Gary Lachman | Holy Russia, Rudolf Steiner, & Cultural Spirits

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00:51 Which means you'll unfortunately never hear my voice again. 1930s President Franklin Delano Roosevelt addressed the nation through a series of radio broadcast known as the fireside chats His aim was to reassure the common man that our society would recover from its troubled times. I'm Greg Carlwood These are the higher side chats. Here we go people, another day another deep dive into this strange world from sunny San Diego I'm Greg Carlwood and we know quite well that our worldview very much drives our behavior whether you're a spiritualist atheist nihilists alchemists Christian or otherwise You will navigate reality much differently depending on your view of it So what came first? The person or the idea

01:52 It's no surprise that ideas can spawn revolutions, collapse empires or give a nation a collective sense of purpose. And the powers-that-be throughout history have invested heavily in the worldview management of various pockets of people over time and investigating such threads can unravel into all sorts of interesting places Well, today's guest Gary Lachman knows this as well as anyone. Having written over 20 books and many of them being about ideas schools have thought worldviews and the people that have them with biographies of unique minds such as Alistair Crowley Rudolf Steiner Carl Jung Madame Blavatsky Colin Wilson and more He has also written vastly on subjects such as the evolution of consciousness The history of the occult Hermeticism Literary suicides And the influence of esotericism on politics and society

02:40 But that's not all folks, Gary also crafted an impressive music career was a founding member of the pop group Blondie and was even inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2006. What a life! His latest book tackles Russia's spiritual history, the philosophers, secret societies and mystics that shaped it and what the identity its cultivated could mean for the future of this island earth. It is called The Return Of Holy Russia Apocalyptic History Mystical Awakening And The Struggle For The Soul Of The World I'm psyched to get into it! The Blondie Basist, Mystic Biographer & Literary Legend Of Our Time Gary Lachman Welcome To The Higher Side

03:18 Well, thank you so much for having me on. Yeah man this is going to be a lot of fun I'm very intrigued by many of the unique minds you've written about i also really loved the return of holy russia So often our knowledge of history and culture is segmented into east and west And we struggle even understand the goings-on in our own geographical bubble let alone what goes on outside of it which just makes this book even more impressive But to get us started here, before we get into the return of Holy Russia because you have written close to two dozen books now and there are definitely some common themes. To elaborate on what I tried to summarize with that intro how would you describe the threads that weave through your work as a writer for the folks who haven't been initiated? Well i think you nailed it There's a couple of themes that I find myself coming back to

04:09 What is the evolution of consciousness and that's both in. Culture at large civilization go for these big projects any individual books like, what's your history of consciousness or secret teachers of the western world request for me to switch those which is about the mythical figure The price greatest her me is who is the supposed founder of the medic. Arts and philosophy in all that i mean all these deal with different ways we sort of consciousness how it's manifested different times in history and also about the kind of what you wanna call expand their cosmic or her medic consciousness which is,

04:52 More or less of a mystical kind of consciousness that we only experience every now and then i miss different people have been interested in the mean writing books about your pd spensky steiner it's been away too. Sort of get to understand their vision there major players in this history of consciousness and then basically two, Learn from them what i can and see how it all kind of fits together not working out a system but this is kinda fundamental kind of thing and i think one of the things that i found myself doing i didn't plan to do this but over time, appear to me this is sort of narrative that was going on its about finding a way to bridge over the gap between mainstream western intellectual tradition.

05:39 Which i'm also very interested in this kind of shadow tradition with his alternative tradition of the medic because it many places they do overlap and have informed each other and there are so involved engage with some basic things as well. I think this all links up also with current developments in neuroscience about the rebooting of the whole right brain left brain so story, show me how i'm trying to find a way to bring these two streams not necessarily together but to see where they're both parts of the same enterprise which is us. Very cool. Huge undertaking and just a really impressive body of work covering a lot of great stuff, and that is excellent context to break people in on this latest book The Return Of Holy Russia. It is a fascinating subject because there have been a lot of unique characters and ideas that have come out of Russia that we've talked about many times in the past – Immanuel Velikovsky, Madame Blavatsky, Rudolf Steiner, and Rasputin just to name a few

06:40 So to look at the breeding ground for such people and ideas is interesting enough, but it seems like a lot of these esoteric ideas are resurging in Russia. And maybe they are here in the States too to a degree because there are a lot of parallels in your book Dark Star Rising Magic and Power In The Age Of Trump. I guess these two books do kind of go together don't they? Well yeah! I mean...I wrote quite a bit about Russia contemporary Russia in Dark Star Rising because Overlap a connection between this kind of politics that seem to be happening around trump, that was radiating out and connecting with similar sorts of things going on in russia and other parts world as well. I originally considered this book to be real carry on from now okay i'm gonna be okay there's a lot left about russia like you go too. And it was going to focus on

07:36 The notion that i talk about it dogs are rushing about your age is this idea of. Russia not being just a new nation which it is now since the collapse of the soviet union and its first time in history that hasn't been an empire as far as i understand, what's the beginning of this new civilization that's rising up in twenty third century there's no way scores under There's this new rations of the station that's going to rise up in the twenty first century and i tried with the idea of a book. Focusing on that particular was gonna call it your age at dawn but then i thought that sounded like an exotic dancer so i decided not to go with that title and also wrote quite a bit about that and rising but

08:18 It is connected to that because it carries on from what i was writing about putin and people like vladislav serkoff who was his spin doctor in pr man in the two thousands and created this whole VR virtual reality russia 90 percent of the russian population apparently accepted as reality. What was all created for them but the real prompt for this book particularly and the notion of return to holy russia came from an article read About putin is two thousand fifteen at the annual meeting of russia united which is the main political party in russia, he gave his regional governor's a reading list and on this reading was where these russian philosophers from period in russian history before the bolshevik revolution known as the silver age.

