Read about It: Учебно-методическое пособие для студентов факультета ''Теология и мировые культуры''

Федеральное агентство по образованию Омский государственный университет им. Ф.М. Достоевского

УДК 81.2 ББК 81.2Англ.я7 R30 Рекомендовано к изданию редакционно-издательским советом ОмГУ Рецензенты: ст. преподаватель каф. иностранных языков ОмГУ С.Р. Оленева; ст. преподаватель каф. иностранных языков ОмГУ, канд. пед. наук Ж.В. Лихачева

R30

READ ABOUT IT… Учебно-методическое пособие (для студентов факультета «Теология и мировые культуры»)

Изд-во ОмГУ

Омск 2006

Read about It…: Учебно-методическое пособие для студентов факультета «Теология и мировые культуры» / Сост. М.Х. Рахимбергенова. – Омск: Изд-во ОмГУ, 2006. – 92 с. ISBN 5-7779-0675-3 Пособие ставит своей целью развить навыки англоязычного общения, научить беседовать на различные темы, касающиеся религии. Включены аутентичные тексты современной зарубежной периодики, художественной литературы, сайтов Интернета, представляющие собой широкий спектр литературных произведений начиная с древнеегипетских мифов и заканчивая историческим романом. Может быть использовано в первую очередь для самостоятельной работы, но не исключает работы в аудитории. Для студентов I, II курсов дневного и вечернего отделений факультета «Теология и мировые культуры». УДК 81.2 ББК 81.2Англ.я7

ISBN 5-7779-0675-3

© Омский госуниверситет, 2006

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СОДЕРЖАНИЕ

ПРЕДИСЛОВИЕ

Предисловие ................................................................................................... 4 Text I. Black Cats and Broken Mirrors......................................................... 6 Text II. The Life of Buddha .......................................................................... 11 Text III. Creation Legend of Sun Worshippers .......................................... 21 Text IV. Why I converted to ISLAM after September 11.......................... 29 Text V. Dying for Their Beliefs: Christian Scientist Parents on Trial in Girl’s Death................................................................................. 34 Text VI. In Search of the Gods ..................................................................... 40 Text VII. Death and the Judgment............................................................... 45 Chapter 1 ................................................................................................ 45 Chapter 2 ................................................................................................ 47 Chapter 3 ................................................................................................ 50 Text VIII. What Miracles Mean................................................................... 56 Text IX. Nicholas and Alexandra ................................................................. 66 Chapter 1 ................................................................................................ 66 Chapter 2 ................................................................................................ 72 Text X. Moving Out of a Storefront into a Temple, New Haven’s Church of Scientology is Booming ............................................................... 79 Список использованной литературы....................................................... 91

Данное учебно-методическое пособие предназначено для студентов факультета «Теология и мировые культуры», владеющих достаточными навыками чтения на английском языке и желающих самостоятельно совершенствовать свои знания. Материалы пособия позволят выработать разнообразные навыки и умения: • чтение больших информационных блоков; • извлечение необходимой информации; • поиск новых идей, определение приоритетов; • критическое осмысление фактов и разных точек зрения; • коммуникативные навыки в различных видах речевой деятельности. Учебно-методическое пособие состоит из 10 текстов, рассчитанных на работу в течение трех семестров, каждый из которых содержит как минимум два занятия по внеаудиторному чтению. Тексты заимствованы из разнообразных источников, например, из современной художественной литературы, антологии, зарубежных журналов, сайтов Интернета. Известно, что чтение современной литературы помогает компенсировать отсутствие опыта непосредственного общения с иностранцами, способствует развитию адекватного восприятия поведения иностранцев при встрече с ними, позволяет более высоко оценить уровень собственной культуры. Задания упражнений предназначены для детальной отработки отдельных элементов текста: синонимии, многозначности слов, развития навыков устной речи. Задания к текстам дают возможность организовать дискуссию по данной теме, используя при этом лексику текста, стимулируют высказывания студентов. Поскольку пособие имеет специальную направленность, религиозная тематика занимает в нем особое место. Приоритетной направленностью является все же место человека в религии. Подбор текстов позволяет обсудить самые актуальные на сегодня темы: новые религиозные движения, так называемые культы и секты (Moving out of a storefront into a temple, New Haven’s Church of Scientology is booming), неконвенциональные методы лечения

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молитвой (Dying for their beliefs: Christian Scientist Parents on trial in girl’s death), предрассудки и суеверия (Black cats and broken mirrors), понятие чуда в религии (What miracles mean), современные исследования в попытке найти останки поселений древних богов (In search of the Gods), обращение в ислам (Why I converted to ISLAM after September, 11). Рекомендуется при выборе текста учитывать текущую разговорную тему, изучаемую на аудиторных занятиях. Так, например, текст «The life of Buddha» следует соотнести с темой Buddhism, либо использовать в качестве урока на повторение этой темы и т. д. Упражнения следует выполнять в представленной последовательности.

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TEXT I Read the text and do all the tasks given below. BLACK CATS AND BROKEN MIRRORS Do you think that it is bad luck to walk under a ladder or break a mirror? Do you think that black cats and the number 13 are unlucky? There are over one million superstitions, and most people believe at least one or two of them. Many people are superstitious about numbers. They think that there are lucky numbers and unlucky numbers. The number 13 is often considered unlucky. In some parts of the world, buildings have no 13th floor and streets have no houses with the number 13. In Japan, 4 is considered unlucky because in Japanese the word «four» is pronounced the same as the word «death.» Japanese never give gifts of four knives, four napkins, or four of anything. What are the lucky numbers? Seven is a lucky number in many places, and 8 is considered lucky in Japan and China. In China, businesses often open on August 8 (8-8), and many couples register to get married at eight past eight on August 8. Superstitions about numbers are so widespread that some people – called numerologists – make a living giving advice about numbers. In 1937, when the Toyoda family of Japan wanted to form a car company, they asked a numerologist if «Toyoda» would be a good name for the company. The numerologist said it would not be. He explained that «Toyoda» took ten strokes of the pen to write, and 10 was not a lucky number. «Toyota,» however, took eight strokes to write, and eight was a very lucky number. The numerologist recommended «Toyota» as a better name for the company. The family took his advice. As a result, millions of people drive «Toyotas» and not «Toyodas.» In addition to superstitions about numbers, there are many other kinds of superstitions. There are superstitions about eating, sleeping, sneezing, and itching. There are superstitions about animals and holidays and horseshoes. There are even superstitions about superstitions. Those superstitions tell people how to reverse bad luck. For example, in many parts of the world spilling salt is bad luck. Throwing salt, however, is good luck. So, people who spill salt throw a 6

little of the spilled salt over their left shoulder. Throwing the spilled salt reverses the bad luck. When the Japanese bump heads, they immediately bump heads again. According to a Japanese superstition, the first bump means their parents will die, but the second bump «erases» the first bump. To reverse bad luck in general, people turn around three times, turn their pockets inside out, or put their hats on backwards. In the United States, baseball players sometimes wear their caps backwards when their team is losing. It looks silly, but the baseball players don’t mind if it helps them win the game. Because there are so many superstitions, it is not surprising that some of them are contradictory. In Germany, it is good luck when the left eye twitches and bad luck when the right eye twitches. In Malaysia, it is exactly the opposite: a twitching right eye means good luck, and a twitching left eye means bad luck. Accidentally putting on clothes inside out brings good luck in Pakistan but bad luck in Costa Rica. In Chile, unmarried people won’t take the last piece of food on the plate because it means they will never marry. In Thailand, unmarried people take the last piece because it means they will marry someone goodlooking. Some superstitions have been with us for so long that they have become customs. In many parts of the world it is polite to say «Health» or «God bless you» when someone sneezes. People used to think that the soul could escape from the body during a sneeze. They said «God bless you» to protect people from losing their souls. Today we no longer believe that people who sneeze are in danger of losing their souls, but we say «God bless you» anyway. We say it not because we are superstitious, but because we are polite. Even people who say they aren’t superstitious would probably not intentionally walk under ladders and break mirrors. Almost everyone is at least a little superstitious. One woman says that when she got married, her aunt gave her white bath towels. «Never buy purple towels,» her aunt said. «If you use purple towels, your marriage will end.» Does the woman believe that superstition? «No, of course not,» she says. «It’s silly.» Does she use purple towels? «Well, no,» she answers. «Why take chances?»

1. Which words have the same meaning as the words in the reading selection? 1. Superstitions about numbers are widespread. a. found in many places b. believed only by children 2. The family took his advice. a. did what he suggested b. asked for more information 3. There are superstitions that reverse bad luck. a. change bad luck to good luck b. give the bad luck to someone else 4. If you spill salt, immediately throw a little of the spilled salt over your left shoulder. a. use too much salt b. pour out salt accidentally 5. It looks silly, but the baseball players don’t mind if it helps them win the game. a. that’s OK with the baseball players b. the baseball players don’t like to think about it 6. Some superstitions are contradictory. In Germany, it is good luck when the left eye twitches. In Malaysia, it is bad luck when the left eye twitches. a. are very old b. mean the opposite 7. Putting clothes on inside out brings good luck in Pakistan. a. in the house, rather than outside b. with the inside parts on the outside 8. People used to think that the soul could escape from the body during a sneeze. a. enter b. leave

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2. What information is not in the story? 1. There are over one million superstitions. 2. Children are usually not superstitious. 3. Many people are superstitious about numbers. 4. Numerologists make a living giving people advice about numbers. 5. It is always a good idea to take a numerologist’s advice. 6. Some superstitions tell people how to reverse bad luck. 7. Some superstitions are contradictory. 8. Some superstitions have become customs.

9. People who use purple towels are silly. 10. Almost everyone is at least a little superstitious. 3. Form small conversation groups. Ask the people in your group if they know any superstitions about:

lem.» I did that, and I got every answer right. I thought, «This is my lucky pencil.» But later I discovered that my pencil was lucky only sometimes. When I studied hard, my pencil helped me, but when I didn’t study hard, it didn’t help me. Now write about something you have that is lucky.

1. salt 2. ladders 3. mirrors 4. broom 5. combs 6. knives 7. shoes 8. black cats

9. crows 10. owls 11. rabbits 12. elephants 13. horseshoes 14. garlic 15. four-leaf clovers 16. hiccups

17. itching 18. ears ringing 19. eye twitching 20. shivering 21. whistling 22. cutting nails 23. taking photos 24. cooking

25. dropping silverware 26. chopsticks 27. dreams 28. finding a coin 29. opening an umbrella 30. weddings 31. new year’s day 32. funeral procession

4. Writing A. Make a list of superstitions that some people in your country believe. Here is an example from a student from Panama: 1. Always sleep with your feet facing the door of your room. 2. If you give your sweetheart a handkerchief or socks, you will argue. 3. If you want a visitor to leave, turn your broom upside down. 4. If a young woman is sweeping the floor and the broom accidentally touches her feet, she will marry a rich old man. 5. To protect yourself from evil spirits, wear your pajamas inside out.

C. Has there ever been a time when you’ve had very good – or very bad – luck? Write about it. Here is what one student wrote: Last month I had a very unlucky day. I overslept in the morning because I had forgotten to set my alarm clock. It was raining. On the way to the bus stop I fell and got wet. Then I missed the bus and was late for my class. That night a friend of mine called me while I was cooking dinner. It was a long phone call, and I forgot about my dinner. When I finished talking to my friend, I went into the kitchen to check on my dinner. It was burned. I thought, «I have only two hands and one head. I’m trying to do too much.» But later I thought, «I was just not lucky today.» Now write about a time when you had good luck or bad luck. 5. What information is not in the story? • There are over one million superstitions. • Children are usually not superstitious. • Many people are superstitious about numbers. • Numerologists make a living giving people advice about numbers.

Now make your list. B. Write about something you have that is lucky – a lucky number or a lucky hat, for example. Why is it lucky? Can you remember a time when it brought you good luck? Here is what one student wrote: When I was a high school student, I had a difficult mathematics test one day. Before the test our teacher told us, «Use the same pencil you used when you studied last night. When you can’t solve a problem, hold the pencil tightly. If you do that, you will be able to solve the prob9

• It is always a good idea to take a numerologist’s advice. • Some superstitions tell people how to reverse bad luck. • Some superstitions are contradictory. • Some superstitions have become customs. • People who use purple towels are silly. • Almost everyone is at least a little superstitious.

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TEXT II

Gautama Buddha, the historical Buddha, lived in northeast India between 563 and 483 BC. As a bodhisattva he had passed through thousands of existences before coming to Earth for his ultimate transmigration. This last lifetime he began as a son of the King of the Sakya, Suddhodana, who ruled at Kapilavastu on the border of Nepal, and was born in a village called Lumbini into the warrior tribe called the Sakyas (from where he derived the title Sakyamuni, meaning «Sage of the Sakyas»). According to ancient tradition, Queen Maya, his mother, first had a dream of a beautiful white elephant coming down into her womb, and this was interpreted as a sign that the Buddha, or a universal emperor, was about to be born. When her time came, Queen Maya went into the garden and gave painless birth to the bodhisattva. He immediately walked, spoke, and was received by Brahma. Five days after his birth, the young prince received the name of Siddhartha. When his parents took him to the temple, the statues of the gods prostrated themselves before him, great were the rejoicings of the people over the birth of this illustrious prince. Also at this time a devout old man named Asita came down from the Himalayas to meet the newborn prince. An ascetic of high spiritual attainments, Asita was particularly pleased to hear this happy news. Having been a tutor to the King, he visited the palace to see the royal baby. The king, who felt honoured by his unexpected visit, carried the child up to him in order to make the child pay him due reverence. To the surprise of all, the child’s legs turned and rested on the matted locks of the ascetic. Instantly, the ascetic rose from his seat and recognizing in the young child the 80 signs that are pledges to a highly religious vocation, and foreseeing with his supernormal vision the child’s future greatness, saluted him with clasped hands. The Royal father did likewise. The great ascetic smiled at first and then was sad. Questioned regarding his mingled feelings, he answered that he smiled because the prince would eventually

become a Buddha, an Enlightened One, and he was sad because he would not be able to benefit from the superior wisdom of the Enlightened One owing to his prior death and rebirth in a Formless Plane. After seven days Queen Maya died, and her place as mother was taken by her sister, whose devotion and love became legendary. When the young prince was in his twelfth year, the king called the wise Brahmans in council. They revealed that Siddhartha would devote himself to asceticism if he cast his eyes on age, sickness, or death– and, if he were to meet a hermit. Wanting his son to be a universal monarch instead, the king surrounded the palace with a triple enclosure and guard and proclaimed that the use of the words «death» and «grief» were forbidden. The most beautiful princess in the land, Yasodhara, was found for his bride, and after Siddhartha proved himself in many tournaments calling for strength and prowess, when he was 16, the two were wed. Siddhartha was kept amused and entertained for some time by this privileged life behind the palace walls until one day his divine vocation awoke in him, and he decided to visit the nearby town. The king called for everything to be swept and decorated, and any ugly or sad sight to be removed. But these precautions were in vain for while Siddhartha was traveling through the streets, an old wrinkled man appeared before him. In astonishment the young prince learned that decrepitude is the fate of those who live life through. Still later he met an incurable invalid and then a funeral procession. Finally heaven placed in his path an ascetic, a beggar, who told Siddhartha that he had left the world to pass beyond suffering and joy, to attain peace at heart. Confirmed in his meditation, all these experiences awakened in Siddhartha the idea of abandoning his present life and embracing asceticism. He opened his heart to his father and said, «Everything in the world is changing and transitory. Let me go off alone like the religious beggar.» Grief-stricken at the idea of losing his son, the king doubled the guard around the walls and increased the pleasures and distractions within. And at this point, Yasodhara bore him a son whom he called Rahula (meaning «chain» or «fetter»), a name that indicated Gautama’s sense of dissatisfaction with his life of luxury, while the birth of his son evoked in him much tenderness. His apparent sense of dissatisfaction turned to disillusion when he saw three things from the window of his

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Read the text and do all the tasks given below. THE LIFE OF BUDDHA

palace, each of which represented different forms of human suffering: a decrepit old man, a diseased man, and a corpse. Yet even this could not stop the troubling thoughts in his heart or close his eyes to the realizations of the impermanence of all life, and of the vanity and instability of all objects of desire. His mind made up, he awoke one night and, casting one last look at his wife and child, mounted his horse Kataka and rode off accompanied by his equerry Chandaka. At the city gates Siddhartha turned over his horse to Chandaka, then he cut off his hair, gave up his sumptuous robes, and entered a hermitage where the Brahmans accepted him as a disciple. Siddhartha had now and forever disappeared. He became the monk Gautama, or as he is still called, Sakyamuni, the ascetic of the Sakyas. For many years Gautama studied the doctrines until, having felt the need to learn more elsewhere, he traveled and fasted. His two teachers had showed him how to reach very deep states of meditation (samadhi). This did not, however, lead to a sense of true knowledge or peace, and the practice of deep meditation was abandoned in favour of a life of extreme asceticism which he shared with five companions. But again, after five or six years of self-mortification, Siddhartha felt he had failed to achieve true insight and rejected such practices as dangerous and useless. Resolved to continue his quest, Siddharta made his way to a deer park at Isipatana, near present day Benares. Here he sat beneath a tree meditating on death and rebirth. Discovering that excessive fasts destroy strength, he learned that as he had transcended earthly life, so must he next transcend asceticism. Alone and weak, he sat beneath the sacred Bodhi tree of wisdom, and swore to die before arising without the wisdom he sought. Mara, the demon, fearful of Gautama’s power, sent his three beautiful daughters to distract him. When that failed, Mara sent an army of devils to destroy him. Finally Mara attacked Gautama with a terrible weapon capable of cleaving a mountain. But all this was useless, and the motionless monk sat in meditation. It was here that Siddharta attained a knowledge of the way things really are; it was through this knowledge that he acquired the title Buddha (meaning «awakened one»). This awakening was achieved during a

night of meditation, which passed through various stages as the illumination that Gautama had sought slowly welled up in his heart. He knew the exact condition of all beings and the causes of their rebirths. He saw beings live, die and transmigrate. In meditating on human pain, he was enlightened about both its genesis and the means of destroying it. In this first stage he saw each of his previous existences, and then understood the chain of cause and effect. In the second he surveyed the death and rebirth of all living beings and understood the law that governs the cycle of birth and death. In the third he identified the Four Noble Truths: the universality of suffering, the cause of suffering through selfish desire, the solution to suffering and the way to overcome suffering. This final point is called the Noble Eightfold Path, this being eight steps consisting of wisdom (right views, right intention), ethics (right speech, right action, right livelihood), mental discipline (right effort, right mindfulness, right concentration), which ultimately lead to liberation from the source of suffering. When day came, Gautama had attained perfect illumination, and had become a Buddha. The rays emanating from his body shone to the boundaries of space. He stayed in meditation for seven more days, and then for four more weeks he stayed by the tree. Through his process of enlightenment he discovered that all sentient beings in this universal life possess buddhahold, and all are future potential buddhas. From that time he had two alternate paths: he could enter Nirvana immediately, or else he could stay and spread enlightenment. After Brahma came in person to beg him to preach the law, Buddha yielded and stayed on the earth. For many years he traveled and taught his wisdom about the force of love and the destruction of all desire. Although initially hesitant to share his insight on the grounds that humanity might not be ready for such a teaching, the Buddha decided to communicate his discovery to those willing to listen. His first converts were the five ascetics with whom he had lived when he himself followed the lifestyle of the ascetic. To these he preached his first sermon in the Deer Park at Benares, outlining to them the Four Noble Truths. Out of this small group the community of monks (or Sangha) grew to about 60 in size and came to include Buddha’s cousin, Ananda, and his son, Rahula. Later the Buddha was persuaded by his stepmother and cousin to accept women into the sangha.

