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Religious Experience – Reality or Illusion
Insights from Symeon the New Theologian and Ignatius of Loyola
Ivana Noble
In this paper I deal with two classic representatives, one - Symeon the New Theologian (949-1022) - of the Eastern tradition, and the other - Ignatius of Loyola (1491-1556) - of the Western tradition. I examine how they treat the question of discernment between an authentic religious experience and an illusion, what sort of criteria they propose for this discernment, and to what degree their criteria can be applicable for us today. For this I need to sketch how the world in which they lived marked their spiritual world and the symbolic system in which they expressed their views. Against this background I will ask questions concerning the mediation of God: What happens in prayer? Is human imagination a source of deception, a mirror image of our desires, or a source of religious knowledge? How do we know that what we experience is real? How can we grasp it and communicate it to others? These questions will take me to the final theme of this paper, how different modes of working with religious experience can stimulate spiritual progress, stagnation or regress.
1. Opening the eyes of the soul according to Symeon
Eastern tradition does not know a strict division between mysticism and theology, between personal experience and the dogmatic formulation of the church. All together expresses revealed truth, leads to purification, to a renewed memory of salvation and to participation in God. Divisions and conflicts were seen as coming from the opposition between the secular and the sacred. This view was strengthened on the one side by the experience of the changes caused by the church gaining power in the Byzantine court, and on the other by the growth of the ascetic church of the monks[1]. The Greek ascetic, mystical writer and founder of monasteries, Symeon the New Theologian, lived in Constantinople and its surroundings from 949-1022. He belonged to the tradition which understood itself as a counterpart to "secular wisdom"[2]. This tradition was opposed to all political and cultural influences on Byzantine Christian thinking, and was convinced of the "otherworldliness" of God's kingdom and of the need for an unceasing communication with God. Symeon himself significantly influenced the movement of hesychasm[3]. Here I will draw on his works On Faith, and One Hundred and Fifty-Three Practical and Theological Texts, but also on The Three Methods of Prayer, a treatise which comes from the circle of Symeon's disciples.
In On Faith Symeon tells his readers about the inner life of a young man called George, who oscillates between the attractions of the worldly and of the monastic life, and within this tension there are expositions on spiritual progress and regress, on experiences with God and their influences on human life. Although Symeon speaks in the third person, the work has an autobiographical character. At the beginning of the story George receives a book by Mark the Monk, On the Spiritual Law, and is challenged by its three emphases: (i) "If you desire spiritual health, listen to your conscience, do all it tells you, and you will benefit"; (ii) "He who seeks the energies of the Holy Spirit before he has actively observed the commandments is like someone who sells himself into slavery and who, as soon as he is bought, asks to be given his freedom, while still keeping his purchase-money"; (iii) "Blind is the man who crys out and says: ‘Son of David, have mercy upon me' (Luke 18,39). He prays with his body alone, and not yet with his spiritual knowledge. But when the man once blind received his sight and saw the Lord, he acknowledged Him no longer as the Son of David but as the Son of God, and worshipped Him (cf. John 9,38)"[4]. Symeon emphasizes that George is in no way an exceptional man, but rather a type of each one of us, and with him each and everyone of us should ask "that the eyes of [our] soul should be opened"[5]. Then Symeon describes an experience of how such an opening happened:
"One day, as he [George] stood repeating more in his intellect than in his mouth the words ‘God, have mercy upon me, a sinner' (Luke 18:13), suddenly a profuse flood of divine light appeared above him and filled the whole room. As this happened, the young man lost his bearings, forgetting whether he was in a house or under a roof; for he saw nothing but light around him and did not even know that he stood upon the earth. He had no fear of falling, or awareness of the world, nor did any of those things that beset men and bodily beings enter his mind. Instead he was wholly united to non-material light, so much so, that it seemed to him that he himself had been transformed into light. Oblivious of all else, he was filled with tears and with inexpressible joy and gladness. Then his intellect ascended to heaven and beheld another light, more lucid than the first. Miraculously there appeared to him, standing close to that light, the holy angelic elder of whom we have spoken and who had given him the short rule and the book"[6].
The story continues and we learn that the young man spent the following twelve years "in the world", being tempted by its possibilities, and finally, after much effort, many tears, in solitude and strict obedience, he managed to eliminate his own will completely, and thus to embark on the journey which had been opened up to him in the vision just described[7]. Symeon in this short work points out that Christian faith is at the same time a conscious experiencing of God, and a gift of grace[8]. Through the figure of George, who is both autobiographical and typological, he shows how the initial enlightenment which one experiences in prayer has to be appropriated within the context of one's life. The stage following enlightenment is, according to Symeon, marked by darkness and by the need of purification. Obedience to the commandments is, in Symeon's words, complemented by "abandoning the world" and even "the complete elimination of [ one's] own will"[9], as well as by actions which were not a condition for the initial experience, as grace preceded human effort, but which are required at this stage - as an adequate response to receiving grace and a condition for living in grace, a move from believing in God to loving God[10].
The process of transformation is one of the main themes in One Hundred and Fifty-Three Practical and Theological Texts. The initial inner enlightenment by the Holy Spirit is compared here to a high fever, when one is afraid, amazed, unable to control oneself or to understand what is going on. Symeon speaks of seeing and experiencing "something which is beyond nature, thought and conception"[11]. The contrast between the world and monastic life, which we saw in On Faith, is now internalised, as if nature represented the world within oneself, and the monastic life rediscovering the image of Christ in oneself. Symeon again starts with the experience of illumination, arguing that to enjoy divine blessings requires purification of "all that is earthly"[12] and progresses to unification, or in Eastern terminology, to theosis "God is united with gods and known by them"[13]. For theosis to happen, one has to invest one's "intelligence and intellect with the image of our Lord Jesus Christ, the heavenly one, man and God"[14]. Symeon christianizes the much despised Platonic concept of the soul[15] as he speaks of investing one's soul's potential into the image of Christ. He uses symbols of dying and rising, as he speaks of the journey of spiritual progress[16], as if one has to strip off one's nature and let it die, so that participation in divine nature be made possible.
