“This incapacity to see, to look, increased in me the fear before the unknown, natural in this state of being found in a world unknown to me, and with alarm I thought: ‘What will come next? Shall we soon pass this sphere of light, and is there a limit, an end?’
“But something different happened. Majestically, without wrath, but authoritatively and firmly, the words resounded from above: Not ready! And after that ... an immediate stop came to our rapid flight upward — we quickly began to descend” (pp. 26-27).
In this experience the quality of the light of heaven is made clearer: it is of a kind that cannot be borne by one who is not prepared for it by the Christian life of struggle such as Sts. Salvius and Andrew endured.
3. Characteristics of the True Experience of Heaven
Let us now summarize the main characteristics of these true experiences of heaven and see how they differ from the experiences of the aerial world as described in previous chapters.
(1) The true experience of heaven invariably occurs at the end of a process of ascent, usually through the toll-houses (if the soul has any “tolls” to pay there). In today’s “out-of-body” and “after-death” experiences, on the other hand, the toll-houses and their demons are never encountered, and only occasionally is a process of ascent described.
(2) The soul is always conducted to heaven by an angel or angels, and never “wanders” into it or goes of its own will or motive power. This is surely one of the most striking differences between genuine experiences of heaven and the contemporary experiences of Pentecostals and others who describe “after-death” experiences of “paradise” and “heaven”: the latter are virtually identical with secular and even atheist experiences of “paradise,” as we have already seen, except in incidental points of interpretation, which can easily be supplied by the human imagination in the “astral plane”; but virtually never in such experiences is the soul conducted by angels. Of this St. John Chrysostom, in interpreting Luke 16:19-31, writes: “Lazarus then was conducted away by angels, but the soul of the other (the rich man) was taken by certain frightful powers who, it may be, were sent for this. For the soul by itself cannot depart to that life, because this is impossible. If we, in going from city to city, have need of a guide, how much more will the soul be in need of guides when it is torn away from the body and presented for the future life?”43
This point, indeed, may be taken as one of the touchstones of the authentic experience of heaven. In the contemporary experiences the soul is most frequently offered a choice to remain in “paradise” or go back to earth; while the genuine experience of heaven occurs not by the choice of man but only at the command of God, fulfilled by His angels. The common “out-of-body” experience of “paradise” in our days has no need of a guide because it takes place right here, in the air above us, still in this world; while the presence of the guiding angels is necessary if the experience takes place outside this world, in a different kind of reality, where the soul cannot go by itself. (This is not to say that demons cannot masquerade as “guiding angels” also, but they seldom seem to do so in today’s experiences.)
(3) The experience occurs in bright light, and is accompanied by manifest signs of Divine grace, in particular a wonderful fragrance. Such signs, it is true, sometimes are present in today’s “after-death” experiences also, but there is a fundamental difference between them that can scarcely be over-emphasized. Today’s experiences are superficial, even sensuous; there is nothing to distinguish them from the similar experiences of unbelievers save the Christian imagery which the observer sees in (or adds to) the experience; these are no more than the natural experience of pleasure in the “out-of-body” state with a thin “Christian” covering. (Perhaps, also, in some of them the fallen spirits are already adding their deceptions to entice the observer further into pride and confirm his superficial idea of Christianity; but here there is no need to determine this.) In the true Christian experiences, on the other hand, the depth of the experience is confirmed by truly miraculous occurrences: St. Salvius was so “nourished” by the fragrance that he needed no food or drink for over three days, and the fragrance vanished and his tongue became sore and swollen only the moment that he revealed his experience; St. Andrew was gone for two weeks; K. Uekskuell was “clinically dead” for 36 hours. In today’s experiences, to be sure, there are sometimes “miraculous recoveries” from near or seeming death, but never anything as extraordinary as the above occurrences, and never anything to indicate that those who have experienced them have actually seen heaven as opposed to a pleasing appearance in the “out-of-body” realm (the “astral plane”). The difference between today’s experiences and the true experience of heaven is exactly the same as the difference between today’s superficial “Christianity” and true Orthodox Christianity. The “peace,” for example, that can be experienced by a person who has “accepted Jesus as his personal Saviour” or who has had the very common experience of contemporary “speaking in tongues,” or has had a vision of “Christ” (something by no means rare today), but who knows nothing of the life of conscious Christian struggle and repentance and has never partaken of the true Body and Blood of Christ in the Holy Mysteries instituted by Christ Himself — simply cannot be compared in any way with the peace that is revealed in the lives of the great Orthodox Saints. The contemporary experiences are literally “counterfeits” of the real experience of heaven.
(4) The true experience of heaven is accompanied by a feeling of such awe and fear before the greatness of God, and a feeling of such unworthiness to be beholding it, as are seldom found even among Orthodox Christians today, let alone those outside the Church of Christ. St. Salvius’ heartfelt expressions of his unworthiness, St. Andrew’s trembling prostration before Christ, even K. Uekskuell’s blindness in the light he was unworthy to behold — are unheard of in today’s experiences. Those who are seeing “paradise” in the aerial realm today are “pleased,” “happy,” “satisfied” — seldom anything more; if they behold “Christ” in some form, it is only to indulge in the familiar “dialogues” with him that characterize experiences in the “charismatic” movement. The element of the Divine and of man’s awe before it, the fear of God, are absent in such experiences.
Other characteristics of the true experience of heaven, as recorded especially in the Orthodox Lives of Saints, could be set forth; but those discussed above are sufficient to distinguish them emphatically from today’s experiences. Let us only remember, whenever we dare to talk of such exalted and other-worldly experiences, that they are far above our low level of feeling and understanding, and that they are given to us more as hints than as complete descriptions of what cannot properly be described in human language at all. Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love Him (I Cor. 2:9).
A NOTE ON VISIONS OF HELL
For Orthodox believers the reality of hell is as certain as that of heaven. Our Lord Himself on many occasions spoke of those men whom, because they did not obey His commandments, He will send into the everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels (Matt. 25:41). In one of His parables, He gives the vivid example of the rich man who, condemned to hell because of his unrighteous deeds in this life, looks up to paradise which he has lost and begs the Patriarch Abraham there to allow Lazarus, the beggar whom he disdained while alive, to come and dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue; for I am tormented in this flame. But Abraham replies that between us and you there is a great gulf fixed, and there is no contact between the saved and the damned (Luke 16:24, 26).
43
Homily “To the People of Antioch,” III, “On Lazarus,” II, as cited in Metr. Macarius,