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→False visions: quote from St. Silouan the Athonite
In the book "The Great Watch"<ref>{{Ru icon}}[https://azbyka.ru/otechnik/Zhitija_svjatykh/velikaja-strazha/ Hieromonk Joachim (Sabelnikov). The Great Watch]</ref>, in the notes of elder Jerome (Solomentsov) from St. Panteleimon monastery on Mt. Athos, the life of hieroschemamonk Theophan is described. He had many visions, and for 15 years he confessed everything to the spiritual father. But then he became noticeably more concealed and proud. He began to think that the spiritual father does not lead such a high life as he does. Once, when he visited the confessor, he told him about some of his visions and then let it slip like this: "And I was not ordered to tell you about some visions." To this the confessor said, "I congratulate you on your prelest!" When he did talk about the two visions that he had concealed, it turned out that they were false. One of the key points was the question of freedom of mind during the vision - if the mind can control the vision, then it is not true (for example, St. Maximos Kavsokalyvites talks with St. Gregory about this). In the following life, father Theophan could not get out of the delusion, he left Athos, engaged in trade and died in torments.
St. Silouan the Athonite speaks about artificially invoking contemplations that “Divine contemplations are given to a person not when he is looking for them, and when looking for precisely them, but when the soul descends into the hell of repentance and really feels itself worse than any creature. Contemplations, as if "forcibly" reached by the mind, are not true but "imaginary"; and when this imaginary is taken for truth, then conditions are created in the human soul that impede the very possibility of the action of grace, that is, genuine contemplation". <ref>{{Ru icon}}[https://www.eparhia-saratov.ru/Content/Books/631/35.html Archimandrite Sophronius. Saint Silouan. VI. On the Types of Imagination and Fight with it.]</ref>
===Self-conceit===