15. Opposition

Many readers of the Ringing Cedars Series can already attest to the opposition that has pitted itself against a harmonious lifestyle — a lifestyle favourable to both physical and mental health.

I have mentioned on a number of occasions having received communications regarding anti-Anastasia statements purporting to come from Russia’s Orthodox Church. And that churchmen themselves apparently instigated the rumours now spreading among government departments to the effect that all the readers of the Series are ‘sectarians’.

At first I found it hard to believe that such communications were serious. But shortly afterward members of the Novosibirsk Readers’ Club told me church representatives had paid a visit to the local Concert Hall where a reader’s conference was to take place, asking management to forbid the event.

Then they showed me one of the Orthodox-Church-related sites on the Internet where a so-called ‘Doctor of Theology’ was making all sorts of slurs against Anastasia, and the language he used could hardly be termed theological. My readers protested in an effort to show that Anastasia’s ideas were indeed positive. But apparently the ‘Doctor ofTheology’ was not able to discuss this point, preferring instead to focus on the question of whether Megre was my real name or a pen- name.

After that, people started sending in newspaper articles from various regions of the country which looked almost like carbon copies of each other. Indeed, from the writing style, uniform phrasings and malicious inventions, it was readily apparent that they had all been drawn from the same original source.

Finally, there was something quite extraordinary, in con-nection with the St. Petersburg Vstrecha drama company’s performance of a play called Anastasia, based on the Ringing Cedars Series. On 23 July 2002 the troupe arrived in Vladimir and staged a performance in the Taneev2 Concert Hall.

The play was to have been presented in Tula3 on 25 July On the 24th of July the local newspaper ran a front-page appeal from the missionary office of the Tula Diocese urging people to boycott the production, saying that both the books and the play were promoting a return to paganism.

It was a case of rampant fear-mongering. In spite of that, the Tula performance went ahead, playing to a full house. But when the artistic director of the Vstrecha Theatre showed me the article, I and others who read it immediately came up with a set of identical questions addressed to the missionary office of the Tula Diocese.

How canyon criticise aplay yon haven’t seen? The only performance before Tula had been in Vladimir only a couple of days before. To all intents and purposes Tula was the premiere.

In St. Petersburg, however, Orthodox priests came to see it and afterward thanked the actors for a most spiritually inspired production. They said we should have more plays like this!

The conclusion is inescapable. A phenomenon like Anastasia is constantly under the watchful eye of some kind of opposing power. This power may be located entirely within the borders of Russia or outside as well. In any case it has at its disposal a far-flung network, capable of reacting to currents running through masses of people, capable of accelerating or retarding these currents at their own discretion.

The stories about the priests told by Anastasia and her grandfathers are taking on increasingly real and specific shape. They have begun to express themselves in concrete actions of today

Her grandfather said that the high priest, who forms the ideology of whole peoples, has stopped opposing Anastasia, but the system created by the priests will carry on the opposition for centuries to come. And this has also been confirmed by real-life events.

The zealots who implement the opposition on a local level have proved themselves incapable of figuring out what is really going on. They seem to be acting as though they had been pre-programmed, making sweeping and completely unfounded accusations against Anastasia.

For example, in response to the question Should we all go live in the forest? Anastasia replies:

“There is no need to go live in the forest. You need to clean up the place you have been polluting first.”

The press, however, has been putting out statements to the effect that Anastasia is urging people to abandon their city dwellings and children and go off to live in the forest.

So, one can draw the conclusion that some kind of agencies are actively endeavouring to hinder the promotion of Anastasia’s ideas — namely, that each Russian family should be granted a hectare of land to establish a kins domain.

Naturally, Anastasia’s opponents try not to mention this idea, preferring instead to scare people with their fictitious

inventions.

Naturally, I wanted to defend both the idea itself and the readers of my books from slander and from the other obstacles standing in the way of reaching this high goal. Defend them. But how? And from whom, specifically? After all, even the slanderers must have real names, they have their own masters and interests. But Anastasia’s supporters have their own research centre. I don’t know all their names personally, not by a long shot, but their ideas and conclusions are quite fascinating. For example:

The counter-action is aimed not directly at Anastasia so much as at the ‘national idea’ currently taking root in Russia. It arises from an intermediary source, as though local followers each received a cue to take action, independently of each other. These followers are to be found in various social strata, including the clergy.

