Thirteen Doors

Het Monster. THIRTEEN GATES. History of esoteric teachings “from Adam to the present day”. P r e f a c e

Without cunning I have learned,
Without envy I teach.

Wisdom of Solomon, 6:13.

This book arose from a course of lectures delivered by the author in 1994–95 at the University of Cultural History. The author long had the intention to attempt a complex and objective account of the history of the emergence of what is now commonly called esotericism, for such an account has not existed until now.

Although there are many books describing our ancestors’ views on various esoteric questions, none of them adhere to the principle formulated long ago by Iamblichus: one must speak of esotericism in the language of esotericism, and of philosophy in the language of philosophy. These books recount the history and content of esoteric teachings from the perspective (or within the framework) of the history of philosophy, the history of religion, or even “The History of Superstition and Witchcraft,” such as Alfred Lehmann’s well-known work. And although esotericism intersects with all these areas of human thought, it remains a distinct branch of human consciousness, one that requires an esoteric approach for better understanding—an approach that not only takes into account the terms and categories accepted by esotericists but is also free from allegiance to any particular philosophical, religious, or “superstitious-magical” direction. For an esotericist can be a philosopher (Ibn Arabi, F. Bacon), a theologian (Origen, P. Florensky), a poet or writer (G. Chesterton, D. Andreyev), or even a simple cobbler (Hassanlar, Jacob Böhme). Moreover, over the centuries, esotericism has become so encrusted with legends and myths that its true content has been utterly lost, though it is simple and essentially unchanged throughout all ages. Thus, this course might well have been titled “The History and Meaning of Esoteric Doctrines,” but the title is not the point.

This topic is vast and deserves not a single book but a multi-volume work like Antoine Court de Gébelin’s Le monde primitif analysé et comparé avec le monde moderne (“Primitive World, Analyzed and Compared with the Modern World”). Neither Court de Gébelin nor other authors who have undertaken this daunting task have, as is well known, completed their work—perhaps such a work is impossible to finish.

Therefore, the author has limited himself to a task that, if not as noble, is at least feasible. This book offers a popular (or perhaps popular-scientific) account of the true history of the development of esoteric thought, without bowing to its individual prophets or movements and without descending into excessive criticism driven by allegiance to other directions.

Naturally, the account is brief and incomplete in the sense that many extraordinarily interesting details (especially polemical ones) had to be omitted. The author was compelled to restrict himself only to what seemed most important. To some extent, this may be considered subjectivism, for another author would certainly have highlighted different aspects or quoted different sources.

However, the author’s many years of experience in philosophy, theology, and esotericism itself give him reason to hope that his subjectivism is “less subjective” than the subjectivism of listeners who immediately and eagerly began criticizing his lectures. Typically, they liked everything except what pertained to their own field: Sinologists enthusiastically listened to talks about India, Greece, and Africa, reproaching the author for the incompleteness of his account of China; Egyptologists thanked him for information on Rosicrucians and Freemasons while lamenting the neglect of the riches of ancient Egyptian culture; Buddhists and Krishna devotees were dissatisfied with the dryness of the report on the views of their Indian predecessors; and theologians of all world religions shook their heads, criticizing the author for his “non-religiousness.” Not to mention modern “initiates,” who cannot tolerate any attempt to place oneself above the doctrine they consider their beloved one.

The author, considering himself an esotericist by vocation, does not deny it. Let it be so. After all, he delivered and wrote his lectures not for the faithful or adherents of any particular movement but for people who still know nothing, and so he simply tried to avoid “indoctrination,” allowing each person to choose a teaching that resonates with their soul. It is not the author’s place to sway them toward his own faith, though he does have such “baggage.”

The author is grateful to the founders of the University of Cultural History for compelling him to find the time and take up this work. And even if it has turned out brief and popular (“for schoolchildren”), contemporary philosophers and theologians, poets and writers, and even simple cobblers may still find something new in it. For only the cobbler who has learned to judge beyond his own boot can truly call himself a cobbler.

The author also endeavored, as far as possible, to standardize the terminology used by esotericists of various movements, for this is a painful issue—one of the stumbling blocks that hinder mutual understanding between different schools. Indeed, this problem is not unique to esotericism but plagues most other, entirely academic fields as well. One can only hope that the dawning Age of Aquarius will help all researchers find common ground.

This also explains the spelling of the word світ (“world” in the sense of “Universe,” from Greek *o Kosmos*) with an “і” and the word світ (“peace,” from Greek *h’ Eirēnē*) with a regular “и,” as is customary in theological works; it was simply more convenient for the author, and it will not harm the reader. History of Esoteric Teachings

1. What is Esotericism
2. Prehistoric Cultures
3. The Age of Aries
4. China and Tibet
5. India and Persia
6. Exotic Cultures (Bambara, Benin, Suriname, Shamanism)
7. Sumer and Babylon
8. Kabbalists and Sufis
9. Greeks and Barbarians
10. Christian Europe
11. The Eighteenth Century
12. The Nineteenth Century
13. The Twentieth Century
Het Monster. History of Esoteric Teachings
Lecture 1. What is Esotericism

In Confucian ethics, there was a concept of “zhengming,” literally “rectification of names,” meaning that a name must correspond to the essence of a thing. The problem of terminological unity—or rather, its absence—has long been acute in all fields of human knowledge, and esotericism is no exception. Therefore, I would like to begin with defining terms. Especially since many of the concepts we will address in this lecture have repeatedly taken on new life throughout our history.

***

Humans have never doubted that alongside the visible world, there exists an invisible one, whatever it may be called. In the dawn of human history, these two worlds were not even distinguished in human consciousness: people and gods coexisted, and every thing had a soul. Later, a certain differentiation occurred, but the idea that the same laws govern both worlds persisted. The doctrine of the unity of these laws is what we now call esotericism.

ESOTERICISM, also esoterics, esoteric: these words derive from the Greek *esōterikos*, meaning “inner.” The term emerged during the Hellenistic period (4th–3rd centuries BCE). Historically, it denoted secret knowledge, the “INNER DOCTRINE” of a religious, philosophical, or other teaching, accessible only to those who had passed the higher degrees of initiation, in contrast to EXOTERIC, “outer” knowledge, which was not only accessible to all but often obligatory for them.

Compare: the secret doctrine and the “general education program” of Pythagoras; *bāṭin* and *ẓāhir* in Ismailism; Christian sacraments, all seven of which are accessible to both clergy and laity in the Orthodox Church, while in Catholicism only clergy have this right; the various degrees of Masonic initiation (from the first to the third in France and up to the thirty-third in Scotland); and, finally, the secrets of the Politburo, accessible only to a very narrow circle—on one hand—and the general political studies that many of us still remember—on the other. An initiate in esoteric knowledge was obligated to keep it secret and naturally felt chosen, belonging to the “elite.”

Today, ESOTERICISM is a generalizing term for modern teachings or, more precisely, a worldview presented to humans as the unity of macrocosm and microcosm, extending beyond the consideration of their material characteristics. It is a method of comprehending the “inner essence” of all things, the measure of which, as is well known, is man himself.

Moreover, since the time of the “great charlatan” Cagliostro (late 18th century), and definitively since Madame Blavatsky (late 19th century) and Aleister Crowley (early 20th century), modern esotericism has been based on the comparative study of Eastern and Western teachings, the goal of which is to help man primarily know himself, since he is the measure of all things. Without this, he cannot comprehend anything else. And as is well known, self-knowledge is not only the oldest but also the most difficult task ever set by man. No wonder the temple of Apollo at Delphi bore the inscription: Gnwri se auton — “Know thyself.”

This term firmly took root in the West after World War II as a replacement for two similar and, in general, synonymous terms whose meanings had changed by that time: HERMETICISM and OCCULTISM.

If we disregard minor details, all three terms denote the same thing: philosophically, they represent a certain worldview, assuming that the unknown, even that which is acknowledged as unknowable, deserves as much reverent attention and rigorous scientific approach as the known or acknowledged as knowable. Practically, they refer to a set of disciplines studying the laws common to both.

What is the difference between them?

The word HERMETICISM, like the word ESOTERICISM, was coined by the Greeks during the Hellenistic era or slightly earlier. Herodotus (484–425 BCE) wrote about Egyptian priests possessing secret knowledge, attributing this knowledge to a certain Hermes Trismegistus, from whose name the term was derived.

From the same word, or rather from the name, comes the concept of “hermeneutics” — the art of interpreting sacred texts, as well as the term “exegesis,” which gained prominence in Orthodox practice (interpretation of Holy Scripture), and the widely known word “hermetic” in the sense of “hermetically sealed.”

Ancient peoples, including the Greeks of the Hellenistic period, when encountering foreign cultures, did not trouble themselves with hermeneutics; that is, they did not delve into the nuances of local pantheons. They simply equated local gods with their own — primarily by function, though the functions of Greek gods themselves evolved over time.

Imagine this scene: during the time of Alexander the Great, a learned Greek arrives in Egypt. He is brought to the sanctuary of the god Thoth (as he might pronounce the name).

“What is the name of your god?” “The Interpreter? He gave humanity writing, numbers, and the art of weaving? Then he must be Hermes!”

In Egypt, this god was called Djehuty (Thoth), and the center of his cult was the city of Khemenu in southern Egypt, which the Greeks called Hermopolis. This god was a lunar deity depicted with two horns — the horns symbolizing wisdom and teaching. Later, this imagery appeared in the (Arabic) title of Alexander the Great: Dhu al-Qarnayn (the Two-Horned One). Horns (in the form of rays of light) as symbols of wisdom also adorn the depictions of the prophet Moses and some other great reformers.

In reality, however, it seems that Thoth was originally not a god but a priest of the temple of an ancient lunar god by the same name (Thoth, Djehuty) in this city, a scholar. History, after all, is written retrospectively, and the further removed the events described are, the grander and more beautiful they appear.

Eventually, he was deified — first by the Egyptians, then by the Greeks. Unlike their own god Hermes — an ancient Akkadian deity embodying the forces of nature — the Greeks named the Egyptian Hermes “Thrice Great” (Trismegistus).

At the turn of antiquity and the Hellenistic era, Hermetic sciences emerged, studying phenomena of one plane (level) of existence through their manifestations in others, according to the principle of similarity. This principle, otherwise known as the law of analogy (or sympathy), was, according to legend, discovered by Hermes Trismegistus himself and expressed in the famous formula: “That which is below is like that which is above.”

The Hellenistic era itself serves as a kind of watershed between the ancient and the modern world. We will examine this later. When did it occur? Count from Alexander the Great: 333 BCE, drei — drei — drei, bei Issos Keilerei, as German gymnasium students memorized, the victory at Issus.

Those who lived before this era seem to us like quite wild or at least strange people. To confirm this, one need only try reading the books of the Old Testament, written before the era of Alexander or, more precisely, before Ezra and his disciple Nehemiah (5th century BCE). Modern man does not understand the logic by which the authors of these books and their heroes were guided. As Viktor Vasilyevich Bychkov, philosopher and cultural historian, once said, “It always feels as though they were aliens.” Our logic begins with Ecclesiastes.

Later, the Gnostics turned to Hermes as a scholar and possessor of secret knowledge. Clement of Alexandria (3rd century CE) considered him the author of 42 works of astrological-cosmographic and religious content. Among the Greek and Latin texts that have come down to us are: De natura deorum (“On the Nature of the Gods”), Poimandres sive de potestate et sapientia Dei (“Poimandres, or On the Power and Wisdom of God”), and the famous Tabula smaragdina (“Emerald Tablet”). For further reading, see, for example, Z. Agapova, Hermes — God of Knowledge of Earth and Heaven, Almanac “Hermes,” Moscow, 1992.

Thus, in the eyes of people of that era, HERMETICISM referred to a doctrine that acknowledged the existence of a hidden, unknowable essence of things, accessible only to the initiated. The term ESOTERICISM, however, was adopted by Christian hierarchs, who considered themselves esotericists — and not without reason, for what doctrine could be more esoteric than a faith-based doctrine? — while the rest, including kings, were deemed exotericists. No wonder even Saint Constantine, whose memory along with that of his mother Helena is celebrated by the Orthodox Church on May 21 (June 3), is referred to in the documents of the Council of Nicaea (325) as o episkopos ton exoterikon — “Bishop of the External.”

Hermeticism as a doctrine and a term persisted until the turn of the previous and current millennia, that is, until the Great Schism of 1054, when the Roman Pope Leo IX and the Patriarch of Constantinople Michael Kerullarios excommunicated each other in absentia. The 11th century was, in fact, a period of the final formation of dogma in all three world religions — Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.

The consequences of this were many, but for us, the important point is this: once dogma was formalized, so too was the concept of what lay outside it — the notion of dogma and non-dogma. Previously, at least a basic knowledge of Hermeticism was considered a sign of education and erudition. People might or might not believe in horoscopes, but they knew how to cast them — as evidenced, for example, by the brilliant Byzantine writer and statesman Michael Psellos (1018–1078), a contemporary of the Great Schism. Now, this knowledge became heretical and wicked (“pagan,” from Latin paganus). The right to connect with the invisible world was monopolized by the Church, and all other esotericists were transformed into rivals and competitors, against whom persecution — the era of witch burnings — was not long in coming. Hermeticism, along with all other ancient heritage, was declared devilry and forgotten.

However, it soon revived, again alongside the entire ancient legacy, but under a different name: OCCULTISM.

The word OCCULTISM derives from the Latin occultus, meaning “hidden,” and denotes the same doctrine about the existence of a hidden connection between events and phenomena, incomprehensible from the standpoint of either canonical theology or rational science.

In the 12th century, Rabbi Abraham ben David of Toledo compiled ancient texts, added some of his own, and presented the world with the first collection of Kabbalistic teachings. In the 13th century, Count Bolstedt, also known as Albert the Great, resigned from his position as bishop and became a teacher of occult sciences. In the 14th century, Raymond Lull created his Ars Magna — “The Great Art,” a book on magic and alchemy. In the 15th century, the young Count Pico della Mirandola realized that the visible and invisible worlds are one, and he named Kabbalah the best means of knowledge. In the 16th century, a soldier named Heinrich, honored for bravery and knighted on the battlefield under the name Cornelius von Nettesheim, wrote a three-volume work on secret philosophy — De occulta philosophia, effectively becoming the founder of modern esotericism (we know him as Agrippa). In the 17th century, the young Benedict Spinoza… though Spinoza’s story is better suited for a course on the history of religion.

In the 16th–17th centuries, the development of the natural sciences (the invention of the telescope and microscope, Newton’s binomial theorem, the heliocentric system) weakened interest in occultism. Soon, the Age of Enlightenment arrived, during which its representatives began to banish not only the devil but also God from mass consciousness — and, naturally, threw out the baby with the bathwater, not just one but several. For now, however, we are interested in only one baby — occultism, which was nearly forgotten for almost a century and a half. I mean, of course, only the educated circles; among the common people, faith in miracles never died.

The discovery of Uranus in 1784 coincided with the beginning of a new period in the history of esotericism. By the late 18th and especially throughout the 19th century, occultism revived with renewed vigor due to the philosophical searches of members of numerous secret societies (Rosicrucians, Illuminati, Freemasons), the practical needs of natural scientists, primarily physicians (Mesmer, Gall, Hahnemann), and Europeans’ “discovery” of Eastern and their own ancient teachings, reworked on a new theoretical level (palmistry, spiritualism, Theosophy).

Through many trials and errors, occultists sought a way to unite ancient, largely outdated theories with the data of contemporary science. Each small society developed its own conceptual language, and the differences between these languages are still noticeable today. The trouble is that occultism pushed them toward politics. The esoteric worldview is a philosophy of a person free from any superstitions, and beginners often confused spiritual liberation with social change. Suffice it to recall the Russian unions of Decembrists, which arose from Masonic lodges. But more will be said about Freemasons in particular.

In any case, by the end of the 19th century, occultism had largely formed as a coherent and quite scientifically substantiated worldview. Over the entire 19th century, a great deal was accomplished — in all areas of occult development. Many new disciplines emerged. However, the fin de siècle era and the subsequent two decades of wars and revolutions once again shuffled the deck. Initially, occultism became fashionable, and naturally, a multitude of outright charlatans and swindlers appeared. As a result, occultism ceased to be taken seriously and became a subject of ridicule. Even Jaroslav Hašek, in The Good Soldier Švejk, introduced the cook-ocultist Jurajda. For educated people, fascination with occultism became shameful.

In the 1920s–1930s, a new — and, as of today, the last — stage in the development of esotericism began. The term “occultism,” which had become pejorative, was forgotten, and new names were sought.

The Theosophical Society, founded by Helena Blavatsky, recovered from its ordeals. In Switzerland, Dr. Rudolf Steiner founded the Anthroposophical Society. In America, the Institute of Parapsychology emerged, and in Russia, an entire scientific direction dedicated to studying human potential (Bechterev). In Germany, the Nazis attempted to harness astrologers and seers for their purposes. In England, under the name “The Silver Star,” the Order of the Golden Dawn, founded at the end of the 19th century, was revived, and so on.

The wisest among the powerful began to recognize the value of esoteric science. All research that could influence the balance of power in the world or a state’s prestige began to be subsidized — and classified. To this day, all esotericism, including the Church, has lived for millennia solely on its own income and private, even if royal, donations.

During World War II, this development slowed; many esotericists died or perished. But immediately after the war, it resumed and advanced rapidly. Numerous societies and organizations, educational centers, faculties, publishing houses, and shops appeared. More and more new books and reprints of old ones were published. The advent of computers allowed the creation of specialized programs and databases. New directions and disciplines emerged, and new approaches were found to old theories. And somehow, the term ESOTERICA took root as a kind of synthesis. Initially, of course, it gained popularity abroad, and after the collapse of socialism — also here.

Here, however, esotericism then flourished in full force, as it did at the beginning of the century. But this will pass, and it already is.

In general, despite its obvious recognition, esotericism still occupies a marginal position, lingering on the periphery of public consciousness. Esotericism as a philosophy is convenient primarily because it helps explain and understand many things, as well as predict their development. In other words, it meets the demands placed on a theory (as is well known, a theory should not only explain but also predict). Moreover, its constructs are beautiful, and beauty is another sign of a good theory. Applied esoteric disciplines are even more convenient because they help find solutions to many practical problems.

Nevertheless, the millennia-old stigma of “shame” has not yet faded. And although kings and presidents, sports champions and secret services — not to mention ordinary people — successfully use the services of healers and clairvoyants, astrologers and fortune-tellers, admitting to this is somehow not accepted. The issue here is not so much secrecy as the position of academic science, which has imperceptibly replaced the Church as the guardian of tradition.

It is no secret that many fields of modern science are going through not the best of times. It is also no secret that many representatives of this science are more interested in their own success than in others’. But there are also conscientious scholars who continue to expose “these medieval superstitions,” simply because their acquaintance with esotericism stems from cheap American literature, a half-educated astrologer, or a quack doctor.

But this will not last forever. A new turning point, a “watershed,” is coming in human history, and it is very possible that people of some 23rd century will see us as aliens, just as we see the inhabitants of ancient Sumer. Already in the near future, the 21st century, esoteric sciences will take their rightful place in educational programs alongside all others. After all, in reality, both are closely interconnected. However, the transition from the old logic to the new, though already underway, will take centuries.

This forecast is based on a special chronology accepted by astrologers and, in general, in modern esotericism. You have probably heard the phrase: “The Age of Aquarius is coming.” What does it mean?

Let me start from afar. In the 2nd century AD, the astronomer Hipparchus, who lived on the island of Rhodes, discovered the phenomenon of precession — the shift of the vernal equinox point.

The vernal equinox point is the point where the celestial equator intersects the ecliptic. The day when the Sun passes through this point, moving from the southern celestial hemisphere to the northern, is called the day of the vernal equinox — according to the modern calendar, March 21. From this day, many ancient calendars began the year, and in our time, this point serves as the starting point for celestial coordinates.

So, Hipparchus compared his observations with the astronomical tables of the Egyptians from several centuries earlier and found that this point had shifted. He calculated its angular speed of movement, which is about 50 arcseconds per year. This means that for an Earth observer, the entire belt of zodiacal constellations gradually shifts: if during Hipparchus’ time the Sun indeed rose together with the constellation of Aries on this day, in our time it rises with the constellation of Pisces on this day, even though its position relative to the equator and the ecliptic has not changed. And over the next two thousand years, it will rise with the constellation of Aquarius on this day.

This, in particular, is what opponents of astrology base their arguments on:

– Astrologers claim that from March 21 to April 21 the Sun is in the constellation of Aries, but in reality it enters it only on April 18!

That is true, but in astrology, not constellations are considered, but zodiac signs. Constellations have varying extents and indeed change their positions, while signs are conditional sectors of the celestial sphere, each 30 degrees, counted from the vernal equinox point. Thus, this point moves only relative to the constellations, while the signs follow it in turn because their beginning is tied to it. In ten thousand years, on the day of the vernal equinox, the Sun will rise together with the constellation of Libra, yet for astrologers, people born within a month after this day will still have the “qualities of Aries” — not the constellation of Aries, which naturally has no qualities, but the psychological archetype described in literature as “Aries.”

At a speed of 50 arcseconds per year, the vernal equinox point takes about two thousand years to traverse one constellation (or, to be precise, one sign of the true zodiac). During the period from roughly the beginning of our era to the present day, it has been in the constellation of Pisces. Before that, for about two thousand years, it was in Aries, meaning from around the time of the “Great Migration of Peoples” in the 20th century BCE until the birth of Christ. Two thousand years before that, it was in Taurus, and so on. In the near future, it will move into the constellation of Aquarius.

Accordingly, human history is divided into segments of roughly two thousand years each: the history of the Sumerians and Egyptians up to the end of the Middle Kingdom era — the Age of Taurus and the bull as a symbol of divine and royal power, approximately 4000–2000 BCE; after a period of wars and changes lasting four to four centuries, came the Age of Aries — Assyria and Babylon, the Jews with their scapegoat, and the Greeks with their golden-fleeced ram, the 2nd and 1st millennia BCE; then another period of change, the Hellenistic era and the first Christian communities, again three to four centuries, and the beginning of the Age of Pisces — as you may recall, the symbol of the first Christians was the fish.

