Anastasia - The Ringing Cedars of Russia v4-6 2006920095, 9780976333340, 9780976333364, 9780976333371

Table of contents :
Cover
Book 4 - Co-Creation
Book 4 - Content
All this exists right now!
The beginning of creation
The first appearance of you
The first day
Problems confirming the perfection of life
First encounter
When Love...
Birth
The unsatisfying apple
Avoid intimate relations with her
Three prayers
Anastasia’s line
To feel the deeds of all mankind
Dining in the taiga
They’re capable of changing the world?
An extraordinary power
When fathers will understand
He celebrated the joy of life
A secret science
Our genetic code
Where do we go in sleep?
Other worlds
The invasion centre
Take back your Motherland, people!
Two brothers
Even today everyone can build a home
A fence
Home
The energy of Love
In His Image and likeness
But who is to blame?
The old man at the dolmen
School, or the lessons of the sods
Anomalies at Gelendzhik
Hope for the world
Book 5 - Who are We
Book 5 - Contents
Two civilisations
Take a taste of the Universe
Dreams of Auroville
Harbingers of a new civilisation
A search for evidence
A garden for eternity
Anastasia’s Russia
The richest state
Good shall prevail on the Earth1
The disarmament race
Science and pseudo-science
Do we have freedom of thought?
Equestrienne from the future
City on the Neva
Making it come true
Open letter to the President
Questions and answers
The philosophy of life
Who controls coincidences?
Breakdown
Attempt at deconditioning
Our Reality
Your desires
Eternity lies ahead for you and me
Book 6 - Book of Kin
Book 6 - Contents
Who raises our children?
Conversation with my son
An invitation to the future
A dormant civilisation
The history of mankind, as told by Anastasia
Imagery and trial
The secret war with Vedic Rus’
Occultism
A need to think
The Book of Kin
Translator’s Afterword

Citation preview

Co-creation by Vladimir Megre Translation, Afterword and footnotes by John Woodswort Editing, Afterword, footnotes, design and layout by Leonid Sharashki Cover art by Alexander Razboinikov Copyright © 2000 Vladimir Megre Copyright © 2006 Leonid Sharashkin, translation Copyright © 2006 Leonid Sharashkin, afterword, footnotes Copyright © 2006 Leonid Sharashkin, cover art Copyright © 2006 Leonid Sharashkin, design and layout All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, except for the inclusion of brief quotations in a review, without permission in writing from the publisher. Library of Congress Control Number: 2006920095 ISBN: 978-0-9763333-3-3 Published by Ringing Cedars Press www.RingingCedars.com

Book 4 - Content 1. All this exists right now! 2. The beginning of creation 3. The first appearance of you 4. The first day 5. Problems confirming the perfection of life 6. First encounter 7. When Love 8. Birth 9. The unsatisfying apple 10. Avoid intimate relations with her 11. Three prayers 12. Anastasia’s line 13. To feel the deeds of all mankind 14. Dining in the taiga 15. They’re capable of changing the world? 16. An extraordinary power 17. When fathers will understand 18. He celebrated the joy of life 19. A secret science 20. Our genetic code 21. Where do we go in sleep? 22. Other worlds 23. The invasion centre 24. Take back your Motherland, people! 25. Two brothers 26. Even today everyone can build a home 27. A fence 28. Home 29. The energy of Love 30. In His image and likeness 31. But who is to blame? 32. The old man at the dolmen 33. School, or the lessons of the gods 34. Anomalies at Gelendzhik Hope for the world. Afterword Series at a glance CHAPTER ONE

All this exists right now! “I shall tell you about co-creation, Vladimir, and then everyone will be able to provide an answer to his own questions. Please listen carefully, Vladimir, and write about the Creator’s great co-creation. Listen and try to understand with all your Soul the aspirations of the Divine dream.” After uttering these words, Anastasia fell into a silent distraction. She looked at me but said not a word. Her distraction was probably due to her feeling or noticing in my facial expression signs of incredulity in what she might have to say about Co-creation, about God. But really, how could I—or anyone else, for that matter—not entertain at least some measure of incredulity? What could not this passionate recluse dream up next?! She doesn’t have any historical proofs to offer. If anyone can talk convincingly about the past, then surely that would be the historians and archaeologists. And there’s lots of talk about God in the Bible and in the books of other denominations. In all kinds of books. Only for some reason, when they talk of God, they can’t seem to agree. Might not that be on account of the fact that nobody has any convincing proofs? “There are proofs, Vladimir,” Anastasia suddenly broke in confidently and excitedly in answer to my silent question. “And where are they?” “All the proofs, all the truths in the Universe are preserved for ever in every human soul. Lies and falsehoods cannot survive for any length of time. They are exposed by the soul. That is why so many different kinds of religious treatises are thrown at Man.1 Lies constantly need new disguises to survive. And that is why mankind is constantly changing its social structures, trying to find in them the truth it has lost, yet only distancing itself from the truth even more.” “But who has proved, and how, that each one contains the truth within? In Man’s soul or any other part? And if it is indeed there, then why does it stay hidden?” “On the contrary, not a single day goes by but in the sight of each one of us the truth strives to bring itself out. Life around us is eternal and it is through the truth that eternal life comes about.” Anastasia quickly pressed the palms of her hands to the ground, ran them over the grass and then held them out to me. “Look, Vladimir, perhaps these will dispel your doubts once and for all.” I looked, and saw in her outstretched hands seeds of grass, a small cedar nut,

and some sort of bug crawling. I asked her: ‘And what does all this mean? The nut, for example?” “Look, Vladimir, such a tiny wee kernel, and yet if you plant it in the ground, it grows into a majestic cedar. Not an oak, not a maple, not a rose, but only a cedar. The cedar in turn gives birth to a kernel just like this, and it will contain, just as the very first one did, all the information about its pristine origins. And if millions of years ago or millions of years from now a kernel like this makes contact with the earth, still, only a cedar will sprout out of the ground. In it, in every kernel of God’s perfect creation, all possible information has been fully implanted by the Creator. Millions of years may go by, but the Creator’s information will never be erased. And Man, the apex of creation, has been given everything by the Creator at the moment of co-creation. All truths and all future achievements have been inculcated by the Father, inspired by a grand dream, in His beloved child.” “Well then, how do we attain that truth, in the final analysis? From somewhere within ourselves? From our kidneys, our heart or our brain?” “From our feelings. You should try to determine the truth with your feelings. Trust yourself to them. Free yourself from mercenary dogmas.” “Well, okay, if you know something, say it. Perhaps somebody will be able to understand you with their own feelings. What is God, for example? Can scholars draw a portrait of Him with some kind of scientific formula?” “A scientific formula? A formula would extend many times around the Earth, and when it stopped, another would be given birth. God is no less in worth than what can be born in one’s thought. He is the firmament and the empty space, and that which cannot be seen. There is no sense in trying to understand Him with the mind, however keen. Take all the formulas on the Earth and all the information in the Universe as a whole and squeeze them into the tiny kernel of your soul and turn them into feelings, and let your feelings then unfold.” “But what am I supposed to feel? Talk in terms more simple, clearer and more real.” “Oh, help me, God!” Anastasia pleaded. “Help me with the creation of a worthy image out of today’s word combinations.” “Well now, not enough words, eh? Why don’t you go take a look at a dictionary? It’s got all the words people use today” “All the words available at the moment. But modern books do not contain the words your forefathers used to describe God.” “Are you talking about Old Church Slavonic2 words?”

“And even earlier. Before the Old Church Slavonic alphabet was invented, there was a means by which people set down their thoughts for their descendants.” “What are you talking about, Anastasia? Everyone knows that our proper writing system came from two Orthodox monks. Their names were something, I can’t remember.” “Cyril and Methodius, perhaps, you have in mind?” “Yes. They created our kind of writing system, after all.” “It would be more accurate to say: they changed the writing system of our forefathers and foremothers.” “What d’you mean, they ‘changed’ it?” “They were following orders. To make sure the culture of the Slavs would be forgotten for ever. To make sure the remnants of knowledge of our pristine origins would disappear from human memory, and a new culture would be born, so that our peoples would subject themselves to different priests.” “What have writing systems and a new culture got to do with that?” “Suppose children today were taught to speak and write a foreign tongue, and forbidden to express themselves in the one they already know. Tell me, Vladimir, how would your grandchildren learn about events of our present day? In people deprived of a knowledge of the past it is easy to inculcate new teachings, simply by treating them as important. And they can tell them anything they like about their forebears. Once the language had gone, culture went along with it. That was the aim, at least. But those who formulated that aim were wholly unaware that the sprouts of truth remained unseen forever in the human soul. All it takes is to drink in a single drop of dew so pure for the sprout to grow and mature. Look, Vladimir. Please, accept my words, and try to feel what lies behind them.” As Anastasia spoke, she would either slow down her speech or quickly rattle off whole phrases at a time, or else suddenly fall silent for a moment, ponder something for a moment, and then pluck unfamiliar, drawn-out phrases literally out of the air. And occasionally a word or two I had never heard before would weave their way into what she was saying. But each time she said an unclear or unknown word, she seemed to give a start and replace it with a correct or more understandable variant. And it always appeared as though she were trying to prove something whenever she talked of God: “Everybody knows Man is the image and likeness of God. But in what respect? Where are God’s characteristic traits within you? Have you ever thought of that?”

“No, not really,” I admitted. “Never had any occasion to. Why don’t you describe them yourself?” “When a Man, exhausted after his daily cares, lies down to sleep, when he ceases to feel his weary body, his set of invisible energies and his ‘second self’3 leave the body to some degree. And at that moment earthly limitations do not exist for them. They know no time or space. In less than a second, your consciousness crosses all the distances in the Universe. And your complex of feelings senses past and future events, analyses them, measures them against the present day and dreams on. All this means that Man feels the unfathomable Divine universal creation not only with his flesh. His Godgiven thought is at work creating afresh. Human thought alone is capable of creating other worlds or changing what has been created. “Sometimes a person will cry out in their sleep when they are scared by something. Their complex of feelings, free from earthly cares, is frightened by events of the past or the future. “Sometimes a person creates in their sleep. Their creations strive, quickly or slowly, to embody themselves in earthly form. And how ugly a form they take or how harmoniously they shine forth depends wholly or partly on the degree to which inspiration plays a role in their creations. On the degree to which all aspects are taken into account in all their accuracy and detail at the moment of creation. On the degree to which inspiration empowers your Divine ‘self’. “In the whole Universe creation is something inherent in God alone, and in God’s son, Man. “God’s thought serves as the principle of all. His dream is transformed into living matter so that it may be seen. And human actions are preceded by the human dream. “The opportunities for creation are equal for all the people of the Earth. It is only that people use their opportunities in different ways. Here Man is accorded full freedom. And freedom he has! “Tell me now, Vladimir, what kind of dreams do God’s children have today? You yourself, your friends and acquaintances, for example? For what purpose do they use their creative dreams? What purpose do you use them for?” “Me? Hmm, how d’you mean, for what purpose? Just like everyone else, I’ve tried to make more money so I can somehow get my life on a solid footing. I got myself a car—several, in fact. Plus a lot of other things I need to get by—good furniture, for example.” “And that is it? Is that all you have used your creative, God-given dream

for?” “That’s what just about everyone uses it for.” “For what?” “For money! How can you live without money? To have a decent set of clothes to wear, to eat a little better, buy things, get something to drink. What could be clearer than that? And you ask what for!” “Something to eat, something to drink—you realize, Vladimir, that all this has been given to everyone in abundance, right from the very beginning.” “Given? Well, then, where did it disappear to after that?” “Think for yourself: where might it have gone?” “Well, I would imagine the original clothing simply got ragged and worn out, and the original food got eaten up aeons ago. Times are different now, clothing fashions have changed, along with tastes for food.” “Vladimir, God gave His son indestructible garments, and his food reserves are not the kind that can ever be exhausted.” “So where’s all this today?” “It has all been preserved, it exists right now.” “Then tell me where. Where do I find the hiding-places where so many supplies are stored up even today?” “You shall see. They shall be seen. Only look with your feelings. Only with your feelings will you be able to grasp the essence of the creation of God’s dream.” CHAPTER TWO

The beginning of creation “Picture what it was like in the very beginning. There was as yet no Earth. There was as yet no matter to reflect the light of the Universe. But still, even as now, the Universe was filled with a great multitude of diverse energies. Living energy elements thought in the dark, and created in the dark. They needed no external light-source. Within themselves, for themselves, they shone. And each contained everything—thought, feelings and the energy of aspiration. Yet still there were differences among them. In each one a single form of energy predominated. Just as now, the Universe included an element of destruction and an element which creates life. And other elements involved a multitude of various shadings, similar to human feelings. There

was no way these elements of the Universe could come into contact with each other. Within each element multiple energies created movement— either languidly creeping or, all at once, lightning-swift on the dot. What was self-created within each one could also destroy itself on the spot. Their pulsations did not alter the Cosmos—visible they were not—and each considered that they were alone in space. Alone! “Uncertain of their purpose, they were unable to bring about any lasting creation that might give satisfaction. And so in a time of stagnation without limitation there were these pulsations, but there was no overall motion or action of any kind. “And all at once, as by an impulse, each element was touched by communication! All of them at once, throughout the unfathomable Universe. Throughout those complexes of living energy one suddenly began illuminating the rest. Whether the complex was old or young could not be expressed in ordinary tongues. Whether it arose from the vacuum of space or from the spark of all the possibilities one could imagine is not important. Whatever its semblance, the resulting complex bore a most striking resemblance to Man! To Man who is still living today! It was similar to his second self. Not the material, but the eternal, sacred self. The living energy of its aspirations and dreams first began to lightly touch all elements in the Universe. And he alone was so fervent in his devotion that he was able to bring all sensations and feelings into locomotion. The sounds of communication began to resound through the Universe. And if the first sounds were to be expressed through translation into modern words, we would feel the sense of questions and answers. From all across the unfathomable Universe one question was uttered by all, addressed only to Him: ““What do you so fervently desire?’ everyone enquired. ‘And He, confident in His dream, replied: “‘Conjoint creation and joy for all from its contemplation.’ “‘And what may bring joy to everyone in the Universe?’ “‘Birth!’ “‘The birth of what? Each one of us has been self-sufficient for as long as we can recall.’ “A birth in which will be included particles of all!’ “‘How is it possible to reunite in a single whole that which is all-destructive and all-constructive at the same time?’ “‘Through opposing forms of energy, after first bringing them into line, balancing them in one’s self, you see!” “And, to achieve this, who so strong would there be?’ “‘Me.’ “‘But there is the energy of doubt. Doubt will attempt to decoy and destroy

you, and the diverse multitude of energies will tear you into tiny particles. No one can unite and hold opposites in a single whole.’ ““But there is also the energy of confidence. When confidence and doubt are equal, they will facilitate exactitude and beatitude for future co-creation.’ “And how do you call yourself?’ ““I am God. I shall be able to deploy particles of all your diverse energies within Myself. I shall stay great! I shall create! To the whole Universe creation shall bring forth joy!’ “From all quarters of the Universe all elements simultaneously released the multitude of their energies into Him alone. And each endeavoured to gain ascendancy over the rest, so that it alone might establish itself as supreme in its new home. “Thus began the great struggle of all the forms of energy in the Universe. There is no measure of time or space to describe the scale of that struggle. Calm returned only when in each one’s consciousness one fact gleamed: that nothing could be higher or stronger than the One energy of the Universe— the energy of the Divine dream. “God possessed the energy of the dream. He was able to take in and compile all within Himself, bring all into balance, reconcile opposites and begin to create. And to create still within Himself. Indeed, in His creating of future creations still within Himself, He cherished each detail with speed on a measureless scale, and worked out the interrelationships with everything else for each and every creation. He did it all alone. Alone in the darkness of the unfathomable Universe. Alone he set into motion the diverse energies of the whole Universe. The uncertainty of the outcome frightened everyone and removed them a distance from the Creator. The Creator found Himself standing in empty space. And that empty space was expanding. “A deathly cold appeared. Dank fear and alienation held sway around, while He alone beheld the awesome dawn of each new day, heard the singing of birds, and breathed the sweet fragrance of the blossoming of the ground. With His fervent dream He alone unfolded His marvelous creations in their sheen. “‘Stop!’ they pleaded. ‘You are in empty space. You are going to explode! How do You contain the energy within Yourself? Nobody is helping you squeeze or contract, and now Your only course is to explode. But if You have a moment remaining, stop! You must act to gently release your creative energies.’ “And He replied:

“‘My dreams! I will not betray My pact with them! For them I will continue to contract and accelerate My energies, My powers. My dreams! In them I see the ants hurrying and scurrying across the grass, among the flowers. And the eagle in his bold ascent into the sky is teaching his young how to fly’ “With His own unfathomable energy God accelerated in Himself the motion of all the diverse energies of the Universe as a whole. Inspiration squeezed them into a small kernel in His Soul. “And all at once He sensed a touch. Everywhere, from all quarters in turn, He felt the burn of a new unfamiliar energy, and then it withdrew to warm Him with its warmth from a distance, filling all with some kind of new power. And all that was previously empty space suddenly began to radiate with grace. And the Universe resounded with new sounds, when God enquired with tender ecstasy: “‘Who are you? What kind of energy are you?’ “And He heard the words of Music in reply: “‘The Energy of Love and Inspiration am I.’ “A particle of you is within Me. It alone is able to restrain and cage the energy of disdain, hatred and rage.’ “‘You are God. Your energy—the dream of Your Soul—has been able to bring everything into the harmony of the whole. And if my particle has been of assistance there, then hear me out, O God, and to help me be prepared.’ “‘What do you desire? Why have you touched Me with all the power of your fire?’ “‘I have realized that I am Love. I cannot remain simply a particle of I desire to give my whole self to Your Soul. I know, so as not to disrupt the harmony of good and evil, You will not admit me as a whole. But I shall fill with myself the empty space around You. I shall warm with my cheer all the room within and around You. You shall not be touched by the cold of the Universe and its gloom—it shall not even come near.’ “‘What is going on here? What indeed? You have begun to shine even brighter!’ “‘I am not doing this alone. This is the presence of Your energy! Your Soul! It is only being reflected by me. Your reflected light comes back, back to your invisible Inner Self.’ “Aflame with courage and aspiration, God, inspired by Love, exclaimed: “‘Everything is proceeding with acceleration. Everything is astir in Me. O, how marvelous is inspiration here above!

And now let the dreams of My creation come to fruition in most radiant Love!”’ CHAPTER THREE

The first appearance of you “The Earth! The core of the whole Universe and the centre of everything appeared as the planet Earth loomed in sight! And all at once, along with it loomed the stars, the Sun and the Moon. The invisible creative light radiating from the Earth found its reflection in them. “In the Universe a new plan of existence appeared for the first time! A material plan, and how it did shine! “Up to the moment the Earth appeared, nobody and nothing possessed visible matter. While the Earth came into contact with everything in the Universe, it was an independent body, too. “It was a self-sufficient creation. Things that lived all around, things that grew in the ground, things that swam in the sea and things that flew on high did not die or disappear somewhere. Even decomposition brought forth flies, and flies became food for other life, and everything fused together into a single magnificent life. “In their excitement and astonishment all the entities of the Universe began looking to the Earth. The Earth came into contact with everything, but nobody was able to touch it. “With God a sense of inner inspiration surged apace. And in the light of Love, which had filled the empty space, the Divine being changed its design, and took the form which in time became known as the human body. “The Divine thought worked with no sense of speed or time. Indeed, it worked infinitely faster than all the diverse energies of thought and created with inspiration! And again another creation which was still invisible, still within itself. “All at once the illumination flared up, and the energy of Love gave a quiver of agitation, as if set aflame with its newly felt heat. And in joyous elation God exclaimed: “‘Look, O Universe, look! Behold my son! Man! He stands upon the Earth. He is material! And in him are particles of all the diverse energies of the Universe. He dwells on all the planes of being. My image and likeness he is, and in him are particles of all your diverse energies So love him! I urge you:

love him! “‘My son shall bring joy to all living on the Earth. He is creation! He is birth! He is all of all! He will create a new creation, and will transform into infinity his ever-repeating regeneration. “‘When alone, or when infinitely multiplied, he emits invisible light, merging it into a whole, he will rule the Universe. He will endow everything with the joy of life. I have given him everything that is Mine, and will furthermore give him for his own all that may be thought at a future time.’ “Thus for the first time you stood alone on the splendid Earth,” Anastasia ended her narrative. “Who are you talking about?” I queried. ‘About me?” About you, Vladimir, and about anyone who happens to see these lines you shall be writing down.” “How so, Anastasia? There’s a complete disconnect here. How can all my readers stand on a spot where you say only one person was standing. And it talks about that in the Bible. There was just one Man at first—Adam, he was called. And you yourself said God created just one Man.” “Quite correct, Vladimir. But look and see: it is from that one that we all have come. His particle, and the information contained therein, has been infused into all others who have been given birth upon the Earth. And if your willing thought is ready to cast aside all your worldly cares, then all the feelings held up to now in that tiny particle will be felt. It has been there all along, and remembers everything. It is in you right now and in every Man living upon the Earth. Let it unfold, let yourself feel what you have seen, and you who are in turn reading these lines at the moment, you shall feel what you saw at the very beginning of your journey through time.” “Oh wow! Then is it true that everyone living today was there, on that Earth, right at the very beginning?” “Yes. But on this Earth, not on ‘that’ one. It is only that the Earth looked different back then.” “And is there a single term by which we can be called?” “You are probably more accustomed to hearing the name Adam? I shall use it, but picture it as referring to you. And let everyone picture themselves when they come across that name. I shall use some words to help in this.” “Yes, please do. For some reason I still have only a rather faint idea of how I might have appeared in those times.” “To make it easier, picture yourself as entering a garden on the border between summer and spring—a garden in which there are also the fruits of

autumn. There are also beings here which you are seeing for the first time. It is hard to take everything in at one glance, when it is all so new and everything radiates perfection. But recall how you, Adam, saw your first flower and concentrated your thought upon it. On a very tiny flower. “It was cornflower blue, the petals were smooth and made up of lines. The petals gently glowed, as though reflecting in themselves the light of the sky And you, Adam, sat down beside the flower, admiring this creation. But no matter how long you looked at it, the flower’s appearance was constantly changing. A breeze caressed the flower, making it sway on its slender stem, and the petals quivered under the Sun’s rays, changing the angle of reflection, giving new shadings to its tender hues. When the petals were not trembling in the breeze, they seemed to be waving to the Man in greeting, or moving in time to the music ringing in the soul. And the flower gave off a most delicate fragrance in its efforts to embrace you, the Man. “All at once Adam heard a mighty roar and, rising, turned in the direction of the sound. In the distance an enormous lion was standing with his lioness. And the lion announced himself with his roar to everything around. “Adam’s gaze became entranced by the lion’s stately and powerful stance, crowned by a bushy mane. No sooner had the lion spied Adam than the creature bounded toward him with mighty steps, the lioness right behind him. Adam could not help but be impressed by the play of their powerful muscles. Three metres from the Man the creatures came to rest. Man’s gaze caressed them, a feeling of delight was emanating from the Man, while the lion, sensing the gentle calm, settled to the ground in delight. The lioness lay down beside him, keeping perfectly still so as not to interfere with the warm and gracious light emanating from the Man. “Adam ran his fingers through the lion’s mane, examined and touched the claws of his mighty paws, put his hand on his great white fangs and smiled when the lion purred with delight.” “Anastasia,” I couldn’t help asking, “what kind of light first emanated from the Man to stop the lion from tearing him apart? And why is there no such radiance today? Nobody emits light that way today” “Vladimir, have you not noticed what a huge difference there is even today? Man’s gaze distinguishes all that is earthly—the little blades of grass and flowers, the wild beasts and the rocks with sluggish thinking. It is curious, mysterious, full of unexplained power. Man’s gaze can be calming. And yet it can also wrap all living creatures in the cold of destruction. Tell me, has it ever happened that you have been warmed by someone’s gaze? Or perhaps someone’s eyes have caused you inner discomfort?”

“Yes, it’s happened. You can actually feel someone watching you. You can feel a pleasant gaze, or one that is not so pleasant.” “There, you see that means you too know that a calming gaze will create a sense of warmth within you. And that an opposite gaze will bring a feeling of cold and destruction. But Man’s gaze was many times stronger during those first days upon Earth. The Creator saw to it that all life aspired to be warmed by this gaze.” “And where has all the strength of Man’s gaze gone now?” “It has not all gone. Enough of it is still around, but vanity, superficial thinking, a different speed of thought, a misapprehension of basic concepts and apathy have darkened perception, and prevented it from opening up to what everybody expects of Man. Inside each one of us a warm heart abides. Oh, if only each one of us could open it wide to everything! All reality could then be transmogrified into a magnificent pristine garden.” “Is this possible with everyone? Just as in the beginning with Adam? Could something like that actually transpire?” “Everything may be born, which is to what human thought, merging from all into one, aspires. “When Adam was alone, the power of his mind was equal to what today is found in all mankind.” “Aha! That’s why the lion was afraid of him!” “The lion was not afraid of the Man, not a trace. The lion was bowing before the light of grace. All life aspires to know this grace, which Man alone is capable of creating. For this all life, and not only upon the Earth, is ready to perceive Man as a friend, a brother, a god. Parents always strive to instil in their children all the very best abilities. Only parents sincerely want their children’s abilities to exceed their own. The Creator has wholly given Man —His son and creation—all to which He Himself aspired in a burst of inspiration. And if all are able to understand that God is perfect, then may all feel exactly who God the Creator planned to create His child to be—His beloved son, or Man. And how He feared no burden of responsibility, and how he undertook never to abandon His creation, having uttered the words that have come down to us over the millions of years: ‘He is My son, this Man. He is My image! My likeness!’” “Does that mean that God wanted His son, His creation—Man, in other words, to be stronger than Himself?” “All parents’ aspirations may be seen as a confirmation of this.” “Well then, did Adam justify God’s hopes for him on his first day? What transpired after the meeting with the lion? What did he set about to do?” “Adam aspired to know all living things. To define the name and the

purpose or need for each living creature. Some of these were solved quickly, others he became involved with for quite a time indeed. For example, before the Sun set on the first day he was attempting to define the purpose of the brontosaurus, but here he did not succeed. And so the brontosaurus disappeared from the face of the Earth for all time.” “Disappeared—why?” “It disappeared because Man did not define its purpose.” “That brontosaurus —is that the one that’s several times bigger than an elephant?” “Yes, bigger than an elephant it was, and little wings it had, and a little head on a long neck that could spew flame out of its jaws.” “Just like in a fairy tale. The folk tale about the Gorynytch Serpent,4 for example, which spewed fire, too. But that’s a fairy tale, not something real.” “Sometimes folk tales tell about a past reality metaphorically, but sometimes they can be quite accurate.” “Really? And just what would such a monster be made of? How could fire come out of the jaws of a real living creature? Or is the fire to be taken metaphorically? Let’s say, for instance, to portray a monster breathing hatred?” “The huge brontosaurus was good, not evil. Its huge size served to compensate for its enormous weight.” “How can its huge size serve to lighten its weight?” “The more a hot-air balloon is filled with whatever is lighter than air, the lighter it is.” “Well, what has that got to do with the brontosaurus? It’s not a hot-air balloon!” “The brontosaurus was indeed an enormous living hot-air balloon. Its skeleton was constructed of very light-weight material, while its insides contained little in the way of organs. Just as with a balloon, its insides were empty, except they were constantly being filled with a gas that was lighter than air. With a leap and a flap of its wings, the brontosaurus actually managed to fly a bit. When there was an excessive build-up of gas, it breathed it out through its mouth. Flintlike fangs protruded from its jaws, and their friction could create a spark and ignite the gas welling up from its abdominal cavity, sending fire out of its mouth.” “Hmm! But hold on there, hold on—just who kept filling it with gas?” “Listen to me, Vladimir: the gas was produced all by itself inside as its food was being digested.” “Impossible! Gas exists only in the bowels of the Earth. That’s where it is

extracted from, then they use it to fill 4 propane tanks or send it through pipes to people’s kitchen stoves. But from food—is it really that simple?” “Yes, Vladimir, it is really that simple.” “I can’t believe in something that simple, neither will anyone else. And that means everything you’ve told me, for that matter, not just about the brontosaurus, but everything else too—nobody’s going to believe it! So I shan’t write about this.” “What is it, Vladimir? Do you think I am capable of being mistaken? Of lying?” “Well, I don’t know about the lying part, but you’re definitely mistaken about the gas.” “I am not mistaken.” “Then prove it.” “Vladimir—do you not realize that your stomach, and other people’s stomachs, produce the same kind of gas even today?” “Impossible.” “You can prove it for yourself. Just take a match and light the gas when it comes out of you.” “What d’you mean, ‘out of me’? Out of where? Where would I light the match?” Anastasia broke out laughing and, still laughing, said: “What are you, a little child? Think for yourself—it is a private experience.” I thought about this gas from time to time. And for some reason the thought began to eat away at me. And finally I decided to try the experiment. I tried it directly I returned from my visit with Anastasia. It worked! And now I think back even more vividly on what she said about Adam’s first days—or, rather, our first days on the Earth. And I get the feeling that somehow we have forgotten to take with us today something from those days. Or maybe it was just me that forgot. That’s something each one can decide for himself when he learns how Man spent his first day on the Earth. This is how Anastasia described it. CHAPTER FOUR

The first day “Adam was interested in everything. Each blade of grass, each intricate little bug, the birds in the sky above, and water. The first sight of a stream, its transparent running water sparkling in the Sun, filled him with wonder and

admiration, and in it he could behold life in its infinite manifestations. When Adam bent down to touch the water, his hand was immediately embraced by the current which caressed all the folds of his skin and drew him in. Upon immersing himself in the water he found his body becoming lighter. The gurgling water supported him and comforted his whole body. Splashing the water in the air with his hands, he was delighted to see the play of the Sun’s bright rays in each and every drop, before the drops were once more received back into the stream. And it was with a great sense of delight that Adam drank the water from the stream. And before the Sun set he gladly contemplated, and bathed again, and meditated.” “Hold on, there, Anastasia. You mentioned him drinking, but did Adam eat anything the whole day? What food did he eat?” “All around him were a multitude of fruits with a variety of tastes, berries and edible grasses. But during those first days Adam felt no sense of hunger. He remained satisfied with fresh air alone.” “With fresh air? But you can’t live on air. There’s even a saying about that.” “One certainly cannot live on the air Man breathes today Today’s air is dying, and is often harmful for one’s body and soul. You mentioned the saying that one cannot live on air, but there is another saying: ‘I have been fed by air alone’, which corresponds to what was available to Man in the beginning. Adam was born in a marvelous garden, and the air surrounding him did not contain a single harmful particle. Pollen had been dissolved into that air, along with drops of purest dew.” “Pollen? What kind of pollen?” “Pollen from flowers and grasses, from trees and fruit, which diffused fragrances into the air. Some came from those close by, while breezes brought others from distant places. Back then Man was not distracted from his great works by any problems of finding food. He was fed by everything around him through the air. This was the way it was all designed by the Creator right from the very beginning, so that all life on Earth should strive to please Man, and the air and the water and the breeze would be life-giving, under the impulse of love.” “You’re right about one thing: air can be very harmful, but Man invented the air conditioner. It purifies the air of dangerous particles. And people sell mineral water in bottles. So, you see, the problems of air and water have been solved—at least for the many people who aren’t poor.” “Alas, Vladimir, the air conditioner does not solve any problems. It keeps back harmful particles, yes, but the air continues to die. The water preserved in air-tight bottles dies for lack of fresh air. All it does is feed the old cells of

the body For new birth, so that the cells of your body may constantly renew themselves, living air and water are needed.” CHAPTER FIVE

Problems confirming the perfection of life “Adam had all that?” I asked in amazement. “Yes, he did! This is why his thought moved so quickly In a relatively short period of time he was able to define everything’s purpose. One hundred and eighteen years swept by like a single day.” “A hundred and eighteen years! Adam lived all by himself to such a ripe old age?” “All by himself lived Adam, the first Man, caught up in all sorts of interesting projects. A hundred and eighteen years did not bring him age, but a blossoming of life.” “Well, a person’s pretty old at a hundred and eighteen—he’s known as an ‘old-timer’, at the mercy of all sorts of diseases and ailments.” “That might be so now, Vladimir, but back then Man was not troubled by diseases. Every one of his cells enjoyed a longer span of life, and if a cell became weary, that meant it was destined to die, but right away a new cell, full of energy, appeared in its place. Man’s body was able to live as many years as his spirit or soul wished.” “And how come the Man of today can’t wish himself to live a little longer?” “By his moment-by-moment actions he is cutting short his lifespan, and death is something thought up by Man.” “What do you mean, ‘thought up’? Death comes all by itself. Against Man’s will.” “When you smoke tobacco or drink alcohol, when you drive into a city which pollutes the air with the stench of burning fumes, when you use lifeless food and let yourself be eaten away by bitterness, tell me, Vladimir, who, if not yourself, is hastening your death?” “Well, that kind of life is pretty common for everyone today” “But Man is free to choose. Everyone builds his own life for himself and determines his lifespan moment by moment.” “So, you’re saying that back then, in paradise, there weren’t any problems?”

“Problems, if they arose at all, were resolved not in a harmful direction, but in such a way as to confirm the perfection of life.” CHAPTER SIX

First encounter “One day when he was a hundred and eighteen years old, Adam did not become excited with the Spring upon waking with the dawn. And he did not rise, as he usually did, to greet the Sun’s brightening rays. “Above him astride a leafy branch the nightingale trilled his song. But his singing only made Adam turn over on his other side. “Before his eyes Spring filled space with a quiet tremolo, the gurgling stream called out to Adam in his bed, while swallows made sport overhead. Fanciful clouds heralded each new unfolding scene. From grasses, flowers, bushes and trees the gentlest fragrance rushed to embrace the Man. Oh, how God wondered then what was taking place! Amidst Spring’s resplendent glory, under the deep-blue skies of his earthly creation, his son, the Man, had become sorrowful and despondent. His beloved child dwelt not in gladness but in sadness. Could any scene be more agonising for a loving father? “One hundred and eighteen years on, long after creation, the dormant throng of Divine energies suddenly swarmed into motion. The whole Universe listened in shocked surprise. Such acceleration as had never been seen before glistened in the aura of the energy of Love, so intensely that all life caught the sense at once: a new creation had been thought of by God. But what could possibly be originated after creation had already reached the limit of inspiration? This was something that surpassed all comprehension. And still God’s thought kept growing in acceleration. And the Energy of Love whispered in muted tones: “‘Once more You have set everything in inspired motion. Your universal energies are setting space on fire. How is it that You do not explode or consume yourself in such fervour and desire? Where are You heading? To what are You aspiring? I no longer shine with Your light. Look, O my God, I burn with Your essence, I turn planets into stars. Stop! You have already created all the best. Stop, and Your son’s grief will evanesce, it will disappear. Stop, O my God!’ “But God did not hear the plea of Love. And paid no attention to the jeers of the elements of the Universe. Like a young and enthusiastic sculptor, He continued accelerating all the diverse energies in motion. And all at once, a

dawn of never before imaginable beauty burst forth, delineating itself through the vast unfathomable Universe, and all creation gasped, and God Himself whispered in exultation: “‘Behold, O Universe, behold! Behold my daughter stands amidst the created creatures of the Earth! How perfect her features are, the finest by a thousandfold! She shall be worthy of My son. A creation more perfect than hers will never come. In her is the image and likeness of Me, each particle of yours in her will always be—so love her with a love so pure and free! “‘She and he! My son and daughter shall bring extended joy to every living thing! And shall build on every plane of being resplendent universal worlds!’ “From the little hill, over dew-washed grass, on the festive day in the Sun’s morning ray the maiden to Adam came. With a pace full of grace and a form so slender, the bends of her body smooth and tender, in the hues of her skin there shined the light of the dawn Divine. Closer and closer she neared. And then she appeared! In front of Adam, reclining on the grass, the maiden arose. “The breeze smoothed out her golden braids, her forehead to expose. The Universe held its breath, completely awed. O, how beauteous is her face— Thy creation, O God! “Adam, reclining on the grass, glanced up at the maiden who had appeared beside him, gave a yawn, turned away and closed his eyes. “All the elements in the Universe then heard—no, not words—they heard how listlessly Adam reacted in his thought to the new creation of God: “‘Well, there it is, yet another creation of some kind has come to mind. It is nothing new, you see, just another entity that looks something like me. Horses have joints in their knees more supple and sturdy than these. The leopard has skin so much brighter and livelier to please. And what’s more, she arrived without invitation, on the very day I was going to offer the ants a new designation.’ “And Eve, standing a while beside Adam, went over to a pool in the stream, sat down on the bank by the bushes and caught a gleam of her reflection in the still, cool water. “And the elements of the Universe began to intone their murmurings, and their thoughts merged into one: ‘Two perfections have not managed to achieve an appreciation of each other. There is no perfection in God’s creation.’ “And only the energy of Love, alone amidst the murmurings of the

Universe, tried to protect the Creator with itself. God was enveloped in its radiance. Everybody knew: never had the energy of Love involved itself in rationalisation. Unseen and unheard, it was ever wandering apace through the unfathomed reaches of space. But why was it now, so totally and with no retention, encircling God again with its radiance? Paying no attention to the intonings of the Universe, here it was, warming and comforting through its radiance alone. “‘You can rest, O Great Creator, and impart Your education into the heart of Your son. You will be able to adjust and correct any of Your illustrious creations.’ “In reply the Universe heard words, in which it recognised the wisdom and majesty of God: “‘My son is the image and likeness of Me. He includes in himself particles of all the diverse energies of the Universe. He is Alpha and Omega. He is creation! He is the realization of the future! Henceforth and for all time still to come neither I nor anyone else shall be able to change his destiny without his will. All that he wills for himself will be allowed to him. Whatever he conceives, provided it is not conceived in vanity, will turn into reality My son did not bow before the sight of the maiden’s fleshly perfection. Much to the amazement of the whole Universe, he was not amazed by her. Still not consciously aware, My son has sensed all through his feelings. In the first place he sensed that in him something was amiss. And the new creation standing before him—the maiden—did not possess this. My son! My son, through his feelings, senses the whole Universe, he knows everything the Universe possesses.’ “A question filled the whole Universe: “‘What can possibly be missing from one in whom all the diverse energies of ours and Yours exist?’ “And God answered them all: “‘The energy of Love.’ “And the energy of Love flashed with flame: “‘But I am alone, and I am Your very own. I shine by You alone.’ “‘Yes! You are alone, My love,’ the Divine words proclaimed in reply. ‘Your shining light both shines and caresses, My love. You are inspiration. You are able to give everything an acceleration, you accentuate sensations and you are the reconciliation of peace, My love. I beg of you, descend to the Earth in your totality, leaving nothing in its former place. Surround and enfold these My children in yourself, the energy of boundless grace.’

“This farewell dialogue of Love and God heralded the beginning of all earthly love. ““My God,’ Love called out to the Creator. ‘When I leave, You will be alone, unseen, for ever, dwelling on all the planes of being. You will be invisible.’ “‘May My son and My daughter henceforth shine through the Inner, the Outer and the Order.’5 “My God, around You will be empty space. There will never be a place where the life-giving warmth can penetrate to Your Soul. Without this warmth Your Soul will become cold.’ ‘“Not for Me alone, but for all life may this warmth emanate from the Earth. My sons and daughters will multiply this radiated Love. And the whole Earth will glow with the warmth of Love shining throughout space. All will feel the light of grace emanating from the Earth, and all My diverse energies will be warmed by its might.’ “My God, a great variety of paths are exposed to Your son and daughter. In them remain the diverse energies of all the planes of being. And suppose just one of those energies decides to hold sway over the rest, and leads them astray, what can You do, seeing You have thought to give everything away, when You find the energy shining from the Earth start to weaken and fade to naught? You have given everything away, and yet You see how on the Earth the energies of annihilation hold sway over all. Your own illustrious creations are covered with a lifeless crust, and the grass is smothered with stones. What will You do then, what can be done, seeing YOU have given complete freedom to Your son?’ “As a green blade of grass I shall be able to break through among the stones anew, and unfold the petals of a flower in a small and untouched glade. My earthly daughters and sons will be able to realize their purpose.’ “‘My God, when I leave, You will not be by any eye perceivable. It is conceivable that elements of other energies will begin to speak through people in Your name. Some may try to proclaim themselves rulers over others, abusing Your essence for their own interests, saying: “I speak in God’s place, I am His chosen one, everybody listen to me.” What will You be able to do in such a case?’ “‘I shall come up as the dawn at the inception of the oncoming day. By caressing all creations on the Earth without exception, the rays of the Sun will help My daughters and sons understand that each one in their own soul can hold conversation with My Soul.’ “‘My God, many of them will there be, a great sum, and You are alone as one. And all the elements of the Universe will be eager to capture Man’s

soul. Just to use Man to establish their sway over all through the energy they possess. And Your errant son will suddenly start to pray to them.’ “‘There will still be a major obstacle to any attempt, no matter what its form, to lead people awry or lead them into empty space, and this will be a barrier to anything based on a lie. Within all My sons and daughters there is a striving for a conscious awareness of truth. A lie is invariably bound within limits, but truth is unlimited—it will be forever found in the conscious awareness of My sons’ and daughters’ soul!’ “‘O my God! no one and nothing is able to fight or even stand against the flight of Your thought and dreams! They are marvelous! I shall willingly follow them. I shall warm Your children with my radiance and shall perform this service for ever. The inspiration You have given them will help them undertake their own creations. I have only one request to make of You, my God. Allow me to leave just one spark of my love with You. “‘When You are obliged to dwell in darkness, when You are surrounded by nothing but empty space, when oblivion weakens the light from the Earth, then may this spark of my love, even though it seem but a single spark, shine for YOU with its gleam.’ “O, Vladimir!” Anastasia exclaimed. “If only Man living today could look up to the skies and see what was way above the Earth back then, what a great vision would grace the scene before his eyes! The light of the Universe, the energy of Love, compressed into a comet, hastened toward the Earth, illuminating the still lifeless planets along its course and lighting up the stars above the Earth. Yes, it was indeed heading toward the Earth! Closer, ever closer, it came. And there it was. And all at once, it came to rest over the Earth itself, and the radiance of Love began to resonate. And far away, among the shining stars, one star, smaller than all the rest appeared to be moving. It was hastening to follow the radiance of love on its earthward path. And then Love realized that here was its last little spark from God, and even it was on its way to the Earth. ““My God!’ whispered the radiance of Love. ‘But why? I do not understand. But why? YOU have not left even a single spark for Yourself?’ “To the words of Love, out of the darkness of the Universe, God, already perceivable by no one, gave reply His Divine words were heard across space: “Anything I kept back for Myself would be lacking in My gift to them—My daughters and sons.’ “‘My God!’ “‘O how marvelous you are, Love, even as a single spark.’

“‘My God!’ “‘Hasten, My Love, hasten, do not stop for rational contemplation. Hasten with your last spark and warm all My future sons and daughters.’ “The people of the Earth were embraced by the universal energy of Love. All of it, down to the last spark. Everything was there within it where it belonged. Throughout the unfathomable Universe, Man, who lives on all planes of being simultaneously, of all the entities became the most strong.” CHAPTER SEVEN

When Love... “Adam lay on the grass, among the fragrant flowers. In the shade of a tree he dreamt, as his thoughts churned listlessly along. And all at once a reminiscence swept over him in an unexpected wave of warmth, somehow empowering a strong acceleration of his thoughts. Just recently this new creation stood before me—he reflected—something very much like me, only different, but what is the difference? Where does it lie? And where is this new creation now? Oh, how I wish I could see the new creation once more as I did before! I want to see it again, but why? “Quickly Adam rose from the ground and looked around. A thought flickered by: What has happened all of a sudden? It is the same sky, the same birds, grass, trees and bushes. Everything is the same, and yet it is different. I am not looking at it the same way as before. The creatures of the Earth, the scents, the air and even the light—everything’s become brighter and more resplendent. “And words were born in Adam’s mouth, and he cried out to all: And I love in return!’ “And all at once a new wave of warmth came upon him from the direction of the stream, sweeping over his whole body. He turned in the direction the warmth was coming from and, lo and behold, there was the new creation, shining before him. All logic departed from his thought, his whole heart delighted in the vision, when Adam first caught sight of it: there quietly sitting beside a clear pool of water in the stream was the maiden, but after tossing back the braids of her golden hair she was looking not at the clear water but at him. She caressed him with a smile, as though she had been waiting for him a long eternal while. “He went over to her. As they were looking at each other, Adam thought there could be no one with eyes more resplendent than hers. Aloud he said:

““'You are sitting by the water. The water is good. Would you like to bathe together?’ “£I would.’ “And then would you like me to show you around creation?’ “‘I would.’ “‘I have given everything its designation. I shall command them to serve you too. And would you like me to make a new creation?’ “£I would.’ “They bathed in the stream and ran through the meadow. Oh, how entrancing seemed the maiden’s trills of laughter, when after mounting an elephant, Adam conceived a little dance for her and called the maiden’s name Eve. “The day was already drawing to a close as this woman and man stood with all the glory of the Earth around, delighting in its colours, scents and sounds. Quiet and meek, Eve watched the evening descend. The floral petals folded into their buds. The splendid creations of the day faded from sight into the night. £££

Do not feel despondent,’ said Adam, by this time already confident in himself. £It is just that now the darkness of night is coming on. We need it to take our rest, but no matter how much night presses in or how black, the day always comes back.’ “Will it be the same day, or a new day?’ asked Eve. “‘The day will return in whatever form you conceive.’ “And who is it subject to—each day?’ “Tome.’ “And who are you subject to?’ ““To no one.’ “And you, where are you from?’ “‘I come from a dream.’ “And whence comes everything around that is so pleasing to see?’ “‘It also appeared from the dream, as a creation for me.’ “And where is he whose dream is so bright and resplendent?’ “‘He is often around, only He cannot be seen with ordinary sight. But all the same it is good to be with Him. God He calls Himself, my Father and my

Friend. He never offends me, and He gives me everything. I also wish to give to Him, though what—I do not yet know.’ “‘That means I too am His creation. Like you, I also wish to show Him my appreciation. To call Him Father, God and Friend. Perhaps we can decide together what actions on our part the Father intends?’ “‘I have heard Him say what may bring joy to everyone’s heart.’ “‘To everyone’s? Including His?’ “‘Yes, that would mean His too.’ “‘Tell me what He desires.’ “‘Conjoint creation and joy from its contemplation.’ “And what may bring joy to everyone on the Earth?’ “‘Birth.’ “‘Birth? But everything is so beautifully born already’ “‘I often think, before I go to sleep, about an extraordinary and marvelous creation. But with the dawn of the day the dream goes away, and I see that nothing new has come to thought—everything is so fraught with wonder and visible by the light of day.’ “‘Let us then think together.’ ““I too wanted, before going to sleep, to be close to you, to hear your breathing, to feel your warmth, to think together about creation.’ “Before going to sleep, impelled by tender feelings for each other, the two embraced in dreams about a marvelous creation, their aspirations connected and merged into one. Their two material bodies reflected the thoughts that had jointly come. CHAPTER EIGHT

Birth “The day returned, and night once more came on. One morning, as day was dawning, just as Adam was watching the tiger cubs and reflecting on life, Eve quietly approached him, sat down beside him, took his hand and placed it on her tummy. “‘Feel here, inside me lives my creation—a new creation at the same time. Can you feel it, Adam? Is it pushing, this restless creation of mine?’ “‘Yes, I can feel it. It seems to be reaching out to me.’

“‘To you? Of course! It is mine, but it is yours too! I very much want to see our co-creation.’ “And Eve gave birth, not in painful labour but in great wonder. “Forgetting everything around him, not conscious of himself, Adam watched and trembled in anticipation. And Eve bore a new and conjugal creation. “A tiny wee lump, all wet, lay helplessly on the ground. Its legs were drawn up tight, its eyelids remained closed. Adam watched, his eyes fixed on the little one, as it moved its tiny hand, opened its tiny lips and took its first breath. Adam was afraid to blink lest he miss the tiniest movement. Unfamiliar feelings had begun filling the space within and around him. Unable to restrain himself to the spot, he suddenly leapt up and began to run. “With no particular destination in mind, Adam rushed headlong along the bank of the stream in great exultation. He stopped. A wondrous, unfamiliar something kept growing and expanding in his chest. And everything around! The sound of the wind not only rang through the trees and rustled leaves—it sang, sifting through the rifts of bushes and setting astir the clusters of floral petals. The clouds not only swarmed through the sky—all the clouds performed a dance to entrance the observer as they passed by. The water sparkled with a smile as it rushed into the miles of stream before it. Oh, wow! The stream! Reflecting the clouds the stream made yet another bend as it gleamed before the eyes. And all along the birds kept twittering their joyful song in the skies! And among the herbs the cheerful chirping of crickets could be heard. And everything fused and blended together into a single resounding intonation of the tenderest sounds of music known through all God’s grand creation! “After taking a little more air into his lungs, Adam suddenly cried out as loud as he could. It was not an ordinary cry—not that of an animal, but one that overflowed with the most tender sounds. Along sublime hush slowly settled all around. And for the very first time the Universe heard a Man on the Earth joyfully burst into song. A Man was singing! And all the noises that had before sounded throughout the galaxies were now grounded. A Man was singing! And hearing this happy song, the whole world of the Universe concluded: not in any of the galaxies could there be found a single string capable of producing a better sound than that of the singing of the human soul. “But the song of rejoicing could not hush Adam’s new found abundance of feelings. Catching sight of the lion, he rushed toward it and wrestled it to the ground as though it were but a pussycat. He laughingly began to run his fingers adeptly through its mane, then leapt up and, gesturing the creature to

follow suit, ran off across the terrain. The lion barely managed to keep up with him, while the lioness and her cubs lagged way behind. Fastest of all ran Adam, his arms waving, summoning all the creatures to follow in his route. His creation, he recalled, would be able to bring joy and elation to all. “And once again he sees the tiny lump in front of him. His own creation! Such a wee little lump—alive!—lapped by the she-wolf and caressed by the warm breeze. “The baby’s eyes had not yet shown a peep—he was asleep. At the sight of him all creatures that had accompanied Adam on his run fell to the Earth in delight. ““Why yes, it is true!’ Adam intoned with exultation. ‘Light like my own is emanating from my creation. Maybe it is even stronger than my light, if such an extraordinary thing is happening with me. All creatures have fallen down before it in delight. I desired! I carried through! I created! I created a creation resplendent and alive! All of you! All of you come look at him!’ “Adam cast his glance at all around, and suddenly stopped, his gaze fixed. His eyes were fixed on Eve. “She was sitting on the grass all alone, caressing with her own lightly fixed gaze the suddenly still and silent Adam. “And with new might love began shining within and around Adam in invisible delight. And then all at once Oh, how love universal quivered and shivered to see Adam run up to the resplendent maiden-mother, fall on his knees before Eve, press his hands to her golden braids, her tender lips and her milk-filled breasts. And restraining his exclamation to a gentle purr, he tried to express his exultation in words: “‘Eve! My Eve! My wife! You are able to make dreams come true in life!’ “‘Yes, I am woman, your wife. Let us turn into life everything you are able to think of’ “‘Yes! Together! The two of us together! Now it is clear! Two together are we! We are as He! We are able to make dreams come true! Look at us! Our Father, do You hear us?’ “But for the first time Adam could hear no reply Surprised, he leapt up and cried: ““Where are You, my Father? Look upon my creation. Perfect and fantastic are all Your earthly creatures. Resplendent are all the clouds, the grass, the bushes and the trees. But my new creation is even finer than the features of

the flowers—look at it! I have seen how my own creation has brought me a joy far greater than anything You created through Your dream. “‘You have nothing to say? You do not wish to look at it? But it is by far and away the best part of all! My creation, more than any other, is dear to my heart. But what about You? Do you not wish even to look at it?5 “Adam looked at his child. In the spot directly above the tiny sleeping body the air seemed bluer than usual, there was no breeze to ruffle even a hair, only someone was invisibly bending the slender stem of a flower over the baby’s lips. And three soft puffs of pollen tenderly touched his lips. The baby smacked his lips, sighed a deep and blissful sigh, moved one of his legs just a tiny bit and then went back to sleep. Adam guessed that while he had been celebrating, God had been cultivating, cherishing the little one, and so had not seen fit to speak. “And Adam exclaimed: “‘That means You Yourself were helping! That means You were with me all along, and You acknowledged the creation!’ “And he heard in reply the Father’s quiet voice: “‘Not so loud, Adam, you’ll wake the child with your celebrations and rejoicings.’ “‘That means You, my Father, loved both me and my creation? Or did you love it more than me? If so, why? Explain to me! It is not Yours, after all.’ “‘Love, My son, has its continuation, and in your new creation will be found your continuation.’ “‘That means I am standing here and I am in my creation at the same time? And does that mean Eve is in it, too?’ “‘Yes, My son, your co-creation is in all respects like you, only not in the flesh. Within it your spirit and soul merge to give birth to a new creation. And your aspirations will continue and will intensify the joyous sensations multifold.’ ““So, You are saying there will be many of us?’ “‘You shall fill the whole Earth. You shall know everything through your feelings, and then in other galaxies your dream will re-create the world anew to be even more resplendent.’ “‘Where is the edge of the Universe? What will I do when I come to it? When I myself fill everything, and have created everything I have conceived?’ “‘My son. The Universe itself is a thought, a thought from which was born a dream, which is partially visible as matter. When you approach the edge of

all creation, your thought will reveal a new beginning and continuation. From obscurity will arise a new and resplendent birth of you, and it will reflect in itself your soul, your dreams, your whole aspirations. My son, you are infinite, you are eternal, within you are your dreams of creation.’ “‘Father, it is always so good when You speak. When You are with me, I want to embrace You. But You are invisible. Why?’ “‘My son, when My dreams about you were drinking in the diverse energies of the Universe, I did not have time to be thinking about Myself. My dreams and thoughts created only you, they did not make a visible image for Me. But there are visible creations of Mine—- feel them, but do not try to analyse them. Nobody in the whole Universe will find that they can analyse them simply with their mind.’ “‘Father, it feels good to me when You speak. You are with me—everything is with me. If I should find myself at the other end of the Universe, if doubts or crude obscurities should intrude upon my soul, tell me, how might I search You out? Where will You be at such a time?’ “‘I shall be in you and with you. Everything is in you, My son. You are the master of all the diverse energies of the Universe. I have counterbalanced all the opposite extremities of the Universe in you, thereby making you a new creature. Do not allow any of these extremities to hold sway within you. Then shall I be in you alway ’ “‘In me?’ “‘In you and with you. You and Eve are in your creation. In you there is a particle of Me, and so I am in your creation, too.’ “‘I am Your son. What then will be the new creation in relation to You?’ “Again, it will be you. ’ “‘Whom will You love more—me as I am now, or the me which will be born again and again as before?’ “‘Love is one and the same, but there is greater hope in each new embodiment and dream.’ “‘Father, how wise You are, I so very much want to embrace You!’ “‘Look around you. The visible creations you see are My materialised thoughts and dreams. On the material plane of being you will always be able to communicate with them.’ “‘I have loved them, just as I love You, Father. And I have loved Eve, and my new creation too. Love is all around, and I want to be in it eternally’ “‘My son, you shall dwell eternally only in the Space of Love.’

“Years passed, as it were, but time, after all, is a relative concept. Years passed, but why make a list?—for a long time death in himself was something Man could not have even missed. Which means that death, back then, could not even exist.” CHAPTER NINE

The unsatisfying apple “But Anastasia,” I queried, “if everything was so good in the beginning, then what happened afterward? Why are there wars on the Earth today and why are people starving? We have thievery, bandits, suicides, prisons. Too many unhappy families, too many orphans. Where have all our loving Eves disappeared to? Where is God, who promised that we would all live eternally in love? And I just remembered what it says about this in the Bible. God expelled Man from Paradise for picking and tasting the fruit of the forbidden tree. And He even stationed a guard at the gates so as to stop the violators from getting back into Paradise.” “Vladimir, God never expelled Man from Paradise.” “Yes, He did, I read about it. He even cursed the Man over this. He told Eve she was a sinner and would bring forth children in sorrow, and Adam would have to earn his living by the sweat of his brow. And that’s all come to pass with us today” “Vladimir, reason it out for yourself, perhaps that kind of logic, or absence of logic, has been devised for somebody’s interests, to suit a particular purpose.” “What’s logic and somebody’s interests got to do with it?” “Please believe me. Each one must learn to make sense of things, to determine what is true, with his own soul. Only after thinking it through for yourself can you realize that God did not expel Man from Paradise. God remains a loving Father right up to this very moment. He is a God of Love—you must have read about that, too.” “I did indeed.” “So where is the logic then? You will agree that a loving parent would never expel his child from his home. Loving parents, even if it means suffering deprivation themselves, will forgive their children any transgressions they have committed. And God is not indifferent to all the sufferings of people— the sufferings of His children.” “Whether He is or not, I don’t know But one thing everybody knows: He doesn’t do anything about them.”

“Oh what are you saying, Vladimir?! Of course He will tolerate this distress, too, from His son, Man. But how long can Man go on without a full appreciation of his Father? How long can he go on not seeing or feeling his Love?” “What you are so concerned about all of a sudden? Be more specific. Where are these manifestations today of the Divine Love for us? Where do we look for them?” “The next time you are in the city, take a close look around you. The living carpet of marvelous grass has been paved over with lifeless asphalt, all around are harmful masses of concrete called housing, cars scurry around in between them, emitting deadly fames. But even amidst the stone masses, finding even the tiniest of islands, grass and flowers still sprout forth— God’s creations. And through the rustle of leaves and the song of the birds He is still calling out to His daughters and sons to reconsider everything that is happening and to return to Paradise. “The glow of love emanating from the Earth keeps on getting smaller, and for a long time now the Sun’s reflection should have been decreasing, too. But He with His energy is constantly intensifying the life-giving power of even the Sun’s rays. Just as before, He loves His daughters and sons. He waits, trusting and dreaming that one day Man will wake at dawn and suddenly regain his conscious awareness, and that this conscious awareness will restore to the Earth its original, pristine blossoming.” “But how did everything on the Earth come to go against God’s dreams and for some reason last all these thousands, maybe millions of years? How could He keep waiting and trusting for so long a time?” “Time does not exist for God. As with any loving parent, He never loses faith. And it is thanks to that faith that all of us are living right now. And we ourselves arrange our lives as we see fit, using the freedom granted us by the Father. But people did not all of a sudden decide to follow the option of a path leading nowhere.” “If not all of a sudden, then how, when? What does it mean, that phrase Adam’s apple’?” “Back then, just as now, the Universe was filled with a multitude of living energies. Everywhere there are living elements invisible, the vast majority of them resembling Man’s second self. They are almost like people, capable of comprehending all planes of being, but they are not afforded a material embodiment. That is Man’s great advantage over them. Furthermore, in the complexes of energies of the Universe’s elements one form of energy inevitably holds sway over the rest. And they themselves do not have the capability of changing the proportional relationship among their forms of

energy. “Also, among the elements of the Universe there are complexes of energies similar to God. Similar, yes, but they are not gods. They have momentarily equalised the multitude of energies within themselves, yet, in contrast to God, they are not capable of producing living creations in harmony. “In the whole Universe nobody has managed to solve the puzzle—the sacred mystery of how or by what power the material plane of being was created, or where the threads tying it and the whole life of the Universe together may be found. Or how or on what basis this plane is capable of reproducing itself. “When the Earth and everything upon it was created by God, the unparalleled speed of the generative process made it impossible for the elements to understand by what power God was bringing about this grand creation. After everything was already created and was visible, when they noticed that Man was the strongest of all, many were plunged by this resplendent vision first into astonishment, and then into excitement, and finally came the desire to repeat it. To create something similar, all on its own. “This desire kept on growing. Even today it is still present in a multitude of the diverse energies. They tried to imitate earthly creations in other galaxies, on other worlds, even using the planets which God had created. Many managed to come up with a facsimile of earthly existence, but only a facsimile. The harmony of the Earth and the interrelationship among all things—that is something none have been able to achieve. Thus throughout the Universe, even today, there are planets with life, but this life is but a poor imitation of life on the Earth. “When all these attempts—not only to produce a better creation but even to repeat the existing one—failed (and God did not reveal His secret), then many of these elements began turning to Man for help. It was clear to them that if Man was God’s creation, if Man was God’s beloved, then a loving parent could not possibly withhold anything from him. On the contrary God must have offered great opportunities to Man, His son. And the elements of the Universe started to turn to Man; in fact, they strive to do so even today. “You know, there are people today who claim that someone invisible is communicating with them from the Universe, calling itself mind and the power of good. Back then, too, right at the beginning, they appealed to Man with requests and exhortations, demanding to know (though hiding their true motives under various guises), by what power the Earth was formed, along with everything existing upon it, and how Man was created to be so great, they wanted to know from what he was fashioned.

“But Man gave an answer to none of them. He did not know the answer to the question himself, nor does he know it today; But he became more and more interested in the question, and began demanding answers from God. Not only did God decline to answer—He tried to inculcate a better understanding in Man, asking him to erase the question from his thinking: “‘I ask you, My son, to create. You have been given the power to create in the space on Earth as well as on other worlds. What you think up in your dream will be turned into reality, you need not doubt. Only one thing do I ask of you: do not try to figure out how, by what power, it all comes about.’” “What I don’t understand, Anastasia, is why God would not want to divulge the specifics of His creation even to Man, His son.” “I can only guess, no more,” Anastasia replied. “In not responding to this question even to His son, God might have been trying to protect him from disaster, even deflecting a universal war.” “I don’t see any connection between a refusal to respond and universal war.” “If ever the secret of creation were to be revealed, then on other planets in the Universe other forms of life might arise, equal in power to those on the Earth. Two powers might have the desire to test each other. It is possible that such a contest could take place peacefully It is also possible it could turn out like the wars on the Earth. And that could touch off a war throughout the Universe.” “Indeed,” I agreed, “it would be better for the specifics of God’s creation to remain a secret. Only one of the elements might happen to figure it out on its own, without hints.” “I do not think any of them would ever figure it out.” “And why are you so confident of that?” “The nature of the secret is such that it is clear on its own, and at the same time it is not even there, and yet at the same time it is not alone. The term co-creation gives me confidence, when I add a second word to it.” “What word?” “The second word is inspiration.” “Well, what of it? What can these two words together signify?” “They -” “No, stop! Don’t say it! I remember your telling me that thoughts—and that means words too—don’t simply disappear into nowhere, they circle around us in space and anyone can catch them. Is that right?”

“Right it is.” “And can the elements catch them too?” “True.” “Then don’t say it. Why give them a hint?” “Not to worry, Vladimir. Suppose I give them a slight hint as to the secret, I can thereby show them the fruitlessness and senselessness of their constant attempts. That way they can understand and stop bothering Man.” “Well, if that’s the case, then tell me, what do co-creation and inspiration mean?” a

Co-creation signifies that in His creating, God used particles of all the diverse energies of the Universe, and His own energy too, and even if all the elements got together to produce a duplicate of the Earth, they would still be missing one particular form of energy—the one that is inherent in God as an idea of His own, the one born in the Divine dream alone. Inspiration signifies that the creations were produced through an impulse of inspiration. Who among the great earthly artists and sculptors, after creating their works in an impulse of inspiration, will dare attempt to explain how they held their brash, what they were thinking or where they were standing—these were not the kinds of things they paid attention to, absorbed as they were so completely in their work. Again, there is the energy of Love, which God sent to the Earth. It is free, subject to no one and, preserving its loyalty to God, is in the service of Man alone.” “How fascinating that all is, Anastasia! Do you think the elements will hear it and understand?” “They shall certainly hear, and possibly understand as well.” “And will they hear what I say, too?” “True.” “Then I shall sum it up for them. Hey there, elements, is it clear to you now, eh? Don’t you go bothering people any more. You’ll never guess the Creator’s design! Well, Anastasia, what do you think, did I do a good job of telling it to them?” “Your final words were quite accurate: ‘You will never guess the Creator’s design!”’ “Have they been trying to guess it for a long time?” “Right from the moment they first beheld the Earth and its people, right up to the present day”

“And what harm did their attempts cause Adam, or us for that matter?” “In Adam and Eve they aroused feelings of pride and self-conceit. And they managed to persuade Adam through a false teaching, saying that to produce something more perfect, it was necessary to break the existing creation down and see what it consisted of, how it worked. They often instructed him to find out how everything was constructed, and then he would be supreme over all. They hoped that when Adam began analysing God’s creations to make sense of their construction and purpose, he would comprehend with his mind the interrelationship among the creations of all different kinds. They would then be able to see the thoughts Adam produced and from that they could deduce how they could create like God. “At first Adam paid no attention to their requests and suggestions. But then one day Eve decided on her own to give Adam some advice: “‘I have heard voices stating things will be even easier and more splendid for us once you ascertain how everything works within. Why should we stubbornly refuse to follow this recommendation? Would it not be better for us to give it a try, at least once?’ “First, Adam broke off a branch of the tree with its marvelous fruit, and then Then now you can see for yourself, how Man’s creative thought came to a stop, a standstill. Even today he keeps examining things in detail and breaking them apart, trying to analyse the structure of everything and produce his own primitive creations with his thought instantaneously at a standstill.” “Hold on, Anastasia. That’s not at all clear to me. Why do you say that human thought has come to a standstill? When people examine something in detail, on the contrary, we say they’re learning something new.” “Vladimir, Man is made in such a way that there is nothing he needs to examine in detail. He includes Oh, how can I make this clearer to you? The structure of everything is included in Man himself, in what you might call an encoded format. The code is deciphered when he tunes into his dream of inspired creativity.” “But I still don’t see what harm can there be in taking something apart,6 and how this can possibly bring thought to a standstill. Maybe it’d be better if you showed me an example.” “Yes, you are right. I shall try an example. Imagine you are at the wheel of your car, driving to some destination. All at once you find yourself wondering how the motor works, and what makes the wheels turn. You stop the car and set about taking apart the motor, for instance.” “So, I’ll take it apart, see how it works, and then I’ll be able to repair it

myself. What’s wrong with that?” “However, while you are taking it apart, your journey is being interrupted. "You will not reach your destination on time.” “But I’ll still learn more about my car. What’s wrong with my acquiring new knowledge?” “What do you need it for? Your purpose is not to repair, but to enjoy the drive and to create.” “You don’t sound very convincing, Anastasia. Not a single driver will agree with you. Except maybe for a few with foreign cars, like Japanese models or Mercedes, which hardly ever break down.” “God’s creations not only do not break down, but are capable of re-creating themselves. Hence why should one need to tear them apart to see how they work?” “What d’you mean, why? Just out of curiosity, if for nothing else.” “Forgive me, Vladimir, if my example was unconvincing. If you will allow me, I shall attempt another.” “Go ahead.” “Suppose a beautiful woman is standing in front of you. You feel a burning attraction for her, she appeals to you. And she finds you interesting, too, and seeks to join together with you in creation. But a moment before the mutual impulse for coming together to create, all of a sudden you wonder what this woman is made of. How do her internal organs work? Her stomach, liver and kidneys? What does she eat and drink? How will all this function in a moment of intimacy?” “Enough. Don’t go on. You’ve come up with a jolly good example there. There will be no closeness, no creation. It won’t work out if this cursed thought comes along. It happened once that way with me. There was one woman I fancied for a long time, but she never gave in to me. And the one time she agreed, I suddenly thought of how I could perform better, and for some reason I doubted my ability to perform. The upshot was that nothing happened. I felt such shame, and was even afraid I might have lost it for good. “I later asked a friend about it, and he said the same thing had happened to him. The two of us even went to see a doctor. The doctor said there was some kind of psychological factor at work here. There was no use doubting our abilities or trying to figure out what to do and how. I think this psychological factor causes trouble for a lot of men. Now I get it: it’s all

because of those elements, because of Adam, because of Eve’s advice. Yes, they acted pretty bad back then.” “Why are you only blaming Adam and Eve? Look around you today, Vladimir, is not all mankind continuing to stubbornly repeat the same mistake, violating God’s guidelines? Adam and Eve were not fully aware of the consequences, but why does mankind stubbornly continue to tear everything apart? And to destroy living creations? Today?! When the consequences are so obvious and sad?” “I don’t know. Maybe everybody needs a good shake-up. Come on, are we so hung up on tearing apart one thing after another?2 I just had a thought— maybe it was no use, God not handing Adam and Eve a decent punishment after all. He should have given Adam a right good hiding and knocked all 'tearing apart— again, the Russian term could refer to settling scores by violence. that nonsense out of his head—that same nonsense that’s causing mankind so much suffering today; And He could have taken a good whip to Eve’s soft spot so she wouldn’t have gone round getting people into trouble with that tongue of hers.” “Vladimir, God gave Man complete freedom, with no thought of punishment on His part. Besides, punishment will not alter acts committed in one’s heart. Wrong actions will continue as long as the original thought is not changed. Tell me, for example, who invented lethal missiles and the nuclear warheads they carry?” “In Russia it was Academician Korolev3 who first built rockets like that. But before him Tsiolkovsky4 theorised about them. American scientists also tried. In any case, a lot of human minds have been involved in rocket design. A lot of inventors in different countries have been working on it.” “Vladimir, there is in fact only one inventor of all rockets and all the lethal weapons attached to them.” “How can there be just one, when whole research centres have been working on rocket design in various countries, and keep their achievements secret from one another? That’s what the whole arms race is about: who can produce a weapon best and fastest?” “This lone inventor takes pleasure in giving out hints to all people that call themselves scientists or inventors, no matter what country they live in.” Sergei Pavlovich Korolev (also spelt: Sergey Korolyov) (1907-1966)—the Soviet scientist responsible for the design of the first artificial earth satellite —known as Sputnik (lit. ‘Fellow-traveller’)—along with a number of rockets, including the spaceships Vostok and Voskhod, which carried the first cosmonauts into space.

A

Konstantin Eduardovich Tsiolkovsky (1857-1935)—physicist and mathematician, held to be the father of Soviet space science. He is known, among other things, for his experiments in photosynthesis. He also envisioned human beings colonising other planets in various solar systems. “And where, in what country, does he himself live and what’s his name?” “Destructive thinking. At first it got through to a single individual and took over his material body, producing spears and stone spearheads. Then it proceeded to come up with arrows and iron arrowheads.” “But if it knows everything, this destructive thought, why didn’t it go for a missile straight off?” “The material plane of earthly being does not embody everything thought of all at once. Slowness in matter was given by the Creator to allow people time to think things through. In terms of destructive thinking, the spear, our modern weapons, as well as those of the future, even more deadly, were produced a long time ago. To manifest something more than a spear on the material plane required the construction of a multitude of factories and laboratories that are today termed scientific. Under the guise of plausible excuses more and more people were gradually drawn into the business of turning such deadly thinking into reality” “And what was the need of constantly trying to do that?” “To establish itself. To destroy the whole material plane of the Earth. To show to everything in the Universe the superiority of the energies of its alldestructive element over everything else—and, in fact, over God. And it is through people that it acts.” “Sneaky little vermin! And how do we exterminate it from the Earth?” 1 Man—Throughout the Ringing Cedars Series, the word Man with a capital M is used to refer to a human being of either gender. For details on the word’s usage and the important distinction between Man and human being please see the Translator’s Preface to Book 1. 2 Old Church Slavonic—a literary language developed from the Slavic dialect used by two monks named Saints Cyril [Kirill] and Methodius [Mefodii], who first translated the Bible into a Slavic tongue in the 10th century A.D. and invented an alphabet (which many people identify as Cyrillic) wherein to write down their translation. It was used as the liturgical language of the Russian Orthodox Church up until the 12th century. Its present-day derivative is known simply as Church Slavonic, and is still used in Orthodox

liturgy today. 3 ‘secondself ’—see Book 3, Chapter 15: ‘A bird for discovering one’s soul”. 4 Gorynytch Serpent—a fire-breathing dragon in Russian folk tales, with as many as twelve heads, associated with fire and water, capable of flight, yet making its lair in caves and holes in the ground wherein to hide its captured treasure, including kidnapped princesses. Gorynytch literally means “son of a Mountain”, referring to its great size. 5 the Inner, the Outer, the Order— an approximation of the ancient Slavic terms Nav’, Tav’ and Prav’, respectively. Nav signifies inner spiritual reality, the invisible foundation of the outer, or visible, material reality (Yav), while Prav (from a Slavic root word signifying ‘right’ or ‘true’) refers to the order governing the Nav and Yav and the relationship between them. 6 taking something apart—a play on words; the Russian term here (razborka) can also signify settling a score between rival gangs.

CHAPTER TEN

Avoid intimate relations with her “Do not allow it access to your thought or body. All women should avoid intimate relations with men who permit destructive thinking into their consciousness, so as not to reproduce it over and over again.” “Wow! That’s quite a thought!” I exclaimed. “If all women gang up like that, all our scientific military minds will go out of their minds.” “Vladimir, if women start acting that way, there will be no war on the Earth.” “Right on, Anastasia! You’ve struck a blow against all war. Way to go—this idea of yours can wipe out all war! That’s quite a blast! It’s true—what man would want to go to war if not a single woman would sleep with him after that or bear him offspring—who?! That would mean anyone starting a war would be killing himself, his offspring too.” “If women were willing to do this, nobody would ever start a war. Eve’s fall from grace would be expiated by women living in today’s times, not to mention their own decline, in the face of themselves and God.” “And what will then be occurring on the Earth?” “The Earth will once again burst forth in its pristine flower.” “You’re a powerfully stubborn girl, Anastasia, true to your dream, just as before. But you are also naive. How can one believe in all the women on the Earth?” “How can I not believe in all women, Vladimir, since I know that the Divine essence is present in every woman living on the Earth today? So let it reveal itself in all its resplendent array! Goddesses! Women of the Divine Earth! Reveal in yourselves your own Divine essence. Show yourselves to the whole Universe in all the beauty of your original pristine presence. You are a perfect creation, you are created from the Divine dream. Each of you is capable of taming the diverse energies of the Universe—dear women, goddesses of all the Universe and the Earth!” “Now how can you stand there, Anastasia, and state that all the women of the Earth are goddesses? Em beginning to find your naivety a trifle ridiculous. Imagine! All of them goddesses?! Including those standing behind counters, I mean in stores and street kiosks? Cleaning ladies, dishwashers, waitresses? All the ones that cook, bake and wash dishes day

after day in their kitchen at home—don’t tell me they’re goddesses, too?! Sounds like blasphemy to me, even. How can you call drug addicts and prostitutes goddesses? “Well, now, in a church, okay, or a beautiful lady dancing at a ball—sure, people will say she’s a goddess. But all those plain types, dressed in everyday rags, nobody’s going to call them goddesses.” “Vladimir, it is only a chain of circumstances that makes earthly goddesses spend time in a kitchen day after day. You have stated that I am like some kind of wild creature, that my life is primitive, and that only the world you inhabit is civilised. Then tell me why it is that women in your ‘civilisation’ spend a good part of their life in cramped kitchens? Made to wash floors and carry heavy groceries home from stores? You boast about your ‘civilisation’, but why is there so much dirt in it? And why do you transform the most beautiful goddesses of the Earth into cleaning ladies?” “And just where have you seen a cleaning lady who’s a goddess? Any women worth their salt shine at beauty pageants and drench themselves to a fault in luxury—and every man wants to marry them. But they will only marry men who are rich. As for the plain ones, well, even the poor don’t need them.” “Every woman has her own beauty It is only that not all of them are given the opportunity to reveal this treasure. This great beauty is not something you can measure, like a person’s waist, for example. The length of one’s leg, the size of one’s breasts, the colour of one’s eyes—all that is completely irrelevant here. This beauty is interior to the woman, and is found in both a young girl and a woman of senior years.” “Sure, in ‘women of senior years’. You’re going to tell me about old ladies next! You think they’re beautiful goddesses, too?” “They too are beautiful in their own way And in spite of the endless humilities they face in everyday life, the multitude of blows dealt them by fate, any woman labelled a ‘senior’ can still wake up in the morning with the Sun, walk across the dew, smile at the sunrise with a ray of conscious awareness, and then” “And what then?” “And then suddenly make someone love her. She will be loved herself, and she will impart to him the warmth of her love.” “To what ‘him’?” “To the one, her only one, who sees in her the goddess within.” “It doesn’t happen like that.” “It does. Go ask some seniors. You will be surprised at how many of them have passionate romances.”

“And are you sure that women are capable of changing the world?” “Capable they are! Capable beyond the shadow of a doubt, Vladimir. Once they change their priorities of love, they—God’s perfect creation—will restore to the Earth its resplendent pristine worth, they will transform the whole Earth into the blossoming garden of the Divine dream. They are God’s creation! The beautiful goddesses of the Divine Earth!” CHAPTER ELEVEN

Three prayers “There you go talking about God, Anastasia, but how do you pray? Or do you pray at all? Many people have requested in their letters that I ask you about this.” “Vladimir, how do you understand the word pray?” “What do you mean, how? Isn’t it obvious? To pray that’s, well, to pray. Are you telling me you don’t understand the meaning of the word?” “One and the same word can mean different things to different people, depending on how they perceive it. To be able to express myself more understandably, I asked you: What does prayer mean to you?” “I never really thought about what it means, somehow Anyway there’s one principal prayer I learnt by heart and sometimes I say it—just, you know, to be on the safe side. Apparently there must be some meaning in it, if so many people say it.” “What are you telling me? You memorised a prayer, and never wanted to find out its meaning?” “It’s not that I didn’t want to, it’s just I never really thought about its meaning. I thought, well, everybody knows what it means, so why bother thinking? Prayer—well, that’s just like having a conversation with God.” “But if this ‘principal prayer’ signifies a conversation with God, then tell me, how can you talk with God, your Father, without any meaning?” “I don’t know how What’s all the big fuss, anyway, about this meaning. No doubt the people who wrote the prayer knew what it meant.” “But would you not like to talk with your Father on your own?” “Of course. Everybody would like to talk with their Father on their own.” “But how can you talk ‘on your own’ by repeating someone else’s words, especially without even thinking about what lies behind them?” At first I felt a little irritated at Anastasia’s pickiness regarding the meaning

of the prayer I had learnt, but then I got interested myself in determining what it meant. For the thought was coming to me all by itself: How did this happen? I had learnt a prayer which I repeated on a number of occasions, but never really thought about what was in the prayer. I thought how interesting it would be to find this out, since I had memorised it. And I said aloud to Anastasia: “Well, okay, I’ll give thought to the meaning at some point.” But she persisted: “Why ‘at some point’? Could you not say your prayer right here and now?” “Why not? Of course I can.” “Then, Vladimir, say your prayer—the one you term, of all your prayers, the ‘principal’ one, the one through which you have tried to talk with the Father.” “As a matter of fact, it’s the only one I know And I only learnt it because it seems everybody else considers it the most important one.” “All right. Say your prayer, and I shall keep track of your thought.” “Okay. Listen.” I said the Lord’s Prayer to Anastasia, which, you may remember, goes like this: Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven. Give as this day our daily bread. And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil: For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory Of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit Always, now and for ever. Amen.1 I stopped speaking and looked at Anastasia. But she was sitting there, just as silently, her eyes lowered, not looking at me. She just sat there without a word, with a sad expression on her face, until I couldn’t take it any longer and asked her: “Why aren’t you saying anything, Anastasia?” Without raising her head, she enquired: “What words are you expecting to hear from me, Vladimir?” “What d’you mean, ‘what words’? I said the prayer without even a single

flaw. Did you like it? You could at least say so if you did or not, but you’re not saying a word.” “When you were saying the prayer, Vladimir, I tried to follow your thought, your feelings, the meaning of your appeal to God. I understood the meaning of the words of the prayer, but you did not understand all the words in it. Your newly budding thought was disintegrating, getting away from you, and there were absolutely no feelings. You were unable to grasp the meaning of many of the words, and you were not addressing yourself to anyone. You were simply muttering.” “But I just said it the way everybody does. I was in church, and there they use even more incomprehensible words. I heard how other people say it. They rattle it off at top speed, and that’s it! But I said it to you slowly and distinctly, so you’d understand.” “But before that you said it was a prayer addressed to God.” “Yes, I did say that.” “But God is our Father. He is a person. He is a living entity. The Father is capable of feeling and understanding, when normal communication is initiated. But you” “What about me? Fm telling you, that’s the way they all say it when they address God.” “Imagine your daughter Polina is standing before you, and all at once she starts talking in a monotone and slips into her sentences words she does not even understand herself. Would you as a father be pleased by her talking to you in such a way?” I could picture the situation quite clearly, and began to feel downright uncomfortable at the prospect. Here was my daughter standing in front of me, muttering something like a half-crazed person, not knowing what she wanted even. So I came to a decision: No, I had to make conscious sense of my prayer. I can’t just rattle off meaningless words. Otherwise I would appear to God like some half-crazed idiot. If someone wants to mutter it, they can go ahead. As for me, I shall definitely make the effort to understand this whole prayer. I only have to find some place to look up the meaning of unfamiliar words. And why do they speak in some unknown language in church? Aloud I said to Anastasia: “You know, it’s probably not a full and accurate translation. That’s why my thought got lost, as you say.” “Vladimir, the meaning can be understood even from this translation. Of

course it contains words that are not used any longer in everyday speech. But the sense is clear when you ponder it and decide what is the most important thing of all for you and what is the most pleasing for the Father. What is it you wish to say in uttering this prayerful message addressed to the Father?” “Well, whatever the words say, that’s probably what I want to say, too. I want Him to give me bread to eat, to forgive my sins and debts, to not lead me into temptation and deliver me from evil. It’s all clearly set out there.” “Vladimir, God provided food for His sons and daughters even before they were born. Look around you—everything has long ago been provided for you. A loving parent forgives everyone their sins without being asked, and does not even think of leading anyone into temptation. The Father has given each one the capacity to withstand the wiles of evil. Why offend the Father by not realizing what He has already provided a long time ago? His eternal gifts are all around you. What more can this loving Parent give, who has already given all to His child? “And what if there’s something missing?” “God gives to the utmost. He has provided everything for His sons and daughters right from the beginning. Everything! Completely! As a parent who loves His child unconditionally, He can think of no greater good for Himself than the joy which comes from the joyful existence of His children. His own sons and daughters! “Tell me, Vladimir: How might the Father feel, after giving His children everything right from the beginning and seeing them appear before Him, constantly pleading ‘More, more! Keep us, save us, we are all helpless, we are all as nothing’? Please, answer me. Would you as a parent, or any of your friends, wish to have children like that?” “I can’t give you an answer right off. I’ll work it out on my own, when I have a quiet moment.” “Yes, yes, of course, fine, Vladimir. Only when you do find the time, think about what the Father would like to hear from you, apart from your requests.” “You mean, God might also want something of us? What?” “What any parent would wish to hear from his children.” “Tell me, Anastasia, do you yourself ever turn to God in prayer?” “Yes, I do,” came her reply. “Then tell me your prayer.”

“I cannot say my prayer to you, Vladimir. My prayer is destined for God.” “All right, talk to God then. I can still hear it.” Anastasia rose, spread out her arms, turned her back to me and began uttering some words. Ordinary words one might hear in a prayer, but something within me all at once began to tremble. The way she spoke these words was not the way we say prayers. She spoke them the way anyone might talk to a close friend, a loved one, a relative. Her speech contained all the intonations of a live conversation. Passion, joy, fervent ecstasy—as though the One Anastasia was talking to was right there beside her: My father, You are present everywhere! For the light of life I gladly thank You, For Your bright kingdom visible here and now, And for Your loving will. Long live the good! For daily bread and daily food with joy I thank You! And for your loving patience, And for Your giving of forgiveness of sins on Your Earth fair. My Father, You are present everywhere! I am your daughter here midst your creations. Weakness and sin—I shall not let them in, But prove myself worthy of your consummations. My Father, You are present everywhere! I am your daughter, your joy I declare. My entire self shall magnify your glory, In your bright dream the coming ages all will live and share. It shall be so! I wish it so! I am a daughter of yours. My Father, You are present everywhere. Anastasia ended her prayer. She continued to communicate with everything around her. It seemed as though she were surrounded by a radiant light. During the prayer, as long as she was near me, something invisible happened all around. And whatever it was touched me too. It wasn’t an outward touch, but an inner one. It made me feel good, feel comforted. But as Anastasia drew away, this effect faded, and I called after her: “You said the prayer as though Someone was standing beside you who could answer it.” Anastasia turned toward me, her face beaming. She spread out her arms, spun around, smiling, and then, giving me a serious look in the eye, said: “Vladimir, God, our Father, also speaks to everyone with a request, and answers every prayer.” “Then why doesn’t anyone understand His words?” “Words? The peoples of the Earth have so many words with different meanings. There are so many

diverse languages and dialects. And yet there is one language for all. One language for all Divine callings. It is woven together out of the rustlings of the leaves, the songs of the birds and the roar of the waves. The Divine language has fragrance and colour. Through this language God responds to each one’s request and gives a prayerful response to prayer.” “Could you translate, or express in words, what He says to us?” “I could give you an approximation.” “Why just an approximation?” “Because our language is much too poor to be compatible with the language God speaks to us in.” “Never mind, just tell me any way you can.” Anastasia looked at me, stretched her arms out in front of her, and her voice —her voice came forth in chest tones: My son! My own dear son! How long I have been waiting. I am still waiting. A minute holds a hundred years, a moment lasts millennia. I am waiting. I have given you all. The Earth is all yours. You are free in everything. You shall choose your own path. All that I ask, My son, My own dear son, Is that you be happy. You do not see Me. You do not hear Me. In your mind are doubts and sorrows. You are turning away. Whereto? You are yearning for something. What for? And you are bowing to someone. I stretch out my hands to you. My son, My own dear son, Be happy, I ask of you. Again you are going away. But your road leads to nowhere. On this road the Earth will explode. You are free in everything and the world is exploding And tearing your destiny apart. You are free in everything but I shall stand My ground. I shall restore you to life with the last blade of grass. And once more the world will shine around. Only be happy, I ask. On the faces of saints a deep sorrow swells. You are frightened by judgment and hell.

They tell you that I shall send judges. But I only pray for that time, as before When you and I are together once more. I believe you will return. I know you will come. I shall embrace you once more. Not as a stepfather! Not as a stepfather! I am yours! I am your Abba, your Father,1 the only One, And you are My very own son, My own dearson, We shall be happy together as one! After Anastasia stopped speaking, it took me a while to recover my composure. Even though it seemed that I was continuing to listen to all the sounds around me, perhaps I was really listening to how my blood was rushing through my veins at an extraordinary tempo. What had I understood? I cannot understand, even to this day. Through this fervent interpretation, Anastasia had just set forth God’s prayer to Man. Whether the words were true or not, who can say? And who can say why they arouse such strong emotions? And what am I doing at the moment? I am letting my pen run across the page in conscious excitement— or maybe not so conscious Am I going out of my mind? Am I mixing up her words with those the bards now sing in her name? Anything’s possible. Perhaps those that read this will understand. And I shall try to understand once I have finished writing. And I am writing again. But again, just as back there in the forest, as though penetrating a curtain, occasionally lines from those prayers I heard back in the 2Abba, Father—see Mark 14:36: ‘And he (Jesus] said, Abba, Father, all things are possible unto thee” (Authorised King James Version). taiga will suddenly appear. And again the question arises—a difficult question, which continues to torment me to this day, through scenes from our lives and ponderings. A question I’m afraid to try to answer, even to myself. But it is not one I can keep back any longer just within myself. Perhaps someone will come up with a convincing answer?! Prayer! That prayer of Anastasia’s! Just words! The words of a taiga recluse, an uneducated recluse, with her own unique way of thinking and her own unique lifestyle. Just words. But for some reason every time I hear them, the veins on my writing hand puff up and the blood pulsates through them more quickly It pulsates, counting off the seconds in which each of us must decide what is best for ourselves, and how to continue to live. Should we be asking a kind Father to save, give, provide? Or alternatively, confidently and from the heart, suddenly declare, just as she did:

My Father, You are present everywhere! Weakness and sin—I shall not let them in, I am Your son, Your joy I declare. My entire self shall magnify Your glory Which prayer will have the most pleasant meaning for Him? What should I do, or what should we all together do? Which way should we go? My Father, You are present everywhere! Weakness and sin—I shall not let them in But where does one get the courage to speak like that? And to carry it out once the prayer’s been said? CHAPTER TWELVE

Anastasia’s line “Tell me, Anastasia, how did it happen that you and your ancestors lived for so long—millennia, even—in the remote forest, away from society? If, as you say, all mankind is a single body, and all have a single origin, then why is your ancestral line, in contrast to all the rest, a kind of outcast?” “You are right, we all have One parent. And then there are parents whom we can see. But every human soul has the freedom to chose his own path, leading to a determined goal. Among other things, the choice depends on how one’s feelings are nurtured.” “And who then thus nurtured your distant forebears in such a way that your line is so distinctive even today? In your lifestyle, let’s say, or the way you understand things?” “It happened in times long ago. I know I said long ago, but it seems as though it happened only yesterday. Perhaps I can best put it this way: a time came when mankind aspired not to co-creation but to analysing God’s creation, back when spears were already flying and hides of faithful creatures were already considered worthy features on people’s bodies, when everyone’s consciousness was being altered and being directed along the path leading to today, when human thought faltered, aspiring not to creation but to the accumulation of knowledge—all at once people began analysing the process by which men and women were able to experience tremendous satisfaction by merging their bodies together. Then for the first time men began possessing the women, and women submitted to the men not for the

sake of co-creation, but so that both of them could experience a satisfying sensation. “It seemed to them, as it seems to people living today, that such a sensation comes afresh each time there is a merging of the male and female elements, their visible bodies, their flesh. “In fact the satisfaction from the merging of mere fleshly bodies is fleeting and incomplete. In the intercourse of carnal desire there is no participation by the higher planes of the human self. Man aspired to feel a sense of fulness by changing bodies and methods of coming together, but even today he has not achieved anything fully. “The sad consequence of these carnal pleasures has been their children. The children were deprived of conscious aspirations toward the goal of realization of the Divine dream. And women began experiencing pain in childbirth. And the rising generation was doomed to live in torment, and the absence of the three planes of being meant they were afforded no opportunity of attaining happiness in any way. And so we have come down to the present day. “One of the first women to experience pain in childbirth saw that her newborn baby girl had injured her little leg during the birth and was so frail that she wasn’t even able to utter a cry The woman also saw that the man who had enjoyed sexual pleasure with her remained indifferent to the birth, and was already seeking to pleasure himself with another woman. And so the woman who had chanced to become a mother became annoyed at God. She grabbed her newborn baby girl and ran with it with all her might far away from everyone else, right into the middle of the woods, an isolated place where no one lived. Stopping to catch her breath in her despair, wiping tears from her cheeks, she kept railing at God with words of frustrated anger: ““Why in your resplendent world, as You describe it, is there pain, and evil, and repudiation? I do not experience any satisfaction when I turn to look at the world of Your creation. I am in utter dejection and am burning up with anger. I have been rejected by everybody And the one whom I made love to is now making love to another; he has forgotten about me. And You were the one who made them, see? He is Yours, the one who was untrue and betrayed me. After all, she, the one making love to him, was also made by You. These are your creations, true? And what about me? I just want to strangle them. I am burning up with annoyance at them. Your world has become forlorn and joyless for me. What kind of fate did you select for me? And why did I bear this deformed and half-dead child? I do not want anyone to see it. There is no joy for me in contemplating it.’

“The woman didn’t just put the child down—she callously tossed the barely living lump, her own daughter, onto the ground. In her despair and anger she again cried out to God: “‘Let no one ever lay eyes on my daughter! But You look and see. Look and see the torments taking place among Your creations. Her life is not to be. I shall not be able to feed the child that I have borne. My ill temper has burnt the milk in my breast. I am going away But You look and see! Look and see how many imperfections there are in the world You have created. Let your ‘birth’ die in Your sight. Let it die among the creations of the Earth.’ “At that the mother ran from her own daughter, angry and forlorn. The newborn baby was left all alone, a barely breathing, helpless little lump, lying on the wooded ground. My distant foremother was in that baby girl, Vladimir. “God could feel the anger and despair coming from the Earth. He felt distress and compassionate care for that tearful, depressed woman. But the invisible Father who loved her could not alter her destiny. The woman running in despair was wearing a crown of God-bestowed freedom. Every Man fashions the destiny of his own soul. The material plane of being is subject to no one. It is under the complete control of Man himself. “God is a person. He is the Father of all, but He does not exist in the flesh. Not in the flesh. But in Him there is a complex of all the diverse energies of the Universe, a whole complex of feelings belonging to Man. He can rejoice and He can feel distress, He can grieve over one of His sons or daughters who chooses a path leading to suffering. He glows with a fatherly tenderness to all and each day, for all without exception, He caresses the whole Earth with a sun-ray of love. Day after day He never loses hope that the daughters and sons of His conception will follow the Divine path. Not under orders, not through fear, they will use their freedom of choice to determine their own path to conjoint creation, regeneration and joy from its contemplation. Our Father has faith, and waits. And He sustains life with His Self. Our Father includes the whole complex of human feelings. “Could anybody imagine how our Father, God, felt, when His newborn child lay quietly dying there alone in His forest wild, among His own creations? “The baby girl did not cry, she did not even make a sound. The little heartbeat was slowing down. Just occasionally her tiny lips searched around for some life-giving nipple—she felt thirsty. “God does not have hands of flesh. Even though He is all-seeing, he still could not clasp the baby girl to His breast. Having given everything to Man, what more could He possibly give? And so, He who is capable of filling the whole Universe with the energy of His dream, compressed Himself into a

lump of energy over that forest. A wee, tiny lump, capable of dispersing all the vast worlds of the Universe at a single burst. He concentrated the energy of His love right over that forest—the love He expressed toward all His creations. Through them He embodied Himself in His acts upon the Earth. And they ‘And a little drop of rain touched the lips of the baby girl lying there on the ground—lips which were already turning blue—and at once a warm breeze blew. From the trees fell pollen dust, and the baby girl breathed it in. And the day went by, and the night came on, and the baby girl was still alive. All the beasts and creatures of the wild, embraced by a Divine delight, recognised this baby girl as their own child. “Years passed, the little girl grew and became a young woman. I can call her Lilith.2 “As she strode over the ground all bright in the Sun’s early rays, all other life around called out her name in gladness and praise. Lilith’s smile illuminated and caressed the world God had created around her. Lilith accepted everything around her as we would accept our mother or dad. “As she grew up, she would venture more and more often toward the edge of the forest. Quietly concealing herself amidst the tall grasses and bushes, she watched as people so similar in appearance to her went about their daily life—but what a strange life it was! They were distancing themselves more and more from God’s creations, building houses to live in, cutting down everything around, and for some reason clothing themselves in animal hides. And they took great pride in killing God’s creatures, and boasting about who could most quickly kill their prize. And they kept on producing something out of dead matter. Back then Lilith did not yet realize that people who created dead things out of living things considered themselves thereby to be very wise. “She aspired to tell these people about things that could bring joy to everyone. She very much desired a conjoint creation and the joy that comes from its contemplation. She felt an ever-growing need within her to bring about the birth of a new, living, Divine creation. “More and more frequently her gaze rested upon one man in particular. He was rather a plain sort in comparison to his fellows. He did not distinguish himself at spear-throwing, and considered himself a less than successful hunter. He was pensive and often sang quietly to himself. He would often go off on his own and dream about something all alone. “One day Lilith went out to meet these people. She had collected living gifts from the forest and carried them in a withy basket out to a crowd of people —men standing around a baby elephant they had slain and arguing arcanely about something. And he was there among them, her chosen one. At the

sight of her all voices suddenly became mute. “Now Lilith was a woman of exceptional beauty. She had not taken steps to veil her exposed slender figure, unaware of the hold carnal desires had already secured for themselves over male human beings. They crassly thrust themselves at her en masse. Putting her gifts down on the ground, she noticed the fire of fleshly lust and desire burning in their eyes. And he, her chosen one, ran after all the rest. “Even from a distance Lilith still felt how forcefully the wave of aggression touched the delicate strings of her soul. Taking a step back, she suddenly turned and ran from the whole approaching horde of warriors. “Seething with lust, they kept up their chase for a long time. She ran without any difficulty in breathing and did not tire out, while those in pursuit were dripping with sweat. But they were not to lay a hand on Lilith. Those who thirsted to capture this beauty were unaware of the truth that to know beauty, one must include such beauty within one’s self. “And the warriors tired of the chase. Losing sight of Lilith, they started wandering back the way they came and went astray Eventually they found their way. “All but one. Weary from running, he sat down on a fallen tree and began to sing. Lilith quietly concealed herself and recognised the singer as the one her heart felt a yen for, who had also given chase after her with the other men in the crowd. Nevertheless she still allowed him to catch sight of her, at a distance, to show him the right way back to his camp. And he followed, but did not run after her. “Upon arriving at the edge of the forest and seeing his camp and the campfire burning there, he forgot everything and started running toward it. And Lilith watched as her chosen one ran off. Her heart would beat in an unfamiliar way, or all at once stop, as Lilith repeated to herself: “‘Be happy among the others, my beloved, be happy Oh, how I would love to hear not a sad tune but your gladsome croon here in my forest dear!’ “All at once the runner stopped, and turned back toward the forest, as though pausing in reflection. He looked at the camp and again in the direction of the forest. Suddenly he threw away his spear and confidently took a step forward. He strode over to where Lilith was standing concealed. Lilith kept watching as he walked past her hiding-place, her eyes fixed on him. Perhaps it was her gaze of love that stopped him in his tracks. He turned and walked back in her direction. She did not flee at his approach. She placed her still timid hand onto his outstretched palm. And together they started walking hand in hand, though not a word had yet passed between

them. There they were, walking toward the glade where Lilith had grown up —my father the poet, and my foremother. “Years passed, and the line continued. And in each generation of my forebears, one person at least was inspired by the desire to go visit those other people, so similar in appearance but with quite a different destiny They would go under various guises. They might mix in with the warriors, or the priests, or pass themselves off as scholars. As poets, they shone with their poetry They tried to let people know that there was another path to Man’s happiness, that the One who created all was right with them, only they need not hide themselves from Him and pursue their vain mercenary interests, or cherish other entities in place of the Father. “They tried to tell others, and perished. But even when a man or a woman was left alone, through their love they would find a friend among those who lived a different lifestyle, and so our line continued, and with our thinking and our way of life true to our pristine origins, remained unchanged in the end.” CHAPTER THIRTEEN

To feel the deeds of all mankind “Wait, Anastasia,” I cried out, after a thought hit me like an electric shock, “you say they all perished. And that that’s the way it’s been for millennia. And that all the attempts were unsuccessful and all mankind is going its own way?” “Yes, all the attempts made by my foremothers and forefathers were unsuccessful.” “That means they all perished?” “All the ones perished that went out among the people and tried to talk to them.” “So that means just one thing—you will perish, too, just like all the rest. You too have started speaking out. And to hope for anything here is just silly. If nobody’s ever succeeded in changing the world, or society’s way of life, then what makes you think you—” “Why talk prematurely about death, Vladimir? See, I am still living. And you are here along with me, and our son is growing up.” “But what makes you so confident? What makes you believe that you’ll win out where all your forebears failed? All you do is talk, just like they did.”

“I just talk—is that what you think? At some point you should pay closer attention to the sentences I use. They are not for the intellect. They contain no information which has not been set forth before, but people read them and many experience an emotional stirring within. That is all on account of the way they are constructed so that people can grasp a great deal ‘between the lines’. The poetry of their own soul fills in the gaps—whatever is not explicit in the actual text. And now it is not me that is telling them about the Divine truth—the readers are discovering it for themselves. Their numbers are multiplying at an ever-increasing rate, and now there is no diverting them from the path of the dream which belongs only to God. My mission is not yet accomplished, but already the Creator’s desire has come true in many hearts. And that is the most important part. “When the heart aspires to something in a dream, invariably—invariably, believe me, it must all come true in life.” “Then tell me, why wasn’t everything set forth in such sentences before this?” “I do not know Perhaps the Creator has shone forth with some kind of new energy! An energy that tells us anew about something we see around us every day, something we see but do not pay sufficient heed to or reflect upon. And my feelings do not deceive me—I have the clear feeling that He is accelerating all His diverse energies once more. A new dawn is coming for all the Earth. His earthly daughters and sons will experience life as it was created by the energy of the Divine dream. And both you and I will play our part. “But most important! Most important are those who have become the first ones to feel those thoughts between the lines, the thoughts that the energy of the Creator has implanted in people, like the music of the soul. It has all happened! It has all come to pass! People are already aspiring to create a new world in their thoughts!” “You’re talking in very general terms, Anastasia. Tell me specifically, what should people do, what kind of world should they build and how, so that everyone in this world can live happily ever after?” “I cannot tell you more specifically at the moment, Vladimir. Treatises of all kinds are not hard to find in the life of mankind. Many of them have been such that people have fallen down and worshipped them. But none of them makes any sense. Treatises have no power to change the world, and just one point will serve as a confirmation of that.” “What point? I don’t understand.” “That point in the Universe designated as a universal limit. The point where

all mankind is standing at the moment. And everything depends on the direction in which it takes the next step. All this shows that there is absolutely no sense in tracts. Ever since the beginning of creation the whole of mankind is attracted by feelings alone.” “Hold on a moment, hold on. What about me? Do you mean to say that I have not done everything in my life by virtue of my mind?” “Vladimir, you, like everyone else, have changed with that mind of yours the interrelationship of material things around you. You have been trying through material means to experience sensations which every Man knows intuitively Sensations which everyone is seeking but cannot find.” “What kind of sensations? Sensations everyone is seeking? What are you getting at?” “At what people felt back then, in their pristine origins, when they were still living in Paradise.” “So, are you trying to say I’ve worked to achieve so many things through the power of my mind just so I could discern these feelings of Paradise?” “But think for yourself, Vladimir, why you did all the things you did.” “What d’you mean, why? Just like everybody else, I’ve been making a living for myself and my family In order to feel that I’m no worse than anyone else.” “‘In order to feet— you said.” “Yes, that’s what I said.” “Now try to get this through your mind: ‘In order to feel’ the deeds of all mankind.” “What d’you mean, all? Even the deeds of drug addicts—are they too part of a search for such sensations?” “Of course. Just like everyone else, they are aspiring to find these sensations, only they are going about it their own way—subjecting their bodies to torture, taking poison in the belief it can help them, just for a moment, experience even an approximation of a great sensation. “And the drunkard, oblivious to everything, winces and drinks his bitter poison only because the search for a beautiful sensation lives in him too. “And the scientist harnesses his mind and comes up with some fanciful invention, thinking that this will help him find satisfaction, along with everyone else. But to no avail. “Over the whole course of its history, Vladimir, human thought has gone

and invented a tremendous number of senseless things. Just think of the multitude of objects surrounding you right where you live. And each of those objects is considered to be the achievement of scientific thought. Think of the labours of the multitude of people behind its production. Only please tell me, Vladimir, which of these objects has made you happy and satisfied with life?” “Which? Which? Well, maybe, not a single one, if you look at them individually. But taken all together these objects do a lot toward making life easier. “Take the motor-car, for example. You get behind the wheel and you can go where you like. It can be cold and raining on the street, but in the car you can turn on the heat. It can be hot and sweaty outside, but inside all you have to do is turn on the air conditioner and you have a nice, cool ride. And in your home, in the kitchen, for example, there’s lots of appliances to help women. There are even dishwashing machines to spare the housewife that particular care. And vacuums to clean the rooms through and through and save a lot of time, too. Everyone knows that there’s a lot more objects out there like these that can make our lives a lot easier.” “Alas, Vladimir, ‘ease-makers’ such as these are quite illusory. Man is obliged to pay for them day after day through sufferings and a shortened lifespan. In order to afford these soulless objects, people are obliged to spend their whole life slaving over joyless tasks. The more these soulless objects appear all around us, the more clearly they show the degree of Man’s misunderstanding of what constitutes the universal essence of being. “You are a Man! Take a careful look around you. In order to produce yet another mechanical object, whole factories are built, spewing out deadly pollution, killing the water, and then, you You, a Man, are obliged to spend your whole life in joyless work for their sake. They do not serve you, but you them, inventing, repairing and bowing down to the things you make. In the meantime, Vladimir, tell me: who among your great scientific minds invented this particular mechanism for serving Man, and at what factory was it produced?” “Which one?” “The little squirrel with the nut, the one just below my hand.” I looked at Anastasia’s hand. She was holding it outstretched, palm face down, about a half metre above the ground. And on the grass, just below her hand, a little red squirrel was standing on its hind paws. In its front paws the squirrel was holding a cedar cone. Its head was first tilted down toward the cone, then perked up high, with its sparkling round eyes fixed on Anastasia’s face.

Anastasia smiled, looking down at the little creature. Without a stir she held her hand balanced in the same position as before. And all at once the squirrel put the cone down on the ground, started working on it in some way, using the claws on its front paws to take off the scales and pull a tiny nut out of it. And once more the little creature stood up on its hind paws, raised its head and seemed to be holding the nut out for Anastasia, as though asking her to receive it from its paws. But Anastasia continued to sit on the grass as before, without a stir. “Then the squirrel lowered its head and quickly bit into the nutshell and, after peeling off the shell, placed the kernel of the nut on a broad leaf. Then it began pulling more and more nuts out of the cedar cone, each time biting into the shell and laying the kernels on the leaf. Anastasia then put her hand down on the grass, palm upturned. Whereupon the squirrel hastily transferred all the shelled kernels from the leaf onto her hand. With her other hand Anastasia gently stroked the furry little creature, which had become stock still. Then it came even closer to Anastasia and stood, apparently trembling with joy before her, and looked her in the eye. “Thank you!” Anastasia said aloud to the squirrel. “Today, my beauty, you are better than ever before. Go on, go about your business, my busy little one. Find your chosen one, my beauty, one who is worthy” And she motioned with her hand toward a nearby cedar tree with huge, spreading boughs. Whereupon the squirrel began skipping about, twice executing a circle around Anastasia before bounding off in the direction indicated by her arm. With a flying leap onto the trunk, she finally disappeared into the cedar’s leafy branches. In the meantime, on Anastasia’s hand, now stretched out toward me, lay the neatly shelled cedar nut kernels. Well now, that’s quite a mechanism, I thought to myself. It collects the product, delivers it, even separates it from the shell. This little creature doesn’t require any maintenance or repair, and doesn’t consume any electrical energy. After trying the nuts, I asked: “What about the great military leaders—Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar, the ones who started wars, Hitler too—don’t tell me they were searching for a feeling of their pristine origins?” “Of course they were. They wanted to feel that they were rulers of the whole Earth. Subconsciously they felt that this kind of sensation was related to the one everybody is intuitively searching for. But they were mistaken.” “Mistaken, you say What makes you think that? After all, nobody has yet been able to take control of the world.”

“But they took control of cities and whole countries. They would fight and win battles over cities, but the satisfaction they derived from their victory was fleeting indeed. And they kept on warring, aspiring to even greater conquests. Their invasion of a country, almost inevitably more than one, would bring them no relief but only more grief. And the fear of losing everything. And once again they tried seeking satisfaction through military deeds. Their minds were so immersed in vanity that they could no longer count on them to bring them to the dream of the great Divine sensations. All the military leaders of the Earth met with a sad end. And the whole history of the world, insofar as we know it today, bears this out. Unfortunately, however, the vanity, the ramblings and the parade of mercenary dogmas do not allow people living today to discern where exactly the Divine sensation awaits them along the way” CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Dining in the taiga Each time I visited Anastasia in the taiga, I would invariably take along things to eat. I would take preserves, hermetically sealed biscuits in a plastic wrap and sliced fish fillet in a vacuum pack. And each time when I got ready for the trip back, I would find my reserve supplies unused. And each time she would slip some treats into my backpack. These generally consisted of nuts, fresh berries wrapped in leaves, and dried mushrooms. Russians are accustomed to eating mushrooms—well boiled, fried, marinated or salted. Anastasia eats them in their dried, natural state, without any processing. At first I was afraid to even try them—then I tried them, and they were okay Once a piece of mushroom is softened from the saliva in the mouth, you can suck on it like candy or swallow it. Later I even got so I liked it. One time I was travelling from Moscow to Gelendzhik by car for a readers’ conference. The whole trip I lived on mushrooms Anastasia had given me. Alexander Solntsev,1 the director of the Moscow Anastasia Centre, was at the wheel and he ate some of the mushrooms, too. And during my talk at the conference I invited the audience to try them, and people didn’t shy away. They kept taking one piece each until my supply ran out, and ate it on the spot, and nothing bad happened to any of them. In fact, I don’t remember any occasion during my visits with Anastasia where we actually sat down for the specific purpose of eating. Whatever Anastasia offered me, I would just try on the spot, and I never felt any real

sensation of hunger. But this once at the time I was probably too engrossed in pondering the meaning of Anastasia’s prayer to notice how she managed to spread such a huge table, if, indeed, one can call it that. There on the grass, on a variety of leaves both large and small, lay a host of delicacies. They filled an area larger than a square metre in size. And everything was beautifully laid out with tasteful decor—cranberries, huckleberries, cloudberries, raspberries, black and red currants, dried strawberries, dried mushrooms, some kind of yellowish paste, three small cucumbers and two medium-sized red tomatoes. These lay among a multitude of clumps of herbs, decorated with floral petals. Some sort of white liquid, looking not unlike milk, stood in a little hollowed-out wooden bowl. I couldn’t tell what the scones were made of. There was honey in the comb, too, strewn with multicoloured grains of pollen dust. “Seat yourself down, Vladimir, try this God-given daily bread,” Anastasia invited, with that sly smile of hers. “Wow!” I couldn’t restrain myself from exclaiming. “That’s really something! And you’ve laid it all out so beautifully! Just like a good mistress of a feast.” Anastasia bubbled with child-like joy at my praise. Then she burst out in laughter, her eyes still fixed on the ‘table’ she had laid out. All at once she threw up her hands in the air and exclaimed: “Oh-oh! You see, here I am supposed to be a good feast-mistress and yet I have gone and forgotten my spices. You like a lot of hot spices, do you not? You like them, yes?” “I do.” “And here this ‘good feast-mistress’ has gone and forgotten them. Give me just a moment. I shall correct my mistake.” She took a look around her, ran off a little ways and tore off part of a herb, then did the same in another place. Then she reached into the bushes and tore off something else, and presently laid her find down amongst the cucumbers and tomatoes—a little bouquet-like clump of various herbs. Then she explained: “These are spices. They are hot. Try them if you like. Now we have everything. Take a taste of everything, Vladimir.” I picked up a cucumber, surveyed the variety of taiga foods spread out before me and said: “Pity there’s no bread.” “Bread there is,” Anastasia responded. “Look here.” And she handed me some kind of tuber. “This is a burdock root. I prepared it specially so you

would find it a replacement for tasty bread and potatoes and carrots.” “I never heard of burdock being used for food.” “Try it. Not to worry—in times past people used it to make a great many tasty and healthful dishes. Try just a small bite first. I have been keeping it in milk, to soften it.” I was about to ask where she got the milk, but once I took a bite of the cucumber I couldn’t say another word until I had finished it off—and without bread yet. I took the bread-replacement tuber from Anastasia, but I could only hold it in my hand without trying it until I had finished eating the cucumber. You see, this ordinary-looking cucumber was utterly different in taste from any I had ever eaten before. This taiga cucumber had a pleasant unique fragrance. Tbu’re no doubt aware that cucumbers grown in hothouses taste quite different from those raised in garden beds in the open air. The ones growing in the open have a significantly superior taste and fragrance. But Anastasia’s cucumber surpassed all the open-air cucumbers I had tasted before, and possibly by an even greater margin of difference. I quickly picked up a tomato, tried it and polished it off on the spot. Its taste, too, was extraordinarily delicious. Like the cucumber, it was far tastier than any other tomato I had ever eaten. Neither of them required any salt, sour cream or salad oil. They were delicious in and of themselves. Just like a raspberry, or an apple or an orange. Nobody would ever think of either sweetening or salting an apple or a pear. “Where did you get these vegetables, Anastasia? Did you run down to the village? What kind are they?” “I grew them myself. You liked them, did you not?” she asked. “Like them?!! I’ve never had any like these before! That means you’ve got a garden plot, or a hothouse? What kind of tools do you use to dig your beds? Where do you get fertiliser—at the village?” “The only thing I got at the village was some seeds from a woman I know there. I prepared a spot to plant them among the herbs, and they grew. The tomatoes I planted in the autumn, then hid them under the snow, and come springtime they began growing. The cucumbers I planted in the spring, and they—those little ones—managed to ripen.” “But what makes them so delicious? Is it some new variety?” “Just an ordinary variety They are different from those grown in a typical garden plot only because they were provided with everything they needed during their growth period. In garden-plot conditions, when people try to isolate their

plants from contact with other species and accelerate their growth by using fertiliser, the plants are unable to take in everything they need to become self-sufficient and please Man.” ‘And where do you get your milk? How do you make your scones? I thought you didn’t use any kind of food from animals, and yet here you’ve got milk” “That milk is not from animals, Vladimir. The milk you see before you is from a cedar.” “How d’you mean, from a cedar? Can a tree actually give milk?” “It can. Only not all trees, by any means. But cedars, for example, can. Try it—there is so much included in this drink. The cedar milk before you can nourish more than just your body. Do not drink it all at once—try one or two sips, otherwise it will fill you up so much that you will not want anything else.” I took three sips. The milk was thick, with a pleasant, slightly sweet taste to it. I also felt a warmth from it, but not the same as from warmed cow’s milk. This tender, inexplicable warmth ran through my whole insides and, I think, changed my mood at the same time. “This cedar milk is delicious, Anastasia. Delicious indeed! But how does one ‘milk’ a cedar, to get this liquid?” “There is no ‘milking’ involved. You must keep grinding the milk kernels of the nut with a special stick in a wooden mortar—calmly, thoughtfully, with a good attitude. And you keep adding water—little by little—living spring water and you end up with the milk.” “Are you saying people have never known about this before?” “Many people knew about it in times past, though even today people in the little taiga villages sometimes drink cedar milk. People in cities prefer a different kind of diet altogether—one less healthful but more suitable for the purposes of conserving, transporting and cooking.” “What you say is quite correct. When you live in a city you have to do everything quicldy. But this milk Wow! What kind of tree is this cedar?! The cedar all by itself can give us nuts and oil, and flour for scones and milk!” “And there are lot of other unusual things that the cedar can supply” “What unusual things, for example?” “You can make superb perfume from its ether oil. Self-sufficient, healthful perfume. Nothing artificial can come even close to its fragrance. The ethers of the cedar represent the spirit of the Universe. They can cure the body— the ethers of the cedar can protect Man from harmful influences.”

“Can you tell me how to extract perfume like that from the cedar?” “I can, of course, but now you, Vladimir, should have a little more to eat.” I reached out my hand to take another tomato, but Anastasia stopped me. “Wait, Vladimir, not that.” “How d’you mean?” “I prepared a variety of things for you, so that you could first take a taste of everything, so that it might cure you.” “What might cure me?” “Your own body. Once you try a bit of everything, the body itself selects what it needs. You will feel like eating more of what you have chosen. Your body itself will determine what it needs.” Wow!—I thought—for the first time she’s gone against her own principles. What happened was that twice before Anastasia had cured me of some internal ailments. What kind of ailments, exactly, I don’t know, but I used to get bad pains in my stomach, or my liver, or my kidneys. Or maybe all of them at once. The pains were bad, and painkillers didn’t always help. But I knew that when I came to see Anastasia, she would cure me—something she does very quickly. But on the third occasion she refused to treat me. She didn’t even completely remove the pain with her gaze, saying that if I wasn’t going to change my lifestyle or eliminate what was causing me to be ill, there was no point in treating me, since in that case the treatment would only harm me. I got really angry at her and never asked her for treatment again. After returning home, I did find myself cutting back a little on the amount of smoking and drinking I indulged in. I even fasted for several days, and felt better. And then the thought came: we don’t have to go to a doctor or some other healer every time we feel ill—we can take hold of our own selves when we feel pain pressing down upon us. Of course it would be best for it to not press down at all. I wasn’t able to cure myself completely, but I decided not to ask Anastasia for help. However, she agreed to treat me, all on her own. “But you did say you wouldn’t give me any more treatment or even take away the pain.” “I shall not take away your pain any longer. Pain is a conversation between God and Man. But, I can now since I am just offering you food—that does not go against Nature, although it does go against them” “Who’s them}”

“The ones who thought up the regime that is so harmful to Man.” “What harmful regime? What are you getting at?” “At the fact that you, Vladimir, like the majority of people, feed yourself according to an established dietary regime. A very harmful regime.” “I guess some people follow a kind of regime. There are lots of diets out there—for losing weight, or for gaining weight. But I eat what I want. I never read up on any regime. I go into a store and I pick out what I like.” “That is right: you go into a store and choose, but your choice is restricted to what is offered by the store.” “Well, yes. In stores today everything’s neatly prepackaged. Because of the tremendous competition, all the producers nowadays try to please the consumer, and do everything for the consumer’s convenience.” “Do you think it is all done for the consumer’s conscience?” “Sure—for who else?” “All systems under a technocratic way of living invariably work only for themselves, Vladimir. Do you consider it ‘convenient’ to get those lifeless frozen or tinned foods, or water that is half-dead? Was it your body that determined the selection of foodstuffs available in grocery stores and supermarkets? “The technocratic world’s system has taken upon itself the role of supplying you with the necessities of life. You have agreed to this, you have complete faith in it, to the point that you have even ceased to wonder whether you have been supplied with all the necessities.” “But we’re still alive—we aren’t dying from using these stores!” “Of course you are still alive. But the pain! Where do you think your pain comes from? Think about where pain comes from with the majority of people. Disease and pain are not natural for Man, they are the effect of choosing the wrong path in life. Now you will be persuaded of that for yourself. Here before you lies just a small sampling of what the Divine Nature has created for Man. Just try a little bit of each thing, and then take what you like with you. Three days is sufficient for these little herbs—which you yourself will select—to overcome your pains.” I began trying a little of everything while Anastasia was still speaking. Some of the clumps of herbs were tasteless, while others I felt like eating more of. Before my departure Anastasia put the things I had taken a liking to into my backpack. I ate them over a three-day period. And the pain completely disappeared.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

They’re capable of changing the world? “Why is it, Anastasia, that every time you speak of your forebears, you always talk about mothers, about women? As for men, your forefathers, I hardly hear anything. It’s as though the fathers in your line were all insignificant. Or maybe your genetic code, or your Ray, doesn’t allow you to feel your male ancestors? Isn’t that a bit insulting toward your forefathers?” “I can feel and see the deeds of my forefathers, just as I can my foremothers, when I want to. But I am far from being able to understand all their deeds, or to determine their significance for the present day—for me and everyone else.” “Tell me at least about one of your forefathers whose deeds you don’t fully comprehend. As a woman, you find it harder to understand men. It’ll be easier for me, seeing I’m a man. If I understand, then I can help you understand, too.” “Yes, yes, of course, I shall tell you about my forefather who was able not only to discern but also to produce living substances of a power greater than all the weapons known, either today or in the future. Nothing manufactured could ever withstand them—they are capable of changing the earthly world, of destroying galaxies or even creating whole new worlds.” You must be joking! And where is this gadget today?” “Any Man living on the Earth today is capable of producing it provided he can understand, and can feel My forefather revealed part of the mystery to the Egyptian priests. Even today, earthly rulers in their political states govern according to the system and mechanism established by those priests. But now there is less and less understanding of the meaning and the mechanism of government. This mechanism was not perfected, and has become degraded over the centuries.” “Hold on, hold on a minute, there. You’re saying that today’s presidents rule their countries according to a system or directions worked out by the priests of ancient Egypt?” “Since that time, Vladimir, nobody has ever contributed anything significant of their own to the system of government. And today’s earthly states have no conscious awareness of how the government of human society works.” “Now that’s simply too hard to believe. Can you try taking me through the whole thing step by step?” “I shall try taking you through it all step by step, and you try to understand.

“Tens of thousands of years ago, before the world witnessed the grandeur of Egypt, when no state like that yet existed, human society was divided into a multitude of tribes. My forefather and foremother’s family lived apart from human society, they lived according to their own laws. They were surrounded in their glade by everything as it was back in their pristine origins, as in Paradise. My foremother, a beauty herself, had two Suns—one of them was the orb of day, which, as it rose into the sky, awakened everything to life. The other was her chosen one. “She was always up first. She bathed in the stream and warmed herself in the rising Sun. The light of joy was something she always shared with everything around, and she waited. She waited for him to awaken, her loved one. As he awoke, she caught his first glance. When their glances met, it was as though everything around them fell into a trance. Love and trembling, comfort and ecstasy were excitedly taken in by the Space around them. “The day passed by in joyful duties. And each time the Sun began sinking toward sunset, my forefather always watched thoughtfully, and then he sang. “My foremother listened to his singing with hidden ecstasy in her heart. Back then she did not yet understand how the words interwoven into the song were forming a new image, an extraordinary image. More and more often she felt like hearing about it, and as though feeling my foremother’s desire, my forefather sang about it again and again, and each time he sang he outlined the unusual features more and more distinctly. The invisible image came to dwell among them. “One morning upon awakening my forefather did not encounter the glance of love that he usually did. He was not surprised. He quietly rose and headed into the forest. In a secluded spot he caught sight of my foremother, enfolded in silence. “She was standing there all by herself, leaning against a cedar tree. Enfolded in silence, she felt my forefather put his hands on her shoulders. She kept her moist eyes lowered, instead of raising them to look at him. He lightly touched a tear running down her cheek, and said tenderly to her: “‘I know. You are thinking about it, my beloved. You are thinking about it, and you are not to blame for that. The image I created is invisible. It is invisible, but you love it more than you love me. You are not to blame for that, my beloved. I am going away I am going now, out among the people. I have been able to discern how splendid images are created. I shall tell the people about that. What I know, others can know, too. And the splendid images will lead people into the pristine garden. There is nothing more powerful in the Universe than the substance of living images. The image I

created has proved itself even stronger than your love for me. Now I shall be able to create grand images. And these images will serve people.’ “My foremother’s shoulders trembled, and a trembling voice whispered: “‘But why? You, my beloved, have created an image which I love. It is invisible. But you who are visible are going to be leaving me. Our child is already stirring within me. What shall I tell him about his father?’ “‘The splendid images will create a splendid world. Our son will picture to himself, as he grows, the image of his father. If I am able to become worthy of the image pictured by my son, then my son will recognise me. If I am not worthy of his conception, I shall stay on the sidelines, so as not to interfere with his aspiration to the dream, the splendid dream.’ “Incomprehensibly to my foremother, my forefather went away He came to the people. He came with a grand discovery enthralled. He came for the sake of his future sons and daughters, in an aspiration to create a splendid world for all.” CHAPTER SIXTEEN

An extraordinary power “It transpired in those days that the tribes of people living on the Earth engaged in frequent frays. And every tribe planned to raise as many warriors as it could. And among the warriors any that aspired to the culture of the land or the culture of poetry were looked down upon. And each tribe had its priests, who essayed to make the people afraid. But none of them had any clear goal; they simply found solace in others’ fear. And each one flattered his own pride by telling himself he was receiving from God more of something than his fellows. “My forefather managed to assemble a group of poets and priests from a number of different tribes. There were nineteen in all: eleven poet-singers, seven priests and my forefather. They got together in a deserted, isolated spot. “The singers sat with meek faces to one side, while the priests took their places with a show of pride. My forefather addressed them as follows: ““The tribes can be made to cease their enmity and war. And all the peoples will then come to live in a single state. They will have a single just ruler, and every family will be saved from the horrors of war. People will start to offer each other help. And the brotherhood of people will find their way to the garden of their pristine origins.’” “At first the priests simply laughed at my forefather, telling him he was daft:

“‘Who will voluntarily surrender his power and authority to another? If all tribes are to come together, one of them must become the strongest and overcome the others, and here you conceive of there being no more war. Your words are too naive to ponder. Why have you gathered us together, you slow-witted wanderer?!’ And the priests began to leave. But my forefather stopped them by saying: “‘You are wise men, and your wisdom is needed to make laws for human society I can give each one of you such power that no weapon made by human hand can withstand it. If you cherish it and use it for a good trust, it will help everyone reach their goal, come to the truth, to a bright sunrise that is blissful and grand. But if its possessor lusts in his soul to fight others with an evil intent, he himself will perish.’ “This reference to extraordinary power arrested those priests in their tracks. Whereupon the high priest proposed to my forefather: “‘If you know of such an extraordinary power, tell us about it. And if this power actually works, and is capable of creating whole states, you will stay and live with us in that state. Together we shall create laws for human society.’ “‘This was precisely why I came to see you: to tell you about this extraordinary power,’ my forefather replied to all. ‘But first I would ask you to nominate a ruler from among all those known to you. A ruler who is kind, whose mind is free from greed, who lives with his family in love and, as to war, has not a single thought thereof.’ “The high priest mentioned to my forefather in reply that there was indeed a ruler who studiously avoided all contentions. But his tribe was small in terms of numbers, and since there was no tendency to glorify its warriors, this was something few among them aspired to become. And so to avoid conflicts, they were often required to change their base and move on, abandon a place that was more suitable for living and settle in a less favourable space. This ruler’s name was Egypt. “‘Then Egypt shall this state be called!’ my forefather said. “I shall now sing you three songs. You, my dear poet-singers, shall sing these songs to people in all the different tribes. And you, my dear priests, shall settle yourselves among the people of Egypt. Families from all over will be drawn to you, and you shall greet them with good laws.’ “Whereupon my forefather sang three songs to those gathered. In the first song he formed the image of a just ruler, calling him Egypt. The second song conveyed the image of a happy people living together in harmony In the third song was the image of a loving family with happy children, fathers and mothers, residing in this extraordinary state.

“The songs were made up of ordinary words already familiar to everyone. But the words were combined in such a way as to cause their listeners to hang on each new combination with bated breath. And then there was the captivating melody in the resonant voice of my forefather. It beckoned and called, fascinated and created living images. “At that time there was still no outward Egyptian state, its temples had not yet been built, but my forefather could tell that it would all come about as a result of the calling of Man’s thought and dream, melding into one. And my forefather was enthralling in his song, inspired by the extraordinary power with which our grand Creator has endued us all. He sang as one who possessed this power—a power that distinguishes Man from everything else, that gives Man dominion over all, that allows Man to be recognised not only as the son of God but as a creator too. “Now fervent with inspiration of their own, the poet-singers sang these three songs amongst the various tribes. The people were fascinated by the splendid images created, and came from all over to dwell with the tribe of Egypt. “Just five years later, out of this very small tribe, the state of Egypt was born. All the other tribes which had earlier vaunted themselves above their neighbours simply fell apart. And there was nothing the war-inclined rulers could do to stop it. Their authority weakened, and disappeared completely They were defeated by something, but there was no war. “Accustomed to material conflicts, they had no idea of the power the images held over all—images that delighted people’s souls and fascinated their hearts. “In the face of but a single image, provided it is genuine and untainted by mercenary interests, all the armed troops of the Earth are useless, whether they carry spears or any other deadly weapons. Before this image all warriors fall to the ground, powerless. “The Egyptian state grew and increased in strength. Its ruler was dubbed pharaoh by the priests. Ensconced in their temples away from the everyday bustle of mankind, they made laws, which even the ruling pharaoh was obliged to follow And every ordinary citizen was only too glad to carry them out. And each one aspired to live his life in conformity with the image. “My forefather lived among the high priests in the main temple. And for nineteen years the priests paid heed to him. They aspired to study the supreme science of all sciences, to learn how to create grand images. My forefather was inspired with the best of intentions and sincerely endeavoured

to explain everything to them. Whether they understood it fully or only in part is no longer clear, and it does not really matter all that much. “Then one day after nineteen years, the high priest called a meeting of his inner circle of priests. They filed into the main temple with solemn dignity —a temple which even the pharaoh was not allowed to enter. “The high priest took his place on the throne, while all the rest sat at his feet. My father smiled as he sat there among those priests. He was immersed deeply in thought, composing yet another song, either creating a new image, or perhaps rejuvenating an old one. “The high priest addressed the gathering as follows: “‘We have learnt a grand science indeed—one that allows us to rule all the world, but in order to perpetuate our reign, we must ensure that not one grain of it goes beyond these walls. Now we must create our own tongue and communicate exclusively in it amongst ourselves, lest any of us let something slip, even by chance. “‘Over the ages we shall circulate among the people a multitude of treatises, at which everyone may marvel, and think that it has all been set forth. And we shall set forth a multitude of marvelous sciences and various discoveries in such a way that both the rulers and the common people will move further and further away from what is important. And so that wise men in the centuries to come may amaze others with their sagacious treatises and sciences. Moving further and further away from what is important themselves, they will lead others in the same direction.’ “‘So be it!’ they all agreed with the high priest. With the exception of my forefather, who alone remained silent. “And the high priest continued: “‘There is one question requiring our urgent attention. Over the past nineteen years we have learnt how images are created. Any one of us is now capable of creating an image that can change the world, destroy or strengthen a state—and yet the secret of the power itself has never been revealed. Can any of you tell me why the images each of us creates vary in power? And, in terms of time, why does it take us so long?’ “The priests were silent. None of them knew the answer. The high priest went on, ever so slightly raising his voice, and his sceptre trembled ever so slightly in his hand as he told those assembled: “‘In the meantime there is in our midst one who is capable of creating images very rapidly, and the power of these images remains unsurpassed. For nineteen years now he has been teaching us, but there remains much that

he has yet to tell. Now we must realize that we are not all equal among ourselves. It matters not who holds what rank among us. But everyone should know that there is one among us who holds the power to control in concealment, unseen, in his sway. With power of the images he is capable of creating, he can elevate or slay One among us is capable of deciding the fate of nation-states. I as high priest am empowered to alter the balance of power. The doors of the temple wherein we sit are closed. A loyal guard stands outside the door and will open it to no one except on my command.’ “The high priest rose from his throne and with heavy steps, striking his sceptre against the stone slabs of the floor, headed toward my forefather. In the middle of the hall he suddenly halted and addressed my forefather: ““Now you shall choose one of two paths. Here is the first. You shall now reveal before us all what you have concealed: the secret behind the power of your images. You shall tell us how and by what means they are created, and then you shall be proclaimed a priest second only to me, and upon my departure you shall become first. All living people will bow before you. “‘But if you do not reveal your secret to us, a second path will be yours. It leads only to that door.’ “Whereupon the high priest pointed to the door leading out of the temple hall into the tower, in which there were no windows nor supplementary exterior doors. This high tower with smooth walls did have an exterior platform up above, from where on an appointed day once a year my forefather or some other priest would sing to an assembled crowd. “Still pointing to the tower door, the high priest added: “‘You shall go in through that door and never come out of it. I shall command the door to be walled up, leaving only a small opening through which you will receive a daily minimum of food. When the time comes for people to gather by the tower, you shall go out to greet them from the platform up above. You shall go out, only you shall not sing nor create any images. YOU shall go out so that the crowd will see you and not become concerned or spread rumours surrounding your disappearance. You shall be allowed to greet the people with words only If you should dare sing a song to create images, even a single song, you shall be deprived of food and water three days long. For two songs you shall not receive food or water six days long, which means you will be decreeing your own death. Now decide and tell us clearly which of these two paths you have chosen.’ “My forefather now calmly rose from his place. His face betrayed neither fear nor rebuke, only a sense of sorrow lay gently on his furrowed brow. As he made his way past the priests sitting in his row, he looked each one of them in the eye. And in each pair of eyes he beheld the thirst for knowledge.

But not only the thirst for knowledge: greed itself glared at him from each pair of eyes. Then my forefather went up close to the high priest and stared him in the eye. The grey-haired high priest in turn did not take his eyes off my forefather—eyes which likewise burned with greed. Striking his sceptre against the stone floor, he sternly repeated to my forefather’s face, saliva foaming in his mouth: ““Hurry up and decide, which of the two paths is your choice.’ “My forefather’s voice betrayed no fear as he calmly replied: “‘Perhaps it is the will of fate, but I choose a path and a half.’ “‘How can you choose a path and a half?’ exclaimed the high priest. ‘Do you aim to make fun of me, and of all those who are currently in the Great Temple?!’ “My forefather went over to the tower door, then turned and replied to all: “‘Believe me, I would not even think of making fun of you or offending you. At your will I shall enter into the tower for good. But before I go I shall reveal to you the secret as best I can, and I know that it is not my reply that will bring me the second path. That is how it turns out that my choice is a path and a half.’ “‘So tell us! Do not halt or waste time!’ The voices of the priests leaping up from their seats rang even stronger through the vaulted arches of the Great Hall. ‘Where is the answer to the secret? Keep it from us no longer!’ they begged. ““It is in an egg,” my father calmly replied. ““In an egg?!! What egg? What are you talking about? Out with it!’ The assembled priests kept plying my forefather with questions, and he responded: “A hen’s egg will bring forth a hen’s chicken. A duck’s egg will give birth to a duckling. An eagle’s egg will bring an eagle into the world. Whatever you feel yourselves to be, that is what you will bring forth.’ “‘I feel! I am a creator!’ the high priest all at once professed. ‘Tell us how to create the image that is stronger than all the rest.’ “‘That is not the truth,’ my forefather replied. ‘You yourself do not believe what you are saying.’ “‘How can you know what power of faith I have?’ “‘One who creates will never bring himself to entreat. One who creates is capable of giving of himself. You, on the other hand, are one who entreats, which means you are already well within the shell of unbelief.’

