The Greek word "myth" literally means "tradition, story, word." Usually this means a story about gods, spirits, heroes adored or related to the gods by their origin, about the first ancestors who acted at the beginning of time and participated (directly or indirectly) in the creation of the world itself, its elements, both natural and cultural. Mythology is a collection of similar tales about gods and heroes, and at the same time, a system of fantastic ideas about the world.
Myth-making was an important phenomenon in the cultural history of mankind. In primitive society, mythology reflected the way of understanding the world, and myth expressed the worldview and worldview of the era of its creation. The main prerequisites for mythological thinking were that, firstly, primitive man did not distinguish himself from the natural and social environment, and, secondly, that thinking was characterized by syncretism (individuality) and was almost inseparable from the emotional sphere. The consequence of this was the humanization (anthropomorphization) of all nature. Human properties were transferred to it, natural objects were assigned animation, intelligence, feelings, human appearance, and, conversely, the mythological ancestors could be assigned the features of natural objects, especially animals (zoomorphization). Certain powers and abilities could be plastically expressed by rich-handedness, rich-handedness, more surprising than the transformation of appearance: diseases could be represented by monsters - eaters of people, Cosmos - by the world tree, living strong or animal, tribal ancestors had a dual (anthropomorphic-zoomorphic) nature; This was facilitated by the totemic idea of kinship and the partial identity of tribes (tribes, clans, phratries) with certain types of animals, plants, etc. It is also characteristic of the myth that gods, spirits and heroes are connected by blood relations.
The myth coincides with a description of the model of the Universe (cosmology) and a story about the emergence of its individual elements, about the deeds of gods and heroes that determined its current state. The current structure of the Universe: relief, species of animals and plants, way of life, social and religious institutions, tools, hunting and cooking techniques - all this turns out to be a consequence of events of long ago and the actions of mythological ancestors, gods, heroes. The narration of past events serves in myth as a means of describing the structure of the world, a way of explaining its current state. Mythical events turn out to be stages in the formation of a mythological picture of the world. Thus, mythological time is the time, the early, the original first; this is prachas, the time before time, before the beginning of the historical countdown. This is the time of the first ancestors, the first creation, the “time of dreams”, in which there is no boundary between the past, present and future.
The most important function of mythological time and myth itself is the creation of an example, a model, a model. Leaving models for imitation and reproduction, mythological time and mythological heroes simultaneously radiate magical spiritual forces that continue to maintain the established order in nature and society; maintaining such order was also an important function of myth. This function is carried out through rituals and holidays, which often directly dramatize the events of mythical times. In rituals and festivals, mythological time and its heroes are not only depicted, but also if they are reborn with their magical powers, and events are repeated. Rituals and holidays ensure their “eternal return” and magical effects, which guarantee the continuity of natural and life cycles and the preservation of the once established order.
In general, mythology is an ancient, archaic ideological formation that has a single, indivisible character. The embryonic elements of religion, philosophy, science and art are intertwined in myth.
All the endless wealth of myths can be divided into the following categories.
1. Cosmogonic myths, myths about creation, about the origin of the Cosmos from chaos, the main introductory plot of most mythologies. They begin with a description of chaos, the lack of order in the Universe, the interaction of the original elements - fire and water, earth and sky. The main motives of cosmogonic myths are the structuring of cosmic space and time, the distribution of earth and sky by the gods, the establishment of the cosmic axis (world tree), the luminaries (the division of day and night, light and darkness), the creation of landscapes, plants and animals, and in the end - man, society , social and cultural norms.
2. Theogonic myths, myths about the origin of the gods. In most traditions, all gods are descended from a first divine couple (or bisexual being), who often embodies heaven and earth. The Pantheon is formed in the process of generating mythological generations and the struggle (battle) between them.
3. Dualistic myths, myths that describe the universe as a unity of opposing phenomena and symbols: cosmological (Space and chaos, moon and sun, sky and earth, day and night), biological (male and female), social (dual organization of society), ethical (good and evil). Archaic dualistic cosmogonies describe the creation of the world by two beings (brothers, often twins or gods) - the personification of heaven (good) and hell (evil). One of them creates the earth, the other creates inequalities on it, one creates useful animals, the second - harmful ones; the demiurge creates a person as a perfect being, his opponent instills in her illness, meanness, etc.
4. Astral myths, myths about stars and planets. In archaic mythological systems, stars or entire constellations are often represented in the form of animals, less often trees, in the form of a celestial hunter who pursues a beast. A number of myths end with the transfer of heroes to the sky and their transformation into stars or, conversely, the expulsion from heaven of those who failed the test and violated the ban (often the wives or children of the inhabitants of the sky). The arrangement of stars in the sky can be interpreted as a symbolic scene, an “illustration” of a particular myth. As celestial mythology developed, stars, planets, and constellations became strictly identified with specific gods.
5. Eschatological myths, myths about the end of the world. Archaic mythologies are characterized by the idea that the world catastrophe that separates the mythological times of first creation from modern times - a flood, a fire, the disappearance (destruction) of the first generations - is a giant. Primitive eschatological myths are far from ethical principles: for example, in the Kets, a series of floods is represented as “rinsing the earth.” Developed eschatological myths, on the other hand, connect the death of the world with the decline of integrity. In some mythologies, the end of the world is presented as a war between good and evil gods (spirits), the former win - and the world is renewed after a cosmic fire. The expectation of the Messiah - the savior of humanity on the Day of Judgment - became the main motive of the eschatological myths of Judaism, Christianity, and numerous messianic and prophetic movements.
6. Etiological myths explain the appearance of various natural and cultural features and social objects. These are stories about the origin of certain animals and plants, mountains and seas, heavenly bodies and meteorological phenomena, certain social and religious institutions, types of economic activity, as well as fire, death, etc.
7. Anthropogonic myths, myths about the creation (origin) of man (the first man), the mythical ancestors of the people, the first human couple, etc. The most archaic are the totemic myths about the transformation of people into animal totems or the “refinement” of people into cultural heroes from embryos with undivided body parts. Common myths about the creation of people by demiurges from wood or clay. In the mythological model of the world, humanity is connected with the earth, the “middle world” (people are released by making a hole in the ground or mother earth gives birth to gods and ancestors). Reviving people can be interpreted as endowing them with the soul or blood of another being (including a god). Sometimes evil intervenes in the act of creation, evil spirits from where - the duality of human nature. The appearance of man completes the cosmogonic cycle; featherman and becomes the first mortal, which marks the end of the “Golden Age”.
8. Totemic myths, etiological myths about the kinship of people with objects of living and inanimate nature. The main characters are zooanthropomorphic totemic ancestors, who, after the completion of the mythological first creation, turn into animals, stones, luminaries, and sacred objects. A common motif of totemic myths is the marriage of a person with a zoomorphic ancestor, a creature of a zooanthropomorphic nature or capable of transformation (metamorphosis): from this marriage comes an ethnos (people).
9. Calendar myths. These are myths associated with the cycle of calendar rituals, usually with agricultural magic, focused on the regular change of seasons, especially the revival of vegetation in the spring, to ensure the harvest. In the Mediterranean region, a myth dominates, symbolizing the fate of the spirit of vegetation, the grain of the harvest. A common calendar myth is about a dying and resurrecting god or hero. As a result of a conflict with a chthonic demon, mother goddess or divine sister-wife, the hero disappears or dies, but then his mother (sister, wife, son) searches and finds, resurrects him, and he kills his demonic opponent. In this regard, the calendar myth also symbolizes hope for the afterlife (eternal life.
The following categories of mythological characters operate in myths.
1. Gods, a class of the most powerful creatures in developed religious and mythological systems. Unlike spirits, which embody the plurality of natural objects (trees, sources, etc.) and social connections (ancestors, relatives, etc.), gods personify the most important elements (sea, earth, sky, fire, lightning, etc.) .p.) or social functions (patron gods of priests, warriors, citizens, cities, etc., demiurge gods).
2. Demiurge, a mythological character who creates elements of the universe, cosmic and cultural objects, people, as a rule, through manufacturing - like artisans. In many mythologies, the demiurge merges with the image of the heavenly god-creator, who is distinguished by the cosmic scale of activity and creates not only individual objects - elements of the universe, but also the Cosmos as a whole, and not only through manufacturing, but also through the mediation of magical transformations, verbal designation of objects and etc.
3. Spirits, mythological creatures that are usually associated with a person, her body, her living environment, including the natural one. Unlike the gods who form the pantheon, spirits are included in lower mythology. There are different types of helping spirits, master spirits, spirits of natural objects and evil spirits. Among the latter, a special category are the spirits of the afterlife.
4. Progenitors (progenitors) are cultural heroes who were considered the ancestors of a clan, tribe, people. Their activities dated back to the mythological times of the first creation. The most archaic images are of totemic ancestors. that often have a zoomorphic and zooanthropomorphic appearance. The featherhead could also act as the first ancestor. The traditional plot of the death of the first mythological generation of people (giants, “golden people”, etc.) is associated with the motive of salvation of the first ancestors - Ziusudri, Noah, etc. An intermediate position between the first ancestors - cultural heroes and the ancestors, especially of the royal family, is occupied by the founders of dynasties and states, whose images are associated with the transition from myth to history.
5. A cultural hero, a mythological character who produces or for the first time creates for people fire, tools, cultivated plants and other cultural objects, teaches them hunting techniques, crafts, arts, introduces social organization, marriage rules, magical orders, rituals, holidays and etc. The cultural hero is also credited with participating in the creation of the universe: catching land from the world ocean, establishing the heavenly bodies, regulating the cycle of day and night, seasons, etc.
6. Hero, a universal category of mythological characters, a characteristic feature of which is divine-human origin and, accordingly, the combination of god and man in his image. Unlike gods (spirits), who create cosmic and cultural objects, the hero most often finds or acquires them ready-made, selecting or kidnapping them as the initial guardians, or they make these objects like potters, blacksmiths, and carpenters. Sometimes they act on the initiative of the gods or with their help, but, as a rule, they are much more active from the gods. This activity contributes to the formation of a bold, frantic character, prone to overestimating one’s own strengths, that is, a heroic character, which leads to fighting against God. However, to accomplish the feat, the hero needs supernatural powers, which are only partially inherent in him. The help of gods or spirits is acquired through the mediation of seduction and initiation tests (initiation). The hero can become a victim, which goes through death (departure) and resurrection (return).
