From the author: A course of lectures given in 2008-2009. Before starting, I want to remember a wonderful phrase from Hamlet, where in the scene with Gertrude, his mother, he sorted things out and proved to her how superior his father is uncle “He contains a collection of qualities, each of which has the stamp of some deity, giving the right to be called a man” - what is said! And how in keeping with our understanding of mythological consciousness, which I gave in the first lecture. But today we will significantly expand this concept, and I still can’t even imagine where this will lead. 1) I want to invite you to think about the topic of literalism in understanding texts. (Even without touching upon such postmodernist slogans as “the death of the author”, “the death of God”, which say that any interpretation of any text is equivalent and the creator of the text is the readers even more than the “author” - this is a big and complex conversation, and we will get to postmodernism by the 10th lecture). I am largely an agnostic and don’t know how it really is :) Despite the fact that we published books: “gods and eras”, and other contacts with the gods, their publishing tagged with the “Channeling” series, although this is not any channeling. The fact is that if my friends and I had contact with the structures of the collective unconscious, then this information is “absolutely true.” And it’s difficult to talk about whether it is true or not, because absolutely true information does not exist in my opinion, but there are many interpretations that are equally probable and equally true. Moreover, any information (!) is historical and targeted, i.e. refers to a certain period of time and a certain category of people (the only question is the scale of both). Any information has its own address for which it is intended, and for another address it is not needed, not relevant and not true. As for information received from the so-called. communication with the gods, then we quite honestly entered altered states of consciousness, moving through chains of images to a certain limit - which was perceived as a certain limit, a prototype - an archetype. This expansion of consciousness made it possible to generalize information that may have been in my unconscious, and therefore in the collective. Moreover, this information (both targeted and historical) is now necessary for a certain layer of people (rather narrow than broad), to remove certain rigid blockages, destroy stereotypes, fill in blank spots in the picture of the world, etc. It is appropriate to say here that the mechanism of influence of a variety of areas of psychotherapy, and not only psychotherapy, but also everything connected with people’s consciousness is still not understood at a deep level. Statistics tell us that mutually exclusive areas of psychotherapy, for example psychoanalysis and behaviorism, give approximately the same percentage of healings. In my opinion, the brilliant student and reformer of Jung looked most deeply into this issue - James Hillman, the author of Archetypal Psychology, whom I often mentioned and will mention, because he is a thinker of the 20th-21st centuries who is close to me personally with his models of the world and his behavior, ease destruction of some structures, construction of a mythological picture of the world. He identified the main healing factor - the so-called “HEALING FICTION”, which is offered to the client by one or another school of psychotherapy. Moreover, this is not necessarily a story, but it can be a scheme of actions, a concept, etc. The same is the case with large social strata. In different eras there was a confrontation between ideologies (and now it also exists) - FICTIONS. Each of the ideologies according to it is a fiction, because no one really knows how it works! And a number of these fictions at the moment are targeted healing (again from the point of view of a certain layer of people), and another series of ideologies are pathologizing (again from the point of view of a different circle of people). And the fact is that, as the hero of “Chapaev and Emptiness” says: “The power of the night, the power of the day - the same bullshit” - golden words. And healingfiction and pathologizing fiction work in a dialectic (like the “lower” and “upper” gods in mythology) for a common task - perhaps evolution, perhaps the GREAT GAME. So everyone who is involved in working with people and social strata is doing this, including your humble servant :)) For some, my information will be “healing”, for others – “pathologizing”, for others – simply neutral :) - well, then there is room for discussion about the production of texts by the reader himself :))) I stated at the last lecture that in this one we will begin to examine the big topic - “am I a trembling creature or do I have the right.” Let's start, but we will get to this very complex and global issue for many people no sooner than after 1-2 lectures. Today we will talk about who has the right and why. He just has the right. People who acted without thinking about the very Napoleons that Raskolnikov dreamed of. 2) All famous highly developed peoples, such as the Babylonians, Egyptians, Jews and Hindus, residents of Iran and Persia, Greeks and Romans, as well as the Teutons, etc., Even at an early stage of development, they began to glorify their heroes, mythical rulers and kings, founders of religions, dynasties, empires or cities, in a word, their national heroes, in a variety of poetic tales and legends. Moreover, in all mythologies, heroic figures always appear. This is not God - this is a certain person who has become like God in some sense. There is one common detail that is noted by researchers of mythology - the stories of the birth and early life of such individuals are shrouded in fantastic elements, which among different peoples, despite their geographical remoteness and complete independence from each other, display amazing similarities, and partly even literal correspondence .3) Hero - has always been one of the few people who dared not to keep pace with everyone else, with basic reality, but to establish their own individual life as the measure of everything else. He had the courage to question the truth of basic reality. Challenge “objectivity” not only on paper (as many philosophers, poets, thinkers do), but with your whole life! For what? In the name of what? - Crucify yourself on the elusive, winding, bursting, bumping into each other lines of the rhizome? But contrary to these heroes, a later aphorism of St. Augustine, dating back to the 3rd-4th century AD, operates, which sounds like this: “God is much more “I” than I am” [1] it would seem that this aphorism overturns such attempts, asserting the priority of the positions of basic reality, divine, agreed upon reality, as modern psychologists call it - it will still turn out to