leeuw must also be mentioned; his phenomenology of religion is oriented around the experience of power.*® The archaic response evolved and fragmented over millennia. Its automaticity and hallucinatory potential have largely been erased. Its motor expression has become increasingly constrained to the point of engaging only discrete movements in the distal musculature of the upper extremities. Bowing the head has been retained, which represents a point of continuity with the archaic response in that the bowing depends on flexion in the midline musculature. The emotional intensity of the archaic response is weakened in its evolved expressions; fear and terror have lost their earlier primacy. These changes reflect a bias in which motor activity governed by the frontal cortex overrides and largely substitutes for activity in the cerebellum and the basal ganglia. The limbic (emotional) contribution to the archaic response has correspondingly been diminished. The response became human, or mostly so, and jettisoned its primeval, parahuman

elements.” The prostration remains in use as an element of liturgy and a voluntary ascetic practice. It shapes feeling in accord with conscious intentions; its communicative value is strictly symbolic. In contrast, the archaic response is an involuntary enactment that grips the entire organism. One is simply possessed. 46 Tbidem. 47 R. Otto, The idea of the holy: An enquiry into the non-rational factor in the idea of the divine and its relation to the rational, New York: Oxford University Press, 1958. 48 G. Van der Leeuw, Religion in essence and manifestation, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press,

1986.

49 For the neuropsychological aspects of this analysis, see P.D. MacLean, “The midline frontolimbic cortex and the evolution of crying and laughing’, in: E. Perecman (Ed.), The frontal lobes revisited, New York: IRBN, 1987, 121-140.

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The Carthusian prostration is a voluntary approximation of the archaic response. The monk reclines on his side in a fetal-like position with his arms drawn together.°° The arms and legs and the midline musculature are held in partial flexion. The Carthusian order, founded in 1084, is highly conservative; the practice may be at least a thousand years old. This form of the prostration is enacted on three occasions during liturgy: during the Credo, at the point of ‘and was made man’; between the elevation of the Host and the Consecration;

and during the priest's Communion. The meanings of these liturgical moments converge on the enosis of Christ and His visible presence in human form, when ‘every knee must bend’ and when the Carthusian monk displays a residue of archaic religious behavior (Phil 2:10).

12.4 Face, Eyes, and Gaze

In ascetic psychology, the appearance and the movement of the body manifest the state of the soul. This makes it important to regulate one’s movements in ways that are conducive to the pursuit of virtue and the modulation of social emotion. Intemperate gestures must be avoided. Isaac the Syrian wrote: “The path to wisdom is orderly control of the limbs’.?! Monks living in communities established by Basil the Great disciplined their mouths, voices, and impulse to speak: “Through extended periods of silence, and detailed instruction, one’s very voice was surrendered as the monk learnt to speak in the appropriate manner’. The pure soul generates a charisma that radiates from the body. Climacus wrote: ‘When the whole man is [...] commingled with the love of God, then

even his outward appearance in the body [...] shows the splendor of his soul’.* Similarly, the troubles of the soul are apparent in the body. An ‘inspired’ father

like Euthymius could use the body of another monk as the medium of his discernment: ‘From seeing the appearance of the body he beheld the movements of the soul and knew which thoughts each person was wrestling with, and also which he prevailed over and which he was mastered by’.*4 The face is a direct expression of the soul. Nikitas said: “Whatever the soul’s noetic activity, it will be reflected in the face’, where ‘noetic’ refers to the °° See Philip Gréning’s film Die grosse Stille / Into Great Silence (2007), www.diegrossestille.de.

Also see A Monk of Parkminster, “The Carthusian liturgy: The Mass’, in: Magnificat: A Liturgical quarterly (1940-1941). Accessible at: http://www.newliturgicalmovement.org/2008/10/ carthusian-liturgy-by-carthusian-monk.html#.UqI6G6o1 pcy6. Isaac the Syrian, The ascetical homilies (Holy Transfiguration Monastery], 448.

Finn, Asceticism in the Graeco-Roman world, 121. °3 John Climacus, The ladder of divine ascent [Moore], 227. Price, Lives of the monks of Palestine by Cyril Scythopolis, 42.

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intellect’s dominant concern at the present moment (Phil. 4, 87). A similar

view is recognized in Buddhist scripture; for example, the facial complexion of a monk who has practiced a calming jhana is described as ‘serene’.*° Cassian was impressed by Abba Serenus, ‘a man of the greatest holiness and abstinence’ whose virtue ‘shone forth not only in his activity and his comportment but even in his face itself.*° The ascetic’s facial appearance can tempt him to indulge in vainglory. Thalassios said: ‘In cutting out [the passion of] gluttony, beware lest you seek the esteem of others, making a display of the pallor-of your face’. The eyes channel visual information to the soul, thus the importance of guarding the eyes, a recognized practice that is mentioned more often in early than later writings. Corresponding practices in Buddhism are called ‘guarding the doors of the sense faculties’.?® Isaac the Syrian outlined ‘the rule of life that is chaste and pleasing to God: to refrain from glancing here and there with your eyes, but always to look steadily on what lies before you’.»” The remaining items in his list concern fasting, discretion, idle talk, modesty, and humility. Modesty and concentration are put at risk when the ascetic looks directly at the face of a nearby person, particularly when the person’s appearance or gender could elicit an impassioned response. John the Solitary wrote: As far as possible you should not sate your eyes on the faces of other people; rather, let your gaze be modest, and do not stare at anything in a domineering way, but, like a pure virgin, guard yourself for Christ.

A relatively extreme caution appears in the sixth-century Letter to Cyriacus: The ascetic must ‘be careful of a face’s looks, lest they affect you unawares’; practice ‘abstinence from the sight of other people’s faces’; and not ‘let your gaze be captivated by someone’s face’.°! Putting focal attention on a person’s face contributes to the dispersion of attention and aggravates the passions. The problem can be framed in modern terms by saying the ascetic must avoid the subjective pole of the aggressive interpersonal dynamic that Sartre called the gaze.

55 Samyutta Nikaya [Bodhi], 347. °6 John Cassian, The conferences [Ramsey], 247.

57 Phil. 2, 327. The pallor was probably sallow or jaundiced, a result of fasting (semi-starvation) and its consequence of elevated bilirubin. See Hausherr, Spiritual direction in the early Christian East, 186-187. 58 B. Nanamoli (Trans.), The path ofpurification (Visuddhimagga) by Bhadantacariya Buddhaghosa, Colombo: Buddhist Publication Society, 2010, 21.

59 Isaac the Syrian, The ascetical homilies [Holy Transfiguration Monastery], 214. 60 Brock, The Syriac Fathers on prayer and the spiritual life, 89. 61 Tbid., 138, 147, 155.

62 J.-P. Sartre, Being and nothingness, New York: Washington Square Press, 1993.

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Guarding the eyes is the point of an account in the history of the monks of Palestine written by Cyril of Scythopolis. Traveling from Jericho to the Jordan, father Sabas observed the young monk accompanying him when they ‘fell in with some people of the world among whom was a girl of winning appearance’. After passing, Sabas tested the monk with a trick question: “What about the girl who has gone by and is one-eyed?” The brother replied, “No, father, she had two eyes”. Sabas responded: ‘And where have you stored the precept that says, “Do not fix your eye on her and do not be captured by her eyebrows”? Fiery is the passion that arises from inquisitive looks’*. Sabas settled on a corrective measure: ‘From now on you are not to stay with me in a cell because you do not guard your eyes as you should’. He sent him to Catellium [a coenobium where the young monk would live in community] and, when he had spent sufficient time

there and learnt to keep a careful watch on his eyes and thoughts, he received him [once again] as an anchorite into the laura [where Sabas and other experienced monks lived independently in small dwellings].©

Thoughts follow gaze; to guard the eyes is to regulate thoughts. The gaze establishes attentional focus, and where attention rests the mind is likely to follow. The young monk’s former living arrangement, in an isolated cell with his spiritual father, surpassed his level of training. He was sent to the coenobium, where

ongoing contact with other monks would improve his discipline in guarding his eyes. Guarding the eyes has a number of interpersonal and neuropsychological consequences. Some are counterintuitive. In the following analysis, I identify

the male ascetic with the guarded eyes as the sender, and the woman whose eyes he avoids as the recipient. Guarding the eyes is a social signal that reflects the sender’s motivational tendency toward avoidance rather than approach.° In meeting the sender, the recipient will be less inclined to gaze at him. Were the recipient attached to an EEG, it would show an asymmetry reflecting a relative heightening of activity in the frontal lobe of the right cerebral hemisphere.°” Another sign would be apparent: The recipient would have lower skin conductance (reflecting lowered autonomic arousal) compared with circumstances in 6 Price, Lives of the monks of Palestine by Cyril Scythopolis, 147. 64 The remark conflates Proverbs 6:25 and 4:26: ‘Let not her desire for beauty capture you, nor be captured by your eyes’; “Let your eyes look straight ahead, and let your eyebrows incline to just things’. 6 Price, Lives of the monks of Palestine by Cyril Scythopolis, 147. 66 J.K. Hietanen et al., ‘Seeing direct and averted gaze activates the approach-avoidance motivational brain systems’, in: Neuropsychologia 46 (2008), 2423-2430.

87 Tbidem.

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which the sender looks at her face.** A psychological consequence of these changes is that each person will have and show less interest in the mental state and the presumptive intentions of the other person. They will forgo by default the enhanced self-awareness entailed in the giving and the receiving of gazes. So far, the results of guarding the eyes are consistent with the sender’s wishes. The recipient’s tendency to approach is suppressed, and the sender can retain his focus on internal process without social distractions. The risk of an impassioned response is minimized at least from the perspective of conscious awareness. But the practice has additional effects that can compromise the sender’s success and counteract his wishes. The practice establishes a behavioral bias that favors an averted gaze in social circumstances. Focal vision, which channels visual information to the fovea, the lateral geniculate and the striate cortex, is directed away from the recipient and toward a spot that seems emotionally neutral. But the recipient can nonetheless be perceived in peripheral vision, granted she remains within range. Although the fine details of her appearance will be less apparent, the sender will detect and recognize her movements and overall configuration and the emotion conveyed in her facial expression. Were the ambient light dim, she may appear brighter than if she were observed in focal vision. Two points are particularly significant: The perceptual process outlined here can occur subliminally, outside the sender’s conscious awareness; and it can activate the amygdala and thus stir emotion based on engaging the colliculopulvinar visual pathway, a relatively

primitive visual system compared with the one mentioned earlier.’”? In other words, the recipient will not lose her stimulus value as the ascetic wishes; it may instead be enhanced because her appearance affects the ascetic without his being consciously aware of it. The ascetic may believe he has mastered a situation when he is deeply mired. The effectiveness of the traditional technique would be improved were the ascetic to follow exactly the advice of John the Solitary: “As far as possible you should not sate your eyes on the faces of other people; rather, let your gaze be modest, and do not stare at anything in a domineering way.’' One must look and see, and bring conscious awareness to the process, but not let the eyes or the mind tarry to the point of satiation. A direct gaze is advisable, so long as it 68 1M. Ponkanen, M.J. Peltola, & J.K. Hietanen, “The observer observed: Frontal EEG asymmetry and autonomic responses differentiate between another person’s direct and averted gaze when the face is seen live’, in: International Journal of Psychophysiology 82 (2011), 180-187.

