For children about the soul. Birth of new souls

Time for Olga has ceased to exist. She spent 180 days in hell. But, the worst was to begin in three days. She will be released ... The woman even thought about extending the term - there were plenty of opportunities. True, her cellmate Tom persuaded not to be a fool. Olya did not want to think about how to live on. A happy past was left behind, and in the future nothing but pain and hopelessness could appear. However, Tamara acted on her new friend, in some amazing way, changing her attitude and life priorities. If Olya entered this cell as a hunted beast, then she had to leave as a creature filled to the brim with indifference. She didn't care whether she lived or died. All emotions were burned out.

A year ago, everything was fine. Olga and Stas seemed very beautiful couple... Young, healthy, purposeful ... All life, with its limitless possibilities, was in their hands. The guys recently graduated from the university, but their parental savings allowed them to open a small business. This is how an exclusive souvenir shop appeared. At first, the business went neither shaky nor shaky, but soon the first buyers appeared, and the spouses were surprised to notice that religious items were more popular. As soon as you put on the shelves masks brought by friends from India, or a rosary made of natural stone, the goods instantly flew away for fabulous sums. Loyal customers and regular orders appeared very quickly. The young people decided to combine business with pleasure and fly to Goa for two weeks to relax and look at the range of products that could be resold in their homeland. It was here, on the shores of the Arabian Sea, that family life cracked. Olya with passion and interest plunged into the traditions and religion of this amazing country, and the local flavor was absolutely alien to Stas. The woman was indignant:

You need to know as much as possible about the culture of the country if you want to professionally advise and advise buyers! Darling, understand, it is extremely important for us to understand all the intricacies of religion if we want to sell such a specific product!

Stas was angry and stubbornly refused to get acquainted with Buddhism:

How can I enter their church if I have an Orthodox cross on me?

Olya just laughed:

What nonsense ?! You've never been a believer! He didn't even want to get married, and this, by the way, is a very beautiful ritual ...

Whatever it was, Olga was seriously carried away by India, and Stas was counting the days until his departure home. After returning to Russia, the young began to swear often. Olya began to spend all her free time in a Buddhist temple, meeting new people and distributing business cards from her store, and her husband unexpectedly went to the Orthodox Church. The young wife did not immediately notice that her beloved had become surprisingly quiet and thoughtful, until one day he decisively stated:

Enough for us to play these pagan games. We will sell, as before, cheap fridge magnets and mugs with funny inscriptions, and throw away all these demonic paraphernalia!

Olya only laughed at her husband's "righteousness", but Stas was more serious than ever. Very soon, the couple realized that their relationship was at an impasse. Olya did one last try keep a spouse:

Do you even understand that you put faith above our family ?! Choose: either me or your God! Mind you, I'm tired of your going to church! You look like a madman, standing among the old women with candles! Orthodoxy is a relic of the past! Faith for mentally degraded people. Better look at the Buddhists - that's where the truly enlightened mind is.

Stas tried to reason with his wife for some time, but Olya was adamant and filed for divorce. She wanted a holiday, fun, passion ... The next few months passed, as if in a fog. A string of new meetings, soft drugs, acquaintance with famous gurus ... It seemed to the woman that without Stas it felt better for her, and she threw off some ballast that hindered her spiritual perfection. But, soon a call from a friend and a message that her ex-husband had a bride knocked Olga out of her usual rut. No, there were no feelings anymore, but annoyance appeared. How did he manage to forget her so quickly ?! And who did he exchange for? According to the omniscient girlfriend, Stas's new passion was a real little girl, besides, she sang in the church choir! Well, just laughing at the chickens! Her Stas, accustomed to the most expensive restaurants and fashionable boutiques, suddenly became interested in some gray mouse in a long skirt “goodbye to youth”. Soon the annoyance was replaced by curiosity, and Olya decided to see this pair of saints with her own eyes. Fortunately, the friend just lived in the house where the young people settled, so it was not difficult to track them down. A day later, the woman, inhaling the sweetish smoke of the hookah, summed up her surveillance. So, Stas is really in love. The new darling is not as old-fashioned as Olga's friend painted, but, in fact, she is dressed very modestly. The questioning of the grandmothers sitting at the entrance brought unexpected results. It turns out that the young were going to get married soon, and moreover - to get married! How is this known? So, it is clear where from! Klavdia Ivanovna told, and the bride's mother herself confessed to her!

Like this. She, Olga, did not receive such an honor, but with this, you see, he was going to get married! Anger grew with incredible strength, even meditation did not help to relax. And then one, not the most beautiful day, Olya did a terrible thing. After being in a strange state after meditation and losing control of her mind, she started the car and drove off wherever her eyes were looking. I wanted the feeling of flight. The woman stung on the gas and did not notice anything around ...

At a pedestrian crossing, she hit a girl. The victim was taken to the hospital. The trip ended tragically: the girl suffered a ruptured spleen, and Olga was sentenced to six months. She wasn't even scared. She was ... all the same. She could only think about her own destiny. The woman was frightened by the fact that she had no idea how to live on. She already looked at her fascination with Buddhism with a sober look. All this turned out, in fact, such nonsense ... She simply joined the ranks of people who believed in some silly fairy tales and lost their sense of reality. And the reality is that she is completely alone. Parents don't count - Olga never got along with them warm relationship... Despondency and unwillingness to live pursued the woman every second.

And then she met Toma. From whom the energy was in full swing! She was imprisoned for stealing, but the prison term did not in any way affect the plans of this young and beautiful woman. Sitting behind bars, she thought about what next shenanigans she would try to implement:

I have been eyeing nuns for a long time! Religion is the most profitable way to make money.

Hearing about religion, Olga began to stir up, but not noticing her friend's reaction, Tamara continued:

Imagine, I even visited several monasteries. They call it a pilgrimage. You come and work for a bed and food for free. Strange, these Orthodox, honestly! Their nuns like labor force they use it, but the pilgrims go and smile so blissfully that it becomes disgusting! So that's it. I found out everything. I remembered how these prayer books were dressed, what words they used in conversation, how they behaved. In general, I will go out and become a "nun"! Options to collect good money great amount! You can pretend you are looking for donors to build a temple. And, if you think over everything exactly, then it is really possible to turn the option with Jerusalem - the believers call it the Holy Land. I will say that I will soon be flying there, and people will ask me to hand over notes with the names of those for whom it is necessary to pray. At the same time, the Orthodox will surely donate a lot of money.

Tamara stretched dreamily on the bed, and Olga held her breath. Orthodoxy caused only negative emotions in her. It was the believers who humiliated her, making her a complete laughing stock! Found a replacement for her! Deprived of confidence in their superiority. How wonderful it would be to abuse them!

Tom, will you take me into action?

A friend whistled:

Why do you want it? You have a folder with your mother. They will find a good job for you in no time. Yes, and you have your own shop ...

The store burned down, it was closed. And, with the Orthodox, I have my own scores. So consider it personal.

And now the last three painful days have passed. Freedom! Olya did not feel much happiness, although, of course, she was glad to be released. On the street her parents met her. They looked at their daughter with eyes full of tears, and tried to help at least with something:

Daughter, Stas left the apartment for you, so you can go there right now. And, if you want - stay with us!

Olga thought for a minute, and then decided:

I’ll probably sell the apartment over time, I don’t want to live there. In the meantime, I’ll rent it, and with this money I’ll rent a house on the other side of the city, where nothing will remind me of my past life.

Mom looked at her anxiously and asked timidly:

Sunny, what about your passion for all these Indian things? You will still be ... - the elderly woman could not find the right words, but Olya helped her.

No mom. No more gurus, meditations and crowds of guests with expanded consciousness. Now I will not be led by this deception called "religion"!

Dad cleared his throat.

Daughter, but in Christianity, for example, there is no such pagan confusion. Everything is very simple and correct there. You know, while you were in prison, my mother and I did not find a place for ourselves. Once they went to an Orthodox church, prayed as best they could. Imagine, it actually became easier for us! Then we talked to the priest about your situation ...

Olya jumped up, and her face twisted with anger:

So what?! Did it help me somehow? Or maybe because of your prayers, they served me lobster instead of gruel for dinner in prison? Dad, I was familiar with the most famous gurus, communicated with the "enlightened", mastered certain techniques of meditation. So what? It didn't make me happy! As it was not interesting for me to live, now it does not matter whether I wake up tomorrow or not. Ah, you came up with ... Orthodoxy! Put a candle on and no problem. How so! Why then didn't this God of yours drag me out of the cell, since you prayed so earnestly for me?

Dad was silent, and mom sadly said:

Olenka, it was not God who put you there. Itself is to blame for everything, and you know it ... Simply, we at one time did not give you any spiritual education. You didn't know what faith is. Forgive us, daughter! We have failed to protect you from the search for Truth on the side.

Olga felt sorry for her parents. They have aged so much lately ... Well, she did not want to upset them and solemnly promised not to hang labels on Christianity just for the reason that she became disillusioned with Buddhism. But, it was only in words. And, in her heart, the woman clearly knew what she would do, and in the morning of the next day she rang at the door to her friend, who was released just a couple of weeks earlier than Olya.

Tamara let her visitor in, rubbing her eyes with her fist:

Such a surprise. Well, come in now.

The friends discussed all the details of the upcoming work. Toma said that she herself knew about the image of a nun, but insisted that Olya go to the nearest monastery and look at this "contingent" with her own eyes. Olya was impatient to get down to business as soon as possible, and that evening she went on a "pilgrimage." On the way, sitting in a suburban bus, she imagined stunning pictures: now she will make her way into the very core of this life of believers, and laugh at them heartily. All deception and falsity, and she will prove it! To whom? The woman did not want to think about the answer to this question.

At the entrance to the monastery, Olya stopped and watched as others entered. It turns out that everything is simpler than ever: cross yourself three times and go! Inside, too, no difficulties arose. Turning to the very first nun who caught her eye, Olya learned that she could live and work in the monastery at any time. Then the nun called the dean - this is how the woman met Mother Susanna, who cordially offered to stay overnight. Olya refused. She wanted to get away from this place as soon as possible. She felt incredible discomfort and ... fear. However, she attributed it to a shattered nervous system.

After convincing Tom that she was absolutely ready and would not make any mistakes, Olya put on a black vestment, sewn by her friend Tom, and went out into the street. Her goal was to sit for several hours at the train station and meet as many people as possible. She should have told them in passing that she would soon go to the Holy Land and casually offer to hand over the notes of all comers. Tamara clearly instructed her friend with whom it is best to start a conversation and who is easier to deceive.

As soon as Olya entered the station building, this whole idea ceased to seem like an adventure. She decided to immediately find a toilet, change clothes and take the "props" to Tamara. Even if she never found her God, it is not right to deceive people who, like her, are looking for the truth. Not fair.