be stronger. Even if you fight it: as you know, the dominant sums up all attempts to resist it and becomes even stronger... But the Hero lives his life in such a way that it invariably made at least someone (and often many) doubt that the world and truth are objective!... And then the thesis of St. Augustine is complemented by another thesis (it so happens that I first proposed it in my novel The Great Heresy): “I am much more God than He Himself,” and it is very difficult to explain that it is here that the “I” is, and it is also the same “I” that stands in the second part of Augustine’s thesis. Together, these two theses already represent some kind of greater integrity, they are combined and from them a kind of Moebius strip is obtained in a figurative series. And support and meaning appear for a strong Ego (and the Hero archetype is a strong Ego). And on the path of individuation there are such forks where someone, but not everyone (and maybe everyone) needs to grow to the stage of a Hero - to grow a strong Ego in themselves. But do this not in order to revel in this strong Ego, but in order to take the next step on the path of individuation and put the Ego on a par with other figures existing in the soul. 4) We can make a generalization: The Hero is a strong Ego - arises due to the fact that his first and main feat is an exit from the power of the maternal or paternal complex, whichwe can, using the language of psychoanalysis, call the superego. This is generally beyond the limits of what is permissible and possible. The hero stands on the other side of good and evil. I would take the liberty to say that a Hero who is capable of getting out of the power of the superego CAN cross boundaries, no matter how paradoxical and blasphemous it sounds. I remember a certain film where Nikita Mikhalkov played an official, and Sergei Nikonenko played a traffic police inspector. Mikhalkov was a high-ranking official, and constantly exceeded the speed limit, and Nikonenko constantly fined him. And Mikhalkov constantly proved to him that “there are sparrows, and there is a swift. A sparrow is not allowed, but a swift is allowed. So I’m a swift, I’m allowed,” he was really convincing J, but the time was socialist and the people, of course, were on the side of the brave traffic cop, who in the end was exiled to a distant intersection in some booth where almost no one drives. But he remained adamant and also a hero in his own way - he, too, can fine those who can :)). YOU CAN cross boundaries - what Raskolnikov dreamed of, but Raskolnikov himself - we will return to this in the next lectures, was not a hero, but only he was pushing, and if he had been in a sober mind, then after he, trembling and turning pale, had stolen the ax from the janitor’s room, he could have realized that further “testing” of his theory on himself was useless and would lead to failure. But if there had not been this failure, there would have been no novel and many important conclusions from it for us. But more on this later.5) In connection with what I said above, I would like to consider one of the possible interpretations (namely mine) of the 7th Arcana of the Tarot (Winner. Chariot of Hermes) When living the Arcana, a state of youthful intoxication is felt ... It seems as if you are climbing somewhere and even achieving your goal, regardless of the circumstances: for example, you can walk over heads - as is sometimes depicted on the map of this Arcana - a chariot rides through a field strewn with corpses, i.e. generally speaking, without looking back and regardless of the consequences. This condition can be expressed by the phrase “shoulder itch, arm swing.” For the first time this feeling comes in youth and even in adolescence, but this does not mean that it is inherent only in youth, it can also arise in adulthood and even in old age. This Arcana must be completed completely, i.e. to get enough of this state, perhaps, at the same time making mistakes and breaking wood on the way to some kind of victory, action. This victory can be social success and fame, money, women, and not only worldly things, but also some states of consciousness, ecstasy, dreams, astral flights... This can be the path to any experience that seems victorious to a person, a statement in this experience, due to which self-affirmation arises: to learn to stand on your head, to fight better than anyone, to know many languages, to know some subject of the school or college curriculum better than others... Then, when the husks fall away, self-respect and the feeling of “I could do it” will appear. . This refers to performing an Action: “I could, I did this, I overcame!” And this is not only youthful, this is already a more mature filling of this Arcanum. There is even such a gesture: “I did it!” The scope of application is immense, ranging from sports competitions and boy fights, advancement on the social ladder, the acquisition of, for example, a fashionable car, an impressive list of sexual victories. I remember that in the fifth grade of school I did not know how to do pull-ups, but all my classmates did at least one or several pull-ups. I asked my parents to buy a horizontal bar, practiced for several hours a day, and after three months I was doing pull-ups more than 20 times, while the class record before was 10 times. There are two sides here, the first is approval in the eyes of other people and internal self-respect after committing an act, not related to external evaluation. The second is the already mature side of the 7th Arcanum. The Arcanum itself is a resource one. You can turn to it meditatively, as an experience of determination, in order to commit a new act, take a difficult step. Meditation on this Arcanum is useful in states of uncertainty, self-criticism,low self-esteem. This Arcanum is needed to maintain balance, because... Most people are already born, much less raised, with low self-esteem. Due to low self-esteem, attempts are born to prove to yourself and others that you are not the worst piece of shit, and a person usually tries to prove this in indirect ways. Because of this, most of a person’s life is spent on various types of competitive struggle on different fronts of life, for the most part it is a neurotic struggle, a kind of Napoleon complex (although I think that Napoleon himself did not suffer from such a complex, it was something else - passionarity). but you need to do an action with a capital letter, some kind of overcoming your boundaries, this will be meditation on the 7th Arcana, its passage. On the other hand, this Arcanum gives strength for real actions. Within the framework of Christian Hermeticism, for example, such a researcher of the Tarot Arcana as Valentin Tomberg, emphasizes that this Arcana carries a number of dangers and temptations, but I would say that these dangers should neither be feared nor avoided. Because