A Story of Agapit Pechersky by Anastasia Novykh (reading strategies book .txt) 📕

short pause arose again.
“I also wanted to ask you,” Nikolai Andreevich suddenly recollected, “about the Holy Spirit. As far as I understood from the story of my patient, everything in baptism ceremony is based on the Holy Spirit descending upon man’s soul. For example, when consecrating water, a priest asks that the water in a font be sanctified with the power, grace-giving action, and inspiration of the Holy Spirit. He is also called upon, when anointing as well as when the person is christened. When anointing parts of body, the priest also pronounces: ‘The seal of the gift of the Holy Spirit!’. Each part of a body symbolizes something. Face to sanctify thoughts, legs – for the christened person to walk the path of Christ, arms – for him to do work of mercy. Is it a mere tradition or does it have some sense?”
“You have answered your question in part yourself. A symbolism takes place, of course, but the sacrament of the very Holy Spirit is there too. For those who address with faith receive their merit. In general man is able to come to perceiving God only through the Holy Spirit, for He is the first helper and the mediator between God and human. He is numerous in His manifestation, but His Entity is one. There is no religion, no sacrament, awakening Love and Belief in God in man that can be done without inspiration of the Holy Spirit. Because for people He is God’s power, His Ear, and His Voice,” Sensei made a pause and then got back to the story about Agapit again.
“By the way, we have digressed from the story about the disciples of Agapit. Now then, Damian healed people by prayer, anointing the sick with chrism. Yet, for example, another disciple of Agapit, Alipy, used paints instead of chrism. He was an icon-painter. Already in his youth, he helped the Greeks to paint the Assumption Cathedral of Pechersk Monastery. Then he started painting icons on his own. Agapit taught him how to cure people’s skin diseases, for instance, ulcers and festering wounds, with the help of a prayer and paints.”
“How can they be cured with paints?” wondered Kostya.
“Well, how? Paints have liquid basis, you know. They are just the same oils that are mixed with dyes. Plus, dyes themselves have additional therapeutic features, which naturally increase general health-improving effect. Only natural dyes were used in those days, you know, not the modern chemical ones. Some dyes have good antibacterial properties, such as the indican, an indigo dye made of Indigofera plants. In addition, red and yellow dyes were also used in those times. Owing to their organic components, they had an antiseptic, anti-inflammatory, wound-healing effect.”
“So, you mean, Alipy was both a painter and a physician?” Nikolai Andreevich made a conclusion.
“Absolutely correct. He wanted to bring utmost good to people,” confirmed Sensei. “By the way, Agapit told Alipy a lot of secrets about his first ‘profession’. He told Alipy about combinations of color palettes, their influence on state of human mind, about the representation system of spatial and temporal relation...”
“Wait a minute!” Nikolai Andreevich was amazed. “Do you mean that Agapit told Alipy all these niceties of color-perception psychology and the representation system of spatial and temporal relation in the eleventh century?”
“I guess Alipy would be surprised too, if he knew that this simple truth would become a science only in thousand years,” Sensei grinned. “However, all that color-perception is, by and large, not essential. The main thing Agapit paid attention to was how to produce an invisible effect from the image. Agapit asserted that an icon shouldn’t idealize an image, so as not to create an idol for blind worship. But the icon should be spiritual. It doesn’t matter how the icon was made and what the material was, whether it was a piece of wood or a wall, but the spiritual state of a painter – that’s important. For when a person, being in a special state of consciousness, disengages himself from the Animal nature and manifests his Spiritual to the utmost, a special power is put into the icon. It is able to entrance a person looking at the icon, rouse a feeling of real divine presence and produce a spiritual surge in his soul. Speaking modern language, to do a ‘recharge’. Besides, the purer the painter’s thoughts and aspiration to God are, the more the effect is that, owing to its positive charge, can spiritually transform a person, to say nothing of normalizing his physical health. For physical health in the first place depends on the spiritual one. By the by, such surge of power, produced by the painter’s Faith, will stably remain for thousands of years.”
“For thousands of years? Why is it so?” wondered Tatyana.
“Because space and time do not exist for true spiritual power.”
“Does it apply only to icons?” Kostya asked curiously.
“It applies to any artwork. Because it is not a board covered with paints that matters, as Agapit was saying, nor it is a canvas, or a book, or a sculpture, but it is the very inner power that was put into the artwork.”
“Yes, an amazing effect,” Nikolai Andreevich said. “Once I was lucky to visit the Hermitage in Leningrad. There surely is a rich cultural heritage collection of ancient Middle East, Egyptian, Asian, Greek cultures and many other curious things. And there are also artifacts of Russian culture from 8th to 19th centuries. Such wonderful pictures there are!”
Sensei nodded his agreement.
“If you noticed, people can stand for hours near some paintings, admiring them, though the painting itself, perhaps, is nothing to look at. While at other paintings, even though their details may be portrayed much better, people don’t stay for too long. It’s because pictures also have memory. When a painter creates a picture, he puts his emotions, feelings, and thoughts into it. And a person, looking at such painting senses it by intuition.”