6° Baron-Cohen, Mindblindness. 70 B. de Gelder et al., ‘Non-conscious recognition of affect in the absence of striate cortex’, in:

Neuroreport 16 (1999), 3759-3763; D. Sabatinelli et al., “Emotional perception: Meta-analyses of face and natural scene processing’, in: Neuroimage 54 (2011), 2524-2533. 71 Brock, The Syriac Fathers on prayer and the spiritual life, 89.

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is used in a-gentle (‘modest’) rather than an assertive (‘domineering’) way. The

feelings and fantasies elicited on this basis can be examined consciously in situ, which minimizes the risk of their lingering in subliminal awareness and accruing intensity on this basis. The ascetic will be spared later surprises such as a surfeit of unwanted feelings and fantasy. The recommended adjustment is consistent with a point of Evagrius’s: ‘It is impossible for him [the demon, the passion, the fantasy] to stand his ground after he has been openly exposed’.’* Such exposure requires of the ascetic a conscious perspective free of defenses.

”

Evagrius of Pontus, The Greek ascetic corpus [Sinkewicz], 159.

CHAPTER 13

EVAGRIUS ON IMPASSIONED MENTAL ACTIVITY

The first section of this chapter is focused on Evagrius’s analysis of the mental activity that results in the formation of impassioned thoughts. Impassioned mentation disguises the true nature of physical objects and falsifies their emotionally neutral character. Many ascetics have discussed the risk of thoughts and the need of repressing or terminating them, but few have written close descriptions of the method and the outcome of successfully doing so. I call this outcome objective perception. In the second section, I analyze an example of objective perception drawn from the writings of Symeon the New Theologian. Illustrations from the literature of early monasticism are used to introduce his description and to show the historical continuity of the psychological aspects of objective perception.

13.1 Thoughts

The passions have the mental effect of stimulating the formation of ‘thoughts’. A thought’s manifest content is based on present sensory contact or is a ‘copy

drawn from memory.’ In Evagrius’s analysis, a thought is a complex mental form composed of four ‘elements’: (a) ‘the mind’, indicating the consciously active intellect; (b) a ‘mental representation’, which is the particular form enter-

tained by the mind; (c) the physical object that determines the representation; and (d) the passion that imbues the representation with value.* A thought becomes complex based on its incorporation of passion; moral mentation is the simplest. A complex thought poses moral risk; a simple thought is less hazardous. Memory generates the representation in the case of a fantasy or a mnemonic image that appears without a corresponding physical stimulus. Evagrius held the Stoic view that multiple thoughts cannot be held simultaneously: “The mind does not have the capacity to receive the mental representation ! Evagrius of Pontus, The Greek ascetic corpus [Sinkewicz], 170. 2 Ibid., 166.

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of two sensible objects at the same time’. He tested this view on himself and invited his readers to do the same. He noted that thoughts advance so quickly that one can easily and mistakenly assume that multiple thoughts can be held in focal awareness. It is with ‘very great rapidity of movement [that] the mind links thoughts to one another’.4 A single thought is an encapsulated content. Multiple thoughts advance through a serial associative process. A series of thoughts constitutes a prolonged fantasy, an evolving set of feelings, or an extended line of reasoning. A thought may be wholly spontaneous or worked and amplified by the thinker. One succumbs to thoughts and implicitly nudges them forward by simply failing to terminate their progression.” The elements of a thought must be teased apart through introspection, such that the element of passion is revealed, examined, and sheared from the representation. On this basis the passion that instigated the thought is vanquished, and the value attributed to the object fades: “As you engage in this careful examination, the thought will be destroyed and dissipate in its own consideration,

and the demon will flee from you when your intellect has been raised to the heights by this knowledge’.® The passions disguise the true nature of objects through falsifying their emotionally neutral character. They do so by insinuating themselves in mental representations, which shroud the corresponding objects in projections. The ascetic who dissolves the passions inherent in thoughts can see the corresponding objects in their true nature and course. He recognizes and may imagine their

eventual deterioration. Mental process, when virtuous, portrays material things without the burnish of desire: “A mind engaged in the practical life is one that always receives the mental representations of this world in a manner free of passion’.’ By such means the ascetic cultivates dispassion and can arrive at objective perception. 3

Ibid., 169; Long, Hellenistic philosophy. The Greek ascetic corpus, 169.

In Christian process psychology, the termination of a stream of thoughts through repression or a redirection of attention is a central strategy for effecting mental change (Bradford, ‘Com-

parable process psychologies in Eastern Christianity and Early Buddhism’). For examples of these kinds of interventions in Evagrius, see ch. 6(6,7). Evagrius of Pontus, The Greek ascetic corpus [Sinkewicz], 166.

Ibid., 212. ‘Practical life’ (praktike) is the everyday monastic life. Basic elements include work, study, and ascetic routines, as well as offices, liturgy, and private prayer. All promote mental and moral formation and enhance self-discipline. In the first phase of the practical life, behavior and mental activity are brought into conformity with moral commandments. The second phase closes when the ascetic attains dispassion. Praktike is a way of life rather than a distinct mental state. Teoria, which follows the second phase, is a set of related mental states, the highest of which is ‘true prayer’ (see ch. 20[3,4]).

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13.2 Illustration of Objective Perception

Ascetics have typically written on the benefits of objective perception rather than the mental strategies for accomplishing it. This makes one of Symeon the New Theologian’s examples particularly valuable. The passions at issue are fornication and avarice, if the meaning of ‘avarice’ is expanded to include the desire to admire and to mentally possess the image of a beautiful body. The strategy that frees the mind from passion insinuates a temporal perspective that differs from the one informed with cravings. Passions are reliably present in bare immediacy; they are unlike memories or ideas, which are more easily separated from the present life context. The saving perspective is long-term, extending to the final judgment. It frames a passion in a temporal perspective that dilutes its power through depriving it of bare immediacy. I will use three illustrations from the literature of early monasticism to introduce Symeon’s strategy. All involve the passion of fornication, and all include images, fears, and aspirations like those mentioned by Symeon. The first concerns a temptation faced by Anthony the Great: A demon ‘took upon him the shape of a woman and imitated all her acts simply to beguile’ him. Anthony, compelled by the incensive power, became ‘like a man filled with rage’ and ‘turned his thoughts to the threatened fire [of judgment] and the gnawing worms’. On this basis he vanquished the demon. Anthony’s reported experience is entirely possible and explicable as a release hallucination resulting from his living as an anchorite in environments with limited sensory stimulation.® In the second illustration, a father who was regarded as ‘an experienced fighter’ was consumed with ‘the memory of a beautiful woman’.’ After another monk tells him of the woman’s death in a distant city, he immediately ‘took his coat and departed by night to the place where she was buried’: He opened the tomb, gathered the liquid flowing from the cadaver with his coat, and brought it back into his cell. The stench was intolerable, but he stared at this infection in front of his eyes, fighting his thoughts by saying, “See here what you desired; well, now you have it, sit down again.’ And he subjected himself to this stench until the battle in him ceased.'°

The father collected the ooze of the cadaver and subjected himself to its stench. His statement—‘See here what you desired; well, now you have it’—is striking 8

9

Schaff & Wace, Athanasius: Select works and letters, 11. For perceptual changes resulting from reduced environmental stimulation, see Kubzansky, “The effects of reduced environmental stimulation on human behavior’; J.P. Zubeck, Sensory deprivation: Fifty years of research, New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts, 1969. For release hallucination, see ch. 3(2) and appendix E. Elm, Virgins of God’, 257.

10 Tbidem.

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for equating the stench of death and the woman whose memory possessed him. His was an unsparing self-analysis in which retrospectively discerned emotion (love and desire) was reduced or eliminated based on his present factual emphasis (cadaverous stench). The father did not survey time past and present, and think: ‘I was consumed with a passionate attachment; but now, smelling the foul odor,

I recognize that she has died, which helps me to overcome her memory’. Instead, he bent time into a circle, making immediate what in fact was past: ‘This

woman, she is a living memory, and I am possessed. My passion has selected her beauty and made her alive even after death. I see now that her memory, my passion, and the corpse amount to one and the same stench. I face my problem and can even smell it’. The third illustration comes from a conversation between John Moschos and Abba Elijah, who told of ‘once living in a cave in the area around Jordan’ when

a woman ascetic came to ask for water. Elijah supplied the water; shortly afterward, he told John, ‘the devil began working against me on her account, putting

lewd thoughts into my mind [...]. It was my intention to search for her and to satisfy my desire’.'! He set out across the desert, and when his ‘passion reached fever-pitch’ he ‘went into a trance’: I saw the earth open up and I fell down into it. There I saw rotting corpses, badly

decayed and burst open, filling the place with an unspeakably foul stench. I then saw a person of venerable appearance who pointed to the corpses and said to me: ‘See, this is a woman’s [body] and that is a man’s; go and enjoy yourself and do whatever your passion dictates’. [...] But I was overcome by the appalling stench

and fell to the ground. The holy apparition came and set me on my feet. He caused the warfare to cease and I returned to my cell giving thanks to God.”

Anthony thought of hell and judgment, and imagined bodily corruption. The second father confronted postmortem corruption through direct contact with a rotting corpse; he secured odorous liquid as a reminder. Elijah envisioned hell,

surveyed its rotting corpses, and hallucinated the stench of bodily corruption. In each case, the inevitability of death and the ensuing changes in the body are leitmotifs with persuasive moral force. They are encouragements to face the passion that has usurped clarity of mind. The ascetics adopted urgent measures in confronting the ‘threatened fire’ of judgment.'? The theme of ‘stench’ occurs in two illustrations and recurs in Symeon’s strategy. It indicates viscerally intense emotion, which may intensify to the degree of eliciting olfactory hallucination based on perturbations of nonconvulsive intensity in the relatively primitive rhinencephalic areas of the brain. '! Wortley [Trans.], The Spiritual Meadow (Pratum Spirituale) by John Moschos, 14. 12 Tbidem. 'S Schaff & Wace, Athanasius, 11.