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The remaining 45 years of the Buddha’s life were spent journeying around the plain of the Ganges, teaching and receiving visitors. «There are two extremes which are to be avoided: a life of pleasure – this is low and ignoble, unworthy and useless, and runs counter to the affairs of the spirit; and a life of fasting – this is sad, unworthy and useless. Perfection has kept its distance from these two extremes, and has found the middle way which leads to repose, knowledge, illumination, and Nirvana. So here is the sacred truth about pain: birth, old age, sickness, death, and separation from that which one loves, are pain. And this is the origin of pain: it is thirst for pleasure, thirst for existence, thirst for impermanence. And here is the truth about the suppression of pain: it is the extinction of that thirst by the destruction of desire. «Charity, knowledge and virtue are possessions that cannot be lost. To do a little good is worth more than accomplishing works of a difficult nature. The perfect man is nothing unless he pours out kindness on his fellow creatures, unless he consoles the abandoned. My doctrine is a doctrine of mercy. The way of salvation is open to all. Destroy your passions as the elephant would trample down a reed hut. But I would have you know that it is a mistaken idea to believe that one can escape from one’s passions by taking shelter in hermitages. The only remedy against evil is healthy reality.» And so Buddha travelled and preached. He performed many miracles, and converted his family and many followers. During his life the Buddha had taught that no one was to succeed him as leader of the Sangha. Instead, his followers were to take his teaching and rule as their sole guides. By the time he reached the age of 80, Sakyamuni began to

feel old. He visited all of the monasteries he had founded and prepared to meet his end. Before the Buddha’s death, he became severely sick. He journeyed northwest to the banks of the river Hiranyavati, walking with his disciples, and ate the food offered by a blacksmith. His illness had progresses, and at the end, he came to the river and took a bath. Then he made a rope bed among eight sal trees, with each direction having two. He lay down on his side, right hand supporting his head, the other resting on his body. All later reclining Buddhas (called Buddha’s Nirvana) are in the same posture. The Buddha’s disciples kept watch on him after they were told the Buddha was going to nirvana. At night, a scholar of Brahman went to see the Buddha, but was stopped by the Buddha’s disciple Ananda. Hearing this, the Buddha called the scholar Subhadda to his bed and spoke him. Thus the scholar became the Buddha’s last disciple. The final exhortation of the Buddha to his disciples was that they should not be sorry for losing their tutor. Growing weaker, he spoke one last time: «Do not say we have no master now. The doctrine I have preached will be your master when I have disappeared. Listen, I beg you: ALL CREATIONS ARE IMPERMANENT; work diligently for your liberation.» Having pronounced these final words, Buddha went into the jhana stages, or meditative absorptions. Going from level to level, one after the other, ever deeper and deeper, he reached ecstacy. Then he came out of the meditative absorption for the last time and passed into nirvana, leaving nothing whatever behind that can cause rebirth again in this or any other world and finally passed into Nirvana. After his death, Buddha’s remains were cremated, as became the Buddhist tradition. The passing away, or the final nirvana, of the Buddha occurred in 483 BC on a full moon day in the month of May, known in the Indian calendar as Wesak. • You know that the story of Buddha was written in Sanscrit (ancient language of India). Here you are given some glossary of the Sanscrit names (from GLOSSARY of Esoteric Words and Phrases). Gautama – Гаутама Sakya or Sakyamuni – Сакья / Сакьямуни Suddhodana – Шуддходана Kapilavastu – Капилавасту

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Siddhartha – Сиддхартха Isipatana – Исипатана (место, посещаемое провидцами) Mara – Мара (бог смерти) Ganges – р. Ганг Subhadda – Субхадда Bodhisattva (Бодхисаттва): its earliest definition is a being seeking Buddhahood. Later in comes to mean a being destined for Buddhahood who defers personal Enlightenment in order to help other sentient being on the path. In our story we refer to the Buddha as «Siddhartha» when he is a prince, «Bodhisattva» when he decides to pursue the path to Enlightenment, and «Buddha» once he as attained Enlightenment. Literally, «He whose consciousness has become intelligence or buddhi.» Those who need but one more life to become perfect buddhas. Name of office Lord Maitreya, known in the west as the Christ. The World Teacher is the Master of Masters and teacher of angels and humanity. Brahma (Бра(х)мa): the third aspect of the Hindu trinity – Siva (father / ray 1 – will), Krishna (son / ray 2 – love) and Brahma (mother / ray 3 – intelligence). Buddha: one who is «enlightened» and has attained the highest degree of knowledge possible for humanity in this solar system. Last Avatar of the age of Aries. Previous World Teacher who historically manifested through the Prince Gautama around 500 BC. The Embodiment of Wisdom, he currently acts as the «Divine Intermediary» between Shamballa and Hierarchy. Dharma: that which one must fulfil as an incarnate Being. One’s duty as an understanding of the Law. Divine law, ethical doctrine – justice, harmony, virtue. Karma: the Law of Cause and Effect. Physical action. The Law of Retribution. Karma of merit / demerit. The whole universe is conditioned by this law. Moral effect of an act committed which gratifies personal desire. Nirvana: the Way into new fields of spiritual experience and of divine development – incomprehensible as of yet, even to the initiate of the third degree; this Way is revealed only when the antahkarana is built and completed and the disciple becomes focussed in the Triad as consciously as he / she is now focussed in the threefold lower nature; the culmination of all knowledge and absolute wisdom.

Wesak: a festival which occurs at the Taurus full moon every year, celebrating the birth of the Buddha, and where the Hierarchy gather to receive newly released forces to the planet. A time for Initiation. Subhadda: last person to be accepted into the Buddha’s Order. Shakya: name of Siddhartha’s clan. Lumbini: the garden where the Buddha was born; near the ancient city of Kapilavastu.

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1. You can see that some terms are explained in the text. Read the text again and try to find the definitions to the following words. • Asita (Азита); • Yasodhara (Яшодхара); • Kataka (Катака); • Rahula (Рахула); • Chandaka (Чандака); • Samadhi; • Bodhi tree; • Sangha (Сангха); • Ananda; • Hiranyavati. 2. Look through the text and give the synonyms to the following words. 1. sculpture 2. hermit 3. religious 4. achievement 5. respect 6. promise

7. feedleness 8. reincarnation 9. old and weak 10. disabled 11. stop 12. temporary

13. exceed 14. frightened 15. inspiration 16. catholicity 17. maintenance 18. shameful

19. opposite 20. calmness 21. sermon 22. particular role 23. happiness and peace

Learn them by heart. 3. Answer the following questions using the words from exercise 2. 1. What is mythological at the very beginning of the story? 2. What do we know about Gautama Buddha? 3. What old man from Himalayas visited the King? 4. What 80 signs did he recognize?

5. Why did the king surround the palace with a triple enclosure and forbid the use of the words «death» and «grief»? 6. Why were these precautions in vain? 7. What does the name Rahula mean and what did it indicate? 8. How did he become the monk Gautama? 9. Why was the practice of deep meditation abandoned by Siddharta? 10. Did Mara help Gautama when he sat beneath the sacred Bodhi tree of wisdom? What did the devil do? 11. How did it happen that Gautama acquired the title Buddha? 12. What did he identify in the third stage? 13. What were Buddha’s initial doubts about and what was his decision? 14. What two extremes did Buddha mention and why must they be avoided? 15. What did he say about being the perfect man? 16. What was Buddha’s last exhortation before he reached the highest spiritual state? 17. What does the term Wesak mean? VI. Translate from Russian into English using the studied above. Более 25 веков назад в одном из маленьких государств на северо-востоке Индии у царя Шуддходаны и его жены Майи после долгого ожидания родился сын Сиддхартха. Его родовое имя было Гаутама. Принц жил в роскоши, не ведая забот, со временем завел семью и, вероятно, сменил бы на троне своего отца, если бы судьба не распорядилась иначе. Несмотря на усилия отца, который всячески старался отвлечь сына от философских размышлений, боги, согласно легенде, сделали так, чтобы принц с течением времени понял, в чем заключается смысл его жизни. Однажды, гуляя по цветущим королевским садам, он столкнулся сначала со стариком, затем с больным, и в довершение всего увидел мертвеца. Когда Гаутама узнал, что ни один человек на свете не может избежать этих трех великих бед – старости, болезни и смерти, – его страдание было неописуемым. Но Сиддхартху ожи19

дала еще одна встреча – с монахом, лицо которого было спокойным и умиротворенным, и тогда Сиддхартха понял, что должен найти путь, который помог бы избавить людей от страданий. C вопросом в сердце он тайно покинул королевский дворец и полностью посвятил себя жизни отшельника. Но тщетно искал он ответа на мучившие его вопросы у великих наставников того времени. Тщетны были огромные лишения и жертвы, которые он добровольно перенес. Единственным их результатом стало лишь крайнее истощение тела. Спасла его неожиданная помощь дочери пастуха, девушки Суджаты, которая со всей скромностью предложила Сиддхартхе здоровую пищу, вернувшую его к жизни. В тот момент он понял, что никакая крайность не может быть полезна: ни чрезмерное самоограничение, ни неумеренные наслаждения не приведут к прекращению страданий, не приведут к Освобождению. Лишь золотая середина, срединный путь согласуется с Законом. Под сенью дерева Бодхи, или Древа Мудрости, он получил Просветление, которое навсегда освободило его от уз рождения, старости, болезни и смерти. Случилось это, когда Сиддхартхе было 35 лет. В возрасте 80 лет Будда ушел из жизни. Причиной его смерти послужила трапеза у бедного кузнеца Чунды, во время которой Будда, зная, что бедняк собирается потчевать своих гостей несвежим мясом, попросил отдать все мясо ему. Не желая, чтобы пострадали спутники, Будда съел его. Мнения традиции и современных ученых относительно времени жизни Будды расходятся. По мнению востоковедов, Будда жил приблизительно между 560 и 480 гг. до н. э., традиция же говорит о том, что Учитель жил между 624/21 и 544/43 гг. до н. э.

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TEXT III Read the text and do all the tasks given below. CREATION LEGEND OF SUN WORSHIPPERS The myths from which this chapter has been constructed date from the New Kingdom period, especially the Nineteenth and Twentieth Dynasties (1552–1701 BC). Ra is the first human god (the pharaoh), then a world god like Ptah in his giant form and lastly a cosmic deity. The priests were evidently engaged in systematising the theology of the sun cult. Ra, the sun, is shown to be greater than his father, Nu, and a concession is made to the worshippers of Isis in the legend, which credits Ra with imparting to her the power she possessed. Horus is given recognition. He acquires the «eyes» of Ra (the sun and moon). Thoth also, as Ah, has control of the moon. The result of the compromising process was to leave everything vague and even confused, but the greatness of Ra was made manifest. At the beginning the world was a waste of water called Mi, and it was the home of the Great Father. He was Nu, for he was the deep, and he gave life to the sun god who said: «Lo! I am Khepera at dawn, Ra at high noon and Atum at eventide.» The god of brightness first appeared as a shining egg that floated on the water’s breast, and the spirits of the deep, who were the Fathers and the Mothers, were with him there, as he was with Nu, for they were the companions of Nu. Now Ra was greater than Nu, from whom he arose. He was the divine father and strong ruler of gods, and those whom he first created, according to his wish, were Shu, the wind god, and his consort, Tefnut, who had the head of a lioness and was called The Spitter because she sent the rain. In afterlife these two deities shone as stars amidst the constellations of heaven and were called The Twins. Then Geb, the earth god, came into being and Nut, the goddess of the firmament, who became the parents of Osiris and his consort, Isis, and also of Seth and his consort, Nepthys. Ra spoke at the beginning of Creation, and ordered the earth and the heavens to rise out of the waste of water. In the brightness of his majesty they appeared, and Shu, the uplifter, raised Nut on high. She 21

formed the vault, which is arched over Geb, the god of earth, who lies prostrate beneath her from where, at the eastern horizon, she is poised on her toes to where, at the western horizon, bending down with outstretched arms, she rests on her fingertips. In the darkness are seen the stars that sparkle on her body and over her great unwearied limbs. When Ra, according to his wish, uttered the deep thoughts of his mind, that which he named had being. When he gazed into space, that which he desired to see appeared before him. He created all the things that move in the waters and on the dry land. Now, mankind were born from his eye, and Ra, the Creator, who was ruler of the gods, became the first king on earth. He went about among people. He took a form like theirs, and to him the centuries were as years. Ra had many names that were not known to gods or men, and he had one secret name that gave him his divine power. The goddess Isis, who dwelt in the world as a woman, grew weary of the ways of mankind. She sought rather to be among the mighty gods. She was an enchantress, and she wished greatly to have power equal with Ra in the heavens and on the earth. In her heart, therefore, she yearned to know the secret name of the ruling god, which was hidden in his heart and was never spoken aloud. Each day Ra walked out, and the gods in his train followed him, and he sat on his throne and uttered decrees. He had grown old, and as he spoke, moisture dripped from his mouth and fell on the ground. Isis followed him, and when she found his saliva she baked it with the earth on which it lay. She shaped the substance into the form of a spear, and it became a poisonous serpent. She lifted it up; she threw it from her, and it lay on the path along which Ra would travel when he went up and down his kingdom, surveying what he had made. Now the serpent that Isis had created was invisible to both gods and men. Soon there came a day when Ra, the aged god, walked along the path, followed by his companions. He came near to the serpent, which was waiting for him, and the serpent stung him. The burning venom entered his body, and Ra was stricken with great pain. A loud and mighty cry broke from his lips, and it was heard in highest heaven. Then the gods who were with him spoke, saying, «What has happened to you?» and «What thing is this?»

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Ra did not answer. He shook, and all his body trembled and his teeth chattered, for the venom overflowed in his flesh as the Nile does when it floods the land of Egypt. But at length he controlled himself and subdued his heart and the fears of his heart. He spoke, and his words were: «Gather about me, you who are my children, so that I may make known the dreadful thing that has happened to me. I am struck with great pain by something I know not of ... by something that I cannot see. Of that I have knowledge in my heart, for I have not done myself an injury with my own hand. Lo! I am without power to make known who has struck me so. Never before has such sorrow and pain been mine.» He spoke further, saying: «I am a god and the son of a god. I am the Mighty One, son of the Mighty One. Nu, my father, conceived my secret name, which gives me power, and he concealed it in my heart so that no magician might ever know it and, knowing it, be given power to work evil against me.» «As I went about even now, observing the world that I have created, a malignant thing bit me. It is not fire, yet it burns in my flesh; it is not water, yet cold is my body and my limbs tremble. Hear me now! My command is that all my children be brought near to me so that they may pronounce words of power that shall be felt on earth and in the heavens.» All the children of Ra were brought to him, as was his wish. Isis, the enchantress, came in their midst, and they all sorrowed greatly, except her. She spoke mighty words, for she could utter charms to subdue pain and to give life to that from which life had departed. She spoke to Ra, saying: «What ails you, holy father? You have been bitten by a serpent, one of the creatures that you created. I shall weave spells. I shall defeat your enemy with magic. Lo! I shall overwhelm the serpent utterly in the brightness of your glory.» He answered her, saying: «A malignant thing bit me. It is not fire, yet it burns my flesh. It is not water, yet cold is my body, and my limbs tremble. My eyes also have grown dim. Drops of sweat fall from my face.»

Isis spoke to the divine father and said: «You must, even now, reveal your secret name to me, for, truly, you can be delivered from your pain and distress by the power of your name.» Ra heard her in sorrow. Then he said: «I have created the heavens and the earth. Lo! I have even framed the earth, and the mountains are the work of my hands. I made the sea, and I cause the Nile to flood the land of Egypt. I am the Great Father of the gods and the goddesses. I gave life to them. I created every living thing that moves on the dry land and in the sea depths. When I open my eyes there is light. When I close them there is thick darkness. My secret name is not known to the gods. I am Khepera at dawn, Ra at high noon and Atum at eventide.» So spoke the divine father, but mighty and magic as were his words, they brought him no relief .The poison still burned in his flesh and his body trembled. He seemed ready to die. Isis, the enchantress, heard him, but there was no sorrow in her heart. She wished above all other things to share the power of Ra, and to achieve this she must have revealed to her the sacred name that Nu had devised and uttered at the beginning. So she spoke to Ra, saying: «Divine father, you have not yet spoken your name of power. If you shall reveal it to me I will have strength to give you healing.» Hotter than fire burned the venom in the heart of Ra. Like raging flames it consumed his flesh, and he suffered fierce agony. Isis waited, and at length the Great Father spoke in majesty and said: «It is my will that Isis be given my secret name and that it leave my heart and enter hers.» When he had spoken thus, Ra vanished from before the eyes of the gods. The sun boat was empty, and there was thick darkness. Isis waited, and when the secret name of the divine father was about to leave his heart and pass into her own, she spoke to Horus her son and said: «Now, compel the ruling god, by a mighty spell, also to yield up his eyes, which are the sun and the moon.» Isis then received in her heart the secret name of Ra, and the mighty enchantress said: «Depart, O venom, from Ra. Come out from his heart and from his flesh; flow out, shining from his mouth.... I have worked the spell.... Lo! I have overcome the serpent and caused the venom to be spilled on

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the ground, because the secret name of the divine father has been given to me. ... Now let Ra live, for the venom has perished.» So the god was made whole. The venom departed from his body, and there was no longer pain in his heart or any sorrow. As Ra grew old ruling over men, there were those among his subjects who spoke disdainfully about him, saying: «Old, indeed, is King Ra, for now his bones are silver and his flesh is turned to gold, although his hair is still true lapis lazuli [dark].» To Ra came knowledge of the words that were spoken about him, and there was much anger in his heart, because there were rebellious sayings on the lips of men and because they sought also to kill him. He spoke to his divine followers and said: «Bring before me the god Shu and the goddess Tefnut, the god Geb and his consort, Nut, and the fathers and mothers who were with me at the beginning when I was in Nu. Bring Nu before me also. Let them all come in secret, so that men may not see them and, afraid, take sudden flight. Let all the gods assemble in my great temple at Heliopolis*.» The gods assembled as Ra wished, and they bowed before him. Then they said: «Speak what you wish to say and we will hear.» He addressed the gods, saying: «O Nu, you, the eldest god, from whom I had my being, and you, ancestral gods, hear and know now that rebellious words are spoken against me by mankind, whom I created. Lo! They seek even to kill me. It is my desire that you should instruct me what you would do in this matter. Consider well among yourselves and guide me with wisdom. I have hesitated to punish mankind until I have heard from your lips what should now be done regarding them. «For Lo! I wish in my heart to destroy utterly that which I did create. All the world will become a waste of water through a great flood, as it was at the beginning, and I alone shall be left remaining, with no one else beside me except Osiris and his son Horus. I shall become a small serpent, invisible to the gods. To Osiris will be given power to reign over the dead, and Horus will be exalted on the throne that is set on the island of fiery flames.»