In these One Hundred and Fifty-Three Practical and Theological Texts Symeon also opens up the theme of the inauthentic experience of God or the divine realm, where the human mind in its imagination projects what it wants to see[17]. This theme is elaborated in the treatise The Three Methods of Prayer, where the first two types of prayer or attention represent in fact a deviation from a true experience of God, as one tries to reach divine things by human capacities alone, and thus one's efforts become obstacles to, rather than occasions of, divine illumination. In the first case it is human fantasy which creates an unreal "heavenly" world and wants to dwell in it, suggests to itself that the soul is filled with divine love, and wants to remain in this stage, thus running the risk of the person losing his or her sanity[18]. The second type is marked by an effort to guard oneself, but in fact leads to running from one area to another, struggling between guarding one's senses, examining one's thoughts, talking to God and wandering off into captivating thought. The problem is when such a stage is regarded with self-esteem, and the person imagines they have reached the point where they can teach others without realizing their own blindness[19]. The third form, then, is placed in contrast with the previous two and presents a short summary of hesychasm and of the prayer of the heart. It requires the practice of obedience to God through the spiritual father, pure conscience and control over the abuse of material things[20]. Then, after having cleared the ground, the intellect penetrates into the depth of the heart and in prayer encounters the love of Christ there[21]. The type of prayer which is proposed consists of an invocation of Jesus Christ[22].
Then the author asks why a monk cannot attain perfection by means of the first and second form. He replies to his own question: "Because he does not embark on them in proper order. ..those who want to ascend a ladder do not start at the top and climb down, but start at the bottom and climb up"[23]. The proposed sequence stands as follows: (i) cleansing the heart of the passions; (ii) singing Psalms to the Lord; (iii) contemplation[24]. "But if without following the sequence ...you raise eyes and intellect to heaven in the hope of envisaging noetic realities you will see fantasies rather than the truth. Because your heart is unpurified, ... the first and the second method do not promote our progress"[25].
Symeon's writings, as well as the writings of his followers, concentrate on the conscious encounter with Christ, which we cannot force from our side, but which we can receive, when the Holy Spirit enlightens us. It is an "otherworldly" encounter, according to Symeon, who operates with the dualism world/God, nature/grace, human activity/contemplation. The former - world, nature, human activity - are realms under the power of demons which have to be transformed into the latter - God, grace, contemplation. The hesychast notion of spiritual progress, however, at a later stage includes what was left behind to be purified.The ideal of a perfect monk, then, is a person in whom all physical and psychical energies are harmonised in prayer[26]. Discernment has a different form at different stages. Symeon is even convinced that a truth one discovers too soon may become an obstacle. He is further persuaded that we partake in the drama of spiritual struggle, where the approach to salvation is at stake, where devils play games with people if allowed to, and the love of Christ is making itself known.
2. Ignatius's journeying towards God's greater glory
The representatives of 16th century Spanish mysticism, such as Ignatius of Loyola, as well as Teresa of Avila and John of the Cross, resemble the hesychasts in their emphasis on the inner life of prayer. However, different social and ecclesial conditions and their different culture give a different framework to their spiritual world, and in particular, give a stronger stress on an active approach to prayer and the apostolic life.
The Western Church at the end of 15th century was still partly at home in the medieval concept of the political and religious unity of the world. This concept was brought to new mission territories[27], but it was starting to be shaken in its European homeland. Here the Church badly needed reform, though it was not clear how radical such a reform would have to be. Since the end of 12th century movements had been in operation which had worked on shifting the attention of people from the institution of the church, which was seen as dying, to "spiritual things" or to the age of the Spirit, where the papal church would be substituted by the church of spiritual people. These movements were directed to the individual, to cultivating his or her soul, and often connected with apocalyptic expectations[28]. In the middle of the 14th century the movement of a new devotion (Devotio moderna) spread through the Netherlands. It emphasized the need for a personal relationship with Christ which would be based on listening to his word and meditating on his life and suffering[29].Yet these movements were not strong enough for the global renewal of the church as institution, of sacramental life, of theology and church practice in a society at the dawn of modern times. This reform would go in the direction of the Reformation on the one hand, and the Council of Trent on the other. The reform spiritual movements, nevertheless, would accompany the wider-scale reform, and represented a key to human self-understanding, to one's relationship with God in this historical-cultural context. Ignatius of Loyola (1492-1556) represents one of the deepest expressions of this movement.
Ignatius's Autobiography[30] starts with an account of his own values at the time he was wounded in the battle of Pamplona (1521)[31]. During a long convalescence at the castle of Loyola he began to discern two types of movements in his mind - two spirits. After he experienced the nearness of death, received the sacrament of the dying and returned back to health, there were two ideals fighting in him: one of a soldier-knight, greatly supported by the reading of courtly romances; and a new ideal of life inspired by the reading of Spanish translations of the Vita Jesu Christi by the Carthusian Ludolph of Saxony and of the Legenda Aurea by the Dominican Jacopo of Varazze, the only two books in the house. The first contrast deals with the possibilities of practical realisation:
"Of the many foolish ideas that occured to him, one had taken such a hold on his heart that he was absorbed in thinking about it for two and three and four hours without realizing it. He imagined what he would do in the service of a certain lady; the means he would take so he could go to the place where she lived; the quips - the words he would address to her; the feats of arms he would perform in her service. He became so infatuated with this that he did not consider how impossible of attainment it would be, because the lady was not of ordinary nobility; not a countess nor a duchess; but her station was higher than any of these. Nevertheless our Lord assisted him, by causing these thought to be followed by others which arose from the things he read. For in reading the life of Our Lord and of the saints, he stopped to think, reasoning with himself, ‘What if I should do what St. Francis did, and what St. Dominic did?' Thus he pondered over many things that he found good, always proposing to himself what was difficult and burdensome; and as he so proposed, it seemed easy for him to accomplish it"[32].