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Symeon relied on images of bodily corruption like those in the preceding illustrations. He imagined the deterioration of a woman’s body with the purpose of demonstrating a strategy to overcome impassioned mental activity and to see objects objectively: When therefore this man [a trained ascetic] sees

a woman who has a beautiful

body, he does not see the blossoming beauty of her face, but sees her instead as rot and mud, as already dying and having become entirely what she is indeed in process of becoming. His intellect would never admire her outward bloom, but sees instead the material corruption which exists within, of which the whole body is composed. But what is the body other than the juice of masticated food?!4

The ascetic shifts attention from the immediate reality of the ‘beautiful body’ and ‘blossoming [...] face’. In its quickness and automaticity, the shift blunts

or possibly terminates the influence of passion. Its speed reflects prior mental training. The ascetic must also attend to a temporal perspective that reveals that what he sees is not what it seems. This body—in the moments before passion insinuates craving—is imagined as passing toward its future decomposition. It is to be understood as ‘already dying’, as having already succumbed to ‘material

corruption’. It exemplifies the ‘process of becoming’, which affects all organic forms; and when this process is grasped, present attractions are seen as no more than passing fantasies. The preceding quotation from Symeon’s Ethical Discourses can be read as a reflection of misogyny, sexual anxiety, and fear of women. But the matter is not this plain, and such an interpretation is more concrete than its author’s intent. A historical perspective would lead to qualifications related to cultural influences specific to particular times and places; thus, Symeon’s (and his peers’) misogyny is simply a reflection of biases peculiar to their time. When Symeon is granted the psychological sophistication he deserves, the picture shifts. It is the ascetic’s susceptibility to feminine beauty that troubles him; it is not the woman herself. In writing on feminine beauty, Symeon’s disciple and biographer Nikitas Stithatos explained that the ascetic’s own psychology rather than the woman is the cause of passion: ‘If your soul is allured by comeliness of body and usurped by the passion-imbued thoughts that it seems to evoke, do not assume that such comeliness is the cause of your agitation and impassioned state. The cause lies hidden in your soul, and it is your soul’s passionate disposition [...] that, as a magnet attracts iron, attracts to itself such impurity from the beauty it perceives. [...] No seed of impurity or vitiation lies hidden within’ such objects of perception (Phil. 4, 91, 92). It is important to recognize that this same argument

14 Erhical discourses. Vol. 2 [Golitzin], 72.

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applies to any highly attractive object, living or inanimate, and men included. The cause lies hidden in your soul. Symeon pressed forward in showing where the strategy leads: The ‘material corruption’ that will affect all bodies already ‘exists within’, since ‘the whole body [down to its constituent elements] is composed’ of just such corruptible material. The same elements that compose the beauty and bloom will come to harvest as rot, mud, and masticated food.!° Thus Symeon can ask rhetorically: ‘But what is the body other than the juice of masticated food?’.'® Symeon proposed an auxiliary reflection that extends the strategy of objective perception. Although one ‘would never admire her outward bloom’, there remains the possibly of ‘consider[ing] her outward beauty’.'’ The distinction turns on the difference between the force of ‘admire’ and the neutrality of ‘consider’. The ascetic may allow himself to attend to the beautiful woman as a means of testing his dispassion and securing theological insight: And, even if he were to wish to consider her outward beauty, he knows how to wonder at the Maker in proportion to His works and not to worship the creature rather than the Creator. For thus he recognizes the Maker, from the grandeur and beauty of His works, and his mind is led upwards to contemplation of Him, and his soul is kindled toward knowledge of Him. At once he is moved to divine longing and tears, and he goes wholly outside visible things and is separated far from all that is created."®

The auxiliary exercise has two stages. The ascetic knows already that ‘outward beauty’ is not what it seems, and in the first stage he discerns that it is an emblem of its Maker’s creative magnificence. To assign priority to the body and its beauty is idolatrous, an instance of ‘worshipping the creature rather than the creator’. Then, in the second stage, and upon recognizing the body’s ‘grandeur and beauty’, the ascetic passes into ‘contemplation’. So begins a flow of “divine longing and tears’, which removes the ascetic from ‘visible things and [...] all

that is created’. He ‘is led upwards’ and ‘kindled toward the knowledge of Him’.

16

Symeon’s reference to ‘masticated food’ as the residue of bodily corruption was possibly based on personal observation. Granted scavengers and an arid climate, an exposed corpse is eventually reduced to bones and desiccated feces. The concreteness of Symeon’s description shows that he was advising an imaginal exercise in addition to an intellectual analysis. A Buddhist variant of this aspect of Symeon’s strategy of objective perception is found in B. Bodhi, Middle length discourses of the Buddha: A translation of the Majjhima Nikaya (Rev. ed.), Boston: Wisdom Publications, 2001, 197-199.

” Ethical discourses. Vol. 2, 72. Ibid., 72-73. Symeon echoed John Climacus, who wrote: ‘Someone told me of an extraordi-

narily high degree of purity. He said: “A certain man, on seeing a beautiful woman, thereupon glorified the Creator; and from that one look, he was moved to the love of God and to a fountain of tears”’

John Climacus, The ladder of divine ascent [Moore], 113).

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The beauty of the particular body becomes transparent to the beauty of its Maker; in Maximos’s phrase, it is ‘a faithful copy of archetypal beauty’ (Phil, 2, 280). In developing the strategy, the ascetic exercises dispassion and approximates in himself the goodness of His beauty. The auxiliary exercis e may require many applications before it elicits the emotional stream aligned with the contemplation. The abstract theological considerations in Symeon’s present ation should not lead one to think that he and his peers, in setting out strategies for objective perception, were recommending simply theological reflection.

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CHAPTER 14

IMAGES OF BODILY CORRUPTION

Images of bodily corruption can serve the cause of dispassion, as the preceding chapter shows. Such images are easily remembered, imagined, and felt; the more fully the ascetic assimilates them, the more effectively they can change his mind. The images are applied in morally hazardous circumstances where they shock the ascetic, reorient his moral compass, and dampen impassioned urges. Their use can compress passing time, allowing the ascetic to impose a temporal framework that ties his present impassioned obsessions to the final judgment. Corruption is a property of ‘the flesh’: the fallen, sinful, carnal dimension of embodied existence. The physical body, laboring under the burden of the flesh, demonstrates corruption in its normal functions. Gregory of Sinai wrote: Corruption is generated by the flesh. To feed, to excrete, to stride about and to sleep are the natural characteristics of beasts and wild animals; acquiring these

characteristics through the fall, we have become beast-like, losing the natural blessings bestowed on us by God. We have become brutal instead of spiritually intelligent, ferine instead of godlike. (Phil. 4, 213)

We are brutish and feral in our spiritual nescience. In striding here and there we demonstrate our deviation from the stability of contemplative awareness. In feeding ourselves we show the organism’s weakness and propensity to run down. Excretions demonstrate the body’s inefficient, rough-hewn nature. The use ef images of bodily corruption in Christian asceticism both resembles and differs from their use in the Buddhist meditation on foulness. In this chapter, the meditation is reviewed and compared with the Christian practice, leading to a general impression about the traditions’ different appraisals of the ascetic utility of raw emotion. The Christian and the Buddhist practices sample many variations of the general practice I call the meditation on images of bodily corruption. To mention a few other examples, the Indo-Tibetan tradition includes initiatory exercises of an imaginal nature involving death and dismemberment.! Indigenous traditions include comparable examples; the shaman may 1M. Eliade, Yoga: Immortality and freedom, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1973.

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see himself reduced to a clacking skeleton stripped of living tissue.* ‘Brahmanical ascetics are frequently encouraged to contemplate their body as a corpse’.? Granted generous inclusion criteria, the meditation on images of bodily corruption appears to be a religious universal of an ascetic nature. But this possibility is less interesting than the psychological differences the respective traditions cultivate in using the meditation. Overriding ideas about the nature of spiritual liberation prime the cognitive set such that similar means can lead to different ends. Variations in temperament based on enculturation also play a role. I develop these points in the present chapter.

14.1 The Buddhist Meditation on Foulness4

The several variations of the meditation on foulness have similar aims and formats. All are executed in a systematic manner. The meditation object is either a real or an imagined human body. In an early practice, the object was a corpse found in charnel grounds, ‘a place of rotting corpses just thrown down’. The use of a corpse may date from the earliest stratum of the tradition, although possibly from the start an imagined corpse substituted for a physical body.° Preparations for the charnel-ground meditation involve careful planning. Safety measures are put in place to support the monk’s social routines and emotional stability. The charnel-ground meditation is reminiscent of a practice Pachomius learned from his spiritual father, the holy man Apa Palamon: The ‘young Pachomius made it a habit to leave his cell and to go often to the tombs filled with dead [bodies] and to pass the whole night there, praying before the Lord Jesus from evening to morning’.’ His temperature would rise in the course of prayer: ‘And the spot on which he stood would grow muddy from the abundant

3

Idem, Shamanism: Archaic techniques of ecstasy, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1964. P. Olivelle, ‘Deconstruction of the body in Indian asceticism’, in: V.L. Wimbush & R. Valantasis (Eds.), Asceticism, New York: Oxford University Press, 1981, 193.

I group under this one heading the charnel-ground meditation and the meditation on foul aspects of the body. This is justified on textual and psychological grounds. The meditations have similar formats and aims, and draw on similar emotions and cognitive abilities. They are presented in neighboring passages in the Mahasatipatthana Sutta, a \ocus classicus for mindfulness meditation, where both are treated as means of ‘contemplating body as body’ (Walshe, The Long Discourses of the Buddha, 335). * 6

Walshe, The Long Discourses of the Buddha, 591. Shaw, Buddhist meditation, 102.

7

Veilleux, Pachomian Koinonia. Vol. 1, 30, 34.

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We

sweat that poured from his body’.® Centuries later, hesychasts would remark on the same physical response. In the nineteenth century, for example, Brianchaninov wrote, ‘Some leave their prayer as if it were a hotly heated bath-house’.? The Bohairic Life also mentions that Pachomius would ‘go down [to an underground place]’ where he prayed throughout the night.!° He positioned himself in a tomb, pursuing penitence before God, whose judgment he expected shortly after death. A model for the charnel-ground meditation has been another meditation in which a mental image of one’s own body is compared with an image of a corpse.'' This complex cognitive task involves visuospatial transposals and the near-simultaneous manipulation of multiple images. Images in three dimensions evolve in the fourth dimension of time. The imagined corpse undergoes ten stages of deterioration during the meditation: ‘a bloated corpse’ at the start, a

powdery skeleton at the end.'* The extent to which the corpse and the image of one’s own body merge reflects meditative skill and expertise in visual imagination. An exact match, in which the images are isomorphic, induces insight, a sudden realization of impermanence, which is conveyed in declarations like this: ‘This body [of mine] is of the same nature, it will become like that [other body],

it is not exempt from that fate’.! The foul meditation resembles the basic practice of meditating on one’s own body: its posture, movements, and everyday appetitive and sensory-motor activities, such as ‘bending and stretching, [...] eating, drinking, chewing and savouring, [...] walking, standing, sitting, falling asleep and waking up, speaking or staying silent’.!4 All the while one is ‘clearly aware of what he is doing’ and remains ‘independent, not clinging to anything in the world’.”? A critical shift in focus and the basic meditation can evolve into a variant of the foul meditation in which the body’s parts and functions and its unappealing byproducts assume the cast of foulness; meanwhile one ‘abides contemplating both arising and vanishing phenomena in the body’ or, more easily, simply maintains mindfulness of the body ‘to the extent necessary for knowledge and awareness .'° 8

Ibidem. The prayer-related elevation in body temperature and the resulting perspiration are

9

Maloney, Nil Sorsky, 54.