“My forefather went through the door, which at once shut behind him. Later, following the high priest’s order, the entrance was walled up. Once a day my forefather was handed food through a small opening. The rations were meagre, and he was not always given enough water. “As the day approached when the throngs of people were to gather before the tower to hear new tales and songs, for three days my forefather was allowed no food, only water. That was on the order of the high priest—a change from his original decree. He gave this new order so that my forefather would become weak and not be able to sing any new creative songs to the crowd. “When the multitude of people gathered in front of the tower, my forefather went out to greet them from the platform up above. He gave the waiting throng a cheerful look. As to what had happened to him he breathed not a word. He simply sang. His voice rang forth in a song of rejoicing, and an extraordinary image was born. The people who had gathered to hear him paid close attention. Directly he finished his song he began a new one. “The singer stood and sang from his high platform the whole day long. As the day drew to a close, he announced to the whole throng: With the new dawn you will hear new songs.’ And on the following day he sang again. The people were unaware that the singer, imprisoned as he was in the tower, was no longer being given even water by the priests.” Listening to Anastasia’s account of her distant forefather, I wanted to hear at least one of the songs he sang, and I asked: “Anastasia, if you can reproduce in such detail like that all the scenes from the life of your forebears, couldn’t you sing a song too? The song your forefather sang to the people from the tower.” “I can hear all these songs myself, but a full and accurate translation of them is impossible. Many of the words simply do not exist in today’s language. And many of the words used back then have a different meaning now Not only that, but it is difficult to reproduce the poetic rhythms of that time in the word-combinations we have today” “Pity. I very much wanted to hear those songs.” “You shall hear them, Vladimir. They will rise again.” “What d’you mean, they’ll rise again? W>u just said a translation is impossible.” “A full and accurate translation, yes, is impossible. But it is possible to create new songs in the same spirit and with the same meaning. Bards are creating them right now, using words familiar to everyone today The final song my forefather sang back then you have already heard.”

“Heard? Where did I hear it? When?” “Ybard from Yegorevsk3 sent it to you.” “He sent me a lot of songs.” “Yes, he did, but one of them is very similar to my forefather’s final song.” “But how could that have happened?” “Times have their own continuity, Vladimir.” “So what kind of a song is it, what words does it contain?” “You will understand in just a moment. I shall explain everything in order.” 1 Matth. 6: 9-13 (Authorised King James Version), plus two lines translated from an old Russian version of the Lord’s Prayer. It should be noted that the Russian text of the prayer includes many obsolete Old Church Slavonic words and expressions that are barely understandable to modern-day Russians (see footnote 2 in Chapter 1 of the present volume: “All this exists right now”). Overall, the frequent use of Old Church Slavonic in the Orthodox Church means that many Russians today associate it with an ‘unknown language’ (a situation similar to the former predominance of Latin in the Catholic Church). 2 Lilith—in Jewish folklore, a female demon of the night associated with owls; in a more recent Hebrew legend, the first wife of Adam in the Genesis story, who refused to subordinate to him and was expelled from Eden to become a malevolent wanderer. However, both the name Lilith and her image can be traced back to pre-Jewish traditions. In Sumerian culture the goddess or demoness Lila was depicted as a winged woman surrounded by owls. In Sanskrit the term lila signifies ‘Divine play’ and conveys the idea of Creator’s enjoyment at the sight of His unfolding creation. In Ancient Gaelic lili is a snow-white lily, and the Gaelic feminine name Lili to the present day is associated with purity, chastity and innocence. The name of the ancient Slavic goddess of Love—the female aspect of God the Creator— is Leila or Lilia, and in ancient Slavic myths a winged goddess in the form of an owl (Mater’ Sva) is mother of god Svarog, Creator of the Universe. The old Russian verb lilit’(in modern form: leleiat') means ‘cherish’ or ‘love’. 3 Yegorevsk (pron. yi-GOR-yivsk)—an industrial town about 100 kilometres south-east of Moscow, founded by decree of Empress Catherine the Great in

1778. The site of the new city had previously been known as Vysokoe (lit. ‘High’), dating back to 1328; on a number of occasions through the centuries Vysokoe had won special favour from the reigning Tsar and his family

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

When fathers will understand “On the third day my forefather once more climbed up to the platform with the dawn. He stood there smiling, looking at the throng of people. He was looking for someone specific in the crowd. Itinerant singers waved at him in greeting and raised their instruments, and their strings vibrated under the singers’ inspired hands. My forefather kept smiling at them while at the same time he scanned the crowd even more carefully My forefather wanted to see his son. To see the son born to his loved one nineteen years earlier in the forest. Suddenly out of the crowd he heard a resounding young voice: “‘Tell me, O great poet and master of the song. You are standing up there, high above everyone. I am down here, but why do you seem so close to me, as though you were my father?’ “And their dialogue was heard by all around. “‘Why young man, do you not know your own father?’ enquired the singer from the platform up above. “‘I am nineteen years old, and I have not seen my father even once. I live with my mother alone in the forest. My father left us before I was born.’ “‘First tell me, young man, how do you see the world around you?’ “‘The world is splendid with its rosy dawn and the setting Sun drawing the day to a close. Marvelous and multifaceted it is. But people are crassly perverting the beauty of the Earth, and causing each other to suffer.’ “From the high tower came the voice in reply: “‘Perhaps your father left you because he was ashamed before you, ashamed of the world into which he brought you. Your father left, aiming to make the world a more splendid place for you.’ “And so, did my father believe that he would be able to make over the world all by himself?’ “‘The day will come when all fathers will understand that they are the ones given the responsibility for the world in which their children live. The day will come when every father will face the fact that before bringing his beloved child into the world, he must act to make the world a happier place. And you as well must give thought to the world in which your own offspring will live. Tell me, young man, how soon is your chosen girl to give birth to the one which she has conceived?’

“‘In the forest where I live I have no chosen girl. The world there is splendid, I have a host of friends. But I still have not yet met a girl who is willing to go with me into my world—a world I cannot leave.’ “‘Well, then, even if you have not yet seen your chosen girl so fine, you still have a space of time to make the world into at least a little more joyful place for your future girl or boy’ “‘I shall devote myself to that, just like my father.’ “‘You are no longer a growing lad. You have flowing within you the blood of a fine young man, a future poet and master of the song. Sing to the throng about your splendid world. Come, you and I together shall join in song. We shall sing along together of the splendid world of the future.’ “‘Who can sing when your own voice is so resounding, O poet and master of the song?’ “‘I tell you, young man, you shall be able to sing that way as well. I shall sing the first line, the second is your verse. Only sing out boldly, as I have told you, my poet.’ “My forefather sang from the high tower. Over the heads of the assembled throng the voice soared forthwith rejoicing, and out came the line: I arise, and the dawn smiles, befriending “And from the throng standing below, all at once a pure and resonant voice, not yet self-confident, carried on: I walk miles, and the birds sing above “And after each line of the father’s came that of the son, and sometimes their voices blended as one, and a resonant song of joy resounded all around: And this day will have never an ending Because ever more deeply I love. “At that point the young man found his confidence and with rank ecstasy sang on: Along the Suns road with light footsteps a-stealing I enter my Father’s own ground, My eyes see the path, but my feet have no feeling My happiness now knows no bounds. I remember my seeing this all once before time: The flowers, the trees and the sky. Back then I could see only pain and misfortune, But now, You are everywhere nigh. It’s all still the same—the bright stars and the birdies, But I look at them differently now.

I have no more sorrow, I feel no more hurtings, I love all you people—oh, wow! “The voice from the tower grew fainter and fainter, and before long it could not be heard at all. The singer in the tower momentarily lost his balance, but quickly regained it, and smiled at the people once more. And right up to the end he noticed how his son’s voice was ever stronger than before. The voice of his son, now master of the song, standing below in the throng. “When the song was ended, my forefather, from his position on the tower platform, waved farewell to the throng. To conceal himself from human eyes, he descended five steps on the staircase inside the tower from the platform doorway He was becoming weaker and losing consciousness, but he perked up his hearing to the limit. From the wind he could just catch the words fervently whispered to the young singer by a young and beautiful girl: “Allow me, young man, allow me I shall follow you, I shall go with you into your splendid world’ “There on the stone steps of the walled-up tower my forefather was fast losing consciousness. He had a smile on his face as he awaited death. With his last breath his lips whispered: “‘The line will continue. You will find bliss in a circle of happy children, my beloved.’ “My foremother heard him in her heart. Over the thousands of years to come poet after poet would repeat the words of the song of my two forefathers. And the words and phrases of that song were reborn all by themselves among poets of various times and lands. They have sounded forth in many tongues. These simple words conveyed truth, and they broke through artifice and dogma. And now once again they are heard today. Whoever deciphers their lines—not with the mind but with the heart—will learn great wisdom.” “And was there some sort of special meaning in the other songs your forefather sang from the tower?” I asked. “Why would he give his life just for some songs?” “My forefather, Vladimir, created many images in his songs. They later built a state and maintained it for a long time. It was these songs that helped the priests—the descendants of those first priests—to create a multitude of religions, and take power in different lands. But there was just one thing the priests did not know, when they decided to use their power for selfish ends. The priests did not know how to make the images work for them in perpetuity The images lost their power when the priests tried to subject them to their own selfish pride. The ones—” “Hold on, hold on there, Anastasia. There’s something I fail to understand about the images.”

“Forgive me, Vladimir, for my lack of clarity Now I shall try to let go, pull myself together, and tell you, all in its proper order, about the most important of all sciences. The science of imagery, it is called. All our ancient and modern sciences are derived from it. The priests split it up into parts so as to conceal the most important thing, in an effort to maintain their power over everything on the Earth in perpetuity, passing on their knowledge of it to their descendants in underground temples byword of mouth. And they tried to preserve the secret with such zeal that their modern-day priest descendants have been afforded only a tiny fraction of that science. But back then, when it all began, things were going considerably better for the priesthood.” “And just how did it all begin? Tell me everything right from the start.” “Yes! Yes, of course. I somehow got excited once more. I must tell you everything in order. The conscious awareness of this powerful science began with the songs resounding forth from the tower.” CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

He celebrated the joy of life “When my forefather sang from the high tower, images were born from his songs. The throng standing below included singers and musicians. And all the priests of the time took their places with solemn dignity amidst the multitude. The priests feared most of all that some image exposing and incriminating them might be born in those songs, that my forefather might recall how the priests imprisoned him in the tower. But from his position on the platform high on the walled-up tower the singer sang only songs of joy He painted a picture of a righteous ruler, with whom the people could live happily ever after. And he offered an image of wise priests. And he depicted the country and the people living in it as fruitful and prosperous. No one was exposed or incriminated, but in his songs the joy of life was celebrated. “The priests, who for the past nineteen years had been studying the science of imagery, probably realized more than the rest what the singer was doing. They kept watching people’s faces and saw how their eyes lit up with inspiration. They watched how the poets’ lips moved and the musicians quietly fingered the strings of their instruments in time with the singer. “My forefather had been singing from the high tower for two whole days. The priests calculated in their minds for how many thousand years this one person, standing there in front of everyone, was creating the future. At dawn on the third day the words of the final song rang out, which my forefather

sang with his son, and when he made his final exit, the throng of people listening to them broke up and began heading for their homes. “The high priest remained at his place for a long time. As he thoughtfully sat there, the priests standing silently about him noticed how his hair and even his eyebrows were turning white right before their very eyes. Then he arose and ordered the entrance to the tower to be re-opened. And the entrance to the tower was opened once more. “There on the stone floor was the poet’s body lying lifeless. Only two metres or so separated his weakened hand from a piece of bread. Between his hand and that piece of bread a wee little mouse ran back and forth, squeaking. The wee little mouse kept begging and waiting for the poet to take his bread and share it with the creature, but the mouse itself would not touch the bread. It was waiting and hoping for the singer to revive. Upon catching sight of the people coming in, the wee little mouse jumped back toward the wall, but then ran over to the feet of the people silently standing around. The wee little mouse’s two little beady eyes tried to look these people in the eye. The priests standing on the grey stone slabs of the floor took no notice of it. Then it hastily ran over to the piece of bread once more. The wee little grey mouse squeaked desperately, and even dragged the piece of bread over to the lifeless body of the singer, poet and philosopher, trying to push it into his hand. “The priests buried my forefather’s body with high honours in an underground temple. But they made it so nobody would take notice of his grave under the stone slab floor. And bending his grey head over my forefather’s grave, the high priest said: ““None of us will ever say of himself that he understood how he could create great images as you did. But you are not dead. We have but buried your body The images you created will live on for thousands of years around and above the Earth, and you are in them. Our descendants will make contact with them in their souls. Perhaps someone in some future age will be capable of learning the essence of creation, of learning what people need to become. And we must create a great and splendid doctrine, and keep it for thousands of years out of sight, until one or the other of us or our descendants discovers to what Man should consecrate his great and splendid might.” CHAPTER NINETEEN

A secret science

“The priests created a secret science. Their doctrine was known as the science of imagery, and from it all other sciences have been derived. To keep the secret, the high priests divided up the whole science of imagery and caused the other priests to think in differing directions. Hence astronomy, and mathematics, and physics came along quite a bit later, as well as a multitude of other sciences, including the occult sciences. They were all developed for the simple purpose of drawing people’s attention to individual sectors, thereby ensuring that nobody would ever be able to break through to the core of the teaching.” “But what kind of core are you talking about? What kind of science is it, and what does it consist of—this ‘science of imagery’ that you speak of?” “It is a science that allows Man to accelerate his thought and think in terms of images, to grasp the whole of the Universe at once and penetrate a microcosm, to create invisible yet still living substance-images and use them to control a large community of people. Through the help of this science a multitude of religions came about. One who had even the slightest knowledge of it possessed incredible power, and was able to conquer countries, and topple kings from their thrones.” “And does that mean that a single individual could take over a country?” “Yes, that is right. And the procedure involved is very simple.” “Is even one fact like this known to today’s historians?” “It is.” “Tell me about it. I don’t remember anything like that myself.” “Why waste time in telling about it? If you go back and read about Rama, or Krishna, or Moses, you will see their creations—the creations of priests who had learnt a part of the secret science of imagery” “Well all right then, I shall read about their deeds, but how shall I arrive at the essence of this science? Try telling me yourself about its essence—what did they learn about it and how?” “They learnt to think in terms of images, as I told you.” “Yes, you told me, only it’s still not clear to me what connection mathematics, say, or physics, has with this science.” “One who masters this science does not need to write out formulas, or outline or create a variety of models. He is able to penetrate matter mentally, right down to the nucleus, and split an atom. But this is just a simple exercise to learn how to control people’s destinies and those of the populations of various countries.”

“Wow! I’ve never read anything like that.” “But what about the Bible? There is an example in the Old Testament when the priests were competing amongst themselves to see who could create the strongest images. Moses the priest against the pharaoh’s high priests. Moses cast his rod down in the sight of everyone and turned it into a serpent. And the priests of the pharaoh’s court did the same thing. Then the serpent created by Moses swallowed up the other serpents.”1 “You mean to say all that actually happened?!” “Yes.” See Exodus 7: 8-12. “I thought somebody just made it up, or it was a kind of metaphor” “Nothing made up, Vladimir. It all happened just the way the competition is described in the Old Testament.” “But what made them compete in front of each other that way?” “It was to show who could create the strongest images, capable of conquering other images. And Moses proved to everyone that he was the strongest. After that it was senseless to fight against him. Instead of fighting they were obliged to carry out his requests. But the pharaoh did not listen, he tried to stop the Israelites from following Moses’ leadership and the image he created. But the warriors were not strong enough to stop the people of Israel—a people in which a more powerful image resided. “Then you can read about how the people of Israel many times conquered other tribes, and took their cities. About how the people created their own religion and nation-state. The glory of the pharaohs lost its shine. But at the time when the priests of Egypt still excelled in their creation of grand images, when they were able to determine what consequences an image they created would provoke among the people, Egypt flourished under the control of the priests. Of all the known states formed after the last global disaster, Egypt flourished the longest.” “No, wait a moment, Anastasia. Everybody knows that Egypt was ruled by the pharaohs. Their pyramid tombs have lasted right to the present day” “Outwardly, the executive power in the country did rest with the pharaohs. But their chief task was to exemplify the image of a wise ruler. The important decisions were not taken by the pharaoh. Whenever the pharaohs tried to seize full power for themselves, the state would start deteriorating at once. Each pharaoh was, first and foremost, appointed to the throne by the priests. The pharaoh himself studied with the priests from very early childhood, and endeavoured to master the science of images. Only by

learning its fundamentals could he hope to be appointed a pharaoh. “The power structure prevalent at that time in Egypt can today be described as follows. At the very top were the secret priests, then the priests who looked after educational and judicial matters. Control of the state formally rested in the hands of a council of representatives of all the priestly ranks, while the pharaoh ruled according to their laws and did as he was told by them. The community leaders had a good deal of executive power—they were considered more or less independent. “In fact, things were pretty much the same as they are today Many nationstates have a president and government as their executive authority Parliament, like the priests of old, makes the laws. The only difference is that today there is no provision in any country for the president to be instructed as the pharaoh was instructed by the priests. The same applies to those who hold public office today on councils, Dumas1 or congresses. It does not really matter by what term today’s legislator-priests are called; what matters is that they too have nowhere to turn to learn how to become lawmakers before they actually take on the job. How can our lawmakers learn wisdom when the science of imagery is kept secret? That is why we have chaos in many nation-states.” “What are you trying to say, Anastasia? If we modelled our governments on the power structure that was in place in ancient Egypt, everything would have turned out for the better?” “The actual power structure can bring about very little in the way of change. It is much more important what stands behind it. And when it comes to the Egyptian power structure, Egypt was not ruled by it, nor by the pharaohs, nor even by the priests.” “Then by whom?” “In ancient Egypt everything was ruled by images. Both the priests and the pharaoh subjected themselves to them. From the ancient science of imagery a secret council composed of just a few priests took the image of the pharaoh as a just ruler. They took the image just as it appeared at that time. This secret council spent a good deal of time discussing the proper conduct for a pharaoh, his outward trappings and lifestyle. Then they taught one of the selected priests how to exemplify this image. “They tried first to select a candidate from the ranks of royalty. But if no one of royal blood was found suitable in appearance or character, they could choose any priest and pass him off as pharaoh. The priest selected as pharaoh was always obliged to conform to the conceived image, especially during public appearances. And then each member of the public felt the

invisible image hanging over him and acted according to his understanding of it. When people believe in an image and the majority find it to their liking, each one is only too happy to follow it, and the state has no need to set up a huge official surveillance apparatus. Such a state can only grow stronger and flourish.” “But if that were so, then no state today could get by without images. And yet they do get by, they are alive and flourishing. Just look at America, or Germany. And our own Soviet Union, before perestroika,3 was a tremendous state.” “Without an image, Vladimir, no state can get by even today Today it is only the state in which the governing image is ''perestroika— the policy of restructuring the economic and political system of the Soviet Union, which led to the collapse of the Communist Party’s hold on power and to the break-up of the USSR. the most acceptable to the majority of people that flourishes, compared to other states.” “Then who is creating this image today? After all, there are no priests around any more—at least not the kind ancient Egypt had.” “There are still such priests today, only they are called by another name, and have within them less and less of the science of imagery. Today’s priests are not able to make impartial and long-term calculations. Not able to set a goal and create a worthy image capable of drawing the whole country to that goal.” “What are you talking about, Anastasia—what kind of priests, or images, were there in our Soviet Union? Everything back then was controlled by the Bolsheviks.2 First Lenin, then Stalin was in charge. Then came other First Secretaries.3 They had the Politburo.4 Religion was pretty much eliminated back then, they even destroyed the temples—and here you go carrying on about priests!” “Vladimir, take a closer look. What was there before the state which came to be known as the Soviet Union emerged?” “What d’you mean, what was there? Everybody knows. It was the tsarist regime. Then along came the revolution, and we went down the path of socialism, at the same time trying to build communism.”5 “But before the revolution actually took place, the image of a new and just system of governance with a bright outlook was already circulating among the people, and the old system was being exposed. After all, initially it was the image of a new state that was being formed, along with the image of a

new ruler who would be most benevolent to everyone. And the image of everyone leading a happy life. It was images such as these that led people on and motivated them to fight against those who were still loyal to the old images. And both the revolution and the civil war6 7 which followed it—a war which involved multitudes of people—were in fact a conflict between two competing images.” “Of course there might well be something in what you say,” I admitted. “Only Lenin and Stalin weren’t images. Everybody knows they were merely human beings who happened to be leaders of their country” “You bring up these names, thinking that behind them stood simply people in the flesh. In fact Perhaps if you think about it, you will see that it was very far from being that way, Vladimir.” “How could it not be that way? I’m telling you: everybody knows that Stalin was a Man.” “Then tell me, Vladimir, what sort of Man was Stalin?” “What sort? The sort Well, in the beginning, everybody thought him to be kind and just. Someone who loved children. There were photos and portraits of him holding a little girl in his arms. Thousands of soldiers went into battle crying ‘For the Motherland! For Stalin!’ Everyone wept when he died. My mother used to tell me that when he died practically the whole country wept. And they placed him in the Mausoleum8 next to Lenin.” “So, that means that a great many people loved him and triumphed in deadly conflicts with their enemies in his name? They dedicated poems to him, but what do they say about him today?” “Today they say he was a bloodthirsty tyrant and a murderer. He let multitudes of people rot in prisons. They unceremoniously removed his body from the Mausoleum and buried it in the ground, and destroyed all the monuments to him, along with the books he once wrote” “Now do you understand? You see before you two different images. Two images, but the same Man.” “The same.” “So what kind of Man was he—can you tell me now?” “I guess I can’t Can you tell me anything yourself?” “Stalin as a Man corresponded to neither of these two images—before or after—and therein lay the tragedy for the nation. There has always been tragedy in states where a significant discrepancy has come up between the ruler and his image. That is where all national troubles have begun. And in these times of trouble people have fought for the images with the gun. It is only recently that

people were still attracted to the image of communism, but the image of communism has deteriorated, and now what are you and everybody else in the nation attracted to?” “Now we are building well, capitalism, maybe, or maybe something else, but just so that we can live the way they do in the developed countries—like America, or Germany, for instance. Anyway, so that we can have democracy like they have over there, and an abundance of everything.” “Now you are identifying the image of your country and a just ruler with the image of those other countries you name.” “Okay, let’s say it’s the image of those countries.” “But is that not admitting that the knowledge of the priests in your own country has completely diminished? There is no knowledge left? They have no more power to create a worthy image capable of leading people in its path? As a rule, any state in such a situation has been a dying state, as thousands of years of history attest.” “But what’s wrong with our starting to live the way they do, say, in America, or Germany?” “Take a closer look at how many problems there are in the countries you name. Ask yourself why they need such huge police forces and great numbers of hospitals. And why are there more and more suicides there? And where do people from the rich big cities go for their holidays? And they constantly require increasingly greater numbers of officials to watch over the public. All this means that their images are deteriorating, too.” “ And what is the result—that we are attracted to their deteriorating images?” “Yes, the result is that we are thereby prolonging their life, but not by much. When they destroyed the leading images in your country, they did not create any new image in its place. And everyone was allured by an image that was prevalent in a foreign country If they all keep bowing down to it, then your country will cease to exist—it is a country which is losing its own image.” “But who is able to create such an image today? We don’t have any Egyptian-style priests.” “There are people even today who are wholly involved in creating images and determining the ability of images to attract a nation’s people, and their calculations are frequently quite accurate.” “For some reason I’ve never heard of such people. Or is it all top secret?” “You, like a great many people, come into contact with what they do on a daily basis.”

“Oh, where? When?” “Vladimir, remember, when the time comes to elect new deputies to the Duma,9 or to select a single ruler out of several candidates—he’s called a president today—how their image is presented to the people. And those images are put together by people who have chosen image-making as their profession. Each candidate has several such people working for him. And the winner is the one whose image is the most favourable to the majority of voters.” “What d’you mean, ‘image’? These are all real live people. They get up on the hustings in front of voters and even go on TV themselves.” “Of course, they appear themselves, only they always get advised as to where they should go, how they should behave, what they should say, so as to fit the image most favourable to the people. And, more often than not, the candidates heed this advice. In addition, a variety of advertisements are made up for them, attempting to associate their image with a better life for all.” “Yes, they do advertise. All the same, I don’t really know what’s more important—the Man himself who wants to become a deputy or president, or the image you keep talking about.” “Of course the Man is always more important, but when you vote for him, after all, you probably have not had the opportunity to meet with him, you do not know in detail what he is actually like—you are voting for the image which has been served up to you.” “But each candidate still has a platform, and people vote for the platform.” “How often are those platforms carried out once the candidate is elected?” “Well, not all pre-election platforms are carried out by any means, and maybe none of them ever gets fully carried out, because other people with their platforms of their own get in the way” “So each time it turns out that a multitude of images is created, but there is no complete unity among them. There is no single image capable of attracting everyone and leading them to a goal. If there is no image, then there is no inspiration, and no clear path. Life becomes ad hoc and chaotic.” “Then who is capable of creating such an image? Priests of wisdom, we’ve seen—there simply aren’t any today. And as for the science of imagery which your forefather taught the priests of old, well, I’m learning about that for the first time from you.” “There is not much longer to wait—the country shall have a strong image. It will end all wars, and people’s dreams in splendid clarity will start coming

into birth—first in your country, and then all over the Earth.” CHAPTER TWENTY

Our genetic code Anastasia spoke with absorbed interest. Sometimes joyfully, sometimes dejectedly, she spoke about what happened on the Earth at one time. Some things were believable, others not so much. And when I got home I wanted to find out about people’s ability to hold in their memory information about events going back not just to their own birth but to the birth of their ancestors, and even further back, to the creation of the first Man. Scientists and specialists on this subject got together on a number of occasions, and here I should like to offer a few pertinent excerpts from the round tables we had. “To many people it will seem strange to claim that everyday objects can contain information about a Man. But if you show an audiocassette to someone who’s never seen a tape recorder or even heard about its possibilities, and tell him that your voice, your speech, is recorded on the tape and he can listen to it whenever he likes—a year or even ten years later, that person will not believe you. He’ll think you’re some kind of trickster. Yet for us the fact of recording and reproduction of sound is a common occurrence. And by the same token something that seems quite extraordinary to us might be extremely simple and natural to someone else.” “If we start from the fact that Man has still not invented anything more substantial or perfect than what has been invented by Nature, then Anastasia’s ray, which helps her see things at a distance, can be confirmed by the existence of the radiotelephone and television. Further, I would say that those phenomena of Nature which she uses sound like a more perfect application than what we have invented artificially, like our modern television and radiotelephone.” “One person’s memory may have a hard time keeping track of things that occurred even half a year ago. Another person may remember events that happened in his childhood and be able to talk about them. But I don’t see that as coming anywhere close to the limits of the human memory’s possibilities.” “I don’t think many scientists will deny that Man’s genetic code has been storing primordial information for millions of years. It is also possible to collect supplementary, so-called ‘incidental’ information over one’s lifetime and pass it on to succeeding generations. Expressions we are all familiar

with—like “it’s inherited” or “transmitted by inheritance”—bear witness to this. Anastasia’s abilities to reproduce scenes that happened to mankind millions or billions of years ago are theoretically possible and explainable. Not only that, but they can be at their most accurate the further they are removed from our reality I believe Anastasia’s memory is not that different from many other people’s. Or to put it more accurately, the information recorded in her genetic code is no greater than for any other individual. The only difference is that she has the ability to ‘retrieve’ and reproduce it fully, while we can do so only in part.” These and other things the specialists said have convinced me that Anastasia is able to tell the truth about the past. I was especially struck by the example of the tape recorder. But there was one phenomenon which the scientists invited to the round table couldn’t explain—namely, how it is that Anastasia can get information not only about earthly civilisations but also about those on other worlds and in other galaxies. Besides, she can not only talk about them, but it seems she can also influence them. I shall try to set forth everything in order. Perhaps someone will be able to explain these abilities of hers, at least theoretically, and to figure out whether or not they are inherent in other people as well. Anastasia herself tried to explain how she happens to know about them, only her explanations were difficult to understand. In any case, I shall try to describe the following situation in its proper order. CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

Where do we go in sleep? On several occasions Anastasia’s description of earthly civilisations contained references to the existence of life on other planets and in other galaxies of the Universe. And I got so interested in this that while I was listening to her tale about mankind’s past, I could only think about how life evolved out there, on other planets. Anastasia, no doubt, saw my interest in her story waning, and stopped talking. I was quiet, too, thinking about how I could get her to tell in more specific detail about life in extraterrestrial civilisations. I could have asked her directly, of course, but she tends to get somehow distracted whenever she can’t explain why she knows something others don’t. And it seems to me that her desire not to stand out from other people on account of her abilities discourages her from talking about everything. I’ve begun noticing, for example, that she’s rather shy about her inability to explain how certain

phenomena work. This is in fact what happened when I asked her directly: “Tell me, Anastasia, are you able to teleport yourself in space? I mean: moving your body from one place to another?” “Why are you asking me about that, Vladimir?” “First tell me specifically: yes or no?” “Vladimir, everybody has that kind of ability. But I am not sure I can explain to you just how natural this process is. You will only withdraw yourself from me again, saying I’m a witch. You will feel uncomfortable with me.” “So that means you can?” “I can,” she answered hesitantly, her head bowed. “Then give me a demonstration. Show me how it happens.” “Perhaps I should try to explain first” “No, Anastasia, first show me. It’s always more interesting to watch something than to listen. And then you can explain.” Anastasia had an estranged look about her as she rose to her feet. She closed her eyes, tensed up a little, and then disappeared before my eyes. Dumbstruck, I looked all around. I even felt with my hands the spot where she had just been standing, but all that was there was some trampled grass, while Anastasia was nowhere to be seen. Then I caught sight of her standing on the far side of the lake. I looked at her, speechless. Then she called out: “Shall I swim to you? Or shall I once more” “Once more!” I replied and, taking care not to blink in case I missed anything, I began watching the figure of Anastasia standing on the other side of the small lake. All at once she vanished. Simply dissolved into thin air. Not even a trace of smoke was left at the place where I had just seen her. I continued to stand there unblinkingly. “I am here, Vladimir.” Anastasia’s voice sounded right beside me. Once again she was standing no more than a metre away. I found myself stepping back a little, then I sat down on the ground, trying not to show any sense of surprise or excitement. For some reason the thought came that suddenly she might take it into her head to dissolve my body and then not assemble it afterward. Anastasia spoke first. “Only the owner of a body can fully dissolve it or split it into atoms. This is an ability available only to Man, Vladimir.” I realized she was going to first try to prove to me that she was Man, and so as not to have her waste any time, I said:

“I realize that it’s only given to Man. But surely not to every Man.” “Not to everyone. One must—” “I know what you’re going to say: One must have pure thoughts.” “Yes. Pure thoughts, and besides that, the ability to think quickly and in images, to visualise in specific detail one’s self, one’s body and desire, a strong will, and faith in one’s self” “Don’t explain, Anastasia. Don’t waste your time trying. Tell me rather, can you move your body to any place at all?” “Any place, yes, though I rarely do that. Any place can be very dangerous Besides, there is no need to. Why move one’s body? There are other ways” “Why dangerous?” “It is essential to get an accurate picture of the place you wish to move your body to.” “And if you don’t get an accurate picture, what can happen?” “Your body might be lost.” “How?” “For example, suppose you wanted to transport your body to the floor of the ocean, and the water pressure crushes it. Or you suffocate. Or you might wind up on a city street in front of an oncoming car, and the car hits your body and injures it.” “And can Man also transport his body to another planet?” “Distance plays absolutely no role here. It will move itself to whatever place your thought dictates. After all, your thought goes to the destination first. It is also what assembles and puts together again the body that was earlier dissolved in space.” “If I wanted to dissolve my body, what should I be thinking about?” “You have to visualise all of its matter, right down to the tiniest atom, right to the nucleus, and see how the particles create an outwardly chaotic movement in the nucleus, and then mentally dissolve them in space. Then assemble them in their former sequence, in their outwardly chaotic movement in the nucleus, reproducing it accurately. It is all very simple. Just the way children play with blocks.” “But mightn’t it turn out that on another planet there wouldn’t be a suitable atmosphere to breathe?” “That is what I am saying—it is dangerous to transport one’s body without

thinking it through carefully There are a lot of things to take into account ahead of time.” “So that means it won’t work out to go to another planet?” “It can. It is possible to take some of the surrounding atmosphere along, too, and the body will live in that for a time. But generally it is better not to transport one’s body without a particular need for it. In most cases it is sufficient to watch from a distance with one’s ray, or transport only one’s second, nonmaterial self.” “Incredible! It’s hard to believe that every Man was once capable of doing something like that!” “Why do you say once? One’s second human self is capable even now of moving about freely, and it does move. Only people do not assign it any specific tasks. They do not set it any goal.” “Who—what kind of people does this happen with?” “Right now it basically happens when a person sleeps. It is possible to do the same when one is awake, but on account of the general bustle as well as all sorts of dogmas and various contrived problems, people are losing more and more the ability to control their own selves. They are losing the capacity for imaginative thinking.”10 “Maybe because it’s not that interesting to travel without one’s body?” “Why would you think that? In terms of what you feel, the final result can often be the same.” “Well, if the result were the same, people wouldn’t go dragging their bodies around, travelling to different countries. Right now the tourist business is pretty profitable in our world. And there’s something I don’t quite understand about that mysterious second self of Man’s. If one’s body hasn’t been somewhere, that means the Man wasn’t there either. It’s just as simple and clear as that.” “Do not try to jump to hasty conclusions, Vladimir. I shall now present you with three different scenarios. And you try to tell me in which case this hypothetical person actually took a trip.” “Okay, go ahead.” “Here is the first Imagine yourself or some other person sound asleep. He is placed on a stretcher. While still asleep, he is put on an aeroplane and taken to another country—from Moscow to Jerusalem, for example. Still sleeping, he is driven up and down the main street, taken into the main temple, and still asleep, brought back the same way and put back where he started. What do you think—was the traveller from Moscow really in Jerusalem?”

“Tell me the other two scenarios first.” “Fine. The second traveller went to Jerusalem all on his own, walked along the main street, spent a little time in the temple and then went home.” “And the third?” “He left his body behind. But he had the ability to visualise everything at a distance. He walked around the city as though in a dream. He visited the temple, dropped in somewhere else, and then mentally returned to his previous activities Now, who of the three was actually in Jerusalem, do you think?” “In the fullest sense, only one of the three was there. That was the one who consciously decided to make the journey and see everything for himself.” “Let us say that is so, but in the final analysis, what did each of them get out of the visit?” “The first traveller didn’t get anything out of it. The second was able to tell about everything he saw. As for the third The third person would probably also be able to talk about it, only he might make mistakes, since he saw everything in a dream, and a dream can be quite different from reality.” “But the dream as a phenomenon is also a reality.” “Well, yes, the dream exists as a phenomenon. Maybe it’s a reality too, but what are you getting at?” “At the fact, which you will probably not deny, that Man is always able to connect or make contact between two existing realities.” “I know what you’ve been driving at here. You want to say that it’s possible to control a dream and direct it where you want.” “Yes.” “But what exactly helps that come about?” “It comes about with the help of the energy of thought, and its ability to free any reality for penetration into images.” ‘And what then, does it register an impression of everything that goes on in some other country, like a TV camera?” “Excellent! The TV camera can serve as a primitive confirmation. So, Vladimir, you have reached the conclusion that it is not always necessary to transport material bodies to feel what is happening in a faraway land?” “Perhaps not always. But why did you start telling me about this? Are you trying to prove something?” “I realized that when you began talking about other worlds that you would

demand or ask that I show them to you. I want to carry out your request without putting your body at risk.” “You guessed everything right, Anastasia. I really was going to ask you about that. So, there’s life on other planets after all? Gosh, it’d be jolly interesting to see them!” “Which planet would you like to visit?” “What—are there a lot of them—inhabited, I mean?” “There are a great many, though none more interesting than the Earth.” “But still, what kind of life is there on the others? And how did it originate?” “When the Earth appeared as a Divine co-creation, many of the elements of the Universe were eager to repeat this marvelous creation. They wanted to create their own on other worlds, using planets which in their opinion were suitable. They began creating them, but nobody could create life in a harmony anything like that of the Earth. “There is in the Universe, for example, a planet where ants predominate over everything. There are a great number of ants on it. The ants devour other life-forms. When there is nothing left for them to eat, they turn to eating each other and die. And the element that created this kind of life is trying to re-create it anew, but it certainly is not turning out any better. Nobody has been able to bring all the elements together in harmony. “There are also planets where the elements have tried, and are still trying, to create a vegetative world similar to the Earth. And they are creating it. Those planets are growing trees, grass and bushes. But each time their creations reach full maturity they die. None of the elements of the Universe has been able to guess the secret of reproduction. They are like Man today. After all, Man today has created a lot of artificial things all on its own. But not one of his creations can reproduce itself. They break down, rot away, decay and demand constant maintenance. The majority of people on the Earth have been turned into slaves of their own creations. Only the creations of God are capable of reproducing themselves and living in harmony in all their great diversity” “But are there planets in the Universe, Anastasia, where beings are involved in technology the way Man is?” “Yes, there are, Vladimir. There is a planet that has six times the Earth’s volume and has beings outwardly similar to Man. Their technology is artificial, and has been perfected far beyond the technology of our Earth. Life on this planet was created by an element of the Universe which believes itself to be on a par with God, and is striving for predominance over God’s

creations.” “Tell me, are they the ones who have come to the Earth in their space ships —the ‘flying saucers’ we see?” “Yes. They have tried to make contact with Earth people on a number of occasions. But for the Earth their contacts—” “No, wait. Is there any way you can take me, or my second self, to that planet for a visit?” “Yes, I can.” “Then take me there.” After that Anastasia asked me to lie down on the ground and relax. Telling me to spread out my arms to the sides, she placed one of her hands in mine and in a short time I began to doze off into something similar to sleep. I say something similar, as this dozing off was most unusual. First my body felt more and more relaxed. I couldn’t feel my body any more, though I could see and hear everything around me perfectly well—the singing of the birds, the rustling of the leaves. Then I closed my eyes and sank into a sleep, or ‘divided myself’ (as Anastasia would put it). But to this day I am not in a position to say what happened to me next or how. If it is to be assumed that with Anastasia’s help I fell asleep and had a dream, the fulness of my sensations and the clarity of my awareness of everything I saw can in no way be compared with any human dream. CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

Other worlds I saw another world, another planet. I was able to remember everything that went on there in clear detail, yet to this day I still have the lingering feeling in my consciousness that beholding anything like that is an impossibility Think about it—my mind and consciousness tell me it’s impossible, and yet they—the visions, the pictures—remain with me to this day And now I shall try and describe them to you. I stood on ground similar to what we have on the Earth. There was absolutely no vegetation around me. I say stood. But whether I can actually say that it’s hard to tell. I didn’t have any legs or arms, I didn’t even have a body, and yet at the same time it seemed I could feel my steps, I could feel the rocky, uneven surface through the soles of my feet. All around, as far as the eye could see, above the soil rose metallic machines, both egg-shaped ones and square, or cubelike machines. I use the word machines because the one closest to me gave off a kind of soft

whirring sound. From each of these machines a plethora of hoses of different diameters went down into the ground. Some of these hoses were slightly quivering, as though something was being sucked up through them from the ground, while others were in a motionless state. No living beings were in sight. All at once I saw a panel on the side of one of these strange devices open, and out floated—rather slowly—a kind of disc, similar in shape to a discus thrown by athletes, only much larger, about forty-five metres in diameter. It hovered in the air, and then started to rotate. After a brief descent it took off and flew completely noiselessly overhead. Other devices a little farther away did the same, and several more discs flew after the first one, one after the other, right over my head. And then once again there was just still and empty space, except for the whirring and crackling of the strange devices. The whole picture aroused my interest, but even more, its indescribable lifelessness was frightening. “Do not be afraid of anything, Vladimir.” All at once I caught the sound of Anastasia’s voice, which comforted me no end. “Where are you, Anastasia?” I enquired. “Right here beside you. We are invisible, Vladimir. Present here are our feelings, sensations, mind and all our other invisible forms of energy. We are here without our material bodies. Nobody can do anything to us. The only thing we need be wary of is ourselves, and the consequences of our own sensations.” “What kind of consequences might there be?” “Psychological consequences. Like temporarily going out of one’s mind.” “Going out of one’s mind?” “Yes, but only temporarily For a month or two, it can happen: the vision of other planets may stir up Man’s mind and consciousness. But you need not be afraid, you are not threatened by this. You will pull through. And there is nothing to be afraid of—believe me, Vladimir, you are indeed here, but not as far as they are concerned. At the moment we are invisible and can go and see whatever we wish to.” “I’m not afraid. Only you’d better tell me, Anastasia, what are those whirring machines all around us? What are they for?” “Each of those egg-shaped machines is a factory. They are the ones that produce the ‘flying saucers’ that are of such interest to you.” “And who maintains, or controls these factories?”

“No one. They are programmed in advance to make a particular product. Through those pipes going down into the ground they suck up the raw material they need in the required amounts. The forging and pressing, and then the assembly, all take place in small compartments inside, and then the fully formed product comes out. This factory is much more efficient than any on the Earth. There is practically no waste from this process. There is no need to transport raw material from distant places. There is no need to ship individual component parts to the assembly point. The whole manufacturing process is concentrated in one place.” “Amazing! We should have a gizmo like that! And who controls the new ‘flying saucers’? I noticed they were all flying in the same direction.” “Nobody controls them, they fly all by themselves to a storage depot.” “Incredible! Just like a living being!” “But this by itself represents nothing incredible, even in terms of earthly technology. After all, the Earth also has pilotless planes and rockets.” “Just the same, they are controlled by people on the Earth.” “But the Earth for a long time has also had rockets which are preprogrammed for a specific target. All one has to do is push the launch button and the rocket fires itself and heads for a predetermined target.” “Maybe so. And really, what was there here that was so surprising?” “If you really think about it, there is not that much to be surprised at. Only, by comparison with the technology we have on the Earth, this is far more advanced. These factories, Vladimir, are multifunctional. They can manufacture a great deal, from food products to powerful weapons.” “And what are their food products made of? Nothing grows here, after all.” “Everything comes from deep in the ground. The machines take in all the juices they need through the pipes and press them into granules. These granules will contain all the substances needed to sustain bodily life.” “What does this gizmo itself feed on? Who supplies it with electrical power? I don’t see any wires.” “It produces the energy it needs all on its own, using everything from the environment.” “Well, just look how smart it is! Smarter than Man.” “It is by no means smarter than Man, Vladimir. It is simply a machine. It is subject to its assigned programme, and is very easy to reprogram. Would you like me to show you how it is done?”

“Go ahead.” “Let us move a little closer to it.” We stood at about a metre’s distance from the huge device, which was the size of a nine-storey building. The crackling sound became more distinct. An army of flexible tentacle-like pipes reached into the ground, shaking. The surface of the device’s covering wasn’t entirely smooth. I caught sight of a circular area approximately a metre in diameter, densely covered with small wires sticking out like hairs. They were quivering, each one individually. “This is the antenna for the scanning apparatus. It picks up the brain’s energy impulses which it uses to compile a programme capable of carrying out an assigned task. If your brain can visualise a particular object, the machine should be able to manufacture it.” “Any object?” “Any that you can picture in detail. As though constructing it with your thoughts.” “And any kind of car?” “Of course.” “And can I try it right now?” “Yes. Move closer to the receiver and start by mentally instructing its antenna to turn all its receptor wires toward you. Directly that happens, begin picturing what you desire.” I stood close to the wiry antenna. Burning with curiosity, I mentally desired, as Anastasia had said, to have all its wires pay heed to me. At first they turned in my direction, then all of them, with a slight trembling, directed their tips to my invisible head and stayed still. Now I had to visualise a particular object. For some reason I began picturing a Model 7 Zhiguli11—the car I had in Novosibirsk. I tried picturing everything in as much detail as I could—the window-glass and the bonnet, the bumper, the colour and even the licence plate. I took a long time with the visualisation. When I got tired of it, I moved away from the antenna. The huge machine started whirring more briskly.” “We must wait,” explained Anastasia. “Now it is disassembling the unfinished product it was working on and compiling a programme for carrying out your design.” “Will we have long to wait?”

“I do not think so.” We went over to look at some of the other machines. Presently, as I was examining the multicoloured rocks underfoot, I heard Anastasia’s voice announcing: “I think the manufacture of the object you pictured in your mind is complete. Let us take a look and see how it coped with the task.” We went back to the first machine and began waiting. After a little while its panel opened and out came a Zhiguli. It rolled down a smooth ramp to the ground. But this freak standing in front of me had nothing on the beautiful automobile I knew back on the Earth. First, it had only one door—one on the driver’s side. In place of the back seats there were only some coils of wire and pieces of rubber. I walked—or rather moved—around the object. It was definitely not something you could call a motor car. Two wheels were missing from the passenger side. Nor was there any bumper or licence plate at the front. The bonnet did not look as though it would open—it seemed to be made of a single piece with the chassis. In sum, this unique factory had produced not a car, but some kind of narwhal of indeterminate function. And I said: “Gawd! Is that the best this alien factory can come up with? If this had happened on Earth, they’d have sacked all the designers and engineers!” Anastasia burst out laughing in response, and I heard her voice say: “Of course they might have been let go. But in this case the chief designer is you, Vladimir, and what you see is the product of your designing.” “I wanted a standard modern automobile, but what has this machine spit out?” “Wanting is not enough. You have to picture everything down to the minutest detail. You did not even include any passenger doors in your visualisation. You only thought of the one door for yourself. And you pictured wheels only on your side of the car—you neglected to put in wheels on the other side. And I think you completely forgot about the motor.” “Completely forgot.” “Which means there is no motor in your design. So why blame the manufacturer when you yourself gave it an incomplete programme to work with?” All at once I saw, or sensed, the approach of three flying machines heading

in our direction. Gotta get outa here—the thought flashed across my mind, but then I heard Anastasia’s calming voice: “They will not notice us or sense us in any way, Vladimir. They have received word about a disruption in the work of one of their factories, and now they are probably coming to investigate. We shall have the opportunity to quietly observe some of the living inhabitants of this planet.” Out of the three small flying machines stepped five aliens. They were very similar in appearance to earthlings. Not just similar, but everything about them suggested earthlings. They were well built. No slouching shoulders— their athletic bodies held their handsome heads straight and proud. And they even had hair on their heads and eyebrows on their faces, and one of them sported a neatly trimmed moustache. They were dressed in thin multicoloured one-piece outfits that tightly covered their whole body. The aliens walked over to the car produced by their factory, or, more accurately, to the semblance of an earthly car. They stood silently beside it, observing, without emotion. They are no doubt having one hell of a time trying to figure this one out, I thought. The alien who appeared to be the youngest, with light-brown hair, detached himself from the others. He went up to the door of the car and tried to open it, but the door refused to budge. The lock was probably jammed. The rest of his actions seemed very earthly, which gave me no small comfort. The brown-haired alien banged his hand on the door in the area of the lock, then tried pulling it harder this time, and the door opened. He sat down in the driver’s seat, put his hands on the steering-wheel and began to carefully examine the dashboard instruments. Good lad, I thought. A clever fellow. And in confirmation of my appraisal I heard Anastasia say: “This is a very top-ranked scientist, by their standards, Vladimir. His thought works quickly and logically in a technical orientation. Besides, he is studying how beings live on several other planets, including the Earth. He even has an Earth-like name—Arkaan.” “But why does his face show no surprise at finding that one of their factories made something anomalous?” “The inhabitants of this planet have almost no feelings or emotions. Their minds work evenly and logically, with no giving in to emotional outbursts or departures from set goals.” The young alien climbed out of the car, uttering sounds reminiscent of Morse code. An older alien stepped forward and stood by the wiry antenna where I had positioned myself earlier. Then they all climbed back into their flying machines and took off.

The factory which had manufactured the car according to my design began whirring again. Its tentacle pipes began pulling themselves up from the ground and redirecting themselves toward a nearby automated factory of the same type, from which tentacle pipes also extended. When all the tentacles joined together, Anastasia said: “You see, they have reprogrammed it to self-destruct. All the components of the factory where the disruption occurred will now be remoulded by the other factory and used in production.” And I began feeling a trifle sorry for the robot factory which had helped me create, albeit unsuccessfully, an Earth-car. But there was absolutely nothing I could do about it. “Vladimir, would you like to take a look at the everyday life of the planet’s inhabitants?” Anastasia offered. “Yes, of course.” We found ourselves overlooking one of the cities or settlements of the huge planet. Our aerial view afforded us the following picture: As far as the eye could see, the whole populated area consisted of a great many cylindrical installations, something like our modern skyscrapers, set in a large number of circles. In the centre of each circle were low-rise structures somewhat reminiscent of trees on the Earth—even their sensorleaves were green. And Anastasia confirmed that these artificial structures draw up from the ground all the components of substances needed for sustenance, which are then despatched through special pipes into the homes of every inhabitant of this particular world. Not only that but they maintain the requisite atmosphere for the planet. When Anastasia suggested paying a visit to one of the apartments, I asked: “Can we visit the flat of that brown-haired alien who sat in my car?” “Yes,” she replied. ‘At this moment he will be just getting home from work.” We found ourselves almost at the very top of one of the cylindrical skyscrapers. There were absolutely no windows in this alien apartment block. The circular walls were marked off into dull-coloured squares. Near the bottom of each square was a raisable door—the kind you might find on our modern garages. Now and then one of the doors would open and out would come a small flying machine similar to the ones we had seen near the automated factory, and fly off on its own. It turned out that there was a small garage for one of these machines located below each apartment in the highrise.

There were no lifts or doors in the building. Each flat had its own entrance directly from the garage. And, as it turned out, every inhabitant of the planet acquired an apartment like this once he reached a certain age. At first I didn’t particularly take to the flat itself. Upon finding ourselves in the brown-haired man’s flat just after he arrived home, my initial impression was one of surprise at its simplicity and apparent lack of amenities. The room, approximately thirty square metres in area, was completely barren. It wasn’t just that there were no windows or partitions—there wasn’t even the barest modicum of furniture. The smooth, pale walls bore not a single painting or shelf by way of decoration. “Maybe he’s just got this flat recently?” I asked Anastasia. “Arkaan has been living here for twenty years now. His apartment has everything necessary for relaxation, entertainment and work. All the necessary components are built into the walls. You shall presently see for yourself.” Indeed, no sooner had the brown-haired alien come up from his garage below, than the ceiling and walls of the room began to glow with a soft light. Arkaan turned to face the wall next to the entrance, placed the palm of his hand on the surface and uttered a sound. A panel on the wall lit up. Anastasia gave a running commentary on everything that was taking place in the apartment: “Right now the computer is identifying the apartment’s owner by the lines of his hand and his eye-scan. Now it is greeting him and letting him knowhow long he has been gone, as well as the need to check his physical condition You see, Vladimir, Arkaan has put his other hand up to the console and is letting out a deep sigh so that the computer can check his physical condition Now the check-up is complete, and a message has appeared on the screen telling him he needs to take a nutrient mixture. It is asking him what he intends to do over the next three hours. “This is important for the computer to know in order to prepare an appropriate mixture. Now Arkaan is asking for a mixture optimised to boost his mental activity for the next three hours, after which he intends to go to sleep. “The computer is suggesting that he not engage in any strenuous mental activity over a three hour period; instead, it is recommending he take a solution calculated to sustain work activity for a period of two hours and sixteen minutes. Arkaan has agreed to the computer’s recommendation.” At that point a small niche opened in the wall, from which Arkaan seized hold of a flexible pipe. Putting the end of the hose to his mouth he took a

drink (or a bite to eat) from the hose and then went over to the opposite wall. The niche holding the pipe closed up, the screen panel dimmed, and the wall where the alien had just been standing once more became smooth and monochrome. Wow! I thought, with this technology you can do away with a kitchen and all its equipment, and dishes, and furniture—especially you can do away with clean-up. And even with a wife who knows how to make a good meal. No need to go to the store. Besides, at one fell swoop the computer can check your health, prepare the food you require and make all sorts of recommendations. I wonder how much a computer would cost back on the Earth? And immediately I heard Anastasia say: “As for expenditures, it is less expensive to equip each apartment with such a device than to load kitchens down with furniture and a whole lot of appliances for food preparation. They are much more rational than earthlings, all told. But in fact there is much more rationality on the Earth than here.” I didn’t pay much attention to Anastasia’s last remark. I was too absorbed in watching Arkaan’s actions. He went on giving voice commands, and the following events ensued in the room. From a section of the wall all at once an armchair began to inflate. Then beside the chair another little niche opened, from which a small table emerged, along with some kind of semi-transparent container resembling a laboratory flask. On the opposite wall of the room a large screen lit up, about one-and-a-half to two metres in diagonal. The screen showed a beautiful woman in a slinky body-suit seated in a comfortable chair. The woman was holding a container in her hands similar to the one on the table beside Arkaan. The image of the woman on the screen was threedimensional, and much sharper than on our TV sets. It seemed as though she were not on a screen, but sitting right there in the room. Anastasia explained that Arkaan and the woman sitting opposite him were forming a child together. “The inhabitants of this planet do not have sufficient strength of feeling to enter into sexual relations like people on the Earth. Outwardly their bodies are no different. But the absence of feelings does not allow them to produce offspring the way people do on the Earth. It is their own cells and hormones that are contained in the test-tubes you see. Men and women visualise what they would like their future child to look like. They mentally instil in him the information they themselves contain, and discuss his future activity. This process lasts approximately three years in Earth time. Once they determine that the process of the child’s formation is complete, they join the contents

of the two containers together in a special laboratory, the child is produced and raised in a special nursery school until he comes of age. Then as a mature member of the community he is offered an apartment and assigned to the personnel roster of one of the work groups.” Arkaan alternated his gaze between the woman on the screen and the liquid in the little sealed container. All at once the wall screen dimmed, but the alien remained seated in his chair, his eyes fixed on the container on the table in front of him holding a particle of his future child. Now the opposite wall was flashing with red squares. The alien turned sideways, his hands shielding his eyes from the flashing lights, and inclined his head even closer to his container. New illuminated squares and triangles began flashing alarmingly from the ceiling. “The wake-time allotted Arkaan by the computer has expired. Now the computer is insistently reminding him of the need for sleep,” Anastasia explained. But the alien bent his head down even closer to his flask, clasping it in his hands. The lights on the walls and the ceiling stopped flashing. The room began filling with some kind of steam-like gas. Anastasia’s voice remarked: “Now the computer is using gas to put Arkaan to sleep.” The alien’s head began slowly drooping toward the table and soon it was resting on it, his eyes closed. The armchair began emerging even further out of the wall and transforming itself into a bed. Then the bed-chair began rocking from side to side, and the body of the already sleeping alien fell back into a comfortable cradle. Arkaan slept clasping the little container in his hands to his chest. There is so much more to tell about the advanced technological features not only of the apartment, but on the huge planet as a whole. According to Anastasia, the community of people inhabiting it have no fear of any invasion from the outside. Not only that, but with the help of their technical achievements they are capable of destroying life on any other planet in the Universe. Any except the Earth. “Why?” I asked. “Does that mean our rockets and weapons are capable of repelling an attack?” And Anastasia replied: “Earth rockets pose no threat to them, Vladimir. The civilisation on this planet has long been acquainted with all the derivatives of explosion. They also are familiar with implosion.” “What does that mean, implosion?”

“Scientists on the Earth know that when two or more substances which have come together in an instantaneous reaction expand, an explosion occurs. But there is a different reaction from contact between two substances. Take a gaseous substance, about a cubic kilometre or more in size, capable of instantaneously compressing itself to the size of a speck, thereby becoming a super-hard material. Imagine a grenade or a rocket exploding in such a cloud, but another force simultaneously acting against the explosion—an implosion—will take place at the same time. And all you will hear then is a clapping sound. And everything that was in that cloud will be transformed into a stone the size of a speck. All the rockets on Earth will not overcome the pall of gaseous clouds. “In the history of the Earth there have been two comings, or invasions, on their part. Now they are preparing for a third. They think a favourable moment for that is once more approaching.” “That means nothing can stop them, if there are no weapons on Earth stronger than theirs.” “Man does have a weapon. It is known as Man’s thought. Even I alone could turn about half of their weapons into dust and scatter them through the Universe. And if I could find some helpers, then together we would be able to liquidate all their weapons. The only thing is, the majority of people on the Earth and almost all the governments on the Earth would consider their invasion a blessing.” “But how could it happen that everyone took an invasion, an attack, for a blessing?” “You will see in a moment. Here, take a look at the centre which is preparing an invasion force to take over the continents of the Earth.” CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

The invasion centre Of course I was eager to see their interplanetary super-technology that was capable of conquering a whole planet. But what my eyes actually saw I think our Russian, American and other military strategists have absolutely no idea of the kind of weapons that could so easily be used to take over the territories they are supposedly protecting. And you, dear readers, before you read on, try to imagine how an alien centre preparing for an invasion of the Earth might be equipped. And then look and see what it looks like in reality. I shall now attempt to describe its

outward appearance. A huge square room. Along each of the four walls there is a life-size replica of the interiors of our own native parliaments on the Earth. Along one wall is the State Duma,1 along with the office of our President in the Kremlin. On the opposite wall I could see the interiors of the American Congress and the office of the American president in the White House. Along the other two walls were the offices of various State political institutions—in some of the Asian countries, judging by their appearance. In the parliamentary seats were sitting our earthling deputies,12 13 congressmen and presidents. First of all I began examining our own Russian deputies. They were an exact copy of the familiar faces I had seen on TV Only here they were sitting motionless, like mummies. It is difficult to say what they were made of. Maybe they were dolls, holograms or robots, or maybe even something else. In the middle of the huge hall was a raised platform, on which were sitting approximately fifty aliens. They were dressed not in their usual bodysuits, but in our earthly clothing, and were listening to a speaker standing in front of them. Probably their chief instructor or some other official. Anastasia explained that we were observing one of the landing parties, currently engaged in a routine class session on preparing for interaction with earthly governments. They have been studying the most common Earth languages and the way people behave in various situations. They are paying special attention to the preparation for contact with governments and legislative bodies, through which they hope to influence the whole population of the Earth. They have mastered conversational speech without too much difficulty, but in the absence of certain feelings capable of provoking outward emotions, they are finding it rather hard to mimic Earth people’s gestures. And with their rationalistic way of thinking they cannot see any logic in earthly governmental systems. Despite their drawing upon the best minds and the most modern technology of their civilisation, they have still been unable to guess, for example, the secret of why, in spite of the computer technology already available on the Earth and the multitude of special scientific institutions, our national legislative bodies are still not provided with information about the consequences of the decisions they take. They are convinced that were there a specific analysis centre—a ‘think tank’, in other words—for which everything requisite is already available on the Earth, it would be possible to visualise almost perfectly the social consequences of all parliamentary decisions. Instead, every legislator, every member of an earthly government, is obliged to make decisions independently Not having

sufficient information at their fingertips, each member of a government is obliged to fulfil the function of a powerful analysis centre and calculate the consequences not only of his own actions but also those of his colleagues, enemies and friends. Another very mysterious question which the aliens have not been able to guess the answer to is why earthlings do not define any goal to be attained. They aspire to something, but to what—that remains a deep secret. Nevertheless, on the basis of the current requirements of earthly societies the aliens have prepared a plan to invade Earth’s continents. They will begin by making proposals to earthlings through the governments of various countries. And their proposals will be accepted with great enthusiasm. When I asked Anastasia why she was so confident in governmental acceptance of the proposals, she replied as follows: “This is what their analysis centre has determined. The conclusions of the centre are correct. Given the level of conscious awareness of most earthlings today, they will take the aliens’ proposal as a supreme manifestation of the humanity of the Mind of the Universe.” “And what kind of proposals are they?” “They are monstrous, Vladimir. It is difficult for me even to talk about them.” “Tell me at least the main points. It would be interesting, after all, to know just what these monstrous proposals are that would be enthusiastically welcomed on the Earth—the Earth I live on, and you too.” “The aliens first plan to land a small party, three of their flying machines, on Russian territory They will tell the military personnel which surround them of their desire to meet with government circles to talk about mutual cooperation. They will present themselves to the soldiers as representatives of the Supreme Mind of the Universe and give them a demonstration of their superior technology. “After military, scientific and government circles have held internal consultations, approximately fourteen days later the aliens will be invited to concretise their proposals, but first they will have to undergo a medical examination to make sure it is safe to communicate with them. “The aliens will agree to the medical examination and then put their proposals in writing, as well as on video. The text will be laid out in a form very similar to our modern official documents, and will be characterised by extreme simplicity. “The text will read something like this: We the representatives of an extraterrestrial civilisation, having achieved the ultimate level of technological development by comparison with other

intelligent inhabitants of the Universe, do hereby consider Earth people our brothers in reason. We are prepared to share our knowledge with societies on the Earth in various branches of science and social structure and offer them, our technology. We ask you to consider our proposals and select the ones most suitable for improving the life of every member of your society. “Then will follow a whole series of concrete proposals, the substance of which amounts to this: “The visitors offer to share their technology in providing each citizen of the country with nutrient mixture and rapid construction of housing for everyone who has reached the age of maturity This is the same kind of housing you have already seen, Vladimir, only with not quite so many functions. As an example, they will introduce their mini-factories into the country They will integrate their alien factories with existing Earth factories, but in five years all Earth technologies will be discarded and replaced by technologically more advanced counterparts. A job will be guaranteed for all who wish to have one. Not only that, but every single inhabitant of the Earth will be required to contribute a certain minimum amount of work toward maintaining the technological devices. “A nation that signs a treaty with the visitors will be completely protected from military invasion by any other nation. In a society which embraces the new social order and its technologically supported lifestyle there will be no crime. In the apartments provided you, everything you need will react only to your voice commands, identified by tones inherent only in your voice. Every day before you take in food, the computers in your apartments will scan your eyes, breath and other parameters to determine your physical health and prescribe the corresponding food mixture composition. “Each computer installed in an individual apartment will be linked with the main computer, which will thereby be able to pinpoint the exact geographic location of every individual, along with his state of physical and mental health. Any criminal offence will be easily uncovered with the help of a special programme in the main computer. Besides, the social conditions which now foster crime will be absent. “In return, the visitors plan to ask the government’s permission to settle representatives of their civilisation in sparsely inhabited areas—mainly in forests—as well as the right of people to exchange their individual garden plots for technologically equipped apartments and provision of lifetime care if they choose to do so.

“The governments will agree, under the impression that they will still be in fall control. A number of religious denominations will start preaching that the alien visitors are God’s emissaries, since the aliens will not deny any of the religions existing on the Earth. Religious leaders who do not believe in the aliens’ Divine perfection will find it impossible to stand up against the visitors since they will be accepted by the majority of the citizens in each country that signs the treaty All other countries will start seeking similar treaties of co-operation with the visitors. “Nine years after the first landing on the Earth a new way of life will have been speedily inculcated into all countries on all the continents of the Earth. All information media will broadcast the ever advancing achievements in technology and social order. The majority of the population will glorify the ‘emissaries of the Mind of the Universe’ as intellectually superior brethren, as deities in themselves.” “And not without justification,” I remarked to Anastasia. “There’s nothing wrong in having no wars and crime on the Earth. Everyone will be provided with an apartment, food and employment.” “Vladimir, do you not realize that once mankind accepts the terms of the aliens, they at the same time renounce their non-material, Divine self? In fact, it will self-destruct. All that is left will be material bodies. And every Man, Vladimir, will come to more and more resemble a biological robot. And all the children of the Earth will henceforth be born biological robots.” “But why?” “All people on the Earth will be compelled to render daily service to those devices which outwardly serve them. All mankind will fall into a trap, surrendering their own freedom and that of their children for the sake of an artificial technological perfection. Before long many Earth people will intuitively recognise their mistake and start ending their lives by suicide.” “Strange. What would they be lacking?” “Freedom, creativity and the feelings that only co-creation with the Divine creation can bring.” “And if the parliaments and governments of various countries are unwilling to sign treaties with the aliens, what then? Will they start destroying mankind?” “Then the alien minds will look for other ways to lead everybody into a trap. There is no sense in their annihilating mankind. After all, their goal is to understand the interrelationship among all earthly creations, and by what power reproduction is brought about. Nothing like that can exist without Man. It is Man who is the chief link in the chain of harmony of earthly

creation. And the Sun’s rays are part of the energy and feelings that many people reproduce. With their present level of consciousness today’s Earth people pose no resistance to the visitors. And many earthlings today are even trying to render them assistance.” “How so? Who among us is trying to help them? Does that mean there are traitors in our midst? Working for them?” “They are working for them, but these people are not traitors. Their acquiescence in this comes about involuntarily—it is without malice or premeditation. The main reason is their own lack of faith in themselves and in the perfection of God’s creations.” “What’s the connection here?” “It is simple. When Man admits the thought that he is not a perfect creation, when he all at once begins to imagine that there are beings on other planets of superior intellect, he himself feeds them by his own thought. Man himself thereby belittles his own God-given power and attributes power to creations other than the Divine. They have already learnt to gather the energy human thoughts and feelings can produce into a unified complex and are proud of that achievement. “Look, and you will see in front of that group of aliens there is a container of glowing liquid, which is being transformed back and forth between gaseous, liquid and solid states. They have no weapon stronger than what is concentrated in that small container. Later they will distribute its whole content into a whole lot of small, shallow containers. One of the sides of the container will act as a special reflector. Each one of them will wear a similar device around his neck in the form of a medallion. All the aliens you see sitting in front of you are wearing such devices right now When a ray from this medallion is directed at a Man, it may provoke in him feelings of fear, reverence or excitement. And it can paralyse not only a person’s will, but also his consciousness and his body This ray contains thoughts of a multitude of people. People’s thoughts that there is someone in the Universe stronger than Man. Stronger than Man, God’s creation. And these thoughts, when concentrated, can be turned against people themselves.” “So, it turns out we ourselves give them power when we consider them mentally superior to ourselves?” “Yes, that is right. Mentally superior to ourselves means mentally superior to God.” “What’s God got to do with it?” “We are His creations. When we believe that there are other more perfect worlds in the Universe, that means we are accepting ourselves as imperfect

—imperfect creations of God.” “Wow! And have they already accumulated a lot of such energy on the alien world?” “In the container standing in front of you there is enough energy to overcome approximately three quarters of all the minds on the Earth and to take over people’s feelings. That they consider way more than enough. Then the whole earthly civilisation will begin to pay them obeisance. And their power will increase.” “So, is it impossible at this stage to do anything about it?” “It is possible, if we take a risk and do something they are not expecting. After all, a fall complex of human feelings, even just one, is always stronger. And it is possible to accelerate thought to a speed unknown to those who have no feelings. And all the energy amassed in that container can be neutralised by the energy of another thought which is brighter, more confident and more perfect.” “And you, Anastasia, would you yourself be able to neutralise all the energy in that container?” “I could try, but I would have to bring my whole body here for that.” “Why?” “My complex of feelings will not be complete without my body Matter is one of the planes of Alan’s being. With it Man is stronger than the elements of the Universe.” “So, go ahead—we need to break the container.” And all at once in front of me I saw Anastasia in the flesh. She was dressed just as she had been in the forest, in a cardigan and skirt. She stood there barefoot on the floor, and then all at once started walking unhurriedly over to the aliens sitting in front of the container with the glowing liquid. They caught sight of her. No emotions showed themselves on the faces of these unfeeling beings—only for a brief moment they remained motionless in their seats. A second later everyone was astir. Suddenly, as if on command, they all rose and grasped hold of the medallions around their necks. All the medallions flashed with rays of light, all directed at the approaching figure of Anastasia. She stopped, lost her balance momentarily, took a small step backward, then stopped again. Giving a little stamp with her bare foot, she slowly and confidently moved forward again. The rays coming from the aliens’ medallions got brighter and brighter as they joined together, concentrating on Anastasia. It looked as though it would take but a moment for them to reduce all the clothing on her to ashes.

But Anastasia continued moving forward. All at once she stretched her hands out in front of her. Some of the rays reflected off the palms of her hands and were extinguished. Then the others started to go out. The aliens stood there stock still, as before. Anastasia went over to the container, put her hands around it, stroked it with her palms and whispered something to it. All at once the liquid in the container became turbulent, then its glow began to gradually fade, and before long there remained a practically colourless liquid with only a slight bluish tinge, much like ordinary water on the Earth. Anastasia went over to a machine standing by the wall that looked something like a refrigerator. She pressed her hand against it, whispered something to it, and out came a shower of some kind of small coloured square tablets, which she caught in the upturned hem of her cardigan. Anastasia went over to the aliens, who were still standing dumbstruck as before, and held out one of the tablets to the one at the end. He stirred, as though about to hold out his hand, but stopped at once and began staring in the direction of the man who was standing in front of them all—probably their leader. And so there was Anastasia standing before him for about half a minute, her hand outstretched. Then she went over and stood directly in front of the leader and held out a tablet for him. After a brief pause the leader took the tablet and put it in his mouth. Anastasia then went around to each one in turn, and this time everyone calmly took a tablet from her and ate or swallowed it. Then she turned from them and came over toward me. She had got half way to me when all at once she stopped and, turning toward the group of seated aliens, waved her hand at them. And several of the aliens got up from their seats and waved their hand back at her in response. When she reached my position, she said with a tired voice: “We need to go back. They have now taken the thought-accelerating tablets. Let them try to make sense of what has happened here.” And then it was all over. I found myself lying on the grass as before, as though awakening from sleep. It seemed just a short time had passed, but my body felt rested, as after a deep, healthy sleep. But my head Inside me everything felt as though it were boiling over. As though my thoughts were running in all directions at once. All the images I had seen on that other planet completely stayed with me. What was it? A dream? Hypnosis? Or everything at once—it still wasn’t clear. To see what is actually happening on a planet other than the Earth— this was something I found impossible to believe, and I asked Anastasia who

was sitting beside me: “What was it? A dream? Hypnosis? I seem to have remembered everything and now my head feels absolutely chaotic.” And she replied: “Vladimir, as for the power by which this vision of another planet appeared to you, take it any way you like. If you find the question disturbing, you can simply tell yourself you had a dream. Besides, all that is not what is really important. What is important is the essence, the conclusions and the sensations of this vision you saw. Think about that while I leave you for a while.” “Yes, go on. I’ll be thinking about it here on my own.” Left alone, I began to ponder what I had seen. Naturally I concluded that I had had some kind of hypnotic dream. After taking just a few steps, however, Anastasia suddenly turned and headed back in my direction. She took something out of the pocket of her cardigan, and held out her open hand to me. And there I saw it, lying on her hand a strange-look-ing tablet, the same kind I had seen on the other planet. “Take it, Vladimir. You need not be afraid to swallow it. On the planet you and I visited they make these out of herbs from here on the Earth. For about fifteen minutes it will help accelerate your thought, and you will be able to make sense of everything all the more quickly.” I took the little tablet from her outstretched hand, and when Anastasia left, I ate it. 1 Duma—the name of the Russian parliament. 2 Bolsheviks—the majority party at the time of the Russian Revolution in 1917. The term is derived from the Russian word signifying ‘majority’. 3 3

First Secretaries—Under the Soviet system, the First Secretary of the Communist Party was the de facto leader of the country. 4 'Politburo (a term derived from the Russian words signifying ‘political bureau'. 5

reau’)—the chief policy-making committee of the Communist Party, responsible to the First Secretary. 6 ''socialism/communism—In official Communist Party pronouncements, the political status quo in the Soviet Union was designated ‘socialism’, while the country was in the process of building communism’—i.e., working toward the goal of becoming a truly communist state. 7 civil war (grazhdanskaya voind)—In Russia this lasted from the 1917 Revolution up to 1922, when the Bolsheviks (or ‘Reds’) finally consolidated their power, defeating the ‘White’ forces loyal to the Tsar. 8 Mausoleum— a large marble structure on Red Square just outside the walls of the Kremlin, where visitors can still see the embalmed body of Lenin. 9 deputies—Members of the Duma, or Russian parliament, are known as ‘deputies’ ideputaty). 10 imaginative thinking (Russian: obraznoe myshlenie)—the Russian term refers to the specific ability to visualise in one’s mind a vivid and detailed image, not just a fantasy. 11 Zhiguli— a car first produced in the late 1960s at the Volga Automobile Factory at Toliatti, on the Volga River, by an agreement with the Italian Fiat corporation. The cars outwardly resemble a Fiat of about the same era, and are still being produced to this date. 12 Duma—the Russian Parliament (derived from the Russian word meaning ‘to think’). 13 deputies—members of the Duma are known as deputaty (deputies).

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

Take back your Motherland, people! At first I found my dialogue with Anastasia about what constitutes the Motherland rather unintelligible. Her arguments didn’t even seem normal to me, at least initially, but later. Even today I can’t help thinking of them. I distinctly recall her response to my questions about what to do to prevent war—either earthly or interplanetary—from happening to us, to eliminate bandits altogether and bear happy and healthy children. It went this way: “We need to tell everyone, Vladimir: Take back your Motherland, people/” “‘Take back your Motherland?’—are you sure you’re not mistaken, Anastasia? Everyone has a Motherland, or a native 1 land, only not everybody lives in the country where they were born. Maybe you didn’t mean ‘take back your Motherland’, but ‘you need to come back to your Motherland’—is that what you were trying to say?” “I was not mistaken, Vladimir. Most people living on this planet today have no Motherland at all.” “What d’you mean they haven’t a Motherland? For Russians, Russia is their Motherland, the English have England. After all, everybody was born somewhere, and so people will use the term Motherland or native land to refer to the land where they were born.” “Do you consider that one’s Motherland must be measured by someone’s arbitrarily determined border?” “What else? That’s the way things are. All states have borders.” “But if there were no borders, how could you determine your Motherland then?” “By the place I was born—the town or village—or maybe the whole Earth would then be a Motherland for everyone?” “The whole Earth could be a Motherland for each one of its inhabitants, and Man could be caressed by everything in the Universe, but for that to happen, he would need to join together all planes of being into a single point, call it his Motherland, and create with his own self a Space of Love therein. Then all the best things of the Universe would come into contact with it first hand—come into contact with the space of your Motherland. You in yourself will feel the whole vast Universe through this point, and possess power unsurpassed. They will

know about this on other worlds. Everything will serve you, as God, our Creator, wanted it.” “You’ve really got to speak in simpler terms, Anastasia. I didn’t get anything about those ‘planes of being’, or how to join together their strands. Or about the ‘point’ I can call my Motherland.” “Then we need to begin our discussion with what constitutes birth.” “Well, okay, with birth then. Only don’t just say words, but use words that make sense for us on the Earth today. Tell me, for example, how you see, how you picture the generation of the family—the birth and raising of children—in today’s prevailing conditions. And how all the children of Man can be born happy. Can you construct a plan or draw me a picture?” “I can.” “Then tell me about it. Only not about life in the forest or about the incomprehensible science of imagery. Nobody knows anything about that, only you” I couldn’t finish the sentence. My head was buzzing with not just one but a whole lot of questions. Especially: Why was I even interested in knowing what this taiga recluse would tell me about our lives? How does she happen to know not only the outward details of our lives but many people’s inner feelings too? What were the possibilities of this incomprehensible science of imagery? I couldn’t stay seated. I got up and began to pace to and fro. Trying to calm down and to make sense of—to understand—these incredible phenomena, I began to reason like this: Here’s this young woman calmly sitting under a cedar tree—ruffling her hand slowly through the grass, or watching some bug crawl up her arm, or immersing herself briefly in thought. Here she sits in the taiga, far removed from the bustling day-to-day life of cities and nations, far removed from wars and all the troubles of the civilised world. But what if she actually knows this science of imagery to perfection? What if she can use it to influence people and society, and in a more powerful way than all our governments, parliaments and religious denominations? Incredible! A fantasy! But there are actual concrete facts which confirm this. Incredible facts, indeed! But they really do exist. In a very short time she taught me to write books. She needed only three days to do this. She was the one pouring forth over and over again an unending stream of information. Incredible, but fact. Without so much as an advertising campaign, her books have easily spread across municipal and national boundaries. Her image is in these books. By some unknown means

this image influences people and arouses creative impulses in them. Thousands of lines of poetry and hundreds of bards’ songs are dedicated to her image. And this is something she has known about all along! Right there in the first book I outlined what she said on this subject. Back then there was nothing as yet. At the time her words seemed like incredible nonsense, like a fantasy. But everything came about exactly as she had said. And now, even as I am writing these lines, incredible things have been happening. In 1999 the Prof-Press publishing house put out a 500-page anthology of readers’ letters and poems.2 The anthology was published in July, considered a ‘dead season’ for booksellers. But an incredible thing happened: the whole print-run of 15,000 copies sold out within a single month. Another 15,000 copies have been printed, but these books instantly sold out, too. Such an event may not be so spectacular for a sensationalism-ridden press. In fact, it goes far beyond the conceptual bounds of sensationalism by virtue of the uniqueness of the conclusions stemming from it—conclusions that defy credulity. It is indeed hard to believe that “This readers’ anthology, entitled Vluche Anastasia zvuchit dusha Rossi/' (The soul of Russia sings in Anastasia’s ray), was first released in 1999 by Prof-Press in the city of Rostov-on-Don, and was subsequently re-published by Dilya Publishers of St. Petersburg. Anastasia’s image is actually changing the consciousness of society. Readers feel the need of taking action. People both in Russia and abroad are independently organising readers’ clubs and centres, calling them after her. A Novosibirsk medical factory is producing the cedar oil she talked about. And in a small village in the Novosibirsk Region local residents are repairing their old equipment and endeavouring to produce healing oil according to the technology she recommended, and they are getting help from the city. It was she herself who said that Siberian villages would be regenerated, and that children would start coming back to their parents. She has been redirecting the flood of pilgrims from foreign temples to our native sacred sites. In the past two years alone the dolmens she spoke about on the outskirts of Gelendzhik2 have been visited by over fifty thousand of her readers. Around these previously neglected sacred sites people are now planting flowers and gardens. And in a number of cities they are planting cedars and other growing things according to her method.

By decree of the head of the Tomsk Region administration an enterprise has been set up under the name of Sibirskie dikorosy (Siberian Flora). It has now sent four thousand cedar saplings to Moscow. Scientists are talking about Anastasia. Her image as a living, self-sufficient substance is already soaring across Russia. But only Russia? Women in Kazakhstan are collecting money to make a film about Anastasia. Wow! Here are Kazakh women wanting to make a film about a Siberian recluse?! This image of hers is beginning to lead people somewhere. But where? By what power? Who is helping her? It is possible she herself possesses some kind of incredible power hitherto unknown. But why is she staying in her glade as before, still messing about with bugs? While intellectuals are arguing over whether or not she exists at all, she is simply taking action. The results of her actions can be seen, touched and tasted. What is this science of imagery? Back in the taiga, I found such thoughts a trifle confusing. I wanted to have them either disproved or confirmed on the spot, but she was the only one around, the only one I could ask. So I’m going to ask her. She is incapable of lying. Tm going to ask her. “Tell me, Anastasia Tell me, do you have a perfect knowledge of the science of imagery? Do you possess the knowledge of those ancient priests?” I was greatly excited as I awaited her reply, but a calm voice responded without the least hint of excitement: “I know what my forefather taught those priests. And also what the priests did not give him the opportunity to say And I have endeavoured to find out and feel new things on my own.” “Now I get it! Just as I thought! You are more of an expert than anyone else on the science of imagery. And you have created your own image and placed it before people. For many you are a goddess, a messiah, a forest sprite. That is how readers write about you in their letters. You have told me I should write down everything—as though pride and self-conceit were a great sin. And I have presented myself before the public as a bumbler, while you have come out exalted over everyone, and what’s more, you knew it was going to turn out this way in advance.” “Vladimir, I have not concealed anything from you.” Anastasia rose from the ground and stood in front of me, her arms down by her sides. She looked me straight in the eye and went on: “Only my image is not yet clear to everyone. But that other image which will be out there before the people, will also be mine. My image will

resemble that of a cleaning lady who is simply dusting the cobwebs off the most important thing.” “What’s this about cobwebs? Speak more clearly, Anastasia. What is it you want to ‘create’ this time?” “I want to animate, bring alive, the image of God to people. I want to make His grand dream clear to everyone, so that every living person may feel His aspiration of love. Man can become happy here and now, in this life. The children of people on the Earth today will live in His Paradise. I am not alone. You are not alone. And Paradise will appear as a conjoint cocreation.” “Hold on, hold on there. I realize now that your words will cause many teachings to fall apart. Their instigators and their followers will start not only lambasting you but bombarding me too. Who needs problems like that? I refuse to write down everything you say about God.” “Vladimir, here you are afraid just of the thought of struggling with someone you do not know.” “No, it’s all quite clear to me. Ell get descended upon by all the religious leaders. They’ll poison their fanatical followers against me.” “It is not them—you are afraid of yourself, Vladimir. You are ashamed to present yourself before God. You do not believe in your new way of life. You think you cannot change.” “What’s this got to do with me? I’m telling you about the clerics. So many of them are already reacting to your sayings.” “And what are they saying to you?” Anastasia enquired. “Different things. Some react negatively, while others—just the opposite. One Orthodox priest from Ukraine came to me along with his parishioners in support of your sayings. But he’s just a country priest.” “And what do you mean when you say a ‘country’ priest came to see you?” “I mean there are others, higher-ups. Everybody’s subject to them. Everything depends on them.” “But still, even those ‘higher-ups’, as you call them, also once served in the smaller churches.” “That makes no difference. All the same I’m not going to write until at least somebody in charge of some major temple Anyway, what am I saying? You can predict everything that’s going to happen ahead of time. So tell me, who will be against you, and who will help you? Will there be anyone, in fact, who comes to your assistance?”

“What clerical rank could convince you to be bolder, Vladimir?” “Nothing less than a Father Superior or a bishop. Can you name any?” She thought just for a split-second, as though gazing into both time and space at once. And then came this incredible answer: “Assistance has already come, Vladimir, from someone who has uttered new statements about God—namely Pope John Paul II,” Anastasia replied. “The images of Christ and Mohammed will unite their energies in space, and other images will merge together with them. There will also be an Orthodox patriarch,4 whose words will be revered for centuries. But, most importantly, there will be impulses of inspiration among all ordinary people. It may be their earthly status that patriarch—the titular head of the Russian Orthodox Church. is important to you, but, after all, truth is more important than anything on Earth.” At this point Anastasia ceased talking and lowered her eyes, as though she had been suddenly offended by something. It appeared as though a lump in her throat had welled up, but she swallowed it and sighed. Then she added: “Forgive me—I fear I am not making myself clear to your heart. Things are not working out at the moment on my part, but I shall try to be clearer, only let the people hear” “About what?” “About what others have tried for a thousand years to hide from them. About how it takes hardly a moment for any one of them to enter the Creator’s pristine garden and there bring about splendid conjoint creations with Him.” I could feel a sense of agitation building inside her. And I myself, for some reason, began feeling agitated, and said: “Don’t be concerned. Tell me, Anastasia, and perhaps I shall be able to understand and write about it.” And what she went on to say she said in an extremely concrete and simple way It was only later, after analysing and pondering her words, that I began to understand, and could feel some sense—a significant sense at that—in her words “Take back your Motherland, people!” But back there, in the forest, I asked her once more: “I see how it’s all going to come about. I see that if you can so easily bring out images of life of thousands of years ago, that means you must know all religious teachings and treatises, and that you will reveal them to people?”

“I know the teachings that called forth reverence among people.” “All of them?” “Yes, all of them.” “And the Vedic scriptures you can translate in their entirety?” “I can. Only why waste time on that?” “But look, don’t you want mankind to know about those ancient teachings? Tell me about them, and I shall write about them in my next book.” “Mid what then? What do you think will be the net benefit to mankind?” “What d’you mean? They’ll become wiser.” “Vladimir, the whole nature of the dark forces’ trap is that with their multitude of teachings they try to conceal the most important thing from Man. By presenting a portion of truth—only for the mind—in their treatises, they deliberately lead people away from the most important thing.” “Then why do people call the ones that present such teachings wise merit” “Vladimir, if you will allow me, I shall tell you a parable. It is a parable that a thousand years ago was whispered by wise men to each other in some secluded spot. For many centuries now no one has heard this parable.” “Then go ahead and tell it to me, if you think that the parable may be helpful in explaining something.” CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

Two brothers (A parable) Once upon a time lived a couple that for many years had no children. When they were well on in age, the wife bore twin boys—two brothers. The labour was difficult, and shortly after childbirth their mother passed on to the next world. Their father hired wet-nurses, and tried to bring up his children as best he could. And he managed indeed, for nigh on fourteen years. But as his boys approached their fifteenth birthday, the father himself passed on. After burying their father, the two brothers sat mourning in their room. Two twin brothers. Three minutes separated their emergings into the world, and so between the two of them one was considered the elder, his brother the younger. After a period of mournful silence the elder brother spoke:

“Our father on his deathbed told us of his sorrow that he had not been able to impart to us the wisdom of life. How shall you and I live without wisdom, my dear younger brother? Without wisdom our family line will go on in misery. People who have managed to gain wisdom from their fathers might laugh at us.” “Do not be sad,” said the younger to his elder brother. “You spend a good deal of time in reverie. Perchance time will afford you the opportunity in your reverie to learn wisdom too. I shall do everything you say. I myself can live without reverie, yet I still find living a pleasing experience. I am happy when the day dawns and when it draws to a close. I shall simply live, take care of the household, while you are learning wisdom.” “Agreed,” replied the elder to the younger. “Only there is no opportunity to seek out wisdom by staying here at home. There is no wisdom here, no one has left it here and no one will bring it to us of their own accord. But I as the elder brother have decided I must, for both our sakes, and for the sake of our line which will extend through time, find everything that is wise in this world. I must find it and bring it home, and bestow it upon our descendants as well as our own selves. I shall take with me everything of value our father left us, and travel throughout the world and meet all the wise people of different lands. I shall learn all their teachings and then return to my native home.” “Your course will be a long one,” said the younger brother sympathetically “We have a horse. Take the horse, and the cart as well, and on your departure take along as much goods as you can carry, so that you will find your journey the less hard. I shall stay at home and await your returning as the wisest of men.” The brothers parted for a very long time. Years went by. The elder brother went from wise man to wise man, from temple to temple, learning the teachings of the Orient and the Occident, journeying to the North and to the South. He possessed a colossal memory, and his keen intellect quickly grasped everything he heard and committed it to heart. For about sixty years the elder brother plied the highways and byways of the world. His hair and beard turned to ashen grey His inquisitive mind kept roaming and honing his wisdom. And this ageing pilgrim came to be considered himself the wisest of men. He was followed around by a crowd of disciples. To inquisitive minds he generously preached his wisdom. Both young and old hung on his every word. And his glory and fame preceded him wherever he came, and communities would proclaim in advance the wise man’s great coming. And so it was in an aura of glory, surrounded by a throng of obsequious

disciples, that the ageing wise man drew nearer and nearer to the village where he was born and the house which he had left sixty years before as a youth of fifteen. All the people of the village turned out to greet him, and the younger brother, showing similar signs of grey, ran toward him rejoicing, and bowed his head before his learned brother. And he whispered with gladsome tenderness: “Bless me, O my learned brother. Come into our home, I shall wash your feet after your long journey Come into our home, my wise brother, and take your rest.” With a magnanimous sweep of his hand he gestured to all his disciples to remain on the little hill in front of the village, accept gifts from the wellwishers and engage in learned conversations, while he himself entered the home of his younger brother. The wise man, like an ageing dignitary, sat down wearily at the table in the spacious upper room. And the younger brother began washing his feet with warm water and listening to what his learned brother had to say. And the wise man began speaking to him as follows: “I have fulfilled my duty. I have learnt the teachings of the great wise men of the Earth, and I have created teachings of my own. I shall not stay long at home. Now to impart what I have learnt to others—that is my part. But since I promised to bring my wisdom home, I shall fulfil my promise and sojourn a day or two with you. During this extent of time, my dear younger brother, I shall impart to you the wisest pearls of truth in the world. “Here is the first: allpeople should live in a splendid garden.” Drying his elder brother’s feet with a beautifully embroidered towel, the younger went to considerable effort to please him, saying: “Go to, my brother. On the table before you are the fruits of our garden—I have gathered the very best for you.” The wise man thoughtfully tasted the marvelous array of fruits before him, and went on: “Every Man living on the Earth should cultivate his own family tree. When he dies, the tree will remain as a good memorial for his descendants. It will purify the air with its leaves so that his descendants will be better able to breathe. We should all be able to breathe good air.” The younger brother began to show signs of haste and effort, and said: “Forgive me, my wise brother, I forgot to open the window so that you can breathe fresh air.” Whereupon he threw the window open and then went on:

“Here, breathe the air of our two cedar trees. I planted them the year you left. I dug a hole with my spade for one of the saplings, for the other I used the spade you played with when we were youngsters.” The wise man thoughtfully gazed at the trees, and then intoned: “Love is a grand feeling. Not everyone is handed the opportunity to live his life with love. And there is a grand wisdom: each of us should strive every day for loved “Oh, how wise you are, my dear elder brother!” exclaimed the younger. “You have learnt such great wisdom, and I am embarrassed in your presence. Forgive me, I have not even introduced you to my wife” And he called out toward the doorway: “Starushka! Where are you, my little cookie?”3 “Here I am!” a voice piped up. And in the doorway a cheerful old woman appeared with plates of fresh steaming pies in her hands. “Sorry, I’ve been busy making pies.” Putting the pies down on the table, the cheerful starushka did a playful curtsy to the two brothers. And then she went over to the younger brother, her husband, and whispered in his ear, but loudly enough for the elder brother to hear: “And now you must forgive me, hubby, I have to go lie down.” “How now, my ne’er-do-well?” her husband replied. “You’ve decided to go have a nap when we have an honoured guest? My very own brother—and you go?” “It’s not that, my head is spinning and I’m starting to feel a bit nauseous.” “And how could that possibly happen to you, my little busybody?” “Perhaps you are the one to blame, no doubt, again. I am once more with child,” laughed the starushka, as she ran off. “My apologies, brother,” the younger brother excused himself in some embarrassment. “She doesn’t know the value of wisdom, she’s always been light-hearted and is still that way, even in her old age.” The wise man’s thoughtful moments became increasingly longer. His reverie was broken by the sound of children’s voices. The wise man heard them and said: “Every Man should strive to learn great wisdom. To learn how to raise children that will be happy and righteous.” “Tell me, learned brother, I long to make my children and grandchildren happy—you see, my noisy little grandchildren have just come in.”

Two boys no older than six and a little girl of about four were standing in the doorway and quarrelling amongst themselves. In an attempt to smooth things out, the grey-haired younger brother hastened to say to them: “Quickly tell me what all the fuss is about, my noisy ones. You’re interfering in our conversation.” “Oh,” the smaller boy exclaimed, “it seems our one grandpa has become two! Well then now, which is ours and which is not, how do we tell?” “Here’s our Grandpakins sitting right here, isn’t it clear?” piped up the little girl, running over to the younger brother, putting her cheek against his leg, tousling his beard and prattling: “Grandpakins, Grandpakins, I was coming to see you all by myself, to show you how I’ve learnt to dance, and the boys decided to tag along all on their own. One of them wants to draw with you—see, he’s brought a board and some chalk. The other’s brought a flute and a pipe—he wants you to play them for him. But Grandpakins, Grandpakins, I was the one who decided to come and see you first. You tell the others that. You can send them home, Grandpakins!” “She’s wrong. I came first to draw with you, and my brother only then decided he wanted to come with me, to play the flute,” observed the boy carrying the thin piece of board. “There are two of you grandpakins, you decide,” the granddaughter chimed in. “Which of us came first? You’d better decide that I was first, or else I’m going to feel terribly hurt and cry.” The wise man smiled sadly at the youngsters. He furrowed his brow, working out a response in his mind, but said nothing. The younger brother became flustered, and decided to cut short the ensuing pause. He took the flute out of his grandson’s hands and said without stopping to think: “We don’t have any cause for quarrel here. Dance, my pretty little jumper, and I shall accompany your dance on the flute. My dear little musician will accompany me on the pipe. And you, my dear little artist, draw what the sounds of the music are drawing, and draw the ballerina doing her dance. And now, everybody to their tasks—look to it, lads!” Whereupon the younger brother struck up a cheerful and splendid melody on the flute, and the grandchildren enthusiastically imitated him in time, portraying their favourite images. The future famous musician playing the pipe tried his best to keep up with the melody The blushing girl leapt about like a ballerina in a delightful portrayal of her dance. The future artist drew a picture full of joy.

The wise man kept silent. The wise man realized When the merriment was finished, he rose and said solemnly: “You remember, my dear younger brother, our father’s old hammer and chisel. Give them to me, and I shall hew out on a rock the most important lesson of all. Then I shall go away. I probably shan’t come back. Don’t stop me, and don’t wait for me.” The elder brother left. The ageing wise man went with his disciples over to a great rock which a pathway bent around. The same pathway that lured wisdom-seeking pilgrims into lands far from home. A whole day passed, and night fell, but the grey-haired wise man kept hammering and chiselling away at the inscription on the rock. When the aged man finished his work in exhaustion, his disciples read the inscription on the rock: Whatever you seek, pilgrim, you are already carrying with you. You keep losing it with every step you take, and are finding nothing new. Upon finishing the parable, Anastasia fell silent. She gave me an enquiring look in the eye, no doubt wondering what I had got from it. “Well, Anastasia, I took from the parable that all the pearls of wisdom the elder brother talked about, the younger brother was already implementing in his day-to-day life. There’s just one thing that isn’t clear to me, though: who taught the younger brother all these wise things?” “No one. All the wisdom of the Universe is included for ever in each soul right from the moment it is created. It is just that wise men slyly intellectualise for their own interests, and thereby lead people away from the most important thing.” “From ‘the most important thing? But what is the most important thing?” CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

Even today everyone can build a home “The most important thing, Vladimir, is that even today everyone can build a home. Everyone can feel God with their soul and live in Paradise. One single moment is all that separates Paradise from people living on the Earth today. Each one possesses conscious awareness within. When dogmas do not interfere with this awareness, then look, Vladimir, what can come to pass” All at once Anastasia brightened. She grasped hold of my hand and led me to the shore of the lake where there was a patch of bare sand, and started talking to me along the way.

“It only takes a moment. You will understand everything in just a moment of time. And everyone will understand—the readers, yours and mine. “Within themselves they will define the essence of the Earth, and become aware of their destined purpose. Right this moment, Vladimir, see, right this moment we shall in our thoughts build our home! I and you, and all of them too. And I assure you indeed that the thought of each one of them will be brought into contact with the thought of God. The gates of Paradise will open. Let us go, let us move with more speed. I shall draw it with a stick upon the shore. “We shall build a home together with those who into contact with your written words will later come. All human thought will merge together into one. Believe me, people have God’s ability within them to turn what they conceive into reality And many a home will stand upon the land. And each one in their own homes will be able to grasp everything first hand. They will be able to feel and understand the aspirations of the Divine dream. We shall build a home! I and you, and all of them too!” “Hold on there, Anastasia. There are a whole bunch of different designs out there for homes where people are living now What sense can there be in proposing yet another one?” “Vladimir, you must do more than simply listen to me! You must feel everything that I outline, and mentally complete yourself the whole design, and let everyone else draw it along with me. O, God! People, at least give it a try, I beg of you!” Anastasia was literally trembling with joyful excitement. She was reaching out to people, and I found myself growing more and more interested in her design. And at first it seemed simple to me, yet at the same time I had the feeling as though this recluse, Anastasia, was revealing to everyone a most extraordinary secret. The whole secret was in utter simplicity, and if I can remember the events in order, this is how they all went. Anastasia continued: “First choose for yourself a place of your own you like best of all the pleasing spaces on the Earth. A place where you would like to live, and would like your children to live out their lives. And then you will indeed leave to your great-grandchildren a fitting memorial to you. The climate, too, in that place must be favourable for you. Take one hectare4 of land in that place for yourself in perpetuity” “But nobody can just come along and take any piece of land they jolly well desire. Land today is sold only in places where people wish to sell it.” “Yes, unfortunately, everything happens that way today Our Motherland is

extensive, but there is not a single hectare of your land where you can create a corner of Paradise for your children and descendants. And yet the time has now come when we must begin acting on this cause. And take advantage of the most favourable of all the existing laws.” “I don’t know all the laws, of course, but I’m sure there is no law allowing someone to take possession of a parcel of land in perpetuity Farmers can rent a good deal of land, but only for ninety-nine years.”5 “Well then, we can start by taking it for a shorter span of time, but we need at once to plan a law so that everyone may have his own parcel of ground, his own Motherland. Whether or not and to what degree the country flourishes as a state depends on this. And if there is no appropriate law at the moment, well, you will have to make one.” “That’s easier said than done. Our laws are made by the State Duma. It has to make some amendment or introduce a new article into the Constitution. And the parties in the Duma are constantly fighting with each other—there’s no way they can settle the land question.” “Then if there is no party capable of enshrining into law everyone’s right to their Motherland, you will have to form such a party”6 “And who will set it up?” “Those who will read about the home we are creating and become aware of what a Motherland means to each one, to each Man living today, and to the future of the whole Earth.” “Well, enough about political parties. Tell me rather about this unusual home of yours. I’m really interested now in what new design you can possibly bring forth. Let’s say someone has come into possession of a hectare of land. Not exactly a Paradise, but, say, one grown over with wild grasses—they’re probably not going to give him better than that. And there he is, standing on his hectare of land—what next?” “Think about it yourself, Vladimir, and dream a little, too. What could you do if you were standing on your own land?” CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

A fence “First of all,” I said, “first of all, everything, of course, must be enclosed by a fence. Otherwise, when they start bringing in building materials to construct the manor house, somebody could come along and pilfer them. And when you plant a crop, it might be stolen before you harvest it. Or are

you against fences on principle?” “I am not against them, Vladimir. Even animals mark out their own territory Only what are you going to make the fence of?” “What d’you mean, what of? Fence boards, of course No, wait. Fence boards can turn out to be on the expensive side. For starters you need to dig post holes and string up barbed wire all around the property Even then you should still put up boards so people wouldn’t see inside the fence.” “And how many years could a board fence last without needing repair?” “If it is constructed of good material, if you keep it painted or varnished and smear the parts of the posts that are in the ground with pitch, it might go five years or more without needing repair.” “And then?” “Then you’d probably need to do some repair work and touch it up to keep it from rotting.” “So, that means you will constantly have to fuss over the fence. And it will give your children and grandchildren even greater cause for concern. Would it not be better to construct it so your children will not have to bother about it, and so that their view will not be spoilt by the sight of rotting timber? Let us think how to make the fence more solid and long-lasting, so that your descendants may have fonder remembrances of you.” “Of course, you can build it so it will last longer. Who wouldn’t want that? For example, you could make brick pillars and a brick foundation, and put cast-iron grill work in between—that kind of fence doesn’t rust. It can even last a hundred years. But only very rich people can afford to build a fence like that. Can you imagine? A whole hectare—that’s a perimeter of 400 metres. A fence like that’s going to set you back several hundred thousand roubles, maybe even millions. Still, it’ll last a good hundred years, maybe two hundred or more. You can even have it made with all sorts of family monograms. Your descendants will look at it and remember their greatgrandfather, and it’ll be the envy of everyone around.” “Envy is not a good feeling, Vladimir. In fact, it is harmful.” “Well, there’s not much you can do about that. I tell you, enclosing a hectare of land with a good fence is not something many people can afford.” “That means we must think up some other kind of fence.” “What other kind? Can you suggest something?” “Would it not be better, Vladimir, in place of a whole lot of posts, which can later rot, to plant trees?”

“Trees? And then what, nail boards?” “Why nail boards to them? Look there, in the forest there are a lot of trees growing with their trunks only one-and-one-half to two metres apart.” “Yes, you’re right. But there are holes between them. It’s not the same as a fence.” “But it is possible to plant bushes in between them that people cannot get through. Take a careful look, and think what a splendid living fence you would have! And it would be just a little bit different with each person. And everyone would come to admire the view And your descendants in the ages to come will remember the creator of this splendid hedge. And the hedge will not only save them time on repairs but will bring them benefits as well. It will serve, in fact, as far more than just a barrier. One person will make a hedge out of birches growing in a row. Another will use oak. And someone with a creative impulse will make a coloured hedge, the kind one reads about in fairy tales.” “What d’you mean, coloured?” “Planting different-coloured trees. Birches, maples, oaks and cedars. Someone may intertwine a rowan-tree with clusters of bright red berries and still plant guelder-roses in between. And make room for bird-cherry trees and lilac bushes. After all, you can plan it all out in advance. Each planter should watch to see how high each one grows, how it blooms in the spring, what kind of a fragrance it has and what feathered friends it attracts. Thus your hedge will be both sonorous and pleasantly fragrant, and you will never get tired of looking at it, as the picture will be changing its tints with each passing day It will flourish with colours anew every spring and every autumn burst forth in an explosion of fiery hues.” “Well, Anastasia, it seems you’re a poetess as well. We began with just a simple fence, and now see what all you’ve made of it! You know, I really like the way you’ve turned the whole thing around. And why haven’t people thought of this before? No painting required, no repair. And when the trees get too big, they can be cut down and used for firewood and people can plant new trees—they can change the picture, just like an artist. The only thing is, won’t it take a long time to plant that kind of a hedge? And if you’re going to plant the trees two metres apart, then you’ve got to dig two hundred holes for the saplings. And then plant the bushes in between. And no technology will be allowed, you’ll say” “On the contrary, Vladimir. There is no sense in rejecting technology for the project at hand. Indeed, any invention of the dark forces must be put to use to serve the forces of light. It will hasten the implementation of the plan if you use a plough to dig a trench around the perimeter of the ground-lot and

plant the saplings in it, along with the seeds at the same time—for the bushes you have decided to plant between the trees. Then you can go over it again with the plough to fill in the soil. While the earth is still loose, you can adjust the position of each sapling to even out the row.” “That’s fantastic. So in two or three days one person can put in a whole hedge.” “Yes.” “The only drawback is that until the hedge grows, it won’t deter any thieves. And people will have to wait a long time for it to grow Especially in the case of oak and cedar.” “But birch and aspen grow quickly, and the bushes between them will not take much time either. If you are in a hurry, you can plant tree saplings two metres high right away When the birches are grown, they can be cut up for household use, and their places will be taken by the maturing cedar and oak trees.” “Okay, then, a living fence is something I can grasp. I really like it. Now tell me, what style of house do you see on the ground-lot?” “Perhaps we should first plan out the lot as a whole, Vladimir?” “What d’you have in mind—different beds for tomatoes, potatoes, cucumbers? That’s usually women’s work. Housebuilding is a man’s job. I think you need to build one large house right off—a fashionable manor house in the European style so that your grandchildren and greatgrandchildren will remember you fondly Then there can be a smaller cottage for the servants. It’s a pretty big lot, after all. It’ll require a lot of work.” “Vladimir, if everything is done properly from the start, there will be no need for servants. Everything around you will serve you with great pleasure and with love—and not only you but your children and whole family, and your grandchildren too.” “It doesn’t happen that way with anyone. Even with your beloved dachniks.7 They only have five or six hundred square metres, yet they’re working it every free day from dawn ’til dusk. And here they’re going to have a whole hectare! It’s going to take at least a dozen dump-trucks every year just to bring in the fertiliser and manure. “First the loads of manure have to be spread over the whole growing area, and then all the earth has to be dug up and turned over. Otherwise nothing will grow right. And you’d better add some kind of fertiliser—you can get it in special stores. If you don’t fertilise, the soil won’t give a good yield. It’s something agronomists—people who study agriculture—know and dachniks have learnt from experience. I hope you agree on the need for fertiliser.”

“Of course, the earth needs fertilising, but the task need not be devitalising. God has thought through everything in advance so that the ground in the place you wish to live will turn out to have the right nutrients and be in an ideal condition without wearisome physical efforts on your part. You need only make contact with His thought and feel the wholeness of the system He has designed, instead of just relying on your own intellect in making decisions.” “Then why is nothing fertilised today, anywhere on the Earth, according to God’s system?”

Above: A raspberry living fence’ grown by Sergei and Vera Bondar, Nizhny Novgorod, Russia. In addition to producing abundant harvests of raspberries, this maintenance-free hedge protects the garden from winds, attracts birds that naturally control pests and keeps unwanted visitors out. Photo © 2004 by Alexey Kondauro In response to Anastasia’s plea, thousands of people all across Russia and beyond have created designs of their family domains and started turning them into reality. “Vladimir, you must do more than simply listen to me! You must feel everything that I outline, and mentally complete yourself the whole design, and let everyone else draw it along with me. O, God! People, at least give it a try, I beg of you!” —Anastasia’s words from Ch. 26: “Even today everyone can build a home”

A plan of the Solnyshko (‘Sunshine’) community composed of kin’s domains (top). All drawings © 2003 Raduga Centre, Murmansk. “We shall build a home together with those who into contact with your written words will later come. All human thought will merge together into one. Believe me, people have God’s ability within them to turn what they conceive into reality. And many a home will stand upon the land.”—Ch. 26: “Even today everyone can build a home”

True to Anastasia’s promise, new homes have sprouted all across Russia as thousands of people, inspired by her dream, start to lay foundations for their family domains or bring dying villages back to life.

Above: a ‘build-your-home wonder-cake’, representing a small-scale model of a kin’s domain complete with a ‘living fence’ and garden plantings, becomes a festive table centrepiece in the Kovcheg ecovillage, Kaluga

Region, during a celebration on 16 September 2006. Below: young girls in search for their intended mate set small rafts afloat during a ‘Find-yoursoulmate’ festival in the Rodovoe eco-community, Tula Region, 20 June 2006. For a description of this ancient ritual and its significance, see Chapter 5 in Book 6 of the Ringing Cedars Series. Photos © 2006 Alexey Kondaurov, Nizhny Novgorod.

Dachnik Day celebration at the Rodnoe eco-village, Vladimir Region, 23 July 2006. Residents of Rodnoe and nearby eco-villages, along with numerous guests, share greens, vegetables and fruit they have grown themselves on their plots. The Dachnik Day holiday—proposed in Book 2 of the Ringing Cedars Series to honour the millions of gardeners and celebrate Man’s connectedness to the Earth—is now celebrated by thousands of individuals, families and communities throughout Russia and beyond. Photo © 2006 by Leonid Sharashkin.

New homes & residents of the Rodnoe ecovillage, Vladimir Region, © Leonid Sharashkin, 2004-2006.

Mixed permaculture plantings in Vasiliy and Marina’s garden, Raduzhie community (Podgornoe village), Republic of Mariy El, Russia, © Alexey Kondaurov, 2006. Like millions of other food-gardeners throughout Russia, this family uses no chemical fertilisers or pesticides, yet manages to grow abundant harvests in a climate with a growing season of only no days. According to official statistics, in 2005 Russian gardeners, using less than 3% of the country’s agricultural land, produced over 53% of the nation’s agricultural output—more than all the commercial producers taken together.

“Vladimir, right now you are in the taiga. Look around you, how high the trees are, how mighty their trunks! Among the trees herbs and bushes are growing. There are raspberries, and currants indeed, a whole lot of everything grows right here in the taiga for Man’s use. And over thousands of years not a single person has fertilised the ground. But the land remains fruitful. What do you think: how has it been fertilised and by whom?” “By whom? I don’t know how or by whom. But you’ve pointed out a really important fact. Indeed, it’s simply amazing how Man somehow gets everything twisted around. Tell me yourself, why aren’t various kinds of fertiliser needed in the taiga?” “Here in the taiga God’s thought and God’s plan are not interfered with to the same degree as where Man lives today In the taiga leaves fall from the trees, and little branches are torn off by the breeze. And these leaves and branches, along with worms, fertilise the ground in the taiga. And the grass which grows all around regulates the composition of the earth. The bushes help it clear away excesses of acids and alkalis. None of the fertilisers you are familiar with can substitute for leaves falling from the trees. After all, leaves include many of the diverse energies of the Universe. They have seen the stars, the Sun and the Moon. And not only seen, but they have interacted with them. And even many thousands of years from now, the ground here in the taiga will still be fertile.” “But the ground-lot where our house is to be built is not the taiga, you see.” “Then start planning! You yourself can plant a forest of different kinds of

trees.” “Anastasia, maybe it’d be best if you told me right off how to make it so that the soil on the plot stays fertilised all on its own? That is a major undertaking, since there are so many other things to do. Planting beds, warding off various kinds of pests” “Of course we could talk about details and particulars, but it would be best for each one to apply his own thought, his soul and his dream to the building work. Each of us knows instinctively what will be the most suitable arrangement for him and bring joy to his children and grandchildren. There can be no one single plan that fits all. Each plan is individual, like a great artist’s masterpiece. Each Man must make it his own.” “But give me an example. At least tell me in general terms.” “All right—look, I shall do a little outlining for you. But first there is the most important thing to understand. Everything is created by God’s hand for the good of Man. You are a Man and can control everything around you. You are a Man! Try to comprehend and feel through your soul what constitutes a real Paradise on the Earth” “Now more specifically, Anastasia, without philosophising. Tell me what to plant and where, tell me where I should dig. What cash crops should I grow that will bring me the biggest return on my investment?” “Vladimir, do you know why peasants and farmers today are so unhappy?” “Well no, why?” “So many of them are striving to bring in as big a harvest as they can. To sell. They think more about money than about the land. They themselves do not believe they can be happy in their own family nest, they think the rest of the people are happy in the big cities. Believe me, Vladimir, whatever is created in your soul will unfailingly be reflected in the whole world around you. “Of course, outward details are also necessary Let us think together about one way we can plan out our plot. I shall simply start things rolling, and you help me on your part.” “Okay, Ell help. You start.” “Let us say our lot is on a barren section of land, and is now enclosed on all sides by a hedge. Let us divide it, reserving half or three-quarters of the lot for a forest, and there plant a variety of trees. On the edge of the forest, where it borders on the remaining part of the lot, we shall plant a hedge in such a way that animals cannot pass through it and trample the crops growing in the garden plot.

“In the forest we shall set up a pen using densely planted saplings, which in time will be home to a goat or two. And we shall also use saplings to construct a shelter for egg-laying hens. “In the garden plot we shall make a pond approximately 16 metres across. We shall plant raspberry and currant bushes among the trees in the forest, and wild strawberries around the edge. Later, after the trees in the forest have grown a little, we can set up two or three empty log hives there for bees. And we shall use trees to make a gazebo where you will have a cool place, safe from the heat, to talk with your children or your friends. And we can make a summer sleeping area out of living things, along with a creative workshop for you. And sleeping places for the children, and a living room.” “Wow! It won’t be a forest we end up with, but more of a palace!” “Only the palace will be a living entity, and continue to grow in perpetuity This is how the Creator Himself thought up the whole balance of things. And all Man has to do is to assign everything its task—according to his own taste, design and understanding.” “But why didn’t the Creator do it all this way to begin with? Everything in the forest grows just where it happens to end up.” “Think of the forest as a book for you as a creator. Look more closely, Vladimir—everything therein has been written by the Father. Look over there: three trees are growing just a half-metre apart. You are free to plant them in a row and use a whole lot of them to make up other configurations. In among the trees there are bushes growing—think of how you can make use of them to sweeten your life. And where the trees do not allow grass and bushes to grow between them, you can take that as a lesson for building your future house out of living materials. It is as though all you have to do is to formulate the required programme and adjust it according to your taste. Everything around you is charged with the task of cherishing and delighting you and your children, cherishing and feeding them.” “To feed ourselves, well need to plant a vegetable garden. And that’ll take a lot of sweat.” “Believe me, Vladimir, even the vegetable garden can be set up so that it will not be an aggravation. You just need to keep everything under observation. Among the herbs, just the way everything grows in the forest, you could have the most splendid tomatoes and cucumbers under cultivation. Their taste will be much more appealing and healthful for the body than when they are grown simply on a patch of bare ground.” “But what about the weeds? And won’t they be destroyed by pests and beetles?” “There is nothing useless in Nature, Vladimir, and there are no purposeless

weeds. Neither are there any beetles that are harmful to Man.” “What d’you mean, there aren’t any harmful beetles?! Take locusts, for example, or the Colorado beetle—a real vermin that eats away at potato crops in the fields.” “Yes, it does. It is also thereby showing people how their ignorance is eating away at the self-sufficiency of the Earth, contradicting the designs of the Divine Creator. How can people keep stubbornly ploughing year after year in one and the same place, torturing the ground? It is like scraping an open wound, at the same time demanding benefits from the wound. Locusts or the Colorado beetle will not touch the ground-lot which you and I have outlined. When everything grows together in one grand harmony, the fruits accruing to the owner are also harmonious.” “But if that’s the way everything is going to ultimately turn out, meaning that on the lot you have thought up there is no need for Man to fertilise the ground, or fight off vermin with various kinds of poisons, or do weeding, and everything is just going to grow all by itself, then what is there left for Man to do?” “Live in Paradise. The way God wanted us to. Anyone who is able to build himself a Paradise like that will come into contact with the Divine thought and produce a new co-creation together with Him.” “What new co-creation?” “Its turn will come once the creation of Paradise has been completed in due course. Let us consider now what you and I still need to do.” CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

Home “We still have to build ourselves a decent home,” I observed. “A place for our children and grandchildren to live, problem-free. A two-storey brick manor house with a toilet, bathroom and hot-water heater. You can do that for any private home these days. I was at a building fair recently and noticed how a lot of different facilities have been developed for conveniences in private homes. Or are you again going to object that we don’t need to use any technological gadgets?” “On the contrary, they are necessary. You need to make everything serve the cause of good as the opportunity presents itself. Besides, it is important that there be a smooth transition in people’s habits. Only your grandchildren will not need the kind of home you are building. They will understand on their

own as they grow up. They will need another kind of home. That is why it is not worthwhile spending too much effort to make the house extremely big or solid.” “Anastasia, I can tell you’ve got another sly trick up your sleeve. You keep rejecting everything I propose, even the house. I think there is no question but it should be a decent house. You said we would be designing this project together, and here you’re thwarting me at every turn, no matter what I say.” “Of course we are doing it together, Vladimir. Besides, I am not rejecting anything, I am simply expressing my views. And each one must decide for himself what comes closest to his own taste.” “You should have told me a little more about your views right off. I don’t think anyone’s going to understand why the house should not stay the way it is for the grandchildren.” “The other home will still preserve their love for you and their everlasting memories of you. When your grandchildren grow up, they will understand which materials out of all the ones thought up on the Earth will be the most pleasant, solid and useful for them. Right now you do not have those kinds of materials. Your grandchildren will build a wooden house using those trees which their grandfather planted ‘way back when’ and which their father and mother so loved. That home will start curing them, it will keep them from impurities and inspire them to what is bright. The grand energy of Love will dwell in that home.” “Yes Interesting, a home made of materials, of the trees cultivated by their grandfather, and their father and mother. And you say it will help protect those living in this home? blow? There’s some kind of mysticism involved here.” “Why would you call the bright energy of Love ‘mysticism’, Vladimir?” “Because not everything’s clear to me. Here I’ve been talking about designing a home and a ground-lot, and now you’ve all of a sudden started stating things about love.” “But why ‘all of a sudden’? You have to create everything with love right from the start.” “What—the living fence too? And d’you have to plant the saplings in the forest with love, too?” “Of course. The grand energy of Love and all the planets in creation will help you lead a full life, a life inherent in a son of God.” “Now you’ve really started talking incomprehensibly, Anastasia. From a house and garden you’ve gone back to ‘God’ again. What relation could

there possibly be here?” “Forgive me for not being clearer in my explanation, Vladimir. Allow me to try a different route in trying to explain the significance of our project.” “Go ahead. Only it turns out it’s your project, not ours.” “It belongs to everyone, Vladimir. Many people will sense it intuitively in their hearts. But Man will be prevented from grasping its specific details by fly-by-night dogmas, sounds of the technocratic way of doing things and the many scientific disciplines that are attempting to lead people away from happiness.” “All the more reason for you to try putting everything in more specific terms.” “Ml right, I shall try. Oh, how I wish my explanations could be clearer to people—oh, how I wish they could! O logic of Divine aspirations, help me choose phrases and word-combinations that will be more clearly understood!” CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

The energy of Love “The great energy of Love is sent to the Earth by God for His children. It comes to each of them at one time or another. It frequently tries to cheer Man with its warmth and stay near him for ever. But most people do not give the great Divine energy the opportunity of remaining with them for long. “Imagine a couple where he and she meet at one point in the resplendent radiance of love. They endeavour to join their lives together in perpetuity. They consider that their union will be made more solid if affirmed on paper and by ritual in front of a large gathering of witnesses. But all to no avail. It takes but a few days for the energy of Love to fade from their lives. And it happens that way with just about everyone.” “Tes, you are right, Anastasia. A tremendous number of people get divorced. About seventy percent. And it often happens that those who don’t get divorced end up living like a dog and cat together, or show complete indifference to each other. Everybody knows this, but nobody can figure out why it happens on such a massive scale. You claim the energy of Love fades from their lives, but why? As though it were somehow aiming to tease everyone or playing some kind of game it’s invented?”

“Love does not tease anyone and it does not playgames. It tries to stay with everyone for ever, but Man chooses his own way of life, and this way of life frightens the energy of Love. Love cannot give inspiration to annihilation. It is unseemly for the offspring of love to live in torment when he and she are beginning to build a new life together—when they are endeavouring to establish a home in an apartment resembling a vault of lifeless stone. When each has their own work and interests and their own environment. When there is no common vision of the future, no conjugal aspirations. When their bodies are attracted by mere fleshly alleviation, only to hand over their child to the cruel ways of a world devoid of clean water, a world filled with bandits, wars and disease. It is from this that the energy of Love flees.” “But what if he and she have lots of money? Or the parents give the newlyweds, instead of a tiny flat, say a six-room apartment in a fancy modern block, with a guard on duty at the entrance, and they give them a fine car, and deposit lots of money into their bank account—would the energy of Love agree to remain under those conditions? Could he and she live their whole life in love?” “Then they will be obliged to live their lives to the end of their years in cold fear, deprived of love and freedom. And watch everything around them grow old and rot.” “So what exactly does this finical energy of Love require?” “Love is not finicky or obstinate, it aspires to the Divine creation. It can forever warm the heart of one who agrees to co-create with it a Space of Love.” “And is there a Space of Love somewhere in the design you have come up with?” “Yes.” “And where is it?” “It is in everything. First it is born for the couple, then again for their children. And through three planes of being the children will have a connection with the whole Universe. “Imagine, Vladimir, that he and she will begin in their love to implement this design that you and I are outlining. They will plant family trees and herbs in the ground, together with an orchard. And how happy they will be in the spring when their co-creations burst forth into bloom. Love will eternally dwell between them, in their hearts, all around. And each will see the other in a spring flower, remembering how they planted a flowering tree together. And the taste of raspberries will remind them of the taste of love, since in the autumn he and she— in love for each other—touched the twig of a raspberry bush.

“In the shady orchard splendid fruit is ripening on every tree thereof. And the orchard was planted jointly by he and she. They planted the orchard in love. “She laughed resoundingly when he dug a hole and perspiration covered his brow, and she wiped it off with her hand and planted a kiss on his burning lips. “It often happens in life that only one of the partners is in love, while their mate simply tolerates the other’s presence. Once they start working on the orchard, the energy of Love will multiply itself and never forsake either of them! After all, their way of life will help them both live their lives in love and convey the Space of Love to their children in continuation. And help them raise their children together with God in His image and likeness.” “Anastasia, tell me in greater detail about the raising of children. A desire to know more about this is something many readers in their letters have expressed. Even if you don’t have a system of your own, at least tell us, out of the existing systems, which is best.” CHAPTER THIRTY

In His Image and likeness “You will not find a single system of child-raising that will suit everyone, Vladimir, if only because each one must first respond to the question of exactly what kind of individual they want to raise their child to be.” “What d’you mean, what kind? A Man, of course—a happy, intelligent Man.” “If so, then the parents themselves must become that kind of Man. And if they themselves have not been able to achieve happiness, then they should know what has prevented them from doing so. “I very much want to speak about happy children. Raising them, Vladimir, means also raising yourself. The project we have been outlining all together will help in this. You and everyone else know the way children are born these days. People do not pay enough attention to their whole experience leading up to the birth, and many children are deprived of the planes of being inherent only in Man, and so children are inevitably born cripples.” “Cripples? D’you mean without arms or legs, or polio victims?” “A Man may be born crippled not only in outward appearance. Sometimes the body may appear externally quite healthy But Man has a second self, and

each Man should have a full set of all forms of energy Intellect, feelings, thought and much else besides. But more than half of all children, even by today’s very low standards, are deemed by your medical professionals to be deficient. If you want proof of this, take a look and see how many schools there are today for the ‘mentally retarded’. That’s how your medical professionals classify them. Only they are comparing their abilities with those of children considered relatively normal. But if the doctors saw what the mind and the inner complexes of human energy could be in the ideal, only a few rare individuals among all the children born on the Earth would be considered ‘normal’.” “But why are all children not completely perfect, as you say?” “The technocratic world aims to prevent the three most important points in newly born children from merging into one. Technocracy tries to break Man’s links with the Divine Mind. And the links are broken before the child is born. And in looking for this connection, Man goes searching the world in suffering, and does not find it.” “What ‘most important points’ are you talking about? What’s this about ‘links with the mind’? I don’t get any of it.” “Vladimir, in a great many aspects Man is formed even before his entrance into the world. And his upbringing should come into contact with all creation. What God has used in creating His splendid creations should not be neglected by His son. Parents should impart to their co-creation the three most important points, the three primary planes of being. “Here is the first point of Man’s birth—it is called parental thought. Both the Bible and the Koran talk about it: “In the beginning was the Word”1— though it could be put more precisely: “In the beginning was the Thought”. Let anyone calling themselves a parent today remember when they conceived their child in thought, and what kind of child they thought of him as. What kind of life did they foresee for him? What kind of world did they prepare for their creation?” ’John 1:1 (Authorised King Janies Bible). “I think, Anastasia, that very few would even care to think of anything like that before the woman actually gets pregnant. In other words, they simply sleep together. Sometimes without even being married. And they get married when the girl gets pregnant, since there’s no way of knowing whether she’ll get pregnant at all. And there’s no sense in thinking about it ahead of time, when there’s no guarantee she’ll even have a child.” “Aes, unfortunately that is the way it often happens. Most people are conceived in fleshly indulgence. But Man, the image and likeness of God,

should not come into the world as the result of fleshly indulgence. “Now picture a different scenario. He and she build their splendid living home in love for one another and in thoughts about their future co-creation. And they visualise how their son or daughter will be happy in that place. How their offspring will hear its first sounds—its mother’s breathing and the singing of the birds, God’s creations. Then they will visualise how their child, when he grows up, will want to rest in his parents’ garden after a hard day’s journey and sit in the shade of a cedar tree. In the shade of a tree planted in love for him by his parents’ hands, with thoughts of him, in their native land. The planting of the family tree on the part of the future parents will define this first point, and this point in turn will call upon the planets to aid them in their future co-creation. It is vital! It is important! And above all else it belongs to God! It is confirmation that you will be creating in His likeness! In the likeness of Him, the Grand Creator! And He will rejoice in the conscious awareness of His son and daughter. “Thought is the origin of everything. Please believe me, Vladimir. The currents of all the diverse energies of the Universe will unite in that spot where the thoughts of two have merged into one in love, where two together are contemplating a splendid creation. “The second point, or rather, yet another human plane, will be born and light a new star in the heavens when two bodies merge into one—merge in love and with thoughts of a splendid creation—in the very place where you build your Paradise home, your living home for your future child. “Then the wife who has conceived should live in that spot for nine months. And it is best of all if these months are the blossoming of spring, the sweet fragrance of summer, and the fruits of autumn. Where nothing will distract her except for joy and pleasant feelings. Where the wife, in whom a cocreation is already dwelling splendidly, is surrounded only by the sounds of Divine creations. She lives there and feels with her whole self the whole Universe. And the future mother should see the stars. And mentally give all the stars and all the planets to her splendid child as a gift—something the mother can do all with the greatest of ease, something completely within her power. And everything will follow the mother’s thought without hesitation. And the Universe will be a faithful servant to the splendid creation these two people have produced in love. “And a third point, a new plane of being should come about in that space. Right there on the spot where the conception occurred the birth should take place. And the father should stay close around. And the great all-loving Father will raise over the three of them a crown.” “Wow! I don’t know why, Anastasia, but I find your words even took my

breath away You know, I was able to visualise the spot you’re talking about. And oh, how I could visualise it! It made me feel as though I wanted to be born again myself in such a place. So that right this moment I could go and rest in a splendid garden planted by my father and mother. So that I could sit in the shade of a tree planted for me before my birth. The place where I was conceived and where I was born. Where my mother walked in the garden, thinking about me, even before I came into the world.” “Such a place would greet you with great joy, Vladimir. If your body should fall ill, it would heal the body If your soul, it would heal the soul too. And if you were weary it would give you food and drink. It would embrace you in a gentle sleep and wake you with a joyful dawn. But, as with most of the people living on the Earth today, you do not have such a spot. You do not have a native land—a Motherland—where the planes of being can merge into one.” “But why does everything we do turn out so lousy? And why do mothers continue to bring semi-retarded children into the world? Who took this spot away from me? Who has taken it away from everyone else?” “Vladimir, perhaps you yourself can say who failed to create such a place for your daughter Polina?” “What?! You’re not suggesting I’m to blame for? For my daughter not having a spot?” 1 Motherland— The Russian term here is rodina, also translatable as native land. Rodina conveys a deep reverence to one’s ancestors, responsibility for descendants and an intimate connection to the land one’s family lives on. As explained in footnote 2 in Book 2, Chapter 27: “The anomaly”, the term Rodina is derived from two Russian roots connected by i (= ‘and’): (a) Rod —the name of God the Creator in the ancient Slavic tradition, also signifying ‘origin’, ‘derivation’, ‘birth’, ‘kin’ and, by extension, ‘Father’, and (b) Na— a root signifying ‘Mother’, and quite possibly the same root as the na in the Latin participle natus (‘born’), from which our English words native and nature are derived. Subsequently Rod 1 Na (‘Father and Mother’) took on the broader significance of one’s family (or ‘kin’), and by association came to refer to the particular geographical location occupied by succeeding generations of the same family. Readers should be aware that it is the ‘native’ or ‘family’ aspect, more than the ‘land’ component, that is significant in understanding the term Motherland (i.e., Rodina) in this and subsequent chapters. 2

dolmens, Gelendzhik—see footnotes 1 and 2 in Book 1, Chapter 30: ‘Author’s message to readers”. 3 starushka—an affectionate term for an elderly woman; little cookie (Russian: striapushka)—an endearing name derived from the word striapukha (lit., ‘cook’), and rhyming with starushka. 4 hectare—designating an area 100 metres square or 10,000 square metres, approximately equivalent to 2.5 acres in the Imperial system. 5 ninety-nine years— Ninety-nine-year leases, still in effect in Russia, were once common in many lands. Yet even today, the right to so-called ‘land ownership’ in most Western countries can be all too easily abrogated by governments if taxes on the land are not paid (and paid on time!), or if private’ land is expropriated for a deemed ‘public’ need (the legal doctrine of eminent domain). 6 a party—In 2005 the Russian ‘Motherland party’ (Rodnaya partiya) was established with the specific purpose of bringing forth legislation on allocating ‘pieces of Motherland’ to people in the form of family plots, just as Anastasia proposes here. In fact, the name Rodnayapartiya was suggested in Book 8 (Part 2) of the Ringing Cedars Series, published shortly before the new party was announced. 7 dachniks—people who spend time (their days off, especially summer holidays) tending a garden at their dacha, or cottage in the country See further details in Book i.

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

But who is to blame? “But I had no idea all that could be done so fine, just like that. Pity I can’t turn the clock back in time and correct everything.” “But why go back? Life goes on, and each one is given the opportunity at any moment to create a splendid way of life.” “Life goes on, of course, but what good are old people, for example? Now they expect their children to help them, while the children themselves are unemployed. Besides, how can children be properly brought up now, when they’re all grown up themselves?” “Adults can still give their children a Divine upbringing.” “But how?” “You know, it would be good for the elderly to apologise to their children. And sincerely apologise, for not having been able to give them a troublefree world. For dirty water and polluted air. “And let them begin to build, with their elderly hands, a real living home for their grown kids. If only such a splendid thought is born in them, the days of their lives will be extended. And when the elderly reach out their hand to touch their Motherland, believe me, Vladimir, the children they yearn to see will return to them. And perhaps the elderly will not be able to grow their living home completely, but their very children will be able to bury them right in their Motherland, and thereby help them come to life again.” “Bury them in their Motherland? Oh, by ‘Motherland’ you mean their lot of family terrain. So, we should bury our relations on this lot of land, instead of in a cemetery? And well put up memorials to them there?” “Of course, on their own land, their own plot of ground. In the forest planted by their own hand. But of man-made memorials they have no need. Indeed, everything around will serve as a memorial to them. And every day everything around you will remind you of them and not with sadness, but with gladness. And your line will be immortal—after all, it is only good memories that will bring back souls to the Earth.” “Hold on, hold on there. What about the cemeteries? D’you mean to say they’re completely superfluous?” “Vladimir, cemeteries today are something like cesspits, where people throw

their useless garbage. Even up until recently the bodies of those who died were buried in family tombs, chapels and temples. And only those without family or wayward people were taken outside the community. What is left today is but a distorted remembrance ritual of long ago. You go through a ritual after three days, then nine days after that, then six months, then a year, and so on. Then the remembrance is wholly superseded by the ritual itself. The souls of those who have passed away are gradually forgotten by those living today. And even the living are all too often forgotten, when children abandon their own parents and run away to some far-off land. And the children themselves are not to blame—they are simply running from what they intuitively perceive as the parents’ lie and the hopelessness of their own aspirations. They are running away from impending hopelessness, only to find themselves at the same dead end. “Everything in the Universe is arranged so that those souls who are called by good memories from the Earth are the first to be re-embodied in material form. Called not by ritual, but by genuine feelings. They will appear in those living on the Earth when the departed, by virtue of their way of life, leave behind pleasant memories of themselves. When the memories of them are not ritualistic, but are real and tangible. “In comparison with the multitude of other human planes of being in the Universe, the human material plane is no less significant, and we must lovingly cherish our relationship to it. “From the bodies buried in the forest they themselves planted, grass and flowers will come up, along with bushes and trees. You will see these and delight in them. Every day you will come into contact with a piece of your Motherland tilled by your parents’ hand, you will communicate with them subconsciously, and they will communicate with you. Have you ever heard of guardian angels?” “Yes, I have.” “These guardian angels, your ancestors both close and distant, will endeavour to watch over you. In three generations their souls will once again be embodied on the Earth. But even when they do not have an earthly, material incarnation, the energy of their souls will not refrain from watching over you every moment. Nobody will be able to aggressively invade your kin’s terrain. The energy of fear is in each person—an energy that will also be awakened in the aggressor. The aggressor here will find himself subject to a multitude of diseases, arising from stress. In time they will also destroy him.” “‘In time,’ you say, but that aggressor might wreak a lot of havoc in the meantime.” “Who will seek to attack, Vladimir, if he knows that his punishment is

inevitable?” “But what if he doesn’t know it?” “Every person today knows this intuitively.” “Well, okay, let’s say you’re right about aggressors, but what about friends? Let’s say I want to have my friends over for a visit one night. They’ll come and get a fright from everything around them.” “Any friends you have whose thoughts are pure will be gladly welcomed by what is around them, as you will be glad to greet them. And here I might bring up the example of the hound. When a friend comes to the dog’s owner, a faithful watchdog will not lay a paw on him. When an aggressor attacks, however, the faithful hound is ready to do mortal combat with him. “And on your plot of Motherland even each blade of grass that grows will be healthful both to you and to your friends. And each breeze that blows will bring you healing pollen from the flowers, bushes and trees. And the energy of all your forebears will be present with you. And in anticipation of cocreation the planets themselves will await your dictation. “And the face of your beloved will reflect from every petal of the splendid flowers in perpetuity And the children you raise will tenderly talk with you for millennia to come. And you yourself will be embodied in new generations. And so you will talk with yourself, and help with your own upbringing. And you will produce co-creations with your Parent. In your own Motherland, in your own Space of Love will dwell the Divine energy— love!” When Anastasia told me about the plot of land back in the taiga, my breath was simply taken away, captivated as it was by her fervour and the intonations of her voice. Later, after coming home and writing these lines, I often wondered how important it really is for each individual to have such a spot of his own—this piece of one’s Motherland, as she calls it? Can one really see to a child’s upbringing when he is already grown, with one’s own last breath? Is it really possible, with the help of one’s own family terrain, to speak with one’s parents again and for their energy to protect one, both in spirit and in body? And—just imagine—it came about that all my doubts were erased all on their own by life itself. This is how it happened CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

The old man at the dolmen Three years ago I went to the northern Caucasus to write the first chapters

about the dolmens, which people now flock to visit in an unending stream. But back then very few bothered to come and see these edifices of our ancient forebears. I would make frequent visits—on my own—to the dolmen situated on a property belonging to a farmer by the name of Stanislav Bambakov in the settlement of Pshada,1 in the Gelendzhik district. And each time I went, there was old Bambakov at the dolmen. He always showed up unexpectedly, wearing a patched shirt and carrying a jar of honey from his apiary. The elderly man was tall, lean and very agile. He had acquired his land only recently, at the beginning of perestroika,2 and gave the impression he was most anxious to get everything set up on it as quickly as possible. He built himself a small house and a shed for his beehives, along with farm buildings made of various scrap materials. He started putting in an orchard and digging a small pond, thinking to coax forth a water spring, but he ran into a layer of rock. In addition, old Bambakov was very attentive to the dolmen. He would sweep all around it. He also took the rocks he found in the field beside the dolmen and put them in a pile. He told me that these rocks had been brought here manually from other places, and pointed out how different they were from other rocks in the vicinity People had made them into a mound, he said, and erected the dolmen on top. The old man’s farmstead stood off to one side, away from the settlement and the main road. Most of the time he worked it all by himself. I wondered whether he realized how pointless his efforts were. There was no way he could set up his farmstead, work the land and build himself a regular modern house. But even if a miracle should happen and he should succeed in beautifying the surrounding land and establishing his farmstead, he would still hardly have cause for rejoicing. Everybody’s children were running off to the cities. Indeed, this old man’s son had set himself up with his wife in Moscow, where he’d become a civil servant. Didn’t the old man realize how pointless his efforts were? They weren’t of any use to anyone, even the children. Their father would no doubt have to die with a heavy heart, knowing that his farmstead would go to ruin. Knowing that everything would grow over with wild grasses, and his bees would swarm out. And the dolmen standing so awkwardly in the middle of his field would once again get covered in garbage. He ought to have taken it easy in his advanced years, while here he was working his heart out from morning ’til night, always digging or building something like a possessed man.

