RUSSIAN CHURCH, PARLIAMENT TEAM UP AGAINST OCCULTISM
MOSCOW, (RIA Novosti political commentator Vladimir Simonov)
Members of the Moscow City Duma have urged the federal government and parliament to amend health legislation by imposing a ban on occult services throughout the country.
For centuries, Russia has displayed tolerance toward all kinds of professional magicians and mediums, letting them make fortunes from their services and establish connections with the upper crust of society.
In 1779, St. Petersburg came under the spell of Count Alessandre Caliostro, "a Spanish army colonel, a genuine magician, and a Great Master." He offered love potions and services in communicating with the dead. Once he miraculously "cured" a Russian courtier couple's newborn by replacing her with a healthy baby. But the parents' doubts prompted the bogus magician to flee to Warsaw. Late on, Tsar Nicholas II tried not to make any important state decisions without Grigory Rasputin's advice. That man was widely believed to be a mystic healer and a prophet.
In Soviet times, ailing leader Leonid Brezhnev sent envoys to the Bulgarian clairvoyant Vanda to find out about his health prospects.
But the occultism wave that swept across Russia in the late 1980s had little to do with historical traditions. The split nation was suffering from an identity crisis, and people across the social spectrum shared a sense of insecurity. The mass confusion brought forth thousands of self-styled witches and magicians, who sensed that the magic business could now prove as lucrative as never before.
The Soviet state tried hard to ensure that people did not think independently. It told them where to live, what to study, what kind of clothes to wear, what books to read, where to travel, and which destinations to avoid. As the totalitarian regime collapsed, many members of the public felt immature and lost amidst the sinister thicket of incomprehensible free-market relations. Occultist businesses, which mushroomed in post-Soviet era, had no difficulty luring clients with promises to solve all of their problems.
But then again, the Russian public did not have an alternative. There were not many competent psychotherapists around in those days, and this is still the case today. Magicians, white and black, rushed to occupy that niche.
According to statistics, one in every 1,500 Russians is a professional magician. It is hard to believe that in our age of the Internet and genetic engineering, the turnover of the occult services market is comparable with that of the drug market. There are more than thirty magic schools and centers operating in Moscow alone, with their monthly revenues ranging from $60,000 to $120,000. An estimated 3,500 to 6,000 individual practitioners occupy the rest of the niche.
Curiously, sociological surveys indicate that 70% of the occult industry is controlled by entrepreneurs who do not believe in the supernatural and never use mediums themselves.
The vast majority of professional magicians, often identifying themselves as parapsychologists, have no medical or any other education. Many of them are just crooks taking advantage of their clients' neurotic condition and naivety.
The range of occult services has changed over time. In the recent past, Russian parapsychologists focused on love and family relations, providing benevolent services such as the return of one's sweetheart and the removal of curses preventing one from getting wed. Now many have shifted their attention to financial matters, and offer help in securing quick profits (for $50-$1000), recovering debts (for 10-15% of the sum) , and even moving competitors out of the way (for $200-$2000).
Lawmakers believe that the occult business is becoming increasingly anti-social in Russia. Indeed, even the police will in most cases find it hard to establish if there is any magic behind someone's departure from business, or from life.
Occultism corrupts public morals, submerging people, especially young ones, into a world of illusions and the irrational. The Russian Orthodox Church, too, is waging a fierce campaign against the magic business. A Christian rehabilitation center for occultism victims has just opened in the capital.
All this has prompted Moscow legislators to revise the 1993 law on public health protection. In its original version, it bans mass-scale healing, especially with the use of broadcast media, such as those offered in the early 1990s by the likes of Chumak and Kashpirovsky. Those "medicine men" claimed they had healing powers that transcended television screens, healing the sick and charging water with positive energy. But the business has made a big stride forward since then.
The prospect of a total ban on healing services arouses concern among the proponents of alternative medicine based on folk traditions and rather effective. Yakov Galperin, the director of the National Research Institute for Alternative Medicine, argues parliament will be unable to distinguish between traditional therapies and occultism. He says, "Charlatans can be found just anywhere, and there are as many of them in the healing business as in academic medicine - about 13%."
But Lyudmila Stebenkova, the chairman of the Moscow Duma commission that is pushing for the amendments, assures that alternative medicine is not in danger. There are just about 2,000 registered alternative doctors in Russia, while unofficial statistics suggest the number of magicians, witches and fortunetellers exceeds 100,000. It is precisely these purveyors of occult and pseudo-religious services that the new legislative initiative targets.
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