Tatiana Derkach,
exclusively for the “Spiritual Front of Ukraine”
Incomprehensible things began to happen in Russia. Initially, post-Soviet society was shocked by the story of the Yakut shaman Alexander Gabishev’s way to the Kremlin to expel an evil force in the form of Putin and inadequate reaction of the Russian authorities. Well, a man goes his way, pretends to be a warrior shaman, wants to “expel Putin”. Who is he bothering? But law enforcement agencies blew the thing sky-high, riot police numbering 20 people stormed his house. The shaman is declared a dangerous extremist and taken to a mental hospital. All this would seem delusional, except the reason to think that the Kremlin really saw in this short stubborn man a threat.
The other day, the head of the Russian Orthodox Church, Patriarch Kirill, consecrated an extravagant building, which for some reason was called a temple. The main temple of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation. Can these things be connected, and what would be worth knowing about the spiritual searches of the Russian leadership – the patron of the ROC?
Someone may consider everything written below as nothing more as author’s conjecture or speculation. But there are facts that are difficult to argue.
What does Putin believe in?
There is no doubt that Gabishev’s arrest was inspired by Russia’s political leadership. The absurdity of the operation suggests that the Kremlin believed in the magical power of the shaman. How can this be? After all, we are accustomed to consider all the political, bureaucratic and business top management of Russia as faithful children of the ROC. They invest millions in the restoration of Orthodox temples, regularly travel to Mount Athos, organize the delivery of the Holy Fire from Jerusalem, finance the visits of relics from various local churches…
But in reality this is far from the truth. Let’s start with the “leader” of this public-private corporation – Vladimir Putin. From time to time he shows himself in Russian temples, but his ritual actions don’t go beyond the standard set of a “holiday parishioner: “to cross yourself and to light a candle.” At least, this is the maximum that is publicly available. But the Russian media regularly asks whether Putin is a believer in general and an Orthodox believer in particular. He is regularly reminded of the following “manifestos of Orthodoxy”:
“Communist ideology is very similar to Christianity,”
“The Code of the Builders of Communism is a sublimation, a primitive extract from the Bible,”
“Lenin was laid to rest in the Mausoleum – how is this different from the relics of saints for the Orthodox? I am told: no, there is no such tradition in the Christian world. How is it not? Go to the Mount Athos, look, there are holy relics there”,
“Who do you believe in?” “In a man, in his good thoughts.”
The media noticed how at the Epiphany in 2018, while climbing into the ice-hole, Putin crossed himself from left to right.
Formally, he is positioned as an Orthodox, and even has an attributed a clergyman to him – Metropolitan of Pskov and Porkhiv Tikhon (Shevkunov). However, according to those who know Putin, this is only a situational or opportunistic cover-up of his true syncretic cosmological concept. Then why the ROC? He explained that in 1996 his dacha was burned down, and only the aluminum cross survived. That was the first time Putin seemed to have an amulet, a protective amulet.
But the President of the Russian Federation did not stop at Christian amulets, judging by his further sacred experiments. Mass media written a lot about Putin’s several attempts to seize the Mount Athos. In 2001, “The Mother of God did not let him go”: the weather got sharply worse – fog and snow. In 2002, a very secretive visit to the Mount Athos during Holy Week, it failed again. Another “seize of the Mount Athos” was scheduled for September 5-7, 2004. According to the script, Putin was to sail to the Holy Mountain in a warship and then descend from the sky by helicopter. But there was a tragedy in Beslan – it did not fused again. Patriarch Peter VII of Alexandria flew in Putin’s helicopter – a strange plane crash occurred and the patriarch and a number of other religious figures died. The next seizre – in 2005 – was marked by the fact that a donkey jumped on the road in front of Putin’s car, and Putin was forced to move frantically behind the donkey’s ass. On the way back, the Russophobic donkey promenade was repeated. According to the inhabitant of the Simonopetra monastery, it was a sign of the Mother of God to Putin. On the eve of the 2012 presidential campaign, Putin was trying to break through to the Mount Athos again, again during Holy Week – he was denied to enter by the Greek authorities! The last, sixth attempt to gain a foothold on the Holy Mountain – 2016. It was then that he managed to break into the chair of the Byzantine emperors. Apparently, the stubbornness of the donkey helped.
Interestingly, even then the President of the Russian Federation wore a Kabbalistic red thread-amulet on his arm.
Apparently, sometime after the first sign from the Virgin, Putin decided to diversify the risks of an attack by evil forces and struck into shamanism. We are talking about the search for the entrance to Shambhala, the taming of totem animals, interest in the teachings of the Roerichs and the search for so-called “places of power.”
Portal to Shambhala
Apparently, everyone has noticed that Putin spends all his vacations in the Altai, mainly in the Republic of Tuva. What irresistibly draws him there, especially together with the Minister of Defense Sergei Shoigu – an ethnic Buryat and a descendant of the shamanic family? Everything is simple. Putin is obsessed with three things: absolute power, immortality and security. From these things search of Shambhala comes from, as well as research of a “genetic correction” of man, and recourse to esoteric and even occult practices of “energy protection”.