One time I arrived at the dolmen well after dark. The path leading to it was lit by the light of the moon. Silence reigned—the only sound was the rustle of leaves in the breeze. I stopped a few steps short of the trees growing around the dolmen. There sitting on a rock next to the dolmen’s portico was the old man. I recognised his gaunt figure at once. Usually agile and cheerful, he sat there without so much as a stir. He appeared to be weeping. Then he got up and began pacing back and forth near the portico with his usual quick gait. Then he stopped abruptly, turned toward the dolmen and gave an affirmative wave of his hand. I realized that Bambakov was communicating with the dolmen, having a conversation with it. I turned and headed back to the settlement, endeavouring to tread as softly as I could. Along the way I fell to wondering how this old fellow, already in his twilight years, could possibly be helped by the dolmen, no matter how strong or wise a spirit it possessed. How indeed?! Surely not just through communicating like that? Wisdom.! Wisdom is something you need when you’re young. What good is it when you’re old? Who needs it? Who’s going to listen to speeches of wisdom, if even one’s own children are a million miles away? Then a year and a half later, during one of my regular visits to Gelendzhik, I once again set out for the dolmen on old Bambakov’s property. I already knew that Stanislav Bamba-kov had died. And I was a little sad that I wouldn’t be seeing this cheerful, stalwart old fellow again. And I was sorry that I wouldn’t have the chance to taste any more honey from his apiary But what worried me the most was the prospect of seeing garbage around the dolmen and the whole place in a state of ruin. However the lane leading from the main road to the farmstead, it turned out, was freshly swept. Just before the path turned off that led to the dolmen, there among the trees stood wooden tables with benches around, even a beautiful gazebo. Along the lane, neatly marked off by whitened stones, were growing green cypress saplings. Lights burned in the windows of the little house, as well as outside, on a lamp-post. His son! Old Bambakov’s son, Sergei Stanislavovich Bambakov, had left Moscow, quit his job and moved with his wife and son here to his father’s farmstead. Sergei and I sat at one of the tables underneath the trees. “My father rang me in Moscow, asked me to come. I came, looked around, and brought my family,” recounted Sergei. ‘And I started working here with my dad. Such a joy it turned out to be, working alongside him. And when he died, there was no way I could leave this place.”

“No regrets moving here from Moscow?” “No regrets, and my wife has no regrets either. I thank my father every day for this. We feel a lot more at home here.” “Have you got some facilities in—running water for instance?” “Facilities well, you see the outhouse there—that’s something my father fixed up before he died. No, I’m talking about feeling at home in a different way. You know, feeling better inside, more satisfied.” “And what about work?” “We’ve got our fill of work. There’s the new orchard to tend to, and looking after the apiary. I’m still not a hundred percent knowledgeable about working with bees. Too bad my father’s skill didn’t rub off on me. “More and more people are coming to the dolmen, and every day we greet the touring coaches. The wife’s always glad to help out. My father asked me to keep on greeting people, and I greet them. I’ve set up a little coach stop, I want to bring in running water. But they keep harassing us over taxes. Right now we don’t really have enough to get by. At least we can be thankful that the head of the local administration can give us a little help.” I told Sergei about what Anastasia had said about land, about the lots, and remembering parents, and he responded: “You know, she’s right! She’s a hundred percent right! My father died, and yet it seems as though I talk with him every day—sometimes we argue, even. And he’s becoming closer and closer to me—it’s as though he never died.” “What d’you mean? How can you talk with him? The way mediums do— you hear voices?” “Of course not. It’s much simpler than that. You see that crater over there? He was searching for water and stumbled across a layer of rock. I was going to fill in that crater and put another table with benches in its place. And then I thought to myself: What have you done here, dear old dad? You didn’t think things through. Now I’ve got extra work to do, and there’s so much on my plate already. Only the rains came, and water gushed down from the mountain and filled the crater, and it stayed—the water level stayed up for several months. A little pond formed. And I thought: Jolly good, dad! That crater of yours is good for something after all! And now I see there’s so many other things he thought of here, I’m still trying to figure them all out.” “Can you tell me how he managed to get you to come here, Sergei, all the way from Moscow? What words did he use?” ‘As far as I can recall, he used very simple words. Ordinary words. I only remember that his words gave

me some kind of feelings and desires I’d never had before and here I am. Thank you, dad.r What words did old Bambakov learn when he communicated with the dolmen? What wisdom did he learn to make his son come back to him? And come back to him for good! Pity they buried him in the cemetery, and not on his own land, like Anastasia said. And I began to be even a bit envious of Sergei—his father found, or created for him, his own piece of his Motherland. Will I ever have mine? Will others have theirs? Bambakov has it good. It would be good for everyone to be able to stand on their own piece of their Motherland! CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

School, or the lessons of the gods After my final visit to the dolmen on Stanislav Bambakov’s property and my meeting with his son I began recalling more distinctly my conversation with Anastasia about one’s Motherland, and about her lot’ project. My head was floating in memories of the individual plots comprising splendid communities of the future which she had outlined with a stick in the moist earth. And how enthusiastically, with unusual intonations in her voice, she had endeavoured to describe them—it was as though I could hear the very leaves rustle in the gardens now covering the former wasteland, and hear the pure water gurgling in the brooks, and look and see the beautiful and happy men and women living among them. And hear the children’s laughter, and the songs at the close of the day. Along with this, the extraordinary nature of her description provoked a whole range of questions, such as: “The way you’ve drawn them, Anastasia, it looks as though the lots are not right up against each other. Why?” “This splendid community has to have walkways, roadways and paths. There should be a passage no less than three metres wide on all sides between the lots.” “And will there be a school in this community?” “Of course—look, there it is, in the middle of all the squares.” “I wonder what kind of teachers will be teaching in the new school, and how they will structure the classes. Probably the way I saw at Shchetinin’s school. A lot of people are going there now. Everybody likes the forest school at Tekos.2

And a lot of people want to set up similar schools in their own communities.” “Shchetinin’s school is indeed marvelous. It is a step toward the school where children in the new communities will study; The pupils who have gone through Shchetinin’s school will help build them and teach in them. But wise and educated teachers are not the only principal component here. Parents will also be teaching their children in these new schools, and at the same time they will learn from their children.” “But how can parents become teachers all of a sudden? Will all the parents have a higher education, let alone specialised education? There are a lot of different subjects—maths, physics, chemistry, literature—who will teach the children these in the schools?” “The level and specialisation will not be uniform, of course, for everyone on the whole. But then, after all, the study of sciences and other subjects should not be considered an end in itself, a primary goal. It is much more important to learn how to be happy, and that is something only the parents can show by their example—that is their role. “It is not at all necessary for the parents to teach classes in the traditional sense. Parents, for example, can participate in joint discussions or collectively administer an examination.”2 “An exam? Whose exam could the parents administer?” “Their children’s, and the children could examine them, examine their parents.” “Parents administer their kids’ exams?! You’re talking about school exams?! Now that has to be some kind of joke! 2 Then all the kids would end up with top marks! What parent is going to give his own child a low mark? Any parent, of course, is automatically going to mark their son or daughter near the top of the class.” “Vladimir, do not jump to conclusions. Along with classes resembling those in today’s schools, the new school will have others—more important ones.” “Others? What kind of others?” And all at once a thought crossed my mind: if Anastasia could so easily show scenes from millennial antiquity (whatever the process involved—her ray, hypnosis, or something else besides—it still worked), that means that means, she must be able to show the near future too. So I asked her: “Could you show me, Anastasia, at least one class from that school of the future, the land of school that those new communities will have? Could you

show me a non-traditional class?” “I could.” “Then show me. I want to compare it with what I saw in Shchetinin’s school. And with the classes I had back in my own schooldays.” “And you will not ask about or be frightened by the power that I use to create scenes of the future?” “I don’t care how you do it. It’ll simply be most interesting for me to watch.” “Then lie down on the ground, relax, and doze off.” Anastasia quietly placed her hand on top of mine and I could see, as though from above, amidst a whole lot of plots, one which had an internal configuration different from the rest. It comprised several large wooden buildings linked by footpaths, lined on either side by a variety of flowerbeds. Near the building complex stood a natural amphitheatre: along the side of a hill rows of benches descended in a semi-circular formation. On these were seated about three hundred people of different ages, including both grey-haired elders and some quite young. It looked as though they were sitting in family groups, since adult men and women were interspersed with children of various ages. Everyone was talking excitedly amongst themselves, as though they were anticipating something out of the ordinary —a concert performance by a superstar or a presidential address. In front of the audience on a wooden stage or platform stood two small tables and two chairs, with a large chalkboard behind. Alongside the platform there was a group of children, about fifteen in all, ranging in age from five to twelve, engaged in an animated discussion. “This is the beginning of something resembling a symposium on astronomy,” I heard Anastasia say, “But what are the children doing here? Don’t their parents have anybody they can leave them with?” I asked Anastasia. “One of the group of children arguing amongst themselves will now give the keynote presentation,” she explained. “Right now they are voting on who it shall be. There are two candidates, you see—a boy, he is nine years old, and a girl, she is eight Now the children are voting Ah, the majority has picked the boy” A young boy approached one of the tables with a confident, businesslike step. From a cardboard folder he took out some papers containing designs and sketches and laid them out on the table. The rest of the group of children —some slowly and solemnly, others with a hop, skip and a jump—headed

over to where their parents were seated on the benches. A little red-headed, freckle-faced girl—the other candidate, who was not chosen—walked past the table, her head held proudly in the air. The folder in her hands was a little bigger and thicker than the boy’s—no doubt it too contained sketches and designs. The boy at the table tried to say something to the girl as she went by, but she didn’t stop. She simply straightened her braid and walked on past, deliberately looking the other way For some time the boy followed her distractedly with his gaze. Then he once more focused his attention on rearranging the papers in front of him. “Who on earth could have managed to teach these kids enough astronomy so that they can make a presentation before a group of adults?” I asked Anastasia. And she replied: “Nobody taught them. They were given the opportunity to work out for themselves how the whole Universe is structured, to prepare their arguments and present their conclusions. They have been working on it for more than two weeks already, and the final moment has come. They will now defend their views, and their conclusions may be refuted by anyone who wishes to do so.” “So, it turns out this is some kind of game?” “You can think of what is going on here as a ‘game’. Only it is very serious. Each person present will now have their thinking about the planetary order accelerated, and may perhaps start contemplating something even greater than that. After all, the children have been thinking and pondering for two weeks now, and their thought is not limited by anything—there are no dogmas or theories of planetary order to weigh them down. We still do not know what they will come up with.” “They’ll be fantasising with their child mindsets, you mean to say?” “I mean to say, they shall present their own theories. After all, even adults have not come up with any proven truths regarding planetary order. The goal of this symposium is not to work out any canons, but to accelerate thought, which afterward will determine what is true, or at least come closer to the truth.” At this point a young man stepped up to the second table and announced the presentation was about to begin. Whereupon the nine-year-old started to speak. He spoke confidently and enthusiastically for about twenty-five or thirty

minutes. What he said struck me as sheer childish fantasy—a fantasy not grounded in any scientific theories or even an elementary knowledge one would get from a high-school astronomy course. He spoke in substance as follows: “If you look up to the sky in the late evening, you see a whole lot of stars shining there. There are different kinds of stars. Some stars are little and others a little larger. But very small stars can be big, too. Only we think at first that they are little. But they are very big. Because when an aeroplane flies very high, it is small, but when it is on the ground and we walk up to it, it turns out to be big, and it can hold a whole lot of people. And each star could hold a whole lot of people. “Only there are no people on the stars right now. But they shine in the evening. The big ones shine, and the little ones too. They shine so we can see them and think about them. The stars want us to make the things we do on the Earth just as good on them too. They are a little envious of the Earth. They really want berries and trees to grow on them the way they do here, they want the same little streams and fishes. “The stars are waiting for us, and each of them is trying to shine to make us pay attention to it. But we can’t yet travel to them, ’cause we’ve got a lot of things to take care of here at home. But when we do take care of everything at home, and things are good everywhere on the whole Earth, then we shall travel to the stars. Only we shan’t travel by plane or rocket ship, ’cause flying by plane would take too long and the rocket ship would be long and boring. Besides, we won’t all fit into a plane or a rocket ship. And there won’t be room for all sorts of things we want to take with us. There won’t be any room for trees, or a stream. But once we make everything right all over the Earth, we’ll fly the whole Earth to the nearest star. “Besides, some stars will want to come to Earth themselves and snuggle up to it. They have already sent their fragments, and their fragments have snuggled up to the Earth. People used to think that these were comets, but they are fragments of stars which really, really wanted to snuggle up to our beautiful Earth. They were sent by the stars, which are waiting for us. We can fly the whole Earth to a far-off star, and whoever wants to can remain on the star, to make it beautiful, like on the Earth.” All this time the boy had been holding up his sheets of paper and showing them to the audience. They contained drawings of a starry sky and the Earth’s trajectory as it headed toward the stars. The last drawing portrayed two stars blossoming with gardens and the Earth moving away from them on its intergalactic journey. When the boy finished talking and showing the drawings, the master of ceremonies announced that anyone who wished

could challenge him or put forth his own views on what had just been said. But no one hastened to speak. Everybody remained silent—it looked to me as though they were concerned about something. “What are they hesitating for?” I asked Anastasia. “Don’t any of the adults here know about astronomy?” “They are hesitating because they know whatever arguments they put forth must be clear and well thought through. After all, their children are present. If what they say is not understandable or acceptable to the children’s hearts, then the speaker will risk being mistrusted or, even worse, treated unsympathetically Adults cherish their relationship with their children, and hesitate to risk any harm to it. They are afraid of incurring the audience’s disfavour—especially their children’s.” The heads of many in the audience began turning in the direction of a greyhaired elderly man sitting in their midst. He had his arm around the shoulders of the little red-haired girl sitting beside him, the same one who had been one of the candidates to give the keynote presentation. Sitting next to them was a young and very beautiful woman. Anastasia commented: “A lot of people now have their eyes on the elderly man in the middle of the audience. He is a university professor, a scientist, now retired. His personal life got mixed up rather early on, and he had no children. Ten years ago he procured a lot of land, and began to establish a home on it all by himself. A young woman fell in love with him and the little red-headed girl was born to them. The young woman next to him is his wife and the mother of his child. The retired professor very much loves the child of his old age. And the girl, his daughter, treats him with great respect and love. Many of those present here today believe that the professor is entitled to take the floor first.” But the elderly professor had trouble getting his first words out. I could see him nervously rumpling the pages of some journal with his hands. Finally he got up and started to speak. He said something about the structure of the Universe, the comets and the mass of the Earth, and finally summed up his remarks something like this: “The planet Earth, of course, is moving through space and rotating. But it is inextricably linked with the solar system, and cannot move independently It cannot leave the solar system and travel to distant galaxies. The Sun gives life to everything living on the Earth. Moving away from the Sun would involve a serious cooling of the Earth, and we would end up with a dead planet. We can all observe what happens even when we move just a fraction away from the Sun. We get winter.”

At this point the professor stopped abruptly The boy who had presented the paper flipped distractedly through his sketches, then gave a questioning glance to his peers in the group, the ones who had helped him prepare the presentation. But it was apparent that everybody had found the argument of winter and cooling very cogent and plausible. This argument had the effect of crushing the children’s beautiful dream of a space-travelling Earth. And all at once in the ensuing quiet, which had lasted a half-minute already, the voice of the elderly professor once more sounded forth. “Winter Life can’t help but slow down if the Earth doesn’t get enough solar energy Simply can’t help! You don’t need any scientific studies to see that, to be convinced On the other hand it is possible that the Earth itself possesses energy, the same as the Sun. Only it hasn’t yet manifested itself. Nobody’s discovered it yet. Perhaps you yourselves will discover it at some point. Perhaps it is possible that the Earth could be self-sufficient. This energy will be made manifest in some way The Sun’s energy will show itself on the Earth, and, like solar energy, it will be able to unfold the petals of the flowers. And then we can travel on the Earth across the galaxy Yes, then” The professor lost his train of thought and fell silent. A murmur of dissatisfaction could be heard through the audience. And then it all began. The adults in the audience began getting up from their seats and holding forth, denouncing the professor, especially the possibility of living without the Sun. Some of them spoke of the photosynthesis of plants, others about environmental temperature, still others about the fixed nature of planetary trajectories. Through all this the professor sat with an increasingly drooping head. His red-haired daughter turned her head to look at each of the speakers —on occasion she would try standing up, as though she were trying to protect her father from his challengers. An elderly woman who looked like the teacher type took the floor and started holding forth on how it wasn’t right to appease or flatter children just to curry a favourable attitude toward you on their part. “Any lie will be exposed with time, and then how will we all look then? This isn’t just a lie, it’s cowardice!” said the woman. The red-headed girl tugged on the lapels of her father’s jacket. She began shaking him, practically crying, her voice breaking as she kept at him: “Papochka,3 you lied about the energy Did you lie, Pa-pochka? Because we’re children? The lady called you a coward. Is that bad?” A silence fell upon the large open-air amphitheatre. The professor raised his head, looked his daughter in the eye, put his hand on her shoulder and

quietly said: “I believed what I said, daughter.” At first the girl remained silent. Then she quickly stood up on the bench and cried out as loudly as her little child’s voice could muster: “My Papa’s not a coward. Papa believed what he said. He believed it!” The little girl surveyed the now hushed audience. Nobody was even glancing in their direction. She looked at her mother. But the young woman turned away with her head lowered; she fiddled with the buttons on the sleeve of her cardigan, undoing them and doing them up again. The girl once more surveyed the hushed audience, and looked at her father. As before, the professor seemed to be gazing helplessly at his little daughter. Once more, this time in the absolute quiet, the red-headed girl’s voice sounded gently and tenderly, “People don’t believe you, Papochka. They don’t believe you ’cause the Sun’s energy has not yet showed itself on the Earth—the energy that is like the Sun and can open the petals of the flowers. But once it appears, then everybody will believe you. They will believe you later, when it appears. Later” And all at once the professor’s daughter quickly straightened her hair, then leapt out into the aisle and ran off. She ran to the edge of the amphitheatre, and hurried toward one of the nearby houses. She disappeared inside, only to reappear in the doorway a few seconds later. This time the girl was holding in her hands an earthenware pot with a plant in it. She ran with it over to the speaker’s table, which was now vacant. She put the potted plant down on the table. And her child’s voice, now loud and confident, resonated over the heads of the audience: “Look, here’s a flower. Its petals are closed. All the flowers’ petals have closed. ’Cause there’s no sun out today But they will open, because there is energy on the Earth I shall I shall transform myself into the energy which can open the petals of flowers.” With that the little girl closed her hands into a fist and began staring at the flower. She went on staring without blinking. The people sitting in their seats refrained from conversation. Everyone was looking at the little girl and the plant in the earthenware pot on the table in front of her. Slowly the professor rose from his seat and went over to his daughter. He went up to her and put his hands on her shoulders, trying to lead her away. But the little redhead shrugged him off and whispered: “Why don’t you help me instead, Papochka!” The professor was no doubt utterly bewildered. He remained standing at his

daughter’s side, his hands on her little shoulders, and he too began staring at the flower. But nothing was happening with the flower. And I began to feel somehow sorry for the little girl and her professor-father. But he really got himself into a fix with his declaration of faith in some kind of undiscovered energy! All at once a boy stood up in the front row—the same boy that had given the presentation. He partially turned toward the silent audience, sniffed his nose and headed over to the table on the stage. Solemnly and confidently he approached the table and stood next to the red-haired girl. Just like her, he fixed his gaze firmly on the plant in the earthenware pot. But as far as the plant was concerned, of course, nothing was happening. And then I saw it! I saw how children of all ages began rising from their seats and one by one came down to the stage. They silently took up a position, staring intently at the flower. The last little girl, about six years old, was carrying her very small brother in her arms. She managed to squeeze in front of those standing and someone helped her stand her younger brother up on the chair by the table. The toddler, after taking a good look at everyone around, turned to the flower and began blowing on it. And all at once the potted plant began to gradually unfold the petals of one of its flowers. Little by little. But it didn’t escape the notice of the hushed crowd in the amphitheatre. And several of them rose silently from their seats. And now, on the table, a second flower was already opening its petals, along with a third, and a fourth, “Oooh” cried the teacher-type in an excited, childlike voice, and began clapping her hands. Then the whole amphitheatre broke into applause. The beautiful young woman ran over to her professorhusband, who by this time had stepped off to one side of the crowd of delighted children surrounding the flower and was rubbing his forehead. She leapt at him on the run, threw her arms around his neck and began kissing his cheeks and lips. The little redhead took a step in the direction of her embracing parents, but the boy who had given the presentation stopped her. She managed to wriggle her hand away, but after taking a few more steps, she turned, went up close to him and buttoned up a button which had become undone on his shirt. With that she gave him a smile, then quickly turned and ran off to her still embracing parents. More and more people were now heading from their seats down to the stage, some with babes in arms, others shaking the hand of the young presenter. He just stood there, his arm outstretched for handshaking, while his second hand was clasping the button the little girl had just done up for him.

All at once someone struck up a tune on a bayan4—something between a gypsy melody and a Russian folk dance. And when some old fellow began stamping his feet on the stage, he was joined by a plumpish lady who made her entrance like a swan. And two young fellows had already launched into a boisterousprisiadka? And the flower with its unfolding petals watched as more and more people got carried away by the tricky and boisterous rhythms of a Russian folk dance. Then, all of a sudden, the scene of the unusual school disappeared, as though a screen had been turned off. I was sitting on the ground. Taiga vegetation stretched all around, as far as the eye could see, and there beside me was Anastasia. 4

bayan—in this case a Russian folk-instrument of the accordion family, using a single reed and a chromatic scale, with rows of buttons on both the left and the right sides (not to be confused with a similarly named bass drum in India). Derived from another accordion-type instrument, the diatonic garmon’, it is often played together with a stringed instrument (such as the domra or balalaika). It takes its name from a legendary Russian singerstoryteller named Bayan or Boyan, whose songs inspired ancient warriors to do their utmost in battle. By extension, the word bayan (derived from an ancient Russian verb signifying ‘to tell’) could refer to any wandering poetstoryteller—a counterpart of the Celtic bard. 3

'prisiadka (pronounced prees-YAT-ka)—one of the more famous Slavic dances, usually performed by men, involving squatting on one knee while kicking out the opposite leg in front, then alternating the leg positions in quick succession. Inside me, however, a kind of excitement lingered, and I could still hear the laughter of happy people and the sounds of the cheery dance music, which I didn’t want to let go of. When the sounds within me gradually died down, I said to Anastasia: “What you showed me just now is nothing at all like any school class I’ve ever seen. It’s some kind of family gathering, of families living in the community And there wasn’t a single teacher there—everything happened all by itself.” “There was a teacher, Vladimir, a very wise teacher. But he purposely did not attract anyone’s attention to himself.” “But why were the parents there? Their emotional reactions only provoked stress.” “Emotions and feelings can accelerate thought by a factor of many times. They have lessons like that every week in this school. Teachers and parents

are united in their aspirations, and children consider themselves to be equal with adults.” ‘All the same, it seems weird to think of parents participating in their children’s education. After all, parents aren’t trained to be teachers.” “It is sad, Vladimir, that people have got into the habit of handing over their children to others to be raised, regardless of who these others are—a school, or some other institution. They simply hand their children over, often not knowing what kind of world-view will be inculcated in them, or what destiny awaits them as a result of somebody’s particular teaching. By giving their children over to an uncertain future, they are actually depriving themselves of their own children. That is why children whom mothers hand over to someone else to be taught learning often forget their mothers in turn.” The time came to leave. My mind was filled up full with all the information I had acquired, so much so that I was scarcely aware of my surroundings. I took my leave of Anastasia in some haste. I told her: “Don’t bother seeing me off. When I’m walking alone, I can think unhindered.” “Yes, do not let anyone hinder your thinking,” she responded. “When you come to the river, my grandfather will be there, and he will help ferry you across to the landing.” I walked alone through the taiga in the direction of the river and thought about everything I had seen and heard, all at the same time. But one question persisted above all others: how did we get into this situation (‘we’ meaning the majority of people)? We think everyone has their Motherland, and yet none of us has a little piece of Motherland to call their own. And there isn’t even any law in our country, no law guaranteeing a Man or his family the opportunity to own in perpetuity a single hectare of land. Political leaders and parties in their ever-changing procession promise all sorts of benefits, but they all manage to avoid the question concerning a piece of our Motherland. Why? And yet our grand Motherland consists precisely of little pieces. Native, small family homesteads, with little houses and gardens on them. If nobody has anything like that, then what does our Motherland consist of? A law must be drawn up to guarantee everyone their piece of Motherland. For every family that wants one. The deputies4 can pass such a law The deputies are chosen by all of us. That means we must vote people into office who agree to pass such a law A law! How should it be worded? Maybe this way? The State is obliged to provide each family couple, upon request, one hectare of land for use in perpetuity, with right of inheritance. Agricultural

yields on these family lands shall never be subject to any kind of taxation. Family lands are not subject to sale. Something like that would be okay. But what if somebody takes the land and doesn’t do anything with it? Then the law should also state: If over a period of three years the land is not cultivated, the State may take it back. But what if some people want to live and work in the city and use their family domain like a dacha? Well, let them. Women will still come to their kin’s domain5 to give birth. Those who do not will not be forgiven later by their children. And just who will push this law through to final adoption? A political party? Which one? We need to set up a party for this purpose.6 And just who will take care of organising it? Where do we find politicians like that? We must seek them out, somehow. As soon as possible! Otherwise you could die, and not once come nigh to your Motherland. And your grandchildren won’t remember you. When will an opportunity like this come again? When will it be possible to say, “Greetings, my Motherland!”? Anastasia’s grandfather was sitting on a log by the shore. Nearby a small wooden boat was tied up, rocking ever so gently on the waves. I knew it wasn’t too hard to row to the nearest landing a few kilometres downstream on the other side of the river,7 but how would he fare coming back against the current, I wondered as I greeted the old fellow. I asked him about it. “I’ll make it by and by,” answered Anastasia’s grandfather. Always cheery as a rule, on this occasion he seemed rather sombre and not much inclined to conversation. I sat down beside him on the log. “I can’t understand,” I said, “how Anastasia can hold so much information inside her—how she can recall things from the past and know everything that is going on in our lives right now. And here she lives way out in the taiga, and delights in the flowers, the Sun and all the little creatures. It’s as though she doesn’t think about anything.” “What’s there to think about?” her grandfather replied. “She feels it, this information. When she needs it, she takes as much as she wants. The answers to all questions are right here in space, right with us. We need only know how to perceive them and make them manifest.” “How do we do that?” “How How Say you’re walking along the street of a city you know very

well, thinking about your own affairs, and a passer-by suddenly comes up to you and asks how to get somewhere. Can you give him an answer?” “Sure.” “You see how simple it all is. "You were thinking about something completely different. The question put to you has absolutely no connection with what you were thinking about, and yet you are still able to give an answer. The answer ‘lives’ in you.” “But that’s just a request for directions. But if the same passer-by were to ask me what happened in the city we’re in —let’s say, a thousand years before we met, no Man could give an answer to that.” “He couldn’t if he’s lazy or neglectful. Everything, right from the very moment of creation, is stored in and around each individual Man Why don’t you get into the boat? Time to push off.” The old fellow took the oars. When we had got about a kilometre from our departure point on the shore, Anastasia’s erstwhile taciturn grandfather began to talk. “Try not to wallow in all your information and contemplations, Vladimir. Decide what’s real by yourself. With your self, you should be able to feel both matter and what you cannot see in equal measure.” “Why are you telling me this? I don’t understand.” “Because you’ve started digging around in all that information, trying to define it with your mind. But you won’t get it with your mind. The mind can’t possibly fathom the volume of information known to my granddaughter. And you’ll stop being aware of the creative process taking place around you.” “I’m aware of everything—the river, the boat” “If you’re aware of everything, then why weren’t you able to say a proper good-bye to my granddaughter and your son?” “Well, maybe I wasn’t able to after all. You see, I was thinking more globally” I had indeed left almost without saying good-bye to Anastasia, and I got so immersed in thought during my whole journey back to the river that I hardly noticed the time, but suddenly found myself on the riverbank. I added: “Anastasia also thinks about other things, she thinks globally, she doesn’t need a whole lot of sentimental gestures. Anastasia feels with her self all planes of being. She doesn’t feel one at the expense of another.” “So?” “Take your field-glasses out of your bag and have a look back at the tree on the bank where we pushed off.”

I got out my field-glasses and had a look. Standing there by the tree-trunk, holding our son in her arms, was Anastasia. On her bent arm hung a little bundle. She stood there with our son and waved her hand at our boat, which was moving further and further away downstream. And I waved back. “Looks as though my granddaughter and her son followed you. She was waiting for you to finish your contemplating and start thinking of your son, and of her too. And she gathered together that bundle for you. But it seemed the information you had gathered from her was more important to you. “The spiritual and the material—you need to feel it all in equal measure. Then you’ll be able to take a solid stand in life, with both feet planted firmly on the ground. When one predominates over the other, it’s like a person going lame.” The old man spoke with no trace of anger as he handled the oars with dexterity I tried to respond aloud, either to him or to myself: “Most of all now I need to understand To understand things for myself! Who are we? Where are we?” CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

Anomalies at Gelendzhik Dear readers, everything I have written in these books I either heard from Anastasia, or saw and experienced myself. All the events I describe are real events from my own life, and my descriptions, especially in the first couple of books, included people’s real names and addresses—a decision I later had cause to regret. These people came to be bothered more and more by curious busybodies. Another thorny problem has been all the various rumours, events and phenomena attached to both myself and Anastasia. The particular interpretations of these events—and, consequently, the particular conclusions drawn therefrom—have also been upsetting. Many of them I cannot agree with at all. For example, I am dead set against worshipping the dolmens. I believe that we can and must communicate with the dolmens on the basis of respect, but not worship them. The readers of the Anastasia books comprise people of various faith groups and religious confessions, with various levels of education. I believe that anyone’s interpretation of events is worth our attention. Everyone has the right to their own opinion, but when expressing it, they should say: “This is my opinion, my suggestion.” And of course one should not mystify everything right off, and should certainly not mystify either me or Anastasia. Otherwise one may transform Anastasia from a Man—albeit not a very

ordinary Man—into some kind of extraordinary being. Might it not be that she in fact is a supremely normal Man, and we are the ones who are abnormal? So please excuse me for getting carried away here with my own opinions. It’s on account of my being disturbed by a particular set of circumstances: Rumours are circulating lightning fast at the moment about the fiery sphere with which Anastasia communicates. I ask my readers to recall my various descriptions of it in previous books—how this sphere appeared next to Anastasia in emergency situations: how it first appeared when little Anastasia was crying over her parents’ grave, and then taught her to take her first little baby steps, and how it defended her when she was attacked. To her grandfather’s question, “What is it?” she replied: “I would call it Good.”1 Yes, she does communicate with it, but even she does not fully comprehend what kind of natural phenomenon it is. Now why have I all of a sudden brought up the fiery sphere which appeared out of nowhere? Because according to a mass of witnesses, it was this very sphere that appeared in the sky over Gelendzhik and stirred up a good deal of turmoil. Now rumours are being spread by detractors to the effect that Anastasia can practically bomb anyone she doesn’t like with the help of this sphere, and that she communicates not only with the forces of light but also with the dark forces. And here the readers themselves are adding fat to the fire. I have already had a request from Tuapse to send this sphere to the Sochi city hall so that they might see the light the way the Gelendzhik council did.8 9 I shall now attempt, dear readers, to offer you a true account of what really happened in Gelendzhik, and I would ask you to read it calmly and understanding^ A local non-profit organisation in Gelendzhik was preparing to hold a readers’ conference on the Anastasia books. The relationship of the organisation’s board with the city council was, to put it mildly, tense. And in Book 2 I had already given a rather unflattering portrayal of the old city leadership. Against a background like that, you can just imagine what happened. Some time after noon on 17 September 1999, on the eve of the reader’s conference, a wind blew up in the city, and a thunderstorm began. All at once a fiery sphere appeared on the small square in front of the city hall. Its subsequent behaviour, people now say, was very much like that of Anastasia’s sphere.

The sphere which appeared over Gelendzhik somehow evaded the lightningrods of the surrounding buildings, and made contact with a tree standing in the middle of the square. Then the sphere emitted several fiery spheres or rays of somewhat smaller proportions. One of them flew into the Mayor’s office, flew around the room right in front of onlookers and then flew out. A second sphere flew into the window of the Deputy Mayor, Galina Nikolaevna,10 and hovered in the air for a while. Then it went over to the window and etched on the window pane a strange symbol that nobody has yet been able to erase, and then flew off. Subsequent rumours have it that the Gelendzhik administrative council has become ‘holy’ or ‘enlightened’. They say that right after the incident with the fiery sphere, the council decided to adopt measures for a more favourable reception of the readers of my books coming to the city from out of town, to fixup the dolmens in the area, hold an annual inspirational songwriters’ festival, and a lot more besides, which it was unwilling to do before. Rumours of what had happened spread, together with the affirmation that Anastasia’s sphere had visited Gelendzhik. I tried countering that it was only ball lightning, and that its resemblance in behaviour to what I had described in the book was purely coincidental, and the city council would have adopted some kind of resolution, regardless. But they would have none of it. They immediately began arguing that there are no coincidences, and besides, it wasn’t just one coincidence in this case, but a whole chain. And they further declared that when coincidences follow one after another in a chain, it can be termed a pattern. Of course one could say that the coincidences had come together in a chain. For now, at least, there was no logical explanation for the sphere bypassing the lightning-rods. Why did it make contact with the big tree standing in the square, flare up and make thundering sounds over it, yet refrain from destroying it and fly over to the city council windows? Why did it fly right into the offices of the very people capable of taking decisions with respect to readers coming to the city? Why did the city council render a favourable decision on a whole lot of questions immediately afterward? Why did the chairman of the municipal assembly take it upon herself to personally welcome the conference delegates the next day? And so forth. According to one recent rumour the Mayor of Gelendzhik and the whole administrative apparatus has changed so much that now Gelendzhik will start to flourish, and become, as Anastasia said, “richer than Jerusalem or Rome”.11 Another rumour has it that the sphere simply struck fear in everyone.

Upon my arrival at Gelendzhik I met with the Mayor and her deputy. I saw the symbol the sphere had etched on the glass and I touched it. I sensed an unusual aroma in the office, something similar to incense or sulphur. But there was no sensation of fright. On the contrary: Galina Nikolaevna, the Deputy Mayor, for example, even seemed more cheery than on previous occasions. She also recounted to me how everything had happened, and asked me whether I thought this might be some kind of sign. Altogether, the way things turned out, the theory about ordinary ball lightning was quite unacceptable. And I got accused of simplifying the situation. I don’t deny that I really did try to simplify things—and not only this situation. Why? Because I have heard reports about how certain religious leaders are frightening people with their speculations on Anastasia’s unusual powers—saying that these powers were not of God, and that Anastasia was not a Man. They’re writing articles about this in their religious journals. I can only imagine the exaggerations that will now come up with the appearance of the sphere at Gelendzhik. I am not about to try to either prove or refute the identification of the fiery sphere at Gelendzhik with Anastasia’s—there’s no sense in it now. Everybody’s going to stick to their own opinion. All I want is to try to reason a little together with you, dear readers, as to what kind of forces the fiery sphere at Gelendzhik might have represented. The Bible says: “By their fruits ye shall know them.”5 Well then, what are the fruits? First, the fiery sphere caused no damage to the city hall. Even the glass on which it etched its symbol wasn’t broken. The lingering aroma in the office was not an unpleasant one. Galina Nikolaevna (the occupant of the office) spoke with me in the presence of four people, and none of them detected any sense of fear in her. The sphere made thundering noises over the tree in the square, and there was a bright flare—people said it looked as though the tree itself was flaring up. But there it is, still growing away in perfect health. The city council resolved to improve the level of service to readers from out-of-town. It also made a decision to offer regular, properly organised excursions to the dolmens Anastasia spoke about. I myself cannot see a single negative consequence. Therefore, the fruits must be judged positive. Anastasia says about the fiery sphere that it acts completely self-sufficiently, that it cannot be ordered about—one can only make a request of it.

In my books I am attempting to describe, as accurately as I can, situations I have seen with my own eyes, experienced with my own feelings or heard with my own ears. As for the incident with the fiery sphere at Gelendzhik, well, everyone can put forth their own version of events. But I certainly don’t want anyone using this incident for the purpose of frightening people. Besides, if one were to continue along that line, then it is possible to mystify the most mundane situations. Now people are even starting to say that this fiery sphere assisted me in making my presentation at Gelendzhik. But that’s not true. I don’t have any connection with it at all. And the press has not been blameless in feeding these rumours. The respected magazine Ogonyok12 printed a long article in which the author states that “an experiment is being conducted on this country on a major scale”. Specifically he notes about me that “he talked on stage for eight hours straight—I haven’t seen oratory like that for a long time”. And another paper adds: “through all this he remained fresh as a cucumber”. All these descriptions, to put it mildly, are exaggerated and inaccurate. In the first place, at the conference I spoke not for eight hours straight, but only six. Two hours were ‘added’ from my presentation on the following day. As far as assistance goes, it really was there, but with no mysticism. On the eve of the Gelendzhik conference Anastasia came to see me, telling me I should get a good night’s sleep. She offered me a tea extract that she had brought with her from the taiga, for me to drink just before bedtime. I agreed, since lately I really hadn’t been able to sleep much at night. Then, when I lay down, she sat down beside me, took my hand—as she used to do back in the taiga (I described this in my chapter “Touching Paradise”13). And I fell asleep, as though literally flying off somewhere. Whenever she did this in the taiga, a sense of peace would always come over me. 13

“Touching Paradise”—Chapter 21 in Book 1.

I awoke the next morning to see a beautiful day out, I felt in top shape, and my mood was cheerful. For breakfast Anastasia offered me only cedar milk, saying it was better not to eat any meat, since a lot of energy would be spent on digesting it. And after the cedar milk I didn’t even feel like having meat. Whenever I have cedar milk, I never feel like having anything else. When I gave my talk to the readers at the conference, Anastasia was not beside me. She stood quietly for a while in the auditorium among the readers, then went off and disappeared altogether.

But after the publication of the articles and the rumours giving a mystic interpretation to my presentation at the conference, I began to wonder myself whether Anastasia had somehow been helping me, and I said to her: “Don’t tell me, Anastasia, you quite forgot I was supposed to look tired, at least toward the end of my presentation? Why did you let these people indulge in mystical speculation?” She laughed, and replied: “What kind of mysticism can there be in someone well-rested talking in a good mood with his friends? As for your speaking for so long, this was because your thought is still confused, you tried to grasp hold of a number of topics at once. It was possible to have phrased it more clearly and concisely, but you were not able to do that—also on account of the fact that your shoes were too tight and squeezing your feet, so that the blood had trouble circulating through your veins.” You see now how utterly simple in fact it all was. There was absolutely no mysticism in my presentation. Dear readers! I’m receiving more and more letters from you asking why neither I nor the Anastasia Foundation are responding to the critical articles in the press, to the insults and accusations of bigotry directed at me and my readers in general. What a waste of time that would be! Anyway, what’s the sense of responding to people who are simply out to provoke a scandal? In November one journalist (by the name of By—I’m not going to spell it out in full, no need to immortalise him) saw fit to publish one and the same article under different titles in no less than five publications at the same time. He changed the titles, transposed a few sentences in the text and signed himself with different names. He naturally disparages me and then rants away with a diatribe on morals, ethics and commercialism. His editors will deal with him themselves before too long. I know how distasteful such a situation can be for editors. And it’s considered highly unethical in journalists’ circles. After all, each publication paid him an honorarium on the understanding they were getting an ‘exclusive’. What’s the point of my arguing with him? Maybe the poor fellow needs the money to buy himself a decent meal. And as for the muck and lies he dishes out, I don’t think they’ll ever stick to Anastasia—they’ll all fall back on him. Let’s face it: Anastasia’s a pretty hot topic right now, so I wouldn’t be surprised if a few more publications tried to capitalise on her popularity After all, you readers number more than a million already Let’s say I start a polemic with a tabloid of maybe 50,000 subscribers. You are naturally going to want to read it, and that means you’ll be giving a huge boost to their circulation. There’s absolutely no sense in arguing with them. You know

yourselves, after all, whether you’re bigots or not. If you really want to get back at a publication, your best bet is simply to refuse to buy it, or cancel your subscription if you have one. As for me, the only way I can communicate with you is through my books. So now I’m going to try and answer some of your questions. First of all, at the present time I’m not engaged in any business activities—I spend my whole time writing. I don’t belong to any religious group. I’m simply trying to come up with my own sense of what life’s all about. But the criticisms and fabrications directed at me and Anastasia are likely to increase. Seems a lot of people see Anastasia as an obstacle to their own pet plans. You can bet they’ll expose themselves sooner or later. But one thing that seems pretty clear to me now is that this Siberian girl’s being seen as one hell of a threat to more than a few religious groups and at the same time to some financial-industrial empires both here in Russia and abroad. They’re the ones that are persistently blowing up the question in the press: Does Anastasia exist or not? And just who is Megre? And then they give their own answer: No, she doesn’t. And Megre’s a penny-pinching entrepreneur. In actual fact, they are more aware than just about anyone else of Anastasia’s existence. But they feel a need to go to any length to distract people from the central message of what information is coming out, to cut off the source of information at any cost, try to take control of it, and if that doesn’t work, to exterminate it. It seems they have been better and quicker than we have at evaluating the information coming from Anastasia. They even laugh at those who question Anastasia’s existence. Think about it: would anyone listening to information on the radio question the existence of the station broadcasting it? But while some self-professed ‘wise guys’ have got caught up in an endless round of asking Does she exist or not?, in the meantime there has been an intense buying up and exporting of cedar nuts in the Irkutsk, Tomsk and Novosibirsk regions—for foreign currency, yet. According to reports out of Novosibirsk and Tomsk, Chinese representatives have been involved.8 1999 was a banner year for cedar nut crops in many parts of Siberia. But the Novosibirsk medical factory9 is not. Indeed, China’s domestic consumption of pine nuts (‘cedar nuts’ in Russia) is estimated to be greater than its total domestic production. Yet, China is the largest exporter of pine nuts to America (controlling over 90% of US imports, worth tens of millions of dollars each year). The ‘Chinese’ pine

nuts found in North American health food stores and supermarkets are predominantly Russian in origin—they are, in fact, the nuts of Siberian cedar and Korean cedar trees ‘exported’ across the border to China, to be shelled and sent overseas, often without the necessary level of refrigeration. increasing its output of cedar oil. There is a shortage of cedar nuts—the same nuts which are being made into expensive medicines in the West, where the manufacturers are talcing great pains to conceal the identity of the main ingredient. Remember I wrote back in Book 1 about how they were shipping cedar nuts abroad? And when I tried searching for information about cedar nut oil, I got a warning from Poland to back off.13 14 15 16 This year they’ve managed again to hold their own. But as to the future, well, we shall see. In the next book I shall tell about a certain surprise being prepared by Anastasia. I am an entrepreneur. My idea was to write the books I promised and then get back to business. And I never hid my intentions from anyone—in fact I wrote about them right in Book 2.11 But now my plans have changed. Let other Siberian entrepreneurs compete for trade with these Western smart alecs. My plans changed because those behind critical publications continue to insult and frighten readers, labelling as bigots anybody who bothers to read my books, which they consider silly and devoid of literary value. Granted, I don’t have any higher education, or experience in the literary field, and those who have these are irritated by the popularity of my books. They are especially upset by the fact that, given my level of education, I still refuse to submit my work to editors. And they are simply furious over my publication of the five-hundred-page collection of readers’ letters and poems entitled The soul of Russia sings in Anastasia’s rayT Again, I didn’t allow anyone to edit this. I wrote the preface myself, saying that the collection was quite an historic publication. I still say this. How else could one characterise it, containing as it does letters and musings on life, on the purpose of Man, on what people today cherish in life. The letters and poems are sincere, and written by people of different ages, different social situations and religious inclinations. And this book has been pretty popular. In fact, its popularity has quite given the lie to the myth that modern Man is interested only in crime novels and books about sex. People are eager to read poetry—even if it’s not professionally written, but sincere nevertheless. I’ve been told on a number of occasions that because I’ve thrown out a challenge to the whole brotherhood of the pen and their erudition, I’m going to be wiped off the face of the map—nobody will ever recognise me as a

writer. But it wasn’t my intention to challenge anyone as a writer. That was never my intention, but now, when the press is going so far as to attribute the popularity of my books to the fact that “Russia is a stupid country”, and that all my readers are fools and bigots, I have no choice but to respond to them. I shall be a writer! I’ll do a little more practising, study some more I’ll ask Anastasia for help and I shall be a writer! I shall write new books and reprint the ones already published in the best printing houses in the world. I shall make the books about Anastasia and about the people of Russia today the best books of the millennium. This is how I shall respond to my present and future critics, but in the meantime I’ll simply say this to them: “To my critics, I bid you farewell. I’m going off with Anastasia—maybe she’s a bit naive, but she’s beautiful, kind and sincere. We shall set off into our new millennium with more than a million readers in whose hearts a splendid and inspired image is alive and well. And what is in your hearts, critics? Phooey on you! Don’t come crawling into our new millennium. Get the how can I put it? Get the hell on back to your own! And even if you do come crawling into ours, you’ll only choke on your own anger and envy. “In our millennium we’re seeing the start of a new and splendid co-creation, where the air will be pure and there will be living water and fragrant gardens. And in that millennium I shall continue publishing new collections with readers’ poems and letters. I shall call the series A people’s book. "You may say that “the poems therein are horrendous” but I say they are resplendent. “I shall also put out some audiocassettes with songs of the bards—songs of Soul, of Russia, of Anastasia.17 You may say that anyone can strum a guitar. But I say that these bards sing from the heart. And I would add, in Anastasia’s words: Not in any of the galaxies could there be found a single string capable of producing a better sound than that of the singing of the human soul”18 Dear readers, I extend to all of you my heartfelt greetings on the dawn of our millennium! On the dawn of your splendid co-creation on the Earth! Who are we? That is what I have decided to call my next book. Respectfully, Vladimir Megr To be continued

Hope for the world Translator’s and Editor’s Afterword Wow! Four books translated and counting. Not a bad record, when one considers that just a year ago (as of this writing) not a single page of this series had yet come off the Ringing Cedars presses in America. The series was launched with the publication of Book 1, Anastasia, in February 2005, followed by Book 2, The Ringing Cedars of Russia, and Book 3, The Space of Love, later in the year. And now Co-creation makes four, with at least five volumes still to come. And for this swift progression we have you to thank, dear readers, for your ongoing support and encouragement, without which the publication of the new volumes would not have been possible. And needless to say, our gratitude goes out to our original source of support, the One whose inspiration inevitably underlies any legitimate act of co-creation’. Equally noteworthy is the co-creation evident in the evolution of the original series itself, particularly the remarkable transformation of a hard-nosed Siberian commercial trader into one of Russia’s bestselling authors. All the more amazing when one remembers that because of Vladimir Megre’s initially ‘choppy’ writing style, the original Russian manuscript of Anastasia was rejected by publisher after publisher, leaving him no choice but to bring out the first edition on his own.1 However, after several print-runs of the self-published Anastasia sold out simply by word of mouth, with no advertising campaign or bookstore exposure, professional publishers were only too eager to reconsider, and it was not long before the volumes in the Ringing Cedars Series were selling in the millions. And now in America, as elsewhere in the English-speaking world, Anastasia and its sequels are once again running counter to the book-industry’s longheld axioms. Even though corporate wholesalers declined to distribute the Ringing Cedars Series to major retailers on the grounds that “no book sells by word of mouth alone, without a budget sufficient for a large advertising campaign”, you the readers have proved otherwise, and the books have already spread around the globe without so much as a single advertisement or paid-for review in the press. Many of you have taken it upon yourself to purchase additional copies to give to the family and friends. Some have even gone farther and become independent distributors, devoting considerable time and effort to making the books available in your local regions. Thus, as with their original editions, the success of the books in translation is once again the result of the resourcefulness of their readers—readers who have let a new splendid image live in their hearts—and the ideas these books set

forth are already leaving their mark on the world. Indeed, there are signs that the world is beginning to grasp the message that there is a better path to freedom, enlightenment and happiness than the one along which it has been hurtling forward at breakneck speed, and that the ‘new millennium’ on the Earth which Vladimir Megre welcomes on the final pages of Co-creation is already dawning with a most glorious radiance. Both in Russia and abroad, Anastasia and the Ringing Cedars Movement are already the subject of many day-to-day conversations and frequent reports in the press (some pertinent examples are detailed below). Many might find these developments surprising. However, there have been numerous thinkers in both the distant and the recent past who have attempted to send a similar message to humanity: that it is on the wrong path. A few of these are worth noting here. In the late 19th century the great Russian writer Leo Tolstoy took special note of how “millions of people—men, women and children—working ten, twelve or fifteen hours a day, are being transformed into machines and perishing in factories that manufacture unnecessary and harmful gadgets while more and more villages become deserted”. He farther observed that “in our time the human heart has been crying out more strongly, more strongly than ever before, against this false life, and calling people to the life demanded by revelation, reason and conscience”.19 At the same time, on the other side of the Atlantic, religious thinker and Christian Science founder Mary Baker Eddy was calling for a new approach to spiritual freedom from ‘mental slavery’ to long-held beliefs. She summed up this approach in her major work, Science and health (originally published in 1875) as follows: “The despotic tendencies, inherent in mortal mind and always germinating in new forms of tyranny, must be rooted out through the action of the divine Mind”.20 In 1931 the American prophet Edgar Cayce established his Association for Research and Enlightenment to promote alternative solutions to humanity’s problems based on, among other things, personal spirituality and holistic health. Interestingly enough, in one of his many ‘readings’ he received an intimation that “on Russia’s religious development will come the greater hope of the worldC21 Three years later the world-renowned humanitarian, Dr Albert Schweitzer, re-published the English translation of his book, On the edge of the primeval forest. While decrying the injustices inflicted on the indigenous peoples by European settlers,22 he intimates that the only path to successful colonialism is to turn the indigenous people into more productive workers by removing

them from their native villages, families and plots of land. Surprisingly, in the same piece Schweitzer even holds labour compulsion (forcing the African native peoples to provide labour in return for material ‘benefits’ bestowed on them) to be justifiable.23 Separating people from their own (or their family’s) land is a social trend that goes back centuries. Thomas More described it in Book 1 of his Utopia (published in 1516), accusing greedy landowners of talcing land from their peasant farmers for their own enrichment. Stalin’s forced collectivisation of agriculture in the Soviet Union in the 1930s, the loss of family farms in the United States in the years following World War II and the establishing of huge ‘factory farms’ in present-day Canada (nearly always achieved by buying up small, family operations at an ‘irresistible’ price) are further examples of concerted efforts on the part of the ‘dark forces’ of this world to break Man’s ties to the land. This in turn has the effect of subduing his free will and destroying his independence. All of which gives added weight to Anastasia’s proposal, so eloquently set forth by Vladimir Megre in Co-creation, of bringing Man (more specifically, a Man’s family) and his land back together again in the form of what is called in Russian rodovoe pomestie— translated in this book as ‘family domain’ or ‘kin’s domain’.7 This phrase is in turn linked, in terms of both meaning and etymology, to the Russian concept of Rodina, which has been rendered ‘Motherland’ in the Ringing Cedars Series, though it is equally translatable as ‘native land’.8 A brief word on the translation is in order here: inasmuch as both Rodina and rodovoe pomestie convey concepts that have deep roots in the Russian historical context, unparalleled in Western cultures, a good deal of thought —not to mention countless paragraphs of text and e-mail correspondence— has gone into selecting the most appropriate English equivalents.9 8

For further discussion of the original meaning of Rodina, please see footnote 1 in Chapter 24: “Take back your Motherland, people!”. 9

Even then the final results were, shall we say, less than unanimous, and involved a significant element of compromise on the part of both editor and translator. We can only hope our readers will be able to glean at least a glimmer of understanding from the choices we eventually decided upon. 11

See, for example, Book 2, Chapter 8: “The answer”, and Book 3, Chapter 19: “What to agree with, what to believe?”. 12

E.F. Schumacher, Small is beautiful: economics as if people mattered (New York, Harper & Row, 1973).

13

From Dr Yablokov’s interview on ecological threats to Moscow resulting from electricity outages (Problemy ekologicheskoy bezopasnosti Moskvy v sluchae otkliucheniya podachi elektroenergii), aired on Radio Svoboda on 25 May 2005. Italics ours. This proposal of Anastasia’s—a ‘family domain’ comprising one hectare of land—is presented throughout the latter part of Co-creation, beginning with Chapter 24: “Take back your Motherland, people!”. The origin of the Russian term rendered family domain (or kin’s domain) is discussed in footnote 7 in Chapter 33: “School, or the lessons of the gods”. We were aided in this decision in part by two of our readers who were asked to voice their thoughts on the selection of an equivalent for Rodina. Here is a brief excerpt from each of their responses: To me Motherland seems to invoke the most profound connection one can have to the land. It is the land in which you were likely born. But even more so, it is the land to which you have bonded through work, toil, sweat and blood, laughter, joy and sustenance. I like motherland. It brings the “life giving” nature of the earth to my heart, “my mother”, evoking feelings of tenderness and responsibility There is much meaning to women in the idea of being a mother and a common thread which relates to my personal life’s experience and has a place in the emotional file cabinet of the brain for most people. The relationship between “life” and the earth is shattered in this country [America], as people are so removed from the idea the earth gives us our life. The linkage made by the latter reader between one’s ‘personal life’ and ‘the Earth’ is significant. Early in Chapter 24 (appropriately entitled “Take back your Motherland, people!”) Anastasia acknowledges that “the whole Earth could be a Motherland [Rodina] for each one of its inhabitants”, and she designates a family’s personal plot of land (subsequently identified as one’s kin’s domain) as a “piece of the Motherland”10—thus linking the feelings associated with one’s personal family to the broader concept of the family of humanity as a whole. Indeed, perspectives on the concept of the family as revealed in Co-creation are by no means confined to the world of the early twenty-first century we call home, but reach out in both time and distance to look at family not only through the lenses of the past, the present and the future but from beyond our usual sense of planetary space as well. On this basis, then, it may be seen that the concepts of both Motherland and family domain reach far beyond the borders of Russia alone. In fact, as indicated above, there are signs that Anastasia’s appeal to “take back your Motherland” is already resonating in the hearts of many people in many parts of the world.

In May 2005, for example, a massive power outage in Moscow reminded many of Anastasia’s words concerning the inevitable collapse of artificial life-support systems.11 This one accident paralysed Russia’s capital city for several days in a row and, among other things, resulted in the sewage from millions of dwellings being flushed into the Moskva River untreated. In a radio programme devoted to possible solutions to this problem, one of Russia’s most prominent ecologists—and President of the Centre for Russia’s Environmental Policy—Academician Alexey Yablokov, made pointed reference not only to E.F. Schumacher’s book Small is Beautiful12 but also to the “hugely popular ‘Anastasia’ movement of people building their family domains” A In neighbouring Latvia, journalist Liudmila Stoma was curious about what was behind a movement of hundreds of people in Latgal Province—“all well-educated specialists in high demand in the labour market”—relocating to a newly formed eco-village in a remote rural area. Upon investigation, she was amazed by what she could only describe as a “new revolution”: Over the last few years Russia, Belarus and Ukraine have been experiencing a real eco-village boom: thousands of families are building ‘family domains’ on one hectare of land each, attaining remarkable self-sufficiency with only sparing use of all the technological achievements of the technocratic world. They are all united by the same goal: to build a Paradise on the Earth.24 She ended her article by wondering if “the settlers following Anastasia’s advice” in building their own family domains might actually succeed where government subsidies had so miserably failed. In fact, thousands of new kin’s domains are being established each year— not only in Russia and Latvia, but in many other countries as well. And Dachnik Day— an annual celebration of our connectedness to Mother Earth on 23 July, the idea of which was proposed in Book 2 (The Ringing Cedars of Russia) only eight years ago25—has now become an international holiday, and in 2005 it was celebrated for the first time by readers of the series in both America and Canada. These are but a few examples of a growing, world-wide phenomenon rounded out by international readers’ conferences, bards’ festivals and multitudes of new poems, songs, paintings and other forms of artistic expression. And already the reaction of readers of the English translation of the series in America, Britain, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and elsewhere is indicating a real ‘globalisation’ of interest not only in reading the Ringing Cedars books, but in acting on the ideas they present as well, revealing new manifestations of a Motherland

that completely transcends national boundaries. And to think it all started from a single simple idea, which, multiplied through its first faltering attempts at implementation, still keeps on blossoming and helping people all over the world hake back’ their own Motherland—even as Vladimir Megre’s blossoming series of publications started from a single simple proposal to write a book implanted in the thought of an inveterate ‘non-writer’. And this former non-writer’s initial ‘choppy’ attempts have now evolved into a flourishing trademark style of poetic prose which characterises Books 3 and 4 of the series. (How well we have succeeded on conveying this evolution of style in the English version, particularly the melodious effect his resulting poetic mode of expression can have on the one who reads it with a heart attuned to textual harmonies, will be up to you the readers to judge.)26 As translator and editor we have only to wish you as fascinating an experience in discovering this book on your own as we ourselves had in reading and ‘co-translating’ it (not to mention ‘co-editing’ the translation). For now we shall leave you with Anastasia’s appeal from Chapter 26 (“Even today everyone can build a home”): “You must feel everything that I outline, and mentally complete yourself the whole design, and let everyone else draw it along with me. O, God! People, at least give it a try, I beg of you!”. We look forward to meeting you again on the pages of the next book— entitled Who are we?— which, like Co-creation, will offer ever greater hope for the world. Ottawa, Canada John Woodsworth Ozark Mountains, USA Leonid Sharashkin February 2006 Anastasia, the first book of the Ringing Cedars Series, tells the story of entrepreneur Vladimir Megre’s trade trip to the Siberian taiga in 1995, where he witnessed incredible spiritual phenomena connected with sacred ‘ringing cedar’ trees. He spent three days with a woman named Anastasia who shared with him her unique outlook on subjects as diverse as gardening, child-rearing, healing, Nature, sexuality, religion and more. This wilderness experience transformed Vladimir so deeply that he abandoned his commercial plans and, penniless, went to Moscow to fulfil Anastasia’s request and write a book about the spiritual insights she so generously shared with him. True to her promise this life-changing book, once written, has become an international bestseller and has touched hearts of millions of people world-wide.

The Ringing Cedars of Russia, the second book of the Series, in addition to providing a fascinating behind-the-scenes look at the story of how Anastasia came to be published, offers a deeper exploration of the universal concepts so dramatically revealed in Book 1. It takes the reader on an adventure through the vast expanses of space, time and spirit—from the Paradise-like glade in the Siberian taiga to the rough urban depths of Russia’s capital city, from the ancient mysteries of our forebears to a vision of humanity’s radiant future. The Space of Love, the third book of the Series, describes author’s second visit to Anastasia. Rich with new revelations on natural child-rearing and alternative education, on the spiritual significance of breast-feeding and the meaning of ancient megaliths, it shows how each person’s thoughts can influence the destiny of the entire Earth and describes practical ways of putting Anastasia’s vision of happiness into practice. Megre shares his new outlook on education and children’s real creative potential after a visit to a school where pupils build their own campus and cover the ten-year Russian school programme in just two years. Complete with an account of an armed intrusion into Anastasia’s habitat, the book highlights the limitless power of Love and non-violence. Co-creation, the fourth book and centrepiece of the Series, paints a dramatic living image of the creation of the Universe and humanity’s place in this creation, making this primordial mystery relevant to our everyday living today Deeply metaphysical yet at the same time down-to-Earth practical, this poetic heart-felt volume helps us uncover answers to the most significant questions about the essence and meaning of the Universe and the nature and purpose of our existence. It also shows how and why the knowledge of these answers, innate in every human being, has become obscured and forgotten, and points the way toward reclaiming this wisdom and—in partnership with Nature—manifesting the energy of Love through our lives. Who are we?—Book Five of the Series—describes the author’s search for real-life ‘proofs’ of Anastasia’s vision presented in the previous volumes. Finding these proofs and taking stock of ongoing global environmental destruction, Vladimir Megre describes further practical steps for putting Anastasia’s vision into practice. Full of beautiful realistic images of a new way of living in co-operation with the Earth and each other, this book also highlights the role of children in making us aware of the precariousness of the present situation and in leading the global transition toward a happy, violence-free society. The book of kin, the sixth book of the Series, describes another visit by the author to Anastasia’s glade in the Siberian taiga and his conversations with

his growing son, which cause him to take a new look at education, science, history, family and Nature. Through parables and revelatory dialogues and stories Anastasia then leads Vladimir Megre and the reader on a shocking re-discovery of the pages of humanity’s history that have been distorted or kept secret for thousands of years. This knowledge sheds light on the causes of war, oppression and violence in the modern world and guides us in preserving the wisdom of our ancestors and passing it over to future generations. The energy of life, Book Seven of the Series, re-asserts the power of human thought and the influence of our thinking on our lives and the destiny of the entire planet and the Universe. Is also brings forth a practical understanding of ways to consciously control and build up the power of our creative thought. The book sheds still further light on the forgotten pages of humanity’s history, on religion, on the roots of inter-racial and interreligious conflict, on ideal nutrition, and shows how a new way of thinking and a lifestyle in true harmony with Nature can lead to happiness and solve the personal and societal problems of crime, corruption, misery, conflict, war and violence. The new civilisation, the eighth book of the Series, is not yet complete. The first part of the book, already published as a separate volume, describes yet another visit by Vladimir Megre to Anastasia and their son, and offers new insights into practical co-operation with Nature, showing in ever greater detail how Anastasia’s lifestyle applies to our lives. Describing how the visions presented in previous volumes have already taken beautiful form in real life and produced massive changes in Russia and beyond, the author discerns the birth of a new civilisation. The book also paints a vivid image of America’s radiant future, in which the conflict between the powerful and the helpless, the rich and the poor, the city and the country, can be transcended and thereby lead to transformations in both the individual and society. Rites of Love—Book 8, Part 2 (published as a separate volume)—contrasts today’s mainstream attitudes to sex, family, childbirth and education with our forebears’ lifestyle, which reflected their deep spiritual understanding of the significance of conception, pregnancy, homebirth and upbringing of the young in an atmosphere of love. In powerful poetic prose Megre describes their ancient way of life, grounded in love and non-violence, and shows the practicability of this same approach today. Through the life-story of one family, he portrays the radiant world of the ancient Russian Vedic civilisation, the drama of its destruction and its re-birth millennia later—in our present time. To be continued

THE AUTHOR, Vladimir Megre, born in 1950, was a well-known entrepreneur from a Siberian city of Novosibirsk. According to his account, in 1995—after hearing a fascinating story about the power of ‘ringing cedars’ from a Siberian elder—he organised a trade expedition into the Siberian taiga to rediscover the lost technique of pressing virgin cedar nut oil containing high curative powers, as well as to find the ringing cedar tree. However, his encounter on this trip with a Siberian woman named Anastasia transformed him so deeply that he abandoned his business and went to Moscow to write a book about the spiritual insights she had shared with him. Vladimir Megre now lives near the city of Vladimir, Russia, 190 km (120 miles) east of Moscow. If you wish to contact the author, you may send a message to his personal e-mail [email protected] THE TRANSLATOR, John Woodsworth, born in Vancouver (British Columbia), has over forty years of experience in Russian-English translation, from classical poetry to modern short stories. Since 1982 he has been associated with the University of Ottawa in Canada as a Russianlanguage teacher, translator and editor, most recently as a Research Associate and Administrative Assistant with the University’s Slavic Research Group. A published Russian-language poet himself, he and his wife—Susan K. Woodsworth—are directors of the Sasquatch Literary Arts Performance Series in Ottawa. A Certified Russian-English Translator, John Woodsworth is in the process of translating the remaining volumes in Vladimir Megre’s Ringing Cedars Series. THE EDITOR, Leonid Sharashkin, is writing his doctoral dissertation on the spiritual, cultural and economic significance of the Russian dacha gardening movement, at the University of Missouri at Columbia. After receiving a Master’s degree in Natural Resources Management from Indiana University at Bloomington, he worked for two years as Programme Manager at the Worldwide Fund for Nature (WWF Russia) in Moscow, where he also served as editor of Russia’s largest environmental magazine, The Panda Times. Together with his wife, Irina Sharashkina, he has translated into Russian Small is beautiful and A guide for the perplexed by E.F. Schumacher, The secret life of plants by Peter Tompkins and Christopher Bird, The continuum concept by Jean Liedloff and Birth without violence by Frederick Leboyer. Book 4 of The Ringing Cedars Series Co-creation paints a dramatic living image of the creation of the Universe and humanity’s place in this creation, making this primordial mystery relevant to our everyday living today. Deeply metaphysical yet at the same time down-to-Earth practical, this poetic heartfelt volume helps us uncover answers to the most significant questions about the essence of the Universe

and the purpose of our existence. It also shows how and why the knowledge of these answers, innate in every human being, has become obscured and forgotten, and points the way toward reclaiming this wisdom in partnership with Nature. Anastasia herself has stated that this book consists of words and phrases in combinations which have a beneficial effect on the reader. This has been attested by the letters received to date from thousands of readers all over the world. If you wish to gain as full an appreciation as possible of the ideas, thoughts and images set forth here, as well as experience the benefits that come with this appreciation, we recommend you find a quiet place for your reading where there is the least possible interference from artificial noises (motor traffic, radio, TV, household appliances etc.). Natural sounds, on the other hand—the singing of birds, for example, or the patter of rain, or the rustle of leaves on nearby trees—may be a welcome accompaniment to the reading process. 1 Pshada—see footnote 8 in Book 2, Chapter 33: “Your sacred sites, O Russia!”. 2 Tekos— the name of the settlement near Gelendzhik where Mikhail Petrovich Shchetinin’s school is located. For a description of the school, see Book 3, Chapter 17: “Put your vision of happiness into practice” and Chapter 18: Academician Shchetinin”. 1

administer an examination—It should be remembered that in Russian schools examinations are usually oral, rather than written. 3 Papochka. (pronounced PAH-poch-ka)—an endearing form of Papa. 4 deputies—members of the Russian Duma, or national parliament. 5 The terms family domain and kin’s domain are used here interchangeably to translate the Russian term rodovoepomestie. Pomestie is equivalent to domain, estate or homestead. Rodovoe comes from the same root as Rod (signifying ‘God the Creator’, ‘origin’, ‘birth’ or ‘kin’) and Rodina (‘Motherland’); it literally means ‘belonging to one’s kin’ and points to the unity of the past, present and future generations of one’s family Both kin

andfamily, as used henceforth in the Ringing Cedars Series, include the whole range of one’s ancestors and descendants and not merely the present generation of a family Interestingly enough, the concept of kin’s domain is not unlike the concept underlying the English word kingdom, since king originally meant ‘head of a kin or family clan’, while dom stems from a root signifying ‘home place’ or ‘domain’. For more on Rodina see footnote 1 in Chapter 24 above: “Take back your Motherland, people!”. 6 a party—see footnote 3 in Chapter 26: “Even today everyone can build a home”. 7 the river—the Ob, which flows from south to north. 8 See Book 2, Chapter 27: “The anomaly”; also Book 3, Chapter 7: Assault!”. 9 Gelendzhik, Tuapse, Sochi—cities on the eastern shore of the Black Sea (see footnote 2 in Book 1, Chapter 30: Author’s message to readers”). 10 Galina Nikolaevna—Note: Nikolaevna is a patronymic (i.e., a middle name derived from one’s father’s first name), not a surname. The combination of first name and patronymic is a common polite form of address in Russian, especially in business relationships. 11 See Book 2, last page of Chapter 32: “Title!”. 12 Ogonyok (stress on last syllable)—one of the oldest weekly illustrated magazines in Russia (published since 1899). The name literally means ‘little flame’. 13 Novosibirsk medical factory—see Ch. 24: “Take back your Motherland, people!”. 14 See Book 1, toward the end of Chapter 1: “The ringing cedar”. 15

n

See Book 2, at the very end of Chapter 31: “How to produce healing cedar oil”. 16 The soul of Russia sings in Anastasia’s ray. A peoples book (Russian title: VlucheAnas-tasiizvuchitdushaRossii. Narodnaya kniga)— a 544-page volume of readers’poetry art and letters. Seven sample poems from this collection are reproduced in English translation at the end of Book 1, Chapter 30: ‘Author’s message to readers”. 17 Over the past five years, over a dozen albums—collections of bards’ songs inspired by Anastasia—have been released by the Anastasia Foundation 18 alone, and many more albums have been released independently. A ‘Caravan of Love of Sun-bards’ (Karavan Lhibvi Solnechnykh bardov) has also been set up as an itinerant song festival, with large groups of bards travelling from city to city and giving free song performances in Russia and beyond. 19 Leo Tolstoy, An appeal (Vozzvanie), 25 May 1889. 20 Mary Baker Eddy, Science and health with key to the Scriptures (final edition, 1910), p. 225. Not unlike Megre, Eddy frequently used ‘divine Mind’ (with a capital M) as a synonym for God. 21 From Cayce reading 3976-10 (February 1932). Edgar Cayce Readings are copyrighted (© 1971,1993-2005) by the Edgar Cayce Foundation. This quotation is used by the kind permission of the copyright holder. Italics ours. 22 He writes, for example: “Who can describe the injustice and cruelties that in the course of centuries they [the coloured peoples] have suffered at the hands of Europeans? If a record could be compiled of all that has happened between the white and the coloured races, it would make a book containing numbers of pages which the reader would have to turn over unread because their contents would be too horrible”—A. Schweitzer, On the edge of the primeval forest: experiences and observations of a doctor in Equatorial Africa (London: A.&C. Black Ltd, 1934), p. 115.

23 See A. Schweitzer, On the edge of the primeval forest, pp. 112-118. 24 Liudmila Stoma, Vozvrashchenie v Edem (Return to Eden). Ezhenedelnik “Vesti” (Weekly News), no 8 (601), 24 February 2005. Interestingly enough, Israeli writer and poet Efim Kushner also used the term revolution (in the phrase “a global-scale moral revolution”) in reference to the Ringing Cedars 25 Series in his book Beskrovnaya revoliutsiya (A bloodless revolution), published in 2003. 26 We are reminded here of the words of British poet Robert Graves: “The reason why the hairs stand on end, the eyes water, the throat is constricted, the skin crawls and a shiver runs down the spine when one writes or reads a true poem is that a true poem is necessarily an invocation of the White Goddess, or Muse, the Mother of All Living”. We feel that this ‘goddess’— whom Anastasia calls Love—is invoked in this volume with tremendous power. The quote is from Robert Graves, The White Goddess: a historical grammar of poetic myth (London: Faber & Faber, 1946; now also published in New York by Noonday Press), pp. 24-25.

Who Are We? by Vladimir Megre Translation and footnotes by John Woodsworth Editing, footnotes, design and layout by Leonid Sharashkin Cover art by Alexander Razboinikov Copyright © 2001 Vladimir Megre Copyright © 2006 Leonid Sharashkin, translation Copyright © 2006 Leonid Sharashkin, footnotes Copyright © 2006 Leonid Sharashkin, cover art Copyright © 2006 Leonid Sharashkin, design and layout All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, except for the inclusion of brief quotations in a review, without permission in writing from the publisher. Library of Congress Control Number: 2006920096 ISBN: 978-0-97633334-0 Published by Ringing Cedars Press www.RingingCedars.com

Book 5 - Contents 1. Two civilisations 2. Take a taste of the Universe 3. Dreams of Auroville 4. Harbingers of a new civilisation 5. A search for evidence 6. A garden for eternity 7. Anastasias Russia 8. The richest state 9. Good shall prevail on the Earth 10. The disarmament race 11. Science and pseudo-science. 12. Do we have freedom of thought? . 13. Equestrienne from the future 14. City on the Neva 15. Making it come true 16. Open letter to the President 17. Questions and answers 18. The philosophy of life 19. Who controls coincidences?. 20. Breakdown 21. Attempt at deconditioning 22. Our reality 23. Your desires 24. Eternity lies ahead for you and me Appendix CHAPTER ONE

Two civilisations We are always in a hurry to get somewhere or get something. There is hardly a single one of us who doesn’t desire to lead a happy life, find love and establish a family But how many of us will actually achieve our desire? What determines our satisfaction or dissatisfaction with life? What determines our success or failure? What constitutes the meaning of life for each and every Man1 and for all mankind on the whole? What kind of future awaits us?

These questions have been around a long time, but nobody has managed to come up with an intelligible answer. But I wonder: what kind of country will we be living in five or ten years from now? What kind of world are we leaving to our children? We really don’t know. And, let’s face it, none of us can ever picture our own future, because we are always hurrying off somewhere but to where? Strange, but true: the first clear glimpse I ever had about the future of our country came not from statisticians or politicians but from Anastasia, a recluse living in the wilds of the taiga. And not only did she present a picture of a marvelous future, but showed step-by-step its feasibility even for our generation—a design, in fact, for the development of the whole country. The word Man (with a capital M) is used throughout the Ringing Cedars Series to refer to a human being of either gender. For details on the word’s use and the important distinction between Man and human being please see the Translator’s Preface to Book i. It was while I was on my way from Anastasia’s glade to the river2 that this firm conviction, for some reason, came to my thought: her plan is capable of changing so much in this world of ours. When we consider that everything her thought conceptualises inevitably turns into a real-life embodiment, we see we are already living in a country with only a splendid future ahead of it. As I walked along, I thought about what Anastasia had said about our country’s splendid future, which might even come about in our generation’s lifetime. It will be a country without regional conflicts, criminal gangs and diseases, a country without poverty And while I didn’t understand all the thoughts she came out with, there wasn’t a single thing she said this time that I felt like doubting. On the contrary, I felt as though I wanted to show everyone how right she was. I firmly resolved to do everything within my power to bring her plan to fruition. On the surface it seems simple enough: each family should be allotted a hectare3 of land for lifetime use, whereon to set up its own ‘kin’s domain’,4 its own ‘piece of the Motherland’.5 But my thought was immersed in the details of this plan. They were utterly simple in themselves, and yet at the same time utterly incredible. Amazing! It isn’t an agricultural scientist but a reclusive woman from the taiga that has shown that, with the right planting arrangement on a plot of land, it can take just a few short years to dispense with the need for fertilisation. Not only that, but even soil that isn’t terribly fertile will be significantly improved.

2

from Anastasia’s glade to the river—see the last part of Book 4, Chapter 33: “School, or the lessons of the gods”. 3

hectare—1 hectare is equivalent to approx. 2.5 acres in the Imperial system. 4

kin’s domain—see footnote 7 in Book 4, Chapter 33.

5

Motherland—see footnote 1 in Book 4, Chapter 24: “Take back your Motherland, people!”; also the Translator’s and Editor’s Afterword to Book 4. As a basic example Anastasia referred to the situation in the taiga.6 The taiga has been around for thousands of years, and everything grows in it, even though it has never been fertilised. Anastasia says that all the things growing in the earth constitute the materialised thoughts of God, and that He has arranged everything so that Man has no need to worry about difficulties in finding food. One needs only to try to understand the Creator’s thought and create splendid things together with Him. I can cite an example of my own. The island of Cyprus, which I have visited, has a very rocky soil. But the ground wasn’t always this way Centuries ago the island was home to some splendid cedar forests and orchards, and its many rivers were filled with the purest spring water. The whole island was like an earthly Paradise. Then the Roman legions invaded the island and began to cut down the cedars to build their ships. Whole groves were felled. Today the larger part of the island is covered with stunted growth, the grass looks burnt even in the springtime, summer rains are a rarity and there is not enough fresh water. The residents have had to import fertile soil by the bargeload to be able to grow anything at all. So the upshot is: not only has Man failed to improve what has been created on the island, but his barbarous interference has actually made things worse. In outlining her plan, Anastasia said that it was essential to plant a family tree, and that people should not be buried in a cemetery but right there on the beautiful terrain they themselves have nurtured. No headstone of any kind need be placed on the grave. It is a Man’s living creations, not something dead, that will serve as a memorial for his relations. And not only that, but his soul will be able to take on a material embodiment again, in his earthly garden of Paradise. People buried in a cemetery cannot end up in Paradise. Their souls cannot be embodied in matter as long as there are relatives and friends around thinking about their death. Headstones are monuments to death. Funeral rites were thought up by the dark forces for the purpose of confining, at least temporarily, the human soul. Our Father has never produced any kind of

suffering or even grieving for His beloved children. All God’s creations are eternal, self-sufficient, self-reproducing. Everything living on the Earth, from the outwardly simple blade of grass to Man, is a self-constituted harmonious and eternal whole. Here too, I think, she is right. Just look at how things have turned out. Today scientists tell us that human thought is material—but if that’s the case, it means that the deceased person’s relatives, in thinking of him as dead, thereby keep on holding him in a deadened state, which torments his soul. Anastasia maintains that Man, or, more precisely, Man’s soul, can live forever. It has the capacity to constantly re-embody itself anew, but only under certain conditions. These conditions are brought about by a kin’s domain established according to Anastasia’s design. I am simply a believer in this design. As to proving or disproving her claims about life and death, I’ll leave that to esoteric scholars who are no doubt more qualified for the task. “I say, you’re going to get a lot of opposition on that one,” I observed to Anastasia. To which she only laughed and replied: “It will all happen very simply now, Vladimir. Man’s thought is capable of materialising and changing the shape of objects, predetermining events, creating the future. So it works out that any opponents who try to argue for the frailty of Man’s existence only end up destroying themselves, for they will bring about their own decease by their very thoughts. “Those who are able to comprehend their purpose and the meaning of infinity will start to live a happy life, eternally re-embodying themselves, for they themselves will produce with their thoughts their own infinity of happiness.” I liked her plan even better when I began to calculate its economic potential. I have become convinced that any Man, with the help of a family domain he establishes according to Anastasia’s design, can ensure a poverty-free existence for himself as well as for his children and grandchildren. It is not merely a question of providing one’s children with good food to eat or a roof over their heads. Anastasia said that the fence around the domain must be made of living trees, and that at least a quarter of the hectare should be given over to forest. That means about 300 trees. They’ll quite likely be cut down in, say, eighty to a hundred years, yielding about 400 cubic metres of lumber.7 Even today, lumber well-dried and processed for finishing fetches at least one hundred dollars8 per cubic metre, meaning a total income of $40,000. Of course, one shouldn’t cut down the whole forest at once, just the number of mature trees that are needed at the time, and then immediately plant new ones in their

place. The overall value of a kin’s domain set up according to Anastasia’s design may be estimated at a million dollars or more, and any family can build one, even those with an average income. The house can be quite modest to start with. The main treasure will be the plot of ground, accurately and aesthetically laid out. Even today, wealthier citizens are paying big money to firms specialising in landscape design. There are about forty such firms in Moscow right now, and they are always busy For upwards of $1,500 they will take just the hundred square metres of ground around your house and turn it into a landscape designed with detailed accuracy and aesthetic beauty. Two cubic metres of lumber—equivalent to 170,000 board feet. * dollars—in this case, American dollars, the currency most familiar to Russians after their own rouble. It costs around $500 to plant a single conifer about 6 metres high, but people who want to live in beautifully appointed surroundings are willing to pay big money for that. They end up paying it because it never entered their parents’ heads to establish a family domain for their children. You don’t need to be rich to do something like that, you need only to get your priorities straight. How can we raise our children properly if we ourselves don’t grasp such simple things? Anastasia’s right when she says that education begins with ourselves. I myself have had a strong desire to establish my own family domain—to take a hectare of land, build a house and—most importantly—to put in all sorts of plantings around it. I want to set up my piece of the Motherland just as Anastasia described, and have it surrounded by other people’s beautifully appointed plots. Anastasia and our son could establish themselves there too, or at least come visiting, and eventually our grandchildren and greatgrandchildren. Maybe our greatgrandchildren will want to work in the city, but they will still be able to come to their family domain to relax. And once a year, on the 23rd of July, the All-Earth holiday,1 the whole extended family will gather at home. I shan’t be around then myself, but the domain I set up will remain, and the trees and garden it contains. I’ll hollow out a little pond and put in some hatchlings so there’ll be fish. The trees will be planted in the special arrangement outlined by Anastasia. Some things my descendants will like, others they may want to change, but either way I shall be remembered. And I shall be buried in my own domain, with the request that my grave not be marked in any way. I don’t want anyone putting on a show of grief or making a sad face over it. In fact, I don’t want there to be any grieving at all.

I don’t want a headstone with an inscription, just fresh grass and bushes growing over the body—maybe some sort of berries too, which will be useful to my descendants. What’s the point in a grave-marker? There isn’t any—only grief. I don’t want people coming to my domain to remember me with sadness, but with joy Yeah, they’ll see how I’ve set things up, and arranged all the plantings! My thoughts kept intertwining in a kind of joyful anticipation of something grand: I’d better begin as quickly as possible, somehow start the ball rolling. I’ve got to get back to the city quicker, but it’ll still be another ten kilometres just to get through this forest. If only I could get through it sooner! And all at once, out of the blue, statistics on Russia’s forest lands floated to the surface of my memory I didn’t remember all the figures, but here’s what I saw one time in a statistical report:2 3 “Forests constitute the basic type of vegetation in Russia, covering 45% of its land mass. Russia has the most extensive forest reserves in the world, amounting to 886.5 million hectares in 1993, with a timber volume of 80.7 billion. This means Russia holds 21.7% and 25.9% (respectively) of the world’s forest and timber resources. The higher figure for timber reflects the fact that in terms of its wealth of mature and productive forests, Russia is way above the world’s average. “Forests play a huge role both in the gas balance in the atmosphere and in regulating climate on our planet. According to B.N. Moiseev’s calculations, the gas balance of Russia’s forests is 1,789 million tonnes11 for carbon dioxide and 1,299 million tonnes for oxygen. Annual carbon deposits in Russia’s forests amount to 600 million tonnes. These huge volumes of gas exchanges significantly contribute to the stabilisation of the gas composition and climate of the whole planet.” Just look at what’s happening! I’ve heard it said some kind of special mission lies ahead for Russia—but that’s not in the future, it’s already unfolding. Just think: people all over the planet—to a greater or lesser extent, it isn’t important—are breathing Russia’s air. They’re breathing the oxygen produced by this very forest I’m walking through right now. I wonder whether it’s simply oxygen that this forest is supplying all life on the planet with, or maybe something even more important besides. My solitary walk through the taiga this time provoked no feeling of trepidation within me as it did before. It felt pretty much the same as walking through a safe park. In contrast to a park, of course, there are no

laid out pathways, and my journey was sometimes blocked by fallen trees or thick underbrush, but this time there was nothing that irritated me. Along the way I would pick berries—raspberries and currants, for example —and for the first time my attention was drawn to the tremendous variety in appearance even among the same kind of trees. And the vegetation, too, was arranged in so many different patterns—no two scenes were alike. For the first time I really examined the taiga, and it seemed a kinder place than before. No doubt this impression was due in part to the awareness that it was right here in the taiga that my very own son was born and was now living. And then, of course, there’s Anastasia My encounter with this woman has changed my whole life. In the middle of this endless taiga is Anastasia’s little glade, which she has no desire to leave for any length of time. She would never exchange it for any—even the fanciest—apartment in town. At first glance the glade appears to be just another empty space—no house, no tent, no household facilities—and yet look at how she brightens with joy every time she approaches it! And now on my third visit I’ve caught a similar feeling, something like the sense of comfort one feels upon returning home after a difficult journey. Funny things have been taking place lately all over our world. It seems that, for millennia now, human society has been struggling for the happiness and welfare of the individual, but when you come right down to it, it turns out that this same individual, even though he lives at the very centre of society, at the centre of the most modern and civilised city, finds himself more and more often in a state of helplessness. He gets into a traffic accident, or gets robbed, or constantly falls into the grip of all sorts of aches and pains—he can’t live without a drugstore nearby—or some dissatisfaction he can’t even explain to himself provokes him into suicide. The suicide rate is increasing particularly in civilised countries with a high standard of living. Mothers from various regions of the country are seen on TV pleading for help for their families threatened with starvation because they can’t afford to feed their children. Yet here is Anastasia, living with a little boy all alone in the taiga, in what can only be called another civilisation. Not a single thing does she ask from our society. She needs no police or home security forces to protect her. She gives the impression that nothing bad can possibly happen in this glade to either her or her child. It’s true: we live in different civilisations, and she proposes to take the best of both these worlds. In which case the lifestyle of many people on the Earth will change, and a new and joyous commonwealth of humanity will be born.

This commonwealth will not only be interesting—it will be new and unusual. CHAPTER TWO

Take a taste of the Universe For a long time it bothered me that Anastasia appeared so content to leave her nursing child all by himself. She would simply put him down on the grass under some bushes or next to the dozing she-bear or she-wolf. I was already convinced that not a single creature would touch him. On the contrary, they would defend him to the death. But from whom? If all the animals around were acting like nannies, then who would they need to protect him from? Still, it was unusual to leave a nursing baby all alone, and I tried to dissuade Anastasia, saying: “Just because the animals won’t touch him, that doesn’t mean that there are no other misfortunes out there that could befall him.” To which she responded: “I cannot imagine, Vladimir, what misfortunes you have in mind.” “There are a lot of things that could happen to helpless children. Let’s say he crawls up a hillock, for example, and then tumbles down it, twisting his ankle or his wrist.” “Any height of ground the baby could crawl up on his own would not cause him any harm.” “But say he eats something harmful. He’s still too young, everything goes into his mouth, so it won’t be long before he poisons himself, and then who’s going to be around to flush out his insides? There aren’t any doctors in the neighbourhood, and you don’t even have an enema to flush out his intestines in case of emergency” Anastasia just laughed. “What need is there for an enema, Vladimir? The intestines can be flushed out another way, and much more effectively than with an enema.” “How so?” “Would you like to try it? It will do you a world of good! I shall simply bring you a few little herbs” “Hold on, don’t bother. I understand. You want to give me something to make my stomach upset.”

“Your stomach has been upset for a long time, Vladimir. The herb I have in mind will expel anything causing your stomach harm.” “I get it—in case anything happens you can give a herb to a young child and it will make him go to the bathroom. But why take things to such lengths when it comes to a baby?” “It will not go that far. Our son will eat nothing that is going to harm him. Children—especially those who are nursing and accustomed to the taste of their mother’s milk—will never eat anything else in any significant quantity And our son will only take a little taste of any berry or herb. If he finds it noxious or bitter—a substance that could harm him, he will spit it out himself. If he eats a little of it and it begins to affect his stomach, he will vomit it, and that will help him remember and he will not try it again. But he will come to know the whole Earth—not from someone else’s reports, but by tasting it on his own. Let us allow our son to taste the Universe for himself.” No doubt Anastasia is right. It is true nothing bad has happened to the little one so far, not even once. Besides, I noticed a particularly interesting phenomenon: the creatures around her glade themselves train or teach their young how to interact with Man. I used to think Anastasia was the one that did this, but later I became convinced that that is not something she wastes her time on. This is what I saw on one occasion: we were sitting in the sun at the edge of the glade. Anastasia had just finished nursing our son, and he was blissfully lying in her arms. Initially he seemed to be having a nap or just dozing, but then all at once his little hand began touching Anastasia’s hair, and he broke into a smile. Anastasia looked at her son and smiled back, whispering something in his ear with her tender voice. I saw the she-wolf come out into the glade with her brood—four cubs, still quite young. The wolf came over to us, and stopped about ten metres away and lay down on the ground. The cubs trailing along behind her quickly began nuzzling up to her belly. Upon seeing the wolf and her cubs lying there, Anastasia rose from the ground, babe in arms, and went over to her. She squatted down about two metres away and began inspecting the wolf’s brood, her face all smiles, and saying: “Oh, what beauties our clever wolf has borne! One of them will most certainly be a leader, while this little one is the spitting image of her Mama. She will be a joy to her Mama, and a worthy inheritor to carry on the family line.” The mother wolf seemed to be dozing, her languishing eyes closed tight either from drowsiness or from the soft caressing of Anastasia’s voice. The

cubs turned away from their mother’s belly and began looking at Anastasia. One of them, still unsure of his step, began making his way over to her. The mother, who just a second before had looked so drowsy, suddenly sprang up, seized the cub with her teeth and dropped him back among the others. Then the same thing occurred with a second cub, then the third and the fourth, all trying to get closer to Anastasia. The inexperienced cubs continued their attempts, but the mother would not let them go until they had finished their little adventures. Two of the cubs began tussling with each other, the other two sat meekly and kept a watchful eye on us. The baby in Anastasia’s arms also noticed the wolf family. He began watching them, and then his legs began kicking impatiently, and he uttered some kind of beckoning sound. Anastasia reached out her hand toward the wolves. Two of the cubs began heading, with unsure step, in the direction of the outstretched human hand. This time, however, the mother didn’t try to stop them. On the contrary, she began nudging the other two cubs, who were still at play, in the same direction. And before long all four were right at Anastasia’s feet. One of them began nibbling on one of her fingers, a second got up on its hind legs and rested its forepaws on her arm, while the other two crawled over to her leg. The boy started to squirm in Anastasia’s arms, evidently wanting to get closer to the cubs. Whereupon Anastasia let him down on the ground and he started playing with them, oblivious to anything else! Anastasia went over to the mother wolf, and after giving her neck a gentle stroking, came back to me. I realized that the wolf had been trained never to disturb Anastasia without being invited, and would approach her only upon a predetermined gesture. Now she was teaching this same rule to her offspring. The wolf, no doubt, had been taught this by her own mother, who in turn had learnt it from her mother, and so on from generation to generation—all the creatures transmitted to their young the rules of interaction with Man. A reverent and tactful interaction, it must be said. But who taught them that other kind of interaction and how—to attack Man? My exposure to the life of the Siberian taiga recluses4 raised a whole lot of different questions—questions I could not have even imagined asking earlier. Anastasia has no intention of changing her reclusive lifestyle. But stop right there! When I think of Anastasia as a ‘recluse’, each time I associate the word recluse with someone who has isolated himself from society, from our contemporary information systems. But what is really going on? After each visit to her glade I end up putting out a new book. A

book that is discussed by all sorts of people, young and old, scientists and religious leaders. The way it turns out, it is not I who bring her information from our over-informed society, but it is she who offers me information that proves to be of great interest to our society. So then, who is the real recluse? Haven’t we got caught up so much in the abundance (or, more correctly, the seeming abundance) of information at our fingertips that we have set ourselves apart, distanced ourselves from the true source of information? It’s simply amazing when you think about what’s really going on—Anastasia’s remote taiga glade serves as a real information centre, like a launch pad propelling us into the other dimensions of our existence. Then, who am I, who are we? And who is Anastasia? In any case, perhaps it isn’t all that important. Something else is much more important, namely, her latest sayings concerning the possibility of transforming the life of any individual Man for the better. Or, for that matter, any country, or even human society as a whole. And this is effected through changing the living conditions of an individual. It’s all incredibly simple: just give a Man at least one hectare of land, and she goes on to explain what to do with this land, and then Incredible, how simple it is! And Alan will always be surrounded by the energy of Love. Those in marital relationships will love their spouses. Their children will be happy, many diseases will be eradicated, wars and catastrophes will cease. Man will draw closer to God. She has, in fact, proposed the construction of a whole lot of glades similar to her own in the proximity of major cities. But this doesn’t mean she rejects making use of our civilisation’s achievements—“Let what is negative be pressed into service on behalf of good,” she says. And I have come to believe in her plan. I believe in that splendid turn of events that is to come about as a result of implementing her ideas in our lives. And a lot of them seem so logical to me. All we have to do is go over everything, think everything through, in the right order. We have to adapt her proposal to each location. I was especially struck by Anastasia’s idea regarding land and its development. I could hardly wait to get home and see what scientists have to say about similar communities—does anything along this line exist anywhere in the world? I wanted to see if I could start by designing a new community in all its detail, and then start building it through the concerted efforts of those desiring to participate in its construction. Naturally, neither I nor anyone else can undertake the responsibility for getting this marvelous community of the future going all on our own. It is something we need to do together! We shall have to examine all the information collectively and

design our community, taking into account mistakes other people have made. CHAPTER THREE

Dreams of Auroville During the first months after returning from my visit with Anastasia I set about making an intensive search and study of any information about ecocommunities I could lay my hands on. Most of my sources told about experiments abroad. Altogether I collected information on 86 communities in 19 countries (Belgium, Canada, Denmark, England, France, Germany, India and others). But I wasn’t particularly struck by any of the reports I had collected. No country could boast any kind of large-scale eco-movement, nor did I come across any communities capable of exercising a significant influence on the social situation in their respective countries. One of the largest and best-known communities that came to my notice is located in India. It goes by the name of Auroville. I’d like to elaborate a little on this one. Auroville was initiated in 1968 by the wife of the founder of the Integral Yoga movement Sri Aurobindo, Mirra Richard.5 It was thought that the community, once begun, would eventually grow into a thriving city of 50,000 on lands allocated by the Indian government near Pondicherry, where Sri Aurobindo’s Ashram—a centre for Integral Yoga adherents—had been operating since the 1940s. Auroville, or the ‘City of Dawn’, was supposed to embody the idea of unity of people—people united by a common goal of building a harmonious material world which in no way would find itself at odds with the world of the spirit. The community’s charter, written by Mirra Richard, states: “Auroville will be a site of material and spiritual researches for a living embodiment of an actual human unity.” The idea of building a city wherein people will live in harmony with the world of Nature, in the harmony of the spirit and love, was approved by the Indian government (and personally by Indira Gandhi) as well as by UNESCO. It received financial support from the Indian government along with a large number of sponsors. Representatives of 121 nations and 23 Indian states attended the opening ceremonies, after which this splendid city —no doubt the dream of a lot of people the world over who call themselves ‘spiritual’—began to take shape. However, following the death of Mirra Richard in 1973, one of Aurobindo’s

disciples by the name of Satprem6 spoke out strongly against the Auroville community, calling it nothing but a ‘commercial enterprise’. Sri Aurobindo’s Ashram, which controlled most of the ‘enterprise’s’ finances, claimed authority over everything going on in the city, but the residents considered that their community belonged to the whole world and was not under the Ashram’s jurisdiction. A serious confrontation ensued between the spiritual leaders on both sides—a confrontation which was not confined to the ideological level but became more and more physical. In 1980 the Indian government was obliged to pass a decree removing Auroville from the control of Sri Aurobindo’s society and a permanent police detachment was assigned to the community The Auroville situation led to a general crisis in Sri Aurobindo’s movement and teachings. Today Auroville has about 1,200 residents, instead of the 50.000 or more envisaged by its initiators. The whole region, including the local population, comprises 13 villages and 30.000 people. Quite possibly the downfall of the Auroville dream was precipitated by the following situation: while any resident may obtain permission to buy land and build himself a house (at his own expense), legal title to the land on which the house stands belongs to the city. Thus it turns out that full confidence is placed in Auroville as a city but is not accorded any of its individual residents. Every resident lives in a state of dependency on the community as a whole. And yet the whole project was worked out by people who considered themselves highly spiritual. It seems that in the case of spirituality there is another side of the coin to be considered. I am extremely disturbed and upset by the situation of Auroville today While it has not provoked any doubts about Anastasia’s project, I cannot say my mind is entirely free from negative thoughts. If things did not work out with a model community in India—a country considered practically the leader in the spiritual understanding of human existence, especially with the financial backing of the Indian government, UNESCO and sponsors from a variety of countries, then how can Anastasia possibly foresee on her own all the pitfalls that lie ahead? Even if it isn’t all on her own, and the masses of readers sharing her views try to make calculations, think everything through and foresee the future—even then there is no guarantee such concerted efforts will succeed, as nobody has any experience along this line. If anyone knew where to find the foundation on which to build a happy life for both the individual and society as a whole, a happy society would have probably been built somewhere. But it doesn’t exist—anywhere in the world! The only experience we have is negative. Where can one find anything positive?

“In Russia!” replied Anastasia. CHAPTER FOUR

Harbingers of a new civilisation “The first shoots of a new and splendid future are to be found in the Russian dachniks\m These words sounded within me, all by themselves. Anastasia was not around at the time. It took but a moment to recall the enthusiasm and joy with which she talked to me about the Russian dachniks four years ago. She believes that it was thanks to the dachniks that a global catastrophe on the Earth was avoided in 1992. So it turns out that it was in Russia that this amazing movement began, a movement which has had a kindly influence on a part of the Earth. I remember her telling me: “Millions of pairs of human hands began touching the Earth with love. With their hands, you understand, not a bunch of mechanical contraptions. Russians touched the ground caressingly on these little dacha plots. And the Earth felt the touch of each individual hand. The Earth may be big, but it is very, very sensitive. And the Earth found the strength within itself to carry on.”7 8 Back then, four years ago, I didn’t take this saying seriously, but now, after learning of all the various attempts by people of different countries of the world to create spiritual-ecological communities, I suddenly realized something: with no noisy fanfare, appeals, advertising or pompous ceremonies, the most massive-scale project has come to fruition right here in Russia—a project having significance for all humanity; When seen against the backdrop of all the various Russian dacha communities, all the reports from various countries on the creation of eco-communities there sound quite ludicrous. Judge for yourselves: here spread out in front of me is a pile of articles and collections of reports seriously discussing the question of how many people should live in an eco-community—a population of no more than 150 is advised. Considerable attention is paid to the governing bodies of such communities and their spiritual leadership. But Russia’s dacha co-operatives have existed for years, sometimes comprising 300 families or more. Each co-operative is managed by one or two people, usually somebody retired from their regular job—if in fact you can call the chairman of a Russian dacha co-operative a manager. He’s actually more like a registrar, or a manager who simply carries out the will of the majority.

Russia does not have any centralised management system for its dacha movement. However, according to data published by Goskomstat (the State Statistics Committee), in 1997 14.7 million families had fruit-growing plots, while 7.6 million had vegetable plots. The overall land area cultivated by these families amounted to 1,821,000 hectares. These households independently grew 90% of Russia’s potatoes, 77% of its berries and fruit, and 73% of its vegetables.3 3

These figures have farther increased since the book was written, making Russian gardeners the backbone not only of the country’s agriculture, but the economy as a whole. Thus, according to the official statistics published by Goskomstat, in 2004 Russian gardening families—without any heavy machinery, hired labour or government subsidies—have grown on their free time and using predominantly organic methods 33 million tonnes of potatoes, 11.5 million tonnes of vegetables and 3.2 million tonnes of fruit and berries, which represent 93%, 80% and 81% respectively of the country’s total output of these crops. Russian gardeners now produce more products than the whole commercial agricultural apparatus all told. In 2004 the value of the Russian gardeners’ production represented 51% of the country’s total agricultural output—approx. US$14 billion, or 2.3% of Russia’s gross domestic product (GDP). The contribution of dachniks and rural family growers to the Russian economy exceeds that of any of the following industries: steel; electric power generation; chemical and pharmaceutical; forestry, timber, pulp and paper; building materials; or oil refining, natural gas and coal industries taken together. No doubt the theoreticians who have been designing eco-communities and eco-villages for years will protest that a dacha co-operative is not the same as an eco-community To which I wish to immediately respond: it is not the name but the content that is important. The overwhelming majority of Russia’s dacha co-operatives conform to eco-community guidelines. Not only that, with no thunderous declarations on spiritual self-improvement and the necessity of a careful approach to Nature, the dachniks have proved their spiritual growth not by words but by their way of life. They have planted millions of trees. It is thanks to their labours on hundreds of thousands of hectares thought to be infertile and good for nothing—so-called marginal lands, that orchards are now flourishing. We keep hearing how in Russia part of the population is on the verge of starvation. We see strikes by teachers, then by miners, and our politicians are scratching their heads in their attempts to bring the country out of crisis after crisis. More than once during the perestroika4 period Russia was but a

hair’s breadth away from a massive social upheaval. But it didn’t happen. 4

perestroika—the policy of restructuring the economic and political system of the Soviet Union, which led to the collapse of the Communist Party’s hold on power and the break-up of the USSR in the late 1980s and early 1990s. And now let’s try mentally deducting from just the past few years of our lives the 90% of potatoes, 77% of berries and 73% of vegetable production, and substitute a heightened anxiety level on the part of millions of people. This you would have to do if you were going to exclude from the past few years the calming effect of the dachas. You don’t have to be a psychologist to see how dachniks are calmed by their contact with the vegetable plots they have planted. So, if we take away that factor, what would we have been left with in 1992, 1994 or 1997? In any of those years a colossal social upheaval could have come about. What kind of result might such an upheaval have led to on a planet chock full of deadly weapons? But no catastrophe occurred. Anastasia maintains that in 1992 a catastrophe on a global scale was avoided thanks only to Russia’s dachniks, and now, having read all the reports explaining the situation, I tend to agree with her.5 It’s not so important any more to know just which ‘smart head’ in our nation’s government came up with the idea of giving the green light to the dacha movement in Russia (still the Soviet Union back then). Or maybe it was Providence itself that saw fit to accord this privilege specifically to Russia? What’s important now is that the movement exists! And it is proof positive that there is indeed a possibility of achieving stability in human society—maybe even that stability so many peoples on various continents having been trying without success to achieve for thousands of years! Anastasia says that the dacha movement in Russia represents a momentous turning-point in the development of the human commonwealth. Dachniks are the harbingers of a splendid future which will come after them, she has said, thinking of the future communities she has sketched out. And I myself would very much like to live in one of these splendid communities—a community located in a flourishing country, whose name just happens to be Russia. ’See Book 2, end of Chapter 8: “The answer”. Some of the factors portending a social upheaval in 1992 are detailed in footnote 1 of Book 1, Chapter 17: “The brain—a supercomputer”. CHAPTER FIVE

A search for evidence Russia of the future A splendid land, in which many of today’s generation will be able to live a happier life. Russia of the future—a land which will lead the human commonwealth of the whole planet to a happier life. I have seen this splendid country coming into bloom. She, Anastasia, showed me the future of our country. And it is absolutely unimportant and insignificant just how this fiery, untiring recluse living alone in the Siberian taiga is able to travel to other planets, or into the future or into the past, or by what means or unseen threads she brings together the hearts of people living in different countries into a single, exciting creative impulse. What is important is that this impulse exists. Does it really matter where she obtained such a colossal amount of all kinds of information and knowledge of our life? What matters immeasurably more is the result of this knowledge—the fact that people living in different cities, once put in touch with the information she possesses, are now planting cedar allees, that people have started producing cedar nut oil, and that more and more songs and poems about what is beautiful in life are coming to light. This is simply amazing! She dreams about something, I write about it, and presto, it turns into reality! Like a kind of fantasy! Yet this fantasy, after all, is embodied in real life for everyone to see. Now she has dreamt about a splendid country. Shall not that too come to pass? Of course it must! And we must help in any way we can! Going over in my mind and analysing everything Anastasia has said or showed has only made me more and more convinced of the reality of a splendid future. I believe in it. Even though I’d begun to believe all Anastasia’s words, there was still no way I could put together and publish a chapter on the future of Russia. It wasn’t included in the previous book, Co-creation. And the release of this present volume has been delayed more than once for the same reason. I wanted everything I wrote to look sufficiently real and convincing. So that not just I but a whole lot of people could believe and set things in motion to create a splendid future. But there are certain sayings of Anastasia’s that have prevented me from being less than fully convincing. In Co-creation I published Anastasia’s statement that what our whole natural environment comprises is precisely the materialised thoughts of God. If Man is able to comprehend these, even in part, he will not need to spend so much effort in his search for food, fertilising the ground (since the ground itself is capable of re-establishing its own fertility) or to waste energy on trying to fight noxious pests and weeds. His thought will be liberated from

the problems of everyday living, and Man will be able to get involved in tasks more suited to his existence—the co-creation, with God, of splendid worlds. I wanted her words to be believed by a majority of people. But how can people trust her if even the whole agriculture industry, both in Russia and abroad, cannot dispense with the fertilising process? So many factories in various countries of the world are involved in the production of all sorts of chemicals for ‘enriching’ the soil. On a number of occasions I have put this question to various agricultural scientists, but each time I’ve got pretty much the same condescending reply, namely that of course one could set up a Paradise garden on a single hectare of land, but you would need to tend this garden from morning ’til night. And you could not possibly expect a good harvest unless you added fertiliser to the soil, and made use of toxic chemicals, otherwise your harvest would be ruined by a whole bunch of pests. When I brought up Anastasia’s argument that everything grows in the taiga without human assistance, the scientists countered: “Let’s assume it grows. But if your recluse is to be believed, the taiga has been programmed directly by God. Man needs a lot more than what can grow in the taiga. For example, the taiga doesn’t have any fruit orchards. That’s because orchards need to be cared for by Man. They can’t grow all by themselves.” I’ve made several visits to such stores as “Everything for your garden”, “The Gardener”, “The Dachnik”, and seen so many people buying different bags of chemicals. I watched these people and thought that they’ll never believe what Anastasia says, and so there’s no point in writing about the future of Russia—they simply won’t believe in it. They won’t believe in it because this future is first and foremost linked to a new conscious awareness, a different attitude to the Earth and our environment. But there is not a single person today who could confirm what she said, not a single real-life example bearing out her words. On the contrary, everything contradicts her position. And the factories producing toxic pesticides continue to operate. There is a whole chain of stores selling fertilisers and chemicals. And a great many people are involved in agricultural research. The absence of significant evidence to back up Anastasia’s statements had such a strong effect on me that I came to the point where I was no longer able to write anything at all. It was for that reason that I accepted an invitation to go to Innsbruck in Austria. A German publisher rang me and said that the director of a bio-energy institute by the name of Leonard Hoscheneng had invited me to speak on Anastasia at a gathering of the most prominent healers of Europe. The institute would pay my travel and lodging

expenses, and was prepared to pay me 1,000 marks for every hour I spoke. I didn’t go on account of the money, but in search of convincing arguments that a lot of people could understand either for or against Anastasia’s plan— her affirmations about the future of Russia. Dr Hoscheneng, who invited me to speak to the healers, was himself a professional doctor and a prominent healer, as his father and grandfather had been before him. His grandfather had treated the Japanese Imperial family and many other highly placed dignitaries. His personal domains, apart from the institute building, included several small, cozy hotels (where a great number of patients coming from European countries stayed), along with a restaurant, a park, and some other buildings in the city centre. He was a millionaire, though, in contrast to the image many Russians have about the lifestyle of a Western millionaire, Leonard, as I found out, handles all the serious work involved in people’s treatment himself. He personally treats every one coming to see him—which can mean as many as fifty patients a day. Indeed, his working day can sometimes stretch to 16 hours. Only occasionally he has entrusted his consultation task to a healer from Russia. I spoke to the gathering of healers at Innsbruck, aware that they were interested first and foremost in Anastasia. I devoted the larger part of my presentation to her, and ended up talking a little about her project, with the secret hope that the audience would either confirm or discredit her ideas on the future of Russia. But they neither confirmed nor discredited them; they just kept constantly asking for more details. That evening Hoscheneng threw a ‘banquet’ in his restaurant. I would simply have called it a supper. Even though everyone could order what they liked, they were all modest, giving preference to the salads. Nobody drank alcohol or smoked. I too refrained from ordering any alcoholic beverages. Not because I was afraid of looking like the proverbial black sheep in their eyes—it was just that for some reason I didn’t feel like having meat or alcoholic drinks. At the supper-table the talk again turned to Anastasia. A saying was born (though I don’t remember who said it first): The splendid future of Russia is linked with the Siberian Anastasia. The phrase caught on, and was in time repeated with various interpretations by healers from Italy, Germany, France and other countries. I was waiting for specifics as to why and by what means the splendid scenario of the future would unfold, but nobody could offer any specific evidence. The healers were relying on some kind of intuition, whereas I needed proof: can the Earth feed Man without a special effort on his part, simply by virtue of Man correctly understanding the thought of a God whom

nobody could see? After returning to Russia, I recalled the words of the European healers, and continued my search for concrete evidence, for which I was prepared to travel anywhere. But I didn’t have to travel very far. An extraordinary coincidence, as though deliberately set up by someone, not only offered theoretical evidence, but proved to be a real and living confirmation of Anastasia’s words. It happened this way. CHAPTER SIX

A garden for eternity I set off on a day-trip to the country along with employees of the Anastasia Cultural Foundation of Vladimir.9 We stopped by the picturesque shore of a small pond. The women went about preparing a variety of salads for lunch, while the men attended to building a fire. I stood at the edge of the pond, gazing at the water and lost myself in thought. I was in a pretty gloomy mood. All at once Veronika, a resident of a nearby village, came up to me and said: “Vladimir Nikolaevich, just about seven kilometres from here, in the middle of these fields, there are two former manorial estates. There’s nothing left of the buildings, but the fruit orchards have been preserved. Nobody looks after them, but they still bring forth fruit year after year. They give a lot more fruit than the village orchards which are tended to and fertilised. “In 1976 there was an extremely cold winter in these parts, and a lot of people lost their orchards and were forced to plant new ones, but these two, out among the fields, weren’t touched by the cold at all, and not a single tree was lost.” “Why didn’t the cold touch them?” I asked. “Maybe they were a special variety, cold-resistant?” “Just the usual variety. But the way everything was set up on these former estates—the way they did it on just a single hectare of land—wow! It’s pretty much the way Anastasia describes it in your books. Two hundred years ago people planted Siberian cedars all around it along with local oak trees Another thing: the hay from the grass that grows there is a lot richer. It keeps for a long time. “If you like we could go see the place right now. It’s just a dirt trail through the fields, but your jeep can make it.” I couldn’t believe my ears. Who? How? A gift like this—and just at the right

place and at the right time. Are such ‘coincidences’ really coincidental after all? “Let’s go!” I said. The trail ran across fields belonging to a former state farm.2 I said ‘fields’, though they were really more like hayfields or meadows, all overgrown with tall grasses. “They’ve really cut back their growing areas here,” observed Evgeny, Veronika’s husband. “The farm company doesn’t have enough money for fertiliser Anyway, the ground’s getting a rest. And not just the ground. The birds have started singing again this year. You didn’t hear such happy twittering before. What are they so happy about? Maybe ’cause there are no chemicals on the fields now Before the revolution there were villages here in these meadows—my grandmother told me about them. But there’s no trace left of them now. “Look—there it is, to the right of the trail—a former estate.” 10 In the distance I could see tall trees growing densely together. They appeared to cover about a hectare of ground. This place seemed simply like a green isle of forest, all surrounded by fields and meadows.

As we drew closer, I could see in amongst the dense grove of two-hundredyear-old oak trees and bushes an entrance leading to a woodland oasis inside. We went in through the entrance and there we were inside Just imagine: there inside were ancient apple trees with gnarled trunks, spreading their branches out into space. Branches literally dripping with fruit. They hadn’t been dug around—they were just growing there amidst the grasses, they hadn’t been sprayed for insects, but these old apple trees were bearing fruit, and their fruit showed no sign of worm infestation. Some of the trees were real oldies, their branches were breaking under the weight of the fruit. Real oldies—quite possibly this was their last year for bearing fruit. They will soon die off, but alongside each ancient tree you could already see shoots of a new tree breaking through the soil. The thought actually came to me that these trees probably wouldn’t die—at least not until they saw the fresh and healthy shoots coming from their seed. I walked through the orchard, took a taste of the fruit, wandered among the oak trees growing all around, and it seemed as though I could discern the actual thoughts of the Man who had created this splendid oasis. It was as though I could hear him thinking: “Right here, around the orchard, I should put in an oak grove. It will protect the orchard from the winter cold, as well as from summer heat in dry years. Birds will make their nests in the tall trees and stop the caterpillars from taking over. I’ll plant a shady oak allee by the shore of the pond. When the trees grow up, their tops will come together, giving shade to the spacious allee below.” And all at once a kind of vague thought made my blood course faster through my veins. What was it demanding of me, this thought? And then it came in a flash: of course, Anastasia! Naturally you were right when you said that we could feel God in coming into contact with His creations and in continuing His creations. Not by wild antics, jumping up and down and new-fangled rituals, but by directly turning to Him, to His thoughts, it is surely possible to understand His wishes and our own purpose in life. Here I am standing beneath the oak trees on the shore of a man-made pond and I can literally read the thoughts of the Man behind this living creation. And he —this Man, this Russian, who lived here two hundred years ago—no doubt felt more than others the thoughts of the Creator, which enabled him to bring about this Paradise creation. His own garden, his own family nest. He may have died, this Russian, but his orchard has remained, and is still bringing forth fruit, and feeding the children of the neighbouring villages, who come here every autumn to delight in the fruits. Some people gather them up and sell them. And you, my fine Russian fellow, no doubt wanted

your grandchildren and great-grandchildren to live here. Of course you did! I can tell that because you didn’t put up just a mansion with a limited lifespan, but something that will last for eternity. But where are your grandchildren and great-grandchildren today? Your family domain has been abandoned, it’s all grown over with grasses, and your pond is drying up. But your allee, for some reason, didn’t get overgrown with wild grass. In fact the grass beneath it is like a carpet. Your corner of Paradise which you created—your family domain—is no doubt still awaiting the return of your descendants. Decades go by, even centuries, but it is still waiting. So where are they? Who are they now? Whom do they serve? Whom do they worship? Who chased them away from here? We did have a revolution—maybe that’s to blame for everything? Of course it is. Only a revolution is made by people when some sort of qualitative change takes place in the consciousness of the majority. What happened in the minds of your contemporaries, my fine Russian fellow, that your family domain has gone to waste? The local old-timers told me how the ageing Russian land-owner headed off a blood-bath on his domain. When a group of revolutionary-inclined residents from two nearby villages, pumped up on local beer, marched en masse to pillage his family domain, the old landowner came out to meet them with a basket of apples, only to be slain by a bullet from a double-barrelled gun. He had known already the night before that they were planning to pillage his house, and he had persuaded his grandson, a Russian officer, to leave the domain. The grandson, a front-line veteran, decorated with St George’s Cross, fled together with his comrades-in-arms with front-line Mosin rifles11 slung over their shoulders; their open wagon also carried a trusty, battle-worn machine gun. He probably went into emigration and now has grandchildren of his own growing up. Your descendants, my fine Russian fellow, are growing up in another land, while in Russia, in your kin’s domain, the leaves of the trees in your orchard are rustling in the breeze, and every year your old apple trees are bringing forth fruit, astounding all the residents around with a luxuriant harvest. There isn’t even a trace of your house left, all the outbuildings have been torn down, but the orchard lives on in spite of everything—no doubt in the hope that your descendants will return to taste the best apples in the whole wide world. Yet your descendants are still not coming.

Why have things turned out like this and who is making us seek our own happiness at the expense of others just like us? Who is making us breathe air filled with noxious gases and dust instead of floral pollen and beneficial

ethers? Who is making us drink water deadened by gases? Who? Who are we today? Why do not your descendants come back, my fine Russian fellow, back to their family nest? In the second domain the apples were even tastier than in the first. Around this orchard had been planted beautiful Siberian cedars. Local residents informed me that there had even been more cedars earlier—now only twenty-three of them were left. During the days following the revolution when they still had a day-labour system, they said people were paid for their work with cedar nuts. Now the nuts were there to be collected by anyone who wanted to. The only thing was, sometimes they would beat the trees very hard with logs4 to make the cones fall to the ground. Twenty-three Siberian cedars, planted by the hand of Man two hundred years ago, still stood there all in a row, like soldiers protecting this splendid orchard from freezing winds and harmful pests. There had been more of them, but one the customary process of harvesting cedar nuts involves 5 to 10 strong men putting a log on their shoulders and, with a running approach, hitting the trunk of the cedar with one end of the log. This is the most ‘efficient’ method of knocking the cones off the tree to the ground, yet the most damaging to the tree. A milder alternative is to hit the trunk with a special bat, while the best option—recommended by Anastasia (see Book 2, Chapter 31: “How to produce healing cedar oil”)—is to gather the ripe cones that fall naturally to the ground (or to climb the tree and pick them by hand). one they perished, since in Siberia the cedars were always surrounded by tall pines. A single cedar by itself could not withstand the blasts of wind, as its root system is not all that extensive. Cedars are nourished not only through their roots, but also absorb the surrounding space through their tops. That is why the pines or young cedars protect them. Whereas here the cedars were all standing in a row. They lasted the first hundred and fifty years, but then, after their tops expanded, they began falling, one after the other. For the past fifty years nobody thought of planting pines or birches beside them, and so the cedars were left to defend the orchard, standing up against the angry winds all on their own. It was probably just last year that one of them began falling, but came to rest against the top of the one next to it in the row. I looked at the sharply leaning tree trunk, whose top was intertwined with that of its neighbour. Their branches had grown together, and the falling tree was still living. Both trees were green and bearing seed. There were only twenty-three left. They are still standing there, supporting each other, bearing seed and protecting the orchard. Oh you Sibiriaks!5 Hang in there, just a little longer, please! I’m going to write about you.

Oh, Anastasia, Anastasia! You taught me how to write books, but why didn’t you teach me to write words that would be understandable to a lot of people right off the bat? To a whole lot of people?! Why can’t I manage to write in an understandable way for a great many people? Why does my thought get confused? Why do the cedars fall, and people only look at them and not do anything? Not far from these former domains, which have preserved right up to our day their splendid orchards and shady allees, Aibinak (pronounced: sibir-TAK)—a native of Siberia, in this case referring to the trees. are located several villages. The sight of these villages spoils the whole surrounding landscape. If you look at them from afar, you get the impression that some sort of worm ran amuck, laid everything waste and dug up the flower-covered meadows. Slums full of grey village houses, farm buildings thrown together out of various rotting materials, dirt from roads broken down under the wheels of lorries and tractors, all contribute to this impression. I asked the local residents whether they had been to the orchards laid out among the cedar and oak trees. Many had been there, tasted the apples. Young people were accustomed to going to the place for picnics. “It’s lovely there!” was chorused by young and old alike. But when I asked why nobody had tried to set up their own homestead in the same ‘image and likeness’, I got pretty much the same answer each time: “We don’t have the kind of money the landowners who created this beauty had.” Older residents said that the cedar saplings had been brought here by the landowner directly from Siberia. When I asked how much it cost just to take a cedar nut from one of these trees and plant it in the ground, I got a strained silence in reply. Which brings me to the thought that it is not the lack of opportunity or financial means, but our own inner coding that is somehow to blame for all our woes. Nowadays people with money are putting up a lot of fancy houses in the country. The land around these houses has been either dug up or buried in asphalt. In twenty or thirty years these houses are going to be in need of repair; they won’t look like new any more. And their children won’t need this old derelict. They won’t be needing a family domain—a Motherland— like that, and so they’ll go off to find themselves a new one.

But they’ll be taking with them this same mysterious coding they got from their parents and repeating their life as temporary caretakers on the land, instead of creating something for eternity Who will be able to remove it and how—this mysterious coding for hopelessness? Perhaps what Anastasia has said and shown about the future of Russia will somehow help in this regard. And just to allay the doubts of the sceptics, I have put on the inside covers of this book photographs of these amazing Russian orchards, spreading out their fruit-laden branches to the Russia of the future.

Anastasia’s Russia As Anastasia was telling me about the communities of the future which would be comprised of family domains, I asked her: “Anastasia, please show me the Russia of the future. I know you can.” “Yes, I can. What place in the future Russia would you like to see, Vladimir?” “Well, how about Moscow?” “Would you like to go to the future alone, Vladimir, or together with me?” “It’d be a lot better with you. You can explain anything I see and don’t understand.” The touch of Anastasia’s warm hand at once induced a sleepy state, and I started to see. Anastasia showed me the future of Russia the same way she showed me life on another planet. At some point scientists will probably understand just how she does this, but the means she used are quite irrelevant in this case. In my view, the most important thing is information about what specific actions will enable us to bring about this splendid future. The Moscow yet to come was nothing like I had imagined. The city had not expanded its geographical boundaries. There were no skyscrapers, as I might have expected. The walls of the old houses were decorated in cheerful colours, and many were painted with pictures—landscapes and flowers. I later found out that this was the work of foreigners. First they covered the walls with some kind of plaster, and then artists—also from abroad—added the ornamentation. Intertwining vines hung down the roofs of many of the houses, their leaves rustling in the wind, as though greeting the passers-by. Almost all the streets and avenues of the capital were planted with trees and flowers. Right down the middle of Kalinin Avenue (or the New Arbat,12 as

it is called) stretched a green boulevard about four metres wide. Concrete kerbs rose about a half-metre above the pavement, enclosing earthen beds from which sprouted grass and wild flowers, interspersed at brief intervals with various kinds of trees: rowans with their clusters of red berries, birches, poplars, currant and raspberry bushes and a host of other plants such as one might find in a natural forest. There were similar boulevard strips down the centre of many of Moscow’s avenues and broad streets. And on the reduced traffic portion of these streets there didn’t seem to be very many motorcars—mainly buses carrying passengers who did not look at all Russian in their appearance. The same could be said of many of the pedestrians on the sidewalks. I wondered for a moment whether Moscow had been occupied by a technically more developed country But Anastasia reassured me, saying that the people I was seeing here were not occupiers, but simply foreign tourists. “And what draws them to Moscow?” I asked. “The atmosphere of a grand creation, refreshing air and water,” came the reply. “Look and see how many people are standing along the banks of the Moskva River and collecting water in containers on strings they let down from the high embankments, and drinking the river water with great delight!” “But how can they drink water straight from the river without boiling it first?” “Look and see, Vladimir, how pure and transparent the water is in the Moskva River. It contains living water, not water deadened by gases like the kind sold in bottles throughout the world.” “It must be a fantasy—something impossible to believe!” ‘A fantasy? But when you were little, would you and your friends have believed it if someone told you that before long people would be selling water in bottles?” “You’re right: when I was young nobody would have believed that. But how was it possible to make the water so pure in such a big city as Moscow?” “Stop polluting it, stop throwing harmful waste into it, stop littering the river banks.” “It was that simple?” “Exactly. Nothing fantasy-like—it is actually all quite simple. Today the Moskva River is protected even from the runoff water flowing over the pavement, and it is closed to dirty ships. They used to consider the Ganges in India sacred, but now the whole world adores the Moskva River and its water, they adore the people who restored the water to its pristine vitality

And people come here from many countries to see this wondrous marvel, taste the water and find healing.” “And where are all the local residents? Why are there so few passenger cars in the streets?” “There are only about a million-and-a-half Muscovites actually living in the capital now, though the number of tourists from various countries can be more than six times that figure,” replied Anastasia, and added: “There are fewer cars because the remaining residents have managed to arrange their day on a more rational basis, reducing their need to move around. Their work is usually close by, close enough to walk. And the tourists get around using just the metro13 and the buses.” “And what’s happened to all the other Muscovites?” “They live and work in their splendid family domains.”14 “Then who works in the plants and factories? Who looks after the tourists?” And Anastasia told me the following: “As the year 2000 (according to the accepted Earth calendar of the time) was drawing to a close, the Russian leadership was still in the process of determining the country’s path of future development. The majority of Russian citizens were not particularly inspired by the path the so-called prosperous countries of the West were taking. “Russians had already tried the food products from these countries, but did not have much of a taste for them. It turned out that the development of what was termed technical progress in these countries came hand-in-glove with various diseases of both the body and the soul. Crime and drugs became increasingly rampant, and women were less and less inclined toward childbearing. “Russians were not attracted to the conditions in which the peoples of the ‘developed’ nations lived. Neither did they wish to revert to the old social order, but they had not yet seen any new path. An increasing mood of depression took hold of the country, affecting the whole society in ever greater numbers. Russia’s population was ageing and dying. “At the beginning of the new millennium, at the initiative of the Russian President, a decree was signed granting free and unconditionally to each willing family one hectare of land whereon to establish a family domain. The decree allotted this land to the family for lifetime use, with the right to pass it on to their heirs. Any produce grown in this domain would not be subject to taxation of any kind.15 “Russian parliamentarians supported the President’s initiative and the

Russian Constitution was amended accordingly The primary aims of the decree, in the eyes of the President and the parliamentarians, were: reducing unemployment in the country guaranteeing a minimum income level to needy families, and solving the refugee problem. But what subsequently happened was something none of them could have fully imagined. “When the first allocation of land was made for organising a community numbering more than two hundred families, the plots of land in question were taken up not just by the needy, the unemployed or poverty-stricken refugees, but primarily by middle-income families and wealthy entrepreneurs who had read your books, Vladimir. They had been anticipating this turn of events. And they were not just idly waiting for it— many of them had already been growing their own family trees in their apartments from seeds planted in clay pots, and the mighty cedars and oaks of the future were already sprouting their first little shoots. “It was these entrepreneurs who initiated and financed plans for a community with an infrastructure facilitating a convenient lifestyle, as you wrote in your book Co-creation. These plans provided for a store, a medical clinic, a school, a club, roads and a lot else besides. In fact, entrepreneurs made up about half the number of people who expressed their desire to rearrange their life and daily routine to live in the first of the new communities. “They all had their own businesses, their own source of income. For the actual construction work and setting up their plots of land they required a labour force. The ideal solution, they discovered, was to hire their neighbours from among the needy families as construction and landscape workers. That way some of these families got jobs right away, which gave them the wherewithal to finance their own construction projects. The entrepreneurs realized that nobody would prove to be more meticulous and efficient workers than those who were planning to live in the community themselves, and so external specialists would be hired only where such could not be found among the future community residents. “Only the establishing of the future orchard and forest and the planting of the family trees and living fences was something each family endeavoured to do on their own. “Most of them did not yet have enough experience or knowledge as to how best to establish their plot, and as a result among the future residents the elderly people who did have this knowledge commanded considerable respect. The principal focus was not on temporary structures or even houses per se, but on the development of the landscaping. In each case the actual buildings people were going to live in were considered just one small part of

the larger living house of God. “Within five years houses for permanent residence had been built on all the lots. They were quite varied in size and architectural style, but it was soon evident that the greatest treasure of each domain was by no means the size of a house. The greatest treasure lay elsewhere, and it was not long before it took form and outline in the splendid landscaping elements of each plot in particular as well as of the community as a whole. “The oaks and cedars planted in each plot were still very young, and each plot was surrounded by a living fence, which was only starting to grow. But with each new spring, apple and cherry trees, even though still quite small, came stridently into bloom in the young orchards, along with grass and flower beds that were doing their very best to resemble a splendid living carpet. The spring air was filled with delightful aromas and floral pollen. The air became truly invigorating. “And every woman living in this new community had a desire to bear children. This happened not only in young families but even people considered elderly suddenly began to bear children. People felt that even if they themselves did not live to see the splendid piece of their Motherland their hands had created, they wanted their children to—they wanted their children to delight in the sight and continue the co-creation begun by their parents. “At the beginning of the new millennium, in each plot, all living shoots represented the first shoots of a splendid, happy future for the whole Earth. The people that established for centuries to come the first family domains had still not completely felt the significance of what they had done—they simply began looking more joyfully at the world around them. They were still not consciously aware of the great joy their actions were bringing to their Heavenly Father. The Father was sending tears of joy and tenderness upon the Earth amidst the drops of the falling rain. And He smiled with the sunshine, and was endeavouring to use the little branches of young trees to give a secret caress to His children who had suddenly become aware of eternity and had come back to Him. “The Russian press began writing about the new community, and many people wanted to see this splendid phenomenon for themselves so that they could create one of their own like it.5 Perhaps even create a better one. 5

This too came to pass. On 12 November 2002, less than two years after this book was published in Russian, The Moscow Times, Russia’s largest English-language daily newspaper, featured an article (entitled “Urban group dreams of eco-friendly settlement”) on Rodnoe, one of Russia’s first eco-villages created by inspired readers of the Ringing Cedars Series. This

article, describing the emerging Russia-wide eco-village movement which sprang from the ideas expressed in Vladimir Megre’s books, was followed by hundreds of other reports in newspapers and in other mass media. Both Rodnoe and other eco-communities now receive a steady flow of visitors from all over Russia and abroad. “Millions of Russian families were seized with the inspired desire for a splendid co-creation. Communities similar to the first one sprang up simultaneously in various regions of the country. An entire movement began, not unlike our contemporary dacha movement. “Within nine years after the first decree was signed allowing people to establish their lives independently and make their lives happy, more than thirty million families had become involved in creating their own kin’s domains, their own piece of the Motherland. They have been cultivating their splendid plots of ground, using, in the process, living, everlasting materials created by God. And, by so doing, they were creating together with Him. “Each of these families turned their hectare of land provided for their lifetime use into a little comer of Paradise. Against the backdrop of the vast spaces of the Russian Motherland, a single hectare seemed like a very small piece indeed. But there were many such pieces. And all of them together made up a vast Motherland. Through these pieces, all created by loving hands, the whole Motherland flourished like a garden in Paradise! This was their Russia! “On each of the hectares were planted both evergreens and deciduous trees. People were already aware how the trees themselves would fertilise the ground and the balance in soil composition would be maintained by the grasses growing all around. And nobody had it even cross their mind to use chemical fertilisers or toxic chemicals. “The quality of Russia’s air and water improved and became health-giving. The food shortage problem was completely resolved. Each family was able —easily and without undue effort—not only to provide for themselves from what grew in their domain, but also to sell their surplus. “Every Russian family with its own domain started to become rich and free, and Russia as a whole began to grow into the most rich and powerful state in comparison with other countries in the world.” 1 See Book 2, Chapter 9: “Dachnik Day and an All-Earth holiday!”. 2

This description appears, among other places, in an environmental atlas of Russia which may be found on the Russian “Practical Science” website at: www.sci.aha.ru 3 tonne (metric ton)—1 tonne = 0.98 UK (long) tons or 1.1 US (short) tons. 4 recluses—referring to Anastasia, her grandfather and great-grandfather, introduced in Book 1, Chapter 2: “Encounter”. 5 Sri Aurobindo (1872-1950)—Hindu mystic, scholar, poet and evolutionary philosopher, considered by his followers to be an ‘avatar’, or incarnation, of the Supreme Being. His Integral Yoga is actually a synthesis of the three yogas: bhakli, karma and jnana, embodying and integrating all aspects of life. His ‘spiritual partner’, Mirra Richard (1878-1973), born in Paris to Egyptian parents, first came to Aurobindo’s Ashram (Hermitage) in 1914 and eventually settled in Pondicherry in 1920. Commonly known as ‘The Mother’, she supervised the operations of his Ashram and related organisations. Upon Aurobindo’s death in 1950, she succeeded him as spiritual leader, and went on to found the Auroville community in 1968. 6 Satprem (birth name: Bernard Enginger, 1923-)—French author, who discovered the teachings of Sri Aurobindo while serving in the French colonial administration of Pondicherry in the 1940s, and later worked closely with Mirra Richard. It was she who gave him the name Satprem (‘the one who loves truly’) in 1957. Later he published The Agenda—a mutli-volume account of his collaboration with Richard, disseminated through his Institute for Evolutionary Research in Paris. This was followed by a number of other books he wrote on his experiences in India. 7 dachniks—people who spend time at their dacha, or cottage in the country, surrounded by a garden where fruits and/or vegetables are grown to feed the family all year long (for further details see Book 1). 8 See Book 2, Chapter 9: “Dachnik Day and an All-Earth holiday!”. 9 Vladimir—in this case the name of one of Russia’s oldest cities (founded in 1108 by Prince Vladimir Monomakh on the site of a much earlier

settlement), which once served as the Russian capital. Situated on the Klyazma River about 180 km east of Moscow, it has a current population of about 340,000. Like neighbouring Suzdal (former patriarchate of the Russian Orthodox Church) and a chain of other historic towns, Vladimir forms part of Russia’s circular tourist route known as the Golden Ring (Zolotoe kol’tso). It is here that the author of the Ringing Cedars Series, Vladimir Nikolaevich Megre, resided at the time this book was written. The name Vladimir—though now commonly interpreted as meaning “ruler of the world”—is an ancient Slavic name originally meaning “in harmony and peace”. 10 state farm. (Russian: sovkhoz)—in the Soviet period, a farm where workers were paid a monthly wage, as in a factory 11 Mosin rifle (Russian: vintovka Mosind)—the standard army-issue three-line ('triokhlineika) rifle in both the Imperial and Soviet Russian armies, developed in 1891 by Sergei Ivanovich Mosin (1849-1902). 12 New Arbat (in Russian: Novy Arbat)—a broad thoroughfare leading west from the Kremlin and city centre to the Novy Arbat Bridge across the Moskva River (.Moskva is also the Russian name of the city itself). Officially known as Kalinin Prospekt (Avenue) in Soviet times (after Mikhail Kalinin—see footnote 1 in Book 1, Chapter 1: “The ringing cedar”), Novy Arbat was constructed in 1963 parallel to the old Arbat Street, which still runs a short distance to the south and from 1974 to 1986 was turned into a pedestrian mall. Novy Arbat’s imposing row of modern high-rise apartment blocks gave 1960s Moscow a new Western appearance, complete with contemporary-looking shops and restaurants. 13 metro—Moscow’s “metropolitan”, or subway system, which has been operating since May 1935. Over the years it has expanded to twelve lines and some 200 stations. 14 The whole description of the Russia of the future in this chapter and elsewhere in the Series bears striking similarities to the ideas of one of Russia’s greatest economists, Alexander Chayanov (1888-1937). Back in the 1920s he already foresaw the eventual return of the country to predominantly rural living after the fall of communism, and even described

the Moscow of the future as a garden-city populated mostly by tourists. He also accurately predicted the rise of the dacha movement that would eventually dominate the country’s agriculture. Some of these views are expressed in his insightful A journey of my brother Alexey to the land of peasant Utopia (dubbed a ‘utopia’ only to allow the publication of the work under the Soviet censorship in 1920). After Stalin publicly attacked Chayanov’s views in 1929, he was incarcerated and, after years in prison, executed on Stalin’s personal order. Today Chayanov’s works are better known abroad than in his native Russia. 15 On 7 July 2003, less than three years after this book was released in Russian, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed into federal law the “Private Garden-plot Act” (Zakon 0 lichnompodsobnorn kboziaistve). According to this law, Russian citizens can receive free of charge from the state plots of land in private inheritable ownership. The maximum size of plots differs from one region to another, but in most cases is between 1 and 3 hectares. The produce grown on the plots is not subject to taxation. Subsequently, on President Putin’s instructions the Russian government developed and introduced into the Russian parliament another law to further facilitate the acquisition of land for gardening. This second law was passed in June 2006.