09:08 that not too many people know about but it was a remarkable flowering and fluorescence of art literature and culture and also interested in this is spirituality and what we call the paranormal in the occult things are that sore and this was going on in europe as well places like paris and london as well but it's particularly feverish, particularly intense in places like saint petersburg so i was that interesting me that world leader would be asking is regional governor's to read these philosophers but then i saw the response of this from west some of the western commentators.

09:44 And while I'm not trying to defend Putin in any way, I do think the people he was suggesting his regional governors to read deserved to be taken seriously. And I thought the response from the Western critics like David Brooks of The New York Times was rather kind of narrow-minded and simplistic and portraying people like Nikolai Berdyov and Vladimir Solovyov who were two of the philosophers from this time, the Silver Age that Putin suggested as regional governors to read You know he was so diminishing them and seeing them as these only is the soda messianic what we will call exceptional list spiritual political thinkers, i'm promoting this kind of pan russian universalism which in a way they are but not the way that he was portraying it so that interest me and then it seems to be part of this whole tactic or strategy.

10:36 Attempt who is making to reclaim this period is pre bolshevik which was it was powerfully creative and enormous i mean people extra vinski right spring came out of that in the other day i got left thats kinda like one little bit that many people might know but there's a bigger larger. How movement behind it and because she's been going through this identity crisis is one of the things that happened with the collapse of the soviet union we're not marxist anymore but communists, i'm in the attempt to establish western sort of free market you know values and. Democracy didn't really take a new interest free fall

11:15 So i was just really interested so what does it mean but what's holy russia and that's what i'm doing this book i didn't start how to write a history of russia but around the doing because i realize they don't know anything about russia and i just became fascinated learning better desert road. Yeah and that relates quite well to what i was gonna bring up is it you mentioned in this book that rudolf steiner said that the russian mind is exceedingly difficult to understand from the western point of view, and now is a relief to read because its not just me but talk about why this is what makes our minds so different.

11:52 What is the central thing is different so that the western mind is logical. And linear and sequential it's practical and it's all about science understanding the world in, where not to say that doesn't go on russia i don't mean to suggest that at all but there is well this a character talk about second chapter of the Russian man and this was a theme that German novelist herman has a road in the short little book basically about the novels of the ski is the great russian novelists of the nineteen century. Russian man is this paradoxical contradictory characters use capacious personality that can embrace opposites,

12:42 So you mentioned mass putin is a good example although i don't know what the cliches about but book written about it because the holy devil. No so you have the opposites there to rush and man as a sinner in the same team's criminal poet, no he said drunkard and mystic. Is judge and victim of all these kinds things at once and this turbulent protein kind of character What's something that radically different than the western idea and has to portray it as a kind of threat i mean how so two is sort of writing. Well accepting the notion that europe isn't declined in this was something that was

13:23 What kind of common theme in the early twentieth century i mean the big book is the decline of the west by oswald spangler talk about him too much bangla and steiner and hesa they all see in this. Protein you know kinda turbulent russian character that possibility of a kind of cultural rebirth in steiner talks about this new culture epoch starting i mean the eta for the real cultural apoc is maybe a millennia down the line but he sort of sees the beginnings of it appearing in russian soul and again has to rush man is this chaotic turbulent. Individual but it's like the premium material and alchemy you have to get down to this kind of matter that's not fully formed in and out of that something positive appear. And spangler two sees the west is going down with russia is this new kinda thing so totally different sensibility i mean spangler makes a difference he paints an easy metaphor if you think about cathedrals charter note your dog

14:24 the spire reaching up into the sky reaching up to heaven sets the western i the western ego independent. searching striving forward to the heavens and he says where the westerner looks up at the sky the russian looks out. What's out against the endless steps in this horizon you know that plane and this is the eurasian continent this is the mother of all continents was endless kind of flat land and all that and this also creates a different kind of social sensibility so we're the west thinks of me Russian things of we know they have this notion together sober notes. This kind of communal sort of sense and hence is one reason why something like communism, who's easy to sit in there than saying other places in the west so i mean again what are the things that happen when i've done these interviews and it's funny because it has been with. So american interviewers and america myself ignore but live in london now for twenty five years but i'm going to be american and

15:26 Russia means USSR. I mean, it's almost like Germany is the Nazis We've kind of outgrown that a bit because Germany has you know been nice and has done lots of good things over the Russians Russians have I guess that's the thinking I'm just saying but still That's the thing I have to say well yeah You're right right but this we're not talking about the USSR were talking about Russia and Russia had this whole you know character one of the reasons the USSR emerged is because of this contradictory Paradoxical character of russia itself in the nineteenth century. Well you're really good at writing about things from neutral ground and things that i guess make people pretty emotional i'm not necessarily emotional about, that sort of stuff and variety is the spice of life and to quote the book when you do write about russia today you say to think of russia home of gangland politics and ostentatious oligarchs

16:20 as more morally sensitive than the West may seem counterintuitive. But in Putin's Russia, the extreme liberalism and permissiveness that characterize Western society—its anything-goes sensibility—smacks of little more than decadence and our commercialization of practically everything reeks of selfishness and ego gratification Steiner's independent western eye turned into a gluttonous consuming me and I just think that's pretty good summary there. Well i mean that's the argument i mean one, the thing today is that it's not a cold war between capitalism and communism anymore what it is its this kind of class of civilizations or a kind of moral standoff where you do have from putin's point of view

17:12 I mean whether he accepts this in earnest or whether this is a political strategy that's another question but this is how you know the sort of. The opposition is appearing No he sees the west as i said this kind of goodness me is what i call the economy where everything is available everything's negotiable i mean everything is up for grabs and that was one of the things that dogs are rising reality is completely malleable now we've entered this phase where. Reality is up for grabs post truth alternative facts you can do anything u want, and there's really no boundaries anymore in the west is really know resistance to