Here is the sign with the sign of the ladies' room. It is literally a few meters away, and suddenly ...

Mother, forgive me!

In front of Olga is a young girl who does not stand out from the crowd.

Tell me, what monastery are you from?

Olya, out of confusion, named the monastery she had visited yesterday, and not the one that had been envisaged for her and Tamara as a “legend”. The stranger began to fuss, began to look for a pen in her purse and hastily explain:

I have not been with you, but I will definitely come someday, if God willing. Forgive me for delaying! I just want to convey a little note. Pray, mother, for our son. Doctors found him oncology, he will have to undergo serious treatment ...

Antoshka is his name! Our dad is Simeon, and I was baptized by Rufina. Pray for us ...

Olya was numb. I couldn't get a word out of myself. Meanwhile, Rufina opened her wallet and took out a hundred dollar bill. The "nun" refused the money as best she could, but the benefactor insisted:

Yes, this is not for prayer! This is just a donation for the needs of the temple, and you can't help but take it!

Olya, bewildered, put the money and a piece of paper with names in a small travel bag, and her new friend hurried on about her business. But, suddenly she turned around and, catching herself, shouted:

Mother, what is your name?

Olya gave her real name, and she heard:

And I will pray for you, mother Olga!

She did not go to any toilet. They almost did not hold their legs, my head was noisy. Her hands were shaking, and she was drenched in sweat every now and then. “I’m probably dying,” Olya thought and forced herself to walk towards Tom's house. It took more than an hour on the road, as the woman could not bring herself to get on the bus. It seemed to her that the passengers would immediately see who she was and what she had done. There is no sin worse than the one that she committed! Thief. She stole the most precious thing that this young girl had — hope for prayer. And, even if she, Olga, knew that all these are fairy tales for simpletons, but ... Suddenly, there is at least one chance in a hundred that God exists and the Orthodox were not mistaken in choosing their faith ?! What then? Then it turns out that this prayer could somehow help the sick child, but she was afraid to admit that she was not a nun and could not really pray! And, this money ... Lord, this gray-green piece of paper will never allow her to sleep peacefully!

She did not explain anything to Tamara. She handed over the vestments and said dryly: "It didn't work out, this is not an occupation for me." The friend chuckled contemptuously and closed the door behind the visitor. Olya did not know where to go, and went to her parents. Mom made a bed for her in the living room, but she could not sleep. Thoughts revolved only around this naive Rufina and her sick son. How petty it all is: a divorce from an unloved man, unjustified hopes pinned on millions of gods, whose names cannot even be remembered. All this is such nonsense compared to the real misfortune of Rufina's young family!

Olya quietly got out of bed and went to the shelf by the window - there, in her absence, her parents built a small iconostasis. The woman took off all the books that were there and filtered through her teeth:

OK. Well ... If you exist, then help Antoshka. Let him get well. I don't need anything else. I will only pray for this gullible girl. If there is a chance that you can hear me and can help the baby, then I will. After all, Rufina hopes for my prayer ...

The night flew by like an instant. First, Olya read all the prayers in the prayer book from the section "On the Sick". Then, finding nothing more suitable, she took the Gospel. I decided that everything should be read in a row - since these books are on the shelf, it means that they are needed for correct prayer. Surprisingly, Olya's knowledge of Orthodoxy was very primitive. She remembered only what Tamara had told her, and some scraps of information from television and newspapers. There is, they say, God. His name is Christ. To live well, you need to pray around the clock, regularly deny yourself delicious food, observe the fast, wear creepy old-fashioned skirts and greasy scarves. Yes, even with a sugary smile on your face, bow down, and then shout at the unfortunate girls who dared to enter the temple in jeans. But, here, in the Gospel, everything was different. Real life was felt in all the lines. Moreover, Olya unexpectedly learned that according to the teachings of Christians, man is immortal. But immortality is understood here in a completely different way than, for example, in Buddhism.

Olya opened her eyes. It smelled like coffee and pancakes. Mom has already made breakfast. The woman picked up the books on the bed and set them down carefully. She was in a great hurry. And, perhaps, for the first time in her life, she did not care about her own self. She was in a hurry for the sake of others.

Mother Susanna, oddly enough, recognized the guest. Olya was very worried and did not know where to start. Then she finally decided:

You know, I read the Gospel tonight and learned that I am immortal!

The nun nodded and looked at Olga with such love that she could not bear it and threw out her self-hatred along with a torrent of tears:

You smile at me and allow me to stay, but you have no idea what I have done! I spied on you, like Satan, and I wanted to outrage Orthodoxy and monasticism in particular!

With every word, my heart became brighter, and my mother's gaze turned from surprised to compassionate. She hugged the sobbing pilgrim by the shoulders and led her into an empty cell:

Be patient, be patient, my dear. Soon the service will be, and you can confess. God will forgive you if you repent of what you have done.

Mother, I repent. But I'm not sure I can be a Christian. I would only pray for that child properly and nothing else is needed!

Then Olya caught herself and took out the money given by Rufina. For a long time she held on to the hand of mother Susanna and repeated the same thing: "I would only pray ... nothing else."

Then there was confession and the blessing of the priest to stay in the monastery to “pray”. For some reason, Olya thought that, as it should, she would be able to do it only here, where nothing distracted from such an important matter.

The days passed. The woman read the whole New Testament, but the questions became more and more. The priests of the monastery tried to answer how much they could do it. They advised me to read patristic literature. So she lived: she prayed, read, thought and prayed again, occasionally interrupting for meals and sleep. Then she began to attend church services. She received the Holy Communion. She asked for obedience and prayed now, doing the work she could. Days added up into weeks, and weeks into months ...

Archpriest Grigory Dyachenko

What other proof of immortality is needed? But in order to have a more striking effect on hearts overwhelmed by unbelief, God sometimes sends people from the other world to announce to those living here about their afterlife.

1. “On the night of September 28-29, I dreamed about it,” reports Count M.V. Tolstoy, - as if I was standing in my hall and heard - the voices of children are heard from the living room. I saw various children walking past me into the hall and between them Volodya, our recently deceased son. I happily rushed to him, he smiles at me with his old angelic smile. I held out my hands to him - Volodya, is that you? He threw himself on my neck and hugged me tightly, tightly.

Where are you, my joy, are you with God? - No, I am not yet with God, I will soon be with God. - Do you feel good? - Okay, better than yours. And I often visit you, everything is around you. I am almost all alone, only Mary Magdalene happens to me. Sometimes I get bored. - When are you bored? - Especially when they cry for me. And it comforts me when they pray for me, when they give the poor for me. I keep praying, praying for my mother, for you, for brothers, for Pasha (sister), for everyone who loves me. Hug my dear mother for me, like this, tightly. “You would see her, my joy. - And I will see, I will certainly see. - When is it? - When will stop crying.

I woke up with an intensified heartbeat, in such excitement that I could not resist the loud sobs with which I awakened my wife. At that very moment I jotted down on paper what I had seen in a dream, word for word, as it was (M. Pogodin, "A simple speech about tricky things").

2. The Mogilev Diocesan Gazette contains the following incident from the life of Metropolitan Platon. “In my life,” says the Right Reverend, “there is one case in which I saw the shadow of another person, and, moreover, as vividly and clearly as I see you now, addressing my listeners. This was in the 30s, when I was an inspector of the St. Petersburg Theological Academy. Among other students we had Ivan Krylov, from the Oryol seminary, known to me when I was a mentor there. He studied well, was good behavior, nice looking. Once he comes to me and asks me to let him go to the hospital. I think to myself: it’s true, he was exhausted, let them feed him better there, and he will recover. And maybe he will write a term essay there. A few time passes, I don't hear anything about him, the doctor says nothing. But then, one day, I was lying on the sofa and reading a book, I looked - Krylov was standing and looking straight at me. I see his face as clearly as you do, but his body was as if in a fog or a cloud. I looked at him. He ... I winced. The ghost seemed to rush to the window and disappear. I was still wondering what that would mean - I heard a knock at my door, the hospital watchman came in and said to me: "Student Krylov gave his soul to God."

How long has it been? I asked in amazement.

Yes, that's about five minutes, I was just getting ready to see you.

“So, if you please, unravel this mystery,” said the archpastor, addressing all those present at the story. All were silent. “All this,” concluded Vladyka, “undoubtedly proves to us some kind of mysterious connection between us and the souls of the dead” (Mogilev. Eparch. Ved., 1883).

3. Lord Thomas Erskine recounts the following vision.

“When I was a young man, I happened to be absent from Scotland for a while. On the afternoon of my return to Edinburgh, in the morning, walking down from the bookstore, I met the old butler of our family. I found a strong change in his appearance: he was pale, thin and gloomy.

And, old man, why are you here?

To meet your grace, - he answered, - and to ask your intercession before my lord: our manager cheated me at the last calculation.

Struck by his look and tone, I told him to follow me to the bookseller's shop, where I went back; but when I turned around to speak to the old man, he was gone. I remembered the house and apartment where he lived, and therefore I went to him. But what was my surprise when I entered his apartment and saw his wife in mourning. “My husband died,” she said, “several months ago. Before he died, he told me that our steward had cheated him, but you, surely, will help to find the money he was following. " I promised to do so and rather, at my insistence, the unpaid amount was given to the widow (Controversial region between two worlds, R.D. Owen).

4. At the end of the last century, the landowner 3., a man not yet old, burdened with a large family and having at the same time a rather limited fortune, served as his only support for the family.

Once Z. became seriously ill and, apparently, began to approach death, the doctors refused to treat him. The heartbroken wife mourned her sick husband as if he had died, presenting her desperate situation with a bunch of young children. Seeing all this, the hopeless patient began mentally asking God to extend his life, while he accommodates his eldest sons and, thus, leaves his family in their care. After this prayer, he fell asleep and slept for a long time. Waking up, he immediately calls his wife to him and joyfully informs her that he saw in a dream the archpastor of Belgorod, Joseph Gorlenko, whom he remembered while still alive. The archpastor in a dream vision told him that by the Mercy of God, for the sake of innocent babies, he was given another twenty years of life. But 20 years later, on this very day, the Lord will call him to Himself.

Having told his dream, the patient asked his wife to write it all down from his words in the prayer book, which was done, and the hitherto hopeless patient Z. began, to the surprise of the family and the doctors who treated him, to recover quickly and soon completely recovered.

Exactly 20 years later, on the appointed day, Z. rested in eternal sleep in the arms of his sons and daughters, already attached and secured, with a grateful prayer on his lips.

His prayer book with a record has been kept by his descendants to this day, as a family rarity ("Mental Reader", 1868, parts 1-3).