Then spoke Nu, god of primeval waters, and he said: «Hear me now, O my son. You who are mightier far than I, although I gave you life. Steadfast is your throne; great is the fear of you among men. Let your eye go forth against those who are rebels in the kingdom.» Ra said: «Now do men seek to escape among the hills. They tremble because of the words they have uttered.» The gods spoke together, saying: «Let your eye go forth against those who are rebels in the kingdom and it shall destroy them utterly. When it comes down from heaven as Hathor**, no human eye can be raised against it.» Ra heard and, as was his will, his eye went forth as Hathor against mankind among the mountains, and they were speedily slain. The goddess rejoiced in her work and drove over the land, so that for many nights she waded in blood. Then Ra repented. His fierce anger passed, and he sought to save the remnant of mankind. He sent messengers, who ran swifter than the storm wind, to Elephantine***, so that they might speedily obtain many plants of virtue. These they brought back, and they were well ground and steeped with barley in vessels filled with the blood of mankind. So was beer made and seven thousand jars were filled with it. Day dawned and Hathor went upstream slaughtering mankind. Ra surveyed the jars and said: «Now shall I give men protection. It is my will that Hathor may slay them no longer.» Then the god commanded that the jars should be carried to the place where the vengeful goddess rested for the night after that day of slaughter. The jars were emptied out as was his wish, and the land was covered with the flood. When Hathor awoke her heart was made glad. She stooped down and she saw her beautiful face mirrored in the flood. Then she began to drink eagerly, and she was made drunk so that she went to and fro over the land nor took any heed of mankind. Ra spoke to her, saying: «Beautiful goddess, return to me in peace.» _____________________________ * Heliopolis – now a suburb of Cairo, but once a great centre of Egyptian religion, seat of the cult of the sun-god Ra.

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** Hathor – in Egyptian mythology, a major goddess, the Lady of Heaven, Earth and the Underworld. *** Elephantine – a site of the southern tip of Elephantine Island, in the Nile of Upper Egypt. 1. Give the Russian equivalents to the following words. Learn them by heart. 11. invisible 12. heaven 13. serpent 14. malignant 15. slaughter

6. constellation 7. mankind 8. enchantress 9. kingdom 10. protection

1. firmament 2. divine 3. spirit 4. deity 5. virtue

16. exalt 17. rebels 18. wisdom 19. remnant 20. slay

2. Give the English equivalents to the following words. 1. фараон 2. и вот! 3. бездна 4. супруг(а)

5. рассвет 6. закат 7. могучий 8. жало

13. разрушать 9. плоть 14. раскаиваться 10. утаивать 11. сомневаться 15. воля 12. наказывать

3. Match the adjectives with the suitable noun. Translate. a) serpent b) god c) thing d) temple e) father f) cult g) deity h) horizon i) heaven

1. cosmic 2. sun 3. divine 4. eastern 5. poisonous 6. highest 7. malignant 8. great 9. mighty

5. Find the best way to complete each sentence. 1. Some deities continue to exist in afterlife in different forms. 2. Gods had many unknown to men names hidden in the heart. 3. Things are supposed to be created by gods. 4. Between goddesses there were enchantresses. 5. Gods were closely associated with nature.

a) Thus Thoth has control of the moon, the Spitter sent the rain and Nut was the goddess of the firmament. e) Usually they were malignant and wanted to have total power in the heavens and on the earth. b) For example, myth says that mankind was born from Ra’s eye. c) For example, some of them shine as stars of the constellation. d) This gave them divine power.

6. Answer the following questions. Use the words given above. 1. What time did this myth originate? 2. Can you describe the personality of Ra? 3. Why did Ra have many names? 4. What kind of goddesses was Isis? 5. What was her famous desire? 6. What did she do to reach her goal? 7. What caused Ra’s sufferings? 8. Why did Ra let secret name enter Isis’ heart? 9. Why did Ra invite Nu and other gods and goddesses in secret? 10. What decision was made by gods? 11. Why did Hathor rejoice? 12. Was the whole mankind slaughtered?

4. Look through the text and choose all the gods’ and goddesses’ names. Explain their hierarchy or relations between them.

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TEXT IV Read the text and do all the tasks given below. WHY I CONVERTED TO ISLAM AFTER SEPTEMBER 11 (as told to KAREN DUKESS) Before the attacks, Jean-Michelle Ajon was just an American Catholic with an interest in a new religion. Today, she grapples with her new life as a Muslim – and explains her controversial decision to convert. On October 28, 2001, six weeks after Islamic terrorists attacked the World Trade Center and Pentagon, I stood inside a mosque in Westbury, NY, for the first time. I sat in the back and watched men and women stand and kneel in unison as they silently prayed. The room was beautiful, open, and airy. A green carpet covered the floor, except for one aisle in the middle, which separated the men from the women. When the prayers ended, people started murmuring and looking at me. Word had gotten around that I was going to «take shahada» – recite the testimony that would officially make me a Muslim. A young woman named Reem led me to a microphone. Cameras started flashing. I hadn’t known that shahada would be so public. My clothes-sneakers, an old pair of Banana Republic pants, and a fleece sweatshirt – suddenly seemed inappropriate. At least my hair was covered by a hijab, the head covering Muslim women must wear. When I’d arrived at the mosque, a group of women had wrapped it arround my head and tied it at my neck. A lot of people think making women wear a head covering suppresses us, but I think it’s liberating. It takes courage to wear one – to know you are beautiful, even with your hair covered. On that day, I began to truly feel part of the community.

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Reem asked me to repeat my testimony: La ilaha il Allah. Muhammad – ur Rasool’ Allah. «There is no god but God, and Muhammad is his messenger». I said the words three times, smiling from ear to ear. I had just accepted Islam. I had started thinking seriously about converting the previous summer. And then, September 11 happened. That morning, I was doing volunteer work for an attorney in a New York office. We watched on a little black and white television as the World Trade Center collapsed. The attorney said, «We should bomb everyone, the whole Arab world.» I was shocked that she could say such a thing. What the terrorists did was awful and wrong. But people shouldn’t blame the religion for the terrorism. The Koran, the holy book of Islam, states that killing is a sin. What the terrorists did in the name of Islam was a misrepresentation of the religion. Hearing people blame it – instead of them – made me determined to stand up for my new faith. On the day I recited my oaths, the director of the mosque, the Islamic Center of Long Island, commended me for my courage in accepting the religion at a time of such strong anti-Islamic sentiment. I hadn’t converted to show my bravery, but his words reminded me that it was a big thing to do at the moment. «IN THE MOSQUE, I FEEL AT PEACE» There is nothing Middle Eastern about my heritage. I am 31 years old and was born and raised a Catholic in Queens, NY. As a child, I went to Catholic school and attended mass at St. Patrick’s Cathedral. It was vast and beautiful, but totally impersonal. I’d always felt like there was a lot of God flowing through my life, but in church, people seemed to be going through the motions without any real connection to Him. After high school, I began to look into other religions, but nothing really inspired me until two years ago, during a conversation I had while working at a financial-services firm in Manhattan. I asked a Muslim coworker about his religion over lunch. As he talked about Islam, I realized that everything he was saying meshed with my own beliefs. In the Catholic schools I used to attend, the nuns and priests were bitter, angry people. They never seemed like representatives of God. But in Islam, there is no one between you and God. Also, I liked the fact that in Islam, you totally run your life according to religion. It 30

makes you aware of what you eat and how you dress. Islam felt natural to me. It was like a good friend with whom I had a lot in common. I used to be very aggressive. Now, I am more patient – and spiritually fulfilled. Muslims pray five times a day. I strive for that, but it’s difficult in America, because our busy schedules don’t allow much time for religion. I usually pray three times a day, and I go to a mosque near my home in Long Island once or twice a week. In prayer, Muslims stand and kneel at different times. Kneeling is the most vulnerable position; it’s very submissive. You feel an energy, and it feels very pure. It’s your time with God. At the mosque, the people show a genuine openness to others – the homeless, drug addicts, whoever. True Muslims do not force religion on anyone; they just listen and help. The media may say Islam is hostile toward other religions, but in fact, Muslims in the U.S. – and throughout the Arab world – are peaceful and accepting of all other faiths. The Koran proclaims, «God does not love aggressors.» All the negative feelings about Islam made me afraid to wear the hijab until just recently. I put it on briefly right after I converted, and people stared. One day, I wore it on the subway, and a woman scowled at me as if I were a terrorist. I never saw any hijabs outside of the mosque. I figured either Muslim women weren’t wearing them, or they just weren’t going out. Now, I notice a difference walking down the street in a hijab. Without it, guys make comments. They are disrespectful. But when I wear it, they know I’m not available. Dating is prohibited, and marriages are arranged. But I’m seeing a Muslim guy. So I’m not going to say I’m the perfect convert. I’m still figuring it out. It’s a misconception that women can’t be independent within Islam. There are Muslim women with important jobs all around the world. I want to teach psychology at the college level one day. I’ve been to Muslim homes in which the man served me chocolates, making tea with his wife. They were together, and they were unified. Still, I sometimes think the men are a little spooky. I see the pictures of terrorists in the newspaper, and they look like ordinary Middle Eastern men. How do you know who’s crossed the line? When I meet a Muslim man, I try to rely on my intuition – like any woman would. I talk to him and ask him questions. And then, I trust my instincts.

My conversion has been hardest on my mother. One day, shortly after I took shahada, my mother saw a book I was carrying, «Understanding Islam», and started yelling, «What do you need that for? It goes against everything I believe.» In Islam, you’re not supposed to argue with your parents, so I just told her, «Mom, this is natural to me.» But I still haven’t worn the hijab in front of her. She also got upset a while back when she saw me wearing a necklace that said «Allahu akbar,» which means «Allah is great.» She told me not to wear it anymore. But now, she’s calmed down. I explained, «Mom, it’s just God’s name. Only it’s spelled differently.» from MARIE CLAIRE (July, 2002)

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1. Look through the text and find the words which definitions are given below. 1. unfriendly and aggressive; 2. to believe or say that someone is responsible for something wrong or that they caused it; 3. the basic testimony and creed of Islam; 4. a large crowd of people; 5. to change one’s religious or political belief; 6. giving a false account of some facts. Following the patterns above try to define the words below yourself: 1. hijab 3. messenger 5. coworker 2. to suppress 4. intuition 6. sentiment 2. Look through the text again & find the words with the negative meaning. Explain the way this meaning is expressed. 3. Look through the text again and give the English equivalents to the following phrases: 1. вставать и опускаться на колени одновременно, 2. молиться в тишине, 3. произносить клятвенное заверение, 4. обвинять религию в терроризме, 5. ничего не воодушевляло меня по-настоящему,

6. строить жизнь согласно религии, 7. никому не навязывать религию, 8. быть независимым в исламе, 9. доверять интуиции, 10. духовно исполнена. 4. Answer the questions below. While answering try to use the words and the word-combinations from the tasks above. 1. Why do people usually convert to other religion? 2. What causes misconception of Islam? 3. What peculiarities made Ajon feel Islam natural? 4. Imagine that a friend of yours is going to convert to other religion (Islam, for instance). Will your position coincide with JeanMichelle’s mother’s one? 5. What should Muslims do to change the situation with misrepresentation of their religion? 6. Do you agree with the words of a convert «Mom, it’s just God’s name. Only it’s spelled differently»?

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TEXT V Read the title of the article. What do you expect to read in this article about? DYING FOR THEIR BELIEFS: CHRISTIAN SCIENTIST PARENTS ON TRIAL IN GIRL’S DEATH by Jeffrey Good Have you heard anything about Christian Science? If you haven’t, read now the article from The Wordsworth Dictionary of Beliefs & Religions given below this text. Amy Hermanson was a sunny seven-year-old with blond hair and bubbly ways. She liked to serenade adults with her favorite song: Disney’s «It’s a Small World After All.» But Amy’s world went awry one Sunday in 1986. An adult friend of her family noticed the child’s sunken eyes, her listless manner, the way her clothes hung from her tiny bones. She tried to get the child to sing her favorite song. «She used to come over and sing every verse to me. I couldn’t even get her to make a comment on the song, let alone sing it,» the friend, Mary Christman, would later tell investigators. She recalled her husband saying, «If the child does not receive medical attention, she will be dead within a week.» But Amy’s parents are Christian Scientists. They decided to try to heal the child with prayer rather than seek a doctor’s aid. Two days after the Christmans saw her, Amy died of diabetes. On Monday, Amy’s parents are scheduled to go on trial in the Sarasota County Courthouse on charges of third-degree murder* and felony child abuse**. Prosecutors say William and Christine Hermanson committed a crime by putting religious principles ahead of protecting their daughter. The Hermansons say their accusers are wrong. If convicted, the couple could face three to seven years in jail. At issue is a legal principle with national ramifications. Since 1967, no Christian Scientist in the United States has stood trial for denying children medical care for religious reasons. Six similar cases are pending, but the Hermansons are the first to go to court. 34

«The children are entitled to protection, and if the parents won’t give it to them, they (the parents) will suffer the legal consequences,» says Mack Futch, an assistant state attorney in Sarasota County. The Hermansons, however, have maintained that prosecutors want to violate their constitutional right of religious freedom. And in interviews last week, their supporters maintained that the couple treated their daughter with a proven – if unconventional – method of healing. Frederick Hillier, a Christian Science «practitioner» who was ministering to the child when she died, said that Christian Scientists regard prayer as a better treatment than conventional medicine. «A Christian Scientist is doing nothing any different than anyone who has found medical treatment to be effective,» said Hillier, who also acts as the spokesman for Florida Christian Science churches. «Why do Christian Scientists rely on spiritual healing when they could go to a physician if they wanted to? In their experience, they found it to be effective.» Church members acknowledge that their methods sometimes fail, just as doctors sometimes fail, he said. But that doesn’t mean the Christian Scientists deserve criminal charges any more than the doctors do, he said. «We don’t claim any more than anyone else claims to be 100 percent effective,» Hillier said. «Even Jesus didn’t.» Amy’s third grade report card was her last. It showed A’s in reading, English, spelling, mathematics, science, and social studies. «Amy takes a keen interest in all her work,» a teacher wrote. But in September 1986, Amy began fourth grade as a different child. Teachers noticed her dozing off in class, shedding weight at an alarming rate, and complaining of stomachaches. At one point, she held her hands over her ears and pleaded, «Stop the noise. Stop the noise,» at the sound of a pencil scratching paper. «After the school year began, Amy was often upset. She would cry and say that she did not feel well,» said June R. McHugh, director of the private Julie Rohr Academy attended by Amy and her older brother, Eric. McHugh told inverstigators that about a week before Amy’s death, she told Mrs. Hermanson her daughter might be suffering from a physical ailment. McHugh recalled that Mrs. Hermanson said «The situation was being handled.» On September 22, one of the practitioners began praying for the child.

On September 25, the Hermansons left Amy in a baby-sitter’s care and went to Indiana for a Christian Science conference on spiritual healing. They returned on September 29. But at 8:30 A.M.on September 30, 1986, a state social worker in Sarasota took a call from Amy’s aunt. The worker’s notes sketched a chilling picture: «Over the last two weeks Amy has lost 10 pounds, drinks constantly, eats large amounts of food, muscle tone is virtually gone, eyes are sunken and functioning separately. Child can barely walk and has to be carried – all indications point to diabetes but parents refuse to take child to the doctor as they are Christian Scientists.» A court hearing was scheduled for 1:30 P.M. and Amy’s father arrived early. At 1:27 P.M., Hermanson took a phone call from home reporting that Amy had taken a turn for the worse and an ambulance was en route. Learning this, the judge ordered that a medical doctor examine Amy. But it was too late. With Christian Science practitioner nearby, Amy had died in her parents» bed.

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Most Important Right After performing an autopsy on the child, Associate Medical Examiner James C. Wilson concluded that medical treatment up to just hours before her death probably could have saved Amy. The Hermansons have acknowledged they never sought such treatment. That does not make them criminals, say their lawyers and supporters. «There isn’t anyone who is more loving to their children than Christian Scientists,» said Bob Drabik, chairman of the board of directors at Sarasota’s First church, Christian Science, where the Hermansons are members. Florida law says parents can’t be judged «abusive or neglectful» because they withhold conventional medical treatment for religious reasons. Similar laws exist in most states. They were enacted under heavy lobbying from the Boston-based church after one of its members, Dorothy Sheridan of Harwich, Massachusetts, was convicted in 1967 of manslaughter in the death of her child. «William and Christine Hermanson, at all times material*** to the facts in this case, followed the religious teaching of their church and relied upon Christian Science healing in the care treatment of Amy Hermanson,» the court record states.