Their methods are primitive: slander and the propagation of patently false rumours and, when necessary, taking over the movement’s leadership and discrediting it.

The research centre managed to establish who it was that stole a computer containing the manuscript for one of my forthcoming books, and found out about a secret plan for taking over the Anastasia website. But who tried to replace my Anastasia books with others that looked similar on the surface but in fact were aimed at leading people away from her ideas? And how could they possibly do this?

I was also told that the same forces were organising a smear campaign, using the same methods in each case, against Anastasia, Academician Shchetinin’s school and the singer Nikolai Baskos And just what, the reader may well ask, has Baskov got to do with all this? He is a very pleasant young man with a rich and powerful voice. And that is precisely what is driving these forces mad. Imagine this young Russian with his top-notch voice suddenly singing:

The dawn is now breaking o’er the great ringing cedar’s fair branches And illuming the tribes of the pure Vianet Earth with its lustre. With a love-sigh the heavens pour forth all the help they can muster. Interplanetary breezes caress the grand Dream with romances.

From every seed springs a mighty idea,

A Messiah from every child’s perepeteia.

In a bright ray will awaken Rossiya...

God bless Rossiya and Anastasia! ‘

This song was sung by a children’s choir at the launch of the book Who are we? at the Oktiabr Concert Hall8 in St. Petersburg. It has been performed by modern bards, and was featured in the video Take back your Motherland, people! It was written by a schoolteacher from Belarus and seems to be taking on a kind of folk-song status.9 Perhaps Baskov will sing other patriotic songs which will strike a chord in Russian hearts. These new national initiatives, harbingers of a Russian renaissance, are obviously threatening to someone.

I was told there was no need for concern, and asked not to speak about what was going on. 1 was assured that this was simply a first opportunity to study the methods and pinpoint who was specifically behind the ideological subversion aimed at any positive tendencies in Russia.

And I would have gone along with that. Let it be dealt with by the ‘competent authorities’. However — and you must excuse me for this — there is one subject on which I cannot remain silent, despite my promise to the contrary If I did not speak out on this, I would forever lose my self-respect.

I cannot remain silent about the attacks on Academician Shchetinin’s school — on its teachers, on educational innovators in general, and especially on the children.

The pupils at Shchetinin’s school, along with their teachers, have decided to build a second school, this time in the Belgorod Region. Under an agreement with a local organisation they began refitting the interior of an allotted accommodation to suit their needs. Accustomed to hard work, and experienced in design and construction, they quickly brought their task to completion. They wanted to afford other children, too, the opportunity to study in a real school. Only they were forced to abandon the premises they had just refitted. Why? Because their provocateurs were on the alert.

From the same source that instigated the rumours about all the Anastasia readers being ‘sectarians’ came exactly the same kind of accusations of Shchetinin’s school being a ‘totalitarian sect’.

As in the case of Anastasia, seemingly on cue, a number of Russia’s so-called ‘Orthodox’ priests11 began to confirm what had been said. Again, the same uniform phrasings, the sweeping accusations without any factual confirmation.

According to a certain ‘Father Alexei’, the pupils at Shchetinin’s school “have absolutely no experience in handling money”. That’s a lie, chaps. They do have experience. Only they are not fixated on money the way you are.

At Shchetinin’s school they make use of ‘sentencing circles’, where the perpetrator appears in person in front of a whole group of people who are predisposed to react negatively toward him and express their censure.

That’s quite an accusation! But haven’t Cossacks12 brought their own violators to ‘sentencing circles’? They have indeed, and not just to censure, but to punish with whips. And haven’t our political parties, either communist or democratic, not used similar methods? Does not the Russian Orthodox Church summon its violators to a ‘circle’ before defrocking them? The Church used to do worse than that — it used to burn them at the stake. And here we are simply talking about censure.