The Age of Pisces is to be followed by the Age of Aquarius, a transition that has already begun. If we disregard its first heralds that appeared in the 19th century, it has truly begun only now. It will also take three to four centuries, so it would be premature to speak of the definitive departure of the Age of Pisces before the 23rd century. The significance of each of these ages we will discuss later, and you can also refer to astrological literature to learn what the archetypes of Taurus, Aries, Pisces, and Aquarius represent.

It is clear that this division is conditional — just like the division of history into the “slave-owning era,” the “feudal era,” and so on. It is also clear that our brief overview mainly concerns Judeo-Christian, and thus essentially European, culture. In different regions of the Earth, the change of ages occurred differently. But we will consider these details later.

Overall, this chronology is convenient for us because it allows us to easily trace the main stages in the development of esoteric thought and structure them according to the logic of human thought. Now you understand the meaning of the titles of the second and third lectures: “Pre-Aries Culture” and “The Age of Aries.” And by reflecting on what each of these ages meant for humanity’s self-awareness, we can better imagine the stages of its development.

Applied Esoteric Disciplines

Esoteric sciences developed in the same way as any other, such as physics or chemistry. Initially, they were studied comprehensively — a chemist naturally studied alchemy, an astronomer astrology, and so on. Later, the paths of these sciences diverged, so that today we have to deal with a multitude of narrow disciplines. However, the boundaries between them are blurred, so new disciplines constantly emerge at their intersections, and the field of esoteric sciences itself closely borders other areas of human knowledge, which could be united under the name of human sciences.

There are many such sciences. Even an alphabetical list, from anthropology to linguistics, would take up as much space as this entire article. Today, a person who decides to study one of these sciences is forced not only to “know more and more about less and less” (narrow specialization) but also to constantly turn to “neighboring” sciences. For example, a psychiatrist often has to study sociology, pedagogy, and philosophy, while an astrologer may need to turn to chiromancy, graphology, or Tarot.

To get a closer look at esoteric sciences, we will conveniently divide them into three groups. First, there are disciplines that use the object of study as given — that is, parameters that a person cannot change: date of birth, shape and lines of the palm, handwriting, etc. These include primarily astrology, graphology, and chirology (chiromancy), as well as dactyloscopy, which is essentially a branch of chirology.

Also included here are phrenology (determining character from the bumps on the skull), physiognomy (the same based on facial features), as well as numerology — determining character and predicting fate based on the numerical values of letters in a name and the digits of a birth date.

Closely related to these are neo-occult disciplines that also use objective data: criminology, paralanguage (studying facial expressions and gestures), and many diagnostic methods — for example, iridology, which determines health based on the iris of the eye. Ultimately, psychiatry should also be included here, as its conclusions are based on objective manifestations of personality — reactions, statements, etc., which are difficult to simulate.

The second group of occult sciences operates with subjective data — material that a person provides about themselves. This mainly involves certain images of the subconscious that the person themselves usually cannot interpret; the specialist acts as a “decoder.” This includes all mantic disciplines, i.e., various methods of divination.

There are many methods of divination, ranging from cartomancy, divination with sticks or coffee grounds to exotic techniques of ancient tribes and peoples, predicting fate from the flight of birds, cracks in a tortoise shell, or the nature of smoke rising over an altar. In reality, one can divine anything, because the answer to a question is already embedded in the subconscious of the questioner; otherwise, the question would not have arisen. Divination symbols merely help make this answer understandable.

Dream interpretation (oneirology) also belongs to this group, as dreams belong to the subjective rather than objective world. This also includes Kabbalistic numerology, which studies random combinations of letters and numbers.

From the side of neo-occult sciences, psychology is closely related to mantic disciplines, as it also studies the data that a person provides about themselves, revealing some things and concealing others. The most vivid expression of these traits in psychology is found in Freud’s psychoanalysis. It is clear that this category also includes the many psychological tests used today.

And finally, the third group of occult sciences — the m a g i c a l sciences, whose main purpose is not the study of human character or the prediction of fate, but rather the transformation of reality itself. Magic was practiced by both professionals (priests, sorcerers, shamans) and ordinary people. The Three Wise Men who, according to the Gospel, came to worship the infant Jesus were none other than Babylonian magicians who learned of the Savior’s birth through observations of the heavens.

There are several types of magic, differing in their goals and methods of operation. Professional magic has long been divided into white (theurgy) and black (witchcraft, sorcery). The distinction between them is more ethical than technical: if the former aims to reduce evil in the world, the latter pursues the opposite goal.

Natural or “folk” magic, however, is simply an inseparable part of our lives. “Any action performed with intent is already magic,” said Aleister Crowley, and he was right, for when a person becomes aware of their intention, it already brings about changes in the surrounding world, facilitating the realization of that intention if it does not violate cosmic equilibrium, or hindering it if it does.

For a more detailed account of individual esoteric disciplines and their history, one may refer to Alfred Lehmann’s book “Illustrated History of Superstition and Witchcraft” (Moscow, 1900, reprint Kyiv, 1993). The history presented there is more critical in tone, if not outright sarcastic, yet the facts are accurately and correctly laid out.

Het Monster. The History of Esoteric Teachings
Lecture 2. Pre-Aryan Cultures

History, as I have already mentioned, is written retrospectively. The further removed a historian is in time from the people and events they describe, the more grand and significant those people and events appear, and the further back into the depths of time the origins of history itself are pushed. Thus, the Chaldeans (Babylonians) claimed that their esoteric knowledge had been accumulated over 500,000 years, the Egyptians laid claim to over 600,000, and the Indians counted in millions (it is asserted that the first astrological manual, the Surya Siddhanta, was written in 2,163,102 BCE).

The history of esotericism can be considered more or less documented only from the era of Hellenism. According to our chronology, this corresponds to the beginning or eve of the Age of Pisces, the 6th to 3rd centuries BCE. All the rest is mere hypothesis, no matter how convincing it may appear. However, since our interest lies not only in the history of esotericism itself but also in the esotericists’ own perceptions of it, I would like to begin with a remarkable hypothesis, or rather a theory, that has gained wide currency. This is the theory of the Seven Root Races — expounded in the works of Helena Blavatsky, Helena Roerich, and other Western admirers of the East.

The number seven, the sacred septenary, is found in many earthly civilizations. To better understand what is meant, let us recall that, according to esoteric belief, a human being is also composed of seven bodies, the aggregate of which constitutes their essence. Sometimes these bodies are grouped into “planes” or “levels” — physical, astral, mental.

In ancient China, these corresponded to the “three souls” of a person: Gui, Hun, and Shen. The first, the lowest (Hebrew ruach, Greek pneuma, Latin anima, Sanskrit prana), descended into the earth; the second (Greek daimon/as/: a bodiless being, an elemental) became the ancestral spirit, revered by the family; and the third, the highest (Latin spiritus, Sanskrit atman), ascended to the heavens, where it joined the host of spirits. Later, Taoism also differentiated these planes, though they ultimately arrived at seven subdivisions as well.

In various sources, the number and names of these bodies vary — there may be more or fewer, though seven predominates (and why this is so will become clear later). The most recent occultists (C.W. Leadbeater) further divided each body into seven sub-planes or sub-levels, resulting in a total of 49. Those interested may consult Leadbeater’s works in the translations of A.V. Troyanovsky (“The Astral Plane,” St. Petersburg, 1908, reprint Baku, 1990; “The Mental Plane,” St. Petersburg, 1912, reprint Moscow, “KOKON,” 1991). For our purposes, however, we shall adopt the most common version: the physical body, the etheric body, the astral body, the mental body (manas, lower mind), the buddhic body (also known as the abstract mind), and the two highest bodies — the spiritual mind and the causal body. The last two constitute the monad.

MONAD (from Greek monas, “unit”): the simplest element, an indivisible particle of being; in occultism, the foundation of human essence, uniting the causal body and the spiritual mind. Known since antiquity, in the Middle Ages the term “monad” referred to the “root” substance not only of humans but of all complex things. The monad is immortal, ensuring reincarnation in both male and female forms. According to Leibniz, it is a kind of “atom,” a spiritual unit of being possessing the capacity for perception (apperception) and active action. No two monads are alike. Monads also vary in rank: there are lower (monads of stones, plants), higher (animals, humans), and the highest (God).

So, the theory. Let us formulate its essence briefly, without delving into details.

The Theory of the Seven Races

Intelligent life on Earth was created purposefully, that is, with a premeditated intention, but not by an anthropomorphic Creator God as imagined by all religions in their early stages, but by a complex of higher forces for which human language has no words.

This idea of the purposefulness of Creation, which grew out of the concept of a Creator God, later gave rise to numerous theories about the “seeding” of life on Earth from cosmic space — recall, for instance, the films of the German paleo-futurist Erich von Däniken or the stories of Stanislaw Lem, one of the greatest philosophers of our time.

The first monads were created simultaneously with the emergence of the Earth. However, they consisted solely of subtle bodies, invisible to us. Moreover, they lacked mind. These were the First Root Race.

Gradually, all primary monads dissolved, and from their elements the Second Root Race was formed. These were monads similar to the first, but they had developed a new mode of reproduction, which may be described as “egg-laying.” Over time, this method became dominant.

Thus arose the Third Root Race — the Egg-born Race. At first, they too lacked a dense, physical body, which was even beneficial, as the geological conditions of the Earth at that time were unsuitable for the physical existence of protein-based bodies.

The Third Root Race evolved rapidly: it emerged at the dawn of the Archean Era, the era of the first living organisms, and soon thereafter a division of the sexes occurred, along with the emergence of the rudiments of mind. The animal and plant kingdoms of the Earth also developed gradually, but we are not concerned with their evolution here; we are focusing solely on the evolution of the proto-monads of HUMANITY.

Each such race was further divided into seven sub-races, each with its own distinctive features. The first three sub-races of the Third Root Race gradually developed dense coverings — to us, they would have appeared partially visible, “semi-transparent” — until, during the period of the fourth sub-race of the Third Root Race, the first true HUMANS with genuine physical bodies appeared. This occurred during the age of the dinosaurs, approximately 120 million years BCE. The dinosaurs were enormous, and so too were the humans, reaching heights of up to 18 meters or more. In subsequent sub-races, their stature gradually diminished. Fossilized bones of giants and myths about them (Goliath among the Hebrews, Pelops among the Greeks, and so on) are said to serve as evidence of this.

However, the first humans did not yet possess the full set of bodies that we have today. They lacked a conscious soul, that is, the body of the spiritual mind (according to other versions of the theory, they lacked manas, or conscience). Thus, they behaved like animals, which explains the myth of the Fall of Man and the related theory of peaceful Neanderthals who did not fall and were exterminated by warlike humans (as proposed by Stanislaw Lem himself). From these human-animals came the higher primates (apes) — not the other way around, as we were taught in school. Humans did not descend from apes; rather, apes descended from humans.

After this, according to one version, the highest creative forces that called intelligent life into existence on Earth intervened once more and implanted the “Divine Spark” into the consciousness of people—not everyone, of course, but at least some. According to another version, it arose on its own in certain individuals who then became the Teachers of subsequent generations.

The last sub-races of the Third Root Race created the first civilization on the proto-continent of Lemuria, or, in other versions, Gondwana. This continent was located in the Southern Hemisphere and included the southern tip of Africa, Australia with New Zealand, and in the north—Madagascar and Ceylon. A good map of Lemuria is printed in the book: Westwood, Jennifer. The Atlas of Mysterious Places. Weidenfeld & Nicolson, New York 1987. The Easter Island also belonged to the Lemurian culture.

During the period of the seventh sub-race of the Third Root Race, Lemurian civilization declined, and eventually the continent itself sank beneath the waves. This occurred at the end of the Tertiary period, approximately 3 million years before our era.

The Third Root Race is sometimes also called the Black Race. Its descendants are considered to be the black-skinned tribes of Africa and Australia.

By that time, the Fourth Root Race—the race of the Atlanteans—had already emerged, naturally, on the continent known as Atlantis. “Its northern boundary extended several degrees east of Iceland, including Scotland, Ireland, and the northern part of England, while its southern boundary reached as far as the area where Rio de Janeiro now stands.” (Stulgińskis, see below).

The Atlanteans were descendants of the Lemurians who had migrated to another continent approximately a million years before the fall of Lemuria. The first two sub-races of the Fourth Root Race originated from these “first settlers.” The third sub-race appeared after the fall of Lemuria or Gondwana: these were the Toltecs, the Red Race, who came from the West.

The Atlanteans worshipped the Sun, and their stature was also above average—two and a half meters. In general, with each new root race, the height of Earth’s inhabitants gradually decreased. The capital of their empire was the city of St. Golden Gates. Their civilization reached its peak precisely during the period of the Toltecs or the Red Race. This was around 1 million years ago.

However, this flourishing did not last long: Earth’s geological activity continued. The first catastrophe, which occurred about 800,000 years ago, disrupted the land connection of Atlantis with what would become America and Europe. The second, around 200,000 years ago, shattered the continent into several large and small islands, giving rise to the modern continents. After the third catastrophe, around 80,000 years before our era, only the island of Poseidonis remained, which sank around 10,000 years before the Common Era. Its demise is vividly described in A. Belyaev’s novel “The Last Man from Atlantis.”

The Atlanteans foresaw these catastrophes and took measures to save their scientists and the knowledge they had accumulated. It is believed that they built the giant temples in Egypt and established the first schools of esotericism there. The Lemurians were already esotericists; esoteric philosophy was, so to speak, their state philosophy and their habitual worldview. When the threat of continental destruction arose, it was primarily the highest initiates who were saved, thanks to whom ancient knowledge survived centuries and millennia.

In this context, there is another interesting theory—that the Atlanteans, or even the Lemurians before them, built spacecraft and rescued the highest initiates to the planet Mars. As far as I know, this idea was first presented by the Englishman Frederick Spencer Oliver (pseudonym Phylos the Tibetan) in the novel “A Dweller on Two Planets,” published in 1894 (Philon the Tibetan. A Dweller on Two Planets).

We are familiar with it thanks to Alexei Tolstoy, who, in his youth, was fascinated by occultism. In general, those wishing to learn more about the first root races can simply reread his novel “Aelita,” where everything mentioned above is presented in a thoughtful and detailed manner (“Aelita’s Second Tale”).

The catastrophes of Atlantis triggered new waves of migration, during which not only the initiates but also ordinary people (“exoteric”) fled the continent. Thus arose the following sub-races of the Fourth Root Race: the Huns (the fourth sub-race), the Proto-Semites (the fifth), the Sumerians (the sixth), and the Asians (the seventh). The Asians, who mixed with the Huns, are sometimes also called the Yellow Race, while the Proto-Semites and their descendants, who formed the Fifth Root Race, are referred to as the White Race.

We are the Fifth Root Race. It is also divided into seven sub-races, of which only five currently exist.

The Fifth, or Aryan, Race: Indians (light-skinned tribes), [2] younger Semites (Assyrians, Arabs), [3] Iranians, [4] Celts (Greeks, Romans and their descendants), [5] Teutons (Germans and Slavs).

Naturally, the Sixth and Seventh Root Races should follow. But what they will be like we will discuss later; for now, let us return to history.

In general, those interested in details can refer to the book by S.A. Stulgińskis “Cosmic Legends of the East,” which has been published in several editions, for example: Moscow, “Sfera,” 1991, or to the book by Édouard Schuré “The Great Initiates,” also republished in Russia (Kaluga, 1914, reprint Moscow, 1990).

Thus, the baton of esoteric knowledge passed from the Atlanteans to the Egyptians. Incidentally, Europeans long considered the Egyptians to be the creators of all esoteric knowledge, believing that no one older than the Egyptians had ever existed on Earth. The above theory of root races only took shape at the end of the 19th century. It was then that the half-forgotten myth of Atlantis received a new (retrospective) development, and Indian concepts of world-historical periods (Kali Yuga), lasting hundreds of thousands of years, certainly played a role in its revival.

This is especially relevant since at the beginning of the Taurus era, i.e., in the 4th millennium BCE, cultures began to form not only in India and Egypt but also in Sumer, China, and Mexico. Although they developed independently, much unites them. So, what is the Taurus era?

The Taurus Era

During this period, human thought was mythological: myth proved to be the best means of understanding and remembering the connections between phenomena. We, for example, say that solar and lunar eclipses occur when, from the perspective of an Earth observer, both luminaries appear near the nodes of their orbits, with a small difference in latitude. The ancients said, “The Dragon devours the Moon (or the Sun),” and this meant the same thing to them. Remember Alexei Tolstoy’s little Mitya?

He spoke very, very well. But he called a wooden horse “vevit,” a dog—”avava,” and a plush bear—”Patapum.” Mitya understood better this way, and the horse, dog, and bear understood him better too.

Here, the old occultist Alexei Tolstoy, by the way, touches on an important esoteric problem that illiterate censors of the 1930s, fortunately, did not notice. It is known that the embryo and then the child, as it were, repeat the evolutionary stages of higher organisms: the transition from the aquatic environment to the aerial (gills turn into lungs), the gradual shift from lower forms of perception to higher ones, the acquisition of reason. Occultists, however, believed that the embryo and child also repeat the spiritual development stages of the aforementioned seven root races: a small child, who cannot yet speak, communicates with the surrounding world telepathically, and then this ability is lost.

Remember “The Story of the Twins” in P.L. Travers’ book about Mary Poppins? (Moscow, 1972). “Do you mean they understood the starlings and the wind and… — And the trees, and the language of the sun’s rays and stars — yes, yes, yes,” said Mary Poppins. /…/ There’s nothing you can do about it. There is no person who could remember after they turn just over a year old.” — Of course, this is a very figurative and simplified description of the problem, but there is no doubt that P.L. Travers was familiar with this theory: in the West, the foundations of esotericism are accessible to all and form an integral part of the “cultural gut,” as the Germans say—a cultural heritage.

This theory did not arise out of nowhere. You yourselves may not remember, but if someone has had to live near a small child, they could confirm that between a child and its mother, for many years—up to seven (!)—there exists an invisible bond, a shared field: they form a single system, like the Earth and the Moon. The child cries when the mother leaves, the mother falls ill—the child falls ill too, and vice versa.

This was known even to the ancients, though they, of course, offered more primitive explanations. There is an ancient legend about a king who decided to find out which language on Earth had first emerged. He gathered several dozen infants of different nationalities and forbade their nurses to speak to them, waiting for them to speak on their own. And they did speak… in ancient Hebrew. (Judging by the end of the legend, it was compiled by rabbis at the turn of our era).

Thus, to explain the patterns of the visible and invisible worlds, people of the Taurus era relied on legends and myths. Myths arose as descriptions of observed phenomena in the language of their time. Therefore, it was not the planets that received the names of gods, as we long believed, but rather the images of gods and heroes emerged as reflections of earthly and celestial phenomena. During the Taurus era, large (general) cosmogonic myths also took shape.

At the core of the cosmogonic myths of this period lies the idea of a primordial chaos from which heaven, earth, and other things arise. They emerge through the division of the elements combined in the World Egg (Egypt, India) or the World Ocean (Sumer). Perhaps the motif of dividing this “undivided unity” dates back to the Gemini era—no wonder the theme of twins appears in many mythologies (Gilgamesh and Enkidu among the Sumerians, Yama and Yami among the Indians, the Heavenly and Earthly Twins among the ancient Mexicans, and later the Dioscuri, Castor and Pollux).

Instead of one Creator-God, there is an entire pantheon of gods of varying rank, whose hierarchy constantly changes. People traced their own genealogy back to the first pair of humans, either created by the gods from clay (Sumer, Egypt) or simply born to them in marriage (India, Mexico).

However, for people of that time, the world, once created, was cyclical: everything in nature repeats itself. The world was as it had been from the beginning of time and would remain so until the end. No changes were possible—indeed, they were unnecessary. “And God saw that it was good”—a phrase from a later source, but it echoes the Taurus era’s ideas of the “spatial-temporal closure of the world,” as Vladimir Romanovich Arsenyev wrote (Beasts—Gods—People, Moscow, 1991).

Hence, by the way, cultures of the “Taurus” type were not characterized by a fear of death: death was not a complete disappearance, not a permanent departure, but merely the completion of one cycle, followed by another in the afterlife, in another existence, and a new cycle on Earth, this time outwardly in the form of a descendant. Hence arose the formation of ideas about reincarnation (new incarnations of the soul) and myths about dying and resurrecting gods.

Traces of mythological consciousness have, by the way, survived in modern esotericism. When we want to characterize a phenomenon, we say “Venus,” because it is shorter. However, this word has long lost any connection with the “Morning Star” or even the deities of the ancient world dedicated to it: for us, it is a dynamic archetype, a symptom- and symbol-complex, a system of associations that slowly but continuously changes, though it retains some foundation, a “monad.”

Yes, Venus is first and foremost a symbol of art and love. It is connected to Taurus through the affinity of their natures, which is why Taurus is considered the “home” or “domicile” of Venus. But Taurus is also the place of the Moon’s exaltation, and the Moon is a symbol of fertility, wisdom (its two horns), and sensitivity to subtle vibrations, “fluids.”

Yet Taurus has its own distinct features. Above all, it represents one of the four elements—earth—and the archetypes of the Moon and Venus are modified accordingly: the Moon’s sensitivity to subtle vibrations weakens (during the Taurus era, no new discoveries were made in the invisible world; people relied not on intuition but on the authority of “higher initiates”), while the capacity for fertility strengthens (agriculture as the most widespread occupation in Taurus-era societies).

During this period, fertility cults arose based on the feminine rather than the masculine principle (Taurus is a “feminine” sign). At the same time, love (sex) and fertility (motherhood) were not yet differentiated: Egyptian Isis, Sumerian Inanna, and even the later Babylonian Ishtar and Armenian Anahit combined elements of the Moon and Venus archetypes or were simply considered lunar goddesses.

The “Great Mother” of the Mediterranean peoples, also known as Sorny-Ekva (“Golden Woman”) among the Mansi and Voguls, the Olmec Chak Kit, and the famous Cybele—an undifferentiated lunar-earthly archetype (the mother-child system)—symbolized the still undivided unity between the fertility of intelligent and non-intelligent beings.

Furthermore, Taurus gathers and accumulates—food reserves, material wealth, land, knowledge, and works of art. “Taurus” societies are self-sufficient; they are not interested in the lives of other tribes. No wonder the inhabitants of such societies often called themselves “people,” while outsiders were referred to as “strangers,” “aliens,” or, as the Greeks later called them, “the speechless” (barbarians).

