Kritika: Explorations in Russian and Eurasian History

Ilya Vinitsky
Amor Hereos, or How One Brother Was Visited by an Invisible Being: Lived Spirituality among Russian Freemasons in the 1810s
Kritika: Explorations in Russian and Eurasian History - Volume 9, Number 2, Spring 2008, pp. 291-316

Slavica Publishers

Project MUSE - Kritika: Explorations in Russian and Eurasian History - Amor Hereos, or How One Brother Was Visited by an Invisible Being: Lived Spirituality among Russian Freemasons in the 1810s Project MUSE Journals Kritika: Explorations in Russian and Eurasian History Volume 9, Number 2, Spring 2008 Amor Hereos, or How One Brother Was Visited by an Invisible Being: Lived Spirituality among Russian Freemasons in the 1810s Kritika: Explorations in Russian and Eurasian History Volume 9, Number 2, Spring 2008 E-ISSN: 1538-5000 Print ISSN: 1531-023x DOI: 10.1353/kri.0.0013 Amor Hereos, or How One Brother Was Visited by an Invisible BeingLived Spirituality among Russian Freemasons in the 1810s Ilya VinitskyDept. of Slavic Languages University of Pennsylvania 745 Williams Hall 255 South 36th Street Philadephia, PA 19104-6305 USA ivinitsk@sas.upenn.eduTranslated by Gerald McCausland There was nothing else for it; I got down to those books which had now been found; so imagine me, a 19th-century man, poring over huge folios and assiduously reading their content: on prime matter, on elemental electricity, on the soul of the sun, on northern dampness, on stellar spirits and all sorts of things like that. It is amusing, and tedious, and interesting. --V. F. Odoevskii, The Sylph The spirits' realm is easy to tear open, They lie there waiting under a thin cover, And, hearing quietly, they storm aloft. --F. Schiller, The Maid of Orleans In a folder of Masonic papers...