CHAPTER FIVE

The richest state “Hold on, Anastasia, I don’t understand how the state as a whole suddenly got rich. You yourself said that the produce from family domains wasn’t subject to any kind of tax, so what has made the state so rich?” “How can you possibly ask what? Think about it more carefully, Vladimir. You are an entrepreneur, after all.” “Well, since I am an entrepreneur, I happen to know that the state has always tried its hardest to squeeze just a little more tax out of every citizen. And here you tell me it’s gone and axed thirty million families from the tax roll. The families, of course, could have got very rich, but at the same time it should mean bankruptcy for the state.” “The state did not go bankrupt. First, unemployment was completely eliminated, since any Man who found himself without a job in the industrial, commercial or public sectors (as we know them today) was able to devote himself either fully or partially to work—or putting it more specifically, to co-creation in his own domain. The total elimination of unemployment freed up significant financial resources. “The abundant supply of food provided by the families with their own domains spared the state from any kind of expenditure on agricultural production. But, more importantly, thanks to the vast number of families who established their domains in accordance with the Divine plan, the Russian state received an income significantly higher than it realizes today from the sale of oil, gas and other resources traditionally regarded as its basic sources of income.” “What could possibly bring it more income than oil, gas and arms sales?” “A great deal, Vladimir—for example, air, water, ethers, loveliness, contact with the energy of co-creation, the contemplation of pleasant things.” “It’s still not completely clear, Anastasia. Couldn’t you put it in more specific terms? Where did the money come from?” “I shall try my best. The extraordinary changes taking place in Russia attracted the attention of many people all over the globe. The world press began writing about the major change in lifestyle most Russians were experiencing. This became a burning issue for a good deal of the world’s population. A huge flood of tourists began pouring into Russia. There were

so many that wanted to come, it was impossible to accept them all, and many had to wait their turn, even as long as several years. The Russian government was forced to limit the length of stays by foreign tourists, since many of them, especially the elderly, were attempting to stay months and even years here. “The Russian government collected huge levies from each foreigner entering the country but this by no means reduced the number of those applying to come.” “But why did they want to visit here in person, if they could see it all on TV? You did say the world press was enlightening people about life in the new Russia.” “People all over the world wanted more—they wanted to breathe Russia’s air which had become so health-giving. They wanted to drink its living water. To take a taste of fruits unlike any other in the world. To talk with the people who were stepping forward into God’s millennium and thereby both slake their souls’ thirst and heal their suffering bodies.” “And what unusual kinds of fruit appeared? What were they called?” “The same as they were called before, only the quality was completely different. You already know, Vladimir, how much better tomatoes and cucumbers taste when they are grown in the open air under the direct rays of the Sun, in comparison to hothouse varieties. Well, fruits and vegetables grown in soil free from harmful chemicals are even tastier and more healthful. And they have even greater healing properties when grown in the company of different kinds of herbs and trees. The mood and attitude of the grower also plays a role. And the ethers contained in the fruit also have a tremendous benefit for Man.” “What do you mean by ethers?” “Ethers are fragrances. A fragrance you detect signifies the presence of an ether which feeds not only the body but also the invisible essence of a Man.” “Still not clear. Are we talking about the brain, perhaps?” “One could say that ethers strengthen mental energy and feed the soul. Such fruits were grown only in Russia, and the greatest benefit is realized when used by Man on the day they are picked, and that is why so many people have come to Russia from all over the world—to taste these fruits, among other things. “Produce from the family domains very quicldy took over the market, squeezing out not only imported fruits and vegetables but those that were still growing in the ordinary large-acreage fields. People began to appreciate and feel the difference in the quality of the produce. Pep si-Cola and the other soft drinks so popular today were replaced by fruit beverages made

from natural berries. And even the most sophisticated and expensive liqueurs in today’s society could not compete with the sweet wines prepared from natural berries right in the domains. “These drinks also contained beneficial ethers, since the people preparing them in their domains knew that once the berries were picked, they had only a few minutes to begin making them into fruit liqueurs and wines. “An even greater source of income for families living in their domains was the sale of medicinal plants which they gathered from their groves, gardens and surrounding meadows. “In time the harvests of medicinal herbs from Russia became a far more sought-after commodity than drugs manufactured abroad—but only the herbs collected in the family domains and not those grown in specialised operations on huge tracts of land. A herb grown in a huge field among others of its own kind cannot take from the soil and surrounding space all the ingredients that are needful and useful to Man. Even though the produce from the domains cost a great deal more than what was produced by the socalled industrial method, people all over the world still preferred it.” “And why did the owners of the domains jack up the price?” “The minimum price was set by the Russian government.” “The government? Why would it care? It doesn’t get anything from family domain production. Why would it take pains to enrich individual families?” “You must remember, Vladimir, that the state itself consists of individual families, who, as the need arose, took to financing the infrastructure network in their communities—schools and roads, for example. Sometimes they would put money into projects on a national scale. Politicians and economists would publish their projects, but only those which people put their money into passed.” “Tell me, what kinds of projects were the most popular among the majority?” “The buying up of chemical conglomerates abroad, arms factories and scientific institutes.” “Now there’s a switch! You told me that these families had a conscious awareness of the Divine, a sense of goodness. That it was thanks to them that the whole world was being transformed into a garden of Paradise, and now you’re talking about buying up chemical plants and arms manufacturing companies.” “But these ventures were not aimed at producing weapons or harmful chemicals, but at destroying the factories making them. The Russian

government was involved in the redirection of the international monetary flow The energy of money, which had been feeding what was fatally harmful for mankind, was now aimed at the liquidation of the same.” “And what happened—did the Russian government have enough money for such extravagant projects?” “It did. Russia not only became the richest country in the world but it became immeasurably richer than all the other countries. The whole world’s capital started flowing into Russia. Not only the wealthy, but even people of modest means flocked to deposit their savings exclusively in Russian banks. Many wealthy people simply willed their savings to the development of Russian projects—these were people who realized that the future of all mankind depended upon these projects being carried out. Foreign tourists who had visited Russia and seen the new Russians could no longer live by their former set of values. They excitedly told their friends and acquaintances about what they had seen, and the flood of tourists kept getting bigger, and bringing ever increasing profit to the Russian state.” “Tell me, Anastasia, those people, you know, who live in Siberia, what projects could they undertake to become as wealthy as the people in central Russia? After all, in Siberia the summer is shorter and you won’t get very rich on growing garden produce.” “People in Siberia, Vladimir, also began setting up their domains. Siberians used their plots of ground to grow things suitable to their climate, and they had one big advantage over residents of more southern climes. Siberian families received state allotments in the taiga, and each family took care of its own lands and harvested their gifts. And out of Siberia came healthgiving berries and herbs. And cedar nut oil.” “And how much did cedar oil fetch on the international market, in terms of dollars?” “One tonne of cedar oil cost four million dollars.” “Wow! Finally it was priced at its true worth, which is eight times higher than what it was fetching before. I wonder how much of this cedar oil the Siberians would have prepared in a season?” “In the year you are looking at now: three thousand tonnes were produced.” “Three thousand?! Wow! That means they would have got twelve billion dollars just for harvesting cedar nuts.” “More, in fact. You forgot that pressed cedar nuts can be made into excellent flour.” “So how much would an average Siberian family make in a year from their

labours—in terms of dollars?” “On average, three to four million dollars.” “Wowee! And you mean to tell me they still don’t pay any tax?” “No tax at all.” “In that case, where on earth could they spend money like that? Back when I worked in Siberia, I saw that anyone in a Siberian village who wasn’t lazy could provide enough for himself by hunting and fishing. But here you’re talking huge sums!” “Like other Russians, they invested their money in national government projects. For example, initially, when the Russian people still had not discovered how to control the movement of the clouds, a great deal of the Siberians’ money went to the purchase of aeroplanes.” “Aeroplanes? What would they need planes for?” “To ward off clouds containing harmful deposits. These clouds would form over countries where deadly industrial pollution was still permitted. They were fought off by Siberian aviators.” “And what about hunting—has it been confined to reserved family allotments in the taiga?” “Siberians have totally stopped all hunting and the killing of animals. Many of them built summer residences on their allotments and spent their summers collecting herbs, berries, mushrooms and nuts. Young creatures of the forest right from birth saw human beings as not a threat to them, and got accustomed to Man as an integral part of their territory They began communicating with people, making friends with them. “The Siberians taught many creatures to help them. For example, squirrels would throw down cedar cones with ripe nuts onto the ground, which gave the squirrels no end of pleasure. Some people trained bears to pull heavy baskets and sacks with nuts, and clear away trees felled by the wind.” “Really! They even got bears helping!” “There is nothing surprising in that, Vladimir. In times which people today call ‘ancient’, a bear was one of the most irreplaceable helpers in the household. He would use his paws to dig edible tubers out of the ground and put them in a large basket, and then take it upon himself to drag the basket on a rope to a pit cellar hollowed out of the ground not far from Man’s dwelling. He would climb trees in the forest to fetch log-hives filled with honey and bring them back to Man’s dwelling. He would take Man’s children into the forest to gather raspberry treats, as well as do a lot of other things for the household.”

“Wow! The bear replaced both the tractor and the plough, and brought home things to eat, and minded the children!” ‘And all winter long he slept, needing no maintenance or repairs. And when spring came he would return to Man’s dwelling once more, and Man would treat him to the fruits of the previous autumn.” “I see what’s going on: a reflex was trained in those bears to make it seem as though Man had stored up those supplies just for them.” “You could call it a reflex, if that helps you gain a clearer understanding, but you could also say that is the way it was designed by the Father. I will only tell you that tubers were not the most important thing for the bear in the springtime.” “What was, then?” “After sleeping all alone in his lair the whole winter long, when he awoke in the spring the first thing the bear did was hurry over to see Man, to feel Man’s caresses and hear his praise. All the creatures need Man’s caresses.” “If dogs and cats are any example, you’re right. But what about the other creatures in the taiga—what did they do?” “Gradually all the other taiga dwellers found themselves a niche too. And the highest reward for these tamed residents of the territory was a tender word or gesture, or petting or scratching for those who had done an exceptionally good job. But they could get jealous of each other some times, if one of them seemed to win special favour from Man. They could even have a quarrel over this.” “And what have Siberians been doing during the winter?” “Processing the nuts. Instead of husking the cones right after gathering them, the way it is done in our time for ease of transport, they keep the nuts stored in their resinous cones. The nuts keep that way for several years. Also during the winter women do handicrafts. For example, a hand-made shirt woven out of nettle fibres and embroidered by hand fetches quite a handsome price today And in wintertime Siberians receive people from all over the world and treat their ills.” “But, Anastasia, if Russia has indeed become such a rich land for Man to live in, surely that means that many other states have a desire to conquer Russia? Especially since, as you said, the arms factories have been shut down. Are you telling me Russia has become in fact an agrarian country, unprotected against an external aggressor?” “Russia has not been transformed into an agrarian country. It has become a centre for world science. “And the factories manufacturing destructive weapons in Russia were eliminated only after people discovered an energy, before which the most up-to-date kinds of armaments not only proved useless, but even represented a threat to those countries which maintained them.”

“What kind of energy is that? Where does it come from and who discovered it?” “This energy was possessed by the Atlanteans. But they got hold of it too early, and so Atlantis disappeared from the face of the Earth. And it was rediscovered by the children of the new Russia.” “Children?! You’d better run all this by me in the proper order, Anastasia.” “Very well.” CHAPTER NINE

Good shall prevail on the Earth1 In one of the Russian domains lived a happy family—a husband, wife and two children: a boy, Konstantin, who was eight, and a little five-year-old girl named Dasha.2 Their father was considered one of the most talented computer-programmers in Russia. His study at home contained several stateof-the-art computers on which he compiled programmes for a government military agency Sometimes he would linger at his computers well into the evening hours, completely absorbed in his work. The other members of the family, accustomed to gathering in the evenings, headed for his study, where each busied themselves with their own activities. The wife sat in a comfortable armchair and sewed. Their son read or drew sketches of the landscapes of the new settlements. Only five-yearold Dasha would not always find herself an activity to her liking, in which case she would curl up in a chair with a good view of everyone else, and spend a long time carefully observing each member of the family Occasionally she would close her eyes, and her face would show a whole range of emotions. On what seemed to be a fairly routine evening the family had gathered in the father’s study as usual, each one busy in their own way The study door was open, which meant that the whole of Chapter 9 and the first few paragraphs of Chapter 10 are told directly in Anastasia’s words. Dasha—the diminutive form of the name Dana; family and friends might also call her Dashenka, or (indicating a momentary negative emotion) Dashka. Konstantin may also be known informally as Kostia or Kostienka. They in turn could address their parents as Mamochka and Papochka. they could hear the cuckooing of an old-fashioned mechanical cuckoo clock on the wall of the children’s room next door. Usually it would sound off only during the daytime hours, but now it was already evening. So the father

glanced up from his work and stared at the door, while the other family members gave an astonished look in the same direction. All except for little Dasha, who simply sat in her chair, her eyes closed, apparently oblivious to everything. A smile—first barely noticeable, then quite evident—crept across her lips. All at once the clock cuckooed a second time, as though someone standing in the children’s room had moved the hands forward to announce the next hour. Ivan Nikiforovich,1 as the father of the household was called, turned his swivel chair in his son’s direction and said: “Kostia, please go see if you can fix the clock or at least stop it. We’ve had it a long time, that gift of Grandfather’s. Strange how it got broken like that Strange See if you can do something about it, Kostia.” The children were always obedient. Not out of fear of punishment—in fact, they were never punished. Kostia and Dasha loved and respected their parents. They got the highest pleasure out of doing something together or carrying out their parent’s wishes. Upon hearing his father’s request, Kostia at once rose from his seat, but, to his mother’s and father’s surprise, did not head for the children’s room. Instead, he just stood and stared at his younger sister sitting in the armchair with her eyes closed. Then once again they heard a cuckooing from the next room. But Kostia still stood there and stared, his eyes fixed on his sister. Galina, their mother, looked concernedly at her son, who remained rooted to the spot. All at once, she got up and cried out in fright: “Kostia Kostia, what’s the matter with you?” The eight-year-old boy turned to his mother, wondering what she was frightened about, and replied: “Everything’s fine with me, Mama. I wanted to do as Papa asked, but I can’t.” “Why not? Are you unable to move? You’re unable to go to your room?” “I can move,” replied Kostia, waving his arms about and stamping his feet on the spot to prove it, “but there’s no point in my going to our room—she’s here and she’s stronger.” “Who’s here? Who’s stronger?” Mother started getting more and more upset. “Dasha,” Kostia replied, pointing to his younger sister sitting in the armchair, her eyes closed and with a smile on her face. “She’s the one who’s been moving the hands forward. I tried to put them back in place, but I can’t do it when she—” “What are you talking about, Kostienka?” Mother interrupted. “You and Dashenka are both here with us—I can see you. How can you two be here and at the same time move the clock hands in the other room?”

“Well yes, we’re here,” answered Kostia, “but our thoughts are in the other room, where the clock is. Only her thought is stronger. That’s why the clock keeps cuckooing—her thought is speeding up the hands. She’s been playing a lot of tricks like that lately I told her not to. I knew it might upset you, but Dasha doesn’t care. All she has to do is fall into a state of contemplation, and she starts thinking up something.” “What is Dasha contemplating on?” Ivan Nikiforovich broke into the conversation. ‘And Kostia, why didn’t you say anything about this earlier?” “You yourself can see how she’s contemplating. The clock hands aren’t important—she’s just amusing herself. I can move the hands too when nobody’s interfering. Only I can’t contemplate like Dasha. When she’s in a state of contemplation like that there’s no way anyone can counteract her thought.” “What is she contemplating on? Do you know, Kostia?” “Sorry. Why don’t you ask her yourself? I’ll stop her contemplation before she thinks up anything else.” Kostia went over to the chair his sister was sitting in and said distinctly in a louder than normal voice: “Dasha, stop thinking! If you don’t stop, I shan’t speak to you for a whole day And besides, you’ve frightened Mama.” With a flutter of her eyelashes the little girl surveyed everyone present in the room with an observing glance and, as though literally waking up, jumped up from her chair and hung her head apologetically. The cuckooing stopped, and for a while the study was enveloped in complete silence—a silence eventually broken by little Dasha’s apologising voice. She raised her head, looked at her Mama and Papa with her sparkling, tender eyes and said: “Mamochka, Papochka, forgive me for frightening you. But I had to I just had to finish thinking it through—this thought I had. Now I can’t help but think it through. I’ll be thinking it through tomorrow too, when I’ve had a rest.” The girl’s lips trembled, it seemed just as though she were about to break into tears, but she continued: “You, Kostia, can refuse to talk with me if you like, but I’ll go on contemplating it all the same, until I think it through.” “Come to me, daughter dear,” said Ivan Nikiforovich, trying to act restrained. He held out his arms to his daughter, ready to embrace her. Dasha rushed toward her father, jumped up on his knees and put her little arms around his neck, pressed her cheek briefly against his, then jumped down and stood beside him, bending her head down to him. Ivan Nikiforovich for some reason had a hard time hiding his emotion. He

began telling his daughter: “Don’t worry, Dashenka! Mama will no longer get frightened when you contemplate. Just tell us what you’re thinking about. What is so important to think through and why do the clock hands move forward so fast when you’re thinking?” “You see, Papochka, I want to make everything that’s nice even bigger in time, and everything that’s bad tiny and unnoticeable. Or even I want to think it through so that the hands skip over the bad things and they aren’t there any more.” “But what is nice and what is bad doesn’t depend on the clock hands, Dashenka.” “It doesn’t depend on the hands, Papochka. I realize that. But I move them along so’s I can feel the time. The cuckoo counts off the speed of my thinking, ’cause I have to get it done in time That’s why I move the hands.” “How do you do that, Dashenka?” “It’s simple. I picture the hands of the clock out of the corner of my thought, then I think they should go faster—and they go faster when I start thinking fast.” “What do you want to achieve, daughter dear, by speeding up time? What don’t you like about the present time?” “I like it. I realize now that time isn’t to blame. It’s people themselves who spoil their time. You, Papochka, are so often at your computer, and then you go away for a long time. You, Papochka, spoil the time when you go away” “Me? Spoil it? How so?” “We have a good time when we’re all together. When we’re together we have very good minutes and hours, even days. Everything around is joyful. Do you remember, Papochka, when the apple tree began to bloom just a little? You and Mama saw the first buds, and you took Mama in your arms and twirled around. And Mamochka laughed so brightly that everything around was joyful with us—the leaves on the trees, and the little birds too. And I didn’t feel sore at all about your twirling Mama around in your arms instead of me, ’cause I love our Mamochka very much. I was so happy with that time, just like everyone else. “But then a different time came. I realize now that it was you, Papochka, who made it different. You went away from us for a very long time. Baby apples had even begun to appear on the apple tree. But still you didn’t come home. And Mamochka went up to the apple tree and stood there all by herself. But there was nobody there to twirl her around, and she didn’t laugh brightly, and nothing around had anything to be joyful about. And

Mamochka has quite a different smile on her face when you’re not around. It’s a sad smile. And that is a bad time.” Dasha spoke quickly and excitedly All at once she seemed to choke on something inside her, and then burst out: “You shouldn’t make it bad when it is good Time Papochka!” “Dasha You’re right about one thing Of course But you don’t know everything about the times we’re all in. The times we live in” Ivan Nikiforovich spoke disconnectedly. He was feeling tense. Somehow he needed to explain how necessary it was for him to go away. To explain it in such a way that his little daughter could understand. Finding no better alternative, he began telling her about his work, showing her rocket models and schematics on the computer. “You see, Dashenka. Of course it’s good for us here. And it’s good for those who live in our neighbourhood too. But there are other places, other countries in the world. And they’ve got a lot of weapons, all sorts of them To protect our splendid garden, and the gardens and the houses of your friends, sometimes Papa has to go away Our country must also have a lot of up-to-date weapons to defend itself. “But recently Dashenka You see, recently in another country not ours, they came up with a new kind of weapon. For the time being it is stronger than ours. Look here, on the screen, Dashenka!” And Ivan Nikiforovich gave a tap on the keyboard, and the image of a strange kind of missile appeared on the screen. “Look, Dashenka. This is a large missile, and it holds fifty-six smaller missiles. The large rocket takes off at Man’s command and heads for its assigned target, to destroy everything living there. This missile is very hard to shoot down. When any object approaches it, an on-board computer kicks in and sends out one of the smaller missiles to destroy the object. “The smaller missiles can travel faster than the big one, since when they’re launched they can use the inertia speed of the larger missile. To shoot down just one such monster, we need to send fifty-seven missiles out against it. “The country producing this so-called ‘cassette’ missile has only three working models at the moment. They have been carefully concealed in various places, in shafts deep underground, but it only takes a single radiotransmitted command to launch them. A small group of terrorists are already blackmailing a number of countries, threatening to wreak havoc on them. So you see, Dashenka, I have to decode the programme of the cassette missile’s

on-board computer.” Ivan Nikiforovich got up and walked around the room. He continued talking rapidly, getting more and more absorbed in his thoughts about the programme, seemingly oblivious to his little girl standing beside the computer. Ivan Nikiforovich quickly went over to the monitor showing the external image of the missile, gave a tap on the keyboard, and the screen showed a schematic of the missile’s fuel supply system, then one of the targeting radar devices, and then, once more, an overall image. Even as he was switching the screen images, Ivan Nikiforovich was no longer paying any attention to his dear little daughter. He kept reasoning aloud: “They have obviously equipped each of the smaller missiles with a targeting radar device. Of course, that would apply to every single one. But there can’t be any difference in the programmes. The programmes have to be identical” All at once one of the other computers emitted an alarm sound, demanding immediate attention. Ivan Nikiforovich quickly turned to the respective monitor and froze in his seat. The screen showed a blinking text message: “EMERGENCY ALERT EMERGENCY ALERT” Ivan Nikiforovich gave a quick tap on the keyboard, and an image of a man in a military uniform appeared on the screen. “What’s happened?” Ivan Nikiforovich asked him. “Three unusual explosions have been recorded,” responded the man. “The whole defence complex has been put on Emergency Alert. Explosions of lesser magnitude are continuing. There’s been an earthquake in Africa. Nobody’s offered any explanations. According to international information exchange networks all military blocs on the planet have been ordered to high alert. Still no determination where the attack originated from. The explosions are continuing and we’re trying to shed light on the situation. All personnel have been ordered to set about analysing the situation.” The officer on the screen spoke in a clipped, military fashion. At the end, his voice was already betraying signs of concern: “Explosions continuing, Ivan Nikiforovich, explosions continuing. I’m signing off” The officer’s image disappeared from the screen. Ivan Nikiforovich, however, continued to stare at the darkened monitor, intensely absorbed in thought. Slowly and pensively he turned in the direction of his chair, where Dasha was still standing as before. All at once an incredible conjecture made him shudder. He saw how his little daughter, her eyes screwed up and unblinking, was staring at the screen showing the image of the modern missile. Suddenly her little body gave a

start. Then, letting out a sigh of relief, she hit the ‘ENTER’ button on the keyboard. When the image of the new missile appeared, she screwed up her eyes again and began staring intently at the monitor. Ivan Nikiforovich stood as though paralysed, incapable of budging from the spot, feverishly asking himself—though only in his thoughts—the same question over and over again: Could she have set off the explosions? Set them off by her thought, because she doesn’t like the bombs? Did she blow them up? Could that be true? How? He wanted to stop his daughter and called out to her. But he did not have the strength to speak very loudly, and could only whisper: “Dasha, Dashenka, my dear daughter, stop it!” Kostia, who had observed the whole scene, quickly got up from his seat, ran over to his sister, gave her a little pat on her bottom and began talking at a rapid pace: “Now, Dashka, you’ve gone and upset Papa this time. Now I shan’t speak to you for two whole days—one day for Mama, the other for Papa. D’you hear? Do you hear what I’m saying? You’ve frightened them!” Gradually emerging from her state of concentration, Dasha turned to her brother and let her face resume its normal appearance as she looked him pleadingly and apologetically in the eye. Kostia noticed Dasha’s eyes were filling with tears. Putting his hand on her shoulder, he spoke to her with a less severe tone than before. “Okay, I got carried away about not talking to you, but you’ll have to tie your own hair ribbon in the mornings. You’re not so little any more, you know.” And telling her not to think about crying, he embraced her tenderly The little girl nuzzled her face up against her brother’s chest, her shoulders trembling, as she sorrowfully repeated: “I’ve gone and frightened them again. I’m a very naughty girl. I wanted to do the best I possibly could, but I’ve gone and frightened them.” Galina came over to the children, squatted down beside them and began stroking Dasha’s head. The girl threw her arms around her mother’s neck and sobbed quietly. “How does she do it, Kostia? How?” Ivan Nikiforovich asked his son as he slowly came to himself. “The same way that she moves the hands of the clock, Papa,” replied Kostia. “But the clock is right here, while the missiles are a long ways away, and

their location is classified as ‘top secret’.” “Papa, it doesn’t matter to Dasha where they’re located. All she needs to see is the outward appearance of the object.” “But the explosions In order to set them off, the circuits have to be connected. Quite a few circuits at that. There are safety mechanisms, codes” “But Papa, Dasha’s able to go through all the circuits until a connection is made. Before, it took her a long time to do that, maybe fifteen minutes, but lately she’s got it down to a minute and a half.” “Before?!” “Yes, Papa, only not with missiles. That was the way we played. After she started moving the clock hands forward, I showed her my old electric car I used to love riding in when I was little. You see, Papa, I opened the bonnet and asked her to connect the headlamp wires together, since it was hard for me to get at them myself. She did it. And when she asked to take it for a drive, I told her she was still too young and wouldn’t be able to brake properly or even switch on the motor. But then when she kept insisting, I gave in. I explained how to switch the motor on, but Dasha did it all her own way. “I tell you, Papa, Dasha simply sat down behind the wheel and took off without switching on anything. She thought she was switching it on, but I could see that she wasn’t doing anything with her hands. Or rather, she was switching it on, but she did it mentally Besides, Papa, she’s made friends with microbes. They obey her.” “With microbes?1. What microbes?” “With the ones that are very prolific, that live everywhere, all around us and inside us. We can’t see them, but they’re there. D’you remember, Papa, over on the edge of our domain, in the forest, there used to be the remains of two metallic posts sticking out of the ground? They belonged to an old highvoltage electricity line.” “I remember them. What of them?” “They were rusty, resting on concrete foundations. One day when Dasha and I went mushroom-picking, she noticed these remains, said what a bad thing they were, that they weren’t allowing the berries and mushrooms to grow on that spot. Then she said: “You should eat them up very, very fast!” “And?” “And a couple of days later those rusty remains and the concrete foundations were gone. There was only bare earth there, without grass, at least for now.

The microbes had eaten the metal and the concrete.” “But why—oh why, Kostia, didn’t you tell me earlier about everything that was going on with Dasha?” “I was afraid, Papa.” “Afraid of what?” “I was reading up on history In the recent past people with unusual abilities have been subject to forced isolation. I wanted to tell you and Mama all about it, but I couldn’t find the right words so that you’d understand and believe” “Kostia, you know we always believe you. Besides, you could show us. Or rather, ask Dasha to demonstrate her ability, only with something harmless.” “That’s not what I was afraid of, Papa. Of course she could show you.” Kostia fell silent, and when he spoke again, his voice was emotional. “Papa, I love you and Mama And even though I’m strict with Dashenka sometimes, I love her very much, too. She is kind. Dasha is good to everything around her. She wouldn’t even hurt a little bug. Nor would they hurt her. She went up to a bee-hive one day, sat right down by the hive entrance and watched. She watched how they flew. The bees A lot of bees crawled over her arms and legs and even over her cheeks, but they didn’t sting her. She held out her hand to the bees buzzing around her—they landed on it and left something there. Afterward she licked the palm of her hand and laughed. She’s kind, Papa.” “Calm yourself, Kostia. Don’t worry Let’s calmly examine what’s going on here. Yes, we have to think about it calmly Dasha is still a child. She’s blown up several state-of-the-art missile complexes. She could start a world war. A terrible war. But even without a war Say she looked through some pictures showing not only enemy missiles, but our own Say she started detonating all the missiles in all the countries that have them, the world would be on the verge of a global catastrophe! Hundreds of millions of human lives could be lost! “I too love our little Dasha. But millions! I need some advice. We must find away out. But for now—I simply don’t know Dashenka needs to be isolated somehow. Somehow Yeah Maybe she needs to be put to sleep for awhile. Maybe But what’s the solution? How can we possibly find a way out?” “Papa, Papa Hold on. Maybe maybe it’s possible to eliminate all the deadly missiles she doesn’t like from the whole face of the Earth?” “Eliminate? But We’d need a multilateral agreement. From all the military blocs. Yeah But there’s no way we can get one quickly. If we can get one at all. In the meantime”

Ivan Nikiforovich gave a sudden start and rushed over to his computer, where the monitor still showed the image of a missile, which Dasha was prevented from destroying. He switched off the monitor, then sat down at his communications computer and began to transmit the following text: To: Headquarters. The following memo should be transmitted at once to all military blocs and international news media. The series of missile complex explosions was caused by bacteria capable of connecting circuits. These bacteria are controllable. It will be necessary to destroy all images of any live ammunition. All images!!! From the most minute bullet to the most modern missile complex. The location of the explodable object is immaterial to the controller of the bacteria, who only needs to see its shape in an image. Ivan Nikiforovich looked at Dasha, who by this time was smiling and having a lively conversation with her Mama. He then added the following text: The location of the installation controlling the explosions is unknown. Finally, Ivan Nikiforovich encoded the transmission and despatched it to headquarters. The next morning there was an emergency meeting of Russia’s Security Council. A security detachment was posted to stand guard around the community where Ivan Nikiforovich’s domain was situated. The security personnel dressed as road-repair workers, so as not to draw attention to themselves. They pretended to be ‘building’ a five-kilometre-long road around the perimeter of the community (working on all five kilometres at once), maintaining round-the-clock shifts. Video cameras were set up in Ivan Nikiforovich’s domain which followed every move of little Dasha’s life. The video images were transmitted to a central monitoring station resembling a launch-site mission control. The video monitors were manned in shifts by dozens of specialists—including psychologists and military personnel—ready to issue the required orders in case of an emergency situation. The psychologists used special communications devices to give a constant stream of recommendations to Dasha’s parents on how to distract her, whatever way they could, and keep her from falling into a state of contemplation again. The Russian government put out an international statement—which many people thought strange—to the effect that in Russia there were forces capable of blowing up any type of live ammunition, no matter where it was located in the world. These forces, it said, were not entirely under the control of the Russian government, although negotiations were underway.

The extraordinary nature of this statement called for some kind of confirmation to back it up. At an international council meeting it was decided to prepare a series of unusual-looking projectiles, mounted in square casings. Each country participating in the experiment took twenty such projectiles and hid them in various places on their respective territories. “Why did they make the projectiles with square casings? Why couldn’t they have just used ordinary ones?” I asked Anastasia. “They were afraid, Vladimir, that not only all the existing projectiles in the world might explode, but that all the bullets in police and army pistols might get blown up as well, wherever there were guns with live ammunition.” “Yes, of course And how did the square-projectile experiment go?” Calling his daughter into his study, Ivan Nikiforovich showed her a photo of a square projectile and asked her to blow them up. Dasha took a look at the photo and said: “I love you very much, Papochka, but there is no way I can do what you ask.” “Why?” asked Ivan Nikiforovich in amazement. “Because it won’t work with me.” “What d’you mean, Dashenka? It worked before—you blew up a whole series of modern missiles, and now it won’t work?” “You know, back then I was really upset, Papochka. I didn’t want you to go away, or to spend so many hours in front of your computer. When you’re at your computer, you don’t talk with anyone and you’re not doing anything that’s interesting. But now well, you’re with us all the time. You’ve become very good, Papochka, and I can’t make any more explosions.” At this point Ivan Nikiforovich realized that Dasha was unable to blow up the square projectiles because she didn’t understand the purpose of the explosion—what it was for. Ivan Nikiforovich started nervously pacing back and forth, feverishly searching for possible solutions and trying to convince Dasha to do something. But even as he was talking to his daughter, it seemed as though he were mainly reasoning it out for himself. “It won’t work No, it won’t Pity. Wars have been around for thousands of years. While wars have ended between some countries, others have begun fighting. Millions of people have perished, and they are still perishing today. Tremendous resources are being wasted on armaments And here finally is an opportunity to stop this endless disaster scenario, but alas” Ivan

Nikiforovich looked at Dasha sitting in the chair. His daughter’s face was composed. She watched with interest as he walked about the room, constantly talking. But she was not fascinated by what he was actually saying. She did not have a full comprehension of what wars meant, what resources her father was talking about and who was wasting them. She was immersed in her own thoughts: Why is Papa so agitated, walking back and forth amidst these computers which don’t show any affection and don’t give us any energy? Why doesn’t he want to go out into the garden, where the trees are in bloom and the birds are singing where every blade of grass and every branch of a tree caresses the whole body with something invisible? That’s where Mama and Kostia are right now. I only wish Papa would finish his boring conversation and the two of us could go together to the garden. Mama and Kostia will be so happy to see us. Mama will smile, and Kostia promised yesterday he would tell me about how to touch a faraway star by putting your hand on a stone or a flower. Kostia always keeps his promises “Dashenka, are you bored listening to me? You don’t understand what I’ve been saying? You’re thinking about something else?” “I’ve been thinking, Papochka: why are we here, and not in the garden, where they’re waiting for us?” Ivan Nikiforovich realized that he had to speak to his daughter sincerely and in specific terms. So he took a different tack. “Dashenka, when you blew up the missiles by looking at their image, they wanted you to test that ability once more. Or rather, to show the whole world Russia’s ability to destroy all the ammunition on the planet. Then there won’t be any point in making it any more. It would be senseless and dangerous. As for the ammunition already existing, the people themselves will destroy it. A global disarmament will begin. The square projectiles were made especially so that you could show your ability without killing anyone. Blow them up, Dashenka!” “I can’t do that anymore, Papochka.” “Why? Earlier you could, now you can’t?” “I promised myself I would never blow up anything again. And now that I’ve made that promise, I don’t have the ability to do it any more.” You can’t? But why did you make such a promise to yourself?” “Kostia showed me some pictures from a book of his—pictures of parts of bodies strewn all over after an explosion. He showed me how people are frightened

by explosions, how trees fall and die from explosions—and so I promised myself—” “Dashenka, does that mean you’ll never be able to now? Just once more Just once. You see these square projectiles” Ivan Nikiforovich again held out the photo of a square projectile for his daughter to see. “They were specially made for this experiment and are hidden away in secluded places in various countries. There are no people around, or anywhere near them. Everyone’s waiting to see whether they’ll explode or not. Blow them up, daughter dear! That won’t be breaking your promise. Nobody will perish. On the contrary” Dasha again looked at the photo indifferently and calmly replied: “Even if I go back on my promise, these projectiles still won’t explode, Papochka.” “But why not?” “Because you’ve been talking for so very long, Papochka. When I first looked at the photo, I couldn’t stand these horrid things right off. They’re ugly, and now—” “Now what? Dashenka—what?” “Please forgive me, Papochka, but you went on talking for so long after you showed me the picture, that by now they’ve been almost all eaten up.” “Eaten up? What’s been eaten up?” “Those square projectiles. They’re almost all eaten up. As soon as they realized I couldn’t stand the projectiles, they got into action and began to eat them up very fast.” “Who are they}” “You know, the little ones’. They are everywhere around us and inside us. They are good. Kostia calls them bacteria, or micro-organisms, but I’ve got my own name for them, a better name—I call them my little ones’, my ‘goodies’. They like that name better. I play with them sometimes. People pay hardly any attention to them, but they always try to do good for everyone. When Man is joyful—they feel good too from the joyful energy; when Man is angry or hurts something living—a lot of them perish. Others rush in to replace them. But sometimes the others don’t manage to replace the ones that have died—and Man’s body becomes ill.” “But you are here, Dashenka. And the projectiles are far away in various countries, hidden underground. How is it possible for—well, for those little ones’ of yours in other lands—to find out so quickly about what you desire?”

“You see, they tell everything to each other very fast along a chain, a lot faster than the electrons run in your computer.” “Computer Communications That’s it I’ll check it all now—video cameras have been set up around all the projectiles on our territory. It’ll just take a moment.” Ivan Nikiforovich turned to his communications monitor, which was showing a picture of a square projectile. Or rather, what remained of a projectile. The casing was rusty and full of holes, while the warhead was lying to one side, significantly reduced in size. Ivan Nikiforovich switched to another camera, and then another, but the same thing was happening to all the projectiles. Now the screen showed an image of a man in military uniform. “Hello, Ivan Nikiforovich. You’ve seen it all yourself by now” “What conclusions has the Council come to?” asked Ivan Nikiforovich. “The Council members have divided into groups and are currently in consultation. Our security forces are trying to work out supplementary measures to ensure the object’s safety.” “I’ll thank you not to call my daughter an object.” “You’re nervous, Ivan Nikiforovich. That is not permissible under the circumstances. In ten minutes you’ll be getting a visit from a panel of experts, comprising prominent specialists—psychologists, biologists, radioelectronic engineers. They’re already on their way I want you to set up an interview for them with your daughter. Prepare her ahead of time.” “What opinion is the majority of the Council inclined to favour?” “At the moment they are leaning toward totally isolating your family within the confines of your domain. You need to immediately remove all technical pictures from your daughter’s sight. Stay close to her and try to follow her every move.” Upon arriving at Ivan Nikiforovich’s domain, the panel of experts sent by the Russian Security Council engaged little Dasha in a lengthy conversation. After the child had been patiently answering all the adults’ questions for about an hour and a half, everyone, including the observers following the interview on the huge video monitors at the Security Council’s communications centre, were suddenly thrown into a state of utter bewilderment when the door of Ivan Nikiforovich’s study opened and in walked Dasha’s brother Kostia, carrying the cuckoo clock which was now cuckooing incessantly. Kostia put the clock down on the table. The hands showed eleven o’clock, but no sooner had the mechanical bird given the requisite number of cuckoos than the big hand on the clock quickly traced a full circle around the clock face and the cuckooing began all over again.

Those present were amazed at this strange operation of the clock, alternating their silent gaze between the clock and Dasha. “Oh!” all at once Dasha exclaimed. “I quite forgot. I have to go on a very important errand. That’s my friend Verunka2 turning the clock hands. That was our arrangement, just in case I forgot. I have to go.” Two guards blocked the door of the study. “What might you have forgotten, Dashenka?” Ivan Nikiforovich asked his daughter. “I might have forgotten to go to the domain where my friend Verunka lives and stroke her little flower and water it. And it really misses being caressed. It loves people to look at it tenderly” “But it’s not your flower,” observed Ivan Nikiforovich. “Why can’t your friend stroke it herself? Her own flower?” “Papochka, you see, Verunka’s gone visiting with her parents?” “Where’s she gone visiting to?” “Somewhere in Siberia.” From all around the room whispered exclamations could be heard: “She’s not alone!” “What kind of abilities does her friend have?!” “She’s not alone!” “How many of them are there?!” “How can we tell who they are?!” “We need to take measures immediately regarding every child like that!” But all the exclaiming ceased directly an elderly grey-haired gentleman rose from his seat at the side of the room. This man had the most senior title and position of all, and not just in relation to those present in Ivan Nikiforovich’s study. He was the chairman of Russia’s Security Council. Everyone turned to him in reverent silence. The elderly fellow looked at Dasha sitting in her little wooden chair, and a tear rolled down his cheek. Then he slowly went over to Dasha and knelt down on one knee in front of her, holding out his hand to her. Dasha rose and took a step to one side. Holding the frilled hem of her dress, she made a curtsy, and put her little hand in his huge palm. The elderly man looked at her for some time. Then, bowing his head, he kissed Dasha’s hand in respect, saying: “Please forgive us, little goddess!”

“My name is Dasha,” the girl answered. “Yes, of course, your name is Dasha. Tell us, Dasha, what will prevail on our Earth?” The little girl looked into the elderly man’s face in surprise, bent closer to him and with the palm of her hand carefully wiped away the tear from his cheek, then touched his moustache with her finger. Then she turned to her brother and said: “Kostienka, you also promised to help me talk with the lilies on Verunka’s pond. Remember you promised?” “I do remember,” Kostia replied. “Then let’s go.” “Let’s go.” In the doorway, having already passed by the guards which had stepped aside as she approached, Dasha turned in the direction of the elderly fellow still standing on one knee, smiled at him and stated confidently: “On the Earth shall prevail Good shall prevail!” Six hours later, speaking before an expanded session of Russia’s Security Council, the elderly chairman said: “Everything in the world is relative. Relative to our generation, those in the new generation may seem to us to be like gods. It is not up to them to align themselves with us, but for us to align ourselves with them. The entire military might of the planet with its unique technological achievements has proved itself powerless before a single little girl of the new generation. And our job, our duty, our obligation to the new generation is simply to clear away the garbage. We must make every effort to rid the Earth of any kind of armaments. Our technological achievements and discoveries, embodied in the most modern and, it seemed to us, unique military complexes, proved nothing more than useless scrap in the face of the new generation. And we must clear it away.” CHAPTER TEN

The disarmament race An international congress was held, with delegates from the security councils of the military blocs of various countries and continents, to work out a plan for the emergency conversion of military hardware and

ammunition. Scientists from different parts of the world exchanged their expertise. Psychologists kept appearing in the media in an effort to head off panic among a population possessing a considerable variety of firearms. Panic had broken out after news of the Russian phenomenon had been leaked to the media, and the facts had become somewhat distorted. A number of Western news sources were reporting that Russia had launched an emergency programme to convert all the ammunition on its territory and at a designated hour would be blowing up the ammunition reserves held by other nations, destroying a large part of their population in the process. People began disposing of their firearms and ammunition in rivers, or burying them in wasteland sites, since the official conversion centres could not keep up with the demand. Heavy fines were levied for unauthorised conversion. And even the fact that independent ‘brokerage firms’ started charging huge sums for each bullet or shell they accepted did not deter the flood of people wishing to escape from something that threatened the lives of whole families. People living in cities situated in the proximity of military bases demanded the authorities immediately get rid of all military facilities. But the arms industry, which had now been reoriented toward the conversion of the very products it had previously manufactured, was working to the limits of its capacity. In many Western countries the press began circulating a flurry of rumours to the effect that Russia was threatening the world with disaster. The world was not in a position to free itself from its accumulation of armaments so quickly, and even though conversion plants were operating at full tilt, it was impossible for them to destroy in a few months a stock of arms that had been accumulating over decades. Accusations were made that the Russian government had known for some time about the existence of children with unusual abilities, and that it had long been preparing for the conversion of deadly weapons. To back up this claim, it was noted that the Russian government had been buying up and dismantling ecologically unsound enterprises—not just on its own soil but in neighbouring countries as well. And that if Russia could become the first to rid its territory of explosive armaments, it would also be able to destroy nations that were lagging behind in the disarmament race. All sorts of destructive scenarios of an impending world disaster and its consequences were deliberately exaggerated in the media. This was quite advantageous for companies involved in conversion, escalating the price of their services. Anyone handing in bullets from a handgun, for example, was obliged to pay twenty dollars for each bullet. Unauthorised burial or disposal of a weapon was treated as a criminal act. Another source of panic was the

lack of proposals for any real defence against the abilities which had come to light in certain Russian children. The Russian President then took what seemed to all to be a desperate and illconceived action: he decided to go live before the world’s TV cameras in the company of children with extraordinary abilities. And on the appointed day and hour practically the whole planet gathered in front of their TV sets to hear what the Russian President had to say. In advance of the broadcast many factories stopped, stores closed, streets emptied—all eyes were focused on Russia. The President wanted to calm people’s fears and show the whole world that the newly-emerging generation of young Russians were not bloodthirsty monsters, but kind, ordinary children, whom there was no reason to fear. To appear even more convincing, the President asked his advisers to invite thirty children with extraordinary abilities to the Kremlin, proposing to remain alone with these children in his office during the broadcast. All this was carried out as he requested. “And what did the Russian President have to say to the world?” I asked Anastasia. “If you like, you can watch this scene for yourself and listen to what he said, Vladimir.” “I’d like that very much.” “So take a look and see.” The Russian President stood on a small podium next to his desk. On either side of the podium sat children of varying ages, from about three to ten years old. On the opposite side of the room were arrayed a group of correspondents and a flock of TV cameras. The President began speaking. “Ladies and gentlemen! My fellow-citizens! I have specially invited these children to meet you. As you can see, I am with them here alone, with no bodyguards or psychologists or parents. These children are not monsters, as some Western media are attempting to portray them. You can see for yourselves that these are just ordinary children. There are no signs of aggressiveness in their faces or actions. Some of their abilities we regard as unusual. But are they really? It is quite possible that the abilities which have begun to reveal themselves in the rising generation are entirely normal for the human individual. Our own creations, on the other hand, may turn out to be inimical to human existence. The human commonwealth has created a communications system and military potential capable of fomenting global disaster.

“Peaceful negotiations between states possessing the greatest military potential have gone on for centuries, yet the arms race has still not ceased. Today we have a real opportunity to do away with this endless destructive process. Today the countries in the most advantageous position are those that do not have a concentration of deadly weapons on their territories. “We tend to think of such a situation as unnatural. But let us ponder the question of why, on the other hand, the production of life-destroying weapons which now threaten whole nations, has ever seemed natural to the human commonwealth, and why such a conviction is so deeply rooted in our consciousness. “The children of the new generation have changed our priorities, causing us to take steps in the opposite direction—namely, disarmament. The fear and panic and feverish activity surrounding this process are largely due to a misrepresentation of the facts. The Russian government has been accused of knowing for a long time about the extraordinary abilities of children in our country. Such accusations are unfounded. Up until now a huge military potential has been present on Russian soil, and we, like many other countries, are doing the best we can to effect its conversion. “The Russian government has been accused of not taking sufficient measures to identify all children with extraordinary abilities and to isolate them—in other words, to force them into a state of narcosis until the disarmament process is complete. But that is a step the Russian government is not about to undertake. The children of Russia are equal citizens of our country. “Wid let us not overlook the question of why people might desire to isolate those who reject murderous weapons instead of those who manufacture them! The Russian government is taking measures to prevent spontaneous emotional outbursts in the children that might possibly transmit a signal and blow up any kind of armaments they didn’t like. “All Russian television channels have completely banned films showing murderous weapons. All toy guns have been destroyed. Parents are constantly minding their children in a bid to head off any negative reactions. Russia—” The President broke off his speech abruptly A tow-headed boy of about five rose from his seat and approached one of the video camera tripods. At first he just examined the screws on the tripod, but when he touched them with his hand, the camera-operator stepped back in fright and hid behind the row of correspondents. The President rushed over to the boy, took him by the hand and led him to the chair where he had been meekly sitting before, admonishing him along the way: “Would you please sit there quietly until I

finish.” But he could not continue with his speech. Two boys, about three or four years of age, were now standing at the communications console, fiddling with the equipment. The children who had been sitting quietly right from the start of the President’s speech were now wandering all over the office, each one looking into whatever they liked. Only the older children—and they were few in number—still sat quietly in their seats, their eyes focused on the correspondents and the TV cameras. One of them was a little girl with ribbons in her braids. I realized right off who it was. It was Dasha, the one who had blown up the missile complexes. She was not behaving childishly, but attentively and intelligently sizing up the situation, observing the reaction of the correspondents. People all over the world with their eyes glued to their TV sets caught a glimpse of the rather distraught face of the Russian President. He surveyed the children now dispersed around the room. Seeing two boys fiddling with the government communications console, he glanced over at the door, on the other side of which his assistants, along with the parents of the invited children, were waiting, but he did not call on anyone for help. Excusing himself for the interruption, he rushed over to the boys who were already in the process of pulling one of the telephones off the desk, seized them one under each arm and told them: “Look, these are not toys!” One of the boys looked over and saw his chum hanging from the President’s other arm and burst out laughing. The second boy managed to reach out and give a tug on the President’s necktie, uttering the word Toys! “That’s what you think, but they are not toys,” the President responded. “Toys!” the smiling lad cheerfully repeated. The President noticed several other youngsters, evidently attracted by the sounds and the flashing coloured lights, approach the console and start fingering the telephone receivers. After setting the two fidgeters down on the floor, he rushed over to the console, pressed one of the buttons and said: “Cut all communications to my office immediately.” Next he quickly laid out on his desk a number of blank sheets of paper. On each one he put a pencil or pen, turned to the children clustering around the desk and said: “Here you are. You can draw whatever you like. Start drawing, and later we’ll decide all together who’s come up with the best picture.”

All the children gathered around the desk and began taking paper and pen or pencil in hand. To those who were not tall enough to reach the desk, the President offered chairs, either seating or standing the littlest ones on the chairs. Satisfied that he had succeeded in occupying the children’s attention with drawing, the President once more went over to the podium, smiled to the television viewers, took a deep breath, and was about to go on with his speech. But to no avail. A little boy came up to him and began tugging on his trousers. “What is it? What do you want?” “Pee” said the boy “What?” “Pee” “Pee, pee? You mean you want to go to the bathroom?” And once more the President’s gaze turned toward the door leading out of his office. The door opened, and immediately two of his assistants or bodyguards rushed toward him. One of the men, who had a sombre and rather tense expression on his face, bent down and took the little boy’s hand. But the boy, still clinging to the President’s trouser leg, wriggled free, shaking his hand loose from the grip of the sombre-looking man attempting to take him out of the office. He held up his hand to the other men approaching—a gesture of protest which caught them completely off guard. Once more the boy raised his head, looking up to the President from below. Tugging on his trouser-leg, he repeated the word pee and began to crouch down just a little. “This isn’t the right time for your ‘pee’,” said the President. “Not only that, but you’re being pernickety too.” At that point the President picked up the boy in his arms, excused himself to the media representatives and headed out of the office, saying in passing: “We’ll be right back.” In hundreds of millions of homes people watched as the TV cameras switched back and forth between the children playing, drawing and chatting with each other—and, more often than not, the now-deserted presidential podium. And then little Dasha rose from her seat. Dragging a chair over to the podium, she climbed up on it, looked at the correspondents and then directly into the lenses of the TV cameras focused on her. She straightened the ribbons in her braids and began to speak. “My name is Dasha. And our Uncle President—he’s a good chap. He’ll be back in a moment. Hell come back and tell you everything. He’s just a little

anxious right now But he’ll be able to tell everyone how life is going to be good everywhere you look on the Earth. And that nobody need be afraid of us. My brother Kostia told me how people are afraid of us children because I blew up some big new missiles. But it wasn’t that I wanted to blow them up. I just wanted my Papa not to go away for such a long time and for him not to think so much about these missiles. Or look at them so much. He should look at Mama instead. She’s much better than any missile. And she likes it when Papa looks at her and talks with her. But when he goes away for a long time or looks at the missiles, Mama’s sad. And I don’t want Mama to be sad. “Kostia, my brother, is very clever and intelligent, and Kostienka told me that I’ve frightened a lot of people. I shan’t blow up anything else. It’s quite boring, really There are other things to do that are much more important and interesting. They bring joy to everyone. “Wu take care of dismantling the missiles yourselves. See to it that nobody ever blows them up. And please don’t be afraid of us. “Do come visit us. All of you. We’ll give you living water to drink. My Mama told me how people here used to live. They kept so very busy building all kinds of plants and factories and got so carried away that before they knew it there was no more living water. The water had become dirty. And water was something you could only buy in bottles in stores. But the water in the bottles was dead, suffocated, and people began to get sick. That was how it used to be, but there’s no way I can imagine how people could possibly dirty the water that they themselves drank. But Papa said that even now on the Earth there are whole countries where there is no clean living water, and that people in these countries are dying from painful diseases. And there are no tasty apples or berries in these countries—everything living is sick, and the people eat sick things and feel wretched. “Do come visit us, all of you come. And well treat you to healthy apples and tomatoes and pears and berries. When you’ve tried them and go back home, you’ll say to yourselves: ‘Don’t do dirty things, it’s better to live clean!’ Then later when everything’s clean in your country, well come visit you and bring you presents.” The President, who by this time had come back, still holding the little boy in his arms, stood in the doorway and listened to Dasha’s speech. When she finished, he walked over to the podium. With the little one still comfortably nestled in his arms, he echoed Dasha’s words: “Yes, of course Do come, really, we have treatments for the body here. But that’s not the main thing. We all need to gain a better understanding of ourselves and our purpose. We really have to understand that. Otherwise

well be swept off the face of the Earth like garbage. We’ve got to get together and clear away all this dirt we ourselves have brought forth. “Thank you all for your attention.” The scene in the President’s office faded. And Anastasia’s voice continued: “It is difficult to say whether it was the President’s or Dasha’s speech that had the greater effect on the viewers watching this live broadcast from Russia. But people were no longer inclined to believe the rumours that had been spread about Russia’s aggressiveness. People wanted to live, and live a happy life—they believed that a happy life was possible. After the live broadcast from the Kremlin the numbers of people wanting to visit Russia or even live there increased dramatically And upon coming back home from Russia these visitors could no longer live the way they did before. A new conscious awareness was sparked in each individual, like the first ray of the Sun at the dawn of a new day” CHAPTER ELEVEN

Science and pseudo-science “Anastasia, how have Russians managed to cope with such a huge influx of visitors? It must have been quite a challenge for them. I can just imagine living with your family in your kin’s domain with a whole bunch of gawkers staring at you from the other side of the fence.” “The tourists and foreigners coming to Russia for treatment, Vladimir, have been housed in the cities, in the flats vacated by Russians. They get produce from the domains delivered to them, but tourists are not allowed to go to the domains themselves. Only a few have managed to visit the places where the New Russians reside. Psychologists are constantly reminding the owners of the domains that whatever hospitality they show to visitors—especially visitors from what used to be considered highly developed countries—- can lead to a nervous breakdown. The psychologists are correct. About forty percent of foreigners who did visit the domains returned home only to fall into a state of depression bordering on suicide.” “How so? Why? You yourself said, Anastasia, that everything in the domains is perfect—the surrounding countryside, the food, the way family members help each other.” “That is true, but for many foreign visitors what they saw turned out to be too perfect. Imagine if you can, Vladimir, an elderly person who has lived most of their life in a large city Someone who has tried as hard as they could

to earn as much as they could—just to be, so they thought, no worse off than others. In return for this money they received a roof over their heads, clothing to wear, a car to drive and food to eat. And here is this person sitting in their furnished flat with a car in the garage and food in the fridge.” “Well, I am imagining it, and so far everything seems normal. What next?” “‘What next?’, Vladimir, is a question you should be able to answer yourself.” “Next Well, maybe this person will take a trip somewhere, maybe they’ll buy some new furniture or a new car.” “And then?” “And then? I haven’t the foggiest!” “And then this person dies. He dies forever, or at least for millions of Earth years. His second self, his Soul, cannot regain the earthly plane of being. It cannot because over the course of his earthly existence he created nothing good for the Earth. Each of us realizes this intuitively, and that is why people are so terrified of death. When a majority of people have the same aspirations and a similar way of life, they have the impression that they can and should live only the way everybody else does. “But here Man has seen a totally different way of life on the Earth. He has seen in fact an earthly Paradise—the Space of Love—which can be created by Man’s own hand in the Divine image, and this makes him look upon his own life as already gone by and spent in hell, and this Man dies in torment, and his sufferings last millions of years.” “But why doesn’t everybody fall into this state of depression after seeing the Russians’ new way of life?” “There are some who realize intuitively that even in their advanced years, if they put their weakening hand to creating a Space of Love on the Earth, the Creator will prolong their life. And after straightening up and with a smile brightening their face, they go and give a hand to younger people.” “Still, Anastasia, it doesn’t seem right that people who come to Russia from so far away aren’t able to at least spend a little time walking down the streets of the new Russian communities and breathing the clean air.” “Even the tourists who stay in the cities have the opportunity to feel the fresh breath of the Earth and drink health-giving water. The cities are caressed by breezes which infuse them with cleanliness, ethers and pollen from the luxuriant greenery of the domains. And when they go on out-oftown excursions, tourists can observe these oases of Paradise—only from a respectful distance so as not to disturb the families living there. Take a look

and see how it all happens.” And once again I glimpsed another scene from the future. I saw the highway which runs between the city of Vladimir and another town named Suzdal1 thirty kilometres away—a highway I had travelled a number of times before. Earlier I had only caught the rare glimpse of tourist motorcoaches taking visitors to see Suzdal’s ancient cathedrals and monasteries. Most of the cars on the road had borne local licence plates. But now the highway was quite different. Beautiful motor-coaches rolled along a roadway that was twice the width of the old one. Electric vehicles, no doubt—I couldn’t detect any exhaust gases or motor noise, only the quiet hum of the tyres. The coaches were filled with tourists of various nationalities. Many were observing their surroundings through field glasses. About a kilometre from the main road, beyond a motley host of treetops, I could make out the roofs of detached houses. That was where the Russians’ family domains were situated, each surrounded by an evenly planted hedge, or living fence’. On either side of the road, approximately two kilometres apart, were located nice-looking two-storey buildings housing shops and dining salons.2 Each of these was fronted by a small asphalt lot where an electric vehicle could park if there was a space free. The electric motorcoaches spewed forth a stream of tourists, who were impatient to taste the local delicacies on the spot or to buy some to take home. All the shops and cafes sold food products grown in the domains. They also had hand-made Russian shirts, towels, woodcarvings and many other things made by skilled craftspeople. Anastasia explained that visitors were eager to buy these handicrafts because they knew that a shirt embroidered by the kind hands of a happy woman is immensely more valuable than something off a mechanised conveyor belt. If you looked down from above at what was behind the strip of forest visible from the highway, you would be able to glimpse shady allees and domains outlined by living fences. The strip of forest surrounded a community containing about ninety family estates. About a kilometre distant, across open fields, was another community surrounded by a strip of forest, and so on for the next thirty kilometres or so. Even though they were the same size, the domain plots were far from uniform in appearance. Some were dominated by orchard trees, others featured wild-growing trees—slender pines, loosely spreading cedars, oaks and birches. Each domain invariably had a pond or a swimming pool. The houses, surrounded by flower beds, were also quite different from one another— some were large two-storey detached houses, others were smaller

bungalows. They had been built in various styles—both flat and sloping roofs were to be seen. Some of the little houses were all white, resembling the huts found in Ukrainian villages. 'dining salons—the Russian word here is trapeznye (pronounced: TRAHpez-nih-yeh), originally designating refectories in monasteries, but more recently used in reference to ornately decorated halls (often with arched ceilings) where large groups of people can gather to enjoy traditional Russian meals. I saw no motorcars on the lanes running between the domains. Nor, for that matter, could I detect any special activity or work being done in the domains themselves. I had the impression that all this extraordinary beauty was the creation of Someone on high, and that all people needed to do was to delight in His creation. In the middle of each community there were beautiful large two-storey structures. Around them scurried a host of active children at play. That meant that schools or clubs had been built in the centre of the settlements. “You see there, Anastasia, in the centre of the community, where there’s a school or a club, there’s some kind of visible life, but in the domains themselves it looks pretty much like Dullsville. If their owners have managed to arrange the plantings so that there is no need to fertilise or to battle with pests and weeds, what is there left for them to do? In any case, I think that Man actually finds greater joy in intensive labour, creativity and inventiveness, but there’s none of that here.” “Vladimir, right here in these splendid domains people are involved with the very things you mention, and their deeds are meaningful. It demands a significantly higher level of intelligence, mindfulness and inspiration than the work of artists and inventors in the world you are accustomed to.” “But if they are all artists and inventors, then where are the results of their work?” “Vladimir, do you consider an artist someone who takes brush in hand and paints a beautiful landscape on a sheet of canvas?” “Of course I do. People will look at his picture and, if they like it, they will either buy it or put it on display in an art gallery” “Then why would you not consider as an artist someone who has taken, instead of a canvas, a hectare of land, and used it to create an equally beautiful or even a more beautiful landscape? After all, in order to create a beautiful landscape out of living materials, the creator needs more than artistic imagination and taste—he also needs a knowledge of the properties of a great many living materials. In both instances it is the task of what has

been created to call forth positive emotions in the viewer, and to delight the eye. “But in contrast to a picture painted on canvas, a living picture has a variety of functions besides. It cleanses the air, it produces beneficial ethers for Man and feeds his body. A living picture changes the nuances of its colours, and it can be constantly perfected. It is connected to the Universe by invisible threads. It is incomparably more meaningful than something painted on canvas, and so the artist who creates it will be that much the greater.” “Yes, of course, I really can’t disagree with that. But tell me, why do you consider the owners of these domains to be inventors and scientists to boot? Do they have any relation to science at all?” “They have a relation to science too.” “What kind of relation, for example?” “For example, do you, Vladimir, not consider as a scientist someone who is involved in plant selection and genetic engineering?” “Of course. Everybody thinks of them as scientists, they work in scientific research institutes. They come up with new varieties of fruits and vegetables, and other plants as well.” “Yes, of course, they come up with these, but what is important is the result of their work, its significance for humanity.” “Well, the result is that varieties of vegetables and potatoes are brought forth that are frost-resistant and that will not be eaten by the Colorado beetle. In highly developed countries they have managed to grow a living being from a simple cell. Now they are working on cultivating various organs for transplanting into patients—kidneys, for example.” “Yes, that is true. But have you not wondered, Vladimir, why in these highly developed countries there are also appearing more and more types of diseases? Why is it that these same countries have the highest cancer rates of all? Why do they need an increasing number of drugs for treatment? Why do an ever-increasing number of people suffer from infertility?” “Well, why?” “Because many of those you call scientists are not rational beings at all. Their human essence is paralysed, and the forces of destruction work through their merely external human form. “Think about it, Vladimir: these so-called scientists have begun to fundamentally change the plants existing in Nature, thereby also changing the fruits they bring forth. They have begun changing them without first determining what purpose these fruits have. After all, in Nature, as in the Universe, everything is so closely interconnected. “Let us take your car, for example. Suppose a mechanic were to remove or

alter some part—a filter, let us say—the car might go for a while, but what would soon happen?” “The fuel-feed system would go out of whack, and the motor would choke.” “In other words, every part of a motorcar has its function, and before touching a part, it is necessary to determine its function.” “Of course! You don’t have to be a mechanic to see that.” “But Nature, after all, is also a perfect mechanism, and nobody has yet fully fathomed it. Every part of this great living mechanism has its purpose and is closely interconnected with the whole structure of the Universe. A change in properties or the removal of a single part inevitably affects the work of the whole mechanism of Nature. “Nature has many protective devices. First, it will signal an impermissible action. If that does not work, Nature will be obliged to destroy the ‘mechanic’ who fails in his calling. Man uses the fruits of Nature for food, and if he begins to feed himself with mutant fruits, he will be gradually transformed into a mutant himself. Such an adulteration is inevitable, given the consumption of adulterated produce. “This is already coming about. Man is already experiencing a weakening of his immune system, his mind and feelings. He is beginning to lose the abilities unique to him alone, and is being transformed into an easily manipulable bio-robot. He is losing his independence. The appearance of new diseases only confirms this—it is a sign that Man has tried undertaking an impermissible action.” “Well, let’s say you’re right, Anastasia. I myself don’t think much of these hybrid plants. There was a lot of hoopla about them at first, but now quite a few national governments, including our own, have started mandating special labelling of genetically modified produce sold in stores. And many people try to avoid buying these mutant products. But they say there’s no way to avoid them altogether, at least for the time being—there’s too many of them. There’s not enough real produce, and it’s so much more expensive.” “There, you see, that is because the forces of destruction have managed to lure humanity into a state of economic dependency. They have managed to convince Man that if he does not consume their products, he will die of starvation. But that is not true, Vladimir. Just the opposite: Man will die if he does eat them.” “Maybe, Anastasia, but not everyone will die. Many already know about this and won’t eat mutant products.” “How do you, for example, Vladimir, manage to tell the difference?”

“I don’t eat imported vegetables, for one thing. What local residents sell at the markets from their own household plots is a lot tastier.” “And where do they get their seeds?” “What d’you mean, where do they get them? They buy them. There’s a lot of firms dealing in seeds now. They sell them in pretty coloured packaging.” “So, does that mean that people buy seeds according to the information on the package, without knowing for absolute certain how accurate that information is?” “You mean to say that even the seeds they buy may be mutant?” “Yes. For example, on the Earth today there are only nine apple trees left bringing forth original fruit. The apple is one of the most healthful and delicious of all God’s creations for Man. But it was one of the first to be subjected to genetic manipulation. Even the Old Testament warns us against grafting. But people went ahead stubbornly and did it, and as a result the apples disappeared. What you now find in orchards or grocery stores does not correspond to the Divine fruit. Those that violate and destroy the original purity of God’s creation you call scientists. But what can we call those who are restoring the functioning of all the parts of Nature’s mechanism?” “They’re scientists too, but more literate, no doubt, more knowledgeable.” “The Russian families living in the domains which you see here are the same ones who are restoring that which was ruined before.” Mnd where did they acquire greater knowledge than the geneticists and the biologists involved in genetic selection?” “This knowledge has existed in every Man right from the beginning. The goal, thought and conscious awareness of their purpose afford each of these the opportunity to reveal itself.” “Wow! So it turns out that the people living in the domains are both artists and scientists. Who then are we—I mean, the people living on the planet today?” “Everyone can supply their own definition if they manage to free their thought for at least nine days.” 1 Nikiforovich—a patronymic, derived from Ivan’s father’s first name Nikifor. 2 Verunka (pronounced: ve-ROON-ka)—diminutive of the name Vera.

CHAPTER TWELVE

Do we have freedom of thought? “What do you mean—to free their thought? Everybody has freedom of thought.” “In the context of your technocratic society, Vladimir, Man’s thought is enslaved by the limits and conventions of this world. In fact, the technocratic world can only exist when the freedom of Man’s thought is nullified and the energy of his thought is absorbed by it.” “Something’s not clear to me here. Every Man over his lifetime can do a lot of thinking about a lot of different things. There are limits on freedom of speech, for example. There are countries in which there is greater freedom of expression, in other countries less, but everyone is free to think whatever they wish.” “That is an illusion, Vladimir. The majority of people are compelled to think about one and the same thing their whole lives. This is easier to see if you take the topics a typical Man of your world thinks about and analyse them in terms of distinct time segments, adding up the time he spends thinking about each particular subject. By this simple method you can determine the prevailing thought in contemporary human society” “Interesting. Let’s try determining this prevailing thought together, you and I.” “Very well. Then tell me, what would you consider Man’s average life expectancy today?” “Is that important?” “Not all that important, given the uniformity of Man’s thinking, but we need some sort of figure for our subsequent calculations.” “Okay. In our time let’s say a Man lives eighty years.” “So, a Man is born. Or, to put it more accurately, he has attained the material plane of his being.” “Let’s just say he is born—it’s easier to understand.” “All right. Even as an infant he is looking at the world, which is waiting for him to get to know it. Clothing, housing and food are provided for him by his parents. But the parents also attempt, either consciously or subconsciously, through their behaviour, to impart to him their thoughts and

the way they see the world around them. The visible process of getting to know what life is all about lasts approximately eighteen years, and over the whole course of these years the technocratic world attempts to impress the young Man’s thought with its own importance. Then, over the remaining sixty-two years of his life, let us assume that Man himself can control the tendencies of his own thought.” “Indeed he can. But you were saying there’s something trying to enslave his thought.” “Yes, I did say that. So let us try and calculate how much time he is free to think for himself.” “Okay, let’s.” “For a certain number of hours each day Man sleeps or rests. How many hours a day does he spend on sleep?” “Eight, as a rule.” “We took 62 years of Man’s life as a basis. If you multiply that by eight hours per day, taking leap years into account, you find that Man sleeps for 587,928 hours of his life. Thus, sleeping 8 hours a day equates to 22 years of constant sleep. .Now we subtract these 22 years from the 62 years of his life and we have 40 years when he is awake. “Now, at some point during their waking hours most people are involved with the preparation of food. How much time do you think Man spends on cooking and eating food?” “It happens that women generally do the cooking, while men are obliged to spend more time earning the money to pay for groceries.” “And how many hours would you say, Vladimir, go into the preparation and consumption of food every day?” “Well, if you take into account the time spent on buying groceries, preparing breakfast, lunch and dinner, that’s probably about three hours—on a weekday, that is. Only not everyone in the family is involved in the cooking. The rest of us well, we eat, and maybe help do the grocery shopping, or wash the dishes, so that I’d say about two and a half hours, on average.” “In fact it is more, but let us take your figure, two-and-a-half hours per day Multiply that by the number of days a Man lives and it comes to 61,242.5 hours, or 25,517 days, or 7 years. Subtract this number from the 40 and there are 33 left. “Now, in order to be able to obtain food, clothing and housing, a Man dwelling in the technocratic world is obliged to perform one of the functions essential to this world—namely, work. And I should like to draw your attention, Vladimir, to this fact: Man is obliged to work or engage in some

business not because he really likes it but for the sake of the technocratic world itself, otherwise Man will be deprived of what is vitally important to him. How much time do most people spend each day on work?” “In our country it’s eight hours, with another two hours or so spent getting to and from work, but every week they get a couple of days off.” “So now try to calculate how many equivalent years of his life does a Man spend on work which is rarely satisfying?” “It would take me quite a while to figure out without a calculator—you tell me.” “All told, for the thirty years of so-called work activity he spends ten years constantly working for someone—or, rather, for the technocratic world. And now from those 33 years of life we have to subtract another 10, leaving us 23. “Now, what else does a Man do every day over the course of his life?” “He watches TV” “For how many hours a day?” “No less than three.” “These three hours amount to 8 years of constant sitting in front of a television screen. If we take them away from the 23 remaining, we are left with 15. But even this time is not free for activities native to Man alone. Man’s thought is subject to inertia. It cannot make a sudden switch from one thing to another. Some time is spent processing and making sense of information received. All told, the average Man spends only 15 to 20 minutes of his life reflecting on the mystery of creation. Some do not think about it at all, while others spend years contemplating it. Anyone can figure it out if he looks back over the years of his life. Each individual is unique— he is more important than all the galaxies taken together, for he is capable of creating them. But each Man is a particle of the human commonwealth, which may be regarded in its entirety as a single organism, a single essence. And once humanity has fallen into the trap of technocratic dependence, this great essence of the Universe becomes closed within itself, it loses genuine freedom and becomes dependent, at the same time activating the mechanism of self-destruction. “Another way of life, quite distinct from your world’s everyday norm, is lived by people in the communities of the future. Their thought is both free and humane—it has merged into a single aspiration, and is leading humanity out of its dead end. The galaxies quiver in joyful anticipation when they see the human dream merging into a single whole. Creation will soon witness a

new birth and a new co-creation. Their human thought will materialise a beautiful new planet.” “Wow! How grandiloquently you describe these community dwellers! But outwardly they’re just ordinary people.” “Even their outward appearance is distinctive. It is imbued with the radiance of great energy Look more closely —here come a grandmother and her grandson riding along” CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Equestrienne from the future I saw a wagon emerging from the settlement, or rather a carriage with a folding top, drawn by a sorrel mare. On the carriage’s plush seat sat an elderly woman, with baskets of apples and vegetables at her feet. Up in front a shirtless boy about seven years old held the reins, but did not appear to be controlling the horse. No doubt they had been along this route many times before and the horse was simply trotting leisurely along a familiar route. The boy turned to the elderly woman and said something to her. His grandmother smiled and began to sing. The boy started singing along with her, picking up on the refrain. As for the tourists in their electric motorcoach passing by on the parallel highway about a kilometre distant, there was no way they could catch the sound of their song. Practically the whole coach had their field glasses trained on the carriage and its passengers. They watched the spectacle unfold with bated breath, as though they had seen a miracle or an interplanetary alien, and again the thought came to me that there was something not quite right here: people had come from such a long ways away and couldn’t even carry on a normal conversation with the local residents, but were limited to observing them from a distance. And the two occupants of the carriage weren’t even looking their way. One of the tourist coaches slowed down to keep pace with the horse’s trot. The coach was filled with children visiting from abroad, excitedly waving their hands at the little boy and his grandmother riding in the handsome carriage, but not once was there even a glance in return. All at once a young equestrienne emerged from one of the gates of the settlement, which were beautifully enwreathed with living vegetation. Her chestnut-coloured racehorse maintained a heated gallop in a bid to catch up to the carriage, and was soon prancing daintily alongside. The elderly woman smiled, listening as the young equestrienne spoke to her.

Even though the boy may not have been too happy at having their duet interrupted, his voice could not help but betray an inner joy as he said: “Oh, Mamochka, you’re a regular jumping jack! You can’t stay still for a moment!” The young woman laughed, reached into her canvas saddle bag and took out a pirozhok,1 handing it to the little boy He took a bite of it and then offered it to the elderly woman, saying: “Here you are, Granny, try it—it’s still warm!” The boy gave a tug on the reins and stopped the carriage. He leant down and with both hands picked up a basket of yummy-looking apples. He held it out to the woman rider with the words: “Please, Mama, take these to them/’ nodding in the direction of the touring coach with the visiting children on board. Grasping the heavy basket of apples easily with one hand, with the other hand she gave her prancing steed a pat on its neck, and galloped off toward the children’s motorcoach. Several other tourist coaches in the meantime had pulled up beside it, all eyes fixed on the young woman rider galloping toward them over the fields clutching the basket of apples with one hand. Dashing up to the children who had now spewed forth out of the coach, she reined in her steed, and without leaving the saddle, deftly bent down and placed the apple basket on the ground in front of the excited children. After managing to give a dark-haired little boy a pat on the head, she waved a greeting to all and headed off on her steed right down the middle of the dual motorway The driver of the children’s coach was talking on his twoway radio: “She’s galloping right down the median strip! She’s marvelous!” Many of the touring coaches along the motorway pulled over to the side and stopped. People quickly got out and spread themselves along the roadside, watching the beautiful young equestrienne galloping along at full speed. No shouts, but rather whispers of excitement emanated from many people’s lips. And here was really something to be excited about. Sparks flying from his hooves, the steed flew along unhindered in his heated gallop. His rider carried no whip in her hand, or even a switch, yet the steed kept quickening his step, his hooves barely touching the asphalt, his mane streaming from the brisk headwind. No doubt he was extremely proud of his rider and wanted to prove worthy of this beautiful woman on his back. Indeed, she was exceptionally beautiful in appearance. Of course one could get excited about her perfect facial contours, her light-brown braid and thick

eyelashes. Of course, beneath her white hand-embroidered blouse and flowered skirt with white camomiles one could easily picture a shapely supple waist on this girl with such a magnificent figure, whose smooth, feminine lines seemed to frame some sort of irrepressible energy. The blush playing on her cheeks gave but a glimpse of the majesty and boundless possibilities of this unfathomable energy The young equestrienne’s unusually healthy-looking appearance (she looked like a girl in her late teens!) quite distinguished her from that of the people standing by the side of the road. She sat upright on her frisky steed with not a trace of tension in her body; She wasn’t holding on to the pommel of her saddle, or even the reins. And her legs were thrown over one side of the horse’s rump without a stirrup on either foot. As she rode along with her eyelids lowered, she gracefully wove her windtossed hair into a tight braid. And she had only to raise her eyelids to inflame one of the crowd of people with some kind of invisible but captivating fire. Whoever caught her gaze felt himself straighten up inside and stand tall. It seemed that these people could feel the light and energy emanating from the equestrienne and were trying to let it at least partially fill their being. She understood their desire, and generously shared what she had, galloping on and just being beautiful. All of a sudden an excited Italian man ran out across the motorway right in front of the oncoming steed. He waved his arms wildly to each side, crying out in excitement: Rossiya! I love you, Rossiya!2 The young rider was completely unmoved by her steed rearing up on its hind legs and prancing on the spot. With one hand simply holding on to the pommel of her saddle, she used the other to pluck a flower of the garland adorning her hair and toss it down to the Italian. Catching his gift, he pressed it tenderly to his chest like a valuable treasure, constantly repeating: Mamma mia! Mamma mia! But the beautiful equestrienne was no longer paying attention to the impetuous Italian. She had only to touch the reins and the horse broke into a lightly prancing walk, and headed over to the people standing on the roadside. As the crowd parted, the young equestrienne gave a sprightly leap down from her steed, coming face to face with a woman of European appearance who was holding a baby girl fast asleep in her arms. Rossiya (pronounced: ros-SEE-ya)— the Russian name for Russia, which is similar in a number of European languages. The mother was slouching a little, her face was pale and eyes fatigued, and she seemed to have a hard time holding her baby still without waking her. The equestrienne gave the woman a big smile, and the two mothers’ glances

met. It was not difficult to notice the difference in the two women’s mental states. The mother with the baby had a depressed look, which gave her the appearance of a fading flower in comparison with the young woman who had just approached her—a woman whose countenance suggested an irrepressible explosion of blossoms from thousands of gardens. The two women looked each other in the eye without a word between them. And then all at once, as though startled by a new conscious awareness of something, the woman holding the sleeping baby straightened up, and her face broke into a broad smile. With a graceful, very feminine movement of her hands, the Russian woman took the beautiful garland from her own head and placed it on the head of the mother holding the baby, though they still didn’t say a single word to each other. Once more the beautiful equestrienne deftly mounted her steed which had been standing meekly at her side, and headed off. For some reason the people all gave her a round of applause. The now-smiling slender woman, whose baby daughter had by this time awakened with a smile of her own on her little face, kept watching as the figure of her new-found friend receded into the distance. As for the impetuous Italian, he was running after her holding an expensive watch he had taken off his wrist, calling out to her: A souvenir, mamma mia! But by this time the beautiful rider was already far away. The adventuresome racehorse turned off the highway in front of a patio decked out with long tables, where another group of tourists was sitting, drinking kvass2 and berry drinks. They were also sampling other delicacies waiters kept bringing to them out of a building replete with beautiful Russian carvings.3 Another building was in the finishing stages of construction next door. Two people were attaching to one of the windows of the new building—probably a shop or dining salon—a beautiful carved wooden nalichnik. Upon hearing the hoofbeats, one of the men turned in the direction of the approaching rider, said something to his fellow-worker and jumped down from the scaffolding. Reining in her horse, the impetuous equestrienne sprang down to the ground and, quickly unfastening her canvas bag from the saddle, ran over to the man and gently handed it to him. “Pirozhki With apple filling, just the way you like them. They’re still warm.” “You’re my little jumping jack, Ekaterinka,”4 the man said tenderly Whereupon he reached into the bag, took out a pirozhok and bit into it. His

face writhed with pleasure. The tourists sitting at the tables stopped their eating and drinking, admiring the young lovers. There stood the pair face to face—the man working on the building and the beautiful young equestrienne just dismounted from her fiery steed—as though they were not already married with children, but a courting couple fervently in love. And here was this beautiful woman, who had just ridden fifteen kilometres, who seemed so invincible and as free as the wind under the excited gaze of the tourists, calmly standing in front of her beloved, first looking him in the eye, then lowering her eyelids in embarrassment. All at once the man stopped eating and said: ’’Ekaterinushka, look, a wet spot has broken out on your blouse—that means it’s time to feed Vanechka.”5 She covered the little wet spot on her milk-filled breast with the palm of her hand and answered, somewhat embarrassed: “I’ll manage it. He’s still sleeping. I’ll take care of everything.” “Better hurry. I’ll be home soon, too. We’re just finishing up here. D’you like what we’ve done?” She took a look at the windows framed by the decorative carved nalichniks. “Yes. Very much. But there’s something else I wanted to tell you.” “Go on.” She came up close to her husband and stood on tiptoe as if to whisper something in his ear. He leaned over to listen, but she just gave him a quick kiss on his cheek. Then, without even turning around, she sprang into the saddle of her steed standing alongside her, her happy trilling laughter mingling with the hoofbeats. Then it was off to home she galloped—this time not along the asphalt motorway, but across the grasses of the open fields. As before, the tourists could not take their eyes off her so long as she remained in sight. What was so special about this young woman—a mother with two young children—riding across the open fields on her adventuresome steed? Yes, she was beautiful. Yes, one could feel her overflowing energy Yes, she was kind. But why couldn’t anyone take their eyes off her as she rode away? Perhaps it was more than just a woman riding a horse across a field. Perhaps it was Happiness incarnate hurrying home to feed an infant and later welcome her beloved husband? And people couldn’t help but admire Happiness hurrying back to her home. CHAPTER FOURTEEN

City on the Neva

“And have such changes been taking place in St. Petersburg too, as well as in Moscow?” I asked Anastasia. “Events happened somewhat differently in the city on the Neva,”6 she replied. “There it was the children who, even before the adults, felt the need of doing something themselves about creating a different kind of future. The children took it upon themselves to start changing the city, without waiting for a decree from the authorities.” “Wow! Children again! And how did it all start?” At the corner where the Nevsky Prospekt2 crosses the Fon-tanka3 embankment some workers had dug a trench. An eleven-year-old boy accidentally fell into it and injured his leg. While he was recuperating, he spent a long time sitting at the window of his flat at No 25, Fontanka Embankment. But his apartment windows looked out not onto the river, but onto an interior courtyard. The view included a shabby brick wall and the rusty spots covering the roof of the house it was attached to. One day the boy asked his father: “Papa, isn’t our city supposed to be the best in the country?” “Of course,” the father replied, “it’s one of the best in the world!” “And why is it the best?” “What d’you mean, why? It’s got a lot of different kinds of monuments and museums, and the architecture in the city centre is world-famous.” “But we live in the city centre too, and all we can see from our windows is a shabby wall and the rusty roof of the building next door.” “A wall Well, yes, we didn’t do so well with the view.” “Are we the only ones?” “Maybe a few others, but anyway” armed forces and German knights, the street dates back almost to the founding of the city itself. It was designed by French architect Alexandre LeBlond under commission from Peter the Great, and over the years has figured prominently in the writings of major Russian authors, including perhaps its most famous resident, Dostoevsky. Today, lined by cathedrals, museums and hundreds of shops and apartment houses with neo-classical facades, the Nevsky still forms the axis of the city’s business and cultural centre. 3

Fontanka—one of the several channels of the Neva River flowing through the delta on which the city of St. Petersburg is built. Embankments on both

sides give it more the appearance of a canal (the city boasts about fifty canals and a hundred islands). Nevsky Prospekt crosses the Fontanka on the architecturally unique Anichkov Bridge (built in 1715)—each of its four corners is adorned with a bronze sculpture of a horse, all executed by Russian artist Piotr Klodt (1805-1867) in the mid-nineteenth-century. The boy took a snapshot of the view from his apartment windows and when he was able to go to school again, he showed the photo to his chums. Then all the children in his class took snapshots from their windows and compared the photos. The overall picture was not very pretty. The boy and his chums went to see the editors of one of the local papers and asked the same question he had earlier asked his father: “Why is our city supposed to be more beautiful than others?” They tried explaining to him about Alexander’s Column4 and the Hermitage;5 they talked about the Kazan Cathedral6 and the legendary Nevsky Prospekt 4

Alexander’s Column (Russian: Aleksandriyski stolp)—a prominent column in the centre of Palace Square behind the Tsar’s Winter Palace, erected in 1834. Auguste Ricard de Montferrand, a Russian architect of French descent, was commissioned by Tsar Nicholas I to design this monument commemorating his predecessor (and elder brother) Alexander's victory over Napoleon during the War of 1812. Atop the column is a sculptural representation of an angel with Alexander’s face, designed by Boris Ivanovich Orlovsky (real surname: Smirnov; 1796-1837). At 47.5 metres, the pink granite column is the tallest structure of its kind in the world, eclipsing both the Colonne de Vendome (44 m) in Paris and the Trojan Column (38 m) in Rome. 5

The Hermitage (Russian: Ermitazh)—one of the major art museums in the world, begun in 1764 by Empress Catherine the Great, who wanted a place to display (for family and invited guests) her own large private collection. The Hermitage comprises a series of five ornate buildings erected over a number of years along the banks of the Neva River, including the Tsars’ Winter Palace, designed by Bartholomeo Rastrelli (1700-1771). Following the 1917 revolution, the whole complex was proclaimed public property and today draws millions of visitors each year. 6

Kazan Cathedral (Russian: Kazansky sobor)—a large cathedral on Nevsky Prospekt, bordered on either side by double rows of columns in semicircular formation. Built in the early 1800s by Russian architect Andrei Voronikhin (1759-1814), it is the burial place of Russian field marshal Mikhail Kutuzov who led the Russian army in its successful repelling of the

Napoleonic invasion. During the Soviet period the cathedral was turned into the State Museum of Religion and Atheism, but is now once again under the jurisdiction of the Russian Orthodox Church. “What makes the Nevsky so hot?” the boy enquired. “I think it looks like a stone trench with flaking edges.” They tried explaining to him about the architectural merits of the thoroughfare, about the sculptural mouldings on the building facades. About how the city at the moment didn’t have enough funds to restore all the houses at once, but soon there would be money available, and then everybody would see how beautiful the Nevsky really was. “But what’s so beautiful about a stone trench, even if the facades are spruced up? Besides, it’ll only get shabby again before long and they’ll only have to refill the holes and fix up the parts that have fallen down.” The boy and his chums went around to various editorial offices, showing them their now considerable collection of photos and asking the same question over and over again. At first the journalists were irritated at his persistence. On one occasion a reporter with a youth newspaper told him: “Oh, it’s you again?! And now you’re dragging your henchmen along with you—you’ve got more and more of them, it seems, all the time. You may not like the city, the view from the windows, but can’t you do at least something about it yourselves? There’s enough criticising going on without you kids adding your two cents’ worth. Go back to your homes and stop interfering with our work!” This admonition was overheard by a veteran journalist, who after seeing the group of children make their way out of the newspaper offices, spoke thoughtfully to the young reporter: “You know, their audacity reminds me of a particular fairy tale.” “A fairy tale? Which one?” the reporter enquired. “The Emperor has no clothes! Remember those words in the story?” After that the boys stopped bothering the editors with questions and showing the huge collection of pictures they carried around in a backpack. The school year ended, and come September another began. And it didn’t take long for the news to spread through the newspaper offices: the boy and his chums are back again. The veteran journalist exclaimed to his colleagues at the journalists’ club for the umpteenth time: “He’s back Yes, indeed And just think, he finally managed to get a hearing. And he wasn’t alone. They all sat quietly waiting together in the reception room for about three hours. I agreed to see them. I warned them to talk

quickly, as I had set aside only two minutes to hear what they had to say They came in and spread out a huge sheet of drafting paper across my desk. I looked at their masterpiece and was dumbfounded. I kept looking, not being able to take my eyes away, or even to say a word. Two minutes must have gone by, for I heard the boy say to everyone: “It’s time for us to leave. We’ve outstayed our welcome.’' “‘What’s that?’ I called after them, just as they were on their way out the door. He turned around, and I felt the look of another age descend upon me. Yes, indeed There’s a lot we still have to think through, make sense of Yes, indeed!” “Well, did he say anything?” asked a colleague. Others, too, became restless and asked: “Don’t keep us in suspense—did he say he was coming back?” Whereupon the veteran editor replied: “He turned around and answered my question like this: “‘That’s our Nevsky you’ve got in front of you. For now it’s only on paper. But eventually the whole city will be that way’ And then the door closed.” 7 For the umpteenth time the journalists bent over to examine the design, and marvelled at its amazing beauty. The design showed the houses along Nevsky Prospekt no longer one right smack up against the other, forming a continuous stone wall. Some of the old buildings were still there, but every other building had been taken down. In place of the razed houses there were now marvelous green and fragrant oases. Birds were shown nesting in the many birches, pines and cedars, and it seemed as though one could hear their song just from looking at the drawing. The people sitting on benches beneath shady trees were surrounded by beautiful flower-beds as well as raspberry and currant bushes. These green oases jutted out a little into the street, and the Nevsky no longer looked like a stone trench, but a splendid living green allee. The building facades had a multitude of mirrors built into them. The thousands of splashes of sunlight reflected in the mirrors played with the passers-by, caressed the petals of the flowers and played in the streams of the little fountains set up in each green oasis. People were shown drinking water along with the splashes of sunlight and smiling “Anastasia,” I asked, “did the boy ever show up again?” “What boy?” “You know, the one who kept pestering the editors with his question.” “The ‘boy’ was gone for good. He became a great architect. Together with

his like-minded chums he created splendid cities of the future. Cities and villages, in which happy people began to live. But his first marvelous creation was the city he designed on the Neva.” “Anastasia, in what year will Russia’s marvelous future appear?” “You can determine the year for yourself, Vladimir.” “What d’you mean, for myself? Is time subject to Man’s will?” “What Man does in his time is definitely subject to his will. Everything created by a dream already exists in space. The dreams of many human souls—your readers—will turn the Divine dream into material reality What you have seen may come about in three hundred years, or it could come right now, this instant.” “Right this instant? But you can’t build a house in an instant, and a garden won’t grow up even in a year.” “But if you, right where you are living at the moment, even if it is just a tiny flat, plant a seed in a little clay pot of earth, from which may grow a shoot of a family tree, this tree will eventually grow to maturity in your future family domain” “You yourself are talking about what will be—that’s not the same thing as right now. In other words, a dream cannot materialise itself in a single instant.” “What do you mean, it cannot? After all, that material seed you plant—that is precisely the beginning of the dream’s coming true. The shoot interacts with the whole Universe, it materialises your dream, and you will be enfolded by splendid bright energies, you will stand before the Father as the embodiment of His dream.” “Interesting, indeed. That means we should get started, right away?” “Of course.” “Only where can I find the right words to get people to understand?!” “The words will be found if you can be sincere and true to yourself in front of people.” “I don’t know how, but I shall act. Your dream has sparked something in my soul, Anastasia. And I very much want to make the future I have seen come true.” CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Making it come true

First of all I had to determine whether there were any people willing to get involved in the building of an eco-community and then to work in it. I asked the Anastasia Foundation for Culture and Assistance to Creativity, based in Vladimir,1 to circulate information on the building of an eco-village according to Anastasia’s design. A scant two months later, one hundred and thirty-nine people had responded, declaring their interest in building the future community—including Russians who had emigrated abroad. Once this book is out, telling about the future of Russia and giving information on Russians’ new lifestyle, that number may well rise a hundred or a thousandfold, and be spread over a number of regions of the country Ffence the organisational work of building the communities should be able to start in different regions at the same time. In regard to this, the Anastasia Foundation, which as an information clearing-house has reviewed the existing laws on the subject and suggested that any readers sharing Anastasia’s views proceed as follows: First: Start with your own region by organising a spearhead group that could eventually be given legal status in accord with prevailing legislation. Some regions, possibly, already have readers’ clubs or community organisations bringing Anastasia’s readers together, which could get the project off the ground there. But if you don’t happen to know of anything like that in your region, you can get in touch with the Anastasia Foundation, which receives a lot of correspondence on this and can provide you with addresses. Overall, I have a lot of faith in entrepreneurs. They have more experience in organisational matters and so, even if community organisations are already set up in some areas, you should still try and get in touch with entrepreneurs. You should appoint an authorised representative, at least temporarily or on a trial basis—someone who can act on your behalf in dealing with the authorities (submitting applications for land allotments, calling meetings when required, etc.). Provide a small honorarium for your chairperson. The representative’s role can be filled either by an actual person or a corporate body. In the latter case you might want to appoint, for example, a well-known construction company, which could subsequently enjoy priority rights in the awarding of contracts for erecting single-family houses, as well as infrastructure buildings. Such a major contract will be extremely profitable for the construction company, and so it may agree to take on the job of applying for land-use permits and compiling budget estimates. Second: Submit a formal application to your region’s local public authorities —and directly to the official at the top—for a single allotment of land with

an area of no less than 150 hectares. The size of the allotment will depend on how many interested participants you have, as well as what kind of local resources are available. You will need to consider that in the future your community will be home to quite a few families, and so it should include a school, club and medical facility, and these are best supported by a significant number of people. Small communities may not be in a position to create the required infrastructure. Third: In applying for an allotment, you should contact land surveyors, architects and builders to draft blueprints for the settlement. Another important reason for this is that you will need to find out the depth of the water table under the allotment, with a view to drilling wells to supply each house with running water, to determine what depth house foundations should be as well as the feasibility of constructing a small pond in each domain. Drawing up a good overall plan for the community is also important in determining the location of the future school and play areas, as well as where the access roads should go. The Anastasia Foundation has already commissioned competent specialists to work out a model plan, and if it is completed before you launch your spearhead group, you can consult with the Foundation—it will cost you less. But then you will have to adapt the model to your own locale, introduce your own modifications and share them with other spearhead groups. Successful proposals which have the greatest appeal will be adopted by other groups, and eventually we shall jointly put together a master design. Fourth: After completing the design for the settlement—and this is something not only specialists but also future residents can participate in— you will receive a detailed set of schematics, including an overall plan highlighting the individual plots of at least one hectare each. Every participant should be formally assigned a plot of land, perhaps by drawing straws. Land use entitlement should be formalised with an appropriate legal document, drawn up in the name of the individual owner rather than the organisation, as was the case in the Auroville community in India. And so here you are standing on your own plot, on your very own hectare of land. This is your kin’s domain, the place where your descendants will be born and will live. They will fondly remember its founder, their family patriarch, and they may even rebuke him for certain mistakes in planning out the place. Right at the moment the design of everything to be situated on the assigned plot is completely up to you. Where will you place your family tree—an oak or cedar, for example—which will keep 011 growing for as long as 550

years, and may be looked upon by the ninth generation of your descendants as they remember you? Where will you decide to dig a pond, plant an orchard and a small grove of woodland trees, build your house and set up your flower beds? What kind of living fence will you create around the perimeter of your kin’s domain? Maybe the one Anastasia described, or maybe it will come out even more fanciful and functional than the one depicted in my previous book. It can be started even now, even before you get the official documents, even before a spearhead group is organised among the people who share your vision. You can start the building process in your thoughts, pondering what will go in each corner of your future kin’s domain. You should remember that the house you build, even one of fairly solid construction, will last about a hundred years and then fall into disrepair. The living structures you set up, on the other hand, will only become better and stronger, thriving more and more as the ages pass. They will convey your living thoughts to your descendants for centuries, and perhaps even for millennia to come. You can start building right away, and not just in your thoughts. Even now you can plant the seeds of your future majestic family trees in a clay pot on the windowsill. Of course you can also buy grown saplings ready for transplant at a specialised nursery, or dig up young shoots in the forest without damaging the growth around, especially in places where the forest growth needs thinning out. That is possible, of course, but I think Anastasia is correct here—it’s better to grow the sapling on your own, especially when it comes to your future family tree. A sapling from a commercial nursery is like a baby from an orphanage. Besides, you need to grow not only one sapling, but several' different ones. And before planting the seed in the pot of earth, you need to infuse the little seed with information about yourself. I realize that support on a national level may be needed to overcome bureaucratic obstacles in certain regions. Or if not support, then at least an absence of opposition. Appropriate changes in legislative policies are required. Instead of waiting around idly for this to happen all by itself, waiting for at least one of our existing political bodies to mature into a state where it will support such a project, the Anastasia Foundation, at my request, has worked out a draft constitution for a new political party, a party of land-users. This germinating social movement has been called Co-creation (Sotvorenie). Its platform, which still has to be discussed and finalised, comes down to one central theme (as I see it): The state should grant to every willing family one hectare of land for lifetime use, for the purpose of establishing their own

family domain. This movement is still young, and nobody is really in control of it at the moment, but I think that in time we shall see literate politicians coming on board who are capable of working out a relationship to the new movement on the level of federal policy-making. For the time being the Co-creation Party functions mainly as an information clearing-house. A legal department will get started as soon as sufficient funds become available. For now the party’s administrative affairs are being handled by the Anastasia Foundation for Culture and Assistance to Creativity. The regional spearhead groups set up to organise new communities will be quite successful after they gain the support of the local public authorities. This should happen once the authorities see the substantive benefits which will accrue to their region. And these can be pinpointed right now. They do exist and they are indeed substantive. Try to get a discussion of the project going in the local press and see if you can get specialists—ecologists, economists and sociologists—to weigh in on the specific influences the project will have on your region. In an effort to do my part to help—at least in some way—in getting land allotted for the purpose of setting up kin’s domains, I have decided to publish in this book an open letter to the President of Russia. CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Open letter to the President To Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin, President of the Russian Federation From Vladimir Nikolaevich Megre, Citizen of the Russian Federation Dear Vladimir Vladimirovich! We live in a generation which must be very lucky indeed. We have before us a real opportunity to begin building a prosperous, flourishing state thoroughly protected from external aggressors, internal conflicts and crime. A state in which happy families will live in prosperity Our generation has the opportunity of not only building a splendid country, but of actually living in it, provided there is enough goodwill among the legislative powers that be to grant to every willing family one hectare of land for the purpose of establishing thereon its own kin’s domain. This simple action will suffice to call forth an impulse to creative endeavour on the part of the majority of people at various levels of society. The land should be granted free of charge, for lifetime use, with the right of

inheritance. The produce grown on these kin’s domains should not be subject to any form of taxation. You will agree, Vladimir Vladimirovich, that an abnormal, illogical state of affairs has now come about: every Russian is supposed to have a Motherland, but nobody can show exactly where his piece of this Motherland is. If every family receives one and transforms it into a flourishing corner of Paradise, Russia as a whole will become a magnificent land. Current policies on national development do not inspire people into creativity, since it is not clear where or to what kind of future they are leading. The forging of a democratic, economically developed state on the Western model has been rejected—intuitively, perhaps—by the majority of the population. And I think this is all to the good. Common sense makes us ask ourselves: Why should any of us in particular, or we as a nation, waste our efforts on building a state which will only be racked by drugs, prostitution and gangsterism? All those things are part of Western society. We used to think that the so-called developed societies enjoyed an abundance of food products, but now it is clear that this abundance has been achieved at the expense of applying all sorts of chemical additives and poisonous chemicals to the soil, as well as genetic engineering. We have seen that imported food products have nowhere near the taste quality of our own. In Germany, for example, people gladly buy potatoes brought in from Russia. In a number of countries the government has become concerned over this situation and mandated special labelling of genetically modified produce. Scientists, too, are becoming more and more concerned. America and Germany are among those countries that have the highest per-capita cancer rates in the world. Do we have to go down the same path? I don’t think it is a path that inspires very many people. But our country has come to tolerate the promotion of foreign goods and the Western way of life. We have become resigned to the appearance in our midst of more and more diseases, to the fact that we can now drink water only out of bottles we buy at the store and that the population of Russia is decreasing by 750,000 souls a year. It’s all just like in the West.

“They hadn’t been dug around—they were just growing there amidst the grasses, they hadn’t been sprayed for insects, but these old apple trees were bearing fruit, and their fruit showed no sign of worm infestation.”

Chapter 6: “A garden for eternity “In the distance I could see tall trees growing densely together. They appeared to cover about a hectare of ground. This place seemed simply like a green isle of forest, all surrounded by fields and meadows.” “Just imagine: there inside were ancient apple trees with gnarled trunks, spreading their branches out into space. Branches literally dripping with fruit.” “As we drew closer, I could see in amongst the dense grove of two-hundredyear-old oak trees and bushes an entrance leading to a woodland oasis inside.” “Twenty-three Siberian cedars, planted two hundred years ago, still stood there all in a row, like soldiers protecting this splendid orchard from freezing winds and harmful pests. There had been more of them, but one by one they perished.” “Last year that one of them began falling, but came to rest against the top of the one next to it in the row I looked at the sharply leaning tree trunk, whose top was intertwined with that of its neighbour. Their branches had grown together, and the falling tree was still living.” “Your descendants, my fine Russian fellow, are growing up in another land, while in Russia, in your kin’s domain, the leaves of the trees in your orchard are rustling in the breeze, and every year your old apple trees are bringing forth fruit—no doubt in the hope that your descendants will return to taste the best apples in the whole wide world. Yet your descendants are still not coming.” Vladimir Megre arriving at the Ringing Cedars of Russia movement conference held in the city of Vladimir on 5 June 2004. The photo above and all apple-orchard photos © 2004 by Alexey Kondaurov, Nizhny Novgorod, Russia. Used by permission. Vladimir Megre addressing the audience at the Ringing Cedars of Russia movement conference held in the city of Vladimir on 5 June 2004.

Photo © 2004 Anastasia Foundation.

The conference brought together over 400 delegates from 150 eco-villages from all over Russia and beyond. Photo 2004 | Anastasia Foundation.

Above: Two birds by Andrey and Natalia Patokin, © 2006 Leonid Sharashkin. This watercolour was inspired by Andrey and Natalia’s trip to the dolmens and the reading of Vladimir Megre’s Co-creation. True to Anastasia’s promise, books in the Ringing Cedars Series have produced a powerful creative outburst on the part of the readers. Thousands of people started to write poetry, compose songs, make paintings as well as

changed their lifestyle and proceeded to designing and establishing their kin’s domains. After all, the birthrate has fallen in highly developed countries too. We are trying our hardest to be like them. But I have been hearing from people who live in these countries, hearing about their hopes—their hopes that Russia is searching for and will inevitably find its own path of development, and show the whole world a happier way of life. Mr President, you, no doubt, have received various proposals for the future development of our country If this new proposal appears questionable in comparison with others you have seen, I would ask you to test it on an experimental basis in regions where the respective governors can discern in it a grain of common sense. You will find further details of this proposal in the series of books entitled The Ringing Cedars of Russia, of which I happen to be the author. I would not imagine that you have had the time to read them personally, caught up as you are in attending to a flood of affairs of state. Still, there are certain appropriate administrative bodies which are aware of these books and have already rendered their verdict. They conclude that these books have engendered a new religion in Russia, which is “spreading like wildfire”—an opinion that is also being circulated in the press in a number of publications. Their conclusion came as a complete surprise to me. While I have expressed my feelings about God in these books, I never thought of creating any kind of new religion. I simply wrote books about an extraordinary and beautiful recluse living in the Siberian taiga and the fervent dream she entertains about what is splendid and beautiful in life. One could say that the enthusiastic reaction on the part of people of different social backgrounds and the popularity of these books both in Russia and abroad bear some resemblance to a religious phenomenon. But I think this is quite a different story here. The ideas, philosophy and topical awareness of this Siberian recluse, not to mention the language in which she expresses herself, have all deeply stirred people’s hearts. It will probably be quite a while before scientists reach a unanimous conclusion on who Anastasia is and what is the full significance of the books containing her sayings, or how one should interpret the public reaction to them. Let them keep on trying to figure it out. I am only concerned lest their theoretical analyses overshadow the concrete proposals made by Anastasia. Vladimir Vladimirovich, so that you maybe personally persuaded of the effectiveness of Anastasia’s proposals regarding the land, I invite you to

authorise an experiment, regardless of who either Anastasia or Vladimir Megre may be, which will put some of her less significant statements to the test. First: I suggest that your public officials will not be unduly burdened if asked to commission an appropriate scientific research institute to do a simple analysis of the effectiveness of Anastasia’s proposal on cleansing the air in major cities from harmful dust pollution. The gist of this proposal was set forth back in my first book.1 Second: I recommend you authorise an analysis of Siberian cedar nut oil as a general remedial agent. Both data from ancient sources and modern research by scientists at the University of Tomsk2 confirm Anastasia’s statement that this natural product, provided it is obtained through a specific technological method, is one of the most effective remedies in the world for the cure of a broad range of diseases. You will not find anywhere else on the globe a vaster array of plantings than in Siberia, which is home to the nutbearing cedar. See Book 1, Chapter 17: “The brain—a supercomputer”. 'Tomsk—a city of a half-million residents in southwest Siberia, founded during the reign of Tsar Boris Godunov in 1604. The university was established in 1880. The Russian federal budget could realize substantial profits from putting this product on the international market, as well as from its use within our own country. We need to have a state policy on the exploitation of Siberian flora. A policy aimed not at the establishment of large-scale industrial enterprises but at the unfolding of a network of small businesses involving people actually living in the remote regions of Siberia. The implementation of such a policy does not require a huge outlay of capital, only a legislative decision allowing the local residents to acquire land in the taiga on a long-term lease basis. Moreover, Vladimir Vladimirovich, life inevitably confirms even the statements of Anastasia’s that seem less plausible at first glance. Personally I am absolutely convinced of our country’s splendid future. It is only a question of whether those living today will accelerate its coming or slow it down. I sincerely wish you, Vladimir Vladimirovich, along with all of us alive today, the opportunity of being the creators of this splendid future! Respectfully, Vladimir Megre CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Questions and answers Anastasia’s design intrigued me. 1 wanted to think and talk about it on a daily basis. I wanted to stand up for it at all costs, defend it against ridicule and dispel the doubts of the sceptics. I talked about it at the readers’ conferences held in the city of Gelendzhik1 and at the Central Letters Club8 9 in Moscow. The majority of the participants at these conferences (there were more than two thousand in all, hailing from various countries of the Commonwealth of Independent States,10 as well as from further afield) either supported this design or at least expressed an interest. But in this chapter I shall reproduce some of the basic questions and comments by the doubters, along with my responses to them, based on Anastasia’s statements and my own convictions, as well as information I have managed to glean from other sources. Question. In today’s world no nation’s economy can survive independent of the global economic system. Today’s economic processes point to the need to create large industrial structures, the need for specialised knowledge of today’s markets and how they are set up, as well as the major directions of capital flow. It does not appear that you have training In economics. Your proposal involves emphasising small-scale commodity production, which may take away from more important things and rain the national economy. Answer. It is true that I have had no training in economics. But, as to your point that large conglomerates are of prime importance to the nation’s economy, I am in complete agreement with you. I think you will also agree that a large factory, say, is economically viable for the nation only when it operates to produce goods in high demand. When a large enterprise shuts down—and such cases are not infrequent in our country, or in others—it inevitably means losses. The state is obliged to pay workers unemployment benefits. Hundreds of thousands are forced to eke out a wretched existence on the strength of this paltry allowance. They don’t know what to do, they’re so used to relying on their production-line job to feed themselves and their families. Given these conditions, they could make better use of their new free time working intensively on their own plots of land. One’s family domain is not just to provide a home base to spend one’s leisure time in. It can also serve as a profitable workplace, more profitable, even, than in many enterprises, even major ones. In terms of the larger picture—on the national level, that is—the state may be seen as not only made up of industrial and financial conglomerates, both large and small, but its very building-blocks consist precisely of these family nuclei.

For any family the domain can serve as a home base—an insurance policy against any possible form of nationwide economic disaster. I don’t see anything wrong with each family being offered the opportunity to provide independently for its own poverty-free existence. I also believe that personal freedom is impossible without economic freedom. A working family, even one living in a modern city apartment, cannot be free, dependent as it is on an employer who determines one’s salary, on utility companies with the power to supply or withhold heat, water and electricity, on the availability of groceries and on the prices of food products and consumer services. The family is slave to all of these, and the children in such a family are born into a slave mentality. Question. Russia is an industrially developed country and a mighty nuclear power. And only as such will it be able to guarantee the security of its citizens. If all its residents do nothing but work the land, the country will be transformed into a purely agrarian state and thus become defenceless against external aggressors. Answer I don’t think everybody’s necessarily going to agree to work on their plots of land right off the bat. It’ll be a gradual process, and the situation will unfold naturally, in an orderly manner. National power depends not only on possessing a sufficient number of nuclear warheads, but also on the overall economic state of affairs, including sufficiency and quality of food products. And when a state does not have sufficient food production to feed its people, it is then obliged to sell off not only its natural resources but its armaments as well, thereby strengthening the position of any potential aggressor. The proposed design has the power to strengthen the economic position of the state as a whole, and as such offers the opportunity not only for more effective scientific and industrial development but also a more efficient combat-ready army. In the near future, however, when this way of life has been adopted on a massive scale, I think—indeed, I am quite convinced—that it will provoke considerable interest among many citizens of other countries, including countries we don’t currently get along with. And people in those nations too will want to reshape their lifestyle the same way many Russians have done. The adoption of this design in a variety of countries will signal the start of a whole new era of peaceful coexistence among peoples. Question. The implementation of the proposal is feasible, of course, in the more trouble-free regions of Russia. But isn’t it naive to think of implementing it in an inherently crime-prone republic such as Chechnya?11

Answer. A significant lowering of social tensions, especially in the so-called ‘hot spots’, along with complete cessation of conflict through the help of the proposed project I see as something not only not naive, but absolutely realistic. If you take the northern Caucasus, for example, and its most troubled region, Chechnya, it has recently become clear (and this has been reported in the press) that the basic conflict is centred around the struggle of a small group of people for control of the republic’s oil reserves, as well as for money and power. This situation is typical of most of the ‘hot spots’ today—indeed, of most of the conflicts the world has known throughout the ages. That still leaves the question of why such a large part of the population, especially men, has been drawn into the Chechen conflict. Chechnya used to have hundreds of illegal oil-refining operations, belonging to a small group of people. Tens of thousands of people from among the local population worked in these enterprises. When the government tried to restore law and order these people lost their jobs, leaving their families without any means of support. The principal aim of this class of people in joining the militants was to try and protect their jobs and the welfare of their families, minimal though it was. Besides, their participation in the rebel forces wasn’t exactly volunteer work—they ended up earning quite a bit more than the unemployment benefit they had been getting. Consequently, for the majority of the ordinary fighters, taking part in the armed gangs was simply a job—no different from being a policeman or a Russian army officer, only better paid. As a result, many of these foot-soldiers don’t see much in the way of hope for their families’ welfare if military operations were to cease. How can we possibly do away with unemployment in Chechnya if we can’t completely do away with it in even a single region closer to home, especially one that is comparatively well off? Let’s say the Government pours colossal resources into Chechnya and starts setting up all sorts of enterprises there to guarantee a job for everybody who wants one. But then another problem arises—the size of the pay packet offered. Say you offer a special raise for the Chechen population, then all of Russia will be working to support the Chechens, since the only way the raise can be implemented is on the backs of the Russian taxpayers as a whole. Even then, not all the money will reach its intended target, since the problem of getting allocated funds through to those who actually need them has not been resolved. In sum, we’d be faced with the same situation we have today, only with a significant increase in expenditures. The Chechen Republic is a region favourable to agricultural production. Now let’s suppose a law granting land for family domains is already in effect. Suppose that the state is able to protect these family domains from

any kind of encroachment. So a Chechen family receives land for its kin’s domain where everything they produce belongs exclusively to them and their future descendants, guaranteeing them a poverty-free existence and a life not ruled by bombs, and not as outlaws, but in their own splendid comer of the Earth—a piece of their Motherland which they have established themselves. I am certain that such a family will not oppose a government which has given them an opportunity like that—on the contrary they will defend such a government more zealously than they now oppose it. They will defend such a government as passionately as they would defend their family nest. They will counter any attempt by agitators to separate Chechnya from such a government, or any attempt at racial discrimination. I am convinced that if the government launched a campaign on a sufficiently large scale, introducing settlements like that into Chechen territory, even on an experimental basis, the ‘hot spot’ we call Chechnya will be transformed into not only one of the most stable regions of Russia, but one of the major centres of spirituality on the Earth. We shall see a complete hundred-andeighty-degree turn. When Anastasia spoke of ways to eliminate crime, I too had a hard time believing what she said. But eventually, life inevitably kept bearing out the truth of her words. And as far as the Chechen Republic is concerned. At the readers’ conference in Gelendzhik there were more than a thousand people from all parts of Russia and the Commonwealth of Independent States. I was especially struck by the fact that a delegation had come from Chechnya. Nobody had invited them specially to the conference; the Chechens came all on their own. Later I spoke with several of them personally. At the moment we are talking about Chechnya, but are other parts of our country free of crime? It’s there all right, and in just about every form you can imagine. One of the causes of crime is unemployment, and the fact that people are released from prison with no opportunity to rebuild their lives in our society. Anastasia’s project is capable of solving this problem. Question. If you give a hectare of land to everybody in Russia who wants one, there won’t be enough land to go round. Especially for the rising generation. Answer. At the present time we are faced with a question even more acute —- namely, that there are not enough people to work the land. And I’m not talking just about wasteland and land unsuitable for farming, but arable land as well. As to the rising generation, it is unfortunately the case that every year more Russians are dying than are being born. According to Goskomstat (the government statistics agency), the Russian population is showing an

annual attrition rate of 750,000 people. So the current concern is over whether there will be a rising generation at all. At first I too was under the misconception that a family, or even a single person, living, let’s say, in a flat in a five-storey apartment block, takes up less land than a family or person with a private house and a garden plot. But, as it turns out, it’s not that way at all. Any person, no matter what floor he lives on, consumes as food all sorts of things that grow on the land. To get those growing things delivered to him, roads, trucks, warehouses and stores are required, and all of these take up land-space too. So at any given moment every individual is being supported by his own plot of land. It supports him regardless of whether the individual has abandoned it or even thinks about it at all. Naturally I wasn’t able to give a full answer to this question right off, as I didn’t have immediate access to all the figures, but I looked them up later and can now include them here. Russia’s land: The total land mass of the Russian Federation comprises nearly 1,710 million hectares, of which only 667.7 million hectares are fit for agricultural production. Figures for the beginning of 1996 show 222 million hectares used for farming at the time, or 13% of Russia’s total land resources. Of these, 130.2 million hectares (7.6% of the total) were classified as arable land. At the present time Russia’s population comprises 147 million people. Hence the ‘problem’ of allocating a hectare of land to any family wishing to have one simply doesn’t exist, according to the statistics. Moreover, the real problem is quite the opposite: the population of our country is shrinking drastically And here’s what the analysts have to say in regard to the general state of the Russian population: if current trends continue, between 2000 and 2045 the number of children under 15 years of age will be cut in half, while the number of senior citizens will increase by 50%. The capacity of the population to reproduce itself will be pretty much exhausted. Oh yes, and one more problem: the quality of the arable lands of our country. Large areas of the nation are witnessing topsoil erosion. Specialists are of the opinion that these processes have already reached a critical stage at the regional and inter-regional levels. In all of Russia’s agricultural zones erosion (or the threat of erosion) has affected 117 million hectares (or 63% of all agricultural lands). Over the last 50 years the rate of erosion has increased by a factor of 30; the rise has been especially steep since the onset of the 1990s. According to the UN’s Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO) experts, Russia is among the top ten countries of the world in terms

of erosion rates, and by 2002 erosion will affect as much as 75% of our farmland. I could go on and cite even more detailed statistics about our country’s land—they’re all pretty miserable. I shall include them at the end of this book. Now, after becoming familiar with the statistics cited above, I can confidently state that Anastasia’s project is capable of stopping the drunken orgy our nation is indulging in with its land resources. To this day it is the only effective and feasible project in existence. It envisages the restoration of the soil’s fertility through natural processes. It does not require additional capital outlays on the government’s part, and yet with one fell swoop solves the problems or ecology, refugees and unemployment, and completely eliminates the problems we today are creating for our children by our attitude to the land. Perhaps there is somewhere in Nature a more effective and feasible project. In that case, let it be brought forward. At the moment, all some agencies are doing is demanding more money for the restoration of agricultural production by outmoded means. The government does not have the money they require. But the saddest scenario would be for such plans to be realized by borrowing money abroad and having chemical fertilisers poked into the soil to its further detriment, since we do not have sufficient quantities of manure to go round. That money will have to be repaid with interest, the condition of the land will deteriorate even further, and the whole problem will fall on the shoulders of the rising generation. I shall do all I can to promote Anastasia’s project. Of course, government officials will hardly accept a recluse from the taiga as an authority, and I am no specialist in agriculture, and so it will be a challenge for me to prove its effectiveness before our worldy-wise politicos, but nevertheless I shall keep on trying with all the means at my disposal. I will be most grateful to those readers who are familiar with the intrigues of the workings of our government if they can explain in a more professional language the effectiveness of Anastasia’s project to our high-ranking government officials. Perhaps this book will find its way, too, into the hands of government agencies empowered to undertake such measures, and so I am appealing to them once more with a declaration on behalf of all willing participants. I don’t know how many willing participants there are, but I am certain that their numbers are in the millions. On their behalf I make the following request, namely that the Russian government .settle the land question on a legislative basis and grant each willing family in our nation one hectare of land free of charge, affording the opportunity to each willing family to establish its own kins dofnain, dignify it and lovingly care for its

own piece of the Motherland, thereby making the Motherland as a whole beautiful and happy—the Motherland, after all, consists of little pieces. Question. In many regions of our country the ecological situation is extremely complex. One could even call it disastrous today Wouldn’t it be better to first direct our efforts toward the improvement of ecological conditions In general—as many ecological organisations are doing at the moment—before turning our attention to individual domains? Answer. You yourself say that there are a lot of organisations focusing on the ecological situation, but it is getting worse. Doesn’t this mean that simply focusing attention on it is not enough here, since the situation is continuing to deteriorate and even reaching disastrous proportions? Let us imagine a beautiful garden, with all different kinds of trees growing in just one splendidly laid out domain. Just one little corner of Paradise! Only one hectare in size. Of course that’s not sufficient for a global change, either for a country or the planet. But now let us imagine a million of such little corners and we shall see the whole Earth as a flourishing garden of Paradise. But still, it is up to each one of us in particular to start by setting up our own little corner. Perhaps then we shall be able to go from being totally focused on the subject to being totally involved in concrete actions. Question. Do you believe that an unemployed family can get rich with the help of a single hectare of their own land? If you believe that, then tell me why today’s rural areas are at a standstill? People in these rural areas have land but they’re still going hungry. Answer Let’s consider this phenomenon together, but first I want to add a few more questions to the one you asked. Why do millions of people say that for them four or five hundred square metres of a dacha plot has been a significant help to them in financial terms, significantly increasing the amount of food available to them, and yet rural residents with 1500 to 2500 square metres call themselves poor and starving? Why? In addition to other factors, doesn’t the state of our well-being also depend on our level of conscious awareness? The majority of the rural population thinks that you can have a good life only in the cities, and that’s why you’ve got so many young people leaving the rural areas altogether. I think our own recent propaganda is at least partially to blame. I’m sure you remember those glowing articles in the Soviet press in the fifties and sixties —who were the heroes back then? Miners, lumberjacks, machine operators, aeroplane pilots, sailors. Even paintings of cityscapes invariably featured a host of smoking chimneys

from industrial giants. There was occasionally a condescending reference to the collective farmer, but a Man tending his own garden plot was always negatively portrayed. They even tried building city-type apartment blocks in rural areas, thereby depriving people of their own back yard and made them work only on so-called communal land. Just as with the Auroville community in India—you could live on the land and cultivate it, but you still couldn’t have any land to call your own—all of which leads to some pretty sad results. You hear constant talk from both politicians and the media of the widespread poverty in the Russian countryside today, just as in the majority of the population at large. There’s so much talk about it that everybody en masse ends up convinced that if you live in the countryside you must be poor. There are hardly any examples cited indicating that your well-being largely depends on you. It must be in somebody’s interests to keep rehearsing the scenario: Don’t rely on yourself—I am the only one that can make you happy. That’s what you hear from a lot of religious leaders, as well as a lot of politicians gathering their own circle of voters around them. If you want to be poor and destitute, you can go right on believing them. I want to talk about not how to be poor, but how to be rich. When someone asks me if it is possible to live above the poverty line with one’s own parcel of land, I answer: Yes! And here’s a concrete example. In 1999 an acquaintance of mine, a Moscow entrepreneur who had read Anastasia, invited me over for a visit. He intrigued me when he said that he could prepare a table almost identical to the one Anastasia had set before me in the taiga. When I arrived, his dining table was still empty We sat down and chatted, and Audrey (that was the entrepreneur’s name) kept looking at the clock, apologising for someone he was expecting being held up. Before long his chauffeur arrived with two large baskets. The table was soon spread with tomatoes, cucumbers, bread and much else besides. The room was filled with tempting aromas. In a few minutes the women in Andrey’s household had laid out a splendid table. No Pepsi-cola to drink, but some marvelous, fragrant Russian kvass? Instead of French cognac there was home-made wine—on top of it all infused with '’kvass—a fermented beverage made from rye, barley or other natural ingredients. some sort of herbs. The tomatoes and cucumbers were not as splendid as the ones Anastasia had in the taiga, but they were far tastier than what you could get at the supermarket or even at farmers’ markets. “Where did you get all this from?” I asked Audrey in astonishment, and this

is what he told me. At some point on their way back to Moscow from Riazan,12 Audrey’s chauffeur had stopped the jeep at a small roadside market. They bought a litre-jar of pickles and a jar of tomatoes. Turning in to a small cafe, they decided to have a decent meal. They opened the jars they had bought and took a taste. After lunch Audrey told his driver to turn around and go back to the roadside market. He bought from the elderly woman behind the table everything she had, and offered to give her a ride home in his jeep. The woman lived all alone in a rather old-looking cottage with a small vegetable garden. Her lot was situated in a wee village about fifteen kilometres from the main road. Andrey’s enterprising mind was already working quickly and here is how things unfolded. Audrey purchased a house in the country with 2000 square metres of land, on the edge of a forest, about 120 kilometres from Moscow in an ecologically clean zone. He registered the house in the name of this woman, presented her with the documents and a contract obligating him to pay her a monthly amount of 300 US dollars, while the woman in turn was to give the produce from her garden to his family, except for what she ate herself. The woman’s name was Nadezhda Ivanovna/ she was 61 years old. And she really didn’t understand documents or believe in them. Then Audrey took her to the local rural council and asked the chairman to read her the documents and assure her that they were in order from a legal standpoint. The rural council chairman read over the documents and said to the woman: “What have you got to lose, Ivanna? Nobody’s asking you to give up that tumble-down hut of yours. So if you don’t like it, you can always come back.” Nadezhda Ivanovna was finally persuaded to accept the offer. For the past three years she’s been living in a well-built house. Andrey hired workers to dig her a well and put in a heating system with a hot water furnace. They also dug and outfitted a vegetable cellar. They put a fence around the whole property, brought in all the furnishings she needed, along with a goat, some chickens and animal feed. As well as a lot of other things needed to set up a home. Nadezhda Ivanovna’s daughter and wee granddaughter came to live with her. Since Andrey has read what Anastasia had to say about vegetablegrowing, he cultivates seedlings himself, but only with seeds he obtained from Nadezhda Ivanovna. Each summer Andrey’s father, a retired restaurant manager, takes the seedlings out to her home and gladly helps the women with the garden work.

This arrangement has provided both Nadezhda Ivanovna and her daughter with work and a place to live. Andrey and his family (his wife, their two children and his father) are supplied all summer long with fresh fruits and vegetables which are really eco-clean, along with marvelous marinated produce during the winter. And all year long they have access to healthgiving herbs whenever they need them. 13 Maybe somebody will say that the example I have cited is an exception. Nothing of the sort! Ten years back, when I was president of the Interregional Association of Siberian Entrepreneurs, many of its members tried to set up their own household plots, either for their companies or just for their families. Today you can find such services advertised in the papers. Only there is one but—it is very hard to find any capable workers, or rather, anyone who is competent to do what Nadezhda Ivanovna did. And since such people are so hard to find, let’s recall for ourselves what attitude we should cultivate toward the land. Let’s share our experiences of how to be rich and happy on our own land, and not how to be poor. Question. Vladimir Nikolaevich, I’m an entrepreneur. I too happen to know that many well-off people use the services of rural residents who are experts at cultivating and preserving agricultural produce, which is definitely superior in taste quality to what comes out of large-scale enterprises. But if everybody follows the same path, that will mean a saturation of the market, and then how is a family going to survive on income just from its own hectare of land, if it turns out that nobody needs the tomatoes and cucumbers they grow? Answer The land yields not just tomatoes and cucumbers, but much more besides. However, even if half the total number of Russian families have their own domains, they still won’t be able to satisfy the demand for their produce over the next twenty to thirty years, since the demand will come not just from Russians but from many people abroad, especially in the rich, developed countries. The reason is that agricultural producers in most countries have got so caught up in the business of artificial selection and chemical treatment of crops that the original form of these crops has simply got lost—and I’m not just referring to how they look but to the fulness of their content. The example of cucumbers and tomatoes, though, gives everyone a chance to be convinced independently of the following: Go into any average supermarket—or, better still, into an up-scale supermarket (there are quite a few these days in our big cities)—and you will see very beautiful imported tomatoes and cucumbers, priced from 30 roubles^ per kilogram. They are uniform in size and a treat for the eyes, and sometimes they’re sold with the little green stems left on. But there’s no aroma and no taste. They’re mutants! They’re an illusion, a mock-up, only

an external reminder of what ought to be there. Most of the world today feeds on such mutants. This is not my discovery—it’s something people are concerned about in many of what we call the developed countries of the world. A decree was passed in Germany, for example, mandating product labelling to include information about the presence of artificial additives, and people who can afford to are boycotting these products. Products grown in ecoclean regions, using only limited quantities of chemical fertiliser, cost a lot dearer in the West. Only the current Western agricultural system does not permit farmers to grow produce that is ecologically clean through and through. Farmers in Western countries are obliged to use not only hired labour but all sorts of technology besides, including weed-destroying chemicals and chemical fertilisers, in their efforts to maximise their profit margins. Let’s say a Western farmer, and there are some of these already, wants to grow eco-clean produce, and even take what Anastasia said into account. You may remember she said that it wasn’t necessary to destroy all the weeds, since they too perform significant functions. But let’s say a farmer still wants to grow this kind of produce, if only for his family and friends. Right off he’s faced with a challenging problem: seeds. Artificial selection has done its work—the original varieties have long since disappeared in the West. And there are few of them left even in Russia. Especially after imported seed stock was allowed on the Russian market. If people use their own seed stocks, the variety of vegetables will gradually see a restoration of their original properties—drawing from the soil everything needed by Man—but a complete restoration will take decades. In Russia, possibly thanks to both poverty and the abundance of small private plots, many people are using their own seeds, and this turns out to be their greatest asset, the effects of which will soon be multiplied a hundredfold in monetary terms. We’re talking about seeds, about the necessity of growing crops in eco-clean zones and the avoidance of chemical fertilisers—all this is very good, something they’re talking about in a lot of countries But that’s it—only talk. There’s still a very real shortage of healthful and tasty agricultural produce In the world, especially in the developed countries. But that’s not all! The processing and preserving are of the utmost importance. In spite of all the efforts of our technocratic world, our highly equipped technological complexes are unable to match many Russian grandmothers in their production of marinated tomatoes, cucumbers and cabbages of superior taste quality What’s the secret? Apart from the many pearls of wisdom, few

people realize that once the tomatoes or cucumbers are plucked from the beds they have been growing in, no more than fifteen minutes should go by before they are sealed in preserving jars. The shorter this period the better. This is what preserves the marvelous aroma, the ethers and the aura. The same applies to the additives—dill, for example. Water is extremely important. What good can we possibly derive from using chlorinated, dead water? We can boil it, steam the jars, but there are people who take spring water and add huckleberries, among other things Would you like to try it yourselves? Just take a tumbler, fill it a third full of huckleberries, then fill it up with spring water, and you will be able to enjoy drinking this water even six months later. You will also notice the strikingly distinctive, superior quality of the fruits and vegetables preserved for the winter, one jar at a time, by these many Russian ‘crackerjacks’. These products’ preeminence in quality of taste over produce from even the most well-known food companies in the world is something each one of us can confirm for ourselves by simply comparing the two. Now let’s say a family living in its domain has canned a thousand litre-jars of tomatoes and cucumbers. The result is first-class produce, surpassing all others in many respects. In terms of taste quality and eco-clean production there is none like it anywhere on the planet. This produce becomes a highly desirable commodity for the tables of many consumers in various countries of the world, including American billionaires and tourists at Cyprus’ famed hotel resorts. And it will say on the labels: From wanov's dor,lain, From Petrovs domain, From Sidorov’s domain? etc. Of course entrepreneurs won’t be interested in selling just a thousand litrejars. But let’s say there are three hundred family domains in a community, they would end up with three hundred thousand jars, and that would get a major business firm’s attention. I would imagine that initially a jar would cost the same as one currently in the supermarket, somewhere around a dollar, but once people actually taste it, the price will go up, maybe as much as dozens of times. 9

Ivanov (pron. ee-va-NOFF), Petrov (pe-TROFF), Sidorov (SEE-da-raff)— three common Russian surnames. I mentioned cucumbers and tomatoes just as an example. There’s a whole lot of things that a domain can produce—for example, wines, liqueurs, sweet berry wines—from currants, raspberries, blackberries, sweet rowanberries— and so much else besides. Each person can make up their own ‘bouquet’, improving it more and more as time goes on. And no super-expensive elite wines will be able to compete with them. There aren’t any wine-making

materials anywhere in the world like those you can get in Russia. Besides, wines can be prepared using herbs according to ancient recipes, and can be made healthful and vitamin-enriched. Anastasia says that soon the hand-embroidered Russian kosovorotka14 will be considered the most fashionable garment in the world. So this is another line to think along. During the winter months families can prepare handmade wood-carvings. It all comes down to the folk saying: If you want to be happy, be it. You could also say: If you want to be rich, be it. The main thing is: not to program yourself for poverty. You should attune your expectations to wealth. It makes a lot more sense to think about how to become wealthy, and not to constantly tell yourself it’s impossible. Question. Anastasia maintains that it is a lot easier for young couples to hold on to their love for each other in a domain such as you describe than in a typical apartment. Please tell me whether you have discussed this point with psychologists or people who research family problems, and if so, what do they have to say about this, and what makes it happen? Answer. I haven’t talked about this with any academics. Just what precisely makes the love last longer is not something that frightfully interests me. The main thing is that it hangs in there. The fact that it happens is something you could possibly confirm for yourself after thinking it over. Consider where you would like to see your own son or daughter living—in a city flat, which is like a sack made of stone, or in a house surrounded with a magnificent garden? Consider what you would like to feed your daughter, or son, or grandchildren—tinned goods or fresh, ecologically clean produce? And in the long term, do you want to see your children living healthy lives or living off the local pharmacy? Ask any young woman who, other things being equal, she would prefer to marry—someone who had set up his life and his future family nest in a concrete apartment block or in a house with a splendid garden? I think the majority would choose the latter. Comment. The regeneration of any country can begin only on the basis of its spiritual rebirth. Certain members of our government, including the President, have realized this and started talking about spirituality. Anastasia is considered by a majority of readers to be a highly spiritual individual, living according to the laws of God the Creator. She speaks of spiritual values, while here you are leading people astray, calling them in particular to get involved in business on their own plots of land, thereby leading them away from spirituality.

Response. In the long term, I think that nobody will ever be able to lead mankind away from true values. It’s good that our leaders today are talking about spirituality As for Anastasia’s sayings, even though I didn’t always understand them myself at first, yet later they would still spill over into some kind of concrete reality. Concrete reality is more meaningful to me than philosophical musings, and so here I am talking about concrete things, which I consider most important on the spiritual plane as well. The world probably has a great many concepts of spirituality and God. After talking with Anastasia and trying to make sense out of what happened, such concepts started coming together for me too. For me God is a person. A good, smart and life-affirming person. A person aspiring to a happy existence for people, His children, to all alike and to each Man in particular. God is the Father, loving and caring for each one of us. Yet to each Man He has given complete freedom of choice. God is the wisest person, striving every moment to do only good for His children. And His Sun comes up each day, the grass and the flowers grow. Trees grow, clouds sail by and water gurgles, ready at any moment to quench any Man’s thirst. And I don’t believe, and nothing can ever make me believe, that our wise Father could ever think spirituality is something to be attained only by incessant talk about it without specific concrete actions. Ever since the so-called Iron Curtain fell, our country has been flooded with hordes of all sorts of people passing themselves off as religious preachers, and quite a few home-grown ones have popped up as well. All trying to tell us what God the Father wants of us. Some say we need to eat a special way, others teach us the best words to use in addressing God. Still others—the Krishnaites, for example, maintain that you have to jump up and down and chant mantras from morning ’til night. For me, all that’s balderdash. I can imagine no way of paining God more than through antics like that—all that jumping up and down and wailing. Any loving parent tries to see to it that his son or daughter carries on his father’s work, taking part in conjoint creations with him. God’s first-hand creations are all around us. And what can be a higher manifestation of our love for God than a caring attitude to them, or building our lives, our own well-being and that of our children with the help of these Divine creations? All these antics and meditations have not made us any happier—either our country as a whole or any of its citizens. individually; And the reason they have not made us happier is that they are leading us in exactly the opposite direction—away from truth, away from God. Their efforts have been intense and constant, tossing out all sorts of

new variations in their antics as truth. Doctrines come and go. Some of them which have been around for ages now only provoke mirth, while others pop up for a few years and then disappear without a trace like a flash in the pan, leaving only a trail of dirt, garbage and ruined lives in their wake. To my question as to why we are constantly compelled to listen to various rantings about God from all sorts of preachers, and why God does not speak His own words to us directly, Anastasia replied: “Words? The peoples of the Earth have so many words with different meanings. There are so many diverse languages and dialects. And yet there is one language for all. One language for all Divine callings. It is woven together out of the rustlings of the leaves, the songs of the birds and the roar of the waves. The Divine language has fragrance and colour. Through this language God responds to each one’s request and gives a prayerful response to prayer.”11 God talks with us every moment, but is it not our spiritual apathy that makes us unwilling to hear Him? All I have to do, comes the thought, is chant a mantra or jump up and down and heavenly manna will fall my way which will make me happy and choose me as rider over all. Presto—no sooner said than done! And here we have to spend years setting up our Paradise, waiting until our trees grow and bear their fruit and our flowers blossom Yet if we don’t do that we are not only rejecting God, we are actually insulting Him— degrading Him with our antics and pompous verbalisations. u

Quoted from Book 4, Chapter 11: “Three prayers”.