17:48 Someone wanting something whether it's being recognized as another sex or gender or you know something else whatever is this like a dozen to be anything that's stopping this kind of. What are the ultra liberalism in the sense of laissez faire economics everything is part of market and again no, where does your strategy weather he feels an earnest that's a different question but russia presenting itself has this bearer of traditional values No traditional family roles traditional gender roles you know. Traditional religious ideas traditional belief in send all these sorts of things and yes it seems counterproductive when the picture we have is a set of these are some faces or legacy gangster politics that doesn't necessarily don't necessarily exclude each other i mean that's one of the things you know, add again i'm not promoting

18:45 who is this kind of vision of traditional values i'm just saying this is the opposition now. And it's kinda moral standard and he says this in quite a few speeches and this is one of the interesting things that i mentioned and dogs are rising where there was, the new york times ran a story about steve bannon when he was still on trump's team where you get to talk to select group of very conservative churchman at the vatican i think they call the committee on human dignity or something like that And one of the things is going on the usual stuff he talks about was you started talking to put me said you like them in a room where everybody liked him because he stood for traditional values and then he kind of. Link stutter conflate that with traditionalism pussy name checks ever love in there,

19:31 And then he also says there's someone in Putin's kind of circle who reads Evelin, this is his fellow Alexander Dugan who I talk about in Dark Star Rising and I talk about it a little bit in Return to Holy Russia. He has been someone who has been promoting the Eurasia meme or he was...I don't keep track because I do not know what he was doing now but he was up until the time when I was writing that book So there's this connection between traditional hierarchical holy russia you know the third row after the collapse of the first roman and fourteen fifty three constantinople which was, the capital of eastern empire which carried on for a millennium more or less after. The class of in italy.

20:13 The monarchy lapsed by that time russia had converted to use the orthodox. And it became the russian orthodox church in moscow became the center of it so it has his whole history, i mean the west america you know there's a separation of church and state or at least that supposed to be the case so it isn't quite you don't have this symbiosis different times in russian history is actually a theocracy Where either the metropolitan of the patriarch you know that the church was running things or bizarre. Self was so taken with sort of creating a kind of monastic life throughout the whole country i mean i've been terrible example this so religion and say something much more closer than it's much more close to the

21:01 Russian identity to me again the states is kind of freedom of religion so you can be different religions you can be whatever difference what's up things where is it wasn't quite like that. Russia was very much she russian and your restaurant to know obviously had a pagan culture no matter how talk about that blending in there too so its this kind of, Connection between these two things that the west we don't quite get it seems like something that you know maybe i was like that a long time ago but. It's not like in the modern world yeah its really interesting how our environment does influence us because if you were to ask me i wouldn't be all that concerned with

21:41 the shape of say american man or the american mindset cuz i think i live in the counterculture yet if i travel the world that but i come across is quite stereotypically american and it's just funny how that works out because it does have an effect whether you really want to acknowledge it or not and americans definitely know the liberal conservative, tug of war very well and every perspective is gonna have its pros and cons so it's good to look at any world view or any philosophy can go off the rails are being used in ways that we don't like and has an ugly side but i'd like to look at these things pretty objectively and

22:18 And one of the big themes in this book is that there is a collective purpose or destiny for Russia. That's kind of why it's important to get this context. Steiner talked about this saying that, "...the fifth epoch of post-Atlantean consciousness evolution was developing the individual I or ego." Thanks America for carrying that torch! But the sixth epoch would be of empathy and feeling the pain of others as our own and that you could already see glimmers of this in the Russian people like you mentioned even Edgar Cayce prophesies that on Russia's religious development will come the great hope of the world and there are even more intuitions and prophecies that you write about that have this same shape. And I guess i would ask do you see these prophecies coming to light?

23:08 Well i don't know i mean i see them as certainly being more in the air and atmosphere around russia these days as far as i'm aware of it you know i not there haven't been there don't speak russian so i can just pick up from what i gather on the internet basically doing research. But see, this was another reason I was fascinated that Putin was referring back to these philosophers from the Silver Age. Because as you say Steiner and others and people like Alice Bailey and Walter Schubart who is a German philosopher who wrote Russia and the West or something like that

23:44 And i got it was this idea that what the destiny crusher was supposed to fulfill before the bolsheviks came when is going to be, where you combining the best of the west and the best of the east together to create something that. More than either of those who's bigger than if you know hagel ideas of thesis and antithesis in the get-together make synthesis so this is supposed to be something that russia in the whole geopolitical world and his world historical Context was supposed to bring about and this is the great hope that has a nice line or no there's so again this is before the bolsheviks remember you know what is it was western. What does not come out of russia in russia was the last place where

24:29 Mark said expected the revolution to happen was supposed to happen in germany which is the most industrialized nation in europe at that time and it happened in medieval russia you know what's your best friend in the middle ages with these millions and millions of service is kind of you know very very backward compared to the west standard living and civilization so bolsheviks were completely western import. And you know the whole story with germany weaponized london during world war one when russia was involved in world war one, add soldiers millions of them that was about it

25:07 They often went into battle with just rifles with bayonets and no bullets. Often they didn't even have the rifles, they just kept throwing and there's all the turmoil around and all that in Rasputin and this kind of thing. And if you know Nicholas and Alexandra story, The Last Days Of The Romanovs it is a fantastic historical drama but then Lenin has been exiled from Russia because his political activities and he is weaponized by the Kaiser because the Kaiser knows that if he sends him back to Russia he'll create all this turmoil Will destabilize the situation and that's precisely what happens when he comes out of this school of nineteen century revolutionaries. The earliest manifestation of a group called the new men who were ruthlessly practical,

25:53 About taking over the government in order to create this new. More equitable society and so on and so on yeah they had a wonderful names but means they employed to achieve those things often, not notified them by any case that was ruthless group of revolutionary revolution or leave you take control do whatever is necessary take control and guide the populace slowly and safely towards this new class society which never came into existence but this is completely western import so, what was it took there because russia was going to explode in one way or another anyway because the whole nineteenth century was

26:33 It was like what was happening in Russia because of the serfs and all these other forms of inequality had created this thing that was boiling over. And most of the czars, what they did was try to keep a lid on tighter you know? Oddly enough, the one who did try to change things, he didn't have some progressive views and it freed the serf Alexander II, he was assassinated so explosion is going to happen there and Lenin happened to be the match but then they took over Great context and yes it seems like russia obviously had a bloody changing of the guard but before that was this silver age that you've mentioned and the book you wrote covers.