The second difference was in the state in which Ignatius was left when he awoke from his dreams:
"Yet there was this difference. When he was thinking of those things of the world he took much delight in them, but afterwards, when he was tired and put them aside, he found himself dry and dissatisfied. But when he thought of going to Jerusalem barefoot, and of eating nothing but plain vegetables and of practising all the rigors that he saw in the saints, not only he was consoled when he had these thoughts, but even after putting them aside he remained satisfied and joyful"[33].
Ignatius says that he did not notice this difference immediately, but retrospectively, "when his eyes were opened a little"[34]. Then he was amazed at the difference of the spirits, the evil and the good spirit, which he had known from his own experience[35]. In the Spiritual Exercises he does not explicitly come back to the first difference concerning practical applicability, yet it remains an unspoken rule for discerning one's experience as coming from God[36]. He comments on the difference of the "state of mind":
"We should pay close attention to the whole train of our thoughts. If the beginning, middle, and end are all good and tend to what is wholly good, it is a sign of the good angel. But if the train of the thought which a spirit causes ends up in something evil or diverting, or in something less good than what the soul was originally proposing to do; or further, if it weakens, disquiets, or disturbs the soul, by robbing it of the peace, tranquility, and quiet which it enjoyed earlier, all this is a clear sign that it comes from the evil spirit, the enemy of our progress and eternal salvation"[37].
Evil, thus, is not only being led to do a bad or vain thing, but also losing one's peace of mind and spiritual joy[38]. Ignatius is similar to Symeon in working with the dualist framework, yet even if he speaks about the vanity of the world and the greatness of holiness, the main opposition he works with is not the world and God, but the good and evil spirits. These two forces operate both in the soul and in the world.[39] In both they are to be discerned. To follow the good spirit means to live in reality, which is the reality of God. Ignatius differs from Symeon in giving much bigger space to human imagination. To dwell in daydreaming is not a journey away from reality, as it is in Symeon and in The Three Forms of Prayer. Ignatius is aware of the ability of the soul to deceive itself, and to ascribe to God things which do not come from him[40], yet his advice is not to silence our dreams, but to scrutinise them, to learn what good and what evil lies in them, and how God talks to us within our soul. This stress we find in his Autobiography, when Ignatius tells us about his experience at the river Cardoner[41]:
"Once he was going out of devotion to a church ..., he sat down for a little while with his face towards the river, which ran down below. While he was seated there, the eyes of his understanding begun to be opened; not that he saw any vision, but he understood and learnt many things, both spiritual matters and matters of faith and of scholarship, and this with so great enlightenment that everything seemed new to him.
[Câmara]: This left his understanding so very enlightened that he felt as if he were another man with another mind.
The details he understood then, though there were many, cannot be stated, but only that he experienced a great clarity in his understanding. This was such that in his whole life, after completing sixty two years, even if he gathered up all the various helps he may have had from God and all the various things he has known, even adding them all together, he does not think he had got as much as at that one time"[42].
The text suggests that here it is not Ignatius who does something, but God in him. God it is who transforms his understanding so radically that Ignatius feels "as if he were another man". This transformation brings about two other things: the need for a stronger orientation to Christ; and an experience of a new depth of temptation[43]. The following of Christ gradually moves from an external imitation to an internal relationship[44]. Ignatius does not, however, make the exceptional experience of divine enlightenment a condition for such a development. Others may be moved in that direction by employing their reason, feelings and will, as well as by their imagination, in which God speaks. And he himself gives accounts of all these experiences in his life. In his theology he speaks about attaining harmony between divine and human activity[45]. In this he agrees with hesychasm, but he differs in the stress he also puts on human activity.
According to Ignatius, it is possible to communicate one's relationship with God because: (i) it stems from the same roots, the testimony of Christ's life, death and resurrection, as noted in the Scriptures; (ii) we have similar ways of thinking and experiencing. These are the two pillars of Ignatius's exercises, a meditation on the mysteries of Christ's life[46], which gives us a structure of events and a structure for dealing with ourselves. Both are rooted in an experience of God and lead to an experience of God. The tradition of this experience is formed and forms the space for such an encounter, where, as Ignatius says, it is vital, "to allow Creator to deal immediately with the creature, and the creature with its Creator and Lord"[47]. Ignatius is aware of the fact that the communicating of the experience to someone else cannot substitute the person's own experience[48]. Yet, however highly he emphasizes the personal experience, he is also careful of relying on one's experience too quickly and drawing practical conclusions too fast. With a few exceptions[49], evaluation of the experiences and drawing conclusions takes time, one has to relate them to the rest of one's life experience, and to use one's reason to evaluate the advantages and disadvantages of possible conclusions in reference to what Ignatius sees as the ultimate aim: "Human beings are created to praise, reverence, and serve God our Lord, and by means of this to save their souls"[50]. This ultimate aim also has its communal dimension, and its horizon of mission. Parmananda Divarkar points out that this combination of spiritual knowledge, practical following, mission, preaching, ministry to others, meant: "opening himself up to the whole strength of God", where "he felt a tremendous sense of liberation, of awakening to a new life that was more real and full of possibilities then the one he had spent so far." This helped him to be "aware of God lovingly at work everywhere and inviting him to be always lovingly at work, to be contemplative in action"[51], so that "the sense of mission became the whole horizon of his spiritual vision"[52].
