G. intended to pass the winter at Uch Dere. We lived in several houses spread over a large plot of land. There was no kind of 'work' in the sense of what had been at Essentuki. We chopped up trees for winter firewood; we collected wild pears; G. often went to Sochi where one of our people was in hospital, having contracted typhoid before my arrival from St. Petersburg.
Unexpectedly G. decided to go to another place. He found that here we might easily be cut off from all communication with the rest of Russia and be left without provisions.
G. went away with half of our company and afterwards sent Dr. S. for the rest. We again forgathered in Tuapse and from there we began to make excursions along the seashore to the north where there was no railway. During one of these trips S. found some of his St. Petersburg acquaintances who had a country house twenty-four miles north of Tuapse. We stayed the night with them and the next morning G. hired a house half a mile away from them. Here our small company again forgathered. Four went to Essentuki.
Here we lived for two months. It was a very interesting time. G., Dr. S., and I went to Tuapse every week for provisions for ourselves and fodder for the horses. These trips will always remain in my memory. They were full of the most improbable adventures and very interesting talks. Our house stood overlooking the sea three miles from the big village of Olghniki. I had hoped that we would live there a longer time. But in the second half of December there came the rumors that a part of the Caucasian Army was moving towards Russia on foot along the shores of the Black Sea. G. said that we would again go to Essentuki and begin fresh work. I went first. I took part of our belongings to Pyatigorsk and returned. It was possible to get through although there were bolsheviks in Armavir.
The bolsheviks, in general, had increased in the north Caucasus and friction began between them and the Cossacks. At Mineralni Vodi, when we all passed through there, everything was outwardly quiet, although murders of many persons whom the bolsheviks disliked had already occurred.
G. hired a large house in Essentuki and sent out a circular letter, dated the 12th of February, over my signature, to all the members of our Moscow and St. Petersburg groups inviting them to come with those near to them to live and to work with him.
There was already famine in St. Petersburg and Moscow but there was still an abundance of everything in the Caucasus. To get through now was not easy and several failed in spite of their desire to do so. But many came. Altogether about forty people assembled. With them came Z. to whom also a letter had been sent. He arrived quite ill.
In February while we were still waiting, G. once said, when he was showing me the house and everything he had arranged:
'Now do you understand why we collected money in Moscow and St. Petersburg? You said then that a thousand roubles was too much. And will even this money be enough? One and a half persons paid. I have now already spent more than was collected then.'
G. intended to hire or buy a plot of land, arrange kitchen gardens, and in general to organize a colony. But he was prevented by the events which had begun during the summer.
When our people assembled in March, 1918, very strict rules were established in our house: it was forbidden to leave the grounds, day and night orderlies were established, and so on. And work of the most varied kind began.
In the organization of the house and of our lives there was very much of interest.
Exercises on this occasion were much more difficult and varied than during the preceding summer. We began rhythmic exercises to music, dervish dances, different kinds of mental exercises, the study of different ways of breathing, and so on. Particularly intensive were the exercises for studying various imitations of psychic phenomena, thought-reading, clairvoyance, mediumistic displays, and so forth. Before these exercises began G. explained to us that the study of these 'tricks,' as he called them, was an obligatory subject in all Eastern schools, because without having studied all possible counterfeits and imitations it was not possible to begin the study of phenomena of a supernormal character. A man is in a position to distinguish the real from the sham in this sphere only when he knows all the shams and is able to reproduce them himself. Besides this G. said that a practical study of these 'psychic tricks' was in itself an exercise which could be replaced by nothing else, which was the best of all for developing certain special characteristics: keenness of observation, shrewdness, and more particularly for the enlargement of other characteristics for which there are no words in ordinary psychological language but which must certainly be developed.
But the principal part of the work which began at that time were the rhythmics to music and similar strange dances which afterwards led to the reproduction of the exercises of various dervishes. G. did not explain his aims and intentions but according to things he had said before, it was possible to think that the result of these exercises would be to bring under control the physical body.
In addition to exercises, dances, gymnastics, talks, lectures, and housework, special work was organized for those without means.
I remember that, when we were leaving Alexandropol the year before, G. took with him a box of skein silk which he told me he had bought cheaply at a sale. This silk always traveled with him. When our people assembled in Essentuki G. gave this silk to the women and children to wind onto star-shaped cards which were also made in our house. Then some of our people who possessed commercial talents sold this silk to shops in Pyatigorsk, Kislovodsk, and Essentuki itself. One must remember that time. There were absolutely no goods whatever, shops were empty, and the silk was snapped up at once because such things as silk,
cotton, and so on were unbelievably difficult to obtain. This work continued for two months and gave a sure and regular income quite out of proportion with the original cost of the silk.
In normal times a colony like ours could not have existed in Essentuki nor probably anywhere else in Russia. We should have excited curiosity, we should have attracted attention, the police would have appeared, some kind of scandal would undoubtedly have arisen, all possible kinds of accusations would have made their appearance, political tendencies would certainly have been ascribed to us, or sectarian or anti- moral. People are made in such a way that they invariably make accusations against the things they fail to understand. But at that time, that is, in 1918, those who would have been curious about us were occupied in saving their own skins from the bolsheviks, and the bolsheviks were not yet strong enough to be interested in the lives of private people or private organizations having no direct political character. And, seeing that, among the intellectuals from the capital who found themselves by the will of fate at Mineralni Vodi at that time, a number of groups and working associations had Just been organized, nobody paid any attention to us.
On one occasion during general conversation in the evening G. said that we must think of a name for our colony and in general legalize ourselves. This was at the time of the Pyatigorsk bolshevik government.
'Think out something like
We began in turn to propose various designations.
Public lectures were arranged in our house twice a week to which a fair number of people came and once or twice we gave demonstrations of imitation psychic phenomena which were not very successful since our public submitted very poorly to instruction.
But my personal position in G.'s work began to change. For a whole year something had been accumulating and I gradually began to see that there were many things I could not understand and that I
This may appear strange and unexpected after all I have written so far, but it had accumulated gradually. I wrote that I had for some time begun to separate G. and the
