Praying With Our Eyes: Lecture

4
How do we pray with our eyes? Icons,
iconographers and prayer.
By Ian Knowles, Director Bethlehem Icon Centre, June 2, 2015
Over the previous three lectures I have spoken about icons as liturgical art,
that is art intrinsic to the Liturgy, the public prayer of the church. Payer and
icons are part and parcel of the same whole, mutually feeding each other.
We have also looked at how the icon is holy, which in a sense is what the
whole iconoclastic movement was about. The radical idea proposed by the
iconodules (lovers of icons) was that icons were holy, sacred, actually in their
materiality transfigured signs which opened the door of heaven to those on
earth, and while not holy as God or the saints, they were, in virtue of their
sacred role in relationship to the things they made present, worthy of
veneration. They were the physical moments when ordinary human beings
could touch the Divine.
In this final lecture of the first part of this series, I want to take a closer look at
this holiness of the icon, and how it impacts not just on the worshipper but on
those who make them, the iconographers.

1. The holiness of the Icon

Lets begin with the most obvious elements, and then seek to go deeper, to
penetrate something more of their mystery.
Icons are wonder-bearing artefacts. By this I mean that they bring all sorts of
wonderful graces, be that healing or the pouring of sweet smelling oil from its
surface, or simply bringing to us the remembrance of Christ, his Mother, and
his saints. The history of the Christian Church is littered, in every generation
including our own, with experiences of the material of the icons manifesting
strange physical phenomena. And it is not the great artistic works which
manifest these signs of Gods Kingdom on earth, but often the most humble,
the least impressive, even printed icons.
Here is a contemporary account of two miraculous icons from a parish in
Hawii which began to secrete chrism in 2007.
1)
One is a mounted-print made, I believe, at the Sofrino Church factory
near Moscow. It is an exact copy of the Montreal Myrrh-streaming Iveron Icon
of the Holy Theotokos; this was the icon cared for by Blessed Martyr Brother
Jos Muoz. It is a small icon, roughly 7 x 9 inches and approximately one
inch thick. My parish priest, Fr. Anatole Lyovin, gifted it to me for my Name's
Day in 1997 (). He said he purchased it at a church bookstore in Toronto when
the parish in which he had grown up celebrated the fiftieth anniversary of its

founding. The icons from Sofrino have a distinctive style with a beautiful silkscreen riza (or oklad in Russian, Pokamiso in Greek) built into the icon. This is
done so that those who cannot afford beautiful and very expensive icons can
have something equally beautiful from Sofrino for less.
2)
The second icon is a hand-painted icon in the shape of a Cross, with the
image of Our Lord's crucifixion in the traditional Byzantine style of
iconography. A Greek monk from the Holy Mountain Athos painted it. It is
roughly 8 x 11 inches and approximately 1 1/2 inches thick. I purchased a set
of two near identical Cross icons and gave one to my father as a gift; I kept the
other
Around 10:30 p. m. that night, I was working in my office, which also
doubles as our home chapel where our icon corner is located. My cat walked
into the office and began to sniff around as if he smelled something. I did not
smell anything. He proceeded to walk toward the area were our family
reliquaries are kept. I thought this was strange since he would never go near
the reliquaries; amazingly something always stopped him, and he's a nosy cat.
Yet this time he stood on his hind legs and sniffed around, I assume in order to
figure out what the smell was. I still didn't smell anything. I proceeded to pick
him up and then I noticed the scent. It was so strong, even overwhelming.
Never have I smelled anything like that in my life. I couldn't explain why I
hadn't smelled it before. It was like a thousand roses had fallen into the room.
I crossed myself and guarded myself with the Jesus Prayer. I put the cat down
and proceeded to look at the icons. I admit I was afraid to look at the icons
near the reliquaries. I finally came to the icon of the Cross and noticed that the
bead of myrrh by the side-wound of Christ was still dry, for a split second I
regained some composure, even as the smell of roses was getting stronger. I
then looked down and my hand was wet -- it was myrrh. How did it get there?
The icon was dry? Or was it? I then noticed that the left knee of the image of
Our Lord was forming a bead of myrrh right before my eyes. I then called out
to my wife. She came running, and when I asked her if she had spilled
anything on the icons, she said no. She hadn't gone near them. I showed her
the icon. She was in shock. I told her the smell is too strong. Help me look at
the other icons... Finally I grabbed the icon of Iveron given to me by Fr.
Anatole. It was completely wet. And then the smell got even stronger. Even my
wife could smell it We were afraid. We asked one another if we cleaned or
anointed the icons recently, and both of us said 'no'. 'What is going on?' I
asked. I put the icons back where they were; we took a few pictures with our
digital camera. Then I said an Akathist to the Mother of God in honor of her
Iveron Icon and went to bed, or at least tried to.
The next day, Sunday October 7th, after much debate, we left the icons at
home and went to church. After the Liturgy we spoke to our kuma, who
instructed us to speak with the priest immediately. We told Fr. Anatole what
had happened. He listened patiently and said, 'Bring the icons to church!' We
then arranged with the priest, to bring the icons to church the next
Wednesday, October 10th. Up until that Wednesday, the icons continued to
stream. I collected the myrrh on cotton and before them I said prayers for my
sister who was ill and for several other people. Fr Anatole's Note: The next day,
his sister called her father to say that her doctor cannot explain it, but that her
pancreas, which had completely stopped functioning had returned to its
normal state and that her diabetes was under control. ()