3. Conclusion
Both Symeon and Ignatius speak of spiritual life in terms of a journey. It is, then, not a single isolated experience on which they focus their attention, but rather a process in which different experiences are interrelated. Spiritual progress, regress or stagnation are related to this process - and within the process it is possible to distinguish which experiences stimulate which ends[53]. Symeon and Ignatius employ partially different criteria for discernment, or, at least, their starting points are not the same.
Symeon and his circle emphasize spiritual and mental health as one of the key criteria for the authenticity of religious experience. This criterion is perhaps most visible when its opposites are addressed. For Symeon and his disciples inauthentic religious experience leads either to living in delusion or to living in division[54]. Here the role of human imagination comes into play. This is seen as dangerous for two reasons. At the stage when a person is "in the world", it provides a deception, a mirror image of his or her own desires, while apparently eliminating the need of that conversion which is at the heart of an authentic experience of the divine reality. For divine light opens human eyes to human sinfulness and the need of change, of transformation into the reality which one cannot yet bear[55]. At the stage when a person has already experienced divine grace and desires to have further experiences, human imagination is deceptive inasmuch as it suggests that such experiences can be initiated by human will[56]. In the first case human imagination operates figuratively. As the writer of The Three Methods of Prayer emphasizes, images of human desires are projected onto the heavenly world. Whether or not there is something authentic in the desires, the way they are used is destructive for the person who operates with them[57]. In the second case human imagination operates non-figuratively. It knows that it is imagining what cannot be imagined, but the person doing it holds on to his or her own will, his or her own self-belief that they can force what cannot be forced: divine illumination. Against this Symeon emphasizes the requirement for a "complete elimination of [one's] will"[58], or, translated into the language of his followers, recognising that purely of one's own accord one cannot simultaneously guard one's senses, examine one's thought and talk to God. God must be given freedom to act in the person who desires to be united with God. Thus all human energies have to be first purified - related to their roots - before they can be employed in prayer. Otherwise the person using them might experience division, as each of his or her energies might desire to move in a different direction.
This takes us to the other criteria proposed by Symeon. The next one is the concept of adequacy to the stage of one's journey. Symeon emphasizes that obeying one's conscience and keeping the commandments must come before seeking spiritual knowledge[59]. The former is something we can attempt, even if in this case we are dependent on divine grace. But the latter is something we cannot do from our side. Symeon uses here the same symbolism we find in Ignatius, that one's eyes have to be opened[60].
The adequacy criterion influences Symeon's notion of discernment, because how we discern is dependent on which stage of the journey we find ourselves on. Generally speaking, discernment can be, according to Symeon, informed either by "laws" of spiritual life[61] or by means of narrative examples - where someone ordinary, "the type of each one of us"[62], like George, shares parts of his spiritual journey. This figure shows us what progress and regress are. It is interesting that in Symeon's symbolic system we do not find a "hero" type. It seems that a "hero" is for Symeon the wrong type to copy in a Christian life. Basil II, the Slayer of the Bulgars, Symeon's contemporary may be an example of that. Another such figure may be an educated ecclesial polititian and diplomat such as Stephen of Alexina, Metropolitan of Nicomedia, who was behind Symeon's exile[63]. Symeon's typology is motivated by his desire to communicate how to live a spiritual life to all who are prepared to listen. Thus, he chooses what he sees as an ordinary man, a type in whom we can all participate[64]. The other type is the person of the "angelic elder" - not a type for us to identify with, but rather to acknowledge that there is a space for such a type in our lives as well, whether that space is occupied or empty[65].
Symeon's accounts of experiences are underpinned by the way in which he opposes the secular and the sacred, the world and God. This dualism influences Symeon's narrated criteria for discernment. "The world" presents us with possibilities which lead away from God - whether these are worldly status, external appearance or money. When attracted by them we are regressing on our journey, incapable of tolerating God's presence. Real and permanent communication with God in prayer requires "abandoning the world" [66]. This is seen by Symeon as a necessary part of the process of purification, enabling one to keep God's commandments. The world is a symbolic concept here, representing the ungodly forces within the universe, as well as within ourselves. Turning one's back on them is thus a necessary precondition for responding to God's initial call, for on-going enlightenment and participation with God. Only a person thus transformed, fed by the Word of God, keeping God's commandments, holding in a pure heart to a permanent memory of God[67], is capable of overcoming the divisions between the physical, mental and spiritual realms, and is capable of uniting all his or her capacities in the work of prayer[68].
Not only the world, but also God presents us with possibilities - namely of discovering the image of Christ in ourselves. The journey of purification is also the journey of theosis. Discernment between what is real and what is illusory has a different form at different stages.As we saw above, Symeon was convinced that a truth discovered too soon may become an obstacle. What may be a real experience at a later stage may be an illusory experience at an earlier stage, when one's heart is not purified, but governed by the imagination of the senses or the ambitions of the will.
This is why the role of the elder is so important for Symeon. We learn about the "laws" of the journey towards God from people who are more advanced on this journey. They help us to discern where we are blind[69]. Symeon's followers also emphasized the role of the community, especially in helping the pilgrim through the stages of regress and stagnation[70].
