Too many Christians get caught up with a pursuit for the supernatural, be it miraculous healings, apparitions, locutions, visions, dreams, or other forms of revelation; while there are some which are authentic, many are not, and pursuit of the miraculous will open someone up to deception, be it demonic or human. Too many people fake miracles. Too many fake apparitions and locutions. It is often difficult for the ordinary person to know which are valid and which are not. The thing is, we do not need to believe in any of them. We do not need to put our faith in them. We have been given the ultimate revelation God through the incarnation, and with it, the ultimate miracle, where Christ not only gives us the grace we need to change and become better, but to be reborn and have our place in the eschatological kingdom of God.
Even if it were not that difficult to determine which supposedly miraculous events or locutions are valid and which are not, we should not make them the focus of our faith. At best, such supernatural events are meant to be vehicles of grace and consolation so that, with their help, we will be able to pick ourselves up and continue growing in Christ. That becomes thwarted if we become too attached them. We turn tools which are meant to help us recenter our lives on Christ, and turn them into tools which do the opposite. If we do so, then we will become spiritually unbalanced, and with that imbalance, we can find ourselves going in the wrong direction, which is why Bede Griffiths, following St. John the Cross, said:
St. John of the Cross always warns that one should not be taken in by visions or revelations. These are only manifestations and we have always to go beyond these to the truth. That is why we must not take too seriously this sphere of manifestation whether it is the physical world or whether it is the psychic world, the world of the angels and the gods or the occult. People are easily attracted by visions and revelations, but these are not the highest reality. The danger is that if we get involved in that level of reality, we may never get beyond it.[1]
We must focus on the revelation given to us in and through the incarnation. Through it, we will find we have been given truths of the Trinity, God's love for us, God's desire for the salvation of us all, and the best ways for us to engage God. We must never let anything get in the way of our engagement of that revelation. This is what happens when people get so caught up in apparitions, but it can also be what happens when people become so concerned with some secondary element of the faith, even a theological truth, that they lose sight of what is primary to the faith. The more they do this, the more they lose sight of the general vision of the Christian faith. Why do they do this? Because so many want to feel special, they want to believe they have special insight which makes them better than others. In reality, they have not really engaged what they have been given. They do not need to know more, for what has been given to us in and through the incarnation is enough. Authentic apparitions are meant to help redirect us, to make sure we do not lose sight of what is central; they are private forms of revelation because of the limited value contained in them. No one should be looking for such supernatural forms of revelation; instead, they should be trying to live simply, following the teachings of Christ, for when they do that, they will find their faith will grow:
The true teachers of Christian mysticism, especially among the hesychastic Fathers, have always insisted on caution. Visions, voices, levitation, celestial odors, sweet tastes in the mouth and gentle touches by angelic messengers were never to be sought for in prayer. The Fathers were quite unanimous in stressing humility and compunction as the true touchstones of a religious experience, and not psychic phenomena. [2]
The more people look for and rely upon supernatural experiences, either directly for themselves, or indirectly by becoming attached to those who have received some supernatural experience, the more they are prone to prelest, spiritual deception. Even legitimate locutions can and will be misinterpreted and abused by those engaging them in such a way. They will begin to see themselves as being special, that they have something which has made their faith, their lives, greater than others, leading to pride and vainglory, the kind which has them caught up in spiritual deception and unable to consider they are being deceived. They quickly come to believe if anyone is wrong, it is those who disagree with them, not themselves. Then, with such a disposition, they will be open to deception, one which can and will grow over time; we have seen, from time to time, how that has led to all kinds of great evils, such as those who have come to believe they should kill their own children:
And what should I say about the man who, while welcoming a demon in the guise of angelic brightness over a long period of time, was often deceived by his innumerable revelations and believed that he was a messenger of righteousness? (I do not want to mention his name because he is still alive). When these revelations were being received, his light took the place of a lamp in the man's cell every night. At last he was ordered by the demon to offer to God his own son, who was living with him in the monastery, so that by his sacrifice he might equal the dignity of the patriarch Abraham. So taken in was he by this idea that he would have committed the murder except that his son, seeing him sharpening his knife with unaccustomed care and looking for the bonds with which he was going to tie him up for the sacrifice when he made an oblation of him, fled away terrified, having a premonition of the coming crime. [3]
This example, found in the writings of St. John Casssian, is not an isolated case in history. There have been many instances where parents believed God told them to sacrifice their own children and they are more than willing to do so, and always, when challenged, they point to Scripture and the story of Abraham to justify themselves. They do not understand the point being made with the story of Abraham: Abraham was stopped from sacrificing his son, and he is given a revelation that, unlike what many in his time thought, God does not need or want such sacrifices. This is often how God works in Scripture. God will meet people where they are at, engage them in their thought patterns, and then within those thought patterns, lead them away from some erroneous way of thinking. It is what many see happening in salvation history, not just with human sacrifice, but sacrifices in general; God slowly limited them. Then, with prophets, we are told God does not seek after or need any of them, but rather, God wants to engage us in our hearts. This is something both Christians and Jews would come to understand.
The Christian life should be a simple one, engaging the world, and God, with and through the dictates of love. This is what the incarnation has revealed to us. God is love, and God would like us to respond to divine love with our own love. We should humbly serve God with that love. While supernatural experiences, such as miracles or apparitions can occur, we should not seek them out. As St. John of the Cross also suggests, when they happen, we should accept them for the grace which is involved in them, but that's it. We should not become distracted by them. We should not be concerned with the vessel of that grace, becoming focused on it, because, when we do that,we open ourselves to all kinds of error, as we lose sight of the way of life we should live.