Rasputin I: Rasputin Rises

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“Do you know that I shall soon die in terrible pain?” Grigori Yefimovich Rasputin is reported to have said, after being stabbed by a girl with no nose, and before eventually being assassinated. “But what can I do? God has sent me to save our dear sovereign and Holy Russia. Despite my terrible sins I am a Christ in miniature.”

At that point in Russian history, the name Rasputin was synonymous with evil. The mere mention of his name caused such suspicious dread among the subjects of the Russian Empire that they dared not say it aloud. They believed, as writer Meriel Buchanan wrote, “That by doing so they brought down ill luck on their heads.” When the inevitable subject arose, they referred to him as ‘The Unmentionable,’ ‘the Nameless One’, and they did so in whispers.

“Reports of Rasputin’s life are not ‘history’; they are the clash of history with subjectivity.” –historian Colin Wilson. 

The manipulative eyes of Grigori Efimovich Rasputin
The manipulative eyes of Grigori Efimovich Rasputin

Whether history or not, the reports of Grigori Yefimovich Rasputin would prove to be such a source of speculation and intrigue that they would secure for him an influential role in the Russian Empire, and a place in history. As the prolific British writer and historian Colin Wilson, writes the eye-witness accounts, and second hand reports, are so varied with subjectivity, and agendas, that it’s difficult to attain the absolute, irrefutable truth of any of them.

One could say as much with just about every historical figure, but the details of the Rasputin story are so debatable, and so fraught with folklore, that any writer reporting on him should be required to write qualifiers such as “alleged” or “according to sources …” before each report. While that may provide the author of such a piece some latitude in his reporting, it does not provide for very smooth reading. With the idea that every writer wants a compelling read coupled with factual accuracy, the best thing we can do is cite sources, footnote quotes, and provide quality attribution. The author of the book Rasputin: The Untold Story, Joseph T. Fuhrmann does this well without too much distraction. Fuhrmann also lists off some probabilities regarding the various incidents, and their various testimonials, and he attempts to prove, and disprove, them as possibilities.

There are a number of stories regarding Rasputin’s short life, but three launched him to his current, infamous stature in history. The first, called the Miracle at Spala, occurred in a small village called Spala, in which Rasputin was alleged to have cured the Tsar Nicholas II’s son of hemophilia; the second was Rasputin’s resultant influence over the Tsar Nicholas Romanov’s actions leading up to, and throughout, the portion of World War I Rasputin survived; and the last concerned the alleged reports of Rasputin’s murder.

A Special Child

Some accounts of the Rasputin story state that Rasputin was inspired to become what he became as a result of the death of a twin brother. Fuhrmann, asserts that it was not the death of a twin, or even a brother, named Dmitry, but a cousin named Dmitry, that changed the life of Grigori Rasputin. This would prove to be a minor distinction in that the other retellings match Fuhrmann’s assertion that it was the death of Dmitry that caused Rasputin feelings of depression and alienation that would mark him for the rest of his life. The incident that led to his cousin’s drowning also caused what could be termed a natural speculation in Rasputin regarding why his life had been spared in the incident. This speculation led Rasputin to the idea that God spared him, because God had a special purpose for him.

Rasputin’s mother would encourage, and propagate, this speculation, informing Rasputin that he had been endowed with mystical gifts from birth. His mother would claim that a comet rippled across the sky at the moment of his birth on January 10, 1869.

“A shooting star of such magnitude that had always been taken by the God-fearing muzhiks as an omen of some momentous event,” she is quoted as saying.

Fuhrmann writes that there is no record of any comets on the date of Rasputin’s birth.

Rasputin’s mother can be forgiven for such speculation, as Grigori would prove to be the one child of nine, and an alleged other sister, to survive infancy. One could speculate that with such sorrow inflicted upon a young woman, losing seven, perhaps eight children, she couldn’t help but assign a certain degree of specialness to the one child who survived the conditions that took the others. The others, who surrounded Rasputin in his youth, should not be afforded the same latitude, for they would encourage the belief that the young Rasputin was gifted with the ability to read minds, and/or “see things that others could not” without the heartache to influence it.

