We live in a world whose underlying ideology is one of materialism, and this is to such a depth and pervasiveness that it is not a matter so much of overt propaganda pushing this materialism, but rather the given base on which everything else rests and proceeds. So it is a matter of this materialism being the blank canvas rather than the painting on top of the canvas. By contrast, with the traditional notion of propaganda the propaganda is rather the painting on top of the canvas, directly seeking to influence the mind of the viewer. Now rather we are in terms of the west so far down the pathway of ideological movements which conclude in atheistic materialism, that the overt propaganda work is considered largely done, and so there isn’t even a sense of things being up for debate; instead as said we grow up in a world where this materialism is the actual “blank” canvas on which we now paint, rather than a theory painted on a canvas that is an open sense of reality.
And what I want to look at in relation to all this is our selves and our thoughts. So within this world or society, we tend to have the notion of the inner self as a kind of sealed, autonomous environment, and so the idea of particularly private thoughts being open to invisible, external psychic influence, as in divine or more obviously demonic, is very difficult for us to initially digest. For one thing, the spiritual is not considered to exist, and secondly even if it does exist, we tend to consider our souls or spiritual selves should be sealed from particularly harmful influence. We shouldn’t be porous in this sense, with harmful entities having access to ourselves.
However it may be helpful to simply consider the nature of things as relates to existence in the material sense. There is nothing remotely like an autonomous self removed from an external environment, shocking as this may initially sound. With all the senses, we continually receive stimulation from “outside” our inner selves, with sight, sound, touch, etc. There is no sealed self apart from this, and thus external stimuli include intellectual thoughts from outside, be it from talking to someone, to listening to the radio, watching the news and so on. So there is continual information or thoughts, not originating from our inner selves, bombarding us from beyond ourselves, and particularly when it comes to things like news, from sources about whose nature we may be painfully misguided and ignorant.
So on this basic material front, thoughts are continually coming at us from outside, and if our sense of autonomy and self-awareness and self-protection are not healthily active, then our immune system is hopelessly porous, letting all kinds of things have easy, unchecked access to our inner self.
So in terms of spirituality, we are in the same position. Just because a thought arises in consciousness doesn’t mean it is “our” thought, or has a necessarily benevolent source - in Christian Orthodoxy there is emphasised great importance in not accepting such thoughts uncritically - there may be huge self-gratification for instance in believing oneself to be receiving direct communication from God, which seems a much more common phenomenon than one might expect. Every conman attempts to appear “as an angel of light”, and the same obviously would apply here.
So hopefully this shows how the solidly sealed inner self doesn’t really measure up to ordinary life, and so then how this openness to external, particularly temptation, may continue into the spiritual realm - and which isn’t sealed off hermetically from ordinary life. To add, regardless of one’s belief or not in the spiritual, the same necessity of a self protected from thought applies - for example the thoughts of an anorexic are harming them, wherever their source, simply their psychological core affected by their pathway through life, or malevolent forces exploiting their impaired intellectual immune system to attack them with thoughts designed to ruin them.
And so there is huge emphasis on the wakefulness to thoughts as they arise, and of course obviously ones particularly of the nature of temptation. That is the critical moment to ward them off, as once indulged, things get far more complicated. It’s much better not to ingest a poison than ingesting it and then trying to get it and its effects out of one’s system! And that is also why in Orthodoxy, so much importance is laid in The Jesus Prayer, which is simply “Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me”, and this is something repeated again and again. The nature of the intellect is that two intellectual thoughts don’t simultaneously occupy its space. So if a temptation comes into one’s inner space - for a gambling addict the thought of gambling, whilst they have genuinely been trying to overcome this passion, well that temptation is in the form of a thought, if they have the awareness, desire and discipline to immediately resort to the Jesus Prayer as described, then the tempting thought is repelled as it now has no place to dwell within that person. Spiritually also a far greater force is being invoked to ward off the malevolent invading force, but even for an unbeliever whilst the prayer would be repeated, just in terms of the spatial nature of thought occupying inner space, this wards off the attack. These attacks, whether considered internal or external, do have the specific form of being focused attacks within short periods; the temptation isn’t just on and on, just as for the gambler an add for gambling he sees on tv is “short and sweet.” But unless we allow the thought in and indulge it, then it is powerless to do anything but briefly appear.
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