10 11 12, 13 4 5

Veilleux, Pachomian Koinonia, Vol. 1, 42, 270. Shaw, Buddhist meditation, 102. Bodhi, A comprehensive manual ofAbhidhamma, 333. Walshe, The Long Discourses of the Buddha, 338. Tbid., 337. Tbidem.

features of fervor, a state of autonomic arousal discussed in ch. 2(7).

16” Thidi3336,0339:

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The foul meditation goes well beyond a consideration of the decline, corruption, and ‘manifold impurities’ of the body.!” Morbid fascination is not part of the practice. It engages a host of psychological phenomena, which are brought before conscious awareness, objectified and purified of their typical associations, and released from clinging.'® The foul meditation’s aesthetic dimension is evident in its quasi-medical objectivity. The painterly correlate is figurative realism rather than expressionism. The aesthetic dimension is also apparent in the transition from foul aspects of the body to the calm attentiveness of the meditating subject who employs images in service of psychological freedom. As aesthetic release is mediated through beauty, so the insight that dissipates craving and releases from clinging is imbued with the beauty of freedom. The foul meditation on one’s own body has parallels with the hesychast technique of developing an intracorporeal focus of attention.!? The Buddhist attends to the viscera and the musculoskeletal structure of the thoracic and abdominal cavities; the heychast opens an intracorporeal space in these areas rather than attending to their particular contents. The hesychast does not examine the internal organs; he replaces the opaque dense viscera with an imaginal space that becomes the seat of prayerful mentation. The Buddhist texts are graphic in outlining the focus of intracorporeal attention: Just as if there were a bag, open at both ends, full of various kinds of grain [...] and a man with good eyesight were to open the bag and examine them [...] so too a monk reviews this very body: ‘In this body there are [...] kidneys, heart, liver [...] excrement, bile, phlegm [...] snot, synovic fluid, urine.°

The foul meditation adheres to concrete images and is the more analytical of the two practices. It is like the hesychast’s form of prayer in cultivating an intracorporeal focus of attention. Such a focus deviates from ordinary experience, and descriptive reports of its consequences are excluded in polite society. It seems to erase the skin and reveal areas of the body that are dark and hidden. Attention of this kind has ascetic utility. It unsettles or destroys the ordinary sense of the

17 “Wbidin337,.

Practiced in full and in accordance with scripture, the psychological phenomena stimulated by the meditation are analyzed in terms of six sets of criteria: (a) the four base elements, which confer sensory features like heat (fire), adhesion (water), and solidity (earth); (b) the five aggregates (particularly feeling [vedana] and mind [citta]), which account for personality formation and the ongoing succession of personal experience; (c) the five hindrances (discussed in ch. 6[2]); (d) the six sense-bases (ayatanas), which include the sensory modalities and ‘mind’ and their respective objects; (e) the seven factors of enlightenment; and (f) the Four Noble

Truths (Walshe, The Long Discourses of the Buddha). 19 See ch. 2(4). 0 Walshe, The Long Discourses of the Buddha, 337.

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ay5

integrity of the body image. A kind of ‘dis-incarnation’, it readies the ascetic for subtle arrangements and extended spans of attention. The foul meditation is not exclusively for overcoming the passion of fornication (to substitute the Christian term). The great scholar Buddhaghosa, reiterat-

ing the Buddha’s advice, told monks and nuns not to use a body of the opposite sex.*! But the meditation can be used to this end, in which case a body of the opposite sex might serve as the meditation object. In striking verses, the monk Vangisa asks Ananda, the disciple closest to the Buddha, how to control the lust

that ‘infested his mind’ during his alms round.”? Ananda recommends the foul meditation: [Vangisa:]

I am burning with sensual lust, My mind is engulfed in fire. Please tell me how to extinguish it,

Out of compassion, O Gotama. [The Venerable Ananda:]

It is through an inversion of perception That your mind is engulfed in fire. Turn away from the sign of beauty Provocative of sensual lust [...]

Develop the mind on foulness, One-pointed, well concentrated; Apply your mindfulness to the body, Be engrossed in revulsion. Develop meditation on the signless, And discard the tendency to conceit. Then, by breaking through conceit, You will be one who fares at peace.”?

In Ananda’s response, ‘perception’ is a mental process of a higher order than sensory perception. ‘Apperception’ conveys its meaning, as does ‘thought’ in the Evagrian sense. Vangisa’s ‘inversion of apperception’ reverses certain truths. The wishful presupposition embedded in his problem is that beauty, attractiveness, and happiness are perduring realities. He was subject to the corruption of sensual desire and had yet to grasp the impermanence and the suffering displayed in

underlying foulness.”4

21 Nanamoli, The path ofpurification (Visuddhimagga) by Bhadantacariya Buddhaghosa, \70. 22 Samyutta Nikaya [Bodhi], 283. 23

Tbid., 283-284.

24 For the corruptions (asavas), see ch. 10(3).

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Vangisa’s problem is like the Christian ascetics’ in the illustrations discussed in the preceding chapter. Anthony grappled with passion through imagining ‘gnawing worms’ working on the dead.’ Symeon imagined the beautiful body as ‘rot and mud, as already dying’.?° The other father collected ‘liquid flowing from the cadaver’ and ‘subjected himself to this stench until the battle in him ceased’.?” Their focus—stench, worms, rot, mud, fetid liquid—is like the arahant

Kulla’s. Having lived a life of wealth and indulgence, he remained subject to fits of lust after ordination and for this reason was often instructed to conduct the foul meditation. He described his emancipating breakthrough: I, Kulla, going to a burial ground, saw a woman cast away, Abandoned in the cemetery, being eaten, permeated by worms. Diseased, impure, and rotten: see the body, Kulla! Oozing and trickling, it is the delight of fools. Taking the teaching as a mirror for the attainment of knowledge and vision, I reflected on this body, empty inside and out. As this [my body], so that [her body]; as that, so this. [...]

As before, so it is after; as after, so it is before. There is not such delight in the five kinds of musical instruments

As there is for he who is one-pointed, who sees things truly.”8

Like the Christian ascetics, Kulla compressed passing time, drawing the future into the present: “As before, so it is after; as after, so it is before’. His body, in its before-death status, is the same body whose postmortem status is displayed in the corpse. The body is always telescoping toward its demise. Kulla is like Symeon, who imagined the woman’s body ‘as already dying and having become entirely

what [it] is indeed in process of becoming’.” Both endorsed a process perspective in which nothing material eludes constant and eventually degenerative change. Kulla and the Christian ascetics aim to overcome lust or, in Christian terms, the passion of fornication. But lust signals a generic desire, a pervasive sensuous craving. In the Samyutta Nikaya the Buddha says: They are not sense pleasures, the world’s pretty things: Man’s sensuality is the intention of lust. The pretty things remain as they are in the world

But the wise remove the desire for them.*? 25 6 7 28

Schaff & Wace, Athanasius, 11. Symeon the New Theologian, Ethical discourses. Vol. 2 [Golitzin], 72. Elm, Virgins of God’, 257. Shaw, Buddhist meditation, 106.

22 Ethical discourses. Vol. 2 [Golitzin], 72. 3° Samyutta Nikaya [Bodhi], 111.

IMAGES OF BODILY CORRUPTION

Pa

Kulla and the Christians strike at desire through similar strategies for dissipating lust, in order to see that the pretty things that possess them are not the real source of their passion.

14.2 The Ascetic Utility of Raw Emotion

The initial goal of the foul meditation is to stir the sense of urgency, which gives energy and focus to the spiritual life. ‘Urgency’ is not a condition of diffuse anxiety; it is a pressure and an avidness that can be shaped and utilized, allowing the meditation to be conducted in a calm, systematic, mindful way. On this basis the meditation evolves into a state of voluntarily induced calm. Measures are taken to promote this goal. Breathing mindfulness is an example.*! The Christian illustrations capitalize on the stunning effect of encountering bodily corruption and the power of such encounters to shift the ascetic’s attention from impassioned obsessions and morally hazardous images. Anthony and the other father became excited and angry; they were driven by the incensive power to apply tactics that could ensure mental freedom. Their calm after mental battle was based on the earlier aggravation of strong emotion. In comparison,

the Buddhist ascetic turns the sense of urgency into calm and subsequently introduces sustained thought, which allows emotionally neutral observation and the examination of potentially disturbing mental content. The foul meditation is not meant to cultivate the stunning effect and the emotional shrillness that images of corruption serve in the Christian examples. The point of psychological significance is that the traditions differ in their respective views of the spiritual value and the ascetic utility of raw emotion. The Christian ascetic relies on raw emotion and turns it to use. The Buddhist ascetic observes emotion and shapes it for purposes of neutral insight. The foul meditation, cultivated to its fullest extent, culminates in a certain

jhana or meditation state: ‘a state of joy and happiness accompanied by physical ease, sustained thought, and the implacable mental obstructions.” The joyful equanimity form and content from the progressively intense emotion

born of detachment’, softening of seemingly of the jhana differs in of Symeon’s auxiliary

exercise, in which the ascetic turns from the body’s foul aspect to “wonder at the

Maker [...] the grandeur and beauty of His works’.°’ “Divine longing and tears’

overcome the Christian ascetic as his ‘mind is led upwards to contemplation of 31 For a comparison of the Christian’s ‘nipsis and the Buddhist’s ‘calm’ and ‘mindfulness’, see

ch. 7(2). 32 Shaw, Buddhist meditation, 63.

33, Symeon the New Theologian, Ethical discourses. Vol. 2 [Golitzin], 72; see ch. 13(2).

