|
The Orthodox Pages
|
||||
Back
   |
|
|||
|
|
What does our church say about communicating with the dead?
Answer to Question 365
There are various types of Charmers and spiritual mediums who claim to have prophetic visions, healing powers and communion with the dead and even believe that these powers are a gift from God. Most are not evil people and many genuinely believe that they offer help and comfort. What they don't realize is that they can unwittingly become channels for demonic spiritual deception. There are indeed some people who are somehow more perceptive of the spiritual world than others. They claim to be able to reach the spirits of the departed and hold séances for people longing to know where their loved ones are. From scripture we know that God does not allow the dead to commune with the living unless the person has achieved sainthood and is sent by God with a message of salvation or to help someone in need. The spiritual medium is probably not lying when he/she says that he/she is in communion with the spirits, but these are not the spirits of departed humans, but demons masquerading as humans. This is not anything special or difficult for the demons since they can appear as saints and angels of light and in general can appear in any form. But in most cases there is no apparition but only a voice or mental message to the medium revealing things to him/her about the departed person and about the living person who desperately wants to hear a message from the other side. What we need to understand is that the demons know everything about us. They have been with us all our lives and have recorded, as it were, every action we have made and every word we have spoken. It is so easy for them to pretend to be the husband, wife or child of someone still living and say how wonderful life is beyond the grave, or even to disclose a secret that no one could possibly know to verify that it is telling the truth and thus make the deception more credible.
|
|
||