if you haven’t made a mistake in a certain phase of life, this debt will bother you, you will, if you adhere to moral standards, repress it into the unconscious, but it will also bother you from there through neurotic symptoms. That's life! You have to go through this - all these mistakes and difficulties are not a temptation. I would say that a person should not go through the ideal correct and righteous path of life, avoiding all the so-called sinful temptations. The Church instilled a worldview, but thereby castrated a lot in our souls, protecting us from many opportunities. Missed opportunities, which will still be obtained later through neurosis or something else. Or you'll screw it up, which is what time is allotted for. firewood, in youth, or it will last for years and decades, a lot is done in small ways, something is done in a big way one time, you have to pay for it. And you shouldn’t be afraid of this retribution, if you are still guided by the mental function - how do you want to pay for it? There are people who live in harmony with the world, as a rule, these are already mature, accomplished people, realized. And most people live perpendicularly, in conflict with the world. And it is they who create the process of history, the process of evolution. The main goal of the conflict is precisely to assert oneself and win. And it is these victories, heroism, going beyond limits that move history, and thank the gods! Without this, we would end up with an increase in entropy and a halt in the development of civilization. It’s true that in the current situation it’s not clear where it’s going, but let’s hope that there’s still some meaning in this, and a considerable meaning. I would refrain from making judgments, saying that there is a crisis, and the predicted scenarios of the apocalypse are degradation, and not vice versa - approaching the 13th lasso “death-rebirth”. It is mistakes that often become germs for new paths and paths in the labyrinth of life, in the labyrinth of the soul. The soul discovers itself through new variations. You can’t go anywhere without them, if you only follow well-trodden paths and don’t make mistakes, there will be no new experience, and you and I said that the meaning of life is very simple - the accumulation of new experience beyond. The main emphasis of the 7th Arcanum is “I did it my way!” " This may be an act that no one understands, violating the norms of behavior and morality, but this is a strengthening of the Ego. Mature, proper strengthening. You cannot give up the Ego, as the “pink esotericism” teaches (the name “pink esotericism” has taken root, which has proliferated on almost every corner, and if we talk about the literalism of understanding - literally understanding some Buddhist theses). Until the Ego gains strength, and even then the Ego is not destroyed, but is brought to a common denominator with other figures of the soul. "I did it my way!" - is equivalent to the fact that “I conquered the whole world.” While I was taught good manners and morals, I kept a fig in my pocket, and then I gathered up the strength and did it my way. In defiance of everyone. This is also a state of lightness that Hermes gives, this is catharsis, liberation from something. This is the spiritadventures, the spirit of the Nomad, the Traveler, Ostap Bender. Even for passive people, this Arcanum is at least somehow filled, albeit in small ways. At least in my dreams. The question is to fill all 22 columns of a certain “histogram” from the Arcana. If we imagine a rough model: each person has lived a certain amount of percent (usually a little) from each lasso. There is a wonderful book by Hayo Banshava, a researcher of the Arcana of the Tarot, a third-generation student of Jung, who describes the Hero’s journey as a movement from the 1st to the 22nd Arcana. Some people manage to go sequentially from 1 to 22, but I don’t think anyone manages to completely fill it completely, work out first the first, then the second and so on until the twenty-second, there are always gaps left that you have to return to using a bizarre strategy. For example, someone by a certain age has exhausted the 7 Arcana, while another has not completed the percentage. So you have to walk from one Arcana to another, although in life a person may not even think in terms of the Arcana and may not be familiar with this system of knowledge, but nevertheless, through life he walks from one Arcana to another. On average, it may be moving from 1st to 22nd, but we come back and close the shortfall in points on some Arcana. This non-linearity of life's path is very well depicted in Hermann Hesse's novel "Steppenwolf" (in this "Faust" of the 20th century). Harry Haller clearly missed the lower classes and everything that is due to youth, and made the emphasis of life on the comprehension of wisdom, the so-called. spirituality. At the same time, he felt that a certain animal instinct was awakening in him - the Wolf, and this Wolf was not receiving its nourishment. The repressed needs of the first Arcana, and especially the 7th, turn him into a neurotic and potential suicide, as he appears in the first chapters of the book. And only a meeting with the courtesan Hermine and getting into the Magic Theater gives him the opportunity to accumulate victories in simple instinctive desires: enjoyment of women, power, struggle, cruelty... But this is not a reason to build life according to the canon: different destinies are needed, different destinies are important, and it is precisely the diversity of the passage of the Arcana by each person that creates the richest pattern of Life in general... 6) Let us try not to adhere to literalism in understanding the religious worldview, but we will not literally follow Nietzsche. And before we move on to how painfully a strong ego is created now, in our era, considering the example of Raskolnikov and analyzing what aspects of our soul he symbolizes, we will look at the formation of a hero from the standpoint of natural and natural processes, i.e. from biosphere processes, and ultimately from the position of geopolitics. In this lecture we try to significantly expand our view of the soul. By the way, the example of Raskolnikov, an example with a strong Ego, is typical for the story about Voltaire. As you know, he was one of the first militant atheists, and his expression is “it is necessary to crush the reptile,” meaning the church. And all his life he consistently embodied this, wrote, spoke and spoke against the church, and when it came to his deathbed, he became nervous and called the priest to take communion, and after that he calmed down. Here is an example of the fact that an attempt was made, but not to the end, and the hour of death decided that after all, Voltaire was not a Hero. He turned out to be inconsistent: if you go, go to the end, or don’t go at all. Although