A must read!!!
Amazon book description:
Amazon book description:
I wrote a review on Amazon as follows:Book Description
Completed in 1959 after being hidden from the Soviet secret police for twenty years, this spiritual masterpeice was first made public in 1989 through excerpts in the magazine "Novy Mir." When it was finally published in its entirety in 1991, the first printing of 100,000 copies sold out immediately, and a modern Russian classic was born.
Daniel Andreev was the son of famous Russian writer and playwright Leonid Andreyev. The author, himself a poet, novelist and artist, was imprisoned in 1947 by Stalin for "anti-Soviet" activities. While in prison he wrote the first draft for The Rose of the World.
Here is a visionary work in the tradition of Blake and Dante. It is part fiction, part historical essay and part mystical vision. It describes in fascinating detail Andreev's philosophical system, with its complex, multiple-layered cosmos, and calls for a spiritual reunification of all peoples of the world.
This is the first English publication of this modern Russian classic. It constitutes a significant event in publishing that should not be missed.
From the Esalen-Lindisfarne Library of Russian Philosophy.
As psychologist Andrew Lobaczewski has shown in his book "Political Ponerology," human civilization has been plagued from time immemorial by a statistically small, but hyper-active element: human beings that act on society as raging pathogens; psychopaths and other deviants. It could be said that it is not power that corrupts, but power that attracts the corrupt.
Andreyev approaches the same problem from a slightly different - but still similar - perspective, adding nuance and color. He writes at the beginning:
"There exists an entity that for many centuries has proclaimed itself the lone, steadfast unifier of all people, shielding them from the danger of all-out warfare and social chaos. That entity is the state. Since the end of the tribal period, the state has been of vital necessity at every historical stage. Even hierocracies, which attempted to replace it with religious rule, simply became variations of the selfsame state. The state bonded society together on the principle of coercion, and the level of moral development necessary to bond society together on some other principle was beyond reach. Of course, it has been beyond reach even until now, and the state has remained the only proven means against social chaos. But the existence of a higher order of moral principles is now becoming evident, principles capable not only of maintaining but also of increasing social harmony. More important, methods for accelerating the internalization of such principles are now taking shape.
In the political history of modern times, one can distinguish two international movements diametrically opposed to one another. One of them aims for the hypertrophy of state power and an increase in the individual's dependence on the state. To be more exact, this movement seeks to bestow ever greater power on the person or organization in whose hands the state apparatus lies: the Party, the Army, the Leader. Fascist and national socialist states are the most obvious examples of such movements.
"The other movement, which appeared at least as far back as the eighteenth century, is the humanist. Its origins and major stages are English parliamentarianism, the French Declaration of the Rights of Man, German social democracy, and in our days, the struggle for liberation from colonialism. The long-range goal of the movement is to weaken the bonding principle of coercion in the life of the people and transform what is largely a police state defending race or class interests into a system based on overall economic equilibrium and a guarantee of individual rights.
"History has also witnessed examples of novel political arrangements that might appear to be hybrids of the two movements. Remaining in essence phenomena of the first type, they alter their appearance to the extent expedient for the achievement of their set goal. This is a tactic, a deception, but nothing more."
It could be said that capitalism, passed under the name "democracy," is just such a deceptive movement. Capitalism is a system designed to favor those without conscience and to oppress those with love and feeling for others. We are reaping the fruits of that error today in the global imperialism - always a sign of fascism - being manifested by the Bush regime today.
Andreyev points out that the reason there is no real opposition to such disasters in human history is because the various movements formed to stand against it, were too narrow and focused on racial or nationalist interests. In the end, they too were corrupted by the infestation of pathological elements and strove toward world dominion: witness the transformation of Zionism from "survival of the Jews" to "domination of the Jews over the whole world." All espotic regimes systematically exhibit traits of extreme coercion which can be camouflaged as "defense", and the Spirit of Tyranny can be exemplified by one single act: torture.
Andreyev discusses the fact that, with modern science, erecting a global tyranny can be rapid and total. The tempo of life is accelerating. Monolithic states are emerging that earlier would have taken centuries to erect. Each is predatory by nature, each strives to subjugate humanity to its sole rule. The military and technological power of these states boggles the mind. They have already more than once plunged the world into war and tyranny. Where is the guarantee that they will not do so again in the future? In the end, the strongest will conquer the globe, even at the cost of turning a third of the world's surface into a moonscape. The cycle of wars will then come to an end, but only to be replaced by the greatest of evils: a single dictatorship over the surviving twothirds of the world. At first it will perhaps be an oligarchy. But, as often happens, eventually a single Leader will emerge. The threat of a global dictatorship—this is the deadliest of all threats hanging over humanity.
Andreyev prophesied exactly what is happening on the earth today, though I doubt he suspected that it would come by way of the United States.