Of course you can refuse to listen to Anastasia, and especially to me. But ultimately, at some point you will walk into a springtime forest or garden, where you will stand still and listen to your heart. Many people’s hearts will most certainly hear the Father’s voice. As to the question of what God can do in the face of the energies of annihilation holding sway on the Earth, to say nothing of so many people taking His name in vain even as they strive to gain personal power over others, the Father (according to Anastasia) has replied: “I shall come up as the dawn at the inception of the oncoming day By caressing all creations on the Earth without exception, the rays of the Sun will help My daughters and sons understand that each one in their own soul can hold conversation with My Soul.”12 He believed—and still believes—in us, affirming: “There is one main defence against all the many and varied causes leading one into dire straits, against all the barriers that a lie can throw up in one’s face—namely, the fact that My daughters and sons aspire to the conscious

awareness of truth. A lie inevitably has its limits, but truth is limitless—it will impart itself as a conscious awareness to the hearts of My daughters and sons.” So, there is no excuse for tardiness in retrieving from one’s heart the conscious awareness of God’s son—not of a slave or some half-crazed biorobot jumping up and down to the jingling of a bell. But how much can one ask of the Father—“Give me!” “Grant me!” “Set me free!”? Isn’t it time we ourselves did something pleasing for our Father? And what could be pleasing or bring joy to Him? In response to a question like this, Anastasia once referred to a simple test we can make use of ''This and the following quotation are taken (with slight variations) from Book 4, Chapter 6: “First encounter”. to verify the authenticity of the many religious concepts and tendencies we are faced with. She described it this way: “When your heart is stirred by something someone says, claiming to speak in the Father’s name, take a look at how the preacher lives his own life, and then imagine what the world would be like if everybody started to live that way.” This simple test can help verify a lot of things. I tried imagining what mankind would be like if everybody to a man started chanting mantras from morning ’til night the way the Krishnaites do, and the immediate result was the end of the world. Now imagine how it would be if every Man on the Earth started growing his own garden. The Earth, naturally, would be transformed into a blossoming garden of Paradise. As an entrepreneur—all right, a former entrepreneur, but still one at heart—I like specifics, and perhaps that’s why I consider ‘spiritual’ someone who can take actions which will be beneficial to the Earth, his family, his parents and, consequently, God. If someone who calls himself spiritual cannot happify either himself or the woman of his heart, or his family or children, then that is a false spirituality. Question. Anastasia spoke of a fundamentally different approach to education for children, and a new school. Is this something feasible only in the kind of community she has designed, or in our major urban centres too? What does Shchetinin15 think about this? Back in your first book you quoted Anastasia as saying she considers raising children a top priority and was always trying to bring up the subject, whereas you seem to be constantly avoiding it—it almost never comes up in your books. Why? Answer. Mikhail Petrovich Shchetinin set up his boarding school in the forest. As soon as the foundation is laid for the first community consisting of

families’ own domains, we shall have to ask Mikhail Petrovich to work out a special programme for the future school. And if he cannot teach in it himself, I shall ask him to at least send his best pupils to it, and select appropriate instructors from among those currently teaching. I don’t think setting up a school like that in today’s urban centres is really feasible. Anastasia’s sayings aside, let’s just think back to our own schooldays. You hear one thing at school, another in the street and still something else at home. While you are trying to figure out where the truth lies, trying to get a complete picture of the world, half your life goes by I think we have to try and start living a normal life ourselves before trying to educate our children. And once we have got a life set up that’s worthy of human existence, then we can take care of our children in partnership with the school, working in harmony, complementing each other. Anastasia, indeed, often speaks about bringing up children, but she doesn’t talk about anything resembling a system scheduled according to days, hours and minutes. And quite often what she says is not all that clear. She says, for example, that a child’s education begins with your own education, with setting up a happy existence for yourself, with your own attempts to get in touch with God’s thoughts. And one of the principal points in this education is precisely the setting up of a splendid kin’s domain. CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

The philosophy of life I visited this man three times in all. He lives in a prestigious dacha community not far from Moscow. His two sons, who hold some sort of fairly high positions in the government hierarchy built their ageing father a large two-storey mansion and hired a housekeeper to look after both the house and their father. At best they come to see their father once a year on his birthday. His name is Nikolai Fiodorovich,16 and he’s already in his seventies. His legs ache, and so almost the whole time he sits in his imported wheel-chair. His huge mansion is designed in the best European style, with half the ground floor taken up by his study with its multitudes of shelves home to a considerable collection of books in a variety of languages. Most of these books are on philosophy, in expensive leather bindings. Before his retirement, Nikolai Fiodorovich taught philosophy at a prestigious Moscow university, and has several academic degrees. In his more senior years he settled into this mansion, and spends almost all his

time in his study reading and reflecting. I got to know him thanks to the persistence of his housekeeper Galina, who came to one of my readers’ conferences. I am grateful to her for introducing us. Nikolai Fiodorovich had read the books about Anastasia, and he was a most interesting chap to talk with. In spite of his academic degrees, this old fellow could explain in simple, straightforward terms things that had not always been clear to me in Anastasia’s sayings, as well as reveal new aspects he had discovered in them. After the publication of my third book, The Space of Love, the office of the Anastasia Foundation forwarded several letters to me written by the leaders of various religious denominations, aggressively denouncing Anastasia, calling her a fool and a scoundrel. One of them even wrote a long letter replete with obscene language. I was at a loss to understand why Anastasia had suddenly started provoking such unmitigated aggression among certain religious leaders, and so I decided to send some of these letters along to Nikolai Fiodorovich for his opinion. Two months later his housekeeper Galina came to see me, having looked me up at my hotel. She was very distraught and pleaded with me to come see Nikolai Fiodorovich right away, as she was concerned about his health. It was hard to resist Galina’s insistence. Galina had a gorgeous, solid physique. Not fat, she was simply a large and physically strong Russian woman in her early forties. She had spent her whole life in some Ukrainian village, driving trucks and tractors and looking after cows. She was an excellent cook with a good knowledge of herbs, and was extremely neat. Whenever she got excited she would lapse into her thick Ukrainian accent.2 "Ukrainian accent—a ‘softer’ and more relaxed pronunciation by comparison with the terser manner of speaking in north and central Russia (not unlike the difference between the American Southern drawl and the more clipped Canadian speech). In Ukrainian (and some south Russian dialects), the name Galina would sound more like Halina. I have no idea how Nikolai Fiodorovich’s sons happened to find her and set her up as a nursemaid to their father, but it was curious to see this ageing intellectual, a philosophy professor, talking with a country woman of limited educational background. Galina had been allocated a room of her own in the mansion. It would have been fine for her simply to look after the household affairs—she did this quite well—but she couldn’t help listening to what Nikolai Fiodorovich and I were saying to each other. She would invariably think up something that needed doing in our presence and start dusting a

particular spot over and over again, all the while commenting aloud on what she was hearing, as though talking to herself. This time Galina had come to collect me in the Niva,3 which Nikolai Fiodorovich’s sons had purchased so she could go grocery-shopping in the town when necessary, or drive into the woods to gather herbs, or fetch medicines for their father. I dropped what I was working on and went with her. Driving through the streets of Moscow, Galina was very quiet—she looked tense behind the wheel, and I even noticed drops of sweat on her face —until we got past the outer ring road. Once she found herself on a familiar route, she breathed a noticeable sigh of relief. Now she was much more relaxed behind the wheel and started quickly telling me about all her concerns in her mixture of Ukrainian and Russian. “He was sure quiet back then. The man would sit the whole livelong day just quietly in his wheel-chair, readin’ books and thinkin’ to hisself. I’d make up hominy grits or oatmeal for ’in every morning, I’d feed him and I could then go to the market or maybe into the woods to get some herbs—for his health, ya know. I could go with a clear conscience, see, knowing he’d—a Russian make of four-wheel-drive sports utility vehicle, produced since 1977 by the Volga Automobile Factory in Toliatti, which also makes the Zhiguli—see footnote 1 in Book 4, Chapter 22: “Other worlds”. be sittin’ in that chair of his thinkin’ his thoughts or readin’ a book. “But now it’s all different. I brought him the letters you sent. He read ’em. Jest two days after that he says to me: Take some money, Galina Nikiforovna, go an’ buy some of those Anastasia books, an’ then go to the market, no need to hurry home. Stay there at the market an’ watch the people. As soon as you see somebody who looks sad or sick, give ’em a book. I did this once, even twice, but there was no way he’d quiet down. ‘Don’t worry about my dinner, Galina Nikiforovna,’ says he, ‘I’ll make do myself, if I get hungry’ But I still always made it home in time for dinner. “But the other day when I got home from the market I went into his book room as usual to give ’in some herbal tea. An’ hey, his chair’s empty, and if he ain’t lying there face down on the carpet! I rush over to the telephone and grab the receiver to dial the doctor’s number, just like his sons told me to. They even gave me a special number, not the one everybody uses. So I call up and cry ‘Help!’ into the telephone. An’ jest then he lifts his head an’ says to me: ‘Cancel the call, Galina Nikiforovna, I’m okay I’m jest doin’ some exercises pushups.’ So I dash over to him, pick him plumb up off the floor and set him back in his chair. How’d he ever get hisself up off the floor with those achin’ legs of his? “‘What kind of exercise is it,’ I says to him, ‘when someone jest lays on the

floor?’ And he replies: ‘I’d already done my exercises an’ was jest restin’. No need for you to worry yer little head over.’ “The next day he’d gotten out of his chair again onto the floor to do his exercises. So I went out and bought him some dumb-bells—not dumb-bells, exactly—something called an ex-pander. With handles and elastic bands— you can hook up jest one band to make it easier, four when you’ve got a bit more strength. I bought him this expander, see, but he still keeps tryin’ to get up out of his chair, jest like a kid who don’t know any better. His heart ain’t any too young. An’ seein’ it ain’t too young, he shouldn’t try things too heavy all at once, he has to do it one step at a time. But he’s just like a foolish child. “It’s pretty near five years I’ve been workin’ for him now, an’ nothin’ like this ever happened before. An’ I haven’t a clue myself as to what’s goin’ on in my heart. You have a talk with him, tell him to at least go easy on his exercises if he likes ’em so much. Tell him to go easy” When I entered Nikolai Fiodorovich’s spacious study, the hearth was cheerily ablaze. The old philosophy professor was not sitting in his wheelchair as usual, but at his large desk, writing or sketching out something. Even his outward appearance told me that something was different about him. He was not wearing his customary dressing-gown, but sported a proper shirt and tie. He greeted me with more vigour than usual, quickly invited me to take a seat and, bypassing the traditional “How-are-you’s”, started in talking. Nikolai Fiodorovich spoke fervently, passionately: 1 pirozhok (plural:pirozhkt)—a small Russian pastry with a filling, akin to a Ukrainian pierogie. See footnote 2 in Book 2, Chapter 11: “A sharp aboutturn”. 2 kvass— a fermented beverage made from rye, barley or other natural products. 3 Russian carvings—these might include sacred solar symbols, such as a horse at the front of the roof finial, believed to protect the house and its occupants from evil. Such carvings are found on many a Russian terem (mansion) or izba (hut). Some of these carvings are featured on a decorated board known as a nalichnik (see footnote 3 in Book 3, Chapter 10: “Work out your own happiness”). 4

Ekaterinka— like Ekaterinushka, a diminutive of the Russian name Ekaterina (pron. ye-ka-te-REE-na) equivalent to Catherine in English. 5 Vanechka—a diminutive of the Russian name Ivan (corresponding to the English name John). 6 Neva (pron. ni-VAH)—the river that flows through the city of St. Petersburg into the Gulf of Bosnia and the Baltic Sea. The city was founded on the swampy delta of the Neva River by Emperor Peter the Great in 1703 as Russia’s new capital and ‘window on the West’. Partial to Western (especially Germanic) cultures, he gave the city a German-style name after his own patron saint. In 1914, at the onset of the First World War, the name was russified to Petrograd. The Bolsheviks who came to power with the 1917 revolution immediately moved the seat of government back to Moscow, and after Lenin’s death in 1924 renamed the former capital in his honour. During World War II Leningrad endured a 900-day siege and blockade by the Nazis but was never captured. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, a vote by the city’s residents in 1991 restored its original name. “Nevsky Prospekt (Nevsky Avenue)—the principal thoroughfare of St. Petersburg, stretching more than four kilometres from the Admiralty to the Alexander Nevsky Monastery. Named after Grand Prince Alexander Nevsky (1220-1263) who defended the territory against attacks by Swedish 7 We’ve outstayed our welcome—the original Russian phrase (Vrernia zdes’uzhe tie nashe) can also be interpreted to mean: ‘The age you live in here is no longer the age we live in’. 8 Gelendzhik— see footnote 2 in Book 1, Chapter 30: ‘Author’s message to readers”. On one of the readers’ conferences in Gelendzhik, see Book 4, Chapter 34: ‘Anomalies at Gelendzhik”. 9 Central Letters Club— in Russian: Tsentral’nyi Dom literatorov (literally: Central House of Literati). 10 Commonwealth of Independent States—an organisation of countries comprising most of the former members of the Soviet Union. It was

formally launched at a conference in Alma-Ata (Kazakhstan) on 21 December 1991, following the official dissolution of the USSR at a conference in Alinsk (Belarus) earlier the same month. 11 Chechnya (pronounced chich-NYAH)—a small, predominantly Muslim republic of about 800,000 people in the Northern Caucasus area of the Russian Federation. With its capital at Grozny, Chechnya is situated to the north of Georgia (a former Soviet republic, now an independent country). Chechnya was forcibly annexed by the Russian Empire in 1859, and throughout history, a part of the Chechen population has fiercely resisted Russian rule. The Chechens’ striving for independence has been constantly suppressed by the Russian Federation, and in the mid-1990s this led to a military conflict which has not been settled to the present day (mid-2006). 12 Riazan—a city (whose history dates back to the late nth century) on the Oka River about 200 km south-east of Moscow, with a population of slightly more than a half million. 13 Ivanovna (pron. ee-VAHN-av-na)—a patronymic derived from her father’s name Ivan (not a surname). In informal circumstances older people can be addressed by the patronymic alone, and the full form Ivanovna is nearly always shortened to something like Ivanna. 14 kosovorotka (lit. ‘skewed-collar’)—a Russian men’s shirt with an off-centre buttoned opening near the top and embroidered collar, cuffs and hem. 15 Mikhail Petrovich Shchetinin—a well-known Russian educator who founded an alternative school at Tekos in the Caucasus based on ideas similar to Anastasia’s. For a description of the school—where pupils cover the 11-year Russian school curriculum in only two years—see Book 3, Chapter 17: “Put your vision of happiness into practice” and Chapter 18: ‘Academician Shchetinin”. 16 Fiodorovich— a patronymic derived from the Russian name Fedor (also spelt Fiodor in English, which is closer to the actual pronunciation). Similarly, the feminine patronymic Nikiforovna (to be encountered presently) is derived from Nikifor.

“Do you know, Vladimir, what marvelous times are coming upon our Earth? I don’t want to die—I want to live on this kind of Earth. I read the letters with all those obscenities directed at Anastasia. Thank you for passing them along to me. In many respects it was a real eye-opener. They call Anastasia a taiga recluse, an enchantress, a sorceress, whereas in fact she is a warrior par excellence. Indeed, just think about it, Anastasia is a warrior par excellence for the forces of light. Her significance and greatness are something that will be appreciated by future generations. “The human consciousness, mind and feelings expressed in the sagas, folk tales and legends that have been passed down to us were incapable of even imagining the greatness of this warrior. Only please don’t be surprised, Vladimir, don’t get touchy as you usually do about Anastasia. Yes, she is Man she is a woman endowed with all—and I mean all—of human nature, with all the feminine weaknesses and virtues, designed to be a mother, but at the same time she is also a great warrior! Right this moment! “I shall try to express myself not quite so abstrusely It all comes down to the philosophical concept. You see, Vladimir, on the shelves of my study there are a great many books. These are philosophical works of thinkers of different times and from different parts of the globe.” Pointing to his bookshelves, Nikolai Fiodorovich listed them off one by one. “That’s ancient rhetoric, talking about the living, animated body of the cosmos. Next to that is what’s been written about Socrates—he himself didn’t write anything. Over to the right you see Lucretius, Plutarch and Marcus Aurelius. A little lower down are five epic poems of Nizami Ganjavi.1 Further along there are Arani,2 Descartes, Franklin, Kant, Laplace,3 Hegel and Stendhal.4 All of these men attempted to learn the central essence of things, to fathom the laws of the Universe. It was people such as these Durant3 was referring to when he wrote: “‘The history of philosophy is essentially an account of the efforts great men have made to avert social distintegration by building up natural moral sanctions to take the place of the supernatural sanctions which they themselves have destroyed.’5 6 “Great thinkers,” Nikolai Fiodorovich continued, “have attempted, each in their own way, to get closer to the concept of the Absolute. Their philosophical concepts gave rise to religion-like philosophical tendencies which in turn passed into history. Eventually, having defied all the timid counter attempts, the dominant concept in our lifetime has turned out to be, to put it concisely, the concept of subjection to some kind of Supreme Mind. Its precise location is unimportant, be it in the infinite spaces of the Universe

or localised in the essence of a particular human soul. Much more important is the fact that the concept of subjection or inclination dominates over everything else. After that come the particulars—subjection to a teacher, a mentor or a ritual. “My collections also include Nostradamus’ prophecies. Taken as a whole, they constitute a philosophical concept, namely that man is perishable, corruptible and insignificant, and that he has a lot to learn. This concept is precisely what distorts and destroys the soul of Man. No one who adheres to this concept can be truly happy Not a single person on the Earth can be happy as long as such a concept is dominant in Man’s consciousness. “It weighs equally upon the philosopher and the one who has never gone near philosophy in his life. It weighs equally upon the newborn and the aged. It weighs upon the foetus in the mother’s womb. Many adherents of this concept are living today. They have been around at different times, and today their followers are proselytising human society with their beliefs in the frailty and insignificance of Man’s essence. But no! Other times are upon us! Anastasia’s words from God were like a flash of light to me. You wrote them down, Vladimir, I remember them. When Adam asked God: “‘Where is the edge of the Universe? What will I do when I come to it? When I myself fill everything, and have created everything I have conceived?’7 “And God replied to His son, replied to us all: “‘My son. The Universe itself is a thought, a thought from which was born a dream, which is partially visible as matter. When you approach the edge of all creation, your thought will reveal a new beginning and continuation. From obscurity will arise a new and resplendent birth of you, and it will reflect in itself your soul, your dreams, your whole aspirations. My son, you are infinite, you are eternal, within you are your dreams of creation.’ “What a perfect, philosophically comprehensive, precise and concise response that explains it all! It stands head and shoulders above all our philosophical definitions taken together. You can see for yourself, Vladimir, the vast collection of books on my library shelves, but the one Book which is worth far more than all the volumes ever published on philosophy taken together is missing. Many have seen this Book, but few are afforded the opportunity to read it. The language of this Book is not one that can be studied, but it can be felt.” “What language is that?” “The language of God, Vladimir. May I remind you of how Anastasia described it:

“‘The peoples of the Earth have so many words with different meanings. There are so many diverse languages and dialects. And yet there is one language for all. One language for all Divine callings. It is woven together out of the rustlings of the leaves, the songs of the birds and the roar of the waves. The Divine language has fragrance and colour. Through this language God responds to each one’s request and gives a prayerful response to prayer.’11 “Anastasia can feel and understand this language, but what about us? How can it be that we have let it go unheeded for centuries? Think of the logic! Cold logic dictates that if God created the Earth and the Nature that lives all around us, then every blade of grass, every tree and cloud, the water and the stars can only be His materialised thoughts. “But we simply pay no attention to them, we trample them, break them, disfigure them, all the while talking about our faith. What kind of faith is that? Who are we really worshipping? “‘The parade of worldly rulers, no matter what grand temples they might have built, will be remembered only by the filth they have bequeathed to their descendants. Water will prove to be the criterion, the measure of all things. Every day that passes, water seethes with more and more contamination.’12 That’s how Anastasia put it. That could only have been said by a consummate philosopher, and it behoves all of us to ponder that statement. “Just think, Vladimir, anything we construct, even if it is for worship, is temporal, just like religion itself. Religions come 11

Quoted from Book 4, Chapter 11: “Three prayers”.

12

Quoted from Book 3, Chapter 24: “Who are you, Anastasia?” (only with a different sentence order). and go, along with their temples and philosophies. Water has existed since the creation of the world, just as we have. After all, we too are composed, by and large, of water.” “But Nikolai Fiodorovich, why do you think Anastasia’s definitions are the most accurate?” “Because they are taken from that one Book that covers everything. And their logic, Vladimir, is the logic of philosophy There’s one preceding statement, given in God’s name, in which God answers the question ‘What do you so fervently desire?’, and His answer is directed to every single entity in the Universe: “‘Conjoint creation and joy for all from its contemplation.’8

“Just one brief sentence! Only a few words, that’s all! Just a few words to express God’s aspiration and desire. None of the great philosophers have been able to give a more precise and accurate definition. ‘One must perceive reality through one’s self,’ says Anastasia.9 So any parent who loves their children should determine whether this may not be what they are really dreaming about. Who among us, being the son or the daughter of God, would not desire conjoint creation with our children and joy from its contemplation? “What consummate power and wisdom are contained in these philosophical definitions of Anastasia’s! They are absolutely crucial for mankind! They are effective. The hosts of doomsayers have lined themselves up against them. They will continue to manifest themselves—not just in the form of cursing Anastasia in correspondence, but in a variety of ways. Many smallminded preachers will gather a fistful of followers around them and look as if they are preaching truth to people—people who are too lazy to think for themselves. Anastasia has already said about these: “‘Woe unto you who call yourselves teachers of human souls! Cool the passions of your heart, and may everyone now know: the Creator has given all to each one right from the start. The Truth has been there right from the start in each one’s soul. And we need only refrain from hiding the Creator’s great creations under the murky domain of dogma and conventions, the murk of inventions for the sake of one’s own selfish interests.’13 “These are the people who will try to pounce on Anastasia. Because Anastasia is utterly destroying their philosophy With her own philosophical concept she is actually forestalling the end of the world. And this is our reality today: we are witnessing and participating in the greatest deeds of all time. Here we are at the threshold of a new millennium, and we are entering upon a new reality. We are already living in this reality” “Wait, Nikolai Fiodorovich. I didn’t get what you said about reality and deeds. Let’s say one—or maybe two—philosophers said something. And Anastasia says it, too—what have reality and deeds got to do with it? It’s all just words. Philosophers talk, and life goes on unfolding in its own way.” “The life of any human society has always been constructed, as it is today, under the influence of philosophical concepts. The Jewish philosophy was one way of life, the crusaders’ philosophy was another. Hitler had his own philosophy, and we under the Soviet regime had ours. Revolution, after all, is only one philosophical concept taking the place of another. But all that amounts to details determined by local conditions. What Anastasia has accomplished is much more global in scale. It has an impact on human society as a whole and on each member of society in particular. She said she

would transport mankind across the dark forces’ window of time.10 She has done this, Vladimir. She has set up a bridge over the abyss which everyone may cross, and each one is free to decide whether to go across it or not. “I am a philosopher, Vladimir. I can now see this very clearly What’s more, I can feel it. Her philosophical concept shines like a clear ray of light on the threshold of a new millennium. And each one of us, at any given moment, acts this way or that depending on our individual philosophical convictions. If these change, then our actions change accordingly. As I was sitting in my study, for example, and reading through various philosophical works, I pitied all mankind, inevitably moving toward its doom. I wondered where I would be buried, and would my sons and grandchildren come to my funeral, or whether it would be too much trouble for them to come see their grandfather. I pitied all mankind, and thought of my own death. And then along came Anastasia, with an entirely different philosophical concept, and my actions took an about turn.” “How would you do things differently now, for example?” “Well, I’ll tell you. Now Now when I get up in the morning I start acting in accord with my new philosophical concept.” Nikolai Fiodorovich got up, bracing his arms against the table. Then, holding on first to the chair, then a bookshelf, he managed to make his way on his aching legs over to one of the bookcases. He looked at the titles on each spine, then pulled out one book in an expensive leather binding and headed over to the fireplace, leaning on various pieces of furniture as he went. Tossing the book into the blazing hearth, he explained: “Those are the prophecies of Nostradamus about all sorts of cataclysms and the end of the world. D’you remember, Vladimir, Anastasia’s words on this? You should remember them. She says: “‘The dates you gave, Nostradamus, for fearful cataclysms on the Earth, were not predictions. You created them out of your own thought and persuaded people to accept their implementation. Now they are still hovering over the Earth, still frightening people with their sense of despair.’11 This could only have been said by a consummate philosopher and thinker, one who understands that a prophecy is nothing more than an attempt to set a direction for future developments. The more people believe in universal doom, the greater will be the number of thoughts attempting to outline the image, and it will come to pass. “It can come to pass simply because human thought is material and creates what is material. And whole sects immolate themselves in different parts of the world—that is, the ones who believe in doom immolate themselves,

while the ones who have faith in the future live. And she is fearless in the face of despair. She completely destroys any notion of the end of the world when she declares: “‘But now they will no longer come true. Let your thought join in fray with mine. I am Man! Anastasia I am. And I am stronger than you.’ And again she says: All anger on Earth, leave your deeds and make haste to me, join fray with me, try your utmost.’ And again: ‘With my Ray I shall take but a moment to burn up the murk of age-old dogma.’ She alone has gone out to fight against the countless hordes. Against the millions who outline an image of mankind’s total doom. And she doesn’t want to involve us in this fight. She only wants us to be happy and so she says in her prayer addressed to God: In your bright dream the coming ages all will live and share. It shall be so! I wish it so! I am a daughter of Yours. My Father, You are present every where.18 “And she will get her wish. Her philosophy is extraordinarily potent. And the coming ages will indeed live in the Divine dream, in splendid gardens of Paradise. “And she will not distract anyone with memories of herself. People will not build monuments to her nor reminisce about her when it is clear to everyone where true humanity lies. People will simply drink in the Divine nature, they won’t be thinking about her. But flowers will bloom in various gardens, including one splendid flower named Anastasia. “I am old, but I am willing to serve as her foot-soldier even today You say Vladimir, that philosophy is just a bunch of words. But these words, spoken somewhere in the far-off taiga, have been enthusiastically taken in by my heart, and here you have first-hand evidence of concrete material actions: it is not mankind that is perishing in the flames, but predictions of the doom of humanity That is why the doomsayers are all stirred up and have set their forces in array Anastasia has stirred up people who have built their philosophy on such a scenario and manipulated mankind for their own purposes with the threat of the ‘inevitable’ end of the world.” “Hasn’t anyone before Anastasia come out against the notion of the end of the world?” “There have been a few timid—but ultimately insignificant—attempts, but they’ve hardly received any attention. Nobody, but nobody, has spoken out as she has. Nobody’s words have been accepted so readily and joyfully as hers, in any human heart. And not a single philosophical concept has ever taken hold of people this way. But hers has taken hold. It is burning up the

murk of age-old dogma. “How she does it—well, that’s not for us to grasp at the moment. There is an extraordinary rhythm in her words, and a consummate logic, possibly something else. Possibly No, undoubtedly! ‘The Creator,’ she says, ‘has shone forth with some kind of new energy! An energy that tells us anew about something we see around us every day’19 “Undoubtedly a new energy has made its appearance in the Universe, and more and more people in our time are starting to possess it day by day The fact is that decades and possibly even centuries, as a rule, are required to spread a significant philosophical concept. And here it’s only taken her a few years Amazing! “You surmised, Vladimir, that her words were simply words. But her words are so strong that—you see these hands?” He raised one of his hands, looked at it and added: “Even these old hands of mine are materialising her words. And the whole prospect of the end of the world is burning up in flames. And life will go on. These hands can still help life go on. The hands of one of Anastasia’s foot-soldiers.” Holding on to the furniture, Nikolai Fiodorovich made his way over to the table and picked up a pitcher of water. Bracing himself with one hand against the wall, he headed over to the window. It was a challenge, but he made it. On the windowsill stood a beautiful flower-pot, in which a green shoot, still very young, was sprouting up from the earth. “Look, my baby cedar’s come up at last. And now my hands will water it, materialising the words that are close to my heart.” Bracing one hip against the windowsill, Nikolai Fiodorovich grasped the pitcher with both hands and said: “The water isn’t too cold for you, my dear?” After a moment’s thought, he took a swallow of the water, held it in his mouth for a little while and then, resting his hands on the windowsill, let a thin stream of water spew from his mouth onto the earth beside the green shoot. Galina was in the study during our conversation. She was always thinking up some excuse to be in his study She would bring tea, or start dusting, all the while muttering quietly to herself, commenting on what she had heard and seen. These last actions of Nikolai Fiodorovich evoked a rather louder comment than usual: “Now what’s the point of that? Any decent person might wonder. Here he goes doin’ tricks like that in ’is old age. He won’t ride in his wheel-chair, he goes an’ tortures his agein’ legs, makin’ ’em walk like that. An’ somehow people ain’t satisfied. Here it is nice an’ warm an’ comfy at home, but it

ain’t enough for them, jes’ ain’t enough!” I remembered Galina being concerned about Nikolai Fiodorovich’s health and asking me to warn him about something, only now I couldn’t figure out what there was to warn him about, and I asked him: “What have you thought up this time, Nikolai Fiodorovich?” He was a bit emotional, but said distinctly: “I have a big favour to request of you, Vladimir. I ask you only to respect an old man’s wishes.” “Go ahead. I’ll be happy to oblige if I can.” “I've heard say you’re planning to get people together who want to start building an ecological settlement. You want to see about having a hectare of land granted each family to set up a kin’s domain.” “Yes, I do. The Anastasia Foundation has already submitted a proposal to several regional administrations about this. But there’s been no decision on land grants as yet. They’ve offered a few small allotments, just for a handful of families each, but unless we have a minimum of a hundred and fifty families, we shan’t be able to afford the cost of any infrastructure.” “They’ll grant the land, Vladimir. Most definitely they’ll grant it.” “That would be good. But what about this favour you want?” “When they start handing out land for kin’s domains, and they’ll definitely be doing this all over Russia, I would ask you, Vladimir, not to forget about an old man. Please, don’t forget to count me in. I too want to establish my own piece of the Motherland before I die.” Nikolai Fiodorovich started getting more and more excited, his words came quickly and with passion: “To establish it for myself. For my children and grandchildren. See, I’m growing my own baby cedar in this pot, so I can plant the seedling in a piece of my Motherland with my own hands. I shan’t be a burden to anyone. Ill set everything up on my own hectare of land, I’ll put in a garden and plant a living fence. I’ll be able to help my neighbours. I have some savings, and I keep receiving honoraria for various articles. My sons—whatever else you say about them, they never refuse any financial help. I’ll build myself a little house there and I can help finance construction for my neighbours.” “Now that’ll be a fine sight to see!” Galina was muttering even louder than before. “People don’t stop to think of it—how you can plant a garden when your legs don’t move. And here he is plannin’ on helpin’ his neighbours. Oh, if decent folk could only hear that! What would decent folk think? Here

his sons have built ’in a house like this—he should jest live and be happy, and thank his sons and God for it. But people jes’ can’t sit still. They’ve gotta keep thinkin’ up things like that right into their old age. What might decent folk think about people like that?” Nikolai Fiodorovich heard what Galina said, but didn’t pay any attention to her, or at least pretended to ignore her, and went on: “I realize, Vladimir, that my decision may be treated as excessive emotionalism, but that’s not how it is. My decision is the fruit of extensive reflection. I may appear to enjoy a fine life, but that’s only an appearance. I have a mansion fully equipped—practically a palace I’ve got a housekeeper to take care of it My sons have done pretty well for themselves But you know, before learning about Anastasia I was as good as dead. “Yes, Vladimir, dead. Look, I’ve been living here for over four years now I spend most of my time in my study. I’m useful to no one, and there’s literally nothing I can have an impact on. And the same fate awaits my sons and grandchildren. It’s the fate of experiencing your death while you’re still alive. “They call Man dead, Vladimir, when he stops breathing, but that’s not the case. Man dies the moment he stops being useful to others and is no longer in charge of anything. “The neighbours’ houses around here aren’t quite so grand, but I don’t have any friends among them. And my sons have asked me not to announce my name even to the neighbours. There are a lot of jealous types about, wondering whose house this is—a house that’s practically a palace. Once they find out, they’ll splash my name all over the media, enquiring how I managed to finance this set-up. They’ll never believe it was my own hardearned money. The way I sit here, I may as well be in prison, or even dead. I just sit here in my study, never go upstairs—there’s no reason for me to. Certainly I have a lot of philosophical publications to my name, but after finding out about Anastasia. “I’ll tell you right off, Vladimir—and please don’t take what I say as a fantasy of old age—I’ll prove to you what I’m about to say is true. You realize, Vladimir—right now, right this very moment, God’s judgment is coming to pass.” “Judgement? But where and how? Why doesn’t anybody know about this?” “You realize, Vladimir, for so long we’ve imagined this judgment to be the coming of some kind of terrible Being from on high, with its terrible entourage. And this Supreme Being is supposed to tell each of us where we’ve been right and wrong. Then this Supreme Being is supposed to mete

out punishment in due measure, sending whoever’s being judged to either heaven or hell. How primitively we’ve pictured God’s judgment! “But God isn’t some primitive creature. He can’t judge that way He has given Man eternal freedom, and any kind of judgment is a violation of one’s person, it’s a deprivation of freedom.” “Then what did you mean when you said something about God’s judgment coming to pass right this very moment?” “And I’ll say it again: God’s judgment is coming to pass right this very moment. Everyone is given the opportunity to judge himself. “I realize now what Anastasia’s done. Her philosophy, power and logic are speeding up the processes. Just think, Vladimir, many people will believe her, and bring the idea of these splendid Divine communities to fruition. Once they believe, they’ll find themselves in a garden of Paradise. Others won’t believe and will remain where they are now. Everything in the world is relative. “At the moment we are not in a position to compare our life with any other, and so we think our lifestyle is tolerable. But when it is put side by side with another kind of life, when the unbelievers finally believe, they will see themselves in hell. Some people count themselves happy simply because they don’t know how unhappy they really are. God’s judgment is coming to pass right before our eyes, but it is strange to our way of thinking. “This isn’t just my discovery I know of this psychologist in Novosibirsk who’s undertaken a study of how various population groups react to Anastasia’s sayings—she’s said practically the same thing. I don’t know her personally—I’ve only read her conclusions in print, and they’re similar to my own. “People in various cities and towns are feeling and realizing the majesty of what’s been taking place. Professor Yeriomkin, whose poems have been published in the people’s collection,12 is another one who’s described the Anastasia phenomenon in magnificent verse. I’d like to remind you, Vladimir, of these lines he dedicated to Anastasia: In yon I have beheld a Man quite clearly, Possibly:from the end of another era, Where, midst goddesses, my own grandchildren too Will be an embodiment of you. “I memorised these beautiful lines. I want my grandchildren, too, to live among the goddesses, and therefore I want to provide this opportunity for

them, I want to begin establishing for them a piece of our splendid Motherland. Just to buy a piece of property, even more than one hectare in size, is no problem for me, but it is important to me who my neighbours are. And so I want to set up my property in a circle of people who share my way of thinking. To set it up for my grandchildren. One of them will most certainly want to live there. And my sons will want to come and rest there in their father’s garden from the bustle of daily life. At the moment they come and see me only on rare occasions. But they will come to the garden I shall set up. I shall ask that I be buried in this garden. My sons will come. “I’m talking about my grandchildren, my sons, but above all I need to create something inherent in the essence of Man, otherwise You see, Vladimir All at once I have acquired the desire to live and be active. I can do it. I shall become a foot-soldier and enlist in Anastasia’s cause.” “You can live just as well right where you are. Why don’t you jes’ live out a good quiet life right here?” Galina enquired. This time Nikolai Fiodorovich took it upon himself to reply He turned to her and said: “I can understand your concern, Galina Nikiforovna. You’re afraid of losing your job and a roof over your head. Please don’t worry—I’ll help you build a little house nearby you’ll have your own little house and your own plot of land. You’11 get married—you’ll find the one meant just for you.” All at once Galina straightened up to her full height, threw her white rag down on the side-table—the rag she had been pretending to dust with all during our conversation—and placed her hands on her solidly built thighs. She looked as though she wanted to say something, but couldn’t, as though her emotional state had cut short her breath. Then, mustering up her strength, she managed to pronounce quietly: “Well mebbe I don’t like the idea of bein’ close to a neighbour like you Anyways, I can build my own house, just as soon as I get my land. When I was a kid I helped my father build a log cabin. And I’ve saved up a pretty penny. Besides, workin’ around here ain’t so pleasant. Who is there to clean up for day after day upstairs? Nobody ever goes upstairs, yet here I am, cleanin’ up like a damn fool after nobody. I don’t want to live in a neighbourhood if the neighbours don’t have their head screwed on right!” Galina did a sharp about-turn and quickly headed off to her room. But presently the door of her room opened, and Galina re-appeared in the doorway, holding in her hands two little pots with green shoots just like those in Nikolai Fiodorovich’s fancy pot. She walked over to the window and put her little pots down next to his on the windowsill. Then she returned to her room and brought out a large basket filled with a whole lot of little

cloth bundles. She placed the basket at Nikolai Fiodorovich’s feet and said: “Them’s seeds. Real ones, ’cause I gathered them meself all summer long and right through the fall. They’re from real medicinal herbs. The ones they sow in the fields to sell at pharmacies, they ain’t got the power of these here. Jes’ scatter ’em with your own hand on your land—they’ll multiply your health and strength—when they’re growin’, and when you make a herbal tea with ’em and drink it in the wintertime. ’Sides, that baby cedar of yours, it’s gonna be lonely—well, there’s some friends an’ a brother for it.” Galina pointed to the windowsill, where the three pots with little shoots were now standing, and then walked slowly to the front door, calling over her shoulder: “Good-bye, philosophers! Maybe you already know the philosophy of death. But as for the philosophy of life, you’ve still got a lot to learn.” As far as anyone could tell, Galina had been deeply offended by something, and she was walking away for good. Nikolai Fiodorovich took a step to follow her, but stumbled. He then tried to catch himself by reaching out for the back of a chair, but the chair fell over. Nikolai Fiodorovich started to sway back and forth, flinging his arms out to the side. I jumped up to offer him a hand, but I was too late. Galina, who by this time had already reached the door of the room, turned at the noise of the falling chair and saw Nikolai Fiodorovich swaying back and forth. Quick as a wink she was at his side. With her strong arms she managed to grasp the old man whose legs had already given way beneath him, and stood there holding him to her bosomy breast. Wriggling one hand free, she picked up Nikolai Fiodorovich by the legs and carried him like a child to his wheelchair. She sat him down in it, then took hold of a plaid rug and began covering his legs, gently chastising him: “Some soldier of Anastasia’s you are! You ain’t no soldier, just a green recruit!” Nikolai Fiodorovich put his hand in Galina’s. Fixing his gaze on this drooping woman now sitting at his feet, he said, switching to the familiar form of address13 for the first time: “Forgive me, Galya. I thought you were laughing at my aspirations, and here you are” “I’m the one laughing? You think I’m crazy?” Galina blurted out. “Every night I sit and think only soul thoughts. ’Bout how I’m gonna plant herbs— real medicinal herbs, ’bout how I’m gonna use ’em to feed this bright-eyed falcon14 here, to help ’in get his strength back. Ill make some real soup from fresh cabbage that don’t smell of chemicals. I’ll give him some real cow’s milk to drink, not that fancy pasteurised stuff. An’ just as soon as this ol’

bright-eyed falcon gets hisself straightened out, mebbe I’ll even bear him a child. Me, I wasn’t laughin’, not one little bit. Is just say in that to see how firm a decision he’d made, to see whether he might change it in midstream.” “It is firm, Galina, I’m not going to change it.” “Well, if that’s how it is, then don’t chase me out to the neighbourhood. Don’t hand me over to some other suitor.” “I wasn’t chasing you out, Galya. It’s just that I had no idea you wanted to be with me some place other than this well-appointed mansion. I am happy to accede to your wishes, Galya. I am immeasurably grateful to you. I simply had no idea” “What’s there here to have no idea about? What woman would turn away from such a determined soldier as yourself? Oh, I’ve read about Anastasia, how I’ve read about her! Took me a long time, it did—had to read syllable by syllable, but still I got it right off. All us gals today need to become like Anastasia. So I’ve decided to be a little bit of Anastasia to you. All us gals need to become a little bit like Anastasia. She ain’t got too many soldiers jes’ yet, only a bunch of green recruits, still wet behind the ears. Us gals are gonna make ’em strong, an’ make ’em well!” “Thanks, Galya. That means, you, Galina Nikiforovna,23 have read the books—and pondered them during your evenings?” “For certain. I’ve read all the books on Anastasia an’ thought about them during my evenings. Only please don’t address me as a stranger any more. I’ve been meaning to ask you for a good long time now. Just call me Galya.” Galya/ Galina Nikiforovna—Nikolai Fiodorovich’s alternation of familiar and formal forms betrays his temporary uncertainty as to how he should address this woman. “Okay, Galya. I was intrigued by what you said when you were offended— really intrigued. You said we already know the philosophy of death. But as for the philosophy of life, we’ve still got a lot to learn. What a concise formulation of two contrary philosophical tendencies. A succinct definition indeed: the philosophy of death and the philosophy of life. Simply amazing! Anastasia is the philosophy of life. Yes! Of course, of course! Just amazing!” Stroking Galina’s hand excitedly and tenderly, Nikolai Fio-dorovich exclaimed: “You’re a philosopher, Galina—I had no idea!” Then he said, turning to me: “There’s absolutely no doubt there is so much more we need to figure out, both from the philosophical point of view and through the help of esoteric definitions. I am trying to evaluate Anastasia as Man—a Man such as we

must all become. But there are certain unexplainable abilities she has which prevent us from fully appreciating her as a Man like us. “Vladimir, I remember your describing an episode in which she saved people at a distance from being tortured. She saved them, but she herself, if you recall, lost consciousness, went white all over and even the grass turned white around herd4 What kind of device was operating here, to make both her and the grass turn white? I’ve never heard of anything like that before, even though I’ve tried asking esoterics about it. It’s not something either philosophers or physicists—or esoterics—know anything about.” “Whaddya mean, they don’t know ’bout it?” Galina burst into the conversation, still sitting on the floor at Nikolai Fiodorovich’s feet. ‘An’ what’s there to think about, when we need to scratch their eyes out?” “Whose eyes, Galya? Do you have your own opinion on this phenomenon?” Nikolai Fiodorovich enquired in surprise. Galina was only too ready and willing to provide an answer: “It’s as plain as the nose on your face! Jest as soon as a Man is attacked by somethin’ rotten, by some sort of wretched news or threats, or cussed in anger, he goes all white. Turns pale, you know. He turns pale when he don’t return that anger, but burns it up within ’imself —meaning he gets all shook up, and burns up the anger within ’imself, and this makes ’in go all white. You see lots of examples like that in life. Anastasia too can take this rot and burn it up within herself, and the ground goes all white, tryin’ to help her, and as for me, well, I think you gotta scratch its eyes out—the eyes of any kind of rot, I mean.” “Wow! Really! Many people turn pale,” Nikolai Fiodorovich exclaimed in surprise, fixing his gaze on Galina, and then added: “but Man truly turns pale when he does not reciprocate someone’s insult, but tries to keep a stiff upper lip and hold it within. He burns it up within himself, as it turns out. Why, that’s true! How simple it all turns out to be! Anastasia burns up within herself the energy of aggression aimed at her. If such energy were reciprocated, it would fail to dissipate in space but would go off and find some other target. “Anastasia doesn’t want anyone to be a target. Just think of all the filth that will be aimed at her! So much has been building up over centuries, and is being produced even now by the adherents of the philosophy of death. Who is strong enough to withstand such an onslaught? Tell me, who? Stay the course, Anastasia! Stay the course, noble warrior!” “And stay the course she will,” Galina chimed in. “We’re gonna help her now. I’ve started givin’ away your books down at the market, and the gals that have been readin’ ’em now stand around on a street-corner in klatches. I gave ’em some cedar seeds too. They planted ’em. An’ I told ’em about the

healin’ herbs too. The gals say: 'We’ve gotta do somethin’!’ Sure, we ain’t gonna beat up our husbands, like one of ’em there on the comer suggested. But we better think about who we’re gonna have a child with.” “What are you talking about, Galina?” Nikolai Fiodorovich asked in surprise. “Don’t tell me you have your own activist group already?” “No way! What kind of ‘activist group’ might that be? We jes’ stand around on the street a bit an’ chit-chat about life.” ‘And where did the idea of beating up on men come from? What arguments motivated that?” “Whaddya mean, what arguments? How come our men don’t come through for us? They want us to give ’em a child, so we give ’em a child, but then there ain’t no nest for our young ’uns. An’ if you can’t make a nest, why ask for a child? What gal’s gonna be happy with her man when her kid jes’ wanders around aimlessly right before her very eyes? “Teacher’s come to us twice already Teacher says some sort of psych factor stops ’em from gettin’ ahold of themselves—it’s all because of some kinda loan they’re waitin’ for from some foundation overseas. It’s a ‘syndrome’, she says. Lack of self-confidence. An’ this psych syndrome digs up all sorts of reasons to avoid buildin’ a nest. “An’ the teacher went an’ told the gals that these loans have to be paid back in a certain number of years. Maybe twenty, maybe thirty, I don’t remember. I only know, they need to pay back a little bit more than they’ve been given. So it’s like a man today ends up sellin’ his own kids?” “Why would you make a comparison like that, Galina?” “Whaddya mean, why? The men we’ve got today, they’ve been foolin’ around, lookin’ to borrow money An’ who will have to pay it back? For certain that’ll be their kids—the kids that are still jes’ young ’uns. Leah, an’ the kids who ain’t even born yet. And our kids’ll have to pay back even more than their dads have borrowed! When the gals began graspin’ this picture of the future, they started goin’ crazy over concern for their kids—they felt like bashin’ their men’s snouts in. As for me, I thought we better not wait for help from anywhere, it’s time we ourselves started helpin’ these poor men of ours. “I once tried a taste of that overseas sausage, an’ my heart broke out in tears, an’ I really wanted to send a piece of our Ukrainian bacon to whoever made that sausage, along with some of our own home-made sausage. Oh my dear God! People in those countries have no idea how sausage should taste! “There’s no point in talcin’ loans from people like that—that’s bad money, it’s no good at all, it’ll bring us nothin’ but harm. As for beatin’ up, I told you only one gal proposed whippin’ all them men, the other gals didn’t go along. What’s the point? So you can knock the last bit of sense out of ’em?

Even so, the gals tell each other how miserable their men have made their lives. And I boast a bit, I say my man’s come to ’is senses. He’s already started makin’ a nest.” “Your man? Who is he?” “Whaddya mean, who is he? I’ve been tellin’ ’em about you. How you’ve gone an’ planted a baby cedar, how you sent me to buy you a draftin’ board with a large ruler—the one on the table over there,” Galina indicated, pointing to the drafting table next to Nikolai Fiodorovich’s desk. “I told ’em how you asked me what trees are best to plant around the hectare, and made drawin’s on sheets of paper at your desk, and sketched out a loverly community, where good people can live. You didn’t have enough room on your sheets of paper, so you asked me to bring you bigger sheets, an’ the board an’ the ruler too. “I told the gals ’bout that, an’ we all went together to choose the drafting board. We chose the biggest and best we could find, an’ it sure cost a lot. The gals said to me: ‘Don’t be stingy, Galina.’ They helped me, an’ I could see the envy in their eyes. The bitches were jealous that my child would be born in a marvelous garden, in his own native ground, with good people all around. An’ I ain’t mad at them for bein’ jealous—after all, everybody wants to be happy. “They pooled their money together an’ bought me a camera so’s I could take a picture of your sketch. So I took the camera, an’ they showed me what button to press and where I should look through to take a snap. Only I never got the courage to ask your permission so I never pressed the button.” “You did the right thing, Galina, not taking a photo of my design without permission. When I’ve finished, then perhaps I shall publish it as one proposal for the new settlement.” “That’s gonna take you a long time, and the gals right now can’t wait to see this loverly, beautiful future, at least to sneak a glimpse. You’ve managed to come up with a lovely drawin’ on one of them large sheets.” “What makes you think I shan’t soon complete it? Everything’s almost all ready to be published—I have the plans, and colour drawings too.” “That’s what I said—you already have a beautiful picture. For certain it shouldn’t be published for people to use, but you could still show it to the gals—the ones I meet with—an’ I’ll just say it’s not quite right yet.” Nikolai Fiodorovich quickly wheeled himself over to the drafting table. I followed. There on the table lay plans, done in coloured pencil, of several domains of the new settlement. The drawings showed little houses, and gardens, and a living fence made out of various kinds of trees, and ponds too

The overall impression was a fine, beautiful arrangement of everything. “Where did you notice a mistake or an inaccuracy?” enquired Nikolai Fiodorovich of Galina, who had by now joined us at the drafting table. “You didn’t put any Sun in the picture. An’ once you get the Sun in, you have to put in shadows too. An’ if you’re goin’ to put in the shadows, you’ll see that you can’t plant any tall trees along the eastern fence—they’ll give too much shade on the plant beds. The trees should be planted on the other side.” “Really? Maybe you’re right I wish you’d told me earlier. But this is only a draft so far Anyway Galina, did you say you’re going to have a child?” “Well, it’s like this. You keep on doin’ your exercises for now. But once you stand on your own native ground, you’ll crawl out of your catacombs. An’ I’ll feed you with what grows in your native soil, an’ give you a healin’ tea to drink. An’ spring’ll come, you’ll see, an’ everythin’ on that native ground’s gonna come alive, and bloom. An’ you’ll feel your own strength again. That’s when I’m gonna have my child.” Once again Galina sat down on the carpet at Nikolai Fiodorovich’s feet and put her hands on one of his arms resting on the side of his wheel-chair. Even though she wasn’t exactly a spring chicken, Galina had a strong, powerful and attractive body—she could even be called tender and beautiful. Their conversation became more and more friendly in tone, as though they were immersing themselves in some kind of philosophy of life, while I stood around slightly stupefied, feeling like a third leg. So I managed to get a word in edgewise: “Excuse me, Nikolai Fiodorovich. It’s time for me to be going. I don’t want to be late for the plane.” “I’ll have some pies ready for you in a flash,” said Galina, getting up. ‘An’ some preserves for your trip—I’ll get you back to Moscow in a jiff.” Nikolai Fiodorovich slowly got up from his chair. Bracing himself with one hand against the table, he extended the other to me in a gesture of farewell. His handshake was firm, it no longer felt like that of an old man. “Give my greetings to Anastasia, Vladimir. And please let her know that the philosophy of life will definitely triumph here. Our thanks to her!” “I’ll tell her.” CHAPTER NINETEEN

Who controls coincidences? Right from the very first appearance of the Anastasia book there have been

quite a number of articles written by various scholars on the Anastasia phenomenon’. Many of them included references to me. Whenever I heard or read unflattering remarks about myself, even if they temporarily upset me, it wasn’t for long—maybe a day or two, a week at the most. My insides would get stirred up a bit, but then it was history But this time. At a meeting in Moscow one of my readers handed me an audiocassette. He said it was a recording of a talk given at an academic conference by the leader of a scholarly research group which was studying the Anastasia phenomenon’. I listened to the cassette a few days later. What I heard was beyond belief. Its message (once it had sunk in) not only knocked me off the rails, it seemed it was going to do me in for good. Really do me in—especially in my own self-esteem. Before listening to it, I was planning to head off again to the taiga to see Anastasia and my son, but after hearing it I put my plans on hold. Here’s what I heard (slightly abbreviated): My respected colleagues, I should like to present you with some of the conclusions and arguments worked out by a research group I head on the basis of over three years’ investigating the phenomenon we shall call Anastasia. In my report I shall use the name Anastasia not just for the sake of convenience, but because the subject of our investigation has presented itself under that name. This does not rule out the possibility of giving it a more specific and characteristic definition in the future. It is difficult to do that at the moment, since I am persuaded that we are dealing with ‘something’ that surpasses the boundaries of traditional academic disciplines and possibly modern science on the whole. We began by defining three research questions: (a) the truthfulness of the events described by the author Vladimir Megre in his books, (b) Megre’s books themselves and (c) public reaction to Megre’s books. By the end of the first six months it was clear that the truthfulness or untruthfulness of the events described in the book was an irrelevant question. The wild emotional reaction of most readers who have had contact with Megre’s books has nothing to do with whether the events described are real or not. Public reaction is determined by a different set of factors entirely However, the time and resources and intellectual potential we spent pursuing this question led to what is, in my opinion, a rather interesting conclusion—namely, that the tendency of individuals, including sociologists and academic circles in general, to cast doubt on Anastasia’s existence is in fact a contributing factor to the very phenomenon we are studying. It is this very hoopla surrounding the question Does she or doesn’t she

exist? that has enabled the phenomenon to penetrate unhindered into all levels of society today The denial of the existence of Anastasia has actually served to neutralise any opposition to her designs. If she doesn’t exist, after all, then it follows that there is no object to study, nothing to oppose. On the other hand, the public reaction to Anastasia’s sayings attests to the vital necessity of research to determine her significance and intellectual capabilities. As to the truthfulness of the events set forth in the books, we can state the following: In describing these events, the author not only presents himself under his own name, but does not shield anyone else connected with these events. He makes no effort to change the real names of people or places, or to cover up embarrassing facts about himself. For example, the episode described in the first book—where Megre, in the presence of the captain, flirts with the local country girls visiting the ship during a pleasure cruise1—has been fully documented as fact. Crew members have also confirmed the presence that evening of a quiet and taciturn young woman with a kerchief tied around her head. Megre showed this woman around the ship, then spent some time alone with her in his cabin. From the book we learn that this was the first appearance of the Siberian recluse Anastasia on Megre’s lead ship, the one that served as his headquarters. It was the entrepreneur’s first encounter with the Siberian recluse, and their first conversation together. The chronology of many of the events described in the book has been confirmed by documents and eyewitness accounts. Not only that, but other situations even more extraordinary have come to light which the author for one reason or another did not describe in his books. A notable case in point is Meg-re’s stay in a Novosibirsk city hospital, where medical records indicate the progress of his illness, medical test results, the prolongation of his illness, and his remarkable recovery. We have determined that his recovery immediately followed the doctors’ application of cedar oil which was left at the hospital by an unidentified woman! I shan’t deny that, carried away as we were in our pursuit of the truth of the events described in the book and with access to criminological facilities, for example, we were in a position to prove or disprove a great deal. We were halted in this pursuit, however, by the public’s wild and extraordinary reaction to Megre’s books, or, more specifically, to Anastasia’s sayings therein recorded. The details of Megre’s intimate relations were not a drawing card for most people—they were excited instead by Anastasia’s

monologues. Even our initial investigations of this reaction—and especially its latest manifestations—clearly indicated that ‘something’ calling itself Anastasia is exercising an unmistakable influence on today’s society. Her sphere of influence continues to increase in size even today And we need to pay greater attention to even the most improbable arguments—try to discern them and follow them up. In all probability, the phenomenon known as Anastasia possesses powers and abilities which our mind and consciousness are not in a position to fully make sense of. In Megre’s very first book, in the chapter entitled ‘Across the dark forces’ window of time”, the phenomenon predicts not only the appearance of the book, but also how and by what means she will capture people’s minds and consciousness. In her monologue Anastasia affirms that she has collected from various ages the best combinations of sounds to be found in the Universe, and that they will have a positive influence on people. She affirms that this action is quite simple: “As you can see, it is simply a matter of translating the combinations of signs from the depth of eternity and infinity of the Universe—exact in sense, meaning and purpose.”2 Our group as a whole reached a unanimous conclusion: this particular saying is an invention. This conclusion was based on the following logical and (as we believed) irrefutable argument: Even if certain unusual combinations do exist in the book, then they cannot exercise any influence over the reader, since there is no instrument to reproduce them. The book cannot utter sounds, and consequently cannot convey to our hearing the ‘sounds of the Universe’ said to have been collected by Anastasia. Later, however, Anastasia did give the following answer: “You are right, a book does not make sounds. But it can serve as a score, like a musical score. The reader will involuntarily utter within himself any sounds he reads. Thus the hidden combinations in the text will resonate in the reader’s soul in their pristine form, with no distortion. They are bearers of Truth and healing. And they will fill the soul with inspiration. No artificial instrument is capable of reproducing what resonates in the soul.”15 In his third book, The Space of Love, Megre sets forth Anastasia’s dialogue with the scholars. But for some unknown reason he abbreviates it. Or, if we assume that the phenomenon itself participated in the book’s appearance, then it is possible that it deliberately omitted the continuation of Anastasia’s response to the scholars. What for? Possibly to leave the unbelievers in their state of inaction? The fact remains that proofs of Anastasia’s incredible

declaration do exist. Here is the continuation of Anastasia’s dialogue with the scholars. To her adversary’s statement that the blending within Man of certain sounds not part of human speech has never been anywhere established as fact,16 Anastasia replied as follows: “It has been established. And I can give you an example.” “But it must be an example everybody can relate to.” “Fine. Ludwig van Beethoven.” “What about him?” “His Ode to Joy. That was the name he gave to his Ninth Symphony It was written for a symphony orchestra and mass choirs.” “Okay, but how can that prove your statement about the evocation of sounds within the reader’s mind? Sounds that nobody’s ever heard?” “Sounds evoked within the mind of the reader of a book are heard by the reader alone.” “There, you see? By the reader alone. That means there’s no proof. And your example with Beethoven’s symphony isn’t convincing.” “At the time he wrote his Ninth Symphony, Ode to Joy, Ludwig van Beethoven was deaf,” responded Anastasia. This fact is attested by Beethoven’s biographers. Not only that, but the deaf composer himself conducted the first performance of his symphony. In the light of this particular historical fact, Anastasia’s next saying no longer raised any doubts: “Every letter or combination of letters from any text, being uttered, can be transformed into sound. A page of text can be compared to a page from a musical score. It is simply a question of who is able to set forth the noteletters and how. Will they comprise a great symphony or simply audible chaos? And another question: does everyone have an instrument of sufficiently high quality within themselves to reproduce the full orchestration?” The researchers in our group subsequently came to the following conclusion: Anastasia’s sayings in respect to the derivatives of explosion, transportation by creating a vacuum, purification of the air, agro-technical methods, the significance of cedar oil in the treatment of many diseases, the energy of Man-produced thought, as well as many other phenomena, deserve the most meticulous study by scientific circles.

5

derivatives of explosion—see Anastasia’s declaration to Vladimir in Book 1, Chapter 16: “Flying saucers? Nothing extraordinary”: “The functioning of all your machines, every single one of them, is based on the energy of explosion.” In arriving at this conclusion, our group does not make any claim to be the first to discover it. Scholars in Novosibirsk came to it at the same time or even a little ahead of us, as may be seen in a presentation by the leader of the Novosibirsk Scholars’ Circle, Sergei Speransky17 In a published paper entitled “It’s more useful to believe”, the Novosibirsk psychologist Nina Zhutikova came up with the following conclusion on the basis of her sociological research: “One’s relationship to Anastasia is not dependent on the presence or absence of academic degrees, but very much depends on a Man’s character, his scale of values, on his conscious and subconscious mindset—i.e., on a Man’s personality and all its elements; it depends on whether this Man wants Anastasia to be real or not; it depends on how open a Man’s consciousness is, on the degree that it is ready to accept amazing phenomena that go beyond the bounds of commonality What is revealed to us and how—this depends on the characteristics of our time and corresponds to the level of our own self-awareness.” Possibly the Novosibirsk researches could have gone even farther than ours, but the Siberian branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences declined to finance them. Today our group, having received a commission—and consequently prearranged funding,—is already in a position to state with confidence and the support of evidence the following fact: Our civilisation has witnessed a phenomenon never before subject to scientific measurement nor, consequently, to scientific definition. Our research must attract not only representatives of modern scientific disciplines—especially physicists and psychologists—but esoterics too. The processes taking place in our society today under the influence of the Anastasia phenomenon are evident and actual, and we cannot—in fact, we do not even have the right to—leave them, unstudied. Some of the events described in Megre’s books indeed look like fiction at first glance, and we have endeavoured to treat them with scepticism. Nevertheless, the subsequent events that happened to the author but are not described in the books are even more incredible. But the incredible has happened. And we find ourselves obliged to draw conclusions which are difficult even for us to believe. One of these conclusions is that Vladimir Megre does not exist, and that there’s no point in studying his biography for an explanation of what has

happened. What appears at first glance to be a rather far-fetched conclusion removes and explains a whole host of improbabilities—namely: how did it happen that an ordinary Siberian entrepreneur suddenly became capable of writing a book—a series of books, now, which has become one of the most popular in Russia? The speculations put forth in the press, upon closer inspection, turn out to be unfounded: A bankrupt entrepreneur decides to settle his affairs by becoming a writer. But we have a lot of bankrupt entrepreneurs. Yet not one of them has ever become a famous writer. He managed to think up a sensational story-line. But the storyline has nothing to do with it. Our esoteric press does nothing but publish sensational stories about unusual phenomena week after week—superhealers, flying saucers and aliens—yet the public hardly bats an eyelid. And these stories are prepared by professional writers and journalists. Megre’s books have a powerful publicity engine working for them. Just the opposite: many publications are now trying to promote themselves on the back of Megre’s books. We have established beyond a doubt that Megre’s first three books were published without even any exposure in bookstores— not by a publishing firm with a large distribution network but by Moscow Printshop Number Eleven which doesn’t deal in the book trade at all. And yet here people have been standing in queue for Megre’s books, and wholesalers have been paying advances up front to carry them, even before they’re published. In the minds of many book dealers, the popularity of Megre’s books flies in the face of all book business norms, and goes against experts’ predictions concerning consumer demand. So what is the result? Did Vladimir Megre miraculously become a genius out of the blue? Nothing miraculous about it. I repeat: Vladimir Megre—the entrepreneur who was well-known in Siberia—simply does not exist today. Evidence in support of this argument may be found through a careful reading of Anastasia’s sayings back in the first book. Let’s recall her words addressed to Vladimir: “You will write this book, guided only by feelings and your heart. You will not be able to do otherwise, since you have not mastered the technique of writing, but through your feelings you can do anything. These feelings are already within you. Both mine and yours.”7 Note carefully Anastasia’s last words cited here: These feelings are already within you. Both mine and yours. This means that Vladimir Megre’s own

sense-perception of the world has been supplemented with that of Anastasia’s. We shall not examine how and by what means this supplementing was effected. We shall accept it as a fact which engenders the following logical conclusion: if to one defined magnitude another is added, then the aggregate of the two magnitudes engenders a third independent magnitude. Hence the present Megre’s date of birth cannot be determined by the date registered on his official birth certificate. There is more justification in considering his birth date to be in 1994—i.e., the moment he met Anastasia. Even though the outward appearance of the new individual corresponds to the former Megre, the radical difference between the two is all too apparent. This includes, for example, both his literary talent and his ability to hold an audience’s attention for an extended period of time—five hours or more—as has been twice attested by witnesses to his appearance at a readers’ conference in the city of Gelendzhik in the Krasnodar region.8 This fact is reflected in accounts in a number of national magazines. Many researchers and journalists have got caught up in comparisons and investigations of events connected with the activities of Vladimir Megre, just on the basis of the descriptions in the books. They have been attempting to prove, either subconsciously or openly and aggressively that this cannot be to! My dear colleagues, I am inclined to believe, and not without some justification, that the following communications will convince you that such a feeling is nothing more than a defence mechanism found in those whose mind or consciousness is incapable of making sense of what is really going on. Vladimir Megre himself—or, more accurately part of his own self—is even less capable than that of making sense of the events he is involved in. It is just that he has gradually become accustomed to them, and is beginning to categorise even the most incredible phenomena as normal or commonplace —which has also served to keep him from having a nervous breakdown. I think that, like many readers, he did not pay any special attention to what Anastasia said to him back at that first meeting with him in the taiga. When Megre protested: “I shan’t even make an attempt to write anything,” Anastasia responded: “Believe me, you shall. They have already created a whole network of circumstances that will make you do this.”18 This dialogue is given right in Book 1, but in Megre’s subsequent books there isn’t even an attempt to return to this question: who in fact are these

mysterious They? Upon receiving specific information, the members of our group once more delved into the dialogues reproduced in the first book to select all the references to this They scattered over its pages. I shall cite these references in Anastasia’s words: “If it had not been for them— and for me too, a little—your second expedition would not have been possible.” “I want you to be purified. That is why I thought back then about your trip to holy places, about the book. They have accepted this, and the forces of darkness are always fighting with them, but never have the dark forces scored a major victory” “My plan and conscious awareness were precise and realistic, and they accepted them.”19 20 “They are answerable only to God.”11 The following conclusion can be drawn from Anastasia’s sayings: some indeterminate forces will set in place for Megre some kind of network of circumstances compelling him to carry out action somebody’s preprogrammed for him. And if that is so, then Megre’s role as an individual in his creations amounts to nil, or at least something very insignificant. Everything is simply being handed him on a platter through this network of supposedly coincidental circumstances. This also means that the individual of the past known as Megre has evidently been violated. We decided that if we succeed in establishing certain anomalies in Megre’s behaviour—or, rather, the presence of a network of circumstances or socalled coincidences, such a presence could confirm or disprove (a) the reality of what happened in the taiga, (b) the degree of participation of Megre as an individual in the events taking place in society surrounding the publication of his books, and (c) the existence of some kind of forces capable of producing coincidences influencing Man’s destiny. The episode in Megre’s life which we have managed to examine in the greatest detail, right down to individual nuances, is his behaviour on Cyprus in June 1999, during the time when he was working on his fourth book, Cocreation. It would even be more accurate to say that he was in the process of figuring out the meaning of his dialogues with Anastasia (which he had already transcribed) about the creation of the Earth and Man. What we discovered on Cyprus can only be summed up in one short phrase: What is it? Let me acquaint you with certain events that took place there. At the end of May 1999 Vladimir Megre took a Transavia12 flight to Cyprus, but not as a member of a tourist group. There was nobody he knew on Cyprus. He did not know any of the languages spoken on the island. The Cyprus travel agency, Leptos,13 placed this individual Russian tourist in a

single room on the second floor of a small hotel. The room had a balcony overlooking a fair-sized pool, where tourists (mainly from England and Germany) would lounge around and have fun. 12

Transavia—an international airline company, part of the Dutch-based KLM Group. 13

Leptos—a large conglomerate headquartered in Paphos (Cyprus) that includes both tourist services and property development. Megre’s Russian travel agent had informed the manager of Leptos that this particular tourist was a Russian writer. But that was hardly news to a major travel firm like Leptos, accustomed to hosting world-famous celebrities. As far as they were concerned, Megre was just an ordinary tourist. Nevertheless, on the second day of his stay he was approached by the senior company manager responsible for the Russian tourist market with an offer to show him around the city, including the estates the company itself had developed. They brought along a Russian-speaking interpreter employed by the firm. I am now going to quote, my friends, from a transcript of the statement provided to us by the Leptos interpreter, Marina Pavlova,21 during an interview: I accompanied Nikos, the manager of Leptos, and Megre, and interpreted during their conversation. Megre distinguished himself from most Russian tourists by his uncompromising attitude, which bordered on tactlessness. For example, we were standing on a mountain with a terrific view of the sea and the city of Paphos.22 Nikos was giving the usual spiel: “Look at all this natural beauty around us. What a fantastic view!” I translated the sentence, but Megre responded: “It’s a depressing view. Nice and warm. The sea But look, the vegetation’s all stunted, just an occasional bush here and there. So unnatural in a climate like this.” Nikos began to explain: “Earlier the island was covered with cedar forests, but when the Romans invaded, they cut down the forests to build their ships. Besides, there is very little rainfall here.” To which Megre retorted: “The Romans were here many centuries ago. Over that time new forests could have grown up, but you have not been planting them.” Nikos tried to explain that there is very little rainfall on the island, and even drinking water must be collected in special reservoirs.

But Megre sharply responded: “There is no water because there is no forest, and the wind carries the clouds on past the island. If there were a forest, it would slow down the movement of the lower air currents, as well as the movement of the higher-altitude clouds. It would rain more often on the island. I think the reason they don’t plant a forest is that they are trying to sell all the land for development.” Having said this, Megre turned aside and became lost in thought. We didn’t say a word. An oppressive pause hung over us. There was nothing anyone could say. The next day, as we were having lunch at a cafe, Nikos enquired as to what he might do to make Vladimir’s stay more comfortable. Megre replied in all seriousness: “There should be more Russian spoken on the island. The restaurants should serve proper fish, instead of some kind of perch. The hotel rooms should be quieter. Besides, I’d rather have a forest around me than people who smile when they don’t mean it.” Then there was the meeting between Megre and the head of the Leptos agency. How this came about I have no idea. The CEO has never met with any tourists in person, and even many of his employees have never seen his face. I was present at the meeting as an interpreter. But even here Megre said the company should change the layout of the sites where it was constructing its new estates. Each site should be no less than a hectare in size, a place where people can plant trees and look after them, and that way the whole island will be transformed. If this doesn’t happen, it won’t be long before the island becomes an undesirable tourist destination, and Leptos will see a significant decline in business. After a moment’s pause, the CEO began expounding with considerable aplomb on the island’s legendary tourist sites and the most famous site of all, the Baths of the goddess Aphrodite.23 He concluded by offering Megre an opportunity to suggest anything that might make his stay more comfortable. While the CEO of Leptos might have been able to satisfy the wishes of many Western millionaires, what Megre said to him in response completely threw him for a loop—it sounded like a joke, as though Megre were making fun of him. Megre in all seriousness replied: “I need to meet with the granddaughter of the goddess Aphrodite.” I tried translating this sentence as a joke, but nobody laughed. The shock of the remark left everybody speechless.

By and by news of this Russian tourist’s eccentricities reached the ears of the hotel staff where Megre was staying, and they began to make fun of him. Nikos told me in conversation that there was something abnormal in Megre’s behaviour. Nikos and I made regular morning visits to the hotel on administrative matters, and each time Nikos would jokingly ask the clerk on duty at the main desk whether Aphrodite’s granddaughter had checked in yet. The clerk would laughingly respond that she hadn’t arrived yet, but there was always a room waiting for her! Megre evidently felt the mocking glances of the hotel staff whenever he came down to the bar from his room in the evening, or to breakfast in the morning. It seemed to bother him. As a Russian, I too felt uncomfortable about seeing my fellow-countryman being ridiculed, but there was no longer anything I could do. On the morning of the last day of Megre’s scheduled stay on Cyprus, Nikos and I went to the hotel as usual. Nikos wanted to say good-bye to Megre. Once again he greeted the desk clerk with his customary jocular enquiry, but this time the clerk’s usual response was not forthcoming. The clerk, in a rather emotional frame of mind, told Nikos that Megre had not spent the night in his room and was not in the hotel at the moment. He went on to report in all seriousness, without even the hint of a smile, that the evening before, Aphrodite’s granddaughter had come to the hotel in a motorcar and collected Megre along with his things. She had told the clerk on duty in Greek that there was no need to be concerned, that Megre would not be returning to the hotel and so his room could be reassigned as needed, and that they need not bother booking Megre’s return flight to Moscow. She also asked him to tell Nikos that she would bring Megre to the hotel at ten o’clock the next morning to say goodbye. The clerk repeated that Aphrodite’s granddaughter had talked with the hotel staff in Greek but with Megre in Russian. Without a clue as to what was going on, Nikos and I seated ourselves in two of the comfortable armchairs in the lobby and silently waited for the appointed hour to arrive. At ten o’clock on the dot the big glass doors of the main entrance swung open, and we saw Vladimir Megre accompanied by a beautiful young woman. I had seen her before. She was Elena Fadeyeva,24 a Russian who lived and worked on Cyprus as a representative of a Moscow travel firm. I told you I recognised her, but not right away This particular morning Elena Fadeyeva looked exceptionally beautiful. Wearing a long light-weight dress, she sported an attractive hairdo and had a cheery sparkle in her eyes. The slender young woman accompanying Megre immediately drew the attention

of the hotel staff in the lobby Bartenders, maids and clerks froze in their tracks, their eyes fixed on the approaching pair. In talking with them Nikos and I learnt that Megre had decided to extend his stay on Cyprus by a month. When Megre temporarily withdrew to see about something at the bar counter, Nikos remarked on Megre’s fussiness, saying he was making demands which neither he nor the Leptos CEO could possibly fulfil. Whereupon Elena responded: “I have fulfilled all his wishes. I think I shall be able to fulfil any others, too, that may arise.” Nikos continued to question Elena as to how she was able to do the impossible in just twelve hours. How could she make Megre’s favourite Siberian freshwater fish appear on Cyprus, or cause cedars to grow on the island in just twelve hours, or make all the Cypriots suddenly be able to understand Megre speaking Russian? Where could she have found a place for him to stay where nobody could interrupt the solitude he so desired? Elena replied that everything Megre needed just simply appeared as though by coincidence. She put Megre up at her own villa, which just happened to be vacated at the right moment. The villa was located not far from Paphos at the edge of the village of Peyia,18 where nobody could possibly disturb him. She provided him with transportation by hiring a motorscooter especially for him. It turned out that her Russian friend Alla who was also working on Cyprus just happened to have some Siberian freshwater fish on hand. And cedars grow on a hillside not far from her villa. Besides, Megre had brought with him two little Siberian cedars, and she put them in pots right at the villa’s entrance. The language barrier would present no further problem for Megre, since there are telephones in all the places he wants to visit, including shops and cafes, and she always has her own mobile phone with her and that way she can interpret for Megre whenever necessary—i.e., whenever he has something he wants to say to someone. As Elena and Vladimir were already making their way toward the door under the fixed stares of everyone present, I reminded Nikos that he had forgotten to ask how Elena would be able to fulfil Megre’s request concerning the granddaughter of the goddess Aphrodite. Nikos looked at me in surprise and replied: “If that Russian girl isn’t the living embodiment of Aphrodite or her granddaughter, then for certain the spirit of Aphrodite is present in her at this moment.” My dear colleagues, after hearing Marina Pavlova describe these events of Vladimir Megre’s life during his stay on Cyprus, the question naturally arose: whence came this chain.

Peyia—one of the four municipalities in the Paphos District of Cyprus, close to the tourist resort of Coral Bay—a picturesque village of whitewashed houses hugging the steep Mediterranean coastline. A quiet haven in comparison to the bustle of Paphos, Peyia also features the remains of two Christian basilicas on its outskirts. of coincidences which fulfilled all Alegre’s stated demands in the blink of an eye? Was it really just coincidence, or was someone—like Anastasia, or the mysterious They she talks about—somehow shaping these coincidences? Note how immediately after the people around Megre at his hotel began to wonder what was going on, a situation turned up to remove him from the curious observers’ field of vision—he retired to Elena Fadeyeva’s villa. As far as the people back at the hotel were concerned, this ended the unusual chain of coincidences. But we wondered whether it had really come to an end, and so we reconstructed subsequent events in as much detail as we could, thanks to the help of what we were told both by Fadeyeva personally and by people who know her. And what did we learn? It turned out that not only did the series of extraordinary coincidences not stop, but they became even more mysterious. I’ll cite just a few excerpts from our records. So—here we have Vladimir Megre staying all by himself in Fadeyeva’s small but cozy villa. He was most probably in the process of deciphering Anastasia’s sayings about God, about the creation of the Earth and Man, and Alan’s destiny. He had just finished working on this part of the book. But he didn’t understand everything himself yet. And true to his nature, before publishing the book, he wanted to find somewhere (or in some thing) at least a modicum of confirmation of Anastasia’s unusual sayings. From time to time he would ring up Elena and ask her to come and see him, to take him somewhere in the car. And each time the young woman would drop whatever she was doing at the moment to fulfil Megre’s request, even if it meant reneging on a commitment to greet people arriving from Russia. Twice she had to reassign her duties to one of her colleagues, losing part of her income in the process. So, where did Megre go? We established that, apart from the usual tourist spots, he paid a visit to two churches, which none of the other tourists went to, along with a monastery not on the tourist circuit and a vacant castle in the Troodos mountains.25 On several occasions he climbed the ridge not far from Fadeyeva’s villa. He would take solitary walks among the cedars growing on the ridge while Elena waited for him down by the road. We were also able to establish that all Megre’s visits to the churches and monasteries were spontaneous—i.e., not planned in advance. More specifically, they formed part of the same chain of coincidences. Here is

what Elena Fadeyeva told us about Vladimir Megre’s night-time visit to one of the churches: I went to see Vladimir at around nine p.m., directly after he called. He told me he simply wanted to go for a ride around the city He got into my car and we headed for Paphos. Vladimir seemed absorbed in his own thoughts and scarcely offered a word of conversation. We drove for about an hour or so. As we passed by all the cafes along the embankment, I suggested we stop for something to eat, but he declined. When I asked where he would like to go, he said he felt like visiting some vacant church. I turned the car around and headed full speed (I’m not sure why I was in such a hurry) to a little village. I knew there was a church there that hardly anybody visits. We drove right up to the entrance and got out of the car. Not a soul around. The night-time silence was broken only by the roar of the waves. We walked up to the main door. It was dark, but just below the doorhandle I could feel a large key sticking out. I turned it and opened the door. Vladimir went in, and for a long time stood in the middle of the floor below the dome. I stayed by the entrance. Then Vladimir went through the archway the priests come out of and must have lit a candle or something. Anyway, something there began emitting a bright glow, and the whole church interior brightened a bit. I stood for a while longer and then went out to the car. Some time later Vladimir appeared and we left. Here is the second incident Fadeyeva told us about: I wanted to show Vladimir a village way out in the country, so he could see how the local people lived. There were so many turns going off the mountain road we were travelling and somehow (probably by mistake) I took a wrong turn, since instead of ending up at the village, we presently found ourselves in front of the gates to a little monastery Vladimir wanted to go in at once and asked me to go with him to interpret with the monks, but I said I couldn’t. I was wearing a rather short skirt and had no head covering, and that’s not permitted in a monastery So I stayed outside. I watched as Vladimir walked across the courtyard. All at once he noticed a young monk in front of him. They stopped to face each other and began conversing. Then they came over to me. I could hear the young monk speaking with Vladimir in Russian, and presently Vladimir was approached by an older grey-haired man—the Father Superior—and the two of them sat and talked for the longest time on one of the benches in the courtyard. The monks and I were standing a little distance away, and we couldn’t hear what they were talking about. Then the Father Superior and the monks gathered to see us off. But on his way out the gate Vladimir stopped, and everybody else stopped, too.

Vladimir turned and headed across the courtyard to the church. Nobody followed him. We were still waiting at the gate when he came out of the vacant monastery church. And so the chain of coincidences continued. Just to remind you, Vladimir Megre was working on deciphering what Anastasia had said about God. Was it just a coincidence that at the very moment when he wanted to visit a vacant church, there at his side, coincidentally, was Elena Fadeyeva, who just happened to know about such a church? Was it just a coincidence that a key was sticking out of the door of this vacant church? Was it just a coincidence that Elena made a wrong turn and ended up taking Megre to a monastery hardly anybody goes to? Was it just a coincidence that he encountered a Russian-speaking monk? We are dealing here with a chain of events, real-life situations, practically a series of seeming coincidences, sequentially arranged, all leading to some kind of predetermined end. Now that we know about such coincidences, can we still talk about the philosophical conclusions Megre comes to in his books as being purely random or coincidental? Perhaps it was in some of these churches where Megre (as we now know) stood alone under the dome, that God’s words became consolidated in his mind, afterward to appear in his fourth book, Cocreation? Time and again we have tried to trace in detail the sequence of the coincidences surrounding Megre. Among a great many others there was one that interested us in particular—namely, how Megre just ‘happened’ to meet Elena Fadeyeva. We shan’t speculate as to whether this young woman was actually imbued with the spirit of the goddess Aphrodite. We’ll leave such speculation to the esoterics. But let’s consider just why this girl dropped what she was doing at the very first call and rushed to Megre’s side, made him borsch and carted him around Cyprus in her motorcar? Why did she change so radically, even in her appearance, after meeting Megre? Why did her eyes suddenly begin to sparkle upon meeting Megre (as claimed by people who know her)? Perhaps it was just from meeting a celebrity? But as a representative of a travel agency affiliated with Mosestrada,20 Elena gets to meet much bigger celebrities than Vladimir Megre. Money, perhaps? But Megre couldn’t have had much money—otherwise he wouldn’t have booked into a three-star hotel to begin with. There is only one conclusion to be drawn from all this: Elena Fadeyeva fell in love with Megre. This is confirmed by something she said to one of her acquaintances. When the acquaintance asked her:

“Well, Lena, you haven’t fallen in love with this Megre chap?” Elena responded: “I don’t know—it’s a rather strange feeling But, if he asked me” And so we have yet another incredible coincidence before us: here’s a twenty-three-year-old woman—slender, warm and outreaching, independent and pragmatic, not lacking in a fair share of attention on the part of the many men around her, suddenly falling in love at first sight with a forty-nine-yearold man. I think you will agree that such coincidences are extremely rare indeed. We’ve tried analysing in still greater detail—even moment by moment—the first meeting between Vladimir Megre and Elena Fadeyeva. We spoke with the employees at the Maria Cafe who witnessed it first-hand. From what we were told Mosestrada (in full: Moskovskaya estrada—lit. ‘Moscow Musical Stage’)—a large Moscow-based entertainment enterprise. In Soviet times it was in virtual control of Adoscow’s pop-music entertainment sector. by Elena herself and by the people who know her, we have reconstructed the day of that meeting. As a result we have been presented with yet another coincidence—but this time what a coincidence! It could explain Elena falling in love with Megre a few minutes before she met him for the first time! A kind of coincidence that can have an effect on both Man’s consciousness and his subconscious simultaneously. Picture to yourself Elena Fadeyeva driving her car on the way to the Maria Cafe in a resort town. One of the waiters had rung her up and asked her to come to the cafe if at all possible, as there was a Russian man sitting at one of the tables and getting very nervous. The cafe’s sign featured its name in Russian, as well as names of Russian dishes, all of which promised a Russian-speaking waiter—but, as it turned out, this person did not happen to be on the premises at the time. Elena at first declines, but then a little break happens to come up in her work. So she gets into her car and heads for the cafe where some kind of Russian man is waiting. Along the way she takes care to powder her suntanned nose, picks an audiocassette at random and slips it into the player in her car. The car’s speaker system fills the interior with the words and melody of a Russian popular song.21 I am now going to remind you of the words of that song, and you, my dear colleagues, can draw your own conclusion. Here are the words Elena heard resonating from her car speakers just moments before her encounter with Megre in the cafe: I myself am a rather young god,

My experience? Perhaps there’s not much to say. Russian popular song—these are the words to the song “Don’t let him go” (Ne daj emu uyti) by the well-known St. Petersburg singer-songwriter Maxim Leonidov (1962-)- The third stanza shown here is actually the song’s refrain and is repeated at the end. But still, my dear girl, I just know I could Help you, and shine sunlight upon your dark day. No moments to spare—you’re in a crunch. You’ve a break coming up, hardly any time at all. So you powder your nose, and head off to lunch To meet him at a cafe—at a table by the wall. Somewhere far away trains are flying through the wood, And ’planes are off course—just why, we don’t know. If he should take off, he’ll be gone for good, So the answer is simple—just don’t let him go. Why are you suddenly quiet, my dear? Just look into his eyes and do not be shy. I’ve been closing this circle for many a long year The one who has brought him to meet you is I. And she, or someone acting through her, did not let him go. And she, or someone acting through her, fulfilled all his wishes, providing more and more information to confirm his philosophical conclusions. Fie returned to Russia and submitted the manuscript of his fourth book, Co-creation, to the publishers. Thus Vladimir Megre’s life really turns out to be like the life of Ran the Fool22 in the Russian folk tales, the only difference being that the events that happened to Megre are absolutely real. ”2Ivan the Fool (Russian: Ivan-durak)—the main character of many Russian folk tales: in their more recent versions, Ivan is a simpleton who invariably wins considerable favours through no effort of his own. In the older versions of the same tales he is portrayed as a wizard able to control natural forces. The term diirak is based on the ancient root ra signifying the Sun, but which over the centuries has been perverted to take the opposite meaning of ‘fool’. Faced with the reality of such phenomena, we cannot deny the existence of

some kind of forces capable of purposefully influencing the destiny of an individual Man. This begs a number of questions: are these forces capable of influencing the destiny or all mankind? How active have these forces been in the past? Have they become more active in our century? What kind of forces are they? The events we have witnessed suggest the need to pay more careful attention to Anastasia’s sayings. My dear colleagues, the majority of our research group is inclined toward the following conclusion: the Siberian recluse Anastasia, while leaving the governments of the different countries in position for the time being is actually taking personal control of the whole human civilisation. Note the distinction—not ‘seizing power’, but ‘taking personal control’. Upon coming into contact with Megre’s books, the majority of readers experience a desire to change their way of life. His readers already number more than a million, and their numbers are steadily growing. Once they have reached a critical mass, they will be capable of influencing the decisions of the world’s governments. But even today in these governments there are to be found enthusiastic supporters of the conclusions reached in the books. In other words our society as a whole will become just as controllable as Vladimir Megre himself. I hope there is no longer any doubt in your minds, my dear colleagues, that this Megre is an entity completely under the control of some kind of forces. I believe it is incumbent upon us, through our joint efforts, to figure out just who this Siberian recluse Anastasia is. Where is she, anyway? What are her capabilities? What kind of forces are helping her? Where are they trying to lead our society? These are the questions that modern science must answer. CHAPTER TWENTY

Breakdown I listened to the unknown speaker’s report on the audiocassette a second time. It made absolutely no difference to me who this person was. The conclusions he reached had such an effect on me that not only did I not have any desire to continue writing, but my life itself began to seem meaningless. Anastasia’s concept of Man’s significance was actually starting to grow on me—about how each Man is the beloved child of God, that he can be happy right here on the Earth. One only needs to gain a proper understanding of one’s purpose. I believed Anastasia and believed in the possibility of changing our life today for the better by transforming our lifestyle and building new communities.

But all my faith collapsed after hearing what was on the cassette. The thing was that the facts cited by the speaker regarding the coincidences that had happened to me—which, in his words, formed a pattern—were spot on. Everything he said actually happened, and more. There were other things I knew about besides—things they hadn’t been able to establish. It all did happen the way he said, and that means that I’ve simply been a puppet in somebody’s hands. It doesn’t really matter whose—Anastasia’s, or some kind of forces or energy—that’s not important. What matters is that I, as a Man, am nothing—I don’t exist. What exists is my flesh, which is so easily controllable by someone through arranged ‘coincidences’. It would be all right if I were the only one who could be controlled. But there may very well be other people under someone’s control from above, or maybe someone on high is controlling all humanity, and all humanity is just a plaything for an invisible someone, someone imperceptible to our human minds. I didn’t want to be anyone’s plaything, but the facts cited in the report argue incontestably that I’m nothing, I’m being controlled—and this is clearly manifest. I can see it backed up by facts I know all too well myself. Whatever happened to me on Cyprus wasn’t bad—quite the contrary, it was good! But that’s not the point! If an invisible someone has arranged a chain of wonderful coincidences, then tomorrow it may come into somebody else’s head to arrange another, not so wonderful chain of coincidences. This is relegating Man to the status of a plaything. And what about mankind as a whole? How could I not have realized before that some kind of forces are playing with all mankind, like children with toy soldiers?! When Anastasia talked about God and co-creation back in the taiga, it was as though some kind of curtain had parted as a result of her words. For the first time in my life I pictured God not as some kind of amorphous, incomprehensible being or an old man sitting on a cloud—but as a Person, capable of feeling, experiencing concern, dreaming and creating. My impressions from what Anastasia told me were more vivid and more comprehensible than anything I had ever heard or read before on the subject. And that wasn’t all! When she spoke, my heart felt good and not so lonely. Which means: He exists! He can be understood and He acts. He is wise and good. And this is confirmed by His creation all around us—the cedars, the grass, the birds and the beasts. There in the taiga, in Anastasia’s glade, they are all somehow kindly, not aggressive. We’re so accustomed to taking His creations for granted—we hardly pay any attention to them, but we try to appreciate him through something else instead. Through some kind of secret doctrines. And we wander the planet

looking for hidden sacred places, looking for teachers, looking for teachings. Now if that isn’t truly absurd! A complete absence of logic! If we talk about God as our good Father, then how can we assume that He will conceal something good from His children? There is nothing He has hid or concealed from people—His children. On the contrary, He always endeavours to be right beside them. What power is it that opposes Him? What power has so mesmerised us that we through our lifestyle have placed the whole planet—this splendid Earth which He has given us—under the threat of global disaster? What power is toying with us? Every evening we see the glow emanating from the windows of our manystoreyed apartment blocks. Behind every window people’s lives are unfolding. And how many of them, how many of these lives are really happy in this world? We talk about morality, love and culture, we all try to present an appearance of decency. But in reality? But in reality, even by the most conservative estimate, every other man, though outwardly decent, is fooling around with women on the sly—unbeknownst to his family, which still presents a decent appearance. What is one of the most lucrative sources of our national government’s income? Vodka and cigarettes. The State still maintains a tight hold on its monopoly here. But who does the drinking? The winos lolling about our fences and apartment-block lobbies? Well, of course, they drink, too. But they don’t have the financial clout to sustain the hundreds of our flourishing factories spewing out rivers of spirits. No, it is the outwardly decent and respectable folk who constitute the bulk of the consumer market here. We maintain huge police forces, not to mention personal security services and private investigative teams. What for? To round up all the winos and philanderers? Nonsense! With the forces at its disposal Internal Affairs26 could go and collect them all in a single day; It’s not them they’re after, but outwardly decent folk. Just think—here we have a whole army of “special services”, and believe me, they do not sit around with time on their hands. Which means there must be a whole army out there working against them! Which means that here a constant warfare is being waged, and we are all sitting right on the border between the warring parties, financing both sides. We attempt to improve the technical capabilties of one of the belligerents—namely, our organs of law enforcement, yet at the same time the other side is also upgrading its own technical prowess, and financing it from our pockets, too. After all, money has only one source—human labour. And the war is being waged on an ever more technically advanced level. And it’s not just a one-year or two-year conflict. It’s all been going on for

millennia. And nobody knows where it all started or who can put an end to it. And we’re right in the midst of the action, and not one of us is neutral— we’re all participants. We’re all participants in a never-ending war. Some of us are directly involved in the fighting, some finance it willingly or unwillingly, others manufacture the arms for it. But we all proceed under the mask of decency, talking about science, technology and culture. As an intensively developing, intelligent civilisation, we make ourselves look smart and utter the slogans of scientific and technical progress. Well, you smart civilisation, what about all the stinking water coming out of your taps? How did you ever think up, especially with that smart appearance of yours, this business of forcing people to buy their drinking water in bottles? Water which gets more expensive day by day? We are unwilling to take off our masks of decency. But why? Why do we inevitably complicate our lives this way year after year? Why are we moving so inexorably toward some stinking cesspool? And we are moving toward it, even if we don’t want to admit it to ourselves. Why is nobody stopping this movement? We have religious denominations aplenty But not one of them can stop this movement. What if they can’t stop it completely, but just slow it down? If so, then that would be a form of sadism, only prolonging the period of torture. We go on thinking of ourselves as being a smart and decent civilisation, but why, in this smart civilisation, are women losing interest in having children? Statistics are already showing us that our nation is dying out. What kind of forces are making a complete nutcase out of Man? 00 For a whole week I was depressed and apathetic about everything. I simply lay in bed the whole time and hardly had a bite to eat. Toward the end of the week I was suddenly overcome by fits of anger—even rage. I felt like doing at least something to counteract these forces. It didn’t matter what kind of forces they were—dark or bright. Just to spite anything that was trying to control us To show them that Man is capable of coming out from under their control. But what could I do to spite them? If they—or Anastasia along with them— wanted me to write, then I would refuse to write. If meat was off limits, then I’d eat meat, and smoke and drink too. Judging by their actions, they wouldn’t like that. Well just let them try and stop me! I drank every day for a whole month. The stupor relieved me temporarily, but then came the sobriety of the following morning, and all the bad thoughts flared up in me once more. Why had I been writing? I was trying to be honest, while all along I was simply becoming a toy of amusement in

goodness-knows whose hands. At night-time, after getting thoroughly drunk, I would make my way along the wall to my bed. And how I wanted to cry out—cry out so that my grandchildren and great-grandchildren could hear! So that they could hear and understand! Understand!!! I’d been writing because I couldn’t take the lie of the mask any longer! I was trying to find a way out! CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

Attempt at deconditioning Occasionally in the morning I would feel a desire to break free of my drunken stupor. And then I would head for the bathroom to shave off my several days’ growth of stubble. Remembering Anastasia, I tried not to think of bad things, but of the good she had managed to accomplish. I tried to convince myself that she was doing something good, but life kept on tossing more and more destructive arguments my way. And so on one particular morning, as I was routinely trying to come out of my stupor, a good friend of mine rang the doorbell of the flat I was renting. It was still early, and I hadn’t finished shaving yet. I still had shaving cream on my face as I opened the door. Vladislav was in some kind of emotional state. After saying hello he announced: “We gotta talk. Go finish your shaving while I start.” I did so, and he began telling me that he had finally read the book. He was excited about it, and could agree with Anastasia on a lot of things. He thought her logic was ironclad, but there was something else that he was even more concerned about. “So, because of this meeting with her, you broke up with your family and lost your business You don’t feel like carrying on with business any more, eh?” “That’s right.” “And you tried to organise a commonwealth of entrepreneurs with purer thoughts, like she suggested? So, are you writing your next book?” “I’m not writing at the moment. There’s something I’m trying to work out.” “That’s just it—you’ve got to work it out. Tell me, just what have you accomplished after five years’ acquaintance with this recluse—what do you have to show for yourself?”

“What d’you mean, what? I’ll give you an example. Here in the Caucasus you can already see the first glimpses of a change in people’s attitude toward the dolmens.1 You can imagine how many scientific papers had been written about them earlier, but they never made anyone excited about them. People just plundered them and carted things away. “But what Anastasia said had an immediate effect. In just the Druzhba sanatorium27 28 alone they had no sooner read my book than the employees got together and went to the nearby dolmen to lay flowers. And in other places too, people are changing their attitude toward their forebears, they’re thinking about—” “Stop! I completely agree with you. Her words are having an effect. And the fact you mentioned just now not only confirms this, but something else too. She’s turned you into a zombie—you’re not really yourself any more.” “What makes you think that?” “It’s simple. You’re an entrepreneur who even back in the early days ofperestroika was able to build up major commercial enterprises from scratch—even without any starting capital. You were the President of the Association of Siberian Entrepreneurs. And all of a sudden you stopped doing business, and now you’re doing your own washing and cooking—hey, you’re a completely different person!” “I’ve heard these arguments before, Vladislav. But what Anastasia said got me excited. She has a beautiful dream: ‘Carry people across the dark forces’ window of time’. She believes in it. She asked me to write a book. I promised I would. She’s alone, after all, waiting and dreaming. She probably somehow associates the book with that dream of hers. You said yourself that what Anastasia says in the book can have a tremendous influence on people.” “That’s just it—another illustration confirming her interference in things. Judge for yourself. An unknown author, an entrepreneur, all at once writes a book. And about what? About the history of mankind. The Cosmos. The Mind of the Universe. The raising of children. She’s beginning to have an effect on people in their day-to-day real life, she’s influencing their behaviour.” “But it is a positive influence.” “Possibly But that’s not the point. Haven’t you ever thought what made you suddenly able to write a book?” ‘Anastasia taught me.” “How did she do that?” “She took a stick and outlined the letters of the alphabet on the ground.29

And she said: “‘Here are the letters which you know. All your books, both good and bad, are made up of these letters. It all depends on how and in what sequence these 33 letters are arranged. There are two ways of arranging them.’” “So that’s it? All you have to do is arrange those 33 little letters in a specific sequence? You just arrange them, and then whole groups of people will head into the mountains to lay flowers at the dolmens? That’s preposterous! Too much of a stretch for an ordinary mind. It has to be the presence of some power we can’t fathom yet. Whether she’s zombified you, or reprogrammed you, or hypnotised you, I don’t know. But she’s done something.” “Whenever I called her a witch or used words like mysticism, fiction or incredible, Anastasia herself would get very upset and start claiming that she was just an ordinary human being, an ordinary woman—it was just that she had a lot of information in her. But it’s only a lot by our standards. She says that back in the days of our pristine origins anybody might have abilities like that. But later And, after all She bore me a son.” “And where’s your son now?” “In the taiga, with Anastasia. She says that it would be more difficult to raise a child in the conditions of our technocratic world and make him into a real Man. Because the little one can’t comprehend artificial objects. They only lead him away from the truth. We can’t show them to him until he’s already assimilated this truth.” “And why aren’t you in the taiga? Why aren’t you with her, helping raise your son?” “A normal Man can’t live in those conditions. She’s not even willing to light a fire. She’s got her own way of eating. Besides, she says that I shouldn’t communicate with my child for the time being.” “So, she’s not able to take it here in our normal living conditions. You can’t live there. Then what’s next? Ever thought about it? Here you are alone, without a family What if you fall ill?” “I’m not ill at the moment. I haven’t had anything for well over a year now. She cured me.” “Does that mean you’re never going to fall ill again?” “I’ll probably get ill at some point. Anastasia said that all one’s little aches and pains will try to come back again, since there’s a lot of the dark and harmful stuff in Man, and of course in me, just like in everyone else. You see, I still smoke. I’ve started drinking again. But that’s not the main thing.

She says people don’t have too many bright aspirations and thoughts. And they’re the principal defence against one’s aches and pains.” 1 Nizami Ganjavi (also spelt Giandzhevi) (1141-1209)—one of the most celebrated historical Persian poets from the region of Azerbaidzhan. He was learned not only in Arabic and Persian literature, but also in a variety of academic disciplines, including mathematics, geometry, astronomy, medicine, Islamic law and theology, history, philosophy, music and the visual arts. 2 Dr TaghiArani (1904-1940)—Iranian Marxist intellectual, arrested and tortured for his communist sympathies. 3 Pierre-Simon Laplace (1749-1827)—French mathematician who used mathematics to study the origin and stability of the solar system, an early contributor to the theory of probability. 4 1

Stendhal (real name: Marie-Henri Beyle, 1783-1842)—French realist writer known for his detailed analyses of his characters’ psychological make-up. 5 William (Will) James Durant (1885-1981)—American philosopher, historian and writer, of French-Canadian heritage. Two of his best-known works are the eleven-volume epic The story of civilization (1935-1975) and The story of philosophy (1962). 6 Will Durant, Philosophy and the social problem. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1928, p. 7. 7 Adam’s questions and God’s reply are quoted from Book 4, Chapter 8: “Birth”. 8 Quoted from Book 4, Chapter 2: “The beginning of creation”. 9 An approximation of Anastasia’s words in Book 2, Chapter 8: “The cherry

tree”: “To perceive what is really going on in the Universe one need only look into one’s self.” See also Anastasia’s grandfather’s advice in Book 4, Chapter 33: “School, or the lessons of the gods”: “Decide what’s real by yourself.” 10 See Book 1, Chapter 27: ‘Across the dark forces’ window of time”. 11 These and the following quotations concerning Notradamus’ prophecies are drawn (in fragmented order and with minor modifications) from Book 3, Chapter 24: “Who are you, Anastasia?”. 12 peoples collection— a reference to the 544-page volume of readers’ poetry, art and letters published in Russian under the title: VInche Anastasia zvuchit dusha Rossii Narodnaya kniga (The soul of Russia sings in Anastasia’s ray. A people’s book). 13 familiar form of address— similar to using ta instead of vous in French (see footnote 1 in Book 1, Chapter 2: “Encounter”). The informal form of address is reciprocated by Galina in addressing Nikolai Fiodorovich. 14 2

"bright-eyed falcon (Russian: sokolyasny)—a reference to a Russian folktale about a falcon named Finist. When Marya, the daughter of a rich merchant, is brought a falcon feather by her father at her request, she waves it in the air, whereupon a falcon appears and later turns into a handsome young man. The two fall in love. Injured, however, thanks to the trickery of Marya’s wicked elder sisters, Finist flies off and eventually recovers, but Marya must set out on a long quest to find him, and rescue him from a palace where a sly princess has her own designs upon him. The tale ends, of course, with Marya and Finist marrying and living happily ever after. 15 Quoted from Book 3, Chapter 4: “Chords of the Universe”. 16 See Book 3, Chapter 4: “Chords of the Universe”. 17 Sergei Vladimirovich Speransky—see footnote 1 in Book 3, Chapter 19: “What to agree with, what to believe?”.

18 These and the following passages (except as otherwise noted) are quoted from Book 1, Chapter 26: “Dreams—creating the future”. 19 Quoted from Book 1, Chapter 27: ‘Across the dark forces’ window of time”. 20 n

Quotecl from Book 1, Chapter 24: ‘A strange girl”.

21 Pavlova (pronounced PAHV-la-va)—a Russian surname (feminine form). 22 Paphos—a bustling seaport on the south-west coast of the island, which before the time of Constantine served as the capital of Cyprus. An even earlier settlement by the same name (with ruins dating back to 3000 B.C.) is located some 16 km to the southeast. The Paphos District covers the whole western tip of the island and according to local legend is the birthplace of the goddess of love, Aphrodite. 23 Baths of Aphrodite—a serene, shady grotto and pool near Polis on the Akamas Peninsula, about 50 km north of Paphos, where the goddess Aphrodite, according to legend, was wont to take her baths. 24 'Fadeyeva (pron. fa-D’AY-a-va)—a Russian surname (feminine form). The first name Elena is pronounced ye-L’EN-a. 25 Troodos mountains— the largest mountain range on Cyprus, spread across the western end of the island and capped by Mount Olympus (1,952 metres high). The range is home to a number of monasteries and Byzantine churches; nine of the latter are listed as UNESCO World Heritage sites. 26 Internal Affairs—the Russian ministry in charge of national security, including the “special services” branch which deals with any perceived threats against the State. 27 dolmens— ancient megalithic tombs; see footnote 1 in Book 1, Chapter 30:

‘Author’s message to readers”. 28 Druzhba sanatorium— the name Druzhba means ‘Friendship’. This incident is described in Book 2, Chapter 33: “Your sacred sites, O Russia!”. 29 Described in Book 1, Chapter 15: ‘Attentiveness to Man”. There are 33 letters in the modern Russian version of the Cyrillic alphabet (see footnote 2 in that chapter).

“In other words, it’s unlikely you’re going to have the same kind of future us normal people have. Anyway, I’ve come to you with a business proposal. I’ll dezombify you, dehypnotise you, and then, once you’re back to a normal state, you’ll be able to help me. You can help me get my firm back on track. After all, you’ve had experience, and you were a talented entrepreneur. You’ve got connections.” “I shan’t be able to help you, Vladislav I’m not thinking about business at the moment. My thoughts are occupied elsewhere.” “It’s quite clear you’re not thinking at the moment. You’ve got to pull out of this first, get back to a normal state of mind. Just believe me. I’m asking you as a friend. You’ll thank me for it by and by After all, once you get back to a normal state, you’ll be able to evaluate what’s happened for yourself.” “How can you define what is the most normal?” “It’s very simple. You live a normal, natural human life at least for a few days. You have some fun with girls. And then you take a look back at the past few years of your life. If you like what you see, you can go on working and living as you are now. But if, from a normal state of mind, you see that you were hypnotised, you can get back into business again. It’ll be good for you, and you can help me.” “I can’t go out with prostitutes.” “Who says anything about prostitutes? Well take up with those who want it themselves. Well have a party and enjoy some music and other people’s company We can have it at a restaurant or out in nature. I’ll get everything organised, all you have to do is go along.” “I need to work out things within myself first. I need to think.” “Come on, enough with the thinking! Look at my proposal as an experiment. I’m asking you as a friend—just give me a week, and then you can think.” “Okay—let’s go for it” The following day we went by car to a neighbouring town, where some nice girls (as Vladislav put it) lived—girls he said he’d known for a long time. CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

Our Reality The woman who opened the door for us was attractive and alluring. Thirtysomething, feminine and shy, pleasingly plump. No, she wasn’t fat. Her

body preserved and even accentuated all the man-enticing curves—which were hardly obscured under the sheer gown she was wearing. Her childlike voice and welcoming smile at once made us feel at home. “Hello there, travellers! Come on in, come on in. Svetlana told me about you. She said you’d like to see the town, and then go to a restaurant and have a great time!” “That’s just the ticket! We want to do all that, and of course with you, my lovelies,” Vladislav blurted out. ‘And how’s my dear Svetlanka—still out partying, eh what?” “Now when would we have time to go out partying, and who with? Seems the rest of us have to wait a lifetime” “Why wait? See here, I’ve brought a pal along. He’s from Siberia, and he’s one-hundred-per-cent entrepreneur!” She straightened her tight-woven braid and raised her timidly lowered eyelids to reveal a sparkling pair of eyes that looked as though they could be full of passion and desire. She offered me her hand. “I’m Lena.1 Hello!” “Vladimir,” I introduced myself, shaking her cream-puff hand. While Lena got some coffee ready for us in the kitchen, Vladislav and I washed up and then took a look around her two-room apartment. I really liked her flat. The layout was pretty much like any other flat, but hers looked especially clean and cozy, well cared for. Everything was arranged in place, no clutter. The bedroom featured turquoise flowered wallpaper and matching curtains with frills. This colour, also picked up by the rug and the counterpane on what looked like close to a king-size bed—together with the tidiness of the room—had a soothing effect. The bed especially was truly inviting. We sat ourselves down in comfortable armchairs in the other room, which was a little bigger. Vladislav switched on a rather expensive-looking tape player, and asked me: “Well, what do you think of her?” “Jolly good. I’m just wondering, how come she’s not married?” “How come millions of other women aren’t married? Haven’t you heard? There’s not enough of us—men, that, is—to go round!” “Sure I’ve heard it, but she’s not just everyone. She’s really nice, and she’s managed to make a cozy nest for herself here.” “Yes, she has. She gets a decent salary She’s a top hairdresser. Not just a hairdresser—a stylist to boot. She goes in for competitions, and as for her clientele—let’s just say she has more than one wealthy lady waiting to pay good money for her

services.” “D’you think she sleeps around?” “No way Svetka2 said that back 'when they were in school together, Lenka took up with this dim-wit from the next class up. Then after they finished school she dumped him, but he kept after her for the longest time, and picked a fight with anyone who tried to go out with her. There were quite a few lads he and his pals left in a pretty bad way—right before her eyes. He even got hauled up on delinquency charges. She felt sorry for him and never testified against him. She always claimed she wasn’t fully conscious and couldn’t remember. So * 'Svetka— like Svetlanka, an informal form of Svetlana. they were only able to get him once—for beating up on some lad who had a high-placed daddy” “Then maybe she’s frigid—maybe she doesn’t need a man?” “Frigid? I should say not! Didn’t you notice the way she looked at you with those eyes of hers? Like a boa-constrictor sizing up a rabbit! She was ready to jump into bed with you right off!” “Don’t exaggerate.” “Now don’t you go with your faultfinding, just enjoy yourself. Carpe diem! We agreed we were going to relax and have a good time, so let’s just relax and have a good time.” Lena brought in cups of coffee on a beautiful tray She had changed into a body-hugging sun-dress and had put on a bit of makeup. Looking even better than before, she suggested: “If you’re hungry, I can throw something together.” “No,” replied Vladislav “We’ll eat at a restaurant. Ring up one of the better places here and reserve a table for four.” While we sat and drank our coffee, Lena telephoned a restaurant and reserved a table with some manager she apparently knew quite well, as she used the familiar form of address,3 instructing him: “Try to find a good spot—I’m coming with some very nice gentlemen.” That evening, Lena took us on a ride in her car to see the sights of the city and its environs, ending up at the restaurant. An obliging doorman in a richly adorned uniform opened the door for us with a gallant sweep of his hand. The Maitre D’ escorted us to a table on the far side of the dining room. It was indeed a nice spot, on a slightly raised floor, with a good view of the whole restaurant and the stage. The dining room with its beautiful plaster mouldings on the walls and ceilings,

indicating a rather expensive establishment, was already almost filled to capacity. Probably only the wealthy could afford to enjoy a meal here. We decided we would hold nothing back—we ordered the most expensive hors d’oeuvres, some good wine and a bottle of vodka for me. The orchestra struck up a dance tune—some kind of tango. Vladislav immediately suggested we all take to the dance floor, and we started off. Lena’s womanly body swayed cozily and comfortably in my arms. Already a wee bit tipsy, I was even more intoxicated by the fragrance of her perfume, not to mention those sparkling eyes of hers. Her lowered eyelids lifted from time to time to reveal a tender gaze, burning, as it seemed, in anticipation of forthcoming passion. And then they lowered once more, as though embarrassed all of a sudden. By the time we got back to our table, all my sense of being a seeker on the straight and narrow vanished out the window. I felt good and light-headed, and I was grateful to Vladislav and Lena and everything in general. So, it was possible to live a good life, as long as one didn’t dig into it too deep, but simply enjoyed its benefits. I poured everyone a glass of wine, vodka for myself. I was just about to propose a toast when Vladislav interrupted. After dancing with his Svetlana he looked very nervous for some reason. He immediately lit a cigarette, carelessly dropping the ashes into his salad. Without waiting for anyone else he took a large gulp of wine and didn’t say a word, only fidgeted in his chair. I was on the point of picking up my glass and proposing my toast when he started muttering: “Wait, something’s come up Something serious. Let’s step out for a bit. We gotta talk.” And without waiting for my reply he rose sharply from his seat. “You birds stay here and swap a bit of gossip. We’ll be right back.” We went out into the spacious restaurant lobby Vladislav beckoned me over into a far corner by the fountain and in a sour, muffled voice spat out: “She’s a bitch! You were right A damned bitch!” “Who’s a bitch? If you’ve had a falling out with Svetka, then don’t spoil the evening for others.” “Not Svetka Lenka’s set us up, or rather set you up, though I’m in for it, too. I’m gonna stick with you.” “D’you mind telling me just how she could set me up, or set us up? Who or what for?” “Svetka told me while we were dancing. I’d been telling her all about you, and she felt sorry for you As soon as she saw you And while we were

dancing she told me the whole story” “What story?” “Lenka’s a bitch. Some kind of sick masochist. A pervert. You can see how men fall for her, she flirts with them, and then she takes them to this restaurant. She invariably gets a table reserved through her friend there, and that lackey right off contacts this mafia bloke.” “What mafia bloke?” “That dim-wit over there, the one she got to know in school. I was telling you how even when he was younger he and his chums would beat up on anyone taking her out. And now he’s making like a kind of local gang boss, running some sort of racket. Anyway, she knows that as soon as she asks for a certain table through her pal there, he’ll automatically contact this mafia bloke. And right here in the restaurant, or more often afterwards in some secluded spot he’ll lie in wait with his thugs and beat Lenka’s companion half to death. The whole business is supposed to take place right before her eyes. She gets a real high from it, maybe even starts to ‘come’. Svetka says it’s already a disease with her. She once admitted to Svetka that these scenarios can even sometimes give her an orgasm.” ‘And the dim-wit, what does he get out of it?” “Who knows what he does it for! Maybe he loves her like he did before. Maybe he too gets some perverse pleasure from it. Svetka says Lena pretends she’s ‘out of it’, and then after the scene’s over he takes her home and spends the night with her. And goodness knows what they do there in her flat.” “So why doesn’t he just go ahead and marry her?” “What difference does it make to you why they don’t get married? I tell you, it’s like Lenka’s sick! Like she doesn’t want to let go of her youth. You get married, and all you’ve got is humdrum everyday life. This way she gets her high, but what high would she get in married life? She’s sick, Svetka says. What’s it to us? We gotta think of ourselves, how to get outta this now.” “Let’s just leave the restaurant, since you say they might contact that mafia jerk.” “Too late. He’s already here with his henchmen. Watching us Svetka says the first thing he’ll do is come over to our table, and very politely ask to have a dance with Lenka. If her companion says okay, they’ll have a dance. Otherwise, he’ll calmly walk away. But it all ends up the same—they lie in wait and then beat him half to death. If there’s any valuables, his henchmen will grab them. I’ve already given my Rolex to Svetka. If you’ve got anything like that, let me give it to her too for safekeeping.” “I don’t have any valuables. Tell me, how come they’re not afraid of the

cops?” “Listen, I tell you they’ve got it all set up He’s got a lawyer Not only that, but they can make the whole situation look like they were protecting the woman from a rapist.” ‘And that means Lena won’t testify?” “She’ll shut up, the bitch, fake a memory lapse, like she was in shock or had a fainting spell It’s all my fault. We’ve landed in this pile of crap, but I think I have an idea. I’ve got an idea. Let’s pretend to start something, pick a fight, get into a row with each other, so the police will come and take us away. Better to spend a night in the drunk tank and pay a fine than end up scarred for life!” “No, no way. I’m not going to punish myself for their sakes. Can’t we go out through a back door, then you could ring up Svetka, order a taxi to go and collect her?” “We shan’t make it—they’re already sitting out there. If we leave, they’ll only come after us and bring us back. We’ll get it doubly hard in that case. And then they’ll claim we were trying to run off without paying our bill.” “If there’s no escape, then let’s go all out—sky’s the limit! At least play on the nerves of these bastards. It’s a shame the evening’s spoilt—I was having such a good time.” “How’re we gonna ‘go all out’? Tell me, how?” “We’ll go and get really soused, then we shan’t have a care in the world. Let’s pull out all the stops, while we still can. Only don’t let on that you know—don’t get nervous in the meantime.” “What d’you mean? I’m not afraid for myself—I’m worried about you.” “Let’s go.” We returned to our table. The spacious and luxurious restaurant sparkled with the grandeur of the ladies’ refined attire, and the jewels adorning them were to all appearances genuine. A lot of the still very young beautiful girls in the company of their suave escorts also sported fancy jewellery. These were the so-called ‘new Russians’ out for a good time. But they are Russia too. Which meant that here was Russia herself out for a good time in a way she alone was capable of. With daring and pizzazz. And the pizzazz will most certainly show itself in due time, even if for now everything is done with decorous grandeur and luxury. As soon as we sat down at our table, I filled our wine-glasses to the brim and proposed a toast: “Here’s to satisfaction! Let each of us sitting here tonight bring at least a

moment’s satisfaction to those around us. To satisfaction!” Vladislav and I emptied our glasses, while the women drank half of theirs. I edged my chair right up to Lenka’s, put my arms around her right away, rested my hand on her half-exposed cleavage and whispered in her ear. “You’re beautiful and cute, Lena. You’d make a terrific wife and mother!” Initially feigning embarrassment at my embrace and my hand upon her breast, she made an attempt to withdraw, but not a serious attempt. On the contrary, she began inclining her head toward me. Thus the game was afoot —playing by their (or her) rales. And I played along as best I could, without really thinking about why I was doing it, as though rushing headlong, ever closer to a sad result for someone’s (or some dark forces’) sport. And the result came. From a table beside the stage rose a stout-looking fellow with a neck like a bull’s. He stood there for some time, staring at us. Directly the music began he buttoned his jacket and confidently strode over to our party’s table. But half-way across the floor he suddenly stopped and began to stare just as hard in the opposite direction. And throughout the room many heads turned in the same direction. A number of couples even got up from their chairs in astonishment. I too followed their gaze, and nearly fainted from shock. There, making her way from the main entrance to the stage was none other than Anastasia! And not a single person could be left unastonished at her sprightly—I would have to say: defiantly sprightly—step, not to mention her outfit! And what an outfit it was! She was still wearing her old but clean cardigan, skirt and mother’s kerchief, but this time they looked as though the world’s most celebrated fashion designer had come up with a super-ensemble especially for her, outshining all the other women’s attire that had seemed to me so refined and fashionable up ’til now. Perhaps it seemed that way on account of the fact that her usual clothing was supplemented by some rather unusual jewellery, or perhaps it was her posture, or the manner in which she carried herself? Prom Anastasia’s earlobes hung (as though clipped on) two little green twigs with fur-like needles. Her head was encircled by a garland of grasses woven into a braid, keeping in place a thick golden shock of hair. Over her forehead a little flower, burning bright as a ruby, had been woven into the band. And she was wearing makeup—there was just a tint of green shadow above her eyelids. She had on the same skirt as before, but with a slit almost to her thigh.

Around her waist was a belt made from a kerchief and tied with a knot. The incredible ensemble was topped off with an extraordinary, super-fashionable purse, into which she had transformed her bundling cloth. Folding the cloth in half, she had tied two of the corners to one end of a bark-covered stick and the other two corners to the other end, and then used a little grass belt she had woven to fasten it all together into a kind of hippie-style handbag. And to top it all off she strode with a freedom and confidence that models and supermodels could only dream of. Upon reaching the dance-floor, where a few couples were launching in to some kind of a quick-paced dance, Anastasia all at once spun gaily around several times in time with the music, whereby every limb of her supple body bent and twisted with beautiful, fluid movements. Then she arched her arms over her head and clapped her hands with a delightful laugh, and all the men in the room responded in enthusiastic applause. As she then headed for our table, two alert waiters approached her enquiringly, and I could see her gesturing in our direction. One of them picked up an elaborately carved wooden chair and followed her. As she walked past Lenka’s friend with the bull neck who had been about to head over to our table, Anastasia paused for a bit and looked him straight in the eye. It almost seemed as though she gave him a wink before heading over to us. There I was sitting with my arm around Lena, watching the proceedings with open-mouthed astonishment. None of us were talking, only staring. Anastasia approached our table as though nothing unusual had happened, and greeted us as though she were an expected guest: “Hello and good evening! Hello, Vladimir! If you will allow me You will not mind if I join you for a bit?” “No, of course not, Anastasia—do sit down!” I began, recovering from the shock of her arrival. I rose to offer her my seat, but the obliging waiter had already put the additional chair in place. The second waiter moved my plate to one side and, setting a clean plate in front of Anastasia, offered her a menu. “Thank you,” she responded. “But I am not hungry at the moment.” Reaching into her hippie-style purse, she brought out a cluster of berries wrapped in a large leaf—huckleberries and cranberries. Putting them on a plate in the middle of the table, she invited us to help ourselves. “How did you happen to show up here all of a sudden, Anastasia?” I asked. “Have you been taking in the restaurant scene lately?”

“I came to visit you, Vladimir. I had a feeling I would find you here, and so I decided to come. I am not imposing on you?” “You’re not imposing at all. Only what’s with the fancy get-up? And the makeup?” “At first I did not have any makeup or fancy clothes, but when I tried to enter the restaurant, the doorman would not let me in. He let others in, and bowed to them as he held the door open for them, but he told me: “‘Outta here, sister, this ain’t your local greasy spoon!’ “I stepped aside to a more shaded place, and watched to see how others managed to get in. I realized they were wearing different attire and did not walk the same way I did. I caught on to it all quite quickly. I found two twigs handy that had fallen from a nearby tree, split them with the ends of my nails and attached them to my ears as decoration. Look!” Whereupon Anastasia turned sideways to me and showed me her invention. “What do you think—did they turn out well?” “Very well indeed.” “So I quickly made myself a purse, and a belt out of my kerchief, and some makeup from leaf and flower sap. Pity, though, I had to tear a slit in my skirt” “You didn’t have to make such a huge tear, practically to your thigh! Just to your knees, that would have been enough.” “I wanted everything to be as perfect as possible, so they would let me in.” “And where did you get the lipstick? That’s real lipstick you’re wearing!” “That I obtained here. When the man at the entrance opened the door for me, I went over to the mirror in the lobby to see how I looked. Naturally, I was curious. There were some women standing in front of the mirror, looking at me. One of them came over, all excited, and asked me where I got my outfit from. She offered to do a ‘full swap’—said she would give me her ring and costume jewellery. She even offered me some ‘greenbacks’.4 “I explained to her that it would not take her long to put together a dress like this on her own. I started by showing her the clip-on twigs. The other women looked on, and one of them kept saying ‘Oh, wow! Oh wow!’ Another started asking me where she could find magazine pictures and descriptions ^‘greenbacks’—American banknotes have commonly functioned for many years as a second currency in Russia, though not always legally of such fashions. And the first one said that if I wanted to ‘turn tricks’ here, she was the Madam and wouldn’t allow any pimps, since her girls are free agents and she’s quite capable of smashing any protection

racket.” “That must have been Anka-putanka,”1 said Sveta. “She’s one tough cookie —they’re really afraid of her. If anyone crosses her, she can come up with all kinds of schemes and arrange an ‘incident’ where so many heads will be banged together they’ll really be sorry” “‘One tough cookie’” Anastasia echoed moodily “But her eyes are full of sadness—I feel sorry for her. I wanted to do at least something for her. When she started to sniff me over and ask about my perfume, I gave her a little twig containing the essence of cedar oil and showed her how to apply it. She at once daubed it on herself and on her girlfriends, and in return she gave me some lipstick and a pencil to highlight the edges. I could not get it right at first, and we had a good laugh over it. Then she helped me put it on, and said anytime I needed anything, I could come to her. She offered to have me join them at their table, but I said I had only come to see my—” Anastasia paused in mid-sentence, then continued after a moment’s thought: “to see you, Vladimir, and the rest of you. “Vladimir, could we take a little walk outside? There is a breeze blowing off the sea—the air is better there. Or would you like to stay here a little while longer with your friends? I can wait until you have finished. Or I—Are you certain I am not imposing?” “Not at all, Anastasia!” I replied. “I’m really happy you came. It’s just that I was so surprised to see you at first.” “Indeed? So, perhaps you and I could take a stroll by the sea? Just the two of us, or all together? Which would you prefer?” “Let’s go, Anastasia. Just the two of us.” But getting out of there wasn’t all that easy Elena’s friend was heading our way. He too, it seemed, took a while to recover from the unexpected arrival of Anastasia. We should have left earlier—right off I thought to myself, but now it was too late. They had already set their dastardly scenario in motion. And Elena, as though getting herself mentally prepared for it, began sitting up straight, lowered her eyes and made a show of smoothing out her hair. He came over to our table, but instead of approaching Elena, he went directly to Anastasia. With a slight bow of his head he began addressing her, taking no notice of anyone else. Elena’s jaw dropped in surprise at hearing him ask Anastasia: “Miss, allow me the pleasure of asking you for this dance.” Anastasia rose, smiled and responded: “Thank you so kindly for the invitation. Please, have a seat in my chair.

They will miss your company otherwise. As for me, I really do not care to dance at the moment. My my gentleman friend and I have just decided we would like to go for a walk in the fresh air.” In obedience to her suggestion he sat down in her chair, not taking his eyes off her for a moment. Anastasia and I headed for the exit. My plan was to get as far away from the restaurant as possible, go for a bit of a walk as Anastasia wanted, then grab a taxi and go back to my flat. It was around ten o’clock at night. We walked through a shady allee and then down to the rocky seashore. We hadn’t yet reached the water’s edge when I heard the screech of brakes. I turned around to look. From a jeep parked at the side of the road up above, five tough-looking lads were heading in our direction. As four of them encircled us, I recognised the fifth as the dim-wit with the bull neck—he took up a position just a little distance away. But it was he who kicked off the conversation: “Hey, pal, you’d better get back to the pub. Your lady’s missing you.” With no response from me, he started up again: “Hey, you deaf or what? We say you’d better go back to your lady But you got this lady mixed up with another and split. We’re gonna help you back— right this instant.” The oversized lad standing nearest me took a step closer, and I made a decision. “Run, Anastasia!” I cried, and decided to let him have it first, and keep them at bay as long as I could so that Anastasia could get away. I tried to land the first blow on the chap approaching me, but he seized hold of my arm, punched me in the solar plexus, and then wham!— right in the face. I tumbled to the ground, right on the rocks. I would probably have landed right on my head, but Anastasia reached out her hand and cushioned my fall. My head was spinning and I could hardly breathe. I lay there and watched the big fellow’s feet—shod in steel-rein-forced boots—come right up to my face. Uh-oh, he’s going to use his foot on me next! the thought flashed through my mind. Now he came really close and lifted his leg. Only right at that point Anastasia did what just about any woman would have done under the circumstances—she screamed. But what a scream! It was a regular scream only for a split second. The sound associated with it quickly vanished, and her inaudible scream rose wildly in intensity to the point of shattering one’s eardrums. I could see the lads around us letting some kind of objects fall from their hands as they grabbed hold of their ears. Three of them collapsed to the ground and began writhing on their knees in pain.

Anastasia, having covered my ears with her own hands, kept refilling her lungs with fresh breaths of air and screaming again. Her scream was evidently something akin to ultrasound, causing all our would-be attackers to writhe in pain. They had no idea what was happening, or where this piercing, unbearable sound was coming from. Through her hands I could feel the sharp penetrating sensation—maybe not as strongly as the others, but it still hurt. Then I noticed a group of women running down toward us from the road. Anastasia stopped screaming and took her hands off my ears, I sat up on a rock. I could see the two Zhigulis2 the girls had arrived in standing beside the jeep. The women were armed—one was carrying a bottle, another a tyre iron, a third brandished a policeman’s truncheon, while the fourth held a massive candlestick in her hands. Out in front was Anka-putanka, holding in her hands the neck of a broken champagne bottle, while following behind, slowly, came yet another—a plumpish woman clad only in a nightgown, who had apparently come straight out of bed and hadn’t had time to get dressed. Somehow the Madam-in-charge had managed to sound the alarm and rope all her ‘workmates’ into the task at hand. The fearsome, dishevelled Anka stopped just a few metres from our little group, which was now picturesquely sprawled over the rocks. Anastasia was the only one of us standing, and Anka spoke to her: “How now, friend! You’ve got so many lads after you—they wouldn’t be botherin’ you, would they now?” “I just wanted to have a talk with one of them,” Anastasia calmly replied. “And the rest of them—what are they doin’ here?” “They followed us for some reason. I have no idea what they want.” “You have no idea? I know what those scumbags want,” replied Anka and burst into a torrent of expletives in the direction of Lena’s friend. “How many times have I told you, muttonhead, not to lay a hand on me girls?!!” “She isn’t one of yours,” the ‘dim-wit’ responded gruffly. “She’s my ‘professional colleague’. That means she’s mine. Got it, you overgrown school-kid? If I see your pimp-snout so much as anywhere near one of me friends, I’ll smash the livin’ daylights outta you an’ your cronies. Just remember that! I’m not puttin’ up with a single pimp on my territory— not a single scumbag will I allow. You’re not satisfied with sucking blood from the suits? You wanna be pimpin’ for us too?” “You’ve gone crazy. She’s not yours. She’s a novice. I just wanted to have

some fun with her myself. This time, Anka, you’ve gone too far. What’s all the fuss about her? What’s she to you?” “She’s me friend. Got that? An’ you’ve got your hands full with that sadist of yours.” “You’ve gone bonkers! Before you know it every last bird’s gonna be your friend—eh what?” The leader’s voice in him was now no longer stifled by fear. And I realized why: while Anka was talking with him, his henchmen had come to, and the short, stocky fellow standing beside the leader was holding a gun in his hands, aimed right at Anka. A second man had his own gun trained on the group of hookers standing behind her. Here was this group of young women, armed with whatever they could lay their hands on, standing directly in the path of the thugs’ guns. The situation, as it now turned out, was far from being in their favour. One thing was absolutely certain: another moment and their morale would be broken and their bodies maimed, not to mention the loss of their freedom and income. I really felt like doing at least something to influence the proceedings and head off the inevitable dreaded result. Anastasia was standing beside me, intently observing the situation. I jerked her arm. Putting my hands over my ears, I quickly said: “Scream, Anastasia! Scream as quick as you can!” Lowering my arm, she enquired: “Why scream, Vladimir?” “Eh? Don’t you see what’s going on? These women are about to get their heads bashed in, maimed for life. Their bluff’s been called. It’s all over for them.” “Not for all of them. The spirit is still fighting in three of them.” “But what can the spirit do against guns? They’re done for.” “They are not ‘done for’ yet, Vladimir. As long as their spirit is still fighting, nobody should interfere. Outside interference may take care of the situation at hand, but it will weaken their self-confidence, and mean that a whole lot of other situations in their lives will not turn out favourably for them. They will come to rely on outside help.” “Stuff that philosophy of yours, at least for now. Can’t you see the situation’s hopeless?” I fell silent. It was clear Anastasia’s mind was made up. And I thought wistfully: Oh, if only I could scream like that! Seeing his cronies ready and alert, Lena’s boyfriend (the pimp) spoke up—it

was clear from the tone of his voice that he was already feeling he had the situation well in hand. “I told you, Anka-putanka, you’ve gone too far. But this time we’ve won. So you’d better drop your toys, you little tarts! Drop them, and get those rags off—we’re gonna screw all of you, one at a time.” Anka looked around at the thugs standing or concealing themselves, guns at the ready, and answered with a sigh: “Maybe you don’t need all of us—maybe just me’s enough?” “Ha, ha, bitch! See, now you’re singing a different tune,” the leader responded over the laughter of his buddies. “We shan’t be satisfied just with you—we’re gonna teach you all a lesson here. After this you’re gonna be working for us, bitches!” “An’ jest where are you goin’ to get the stud power to take on all of us?” Anka responded with a laugh. “You’ll be lucky if you have enough for just one!” “Shut your trap, bitch! We’ll screw all of you, several times over!” “I doubt that! I bet you won’t be able to take on even one of us!” “We’ll keep screwing you all night long!” “You know, sweet cheeks, you’re startin’ to get on my nerves—you an’ your ‘promises’. I don’t believe ’em, I don’t believe you’re man enough!” “You’ll find out soon enough, bitch! I’m gonna smash that pretty face of yours in!” wheezed the leader, already seething with rage, putting on a pair of brass knuckles as he moved toward Anka. Anka retreated a bit and called out to her group: “Step aside, girls!” The group of hookers took several steps back. Only the sullen plumpish ‘cow’ in the nightdress stood on the sidelines as though rooted to the spot, and when the tall and lanky leader took another step in Anka’s direction, the ‘cow’, who before this had not spoken a word, suddenly said blandly: “Hey, An—what’re you waitin’ for, An? Let’s get started, eh?” “Don’t be in such a hurry, Mashka,”' replied Anka, taking another couple of steps back. “Well, go ahead, seein’ you’re itchin’ to get on with it!” ‘Mashka—like Masha an d Mashenka, a colloquial variant of Maria. The plumpish Masha, calmly and coquettishly tore open the flaps of her nightdress, scattering the buttons to the winds, exposing not only her bare

breast and bikini briefs, but something else as well. Under her nightgown the ‘cow’ was carrying a Kalashnikov assault rifle with a silencer and night-vision telescopic sight. She pulled the bolt, raised the butt stock to her shoulder, pressed her cheek to the stock and peered into the sight. “Only remember, Masha, no automatic,” Anka suggested. “This ain’t no war zone. Just one bullet at a time. You know—every bullet costs money” “Uh-huh,” answered Masha, her eye still pressed to the sight, and fired off five shots, each about a second apart. But what shots they were! The first bullet tore off the heel from one of the leader’s boots, apparently wounding his foot in the process. He jumped back in the direction of the water, limping. The other four shots landed right by each of the thugs in turn. Immediately they began looking for cover behind the rocks, and the ones who didn’t have any cover handy lay face down on the ground. “An, tell them to crawl into the water! Or they may get blasted by a ricochet!” Masha blurted out, her Kalashnikov still at the ready. “You heard her, sweet cheeks! Into the water!” Anka ordered the big thugs already crawling toward the water’s edge, gently reminding them: “Mashenka’s not yet a good enough shot to be responsible for ricocheting bullets!” A moment later, and all of them, including their leader, were standing waistdeep in the sea. Ania went up to Anastasia, and for a while the two simply looked at each other, face to face, without saying a word. Then Ania said quietly, with just a hint of sadness: “You, friend, wanted to go for a stroll with your companion there. So go ahead. It’s a fine evening, quiet, warm.” “Yes. There is indeed a pleasant air blowing over the city,” Anastasia replied, adding: “You are tired, Ania, perhaps you would care to relax in a garden of your own?” “Perhaps but I feel sorry for me girls, an’ I’m still so mad at those blokes. Say, are you from the country?” “Yes.” “Nice place, where you live?” “Very nice. But I do not always feel at peace, especially when things are not going well for everyone in other places, as here right now.” “Don’t mind them. Come whenever you like Anyway, I’m off. Gotta work.

Have a nice quiet stroll here.” Ania headed toward the cars, her entourage in tow. As they walked past the ‘cove’ still sitting on the rock, the Kalashnikov lying across her bare knees, Ania said: “You stay and relax here a bit, Mashenka. Well send a car for you later.” “I’ve got a client waitin’—I was with him when you called me. An’ he’s paid already!” “We’ll take care of your client. Well say you had an upset stomach. Like, the quality of the champagne wasn’t up to scratch.” “I had vodka. And only half a glass.” “Well, then, maybe you ate something” “I didn’t have anything to eat—just a bit of candy and some pastries.” “So that’s it, then—the pastries weren’t too fresh. How many d’you eat?” “Don’t remember.” “C’mon—she never eats less than four at a time,” said one of the girls. “Right, Masha?” “Well, maybe you’re right. At least leave me a cigarette. So’s I don’t get bored out of my skull.” Ania put a package of cigarettes along with a lighter on the rock beside Masha, and the girls walked on. “Hey,” came a voice from the water, “you gonna leave this gal of yours here on the rock?” “She’s stayin’, sweet cheeks, she’s stayin’!” replied Ania. “I told you right off, one of us is enough for the likes of you. You wanted all of us. And now it turns out it’s goin’ to be pretty boring for just one of us to stay here with you.” “Once this gets out, about how conniving you are” one of the thugs called out. “Once it gets out Well, no one will ever want to shag with you again. Even if you offer to pay them.” Five muffled shots rang out from the rock in quick succession. And five little splashes popped up in the water, one right beside each of the men standing there, making them retreat even further out from the shore. Ania turned to them and warned: “Look, boys, just make sure you don’t rile Mashenka here. When we like someone, we can be sweet and tender. An’ loyal as dogs. When we like

someone, understand? No matter who” And then, as she clambered up the hill toward the cars, she struck up a song in a resonant, wistful voice: The paths and roads are all overgrown there Which my dear lover's feet have known there. And the young prostitutes following her picked up on the tone of her voice, on the intonations of sadness and despair: Overgrown there with mosses and grasses: He’s taken up with another of the lasses. Where does he travel, my lover? It makes my heart only sorrow and suffer. And off they drove, still singing the song about the pathways and roads, as they headed back to work. CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

Your desires It was almost midnight by the time Anastasia and I got back to my apartment. As I put the key into the lock, I felt a sense of exhaustion after all the intense experiences the day had brought. Upon seeing my bed, I told Anastasia that I was extremely tired, and went to take a shower. When I came out of the shower, Anastasia told me she’d already made up my bed, and that she herself would lie down on the balcony. It’s probably too stuffy for her in one of these mass-produced apartment blocks, I thought, and went out to the balcony to see what kind of bed she had made for herself there. It turned out she had put a little strip of rug down on the balcony floor and covered it with some white paper, which my landlord had got ready for wallpapering the flat. In place of a pillow she had folded her cardigan, and put a small tree-branch at the head of her makeshift bed. “How can you get a good night’s sleep here, Anastasia? It’s hard, and you’ll be cold. At least let me fetch you a blanket.” “Not to worry, Vladimir. I shall be fine here. The air is fresh, and I can see the stars. Look up and see how many stars there are! There is a soft, warm breeze blowing—I shall not be cold. You go lie down, Vladimir, and I shall sit on the edge of your bed for a while, and once you fall asleep, I shall lie down, too.” I lay down on the bed Anastasia had made up for me and thought I was so

tired that I’d nod off right away, but it didn’t work out quite like that. The thought, or realization, that Man—i.e., every single individual—was nothing more than a plaything in the hands of some sort of coincidences, kept gnawing away at my mind, giving me no peace. This led to a growing feeling of irritation at those who had arranged these coincidences, and Anastasia too. Anastasia in particular, since I considered it a definite possibility that she had actually participated in the formation of these coincidences, at least as far as my life was concerned. “Is something disturbing you, Vladimir?” Anastasia calmly enquired, and I even raised myself slightly on my elbows. “As if you didn’t know! I believed you I wanted to believe I particularly wanted to believe that Man—every Man—is capable of making his own life happy. I especially believed in the eco-communities you talked about, where people can live a secure existence thanks to their own family plot of land, and raise their children to have a happy life. And that there would be good schools there for the children. I believed you when you said that every Man is the beloved child of God. ‘Man is the summit of creation’—you did say that, didn’t you?” “Yes, Vladimir, I did tell you that.” “Of course you did! And how convincing you made it all sound! I not only believed you, I started acting on it, started organising a community I’ve already submitted the necessary paperwork to the authorities. The Anastasia Foundation is collecting people’s applications. A design’s been commissioned, along with a layout for gardens and all sorts of plantings. It would have been all right just to believe you and all that, but I actually started carrying things out, and with pleasure! You knew! You knew I’d carry things out!” “Yes, Vladimir, I knew. After all, you are an entrepreneur. You are always ready to carry out practical actions, to make things happen” “Always ready?” I echoed. “How simple it all is! Of course. No need to be a clairvoyant to see that. As long as an entrepremir believes in something, he will start to act. And I, fool that I was, started too.” I couldn’t stay lying down any longer. I jumped out of bed, walked over to the window and opened the fortochka/ since I felt a sudden wave of heat— either in the room or within me. “Why did you think your actions foolish, Vladimir?” Anastasia calmly asked. And her equanimity, along with her feigned ignorance, as I then considered it—made me even more angry.