Perhaps the writer who described this in a negative light had in mind a circle consisting of his own persona? But that would no longer be a ‘circle’ but real totalitarianism!

Again, some articles complain that Shchetinin’s school is protected by Cossacks and free access to its grounds is not always permitted.

But today, ladies and gentlemen, many schools are under security protection. And not only in our own country Anyway, what business might yon have at Shchetinin’s school? Be God-fearing and take care of your own health. Aren’t you the ones, after all, who are horrified at the fact that the pupils of this school don’t drink or smoke, that they are constructing new school buildings themselves and are good students? You no doubt get a thrill of ‘sublime pleasure’ when you find drugs and foul language in schools!

I am not going to list all the nonsensical drivel written about this marvellous school. The writers have come under condemnation even from their colleagues.

An article by Alexander Adamsky13 is of particular interest. Here are some excerpts:

On Saturday i April, on the ATV creativity channel, they showed a pre-taped episode of the programme Press Club, devoted to what people refer to today as ‘controversial press coverage’ surrounding Mikhail Petrovich Shchetinin’s school near the village ofTekos in the Province of Krasnodar. The Press Club producers decided to invite journalists writing on educational topics, as well as educators themselves, to discuss the whole question.

Both professionally and from a global perspective, the unique character of Shchetinin’s system provokes controversy in modern educational circles. But there are what Alexander Radov terms ‘educational killers’ whose arguments vastly differ from those of people who question Shchetinin’s views on particular matters of substance.

Such ‘killers’ do not argue; their aim is to destroy

As long as education has existed, as long as anyone can remember, right from the times of Socrates, up-and-coming philosopher-teachers have been censured and beaten down for ‘confusing young minds’ and not teaching according to conventional norms...

So yet another round of‘pogroms’ directed at Shchetinin is not coincidental. As Alexander Radov said during the Press Club discussion, even as in times past such attacks were organised by bureaucrats, today they are initiated by innocent-looking journalists. So it turns out that these ‘nice boys and girls’, faced with something that does not fit into — indeed, that is quite contrary to — their preconceived opinions as to what a school should be, what an educator should be, or how an educational system should be structured, find themselves quite incapable of accepting the existence of something their consciousness can neither fathom or even make room for. In other words, ‘what I don’t understand has no right to exist’ — such is the ‘killers” simple but deadly logic.

What we have here is the old world flushing out the dregs on the bottom — the last, clotted sediments of totalitarianism, which has been so aggressive and unshakeable in its hatred toward anything unlike itself. The old world, where there is no room for tolerance, where children must fit into a uniform mould and all teachers are obliged to teach one and the same thing.

The opening remarks on Press Chib were telling: one of Shchetinin’s attackers said there were grounds for censure, but first he wanted to hear the arguments for. Amazing how the old Stalinist logic survives — anyone is obliged to defend himself to start with, and then the prosecutors decide the degree of the defendant’s guilt. That he is guilty in the first place there is absolutely no doubt. The question is only how guilty he is and what the degree of punishment should be...

It is useless to argue with such accusers, and to mention them by name would only play into their desire to be noticed — their desire for self-promotion and self-glorification which is what they are really after. One must be extremely patient here, realising that they are the mouthpiece for the old world of the obsolete, an outlet for gross ignorance and malice. In terms of the broader picture, they themselves are not to blame for anything, just as an infant is not to blame if he plays with matches and burns down his home. But what will become of the school, what will become of our educational future?

As we see it, Shchetinin has made a tremendous educational discovery which, naturally, has gone unnoticed by his persecutors. He has come up with a totally new educational content. He has established a lifestyle pattern at his school, on his ‘educational island’, so to speak, in such a way that this lifestyle pattern has become its educational content. Of course there is a syllabus — of course there are subjects — the kids study both mathematics and biology. But this is just the raw material, while the Telcos way of life has become the content — building construction, arranging for the provision of food, protecting one’s living quarters, art, interpersonal communication. Moreover, everybody says that children are different, that they not only have different learning rhythms but also different

areas for the optimum development of their abilities. But so far it is only Shchetinin that has managed to make it so different children can learn entirely at their own individual pace. So a Shchetinin pupil may end up, for example, taking Grade 9 physics at the same time as a post-secondary course in architecture. This is continuing education in the true sense of the term.