“What about a photo? Does it have the same effect?” asked Stas with interest.
“Undoubtedly. Moreover, a photo maintains a permanent connection with an object, that is, a person. That is why it is easy to know whether the object is alive, where he is at the moment as well as his emotional state. It is also possible to influence his psycho-emotional sphere through a photo, his physical health, and so on. Even if numerously duplicated, this photograph retains the connection with the object practically without a loss. As for the paintings, their effect is different. Even if a painting is photographed, the information put into it is preserved in its original form. It is almost impossible to alter or influence it, because that information in it is permanent.”
“As far as I’ve understood, people so-to-say charge their paintings exactly with their own faith,” remarked Nikolai Andreevich.
“You’re absolutely right. Inner faith means a lot. For example, back to our talk, take Agapit. He really worked wonders in healing. To a large extend it was related to Inner faith and positive aspiration of people, who came to him. He cured people who believed quickly, no matter how severe their illnesses were. But those who came embittered, without faith in their soul – fortunately, there were very few of those – Agapit simply did not admit them to healing, though their ailment was easy to treat. Faith is not an empty word. Even Jesus himself, when came to His motherland ‘...did not do many miracles there because of their lack of faith’.”
“Was it suggestion?” Nikolai Andreevich asked thoughtfully. And shrugging his shoulders, he added: “But suggestion alone isn’t enough to treat a serious illness. That’s a fact.”
“Suggestion has nothing to do with it,” rejoined Sensei. “The reason, why Agapit and Jesus didn’t agree to heal such people, was not because they couldn’t manage to do it. The whole point lies in the phenomenon of faith. If a person is open to light, he receives light. If a person is closed, that is, there is no faith in him, – it is equivalent to him climbing down to a cellar, closing the lid tightly, and waiting in this absolute darkness for somebody to cure him with daylight. Such expectations are unavailing, of course. Human brain works similar to a computer, and faith is a certain program. If it is installed on the computer, it can be actively used and a corresponding result of this work can be achieved. If a person lacks faith, it’s equivalent to the absence of the appropriate program on the computer. Naturally, you cannot work adequately until the necessary program is installed on your computer.
“What is the phenomenon of Agapit’ successful healing? You know, he could heal not only with herbs or hands, which is called chiropractic nowadays, or with the help of words. He often used to give something eatable from his meal or some water for his patient to drink. But all that food certainly had a spell cast on it by his prayers. The patient felt much better afterwards and he actually did recover quickly. Why was it so? It was because Agapit treated his patients with true faith. And it is a great, real power indeed. True faith is by no means a fanaticism, running into absurd extreme. It’s not ‘striking in the chest’ in debates and demagogies. True faith is the extent of purity of your personal spiritual power. And Agapit did have great spiritual power. When blessing food or water for a patient, that seemed as casting a spell on it, in reality Agapit was putting in a certain program into the liquid by means of his personal spiritual power. Subsequently this liquid was incorporated into the patient’s organism, where it interacted with its liquids. In other words, a new program was installed, which could be launched with the help of the patient’s faith.
“By the way, Agapit always offered a prayer to bless food before him, and he taught the others to do the same. In general he used to eat only vegetable food. Even a bitter blade of grass, when Agapit cast a spell on it, turned into a sweet medicine for a patient.”
“Well, perhaps, if considered in a figurative sense,” uttered Kostya with a light tinge of scepticism, “then yes, one would swallow anything as a medicine to recover quickly, even if it’s bitter and tasteless.”
“Why in a figurative sense?” Sensei asked in sincere perplexity. “I meant literally.”
Kostya mistrustfully looked askance at Sensei, then put on a thoughtful air, trying to comprehend what Sensei had just said. During that ‘great-Caesar’s’ reflection, as he liked to speak of himself, he cast a look on dry twigs we had collected during the day for the campfire. They were lying on the ground just beside him. There was a sprig of wormwood among other blades of grass there. Upon seeing it, the guy livened up somewhat, apparently thinking about a ‘rule of contraries’ that had just occurred to him.
“What do you mean in the literal sense?” Kostya challenged with doubt. “And what if it’s a wormwood?” he pointed at the sprig. “It’s as bitter as nothing else! It’s always been a weed of reek. How can it be a sweet regale?”
Sensei glanced at Kostya, screwing his eyes merrily, and said:
“Let me have it.”
Kostya took the sprig with disgust, holding it only with his two fingers, gave it to Sensei, and carefully shook off his hands afterwards. Eugene, who was chewing a cracker, didn’t fail to gag about Kostya’s careful jests: “Hey, chap, there’s a question now, who a smelly weed here actually is.”
Everyone burst out laughing. Sensei took the plant carefully and shook off the dust. Then he put it on his palm and stroked it tenderly, as if it were alive.
“How can you call it a weed? It is an officinal herb. It has essential