Russian Christian Hermetic Tradition
By Guram Kochi, an ‘old sailor of the Ship of Fools of Master G’
The Way to Finding God Within Oneself
At the beginning of the 20th century, Russian Christian Hermeticism experienced a period of beneficial development, which ended tragically three decades later with the severe persecution of many members of Hermetic circles. One of the most significant figures of the period before the Second World War was Vsevolod Beliustin (1899–1943),[1] whose spiritual legacy has survived to the present day. According to his teachings, all pre-Christian doctrines were, in some sense, “Hermetic” because they were either established or radically reformed by Hermes Trismegistus during various periods of his initiatory activity on earth. Hermes Trismegistus (“Thrice-Greatest Hermes”), though being a legendary figure in human history – an embodiment of the Greek god Hermes and the Egyptian god Thoth – is credited with the Hermetica, a collection of esoteric, medical-scientific, philosophical, and wisdom literature composed at various times from the Hellenistic period to the Middle Ages.[2] Some fragments of the Corpus Hermeticum on practical alchemy, most notably the prominent Tabula Smaragdina (Emerald Tablet), explain how one can purify one’s body, soul, and spirit with “secret” or “celestial” fire and elevate one’s soul and spirit to contemplation, union, and co-creation with the Supreme One. Only a master alchemist who has received such a gift from the Almighty can take this fire in possession.
In the eyes of practitioners of Christian hermeticism, including me, who follow the ideas of post-war Russian mystics Konstantin Serebrov and Vladimir Stepanov, the main driving force and central practice of the Christian spiritual path is “remembering God” (pamiat’ Bozhiia), namely God the Son or Jesus Christ. Through this practice, the “interior of the cup and the chalice,” that is, the spirit, the soul, and the body, are purified, and the Trinitarian God dwells and abides in the heart of the practitioner. Synthesizing the Hermetic and Christian paths sought to multiply the possibilities for people to find God within themselves. While the Hermetic path emphasized human subordination to supra-cosmic laws, hierarchies, responsibility, and initiative, the Christian path focused on human knowledge of the will of Christ, surrender to it, and its realization.
We can name many such examples of Christian-Hermetic synthesis, the most significant of which are in the West the works of St. Albert the Great, Jacob Böhme, Nicholas Flamel, and the mystical teachings of various orders of chivalry. In Russia and the Soviet Union, however, probably due to the geographical location, Christian Hermeticism manifested itself in attempts to unite the Christian path with Western esotericism (for instance, in the works of Valentin Tomberg (1900–1973) on Tarot meditations) and, on the other hand, with the traditions of Asia and the Middle East, such as Sufism (Georgii Gurdjieff’s esoteric Christianity).
Living Hermetic Tradition in the Soviet Union
My authority in the Russian Christian Hermetic tradition is one of the central figures of the late Soviet esoteric underground. Vladimir Stepanov, or Master G (1941–2011), as he was called by many of his followers, was the most famous spiritual teacher and hermetisist. According to some stories, Vladimir told me, his father, Grigorii Stepanov, was a member of the Veil of Isis esoteric society in his youth. During the Russian Civil War (1917–1922), he was a cavalry officer of the Red Army in one of the southern provinces. After the war, Grigorii Stepanov completed his philosophical education and worked as a researcher at an institute of the Academy of Sciences in Moscow. Vladimir’s mother was a philosopher, too.
Parallel to his study of languages and philosophy and his subsequent unfinished studies at a philosophy graduate school, Vladimir was immersed in the tradition of Russian Orthodoxy but declined an offer of priestly ordination. He was also well acquainted with the teachings of various esoteric schools, such as the Sufi schools of Idris Shah and Gurdjieff, the traditions of Siberian shamans, the hermetic teachings of Vsevolod Beliustin, and the Gnostic legends of the Golden Ladder School – an Order of Russian Templars[3] among many others. Vladimir called his occupation sbor koloskov (harvesting spikelets), comparing it to how poor peasants went into the fields after the harvest to pick up the remaining spikes. No matter how small the catch was, it sustained their existence, even half-starved.