5. In one parish, on the occasion of the death of a priest, the place was taken by another. The new man who was taken to the place of the deceased died a few days later, another did in his place, but this one also died a few days later. Thus, the parish lost three priests in a very short time.

These two events eliminated priesthood candidates, which is why the said parish remained vacant for a considerable time. The spiritual authorities themselves appointed a candidate for this position. The incoming priest, entering the temple for the first time and then into the altar, saw here, away from St. throne, an unknown priest in full priestly vestments, but bound hand and foot with heavy iron chains. The new minister of the altar did not lose his presence of mind: he began the usual sacred service with proskomedia, and after reading the 3rd and 6th o'clock he performed the entire Divine Liturgy, not at all embarrassed by the presence of an outsider, a mysterious person who, at the end of the service, became invisible. Now the new pastor realized that the chained priest he had seen was an inhabitant underworld... He only did not understand the reasons for his appearance, but this soon became clear. The chained priest, throughout the entire service, did not utter a word and only from time to time raised his chained hands and pointed them to one place on the platform in the altar. The same thing was repeated at the next service, during which, at the entrance to the altar, the priest paid special attention to the place to which, as before, the ghost pointed. Peering intently in that direction, the priest noticed an old small sack lying there on the floor against the wall. He lifted this sack, untied it and found in it a considerable number of notes with the names of the dead and living persons, which are usually served to the ministering priest for commemoration at the proskomedia about the repose of souls that have passed into eternity, and about the health and salvation of the living.

Now the priest realized that these notes during the life of his bound fellow who stood here, who had previously been the rector of the same church, probably remained unread by him during the Divine Liturgies he performed. Therefore, starting the service, he began to remember on the proskomedia the names of the living and the dead, indicated in the notes of the bag he found, and as soon as he finished reading them, like heavy iron chains, with which the afterlife prisoner was bound, in an instant, with a noise, they slept from his hands and his feet and fell to the ground; and he himself, having become free from bonds, went up to the ministering priest and, without saying a word, bowed down to his feet to the face of the earth. Then, suddenly, neither he nor the iron fetters became visible. After this, the afterlife no longer appeared during the divine services (The Wanderer, 1867, March, p. 125).

6. Senator Rezanov's daughter, Anna Dmitrievna, shortly after the death of her mother, saw her in a dream; the deceased said to her: “How long will you, my friend, cry for me? Take comfort: on April 15 we will unite forever. " Anna Dmitrievna told this dream to her family and friends, and they assured her that this dream was an empty dream, and in July she got married. But there came April 15, 1822, the day when her daughter was safely born. Remembering the mother's word, A. Dm. On the eve of April 15, she confessed and received communion, and on April 15, she blessed her newborn daughter and said: “It’s not for me to bring you up,” and in the evening of the same day she died (“Psychic Reading”, 1862, April book, 463-468).

7. In early September 1848, Father Archpriest E-v saw in a dream the deceased priest Poselsky, whom he knew, who told him: "Write to your friend, Countess Anna Alekseevna Orlova-Chesmenskaya, so that she prepares for death." But the archpriest did not believe the dream and did not write to the countess. A week later, the same priest dreamed of him again and repeated the same thing to him. But the archpriest did not dare to write this time either. Finally, the deceased dreamed once more, reprimanded him for non-fulfillment and added: if you miss at least one mail and do not write it, then your news will no longer find her alive, and God will exact from you. The archpriest woke up, thought, fell asleep again, and now - a new dream: it is as if in a cemetery, in the land where the countess lived, and the countess in a crowd of people asks some old man for money; but he refused, and the archpriest gave her as much money as was needed, and after that he saw in the same cemetery a small room of the countess. Awakening from sleep, he immediately wrote a letter to the Countess and advised her to be ready for death every hour. She showed this letter to her confessor and confessed on the same day, and on the next day she received the Holy Mysteries and soon after the communion on the same day she suddenly died, on October 6, 1848 ("Holy Spirit", 1862, Feb. book, 242-245).

At this point in our common path with the reader, I think it would be useful to look around and clarify what we have managed to achieve so far. The reader, perhaps, will admit that we have, indeed, now established on fairly solid grounds the possibility of the appearance in some cases (whether through bells, or in some other way) of various noises, which we can logically ascribe only to Supramundane or spiritual reasons; but what, he asks, do we achieve by this proof? He may further point out that the evidence of the afterlife should, in essence, be solemn and awe inspiring, and not be expressed in such trifles and pranks as ringing bells or banging on the wall.

One could answer this with one general consideration. Between the phenomena of the nature around us, no matter how low some of them are placed by man, there is nothing small and insignificant in the eyes of Togo,

Who from the height of His sovereign power,

As God of all that is - alive

And not alive, looks with an equal eye

For all creation ... Does it fall from the branch

A wounded bird, or a hero,

Struck down in battle, gives up the spirit;

Does one atom die, or with it

The system ends; disappears

A bubble swollen from the face of water,

Or suddenly crumbles to dust and ashes

Beautiful planet ... it doesn't matter!

But, bypassing this great truth, I ask you: is there anything solemn or awe-inspiring for the ordinary mind, for example, in the fall of an apple from the tree that nurtured it? The child sees the fall and hits his palms; a simple peasant takes it as a sign that the orchard is beginning to ripen, but it leads Newton to the trail of the law governing the motion of the planets and acting in more than half of all natural phenomena that are found in the world.

To the question of what we achieve by establishing such facts, I will answer with the remark of Southey. In the second book, The Life of Wesley, speaking about similar concerns in the pastor's house of Samuel Wesley and about what a good purpose can be assumed in such phenomena, he thoroughly notes: it will be good if “the stated truth of one such story as no matter how petty and aimless the history itself may be in other respects, ”will sometimes make one of these unfortunate skeptics, who see nothing beyond the narrow circle of their earthly existence, ponder, and will lead him to faith in immortal life.

We'll go one step further. Between the world in which we now live, and the one into which we pass after death, there is no true, constant message: only from time to time, very rarely, the inhabitants of one world notice the inhabitants of another. We appear to be immortals, probably something like ghosts, just as they do to us - in those minutes when they visit the earth. But if anyone ever truly loved and admits future life, for this there can be no doubt that the best of the creatures who left the earth and left their friends and relatives here, for some time still seek their closeness and sympathize with them. We see many examples of this, even on these pages, that they often ardently wish to convince us, to convince us to the point of complete certainty - in their continuing being, their well-being and in their not dying love... Examples testify that they are very strenuously seeking communication with us, sometimes out of a feeling of love, sometimes for other motives; but they reach us only with great difficulty. And these difficulties were put between us and them, of course, not without a wise goal: because if spiritual relations were as simple as worldly connections, who else would agree to live and languish in this vague and difficult world?

At times a desire comes to them to visit us. But, appearing from his spiritual world, in his spiritual image, invisible to our eyes and silent to our hearing, how can they reveal their presence before us? How can they get our attention?

What does a traveler who approaches the door of a locked house on a dead night, if he wants to penetrate to those living in it, wants to declare his presence to them? Does he not reach his goal with a knock or a ring.

Why not admit that the words of Scripture are read in the other world, that they also find application there? And why immortal love, yearning for the earthly, could not follow these words of Christ: “Seek and you will find; knock and it will open to you! "

The inhabitants of the house, to which the traveler asks, not seeing anyone in the darkness, may at first ignore his knocking or ringing, and the traveler at that time, perhaps, will leave, having been deceived in expectations. So it could be in cases like the one described above. In many, perhaps, in all such cases, some spirit was looking, perhaps, for communication with the earth (Robert Del-Owen. "The Disputed Region Between Two Worlds", St. Petersburg, 1881, pp. 51-67).

8. In the Dankovsky district of the Ryazan province, the landowner Muromtseva, nee Countess T-taya, lived in her own estate, and still lives in the Dankovsky district. The countess had two siblings, both military men and both participants in the glorious Crimean campaign. At the very first stages of hostilities in Sevastopol, one of the brothers was either killed at the beginning of the campaign, or, dangerously ill, died in the hospital; another brother was constantly in Sevastopol. The mysterious phenomenon that I want to talk about happened on the first day of Holy Easter and happened under the following circumstances: Mrs. Muromtseva, returning from church in the morning and feeling tired, wished to rest. As soon as she lay down in bed, she heard quite clearly and distinctly someone's footsteps, which were clearly directed towards her bed, closed by a canopy. Someone stopped and suddenly opened the curtain; she looked and was dumbfounded with horror: before her stood a dead brother, who said to her: “Christ is risen, sister, I congratulate you on the holiday! I came to tell you that our brother was killed in Sevastopol today! " Having said these words, the ghost with the same steps left the bedroom. All this lasted for several moments, and now, when the ghost of her brother disappeared, the countess, trembling all over, burst into hysterical crying. In response to her screams and sobs, a servant immediately appeared and immediately took all measures to calm the lady down. Coming to her senses, the Countess told about what had happened to her. This story soon became known to the entire population of the city of Dankov and the Dankove district and reached the local authorities. The police officer at that time in the Dankovsky district was Colonel Nikanor Petrovich Belokopytov, now a most respectable elder, who lived in retirement in the city of Borovsk, Kaluga province. He and his wife repeatedly recounted this mysterious incident, which happened almost before their eyes and remarkable in that, a few days after the described incident, the Countess received the news that on the night near Svetloye Christ's Resurrection, at the very time when the ghost appeared to her, her second brother, in fact, was killed during the sortie undertaken by him, together with other officers, against the enemy (from "Petersburg leaf", sn. "Rebus", 1884 g., No. 25);

9. One of our acquaintances, a man with higher education, fully trustworthy, A N. S-in, told us the following incident from his life.

“Several years ago,” he said, “I fell in love with a girl with whom I intended to legally marry, and the day of our wedding had already been set. But a few days before the marriage, my bride caught a cold, received fleeting consumption, and after three or four months she died. No matter how great the blow was for me, but time has taken its toll - I forgot about the bride, or, at least, did not grieve for her already as in the first time after her death. It happened to me once, on business, to pass through one city of our Ya-skaya province, where I had relatives, with whom I stayed for one day. I was given a separate room for the night. I had a dog with me, smart and devoted. The night was, as I remember now, moonlit, at least read it. As soon as I started to fall asleep, I can hear my dog ​​starting to grumble. Knowing that she never grumbles in vain, I thought that perhaps a cat had been accidentally locked in the room or a mouse had run. I got out of bed, but did not notice anything, the dog grumbled stronger and stronger, apparently, was frightened of something; I look - and her wool stands on end. He began to calm her down, but the dog was more and more frightened. Together with the dog, I was unconsciously frightened of something, although by nature I was not a coward, but I was so frightened that the hair on my head stood on end. Remarkably, my fright intensified as my dog ​​was frightened and reached such a degree that it seems like one more minute, I probably would have fainted. But my dog ​​began to subside, and along with it I began to calm down and at the same time began to feel, as it were, someone's presence and wait for the appearance, without knowing which one. When I calmed down completely, suddenly my fiancee came up to me and, kissing me, said: “Hello AN! You do not believe that there is life behind the coffin, so I appeared to you, look at me, you see - I am alive, I even kiss you. Believe me, my friend, that with death a person's life does not stop. " In doing so, she pointed out to me what to read from Holy Scripture about the afterlife and from various other spiritual writings. She told me something else, which she forbade to tell others. When I got up the next day, I saw myself completely gray overnight, so my family got scared when they saw me drinking their morning tea. At the same time, I must confess, - continued our acquaintance, - that until now I did not believe in anything - neither in God, nor in the immortality of the soul, nor in the afterlife; for several years he did not go to church, remaining without confession and St. communion, laughed at everything sacred; fasts, holidays and sacred rites Orthodox Church did not exist for me. But now, by the grace of God, I have become again a Christian, a believing person, and I don’t know how to thank the Lord that he pulled me out of the abyss of pernicious delusions.

