The Austrian ethnographer Johannes Schultze, in the process of studying the magical rites of different peoples, came to the conclusion that the Slavic sorcerers more than once puzzled with the incomprehensible art of "building eternal life into themselves." That is, a few hours before passing into another world, they, by volitional efforts, rewound time back years. Plunged into it. And they got the opportunity to actively live there, trying to prevent the "double" from meeting the current "original". This was done not only in order to continue serving good. The most real personal immortality was achieved. The sorcerer, like a Phoenix bird, burning to the ground, resurrected again and again. To infinity. The surrounding, to put it mildly, found themselves in an absurd situation. Couldn't understand where is the illusion, where is the reality. However, let us turn to reliable facts, which abound in the annals of Russian antiquity.
1898 Tula province. The prosperous village of Protasovo. Primary school teacher Vasily Filippovich Ogorodnichy became seriously ill. Medical assistant Ignatius Paramonov, having signed his powerlessness to help, advised to turn to the sorcerer Miron Grekov, who successfully traded in quackery. The teacher accepted the advice. Grekov, seeing him, asked a strange question:
- Do you agree, my dear Vasily Filippovich, that I, dead, take death away from you, alive?
“Do what you want, just help,” Ogorodnichy answered hastily.
- Here, use dry herbs and drink, as noted in my piece of paper, - said the sorcerer, handing a bottle of thick liquid and bags of fragrant herbs.
The teacher, returning home, did everything as was said. Not a week has passed - you are healthy. A man who remembers good, he bought an elegant shirt to thank the sorcerer. On the way to the house of his savior, he met a village priest, who asked where he was going. Ogorodnichy did not hide the fact that the other day he resorted to forces that were not divine. Father was stunned:
- How so. Your witch doctor has been in the ground for forty days. I myself gave him communion and sang the funeral service. The hut is now empty. There are no people willing to settle in an unclean place. Go on. Make sure.
This story ended with the fact that, after parting with the priest, the teacher handed the shirt to the one to whom it was intended: the sorcerer Grekov, who thanked for the gift and promised "to be alive, if mentally summoned." As far as the strongest magical phenomenon is concerned, such eerie disbeliefs are by no means accidental. Rather, they are natural. How do you like the next turn? The collector of whale oil and mustache bourgeois Nikolai Inozemov left his family in Vologda and moved closer to the Arctic Circle to work. The small log cabin where he settled was warm, even cozy. Until, in December 1879, a certain Lukashka Siver, a famous charmer and sorcerer, wandered into the light. Out of boredom, after supper we sat down to play cards. Siver lost over and over again, which was immensely surprised. Well, the purveyor and faked it. Like, if you want, I'll teach you how to furnish. The enchanter shouts: "You are not putting your cards in a dish!" Raked a sheepskin coat, harness. And go. Offended, then. Inozemov, judging that they were carrying water to the offended, added kerosene to the wick. He began reading. What? A barrel of corned beef jumped from its corner and flopped down on the table in front of the reader. The procurer shouted: "Scatter!" The barrel obediently dropped to the floor. And let's dance. And next to it, smoked hams are dancing. Where did you come from? Inozemov never smoked pork when he was born. Siver appeared from the shadows, explained: “Harchi is a gift. I stupidly fell under the ice. I didn't reach the Spinning Wheel. I'll live with you as it is. I will do what I want. I will stay for a long time. Where there are coffins, there is not for me. " What should Inozemov do? Tolerate the tenant who did not eat with him. Sat in the corner. Whispered for profit. The procurer got rich. He returned to Vologda. The sorcerer did not lag behind. In a rebuilt stone house he healed. No one suspected that he was a walking dead man. Inozemov took up the hams. Where they came from, the best in the parish, I did not think. We took it, that's all. When Inozemov died in 1904, Siver also died. All the clocks that were in the house, no matter how they were repaired, did not regulate, they were late, as if by agreement, when by an hour, when by three hours.
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Johannes Schultze, traveling around Russia, in the archives department of Rostov got hold of a copy of the report of the junior volost spy Zakhar Chunin. In a retelling, it would lose its flavor. We reproduce the document in full: “The tricks of the sedate sorcerer Ivashka The crafty one draws out. Ivashka invited me to look and marvel. He did his own thing earlier, alive, and in the year 1893, when he died, smoldered in the land. His skill consisted in daring the people of poisonous viper snakes. Here's how. It seems like a dead man, but he showed up as a revived werewolf on the Snake Hill. Nobody was terrified. We've seen him this way and that. The sorcerer stuck a curved bar into the ant hummock. He was silent. I went to the clearing. The vipers crawled. Crawl and crawl. Lots of them. They are sleepy. The sorcerer reappeared. I walked around the anthill three times. Finished off the snake. Relief, especially for children, came out. The sorcerer came afterwards when needed. We often noticed Ostapin. Father Innokenty dared to chase him away with many prayers so that the people would not be disturbed. From such labors only the church became unusable. The bell rings by itself, the lamps and candles overturn, the icons stream myrrh, brightened. In addition, it is that the sorcerer Ivashka Lukin, according to conversations, is a holy man."
The heretical idea that the majority of Russian sorcerers are “a holy people, after death living in discord with time” was expressed by the revolutionary anarchist Dmitry Maksimovsky, who spent many years in northern settlements, a graduate of the philosophy department of St. Petersburg University. In his opinion, “when they use magic for others, they are at choice in two times or in one, in order to draw strength from the Great People who made them immortal”. Maksimovsky clarifies: "Great people are the ancestors of sorcerers, they are also sorcerers."
Alexander DMITRIEV