The concept of ritual. Next to myth, the foundation of the worldview characteristic of primitive, archaic societies is ritual - a stereotypical sequence of actions that cover gestures, words and objects, are performed in a specially prepared place and are intended to act on supernatural forces or beings in the interests and purposes of the performers. Rituals can be seasonal, dedicated to the moment of change in the climate cycle or the beginning of such activities as sowing, harvesting, etc. Related rituals are divided into life-changing ceremonies, which are performed at birth, coming of age, marriage, death, etc. to mark the transition from one phase of the life cycle to another, and rituals of troubled times, which are performed to pacify or expel supernatural beings or forces that bring upon people illness, misfortune, female diseases, bodily harm, etc. Other types of rituals include divination rituals; ceremonies that are performed by political power to ensure the health and fertility of people, animals and crops in its territory; initiation into the priesthood, into religious associations or secret societies, as well as rituals accompanying the daily offerings of food and drink to deities and ancestral spirits.
The ritual is connected with Heaven, that is, with ideas about the divine world, and is its reflection. Moreover, the ritualism inherent in a given society directly follows from its views on the origin of the world, its structure, the forces operating in it, etc. This is determined by the fact that the current picture of the world in mythological thinking is associated with the mythological time of first creation, when everything that exists just rose from non-existence, chaos or other forms of existence. Usually the process of the emergence of the world in mythology is described in the following sequence: the ordering of chaos into Cosmos, the separation of heaven from earth, the waters of land; the emergence of heavenly bodies, day and night, the appearance of landscape elements, the biological world and, finally, man and society. Consequently, man and society, being the last in the line of creation, nevertheless consist of the very “stuff” with which the world was formed, and their life is subject to the same laws and rules that govern the Universe. Therefore, the story of creation, as set out in mythology, is a model, example and guide for the life of society and the individual.
It is obvious that the everyday life of people is not necessarily focused on sacred history, and there is even a tendency to forget this latter, to lose the feeling of connectedness with Heaven, and to generally move away from the customs and rituals of their ancestors. To prevent this from happening, it is necessary to constantly restore this awareness of the connection with the “first created” reality, reviving the traditions of those times when the world was “better”, “cleaner” and “more just”. The means of this is ritual, which is carried out during a holiday* or in exceptional situations that threaten the existence of a given group or society. By taking part in the ritual, members of society have the opportunity to solve pressing problems of the existence of the entire society, since in the process of performing ritual actions there is a “reconciliation” of the degree of correspondence of the current state of society with the ideal model created by the gods and heroes.
So, during rituals, ceremonies, and holidays, society renews its awareness of its unity and integrity through the expression in ritual actions of the most important values for it, which are usually forgotten in everyday (profane) life. Ritual is also an action that aims to cleanse society of passions and tensions through compassion and fear that arise as a result of participation in the reproducible events of the first creation of the collective Cosmos.
The ritual reproduces the theurgic whole, sacred to a given collective, at the moment when it came out of the hands of the demiurge. Thus, for the duration of the ritual, the collective again joins the highest property of this tradition, the highest form of evaluation, the highest type of behavior. In Latin, sacrum (sacred) is not only a “sacred object”, but also a “sacred rite”, which, in turn, was formed from a word that means the central episode of the ritual - sacrifice (lat. sacrificium - “creating a sacrifice”). So, sacrifice and offering are not only the compositional and semantic center of the ritual, but also its main, secret nerve. However, in order to perform a sacrifice, it is necessary to commit a crime - killing the victim. Regarding this, there are two types of sacrifices. The first is creatures that are especially innocent, pure, gentle and defenseless (lamb, kid, maiden, etc.). The second is the voluntary expression of self-sacrifice. Obviously, this nature of the victims - radically opposed to violence - determines their special significance in the act of sacrifice: weakness, powerlessness and humility in the face of violence and crime provide the victim with higher spiritual power, “translating” the act of sacrifice to the theurgic (divine) dimension.
Faith is one of the indisputable criteria of religiosity. The telling of a myth does not require faith as a special kind of conviction; it describes the world as it sees it here and now and does not set out to find out the reasons for such existence. The main thing in a myth is to reproduce a precedent, which is a model for imitation, that is, a mythical narrative is a guide to action, a type of everyday experience determined by the knowledge of ancestors. There is no need to check the reliability of this knowledge every time, but if doubts arise, a new version of the myth is created that removes contradictions. For religious consciousness, doubts are unacceptable; unquestioning faith is required, based not on explanations (as in myth), but on fanatical acceptance of postulates, even if they contradict common sense.
Two biblical characters most clearly demonstrate this point. Faith should be so strong and groundless that a devotee of God should not think about the reasons for what is happening, wonder about the necessity of events, as in the situation with Abraham. Testing his faith, the Lord orders his son to be sacrificed. Isaac. And Abraham accepts the demand as God’s providence, without doubting the need for sacrifice, with uncomplaining devotion he is ready to fulfill the will of the Lord. The Old Testament righteous man Job, as a test of faith, receives more and more new troubles on his head. His herds were plundered, his house was burned, his children died. While he is looking for the reasons for his suffering and wondering why he needs all this, he receives further blows from fate. Finally, he understands that the will of the Lord is incomprehensible, that it cannot be measured by any human standards, that God has his own reasons for punishing his slave. Job seeks no more divine justice, but simply accepts his fate. Only then will his torment stop. Unconditional humility, unjustified faith, not allowing rational conclusions about the necessity of what is happening, not requiring proof - this is how one can characterize the religious feeling of reverence.
There are many different spirits and undead in Slavic mythology. The very origin of evil spirits in folk legends is associated with the Old Testament myth about fallen angels, tired of praising God: thrown from heaven, they ended up in water, in a forest, in a field, in a house.
ANCHUTKA - an evil spirit, in later times - one of the Russian names for devils. Anchutka is connected with water and at the same time flies; Sometimes Anchutka is called a water, swamp: he lives in a swamp. He has wings. His usual epithets - “footless”, “horny”, “fingerless” - mean that he belongs to evil spirits. In fairy tales he is heelless because the wolf bit off his heel.
AUKA - forest spirit, related to the goblin. Just like the goblin, he loves to play pranks and jokes, and lead people through the forest. If you shout in the forest, it will come back from all sides. You can, however, get out of trouble by saying the favorite saying of all devils: “I walked, I found, I lost.” But once a year, all methods of fighting forest spirits turn out to be useless - October 4, when the goblin goes berserk. “Auku, tea, you know? Auka lives in a hut, and his hut is with golden moss, and his water is from spring ice all year round, his broom is like a bear's paw, smoke comes out of the chimney briskly, and in cold weather Auka is warm... Auka is inventive: he knows a lot he's a tricky nuisance, a joker, he'll make a monkey, turn over like a wheel and want to scare, and it's scary. Yes, that’s why he’s Auka, to scare” (A.M. Remizov. “To the Sea-Ocean”).
BABAI is an evil night spirit. He lives in thickets of reeds, and at night he wanders under the windows, makes noise, scratches, and knocks on the windows. Babais scare small children who don’t want to go to bed. They say about him that he walks with a big knapsack at night under the windows, finds a naughty child and takes him to the forest. “Ay, bye, bye, bye, Don’t go, old man, Babai, don’t give the horses any hay. Horses don’t eat hay, everyone looks at Mishenka. Misha sleeps at night and grows by the hour. Ay, bye, bye, bye, Don’t come to us, Babai” (lullaby song).
BAGAN is the patron spirit of cattle, he protects them from painful attacks and multiplies the offspring, and in case of his anger he makes females infertile or kills lambs and calves at their very birth. The Belarusians set aside a special place for him in the cow and sheep sheds and arrange a small manger filled with hay: this is where the bagan settles. They feed the hay from his manger to the calving cow as if it were a healing medicine.
BAENNIK (bannik, laznik, bainik, bathhouse) is an unclean spirit from the undead that settles in every bathhouse behind the heater, most often under the shelf on which they usually steam. He is known to all Russian people for his evil unkindness. “There is no one more evil than a bannik, and no one is kinder than him,” they say in the native Novgorod region, but they firmly believe in his readiness to harm and strictly observe the rules of servility and ingratiation. They believe that the baennik always washes himself after everyone else, and therefore everyone is afraid of the fourth break or the fourth steam: “he” will attack, begin to throw hot stones, splash boiling water; if you don’t escape skillfully, i.e. backwards, it can completely scald you. The spirit considers this hour (i.e. after three breaks) to be its own and allows only devils to wash themselves: for people, a bath is supposed to take place around 5-7 o’clock in the afternoon. The baennik strives to own the bathhouse indivisibly and is dissatisfied with anyone who encroaches on his rights, even if only temporarily. Knowing this, a rare traveler caught at night will decide to seek shelter here. Since the baennik has a direct responsibility to remove waste from the bathhouse, it is his right to cause waste to those with whom he is dissatisfied. They curry favor with the baennik by bringing him a treat of a piece of rye bread sprinkled with coarse salt. And in order to take away his power forever, they bring him a black chicken as a gift. Baennik tries to be invisible, although some claim that they have seen him and that he is an old man, like all the spirits akin to him: it is not for nothing that they have lived in this world for such an innumerable number of years.
BAECHNIK (perebayechnik) - an evil household spirit. The storyteller appears after telling scary stories about all kinds of evil spirits at night. He walks barefoot so that one can’t hear him standing over a person with his arms stretched out over his head (he wants to know if he’s scared or not). He will throw up his hands until what he has said comes true and the person wakes up in a cold sweat. If you light a torch at this time, you can see shadows running away, that’s him. Unlike the brownie, it is better not to talk to him, you can get dangerously sick. There are four or five of them in the house. The most terrible one is the mustachioed bastard, his mustache replaces his hands. You can protect yourself from the breaker with a spell, but it has been forgotten.
BARABASHKA is a character that appeared quite recently. He usually lives in city apartments. He loves to play pranks - he knocks, makes noise, throws dishes off the table, spills paint, lights gas, moves and throws all sorts of objects. Prefers to live in families with children. Nobody saw him. He readily talks to those he likes and answers all questions by knocking. Based on his character type, he can be classified as a house-elder: he treats good owners kindly, and does not tolerate evil ones.