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Him, and his soul is kindled toward knowledge of Him’.*4 The contemplative absorption elicited through Symeon’s strategy obviously differs from the capacity for examination promoted through the jhana. The Christian and the Buddhist ascetics seek different kinds of detachment. In the jhana, awareness does not adhere to mental content, which allows fresh content to arise, to dissipate, and to pass before the eye of neutral observation. The Buddhist rests in the status quo of the jhana. In contrast, in Symeon’s exercise

the ascetic ‘goes wholly outside visible things and is separated far from all that is created’.*? Grandeur and beauty consume him. The Christian ascetic is a restless, worshipful agent of longing who aims for the Creator. In considering these differences, it is not that one tradition’s perspective is better than the other’s. Nor do the differences resolve to the distinction between a theistic and a non-theistic tradition. To repeat an earlier impression: The traditions differ in their respective views of the spiritual value and the ascetic utility of raw emotion.

34 Ethical discourses, 72-73. 35

Tbid., 73.

CHAPTER 15

MAXIMOS

ON IMPASSIONED MENTAL ACTIVITY

Maximos adopted the Evagrian analysis of ‘thoughts’ and developed the related psychology in his presentation of four types of dispassion. For the most part, he spoke of ‘conceptual images’ rather than ‘thoughts’, substituting his own term for Evagrius’s. A conceptual image is a germinal mental form whose development over brief increments of time can lead to a variety of mental outcomes. The manifest content of conceptual images varies depending on present circumstances; imaginal, mnemonic, or perceptual content contributes to their formation. Apart from its overt content, a conceptual image is a structural feature of mentation that embodies the act of intellection. As such, it ‘intervenes between

[...] the subject and the object intellectually apprehended [...] and determines their relationship to each other’ (P/il. 2, 280). In this chapter, I review Maximos’s

psychology of conceptual images and provide an illustration of the consequences of purifying them of impassioned content.

15.1 Conceptual Images

Maximos tended to use ‘thought’ and ‘conceptual image’ interchangeably. In some instances, however, ‘thought’ indicates a passion-infused conceptual image, and ‘conceptual image’ is reserved for mental content that is either virtuous or morally neutral. In the present analysis, I use “conceptual image’ as a global term for mental content regardless of whether it is desirable, morally neutral, or infused with passion. In the quotations from Maximos, a term’s context helps to clarify its meaning. Not all conceptual images are morally hazardous. It is the impassioned conceptual image that spoils detachment and introduces disturbed mentation and evil inclinations:

A thing, a conceptual image and a passion are quite different one from another. For example, a man, a woman, gold and so forth are things; a conceptual image is a passion-free thought of one of these things; a passion is a mindless affection or indiscriminate hatred for one of these things. The monk’s battle is therefore

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against passion [...]. The whole purpose of the monk’s warfare against the demons is to separate the passions from the conceptual images. Otherwise he will not be able to look on things dispassionately. (Phil. 2, 89)

Introspective strategies are required to extricate the passion embedded in a conceptual image. Maximos wrote: ‘If we separate the passion from the conceptual image, what remains is the passion-free thought. We can make this separation by means of spiritual love and self-control, if only we have the will’ (89). The selfcontrol cultivated in asceticism opens channels of love through impeding impassioned expressions of a bodily or a mental nature. Love is an emotional rebuttal to the passions that adulterate conceptual images. Maximos distinguished ‘simple’ and ‘composite’ conceptual images. The simple can be either neutral or morally desirable; the composite, which are relatively complex, are tainted with passion: ‘Passion-charged thoughts are composite, consisting as they do of a conceptual image combined with passion’ (Phil. 2, 79). Composite conceptual images generate simple ones: “When composite thoughts begin to provoke a sinful idea in the mind, many simple thoughts may be seen to follow them’ (79). In the case of conceptual images based on memory, the distinction between

the composite and the simple can be understood in terms of the distinction between episodic and semantic memory.' Episodic memories, which are often imbued with emotional significance, concern life events and circumstances. Semantic memories involve the retention of facts and ideas; ‘book learning’ is an example. Maximos gave the example of planning a theft: If a person ‘has the urge mentally to steal the gold and commits the sin in his intellect’, then

‘thoughts of the purse, the chest, the room and so on follow hard on the thought of the gold’. Composite conceptual images charged with avarice are apparent in the craving for wealth and the urge to steal. Subsequently, simple conceptual images based on semantic memories provide the factual information needed to plan the theft: ‘the purse, the chest, the room’ (Phil. 2, 79). The composite images set the process in motion and promote the appearance of the episodic memories that feed the fantasies of wealth, ease, and power. In time, the composite images engage the semantic memories that contribute the knowledge needed to develop a concrete strategy (When will the owner be absent? How shall I break into the chest? What road shall I use to escape?). '

LR. Squire, Memory and brain, New York: Oxford University Press, 1987; E. Tulving, ‘Episodic and semantic memory’, in: E. Tulving & W. Donaldson (Eds.), Organization of memory, New York: Academic Press, 1972, 381—403.

Phil. 2, 79. Maximos’s example may have been stimulated by reading Evagrius, who used the example of gold in discussing the passion of avarice (Evagrius of Pontus, The Greek ascetic corpus (Sinkewicz], 166).

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281

The impassioned conceptual image does not provide objective information. Maximos said that passions ‘confound the form and shape of sensible things with our conceptual images of them. Through these forms and shapes are generated passions for the outward aspects of visible things’ (Phil. 2, 195). He identified a vicious circle: Impassioned conceptual images generate desire for additional objects that are themselves adulterated with passion. Such images ‘confound’ perception in its bare immediacy. A perceptual illusion is an obvious example (‘that shiny stone must be a precious mineral’). Another example is the beautifying effect of obsessive romantic love (‘her face is moonlight; her eyes are nebulae; her hair has the float of waves’). Our normal perceptions are tainted with passion and deviate from an objective portrayal of objects. Perception is an insuperable challenge to objectivity apart from the moral purification effected through dispassion. Maximos usually attributed the passions that taint conceptual images to demonic or evil forces: ‘It is the devil’s practice maliciously to confound the forms and shapes of sensible things with our conceptual images of them’ (Phil. 2, 195). In other instances, he did not appeal to malicious supernatural agents: What, then, is evil? Clearly it is the passion that enters into the conceptual images formed in accordance with nature by the intellect; and this need not happen if the intellect keeps watch. (67)

Maximos has touched the point where impassioned mental activity merges with matters of theological concern. Notice that ‘evil’ does not indicate a metaphysical principle, or its personification as a demon. It refers to the passion embedded in mental forms that are otherwise morally benign. The active formation of a conceptual image is a critical opportunity to apply an introspective analysis that severs the passion from its conceptual image and secures the ascetic’s mental freedom. The analysis is the leverage point that allows the intellect to ‘anchor the whole power of the soul in divine and unassailable liberty’ (293). What, then,

is evil? Evil is the benumbed soul’s fascination with impassioned mental content. Mental freedom amounts to victory over evil.°

3

The manner of introspective analysis that secures mental freedom is considered in Christian process psychology (Bradford, ‘Comparable process psychologies in Eastern Christianity and Early Buddhism’). It has similarities with the Buddhist meditation practice that leads to insight (Gombrich, How Buddhism began; Shaw, Buddhist meditation; see ch. 14{1]). Both are forms

of attentional training that allow one to discern the coalescence and the dissipation of mental phenomena. The Christian ascetic means to be released from the passion embedded in such content. The Buddhist intends to avoid clinging and to discern the impermanence of mental forms.

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15.2 Illustration of Objective Perception

Objectivity is reflected in the ascetic’s recognizing and shearing away the passion that would otherwise taint his conceptual images. An illustration of objective perception is Symeon the New Theologian’s report of how the ascetic ‘in possession of the faculty of natural [spiritual] sight’ is to view jewelry and expensive fabrics, worldly power, and extravagant social displays: Such a man goes about his life in becoming fashion as in broad daylight. He sees everything for what it is by nature. He does not wonder at the surface glitter of things, but beholds their essence and quality and so remains unmoved, paying attention only to what is stable and enduring. He sees gold and pays no mind to its gleaming, but understands that it is stuff which comes from the earth and is mere stone and dust, incapable of being changed into anything else. He sees silver, pearls, all the precious stones, and his perception is not stolen away by their lovely colors, but he sees them as stones like any other stone, and

reckons them together as clay. He sees valuable, silken robes and is not amazed at their embroidery, but considers that they are merely the dung of worms, and

he pities those who delight in them and seek to acquire them as something precious.*

The passage traces the sequential steps of an exercise that promotes dispassion and can be conducted in everyday life. An emotional precedent of the exercise is mentioned in the first sentence, where Symeon sketches the aplomb and the mindfulness of the person possessed of insight. In the first step of the exercise,

attention is directed to the surface qualities of surrounding objects, such as the handwork of embroidery and the ‘glitter’ and ‘gleaming’ of shiny things. This step entails a phenomenological analysis of the perceptual features of physical objects. The ascetic does not succumb to a gripping attraction. He ‘sees gold and pays no mind to its gleaming’. His feeling is like the arahant’s, an enlightened follower of the Buddha: ‘Gold and a clod of earth were the same to him’.> In the second step, the ascetic considers what is ‘stable and enduring’, the permanent qualities of objects that Symeon calls their ‘essence’. A jewel is a ‘stone’ formed from the dust of the earth; it may have been faceted and mounted,

but its essence remains the same. Craft and skill are required to transform ‘the dung of worms’ (the cocoons of silk worms) into ‘valuable, silken robes’, which

nonetheless remain worm dung in essence. The defining element of the third step is the ascetic’s suppressing the socially sanctioned evaluative judgments that typically inform the objects of his analysis. He does not feel ‘wonder’, nor is he 4 >

Symeon the New Theologian, Ethical discourses. Vol. 2 [Golitzin], 71-72. Cited in Harvey, The selfless mind, 60.

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‘amazed’; ‘his perception is not stolen away by [...] lovely colors’. He does not insinuate in objects the societal expectations and the monetary considerations that shape the ‘normal’ emotional response. A possible fourth step is hinted in Symeon’s reference to the ascetic’s ‘pity’ toward the benighted persons who attribute common things with special worth and value. This response has the quality of an idiosyncratic personal reaction rather than a general feature of the exercise. Symeon’s strategy requires an epoche that brackets the ordinary evaluative process and confirms the ascetic ethos through a phenomenological analysis of perception.® Through such means, the accidental features of special objects are depleted of their mundane value. ‘Perception is not stolen away’ but honed to distinguish the transient and the immutable.” The epoche isolates the targeted phenomena from their social attributions. The ascetic seeks the disclosure of objects and aspirations sub species aeternitatus. Symeon’s strategy is a self-administered spiritual therapy and a prototype that can be tried by other ascetics. Symeon went further in identifying the emotional aspects of objective perception when he described the ascetic’s reaction to persons who are cowed,

impressed, or otherwise emotionally swayed when ‘see[ing] someone who is acclaimed, seated on a throne and escorted by many people in solemn procession down the street’. In witnessing such scenes, the ascetic smiles and is astonished at men’s ignorance. He sees the world and lives and walks in the middle of a great city — the Lord is my witness Who works these things in us — as if he were alone in all the world, and he lives with men as if he were in a trackless wilderness, and as if he had nothing to do with anyone or knew no man on earth. Thus is such a man disposed to live.’