At the same time, Taurus is the patron of art, a connoisseur, and often the creator of its works. During the Taurus era, the main color palette and symbolism of color were formalized. Works of art were created that often endured for millennia: painted stone statues, temples and tombs, vessels, and ornaments. Yet Venus in Taurus is an executor, not a creator, and the chosen examples are repeated from century to century.

Taurus is not a theorist; it is a practitioner: it does not generalize but simply accumulates new information, enriching the body of knowledge that will be used by people of the next era. Its sciences are applied in nature: geometry, astronomy, and medicine serve only to organize daily life, to “organize labor,” as we might say today.

Moreover, they are complex: geometry is inseparable from geomancy, astronomy from astrology, and medicine from magic. They are not divided even in the minds of those who study them—typically priests, a “caste of initiates.” And this is not so much because these teachings are secret as because it is necessary to ensure their preservation and continuity: writing does not yet exist.

Hence the masculine aspects of lunar gods: Thoth among the Egyptians, Nanna among the Sumerians, and Chandra among the Indians as the inventors of teachings and writing, patrons of magic and medicine. At the beginning of the Taurus era, lunar gods and goddesses occupied the highest, most important places in the pantheons (also because the Moon was the basis of the earliest calendars).

Taurus is conservative and faithful to tradition. During the Taurus era, purely scientific operations took on the character of ritual, becoming fixed in hymns and myths for easier memorization. It was also during this period, toward the end of the Taurus era, that the first writing systems were developed—again, to preserve accumulated knowledge.

These rituals, meanwhile, are based on feeling (for Taurus is primarily a sign of feeling, not logical deduction). Imagine a rite of initiation into the priesthood. A boy comes to the temple. He is washed, dressed in ritual garments, and prayers or incantations are recited over him. He is led through a dark corridor adorned with images of the most terrifying gods of the afterlife. He endures trials of pain, spends long periods in solitude without food or drink. If he withstands it all, he is brought to swear an oath of loyalty, and now he becomes the keeper of ancient traditions. What a range of emotions he must have experienced!

Those interested in learning more about such rituals may refer to Jerzy Kawalerowicz’s wonderful film “Pharaoh,” based on Bolesław Prus’s novel, or to Edward Schuré’s novella “The Priestess of Isis” (St. Petersburg, 1993). There is also Rider Haggard’s excellent novel “She: A History of Adventure.” One should not assume that the authors of these works simply fantasized about the subject or reworked available sources—such books are not written by random individuals but, as a rule, by those who possess a rich ancestral, genetic, or karmic memory, whatever you may call it. After all, J.R.R. Tolkien was not the creator of new myths but rather an inspired reanimator of ancient Celtic legends.

Thus, the Taurus era marked the laying of the “foundation” for the primary cosmogonic myths, the maximum ritualization of actions, and the accumulation of statistics. For the inhabitants of the Taurus era, the world was whole and unified, while the inhabitants of the invisible world were just as real as those living in the house across the street. There were established rules for communication with both, and if followed precisely, the desired result could be achieved. Some people knew these rules (the priests), while others had to seek their help and pay for it. The world was well and logically structured, and there was no need to change it.

This worldview was simple and convenient. It is no wonder that many traditional cultures still retain traces of “Taurus-like” traits today—first and foremost, India and China, though this applies, of course, not to entire countries but to certain confessional or ethnic groups. Secondly, some African peoples—such as the Beninese, the Ashanti, and others—also exhibit these traits. However, most cultures progressed further and transitioned into the Aries era, which marked a new phase in the development of human consciousness, both collective and individual.

In summary, the chronology we have chosen allows us to organize much in human history that resists systematization through other calendars and chronologies. However, the Precessional chronology is not the only esoteric way to divide history. There are larger and smaller divisions, such as five-hundred-year cycles, which we will still have to encounter. The Precessional chronology allows us to analyze a period of roughly ten thousand years in either direction from the present day, which is more than sufficient for our purposes.

Early Epochs

Another illustration of the effectiveness of the Precessional chronology is the ancient tradition of assigning specific metals—or, more broadly, certain elements from the Periodic Table—to planetary archetypes. As is well known, copper is the metal of Venus and, by extension, Taurus. The fourth millennium BCE marked the beginning of the Copper and Bronze Ages. Iron is the metal of Mars and, consequently, Aries; the start of the Aries era (the second millennium BCE) coincides with the dawn of the Iron Age.

By the same logic, the preceding Gemini era, governed by Mercury (6th–5th millennium BCE), should correspond to mercury. However, mercury cannot be used to create jewelry or weapons. What then? The answer comes from alchemy: “Mercury is the mother of the stone,” the ancients believed. “Sulfur,” by the way, was considered the “father” of the stone. And what is the combination of mercury and sulfur? Cinnabar—a red mineral, a red pigment highly convenient for painting cave walls and applying “war paint” to faces and chests. Later, it became one of the most important magical substances in alchemical experiments.

The Gemini era corresponds to the end of the Stone Age, the tribal system, and the worship of ancestors and nature spirits—mountains, water, and forests. During this period, logical thinking predominated: people sought to understand the causes of events through reasoning. Of course, they sensed the presence of the invisible world, but their knowledge was too limited. As a result, they developed small (local) cosmogonic myths, each tribe having its own, though sharing a similar structure.

Daniel Defoe illustrates such mythology in the dialogue between Robinson Crusoe and Friday. Robinson asked Friday, “Who made the sea and the land we walk on, who made the mountains and forests?” Friday replied, “An old man named Benamuckee, who lives very, very high up.” He could tell me nothing about this important figure except that he was very old—much older than the sea and the land, older than the moon and the stars.”

Our Judeo-Christian sphere has preserved no such myths, but they still exist in dying cultures, lost on the periphery of modern technological civilizations, from Australian Aborigines to the Yanomami tribe, recently discovered by Vitaly Sundakov in the depths of the Amazon (see, for example, “Komsomolskaya Pravda,” Saturday issue, July 22, 1994).

These myths typically include a single Creator God—recall Gitche Manitou, the “Master of Life” from “The Song of Hiawatha,” or Kiyangnok, the “Life-Creator” from the traditions of Asian Eskimos. However, this is not monotheism in the later sense but a more primitive, personified concept of the origin of all existence.

People of “Gemini cultures” traced their own genealogy directly to this Creator God or, at best, to animals created by Him: the People of the Rabbit Clan, the People of the Swan Clan, and so on. They had no priests, only shamans, whose role was limited because anyone could establish contact with the invisible world. (As we can see, shamanism is a very ancient phenomenon.) Every hunter could draw a buffalo on birch bark or a cave wall with cinnabar and ask it to become their prey. Anyone could draw an enemy’s image and pierce it with an arrow or mold a clay figurine of a beloved girl and smear it with fat to invoke her affection. This was natural. One could say that “esotericism” as a doctrine for a select few did not exist at that time: practically everyone was an esotericist, while the shaman was “chosen” only in the sense that they were literally selected for the official role of ritual performer, exempt from other duties. The history of esoteric teachings is, in fact, not very long.

During the Taurus era, such “amateurism” was already forbidden, and knowledge of complex magical rituals could only be obtained from priests, who reserved this prerogative for themselves.

The even earlier epochs—the Cancer era and the Leo era—align well with the concept of the Silver and Golden Ages, as silver is considered the metal of Cancer and gold the metal of Leo. However, this should not be taken literally: people of the 10th–6th centuries BCE did not dine on gold and silver, and their lives were far from the carefree existence imagined much later by the ancient Greeks. In this context, Leo and Cancer merely denote the dominant type of self-awareness—”identity,” as it is often called in the West. Cancer represents the formation of the family, however polygamous, the creation of one’s own “nest,” and the establishment of ancestors, while Leo signifies the assertion of the right of the strong, the right to choose a partner, which had to be backed by a duel with another contender.

It is also possible that Cancer, as a symbol of the feminine principle and matriarchy, gave rise to the image of the Mistress of Beasts, which survives in the form of Potnia Theron from the Minoan myths of the Greek islands (Taurus era). Just as hereditary traits are often passed down through generations, from grandfather to grandson, so too could one “feminine” sign (Taurus, 4th–2nd millennium BCE) revive the myth of another “feminine” sign (Cancer, 8th–6th millennium BCE).

Esoteric beliefs during these epochs were even more primitive: Cancer, another feminine sign, signified not only matriarchy but also polytheism—every stone, every step, and every action had its own spirit, which could not be controlled but only appeased; Leo, the masculine sign, signified not so much patriarchy as, more precisely, the absence of permanent marital and familial bonds, the coexistence of individuals who fully identified with the forces of the invisible world. Humans were both mortal and immortal at once. They invoked the name of an immortal deity or spirit, believing that it had endowed them with its power, and performed feats they considered impossible in their “mortal” state.

Today, cultures of this kind are almost extinct. As for the remnants, we will discuss them further if time permits. In the next lecture, however, we will have to move on to the Aries era.

Ancient Egypt

If we have time, we can still talk a little more about Ancient Egypt, as we will not return to it later.

As already mentioned, the history of Ancient Egypt fits quite neatly into the framework of the Taurus era. By the mid-fourth millennium BCE, the Northern and Southern Kingdoms had formed. At the beginning of the third millennium BCE, the construction of the pyramids began. Pyramids and temples are considered the most important evidence of the high level of knowledge of the Egyptians.

There are countless theories about what pyramids actually are. At the beginning of our century, the German scholar Netling discovered a correspondence between some dimensions of the Great Pyramid of Giza and distances in the Solar System. Based on this, he suggested that the Egyptians were aware of the trans-Saturnian planets—Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto—which were only discovered in the last two hundred years. Moreover, in his opinion, the pyramid predicted the existence of another planet between the orbits of Saturn and Uranus. In 1977, long after Netling’s death, the planetoid Chiron was indeed discovered in that exact location—a true planet, albeit a very small one. Netling also made other similar astronomical hypotheses, but they have yet to receive confirmation.

In our time, the dimensions of the pyramids, especially those of the Great Pyramid of Giza, are actively studied in various countries. Small pyramid models made of wood, metal, and other materials—often open (frameworks) rather than closed—are being created. Plants placed inside grow faster, razor blades sharpen, and a person sitting inside a pyramid acquires paranormal abilities. (For more details on pyramids, see, for example, the books by Katalin and Cellar: Architecture of the Land of the Pharaohs. Moscow, “Budvydav,” 1990; and Toth, Max; Nielsen, Greg. Pyramid Power. Freiburg, 1988.)

There is an explanation for this: the pyramid’s shape is based on the square and the triangle, the numbers four and three—two symbols representing two opposing principles, akin to yin and yang. Together, three and four make seven. Any ancient cosmogony is structured around four horizontally (north, east, south, west) and three vertically (heaven, earth, underworld). And if we recall that pyramids were dedicated to the cult of the Sun, it becomes clear that, whether the builders intended it or not, they captured the fundamental patterns inherent in our Solar System…

Let me explain. The numbers from one to ten are simple and correspond to the planets. Three represents the three planets closest to the Sun: Mercury, Venus, and Earth (or, according to Netling’s hypothesis, Pre-Mercury, Mercury, and Venus). Four represents the other four known to the ancients: the Moon, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn. The Moon is far more than just Earth’s satellite; in esoteric theories, it holds a very important place, so it fully deserves planetary status. Another trio (the trans-Saturnian planets) completes the seven to make ten. Today, it is believed that the ancients, though unable to observe the trans-Saturnian planets, still anticipated their existence. And ten is a symbol of the Solar System—this is a number of the next order. Accordingly, hundreds and thousands symbolize stars, galaxies, metagalaxies, and so on.

Approaching the history of this objectively, it is difficult to assume that the Egyptians, like us, understood all these complex interconnections. However, they observed and remembered. They did not invent anything; they simply recorded the patterns of the world around them. It is no wonder that the Egyptians’ records proved accurate: our world is one, both in the largest and smallest scales. This is what Hermes Trismegistus, the brilliant scholar who lived three thousand years before our era in Khmoun (a word that, by the way, means “eight”—compare the Hebrew “shmune,” i.e., four pairs of the first gods, male and female), asserted. The decimal system did not arise because humans have ten fingers, but because the Solar System itself is decimal. The Egyptians could not have built their pyramids any other way: everything humans create inevitably follows the universal laws of the Universe.

Het Monster. History of Esoteric Teachings
Lecture 3. The Age of Aries

The Age of Aries began with another great migration of peoples.

In general, the migrations of peoples clearly contributed to the progress of human consciousness, i.e., the elimination of relics from the consciousness of old eras and the development of new ones. Where such movement did not occur, the traits of the old could persist for millennia. The transition from one era to another, as mentioned, takes several centuries, and different tribes set out on their journey at different times; therefore, for us, the general picture is more important than precise dating.

Why, by the way, did they migrate?

For a long time, Western—and especially Soviet-Marxist—scholarship (Engels, F., Anti-Dühring) held the view that: 1) “wild” peoples exhausted all the resources their native lands could provide and set out in search of new food sources; 2) inhabitants of climatically unfavorable regions (which became such, for example, due to glaciation) sought warmer lands.

Without turning to Arnold Toynbee, Mircea Eliade, or other meta-historians, let us recall Boris Fyodorovich Porshnev, one of the first (even during Soviet times) to dare propose a different hypothesis: it was the young who left their old homes, unable to endure the dictatorship of their elders, their blind adherence to tradition, and their demands for obedience from the younger generation (the eternal “conflict between fathers and children”). See Porshnev, B.F. On the Beginning of Human History (Problems of Paleopsychology. Moscow, “Dumka,” 1974).

Of course, upon arriving in a new place, the young would establish their own traditions, only to become the elders themselves, and the cycle would begin anew…

Thus, in the early centuries of the second millennium BCE, the Indo-Aryans invaded India and Iran from the north.

The Indo-Aryans were fair-skinned (“the first subrace of the fifth race,” as theosophists say). They pushed the dark-skinned Dravidians (remnants of the fourth race), who lived there, southward and began creating Indian culture.

From Mesopotamia to Palestine, the Hamitic-Canaanites (Phoenicians) moved, bringing with them a tradition of trade and the Phoenician (modified Akkadian) alphabet.

They were called Hamitic because, according to tradition, the three sons of the biblical Noah—Shem, Ham, and Japheth—are considered the ancestors of tribes and even entire groups of tribes. Thus, Shem became the progenitor of the Semites, i.e., Jews and Arabs, as well as a number of other peoples; Ham gave rise to the Hamites, i.e., southern tribes, mainly dark-skinned (Ethiopians, Phoenicians)—their languages, though related to the Semitic, had already diverged significantly from it. And finally, the Japhetic tribes, descendants of Japheth, lived on the shores of the Black Sea and in the Caucasus (Armenians, Georgians, and many smaller peoples).

Nikolai Yakovlevich Marr (1864–1934), a brilliant Russian linguist of Scottish-Georgian descent and the author of an unusual theory of systemic semantics (the origin of all words from four proto-roots: *sal*, *ber*, *yom*, *rosh*), wrote about them and their languages. He did not live to fully formulate his theory, which was later presented by his students and greatly displeased Stalin: “This is… divination from coffee grounds” (I. Stalin, Marxism and the Issues of Linguistics, p. 33).

So, if you ever come across thick, white-and-gold volumes of N.Y. Marr’s works in a library, do not hesitate to read at least something—you will find much that is interesting.

From the city of Ur in Sumer, Abraham, son of Terah, sets out with his entire clan to seek fortune in Canaan (Phoenicia)—the history of the Jews begins. No wonder the name “Av-Ra’am” means “Father of the People.” From Arabia, Semitic nomadic tribes moved into Syria and Mesopotamia.

However, the Jews remained a primitive nomadic people for a long time. They did not immediately settle in Palestine but wandered to Egypt and then returned. Abraham, along with his wife Sarah and his brother Nahor, was long considered a god-ancestor, whose cult persisted almost until the Assyrian captivity (7th century BCE).

Into Greece, once again from the north, the Achaean tribes invaded—the history of the ancient Greeks began.

The Achaeans pushed out the indigenous tribes—the Dryopes, Carians, Pelasgians (Philistines)—first to the Mediterranean islands and then to Africa, Asia Minor, and Palestine. Hence the name “Philistines”—Palestinians.

According to some hypotheses, around the same time, another wave of colonization of South America unfolds: the Olmecs or other unknown tribes invade the territories of Mexico, Colombia, and Peru, displacing the agricultural proto-civilization.

Some Egyptians did not migrate anywhere (which, apparently, kept them in the Taurus era for so long). During this period, Egypt unites under the rule of Thebes—also the city of the Seven Gates, though not golden. The Greeks called it thus, distinguishing it from their own Boeotian Thebes, which they referred to as the Seven-Gated. However, the Egyptians themselves were not idle; they waged military campaigns and conquered neighboring lands—Nubia, Syria, and Palestine—or were conquered themselves (the Hyksos, then the Persians, and later Alexander the Great).

Nevertheless, this “exchange” by the end of the Aries era yielded important results: elements of Egyptian culture, and most importantly, its esoteric worldview—its perception of the visible and invisible worlds—were transmitted to many of its neighbors, from the Ashanti in the southwest to Indian tribes in the northeast, a topic we will revisit. The Egyptians themselves, as befits Taureans, barely absorbed any of it, as evidenced by the example of Pharaoh Akhenaten.

Around 1500 BCE, when Moses leads the Hebrews out of Egypt, Pharaoh Amenhotep IV ascends the throne, takes the name Akhenaten, and attempts to establish the cult of the single solar god—Aten. With his death, this “monotheistic” cult also ends—Egyptians did not migrate anywhere, remaining in the Taurus epoch, and the cult of “the Lord” did not take root. However, the Hebrews, upon leaving Egypt, carried this idea with them, and by the 10th century BCE, the first united kingdom of Israel and Judah emerges (Sulayman ibn Da’ud, peace be upon them both—the Solomonic dynasty). A relapse of “Taurean consciousness” manifests in the Jews when Moses speaks with God on Mount Sinai to receive the tablets of monotheism, while his tribesmen build a golden calf to worship.

Yahweh had a wife named Anat, the patroness of the city of Hebron, whose heroic deeds as a warrior were described in the “Book of the Wars of Yahweh,” which has not survived; there was also the war god Lacham, the death goddess Mot, the solar deity Shamash, and many others.

Yet the “Arian” state among the Jews proved fragile. The primary archetype of the Jews, Pisces (more precisely, the Pisces-Scorpio quincunx), is poorly compatible with the principles of Aries, and Yahweh is, after all, a Saturnian god—meaning his connection to Aries is very indirect. The true flourishing of the Jewish idea occurs only in the Piscean era, practically in our own time. But this concept is initially anti-state, so the diaspora (Galut) is a natural outcome, not a divine punishment. Moreover, the diaspora began long before the destruction of the Temple by Emperor Titus (9 or 70 CE).

By the mid-2nd millennium BCE, this transition was largely complete. Around 1400 BCE, the Chinese leader Pan Geng led his tribe to the Yellow River, where he founded the “Great City of Shang,” giving its name to the dynasty and the epoch of Chinese history (V.I. Avdiev, *History of the Ancient East*, Moscow, “Vysshaya Shkola,” 1969).

Almost everywhere, new kingdoms emerged, immediately beginning to wage war against one another. The element of Aries is the element of fire, all-consuming and all-devouring: Shiva cast his fertile seed into the flames of Agni, and the war god Skanda was born, also known as Karttikeya, Mangala, and Kujā. A prolonged period of conquests and the formation of great kingdoms, “empires,” began—no wonder the Tarot card associated with the Aries archetype is the IVth arcana, the all-powerful “Emperor” or “Master.”

Aries is considered the “house” of Mars. This is primarily the masculine principle, the fertilization of the field. In cosmogonic myths, the motif of fertilization or self-fertilization appears (the famous lingam of Shiva, the Egyptian Atum “who fertilized himself,” cases of self-mutilation among ancient Greek gods and titans, and finally, the oath “by placing the hand under the thigh” among Semitic and other peoples).

The thigh (Hebrew: *yarech*, “upper part of the leg”) is, of course, a later revision. Cf. the commentaries of N.M. Nikolsky and Fr. P. Florensky. Generally, all passages in the Bible concerning sexual organs were meticulously edited, though they can still be deciphered. People swore by these organs, placing their right hand beneath them. No wonder the Romans later called these parts *verenda*, from the word *vere*—”truly.”

The same Aries, that is, the ram, an ancient symbol of the fire element, was a symbol of atoning, purifying sacrifice. Hence the “scapegoat” of the ancient Jews—a black goat upon which all the sins of the people were placed before being driven into the desert and dedicated to the demon Azazel. And the multitude of goat-horned, goat-legged, and generally goat-like deities: the Fish-Goat Ea, the god of wisdom among the Babylonians, the golden-fleeced ram among the Greeks, and so on.

Mars the warrior replaced Mars the farmer, for the metal of Mars is iron. By 1500 BCE, iron was already in use among most peoples. The peaceful male gods of fertility of the Taurus era no longer enjoyed a quiet life. The masculine (yang) god of fertility transformed into a god of war, “the embodiment of fierce belligerence, the source of destruction, ruin, and bloodshed” (*Legends and Tales of Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome*, compiled by A.A. Neuhardt, Moscow, “Pravda,” 1987). Thus, to the image of man, initially a pure symbol of yang strength, were added concepts of violence and war, which, alas, for a long time defined the consciousness and self-awareness of the individual and society.

A classic example is the Greek Ares, also known as the Roman Mars (Mavors). Initially a god of fertility and masculine strength, in the Iron Age he became a cruel deity demanding blood. Before the start of a war, especially against a superior enemy, sacrifices—often human—were offered to the god of war.

The German poet Ludwig Uhland has a poem, *Ver Sacrum*, “Sacred Spring” (written, by the way, exactly 165 years ago, in November 1829):

All that our barn has kept till now,
We sacrifice to the sacred fire:
No ox shall bear the yoke, no lamb the shear,
No horse shall bear the saddle’s dire!

Uhland describes a well-known Roman legend about how the inhabitants of the city of Lavinium, besieged by the Etruscans, decided to sacrifice to Mars the finest youths and maidens—only a miracle saved them: a spear thrust into the ground burst into flame, and the sacrifice was postponed (though not canceled, alas. See: Uhland L., *Poems*, Moscow, “Khudozh. lit.,” 1988).