this is also an interesting example, also a version of fate. I want to read a poem by Jorge Luis Borges, and in general I love his poems - they have some kind of pinching nerve and intonation that allow you to partake of some very deep essential and existential experiences. “Tamerlane” From of this world is my power: Jailers, dungeons and blades - An unsurpassed system. Any word is mine like steel. The invisible hearts of countless peoples who had not heard of me in their distant lands are my inevitable weapon. I, wandering the steppes as a shepherd, fastened my banner over the Persepolis rampart and led the horses to drink to the flow of either the Oxus or the Ganges. At the hour of my birth, a blade from a height fell froma prophetic notch; I was and will forever be that blade. I spared neither the Egyptians nor the Greeks, I destroyed the tireless spaces of Russia with the raids of my Tatars, I heaped mounds from skulls, I harnessed four Kings to my cart, who did not fall to dust before me. I threw into flame in the middle of Aleppo, the Divine Koran, that Book of Books, the Forerunner of all the nights and days in the world. I, red-haired Tamerlane, squeezed with my Hands the young Zenocrate, Sinless as the mountain snows. I remember the slow caravans And clouds of dust over the ridge of sands, But I remember the smoky capitals And strands of gas in the dark taverns. I know everything and I can do everything. In a wonderful, yet-to-be-coming book, It has long been revealed to me that I will die like everyone else, But even in bloodless writhing I will command My arrows into the enemy sky, Let loose an avalanche of hardened arrows, And cover the horizon with a black cloth, So that anyone living on earth knows: And the gods are mortal. I am all the gods of the world. Let others look for a horoscope, a compass and an astrolabe in the hope of finding themselves. I myself am all the stars of the sky. At dawn I wonder why I don’t leave this dungeon, I don’t condescend to the calls and pleas of the Rattled East. In my dreams I see Slaves and strangers: they touch Timur with a fearless hand And persuade him to sleep and at night To taste the enchanted cakes of peace and silence. I am looking for a blade, but it is not nearby. I am looking for a face, but in the mirror it is someone else’s. Now it is in fragments, I am tied. But for some reason I don’t see the scaffolds And the necks under raised axes. All this torments, but what good is it for me, Tamerlane, to resist them? And He must be forced to endure. I am Tamerlane, reigning over the sunset And the golden sunrise, but, however... What are you do you feel from these lines? No matter how much we want to condemn or admire, be frightened, mounds of skulls, etc. - agree - this is Fate with a capital F. Tamerlane (Timur, Iron Lame 1336-1405) is one of the great world conquerors, along with Genghis Khan, Alexander the Great, who played a noticeable role in the history of Central Asia and the Caucasus. During Timur’s childhood there was a collapse of the Chagatai state in Central Asia (Chagatai ulus). In the capital, Maverannahr, since 1346, power belonged to the Turkic emirs, and the khans enthroned by the emperor ruled only nominally. Timur was initially the head of a gang of robbers that formed in troubled times. With her, he entered the service of the ruler of Kesh, the head of the Barlas tribe. In 1360, he was confirmed as the ruler of Kesh and one of the assistants of the Mogul prince Ilyas Khoja (son of the khan), appointed ruler of Transoxiana. Timur soon separated from the Moguls and went over to the side of their enemy - Amir Hussein; For some time they, with a small detachment, led the life of adventurers; During one skirmish, Timur lost two fingers on his right hand and was seriously wounded in his right leg, causing him to become lame (nicknamed “lame Timur”). In 1364, the Moguls were forced to cleanse the country; Amir Hussein became the ruler of Transoxiana; Timur returned to Kesh. After a series of internecine wars in 1370, Timur took the oath of all the military leaders of Transoxiana. Like his predecessors, he did not accept the title of khan and was content with the title of “great emir.” Timur chose Samarkand as his residence and decorated it with magnificent buildings. Timur devoted the first years of his sovereign rule to establishing order in the country and security on its borders (the fight against rebellious emirs, campaigns against Semirechye and East Turkestan). In 1379 Khorezm was conquered; from 1380, campaigns against Persia began, apparently caused only by aggressive aspirations (Timur’s saying: “the entire space of the populated part of the world is not worth having two kings”). In fact, Timur aimed to become the ruler of the world. It is clear that this is very difficult, although we must pay tribute - Timur conquered a huge amount of lands in Asia Minor and Central Asia, parts of Mongolia, China, the great steppe in the North, coming close to the Caucasus and ancient Rus', he took Persia. Timur made three large campaigns - the so-called “three-year” (since 1386), “five-year” (since 1392) and “seven-year” (since 1399). For the first time he fought with the Golden Horde Khan Tokhtamysh, who opposed himin alliance with the Semirechensk Mongols. Timur drove out the enemies and punished Khorezm for its alliance with Tokhtamysh, then made a devastating campaign deep into the Mongolian possessions as far as the Irtysh to the north and to Greater Yulduz to the east? Almost to China. In 1391 - a campaign against the Golden Horde possessions up to the Volga. These campaigns achieved their goal. During the “five-year” campaign, Timur conquered the Caspian regions, western Persia and Baghdad, Transcaucasia, and Azerbaijan. Tokhtamysh's invasion of Transcaucasia caused Timur's campaign against Southern Russia (1395); Timur defeated Tokhtamysh on the Terek and pursued him to the borders of the Moscow kingdom. There he invaded the Ryazan lands, ravaged Yelets, almost reached Moscow, but unexpectedly turned back and left Muscovy on the very day when Muscovites greeted the image of the Vladimir Icon of the Most Holy Theotokos, brought from Vladimir. This is a kind of synchronicity, and there were several such synchronicities in the life, and even death, of Timur-Tamerlane. Then Timur plundered the trading cities of Azov and Kafa, burned Sarai-Batu and Astrakhan. He did not conquer the Golden Horde, but he came close, and the Caucasus Range remained the northern border of his possessions. In 1396 he returned to Samarkand. In 1398, a campaign was launched against India; along the way, the mountaineers of Kafiristan (modern Afghanistan and Pakistan) were defeated; in December, Timur defeated the army of the Indian Sultan under the walls of Delhi and occupied the city without resistance, which was plundered by the army a few days