We will give the floor to Putin himself and his interlocutors.
“The Altai Republic is one of the most unique, sacred places to be preserved.”
“According to the president, the Altai Mountains should become not as much as a center of tourism, but a sacred, spiritual center. The national leader welcomed the idea of the Altai Mountains as the birthplace and center of the Turkic-speaking peoples of the world. In this regard, the President instructed his staff to work on the idea of holding a forum of heads of Turkic states in the Altai Mountains”.
All sorts of scientists and political scientists do their best to please the President of the Russian Federation, regularly throwing him evidence that the Altai is the birthplace of all great civilizations. Russian researchers claim that Putin became interested in Altai mysticism in 2014: “The president has already visited many sacred places, and when the war broke out and unrest broke out, he found a point of strength in the Altai. If so, it is quite logical. According to the Altai Bilyk (this is an ancient root of Russian folk wisdom), when change begins and unrest arises, the ruler must return to the source of the river of life. He is actively told that the Altai is the common root of the Slavs and the Turks, and that this “place of power” may be the assembly point of Russia, which consists of these two ethnogenetic types. Let’s not forget about the Golden Horde as a state-building force of Russia, which was formed in the Altai from the ulus of Juchi, the son of Genghis Khan. And the tomb of Genghis Khan himself seems to be in Tuva. Well, where else to look for the One ring? At least now it is clear why in 2007 Viktor Yanukovych went to the Altai for shamanic knee treatment. An excellent opportunity to resolve international issues.
In general, Putin has a weakness for finding “places of power”: such as Valdai, Seliger and Izborsk, where the largest political clubs-discussion platforms were founded, Kuban, where the dolmens surround the residences of Putin and Patriarch Kirill, Chersonese – the baptism of Prince Vladimir. In principle, Putin does not care what energy comes from the “places of power” – so that everything serves to protect him. Apparently, the joint baptism of Slavs in Kyiv was not enough for the Russian president. Kiev pushed Putin away, as Athos had pushed him away before. He had to capture at least Chersonese – let it be.
The Russian Orthodox Church, no matter how hard it tried, could not become a “monopolist in the supply” of strong energy to its immortal president. The coronavirus pandemic seems to be able to bury the ROC’s image as the most powerful “provider of grace.” This is logical: how can the church ensure Putin’s sacred total power if it has failed to protect its own priests and bishops from coronavirus death. Most likely, this will directly reduce the interest of the Russian leadership in Orthodoxy as such. Which, in turn, may affect the support of the Ukrainian branch of the ROC. Especially after the great plague in the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra.
But let’s come back to Shambhala.
Tuvan shamans insist that the northern entrance to Shambhala is in their republic, near the ruined fortress of Por-Bazhin. Laugh all you want but in 2007 Sergei Shoigu organized an “archeological expedition” there and convinced Putin that there was an entrance to Shambhala.
If shamanism is still a frankly “strong drink” for Russians, a mixture of Orthodoxy and occult esoterics – agni-yoga (“Living Ethics”, the teachings of Roerich) – has become somewhat popular. The conciliar condemnation of this syncretic doctrine of occult origin by the ROC in 1994 did not affect the veneration of the Roerichs’ “cultural heritage.” Although, according to the definition of the Council of Bishops of the ROC, “people who share the teachings of these sects and movements, and even more so contribute to their spread, excommunicated themselves from the Orthodox Church”.
The Roerich Society carefully collects all of Putin’s eulogies addressed to agni-yoga, such as “I have been reading the Doctrine of Living Ethics since childhood”. In 2019, Putin agreed with Serbian President Vucic on an unusual exchange: the Russians give the Serbs a St. Petersburg letter from the Miroslav Gospel, and the Serbs give the Russians several Roerich paintings. Dmitry Medvedev, then Prime Minister of the Russian Federation and a faithful child of the Russian Orthodox Church, brilliantly commented on the topic as “spiritual ties play an important role in the reapprochement of the Russian and Serbian peoples”.
During a visit to the famous Chinese Shaolin Monastery in 2006, “Putin was happy to receive the sacred sutras of the psycho-physical doctrine of Shaolin kung fu as a gift from Abbot Shi Yongxing, noting that his daughters would be happy to receive such a gift”. So, the question is “why does a fish need a bicycle”? “Shaolin monks trained in the gym. Shi Yongxin introduced the President of the Russian Federation to one of the wushu masters named Shi Yanzhou and said that this experienced master is able to use “qigong” as a powerful mean of self-defense and fighting back the enemy”. Qigong (even martial or hard) is not a martial art, unlike kung fu, but a set of certain oriental psycho-practices.
Then Putin’s weaknesses began to come out and to be exploited by various sorcerers.