27:15 more of the depth and complexity of Russian history than I'd ever read before, but the major focus is this Silver Age of 1890 to 1920. As you say a time of magic and mysticism And this is the age of Steiner and Blavatsky and a very fertile time for esoteric philosophy in Russia. You say that one of the major points of the book Is that even 100 years later we still have a lot to learn from these people outside of predictions of russia's destiny what are some other things that the stages of the silver age emphasize that you think we'd be wise to reconsider today. What one of the points i try to make it into the book is this kind of. Approach between east and west still something thats needed but not necessarily in a geopolitical sense but, that was one manifestation of about the other that was more better

28:14 Was the whole approach of Russian philosophy and basically what I try to say in the book is what these. I mean russian philosophy doesn't really start until the late 19th century you have social thinkers your moralists political things but the sense of russian philosophy in a way that we can understand philosophy metaphysics and ontology things like that sort, that gets going with this photo by the missile of the late nineteenth century His main thrust is that there's a crisis in western philosophy which was being recognized by western philosophers as well. and simply put the crisis was that it was increasingly becoming materialistic and not necessarily in the economic way we are but that itself is a byproduct of this philosophical materials basically the only really real thing, any existence in matter physical forces energy notions spirit or soul world these are just kind of confusions of language let's say or superstitions from past then once you understand that

29:13 The brain is the brain and there's no such thing as the mind of the soul or something like that will be able to help fundamentally. Take control of this matter and create a better world i mean in one word sense, both lennon or the new man these radical revolutionaries from eighteen seventies that does he writes about his novel the devils And the kind of western view of the psyche are very similar. They're both kinda based on John Locke, the notion that there's nothing in the mind that doesn't get there through the senses So we're all kinda born like empty flats and then you have to go to Ikea and buy a lot of stuff when you come back and fill up our flat and then we have furnished flat The equivalent of IKEA for human psyche is all this stuff coming in from the senses so it has no soul It was like, y'know, we're empty, we're blank, taboo-yaraza as John Locke said

30:01 You know it's all nurture if you create the proper environment you can write on that blank slate whatever u want and love you have been, before him or alongside of him does the fc because they were friends. And other great russian writers and poets for that no there was a saying oh no there is this old white subtitles struggle with the soul world And this is another reason why when Russian literature explodes in the West, and I mean people like Dostoevsky Tolstoy and others they have this passion at this intensity about these fundamental kind of questions about the soul. The meaning of life and all that there's a story that Nikolai Prodaev who was one of these philosophers from the silver age tells how there are group of poets and writers hanging out in a cafe

30:49 It's four o'clock in the morning and the cafe owner wants to close and they say we can't close you haven't decided whether god exists or not i have to carry on me never really excited about these kinds of things in a way that by the time date. Can you ever to the west it was overpowering great western writers want if he look like flow there does the ski i mean who is a great writer, wonderful style and all that but he doesn't have kind of the looks at things from a distance you know it's kinda observing. Is characters like this if they're under my group scope what does yes can you just feel him no he is engaged with every too much using hysterical times but there's an overflowing passion in order, i'm not sure the difference where the russian wants his art to save him

31:37 Art has to have a salvific character to it. Whereas in the West, in the West that has to satisfy us and we have an aesthetic experience from there but we don't really expect it to perform this kind of religious or spiritual transformation which in Russia they did because one of their first along with introduction of Greek Orthodox Christianity was for means of introducing it were the icons you know these fantastic Translucent brightly glittering paintings of jesus and mary in the saints and things of that sort. They're called windows on another world

32:15 Florence games what's your game is one of the people i write about and it was told by the other part is transformative you know that's a point to spiritual kind of function if it doesn't do that then its just glitter. Right when you have famous writers like nicolai gogol and tell story towards the end of their careers rejecting art and throwing themselves into this religious life in all that Yeah the way we look at art is definitely something i wanted to talk a little bit more about and. We have had previous guests who have talked about this with the american identity that when the new atlantis was being formed, the rose accretions these people who do you have an affinity for

32:59 depth and spirituality they recognize that this new nation didn't have much of an identity that it was very shallow and. Courtland dollars a guess i had who is looked back at certain writers the time sir francis bacon even looking in admiral and poe insane that when you look at these guys you can see that actually were connected to riders guilds that were seated from, people like the rosicrucians and the goal was to create art in literature or these easter terry mysteries within america to kind of seed this identity and culture trying to like maybe back cast it or make up for lost time because they saw the importance

33:40 of an identity amongst a people. And that was kind of the first time I thought of it as all that important, but it's coming up again so it does seem really interesting especially when you factor in that a lot of it has roots and secret societies which is just provocative to me. Oh yeah! I mean certainly Well i mean in america i think you have people like emerson the transcendental listen all that and. The pushes towards this it's the new world to know he taps into eastern metaphysics medicine other people around the transcendentals did as well and be absolutely right they knew about the secretions and, what sort of thing but this kind of vision of leaving the old world behind and no open frontier you know this kind of new dawn ahead of us and he says there are so many new dawns waiting to happen

34:29 But that comes in at a later date in the russian history and again you have to remember you know talking about america is what two hundred something little bit more years old i mean, i got people think about russia they think soviet union which lasted seventy years rush itself. Is it good millennium also and again that's considered a young country when you look at other places here i am england goes back then someone someone but they later had this whole vision of the future well Around the same time is a silver age or just after you have these very progressive future oriented characters known as the cosmos. Who are these fantastic ideas in a federal which is this remarkable character who does he know and so if new as well who had this incredible idea that, what do you call the common task you know the one main initiative that could unite all humanity would be

