Turning to psychics is a sin. Is fortune telling a big sin? What are the consequences of divination

Going for advice to grandmothers, do not forget that the church has a very negative attitude towards magical rituals. Fortune telling is considered a sin, so you need to think several times about the current situation. It is likely that the problem can be solved in other ways that are not prohibited by the laws of the Bible.

"Real" grandmothers will never charge a certain fee for their services. In the world of magic and witchcraft, this is considered a very serious offense.

Listening and telling her his personal experiences, a person in the truest sense of the word, transfers his fate into the hands of an unfamiliar person who claims that she is able to see the future. If you admit the thought that you made a mistake and you had to act in a completely different way, then it will be quite difficult to determine the culprit. You can commit fatal deeds, only they will affect the life of a gullible person, not a grandmother.

The Church preaches that life is given to everyone by God. A person must live and improve himself, mistakes and difficulties are integral companions on the path of life and are given from above for the knowledge of truths.

Moral mood before going to the grandmother

If a decision is made and a person who finds himself in a difficult situation nevertheless goes to, then before the meeting, you must definitely give yourself a few psychological attitudes. Firstly, you should not believe every word of the grandmother, even if emotions are overwhelmed by the veracity of the words and the presence of many coincidences. Secondly, after going to a fortune teller, you must definitely go to church. Any is a sin in which it is better to repent immediately. Thirdly, do not rush to follow all the instructions of the fortuneteller.

The main distinguishing features of a "real" fortune teller are specific facts - dates, names, events. Ambiguous and general phrases should arouse suspicion.

Quite often, the words spoken by the grandmother remain in the memory of a person for a long time. If, for example, you say that your husband is cheating on her, then even in the absence of reasons, suspicion will grow at a rapid pace. Sooner or later, thoughts materialize, and not because of a lack of love, but due to constant humiliation and unfounded accusations from a naive wife.

Is it possible to "guess fate"

The term "fortune telling" is closely related to divination. Even in the old days, it was believed that magical rituals should not be carried away. In addition, if you constantly hear bad predictions, then the probability of their fulfillment is very high.

Practice shows that grandmothers themselves suffer from fortune-telling. At first, they manage to see what is not known even to your loved ones. However, over time, personal emotions prevail over the gift. Predictions become inaccurate, and grandmothers begin to be guided by personal experience or speculation in advice. Often, fortunetellers experience tragic situations related to life or health.

Already I see not a single post on the topic of fortunetellers ...

Once, as a teenager, I went to Sunday school, and I asked our priest a question: « Why you can not go to fortune tellers and guess. And, if they are really bad, then why do they use church utensils in their rituals, go to church to pray, and don't take money...? » .

(I’ll make a reservation right away: an Orthodox priest. He also gave reprimands on Sundays, after the service, and did not take money for his services, only in the urn, if desired, how much you throw)

To which he answered me: « The danger lies in the fact that many fortune-tellers, clairvoyants ..., in order to obtain information of interest, from the other world summon the spirits of the family or other spirits ...
(a prime example: "The Battle of Psychics")

So, when a person dies, he does not stay in the other world for a long time, but moves on: either he is returned back to Earth in a new body, with new tasks... or he is reborn in other worlds...

When a fortuneteller calls someone from the other world, someone will surely respond to her call, but 99% is not the one she calls, because he most likely has already been reborn ... - as he said - usually this the call comes demons, they help the fortuneteller "see".

The danger lies in the fact that the summoned demons can settle down to a person (the fortune teller herself or the client, or someone who did not take part in the ritual, but simply happened to be nearby and inadvertently became a witness to the ritual), and the person becomes possessed ... In addition, if the demon does not settle down with anyone, then it may not go back - it will remain, and this place will become, as the people say, disastrous.

If the fortuneteller is a professional, she knows how to protect herself, the client, random witnesses and the place itself from the summoned demons, and after the session she knows how to send them back ... But the very fact of communicating with demons already “soils” all participants in the ritual.

The holy prophets (Matrona, Vanga, etc.) have the "gift" to "see" themselves, without resorting to calling anyone from that world, i.e. there is no contact with demons in their rituals - this is what distinguishes them from everyone else, and to turn to such for help, of course, is not a sin. But, how can one recognize one in life, especially if it is not widely known...?

