Κεφ. ΜΓ'
Discerning the Enemy
By observing the nature and frequency of intrusive thoughts, the practitioner learns to identify and repel demonic influence to maintain spiritual stability.
We must also learn to distinguish among the demons and take note of when they appear. From the thoughts—and the thoughts from the circumstances that provoke them—we’ll learn which demons appear less often but are more oppressive, which are persistent but less severe, and which burst in all at once and seize the mind, driving it toward blasphemy. We need to know these things so that, when the thoughts begin stirring up their usual objects, we can speak against them and identify the demon at work before we’re driven far from our proper state. For in this way, with God’s help, we’ll make progress more easily, while making the demons fly away in pain and amazement at us.1
Read the original Latin
Δεῖ δὲ καὶ τὰς διαφορὰς τῶν δαιμόνων ἐπιγινώσκειν, καὶ τοὺς καιροὺς αὐτῶν σημειοῦσθαι· εἰσόμεθα δὲ ἐκ τῶν λογισμῶν, τοὺς δὲ λογισμοὺς ἐκ τῶν πραγμάτων, τίνες τῶν δαιμόνων σπάνιοι καὶ βαρύτεροι, καὶ ποῖοι συνεχεῖς καὶ κουφότεροι, καὶ τίνες οἱ ἀθρόως εἰσπηδῶντες καὶ πρὸς βλασφημίαν τὸν νοῦν ἁρπάζοντες. Ταῦτα δὲ ἀναγκαῖον εἰδέναι, ἵν’ ὅταν ἄρξωνται οἱ λογισμοὶ τὰς ἰδίας ὕλας κινεῖν, πρὶν ἢ πολὺ τῆς οἰκείας ἐκβαλώμεθα καταστάσεως, φθεγγώμεθά τι πρὸς αὐτοὺς καὶ τὸν παρόντα σημαίνωμεν· οὕτω γὰρ ἂν αὐτοί τε ῥᾳδίως σὺν Θεῷ προκόπτωμεν, κἀκείνους θαυμάζοντας ἡμᾶς καὶ ὀδυνωμένους ἀποπτῆναι ποιήσωμεν.
Notes
- 1 ↩Literally, “identify the one present”; in context, this most plausibly means recognizing and naming the demon currently at work.
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