We can now proceed to St. Ignatius. We have to keep in mind, that there is as much time difference between Symeon and Ignatius, as between Ignatius and us. Thus we are moving among three very distant and distinct cultures in which we try to understand what is and what is not real, what is and what is not authentic. For Ignatius the reality of religious experience has different levels. Even an illusion or an experience of an evil spirit is real in the sense that it provides material for examination, for learning the difference between how God operates in our lives and how other forces operate. Ignatius operates with a slightly different form of dualism - instead of opposing the secular and the sacred, the world and God, he speaks of the opposition of the good and the evil spirit, which is discernable both in the world and in the interior life[71]. The main criteria for discernment, then, are practical applicability and the state of one's mind[72]. The first criterion reflects Ignatius's active approach to life, or more precisely, his desire to be "contemplative in action"[73]. The second criterion resembles that of Symeon when he speaks about spiritual and mental health. Ignatius, like Symeon, mentions that there are different effects of the spirits on the human soul, depending on the stage of the journey. If a person runs from one sin to another, the evil spirit is consoling, while the good spirit is disturbing. If that person struggles to purify him- or herself and serve God, the good spirit is encouraging and bringing comfort, while the evil spirit is disturbing and creating obstacles, and if not tempting them to sin, then at least making the soul sad and taking away peace[74]. Moreover, Ignatius points out that the movements of the spirits can also vary according to the type of the person's conscience. More lax people should try to discern where it is the evil spirit who consoles them, whilst more scrupulous people need to learn to oppose the disturbances of the evil spirit. This is Ignatius's principle of agere contra, a method for making progress in spiritual life[75].
Both Ignatius and Symeon refer to obeying the commandments and conscience as a necessary predisposition for further stages of the journey in spiritual life. Yet, as we have seen, Ignatius adopts a more analytical approach to conscience, and is more explicit in stating that there are different types of conscience, and that also conscience develops on the journey of spiritual progress.
While for Symeon human effort has to undergo transformation, without which it is more likely to create obstacles than offer aids on the journey towards God, for Ignatius God is already operating in this effort, working for transformation. Ignatius in general gives more space to human effort and human capacities than Symeon, thus also imagination is not perceived as something negative. To communicate with God does not involve only a certain personal knowledge of God, but also a deep knowledge of ourselves. This is what Ignatius learnt when he was dealing with the ideal of knighthood, which dominated his life to such an extent that even after conversion he would use images from the military life[76]. Through scrutinising our dreams we learn who we are, and which forces operate in our lives and how. To make progress in spiritual life also means for Ignatius to be more rooted in reality, and our imagination gives us access to the various levels of reality, which are otherwise unapproachable.
Ignatius does not respond directly to the question, "how do we know what is real", which a contemporary retreatant or reader might ask. The learning process he offers does not stand on proofs of "objective" reality. Ignatius's learning about reality comes from an inner discernment, sometimes from experiences of enlightenment, but not from some access to a world sub specie aeternitatis. Ignatius, like Symeon, is sceptical of claims to ultimate knowledge in matters of the interior life, which would exclude human decision-making and the risk of the possibility of error, which would substitute subjective for objective certainty[77]. Such a standpoint is alien to Ignatius. He further gives criteria for how to make a decision well - but not a guarantee of good decisions. That would be an illusory certainty[78]. What is real is so prior to our appreciating it, and we do not need to prove it, but we can learn how to be sensitive to it, to discern between good and evil, to see "God lovingly at work everywhere"[79] inviting us to bring his loving care to others.
Communicating what God has done in one's life is for Ignatius a part of that care, as we can see from his desire to give the Exercises from very early on in his studies[80]. Ignatius is more explicit than Symeon in stating what grounds the possibility of communicating religious experience to others. In doing this, however, he also uses a combination of laws and narratives. Ignatius's communication is based on a double structure: on short introductions to the mysteries of Christ's life, and on analysis of human interiority. The communication is a living act, and a spiritual director is to help the appropriation of this structure to the needs of the person who wishes to progress in spiritual matters. Ignatius believes in speaking from his own experience to the experience of the other, where the "Creator ...work[s] directly with the creature, and the creature with the Creator and Lord"[81]. Ignatius places the communication within the church, as his "Rules for Thinking, Judging, and Feeling with the Church" indicate. But it would be a theme of another paper to analyse those in the context in which they were written[82].
Finally, let me return to the question I posed in the introduction. To what degree are Symeon's and Ignatius's criteria for discernment applicable today?
Both Symeon's and Ignatius's accounts of religious experience are embedded in a spiritual world where angels and devils are personalised, intelligent beings, external to us, operating in the world and having access to our souls. Against this background they speak of the need for a conscious, personal relationship with our Creator, Redeemer and Sanctifier. This emphasis, as well as their methods of evaluating and communicating religious experience have to be, for us, translated onto a largely flat and sceptical spiritual horizon, against which our cultures and our generation view the possibilities and limits of encountering God. Symeon's sceptical approach to visions may be appealing to us, but how can we make it not reductionist and how are we to understand the journey of theosis? Likewise, Ignatius's psychological insights are attractive, but how not to reduce religious experience to them? These questions might highlight where contemporary reading of the two classic representatives of dealing with religious experience can make most relevant contributions. We can learn from Symeon that the fact that our practices are adequate for the particular stage of our journey does not eliminate the desire for greater things, and also, how the breaking in of the divine light, with all its strangeness, leads to spiritual and mental health, and not their opposites. We can learn from Ignatius the unity of contemplation and action, to see how our eyes can be open to perceiving that there is some good for others in experiencing God's love for me.
[1]From 867 till 1025 the Byzantine Empire was governed by the Macedonian Dynasty, which saw as one of its main tasks fighting Islam and gaining both political and religious control over new territories. The life of Symeon largely coincides with the reign of Basil II called the Slayer of the Bulgars.The Byzantine Empire at that time included the whole of the Slavic Balkans. Its expansion was caused partly by military action but also partly by marital politics. Basil's sister Anna was married to Prince Vladimir of Kiev and this opened the door to the Christianisation of Russia. The Russian Church now also became directly subordinate to the Patriarchate of Constantinople. See B. Kirvochine, In the Light of Christ: St Symeon the New Theologian, Life - Spirituality - Doctrine (New York: St. Vladimir Seminary Press, 1986) 15. R. Dostálová, Byzantská vzd_lanost [Byzantine Culture] (Prague: Vyšehrad, 1990) 23-26.