“And you just sit there talking all calm-and-collected-like? Calm and collected! As if you didn’t know all along that Man is a puppet in somebody’s hands. They control Man through various circumstances. Each Man is easily controllable by some kind of forces. If they feel like it, they can plunge half the human race into war. They plunge people into war and then take up a position somewhere up above or on the sidelines to watch us kill each other. If they feel like it, they’ll slip some sort of religion into the proceedings and watch, once again, as people go to war over their faith. If they feel like it, they can play with just a single individual. I’m convinced of it. I’ve been convinced by people who are smart enough to analyse what’s going on.” “And just how did these ‘smart people’ succeed in convincing you that Man is just a plaything in the hands of some kind of forces?” “I listened to a report. They were talking about me. Some smart people became interested in public reaction to the books. They became interested in you, and in me too. They followed my every move during my time on Cyprus, while I was working on the fourth book. They recorded everything 3 and then analysed it. And, if you can believe it, I’m not mad at them for following me. I’m even grateful to them—for finally opening my eyes. They showed how Man is being toyed with. Coincidences don’t just happen, they’re arranged, and I’ve become convinced of this through my own experience.” “What experience is this, Vladimir? Have you been conducting an experiment?” “I haven’t, but they’ve been conducting an experiment on me. When I was on Cyprus, I happened to mention freshwater fish, and presto!—freshwater fish appeared. I mentioned cedars, and cedars appeared. I wanted to pay a night-time visit to a church—and, lo and behold, there was a church, and the church doors were open at night. A whole lot of other things happened—all I had to do, no doubt, was write what they wanted me to. “But the main thing—the granddaughter of the goddess Aphrodite appeared. I mentioned to several people on Cyprus that I wanted to meet with her granddaughter, since I had had it up to here with their Aphrodite. There were posters everywhere about her Baths, and people were forever carrying on about her. Anyway, I told them I was going to meet with the granddaughter of this goddess Aphrodite. I mentioned this, and a few days later along comes this girl with fire in her eyes—anyway, the way things turned out, everybody decided that Aphrodite had indeed sent her granddaughter, and was working miracles through this girl, and the girl herself underwent some kind of transformation.

“But who arranged all these circumstances one after another? Who? I certainly didn’t arrange anything. If only one thing like this happened to take place, well, okay, but here was a whole chain of them together, and if you take them altogether, it’s no longer a coincidence, it’s a pattern. This is the conclusion the academics came to. And I’m convinced they’re right. And you can’t persuade me otherwise.” “But I was not about to deny that there is a pattern to what has been happening, Vladimir,” Anastasia calmly observed. I felt my whole insides turn cold, and I was suddenly overwhelmed with some kind of extraordinary sense of apathy following these last words of Anastasia’s. I did have a hope—a faint one, but still a hope—that she would be able to dissolve the whole feeling that had been building up in me of Man’s utter insignificance—not just my insignificance but all mankind’s— but this she didn’t do. In any case, how could she have? Who would dare deny what is so patently obvious? Indifferent to everyone and everything, I stood by the window in a room lit only by moonlight, and looked out at the stars. Somewhere out there, perhaps on one of those very stars, lived those who were controlling us, toying with us. They were living, they were real! But could our existence really be called life? A toy in subjection to somebody’s will cannot be said to live an independent life—which meant only one thing: we were not living. This is why we are indifferent to so many things. Once again Anastasia began talking in that same quiet and calm voice. But this time her voice didn’t arouse in me any emotions whatsoever—it was more like some kind of extraneous sound. “Vladimir, you and the people who sent you that cassette with the report were right: there really are energies out there capable of changing time, joining together into a single chain various events or, as happened with you, arranging a chain of circumstances required to achieve a predetermined goal. Pure coincidences do not happen—that is already clear to many people. Coincidences, even those which seem to be the most far-fetched, are programmed. Everything that happens to each individual is programmed. And what happened to you on Cyprus, which served as a clear illustration for the researchers as well as, naturally, for you, was also programmed, and then turned into reality. “Tell me, please, Vladimir, would you not like to know where the one directly responsible for programming your coincidences is now?” “What difference does it make where he is? Doesn’t matter to me. On Mars, the Moon Whether he feels good or bad.” “He is right here in this room, Vladimir.”

“That means, it’s you? If so, that still doesn’t change anything. I’m not even surprised. And I’m not angry. I simply don’t care. We are manipulable, and that’s the hopeless tragedy of the human race.” “I am not the one in charge of programming your coincidences, Vladimir. I am able to exercise but a tiny speck of influence.” “Then who is in charge? There’s only two of us in the room. Or is there a third—a programmer who’s invisible?” “Vladimir, this programmer is right within you—it is your desires.” “How so?” “Only Man’s desires and aspirations can launch any kind of programme of action. This is the law of the Creator. Nobody, none of the energies of the Universe, can ever break that law. Because Man is the master of all the energies of the Universe! Man!” “But I didn’t launch anything on Cyprus, Anastasia. Everything happened all by itself, by coincidence, apart from me.” “There were indeed certain minor incidents that were not part of the more significant events—though they contributed to their realization—and these incidents did happen apart from your will. But the basic events themselves were preceded by your desires. Was it not you who wanted to meet with the granddaughter of the goddess Aphrodite? You expressed your wish in the presence of witnesses and repeated it a number of times.” “Yes, I did” “And if you remember that, then how can you call servants carrying out the will of their lord masters, and how can you call the master a plaything in their hands?” “Yes, that would be silly Interesting, how all this is turning out! Wow! Desires But why then aren’t all our desires fulfilled? Many people wish for things, but their wishes aren’t fulfilled.” “So much depends on how meaningful the goal is. On whether the desire corresponds to the light or the dark. On how strong the desire is. The more substantial and bright the goal, the more the forces of light are drawn to fulfil it. To bring it about.” “And if the goal is a dark one—let’s say, for example, to get drunk, or get into a fight, or plan a war?” “Then the dark forces take over—Man through his desire has given them the opportunity to act. But, as you can see, it is still Man’s desire that is first and foremost! Your desire, Vladimir.”

I began to ponder what Anastasia had said, and my heart felt better and better. The very pleasant moonlight filled the whole room, and it seemed as though the stars in the sky were shining not with a cold light, but with a warm one. And Anastasia, sitting there on the edge of the bed, seemed to look even better than before. I said to her: “You know, Anastasia, back there, when I first arrived on Cyprus, to be honest with you, I very nearly went on a binge. Because at first I couldn’t find anything there I liked. Nobody spoke Russian. It was too noisy to work —people were whooping it up all around. Why on earth did I end up here, I thought, maybe to get to know some hookers? There are lots of women there, shall we say, of loose behaviour—from both Russia and Bulgaria.” “You see, Vladimir? You had the desire, and there they were. You got drunk on vodka, and set up a date with them. With one woman from Bulgaria, and another from Russia. Only even before that you wanted to meet with Aphrodite’s granddaughter—your first desire proved to be stronger, and she appeared, and saved you from all the wretched stuff. She helped you.” “Yes, she did. And just how might you know about the Bulgarian girl?” “From my feelings, Vladimir.” “I don’t understand that, but never mind. Tell me rather: this girl, Elena Fadeyeva, she’s not the daughter of the goddess Aphrodite—she’s Russian, she’s simply an employee of a tourist agency on Cyprus. But I was talking about Aphrodite’s granddaughter. Does that mean these forces of light were too puny to show me the real granddaughter of Aphrodite?” “They are by no means ‘puny’. And they did show you. The goddess Aphrodite today exists as energy. She is capable of connecting for a time with the energy of any Man—if she can see some meaningful reason to do so. That Elena Fadeyeva, whenever she was with you, had two energies inside her. There was a lot she could do during those days. There was a lot she succeeded in doing, and she managed to help you, too.” “Yes, Em grateful to her. And to the goddess Aphrodite.” All my concerns and unpleasant sensations, connected with my assumption that all people were simply pawns in the hands of some kind of forces, literally flew out the window: Now, after my talk with Anastasia, a sense of confidence and peace set in. For some time I just watched silently as Anastasia sat on the edge of my bed in the moonlight, her hands meekly folded atop her knees. And then to this day I cannot figure out how this happened, but I suddenly came out with:

“I realize that you, Anastasia, are a great goddess.” And as I said this I fell on my knees before her. A cry of pain and despair burst from Anastasia’s lips. She immediately rose and stepped back from me, leaning against the wall and clasping her hands to her breast as though in prayer. “Vladimir, I beg of you, get up off your knees—you should not bow down to me. O God, O God, I have overdone it, I have been in too great a haste— forgive me for not making myself clear enough to Your sons. In God’s sight, Vladimir, all people are equal. They should not bow down to one another. I am simply a woman—I am Man! “You are so vastly different from all other people, Anastasia, so if you are simply Man, then who are we? Who am If” “You are Man, too, only as you are living out your life in vanity, you have not yet been able to think of what your purpose is.” “Moses, Jesus Christ, Mohammed, Rama,2 Buddha—who are they? And how do you relate to them?” “Those are my elder brothers you have named, Vladimir. I am not in a position to judge their works, but I shall say one thing: none of them had their fill of earthly love.” “That can’t be—every single one of them has millions of worshipping followers, even today” “But worship does not mean love. It only exhausts the worshipper’s power of thought—a power exclusive to Man. Great is the egregor3 of my brothers —for millions of years many people have fed it through their worship, and in so doing each worshipper lost some of his energy Over the centuries there have been many willing to condemn the deeds of my brothers. And I could not understand why they made such "Rama—a god-king and an earthly incarnation of Vishnu (in the Hindu tradition). y

egregor—a unifying collective psychic entity or field—see footnote 3 in Book 3, Chapter 24: “Who are you, Anastasia?”. great efforts to feed their own egregot; building up its energy over thousands of years. Nobody has been able to guess their secret until the dawn of the present age. And my brothers decided to gather the accumulated energy into a single whole, in order to distribute it to souls now living on the Earth. A new millennium will soon be given birth, in which the gods will settle the Earth—those people whose conscious awareness will allow them to accept this energy in all its worth. “Vladimir, I beg of you, get up off your knees! It is painful for any father to

see his son bowed down and enslaved. It is only the dark forces that have always tried to demean Man’s significance. Vladimir, get up off your knees, refuse to betray yourself. Do not separate yourself from me.” Anastasia was extremely upset, and I did as she asked. I got up off my knees and said: “I wasn’t separating myself from you. On the contrary, it seems I’ve just begun to understand you. Only I don’t agree that worship interferes with love. On the contrary, all believers say that they love God. And I am bowing before you as a goddess, but you are frightened for some reason, you’ve become upset.” “We have known each other for five years now, Vladimir. A lot of time has gone by since that night when our son was conceived, but ever since that time, not once have you had the desire to touch me, to give me the look you give to other women. Lack of understanding—and now, worship—do not allow love to reveal itself. Worship does not bring forth children.” “Well, that’s because you’re not exactly a woman, Anastasia. You’ve become a kind of information node. It’s not just me—others too don’t get your meaning right off. For example, what does ‘don’t betray yourself’ mean? Why did you say that in reference to me?” “You wrote a letter to the President of Russia, Vladimir, but at the same time you have come to doubt yourself—you almost perished. You have ceased creating on your own and handed your problems to others—basically to a single President.” “That’s because he’s the only person in Russia who can realistically do anything.” “One person cannot do it by himself—the will of the majority is required. Besides, why did you send your letter only to one president? There are presidents in Ukraine, Belarus, Kazakhstan” “But you’ve always talked about Russia. Besides, Russia is my Motherland.” “But your passport4 says you are a Belarusian.” “That’s right. My father was Belarusian.” “And you spent your whole childhood in Ukraine.” “Well yes, I did. And that was the best part I remember from my childhood. I remember the white cottage with its straw roof, and the weir where I fished for mud loaches along with the neighbourhood lads. And my grandma and grandpa never once quarrelled in my presence, and never punished me.”

“Yes, yes, Vladimir, and remember how you and your grandfather planted tiny seedlings in the garden” “I do remember. Grandma would water them from a bucket.” “But you know that even today in the village of Kuzdnichi, in Ukraine, in the village where you were born, that garden has been preserved, its trees are all crusty now, but they are still bearing fruit—they are waiting for you.” “So then, where is my Motherland, Anastasia?” “It is within you.” “In me?” “In you! You can materialise it forever on the Earth, wherever your soul indicates.” “You’re right—I have to figure it all out somehow. At the moment I get the feeling I’m scattered all over the land.” “Vladimir, you are tired. This whole day has brought a lot of emotion upon us. Lie down and go to sleep. By morning your sleep will have built up fresh strength for you, and you will have a new conscious awareness” I lay down on the bed, and could feel Anastasia taking my hand in hers. Now a deep sleep would ensue, and I already knew that she could make it deep and peaceful, so that everything would be all right by morning. But just before I dropped off I managed to say: “You know, Anastasia, could you please see to it that I shall be able once again to catch a glimpse of Russia’s splendid future?” “Fine, go to sleep, Vladimir. You will see it.” And Anastasia started singing very quietly—a wordless song, like a lullaby. Anyway, it’s great that people can program, everything for themselves, I managed to think before plunging into a peaceful and pleasant dream about the future of Russia. CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

Eternity lies ahead for you and me The rising Sun shone through the uncurtained windows straight onto the bed, waking me up. I had such a wonderful sleep! Some kind of extraordinary strength (fantastic!) was making its presence known inside me —I even felt like I wanted to do push-ups or some other kind of physical exercise. And I was in an excellent mood.

From the kitchen I could hear the clatter of dishes. Wow! I thought, Don’t tell me that’s Anastasia trying to make breakfast?! She doesn’t know how to cope with all the kitchen gadgets, or even how to turn on the gas. Maybe I’d better help her? I put on a track suit and opened the door to the kitchen. No sooner had I caught sight of Anastasia than a hot flash seemed to run through my entire body. This was the first time I had seen the Siberian recluse not in a taiga forest, not in her glade or by the seashore, but in a modern city woman’s most typical surroundings—the kitchen. She was leaning over the gas stove, trying to regulate the burner. She kept turning the gas knob up and down, but the old cooker was not designed for any settings except ‘high’ and ‘low’. In the kitchen Anastasia appeared to be a completely normal woman. Now why did I go and scare her last night by bowing down on my knees? I’d probably had too much to drink and was beastly tired to boot. Anastasia felt my gaze upon her, and turned to face me. One of her cheeks sported a dab of flour, and from underneath her bandana a braid of hair clung to her slightly perspiring forehead. Anastasia smiled. And her voice— that marvelous voice of hers! “A splendid good morning for the coming day to you, Vladimir! You see, I have almost finished preparing breakfast. just a wee bit more to do. You go and wash up, and by then everything will be ready You go wash up, and do not worry—I shall not damage anything here—I have figured things out.” Instead of heading for the bathroom right off, I stood there dumbfounded, just looking at Anastasia. For the first time in the five years we’d known each other I caught a glimpse of just how extraordinarily beautiful this woman really was. There are no words to describe a beauty like this. Even with a flour-spotted cheek, even without a fancy hairdo (her hair was simply tied back in a bun)—not to mention her plain, unfashionable clothing—she was still extraordinarily beautiful. I headed off to the bathroom, did a careful job of shaving and took a shower. During all this time I could not get my thought off this woman’s beauty. When I came out of the bathroom, I sat down on the bed (which by this time had already been made). Instead of going into the kitchen, I just sat there, my mind still racing with thoughts about Anastasia. It’s been five years now that I’ve known this woman, this recluse from the Siberian taiga. Five years And how my whole life has changed over these five years! Even though we rarely get together, it seems she’s always around. And it’s really her! Of course, it was thanks to her that I was able to patch up my relationship

with my daughter. We get along famously now. And as for my wife, well, even though I haven’t been home in five years, I have talked with her on the telephone, and I can tell by her voice that my wife now speaks to me without any sense of coldness or resentment. She tells me that everything’s fine with the family. Anastasia After all, she was the one who cured me. The doctors weren’t able to, but she was. I knew myself that I was in danger of dying, and she cured me, and she made me famous, too. Now I’m getting big royalties for my books, but they’re still her words, after all. And she always talks so tenderly, never gets angry Even if I get mad at her without meaning to, she still won’t get angry Of course she’s changed my life drastically, but she’s changed it for the better. It was she who bore me my son! Sure, it’s not your normal situation—my son lives in her glade in Siberia, but it’s probably better for him there, with her. She’s so very kind. I need to say something nice to her, and do something nice for her. Only what? There’s nothing she needs. Funny how it turns out —even if you owned half the world, she’d still have more than you. Still, I really felt like giving her some kind of gift. A long time ago I had bought her a pearl necklace. Not artificial, but large, natural pearls. I decided this was a good moment to go and give it to her. I took the little jewellery box out of my suitcase, but instead of heading straight for the kitchen I decided, for some reason, to change my clothes. In place of the track suit I put on a pair of trousers, a white shirt and even a tie. Then I put the necklace in my trouser pocket, but I was still too excited to go out to the kitchen. So I stood by the window, looking neat as a pin, until I managed to get a hold of myself. What’s going on here, anyway? I thought to myself. It’s high time! Enough of this silly e?notionalisrn! And I walked out to the kitchen. Anastasia was sitting at the table she had got all set for breakfast, waiting for me. She rose to greet me. By this time she had done her hair and put on a very neat appearance. She got up and silently gave me one of her tender looks with her greyish-blue eyes, while I just stood there, not knowing what to say Then I said, unexpectedly using the formal form of address: “Good day to you, Anastasia!” My formality completely took me aback. But she replied in all seriousness, as though she hadn’t even noticed: “Hello, Vladimir! Please, sit down. Breakfast is waiting.” “Okay, I’ll take a seat. But first I wanted to say I have something to tell you” But I couldn’t remember the words. “So, tell me, Vladimir.”

But I completely forgot what I was going to say. I went up close to Anastasia and gave her a kiss on the cheek. Whereupon my whole body flared up—I felt hot all over. And Anastasia’s cheeks flushed a deep red, and her eyelids fluttered faster than usual. And when I spoke, it didn’t sound like it was me at all, but some kind of constrained voice: “That’s from all my readers, Anastasia. So many people are grateful to you.” “From your readers? A big thank-you to all the readers. Thank you very much!” Anastasia quietly whispered. And then I gave her a quick kiss on her other cheek and said: “That one’s from me. You are extremely good and kind, Anastasia. And you are extremely beautiful. Thank you for being you.” “You think I am beautiful, Vladimir? Thank you Do you really think so?” She was excited, too. I didn’t know what to do next. But then I remembered the pearl necklace in my pocket. I hastily pulled it out and began trying to undo the clasp. “This is a gift for you, Anastasia. Those are pearls real ones they’re not fake. I know you don’t like anything artificial, but those are real.” But the clasp wouldn’t budge. I jerked at it, and the thread broke, and all the little pearls that had been threaded onto it clattered to the floor and scattered in different directions. I sat down on the floor to pick them up. Anastasia began picking them up too, only she managed to go faster. I watched as she deposited the pearls into the palm of her hand. She took a careful look at each one, and I just sat there entranced with her movements. I sat there on the floor, leaning against the wall, and watched her in astonishment. I thought to myself how common the standard kitchen was, but how uncommon and marvelous I felt everything was in my heart. Why? Probably because she was here in this very kitchen—Anastasia. She was right beside me, but for some reason I couldn’t muster up enough resolve to embrace her. This woman, who back there five years ago in the taiga had seemed to be a somewhat abnormal recluse, now appeared as a star which had dropped in for a few moments from heaven. Here she was right beside me, yet as a star she was unreachable. And the years Pity, the difference in years between us! I watched intently as Anastasia rose and put the pearls she had collected into a saucer on the table. Then she turned her head toward me. Entranced, I went on sitting there on the kitchen floor, leaning against the wall, and looking into her greyish-blue eyes. And she never averted her tender gaze even for a moment.

“Here you are right beside me, Anastasia, but now I can’t touch you. I feel as though you’re a distant star in the sky” “A star? That’s how you feel? Why? Look! Here she is at your feet—this little star, turned into an ordinary woman.” Anastasia quickly got down on her knees and sat next to me on the floor. She put her hands on my shoulder and rested her head on her hands. I could hear her heart beating, only my heart was beating a lot stronger. And her hair smelt of the taiga. Her breath was like a warm breeze infused with the intoxicating scent of flowers. “Oh why, Anastasia, why couldn’t I have met you when I was young? You’re so young, and just look at how old I am! I’ve lived almost half a century already!” “But it has taken me ages to break through to your wandering soul! Do not chase me away now.” “I’m getting old, Anastasia. And my life will soon be at an end.” “But while you are getting old, you will be able to plant your own family tree, and lay the foundation for a city with a splendid future, and a marvelous garden.” “I’ll try Pity I shall have such a short time to live in this garden myself. It’ll take quite a few years to grow.” “If you set it up, you will always live there.” “Always?” “Of course. Your body will grow old and die, but your soul will take flight!” “The souls of the dead take flight—I know that. The soul takes flight, and that’s the end of it.” “Oh, what a marvelous day we have today! Why are you creating a joyless future, Vladimir? You are creating it for yourself.” “It’s not me creating it. That’s objective reality, plain and simple. First comes old age, then death—for everyone. And even you, my dear, sweet dreamer, cannot come up with any other scenario.” Anastasia shuddered all over and moved slightly to one side. Her kind and cheerful eyes peered into mine and sparkled—radiating a joyful confidence that nothing could withstand. “I have no reason to ‘come up with’ anything. There is only one truth. Death exists for the flesh—that is clear to everyone. For the flesh! In every other aspect death is a dream, Vladimir.”

“A dream?” “Yes, a dream.” Anastasia got up on her knees and began talking, looking me straight in the eye. But somehow the way she talked silenced the kitchen radio, the sounds of voices and other noise outside the window, as she spoke in a gentle voice: “My dearest! Eternity lies ahead for you and me. Life will always claim its own, you see. The littlest ray of sunlight glistens in the spring, and the soul enrobes itself in its new things. But the decaying body does not embrace the ground in vain. Come spring, from our bodies will sprout new flowers and grass again. You shall forever hear the birds sing, and drink in the drops of rain. In the blue sky above, the clouds—again and again—will entrance you with their dance. “And if you, my dearest, should find yourself scattered across the unfathomable Universe as little specks of dust, still refusing to believe, then from these specks of dust wandering through eternity I shall begin to gather you up. And the tree you plant will help me do this: in the early spring, to the place where your soul lies in unfeeling peace, it will stretch out its branch above. And those you have been kind to upon the Earth will remember you with love. And if the sum total of earthly love is not enough to materialise you once again, then there is one—one whom you know, and on every plane of being she will be flaming with a single breath of desire, namely: materialise yourself, my love!— there is one who will give herself over, for a moment, unto death.” “That will be you, Anastasia? Are you sure you will be able to do such a thing—really?” “Any woman possesses the ability to do it, if only she can compress the Logos into her feelings.” “And what about you, Anastasia? Who will help you return to the Earth once more?” “That I can do for myself I need not bother anyone about it.” “But how shall I recognise you? After all, our lives will be quite different from before.” “Once you materialise upon the earthly plane, you will become a youngster once again. You will notice a snotty little red-haired girl in the garden next door to yours. Say a kind word to this slightly bow-legged youngster, pay attention to that little maid. After you grow into your teens, you will start to notice pretty girls. Do not be in a hurry to join your destiny to theirs. In the meantime, in the garden next to yours your friend will be growing, too. Her face will be all freckled—she will not appear beautiful yet. At some point you will notice her following you out of the corner of her eye. But do not

laugh at her, do not chase her off when she approaches you to draw your attention away from a more mature beautiful woman. Three springs will pass, and the neighbour girl will become a truly beautiful young lass. One day you will look at her and feel yourself aflame with love. And you will be happy with her. And she will be happy, too. And it is my soul that will be living in that happy girl you choose.” “Thank you for that marvelous dream, Anastasia, my precious storyteller!” I carefully embraced her by the shoulders and drew her close to me. I wanted to listen to how excitedly her heart was beating, to feel the fragrance of this marvelous woman’s hair—a woman who believes only in good, in eternity. And possibly to grasp hold of, if only like a straw, her incredible dreams. Her words about the future made everything around me seem more and more joyful. “Maybe what you say, Anastasia, is all just words, but still they are marvelous words, and I feel more joy in my soul when I hear them.” “The words of a dream can set a tremendous energy in motion. Man creates a future for himself through his dream, through the thoughts he cherishes. Believe me, Vladimir, everything will happen for the two of us exactly as I have described. But you are free in your dream, and you can change anything you like just by speaking different words. You are free, you have the liberty, and every Man is a creator for himself.” “I shall change none of the words, Anastasia, spoken by you. I shall try to believe in them.” “Thank you.” “For what?” “For not spoiling eternity for the two of us.” 6© On this splendid sunny day the two of us swam in the sea and sunned ourselves on the deserted seashore. That evening Anastasia took her departure. As usual, she asked me not to see her off. I stood on the balcony and watched as she made her way along the pavement by our building, her head covered with her kerchief, wearing the plainest of clothing and carrying her hand-made cloth bag. She walked along, trying not to stand out among the other pedestrians—this same woman who had created a splendid future for the whole country. And it will definitely come. People will turn her dream into reality and start living in this splendid world themselves.

Before disappearing around the corner, Anastasia paused, turned in my direction and waved. And I waved back in farewell. I could no longer make out her facial features, but I was sure she was smiling. She is always smiling, because she believes in and creates only good. Perhaps it has to be that way I waved back, whispering to myself: Thank you, my dear, sweet Anastasia! Desertification has affected the lands of the Rostov Region1 (up to 50% of the Salesian Steppes), the Altai Territory5 6 (a third of the Kulunda Plain) and thirteen other regions within the Russian Federation. Altogether 6.5 million hectares of Russian farmland have now been taken over by blowing sands, the largest single segment being in the Caspian Lowlands, covering as much as 10% of their total area.7 The overall area of Russian farmland subject (either actually or potentially) to desertification approaches 50 million hectares. According to agrochemical indicators, Russia’s agricultural lands are, on average, not very productive, especially outside the Chernozem Belt.8 The layer of topsoil does not contain a sufficient quantity of nutrients for proper cultivation: nitrogen, phosphorous, potassium, calcium, magnesium, micronutrients (especially cobalt, molybdenum and zinc). At least a third of the farmlands have acidic soil, and soil containing low concentrations of available phosphorous and potassium amount to 30% and 10%, respectively. Over 43% of arable lands have a low humus content; in 15% of them (45% outside the Chernozem Belt) the proportion is critical. More than 75% of the farmlands of the Kaluga, Smolensk, Astrakhan and Volgograd Regions,1 as well as the Republics of Kalmykia, Adygeya, Buryatia and Tuva9 10 11 12 13 14 are low in humus. Experts believe that, on average, with irregular and insufficient applications of organic fertiliser and improper cultivation practices, a significant depletion has taken place in Russia’s soil content. Humus levels have been reduced to a minimum—3.5-5.0% of topsoil in the central Chernozem regions and only 1.3—1.5^ outside the Chernozem belt. Annual humus losses in farmland topsoil are pegged at o.6-0.7 tonnes per hectare (as much as 1 tonne per hectare in Chernozem areas). This means an annual nationwide loss of approximately 80 million tonnes. It has been proved that there is almost a perfect linear relationship between the humus reserves in basic soil types and the productivity of major agricultural crops. A one-tonne-per-hectare increase in humus levels means an increase in average long-term productivity of cereal crops of 10-15 kg/ha. For a number of crops cultivated under various soil/climatic conditions, this

amount corresponds to 30 kg of cereal crop units. For every 1-centimetre decrease in humus depth in Chernozem topsoil under the influence of either natural or man-made factors (e.g., erosion), cereal crop productivity falls by 100 kg/ha. Over the course of many years Russia’s soil resources have been extensively exploited'' by various means, and nutrients have often been eliminated through the harvesting process at a faster rate than they could be replenished. Agricultural scientists warn that such extensive exploitation of the soil’s fertility will lead to an irreversible degradation. Trends in overall cereal output are cited as evidence of this. The annual manure application required to maintain constant humus levels in the soil should amount to between 'extensively exploited—In Russian the term ‘extensive’ (ekstemivnoe) here refers specifically to using up more and more land resources, as opposed to increasing fertility on the lands already under cultivation. 7 and 15 tonnes per hectare. This means adding to the soil a minimum of 1 billion tonnes of organic fertiliser every year. Russia today employs only about 100-120 million tonnes, or approximately 10 times less than is required. What is the current situation with regard to conservation of soil resources? Centralised financing of soil-improvement projects has been completely cut off, and the scope of these projects has been drastically reduced. Financing now comes out of local budgets—since 1993 out of land taxes, with 30% of the conservation-programme expenses to be paid by land-users. As a result, from 1994 to the present all projects for applying peat-manure compost in non-Chernozem areas, as well as lime treatment of acidic soils, delivery of liming materials and bone-meal, and phosphate application have pretty well ceased on most Russian territory because local authorities do not have funds for carrying out agrochemical projects. This has contributed to the failure of practically all comprehensive federal soil-improvement and agricultural development programmes initiated by the Russian government and the Ministry of Agriculture and Food. In view of the above, we can now speak of the escalating degradation of Russia’s topsoil, which threatens its ecological and food security, as well as its national security as a whole. THE AUTHOR, Vladimir Megre, born in 1950, was a well-known entrepreneur from a Siberian city of Novosibirsk. According to his account, in 1995—after hearing a fascinating story about the power of ‘ringing cedars’ from a Siberian elder—he organised a trade expedition into the

Siberian taiga to rediscover the lost technique of pressing virgin cedar nut oil containing high curative powers, as well as to find the ringing cedar tree. However, his encounter on this trip with a Siberian woman named Anastasia transformed him so deeply that he abandoned his business and went to Moscow to write a book about the spiritual insights she had shared with him. Vladimir Megre now lives near the city of Vladimir, Russia, 190 km (120 miles) east of Moscow. If you wish to contact the author, you may send a message to his personal e-mail [email protected] THE TRANSLATOR, John Woodsworth, born in Vancouver (British Columbia), has over forty years of experience in Russian-English translation, from classical poetry to modern short stories. Since 1982 he has been associated with the University of Ottawa in Canada as a Russianlanguage teacher, translator and editor, most recently as a Research Associate and Administrative Assistant with the University’s Slavic Research Group. A published Russian-language poet himself, he and his wife—Susan K. Woodsworth—are directors of the Sasquatch Literary Arts Performance Series in Ottawa. A Certified Russian-English Translator, John Woodsworth is in the process of translating the remaining volumes in Vladimir Megre’s Ringing Cedars Series. THE EDITOR, Leonid SharashJkin, is writing his doctoral dissertation on the spiritual, cultural and economic significance of the Russian dacha gardening movement, at the University of Missouri at Columbia. After receiving a Master’s degree in Natural Resources Management from Indiana University at Bloomington, he worked for two years as Programme Manager at the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF Russia) in Moscow, where he also served as editor of Russia’s largest environmental magazine, The Panda Times. Together with his wife, Irina Sharashkina, he has translated into Russian Small is beautiful and A guide for the perplexed by E.F. Schumacher, The secret life of plants by Peter Tompkins and Christopher Bird, The continuum concept by Jean Liedloff and Birth without violence by Frederick Leboyer. Spirituality/ Nature / Childrearing Who are we? describes the author’s search for real-life ‘proofs’ of Anastasia’s vision presented in the previous volumes. Finding these proofs and taking stock of ongoing global environmental destruction, Vladimir Megre describes further practical steps for putting Anastasia’s vision into practice. Full of beautiful realistic images of a new way of living in cooperation with the Earth and each other, this book also highlights the role of children in making us aware of the precariousness of the present situation and in leading the global transition toward a happy, violence-free society.

Anastasia herself has stated that this book consists of words and phrases in combinations which have a beneficial effect on the reader. This has been attested by the letters received to date from thousands of readers all over the world. If you wish to gain as full an appreciation as possible of the ideas, thoughts and images set forth here, as well as experience the benefits that come with this appreciation, we recommend you find a quiet place for your reading where there is the least possible interference from artificial noises (motor traffic, radio, TV, household appliances etc.). Natural sounds, on the other hand—the singing of birds, for example, or the patter of rain, or the rustle of leaves on nearby trees—may be a welcome accompaniment to the reading process.

The Book of Kin by Vladimir Megre Translation, afterword and footnotes by John Woodsworth Editing, footnotes, design and layout by Leonid Sharashkin Cover art by Alexander Razboinikov Copyright © 2002 Vladimir Megre Copyright © 2007 Leonid Sharashkin, translation Copyright © 2007 Leonid Sharashkin, afterword, footnotes Copyright © 2007 Leonid Sharashkin, cover art Copyright © 2007 Leonid Sharashkin, design and layout All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, except for the inclusion of brief quotations in a review, without permission in writing from the publisher. Library of Congress Control Number: 2006920097 ISBN: 978-0-97633336-4 Published by Ringing Cedars Press www.RingingCedars.com 1 Anka-putanka (pron. ANN-ka poo-TAHN-ka)—a play on words derived from the rhyme Anka (derivative of the name. Anna) and putanka (hooker). Two other variants of Anna which will be encountered later are An (highly colloquial) and Ania (endearing). 2 Zhigiili—a car produced at Toliatti on the Volga River (see footnote 1 in Book 4, Chapter 22: “Other worlds”). 3 fortochka—a small openable window in the upper corner of a larger window-frame. 4 passport—in this case, an internal identity document, which states one’s ethnic origin. 5 Rostov Region (Russian: Rostovskaya oblast)—a prairie region comprising just over 100,000 square kilometres around the city of Rostov-on-Don, bordering on the Sea of Azov (just north of the Black Sea) in Russia’s south,

including the fertile Salesian Steppes (Russian: Salskie stepi). 6 Altai Territory (Russian: Altaiski kray)— a partially mountainous territory of 169,100 square kilometres in the south-western part of Siberia, south of Novosibirsk at the headwaters of the Ob River, centred around the capital Barnaul. Almost two-thirds of its area is covered by the Kulunda Plain (Kulimdinskaya ravnina), which is suitable for farming. 7 Caspian Lowlands (Russian: Prikaspiiskaya nizmennost)— a semi-arid lowland area (as low as 28 metres below sea level) covering approximately 200,000 square kilometres around the northern end of the Caspian Sea in both the Russian Federation and Kazakhstan. 8 Chernozem (lit. ‘Black Earth’) Belt—a zone of forest and farmland containing a layer of dark-coloured soil (ranging from 1 to 6 metres in depth) 9 in southern Russia and Ukraine. It is characterised by a high percentage (up to 15%) of humus, as well as large quantities of acids, phosphorous and ammonia. A similar belt (also known as Chernozem) is found in the prairie lands of the province of Alanitoba in Canada. (The original Russian term is pronounced chernoz-YOM.) 10 ’These regions are all named after the cities at their respective centres: Kaluga— a city on the Oka River about 200 km southwest of Aioscow, originally the domain of the princely Vorotynsky family. Smolensk—one of the oldest cities in Russia (dating back to AD 863), located about 360 km west-southwest of Moscow, and described in an ancient history text as one of the key stations on the trade route between Scandinavia and the Medi 11 terranean. Astrakhan—at the mouth of the Volga, on the Caspian Sea, 12 in the Caspian Lowlands; formerly the capital of a Tatar khanate, the city was conquered for Russia by Ivan the Terrible in 1556. Volgograd (originally 13

Tsaritsyn, known as Stalingrad from 1925 to 1961)—a city founded in 1598 at the confluence of the Volga and Tsaritsa Rivers, about 400 km northwest of the Caspian Sea. 14 These republics are all part of the Russian Federation: Kalmykia—just southwest of the Astrakhan Region in the northern Caucasus, covering an area of 76,000 square kilometres, bordering on the Caspian Lowlands. Adygeya (pron. a-di-GAT-yd)— a small republic (7,600 sq. km) surrounded by Russia’s Krasnodar Territory (northwestern Caucasus), with prairie lands in the north and mountains in the south. Buryatia— a large, primarily mountainous republic of 351,000 sq. km in south central Siberia, situated on the eastern shore of Lake Baikal. Tuva (pron. too-VAH)—also in south central Siberia, covering an area of 170,500 sq. km, not far to the west of Lake Baikal; the western section of Tuva comprises a dry lowland.

Book 6 - Contents 1. Who raises our children? 2. Conversation with my son. A distorted view of history “You loved Mama, hut did not recognise if. A book, of pristine origins One plus one equals three “I shall make a Universe Girl happy”. How to bridge the gap?. “I shall save my Mama”. 3. An invitation to the future 4. A dormant civilisation. 5. The history of mankind, as told by Anastasia. Vedism A union of two—a wedding. Raising children in the Vedic culture. Rituals Feeding life in the flesh Life without violence and crime 6. Imagery and trial 7. The secret war with Vedic Rus’. In which temple should God dwell (Anastasias first parable). The best place in Paradise (secondparable) The wealthiest groom (third parable) A change of priestly tactics. 8. Occultism The priest who still rides the world today. 9. A need to think Who saved America?. Who is for, who is against? They defamed our forebears too Glad tidings 10. The Book of Kin A good and attentive grandmother To live in a marvelous reality Translator’s Afterword About the Ringing Cedars Series Readers’ comments

CHAPTER ONE

Who raises our children? There was a large sign on the office door of the private clinic giving the M.D.’s full name, along with a title indicating an advanced academic degree, and identifying him as a specialist in child psychology. He had been recommended to me as one of the best scientific minds on the subject of parent-child relationships. I had put my name down for his last appointment of the day, as I didn’t want to limit the length of our consultation—if it proved useful, I was prepared to pay him extra to continue as I was in such desperate need of advice. I opened the door and walked in. Behind the desk was seated a gentleman of retirement age with a drawn face, listlessly stuffing sheets of scribbled paper into a file. After inviting me to take a seat, the doctor placed a clean sheet of paper before him and said: “So? How can I help you?” To avoid getting into a long, extended story about everything that had happened after meeting with Anastasia, I did my best to put the essence of my question in a nutshell: ‘Alexander Sergeevich,1 I need to learn how to get along with my child—my son—who will soon be five years old.” “So, you believe you have lost contact with your son?” the psychologist asked blandly and dispiritedly. “There has been practically no meaningful contact as such to date. The way it’s turned out, since his birth I’ve hardly had any communication with him at all. I did see him one time while he was still an infant, but after that I haven’t talked with him even once. So, I have to say, he’s started learning about life without me. We’ve been living quite apart from each other. “But now I’m going to have a chance to meet with my five-year-old son and actually talk with him. Maybe there are some ways to help make him favourably disposed toward me? Like when a man marries a woman who already has a child, and wants to get along with him, to become his father and friend.” “There are ways, certainly,” Alexander Sergeevich observed, “but none which are guaranteed to be effective in all cases. There’s so much in parentchild relationships that depends on individual nature and character.” “I realize that, but still, I’d like to become familiar with whatever specific hints you may have.” “Specific Hmm When you make your appearance in the family—and you

have to remember that even a single mother with a child constitutes a family —try to interfere as little as possible with the way of life they have already established. It will take some time before you become anything beyond an outsider to your son, and that’s something you’ve got to accept. At the beginning stages you will have to spend some time sizing up the whole situation AND give them a chance to size you up. “You could try tying in your appearance with the fulfilment of some dream or desire the child has had but which has been impossible to fulfil. You could find out from his mother some kind of toy he’s had his eye on which she hasn’t been able to buy for him. But don’t buy it yourself in advance. Start talking with him about your own childhood and the toys you had, and tell him how you dreamt of getting this one in particular. If he picks up on that and mentions about how he wants the same thing, then you can suggest the two of you go to the store together and get it. What’s important here is the actual conversational process, and the outing itself. The boy should get to the point of trusting you with his dream, allowing you to have a hand in making it come true.” “The toy example really won’t work in my case. My son has never seen store-bought toys.” “Strange So, that won’t work, eh? Well, my friend, you’ve got to be frank with me. If you want to hear some useful advice, then you’ll have to give more details about your relationship with your child’s mother. Who is she? Where does she work? Where does she live? What’s her family’s financial situation? What do you think led to the break-up?” It was dawning on me, finally. If I wanted to get more specific advice out of the psychologist, I would have to go into my relations with Anastasia, which I still hadn’t fully fathomed myself, so how was I going to explain them to a psychologist? Without mentioning her name, I began describing the situation as follows: “She lives in a very remote area, in Siberia. I happened to make her acquaintance while I was on a trade expedition. I’ve been doing business there since the beginning ofperestroika—on a ship which took me to some isolated settlements along the Ob River, selling various manufactured goods and bringing back fish, furs and wild mushrooms, berries and nuts.” “I see. So, like Paratov,2 this tradesman makes everyone jealous with his romantic exploits along a Siberian river?” “No romance, just work. Haven’t you heard? Entrepreneurs work like dogs!” “Well, let’s say they do, but entrepreneurs also find time to have fun, do

they not?” “Believe me, with this woman it wasn’t a question of having fan at all. I wanted to have a child by her. I’d been wanting a son for a long time, but then I seemed to forget about that particular dream. The years went by But as soon as I saw her—how wholesome, young and beautiful she was It seems just about every woman today is sick or sickly, but she—well, she was simply beaming with energy, the picture of health! So I figured her child would turn out healthy and good-looking too. “She bore me a son. I went to see them when he was still quite little, before he could walk or talk. I held him in my arms. But since then I’ve had no contact with him.” “And why is that?” How on earth was I to explain to this gentleman during our brief conversation everything that it had taken me several books to describe? How could I tell him that Anastasia had refused to leave her taiga glade and move with our son into town, while I on the other hand was not adapted to life in the taiga? Or that she was the one who would not let me even communicate with him, let alone give him traditional toys? Every summer I had gone back to Siberia, to the very glade where Anastasia and my son made their home, but I never managed to see my son again after that one time. Each time he would be somewhere else—with her grandfather and great-grandfather, who lived not far away, in the wilds of the endless Siberian forest. Anastasia refused to take me to visit them, and further insisted each time that I should first prepare myself for conversation with my son. In attempting to find out more about child-raising, I would put a single question to many of my friends and acquaintances, which was invariably greeted with misunderstanding and astonishment, even though it was quite a simple question: “Have you ever had a serious conversation with your child?” It would always turn out that the topics of conversation were pretty much the same: “Come to the table Time for bed Stop fooling around Pick up your toys Got your homework done?” The child gets older, goes to school, but talking about the meaning of life, Man’s destiny or even just about what his future path in life will be—well, most of them don’t have time for that, or even think it anything worth discussing. Maybe they feel the time isn’t right yet, that they’ll still have a chance to But they never do. The child grows up.

But if we ourselves never even try having a serious conversation with our children, who then is raising them? Why has Anastasia not allowed me to communicate with my very own son all these years? I have no idea what she’s been afraid of or trying to ward off. Anyway, the day came when she all at once asked me whether I felt I was ready to meet and talk with my son. I replied that I did want to meet with him, but I still couldn’t quite bring myself to say I was ‘ready1. All these years I had been reading anything I could lay my hands on concerning parent-child relationships. I kept writing my books, giving talks at conferences in various countries, but wrote and said almost nothing about the most important thing that interested me during all this time—the raising of children and how older generations should interact with them. I kept thinking about all the different words of advice I had encountered in child-raising literature, but each time I would find myself coming back to what Anastasia said: “Raising children means also raising yourself?^ It took me a long time to comprehend the meaning of that saying, but I finally managed to reach a definite conclusion: Our children are not raised by parental admonition, nor by kindergartens, schools and colleges. Our children are raised by the way people live—the way we ourselves live and the way society in general lives. And no matter what kids hear from their parents or teachers in school or any other institution of learning no matter what clever systems of education are adopted, children will follow the lifestyle practised by the majority of people around them. That means that the raising of children depends entirely on your own understanding of the world, on how you live your own life, how your parents live and how society in general lives. A sick and unhappy society can only give birth to sick and unhappy children. “If you don’t tell me in detail about your relationship with the mother of your son, I’ll have a hard time finding any real advice to give you!” said the psychologist, interrupting a rather lengthy pause. “That’s a rather long story,” I mused. “To put it briefly, the way things turned out, I’ve had no communication with my son for several years, and that’s all there is to it.” “Okay, then tell me, in all these years have you given any financial support to your child’s mother? I think, for an entrepreneur, financial support would be the simplest way to show your interest in the family”

“No, I haven’t. She believes she is fully provided for.” “So, she’s a wealthy woman, then?” “Let’s just say she has everything she needs.” Alexander Sergeevich rose sharply from behind his desk and blurted out: 3

See Book 4, Chapter 30: “In His image and likeness”.

“She lives in the Siberian taiga. She lives the life of a recluse. Her name is Anastasia, your son’s name is Volodya,1 and you are Vladimir Nikolaevich Megre. I recognise you. I’ve read your books—more than once, in fact.” “Yes” Alexander Sergeevich started pacing the room excitedly. Then he began talking again: “Well, well, well! I was right, eh? I guessed it! So, would you please answer me one thing. I need an answer! It’s very important to me. To science But no, don’t answer. I’ll say it myself. I’m beginning to understand I’m sure that all these years since you first met Anastasia you’ve been doing intensive studies in psychology and philosophy You’ve been constantly thinking about child-raising. Am I right?” “Yes.” “But the conclusions you reached after reading these ‘scholarly’ books and articles did not satisfy you. And so you started looking for answers within yourself, or in other words, you started reflecting on the rising generation, on child-raising?” “More or less. But most of all about my son.” “That’s an inseparable part of it. You came to see me in desperation, and without too much hope for answers to the questions you’ve come up with. And if you don’t get them from me, you’ll go on searching on your own.” “Probably.” “So Amazing! I’m going to mention the name of someone who is immeasurably stronger and wiser than me in all this.” “Who is that person and how can I arrange an appointment?” “That person is none other than your Anastasia, Vladimir Nikolaevich!” “Anastasia? But she’s hardly said anything about child-raising lately And she’s the one who wouldn’t let me communicate with my son.” “That’s just it—she’s the one. And up to this moment I haven’t been able to find any logical explanation for this decision on her part. Such strange behaviour! A loving woman suddenly announces to the father-to-be that he

shouldn’t communicate with his own son. A most irregular situation—never come across it before. But the result! The result is simply amazing! You see, she’s succeeded in making you No, that word isn’t applicable here. Anastasia’s succeeded in attracting And who? If you will pardon me, she’s made a not-very-well-educated entrepreneur get interested in psychology, philosophy and the problems of child-raising. You’ve been thinking about that through the years—I can tell as much just by the simple fact that you came to see me. She’s been raising your son all these years by herself, but at the same time she’s also been educating you! She’s been preparing you for this meeting of father and son.” “Yes, she actually has been raising our son alone. As for educating me, I don’t think so. We don’t get together all that often. And only for a brief time.” “But that information she gives you, even during those ‘brief’ moments, as you say, you’re still having to sort out even today The information is truly amazing. You, Vladimir Nikolaevich, say that Anastasia rarely talks about childraising, but that isn’t so.” Alexander Sergeevich quickly went over to his desk and pulled a thick grey notebook out of one of the drawers. Tenderly stroking it in his hands, he continued: “I took all Anastasia’s sayings in your books about the birth and raising of children and wrote them out in order, leaving out the details of the plot. Maybe, though, it wasn’t right to take these quotations out of context. After all, there’s no doubt the plot makes them a lot easier to comprehend. “These sayings of Anastasia’s are fraught with great meaning—a great philosophical meaning, I would say, and wisdom from an ancient culture. I’m inclined to suppose—and I’m not alone here—that these principles are set forth in some kind of ancient book, maybe millions of years old. What Anastasia says has the kind of depth to it and the accuracy of expression that one associates with what I think are the most important thoughts set forth in ancient manuscripts, as well as modern scholarly works. “After I had written out everything I could find concerning the birth and raising of children, what I had before me amounted to a treatise with no equal anywhere in the world. I am sure it will be used as the basis for a great number of dissertations and awardings of academic degrees, along with amazing discoveries. But even more importantly, it will give rise to a new race on the Earth known as Man!” “But Man2 already exists right now.”

“I think, when people look back from the future, the fact of Man’s existence may be in some doubt.” “How can that be? You and I exist. How can our existence ever be placed in doubt?” “Our bodies exist, and we call them people. But in the future the content, or mental makeup of the human individual will be vastly different from yours and mine today, and so to underline the difference, the name will have to be changed. Possibly today’s people will be called ‘Such-and-such-a-period Man’, or else they’ll find a new name for those who are born in the future.” “Is it really that bad?” “It is—no question about it. You’ve gone and read a lot of books about child-raising—books written by scholars. Now tell me, at what point does child-raising begin?” “Some writers think it should begin when the child’s a year old.” “Precisely. At best, starting at a year old. But Anastasia showed how Man is formed even before I know you’re thinking ‘in the mother’s womb’. But she showed that parents can form their future offspring even before the sperm and the egg get together. And this is explainable scientifically Anastasia stands head and shoulders above all other psychologists who exist or have ever existed on the Earth. Her sayings are potent, they cover all stages of the development and the raising of the child—the pre-conceptual, the conceptual, the foetal stage and so forth. “She covers topics which neither wise men of the past nor contemporary scholars have been able to grasp hold of. She has specifically highlighted what is absolutely essential to bearing and raising a fully fledged Man.” “But that’s not something I remember. I never wrote about developmental stages.” “The books you wrote just documented the events you witnessed. Anastasia realized that that is just how you would be writing. Her next move was that she herself began giving specific form to these events, effectively clothing a great scientific work in an entertaining narrative form. She created your book with her very life, using it to bring invaluable knowledge to people. “Most readers feel this intuitively. Many are ecstatic over the books, but they are unable to fully make sense of the cause of their excitement. They are absorbing information they never knew about before, on a subconscious level. But it can be taken in consciously too. I’ll prove it to you. “Look, here before you is a transcript of Anastasia’s sayings about the birth of a Man. My colleague and I have gone over them very carefully and noted

down our comments. He is a sexopathologist with a post-graduate degree in medicine, and has the office next to mine. We conducted experiments and analysed the situation.” Alexander Sergeevich opened his notebook and began speaking excitedly, almost exultantly: “So, we have the beginning Thepre-conceptual stage. This is hardly ever looked upon as an aspect of child-raising, either in the present time or in the past as we know it. But it is quite clear today that at some point on the Earth, or somewhere in the limitless expanses of the Universe, there existed or still exists a culture in which the relationships between men and women were immeasurably more perfected than our own. And that the pre-conceptual stage was an important component—perhaps the basic component—in the upbringing of Man. “Following the cultural traditions of a civilisation hitherto unknown to us, Anastasia carries out specific preparatory steps before conceiving a child. First, she dulls your sexual appetite. This is quite evident to me as a psychologist from the events described in your first book. Fet me remind you of the order in which these events take place. “During a rest stop on your trek through the taiga, you drink some cognac and have a bite to eat, but Anastasia does not respond to your offer of food and alcohol. She takes off her outer clothing and lies down on the grass. You are awed by her natural beauty, and you are aroused by a natural desire to possess this beautiful womanly body. Driven by a sexual impulse, you attempt to penetrate her, you touch her body and then you lose consciousness. “We shan’t go into the details of just how she manages to make you lose consciousness. The important thing as that as a result of this you no longer look upon Anastasia as a sexual object. And you yourself mention this—I wrote down your words: ‘I had no thought of wanting to possess her.’”3 “Yes. You’re right—after the incident at the rest stop I had no further sexual desires in regard to Anastasia.” “Now to the second event—conception—you tell about the proper way to conceive a child. “Night-time in a cosy dug-out, with the fragrance of sweet grass and flowers. But you are not accustomed to spending the night alone in the taiga, and you ask Anastasia to lie down beside you. You already realize that if she is with you nothing bad will happen. She lies down beside you. “So it turns out that in this intimate situation you find this most beautiful young womanly body right next to yours—a body which has the added

attraction of being radiant with health. Unlike most women’s bodies you have known before, this one actually luxuriates in health. You sense the fragrance of Anastasia’s breath, yet at the same time you feel no sexual inclination. It has been expelled from you. The space it occupied has been cleansed to make way for another mental state—an aspiration to ensure the continuation of the family line. You are thinking about a son! A son that doesn’t yet exist. This is what you wrote in your book: ““It would be good if my son could be borne by Anastasia! She is so healthy That means my son will be healthy and good-looking too.’4 “YOU involuntarily place your hand on Anastasia’s breast and start caressing it, but not with the same caresses as before. This time they are not sexual. It is as though you are caressing your son. Then you write about the touch of the lips, about Anastasia’s gentle breathing, and then—a complete lack of any kind of details. Then you jump to describing the following morning, your excellent mood, and the feeling that an extraordinary feat has been performed. “I wouldn’t be surprised if your publishers tried to persuade you to describe that night in greater detail, to increase the book’s popularity.” “Yes, they actually did try to do this, several times.” “But still, you did not describe that night in any of the subsequent editions of your book—why?” “Because—” “Stop! Please, don’t go on. I want to see if my own conclusions are correct. You did not describe the sexual details of that night because you simply didn’t remember anything after touching Anastasia’s lips.” “You’re right, to this day I can’t remember anything about it. Except for that unusual sensation the following morning.” “What I’m going to say to you now you may find incredible. On that marvelous night you spent with Anastasia, absolutely no sex took place.” “No sex? But what about my son? I saw my son with my own eyes.” “What you experienced that night was indeed physical intimacy There was sperm involved—in fact, everything that accompanies the conception of children, but there was no sex. My colleagues and I kept going over and over what happened with you. Just like me, they too concluded that you did not have sex with Anastasia. “You see, the word sex in our time implies the satisfaction of fleshly needs, the aspiration for the pleasure of fleshly gratification. But in the context of

the events of that night in the taiga, that particular motivation was lacking— in other words, you were not aiming to achieve sexual satisfaction. This time your aim was quite different—namely, a child. Consequently, even the name of that event must be different. It’s not just a question of terminology here—we are talking about a fundamentally different way of giving birth to Man. “I’ll say it again: this is a fundamentally different way of giving birth to Man. This is not an abstract statement—it is easily provable by means of scientific comparisons. Judge for yourself: no psychologist or physiologist today would deny the influence of external mental factors on the formation of the foetus in the mother’s womb. Among other factors a major one (and frequently the dominant one) is the man’s attitude toward the mother-to-be. Similarly, we cannot deny that a man’s thoughts about a woman at the moment of their sexual intimacy has an unmistakable influence on the formation of the future individual. In one instance he is thinking of her as an object of sexual gratification. In the other he looks upon her as a co-creator. The result will naturally be different. It is possible that the child born under such circumstances will be just as strikingly different intellectually from contemporary Man as contemporary Man is different from the ape. “Sex and the pleasure associated with it during the moment of co-creation is not an end in itself, but merely a means to an end. Other mental energies will govern the couple’s bodies, and the child’s psyche will be formed quite differently. “Here is the first rule following from what I have said: a female desiring to bear a fully fledged Man and create a solid and happy family must be able to capture the moment at which the male wishes to join with her for the purpose of giving birth to a Man, cherishes the image of their child-to-be and desires its birth. “Under these conditions the man and the woman achieve a mental state which allows them to obtain the highest possible satisfaction from their intimacy And the child-to-be obtains a kind of energy which is absent in those who are born in the traditional manner—i.e., haphazardly” “But how does the woman feel this moment? How is she to know about the man’s thoughts? Thoughts, after all, are not something you can see.” “Caresses! That’s how she can tell. The mental state is always expressing itself through outward signs. Joy is shown in smiles and laughter, sorrow in a telltale expression of the eyes, position of the body etc. In this particular case, I think, it is not too hard to distinguish purely sexual caresses from the way he would touch his future child. Only with this kind of touch a certain ‘something’ happens that Man alone, of all the creatures living on the Earth,

can experience. Nobody will ever be able to describe or scientifically explain this ‘something’. At the moment when it occurs any kind of analysis is impossible. “As apsychologist, I can only assume that what is paramount in such an event is not the coming together of two physical bodies, but something immeasurably greater: the merging of two thoughts into one. More specifically: the merging of two complexes of feelings into one. The pleasure and bliss experienced through this are significantly superior to mere sexual gratification. Its continuity is not fleeting as with ordinary sex. The inexplicable pleasant feeling that it brings can last for months and even years. This is what makes a strong and loving family This is what Anastasia is talking about. “This also means that once the man has experienced it, he cannot bring himself to exchange the new sensation for mere sexual gratification. He will not be able to, or even desire to, betray his wife—his beloved. That is the moment that marks the beginning of the formation of the family. A happy family! “There is a saying that ‘marriages are made in heaven’. The saying is quite true in respect to this particular case. Judge for yourself. What is generally considered today to attest to a heavenly marriage? A scrap of paper issued by the Civil Records Office, or all sorts of church rituals. Funny, isn’t it? Funny, yet at the same time sad. “Anastasia is quite right when she says that a marriage made in heaven can only be affirmed by the couple’s extraordinarily splendid mental state, which leads to the birth of a new and fully fledged Man. “And I might add that the majority of children born today are born out of wedlock And now Now I’d like to read to you some comments made by my colleague, the sexopatho-logist: The mutual sexual relations between a man and a woman as described in the book Anastasia, bring out a whole new meaning of sex. All currently existing textbooks on the subject, beginning with those of Ancient India and Greece right up to our contemporary treatises, may be seen as naive and ridiculous in comparison to the significance of what Anastasia has to say. All the research described in all known works on sex, both ancient and modern, is focused solely on discovering various body positions, caressing techniques and sexual aids. But people have different physiological and psychological abilities and capabilities. For any given individual there may be just a single most effective and acceptable position and just one particular sex aid that will match his character and temperament.

One would be hard put to find anywhere in the world a specialist capable of pinpointing with any degree of accuracy the most appropriate technique (out of the thousands of possibilities) in the case of a particular individual. To carry out such a task the specialist would need to know the thousands of existing techniques with all their nuances, and study the physical and mental abilities of the individual in question, and that is patently impossible. Evidence that the questions raised in regard to men and women’s sexual relations have not been solved by modern science may be seen in the ever-increasing loss of potency on the part of the majority of men and women in today’s society. There is a growing number of sexually dissatisfied family couples. But this joyless picture can be changed. Anastasia has shown that there exists in Nature some kind of mechanism, some kind of higher power capable of solving a seemingly insoluble problem in an instant. Through a couple’s—a man and a woman’s—specific mental state, this mechanism or power will help them find the conditions and techniques of sexual intercourse appropriate solely to them. Undoubtedly, the pleasure experienced in this particular case will achieve the highest level attainable. It is quite possible that the man and woman who have experienced such satisfaction will maintain their conjugal fidelity for ever, quite independently of the dictates of laws and rituals. “Conjugal fidelity! Conjugal infidelity Betrayal.” Alexander Sergeevich got up from behind his desk and continued to talk while standing. “Anastasia was the first to show the nature of this phenomenon. I remember by heart not only isolated phrases, but whole monologues. Listen to what she says:8 They try all sorts of tricks to persuade people that satisfaction is something you can easily obtain, thinking only of carnal desire. And at the same time they separate Man from truth. The poor deceived women who are ignorant of this spend their lives accepting nothing but suffering and searching for the grace they have lost. But they are searching for it in the wrong places. No woman can restrain a man from fornication if she allows herself to submit to him merely to satisfy his carnal needs. “And again I’ll have it in a moment Yes, here it is: They will strive to possess body after body, or make paltry and fateful use of their own bodies, realizing only intuitively that they are drifting farther and farther away from the true happiness of a true union! “Here is an absolutely accurate explanation of the cause of conjugal

infidelity I can also explain it as a psychologist. It’s all quite logical: a man and a woman—the so-called husband and wife—engage in sex just for the sake of sex. When they intuitively feel they are not getting sufficient satisfaction, they turn to a specialist and read supplementary literature on the subject. They are advised to try various positions and ways of caressing each other—in other words, to engage in a search for greater satisfaction through switching sexual techniques. “Note what I said—‘engage in a search’. They may not say this explicitly, but if they themselves, as Anastasia has correctly pointed out, have an intuition about the existence of a higher happiness, they will engage in a search. But where are the limits of this search? Is it just limited to a change of positions? The logical next step is a change of bodies. “‘Aha!’ society cries. ‘That’s conjugal betrayal!’ But there’s no betrayal going on here. There’s no betrayal, because there is no married couple! “A marriage dependent on a scrap of paper is not a marital union. It is nothing but a convention thought up by society. “A marital union should be established by a man and a woman through their attainment of the highest mental state Anastasia describes. She not only talked about it, she showed how to achieve it. This is an entirely new culture in male-female relationships.” “Does that mean, Alexander Sergeevich, that you are recommending young people engage in intimate relations before a marriage is officially recognised?” “Most people today are doing just that. Only we’re ashamed to talk about it openly But what I am proposing is to refrain from engaging in sex just for the sake of sex, either before or after the marriage is registered. “We consider ourselves a free society We have the possibility of freely engaging in debauchery And oh, how we engage in it! “Debauchery has become a whole industry Look at the cinema and the endless stream of all kinds of pornography, look at prostitution or the rubberised dolls you can buy at sex-shops. What more evidence do you need?! “In the face of this whole sexual orgy, which only attests to the failure of modern science to understand the nature and function of the mechanisms involved in the union of two people, Anastasia’s words come as a discovery —literally a revelation! “As a psychologist I have been able to appreciate the grandness of Anastasia’s discovery She has brought to light a whole new culture in male-

female relationships. “The primary role in them is taken on by the woman. Anastasia has succeeded in bringing you, too, to the understanding of this culture. She has been able to do this, using—intuitively, perhaps—the knowledge of some kind of ancient civilisation. But we—or rather, my colleague—he has proved it in practice. He has proved that even a man can. “He’s a sexopathologist. He and I have worked together to analyse Anastasia’s sayings. He was the first to talk about the new culture in relationships that has been unknown up to now. He was especially struck by this saying—you should remember it—she said: who—what individual—would want to come into the world as a result of carnalpleasures alone? We would all like to be created under a great impulsion of love, the aspiration to creation itself and not simply come into the world as a result of someone’s carnalpleasure. But that is precisely how our children have come into the world—as the result of carnal pleasure. My wife and I wanted a child, so we had sex. I don’t even know which day it was my wife conceived. It wasn’t until after she became pregnant that we started thinking more specifically about the child. But Anastasia says that a particular mental state and aspiration is required right at the very moment preceding intimacy Anyway, my colleague, no doubt, got more out of those sayings of hers than I. Or he felt more. He wanted to experience this mental state. He wanted them to have a child—a son. “My colleague is already past forty, and his wife is two years younger than he. They have two children. He himself admitted that they have rarely had any sex these past few years. But he began talking with his wife about a child. “At first she was quite surprised at his desire. She said it was too late for her to bear children. But her attitude toward her husband took a turn for the better. He gave her the book with Anastasia’s sayings to read. And now the woman herself would start a conversation—no, not about her desire to have a child, but about how true the sayings in the book were. “And then one night my colleague began caressing his wife—only not thinking about sex, but about their future son. He probably managed to do the same thing you did. The only difference is that you were led to that point by Anastasia, while he achieved it all on his own. Whether it just happened that way or not, it’s hard to say, but he managed to achieve, in all probability, precisely the mental state you experienced. His wife responded with the same kind of caresses.

“These are not young people, and naturally they were not feeling the same strong sexual inclinations as in their youth. Their thoughts about their future child, no doubt, pushed any concerns about sexual techniques into the background. “As a result, that ‘something’ happened. Neither my colleague nor his wife could remember any of the details of their intimacy. Just like you, they don’t remember anything. But, as you did, they talk about the unforgettable, marvelous sensations they experienced the next morning. My colleague tells me that he has never felt anything like it in all his life, from intimacy either with his wife or with any other women—and, believe me, there were quite a few of those. “His forty-year-old wife is now pregnant, in her seventh month. But that’s not the main thing. The main thing is that his wife has fallen in love.” “With whom?” “With her husband, my dear Vladimir Nikolaevich! Just imagine, here’s this woman who used to be rather irritable and nagging, now coming to our clinic and waiting for her husband to finish work. She sits in the reception room and waits like a young girl newly in love. I have often caught the expression on her face out of the corner of my eye. It too has changed, and a barely noticeable hidden smile is now evident. “Tve known this family quite some time. About eight years. This plump, depressed woman has suddenly become ten years younger. And she is beautiful, in spite of her all-too-obvious pregnancy.” “What about your colleague’s attitude toward his wife—has it changed too, or has it remained the same?” “He’s changed too. He’s completely given up drinking, even though he didn’t really have a serious problem with it before. He’s stopped smoking. He and his wife have a new favourite pastime—painting.” “Painting? What do they paint?” “They paint their future family domain, the kind Anastasia talks about. They want to get a piece of land and build on it—wrong word: not to build a house, but to lay the foundation for a future corner of Paradise for their children-to-be.” “You said, children-to-be?” “Exactly His wife’s only regret is that the conception took place in an apartment, and not in their own domain, as Anastasia recommends—in the Space of Love built with their own hands, where the woman should stay during the whole period of her pregnancy and where the birth should take

place. “My colleague’s wife is convinced she can have still another child beyond this one. And my colleague thinks so too. “I am convinced that the instinct one finds among animals to perpetuate the species differs from the human condition in the fact that the animals’ mating is governed only by the call of nature. When Man engages in so-called sex, he is merely imitating the animals. A child brought into the world as the result of this process is half-man, half-animal. “A true Man can be born only when the energies and feelings inherent in Man alone are involved—i.e., love, a vision of the future, an awareness of what is being created. In fact, the word sex isn’t really applicable at all. It only trivialises the event taking place. The term co-creation is much more accurate here. “When a man and a woman achieve the mental state where co-creation takes place, it is at that point that they enter into a marriage made in heaven. This is not a union sealed by a scrap of paper or a ritual, but by something immeasurably greater and more meaningful, and hence it will be solid and happy. “And you mustn’t think that only young people can enter into a union like this. The example of my colleague shows that it is available to people of all ages. Such a union is possible only on the condition that they themselves are able to comprehend the significance of what Anastasia has set forth.” “So what does all this mean?” I asked. “Does it mean that all the people whose passport9 is stamped with a marriage registration aren’t married after all?” “A passport stamp is nothing but a convention thought up by society The pieces of paper and all the rituals practised by different peoples in different historical periods may be outwardly different, but in essence they all amount to the same thing—an attempt to impress the mind and artificially create at least an appearance of union among two people. As Anastasia correctly points out: A false union is a frightening thing. Children! Do you see, Vladimir? Children! They sense the artificiality, the falsity of such a union. And this makes them sceptical about everything their parents tell them. Children sub-con-sciously sense the lie even during their conception. And that has a bad effect on them. “It turns out that in Nature there is not an artificial, but a natural, Divine union. And Anastasia has shown people living today how it can be

achieved.” “So what you’re saying is that even people who are married—even the ones with a stamp to that effect in their passport—should really be marrying their spouse a second time?” “Not the second time, butfor the first time in actual fact, it would be more accurate to say,” observed Alexander Sergeevich. “That’s going to be a hard one for most people to understand. In every country of the world sex is held up as the highest form of pleasure, and every last individual engages in it for the sake of pleasure.” “All a lie, Vladimir Nikolaevich! Ninety percent of men are incapable of satisfying a woman. “The myth that the majority of people derive supreme delight from sex is nothing but a psychological suggestion. Human beings’ appetite for sex is the basis of a whole commercial industry. The flood of legal and underground porno-magazines is a veritable gold-mine. And they know how to pull the wool over people’s eyes. Films where all sorts of supermen freely satisfy their partners—that’s all business too. “The simple fact is: we are too timid and too afraid to admit to each other that we don’t have the right partner. But the fact remains—an indisputable fact—that sixty percent of marriages do not last. And the other forty percent are far from perfect, as is evidenced by continual spousal betrayals and the tremendous increase in prostitution. “The gratification we derive from sexual experiences today is hardly satisfying. It is no more than an infinitesimal part of the satisfaction Man experiences from the genuine co-creation appointed by God, in partnership with Him—something we search in vain for all our lives. “We’re ‘searching for it in the wrong places'! The truth of this saying is indisputably borne out in our very lives. “Anastasia represents a culture of some kind of ancient civilisation which our historians probably haven’t the faintest concept of. She completely destroys prevailing stereotypes. Just how perfect this culture was can be seen by considering how it dealt with pregnant women, who upon conception were expected to stay in the same place for nine months, and give birth there. How important is this? “The advantage of this policy can be corroborated by information from modern science and comparative analysis. The place where the mother conceives and carries her child-to-be is termed a domain. In this domain a man and a woman have established a garden with their own hands, a garden containing all sorts of plants. Physiologists recognise the importance of proper nourishment for pregnant women—this has been written up in dozens

of scientific and popular publications. But what of it? Is it necessary for every pregnant woman to study these? Just forget about everything else and set about studying the literature on the subject? That would be rather hard to swallow! “Even if every single pregnant woman took to studying these scientific treatises, she would inevitably be faced with another insoluble problem: where could she obtain the products recommended? “Let’s suppose a couple had unlimited funds at their disposal and could buy whatever they liked. An illusion! No money will or even can buy what a pregnant woman desires, and right at the very moment she desires it. I’m thinking, for example, of an apple of the quality a woman can pick in her own garden and eat on the spot. “Then there are the psychological considerations, which are no less important than the physiological. Let’s take and compare two situations. “The first is a standard scenario, which happens with the vast majority of people. Let’s take a young family with an average or slightly-above-average income. A pregnant woman lives with her husband in a flat. Is she able to feed herself with the proper quality of food? No! Modern supermarkets, even those with upscale prices, are unable to offer us good-quality food. Tinned or frozen foods are not something natural for Man. “Well, what about the farmers’ markets, then? Even there the quality is doubtful, to put it mildly Private farmers too have learnt to use all sorts of chemical additives in raising their crops. When they’re growing things for themselves, that’s one thing, but when they’re growing to sell, that’s when their desire to make money pushes them to use all sorts of stimulating devices. Everyone knows about it, and so there is naturally a feeling of concern and alarm over using food from unknown sources. “A feeling of alarm! A feeling that has become modern Man’s bosom companion! “Pregnant women today are overwhelmed by an endless flood of information about constant social cataclysms and ecological disasters. Both her consciousness and sub-conscious become home to an ever-increasing fear over the future of her child-to-be. Where can we possibly find anything positive to counteract it? There are no positive aspects—indeed, under the monstrous circumstances of contemporary life we have doomed ourselves to, there cannot be. “Even in a comfortably appointed apartment we get used to our surroundings and they cease to delight our eye with anything new. We also get used to everything in the apartment ageing and breaking, even as we are

accustomed to our tap water being undrinkable. “All this all of a sudden starts to weigh upon a pregnant woman’s acute sensibilities. All she can do is to hope for a miracle. Under the constant pressure of hopelessness, this is the most she can count on. “In the second scenario, the woman is surrounded by a Space of Love, as Anastasia terms it, where in addition to the satisfaction of her physiological needs she is also given a powerful psychological boost. “Modern science is capable of explaining and demonstrating the truth of practically every one of Anastasia’s sayings. They are altogether simple and logical. The only wonder is that in spite of all our studied speeches on the subject we have never given them much heed. “But Anastasia also talks about mysterious phenomena that modern science cannot explain:10 Parents should impart to their co-creation the three most important points, the three primary planes of being. “She further says that for all three planes of being to merge into one in one spot, namely, in one’s family domain, the following must occur: The thoughts of two in love will merge into one Here is the first point—it is called parental thought. The second point, or rather, yet another human plane, will be born and light a new star in the heavens when two bodies merge into one—merge in love and with thoughts of a splendid creation And a third point, a new plane of being should come about in that space. Right there on the spot where the conception occurred the birth should take place. And the father should stay close around. And the great all-loving Father will raise over the three of them a crown. “I am certain that physiologists and psychologists will be able to explain the advantages of conceiving, carrying and giving birth to a child all in the same spot—in a splendid kin’s domain. But Anastasia talks about something even greater. She says that in such a case the individual who is born experiences a complete connection with the Universe. Why? How does it happen? How important is this approach to a child’s birth for his future as a Man? Scholars today can only guess. “I tried juxtaposing what Anastasia said with the prognostications of the horoscopes that are popular today The question naturally arose, which of the three points Anastasia mentions is the most important constituent of a Man’s birth—the thought, the physiological conception or the emerging of the infant from the mother’s womb? “It is generally accepted today that one’s birth date is defined by the

moment of emergence from the mother’s womb. This is what horoscopes are based on. But science has already determined that the foetus, even before it has emerged from the womb, is alive, it has feelings. And if that is so, then the Man already exists. He is already born. He can move—the mother can feel the push of his little legs and arms. Perhaps, then, it would be more accurate to calculate a Man’s birth date from the moment the sperm fertilises the egg? Certainly from the physiological point of view, this could be considered the most accurate defining moment of somebody’s ‘birth’. But “The meeting of the sperm and the egg is still not a cause—it is an effect. It is preceded by the couple’s thoughts. Could it be that these thoughts define one’s birth date? Of the three moments we have mentioned, it is generally accepted today that one’s birth date is the moment of emergence into the world. Tomorrow, though, the calculation could be different. “According to Anastasia’s theory, Man’s birth date is the point where these three moments merge into one. And here may be seen her irrefutable logic. But we (and here I am referring to religious teachings as well as modern science) are afraid even to mention this.” “What is there to be afraid of?” I queried. “There is something, actually You see, Vladimir Nikolaevich, if we accept the irrefutability of Anastasia’s statements, then we are obliged to admit that by comparison with the people of the culture she represents, we are not fully fledged people. Most of us today are lacking one or two of the components inherent in a fully fledged Man. So that’s why we’re afraid not just to talk about it, but even to think about it. And yet we should be thinking about it” “But perhaps we don’t think or talk about these statements because they’re too controversial?” “On the contrary! They are too controversial—they are incontrovertible! “First, think about this: who will deny that a situation where thought rather than debauchery precedes the birth of a child—the meeting of the sperm and the egg—is more moral and more psychologically fulfilling? “Second: it is also absolutely indisputable that a pregnant woman should receive a wholesome variety of nourishment and avoid stress. One’s own family domain, as Anastasia describes it, is ideal for this. “Third: giving birth in familiar surroundings, in a setting one is accustomed to, will create a much more favourable condition for the birthing mother and, more importantly, for the newborn. This is also an irrefutable fact in both psychology and physiology Now, are you in agreement with these three points so far?”

“Of course I am.” “You see, they are indeed irrefutable, and not only for scholars. Consequently, we cannot deny the positive influence produced by the union of these three positive components into a single whole. As a psychologist, I can conjecture that in such a union, a psychic reaction takes place in space. The whole Space of the Universe reacts to it— accepting the newborn and establishing an information link with him.” “Possibly But what is the significance here of establishing an exact birth date for Man?” “A tremendous significance! A global significance! This is what determines the level at which we perceive the world. If we give priority to the emergence of the foetus into the world, that means matter is primary in our world view. “If on the other hand we give priority to the moment at which the man’s and woman’s thoughts merge together, then consciousness takes precedence in our world-view. “The upshot is that we are dealing with the formation of two different cultures which determine our way of life. In the first instance matter takes predominance, in the second, it is spirituality. This conflict has been going on for ages, either openly or below the surface. But now I am beginning to see the absurdity of such a conflict. Anastasia talks about the merging not only of these two concepts, but of a third as well, into a single whole. On the basis of her statements one can postulate not only a theory of the birth of a fully fledged Man, but also the possibility of its realization in practice. It comes right down to something that is available to everyone. But why do we not take advantage of the opportunities we have? Why is there chaos in our consciousness, and why does life evaporate into vanity?—there’s the question!” “I still think,” I said, “you should use the date and hour when the infant emerges into the world from the mother’s womb as one’s birth date. Only phrase it more accurately: ‘the moment of emergence into the world’.” “Possibly. Quite possibly! But as to the moment of the birth itself, I still think you’d better ask Anastasia.” “I shall indeed ask her. I’ll be interested to know myself exactly when I was born, and when my son was born.” “Oh, your son! You came to me asking for advice, and here I’ve been rambling on about my own—Sorry, I got talking too much. It’s something

that’s been nagging at me. You see, I hold consultation three times a week. People come to me with their problems. “They all ask the same kinds of questions: How to raise a child? How do I establish contact with my son or daughter? And the child may be already five, or ten or even fifteen years old. “If I tell someone: ‘Well, old chap, it’s too late to think about raising them now!’, then I’m killing his last hope. So my real task is basically one of comforting.” “Well, my son too will soon be five years old. Does that mean it’s too late for me too?” “You, Vladimir Nikolaevich, are in quite a different situation. Your son’s got Anastasia watching out for him. It’s just as well she prevented you from tossing your child out into the routine of our world. She’s raising him in the context of a totally different culture.” “Does that mean my son and I are of different cultures, and so we’ll never be able to understand each other?” “Parents and children always represent what seem to be different cultures, different world-views. Each generation has its own priorities. Granted, the distinction is generally not so sharp as in your case. My advice to you is this: before attempting to communicate with your son, have a talk with Anastasia about how best to approach it. Pay careful attention to whatever she says. After all, you’ve been reading a lot and thinking a lot about the raising of children. Now it’ll be easier for you to understand her.” “Understanding her doesn’t always work out,” I countered, “even after a long time goes by Some of her sayings still provoke doubts in me. They are mystical and not the kind you can prove. In fact, I’ve deliberately refrained from publishing a lot of her sayings—a lot of them sound more like fantasy and—” Alexander Sergeevich suddenly banged the palm of his hand down on the table and sharply—even somewhat rudely—interrupted me: “You’ve no right to do that. If your mind won’t allow you to make sense of something, at least give others the opportunity.” I did not appreciate the psychologist’s sharp tone of voice or his message. This wasn’t the first time I had heard or read such accusations directed at me. They would reduce me to some kind of half-wit and say that my role was no more than transcribing as accurately as possible everything this Siberian recluse had said. But in making such statements these smart alecs weren’t taking the whole picture into account. I decided to put this suddenly aggressive psychologist in his place:

“Naturally you count yourself among those—those others, who are able to understand everything she says. I may not be a psychologist with an academic degree, but there is one simple truth even I can comprehend: if I were to publish all her mystical sayings without back-up evidence, people would be inclined to treat everything written in the books as a fairy tale. And all the practical stuff that can be put into practice today would get lost. By not publishing some of her mystical sayings, it is quite possible that I have saved the practical message she has for people.” “Can you tell me specifically what kind of ‘mystical sayings’ you’re talking about?” “Well, here’s a good example. She said that she’s taken the best combination of sounds in the Universe and hidden them in the text of the book and they will have a beneficial influence on the readers.”11 “Yes, I remember that. I remember it very well. It’s written right in the first book. It also says there that the effect is increased if the reader listens to natural sounds while reading.” “You remember that, eh? And the fact that these words can be found not only in the text itself, but right at the front of the book. Remember? The publishers suggested I put them there, to intrigue the readers. And I did” “And rightly so.” “You think so? But you know, that particular saying right up front turned a lot of people off the book. Many saw it as just an advertising gimmick, and said so in the media. I removed it in some of the editions. Many people consider it mystical, or just something made up.” “Idiots! Don’t tell me Don’t tell me the mind of society can atrophy to that extent! Or has mental laziness switched off any logical thinking on the part of the masses?” “What’s mental laziness got to do with it? If the saying is impossible to prove?” “Prove? What is there to prove? This saying is nothing if not a psychological test ingenious in its simplicity and effectiveness. It has the power to identify at a single glance complete dullards with atrophied mental capacities. If they go ahead and mention this in the media, it’ll be as though they’re saying: Look at what utter klutzes we are! A most ingenious test, indeed.” “What’s this about a test? The saying in question is simply not provable.” “Not provable, you say? Well, it’s not a matter of proving anything. What Anastasia says here is an axiom. Judge for yourself. The text of any book—

and I mean any book, any letter, any oral speech—consists precisely of combinations of sounds. Does that make sense? Do you agree?” “Well, yes, in general, I agree. It’s true that the texts of all books are made up of combinations” “ You see how simple it all is? It is this very simplicity that people who are too lazy to think logically have stumbled over.” “Possibly But, after all, she did say she had found and collected the best combinations from the expanses of the Universe and that they would exercise a beneficial effect on the readers.” “But there is absolutely nothing ‘mystical’ in that. Judge for yourself: when you read any kind of book, or newspaper or magazine article, doesn’t it have an effect on you? The reading can leave you indifferent, provoke irritation, satisfaction, anger or joy Well? Get it? D’you agree?” “Yes.” “Okay As for the beneficial effect of Anastasia’s texts, it’s clearly evident in the reaction of the readers. I’m not talking about published reviews, which are sometimes paid for. The fact of beneficial influence is confirmed in the creative urges shown by the readers. It is evident in the multitude of poems and songs your readers have composed. I myself have bought five audiocassettes of songs dedicated to Anastasia. They have been written by people who are very simple, or maybe just the opposite—quite possibly they’re not so simple after all. I bought these cassettes and listened to them. What Anastasia said has been confirmed by life itself. After all, the poetry came about under the influence of the reading. And you call it ‘mystical’. You have no right to censor Anastasia.” “Okay. That’s it—I’m leaving. Thanks for the advice.” I had already taken hold of the doorknob and was about to walk out, when I heard the doctor say: “Hold on a moment, please, Vladimir Nikolaevich. I can see you’ve taken offence at what I said. I’m sorry if I sounded a bit sharp. I don’t want us to part with bad feelings.” Alexander Sergeevich was standing in the centre of the room. A little bit pudgy around the middle, getting along in years. He neatly buttoned up his jacket and went on: “You should understand that you have a duty to publish everything Anastasia says. Don’t worry if not everything she says is clear to you, or to me or to someone else. Don’t worry about that. It’s important for them to understand.”

“And who’s they?” “Young women still capable of bearing healthy children. If they get it, that means everything will change Anyway, look at how little we’ve talked about your son, and that is the whole reason you came to see me!” “Of course it is.” “There’s no concrete advice I can really give you. Your situation’s too irregular. Maybe you could take some picture-books to Siberia for him. History books, for example. You might also try dressing up. Maybe this all sounds silly, but I just want to make sure you don’t paint too harsh a picture of our reality for him.” “What picture would you like me to paint? All prettied up and glossed over?” “That’s not what I’m talking about. Remember, you’ll be introducing yourself to your son as a representative of our reality, and this may mean you’ll be compromising yourself in his eyes.” “And why should I alone be expected to answer for all the perversions of our society?” “If you show your son that you are incapable of changing anything in our society for the better, you’ll simply be demonstrating how powerless you are. You’ll be compromising yourself in your son’s eyes. I have a feeling he has been raised in such a way that he will not understand how anything impossible can exist for Man.” “I guess you’re right, Alexander Sergeevich. Thanks for the practical advice. Really, it’s not a bad idea to put a good face on our life as far as the child is concerned. Yes, definitely it’s worth it, or else he’ll think” We shook hands and, as far as I could tell, parted friends. CHAPTER TWO

Conversation with my son Having trekked from the river the whole way to Anastasia’s glade all on my own, I felt right at home as I approached the familiar places. This time nobody was there to greet me. It even gave me a good feeling to walk through the taiga all on my own, without a guide. I wasn’t about to cry out, or call Anastasia’s name. Perhaps she was

occupied with her own affairs. When she was free, she would feel my presence and come to me on her own. Spying my favourite spot on the lakeshore where Anastasia and I were wont to spend time together, I decided I would change my clothes first before sitting down and relaxing after my trip. I took out of my backpack a dark grey wrinkle-resistant suit, a thin white sweater and a new pair of comfortable shoes. In getting ready for my trip I had also thought of taking along a white shirt and tie, but then decided that the shirt would only get wrinkled, and there would be no place to iron it in the taiga. But I had the suit packed in the store so it wouldn’t wrinkle. I decided I should present myself to my son in a solemn, elegant manner, and so I spent a great deal of time and effort in thinking about my outward appearance. I had brought along a battery-powered razor and a mirror. Resting the mirror on a tree-branch, I proceeded to shave and comb my hair. Then I sat down on a small hillock, took out a notepad and pen to round out my plan for meeting my son with some thoughts that had come to me along the way. My son will soon be five years old. Of course he can talk already The last time I saw him he was still very little, he wasn’t talking yet, but by now there must be a lot of things he can understand. He probably natters on with Anastasia and his grandfathers for days on end. I had it all set in my mind that just as soon as I saw Anastasia I would let her know how I had planned out my meeting with our son and what I would say to him. For the past five years I had been diligently studying all the various systems of child-raising, taking from them what I considered the best and easiest to understand. After talking with educational experts and child psychologists I had arrived at the conclusions I needed for myself. Now, before meeting with my son, I wanted to talk with Anastasia about these conclusions, along with the plan I had worked out—to think through everything once again in detail, this time with her. Perhaps Anastasia could suggest what first words I should say to him, and what pose to adopt while saying them. I had decided the pose was important, too, since a father should appear to his son as a significant person. But first Anastasia had to introduce me to him. The first point on my notepad read: Anastasia presents me to my son. All she had to do was introduce me with some simple words, such as: “Here, son, here before you is your birth father.” But she had to say them quite solemnly, so that our son would be able to feel from her tone of voice his father’s significance, and subsequently treat him with respect.

All at once I felt everything around become quiet, as though put on alert. The sudden onset of silence didn’t frighten me. This always happened every time I met Anastasia in the taiga. The taiga and all its residents literally froze, listening, watching and deciding whether the newcomer might have brought their mistress any kind of unpleasantness. Then, if no aggression were detected, everything would calm down. I surmised from the ensuing silence that Anastasia had quietly approached me from behind. It wasn’t a difficult thing to sense her presence, especially since I always experienced something like a warming sensation in my back —something only Anastasia was capable of producing with her look. I didn’t turn around right away, but continued sitting there for some time, luxuriating in the pleasant and cheering warmth. Finally I turned, and lo and behold, there before me was standing my little son, his bare feet planted firmly on the ground. He had grown. His straw-blond hair was already falling in curls down to his shoulders. He was dressed in a collarless shirt woven from nettle fibres. His features resembled those of Anastasia’s— perhaps mine too, though this was not obvious at first glance. Turning to face him, my hands pressed against the ground, I found myself standing on all fours, watching him intently, oblivious to everything else in the world. He in turn kept his eye silently trained on me, watching me with Anastasia’s kind gaze. Perhaps the unexpectedness of it all would have continued to prevent me from saying anything for a long time, but he was the first to speak. “Greetings to your bright thoughts, my dear Papa!” “Eh? And greetings, of course, to you as well,” I responded. “Forgive me, Papa.” “Forgive you for what?” “For interrupting your important reflections. I have been standing at a distance, so as not to interfere, but I wanted to come and be close to you. Please, Papa, let me sit beside you quietly until you have completed your reflections.” “Eh? Okay Sure, have a seat.” He quickly approached, sat down a half-metre away and didn’t move a muscle. I continued kneeling distractedly on all fours. As he was settling in, I managed to think: I must adopt a deep-thought pose while I finish my ‘reflections’ as he put it. I need to think of what to do next. I took up what I thought was a dignified pose, and for a while we just sat

there side by side without saying a word. Then I turned to my little son and asked him: “Well, how are things going with you?” Upon hearing my voice he gave a joyful start, turned to me and looked me straight in the eye. His look told me he felt tense, not knowing how to answer my simple question. But he finally responded: “I cannot, Papa, give you an answer to your question. I do not know how things are going. Here, Papa, life is going on. It is something very good, life is.” Somehow I’ve got to carry on the conversation, I thought. I can’t afford to lose the momentum. And so I asked him another traditional question: “Well, how are you doing here? You minding your Mama?” This time he replied at once: “I am always happy to mind my Mama when she speaks. And when my Grandfathers speak, it is interesting to listen to them too. I talk to them as well, and they listen to me. But Mama Anastasia thinks that I talk too much —I ought to think more, says Mama Anastasia. But my thoughts come very quickly and I want to talk differently” “What do you mean, differently?” “Like my Grandfathers, I want to arrange my words one after another, like Mama does, like you do, Papa.” “And how do you know how I arrange my words?” “Mama showed me. I get very interested when Mama starts talking with your words.” “Really? Wow! Well and what do you want to be?” Again this very ordinary question, which adults frequently ask children, was apparently beyond his understanding. After a brief pause he replied: “But I already^, Papa.” “I know that you are, but I meant: what do you want to become? When you grow up, what are you going to do?” “I shall be you, Papa, when I grow up. I shall carry on what you do now:” “How do you know what I do?” “Mama Anastasia told me.” “And what all has she been telling you about me?”

“A whole lot. Mama Anastasia tells me that you are such a What is the word? Oh yes, I remember—that you are such a hero, my dear Papa!” “A hero?” “Yes. It is hard for you. Mama wants life to be easier for you. She wants you to be able to rest in normal conditions for Man, but you go to a place where many people find it very hard to live. That is why you go away, to do good to people there. I was very sad to learn that there are people who do not have their own glade and they are always being frightened and made to live in a way they themselves do not want. They cannot pick their own food. They have to well, work, I think it is called. They have to do not what they want themselves but what somebody tells them to do. And for this they are given paper—money—and they then exchange this money for food. They have simply forgotten a bit how it is possible to live otherwise and enjoy life. And you, Papa, you go to that place where it is hard for people to live, to bring good to the people there.” “Eh? Yes, I do go there There should be good everywhere. But how do you plan to carry on with the good?—how are you preparing for it right now? You need to study, to learn.” “I am learning, Papa. I like learning very much, and I try my best.” “What are you learning, what subject?” Again, he didn’t understand the question right off, but then replied: “I learn the whole subject. Just as soon as I chase it up to the speed Mama Anastasia has, I shall immediately understand the whole subject, or all the subjects. Yes, it is better to say: all the subjects.” “What do you chase up to the speed your Mama has?” “My thought. But for the time being I cannot chase it up as quickly Mama’s thought runs more quickly Her thought is quicker than my Grandfathers’— quicker than a ray of sunshine. She is so quick that only He thinks faster.” “Who? Who’s He?” “God—our Father.” “Oh yes, of course. Still, you have to try Yes, you must try your best, my son.” “Fine, Papa, I shall try even harder.” In an effort to continue the conversation about learning without saying something stupid and meaningless, I reached into my backpack and pulled out a book at random—one of the books I had brought with me. It turned out to be a Grade 5 textbook called A history of the ancient world. I explained to

my son: “You see, Volodya, this is one of the many books people are writing today. This book tells children about how life began on the Earth, how Man and society developed. It’s got a lot of colour illustrations along with a printed text. This book outlines the history of mankind. Scholars—they’re such smart people, well, smarter than others, or so people say—have described in this book the life of primordial people on the Earth. When you learn to read, you’ll be able to learn a lot of interesting stuff from books like this.” “I know how to read, Papa.” “Eh? Really? Your Mama’s teaching you to read?” “Mama Anastasia once drew the letters for me in the sand and said their names aloud to me.” “D’you mean to tell me you memorised all the letters right off?” “I did. There are very few of them. I was sad to learn there are so few.” I didn’t pay any attention at first to his remark about the fewness of the letters in the alphabet. I was interested in hearing whether or not my son could actually read a printed text. I opened the book to the first page, handed it to him and said: “Here, try to read this.” A distorted view of history He took the open book, in his left hand for some reason, and spent a few moments silently looking at the printed text, before starting to read: The earliest people lived in hot climates, where there were no frosts or cold winters. People did not live by themselves, but in groups, which scholars call human flocks. Everybody in the flock, from the littlest to the greatest, collected food. They would spend whole days searching for edible roots, wild-growing fruit and berries, and birds’ eggs. After reading this text aloud, he raised his head from the book and began looking me straight in the eye, enquiringly. I said nothing, not understanding his query His voice betrayed concern as he began talking. “I do not have any concept from this.” “What kind of ‘concept’ do you mean?” “No concept at all comes to me. Either it is broken, or it cannot present a concept of what is written in this book. When Mama Anastasia or my Grandfathers speak, I have a clear concept of everything they say. When I read His book, the whole concept is even clearer. But from this book I have

only a distorted kind of concept. Or it is somehow broken within me.” “What do you need this ‘concept’ for? Why waste time on a concept?” “The concepts come all by themselves, when there is truth being told but here, it is not happening—that means One moment I shall try to check. Perhaps the people written about in this book had no eyes, if they had to search all day long for food? Why did they spend days searching for food if it was always right with them?” Then something inexplicable began happening with the child. He suddenly shut his eyes tight and began feeling the grass around him with one hand. Upon finding something, he picked and ate it. Then he got to his feet, and said without opening his eyes: “Perhaps they did not have noses either.” He pinched his nose tight together with his fingers and began walking away from me. After proceeding about fifteen metres, he lay down on the grass, his hand still covering his nose, and uttered a sound something like a-a-a. At that point it seemed as though everything around sprung into motion. Several squirrels jumped down together out of the trees, spreading their paws and fluffing out their tails like a parachute. Running up to the child lying on the grass, they would put something down beside his head, then dash back up into the trees and again parachute down to the ground. Three wolves standing some distance away also came running up to the boy lying on the grass and began hovering anxiously around him. With a noisy crunch of branches a young bear appeared, toddling quickly along, then a second bear, a little smaller but more agile. The first bear sniffed the child’s head and licked his hand, which was still holding on to his nose. Various other creatures of the taiga, big and small, kept popping out of the bushes. They all began to hover anxiously around the little fellow lying on the grass, completely oblivious to each other’s presence. It was quite evident they didn’t understand what was happening to him. I too could not understand at first my son’s strange actions. Then I figured it out. He was portraying a helpless person deprived of sight and smell. The little a-a-a sounds he kept making from time to time were to signal to those around him that he was hungry. The squirrels kept arriving and departing as before, bringing cedar cones, dry mushrooms and something else besides, and piling them up on the grass beside the child.

One squirrel stood up on its hind legs, its front paws holding a cedar cone. With its sharp teeth it quickly began extracting the nuts inside. Another squirrel bit the nuts open and made a pile of the freshly shelled kernels. But the boy did not take the food. He continued lying there with closed eyes, his hand holding his nose, and uttering his a-a-a with growing insistence. At this point a sable came running headlong out of the bushes. A beautiful fluffy creature with a luxuriant coat of fur. It ran two circles around the boy, paying no attention to the gathering cluster of animals. And the creatures, whose attention had been totally focused on the unusual behaviour of the child, didn’t seem to take any notice of the sable at all. But when it suddenly pulled up sharply and stopped at the pile of cedar nuts the squirrels had shelled and began eating them, the creatures reacted. The first ones to bare their teeth and have their hair stand on end were the wolves. The bear, which had been swaying back and forth, shifting its weight from one paw to another, first froze still, his gaze trained on the glutton, then he gave it a slap with his paw. The sable flew off to one side and flipped over, but immediately jumped up again and made a nimble dash for the child, putting its front paws up on his chest. Directly the little one tried making his usual demanding a-a-a, the sable brought its muzzle right up to the boy’s open mouth and deposited therein the food it had just chewed. At long last Volodya sat up on the grass, opened his eyes and let go of his nose. He surveyed all the creatures around him, who were still showing signs of concern. Then he got to his feet and began calming them down. Then each creature in its turn, according to a hierarchy known only to them, approached the boy. Each one received a reward. The wolves got a friendly clap on the mane. With one of the bears Volodya took its muzzle in both hands and gave it a shaking, then for some reason rubbed the second bear’s nose. He used his leg to press the sable squirming at his feet to the ground, and when it flipped over onto its back, he proceeded to tickle its tummy. After receiving their due reward, each creature in turn respectfully withdrew. Volodya picked up a handful of shelled cedar nuts from the ground and made a sign to the squirrels which by all appearances was intended to let them know that they need not bring any more gifts. Even though the child had been calming the creatures down, up to this point the squirrels had been continuing to feed him, but stopped immediately upon Volodya’s signal. My little boy came over to me, handed me a fistful of nuts and said: “In the concept I have within me, Papa, when the first people began to live

on the Earth, they did not need to spend entire days searching for and gathering food. They did not need to think about food at all. Forgive my concept, Papa—it is not at all like what the intelligent scholars wrote in the book which you brought me.” “Yes. I realize it is quite different.” I sat down again on the hillock. Volodya immediately followed suit, and asked: “But why are they different—my concept and the one in the book?” I’m sure my own thought must have been working faster than ever before. Indeed, why did this book, a textbook for children, contain such hocuspocus? Even an adult unfamiliar with the wilds of nature must grasp the fact that in a warm climate, especially a tropical climate, there would be all sorts of food in abundance. So much so that even the huge creatures—mammoths and elephants—had no trouble in finding enough to eat. And the smaller animals didn’t go hungry either. And yet here was Man, the most intellectually developed creature among them, having difficulty feeding himself! Really, a virtually impossible scenario! It turns out that the majority of people who study history simply do not think about the implications of what is written in history textbooks. They do not evaluate what they read against the criterion of the most elementary logic, but simply accept the historical past in whatever form it happens to be served up to them. Try telling a dachnik,5 for example—a dachnik with just six hundred square metres of land—that his neighbour spends his day walking among the food growing there and can’t find anything to eat. The dachnik would get the impression that his neighbour must be sick, to put it mildly. By the same token, how could a child who has grown up in the taiga and tasted all the various fruits and growing plants, imagine any need for searching for them if they are always at hand? Especially when the creatures around him are ready at any moment to serve him, to spare him the necessity of climbing trees to fetch nuts and even the task of shelling them? Earlier I had observed still another phenomenon. All the female creatures living on Anastasia’s family territory accepted the child born to her as their own.2 And I am not the only one to have described this phenomenon. There are many instances recorded where animals have nourished human children. And many people, no doubt, have observed a dog feeding a kitten or a mother cat feeding a young puppy. But animals have a special relationship to Man.

Creatures in the taiga always mark out their territory It is on such a territory that Anastasia’s family lives, and hence their special relationship to her too. How is it that all the creatures are so drawn to Man and ready to serve him with heartfelt desire? How is it that Man’s loving attitude is so essential to them? Just like household pets in a modern apartment—a cat, a dog or a parrot, for example—each and every one tries to get at least some kind of attention from Man, and treats any indication of love as the ultimate reward. They are even jealous when a Man shows attention to some pets more than others. 5 While this is something we easily take for granted with pets, it may seem a little unusual here in the taiga, and yet fundamentally it is the same amazing phenomenon—all animals aspire to feel the invisible light of grace (or feelings, or some other kind of radiance) emanating from Man. The specific term may vary, but the fact is incontestable. The important thing is that this is a real natural phenomenon, and we need to understand its specific purpose. Did this phenomenon exist right from the very beginning, or has Man trained the animals over the centuries? It is quite possible that every single one of them has been trained. After all, look at how many different animals and birds on all continents serve Man today! They know who their master is. In Indiawe are talking about elephants and monkeys, in Central Asia— camels and donkeys. And almost everywhere this applies to dogs, cats, cows, horses, chickens, geese, hawks and dolphins—so many kinds of creatures, it is hard to name them all. The important thing is that they are in service to Man—a fact practically everyone is aware of. But when did it begin—three thousand years ago? Five, ten thousand years ago? Or possibly this was part of the Creator’s thought right when He created Nature? Most likely the latter. It says in the Bible: “To determine the purpose of every creature.”6 And if all this was planned and implemented right from the beginning, then Man could not possibly have had any problems finding food. Why then do our history books—those written for adults as well as children —say exactly the opposite? This happens not just in our country, but such absurdities are inculcated in people the world over. A mistake? Probably not! Whatever’s behind this is more significant than a mere mistake. Design! If so, that means it’s important to someone. To whom? Why? What would happen if history were written differently? If the truth were written? What if textbooks all over the world stated something like this: The first people living on our Earth did not have any problems finding food. They were surrounded by a great variety of

high-quality and nourishing food. But then Then the question would arise in the vast majority of minds: What happened to this great variety and abundance? Why is Man today forced to work as a slave for someone just to earn a piece of bread? And perhaps the most important question of all: How flawless is the course of human society’s development today? How was I now to answer my son as to why this ‘intelligent’ book—a textbook—was spouting such absurdities? People in the tropics spending whole days searching for food? To one brought up in the taiga surrounded by faithful creatures, these sayings of so-called ‘intelligent people’ were patently absurd. I remembered Anastasia’s words: To perceive what is really going on in the Universe one need only look into one’s self7 In an attempt to extricate myself from the situation, I tried explaining to my son: “This is not a simple book. You should examine everything written here against your own concept. Why write about something that you have such a clear concept of already? Here everything is presented upside-down. You need to use your own concepts to verify whether something you read is the truth, or whether it’s turned upside-down. You need to be more attentive to that. Do you understand me, Volodya?” “I shall try to understand, Papa, why people write what is not true. At the moment I do not understand. I know that some creatures use their tails to wipe out their tracks. Others build fake burrows, and there are those that even construct traps. Only why do human beings need to be so deceptive?” “I told you, it’s for their self-development.” “But can they not develop themselves through the truth?” “They could do that too But it would be different.” “Where you live, Papa, do they develop themselves through the truth or through lies?” “They try all sorts of things—sometimes truth, sometimes lies—whatever will get them ahead most effectively Anyway, Volodya, do you often read books?” “Every day” “What kind of books do you read? Who gives them to you?” “Mama Anastasia has given me all the books to read that you wrote, Papa. I read them very quickly But every day I read other books. Books that have lots of different happy letters of the alphabet.” At first I didn’t pay any attention to his words about some kind of strange books with lots of different happy letters’.

“You loved Mama, but did not recognise it” A fearful conjecture flashed through my mind: If my son has read all my books, then he is well aware of my relationship to Anastasia during those first few days after I met her. He knows how I insulted her and even wanted to hit her with a stick. What child who loves his mother can forgive such shameful treatment? There can be no question that every time my son remembers this, he will think evil of me. Why did she give him my books to read? It would have been better if he hadn’t learnt to read at all. Or maybe she remembered to tear out the pages describing my despicable behaviour? Grasping at this latter hope, I carefully asked Volodya: “So, Volodya, you’ve read all the books I wrote, eh?” “"Yes, Papa, I have.” “And did you understand everything in them?” “Not everything, but Mama Anastasia explained to me how to figure out what I could not understand, and then I understood.” “What did she explain to you? Could you give me at least an example of something you didn’t understand?” “'Yes, I can. I did not understand at first why you got angry at Mama Anastasia and wanted to hit her. She is very good, kind and beautiful. She loves you. And if you got angry at her, that must mean you did not love her. But then Mama explained everything to me.” “What? What did she tell you?” “Mama Anastasia explained how you loved her very much but did not recognise it. But all the same, even with your love that you did not recognise, when you returned to the place where people find it hard to live, you began doing what Mama asked you to. She says that you, Papa, did everything your own way, the way you thought best. But when you remembered Mama, you wrote a book which people liked. People started writing poems and songs. People started thinking about how to do good. Now there are more and more of them—people thinking about what is good. That means that good shall prevail on the Earth. “Yet people both criticised you and envied you over the book. But then, Papa, you wrote another book, and then another and another. Some people got even more angry at you. But others clapped their hands when you went to meet with them, they understood what you wrote in the books. They felt the energy of Love—which you still did not recognise—helping you write

those books. And I was born, because you very much wanted to see me, and so did Love. You wrote the books, Papa, because you wanted to make the world better for my birth. Only you were not able to make it completely better by the time I was born. Because the world is very, very big. “Mama Anastasia told me I must be worthy of you and the world. I need to grow up and understand everything. And Mama told me too that she has never been offended at you. She recognised at once the energy of Love. Then Mama Anastasia read you a book written with letters of the alphabet that are not sad. She did not read you the whole book. But what she read, you were able to write with letters which people could understand. And you got almost all of it right.” “What book? What do you mean, Mama read you a book? What’s it called?” “It is called Co-creation.” “Co-creation?” A book of pristine origins “Yes, Co-creation. And I love to read it every day. Only not with your letters, Papa. Mama taught me to read this book with different alphabetical letters. I love all sorts of happy letters. This is a book I can read my whole life. It tells about everything. And soon a new book will appear on the Earth. And you, my dear Papa, will write about this new book.” “I don’t think you said that right, Volodya. You should have said: ‘will write this new book’.” “But your ninth book, Papa, will not be one you will write. It will be cocreated by many people—grown-ups and children. It will be a living book. It will consist of a whole lot of splendid chapters—paradise domains. People will write this book on the Earth with their Father’s happy letters. It will be eternal. Mama taught me to read these living and eternal letters, to make words from them.” “Wait,” I interrupted my son. “I have to think about that one.” He meekly fell silent at once. Incredible, I thought. That means, somewhere here in the taiga Anastasia has an ancient book written in letters nobody else knows. She knows these letters, and she has taught our son to make words out of them and read them. She read me chapters from this book for my Co-creation. The chapters about how God created the Earth and Man, and I wrote them down. That’s how it worked out, according to my son. But I never saw Anastasia with any kind of book in her hands. And yet my son tells me that she translated the letters of this book for me. I shall have to find out everything through my

son. And I asked him: “Volodya, you know that in the world there are a whole lot of different languages—for example, English, German, Russian, French and many others?” “Yes, I know.” “What language was it written in—the book Mama can read, and you too?” “It is written in its own language, but its letters can speak in any language. And they can be translated into the language you speak, Papa. Only not all the words can be translated, because in your language, Papa, there are so few letters.” “Can you bring this book to me—the one with ‘all sorts of happy letters’, as you put it?” “I cannot bring you the whole book, Papa. I could bring you some of the little letters. Only why carry them around—it is better for them to stay where they are. If you wish, Papa, I can read you the letters right from here. Only I cannot read as fast as Mama.” “Well, read it as best you can.” Volodya rose to his feet, and pointing his finger out into space, began ‘reading’ sentences from the chapters of Go-creation-? The Universe itself is a thought, a thought from which was born a dream, which is partially visible as matter. My son, you are infinite, you are eternal, within you are your dreams of creation. He read syllable by syllable. I followed the expression on his face as it slightly changed with each syllable—now showing wonder, now attentiveness, now joy. But when I looked in the direction his finger was pointing, there were no letters, let alone syllables, to be seen out there in space, and so I interrupted this strange reading: “Hold on a moment, Volodya. Does this mean you see some kind of letters out there in space? Why can’t I see them?” He gave me a quizzical look. He thought for some time before saying hesitantly: “Do you not see, Papa? Do you not see that birch tree over there, the pine, the cedar, the rowan-tree?” “Sure I see them, but where are the letters?” “Those are the letters, the ones our Creator writes with!”

He began to read further, his finger pointing to each plant or tree in turn. And at last I grasped this incredible phenomenon. The whole area of the taiga surrounding the lake where my son and I were sitting (and where I had sat many times with Anastasia) was filled with growing things. The name of each tree or plant began with a particular letter, and some were known by different names. Name by name, letter by letter—and out came a syllable, then a word, and a sentence. It was much later that I learnt that the trees, bushes and herbs throughout the whole area of the taiga around the glade were not just arranged randomly, but that they actually formed living, growing letters. It was an incredible book that, it seemed, one could read ad infinitum. It turned out that the very same plant names made up one set of words and sentences if read from north to south, but a whole different set if read from west to east. A third set resulted if one read strictly around the perimeter. And the names of the plants made up yet another series of words, sentences and images if one followed the movement of the Sun’s rays, which acted literally as a pointer. I understood why Volodya called these letters “happy”. In traditional books all the printed letters are pretty much uniform. But in this situation, the living letters, even those associated with the same species, were always different. Under different angles of the Sun’s illumination, they greeted Man with their rustling leaves. Indeed, one could go on ‘reading’ them indefinitely. But who wrote this amazing book and when, and how many centuries did it take to write? Generations of Anastasia’s forebears? Or? Later I heard from Anastasia this brief, laconic answer: For thousands of years generations of my forebears preserved the letters of this book in their original order. I looked at my son and feverishly tried to find a topic of conversation on which we could reach a complete mutual understanding. One plus one equals three. Arithmetic! Mathematics! Of course, there will be no disagreements over an exact science like that. If Anastasia has taught our son to count, then a conversation on that subject cannot include any contradictions or superiorities. Two times two is always four, in any language at any time. Encouraged by my ‘discovery’, I asked hopefully: “Volodya, has your Mama been teaching you how to count, add and multiply?” “Tes, she has, Papa.” “Good. Where I live there is a science known as mathematics. It is very significant. A lot of things are based on calculations and computations.

People have invented a good many devices to make it easier to add, subtract and multiply, and it would be difficult to get along without them today. I brought you one of them—it’s called a calculator.” I took out a solar-powered Japanese pocket calculator which I had brought, switched it on and showed it to my son. “You see, Volodya, this little device can do a great deal. You know, for instance, what you get when you multiply two by two?” “You want me to say ‘four’, do you not, Papa?” “That’s right, four. But the fact that I want you to say it is not important. That’s just what it is. Two times two is always four. And this little device too can count. Look at the little screen. When I press the ‘2’ button, the screen lights up with the figure ‘2’. Now I press the multiplication sign and then the ‘2’ again. Then I press the ‘equals’ sign to find out what the result will be, and the figure ‘4’ lights up on the screen. “But this is a very simple arithmetical calculation. This device can count in a way impossible for human beings. For example, 136 times 1,136. I only have to press the ‘equals’ sign and we can find out how much it is.” “154,496,” Volodya blurted out, ahead of the calculator. After that I began to multiply and divide four-, five- and six-digit numbers, but each time my son beat the electronic calculator. He named the correct figure immediately and without any trace of tension. The competition with the calculator resembled a game, but my son showed no sign of any real interest. He simply named the figures, all the while evidently thinking about something else. “How do you do that, Volodya?” I asked in amazement. “Who taught you to compute so quickly in your head?” “I’m not computing, Papa.” “What d’you mean, you’re not computing? You’re telling me the result, you’re answering the questions.” “I am simply naming the figures because they are always invariable in a dead dimension.”6 “Don’t you mean ‘exact dimension’?” “You may call it that, but it amounts to the same thing. Figures always come out invariable if you picture time and space as frozen. But time and space are always in motion, and their movement changes figures, and then calculations become more interesting.” Volodya went on to name some incredible formulas or arithmetical

operations which turned out to be way beyond my comprehension. I only remember that the formula was extremely long—in fact, it really didn’t have an ending. He quite animatedly told me the results of some arithmetical operations, but they invariably turned out to be transitional. Each time after naming a figure, Volodya would add excitedly: “When interacting with time, this number produces” “Hold on there, Volodya,” I interrupted my son. “I don’t understand this ‘dimension’ of yours. One plus one is always two. Look, I’m taking here one twig.” I picked up a small twig off the ground and placed it before my son. Then I found another twig, put it beside the first and asked: “How many twigs?” “Two,” Volodya replied. “Exactly—two, and it can’t be anything else, not in anybody’s ‘dimension’.” “But in the living dimension the calculation is completely different, Papa. I have seen it.” “What d’you mean, you’ve seen it? The calculation with this other ‘dimension’—is that something you can show me on your fingers?” “Yes, I can, Papa.” He raised his little hand in front of me with his fingers compressed into a fist and began to demonstrate. First he unfolded one finger and said: “Mama”. Then a second finger with the words: ‘Add—Papa—equals” and, finally, out came a third finger: Me.” “You see, three fingers. In order for there to be only two, I would have to take one away But I do not want to take away any of these fingers. I want them to be even more, and in a living dimension that is possible.” Neither did I want any one of the three fingers to be taken away. So long live this other ‘dimension’—this ‘living dimension, as he puts it. And may the calculation increase. Oh, wow! One plus one equals three! Most extraordinary! Still, the most incomprehensible thing for me remains the book of the taiga with its living letters. “I shall make a Universe Girl happy” I looked at my little son, who could read and had revealed to me the most extraordinary and probably the ‘livingest’ book in the world. I realized it would take a very long time to read it in its entirety Besides, I would need to know the names of all the plants. But for some reason I had a good feeling in my heart just from the fact that it existed—this book with “all sorts of

happy letters” (the way my son expressed it). And he will read it. But what then? What will happen when he grows up? He said he would be like me. That means he’ll go into our world. Into a world full of wars, drugs, violent crime and poisoned water. Why should he go there? And yet he’s got himself ready for it. He’s ready to go into our world when he grows up and do something good in it. I wonder what? I asked him: 1 Volodya—an endearing form of the name Vladimir. 2 Man—Throughout the Ringing Cedars Series, the word Man with a capital M is used to refer to a human being of either gender. For details on the word’s usage and the important distinction between Man and human being please see the Translator’s Preface to Book i. 3 Quoted from Book 1, Chapter 9: “Who lights a new star?”. 4 Quoted (with slight variations) from Book 1, Chapter 9. 5 dachnik—one who has a dacha—something like a country cottage but always with a garden where enough fruits and vegetables are grown to feed the family right through the winter (for further details, see the Translator’s Preface to Book i: Anastasia). 6 The reference here is apparently to Genesis 2: 15, 18-20. In Anastasia’s (and Megre’s) interpretation, based on what they understand to be the logic of the biblical text, Adam’s naming actually refers to an assignment of function to each creature in respect to the task of tending the Paradise garden and its human resident. 7 Quoted from Book 2, Chapter 6: “The cherry tree”.

“Volodya, when you grow up, what kind of task or job do you think will be the most important for you?” “Mama Anastasia told me. First and most important when I grow up is I need to make a particular Universe Girl happy” “Who? What kind of Universe or Girl?” “Every girl living on the Earth is the likeness of the Universe. At first I did not understand this. Then I read, I read the book, and understood. Every girl is like the Universe. Each girl has within her all the diverse energies of the Universe. Universe Girls should be happy And I must be sure to make one of them happy.” “And how do you intend to carry out your project when you grow up?” “I shall go where many people are living and find her.” “Who?” “A girl.” “She will, of course, be extraordinarily beautiful?” “Probably But perhaps she will be a bit sad, and not everybody will think she is beautiful. Perhaps she will be someone who is ill. Where you live, Papa, many people are ill from ‘anti-living’ conditions.” “And just why would you pick a girl who is not the healthiest and most beautiful?” “I am the one, Papa, who will make her the happiest, healthiest and most beautiful Universe Girl.” “But how? Though by that time, when you’re grown up, you’ll probably have learnt how to make another person— your girl—happy But, Volodya, you don’t know everything there is to know about the world in which I live. It could be it could turn out, after all, that the girl you pick may not even want to talk with you. “Aou know who today’s girls notice? You don’t know. I’ll tell you. The pretty ones and the not-so-pretty, the sick and the healthy—they notice first and foremost men who have heaps of money, and a car—men who dress smartly and have a good social position. Not all of them, of course, but the majority are that way And where are you going to get heaps of money?” “‘Heaps’—how much is that, Papa?” “Well, for example, let’s say at least a million. Better still, a million dollars. You know about currency units?” “Mama Anastasia told me about the scraps of paper and coins which people love. She said people give out clothes, food and all sorts of things in exchange for them.”

“They do. But where do they get the money, d’you know? To get this money, you have to work somewhere. No, just working isn’t enough, if you want a lot You have to get into business or invent something. For example, Volodya, could you really invent something people need, something they’re really missing?” “And what kind of invention are people missing the most, Papa?” “What kind? Well, all sorts. A lot of regions are being hit by an energy crisis, for example. There’s not enough electric power. People don’t want to build nuclear power plants— they’re dangerous, they can explode. But they can’t get along without them.” “Nuclear? Where radiation from them can kill people and growing things?” You know about radiation?” “Yes, it is everywhere. It is energy. It is good. Needful. Only it should not be collected in a large quantity in one place. Grandfather taught me how to control radiation. Only it must not be talked about openly—some people turn good radiation into weapons to kill other people.” “Yes. Better not to talk openly about it. I should think you would really be able to invent something and earn a good deal of money for your girl.” “Probably I shall be able to. But money does not make people happy” “What do you think makes people happy?” “The Space they make for themselves.” I pictured to myself my son becoming a young man. Maybe knowing a lot of unusual things, all sorts of phenomena, albeit naive. Capable of coping even with radiation, but still naive in respect to the intricacies permeating our lives and there he’ll be, off to look for his girl to make her happy. He’ll try not to stand out amidst other people. That was always Anastasia’s strategy when she left the taiga and went out among people. He will try not to stand out, yet all the same, he will never be able to completely blend in. He’s preparing himself, he’s acquiring a colossal amount of knowledge, he’s trying to become physically fit and all for the sake of one lonely girl! I thought Anastasia would prepare our son for great deeds and to this end would share her own knowledge and abilities with him. And now it turns out that he sees a man’s main goal in life as simply making just one woman happy My son’s convinced that every woman is the likeness of the whole Universe. Could it really be like that? An extraordinary philosophy, but in any case the point is: my son is convinced of it and one of his chief aims in life will be to make just one girl happy—a girl he doesn’t even know.

Maybe she hasn’t even been born yet. Maybe she can crawl already, or she’s just taking her first steps. Or—maybe no girl will want to, or rather, maybe no girl is capable of loving him. Initially, when he fulfils her wishes and brings her money, she may pretend to love him. Oh, how many women there are like that in our world! They’re even ready to jump into marrying some oldster for the sake of his money They’ve learnt how to feign love. My son will grow up and meet some girl like that, he’ll keep fulfilling her wishes, she’ll keep telling him she loves him, but what will happen when he starts talking about the need to create a Space of Love and plant a garden? Will she laugh at him? Will she call him crazy, or will she understand? Maybe she’ll understand. But maybe No, it’s better to prepare him for the worst. “You see, Volodya, when you find this girl and you manage to make her healthy and very beautiful—absolutely the most beautiful, as you say— something might still happen that you know nothing about. The prettiest girls in our world aspire to become models and actresses and go into showbusiness. They like it when all the men around them pay them compliments. So, just imagine she wants to dazzle the public like a queen, and here you start proposing to create a Space of Love. Maybe she’ll hear you out, but that’ll be it. She’ll leave you and go off somewhere where there’s lots of bright lights, compliments and applause, and she could even—God forbid! —leave you holding a baby! What’ll you do then?” Volodya replied unhesitatingly: “Then I shall build a Space all on my own. First on my own, and then with the child she leaves me—and together we shall preserve Love in this Space.” “Preserve it for whom?” “For myself, Papa, and for the girl, who, as you say, will go off into the world of artificial lights.” “Then why preserve a Space of Love specifically for her? Don’t you see how naive you are in such matters? You’ll have to look for another girl. And be more careful the next time.” “If I look for another, then who will make the girl who left happy?” “Let anyone who wants to try to, do that. It’s not worth breaking your neck over. She’s gone, and that’s it.” “She will come back. And she will see the marvelous forest and garden. I shall make it so all the creatures serve and obey her. Every one and every thing in this Space will sincerely love her.

“She will probably come back all tired out. She will wash herself in pure water and have a good rest. She will become even more beautiful and will never want to leave her Space of Love ever again. Our Space. She will be happy. And the stars above her will shine brighter and happier than anywhere else. But if you, Papa, had not thought all this up, if you had not brought about such a situation with your thought about her leaving, she would not have left.” “I? I brought it about?” “Yes, Papa. After all, you are the one that spoke about it. It was your thought. Man creates all kinds of situations with his thought, and this is what you have created.” “But you, your thought—can’t it change the situation? Can’t it counteract mine? You did say it was quick, almost as quick as Anastasia’s.” “It could counteract it.” “So go ahead, counteract it.” “I do not want my thought to run counter to yours, Papa. I shall seek out another way” How to bridge the gap? I could not talk with my son any longer. Everything I said he automatically checked against his ‘concept’, with which he easily distinguishes between truth and falsehood. He even discredited the conclusions of the historians outlined in the textbook. There was no question here of a father’s superiority over his son. The conversation did not endow me with any more authority and probably erased the authority I had before thanks to Anastasia. Moreover, his unusual confidence in the power of thought frightened me and put a gap between us. We were so different. There was no father-son contact with the child. I could not feel in him my own birth son. On the whole he seemed like another being to me. We didn’t say a word to each other. And then I remembered Anastasia’s words: With children one must be absolutely sincere and truthful. I even felt anger over the hopelessness of the situation. So, I’m supposed to be sincere? I’m supposed to be truthful? I tried to be that way, but what came of it? Indeed, if I were to be completely sincere and truthful, then in the present situation I’d have to resort to some pretty bad language. So I said, spilling it all out on one breath: “Volodya, if everything is to be said absolutely sincerely, you and I cannot hope to have a father-son conversation. We are different, you and me. We have different concepts, information and knowledge. I do not feel as though

you are my son. I’m even afraid to touch you. In our world a father can show affection to his son pure and simple, and even punish him or strike him for insubordination. But doing anything like that with you is something I can’t even imagine. There’s an unbridgeable gap between us.” My outburst at an end, I sat silently, not knowing what to say next or how. I sat and looked at my little son, who seemed to be lost in thought—and what strange thoughts he has! At last he turned his curly little head in my direction, and reinitiated the conversation, but this time I could feel a note of sadness in his voice: “Is there some kind of gap between you and me, Papa? You say it is hard for you to accept me as your own birth son? You spend a long time in that other world, where things are not exactly the same as here. I know, Papa, that parents there sometimes beat their children Everything is a bit different there. I have been thinking, Papa, just a moment. He quickly got up and ran off a little ways. He returned carrying a branch with dry needles and handed it to me. “Take this branch, Papa, and beat me with it. The way parents beat their children in that other world which you spend so much time in.” “Beat you? Why? What have you thought up now?” “I know, Papa, that over there, in the world you have to spend so much time in, parents beat only their own birth children. I am your birth son, Papa. You can beat me so you can feel yourself to be my birth father. Perhaps it will be easier for you that way Only do not strike this arm or this leg—this arm will not feel pain and this leg will not feel at all—they are still a little numb. But all the rest of my body will feel pain. Only I probably shall not be able to cry the way children do. I have never cried in my life.” “Nonsense! Sheer nonsense! Nobody ever beats their children, not even in that ‘other’ world—as you call it—without a reason. Sometimes, yes, they punish them, and give them a light slap. But only when children do not obey their parents, when the kids don’t do as they’re supposed to.” “Yes, of course, Papa. When parents decide that their children have behaved improperly” “Exactly” “So, Papa, I want you to consider something in my behaviour improper!” “What d’you mean, you want me to ‘consider’? When behaviour’s improper, it’s clear to everyone that it’s improper—it’s not up to the parent to ‘consider’ it proper or improper. Everyone should understand that it is

improper.” “And the children who are beaten should understand?” “The children too. That is why they beat them, to make them realize that they were wrong.” “And cannot they understand this before being beaten?” “They can’t, obviously.” “Even when parents explain it to them, they cannot understand?” “They cannot, and that’s why they’re at fault.” “And the one who did not explain it to them understandably is not at fault?” “Well no that is Now see how you’ve thrown me off completely with your misunderstanding!” “Good! Now that I cannot understand, that means you can beat me. And there will be no more gap between us.” “Oh, why can’t you understand? Punishment comes when, for example Well, for example Let’s say Mama tells you in no uncertain terms: ‘Volodya, don’t do that.’ And in spite of her telling you not to, you go ahead and do what she told you not to. D’you understand now?” “I do.” “Have you ever done something Mama told you not to?” “Yes, I have. Twice. And I will do it again, no matter how many times Mama Anastasia tells me not to do it.” My conversation with my son continued to unfold quite differently from the way I had planned. There was no way I could present modern civilised society—and, consequently, myself—to him in a favourable light. I got so upset over my son’s latest arguments that I banged my fist on a tree-trunk. I spelled out to him—or perhaps more to myself: “Not all parents, even in our world, punish their children by beating them. On the contrary, many of them look for a better system of child-raising. I tried to find one, but it didn’t work out. The last time I saw you here, you were still quite little. I wanted to hug you and squeeze you. But Anastasia said I shouldn’t interrupt a child’s thoughts even to give him a pat on the head. She said a child’s thought-process was an extremely important matter. And so I just watched you, and you were always busy with something. And now I’ve come to the point where I don’t know how to talk with you.” “And today, Papa, you no longer want to give me a hug?” “I want to, but I can’t—my head has been turned upside down with all these systems of child-raising.”

“Then may I do it, may I give you a hug, Papa? After all, our thoughts are the same now.” “You? You want to hug me too?” “Yes, Papa!” He took a step toward me. I gradually lowered myself to my knees—it felt as though my whole body was sinking to the ground. He grasped me firmly around the neck with one arm and pressed his head to my shoulder. I could hear his heart beating. My own heart was beating fast and irregularly I started finding difficulty in breathing. It must have been just a few seconds, though—a minute at the most—before my heartbeat began to even itself out, as though tuning in to the rhythm of another heart. My breathing became natural and gentle. In fact, my whole feeling of well-being suddenly changed. I wanted to say or cry out: How wonderful everything is around! How splendid Man’s life is! Thank you to whoever thought up this world! And I felt like saying a whole lot of other good things. But the words came together only inside me. I stroked my son’s hair and asked him, for some reason in a whisper: “Well, tell me, son. What could you possibly have done that your Mama told you not to? And that you would still do even now?” “It was once when I saw Mama Anastasia” he replied, also in a whisper to start with, without raising his head from my shoulder. “It was when I saw” And at this point he detached himself from me, sat down on the ground and stroked the blades of grass with his little hand. “The grass is always green when it feels good.” For a while he didn’t say a word. Then he raised his head and continued talking. “I shall save my Mama” “One time I did not see Mama for a long while,” Volodya began. “I wondered where she was, and decided Mama must have gone to the neighbouring glade, the one next to ours. It is similar to ours, but it is not as nice there. I walked over to the neighbouring glade. There I saw Mama. She was lying on the ground without moving, and was all white. And the grass around her was all white too. At first I stood there wondering why this had happened—Mama’s face and the grass around should not be all white like that. Then I decided to touch Mama. She managed to open her eyes, only just, but she did not stir. Then I took her by the hand and began to drag her out of the white circle. She helped me with her other hand, and we got ourselves out of the white

circle. “When Mama got back to her normal self, she told me never to touch her if this should happen again. She said she herself could cope with it, but that I could not. After being in the white circle and dragging Mama out, my arm and leg grew numb and are taking a long time to recover. Mama gets better very quickly, but my arm and leg have still not fully recovered. “When I saw Mama once again in the same circle When I saw her lying there all white, I was not going to touch her myself. I cried out, I called the strong she-bear to help, the one I slept on when I was little. I told the bear to drag Mama out of the circle. The bear stepped onto the white part of the grass, and fell down, and now she is no more. Only her children remain. “The bear died at once, as soon as she stepped on the white grass. Everything dies on the white grass. “Then once again I entered the white circle and began to drag Mama Anastasia out. The two of us pulled ourselves away from the dead grass. This time my arm and my leg did not grow as numb as before, only my whole body was trembling a little. Now it does not tremble any more. You see, Papa? My body does not tremble, it obeys me. And I shall soon be able to raise my arm when I want to. I can already lift it a little. Before I could not raise it at all.” I listened to my son’s story in astonishment. I remembered how once I had seen Anastasia in a similar situation—I too had instinctively tried to pull her out of the white circle. I remembered the elderly philosopher Nikolai Fiodorovich talking about it.1 But why does she put herself in that kind of danger? Even risking her own son? Can it be so important to her—burning within herself some sort of invisible energy directed at her? A number of times on TV there have been reports on unusual circles with perfect geometrical shapes. They have appeared in various countries— usually in grain fields. Right in the middle of ordinary grain crops people have discovered circles with the stalks trampled to the ground. Not just trampled at random but with all the stalks pointing in the same direction and forming perfect geometric figures. Scientists are studying these mysterious phenomena, but so far haven’t been able to come up with any explanation for them. In Anastasia’s case the grass has also been trampled down in a circle, but in contrast to what’s been shown on TV, the grass here has gone all white besides, as though it hadn’t got enough sunlight. Anastasia says that this is human-generated negative energy Maybe it is, but why has it been focused so strongly on Anastasia? What kind of people are

aiming it at her? Forgetting myself, I said aloud: “Why does she struggle with it? Whom does the struggle benefit? Who is made better by it?” “Everybody benefits a little,” I heard my son’s voice say “Mama says that if the energy of evil lessens—if she is able to reduce it by burning it up inside her so that it is not reflected back into space—there will be less of it. And those who produce it will mellow somewhat themselves.” “Show me, how many of these white circles are there? And where are they?” “Next to our glade there is a very small glade. The white circles are always appearing there. Afterward the grass becomes green again, but it has not yet greened over completely, and you can still see the circles. If you wish, come with me and I can show them to you, Papa.” “Let’s go.” I quickly rose to my feet and took my son’s hand. The child trotted quickly along on his little legs, though I noticed that he was limping slightly, and so I endeavoured to walk a little more slowly. From time to time Volodya tried to look into my eyes. He chatted away the whole time, telling me about something as we walked. But all I could think about were the strange white circles and Anastasia’s inexplicable behaviour, and the reasoning behind her actions, about this whole unusual phenomenon. To somehow keep the conversation going with my son I asked him: “Volodya, why do you sometimes call her Mama, and sometimes Mama Anastasia?” “I know a lot of Mamas who lived earlier on the Earth. Mama Anastasia told me about them. I can call them grandmothers, or great-grandmothers, but I can also call them mamas. My grandmothers gave birth to Mama. I can also call them mamas. When I hear them being talked about, I can feel them, and see them, and picture them, and sometimes I picture them all on my own. But so as not to get confused, I sometimes call my mama Mama Anastasia. All mamas are good, but for me Mama Anastasia is the closest and the best, and she is more beautiful than the flowers and the clouds. She is very interesting, and cheerful. I hope she is for ever. As soon as I chase my thought up to speed, I shall always be able to bring her back.” I wasn’t listening carefully enough to grasp what he was trying to say By this time we had arrived at another little glade, and I saw four whitish circles on the grass. The circles were about five or six metres in diameter. They were barely noticeable, but one of them was whiter than the rest—it had probably been made quite recently.

Now I realized why Anastasia had not come to meet me and why she wasn’t with me at the moment. It meant that she was lying helpless somewhere. And she didn’t want us to take pity on her, or become upset by her appearance. I looked at the white circles, and my thoughts kept racing and intertwining. Of course, a lot of people can turn pale from troubles which befall them unexpectedly. Almost all people turn pale when anger is unexpectedly directed at them. But here? Can it be possible to feel it just like that, at such a great distance away? Can such a huge amount of hateful human energy be concentrated into a single stream? So huge that not only Man, but all the growth around him turns pale? Apparently so. There they are—the traces of the most wicked attempts And once again I remembered her words, which I cited in the fourth book: All anger on Earth, leave your deeds and make haste to me, join fray with me, try your utmost. I stand alone before you. Try to defeat me. To defeat me, all of you come meet me together. The fight will be fightless I thought these were just words. But everything she says comes true. The books, just like she said, and the bards’ songs, and the poems She’s not just whistling in the wind. But why did she say: “The fight will be fightless”? The upshot is that she tries to simply burn up the anger inside of her. And she tries to do this alone! As far as I’m concerned, I think one should fight them out and out! Smash their rotten mugs in! But she’s all alone. No! You shall not be alone, Anastasia! I can at least try I can at least take a little of this filth upon myself. And I shall fight it. Oh, if I could only speak the way she does Id tell them! I probably got a little too carried away and blurted out: “Hey you, malice-mongers, come’n try to get me, and I’ll burn at least a few of you!” Little Volodya all at once let go of my hand and ran on ahead, then looked me intently in the eye with amazement. Then he stamped his little foot and, grasping hold of his injured arm with his healthy one, he raised both arms above his head and cried out, imitating my tone of voice: “Hey, come’n try to get me too, you malice-mongers. You see, my arm is getting better. Mama Anastasia is not alone. I Quoted from Book 3, Chapter 24: “Who are you, Anastasia?”. am here too, and my thought will be racing faster and faster. Hurry and come on, you malice-mongers, leave what you are doing and hurry over to me. Look at how I am growing!”