Why do fortunetellers need church utensils ...
Ordinary fortune-tellers with a “gift” are self-taught, they acquire church utensils: icons, candles, crosses ... and place them at home in order to somehow protect themselves and their home from the effects of the dark spirit evoked during the ritual. In their rituals, they can read prayers... But where demons are present... - pray, don't pray... - There is no God.

Fortune-telling charlatans buy them to show the client what mega-super-fortune-teller he got to. After all, the task of a charlatan is to convincingly hang noodles on the client’s ears, and withdraw as much money from him as possible, so that after that the client goes to her again and again ... For such fortune-tellers, church utensils are a tool for earning money. And, it’s good if she doesn’t have a “gift” - she’s just a good psychologist ... And if she still has a “gift”, and she doesn’t know how to use it correctly, or uses it to the detriment ... Such a Madame can break a lot of firewood for you, and for your own big money.

"Black" fortune-tellers do not hide their communication with demons. They acquire church utensils, in addition to both protection and for conducting dark rites ... It is generally accepted that a real “bright” fortuneteller does not take money, only how much you give or food ... - that’s how it is, but after all, such money for their services are not taken.

Likewise, almost all fortune-tellers go to church, pray, light candles ... - atone for their sins, renew their attribute, feed on the energy of believers ...

Holy prophets (Matrona, Vanga, etc.) also have icons, and other church utensils, like all believers, including the priests themselves ... - for amulets and prayers.

So, how to recognize who is in front of you: the “second Matron” or a professional fortune teller, an ordinary fortune teller, or a charlatan? Will you be exposed during the ritual to the communication-influence of dark spirits, or not? Hence the prohibition of priests… After all, you can go and tell fortunes like that, whatever God forbid! And don't get rid of it later...

It is difficult for ordinary people to explain this moment - there are many atheist believers who are convinced that they are the “true Orthodox Christians who are the most right” ... Therefore, in order not to be wordy, the priests speak briefly and simply, in a way that every believer can understand: “Going to fortune tellers, guessing is a sin!” » .

From this conversation, after a while, I concluded for myself that the priests in their sermons do not tell their flock about many things, they bypass many points ... because he never spoke about such a sermon ... Our conversation was purely private order, t. behind closed doors.
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In the next conversation, I asked the same priest: "What is prayer, and how should one pray?"

( my mother taught me to pray, like this: she gave me a Prayer Book, and I had to read 3 times each of those prayers that she indicated ...; or, I had to memorize some, according to her, the most basic prayers, and read them from memory ... But, it always seemed to me that prayer is something more intimate and "mysterious ... but simply reread memorized ... , it seemed banal to me )

To which the priest replied: « Prayer is communication with God (or with the Guardian Angel, the Saints...). And, of course, rereading a memorized prayer does not count. Prayer should not be hindered or distracted. Retire. Turn off all irritants (sound, light...). Sit comfortably (or stand up, lie down) and relax, close your eyes. Disconnect from all worries, free your head from all unnecessary thoughts ... Now imagine that He is in front of you. Imagine Him the way you imagine Him. Imagine that He is sitting (or standing) next to you, looking at you, holding your hand... And start talking to Him as to a friend... Tell Him everything that worries you. Ask Him for help in solving this or that difficult situation. Ask for forgiveness for certain bad deeds. Give thanks for certain benefits and experience ... At the moment of communication - he says - you will feel some kind of euphoria, grace, as if someone's invisible hands picked you up and swing you ... as if you have grown wings and you are flying ... This - he says - is the answer to you from Him, that everything will be what you ask. After a prayer, you will feel warmth in your heart and calmness ... After such communication, the world will seem brighter, life - easier, soul - easier, consciousness - clearer ... And huge, huge omnipotence in the heart, for the whole World, even for enemies ... » .

From that moment on, I always began to pray, only the way he taught me ... And really ... - what was my surprise when for the first time during prayer I felt the very euphoria that the priest spoke about, and complete satisfaction ... From reading my mother's cramming this has never happened.

I noticed one nuance: if I am not given what I am asking for, there is no such feeling of euphoria - He is silent ... This is a sign to me that what I am asking for will not happen. Also, after such a prayer, I can sometimes have an experience in which it directly tells me why I was not given what I ask for ...