[2]John Meyndorff writes that there is a need to correct the widespread conviction that the difference between Eastern and Western tradition consists in the fact that the East preferred Plato, while the West Aristotle. He points out that in the East we find stronger opposition to "pagan" philosophy in general and to Plato in particular. In 553, for example, the Church in council condemned Platonic metaphysics as "Hellenic mythology" and this opposition was reinforced in the Palamite councils in the 14th century. The condemnations were repeated year after year in the churches, always on the first Sunday of Lent, when the so called Synodikon of orthodoxy was read out. Aristotle's logic was taught in Universities as a part of the basic studies (until the age of 18), but boys from pious circles finished their education there, as they wanted to avoid the following studies of Plato. The hagiography from this period often mentions that pious people instead of further studies joined monasteries, where faith was contrasted with "secular wisdom". Cf. J. Meyndorff, The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church (London: James Clark & Co., 1957) 72-73.
[3]The first hesychasts appeared in Syria, Palestine and Egypt in the fourth century. Hesychasm then experienced a revival in Byzantium in the first half of the 14th century. Its name comes from the Greek hésichia, which means stillness, silence, peace. The hesychasts were people who left the noise of ordinary life to go into silence, to spent time in prayer and in journeying towards full union with God. Mount Athos became one of the main centres of hesychasm, and its teaching and practice were defended by the monk and later bishop of Thessalonica, Gregory Palamas (c. 1296-1359).
[4]St Symeon the New Theologian, On Faith [OF], in The Philokalia IV, The Complete Text Compiled by St Nikodimos of the Holy Mountain and St Makarios of Corinth, eds. G.E.H. Palmer, P. Sherrard & K. Ware (London, Boston: Faber & Faber, 1998) 16-24, esp. 17; compare St Mark the Ascetic, On the Spiritual Law §69; On Those who Think that They are Made Righteous by Works §64; On the Spiritual Law §13-14, in The Philokalia I 115, 130, 111.
[5]Symeon, OF, 18.
[6]Ibid, §18. From a previous passage we learn that this was the man who gave George the book by Mark the Monk. Symeon inserts a commentary: "When I heard this story, I thought how greatly the intercession of this saint had helped the young man, and how God had chosen to show him to what heights of virtue the holy man had attained". (OF, p. 18) Here Symeon probably comments on a relationship with his own spiritual father, Symeon the Studite, whom after his death Symeon started to venerate publicly in the monastery of which he was an abbot. This together with his teaching on confession for lay people led to the attacks which culminated in 1005, when Symeon was forced to resign as abbot. Four years later he was interrogated by the Patriarch and condemned by the Holy Synod to exile. Though the condemnation was later retracted and Symeon was even offered a bishopric, he did not accept it and decided to live together with a small group of his disciples in the place of his exile. Cf. G.E.H. Palmer, P. Sherrard & K. Ware, "St Symeon the New Theologian: Introductory Note," Philokalia IV, 11-15, esp. 12.
[7]Cf. Symeon, OF, 23.
[8]Ibid, 16.
[9]Cf. Ibid., 22, 23.
[10]What is required at the beginning of the journey is "true faith and unhesitating expectation" (OF §18) and paying attention to what conscience says (OF §19). But, as Symeon says: "The young man had not observed long fasts or slept on the ground, worn a hair short or shaved his head" (OF §19). Along the journey one is confronted with temptation, and experiences the reality of one's weakness, which leads to humility and to the need for "great labours and many tears", prayer for the forgiveness of many sins, solitude, obedience and "many other rigorous practices and actions" (OF § 23), to keep on the path of grace and to regain the vision. On this journey one moves from faith to love, which makes participation in God possible (cf. OF, p.24).
[11]St Symeon the New Theologian, One Hundred and Fifty-Three Practical and Theological Texts [PTT], in The Philokalia IV, eds. G.E.H. Palmer, P. Sherrard & K. Ware (London, Boston: Faber & Faber, 1998) 25-66, §68.
[12]"We should not only renounce riches and gold and other material things, but should also expel desire for such things completely from our soul. We should hate not only the body's sensual pleasure, but also its mindless impulses; and we should try to mortify it through suffering." Ibid, §27.
[13]Ibid, §68.
[14]Ibid, §36.
[15]See Plato, Phaedrus 246-247; the triple journey of spiritual progress, then, reinterprets Plato's katharsis, anamnesis, and methexis, see Sophist 229.d, 231.e; Meno 8.1; Phaedrus 92.a; Parmenides 129.a-f.
[16]See Symeon, PTT, §§ 27, 39, 45 etc.
[17]Ibid, §36.
[18]"The distinctive features of the first method are these. When a person stands at prayer, he raises hands, eyes and intellect heavenwards, and fills his intellect with divine thought, with images of celestial beauty, of the angelic hosts, of abodes of the righteous. In brief, at the time of prayer he assembles in his intellect all that he has heard from the Holy Scriptures and so rouses his soul to the divine longing as he gazes towards heaven, and sometimes he sheds tears. But when someone prays in this way, without him realizing it his heart grows proud and exalted, and he regards what is happening to him as the effect of divine grace and entreats God to allow him always to be engaged in this activity. Such assumptions, however, are signs of delusion, because the good is not good when it is not done in the right way. If, then, such a person is pursuing a life of stillness and seclusion, he will almost inevitably become deranged. ...Those who adopt this method of prayer have also been deluded into thinking that they see lights with their bodily eyes, smell sweet scents, hear voices, and so on. Some have become completely possessed by demons and wander from place to place in their madness ...Others ...continue in an incorrigible state of delusion until their death, refusing to accept the council of anyone else. Still others ...have committed suicide, ...even if someone .. avoid the evils we have mentioned because he lives in a community ...none the less he will pass his entire life without making any progress." The Three Method of Prayer [TMP], Philokalia IV, eds. G.E.H. Palmer, P. Sherrard & K. Ware (London, Boston: Faber & Faber, 1998) 67-75, esp. 67-68.
