The epidemic of "elders" and gurus in pre-revolutionary Russia, or what connects Rasputin, Tolstoy and Blavatsky

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

From the materials that have been published since the early nineties, it seems that before the revolution, Russians lived exclusively by religion. The more incomprehensible is the phenomenon of Grigory Rasputin: how could the royal couple be led by an obvious sectarian, a mystical guru? But in fact, mysticism and esotericism in pre-revolutionary Russia was at the forefront of fashion, and Rasputin was, as they would say now, in a trend.

Rasputin: one of the thousand "elders" of the empire

Even after the first pilgrimage, Grigory Rasputin learned how they make money now, and after returning to the village, he radically changed the style of communication with fellow villagers. As the local priest indignantly noted (for which Rasputin's daughter accused him of envy), Gregory pretended to be a prophet, a seer, spiritually enlightened: he answered everything with pauses, with such an air, as if asleep, fragmentary, significant, but not tied to specific questions with phrases. At first, it was simply a novelty for the peasants, as was the very fact that someone in their village was on a pilgrimage. Then they became convinced that in the so importantly expressed strange phrases of Rasputin there is a deep meaning that only needs to be unraveled. They began to bow to him, for spiritual guidance, and carried money or gifts with them.

At that time in the Tobolsk province, and throughout Russia, there was a surge of sectarianism. The Orthodox Church constantly investigated all kinds of gurus and their deeds (which were almost always associated with milking money from the people and from time to time - with some socially disapproved intimate practices). Since Rasputin unexpectedly got into the habit of walking with crowds of women arriving in the bathhouse, he was suspected of khlysty and, accordingly, orgies.

However, the investigation yielded nothing. And he could not give: Rasputin was not a Khlystov. Much later, already investigating the behavior of Grigory Efimovich with the ladies of high society, the police will establish: Rasputin satisfied his erotic urges in a very special way. Under the pretext of fighting temptations, he looked at strangers naked women, touched them, including inflaming them, but then, when they were ready to surrender, he forced them to pray until the catharsis of repentance and often prayed beside them. Perhaps he himself believed that in this way he was fighting temptation - although modern sexologists do not doubt that “fighting temptation” was only a pretext. In any case, the “old man” (who was surprisingly young for his rank) blew steam with his wife.

The Tobolsk province very soon began to seem to Rasputin either too small in income, or too dangerous - there he was always in sight. The "seer" decided to conquer the capital. However, St. Petersburg met him unkindly. "Startsev" in the city was apparently invisible, each fed from a dozen or so exalted persons. In Tobolsk, Rasputin had a wider audience. And then Gregory's real talent manifested itself - in just a few years, moving to an increasingly wealthy clientele, he reached the empress. In all other respects, he was just one of the hundreds of prophets of the capital, one of the thousands of seers of Russia.

To consolidate his success, Rasputin published two books of spiritual instructions and mystical revelations. Contrary to rumors, most likely he dictated them completely himself. He filmed his manner of speaking superbly and in the capital learned to broadcast not only important, but also deliberately common people - as in his native village he did not even speak, but the capital's ladies gasped at the touch of the power of the Russian people, and screw up fashionable images. He picked up both mystical and spiritual formulations. However, as we remember, no glory saved him from a brutal murder, when it seemed to the nobility that Rasputin was exerting too unhealthy influence on the empress with his mysticism.

In defense of the "elder", we can say that under him the queen really calmed down - and she and her whole family needed it, and that he, for a bribe or from the heart, stood against Russia's entry into the First World War, predicting only troubles for the country … And so it happened.

Tolstoy: grafting Buddhism into Orthodoxy

In fact, Tolstoy was also inclined to engage in “eldership” in the same sense as Rasputin - teachings about spiritual life without sanctions from the church. Many of his spiritual views seem to be borrowed from Buddhism, only poured with the sauce of Orthodox concepts. And indeed, quite in the spirit of his time, Lev Nikolaevich was deeply interested in the East and Eastern teachings. He corresponded with Mahatma Gandhi and the founder of the "Society of Krishna" and subscribed to Indian magazines, moreover, to the philosophical and religious press. Leonid Andreev recalled that Tolstoy constantly spoke about the eastern countries as sources of true ideas about the world.