Objective perception, as framed by Symeon, is a precious goal at high expense and a daunting ascetic practice. The poignancy of the circumstance must

be weighed against its mystical goal. That Symeon spoke of himself is clear. He called the Lord as his witness. He was the son of landed aristocracy and the spiritual father of aristocrats.'!° Before becoming a monk, he was the manager 6

7

For a historical review of the epoche or phenomenological ‘reduction’, see H. Spiegelberg, Phenomenology in psychology and psychiatry: A historical introduction, Evanston, 1L: Northwestern University Press, 1972; Idem, The phenomenological movement: A historical introduction (3 rev. ed.), The Hague: Nijhoff, 1982. Ethical discourses. Vol. 2, 72.

8 Tbidem. 9 Tbidem. 10 Niketas Stethatos, The life ofSaint Symeon the New Theologian [Greenfield]; Turner, St. Symeon the New Theologian and spiritual fatherhood.

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of a patrician household and awarded a ceremonial role in the imperial court. He would have seen solemn processions and probably participated in them. He railed prophetically against ‘you rulers and you rich!’ and reminded them that “God is a devouring fire’.!’ Objective perception was his personal means of securing freedom from the worldliness of his past.

'! Symeon the New Theologian, Ethical discourses. Vol. 1 [Golitzin], 136.

CHAPTER 16

RELIGIOUS WEEPING

Religious weeping is one of the tradition’s oldest and most valued practices.! Evagrius called it ‘the gift of tears’: ‘First pray for the gift of tears, so that through sorrowing you may tame what is savage in your soul’ (Phil. 1, 56). Later ascetics abbreviated his reference, speaking simply of ‘tears’. Tears is a wholly engaging experience of compunction that strikes at personality with harsh blows and eventually with comforting touches. Compunction both overlaps and differs from repentance, which is concerned with specific sins and the means of their

forgiveness. The aim of compunction ‘is not merely to obtain divine forgiveness, as mere repentance [...] does: it endeavors to erase the consequences of sin, its traces and scars which always remain’. Religious weeping is prominent in other traditions, reflecting its spiritual nature and psychological constancy apart from particular cultural influences. Its expressions in the Eastern Christian tradition may extend to ancient practices of lamentation.’ Religious weeping is traceable ‘through all the major phases of Jewish mysticism over a period of more than two millennia’.? An important Indian bhakti sutra describes ‘primary devotees, who have one-pointed love of God for His own sake, conversing with choking voices, tearful eyes, and thrilled body’.® Ignatius of Loyola’s evaluation of tears differs from the Eastern tradition’s. He was subject to tears but skeptical of its value, finding it ‘harmful to the body and head’ and an impediment to ‘many practices of charity’.’ He wept so often and copiously that his ‘recitation of the office took an inordinate time, often the greater part of a day, as did saying Mass’.® Hausherr, Penthos.

Spidlik, Prayer, 260. Patton & Hawley, Holy tears. NHN WB ~~ —

A. Suter, Lament: Studies in the ancient Mediterranean and beyond, New York: Oxford University Press, 2008.

>

del, Kabbalah, 75.

6 7

§. Tyagisananda, Narada bhakti sutra, Madras: Sti Ramakrishna Math Mylapore, 1983, 19. W.W. Meissner, Jgnatius ofLoyola: The psychology ofa Saint, New Haven: Yale University Press, 1992294, Weid.n293:

&

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The ascetic understanding of tears is presented in the first section of this chapter. The second is a review of the social, physiological, and anatomical aspects weeping, understood as ordinary crying. Isaac the Syrian’s understanding and experience of tears is analyzed in the third section. A conclusion of the analysis is presented in the final section: Tears is a prolonged process of spiritual, psychological, and physiological change that alters the autonomic nervous system on a permanent basis. 16.1

Tears

Certain distinctions have been applied to tears, the most fundamental being Climacus’s comparison of the ‘bitter’ and the ‘sweet’.? The first is associated with true repentance. The second is infused with ‘joy-making mourning’, a complex commingling of emotions. He also spoke of ‘spurious tears’, a demonic seduction that promotes ‘indulgence’. Mark the Ascetic distinguished ‘three different noetic states’ (‘according to nature’, ‘contrary to nature’, and ‘above nature’), which can be transposed into three forms of tears that correspond with

Climacus’s threefold classification (P/i/, 1, 132). Thus, natural tears is ordinary

weeping when it is inclined toward repentance or expresses genuine feeling. Contranatural tears is motivated by emotions such as jealousy, deceit, hypocrisy, or sentimentality. Supranatural tears is Climacus’s sweet tears, and both are like Evagrius’s ‘gift of tears’ (Phil. 1, 58).

In his Admonition on Prayer, Evagrius recommended voluntary weeping as a means of eliciting an emotional state suitable for prayer: ‘Force yourself, so that right at the beginning of your prayer tears may flow and you feel suffering in yourself, so that your whole prayer may prove useful’.'° Cassian had a different view: Tears ‘squeezed by a hardened heart from dry eyes’ has value, but ‘an outpouring of tears should never be forced in this way by those who have already acquired a virtuous disposition’.'' Evagrius’s advice may seem perfunctory and artificial unless it is considered in context. The effort to force tears is one element of a complex sequence of interventions that helps the ascetic to pray ‘during the night’ when ‘your body is feeling sluggish’.'* The ascetic should initially ‘stand up, sign yourself with a cross, gather together your thoughts, be in a state of recollection and readiness, gaze upon him to whom you are praying, and then commence’.!4 ° ‘John Climacus, The ladder ofdivine ascent (Moore], 70-81. The following comparison of Climacus’s classification of tears and Mark the Ascetic’s noetic states differs somewhat from the one in Ware, “‘An obscure matter”, 248, 253. Brock, The Syriac Fathers on prayer and the spiritual life, 70-71. ‘1 John Cassian, The conferences [Ramsey], 348.

Brock, The Syriac Fathers on prayer and the spiritual life, 70. '3 Tbidem.

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The effort to elicit tears occurs after the period of self-recollection and the evocation of the presence of God, and alongside several strategies of praying, reading psalms, and contending with impassioned thoughts. Forced tears sets an emotional tone and alters the cognitive set; it eliminates wayward thoughts and distractions and rouses the mind when the body is sluggish. A strategy like Evagrius’s is developed in Martyrius’s Book of Perfection.'4 In both cases, the guiding theme is a ‘humility of heart [that] is extremely advantageous in our

lives, above all at the time of prayer’. For John Climacus, tears was ‘the washing away of evils [...] committed after baptism’.'° Symeon the New Theologian held basically the same view.!7 He considered tears a ‘second’ baptism and vitally important for salvation.'® Tears ‘wipes away great sins’; absent tears, the ascetic has not fully experienced ‘repentance’ and ‘fear of God’, nor undergone ‘true conversion’.!? Symeon played on a certain beatitude in writing: “Blessed are they who ever weep bitterly for their sins, for light shall seize them and change the bitter into sweet’.*° In mentioning ‘light’, he acknowledged a connection between tears and the vision of the luminous presence of God. He reported personal experiences in which tears and the vision were reciprocally related. In one instance, he described a sequence in which the vision was followed by weeping; then, when the weeping ceased, the light reappeared.*! Weeping and the vision were respectively the autonomic and the visual expressions of a single mystical process. Tears acquired nuances of meaning as centuries passed, granted the retention of certain core properties throughout its historical development. It has been viewed as an absolution of sins, a substitute for post-mortem punishment, an

offering comparable to ritual sacrifice, a way-station to visions of the luminous deity, and a means of attaining dispassion. Gregory of Nazianzus linked tears and martyrdom, saying ‘the baptism of tears’ is ‘more laborious’ but less ‘venerable’ than the baptism in blood conferred through martyrdom.” In the most general terms, tears reflects and conveys the proximity of God. Tears has also been attributed with eschatological significance, as in the following passage from Isaac the Syrian’s Ascetical Homilies: When you attain the region of tears, then know that your mind has left the prison of this world and has set foot on the journey to the new age, and has begun to 4 Tbid., 197-239. Tbid., 208.

16 John Climacus, The ladder of divine ascent [Moore], 71. 17 Symeon the New Theologian, Ethical discourses. Vol. 3 [Golitzin], 117-120. 18 McGuckin, Symeon the New Theologian, 42. 19 20 21 22

Tbid., 78, 160. Ethical discourses. Vol. 1 [Golitzin], 167; Mt. 5:4. Hymns of divine love [Maloney], 80. Daley, Gregory of Nazianzus, 136.

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breathe that other air, new and wonderful. And at the same moment it begins to shed tears, since the birth pangs of the spiritual infant are at hand. For grace, the

common mother of all, makes haste mystically to give birth in the soul to the divine image for the light of the age to come.”

The passage is a weave of analogies. Isaac likens tears to parturition. Its ‘mother’ is the Spirit, which Isaac characterized as feminine, consistent with the feminine

gender of ‘spirit’ (rwh) in the Aramaic dialect of Syriac. Tears is born of this mother, and its ‘birth’ signals the felt appearance of the divine image in conscious awareness.”° Tears is also like a release from prison: the ‘prison of this world’. For Isaac, this is equivalent to saying that tears overcomes the passions.”° Finally, tears is a spiritual ‘journey’ that initiates an eschatological passage from this world into the next. The ascetic rides the raft of tears that he might ‘cross the sea’ and come to the shore of the heavenly kingdom.*’ He thus arrives in ‘the new age’ and can ‘breathe that other air, new and wonderful’. But tears is also a night sea journey: a initiatory passage that tests the ascetic’s mental stability.** This becomes abundantly clear in the later analysis of Isaac’s understanding of tears. 16.2 Weeping

Scientific studies of weeping have addressed its physiology and its function as social display.” Its clearest signs of display are lacrimation and a florid complexion, which correspond with marked physiological arousal. But tears differs from 3 Isaac the Syrian, The ascetical homilies (Holy Transfiguration Monastery], 201. The feminine characterization of the Spirit led to striking images in Syriac Christian writings. Gregory bar Hebraeus wrote: “This is what true life is: suckling at the breast of supreme Providence with the perfect’ (Colless, The wisdom of the pearlers, 179). John the Venerable praised the ‘Father of all, for giving us repentance as a new mother for a new birth’; ‘she cleanses [those ...] who are born to her’, those who ‘take their delight freely at your breast, in the breath of the nostrils of your Holy Spirit’ (ibid., 149). See S.P. Brock, “’Come, compassionate Mother..., come Holy Spirit’: A forgotten aspect of early Eastern Christian imagery”, in: In S.P. Brock, Fire from heaven. Studies in Syriac theology and liturgy, Burlington, VT: Ashgate Publishing Company, 2006, 249-257. 25

The ascetical homilies, 201. For the divine image, see ch. 1(4).

eV Tbid.) 125% e Whid., 177: *8 For the archetypal motif of the night sea journey, see C.G. Jung, ‘The psychology of the transference’ (1946), in: REC. Hull (Trans.), The collected works of C.G. Jung. Vol. 16, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1970, 163-326: par. 455.

