On Delusive Charms [PRELEST-s]: Ascetic Experience

Disciple. Give a more precise and detailed notion of PRELEST [delusion, beauty=charm]. What exactly is PRELEST?Elder. PRELEST is damage to human nature by falsehood. PRELEST is the state of all men, with no exception, which has been made possible by the fall of our original parents [forefathers]. We all are in [a state of] PRELEST [delusion] [1]. Awareness [knowledge] of this [fact] is the greatest protection against PRELEST. The greatest PRELEST is to consider oneself free from PRELEST. We all are deceived, deluded; we all are in a condition of falsehood; we need to be liberated by the truth. Truth is our Lord Jesus Christ [2]. May we come to know this truth by having faith in It, may we cry out with prayer unto this Truth - and it will take us out of the abyss of self-deception and delusion [seduction] by demons. Our state is grievous! It is a prison, from which we pray that our soul be brought out, that I may praise thy name [3], oh Lord. It is that gloomy land onto which our life has been cast by the enemy that hates [envies] and persecutes us [4]. It is carnal mindedness [5] [philosophizing], and vain babblings [6] [knowledge falsely called so], wherewith the whole world is infected, refusing to acknowledge its illness, declaring it [rather, to be] the bloom of health. It is the flesh and blood that cannot inherit the kingdom of God [7]. It is eternal death, [being] healed and destroyed by the Lord Jesus, Who is the resurrection, and the life [8].