35:28 The reviving of the dead and he meant is literally not a spiritual sense this is an argument got into it so love you because he also be the resurrection but he's thinking well isn't a spiritual asurrection in front of no actually we have to. He didn't know how was going to happen but do you know what happened and somehow we would collect all the dust that all the bodies that have died in the past have turned into and reform them into the bodies they had and then we could read revive them and because, you have all these people we have to have a place to put them and then that meant we would have to go out of space. And this weird idea about literally reviving dead led to well it basically laid the roots of the russian space program is one of those

36:16 Students what this fellow who sat at his feet for a while later on to do the whole. Rocket science that would be to the russian space program very really strange kind of thing there, but even that whole thing i mean all these the cosmos is other ones they all have connection to sort of mystical very very strange ideas We certainly think they're strange in the west but they seem to be very open you know to them to a greater degree than russian. I mean everybody knows all the stories about that notice of it interesting psychic warfare and remote viewing doing the same kinds of things that the us was doing and all that i'm gonna tell stories about that book as well

36:57 Mm-hmm. And you are right that the world or humanity has a lot of spiritual repair to do Thanks empires and Let's talk about that space program a little more because that was a question I had for you on this long list and It was kind of regarding James Bruce who seemed like a really interesting character, uh russians first astronomer and he had a lot of crazy isoteric interest and it just makes me think about how steeped in the occult the birth of america's rocketry program was with jack parsons and all that there's a lot of real parallels to russia space program and i just find that so weird what is it abou

37:38 These two subject matters that seem quite different that all but also it seems in reality are quite intertwined tell us a little bit about russia's space program and the east of terrorism in it americans might not be aware. Well i mean you gonna say people interested in outer space or out of this world you can say and so what is your so the people that are interested in the occult ideas well let me talk with james bruce when he was someone who was, hey friend of peter great and Again, Peter the Great he's a great westernizer of Russia and there is some debate whether he was initiated into Freemasonry or not but he certainly was interested in it. And at the time I mean Freemasonry to us seems like still one of these strange old boys kind of secret society but at that time it was one of the means through which modern ideas spread. Modern social ideas, egalitarianism things of that sort

38:34 other sorts of ideas but i mean you have no the phone is talking about who was kind of sitting at the feet of federal business feeling constantine silikovsky and, the idea that federal had that we would have to go out into find habitable planets out in space in order to house all of the. Revive dead which strikes us as just a bad kinda idea what he was sort of inspired by that actually forget how can we actually do that And he's the one who actually developed, you know, the science and the math to be able to figure out the rocket thrusts and so on. His ideas were absorbed into sort of Russian later on in space program by the time of 50s and all that I mean... He started work before the revolution and then he was absorbed into it and things like that sort. A lot these people would put out in the sticks there is place called Kaluga where they was sent too and others were sent out there

39:33 There was a whole kind of community of scientists and visionaries that gathered around there. And now it's the place of pilgrimage, and now there is a museum to him and to Fedorov and all those. All these ideas have come back. There was a lot of interest in the early 20th century around the time of the Bolshevik revolution in the effect of planetary forces on the Earth. This fellow named Vernadsky he's one of the ones who were first talking about what we call the biosphere and then the newest sphere in the sense that we know that mostly through Teo de Chardin, but actually Teo de Chardin sat in on some of Vernadsky's lectures. And it's unclear who actually coined the term first though there was another fellow whose name escapes me now who apparently was the one who first coined it but Vernadsky sort of took it on and as you say there is a real interest to the notion of viewing humanity unlike the West saw us as some chance occurrence

40:34 And this meaningless chance universe and no life just happened by chance and then. You and being with consciousness just happened by chance through you know during evolution survival of the fittest in chance mutations and so on so on but they tended to see. Humanity as another sort of expression of the earth itself, just those trees are in the oceans were not gonna think this is an idea that if you know your girl jeff if you know insertion miraculous which is peter use ben skis account of his years with her job During world war one and the russian revolution in the russians civil war incidentally it's sort of the. The book most people go to want to get a clear idea what your ideas were about the story behind that is this adventure that was spent speaking japanese over on with the backdrop of a collapsing russia, rusha falling apart

41:31 And so many ways there sort of story itself is a kind of microcosm of the whole history of russia because you have this kinda spiritual adventure against this turbulent backdrop of collapse and chaos in, catastrophe and all that but one of the things that tells us when ski. In this book is how the planets in the sun and moon effects human affairs And how if the planets get too close together or something like that then what happens on the earth is wars break out over other massive social events and the moon is feeding off. The souls of human beings and if we,

42:10 Go to several food for the moon meaning that if we don't work to wake up you know his idea was that will sleep and. We have to go through a series of very difficult psychological processes in order to change your weightfulness if i dont do that then were just getting off all our animations up to the moon and all that so, i mean whether you take that literally or not is another story but when ask me certainly took it seriously that there are cosmic influences influencing Events on the earth and other scientists to have ski was another one who actually. Study solar sunspots in a two sunspot cycles any had a whole theory about how the sunspots affect human affairs, any map doubt you know when is high level of sunspot activity wars broke out revolutions happened things that's what i'm there something about this very strong

43:04 Sensibility in the russian psyche and i think this goes back to this notion of the we rather than me where is really interested in sort of, sing humanity as a whole add something that's not exceptional too. The cosmos but part and parcel of it and you know what minutes leave Inescapably and the whole idea this notion of free will that the West likes I can choose to do this or choose to do that is something as many ways antithetical to the Russian mind. It's not about me it's not about what you choose, its about us its how we all work together and were all part in this great system but he got into trouble with Stalin

43:45 No even though she's just these ideas were celebrated taking seriously and he did a lot of work on ozone in the air effects. You behavior in the sun spots are supposed to be somehow related to. I am still ionization that is the ionization negative ions somehow the sunspot activity increases negative ions in the atmosphere and that makes us all kind of jittery and anxious we want to do something so we go have a war revolution or something like that But in any case, Stalin figured out like well hold on you're saying the sunspots created the revolution not uh you know. Hard work! Well not you know not the unstoppable march of Marxist scientific dialectical history whatever it is and so he said you have to recant and he didn't and he wound up getting his hands slapped and all that kind of stuff

