Occult Russia

Christopher McIntosh is a British-born writer and historian, specializing in the esoteric traditions of the West. He has a doctorate in history from Oxford University, a degree in German from London University, and a diploma in Russian from the United Nations Language School. The author of many books, most recently Beyond the North Wind, he lives in Lower Saxony, North Germany.

• Acknowledgments Introduction: Russia’s Mystical Quest ONE Twilight TWOFabled LandsTHREEReign of the AntichristFOURA House of Rumor FIVEThe New Millennium SIX The Strange Case of the Book of Veles SEVENSurvival of the Old Gods EIGHT The New Paganism: A Spiritual CounterrevolutionNINE Saints, Doctors, and Cunning Folk TEN The Woman Clothed with the Sun: Russian Spirituality and the Erotic ELEVEN The Pursuit of the Rural Ideal TWELVE The Arts and the Spiritual in Russia from the Revolution to the Present THIRTEEN The Russian LanguageFOURTEEN The Russian Diaspora FIFTEEN In Search of a Vision for the Twenty-First Century SIXTEEN “The Hope of the World”? NotesBibliographyIndex

“In Occult Russia, Christopher McIntosh, master historian of the esoteric, presents a panoramic view of a Russia few people in the West know about or even suspect exists. From its very beginnings, Russia has been a nation of magic, mysticism, and profound spirituality, and its people the bearers of a deep inner life. For most Westerners, Russia means either the dark days of the Soviet Union or the more recent tumultuous times following the USSR’s collapse. But long before Lenin reached the Finland Station, a heady brew of pagan, Christian, and occult beliefs--and not Marx--informed Russia’s turbulent, apocalyptic heritage. ‘Occult,’ we know, means hidden, and in this painstakingly researched and finely written work, Christopher McIntosh brings this hidden side of Russian history, too long kept in the shadows, into the light.”