later. In 1399, Timur reached the banks of the Ganges, on the way back he took several more cities and fortresses and returned to Samarkand with huge booty. In 1400, a war began with the Ottoman Sultan Bayazet, who captured the city of Azerbaijan, where Timur’s vassal ruled. Bayazet allied himself with the Egyptian Sultan and they intended to kill Ambassador Timur. Bayazet was defeated and captured. Timur plundered almost all the cities of Asia Minor. The western part of Asia Minor was returned to the sons of Bayazet in 1403, and in the eastern part the small dynasties overthrown by Bayazet were restored. In Baghdad, Timur restored his power in 1401, and up to 90,000 inhabitants died. In 1404, Timur returned to Samarkand and then launched a campaign against China, for which he began preparing back in 1398; that year he built a fortress (on the border of the current Syr-Darya region and Semirechye); now another fortification was built, 10 days' journey further to the east, probably near Issyk-Kul. Timur gathered an army and in January 1405 arrived in the city of Otrar (its ruins are not far from the confluence of the Arys and the Syr Darya), where fell ill and died (according to historians - on February 18, according to Timur’s tombstone - on the 15th). Timur’s biography is in many ways reminiscent of the biography of Genghis Khan: both conquerors began their activities as leaders of detachments of daredevil adherents they personally recruited, who then remained the main pillar of their power. Like Genghis Khan, Timur personally entered into all the details of the organization of military forces, had detailed information about the forces of his enemies and the state of their lands, enjoyed unconditional authority among his troops and could fully rely on his associates. In addition to his native (Turkic) language, he spoke Persian and loved to talk with scientists, especially listening to the reading of historical works; With his knowledge of history, he amazed some Muslim historians. Timur used stories about the valor of historical and legendary heroes to inspire his soldiers. And this tradition continues to this day - if you remember the film “One among strangers, a stranger among one’s friends”, where the accountant was still eager to fight, he was presented with an opportunity, remember his speech to the fighters: “Terrible albatrosses of the revolution!!! The undefeated counter is still trampling on our long-suffering land!!! "- and, instantly, all the fighters were filled with fighting spirit... There is a legend associated with the grave of Tamerlane. According to the legend, the source and time of which it is not possible to establish, there was a prediction [1] that if the ashes of Tamerlane were disturbed, a great Andterrible war. The inscription on the jade tombstone reads: “Whoever disturbs my peace in this life or the next will be subjected to suffering and death.” It is historically reliable that the tomb of Tamerlane in the Gur Emir mausoleum in Samarkand was opened by Soviet scientists on June 21, 1941, less than a day before the attack of Nazi Germany on the USSR. Naturally, the Barbarossa plan was hatched by Hitler several years earlier, but nevertheless, this synchronicity occurred. And another synchronicity: archaeologists who understood what was going on and correlated these two events achieved a meeting with Marshal Zhukov in October 1942, explained the situation and offered to return Tamerlane’s ashes back to the grave. This was carried out on November 19-20, 1942; these days there was a turning point in the Battle of Stalingrad, which was a turning point in the entire Great Patriotic War. During his campaigns, Timur used banners with the image of three rings. During the Indian campaign, a black banner with a silver dragon was used. Before his campaign against China, Tamerlane ordered a golden dragon to be depicted on the banners. There is a legend that before the Battle of Ankara, Timur and Bayezid the Lightning met on the battlefield. Bayazid, looking at Timur’s banner, said: “What impudence to think that the whole world belongs to you!” In response, Timur, pointing to the Turk’s banner, said: “It’s even greater impudence to think that the moon belongs to you.” What benefit have we gained from the story of Tamerlane, from the moving lines of Borges, their poem Tamerlane? This is probably the fact that a person who became a hero, who stepped over the superego, over what was permitted and what was not allowed, over the limits of good and evil, became a hero and moved into a kind of impersonal, passionary existence. This reflects not only the deeds of mythological heroes, but even the deeds of the great gods.9) Zeus rebels against Kronos, and a ten-year battle with the Titans takes place. Zeus rebels against the father, the father complex and the sacred. In the same way, Odin and his brothers kill the giant Ymir and create a world from his body. This is a typical plot of the creation of the world from the body of a primal being, also present in Indian mythology (Purusha) and even non-Indo-European traditions (Sipaktli - Mesoamerican mythology; Pangu - Chinese mythology). Gods - Odin and his brothers killed Ymir. Then they made the firmament from his skull, the clouds from his brains, the mountains from his bones, the earth from his body and the sea from his blood. There are parallels here: Alexander the Great, Genghis Khan, Tamerlane, Napoleon and others in a metaphorical form repeated (or attempted to repeat) the archetypal acts of Zeus, Odin and other gods and Heroes to reorganize the world... What drove them? Lev Nikolaevich Gumilev, to the study of whose theory of ethnogenesis we are now moving on, called this phenomenon passionarity.10) Let us consider what passionarity is and where it comes from. It may seem that we are deviating to the side here, but this is not so - we are expanding the concept of the soul wider than mythology, psychology, philosophy - we are expanding it to history, geography, ethnology and much more. Passionary theory of ethnogenesis - historical and ethnological theory of Leo Gumilev, who describes the historical process as the interaction of developing ethnic groups with the enclosing landscape and other ethnic groups. Ethnic systems are at the same time: • biologically determined communities of people, similar to anthills, • a form of adaptation of people to the landscape, • mutually complementary groups of people aware of their unity and opposing themselves other ethnic systems, • groups of people with similar behavior patterns, • groups of people with a common origin and synchronous history, • stable evolving systems, • hierarchical structures. Ethnic systems, in general, are not the following unities: • linguistic, • religious • cultural, • legal, although they may be. The following types of ethnic systems are distinguished, in orderreducing