Once the intellect has arrived at true and pure prayer it is likely that the demons . . . will offer it an illusory vision of God beneath a form pleasing to the senses, so as to make it believe that it has fully attained the goal of its prayer. Now all of that, as an admirable gnostic said, is the work of the passion of vainglory and of a demon whose assaults make the brain reel.
EVAGRIUS OF PONTUS On Prayer, 73 (Philokalia I, 183)