We will add on our own that AN S-in is currently, being a magistrate in one of the county towns of the north-western region, so devout that, it seems, there was no case when he would have missed the service of God (“ From the afterlife ", priest D. Bulgakov).

10. “In 1871, a member of the choir A Ya., Having lived no more than 24 years,” says Archbishop Nil of Yaroslavl, “died of epidemic cholera. Ten days after his death, on the morning of July 16, he appeared to me in a dream. He was wearing the coat I knew, only lengthened to the heels. At the moment of my appearance, I was sitting at the table in my living room, and he entered from the hall at a rather rapid pace, as it always happened, showing signs of respect for me, approached the table and, without saying a word, began to pour copper money with a small admixture of silver.

I asked in amazement: "What does this mean?" He replied: "To pay off the debt."

This struck me very much, and I repeated several times: "No, no, your money is not needed, I will pay your debt myself."

With these words, Ya. Cautiously told me: "Speak more quietly so that others do not hear." He did not mind my expressed willingness to pay the debt for him, and he was quick to shovel the money off the table with his hand. But where he put them, I did not manage to notice, and, it seems, they immediately disappeared.

Then, getting up from the chair, I turned to I. with the question: "Where are you, having departed from us?"

As if in an enclosed castle.

Do you have any kind of rapprochement with angels?

We are alien to angels.

Do you have anything to do with God?

I'll tell you about this sometime later.

Is Misha in the same place with you?

Not in one.

Who is with you?

Any rabble.

Do you have any kind of entertainment?

None. We never even hear sounds; for the spirits do not speak among themselves.

Do the spirits have any food?

These sounds were uttered with obvious displeasure and, of course, because of the inappropriateness of the question.

How do you feel?

I miss.

How can we help this?

Pray for me, until now the funeral liturgies have not been performed for me.

At these words, my soul was indignant, and I began to apologize to the deceased that I had not ordered the magpie, but that I would certainly do it. The last words apparently reassured the interlocutor.

Whereupon he asked for blessings to go on his way. At the same time, I asked him: "Do I need to ask someone for permission to leave?" The answer was in just one word: yes. And this word was pronounced in a drawn-out manner, sadly and as if under duress.

Then he asked for a blessing a second time, and I blessed him. He left me by the door facing the Mulberry Mountain, on which his ashes rest ("Soul, Reflections" 1880-1881).

11. And here is a case recently in Paris. One morning a lady appeared to the priest and asked him to go with her in a prepared carriage for admonishing the holy mysteries of her dying son. Taking spare gifts and everything necessary for communion, the priest, accompanied by a lady, soon arrived at the indicated house. But when he went up to the apartment, the lady quietly disappeared. The priest's call was answered by a young officer with a flourishing health.

What do you want, father? he asked the shepherd as he entered.

I was invited here by some lady to her dying son, to confess and commune him, - answered the priest.

There is an obvious misunderstanding, - objected the officer, - I live alone in this apartment and did not send for you, I am quite healthy.

The interlocutors, meanwhile, entered the living room. A large portrait hanging over the sofa elderly woman involuntarily attracted the attention of the priest, and he said:

Yes, this very lady was with me, alone and showed me your apartment.

Have mercy, - replied the owner, - this is a portrait of my mother, who died 20 years ago.

Struck by this circumstance, the officer expressed a desire to confess and receive communion, and the next day he died of a ruptured heart ("From the Mysterious Realm" by priest D. Bulgakovsky, published in 1895).

12. From the memoirs of V. I. Panaev.

In the fall of 1796, my father's grave illness summoned my father to Turinsk. He hurried to him along with his wife, dear to him, and almost all the children, and had the sad consolation of personally giving his father his last duty; but a few days later (October 26), on his way back from Siberia, he died of bilious fever in Irbit, where he was buried near the cathedral church.

The marriage of my parents was exemplary; they lived, as they say, in perfect harmony. My mother, already saddened by the recent loss, having now lost her unexpectedly dearly beloved spouse, left with eight young children, of whom the eldest was 13 years old, and the youngest was only one year old, fell into complete despair, went to bed, taking no food, and only occasionally asked for a drink. The wives of Irbit officials, seeing her in this position, established a watch between themselves and did not leave her either day or night. Thirteen days had passed so, when on the last of them, around midnight, one of the ladies on duty, who was sitting on a feather-bed made for her on the floor and knitting a stocking (the other was sleeping next to her), ordered the maid to lock all the doors, starting from the front, and go to bed. sleep in the room in front of the bedroom, directly opposite the unlocked doors, so that, if necessary, you can call her as soon as possible. The maid obeyed the order: she shut and bolted all the doors, but had just laid her bed on the floor and wanted to cover herself with a blanket, when the sound of the door opening in the third room stopped her; leaning on her elbow, she began to listen. A few minutes later the same sound was heard in the second room and, in the silence of the night, reached the ears of the lady sitting on the bedroom floor; she left her stocking and also began to listen attentively. Finally, the last door clicked, leading to the room where the maid was ... And what then? My recently deceased father enters, slowly shuffling his feet, with a drooping head and groans, wearing the same vest and shoes in which he died. The lady on duty, hearing the steps and groans she was familiar with, because she had been with my father during the last two days of his illness, hastened, without rising from the floor, to reach and pull up the curtain of my mother’s bed, which was thrown open for air, who did not sleep and lay facing the door. - but, seized with horror, did not have time. Meanwhile, he entered with the same painful groans, with the same drooping head, pale as a sheet, and, not paying attention to anyone, sat down on a chair that stood near the door, at the foot of the bed. My mother, not obscured by a canopy, saw him at that very moment, but out of joy, completely forgetting that he had died, imagining him only as a sick person, she asked vividly: what do you want, my friend? And she had already lowered her legs to walk towards him, as his unexpected answer: give me a knife better - an answer completely contrary to his well-known way of thinking, his high religious feeling, stopped her and made her embarrassed. The vision arose and, still not looking at anyone, with slow steps departed in the same way. Recovering from her numbness, the lady on duty woke her friend up, and together with her and the maid went to inspect the doors: they all turned out to be open!

The event is incomprehensible, inexplicable, and for people who doubt everything supernatural, and incredible; but it is confirmed by the testimony of three persons! If the vision was presented to only one of my mother, then, perhaps, it could be called a consequence of the upset imagination of a sick and distressed woman, all whose thoughts were focused on the loss she had suffered. Here, on the contrary, there were two more outside women who did not have a similar mood, who were in two different rooms, but who saw and heard the same thing. Let us humble ourselves before the phenomena of the spiritual world, so far inaccessible to the studies of the human mind and, apparently, completely contrary to the laws of nature, known to us. Have we fully comprehended them? ("Vesti. Evropy" 1866, Sept.).

13. Vision of Sofia Alexandrovna Aksakova. The following story refers to the time of my late wife's first marriage (reports A. Aksakov) and was written by her, at my request, in 1872; I reproduce it here verbatim from her manuscript. When in 1873, while in Bern, we met with prof. Perty, who is known to have specially studied such phenomena, became very interested in this story; having received it from his wife in a German translation, he placed it in the Psyhische Studien (1874, pp. 122 and 166) with his own footnote explaining why this vision could not be purely subjective; right there is also my, as it seems to me, a rather suitable explanation for the mysterious "parchment roll." This story appeared later and on English language in the magazine "Spiritualist" 1874, vol .; I, p. 183, and the book: "Spirits before our eyes" ", published in London, in 1879, by Harrison.

This was in May 1855. I was nineteen years old. I had no idea about spiritualism then, I had never even heard this word. Brought up in the rules of the Greek Orthodox Church, I knew no prejudices and never was prone to mysticism or daydreaming. We lived then in the city of Romanov-Borisoglebsk, Yaroslavl province. My sister-in-law, now a widow by her second marriage, Colonel Varvara Ivanovna Tikhonova, who at that time was married to Dr. A.F. Zengireev, lived with her husband in the city of Ranenburg, Ryazan province, where he served. Due to the spring flood, any correspondence was greatly hampered and we did not receive letters from my sister-in-law for a long time, which, however, did not bother us in the least, since it was attributed to the above reason.

In the evening, from May 12 to May 13, I prayed to God, said goodbye to my girl (she was then about six months old, and her bed was in my room, four yards away from my bed, so that I could see her at night), lay down into bed and began to read some book. As I read, I heard the wall clock striking twelve o'clock in the hall. I put the book on the bedside cabinet next to me and, leaning on my left elbow, raised myself a little to extinguish the candle. At that moment I clearly heard the door open from the hallway to the hall and someone walked into it with male steps; this was so clear and distinct that I regretted that I had time to extinguish the candle, convinced that the one who had entered was none other than my husband's valet, probably going to report to him that they had sent for him from some patient , as happened very often in the post of district doctor he then held; I was somewhat surprised only by the fact that it was the valet who was walking, and not my maid, who was entrusted with similar cases... Thus, leaning my elbows, I listened to the approach of steps - not fast, but slow, to my surprise - and when they were finally heard in the living room next to my bedroom, with the doors constantly open into it for the night, and did not stop , I called out: "Nikolay (name of the valet), what do you need?" There was no answer, but the steps continued to approach and were already quite close to me, right behind the glass screens that stood behind my bed; here already, in some strange embarrassment, I lay back on my pillows.