Within the legal community, there is considerable debate over whether that is an adequate defense when a child dies. Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz says that such trials revolve around two important constitutional rights: parents» freedom of religion, and children’s right to grow up healthy. In cases where one right must take priority, Dershowitz says, the choice is clear: «It’s not a difficult question. Children have a right to live and be brought up to make their own religious decision.» Hillier, the Christian Science spokesman, said that church members view prayer as the best way to make sick children well. «We don’t want the right to do harm to children,» he said, «we only want the right to do what is good for children.» _________________________ * third-degree murder: murder without intention ** felony chid abuse: a serious crime involving hurting a child physically or psychologically *** material: related Christian Science A movement, founded by Mary Baker Eddy* in the 19th century, which seeks to reinstate the original Christian message of salvation from all evil, including sickness and disease as well as sin. The first church of Christ, Scientist, was established in 1879 in Boston, USA, followed in 1892 by the present worldwide organisation, with its headquarters in Boston. The Bible and Eddy’s Science and Health with Key to the Scripture (1875) are the principle texts of the movement. God, who is seen as both maternal and paternal, is believed to be spirit and the good creator; accordingly, sin, sickness, death, and matter itself only seem real to mistaken human belief. Health is restored, not by recourse to medical treatment, but by applying to all aspects of life practices in keeping with the principle of divine harmony. Members must not turn to orthodox medical practitioners, but are to seek help from special Christian Science healers, whose training is based on the Bible and Science and Health. In recent years, mainly because of recourse to outside medical help, the number of followers has declined. *Eddy, Mary (Morse), nee Baker (1821–1910). American founder of the Christian Science Church, born in Bow, New Hampshire and 37

brought up as a Congregationalist. She was frequently ill as a young woman. After a brief first marriage, she was married a second time, in 1853, to Daniel Patterson. In the 1860s she tried all kinds of medication, but turned to faith-healing and in 1862 came under the influence of Phineas T Quimby (1802-66). While recovering from a severe fall in 1866 she turned to the Bible, and went on to develop a spiritual and metaphysical system she called Christian Science, explaining her beliefs in Science and Health with Key to the Scripture, which proclaimed the illusory nature of disease. She married Asa G Eddy in 1877, and in 1879 founded at Boston the Church of Christ, Scientists. Her church attracted great numbers of followers. 1. Find in the text words defined below. Translate the sentences they are used in. 1. one of the large number of complicated and unexpected result that follow an action or a decision; 2. not following what is done or considered normal or acceptable by most people; 3. the state of being able to do what you want, without anything stopping you; 4. waiting to be decided or settled; 5. a person who speaks on behalf of a group or an organization; 6. a person who regularly does a particular activity, especially one that requires skill; 7. to be not successful in achieving something; 8. to care for somebody, especially somebody who is sick or old, and make sure that they have everything they need; 9. the process of becoming or making somebody healthy again; 10. to be unhappy or disappointed because something unpleasant has happened to you. 2. Look through the text and give the Russian equivalents to the following phrases: 1. go away; 2. listless manner; 3. to receive medical attention; 4. to heal with prayer; 38

5. to seek a doctor’s aid; 6. to put religious principles ahead; 7. to be at issue; 8. to deny medical care for religious reasons; 9. to suffer the legal consequenses; 10. to regard prayer as a better treatment; 11. to rely on spiritual healing; 12. considerable debate; 13. to take priority; 14. to make own religious decision. 3. Look through the text again and give the English equivalents to the following phrases: 1. запавшие глаза; 2. иметь право на защиту; 3. нарушать конституционное право свободы вероисповедания; 4. проверенные методы лечения; 5. традиционная медицина; 6. по своему опыту; 7. заслуживать уголовного наказания. 4. Answer the questions below. While answering try to use the words and the word-combinations studied above. 1. What were your first emotions after reading the text? 2. Can we guess the author’s attitude to the parents of the dead child? If so, find the phrases or words through which we can guess it. 3. How can you explain Emmy’s parents behavior? 4. What will be the decision of the court, to your mind? 5. Tell everything you know about Christian Science movement. 6. What the most important rights are discussed in this text? 7. Were any of those rights violated in that case? 8. What is your personal attitude to prayer as a treatment? 9. In your view, could school teachers have helped Emmy in her situation? If yes, what should they have done? 10. How must this problem be solved to avoid child’s death?

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TEXT VI Read the text and do all the tasks given below. IN SEARCH OF THE GODS

The Kon-Tiki trip was kid stuff. Thor Heyerdahl is off to find King Odin’s legendary home

by Eve Conant Azov is hardly the kind of place where most people would look for adventure. Life is slow in this postcard-pretty Russian town on the delta of the muddy river Don. No one has bothered to tear down the statue of Lenin in the main square. Azov used to be a busy port. But that was before the river’s channel shifted, leaving the town in sleepy solitude. Until Thor Heyerdahl showed up. Half a world and more than half a century away from the route of his famous Kon-Tiki expedition, the Norwegian explorer is pursuing the most wildly ambitious quest of his life. Conquering the Pacific on a balsa raft was kid stuff. This time his goal is nothing less than to find Asgard, the fabled home of the Vikings» gods. Its remains, he believes, are here in Azov, buried eight meters or more underground. Most experts on Norse history stop just short of calling the whole idea insane. But Heyerdahl, 86, is so confident, he has put up $100,000 of his own money in search of Asgard. His dream began when he was a schoolboy. Like all Norwegian youngsters, Heyerdahl had to read «Heimskringla» («The Orb of the World»), an epic history of Norway by Snorri Sturluson, a 13th-century Icelandic poet and chieftain. The chronicle opens with a careful description of the Mediterranean, the Black Sea and Russia, a land of giants, dwarfs, «blue men» and many kinds of stranger creatures. East of the Tanais (an ancient name for Don), in the lost city of Asgard, lived a great conqueror named Odin. When the Romans invaded his land, he led a band of followers across Russia and Germany to the Baltic Sea, where he finally died, promising his warriors they would someday rejoin him in Asgard. «Then began [or rose anew] the belief in Odin, and the calling upon him,» said Sturluson, who traced the lineage of Norway’s kings directly from him. Heyerdahl’s critics say the 13th-century text proves nothing. «It’s mythology, not confirmed by archeology,» scoffs Even Hovdhaugen, a professor at the University of Oslo. His colleague Prof. Gro Steinsland, an expert on early Norse religions, agrees: 40

«[It’s] like digging for the Garden of Eden.» But Heyerdahl insists the evidence all fits together. The saga’s geography is basically solid, he reasoned; why not its genealogy? He made a few calculations. Sturluson is widely accepted as accurate after the year 800 or so, in the days of Hovdaun the Black. From there Heyerdahl counted 33 generations backward to Odin. He did some quick math and found himself in the first century B.C. That’s exactly when the Roman generals Lucullus and Pompey conquered the Black Sea region. Heyerdahl had to check it out. «This is not my theory,» he says. «It’s Snorri’s. I’m just putting it to the test.» Early this year he began digging for traces of Odin and his followers in Azov, on the east bank of the Don. Heyerdahl thinks Azov’s name might hold an echo of the Norse word for deity: ass, as in Asgard, the garden of the gods. And the deep silt here is loaded with ancient artifacts. This is where Greek colonists built the region’s first major city some 2,500 years ago. Heyerdahl says what he’s looking for is a «change in the cultural layer» roughly 2,100 years ago – signs of the royal exodus described by Sturluson. Other archeologists say they don’t know what Heyerdahl is talking about. Sturluson says «a great many other people went with Odin,» but even Heyerdahl thinks most of the kingdom’s inhabitants stayed behind. Still, he figures the exodus must have left a discernible mark on the archeological record. He only has to find it. His researchers have exhumed numerous Roman-era items, including a child’s bracelet, several belt buckles, an ancient safety pin and a six-pointed talisman they describe as a zoomorph. By the time they stopped work for the summer in July, at a depth of just over eight meters, they were unearthing bits of distinctive black-lacquer pottery from the first century B.C. It all suggests he’s on the right track, Heyerdahl asserts. Impossible, his critics say: Heyerdahl’s quest is based on a whole series of false assumptions. «He just sees what he wants to see, ignoring anything that gets in the way of his theories,» says Christian Keller, a professor of archeology at Oslo’s Center for Viking and Medieval Studies. The linguistic record, for one thing. The Norse word ass, from a Germanic root probably meaning «wind» or «breath,» has no known connection to Azov. According to Anne Stalsberg, an associate professor of archeology at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, the town’s name («low-lying place») dates back to the 17th century. And experts trace the name of Odin to the Germanic name Wotan, not to the Black Sea.

There’s hard evidence, too. Archeologists in Scandinavia have found no trace of a historical Odin. But they have dug up a major flaw in Sturluson’s account. «Heimskringla» says one tradition that Odin brought from Asgard was cremation of the dead. That’s a detail archeologists can check. «Cremation already was the dominant [funeral] custom in Scandinavia,» says Stalsberg. But there was a change around 2,000 years ago, when Odin supposedly arrived: people stopped burning corpses before burial. What’s more, Sturluson himself contradicts the Azov-was-Asgard idea. Another of his works, the «Prose Edda,» identifies Odin’s hometown as Troy. «That is rather far from Azov,» says Else Mundal, a professor of Norse philology at the University of Bergen. Keller adds: «I don’t think he’ll find what he’s looking for.» On the contrary, Heyerdahl has already found one thing he was looking for: a roaring good time. You can see it when he visits the dig, striding at a breakneck speed across the rough-cut planks that span the square-walled pits. «It’s very, very important to enjoy what you are doing,» he says. «I would have been dead long ago if I didn’t have the freedom to follow up on my own curiosity.» Heyerdahl has always loved a good fight. «There will be a lot of quarrels ahead,» he gleefully predicts. «The danger is when everyone agrees.» There’s scant risk of that while Heyerdahl is on the job.

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1. Find in the text the words defined below. Translate the sentences they are used in. 1. excitement and willingness to do new, unusual or rather dangerous journey or series of events; 2. the state of being alone, especially when this is peaceful and pleasant; 3. an organized journey that is made for a particular purpose such as exploration; 4. an attempt to find something or someone by looking for them carefully; 5. a lot of people leave that place at the same time; 6. anything that you see, read or are told that causes you to believe something is true; 7. if you go on it you try to find or obtain it; 8. something that you hope to achieve, especially when much time and effort will be needed;

9. it indicates how long members of your family have had a particular nationality; 10. someone who has a mind that works unnormally, with the results in a strange behavior; 11. feeling sure about own abilities, qualities, or ideas; 12. a country or group of people who have taken complete control of another country or land; 13. to deny the truth of something said or written; 14. desire to know about something; 15. the fact that you are descended from certain people; 16. divine quality or nature; state of being a god or a goddess; 17. to say that the event will happen; 18. what is left [debris, relics, leftovers, corpse, body]; 19. a picture of animal often on the walls of cave; 20. Biblical place associated with «Paradise». 2. Look through the text again and give the English equivalents to the following phrases: 1. божественный сад 2. искать приключений 3. остатки культуры древнего человека 4. изменение культуры 5. сонливое одиночество 6. противоречить идее 7. прослеживать родословную 8. главная традиция 9. грандиозные поиски 10. ложное предположение

11. выдуманная родина 12. великий завоеватель 13. малый риск 14. боги народа Викингов 15. специалисты по истории (религии) 16. обитатели царства 17. тщательное описание 18. группа последователей

3. Answer the questions below. While answering try to use the words and the word-combinations from exercises 1, 2. 1. Where is this place from the fabled home of the Vikings» gods supposed to be? 2. What can we learn from the article? 3. What caused Heyerdahl’s dream? 4. Thor Heyerdahl is well-known Norwegian explorer. What is he famous for? 43

5. What promotes him? Give some epithets to describe him. 6. Can you catch author’s attitude towards Heyerdahl’s quest? If so, how? 7. Does Heyerdahl’s story illustrate the search of the truth? 8. What were the experts’ points of view? 9. What could be the results of this search? 10. Do you know the legends like that one in the history of your own country [place]? 4. Translate from Russian into English. Тайна пятого озера Недалеко от районного центра Муровцево, около 250 км от Омска на север, на высоком берегу реки Тара находится ничем не примечательная деревушка Окунево. Обычные дома, обычные деревенские жители, но именно в этих местах многие годы наблюдают загадочные явления. Например, в лесу сбиты верхушки многих деревьев. С давних пор видят странные летающие объекты. Объяснение этим непонятным вещам может дать старинное сказание здешних мест. Легенда гласит, что в таежных болотах севера области стоит деревушка Окунево, и там, на дне Шайтанозера, сотни тысяч лет покоится храм индусского бога Ханумана. Чистейшая вода озер целебна. Озера рождены Космосом много тысяч лет назад, возможно, в результате падения на Землю осколков огромного метеорита, было их пять. Пятое озеро – Потаенное – скрыто от людей. Нашедшему его оно сулит счастье и несметное богатство. Согласно гипотезе, выдвинутой группой сибирских историков, 300 тысяч лет назад на территории Западной Сибири существовала высокоразвитая цивилизация, где зародились многие религии мира. Несколько лет назад на Татарском увале появился большой деревянный крест и православная часовня, в которой служит священник из Омска. Приходят сюда староверы, называющие себя инглидами. Они считают, что именно здесь находилось знаменитое Беловодье. 44

TEXT VII

In the maze of Egyptian beliefs there were diverging views regarding the elements that constitute the human personality. One triad was a unity of the ka (spirit), the khu (soul) and the khat (the body). Another grouped khaybet (the shadow) with ka (the spirit) and sahu (the mummy). The physical heart was called hati – it was supposed to be the seat of the intelligence, and its «spirit» was named ab, which signified the will and desires. The «vital spark», or controlling force, was symbolised as the sekhem, and the ran was the personal name. The ka of the first triad is the most concrete conception of all. It was probably, too, the oldest. The early people appear to have believed that the human personality combined simply the body and the spirit. In those tomb scenes that depict the birth of kings, the royal baby is represented by two figures – the visible body and the invisible «double». The ka began to be at birth; it continued to live on after death. But a human being was not alone in possessing a ka. Everything that existed was believed to have its «double». A fish or other animal had a ka; so also had a tree; and there were spirits in water, in metals, in stone, and even in weapons and other manufactured articles. These spirits were invisible to all except seers, who were those individuals able to exercise on occasion the «faculty» that Scottish Highlanders call «second sight».

It was conceived that the ka could leave the human body during sleep or while the subject lay in a trance. It then wandered about and visited people and places, and its experiences survived in the memory. Dreams were accounted for in this way as actual happenings. When a man dreamt of a dead friend, he believed that his ka had met with the ka of the dead, talked with it and engaged in the performance of some Otherworld duty. Sometimes the wandering ka could be observed at a distance from where the sleeper lay. It had all the appearance of the individual, because it was attired in the «doubles» of his clothing and might carry the «double» of his staff. Ghosts, therefore, included «the spirits of the living», which were not recognised to be spirits until they vanished mysteriously. They might also be simply heard and not seen. During normal life the ka existed in the human body. It was sustained by the «doubles» of everything that was partaken of. After death it required food and drink, and offerings were made to it at the grave. In ancient times a cult believed that the ka could be fed by magic. It was essential that the dead should receive the service of the living, and those who performed the necessary ceremonies and made the offerings were called the «servants». Thus the Egyptian word for «priest» signified a «servant». If the ka or ghost were neglected and allowed to starve, it could leave the grave and haunt the offenders. Primitive people had a genuine dread of spirits, and their chief concern was always to propitiate them, no matter how great might be the personal sacrifice involved. Sometimes a small «soul house» was provided by the wayside for the wandering ka, but more often an image of wood or stone was placed for its use in the grave. The statues of kings, which have been found in their tombs, were constructed so that their disembodied spirits might be given material bodies, and those that they caused to be built in various parts of the kingdom were primarily intended for a similar purpose and not merely to perpetuate their fame, although the note of vanity is rarely absent in the inscriptions. The ba of the second triad was a concept uniting both the ka and the khu. It is represented in bird form with a human head hovering over the sahu, or mummy, on which it gazes wistfully, always seeking to reenter the bandaged form. Like the ka, it required nourishment, which was provided, however, by the goddess of the consecrated burial ground.

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Read the text and do all the tasks given below. DEATH AND THE JUDGMENT Chapter 1. The human triad

The khaybet, or shadow, is evidently the survival of an early belief. It is really another manifestation of the ka. Like all primitive peoples, the ancient Egyptians believed that their shadows were their souls. Higher concepts evolved in time, but their cultured descendants clung to the old belief, which was perpetuated by folk customs associated with magic practices. Spells were wrought by casting shadows on a man, and he might be insulted or injured if an offence were committed against his shadow. The ran, or name, was also a manifestation of the ka. Power could be exercised by uttering the name, because there was magic influence in those words, which were believed to have spiritual «doubles». A personal name was the spirit identified; its service was secured when the name was uttered. The spirit was the name and the name was the spirit. If a magician wished to work evil against an individual, he made use of the name when uttering potent magical formulae. The dead were similarly conjured up when their names were spoken in invocations; evil spirits were cast out by those who knew their names. To guard himself against wizards who uttered «words of power», or verbal spells, the Egyptian therefore considered it necessary to have two names – the big name and the little name, or the true name and the good name. He kept his «big, true name» secret because it was the ran; his «good little name» was his nickname and was not a part of his living being.

