The famous American healer Edgar Cayce prophesied:
… for changes are coming, this may be sure — an evolution, or revolution in the ideas of religious thought. The basis of it for the world will eventually come out of Russia; not communism, no! But rather that which is the basis of the same, as the Christ taught — His kind of communism! (1930, No. 452-6)
In Russia there comes the hope of the world, not as that sometimes termed of the communistic, or Bolshevik, no; but freedom, freedom! That each man will live for his fellow man! The principle has been born. It will take years for it to be crystallized, but out of Russia comes again the hope of the world.” (1944, No. 3976-29)
I believe that the revolution Cayce spoke of has already begun, in the form of a movement inspired by a series of books known as the Ringing Cedars of Russia which have become some of the best selling books ever written in the Russian language solely by word of mouth. They chronicle the interactions between a native Ukrainian entrepreneur Vladimir Megré1 and Anastasia, a recluse living in the Siberian2 wilderness. Since few people have met Anastasia, and since she possesses some extraordinary abilities, many doubt her reality. But no one can doubt the enormous impact the books have had on Russia and beyond. Many inspired by the books claim that it doesn’t really matter to them whether the books are fictional or not — it is the message that counts, and that message has inspired thousands to garden, to write poetry, compose music and paint, who have not been inclined to do so before.
According to Anastasia, tens of thousands of years ago there was an advanced and thriving global civilization that eventually fell into decline. History has been rewritten to obscure the origins of humanity and repress knowledge that could restore freedom and prosperity to our planet. This ancient civilization persisted longest in areas in and around Russia, until about a thousand years ago when it was subdued. But the remnants of this civilization have survived intact in remote Siberia.
The ancient Russian civilization was named Ved-Rus, and was contemporary with and related to the ancient Indian Vedic civilization. Ved means knowledge or wisdom in both the Russian and Sanskrit languages. The Vedic scriptures of India are some of the oldest spiritual texts in the world, and they describe an advanced civilization including spacecraft and nuclear weapons. Rus is the root of Russia, which the editor of the English translation of the Ringing Cedars books, Leonid Sharashkin, translates as “seeding the light”. Likewise, Ved-Rus could be rendered as “knowers of the light” in the spiritual sense.
Why it is that we know of highly developed ancient civilizations in Egypt, Greece, Rome, Persia, China, Central and South America and elsewhere dating back thousands of years, yet know very little about Russia before a thousand years ago? How could there be nothing but primitive peasants in such a vast territory, covering nine time zones? Even Russians themselves know very little about their own roots and have, until recently, sought instead to emulate Western culture believing that their own cultural and spiritual heritage is “mere” paganism.
When the ancient Ved-Rus civilization finally began to fall — and Anastasia claims that the fall began with essentially a false flag operation — a remnant hid in the vastness of Siberia, where it was preserved. But even in European Russia and elsewhere, fragments of the old culture survived in various rituals and traditions, even if their full meaning was obscured. The Church could not completely eliminate pagan rituals, but instead cleverly merged them with ostensibly similar Christian rituals. For example, Maslenitsa (the Sun festival marking the imminent end of winter, with large hot round pancakes symbolizing the Sun) is now coordinated with the beginning of the Christian season of Lent, which ends with Easter, when the Christian celebration of Christ’s resurrection is merged with pagan celebrations of the rebirth of nature and fertility (as symbolized by the Easter Bunny).
The ancient Ved-Rus civilization was characterized by its relationship to the land. There was such prosperity and abundance built on a harmonious relationship with nature that they felt no need to build giant stone structures like the Egyptians and others did, and did not develop nature-destroying technology as the legendary Atlanteans may have done and as Western civilization has more recently done. Indeed, Western civilization may best be described as a soulless, unnatural technocracy, where in the name of efficiency power is centralized, freedoms are lost, most people are impoverished, and the natural world is depleted and ruined.
The spiritual basis of the Ved-Rus civilization is essentially the same as the Judeo-Christian basis: the Creator made humanity perfectly in His image to dwell in a natural paradise, designed to meet all of humanity’s needs with minimal toil as in the Garden of Eden. The Creator held nothing back, giving humanity free will so that humans are a fully endowed Children of God, creators in their own right. But this gift allows humanity the option of turning paradise into hell if so chosen. It seems that such a choice has been made, and that humanity is plunging toward self-destruction, taking the natural world down with it. God, like any good father, hopes that His children will yet choose to reverse their course and fulfill their intended destiny: to become god-like co-creators living in peace with each other and in harmony with the natural world.
