Occult Russia: Pagan, Esoteric, and Mystical Traditions

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[Music] Paganism, esoteric and mystical traditions of occult Russia. Today, we have on the show writer and historian Christopher McIntosh, talking about his latest book, Occult Russia: Pagan, Esoteric, and Mystical Traditions. Today, we're going to explore and search for meaning in the post-Russia era, which has given a rise in revival of ancient spiritual traditions. We're going to talk about survival of ancient Slavic deities, pagan practices, and folk medicine traditions in modern Russia. Well, let's get this interview going. I'm Tony Sweet with Truth Be Told. Please welcome to the Truth Be Told studios for the first time, author, writer, historian Christopher McIntosh. Hello, Christopher. Hello. How are you today over on the other side of the pond? Very well, thank you. Well, I'm excited to have you here and I, I, I want the audience to get to know you and your book. And I'm going to show the cover of the book. Uh, you know, there's a lot of, a lot of in the news about Russia right now, just, you know, with everything going on over with the in the Ukraine. But this is one thing that we don't get to hear about too often. So I wanted to find out how you got started, uh, of your interest in writing this book, Occult Russia.

Well, my involvement with Russia goes back quite a long way. I grew up during the Cold War, but I was sufficiently fascinated by Russia to start learning the language when I was 19. Then, having neglected it for a number of years, I took it up again when I was living in New York and working for the United Nations. Wow. Which, which has an excellent language school. So I studied Russian for about three years at the, um, language school and took a diploma. Um, and I've, I've tried to keep up the language ever since. Well, previous to writing this book, I wrote another book called Beyond The North Wind, which is about the mystique of the North, not just as a geographical area, but as a place full of romantic and, um, mythical associations. And I discovered that, well, one aspect of the mystique of the North is that the legend of Hyperborea, the mythical land in the far North, or perhaps, perhaps not mythical as some people would maintain, a land in the far North in the Arctic region before the Arctic became covered by ice, right? Or, or possibly in a some freak temperate zone in the middle of the ice. Anyway, the, the, the notion was that that there was a precursor civilization that existed there in that region thousands of years ago, um, and that this precursor civilization at one point was forced to leave the polar region and dispersed to other parts of the world. Now, this mystique of Hyperborea took a very strong route in Russia, and it became, there's, there's, for example, a whole school of painting in Russia where artists have created these extraordinary scenes of Hyperborea with, um, cities and ports with, um, people riding around in slaves driven by mammoths and that sort of thing. And there are many people in Russia who believe that they are the heirs of the Hyperboreans. Oh, wow. Yeah. And so this, I said, I wrote a bit about this in the book, Beyond The North Wind. Um, and during the course of writing the chapters about Russia, I discovered that there are many, many very interesting things going on in Russia in, in the area of esotericism and mysticism and, uh, religious movements and so on. So I decided to write a book about these things. So that's how, that's how the book came about.

And in, in your book, there's quite a few pages about the Russian language. Yes. And you even talked about how it, you know, lends itself to religious rites and chants. And, uh, can you explain the difference between Russian, uh, language and the Latin language, where a lot of the, like, religion refers back to Latin? Yeah. Well, um, let me just talk a bit about the history of the Russian language, please. Um, the language has acquired different layers over time. Let's start with some of the vocabulary and let's go back to pre-Christian times. In the ancient Slavic Pantheon, the supreme deity is Rod. Rod, who is the source. He's the primal god. He's the source. And what was the name again? Well, we would spell it R-O-D. Oh, Rod. And he is the, the source from which the, the whole universe flows. Um, the word Rod, it, it, it cannot, it's a, it's a word that, um, well, it connotes origin, generation, and it's cognate with the word root. So it also, it also, um, kind of the notion of root, roots. And the syllable Rod occurs in many Russian words. So, for example, you have Rodina, Rodina, which is the, the mother, the motherland. Then Narod, meaning the people, the folk, that is those, those who are rooted in, in the land and are themselves the root. Then you have, um, Roditeli, which means parents, and which means nature, the, the primal root. Um, so every time, every time a Russian uses one of these words, they're reminded of the, um, the notion of of Rod, where it comes from. So, um, the whole language is, is permeated by such words which, which, which have a, a sacred connotation. Um, well, then there's the, the language of Orthodoxy, the Orthodox Church. Now, you mentioned Latin. Well, Latin used to be the language of the Catholic liturgy until it was replaced by the vernacular after the Second Vatican Council in the 1960s. Well, the, the Orthodox Church still has a liturgical language which is sort of comparable to to Latin, Old Church Slavonic. Except that it's, it's much closer to modern Russian than than Latin was to any, any vernacular language. So Old Church Slavonic is ideally suited as a liturgical language. It has, it has a very resonant quality. So, um, to