This fervent belief in a grand design for his life, led Rasputin to believe that he was not just special in God’s eye, but that he was so special that he was above God’s judgment.

Fuhrmann asserts that Rasputin’s belief in religion may have been deep, and humble, at one time, but he began to “embrace the dark side, regarding [each episode] as a trial sent by God” over time. Rasputin didn’t see various forms of temptation as a trial of personal morality, in the manner a mere mortal might, but as a test sent by God to His chosen one. Rasputin also claimed that his sexual encounters were sins he took upon himself, to relieve others of such weight.

After having relations with two girls, who happened to be sisters, –one twenty, the other fifteen– Rasputin informed their mother: 

“Now you may feel at peace. The day of salvation has dawned for your daughters.” 

“At least those two girls, (and the other reported sexual conquests) were willing,” writes Fuhrmann, as were the two nuns that Rasputin audaciously kissed publicly, but one girl was not. This girl charged:

“That Rasputin took her to his cellar and raped her.” Rasputin “Told the young girl, at the end of that episode, that there was no sin in what they had done; and that they had simply been celebrating the Holy Trinity.”

Rasputin statements about taking sins upon himself, and the declarations he made after these sexual trysts, may seem ostentatious manipulations to some, and they may have been, but they may have also been influenced by Rasputin’s loose adherence to the beliefs of a Russian sect called Khlysty.

The Khlysty and Sexual Spirituality

Khlysty was an underground, anti-church sect that engaged in sexual trysts as a ritualistic exercise. It involved dancing in a whirling motion until one got so dizzy that they fell to the floor. Once on the floor, the participants were instructed to engage in sexual intercourse with the person closest to them. Their goal, in performing this ritual, was to procure a “transcendental energy flowing through the arc” to achieve a peculiar and extreme religious state. They called this moment a spiritual frenzy that they believed would bring all participants closer to God. They also believed that by attaining the “dark knowledge” of sinning one could become more familiar with the nature of sin, and this level of familiarity would then allow them to purge it from the heart and be saved.

That Rasputin disavowed any participation in this Khlysty sect throughout his life, may have had something to do with the fact that it was outlawed in Russia at the time. This illegality led to its members being either arrested, or killed, and if Rasputin showed any allegiance to this outlawed sect, it would inhibit his ability to become influential later in life. It may have also had something to do with the fact that Rasputin regarded himself as a leader and not a follower. Rasputin was a member of the Russian Orthodox Church his entire life, but he didn’t view himself as a follower of the religion, but a leader that was never officially ordained by a church. He would, instead, develop his own following, that some believe was influenced by the Khlysty, without, Fuhrmann stipulates, the sexual portion of the Khlysty’s ritual.

This is not to suggest that Rasputin refrained from sexual activity with his followers, but he considered that sexual activity to be a more tangential aspect to his religion than did the Khlysty. Rasputin was a married man for much of his life, but he and his wife recognized the adultery, and flagrant sexual activity, as something Rasputin was forced to endure to relieve his followers of the dark knowledge of sin.

The teaching that sexual activity was, at least, a tangential part of the path to learning sin and receiving redemption from its knowledge –coupled with the fact that he gained quite a female following– has led many historians to speculate that his followers, a majority of which were female, may have been attracted to the quality of his leadership by way of his alleged large sexual organ. The theory being that with his endowment Rasputin could provide greater assistance to those female followers seeking to learn the depths of dark knowledge through greater states of ecstasy, and its subsequent spirituality.

The theories abound on whether this holy relic still exists, and if it does, what happened to it. One theory has it that those Russian soldiers who were called to the scene of Rasputin’s murder, stripped the dead carcass of Rasputin’s body bare, soon after death, and began measuring the enormous artifact with a brick. It was then alleged to have been cut off and stolen from the scene by a servant who preserved it in formaldehyde, after which a group of a Russian women then preserved the holy relic in Paris throughout the 1920’s, until it could be displayed, in a proper fashion, in an Erotica Museum in Saint Petersburg where it now rests, and is now regarded with great respect by a group of Rasputin’s devotees. The author Fuhrmann claims that the museum’s explanation, and all other explanations regarding its veracity, have never been proven to satisfaction.