But the worst was yet to come. Mars in Aries, “in its own domicile,” signifies not only aggression and boundless egoism but also treachery, deception, and cowardice. If someone stands in your way and is weaker, you must kill them. If they are stronger, you must deceive them to avoid being killed yourself.

To avoid going far for examples, let us recall “the father of nations,” Abraham, who twice passed off his wife Sarah as his sister, hoping that a foreign king would “take” her and show favor to him (Gen. 12:13, 20:2), or the story of Judith, who killed the sleeping Holofernes. Not to mention “the righteous king David,” who in his youth engaged in banditry and did not shy away from any means to strengthen his kingdom (1 Kings 1, 2).

Such examples can be cited endlessly, not only from the Bible. Indian, Greek, and Chinese gods display outright miracles of cunning and treachery.

This primitive logic took such a firm hold on human consciousness that by the end of the Aries era (under the influence of the Pisces era), every sacred text and law includes the commandment “You shall not kill.” Along with other commandments aimed at curbing the extremes of the Mars archetype: “You shall not steal,” “You shall not bear false witness,” “You shall not commit adultery” … (the Ten Commandments of the Bible, the Five Precepts of Yoga and Buddhism, the taboos of African and American proto-civilizations, etc.). “A man who commits violence must be considered a greater villain than a liar, a thief, or one who strikes with a stick” (*Laws of Manu*, ch. VIII, trans. S.D. Elmanovich, Moscow, 1992).

Another consequence of the Martian nature of the Aries era was the emergence of the concept of linear or “axial” time, as some modern researchers call it. The roundedness and cyclical nature of the Venus archetype, which implies eternal alternation of spatial-temporal phases, gives way to the linearity and progressiveness of the Mars archetype: the complex of cosmogonic ideas is supplemented by the idea of the end of the Universe and the chain of human incarnations, the danger of macrocosm and microcosm. The logical development of this idea leads to the “end of the world” or the Last Judgment.

The Last Judgment signifies the end of the cosmic evolution of humanity or its transition to a purely spiritual state. In Indian (Venusian) esotericism, this is the absorption of matter by the spiritual principle, the end of “one day of Brahma”; in Persian (Martian) tradition, it is the victory of Ormuzd over Ahriman, good over evil. In the triad of world religions (Judaism, Christianity, Islam), this is the final subjugation of evil—the devil, the punishment of sinners, and the reward of the faithful, the construction of the City of God.

“The latter can be seen as a moral and psychological sublimation of the spiritual discomfort of an individual who no longer accepts the world order as given but is powerless to change it,” writes Yu.V. Pavlenko from the Institute of Archaeology of the Academy of Sciences of Ukraine. (Pavlenko Yu.V. The Temporal Aspect of the Problem of Liberation-Salvation in the Cultures of the “Axial Time,” in: Space and Time in Archaic Cultures, materials of the colloquium, Moscow, 1992).

Thus, the idea of Salvation emerges. Pavlenko and other researchers trace its origins to the middle of the Aries era (around 1000 BCE), but it clearly manifests in its final form only by the time of Cyrus and Ezra (6th–5th centuries BCE).

From an esoteric perspective, Salvation is purification from accumulated filth, i.e., the restoration of balance—individual or cosmic. Accordingly, the idea of Salvation is divided into two models—again quoting Pavlenko: “The first, especially characteristic of India but also widespread in Greece and China, can be defined as individual Liberation beyond the spatial-temporal continuum through merging with the world’s primordial essence (Brahma, Dao, etc.). The second, represented in Zoroastrian and Old Testament ideology but partially resonant with Confucianism, is seen as collective salvation at the end of time, in a certain central point of space.”

Thus, the hope for the automatic change of the phases of the cosmos and the individual gives way to the hope of being among the chosen through belonging to a corresponding community or through personal effort, which also contributes to the formation and consolidation of future world religions.

At the same time, numerous local pantheons finally coalesce into coherent hierarchies headed by a victorious deity over the rest. As Friedrich Engels rightly noted (in a letter to Karl Marx dated October 18, 1846), “a single God could never have appeared without a single king.”

Under the influence of Aries, the transformation of the Sun archetype also occurs (Aries is the sign of the Sun’s exaltation): from a judge (cf. Babylonian Shamash as the patron of contracts, the Hebrew era of the Judges, shoftim, Apollo as an arbiter in competitions, etc.), it becomes a king and conqueror. Mithraism becomes the religion of soldiers.

Among the Greeks, after the fall of Troy (1200 BCE), Zeus, once a younger god and patron of the Achaeans, becomes the chief god of Olympus.

The ancient gods of the “Taurus” period, the Titans, and the direct ancestors of the Olympians, Cronus and Uranus (“the old one and the sea”), are transformed into enemies, and victory over them becomes an act of blessing. The Titans and Centaurs were deities close to nature, while Cronus (not Saturn, but Chronos, the god of Time) and Uranus as the god of celestial waters have an even more ancient origin: suffice it to recall the ancient Persian Zurvan and the Indo-Aryan Varuna, also known, according to Mary Boyce, as the Persian Apam Napat, the god of earthly and celestial waters.

The modern esoteric archetype of Saturn encompasses both of these aspects: he is both a strategist-commander and a symbol of time and physical death. As a strategist, he can be identified with Yahweh, whose later aspect was transferred to the Creator God, Yahweh Sabaoth (whose name, by the way, means “the armed” forces). As a god of time, he is primarily Zurvan, the symbol of eternal and infinite time standing above good and evil—for he is the father of the god of good, Ormuzd (Ahura Mazda), and the god of evil, Ahriman (Angra Mainyu). And, of course, our familiar image of the old man (or woman) with a scythe, the symbol of death. But again, only physical death, not spiritual: no wonder in most cultures, a distinction is made between the “first” (physical) and “second” (spiritual or final) death.

The modern archetype of Uranus differs significantly from everything associated with it in antiquity. The reason is that the images of ancient gods, as we have already mentioned, received their interpretation from the peculiarities of planetary motion. However, the ancients knew only the planets up to Saturn; Uranus was discovered in 1781, Neptune in 1846, and Pluto only in 1930. Therefore, these so-called trans-Saturnian planets were named after gods, not the other way around. However, it quickly became clear that ancient archetypes correspond to the modern situation only partially, and from that moment, the process of their supplementation and refinement began, which continues to this day.

It is enough to say that the modern Uranian archetype is Aquarius, i.e., Russia (as well as, for example, Finland and Lithuania). This, first of all, is an insatiable thirst for freedom, expressed in the rejection of any obligations and responsibilities. But it is also a non-trivial, unconventional mind that generates new hypotheses, plans, and ideas.

Thus, the desire for state centralization led to the “centralization” of cult and worldview. The Earth occupies a firm position at the center of the Universe. At the center of the Earth stands a sacred mountain (Olympus in the Greeks, Meru in the Indians, Mount Tabor in the Jews), where the gods dwell. The idea of the endless cycle of being in most cultures is replaced or supplemented by the idea of Salvation.

During this period (beginning around the 13th century BCE), epics emerge (proto-biblical narratives, Gilgamesh, the Vedas, the I Ching), and the first legal codes (Hammurabi) appear—first in oral tradition and then as records, albeit very imperfect ones. Only by the end of the Aries era, or more precisely, approximately 500 years before the beginning of our era, do these records finally take the form of books, which have largely survived to this day.

Thus, the “primary sources” of religious, mythological, and historical literature emerge. A few centuries later, the imperfection and then the loss of part of these records will lead to their renewal and, often, complete rewriting. However, the rewritten or newly written books are each time declared “originals,” and to lend them greater authority, their authorship is attributed to a prophet who, over the centuries, has become legendary.

Thus, Moses, Zoroaster, Buddha, and Confucius become the authors of their teachings. No wonder they all belong (according to legends) to the same era. History is written retrospectively.

Do you remember Bulgakov? “A man with a goat parchment walks behind Me and keeps writing,” says Yeshua. “Once I looked into his records… Nothing of what is written there did I say.”

Did Moses, Zoroaster, and Buddha really exist? Probably yes, though for us, that is no longer the main point. “And was the boy found in the reeds, that is, Moses, a real person?”—this question no longer makes sense today. Especially since, when it comes to religion, it is simply indecent to ask. From an ecumenical, that is, philosophical point of view, he is unimportant: both Moses and the rest have long since become symbols not of one but of many teachings that trace their history back to them.

Through Moses, whether he existed or was black, or whether this was some reminiscence directed at Akhenaten, the Jewish law (Torah) was retrospectively constructed. This was a necessary link, revealed during the Babylonian captivity: in Babylon, no one among the Jews had heard of Moses or his laws. It was then that Ezra, whose role in the history of the Old Testament is even greater than that of Moses, restored the latter and nearly erased him from historical oblivion.

Zoroaster is counted even threefold: the first was Noah’s grandson, son of Ham (the boundary of the Gemini and Taurus eras), the second was a contemporary of Moses (the peak of the Aries era), and the third was a contemporary of Ezra (6th–5th centuries BCE). Who among them was a historical figure and to what extent is difficult to judge. The British researcher Mary Boyce suggests that the historical Zoroaster was a younger contemporary of Moses, living between 1500 and 1200 BCE (Zoroastrians: Beliefs and Customs), which is supported by the type of thinking represented in the oldest layers of the Avesta, though its canonical edition is no older than the era of Ezra.

Historians doubt less the existence of Prince Siddhartha Gautama Buddha, and the reality of Confucius seems beyond doubt, though the personality of his contemporary Lao-Tzu still sparks controversy.

It was the imperfection of ancient books that later made them the richest source of esoteric teachings. After all, in these teachings, the main thing is interpretation, and lacunary, repeatedly edited texts containing many forgotten or altered words can be interpreted very broadly.

No wonder the brilliant esotericist and greatest philosopher of our time, Peter Demianovich Ouspensky, was able to interpret the Four Gospels so convincingly that the reader has no doubt: Jesus was neither a deity nor a religious figure, but an esoteric teacher like Apollonius of Tyana or the same Buddha (A New Model of the Universe).

It was precisely during the Aries era, especially in its second half, that individuals with “supernatural” abilities emerged—those who entered into direct contact with God in the form of revelation, using the ancients’ terminology, or simply took the trouble to ponder the patterns of the world and humanity, approaching this from the standpoint of esoteric philosophy. They can be divided into three categories: 1) kings and high priests, who by definition possessed such abilities; 2) prophets, who centuries later earned recognition; and 3) magicians (false prophets), who centuries later earned condemnation. Moreover, during their lifetimes, contemporaries could not distinguish between the first and the third: they were unable to assess who among those who proclaimed themselves prophets spoke the truth.

Speaking of truth and verity. In Russian, these are not synonyms, though today both words are often confused. If “verity” (istinna) is what is, the “essence,” then “truth” (pravda) is the LAW (recall the “Russkaya Pravda”—a code of laws of Kievan Rus’). No wonder Pontius Pilate asked Jesus not “what is truth” (he knew the law), but “what is verity.” Thus, the name of the newspaper “Pravda” meant something entirely different from what its founders intended.

There is a good, though brief, study of the concept of truth in other languages by P. Florensky (The Pillar and Ground of the Truth). For example, in Hebrew, truth (Emeth) derives from the root AMAN—”to be firm,” in a figurative sense “faithful,” hence “amen.” In Greek, it is ‘alhtheya, a negation of a + lhthos (lathos), “error,” meaning “without error.” Among the Romans, it was primarily a legal term (veritas), signifying a true judgment as the opposite of falsehood (cf. true and false in Boolean algebra and modern computer logic), though it ultimately traces back to the same verenda—recall the ancient oath.

The title of prophet is assigned only retrospectively, and only to those whose preaching aligns with the spirit of the times (German *Zeitgeist*) or at least the decrees of the ruling sovereign. However, the writings of false prophets are also preserved—albeit often accidentally—as material for reflection for numerous sects that emerged two to three centuries before our era (Sufis, Pharisees, Sadducees, Essenes). But they already belong to the Pisces era.

It was at this time that separate esoteric disciplines, primarily astrology and divination, began to develop. Initially, they served not individual human needs but, so to speak, as one of the tools of state policy. Horoscopes of kings and states were compiled, and new cities were founded on specially chosen days. In China, physicians, astrologers, and diviners served on equal footing with scribes and other officials at the imperial court.

In the second half of the Aries era (1st millennium BCE), Babylon became the largest center for the development of esoteric thought. It was there that mathematics based on the decimal, vigesimal, and sexagesimal systems was developed, along with the principles of numerology. It was also there that the first (known) individual horoscope was compiled—for a certain courtier, though not for a king (410 BCE).

In the 6th century BCE, astrology and numerology spread from Babylon to Greece. Pythagoras opened his school. The reinterpretation of ancient texts began: alongside the sacred, they now contained philosophical meaning. After all, philosophy in our modern sense begins precisely from this time (Socrates, Plato).

And finally, the last three centuries BCE saw a true surge in religious, philosophical, and esoteric thought. The Pisces era was approaching: the element of fire (Aries) combined with the element of water, forming a pair—a fog, nothing was visible, the future seemed to people shrouded in mist, ominous, especially amid the surrounding wars, and the end of the world appeared imminent and inevitable.

Books of deeply philosophical content appeared: Ecclesiastes, the Wisdom of Ben Sira (Ecclesiasticus), allegorical Proverbs and the Song of Songs attributed to Solomon (3rd century BCE); the genre of apocalyptic literature flourished (Revelations of Elijah, Adam, Ezra, and finally the Book of Revelation—the New Testament Apocalypse), as well as purely mystical literature: the Books of Enoch, the Sibylline Oracles, and so on. The Monster. History of Esoteric Teachings. Lecture 4. China and Tibet

Middle Kingdom

Let us begin with China as the center of East Asian civilizations, from which many achievements of human thought spread to neighboring countries— Tibet and Mongolia, Korea, Japan, and Vietnam. It is clear that we are not only talking about paper and ink, porcelain and noodles, but first and foremost about ideas and concepts designed to explain the structure of the world and the role of humanity within it.

These concepts were finally formed, or more precisely, formulated by the end of the Aries era (6th–5th centuries BCE) and have remained unchanged in their essence to this day, forming the foundation of all three major currents of Chinese religious-philosophical thought: Daoism, Confucianism, and Buddhism. Even the penetration of new religions from the West (Christianity and various branches of Islam), which began in the second half of the 1st millennium CE, and new philosophical theories, which only emerged at the end of the 19th century, added something to the worldview of East Asian inhabitants but did not fundamentally alter it.

Today, of course, they know that the Earth revolves around the Sun, are familiar with all the achievements of modern science, and have themselves made significant progress in it. Yet their worldview, and consequently to a large extent their affairs and actions, are still determined by the traditional picture of the world, which is esoteric in its foundation. No wonder the American sinologist J. Needham considered Chinese thought the closest to a universal, ecumenical philosophy of the future (Science in Traditional China: A Comparative Perspective).

Since ancient times, the Chinese have called their country the Middle Kingdom (Zhong Guo), believing that it “does not revolve around anything,” but is located at the center not only of the earthly dwelling but of the entire universe. To the north live barbarians, to the south — related tribes, to the west tower mountains, and to the east lies the ocean, yet even there dwell various people or, at least, beings akin to them, such as those on Mount Penglai, the abode of immortals, located somewhere beyond the horizon. Above China are the Heavens, inhabited by a multitude of gods of varying ranks, and beneath it — the hells, the realm of the mighty Yan-wang, the ruler over an entire army of officials and judges who adjudicate the “cases” of newly arriving souls.

True, in earlier times, the Kingdom of the Dead in Chinese belief was also located on the surface of the Earth, far to the north. Yet the three-tiered vertical division of the world was preserved: between Heaven and Earth dwelled Man. Here, one easily recognizes the already familiar to us “pyramid” scheme, common to all ancient cultures: three “floors” vertically, four cardinal directions horizontally.

However, the idea of the “central” position of their kingdom not only compelled the Chinese to introduce a fifth element (the center) into their conception of the horizontal structure of the world but also allowed them to develop and modify this scheme so extensively that it became the foundation of their methodology of knowledge, ultimately determining the peculiarity of Chinese thought, which makes it, for us Europeans, at best barely comprehensible, if not entirely incomprehensible. In essence, the true study (and comprehension!) of the Western-Chinese world model began only in the 20th century, and even then gradually, piece by piece, rarely succeeding in forming a unified whole.

No wonder Artem Igorevich Kobzev writes that it is precisely the “doctrine of symbols and numbers” (numerology), which underlies the Chinese worldview as the most natural — that is, most consonant with the structure of human consciousness — that helped this worldview preserve its core features over millennia (!), whereas in Europe, dozens, if not hundreds, of such worldviews have changed during this time.

In general, Kobzev’s book (The Doctrine of Symbols and Numbers in Chinese Classical Philosophy. Moscow, “Vost. lit.”, 1994) is a very detailed and accurate source of information about the Chinese world model. In abbreviated form, this information is presented in his article “Features of Philosophical and Scientific Methodology in Traditional China,” published in the collection: Ethics and Ritual in Traditional China, Moscow, “Nauka”, 1988.

To some extent, this is also connected with the peculiarities of the Chinese language, for language is the foundation of thought. For instance, the Chinese language lacks the copula verb “to be,” as found in most European languages.

Even in Russian, it still exists, albeit in a truncated form: today we no longer say “az esm’” as ancient Rus’ did or as Poles do now — Jestem Polakiem — and in the past tense, it has also been lost: we say “I ran” rather than “I was running,” as Serbs do. However, such development of the Russian language, combined with the idea of Russia’s role as Aquarius in the Age of Aquarius, gives hope that we, rather than Westerners, may better or at least more quickly understand China.

Therefore, questions that have long preoccupied and continue to preoccupy speakers of European languages — essence and existence, being and non-being, identity and difference, i.e., terms formed in European languages through the substantivization of various forms of the verb “to be” — were not even posed in Chinese philosophy. The Chinese, and following them the inhabitants of other states in the region, distinguished only between existence and non-existence. If a thing exists, it can be expressed in words. If it does not exist, it is inexpressible. And the inexpressible can only be conveyed through silence… Here lie the origins of the “Culture of Silence” among the Japanese.

Five and Ten

But let us return to the world model. “From the Truth was born the One, from the One were born the Two, from the Two emerged the Three, from the Three — all the myriad things,” as stated in the book Dao De Jing. Two and three together make five — the five sides of the world: east, south, west, north, and center. According to this distribution, the elements or primary essences of nature are assigned:

east — wood — blue (green) — Jupiter
south — fire — red — Mars
center — earth — yellow — Saturn
west — metal — white — Venus
north — water — black — Mercury

Moreover, this is the esoteric order of listing the elements: it is the same in the calendar and in various philosophical expositions. For explaining natural phenomena and societal processes, a different order was used: earth, water, fire, metal, wood.

The cardinal directions are associated with specific colors and with the planets of the Solar System. They can be depicted in the form of a conventional “wind rose,” placing “earth” in the center:

This is the so-called “Bright Throne” (Ming Tang), the main classificatory scheme.
+———–+
| | S | |
|—+—+—|
| O | M | W |
|—+—+—|
| | N | |
+———–+

If intermediate “quarters” (SW, NW, etc.) are taken into account, a complete or nine-member Ming Tang emerges — a 3×3 magic square, an enneagram. No wonder it is said: “With the help of triads, they order the pentads.” Incidentally, this is also how the natal chart in Chinese astrology appears.

This same scheme can be depicted in the form of a pentagram:

red FIRE Mars
south
heart — pericardium (Triple Burner)
/
blue WOOD Jupiter _ _ _ _ yellow EARTH Saturn
east . center
liver — gallbladder . stomach — spleen
. .

black WATER Mercury white METAL Venus
northwest
kidneys — bladder lungs — large intestine

Hence — the “Five Storehouses of the Body” or “Five Solid Organs” (Zhang): liver, heart, spleen, lungs, and kidneys. And indeed, many things and concepts grouped in fives, including the Wujing, the famous Confucian Five Classics (Shujing, Shijing, Yijing, Liji, and Chunqiu).

According to Buddhists, the human body consists of five substances: vessels, bones, flesh (muscles), skin, and blood. The skeleton also consists of five main parts: skull, spine, shoulder blades, ribs, and long bones in the limbs (pelvic bones are considered a modified form of shoulder blades). Further, we note that there are five fingers on the hands and feet. The spine is also divided into five sections — cervical, thoracic, spinal, lumbar, and sacral. There are five main sense organs: sight, hearing, smell, taste, and touch. A person secretes five fluids: mucus, saliva, sweat, urine, and tears. He consumes five substances from the environment: air, water, minerals, meat, and plants.

A fetus in the womb begins to move in the fifth month and is born in the tenth. If a person is ill, they are accompanied by five sounds: coughing, sneezing, yawning, belching, and hiccups. Coughing is a sign of lung activity, sneezing — of the nose, hiccups — of the throat, yawning — of the nerves, and belching — of the stomach.

While European astrologers distinguish four temperaments, Buddhists recognize five: 1. choleric (impulsive type); 2. sanguine (emotional); 3. phlegmatic (rigid, hard); 4. melancholic (quiet); 5. intermediate or calm.

However, each of the elements exists in two variants — strong and weak, masculine and feminine: yang and yin. This results in ten — the Ten Heavenly Stems (Tian Gan), or static signs, the foundation of the Chinese calendar and astrology, and the Ten Main Organs — to the Five Solid Organs are added the Five Hollow Organs (Fu): gallbladder, small intestine, stomach, large intestine, and bladder. Thus arise the Ten Main Meridians of the human body, the foundation of Chinese medicine.

Six and Twelve

Let us organize these two fives. No wonder it is said, “One is greater than five” (Mozi): one is the hand, more precisely, the hand as a whole, “generalizing” the five fingers. Ten fingers are two hands, ten plus two gives twelve.

One can approach this from a different angle. (No wonder the concept of “dao” also has two sides: after all, it is not only a path but also a process of movement.) Somewhere between five and six: the Chinese did not deny the existence of the element of Air. It is Air that humans and all living beings breathe; Air is the embodiment of the life energy “qi” (in various sources it is also called “chi” or “ki” — cf. Qigong gymnastics, Reiki therapy, etc.).

Admittedly, the Chinese did not include “qi” among the ordinary elements, believing it to be greater than an element since it permeates the entire universe. Nevertheless, they still accounted for it in their schemes, placing a human as the symbol of “qi” at the center of the pentagram and thus obtaining a six-membered scheme. Yet each member of this scheme has two forms — yang and yin — and thus, in sum, it again yields twelve.