On Wednesday October 10th, we brought the icons to church and placed them
on two analogia (lecterns) in the center of the church. Fr. Anatole inspected
them and wiped them down with cotton and proceeded to start the service of
the Akathist Hymn of the Iveron Icon. After the service, the icons were wiped
down again; they had streamed a little during the service. Fr. Anatole
confirmed to us that it is 'definitely streaming myrrh' and that it is 'a very pure
myrrh'. The smell of roses filled the air. I asked him what we were to do? He
asked us to leave the icons in church for the time being. No one knew about
the icons; they were safe at church.

 Sunday October 14th, was the Feast of the Protection of the Mother of God,
and Fr. Anatole revealed the icons to the people. The icons streamed quite
heavily; there was enough myrrh for everyone. They have continued
streaming ever since. Many have come to see the icons, Russians, Greeks,
Serbs, Roman Catholics, Protestants. All who approach the icons feel the
Grace of God! There have been days when the icons have been completely
dry, while on other days they are covered in myrrh. Yet whether they stream
or not, they continuously give off an extremely strong scent of roses. It is
truly a great miracle! I sometimes wonder if it is a warning [1]

In this way, I think, we can see God affirming that an icon is a thin place, a
border crossing between two worlds, a sacred place. These miracles show it
power, power to proclaim Christ and to draw all things into Christ, into
relationship with Him. It truly belongs in the church as an essential
accoutrement to the Liturgy, but even when taken out of that context and
placed in a home, it begins to shape the place and make it a sort of extension
of the church, an extension of the Eucharistic communion between God and
His children. We can see this as a sort of mission or evangelisation within the
matter of the cosmos to bring the two realities, the heavens and the earth,
into a dynamic union. Even when placed in a museum or an art gallery they
do not cease to work, however much the environment conspires against it.
Once we realise this we should take care to never debase an icon by
becoming indifferent to its purpose, and should always make a reverence
even if interiorly. As the fathers of the 7th Ecumenical Council said, the icons
remind those who pray of the icons prototypes and, through gazing upon the
icons, the believers lift up their minds from the images to the prototypes.
The Church teaches that the icon makes a real and direct contact between the
worshipper and the holy person depicted, the prototype, and it is this capacity
which is the root of its sacredness. This unity between the paint and the wood
and egg and the pigment comes through the identity of the image, hence the
importance of inscribing the name, not of the artist, but of the saint or Christ
Himself on the front of the icon. In simply reading the name, we are evoking
the prototype and preparing to worship. By kissing the icon, touching it, or
just pausing before it, we are acknowledging the holy person who stand
before us just on the other side of the image our eyes can see. This isnt
something necessarily moving or devotional, though it can be, but it is prayer
especially when it brings us to formulate words of prayer on our lips and
above all, in our hearts. This movement reveals that first moment of
awareness and acknowledgement as the first step in acknowledging
something greater than us, and our humility in receiving the revelation of that
Presence.
1. The challenge of the icon
The icon is visually disconcerting, it pushes us, presses us to go beneath the
surface because the appearance doest quite work until you do. Those without
faith have dismissed iconography as a primitive art - such was the art
historical consensus until well into the 20th century. For the modern world
with its disdain for anything medieval the world of the icon remains lost like
that of the world of indecipherable runes. Yet once you gain sight of the
profundity of the medieval mindscape, its spiritual vitality and dazzling
horizon of eternity against which everything was measured, the icon reveals
itself. And once you immerse yourself in this perception so the icon becomes a
work of conscious and subconscious prayer.