Who else has been able to accomplish this?

It is a challenge even to imagine such a thing, let alone think it through and put it into practice.

Of course, Mikhail Petrovich Shchetinin is a genius. Of course he is an artist, a thinker and a prominent exponent of our culture.

But by the very same token neither he nor his creative genius can be squeezed into pre-set frames and cliches, either laudatory or derogatory. Shchetinin is someone whom one not only can but must engage in argument, someone to study with and, yes, someone definitely deserving of praise. An artist, after all, cannot live without some kind of praise or recognition.

But Shchetinin is not someone to be pushed around.

Nobody should be pushed around. And nobody should be utterly destroyed — because, sooner or later, shame will have its own. It’s only in a mob mentality that people assert themselves by destroying others. The way to assert one’s self in normal human society is by expressing respect and love — not only toward one’s self, but toward others as well.

You can condemn such ideological ‘killers’ all you like, but what is that to them? They see condemnation as their reward. Their masters will make it all up to them. Meaning that they will keep trying all the harder. And they’ll always get away with it. How can they be punished, anyway? People have simply

expressed their own opinions. They have simply made a mistake, and no punishment has been decreed for mistaken opinions. Yet they are not mistaken. In labelling the school a totalitarian sect they have merely been pursuing a specific goal, namely, stopping the public authorities from extending a helping hand to the new marvellous beginnings in Russia. Very few government officials, after all, will bother going to the school itself to ascertain the real status of things first-hand. They will most certainly try to keep as far away as possible from any contacts. What if there really should be something wrong with the school? they might ask themselves. Hence the school is put in a defenceless position — an easy target for the ‘killers’, who are just waiting to deal their well-calculated blows.

But what are we doing to help? After all, we see it’s not just the teachers that are under attack, but the children too. Look, more than three hundred Russian children are being trampled in the dirt, vilified and insulted, and this has been going on for two years now

I don’t believe it’s Russians who are doing this. It’s nowhere near part of the Russian character. But we are passive observers of this poisoning. Highly-placed government officials and ordinary people alike are passively observing it. We are passive witnesses to an all-too-obvious pushing around and moral bashing of children. Who’s doing it?

Maybe Russian special-service officers can say But God forbid we’ll have to tell our grandchildren that we once lived in a time when Academician Shchetinin’s school still existed in Tekos, home to three hundred children who dreamt about a marvellous Russia!

We ought to be able to tell our grandchildren living in their Russian domains that “we were around when this school you are so happy to go to now got off the ground. We saw it through during this difficult time.”

All that will come later. But right now...

Mikhail Petrovich, Telcos teachers, educational innovators! It’s a challenge for you, of course, but you know... You know very well that “you cannot creep your way to the truth”. And children too! Children of theTekos school. Forgive me, young Russians, if I don’t manage to do everything I’m supposed to. But I shall be able to. So will many other people. What’s the weather like there at the moment — nice and warm, eh? That’s good if it’s nice and warm. May the Sun shine over you more often, and warm up the dream within each of you!

Hoping to get some advice on how best to proceed, I described the situation to Anastasia’s grandfather. The elderly fellow stood there leaning on his walking-stick (or staff) as he listened intently to what I had to say

After hearing me out, including my request for advice, the old fellow stood silent for a while. His facial expression betrayed intense thought. Finally, he lifted up his head and, squinting his eyes as though scanning space, began speaking.

“Neither my father nor I myself, not even the high priest, was able to guess how our granddaughter Anastasia would have any success in deciphering the secret of all secrets and answering the question as to why the Earth has begun morphing itself into such a stinky mess. The tribulations of the

flesh and the agitations of human souls are something Man has brought upon himself.

“If Earth’s earlier civilisations are supposed to be the smartest, why did they not preserve a happy lifestyle for their children?