[19]Cf. Ibid, 68-69.
[20]Cf. Ibid, 70.
[21]"True and unerring attentiveness and prayer mean that the intellect keeps watch over the heart while it prays; it should always be on patrol within the heart, and from within - from the depth of the heart - it should offer up its prayers to God. Once it has tasted within the heart that the Lord is bountiful (cf. Ps 34,8 LXX), then the intellect will have no desire to leave the heart , and will repeat the words of the Apostle Peter, "It is good for us to be here" (Matt 17,4). It will keep watch always within the heart, repulsing and expelling all thoughts sown there by the enemy. ...Those who have savoured this delight [of resting in the depth of the heart] proclaim with St Paul, ‘Who will separate us from the love of Christ?' (Rom 8,35)". Ibid, 70-71.
[22]Cf. Ibid, 3.
[23]Ibid, 73.
[24]Cf. Ibid, 73-75.
[25]Ibid, 75.
[26]See R. Emus, Modlitba Je_íšova a modlitba srdce [Jesus's Prayer and the Prayer of the Heart] (Velehrad: Societas, 1993) 24-25.
[27]The development of navigation and of geographical knowledge in the15th century opened up new possibilities for colonial politics. Spanish colonisation started after 1492 when Columbus "discovered" America. Portugese navigators went via Africa to India, and in 1500 Cabral "discovered" Brazil, which became a Portugese colony. In 1519-21 a Spaniard Hernando Cortez conquered Mexico, Chile was conquered in 1520, Argentina five years later and twelve years later Peru. The Portugese navy also headed for China, although there the Portugese did not behave as conquerors, but as guests, who were allowed by the local government to start a settlement.A similar form of settlement was also developed in Japan. Journeys of conquest as well as the few peaceful journeys also opened up new possibilities for missionaries. However, along with this came an abiding problem: to what degree, if at all, is it possible to combine Christian missionary activity with colonial politics.
[28]See e.g. works of Joachim of Fiore (c.1130-1202); Bernard McGinn, Apocalyptic Spirituality (London: SCM, 1980) 113-119.
[29]Gerhard Groote (1340-1384) is usually seen as the founder of this movement. The work The Imitation of Christ traditionally ascribed to Thomas Kempis also comes from its circles.
[30]Ignatius was not a great writer. What we have at our disposal is limited to his Autobiography, which was however not written by him, but dictated to the Portuguese Jesuit Gonçales da Câmara, when Ignatius's followers pressed him to present a testimony of his life for the healthy development of the next generations. In addition we have some of his Spiritual Diary, letters, and a manual, the Spiritual Exercises. Apart from these mystical works there are the Constitutions of the Society of Jesus, where Ignatius operates as a practical organiser of the order, oriented on mission and ministry. The quotations are taken from Ignatius of Loyola: Spiritual Exercises and Selected Works, ed. G.E. Ganss (New York, Mahawah: Paulist Press, 1991). For an alternative translation of the Autobiography see also Saint Ignatius of Loyola: Personal Writings, eds. J.A. Munitz & P. Endean (London: Penguin, 1996).
[31]Ignatius (or Iñigo Lopez de Recalde as he was initially) was born to a noble family in the Basque province of Guipúzcoa. His father died when Iñigo was fourteen, and he was then brought up in the court of Ferdinand II of Aragon and Queen Isabella, preparing himself for a military carieer. This was brought to an abrupt end in 1521, in the war of Spain with France, when during the battle of Pamplona, the capital of Navarra a cannon ball struck his right leg and shattered it. Iñigo was struggling between life and death, and during his long convalescence experienced the conversion, of which he speaks in his Autobiography (n. 30), §§ 6-12.
[32]Ibid, §§ 6-7.
[33]Ibid, §8.
[34]Ibid, §8.
[35]Compare to the "Rules by which to perceive and understand to some extent the various movements produced in the soul: The good that they may be accepted and the bad that they may be rejected", Spiritual Exercises (n. 30), §§ 313-327; and "Rules for the same purpose containing more advanced ways of discerning the spirits": Ignatius, Spiritual Exercises, §§ 328-336.
[36]Compare to Ignatius, Constitutions (n. 30), §7, where he deals with the theme more explicitly. I owe this comment to my husband Tim.
[37]Ignatius, Spiritual Exercises, §333.
[38]Cf. Ignatius, Spiritual Exercises, §334; and also "Toward Perceiving and Understanding Scruples and the Enticements of our Enemy the Following Notes are Helpful", Spiritual Exercises, §§ 345-351.
[39]Cf. Ibid., §§ 136-147, 230-237.
[40]Cf. Ibid., §336.
[41]This experience has a special place in the Autobiography, as it represents another turning point. When Ignatius recovered, he decided to reform his life, to do great works in the service of the Lord. He started with a pilgrimage to the monastery of Montserrat near Barcelona and then he headed to Manresa, where he stayed in solitude and dedicated his time to prayer and studies. The highly demanding ascetic practices and exercises which he gave to himself led him to the limits of his strength, and the experience of enlightenment at Cardonner meant a liberating breakthrough.
[42]Ignatius, Autobiography, §30; The inserted text represents Câmara's commentary.
[43]Ibid., §§ 31-33.
[44]Cf. Ignatius, Autobiography, §§ 46, 93-96, Spiritual Diary, §22 .