This work of prayer as it goes beyond simply acknowledging the prototype

presented in the icon is not something easy; one eminent theologian, and
interestingly also an eminent scientist described, it this way: a sharp
penetration of a spiritual reality into the soul, a penetration almost like a
physical blow or sudden burn that instantly shock the viewer who is seeing for
the first time, one of the great works of sacred icon painting. There is not the
slightest question in such experiences that what is coming through the icon is
merely the viewers subjective invention, so undisputedly objective is its
impact upon the viewer, an impact equally physical and spiritual. Like light
pouring forth light, the icon stands revealed. And no matter where the icon is
physically located in the space we encounter it, we can only describe our
experience of seeing it as a beholding that ascends.[2]
In this way the icon demands we work hard to put on the mind of Christ as St
Paul puts it. The world view of medieval man, despite its scientific limitations,
was far more vast than ours in perceiving the unity of all things in the cosmos
and the union of the material world and that of the spirit. Iconography
emerged at the moment the ancient world began its transformation into a
profoundly Christianised culture and it helped to shape it, and its prophetic
role today is perhaps to keep that vision of revelation in touch with a world
much more keenly aware of its contemporary zeitgeist and in danger of
forgetting that there is more to reality than what meets the eye.
The strange faces, textures, colours of the icon refuse to submit to the
tyranny of the present and demand of us the courage to look beyond with
humility. The spiritual world of the invisible is not some infinitely far off
kingdom; instead it everywhere surrounds us as an ocean; and we are like
creatures lost on the bottom of the ocean floor while everywhere is streaming
upward the fullness of a grace steadily growing brighter. But we, from the
habit of immature spiritual sight, fail to see this light bearing kingdom; most
often, we fail even to assume it exists, and therefore we only sense unclear in
our hearts the spiritual currents of what is really happening around us.[3]
This understanding of icon painting as a way of attaining supernatural
perception, a way followed by both the great icon painters and those who
supervised the icon painting process: such understanding is our gaol. [4]
Engaging with the icon, and there can be no better way to do this than as a
painter or maker of icons, draws us more and more deeper into the encounter
with Christ, and as we respond more and more to His loving caress, so higher
and higher we move along the mountain or ladder of spiritual ascent. We
shouldnt make the mistake of thinking this is something about the magic of
the icon, but it is simply that the icon is a normative part of the Christian life
and integral to the liturgy, and so it encourages and nurtures us via our
senses in that relationship.
This being drawn deeper isnt some ethereal thing, but a very definite life
shaping encounter via our sense of sight. Jesus taught that The lamp of your
body is your eye. When your eye is sound, your whole body too is filled with
light; but when it is diseased, your body too will be darkness. Luke 11:34.
The icon is a source of purification and an apprenticeship which helps us
develop our interior vision.the ancient Fathers of the Church considered our
sight as the most important of our senses, and images as a means of
sanctification for the soul.[5] In an age of ubiquitous images, and when
especially through advertising and pornography our senses are deliberately
being aroused through our eyes in potentially Christ-alienating ways, the icon
is a real medicine for the eyes and thus for the soul.

Indeed, in an age of unparalleled exposure to images, photographs, paintings,

cinema, computers, of still, moving and even 3D images, where the image is
so often used as a phenomenon of fantasy and imagination to dislocate us
from the reality of the world we actually exist in, we need to educate our eyes
to pray perhaps as never before. Our eyes languish, our sense of sight
mesmerised by endless colours, shapes, movements all conspiring to be
alluring, distracting, indeed to be controlling of our deepest selves via the
arousal of emotions and feelings and memories and associations. Our sense of
sight is essential to the experience of life for contemporary mankind as never
before in history, and so the time of the icon, as the authentic manifestation
of incarnational art, of the redemption of the sense of sight, has come.
In the dark we cannot see, our sight cannot function. Darkness brings
confusion, a sense of being lost, of loosing direction and purpose. Even in
such a situation of faith the icon continues to do its work. The icon acts as a
mirror reflecting the light of God in and through his saints, and above all in his
Son. For those on the way to salvation there is in the icon something very
pure and radiant that sings about the essence of things, while for those
searching for God, even when the icons seem oddly disturbing, we sense
something of Gods holiness through them, they evoke a sense of the holy.
And in the midst of so many conflicting thoughts and possibilities the icon is
dreadfully real, an objective reality, something beyond ourselves and our
subjectivity, rooted in the reality of the spiritual realm, and the Gospel. When
we are still enough to look, this can stir within us the beginnings of conversion
and repentance.