Before my eyes was a figurative icon case standing in the front corner of the room with a lamp burning in front of it, always deliberately so bright that there was enough light for the nurse when she had to feed and swaddle the baby. The nurse slept in my own room behind the screens to which I lay my head. With such an icon-lamp light, I could clearly distinguish, when the person entering came level with my bed, to my left, that it was my son-in-law, A.F. Zengireev, but in a completely unusual form for me - in a long, black, like a monk's cassock, with shoulder-length hair and a large thick beard, which he never wore while I knew him. I wanted to close my eyes, but I could no longer, feeling that my whole body was completely numb; I had no power to make not the slightest movement, not even to call in my voice for help; only hearing, sight and understanding of everything that was happening around me remained in me completely and consciously - to such an extent that the next day I literally told how many times the nurse got up to the child, at what hours, when she was just feeding him, and when she swaddled and so on. This state of mine lasted from 12 hours to 3 am, and this is what happened at that time.

The one who entered came close to my bed, stood sideways, turning to face me, on my left side, and putting his left hand , completely deathly cold, flat on my mouth, said aloud: "Kiss my hand." Not being able to physically free myself from this influence, I mentally, by force of will, resisted the command I had heard. As if foreseeing my intention, he pressed the lying hand harder on my lips, and louder and more imperiously repeated: "Kiss this hand." And I, for my part, again mentally opposed the repeated order even more strongly. Then, for the third time, with even greater force, the same movement and the same words were repeated, and I felt that I was suffocating from the weight and cold of the hand that was leaning on me; but still she could not give in to the dictates and did not want to. At this time the nurse for the first time stood up to the child, and I hoped that for some reason she would come up to me and see what was happening to me; but my expectations did not come true: she only slightly shook the girl, without even taking her out of the crib, and almost immediately lay down in her place and fell asleep. Thus, not seeing help for myself and thinking for some reason that I was dying - that what is being done to me is nothing more than sudden death - I mentally wanted to read the Lord's Prayer "Our Father." Just now this thought flashed through my mind, as the one standing next to me took his hand from my lips and again said aloud: “You don’t want to kiss my hand, this is what awaits you,” and with these words he put his right hand on the night cabinet quite beside me, a parcel of parchment, the size of an ordinary sheet of writing paper rolled into a tube; and when he took his hand away from the intended bundle, I clearly heard the rustle of a half-thick parchment sheet unfolded, and with my left eye I even saw from the side a part of this sheet, which, thus, remained in a half-unfolded, or, better to say, in an easily folded state. Then, having laid it down, turned away from me, took a few steps forward, stood in front of the icon case, blocking the light of the lamp from me, and loudly and clearly began to say the prayer I had planned, which he read from beginning to end, bowing at times with a slow bow at the waist, but not making the sign of the cross. During the bows, his lamp became visible to me every time, and when he straightened up and stood motionless, as if waiting for something; my condition did not change in anything, and when I again wished to read the prayer to the Mother of God, he immediately began to read it as clearly and loudly; The same thing was repeated with the third prayer I had conceived - "May God rise again." Between these last two prayers there was a long period of time in which the reading stopped, while the nurse got up on the crying of the child, fed him, swaddled him and put him back to bed. During the entire reading, I clearly heard every chiming of the clock that did not interrupt this reading; I also heard every movement of the nurse and the child, whom I passionately wished to somehow instinctively bring to her in order to bless him in front of the death I expected and to say goodbye to him; there was no other desire in my thoughts, but it also remained unfulfilled.

Three o'clock struck; here, I don’t know why, it came to my mind that not yet six weeks had passed since the day of Easter, and that in all churches the Easter verse was still sung - “Christ is Risen!” And I wanted to hear him ... As if in response to this desire, suddenly the divine sounds of a familiar great song performed by a numerous full choir in an unattainable height ... The sounds were heard closer and closer, fuller, more sonorous, and poured in such incomprehensible, never before I heard, unearthly harmony that my spirit died with delight; the fear of death disappeared, and I was happy with the hope that, behold, these sounds would take me all over and carry me away into boundless space ... During all the time I was singing, I clearly heard and discerned the words of the great irmos, carefully repeated behind the choir and the man standing in front of me. Suddenly, all of a sudden, the whole room was flooded with some kind of radiant light, also unseen by me, so strong that everything disappeared in it - the fire of the lamp, and the walls of the room, and the vision itself ... This light shone for several seconds with sounds that reached a higher, deafening , extraordinary strength, then he began to thin out, and I could again discern the person standing in front of me, but not the whole person, but from head to waist she seemed to merge with the light and gradually melted in it, as it faded or the light itself grew dim; the bundle that had been lying near me all the time was also captured by this light and disappeared with it. With the dimming light, sounds were receding, just as slowly and gradually as they were at first approaching.

I began to feel that I was beginning to lose consciousness and approaching fainting, which, indeed, came, accompanied by the strongest cramps and convulsions of the whole body that have ever happened to me in my life. This attack, by its strength, awakened everyone around me and, despite all the measures taken against him and the help provided to me, lasted until nine o'clock in the morning; then it was only possible to finally bring me to consciousness and stop the convulsions. Then for three days I lay completely motionless from extreme weakness and extreme exhaustion due to severe throat bleeding that accompanied the seizure. The next day after this strange event, news was received about Zengireev's illness, and two weeks later, about his death, which followed, as it later turned out, on the night of May 13, at five o'clock in the morning.

The following is also remarkable: when my sister-in-law, six weeks after the death of her husband, moved with her whole family to live with us in Romanov, then one day, quite by accident, in a conversation with another person, in my presence, she mentioned that interesting fact, that the late Zengireev was buried with shoulder-length hair and a large, thick beard that had grown during his illness; She also mentioned the strange fantasy of those who were in charge of the burial - which she was not able to do herself - who did not think of anything more decent than putting the deceased in a coffin in a long, black cloth garment, like a shroud, which they had deliberately ordered for this.

The late Zengireev's character was strange; he was very secretive, uncommunicative; he was a sullen melancholic; sometimes, very rarely, he was animated, cheerful, free-spirited. In his melancholy mood, he could sit for two, three, even eight, ten hours in one place, without moving, without even saying a single word, refusing all food, until such a state of itself, or on some occasion did not stop. Mind not particularly outstanding, he was by convictions, perhaps as a doctor, a complete materialist; in anything supersensible - spirits, ghosts and the like - he did not believe; but his way of life was very correct. My relationship with him was rather strained due to the fact that I always stood up for one of his children, little son whom he had constantly persecuted from his very birth for no reason; I defended him in any case; it made him very angry and turned against me. When, six months before his death, he, along with his entire family, was staying with us in Romanov, I had a violent collision with him, all for the same reason, and we parted very coldly: These circumstances are not without, perhaps, meaning for understanding the extraordinary phenomenon I have described (see "Rebus", 1890, No. 13).

14. Proof of the afterlife. On the eve of Christmas, December 24, 1890, at 6 o'clock in the afternoon, - says Mr. Gladkevich, - I returned with my now deceased younger sister and 10-year-old brother exhausted from the funeral. We buried one of our good acquaintances, an elderly lady, who, having been ill for a very short time, died on December 22 from the so-called "sugar disease". Three hours after our arrival from the funeral and the arrival of my relative with his wife, we sat down to dinner, during which my father, who sometimes liked to joke, asked: "What would you do if the dead Elena Konstantinovna suddenly appeared between us?" “Well, well,” I replied, “I would invite you to sit next to me and ask how she feels after death and how she generally lives in that world.” My sister, who was at the funeral and saw the deceased in the coffin, who made an unpleasant impression on her with her height and appearance, protested and demanded to stop such an unpleasant conversation for everyone at night, which, of course, was done. The dinner, to the delight of all those present, passed in a cheerful and unanimous mood. After supper, at about 11 o'clock, father, mother, sisters and brother went to their rooms, while my relative and I remained at the table, continuing our conversation, which, in the end, took the character of a reproach to my address for what I had not acquired he received tickets to the opera, where he hoped, as a music lover, to spend a pleasant holiday time and listen to the best operatic forces. Indeed, this time, because of the funeral, I did not take care of the tickets, and the opera's repertoire was selective and attractive. In order to correct my mistake and satisfy the desire of a relative, I went deep into thinking how to get the necessary number of tickets for the best performances tomorrow, knowing well that the box office would be open while I was busy. At the moment of my thoughts on how to buy tickets, I was startled by some strange crackling that I heard in the kitchen, where my mother and the servant were, or in the living room opposite us, or in my room, where people were crowded. my three sisters, conducting some kind of lively conversation - in a word, I could not determine where and how this strange crack occurred, which brought me out of my reverie and which was heard by everyone, but for everyone in different places, as explained later. It seemed to me that in the kitchen a maid was breaking wood chips. At the same time, I raised my head and looked into open doors an unlit living room, where, to my horror, I saw red tongues of fire wriggling around the edges of the tablecloth of a round front table, and a second later, on the same table, among the growing tongues of fire, I saw a living bust of the deceased, whose face seemed to me all in sweat and red, her eyes looked at me in fright, and the hair on her forehead was in disarray, that is, she appeared to me in a form in which I had never seen her in my life, despite the fact that there were times when I visited her home quite often. This sight, completely unexpected, struck me so much that I could not utter a single word for 10-15 seconds, and what is strange - I did not feel any fear, but only wondered and pondered, thinking what is it? Finally, I turned to a relative who was leaning over the dining table, who was also thinking about something, and said to him: "Look, what is this happening over the table?" And since I did not explain where and over what table "was happening", he began to examine the table at which we were sitting and repeat: "Nothing, I see nothing." This angered me, and I directed my gaze again to the vision, but ... it was no longer there, there were no fiery tongues either.

Obviously, I immediately told all my family about the vision, and after an hour or an hour and a half I went to bed. Instead of the sleep that was necessary for me, I racked my brains almost all night - what could it be? I know perfectly well that I do not suffer from hallucinations, did not allow myself an unnecessary "libation to Bacchus" at dinner, and at the moment of the vision I did not think about the deceased at all. It was only towards morning that I remembered that one evening I went to her - as I recall, it was in the summer - and she invited me to drink tea, over which they talked privately about incomprehensible phenomena in the world, etc., and then, when the conversation touched upon the life of mankind beyond the grave, she, without thinking twice, stretched out her hand to me and said: “I am already old, and you, although young, are in poor health; whoever of us dies before, he will try to manifest himself to another and this prove the real existence of an afterlife if it only exists. " In turn, I shook her hand and promised her to appear from the other world if I die before she. When I remembered all this, I began to shake and for several days I walked like a murdered man: I did not know what to think, what to do and where to go; although the image of the vision did not haunt me, the thought of the afterlife, proven by the deceased, made me indifferent to everything around me. Since then I have changed my way of life ("Rebus" 1897, no. 41).