° W.H. Frey, Crying: The mystery of tears, New York: Harper & Row, 1985; Gross, J.J., B.L. Fredrickson, & R.W. Levenson, “The psychophysiology of crying’, in: Psychophysiology 31 (1984), 460-468; R.W. Levenson, “Blood, sweat, and fears: The autonomic architecture of

emotion’, in: Annals of the New York Academy of Science 1000 (2003), 348-366.

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ordinary weeping, granted lacrimation is common to both. Tears is not an example of ordinary social display; it does not function as a means of eliciting sympathy or assistance from other humans. Tears is exquisitely private. Its benefactor and audience is God, although its occurrence might be observed by

others and would be shared with the is a unique form of display in which demonstrates for God the effectiveness dimension is spiritual. In Isaac’s view,

spiritual father. One might say that tears the ascetic, in his weeping and emotion, of His presence. In other words, its social tears is common: “The majority of right-

minded brethren [...] may receive the gift of tears during the office’.*°

The weeping that occurs in tears is an example of ‘affective lacrimation’ as opposed to the ‘reflex lacrimation’ that results from ocular trauma or inflammation.*! Affective lacrimation is stimulated in the frontal cortex and anterior limbic regions. Fibers from these areas convey information directly to the brainstem lacrimal nucleus, which receives additional information generated in the basal ganglia, the thalamus, and the hypothalamus. Traversing one additional ganglion, parasympathetic fibers of the autonomic nervous system pass from the lacrimal nucleus to the main lacrimal gland, where tears are made and secreted. Stimulation of the parasympathetic fibers yields ‘an evident increase in tear secretion.*” In comparison, ‘stimulation of the sympathetic fibers [engaged in lacrimation] appears to have little effect on tear secretion but does act through

the regulation of the blood supply on the main lacrimal gland’.*? The weeping found in tears is a phasic response of the autonomic system, particularly its parasympathetic branch. The physiology of tears, particularly the contribution of the autonomic system, is central to interpretations presented later in this chapter. 16.3 Isaac the Syrian on Tears

Isaac viewed tears as an extended process of personal transformation that culminates in dispassion and ‘perfect love of God’.*4 I say ‘process’ because tears is not a set of isolated episodes of weeping but an evolving development whose 30 Alfeyev, The spiritual world ofIsaac the Syrian, 140. 31 NJ. van Haeringen, ‘The (neuro)anatomy of the lacrimal system and the biological aspects of crying’, in: J.H.M. Vingerhoets & R.R. Cornelius (Eds.), Adult crying: A biopsychosocial approach, Levittown, PA: Brunner-Routledge, 2002, 19-36.

32 Ibid., 24. 33 Tbidem. 34 Isaac the Syrian, The ascetical homilies (Holy Transfiguration Monastery], 313. In the following paragraphs, references to the Ascetical Homilies will be indicated by page numbers in the main text.

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longitudinal course is divided into several phases. Isaac’s observations about tears are not unique, although his ascetic virtuosity is clear from the comprehensiveness of the description and his insistence on tears’ evolving nature. In developing a phenomenology of tears, as understood by Isaac, I have sifted his Ascetical Homilies for all references to ‘tears’; matched similar descriptions to determine the several, distinct expressions of tears; and relied on internal evi-

dence to discern the sequence in which the expressions occur. Tears has three phases, which will be designated recurrent tears, constant tears, and moderate tears. Recurrent tears involves bitter tears of contrition: There are tears that burn, and there are tears that anoint as if with oil. All tears

that flow out of contrition and anguish of heart on account of sins dry up and burn the body, and often even the governing faculty feels the injury caused by their outflow. At first a man must necessarily come to this order of tears, and through them a door is opened unto him to enter the second order. (302-303)

The emotional impact of recognizing and grieving for one’s sins causes ‘injury’ to the intellect, the ‘governing faculty’ of the soul. One cannot reason clearly, and spiritual aspirations seem clouded and uncertain. Recurrent tears is a behavioral and emotional realization of penitence. It serves as an ‘offering’ and a ‘sacrifice’ that establish a new and different relationship with God: Drench your cheeks with the weeping of your eyes, that the Holy Spirit may rest upon you, and wash you from the filth of your wickedness. Appease your Lord with tears, that He may come to your aid. (211)

In appeasing the Lord, weeping is like a sacrifice: “The offering of the righteous is the tears of their eyes; and their acceptable sacrifice is their sighings during vigil’ (177).

Recurrent tears is an ‘order of tears’ that ‘at intervals comes over hesychasts’ (201). The weeping evolves incrementally: ‘at first only to a small degree: that is, repeatedly during the course of a single day tears come over a man, and then leave him again’ (217). It is prompted by self-examination and the scrutiny of conscience: Tears are born of pure and undistracted rumination, and of many perpetual, undeviating reflections, and of the recollection of something subtle and hidden which enters the mind and saddens the heart by its memory. From these things tears are multiplied and abundantly increase. (408)

Recurrent tears is physically demanding: ‘Some are unable to mourn unceasingly by reason of the feebleness of their body’ (307).

The frequency of weeping increases as the ascetic passes from recurrent tears into the phase of constant tears, ‘that order which belongs to him who sheds tears unceasingly both night and day’ (202). The ascetic weeps often and spontaneously:

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‘Suddenly grace visits him with tears beyond measure’; he feels ‘enriched with love, until by reason of his constant converse with tears he imbibes them with his food and drink’ (248, 302). Constant tears is prolonged: “The eyes of such a

man become like fountains of water for two years’ time or even more, that is, during the time of transition: I mean, of mystical transition’ (202).

Constant tears has the physical effect of ‘alter[ing] a man’s countenance’ (303). His complexion and facial expression change. This is a sustained effect

and not necessarily contingent on weeping or the presence of emotional pain. In Isaac’s words, the ascetic ‘glows’ with ‘gladness’: While the thinking is silent these tears are poured forth over the entire countenance. The body receives from them a sort of nourishment, and gladness is imprinted upon the face. He who has had experience of these two alterations will understand. (303)

The ascetic’s glowing complexion reflects capillary dilation, a vascular effect resulting from sympathetic arousal. Additional signs of arousal include elevated heart rate and elevated body temperature.*’ In describing constant tears, Isaac wrote: ‘Your heart is aflame and hot like fire both day and night’ (177). Statements of this nature are metaphorical descriptions of spiritual inspiration and also references to physical change in the body. Visions and revelations occur during the phase of constant tears. The two phenomena differ: “Not every revelation is a vision, but every vision is called a revelation, because what is hidden is revealed. Still, not all becomes revealed and known through a vision’ (305). Revelations are rare and occur more often in

moderate than in constant tears. They are specific to persons with ‘purity’ of mind who are ‘perfect and replete with knowledge’ (305). In comparison, visions are composed of ‘types’ and ‘likeliness’; they are symbolic and require interpretation (305). They ‘come to pass in many ways [...] whether in deep sleep or waking’; and the ascetic may be uncertain which state is present (305). Visions compromise reality-testing and may coincide with a lowered level of consciousness: For often the very man who beholds the vision does not know whether he is awake or asleep. And even after he comes to himself, he does not know whether the thing had truly taken place or whether it occurred as though in a dream. (305)

Visions can be seen and heard: It also happens that a voice of succor is heard, at times a certain form is seen, at times a more distinct vision, that is, face to face, and sight, and speech, and questions and the ensuing intercourse. (305)

35 For these effects in hesychastic prayer, see ch. 2(7).

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In other words, the ascetic communicates with imaginal and hallucinatory figures.

Anchorites especially have this kind of experience: “These things occur in desert wildernesses and places far removed from men, where a man is by necessity in great need of them because he has no help or comfort from any quarter’ (305). Isaac did not mention hostile, evil, or anxiety-provoking communications. Visions

do not stir paranoia or anxiety and are generally unlike the religious hallucinations that occur in schizophrenia.*° Constant tears progresses in parallel with the ascetic’s increasing skill in sustaining stillness: “The thoughts that arise in stillness spontaneously and unexpectedly because of a man’s labors make his eyes become two fonts of baptism by the flow of his tears which wash his cheeks in abundance’ (225). Stillness ‘resurrects the inward movements’; mental process is enriched in content and becomes more intense (303). Stillness is an outcome of the ‘work’ of

the ascetic life: Suddenly like a freely flowing torrent you are given fountains of tears mingled with all your works: with your reading, your prayer, your psalmody, your reflections, your eating and drinking, and to your every work your tears are joined. (177) Tears, stillness, and ascetic work promote renunciation and reduce or erase

debilitating attachments: When you dwell for you that your hot like fire both and you have no flaming thoughts

in stillness and possess the work of humility, this will be a sign soul is nigh to emerging from darkness: your heart is aflame and day and night, such that all the world is for you refuse and ashes, desire even for food by reason of the sweetness of the new and constantly arising in your soul. (177)

Constant tears brings forth ‘fiery thoughts’ and the feelings of ‘sweetness’, which signal the ascetic’s arrival at the margin of the spiritual world (153, 217). Fiery thoughts are emotionally colored intuitions that disclose religious meanings that are otherwise pale ideas. But the ascetic is not yet firmly situated in a new state of mind; the world may yet entrap him. Constant tears is the exact sign that the mind has left this world and perceived that spiritual world. But the more a man draws near in his mind to the present world, the more tears subside. And when his mind is totally enmeshed in the world, a man is totally deprived of these tears. This is a sign that a man is completely buried in the passions. (302)

D.T. Bradford, The experience of God: Portraits in the phenomenological psychopathology of schizophrenia, New York: Peter Lang, 1984; Idem, “A therapy of religious imagery for paranoid schizophrenic psychosis’.

