0:00 Beginning

0:15 Letter 13: Aether, True Happiness, Soul's Covering

11:19 Letter 14: The Covering of the Soul

17:36 Letter 15: How Saints Hear Our Prayers, Aether, Prayer From the Heart

📖 _The Spiritual Life And How to Be Attuned to It_

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🎧 Excerpt from "Creation, Early Man, & Evolution" - St. Theophan the Recluse

https://youtu.be/HRZHvGc6XTk

⛪ FIND an Orthodox parish and monastery near you:

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St. Theophan wrote:

In case you have not forgotten, at one time I began talking with you about *an exceedingly subtle element that is finer than light. It is called ether.* Let us suppose that it exists as a matter of fact, and not just in name. *I recognize that such a very subtle element exists, and that it penetrates and passes everywhere, serving as the smallest particle of material substance.* Along with this, I suppose that *within this element soar all the blessed spirits—the angels and Divine saints—who are themselves garbed in a kind of raiment made of that very same element.* The covering of our soul (understand this word to refer also to the spirit, which is the soul of our human soul) is also made of this very same element. *The soul itself is the immaterial spirit; but its covering is made from this ethereal immaterial element.* Our bodies are coarse; *but that covering of the soul is very fine and serves as the intermediary between the soul and body. Through it the soul acts on the body and the body on the soul.* I am speaking of this only in passing, however. Just keep in mind that the soul has this very fine covering, and that our souls have the very same kind of covering as do all spirits. From this it will not be hard for you to conclude that *this omnipresent element, very fine, out of which these coverings are made and in which all spirits soar, is the intermediary for the intermingling of our souls and these spirits.*

When true prayer that is, sincere prayer—moves in the soul, then that prayer, by means of the action of the element upon it, flies as if on a beam of light to the saints, and tells them what we want and what we are praying about. There is no gap between the time we make our prayer and when it is heard; the only necessity is that it come from our heart.

(Note: Bolding is as found in the book)

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