A common English saying is that a man “Can’t see the forest for the trees,” meaning that a person is unable to see the greater series of events taking place at a certain time- what we would call “the big picture” -due to an overly intense or unbalanced focus on particular details. This is a common problem with the human race, for out of a desire to emphasize certain characteristics or see certain aspects in a person or situation, the larger body of actions that a man does or events that happens, which is more important than the characteristics being discussed, becomes ignored.
Recently, a Shaman in Russia near Mongolia was arrested by the Russian equivalent of SWAT after he started a 5,000 mile journey on foot to perform and “exorcism” of Russian President Putin.
A long-haired shaman arrived on foot from the frozen north, dragging a cart with yurt poles and a stove, and preaching that the president is a demon. Days later, a cabby, invoking the shaman, strode up to the Kremlin-allied mayor of this Siberian city, yelled a string of grievances and posted his rant on YouTube.
Public protests erupted and continued for weeks, but the shaman kept walking west — headed to Moscow, “the heart of evil,” he said, to exorcise Russia’s president, Vladimir V. Putin. Then, what he called “dark forces” — a SWAT team — packed him onto a plane to Yakutsk, a remote regional capital in eastern Siberia.
“My tales coincided with the desperation of Russians who live with injustice, poverty and destitution,” the shaman, Aleksandr Gabyshev, said in an interview at his sister’s one-room log cabin off a muddy road on the outskirts of Yakutsk.
Referring to Mr. Putin, he added: “In him there is much evil, and he himself embodies the powers of evil, so an exorcism must be done.”
…
But in the last year Mr. Dmitriev has detected a marked shift: For the first time since the early 1990s, most of his respondents said greater political freedom mattered more than higher incomes.
“The conditions for a serious destabilization of the country don’t currently exist, but on the other hand this isn’t a static situation, it’s a dynamic one,” he said. (source)
This man is a pagan. Paganism is not good. It is clearly evil. Likewise, one does not know if there in more involved in the case of this pagan. We know for a fact that the US has been working with the Turkic peoples of Siberia and Central Asia as well as the tribes that inhabit China, encouraging them towards nationalism and independence as a part of the geopolitical plans for that region, which are aimed at breaking Russia up into a series of smaller republics and the same for China also.
However, what this pagan man says largely is correct.
There has become in the Western world an unhealthy fascination with Putin as a sort of “savior” of Christianity, and positing the Russian Orthodox Church as a sort of “pure” institution in comparison with the obvious problems taking place in Rome right now. People point to the fact that the Russian government is building Churches all throughout Russia and Putin’s passing references to Christianity and Christian values as proof of this.
However, as I have explained before, this shows a clear ignorance of the political reality as well as of the Russian mindset.
I explained some of this here, and if you have not read it yet, it is a must-read to begin to understand the Russian mindset and how it affects politics today, as it explains how in Russia, Christianity has almost always been associated with nationalism and concepts of national identity.
Likewise, there is a thought process that one will find among the Slavs (Poland, Czechia, and Slovakia being the greatest exceptions, but still prevalent among them) which is foreign to the Western mindset, and the reason is for all of the criticisms leveled against the West, it is often times used to deflect from the dishonest and erratic processes found the east.
Consider the following case.
Let’s have a dialogue between two people- John from the UK, and Ivan from Russia.
Ivan tells John “Proposition A is absolutely true and I believe it absolutely.” John hears this and believes Ivan.
Then, Ivan goes out and does something that is the absolute opposite of what he said he believed in Proposition A. We will call this opposite thing Proposition B.
John sees Ivan doing this, and he is confused. He says to Ivan “Hey Ivan, you said you believe in Proposition A, but you are doing Proposition B. Proposition B is the direct opposite of Proposition A.”
Ivan then gets mad at John and says to John “What are you talking about John? Why do you lie about me? I have always believed in Proposition A. I support Proposition A completely. I will die defending Proposition A. Proposition B is evil. I hate Proposition B. I will never support or do Proposition B.”
John looks at Ivan skepically and says “OK.”
Ivan says “Good. I am glad we understand.”
Then, right in front of John, Ivan goes right back to doing Proposition B.
It is this process that confuses the “Johns” of the West because what the “Ivans” of the east do does not make logical sense to them, and they are correct because it is objectively illogical.
However, this is the mindset found commonly in the east. Say “Proposition A,” hold it up, believe it, elevate it, practice it, even go to war over it. However, it is also to do Proposition B at the same time that is the complete opposite of Proposition A, and when questioned about it, to deny any association with Proposition B at all even while in the middle of doing Proposition B. It would be the equivalent of a man who catches his wife in bed with another man asking the adulterer why he is fornicating with his wife, and the adulterer responds by denying his adultery and saying he would never do that and has never done that even while he is still in the act with the other man’s wife in front of him and in the same room.
This is the mindset that Russia, China, many Slavic nations, and other peoples work from. This is why people find it so hard to “understand” Russia, because one has to accept brazen incongruities in the face of sound logical reasoning that points to a contrary answer.