In Tibet, they went even further, directly including Air (qi) among the elements and subdividing them into two triads: earthly elements — Earth, Water, Wood — and celestial ones — Metal, Air, Fire. Thus, the triads once again organize the fives. The result is a hexagram:

HEAVEN Fire

Metal Air

——————————————–

Earth Water

EARTH Wood

This scheme clearly bears the imprint of Buddhism, which arrived from India, where esotericism developed somewhat differently (closer to our own perceptions) — recall the Indian hexagram depicting three pairs of gods, male and female, symbolizing the six senses:

Shiva (mind)

Lakshmi _ _ _/_ _ _ Saraswati (touch) / / (hearing) / / Brahma /_ _ _ _ _ _ Vishnu (sight) / (taste)

Kali (smell)

And a double hexagram, as is well known, also yields twelve. Thus arises the complex of the Twelve Earthly Branches (Di Zhi), or dynamic signs — the most important part of the Chinese calendar and astrology (by the way, the only part well known in the West: these are the 12 cyclical signs — Rat, Ox, Tiger, Rabbit, and so on).

However, in the West, the matter was limited to printing the most popular booklets on what it means to be born in the Year of the Dragon or Dog. But we already understand that this system is far more complex and profound.

By the way, the Dragon in the cultures of East Asia is nothing like the monstrous creature it is perceived as by adherents of our Judeo-Christian culture. In Chinese tradition, it is the embodiment of a luminous force — a symbol of fertility. In Daoism, the Dragon is a symbol of creative power, the materialized thought. The Celestial Dragon also personifies the mouth of the Milky Way, the meeting place of particles of matter and human souls.

The Chinese (and broadly East Asian) calendar consists of two parallel running cycles: Tian Gan and Di Zhi — the Ten Heavenly Stems and the Twelve Earthly Branches — which together form a sixty-year cycle. The cycle begins with the year of Wood-Yang and Rat (the current cycle began in 1984). Next comes the year of Wood-Yin and Ox, then Fire-Yang and Tiger, and so on. The differing lengths of the two cycles (10 and 12) ensure the rotation of combinations of primary elements and cyclical signs. The same alternation applies to the static and dynamic signs of months and days of the year. More details on this can be found in the book by V.V. Tsibulsky, “Lunar-Solar Calendar of East Asian Countries” (Moscow, Nauka, 1988) and I.A. Klimishin, “Calendar and Chronology” (Moscow, Nauka, 1985).

Thus emerges the main Chinese cosmogram, shaped like the Bright Throne Ming-Tang:

+—————————————–+ |5 |3 |1 | | | | | | element | element | element | | of day | of month | of year | | | | | |————-+————-+————-| |6 |4 |2 | | sign | sign | sign | | of day | of month | of year | | | | | | | | | |————-+————-+————-| |9 |8 |7 | | | | | | hidden symbols of elements | | | | | | | | | +—————————————–+

Furthermore. To the ten meridians of the human body, two more are added — the “Heart Governor” (pericardium) and the Triple Burner (later the so-called “extraordinary meridians” and others were added, though they are not included in the main scheme). Thus, a twelve-sector circle or “turtle” is formed, representing the most important scheme of world division.

Why a turtle? In Mongolia, there is such a legend:

Long ago, in ancient times, there lived a skilled archer-hunter. Once, while hunting on the shore of a lake, he shot a strange beast. It was a turtle. It fell, struck, and turned over, lying on its back. The hunter approached it and saw lumps of clay in its four paws. Under its front paws lay a fragment of a wooden arrow with an iron tip; fire blazed from its mouth, and water poured from another opening.

After observing it for a long time, the hunter realized that Earth, Iron, Wood, Water, and Fire are the five primary elements from which the Universe is composed. In the image depicting the turtle, the “triads once again organize the fives,” and the ten static signs combine with the twelve dynamic ones:

TURTLE

South head Snake Horse fire-yin fire-yang SE ———— SW paw Dragon / Sheep paw wind (yang) / Earth (yin) /

Rabbit | | Monkey wood-yin | | metal-yang EAST | | WEST Tiger | | Rooster wood-yang | | metal-yin / / Ox / Dog mountain (yin) ————– void (yang) NE Rat Pig NW paw water-yang water-yin paw tail NORTH

Here you have the turtle — so to speak, a living model of the world. In one Tibetan Buddhist sutra it is said:

“The entire Universe fits on a turtle. Its head faces south, its tail north, and its paws east and west. The south contains the element ‘Fire’ and corresponds to the signs of Horse and Snake; the west is ‘Metal’ or Rooster and Monkey; the north is ‘Water’ or Pig and Rat; the east is ‘Wood’ or Tiger and Rabbit” (cited from: L. Skorodumova, “Dzurhai: Buddhist Astrology”).

For the inhabitants of China and Mongolia, the turtle’s shell served as a natural divination board: even the book “I Ching,” as is well known, resonates with the turtle’s shell.

It also served as a symbol of world harmony, the unshakable cosmic balance (Libra) — no wonder it was believed that the Earth rests on the back of a giant turtle. Hence the principle: do nothing that might disrupt this balance. Disrupting the balance is a sin, a fault for which retribution cannot be avoided. Preserving it is a virtue (de), for which no special reward is due. The path leading to the preservation of balance is the dual dao: adherence to rituals and knowledge.

In this context, the term “de,” which only in the Age of Aries acquired the meaning of “good deeds” akin to the Greek “kalokagathia” (“not desiring evil”), in earlier times denoted a sacred, i.e., divine, force that flows only into a person ready to receive the deity — recall the Jewish prophets, Greek Pythias, shamans, berserkers, Christian saints…

Moreover, the circle (turtle) is a symbol of cyclicity, the repetition of everything. Here there is a clear reminiscence of the concepts of the Age of Taurus (the world is well-ordered, and there is no need to change it), albeit in a slightly different form (the world is arranged as it is arranged, and nothing can be changed) — no wonder most East Asian cultures are described by the archetype of Libra, and Libra, like Taurus, is the domicile of Venus.

Chinese meridians are paired, meaning they imply the interaction of two opposite sectors of the circle, for example, the Heart and Gallbladder. An exchange of energy occurs between them. This means, for instance, that treating a disorder in one meridian can be done by working on another. Likewise, the archetypes of the zodiac signs are interconnected, for example, Aries-Libra. Hence, it is no surprise that during the Age of Aries, many elements of the opposite archetype, Libra, were activated, and in Japanese culture, both are represented almost equally.

But let us return to our diagram. On it, we can see that among the main components of the “turtle,” the number eight has appeared.

Eight

wood wind | fire earth | former metal void | earth water mountain |

The concept of eight elements—four great and four small, forming a fifth—originated in antiquity. However, it was under the influence of Buddhism (cf. “the Eightfold Path of moral action”), though its role as a sacred number remained modest in its homeland, India, that the eight elements gained their greatest development, including names (recall zhenming), interpretations, and principles of practical application.

The term “void” also has Indo-Buddhist origins (and, accordingly, meaning): it is shunyata, the great void as a vessel, the essence of Adibuddha. As stated in the Dao De Jing:

“Thirty spokes and the hub make a wheel, but it is the void between them that constitutes the essence of the wheel. The clay of the pot’s base and walls make a vessel, but it is the void within that constitutes the essence of the vessel.

The familiar Bright Throne (Ming Tang), as we recall, contains an eightfold pattern: these are the cells of a magic square without a center. Together with the central cell, they form a ninefold pattern. The eight and nine gained particularly broad development as foundations of epistemological theory in Tibet, where eightfold and ninefold cycles were also incorporated into the calendar cycle:

Eight Elements and Nine Colors

1 water 1 white 2 earth 2 black 3 iron 3 blue 4 void 4 green 5 fire 5 yellow 6 mountain 6 white 7 wood 7 red 8 wind 8 white 9 red

(In reality, there are six colors here, some repeated, but they are considered alongside their numerical order, i.e., their ordinal number, which provides the necessary differentiation—an unusual formulation for us.)

Each year, month, and day is examined not only through the 10 static and 12 dynamic signs but also through the eight elements and nine colors. Every person knows or can calculate their element and color, which allows them to determine auspicious and inauspicious days, choose a profession or a spouse, and so on.

The I Ching

The eightfold pattern underlies the exposition of the well-known material in the I Ching, also known as the “Book of Changes.” It describes 64 hexagrams, formed by combining eight primary trigrams. There is also the Nan Jing—one of China’s oldest medical treatises, based on the ninefold pattern: it defines 81 complexities of classical medicine. This prompted our sinologist V.S. Spirkin to call the I Ching a “light” and the Nan Jing a “heavy” treatise, arguing that the I Ching operates on a two-dimensional scheme while the Nan Jing uses a three-dimensional one. He then attempts to divide or distribute all Chinese philosophical treatises in this way, which, as we now understand, is incorrect, since the “dimensionality” remains the same in all cases (three vertically, four horizontally), differing only in the number of accounting elements. For more details, see: Spirkin V.S. The Structure of Ancient Chinese Texts. Moscow, 1976.

We will not examine the Nan Jing here due to its specific focus, though those interested can refer to Denis Alexandrovich Dubrovin’s adaptation: Heavy Questions of Classical Chinese Medicine, St. Petersburg, “Asta Press,” 1991.

The I Ching primarily operates with eight primary trigrams (Ba Gua), four of which still adorn the national flag of the Republic of Korea. These are the same eight elements—four great and four small—though they are named slightly differently:

—– —– Qian Heaven Creativity —–

— — — — Kun Earth Receptivity — —

— — — — Zhen Thunder Excitement —–

— — —– Kan Water Danger — —

—– — — Gen Mountain Keeping Still — —

—– —– Xun Wind Gentle Penetration — —

—– – Li Fire Clarity —–

— — —– Dui Marsh Joy —–

The eight trigrams combine to form 64 hexagrams, each accompanied by an aphoristic description. Over the centuries, more or less extensive commentaries—linguistic, literary, or philosophical—were added to them.

Indeed, the aphoristic nature of ancient texts compelled later readers to supply them with commentaries based on their own understanding. Take the I Ching, the Old Testament, or the Avesta. Even the relatively recent “Kitab-i-Aqdas” of Baha’u’llah, written during the reign of Napoleon III, has already amassed an entire library of commentaries.

Perhaps Yulian Konstantinovich Shchutsky was right when he said that the I Ching originally emerged as a compendium of purely divinatory rules—a practical guide to divination. After all, during the Age of Aries, everywhere, and especially in China, diviners and astrologers were considered state officials, and no important decision was made without their consultation.

However, the very starting point from which the author of this book proceeded—the natural (one of the natural) system of dividing the world, the eightfold pattern, which still carries a purely earthly, monoplanetary character (unlike the tenfold, which encompasses the entire Solar System)—transforms the I Ching into one of the first known “encyclopedias” of the world and man.

For such an “encyclopedia,” or rather, for the theory of macrocosm and microcosm, what matters is not the number of “entries”—individual cases—but the degree of fragmentation, i.e., figuratively speaking, the resolving power of the lens. In principle, even a binary division (yang-yin) allows for the classification of all things and phenomena by grouping them into two broad categories. 64 is two to the sixth power, while (returning to the Nan Jing or, say, to the “Book of Great Mystery” /Taixuanjing/ by Yang Xiong) 81 is three to the fourth power. Which system has greater dimensionality?

Thus, any “entry” in the I Ching, though brief (aphoristic), is nonetheless an exhaustive description of any situation with precision up to the sixth decimal place—more than sufficient for describing political events in a given country, analyzing a person’s life situation, or even predicting the outcome of a physical-chemical experiment. Indeed: a molecule—one, an atom—two, electrons and protons—three, various mu- and pi-mesons—four, quarks—five, gravitons—six…

However, to practice divination with the I Ching today, one must either have a deep knowledge of the symbolism and symbolology of ancient China—which is difficult to demand of non-sinologists—or turn to modern interpretations where the meaning of each hexagram is explained in contemporary language.

Another challenge of ancient texts is the evolution of consciousness, or rather, the evolution of the content of consciousness in each new generation. Language changes as well. Therefore, at least once every hundred years, these texts require new translations or at least commentaries to ensure that the “metacommunication,” as it is called in translation theory, remains effective…

The main meaning of this book, as of many others today, lies not in divination. The I Ching offers the reader a certain methodology for understanding the world—complex, requiring careful study, but accessible even to non-sinologists, since the foundations of the Chinese worldview are very simple and logical, as we have already seen.

Those wishing to acquaint themselves with the I Ching firsthand can turn to the work of Yulian Konstantinovich Shchutsky, which has become nearly as classic as the “Book of Changes” itself: Shchutsky Yu.K. The Chinese Classical Book of Changes. Moscow, St. Petersburg, JSC “Komplekt,” 1992. For an overview of ancient Chinese literature, see N.T. Fedorenko’s Ancient Monuments of Chinese Literature, Moscow, “Nauka,” 1978, which includes lists of specialized literature on these topics.

Laozi, Buddha, and Confucius

We will not delve deeply into the three main currents of Chinese philosophy—Confucianism, Daoism, and Buddhism, let alone smaller schools.

First, because, as mentioned earlier, each of them is based on the same world model. Without understanding the foundation, there is no point in approaching the details; but with that foundation, one can independently grasp the rest.

Secondly, because such analysis is better conducted within the framework of a course on the history of philosophy or religion, and even better—at the department of Chinese, Japanese, or Tibetan-Mongolian philology. Religion and philosophy are still different things, especially since what interests us here is not philosophy in general, but only esotericism, that is, one of the philosophies or, rather, one of the components of any philosophy, the share of which may be greater or lesser.

From the perspective of esotericism, by the way, nothing can be represented as a share of the whole equal to one hundred percent or zero: in any whole, there is room for something else, most often—something directly opposite. This principle of esotericism is expressed practically in all ancient Chinese books, and in the I Ching—especially so: no wonder it is called the “Book of Changes,” that is, the constant alternation from yang to yin and back.

What is the share of esotericism in the main schools of Chinese philosophy?

Confucianism

Confucianism is primarily a doctrine for exoterics, that is, for the “outer”: for ordinary people, not scholars. Confucius himself emphasizes that he addresses everyone without distinction of age, social status, or level of education.

To ensure world harmony, it was prescribed simply to follow rituals (li), developed for all cases of life. Failure to observe rituals was equated with disrupting cosmic equilibrium and indeed was such. True, Confucius and his disciples did not consider it possible to explain the content of the rituals to their “outer” followers, because understanding them required scholarship. In China, scholars always held a special place and naturally formed an elite with knowledge inaccessible to the uninitiated. The elite, that is, the scholars, were instructed to study the heritage of the ancients, as they “knew the meaning of all things,” and the task of the scholar was only to penetrate it. However, even they did not always succeed in revealing this secret meaning in ancient texts, primarily because it was often simply not there (recall the words of Yu. K. Shchutsky about the I Ching). And then they—credit to them—sat down to write another commentary, imbuing it with their own meaning…

The texts of Confucius have recently been published in Russian for the first time. And although the translation language is sometimes clumsy, those interested can refer to the almanac “Rubezh” No. 1/92, pp. 259–310. There is also a book by Vladimir Malyavin about Confucius, published in the series “ZhZL” (M., “Molodaya Gvardiya,” 1992).

A ritual helps direct the efforts of consciousness and subconsciousness into the right channel. It is needed by the incapable, the unwilling, and beginners. Those who can control the efforts of their consciousness and subconsciousness do not need a ritual.

Do you remember the parable of the white bear? A shaman came to a sick man and said: “I will heal you, but do not think about the white bear.” From that moment on, the patient could not think about anything except the white bear—a classic case of inability to control either consciousness or subconsciousness. For those who cannot, the simplest way to “not think about the white bear” is a ritual: immediately start reciting mantras, prayers, or verses, which always have magical properties. Those who can simply wish to forget about the white bear.

Taoism

Taoism is already to a much greater extent a doctrine for esoterics. The text of the Dao De Jing is addressed precisely to those who would like to join the small elite of those who “know” and “can.” Of course, this is not stated directly: the author (Laozi) simply expresses regret that very few bother to understand his words, although their meaning is simple.

The religious rituals of the Taoists, which model conception and the formation of the soul, were open to many, but few managed to penetrate their true meaning—”internal alchemy” (Nei Dan), about which, for example, Lu Kuan Yu writes in detail and wisely in the work of E. A. Torchinov: “Taoist Alchemy and Immortality” (St. Petersburg, “ORIS,” 1993). Torchinov’s own book on Taoism (St. Petersburg, 1993) is devoted more to religious than philosophical issues.

The philosophical essence of the matter is as follows. Humanity owes Taoism the formulation of two fundamental principles: the Unified Path of Knowledge and Non-Action. What is the Path of Knowledge (Dao), we already more or less imagine: it is the recognition of the visible and invisible, the describable and the ineffable. If the describable can and should be spoken of, it is better to remain silent about the ineffable: that will be clearer. Non-Action (Wu-wei) is the same principle of not disrupting cosmic equilibrium, which states: do not do what is unnecessary!

These most important esoteric principles, as we will yet see, in one form or another are present in all religions and philosophies, but only Taoism revealed them with such clarity and simplicity. True, realizing this simplicity is very difficult; hence—the misunderstanding or incomplete understanding of these principles by “Daoists” of the West, on the one hand, and the misunderstanding of Taoists by non-Taoists, on the other…

The book Dao De Jing has been published in Russian multiple times. Of the five or six existing translations, two deserve attention: the scholarly translation by Yan Hin-Shun (M., USSR Academy of Sciences, 1950) and the poetic translation by V. Pereleshin (M., “KONEK,” 1994). The first is excellent in its scrupulous accuracy in conveying all variants of meanings and a powerful reference apparatus, though inconvenient; the second, like the original, is a truly literary work and “achieves the goal of communication” as sacred texts do.

Zen Buddhism

As for Buddhism, in China and the Far East it awaited a special fate. For Taoists, the call of Buddha Shakyamuni to renounce all worldly matters was irrelevant, as they had already left the world behind. However, the doctrine of identifying the subject and object as a method of knowing the world, as well as karma and cycles of rebirth culminating in union with the Absolute, gave new impetus to the development of the Chinese worldview.

In this case, we are talking about the resonance and dissonance of two archetypes: the Chinese (Venus, Taurus-Libra) and the Indian (Pisces, at least in that part of India bordering China and Tibet). On the one hand, this was mutual fertilization (Pisces is the exaltation of Venus), and on the other—a near-complete reworking of the categories of Indian philosophy, which had no analogues in the Chinese worldview.

The Buddhist concept of the subordination of the individual “I” to the Absolute, multiplied by the already developed Chinese concept of cosmic equilibrium, gave rise to Zen Buddhism—a purely esoteric and even mystical philosophy in which the unity of macrocosm and microcosm is understood through the unity of the object of knowledge and the knowing subject: the entire Universe is contained in individual consciousness or, more precisely, in the subconscious, which simply fits into it and becomes identical to it, while the difference between them becomes insignificant.

Identification is indeed a very convenient way of knowing the world (esoteric philosophy) and influencing it (magic), brilliant in the simplicity of its principle but incredibly difficult in its practical realization, especially for a Western person.

Indeed, what could be simpler: want to know a stone—identify yourself with it; want to know the laws of the universe—identify yourself with them, and so on. Want the enemy’s dagger to strike him—identify yourself with the dagger. This principle, by the way, is the foundation of many Eastern martial arts.

Yes, but how to do it? For an ordinary person, especially a European, it is very difficult to fully identify with someone or something: an invisible barrier separates their precious personality from the outside world. Only when, as the Buddhists teach, they stop considering it valuable (the subordination of the individual “I” to the Absolute), can they overcome this barrier.

The Chinese themselves (as well as the Japanese and other East Asians) appeal to the spiritual experience of Buddha Gautama: if it worked for him, it will work for you. After all, the means by which he achieved it are known.

The most important of these means is meditation. The word “Zen” itself is the Japanese transcription of Sanskrit “Dhyana”—meditation (via Chinese “chan,” which means the same).

Further on, everything is very simple: meditation plus awareness of the law of equilibrium of the macrocosm (world karma) gives the first degree of knowledge of the infinite — “renunciation of hatred,” as D. Suzuki says. Meditation plus consciousness of karma as a microcosmic law of equilibrium (individual karma) is the second degree, “submission to karma.” Meditation plus wu-wei (the principle of non-action) yields “absence of desires,” the third degree of knowledge. And finally, meditation plus awareness of dharma as a teleological law (the purpose) of one’s existence is the fourth degree, which Suzuki calls “submission to dharma.”

Daisetz Suzuki (1870–1966), a Japanese man, the greatest theorist of Zen Buddhism. He lectured at universities in Europe and America and wrote over 90 books. It is thanks to him that Western esotericists — those who have put in the effort, of course — were able to approach an understanding of Zen Buddhism. His books are now published in our country as well (Suzuki D. Fundamentals of Zen Buddhism. Bishkek, “Odyssey,” 1993, or: The Science of Zen. Kyiv, 1992).

Sometimes it is said: Zen is a secret teaching imparted by the Buddha Gautama only to his closest disciples. In reality, there is nothing secret in it; it is merely a natural view of the world. The same view we have been discussing all along, albeit in its simplest and purest form. As one Zen teacher cited by Suzuki said: “The teachings of all Buddhas are contained from the very beginning in our own mind.”

It primarily involves the work of the spirit, or rather not work, but the equilibrium of the spirit that is not disturbed by any external factors. Meditation and other exercises are needed only for beginners to train their minds to abstract away from all kinds of obstacles. As a rule, people under the age of 30, before the completion of Saturn’s cycle, which signifies a new stage of knowledge, find it difficult to master this ability to abstract: there are simply too many temptations. Afterward, however, it often comes naturally, even without necessarily being under the sign of Buddhism.

Lamaism

At the end of the 14th and beginning of the 15th centuries, the Tibetan monk and philosopher Tsongkhapa decided to reform the Buddhist sect of Kadampa, which had existed since the 11th century, wishing to return to the “original” teaching as he understood it, as well as to elevate the authority of monks (lamas). The theory of Lamaism is expounded in the 108-volume collection called the “Gangjur.”