The diverging concepts regarding the soul in Egyptian religion arose from the mingling of beliefs caused by the mingling of peoples, and also the Egyptian tendency to cling to every belief, or form of belief, that evolved in the course of time in Egypt. A people who believed in the existence of «doubles» and in the transmigration of souls had many vague and complex concepts. Incoherencies were a feature of their religious beliefs. It must be borne in mind, at the same time, that this review covers a vast period of time, during which various religious cults exercised supreme influence in moulding Egyptian thought. One cult predominated at one period; another cult arose in turn to teach its own peculiar tenets, with the result that all beliefs were ultimately ac-

cepted. This process is clearly indicated by the various burial customs and the complex religious ceremonies that prevailed in different ages. The early people buried their dead crouched up in shallow graves with due provision of nourishment and implements. They appear to have believed that the ka remained beside the body until the flesh decayed. The Horus-worshipping, or Dynastic, Egyptians who pressed northwards on their gradual campaign of conquest, introduced a new burial custom. Instead of digging shallow graves, they erected bricklined tombs in which the dead were laid on their backs, fully extended, clad in state and adorned with articles of jewellery. In the inscriptions, the ka and khu are referred to, but no attempt was made, even in the First and Second Dynasties, to preserve the body from decay, and sumptuous offerings were placed in the tombs. Another burial custom involved secondary interment, as was the case in those European districts where early graves have been found to contain disconnected skeletons. In Egypt attempts were sometimes made to arrange the bones in proper position, but they were often heaped in confusion. It appears that temporary interment was a ceremony of riddance, the object being probably to hasten the departure of the ka. Dismemberment was also practised, and many graves show that decapitation was carried out after death. The revolt against dismemberment took place at the beginning of the Third Dynasty, about 2700 B.C. Massive stone tombs were then constructed and the bodies of the dead were mummified. The idea was either that the ka would ultimately return and cause the dead to live again or that the existence of the soul in the nether world depended on the existence of the body upon earth. The embalming of the dead ultimately became general throughout Egypt, but the belief in dismemberment survived in the practice of disjointing one of the mummy’s feet. Embalmers were licensed to practise their profession, and they displayed much ingenuity and surgical skill. When a body was taken to them, they produced models of mummies and arranged a price. The quality of their work depended on the amount of money spent by the dead person’s friends. The costliest method of embalming was as follows. The brain was extracted through the nostrils with the aid of instruments. The liver,

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Chapter 2. The burial customs

heart, lungs and intestines were drawn out and steeped in palm wine and sprinkled with rich perfume. The body was dried, and stuffed with powdered myrrh, cassia, etc, and sewn up. It was afterwards covered with nitre for seventy days. Then it was washed all over and carefully wrapped in bandages that had been dipped in a strong gum. As soon as it was carried back to the home, it was placed in a large coffin, shaped like a human form, that was inscribed with magic charms and decorated with sacred symbols and figures of gods and goddesses. The intestines were placed in four canopic jars, on the lids of which were often shaped the heads of the four protecting gods, who were the sons of Horus and represented the north, south, east and west. The jars were placed in a chest and deposited in the tomb. The organs they contained were those that were believed to have caused the various sins to be committed. The funeral procession was a solemn and touching spectacle. All the family were present, and women mourners wailed aloud on the way to the cemetery on the western bank of the Nile. The mummy was drawn along on a sledge. When the tomb was reached, the coffin was set up on end, facing the south, and an elaborate ceremony was gone through. It was conducted by the chief mourner, who recited the ritual from a papyrus roll while responses were made by the relatives. Two females represented Isis and Nepthys, for a part of the ceremony was a reproduction of the scene enacted around the body of Osiris when it was restored and prepared for burial. The dead had also to be instructed how to reach the Egyptian heaven. The journey could not be accomplished in safety without the aid of magic formulae. So these were spoken into the ears of the corpse, as was probably the custom in the days of crouched burials. But the danger was ever present that the dead would fail to remember all the priestly instructions which were repeated over them. The formulae were therefore inscribed on the coffin and on the walls of the tomb, and as time went on it became customary to prepare rolls of papyrus, which were ultimately collected into the Book of the Dead. This papyrus might be wrapped under the mummy bandages or else laid within the coffin. A bull was slaughtered to provide food for the sustenance of the ka and as a sacrifice to the gods. The coffin was afterwards lowered down the grave shaft to the secret chamber in which had been placed the image of the dead, his or

her weapons and clothing, ornaments and perfumes and, perhaps, several articles of furniture. Then the entrance was closed up with stonework. A funeral feast in the antechamber concluded a ceremony that grew more and more elaborate as time went on. Food offerings were afterwards brought at intervals by faithful mourners. There were two distinct concepts of the afterlife, and these became confused in the ages that followed. The sun worshippers believed that the souls of the dead passed to the first division of night, where those who were privileged to utter the magic spells that could compel the obedience of the gods were permitted to enter the barque of Ra. In their tombs were placed models of the sun boat.

The Otherworld concept of the Osirian cult made more permanent appeal to the Egyptian mind. Heaven is pictured as the «double» of the Delta region, where apparently the concept had its origin. But, before it can be reached, the soul must travel a long and weary way that is beset by many perils. The paradise of Aalu is situated in the west. Bleak and waterless deserts have to be crossed, and these are infested by fierce reptiles. Boiling streams also intercept the pilgrim, who is always in danger of being compelled to turn back. When the soul sets out, he takes with him his stave and his weapons and also food for nourishment. He climbs the western mountains and then enters the Kingdom of the Dead. An immense sycamore tree towers before him with great clusters of fruit amidst its luxuriant foliage. As he approaches it, a goddess leans out from the trunk, as from a window, displaying the upper part of her body. In her hands she holds a tray heaped with cakes and fruit. She also has a pot of clear fresh water. The soul must eat the magic food and drink the magic water, and thus become a servant of the gods if he is to proceed farther. If he rejects the hospitality of the tree goddess, he will have to return again to the dark and narrow tomb from which he came and lead forever there a solitary and joyless existence. The soul of he who is faithful eats and drinks as desired, and then proceeds on the journey, facing many perils and enduring great trials.

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Chapter 3. Journey to the Other World

Evil spirits and fierce demons surround him, desiring that he should die a second death and cease to be. A gigantic tortoise rises against him. He must fight against it with his lance. Serpents are poised to strike, and they must be overcome. The very insects have poisonous stings and must be driven away. But his most formidable enemy is the fierce god Seth, the murderer of Osiris, the terror of the good gods and of men, who appears as an enormous red monster with a head like a camel and the body of a hound, his long and forked tail erect and venomous, eager to devour the pilgrim on his way. When the evil god is overcome and driven back, the soul goes forward until he reaches the bank of a wide river. There a magic boat awaits him. The crew consist of silent divinities who give him no aid. But before he can embark he must answer each question that the boat addresses to him. He must know and tell how it is constructed in every part, and if the papyrus roll that was laid beside his mummy contains the secrets of the boat and the magic formulae that must also be repeated, he will be ferried over the river and taken to the Osirian kingdom. The sulky «ferryman» is called Turnface – his face is always turned away from the dead who call to him. After entering the boat the soul’s journey is not yet near to its end. He wishes greatly to join those happy beings who have their dwellings in the blessed fields of Aalu, but he must first be tried before Osiris, the King of the Dead and Judge of All. The only approach to paradise is through the hall of justice, which rises before him, stupendous and dark and full of mystery. The gate is shut fast. No man can draw the bolts or enter without the permission of the king. Alone, and trembling with fear, the pilgrim soul stands before the gate with both hands uplifted in adoration. He is beheld by the shining god who is inside. Then, in a clear, full voice the soul cries out in the deep silence: Hail, unto you, О great god, you who are lord of truth! Lo! I draw nigh to thee now, О my lord, and my eyes behold you beauty. You I know, and I know also the two-and-forty gods assembled with you in the hall of justice; They observe all the deeds of the wicked; They devour those who seek to do evil;

They drink the blood of those who are condemned before you, О just and good king. The soul concludes by declaring that he is sinless and expresses the hope that no ill will befall him in the hall of judgment. The jackal-headed god Anubis, «opener of the ways», then strides from the hall and leads the soul by the hand before Osiris, who had heard the confession in silence. No word is uttered as the dead man enters. The King of the Dead sits on his high throne within a dim pavilion. His crown is on his head. In one hand he holds the crook and in the other the flail. He is the supreme judge of the dead. Before him stands the sure balance on which the heart of the dead man will be weighed. Thoth, the recording god, is beside it, and Horus and Maat, goddess of truth and justice, are there also. The guardian of the balance is a monster, which is ready to fall upon sinners who are condemned before the great god. Around the dread hall crouch the forty-two animal gods who tear the wicked to pieces. In the tingling silence that prevails, the pilgrim again recites the confession. Osiris makes no comment. Then, quivering with fear, the soul watches the gods deliberately weighing his heart in the balance, while Maat, the goddess of truth and justice, or her symbol, an ostrich feather, occupies the opposite scale. The trembling soul cries out to his heart not to witness against him. «O heart that was mine,» he says, «do not say «Behold the things he has done.» Permit me not to be wronged in the presence of the great god.» If the heart is found to be neither too heavy nor too light, the dead man is acquitted. Thoth makes known the result of the weighing to Osiris, who then orders the heart to be restored to the man on trial. «He has won the victory,» the King of the Dead exclaims. «Now let him dwell with the spirits and the gods in the fields of Aalu.» Released and rejoicing, the dead man goes forth to gaze on the wonders of the nether world. The divine kingdom is a greater and more glorious Egypt in which the souls work and hunt and combat against their enemies as in other days. To each man is allotted his task. He must till the soil and reap the grain that grows in abundance and to a great height. The harvest never fails, and famine and sorrow are unknown.

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When the soul wishes to return to visit familiar scenes on earth, it enters the body of a bird or an animal, or perhaps it blossoms as a flower. It may also visit the tomb as the ba and reanimate the mummy and go forth to gaze on scenes that were familiar and dear in other days. The souls of dead men whom Osiris condemns, because of sins committed on earth, are subjected to terrible tortures before they are devoured by the animal gods who crouch, waiting, in the silent and awful hall of judgment.

Tasks to chapter 2

Tasks 1. Look through three chapters and give the Russian equivalents to the following words. 1. tomb 2. seer 3. ghost 4. grave 5. to haunt 6. fame 7. inscription 8. descendent 9. to perpetuate 10. spell

2. Answer the questions. 1. How can we guess what early people thought about human personality? 2. In what way were dreams explained? 3. Why did ancient people try not to neglect the ka or ghost? 4. What would happen to a person whose shadow was offended? 5. Who could cast out evil spirit?

11. to conjure up 12. invocation 13. wizard 14. to decay 15. interment 16. riddance 17. embalming 18. mummy 19. mourner 20. to wail

21. peril 22. formidable 23. hospitality 24. paradise 25. justice 26. to devour 27. scale 28. torture 29. to condemn 30. to acquit

Tasks to chapter 1

1. Read the statements and decide if they are true or false. 1. Throughout all Egypt history the body was never protected from decay. 2. Dismemberment was replaced by embalming. 3. The words of pity were said into the ears of the corpse. 2. Answer the questions. 1. What caused such a variety of soul concepts? 2. How did Egyptians make the soul leave the body quickly? 3. What did the cost of embalming depend on? Why, in your opinion, was the described method of embalming the costliest? 4. What particular was in four jars? 3. Read the description of funeral procession and interpret it into Russian. Tasks to chapter 3

1. Read the statements and decide if they are true or false. 1. Only people were believed to possess a ka. 2. Humans could observe their own souls wandering about. 3. The statues of kings were intended both to give material body to soul and to praise the deceased. 4. Ancient Egyptians believed their shadows to be their mind. 5. Nowadays people have two names to protect themselves from evil spirit.

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1. Read the statements and decide if they are true or false. 1. To return to tomb the soul should accept an offer by goddess. 2. The most formidable enemy of the soul was a gigantic tortoise. 3. In the end of the soul’s trip it was awaited by magic boat. 4. The pilgrim soul repented all its sins standing before the gates. 5. The souls of condemned dead men were returned to tomb. 2. Answer the questions. 1. What was the journey of the soul so dangerous for? 54

2. What creatures did the soul have to overcome? 3. Why was the ferryman called Turnface? 4. What is the procedure of being the dead man acquitted? 5. Was the life in the nether world similar to the earth one?

TEXT VIII Read the text and do all the tasks given below. WHAT MIRACLES MEAN Woven into the history of the world’s religions, miracles are more about faith than fact. In «The Book of Miracles», NEWSWEEK»s Kenneth L. Woodward explains why so many people believe the unbelievable.

A decade ago, at the age of 12, Bernadette McKenzie found that she could no longer stand upright, even after three operations. She suffered from a tethered spinal cord, a rare congenital condition causing constant pain. The nuns at her school in suburban Philadelphia began a series of prayers, seeking the intercession of their deceased founder, Mother Frances de Sales Aviat, whom they regard as a saint. On the fourth day, Bernadette herself knelt by her bed, telling God that if this was to be her life she would accept it. But she wanted to know – a sign. If she were to walk again, she pleaded, let her favorite song, «Forever Young,» play next on the radio. It did. She immediately jumped up and ran downstairs to tell her family. Bernadette didn’t even notice that her physical symptoms had disappeared, something her doctors say is medically inexplicable. Her recovery is currently being evaluated by the Vatican as a possible miracle. Does God answer prayers? Do miracles – extraordinary events that are the result of special acts of God – really happen? Last week Christians and Jews around the globe celebrated the miracle stories central to each faith: the resurrection of Jesus at Easter and the deliverance of the Israelites at Passover. But are miracles now merely stories from long ago and – intellectually – very far away? Not to millions of believers worldwide. Every week of the year, somewhere in the world, believers gather to celebrate the miraculous deeds that God or the gods, a saint or a sage, worked on behalf of the faithful. Many Jews and Buddhists, as well as Christians, Hindus and Muslims, still look for – and, by their own accounts, experience – miraculous interventions in their lives. True, many people consider stories like Bernadette’s hopeless superstition, or mere coincidence. But many others allow for the possibility of the miraculous. According to a new 55

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NEWSWEEK Poll, 84 percent of adult Americans say they believe that God performs miracles and nearly half (48 percent) report that they have personally experienced or witnessed one. Three fourths of American Catholics say they pray for miracles, and among non-Christians – and people of no faith at all – 43 percent say they have asked for God’s intervention. Most Americans who pray for miracles ask for cures – for themselves or for loved ones. Indeed, half of those polled (50 percent) credit God with bringing back to life people who have been declared dead by medical authorities. Today, in fact, not only the Vatican but even some Muslim and Pentecostal groups have developed follow-up procedures to determine whether reported healings are in fact beyond medical explanation. But for the believers, the real question isn’t one of fact but of faith. Whether the story is a sacred event like the parting of the Red Sea or a contemporary account of a healing, the impulse is to ask, «Did this miracle really happen?» The important issue, however, is not if a miracle «really» happened but what believers make of the stories of miracles, whether the miraculous took place on the journey to the Promised Land 3,000 years ago or in Philadelphia in our own time. Miracle stories, ancient and modern, do two things: they explain the ways of God to the faithful, they are the means by which believers experience the presence of God, or the gods, in their own lives. So if we are to grasp why so many people hold fast to these stories, we have to know the tradition in which the story unfolds and how miracles are understood in each faith. Miracles are found in all the world religions. In ancient India, as in the ancient Middle East, miracles functioned as both signs and wonders. As wonders, they incited awe; as signs, they always signified the presence of transcendent power. When the Buddha dazzled his kinfolk by rising in the air, dividing his body into pieces and then rejoining them, he signaled for all to see that he had achieved complete liberation from the iron laws of karma. When the Prophet Muhammad produced water in the desert for his companions to drink, he demonstrated the compassion of Allah the All-Merciful. And when Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead, he signaled his power over death and foreshadowed his own resurrection. He also echoed the miracles worked by the earlier

Hebrew prophets Elijah and Elisha, and set the pattern for the same miracles to be worked by the apostles Peter and Paul. Newsweek’s reporting on contemporary miracle stories, and the historical research I undertook for «The Book of Miracles», demonstrates that believers still make room for the miraculous. And the history of each faith explains why – even now – so many of us believe in the unbelievable. For as long as she can remember, Angela Boudreaux has been praying to Francis Xavier Seelos, a Redemptorist priest whose bones lay buried in her parish church in Gretna, La. In the summer of 1966, Angela, now 70, was diagnosed with liver cancer. After exploratory surgery showed huge tumor masses throughout 90 percent of the organ, she was given two weeks to live. «She looked like someone out of a concentration camp,» recalls her physician, Dr. Alfred J. Ruffy Jr., now a retired professor from the Wake Forest School of Medicine. But Angela prayed to Father Seelos, asking for time to raise her four children. Almost immediately, Ruffy noticed that the grapefruit-size tumor had begun to shrink, a reversal he says could not be attributed to the rudimentary chemotherapy he had used. «It was the most remarkable case I’ve ever been involved with,» says Ruffy. The following November, Angela was on her feet and caring for her kids. The Roman Catholic Church declared the cure a miracle and two weeks ago Ruffy and the Boudreaux family were in Rome for the beatification of Father Seelos. Healing the sick is the basic form Christian miracles take. In the Gospels, Jesus works miracles either to elicit faith or – more often – as a response to an individual’s faith in him. In John’s Gospel especially, miracles are signs that in Jesus the long-awaited kingdom of God is now present. By restoring the dead to life, Jesus is also restoring sinful humankind to a new relationship with God – a mission that will be completed only by his own death and resurrection. In sum, the healing miracles not only show the compassion of Jesus but also reveal what the power and love of God are really like. Throughout the early Christian centuries, those who died for Christ were also revered as intercessors with god in heaven. Even through their relics, it was believed, these «friends of God» above could be conduits for prayers from the faithful on earth. This belief in «the communion of the saints» is what lies behind the miracles required by

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the Catholic Church of those who – after death – are officially recognized as saints. Restored to God themselves, they are, Catholics and Orthodox alike believe, able to aid others who sincerely seek favors in this life. A year ago Tyler Clarensau shuffled to the altar in the gym of Park Crest Assembly of God Church in Springfield, Mo. It was, he thinks, probably the 200th time he’d sought healing for malformed knee joints that surgery had failed to correct. Suddenly, a group of 40 other Pentecostal teenagers encircled him and began to pray. Gradually the whole congregation was raised to a prayerful roar. An hour later, when silence fell, a church volunteer pronounced that God had finally healed Clarensau’s legs. Shakily, he stood up, all eyes on him. He began to do deep knee bends, something he hadn’t accomplished in years. Now he can run – slowly. «I’d heard stories about people getting healed,» says Tyler, 15, «and I thought it was pretty cool. But I didn’t really know for sure until it happened to me.» The leaders of the Protestant Reformation rejected the Catholic «cult of the saints» as pagan superstition. But the heirs of the Reformation continued to believe that God shows «special providences» over the faithful – in effect, miracles by another name. Visions and prophecies accompanied the waves of «awakenings» and revivals among American Protestants. Many new sects and movements – including the Mormons – believed that God was restoring the church of the New Testament, with all its signs and wonders. If individual believers could experience God for themselves, they could also experience his miraculous touch. But only in the last century, with the rise of Pentecostalism, has Protestantism democratized the miraculous. Empowered by the Holy Spirit, Pentecostals believe they themselves can work, as well as receive miracles – just like the apostles of Jesus. Shoshana Levin is a singer-songwriter from a liberal Jewish family on the West Coast. But for the last 10 years she has also been a student of the Torah and a member of Chabad Lubavitch, a Hasidic group in Brooklyn, N.Y., and a devout believer in the power of its late rebbe, Menachem Mendel Schneerson. In July 1992, Shoshana’s mother was diagnosed with stomach cancer and not expected to live. The day after she heard the news, Shoshana went to the rebbe’s secretary with a letter asking Schneerson for a blessing (berucha). She was told to call back

that afternoon and, in the meantime, to have her family put mezuzas throughout the house, do good deeds and light Shabbos candles. Her mother reluctantly did as her daughter instructed, writing several checks for charitable causes. That afternoon Shoshana was told that the rebbe had granted his blessing. Three days later, when doctors did a biopsy on her mother, there were no signs of the cancer. «Someone’s prayers were answered,» the doctor said. Of all religious groups in the United States, surveys show, Jews are least likely to believe in miracles. One reason may be the Hebrew bible itself. Miracles gradually disappear as the Bible moves from the first book to the last. In Genesis, only God works miracles – that’s what God does. But after Moses is introduced, control over miracles begins to shift from God to his prophets. Moreover, from Moses to Elijah and Elisha, miracles change from public performances for large groups to private miracles on behalf of individuals. Finally, God himself ceases to appear in the Biblical texts – and miracles cease, as well. Religious Jews believe that life itself is a miracle. Nonetheless, the Talmudic literature contains a number of miracle stories about a few great sages whose deep immersion in the Torah gave them the power to work miracles. By the 18th century, Jewish mysticism developed the figure of the tzaddik ha-dor, a rebbe of exceptional holiness whose very soul is rooted in a higher realm; in this way he acts as a channel through which God’s blessings flow to the community and, in turn, as the agent of his people in petitioning God for favors. In Israel today – and in Hasidic communities elsewhere in the world – rebbes are still regarded as saints with unusual powers, and after death their grave sites become shrines. As a great soul, Rabbi Schneerson belongs to a long line of Hasidic saints. According to Chabad philosophy, a rebbe can work miracles when he perceives that an illness or other misfortune is the will of God. In those cases, he can beseech God to change what he has willed. More often, however, the rebbe shows his followers how to use mezuzas and other artifacts of Orthodox observance to open the regular channels to God’s grace. Even after his death in 1994, Shneerson has remained a channel for those seeking miracles. His office still receives more than 1,000 letters requesting blessing every day.

