Modern Occultism in Late Imperial Russia

Notes

Notes Introduction 1. On Briusov’s occult interests, see n. a. Bogomolov, Russkaia literatura nachala XX veka i okkul’tizm: Issledovaniia i materialy (Moscow: novoe literaturnoe obozrenie, 1999), 279–310. 2. rossiiskaia gosudarstvennaia biblioteka, rukopisnyi otdel (rGB), f. 386, kart. 71, ed. khr. 44; kart. 1, ed. khr. 12; kart. 2, ed. khr. 6. 3. rGB, f. 386, kart. 2, ed. khr. 6, l. 50. 4. attempts to provide statistics for occult enthusiasm have been largely unconvincing, due to the scarcity of institutionalized societies that kept membership records, as well as the absence of reliable information on subscription numbers and print runs of occult publications. Maria Carlson, for example, offers statistical data but gives no indication as to their provenance. Maria Carlson, “No Religion Higher than Truth”: A History of the Theosophical Movement in Russia, 1875–1922 (Princeton: Princeton university Press, 1993), 5. 5. i. K. antoshevskii, Bibliografiia okkul’tizma: Ukazatel’ sochinenii po alkhimii, astrologii, germeticheskoi meditsine, gipnotizmu, Kabale, magii, magnetizmu, spiritizmu, telepatii, teosofii, filosofii okkul’tizma, fakirizmu, khiromantii i pr., 1783–1909 gg. (st. Petersburg, 1910); a. V. zapadov and M. s. Cherepakhov, eds., Russkaia periodicheskaia pechat’, 1702–1894: Spravochnik (Moscow: Gos. izd-vo polit. lit-ry, 1959); V. M. Barashenkov, ed., Bibliografiia periodicheskikh izdanii Rossii, 1901–1916 (leningrad: izd. Gos. Publichnoi Biblioteki, 1961). 6. Vik. P., “Peterburgskie spirity i: u V. i. Pribytkova,” Peterburgskaia gazeta, February 1, 1893, 2; Vik. P., “Peterburgskie spirity ii: u V. i. Krzhanovskoi,” Peterburgskaia gazeta, February 3, 1893, 2–3; Vik. P., “Peterburgskie spirity iii: u i. Kh. Tani,” Peterburgskaia gazeta, February 5, 1893, 2; Vik. P., “Peterburgskie spirity iV: u s. i. Merezhkovskogo,” Peterburgskaia gazeta, February 6, 1893, 3; Vik. P., “Peterburgskie spirity V: u a. K. Bodisko,” Peterburgskaia gazeta, February 9, 1893, 2; Vik. P., “Peterburgskie spirity Vi: u Dr-a l. e. Brazol’,” Peterburgskaia gazeta, February 12, 1893, 2. 7. P., “Peterburgskie spirity i.” 8. rGB, f. 386, kart. 72, ed. khr. 20, l. 1–1ob. 9. Pribytkov underlined the uneven standing between himself and the much younger poet by repeatedly addressing him as Valerii aleksandrovich (instead of iakovlevich). rGB, f. 386, kart. 99, ed. khr. 38. 10. “aleksandr nikolaevichaksakov,” Rebus 22, no. 3 (1903): 25–27; no. 5 (1903): 45–46. 196 NOTES TO PAGES 5–9 11. Novyi entsiklopedicheskii slovar’ (st. Petersburg: Brokgauz efron, 1916), 29:363. For theological and sociological definitions of occultism, see Colin Campbell, “The Cult, the Cultic Milieu, and secularization,” A Sociological Yearbook of Religion in Britain 5 (1972): 119–36; horst stenger, Die soziale Konstruktion okkulter Wirklichkeit: Eine Soziologie des “New Age” (Opladen: leske + Budrich, 1993); Peter Gerlitz and Wolfram Janzen, “Okkultismus,” in Theologische Realenzyklopädie, ed. Gerhard Krause and siegfried M. schwertner (Berlin:W. de Gruyter, 1995), 25:216–30;Wouter hanegraaff, New Age Religion and Western Culture: Esotericism in the Mirror of Secular Thought (leiden: e. J. Brill, 1996); antoine Faivre, “Occultism,” in Encyclopedia of Religion, ed. lindsay Jones, Mircea eliade, and Charles J. adams (Detroit: Macmillan reference usa, 2005), 6780–83; Marco Pasi, “Occultism,” in The Brill Dictionary of Religion, ed. Kocku von stuckrad (leiden: Brill, 2006), 3:1364–68. unlike Pasi, Faivre, and Oppenheim, i regard spiritualism as part of occultism, because contemporaries described it as such and because it exhibited the characteristics of occult theory and practice described below. Janet Oppenheim, The Other World: Spiritualism and Psychical Research in England, 1850– 1914 (Cambridge: Cambridge university Press, 1985), 85–102. 12. stenger, Soziale Konstruktion, 20; Pasi, “Occultism.” 13. James Webb, The Occult Establishment (la salle, il: Open Court Publishing, 1976); Oppenheim, The Other World, 2; hanegraaff, New Age Religion; sabine DoeringManteuffel , Das Okkulte: Eine Erfolgsgeschichte im Schatten der Aufklärung, von Gutenberg bis zum World Wide Web (Munich: siedler, 2008). 14. Viktor Pribytkov, B. i. Taits, et al., “Medium sambor v Peterburge,” Rebus 13, no. 18 (1894): 179–80; no. 19 (1894): 191–92; no. 20 (1894): 199–200; no. 23 (1894): 226–27; no. 24 (1894): 234–35; no. 27 (1894): 261–62; no. 28 (1894): 270–71; no. 29 (1894): 280–81; no. 30 (1894): 294; no. 32 (1894): 312–13; no. 34 (1894): 328–29. Quote in no. 28 (1984): 271. V. D. Filimovich, Chistaia Khiromantiia: Populiarnoe rukovodstvo k ee izucheniiu; S 6-iu risunkami ruk (st. Petersburg, 1906); iu. a. shavel’, Okkul’tnye nauki: Polnyi prakticheskii kurs gipnotizma, lichnogo magnetizma i vnusheniia; Telepatiia (zaochnoe vnushenie) (st. Petersburg: Tip. r. V. Korotaevoi, 1912); Zerkalo tainykh nauk ili otrazhenie sud’by cheloveka: Polnyi kurs gipnotizma (Moscow: aviator...