BAYUNOK (Cat-bayun) - house spirit, storyteller, nocturnal, lullaby songbook. Sometimes he appears in the form of the Bayun Cat: “Near the Lukomorye there is a green oak tree; /The golden chain on that oak tree: /Both day and night, the learned cat /Everything walks around on the chain; /He goes to the right - he starts a song, to the left - he tells a fairy tale” (A.S. Pushkin “Ruslan and Lyudmila”).
DEMONS - in Slavic mythology, evil spirits living everywhere on Earth, they are not found only in heaven (HEAVEN). It is in this sense that this term is used in folk art, especially clearly in conspiracies. Demons can appear in various forms. The Russian proverb is typical: “The undead do not have their own appearance, they walk in disguise.” The most common image of demons in iconography and folklore is this - dark, horned, tailed, with hooves on their feet. The activity of demons as tempters is directed at all people, but they are especially not indifferent to monks, ascetics and hermits. “...the demon leads us into the field, apparently, and circles us around. Look: there, there he is playing, blowing, spitting on me; There - now he pushes the Wild Horse into the ravine; There He stood in front of me for an unprecedented mile; The noise sparkled with a small spark and disappeared into the darkness of the night” (A.S. Pushkin. “Demons”).
GODDESSES - female mythological characters of the Western Slavs. During the period of the spread of Christianity, the good functions of the goddesses were replaced by “Christian virtues,” and they themselves were given the functions of evil or negative spirits. The main function of the goddesses was the abduction and replacement of children. They are depicted as old ugly women with large heads, saggy breasts, swollen bellies, crooked legs, black fanged teeth (less often in the guise of pale young girls). They are often attributed lameness (a property of evil spirits). They can also appear in the form of animals - frogs, dogs, cats, be invisible, appear as a shadow. They could be women in labor who died before the ceremony of entry into the church was performed on them; children and women abducted by goddesses; the souls of dead women, girls who got rid of the fetus or killed their children, women suicides, perjurers who died during childbirth. Their habitats are ponds, rivers, streams, swamps, and less often - ravines, burrows, forests, fields, mountains. They appear at night, in the evening, at noon, during bad weather. Their characteristic actions are washing clothes, baby diapers with loud blows of rollers; the person who interfered with them is driven out and beaten; they dance, bathe, beckon and drown passers-by, dance them, lead them astray; spinning yarn; comb hair; they come to women in labor, beckon them, invite them with them, charm them with their voice and gaze; kidnapping women in labor and pregnant women. They replace children by throwing their own freaks in their place; kidnapped children are turned into unclean spirits; They torture people at night, crush them, strangle them, suck the breasts of children and men, and cast spells on children. They are also dangerous for livestock: they frighten and destroy livestock in pastures, drive horses, and braid their manes.
BOLI-BOSHKA - forest spirit. Lives in places with berries. The spirit is crafty and cunning. Appears before a person in the form of a poor, frail old man, asking for help in finding his lost bag. You can’t give in to his requests - you’ll start thinking about the loss, you’ll get a headache, and you’ll wander through the forest for a long time. "Quiet! Here comes Boli-boshka himself! - I sensed it coming: he’s going to get into trouble, he’s in trouble! All emaciated, dwarf, weak, like a fallen leaf, a bird’s lip - Boli-boshka, - a pointed nose, handy, and the eyes seem sad, cunning, cunning” (A.M. Remizov. “To the Sea-Ocean”).
BOLOTNYANIK (bolotyanik, bagnik) - the spirit of the swamp. Identical to water. Folk fantasy finds a swamp to be a completely suitable place for evil spirits to settle, as evidenced by many proverbs and sayings, for example, “Where are the swamps, there is no devil,” “There will be no devil without a swamp, and a swamp without a devil,” “There are devils in the still waters.” are found”, etc. “The swamp is playing tricks on you. It’s a dark force that beckons you” (A.A. Blok. “A swamp is a deep depression...”).
BOSORKUN (vitryanik) - mountain spirit. Together with a strong wind, it flies into crops, destroys them, and causes drought. Spoils people and animals - causes sudden illnesses and ailments (for example, a cow's milk will be mixed with blood or disappear completely). The Hungarians have a similar mythological character - Bosorkan, a witch, an ugly old woman with the ability to fly and turn into animals (dog, cat, goat, horse). It can cause drought and damage people and animals. Bosorkan harms people mainly at night. “Bosorkuns harm people mainly at night, the time of their special activity is Midsummer’s Day (June 24), Lutsa’s Day (December 13) and the day of St. George (April 24), the patron saint of livestock” (N.I. Tolstoy).
VAZILA (stable keeper, herd keeper) is the patron spirit of horses, he is represented in human form, but with horse ears and hooves. Every householder has his own vazilu, who lives in a stable (barn), takes care of the horses, protects them from diseases, and when they go to the herd, removes predatory animals from them.
VEDOGONI are souls living in the bodies of people and animals, and at the same time house geniuses, protecting family property and home. Each person has his own vedogon; when he sleeps, the vedogon leaves the body and protects his property from thieves, and himself from the attacks of other vedogons and from magic spells. If a vedogon is killed in a fight, the person or animal to whom it belonged immediately dies in his sleep. Therefore, if a warrior happens to die in a dream, then they say that his vedogon fought with the vedogon of his enemies and was killed by them. For the Serbs, these are souls that produce whirlwinds with their flight. For Montenegrins, these are the souls of the departed, house geniuses, protecting the housing and property of their blood relatives from attacks by thieves and alien witches. “Here, you fell asleep happy, and your Vedogon came out as a mouse, wandering around the world. And it doesn’t go anywhere, to what mountains, to what stars! He’ll take a walk, see everything, and come back to you. And you will get up in the morning happy after such a dream: the storyteller will tell a fairy tale, the songwriter will sing a song. Vedogon told you all this and sang it - both a fairy tale and a song” (A.M. Remizov. “To the Sea-Ocean”).
VIY (Nii, Niam) is a mythical creature whose eyelids descend to the very ground, but if you lift them with a pitchfork, then nothing will be hidden from his gaze; the word "wii" means eyelashes. Viy - with one glance he kills people and turns cities and villages to ashes; fortunately, his murderous gaze is hidden by thick eyebrows and eyelids close to his eyes, and only when it is necessary to destroy enemy armies or set fire to an enemy city, do they lift his eyelids with a pitchfork. Viy was considered one of the main servants of Chernobog. He was considered a judge over the dead. The Slavs could never come to terms with the fact that those who lived lawlessly, not according to their conscience, were not punished. The Slavs believed that the place of execution of lawless people was inside the earth. Viy is also associated with the seasonal death of nature during winter. He was revered as the sender of nightmares, visions and ghosts, especially for those who do not have a clear conscience. “...He saw that they were leading some squat, hefty, club-footed man. He was all covered in black earth. His legs and arms covered with earth stood out like stringy, strong roots. He walked heavily, constantly stumbling. Long eyelids were lowered to the ground. Khoma noticed with horror that his face was iron” (N.V. Gogol. “Viy”). “... Today Viy is at rest,” the two-headed horse yawned with one head, and licked his lips with the other head, “Viy is resting: he destroyed a lot of people with his eye, and from the country-cities only ashes lie. Viy will accumulate strength and get down to business again” (A.M. Remizov. “To the Sea-Ocean”).
VODYANY (vodyanik, vodovik, bolotyanik) is a watery, evil spirit, and therefore is considered by everyone and everywhere to be real devils. People imagine the merman as a naked old man, with a large puffy belly and a swollen face, which is quite consistent with his spontaneous character. At the same time, like all cloud spirits, he is a bitter drunkard (there is no doubt that this quality was added with the advent of Christian “enlighteners”, who brought with them wine drinking and the use of strong alcoholic beverages). Vodoviks are almost always married and have many children; they marry water maidens, drowned women and those unfortunate girls who were cursed by their parents and, as a result of this curse, taken by evil spirits to underwater villages. The merman's ill will towards people is expressed in the fact that he tirelessly watches over every person who appears, for various reasons, in his damp and wet domain. It takes away to permanent housing everyone who decides to swim in rivers and lakes in the summer after sunset, or at noon, or at midnight. Underwater, he turns his prey into bonded laborers, forcing them to pour water, carry and wash sand, etc. Never dying, mermen, however, change when the moon changes: when they are young they themselves are young, when they are old they turn into old people. In the south they are represented with a human body, but with a fish tail instead of legs; The water creatures of the northern cold forests are grimy and horned. Vodyanoy is in an irreconcilably hostile relationship with his grandfather, the brownie, with whom, during chance meetings, he strictly gets into fights. In the case when a merman lives in swamps, it is also called Bolotyanik.
WOLF SHEPHERD - the lord of stormy thunderstorms, who controls the heavenly wolves-eaters of the sun, following him in large packs and replacing hounds in the wild hunt. According to legend, the wolf shepherd rides out on a wolf, holding a long whip in his hands, or walks ahead of a large pack of wolves and pacifies them with a club. He then appears in the form of an old grandfather, then he himself turns into a wolf, prowls the forests as a predatory beast and attacks the village herds. This werewolf, stopping under a shady tree, turns from a beast into an old man, gathers wolves around him, feeds them and assigns each his prey: he orders one wolf to slaughter a cow, another to eat a sheep, pig or foal, and a third to tear a man to pieces. Whoever he chooses to sacrifice to the wolf, despite all precautions, will no longer escape his fate.
VOROGUSHA (voroguha, witch) - one of the fever sisters, she lands in the form of a white night moth on the lips of a sleepy person and brings him illness. In the Oryol province, the patient is bathed in a decoction of linden blossom. The patient should take the shirt taken off from him early in the morning to the river, throw it into the water and say: “Mother Vorogusha! you’re wearing a shirt, and get away from me!” Then the patient returns home silently, without looking back. “Old Vorogusha came out of the forest and walked across the field with a crutch” (A.M. Remizov. “Fairy Tales”).
VRITRA is a demon who steals rain clouds for the winter.
VOTARASHKA is the personification of love passion that deprives a person of reason: you can’t take her with anything and you can’t drive her into a black oven, as one dry spell puts it. “And the scarlet swan Vytarashka exulted, spread her wings, - it was impossible to drive her into the black oven, - the unquenchable hot blood shivers, the zealous heart, exhausted by the Kupala fire” (A.M. Remizov. “Fairy Tales”).
GARTSUKI - in Belarus these are spirits that live in the mountains, which with their flight produce winds and bad weather. They look like little children; when they rush into flights while playing, a whirlwind arises from their fast running and begins to spin the sand, and when they rush through the air, their flight produces a storm and bad weather.