Lamaism, as a form of Tibetan Buddhism, pays far more attention to external, secondary attributes of the teaching. The idea in its pure form seemed too simple to the Lamaists, just as it did to the Daoists, because its comprehension requires not only time — an age — but also leisure. How much leisure do the shepherds of Tibet and Mongolia have?

Hence, first and foremost, the strengthening of the priesthood as a special group of people responsible for the salvation of themselves and others.

Hence also the “heredity” of the great lama’s rank — many of you have likely read the revelations of the exiled Dalai Lama Lobsang Rambo (The Third Eye. L., 1991) — and the meticulous development of various kinds of meditative exercises: achieving catatonia, levitation, spirit journeys, and an extremely detailed astrology that takes into account far more factors than, for example, Chinese or even Indian astrology. This also includes the famous Tibetan medicine, the sophistication of which modern doctors could envy — recall the books by Badmaev and Pozdneev, the treatise Chzhud Shi, and others, which include an extensive nomenclature of medicinal plants, pulse diagnosis, consideration of astrological parameters of the birth chart and the current situation. However, all of this is taught only to monks.

Mahayana Buddhism, and even Zen Buddhism in China and Japan, primarily presupposes the openness of this path, its accessibility to everyone and anyone who puts in the effort to follow it. In Tibet, however, Buddhism is more akin to Hinayana, leaving this opportunity only to the initiated. Furthermore, Lamaism, although it stems from Buddhism, grew on the soil of ancient local religions, beginning with animism with totemism among completely wild peoples and ending with the famous Bon religion, or Bon-po.

The word itself derives from the verb bod pa, meaning “to invoke gods, to summon spirits.” This is a pre-Buddhist animistic cult of deities, spirits, and forces of nature.

Thus, while Buddhism in general and Zen Buddhism in particular assume the greatest generalization, i.e., they have the character of esoteric philosophy in the modern sense, Tibetan Buddhism (Lamaism) is a private, specialized teaching primarily of an applied, i.e., magical nature. However, we will discuss magic later.

Het Monster. The History of Esoteric Doctrines. Lecture 5. India and Persia.

India

Despite the wealth and diversity of philosophical systems, schools, teachings, traditions, and directions existing in India, despite the multitude of its languages, castes, religions, and sects, we can still speak of the phenomenon of Indian or even Indo-Iranian thought, because at the core of all the above variations lies the same worldview that took shape at the turn of the eras of Taurus and Aries and is so perfect and self-sufficient that any subsequent significant innovations, whether they arose within Indian culture, like Buddhism, or were introduced from outside, like Christianity, were either later rejected as superfluous or “digested,” being demoted to minor details of the single and indivisible teaching.

Briefly, the history of the development of this teaching, or rather, this way of thinking, is as follows. It originates in the era of Taurus — this is already familiar to us postulate: “the world is perfect, and there is no need to change it” — yet it took on its present forms only at the beginning of the Aries era, after the invasion of the Indo-Aryans (“whites displacing blacks,” recall the theory of the Seven Races). The hardships of this era of conquests added a second part to the aforementioned postulate: “Man is imperfect and must change.” It was in this spirit that the first “drafts” of the Vedas were composed. The end of the Aries era, the epoch of the final formation of sacred texts and the emergence of the doctrine of Salvation (6th–3rd centuries BCE) under the influence of the approaching Pisces era, added a third part to this formula: “Change is the key to Salvation.” Thus, by the 3rd century BCE at the latest, this worldview had taken its final shape and was no longer subject to challenge, for this formula proved so all-encompassing that all newer teachings (Zoroastrianism, Buddhism, Christianity, Islam, etc.) either fell under its vast umbrella or were dismissed as foolish and primitive (if, for example, they proposed changing not man but the world and its structure). The esoteric meaning of this formula is self-evident and requires no commentary.

One can only hope that with the transition from the Pisces era to the Aquarius era, a fourth part will be added to this formula, corresponding to the spirit of the new time.

I emphasize once more that I am referring here only to the esoteric, i.e., the highest, capable of the greatest generalizations, part of public and individual consciousness: if one descends even one step lower, to the level of “mere” philosophy or religion, contradictions and disputes immediately arise: does the world exist, or is it merely an illusion? Which god is the greatest, and so on. Yet it is precisely this pervasive esotericism of Indian religions and philosophies that allows these contradictions to be resolved, thanks to which proponents of the most polar opposite views never resorted to settling matters with swords in hand but instead acknowledged one another’s right to present the universal worldview in any private form. This is something many Western scholars of Indian culture failed to grasp (see, for example: Chattopadhyaya D. History of Indian Philosophy. Moscow, “Progress,” 1966).

What, then, is the concept of Indian esotericism if this formula is expanded?

We have already discussed the cosmogony of ancient peoples in general and the Indians in particular. “In the beginning, there was nothing,” i.e., chaos. Then, within this chaos, some structure began to form, from which the World Egg — the embryo of the Universe — emerged (Myths of Ancient India. Literary exposition by V.G. Erman and E.M. Temkin. Moscow, “Nauka,” 1975). If approached from a numerological perspective (especially since the “Arabic” numerals we use actually originated in India), chaos obviously corresponds to “zero.”

However, what should be considered a unit—the World Egg? But it is already dual, as it contains a center and a periphery, a “yolk” and an “albumen.” Yet the egg is not yet the Universe, for it is lifeless until fertilized. And fertilization is again a unit—remember the vivid myth of Shiva’s lingam stirring the cosmic waters. Perhaps it is simpler to assume that zero (chaos) also has its own “zero” stages of development?

The idea that the egg resembles a small model of the Solar System occurred to people even in ancient times. By studying the egg, they drew conclusions about the structure of the Solar System, and those conclusions were correct. But we already know that the connection between the two structures is not causal (i.e., one cannot say that one is the cause of the other) but teleological: in our Universe, everything is arranged according to the same laws (i.e., these phenomena have a single cause).

This simple yet all-encompassing picture of creation greatly appealed to Europeans at the end of the 19th century, after the “discovery of India” by the British. The long-standing question of “how to understand the statement about the six days of creation” suddenly seemed entirely resolvable. H.P. Blavatsky meticulously developed the problem of the “zero” state of the Universe, identifying three stages of zero’s development: the single abstract space (chaos without any structure), the sign of the circle (the Sun’s sign without a dot), the potential space within the abstract (the emergence of structure), the sign of the Sun with a dot, and the virgin Mother-Nature (the egg), the sign of a circle with a horizontal line.

This raises an interesting question: what precisely caused the emergence of structure in chaos? The ancient Indians and later theosophists explained this through the action of some internal factor inherent in chaos. Simple logical interpolation leads us to the conclusion that this “factor of uncertainty” is identical to the concept of the Absolute or God, who is everything, and foremost, nature in all its stages of development, even the initial and preceding ones.

It is no wonder that around the same time, and not without the influence of these theosophically reworked Indian ideas, the concept of the “Big Bang” (Big Bang) arose, which explained something within the materialistic worldview of Western—more precisely, Judeo-Christian—physicists. All the matter of the Universe, compressed into a point, analogous to the “potential space” of the second stage of zero, and the Big Bang, the beginning of the Universe’s expansion, corresponds to the third stage, the “virgin Nature.” As for the first stage—what existed before the Big Bang—materialist physicists found it difficult to speak about, as the concept of “chaos” defies strict definition.

Meanwhile, it should already be clear to us that the factor that caused the emergence of structure in primordial chaos, i.e., that triggered the decrease in the Universe’s entropy, is more “external” than “internal” if viewed from the perspective of theosophists and physicists, for it emanates from human consciousness rather than the Universe itself: simply put, as we think, so it is—or rather, so it was (will have been). I do not in vain repeat in every lecture that history is written retrospectively. After all, time is merely one of the Universe’s functions; it is not linear (or at least not always linear, as we will later see), so our thoughts can influence not only the relative linear past but also the future… In short, this question of defining chaos—also the question of what existed before the Big Bang, also the question of the illusory or real nature of the Universe—becomes purely scholastic and loses all meaning for us, much like the famous question of “how many angels can dance on the head of a pin”—until we find the answer to what Truth is—by the way, who remembers what the Dao De Jing says about this?

From Truth, the One is born,
From the One, the Two appear,
From the Two, the Three emerge,
From the Three, all things are born.

Does this mean Truth is chaos?

In reality, of course, this is a trap. From the perspective of the ancient Indians (and modern esotericists), the concepts of “external” and “internal” in relation to the factor that caused the structuring of chaos are also meaningless, for man is present in God, just as God is present in man…

The postulate of the identity of God and man, in one form or another, exists in all religions, as we will see many times. But we have strayed too far from the topic.

You see how many thoughts and associations one seemingly simple image of an ancient esoteric doctrine can evoke. Yet that is precisely the point: this doctrine itself became one of the cornerstones of our modern worldview, for all those who call themselves Europeans, Americans, Arabs, Turks, Greeks, Hindus, Punjabis, Sikhs, and so on, ultimately belong to a single culture. Only later layers and innovations led to the emergence of countless divergent teachings, each of which first and foremost reached for the sword to prove its own truth.

The tolerance and pacifism of the Indians, largely explained by the yin, lunar-Venusian principle of their culture (no wonder even the cosmic energy, qi or chi, is considered feminine energy—shakti in Indian thought), later served them poorly, failing to spur them to raise the sword against conquerors, of which Indian history had no shortage. Yet this very tolerance and pacifism, this refusal to use the sword as a means of resolving philosophical disputes, created an optimal environment for the growth of uninhibited esoteric, religious, and philosophical ideas that found followers and continuers far beyond India’s borders—i.e., what we now call pluralism.

Thus, for the Indians themselves, it was essentially indifferent how to number the stages of world development. They did not have the same strict and solemn attitude toward the symbolism of numbers as the Chinese or Pythagoras. Yet the symbolism itself was fundamentally the same: the world is divided into three “floors” vertically—first the heavens, the air, and the earth; then the heavenly realm (goloka), the earth, and the underworld (naraka)—and into four cardinal directions (which are also the four elements, the four seasons, etc.).

Hence the abundance of triads and even more so of tetrads: the Trimurti—the triad of gods Brahma (the Creator), Vishnu (the Preserver), and Shiva (the Destroyer); the Trikarman—the three primary duties of a Brahmin (sacrifice, study of the Vedas, and charity); the Tripitaka—the three “baskets,” i.e., collections of the Buddhist canon: monastic rules, instructions in faith, and religious doctrine; and so on. The tetrad gives the four-armed and four-faced nature of many deities, the four layers of the Vedas—Rigveda (veda of hymns), Samaveda (veda of songs), Yajurveda (veda of sacrificial verses), and Atharvaveda (veda of incantations)—the four aims of man (purusharthas): dharma, artha, kama, and moksha (discussed below), and the four stages of life (ashramas): student, householder, hermit, and ascetic; the four yugas, the Four Noble Truths of Buddhism, and so forth.

Of these, the four purusharthas are important to us conceptually, as they form karma.

First, let us dispel a very common misconception. Today, the word “karma” is used to mean anything: heredity, “debts” left from past lives, dharma (role), moksha (liberation), and even qisma… Most often, it is qisma, i.e., fate, lot (from Arabic qisma—lot), which pertains only to this incarnation and is in no way connected to past or future lives.

Meanwhile, karma is an abstract philosophical concept applied to everyday life no more than the concept of “matter” is to the table at which we dine. In Hinduism, it is the general causality akin to the European-Greek concept of telos (final cause), so the ordinary cause-and-effect relationship, which assumes irreversibility in time (the cause always precedes the effect), does not apply in the realm of karma.

In Buddhism and Taoism, this is an impersonal law of universal equilibrium, always striving for self-restoration. A person may disrupt it in some place; the world will not topple from this, but the person, as the saying goes, will do worse to themselves, for equilibrium will seek to restore itself, and the person will pay the price for its violation. (In world mythology, there is described a single case of such a deep disruption of this equilibrium that the world actually “toppled,” but this was not done by a human).

Dharma (Sanskrit): duty, law, order of life. “The dharma of fire is to burn, the dharma of the tiger is to be fierce…” (D. Reddyar. The Psychology of Personality). In Indian astrology, the houses indicating a person’s dharma are reckoned as the 1st, 5th, and 9th.

ARTHA (Sanskrit “goal”): public activity aimed at acquiring benefit, wealth. In astrology, the houses of artha are considered the 2nd, 6th, and 10th. In Zoroastrianism, it is Arta or Asha (Asha-Vahishta), “Best Truth,” a celestial archetype of order and harmony.

KAMA (Sanskrit): love, sensual desires, and passions. In Indian astrology, the houses of kama are considered the 3rd, 7th, and 11th.

MOKSHA (Sanskrit): salvation of the soul, liberation from the bonds of the material world, one of the most important aspects of human life and its purpose in Indian philosophy. In Indian astrology, the houses of moksha are reckoned as the 4th, 8th, and 12th.

Fives, sevens, and nines as “supporting structures” occur much less frequently. India, in general, leans more toward even numbers. The hexad is very popular, and the octad slightly less so. We have already mentioned the Indian hexad (hexagram) in the previous lecture:

Shiva (mind)

Lakshmi _ _ _/_ _ _ Saraswati (touch) / / (hearing) / / Brahma /_ _ _ _ _ _ Vishnu (sight) / (taste)

Kali (smell)

The hexad is also tied to the system of chakras, which is called in Sanskrit “shat-chakra-nirupana,” i.e., “the system of six chakras,” describing the entire Indian worldview. This is a diagram of the structure of the microcosm and macrocosm, underlying all “Indigenous” teachings—both ancient and modern.

CHAKRA (Chakra, Sanskrit “circle, disk”): an organ of the astral (or etheric) body of a person, a “transformer of vital energy.” In the Indian tradition, there are six main chakras plus one higher, the crown chakra (Sahasrara). The six main chakras are located not on (or in) the physical body but on the etheric body, which is considered the carrier of information about the physical and other bodies.

Each chakra has special properties that manifest on all levels, i.e., in all bodies. Each chakra is also associated with a certain deity or aspect of a deity, an element, a mantra, and Shakti. A mantra, as you may recall, is a short incantation or prayer, while Shakti in this case is the feminine deity, one of the personifications of the cosmic energy of Shakti.

Each chakra also has its own sign or symbol, accompanied by a complex deciphering and including several letters of the Devanagari alphabet. The six chakras encompass all 50 letters of the alphabet, while the seventh, the highest, the thousand-petaled lotus, includes each letter in 20 repetitions. The classical chakras include (listed from bottom to top):

1. Muladhara — at the level of the coccyx. A four-petaled lotus. This is Brahma, manifesting as the goddess of love, Kama. The lowest chakra, the activation of which awakens the Kundalini channel (from Sanskrit *kundali* — “serpent,” which in India served as a symbol of beauty and power). Through this channel, vital energy (Shakti) rises upward, into the higher regions of human consciousness, so that ultimately the symbols of the masculine and feminine principles, Shiva and Shakti, may merge in cosmic bliss. Modern “integral” yoga engages in exercises aimed at pumping this energy from bottom to top and top to bottom. Element — Earth.

2. Svadhishthana — just above the pubic bone. A six-petaled lotus. Vishnu. Element — Water.

3. Manipura — at the level of the solar plexus. A ten-petaled lotus. Shiva, manifesting as the Jupiterian thunderer Rudra. Element — Fire.

4. Anahata — between the nipples. A twelve-petaled lotus. Shiva-Harikodra (Shiva in the form of Vishnu and vice versa). Element — Air.

5. Vishuddha — at the level of the thyroid gland. A sixteen-petaled lotus. Sada Shiva (Shiva-Ardhanarishvara, i.e., androgynous). Element — Akasha (ether, creative force).

6. Ajna — slightly above the bridge of the nose. A two-petaled lotus. Param-Shiva (Supreme Shiva). Element — imaginary, inarticulate speech (manas).

7. Sahasrara — above the crown of the head. A thousand-petaled lotus. The abode of pure consciousness of Shiva, the merging of individual and worldly mind, of the masculine and feminine principles.

In our time, esotericists work not only with the classical families of chakras but also with some additional ones — Akitra, Dvadasharna (Manas-chakra), Lalana, and Soma-chakra, among others. For more details, see: Woodroffe, John. The Serpent Power. Madras 1918, 1958; Rajneesh, Bhagwan Shri. Meditation: The Art of Inner Ecstasy. Rajneesh Foundation, Poona, 1977; Kapten, Yu. L. Fundamentals of Meditation. St. Petersburg, “Andreev and Sons,” 1991.

The concept of “spatial-temporal closure of the world,” of the cyclicity of all its manifestations, as we have already said, stems from “Tauric” thinking, i.e., the thinking of the Age of Taurus, elements of which have been preserved in abundance in Indian culture. An expression of this concept is the mandala — a symbol of the eternal cycle of times and events, the solar year, incarnations and reincarnations, a model of the Universe depicted as a circle with an inscribed cross or square denoting the cardinal directions.

By the same word, incidentally, “circles” are denoted — i.e., sections of the Rigveda, as well as some other circles — for example, the celestial circle of the Zodiac and everything related to it. Thus, in the work of the well-known astrologer and esoteric philosopher Dane Rudhyar, titled “The Astrological Mandala,” there are figurative descriptions of the properties of each of the 360 degrees of the Zodiac.

Thus, having briefly acquainted ourselves with the foundations of Indian esotericism, let us consider the stages of its development.

The “natural religion” of Vedanta, until approximately the middle of the Age of Aries (6th–3rd centuries BCE), was succeeded by Brahmanism, which developed the doctrine of the world soul (Brahman), karma, and reincarnation (transmigration). At the same time, the caste system was formed, creating a kind of “core” in the previously amorphous (Venusian–Lunar) Indian society. This system ensured esotericism (i.e., in this case, the inaccessibility to the uninitiated of Vedic knowledge and higher degrees of self-improvement for women and members of lower castes. Only a Brahmin could become and was obligated to become a *sannyasi* (holy man). Laws of Manu. Moscow, “Nauka,” 1962; reprinted 1992).

By the end of the Age of Aries, Brahmanism had given rise to six orthodox and a whole range of non-orthodox teachings:

— Vedanta: only Brahman (the world soul) has true being; everything else is a manifestation of divine illusion (maya); expounded in the *Brahma Sutras* of Badarayana;

— Mimamsa: only the real world has true being; there is no world soul; the world is governed by karma and comprehensible reason;

(and one could argue endlessly about whether our world is an illusion or not, citing countless proofs, but a true esoteric philosopher clearly understands that both sides are right, for there is no difference between illusion and non-illusion, no boundary between the visible and invisible worlds — or, more precisely, this difference is insignificant, this boundary is surmountable; this idea is fully developed, as we recall, in Zen Buddhism, though other philosophies also taught how to overcome it, each in its own way…)

— Sankhya: the doctrine of suffering and liberation from it;

— Yoga: a derivative of Sankhya, the doctrine of the perfection of body and spirit. It is divided into eight limbs (steps):

yama] niyama] asana] kriya yoga pranayama] pratyahara]

dharana] dhyana] raja yoga samadhi]

For more details, see, for example: “Yoga Sutras” of Patanjali and “Vyasa Bhashya.” Translated and commented by E. Ostrovskaya and V. Rudoy. Moscow, “Nauka,” 1992;

As for yoga and its applicability in our “Western” context, let us quote Dr. Friedrich Feerhofer — “Astrology as the Basis of Therapy,” excerpts of which were published in the journal “Science and Religion,” No. 1/94:

The very fact that the great teaching of yoga is increasingly influencing the development of Western nations seems very encouraging in that, through it, the higher, spiritual nature of man can gain victory over his lower emotional and physical nature. This is the only true goal of a true yogi. However, the nature of the Western man, prone to all passions, too often distorts its essence: he either begins to mercilessly and fruitlessly torture his body, hoping through asceticism to change the selfish direction of his psychic forces, or attempts to use his psychic abilities for physical strengthening of the organism. While performing breathing exercises solely for the purpose of health improvement and body strengthening to make it more obedient to the spirit may still be considered justified; however, in most cases, other motives prevail here—immature and dangerous curiosity about supersensory experiences, a bold striving for psychic and magical power, etc. In such cases, catastrophe is inevitable: reckless forcing of psychic and nervous centers is avenged, followed by nervous disorders and diseases, depressions, psychoses; in the best case, the matter ends in exaltation and “breakdown.” /…/ Experience shows that the same psychic exercises that lead to brilliant success for an Eastern man (e.g., an Indian or Persian) may prove literally fatal for a European. The reason for this lies in the difference in the innate constitution of individual races, determined by their historical development; the organism of a European in many cases simply refuses to endure such exercises, e.g., the techniques of “Tattva” or deep breathing exercises. /…/ Indians have lived for thousands of years in a certain climate and under certain conditions, in many respects directly opposite to ours. They have developed a certain type of thinking, high in its own way, but ultimately affecting certain types of individuals differently. Therefore, it is futile for us to try to follow their path, even though it leads them to the heights of occult knowledge, as it is no more acceptable for Western nations as an oatmeal diet is for a lion.”

– and, finally, Vaiśeṣika and Nyāya (āstika-nyāya): scholastic systems that attempted to fit all ancient and new concepts into strict schemes, which, of course, is not so easy to do. These schemes, one way or another, stem from the ṣaṭ-cakra-nirūpaṇa, merely growing with some additions. Details can be found in any book on Indian philosophy.

These teachings were as if “adopted into the family” of Indian philosophies, since they did not claim significance or the role of religions. However, teachings that claimed something more, i.e., gave rise to new religions or sects, are considered “non-orthodox,” meaning they go beyond the framework of the official doctrine.

These include, first of all, TANTRISM (from Sanskrit tantra – “hidden, magic”): a series of sects and schools with special rituals dating back to ancient fertility cults. Their distinguishing feature is primarily the esoteric nature of rituals, incompatibility with Brahmanic rites, and the concept of masculine and feminine energetic principles. Sexual intercourse was regarded as a mystical act, through which both partners acquire a share of cosmic energy (śakti). Many elements of tantrism were adopted by Lamaism, which was discussed in the previous lecture.

Next is, of course, BUDDHISM in its original forms, the teachings of Prince Gautama. Buddhism developed the doctrine of saṃsāra, i.e., the cycle of our ordinary life, including reincarnation and repeated births inevitably linked with suffering, and nirvāṇa, i.e., “extinguishing thirst,” leaving the joys of this world, ending the cycle of suffering, and union with the Absolute.