Modern people stop praying - they pray outside, but there is no prayer inside. After all, the meaning of prayer is not only to beg for something or read memorized verses from the Prayer Book and other books, but to feel unity with God and love. If not, prayer is a bluff...

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Communicating with Bebirushka in the comments, I remembered the lecture of our teacher at Sunday School, on the topic: “Why can’t you read cards, play solitaire games, play them, and also why you can’t gamble, in principle?”.

There is an ancient legend, I don’t remember its roots anymore ...
« … One of the Angels became proud and rebelled against God. Then God threw this Angel from Heaven to the Earth and under the Earth, where he became a demon - a fallen Angel. After that, God “closed” the path of the fallen Angel to Heaven with a certain mysterious cipher… Since then, the fallen Angel has been looking for the code of that cipher all over the Earth and under the Earth in order to get back to Heaven…
So, in order to increase his chances - to find the right combination, the fallen Angel (demon) connected people to the process of searching for the cipher ... He created cards (as well as dice and other gambling ...) and distributed them among people so that they they guessed at them, played solitaire and played, creating thousands and thousands of different combinations ... Thus, the demon hopes to soon find the right combination and return to Heaven ... After all, one day the cards may add up ... » .

That is, according to this legend, guessing on cards, folding solitaire and playing them, we, as if unconsciously, help the demon to unravel the combination of the cipher, and get back to Heaven, where, of course, he is very, very eager ... Hence the prohibition churches for cards, divination and playing, as well as for dice and other gambling ...
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Are you asking if this is a sin? From a Christian point of view, sin is often seen as a miss - a miss. Every person living in this world strives for joy, happiness, for health, but not everyone finds the direct path that leads to those good goals. Our Lord Jesus Christ in the Holy Scripture gives us those guidelines, guided by which we can achieve these goals.

Often a person, due to his spiritual illiteracy, does not think about those issues that should be considered very seriously and deeply. When we talk about traditional medicine, about surgical interventions, for example, we don't go to some amateur who lives next door to us to perform an operation on us at home. We have the prudence not to do so. But, if we are talking about spiritual practices, a person here, unfortunately, turns out to be more frivolous and often considers it normal to entrust any counter with an impact on his subconscious, an impact on his life.

Undoubtedly, both earlier and now there are a lot of all kinds of so-called healers, grandmothers, sorcerers, magicians, psychics, bioenergetics, etc. They call themselves differently, but their occult influence unequivocally negatively affects the human personality. The concepts of "evil eye" and "damage" are non-church concepts. They do not belong to the Christian faith, these are superstitions, that is, a vain faith that does not bring true benefit to the human soul. This is a kind of spiritual disease. Where spiritual knowledge about faith and true life is impoverished, superstition appears. Yes, undoubtedly, the connection with dark demonic forces in the form of witchcraft, divination, conspiracies, healing has existed since ancient times and should not be denied. But we must remember that neither a sorcerer nor any of the people can influence us without God's permission, which always has a very specific goal: strengthening a person in faith and realizing by a person that only God Himself is our only intercessor. Indeed, sometimes it happens that a person can feel some kind of imaginary help after turning to all kinds of healers, but a person cannot get a real solution to his problem, a real healing. The disease is driven inside and will manifest itself with a vengeance soon either by diseases of other organs, or by some kind of spiritual problems.

Unfortunately, many insufficiently church people do not understand the meaning and significance of prayer, and therefore from their lips one can hear that, they say, healers heal with prayers, remove damage and the evil eye with prayers. You can’t heal with prayers, you can’t remove something with prayers. Prayer is an appeal to God, to the saints. It is impossible to treat with treatment or remove something with treatment. Prayer is a monologue of our soul, addressed to the Creator, addressed to our older brothers and sisters who lived before us, who loved God and neighbor, who helped people throughout their earthly life and after their earthly life did not stop loving us, but drawing closer to God with even greater strength, they desire help for us. Prayer is a monologue in the hope of a dialogue with God and the saints, in the hope of their response and real help in our lives. Therefore, it is necessary to understand that prayer is not a conspiracy, not a set of certain sounds, uttering which a person expects to receive some kind of result.