2. The iconographer
The holiness of the icon & the implication for the iconographer
The 7th Ecumenical Council, in AD787 stated that only the technical part of
icon painting belongs to the artist; the determination of the icon itself plainly
belongs to the FathersThe Holy Fathers of the Church create the art
because they are the ones who contemplate the persons and events that the
icon must depict. How could someone create an icon who does not have
continuously before him - who has never even glimpsed-the icons prototype?
it would be the height of arrogance for people to claim that they have
depicted the spiritual real (that realm which even the saints behold only
fragmentarily and fleetingly) when they themselves have never seen it at
all? [6]
In the icon there is a tranquility of composition, which aids and leads to
contemplation. This tranquility is also a fruit of an inner freedom, a lack of
distraction, compulsion, preoccupation in those who have designed the icon.
When we are so turned in on ourselves, or so consumed with desire for
aspects of creation, we loose sight of the whole picture and become darkened
within. This darkness casts a veil over our eyes. St Paul talks about seeing
darkly as in a mirror but after this life we will see face to face. We cannot see
things as they really are, as God has made them or more significantly what
they are created to be, when our sight is so dull and our eyes so weak. As we
grow in Christ so our ability to see, to perceive reality, increases and deepens.
For there to be sight the light coming from our heart must be in harmony
with the light coming from God. Gods extravagant generosity in spreading

out such a feast of creations beauty needs be met by mans thankfulness if

this feast is to be joyous rather than debauched. its beauty consists of it
being a manifestation of the personal God. The cosmos is not a show of
vanity, but a showing forth of love.[7] The iconographer as a fashioner of
matter, a shaper of things, who moulds paint into beauty, can obviously do
this with much more alacrity when he can himself see the world transfigured.
This tranquility - in its composition and artistic treatment- is a tranquility
which flows from within the iconographer, a tranquility based on an inner
freedom, a lack of distraction, compulsion, preoccupation. The icon acts as a
mirror reflecting the light of God in and through his saints, and above all in his
Son. For those on the way to salvation there is in the icon something very
pure and radiant that sings about the essence of things, while for those
searching for God, even when the icons seem oddly disturbing, we sense
something of Gods holiness through them. In the midst of so many conflicting
thoughts and possibilities the icon is dreadfully real, an objective reality,
something beyond ourselves and our subjectivity, rooted in the reality of the
spiritual realm, and the Gospel. When we are still enough to look, this can stir
within us the beginnings of conversion and repentance. This is the icon as
salvific, as the mediator of the redemption experience in Christ.
In contemplating the icon all of us, but in particular the iconographer, are
involved in making a spiritual ascent through our sense of sight, from the
image to its prototype, from symbol to the reality, and when this is watered
with faith it becomes our spiritual life, our enlightenment and our
transfiguration. It is obviously quite possible to look at an icon without any
faith at all, or with a weak faith, or a strong one, but that faith will shape the
experience of seeing to the point that we either see more or less completely,
or not at all. And for the iconographer himself, the more deeply we see the
more truly creative we are free to be, because we are seeing more clearly,
and hence our echoes of the prototype will be more appropriate, more
evocative of the reality they proclaim.
We all begin with rather stilted mental notes, where we ask what this colour
means or this figure or this composition, like little children who persistently
ask whats this mummy. But as we mature and begin to see not just the
individual elements but the meaning beneath the whole, i.e. of the
interconnectedness of these individual elements, so we begin to perceive with
less and less effort. Our sense of the realities being conveyed depends on the
degree to which we live our life in Christ, the degree to which our hearts and
minds are desiring Jesus and the relationship with God he alone makes
possible. The icon is a participation, as we have seen earlier, in the
Incarnation, that is in the Person of Jesus Christ through whom we find the
forgiveness of our sins and the joy of eternal life dawns upon our
impoverished souls. The icon is the art not just describing this reality, but is
something springs directly from it. Thus in order to be proficient in perceiving
it and in making it we need to live deeply rooted in those realities which bring
it into bud and to bear fruit.