And he got up on his tiptoes in an attempt to raise his arms even higher. “So, my fine warriors, my dashing young braves! Who are you about to make war on today, my gallant knights?” came Anastasia’s quiet voice. I turned around and caught sight of Anastasia, sitting under a cedar tree. She was evidently very tired—her head was even resting against the tree-trunk. And her shoulders and arms were sinking, and her hands were resting on the ground. Her face was pale, and her eyelids slightly lowered. “Papa and I were standing up against malice, Mama!” Volodya responded on my behalf. “But to fight against malice, you have to know where to find it, what forms it takes. It is essential to know everything about your enemy,” Anastasia said quietly, and with difficulty, “Mamochka, you rest here while Papa and I try to do that. If we do not do it properly, you can tell us later.” “Papa has had a long journey, little one. He should have a rest first.” “I’ve had a rest, Anastasia. In any case, I’m not all that tired Hello there, Anastasia! How are you?” For some reason I was overwhelmed by the sight of her helplessness and couldn’t move. I started talking disconnectedly, not knowing what to say or do next. Volodya came over to me, took me by the hand, and went on talking to his mother. “I shall give Papa some refreshment after his journey and bathe with him in the pure water in the lake. And I shall collect some cleansing herbs. You, Mamochka, just rest here in the meantime. Do not waste your energies on conversation. I shall take care of everything myself. Then Papa and I shall come to you. I want you to recuperate your strength as quickly as possible” “I shall go bathing with you too,” Anastasia declared. “Wait, and I shall go with you.” Supporting herself with her hands against the cedar trunk, Anastasia tried to get up. She managed to raise herself a little, but again sank back down to the ground, her hands slipping against the trunk. Her whisper was barely audible: “Oh, how could I have failed so badly?! I am unable even to rise to greet my son and my love?!” Once more, leaning against the cedar trunk, she began the challenging task of raising herself off the ground. She probably would not have made it this time either. But all at once something incredible happened. The huge cedar tree Anastasia was leaning against suddenly began to extend the needles of

its lower branches out toward her. The needles began emitting a barely noticeable pale-bluish glow. Slowly, almost imperceptibly, the glow enveloped Anastasia. Then I heard a crackling sound coming from above, not unlike the kind one hears when standing under high-voltage transmission lines. I looked up and saw that the needles of all the surrounding cedar trees had also started glowing with the same faint bluish light. But that wasn’t all. They were all pointing in the direction of Anastasia’s tree. This tree’s upper branches were receiving the light emanating from the neighbouring cedars. And the glow of its lower needles kept increasing in intensity This phenomenon lasted approximately two minutes. Then there was a pale blue flash, and the light coming from the needles was extinguished. The needles looked to me as though they had become slightly withered. Anastasia was scarcely visible in the bluish radiance still enveloping her. After it had dispersed, or gone into her—I could not tell—I saw, there beneath the cedar tree, back to her normal self, fall of life, stood Anastasia, looking unusually beautiful, smiling at me and our son. Looking up, she quietly said “Thank you!” Then Can you imagine a grown woman showing off this way? Anastasia sprang into action, making a dash over to the largest of the white circles. Upon reaching its edge, she made another leap in the air, this time quite high. A triple somersault landed her in the very centre of the circle. Another leap, and this time she did a leg-split just like a ballerina. With a trill of her alluring laughter, she twirled in a dance over the white circles. All around, the forest seemed to come to life and echo her joyful excitement. Squirrels leapt from branch to branch around the perimeter of the glade. Through the bushes some kind of creatures’ eyes gleamed like precious stones. Two great eagles flew down one after the other from the sky and circled over the glade, rising and descending by turns. Anastasia continued laughing and dancing like an acrobat and a ballerina. And gradually the grass beneath her feet began to turn green. And even the whitest circle became barely noticeable. My heart kept feeling lighter and lighter from her dancing, her laughter and everything around. And then, all at once, my little son ran out and did a double body roll across what remained of the white circle. Then, quickly regaining his feet, he leapt in the air and spun around, trying to imitate his mother’s dance. Even I couldn’t refrain myself, and joined in the fun, dancing or just jumping up and down for joy alongside my son. “Let’s go! To the water! Who can catch up to me?” exclaimed Anastasia as she made a headlong dash for the lake, with Volodya and me in hot pursuit.

Slightly panting from all the jumping, I began to lag a little behind. But I saw how Anastasia leapt and somersaulted in the air before plunging into the lake. A few moments later Volodya took a flying leap from the shore and his bottom hit the water with a loud smack. I began taking my clothes off on the run, tossing them on the ground along the way I plunged into the water still wearing my undershirt, trousers and boots. As I surfaced, I caught Anastasia’s shrill trill of laughter. Our son was laughing, too, with a surfeit of emotion, slapping the water with his hand. I was the first to come out of the water. I began to peel off my wet clothes and wring them out. Upon reaching the shore Anastasia immediately put on her light dress right over her wet body. Then she helped me spread out my trousers over a bush so that they would dry more quickly in the breeze. I fetched a track suit from my backpack and put it on. Anastasia stood beside me, and her dress was already dry. I wanted to give her a hug, but for some reason could not bring myself to go through with it. She came up very close to me, and I could feel the warmth emanating from her. I felt as though I wanted to say something nice to her, but nothing came to mind. All I could muster was: “Thank you, Anastasia!” She smiled, put her hands on my shoulders, rested her head on my shoulder and responded: “And thank you, Vladimir.” “Great!” Volodya’s cheerful voice rang out. “I shall be off now.” “And where are you off to?” Anastasia enquired. “I shall go and see my elder grandfather. I shall give him permission to bury the body, and I shall help him. So I am off.” Volodya quickly departed, with hardly a limp to be noticed. CHAPTER THREE

An invitation to the future “What did he mean when he said he would give his grandfather permission to bury the body?” I asked in some bewilderment. “You will see for yourself, and understand,” replied Anastasia. A little while later I saw Anastasia’s great-grandfather, alive, but no signs of

any funeral. That was how he remained in my memory—alive and unfathomable. Anastasia was the first to sense her grandfathers’ approach. We were walking together across the glade at the time. All of a sudden Anastasia stopped, and gestured to me to stop as well. As she turned in the direction of the tallest and mightiest cedars, I followed her gaze, but saw no one. I wanted to ask her what was going on, but could not. She took my hand and gave it a squeeze in a silent plea to refrain from uttering a sound. It wasn’t long before I caught sight of the figure of Anastasia’s greatgrandfather making his way among the majestic cedars. The majestic elder was wearing a long light-grey shirt which went down below his knees.1 As he entered the glade at an unhurried but confident pace which betrayed no sign of ageing, I noticed our son—his great-great-grandson, Volodya— trotting along beside him, holding his hand tight. The old man’s own son, Anastasia’s grandfather, followed at a little distance behind. This is typical of many Russian peasant-style shirts. It seemed that everybody, including me, felt some kind of solemnity surrounding the approaching encounter, and only the child accompanying the elder was behaving his natural and unaffected self. Volodya kept chatting away the whole time to his great-great-grandfather. Occasionally he would run slightly ahead and turn to look him in the eye, or suddenly stop, let go the old man’s hand and bend down to the grass to inspect something that had captured his attention, whereupon the old fellow would stop too. Then Volodya would take his hand once more and begin telling him animatedly about what he had seen, all the while leading him over to where we were standing. As they drew near, I couldn’t help noticing that the usually severe- and majestic-looking elder was sporting a faint smile. His bright face was radiant with grace and, at the same time, a degree of solemnity Even as he stopped but a few steps from us, his gaze was still aimed somewhere far off in the distance. We were all speechless—only Volodya’s voice was to be heard, speaking at a fairly rapid pace: “Here, Grandpakins, here right before you are my Papa and Mama. They are good people. Even though your eyes cannot see them, Grandpakins, you can still feel everything. But I can see them with my eyes. You can look at what is good through my eyes, my dear Grandpakins, and that will be good for you too.” Then, turning to us, Volodya all at once announced even more joyfully: “Mama and Papa, a little while ago, when we were all swimming together, I

realized something, and I have allowed the body of Grandfather Moisey2 to die. We have already found a spot for me to bury the body of my Grandfather Moisey” z

Moisey (pronounced: ma-yi-SAT)—a Russian man’s name, the equivalent of Moses in the Bible. Volodya pressed his whole head and body against Grandfather Moisey’s leg. The majestic grey-haired elder carefully and tenderly stroked his great-greatgrandson’s head. The love, tenderness, understanding and joy inherent in their mutual relationship was only too palpable. It made the conversation about burial all the more bewildering to me. In line with the way I was brought up, I felt like stopping my son and telling him his great-greatgrandfather looked terrific and still had many years ahead of him. That is what we always say, even to an elderly person who is very ill, and I wanted to say that to him—in fact the words were already on the tip of my tongue— when Anastasia suddenly gave my hand another squeeze, and I stopped myself from speaking my mind. Grandfather Moisey then turned to Anastasia and said: “Granddaughter Anastasia, the Space you are creating, how is it being limited by your thought?” “My thought and my dream have merged into one, without encountering any limitations,” replied Anastasia. Whereupon Grandfather Moisey asked her another question: “Human souls are accepting the world you are creating Tell me, what energy is driving your creation?” “The same energy that grows a tree and unfolds the buds to turn them into the flowers we see.” “What kind of forces might interfere with your dream?” “When I dream, I do not visualise any interference. All the challenges I can see on my path ahead can be overcome.” “You are free in everything, Granddaughter Anastasia. Order my soul to embody itself as you see fit.” “I cannot permit myself to order anybody’s soul. The soul is free—the work of the Creator. But I shall dream, my dear Grandfather, that your soul find a worthy embodiment in the most splendid garden you have ever seen.” A pause ensued. Grandfather Moisey did not ask any new questions, whereupon Volodya once more began talking apace: “Neither shall I order you, Grandpakins. Only I shall urge you most strongly to embody yourself soon once more upon the Earth. You will appear once more, young as before and will be my best friend. Or you will become

someone else for me I am not ordering I am simply talking My dear Grandpakins Moisey, let your soul be always within me and beside me.” Upon hearing these words the majestic elder turned to Volodya, and slowly got down on one knee in front of him, then on both knees, bent down his grey head, raised the child’s little hand to his lips and kissed it. Volodya put his arms around the elder’s neck and started whispering something quickly in his ear. Then Grandfather Moisey got up from his knees with only one small child helping this very old man. Even now, when remembering this scene for the umpteenth time, I still can’t figure out how it happened. They simply held hands, and the great-great-grandfather rose to his feet without leaning on anything. Upon standing, he took a step in our direction and made a bow. Then, without uttering another word, he turned and held out his hand to Volodya. Off they walked, hand in hand, chatting away to each other. The younger grandfather followed a few paces behind, without interrupting their conversation. I now realized that Anastasia’s great-grandfather was going away for good. He was going away to die. I could not take my eyes off the receding figures of the child and Grandfather Moisey. Earlier Anastasia had told me about her attitude toward modern cemetery rituals and funerals, and I even wrote about that in my previous books.3 She and, of course, all the other members of her family who had either lived or were currently living in the taiga, believe that there should be no cemeteries. Cemeteries are like refuse dumps, places where people toss out the lifeless bodies of the deceased as useless garbage. People are afraid of cemeteries, they believe, because things happen there that go against the laws of nature. They believe that the relatives of the deceased, through their very thoughts about their departed loved ones as gone forever, prevent them from reappearing in a new earthly embodiment. In going over in my mind the various burials I have witnessed, I’m inclined to agree. There are simply too many falsehoods involved. People practically kill themselves over a deceased family member, but after just a few years well, you go to a cemetery, and you rarely find a grave of someone who died ten or twenty years ago well tended. In fact at some untended gravesites workers are already digging new pits. In the meantime the people who are buried are forgotten by everyone.

Nothing remains of their brief sojourn on the Earth, and nobody even needs their memory any more. If that is how they end up, why were they born in the first place? Why did they live? Anastasia says the bodies of the deceased should be buried in their own domain with no special headstone to mark the burial place. The grass and flowers, trees and bushes that come up will be the continuation of the life of their bodies. That way the soul upon leaving the body is afforded greater opportunity for splendid reincarnations. In the kin’s domain the thoughts of the deceased before they die will have been creating a Space of Love. Their descendants will stay on to live in this Space, in contact with everything growing therein, which means keeping in contact with the thoughts of their parents as they take loving care of what their parents have created. And the Space itself will take care of those living therein, consequently maintaining one’s earthly life forever. But what about people who live in the cities? How are they to get along without cemeteries? Well, perhaps their lifestyle will give them pause to reflect—at least in their old age—on how they shouldn’t live a life devoid of thought for the future, for eternity. And I am in agreement with Anastasia’s philosophy. But it is one thing to agree in thought, quite another to witness the departure of a great-greatgrandfather in real life. Though in this case he—or, rather, his soul—will not die. It will evidently stay somewhere in the vicinity or very quickly embody itself in a new life—most certainly a good one. After all, neither Anastasia nor our little son, nor her grandfather, nor even Great-Grandfather himself, is projecting any kind of tragedy, even in their thinking. They have an entirely different approach to death from ours. For them it is not a tragedy, but simply a transition to a new and splendid existence. Stop! Even Great-Grandfather himself showed no sign of grief. Quite the opposite. So that’s it! That’s the ticket! “When you go to sleep overwhelmed by heavy, dark and unpleasant thoughts, you will most probably have a nightmare. If you go to sleep with bright thoughts, you will have pleasant dreams,” says Anastasia. And again: “death is not a tragedy, it is only a dream—shorter or longer, it makes no difference. Man should enter into any dream contemplating what is beautiful—then his soul will not suffer. Through his thoughts Man can create a Paradise—or anything else—for his soul.” And Great-Grandfather knew this. He did not suffer. But what was it that brought him such obvious joy during those final hours? Something happened. He wouldn’t have been smiling like that just for no reason at all. But what did happen? I turned to look at Anastasia and saw, there she was standing a little distance away from me, her arms outstretched to the Sun,

and whispering, it seemed, some kind of prayer. The Sun’s rays would hide themselves behind a cloud, then shine brightly, reflected in a single tear rolling down Anastasia’s cheek. But her face showed no sign of sadness, only peace. After whispering, she listened, as though somebody were answering her. I stood and waited, not daring to approach her or even utter a word. It was only when she turned, caught sight of me and headed over my way that I asked: “Were you praying for the peace of your great-grandfather’s soul, Anastasia?” “My great-grandfather’s soul will rest in great peace, and its earthly life still lies ahead when the soul itself desires it. I was actually asking about our son, asking the Creator to furnish him with greater strength. “Our son, Vladimir, has been doing works undertaken by few people today He has now accepted within himself all of Great-Grandfather’s strength, which Great-Grandfather imparted to him with his soul. Because he is still in the process of maturing, he will find it difficult to contain the multitude of diverse energies within him as a single whole.” “But why,” I asked, “after all this happened, did I not notice any particular change in our son?” “Our son, Vladimir, uttered some special words before Great-Grandfather knelt in front of him. He uttered words whose meaning is comprehensible only to those who are able to fathom the process of the Creator’s work. Possibly the child did not fully understand this, yet he told GreatGrandfather sincerely and confidently that he was capable—through his own self—of helping him and his soul stay on the Earth. I was not able to say the same for myself. I do not feel that kind of strength within me.” “I noticed that after hearing these words Great-Grandfather began simply radiating with joy,” I observed. “Yes, few indeed are those who have heard words like that in their grand old age. You see, Great-Grandfather received from the child’s own lips an invitation to the future—an incarnation of the Future.” “It looks as though they had a strong love for one another.” “Our son, Vladimir, had begged Great-Grandfather to keep on living when he could not go on living any longer. And Great-Grandfather did live—he could not refuse the child’s request.” “But how is such a thing possible?”

“It is very simple. But not automatically so. After all, doctors, too, are able to bring back people from a state of unconsciousness or oblivion. And not just doctors, but someone close to this person may call or stir them out of a faint or a state of unconsciousness, and they will live. GreatGrandfather’s will and his love allowed him to prolong his life at his greatgreat-grandson’s request. Great-Grandfather is the descendant of priests who did tremendous works through the centuries. Once he even stopped a huge explosion through his will, through his gaze, but it made him blind.” “What d’you mean, through his gaze? Is it possible for one’s gaze to stop an explosion?” “It is possible if the gaze is consciously directed with confidence in Man’s power and unshakable will. Great-Grandfather knew where the disaster was about to happen and went there. He was just a little late with his foresight and an initial explosion did take place. But then he stood facing the source of life-threatening danger and through his gaze was able to tame the manifestations of the dark forces already whirling through space. Just one explosion happened, and that not at full strength, and two others could have taken place. But if Great-Grandfather had flinched even for a moment “You see, Vladimir, he stopped the explosion. Only he went blind.” “But why are you so concerned about our son’s abilities which he has inherited from his great-great-grandfather?” “I thought that the abilities he had inherited from you and me were sufficient. I taught him to conceal his additional abilities so that he would not appear strange to people. I wanted our son to go out and live in the world and not stand apart from others in his appearance. After all, there is a lot one can do without standing out from others. “But something too extraordinary has happened. Who our son is now, and what his purpose in life is—that is something we must definitely try to decipher. And so I was asking the Creator to give him the strength to remain, at least for just a little longer, a simple child.” “You’re concerned about this now, Anastasia. But I think in many respects it is you and your method of upbringing that are at fault here. You talk a lot about the soul, about Man’s purpose in life. You have taught the child to read that extraordinary book about co-creation. So he’s gone and formulated his own peculiar world-view. “Why should a child at that age have to know about Soul, about God? You see, he calls me Papa, and at the same time he says he has a father. I realize he’s calling God his Father. Even I have a hard time understanding that, but you’ve gone and given him an information overload. It’s the way

you’ve brought him up that’s to blame, Anastasia.” “Remember, Vladimir, how I replied to Great-Grandfather that I could not order anyone’s soul. And our son heard what I said. And yet some power higher than I has allowed him to act otherwise. But you should not worry. I shall be able to understand what has happened, even though our son may possibly look at me now in a different light. It will not be long before his strength exceeds both of ours combined.” “Well, okay Every generation should be stronger and smarter than the one before.” “Yes, you are right, of course, Vladimir, but there is an element of sadness when someone is stronger and more insightful than his own generation.” “Eh? I don’t understand what kind of sadness you’re talking about, Anastasia.” She didn’t reply, only hung her head, and her facial expression became sad. She is rarely sorrowful or sad. But this time I understood I understood the great tragedy of this Siberian recluse—Anastasia. She is all alone. Incredibly alone. Her world-view, her knowledge, her abilities are so vastly different from those of other people. And the more pronounced they are, the more tragic is her loneliness. She lives in another dimension of conscious awareness. This other dimension may be marvelous, but she is all alone there. Of course she could come down to other people’s level, she could be like everyone else. But she has not done this. Why? Because to do that she would have to betray herself and her principles—perhaps even betray God. And then Anastasia decided to do something amazing. She began calling others into this splendid dimension. And there have been those capable of understanding her. And I, it seems, am just beginning to understand her, to really feel Six years have passed and I am only beginning, just barely, to understand. And she has been patiently waiting all this time, calmly explaining everything without getting angry. Perseverant, unshakable in her hope. Christ Jesus was probably the same way Of course he had his disciples and people were constantly coming to hear him. But who could have been a friend to him? A friend who could finish his sentences and help him in a pinch. But not a single kindred spirit was at hand. Not one. God! How do most people perceive Him? As an unreachable, amorphous, feelingless being! All they can say to Him is “Gimme this!” or “Judge that!” But if God is our Father, if He has created the world around us, then, quite naturally, the fundamental desire of our Parent can only be for a meaningful existence for His children, along with their understanding of the essence of creation and the opportunity to co-create together with them. But how can

we talk about a meaningful existence when we constantly trample down everything God has created around us—trample on His thoughts—and yet all the while engage in various forms of worship to someone, only not Him? But He doesn’t need to be worshipped. He is waiting for our co-operation. But we Well, we can’t even comprehend such a simple truth as: if you’re the son of God and can understand your Father, take just one hectare of land and create a Paradise on it, bringing joy to your Father. But no! All mankind is striving for something like crazy, but what? Who is it that is constantly making idiots of us all? And what does He, our Father, think when He sees all this earthly debauchery? He watches and waits for His earthly sons and daughters to wake up and come to their senses. He watches and causes the Sun to illuminate the whole Earth, so His children can breathe. How are we to comprehend the essence of being? How are we to make sense of what is really happening to us? Is it mass psychosis? Or the deliberate influence of some kind of forces? What forces? When will we be free from them? Who are they? CHAPTER FOUR

A dormant civilisation This conversation took place on the second day of my stay Anastasia and I were sitting quietly together in our longtime favourite spot by the lake. Evening was coming on, but the cool evening freshness had not yet set in. A barely perceptible breeze fanned our bodies from constantly changing angles, as though designed to delight us with the many and variegated fragrances of the taiga. With just a trace of a smile on her face, Anastasia contemplated the mirror surface of the lake before us. She seemed to be waiting for me to ask her the questions I wanted answers to. Only somehow I wasn’t able to reduce my questions to a brief and concrete formulation. It appeared that what I managed to formulate in my mind did not reflect the main thing I really wanted to know. So I approached it circuitously: “You see, Anastasia, here I am writing books using many of the words you have given me, even though I don’t understand all your words right off, but it’s not so much the words but the reaction to them that has me baffled most of all. “Before I met you I was a simple entrepreneur. I worked and, like everyone else, wanted to make as much money as I could. I could afford to enjoy a

drink and have a rousing good time, but nobody laid into me or my company’s workers with the kind of criticism that the media is now overwhelming me with. “Strange as it may seem, back then nobody faulted me for earning money, but as soon as the books came out, some personages began right off publishing articles saying I was nothing but a gold-digger, if not a charlatan and a bigot. It’d be okay if it were just me, but they’ve also gone and insulted my readers too, calling them bigots and fanatics. And goodness knows what they write about you. Either they argue that you don’t exist at all or they say you’re the queen of the heathens. “It’s funny how everything’s turned out: here in Siberia there are a lot of minority ethnic groups, with different cultures and beliefs, some of them still practise shamanism, and nothing bad is ever said about them—on the contrary, they say these peoples’ cultures need to be preserved. And here you are, all alone—well, apart from your grandfather and great-grandfather, and now your son—you live all alone here. You don’t ask for anything, and yet the words you say provoke a storm of emotions. Some people absolutely delight in the words you say and get all excited, and start acting on them, while others attack you with unabashed fury and anger. Why is that so?” ‘And you, Vladimir, can you not answer this question yourself?” “Myself?” “Yes, yourself.” “I’ve got very strange thoughts running through my head. I get the impression that out there in human society there are some kind of unknown people or forces who will do everything they can to make people suffer. These forces thrive on wars, the drug trade, prostitution and disease. And on their constant increase. How else to explain it? They don’t attack books about murders or magazines with half-naked women, but there’s something about books on Nature, or books on the soul, that isn’t to their liking. And in your case it’s even more peculiar. Here you are calling upon people to build their Paradise domains for happy families, and many people are strongly behind you in this endeavour. “And not just in their words. People are starting to act. I myself have seen people who have taken land and begun working it, as you said, building their own kin’s domain. These include young and old, rich and poor, and yet somebody’s really uptight about that. And the media’s constantly trying to distort what you say. They resort to outright lies, to put it bluntly I can’t understand how the words of a single woman living in the taiga and apparently not bothering anyone can be so powerful. “And why would anybody try to engage in direct conflict with your words?

There’s also the claim that behind those words of yours lurks some kind of great power—occultism, maybe.” “And what do you think—is there a power behind them or are they just words?” “I think there must be some kind of occult power in them, yes. That’s what some of the esoterics are saying.” “Be careful, Vladimir, and try not to take in what others say Try listening instead to your own heart and soul.” “I’m trying, only I haven’t got enough information.” “What information, specifically?” “Well, for instance, what ethnic background are you Anastasia? What religion are you and your relatives? Or maybe you don’t have any ethnic background?” “I have,” replied Anastasia, rising to her feet. “But if I tell you now, the dark forces will rise up and scream in fright. Then they will try to come down with all their might—not just on me, but to crush you too. You will be able to withstand it once you have got beyond noticing their attempts and give your thought over completely to the marvelous reality. But as long as you consider yourself defenceless in the face of their anger, you should withdraw your question and forget about it until the right time.” Anastasia was now standing in front of me, her arms hanging loose at her side. I gazed up at her from below and couldn’t help noticing how proudly, splendidly and unassailably she carried herself. Her tender and enquiring look was awaiting my response. I had no doubt that what she was about to say was indeed capable of provoking some kind of extraordinary reaction. I had no doubt because over the years I have known her I have seen a feverish reaction to her words on the part of many people. And for that reason I didn’t doubt the possibility of danger either, but I responded: “I’m not afraid. Even though I’m sure it’s all going to come about just as you say Maybe I’ll be able to hold out myself, but then I’m not the only one We have a son now. I don’t want anything to threaten him.” At this point Volodya suddenly appeared and went over to Anastasia. He must have been quietly standing somewhere nearby and listening to our conversation, without interfering. But now that the topic had turned to him, he probably felt it was time to make himself known. Volodya took Anastasia’s hand in his own little hands, pressed his cheek against it, lifted up his head and said: “Mamochka Anastasia, go ahead and answer Papa’s question. I can take care of myself. History need not continue

to be hidden from people on my account.” “Yes, that is true,” observed Anastasia, stroking the child’s little head. “You are strong, and you are getting stronger with each passing day.” Then, raising her head and looking me straight in the eye, she pronounced the letters more distinctly than usual, as though introducing herself for the first time: “I am a Ved-russ, Vladimir.” I actually felt a kind of extraordinary sensation within me from the word Anastasia pronounced—it felt like a mild electrical current was running over my whole body like a pleasant heat wave, as though imparting some kind of news to every cell of my being. And something unusual, it seemed to me, had happened in the space around me too. The word itself meant nothing to me, but for some reason I rose to my feet upon hearing it. I stood there, as though trying to remember something. Once again, this time quite joyfully, Volodya spoke up: “You, Mamochka Anastasia, are a Vedruss beauty, and I too am a Vedruss” Then he looked at me with a happy grin and said: “You are my Papa. Just like me, you are a Vedruss, only dormant. I’m talking too much again, eh, Mama? I’ll go now. I’ve thought up something marvelous for you and Papa. Before the Sun sets behind the trees I shall create what I have thought up!” And catching an affirmative nod from Anastasia, off he went trippingly into the forest. I looked at Anastasia standing there in front of me and thought to myself: The Vedruss must be one of the Tigra minorities still living in the Far North and Siberia.2 In 1994 in Khanty-Mansiysk Province there was an international documentary film festival devoted to the Yugra minorities. At the request of the provincial administration many of the festival participants were quartered aboard my ship on the Ob River. I had the opportunity to talk with them, watch the films in the competition and travel with the film-makers to some of the more remote Siberian settlements where shamans were still practising their craft. I couldn’t remember much about the culture and customs of these minority peoples. But I did recall feeling a tinge of sadness over the fact that these extremely small populations were dying out. And people were treating them as some kind of exotic curiosity which would soon be disappearing completely from the face of the Earth. I did not recall hearing anything from the participants at this film festival (which could really be considered a major national event) about the Vedruss

people, so I asked Anastasia: “Have your people died out, Anastasia? Or rather, are there just a very few of them left? Where were they settled previously?” “Our people have not died out, Vladimir, they are dormant. Our people happily thrived on the territories now known as Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, England, Germany, France, India, China and many other states both large and small. “Up until quite recently, only five thousand years ago, in the real world our people were thriving on lands from the Mediterranean and Black Sea to the farthest northern latitudes. “We are Asians, Europeans and Russians, as well as those who recently called themselves Americans—in fact, god-people, all from a single Vedruss civilisation.2 “There was an age of life on our planet known as the Vedic Age. “During the Vedic Age mankind reached a level of sensitive knowledge allowing it to create energy images through collective thought. And then it underwent a transition into a new era of existence, known as the Image Age. “With the help of energy images, created by collective thought, mankind was afforded the opportunity of co-creating in the Universe. It could have had the ability to create Earthlike life on other planets. And it would have, if it had not committed any mistakes in passing through the Image Age. Ved is a Slavic root signifying ‘knowledge’ or ‘to know’. The words Vedic and Vedas are derived from this root. “In the Image Age, however, which lasted for nine thousand Earth years, mistakes were repeatedly made in the cocreation either of a single image or several images simultaneously. “A mistake occurred if there remained in the Earth’s human society people with insufficient purity of thought, with an insufficient culture of feelings and thoughts. “Such mistakes had the effect of obscuring the opportunity to create in the expanses of the Universe, and led mankind into occultism. “The Occult Age of human life has lasted for one thousand years now. It began with an intensive degradation of human consciousness. Ultimately, a degradation of consciousness and an insufficient purity of thought, coupled with knowledge and opportunity at the highest level, would always lead mankind to a global disaster. “This was repeated many times over billions of Earth years.

“Now we are in mankind’s Occult Age. And, as always, a disaster of global proportions was supposed to take place. It was supposed to, but the deadline has passed. We have passed the end of the Occult Millennium. Now it is up to everyone to take stock of their purpose, their essence and where the mistake was made. We should help each other in mentally retracing the course of our history in the opposite direction and pinpoint the mistake. Then an era of joyous life on the Earth will be ushered in—an era such as no one has ever witnessed before in global history The Universe is anticipating it with bated breath and great hope. “In the meantime the forces of darkness are alive and prevalent, feverishly trying to control people’s minds. But for the first time they failed to notice the Vedruss’ unusual behaviour back five thousand years ago. “When an image was born by a perverted consciousness upon the Earth—an image which desired to exercise control over everybody, that was when the first war began. It was under the influence of this image that people started killing each other. This has happened many times on the Earth just before a global disaster. But this time For the first time the Vedruss civilisation did not enter the fray on a non-material plane. “Instead, the Vedruss fell asleep on their territories both large and small, switching off a part of their consciousness and feelings. “Man’s life on the Earth seemed to carry on as before: children were born, houses were built, the decrees of the attackers were obeyed. It seemed as though the Vedruss had submitted to the dark forces, but therein lay a great secret: by falling asleep, the Vedruss, unconquered, remained alive on all planes of being. And this happy civilisation is dormant right to this day, and will continue to sleep until those who are awake search out the mistake in the image creation. That same mistake that led the Earth’s civilisation to its present-day situation. “Once the mistake has been identified with absolute precision, the dormant ones may hear the words of those who are awake and begin to rouse each other out of sleep. “Just who thought up this particular move, I cannot say. It is probably someone very close to God. “You, as a Vedruss yourself, should try to wake up, at least a little, and take a look at the course of history. “Our people went to sleep on various continents. Three thousand years ago they were thriving only on what is now Russian territory At that time the age of the dark forces had already come upon the whole Earth. And the Vedruss continued their happy existence only on the ‘island’ now known as Russia.

“They needed, very much needed to hold out another thousand years. They had to decide how to convey their knowledge to future generations, figure out what was happening on the Earth and determine how a repetition of the mistake could be avoided in the future. They managed to hold out another fifteen hundred years on this ‘island’. They fended off the attacks, but not on a material plane. The darkness had already taken control of people’s minds over the whole Earth. The priests placed themselves above God and decided to create their own world of the occult. They had already managed to intoxicate a third of the world. “But all the forces of darkness could do no harm to our people on this ‘island’ that is today called Russia. “It was only fifteen hundred years ago that this last ‘island’, too, fell asleep. The civilisation of the Earth, the people who knew God, fell asleep in order to awaken to the dawn of a new reality. “The forces of darkness supposed that they had succeeded in destroying this people’s culture and the aspirations of their soul forever. This is why they are trying so hard to conceal the history of the Russian people from those living on the Earth today. “In reality there is much more to the story In covering up the history of the Russian people, which can serve as a stepping-stone into the world of the beautiful, they are actually trying to cover up the joyously living civilisation of the Earth—cover up the culture, knowledge and feeling of knowing God which are inherent in that glad civilisation your forebears were a part of.” “Wait, Anastasia! Could you tell me a bit more specifically about this extinct—or, as you put it, dormant—civilisation using simpler terms, terms easier to understand? And can you prove the existence of this civilisation? “I can try, using simpler words. But it will be a hundred times better if each one tries to visualise it for themselves.” “But is it possible for everyone to see what happened ten thousand years ago?” “Yes, it is. Only in varying degrees and detail. But everyone can get an overall feeling of it, and even see one’s forebears and one’s self in this joyous world.” “How can everyone do that? How can I do it, for example?” “It is all very simple. To start with, Vladimir, try to evaluate and compare events you are familiar with just with your own sense of logic. When questions come up, find your own answers to them.” “What d’you mean, by logic! How can one learn about the history of Russia,

let’s say, by logic? Anyway, you said that our Russian history and culture have been destroyed, or hidden from all the people of the Earth But how can I—or anybody else, for that matter—verify what you say just using logic?” “Let us try reasoning through this together. I can do a little to help you get in touch with history” “Okay, then. What needs to be done to start with?” “To start with, you should answer yourself a question.” “Which one?” “Avery simple one. Remember, Vladimir, the history textbook you brought for our son. It is called A history of the ancient world. There are chapters in it discussing the history of Ancient Rome, Greece and China. They describe what Egypt was like five thousand years ago. But nothing is said about what Russia was like during this time. Never mind five thousand years—Russia’s history and culture even from a thousand years ago are kept in the strictest secret. The textbook is written in the Russian language, aimed at Russian children, but there is not a word in it about the Russia of only two thousand years ago. Why?” “Why?” I echoed. “Indeed, a most peculiar situation. A Russian textbook on the history of the ancient world and nothing said about Russia itself. Not a word about the history of the Russian people, either during the time of Ancient Rome and Egypt or even later. Strange! Very strange as though there were no Russian people living during those times.” In trying to recall what I knew of history, I remembered hearing about the existence of the ancient philosophers of Rome, Greece and China. I never read their works, just heard about them. I also knew that their works were accepted by society as brilliant and outstanding. But I could not recall a single Russian philosopher or poet of that time. Indeed, why? Aware that Anastasia wanted me to try to figure out the answer myself, I said: “Neither I nor anyone else can answer this question, Anastasia. It’s a question that’s probably not possible to answer.” “It is possible. Only one must not be lazy in one’s logical reasoning. "You see, we have come to our first conclusion: the history of the Russian people is unknown not only to the world at large but to the Russians themselves. Do you agree with this, Vladimir?” “Well, maybe not entirely unknown. We still have descriptions of what happened a thousand years ago.” “The description was written under censorship and with significant distortion. Besides, the commentaries are the same for every historical

event. Russia’s past millennium— the Christian era—is like a single day of history We have Christianity in Russia still today, but can you tell me what preceded it?” “They say that before Christianity, Russia was a heathen land. People worshipped various gods. But the description is very superficial. There are no writings or even any legends about that period. There are no descriptions either of the political system or of people’s way of life.” “So, you have reached Conclusion Number Two: the Russian people had a different culture then. Now, use your logic and tell me under what circumstances do attempts arise to hide or distort history?” “Well, there’s a clear answer to that question. People try to falsify history when it’s necessary to show the benefits of following a new order, a new authority, a new ideology But to completely conceal any trace of it Wow! That’s incredible!” “The incredible happened, Vladimir. It is an incontestable fact. Now, tell me something else—and do not slacken in your thinking, please. Did this fact come about all by itself, or is it the result of a deliberate effort on somebody’s part?” “Judging by the fact that people have always burnt books when they wanted to stamp out knowledge or ideology, I would say that someone deliberately stamped out all knowledge about pre-Christian Russian culture too.” “Who do you think would have done that—who?” “Most likely the ones who were imposing a new culture and religion on Russia.” “One might say that. But possibly there was somebody behind it, somebody controlling the new religion and those who imposed it? Someone with their own agenda?” “But who? Who can control religion? Tell me!” “You are still looking for answers from the outside, you are too lazy to search for them within yourself. I can give you an answer, but an outside answer may seem to you incredible—it may provoke a degree of doubt. Everyone can hear the answer within themselves, once they have liberated their soul and logic and awakened even a wee bit from sleep.” “It’s not that I’m lazy. It’s just that searching for answers within myself will take a lot of time. Better you tell me yourself what you know about history. If I start having doubts, I’ll question you farther. I shan’t just take your story for granted, but I shall verify it by logic, both now and later on, as you suggest.”

“Let it be as you wish. But I shall merely give you a rough outline of the whole, and let everyone try to fill in the details as they perceive them. Today’s reality, along with the past and the future, is something that needs to be determined only within one’s self, with one’s own soul.” CHAPTER FIVE

The history of mankind, as told by Anastasia Vedism People have been living on the Earth for billions of years. Everything on the Earth was created perfect right from the start. Trees, blades of grass, bees and the whole animal world. There is a direct connection between everything living on the Earth and the entire Universe. The apex of creation is Man. And in the great pristine Harmony of all things Man was created harmonious. Man’s purpose is to learn about all his surroundings and create perfection in the Universe. To create the likeness of the world of the Earth in other galaxies. And with each new creation of his to add more splendour to earthly creations. The way will open for Man to create on other planets when Man is able to overcome temptation—when Man is able to hold in unity the grand and diverse energies of the Universe inherent in himself. And when he does not allow one of them to take precedence over the rest. The day when the whole Earth is a Paradise garden will mark the opening of the path of creation in the Universe. And once Man becomes aware of the whole harmony of the Earth, he will be able to contribute his own splendour. Man takes it upon himself to take account of his actions once in every million years. Whenever he makes a mistake, whenever he allows one of the many diverse energies he contains to dominate at the expense of the rest, a global catastrophe takes place. Then everything starts again from the beginning. This has happened many times. One of mankind’s million-year periods may be divided into three ages: first, the Vedic Age, second, the Age of the Image, and third, the Age of the Occult. The first age of human society on the Earth, the Vedic, lasts 990,000 years. During this age Man lives in Paradise like a gladsome child, maturing under parental care.

During the Vedic Age God is known to Man. All God’s feelings are inherent in Man, and through them Man is able to obtain any advice he needs directly from God. And if Man should suddenly make a mistake, God is free to correct it simply by giving a hint, without disturbing the general harmony or infringing on Man’s freedom in any way: In the Vedic Age Man does not raise questions about how or by whom the world, the Universe, the galaxies—along with his marvelous planet called Earth—were created. Everyone is completely aware that everything around, either visible or invisible, has been created by their Father, namely, God. The Father is everywhere! All that grows and lives—are His living thoughts, His programme. And one can use one’s own thought to commune with the Father’s thoughts. And one can contribute to His programme, provided one first understands it in detail. During the Vedic Age Man did not bow down before God, nor was there the multitude of religions which sprang up afterward. There was a culture to life. People lived a Divine way of life. There were no diseases of the flesh. Feeding and clothing himself in a Divine manner, Man simply did not think about food and clothing. Thought was otherwise occupied—with the excitement of discovery And no rulers reigned over human society There were no boundaries marking off states as today. Human society on the Earth consisted of happy families. The various continents were inhabited by families. They were all united by their aspiration to create a Space of Splendour. There were many new discoveries, and each family, upon making a splendid discovery, felt the need to share it with others. Families were formed by the energy of Love. And everyone was fully aware that a new family would create one more oasis of splendour on their native planet. There were many rituals, holidays and carnivals among the people of the Vedic Age, each imbued with great meaning, sensitivity and a conscious awareness of the real Divine existence on the Earth. Each ritual served as a grand school and a grand examination for each Man that took part in it. An examination in the eyes of others, in the eyes of one’s self, and, consequently, in the eyes of God. I shall tell you about and show you one of these rituals. It was a wedding rite —or, rather, the recognition of the union of two people in love. Look and see. Try to compare the level of knowledge and culture with that of today.

A union of two—a wedding. The wedding rite—a bonding of two hearts—took place with the participation of the whole village, sometimes several neighbouring (or even distant) villages together. The lovers-to-be could meet in various ways. It could happen that two young people from the same settlement might fall in love. More frequently this occurred at one of the major festivals where a number of villages got together, when two gazes met and a spark of feeling was ignited in their hearts. It did not matter whether he approached her or the other way round. They could tell a lot about each other’s feelings simply by looking into each other’s eyes. But there were words too, which, when translated into today’s language, might sound something like this: “With you, my beautiful goddess, I could create a Space of Love to last forever,” he would tell his intended. And if the girl’s heart responded in kind, she might answer: “My god, I am ready to help you in your grand co-creation.” Next the young lovers would jointly select a location for their future home. They would go together and visit the area around the settlement where he lived, and then visit a corresponding area near her village. And there was no need for the lovers to tell their parents of their plans. Everyone in both settlements knew what was going on and was fully aware of the grand happening that would soon take place. After mutually agreeing upon a site where they would make their future life together, the lovers would often retreat there, just the two of them. Sometimes they would spend the night there under the open sky or in a shelter they had constructed from tree branches. They would greet the dawn and bid farewell to the day there. After returning briefly to their parents’ houses, they would hurry back to their chosen site. It called them, and drew them to itself, much as an infant inexplicably draws to itself a pair of loving parents. The parents did not ask the young lovers any questions. They simply waited in eager and joyful anticipation for their children to ask questions of them, all the while watching as their son or daughter spent time in deep meditation. And the children once more went off to their grand retreat. This might go on for months, or even a year or two. And all during this time there would be

no physical intimacy between the lovers. People in the Vedic settlements knew that these two lovers’ hearts were creating a grand design, inspired by the energy of Love. Right from birth both he and she had been absorbing from their parents the lifestyle, knowledge and mindfulness of the Vedic culture. They could share their deep knowledge either of the stars burning in the night sky or of the flowers unfolding their petals with the rising of the Sun, or of the purpose of bees, or the diverse energies existing in space. From early childhood both he and she had been bearing witness to the marvelous domains, oases and Paradise gardens their parents had created in love, and now they were aspiring to co-create their own. On their chosen plot of land, a hectare or more in size, the lovers laid out a plan for their real life ahead. The task before them was to mentally formulate a design for their home and work out an arrangement for a wide variety of plant life, where everything could work in mutual support and harmony. Everything would be arranged to grow on its own, without requiring any physical effort on Man’s part. There were a whole lot of factors to be taken into account here, including the disposition of the planets, as well as the day-by-day flow of air currents. Come spring and summer, plants would exhale ethers and give off a delightful fragrance. The young lovers would try to arrange them so that whenever a breeze blew a bouquet of many different ethers would waft into their dwelling. All this foreshadowed the birth of a grand and extraordinary complex. It consisted of Divine creations. Besides, the place the lovers selected was to be transformed into a scene of splendour which would delight the eyes. Not on a canvas, but on living ground—a living design was being created in thought, one that would last for ever. Even today people can imagine how involved and concentrated thought can become when one is endeavouring to come up with a design for one’s own home. A dachnik,1 too, will understand how, especially in the spring, one’s thought can get absorbed in what one’s plot of land will look like in the future. And a talented artist, in planning out a picture, also knows how he can get carried away by his thoughts. All these aspirations were now concentrated in the two loving hearts. Their knowledge was enhanced by the energy of Love, fostering new inspiration.

This is why they did not even think about what we call today the pleasures of the flesh. Once the design was complete in their thoughts, the lovers first paid their respects to the bridegroom’s home village, where they went around to every house and invited the residents to come for a visit. Each household awaited their arrival with great excitement and anticipation. The people of the Vedic culture knew that when lovers came to see them, a new energy of Divine Love would visit their domain, albeit just for a moment. And the marvelous Space of each domain would smile at the energy of young love. There was no question of imagination or occult beliefs here. After all, even today anyone finds the company of a good person more pleasant than that of an angry one. Lovers cannot be angry, especially when they come visiting as a couple. But in every family in the village there was also a feeling of anxiety Whenever the young couple dropped in on a garden, a courtyard or a house, they would say just a few words to the residents. Just a sentence to each one. Something like: Oh, what a splendid apple tree you have! or Your cat has a knowing look! or Your bear is a real worker, very considerate! To any resident hearing the lovers praise a tree growing in the garden or the household cat, this was a sign of respect shown by the younger generation to their elders’ way of life. The appraisal was always sincere, for the one giving it was indicating that he too would like to have a tree or a bear of similar worth. It was with great pride and joy in the face of the whole village that each resident aspired to present the young couple with the object of their praise as a gift. And all would wait with anticipation for the day the couple had selected, when they would present their gifts to the bride and groom. In the meantime the couple would also go from house to house in the bride’s village. Sometimes it took three days to visit every family in the two settlements. Sometimes more than a week. When the couple finished making their rounds and the selected day arrived, people both young and old would rise at dawn and begin hastening to the site of the young couple’s new home for a visit. People would take up a position around the perimeter of the couple’s selected domain, marked out by dry branches. In the middle, next to the shelter, a little mound rose out of the earth, decorated with flowers. Look now and you will behold a most extraordinary scene! There he is! Look! Here is a young man coming out to greet the residents of two villages. He is magnificent, a virtual Apollo’! With hair of russet brown

and eyes of bright blue, he ascends the mound. Now on top of the mound, Radomir2—that is his name—is excited. The eyes of all the people present are fixed on him alone. And in the ensuing silence he begins his speech. In front of everyone assembled he sets forth the design of a new Space which he has co-created with his beloved. With the aid of hand gestures, Radomir tells where the apple tree will grow, as well as the cherry tree and the pear tree. He shows the location of future groves of pine, oak, cedar and alder, along with what berry bushes will grow in between, what grasses and herbs will send forth their pleasant fragrances. And how easy it will be for bees to build their home among the trees. And where that workhorse of a bear will hibernate during the winter. He speaks quite quickly, with great inspiration, setting forth the carefully thought through design. He goes on speaking for about three hours, and the whole time the people listen with rapt attention. And each time the young man points to a spot where some living thing will grow, according to his grand design, someone from the group of people listening will go over and stand on the future site of the apple tree, pear tree or cherry tree. Sometimes this individual is a woman, sometimes a man or an elderly person, but it could also be a child with eyes full of awareness, wisdom and joyful contentment. Those stepping forth from the assembly are already holding in their hands saplings of the tree or plant designated for the selected spots where beauty is to unfold. As each one steps forth, the people bow to him, inasmuch as he has shown himself worthy of the young couple’s appreciation—as they did the rounds of the village domains—for being able to bring forth beauty Which means he has been found worthy of appreciation on the part of the Creator—the Father of all, the all-loving God. That is not a conclusion reached through superstition. It is quite logical. People of the Vedic culture were wont to treat the young couple designing the splendid oasis as deities. Such treatment was not unfounded. After all, the Creator had performed His creations in an impulse of inspiration and Love. And these young lovers, likewise inspired by Love, have now created a splendid design. Look—the young man has finished speaking. He comes down from the mound and goes over to where his bride is standing. She has been following the whole proceedings with great excitement and emotion. He grasps her hand and leads her to the mound, where they take up a position together.

And the young man utters these words in front of everyone assembled: “I have not created this Space of Love in isolation. Here is my marvelous inspiration standing beside me before you all.” The girl—it would be better to refer to her as a maiden3—initially lowers her eyes in the face of the whole gathering. Every woman has her own particular charm. But there come special moments in the life of every woman when she rises over everyone else. Such moments are not found in today’s culture. But back then, look! Standing on the mound, Liubomila4 (as she is called) has raised her eyes to greet the people around her. The cries of excitement of the whole crowd have merged into one. The girl’s face has broken into a smile—a bold smile, not a saucy one. She is overflowing with the energy of Love. Her cheeks glow more intensely than usual. The maiden’s clear eyes and body vibrant with health reach out to envelop the people and the whole space around them with a radiant warmth. For a moment the whole scene falls silent, still. The young goddess shines before the people in all her beauty. And so there is no question of haste as the maiden’s parents, accompanied by the whole family, both young and old, solemnly make their way to the mound where the young couple are standing. They pause at the mound and bow to the couple, then the maiden’s mother asks her daughter: “All the wisdom of our family line lies in you, my daughter. Tell me, do you see the future of the land you have chosen?” ‘Yes, Mama, I see it,” replies the daughter. “Tell me, daughter dear,” the mother continues, “do you like everything about the future you have been shown?” A young maiden might answer this question in a variety of ways. Most often she would say: “Yes, Mama. Here will be a splendid Paradise garden, a living home.” But look and see, this particular temperamental girl, her cheeks flush with a bright glow, comes forth with a non-tra-ditional response: “The design is not bad, I really do like it. But, you know, still I should like to add just a little something.” Quickly jumping down from the mound, she all at once runs through the crowd to the edge of her future garden, where she stops and says: “Here is where an evergreen should grow, with a birch beside it. When a breeze blows from that direction, it will first meet the branches of the pine, then the birch, and after that the breeze will ask the trees of the garden to

sing a tune. It will not be repeated exactly the same way each time, but it will always be a delight to the soul. And here,” the maiden adds, running off a little to one side, “here flowers are to grow. First there will be a flush of red, then over here a little later violet will spring up, and burgundy over there.” The maiden, all aglow like a fairy, starts dancing around her future garden. And once more the people remaining in the circle set themselves in motion, hurrying about to carry the seeds in their hands to the spots on the ground the high-spirited girl has pointed out. Upon finishing her dance, she once more runs up to the mound. Here, standing next to her chosen one, she says: “Now the Space here will be splendid in its sheen. The earth will produce a most marvelous scene.” “Tell everyone, my daughter,” her mother once more addresses her, “who will be crowned to reign over all this marvelous Space around? Of all the people living on the Earth, upon whom could you bestow the crown?” The maiden takes a sweeping look at all the people standing around holding saplings and seeds in their hands. Each of them stands in a spot indicated by the young man according to his plan and the maiden’s outline of the splendid scene to be. But no one is yet planting a seed in the ground. The sacred moment for that has not yet arrived. And at this point the maiden turns to the young man standing beside her on the mound, and says, almost in song: “He is worthy to wear the crown whose thought is able to create a future that will be splendid all around.” With these words the girl touches the shoulder of the young man standing beside her. He gets down on one knee before her. And the girl places on his head a most beautiful crown, a garland woven from sweet-smelling grasses by the maiden’s own hand. Then, running her fingers three times through her fiance’s hair with her right hand, she takes hold of his head with her left and draws it a little closer to herself. Upon her signal the young man stands up. Then the girl runs down from the mound, and bows her head ever so slightly in a sign of meekness. Right at this moment the young man’s father, accompanied by his whole family, is making his way over to the newly crowned groom. Approaching the mound, he stops and pauses in respect. Then the father begins speaking, his gaze fixed on his son: “Who are you whose thought is capable of creating a Space of Love?” Whereupon the young man replies:

“I am your son, and I am the son of the Creator.” “A crown has been placed upon your head, a sign of a great mission to come. You who are wearing the crown, what will you do as you reign over your domain?” “I shall create a future that all around most splendid will remain.” “Where will you gain the strength and inspiration, my son, and crowned son of the Creator?” “In Love!” “The energy of Love is capable of wandering through the whole Universe. How will you manage to see the reflection of universal love on the Earth?” “There is one girl, Father, and for me she is the reflection of universal love on the Earth.” With these words the young man comes down to where the girl is standing, takes her by the hand and leads her back up to the mound. Holding hands, they watch as the two families merge into a single group, sharing hugs and jokes and laughter, from the youngest child to the eldest present. Everything becomes quiet once more when the young man holds up his hand and proclaims: “My thanks to all who heard me in this place. My soul has spoken of the creation of a new Space. My thanks to all who have held the energy of Love in such high esteem. May what has been conceived by the soul’s dream now sprout from the earth!” These words have the effect of setting all the people standing around in joyful motion. And with pride and joy and great emotion the people plant the seeds and saplings in the ground. Each one plants just one sapling in the spot indicated by the young man as set forth in his plan. Those not assigned a specific spot set about to walk around the perimeter of the plot which has already been marked out, and to the song of the khorovod5 throw the seeds they have brought with them into the ground. Within the space of a few minutes a marvelous garden has been planted— the Space which has been created through a dream. And now the people retreat once more beyond the plot’s perimeter. Only two families remain surrounding the mound where he and she— the young lovers—are still standing. Drops of rain from the skies are falling onto the ground. The very warm rain is unusual and lasts but a short time—these are tears of joy and tenderness falling from the Creator’s eyes to water the marvelous Space co-created by

His children. What could be dearer for a parent than the marvelous creations of His children? And once again the young man with the crown holds up his hand, and when all is quiet, says: “Let all the creatures given to Man by the Creator live together with us in friendship!” Whereupon the girl and the young man come down from the mound and head over to the shelter where they stayed while working out the design. After these words, out from the circle of people standing around someone approaches the couple, accompanied by an old dog and a pup. The dog is one that greeted the couple in a friendly way on their tour of the domains and which they have taken a great liking to. The visitor bows and presents the bride with the puppy At his signal the old dog goes and lies down at the young man’s feet. This dog has been trained to help Man teach all the other animals.” The young man orders the dog to sit by the entrance to the shelter, and presently the girl lets the puppy inside. Other people approach the shelter one by one, carrying in their arms a kitten or a lamb, or bringing a colt or a bear cub on a lead. People quickly fashion tree branches into a wicker fence to attach animal pens to the shelter. And soon the dwelling which just a short time ago was used by people as sleeping quarters is now filled with young animals. And there is tremendous significance in this. For in mixing with each other this way, these animals will forever live together in friendship, caring for and helping each other. No mysticism in this. It is the law of the Creator of Nature. After all, you can find examples of this even today If a puppy and a kitten grow up together, they will remain friends as adults. One of the other characteristics of the Vedic period was that people were fully aware of the purpose of the various creatures. And all animals served Man. Man did not bother feeding the animals; on the contrary, they fed him. During the Vedic age both Man and his household pets were vegetarians, and never ate meat—they would not even think of it. The tremendous variety of plants around were able to supply Man’s taste abundantly—not only his, but that of the animals surrounding him. In this instance the bride and groom are presented by the residents of the two villages with the best they have.

After accepting the gifts, the young couple once more ascend the mound: “Our hearty thanks to everyone,” the bridegroom expresses their gratitude to those gathered. “Thank you all for cocreating this Space. My descendants will care for it over the centuries to come.” “Our thanks to the mothers who bore the creator,” says the bride. And, turning to the young man, she adds: “For the joy of the Creator of the Sun, the Moon, the sprinkle of stars in the sky and our most beautiful Earth, we shall co-create everything you are able to think of.” “Together with you, my splendid goddess, and with people!” the young man answers, and adds: “You alone are capable of inspiring my dreams.” Once again the young couple come down from the mound. They are immediately surrounded by their respective families, all congratulating them. And the people dance a khorovod around the plot, accompanied by a joyful song. By this time it is getting on toward evening. The young people each go back to their own home. For two nights and a day they will not see each other. Upon reaching home, after having spent so much effort creating, the young creator falls into a deep sleep. Flis beautiful bride does the same in her own bed. Those who remain at the spot where the co-creation took place in love will go on singing songs in a khorovod. Older couples will go off by themselves with resurrected memories of how it all happened to them on a similar day of their own. And over the course of the following night and day the best craftsmen from both villages will build the couple a little house to the accompaniment of songs and the khorovod. They will fit the rows of timbers tight together, the moss and grass between them making a sweet-smelling bouquet. And by the end of that day the women of the villages will place the best fruits of their harvest in the new home. The two mothers will cover the bed with a linen counterpane. And by the second night every last one of the visitors will be gone from the domain. In the meantime, after a good night’s sleep, the young man awoke on this day to see the Sun rise over the Earth, illuminating his parents’ house with its glad rejoicing. His first thought was for the crown he had been given the

day before. He took this and put it on his head, smiling at everyone, the picture of bliss. Accompanied by his brothers and sisters he went over to a nearby stream to wash in fresh spring water. Passing through the garden on his way back to the house, Radomir caught sight of his mother. With a restrained smile the mother began admiring her son. Whereupon the young man, bursting with excitement, could no longer restrain himself at the sight of his own mother. He picked her up in his arms with delight. Spinning around like a child, he exclaimed: “How marvelous is life all around, my dear Mama! Mama!” “Oh!” his mother exclaimed, breaking into a laugh. Grandfather smiled behind his moustache. Grandmother then approached the happy pair, carrying a beautiful carved wooden ladle, and said: “Young god of ours, stop right there. You must spare your gladsome energies. Drink this tea of calming herbs, so that your energy does not burn you. Its time will come the following day.” After drinking the tea, the young man began conversing with his grandfather about the Universe and the meaning of life. But the tea soon inclined him to sleep. And the young man whom his grandmother called a “young god” had soon nodded off to sleep on the hand-crafted counterpane. What was happening? Why did the grandmother call her grandson a ‘god’? Was she exaggerating, delighting in her admiration of the young man? Not at all! It was simply the case that her grandson had done deeds worthy of God’s name. God had created the Earth and everything living and growing upon it. And with all the knowledge he had assimilated from his forebears, the young man was able to distinguish the purpose and function of a multitude of creations, much to the delight of the Creator. This enabled him to create from them a marvelous living oasis, one capable of bringing joy not only to him and his beloved, but also to the generations of their children, and to people who would over the centuries look upon this splendid domain which was created with love. Could any of all people’s deeds on the Earth have delighted God more? What better and more significant thing could a Man do within the space of one human lifetime on the Earth? In the Vedic culture the wedding rite was no occult ritual. As an aspiration to the likeness of the Divine being it is of tremendous practical significance.

In showing his knowledge and aspirations to the people gathered, the young man in love was, in effect, being tested in front of them. His deeds showed that he included the knowledge of all the generations of his family beginning with its pristine origins. And he added his own contribution too. His creation was appraised as worthy by all the people, and it was with great joy that they planted trees and herbs in the spots he indicated. And the marvelous cocreation will flourish each spring in ever more beautiful form. Yet for all this, not a single neighbour would feel the slightest envy at the sight of it, since everyone has been involved in co-creating this marvelous Space of Love. Each one now has their own little shoot they planted in the new splendid domain. When domains like this begin to multiply, the whole Earth will be clothed in God’s own flourishing garden. And in the Vedic culture everyone knew that Man has been given life eternal, and that a splendid life repeats itself when those living now aspire to beauty and perfection! Domains! Domains of the Vedic culture! Domains that were to be known in subsequent occult books as ‘Paradise’, as people lost their vast store of knowledge and imagined that this Paradise could be perceived only over the distant horizon beyond the clouds. And all to enhance the significance of socalled ‘modern science’ and covering up the poverty of their own thought. There’s no point in debating this without practical proof. But de-batesettling actions can be quite simple. Let all those ‘worthy’ scholarly luminaries now living on the Earth try, for example, to set up just a single oasis for a single family—a task which, in the Vedic culture, every young man in love had to cope with. A domain which is home to a happy family should be able to satisfy all the food requirements of everybody living in it, hour by hour. Disease should not be permitted to have even a foothold. The changing reality of the scene before Man should moment by moment gladden his gaze. It should delight the ear with an infinite variety of sounds, and the nostrils with flowering fragrances. And provide ethereal food for the soul, nursing the newborn and preserving love for ever. And so no member of the family should be wasting their energies on mundane concerns—their thought should remain free. Thought is given to allpeople for creative purposes. The world of academe takes pride in its illusions: “See, our ships are flying into space for the benefit of mankind!” “For mankind’s benefit, you say?” “See all those bombs going off? They are to protect you!”

“But are they really to protect us?” “See how this learned doctor has saved your life!” But up to that point life was in the process of being annihilated, moment by moment, by everyday concerns. They saved the life of a slave to prolong his suffering. The world of academe is in no position to create even the similitude of a splendid domain because, again, there is a law of the Universe which says: A single Creator inspired by love is stronger than all the sciences combined, which are deprived of love. Now the newly-wed young man has slept his second night, his deep sleep undisturbed by anything. Only the image of his beloved sparkled and flashed like the stars. In his sleep this image merged with the Space they had created, the might and infinite variety of the Universe. Radomir awakes before dawn. And without a word to anyone, he puts on his garland and picks up a shirt that has been hand-embroidered by his mother. Then he goes to the spring-fed stream. The moon illumines his path through the pre-dawn darkness, while garlands of stars twinkle in the heavens. After washing in the stream, he puts on his shirt, and quickly makes his way to his sacred creation. The heavens begin to brighten. And there he stands alone on the spot where the two villages recently celebrated their joy—the place he created through his dream. The power of the feelings and sensations within a Man at such a moment can scarcely be comprehended by anyone who has not experienced them at least once for himself. It can be said that these sensations and feelings are Divine in nature. And they increase in quivering anticipation of the first ray of dawn, in which There she is! His marvelous Liubomila! Illumined in the dawn’s rays, she runs to greet him and their co-creation. This vision incarnate runs to meet Radomir. While perfection, of course, knows no real limit, it seems as though time has suddenly stopped for the two of them. Enveloped in the mist of their feelings, they enter their new house. The table is spread with delicacies, and a tempting fragrance of dried flowers wafts from the embroidered counterpane on the bed. “What are you thinking about right now?” she asks him in a heated whisper. “About him— our future child,” and Radomir gives a quiver as he looks at Liubomila. “My, how beautiful you are!” No longer able to contain himself,

he very tenderly touches her shoulder and cheek. Both are enveloped in the warm breath of Love and carried away to unknown heights. Nobody in a million years will ever be able to describe in detail what happens between him and her when, merging into one in the impulse of mutual love, two people work out the likeness of themselves and God. But the god-people of the Vedic culture knew precisely that after the inexplicable miracle takes place, merging two into one—each of them still retains their individuality And at the same time, for one inexplicable moment the Universe quivers at the sight: the soul of a newborn child runs trippingly, barefoot, through the stars to the Earth, embodying in himself the union of two—plus a third—as one. This act of sanctifying the union of two people in love during the Vedic age can by no means be considered a manifestation of the occult. It was an entirely rational act, corresponding to their way of life. The ever-increasing feeling of love for one another in every family coupling bore witness to the level of this culture. In our modern day this feeling of mutual love in married couples always tends to dissipate after a while. The energy of Love is no longer within them. And this is something accepted as a given by human society But this scenario is unnatural to Man. It tells us that the lifestyle people lead today is unnatural. A loving couple in the Vedic culture realized not with their mind but with their heart and soul that the spark of the feeling of Love is a call to a Divine co-creation. Take note of what the couple originally aspired to. Together, in an impulse of inspiration, they mentally worked out their design—the design of a Space for their love. It was in this Space they had created that their child was conceived. Three significant feelings of love merged into one for eternity. After all, a Man—for reasons he cannot explain, even to himself— retains a strong reverence all his life for his family domain— his Motherland, for his child and for the woman with whom all this was co-created. It is only three feelings of love, not a single feeling all by itself, that can live for eternity The birth of a son or daughter to a Vedic-age family was also the occasion for a grand celebration and a life-significant rite. And there were many other celebrations back in those days. And there was absolutely no marital infidelity. Millions of happy families made the Earth a delightsome place. It is the ranks of historians today, in their efforts to please the powers that be, who say that Pristine Man was once stupid, that this Man killed animals, ate their meat in a frenzy and dressed himself in their skins. A monstrous lie is

necessary to people trying to cover up their monstrous deeds. Raising children in the Vedic culture Mankind is ever looking for a perfect system of raising children. It endeavours to seek out the wisest teachers, and then hands over its children to be raised by them. And you, Vladimir, in preparing to talk with your son, spent five years seeking out the best system of child-raising. A system capable of explaining everything to you and teaching you how to communicate with your own birth son. And you kept on asking advice from recognised teachers and various scholars. But not one piece of advice, not one system did you find satisfying or indicative of perfection. Doubts came to you with increasing frequency: If there did exist a perfect system, of education, many people would surely be using it. And somewhere on the Earth there would be living a people that is truly happy. But it seems that in every society all you find is the same or different kinds of problems. You have to search for a happy family—it is like looking for a needle in a haystack. So that means there is no miraculous system of childraising and there is no point in searching since there is nothing to search for. 1 See Book 1, Chapter 28: “Strong people” and Book 5, Chapter 18: “The philosophy of life”. 2 lugra—the original name of the Khanty, one of the two major aboriginal groups in the Province of Khanty-Mansiysk, located around the northern reaches of the Ob River, just before it flows into the Arctic Ocean. Together with the neighbouring Mansi, the Khanty are classified as part of the Siberian branch of the Finno-Ugric peoples, which include Finns, Estonians and Hungarians. Since the first recorded arrival of Russian explorers and colonists in the nth century, the Khanty have co-existed with the Russian state, often with a greater degree of autonomy than other parts of the Russian empire or federation. 3 maiden—The Russian word deva (here translated ‘maiden’) is identical to the Sanskrit word denoting the nature spirits which help plants to grow. 4 Liubomila—an ancient Slavic name derived from the roots Hub (love) and mil (dear). 5

khorovod (pronounced hur-a-VOT)—a circle dance accompanied by choral singing, traditionally popular among Russians, Ukrainians and Belarusians.

Forgive me, please: I had no other choice but to keep track of your thought the whole time. I was trying to determine through you what leads people away from what is so obvious. And then one day I felt you thinking: Lack of trust and fear of making a mistake are what make people hand over their children to schools and academies so that afterward they can blame their teachers—anyone but themselves. On another occasion I saw how you turned pale and became scared stiff at the thought that children are raised by their parents’ and society’s lifestyle. Your thought was true and accurate. But you were afraid of it, you kept trying all along to forget about it. But you did not succeed in forgetting what is all too obvious. Then you tried disagreeing with your own thought. You reasoned like this: How is it possible to become a scholar, an artist or a poet? How can one learn about astronomy or history without studying at a special school? But you were thinking in terms of subject categories of knowledge, and they are not the most important in raising children. Much more important is the culture of feelings, which are capable of compressing all knowledge into a tiny nucleus. You were in a position to understand this since you yourself are a vivid example of what I have been saying. After all, you were able to write a book without studying in a special school. Yon and I spent only three days together in this glade, and now you are a writer, known in various lands. You can step out in front of a huge audience including prominent teachers, scholars, poets and healers. And you can go on speaking to them for as long as three hours or more. And people listen to you with rapt attention. You are often asked questions such as: How can you hold an infinite store of information in your memory? How can you recite pages of your books from memory without a copy in front of you? You generally responded to such questions with a mumble. But you concluded within yourself that I must have been working some kind of invisible charms on you. In fact, everything that happened to you is a good deal simpler than that. During those first three days you were with me here in the taiga, on all three days it was the Vedic school that was exercising an influence on you. And it is certainly not pushy or intrusive, and it does not have any treatises or dogmas. It is capable of transmitting all information through feelings. At times you would get angry, or get excited and laugh, or become fearful. And every time a new feeling arose in you, new information was taken in.

That information was truly vast in scope. It is being revealed only later on, when you remember the feelings it aroused in you at the time. Feelings, after all, represent a tremendous amount of concentrated information. And the clearer and stronger the feeling, the more knowledge of the Universe it contains. For example, remember that very first night in the taiga, when you awoke and saw the she-bear beside you. Right off you were frightened. Please take note and think about those words “right off you were frightened”. But what is this feeling of fear? Let us try translating it into informational terms. What do we get then? You thought: Here beside me is a huge beast of the forest. It weighs considerably more than my body weight. Itspaws are far stronger than the muscles of my arms. A beast of the forest can be aggressive, it can attack me and tear my body apart. I am defenceless. I had better jump up and run. To make logical sense of this whole tremendous amount of information requires not just a moment, but a considerably longer time. But this same information, when compressed into a feeling—in this case, fear—allows one to react instantaneously to the situation. When one experiences a vivid feeling, a large amount of information passes through Man in a flash. It would require a whole scholarly treatise just to describe it, which could take years to work out without the aid of feelings. A correct complex of feelings sequenced in the right order can multiply a Man’s existing store of knowledge by a thousandfold. For example, your fear of the bear passed as instantaneously as it arose. But what made it go away? After all, it was not natural for it to go away You were still in the taiga as before, still defenceless, and the bear was not far away—besides, there might be a multitude of other beasts out there in the forest. But that sense of fear in you was instantaneously replaced by a feeling of security You felt this sense of protection even more strongly than when you were on your boat, or in the city, surrounded by armed guards. This feeling of protection came over you just as instantaneously It came over you just as soon as you saw that the bear took pleasure in carrying out my orders, reacting to my words and gestures. The feeling of protection enabled you to perceive information in a whole new way A detailed description of everything that happened to you could fill a great many pages of a scientific treatise. And in your books you have devoted quite a few pages to the animals’ relationship to Man. But the theme is infinite in scope. In terms of feelings, however, it can be expressed in the twinkling of an eye.

But something still more significant took place. Within the space of just a few seconds two opposite feelings turned out to be in perfect balance. I became to you someone in whose presence you could feel completely protected, even though at the same time one you could not fully explain and even found a little frightening. The balance of feelings is very important. It is a confirmation of Man’s equilibrium, yet at the same time, as though constantly pulsating, feelings engender more and more streams of information. The culture and way of life of each family in the Vedic civilisation, as well as the way of life of the whole human society of the time, constituted a most remarkable school for the raising of the next generation, an intense regime of self-perfection for Man, advancing him to the act of creation in worlds of the unfathomable Universe. In the Vedic age children were not raised the way they are in our schools today, but through participation in merry festivals and rites. These were either celebrations within a single family or ones where the whole community took part, or several neighbouring communities together. More specifically: the multitude of celebrations during the Vedic age were crucial tests for both children and adults, and a means of information exchange. The way of life in the family and the preparation for these celebrations afforded the opportunity to acquire a tremendous systematic store of knowledge. Children were taught without the compulsion they feel when they are made to sit and listen to a teacher against their will. The learning process unfolded moment by moment for both parents and their children, cheerfully and not obtrusively It was something desirable and fascinating. But it did include some methods that would be considered unusual today. Ignorant of their tremendous significance for Man’s education, modern scholars might call parents’ actions during Vedic times superstitious or even occult-like. For example,you thought that way and were very concerned when you saw our son, still so very young and helpless, as yet unable to stand on his own two feet, being picked up by the mighty eagle. The eagle held the little boy in its claws, and circled over the glade, rising and descending by turns.1 That happened with children in all Vedic families, though they did not always employ eagles for this purpose. They might be able to show the Earth from on high from the top of a mountain, if there happened to be a mountain close to where they lived. Occasionally a father might take his

infant son or daughter and climb to the top of a tall tree. Sometimes they would build a special tower for this purpose. And yet the effect was more dramatic when an eagle circled over the ground with an infant in its claws. In just a moment or so the child would experience a whole gamut of feelings, and in that very moment he would take in a whole multitude of information. And when he was older, he could discover this information within him through these feelings whenever he wanted, whenever the need arose. Remember, for example, I showed you what a perfect design the handsome Radomir created together with his bride Liubomila for their domain. I told you that the most recognised scientists in the world today are unable to create anything like that. They would not be able to do it even if they all joined together as one. But how could the young man bring about such a miracle back then? Where did he acquire the knowledge of all the plants, the significance of the winds, the functions of the planets and so much else besides? After all, he never sat at a traditional school-desk. He did not study science. Then how did the young man learn the purpose of each and every one of 530,000 species of flora? He might make use of only nine thousand of them, but he could accurately tell the interrelationship each species had with the others. Naturally Radomir had been observing his father’s and their neighbours’ domains right from childhood. Yet he never wrote anything down, and did not consciously memorise anything. He never asked his parents what grew for what purpose, and they would never vex him by preaching at him. And yet this young man in love still managed to create his own domain, and even a better one than his parents had. Please do not be surprised, Vladimir! Try to understand. You see, Radomir did not set forth a logical plan for his garden, although indeed it turned out that way in his domain. What happened was that Radomir outlined through his feelings a splendid picture for his loved one and his future offspring. And in this his flight with the eagle over his family domain contributed to his impulse of love, to his inspiration. During the time the infant Radomir looked down from the height of the eagle’s flight on the landscape of the domain, a picture was being imprinted on his subconscious just as on a reel of movie film. He was still not able to appreciate the beauty of the scene with his mind. But his feelings! His feelings were able to scan all the information from the variegated countryside below into a permanent imprint. And through his feelings, not through his mind or intellect, he was able to perceive what he saw as beautiful.

Not only that, but there amidst the beautiful landscape seen from the sky stood his very own Mama, smiling at him. What can be more marvelous for a little one than his mother’s smile? And his mother was waving to him. Yes, that was her! The one whose breasts contained warm, life-giving milk. For a suckling child, nothing could be more marvelous than that. And from the height of the eagle’s flight everything the young Radomir beheld seemed to him to be a single whole, inseparable from his Mama. In the twinkling of an eye the knowledge of this part of creation entered into him with a flash of exhilaration. Young people displayed great competence in such modern sciences as zoology, agronomy and astronomy People also appreciated their artistic taste. Of course, there were also professional teachers in the Vedic age. During the winter, elderly people who were especially learned in various disciplines would come to the community. Each settlement had a common meeting-hall, where they could set forth their wisdom. And if one of the children listening to them suddenly showed a special interest in astronomy, for example, the teacher would go and talk to the child’s parents in their home. The teacher would always be warmly welcomed in the home. This scholar would talk about the stars with the child as many hours and days as the youngster wished. And there is no definitive answer to the question as to who learnt more from whom during these discussions. After all, it was with considerable respect that the great elderly scholar asked questions of the child. He could argue with him without being preachy. In the Vedic age there was no need to record the discussion, or the conclusions or discoveries arising therefrom. Free from daily routine and the multitude of concerns that occupy us today, the human memory could take in a great deal more information than the best computers that have been invented in our times. Besides, any discoveries made, provided they were rational, were at once shared with everyone to use and put into practice. The parents and other members of the household might also listen to these scholarly discussions, and sometimes even contribute to them, albeit tactfully. But still, it was the child who was inevitably the centre of attention. When a budding astronomer came to what the adults judged to be a wrong conclusion, they might say something like: “Excuse me, I can’t understand you.” The child would try to explain. And it often happened that the child would prove himself right. As spring approached each year, all the residents of the settlement would gather in the common meeting-hall and take note of their children’s most

recent achievements. Reports were given during these days. A six-year-old lad, for example, might astound everyone, telling about the meaning of life like a philosopher. Children might show everyone the marvelous things they had made. Others might delight the gathering with a song or an unusual dance. You could call these acts a kind of test, or simply a time of fun for all —the label was unimportant. What was important was that everybody derived joy from the act of creating. The stream of positive emotions and revelations during this event were joyfully put into practice. To the question as to who remained the most important figure in the raising of children, one could confidently answer that it was the culture and way of life lived by families in the Vedic age. What lessons can be drawn from that culture for children of our present day? Which of our current systems of child-raising is the best, can we say? Judge for yourself, none of them is perfect. Mind you, when we distort the history of mankind, we cause children to lie to themselves. And we force their thinking into a completely false way And that is why we suffer and cause our children to suffer too. Above all, everybody ought to know the truth about themselves. Without truth, life bogged down in false dogmas is like a hypnotic sleep. The sequence of three pictures in children’s textbooks needs to be rearranged. The history of people living on the Earth needs to be presented to children correctly, for a change. First of all one must verify in one’s own heart the accuracy of what has been reported. And then once children have learnt the essence of this history undistorted, a new path must be selected in consultation with them. Children’s books about the history and development of the Earth and its people tend to feature three pictures that are far from harmless. Consider what these pictures impress upon them from a very young age: The first picture shows an impression of Primitive Man. Take a look at how he is portrayed: he stands there all covered with thick hair, with a beastly grin and a dumb expression on his face, holding a wooden club and surrounded by the bones of the creatures he has killed. The second picture features a Man clothed in armour, carrying a sword, a dazzling decorated helmet on his head. He is off to conquer cities with troops under his command, while a crowd of slaves bows low before his hand. In the third picture Man is shown with a noble face and an intelligent expression. He is healthy-looking, and dressed in a suit, and surrounded by a multitude of appliances, contrivances and mechanical gadgets to boot. Happy and delightful is the overall impression of modern Man.

All three pictures are false, as is the sequence in which they are arranged. This whole lie is stubbornly, rigidly and deliberately drilled into our children. Later I shall be able to tell you who is responsible and why they find this lie so indispensable. But first I want you try to verify the accuracy of these three pictures using your own sense of logic. Judge for yourself: the trees, bushes and grass you can still see today in their primitive form. Even though they are billions of years old, you can still look at them and delight in their perfection. What does all this tell us? The works of the Creator were made perfect right from the very beginning. And so? Did He make Man, the favourite of all His creations, to be some kind of monstrosity? Of course not! Right from the beginning, Man, the most perfect work of the Creator, was the most glorious creation on the Earth. The first picture ought to show history as it actually was: it ought to show a family of happy people, with a look on their faces expressing both intelligence and child-like purity. And love on the faces of both parents. Human bodies in harmony with their surroundings, striking in their beauty and graceful power of spirit. A flourishing garden all around. Creatures always on the alert to render service with gratitude. The second picture, too, should present to children an image of historical fact—two armies in monstrous armour rushing at each other, their commanders standing on a height of land, being entreated by priests. Some of their faces show fear and disorientation, while those of others, after yielding to the priests’ entreaties, are inflamed with a beastly fanaticism. In just a moment a senseless slaughter will begin. People will start killing their own kind. The third picture shows people in today’s world. We should see a group of people of pale and sickly countenance in a room filled with an array of artificial things. Some have extremely obese figures, others are bent over, faces are full of heaviness and gloom. The kinds of faces you see on most passers-by along big-city sidewalks. Through the window one can see cars exploding on the street. And dirty ashes raining down from the sky. All three of these true pictures of history should be shown to the child and the question asked: “Which of these lifestyles would you like to live?” The pictures are only arbitrary illustrations. Of course the child should also be told the true account, sincerely and skilfully presented. The child should know the whole history of the human race without misleading distortions. Only after that can his actual education begin. The question should be asked: “How can we change the situation today?”

And the child will come up with an answer—not right off, not in the twinkling of an eye. But he will find it! Another thought will take over—a creative thought. Oh, the raising of children! You see, Vladimir, just a single sincerely asked question, together with the parents’ desire to hear their child’s answer, is capable of uniting parents with their children—of making them happy—for ever. This joint quest for happiness is infinite. But even the beginning of the quest can be called a state of happiness. Everybody today should learn their true history. At a later period the occult priests undertook tremendous efforts to distort and besmirch the significance of the ritual acts of Vedic times. They started a rumour, for example, that the Vedic people mindlessly worshipped the element of water. And that they held a yearly sacrifice of young girls who had not yet known love, throwing them into a lake or a river. Or that, tying them to a raft, they pushed them off from the shore and despatched them to their doom. The element of water—a lake or a river—was indeed connected with many acts among the Vedic people. But it had a completely different significance —in support of life, not death. Let me tell you about just one of these. It is still practised today in a superficial form. But the resemblance is only superficial. In today’s variant its great rational and poetic significance has been replaced by obscurity and occultism. In various countries today there is a celebration involving water, whereby wreaths or small rafts with beautiful lanterns or candles are set afloat on a water surface and pushed away from the shore in a plea to the water to grant good fortune. But let us see where this particular celebration originated and how rational and poetic a significance it had in its pristine form. In Vedic times it sometimes happened that one or two girls (how many is of no importance) did not find someone they could love within their own community. And even at large festivals involving several communities they did not succeed in choosing their intended. This would not have been on account of a limited selection. Indeed, they were presented with a whole array of splendid young men with intelligent countenances—almost like gods, who shone in their celebratory performances. But while the heart and soul of the girl in question were filled with great expectations, they were not visited by love. The girl was dreaming of someone, but of whom? She herself did not know. Even today, no one can explain the mystery or freedom of choice inherent in the energy of Love. This is why on a designated day the girls would go down to the river, and in one of the little bays set a small raft afloat. Its edges were decorated with a garland of flowers. In the middle stood a small jug of wine or fruit infusion.

Pieces of fruit were placed around the jug. The drink was to be prepared by the girl herself, and the fruit to be plucked by her from the trees she had planted by her own hand in her family garden. She might also place on the raft a woven linen headband, or some other object, but it had to be something made with her own hands. Lastly she would place on the raft a little lampadkaj Around a fire burning on the shore the girls danced their khorovod and sang about a beloved of whom they were not yet fully aware. Then, taking one of the branches burning on the fire, they lit the wick of the lampadka. They pushed their rafts out of the bay into the mainstream of the river, where the current would catch it and tenderly convey it down to the river’s farthest unknown reaches. And each girl followed her raft with a hopeful gaze as it receded into the distance, until only the little light of the lampadka was still visible. But the girls’ hearts were aflame with the fire of hope. A feeling of joy and tenderness grew within, directed to one whom they were yet to know. Hastening back to their homes, the girls retreated to their rooms and excitedly began preparing for the anticipated meeting. He, the desired one, might come with the dawn or at sunset time—the hour did not matter. But how did it happen? What would draw him to her? Was the meeting the result of mysticism or rationality? Or perhaps of the knowledge to which the Vedic people had access through their feelings? Decide for yourself which way. After all, the girls’ rafts were carried along by the current on specific days. All the communities, even the distant ones, were aware of these particular days. Their journey might last a day, or two or three. On all these days and moonlit nights young men who had not yet known love were waiting hopefully in their loneliness all along the river’s bays. Upon seeing the little lights in the distance being carried along by the current, a young man would at once leap into the water and swim toward the little lights of love he had seen. The current did not inflame the young man’s heated body, but tenderly cradled it with the transparent water of the stream. Closer and closer came the little lights and now the young man could make out the outline of the rafts—each one prettier than the next, it seemed. He chose one of them. It was not clear why this particular one fell under his special esteem. He drew the raft from the middle of the stream to the shore, either pushing it with his hand or nudging it along by pressing his cheek to its side. It seemed as though the river current was engaging him in play But his body was constantly being arrayed with strength, more and more, and he scarcely

noticed the river’s play Besides, his thought was already on the shore. Placing the little raft carefully on the land, the young man snuffed out the lampadka, took an excited drink from the jug and quickly headed home to prepare for his journey. He took with him whatever he had found on the little craft. Along the way he took a taste of the fruit, and was thrilled by its taste. By and by he arrived at the village from where the raft had been launched, and was able to accurately determine which garden and tree whose fruit had sweetened his journey. Aha!—some might wonder—one cannot escape mysticism entirely: how on earth could young men of that time find their future loved ones with such accuracy? One could say that it was Love leading them by a path known solely to Love. But I can simplify the explanation—the lampadka also played a role. Notches had been cut in the small vessel carrying the brightly burning wick floating in the oil, so that everyone could tell how long the lampadka had been alight. The speed of the river’s current was also widely known. It was a very simple calculation, and quickly executed. For a young man of the Vedic age, it was no task at all to find in the village the particular tree from which the fruit he had eaten had been plucked. Pieces of fruit resemble each other only superficially. The fruit of trees and plants of the same species, even two trees growing side by side, can show marked differences in shape, colour, fragrance and taste. There is only one thing that cannot be explained with complete accuracy. How was it that he and she always fell in love with each other upon meeting for the first time? And their love was extraordinarily passionate. “It is all quite simple,” a philosopher of the present day might say. “Their feelings for each other were already being set afire by their own dream even before they met.” But back then a wizened wise-man would have responded to such a question with a wink: “Our river has always had a mischievous streak in her!” Of course, if he wanted to, the wise-man could always go into the details of each moment of the ritual I have told you about and explain the purpose of each one of those moments. He could write a great treatise on it. But no wise-man would bother wasting his thought on such a venture. The whole point is, Vladimir, that they They did not analyse life, they CREATED it!

Feeding life in the flesh People living in the Vedic age did not know a single disease of the flesh. Even at the age of a hundred and fifty or even two hundred years they maintained a lively spirit, a joy of living, and remained completely healthy They had no doctors or healers such as exist in great numbers today Diseases of the flesh were impossible because the way of life in one’s own domain, the natural Space of Love which they themselves had established, completely regulated their intake of food. Man’s body was supplied with everything it needed in the required quantity and at the time most favourable for its consumption, and at the most favourable planetary alignment for the intake of food. Take note, Vladimir: in Nature it is no arbitrary phenomenon that during the whole spring, summer and autumn seasons the various plants mature and bring forth their fruit in a particular sequence. First come the blades of grass—the dandelions, for example. They are also pleasing to the taste, especially when mixed with winter fare. Then we see early currants maturing, wild strawberries and raspberries— both earlier in the full sun and later in the shade; sweet cherries; later sour cherries and a great many other fruits, herbs and berries, all of which, at the appropriate moment of their own choosing, attempt to attract human attention by their unusual shape, colour and fragrance. There was no science of nutrition back then. What and how much one should eat and at what time—that was not something anyone even thought about. And still Man consumed everything needful for his body, with an accuracy down to the last gram. Each berry, little herb and piece of fruit has its own day, hour and minute when it is the most beneficial to the human body—when it will complete the process of its own growth in conjunction with the celestial bodies. By this time it will have taken account of the specifics of what lies under the ground and of other plants growing around it, as well as of the Man that has bestowed his gaze upon it, and then evaluate and determine what his greatest needs are. And on that very day when it is ready to serve Man, Man will honour it by his acceptance, and allow perfection itself to become his food. I have said that a woman with child should spend all nine months of her pregnancy in her own garden, in the Space she has created together with the one she loves. This is no occult mystery—it manifests the great rationality of the Divine being. Judge for yourself: in Nature there are many plants that can even painlessly terminate a woman’s pregnancy—garlic, for example, oregano, the male fern, birthwort and many others. On the other hand, there are plants capable of helping the foetus develop harmoniously in the

mother’s womb. Which ones should be taken and in what quantity is not something anybody will ever be able to tell. He is the only one who knows —the one inside the mother’s womb. And he is taking care of not only himself but his mother too. That is why it often happens that after having a child a mother becomes healthier, younger-looking. In order for this to occur, the pregnant mother must definitely be in her own garden, where every blade of grass is acquainted with her and every piece of fruit grows exclusively for her. She has also come to know each one’s taste and fragrance. Her desires are quite natural and are in the best position to determine what kind of food she needs to take in and in what quantity. Such accuracy is not possible in someone else’s domain or garden, even if the vegetation in that garden is many times richer and more diverse. Besides, another factor making the ideal food intake impossible in another garden is that before consuming a particular berry or piece of fruit the woman will try it first. Take an apple, for example. If she wishes to eat it, she plucks it from the tree and takes a bite. After swallowing the bite she at once feels that here is something her body does not need and has thereby caused harm to herself and to her child. Why does this happen? The fact is that even outwardly similar pieces of fruit can be made up of different substances. In her own garden, having tasted fruit from the various trees on a number of occasions, she could not make such a mistake. In another garden mistakes are inevitable. What kind of law or knowledge provided such fine-tuned assistance in feeding Man at that time? It was the absence of laws and treatises! Man could depend only upon the Divine. Today they say that Man is in unity with—is at one with—Nature. But what is this unity right now—have you ever thought about it? In today’s day and age Man consumes mainly artificial food—only what the system offers him as convenient to itself. And the schedule of consumption of food is also artificially determined by this artificial system. Back then, in the Vedic age, everything was determined for Man by his God-given feelings. And the slightest sensation of hunger was satisfied by the Space of Love back then. After all, Man’s feelings, in harmony with his Space of Love, could determine down to the minute—as accurately as the most perfect mechanical device ever invented or the smartest instructions ever penned—what food Man should take in and when. Whenever Man walked through the Space of his own cocreation, his free thought could create or work out plans on the scale of the Universe. Temptingly beautiful fruit surrounded him. Intuitively he would pluck and

eat a sample, or two, or three, without having his thought distracted by these sweet delicacies supplied him by God. Back then, Man did not think about food. He fed himself in much the same manner as we today breathe. The Space he had created, in conjunction with his intuition, accurately worked out how and when the flesh should be fed. In the wintertime the whole multitude of plants freed itself from its fruit and foliage in preparation for rest. Winter was for the creation of the spring to come. But even in winter Man did not waste his time thinking of food, even though he did not prepare any comestibles in advance. All this was done for him by household creatures with great effort and love. Squirrels amassed a whole collection of nuts and mushrooms. Bees collected honey and flower pollen. Every autumn the bear would dig root-crop storage cellars. Upon awakening in the spring, the bear would come to the Man’s dwelling and either give a low roar or knock lightly with his paw upon the door. The bear would summon the Man, who would in turn show him which of the cellars should be dug up. Perhaps the bear had forgotten where he had stored away the food. Perhaps he was longing for communication with Man. Any member of the family might come out to him in response, but most of the time it was the child. After giving the hard-working beast a pat on the muzzle, he would go to the place designated by a marker and stamp his foot on the ground. The bear then began scraping the earth away in that spot and opened up the stores. Upon seeing his accomplishment he would jump all around for joy before delivering the stored food up to the surface with his paw. But he would not be the first to partake of the food—he would wait until Man began carting off at least some of the goods to the house. Man himself could also prepare provisions, but this was not so much work as an art form. Many families would produce their own wine and infusions from different kinds of berries. Such wine was not strong and intoxicating like vodka. The result was a most healthful drink. Useful food provided to Man by animals included milk, only not from just any animal. Man selected only those that were considered kind, tender and keen of mind—those who demonstrated an eagerness to offer Man what they produced. Let us say one of the children or the elders of a household went up to a goat or a cow and touched its udder, and the animal suddenly began moving away Man would not attempt to drink the milk of any animal that did not want to share it with him. This did not mean that the animal did not love the Man. It often happened that animals subconsciously determined that at that moment the composition of their lactic mixture would not be useful to the Man.

People of the Vedic civilisation would feed themselves from the various kinds of food growing only on their own plot or produced by their household animals. This approach was not determined by any kind of superstition or law. Rather, it was the result of a vast store of knowledge. Though there is a difference between ‘knowing’ {znat) and ‘being fully aware of’ (‘vedat) something.8 ‘Being fully aware of’ is not just to ‘know’. It is to feel with one’s whole being—body and soul—a multitude of phenomena, the purpose of each Divine creation, as well as His system. And every Man of the Vedic culture was fully aware that what he consumed as food not only fed the body, but filled the soul with conscious awareness. At the same time it conveyed information directly to him from all the worlds of the Universe. The words znat’ and vedat’ in Russian are often used interchangeably in the sense of ‘know’, whereas in fact there is a significant distinction between them, as Anastasia points out here. While znat’ specifically refers to ‘knowing’ through the mind or logic, vedat’ (from an ancient Sanskrit root) covers other kinds of knowing as well—inspiration, intuition, emotional feelings etc.)—in other words, not just ‘knowing’ per se, but being fully aware of all dimensions of a subject through the various channels of knowledge available. This is why these people were many times superior to their modern-day counterparts in terms of inner energy, keenness of mind and quickness of thought. The animals and plants living in Man’s family Space reacted to Man as to a god. The animals, herbs and trees were constantly thirsting for a tender look or a kind touch on Man’s part. And this power of the energy of feelings was what prevented unwanted weeds from growing in the garden or vegetable plot. Many people are now aware how a household plant can suddenly shrivel up when it meets with disfavour on the part of someone in the family. On the other hand, a feeling of love and communication directed toward the same plant can cause it to flourish. This is why the Vedic people never went near their garden with a hoe. Even today, we have expressions such as ‘give someone the evil eye’. It originated in those times. People could create a lot through their energy of feelings. Suppose a Man is walking through his domain. Everything around catches his kindly gaze. He might look at a weed, and think: Why are you here? The weed would quickly wither from sorrow. On the other hand, if one were to

smile at a cherry tree, it would cause its sap to run through its veins with twice the energy as before. And if someone among the Vedic people happened to set out on a long journey, that Man would not bother to take along a supply of food. He would be able to find more than enough along the way to feed himself. Whenever he came to a settlement, he would see the splendid domains and ask for food and drink. It was considered an honour to serve tasty fruit, vegetables and drink to a traveller. Life without violence and crime Among the people of the Vedic civilisation, over the thousands of years of its existence, there was not a single act of violence or theft, or a mere fight. Even insulting words were absent from people’s vocabulary. 'Yet at the same time there were no laws to punish such behaviour. Laws can never protect one from evil deeds. But the knowledge and culture of the Vedic peoples completely ruled out conflicts in interpersonal relationships. Judge for yourself, Vladimir: you see, every family living in their domain was aware that should any kind of unpleasantness happen to anyone, even a stranger, on the territory of their own domain or nearby, even on the very edge of the settlement, the whole Space would then suffer. The universal energy of aggression would have an effect on every growing thing and on everyone living in that Space. It would upset the balance of energies. The energy of aggression might grow and leave its impression on adults and children alike, and infect their offspring with illness. By contrast, if a passing traveller leaves a feeling of joy behind, the Space will radiate even greater beauty. Not only that, but a Man visiting another settlement would be physically incapable of eating food plucked from a tree without the owner’s permission or picked up from the ground in a garden upon which he had intruded. People of the Vedic culture had a highly refined sensitivity. Their physiological makeup would immediately notice a significant distinction in the taste of pilfered food from that served by someone’s generous hand. The whole range of foodstuffs sold in our modern supermarkets has nowhere near the fragrance and taste of the pristine produce of the Vedic age. Completely indifferent to Man, it has no feeling or soul. It does not belong to anyone and is beholden to no one. It is simply merchandise for sale. If modern Man could actually taste and compare the food known in Vedic times, he could never eat the produce of today.

A newcomer could not, would not even think to take what was owned by somebody else without asking. Every single object, even a stone, contains information within itself known only to the family living in that particular domain. In the Vedic civilisation, every domain was a fortress that loomed impenetrable to evil in whatever form. At the same time it served as a mother’s womb for the family dwelling therein. Nobody back then built high walls for fortification. The territory of each domain was protected by a living green hedge—a hedge which, along with everything living within its boundaries, protected the family from a whole host of harmful influences on the human body and soul. I already mentioned to you that the bodies of deceased family members were buried only in the garden or among the trees of their own domain. Those people were fully aware that while the human soul is eternal, the material body, too, cannot disappear without a trace. All objects, even those which appear to be soulless, carry within themselves a great deal of information from the Universe. In the Divine nature nothing ever disappears into oblivion. It only changes its state and its fleshly form. The bodies of the deceased were not covered with headstones, and even the places of their burial were not marked in any way. The Space created by their hands and soul served as a great monument to them. And, changing their state, the now soulless bodies gave rise to trees, herbs and flowers. New children were born and walked among them. Oh, how everything around just loved the children! The spirit of their ancestors lingered over the Space, loving and protecting the children. Children treated the Space of their Motherland with love. Their thought created no illusion about life being finite. On the contrary, the life of the Vedic peoples was infinite. The soaring soul passes through all the dimensions of the Universe, and after visiting a number of different planes of being, it is once again embodied in conventional human form. Upon waking in the garden of his Motherland, the child will once again give a bright smile. The whole Space responds to his smile. And the little rays of light, the breeze rustling the leaves on the trees, the flowers and the stars in the distant sky will sigh: “We are at one, embodied by you, child of Divine being.”

Even today people cannot figure out why elderly people living on foreign strands ask to be buried in their Motherland. Such people intuitively suspect that only their Motherland can bring them back to the Earth in a Paradise garden, while a foreign strand rejects their souls. To have their bodies buried in the Motherland has been the aspiration of people’s souls for millennia. But can a cemetery be called a piece of the Motherland in any nation? Cemeteries are a markedly recent phenomenon, designed to tear human souls apart in hellfire, demean and subjugate them, make them into lowly slaves. Cemeteries are like Well, they are like cesspits, where people go to get rid of their useless junk. The souls of the dead are tormented over cemeteries, while the living are terrified of cemetery plots. Picture to yourself, by contrast, a kin’s domain of Vedic times. Bodies of many generations are buried there. Every little herb aspires to tenderly care for those living therein, to be useful to Man’s life in the flesh. But every herb and every fruit in the garden can suddenly become poisonous when faced with aggression on the part of a newcomer. That is why nobody even thought of taking anything without asking. The domains could not be seized by force. They could not be bought for any amount of money Of course, who would dare trespass upon a place that is capable of destroying the trespasser? And each individual here endeavoured to create their own marvelous oasis. The whole planet grew more beautiful with each passing year. When modern Man surveys a city from on high today, what does he see, pray tell? The whole ground covered with an accumulation of artificially erected stones. Dwellings spread in all directions—upward and outward. Here, there and everywhere lie miles and miles of vast expanses blanketed by stone landscapes. There is no clean water anywhere, and the air is polluted. How many happy families can dwell under their own piles of stone? If one compares modern families with those of the Vedic culture, the answer is: not a single one. And one could go farther: amidst these piles of artificial stone people do not dwell—they sleep. And yet in this hypnotic sleep a single living cell still strays like a tiny nucleus through the body Sometimes at rest, sometimes in motion, this living cell touches teeming multitudes of others, attempting to awaken those that are asleep. Its name is Dreaml And it will awaken them! Then human

families will once again create marvelous oases upon the Earth. As it was before, so will it be again. And in looking down on the Earth from on high, Man’s gaze will once again be much charmed by a multitude of living scenes. And each of these marvelous scenes will mean that the Earth has been touched in that spot by the hand of an awakened Vedruss. And once again a happy family of people will be dwelling in their own plot of the Motherland—people who have learnt to know God and the meaning and purpose of life. The Vedic people knew why the stars are in the sky Their numbers included a great many poets and artists. There was never any rivalry among the communities. There was no cause for crime or violence. And there was a complete absence of hierarchical structures. The Vedruss culture flourished on the territories of our modern nations of Europe, India, Egypt and China, and there were no lines of demarcation dividing the various areas of land. There were no rulers, either important or petty. The sequence of grand celebrations provided a natural order of things. People of the Vedic age possessed a knowledge of creation far in advance of modern Man. Their inner energy allowed them to enhance the growth of some plants and arrest that of others. Household animals endeavoured to carry out Man’s commands not to obtain food, which they already had in abundance, but to receive from Man a reward in the rays of the energy of grace emanating from him. Even today a word or gesture of praise from Man is pleasant to everyone— to people, animals and all growing things. But in earlier times people’s energy was immeasurably greater—all living things were drawn to it as to the Sun. CHAPTER SIX

Imagery and trial Toward the end of the Vedic Age of human life a great discovery began to take place—a discovery unparalleled over the whole course of the history of human civilisations on the Earth.1 People became acutely aware of the power of collective thought. And here we must clarify: what, exactly, is the thought of Man? The thought of Man is an energy unparalleled anywhere in space. It is capable of creating marvelous worlds on the one hand or, on the other, weapons capable of destroying the planet. And all the matter that we see today, without

exception, has been created by thought. Nature, the animal kingdom, Man himself, have all been created with great inspiration by the Divine thought. And the proliferation of artificial objects, machines and mechanical devices which we see today are the creations of Man’s thought. You may think that it is Man’s hand that has produced them, "yes, today, hands must be employed. But to begin with, everything down to the last detail is created by thought. It is believed today that Man’s thought is more perfect now than in the past. But that is far from being the case. For each member of the Vedic civilisation it was many millions of times superior to that of modern Man in terms of the ’This chapter is a continuation of Anastasia’s narrative on the history of mankind, which, with one or two interruptions, carries through to the end of Chapter 8. speed and fulness of information involved. This can be seen in the knowledge we have taken from the past about using plants for medicines and food. But Nature’s devices are far more perfect and complex than anything artificial. It was not just that Man summoned a whole lot of beasts to serve him. It was not just a case of defining the function of all growing things. Once he realized the power of collective thought, he found that he could use it to control even the weather, or cause springs to well up from the depths of the Earth. If he were not careful in handling his thought, he could make a bird fall from the sky while in flight. Or affect life on distant stars—either to plant gardens on them or to utterly destroy them. This is no fiction, but fact, and it was all given to mankind. Everyone today knows how Man, having launched himself on the path of technocracy, has been attempting to build space ships capable of reaching the stars. People have gone to the Moon, but only by wasting valuable resources and energies and with great harm to the Earth. But they have changed nothing on the Moon. This kind of approach is short-sighted—it is doomed to failure and is dangerous for everyone on the Earth as well as for other planets. There is another approach which is much more effective. Through thought alone it is possible to grow a flower on the Moon, create an atmosphere capable of supporting human life, plant a garden there and find one’s self with one’s beloved in that garden in the flesh. But, before that can happen, thought must transform the whole Earth into a flourishing Paradise garden. And that has to be done through collective thinking.

Collective thought is indeed powerful—in the whole Universe there is no energy that can interfere with its operation. Matter and today’s technology are the reflection of collective thought. It is this collective thought that has invented all the mechanical devices and armaments we have today. But remember I was saying that in those Vedic times every living Man’s thought had far greater power and energy than now. Objects such as rocks weighing many tonnes could be moved by as few as nine people gathered together. To make it easier to use collective thought for the benefit of the majority without wasting time getting a whole lot of people to congregate in one place, people invented images of various gods and began to control Nature with their help. The Sun-god appeared in its own image, likewise the gods of Fire, Rain, Love and Fertility. Everything needed for life was created by people through images on which human thought was concentrated. It performed many useful acts. Rain, for example, was necessary for watering the ground, and so one person directed his thought just to the image of the Rain-god. When rain was really essential, then a whole lot of people concentrated their energy on the image of rain. When enough energy had been accumulated in the image, the clouds gathered and the rain fell, watering the harvests. Unlimited opportunity has been given to Man by the Divine Nature. If mankind could only overcome the temptations associated with unlimited authority and hold all the energies of the Universe in perfect balance within themselves, then gardens—as the fruit of human thought—would appear in other galaxies. And Man would be capable of happifying other worlds with his thought. What is called the Age of the Image was now coming into bloom. In it Man not only created, but felt himself to be a god. But then what else could the son of God turn out to be? In what is called the Age of the Image, Man exists in the likeness of God and begins to create his own images. This period lasts nine thousand years. And God does not interfere in Man’s deeds. All the diverse energies of the Universe are set in motion and actively try to seduce Man. Particles of all the diverse energies of the Universe are to be found in Man. They exist in great numbers, and play opposite roles. But all the particles of the diverse energies of the Universe ought to be perfectly balanced in Man, brought together in a harmonious whole. If one of these particles dominates, the rest are denigrated and their harmony is disrupted, and then Then the Earth is transformed and becomes inharmonious.

Images can lead people to a many-splendoured creation, but if their inner unity is surrendered they can also lead to annihilation. But what, exactly, is an imaged An image is an entity of energy invented by human thought. It can be created by a single Man or by several together. A clear example of the collective creation of an image may be seen in stageacting. One Man describes the image on paper, while another portrays the described image on the stage. What happens to the actor who portrays the image invented? For a time the actor exchanges his own feelings, aspirations and desires for those inherent in the invented image. In the process the actor may change the way he walks, his facial expression, his usual clothing. In this way the invented image acquires a temporary embodiment. The ability to create images is something only Man is endowed with. The image created by Man can remain in space only so long as it is held in Man’s thought—either by a single Man or by several at once. The greater the number of people feeding the image with their feelings, the stronger it becomes. The image created by the collective thought can possess colossal destructive or creative potential. It has a reciprocal connection with people and is capable of shaping character and behaviour on the part of groups of people both large and small. In exploiting the great possibilities they have discovered within themselves, people became carried away with creating the life of the planet. But it happened, back in the early stages of the Age of the Image in the life of Man, that there were six people—just six—who found themselves unable to hold within their bodies, hearts and minds the balance of those energies of the Universe which God gave to Man upon creating him. Perhaps they needed to make their appearance to test all mankind. At first it was in just one of the six that the energy of grandeur and selfimportance predominated—then in another, and then in a third, and finally in all six. They did not meet together at first. Each one lived independently. But like attracts like. And they ended up concentrating their thought on how to become masters of all the people of the Earth. There were six of them, and in public they referred to themselves as priests. Through the process of reincarnating themselves over the centuries, they are

still living to this day. Today all the peoples of the Earth are governed by just six people—these are the priests. Their dynasties are ten thousand years old. From generation to generation they have been transmitting their knowledge of the occult to their heirs, along with the science of imagery, which was also partially known to them. They have taken great pains to hide the Vedic knowledge from other people. Among the six there is one who is considered chief, and he is called the High Priest. Today he considers himself to be the chief ruler of human society. Through a few sentences I have uttered which you have recorded in your books, as well as through the reaction of many people to them, the High Priest has begun to suspect who I really am. Just in case, he attempted to destroy me by using a negligible amount of power. He did not succeed. He was surprised. And he has tried again, applying a greater amount of force, still not completely convinced of who I am. Now I have uttered the word Vedruss, thereby exposing myself completely. The current High Priest living on the Earth today is afraid even of the word Vedruss. You can just imagine how shaken he is, since he knows what lies behind it. Now he will muster his soldiers—bio-robots to a man—along with the forces of all the dark occult sciences, to bring about my termination. And he himself will be working minute by minute on a plan of annihilation. Let him do that—it means he will not have time to be busy with his other plans. You were telling me about the angry attacks in the recent press, Vladimir. Now you will see them intensify even more. And they will be even more cunning and sophisticated. You will see slander and provocation. You will see the whole arsenal of devices which the dark forces have been using over the millennia to bring about the devastation of our people’s culture. But what you will see at the beginning is only the tip of the iceberg. Not all people can witness the occult attacks at first hand. But you will understand them, you will feel them, you will see them. Do not be afraid of them, I beg of you. What is fearsome is powerless to affect a fearless Man. Whatever you see, you should forget immediately and forever. No matter how omnipotent a monster may seem, once it is forgotten it ceases to exist altogether. This is an unusual fact, and I can tell you are doubting. Do not be hasty to give in to your doubts. Think it over calmly. After all, even a small group of people who have gathered together for the purpose of building something inevitably has a leader—we may call him a

ruler. A small enterprise has an official in charge. A large enterprise has several people in charge, under a chief executive officer. There are many rulers over all sorts of territories which are known by different names: provinces, regions, states, communities, republics etc. The particular name is not important. Each nation has a ruler, who is aided by a whole host of assistants. The ruler of a nation—is that the limit? That is what people often think. Does that mean nobody is governing the whole human society living on the Earth? And are there no claimants wishing to ascend the throne of the Earth? There have indeed been claimants. There still are. You know from recent history many names of military commanders who have tried to dominate the world by force. But not one of them has ever succeeded in taking power over the world. Whenever they found themselves close to seizing universal authority, something would inevitably happen, resulting in the destruction of both the pretender to world dominance and his army. And the nation aspiring to world domination, which before had been considered strong and flourishing, suddenly dropped to the level of a run-ofthe-mill state. That is the way it has always happened over the past ten thousand years. But why? All because there is already a secret ruler in the world, and has been for a long time. He toys with nations and their rulers, along with individual people. He calls himself the High Priest of the whole Earth, while his five assistants refer to themselves as priests. Consider one other fact, Vladimir. Think about how in various parts of the Earth over the millennia wars between people have never ceased. In every country crime, disease and various disasters are increasing day by day, but there has been a strict (indeed, the strictest) prohibition on discussing a particular question: Is human civilisation really on the path of progress, or is human society being further degraded with each passing day? There can be but one simple answer to such a question. Only first take a look and see how the priests acquired their authority and how they have managed to maintain it to date. Their first step leading to the accomplishment of their secret purpose was the creation of the Egyptian state. The Egyptian state is more familiar than others to historians of today But once you eliminate personal commentary

and mysticism and look only at the facts, you will be able to uncover many secrets. Fact Number One—history calls the Pharaoh the supreme ruler of Egypt. And the many military achievements and defeats of the pharaohs of old have been well documented. Even today their magnificent tombs astound the imagination and prompt scholars to probe the mysteries they hold. Nevertheless, the grandeur of the pyramids distracts us from the most important secret of all. Not only were the pharaohs considered as rulers over all the people, but they were worshipped as gods. It was to them that the people turned with pleas for an auspicious crop year, pleas for rain and an absence of pernicious winds. History can tell us about many of the factual accomplishments of the pharaohs, but after learning all these historical facts, you should ask yourself: could any of the pharaohs really have been a ruler over a large nation-state, let alone a god over the people? And once you weigh all the evidence, you will realize entirely on your own that the pharaoh was nothing more than a bio-robot in the hands of the priests. Now here are the facts—they are also known to us from history. During the age of the pharaohs there also existed priests in magnificent temples, and one of them was the High Priest. There were always several candidates for the pharaohship in training under their supervision. The priests would inculcate in the young boys whatever the priests desired— among them the notion that the pharaoh was chosen by God. Along with this they told them that the High Priest himself could hear God speaking to him in a secret temple. Later the priests would decide which of the candidates would become the next pharaoh. And so the day of the coronation arrived. The new pharaoh, clothed in special robes and holding the symbols of office in his hands, took his place majestically on the throne. In the eyes of the people he was an omnipotent king, a god. Only the priests knew that it was their own bio-robot that sat on the throne. And having studied the new pharaoh’s character from his childhood, they knew exactly how he would rule, they knew what gifts he would offer up to the benefit of the priesthood. There was the occasional attempt on the part of certain pharaohs to come out from under the High Priest’s authority But none of them ever succeeded in becoming a free Man. After all, the power of the priests was just as invisible as the pharaoh’s royal robes were visible to all. You see, the priests’ authority did not require any verbal proclamation or manifest communication for its enforcement. After all, in exercising their power over any individual ruler the priests did not relent, even for a moment. And it was

exercised over the masses in turn with the aid of invented suggestions as to what constitutes the order of the Universe. If only the pharaoh could have liberated himself from the images inculcated in him by the priests and reflect by himself in peace, perhaps he would have been able to become a real Man. But there was no way the pharaoh could free himself from the day-to-day cares and concerns—this had been part of the plan right from the start. And what concerns there were! Couriers, scribes and local governors by turns brought in a daily flood of information from all over the vast nation. Situations calling for immediate solutions. And then a war would break out, absorbing the ruler’s full attention. And the pharaoh would take his chariot and keep following his daily trajectories, respecting or rejecting the deeds of his subjects, often not getting enough sleep himself. The priest, on the other hand, would spend his time quietly reflecting, and in this lay his greatest advantage. The priest directed his efforts to gaining single-handed control of the world as a whole. And even more than that—he meditated on how to resurrect his own world, distinct from the world God had created. And did he care in the least about the stupid boy-pharaoh, not to mention the crowds which were subject to the pharaoh? For the priest they were all merely toys. The priests studied the science of imagery in secret, while the masses of people remembered less and less about the law of Nature. It was these priests, Vladimir, who channelled the energy of the interaction between people and the living Deity—the creations of Nature—into the temples they had invented. They fed on it—the energy of the people— giving nothing in return. What had been surely clear to everyone in the age of the Vedic culture now became obscure and surreptitious. The people became stupefied, as though under a hypnotic spell, and unthinkingly followed the commands in a kind of semisleep. And they began to destroy the world of the Divine Nature, while building an artificial world for the priests’ benefit. The priests held their science under their strictest secretive control. They did not even dare write it all down on scrolls. They invented a language of their own for communication with each other—and this is a fact you can also learn from history. They needed a different language lest someone should inadvertently overhear their conversation with each other and become party to their secrets. And so even today these simple truths which have now become shrouded in a cloak of secrecy are passed down to new generations of the priesthood.

Six thousand years ago the High Priest, one of the six, decided to take control of the whole world. He reasoned as follows: There is no way I can seize power by military force, with the pharaoh’s armies—even if I taught the commanders how to make use of weapons more advanced than others possess. Besides, what could an army of raving mindless dullards do? Go and plunder gold, but there is so much of that as it is. There are slaves aplenty, but there is an unfavourable energy emanating from them, and it would not be proper to accept food from the hands of a slave. The food would be savourless and harmful to health. I must bring human souls into subjection, and direct all their love and tremulous affection back to myself. But in this case it is not an army that is needed, but scientific thought. The science of imagery—that is my invisible army. The deeper I become acquainted with it, the more faithfully this army ought to serve me. The less that is known by the crowd, immersed as it is in occultism, and unreality, the more it will be in subjection to me. The High Priest devised his plan. Even today it finds its reflection in the historical events of the past six thousand years. You and everyone else are aware of recent events. The only difference is in their interpretation. But you should try and give your own, and then the truth will be made known to you. Look and see. There in the council of those six priests the plan was laid out, and was later revealed to many—it is mentioned in the Bible, in the Old Testament. By order of the High Priest the priest Moses led the Jewish people out of Egypt. The people were offered a most marvelous life in the Promised Land, prepared by God especially for them. The Jewish people were declared to be God’s chosen ones. The tempting news set minds afire, and a part of the people followed Moses, who for forty years led his people about from region to region in the wilderness. The priest’s assistants constantly preached sermons about their being a chosen people and inspired the people to make war and plunder cities, all in His (God’s) name. If anyone should happen to awake from his psychosis and demand a return to his former life, he was declared a sinner to be reformed, and given a deadline by which he had to be reformed. If he failed to do this he would be killed. The priests acted not in their own names, but by pretending they were carrying out the deeds of God. What I am telling you is no fantasy or dream. This may be clearly seen by everyone for themselves by looking for answers in the Old Testament of the Bible—a great historical book. A reliable portrayal of historical events can be learnt by anyone who wakes at least a little from the millennia-old

hypnotic sleep and reads how and by what means the Jewish people were programmed and turned into troops of the priesthood. Later Jesus tried to deprogram his people and to use his manifest gift for acquiring new wisdom to prevent the priests from carrying out their designs. In his journeys among wise-men, he endeavoured to glean inklings into the science of imagery And after he had learnt a great many truths, he decided to save the Jewish people, his own people. He succeeded in creating his own religion—one which could serve as a counterbalance to the terror. His religion was not for all the nations upon the Earth. It was intended only for the Jewish people. He himself mentioned this more than once. His words were written down by his disciples, and you can still read them to date. See, for example, St Matthew’s gospel, Chapter 15, verses 22-28: A Canaanite woman from that vicinity came to him, crying out, “Lord, Son of David, have mercy on me! My daughter is suffering terribly from demonpossession. Jesus did not answer a word. So his disciples came to him and urged him, “Send her away, for she keeps crying out after us.” He answered, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel.”2 What does it mean: “I was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel”? Why are Jesus’ teachings only for the Jews? Why did he consider the Jewish people to be lost? I tell you, Vladimir: Jesus knew that as a result of the forty-year programming in the Sinai wilderness, the majority of the Jewish people were lost in a hypnotic dream. This part of the people as, indeed, Moses himself, thus became a tool in the hands of the High Priest. They were his footsoldiers, whom he compelled to seize power over all the Earth’s people to satisfy his own vainglory. And they will be running their battles in various parts of the Earth for thousands of years. Their weapons will not be primitive swords or bullets, but cunning and the creation of a way of life subjecting all the world’s peoples to occultism—in other words, to the selfishness of the priests. And they will do whatever it takes. But any battle presupposes the presence of two opposing sides, you may well be thinking. And if so, then where are the victims? In any battle there have to be victims on both sides. "Matth. 15: 22-24 (New International Version; emphasis added by the author).

You could probably find evidence of these battles yourself through searching by the dates mentioned in the various historical sources. But to make it easier for you to locate these fearful dates I shall cite just a few of them right now. If you wish, you can look up their historical confirmation for yourself. Everybody knows today, including you, Vladimir, how children and elderly people are perishing from terrorism in Israel. It was not all that long ago that what you call the Great Patriotic War2 took place. And it is well documented how during that war the Jews—old people and children, mothers and young pregnant women, young men who had not yet known love—were systematically burnt in ovens, poisoned with gas and buried alive in common graves. Not just one person, not an hundred, not mere thousands, but millions of people were brutally slain during this brief period. Historians lay the blame squarely on Hitler. But who was to blame back in 1113, in Kievan Rus’,3 when popular hatred of the Jews suddenly boiled over? Jewish houses in Kiev and other parts of Rus’ were plundered and burnt, while Jews—even children—were killed. The people of Rus’, caught up by a brutal rage, were ready even to topple the ruling princes from their thrones. And when the princes gathered together within council, they decided to pass a law expelling all Jews from the whole territory of Rus’ and henceforth letting none in. An order was given to rob and kill any who surreptitiously entered therein. In 1290 there was a sudden move to effect the physical extermination of all Jews in England. The rulers were obliged to eject the whole Jewish population from the country. In 1492 Jewish pogroms began in Spain. A threat of physical annihilation hung over all Jews living in Spain, and once again they were obliged to leave the land. Right from the moment when the Jews left the Sinai wilderness they became the target of hatred by peoples of various countries. The hatred kept increasing, and here and there manifested itself in cruel pogroms and murders. I have cited just a few dates of these fearful pogroms—ones that you can easily verify for yourself in histories people have written down. There have been many more conflicts besides for the Jewish people. Any one of them by itself is naturally not as significant as the instances everybody knows about. But when the range of small-scale conflicts is examined as a whole, it takes on an unprecedented scale and proportion, perhaps the most extreme of all the most terrifying phenomena in human history.

If something like that has happened throughout the millennia, one could conclude that the Jewish people are to be blamed in people’s eyes. But what are they to be blamed for? Historians both ancient and modern have said that the Jewish people have conspired against authority. That they have aspired to deceive everyone, from the least unto the greatest. In the case of the poor, to try to trick them out of at least a little, in the case of the rich, to bring them to utter ruin. And this is evidenced by the fact that among the Jews there are many wealthy people capable of even influencing governments. But there is one question you should ask yourself: How righteous are the ones who have been deceived by the Jews? The ones that had amassed such wealth, did they acquire it all by honest means? As for those condemned to be in authority, can we believe them to be so smart if they could be so easily deceived? Besides, most rulers are dependent on someone else, as the Jews have demonstrated quite clearly One could go on exploring this topic for a long time, but the answer is simple: in the Occult world everybody lives by deceit. Then should we only condemn the one who has succeeded in achieving more than the rest?4 And as far as the Jewish people are concerned, we could easily substitute any one of the other peoples we know today Any one—if they were subjected to the same totally unprecedented programming as the Jews were during their forty years of wandering in the wilderness, heeding only occultism and not seeing what had been created by God. Jesus tried to remove this programming and save his people. He came up with a new religion for them—one different from what they had before. For example, in contrast to the previous saying: “an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth”, he said: “whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also”.5 In contrast to the verse which said: “God hath chosen thee to be a special people unto Himself” he called his people “the servants of God.”6 Jesus could also have told the truth to his people. He could have told them about Vedic times, about how Man was able to live happily in his domain, in contact with the creations of the Father-Creator. But the Jewish people were already programmed. They believed only in occult deeds, their consciousness was oppressed by the world of the unreal. And so Jesus decided to act in an occult manner himself. He founded an occult religion. The High Priest at the time was able to guess Jesus’ intention. The High Priest racked his brains for many a year before he found what he considered the smartest solution: There is no point in fighting Jesus’ teachings. Through

the minds of the soldiers I have selected from among the Jews I must spread them through all the peoples of the Earth, while maintaining the old religion for Israel. And so it happened, exactly as the High Priest had conceived. And two essentially different philosophies began to coexist. According to one, the Jews are a chosen people, as Moses taught, and all other peoples ought to be subject to them. According to the other, expressed in Jesus’ words, all are equal before God, and people should not try to take precedence over others; instead one should love one’s neighbour and even one’s enemy. The priest realized that if the Christian religion, which calls everyone to love and humility, should succeed in spreading throughout the world, and at the same time Judaism, which elevates one over the rest, is preserved, the world would be subdued. While the world might bow before the Jews, they are but foot-soldiers. The world would actually be bowing before the priest. And the priest’s preachers went out into the world as earnest teachers of the new doctrine. The doctrine of Jesus? Not quite. The priest had by now added a great deal of his own teachings to it. What happened thereafter you already know. Rome fell. It was not external foes, however, that destroyed the great empire. Rome was destroyed from the inside after adopting Christianity. The emperors were under the impression that Christianity would enhance their power and authority They were quite flattered by one of the postulates, namely, that all power was derived from God, and that the ruler was ordained to the Emperor’s throne by God’s grace.8 In the fourth century A.D. Christianity celebrated its victory in Rome, both officially and in actual fact. In great delight the High Priest gave a silent, non-contact command to the Byzantine emperor. And Christian Rome burnt the Library of Alexandria* to the ground. Altogether 700,033 volumes were lost. Bonfires of books and ancient scrolls burned in many cities. The burnt books were largely from the heathen period, but they also included the few that recorded the knowledge of Vedic people. These were not burnt—they were salvaged, concealed and studied in turn by a narrow circle of the devoted, and only afterward were destroyed. It seemed to the High Priest that now that people were getting farther and further away from a knowledge of their pristine origins, he would encounter no more obstacles on his path. Feeling bolder, he issued yet another tacit command, resulting in an anathema being issued at the Second Council of Constantinople7 against the doctrine of reincarnation. For compare Rom. 12:1: “there is no power but of God: the powers that be are ordained of God.

“ {Authorised King James Version). The Library of Alexandria [footnote appearing in the Russian edition]—the most famous library of antiquity, containing every single work in existence at the time. In Caesar’s time its collection numbered something on the order of 700,000 items. In 391 ADD., during the time of bloody wars between the heathens and the Christians, the Temple of Sarapis, which housed the library, was destroyed.—Slovar’ antichnosti (Dictionary of antiquity), Progress Publishers [Moscow], 1989. what reason?—you may ask. To keep people from thinking about the essence of earthly life. To keep them thinking that a happy life exists only beyond the Earth’s borders. And many peoples of the Earth began believing precisely that. The priest was truly delighted. He knew what would happen next. He construed that since nobody had experienced other-worldly life, Man would have no idea of how to reach Paradise the Good or how to avoid ending up in a fearsome Hell. So now he would offer to Man a little occult hint which would favour his own plan. And so the priests have kept on giving out hints to the world which bring benefit to themselves. But they were not able to immediately obtain full power over the world, even when it seemed to them that the strongest bastion of heathen culture, Rome, was destroyed. Even then, there still remained on the Earth one small island which was impervious to the priests’ usual charms. Even back before Rome, even before the appearance of Jesus’ teachings, the High Priest had aspired to destroy the culture of the last Vedic state—Rus’. 7 1 See Book 3, Chapter 15: “A. bird for discovering one’s soul”. 2 Great Patriotic War (Russian: Velikaya Otechestvennaya voina)—the common Russian term used to refer the events of the Second World War that directly involved Russia or the Soviet Union. 4 Vladimir Megre has always emphasised in his writings and public speeches that any individual should be judged by his actions and not by his religion, ethnicity, nationality or race. The raising of the ‘Jewish question’ in this chapter is aimed solely at exposing the roots of (and thus helping to alleviate) the inter-ethnic conflict and the anti-Semitic feelings so prevalent in today’s Russia and elsewhere in the world. See also Book 7, Chapter 16:

“To Jews, Christians and others”. 5 See Exod. 21: 24; Matth. 5: 38,39 (quotation from the Authorised King James 6 Version). 7 Second. Council of Constantinople (also known as the Fifth Ecumenical Council)—an assembly held at Constantinople (5 May-2 June, A.D. 553), summoned by the Byzantine Emperor Justinian and attended mainly by Eastern bishops. Its purpose was to head off ‘contamination’ of official Christian doctrines by ‘heretical’ Christian-based teachings such as reincarnation and Nestorianism (a belief in Jesus as two persons, human and divine).

CHAPTER SEVEN

The secret war with Vedic Rus’ The war with Vedic Rus’ began long before Jesus’ appearance on the Earth, long before the fall of Rome. This thousand-year war was not waged with iron swords. Occultism executed its military raids on a non-material plane. Preachers of the occult religion came to Russia—dozens of their names are mentioned in various ecclesiastical books. But they actually numbered in the tens of thousands. They were not to blame for their ignorance. They were fanatics, which means their mind was unable to fathom even the millionth part of creation. As foot-soldiers to the priest, reverently carrying out his orders without so much as a murmur, they attempted to explain to people how to live. They tended to say exactly the same things they had said when preaching to once-majestic imperial Rome. They tried introducing ritual. And proposed the construction of temples, instead of paying attention to Nature or earthly existence. Then the kingdom of heaven would come for everyone. I shall not burden you by reciting their sermons. If you wish, you can still read their words today I shall tell you why for thousands of years they did not succeed in doing anything with Vedic Rus’. Every other person living in Rus’ at that time was a poet and a wit. And there were bards in Rus’—they were called bayans1 back then. And this is how it all took place in those times. For decades the priest’s foot-soldiers waged a propaganda campaign to the effect that God had to be bowed down to. And here and there people began to listen and reflect on the message. Upon seeing this, the bayan would simply laugh and make up a parable, which he would then sing. And the parable would quickly spread throughout Rus’. And over the next ten years or so Rus’ would have a good laugh at the priests’ sermons. The priest was furious and launched new attacks. But once again in Rus’ a parable would be born, and Rus’ would laugh once more. Of all the many parables of those times I shall tell you just three. In which temple should God dwell (Anastasia’s first parable) In one of the many populated settlements on the Earth people went happily about their daily life. In this particular community lived ninety-nine families. Each family lived in a splendid house decorated with fanciful woodcarvings. The garden around the house brought forth fruit every year in

abundance. Vegetables and berries grew all by themselves. Every year people met the spring with joyful greeting and delighted in the summer. A series of cheerful friendship celebrations brought forth songs and khorovods2 In the 1 wintertime people rested from their daily exhilarations. And they looked up to the heavens and tried to decide whether they might be able to weave the Moon and the stars into even better patterns. Once every three years in July those people gathered in a glade at the edge of their community Once in every three years God would respond to their questions in an ordinary voice. Even though He remained invisible to ordinary eyes, each one could feel Him. And He, together with all the residents of the community, decided how best to build their life in the days to come. The people’s conversation with God might be philosophical, but sometimes quite simple and even funny. So, for example, one middle-aged man stood up and addressed God this way: “C’mon, now, God, for our celebration this summer, when we all gathered together with the dawn, You decided to drench us all with a monsoon? The rain poured down like a waterfall from heaven, and the Sun began to shine only around noon. What, did You sleep in till noon?” “I was not asleep,” God replied. ‘At this morning’s dawn I thought about how to make your celebration truly glorified. I saw how some of you on their way to the celebration were too lazy to wash themselves with clean water. How so? Such reprobates would spoil the show with their appearance. And so I decided to first wash everyone, and then have the clouds sweep in and allow the rays of the Sun to caress the water-washed bodies with tenderness.” “Well, okay, if that is how” the man agreed, brushing off food crumbs from his moustache and wiping the blackberry stains around his son’s mouth. “Tell me, God,” asked an elderly and pensive philosopher, “there are many stars shining in the sky overhead. What does their fanciful alignment mean? If I should select a star that is pleasing to my soul, and then when I get bored with my earthly life, could I remove there with my family?” “The alignment of the heavenly bodies twinkling in the dark tells about the life of the whole Universe. An alertness in your soul, but without tension, allows you to read the Book of the Heavens. This Book will not open for idleness or curiosity, but only for pure and meaningful thoughts. And yes, you can settle on a star. And each of you can choose for yourself a planet in the heavens. There is only one condition that you must observe. You must

become capable of producing on your selected star creations more perfected than those produced on the Earth.” A very young girl jumped up from the ground and tossed her light-brown braid of hair over her shoulder. Raising her little face with its turned-up nose heavenward, she placed her hands saucily on her hips and suddenly declared to God: “I have a complaint to make to you, God. For two years now I’ve waited patiently to tell you about it. Now I shall tell you. Some kind of disorder or abnormality is taking place on the Earth. All the people are living as people —falling in love, marrying and being happy. But am I to blame for something? Every year, just as soon as spring arrives, my cheeks break out into freckles. There is nothing that’ll wash them off, and I can’t paint them over. Did you think this up as some kind of a joke, God? I demand that as of next spring not a single freckle ever appears on my face again!” “Oh, My daughter! Those are not frecldes, but spring speckles that appear on your beautiful little face each spring. But I shall call them as you wish. If you find your freckles to be such an annoyance, I shall remove them come next spring,” God answered the spunky girl. But then a handsome young lad got up at the other end of the glade, and meekly addressed God, though not in a loud voice: “We have a lot of work ahead of us in the springtime. You, God, try to take part in everything we do. Why would you waste your time on removing her freckles? Besides, they are so beautiful that I cannot picture a more beautiful image than a young maiden with freckles in the spring!” “So what am I to do?” God thoughtfully responded. “The maiden asked, and I promised her” “What’s this about ‘what to do?” the girl once more broke into the conversation. “You heard the people say it’s not freckles, but other more important things, that we should be concerned about But while we’re on the subject of speckles, I’d like to ask for two more—right here, on my right cheek, so that it’s all symmetrical.” God smiled—this was evident from the fact that all the people were smiling. Everybody knew that it would not be long before a new splendid family would be lovingly born into their community. So the people lived with God in that remarkable community And then one day a hundred wise-men came to see them. The hospitable residents always greeted guests with all kinds of good things to eat. The wise-men tasted their splendid fruit and were amazed at its extraordinary flavour. Then one of them said:

“Oh, people, what a splendid, orderly life you lead! You have abundance and coziness in every home. But your communication with God lacks sophistication. There is no glorification or adulation of Deity.” “But why?” the residents tried to protest in alarm. “We talk with God the way we talk with each other. We talk and reason with Him every three years. But every day He rises with the Sun. As a bee He busies Himself around the gardens beginning in every spring. Every winter He covers the ground with snow. His tasks are clear to us, and we are glad for all the seasons.” “You are doing things the wrong way,” said the wise-men. “We have come to teach you how to talk with God. All over the Earth an array of temples and palaces has been built in His honour, where people can talk with God every day And we shall teach you to do the same.” For three years the residents of the settlement heeded the words of the wisemen. Each of the hundred insisted on his own theory about how to best construct a temple to God, and what should be done in the temple each day Each of the wise-men had his own theory The residents of the community had no idea which of the hundred wise theories they should choose. Besides, how could they choose without offending the wise-men? And so they decided to heed them all and build all the temples proposed. One for each family But there were only ninety-nine families in the village, and there were a hundred wise-men. When they heard the decision of all the residents, the wise-men became very concerned. It meant one of them would not get his temple built, and would not receive the anticipated offerings. And they began arguing among themselves as to whose theory of worshipping God was the most effective. And they began dragging the residents into the dispute. The dispute heated up, and for the first time in many years the villagers forgot about their time of communication with God. They did not gather as before in the glade on the appointed day. Another three years went by. Ninety-nine magnificent temples were scattered about the settlement, and it was only the villagers’ huts that had lost their lustre. Some of the vegetables lay uncollected on the ground. And the fruit of the garden began to become infested with worms. “This is all because,” the wise-men preached in the various temples, “you do not have fall faith. Bring more and more gifts to the temple, try harder and bow down to God more often.” But there was one wise-man—the one who had been left without a temple— who whispered first to one, then to another: “You have been going about everything the wrong way, people. All the temples you have built are of the wrong construction. And you do not

worship the right way in your temples, you are not saying the right words as you pray I am the only one who can teach you how you can communicate with God every day” Just as soon as he managed to bring someone over to his side, a new temple would be erected, and one of the existing ones would fall into disrepair. And again one of the wise-men, the one newly deprived of the people’s offerings, tried to surreptitiously slander the others in front of the villagers. A number of years passed. Then one day the people remembered about the gatherings they used to have in the glade where they heard God’s voice. Once again they gathered in the glade and began asking questions in the hope that God would hear them and give an answer as before. “Answer us, how did it happen that our gardens are bringing forth worminfested fruit? And why do our vegetables no longer yield an abundant harvest every year? And why do people quarrel, fight and argue amongst themselves, but cannot possibly choose the best faith? Tell us in which of the temples we built for you do you dwell?” For a long time God did not answer their questions. And when a voice finally sounded in space, it was not a happy voice, it sounded weary. God answered those gathered: “My sons and daughters, the reason for the desolation in your houses and the gardens around them is that I am simply not able to do everything by Myself. Everything has been designed by My dream right from the start in such a way that I can create splendour only in conjunction with you. But you have in part turned away from your homes with their gardens. Creation is something I cannot ever manage on My own—there must be co-creation by the two of us together. Moreover I want to say to you all: you yourselves include love and freedom of choice, and I am ready to follow your aspirations with My dream. But you must tell me, My dear daughters and sons, in which of the temples I am to dwell. Before me you are all of equal worth, so whereabouts should I reside so that no one feels left out? When you have decided on your own in which of the temples I should make my home, I shall be glad to follow your collective will.” After responding to all with these words God fell silent. The people of the once beautiful village are continuing their conflict even to this day. Their houses are filled with desolation and dust. Around them the temples rise higher and higher, even as the conflict grows bitterer and bitterer. “Well, Anastasia, that is quite an unrealistic, fairy-tale parable you told. There must have been some pretty dumb people in that settlement. Didn’t they realize that God wants to work with each one of them to care for their garden? Besides, you say that those dullards in the settlement are still

arguing, even today And where is that settlement, in what country? Can you tell me?” “I can.” “Then tell me.” “Vladimir, you along with people from different lands are living in this very settlement right now.” “Eh? Oh, I see, precisely: we are the ones! We are still engaged in a dispute about whose faith is better. While our gardens are full of worm-infested fruit!” The best place in Paradise (second parable) Four brothers came to a gravesite to honour the memory of their father who had died many years before. The brothers wanted to know whether his soul was dwelling in Paradise or in hell. They were all eager for their father’s spirit to appear before them and tell how it was doing in the next world. Their father’s image appeared before them in a wondrous radiance. The brothers were awed and their hearts were afire when they saw this miraculous vision. When they finally regained their composure, they enquired: “Tell us, Father, does your soul dwell in Paradise?” “Yes, my sons,” their father replied, “my Soul delights in a wondrous Paradise.” “Tell us, Father,” the brothers started asking, “what fate awaits our souls after our own flesh dies?” And the father responded to each of his sons in turn with a question of his own: “Tell me, my sons, how do you appraise your deeds to date upon the Earth?” And each brother answered his father in turn. The elder son began: “I have become a great military leader, Father. I have defended my native land against its foes, and never allowed an enemy foot to tread upon it. I have never offended the poor and infirm. I have endeavoured to take good care of the soldiers under my command. I have always honoured God, and therefore I hope to enter into Paradise.” The second son replied to his father: “I have become a prominent preacher. I have preached goodness to the people. I have taught them to worship God. I

have reached great heights and achieved high standing among my peers, and therefore I hope to enter into Paradise.” The third son replied to his father: “I have become a prominent scientist. I have designed a great many devices to benefit people’s lives. I have raised a large number of handsome buildings for mankind. Each time I start a new construction project, I give praise to God and celebrate and honour His name, and therefore I hope to enter into Paradise.” The youngest brother answered his father: “I, Father, cultivate a garden and work daily at raising vegetables. From my splendid garden I send fruits and vegetables to my brothers and try not to do anything dishonourable or displeasing to God, and therefore I hope to enter into Paradise.” The father replied to his sons: “Your souls, my sons, will indeed dwell in Paradise after your flesh dies.” The vision of their father faded. Tears went by, the brothers died and their souls met in the Garden of Paradise, only the soul of their younger brother was not among them. The three brothers then began to call out to their father, and when he once again appeared before them in his wondrous radiance they asked him: “Tell us, Father, why is the soul of our little brother not among us in this Garden of Paradise? It has been a hundred earthly years since we last spoke with you at your gravesite.” “Do not be concerned, my sons,” replied the father. “Your little brother’s soul, too, is dwelling in the Garden of Paradise. Only he is not here with you right now because your little brother is at this moment communicating with God.” Another hundred years went by, and once again the brothers met in the Garden of Paradise. But again their younger brother was not with them. And again the brothers called for their father. When he appeared, they asked: “See, another hundred years has gone by, but our little brother has not come to meet us, nor has anyone seen him in the Garden of Paradise. Tell us, Father, where is our little brother now?” And the father answered his three sons: “Your little brother is communicating with God, and that is why he is not among you.” And the three brothers began asking their father to show them where and

how their younger brother was communicating with God. “Take a look,” the father replied. And the brothers saw the Earth, and there was the marvelous garden which their little brother had cultivated during his life. In this wondrous earthly garden their brother, looking so much younger, was explaining something to his child. His beautiful wife was busying herself nearby. The brothers asked their father in astonishment: “There is our little brother in his earthly garden as before, not in the Garden of Paradise as we are. What is he to blame for before God? Why has his flesh not died? Several centuries have passed in Earth years, and here we see him as a young man? Does that mean God has somehow changed the order of the Universe?” And the father answered his three sons: “God has not changed the order of the Universe, which He established right from the start in great harmony and inspired love. Your brother’s flesh has died, and on more than one occasion. But the place of one’s soul in the Garden of Paradise is best created by one’s own hands and soul. Just as for any loving mother and father the child of their own creation is always the most glorious. According to the Divine order of things, the soul of your little brother should assuredly be granted entrance to the Garden of Paradise, but seeing this garden is on the Earth, it is immediately incorporated into a new body in the earthly garden so dear to it.” “Tell us, Father,” the brothers went on, “you were saying that our little brother is communicating with God, but we do not see God with him in his garden.” And the father responded to his three sons: “Your little brother, my sons, is looking after God’s creations—the trees and the grass—they are the Creator’s own materialised thoughts. In treating them with love and conscious awareness, your brother is thereby communicating with God.” “Tell us, Father, shall we ever return to the Earth in fleshly form?” the sons asked their father. And they heard him answer: “Your souls, my sons, now dwell in the Garden of Paradise. They can take on earthly form only if someone creates a garden for your souls on the Earth similar to the one in Paradise.” The brothers exclaimed: “Gardens are not created with love for other people’s souls. We ourselves, once we are given a fleshly form, shall cultivate a Garden of Paradise on the Earth.”

