Or How I Joined the Independent Lodge
Olga Attovna Fedorova
Olga Attovna Fedorova. Photo: 2024.
The ILT considers life testimonies important, and I was invited to say something about myself in writing. I was born in the late 1940s in the Far East of Russia, in a Japanese town on Sakhalin Island, the southern part of which was liberated at the end of World War II and where my Muscovite parents went to restore industry.
I grew up in a Communist family, my parents and both grandmothers were Communists. There was no talk about the sacred world in the family. However, the first encounter with it was at the age of five, when I had the same dream twice: being in the presence of the boundless universe (planets and stars), and I was aware of its boundlessness, while experiencing terrible fear. I didn’t tell anyone about that dream, because I didn’t know how to describe it, and I felt that others wouldn’t understand me.
As for my youth, I can say that I loved studying very much, as well as being active in sports. Later, I read mostly philosophical works.
In the late 1980s, I was baptized in the Russian Orthodox Church and began an independent ministry for children and adults with physical disabilities living in homes for disabled citizens, which lasted for 25 years. A little later, an active spiritual search began: sahaji-yoga classes, independent reading of the work “The Secret Doctrine”, by H. P. Blavatsky, reading the writings of the Fathers of the Russian Orthodox Church and active participation in the life of the church, studying the Bible in the original languages, and later joining the Protestant church. After that, I studied Judaism and Kabbalah, went to the synagogue and attended meetings of Messianic Jews. The search continued. Since my German ancestor, a leading scientist in Moscow, was a Rosicrucian, I joined the Rosicrucians, where again I had a chance to study some fragments of the teachings of HPB.
At the very end of 2015, I watched a series of videos about theosophy, reread the entire “Secret Doctrine”, and in January 2016 I wrote a letter to an active Russian theosophist, offering help in translating theosophical texts. In April 2016, I joined the team of theosophists editing the translation of the SD made by Elena Roerich.
In the beginning of 2017, I started reading publications of the Independent Lodge of Theosophists, ILT, translating them into Russian and publishing them at my page in a Russian mega-site. I was interested in the practical application of theosophy in everyday life.
In July 2018, I wrote to Carlos and Joana, and our collaboration began. In September of the same year, I joined ILT. After three months of fruitful work at ILT, I had to take a break due to the huge amount of work on translating books that the HPB often referred to. It was necessary to translate “Isis Unveiled” anew. During that pause, several books were published in my translation.
Cooperation with the Lodge, Carlos and Joana was resumed at the end of February 2022, when the ILT opened its VK page.[1] The Russian reader has the opportunity to read the Lodge’s materials daily. Now the Independent Lodge has a Russian-language website, RussianTheosophist, and the blog HelenaPetrovnaBlavatsky.
While I don’t work for short term results, I know I am sowing the seeds of a Lodge of the ILT in Russia.
Officially I am a resident of Moscow. I now live and work in my dacha on the outskirts of the city.
NOTE:
[1] VK (https://vk.com) is the Russian language equivalent to Facebook.
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The article “A Theosophist in Russia” was published in the websites of the Independent Lodge of Theosophists on 17 June 2024.
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Read more:
* How to Build a Theosophical Lodge (by a Master of the Wisdom).
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Helena Blavatsky (photo) wrote these revealing words: “Deserve, then desire”.
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