the level of ethnic hierarchy: superethnos, ethnos, subethnos, convictia and consortia. An ethnic system is the result of the evolution of a lower-order ethnic unit or the degradation of a higher-order system; it is contained in a system of a higher level and includes systems of a lower one. Superethnos is the largest ethnic system. Consists of ethnic groups. The stereotype of behavior common to the entire superethnos is the worldview of its members and determines their attitude to the fundamental issues of life. Examples: Russian, European, Roman, Muslim superethnic groups. It includes some ethnic groups. Ethnicity is an ethnic system of a lower order, usually colloquially called a people. Members of an ethnos are united by a common stereotype of behavior that has a certain connection with the landscape (the place of development of the ethnos), and, as a rule, includes religion, language, political and economic structure. This behavior pattern is usually called national character. Example: Russians, Georgians, Czechs, Germans. Subethnos, convictia and consortia are parts of an ethnic group, usually strictly tied to a specific landscape and connected by a common life or fate. Examples: Pomors, Old Believers, Cossacks. Ethnic systems of a higher order usually exist longer than systems of a lower order. In particular, a consortium may not outlive its founders. In a broad sense, passionarity is an inherited quantitative characteristic that determines the ability of an individual (and a group of individuals) to exert extra effort, supertension. We can say that all people who were heroes, for example, the labors of Hercules - this is a continuous super-effort, super-tension. Passionarity arises in a very cunning way, we will consider this further, because this is important for studying the phenomenology of the soul. Levels of passionarity• Passionarity above the norm (“passionarity” in the narrow sense) manifests itself in behavior as enterprise, willingness to make sacrifices for the sake of an ideal, desire and ability to change the world, in particular, one’s landscape.• Passionarity at the norm level (harmony) means that its bearer will be in balance with the environment. • Passionarity below the norm (subpassionarity) means a tendency towards laziness, passivity, parasitism and betrayal. L.N. Gumilyov also proposed a more subtle classification based on passionarity, including nine of its levels.1. The highest is the sixth, sacrificial, a person is ready to sacrifice his own life without hesitation. Examples of such personalities are Jan Hus, Joan of Arc, Archpriest Avvakum, Alexander the Great, Genghis Khan, Tamerlane, Napoleon...2. Somewhat lower lies the fifth level - the desire for the ideal of victory - a person is quite ready to risk his life in order to achieve complete superiority, but is unable to face certain death. These are Patriarch Nikon, Joseph Stalin, Hitler and others.3. The same thing, but on a smaller scale, manifests itself at the fourth level - the desire for the ideal of success. Examples - Leonardo da Vinci, A. S. Griboedov, S. Yu. Witte. These are the levels of overheating, the acmatic phase (the fourth level is transitional).4. Below are the levels that are most characteristic of the breakdown phase - the desire for the ideal of knowledge and beauty and below (what L.N. Gumilyov called “passionarity is weak, but effective”). Here you don’t have to look far for examples - these are all major scientists, artists, writers, musicians, etc.5. To exit the breakdown phase, the second level is characteristic - here we again return to people who are looking for good luck, but not as great commanders, but as seekers of happiness, hunters of fortune, this could be, for example, a colonial soldier, a pirate, a desperate traveler, a pioneer, still capable risk your life, but not in the name of a great conquest, but in search of fortune.6. With a decrease in passionarity, they are replaced by others - passionaries who strive for improvement without risking their lives. Most modern Western (not Russian!) billionaires probably belong to this type.7. It costs even lowerEveryman is a quiet person, completely adapted to the surrounding landscape. This is level zero. Quantitatively, it predominates in almost all phases of ethnogenesis (except for obscuration), but only in inertia and homeostasis is it decisive in the behavior of the ethnos. Those. in the stage of balance with the environment, the majority of such people. With a further decrease in passionarity, people come with its negative values ​​- subpassionaries. They come in two levels: -1st and -2nd. If the former are still capable of some actions, adaptation to the landscape, then the latter cannot even do this. Those. are completely degraded. And if they begin to prevail, the death of the ethnic group occurs. L.N. Gumilyov repeatedly drew attention to the fact that passionarity does not correlate in any way with such personal abilities as willpower, etc. There can be an intelligent layman and a rather stupid “scientist”, a strong-willed sub-passionary and a weak-willed “altar”, as well as vice versa ; this does not exclude or presuppose each other. Also, passionarity does not determine such an important part of the psychotype as temperament: it only, apparently, creates a reaction norm for this trait, and the specific manifestation is determined by external conditions. According to Gumilev, there is a certain phenomenon that he called passionary impulses. From time to time, mass mutations occur that increase the level of passionarity (passionary shocks). They last no longer than several years and affect a narrow (up to 200 km) territory located along a geodetic line and stretching several thousand kilometers. The peculiarities of their occurrence indicate that they are conditioned by extraterrestrial processes, as Gumilev believed, solar flares, cosmic radiation, etc. Passionate populations do not appear on the surface of the Earth arbitrarily, but simultaneously in places distant from each other, which are located on a territory that has the contours of an extended narrow strip and the geometry of a geodetic line, or a stretched thread on the globe, lying in a plane passing through the center of the Earth. This suggests that the centrally symmetrical fields of the Earth determine the geometry of the passionary push. Such a field, most likely, can be an electromagnetic field, and therefore the cause of the mutation must be an external energy source, with the radiation of which this field interacts. Here you can build many hypotheses about the passage of comets near the Earth, which cause changes in radiation. 