How can humanity change its course? Apparently, existing religious, moral and intellectual traditions have not yet been enough. What is further needed is a practical effective strategy, and Anastasia offers one.
The rise of the dachniks
The foundation of her strategy has been to work with Russian dachniks, those who lovingly tend their family garden plots. The plots are small enough (typically 800 square meters) so that modern large-scale agricultural techniques are impractical. Dachniks rely mostly on their hands and light tools and equipment. So many Russians tend family garden plots that their combined agricultural output surpasses the entire agricultural output of big agribusiness, and even surpasses the economic output of the oil and gas sector in their country.
Anastasia has been reawakening in the dachniks the ancient knowledge that brings about incredible abundance with minimal toil. Nature is meant to serve humanity, and does so with ease when humanity understands the language of nature and treats her with love and respect. Food grown on such a dacha is not only delicious and nutritional, but actually healing for the specific conditions of the dachnik who tends it. No artificial chemicals are needed, neither insecticides nor fertilizers, and no GMO. With the right combinations of plants — especially trees — the soil can fertilize and replenish itself just as it does in the absence of human cultivation.
Each human couple (as symbolized by Adam and Eve) is meant to be the sovereign steward of its family territory, and nature is designed to support this divine intent. All that is needed is to bring societal laws into alignment with this principle. There is a growing movement in Russia to introduce laws mandating that each family be granted its own piece of land in perpetuity as long as the land is cultivated by the family and its descendants, never to be sold. The optimal size of such a family homestead or kin domain (reminiscent of kingdom) is one hectare (100 meters on a side). And the domain and its agricultural produce must never be taxed by the state.
Inspired by Anastasia, there are already many eco-villages (such as Kovcheg) springing up across Russia and around the world, and July 23 (Vladimir Megré’s birthday) is celebrated as Dachnik Day in some cities — in time it may become a national holiday. And there are initiatives to plant trees throughout existing cities to help restore air and water.
According to Anastasia, a kin domain can produce virtually all that a family needs, including surplus to trade for whatever cannot be produced locally. The few projects which might require the cooperative effort of a community of domains such as a water supply or a school, would be overseen by a small administrative staff that simply executes the will of the community. This is decentralized society at its best — there is little need for large scale governments and corporations, thus avoiding excessive concentration of power which tends to attract the few among us with a psychopathic drive to dominate others.
Trees are a vital part of a kin domain, playing several essential roles, not least of which is to protect vegetable plants and herbs from wind and pests and to help fertilize the soil. They also serve to collect energy and deliver oxygen and nutritious and healing pollens into the air. Every family domain should begin with the planting of a family tree, perhaps an oak or cedar that will live for hundreds of years, to be admired by many generations of descendants and bind them together. (Incidentally, the Druids, who also knew the secrets of nature, naturally revered trees.)
Another vital part of Anastia’s strategy is proper child-rearing and education, beginning with conception, pregnancy and birth taking place on the kin domain. The newborn infant is immediately put into contact with nature, which is alive and more complex than any technological device will ever be. Children must always be respected, asked questions, and given choices. With this approach, children naturally develop phenomenal abilities.
An American dachnik
Paul Gautschi has created a virtual Garden of Eden on the Olympic peninsula of Washington state. He’s discovered some of the same techniques as the Russian dachniks, and also fully grasps the spiritual aspects of Eden. You can hear it in his voice and see it in his face in the documentary film Back to Eden. His land generates amazing abundance with little toil and lots of love. One of his techniques is to never leave bare soil exposed. The Earth must be kept covered as if it were an animal with skin or a tree with bark.
America has had some great visionaries who have understood the most important principles of life. John Muir, Henry David Thoreau, and Ralph Waldo Emerson come to mind.
Emerson believed that divinity diffuses all nature, and speaks to the notion that we can only understand reality through studying nature. He promoted a philosophy of individuality, freedom and self-reliance. Thoreau read one of Emerson’s essays while studying at Harvard, and was so influenced that he later wrote the great study of natural economy Walden while living in a self-built cabin on land owned by Emerson.