Dispelling the Myths of the Mad Monk

The author goes through many of the debatable aspects of Rasputin’s life to prove the many things that he was not. He cannot be called a “Mad Monk”, for example, because he was never ordained as a monk. He was, at his pinnacle, nothing more than a starets, which was an informal title given by followers to one who advises or teaches. Fuhrmann also points out that Rasputin was not illiterate on the day he died, as many have suggested in a narrative that suggests that he was nothing more than an “illiterate peasant who rose to some of the greatest positions in the Russian Empire”. Fuhrmann writes that Rasputin received no formal education, but he did learn how to read, though never to the point that one regard him as well-educated.

In some portrayals of Rasputin, some speculate that his malevolence was intentional, and that he was the monster that many paint him as in their monster stories. Others suggest that Rasputin loved the Russian Empire as much as any of his fellow countrymen, and that he always had the best intentions when he advised the Romanovs. With his education, and his experiences in life, Rasputin just wasn’t qualified to be an adviser, as many of the Tsar’s advisers warned him. The fact that the Tsar took Rasputin’s advice over his more qualified advisers on some matters, and that that eventuated in the fall of the Russian Empire, is as much the fault of the Tsar’s for falling prey to the mystique of Rasputin, as it is Rasputin’s, if not more so.

For all that Rasputin was not, however, the one thing that can be stated about Rasputin, without refutation, is that he was a “right place, right time” mystical charlatan. In Rasputin’s Russia, Ouija boards, mystics, and holy men were nothing new, but when combined that with the strides that the rest of the world was making in science and medicine in that era –manipulating God’s power as it were– even the educated class was beginning to wonder how much of a leap it would be for one man to now manipulate God’s power in mystical ways. It was the first era in which electricity began to be manipulated in a safe manner; it was the first era in which automobiles began to roll off assembly lines; and it was also an era in which numerous other tremendous leaps in man’s ingenuity with respect to harnessing God’s power for everyday use began to occur. Learned men understood the principles of physics these ingenious men were manipulating, but most of the rest of the world just stood by in silent awe struggling to understand how these incomprehensible leaps could be made in the outside world. So, when Rasputin stepped into this chasm of confusion, at the right place and time in history, to “cure” or “heal” an ailing young boy of his hemophilia, he did so to an awed audience that was just beginning to believe that it wasn’t as far-fetched as previous generations may have believed for one man to harness God’s healing powers.

Next: Part II: A Miracle at Spala, Rasputin III: Rasputin’s Murder 

Fuhrmann, Joseph T. Rasputin: The Untold Story. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons. 2013. Print.

The Shocking, and Unconventional, Flaming Lips

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In an attempt to top his never-ending parlor tricks, The Flaming Lips Wayne Coyne dressed in drag—an outfit that matched Stephen King’s Carrie, to be specific—in an appearance on Last Call with Carson Daly. It was a rerun of a 11/12/13 episode, and the Carrie costume was a Halloween costume that Coyne wore at a “Halloween Blood Bath” Flaming Lips tour stop at The Greek Theatre on Tuesday, Oct. 29, 2013, in Los Angeles. Some may call it a “tour-de-force” and “revolutionary” performance, but I ended up yawning a lot, and I eventually shut the performance off halfway through. I’ve seen my share of “revolutionary” and “tour-de-force” performances, from The Lips, and others, and this was just another one.

Lips“What did you expect from a group that has the word flaming in their name?” those that may think that I was turned off by the shock of a drag performance might ask. I didn’t expect anything different, I answer. Maybe that’s the point. Maybe it’s the point that our performance artists have so deluged us with shocking performances that we’re no longer shocked by them, and we’re all coming back to the point where we want the material back, and the shock and awe performances cause us all to yawn a little.