"... the most formidable dangers that threaten humanity, both now and for centuries to come, are a great suicidal war and an absolute global dictatorship. Perhaps, in our century, humanity will avert a third world war or, at the very least, survive it, as it survived the First and Second World Wars. Perhaps it will outlive, somehow or other, a dictatorship even more enveloping and merciless than the one we in Russia outlived. It may even be that in two or three hundred years new dangers for the people of Earth will appear, dangers different but no less dire than a dictatorship or a great war. It is possible, even probable. But no effort of the mind, no imagination or intuition, is capable of conjecturing a future danger that would not be connected, somehow or other, with one of these two principal dangers: the physical destruction of humanity through a war, and the spiritual death of humanity through an absolute global dictatorship."
Andreyev points out that science - which could save us - has done as much to harm humanity as religion:
"The root of the tragedy lies in the fact that the scientific professions were not from the very beginning coupled with a deeply formulated moral education. Regardless of their level of moral development, everyone is admitted into those professions. It should come as no surprise today that one side of every scientific and technical advance goes against the genuine interests of humanity."
And it is mostly due to science that the spiritual vacuum exists in our world, though that ought not to be the case. Science can and should be as moral and/or spiritual as every other aspect of life.
"It is that same system of views that fails to look beyond the limits circumscribed by contemporary scientific knowledge that is incapable of providing answers to the most fundamental and elementary questions. Does the Source, the Creator, God exist? Unknown. Does such a thing as a soul exist? If so, is it immortal? Science does not know the answer. What is time, space, matter, energy? Opinions are sharply divided. Is our world eternal and endless or, on the contrary, is it limited within time and space? Science does not possess the necessary data to give a definite answer. Why should I do good and not evil, if evil appeals to me and I can be sure of escaping punishment? The answers are totally unintelligible. How can science be used to avert the possibility of wars and tyranny? Silence. How can social harmony be attained with the least human cost? Mutually exclusive proposals are put forward that resemble each other only in that they are all equally unrelated to pure science. It is natural that on such shaky and subjective and, indeed, pseudo-scientific foundations doctrines have arisen based only on class, racial, nationalist, or party interests that is, on those very systems whose purpose is the justification of dictatorships and wars. The distinguishing mark of such doctrines is their low level of spirituality."
Andreyev proposes that it is in the spiritual vacuum that the yearning for what is good and right and decent is growing:
"A gigantic spiritual vacuum has formed that did not exist even fifty years ago, and hypertrophied science has been powerless to fill it. If I may put it thus: colossal resources of the human genius have remained untapped. That is the womb of creative energy where the embryonic global interreligion is forming."
What is unique about Andreyev's book is that he proposes a solution: a League for the Transformation of the State. He writes:
"We must, rather, recognize the absolute necessity of the one and only path: the establishment, over a global federation of states, of an unsullied, incorruptible, highly respected body, a moral body standing outside of and above the state. For the state is, by its very nature, amoral. [...]
"The League's constitution will not restrict its membership to people of any particular philosophical or religious belief. All that will be required is an active commitment to realizing its program and a resolve not to violate its moral code, the cornerstone of the organization. [...]
"Oh, there will of course be many people who will insist that the League's methods are impractical and unrealistic. I've met enough champions of political realism to last me a lifetime. There is no injustice or social villainy that has not tried to cover itself with that pitiful fig leaf. There is no weight more deadening, more earthbound, than talk of political realism as a counter to everything lofty, everything inspirational, everything spiritual. Such political realists are, incidentally, the same sort of people who in their time claimed, even in India, that Gandhi was a dreamer out of touch with reality. [...]
"Those who are unable to see the good in people, those whose outlook has coarsened and whose conscience has withered in the atmosphere of flagrant state violations of human rights, will also accuse the League of unrealistic methods. They will be joined by those who cannot see what revolutions in mass consciousness await us in the not too distant future. The trauma of wars, oppression, and every possible violation of human rights already has launched a grass roots movement for peaceful coexistence. [...]
Andreyev sees this movement not as a religion, precisely:
"...the constellation of religions has not only not faded away but scientific and social progress has caused it to be brightened by the ability to turn the world's religions from a collage of separate petals into one single, whole spiritual flower the Rose of the World.
"Rather, it shall arise through communion with the world of spirit; through the reception of the rays of that world pouring out and into our hearts, reason, and conscience; and through the application of the precept of active and creative love to every facet of our lives. The moral level which incorporates all of the above traits is called sanctity.
"...sanctity is the permeation of all one's inner and outer life with an active love for God, people, and the world. ... Even atheists could number among its members."
Nevertheless, Andreyev is realistic about matters. He does not see the possibility of this global change in conscience before the eruption of a Third World War:
"Will religion - not its old forms, but the sum religion that the world is now pregnant with - be able to eliminate the most dangerous threats hanging over the heads of humanity: world war and global tyranny? It will probably be unable to avert the next world war: if a third world war breaks out, it will likely take place even before the appearance of the League. But after the nucleus of the future interreligion has been formed, the League's first and foremost task will be to prevent all wars that threaten to break out and to prevent the rise of a global tyranny."
We see that Andreyev was probably right. It is very likely too late to stop the movement toward global war or planetary destruction... But Andreyev - taken in conjunction with the work of Lobaczewski - offers a solution - and one that humanity would be well advised to consider sooner rather than later, because in this case, later may be too late.
Read this one, read it with Political Ponerology, and if there is someone you love, give them these books as gifts.