give you an example, the word God in, in the vocative, that's if you're addressing God, right? Is Bozhi. Bozhi. So, um, you can chant this word. You can, you can, um, chant it with a, with a long drawn-out vowel. But you can't do that with the word God, which ends in a consonant. So the, the priests in the Orthodox Church are trained to chant in a certain way. They go, they go for special training for this, trained to to chant from from the belly in a deep, resonant way. So you have this deep, resonant chanting, but, but you also have a choir which sings at the higher notes. So when you, when you attend an Orthodox liturgy, you could say all the chakras are activated, activated from the high ones to the low ones. Whereas in a, say, um, Catholic, Catholic or Anglican liturgy, everything seems to be an octave higher. So it's, it's a, it's a different set of chakras that are activated, or a more limited set of chakras. So, uh, those, those are some of my thoughts about the language.

No, that's, I mean, that's really interesting because, uh, I've, I've not heard that side of the Russian language, because it is kind of a, when you hear it, it's very harsh. So it's, it's, it doesn't roll off your tongue like the Latin language does. So, well, I, I don't experience it as harsh. It rather depends on who you're listening to. True. That is true. Yeah. Well, your book is all about the resurgence of the occult in modern Russia, which I find fascinating because of the, the dictatorship or authoritarian, um, that is overseeing the country. So how does, how does the resurgence? When did it start? And, and how is it maintaining its strength, um, into modern Russia? Well, um, let's, let's start around the turn of the 19th to 20th century, okay? Up to that point, the Orthodox Church had had more or less a monopoly over the spiritual life of Russia. But in 1905, as part of a kind of preliminary revolution, there was an Edict of Toleration which removed that monopoly and allowed other alternative forms of religion and spirituality to to come forward. So you're already at that time had, oh, for example, um, um, G.I. Gurdjieff was just starting his movement, the Gurdjieff work. And his was there in Saint Petersburg. There were, there was Theosophy, started by a Russian woman, Madame Blavatsky, in New York, in fact, but which very quickly found its way back to Russia. So Theosophy had a big influence in Russia, and it influenced writers and composers and artists. I mean, for example, the composer Scriabin was very much influenced by Theosophy, and he wrote, after, after reading Madame Blavatsky's Secret Doctrine, he wrote a symphony called, it was, something like Prometheus, Poem of Fire, something, something like that. And he also planned to write a, a huge work called Mysterion, which was was going to be a kind of total work of art involving music, dance, colored lighting effects, and so on. And it was all to take place in a huge sphere, um, over an artificial lake, so that you, you had the impression of being enclosed in a great sphere. And this was going to, it's going to have such a powerful effect on the audience that it was going to bring about a change of consciousness and usher in a new age. This was Scriabin's idea, but unfortunately, he died before it could be performed. Oh, too bad. Um, when there were writers like Andrei Bely, who wrote a remarkable novel called Saint, called Petersburg, which is full of Theosophical and Anthroposophical references. So there was all, all this going on in the period known as the Silver Age, that is the period leading up to the revolution. Well, after the revolution, the, the Bolsheviks very quickly clamped down on the church and started destroying churches and persecuting priests. But they didn't, at first, clamp down on esoteric movements, right? And even after the revolution, there were a number of, for example, Rosicrucian groups that remained active. And I discovered something very interesting about one of them, which was that one of the, one of the members was Sergey Eisenstein, who the film director, who became very famous as a film director under Stalin with films like Alexander Nevsky, The Battleship Potemkin, and Ivan the Terrible, and so on. And I found that very surprising that he would have been a member of a Rosicrucian group, but he was. And, uh, in the book, there's a photograph of that group with, with him in it. Talk about crazy hair. Yes, that's him. Yes, yes. So, um, some of these things continued. There were, um, uh, tarot readers, astrologers, all, all that sort of thing. People researching into the paranormal and so on. That continued really right up to the advent of Stalin, and even a little bit after that. But, but then suddenly there was a clamp down. There was a mass, mass arrest of astrologers, for example, who were sent off to the gulags, and most of them died, I think. And so all of these things, by the, by the 1940s, the whole esoteric scene had virtually disappeared or, or been suppressed or gone into hiding. But then after the, after Stalin's death in 1953, and the advent of Khrushchev, um, these, these groups and these people slowly began to come out into the open again, at first rather cautiously, but, um, more, more and more building. Then there was a period of clamp down on the, on the bridge again. But then after Gorbachev and, but a strike, it all opened up again. So suddenly there was a kind of embarrassment of riches, you know, after the starvation diet of the Communist years, people could suddenly practice religion again. So the Orthodox Church enjoyed a huge revitalization, and the whole esoteric scene flourished, and the whole, the whole new, new neo-pagan movement flourished. And that's more or less still the situation today.