The iconographers spiritual state and its relation to the

holiness of the icon
There can be a pious fantasy that as the icon is an object of prayer, it should
be made with strict and demanding schedules of prayer, strict fasting and so

on and that that is what makes it special. Now it is true that some
iconographers follow a deep ascetically path, but that is perhaps more a fruit
of the icon rather than a prerequisite for making it! And we should also point
out that such notions are dangerous for an iconographer because it can
unleash uncontrollable waves of spiritual pride, a sense that it is through my
ascetical efforts that the icon attains some nebulous sense of holiness or that
because I write icons I must in some sense be special and holy compared to
those who dont. The icon is and remains a humble reality, a fragile
composition of wood and paint and the reason why some icons are chosen to
be wonderworking is beyond our knowing. As I have mentioned, even paper
printed icons have been known to weep oil, recently one of St Nicholas in the
United States. And I know from my own work that it isnt my most technically
accomplished work which has touched people the most, but in fact one
painted very crudely on the Israeli concrete separation wall. The Spirit blows
where he wills, and its not for us to reason why or to accrue or project that
holiness beyond its proper locus.
Having said that, it is obviously good for the iconographer to be in harmony
with the realities of the world he seeks to depict. Just as in portraiture, in the
icon the iconographer isnt simply copying a photograph but painting what he
sees, senses, feels as he looks at the subject. A great artist is able to engage
in a deep level with his subject and convey that experience to others in a way
which speaks, or in the case of the icon speaks to the heart. This is why the
most important thing about the context of prayer for the making of liturgical
art is an active spiritual life rooted in that of the particular church community
to which you belong. If a layman, then the life of the parish, if a monk, the life
of the monastery, not done to extremes but with a gentle tranquility and with
humility to accept above all the will of God in all things.
This tranquility is an essential aspect of the icons design, and at this level
ideally the icon and its maker should sit in restful harmony. The icon has a
tranquil centre, a resting point for the eyes and the soul, so that
unencumbered with distractions the truth might emerge and embrace the
beholder, inspiring and nurturing his faith in the Living God. It is like the
Burning Bush, which while it was ablaze didnt consume or blacken the
branches, in the midst of the roaring flames a stillness out of which the voice
of God spoke. Each and every icon is a theophany, a manifestation of God and
in order to behold what is being manifest we have to have a restfulness to
pierce with understanding and recognition.
Prayer is the place where we learn to know God. We come to know God in
the same way we learn to know another human being. When you stop to think
about it, how else could we know the incarnate Christ? We look and we like
what we see; we spend more time together in speech and in silence; we meet
one anothers friends and find interests in commonWe go closer to that
personSlowly we become more involved in the relationship until we commit
ourselves to the one we have learned to love. [8]
Icons are about proclamation, as is the whole of the Christian liturgy, so if we
do not know Christ our iconography is a hollow shell, proclaiming nothing
except by way of accident, or even worse proclaiming our confusion and
ignorance, though when we write the icon with humility, accepting our
limitations of faith and ability and trying to copy as faithfully as we can, then
the icon can do its work, not just on others but also on us, proclaiming Christ
and itself drawing us deeper into the faith. The iconfills a constant task,
which has been that of Christian art from the beginning: to reveal the true

relationships between God and man To the disoriented world the icon brings
a testimony of authenticity, of the reality of another way of life the icon (can
teach us) about God, man, and creation, a new attitude toward the world. [9]
The icon is above all the art of the face, and the revelation of what it means to
be truly human through the encounter with the perfect Man Jesus Christ. The
iconographer spends much of his time gazing at the face of Christ and of
Christ in the face of the saints. As such his gaze is held by Christ, or at least if
he paints with spiritual perception. And when one paints with faith, the very
incarnatedness of Christ in the icon is visible proof of both the abasement of
God towards humanity as well as of the lan or impetus of humanity towards
God (Ouspensky) or as Monk Gregory Kroug put it, it is the visible and
tangible evidence of the grafting of created humanity onto the Divine
Uncreated Being. As such it sets the tone for the iconographers spiritual life,
for Christ has created the first icon, of Himself as icon of the Father, and
anything an iconographer does is a pale imitation of that, yet a real imitation
of it none the less.