Often healers send their victims to be baptized in the church or do not receive them until they go to church for confession and communion. This is a very subtle step, it confuses the most suspicious and incredulous person. On the one hand, the illusion of cooperation between the sorcerer and the Church is created. On the other hand, the idea is suggested that he is in the power of good light forces. And with the third - the most secret goal is achieved - the trampling and desecration of the shrine and the suggestion of a magical approach to the Sacraments of the Church. That is, an approach in which people believe that God owes them something. That He is obliged to help them in response to their performance of some external actions, for example, to put candles to certain icons in the temple or to read a certain number of prayers, formally confess and formally go to Communion. It is hard to take care of oneself, to try to correct oneself seriously inwardly, to prepare for the Sacraments of the Church. Therefore, it is easier to formally do something and wait for a miracle from God. Many people want to get acquainted with some kind of elders, seers, healers, "miracle workers", they want to get into some kind of "miraculous" sessions, reprimands, so that they can quickly get rid of their problems, solve health problems and their everyday problems, problems of relationships with loved ones.

We must remember that this path will not lead to a genuine solution of our problems. He will not lead us to the main thing: to the vision of our sins, to repentance and true fellowship with God who loves us. Through faith, as you know, we give our will to someone we trust. God calls us to submit our will to His holy will directed for our good, that is, to try to live according to God's commandments. These commandments can be compared, for example, with the advice of a doctor. So, if a doctor says that with a sick stomach we need to abstain from some food that is unhealthy for us, then no one sees this as an infringement of our freedom. In the same way, by His commandments, the Lord God helps us to realize what harms our soul, that is, the sins that we commit, and to abstain from them. By believing the healers, we ourselves submit our will to them. As a result, we lose our freedom. Dark forces thus gain access to our soul.

Even the Lord, Creator and Creator of our life does not violate our freedom. The Lord says, "Behold, I stand at the door and knock." He enters only into an open, pure, trusting heart in His love. The impure dark forces are trying by any means to subjugate us to themselves, but God, who loves us, restrains this desire with His power. Only to the soul of the one who consciously seeks this dark meeting, who consciously goes to search for this hostile forces, they have access. Therefore, when hearing about some kind of damage, the evil eye, you should try to forget about it and pay less attention to it. It is not the evil eye and damage to be afraid of. You have to be afraid of offending God with your unworthy non-Christian life. To be afraid to grieve God, who loves us, who went to suffering on the cross for us, who gave us eternal life, who gave us all the saving means to achieve it. To be afraid to offend the love of God, to be afraid to trample on that trust of God which He places in our freedom.

Summing up what has been said, I urge you to read the Holy Scriptures thoughtfully. If something is incomprehensible, unclear, you should come to the temple, talk with the priest, solve your spiritual problems. It is necessary to regularly confess and partake of the Holy Mysteries of Christ, and not formally, but understanding the significance and necessity of this for our life and wanting to partake of this grace-filled help of God, the grace of the Sacraments of the Church, healing and reviving us to a new life in Christ.

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I sinned, visited a fortuneteller, I really repent of this. But it is very difficult for me to fight those thoughts in my head that appeared after I heard the information of fortune-telling, I don’t know how to get faith in fortune-telling out of my heart. They told me this ... That the one I love is not my man, that I am not his destiny, that I will never be with him, no matter what I do. And once a clairvoyant told me that I would be lonely all my life, because “I was not created for a family.” How to be?

Evgenia

Dear Evgeniya! Be sure to say this at the sacrament of confession. Divination is a very big sin. The question of fortune-telling is a mystical question, for fortune-telling is far from harmless, it is an image of communication with fallen spirits, that is, demons. The enemy of the human race is the father and ancestor of lies, will he speak the truth? Only if it suits his far-reaching plans. But this small grain of truth is served together with such a monstrous lie that it will only contribute to spiritual and bodily death, and by no means to salvation.

All forms of divination come from ancient pagan mysteries. They wondered by the stars, by the entrails of sacrificial animals, by various elements of nature - is it necessary to continue this list. Divination is either idle curiosity, or an unreasonable desire to build one's life, relying not on reason and God-given free will, but on an absurd chance.

Many will object to this: they, they say, were once told by cards, and everything really came true.

Fortune telling is not always innocent fun or quackery. Satan does not always show us his business card and puts a sign in the place where his sphere of activity begins. On the contrary, he is ready to disguise himself and hide behind the cloak of innocent fun. In any case, it is impossible to joke with fortune-telling. Even the simplest prediction can have dire consequences.

