Tribes Composing the Russians

by

Aleister Crowley

The tribes composing the Russians are united by a deeply-seated psychological diathesis. The old term "Holy Russia" had a real, behind the superstitious, significance. Very many, if not most, of the people are naturally illuminati.

2. The type of this psychosis is sui generis. It partakes of the purely spiritual or mystic exaltations and depressions of the Central Asiatic peoples, but also of the emotional crises—erotic, expressed or repressed—which thrilled medieval Europe, causing the religious wars, especially the Crusades, but have now dies down to newspaper-fomented hysteria of sham patriotism, or to sporadic [illegible] of word indignation and the like, especially in Anglo-Saxon countries. The French temperament rendered lucid by the enlightenment of such energies as those of Voltaire, Diderot, & Rousseau, may, even of Montagne & Rabelais, is no longer susceptible to epidemic insanities, unless in moments of supreme national stress.

3. The most disturbing element in the Russian temperament is the profound sense of Sui. This affects dangerously his whole character; in particular it attacks the psychology and even the physiology of the sexual process.

In the present low stage of rationality of the great bulk of the people, all considerations of common sense, even those involving the law of self-preservation, are liable to be swept away at any moment by any contagious enthusiasm without interference until education has operated for centuries; in a word, Russia must always lie at the mercy of a madman.

4. The Russian needs two solaces during the long gradual process of intellectual emancipation: one purely anaesthetic, which he finds in bouts of prolonged intoxication; the other enthusiastic, which is satisfied either by sexual or mystical exaltation or a combination of these.

5. It may be conceded that this condition is to be severely regarded as transitional, as a deplorable fact making a stage on the way to word and intellectual balance. None the less this disposition exists, and must be reckoned with most [illegible] by every government.

6. A government depends ultimately for stability upon the goodwill of the citizens; and the intelligence of these—even were each one of them an university professor, this description is applicable—demands first of all the satisfaction of brute appetite. In this category should be classed the morbid condition above described.

7. The Russian temperament is in no way satisfied by the banal jollity and vanity of external pomp and artificial rejoicings which content the Anglo-Saxon and even the Latin. He demands in his religion and actual individual dealing with the idea which he has been taught to call God, an idea which really exists although the God of the bourgeois is demonstrated to be a mere phantom bred of fear-miasma. In his relaxations he refuses to be amused, in the sense of the word current in America and in Central and Western Europe: he demands to be excited.

The root of the passion is that he cannot endure the intense agony of self-consciousness: to calm him he must pass through a crisis in which the sense of self is abrogated.

8. The Russian is not, in his deepest self, sensible of material benefits. The smug satisfaction of the bourgeois is totally foreign to his nature. In the days of Tsardom the middle classes were almost entirely composed of [illegible] elements: the noblemen and the [illegible] were the true brothers by nature.

It is no appeasement whatever to the true Russian to contemplate the advantages of an economic theory: such reflexions full him with satisfaction or rage, but never touch the depths of his nature.

9. No government can endure in Russia which fails to take account of these above considerations. It is even more dangerous to starve the spiritual or emotional qualities of a people than to deny them bread. For bodily starvation, if carried far enough, weakens their physical resistance: while, the more prosperous they are materially, the more vehemently they demand gratification of those instincts which are most furiously aroused by a superfluity of bodily energy.

10. The materialous fortunes which have followed the overthrow of the old governments of Russia have hitherto prevented any serious outbreak of religious mania. Hunger is the most cogent and exclusive of the passions. As the country recovers, the demand will become insistent; and unless satisfied, it will almost certainly become distorted and assume a revolutionary form.

It is upon this phenomenon that the supporters of the old regime count confidently—and without error. [Consider the instability of even the moderately Republican institutions of France, opposed by even the moderately enthusiastic partisans of a dying Church.]

11. The solution of this difficulty is the introduction of a new religion, constructed skillfully upon sound psychological principles. Two objects must be kept well in mind (a) the religion must be orgiastic in character, to afford the safe outlet for the instincts of enthusiasm (b) its doctrines must be based upon sound science, and psychologically therapeutic, so that the morbid need of the people may be gradually eliminated from their root-consciousness.

The fundamental need is to destroy the sense of sin, which lies at the basis of all self-murderous irrational action, and produces fanatics and martyrs.

12. Finally, then, let there be proclamation by divers subtle methods of the arrival of a spiritual Saviour of the Russian people. (See Manifesto enclosed) It is well that this saviour should be a non-Russian, incapable of interfering directly in any way with the internal government of the country.

13. Next let his "Law" be proclaimed, and the existing government adhere officially to it. It is to be well noted that this Law "Do what thou wilt" even when misinterpreted to mean "Do what you please" is calculated to destroy the sense of sin, with its mania-producing agonies of self-reproach.

14. Immediately on the arousing of several interest in this Saviour and his Law, let there be established the form of worship laid down in the [illegible] manuscript. This ritual has been carefully calculated to eliminate all superstitious notions of supernaturalism, and yet to allow the fullest play of the faculties of man for enthusiasm.

In this way the exercise of the most powerful passions of mankind will be acknowledged as acts of true religion, not as sins to be brooded upon, repented of, and expiated by [illegible] violences.

The exercise of the spiritual faculties will evaporate harmlessly in individual ecstasy, and the resulting happiness of the people will make for stability of government and for the free function of its measures to secure the prosperity of the state in all departments of its activity.

To Mega Therion     666

15. Furthermore, the establishment of this Rite will exercise a profound reaction upon the whole world, completing the destruction of the dead and putrefied elements of Christianity. For the Ritual subjoined actually possesses the power to induce those phenomena which give any religion its moral energy, the power of which Formalism and the afflux of time have deprived all other faiths, even that of Mohammed. This new Rite will produce in Europe and America the utmost religious consternation, and the old faiths will crumble into dust at the touch of the Reality of the new Formula of Truth.

.

[152]