It may have something to do with the fact that I’m old, and I’ve witnessed “revolutionary” and “tour-de-force” moments from David Bowie, Marc Bolan, Alice Cooper, Kiss, Madonna, and Prince, and I now demand that “revolutionary” and “tour-de-force” material accompany “revolutionary” and “tour-de-force” performances. It may have something to do with the fact that The Lips, Of Montreal, Lady Ga Ga, Miley Cyrus, and Britney Spears aren’t trying to shock me, because I’ve already been shocked so often that my brains are scrambled, and I’m desensitized to it all, but one would think that the demographic they seek, the characteristically nonplussed young ones, aren’t easily shocked anymore either. They’ve grown up in an era of every artist playing king of the mountain in this shocking shell game, and they’re yawning and changing the channel on these performances as often as I am.

Those that have already found their formula for success in music, usually advise up and comers that the path to success has no pamphlet or road map. You simply have to carve a niche for yourself, they say. This doesn’t appear to be true in music. While there may not be a pamphlet, or road map, to success, there are advisers that have studied other paths to the top, and they advise those artists, of which they usually have a vested interest, to shock. If you don’t have the material —and most of those that make today’s headlines don’t— play with a snake on stage, wear a meat dress, insult America, tongue and twerk, or tell people that you hate America, Republicans, or you’re mom, and you will want to carve out sometime in your life for a stint in rehab … whether you actually need it or not. Unfortunate for most upcoming musical artists, this has all culminated in what most semi-talented artists should fear, the idea that something shocking will no longer be shocking to the yawners that are now turning their performance off halfway through.

The less flamboyant, creative peak of the Flaming Lips occurred somewhere around the Transmissions from the Satellite Heart and The Soft Bulletin era. There were some bright spots in the albums before and after these two albums, but few Lips’ aficionados would argue the fact that we are now on the downside of their creative peak. If that’s true, then Coyne and company appear to be doing whatever they have to do to remain viable. This isn’t to say that they’re making bad music, but those of us that were fans of the Lips prior to Transmissions, have such huge expectations. Each album appeared to be leading to that one great album, and The Lips delivered, giving us two seminal albums: one crunchy, weird, glam rock, and the other bleak and blissful. Each of them captured the range, that Lips’ aficionados saw glimpses of in all of the prior albums, but there’s something about being an aficionado that leads one to believe that these upward arcs will continue ad infinitum. They rarely do, and they didn’t in the case of The Flaming Lips.

Hard-core fans also don’t see an official end to that peak. Hard-core fans don’t read one book, watch one movie, or listen to one album and officially declare that it’s all over. They give that artist a chance in the future based on what they’ve done in the past, and they keep on doing this, until they begin to notice a trend with that artist. That trend is not immediately apparent either. It usually takes about three to four lackluster productions for their hope to begin to wane. Even hard-core fans know that these things end, but they’re not prepared to make it official, until they’ve exhausted all belief.

The “He’s dressed like Carrie!” introduction to the taped concert performance of The Flaming Lips brought an official end to the brilliantly creative era of The Flaiming Lips to my mind. Having never been introduced by a major talk show host, I don’t know it to be factually true that an artist has a hand in how they’re introduced, but I have to imagine that Carson Daily’s people went to The Lips people and asked them how they’d like to be introduced. If that’s true, it’s a sad statement that they didn’t want the brunt of their intro to call attention to the single they would be playing, or the album from which that single sprang. It’s a sad statement that they asked that the greater attention be paid to something superficial like Wayne Coyne’s outfit, regardless what that outfit was.

Anyone that has attended a Flaming Lips show knows that they are almost peerless in their presentation. The group goes balls out to provide their fans one of the best concerts currently available on the market. After three songs, at a music fair in Wisconsin, one guy turned to me and said, “This is the greatest show I’ve ever seen in my life.” I wasn’t sure if I was as deliriously impressed as he was, or if I was simply delirious from the contact high I received from other concert goers, but that Lips show elicited a sense of euphoria that this long-time concert goer had never experienced.