Putin claims to be an “Orthodox Christian” who is standing for “God and country,” but the reality is that by his actions, associations, and reports about him that have come out he is the complete opposite. Putin is known for stealing tremendous amounts of money with his friends who exercise a chokehold control on the Russian economy that keeps people in perpetual poverty and steals any growth or innovation for themselves before they can take root to bear more fruits no different than what many sub-Saharan African dictators do. Putin speaks of religion, yet sources near to him report that Putin is also involved in paganism and believe that he can channel the spirit of Stalin to “save” Russia. Churches are being built but nobody attends them, atheism is rising among the Slavic peoples while Islam is the only religion that has grown in a massive way, largely due to Putin’s permitting the massive population transfer of peoples from Central Asia into Russia, yet he will criticize Germany for “destroying Europe” with “African” migrants.
Putin is not hard to understand. In the words of several old Jewish friends from the Soviet Union, “Putin is evil, just believe the opposite of whatever he says and you will understand him.”
Russia likewise is not getting stronger. The military parades, weapons displays, and bold statements are the exact techniques that were used in Soviet days and what China uses today. The fact is that Russia’s telecommunications (computers, Internet, electronic infrastructure), most weapons, and logistical systems (railroads, roads, airports, etc.) are badly outdated and years behind anything in the US, Western Europe, many parts of Eastern Europe, Japan, and even parts of China. The Russian people are gravely impoverished as wages are close to those of Central American countries and far below Western Europe and even parts of Eastern Europe. Drugs and disease, including HIV and drug-resistant tuberculosis are at epidemic levels and continue to rise. Abortion is everywhere, families are completely non-existent, most people do not care about God, child sexual abuse is rampant (far worse than in the West), alcoholism is almost everywhere, pollution near major cities or industrial areas causes toxic conditions that would never be accepted in the US or Western Europe, and there is no solution in sight. Russia has no true economy save for exporting raw materials and weapons.
Much of this, if it did not happen on Putin’s watch, became far worse with Putin in power, who has acted not as a President, but a dictator-by-another-name.
Russia is very weak, and there is much that Putin must answer for, as in spite of his words, he often times looks out for himself far more than for his own people he has governed for almost two decades.
That is the reason why he treated this pagan man with such abuse, because he is speaking something of truth, and Putin fears it as a threat to his power, because Russia is falling apart and he does not want this reality to be exposed. It is similar to how President Trump would rather have people talk about how he is a “racist” or to debate nonsensical “dossiers,” “sealed indictments,” or “whistleblower conspiracies”, as they distract from the reality that Trump has enabled nationalism, is letting the Japanese and German war dogs free from their post-World War II shackles, and is promoting the complete opposite of what he promised to stand for.
Both the east and west deceive, but the difference is that in the east, the deception has a pattern of the earlier-discussed pattern, and when resistance persists, there are shows of brute force. Some countries are more openly brutal, such as China, and some countries try to hide but never can fully hide their brutality, such as with Russia. In the West, the approach is to allow for criticisms, but instead of directly attacking the person, to set up circumstances around him in such a way that “problems” happen which inevitably stop him.
For example, consider a person walking on a road. The eastern approach- China or Russia -would be to attack the person. China might have a man send a car filled with men with guns, chase him down, and shoot him in the middle of the street. Russia might send a car that runs over him and keeps going and when asked what happened, Russia would say (cue Russian accident) “This accident, maybe driver Yury have too much vodka, drive drunk hit man make die, sorry.”
In the West, however, this would not happen. There might be at some point oil spilled on the road by an “accident” earlier, and perhaps that would delay the person from passing. Likewise, near that same oil spill there was also a cliff with a warning sign put up about falling rock, and while the person was waiting to pass the spill, perhaps while he was at rest, an animal on the top of the cliff ran and knocked some of the rocks off of the cliff, which fell and hit the man while sleeping and killed him. Now one will not be able to find the animal, or even know if animals were on top of that cliff, and likewise, there may appear to be blunt wounds on his body, but those will likely be assumed to have come from falling rocks. Declared an accident at the scene by police, firemen, paramedics, and other “first responders,” his cause of death will be listed as an accident and his body will be taken away and quickly prepared and buried. Meanwhile, those who orchestrated the murder will not be called murderers, but will receive awards for “distinction in service” from their bosses at an awards ceremony later that year, although further details will not be elaborated on as to how their nominations were made.
The nature of the deceptions do not change, but it is the philosophy and applications in which they are presented. It is for people to realize what is happening and then attempt to address them as they are able to.
Paganism is not good, but remember who the first people who came to Christ to visit Him were. First there were the poor shepherds, who saw visions in the fields of Bethlehem of the angels giving glory to God, and when they saw them, they paid the child homage.
Then who came next? It was not Jews, nor Rabbis, nor the members of the Jewish elite. It was three pagan kings from three remote foreign lands who desired truth over all things and, having searched the ancient writings of scholars and thinkers of old to find the truth, realized that the signs in the Heavens were clear, that at this time, in their lives, they would see the birth of the Holy Child who would come to save the world from the sins of men.
These people were pagans, yet they saw reality for what it was and, with the knowledge they had, tried to do what is right.
This is not to commend paganism, but sometimes it takes a person who is “outside” of a conversation- in this case a pagan -to speak reality for what it is.