A TWO-Spirit is a creature capable of containing two souls - human and demonic. The number “two” among the Slavs, unlike the numbers “one” and “three,” had supernatural power. Usually, a double-minded person behaves like any other person during the day, but at night he immediately falls into a deep sleep, so it is impossible to wake him up. At this time, he wanders outside his body in the guise of a dog, hare, horse, etc. Sometimes after the death of a double-minded person, his pure soul goes to the next world, and the unclean soul becomes a ghoul. “...If anyone detains the wandering Double-Double, he can kill with his own power or the power of the wind, from which there is no escape. You can wake up a double-minded person by turning his head over to where his feet were. In that case, the Double-Damed One will be sick for at least two weeks” (N.I. Tolstoy).
DEDKO - living spirit; According to the beliefs of the Western Slavs, the prisoner sits in the granary all winter and eats the reserves made.
GRANDFATHERS (didy, dzyady) - pan-Slavic spirits of ancestors. The grandfather is the guardian of the family and, above all, of the children, of course. The eldest man, a representative of the clan eldership, who pacifies passions within the clan, preserves the basic principles of the morality of the clan, strictly monitoring their implementation. Belarusians and Ukrainians called grandfather the house deity who guards the hearth, the stove fire, like the small Perunov fire, in contrast to the big one in the sky. The forest deity, the keeper of Perunov's treasure, was also called grandfather. They prayed to the grandfather for instructions, for the discovery of the treasure. In Belarus, the keeper of gold treasures is called Dedka. He walks along the roads in the form of a beggar with red, fiery eyes and the same beard, and, meeting an unfortunate poor man, he gives him money. In the Kherson province they say that the treasure often appears in the form of an old man in torn and dirty beggar’s clothes. In Ukraine they talk about an old, white-haired and snotty grandfather who wanders around the world, and if you wipe his nose, he is immediately sent away in silver. Among the Slavs, a special rite of honoring grandfathers was performed in the spring on the rainbow - the seventh day of Easter or in the fall. Grandfathers were also treated at Christmas and New Year. The souls of deceased relatives were invited into the house and donated food to them, pouring it under the table or putting it out the window. Food was also taken to the cemetery and placed on the graves. Grandfathers were depicted as “blockheads” with a torch. In Belarus, during the ritual, the owner carried a lit torch around the table three times, fumigating the souls of the dead.
DOMOVOY-DOMOZHIL (Dobrozhil, Dobrokhot, Breadwinner, Grandfather, Sisedka, Batan, the other half, Zhirovik, Lizun, Posten, Karnoukhiy, Kletsnik, Jester, Oblom, Sadolom) - representative of the hearth, according to the original meaning there is the god Agni, identical to Perun the Thunderer . As the embodiment of the fire burning on the hearth, the brownie was revered as the founder and ruler of the clan. This is a short old man, covered all over with warm, shaggy fur. Throughout the forested north of Russia, the brownie is called Susedko and Batan for his willing cohabitation with the Orthodox Russian people. In the families of the Olonets region, the other half even calls him an honorary name. In any case, he - Domozhil, and for the custom of living in warmth and comfort - Zhirovik and Lizun. Because he is still an invisible creature, an undeniable and genuine “undead” (neither a spirit nor a person), the brownie is also called Posten, as a ghostly creature, a ghost. Sometimes they call him “karnoukhim” because he seems to be missing one ear. In Belarus he is also called Kletsnik - the keeper of house cages and storerooms. If the brownie is angry, then he begins to do the same tricks as someone else's brownie. That is why he is called the Jester, Bummer and Sadol. In Rus', in the person of the brownie, the initial founder of the clan, the first organizer of the family hearth, is honored, and therefore the concept of him is not divided into many homogeneous spirits: in each house there is only one brownie. The activities of the brownie are limited to the possessions of the family with which he is connected by sacred ties of kinship and cult; he only cares about his home. In Rus', the brownie is also the patron saint of chickens, and in his honor on November 1st a special celebration is held, known as “chicken name day”.
HOUSE-YARD - got his name from his place of usual residence, and due to the nature of his relationship with homeowners, he is ranked among the evil spirits, and all stories about him come down to the torment of those domestic animals that he does not love. In appearance, the yard looks like a housekeeper. He is always friendly only with a goat and a dog, he does not like other animals, and the birds do not obey him. He especially does not tolerate white cats, white dogs and gray horses - a knowledgeable owner tries not to keep such animals. Gifts are presented to him on an iron pitchfork in a manger.
DREAM - evening and night spirit. Loves children, but is not so gentle with adults. Comes at dusk. “Lyulya, Sandman came, / She wandered under the wing, / She lay down in Sasha’s cradle. /Hugged Sasha with her hand” (lullaby song).
ZHIROVIK is one of the many nicknames for the brownie. They call him Zhirovik because he loves to live in warmth and cold. They are also called “lizen” or “lizun” for some everyday habits: fiddling with dishes at night, licking them, loves to lick hot pancakes and pancakes. He prefers to live behind the stove or underground; he likes to hang around the stove. An invisible creature. “Oh, grandma, go home, the slime came, he licked off the oatmeal, orga, wheat, noodle flour... and the slime’s tongue is like a grater...” (E. Chestnyakov. “Happened”).
Evil spirits are evil spirits, small creatures that, having settled behind the stove, remain invisible and bring misfortune to the house: no matter how great the wealth of the owner, it will quickly disappear and poverty will come instead of contentment. There is a spell: “Let the evil ones beat him!” With their tiny stature and restless character, they resemble house dwarfs and thus provide evidence of the ancient connection between the mythical personifications of fate and death and elemental thunderstorm spirits (another evidence is the ability of transformations). In the folk tale they play the same role as Woe, Dashing and Nedol. Belarusians have preserved a proverb: “The evil ones asked for three days, but you won’t survive for three years!” Sinisters travel around the world and settle down to live in societies; in the same way, according to popular sayings, “Trouble does not come alone,” “Troubles come in rows.” Ukrainian “God, they beat you!” - a wish for misfortune, “to hell” - to hell. “Have mercy, mother, look, there is your son with a piece of bread and a stick, he left the house and is walking along the rolling stones - wherever his eyes look, and the evil spirits - the companions of grief, wrap themselves around his neck, whispering in his ears: “We will not leave you!” (A.M. Remizov. “To the Sea-Ocean”).
IGOSHA - related to kikimore; a stillborn child, a premature baby, a miscarriage, a freak without arms and legs, who settles in a hut and disturbs householders with his pranks.
ICHETIK is an evil spirit from the merman family. Just like the water one, the ichetik lives in rivers and other bodies of water. According to his functions, he is an assistant to the merman (the merman has many assistants besides him - for example, mermaids and shishigi). The ichetik does all the minor work - it washes away the banks, destroys bridges, and floods the crops. Its appearance is similar to that of a merman, but it has not grown much. Like all the undead, he loves to play cards and drink beer. Sleeps from autumn Nikita to spring Nikita.
A CASHMAN - a person who has been bypassed by the goblin - loses his meaning and memory.
KARAKONJALS (karakonjuly, karakonjo) - among the southern Slavs, water demons. They come out of the water or from caves and unclean places during the Christmas period. They appear in the form of horses with a human head and two arms or wings; naked people covered with thorns; shaggy red or black demons with tails and horns; little people luring people to the ice; in the form of a dog, sheep, calf or a shaggy, horned and tailed man. “It was believed that after midnight they attack people, ride them until the first rooster or the first cry of a donkey, drive people around the village, fields, along the river bank. They are afraid of fire, iron, ashes from badnyak, bread, salt, etc.” (N.I. Tolstoy).
KARACHUN (korochun, kerechun, krachun) - evil spirit (Belarusian, korochun - “sudden death at a young age, convulsions, an evil spirit that shortens life”, Russian karachun - “death”, “death”, “evil spirit”). Karachun is also the name of the winter solstice and the associated holiday - Christmas (in Transcarpathia, krachun is a Christmas pie). The name Korochun is close to the names Kert and Krak, which designate the Slavic Cityvrat. Among the Horutans and Croats, the word “Kert” is used in the meaning of “fire”; there is a saying: “We will not all go to Kert, some will go to hell.” “In a white fur coat, barefoot, shaking his white shaggy hair, shaking his big gray beard, Korochun hits the stump with his club - and the furious eyuzi rings, the frost scratches with its claws, the air cracks and breaks” (A.M. Remizov. “Fairy Tales”).
KLADOVIK (storeroom) - a spirit that protects treasures and valuables buried in the ground. In the north they call him “the storeroom” and recognize that there are two watchmen: “layun,” so nicknamed because he turns into a husky dog at the first attempt to steal the treasure; the other is a “tickler”, protecting a treasure in the form of a white-sided tickling magpie bird.
KLETNIK - this is the name in Belarus for the keeper of house cages and pantries. This is one of the nicknames of the brownie-courtyard, which clearly indicates the space within which the power of the brownie is honored and sacrifices are made to him. All house-elders are given help from house- and yard-keepers. Their work, in some places, is not considered independent, and everything is entirely attributed to one “master”. In other places, the labors of each household spirit are shrewdly distinguished.
KOLOVERTYSH - the witch's assistant. “On the roof sat a gray owl - a damn bird, and at the chicken’s leg, at the door, sat Rotator, sad: a panty, not a panty, short and motley, with a drooping, empty, flaccid crop... This is a crop, he collects everything there the witch will get: butter, cream - and milk, all the spoils. The goiter is full and drags after the witch, and at home she takes everything out of the goiter, as if from a bag, and the witch eats it: butter, cream and milk... - The witch made me out of a dog, in a clever way: our dog Shumka gave birth - The wolves ate Shumka! - the witch took the place where Shumka’s puppies lay, whispered, dragged me into the hut in the back corner under the stove, and seven days later I came out into the world. I am Kolovertysh, like a dog’s son...” (A.M. Remizov. “Fairy Tales”).
KORGORUSHY (kolovershi) - in East Slavic mythology, the brownie's assistants; They look like cats, most often black, hence the dislike and fear at the sight of a black cat. According to southern Russian beliefs, they bring supplies and money to their owner from other houses, stealing from under the nose of a careless neighbor. Because of this, courtyards most often quarrel. During these quarrels, the korgorushki chatter, break dishes, and turn everything in the house upside down.
