By Valery Dukhanin
Let us begin with a short but true story. A child comes home from school and sees that the floor is sprinkled all over with rice. "Mama, what happened?" he says. "I am expelling bad energy from the house," she answers her son, explaining the practice of some Eastern mystic or other, where you sprinkle the "charmed" rice all over the floor. Who would have supposed that in the twenty-first century, alongside electronics, high technology and other scientific advances, the same old superstitious attraction to occultism would hang on. Everyone knows that many modern singers and actors are into Kabbalah. For example, Madonna personally founded a center for the study of Kabbalah in London, and others have followed her example — Elizabeth Taylor, Mick Jagger, Paris Hilton, Courtney Love, Phillip Kirikorov, Lolita Milyavskaya, to name only a few. The Norwegian Princess Martha Louise in 2010 announced her dedication to esoteric teachings and spiritualism. Businessmen attentively watch the astrology forecasts, and some politicians and athletes even go to psychics and other sorcerers before serious undertakings.