15. Posthumous phenomenon. Someone B-sky, now a retired artillery lieutenant, who enjoys deep respect among his acquaintances, conveyed to me the following incident that happened to him at the end of September 1864, an incident that took place in the house of his distant relatives, wealthy landowners of that time, the village of Tselesssev, Minsk lips., Mozyr district. In September 1864 he planned to make a trip from Zhitomir to Minsk province. to their highly respected relatives, Messrs. L-skim, whose 18-year-old daughter Camilla, a beautiful and educated person, had died of consumption six months ago, a beautiful and educated person who had some indifference to Mr. S-tskoy during her lifetime. The latter, knowing perfectly about her incurable disease, I ignored this disposition and was fully aware that in the near future she would die.

Having received a vacation, Mr. S-cue set off under the most favorable conditions of the autumn time: the roads are dry, the nights are moonlit and cloudless, and the horses, as they say, are eagles. Arrived at the place, as he says, in a very good mood and was received very cordially. Even in spite of the late evening hour, which forced us to wish each other good night, the hospitable host and his respected family and the visiting relatives, the doctor and his wife, settled down to drink tea and talk about current everyday affairs. When they had had enough of a conversation and wished mutually good night, they all went to their bedrooms; for me, in the absence of a free room, they made a bed on the sofa, in the hall, where, of course, I was left alone and, taking advantage of complete freedom, tired after the trip, took off my uniform, took tobacco out of my suitcase and began to crumble it almost on the whole table for the purpose of drying. While doing this with a lit candle, I suddenly heard behind me, near tropical flowers and near the piano, the rustle of a silk dress, which made me get out of some reverie and turn around. But before I had time to fully turn around and realize what was happening in empty room rustle as if from a silk dress, when suddenly I see a real female figure, dressed in a long black silk dress and a red bow around her neck, which either walks or floats through the air along the piano, and, having passed the last, disappeared into the partition between the piano and the doors leading to the room of the arrived doctor and his wife. As long as I peered at the mysterious visitor and could not yet make out the face, vigor and that warlike courage, which every military man is proud of, and even more so an officer, existed in me; but when I saw the profile of the visitor's face and recognized it as the dead Camilla, all the energy and self-control in me disappeared: frost went all over my body, my hair rose, and, instinctively grabbing my uniform in one hand, I automatically ran out of the room into the corridor. How many doors I ran through - I don't remember; it seems that before the latter I stopped and remembered that I was in a strange house, where it would be indecent to run around with a uniform in my hands. Hastily putting on my uniform in the dark, I somehow caught my breath, gave myself, as it seemed to me, a cheerful and heroic look, took the handle of the door and, opening the door, entered the room without any permission. This room, which I knew little, turned out to be a nursery, and, to my great happiness, there were, in addition to my two young cousins, an old woman mother, a wife and an adult, healthy and tall cousin E., the son of Mr. L-sky ... They haven't slept yet. I called the latter into the corridor and told him that I would not sleep in the hall alone due to some ill health. “Yes,” he said with some embarrassment, “it can be seen from your pale face that you are unwell and, besides, you are agitated,” and he asked me to explain the reason for my noticeable excitement, and what exactly happened to me, hitting on “happened” ... Unable to give myself an account of whether this was really a supernatural, incomprehensible phenomenon for me, or simply the consequences of my path, which could unexpectedly upset the nervous system, I reassured him that tomorrow I will explain in detail, but under great secrecy. G.E., as expected, agreed to spend the night on a couch in the hall; Before I had time to completely lie down and turn off the light, he was already snoring, which greatly encouraged me. Having put out the light, I lay down, as if nothing had happened, although my thought worked to an insignificant degree to explain what had happened, and involuntarily I had to look for the motives of such an unprecedented incident with me, which could have occurred only in a person suffering from hallucinations, or prone to alcoholism. Lying and reasoning In a similar way finally, I plunged into a pleasant sleepy stupor, which did not last long, because I had to pay attention to the noise of an upholstered chair approaching in the middle of the room, which stood in front of it somewhere at my head, near a piano or a wall. Slowly, without getting out of bed, I directed my gaze towards a chair that was moving spontaneously and, to my horror, saw this very figure, in a black dress with a red bow on its neck, moving the chair towards me; when the chair had already stood just opposite me, the figure puts both hands on the back, and bows its head in its hands and stubbornly looks at me with its dull eyes, with a face white as marble, illuminated by the moon. I was neither alive nor dead; My condition at that time is difficult to explain in words: I try to mentally pray - I get confused, I want to scream - my tongue is dead and my jaws are frozen; coldness, trembling all over my body and overwhelming fear seized me, which never before in my life; did not experience. However, thanks to my strong temperament, I managed to overcome myself and say in a frightened deathly voice three times the name of my sleeping nephew: “Edward ?! Edward?!" Simultaneously with the awakening of Edward, who jumped to his feet as if stung, the doctor came out of the bedroom with a candle in his hands, and they both began to ask what happened to me? Then I had to explain to them what was the matter and ask Edward to move me immediately for the rest of the night to another room. After listening to my statement, the doctor smiled ironically and, turning to his room, said that I was talking nonsense, and Edward asked, for the sake of everything, not to tell his family about this, especially to keep it a secret to his mother and grandmother. Since all this was very unpleasant for me too, I gave my cousin my word of honor that I would keep it a secret, but from his worried and changed face, I noticed that he was well acquainted with the appearance of this ghost. Without thinking twice, we both moved into the dining room and lay down on one wide sofa; Despite several sleepless nights I spent on the road, I could not sleep until 5 or 6 in the morning. I woke up at 10 o'clock in the afternoon, and just at that time an old Pole lackey came to me with cleaned boots, who with a certain familiarity inherent in him pestered with the question why I did not sleep in the hall, but went with a panic to the dining room together. I didn’t give him explanations, but he didn’t calm down and began to annoyingly say that he guesses what was going on, and knows well that the reason for all this is the late "lady", who is often and which is not only "you, panich, continued he saw, but we all, in the same way, the gentlemen and the children of the gentlemen saw the panna, now in the hall, now on the balcony, now in the garden on the terrace, and she is not at all scary to us ”(“ Rebus ”1895, p. , No. 20).

16. The late Lord M. went to Scotland at the end of the last century, leaving his wife perfectly healthy in London. At night, on the very first day of his arrival at his Scottish estate, he was awakened bright light that lit up his bedroom. The curtain of the bed parted, and Lord M. saw the ghost of his wife standing by the bed. He called and asked the servant who entered: "What do you see?" The frightened footman exclaimed with horror: "This is my lady." Lady M. died suddenly that night in London. This story made a lot of noise at that time. George III sent for Lord M. and, having received confirmation of this incident from him, asked him to state in writing all the circumstances of this case, which was done, and the servant signed with his signature the correctness of the description.

About a year later, Lord M.'s five-year-old youngest daughter rushed into the nursery shouting: “I saw Mom! She stood at the top of the stairs and beckoned me to her. " That very night, this child, little Arabella M., fell ill and died.

I can fully vouch for the veracity of both of these incidents, for I received a written account of these incidents from one of the family members of Lord M. (Robert Del-Owen: "Grave. Echoes").

We could indefinitely increase the number of these authentic stories. Cases of messages at a distance at the time of death, or during life and under normal conditions, such as the above, are not so rare - although, of course, not particularly frequent - so that each of our readers does not hear about them and even personally observe something- something like this, perhaps more than once.

On the other hand, experiments carried out in the field of living magnetism show in the same way that in certain psychological cases the experimenter can act on his subject at a distance of not only a few fathoms, but several versts and even hundreds of versts, depending on the sensitivity of the subject and his ability to clairvoyance. and also, no doubt, by the will of the magnetizer himself.

Two brains vibrating monotonously, in one tone, at several versts of mutual distance, cannot they be set in motion by the same psychic force? Excitation of a certain part of the brain can not, like gravity, be transferred through the ether and transmitted to another brain, vibrating at any distance, as a sound extracted in one corner of a room makes the strings of a piano or violin tremble in another corner? Let us not forget that our brain is made up of particles that do not touch each other and constantly vibrate.

And why talk about the brain? Thought, will, in general, the psychic power of one being, whatever its essence may be, cannot act through a distance on another being associated with the first sympathetic and indissoluble ties of intellectual kinship. And isn't the beat of one heart suddenly transmitted to another, beating with it in unison?

Well, do we really have to admit that in the above cases of phenomena, the spirit of the deceased really took on a corporeal form and was near the observer? For most of the cases, there seems to be no need for such an assumption. During sleep, we are sure that we see different people, although they are not at all in front of our, however, closed, eyes. We see them as clearly as in reality, we listen to them, answer them, talk to them, obviously, we see them not with the help of the retina, not with the help of the optic nerve, just as we hear them not with our ears; - the whole thing is just one brain cells.

Some visions can be objective, external, material, while others are purely subjective; v the latter case a being who appears can act across a distance on a seeing being, and such an influence on the latter's brain can be produced by an internal vision, which, while remaining purely subjective and internal, could seem external, as is the case in dreams, without being at the same time a simple deception of the senses.

Recent experiences with the phenomena of suggestion, hypnotism, and somnambulism seem to indicate a path, if not to explanation, then at least to a rational view of some of the facts in this area. The essence of such phenomena lies in the fact that here the thought of one person acts on the thought of another. Of course, the soul is not transported across distances and does not really take on a human image; before the one to whom the vision appears, there is no human being in clothes made by a tailor or seamstress, wrapped in a cloak, in women's dress, in a wide or narrow coat with all the accessories of a man's or woman's attire, with a cane or an umbrella in his hands, etc. as if he sees, hears, even senses what is presented to him being in the very form in which it was known to him earlier.

Just as a thought or memory evokes in our soul images that achieve great vividness and brightness, so a person acting on another can make the latter see some subjective image, which for a moment will seem to him quite real. Those engaged in hypnotism and suggestion at the present time can already arbitrarily induce such phenomena, and although such experiments have just begun, the results obtained already deserve the greatest attention both from a psychological and physiological point of view. In all such cases, it is not the retina that is excited by external reality, but the optical layers of the brain are directly excited by the action of psychic force. Here the very thinking principle gets the impression, but - in what way? -we don't know.

These are the most rational, as it seems to us, inductive conclusions from the phenomena just considered - the phenomena that are inexplicable, but known from time immemorial, because their examples are found in the history of all peoples from the most ancient times, and it would be difficult to deny them or to be silent.

So really - they will object to us - in our age of experimental method and positive knowledge, we must admit that a dying or downright dead person can have communication with us?

But what is a dead man?

The earth inhabited by us today is composed, among other things, of these billions of once-thinking brains, of these billions of organisms that once lived. We trample our ancestors with our feet, as they will walk on us later. Everything that lived and thought, everything now lies in this damp earth. We cannot take a single step on our planet so as not to step on the ashes of the dead; we cannot take a piece in our mouth, swallow one sip of liquid without introducing into ourselves what has already been eaten and poured out millions of times; we cannot breathe without taking in the breath of the dead. Components human bodies taken from nature, did not return again, and each of us carries in himself atoms that previously belonged to other bodies.