CRIKS-VARAKS - a mythical creature, the personification of a child's cry. If a child screams, you need to carry him to the barn and, rocking him, say: “Crixus-varaxes! go beyond the steep mountains, beyond the dark forests from the baby so-and-so.” Krixa is a crybaby. Varaksa is a windbag. “Crix-varaxes galloped from behind the steep mountains, climbed into the priest’s garden, cut off the priest’s dog’s tail, crawled into a raspberry patch, sawed off the dog’s tail there, played with the tail” (A.M. Remizov. “Fairy Tales”).
KURENT is a demon. One day, the giant man and Kurent argued among themselves which of them should have the white light. They fought for a long time, dug up the whole earth with their feet and made it what it is now: where before there were wide plains, there appeared high mountains and deep abysses. Neither one nor the other overpowered the enemy. Then Kurent took the vine and squeezed it so tightly that wine burst out of it; He intoxicated a man with this wine at the very time when he was sitting on a high mountain at God’s table (here is an allegory indicating a way to deprive a white man of his strength through drinking alcohol and smoking). Soon God returned and saw a man dozing at the table; God was angry and threw him down from the mountain with a strong hand, which is why he lay broken and half-dead for many years. When the man recovered, his strength disappeared: he could neither jump across the sea, nor descend into the depths of the earth, nor ascend to the heavenly table. Thus, Kurent took possession of the world and man, and from that time on people became weak and small (delivering a person from these vices will return him to his former strength and divine abilities). In some areas, this is a crafty and cheerful demon who, by playing the harp and pipe, heals illnesses and makes everyone dance without rest.
ICE (ice) - the spirit of straw. Like many spirits of Slavic mythology, the Ice One sleeps in winter. It wakes up only with the arrival of spring. In the summer, he stays awake and waits for the end of summer to climb into a fresh pile of straw and fall asleep (he is the personification of the winter sleep of nature, the plant world; a sleepy and lazy person is sometimes called by his name). Nobody has ever seen him. Sometimes only on a hot afternoon will someone rustle in the straw and someone’s sigh will be heard. “From last year’s straw, the demon of the straw began to purr, crushed by the warm straw. And the meadow responded, hummed, and the whole shore clicked and groaned and hooted, and the forest began to chirp like a dragonfly” (A.M. Remizov. “To the Sea-Ocean”).
LESAVKI - forest spirits, relatives of the forester, old men and women. They look like hedgehogs. Just like the woodsman, they love to play pranks and play. Most of the time, larvae sleep; they are awake for a very short period of time: from late summer to mid-autumn. Among the Olonchans, in their dense and pristine forests, there live “forest elders” or “fathers” who lure children into the forest, but for what purpose they keep them there and what they feed them, the most knowledgeable people cannot say. “Old men and women - Lesavki sit in last year’s leaves, grab hands, jump through the forest, whistle throughout the forest, without a head, without a tail, jump, that’s how they whistle” (A.M. Remizov. “To the Sea-Ocean”) .
FOREST SPIRITS - initially they were represented in the following form: shaggy creatures with goat legs, beard and horns, reminiscent of satyrs and fauns of the ancient world. If they are dressed, then in sheepskin coats; These sheepskin coats are not belted and flutter freely in the wind, like the cloudy mantle of a wild hunter. Later they received proper names.
GOBBLE (free, yad, forest, righteous, leshak, forest man, forester, fox, polysun, connecting rod, thief, barely, wild little peasant, tsmok, king with golden horns, forest king, ruler over the forest) - forest evil spirits, full and unlimited the owner of the forest: all animals and birds are under his jurisdiction and obey him unrequitedly. The goblin differs from other spirits by special properties inherent to him alone: if he walks through the forest, he is as tall as the tallest trees. In the Kyiv and Chernigov provinces, a distinction was made between foxes and field workers; the former were represented as giants of a grayish and ashy color, while the latter were told that they were equal to the height of grain growing in the field, and after the harvest they diminished and became as tiny as stubble. Like all thunder spirits, the goblin can take on various images, and thereby becomes close to werewolves. Most often he is a hefty man, but even in this human form he retains demonic characteristics: he is wearing a sheepskin coat, but as is always the case with evil spirits, it is not belted and is wrapped with the left hem over the right. The goblin rushes through his forests like mad, with extreme speed and always without a hat. His eyebrows and eyelashes are not visible, but you can clearly see that he is carno-eared (there is no right ear), that the hair on his head is combed to the left. He is also represented as having one eye, which indicates his affinity with the Cyclops giants. Possessing the ability to roll over, the goblin often pretends to be a passerby with a knapsack over his shoulders. If the goblin appears naked, then it is easy to notice how similar he is to the generally accepted image of the devil: he has horns on his head, goat legs, his head and the entire lower half of his body are shaggy, in braids, a wedge-shaped goat beard, long claws on his hands. In Belarus, it is called forest clot, which kills the owners' livestock, sucks milk from cows at night and makes the fields infertile. In the Vladimir province the goblin was called a wild peasant. Near Ryazan they believe that kings with golden horns live in the forests. Leshy do not so much harm people as they play pranks and jokes and, in this case, are quite similar to their brownie relatives. They play rude pranks, as befits clumsy forest dwellers, and make evil jokes. The most common methods of mischief are to lead a person into a thicket in a place from which there is no way to get out, or to put fog in the eyes, which will completely confuse him, and the lost person will circle around the forest for a long time. However, the goblin still does not lead people to direct death. The goblin punishes people for using obscene words and uttering curses.
LISTIN is an old blind spirit, the leader of the Lesovkas, his wife and assistant is Baba Listina. They are not as boisterous and nimble as woods, they sit in a pile of leaves near a stump or in a ravine and command who should rustle when. In the fall, at first a light whisper is heard - this is Listin and Listina consulting and assigning work to the scaffolders. And then there is rustling and noise, round dances of fallen leaves, nobility, woods playing. “The mole rat Listin will pass by the tree and rustle its leaves, don’t be afraid: Listin is not scary. Listin only likes to scare” (A.M. Remizov. “Fairy Tales”).
FEVER (fever, feverish decoy, manya, godfather, good woman, aunt, friend, child, shaking-not-whispering, shaking, shaking, rattling, shaking, crackling, shaking, formidable, Ledey, lady, chills, chills, swelling, studenka, podrozhe, winter, oppressive, oppressive, oppressive, oppressive, grynusha, breastfed, deaf, deaf, lomeya, lomenya, dray, bonebreaker, plump, plump, chubby, pouty, swollen, yellowing, jaundice, zheltunitsa, corcus, writhing, squirming, looking, fire, Nevea, Nava, Navier, dance-vitsa, dryness, dryness, yawning, yaga, sleepy, pale, light, spring, deciduous, watery, blue, fever, dung beetle, dung beetle, spindle, swamp-nitsa, stonefly) - a ghost in the form of an evil and ugly maiden: stunted, starved, feeling constant hunger, sometimes even blind and armless; “a devil who has thinned eyes, and iron hands, and camel hair... to do evil dirty tricks on people, and to dry up women’s bones, to dry up milk, and to kill a baby, and to darken the eyes of people, to weaken the muscles” (an old conspiracy). Fever - nine or twelve winged sisters; they live in the dark dungeons of hell. One of them - the eldest - commands her sisters and sends them to earth to torment the human race: “burn and shiver the body, crush white bones.” On the second of January, Frost or Winter drives them out, along with evil spirits, from hell, and the fevers seek refuge in warm huts and attack the “guilty ones.” This belief is due to those colds and chills that are so common during the cold season of winter. Fevers have their names and describe the torment with which each of them torments the patient (see above: for example, bone breaker - “like a strong storm breaks a tree, it also breaks bones and back”; yellowing or jaundice - this “turns a person yellow, like color in the field"). Neveah (the deadening one) is the oldest sister of all fevers. To get rid of a fever, you can wear a snake crawl (a baby snake that has crawled out of a hole) on you, without taking it off at night or in the bathhouse. “And they are stunted and starved - Death of a Cow and Vesnyanka-Podosennitsa with forty sisters run through the village, an old woman in a white shroud, calling out to the voice. They have done a lot of troubles - if a wolf eats them, then the Dung Mouse will pretend to be under the mew, then the Dung Mouse will catch you in the yard, then it will jump off the spindle and jump into the spinner - the Spindle, then it will jump out from the swamp hummock - the Bolotnitsa: they would spoil the cattle, take the blush out of the white faces, put arrows in the back, hook the fingers on the hands, shake the body” (A.M. Remizov. “Fairy Tales”).
MEADOW - the spirit of the meadows, a small green man dressed in grass, helps mow the grass during haymaking. Considered to be the child of a field worker (field). Runs through the meadows and catches birds as food for its parent. He gets very angry when the mowing is missed - he drives the grass into wild growth and braids it so much that it cannot be cut or torn; and even dries the grass on the root. If mowers come for such mowing, they tear the braids.
LYAD (chemor, igrets, black jester, Likhnovets, bummer) - the devil.
A FLYER - a person over whom an evil spirit has flown - will certainly go crazy.
BABY-MARAS - settle in huts; in their image, the idea of thunderstorm spirits merges with the shadows of the departed.
MARA (Marukha) - souls of the departed; identical to kikimoras, i.e. these are babies who died unbaptized or were cursed by their parents, and therefore fell under the power of evil spirits. In Russia, these are old little female creatures who sit on the stove, spin yarn at night, and everyone whispers and jumps, and throws bricks at people. In Poshekhonye, Mara is a beautiful, tall girl, dressed all in white; she is considered a field spirit. In the Olonets province, mara is an invisible creature that lives in a house in addition to the brownie, with obvious signs of a kikimora (spinning at night on a spinning wheel that they forgot to bless, tearing the tow, tangling the yarn). Among the northern Great Russians, the mara is a gloomy ghost who sits invisible behind the stove during the day, and at night comes out to play pranks with spindles, a spinning wheel and spun yarn.
MEZHEVIK is the brother of the meadow grass, just as small, dressed in grass, but not green, but black. He runs along the boundary, guards it, just like his brother, looking for food for his field-faring parent. He punishes those who violated the boundary, crosses it illegally, installs and corrects markers, and helps hard-working owners in the field. But if he finds a person sleeping on the boundary, he leans on him, ties his neck with grass and strangles him.
MORA - the evil spirit of disease and death; in Serbia and Montenegro it is recognized as a demonic spirit that flies out of a witch in the form of a moth (a generally accepted representation of the soul), “pressing and crushing” sleepy people at night and “breathing outside the corner of the street.”