44:37 Again it's very different than we like this idea that seems like a new idea us now because it seems like its part of the very eco friendly where you should see the world and thats one reason why is there a lot of ideas. Time that parallel a lot of ideas back the new age or alternative culture whatever you want to call it seem very interested in this is something that the institute of the coast. We're interested in back in late nineties because they were involved in a whole kind of exchange, Program with people in russia and they discovered that what is the scratcher rushing you find a mistake they found that no we had all the weirdos going to them at the institute which is this wonderful place to spiritual retreat then big sir, i was just there last year's fantastic place and

45:23 All the weirdos used to go there you know siphoned off from the main culture but he said in russia that most everybody people that came to specifically with a kind of people we bumped into all the time so this is whole, open this city sort of alternative ideas. That is not again more people interested in the west now than ever was but it's still something that mainstream just thinks this is kind of rubbish yes yes alternative ideas are my bread and butter i really did love that part of the book and just those ideas about cosmic forces influence in the earth sunspot activity jiving with the ebbs and flows of war

46:00 And even Alexander Humboldt gets a mention in that little section of your book, which if that's the same Alexander Humboldt I know. He was one who propagated a lot of the Hollow Earth stuff which is another big interest of mine and pops up in the world views some of these figures you've written about here and there I'm doing it. I actually opened a book you mentioned alexander humboldt but i don't know miss alexander von humble which is probably the same guy what, he doesn't make it to the index so much just been named drop i think it was but i grabbed onto it for dear life cuz its all over the reference potentially yeah well i mean all of those you know me and i don't think that's where the hell were saying the book again

46:41 You talked about these ideas becoming very popular again and that's precisely what happened with the collapse of the soviet union. Once the bolsheviks came to power all this kind of stuff eventually was just for both mixing languages but in yet we don't want any of that although underground both in the, soviet power structure itself and people it was kinda still going on different ways late fifties early sixties it was the cruise ship after stalin died and then it wasn't enough and there is kind of a flowering in the sixties of. Likewise going on in the west muted not exactly what kinda way but still interest in these kinds of things and books like,

47:26 Morning of the magicians you know this fantastic book by powers and bears here that kick started the cult revival in nineteen sixties is published in paris in nineteen sixty and then it became a big bestseller. By mid decade the cult in mystical is that most popular thing in the world and then you know impression of came to power all that crushed but then. You know with perestroika and all that it opened up again and certainly with the fall of soviet union all this stuff had been banned was available again have this fantastic resurgence of all these kind of ideas because miss people are talking about the silver age people

48:04 Steiner that ski nicholas roe rick who's another figure from the silver age. Who is this fantastic russian painter mystic also explore and he in nineteen twenties well nineteen twenty seven thirty three try twice to establish a pan buddhist, nation in the heart of inner mongolia he tried to get the post office interested first time in the twenties and thirties you actually have us back These are just some of the kinds of stories. So all these kinds of people, it was like a flowering again with all this kind stuff and also there's new indigenous manifestations of Russian spirituality. There is a new kind of native Slavic religion that's emerging or kind of native pagan religion going back to their pre-Christian roots in these Slavic gods and goddesses and so on and then there is the whole Anastasia

48:56 I don't know if you heard about us that's the reason this is hold a new movement coming out of russia based on what are called the ringing cedars. Siberia and it's kind of tree that is supposed to have this mystical spiritual properties and Fundamentally is a writer who's there he meets this woman knows all about the sand she initiate send into the religion or you know the ideas and all that and then you know he's given up, task to write books about it and spread the message on they become immensely popular if what they say on the website is true apparently very popular in states so there's a resurgence of all these kinds of things.

49:33 Or they're not as we say, they're not as left field as they still are in the West. I mean they still...I'm trying to think you know okay i wrote a book about Trump and im not saying he's consciously involved in any kind of magical sorts of things although he is a devotee positive thinking but i think in the background around him this stuff going on but then you had mary williamson comes in and she was supposed to be kinda white magic political person and that one person who was up for awhile What i understand from what i read about the seven russia does a lot of that stuff happening it's in the news a lot and it was like which is group that was. Pro putin doing these spells to feed all this enemies and things of that sort so again you know whether thats something, i have no idea how much he takes seriously although you know who's very much involved in the resurgence of the church there too and

50:22 One thing i mentioned this book and also in dark so rising you know the whole his incursions into crania and ukraine. No two thousand fourteen whatever and carrying on is good reason to believe these are part of this vision of trying too, can someone create this kind of your agent world that was talking about earlier and one recently what were the ukrainians russia not this is history but he had that's where it all starts Right on yes and you are right these ideas do seem to be resurgent all over the place i interviewed christopher mccintosh about a book called beyond the north wind the fall and rise of the mystic north because these old pagan ideas the old pagan gods they're coming back in iceland too like their having a big

51:10 resurgence of their old pagan ways too. It's just kind of interesting how ideas propagate around the world and seem to have a life on their own when we draw them down to our level. Well, it's true. It was funny you should mention Christopher. I just got an email from him as he read this book telling me that he enjoyed it and now he is working on a book about Russia as well but I guess we're all going through a kind of identity crisis I have this notion talk about it and i call the trickle down metaphysics is basically that. What hundred years ago was finished talking about the advent of nihilism meaning the belief in nothing or,

51:54 The recognition that all the beliefs we had hitherto are no longer tenable, whether it's religion or even notion of progress or even the notion sort of science in a sense of science giving us the truth in some way. And when he first announces this, he says well if you know Zarathustra, he tries to tell people and they have no interest and he is saying I don't write for today and I do not write for tomorrow or for day after tomorrow And it strikes me that we're kind of living on an everyday level what he was warning about back in the 1880s. And it gradually came down from these metaphysical heights and then goes through

