This illustrated book offers a collection of short essays, testimonies, and memoirs from the esoteric underground of the late Soviet Union and the first decade of post-Soviet history. Provided and annotated by an international network of renowned specialists in history, religious studies, cultural studies, translation studies, and anthropology, the book is organized around the themes of spiritual figures, communities, and their visions along with contemporary forms of spiritual transmission and the extensive transnational connections between Soviet or post-Soviet esotericists and Western New Agers. Dieses Buch stellt erstmals den esoterischen Untergrund der späten Sowjetunion und des ersten postsowjetischen Jahrzehnts in Bildern und kurzen Texten, Erinnerungen und Zeugnissen vor. Kommentiert von einem internationalen Netzwerk renommierter Spezialisten aus den Bereichen Geschichte, Religionswissenschaft, Kulturwissenschaft, Translationswissenschaft und Anthropologie, behandelt der Sammelband spirituelle Personen, Gemeinschaften und ihre Visionen ebenso wie zeitgenössische Formen esoterischer Vermittlung und die weitreichenden transnationalen Verbindungen sowjetischer und postsowjetischer Esoteriker zu westlichen New Agers. Представленная иллюстрированная антология включает в себя коллекцию эссе в области истории, религиоведения, культурологии и антропологии, а также некоторые свидетельства и воспоминания представителей эзотерического андеграунда позднего СССР и первых десятилетий постсоветской истории. В центре внимания авторов – “духовные учителя,” эзотерические сообщества и проекты, современные формы распространения эзотерических идей и связи советских и постсоветских эзотериков с западными нью-эйджерами. Birgit Menzel is a professor of Russian culture at the University of Mainz in Germersheim, where she teaches at the Faculty for Translation and Interpretation. Her current research projects are New Religious Cultures in Late and Post-Soviet Russia and Soviet-American Citizen Diplomacy to End the Cold War. Anna Tessmann is a comparative religion scholar who focuses on contemporary forms of New Age and esotericism in post-socialist countries in addition to Iranian Zoroastrianism and Islam. She conducted her postdoctoral research on astrological schools and cultic milieus in the Soviet Union and early post-Soviet Russia as part of an international project titled New Religious Cultures in Late and Post-Soviet Russia.