This doctrine was formulated in the form of the “Four Noble Truths”: 1) all is suffering; 2) suffering has a cause; 3) suffering can be ended; 4) there is a path leading to the cessation of suffering.

This path, in turn, included four stages of meditation or “degrees of religious immersion.” Adepts who mastered these stages or degrees, having passed through another cycle of life (āśramas, see above), are also divided into various “ranks” according to their holiness (see, e.g., Pischel R. Buddha, His Life and Teachings. M., 1911, reprint 1991).

At the same time, from the mystical Buddhist arsenal, the entire palette of traditional Indian beliefs, which included the worship of many deities and their hypostases, as well as the human personality itself as a participant in any world process, was removed, since the most important prerequisite for transition to nirvāṇa (Salvation) was considered the renunciation of any result-oriented activity (the same principle of non-action). This contradicted the caste system, which demanded from each member of society quite specific and entirely result-oriented actions.

However, from an esoteric point of view, Buddhism was a step forward, because the knowledge of the patterns of the visible and invisible worlds indeed requires renunciation of interference in the operation of these patterns (the well-known postulate about the influence of the experimenter on the course of the experiment). Therefore, Buddhism did not gain wide popularity on traditional Indian soil and at the beginning of the Age of Pisces was ousted by Hinduism—a modern form of the ancient Indian religion, though it gave rise to many variations on the periphery of the Indian sphere.

Even before that, it split into two major directions: Mahāyāna and Hīnayāna.

Mahāyāna (Sanskrit “Great Vehicle”): the largest direction of Buddhism, the “Great Path of Salvation,” widespread in India, China, Korea, and Japan. Unlike Hīnayāna, it believes that Salvation can be achieved by anyone who follows the precepts of Buddha Śākyamuni and lives in love for others. It has a more esoteric character than Hīnayāna.

Hīnayāna (Sanskrit Hinayāna, “Small Vehicle”): the “Small Path of Salvation,” a smaller direction in Buddhism, traditionally considered earlier. Spread in Burma, Thailand, and Sri Lanka. In H., the Buddha is a historical figure, an example to follow, not a Savior, because no one can help anyone else to purify or liberate themselves. For the attainment of truth, solitude is considered practically mandatory. This means that Salvation can be achieved only by a few.

Jainism, which initially represented one of the sects of Buddhism, is now an independent religion. Traditionally, its first “prophet” is considered Mahāvīra, an elder contemporary of the Buddha; however, its roots go back to ancient, even totemistic beliefs of the inhabitants of India (similar to Lamaism, which absorbed elements of the ancient Tibetan Bon religion). In an esoteric sense, it probably most fully expressed the idea of the relativity of any human definitions given to phenomena of the macrocosm and microcosm, recognizing that any thing exists and does not exist simultaneously—it all depends on what is meant by this.

In addition, Jainism considers perfect knowledge and supreme bliss to be indispensable attributes of any soul (individual), and the lack of either in each particular case is the result of the individual violating their karma. The highest goal of Jainists was liberation from the burden of karma through asceticism, with the most important element being the principle of non-violence (ahiṃsā).

Persia

The religion of the Parsis, ancestors of the inhabitants of Iran, also has very ancient roots, i.e., it stems from early Indo-Iranian animistic and totemistic cults. The ancient Parsis worshipped the elements and their embodiments—fire, water, stone, wind—and made sacrifices, worshipping the deities of the sun and moon.

Fire is considered the most powerful, and in some theories—the most ancient of the elements. Fire, the purifier, this Kabbalistic Esh-Mezaref, best corresponds to the task of Salvation, as it liberates from impurity. Therefore, Zoroastrianism, which replaced pure element and fire worship, could not abandon the cult of fire.

ZOROASTRIANISM as the teaching of Zoroaster (we will not delve into the details of the question about the personality of Zoroaster and the time of his life) took shape by the end of the Aries era, i.e., by the 6th–5th centuries BCE. In any case, it was already widespread in the state of the Persian king Cyrus (558–529 BCE), and the Jews who were in captivity in Babylon conquered by Cyrus managed to adopt some elements of Zoroastrian religious philosophy. It was at this time that the first texts of the “Avesta” were also compiled.

In the State (formerly Lenin) Library, there is a German edition of the “Avesta”: Avesta. Die heiligen Buecher der Parsen. Berlin–Leipzig: Verlag De Gruyter, 1924. In Russian, these texts have not yet been published. In principle, they have not been fully preserved: out of 21 books that existed during the Sassanid era, i.e., in the Middle Ages, only four have reached us, and only one of them (the Vendidad) is without omissions and losses. There is, however, a translation of selected hymns: Steblin-Kamensky I.M. Avesta. Selected Hymns from the Videvdat. Moscow, 1993.

There is a great deal in the Iranian worldview that resembles the concepts of the ancient Indians—the roots are common. And although the functions of deities and other elements of mythology among the Parsis often change to the opposite compared to the Indians, the kinship of their names and titles is obvious.

Compare: Sanskrit ṛta and Avestan aša—the law of cosmic necessity; Sanskrit Yama and Avestan Yima—the god of the underworld; but Sanskrit Deva—”god” and Avestan daeva—an evil spirit, a destructive force (cf. Georgian div).

Unlike the Indian, the original society and culture of the Iranians bear a distinctly Martian character (worship of fire, centuries-long unceasing wars, the “cult” of personality instead of its rejection, etc.; finally, the lion with a saber and the Sun in the coat of arms of modern Iran), so the differences between them are quite significant. Without going into all the details, let us note two ideas that are important not only in a dogmatic but also to a large extent in a philosophical sense; perhaps they were adopted by the Iranians from neighboring Semitic or even more distant East African tribes: these are the idea of purgatory and the idea of grace.

Without asserting that both of these ideas penetrated into Iran precisely from Africa, I will nevertheless recall the very common hypothesis about the origin of all human races from the African continent (and taking into account the theory of the Seven Races—from the “black” continent of Gondwana), as well as quote the Iranian writer Golamhosein Saedi: “Swahili culture has influenced the customs and traditions of the population of the southern coast of Iran more than any other.”—cited from: Zhukov A.A. Culture, Language, and Literature of Swahili. Leningrad, Leningrad State University, 1983.

Purgatory, Avestan Chinvad (Chinvat), Chinvatō-Pereta, later Sirat: a magical bridge, flat and narrow as a sword. Only those who were righteous and faithfully served God can pass through it. When a sinner steps onto the bridge, it turns into a blade.

Purgatory (Lat. Purgatorium): in later monotheistic mythologies—a place intermediate between heaven and hell, the “first instance” where the souls of the dead stand before a judgment that evaluates their earthly deeds. The origins of the concept of purgatory date back to ancient peoples (see the Elysian Fields, Bardo, Bifröst). The development of the concept of purgatory reached its peak in the Pisces era: the Chinvad bridge among the Zoroastrians, which only the righteous can cross, from them—the idea of a “bridge as thin as a hair” among Muslims (a person cannot cross it himself; he must be carried across by the camel, ram, or donkey he sacrificed to Allah during his lifetime), and the Roman Catholic idea of purgatory as a place of purifying fiery sacrifice (Ger. Fegefeuer). The dispute over purgatory was one of the reasons for the schism of the Universal Church into Catholic and Orthodox (Orthodoxy does not recognize purgatory).

Grace (Greek h charisma, Lat. gratia, Heb. BERACHA, Arab. Baraka); modern Russians often call it “blagost” (“goodness”), since the old “blagodat” (“grace”) for them seems more equivalent to “kaif” (“high”), but the term is a technical one: it is the most important esoteric concept denoting a special divine force sent to a person. It is transmitted to a person from a deity in the form of emanation or during sacred sacraments (mysteries) from other bearers of grace, and can also be taken away in the same way (one might recall the Persian hero Afrasiab, who was deprived of grace by the goddess for his crimes, as well as deprivation of rank and excommunication in Christianity, etc.).

In Christianity, the Western Fathers of the Church considered grace the only condition for salvation, while the Eastern Church, alongside it, admitted free will (Pelagians). Among the Zoroastrians, farn is considered an emanation of the divine fire, a “good portion,” signifying a reward even in earthly life—power, wealth, just as beracha (Heb. brokhu) among the Jews. Among Muslims, Sufis and other “pillars of faith” (Ayatollahs, sheikhs) were considered bearers of heavenly grace (baraka).

Greek charisma, which in antiquity meant “a gift of the gods” (or to the gods—in the form of a sacrifice), is now used to denote the gift of serving an ideal or simply the gift of communication with people (“a charismatic leader”). In modern cultures, the concept of grace has its own nuances: Fr.-Eng. grace, Ger. Gnade rather means “God’s mercy” (compassion, mercy, Greek to “eleos), as in modern Judaism (Heb. PESED, “favor,” hence Hasidism).

No matter how much I searched, I could not find in Indian treatises (neither ancient nor modern) a concept that would even partially correspond to the idea of grace. Of course, in different languages and cultures its meaning varies, but the core remains the same. And among the Indians, from the Vedas to the works of Krishnamurti, there is everything imaginable: divine power, prana, shakti, ashimā, righteousness—everything except grace.

This is because in Indian thought, the “bearers of divine power” (and this is still the case) are not individual people who have earned it in one way or another, but all members of the Brahmin caste by right of birth. Even if you are a kshatriya (warrior, patrician), no matter how heroic you may be, you will never know the highest grace. Conversely, even having committed a crime, a “twice-born” may lose the title of Brahmin, but will not lose his connection to the highest grace (compare the noble Decembrists, deprived of “estate rights,” but not of innate nobility).

In this sense, the separation of Zoroastrianism from the proto-Vedic religion was a step forward, as it made salvation possible not only for one chosen caste but for all who accepted the teaching.

Another difference between the Indian and Persian worldviews lies in the recognition of a pair of supreme deities—the god of good, Ormuzd, and the god of evil, Ahriman, as two independent principles, each creating its own deeds: one good, the other evil. For this reason, the Persians are often accused of dualism. However, this dualism is relative, since both Ormuzd and Ahriman are in fact “heavenly twins,” children of the god of eternal and infinite time—Zurvan, although in the “Avesta” he is mentioned only briefly.

Zoroastrianism itself contains little esotericism, and even that is mostly elements of the same Indo-Iranian worldview. Far more esoteric are the derivatives of Zoroastrianism—”heresies” and modern teachings (e.g., Nietzsche’s Thus Spoke Zarathustra), one of which directly appeals to Zurvan: this is ZURVANISM (Zurvanism), the teaching of infinite time.

Zurvan, also Zervan, Zruvan (Pahlavi; Armenian Zruam, Zruan; Eng. Zurvan, Zervan): Zurvan Akarana, “Unlimited Time,” the supreme god of Zurvanite mythology (Iran), the personification not so much of time itself as the principle of cosmic balance (scales, on one side of which is good, on the other—evil). According to one version, he is even a dual-gender deity, an androgyne, who “did not even know what was being created in his womb.” He is perceived as infinite time, while the world is finite and doomed to destruction. The creators of the world are Zurvan’s sons, Ormuzd and Ahriman, but time is more powerful than both, i.e., good and evil. From Persia, this cult spread to Syria, Palestine, and Egypt (Aion). Theodore of Mopsuestia called it “Silent” (Greek týchē—”fate,” “lot”).

Feodor of Mopsuestia (d. 425) was a great exegete of the Antiochian school and a student of Paul of Samosata. He was the first to provide detailed commentaries on all books of the Bible and compiled “responses” to all heresies. In 553 (at the Fifth Ecumenical Council), he himself was condemned as a heretic (a Nestorian) for recognizing in Jesus two natures—divine and human. He wrote a work “On the Magi in Persia,” a brief summary of which is given by Patriarch Photius (c. 820–891).

During late antiquity, Zervanism was also widespread in Sicily and Syria “among the magi,” as Bartel Van-der-Waerden writes (Awakening Science II. The Birth of Astronomy. Moscow, “Nauka,” 1991). However, in Iran itself, the followers of the religious sect of the Zervanites were ultimately suppressed by the Sasanians, and today almost none remain. Yet their philosophical views, closer to esotericism than the philosophy of the “Avesta” proper, still provide ample food for thought.

Another sect, no less intriguing from an esoteric perspective, were the MANICHEANS.

Mani-Zendig, Manes son of Patala (Latin transcription: Manes or Mani, 216–c. 277), was the founder of Manichaeism. He considered himself a student of Faridun. He appeared in Iran during the reign of Shapur, son of Ardashir (the second king of the Sasanian dynasty), and denied the Zend-Avesta, for which he and his followers were nicknamed “Zendig” (hence the Arabic Zindiq—”heretic”). He called himself the successor of Buddha, Zoroaster, and Christ.

According to al-Balkhi, Mani fled Shapur’s persecutions to China, where he founded the sect of the Abakhites. Shapur’s grandson, Bahram, brought Mani back to Iran, promising to legalize his teachings. Mani believed him, and the Manicheans emerged from hiding. Eager to act “in a kingly manner,” Bahram arranged a religious debate, and Mani was declared defeated. The king offered him a choice: renounce his faith or die. Mani chose death. His skin was flayed and stuffed with straw—”and that is why every leader of the Zendigs has his skin stuffed with straw” (Ibn al-Balkhi, Fars-Nama). His followers were imprisoned, and those who refused to renounce their faith were executed. Al-Biruni (see) called him Kurbikos ibn Fattak; among the Romans, he was known as Corbitius (Corbitius).

Manichaeism was a peculiar synthesis of Persian, Sumerian-Babylonian, and Christian (Gnostic) views. Unlike the Zervanites and proper Zoroastrians, the Manicheans were true dualists: they regarded good and evil (light and darkness, God and the devil) as two absolutely independent and equal principles, present both in the Universe and in man.

From a modern perspective, this was esotericism “without a peak,” never reaching the stage of pleroma (fullness) due to its refusal to acknowledge the One (the Absolute): their cosmogony began immediately with the Two. Compared to Zervanism, it is certainly less developed but more vivid and contains at least one important concept we will have to return to—let us conditionally call it the “Rebellion of Lucifer” (sometimes also referred to as the “war of the gods”).

Its essence is as follows. Evil (Lucifer, Ahriman, the devil—it does not matter whether it is an independent force or an unfortunate “33rd division” of Creation, if one has read Swedenborg or seen the film) once rebelled against Good, seeking to rule the Universe. It almost succeeded, but its final victory would have meant the collapse of the Universe, so the law of cosmic balance came into effect (personified in Judeo-Christian myths as the archangel Michael), and evil was overthrown, averting catastrophe.

The Manicheans concluded from this that Ahriman, having failed in the macrocosm, repeatedly seeks revenge in the microcosm—that is, he tempts each individual, trying to strip them of the “image and likeness of Ohrmazd,” and thus the task of man is to seek ways to restore this image.

The Manicheans also preached asceticism and celibacy, opposing fire-worship (Zoroastrianism). There were six “Books of Mani” in Syriac and one in Middle Iranian (Parthian) (“The Book of Giants,” “Shapurakan,” etc.), none of which have survived. The views of the Manicheans later found many followers in the East and West, though, as already mentioned, they themselves were destroyed.

Today, Zoroastrianism as such has largely retained a purely religious character, having lost its philosophical elements. This is not surprising, since the state religion in Iran is now Shiite Islam, and Zoroastrian communities, though scattered worldwide, are relatively small. The Zoroastrians (like the Roma) “never” engage in esoteric philosophy.

Meanwhile, the modern philosophy of “Avestism,” which seems to exist only in the European part of Russia, is a reworking of ancient Iranian myths (whose Indian sources are strikingly evident almost everywhere).

One of these myths, rooted in the historical fact of the arrival of Indo-Iranian tribes from somewhere in the north, and incorporating the experience of Nazi racial doctrine about the Aryan race, has given rise on our soil to a peculiar theory of Arctogea.

ARCTOGEA: 1. In Avestan (and some other) esoteric historiosophy—the primordial continent, presumably the cradle of humanity (P. Globa). In modern European nationalism, it is the homeland of the northern (Nordic) race, the bearers of a higher culture, as opposed to Gondwana as the cradle of the southern race. The convergent movement of these races gave rise to the entire diversity of cultures, though higher forms of culture and civilization emerged where “Arctoids” predominated. For more, see, for example: A. Dugin, Hyperborean Theory (An Attempt at Ariosophical Research). Moscow, 1993.

Shambhala

If we still have time, we can examine the legend of Shambhala, which has resonated so deeply in the hearts of many modern Russians.

Shambhala, Shambhala, or in Western literature also Shangri-La (Sanskrit: Cambhala, English: Shambhala or Shangri-La)—in Lamaist beliefs, a legendary land where the highest magical secrets of Tantrism and Buddhism are preserved. Mastery of these secrets is the ardent desire of a Lamaist, so Shambhala is seen as the embodiment of the future world of the Buddha Maitreya. According to legend, Shambhala was a kingdom in Central Asia. Its king, Suchandra, traveled to South India to acquire knowledge. After the Muslim invasion of Central Asia in the 9th century, the kingdom of Shambhala became invisible to human eyes. Only the pure of heart can find the path to it. But in the not-too-distant future, King Rudra Chakrin will emerge from it with his army and its leader to establish a new spiritual community on Earth after a great battle.

Similar legends existed (or exist) among many peoples: the Russian Belovodye and the City of Kitezh, to some extent the German Vineta, and so on.

In reality, Shambhala is merely an egregore, an informational field created exclusively by Western esotericism—a kind of dream of an ideal society into which only the “initiated elite” will enter. However, since most of those proclaimed by the West as the “elite” turned out to be rather unscrupulous individuals, this informational field has largely lost its original clarity and purity in our time.

The Monster. The History of Esoteric Doctrines. Lecture 6. Exotic Cultures

On the periphery of technical civilizations, communities—or even entire cultures (and there are not a few of them)—still exist that, for various reasons, not only preserve traits of past eras—the Age of Aries, the Age of Taurus, or even earlier—but have also enabled these traits to “survive their century,” completing at least one or even several additional “over-plan” cycles of development.

The first part of this phenomenon—the preservation of many characteristics of deep antiquity—pleases ethnographers, archaeologists, and other scholars reconstructing the history of human societies. But what interests us more is the second part, which implies not so much the reconstruction of elements of these societies’ development—for as we have seen, they were largely the same everywhere on Earth—but rather the role and place of these cultures in our present-day life as a whole and in esoteric philosophy in particular.

Today, the role and place of these cultures would largely resemble the fate of Swift’s immortal Laputans, who lived out one human life with dignity and then spent several centuries in complete senility, or the fate of an annual plant potted and left indoors over winter—by Christmas it takes on bizarre, unnatural forms, and by Shrovetide it withers and dies—were it not for the powerful foundation of these cultures, the only one among all later ones that remained true by virtue of its simplicity and beauty.

Naturally, we cannot examine all such cultures; I will list only those that are important for understanding their significance.

Let us begin with the culture geographically closest to us. As is well known, at the very edge of our space-time (“from the Varangians to the Greeks” and from history textbooks for grades 5 to 10) lies Egypt—no wonder Europeans for centuries considered it the most distant and the oldest of civilized countries. We have already discussed Egypt; now let us try to look beyond its borders.

The Ancient Egypt was a great country. On modern maps, its territory is divided into several parts, the largest of which are Egypt itself (the northern part of Ancient Egypt) and Sudan (the southern part of Ancient Egypt).

In Sudan, various tribes live, and over the past two thousand years, remarkable events have taken place there (for example, the appearance of a messiah—the Mahdi, which we may discuss later). One of these tribes is called the Bambara. These are ordinary Black people of good stature who also live in Mali and some other African countries that never belonged to Egypt.

Let us turn first to the cosmogony of the Bambara—naturally, in a concise form to grasp the essentials. Based on: Arsenyev V.R. Beasts—Gods—People. Moscow, 1991.

The world arose from the original emptiness (that is, from the same chaos, the definition of which cannot be found anywhere. But as we proceed, we will indeed attempt to define it). The emptiness produced a sound, from which its double emerged. From their union, a moist substance (water) arose, and then an explosion occurred (!—what else could we call the Big Bang?), which gave birth to solid matter. However, this was not yet earth and space; they had not yet been created.

As the solid matter settled (after the explosion), things and their symbols emerged. Then, consciousness separated from chaos and moved toward the things to breathe life into them and bestow names upon them. Thus, the active spirit Yo and 22 primary elements from which sounds, colors, actions, and feelings originate came into being (does this remind you of anything?).

From Yo came the deity Faro, the “lord of speech,” who created the seven heavens and other gods. Faro corresponds to the element WATER (the feminine principle, briefly—yin), the “builder of the Earth” Pemba—to FIRE (yang), the ancestress of humans Muso Koroni—to EARTH (yin), and the spirit Teliko—to AIR (yang). This division of the elements according to the masculine and feminine principles fully aligns, by the way, with the views of Hindus (Brahmanists), Pythagoreans, Kabbalists, and Sufis.

The similarity to cosmogonies we already know is undeniable, and with the Egyptian one, it is particularly striking—especially when one considers that the 22 cards of the Tarot are attributed to Egyptian origin: according to legend, in the basement of one of the ancient Egyptian temples, 22 golden tablets were kept, on which all the knowledge accumulated by Egyptian priests was depicted in symbolic drawings. Language changes and dies, but the image is eternal, so the priests decided to capture their knowledge in pictures.

Thus, the analogy is evident. Moreover, there are many fine legends about the interpenetration of north and south—for example, the legend of a Roman battalion that got lost in Tropical Africa and gave rise to the lineage of fair-skinned, blue-eyed Berbers.

But: history is written retrospectively!

Furthermore, for us, as we delve into esotericism and know that when analyzing questions of being (i.e., problems of the microcosm and macrocosm), the law of cause and effect does not apply, it does not matter in this or other cases who borrowed from whom: the Bambara from the Egyptians or the Egyptians from the Bambara. Both reflected in their conceptions the universal law of cosmic balance: the Universe is arranged thus and not otherwise, so its reflection in the consciousness of any tribe or people will be similar.