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Isaac defined ‘world’ as the ‘collective name’ for the passions (125). The passage implies that tears and impassioned mentation are mutually exclusive. Constant tears promotes dispassion and exposes spiritual realities: For tears are established for the mind as a kind of boundary between what is bodily and what is spiritual, and between passionateness and purity. Until a man receives this gift, the activity of his work is still in the outer man and he has not yet at all

perceived the activity of the hidden things of the spiritual man. (302)

Constant tears is an initiation, a passage across the ‘boundary between what is bodily and what is spiritual’; in crossing the boundary, ‘the outer man dies to all the doings of the world’ (153, 302). It is a drama of renunciation through which the ascetic arrives at the cusp of dispassion: The tears of a man who for a long time weeps and mourns can not only lead him to dispassion, but even completely cleanse and free his mind of the memory of the passions. (307)

The ascetic in close proximity to dispassion receives a taste of ‘consolation’: When by means of tears a monk is deemed worthy of traversing the land of the

passions and of reaching the plains of purity of soul, then he encounters there consolation which does not pass away from those who have found it, and he comes upon consolation that is not to be discovered in the world. (307)

The following passage mentions behavioral manifestations of the transition from constant to moderate tears. It shows that the phase of constant tears concludes on notes of exceptional emotional intensity: Suddenly and sweetness: his earth, and his out his entire

without warning a fountain springs up in his heart gushing forth members grow feeble, his eyesight is veiled, he bows his head to the thoughts are altered so that because of the joy that surges throughbody he cannot make prostrations. (153)

Another passage mentions additional physical signs of the ascetic’s having ‘truly entered into that realm’ of the spiritual world: “When the mind is exalted above created things, the body also takes leave of tears and of every movement and sensation apart from its natural vitality’ (147). Not only does tears cease; the ascetic ‘takes leave [...] of every movement and sensation’ (147). He is immobile

and insentient, yet certain overt signs of ‘natural vitality’ remain, namely respiration and a beating heart. This is a rapturous state of dissociation in which the normal structure of self-embodiment disintegrates.*” 37 A clinical analogy of the disintegration is ‘negative heautoscopy’ in which the person in unable to perceive his or her own body. In early nomenclature, ‘aschematia’ and ‘asomatognosia’ were terms for this rare phenomenon. See M. Critchley, The parietal lobes, London: Edward Arnold,

1953.

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A distinct type of mystical experience signals the onset of the phase of moderate tears. It does not involve weeping: Thereupon your understanding will be swallowed up in awestruck wonder, your senses will be silent, and you, the wretched man, will cast yourself down upon your face in prayer. (153)

The experience of awestruck wonder involves an imageless grasp of the presence and unity of deity.** In its aftermath, the ascetic experiences a prolonged mental state called ‘peace of thoughts’: When you enter into that region which is peace of thoughts, then the multitude of tears is taken away from you, and afterwards tears come to you in due measure and at appropriate time. (202)

Peace of thoughts engenders the ‘state of limpid purity’: From her unceasing tears the soul receives peace in her thoughts. And from peace of thoughts she is raised to limpid purity of the mind. And through this limpidity of the mind man comes to see the mysteries of God. (134, 217)

The principal mystery recognized by the ascetic is divine providence: ‘the spectacle of God’s continuous care for the work of His hands’ (550). The ascetic

does not think about providence in a new way; he directly discerns it: “This very same divine power [...] manifests itself to a man in secret through noetic reyelation to his spiritual nature, that is, his mind’ (550). In discerning God’s care,

the ascetic sees that this ‘holy power [...] cleaves to the soul and does not depart from her either by night or day, and it shows to her God’s providence’ (550). The discernment of providence has the psychological effect of exposing to the ascetic the workings of his mind: “And even the minutest details of all that is and was, of yes and no, of what visits a man both secretly and openly, [...] this power which has entered the soul reveals to her’ (550). The layered content of °8 For ‘awestruck wonder’, see ch. 4(6). For the ‘imageless grasp’, see ch. 20(3,4). Apart from ‘awestruck wonder’, Isaac used a number of terms to designate mystical experience, but not all

discriminate among different types of experience. At points, for example, ‘natural contemplation’ and ‘hypostatic sheoria’ function as synonyms. Isaac’s use of terms is often expressive and descriptive rather than systematic and denotative. He used theoria in describing awestruck wonder, borrowing an Evagrian term if not its exact original meaning. He understood Evagrius’s distinction between theoria physike and theologia. He also seems to have understood Evagrius’s distinction between the ‘first’ and the ‘second’ form of theoria physike, although he makes little use of the distinction (Bradford, “Evagrius Ponticus and the psychology of “Natural Contemplation”’; J.S. Konstantinovsky, Evagrius Ponticus: The making of a Gnostic, Farnham, UK: Ashgate, 2009). Syriac versions of Isaac’s Ascetical Homilies contain obscure, convoluted discus-

sions (interpolations, I would say) that expound on Evagrian terms and concepts in ways that are inconsistent with Isaac’s usual tone, meaning, and pastoral intent (e.g., The ascetical homilies, 134-135, footnote 7).

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streaming consciousness is exposed in the limpid clarity of the dispassionate mind. Not only is the ascetic able to newly observe mental process; he feels a buoying force that upholds his mind and sustains its forward movement. Providence is felt as a protective force that subsists independently of the ascetic’s self-awareness: And it shows to his soul how divine care accompanies a man at all times, though he is unaware and ignorant of it, [...] and directs him toward that which is for his salvation and the repose of both his soul and body. (550)

Apart from recognizing providence in his own mental process, the ascetic discerns objective effects of God’s hand in the material world. The Spirit, in its provision of care, ‘begins to reveal heavenly things to him’ in hints, feelings, intuitions, and revelations (202). The ascetic sees that ‘there is a Pilot Who steers the things of this world’; “His divine care [...] unceasingly cleaves to and

visits every single thing of this creation’ (246, 550). Certain consequences of providence are set to occur at the end of time: “And from this he perceives, somewhat dimly and in figure, as it were, the change nature is going to receive at the renewal of all things’ (202).

Spells of weeping during the phase of moderate tears are keyed to the ascetic’s entering stillness and directing his attention to God: Whenever the recollection of God is stirred in his mind, straightaway his heart is stirred with the love of Him and his eyes pour forth abundant tears. For love is wont to kindle tears by the recollection of beloved ones. A man who is in this state will never be found destitute of tears, because that which brings him to the recollection of God is never absent from him; wherefore even in sleep he converses with God. For love is wont to cause such things. (313)

This is how Isaac described ‘perfection for men in their life here’ (313). 16.4 Permanent Autonomic Change The process of tears is a physiological development with profound psychological consequences. Fischer’s theory of religious experience can be used to interpret its phases.*” He situated particular mystical states (and the practices 39 R. Fischer, ‘A cartography of ecstatic and meditative states’, in: Science 174 (1971), 897-904; Idem, ‘Cartography of inner space’, in: R.K, Siegel & M.E. Jarvik (Eds.), Hallucinations: Behavior, experience, and theory, New York: Wiley, 1975, 197-236; Idem, “Toward a neurosci-

ence of self-expression’. For a critical review of Fischer’s theory, see P. Connolly, “Roland Fischer’s cartography of ecstatic and mystical states: A reappraisal’, in: Transpersonal Psychology Review 4 (2000), 4-16. For precedents of Fischer’s theory, see Gellhorn, Principles of auto-

nomic-somatic integrations; and Gellhorn & Kiety, ‘Mystical states of consciousness’. In their

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that induce them) at different points on a continuum based on their internal qualities and their respective patterns of autonomic arousal. Certain states are ‘ergotropic’ because they engage mainly the sympathetic branch of the autonomic system through heightening noradrenergic activity. Other states are ‘trophotropic’ because they engage the parasympathetic branch of the system through heightening serotonergic activity. When one pattern of arousal reaches maximum intensity, ‘rebound’ occurs, and on this basis the opposing tendency is engaged and its mystical effects become prominent. Rebound reflects the natural ‘tuning’ capacity of the autonomic system. It reverses the present pattern of autonomic dominance and disinhibits the previously quiescent branch of the system. For example, an ecstatic state of rapture corresponding with sympathetic arousal can evolve suddenly into a state of samadhi-like quietude, indicating the dissipation of sympathetic activity and the relative intensification of parasympathetic arousal. Change in the opposite direction is explained based on the same principle. Oscillations of this nature terminate in the normal autonomic status quo.

To some extent, the process of tears conforms with expectations based on Fisher’s theory. Recurrent tears is an aroused condition compared with the pretears status quo. Constant tears reflects a progressive intensification of the sym-

pathetic activity whose onset marked the beginning of recurrent tears. Constant tears is highly ergotropic. In addition to profuse weeping, its expressions include intense emotional turmoil, auditory and visual hallucinations, compromised reality-testing, dissociative episodes, altered experience of self-embodiment, and instances of a lowered level of consciousness. The ascetic’s glowing complexion and his spells of elevated heart rate and elevated body temperature signal intense sympathetic arousal. Transient instances of tuning also occur, as reflected in Isaac’s references to ‘succor’, ‘stillness’, ‘sweetness’, and ‘consolation’.*° Constant tears is the phase of possible shipwreck when perseverance, spiritual direction, and a sound premorbid mental status are required for a safe passage into moderate tears. It conforms with expectations based on Fischer’s conception of ergotropic practices and mystical states. Tears also deviates from expectations based on Fischer’s theory. It is the oddity of the phase of moderate tears that calls for attention. Moderate tears brings a quietude of the body and the mind, which avails a meditative focus

neurotheology, d’Aquili & Newberg rely on Fischer’s theory as an interpretive model but do not acknowledge their source (E.G. d’Aquili & A.B. Newberg, ‘Religious and mystical states: A neuropsychological model’, in: Zygon: Journal of Religion and Science 28 [1993], 177-200; Idem, The mystical mind: Probing the biology of religious experience, Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 1999). 40 Tsaac the Syrian, The ascetical homilies {Holy Transfiguration Monastery], 153, 177, 305, 307.

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undisturbed by discursive thought and impassioned mentation. The ascetic’s sensitivity to external events and his own mental activity is intact. A certain orderliness called ‘providence’ enfolds the day’s events and is also apparent in reflection on the passing content of one’s own mental process. Weeping occurs in due measure and in ways fitting the matter of concern. Sensitivity to religious content is exceptional. The remembrance of God is enough to elicit tears. Moderate tears can be understood as a condition of stable, moderately intense parasympathetic dominance. It does not restore the pre-tears autonomic status

quo, nor is it a rebound effect of comparable intensity as constant tears. It appears that moderate tears involves a re-patterning of the autonomic system on a long-term basis. It represents a new autonomic status quo. The process of tears combines conscious intention and involuntary function in a practice whose form, temporal structure, and psychological content suggest an extended ritual developed from the emotions and the physiology of lacrimation. Tears is a naturally staged practice that alters the mind and the body, comparable to a transformation of the profane into the sacred. Tears is a liturgy of the body.

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