This concert combined shocking your sensibilities, and overturning conventions, with all of the great Flaming Lips material I have grown to love. The “He’s dressed like Carrie,” intro signaled to me that The Flaming Lips concentration is no longer focused on the material but shocking your sensibilities and overturning your conventions.

Kiss’ act, in the 70s, was full of parlor tricks, as was Queen’s, David Bowie’s, and Marc Bolan’s, but for the most part these groups shocked sensibilities, and overturned conventions, at the peak of their career. The Flaming Lips appear to be reaching a peak in their shock, with their creative peak long since passed. You can still attend an incredible concert from the Flaming Lips, as it will contain all their greatest hits to remind you of the diverse and impressive catalog they have, and you’ll get their unconventionally shocking moments, but you’ll probably be taking breaks from your delirious euphoria when they start playing their new stuff.

The relative and ever-evolving world of the weird

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Everyone’s definition of weird is relative and evolving with time, but the Idiots in Jeff Garland’s Dealin with Idiots appear too weird, at times.  At times, they appear Hollywood weird, funny weird, and weird for the sake of being weird.  These Idiots don’t display the same urgent need to be normal that appears almost indigenous to extremely weird people, and they don’t go overboard trying to convince Garland that they’re normal either.  They don’t try to hide their abnormalities, in other words, and they don’t appear sensitive about them when they’re on display.  The Idiots are funny, and fun, but they just don’t appear organically weird.

dealinwithidiots-500x325One has to have some sympathy for Garland, and any involved in the process of making movies, for the constraints they have in their art form.  We demand that most movies hurry up and get to the funny, and we do not allow them the same amount of space for characterization that is allotted, say, authors.  In depth characterization, of the type I’m calling for, usually ends up on the cutting room floor when a movie is being edited for time constraints, so one has to excuse Jeff Garland’s Dealin’ with Idiots for having his Idiots get too weird too quickly.

Weird has come a long way in Hollywood.  It started out in black and white with a crazy woman muttering softly to herself, until she progressed to a stage modern movie goers would most closely associate with demonic possession.  This crazy lady’s leading man would see this descent, put a cloth on her forehead, and tell her that she needed rest.  Weird then progressed in Hollywood to the lip trilling depiction put forth most famously in the 70’s movie One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.  Garland’s version of weird matches the modern, and less judgmental, version of weird that is a lot more organic, but it’s still the screen tested, Hollywood-approved weird.

The plot of this movie involves a Max Morris (Garland), getting to know the colorful parents and coaches of his son’s Little League Baseball team for the purpose of putting a movie together.  He tells these people that he’s putting a movie together, and they start to get weird.

That’s mistake number one, as I see it.  You don’t tell people your documenting them in anyway for fear of having them get noteworthy.  They’ll start acting less candid, different, and quirky in a manner that has nothing to do with their personality, because their personality is not weird to them.  It’s funny to watch people act like idiots, but to get to that vaunted, hilarious level one needs to get more authentic and more organic.  It’s difficult, of couse, with all of the constraints on movie makers, but it has been done.

I’ve often found that to get people to act weird all you have to do is prompt them.  These prompts can range from leading questions about the weather, “What do you think of this weather we’re having?” to questions involving geopolitics on some level—usually the conspiratorial level—but the best prompt I’ve ever found is to ask them about the local politics that the two of you share.  “What do you think of that Janie?”  or “What do you think about the way our boss treat us?”

Once they start in on their rants, your job, as a writer, is to simply take a step back and act as a stenographer, recording everything they do or say from that point forward.  You may want to agree with them, to show them that they have an ally, but be careful.  If you agree too much, you’ll diffuse their sense of righteous indignation, and you’ll cost yourself a treasure trove of material.  The weird person may even turn on you, without any sense of objectivity, and tell you that you’re crazy.