But the father replied to his sons: “You were given that opportunity already, my sons.” After this response the father began to quietly withdraw. But once again the three brothers cried out and asked their father: “Dear father, show us your place in the Garden of Paradise. Why do you withdraw yourself from us?” The father stopped and replied to his three sons: “Look there! Do you see that leafy apple tree flowering beside your little brother in his garden? Under that apple tree is a little cradle, and in that cradle is the beautiful body of a tiny infant that has just wiggled its little hand as it begins to awake. My soul is alive in that little body After all, that was the marvelous garden I began creating myself” The wealthiest groom (third parable) I shall make a few changes in this parable to put it in a modern-day context. In one village lived two neighbours. The families were friends with each other, and enjoyed working their land. Every spring gardens bloomed on the two plots, and their little groves of trees grew taller. Into each family a son was born. After their sons had matured, one day, while gathered around a festive table, the fathers took a firm decision and handed everything over to their sons’ control. “Let those sons of ours now decide what to sow and when,” one of them said to the other. “And you and I, my friend, shall not oppose them, or even give them hints or questioning looks.” “Agreed,” replied the other. “Let our sons even make changes around the house if they wish. Let them choose the clothing they like, and let them decide what livestock and other things to buy.” “Line,” replied the first. “Let our sons become self-sufficient. And let them choose worthy brides for themselves. We shall go together, my friend, to seek brides for our sons. And this is the decision that emerged from the two friends and neighbours’ conversation. Their idea was supported by their wives, and the families began living under their grownup sons’ administration. But thereafter the two families’ lives significantly diverged. In one family the son became an active member of the community and paid his respects to everyone, which led to his being defined as the ‘first citizen’ of the village. The other son seemed to be slow and serious of mind to all around; he came to be called the village’s ‘second citizen’.

The first neighbour’s son felled and sawed up the trees of the grove his father had planted and hauled them to market. He bought himself a family car in place of his horse, along with a small tractor. The first son here was considered very enterprising. The new entrepreneur calculated that the coming year would see a sharp increase in the price of garlic, and he was not mistaken. He pulled up all his plantings and sowed his fields with garlic. His father and mother did their best to help him in everything—they had made a promise and it was not forsaken. The family sold the garlic at a profit. They set about building a huge mansion using the most modern materials invented and hired construction workers. And the enterprising son did not relent—he spent from morning ’til night trying to figure out what the most profitable crop would be to plant in the spring. And by winter’s end he had calculated that this spring’s most profitable crop would be onions. And again he sold his harvest at a profit, and bought himself a fancy new car. One day the two neighbours’ sons met along the road. One was driving a car, the other a wagon harnessed to a frisky mare. The successful entrepreneur stopped his car and the two neighbours had a conversation. “See, neighbour, I’m driving a fancy car, while you’re getting around in a horse-drawn cart just like before. I’m building a big house, while you’re still living in that old house of your father’s. Our fathers and mothers have always been friends, and I too am ready to help you in a neighbourly way— if you like, I can tell you what is the most profitable crop to plant your whole field with today” “Thank you for your willingness to help,” responded the second neighbour from his wagon, “only I happen to cherish a great deal my freedom of thought, indeed I do.” “I certainly don’t want to encroach on your freedom of thought. It’s just that I sincerely want to help you through.” “I thank you for your sincerity, good neighbour. But freedom of thought is eroded by non-living things—that car, for example, you are sitting in.” “How can a car erode? It can easily overtake that old farm-cart of yours, and by the time you get to the city I’ll be able to have my business all taken care of. And all thanks to my motor car.” “Yes, your car, of course, can certainly overtake my wagon, but it requires you to sit behind the wheel and hold on to it constantly as you drive, while you as the driver have to keep jerking some kind of stick with your hand and looking continually at the dashboard and the road. Maybe my horse is slower than a car, but it doesn’t require any attention, and doesn’t distract

my thought either. If I should take a snooze, the horse will find its own way home. You say you have problems with fuel, whereas my horse fills itself up in the pasture over there. Anyway, tell me, where are you in such a hurry to get to in your car?” “I want to buy some spare parts to keep on hand. I know exactly what could go wrong with my car at any moment.” “So, you know enough about technology that you can accurately predict all your breakdowns?” “Yes, I’m pretty good at that! I took special mechanics courses—for three years in all I swotted through. If you recall, I asked you to join me in those courses too.” “So for three years of your life you had only this technology to give your thought to. Something that can get old and break down.” “Your horse, too, will get old and die.” “Yes, of course, she will get old. But before that happens she will be able to give birth to a foal. The foal will grow, and I shall be able to ride him. What is living will eternally serve Man, never fear, while what is dead only shortens his years.” “The whole village makes fun of your ideas,” remarked the entrepreneur. “They all think of me as successful and wealthy, while they see you just sit and live off your father’s fortune. Besides, you haven’t introduced any new species of trees or bushes on your father’s land, not even a bit.” “But I’ve come to love these. I’ve been trying to understand each one’s purpose and how they interact with each other. And I’ve been able to invigorate the ones starting to wither, just by looking at and touching them. Now, come each spring, everything is blossoming in harmony, all by itself, requiring no outside attention. It’s just waiting eagerly for summer, and then for the fall when it will offer up its fruit for the year.” “Really, friend, I must say you are queer,” sighed the entrepreneur. “You walk around entranced with your domain, your garden and your flowers. At the same time, you say, you are giving freedom to your thoughts.” “Yes, I am.” “What do you need a free thought for, anyway? What’s the point in freedom of thought?” “So that I can make sense of all the grand creations. So that I can be happier myself, and help you.” “Me? What’s got hold of you? I can marry the best girl in the village, any one of them will go for me. They all want to be rich, live in a spacious house and ride in my car.”

“Being rich doesn’t mean being happy.” “And being poor?” “Being poor isn’t so good either.” “So if you’re not poor and not rich, then what?” “You ought to have just enough of everything. Being self-sufficient—that’s not bad either. And be consciously aware of what’s going on around. After all, it’s not by chance that happiness can be found.” The entrepreneur grinned and quickly went on his way. A year later the two neighbouring fathers got together to talk. They decided it was time to be courting brides for their sons. When they asked them which of the village girls they would like to wed, the entrepreneuring son replied to his father: “The daughter of the village elder really appeals to me, Father. I would rejoice to have her as my wife.” “I can see, my son, that you have made an excellent choice. The village elder’s daughter is renowned as the most beautiful girl in the county All the visitors to our village from both near and far are entranced at the sight of her. Mind you, she can be quite capricious. The girl has a mind of her own that even her parents can’t figure out. Some people might think her strange —more and more women keep coming to her from various settlements for advice and to be healed of their ills, and they even bring their children to see this young girl.” “What of it, Father? I’m made of sterner stuff. In all our village there is no more spacious house or better car than mine. Besides, twice now I have seen her give me long and thoughtful looks.” On being asked which of the village girls he most fancied, the second son told his father: “I love the village elder’s daughter, Father.” “And how does she act toward you, my son? Have you noticed a look of love in her eyes?” “No, Father. Whenever I happen to meet her, she lowers her eyes.” Both neighbours simultaneously decided to woo the maiden for their sons. Arriving at their house, they seated themselves sedately. The village elder summoned his daughter and told her: “Look, my daughter, two matchmakers have come to see us. On behalf of two young lads, each wishing to have you to wife. The three of us have

decided that you should choose from the two. Can you tell us your decision now or would you like to think about it until tomorrow morning?” “I have spent many mornings thinking about it in my dreams, Father,” the young girl quietly said. “I can give you my answer right now.” “So tell us. We are all eagerly awaiting your decision.” The beautiful girl answered the matchmakers like this: “Thank you, fathers —thank you all for enquiring. I thank your sons for desiring to join their life with mine. You have indeed raised splendid sons, and it might have been very difficult to choose to which of two destinies I should myself resign. But I do want to have children, and I want my children to be happy, to stand tall in prosperity, freedom and love, and so I have fallen in love with the one who is wealthiest of all.” The father of the entrepreneur rose to his feet in pride, while the other father sat glumly in his chair. But the girl went over to the second father, knelt down before him, and said, without raising her eyelids: “I wish to live with your son.” At this point the village elder rose to his feet. He wanted to see his daughter living in what was deemed by all the richest house in the village, and so he said to her rather harshly: “You spoke correctly, my daughter—your smart reasoning brought gladness to your father’s heart. But you for your part did not go and kneel before the richest man in the village. Someone else here is the wealthiest. This is he.” And the elder, gesturing to the entrepreneur’s father, added: “Their son has built a spacious home, honey They have a car, a tractor and money” The girl went over to her father and responded to his harsh and bewildering words: “Of course you are right, Papa dear. But I was talking about children. What use will our children have for those things you mentioned? The tractor can break down while they are still growing up. The car may rust and the house fall into decay.” “That may be—maybe what you say is true, granted. But your children will have a great deal of money, and they can buy for themselves a new tractor and a new car and new clothes.” ‘And just how much is ‘a great deal’, might I ask?” The entrepreneur’s father proudly stroked his beard and moustache, and answered solemnly and seriously: “My son has heaps of money—enough so that if he needed to buy three of

everything our household already has, he could do so all at once. And those horses our neighbour keeps, we would be able to buy not just two, but a whole stable full.” The girl meekly lowered her eyelids and responded: “I wish you and your son great happiness. But there is no amount of money on the Earth that would buy a father’s garden where every branch reaches out in sheer love to the one cultivating it. And no money in the world can buy the loyalty of a steed that has played with a child as a colt, "four domain may indeed make money, but my beloved’s domain will make a space for sufficiency and love.” A change of priestly tactics During the thousand-year war the priest changed his tactics a number of times, but all to no avail. Rus’ still laughed, as before, at his occult intrusions. The people referred to those preachers as miserable wretches. At that time wretchedness was not equated with physical affliction but with occultism. People in Rus’ took pity on the wretched preachers, they fed them and offered them shelter, but did not take any of their sermons seriously. After four hundred centuries the priest realized he would never achieve victory over the Vedic land. He accurately determined wherein the extraordinary power of Vedism lay Vedism was based solidly on a Divine culture. Everyone’s way of life was Divine. And every family created in its domain a Space of Love, they felt the wholeness of Nature and, consequently, of everything God had created. What happened in Vedism was that people spoke with God through Nature. Instead of bowing down before Him, they attempted to understand Him. They loved God as a son and daughter love their kindly parents. And so the priest came up with a plan which would be able to break this dialogue with the Divine. To this end it was necessary to separate people from their domains, from the Divine gardens, from their co-creation together with God. It was necessary to divide the whole territory where the Vedic people lived into different states and to destroy their culture. New preachers went to Rus’. They put a new approach into practice. This time they sought out people in whom selfishness—pride—dominated even just a little over the other energies of feelings. Whenever they found such a Man, they tried enhancing the sense of pride within him. This is how they operated: Imagine a group of stately-looking elders arriving at the home of a happy family But there is no attempt, as before, to preach or teach them how to live. On the contrary, they all at once bow down before the head of the

household, present him with outlandish gifts and say: “In our far-off land we climbed to the top of a high mountain—the highest mountain on the Earth. Standing at the summit, above the clouds, we heard a voice from heaven telling us about you. And it was told to us that you are the wisest of all people on the Earth. You alone were chosen, and we are honoured to bow down to you, present you with our gifts and wait upon your words of wisdom.” And if they saw the Man taking their bait, they would continue their sly talk: “It is your duty to make all other people happy—the voice told us so on the mountain-top. YOU should not waste your valuable time on other concerns. You should be in charge of people and make decisions for them—decisions that have been entrusted to you alone. And here is your heavenly headdress.” At this point a head-dress decorated with precious stones was presented to the Man as though it were the grandest treasure. And so the head-dress was placed upon the head of the Man who now believed in his own majesty and his chosen status. And at that very moment all the visitors fell to their knees before him in great reverence. And they began to praise heaven for the honour of being worthy to bow before this majesty. Next, the foreign visitors built him a separate house to live in that looked very much like a temple. This is how the first princes rose to power in Vedic Rus’. The new prince’s neighbours looked upon this Man sitting on his throne in the temple as some sort of curiosity They watched as the foreign visitors bowed before him, indulged his every whim and plied him with all sorts of questions. At first they took this scenario for some kind of game from overseas, and some decided, either out of curiosity or out of compassion, to play along with the foreigners and with their neighbour. But people gradually got drawn into the game. And little by little they sank into a state of serfdom, and without their realizing it, their thoughts turned more and more away from co-creation. It was not easy for the priest’s emissaries to get the princedoms established. In the beginning, for more than a hundred years, their attempts proved unsuccessful. But still it finally came about, and Vedic Rus’ was carved out into princedoms. And then events took their natural course: the princes began fighting over who was greater, and dragged their neighbours into internecine feuds. Later historians would claim that grand princes arose who managed to join the isolated princedoms of Rus’ together into one mighty state. But think for yourself, Vladimir—could that really have been so? And what kind of

unification exactly do the historians have in mind? It is all very simple, in fact. Yes, one prince was able to kill or conquer others. But people can be united only by culture and a way of life. The setting up of borders always indicates separation. Once a state was established, not on the basis of a cultured way of life but on the artificial greatness of one or more people by virtue of their armies, a whole lot of problems immediately made themselves heard: how to maintain those borders and expand them as the opportunity occurred—and so arose the need for a sizeable army. A large state cannot be governed by one Man alone—so clerks and scribes soon appeared, and they have been multiplying each day right up to the present time. The princes, clerks, scribes, merchants—and all their servants —together form a category of people who have been separated from God’s creations. Today their functional designation is the creation of an artificial world. They have utterly lost the ability to perceive true reality, and so constitute fertile soil for occultism. Only a thousand years ago Rus’ was considered pagan. Paganism still carried within itself a lingering sense of the Divine Vedic culture. With the advent of the princes and their princedoms—first little princedoms, and later large ones—the rulers found they needed a force more powerful than an army A force capable of creating a type of Man inclined to unquestioning submission to authority. Here too the priest’s messengers came to the ruling princes’ assistance and offered them a suitable religion. The essence of this new development was very much to the princes’ liking. Though there was hardly anything new in it. It contained everything that Egypt had had five thousand years earlier. Like the pharaoh, the prince was considered to be appointed to his position by God. The occult ministers of the new religion were his advisors—again, just as in Egypt. Everyone else was a mere slave. It was not a simple task to inculcate the new order into the minds of free people whose memories could still savour the celebrations of Vedic culture. And so once again the priest came to the princes’ aid. His foot-soldiers began spreading false rumours to the effect that there were pagan settlements where people were being more and more frequently sacrificed to God. It was noised abroad that pagans sacrificed to their gods not just various animals but also beautiful girls, or young men, or even little children. This false rumour is still rampant among us today. More and more it became a source of anger to the pagan people. And now here was this new religion being offered which placed a strict prohibition on burnt sacrifices. It talked

about equality and brotherhood—exempting, of course, the princes. Thus this new religion was little by little introduced into pagan Rus’. Eventually one of the ruling princes decreed that Christianity be recognised as the only true religion in the land, Rus’ came to be called Christian and all other religions were banned. Now let anyone whose forebears—mothers and fathers—were called pagan just a thousand years ago ask themselves this question: did pagans really sacrifice either animals or people to their gods? And the true picture of events will become clear to anyone who is able to do at least nine minutes of logical reasoning. And you, Vladimir, once you have applied your own logic to the discovery of the truth, can see the facts for yourself. I shall be glad to give you a little help. First ask yourself a logical question: If pagans, as their accusers claim, actually offered up someone as a sacrifice to God, then why did the mere rumour about such offerings so greatly trouble their mind and feelings? It would have been more logical in that case to welcome such claims and enthusiastically try to repeat them, instead of greeting them with outrage and accepting the new religion’s entreaties. But the people were outraged— why? Naturally, because the pagans could not entertain even the thought of sacrificing animals, let alone people. That is why no one can come up with even a single source in support of burnt sacrifices among the people of pagan Rus’. It was only the chroniclers of Christianity that claimed that. But then they never lived in pagan Rus’, and did not even know the language of pagan Rus’. And what about the sources and manuscripts of pagan Rus’ itself? Some of them were hidden, some were burnt in bonfires, just as in Rome. What exactly was seditious in those scrolls? What did they disclose? Without being able to read them, everyone today can make their own guess. They would have exposed the falsity of the accusations against paganism. And they could have transmitted the knowledge of Vedism. There was more to it than the fact that none of the people of pagan Rus’ ever indulged in burnt sacrifices. They did not eat meat at all. They could not even imagine such a thing. They were friends with the animals. Their daily diet was varied enough, but it was strictly vegetarian. Who can come up with a single recipe from ancient Russian cuisine that even mentioned meat? No one! Even our epic folk tales tell about how the turnip was respected in ancient Rus’, about how the people drank mead-beer. Let anyone today, even meateaters, try drinking this warm mead made from flower pollen and herbs— after drinking that, you will not want to eat anything else, certainly not meat.

Those who force themselves to do so may find the meat will only make them vomit. Besides, judge for yourself, Vladimir, why should anyone eat meat when all around them a whole lot of easily digestible, high-energy food was available? During the winter bees feed on nothing but honey and pollen, and so can go the whole winter without excreting at all. The whole intake is assimilated by the bee’s body. And sbiten’— a drink made with boiled honey—was always served to guests directly they entered the home. And who would start eating meat after tasting a sweet drink? It was the nomads that introduced meat to the world. There was hardly any edible fruit to fend for in the prairie-lands and deserts they moved about in, and this is why they ended up killing cattle. And the nomads ate the meat of those animal herds that served as their beasts of burden—animals that carried their belongings, fed them with milk and gave their wool for clothing. Thus the culture of our forebears was destroyed, and Rus’ was plunged into religion. If the people had learnt genuine religion, purely Christian, it is possible that life would have turned out differently. But the priest managed to inject his own twists into the Christian teachings. And the one religion became subject to various interpretations. And the Christian world became divided into a multitude of denominations, often in conflict with each other. The High Priest spent a great deal of effort on Rus’. In other places on the Earth people saw what he was doing and did not permit his preachers within their borders. Japan, China and India did not become Christian. But the High Priest won them over by another way. The Age of Occultism began one thousand years ago. People all over the Earth lived in the Age of Occultism. And are still living in it today. CHAPTER EIGHT

Occultism It lasts only a thousand years. During the Age of Occultism mankind is plunged into a world of unreality Mankind begins to direct its tremendous store of diverse energies toward made-up images and abstract worlds existing beyond the boundaries of real life. The real world with its diversity receives less and less of the lifecreating warmth of Man. It maintains its existence only at the expense of

past accumulation and its original charge from the Divine. Mankind ceases to fulfil its main purpose. It becomes dangerous for the Universe, and planetary-scale disasters take place. Today all mankind still lives in the world of the occult. But that age ended in the year 2000. Of course, in reality the name 2000 is a misnomer. You know yourself that only recently the traditional year-count was radically changed. The latest temporal borderline represented the millionth anniversary of civilisation on the Earth. And as always a global disaster was slated to happen. More specifically, mankind was supposed to launch a new attempt toward populating the Universe through its own perfection. But no disaster occurred during any year of the Occult Age. It took only three of the Vedic people who were not asleep to partially remove the soporific occult spells from people today Remember how the hearts of those reading your books began to flutter and recall their love for the Earth? They are still asleep, but the power of God’s Vedic culture is coming back to them. And God is gaining new hope. While still not fully awake, they through their love averted a disaster. Now it will not happen on our planet. Soon all people will come out of the hypnotic occult sleep. They will start coming back to reality. Are you surprised that mankind today is either asleep under a hypnotic spell or dwelling in an unreal world? You might wonder: How can that be? Here I am, and in the cities both large and small there are millions of people living Cars go up and down the streets. You should not be all that surprised by my words, Vladimir. Think about it and judge for yourself—at what times, on what day or at what hour do people actually live in a real world? Think, for example, how many different religions there are on the globe. They all have a different interpretation of Man’s being and the order of the Universe, and each has its own set of rituals, distinct from the others. Let us say that there is indeed one religion which is truer than all the rest. But that would mean that the worlds the rest of them are creating are unreal. But after all, people believe in them too. And if they believe, they live in submission to the laws of the unreal world. All over the Earth greater and greater numbers of people are wanting to have more money But what is money? It is simply a convention. People think that everything can be bought with money. That is an illusion. No amount of

money can buy the true energy of Love, or a mother’s feelings, or one’s Motherland, or the taste of fruit intended only for the one who grew it with mindful attention. As a convention, money can be used only to buy conventional, conditional love—along with a multitude of soulless things around—but in the process you are dooming your soul to a state of loneliness. In the Occult Millennium mankind is completely disoriented as to the Space created by God. And people’s souls simply flounder about as though in darkness. Look closely, Vladimir. Just over the past hundred years in the country where you live, look how society has kept changing its direction. There was a tsar, the social elite functioned according to prescribed behavioural rites, and people of prominence were decorated with various emblems, medals and orders with coloured ribbons. They wore goldembroidered uniforms. And monasteries and temples were built throughout the country where you live now. And then all of a sudden that was considered contemptible. Uniforms, medals and the ribbons attached to them came to be considered no more than clown outfits. Temples were part of the dark ages. Those who served in the temples were called swindlers. And people enthusiastically sacked the temples and angrily slew the occult servers therein. Later it was announced to all that only the Soviet authorities were to blame. Yes, the authorities did officially encourage the people to do this. But then the people did not protest—they simply responded to the call of their ruling idols. After all, you know from documents existing today how in the Kuban’1 forty-two Christian priests were brutally slaughtered. Not just killed, but brutally tortured. Their bodies were tossed in cesspools. This was not just the work of the rulers, the people themselves willingly participated in such acts. The rulers’ only role was to allow them to happen. As a result, priests were slain by the thousands in different parts of the country The ones that could not run ended up renouncing their faith. Very few in those times managed to save both their life and their faith. The majority of the people in the country became sincere atheists. They changed their clothes; the emblems and ribbons on their uniforms became different, with different colours. Many analysts and historians have written books about the Soviet years, but In the future Lenin and Stalin will be remembered for just one thing : For the first time mankind has been shown clearly that occultism is obsolete. Even in their sleep people do not accept occult religions. Occultism is supported only by artifice and force. But, you

see, it was not their faith in God that was destroyed. It was only the occultism that had infested their faith that was brought down. Over the past millennium, in Russia alone a startling change of philosophy has managed to occur among the people as a whole. Religion became significantly denigrated and people’s faith in it was transferred to communism, though that too is a faith. Quite recently, you saw yourself how once again the people in the country where you live sharply changed their direction. The path everybody in the country had been enthusiastically following was declared to be the wrong one. And priorities changed once more. Did the people choose a new way? No way! The path is not at all clear to the people. In the unreal world of the occult the people do not choose their own path. Someone always points it out. But who? The High Priest, who still today rules the world. How does he rule the people of the modern world? And why can nobody ever overthrow him? Where is he located? Take a look—I can show him to you. ** The priest who still rules the world today Now you see an elderly man. Do not be surprised at his modest appearance. In terms of clothing and behaviour he is indistinguishable from most other people, and as you can see, he is surrounded by ordinary things. And his house is not that big—his staff comprises just two servants. He has a family: a wife and two sons. But even his family do not know who he actually is. And yet he does have one outward distinguishing feature: if you observe him closely, you can see that he spends the whole day in isolation. And on his face you can see the depth of his meditation. Whenever he eats, or talks with his wife (although their conversations are rather rare), his eyes look as though they are concealed behind a foggy film. And even when he watches television, his eyelids are slightly lowered, he never shows surprise and never laughs. In fact he hardly watches any television at all. He merely pretends to watch, and during this time he is deep in intensive thought. He is working out grandiose plans. And exercising control of events in whole countries. He is the High Priest from a dynasty of priests, having inherited from them a knowledge of the occult, which he will also be able to transmit to one of his sons. It will take him just a year to convey everything orally to his successor, whom he is training in secret without his even knowing it— the priest has long been developing specific abilities within his son. All the world’s money belongs to the High Priest. All the world’s money

works for him—including what you have in your pocket right now. Do not be surprised. I shall show you how this happens, and by what means and for what reason the High Priest prefers not to live in a castle surrounded by an army of guards, why he prefers commonplace routines to special luxury. The High Priest has no bodyguards because he knows perfectly well that the more visible authority is to all, the greater the need for armed protection. Besides, there is no guarantee that any number of bodyguards, even hundreds of thousands, will succeed in protecting any earthly ruler. Indeed, there have been instances where the guards themselves betray or even kill the ruler. Besides, having bodyguards may entail a lot of problems. There are times when the ruler is compelled to submit to the guards’ terms. Compelled to tell the guards about his intentions—forthcoming trips, for example. With a bodyguard a ruler is always under observation, and so meditation becomes more difficult for him. It is much simpler and more reliable to conceal one’s identity. This also wards off intrigues on the part of one’s adversaries, fanatics and challengers to one’s authority Now you may well be thinking: But how is it possible to control huge numbers of people without assistants, managers and deputies, without drafting laws and disciplining those who fail to carry them out? It is all very straightforward. The vast majority of the people have been immersed in occultism for a very long time. The High Priest knows all the tricks of occultism. He does have assistants, managers, drafters of laws, prisons and executioners. He has armies and commanders, though not a single one of those who carry out his missions has any suspicion himself of who is secretly commanding him and by what means the orders are issued. It is a simple system of control without visible and personal contact. In cities both large and small of any country there are people who all at once start to hear voices from a source they cannot pin down. And this voice from an unknown source may order a Man to carry out some kind of action, and the Man obeys the order. Sometimes there is a clearly audible voice, sometimes this Man does not know himself what is happening to him—it is just that he feels some kind of attraction within and he carries out the action ordered. This kind of phenomenon is known to modern science. Psychiatrists along with other scientists have been attempting to study it for a long time, but to no avail.

Modern science classifies this kind of phenomenon as a type of mental disorder. People who go to doctors and report hearing voices coming out of nowhere and giving them orders are invariably carted off to a hospital. What kind of hospital? A psychiatric institution. In many countries these are very much like prisons. There are a great many of them today in America, Europe and Russia. Patients are treated with all sorts of pills and injections to quiet the mind—this dulls their sensations, making them sleep a lot and become extremely sluggish. And some of these people stop hearing voices as such. Others feign cure in an attempt to procure their release. But not everyone who hears voices will go see a doctor. Just imagine now that someone submitting to a voice command is in charge of an atomic missile, or in command of an army, or assigned to guard a container of deadly bacteria. And this voice then gives him a bizarre order. Science has not been able to define the exact nature of this unusual phenomenon. It definitely exists today, and they are afraid to publicise it, but that does not help. In the meantime, they should have been focusing their attention on something more basic: if there is a signal receiver, there must somewhere be a signal transmitter as well. The High Priest and his assistants know how to transmit voice-commands. They also know what kind of Man each of the many religions is capable of shaping. The priests are the originators of these religions, of occultism itself. They need it in order to control people. The fanatic who believes in the unreal world is like a bio-robot, predisposed to hear the voice-commands and to carry out any order unquestioningly. The High Priest and his assistants know how to set people at odds with each other and start wars among people of different faiths. Wars may have different specific causes, but in any war the basic weaponry has consisted of discrepancies in people’s beliefs. All technology and all artificial information channels are similarly controlled by the priests through people. And for this they do not have to control every television broadcast themselves or look over every reporter’s shoulder as he writes. They need only create a general condition whereby all media are out to make money. Television advertising, for example, has become more and more sophisticated, intrusive and aggressive. Any psychologist will tell you that it is nothing less than aggressive mental suggestion aimed at individual viewers—often not to their benefit, but to their harm. People are shamelessly told that commercial advertising cannot be helped—that is what pays for the programmes people watch. But then every TV viewer pays for all these adverts by purchasing products at the suggestion of the advertisers.

Advertising costs are included in the retail price of the product. What can be more sorry than a situation like that? And money acts as a huge and powerful lever for the priest’s influence. I told you that even the money you have in your pocket right now serves the High Priest. Here is how it all happens. A simple pattern may be observed in the convoluted banking system we have: money withdrawn by someone from a bank increases the bank’s capital. For example, let us say Russia as a country borrows on credit from an international bank. It is then obliged to pay back with considerable interest much more than it originally borrowed. How is the difference made up? From the taxes you pay—or, let us say, even when a pensioner buys a quarter-kilo of bread, a tax is also included as a percentage of the price. And that percentage, or at least a part of it, goes to the international bank. Thus capital flourishes, but whose? The High Priest’s. Without even touching the capital himself, he is able to direct the flow of money into wars, occult activities or the production of deadly medicines. His goal is simple. Pride dominates in him, and it constantly aspires to create its own world, distinct from the world God made, and hold it in subjection. And the priests partially succeed in achieving the objectives they desire. People’s concerns about their everyday lives are a great help to them in this. And they themselves stir up concerns among the people to distract them. Note how when people are distracted by everyday concerns they do not notice that less and less information is being provided them. There are stricter and stricter prohibitions on bringing up the one basic question: is the path to which all mankind is now aspiring the right one? If they could only free themselves from distraction, many might be able to come to a conclusion for themselves: seeing how every year diseases are on the rise, wars are not ceasing and each day brings greater and greater disasters, the path we are on is doubtful, to say the least. But oh the distractions! They do not allow for any kind of contemplation. The priest, on the other hand, is engaged minute by minute in meditation, creating designs and having them carried out by the hands of millions of people 2 clarification along the way; This time I stayed longer than usual in the taiga. As I was leaving, I realized I was suffering from information overload and that it would be difficult for me to set everything down in a book. Besides, the things she said were so extraordinary, raising questions about religion and authority. In our religious denominations today there are a great many fanatics, all kinds of them. They are ready to go after anyone who

encroaches on their beliefs! What do I need these problems for? CHAPTER NINE

A need to think After I got home and was preparing this book to submit to the publisher, I still couldn’t decide, even up to the last moment, whether or not I should include all of Anastasia’s sayings in the manuscript. When Anastasia spoke of a splendid future for Russia which could be realized through the establishment of family domains, everything she said made sense. Her idea quickly caught on among my readers. People began to act. Then in the book Who are we? when in an emotional answer to a question she referred to Christ Jesus as her older brother, and I wrote about it,1 a number of readers, mainly faithful Christians, began to object. In the book before that, I had written how, in answer to my question as to whether she might name any clerics who could understand her, she replied that Pope John Paul II would help her.2 This prompted fresh doubts on the part of a few Catholic readers. Such sayings of hers left me with a constant series of doubts of my own: should I write in my books about Anastasia’s unusual actions, words and behaviour? Are they beneficial or harmful? Will they not cause some readers to entertain doubts about the obvious practical ideas of transforming society through the improvement of the living conditions and way of life on the part of individual families? r

See Book 5, Chapter 23: “Your desires”.

2

See Book 4, Chapter 24: “Take back your Motherland, people!”.

Besides, I wasn’t completely free of doubt in regard to the content of her sayings—now I ask you, what am I to make of phrases like “Christ Jesus’ sister” or “Pope John Paul II will help”? If you look through the Bible, there is no mention anywhere that Jesus had any brothers or sisters. And then all at once there occurred an event that could be called supersensational, and in connection with this Anastasia’s unusual sayings again and again gave me pause for reflecting on the tremendous scope of Man’s true possibilities. This is what happened. All at once I heard that the Vatican had publicised sources mentioning two

of Christ Jesus’ sisters. Only I don’t remember whether they were sisters or cousins I heard this brief news report while I was alone in my apartment, taking care of some routine tasks. The radio and the television were both on at the time, and so I can’t say for certain where I heard it. I think it may have been the TV news. After hearing this, each time I sat down at my desk I couldn’t help picking up my notes with Anastasia’s unusual sayings, which I had previously decided not to include in the new book. Now I was having second thoughts about whether I had made the right choice. Among these sayings there was this one in particular: The American President, George Bush, in a highly unconventional move, without being aware of it himself, will save his country from a terrible disaster and protect the world from a war unprecedented in its potential destructive influence over the whole Earth. Following the disastrous acts of terrorism in America on 11 September 2001 and the subsequent military operation (war, in fact) in Afghanistan with direct American involvement, this saying of Anastasia’s seemed to completely contradict what actually happened. However, upon analysing the information available in the press and on the TV, I became more and more convinced that the events of 11 September in America could help people uncover a major mystery—could help head off even larger-scale, global acts of terrorism in various countries of the world. And they will be averted only providing this secret is exposed. Again and again I read over all Anastasia’s extraordinary sayings. And here is what I discovered. On 11 September 2001 in the United States of America there occurred a series of large-scale acts of terrorism. Several jets with passengers aboard took off with unknown pilots from New York airports and immediately altered their scheduled flight path. One after the other the planes tore into the twin towers of the World Trade Centre along with other strategic targets. Over and over again gruesome images of the crashes lit up TV screens all over the world. Soon afterward Osama bin Laden and his organisation were declared to have masterminded the attack. A little while later the American President and government secured the support of a number of European countries and Russia and began bombing Afghanistan, where, according to available intelligence, the chief culprit and members of his organisation were hiding out. So then, what is the mystery here? After all, images of the results of these terrorist acts and the ongoing anti-terrorist military operation were shown many times over and are still being used in TV news clips several times a day.

The mystery lies in the complete absence—or cover-up—of the causes of the acts of terrorism—in the complete absence of logic, not on the part of those who carried them out but of those who thought them up. The mystery lies in the fact that the press didn’t even try to make even a half-way significant analysis of the causes of what happened, as though somehow all the mass media had been issued an injunction not to investigate them. What we see and hear in the media on a daily basis touches upon only the fact of what occurred. The constant repetition tends to make the extraordinary commonplace, something as routine as the daily reports of highway accidents. According to media briefings this is what happened: Some extremely wealthy terrorist—generally assumed to be bin Laden, planned and carried out through his agents a series of notorious acts of terrorism which resulted in a huge number of casualties and exerted an unprecedented effect on people the world over. Just what, in sum, did the mastermind behind these terrorist acts achieve? A significant part of the world community, on the head-of-state level, united against him. The most up-to-date technology and well-trained military units were employed to capture and destroy him. According to the official version, terrorist Number One is hiding out in caves in the Afghan mountains. These mountains have been bombed from the air, along with Taliban forces, considered as collaborators with the mastermind. The developed countries, led by the USA, have joined forces to put an end to all the camps of terrorist organisations, no matter what country such camps are located in. Could the mastermind have failed to foresee the subsequent development of events? Sheer nonsense! Of course he knew that it would happen precisely that way. For a man able to evade capture by the special forces for such a long time, to plan and carry out terrorist acts requiring serious analysis and calculation, it should not have been a difficult task to calculate the course of events which followed. Thus it turns out that this mastermind, from one point of view, is an astute strategist and tactician capable of meticulous analysis, while from another standpoint he is an utter fool. It turns out that through his terrorist activities he has brought doom upon himself, his organisation and all terrorist organisations, even those not connected with him. The situation is utterly illogical and, consequently, the actions of the world community in the struggle against terrorism may not be effective—and, if

the full truth be told, dangerous, since logic dictates that the mastermind behind a terrorist act remain above suspicion. Be that as it may, one thing is clear: the picture of events that emerges from the facts reported in the mass media is a highly illogical one. In the beginning, of course, I, like many other people, didn’t pay much attention to this, but The news from America immediately resurrected in my thought several of Anastasia’s sayings—sayings which I had decided to refrain from publishing because of their strange and extraordinary nature. But now, after what happened in America, these same sayings explain a lot. Though it didn’t become clear right off, by any means. Here’s one example: Right from the time of the Egyptian pharaohs, the rulers of states both large and small have been the least free people on the Earth. They spend the greater part of their time in an artificial information field, compelled to submit to accepted rituals of behaviour. They constantly receive a tremendous amount of routine and monotonous information, but time constraints do not allow them to analyse even that. If a ruler should make the transition from an artificial information field to a natural one even for just three days, this is something dangerous for all levels of the priesthood. Dangerous, too, for the ruler’s secular rivals. The danger lies in the possibility that the ruler might start analysing a whole range of processes on his own, thereby freeing himself from the yoke of occult influences and freeing his people from them. A natural information field is Nature at large—its appearance, fragrances and sounds. It is only the Nature of one’s own domain—a place where flora and fauna treat Man with love—that can protect Man from occult influences on him. Now, as I sat at my desk (made of the cedar wood which Anastasia had given to me), I recalled these words, though this time they no longer seemed strange to me, as they had before. Indeed, look at what is happening, even with our own President of Russia. He is constantly meeting either with foreign heads of state or with officials from our own country None of them just stop by to take tea—they come with all sorts of problems, and are impatient for an immediate solution. And the press? No sooner does some sort of unusual event happen in the country than immediately the press wonders what the President’s reaction will be. Or more bluntly: Why didn’t the President himself go to Ground Zero? And he wins approval ratings when he actually visits the place where a flood or something else happened. But is that a good thing? And when does he have time to calmly think about and analyse the information coming in? Give us the President! the people demand the

moment something occurs. That’s the way it happens. That’s the way it’s scripted. But what if it were scripted another way? The President should not be dashing off in all directions like a firefighter. He shouldn’t be briefing officials, wasting time on meetings. It is essential that he be given the opportunity to sit in his own garden, and from that perspective follow what is going on in the country, then analyse the incoming information, and from time to time take some kind of decisions. Perhaps then the people, too, would start to live better. “What kind of nonsense is that?” many might react, as I did at first. Nonsense? But is it normal not to give someone the chance to think? Indeed, there is someone who finds it very profitable for the presidents of various countries to think as little as possible. What would happen in our country if our President were given uninterrupted time to quietly think about things? What if he were afforded the opportunity to step out of the artificial information field, at least for a time? And all at once I was struck by a thought which made me feel as though an electric current was running through my whole body. All at once I could feel my desk warming up. An incredible stroke of intuition hit me For some reason in my excitement I grabbed the telephone receiver and, without dialling any number (since she doesn’t have a telephone) I cried into the mouthpiece: Anastasia! There was no customary dial tone. And a moment later I heard a familiar voice, easily distinguishable from all other voices in the world—the calm, pure voice of Anastasia, saying: “Hello, Vladimir! YOU should try not to get so excited. You see yourself what unnatural actions excessive excitement can lead to. I shall not talk with you on the telephone. Please, calm down. Get up from your desk and go out into the fresh air, into the grove of trees near your house.” The dial tone returned. I put the receiver down. Wow! I thought, I really did get stirred up. I wonder whether that was really Anastasia talking to me or was I just hallucinating from excitement? I really must go outdoors into the fresh air and calm down. A short time later I got dressed and went out to the grove of trees next to the house. Deep in the grove I caught sight of her! There was Anastasia, standing under a pine tree, just by the side of the pathway, and smiling. Not paying any attention to her extraordinary arrival, I began talking immediately Who saved America? “Anastasia, I’ve got it I did some analysing, comparing your sayings with the events which took place in America, and it all became clear Listen to

me, and correct me if I’m wrong. The series of terrorist acts which occurred on 11 September in America—it wasn’t complete. The organisers were preparing something a lot bigger, weren’t they? Of course they were. Only I can’t fill in the details. In general, I think, I’ve got it. But the details Can you help me here?” “I can.” “Then tell me.” “The mastermind behind this was counting on six terrorist groups to act in succession. Each of the six groups was to act independently at its appointed time, without knowing anything about each other. And their leaders did not know who was behind it all or what the ultimate goal was. Each group was made up of religious fanatics, ready to die for the cause. “Only one group was comprised of people who had agreed to carry out the dirty deeds for money. “The first group was to simultaneously seize control of all civil aircraft in the skies over the country, as well as those taking off from airports and those approaching American airspace. All the seized aircraft were to be used to destroy targets of national importance. “Six days prior to this another group was to infect the water-supply system in twenty major hotels. The plan was drawn up in such a way that it would be virtually impossible to trace the source of the infection and the location of the perpetrating agents. Each agent was supposed to take a room in one of the hotels, place a special device on the cold-water tap and open the tap. Instead of water flowing from the tap, the air pressure would force a deadly powder back into the whole system. After this the tap would be shut off and the following morning the perpetrator would be making his way to a hotel in another city. “The bacteria released into the water-supply system would become glutinous upon contact with the water, sticking to the sides of the pipes, swell up, multiply and flow downward. In twelve days they would have proliferated a great deal. In an ordinary, natural-water setting they would be incapable of proliferating—they would be destroyed by other bacteria. But such a balance is absent in an artificial supply system, where Man has deprived the water of many of its natural properties. “During peak consumption periods—when people would be washing themselves in the morning, for example—the water flow would cause a part of the bacteria to come loose, and contaminated water would come out of the tap. People washing themselves would feel nothing at first. But after eight to twelve days small abscesses would appear on their skin at an

increasing rate. They would grow in size and suppurate. The disease would be highly infectious and very difficult to cure, though the attack organisers possess an antidote. “A lot of people would be infected in many countries. Soon it would be discovered that these people had all stayed at hotels, but this would become evident only after the planes crashed. “It pains me to talk about the wretched deeds to be carried out by the other perpetrators. The net result of all the acts of terrorism taken together were designed to produce a climate of panic and dread. “Many people would begin leaving the country, taking their families with them. They would attempt to relocate their capital to banks in lands where they considered it less dangerous to live. But not every nation would agree to accept refugees from the USA. Most countries’ populations would be gripped by fear and terror—especially if what had been considered the most powerful state in the world could not cope” “Stop, Anastasia! Let me try to guess. After that the masterminds would announce themselves—I mean, put forward their demands through some kind of intermediaries.” “Yes.” “But they didn’t succeed in carrying out all the attacks they had envisaged. They didn’t succeed in wholly frightening Americans. They didn’t manage to do everything they had planned because they were forced to start acting quite a bit before they were fully prepared. That’s how the illogicality arose. The terrorist acts took place, but they didn’t follow through with any demands. The whole process got cut off! And I think I can guess why. Because the real masterminds are to be found among the priests who are alive today. And they were frightened by Bush’s actions and were obliged to jump the gun. Right?” “Yes. They” “Wait, Anastasia! I’ve got to understand all this for myself—I’ve got to learn how to understand. This is very important. If I can get it, that means others like me will also be able to discern the reality we live in. That means everybody will understand what must be done to better our lives.” “Yes, Vladimir. If you have been able to understand, other people will too. Some right off, with others it will take time, but people will start building their lives in a splendid reality Go on, only a little more calmly—there is no need to get so emotional about it.” “But I’ve almost got myself calmed down now. Or maybe not. This is hard

to talk about without getting emotional. But hey!—The President of America, Bush, has really stirred things up for those smart asses. I realized how horrified they must have been when he When President Bush all at once upped and left for his ranch in Texas. “Just six months after taking office, the President takes a holiday and goes away for close to a month! And where does he go? Not to some fashionable resort. Not to some exotic castle. He goes to his ranch, where he has a small house. Even the usual lines of presidential communication are missing. All he’s got there is one very ordinary telephone. And no proliferation of TV channels, seeing he hasn’t got a satellite dish. The media commentators mentioned these facts, but nobody realized what was behind them. I read on the Internet everything I could about Bush’s trip to his ranch. Just the fact was stated. They were surprised that he took a holiday so early in his mandate. And for such a long time. He spent twenty-six days at his ranch. He didn’t allow any press people to visit, and didn’t invite a bunch of officials. “Nobody, but nobody, understood! Here was George Bush, the President of the United States of America, taking a colossal step which not a single president had ever taken before in the whole history of the country. Maybe not a single ruler has ever thought of doing something like that over the past five or ten thousand years!” “You are right, they have not.” “The beautiful thing is that for the first time the ruler of a huge country, the most important country in the world, much to the horror of all the priests, suddenly tore himself away from his artificial information field. He simply picked himself up and left it behind. And with that he came out from under the control of the occultists. “Now I understand: rulers are always kept under control. Their daily pronouncements are vigilantly followed, right down to their intonations and facial expressions. Their actions are subject to correction through all kinds of information tossed their way. But when Bush escaped from that field they were horrified. They tried reaching him through occult means—you know, the way you put it, through remote voice commands. But that didn’t work— they didn’t reach him! Just as you said—d’you remember? You said that Nature—the flora and fauna—constituted the natural world, and it does not permit harmful occult influences to reach Man. It protects Man, provided Man has made contact with the natural world—the one he has created himself.” “Yes, that is it, exactly” “George Bush, of course, evidently did not create what was growing on his

ranch. But he was the one who selected the location. He treated it with love —love for the Nature there, which is obvious from many facts. And Nature reacted to his love. It responded to him in kind. It protected him in the same way as the vegetation growing in one’s family domain. Is something like that possible, Anastasia, when someone hasn’t planted things himself, yet they still react?” “It is possible. Sometimes they will react when Man treats his surroundings with sincerity and love. A similar thing happened in the case of George Bush.” “So there! I was right. Here was the President on his very own ranch. Everybody thought he wasn’t receiving any information. But in actual fact the flow of artificial information from the artificial world significantly lessened. And the flow of natural information from the world around him significantly increased. The President took it in through the rustling of the leaves, the splashing of the water, the singing of the birds and the whistling of the wind, and he meditated. He analysed! He thought! This fact is something they will try to ‘wipe out’, to forget, or to refrain from talking about. They’ll try to change the subject. But they won’t succeed! Bush will still go down in millennial history. “I’ve got it, Anastasia. Of course one can say a lot of intelligent things and write a lot of songs and poems, like King Solomon did in the Bible. Or one can act more radically and convincingly, like Bush, and thereby say to the world: Look here, people. I’m rich, I have supreme power over the strongest country in the world. But none of this is the most important thing for Man’s being. Man’s soul, along with its Divine essence,prefers something else: not an artificially created world, but the natural world, created by God. My ranch is dearer to my sold than gold and technocratic achievements. And that is why I am going to my ranch. You too should be thinking people, about your aspirations in life! “The American President has come up with the best, the strongest and most convincing advertisement for the family domains you spoke of. The future family domains of Russia—of the whole world! If people don’t understand it after this, then mankind really is asleep. Or just about everyone’s under somebody’s hypnosis. And that’s why they’re sick and in agony, that’s why they use drugs and go to war and kill each other. If mankind doesn’t come out of this hypnosis after your words, after Bush’s actions, then it’s going to take a disaster. “Bush is the President. He’s the most informed person in our technocratic world, since he has access to information from special services and various

think tanks. And he is aware of the information offered by the natural world. He can do comparisons and analyses. He did this and showed with his actions. “Wait—another incredible coincidence. No, a whole series of coincidences ---- if, indeed, they are coincidences. You were saying You say things, and they come to pass You told me that at the start of the new millennium the Russian President would pass a law concerning the land, to grant every Russian family a hectare of land free of charge. “Well, on the 21st of February 2001 all the TV news programmes carried a report on a session of the State Council of governors under the chairmanship of the Russian President, Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin. The session looked at the land question—specifically, private ownership of land, including farmland. The various governors assembled had different opinions on the question. The majority of regional leaders—members of the State Council— were in favour of making land available to Russians as private property. “Judging by his remarks and his address, as well as by the fact that he was the one who had put the land question before the State Council, it appeared that the President was also in favour of allocating land to people as private property with the right of inheritance. “And so the upshot of the session was a directive to the government to prepare draft legislation on the land issue by May of 2002 and present it to the State Duma for consideration. “Of course they’re talking about selling, not giving the land away for family domains, and farmland isn’t even on the table, but all the same, it’s a palpable step in the right direction. “Anastasia, is all this a chain of coincidences or did you exert some kind of influence on people? Eh? You can give remote voice commands too, can’t you? Of course you can. And you do. Have you been talking with them?” “Vladimir, I have not been talking with anyone except you, and that has only been today, on the telephone. I have not talked with anybody at a distance, as you suppose. And I never influence anyone against their will.” “But one time when I was in Moscow I could hear your voice, Anastasia. You weren’t around, yet I still heard your voice.”3 “Grandfather, Vladimir, was near you at that time. Many people can catch thoughts existing in space. It is a natural ability of Man. Earlier all people could do this, and there is nothing bad in it. Because there is no forcing. One Man can touch another at a distance with his thought-ray, send him warm cheer and thereby speed up the thinking process. Every Man possesses this thought-ray, only in varying degrees.”

Preference to Book 2, Chapter 25: “The Space of Love”. “But your ray is very strong—have you tried touching people with it?” “Yes, I have. But I shall not mention their names.” “Why not?” “The touch of the ray is not important here. What is important is their ability to perceive reality” “All right, then, don’t name names. Only Hey, I’ve got an idea! You know what I just thought of? It’s terrific! After all, you’re able not just to warm people with your ray at a distance, but to burn them too. You can even turn a stone into dust—you demonstrated that once.3 So what you should do is burn up the perpetrators of terrorist acts. Burn up the priests—along with all the demonic forces. You were telling me. I remember writing it down: ‘With my Ray I shall take but a moment to burn up the murk of age-old dogma. Stand not between the people and God’4 And so forth. You remember those words of yours?” “Yes, I do.” “Then what are you waiting for? Why don’t you burn them up? After all, you said that” “I was talking about dogmas. I would never dare burn up people with my ray” “Even the masterminds behind acts of terrorism?” “Even with them I would not dare.” “Why not?” “Think about what you are saying, Vladimir.” “What’s there to think about? Everyone knows the terrorism masterminds and their accessories need to be destroyed, right away. Armies of various countries have already been mobilised to this end. Special forces. People are dying.” “Their efforts are to no avail. They will never find and never destroy the real masterminds. They will never be able to stop terrorism that way.” “All the more reason. If you can pinpoint and burn up the masterminds and their accessories in a flash, then do it. Burn them up!” “Vladimir, perhaps you might give some thought to—you might determine —just who are the masterminds’ accessories, and how many of them there are?”

“Well, sure, I could think about that. Only I doubt I’ll be able to come up with an answer. If you know who, tell me their names.” “Very well. One of the accessories to terrorism is none other than you, Vladimir—along with your neighbours, friends and acquaintances.” “What? What are you saying, Anastasia? As for myself, and my friends too, I’m absolutely certain that we are not accessories.” “The lifestyle of most people, Vladimir, is fertile soil for terror, disease and all sorts of catastrophes. Is not someone who works in a factory producing machine guns and cartridges an accessory to killings?” “If they manufacture weapons, well, maybe, indirectly. But you were talking about me. And I don’t work in an arms factory.” “But you smoke, Vladimir.” “Well, yes. But what’s that got to do with it?” “Smoking is harmful, hence it follows that you are terrorising your own body.” “My own? But we were talking about terrorising other people” “Why bring up other people right off? Everyone should carefully examine his own lifestyle. Especially those who live in cities. Do people who ride in motor cars not know what deadly gas their motor car is polluting the air with? Do people who live in large buildings divided up into a whole lot of flats not know that it is harmful and dangerous to live in these apartments? The way life is organised in big cities is aimed at destroying Man and disorienting Man in respect to natural space. The majority of people who live that way—they are the ones who are accessories to terrorism.” “Well, let’s say you’re right. But now many are beginning to understand, and they’re going to change their lifestyle. So help people, burn up the masterminds of terrorism with that ray of yours.” “Vladimir, in order to carry out your request, I would have to charge my ray with a great deal of malicious energy capable of destroying Man.” “So, what of it? Go ahead and do it. After all, this Man is a mastermind of terrorism.” “I understand that. But before I can aim malicious energy at another, I would need to concentrate and produce in myself a large amount of this energy. Afterward it can inject itself into me again or be scattered in particles among other people. Yes, I can destroy the High Priest, but his program will continue to operate. And evil will find another priest, and he will be even stronger than the one I destroyed.

“You must understand, Vladimir, that terrorism, murders and crime are many thousands of years old. In Egypt the pharaoh was poisoned by the priests for trying to oppose their actions. When scientists opened his grave in the past century, they discovered that Tutankhamen was only eighteen years old. “You have read in the Bible about the war of the priests. You yourself might remember that it talks about it in the Old Testament. Before all the Jews were to come out of Egypt, the priests quarrelled among themselves. “The priest Moses asked for exclusive authority over the Jews, but the other priests would not accede to his request, and then the locusts came and attacked the Egyptian crops. Then a plague came over all their children. Many people and cattle fell victim to the disease. And finally the pharaoh let the Jews go. The residents of Egypt were so frightened they gave them cattle and weapons, as well as gold and silver. “In the Old Testament it says that God was behind these attacks in Egypt. But could such attacks really have come from God? Of course, they could not have. God creates life to be happy for everyone. The priests caused the terrorism in Egypt when they were attempting to divide the authority among themselves. And then they blamed God for their evil deeds. “Remember, too, Vladimir, how Jesus was crucified on the cross. Who was crucified along with him, on the crosses next to him? Criminals! That is what the New Testament says. And that was more than two thousand years ago. But they had crime back at that time too. They executed criminals. But what was the result? Crime still exists today It goes up with each passing day Why? Spending thousands of years in constant commotion, people have not realized that you cannot fight evil with evil. In that kind of a fight evil will only get bigger. That is why, Vladimir, I cannot respond to evil with malice.” “Well, either you can’t or you don’t want to—I don’t suppose it makes much difference overall. When you speak, Anastasia, your arguments are very weighty indeed. It is quite true that mankind has not been able to cope with lawlessness for thousands of years. Maybe they’ve been using the wrong methods all this time. Only when you look at the current situation in the world, no alternative to suppressing terrorism by armed force comes to mind. “And another thing: more and more often today we hear the term religious extremism. You’ve heard about that?” “Yes.” “And they even say: Islamic religious extremism. They say it’s the strongest

religious extremism of all.” “Yes, so they say” “So what’s to be done? After all, I have heard Islam is the fastest-growing religion today. Many of my acquaintances are Muslims, and these aren’t bad people, but on the other hand, there are also extremists among the Islamists. They engage in large-scale terrorist activities. How can we counteract them except with military force?” “The first thing is, not to lie.” “Not lie to who?” “To yourself.” “How so?” “You know, Vladimir, you have heard about Muslim religious extremism. Many people have been called terrorists. You are not the only one who knows that—people have been deliberately spreading the news all over the world. It is not difficult to make a lot of people believe a notion like that, when acts of terrorism are actually taking place and Muslims participate in them. But when we talk about Muslim terrorism, we forget about another weighty argument.” “Which one is that?” “Those that are called extremists and terrorists believe that it is they who are attempting to put an end to terror and save their people from calamities. And their arguments have substance to them. They believe that they are saving the whole world from the plague brought on by the Western, non-Muslim world.” “You said that their arguments have substance to them. But I have never heard anything about their arguments. If you know about them, please tell me.” “Fine, I shall tell you. But try to reason things through for yourself, and then tell me which of the two warring sides is right. The Muslim spiritual leaders say something along this line to their flock: Look, people, look at what the unfaithful bring. The Western world has sunk into the mire of promiscuity and adultery. It wants to inject its fearful diseases into our children too. Allah’s troops must stop the invasion of the unfaithful.” “Wait, Anastasia, those are mere words. Where are their arguments?” “They cite facts showing that promiscuity, prostitution and homosexuality are widespread in Western, non-Muslim countries. Crime is prevalent. And every day more and more people are using drugs. And they are unable to

stop terrifying diseases—AIDS, for example, and drunkenness.” “And you mean to say they don’t have any of that in the Muslim countries?” “Vladimir, in the Muslim world, in the Muslim countries, there are far fewer drunkards and smokers. There are far fewer cases of AIDS. Their birthrate is not falling as it is elsewhere and there is much less marital infidelity” “So, it turns out, both sides are convinced they are fighting for a right cause?” “Yes.” “So, what’s ahead?” “The priests believe they have already done everything necessary to initiate and spread large-scale war. The Western countries, the Christians, have joined together to attack the Muslim world. Following this, the Muslim world will come together, ready to fight. But the sides will not be equal: the Muslims have no modern weapons. Then, upon seeing their faithful brethren perish, they will get ready thousands of terrorists to make the Western world quit. War will start, but it will be stopped—they will not let it go ahead.” “Who will stop it?” “Your readers. A new world-view is being formed in them, different from the one that has prevailed throughout the past millennia. They are creating in their dreams. Once dreams begin to turn into reality, all wars and diseases will cease.” “D’you mean to say that this will come about when construction of family domains begins? But how do family domains relate to the cessation of conflicts and religious opposition throughout the world?” “The glad tidings of these domains will keep spreading throughout the world. People all over the globe will be roused out of their hypnotic incarceration, they will awaken from their millennial sleep. They will change their way of life and build a Divine world on the Earth with inspiration.” “Of course, Anastasia, if what you say begins to take place, and takes place everywhere on the Earth, then the world will indeed change. I know that you dream about this. You believe in your dream and will never betray it. And many people have understood your idea in regard to the family domains. These people are really starting to take action. “But, Anastasia, you don’t know everything. Come! Come to my flat, to my office. I have something I want to show you right now, and you will see, you’ll understand for yourself what these people are up against.” “We shall go, Vladimir, and you will show me what has troubled you so.”

Who is for, who is against? Upon entering the flat, Anastasia took off her cardigan and kerchief, letting her golden hair fall to her shoulders. She gave her head a light shake, and the flat was at once filled with the enchanting fragrances of the taiga. I took a chair and put it next to my own arm chair by the desk, turned on my computer and logged on to the Internet. Not all people in Russia today will know what that is. And so I shall give a brief explanation. The Internet is an electronic information network, or ‘web’, which has been developing at an intensive pace in many countries of the world. With the aid of a computer one can tap in (or ‘log on’) to this network through a telephone line connected to a server. A server is a special powerful computer containing all sorts of information pages. On most servers one has the opportunity of posting one’s own messages. The Anastasia Foundation for Culture and Assistance to Creativity, based in Vladimir,6 together with the Moscow firm known as Russki ekspress (Russian Express) has also set up its own server and its own site at the address: Anastasia.ru. Thus any readers with a computer can type in the address on their keyboard and not only visit our site, but they can send us an electronic message expressing their opinions about the books, find out what other readers have said about them, and argue or discuss any particular question. Those that do not have their own computer can gain access to our website through one of the Internet cafes which now operate in all the regional and provincial centres of Russia, as well as, I am sure, in most major cities. From time to time I too log on to the Internet and look up what my readers have been saying. I have not been able to do this very often, as I simply have not had time to respond to all the correspondence I receive by regular mail. And last year the Anastasia.ru site received more than fourteen thousand postings. People discussed concrete questions connected with Anastasia’s ideas on family domains. They suggested draft changes to the Russian Constitution; some were thinking to hold a referendum on this issue. The substance of Anastasia’s idea about granting every willing family no less than a hectare of land on which to organise a family domain was set forth in appeals to President Putin more accurately and with more cogent back-up arguments than I had expressed in my own appeal, published in the book Who are we?1 In any case, you can judge for yourselves. For those readers without Internet access I am reproducing here an excerpt from one of the appeals.

Open letter to the President of the Russian Federation Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin Dear Vladimir Vladimirovich, Over the years of Soviet power, which even today many of us still remember as the best years of our lives, a most frightful thing, you know, happened: we—the citizens of this Great Country, Russia, historically a mighty Power, which emerged victorious from the terrible Second World War and in an incredibly short period of time was able to build up its war-ruined economy —we transformed ourselves, without our even being aware of it, into weakwilled parasites and welfare bums. Look back—in Soviet times we all went to work without ever worrying about a job opening, and received a stable salary on which we could lead a normal life. We handed over our children to be schooled and were assured of their future. We knew that upon reaching retirement age we as pensioners would receive a stable pension and quietly live out our years And this stability, this mighty totalitarian system, played a dirty trick on us: having got accustomed to social passivity, social apathy and indifference, and now no longer enjoying access to a stable source of income, we have begun to get very upset. If you see, we did not start to take action or improve our lives —we just started vilifying and railing like the blazes at the powers that be— each President and each Government in turn—blaming them and them alone for our Present Situation. After all, we figure it is up to them to pay us a stable salary and take care of our present and our future, while we simply live our lives for our own pleasure, and do nothing to support this Stability and Prosperity I think you will agree that when there is movement only in one direction—that is parasitism. If all we want to do is receive and give nothing in return, well, that’s parasitism for you. And now something amazing has happened: thousands and tens of thousands have risen up under the impulse to make something happen, to create! To create—a splendid flourishing corner of their Motherland—- Russia. To create—a splendid Present and Future for themselves and their children. To create— their own Material and Spiritual Prosperity To create— Russia to be the wealthiest and most flourishing country in the world! And for that these people need nothing more than a small plot of land a mere hectare in size. Along with the assurance that this land will not be subsequently taken away from them—their Motherland, where they will Create for ever a Space of Love for themselves and their children. A Space

of Love—which will be comprised of all the flourishing corners of our vast Russia and proclaim to the Whole World the Great Miracle—the Renaissance of Russia the Great! It seems to me that even now in Russia a situation has come about that any Ruler—you can call him a President, if you like—might dream about: a situation where people themselves desire to work and create their own material and spiritual well-being, asking nothing from the state except a plot of land and a sign of stability expressed in Law. Isn’t this the dream of any state—to open up an inexhaustible source of wealth and well-being within itself, to find stability within itself and independence from external troubles? Dear Vladimir Vladimirovich! Like thousands of other Russian citizens, I should like to affirm once more my intention to create my little corner of my Motherland, Russia, to make it into a flourishing garden for many generations of my descendants. Like thousands of other Russian citizens, I hereby reaffirm my intention of labouring for the good of my family and for the good of my Motherland. Like thousands of other Russian citizens, I have stopped unthinkingly and relentlessly criticising either you or our Government, realizing the complexity and responsibility of your work. Like thousands of other Russian citizens, I believe in your wisdom and farsightedness, and am confident that you will take a responsible approach to appraising the current situation. The time has finally come for you and us to work together as a fraternal team, a team of like-minded thinkers, for us to understand and accept you as a close friend, and then you will feel our love and support and look after us, too, with love, as the People entrusted to your charge. And together we shall create a splendid Present and Future for our children, for our Russia! 20 July 2001 Vadim Ponomaryov, citizen of Russia They defamed our forebears too One day on my computer I opened up an Internet search engine, which lists all the various websites containing any key word you type in. I typed in the word Anastasia. And the monitor immediately lit up with an impressive list: 246 Russian-language sites, together with links to their web addresses. Still not believing that they all related to the Siberian Anastasia, I began following the links and familiarising myself with the content of these pages.

It turned out that the vast majority of them did in fact discuss at varying length the Siberian Anastasia. Her ideas were treated favourably on many of the sites. At first I was delighted by this, but as I delved deeper into the volume of information available on the Internet, I began coming up against an even more incredible phenomenon. Several of the sites offered a selection of articles from the press, along with anonymous messages, claiming that the movement associated with Anastasia was a sect, and all the readers of the books were categorised as sectarians. One of the sites featured a list (either full or partial) of the existing sects in Russia, and the list included Anastasia’ and her supporters. There was no mention of the basis for such a conclusion or of who was spreading such rumours—they were simply set forth as though they were a given fact that apparently everybody had known about for a long time. The articles and brief comments from various national and regional publications posted on different websites were very similar to each other, and they always came to the same conclusion: that the Ringing Cedars of Russia movement was either a sect or a business. The Anastasia movement was lumped in with such sectarian organisations as Aum Shinrikyo* and classified as a ‘totalitarian sect’. They even used words like ‘bigots’ and ‘destructivism’. No concrete facts were cited, just the conclusion, and that was it. *

Aum Shinrikyo (also spelled Senrikyo)— a Japanese Buddhist religious group founded by Shoko Asahara; some of its members were held responsible for the 1995 gas attack on a Tokyo underground (subway) line. In 2000 the organisation’s name was changed to Aleph (the first letter of the Hebrew and Arabic alphabets). In 2006, after years in prison, Shoko Asahara was sentenced to death. Not knowing the exact definition of the word totalitarianism, I looked it up in my Great Encyclopedic Dictionary9 and read the following: Totalitarianism is one of the forms of domination, characterised by its complete control over all spheres of a society’s life along with the virtual liquidation of constitutional rights and freedoms, also by repression of political opposition and dissenters (for example, the various forms of totalitarianism in Fascist Germany and Italy or the Communist regime in the USSR). Now that’s pretty steep! What they’re saying in effect is that I or Anastasia have been in control of some flashy totalitarian sect ready to overthrow authority, abolish constitutional freedoms and institute a fascist regime. But I categorically deny that I have had any governing role in any kind of organisation, all the more so in the case of Anastasia. Throughout the past

six years I have been working exclusively on my books, and once or twice a year I give talks at readers’ conferences which are open to anyone who wishes to attend. My talks have been recorded on tape, and anybody can have access to them. But why, for what purpose and by whom is this bald-faced lie being spread abroad? In one of the newspaper articles, this one in the Vladimir-region supplement to Komsomol’skaya pravda, it says that in the Anastasia books readers are encouraged to give up their city apartments and go off into the woods. How can that be? I thought. After all, Anastasia says the exact opposite. Here are her direct words: “There is no need to go live in the forest. You need to clean up the place you have been polluting first.”10 And she calls upon people to build their family domains near big cities, and gradually change their lifestyle to one more civilised and more favourable to one’s soul and physical health. 1 bayan (pron. bah-YAHN)—see footnote 4 in Book 4, Chapter 33: “School, or the lessons of the gods”. On the role of bards, see Book 2, Chapter 10: “The ringing sword of the bard”. 2 I spent a long time listening to Anastasia’s emotional narrative. I refrained from interrupting her or asking her for 3 See Book 3, Chapter 7: “Assault!”. 4 See Book 3, Chapter 24: “Who are you, Anastasia?”.

Not having the opportunity to personally review the tremendous amount of information, let alone analyse it, I turned to several well-known experts in political science to examine the situation independently of each other and draw their conclusions. Each of them asked considerable compensation for their work, given that they had to read through all five books plus the huge amount of information connected with the books which had been posted on the Internet. I had no choice but to accept their terms. Three months later I received the first expert’s conclusions and, not long afterward, the remaining reports. Even though they expressed their findings in different words, since they did not know each other and were working independently, they came to pretty much the same conclusions. I shall cite a few typical excerpts from one of the reports: There is a whole targeted, clearly formulated campaign directed against the Ringing Cedars of Russia series of books, with the aim of preventing the spread of these books among the population at large. The pivotal ideas of the books are the strengthening of the state, the achievement of the greatest possible unanimity in the various social strata of the population through the well-being of each individual family. This condition of well-being is achieved by virtue of each willing family being allotted no less than one hectare of land for lifetime use. In the context of the books this idea is the most persuasive and takes precedence over all others. Consequently, the series’ opponents, whatever the arguments they put forward, are in fact denouncing this particular idea. The next question raised by the Ringing Cedars of Russia series—the Divine nature of Man, his spiritual origin—may provoke animosity on the part of many religious denominations. The book’s main heroine declares that Man’s existence in Paradise should be built here on the Earth and by Man himself. Man is eternal, only changing his fleshly form from one century to the next. Our whole natural environment is created by God and comprises His living thoughts. It is only by making contact with Nature that Man can comprehend what God has programmed and the substance of His purpose for Man on the Earth. This whole concept, the reasoning behind it and its extreme persuasiveness cannot fail to provoke opposition, especially among religious fanatics who believe that the end of the world is inevitable and that some people will be transported into a Paradise beyond the clouds while others are sent to hell. Such a concept is favourable to many people who have been unable to make their own life happy during their existence here on the Earth. The opposition to the ideas of the series’ main heroine (Anastasia) is being effected by the circulation, through the mass media, of rumours that its

readers, who have taken the initiative to put a number of the projects suggested by the books into practice, belong to some sort of totalitarian sect. This approach is quite deliberate, inasmuch as it serves to distance the authorities from contacts with enterprising readers and from examining their specific proposals, as well as from discussing the problems raised in the books in the mass media. It also serves to interfere with the circulation of the books and the ideas put forward in them. It should be pointed out that the opposition has achieved their aim. According to reports on hand, claims about the readers belonging to a sect are being circulated in many government agencies. The specific objectives of the opposition are not clearly presented—they remain quite enigmatic. As a rule, when candidates competing for office use dirty tricks in their campaigns, it is easy to guess who is instigating them. Similarly in the economic sphere, when individual firms are competing for business, it is not difficult to determine who is behind a smear campaign and why The goal is always clear—to knock off or weaken the competition. Anastasia talks about a new consciousness for Man, a new way of life, establishing the state on a more perfect foundation. Who would oppose an aspiration like that? Only forces interested in the destruction of individual families, states and society as a whole. The existence of such forces can be traced through their conspicuous opposition —in this case, in launching actions directed at Anastasia herself and her ideas, as well as against the readers of the Ringing Cedars of Russia series. To all appearances they are acting through agencies either directly or indirectly under their jurisdiction, as well as through individuals. 1 I showed Anastasia isolated excerpts from the discussions of the subject on the Internet, and read her the expert's conlusions, in the hope that the situation portrayed would somehow move her or rouse her into taking corrective action. But Anastasia continued sitting quietly beside me on her chair, her hands resting on her knees, her face showing absolutely no concern. On the contrary it even betrayed a little smile. “What are you smiling for, Anastasia?” I enquired. “Doesn’t it bother you at all that they are slandering your readers? The fact that they are blocking their initiatives to obtain land for the family domains?” “I am delighted, Vladimir, by the inspired impulse on the part of so many people, by their understanding of the essence and significance of what they are undertaking. See how thoughtfully they are setting forth their thoughts

and drawing up plans for the future. And the appeal to the President is better than the one you formulated in your earlier book. As well as their making plans to hold a conference with that wonderful title: Choose your future!11 It is very good when people start reflecting on their future.” “They certainly are making plans, Anastasia. But don’t you see how their plans are being thwarted? What a tricky move someone thought up—to call them all sectarians, striking fear into the population and discouraging administrative bodies from contact with them? Don’t you see that?” “I see it. But there is nothing new or sophisticated in such opposition. The same approach was used to destroy the culture, lifestyle and knowledge of our forebears. And now the dark forces are using the old methods again. And they will even come up with provocations, and then spread frightening rumours. This has happened before, Vladimir.”12 n

The conference later took place in February 2002 in Moscow’s Palace of Youth (Dvorets molodiozhi) and was attended by hundreds of readers from all over Russia and abroad. The conference’s Proceedings, including presentations on economics, law, ecology, public policy and other subjects were subsequently published as a separate volume. “Exactly—this happened before. And they won. Tbu said yourself—they destroyed the culture of our forebears. They distorted history That means that now, too, using a tested method, they’ll win again. If they haven’t won already Hey, just a simple question like granting every willing family a hectare of land—it’s been impossible to solve for a year now. It would have been okay if they’d asked for that hectare for something obscene. But it’s impossible to get land for the purpose of organising one’s family domain, for normal living conditions and a supply of food. Those refugees that have been living in tent cities for more than three years now13 —if they—at least the ones who wanted it—had each been given a hectare of land, by now they could have turned it into a decent human place to live. I’ve thought quite a bit, Anastasia, about what colossal changes could take place in our country, if only the authorities would not oppose but help people aspiring to create their own domains. But such a simple little question regarding the allocation of land is not being solved.” 2 Glad tidings “This question is far from simple, Vladimir. It actually involves major changes on our planet and in the Universe. When millions of happy Earth families begin to consciously transform the planet into a flourishing garden, the harmony reigning on the Earth will have an effect on other planets and the whole space of the Universe. Right now the planet Earth is sending a

poisonous stench into the Cosmos. And more and more garbage is piling up in orbit. And a malicious energy is radiating from the direction of the Earth. A different energy will be emitted when there is a change in the conscious awareness of Earth dwellers. And then the grace emanating from the Earth will bestow flourishing gardens upon other planets.” “Wow, how grand! And has there never been such an opportunity before in human history? After all, in Russia back before the revolution landlords had their family estates. And now in many countries there is private ownership of land. We have farmers too who rent out land for extended periods. But nothing comes of it. Why not?” “There has been no conscious awareness—the kind that is growing today in human minds and souls as little shoots of the Divine. What you called a straightforward question, Vladimir, during the occult millennia was the greatest secret held by the priests. Many religions through the ages have talked about God, but not one of them has ever stated the obvious: in consciously communing with Nature, Man communes with the Divine thought. To understand Space is to understand God. “And even the thought or the dream of a family domain, where everything is in harmony with you, embodies much more closeness to God than a whole lot of convoluted rituals. All the mysteries of the Universe will be unfolded to Man. And all at once Man will discover within himself capabilities that he cannot even imagine today And Man will become truly Godlike—the Man that begins to create the Divine world around him. “Think, why do not ‘wise-men’ ever mention this anywhere? All because once Man understands his earthly essence and his capabilities, he will become free from occult spells. The power of the priests will disappear. Nobody and nothing will ever have power over a Man who has created a Space of Love around him. And no harsh and threatening judge will the Creator be for such a Man, but rather a father and a friend. “This is why through the centuries they have come up with so many tricks to turn Man away from his purpose. Land! Such a straightforward question, you say, Vladimir. But think about how centuries have passed and Man still does not have family land of his own. You were mentioning farmers and landlords. But with their family domain they hired other people to work the land. They have endeavoured to get as much profit as possible out of their land. People who did not work the land themselves could not treat it with love. And often seeds were sown in the ground in anger, and malice grew. “For thousands of years simple truths have been hid from the people. Other people’s hands and thoughts should not be compelled to touch one’s family

land. In different ages rulers have offered people land allotments, but in such away that the meaning of their earthly deeds has not been clear to people. “If a Man is given just a small piece of land—a quarter of a hectare, for example—his family will not be able to build an oasis there which will serve him effortlessly. A large tract of land is too much for a Man to govern independently and he will end up hiring helpers, thereby involving other people’s thoughts. So people have been drawn away by trickery and chicanery from what is important.” “Does this mean, Anastasia, that not a single religion over thousands of years has ever called upon people to create Divine oases on the Earth’s land? On the contrary, they have spent all their time calling people’s thought away from the land, somewhere else. So it turns out that they” “Vladimir, do not say unflattering words about religion. Your spiritual father, the monk Feodorit,3 led you to where you are today And it is largely thanks to him that you and I met in the first place. The time has come today when congregations of all the various denominations need to think about how to save our spiritual leaders from disaster.” “What kind of disaster?” “The same kind that happened in the past century—when people sacked the temples and put ministers of various faiths to death.” “ You mean under the Soviet regime But now, you see, we have democracy, freedom of religion and the authorities treat all religions—or at least the major ones—with respect. How could the events of bygone years all at once repeat themselves?” “You should take a closer look at what is happening today, Vladimir. You know that many countries have joined together in the struggle against terrorism.” “Yes.” “They have pointed their finger at other countries as the ones promoting terrorism. And they have publicised the names of the instigators. They have accused, among others, some spiritual and religious leaders, and special forces have been assigned to hunt them down. But that is only the beginning. Reports have been given to the leaders of countries both large and small exposing the nature of many religions, and they include a whole lot of examples of how these religions themselves were responsible for fomenting acts of terror and wars on the Earth. In these reports, which have already been prepared, analysts have set forth everything accurately and convincingly Information about many terrible crimes will now gradually come to light. They will remind people of an endless succession of wars like the Crusades, intrigues, perversions and greed among the ministers of the

occult. When anger builds up in a whole lot of people, pogroms may be launched in many places, and these may include the destruction of temples. “At the moment, clerics from a number of religions are trying to put a stop to religious extremism, making declarations to the effect that the extremists have nothing in common with them—indeed, these clerics openly condemn extremism. For the moment, these declarations are being accepted. Or, rather, the political leaders feign ignorance and say they are satisfied with the declarations. “In the meantime, these secret reports are already claiming that religions are programming people, using any kind of pretext. The pretext may be wellintentioned—calling the faithful to good works, for example. But any faith in something a Man cannot see, especially one which he accepts unquestioningly as truth from a preacher, is always fraught with the danger that the thoughts of the programmed believer may be redirected at the will of the preacher, and so today’s believers may easily be transformed into tomorrow’s suicide bombers. And a whole lot of different facts from both past and present are cited in the reports as evidence in support of this conclusion. Before long the rulers will become inclined to the opinion that they should select one religion and put it completely under their control, at the same time declaring all others harmful and deserving of elimination. “Subsequently, if they do not succeed in drawing all the people into one religion, then the next step is to destroy all religions, at least within their own borders. Such a decision will lead to a never-ending war. This war has already started, it is already going on. It must be stopped. And this can only be done in one way—by giving birth to a conscious awareness on the part of our spiritual leaders. Only glad tidings can restore peace to all the Earth. Those that accept the glad tidings and proclaim them in temples both great and small—they will fill the temples with multitudes of people. Those that do not perceive the sayings will find themselves in temples that are empty and decaying.” “What glad tidings are your referring to, Anastasia? Can you explain it a little more simply?” “People who call themselves spiritual leaders, who talk of God and teach children in the schools today, should recognise as a God-pleasing deed the co-creation of a Space of Love in the personal domain of every family dwelling on the Earth. Not only to recognise this but to create designs as well for future projects together with their parishioners. To endeavour, along with the people, to bring back the knowledge of pristine origins. To dream and discuss such a theme, and then to bring the design to perfection in all its detail. The process of creating the dream will take many years. Then, when

all this comes to prevail upon the Earth, people will live in harmony, in a real, Divine Space of Love.” “Eve got it, Anastasia. You want everyone to begin studying Nature in all the temples of whatever religious persuasion, and in the schools and in institutions of higher learning. To master the science of creating a family domain according to a special design. Let’s say this can actually bring various religious denominations together into a common alliance—not just in words but in deeds. Let’s suppose it could really awaken people from their hypnotic sleep, put an end to terrorism, drug use and a whole lot of other negative tendencies in society. “Let’s suppose. But How will you be able to convince all the patriarchs and all the clerics, and in so many different denominations? How will you be able to convince all the secular educational institutions? A lot of things you say come true, Anastasia, but what you’re talking about at the moment is completely unfeasible, sheer pie in the sky!” “It is feasible. They have no other choice now.” “But that’s just what you think. Just you. These are mere words that you’re saying.” “But the One who allows me to utter these ‘mere’ words, as you put it, possesses power unsurpassed. You may remember back seven-plus years ago, back when you were still an entrepreneur, that I stood before you and drew letters in the sand by the lake in the taiga.” “Yes, I remember, but what of it?” “And then all at once you began to write books, and now a whole lot of people are already reading them. Who do you think was mainly responsible for this? The sand by the taiga lake? Or the stick I drew with? Or the words I articulated? Or perhaps your hand created the books all by itself? And later poetry welled up like a sacred spring in human hearts. Who was the chief Creator behind these works of art?” “I don’t know. Possibly all the factors played a part.” “Believe me, Vladimir —please try to understand. It is His energy that stands behind everything that was created. It is His energy that inspired human hearts. And it will continue to inspire them.” “Perhaps, but somehow it is hard to believe that church ministers will start to act the way you say” “You should believe in this. And visualise a gladsome prospect within yourself, and then it will come to achievement. All the more so, since that is no longer hard for you to do. You remember how an Orthodox village priest

came to you to cheer up your crestfallen spirits.15 Another priest paid for your books with his own money and then distributed them to the prisons. And your Father Feodorit talked with you about a lot of things Do you remember?” “I do.” “And you should realize, too, that not all church ministers share the same world-view. There are those who will proclaim the glad tidings.” “Yes, I think you’re right. But there will be others who will begin to oppose them. Especially the High Priest you spoke about—his occult agents will think up some kind of new intrigue.” “Of course they will, but all the dark forces’ endeavours will now be in vain. The process has begun and it has already attained the point of no return. People will learn first hand of their earthly Paradise. These are mere words, you will say But here, I shall now utter two simple words—and a part of the darkness will be illumined with light. Let the rest of the darkness tremble and begin to conceal their names, as they fail to win the possibility of turning into reality And these words are utterly simple: The Book of Kin”16 15

See Book 4, Chapter 24: “Take back your Motherland, people!”.

16

The Book of Kin—a translation of the two-word Russian phrase Rodovaya kniga. CHAPTER TEN

The Book of Kin “Yes, the words are certainly simple, all right,” I observed. ‘And just why are all the forces of darkness supposed to tremble at hearing them?” “They are afraid of what is behind the words,” replied Anastasia. “Do you know who will write this book? And how many pages it will have?” “How many? And who will write them?” “Just a few days will go by, and millions of fathers and mothers in many a land will be writing the Book of Kin, filling in its pages with their own hand. There will be a vast multitude of them—these Books of Kin. And all of them will contain the truths which begin in the heart, for their children. There will be no room in these books for artifice or guise. Before them all the lies of history will fall. “You can surmise what would happen, Vladimir, if you could take into your

hands today a book which your ancestor of old had begun to write especially for you. Then another would continue the writing, eventually your grandfather, and your father and your mother. “The books read by Man today include many that are devised with a specific aim in mind—namely, the distortion of history and of the meaning of life. Many false dogmas are especially designed to disorient Man in space. This is not easily discernible all at once. But clarity comes directly a son reads a book of his forebears, which his father and mother have continued personally for him.” “But wait, Anastasia, not everyone knows how to write a book.” “Everyone can if they feel the demand to do so—if they are looking to protect their children, and in the future themselves, from false dogmas. In Vedic times every father and mother would write a book of kin for their future children and grandchildren. This book was not comprised of words, but of deeds. Children could read created space like a book, and understand the deeds and thoughts of their parents, and were happy to inherit a happy space. Only one thing was missing from that book—children were not alerted to the world of the occult. It was not part of the complete awareness of the omniscient Veduns.4 Now that all mankind has been able to detect in their own experience the devastating influences exerted on themselves by the occult dogmas, they will certainly be able to protect their children from them. “Even if there are not yet any domains to bloom in the spring, thoughts about them are already alive in many human hearts. They need to start writing a book precisely about their thoughts, for their children.” “And why, Anastasia, does every parent need to write? Look, I’ve written books about domains and an architect from the suburb of Medvedkovo2 is working on a design for a whole settlement. Besides, there is a flurry of Internet discussions on the subject—isn’t that enough?” “It is not enough, Vladimir. Take a closer look at what has been going on. You have been writing books, but other people are writing books too, to counteract yours. There are so many books that a Man could not hope to read even half of them over his lifetime. And look, there is a daily flow of information to Man that does not come from books. And even though it seems very diversified, all that information really comes down to the same result: it justifies and glorifies the unreal world of the occult. What can help the newcomer to the world determine where the truth and where the falsehood lies? “The holy temple of the family will help in this—the Book of Kin. In it a

mother and father will write for their son and daughter about what is the most important thing that needs to be created for happiness in life. The children will continue to record the Book of Kin. There will be no wiser and truer books for families anywhere on the Earth. All the knowledge of their pristine origins will be poured into it.” “But how, Anastasia, how can knowledge of one’s pristine origins turn up in a book which people are only beginning to write today? Where are they to find such knowledge? You said that the culture of our forebears, their books, were all destroyed.” “Those that will begin to write already have this knowledge concealed within themselves. It is preserved within each one of us. When people think deeply and begin to write not just for anyone, but for their children, all the knowledge of their pristine origins will be revealed within them and come to light.” “So that means that before they start to write, they first need to think, so that wise thoughts may be set forth right from the very first pages of the book?” “The first pages maybe outwardly very simple.” “Can you give me some examples?” “When was the Man who began to write this Book of Kin born? What was his name? For what purpose and with what thoughts did he take pen in hand and approach the pages of this most important book? And what did he plan to create in the future?” “Such a book,” I observed, “would be easy to begin for anyone who, let’s say, has been a famous artist, or a governor, or a scholar, or a die-hard entrepreneur. But what about someone who has simply lived a life? Say someone’s been working and can barely make ends meet, he scarcely earns enough for food and clothing. What could he possibly write for his children, what advice could he give them?” “The rulers of today, and those who bask before the public in rays of glory, and those who have accumulated a whole lot of money, will find it difficult from now on to have an answer for their children. People quickly forget their deeds of yesteryear. But what a Man has contributed to his future will be appreciated by future generations. Are you or anyone else in the habit of recalling past governors, famous artists or entrepreneurs?” “Not very often—or, rather, I don’t really think about them at all. I don’t even know their names. But children will take great pride in remembering what their parents did.” ‘And their children will try to forget—they will be ashamed just at the mention of their parents’ names.”

“Why should the children be ashamed?” “Because fate offered their parents such great opportunities, but they could not grasp the fact that fate is affording us opportunities only—invariably— for the purpose of creating the future. In his one lifetime, Man should be endeavouring to create the next life for himself—a life in which he can embody himself anew and live for ever. “Every Man can even today plan out a domain and a Space of Love, they can create their design and try to obtain the land. They can use that land to plant a few saplings or plant seeds of family trees. Perhaps they will not be able to grow to maturity, say, a whole grove, or a green hedge, or a splendid garden, in their lifetime. Perhaps a poor old man will not even be able to lay a foundation for his house. But he will be able to write in the Book of Kin for his grandchildren, for his children: I was poor, it was only in my old age that I began to think on the meaning of life, on what I have handed to my children. And I have created a plan for a space for our family, I have described it for you, my children, in a book. I have been able to plant nine fruit trees in the garden, as well as just one tree on the spot where a grove will grow. “The years will flow on, the grandson will read that book and remember his grandfather. He will go up to the mighty, majestic cedar or oak growing amidst a lot of other trees on the land of his kin’s domain. His thought, overflowing with love and gratitude will soar into space, will merge with his grandfather’s thought, and then a new plane of being will be born for both of them. A whole life in eternity is afforded to Man. The settling of the Earth and the planets of the Universe is nothing more than a transformation for each Man within himself. “The Book of Kin will help convey the glad tidings to one’s descendants, and help the soul of the beginning writer to once again embody itself upon the Earth.” “Well, Anastasia, you attach such importance to this book that I too have the desire to start writing one for my descendants. I have the intuitive feeling that in this idea of yours about the book is something most unusual and grand. Wow! That’s quite a name: The Book of Kin, The Kins Book, the most holy book for the family. “But what should it be written on? Ordinary paper will soon yellow and disintegrate. And the binding on notebooks and albums tends to look rather primitive. After all, if the book is destined for one’s descendants—- if, as you say, it is of such great importance—then the paper and the binding should correspond too. What do you think? What should be used?” “That kind, for example” And she nodded in the direction of a book lying

on my desk. I followed her gaze, and a moment later I was holding something quite extraordinary in my hands. Some time ago a man named Sergei from Novosibirsk had sent me a copy of my Anastasia. The customary publisher’s binding had been cut off, and the pages transferred to another—I was going to say binding, but that’s not the right word for what these pages had been put into. A Siberian craftsman had created an extraordinary work of art. The whole cover, including the spine, had been made out of valuable species of wood—the edges were of beech with cedar inside the frame. All the details were decorated with finely carved ornaments, text and illustrations. One could hardly apply the ordinary term cover to all this. The term casing would probably be more appropriate. The front and back parts were fastened together on one side by the spine, on the other by a little lock. All the little parts were finely fitted together. When the book was closed, the pages were evenly positioned between the front and back parts of the casing, thus preventing the paper from buckling under conditions of either high or low humidity. The pages would not flutter even from a draught of air, in contrast to some other books which I put beside it for comparison. Many visitors who saw this work of art would hold it for a long time in their hands, looking it over carefully with joyful admiration. Following Anastasia’s gaze, I took the book with the wooden casing into my hands, felt its warmth and began to understand. Perhaps it was thanks to this extraordinary work that I really understood the tremendous significance of the Book of Kin Anastasia had been talking about. She sat there meekly on the chair beside me, her hands modestly resting on her knees. But I got the feeling that she was wiser than all the priests and dynastic leaders right from ancient times, wiser than our modern analysts. And through her wisdom and purity of thought she is able to overcome all the negative manifestations in human society. Where did these capabilities of hers come from? What school or system of child-raising can endow Man with such abilities? Wow! What an unusual, incredible step to think up—a Book of Kin! I couldn’t stop myself from letting my mind get carried away and Just look what a grand thing she’s come up with! Nobody has so far been able to counteract the flood of various kinds of suggestions which has been rushing at people in different countries minute by minute—first and foremost, at our children. Suggestions! Our TV features a constant parade of action films supposedly for the purpose of public entertainment, but in actual fact demonstrating how splendidly Man can provide for his financial well-being through violence. Suggestions! How great it must be to be a famous singer, to bask in the

spotlight and the applause, to gad about to receptions in luxury limousines! Suggestions! If it weren’t for the power of suggestion, they would also need to show other, considerably longer segments from the life of these people. The most challenging everyday work routines, the never-ending intrigues instigated by entertainment rivals, the never-ending attacks by jealous wannabes, not to mention the paparazzi hoping to make money on the backs of celebrities under the so-called ‘freedom of the press’. One particularly monstrous suggestion comes in the form of aggressive and sophisticated advertising, which is ready to promote anything as long as you pay the money. Suggestions! Never-ending news about all sorts of international do-good foundations coupled with wonder-boy politicos—and people are left with the impression that it is only thanks to our politicians that they can live all warm, fed and cozy in their homes. And then when the radiators go cold, people no longer bother asking themselves questions about how they can change their lives, how they can become independent of central heating, electricity and water-supply Instead, they rush madly into the streets and shout Gimme! A suggestion of their own helplessness! Such false dogmas are being suggested to adults and children alike. Children! How can we talk about raising children as long as we parents just stand on the sidelines? First we entrust the delivery of our children to strangers in an unfamiliar medical institution. Then we allow strangers to teach them in kindergarten and school. Then we allow them to be exposed to a plethora of explicit or disguised pornographic literature on our store shelves. We allow strangers to recommend books and textbooks to our children to read. We allow strangers to produce TV programmes for them. Who? Who finds it profitable to hold the whole system of child-raising in their hands? Maybe that’s not the important question. Maybe what’s more important is our feeling of utter helplessness and insignificance? We feel we’re totally incapable of putting a stop to such lawlessness. But this isn’t true! Any parent can do it! If only he wants to. If only he thinks about it. The Book of Kin! What a super idea! The end of lawless commercial suggestions! Such lawlessness may still flex its muscles and show off a little. But it won’t be long before Man takes in his hands the Book of Kin, and finds there written—by the hand of his grandfather, grandmother, father and mother—a statement of Man’s purpose in life. We, today’s parents, shall certainly be able to figure out what this purpose is. Most definitely! We are experienced, we’ve seen, heard and gone through a lot already. We only need to pause for just a wee bit, turn away from the

flood of suggestions and think for ourselves, with our own heads. For certain, every parent must think about this. By himself! Only by himself. There’s no point in looking for answers to questions on the meaning of life in books of wisdom from past centuries. No matter how celebrated or promoted these books are. And there’s no point in seeking answers in the works of wise-men whose reputation is thousands of years old. These wise-men were great preachers and messiahs. They endeavoured to preach and leave writings for future generations. But there is not one—not even one of these great works that we shall ever see. They have been most cleverly destroyed. This can be clearly understood if one but stops and thinks. Just look and see what a difference it makes—how switching a single comma around in a brief sentence can change the whole meaning of a message. Remember the famous example: Execute never, show mercy! / Execute, never show mercy! And how many similar alterations have crept into the works of the ancient thinkers, either deliberately or inadvertently, at the hands of copyists, translators, publishers and historians?! And we are talking here not just about changes in punctuation, but the deletion of whole pages, whole chapters, and the writing of one’s own interpretations. The result is that we today are living in some kind of illusory world. Mankind is constantly at war. People keep destroying each other like hell and can’t understand why wars do not stop. But how can they stop if mankind has not even once been able to determine who has been instigating these wars? It hasn’t been able to because there has been no independent thought, and without independent thought it accepts suggestion as truth. Who started the Second World War? Who fought with whom? Who won? The whole world community is convinced that the war was started by Hitler’s Germany under Hitler. Victory was achieved by the Soviet Union under Stalin. And these halftruths—or, rather, delusions—are accepted by the majority as absolute, unequivocal, historical facts. And only a very few historical researchers occasionally mention Hitler’s spiritual mentors—for example, the Russian lama Gudzhiev,5 acting through Karl Haushofer.6 Hitler had one other spiritual mentor—Dietrich Eckhart.7 Historians know of contacts these spiritual mentors had with their superiors, part of a more elevated hierarchy But at this point nobody any longer mentions names. Researchers say only that they have traced the connections to the Himalayas and Tibet, as well as to both open and secret occult societies existing at the time in Germany, and confirm Hitler’s participation in them.

Germany witnessed the rise of organisations such as the German Order8 and the Thule Society9—the latter’s emblem was the swastika together with a wreath and sword. Someone was clearly and deliberately shaping their own unique, brand-new ideology in Germany, inculcating in its population a specific type of worldview. The upshot was large-scale war and masses of human casualties, followed by the Nuremburg trials where Hitler’s cronies were tried. But those who appeared before the court were ordinary soldiers—even if they happened to be generals or field marshals, they were still soldiers, including Hitler himself. Foot-soldiers to the unseen priest who shaped the ideology. He—the chief strategist and organiser—was not even mentioned in the trial records. Who is he? Who are his closest secret associates and assistants? Is it all that important to know about them? It is important! Extremely important! After all, it is they who masterminded the war. And as long as they are allowed to remain in the shadows, they will start it again. With their growing experience, new wars will be even more sophisticated and on an even more massive scale. What were these people really after, the masterminds behind the Second World War? Perhaps an examination of the following fact will bring us closer to solving the mystery For the Nazi ideologists in Germany at that time, there was an organisation known as Annenerbe which collected ancient books from all over the world. In the first place they were interested in Old Russian editions of the pre-Christian period. One can trace a rather bizarre chain—the Himalayas, Tibet, lamas, secret societies—all leading to a relentless hunt for the knowledge of our forebears from pagan Russia. We Russians saw no need to preserve these manuscripts, but someone else found them to be a vital necessity. Why? What secrets did 9 this knowledge harbour within itself? Secrets which evidently had much more of an edge to them than anything known to the Tibetan monks. But how to gain access to even one of these secrets? Just to one?! And if it turns out to be significant, then what kind of lost world might open up to people today if a few more—or, indeed, all—of them should be revealed? But where and in what millennia should we look for an answer? Rome! Ancient Rome! Something extraordinary happened there four thousand years ago. More extraordinary than the exploits of the Roman legion. Oh, yes! That’s it, an incredible discovery! The Roman senators were the highest elite group of that period. They were slave-owners, but all at once they began to give their slaves, who were skilled and desirous of growing food crops on the land They began to give them land for their lifetime use with the right of succession. Funds were allocated to a slave’s

family to build a house. A slave’s family could not be transferred to another owner without their land. It—the land—became an inseparable part of the slave’s family. But what suddenly moved these slave-owners to such a humane and altruistic act? Was it purely from kind and noble motives, or did they receive something in return? What they received was ten percent of the harvest for their table. That is probably the smallest tax of the whole known period. This begs the question: why did the Roman elite do such a thing? After all, the slave-owner could have simply ordered his slaves to work in his fields by the sweat of their brow and take as much of the harvest as he wanted. But no! Why? Because back in pagan Rome they had still hung on to the Vedic knowledge. And the patricians and senators knew that the same product grown by a slave on land other than his own would differ sharply in its properties from that grown on his own ground and raised with love. Back then they still knew that everything growing in the ground carries in itself a psychic energy. To be healthy, one must feed one’s self with lovingly grown produce. This was mentioned in several ancient books in the Alexandria Library,8 which was destroyed. What further knowledge, what wisdom was lost along with these books? Anastasia says that it is possible to resurrect this knowledge and all its attendant wisdom, beginning with their pristine origins, within one’s self. Everyone has the ability to do it. I want to believe that statement, but I’m still not fully convinced. Where can we find proof that such a thing is possible? What facts can we draw upon from memory so that we can fully accept what she says? Are we to remember everything we heard from our father and mother, or that we were taught in school, or read somewhere over our whole lifetime? But our recollections still do not contain any significant or absolute proof. What if I could remember everything I was told by Father Feodorit? But he didn’t say all that much. He spent most of the time listening, and while he did give me some ancient books to read, there was no evidence in them. Then how? How can modern Man suddenly unfold within himself this treasured knowledge of his pristine origins? He can!!! No doubt there exist characteristic examples and proof in the recollection of every Man! In my own recollections I did come across one. **

A good and attentive grandmother Grandmother! My grandmother was a witch. Not a fairytale witch, but a

real, actual white witch. Oldsters, perhaps, will remember her incredible marvels. She lived in Ukraine in the village of Kuznichi in the Gorodnia district of Chernigov Region. She was called Efrosinya, and her last name was Verkhusha. On one occasion, when I was very young, I was present at one of her miracles. Back then I hardly understood anything about them, but now it has all become crystal clear to me. O God, what simplicity there is in the most puzzling incredible phenomena! I have an idea at least half of the population today, especially the healers, would be able to freely duplicate her results. To provide a few more details, here is what happened. All my early childhood I spent in the Ukrainian countryside, in a small white, straw-covered hut. I loved to watch my grandmother busying herself about the stove. Once after a scuffle with one of my classmates, someone taunted: “%ur grandmother’s a witch!” Other kids started to defend my grandmother, saying, for example: “My mummy says she’s a good woman.” On a number of occasions I saw how my grandmother treated people’s physical ills. I didn’t attach any particular significance to it at the time— after all there were many healers in different villages back then. Some had better success treating one particular disease, some another. And nobody was called a witch. But my grandmother’s abilities did not fall under the usual healing methods. It turned out that my grandmother, who was only semi-literate, easily cured many animals. She did this by a method that seemed at first glance incredible. She would disappear for a day along with the sick animal, and by the time she returned it would have made a full recovery, or at least a partial one, in which case she would instruct its owner on how to continue the treatment. When I heard my classmate insulting my grandmother by calling her a ‘witch’, even though children are generally afraid of witches, I did not begin acting any worse toward my kind grandmother. On the contrary, she—or rather, her actions—only awakened a greater fascination in me. One day the collective-farm chairman’s horse was brought to my grandmother. It was a purebred, recently bought for the chairman to travel about on his daily business. We local kids always admired this particular mare when the chairman happened to ride by The mare held her head high, and her gait was friskier and more elegant than that of all the other horses in the area. But this time she was brought to Grandmother not harnessed to a wagon and not saddled. She was being led just by the bridle, looking very downcast and moving very slowly This was a rare event for me—the chairman’s horse right in our yard! I began following the proceedings with

considerable interest. Grandmother walked up to the mare and began stroking her, first from one side on her muzzle, and then around the ear, all the while quietly whispering soothing words. Then she unbridled the mare (taking the metallic bit out of her mouth). Carrying a bench out into the yard, she laid out bunches of herbs on the bench, then brought the mare over to them and began offering the animal various dried herbs in turn. With some of them the horse didn’t pay any attention and turned away, while others she sniffed at and even took a small taste of them. The bunches that caught the mare’s attention, Grandmother threw into a water-filled iron pot which was standing over a coal fire, and finally dropped her night-cap into the mixture. I heard her tell the people who had brought the horse to come the day after next, in the morning. After the people had left, I realized that Grandmother was once again getting ready to disappear somewhere together with the mare, and I started pleading with her to take me along. Grandmother, who had always granted all my requests, did not refuse this one either, though she did stipulate one condition: I was to go to bed earlier than usual that night. I obeyed. Grandmother awoke me at dawn. The mare was standing in front of the house; she was covered with a small piece of canvas. After washing my face with the mixture from the iron pot, Grandmother gave me a small bundle containing something to eat, then took hold of the rope-lead (which she had fastened to the horse’s bridle). Presently we set off along the border between the garden plots in the direction of the little forest that started just beyond. We walked very slowly along the edge of the forest. To be more specific, Grandmother walked alongside the mare and stopped each time the mare bent her head down to the grass to taste some kind of herb. Grandmother held the lead so loosely that it even slipped out of her hands whenever the mare, having spied something in the grass, jerked her head sharply to one side. Occasionally Grandmother would still keep on leading the horse further, but after coming to a new place, she would once again give her free rein. We kept walking, either along the edge of the forest, or just a little ways in. It was already past noon when we came to a mudhole in the middle of the field. We sat down by a haystack from the first hay-cutting for a little rest and a bite to eat. After snacking on milk and bread, I was tired from our long trek and felt like sleeping. On top of it all Grandmother took out of her bundle a small sheepskin coat, spread it out beside the haystack and encouraged me: “Lie down and have a rest, little one. I guess you must be pretty tuckered

out.” I lay down and began to fight off sleep, fearing that Grandmother might magically disappear along with the mare and without me, but sleep won out. Upon awakening I saw Grandmother picking some sort of herbs right next to the mare’s muzzle and sticking them in her bundle. Not long afterward we started heading for home, but a different way this time. As it began to get dark, I again felt as though I needed a rest, and once more Grandmother put me down on the sheepskin coat. When she woke me up it was still dark, and we continued once more on our homeward journey. From time to time I could hear Grandmother saying something to the mare. While I don’t recall the content of her words, I clearly remember her voice intonations—soothing, tender and cheerful. When we reached home Grandmother at once began to give the horse water, adding the mixture from the iron pot to the pail. Later I saw her give the people who came for the horse the bunches of herbs she had picked during our walk and explain something to them. The mare, who had by this time become a little friskier, was reluctant to leave our yard. She had already been harnessed again and kept turning her head to look at Grandmother, pulling on her lead. For several days afterward I was angry at my grandmother for not showing me how she could magically disappear like a witch, but the whole time she had just kept on feeding the horse, picking herbs and tying them into bunches. I might have soon forgotten about the walk and the witchery, but when I told the boy who had called her a witch that my grandmother didn’t disappear anywhere, but simply fed sick animals, he—and he was just a bit older than me—cited a significant fact that neither I nor any of the village kids who were on my side could counteract: “Why is it then that each time the chairman rides by your yard, the horse stops trotting, and goes by just at a walk—she doesn’t even obey the whip?” I don’t remember how Grandmother explained this to me. It is only now that I understand the reason. I am confident that a lot of people today who have kind hearts and have an attentive relationship to Nature and animals could also treat creatures’ ailments the way she did. Now I realize that she allowed the horse to try bunches of various herbs simply to determine what specific herbs the ailing animal required. She also used this to decide the route she would take the next day, counting on finding these herbs along the way, and at the same time replenishing her

own stock. She needed to make this a whole day’s trip, since each plant has a particular time when its consumption is especially beneficial. She held the lead loosely so as to allow the mare to determine for herself which herbs and how many she needed to take in. Animals can feel this in an inexplicable way Since the mixture was prepared from herbs chosen by the mare herself, Grandmother’s use of it for washing, as well as letting her night-cap soak in it, was probably to make the animal more predisposed to her. See how simple everything turns out to be! Only it’s still not clear to me how all this was known by my semi-literate grandmother. Oh, how we have complicated this simplicity! May that not be the reason for the large-scale epizootic (‘mad-cow-disease’) that recently swept across Europe, and our modern scientific thought came up with nothing better than to destroy thousands of diseased animals! I have cited just one example attesting to the fact that the achievements of our modern medicine are illusory Indeed, I could cite a whole lot of similar examples of the illusory achievements of our contemporary society. But why talk of specific details when we can go right off to the main thing? To live in a marvelous reality What kind of society are we living in today, anyway? What are we striving for? What do we suppose we can build in the future? The overwhelming majority of the Russian population will answer without hesitation: “We live in a democratic state and are striving to build a free democratic society, just like in the developed, civilised Western countries.” That is exactly what the majority of politicians and political strategists will say. That is exactly what they say on TV and in newspaper columns. That is exactly what the majority of people in our country think. That majority opinion exactly confirms Anastasia’s statement that a part of the people in our modern civilisation are asleep, while the rest, because of their programming, are mere bio-robots in the hands of a bunch of priests who imagine themselves to be the rulers of the world. If one can just stop and withdraw one’s self, even a little, from the world’s feverish daily monotonous commotion and think independently, it should be possible to understand the following facts. Democracy! Just what is democracy, anyway? What concept does the word itself denote? The majority will answer by quoting the well-known Great

Encyclopedic Dictionary10 or the Dictionary of the Russian Language,11 both of which offer pretty much the same terse definition: Democracy is a form of political system or social order in a state, based on the recognition of the people as a whole as the source of authority. The basic principles of democracy are the authority of the majority, the equality of citizens. And in highly developed countries people choose their parliaments and presidents by majority vote. “Choose? Utter nonsense! A complete illusion! There are no choices or elections! Not once, not even in a country which considers itself the most democratic and civilised on the globe, have the people themselves ever held power. But the elections? They are a complete illusion! Remember what always happens before elections in any so-called democratic country Teams of political strategists working for each candidate fight among themselves, spending huge sums of money and sophisticated methods of psychological influence on people through the mass media, TV and graphic promotional campaigns. And the more highly developed the country, the more sophisticated the technological methods of suggestion employed. It is clearly evident that the victory always goes to the team of political strategists that can exert the most influence and the greatest power of suggestion. It is under the influence of this suggestion that people go and vote. They think they are voting by their own will. In fact they are merely carrying out somebody else’s will. Thus it turns out that modern democracy is an illusion of the masses. It is their faith in an unreal social order—an unreal, illusory world. It all boils down to this: subordination to the majority does not exist in the natural world. All the groups of plants, animals and insects may be subject to instinct, the movement of the planets, the order established by Nature, or the leader of a herd. And in human groupings it is always the minority that is in control. It is not the majority that has fomented revolutions and wars, but the majority participated in revolutions and wars at the consciously directed suggestion of a minority That’s the way it has been and that’s the way it is now. Democracy is the most dangerous illusion people have been exposed to en masse. It is dangerous because in the democratic world it is only too easy for

any democratic country to end up being ruled by one person, or a small group of people. For that, all they need is a pile of money and a good team of psychologists and political strategists. And we—today’s parents, living under the influence of illusions, are still trying to raise our children. But in actual fact what we are doing is introducing—pushing, one might say—their consciousness into a world of illusion We are in fact handing them over into somebody else’s clutches Only not to God. We are handing them over to some kind of opposite of God. God’s world is not illusory, it is real and beautiful. It has its own unsurpassed fragrances, colours, shapes and sounds. The gates to this world are always open, and we are always free to enter, if only we can shake off the illusions that have been fettering our consciousness. I too shall write my own Book of Kin for my descendants—indeed, for myself. And among other things I shall most certainly write the following: 12 world of Nature has suffered at the hands of people’s consciousness. Suffered terribly; I realize this and am trying to correct the situation. I will do whatever I can, even if it is only creating a design for my domain. Perhaps even just a part of it. The main thing is to understand and have my children understand. As before, Anastasia sat quietly by and listened while I vented my reasonings aloud. When I stopped, she got up, walked over to the window and observed: “The stars are beginning to twinkle in the sky. It is time for me to go, Vladimir. You are right in many respects. But be careful not to let these new visions of reality make you want to control others. Get the better of such a temptation and do not join any organisations. Other people, too, are seeing this reality Once they have organised, they will bring about a significant achievement on the Earth. You will understand your own destiny in life.” “I’m not aiming to join anything or control anybody, Anastasia. But what is this destiny of mine you speak about?” “The time will come when you will feel this for yourself. Right now lie down on the bed, go to sleep and rest. You are excited. It is possible that an untrained heart will not be able to withstand such excitement.” “Yes, I know. But if I go to sleep, you will go away. You always do. Sometimes I have a strong desire for you to stay and not go away I want you to be always beside me.” “I am always beside you. Whenever you think of me. You will soon begin to feel and understand this. Now wash yourself with water and go to sleep.”

“I can’t sleep. Lately I haven’t been sleeping all that well. My thoughts have been keeping me awake.” “I shall help you, Vladimir. Would you like me to read some of the poetry your readers have sent in, and sing you a lullaby?” “Go ahead and try, perhaps I really shall nod off to sleep.” After I washed and lay down in my bed which had already been made up, Anastasia sat down beside me and placed her hand on my forehead. Then she ran her fingers through my hair and softly sang a song written by one of my readers from Ukraine. Anastasia sang very softly, only it seemed that many people and the stars in the sky were listening to her song—listening to her pure voice and her words: Take my hand this hour Tomorrow, you will see, Is another day, but now You can press your cheek to me. Thus hour after hour You may sleep in sweet relief, For from your strands of hair I’ll gather up the grief. And I shall spread a blanket fine, Blue with stars all woven, I shall stay a long, long time, Just so you won’t get frozen. If only you’ll receive me. From the night I’ll come and stand All throughout the ages. I’ve learnt to heal ills by my hand, Which all pain assuages. If only you’ll believe me. Down from a high incline Past us stones will tumble. I know ahead of time Where you’re going to stumble. Into church and palace You’ll go, a hero bright. All the pretty lasses I shall keep from your sight. In a world of black and white I too’ll live unimpeded, So that swords and bows drawn tight

Will never more be needed. If only you, if only you If only you will love me. I’ll let loyal Sparrow fly up and team With Crane in the heavens above you.11 I dare not come into your dream Too tenderly I love you. Before immersing myself in a deep and calm sleep, I managed to think: Of course, tomorrow is another day. It will be better. I shall describe the dawn of a brand new day. And many people will start writing in their Books of Kin about how a splendid new beginning has been dawning on mankind. And these will be the greatest nA reference to the Russian proverb: Luchshe sinitsa v ruke, chern zhuravl’na nebe (lit. ‘Better [to have] a sparrow (titmouse/chickadee) in one’s hand than a crane in the sky’). Like its English counterpart, A bird, in the hand is worth two in the bush, it suggests a cautious, conservative approach to life which the poet’s heroine now finds herself ready to give up, releasing the sparrow so that she may join the crane in the sky. historical books for their descendants for thousands of years of time. And one of them will be mine. Tomorrow I shall start writing a new book, and now I shall be able to give it a more coherent-sounding design. And the new book will define a new historic turning-point for the people of the Earth—a turning to the marvelous reality of the Divine. Until we meet again, dear readers, in this new and marvelous reality! Vladimir Megre To be continued

Translator’s Afterword Suppose you’ve lived all your life in the same town at the base of a huge mountain. You’ve looked at that mountain day in and day out as you walked to and from school, ploughed your fields, shopped at the outdoor market, or cycled around the town on errands. You are familiar with every detail of its craggy surfaces, and on occasion have even climbed up part way to explore the foothills. But you have never been round to the other side. Then one fine day you decide to take the night train to a town some distance away, about a quarter of the way around the mountain, where the local residents speak a completely different dialect from yours. Upon arriving the next morning, you set out to take a look at the mountain from this side. And

there it is, looming just as large, just beyond this new town. Only at first it doesn’t look like the same mountain at all, even though your angle has changed by a mere 90 degrees. What was familiar from a frontal view you now see in profile. Features you knew before in profile are now facing you head on. Some of these features require a closer examination to identify: In fact, many of your fellow residents who made this trip before you and didn’t bother to examine the scene in detail say the mountain here looks nothing at all like the one back home. Some of them refuse to believe it is the same mountain. A few even associate the unfamiliar appearance with something hostile and threatening. Such impressions are further fuelled by the different way the locals describe the mountain in their own dialect—either with completely different words, or using the same words but with different connotations. Indeed, the terminological discrepancy is rather disconcerting at first. But little by little, the more you examine these features in detail and even try a bit of climbing exploration, the more you become convinced that you are dealing with the same mountain you have known all your life. And as you hear local residents speaking about it, you gradually acquire the ability to translate between their dialect and yours and realize they are talking about the same concepts you have known all along. In sum, you find yourself simply amazed at what you are learning about a familiar landmark from a brand new perspective. That does not necessarily mean, however, that you have any plans to suddenly relocate your residence. But you are certainly able to make use of your new knowledge to enhance your appreciation and exploration of the mountain from your own home base. This little story pretty much describes my experience in approaching Vladimir Megre’s Ringing Cedars Series. Having been raised in the Protestant denomination known as Christian Science13 (though I am sure people of many different faiths have had a similar experience), I was amazed, even ‘blown away’ by the new vistas of ‘Mount Spirituality’ that opened up to me from my initial reading of the Series. At first glance, like the mountain in the story above, some of the features, especially those given new names or whose names were interpreted differently, presented something of a recognition challenge. But the more I read, the more I realized I was not being presented with a new God or even a new religion, but simply with new views on the same God and spirituality I had known all along, only from a different angle. And these insights have indeed enhanced my appreciation and exploration of spiritual concepts from

my own faith’s home base. One particularly striking example of being ‘blown away’ by a new view of familiar territory was my initial reading of Chapter 1 in the present volume (“Who raises our children?”), which seems to pick up right where Mary Baker Eddy’s chapter on “Marriage” in Science and health (pp. 56-69) leaves off. Not only that, but a friend of our family’s—a Catholic writer on theology—told me of a number of instances where intimate relations have been linked to a more spiritual outlook, including certain practices among Orthodox Jews and native peoples of North America.2 She also referred me to the Book of Tobit (or Tobias) in the Apocrypha for an additional illustration. These examples, however, while fascinating, differ from the approach outlined in Chapter 1 in that their attention is still concentrated on the physical act of intimacy (albeit seen from a more spiritual standpoint), while the principal focus of Megre’s discussion with the psychologist is children, the physical conditions playing but an incidental role.3 "For further exploration, see: Philip Sherrard, Christianity and Eros (London: SPCK Holy Trinity Church, 1976); Linda Sabbath, The radiant heart (Denville, NJ, USA: Dimension Books, 1977); Mary Shivanandan, Natural sex (New York: Rawson Wade, 1979). 3

Compare Eddy’s statement in Science and health (pp. 61-62): “If the propagation of a higher human species is requisite to reach this goal [of spiritual unity}, then its material conditions can only be permitted for the purpose of generating.” Another group that has much in common with Anastasia’s viewpoints on life are the Doukhobors—a sect that was persecuted in Tsarist Russia for their pacifism and opposition to the dictates of official church hierarchy; In 1899 they were helped to emigrate to Canada by the writer Leo Tolstoy who recognised in them a living embodiment of his own simple, straightforward approach to a Christianity of the heart without ecclesiastical trappings.4 This past year I had occasion to present a conference paper entitled: “Links across space and time: the life and works of Leo Tolstoy, Mary Baker Eddy and Vladimir Megre”, pointing out some of the many similarities not only in the ideas of these three spiritual thinkers, but also in their personal and professional lives. As specific examples, the paper compares similar statements from all three writers on the subjects of life and prayer. I have no doubt that the comparison could be extended to include some other spiritual thinkers too. Indeed, to me one of the most remarkable features of Megre’s whole account of Anastasia and her sayings is its sense of inclusiveness. Megre does not purport to take his readers into another universe, where all the

worthy values they have held dear for so long must suddenly be regarded as worthless and forsakeable in favour of some new doctrine. He is not presenting them with a ‘new mountain’. Rather, he is simply showing them the spiritual values they already have from a brand new point of view, thereby enhancing the significance of these values and helping his readers put them into practice more effectively. As a translator, I was delighted to find that this sense of inclusiveness embraces not just people and their values, but the whole underlying foundation of language as well. Often seen as a divisive element in human society, in the Ringing Cedars Series (particularly the present book) language becomes a unifying force as fragments of its ancient roots are uncovered, enabling us to trace equivalent words in different languages back to their common origin. At the beginning of Chapter 10, footnote 2 on the name Medvedkovo explains that medved’, the Russian word for the animal we call a ‘bear’, is comprised of the roots med- (honey) and ved- (know).14 Surprisingly, both these roots have their counterparts in English: mead (an alcoholic drink made from fermented honey and water) and wit (an obsolete word meaning ‘know’, now more commonly used in the sense of ‘quick understanding’ or the ability to play intelligently with words and their meanings).15 Historically, knowledge and sight were related concepts (we see, therefore we know), and hence words like video and vision can also be traced (through Latin videre = ‘to see’) back to this same root, as can the word white (something clearly seen). These examples show some of the many layers of meaning inherent in the original root. But even more interesting, as my editor, Leonid Sharashkin, has pointed out to me, is the realization of how these linguistic changes reflect the evolution of the underlying concepts in human consciousness: in both Russian and English the roots ved- and wit- have yielded in general usage to zna- and know-, respectively, indicating mankind’s greater interest today in superficial, technological knowledge than in the multi-dimensional awareness and wisdom implied by the earlier terms. In fact, with some of their derivatives in both languages, e.g., ved’ma = witch, the original positive reference (in this case, to someone capable of harnessing the extended abilities of the human mind) has given way in popular perception to a more negative connotation (of one who uses such abilities for devious or evil purposes). Like many Russian roots, ved- comes directly from Sanskrit (along with Latin, one of the two proto-tongues from which the whole Indo-European family of languages is derived).7 And this highlights another aspect of

inclusiveness evident in the Series—namely, certain indications that language transcends mere human invention,8 hence its great potential for unifying instead of dividing the peoples of the Earth. On a visit to Russia in the 1960s, renowned Sanskritologist Durga Prasad Shastri discovered remarkable similarities between present-day Russian and the Sanskrit spoken in India some twenty-five centuries earlier. In fact, his knowledge of ancient Sanskrit enabled him to understand spoken Russian well enough that he could get by without an interpreter.9 And this is one more illustration of how Vladimir Megre, through relating Anastasia’s sayings on mankind and its another interesting insight from Sanskrit is the origin of the name Anastasia. In Sanskrit the first letter a- is a negating particle (as in asymmetrical in English), while the root nastsignifies ‘deterioration’ (compare English nasty)—hence anasta = ‘without deterioration’. This also underlies the use of Anastasia in Greek to signify ‘resurrection’. (I am grateful to my editor for pointing out this etymology.) See, for example, A book of pristine origins” in Chapter 2: “Conversation with my son”. history, brings together people of not only different religions and cultures but also of different chronological periods, to recognise and embrace their common heritage as children not of different genetic backgrounds, but rather of the one universal God. Perhaps the author’s future volumes will not only show us still new views of our familiar ‘mountain’, but transform our whole perception of a ‘mountain’ into a dimension we cannot yet fathom. Think of how a mountain seen from space may resemble, let’s say, a cedar nut! Then imagine how what we see as a ‘mountain’ of spirituality might be perceived through spiritual vision itself! The possibilities are endless. Ottawa, Canada John Woodsworth December 2006 Anastasia, the first book of the Ringing Cedars Series, tells the story of entrepreneur Vladimir Megre’s trade trip to the Siberian taiga in 1995, where he witnessed incredible spiritual phenomena connected with sacred ‘ringing cedar’ trees. He spent three days with a woman named Anastasia who shared with him her unique outlook on subjects as diverse as gardening, child-rearing, healing, Nature, sexuality, religion and more. This wilderness experience transformed Vladimir so deeply that he abandoned his commercial plans and, penniless, went to Moscow to fulfil Anastasia’s request and write a book about the spiritual insights she so generously

shared with him. True to her promise this life-changing book, once written, has become an international bestseller and has touched hearts of millions of people world-wide. The Ringing Cedars of Russia, the second book of the Series, in addition to providing a fascinating behind-the-scenes look at the story of how Anastasia came to be published, offers a deeper exploration of the universal concepts so dramatically revealed in Book 1. It takes the reader on an adventure through the vast expanses of space, time and spirit—from the Paradise-like glade in the Siberian taiga to the rough urban depths of Russia’s capital city, from the ancient mysteries of our forebears to a vision of humanity’s radiant future. The Space of Love, the third book of the Series, describes author’s second visit to Anastasia. Rich with new revelations on natural child-rearing and alternative education, on the spiritual significance of breast-feeding and the meaning of ancient megaliths, it shows how each person’s thoughts can influence the destiny of the entire Earth and describes practical ways of putting Anastasia’s vision of happiness into practice. Megre shares his new outlook on education and children’s real creative potential after a visit to a school where pupils build their own campus and cover the ten-year Russian school programme in just two years. Complete with an account of an armed intrusion into Anastasia’s habitat, the book highlights the limitless power of Love and non-violence. Co-creation, the fourth book and centrepiece of the Series, paints a dramatic living image of the creation of the Universe and humanity’s place in this creation, making this primordial mystery relevant to our everyday living today. Deeply metaphysical yet at the same time down-to-Earth practical, this poetic heart-felt volume helps us uncover answers to the most significant questions about the essence and meaning of the Universe and the nature and purpose of our existence. It also shows how and why the knowledge of these answers, innate in every human being, has become obscured and forgotten, and points the way toward reclaiming this wisdom and—in partnership with Nature—manifesting the energy of Love through our lives. Who are we?—Book Five of the Series—describes the author’s search for real-life ‘proofs’ of Anastasia’s vision presented in the previous volumes. Finding these proofs and taking stock of ongoing global environmental destruction, Vladimir Megre describes further practical steps for putting Anastasia’s vision into practice. Full of beautiful realistic images of a new way of living in co-operation with the Earth and each other, this book also highlights the role of children in making us aware of the precariousness of the present situation and in leading the global transition toward a happy,

violence-free society. The book of kin, the sixth book of the Series, describes another visit by the author to Anastasia’s glade in the Siberian taiga and his conversations with his growing son, which cause him to take a new look at education, science, history, family and Nature. Through parables and revelatory dialogues and stories Anastasia then leads Vladimir Megre and the reader on a shocking re-discovery of the pages of humanity’s history that have been distorted or kept secret for thousands of years. This knowledge sheds light on the causes of war, oppression and violence in the modern world and guides us in preserving the wisdom of our ancestors and passing it over to future generations. The energy of life, Book Seven of the Series, re-asserts the power of human thought and the influence of our thinking on our lives and the destiny of the entire planet and the Universe. Is also brings forth a practical understanding of ways to consciously control and build up the power of our creative thought. The book sheds still farther light on the forgotten pages of humanity’s history, on religion, on the roots of inter-racial and interreligious conflict, on ideal nutrition, and shows how a new way of thinking and a lifestyle in true harmony with Nature can lead to happiness and solve the personal and societal problems of crime, corruption, misery, conflict, war and violence. The new civilisation, the eighth book of the Series, is not yet complete. The first part of the book, already published as a separate volume, describes yet another visit by Vladimir Megre to Anastasia and their son, and offers new insights into practical co-operation with Nature, showing in ever greater detail how Anastasia’s lifestyle applies to our lives. Describing how the visions presented in previous volumes have already taken beautiful form in real life and produced massive changes in Russia and beyond, the author discerns the birth of a new civilisation. The book also paints a vivid image of America’s radiant future, in which the conflict between the powerful and the helpless, the rich and the poor, the city and the country, can be transcended and thereby lead to transformations in both the individual and society. Rites of Love—Book 8, Part 2 (published as a separate volume)—contrasts today’s mainstream attitudes to sex, family, childbirth and education with our forebears’ lifestyle, which reflected their deep spiritual understanding of the significance of conception, pregnancy, homebirth and upbringing of the young in an atmosphere of love. In powerful poetic prose Megre describes their ancient way of life, grounded in love and non-violence, and shows the practicability of this same approach today Through the life-story of one family, he portrays the radiant world of the ancient Russian Vedic

civilisation, the drama of its destruction and its re-birth millennia later—in our present time. To be continued Originals of these letters or e-mails are held by the publisher. We have preserved the spelling and grammar of the originals. I received a copy of Anastasia, two days ago and read it entirely! It is difficult finding the words to express how much it means to me and how powerfully I am impacted by it. It’s almost as if my mind and heart have been prepared to read this book for years! I’ve found a treasure for which I have been searching desperately for years! I will be ordering the entire series soon and sharing them with everyone I know! {and received soon after from the same reader] I’ve been immersed in the books. Since we last spoke, I have read book 2 AND 3! I am in awe of what I have read. I have been DEEPLY impacted and touched thus far, and I can’t wait to read book 4 through 8. As soon as book 5 is available, I will order a copy! — Brian, Los A ngeles, USA It is the first thing written in a book that has made so much sense to me. All that she says makes sense and you just know that you are reading TRUTH. The book is awesome. I cannot explain how very little I have read in my life and certainly I’ve NEVER finished one book I started. This book was different and I could not put it down ever! The truth lies in there for sure and which I believe is why it is selling incredibly all over the world with no advertising at all. —Denise, Canada Basically, these books make all the books that I’ve read to date look like a complete waste of paper! I think that going through life without this knowledge is a waste of time, and not passing it on to children is a crime. I can say with confidence that nothing like these books exists in the world today. —Rafal F., Australia (from an unsolicited letter to the editor of NEXUS Magazine, February/March 2006 edition) 16 With the beauty and simplicity of Anastasia’s spirit. This is a series of books bound to have tremendous impact. I have read hundreds of books through the years on spiritual advancement (Personal/ Earth), but there is nothing so direct and clear as this—with the exception of selected channellings. Thanks to Anastasia, Vladimir, John, Leonid and all involved! — Jan, Norway Awhile back, myself and MR also purchased 6 books, 2 each of the first 3. I

have been passing them on to a few other people, and now I am being asked about them more and more. This order is a copy each for my 2 daughters, because they have been asking me to borrow them, and so far it hasn’t been possible, because other people have them at the moment. So, I decided to give these to them as a birthday gift, seeing as they are both “into” this kind of reading. In fact, we all are into the spiritual types of books, and prefer them to any other kind of books. After reading these series though, I have recommended that they give all their other reading materials away, because this Anastasia series is all they’ll need from now on. I am in my 60’s now, and I just wish I knew all of this Anastasia material about 40+ years ago. I think my life, as well as the lives of my family would have been vastly different, if this kind of knowledge was “the norm” back when I was young, instead of it all being suppressed by the mainstream. The sooner we can all get ‘Anastasia” centres established worldwide, the better of mankind, and our planet will be. I just can’t wait until the entire series has been translated, but in the meantime, I’ll be getting book 4, and waiting eagerly for each new volume as it becomes available. — John, Melbourne, Australia Anastasia is among—no—is the most profound work I have ever read. I haven’t read that many “great” works, and may still be a bit naive—but I have read enough to realize that this is something special. No other book has actually changed me I am even more excited now in expectation of acquiring Books 2 through 4—I’m quietly confident that this is indeed the “life-changing” experience I have been waiting for. Cheers! —Ben, Australia Have just read with utter delight and joy Book 1 and would like to buy the first four books that are translated into English. Do you have a distributor in the U.K. and what is the cost per book in sterling? Please e-mail me back with this information. Thanking you in advance and so looking forward to hearing from you. — Araura, UK I need to buy 6 copies of the first book, Anastasia. I have six close friends who just HAVE to read them, and won’t unless I shove them into their laps. Bill me. — Duncan, Queensland, Australia What a wonderful read. I thoroughly enjoyed all 3—I finished them all by Sunday eve. I’m a fast reader when I find something that touches my soul. I am hooked. When is #4 due? Can’t wait to read them all. I’ve just started to go through them again to highlight the messages.

— Kathleen, Australia I’ve read through all 3 books and what can I say? hard to put into words. Now I have some idea how hard it could be for Anastasia to put into words what she wants to say for us. Anyway I can’t wait to read the next one so can you please email me as soon as available in Australia. — Elizabeth, Rochedale, Australia I am enjoying the books very much, am half way through book 2, which has moved me most so far. Now I would like to get another set of the first three books as a present for a friend. — Don, Warragul, Australia These ringing cedar books are so powerful, I feel in communion with Anastasia reading them. I would love to distribute these books. — Andrew, Melbourne, Australia 17 so excited to have discovered these books and am fully committed to doing what I can to help spread their message. — Mary, New Zealand We have devoured the first book as if we were starving and I am eager to order the others very soon. — Sherry, USA There has been a very significant change taking place within me since reading the Series. It has been a casting off of the selfish elements within me and walking into a vast chasm of blessings. What is possible I do not yet know, only that an awareness and a consciousness is possible in this life. My life is hopeful now. — Allan, Wisconsin, USA At last! Truth that has not been distorted by dogma or someone’s ego! I might explode from emotion if I read any more! I had a hard time getting myself to just stand still. — Ana, Portugal The Ringing Cedars books help with explaining ways to have a richer life, raise healthier children, filling one’s heart rather than one’s pockets. — Penny, Missouri, USA There is something highly significant stirring in the spirit world which has broken out upon the world, starting in Russia since Vladimir Megre first encountered this remarkable woman. You read her books; you get filled with

the passion of wanting to share what you find with your families and friends The appearance of Anastasia is a most important and needful occurrence which has benefited many people enormously. Her appearance has rocked hosts of people to their very foundations and reading Book 1 it is easy to see why There seems to be the promise that Anastasia and Vladimir Megre are to become the most famous people to appear on the world scene So far I am deeply affected and inspired by her roll on Book 2. — David, England THE AUTHOR, Vladimir Megre , born in 1950, was a well-known entrepreneur from a Siberian city of Novosibirsk. According to his account, in 1995—after hearing a fascinating story about the power of ‘ringing cedars’ from a Siberian elder—he organised a trade expedition into the Siberian taiga to rediscover the lost technique of pressing virgin cedar nut oil containing high curative powers, as well as to find the ringing cedar tree. However, his encounter on this trip with a Siberian woman named Anastasia transformed him so deeply that he abandoned his business and went to Moscow to write a book about the spiritual insights she had shared with him. Vladimir Megre now lives near the city of Vladimir, Russia, 190 km (120 miles) east of Moscow. If you wish to contact the author, you may send a message to his personal e-mail [email protected] THE TRANSLATOR, John Woodsworth, born in Vancouver (British Columbia), has over forty years of experience in Russian-English translation, from classical poetry to modern short stories. Since 1982 he has been associated with the University of Ottawa in Canada as a Russianlanguage teacher, translator and editor, most recently as a Research Associate and Administrative Assistant with the University’s Slavic Research Group. A published Russian-language poet himself, he and his wife—Susan K. Woodsworth—are directors of the Sasquatch Literary Arts Performance Series in Ottawa. A Certified Russian-English Translator John Woodsworth is in the process of translating the remaining volumes in Vladimir Megre’s Ringing Cedars Series. THE EDITOR, Leonid Sharashkin, is writing his doctoral dissertation on the spiritual, cultural and economic significance of the Russian dacha gardening movement, at the University of Missouri at Columbia. After receiving a Master’s degree in Natural Resources Management from Indiana University at Bloomington, he worked for two years as Programme Manager at the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF Russia) in Moscow, where he also served as editor of Russia’s largest environmental magazine, The Panda Times. Together with his wife, Irina Sharashkina, he has translated into Russian Small is beautiful and A guide for the perplexed by E.F. Schumacher, The secret life of plants by Peter Tompkins and Christopher

Bird, The continuum concept by Jean Liedloff and Birth without violence by Frederick Leboyer. ORDERING INFORMATION USA: • on-line — www.RingingCedars.com • tel. /fax (toll-free) - 1-888DOLMENS (1-888-365-6367) • tel. /fax (from outside US Canada) — 1-646-429-1986 • e-mail— [email protected] • mail (US)— send US$14.95 per copy plus $3.95 shipping and handling for the first copy and $0.99 s&h for each additional copy in your order to: Ringing Cedars Press 415 Dairy Rd., Suite E-339 Kahului, HI 96732, USA Make a check or money order payable to “Ringing Cedars Press”. Please indicate clearly the quantity and title of the book(s) you are ordering and be sure to include your US postal address with your payment. Allow 2-4 weeks for delivery. Prices are subject to change without notice. UNITED KINGDOM: • order on-line—www.RingingCedars.co.uk • by phone (toll-free)— 0800011-2081 • e-mail— [email protected] AUSTRALIA: • order on-line — www.RingingCedars.com.au • by phone — 1800-248-768 • e-mail—[email protected] NEW ZEALAND: • order on-line—www.RingingCedars.co.nz • by phone—64-9232-9792 • email— [email protected] SOUTH AFRICA: • order on-line—www.RingingCedars.co.za • e-mail— [email protected] Spirituality, Childrearing History Book 6 of the Ringing Cedars Series A new visit to Anastasia’s glade in the Siberian taiga and conversations with his growing son cause Vladimir Megre to take a new look at education, science, history, family and Nature. Through parables and revelatory dialogues and stories Anastasia leads the author and the reader on a shocking re-discovery of the pages of humanity’s history that have been distorted or kept secret for thousands of years. This

knowledge sheds light on the causes of war, oppression and violence in the modern world and guides us in preserving the wisdom of our ancestors and passing it over to future generations. The Ringing Cedars Series ISBN 978-0-9763333-6-4 www. RingingCedar s. com 1-888-DOLMENS USS14.95 CANS19.95 AU$24.95