“Everything today can at last be returned to the original world of God’s creation. Nobody had any idea how to preserve it and avoid repeating mistakes of the past. And then, if you please, she created the unthinkable combination all by herself, with her own thought, and immediately translated it into reality All questions will now be answered.

“Events that took millennia to unfold Anastasia has com-pressed into a single age. She is repeating them. Now everyone can experience the history of the Earth, the history of your country, for himself. They can evaluate, draw a conclusion and write that conclusion down in their own Book of Kin. Man will be able to learn for himself, with his feelings and his soul, the events of a whole series of millennia.

“You see, just as Anastasia is now being denigrated, your ancestors were denigrated in Ancient Rus’ as their culture was devastated.

“They accused the paganism andVedism of Ancient Rus’ of being frightfully barbaric and a cultural wasteland. How can you make people feel and fully appreciate what things were really like back then?

‘All on her own our granddaughter revealed the aspirations of our Russian ancestors and took upon herself the harsh blows ofher attackers — themselves the descendants of those who slandered our ancestors in front of their contemporaries, in front of their children and grandchildren.

“It is as though she were inviting everybody living on the Earth today to choose themselves a role in a historical play, then act out this role and observe the situation from the sidelines. And even those who start observing the whole scenario

as spectators will be playing the role of spectators and thereby experiencing and appreciating the events taking place, and they themselves will be drawn into the action.

“I’ve got a bit ahead of myself. You wanted to know who is responsible for the insults and hindrances. I’ll give you an answer. After all, that’s not hard for a priest.

“It is people that have been responsible for obstructing anyone who has understood and been inspired by the ideas expressed by our granddaughter Anastasia. But not just any people. These people are bio-robots controlled by a tiny sect which arose a long time ago, and far away from Russia.”

“But,” I observed, “one of the clippings I have of signed newspaper articles states that the missionary office of the Tula Diocese has come out against Anastasia. I’ve read reports from people in various parts of the country on the unkindly attitude on the part of individual Christian congregations. Do they too include, as you say, bio-robots, controlled by some kind of sect?”

“The human bio-robots themselves are unaware of this control. They were simply pre-programmed a long time ago. The programmers had not foreseen anything on the order of Anastasia and so the programme experienced a major malfunction — pointing it down the road of self-annihilation.”

“I can’t put together details like that in my head. Where can I find confirmation?”

“If you can’t put them together in your head, then put them all together according to your own sense of logic. Anyone capable of thinking will find it in their own sense of logic.”

“Put it together logically?”

“Yes. Simple facts everybody knows. Take a look and see how one can reason, using only facts as a basis.”

“How?”

“First of all, get a clear determination for yourself of just what Anastasia recommended everyone should do.”

“Well,” I said, “she recommended everyone obtain at least one hectare of land and set up a domain on it for their family and descendants. As she says, if every family creates this little corner of Paradise for themselves, the whole Earth will be transformed into a Paradise. She also explained how to grow edible plants to counteract human diseases. Furthermore, she talked about a healthy lifestyle, child-raising and an appreciation for Nature, stating that Nature is comprised of God’s thoughts in solution. In sum, she set up a model whereby Russia can become a flourishing land and a home to happy families.”

“In talking about kin’s domains,” Grandfather continued, ‘Anastasia in fact revealed the greatest secret of the Divine being. She showed Man the way back to Paradise. This becomes clear if you gather all her sayings scattered over the various books together.

“She revealed a secret which the dark forces had kept con-cealed for thousands of years. These dark forces had destroyed everything that could have helped people learn about it.

“In the second century of your so-called ‘Common Era’ the last book still written in Runic characters was destroyed. This book told about Man’s Divine way of life. It talked, too, about the possibility of mastering the Universe through the harmonious mastery first of a plot of one’s family land and then the planet called Earth as a whole.

“Man who had mastered the Earth to perfection was presented with the opportunity to master other planets in the Universe — not technocratically, but psychotelepathically”

“But didn’t any of the great wise-men talk about the Earth the way she did, at least once?”