Weird people do not have a club, or clique.  They’ll eat their own.  They’ll take every opportunity they can find to point out the weird to you.  They’ll ask you to join them in mocking the weird.  They’ll tell stories about them.  They’ll hope that each instance they point out provides them the distance necessary to land in the center with you, witnessing all of the weird people of life.  If you are able to convince them that you’re one of them, they’ll tell you everything that you want to know about the weird.   You walk a tightrope when attempting to extract the weird, and the best method I’ve found, to get the best material possible, is to simply play the role of active listener.  You don’t get there, in my experience, by telling them to you’re writing a piece about them, because that will prompt them to start acting weird… screen tested, Hollywood-approved weird.

If you do get there, you’ll realize that most weird people don’t know that they’re weird.  Most weird people don’t think weird thoughts, or act in a weird manner, unless those acts and thoughts are screen tested, Hollywood-approved weird.  You may think that they’re a weird person, but who do you think you are?  Why just last week, you said, or did, something weird.  You’re one of them, not one of us, they’ll say, and that’s why we like you.

Few would contest the notion that movies have gotten weirder in the last couple decades,  but a question that a weird movie maker might ask is “are we weirder”?  Do movies reflect this change in our culture, or has it played an instrumental role in its change?  Being different, or weird, used to be anathema in the culture, if artistic interpretations in movies are to be used as a barometer.  Black and white people did anything they could to avoid being associated with such terms.  Modern culture has it, now, that being different carries with it some virtue.  Normal is boring, they say, and  your parents are normal, and look how they turned out, but have these ideas been reflected in movies, or refracted by movies?  Those that think that movies bear the brunt of these cultural changes dismiss the fact that all movies are screen tested, and a movie does not pass these screen tests if they’re judged to be so odd, weird, or out of the norm that people can’t relate to it.  Movie producers put a lot of weight behind these screen tests, and a movie won’t receive those crucial, greenlight investments if they are deemed too odd, or too weird, by the normal people participating in these tests.

Movies, and TV shows, can also affect how a weird person perceives their weirdness, in that if a weird person finds one of their characteristics expressed on screen, they’ll know that they’re now perceived as weird, and they’ll adjust accordingly.  Most truly weird people don’t enjoy being weird, until they’re shown that their version of weird is deemed weird by society.  Weird can be interesting, funny, and entertainhing if it’s cultivated and pruned properly, but in the truly weird it grows like a weed among their prized vegetation.  The truly weird don’t have the advantage of constraint that those that engage in the short bursts of weird for entertainment purposes do.  It’s who they are.

If you’re as interested in the weird as I am, you’ll have to cultivate a relationship with them to get them comfortable enough to open up to you.  They may volley some weird thoughts up to you to see if you’ll spike it, and this will prove to be a crucial moment in a relationship with the weird. If you want to progress through the dark caverns of their mind, you’ll simply put another forkful of peas in your mouth.  If you want this whole disturbing trend to end right then and there, you’ll laugh, make a face, and say something like, “I hope you know that’s weird.”  At that point, the weird will recede back into its shell, and the otherwise normal person will conceal their weird thoughts from that point forward in your relationship.

Are you one of them?  The weird?  Don’t know?  Most people don’t.  Consider having a child.  Your child will imitate and emulate everything you do.  Your family won’t see it for what it is, for that child’s oddities are likely theirs.  Your friends may not see it either, because they’ve either adapted to your eccentricities, or they’re too polite to tell you that you have one odd kid on your hands.  Other kids will though.  Other kids will ostracize your weird kid with no compunction, and they’ll tell you—in the most brutal fashion imaginable—where your kid, you, and your people sit on the psych line.

I know some truly weird people.  We all do.  Some of them are fun, and some of them are funny, but most of them have been plagued by a fundamental, from birth, freakdom for much of their life, and they’re not going to purposely display that weirdness just because someone screams “Action!”  It’s pointless to tell these people to act weird, and you can’t force them to be themselves either.  You just do whatever you can to get them to open up and reveal their weirdness while you furiously scribble it into your memory for future documentation.