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Hisham Muhammad Kabbani is a Sufi saint, a sheik in the Naqshbandi Order of Islam, which traces its lineage back to the Prophet Muhammad. Now 55 and head of the order in North America, he has an M.D. from Louvain University in Belgium. He relates a miracle story that occurred in 1971, when his own spiritual master, Sheik Muhammad Nazim al-Haqqani, made a rare and unexpected visit to Kabbani’s home in Lebanon. «He said to me, «I have received an inspiration from a chain of our grandmasters that your father is going to die tonight at 7 p.m.» I asked, «How do you know this? My father is old but in good health. «He said, «It is through our essence and the spiritual connection that has been passed over thousands of years» It was 5 in the evening and he told me to call the family together and not to tell my father. At five minutes before 7, my master came to my father’s room. My father told the sheik that he was in pain and his heart was failing. When the clock was ringing at 7, my father passed away.» In the Qur’an, the Prophet Muhammad rejects every request to work miracles, saying that the Qur’an itself is a miracle, the only one a Muslim needs. But in the oral traditions (ahadith) of his life, Muhammad works numerous miracles. He multiplies food for his companions and heals a variety of ailments. Islamic theology distinguishes sharply between the miracles (mu’jiza) that God’s prophets could perform and the karama, or wonders worked by later Muslim mystics and saints. Islam means «submission» to Allah; Sufi mystics who submit their minds and bodies in total prayer achieve a level of spiritual knowledge that produces karama. Thus Sufi spiritual masters can intuit disasters, read the needs of souls and help the sick. From the beginning, Islam has also maintained a vigorous cult of the saints. The Qur’an itself speaks of friends of God (awliya’ Allah), and over the centuries Muslims have singled out certain figures for devotion, including Muhammad’s favorite daughter, Fatimah. For Shiite Muslims, the Prophet’s son-in-law Ali ibn Abi Talib even surpasses Muhammad as an intercessor with Allah. Pious Muslims venerate their saints, cherish their relics, invoke their protection and look to them for blessings. Maharaj Krishna Rasgotra, a retired foreign secretary of India, remembers the precise day almost 30 years ago when he became a devotee of Saty Sai Baba, India’s most celebrated living saint. Over the

years, the government official often witnessed Baba work his signature miracle – producing out of air mounds of vibhuti, sacred ash that his devotees credit with healing properties. But it was in 1986 that Rasgotra experienced Baba’s power firsthand. After suffering a heart attack, Rasgotra lay in a hospital recovery room. Among the hovering doctors and nurses he saw Baba, though the saint was a thousand miles away. When physicians told him he needed bypass surgery to avoid a fatal attack, Rasgotra consulted Baba in person, who told him he didn’t need it. Rasgotra skipped surgery and today, at 75, he plays 18 holes of golf regularly. «I have total faith in Baba,» says Rasgotra. «Whatever he says comes about. Whenever you are with him you feel you’re shedding something and acquiring a new kind of life.» For more than three millenniums, India has been a land of living saints. It is also a land of nearly countless local gods and goddesses – some 3 million of them, by one recent estimate. All gods, however, are but different forms of a single Absolute (Brahman) which is also the ground (Atman) of everyone who exists. Just as Hindu gods can descend in human form, so the Hindu saint can achieve god-like consciousness. Thus, through rigorous meditation and other yogic practices, the practitioner can decant his bottled divinity. Given this view, the line between human and divine is not as distinct as in the West. Both Hinduism and Buddhism are quite precise about the kinds of powers or «superknowledges» that a successful practitioner of meditation can expect. Among them are knowledge of one’s previous lives, and the abilities to traverse great distances in a moment and to penetrate the minds of others. But Buddhist sages, in particular, are wary of displaying these powers to others, lest it bolster the ego they are trying to overcome. Venerable Master Hsuan Hua, a Chinese Buddhist monk, established a Chan monastery in San Francisco in 1970. In Asia, it is reported that he could heal the ailments of those willing to follow the dharma of the Buddha. But in the United States, where he died in 1995, Master Hua thought that using supernatural powers as a teaching tool would be counterproductive in a rational, scientific society. Outside of Asian cultures, however, few believers encounter living saints – or their miracles. Indeed, in all the world’s religions the most common miracles are those connected with prayers offered anonymously at shrines. The «modern» shrine tradition may well have

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begun 2,500 years ago, when the bones of the deceased Buddha were distributed as relics to tribal chieftains. Later they were collected and enshrined in stupas across northern India. Today India is home to innumerable shrines to assorted Hindu gods and goddesses who are also implored for miracles. In some Islamic countries, as in Catholic regions of Europe, pilgrimages to shrines remain a popular form of piety. But only relatively recently have efforts been made to validate reported miracles. The Marian shrine at Lourdes in France – where the first miraculous cure was accepted in 1858 – has had only 66 of 6,000 healing claims authenticated by the shrine’s medical boards. The last was in 1987. In Iran, the Jamkaran mosque outside the holy city of Qom has been a point of pilgrimage for a thousand years. But only in 1998 did mosque officials begin investigating reported cures through its Registry of Divine Acts of Mercy. So far, officials have validated six miracles out of 270 claims. Miracles will always withhold their meaning from doubters and the merely credulous alike. In any case, miracles alone are never a substitute for faith. But as the United States becomes home to all the world’s religions, miracle stories have acquired a new and almost civic dimension. While they show that religions provide very different visions of how the transcendent operates in the world, those differences need not divide us: miracle stories also invite spiritual seekers to journey into worlds other than their own. As Gandhi understood, religion is itself an «experiment with truth.» But miracle stories can be interpreted only by communities of understanding and memory – that is, traditions. As an old Hasidic saying puts it, «He who believes all these tales is a fool, but anyone who cannot believe them is a heretic.» For believer and skeptic alike, that is the paradox inherent in any religious faith. (With Patricia King in San Francisco, Sarah Downey in Chicago, Ana Figueroa in Los Angeles, Heather won Tesoriero and Michael Cronin in New York). 1. On a separate piece of paper write your own explanation of the word «miracle». Compare your version with a partner’s one. Is it possible to find anything common in them? Read the definition by the Wordsworth Dictionary of beliefs and religions: «Actions, happenings or events exceeding the known powers of nature and attributed 63

to a supernatural cause. A constant feature of the religious traditions of the world, they often function as signs which testify to the divine approval of the message which is being proclaimed.» Does it have the same common features yours includes? 2. The word «miracle» is the key word in this text. Below you are invited to complete the chart of using the term with different verbs. Translate the word-combinations and make up the sentences of your own. work

mira cle pray for

cease

3. Look for the synonyms to the following words used in our article. 1. misfortune, 2. piety, 3. plead, 4. revival. 4. Give the English equivalents to the words in A and Russian equivalents to the words in B. A: заступничество, необъяснимый, исцелять, знак, сострадание, канонизация, грешный, почтенный, присущий; 64

B: resurrection, deeds, sage, intervention, coincidence, wonder, transcendent, kinfolk, foreshadow, venerate, intuit.

TEXT IX Read the text and do all the tasks given below.

5. Answer the following questions. Everything studied above will help you. 1. Is miracle always explicable? 2. What do people usually ask when they pray for miracle? 3. What is the same and the different between modern and ancient miracle stories? 4. The author says miracles are found in all the world religions. Is there any difference? Can you give examples? 5. What modern miracle story mentioned in this text impressed you most? 6. What is the basic form of Christian miracles? 7. What is mentioned about new religious movements» attitude to miracle within Christianity? 8. What religious groups are least likely to believe in miracles? Why? 9. Is there any mentioning of holy books? Are any of them considered to be a miracle? 10. The place taken by saints in religion is great. Are they relevant to miracle? 11. What country is a land of living saints? 12. What is your personal attitude to miracle? What would you ask if praying for miracle?

NICHOLAS AND ALEXANDRA by Robert K. Massie About the author. Born in Lexington, Kentuky, Robert K. Massie studied history at Yale University & Oxford University before embarking on a highly successful career as writer & editor. Among the publications with which the author has been associated are Newsweek, USA-1, The Saturday Evening Post, The Reporter, Saturday Review, The New York Times Magazine, and The New York Times Book Review. The affliction of the author’s young son by hemophilia inspired Mr. Massie’s interest in the tragic drama of Nicholas & Alexandra, whose son also was stricken with the disease.This factor, as many reviewers have commented, gives this brilliant work an added dimension of human understanding rare in the writing of history. «I have a firm, an absolute conviction that the fate of Russia – that my own fate and that of my family – is in the hands of God who has placed me where I am. Whatever may happen to me, I shall bow to His will with the consciousness of never having had any thought other than that of serving the country which He has entrusted to me.» Nicholas II Chapter 1 The writing of this book is the result, like most things in the life, of a circumstance of Fate. Since the day, now over ten years ago, that my wife and I discovered that our son had hemophilia, I have tried to learn how other families dealt with the problem raised by this unique disease. In time, this led to curiosity about the response of the parents of the boy who was the most famous hemophiliac of all, the Tsarevich Alexis, the only son and heir of Nicholas II, last Tsar of all the Russians.

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Alexis was the center of this united family, the focus of all its hopes and affections. His sisters worshipped him. He was his parents» pride and joy. When he was well, the palace was transformed. Everyone and everything in it seemed bathed in sunshine. From the beginning, the disease of hemophilia hung over this sunny child like a dark cloud. The first ominous evidence had appeared at six weeks, when the boy bled from his navel. As he began to crawl and toddle, the evidence grew stronger: his tumbles caused large, dark blue swellings on his legs and arms. When he was three and a half, a blow on the face brought a swelling which completely closed both eyes. Medically, hemophilia meant that the Tsarevich’s blood did not clot normally. Instead of clotting quickly as it would in a normal person, the blood continued to flow unchecked for hours, making a swelling or hematoma as big as a grapefruit. The worst pain and the permanent crippling effects of Alexis’s hemophilia came from bleeding into the joints. Blood entering the confined space of an ankle, knee or elbow joint caused pressure on the nerves and brought nightmarish pain. Sometimes the cause of the injury was apparent, sometimes not. In either cases, Alexis awakened in the morning to call, «Mama, I can’t walk today,» or «Mama, I can’t bend my elbow.» Morphine was available, but because of its destructive habit-forming quality, the Tsarevich was never given the drug. His only release from pain was fainting. «One morning I found the mother at her son’s bedside.» – wrote Pierre Gilliard, Swiss tutor of the Tsarevich Alexis. «He had had a very bad night. Dr. Derevenko was anxious as the hemorrhage had not stopped and his temperature was rising. The inflammation had spread and the pain was worse than the day before. The Tsarevich lay in bed groaning piteously. His head rested on his mother’s arm and his small, deadly white face was unrecognizable. At times the groans ceased and he murmured the one word, «Mummy.» His mother kissed him on the hair, forehead, and eyes as if the touch of her lips would relieve him of his pain and restore some of the life which was leaving him. Think of the torture of that mother, an important witness of her son’s martyrdom in those hours of anguish – a mother who knew that she herself was the cause of those sufferings, that she had transmitted the terrible disease against which human science was powerless. Now I understood the se-

cret tragedy of her life. How easy it was to reconstruct the stages of that long Calvary.» Hemophilia is as old as man. It has come down through the centuries, misted in legend, shrouded with the dark dread of a hereditary curse. On the Egypt of the Pharaohs, a woman was forbidden to bear further children if her firstborn son bled to death from a minor wound. Because over the last one hundred years it has appeared in the ruling houses of Britain, Russia and Spain, it has been called «the royal disease.» It remains one of the most mysterious and malicious of all the genetic, chronic disease. Even today, both the cause and the cure are unknown. Hemophilia follows no geographical or racial pattern; it appears on all continents, in all races at a statistical ratio of one hemophiliac among every 10,000 males. If Alexandra was surrounded by hemophilic relatives before she married, so were most of the princesses of Europe. So numerous were Queen Victoria’s royal progeny – nine children and thirty-four grandchildren – that the defective gene had been spread far and wide. In marrying and having children, hemophilia was considered one of the hazards royal parents faced, along with diphtheria, pneumonia, smallpox and scarlet fever. In that era, every family, including royal families, had a long string of children and expected to lose one or two in the process of growing up. The death of a child was never a casual experience, but it rarely brought the life of a family to more than a temporary halt. Nevertheless, in Alexandra’s case the mere threat of death to her youngest child involved her totally, and through her, the fate of an ancient dynasty and the history of a great nation. Why was this so? It is important to understand what the birth of Alexis meant to Alexandra. Her greatest desire after her marriage had been to give the Russian autocracy a male heir. Over the next ten years, she had four daughters, each healthy, charming and loved, but still not an Heir to the Throne. Each time Alexandra became pregnant, she prayed fervently for a boy. Each time, it seemed, her prayers were ignored. When Anastasia, their fourth daughter, was born, Nicholas had to leave the palace and walk in the park to overcome his dissapointment before facing his wife. The birth of the Tsarevich, therefore, meant far more to his mother than the arrival of just another child. This baby was the crowning of her mar-

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riage, the fruit of her hours of prayer, God’s blessing on her, on her husband and on the people of Russia. All who saw the Empress with her infant son in those first months were struck with her happiness. At thirty-two, Alexandra was tall, still slender, with gray-blue eyes and long red-gold hair. The child in her arms appeared to be glowing with health. The Tsarevich certainly was one of the handsomest babies one could imagine, with lovely fair curls, great gray-blue eyes under the fringe of long curling lashes and the fresh pink color of a healthy child. When he smiled, there were two little dimples in his chubby cheeks. Because she had waited so long and prayed so hard for her son, the revelation that Alexis suffered from hemophilia struck Alexandra with savage force. From that moment, she lived in the particular sunless world reserved for the mothers of hemophiliacs. For any woman, there is no more exquisite torture than watching helplessly as a beloved child suffers in extreme pain. Hemophilia means great loneliness for a woman. At first, when a hemophilic boy is born, the characteristic maternal reaction is a vigorous resolve to fight: somehow, somewhere, there must be a specialist who can declare that a mistake has been made, or that a cure is just around the corner. One by one, all the specialists are consulted. One by one, they sadly shake their heads. The particular emotional security that doctors normally provide when confronting illness is gone. The mother realizes that she is alone. Having discovered this and accepted it, she begins to prefer it that way. The normal world, going about its everyday life, seems coldly unfeeling. Since the normal world cannot help and does not understand, she prefers to cut herself off from it. Her family becomes her refuge. Here, where sadness need not be hidden, there are no questions and no pretensions. This inner world becomes the mother’s reality. So it was for the Empress Alexandra in the little world of Tsarskoe Selo. Alexandra, trying to control the waves of anxiety and frustration that kept rolling over her, sought answers by throwing herself into the Church. The Russian Orthodox Church is an emotional church with a strong belief in the healing power of faith and prayer. As soon as the Empress realized that no doctor could aid her son, she determined to wrest from God the Miracle which science denied. «God is just,» she declared, and plunged

into renewed attempts to win His mercy by the fervent passion of her prayers. Hour after hour, she prayed, either in the small room off her bedroom or in the palace chapel, a darkened chamber lined with silken tapestries. For greater privacy, she established a small chapel in the crypt of the Fedorovski Sobor, a church in the Imperial Park used by the household and soldiers of the Guard. Here, alone on the stone floors, by the light of oil lamps, she begged for the health of her son. In periods when Alexis was well, she dared to hope. «God has heard me,» she cried. Even as the years passed and one hemorrhage followed another, Alexandra refused to believe that God had deserted her. Instead, she decided that she herself must be unworthy of receiving a miracle. Knowing that the disease had been transmitted through her body, she began to dwell on her own guilt. Obviously, she told herself, if she had been the instrument of her son’s torture, she could not also become the instrument of his salvation. God has rejected her prayers; therefore she must find someone who was closer to God to intercede on her behalf. When Gregory Rasputin, the Siberian peasant who was reported to have miraculous power of faith healing, arrived in St. Petersburg, Alexandra believed that God had at last given her an answer. Russians are a compassionate people, warm in their love of children and deeply perceptive in their understanding of suffering. Why did they not open their hearts to this anguished mother and her stricken child? The answer, incredibly, is that Russia did not know. Most people in Moscow or Kiev or St. Petersburg did not know that the Tsarevich had hemophilia. When he missed a public function, it was announced that he had a cold or had suffered a sprained ankle. No one believed these explanations and the boy became the subject of incredible rumors. Alexis was said to be the victim of anarchists» bombs. At last, after Dr. Fedorov warned Nicholas that the hemorrhage in the stomach could be fatal at any hour, Count Fredericks received permission to begin publishing medical bulletins. Still, there was no mention of the cause. Official announcements of the grave illness of the Heir to the Throne plunged Russia into national prayer. Special services were held in great cathedrals and in small churches in lonely villages. Before the blessed icon in the Cathedral of Our Lady of Kazan in St. Petersburg,

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Russians stood and prayed night and day. «All the servants, the Cossacks, the soldiers and all the rest were wonderfully sympathetic,» Nicholas wrote to his mother. «At the beginning of Alexei’s illness, they begged the priest, Vassiliev, to hold a Te Deum in the open. They begged him to repeat it every day until he recovered.» More than once, it seemed the end had come. At lunch one day, the Tsar was handed a note scribbled by the Empress from her place beside Alexis’s bed. Alexis was suffering so terribly that she knew he was about to die. It was on this night, at the end of hope, that Alexandra called on Rasputin. She asked Anna Vyrubova [The Empress Alexandra’s closest friend and confident] to telegraph him in Pokrovskoe, his home in Siberia, begging him to pray for the life of her son. Rasputin immediately cabled back: «God has seen your tears and heard your prayers. Do not grieve. The Litlle One will not die. Do not allow the doctors to bother him too much.» A day later, the hemorrhage stopped. The boy was spent, utterly wasted, but alive. The part played by Rasputin’s telegram in Alexis’s recovery remains one of the most mysterious of the whole Rasputin legend. A month later, Alexis had recovered sufficiently to be moved back to Tsarskoe Selo. Almost a year was to pass before Alexis could walk again. He became a more serious child, more reflective and more considerate of other people. For an eight-year-old boy, it was a matter to ponder that his father was autocrat over millions of men and the master of the largest empire on earth, and yet had no power to spare him the pain he had felt in his leg. For Alexandra, it was a supreme religious experience. She had been, for what seemed an eternity, in Hell. The power that vanquished Hell and saved her son had been a sign from Heaven. Beneath that sign stood Gregory Rasputin.