“There is not a single treatise extant today, Vladimir, where you will find the discoveries Anastasia has made. Moreover, in the past six thousand years people have been deliberately led astray, led away from understanding the Earth. They have

had all sorts of teachings thrown at them and told that that’s where they’ll find the truth.

“No sooner does Man study one doctrine than he recognises that there is no truth in it. He’s presented with another to study, then a third, and so forth. So life goes on, and even upon reaching his deathbed Man still hasn’t understood the essence of life.

“Yet Man is still intuitively attracted to the Earth, to the great adventure of understanding it. Realising that this attraction of human souls could not simply be cut off at the roots, the powers of darkness decided to cast a shadow over Man’s attraction to the Earth.

“In short, there have been a great many deceptions throughout the ages. But over the past six thousand years nobody has interacted with the Earth with conscious awareness.”

‘“With conscious awareness’ — is that what Anastasia rec-ommends?”

“Yes, that is what she recommends, and what people take from her sayings. Anastasia has turned human society as a whole onto a marvellous path. And nobody will now be able to stop her. After all, a whole lot of people are already carrying her dream in their hearts.”

“But still, the hindering and slandering of both Anastasia and her readers has not stopped. If they only realised they can’t stop her, they’d give up their slandering.”

‘At the moment, Vladimir, through the efforts of the slan-derers, the higher echelons of power are attempting to thwart the dawn of a new era here in Russia. In the near future they will try to present the idea in a distorted form in some other country And they will try to discredit the idea.

‘Anastasia was able to foresee all this ahead of time. Her course of action, carefully thought through in advance, impressed even the high priest. She realised that once she had revealed the essence of Man and the Earth, a lot of people

would not be able to hold themselves back from direct interaction with the Earth. Too hasty an action could be dangerous — after all, people would first need to create their Space in their thoughts.

“In Russia the slanderers are now trying to set up obstacles, but people are still not betraying their dream and are mentally creating their Space without letting up.

“Of course the system is strong, but you can’t just go accusing everyone indiscriminately Church people are divided over Anastasia.”

“I know,” I said. “I have met with a number of clerics who understand and support Anastasia.”

“You and your readers must be aware of just who in the world might be disadvantaged by information surfacing in Russia today”

“I would say there are many self-proclaimed ‘developed’ nations that would not want to see another, even more developed country on the horizon.”

“Yes, that’s logical. But each country has a lot of people. What do you think — are all of them up on what’s happening here, do they follow and analyse events taking place in Russia?”

“Not all of them, of course. But there are certain interested parties.”

“Who, for example?”

“Who? Well, for instance, companies that deal in medicines and supply them to Russia in large quantities, they would be disadvantaged if Russians stopped getting sick.”

‘And beyond that?”

“Beyond that... There are a great many foodstuffs that we import from abroad today If Anastasia’s plans were to be implemented, it would be the other way round: Russia would export foodstuffs to many countries. And in that she would have no competition.”

“Which means Anastasia’s plan would turn out to be un-profitable — not to the populations of these various countries but to certain classes of people, and these might be located in just about any country, including Russia itself. Do you agree?”

“Yes. In general, I do.”

“Now tell me, this class of people who possess enormous capital, might they not have their own intelligence services following global development trends?”

“Of course. All major companies have such services. If they didn’t, they would go bankrupt. There are even schools set up to train such people.”

All right. So, major companies have services providing them with intelligence from various countries. And in turn they can influence the creation of favourable conditions for themselves?”

“Yes.”

“You agree. Good. If you pursue this line of reasoning, you will come to the conclusion that national governments have similar services at their disposal. There are many examples of this in history. The most significant of all is a tiny Jewish group which is involved in the governing of America, Europe and Russia. Though they have merely been an instrument in the hands of the high priest.”

“What’s the connection between this group and the Christian dioceses that have come out against Anastasia?”

“I indicated that those who serve as bio-robots are this type of people. They arose under the influence of the priests’ programme and the tiny Jewish group that is spread out in various places.”

“Where’s the proof of such statements?”

“In historical facts. They need to be examined meticulously and impartially”

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