What was the, what was the threat of these practices in between Gorbachev and, and before? What, what was the threat? Was it just more, uh, religious belief, or did they feel that it was influencing the people of Russia in a negative way towards the government? Well, it was basically, that's the Communists didn't want anyone offering an alternative, an alternative to think. Yeah. An alternative spiritual vision. Yeah. Okay. That was other than the Communist vision. Yeah. That was it, really. They saw, they saw it as a threat. And one of the, one of the, I hope I pronounce her name right, is it Yuna? Juna? Yeah. I like to talk about her because she definitely had an influence. Um, because you mentioned in, in the book that, you know, as a psychic, she took part in, uh, an officially approved experiment in paranormal phenomenon, which I found fascinating because we, you know, we've done that over here in America. Um, and were these experiments similar to the experiments conducted over here in America? Uh, yes. Well, actually, um, I think maybe you're confusing Juna. Juno was, um, a very popular sort of new age clairvoyant, clairvoyant, okay? Yeah. So after, after Perestroika. But during the Communist years, there was a famous, um, psychic called Nina Kulagina. And well, um, Russian scientists began experimenting with the paranormal, with ESP, and, and so on, as part of a research into subtle energy fields. So I thought energy fields that they believed human beings are part of? Yes. That's, uh, Nina Kulagina. And they set up a special laboratory in Leningrad, as it then was. And the star psychic was this woman, Nina Kulagina, who could do remarkable things. She could, um, cause objects to move about, oh, well, through psychokinesis. She could, um, look at a person from a distance and raise their heartbeat to dangerous levels. Um, she could, um, but she had powers of clairvoyance and ESP, etc. So, um, the, the, um, obviously, this, this had potential uses in, in espionage and in, um, in warfare. So the United States got wind of this, and they start, they, they thought that it was time for them to start up a similar program. So, so it influenced the US? Yeah, yeah. So, um, but at one point, research into the paranormal was stopped in Russia around 1937, and it was stopped for about 20 years. The fact that they stopped it is really, um, an indication that they took it seriously, because obviously, in the wrong hands, it could be dangerous, right? So it was a, it was, you could say, a two-edged sword. But, then, as I say, about 20 years later, it was resumed, and, um, well, it still continues today.