Vladimir promoted the growing influence of the third hypostasis of the Holy Trinity, the Holy Spirit, and that thanks to this, the way of returning to the higher worlds, to God, is now open to all humankind scattered throughout the universe.
Vladimir was always surrounded by an ever-changing group of followers with whom he traveled throughout the former Soviet Union and, after the fall of the Berlin Wall, throughout Western and Eastern Europe. Vladimir’s students belonged to different social classes and groups and had different aspirations, and many could not stand each other. But Vladimir’s extraordinary power of attraction kept this picturesque gathering, which he affectionately called the “Ship of Fools” or the “Roadside Picnic,”[4] together, if only temporarily. Vladimir stressed the non-mainstream character of his teaching. At the same time, he prompted his followers not to take themselves too seriously but to focus on the inspiration from above, which is the leading Actor. It often happened that after leaving him, his former followers and disciples, some inspired by the warmth of his heart, others filled with hatred and mockery, created unusual situations around him.
For example, some of his former students formed milieus in the Moscow occult underground, a widely known cultural, existential, and mystical phenomenon in Russia in the 1960s and 1980s. Among these disciples are some well-known figures, i.e., such as the writer, poet, bard, and alchemist Evgenii Golovin (nicknamed “Admiral”), the writers Iurii Mamleev (nicknamed “Porthos”) and Arkadii Rovner. Vladimir Stepanov’s travels and teachings are reliably described in Konstantin Serebrov’s books, the trilogy of the Lessons of Master G (The Triangle of Master G: Book I, Live Three Incarnations in One Book II; On the Path of Alchemical Fusion Book III) as well as in Spiritual Breath: The Practice of Kriya Yoga; Adventures of Master G and his faithful Disciples Morose and Bitumen in the Nigredo Valley, or Modern Alchemy. Phantasmagoria. Vladimir died on January 11, 2011, and is buried in Moscow.
In search of his spiritual path, Konstantin Serebrov (a pseudonym) was a disciple of Vladimir Stepanov and a chronicler of Stepanov’s school. Like Georgii Gurdjieff, Konstantin was born in the Caucasus, in the 1950s. His father belonged to one of the South Slavic noble families and worked as an accountant in an opera theater. His mother was a Don Cossack.
In contrast to Gurdjieff, Konstantin began his spiritual path following Eastern teachings. When he was twelve, he found his first spiritual mentor, the father of one of his classmates, a certain Aleksei Zhukovskii, a former member of one of the secret theosophical groups in Leningrad (now St. Petersburg). In the Caucasus, Zhukovskii led a quiet, inconspicuous existence in a resort town, meditating and practicing the breathing techniques of kriya yoga.[5] This type of yoga came to Western countries and from there via samizdat the Soviet Union through the mission of the Self-Realization Fellowship (SRF) founded by the Indian yoga master and writer Paramahansa Yogananda (1893–1952), famous mainly for his book Autobiography of a Yogi (1946). After giving in to Konstantin’s urgent pleas, he agreed to take him as a disciple and passed on his knowledge and techniques to him for several years.
In the following years, Konstantin germinated in the “mystical underground.” He studied various Eastern and Western traditions: meditation techniques of Hindu and Tibetan schools, Taoist alchemy, and the teachings of Carlos Castaneda, mainly their practices. But his greatest desire was to find an enlightened spiritual master. In the Spiritual Breath, Serebrov described а premonition about the new teacher in a dialogue between Zhukovskii and Kasian (Konstantin’s prototype in the book). After many years, the mentor told Konstantin that his apprenticeship had ended and that further spiritual progress required the guidance of a “true Master.” But where to find one? There was no doubt for Konstantin: “From my twenty-second year on <…> I knew intuitively that when I turn thirty, I will meet my true Master. My life will change completely then and I will have to move to Moscow.”[6] And so it happened, just at the time when he needed help. Konstantin later said that despite deep inner experiences, such as regular intentional exteriorizations, i.e., exits from the physical into the astral body, prolonged states of satori during meditations (such as experiencing being one with the Universe or a wave of love of Jesus Christ),[7] and the like, he still returned to everyday reality. He could not find even a trace of sublime experiences. Serebrov’s life completely changed when he met Master G, a mysterious man who preached the coming of an era of spiritual freedom for people throughout the inhabited universe.