11) Since we are talking about the “behavior” of people belonging to different ethnic groups, the simplest thing is to pay attention to how they influence certain natural landscapes into which historical fate throws them. In other words, we must trace the nature and variations of the human factor in the formation of landscapes, taking into account the division of humanity into ethnic groups that we have already noted. The point is not how great the changes made by man are, or even whether their consequences are beneficial or disastrous, but when, how and why they occur. It is undeniable that the landscape of industrial areas and areas with artificial irrigation has been changed more than in the steppe, taiga, tropical forest and desert, but if we try to find a social pattern here, we will encounter insurmountable difficulties. Let's pose the question differently: not how does humanity influence nature, but how do different peoples influence it in different phases of their development? With this we introduce an intermediate link that has been missing so far. Then a new danger arises: if each people, and even in each era of its existence, influences nature in a special way, then it is impossible to survey this kaleidoscope, and we risk losing the opportunity to make any generalizations, and, consequently, to comprehend the phenomenon under study ? But here it is necessary to turn to the natural sciences, and their classification and systematization of observed facts, which is not always demonstrated in the humanities. Therefore, speaking about ethnic groups in theirIn relation to the landscape, we remain on the foundation of geographical folk studies, that is, we include geography in our consideration of the soul. Having abandoned the signs of ethnic classification accepted in the humanities - racial, social, material culture, religion, etc., we must choose the initial principle and aspect that lie in geographical science. This may be the already described phenomenon of biocenosis, where a characteristic feature is the constant proportionality between the number of individuals in all forms that make up the complex. For example, the number of wolves in a given area depends on the number of hares and mice, and the latter is limited by the amount of grass and water. This ratio usually fluctuates within tolerance and is violated rarely and not for long. It would seem that this picture has nothing to do with a person, but not always.' After all, there are a huge number of ethnic units, albeit few, that are part of biocenoses in certain biochores. Compared to these small nationalities or sometimes just tribes, modern and historical civilized ethnic groups are leviathans, but they are few in number, and, as history shows, they are not eternal. It is on this basis that a certain classification is built: 1) ethnic groups included in the biocenosis, fitting into the landscape and thereby limited in their reproduction; This method of existence is inherent in many species of animals, which seem to have stopped in their development. In zoology, these groups are called persisters, and there is no reason not to apply this term to ethnic groups frozen at a certain point of development; and 2) ethnic groups that reproduce intensively, spread beyond the boundaries of their biochore and change their primary biocenosis. The ethnic groups that make up the first group are conservative both in relation to nature and in a number of other patterns. Examples. Most of the North American Indians of Canada and the prairie region lived before the arrival of Europeans as part of the biocenoses of North America. The number of people in the tribes was determined by the number of deer, and since under this condition it was necessary to limit natural growth, exterminatory inter-tribal wars were the norm. The purpose of these wars was not the seizure of territories, the conquest of neighbors, the expropriation of their property, political dominance... No! The roots of this order go back to ancient times, and its biological purpose is clear. Since the amount of prey is not unlimited, it is important to provide yourself and your offspring with the actual opportunity to kill animals, and therefore get rid of your rival. These were not wars in our sense, they were struggles that supported a certain biocenosis. With such an approach to nature, naturally, there could be no question of making any changes to it, which in this context were considered as undesirable damage to nature, which, according to the Indians, is at the zenith of perfection. The agricultural tribes, the so-called Pueblo Indians, behaved in exactly the same way, with the only difference that they replaced the meat of wild animals with maize. They did not expand their fields, did not try to use river water for irrigation, and did not improve their technology. They preferred to limit the growth of their population, allowing disease to carry away weak children, and carefully raising strong ones, who then died in skirmishes with the Navajos and Apaches. The way of farming is different, but the attitude towards nature is the same. It remains unclear why the Navajos did not adopt farming skills from the Pueblo Indians, and they did not borrow the tactics of crushing raids from their neighbors. However, the Aztecs, who belonged to the Nagua group, from the 11th century. to the 14th century moved to the Mexican Highlands and very intensively changed its landscape and relief. They built teocalli (relief variation), constructed aqueducts and artificial lakes (technogenic hydrology), sowed maize, tobacco, tomatoes, potatoes and many other useful plants (floristic variation) and bred cochineal, an insect that produced wonderfuldark crimson dye (faunal variation). In short, the Aztecs were changing nature while the Apaches and Navajos were protecting it. One might assume that the hot climate of southern Mexico played a decisive role here, although it is not so different from the climate of the banks of the Rio Grande. However, in the very center of North America, in the Ohio Valley, grandiose earthen structures were discovered - ramparts, the purpose of which was unknown to the Indians themselves. Obviously, once upon a time there lived a people who changed nature, and the climatic conditions did not interfere with them, just as they do not interfere with the Americans of Anglo-Saxon origin. Along with this, we note that one of the Indian tribes is the Tlingit, as well as the Aleut, who practiced slavery and the slave trade on a large scale. Slaves made up up to a third of the population of northwestern America, and some Tlingit rich people owned up to 30-40 slaves. Slaves were systematically bought and sold, used for dirty work and sacrifices in funerals and initiation rites; slaves served their masters as concubines. But with all this, the Tlingits were a typical hunting tribe, with a primitive type of appropriating rather than producing economy. A similar situation was in Northern Siberia. The peoples of the Ugric, Tungus and Paleo-Asian groups, by the nature of their life and economy, were, as