Κεφ. ΛΔ'
The Cycle of Passionate Memory
The soul's entanglement with passionate memories necessitates a deeper, immaterial struggle against the demons who stir them.
Whenever our memories of something are charged with passion, it's because we first received the thing itself with passion; and whenever we again receive something with passion, our memories of it will also be charged with passion. Therefore, anyone who has defeated the demons at work will despise the things they stir into action, for the immaterial battle is harder than the material one.1
Read the original Latin
Ὧν τὰς μνήμας ἔχομεν ἐμπαθεῖς, τούτων καὶ τὰ πράγματα πρότερον μετὰ πάθους ὑπεδεξάμεθα· καὶ ὅσα τῶν πραγμάτων πάλιν μετὰ πάθους ὑποδεχόμεθα, τούτων καὶ τὰς μνήμας ἕξομεν ἐμπαθεῖς. Ὅθεν ὁ νικήσας τοὺς ἐνεργοῦντας δαίμονας τῶν ὑπ’ αὐτῶν ἐνεργουμένων καταφρονεῖ· τοῦ γὰρ ἐνύλου πολέμου ὁ ἄϋλος χαλεπώτερος.
Notes
- 1 ↩The phrase literally refers to the things acted upon or activated by the demons; “the things they stir into action” preserves that causal sense.
The Praktikos companion
A daily portion of stillness
Chosen Portion delivers one short contemplative reading and a guided moment of silence each day — the ascent, one step at a time.
Chosen Portion is the paced doorway into this collection: it portions the dense mystical treatises into one daily reading plus guided silence, exactly as the 14-day plan teaches.
- Daily bite-sized excerpts from the contemplative classics, never a wall of text
- A built-in timed stillness practice that grows from 2 minutes to 10
- Gentle progression through the tradition — the app remembers where you are on the ascent