Have you ever had a chance to see results of, uh, are they public? Or because I know with Russia, maybe they, they don't publicize like we do here sometimes? Well, there is a film of, um, moving objects through psychokinesis. If you go into the internet and Google her, you can find them. I have to, I have to find a video of her moving objects. Well, what, what is your take on, because, you know, there's a lot of people that, uh, uh, have the ability. And I don't mean to go off too much topic, but your, what is your thoughts on the power of the psychic ability when it does touch on warfare? Do you feel like that does have a huge impact? And with governments and their fear of people like Nina getting into the wrong hands? I think, I think it has such an impact. Yes. I'm not sure how much impact it really has in warfare because it's, it's an unpredictable sort of, right, instrument. And, Nina, she, she was, um, she couldn't just produce these effects at each time. It was, it was, it was an enormous effort for her. There's, you know, pictures of her, for example, raising a ping pong ball in the air through psychokinesis, but it was an enormous effort for her to do that, and it left her completely exhausted. I bet. Yeah. And she couldn't just produce it on, on order. Oh, there she is. Yes, yes. Thank you. Yes. And you can see her moving that object. That is, that is crazy. Yeah. Um, wow. Yeah. And, and there's no, there's no doubt that she was genuine because she was tested very many times to determine whether any trickery was involved, but no trickery was found. And, yeah, there she, oh, so they, so they tried to put a barrier to see if, for the people that are listening that were watching a video of Nina moving an object on a table, and then they put a box around it, so maybe think if there were strings or something attached. So it proved that there was nothing attached. So, right. And another thing that I think proves that she was genuine was that after, after a certain type, after she'd been doing this for a certain time, she found she was no longer able to do it. Oh, really? Yeah. And was it an injury, or just woke up one day and it was? It was just, I think it was just exhaustion. I think her ability just gave out eventually. And in one particular session, she, she tried and tried and, um, got more and more exhausted, and finally she said, I'm sorry, I can't do this anymore. So if she had been a fake, she wouldn't have done that. She would have kept going. She would have faked it somehow. Yeah. So I, I think it's, I think it's clear that she was genuine.

So, um, you, you also discussed the enchanted culture would embrace both religion and science with a holistic approach. But do you believe we will see ever see such a culture, and are there any modern examples? Yeah, um, I, I think there are, yes. Um, I mean, we, we have to go back into the history of Russian thought. There was, um, for example, a man called Vladimir Vernadsky in the 20th century, about around the first half of the 20th century, who helped to pioneer the notion of three spheres: the geosphere, which is this sphere of of dense matter, and the biosphere, which is a sphere of life, and the noosphere, sphere of mind. And these, certainly, particularly the concept of the noosphere, was later taken up by people like the French philosopher Teilhard de Chardin. And Vernadsky said that these three spheres are, in fact, um, they're all united, the one, they're basically one unity, joined by a vast field. So our minds are not something separate from nature and separate from the cosmos, they are part of it. And, so this is something, this is rather different from the traditional Western approach of science, which is to, um, say that we're, we're looking at, we're looking at, um, nature through, as it were, through a kind of a glass wall, we're separated from it. Um, so this, this idea of, um, this, um, holistic, holistic idea of our minds being connected to nature and the cosmos, this, this is, this is something very Russian. And, well, you ask about, um, where there's any, um, manifestations of this today, right? Uh, well, I would say, I would say a classic example is the space program. The Russian space program, which really goes back to a man called, um, Nikolai Fyodorov, who lived from the late 19th century to the early 20th century. And Fyodorov was, um, a very strange and eccentric character who lived a very austere life and spent most of his life as a librarian. And he, well, he had all sorts of extraordinary ideas, one of which was that one could reanimate all human beings who had ever lived by reanimating their dust, oh, wow, which is floating about in the universe. So this, this would, um, cause an enormous problem with overpopulation, right? So then his idea was, we'll detach the Earth from the solar system and use it as a spaceship to travel through space and colonize other planets. Well, this, this all sounds completely crazy. It was, it was all connected with a kind of mystical vision that he had. He was a, he was an Orthodox believer. And, it all sounds, it all sounds like the the weirdest kind of science fiction. But he had a pupil called Tsiolkovsky, Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, who was also a remarkable man. As as a young man, he went to Moscow to sit at Fyodorov's feet, and Fyodorov became his teacher, virtually gave him a whole education in mathematics and physics. And Tsiolkovsky then went on to become a brilliant physicist and space engineer, rocket engineer, and he made all the calculations that enabled the Russian space program to take place and enabled Sputnik to be launched and Yuri Gagarin to be sent into orbit, and so on. So this is an example of of how a vision, a, a sort of messianic, mystical vision can, can actually give rise to a, a technical, a technical program which has transformed the world.