Let us recall the Marxist law of the unity and struggle of opposites or the words of Bhagwan Shri Rajneesh, also known as Osho, the great teacher of modern Russian and foreign Hindus. Returning to the topic of Ancient India and anticipating the theme of modern post-Indian teachings, we can say that Rajneesh’s merit lies precisely in adapting the concepts of pan-Indian pluralism of gods and ideas to the limited rational perception of Europeans (or, more precisely, of people in general) in the West. He wrote:

“Opposites are not opposites. Look deeper, and you will feel them as the same energy”—this is precisely what we have been discussing in all previous lectures… Remember the debate between Vedanta and Mimamsa, or whether the world is an illusion or not?

But let us return to our exotic cultures. As we remember, the Bambara also live in Mali. Mali is already Tropical Africa, a region of the most distinctive culture. Suffice it to say that in the same tropical belt, but not in the northwest but in the southeast, lay the legendary state of Monomotapa (the territory of modern Zimbabwe and Mozambique).

The time of these cultures is cyclical: “What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again” (Ecclesiastes 1:9). Man and the Universe—or, more precisely, human society (the community) and the Universe—are one, they are in balance, and no one can disrupt it. For members of such societies, “a conscious orientation toward the precise reproduction of the experience of previous generations and its transmission to descendants in an unchanged form” is characteristic (V.R. Arsenyev).

In modern scholarly tradition, such societies or cultures, whether in Africa, South America, or Australia, are commonly referred to as archaic. And in this case, ethnologists are right: after all, as we recall, for example, the concept of the cyclical nature of space-time dates back to the Age of Taurus, while some other concepts go back to even earlier periods of human history.

The conservation—or, more precisely, the constant revival—of these concepts has played no less fatal role in the history of “archaic societies” than it has in the history of India, as we discussed in the previous lecture. As Candidate of Historical Sciences Irina Timofeevna Katagoshchina (Institute of Africa, Russian Academy of Sciences) writes, “the stability of tradition made the bearers of archaic consciousness largely defenseless in the face of the rapid social changes that swept over Africa during the colonial period and later” (Katagoshchina I.T. Archaic Spatial-Temporal Concepts and Social Progress in Tropical Africa. In: Space and Time in Archaic Cultures. Proceedings of the Colloquium, Moscow, 1992).

However, it is precisely this “stability of tradition,” rooted in the simplest and most natural conceptions of the world, that made the bearers of these cultures resistant to all the countless innovations of the second half of the Age of Pisces, from Muslim and Christian preachers to the civilizing efforts of capitalists and communists. “The Tropical African civilization has survived,” as one of our Africanists noted.

Slightly paraphrasing Dmitry Mikhailovich Bondarenko, a brilliant modern Africanist, one could say that “what for us is content is merely form for them, and what we consider form is, in fact, the very essence for an African.” In other words, an African may wear a suit and tie and discuss Kafka with you, but in the evening you will go home to watch television, while he will turn into a leopard and set off on a ritual hunt.

Why the leopard? Because “we are of one blood, you and I” — this was well understood by Rudyard Kipling, the author of “The Jungle Book,” who realized that the European of the Pisces era had lost too much connection with their natural origin, and only colossal stress could return them to their original behavioral pattern (T. Shibutani. Social Psychology. Moscow, 1968). By the way, the famous idea of “back to nature” emerged among European Enlightenment thinkers not least due to the “discovery” of Africa…

What is this worldview, so natural for the bearers of “archaic cultures” and so successfully forgotten by us?

Let us examine it using the example of the Bini (Benin people) — a people inhabiting the West African coast of tropical Africa. Presented based on: D.M. Bondarenko. Benin Society on the Eve of First Contacts with Europeans (Stage and Civilizational Features). Dissertation. Institute of Africa, Moscow, 1993 (manuscript).

The universe, as perceived by the Benin people, was represented as several concentric circles — worlds, the boundaries between which were quite definite, though permeable. The outermost, widest circle was the Universe, which included the densely populated world of ancestors, spirits, and other non-material entities, while at its center was the community, of which the individual was a part (the physical body with all its levels). In turn, the individual consisted of four worlds or circles — the “double” (etheric body), the soul (astral body), the spirit (mental body), and the higher “Self” (monad):

———————————————
/ U N I V E R S E —————————————–
// World of ancestral spirits and deities ———————————-
// Society (community) —————————-
| | | | H U M A N : | | | |

– soul-double, the non-material framework of the human physical shell
– consciousness, thinking, the psychic principle
– spiritual ego
– super-ego

By the way, about the double. “From the African’s point of view, when a person falls asleep on their mat, their double emerges onto the scene, following the same path the sleeper traverses in the real world and performing the same tasks… It is in this double that the person’s identity resides” (N.A. Ksenofontova. Personality, Society, and Social Time. In: Space and Time in Archaic Cultures. Proceedings of a Symposium, Moscow, 1992).

We easily recognize here the familiar four-part division of the macrocosm and microcosm, moreover in a dual variant, which again gives us the already familiar eight elements, the totality of which forms the unspoken but implied ninth (Min Tang, see Lecture 4). Whether all earthly languages (tribes) truly originated from Africa or not is no longer important: the recognizability of the scheme proves that the same laws operate everywhere, and “opposites are not opposites…”

This scheme is so simple and free from any “cultural overlays” that theorize cautionary warnings and complicate the matter with details that it can serve as a brilliant illustration of the principle of correspondence, known to us from the formulation of Hermes Trismegistus: “As above, so below,” which we mentioned in Lecture 1.

No wonder Africanists — people who, for the most part, approach the subject very academically, i.e., far from our approach — even they note that the principle of correspondence constitutes the most important foundation of the thought of the peoples of Tropical Africa (see, for example: N.M. Girenko. Sociology of the Tribe. The Formation of Sociological Theory and Key Components of Social Dynamics. Moscow, 1991).

Furthermore, representatives of “archaic cultures” have long held, and still do, another equally clear and important esoteric idea: the cosmos is not a structure, not a mechanism, not a lifeless edifice, but a living organism. Those familiar with the works of modern Agni-Yoga will recognize this idea well.

Hence the perception of life as the highest value, so that killing (even an animal) is the gravest crime (recall the “Thou shalt not kill” commandments of the Aries era) for everyone except hunters, and thus hunters form a special social group whose members must observe numerous complex rituals to prevent the disruption of cosmic equilibrium, for there is no greater violation than taking a life (“Agree that only he who hung the hair could cut it” — Bulgakov M. The Master and Margarita. Moscow, “Khudozhestvennaya Literatura,” 1973). Hence the numerous hunting rules and taboos, as well as rituals of identifying the hunter with the animal destined for sacrifice (the offering of the Twins, Cancer, and Leo signs): for in the world, nothing should disappear without a trace, nor should anything appear from nothing, otherwise equilibrium will be disrupted.

Thus, among the Bambara, it is believed that when an object is destroyed or its integrity violated (such as in killing), a special energy — “Nyama” — is released, harmful unlike the simple life energy “ni” (Sri, prana), capable of exerting a dangerous influence on people and disrupting the equilibrium and order of the world. Yet hunting provides food for people, and it cannot be dispensed with; therefore, the hunter (not just any hunter, but a member of the highest caste, a Brahmin, if we return to the topic of the previous lecture) must take responsibility for preventing this energy from spreading to the innocent, lest both the hunter and others suffer.

Hence the development of an elaborate system of “magical and Vedic rites, sacrifices, observance of taboos, etc.” (D.M. Bondarenko). Having originated during the hunting era of Aries, these rites retained their role as stabilizing factors for community life even in the “post-Aries” period. Without considering now the “Piscean” influence of Muslim mullahs and Catholic priests on the formation of the worldview of “archaic” peoples, we note that (ideological) colonization here not only did not lead to the displacement of ancient beliefs and cults but even to some extent strengthened them in this role.

An example of this is the Voodoo cult, whose center is considered to be Dahomey, i.e., the same Benin. Voodoo (Wodoo, Voodoo) is a word from one of the African languages (apparently Ewe) meaning “spirit.” During the era of the slave trade, inhabitants of West Africa were taken to North and South America, Cuba, and Haiti, where the cult spread, causing horror among superstitious Europeans.

The cult, in the eyes of Europeans, is indeed very exotic: “snake dances,” sacrifices, worship of the great warrior god Apha (Ogun) and his bloodthirsty assistants (resembling Phobos and Deimos of Mars — a clear product of the Aries era), spirits-guardians, ancestral spirits, cemetery spirits, ritual dismemberment of corpses, and in historical “anamnesis,” cannibalism, and of course, “zombies” — perhaps the only concept adopted by Europeans from “voodooism,” as they called it, yet still delighting experienced screenwriters and novice psychics.

ZOMBIE (English: zombie, from the name of a poisonous potion in the Ewe language): a “living corpse,” historically — a victim of African tribal sorcerers in the region of Dahomey (modern Benin) and later in Haiti. The victim was given food containing a powder of “z,” which included tetrodotoxin or another potent poison, and the person appeared to die, their death nearly indistinguishable from the real thing. After a few days, the “corpse” was revived, and though fully deprived of will (consciousness), it obeyed the sorcerer’s commands. Such people-zombies usually did not live long. Cases of healing (return of consciousness) are known but very rare. Today, the term refers to people “possessed by supernatural forces,” i.e., those who have lost their personal will and are subject to someone else’s orders. For more details, see, for example: A. Malenkov, U. Sarbash. What is the Secret of Zombies? “Nauka i Zhizn,” No. 7/1989, p. 91.

However, this cult too is nothing more than an expression of the same “Taurian,” archaic worldview, for better understanding and memorization of which rituals and rites were created. As the same D.M. Bondarenko writes, ritual behavior for Africans was nothing more than an “active way to influence the course of events—after all, perhaps it is indeed true that ‘everything is in the hands of gods and ancestors’? They should be feared, but they can also be influenced…” At the same time, ritual actions could indeed prove effective, since not only those who performed them believed in this, but also all those for whose harm or benefit they were intended.

The effectiveness of these actions, from the perspective of modern esotericism, is also explained by the fact that over thousands of years of Vodou’s existence, a powerful egregore (an informational field) has formed, which, however, has a kind of “code lock”: not everyone can access it, only those who possess the code—remember the stone-keys to ancestral caves on Easter Island.

Thor Heyerdahl’s research yielded striking results because, first, he had a name “understood” by the local egregore: Tera’i Matéata. Second, a key-stone was formally transferred to him, accompanied by the recitation of a sacred text and, albeit symbolic, a sacrifice. Third, he acquired his own aku-aku (a guardian spirit)—an emanation of the egregore. Thus, aku-aku are essentially the same as Vodou.

Heyerdahl’s story shows, by the way, that the “key” to an egregore is not tied to ethnic affiliation but to what is commonly called “initiation,” whether formal initiation or a necessary stage of inner development.

The same applies to any other egregores (not just “aku-aku”)—for example, to Eastern martial arts.

However, having long outlived its time (and abandoned its eternal space), Vodou has lost most of its esoteric essence or, more precisely, ceased to develop it. It remained within the framework of a religion that includes gradually fading beliefs and a well-developed cult, practical in nature. Yet, since using the egregore of this cult without a “key” is impossible, you will nowhere find non-ethnic followers, sects, or even Vodou hobby groups, though in the United States, it seems, you can find enthusiasts for anything. The Vodou spirits are increasingly unnecessary to people.

In this regard, other spirits have fared better—Winti. There is such a country, Suriname, formerly Dutch Guiana, north of South America. Without delving into a demographic analysis of its diverse population, let us note that it belongs to the so-called Creole culture, which combines elements of European, African, American (indigenous), and some other cultures. In Creole culture, all of them have “fused” into something qualitatively new, original in all spheres of human life, including esotericism.

The word Winti (Winti), strictly speaking, means “spirit” (like Vodou and aku-aku). But this same word also denotes the worldview of Suriname’s inhabitants, their “folk religion” or philosophy.

By origin, Winti stems from the life philosophy of Africans brought to Suriname as black slaves. It is believed that Winti permeates all living things and consists of two most important elements: belief and healing (rather than cult, as in “archaic” cultures).

The first implies that Winti spirits exist everywhere. Such a spirit may be your ancestor, or it may not; it may even be the spirit of a tree or your zodiac sign. But Winti can possess you (“ride” you, like a rider on a horse). This can be good, or it can be bad. In the latter case, a person must turn to their “own” Winti to help restore their “self.”

Evil deeds, mental distress, or self-rejection occur because a person loses connection with their Winti, without which they are nothing in this world. The person has disrupted cosmic balance, and now they must be healed: this is the essence of the second part of Winti philosophy. It, of course, also has its rituals, but all are dedicated to healing—both the body and the spirit. In Winti rituals, a person is called the “Horse of God”: the spirits of their inner and outer worlds constantly possess them, controlling their feelings and thoughts. As one modern Surinamese poet writes:

Edgar Cairo
Song of the Lost Soul

My voice sounds, but where am I?
I am alive, but where is my soul?

For now, the soul is ready at any moment
to change its usual form,
crossing the next threshold—
it is alive.

Who helps the fish
cross the next threshold,
to go ever higher, growing stronger
and finding wisdom?
To retreat from the threshold—that is death.

So dies the rider without a horse.
So dies the horse in the mountains without a rider—
it will not find the path to the valley.

And I am alone. But who will help me
cross the next threshold?

Healing is based on methods of “folk medicine,” known to all peoples of the world, primarily using natural substances and psychosomatic therapy. However, while the simplest folk remedies, whose selection is determined by the natural conditions of a given region, are known to almost everyone, the application of “compound prescriptions,” let alone complex treatment methods, is a profession requiring knowledge and experience—not only in practical but also in esoteric spheres. Those who practice this profession are called healers, healers (Eng. Healer), or shamans.

We will use the word “shaman” as it has already entered the scientific lexicon as a term (see, e.g., Men A., Protohistoric Mystics. “Nauka i Zhizn,” No. 2/1990). This word entered European languages from Yakut in the 17th century—compare Catherine the Great’s play “The Siberian Shaman.” It reached Yakutia via Mongolia from India (from Sanskrit camas—”calm, peace”).

Initially, the shaman, without a doubt, is a product of the Taurus era (recall the third lecture). The essence of this “profession” has changed little over several thousand years; only the level of its comprehension has evolved. Today’s shaman is typically a medically educated person belonging to an ethno-egregore (i.e., to the indigenous population)—a Surinamese, in the last example, or a Chinese, if we are talking about acupuncture—and possesses a truly esoteric consciousness. That is, first, they are not just knowledgeable but deeply feel the laws of the microcosm and macrocosm, and second, they fully understand their responsibility (one cannot disrupt cosmic balance).

Moreover, while the first and second elements are optional (a shaman may lack medical education or belong to a different ethnic group), the absence of the third element (esoteric consciousness) turns a shaman into a sorcerer, a curandero into a brujo.

The word curandero (healer) in Latin America refers to a true shaman—such as Eduardo Calderón from Ecuador, described by Douglas Sharon in her book “Wizard of the Four Winds” (Sharon, Douglas. Wizard of the Four Winds. The Free Press, New York 1978; Ger. Magier der Vier Winde. Verlag Hermann Bauer KG, Freiburg in Breisgau, 1st ed. 1987). He himself says about himself:

“Of course, a shaman must be good… Otherwise, it’s impossible. Even when gathering plants, you must approach them with a good heart, and they will come to meet you. A wicked person will find only wicked plants… Before becoming a curandero, I gave my teacher a promise: to help people without thinking of my own gain, to help everyone in need—whoever they may be and whatever life they may lead.”

Brujo, without delving into linguistic details, means “black magician,” “evil sorcerer.”

In all countries of the world, from Chukotka to Tierra del Fuego, the principles of shamans’ work are the same. They use the connections that exist between the visible and invisible worlds (the law of similarity), influencing them through millennia-old techniques to restore cosmic balance where it has been disrupted.

On the visible plane, these are ritual actions—dance, music, prayer, incense, manipulation of magical objects (by the way, Christianization not only limited but also enriched their choice: modern shamans now use rosaries, crucifixes, and Christian prayers). On the invisible plane, it is ritual behavior (adhering to certain rules of life and handling objects). Thus, as V.R. Arsenyev wrote, “Magic appears not only as a set of techniques (instrumentalism) but also as a special way of perceiving the world, as a strategy for benefiting people” (Arsenyev V.R. Beasts—Gods—People. Moscow, 1991).

In many shamanic rituals, narcotic substances are used to achieve a meditative state (trance), primarily in the form of tinctures and extracts (beverages): kola, cicha (“San Pedro cactus”), octli (peyote) in America (hence “octlupuk”—brewers of octli), containing cocaine, mescaline, and daturaoids respectively; amrita and soma in India, haoma among the Persians, containing ephedrine; ambrosia among the Greeks; hashish among the Arabs, and so on. However, their use is strictly dosed and permitted only in specific cases.

As an example, let us turn to one of the greatest Russian esotericists of the early 20th century—G.O.M. (Heinrich Otto Mebius: Course in the Encyclopedia of Occultism, St. Petersburg, 1912): if you wish to enhance perception—drink coffee; if you wish to amplify the “output” of information—drink tea. If you wish to enhance both for a short time—take alcohol (“commitment dose”—25 grams), but “under no circumstances repeat the intake.”

True shamans never make their knowledge a secret—this distinguishes them not only from “black” shamans-brujo but also from priests of purely religious cults. “I am ready to teach anyone who sincerely desires it and truly seeks knowledge,” says Eduardo Calderon. The difference is that not everyone is capable of learning.

To conclude, let us quote the words of another great esotericist of the early 20th century, the Englishman G.K. Chesterton (1874–1936): “True mystics do not hide secrets but reveal them. They leave nothing in the shadows, yet the mystery remains a mystery. In contrast, the dilettante mystic cannot do without a veil of secrecy, and beneath it lies something entirely trivial.” Het Monster. The History of Esoteric Doctrines. Lecture 7. Sumer and Babylon.

Sumer

The Fertile Crescent is a blessed land that has every reason to be considered the “birthplace of civilizations,” at least those commonly called Abrahamic—Jewish, Christian, and Muslim. They are called Abrahamic because all three religions recognize the biblical Abraham as their prophet and patriarch, who, as is well known, came from Ur of the Chaldees (Gen. 11:31), a city-state in ancient Sumer.

In Semitic languages, this land is called Aram Naharaim (“Aram of the Two Rivers,” as opposed to Aram Syria—the Aramea, from which Jesus Christ originated), and in Greek, it is similar: Mesopotamia, “between the rivers.” By the way, both of its rivers, the Tigris and the Euphrates, were considered two of the four rivers of Paradise.

The rivers of Paradise are Pishon, Gihon, Tigris, and Euphrates (Gen. 2:10–14). As for the first two rivers, there are numerous versions (for example, the Nile and the Ganges). Paradise itself, accordingly, was located somewhere near the Caspian Sea (biblical historians even claim to know where).

However, the Sumerians were not Semites. They called themselves “black-headed” (those who have been to Tallinn may recall the “Brotherhood of the Blackheads,” which once owned several notable buildings there. However, they have nothing to do with the Sumerians, of course). If we recall the Theory of the Seven Races, the Sumerians belonged to the sixth subrace of the Fourth Root Race. They were dark-skinned, sturdy, and stocky, and spoke a strange agglutinative language (not inflected like ours), similar to Swahili or Choctaw.

The origin of the name Sumer is unknown. It may derive from one of the names of the moon god Sin (Shin). In the Bible, Sumer is called “Shinar”; echoes of this root can be traced in Sanskrit Sumera (Sumeru, the sacred mountain of the Indians, on whose summit stood the city of Brahma), in the name of the queen Shamira (Semiramis), and others.

The history of Sumer almost precisely fits the Age of Taurus (4000–2000 BCE). This alone is enough to grasp the essence of the Sumerians’ “archaic” cosmogony, which we are familiar with from past and other lectures:

From the primordial ocean (water, the feminine principle, the goddess Nammu) emerged the sky (fire, the masculine principle, the god Anu) and the earth (feminine, the goddess Ki). After this, air appeared between them (the masculine principle, the god Enlil).

Then the “dingir” emerged—deities and spirits who governed the sea, celestial bodies, rivers and mountains, every field and house, every hoe and plow (Kramer, Samuel. History Begins at Sumer. Moscow, “Nauka,” 1991).

Kramer, a meticulous scholar who collected and analyzed all available data on the Sumerians, judging by what he wrote and what he avoided writing, was not free from “ideological biases” and ruthlessly erased anything that even remotely resembled esotericism.

Later, there were several attempts to create humans (from clay): various gods competed in this, but to no avail—everything resulted in freaks, asexual beings, or mindless creatures… A striking parallel with the myths of the Maya (Popol Vuh, Moscow, 1959, reprint 1993), as well as with the Theory of the Seven Races.

The spirits—dingir—were both good and evil; some helped humans, others hindered them, and some—well, as they say, it depended. Thus, the cult developed according to the familiar pattern—a combination of beliefs and rituals that included appeasing spirits, sacrifices, and, not least, healing.

The same Kramer provides examples of entirely professional recipes for various ointments, potions, and poultices from around 2300 BCE. He rejoices that these recipes contain “no mysticism or magic,” forgetting that in archaic culture, any action is already magic, and healing is especially so. Even today, a good doctor cannot help but be a magician; otherwise, he is not a good doctor.

The Sumerians knew nothing of viruses or bacteria and reasoned simply: if the world is governed by spirits, then each disease must have its own spirit (naturally, an evil one). Potions and poultices were needed to help the body cope with the illness, but the main task was to deal with the evil spirit possessing the soul. Therefore, alongside preparing medicinal brews, they performed magical manipulations over them, prayed to benevolent gods and spirits, and exorcised the malevolent ones. Sometimes they made a figurine of the “spirit causing the disease” and applied it to the affected area. “In such a view,” writes Alfred Lehmann (Illustrated History of Superstitions and Witchcraft. Moscow, 1900, reprint Kyiv, 1993), “magic becomes a necessity.”

Interestingly, from the perspective of modern esotericism, the situation is the same. Diseases are explained not only (or not so much) by the action of viruses and bacteria but by the person’s readiness to accept that action.

“Just look around—there are plenty of viruses, bacteria, and other harmful creatures,” writes contemporary German writer R. Rosenkranzer, “and people often have no idea about hygiene… We would have long since been universally ill if diseases obeyed ordinary physical laws. In reality, however, it is different: if a person does not want to fall ill, they will not fall ill, just as they will not get into an accident if they do not wish to.

“The desire” (readiness) of a person to fall ill or have an accident often turns out to be the result of their evil thoughts, anger, or envy—that is, an invocation.