MORNING COW (Cow or Comrade's Death, anthrax) - cattle plague; an ugly old woman whose hands hold a rake; she herself rarely enters villages, and for the most part she is brought in unseen. It is shown mainly in autumn and early spring, when cattle begin to suffer from lack of food and bad weather. Cow Death often takes on the form of a black dog or cow and, walking among the herds, infects the cattle. In the Tomsk province, anthrax was represented in the form of a tall, shaggy man with hooves on his feet; he lives in the mountains and comes out of there, hearing curses: “scorch you!”, “stain you!”
SEA PEOPLE (Pharaohs) - in Ukraine they say about them - “half a man, and half a rib.” When the sea is rough, sea people swim to the surface and sing songs. In other places, these sea people are called pharaohs, mixing the ancient legend about the sea people with the biblical legend about the Pharaoh's army, drowned in the waves of the Black Sea. They say that these people have fish tails and that they have the ability to predict the future.
MOSS - a tiny spirit of green or brown color, lives in moss, punishes those who pick berries at inopportune times. Mokhovoy bypasses everyone who has gone deeper into the thicket. It will either lead you to a place from which it is difficult to get out, or make you circle around the forest in the same place. Usually Mokhovoy does not lead people to death, but only tortures them and then lets them go.
NAV (Navier, Navy) - initially - the lower world in the Slavic three-level worldview. In late Slavic mythology, the embodiment of death. In ancient Russian monuments, Navier is a dead man. A related name of an independent deity is in the list of Polish gods. Among other Slavic peoples, this is a whole class of mythological creatures associated with death. In Galicia there is a legend about the happy people “Rahman”, living beyond the black seas. In southern Rus', these people are called Navs, the Great Day they celebrate is Navsky or Rusal. Bulgarian Navi are evil spirits, twelve sorceresses who suck blood from women in childbirth. Among the Bulgarians, boys who are stillborn or who die without baptism become ghost spirits. “On Navy Day, on Radunitsa, they celebrated the “calls” of the dead here” (P.I. Melnikov-Pechersky. “In the Woods”).
UNDEAD - creatures without flesh and soul - everything that does not live as a person, but has a human appearance. This word was formed from the verb “to live” with a negative particle “not” and in its meaning directly corresponds to Morana (death) and the widespread diseases known among the Slavs under the general name of pestilence. The undead have many faces. The Russian proverb is typical: “The undead do not have their own appearance, they walk in disguise.” Many proper names for characters related to the undead are associated with their habitat: goblin, polevik, omutnik, etc. External characteristic signs include abnormal (for humans) manifestations: hoarse voice, howl, speed of movement, change of appearance. The attitude of the undead towards people is ambiguous: there are malicious demons, and there are also well-wishers. “Here the undead has gone around the old spruce and is wandering - the blue hairs are swaying. He moves quietly, pushes mud through the moss and swamp, takes a sip of swamp water, a field goes, another goes, a restless undead, without a soul, without a form. Either he will step over like a bear, then he will calm down more quietly than a quiet beast, then he will spread into a bush, then he will burn through with fire, then like an old man withered legs - beware, he will distort! - then a daring boy and again, like a board, there he is - a scarecrow with a scarecrow” (A.M. Remizov. “To the Sea-Ocean”).
NIKOLA (Mikola) is the name of the spirit, which later went back to Saint Nicholas (Greek Nicholas - from “Nike” and “Laos” - winner of nations), who is popularly considered the patron saint of all workers. Among the southern Slavs, Nikola is a forest spirit who lives freely in the forest (no stake...). “And the merciful Nikola will come down and take away the iron and set up a ban from earth to heaven and three gilded keys, and he will throw those keys into the Ocean Sea; (in the Okiyan Sea) lies an alatyr stone: you shouldn’t lie down on the stone, and you shouldn’t float out the keys, according to my word” (spell).
NOCHKI (nichki) - female mythical creatures who knock and play pranks in huts at night, especially on Fridays; The women are afraid that they will not spin all the flax, and they hide their tows from them. Identical to marukhas.
NIGHTNIGHTS (kriksas) - night spirits-demons. They attack mainly newborn children, before baptism. This is an indeterminate type of creature. Sometimes they appear as women with long hair in black clothes. After death, women witches who did not have children become nocturnists. “For fear of moths, mothers are careful not to leave diapers in the yard after sunset, leave the house and carry the child; do not leave the empty cradle open or rock it, use various amulets for the cradle (plants, a needle, etc.); they do not bathe children and do not wash diapers and linen in “night” (stayed overnight) water” (S.M. Tolstaya).
OBILUHA - the spirit that protects seeds and crops, is responsible for the quantity and quality of the harvest.
OVINNIK (Gumennik, Podovinnik) is the most evil of the house spirits: it is difficult to please and humble him if he gets angry and loses his temper. His eyes glow with hot coals, like a cat’s, and he himself looks like a huge cat, the size of a yard dog, all black and shaggy. He knows how to bark and laughs like a devil. He was instructed to sit under the garden in the pit in order to watch the order of laying the sheaves, to observe the time and timing of when and how to flood the barn, and not to allow this to be done on major holidays. If he gets angry, he will throw coal between the grates and let the whole barn get busy and burn. This spirit lives in the barn; shaggy, and one arm is bare and longer than the other. He punishes with his bare hand, throwing heat into the unharvested sheaves of careless owners. This spirit's eyes are multi-colored, his fur coat is inside out; in calm weather he sleeps. He rarely extends his furry hand to tell girls wealth. On Easter Sunday morning, a girl puts her hand in the window of the barn: if the spirit does not touch her hand, she will go as a girl, with her bare hand she will marry a poor man, if her shaggy hand touches the barn, she will marry a rich man.
OGUMENNIK (beaner) - a spirit living on threshing floors (threshing floor is a place where they thresh, as well as a shed for compressed bread) and barns; although it is considered a house spirit, it is very evil: it is difficult to appease it. If you get angry - neither crosses in all corners, nor prayers, nor icons will help - then guard the threshing floor with a poker in your hands on September 4 against Agathon the Ogumennik. In some places, they say, you can appease him if you bring pies and a rooster: the rooster’s head is cut off on the threshold and blood is sprinkled in all corners. “Going to the threshing floor and bringing a sheaf of straw was considered one of the most severe punishments, since one does not go to the threshing floor at night for fear of falling into the clutches of the threshing floor...” (All year round. Russian agricultural calendar).
FULL - house spirit, extreme laziness (to work - to sweat, to be lazy - to lose weight).
PLANETARIANS - mythical creatures that reside in rain and hail clouds, controlling the movement of clouds, precipitation, wind, and weather. During the period of the spread of Christianity, it was added that children who died unbaptized, thrown off or sent by their mother, poisoned or killed were turned into them; drowned people, hanged people and other unclean dead, children of goddesses and strigones (ghouls). Meanwhile, the recognition in Christianity of the existence of various deities, spirits, angels, archangels, etc., that is, not people (incorporeal), speaks of Christianity’s recognition of polytheism and the attribution of this religion to paganism. Double-minded people could also become planetaries, who were transported to the sky during a thunderstorm or storm. Sometimes the planetaries fell to the ground from the clouds along with the rain or went to the ground to straighten a broken rope. The planetary could land on the border of the village, go to the nearest village and ask the first person he met for milk from a black cow and an egg from a black chicken, and then returned to the border and from there, along with the fog, ascended to his cloud. Planeteers were friendly towards people they met and warned them about storms and hail. It is believed that planetites feed on flour in the clouds, which people throw into the wind or into fire to protect themselves from hail. Ordinary people who knew how to predict the weather and drive away clouds from their village (with the help of sharp iron tools, a special stick used to separate a frog and a snake, a special spell-prayer, etc.) could also be called planetaries.
CHANGLE - sometimes maras substitute their own child instead of a kidnapped child. Such a changeling is distinguished by an evil character: he is cunning, wild, unusually strong, gluttonous and loud, rejoices in every misfortune, does not utter a word - until he is forced to do so by some threat or cunning, and then his voice sounds like that of an old man. Where he settles, he brings misfortune to that house: livestock gets sick, housing deteriorates and falls apart, businesses fail. He has a penchant for music, which is revealed both by his rapid success in this art and by the wonderful power of his playing: when he plays any instrument, then everyone - people, animals, and even inanimate things - indulges in uncontrollable dancing. To find out if the child is really a changeling, you need to light a fire and boil water in an eggshell, then the changeling exclaims: “I am as old as the ancient forest, and I have never seen eggs boiled in shells!” - and then disappears.
FIELD - a spirit assigned to guard grain fields. The appearance of the field worker in folk mythology is vague. In some places he appears as an ugly, small man. Regarding his kind, but mischievous disposition, the field worker has much in common with the brownie, but in terms of the nature of the pranks themselves, he resembles a goblin: he also leads him off the road, leads him into a swamp, and especially makes fun of drunken plowmen. Field workers, unlike other evil spirits, have a favorite time of day - noon. Like all unclean spirits, field workers are bribe-takers, proud and capricious. “Another old man - flourished in the vast steppe in the middle of the feather grass, where cranes and dragons with their heads are buried and the high armored man with a spear is not visible together: there the old man buried himself in the ground up to his waist and endures how a loose worm gnaws at him, and he only eats little boogers that crawl into his mouth; and this hermit is called old Polevik, and he is five hundred years old” from “The Hour of God’s Will”).
FIELD GRANDFATHER (field grass, buckwheat, zhytsen) - living spirit; In the summer half of the year it lives in fields. When the grain is ripe and the villagers begin to reap or mow it, the field worker runs away from the swings of the sickle and scythe and hides in those ears of corn that still remain on the root; together with the last cut ears of corn, it falls into the hands of the reaper and in the last sheaf of the harvest is brought to the threshing floor or to the farmer’s house. This sheaf is dressed up as a doll and placed in a place of honor, under the images. They believe that her presence in the house brings God's blessing to the owner, his family and granaries.
POLYSUN (Lisun, Lisovik) - the lord of the forests, whom folk fantasy depicts as shaggy and with goat legs. Identical to the wolf shepherd.
TRAVELER - a spirit that contributes to human affairs and their success.
GHOST (ghost) - the soul of a deceased or absent creature that can be seen by a living person. The usual habitat is in abandoned houses and cemeteries or in the forest, next to a protected treasure. He can come to a person’s house and demand some services from him. The ghost is transparent, it does not cast shadows. The only way to escape from him is to run without looking back; if you turn around, you will die.