[45]Cf. Ignatius, Spiritual Exercises, §1.
[46]Cf. Ibid., §§ 261-312.
[47]Ibid., §15.
[48]"The person who gives to another the method and procedure for meditating or contemplating should accurately narrate the history contained in the contemplation or meditation, going over the points with only a brief or summary explanation. For in this way the person who is contemplating, by taking this history as the authentic foundation, and by going over it and reasoning about it for oneself, can thus discover something that will bring better understanding or a more personalised concept of the history -either through one's own reasoning or to the extent that the understanding is enlightened by God's grace. This brings more spiritual relish and spiritual fruit than if the one giving the Exercises had lengthily explained and amplified the meaning of the history. For what fills and satisfies the soul consists, not in knowing much, but in our understanding the realities profoundly and in savoring them interiorly". Ignatius, Spiritual Exercises, §2. Ronald Barthes, who analyses the Spiritual Exercises as a literary work points out its incoherency. Ian Coleman, commenting on Barthes, adds: "Putting things crudely, the Exercises are a compendium of meditative techniques, for which the only narrative coherence is that supplied by the experience of the retreatant as he or she follows the Exercises". I. Coleman, "Obedience in Spiritual Exercises," unpublished text. See also Roland Berthes, Sade, Fourier, Loyola (Paris, Editions du Seuil, 1971).
[49]"This is when God Our Lord so moves and attracts the will that without doubting or being able to doubt, such a dedicated soul follows what is shown, just as St Paul and St Matthew did when they followed Christ our Lord". Ignatius, Spiritual Exercises, §175. Ignatius calls it the first time of election, and empasizes that it is rare: see the context, Spiritual Exercises, §§ 169-183.
[50]Ignatius, Spiritual Exercises, 23.
[51]P.D. Divarkar, The Path of Interior Knowledge: Reflections on the Spiritual Exercises of St Ignatius of Loyola (Gujarat: Gujarat Sahitya Parkash Anand, 1990) 4.
[52]Ibid., 6. Cf. Ignatius, Autobiography, §§ 11,14; Spiritual Exercises, §189 etc.
[53]Experience, as I use it here, involves also interpretation, which changes in the process of growth or regress. Thus one situation is often perceived differently, as life goes on.
[54]See the first and the second form of prayer, TMP, 68-70.
[55]Cf. Symeon, OF, 16,18,19,24.
[56]Cf. Ibid., 22, 23.
[57]Cf. TMP, 67-68.
[58]Cf. Symeon, OF, 23.
[59]Cf. Symon, OF, 17.
[60]Compare Symeon, OF, 18; Ignatius, Autobiography, § 8.
[61]See Symeon's reverence for St. Mark the Ascetic, On the Spiritual Law, n. 4.
[62]Cf. Symeon, OF, 18.
[63]For the Emperor Basil II see n. 1. For Symeon's conflict with Metropolitan Stephen, see Krivocheine, St Symeon the New Theologian, 45-60. See also n. 6.
[64]It can be argued, however, that his "ordinary man" has several advantages in comparison to his less fortunate contemporaries. The characteristics: "He was good-looking, and so studied in dress, manners and gait", show a wealthy and influential aristocratic family background, which makes its mark on the person in dispute. Yet as Symeon holds the things of the world for nothing, he does not have a sensitivity for any form of "ordinariness" which does not include an aristocratic upbringing. See Symeon, OF, 16.
[65]Ibid., 18.
[66]Cf. Ibid., 22, 23.
[67]Cf. TMP, 31-32.
[68]Cf. Emus, Modlitba Je_íšova a modlitba srdce, 24-25.
[69]See Symeon's vision of the angelic elder in OF, 23; or his reverence for Symeon the Studite in n. 6.
[70]Cf. TMP, 68.
[71]Cf. e.g. Ignatius, Autobiography, §§ 15, 24, or the dynamics of the Spiritual Diary.
[72]Cf. Ignatius, Autobiography, §§ 6-8.
[73]Divarkar, The Path of Interior Knowledge, 4.
[74]Ignatius differentiates between the rules for those who are introduced to the spiritual life (for the first week of the Exercises) and for those who are capable of progressing further (rules for the second week). There he mentions more detailed symptoms of the operation of the good and the evil spirit, such as the lack of a cause, a good beginning, good process and good end as signs of God's consolation, while the evil spirit can use some good causes for bad ends. Cf. Ignatius, Spiritual Exercises, §§ 314, 315, 328-336.
[75]"A person who desires to make progress in spiritual life ought always to proceed in a manner contrary to that of the enemy. In other words, if the enemy seeks to make the soul lax, it should try to make itself more sensitive. In the same way, if the enemy seeks to make a soul too sensitive, in order to entice it to an extreme, the soul should endeavor to establish itself staunchly in a correct mean and thus arrive at complete peace." Ignatius, Spiritual Exercises, § 350.
[76]Cf. Ignatius, "The Call of the Temporal King, as an Aid toward Contemplating the Life of the Eternal King" or "A Meditation on Two Standards, the One of Christ, Our Supreme Commander and Lord, the Other of Lucifer, the Mortal Enemy of Human Nature", in Spiritual Exercises, §§ 91-100, 136- 148.
[77]Cf. Ibid., §§ 169-189; 313-336.
[78]Cf. Ibid., §§ 169-188.
[79]Divarkar, The Path of Interior Knowledge, 4.
[80]The Autobiography mentions that Ignatius was already engaging in spiritual conversations when in Manresa (§34) and Barcelona (§37), and he started to give spiritual exercises while he studied liberal arts in Alcala (§57).
[81]Ignatius, Spiritual Exercises, §15.
[82]Cf. Ibid., §§ 352-370.