Tolstoy himself also actively promoted oriental ideas - in the form in which they came in his mind - in articles and literary texts. Perhaps, it is in the fascination with the East that lies the root of the principled, sharp rejection of the father of gifted and bright daughters of any deviation of women from the path of a female giving birth annually. Even if she will deal with "deviations from the path" exclusively in the intervals between childbirth.

Willingly or unwillingly, Tolstoy founded a whole philosophical movement - Tolstoyism. Moreover, he almost defiantly could not endure his followers - either by showing off how much he did in life, or really. The foundations of Tolstoyism were based on such writer's texts as "Confession", "What is my faith?", "About life", "Christian doctrine". It is not surprising that the church jokingly suspected Tolstoy of sectarianism. The constant re-submission of Christian teachings in Buddhist form and attacks on the church eventually led Tolstoy to a fierce conflict with the Synod and excommunication. Nevertheless, Tolstoy seriously differed from many gurus of his time in that he did not try to earn money from followers and did not spice up his beliefs with mysterious mystical images.

Blavatsky, reincarnation of Mary Magdalene, protege of Marie Antoinette and other stars of communication with spirits

Not only spiritual revelations based on the principles of Orthodoxy were in vogue. With the fashion to the east, the country was flooded with all kinds of mediums who necessarily wandered in the spiritual eastern lands, received many revelations and learned to speak with the dead. Sessions to summon spirits became a popular entertainment for the bourgeois and the nobility.

I must say, they began to communicate with the dead, the past and the future, back in the eighteenth century, and throughout the nineteenth century there were separate "mystical" incidents. For example, the maid of honor Maria Annenkova in the middle of the century conducted "magnetic" sessions for the Grand Duchess Alexandra Iosifovna, during which the spirit of Marie Antoinette suddenly announced that Annenkova was the grand-niece of Louis XVI. The appearances of the late queen were so impressively furnished that the Grand Duchess even had a miscarriage, after which Annenkova was removed from the court. However, she was not taken aback and with this legend married an Italian aristocrat.

A few years after this story, the famous Helena Blavatskaya also began giving spiritualistic seances. She once summoned the spirit of the deceased to shed light on his murder, but more often she entertained the noble youth with spiritualistic séances, in which she communicated with celebrities of the past. Later, when Blavatsky abandoned her passion for spiritualism, she and her entourage claimed that she was misunderstood and that the very forces that inspired Indian gurus acted on Elena.

When Blavatsky completely abandoned seances for philosophical and mystical teachings, the place of the famous spiritualist was taken by several bright characters at once: Jan Guzik, Anna Mintslova and Anna Schmidt. The latter, by the way, considered herself the reincarnation of Mary Magdalene. Surprisingly, the priest Pavel Florensky was engaged in the posthumous publication of her revelations.

Blavatsky, on the other hand, amazed the imagination of her followers with stories about a spiritual journey to Egypt and other countries, where she quickly learned all ancient spirituality from the secret keepers of secret knowledge. These stories are replete with anachronisms and other inaccuracies, and nevertheless, Blavatsky's admirers do not question them in our time. By the way, right after her mystical journey to the east, she was in no hurry to share her secret knowledge, but simply opened a shop in Odessa for the sale of ink, a very popular commodity at that time.

She drew the attention of the church as a heretic and a sectarian to herself when she began to write Isis Unveiled in the late eighties of the nineteenth century, where she criticized both science and Christianity and declared that reliable knowledge can be obtained through mysticism. "Isis" became a hit - sold out a thousand copies in less than half a month. Over time, Blavatsky became guru more and more, and as a result, she was also excommunicated. However, she did not seem to even notice this.

I must say that Russia was not the only country that fell ill with mysticism at that time: Conversations with the dead, spiritualism, and other bizarre Victorian hobbies.