PROKUDY - one of the nicknames of house spirits; rogues, unhearing, pranksters.
PUSCHEVIK is a forest spirit living in an impenetrable forest. “All movement here seems to have stopped; Every scream frightens me to the point of trembling and goosebumps in my body. Tree trunks swayed by the wind rub against each other and creak with such force that they cause the observer a sharp aching pain under the heart. Here a feeling of painful loneliness and invincible horror befalls everyone, no matter what efforts he makes on himself. Here everyone is horrified by their insignificance and powerlessness” (S.V. Maksimov. “The Unclean, Unknown and Power of the Cross”).
RYE - a spirit living on strips of rye. The entire plant kingdom seemed to ancient man to be the embodiment of elemental spirits, which, combining their existence with trees, bushes and herbs (putting on their green clothes), thereby received the character of forest, field or living geniuses. Rzhanitsa make holes - paths in the rye a small inch wide, along which all the ears are cut.
SARAINIK - a yard spirit whose place of residence is a barn. Just like other yard spirits: Ovinnik, Kletnik, Ogumennik, Khlevnik, Barn, then they are peaceful, then, without any apparent reason, they begin to play pranks, fool around, causing constant disturbances and obvious losses in the household. In such cases, they take decisive measures and, instead of affection and pleasing, enter into open struggle with him.
SATANAIL (Satan) - in Slavic legends an evil spirit. The name Satanael goes back to the Christian Satan, but Satanael's function is associated with archaic dualistic mythologies. In dualistic cosmogony, Satanail is the opponent of the demiurge god. In the medieval South Slavic and Russian “Tale of the Sea of Tiberias,” Lake Tiberias in Palestine is presented as a primary boundless ocean. God descends through the air onto the sea and sees Satanail floating in the guise of Gogol. Satanail calls himself a god, but recognizes the true God as “Lord over all lords.” God tells Satanail to dive to the bottom and take out the sand and flint. God scattered the sand over the sea, creating the earth, but he broke the flint, kept the right part for himself, and gave the left part to Satanail. By striking the flint with his staff, God created angels and archangels, while Satanael created his demonic army. “...The Magi told how God washed himself in the bathhouse, sweated and wiped himself with a rag, which he threw from heaven to earth. Satan began to argue with God about who should create man from her (he himself created the body, God put the soul). Since then, the body remains in the ground, and the soul after death goes to God” (“The Tale of Bygone Years”).
DEATH is a mythical creature; Russian monuments (ancient manuscripts, wall paintings and popular prints) depict Death either as a monster, combining human and animal likenesses, or as a dry, bony human skeleton with bared teeth and a sunken nose, which is why people call it snub-nosed. Death was recognized as an unclean, evil force, which is why in both language and beliefs it is close to the concept of darkness (night) and cold (winter). “...Suddenly an old woman met him, so thin and scary, carrying a bag full of knives, and saws, and various hatchets, and propping herself up with a scythe... Death (it was she) and said: “I was sent by the Lord to take your soul ! (collection by E.V. Barsova. “Soldier and Death”).
HURRY AND ERGOTS are spirits that promote human affairs.
SPRYYA (Agility) - the spirit of agility, dexterity, which is born with a person and dies with him, or passes on to another. Whatever the spirit of this or that person is, that’s how he succeeds in life. This spirit helps, helps out. If the spell passes to another person, this is obvious, they say “a second youth has come to him.”
FEAR (Rah) is a mythological character mentioned in Russian conspiracies, the embodiment of a fiery wind - a hot wind. Since ancient times, winds have been personified as original creatures. In popular prints, the wind and the “stormy spirit” are depicted in the form of winged human heads blowing from the clouds. According to popular belief, winter blizzards are caused by unclean spirits; running through the fields, they blow into their fists.
SCARED (Scaremonger) - house spirits that make fussing and knocking at night, they appear either as light, airy ghosts, or take the form of various animals.
SUSEDKO - Throughout the forested north of Russia, for its willing cohabitation with the Orthodox Russian people, the brownie is called Susedko and Batan. “- And the neighbor -... Kikimora’s husband - is so old... All overgrown... small, just a bunch of rags... and they live in a hut, in the yard of the cattle... they go everywhere... To the horses. .. If he loves horses, he puts hay on them... and combs them, strokes them... And with all my heart I saw at night... there was no one in the hut... So quietly. And I hear something sharply sewing on the top of the stove. And she herself was lying on the floor... As soon as she turned her head... and from the beam a gray cat easily jumped onto the floor..." (E. Chestnyakov. "Happened").
KHAPUN (slammer, grabber, kidnapper) is an unknown and invisible creature, a character in the mythology of the Western Slavs. If a person disappears somewhere, then it is the work of an invisible abductor. Where he takes him, and what he does with him, no one knows. It is assumed that he may appear in the form of a tramp, a beggar, a soldier; “Leika, not finding her husband in the tavern, and not calling for him in the yard, clasped her hands, howled and screamed that Khapun, who appeared in the form of a soldier, had taken him away” (O.M. Somov. “Tales of Treasures”).
KHLEVNIK - a yard spirit living in a barn. It is named after its habitat. In the stable he manages and plays pranks. He is also an assistant to the brownie, like other yard spirits: Barn, Bannik, Ovinnik.
KHOVALA (hovalo) - a spirit with twelve eyes, which, when he walks through the village, illuminate it like the glow of a fire. The personification of the many-eyed lightning, which is given the name Khovala (from “khovat” - to hide, to bury), because it hides in a dark cloud; Let us remember that Viy, identical to this spirit, wears a bandage over his ever-burning eyes. Khowala loves to live where the treasure trove is buried. “Khowala rose from the warm barn, raised his heavy eyelids and, diving in the heavy bent ears, lit up his twelve stone eyes and blazed. And the khovala blazed, heating up the stuffy sky. It seemed like there was a fire there, there the sky would break into pieces and the white light would end” (A.M. Remizov. “To the Sea-Ocean”).
KHODOY - evil demon; bad - trouble.
DEVIL (hitnik, merek, arrow, lyad, connecting rod, kostoder, kozheder. Lame, Antipas without heels) - an evil spirit, undead, whose purpose of being on earth is to confuse the human race with temptation and lure with guile; Moreover, people are tempted according to the direct orders of the prince of darkness or Satan himself. They are depicted as black, shaggy and covered in fur, with two horns on the top of their heads and a long tail. Some claim that devils are sharp-headed, like owls, and many are sure that these spirits are certainly lame. They broke their legs even before the creation of man, during the crushing fall of the entire host of demons from heaven. The devils' favorite pastime is playing cards and dice. The devils either play pranks, resorting to various jokes, which, according to their nature, are always evil, or they inflict direct evil in various forms and, by the way, in the form of diseases. To facilitate their activities, they are gifted with the ability of transformations. Most often they take the image of a black cat or a black dog. The remaining transformations occur in sequential order: pig, horse, snake, wolf, hare, squirrel, mouse, frog, fish (preferably pike), magpie. They do not dare, however, to turn into a cow, a rooster, a dove and a donkey. In regional dialects, the devil is called a hitnik; they say about him that he steals everything that is laid down without a blessing. There are many stories in which the possession of gold is attributed to devils, which is why Jesus called the Jews the sons of the devil for their excessive love of gold. In folk tales, the devil is often a skilled blacksmith, with which his black appearance and his presence in caves covered with soot and burning with hellish flames are in harmony.”
DEMONS - female demons whose character coincides with cloud, water and forest wives and maidens.
DEVIL'S HORSE - a catfish, which the crowfish usually rides; In some areas it is not recommended to eat this fish. A caught catfish should not be scolded, lest the water one hear it and decide to take revenge for it.
WOOLLY - night demon. It can be assumed that the brownie is called woolly. People believe that the brownie is all overgrown with thick wool and soft fluff; even his palms and soles are covered in hair, only his face near his eyes and nose is bare. The furry one strokes the sleepy ones with his palm at night, and they feel how his hand is woolly. If he strokes with a soft and warm hand, this portends happiness, but if he strokes with a cold and bristly hand, it will be worse.
SHISH - brownie, demon, evil spirit, usually living in barns. Many people are familiar with the expression: “Shish for you!”, which corresponds to an unkind wish. Shish plays her weddings at a time when whirlwinds raise dust in a column on the roads. These are the same Shishas who confuse the Orthodox. They send annoying and unpleasant people to Shisha in anger. Finally, “drunk cones” occur in people who have drunk themselves to the point of delirium tremens (to hell). The name Shisha is also attached to every carrier of news and earpiece in the ancient sense of the word, when “shishas” were scouts and spies, and when “for shishimorism” (as they wrote in the acts) estates were given, in addition to salaries, for services rendered by espionage. “Shish was naked from birth, his yard was hollow, there were no livestock, and there was no one to lock up... Shish’s property was a wooden pot and a pork horn with tobacco. There were two fake boilers, but they burned to the ground” (B. Shergin. “Shishov’s misfortunes”).
SHISHIGA (Shishigan) - a brownie, an evil spirit and a loitering person, a connecting rod, the same as Shish. Smart housewives place a plate of bread and a glass of milk by the stove in the evening - this way they can appease the shishig. In some places, shishigi are understood as small, restless spirits that try to come to hand when a person is doing something in a hurry. “...The shishiga will cover you with its tail, and you will disappear, and no matter how much you search, they will not find you, and you will not find yourself...” (A.M. Remizov. “The Irrepressible Tambourine”).
SHYSHKO - unclean spirit.
SHULIKUNS (shilikuns, shulukuns, shlikuns) - seasonal demons, hooligans. Shulikuns, associated with the elements of water and fire, appear from the chimney on Christmas Eve (sometimes on Ignatius Day) and go back under the water on Epiphany. They run through the streets, often with hot coals on an iron frying pan or an iron hook in their hands, with which they can grab people (“hook and burn”), or they ride on horses, on troikas, on stupas or “hot” stoves. They are often as tall as a fist, sometimes larger, can have horse legs and a pointed head, fire blazes from their mouths, and wear white homespun caftans with sashes and pointed hats. On Christmastide, shulikuns crowd around at crossroads or near ice holes, they are also found in the forest, teasing drunks, spinning them around and pushing them into the mud, without causing much harm, but they can lure them into an ice hole and drown them in the river. In some places the shulikuns carried a spinning wheel with a tow and a spindle into the cage so that they could spin the silk. Shulikuns are capable of stealing the yarn from lazy spinners, lying in wait and taking away everything that is supposed to be without a blessing, getting into houses and barns and stealthily stealing or stealing supplies. According to Vologda beliefs, babies cursed or destroyed by their mothers become shulikuns. They often live in abandoned and empty sheds, always in cooperatives, but they can also get into a hut (if the owner does not protect herself with a cross of bread), and then it is difficult to drive them out. In the Russian North, shulikuns are the name of Christmas mummers.
