UPDATED:: to add The world of psychic Alexander Sheps
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Large numbers of Russians are
consulting mystics and psychics - up to a fifth of the population has
done so at least once, according to one polling organisation. And there
are signs that this tendency is increasing amid economic crisis and
conflict in Ukraine.
I have never visited a psychic. So as I stand
in the huge metal lift of a multi-storey building in a Moscow suburb, I
am filled with curiosity, scepticism and some trepidation. My
appointment is with Alexander Sheps, a celebrity psychic.
I grew up in St Petersburg, the city once home to Russia's most famous psychic, Rasputin.
But
Sheps looks nothing like the bearded beady-eyed priest. Young and tall,
he is rather as I would have imagined Count Dracula in his youth, but
more softly spoken. His black T-shirt sports a picture of a ghostly
skull.
Sheps is a winner of the The Battle of the Psychics, a
reality TV show that attracts more than four million viewers per episode
in Russia, even now into its 16th series.
"My main focus is communicating with the dead. I practise the art of magic,
I practise ritual magic, spells. I can search for people who have disappeared," he tells me.
,,,
Psychics and the occult are officially anathema to the Orthodox
Church, but deacon Andrei Kuraev, who has spent the last 25 years
discrediting psychics, say it's not that surprising that some believers
put their faith in charlatans.
"You can be Orthodox and a
murderer, you can be Orthodox and a burglar," he says. "No-one can force
a person to be logical. That's why completely incompatible ingredients
co-exist in people's heads, like ice-cream with mustard."
,,,
She gave him bad news. Sergei's friend was dead.
"The psychic
described in detail what wounds, how he died, at what time of day, what
was around him," Sergei recounts. But at the same time she said she felt
something was not quite right and advised him not to speak to the
friend's family.
Two months later news came through that the
friend was still alive, but Sergei remains impressed with the psychic's
powers. It transpired that another mutual acquaintance had died while
wearing Sergei's friend's coat - and this, to Sergei, made some kind of
sense.
Why do so many Russians turn to psychics? - BBC News
See also:: Russia's New Mystics
Witches, magicians and healers have built a multi-million dollar
industry in Russia. Olga Smirnova investigate why so many Russians
believe in the occult while the Russian authorities are trying project
the image of Russia as a modern country with the Orthodox Church as the dominant system of belief?
Olga
will step behind the scenes of the TV programme the Battle of the
Psychics which has attracted multi-million audiences, and speak to
participants who are asked to investigate murders and disappearances,
which the Russian police are unable to solve.
She
will travel from Moscow to her native St Petersburg, where she grew up
surrounded by images of Russia's most famous mystic, Rasputin, to find
out how educated, middle-class Russians are turning to the black arts
for spiritual guidance and how it highlights Russians’ popular reaction
to the economic and social crisis in Russia, providing a new angle on
it. What does this says about the efficacy of Putin’s use of the
Orthodox Church to unify Russians.