What? Do you really think that nothing more noble, higher and more spiritual is left of all mankind? Is it possible that each of us, emitting his last breath, returns to nature only these sixty or eighty kilo-dams of meat and bones, which will immediately decompose and turn into elements? Can't the soul that animates us continue to exist in the same way as any of the particles of oxygen, nitrogen or iron? Can't souls who once lived always live?

We have no reason to assert that a person consists of only one material elements and that thinking ability is only a property of its organization. On the contrary, very important reasons force us to admit that it is the soul that constitutes the individual essence, that it controls the material particles, forming a living human body out of them.

How a person is born is not a secret for us. How is it going birth of new souls?

The riddle is very interesting. I would like to know the process itself - where it happens, who participates in it, what the birth looks like new soul.

It is curious whether souls are constantly being born, or once having been born, they are now only reincarnated.

It is also important whether the same souls are born or each new soul has special talents and unique abilities.

We set out to investigate these questions in additional lesson 13 of the stream of the Institute of Reincarnation.

How souls are born

Observing memories, how souls are born, made it possible to single out several repetitive scenarios.

I'll clarify right away for skeptics: the research was carried out in different time, with new people, but their descriptions coincided in many ways. These are the common storylines birth of new souls and collected in the "script".

In the first scenario, similar memory images were some small particles that separated from a large creature.

Svetlana S: I remembered a kind of large living creature resembling a hydra, from which balls-souls bud off. Heavenly Mother is called Avatorium.

Each ball had its own color. Some were more colored, some were less intense. The color of the soul depends on the energies that the Heavenly Father initially lays down. And he takes energy from the worlds where these souls will have to incarnate.

Scattered balls rushed into spherical spaces, where souls of their color gathered. My the soul was purple and I joined the group of purple balls.

There were about ninety newborn souls in total. I saw how big hands gathered us into a kind of beads, then twisted us along the axis. In the process of movement, the souls accumulated energies and from this they began to glow.

Then a stream started, connecting to the cosmic mind. The mentors monitored the readiness of souls for the first incarnation by the intensity of the glow.

We began to be divided into smaller groups. In turn, the small group was visited by the Teachers, transferring important energies for cognition, recharging and accumulation. Working with energies, the ability to anchor it in the place where it is necessary to stabilize space, turns out to be special the talent of my soul.

Svetlana Ch .: I saw my soul as a drop that separated from something big. As soon as I flew away, another ten or fifteen droplets joined me, clinging to me from all sides. I remember the feeling of perseverance, desire to get ahead- the qualities that I still observe in myself.

Someone moves our group of droplets into a vessel, and the process of infusion of energies begins. I feel myself expanding from the energies of love and mercy filling me.

Olga T.: I saw a large bundle of energy, iridescent different colors... There was movement inside, swaying.

Balls of different colors stand out from it. I felt like one of the balls - light, playful. My soul was iridescent purple-blue-green, and at the base was a pearlescent golden color.

The mentors took me in and passed on the main the purpose of the soul- to generate love, to spread the energies of love.

Knowing the white light

The second version of the stories of how souls are born often included images of white light and honeycomb from which the formed soul energies flew out.

My memory showed just such a process. A large space filled with white light, full of pentagons-honeycombs.

Boiling of varying intensity occurs in each cell. When the seething reaches its peak, a soul ball bursts out of the honeycomb, exploding sharply.

This ball is taken under the tutelage of the Mentor and transferred, holding it in its field. This process was revealed very vividly and in detail in Elena's recollection.

Elena B .: I see a bright space filled with white glow. In this sparkling glow, you can feel how some waves are moving.

This is a living space, and everything in it breathes, moves. The space itself is like a sphere. There are observers outside the sphere.

Inside there are small balls. They also sparkle, in each of them, as if light is about to burst out. Some processes are going on on the surface of the balls, flashes flare up. Each ball is placed in a honeycomb.

The whole sphere is filled with pentagons, which are adjacent to each other. But the space above the combs is open. There is heavy traffic in the honeycomb. In some, it gets stronger and stronger.

Here is a light bursting out of one honeycomb. This light is born soul... One cell opens, the second, the third. And here is mine!

She has a delicate purple glow. First, the color breaks through with one ray, then it grows and now the whole soul ball shines even purple shine.

From within, through the violet, white light breaks through. Through it, there is a contact with the outer living sphere. A ray-string, like a docking cable, joined the large field.

Contact has been established. The mother's sphere begins to transmit knowledge and energy to the newborn soul in response. Bookmark in progress soul files.

From within, observers send a stream of great love. The stream is so strong that the sphere has to restrain it, otherwise the soul balls will not be able to withstand.

But this whole process is so gentle that the energies of love simply envelop each soul, fill and structure. Love becomes reflection of divine light coming from the inside of each ball. Under its influence, the soul opens up.

The colors of the soul balls are different. Someone like a rainbow - play of several colors. For some, one color predominates, for example, yellow. At the same time, there are few red balls. Glow is associated with purpose.

So my purple is associated with vibrations of higher energies. The main task is the ability to grasp the spirituality and lead it into the material world.

After the souls have collected the initial starting information, absorbed the necessary energy, the mother's sphere begins to thin out and disappears.

A swarm of young souls is left without care, but they are immediately seized by the energies of the Guides. The balls in groups are attracted to the Mentor with whom they are color-matched.

My group has five Mentors. With each of them, there is an alternate attunement, receipt of information. The soul feels that it is expanding, becoming more weighty, more structured.

One of the Guides talks about the World of Souls. Explains the hierarchy, the interaction of souls. Another introduces different worlds and spaces. Shows the geography of incarnations, says where you can go and for what experience.

The Last Mentor prepares for the first incarnation. It will be a warm place, not earthly, where souls learn to communicate.

Vortex energy

The last story of the birth of the soul is, one might say, unique. In my observations, this is the only example of just such a scenario so far. The more interesting is the experience opened, where the source of the birth of the soul is the energy of the vortex.

Svetlana I. Two swirling energies in a dense vortex flow merged into one, resulting in something like a blank. It was a completely raw, heavy material that had to be developed further.

The mentor instills in him some kind of impulse, sparkling star and there is a revitalization of energy. The workpiece glows, lightness appears, the glow becomes bright.

The soul gets life.

The mentor invites the soul to follow him, and I begin to move cautiously, carefully, looking around. I see a world that looks like open space, dark, mysterious, in which you can feel life.

I feel the closeness of the Mentor, I trust him as a parent. We arrived at a round, lighted room. Here we are met energy creatures who greet, rejoice at replenishing their team with a newborn soul.

I feel the warmth and joy of this space, I calm down. I understand that, which studies outer space and regulates, adjusts the processes, if necessary.

Everything is under control here, the higher energies are tracking the emergence of new galaxies, new worlds. I have to learn this job.

What are the implications of the study of the birth of new souls?

At first, the process itself runs along different scenarios, although there are not many of them and there are repetitive plots.

Secondly, in all examples, the birth of a new soul is controlled by the Mentors, who pick up the newborns and move them to the space where growth and learning takes place.

Thirdly, many remember the color of their soul at birth, which is associated with special talents, unique abilities and its purpose.

P.S. Are you interested in knowing the birth of your soul and your unique abilities?

Certified Consultant of the Institute of Reincarnation. I help people find themselves through creativity.

The main work of Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol is not only in the scale and depth of artistic generalizations. For this author, working on it has become a long process of literary and human self-knowledge. An analysis of Dead Souls will be presented in this article.

Gogol noticed after the publication of the first volume that the main subject of his work was not at all ugly landowners and not a province, but a "secret" that suddenly had to be revealed to readers in the following volumes.

The "pale beginning" of a grand design

The search for a genre, a change in concept, work on the text of the first two volumes, as well as thinking over the third - these are fragments of the grandiose "construction" carried out by Nikolai Vasilyevich only partially. Analyzing Dead Souls, one should understand that the first volume is only a part, in which the outlines of the whole are outlined. This is the "pale beginning" of labor, according to the definition of the writer himself. No wonder Nikolai Vasilyevich compared it to a porch, hastily attached to the "palace" by the provincial architect.

How did the idea of ​​the work come about?

The peculiarities of the composition and plot, the originality of the genre are associated with the deepening and development of the original concept of "Dead Souls". Pushkin stood at the origins of the work. As Nikolai Vasilievich used to say, the poet advised him to start writing a large composition and even suggested a plot, from which he wanted to create "something like a poem" himself. However, not so much the plot itself as the "thought" contained in it was Pushkin's "hint" to Gogol. They were well known to the future author of the poem real stories which are based on so-called "dead souls" scams. In Gogol's youth, one of such cases occurred in Mirgorod.

"Dead Souls" in Russia during Gogol's Time

"Dead souls" - who died, but continued to be listed alive until the next "revision tale". Only after her were they officially considered dead. It was after this that the landowners stopped paying for them - a special tax. The peasants who existed on paper could be mortgaged, donated or sold, which the fraudsters sometimes used, seducing the landowners not only with the opportunity to get rid of the unprofitable serfs, but also to get money for them.

The buyer of "dead souls" thus became the owner of a very real fortune. The adventure of the main character of the work, Chichikov, is a consequence " most inspired thought"that overshadowed him, - the board of trustees will give 200 rubles for each serf peasant.

Adventurous roguish romance

The basis for the so-called adventure-rogue novel was given by the "anecdote" with "dead souls". This kind of novel has always been very popular because it was entertaining. Gogol's older contemporaries created works in this genre (V. T. Narezhny, F. V. Bulgarin, and others). Their romances, despite the rather low artistic level, while having great success.

Modification of the genre of the adventure-rogue novel in the process of work

The genre model of the work of interest to us is precisely an adventurous roguish novel, as the analysis of Dead Souls shows. She, however, has greatly changed in the course of the work of the writer on this creation. This is evidenced, for example, by the author's designation "poem", which appeared after the general plan and the main idea were corrected by Gogol ("Dead Souls").

Analysis of the work reveals the following interesting features. "All Russia will appear in it" - Gogol's thesis, which not only emphasized the scale of the concept of "Dead Souls" in comparison with the initial desire "at least from one side" to show Russia, but at the same time meant a radical revision of the genre model chosen earlier. The framework of the traditional adventure-rogue novel became narrow for Nikolai Vasilyevich, since he could not contain the wealth of a new idea. Chichikov's "odyssey" has become only one of the ways of seeing Russia.

Adventurous roguish romance, having lost leading value in "Dead Souls", while remaining a genre shell for the epic and moral-descriptive tendencies of the poem.

