I am planning to publish some posts on anarcho-mysticism. Its history, main ideas and modern state of affairs. First some history - and It is a sad story, as you may guess.
The term «anarcho-mysticism» was used in 1906 by a writer Chulkov. It was the first time. The term back then has almost nothing to do with anarchy. It was used in an article, that speculated with some purely philosophical ideas.
Everything changed in 1917, where a first founder of anarcho-mystical brotherhood Apolon Karelin returned from his exile to Russia. He spent most of his years fighting against tsarist regime during revolts, and mutinies. Writing revolutionary articles, helping workers etc, but in 1905 was arrested and pressured by the state so bad that he had to run to Europe. In Europe, specifically in France, he “created” (though anarcho-mystics probably would use the word he was “given”) his new theory. Karelin’s was quite a famous anarchist theorist back then. He was an intellectual and scholar, and wrote some books on anarchism including “state and anarchy”, knew Kropotkin personally. He created anarcho-mystical brotherhood and called it the “Order of light”. Members of the order considered themselves as knights. After Kropotkin’s death, its main base of operations situated in Kropotkin museum in Moscow.
After Karelin’s death in 1926, Solonovich became a main figure in the brotherhood. At his time, several branches were created. A lot of connections were made – including communist officials, scientists and different artists and occultists. He wrote books, read lectures and perform experiments a long side with other members of the brotherhood and all the people, who want to be involved, sometimes even with famous soviet scientists, like Vasilev. An influence of brotherhood was growing especially in a sphere of culture. Why it was so attractive? Brotherhood created its own mythology, that was based on Christian Gnosticism and Occultism. Unlike the original systems, it has a lot of similarities to modern fantasy, like Tolkien Silmalirion, but the ideas, that translated through these myths were daring and risky, it is daring even now, and in Stalin’s USSR, knights of the order were doomed to become martyrs for their dream. Despite the fact that legends (that is how stories from this mythology were called) were spread only orally – it didn’t help during mass terror. Why legends worked for soviet people? Imagine that you have entire fantasy epic, that actually have a secret meaning and is spreading by a secret society. Surely soviet citizens were attracted by such daring endeavor. But, the price was ultimate. In 1930-s the pressure of the state on the brotherhood ramped up. Active members were arrested. Hostilities between any leftist ideologies and Stalinists had risen up. During the peak of mass terror campaign, when most active members had been already arrested, the Moscow branch of occultists Ashem redivivous, which were indirectly connected to order even made a desperate attempt to telepathically influence Stalin and were caught in the process. You may think – it is like a movie, why no one has ever written about this? – Even in 1990-s the ideas of anarcho-mysticism was somewhat scary for FSB, and they still are trying to hide this story from public.
During 1930-s Solonovich and his wife were killed. Solonovich was tortured so bad, that he didn’t manage to survive long enough to get officially shot. He knew in advance, that he will be arrested and killed, it is no surprise to anyone who is studying anarcho-mysticism, that Solonovich could see the future. His last words before arrest were “at least some small roots will remain”. I decided to write a little bit about their story. And just put a link to Nalimov’s “farewell” English article about them. Nalimov was a member of Order during his student years, not very active – but he spent most of his life in prison camps for it. He knew the members and in the 1990s, as a very old man, tried to find out at least something about his brothers and sisters from the order. Rest in Peace, knights! Roots indeed remained! Ордену слава в веках и мирах!
https://digitalcommons.ciis.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1283&context=ijts-transpersonalstudies

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