The nature of the spirit is unknown to man, much less the nature of the essence of all God. God created man in his own likeness, which means that the Heavenly Father, as well as the Son of God and the Holy Spirit, are threefold in essence: the Body, Soul and Spirit of God, and all this is spiritual in nature, that is, not material. The soul and spirit of a person are also not material, but spiritual in nature. Materially, there is something that a person can determine with his organs that belong to the body or through instruments. Material and spiritual everything is found together in the entire essence of existence, but it is impossible for a person, unlike angels, to distinguish this during a person’s life on earth. God divided existence for man.
The Spirit of God is “life-giving,” which can create everything, including life through the Word of God (“and God said: let there be light”), and created the life of people, unlike animals, by inhalation. Apparently, only by inhaling God is eternal life given, which Adam and Eve received at creation, but lost after the Fall. It is impossible for a person to understand all this. The human spirit is intelligent and can also create, but is not “life-giving,” but can create life only by uniting into the whole of a person: husband + wife and produce life in the offspring through God’s program into the essence (organism of people) during their initial creation.
A complete concept of the Holy Spirit will never be possible for humans, but we can still somehow get closer to understanding Him. People talk about this in different ways, so some say that if you translate the Hebrew word “ruach” or the Greek word “pneumos” exactly in meaning into Russian, it will mean energy, power, strength. "However, it is correct to say that the Spirit God, in His influence on everything, uses the energy that enters His essence and is determined by Him.
Energy is determined from A. Einstein’s formula M = E/C, where mass is nothing more in reality than energy depending on the speed of light squared. Mass arises only through the interaction of various “E/C” states with each other. According to the Bible, we can say that there is an incomprehensible region, distinct from all created existence, in which God dwells. This is the area of God’s existence about which the Apostle Paul says that God “dwells in unapproachable light, whom no man has seen or can see” (1 Tim. 6:16).
Therefore, we come to an interesting conclusion when considering the right side of this formula by A. Einstein, which reveals to us in more detail God in His existence. Matter is a derivative of the energy possessed by God (SPIRIT), acting as an object when establishing a frame of reference with the inherent speed of light. Moreover, everything created is new energy, which has two forms of its existence: closed in its movement (for example, an atom with its own inner world) and spreading (electromagnetic field). All this is carried out by the Spirit of God and controlled by Him.
Time is not connected with the infinity of everything that exists, but only with that which is within the infinity, which belongs to God. Time and space belong only to the material. Infinity is determined by God and lies in Him. Understanding everything that exists as various forms of energy existence leads to the idea that energy itself could not be organized into these forms, but this could happen under the influence of the Spirit of God, Who is the creator of the physical laws of the universe.
The human mind (the ability to operate with knowledge), as well as computers, has limiting capabilities, both in terms of information processing speed and memory capacity, but with God all this is unlimited. A person thinks, thinks in words, but all this limits a person’s life activity and his abilities. I think that God, in his mental activity, operates with entire concepts with a large volume of enormous information of existence
A person changes in his life not only in the flesh, but also in knowledge, beliefs, that is, spiritually, and also changes spiritually. Constant change is a sign of imperfection, but God is always the same. There is much evidence in the Holy Scriptures of Divine immutability, for example: “For I am the Lord, I do not change.” (Mal. 3:6); “God is not a man, that He should lie, nor a son of man, that He should change” (Num. 23:19). But the immutability of God does not mean that He is immovable. Holy Scripture says that God is life and God has the dynamism of life. St. Gregory the Theologian speaks about it this way: “The Divinity is not subject to vicissitudes and changes, since there is nothing that would be better than Him and into which It could be transformed.”
According to the Bible, God said, and we repeat, that the Heavenly Father gave birth to His Son of God. However, it is difficult for people to understand how a father can give birth to a child, because... a woman mother gives birth to children. The answer to this is given to us by the Bible, its beginning, where it is said that God created woman from the rib of a man. God took part of a man's flesh and from that part he created another man. Nothing is impossible with God, and therefore we can say that this part helped the creation, since it contained the necessary data for this. So God created His Son from Himself. God the Son is a part separated by God. Likewise, the Holy Spirit is a part of God. The essence of Everyone has its own direction in being. But all Three are separate individuals, united in Their actions according to the Will of the Heavenly Father. Therefore, the word “only begotten” (John 3:16) speaks of the great nature of the Son of God. The Son of God and the Holy Spirit are each God in their essence, but all creating according to the will of the Father.
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The beginning of the Bible is a plagiarism of Sumerian tales. In the Hebrew Bible, men monopolized the determination of the Almighty's gender. To prove their birthright, they distorted the appearance of the first man. Supposedly it was a man, and a woman was created from his rib. This was an attempt by the Jewish prophets to humiliate women. Among the Sumerians, the true and first authors, the gods sculpted people by mixing clay not with water, but with the blood of a defeated god, and they did not make sexual priorities. The body of the Goddess Tiomat became the source of the emergence of the Earth and celestial bodies. The primacy of women was legislated in the early history of the Sumerian kingdoms. The queen has always been a woman. The king was symbolically appointed for one year, and then solemnly sacrificed. Over time, this ritual, thanks to women's mercy, became symbolic.
The nature of the spirit is unknown to man, much less the nature of the essence of all God. God created man in his own likeness, which means that the Heavenly Father, as well as the Son of God and the Holy Spirit, are threefold in essence: the Body, Soul and Spirit of God, and all this is spiritual in nature, that is, not material. The soul and spirit of a person are also not material, but spiritual in nature. Materially, there is something that a person can determine with his organs that belong to the body or through instruments. Material and spiritual everything is found together in the entire essence of existence, but it is impossible for a person, unlike angels, to distinguish this during a person’s life on earth. God divided existence for man.
The Spirit of God is “life-giving,” which can create everything, including life through the Word of God (“and God said: let there be light”), and created the life of people, unlike animals, by inhalation. Apparently, only by inhaling God is eternal life given, which Adam and Eve received at creation, but lost after the Fall. It is impossible for a person to understand all this. The human spirit is intelligent and can also create, but is not “life-giving,” but can create life only by uniting into the whole of a person: husband + wife and produce life in the offspring through God’s program into the essence (organism of people) during their initial creation.
A complete concept of the Holy Spirit will never be possible for humans, but we can still somehow get closer to understanding Him. People talk about this in different ways, so some say that if you translate the Hebrew word “ruach” or the Greek word “pneumos” exactly in meaning into Russian, it will mean energy, power, strength. "However, it is correct to say that the Spirit God, in His influence on everything, uses the energy that enters His essence and is determined by Him.
Energy is determined from A. Einstein’s formula M = E/C, where mass is nothing more in reality than energy depending on the speed of light squared. Mass arises only through the interaction of various “E/C” states with each other. According to the Bible, we can say that there is an incomprehensible region, distinct from all created existence, in which God dwells. This is the area of God’s existence about which the Apostle Paul says that God “dwells in unapproachable light, whom no man has seen or can see” (1 Tim. 6:16).
Therefore, we come to an interesting conclusion when considering the right side of this formula by A. Einstein, which reveals to us in more detail God in His existence. Matter is a derivative of the energy possessed by God (SPIRIT), acting as an object when establishing a frame of reference with the inherent speed of light. Moreover, everything created is new energy, which has two forms of its existence: closed in its movement (for example, an atom with its own inner world) and spreading (electromagnetic field). All this is carried out by the Spirit of God and controlled by Him.
Time is not connected with the infinity of everything that exists, but only with that which is within the infinity, which belongs to God. Time and space belong only to the material. Infinity is determined by God and lies in Him. Understanding everything that exists as various forms of energy existence leads to the idea that energy itself could not be organized into these forms, but this could happen under the influence of the Spirit of God, Who is the creator of the physical laws of the universe.
The human mind (the ability to operate with knowledge), as well as computers, has limiting capabilities, both in terms of information processing speed and memory capacity, but with God all this is unlimited. A person thinks, thinks in words, but all this limits a person’s life activity and his abilities. I think that God, in his mental activity, operates with entire concepts with a large volume of enormous information of existence
The human mind (the ability to operate with knowledge), as well as computers, has limiting capabilities, both in terms of information processing speed and memory capacity, but with God all this is unlimited. A person thinks, thinks in words, but all this limits a person’s life activity and his abilities. I think that God, in his mental activity, operates with entire concepts with a large volume of enormous information of existence.
A person changes in his life not only in the flesh, but also in knowledge, beliefs, that is, spiritually, and also changes spiritually. Constant change is a sign of imperfection, but God is always the same. There is much evidence in the Holy Scriptures of Divine immutability, for example: “For I am the Lord, I do not change.” (Mal. 3:6); “God is not a man, that He should lie, nor a son of man, that He should change” (Num. 23:19). But the immutability of God does not mean that He is immovable. Holy Scripture says that God is life and God has the dynamism of life. St. Gregory the Theologian speaks about it this way: “The Divinity is not subject to vicissitudes and changes, since there is nothing that would be better than Him and into which It could be transformed.”
According to the Bible, God said, and we repeat, that the Heavenly Father gave birth to His Son of God. However, it is difficult for people to understand how a father can give birth to a child, because... a woman mother gives birth to children. The answer to this is given to us by the Bible, its beginning, where it is said that God created woman from the rib of a man. God took part of a man's flesh and from that part he created another man. Nothing is impossible with God, and therefore we can say that this part helped the creation, since it contained the necessary data for this. So God created His Son from Himself. God the Son is a part separated by God. Likewise, the Holy Spirit is a part of God. The essence of Everyone has its own direction in being. But all Three are separate individuals, united in Their actions according to the Will of the Heavenly Father. Therefore, the word “only begotten” (John 3:16) speaks of the great nature of the Son of God. The Son of God and the Holy Spirit are each God in their essence, but all creating according to the will of the Father.
