Why do people voluntarily bury themselves alive? This is not about extreme entertainment, but rather psychological training. Digging is fortunately included in the program.
The pleasure of dying and being reborn is not cheap. Usually everything happens in a group and costs from 4 to 6 thousand rubles. The Internet is full of offers to get "the practice of interacting with the elements of the earth, with your own inner world and with your fears", but since at least in theory everything can end with a real burial without resurrection, you must choose them carefully. It is advisable that the organizers are professional psychologists who have been practicing burial for several years. They themselves advise focusing on the site: if there is a video recording of the process, you can assess the safety of the event.
For me, everything was organized by psychologist Alexander Potapenko, author of the project "Territory of equilibrium". For three years now he has been burying and digging up those suffering from rebirth.
The first thing I did was, of course, to be afraid. Colleagues, delighted with a fresh occasion for jokes, teased them with questions like "What, really, really got it?" and "The weather is rainy today, it will be chilly in the ground, maybe it's better to go to the crematorium?" It wasn't fun for me at all.
- In the end, you are a journalist, you shouldn't ditch, - the friend reasoned logically. - And then you can imagine what a scandal will be, if that!
I vividly imagined “if that”, screaming headlines and scandal, but it only got worse. By the night before the training session, there was no trace of my determination to go through with it. I tossed and turned, imagining pictures one more terrible than the other: here I am suffocating under the ground and cannot call for help, here long thick worms crawl towards me from all sides. In general, everything went to a shameful surrender.
Foot in the ground, and the questionnaire must be filled out
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But in the morning the phone rang, and the coach in a cheerful voice ordered:
- Do not be afraid of anything! Dress warmly and come!
I had to go to Lytkarino near Moscow. At the entrance to the city, I was met by Alexander, dressed in a marching fashion: camouflage, a backpack, a shovel. We walked deep into the forest.
- This training is based on psychology only. It has nothing to do with mysticism, Satanism and sectarian rituals,”Alexander warned. - People in big cities, where they need to be in time already yesterday, are prone to depression, stress, fatigue, and burying helps to solve these and many other problems.
The practice of burying was known in ancient times, in Siberia and Altai it was used before initiation into shamans. It was believed that, being buried alive, a person dies and is born again, and his fears remain deep in the ground. About five years ago, this practice began to be applied by St. Petersburg psychologists, and already from them it came to Moscow.
We reached a large clearing where two graves were half dug. An optimistic picture, you won’t say anything. In the graves, the guide said, about three hundred were already buried and not one died. All survived, many were even happy. One such "rebel" was afraid for many years to leave his job and start a business, and after the training he wrote an application at once and now works for himself.
Before starting, I was handed … a questionnaire. Its essence boiled down to the fact that I did not suffer from anything serious - neither mental disorders, nor heart disease, nor asthma, after all, I was not pregnant. At the bottom of the sheet, I put a number and a signature, and only then I read: “I didn't hide anything”, “my health is good”, “I undertake to follow all the trainer's instructions”, and “in case of non-observance of safety precautions, I bear full responsibility. In case of force majeure, I "bequeathed" to the editorial office.
In general, if you decide on such a training, then you must understand: burying is not a joke. If something does not go according to plan, and it can happen even with healthy people who are not pregnant, the organizers will not be responsible for the consequences, because no one forced you to the grave. However, Potapenko said that there were no force majeure events in his practice yet.
“You can say stop at any time,” he reassured. - I'll dig you out in a minute and a half.
Then he asked a difficult question, which by itself would have drawn for many hours of psychological counseling: "What two fears do you want to bury with you and leave?" Probably, if I could answer, there would be no need for burying. Like any other person, I have a lot of fears, and I have no idea which of them are the “best”. The fear of worms came to mind, but it turned out that they are not found in sandy soil and there is nothing to be afraid of. We agreed that I bury the fear of the unknown and the fear of loneliness. Alexander handed me a shovel, and I started digging a grave. Digging has also been found to have a therapeutic effect. A person is left alone with his problems, and no one, except him, can cope with them, and with death everyone, whatever one may say, is also a complete tete-a-tete. But, for me, the effect is the same: excellent prevention of obesity.
Feng Shui grave
After the grave was ready, Alexander leveled its bottom and put in a heat-insulating rug - so that I wouldn't catch a cold. He put on a chemical protection suit on me and helped me lie flat, so that it was comfortable, with my feet to the north.
“Feng shui,” I grinned.
A hood was pulled over his head, a gas mask over his face, the tube was brought to the surface.
It became creepy. I began to breathe deeply, and Alexander began to bury. Do you know what was the worst? Waiting for the first lump of earth. It seems that they will throw a handful of earths on your chest - and that's it, hello. But the gravedigger put the earth very neatly somewhere at my feet, and I suddenly felt comfortable. Another discovery is how heavy the earth is: there seems to be a small layer on top, but you can't move your arms or legs. I knew that at my signal Alexander would dig me out at any minute, but still it was not at ease. Before that, it was somehow believed that getting out of the grave, like the Black Mamba in Kill Bill, was real. Now I understand: this is just a movie trick.
And there, under a layer of earth, it is absolutely dark. And in this pitch darkness I don't want to think about anything. I just tried to breathe deeply and through the breathing tube listened to the coach talking with the photographer upstairs, how the cars were making noise on the Lytkarinsky highway. It was close, but in a completely different world.
After 15 minutes, I said the cherished word "enough". A few minutes later they dug me up. Having got out of the grave, I breathed in deeply and realized that I was good-ro-sho. The gray dank day did not seem so disgusting, the usual pine forest was fabulously beautiful. What happened to the fears? I don’t know, I’m still with me, and I have remained the same. But something new appeared - experience. Now even with a parachute it will not be so scary to jump.
Burying, which is now practiced as psychological training, was used in the past as a terrible torture and one of the most brutal forms of execution. Therefore, it is not surprising that the fear of being buried alive has added to an already long list of phobias. The most famous victim of this fear was, as you know, Nikolai Gogol. There were even rumors that in the end exactly what he feared happened to the writer - he was buried alive. But they were later refuted. Gogol's contemporary philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer suffered from the same phobia - of all his many fears, this one was the most powerful. Alfred Nobel was also afraid of being buried alive. In those days, by the way, this phobia was very common, which is why many in Europe rushed around with the idea of creating a safe coffin.from where the buried person could have informed "upward" about his resurrection by mistake. Such coffins, for example, were equipped with bells and breathing tubes leading to the surface.
PS Never try to instill yourself. This is life threatening!