Imagination is the main instrument of the devil’s work against soul, either awake or in sleep; through which the devils harass man, seeking not only to make him sin or to wake up and stir his passions, but also to fill him with various types of chaos by causing him sadness, anxiety and distress, deceiving him and making him wander because of hallucinations, even ending by enslaving him entirely.

St. Hesychius of Sinai teaches that the imagination was the main cause of man’s fall: ‘And so it separated Adam from God, giving him visions of divine dignity. And so the liar and cunning enemy tends to deceive all sinners.’

(Translated from Jean-Claude Larchet, Terapeutica bolilor spirituale, Editura Sophia, Bucureşti, 2006, p. 99)