One eighteen-year-old girl allowed a gypsy to tell her fortune. And she said that she would die the day she was twenty years old. The girl believed these words, and one can imagine what fear her life was then filled with. The approach of her birthday brought her incredible torment. She began to suffer from depression. The birthday itself passed without any incidents, the girl remained alive, but the mental anguish turned out to be so strong that after some time she became mentally ill and died two years later.

This is the main danger of divination, a person is so bound by the information received that he can no longer think about anything else, it fetters him, fills him with fear, paralyzes his will. What a person suddenly believed in becomes a reality in his life. Words of Jesus "...according to your faith be it to you"(Mat. 9:29) are fulfilled here and in such a tragic sense. The predicted future manifests itself as an exorbitant mental burden, which not everyone can bear.

The Bible says: "... do not tell fortunes and do not guess"(Leviticus 19:26). This is an abomination in the eyes of God. And in relation to the fortune-tellers and soothsayers themselves, the Word of God is even more radical. God commanded his people to exterminate them in their midst. "Sorcerers do not leave alive"(Ex. 22:18).

Today is still the time of grace, let a person close to you repent on the Sacrament of Confession for this sin and ask the Lord with all his heart to forgive him this abomination and cleanse him from this sin and its consequences. He will do it, for it is written : "... The blood of Jesus Christ, His Son, cleanses us from all sin"(1 John 1:7). And this is the truth.

I would like to end with the advice of the Optina elder Paisius: “Look for great meaning in everything.” Seek - and do not succumb to the many different tricks of crafty spirits seeking your death!

I am an intensive care nurse, I live in the Vladimir region, I retired, but I continue to work. What is resuscitation in the region? Frequent deaths, great responsibility for the nurse, lack of modern technology and even elementary medicines and stress, stress, stress. My health began to fail me - pressure surges, heart, I even ended up in the hospital, I myself spent a week in intensive care, but it didn’t get better. The doctors threw up their hands.

I'm not used to getting sick - work, home, part-time jobs in the neighborhood (someone to put a dropper, someone to get a massage) - all this requires constant attention and participation. Then I decided to turn to a fortune-teller grandmother, since the doctors could not do anything. I am a believer, but I hardly went to church, only on holidays. Of course, I understood that going to my grandmother was not entirely correct, but my acquaintances convinced me: “She is 83 years old, she knows the matter, everything she says comes true.”

This woman took money from me, and then offered to open an ancient book herself, a coffin and candles were drawn on the page that fell out.

The grandmother whispered prayers and said: “You were jinxed with envy. You're a suicide bomber, you'll die soon."

She gave the charmed water with her, but said that she could no longer come, she would still die soon. And she told me not to tell anyone.

It is difficult to describe my state, I really believed that I should die. I was very frightened, cried for a long time, finally talked to my husband, children, friends. Of course, I ran to the priest - confessed, took communion, for the first time in 15 years. But the fear remained, it is very difficult to overcome it.

Why do people turn to fortune tellers: a psychologist's version

psychologist in private practice, associate professor at the Higher School of Psychology, member of the Gestalt Approach Society of Practicing Psychologists:

First reason- the need for a spiritual understanding of the world and spiritual experiences. The human soul is by nature a Christian, and therefore every person has spiritual needs, including those for the miraculous and the supernatural.

All kinds of market fortune-tellers, psychics and sorcerers just offer people to satisfy these needs and easily get what is achieved in a good way through serious, long-term spiritual practice, a certain way of life, and purification of the heart.

Of course, on the part of a person who turns to a fortune teller, this is self-deception. The same as, for example, financial pyramids like "MMM", only in the spiritual life. The hope is to get everything at once with a minimum expenditure of time and effort.

The second reason- infantile personality. If a person is not an adult, he still tries to live much like a child.

For example, a child, when asking for a toy, does not understand that parents need to earn money and work for this. He asks - they give him. And in the case of turning to fortune-tellers, the same infantile experience occurs, pampering one's inner child. Probably everyone has this need, but in infantile people it is especially strongly developed and is considered not as an element of a lifestyle, but as an important, necessary and quite natural life strategy. This is, in fact, the confidence that you can miraculously solve any problem.

