Preface

          This essay is the end result of a discussion I had about the use of imagination in prayer at the Byzantine Forum many years ago. That said, I am going to include the original question posed by my interlocutor within the body of the essay (highlighted in blue text) for the sake of clarity.  I am also going to include the quotation from St. Gregory of Sinai, which can be found in the Philokalia, that started the discussion in the first place.  In the quotation below, St. Gregory sets forth the approach to prayer promoted by the Hesychast movement within the Orthodox and Eastern Catholic Churches, which views imagination as a distraction from true prayer and even sees such imaginings as something that can be dangerous, for as he put it:

Now, based upon what St. Gregory said above, it is clear that stillness of mind, which is the goal of Hesychastic prayer, can only be achieved through the experience of the divine energy.  To put it another way, it is only through participation in the divine energy that a man is empowered to come into union with the triune God, who is beyond form and being, and the stirrings of the imagination would only get in the way of that process.  Thus, in the spiritual tradition of the Christian East the use of imaginative visions or images in prayer is counterproductive, since the goal of prayer is hesychia (i.e., stillness of mind and heart).

In fact, St. Gregory of Sinai in his treatise "On Prayer" goes on to say that:

It is clear, based upon what has been said so far, that a man must avoid the use of imagination in prayer, and the way to do that is through spiritual discipline, i.e., through the constant shunning of mental images that may voluntarily or involuntarily intrude upon his stillness of mind and heart.  Thus, no matter how a conceptual image may arise in a man's mind, it is clear that such an image must be shunned entirely, even if the image formed is of Christ incarnate, or of the Lord suffering His blessed passion, or any other image no matter how holy it may appear to be.  In other words, for St. Gregory of Sinai the stirrings of the imagination frustrate the noetic stillness that is the focus of hesychastic prayer.

Moreover, it must be noted that within the Eastern Christian tradition the vision of God is not an intellective act; instead, it is beyond intellect, because God Himself is beyond form and beyond being, which means that He is beyond any epinoetic concept that can arise in a man's mind. The imaginative concepts that the human mind creates, as far as the hesychast is concerned, are self-deceptive and ultimately prevent the union of God and man that is made possible only through the gift of the uncreated divine energies in perfect mental stillness.

In the text that I have quoted, St. Gregory of Sinai is referring to the sources of the mental images that the mind creates, but it is the mind (i.e., the human intellect) that is causing the distracting images, and there is nothing in the text that would indicate that these images are being forced — by some kind of external power — upon the man attempting to pray.  Thus, as I have pointed out already, the hesychast is supposed to quiet his mind, which means that he should not be trying to create mental images, whether they come from his memory or from something happening around him.  Moreover, far from being "disincarnated" the prayer of the heart (i.e., hesychia) is incarnational, because it is a union of man's energy with God's uncreated energy, while preventing prayer from turning into a purely gnostic noetic activity that downplays the importance of the human body.

Now, let us look at the sentences that follow the phrase "within or without" in the quotation that I supplied:

"For the intellect itself naturally possesses an imaginative power," [3] notice here that St. Gregory is focusing attention on the one praying, because it is his (i.e., the hesychast's) "imaginative power" [4] that is causing the distraction from true prayer, i.e., the prayer of the heart, which necessarily excludes the use of the natural intellective power of the imagination.  He then goes on to say that these mental distractions arise in those "who do not keep a strict watch over" [5] this imaginative power, which "can easily produce, to its own hurt, whatever forms and images it wants to." [6] Now, what — according to St. Gregory — is the source of the images that he is talking about?  Is it some kind of private revelation in the modern Roman sense of the term?  No, it is not; instead, it is the natural power of the human imagination, which — to its own harm — produces the images he is condemning.  Now these distracting images are produced by internal memories of external stimuli, and that is why he describes them as "the recollection of things good or evil," [7] which "suddenly imprint images on the intellect's perceptive faculty and so induce it to entertain fantasies, thus making whoever this happens to a daydreamer rather than a hesychast," [8] because he (i.e., the man who is praying) has not controlled his thoughts and emptied his mind of diastemic images in order to unite with God, who is beyond form or shape, and who dwells in utter darkness.  The hesychast, to quote St. Gregory of Nyssa, is supposed to leave "behind everything that is observed, not only what sense comprehends but also what the intelligence thinks it sees," [9] for he must penetrate deeper and deeper into the mystery of God, until he "gains access to the invisible and the incomprehensible, and there [he] sees God, [for] this is the true knowledge of what is sought; this is the seeing that consists in not seeing, because that which is sought transcends all knowledge, being separated on all sides by incomprehensibility as by a kind of darkness." [10]

Clearly, the hesychast is supposed to expel all thoughts from his mind, and so he is not supposed to create images intentionally within his mind, nor is he to entertain those mental images that may arise involuntarily as a natural attempt of his intellect to comprehend the incomprehensible.  Finally, I have to say that I have never read any hesychastic text that encourages the use of mental images in prayer, but if you have read anything written by the Holy Hesychasts that recommends this practice, then by all means post the texts so that we can discuss them.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

G. E. H. Palmer, Philip Sherrard, Kallistos Ware (Editors).  The Philokalia:  The Complete Text compiled by St. Nikodimos of the Holy Mountain and St. Makarios of Corinth.  (Boston:  Faber and Faber, 1984).  4 Volumes.

St. Gregory of Nyssa.  The Life of Moses.  (New York:  Paulist Press, 1978).  Translated by Abraham J. Malherbe and Everett Ferguson.

The Hesychastic Approach to Prayer

by Steven Todd Kaster

Original Version:  2 August 2007 (from a thread at the Byzantine Forum)

This essay is based on posts taken from the forum thread linked above, but was reworked and expanded into its present form on:

12 April 2025

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End Notes:

[1] St. Gregory of Sinai, "On How To Discover the Energy of the Holy Spirit," G. E. H. Palmer, Philip Sherrard, Kallistos Ware (Editors), The Philokalia:  The Complete Text compiled by St. Nikodimos of the Holy Mountain and St. Makarios of Corinth, (Boston:  Faber and Faber, 1984), 4 Volumes, 4:259.

[2] St. Gregory of Sinai, "On Prayer,"  G. E. H. Palmer, Philip Sherrard, Kallistos Ware (Editors), The Philokalia:  The Complete Text compiled by St. Nikodimos of the Holy Mountain and St. Makarios of Corinth, (Boston:  Faber and Faber, 1984), 4 Volumes, 4:283.

[3] Philokalia, 4:283.

[4] Philokalia, 4:283.

[5] Philokalia, 4:283.

[6] Philokalia, 4:283.

[7] Philokalia, 4:283.

[8] Philokalia, 4:283.

[9] St. Gregory of Nyssa, The Life of Moses, (New York:  Paulist Press, 1978), page 95.

[10] The Life of Moses, page 95.

Copyright © 2007-2025 Steven Todd Kaster