NOUS - The nous is our highest faculty. It has been called: the "eye of the psyche," the "eye of the heart," and also the "energy of the psyche." When cleansed, the nous resides and operates from within the heart; it can perceive God and the spiritual principals that underlie creation; it is cognitive, visionary, and intuitive. The Metropolitan of Nafpaktos, Hierotheos said, "The nous is in the image of God. And in as much as God is light, the nous too has light mirrored in it by the Grace of God." After man's fall and the "fragmentation" of the psyche, the nous will invariably identify itself with the mind, the imagination, the senses, or even the body - losing sight of its pure unalloyed state.