And fortune-tellers turn to these structures of the psyche, which were formed in childhood and are responsible for such a naive worldview, when everything is possible right here and now. When the abilities of these sorcerers, fortune-tellers, psychics were studied in the 90s, it was revealed that among them there are a lot of those who have psychological skills at the level of, say, NLP practitioners.

Why you shouldn't be afraid

There is such an anecdote: A patient comes to the doctor and says: “Doctor, will I die?”. The doctor replies: "But how?".

Once, back in the late 90s, a boy came to me for confession, who was being escorted to the war in Chechnya. He went to a fortune-teller who told him: "They won't kill you, but they will wound you in the hand." Of course, I consoled him, but he, in principle, was glad of such a “soft” forecast.

And then I figured out what options for the development of this story could be further. If this boy had been killed, no one would have bothered to figure it out further, to go to a fortune-teller: “How is it, you said they would be wounded, but they killed him ?!”. If the boy had not been killed or even wounded, then, if anything, the fortuneteller guessed - they would not have killed him. The third option: wounded, but not in the arm. Again, I almost guessed. And if, God forbid, they really wound him in the hand, then the fortuneteller will be declared a prophetess and glorified.

That is, this is such a win-win lottery, which can be called simply gypsy. Gypsies, fortune-tellers know various methods of deception, and use them mainly for mercantile purposes. What is most terrible, these charlatans often cash in on someone else's grief. How many times have I had to bury cancer patients who, in desperation, found some medicines on the Internet, gave a lot of money for a vial of an unknown liquid, which turned out to be almost tea or herbal infusion, and thought that this would save them. And there are many such examples.

But even if you believe the fortuneteller, you do not need to be afraid. If a person really realized and mourned his sin, and not just stated the fact of its commission, his repentance will have creative power. God can change many things, and not only in man. We say: after confession, sins are blotted out. Indeed, the Lord, as it were, erases sins from the book of a person's life. At the same time, He erases them not only for the future, but also erases them in the past itself. And, accordingly, the consequences of sin change and disappear. That is, if a person repented, and God blotted out his past sins, then the consequences of these sins are blotted out of a person's life.

If, having repented, a person is still afraid, this indicates his insufficient faith in the fact that God forgives and protects. And then the priest must give this person some kind of reasonable, but effective penance. If there is no affirmation in faith, there is no hope in the will of God and in God, then a person needs to read the Gospel for a month, for example. After this penance, a person’s faith will be strengthened, he will understand that repentance purifies and there will be less doubt that he has broken the bonds with which he tied himself to the devil.

Nicholas B.: "Healing through prayer?"

This happened about 40 years ago. I suffered from psychological disorders, headaches and a lack of strength for life - I could not simply chop wood for the stove. I spent a lot of time and money to find out the cause, even lay in the clinic, but there was no sense.

Once my relative advised me to turn to a healer, who, according to him, cured him of his illness and generally returned him to his family to his wife and children. I agreed. It was difficult to call the house where Maria (the healer) lived, and it was difficult to call it a house, she did not live well, she did not take money for her work, but she always asked to bring bread and a bottle of vodka, which she sometimes drank right there with her guest.

Maria was a beauty - a white face, black hair, eyes huge in half a face, but at the same time a crooked back and arms twisted from polio. And the look - she could sparkle with her eyes so much that the drunken men who were noisy in the next room, catching him on themselves, suddenly fell silent and turned off at once.

She did not ask questions, looking at her, the man himself began to tell.

She treated like this: she folded her fingers, as for a cross, and began to drive over the sore spot - either in a circle, then with a cross, then draws a star of David and mutters something. She taught me to read "Let God Arise," only with a strange village accent: "and let them flee from father willow ..." She strictly ordered me to read "Let God Arise" nine times a day, then everything will be fine.

The treatment helped - strength increased, he simply began to fly, his career went uphill, relations with relatives improved. But then I became lazy, I stopped reading the prayer and everything returned - my strength and health left.

Not a prayer, but a spell

Sometimes people say: "They also have icons, they read prayers." But if a person compared, he would understand that there is little in common with prayer. The words are the same, but the meaning is incantatory. We know that any prayer can be turned into a spell - it's one thing, a person reads the prayer "Our Father", turning with all his heart to the Heavenly Father, and quite another if he reads the prayer "Our Father" like a spell: for example, strictly forty times, just speaking the text.