52:29 different layers of academia german philosopher martin heidegger picks up on the idea. He chooses a client in the west and you say we made it wrong turn at playdough so we gotta go back, back to playdoh back to the pre socratics and he starts. He begins what became known as the deconstruction of western metaphysics and then next generation actively call the construction is shocked and others in the whole aim was to take apart this whole western logo centric kind of thing but initially that seems liberating and you know cause for celebration but they don't have anything to put in its place. And so once the demolition work, is over yet just what are we gonna build here and there's no central idea and that's why it's a variety different challenging ideas

53:17 You have both resurgence of paganism archaic beliefs and you have this futurist in the transhuman is a little idea that we're going to go beyond who we are new men are gonna be sort of, what bionic man some point you know kids are gonna buy a bionic arm twenty years from now. Will they be able to lift five hundred pounds or something like that so thats all happening at the same time again this is you can say this is this protein turbulent Possibly creative chaos that has a was talking about hundred years ago it's not specifically russian but it's kind of taken over in the certain sense. I'm looking around for an identity what's the most incendiary topic and politics today is identity politics generation identity who are we everyone wants to do that in different ways then

54:04 It isn't like we all wanted to be back in the 60s. We're all, you know it's a small world after all. We're all like in a big Benetton ad, what used to be. We were kind of arms on each shoulders and there was the white kid and black kid and Asian whatever. It's not like that. Everybody is their own little gang basically. Their own little group of people who they identify with groups fighting against groups. What I call The War Of All Against All in Dark Star Rising And we're still in the midst of that. I don't think we're gonna come out at any time soon, but the dangerous thing in some ways is if someone does come around with a very strong idea of some kind of unity that's going to be very attractive and Putin is someone who has done that in Russia Trump I would say is somebody trying to or has done it in the States and they are both doing it in this sense of trying to return to former glory let's make America great again and this notion of holy russia

54:59 It got the name Holy Russia after the Napoleonic Wars, because Russia defeated Napoleon just like Russia defeated the Nazis in the end of World War II. So it was like the savior in russia and nepalian wars russia is the savior of the west of savior of all the monarchies is a favor you know all that. It stopped this kind of revolution every route and maintain this character of you know the genre of europe, did maintain order up until the late century when it's sort of for part And you know a lot about a lot and before we run out of time the last little section i wanted to kind of save some time for is this soviet side research you do touch on it briefly noting that its been written at length elsewhere so, you just kinda breeze through it but i don't get an opportunity to talk to guests about it very often cuz i dont know many people who are knowledgeable about what's interesting to me is comparing in contrasting

56:00 the russian and american mind sets and approaches to things in the context of their side research how would you say there explorations of consciousness in the soviet union compared to the mk ultra stuff because they seem far less obsessed with control and weaponizing the research is there a little bit but they also seem to have that spirit of how can we learn about elevation of consciousness or elevation of man through these studies i mean is that the sense you get well as i said i think there's an underlying.

56:36 interest or openness for propensity to the sorts of things in the russian solar psyche more so than saying the west who especially america which is kind of like what was west about europe even more west obviously, geographically but. I think in the west of a sort of like okay is this something that we can actually use is there practical value to this and i think often when they discover it's interesting so that but we can't really weaponize just like they couldn't really recognize, lsd because it was unpredictable you could predict how someone was going to respond to it.

57:14 So as far as i understand you know they checked it out that tried to introduce the two hippies and then no they dropped it is particular thing. I just think what i understand you know again in a story so we can but its russians, did they have more of a kind of open this to it and i mean there's Things that i didn't even know about going back to the early period so we can people like maxine gorky who's like the great. So writer from the early soviet period is sort of like a jack london kind of russia you wrote lots of stories about, different walks of life and that sort of thing but he was deeply deeply interested in what we were called mental science or no the ability of mine to be able to create reality and he

58:03 try to get people like stalin interested in it he worked with different scientists and philosophers who were working on it, the different ways in russia into this is supposed to be a way in order to spread the message so it had a practical application but the application wasn't necessarily initially to weaponize it was able to. Again we We think of it as kind of mind control but these are people who idealist initially so they didn't really believe they really did believe in the values that. Revolution was supposed to be about in early days you could understand that there's a wonderful euphoria next season up possibility this later that died out and then is the wonderful story about, these two characters alexander park channeling web bucky

58:49 Who were involved in this whole attempt to introduce variety of different. Is it a practice is and disciplines and philosophies and parapsychology and also sort of the search for some ball on the head, what he himself was head of security in the early days and In the early days of the revolution just like during the french revolution there was a terror where. People are getting assassinated left and right murdered in just locked up until this kind of purge, add initially he felt okay this is necessary in order to create the new age but it became second with that

59:32 And he came into contact with the cell where chanco who was a student of writing different practices and is also one of these. People are very interested in what's happening to bed and long story short they both came together to try and work to get funding for them to journey to bet, Because they wanted to bring back knowledge of the spiritual practices for which they were able to actually. In view the revolution with the true values that i got lost in this murderous purge and all that kind of thing you want it to actually imbue this notion of brotherhood man coming out compassion peace and all that but also they believe that

1:00:16 Hidden away in the monasteries was this kind of super science is kind of. Write a different energy and powers enforces that were not known to the west yet but the tobacco news new them and it's something that if you know what song ronpa What the third i am he was a plumber from devon here but it's a guy who wrote all these books about his past life in tibet. Very popular fifties videos of book called the cave of the ancients and this is about what the super science is supposed to be hidden away in a cave in tibet somewhere and its kept secret unavailable until such time as you know humanity has matured,

1:00:52 And then they can use these powers for good i don't know if we got quite there yet but these guys are really interested in that and they try to get the funding they tried to get the influence will be due they failed in the end of both fell victim to some purges. And it carries on until as you say, it carries on into the 60s and 70s. I talked about the de-Stalinization after Stalin's death and the Khrushchev Thaw. All this kind of stuff that again becomes very available and open. So there is underlying interest in this sort of thing that isn't quite the same as in the West We'll look into it and see if we can use it for some purpose but