Hmm. I, I love that. I, I love how you say it's transformed the world. And, and, you know, after researching and, and writing the books that you have written, what do you see, and what do you believe is the most, you know, pertinent takeaway from their belief systems today? What, what is your take after, because, you know, every, I think after people write songs or write books, they learn something about themselves or something about a culture that they didn't know before. And so, what do you, what do you feel is kind of a your takeaway from writing this book? Well, there have been various predictions about Russia. For example, the philosopher Nietzsche, previous Nietzsche, said that Russia is the country with the strongest will, the strongest will. No, um, you could say that the will of a country is, is draws from a wellspring of tradition, culture, values, shared history, shared mythology, etc. And in Russia, that wellspring is, is very strong, much, much stronger than in the West. So that's one thing that I would say. The American clairvoyant Edgar Cayce, not sure whether you say Cayce or Case, we say Cayce, but Cayce, yeah, okay. So, uh, uh, Edgar Cayce said that the hope of the world is going to come out of Russia. So what, what did he mean by that? Well, maybe he meant the quality of hope itself. For example, this is something that's, that's, I think, very strong in Russia. That there's a very common woman's Christian name means hope. So I think the quality of hope, optimism, optimism, belief, belief in the future, belief that we can create a better world, however difficult things are. This is something that I think we can learn from the Russians. Wow. Um, I, I love to always leave on a good note. So, yeah. But keep, keep talking. But I, I just love that, you know, there's so much craziness in this world right now, and I think that's always, it's nice to have hope. Yes, yes, absolutely. And, well, what else, what else can I say about that? I think that also this, this holistic approach that, um, I talked about, um, for example, there is a much sort of a much more fluid boundary between science and what you, what you could call the esoteric or the, or the mystical. Science is much more broadly defined. So, so, for example, there's a lot of cooperation going on between the, the, the, the traditional shamans in Siberia and, um, doctors and psychologists and, and other scientists. So that they are learning valuable things from the Russians. So, for example, in the, in the field of psychiatric treatment, that they're finding that the shamans have techniques that they can apply in the, in the treatment of things like schizophrenia. So there's another, another area where I think we can learn something. And I do think that, uh, even here, I've seen more and more doctors looking at the holistic approach than just the pharmaceutical approach, which is great to hear. Yes. So, well, Christopher, thank you so much. You, you'll have to come back because how many books have you written so far? Well, it's, it's about 15 altogether. 15? Or 15? 15. That's still 15 is a lot. Do you have any more books in the, in the works? Or? Yes, I, I've got one that I've actually finished, and it's with the publisher. Oh, wonderful. What's it about? Can you say? Well, this is, um, it's about occult Germany. So it's a kind of follow-up to the Russian book. Germany is the country where I live. Yeah. Well, the gates. Nice. Well, thank you so much. You'll have to come back and we'll have to, when the book comes out, and have you back and talk more about it. Uh, I mean, for the people that's tuning in, listening, or watching, it's called The Occult, Occult Russia: Pagan, Esoteric, and Mystical Traditions. I'll put the book up on screen so you can see it. We touched on some stuff. There's so many other topics in there that I think you will, um, enjoy and just find fascinating. And like Christopher said, he has 15 total books, so, and one on the way, so I, I think he could keep you busy for a while of reading and learning, too. And learning, too. So, uh, do you want people to follow you on your website at ozguard.net, or is there a social media that's, that's the best place to go to to find out about my books and other activities? Wonderful. Well, again, thank you. And thank you, everybody, for joining Christopher and myself today. And, uh, don't forget to get your tickets for the first annual Parapod Festival. It's going to be here in Southern California, in Santa Clarita, right down the street from Six Flags Magic Mountain. It's March 31st through April 1st. We're going to have a ghost town tour and stargazing tour at Mentryville on Friday night, and then it's at the Hyatt Regency Hotel on April 1st, Saturday. We have amazing guests such as like Linda Moulton Howe, Jimmy Church, Billy Carson, Robert Shock, and the list goes on and on and on of amazing, amazing speakers and workshops and panels. So, but until next time, I'm Tony Sweet with Truth Be Told. Take care of yourself and each other. Bye. This has been another episode of Truth Be Told. Thank you so much for watching. Recorded live at UBN Go Studios in Burbank, California. Join us on social media: Facebook, Truth Be Told Radio; Instagram, Truth Be Told Paranormal. Go to truthbetoldworldwide.com for more information on upcoming shows.