Prayer always has a certain structure: an appeal to God, a request, repentance, glorification of God. This structure creates the spiritual content of man's appeal to God. And in the “prayers” of fortune-tellers there is no appeal, they do not beg, but force, conjure: you, archangel, stand in front, another archangel behind, and so on. Because the forces they deal with are demonic.

Elizabeth R.: Guardian Angel from Massage

My mother-in-law said, “Lisa, I have a great massage therapist. Even two. Let's go to them with Vera! Vera is my daughter, she really needs a massage.

On the threshold, the masseuse met with a statement that she was working with the blessing of the Russian Orthodox Church. Then she began to get acquainted with the problems of her daughter. The massage turned out to be acupuncture, the woman tried to teach me to transfer energy with her hand. At that moment, I already strongly doubted that I had come to the right place.

The last straw was not even a statement that the doctors who performed the caesarean section were to blame for everything (they are not guilty of anything, and I know this for sure), but some kind of energy calendar and a message that Vera does not yet have an angel -guardian. But here we are, and he will appear.

I left feeling like a squeezed lemon. In general, I clearly felt that my aunt “can do something”, I felt her strength. She was uncomfortable. She's probably even a good person. And probably even wants good. But I had no doubts about who she got her powers from.

"Child to grandmother!"

A person should think about who he is dealing with, with what forces. When a doctor comes to a child, the parent, if this doctor does not change his shoes or does not wash his hands, will not even let him near his child. But it’s the same thing in a spiritual sense: do people really care what thoughts, what wishes, with what faith a person touches your child, what power he turns to?

As a priest, I can testify to many cases where there was a direct connection between turning to fortunetellers and subsequent problems in a person’s life. For example, one girl had some kind of inflammation on her skin, she went to her grandmother, she whispered something to her, anointed her, spoke some water, everything seemed to be gone. And then six months later, such a terrible misfortune happened to her that she almost died.

Church opinion

The Old Testament contains a direct ban on turning to fortune-tellers:

“You should not have a soothsayer, a fortuneteller, a soothsayer, a sorcerer, a charmer, summoning spirits, a magician and questioning the dead; for every one who does this is abominable before the Lord, and for these abominations the Lord thy God casteth them out from before thy face; be blameless before the Lord your God” (Deut. 18:10-13).

In conciliar decrees, the prohibitions concerning fortunetellers, soothsayers and sorcerers are also unambiguous. The church categorically forbids divination. The text of Canon 61 of the VI Ecumenical Council with interpretations by Bishop Nikodim (Milos) looks like this:

“Those who surrender themselves to magicians, or others like them, in order to learn from them that discoveries ascend to them, in accordance with the previous fatherly decrees about them, let them be subject to the rule of six years of penance. Subject to the same penance those who utter fortune-telling about happiness, about fate, as well as the so-called charmers, figures of protective talismans and sorcerers. Those who become stagnant in this and do not reject such pernicious pagan fictions are determined to be completely cast out of the Church, as the sacred rules command.

Sorcery, divination and similar deeds, this rule condemns as a satanic deed and punishes anyone who engages in these deeds with a six-year penance; if such a person does not repent, but persists in sin, he is subject to complete expulsion from the Church.

Magicians and sorcerers are also mentioned in the rules (65, 83) of St. Basil the Great. Those who turn to fortune-tellers are compared with a murderer, receiving a penance equal in severity: “He who betrays himself to sorcerers or some similar, let him be under penance for as long as the murderer.”

Like St. Basil, sorcerers were condemned by Gregory of Nyssa, John Chrysostom, Ephraim the Syrian and many others. Moreover, John Chrysostom calls not to believe the positive result of turning to fortune-tellers: “If sometimes, by the permission of God, demons heal (through divination), then such healing happens to test the faithful, not because God does not know them, but so that they learn not to accept from demons even healing.

Of course, today no one excommunicates those who turn to fortune-tellers, psychics and sorcerers for six years from communion. Since if these rules were in effect now, there would be no one in the temples. So the practice of excommunication from communion for a long time does not exist, at least one and a half to two thousand years. And by decrees of the Holy Synod, it is generally prohibited under the threat of defrocking those presbyters who impose such penances.