An incarnational spiritual path

Unlike words, icons are not abstract conceptions in our heads, but experience
of our senses which our minds reflect upon. It gives an objectivity to our
reflection about faith, and Gods interaction with the universe of which we are
a part. Our labour is in some rudimentary way, even without faith, Christ
centred, or at least Christ focused. This is stronger when iconography is done
in a community of friends, of consecrated persons or of dedicated artists, so
that the Presence of Jesus fulfils Scripture: where two or three are gathered in
my name, I am there in the midst of them. The objective reality is shaped by
the common faith and the icon re-inforces that and re-echoes that in the
subconscious of each individual. When this has a liturgical focus in which the
icon is allowed to speak the nurturing of the soul and mind is tangible. The
icon is a work of proclamation, as I mentioned in a previous lecture, and its
whole design is to present the prototype to the worshipper, so as the
iconographer works on doing this, so he is in turn worked upon.
The iconographer thus sits before the icon, as a participant in this process,
and in a very profound way the icon becomes his way of prayer, that his the
foundation of the way God relates and saves him, and his humble response.
As Florensky said, icon painting is the occupation of a person who sees the
world as sacred, and while this is primarily about the Holy Fathers who
establish the main designs and types of icons, it can also, I would say, be
extended at least to a degree to all those who in fact paint them because the
process of making the icon is not to be constrained as one of simple
slavishness which those without faith can easily do, but a genuine
engagement with a disciple before His Master. If not, then iconography
becomes a very empty and robotic manufacture rather than the Creator
resonating through His creations rational pinnacle in the work of prayer.
As iconography is an authentic meeting with Christ so it can and should be
the path to great sanctity, but you can be a good iconographer while deeply
sinful if that is combined at least with a deep craving for the mercy of God
and the humility of the publican in the temple. In other words the
iconographer needs to carve out a path of repentance, of the desire to
become more and more united with Christ and the more creative an
iconographer desires to be the more the need for true, clear sight grows.

When we are so turned in on ourselves, or so consumed with desire for

aspects of creation, we loose sight of the whole picture and become darkened
within. This darkness casts a veil over our eyes. St Paul talks about seeing
darkly as in a mirror but after this life we will see face to face. We cannot see
things as they really are, as God has made them, or more significantly what
they are created to be, when our sight is so dull and our eyes so weak. For
there to be sight the light coming from our heart must be in harmony with the
light coming from God. Gods extravagant generosity in spreading out such a
feast of creations beauty needs be met by mans thankfulness if this feast is
to be joyous rather than debauched. its beauty consists of it being a
manifestation of the personal God. The cosmos is not a show of vanity, but a
showing forth of love.[10] The iconographer as a fashioner of matter, a
shaper of things, who moulds paint into beauty, can obviously do this with
much more alacrity when he can himself see the world transfigured, and that
can only come when he is transfigured himself.
Henri Nouwen spoke about the spiritual life as having three movements - from
hostility to hospitality, from loneliness to solitude and from illusion to prayer.
Prayer draws us into the very presence of Ultimate Being, i.e. of God Himself.
Prayer draws us more and more into the Light, where our delusions and
illusions about ourselves and our place in the world are stripped away. The
icon is art fundamentally devoid of illusion, with its pared down features,
omission of shadows, its angular draperies and perspectives which compile
time from the perspective of eternity. It says that there is more than the eye
can see, yet that the eye can see even if only in a limited way. It draws our
eye to look, and then to look again, to look beyond and to contemplate
realities otherwise beyond us.
For the iconographer the icon is the way of relationship with Christ and his
saints, with the heavenly world that is his destiny. It shapes his mentality, and
therefore his life.

[1]: http://orthodoxhawaii.org/icons.html
(http://orthodoxhawaii.org/icons.html)
[2]: Pavel Florensky, p.72
[3]: Florensky, ibid. p.64
[4]: Florensky, ibid. p.67
[5]: Michel Quenot, The Icon, p. 147
[6]: Florensky, op.cit. p.67
[7]: Aidan Hart, Beauty, Spirit, Matter, p.117.
[8]: Lynette Martin, Sacred Doorways, p.218
[9]: Ouspensky, quoted by Quinot, op.cit. p.218
[10]: Aidan Hart, op. cit., p.117.