2. Answer the following questions. 1. What prompted the author to write this book? 2. What emotions are aroused by the description of Alexis’ disease? 3. What words did the author use to show mother’s fidget? 4. The author mentioned that hemophilia was spread among royal families. Why was the situation with Alexandra particular? 5. Why does hemophilia mean loneliness for a woman? 6. What became the Empress’ salvation? 7. What did Alexandra feel when Rasputin appeared? 8. How did the author, the foreigner, describe the Russian Orthodox church and the Russians? 9. Why did the Tsarevich become the subject of rumors? 10. How did people react to the Heir’s illness? 11. Did Alexis change after it? 12. Can we say the same happen to Alexandra? Why?

1. Look through the text and find the synonyms to the following words. 19. exhausted 13. curing 7. spiteful 1. grief 20. tzar 14. achieve 8. posterity 2. destiny 21. reflect 15. wonder 9. successor 3. miserably 16. forgiveness 22. immortality 10. solitude 4. misery 23. overcome 17. mediate 11. shelter 5. helpless 18. gossip 6. imprecation 12. inward

Chapter 2 There was much about Gregory Rasputin that was repulsive. When he first appeared in 1905 in several of St. Petersburg’s most elegant drawing rooms, the heralded Siberian «miracle worker» was in his early thirties, broad-shouldered, muscular, of average height. He dressed roughly in loose peasant blouse and baggy trousers tucked into the top of heavy, cruedly made leather boots. He was filthy. He rose and slept and rose again without ever bothering to wash himself or change his clothes. His hands were grimy, his nails black, his beard tangled and encrusted with debris. His hair was long and greasy. Not surprisingly, he gave off a powerful, acrid odor. Rasputin’s eyes were his most remarkable feature. Friends and enemies alike described their strange power. It was difficult to resist the power of Rasputin’s steady gaze. Rasputin’s eyes were the foundation of his power, but when they failed him, he was quick to use his wheedling tongue.

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The rise of Gregory Rasputin would have been impossible in any country other than Russia. Even in Russia, pungent, shaggy, semiliterate peasants did not normally take tea with prime ministers. Rasputin appeared in St. Petersburg as a starets – a Man of God who lived in poverty, asceticism and solitude, offering himself as a guide to other souls in moments of suffering and turmoil. Sometimes, as in his case, the starets might also be a strannik – a pilgrim who carried his poverty and his offerings of guidance in wanderings from place to place. These were types that all Russians could recognize. Through Russian history, armies of impoverished pilgrims had walked across the stepps from village to village and monastery to monastery, living on whatever the peasants or monks might choose to give them. Many ascetics walked barefoot in the winter or wrapped their legs with heavy chains. Some preached, others claimed powers of healing. If the Orthodox church caught them preaching heresy, they went to prison, but their poverty and self-sacrifice often made them seem holier than the local priests. All Russians listened to these holy men. Even educated Russians treated them with respect. Dostoyevsky wrote in The Brothers Karamasov, « The starets is he who takes your soul and makes it his.» Before his death, Count Leo Tolstoy visited the revered starets of Optina Poustin for counsel. Rasputin was a fraudulent starets. Most were saintly old men who had left all temptation and worldly goods behind. Rasputin was young, he was married and had three children, and his powerful friends later bought him the grandest house in his village. His mind was impure and his moral behavior was gross. His head was filled with Scriptures, and his deep, powerful voice made him a compelling preacher. Besides, he had wandered the length and breadth of Russia and twice made pilgrimages to the Holy Land. He presented himself as a humble penitent, a man who had sinned greatly, been forgiven and commanded to do God’s work. It was a touching symbol of his humility, people said, that he kept the nickname «Rasputin» which he had earned as a young man in his native village. «Rasputin» in Russian means «dissolute.» Rasputin was born Gregory Efimovich, the son of Efim, a farmer who once had been a coachman in the Imperial Mail. The year was 1872; thus he was thirty-three when he first met the Imperial Family,

and forty-four when he died. His birthplace was Pokrovskoe, a village on the Tura River in western Siberia. It was a hard, windswept land where the temperature in winter dropped to forty below zero and to survive took great strength and hard physical work. Climate and isolation had their effect on the mind, and more mystics, more holy men and more outlandish sects came out of Siberia than any other part of Russia. Rasputin’s first appearance in St. Petersburg occurred in 1903 and lasted for five months. Even in the capital, remote and sophisticated, his reputation had preceded him. He was said to be a strange Siberian moujik who, having sinned and repented, had been blessed with extraordinary powers. As such, he was received by the city’s most famous churchman, Father John of Kronstadt. John was a saintly figure noted for the power of his prayers, and his church at Kronstadt was an object of pilgrimages from across Russia. He had been the private confessor to Tsar Alexander III and had sat with the family by Alexander’s bed at Livadia while the Tsar was dying. To be received and blessed by this most revered priest in Russia was an impressive step in Rasputin’s progress. In 1905, Rasputin was back in St. Petersburg. This time, he was taken to meet the aged Archimandrite Theophan, Inspector of the St. Petersburg Theological Academy and former confessor to the Empress Alexandra. Like Father John, Theophan was struck by the apparent fervor of Rasputin’s faith and arranged for him to meet ranking churchman, Bishop Hermogen of Saratov. With all of these priests and bishops, Rasputin’s approach was the same. He refused to bow and treated them with jolly, spontaneous good humor, as if they were friends and equals. Put off balance by his egalitarianism and simple sincerity, they were also impressed by his obvious gifts as a preacher. He was a phenomenon, it seemed to them, which had been given to the Church and which the Church, then trying to strengthen its roots among the peasants, could put to valuable use. They welcomed him as a genuine starets. The truth about Rasputin’s effect on the Tsarevich will never be precisely known. Few medical records of these episodes were kept and none survived the Revolution. There were those who, in regard to Rasputin,expressed scepticism that his presence had any effect at all. Pierre Gilliard [Swiss tutor of the Tsarevich Alexis] mentions the theory that Rasputin was a clever cheat who had an accomplice in the palace.

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By 1911, St. Petersburg was in an uproar over Rasputin. It was the Church which initiated the first formal investigation of Rasputin’s activities and carried the first official complaints to the Tsar. Bishop Theophan, who had been impressed by Rasputin’s faith and had recommended him to the Empress, was the first to entertain doubts. Once he had been Alexandra’s confessor; now he advised her that something was fearfully wrong about the «Holly Man» he had recommended to her. The result was that Theophan, a distinguished theologian, was transferred from the Theological Academy to become Bishop of the Crimea. Next, the Metropolitan Anthony called on the Tsar to discuss Rasputin. Nicholas replied that the private affairs of the Imperial family were no concern of the Church. «No , Sire,» the Metropolitan replied, «this is not merely a family affair, but the affair of all Russia. The Tsarevich is not only your son, but our future sovereign and belongs to all Russia.» Nicholas nodded and quietly ended the interview. But soon afterward, Anthony fell ill and died. The single most damaging attack on Rasputin came from a flamboyant young zealot of a monk named Iliodor. Iliodor was fanatical in his beliefs. He preached strict adherence to the Orthodox faith and the absolute autocracy of the Tsar. In Rasputin, Iliodor saw an ally. When Rasputin was first brought to him by Theophan , Iliodor welcomed the primitive religious fervor manifested by the starets. In 1909, Iliodor discovered Rasputin’s other face. After the Revolution, Basil Shulgin, an intensely monarchist member of the Duma and one of the two men who, trying to preserve the monarchy, obtained the abdication of Nicholas II, analyzed Rasputin’s role: «Rasputin was a Janus... To the Imperial family he had turned his face as a humble starets and, looking at it, the Empress cannot but be convinced that the spirit of God rests upon this man. And to the country he has turned the beastly, drunken unclean face of a bald satyr from Tobolsk. Here we have the key to it all. The country is indignant that such a man should be received under the Tsar’s roof. And under the roof there is bewilderment and a sense of bitter hurt. Why should they all be enraged? That a saintly man came to pray over the unhappy Heir, a desperately sick child whose least imprudent movement may end in death? So the Tsar and the Empress are hurt and in-

dignant. Why should there be such a storm? The man has done nothing but good. Thus a messenger of death has placed himself between the throne and the nation... And because of the man’s fareful duality, understood by neither Tsar nor people, neither side can understand the other. So the Tsar and his people, however apart, are leading each other to the edge of the abyss.» Pierre Gilliard was more succinct. «The fatal influence of that man [Rasputin] was the principal cause of death of those who thought to find in him their salvation.»

3. Translate the text below into English. Григорий Распутин родился 29 июля 1871 года в селе Покровское Тюменской области. Поскольку место его рождения было практически недосягаемо для большинства желающих, то о жизни Григория Распутина на родине сохранились лишь отрывочные и неточные сведения, источником которых был в основном он сам. В 18 лет Распутин совершил первое паломничество в монастырь в Верхотуре, однако монашеского обета не дал. В 19 лет он возвратился в Покровское, где женился.

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1. Look through the text again and find all the epithets used to describe the personality of Gregory Rasputin. Divide them into two groups [with positive and negative meaning] and consider which one prevails in number. Make a conclusion. 2. Answer the following questions. 1. Can we guess that the book was written not by the Russian author? If yes, how? 2. The author said that the rise of Rasputin was possible only in Russia. How did he explain this statement? Do you find these arguments enough? 3. How did the author explain the term starets? 4. What facts of Rasputin’s biography are mentioned in the text? 5. Were there any priests trying to reveal Rasputin’s real face? What happened to them? 6. Do you consider Rasputin as positive or negative event in history of Russia? Why?

Брак не остудил паломнический пыл (to cool his pilgrim’s ardour) Григория Распутина. Он продолжал посещать различные святые места, дошел даже до монастыря Атос в Греции и до Иерусалима. И все это пешком! После таких путешествий Распутин возомнил (considered) себя избранником Бога, объявил, что он святой, и на каждом шагу (all around) рассказывал о своем чудодейственном даре приносить исцеление. Слухи о сибирском знахаре стали распространяться по России, и вскоре уже не Распутин совершал паломничества, а люди стремился попасть к нему. Многие из его пациентов прибывали из далеких краев. Необходимо отметить при этом, что Распутин нигде не учился, не имел даже примерного представления (has no idea) о медицине, был неграмотным. Однако он безукоризненно (impeccably) играл свою роль: действительно помогал людям, мог успокоить тех, кто находился на грани отчаяния. Однажды Распутину было знамение (sign) – ему явилась Богоматерь, которая рассказала о болезни царевича Алексея, единственного сына императора Николая II, и приказала Распутину ехать в Петербург и спасти наследника престола. В 1905 году Распутин попал в столицу Российской империи, причем в очень удачный момент. Дело в том, что церковь нуждалась в «пророках» – людях, которым бы верил народ. Распутин был как раз из этой категории – типичная крестьянская внешность, простая речь, крутой нрав. Однако враги говорили, что Распутин использует религию лишь как ширму (screen) для жажды денег и власти. В 1907 году его пригласили к императорскому двору – как раз в разгар одного из приступов болезни у цесаревича. Дело в том, что императорская семья скрывала гемофилию наследника, опасаясь общественных волнений. Поэтому они долго отказывались от услуг Распутина. Однако когда состояние ребенка стало критическим, Николай сдался. Вся последующая жизнь Распутина в Санкт-Петербурге была неразрывно связана с лечением царевича. Однако не ограничивалась этим. Распутин приобрел много знакомых в высших слоях петербургского общества. Обе дочери Григория Распутина были определены в гимназию.

Николай не приветствовал частые появления Распутина во дворце. Тем более, что вскоре в Петербурге стали ходить слухи о крайне непристойном поведении Распутина. В конце концов чаша терпения была переполнена. В среде императорского окружения возник заговор против Распутина. Его инициаторами были князь Феликс Юсупов (муж императорской племянницы), Владимир Митрофанович Пуришкевич (депутат IV Государственной Думы, известный своими ультраконсервативными взглядами) и великий князь Дмитрий Павлович (двоюродный брат императора Николая). 30 декабря 1916 года они пригласили Григория Распутина во дворец Юсупова для встречи с племянницей императора, известной петербургской красавицей. В пирожных и напитках, поданных гостю, содержался цианистый калий. Однако яд не подействовал. Нетерпеливые заговорщики решили использовать стопроцентное средство – Юсупов выстрелил в Распутина. Но ему снова удалось спастись. Когда он выбежал из дворца, его встретили Пуришкевич и великий князь, которые в упор застрелили «сибирского старца». Он еще пытался подняться на ноги, когда его связали, засунули в мешок с грузом и сбросили в прорубь (ice-hole). Позже вскрытие (necropsy) показало, что старец, уже будучи на дне Невы, отчаянно боролся за свою жизнь, но в конце концов захлебнулся (became breathless)...

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TEXT X Do you find the new religious organizations to be a dangerous movement? Can we consider them cults? What causes the appearance of sects and cults? Have you heard anything about Scientology Church? Have any of your friends or acquaintances joined scientology? Read the definition of the term «scientology» given by the Wordsworth dictionary of beliefs and religions. A movement on the fringe of Christianity, developed in the USA by L Ron Hubbard in the 1950s, which strives to open the mind of adherents to all great truths and to self-determination. Jesus is seen as one of several important teachers. The Church’s scientific and religious claims have given rise to much controversy, as have its methods of financial management, and in the 1980s it defended several lawsuits in the USA. Nevertheless it has a wide following. Now read the Internet site article about this organization and do the tasks below. MOVING OUT OF A STOREFRONT INTO A TEMPLE, NEW HAVEN’S CHURCH OF SCIENTOLOGY IS BOOMING The Yale Herald / October 1, 2005 By Adriane Quibly

A Scientology Center on Hollywood Boulevard in Hollywood, California

Matthew has a scrubbed, clean face. He smiles a lot. He can’t be older than 23, 24. His cornflower blue polo has been ironed. It matches his eyes. On the left breast, his shirt is imprinted with the phrase, «This is it! / The Ideal Org! / We’re putting it here!,» just over the heart. If you ask him what the «Ideal Org,» refers to, Matthew will pull a book off a shelf of leatherbound volumes, flipping to a page he has already memorized: «One would look at this ideal org and know that this was the place a new civilization was being established for this planet.» 79