Features of the image of Chichikov

One of the techniques used in this genre is the mystery of the hero's origin. In the first chapters, the main character was either a common man or a foundling, and at the end of the work, overcoming life's obstacles, he suddenly turned out to be the son of wealthy parents and received an inheritance. Nikolai Vasilyevich resolutely refused such a template.

Analyzing the poem "Dead Souls", it should be noted that Chichikov is a man of the "middle". The author himself says about him that he is "not bad looking", but not handsome, not too thin, but not too fat, not very old and not very young. The story of the life of this adventurer is hidden from the reader until the final, eleventh chapter. You will be convinced of this by reading carefully "Dead Souls". An analysis of the chapters reveals the fact that the author tells the back story only in the eleventh. Having decided to do this, Gogol begins by emphasizing the "vulgarity," the mediocrity of his hero. He writes that his origins are "modest" and "dark". Nikolai Vasilievich again rejects the extremes in defining his character (not a scoundrel, but not a hero either), but dwells on the main quality of Chichikov - it is "the acquirer", "the owner".

Chichikov is an "average" person

Thus, there is nothing unusual in this hero - this is the so-called "average" person, in whom Gogol strengthened a trait common to many people. Nikolai Vasilievich sees in his passion for profit, which replaced everything else, in pursuit of the ghost of an easy and beautiful life, a manifestation of "human poverty", poverty and spiritual interests - all that many people so carefully hide. An analysis of Dead Souls shows that Gogol needed a life story of the hero not so much to reveal the "secret" of his life at the end of the work, but to remind readers that this is not an exceptional person, but quite an ordinary one. Anyone can find in himself a certain "part of Chichikov".

"Positive" heroes of the work

In adventurous rogue novels, the traditional plot "spring" is the persecution of the protagonist by malicious, greedy and vicious people. The rogue who fought for his own rights seemed almost a "model of perfection" against their background. As a rule, he was helped by compassionate and virtuous people who naively expressed the ideals of the author.

However, nobody pursues Chichikov in the first volume of the work. Also in the novel there are no characters who could at least to some extent be followers of the writer's point of view. Analyzing the work "Dead Souls", we can notice that only in the second volume "positive" heroes appear: the landowner Kostanzhoglo, the farmer Murazov, the governor, irreconcilable to the abuses of various officials. But even these, unusual for Nikolai Vasilyevich, characters are very far from novelistic templates.

What interests Nikolai Vasilievich in the first place?

The plots of many works written in the genre of an adventurous rogue novel were far-fetched, artificial. The emphasis was on the adventures, "adventures" of rogue heroes. And Nikolai Vasilyevich is not interested in the adventures of the protagonist in themselves, not in their "material" result (Chichikov finally got the same fortune in a fraudulent way), but in their moral and social content, which allowed the author to make trickery a "mirror" reflecting modern Russia in the work "Dead Souls". Analysis shows that this is a country of landowners who sell "air" (that is, dead peasants), as well as officials who assist the fraudster instead of hindering him. The plot of this work has a huge semantic potential - various layers of other meanings - symbolic and philosophical - are superimposed on its real basis. It is very interesting to analyze the landlords ("Dead Souls"). Each of the five characters is very symbolic - in their depiction, Nikolai Vasilyevich uses the grotesque.

Slow down the movement of the plot

Gogol deliberately slows down the movement of the plot, accompanying each event detailed descriptions the material world in which the heroes live, as well as their appearance, by reasoning about their Not only the dynamics, but also the significance loses the adventurous roguish plot. Each event of the work causes an "avalanche" of author's assessments and judgments, details, facts. The action of the novel, contrary to the requirements of this genre, almost completely stops in the last chapters. One can be convinced of this by independently analyzing Gogol's poem "Dead Souls". For the development of action, only two events of all the others, which occur from the seventh to the eleventh chapters, are significant. This is the departure from the city of Chichikov and the registration of the deed by him.

Demanding readers

Nikolai Vasilyevich is very demanding of readers - he wants them to penetrate the very essence of phenomena, and not slide on their surface, ponder hidden meaning works "Dead Souls". It should be analyzed very carefully. It is necessary to see behind the "objective" or informative meaning of the author's words not explicit, but the most important meaning is symbolically generalized. Just as necessary, as Pushkin in Eugene Onegin, is the co-creation of readers with the author of Dead Souls. It is important to note that the artistic effect of Gogol's prose is created not by what is told, what is depicted, but by how it is done. You will be convinced of this if you once analyzed the work "Dead Souls". The word is a subtle instrument that Gogol perfectly wielded.

Nikolai Vasilyevich emphasized that a writer, when addressing people, must take into account the fear and insecurity that live in those who commit bad deeds. Both approval and reproach should be carried by the word "lyric poet". Reasoning about the dual nature of the phenomena of life is a favorite topic of the author of the work of interest to us.

This is a brief analysis ("Dead Souls"). A lot can be said about Gogol's work. We have highlighted only the main points. It is also interesting to dwell on the images of the landowners and the author. You can do this yourself, based on our analysis.

Are you interested in the secrets of the human soul? But don't you want complex scientific explanations or dogmatic religious interpretations?

We recommend you 10 amazing stories about the life of the soul. Writers discover any secrets by trusting their intuition. And a sensitive tool of creative intuition gives readers good books about the soul, inviting to dive into Magic world and solve her riddles.

Artistic and non-fiction works are sometimes no less interesting to read. The offered books are united by the theme of the soul: the search for the soul, the path to the soul, dialogue with the soul, messages from the soul.

Fiction books on reincarnation:

1. Elsa Barker: "Letters from the living deceased or messages from the other world"

Surprisingly, this book is already 100 years old. It presents experiments on mechanical writing conducted by Elsa Barker in 1914-1918.

Putting a pencil on paper and expressing her intention to communicate with her deceased acquaintance, the author recorded everything that comes from the subtle world. Then she only slightly subjected the notes to literary editing.

The topic of the afterlife was completely new for Elsa. She has not read anything about this before, and therefore there are no templates or stereotypes in the “letters”.

In addition, Elsa herself “checked” the otherworldly addressee, asking questions about facts that were not known to her, but which she could later verify. The source was always right!

2. Radhanatha Swami: The Journey Home

The main character is 19 years old. He is American Jewish origin... He has a close-knit family and hippie buddies. His values ​​began to form in the spirit of the 70s: "sex - drugs - rock 'n' roll."

Having collected money for a flight to London, he and his friends go to a rock festival. And there he suddenly feels that the soul is calling to move on, to the southeast. There, where the stern Hindu border guard, touched by his words:

“For the spiritual treasures of India, I have abandoned all the benefits that the American way of life promises. I risked my life hitchhiking here from London. I really want to find the way to God. Please, be lenient to me!

I promise that I will someday benefit the Indians. Believe me, sir, I will still be useful to your country. Please give me a chance ”, - will put the cherished stamp on the passport. This is how the journey home begins, the journey to your soul.

3. Ivan Turgenev: "After death"

I confess that it was a surprise for me to find a work in the genre of horror from the author of the textbook "Mumu" and "Fathers and Sons"! The story is short, but captures from the first lines.

Awkwardly answering the letter of a young girl, Yakov Aratov begins to feverishly reflect on what caused her impulse. But the next day from the newspaper he learns of her suicide.

Strange dreams and visions begin to torment the young man. One night, he suddenly clearly felt someone's presence in his room ...

I will not deprive you of the pleasure of knowing for yourself what happened next.

4. Didier van Koveler: Life Beyond

The novel begins with the deafening phrase "I died at seven in the morning."

The hero's soul is trying to analyze how it happened, at what moment? Why didn't he feel anything? And then it begins to get used to new role, new sensations.

Regret for missed moments. Funeral. The soul can see the thoughts of its relatives, flip through its past with other people's eyes.

After death life near the family, but on the other side of being. How does it feel when only your faithful old dog feels your presence?

5. Mitch Albom “The Book of Death. Five who are waiting for you in heaven "

The main character has his eighty-third birthday, and this is the last day in his life. The countdown has started. Fifty minutes before death, forty minutes, fourteen ...

A few seconds to accomplish the feat and save other people's lives at the cost of their own.

And ... everything starts all over again. The pain was gone, the anxiety was erased. Eddie's birthday again. He is five years old today! And you need to live everything anew in order to appreciate every deed, every word with the eyes of the soul.

6. Peter James "Beyond the Twilight Threshold"

The novel unfolds two storylines. One comes from 1960, where a little boy riding a bicycle down the road gets hit by a Ford.

And he, finding himself on the verge of life and death, meets his soul deceased mother... The second takes the reader thirty years forward, into 1990.

Here a clergyman, passing by a fresh grave, where a 23-year-old pretty, cheerful woman had just been buried, heard a strange sound from under the ground.

How did the near-death experience affect the boy's life? What will the exhumation of the girl's body reveal? At what point will these two stories intertwine? Answers in the novel by Peter James.

7. Richard Matheson "Where Dreams May Come"

A strange woman comes to the main character with a manuscript and claims that this text is given to him by his brother. Anger grips the hero: after all, his brother died a year ago!

But the intruder insists. She is a medium, and the tapes are a message from another world. So it says in the preface. And then the story from the end.

An accident, pain, a rushing soul that is trying to come to terms with what happened, hug loved ones, find a place for itself in the new world. The manuscript is also an attempt to calm down relatives, to explain the new world into which the soul is leaving.

8. Peter Beagle "Quiet Corner"

As an epigraph to his novel, Peter Beagle chose lines from a poem by Andrew Marvell: "The grave is a quiet corner, There is no love and no worries."

It is in the grave that the hero of the work, Michael Morgan, suddenly finds himself. He beat against the lid of the coffin and howled, but no one heard him. Tired, Michael resigned himself to his death and decided to come up with ways to pass the time.

Light, ironic, but in places quite deep book about the adventures of the soul, which only after death discovered its existence.

9. Alice Siebold "The Lovely Bones"

Best-selling book, filmed in 2009. The story is told from the perspective of a 14-year-old girl, killed by a maniac... Life BEFORE and the world AFTER.

Funny attempts to harm little sister, pride in their success at school, a monstrous neighbor - that's all DO.

And AFTER there will be an amazing heavenly land, from where you can see how souls are bursting out of bodies, you can arrange dances, moreover, together with dogs, and generally do what you love.

10. Anna Gff "I want to wake up when it's over"

The hero decides on an operation to erase fragments of memory. A small intervention removes the painful events from the consciousness, the people who caused the suffering.

But joy for some reason is in no hurry to fill the heart, and life, contrary to expectations, does not become easier. But a new unexpected acquaintance appears - the Soul!

Reading fiction books immerses you in the world of images and feelings, awakening memory. Books evoke what you have known for a long time. Enjoy reading books about soul and soul, friends!