it were, a fragment of the landscape, the final component of the biocenosis. More precisely, they “fit” into the landscape. Some exceptions were the Yakuts, who, as they moved north, brought with them the skills of cattle breeding, brought horses and cows, organized hayfields, and thereby made changes to the landscape and biocenosis of the Lena Valley. However, this only led to the formation of a new biocenosis, which was then maintained in a stable state until the arrival of Russian explorers. The Eurasian steppe presents a completely different picture. It would seem that here, where the basis of life was nomadic cattle breeding, a change in nature should also not have taken place. But in fact, the steppe is covered with mounds that changed its topography, with herds of domestic animals that replaced wild ungulates, and from ancient times millet fields arose in the steppes, albeit briefly. Primitive agriculture was practiced by the Huns, Turks and Uighurs. Here one can see a constantly emerging desire for the careful transformation of nature. Of course, in quantitative terms, compared to China, Europe, Egypt and Iran, it is insignificant and even fundamentally different from the impact on the nature of agricultural peoples in that the nomads tried to improve the existing landscape, and not radically transform it. But still, we must classify the Eurasian nomads in the second category of our classification, just as we classified the Astecs there, but not the Tlingits, despite the fact that class relations among the latter were incomparably more developed. No matter how paradoxical these conclusions may seem at first glance, in order to obtain a scientific result of the study, we must adhere to our principle of classification strictly consistently. The internal contradiction that caused the decline of nomadic culture was the same moment that initially ensured its progressive development - the inclusion of nomads in the geobiocenoses of the landscape. The population size of the nomads was determined by the amount of food, i.e. livestock, which, in turn, was limited by the area of ​​pasture land. And if at the beginning of the 1st millennium the population of the steppe spaces fluctuated very slightly: from 300-400 thousand in Xiongnu times to 1300 thousand people in the heyday of the Mongol ulus, later this figure decreased, but there are no accurate demographic data for the 16th-17th centuries. No. Contrary to popular belief, nomads are much less prone to migration than farmers. In fact, with a good harvest, the farmer receives a supply of food for several years and in a very portable form. It is enough to pour flour into bags, load it onto carts or boats and stock upweapons - then you can set off on a long journey, confident that nothing except military force will stop him. This is how North American squatters and South African Boers, Spanish conquistadors and Russian explorers, Arab warriors of the first centuries of the Hegira - natives of the Hijas, Yemen and Iran, and the Hellenes who plowed the Mediterranean Sea - made migrations. It is much more difficult for nomads. They have live food. Sheep and cows move slowly and must have a constant, regular diet. Even a simple change of pasture can cause mortality. And without livestock, the nomad immediately begins to starve. By plundering a defeated country, one can feed the soldiers of the victorious army, but not their families. Therefore, the Huns, Turks and Mongols did not take wives and children on long campaigns. In addition, people get used to the nature around them and do not strive to change their homeland to a foreign land without sufficient grounds. And if they need to move, they choose a landscape similar to the one they left. That is why the Huns refused in 202 BC. e. from territorial acquisitions in China, over whose army they defeated. The motive was formulated as follows: “Having acquired Chinese lands, the Huns will still not be able to live on them.” And not only to China, but even to Semirechye, where, although there is a steppe, the system of seasonal moisture is different, the Huns did not move until the 2nd century. BC e. And in the II-III centuries. they left their homeland and occupied the banks of the Yellow River, Ili, Emba, Yaik and the Lower Volga. Why? Numerous and unrelated data from a wide variety of sources give reason to conclude that the 3rd century. n. e. was very dry for the entire steppe zone of Eurasia. In Northern China, the transition from the subtropical jungles of the Qinling Range to the deserts of Ordos and Gobi is smooth. Thickets give way to meadows, meadows to steppes, steppes to semi-deserts, and finally the dunes and cliffs of Bei Shan reign. With increased moisture, this system moves to the north, with decreased moisture, to the south, and herbivores and their shepherds move with it. It is precisely this - the movement of landscapes - that is the most important condition for the emergence of passionary impulses. Large military operations are always episodic, and success depends on many factors, where it is not always possible to discern the role of the subsistence economy. The constant raids of nomads on sedentary farmers are also not indicative, because this is a disguised form of interethnic exchange: in a raid, a nomad regains for himself what he loses in the market due to his innocence and lack of cunning. Both have nothing to do with migration. Now we can answer the questions posed. The eras in which agricultural peoples create artificial landscapes are relatively short-lived. Their coincidence in time with brutal wars is not accidental, but, of course, land reclamation is not the decisive reason for bloodshed, although it plays a certain role in this. However, in both parallel phenomena there is a feature that is common - the ability of the ethnic collective to produce extraordinary efforts. What these efforts are aimed at is another matter; the goal in our aspect is not taken into account. The only important thing is that when the ability to overexert weakens, the created landscape is only maintained, and when this ability disappears, the ethno-landscape balance is restored, that is, the biocenosis of a given place. This happens always and everywhere, regardless of the scale of the changes made and the nature of the activity, creative or predatory. And if so, then we have come across a phenomenon that no one noticed before Gumilyov: a change in nature is not the result of the constant influence of peoples on it, but a consequence of short-term states in the development of the peoples themselves, that is, creative processes, the same ones that are stimulus of ethnogenesis. Let's check our conclusion using the material of ancient Europe. At the turn of the 1st and 2nd millennium BC. e. Western Europe was captured and inhabited by warlike peoples who knew how to forge iron: Celts, Latins,…