Matthew glances around a fluorescent-lit, drop-ceilinged room that looks like a driving school – all motivational posters and video equipment shoved into corners. Matthew sighs. «This,» he says, closing the book, «is the ideal org.» «This» is New Haven’s Church of Scientology, a squat office on Whalley Ave. that looks more like one of the city’s storefront churches than the site of a new civilization’s inception. In a city founded by persecuted pilgrims, it’s easy to dismiss just another religious sect, especially one so often characterized by the media as a kooky, antipsychiatry prayer group. But Scientologists like Matthew claim to be part of the «world’s fastest growing religion» and describe the era to come as a sort of Golden Age for Scientology. Now, New Haven’s Scientologists are constructing a multi-million dollar church. Just down the road, Yalies remain blissfully unaware of the movement starting in their own backyard. What most passesby know about Scientology they’ve gleaned from supermarket tabloids. But, the facts of this religion are far stranger than a 300 pound baby. Followers believe in an Overlord, or Creatorfigure named Xenu, who, 75 million years prior, sent his planet’s excess population, or Thetans, on space planes (modeled after Douglas DC-8s) to the planet Teegeeack, or Earth, for extermination. Loading the Thetans into Earth’s volcanoes, he pelted them with hydrogen bombs – such that their exploded corpses adhered to the flesh of the native earthlings. According to Scientologists, this cosmology is really no less believable than the Virgin Birth or Jesus’s resurrection. But what seems a little bit strange is that all this was prophesied in the «50s by an entrepreneur named L. Ron Hubbard, who is best known outside the church as the author of hundreds of sci-fi pulps. New Haven’s Scientologist clan plans to move from the former furniture store that they currently occupy into the former 1926 Olive Branch Masonic Temple, a space three times as large. A display case in the present office showcases the impressive refurbishment plans – all plush velvet, scrollwork, and mysterious symbols carved like Wedgewood onto dimly lit, buttery walls. Though symbolically this new facility marks their «Golden Age» in New Haven, its interior is currently gutted and empty. Just last weekend, a modest tag sale aimed to raise the last of the funds: L. Ron Hub80

bard cassette tapes lay for sale alongside sweater-vests and «60s cookbooks. Minister Carol Yingling came to work in slippers. «I forgot I sold my favorite black shoes,» she explained to the sparse congregation, pointing at her feet, «I had to buy them back on the way over here.» On that Sunday, Yingling was only speaking to twenty-five people sitting in folding chairs. The new church, however, has space for almost five times that many. To make full use of the new elbow room, Rachel, the head of recruitment, says they’re looking to double the number of staff members – from the present 40 to around 80. Will the church look to Yale to fill the gap? Currently, there are no registered Scientologist student groups on campus, and no Yalies attend services. But certainly Yale will feel the effects of the church expansion. Recruitment schemes are growing more and more insidious – swiftly zooming in on fumbling, self-seeking college students, individuals desperate for a connection with something greater. Rachel herself was recruited right out of college, and nearly as soon as she stepped foot in the church, she was offered a staff position: «I finished the Basic Study manual before I finished my first Dianetics course,» she bragged to her friend and co-worker, Don, a Southern Connecticut State University drop out. In other words, Rachel finished qualifications for a clergy position before she even attended Sunday school. Though Scientologists have occupied the Elm City since the religion’s advent in the «50s in the form of «missions,» the first church came about in the early «80s, and recruitment is only now edging toward the University’s campus. Recently, Scientologists have actively recruited near the intersection of York and Broadway, outside the student-flooded Gourmet Heaven, touting «stress tests» which encourage students to evaluate their lives using a handy written examination as well as an «e-meter,» a pseudo-scientific measuring device outfitted with two steel cylinders, which purportedly senses, through changes of mass, the moment when the person holding them grabs hold of an idea. Until the FDA stepped in in 1963, Scientologists freely marketed the device as a psychological aid and medical panacea. Today, there’s a small warning label. It’s easy to understand how Scientology’s most immediate claim – a cleansing of stress – might attract the oft-overworked college stu-

dent. A video screened to newcomers explains Scientology’s core practice – Dianetics, a pseudo-psychological confessional that aims to rid participants of the bad memories that inhibit their current behavior. «I never get depressed – ever,» a member of the congregation testified of the process. When asked by the video’s narrator think back on negative phrases they hear constantly, a man described how the phrase, «I’m a loser, I’m a loser,» loops in his head. The scene recalls, of course, the Beck lyric, «I’m a loser, baby / So why don’t you kill me?» Even Beck, indie-teen-idol, is a registered Scientologist, whose glammy smile graces Scientology’s shiniest propaganda. Five or six teenaged girls sit in the back row at service one Sunday, sneaking peaks at sci-fi romances one minute and listening to the minister the next. In the past year, both the University of Cincinatti and the University of Houston have printed op-eds against aggressive recruitment techniques. Matthew, Rachel, and Don admit they actively recruit from «business colleges and typing colleges» in the area, but haven’t yet set foot on Yale’s campus – a feat which requires paperwork. University Chaplain Reverend Frederick J. Streets, doesn’t mind their recent encroachment: «When it comes to Yale students,» he said in a phone interview, «my main concern is that before they give their commitment [to any group] they should be very critically thinking about it, what’s expected of them, what do they think they’re going to get out of it, before deciding to be a part of it.» Before a Yalie considers Scientology, he or she should consider the cost, even before the creed. The major contrast between Scientology and other organized religions is a system of mandatory donations, like tithes, that must be paid to undergo the auditing sessions necessary to attain enlightenment. «They’re the only religious group I know that self-consciously operates as if it is a business,» Jon Butler, professor of religious history at Yale, said. Speaking of how Scientology offers classes in everything from drug awareness to marriage counseling, Rachel mentions that what’s really helpful are the classes on finances. She pulls out two books written by Hubbard – The Dynamics of Money and Financial Control. But the church’s real financial record is not spelled out as clearly. IRS evidence tracks funds from congregants through money

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laundering systems in Panama, to numbered Swiss bank accounts. A 1991 Time Magazine article estimated the income of just one of their branches at $503 million per year. The Golden Age comes with a price. The church is often marred by lawsuits from disenchanted congregants who claim Scientology scammed them out of thousands of dollars – promising enlightenment. «It’s an option,» Yingling said of the donations. «People sometimes give more.» Rachel and Matthew are happy to work at the Church. That way, their auditing sessions are «discounted.» A chart on the back wall shows them how many levels they have left before they reach «clear,» and shows the strata of enlightenment above that. It seems to go up and up forever. Scientologists think a lot of things can be solved by «auditing,» a process that medical professionals don’t agree with. A framed sign on Rachel’s desk reads, in friendly, curly script, «If you have come here to be cured of a physical illness, see the registrar.» The registrar is a full time staffer who schedules auditing sessions. Scientology’s blacklist of diseases, which are «purely psychosomatic» and thus curable through auditing, include tuberculosis, heart conditions, the common cold, arthritis, and ulcers – from which Hubbard himself suffered. And some of the biggest court battles Scientologists have fought have been against the families of the dead who demanded repercussions for an institution which pulled their loved ones away from clinically proven modes of mental healing toward a «religion» founded on the un-researched ideas of a man who failed grade school. Though the religion publicly disavows psychology, Scientologists» core beliefs encapsulate a good deal of psychological rhetoric, an irony which isn’t lost on Butler. «Well, I mean, there’s a very crude parallel between Scientology and the earliest stages of Christian development in the sense that you’re creating a new religious system,» Butler observed. «And they use a variety of techniques to create themselves, such as appropriating a language we esteem.» Closely following Freud’s theories of repression, Scientologists believe that bad memories, or «engrams,» become infused with everything concurrent to them. To rid the mind of «engrams,» congregants must consciously move their bad memory associations from this «reactive mind» to the portion of their brain which can analyze and under-

stand: the «analytic mind.» Like psychoanalysis, whose terms Hubbard appropriated, the «Auditing sessions» that cure these problems’ prices run steep and are the only way for a «preclear» (someone whose mind is still cluttered with engrams), to achieve «clear,» or, in other religions: enlightenment. But Scientologists draw a hard line between the type of therapy they offer and psychological therapy. Don, a church staff member, speaks at length of Scientology’s accepting nature – citing the Creed written by Hubbard whose first tenet is «that all men of whatever race, color, or creed were created with equal rights» – but he admits that there is a kind of person they would be unwilling to welcome into the fold: «If you wanted to be a psychologist and gave lobotomies, then we’re against that,» he says. «We’re just against people hurting other people.» In a classroom just behind him, an instructor sports a shirt that screams: «Psychiatric drugs turn children into Killers!!!» The argument that today’s youth is over-medicated has perhaps been more tastefully made in less absolute terms. On Yale’s campus, academics looking solely at statistics would disagree with church leaders that psychology is detrimental. «The attack on psychology is dangerous precisely for people who need reputable counseling,» said Professor Butler. University Chaplain Rev. Streets, whose office provides pamphlets advertising «Mental Health and Counseling Services» alongside pamphlets from «Indigo Blue, A Center for Buddhist Life at Yale,» is also worried about such a hard and fast division. «I believe that there should be and can be a healthy relation between science and health and religion,» he said. «Religious groups make the separation much more strongly than I would.» Like the Christian Right, cults and religious sects galvanize their various supporters around a «Satanic figure,» Butler argues. «There are certain people in society who thrive on the existence of evil and the personification of evil.» In order to become a staff member of the Church of Scientology, one must swear an oath that one has not undergone psychoanalysis. Unlike religions interested in converting the downtrodden, Scientologists’ restriction on who it will agree to «help» seems to counter an argument like Don’s that the church is solely interested in «helping people.» There is one segment of the «Gay Ivy» that Scientology might not «help,» exactly: homosexual students. «I have gay friends,» says

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Don, «but they’re not Scientologists.» Homosexuals are classified as an «outness on the second dynamic,» Rachel explains gently. Ask her what she means and she’ll define «Dynamic two» as sexuality, and «outness,» as a problem, a deviation (all of this is in their bible, Dianetics). This seems to be the core of Scientologists’ belief. Whereas many religions embrace difference and celebrate it, Scientology professes to embrace difference and then eradicate it. «That’s just a part of the person’s case,» Rachel says, speaking still of the rhetorical possibility of a homosexual. «And it would be able to be audited.» But New Haven’s congregation concentrates less on the negative aspects of their burgoening congregation, and more on celebrating their messiah figure, L. Ron Hubbard. The Whalley branch sports a brass sculpture of Father Hubbard’s pouting bust, a framed portrait of him glowering and ponderous hangs behind the main podium, and upstairs, in the church’s administrative wing, an office is kept for him, dusted regularly, in case he stops by. It looks like the lair of a less glamorous Mr. Burns – complete with an imposing executive chair, a wide desk, a jar of pens, a bookshelf housing some of his many writings, a fax machine, and – according to rumors–a cup of coffee to be refilled daily. But Hubbard has been dead for nearly ten years. «It’s a tradition,» says Minister Carol Yingling as she shows off the second floor. «Every church keeps an office. We’re building an office for Mr. Hubbard in our new building.» In this Golden Age of Scientology, L. Ron Hubbard’s office stays empty. And so, too, may the chairs in their new building. «We don’t tell people what to believe about God,» Carol Yingling says on a Sunday, watching her congregation file out. «People come to it on their own.» At her request, the writer’s name has been changed.

1. Here you are given the definitions to some difficult words from this text. Look them through and try to understand their meanings. Sci-fi – science fiction-stories in books, magazines, and films about events that take place in the future or in other parts of the universe; to squat – to occupy an unused building or unused land without having a legal right to do so; kooky – slightly strange or eccentric, but often in a way which makes you like them; earthling – used in science fiction to refer to human beings who live on the planet Earth; to gut (a building) – to destroy the inside of it so that only its outside walls remain; indie (music) – rock or pop music produced by new bands working with small, independent record companies; lobotomy – a surgical operation in which some of the nerves in the brain are cut in order to treat severe mental illness; scam – an illegal trick, usually with the purpose of getting money from people or avoiding paying tax; downtrodden – people treated very badly by people with power, and they do not have the ability or the energy to do anything about it. 2. Look through the text and find the following words. Give their Russian equivalents. Match them with their definitions. 1. advent 2. be persecuted 3. burgeon 4. deviation 5. disavow

6. enlightenment 7. exterminate 8. fraternity 9. haven 10. lawsuit

11. op-ed 12. refurbishment 13. scam 14. tenet 15. thrive

Vocabulary notes: Org – organisation Oft-overworked – often worked too hard IRS – inland Revenue Service (внутренняя налоговая служба США) FDA – Food and Drug Administration (управление по контролю за продуктами и лекарствами в США)

a) case in a court of law which concerns a dispute between two people or organizations; b) to do well and be successful, healthy, or strong; c) the fact of it starting or coming into existence; d) to be treated cruelly and unfairly, often because of race or beliefs; e) to say that you are not connected with something or responsible for it;

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f) a final spiritual state in which everything is understood and there is no more suffering or desire; g) doing something that is different from what people consider to be normal or accebtable; h) a theory or belief are the main principles on which it is based; i) an illegal trick, usually with the purpose of getting money from people or avoiding paying tax; j) a page containing articles in which people express their opinions about things; k) people who have the same profession or the same interests; l) the act or process of cleaning it, decorating it, and providing it with new equipment or facilities; m) a place where people or animals feel safe, secure, and happy; n) to grow or develop rapidly; o) to kill a group of people or animals. 3. Give English equivalents to these words. Make sentences of your own using these words. 1. становиться известным 2. отправная точка (начало) 3. блаженно 4. бульварная пресса 5. хитрый, коварный 6. универсальное средство 7. выдуманный 8. агрессия, вторжение

9. прихожанин 10. отражение 11. последствия 12. священник 13. доход 14. пагубный 15. логовище 16. ловкий трюк

4. Answer the following questions. Use the words from the tasks above. 1. What version of earth’s origin is given in this text? Who was it prophesied by? 2. What persons are usually recruited by Scientologists? 3. The leader of new religious movement is usually considered to be a charismatic person. Is it the same with L. Ron Hubbard? What is mentioned about him in this text? 4. Why in your opinion do they consider the classes on finance really helpful? 87

5. Can you explain the scientologists’ main claim? 6. How do they offer to solve the problem of bad memories? 7. Can we catch the author’s attitude to this organization? If yes, find the words and phrases which help us do it. 8. What scientific and religious signs does this movement have? 9. What information from this text would you use to persuade your friend to avoid New Haven’s Scientologist clan? 10. Why to your mind did the author ask to change her name? 5. Translate the extract taken from «Encyclopedia about Crimes and disasters» into English. All studied above will help you. Церковь Сайентологии Основателем «Церкви сайентологии» был отставной (retired) морской офицер Лафайет Рон Хаббард. Он родился в Тилдене (американский штат Небраска) в 1911 г. После второй мировой войны Хаббард взялся за написание научно-фантастических романов. В 1950 г. Хаббард, написавший к этому времени уже 76 таких романов, выпустил книгу под названием «Дианетика: современная наука о духовном здоровье». Термин L. Ron Hubbard «дианетика» он объясняет как сочетание греческих слов, в переводе означающих «через душу» или «через сознание», т. е. наукой о сознании, или сайентологией – наукологией. Дианетика, по утверждениям самого Хаббарда, решает свои задачи не прибегая к помощи гипноза, наркотиков, хирургии и других искусственных средств. «Дианетика» наделала много шума. В течение трех месяцев было продано 100 тысяч экземпляров книги. Первоначально Хаббард объявил дианетику наукой, но, встретив сопротивление со стороны ученого мира, довольно быстро переименовал ее в религию. Для своей религии Хаббард придумал сложный набор по-ученому звучащих терминов. Человек, вступающий в общество «Церковь сайентологии», называется до-ясным, т. е. 88

еще не освобожденным от осаждающих его духовных затруднений, в отличие от разрешившего свои проблемы ясного сайентолога. Ясный – цель дианетической терапии – может быть создан из психопата, невротика, сумасшедшего, преступника или нормального человека, если у них органически здоровая нервная система. Процесс превращения из до-ясного в ясное состояние занимает немалый срок и обходится совсем недешево. Цель всех этих манипуляций состоит в том, чтобы избавить человека от энгармов, таящихся в подсознании и нарушающих его духовное здоровье. По разъяснению Хаббарда, в основе всего находятся тетаны – бессмертные духи, существующие 74 млрд лет. Это всемогущие, неразрушимые существа. Тетаны страдали лишь от своего бессмертия, которое им порядком наскучило. Тогда они решили заняться играми, создавая различные Вселенные, но и это им надоело. Тогда они решили ограничить самих себя, свою власть, свои знания и стали перевоплощаться сначала в деревья, потом в животных и, наконец, в более высокие формы жизни – в людей. После ряда перевоплощений они накопили отягощающие их энгармы, успев совершенно забыть о своем божественном происхождении. Эту великую тайну раскрыл Хаббард, тем самым заложив основы сайентологии. Освобождаясь от энгарм, до-ясный должен последовательно пройти восемь степеней ясности, прежде чем его объявят ясным. Известно, что любое производство требует денег. Успеха в этом деле можно было достичь, лишь истратив не менее 10 тысяч долларов. Превратив сайентологию из псевдонауки в религию, Хаббард соответственно перестроил и организацию. Он составил специальные молитвенники, правила проведения воскресных церковных служб, включая церемонии крещения, браков и похорон, которыми должны были руководствоваться все священники нового культа. Формально целью общества считается пропаганда и просвещение в области теологии и религиозной философии в приложении к сайентологии. Церковь распространяет веру в переселение душ и обещает физическое бессмертие. Весь набор нелепостей (absurdity), в которые заставляют поверить неофита, выдается малыми дозами

во время длительных сеансов, когда пациентов заставляют многие часы сидеть то с закрытыми, то с открытыми глазами, выполнять разные команды вроде «садитесь сюда», «пересядьте в это кресло» и т. п. Общество сайентологов ввело наказания за проступки верующих. Эти наказания могут выражаться в денежных штрафах размером до нескольких тысяч долларов. Результатом слишком интенсивного прояснения были многочисленные случаи депрессии, истерии, даже самоубийства. В различных странах проводилось следствие с целью определить, в какой мере сайентология является новой религией. В одном официальном отчете в Австралии сайентология характеризовалась как крупнейшая в мире организация неквалифицированных лиц, практикующих опасные методы, замаскированные под психотерапию. В начале 1986 г. Хаббард умер, оставив ворочающую миллионами империю и армию фанатичных и послушных приверженцев.

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СПИСОК ИСПОЛЬЗОВАННОЙ ЛИТЕРАТУРЫ 1. Два в одном. Декабрь 2004 – январь 2005. 2. Эррикер К. Буддизм. М.: ФАИР-ПРЕСС, 2003. 304 с. 3. Alice A. Bailey’s Initiation, Human and Solar Lucis Publishing Co., New York, 2001. 4. Ancient Egypt. Myth and history. 2004s and Grosset. 480 с. 5. Even more true stories. By Sandra Heyer. Longman, 1992. 94 c. 6. The dangerous science of religion. Moving out of a storefront into a temple, New Haven’s Church of Scientology is booming. The Yale Herald/October 1, 2005 … www.rickross.com/reference/scientology /history/history76. 7. Life of Buddha. www.souledout.org/wesak/storybuddha.html 8. Marie Claire. 2002. July. 9. Newsweek. 2000. May I. 10. Robert K. Massie. Nicholas and Alexandra. Bantam Doubleday Dell Publishing Group, Inc. 1985, New York. 596 с. 11. The Wordsworth Dictionary of beliefs and religions. W&R Chambers Ltd 1992. 586 с.

Учебное издание Составитель Майра Хаджимуратовна Рахимбергенова

READ ABOUT IT… Учебно-методическое пособие (для студентов факультета «Теология и мировые культуры»)

Технический редактор Н.В. Москвичёва Редактор О.М. Азеева Дизайн обложки З.Н. Образова Подписано в печать 09.02.06. Формат бумаги 60х84 1/16. Печ. л. 5,8. Уч.-изд. л. 6,0. Тираж 150 экз. Заказ 47. Издательство Омского государственного университета 644077, г. Омск-77, пр. Мира, 55а, госуниверситет

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