John Muir, an early advocate of the preservation of wilderness believed that Eden was not a lost legend:
I used to envy the father of our race, dwelling as he did in contact with the new-made fields and plants of Eden; but I do so no more, because I have discovered that I also live in “creation’s dawn.” The morning stars still sing together, and the world, not yet half made, becomes more beautiful every day.
Unfortunately, the wisdom of these men has not yet pervaded the American consciousness, although it lives in some American individuals like Paul Gautschi and in some communities like those of the Amish. For the most part, America has become a nation of hustlers, according to author Morris Berman in this interview by former Goldman Sachs director Nomi Prins:
It is not just the American Dream that has failed, but America itself, because the dream was a mistake in the first place. We are at our core a nation of hustlers; not recently, not sometimes, but always.
In the final days of the American Empire, its hustlers have turned on each other as their dream morphs into a nightmare, while most of the world disengages from its hegemony and its fiat petrodollar.
Leonid Sharashkin, in a talk given to the 2008 Nexus conference in Australia, compared the American and Russian cultural mindsets with this revealing anecdote:
The word dacha (garden) in the Russian language today derives from the verb “to give”. Compare it with the term “farm” in the English language which derives from the verb “to take”. It does! So just think about this way of looking at the world. These are two different civilizations and two different mindsets and worldviews.
I remember seeing at one of our University events, one day there was a field day when people could come to a research farm at the University of Missouri and discover where there food is coming from. And there was a special tent for kids where children could play in some farm machinery or simple farm equipment to see how the food is being produced. And there was a manual corn grinder. They were pouring the corn and children could turn the handle and get some corn meal to take home. And there was a red-haired boy — probably seven, not more than seven years of age — who really enjoyed it and spent like fifteen minutes there until the receptacle for the corn meal was filled to the brim. And the person who was supervising the exhibit and who was in charge of conveying to children the truth about where their food is coming from said, “Oh, great, you made it; now what can you do with all this cornmeal?” — thinking that the answer would be “cornbread” or something like that. The boy was puzzled — a bit like that [sighs and wipes his brow] — and then he came up with an answer: “Sell it!”. You know, in our society a boy of seven years knows that agriculture and your connection with the land is nothing but a way of making money. What else could it be?
Well, I have another story to tell you from Russia. I was returning to my homestead in the eco-village … in the town of Vladimir and I gave a ride to a local woman who lived not far away from our place. And it was just a couple of miles drive and I decided to take her home because she was carrying two larger sacks. I took her to her home and she asked me whether I had apples. I said, “Well, I have a pregnant wife at home and a small child and so I have very good consumers of apples and apple juice so I would like to have some.” And literally she went into her house and invited me to step in. And she started to load a fifty kilogram sack — about like that [shows size of the sack] — with apples. And she loaded it! I felt really uncomfortable receiving such a gift for taking her two kilometers out of my way. And I took out some money to offer her. And she lives alone; she’s elderly. And I could tell that she could use every single ruble I was handing out to her in my hand. And she was so offended. She said, “No! God forbid! This is not for money. This is just for you and your family. No, no, this is not about money.”
You know, the two different civilizations, the two different cultures: in America every small boy knows about getting the most of the income from the Earth and in Russia still there is this ancient reverence for the Earth and that what was provided for free to us should not be exchanged for money.
Paul Gautschi is a true dachnik, a giver — he has never sold the abundance of his land, only given it freely as he has received it. If only more Americans would follow his example and wake up from their American Dream turned Nightmare and go back to Eden, the Dream of the Creator.
See Tales of the Future for an excerpt from one of Vladimir Megré’s books, inspired by Anastasia.
The importance of the Russian soul in healing human society, from the Siberian writer Sandy Krolick.
we are lost as a country
Some people have an intrinsic love for land. I am one of them. I also love trees and plants and being outside. I love rocks, too, but not when I’m trying to plant something. It’s too bad that Americans wanted to get away from the farm. I can’t imagine what it’s like to live in a high rise apartment in a large city. No wonder those people are so angry. There’s no easy way to connect to the rhythms of earth. And honestly, I feel really close to the Creator when I’m outside looking at his handiwork. It’s beautiful and serene here.