Yahnony Mouse Wants to Negotiate

One of the several comments and emails we have since received from Yahnony Mouse is the following, which seems nicely to sum everything up:

Just to make it clear:

1) I don't believe in aliens. I know of at least one Elder who said that they are 'demons taking physical form'.

2) I don't like oriental philosophy and I don't believe in any of their mumbo-jumbo. (I'm a Catholic born and living in Romania; the Orthodox influence is still strong here.)

3) I am against ecumenism.

4) I've read in an article about Ernetti's book 'The Likes and Dislikes of the Devil'—the devil's 3rd favourite thing is: "Priests and religious belonging to the Freemasonry and the Satan’s sects." And this happens too often these days!

5) I know that the Devil can take the form of an angel of light, or even that of Jesus Christ. (To come back to the book that I recommended - the editor wrote: "I do not of course believe that He whispered to them all that He intends to say for this generation. But I am confident that He opened their eyes to many things which they and this generation greatly need to know. I do not believe in the verbal inspiration of this or any book. But I do believe that these two women have been led and that much of what is written is very clear leading indeed.")

If you have some time, please write about these things—from the point of view of the Orthodox Church.

Thank you and sorry for disturbing you.

Theodor a.k.a. (Y)a(h)nonymous(e).

p.s.: It was me who sent you those e-mails. And by the way, anybody can post comments as 'Anonymous' on your blog.

So the mouse really is anonymous.

Let’s clear some things up here. We like the name ‘Yahnony Mouse’ and will use it.

First of all, we know quite well, Yahnony, who can and who can’t post comments on our blog. After all, we set the parameters in the software. When we say, ‘our old friend Anonymous’, we are being humorous. We have no idea which Anonymous is which. If we wished we could force people to use a Google ID but at the moment we see no reason to do that. All it would do is force each anonymous commenter to establish a Google pseudonym. Why waste our readers’ time?

Next, Theodor complains that we posted the phrase ‘you can pay by PayPal’ in reference to the text of private revelations he wants us to read whereas the text is free. He even gives us the direct link. Let us take it as given that Theodor is right. It is also the case that the site owners claim charitable status and in large type encourage donations for the upkeep of their site—it’s an important ministry, you see, they email things around the world. We are generally very sceptical of such operations. Maybe they’re legit, maybe not. However, we see no reason to play FBI to investigate. We leave such stuff alone.

Moreover, Theodor complains—rightly—that we did not go and read the text at all. There are two reasons for this, Theodor (have you considered changing your name to Yahnony?). First, such sites are notorious for loading your computer with spyware. We don’t want to have to sweep our computer with fifteen anti-spyware packages to satisfy Theodor in Romania’s curiosity what we think about a certain web text. Moreover, the description on the web site of the way the private revelations were received was so obviously foreign to the mind of the Orthodox Church that there was really no reason at all to go to the text to check it out. When someone sits down with a pencil and paper at a certain time of the day to await a revelation from Jesus Christ—does it really require reading his revelation to know that what is involved is delusion (plani, prelest)?

Next, Theodor is against ecumenism. Well, that’s his right. Why, however, is he asking our opinion? After all, we’re not Roman Catholic. Shouldn’t Theodor be asking the priest or even the bishop? Here, actually, Theodor, we think that this is a serious matter. The things you are occupying yourself with are going to lead you away from Christ. Get yourself to your priest.

Next, and this is important, we actually did give you a full explanation from the point of view of the Orthodox Church, Theodor: none of this stuff has anything to do with Christianity. It is foreign to the mind of the Church. To continue thinking about this stuff means that you are on the wrong road.

You say that we commented on ‘Second Life’ and on ‘World of Warcraft’ and they have nothing to do with Christianity, why can’t we comment on the stuff you list? Apart from the issues that we noted above, the situation is a bit like going to a psychiatrist and saying, ‘Hey look, the people in the house across the street from me seem weird. Maybe you should check it out.’ The psychiatrist takes some time off his lunch hour to go by the place the guy mentions. He sees a mental hospital. He comes back, says ‘You’re right, it’s a madhouse.’ But the guy says, ‘Hey, I want a full diagnosis of a certain four guys living in that house!’ The psychiatrist says, ‘Sorry, don’t have the time.’ The guy complains, ‘But you wrote articles on two of your mad patients, why can’t you diagnose four people in the house across the street from me?’ The psychiatrist says, ‘Look, Yahnony, tell you what: tell me what your problems are and I’ll try to do something about them. Leave the people across the street from where you live alone.’

So in the same vein: Yahnony/Theodor, we have no intention of going to those sites to check out what they say about the Illuminati and the other matters that interest you. If, however, you want to write us a detailed email from your latest email address telling us what’s on your mind, we’ll try to answer you here on the blog. But we think that we have already given you an answer—if you think carefully about what we’re saying.

Let us explain just what we mean. Your error, Theodor, is in thinking about these matters, not in having the right or wrong opinion on them. We realize that this is going to be hard for you to understand. The temptation is not to believe something that should not be believed. The temptation lies in occupying yourself with these things at all. The Devil is tempting you to a spirit of fanaticism—let it be Roman Catholic, Orthodox, Christian fanaticism, whatever, it’s still not the Holy Spirit. This is going to be very difficult for you to understand. We do not acquire the Holy Spirit thinking about whether someone’s views on the Illuminati are right or wrong. We acquire the Holy Spirit by humility, love, care, patience, long-suffering, obedience, humility (yes we know), all those things. We acquire the Holy Spirit by attending the sacraments, by praying, by listening to our confessor, by having a spiritual director and listening to him.

This is not to say that we should not have a clear idea of the beliefs of the Orthodox Church but that is not what is involved here. The Nicene Creed is silent on the issue of the existence of the Illuminati and their conspiracy to subjugate the world. They might exist. They might not. We don’t know. In the nature of things, it’s difficult to know whether an absolutely secret society exists—after all, they don’t advertise. But our salvation, especially if we are beginners who are wet behind the ears, does not consist in having the right opinions about the Illuminati and pounding the table; it consists in leaving these matters to those appointed in our Church to teach while we learn humility. We realize that you will find this impossible to understand.