Vladimir Stepanov’s influence led Konstantin to an inner conversion. He was baptized into the Russian Orthodox Church and began to study and practice the teachings of the holy desert fathers. Konstantin tried to use his rich experience of previous spiritual practices to penetrate the depths of the Christian path. He combined specific breathing techniques with Christian prayers for the fastest purification of the inner man and restoration of the lost connection with God, the Trinity.
Featured image: Master G’s Triangle ©Tatiana Spasolomskaia, 2023. Spasolomskaia’s painting for the cover of Serebrov’s book The Triangle of Master G was inspired by the following story: Master G and his two disciples, Konstantin and Gouri, worked for several years as stagehands in a jazz band and had to load and unload about a ton of equipment several times a month while on tour. Master G would sometimes utter a cryptic phrase as he and his two students sat wearily on empty crates backstage: “This, gentlemen, is how we discreetly recycle the karma of cities by hauling crates from point A to point B.”
*This text piece is an abridged version of my essay Christian Hermeticism: An Essay on a Tendency, published in English and Russian on Facebook in the 2010s. I thank Anna Tessmann and Birgit Menzel for co-editing and preparing this version for publication.
[1] Vsevolod Beliustin founded the Order of the Rosicrucians (so called Manicheists) in 1926, was arrested twice, and died in custody in 1943. His activity, in the esoteric field since the late 1910s and as an agent after the Bolshevist revolution until 1940, is known from the protocols of interrogations in the cases of the so-called “Obscurantists.” See Andrei Nikitin (ed.). Ezotericheskoe masonstvo v Sovetskoi Rossii: Dokumenty 1923–1941 gg. (Esoteric Freemasonry in Soviet Russia: Documents 1923–1941). Publ., vstup. st., komment., ukaz. A. L. Nikitina. Moskva: Minuvshee, 2005, 297ff. On his teaching, see the Gennadii Gavrilov’s website: https://alhimia-chisel.ru/.
[2] For a more detailed view, see Bernard D. Haage. ”Alchemy II: Antiquity–12th Century.” In Dictionary of Gnosis and Western Esotericism, edited by Wouter Hanegraaff et al.. Leiden: Brill, 2006, 16–26, esp. 24. See also Vadim Rabinovich. Alkhimiia (Alchemy). Sankt-Peterburg: Izdatel’stvo Ivana Limbakha, 2012.
[3] See Andrei Nikitin (ed.). Mistiki, rozenkreitsery i tampliery v Sovetskoi Rossii: issledovaniia i materialy (Мystics, Rosicrucians and Templers in Soviet Russia: Studies and Materials). Publikatsiia, vstup. st., komment., ukaz. A. L. Nikitina. Moskva: Intergraf Servis, 1998.
[4] Both names refer to allegories in the well-known pieces of the world literature Platon’s Republic (ca. 375 BE) or The Ship of Fools (1494) by Sebastian Brant and Roadside Picknick (1972) by the Soviet science fiction writers Brothers Strugatskii correspondingly.
[5] Its techniques were later described in the manual by Konstantin Serebrov & Gouri Gozalov. Spiritual Breath. The Practice of Kriya Yoga (ed. Robin Winckel-Mellish; trans. Gouri Gozalov and Maria Toonen). Second edition The Hague: Publishing House Serebrov, 2022.
[6] See Serebrov & Gozalov, Spiritual Breath, 64f.
[7] Compare to a description in Spiritual Breath (2022, 9): “After he had read the chapter about Jesus Christ, he was very impressed and lay on his bed, thinking about the Lord Jesus Christ. Then he felt a wave of the highest love coming from Him, as though the heavens opened for an instant, and the unspeakable love of the Saviour, God’s gift, touched him for a moment.”
OpenEdition suggests that you cite this post as follows:
Guram Kochi (August 28, 2024). Russian Christian Hermetic Tradition. New Age in Russia. Retrieved December 9, 2024 from https://doi.org/10.58079/127gb