1:01:32 If that is an immediately made clear then we can move on where i think this will be general kind of fundamental. Sympathy with it there and makes it just kinda part of the whole culture. Well said and you must be reading my mind because i definitely wanted to bring up the, Shambhala pilgrimage plan but i was like it's been almost two hours i can't bring that up in the last few minutes but you slid in there anyway so good stuff i'm always interested in that kind of thing and. There is just so much great content and this latest book and got twenty others to come over when people are done with this one and i am envious of your work ethic but before we go is anything else to leave the people with your website or social media stuff where should they follow-up if they want more

1:02:18 Well i'm on twitter and facebook and have my own little blog that's all lowercase one word gary lachman g.a.r.y. l.e.c. h.m.n dot c o dot u k And you can check out my posts and you can leave a message for me there if you want. Yeah, what can I say? It's been nothing but a pleasure and thank you so much for devoting so much time to talking about this! Oh, for sure very easy to do it's been a wild ride and i learned so much from this book your wealth of information thanks for taking the time and keep doing what you do My pleasure Oh, oh it's magic people Gary Lachman the man to meet the legend been on my list for a long long time and I'm glad we could finally make it happen. He has written so many interesting books and I am not sure Holy Russia would have been my first choice just by looking at it

1:03:14 Russia is very politicized right now, people have Russiagate fatigue. But once I really got into the book, I realized just how many figures in it are people we talk about all the time particularly in occult philosophy that came from Russia or more specifically that Silver Age so...I'm very thankful to have actually read it! It's sad really that these sorts of eras are so fragile, and bloody revolutions and times of turmoil. And authoritarian leadership...and top-down censorship it can just stuff it all right back in the box for decades! You could say there are some real parallels to our times today because this interview comes right on the heels of a show with Joseph Farrell that was removed from YouTube

1:04:04 Of course, I think we're pretty far from the idea of book burning in the modern world. But in the digital landscape... We are letting this kind of thing happen! As Joseph Farrell said why do you think they call it Kindle? Really over just last six months we've all gotten several lessons and just how quickly society can change And when we see these warning signs we got to start fighting back before they have all the momentum Obviously we are seeing that now Another thing i like about an author with a cult context is that they sometimes biographies ideas like they are actually alive tracking their potency and everything in a way that it's pretty similar to chronicling someone's life. It's very cool we didn't save much time for the connection between art and that spiritual perspective that archer inspire you and bring you closer to the divine,

1:05:00 Obviously, Russia isn't the only country that went through a period where that was the dominant idea. But as my own worldview has shifted over the course of this show I see the value in that type of thinking and how art really can devolve when that spiritual component of society is missing Just think about the divergent paths of arts purpose being for entertainment versus inspiration It's a huge difference If you notice entertainment folds into inspiration with inspiration you get both with entertainment you just get the shallow. Screensaver for your eyes and ears which is basically what american entertainment is in general when the focus is just on being entertained bright lights bright colors,

1:05:50 You lose that mental stimulation and you end up with Fly Like a G6 and Cardi B rather than A Ladder to the Astral Realm Built Out of Piano Keys. So yeah, I wish our times had more depth but when you work it backwards it does all seem to come from the worldview that a culture has We see no point in that kind of art because the dominant paradigm thinks that consciousness is an illusion of the brain And there IS NO spiritual bridge to build I know we bring it back to this kind of thing so often, but it's because so many roads do lead back to well what is your fundamental worldview? Your personal metaphysics as Gordon might say. And you do get to choose it obviously you can't control the whole culture but you can develop your own process for navigating it in your own way that should be obvious but sometimes it's good to have a reminder that if we don't vibe with the time and place were in

1:06:51 It's important to not give it too much credit and just create your own. So great stuff from Gary today, a much needed mental break from the relentless news cycle Don't get me wrong I support the protests I think a lot of these concerns have been boiling up for a long time and addressing them is well overdue My wife went out and brought them water actually But that doesn't mean that right after the coronavirus thing we aren't fatigued by the complete domination of every conversation with these things. You know those protests they did just kind of pop up overnight and I'm lucky i had that show with Dr Farrell because we could talk about it if you remember, I mentioned that the editor was working on a show during that time and this is that show which explains why we didn't talk about it actually but at the same time

1:07:45 It's nice to talk about something else because there is no shortage of conversations being had about the protests and everything related to them. But moving on, in higher side news I guess my week off got pushed back a bit. I had a friend coming out to stay but his flight got cancelled and his new flight is a few weeks down the road so... Back in the office for me! For those asking, our joint session is going to be on the 25th again this month. The usual about time, usual about channel... sign up for plus if you want to catch the previous joint sessions or the second hour of all these here interviews today with gary in the second hour we talked about the life and ideas of rudolf steiner, we talked about gary's kids waldorf experience tapping into the akashic record prophetic dreams mystics and magicians that have hobnobbed with the russian ruling class. You know i'm interested in that kind of stuff

1:08:41 And we talked about a name I'm sure lot of people have heard but maybe haven't dove into all that much and thats Rasputin. So a lot of stuff I loved. I hope you agree the higher side chats dot com and with that, I'm getting out of here to check out Gary's seriously awesome catalog of books stay safe out there keep your sanity and I'll see you next time serenity now good people have done my part your move culture shapers clamp down creators and suppressors of ideas your fucking Watch out, I like it. Stay right around me. I can't stay out in town. Once you're mine. A high-sized barrel of flame to do the time. Yeah!

1:11:13 I ain't gonna take none of your foolin' around And I can't stand no playin' me down Yeah, yeah, yeah Sparrow on you, eyes to your mind

1:11:59 The high sides to that on you You're not afraid to do the time Yeah, yeah, yeah, oh