Nikolai Andreevich joined again in the polemics, “Well, now you have given us examples of local psychics who became known to us just recently. Why weren’t there such people earlier in the Soviet Union? I’ve been practicing psychotherapy for many years. But studying the mind of different people, my colleagues and I have never come across such phenomena. It’s true that recently there were people talking nonsense and considering themselves to be sensitives. And they even tried to prove it. But in reality, it was just their sick imagination, while real psychics didn’t exist in the Soviet Union.”

“Why didn’t they exist?” Igor Mikhailovich was surprised. “They existed, and there were a lot of them! From time immemorial in Russia there existed many of such people. But how were they treated? In ancient, unenlightened times, very seldom were they considered saints, but in the majority of cases, those who refused to obey the church were burned in a fire, put on stakes, depending on the whim of the king.

“Only starting from the second half of the eighteenth century, after the opening of the Academy of Science, the phenomena of the psychic life of human beings started to be researched in Russia more seriously, from the medical point of view. And about one hundred years later, research in that sphere was conducted by many prominent scientists; for example, by one of the founders of your own science, Vladimir Mikhailovich Bekhterev. When he was the head of St. Petersburg’s imperial military and medical academy, he himself financed the creation of an entire research institute for the study of brain and psychic activities.

“And during Soviet times? Almost from the start of its existence, supreme attention was paid to the study of psychic phenomena of the brain and of one of its main mysteries – thoughts. It can be proved by historical fact that those investigations were held by the order of Vladimir Ilyich Lenin under the personal control of Felix Edmundovich Dzerzhinsky in the special department of the Secret Service that was dealing with secrecy and protection of state secrets. This department even had a special neuro-energetical laboratory. This elite special department used in its work various healers, mediums, shamans, hypnotherapists.”

“God, and why did they need all those ‘healers’?” Nikolai Andreevich was really surprised.

“Well, all that was for the same reason: the extraordinary abilities of those individuals. They were able to manipulate human beings with hidden forces that significantly surpassed the abilities of any machinery. All these phenomena were very seriously examined! They sent even scientific expeditions searching for this knowledge: from the studies of the mysteries of ancient civilizations to the search for the legendary Shambala.”

“Shambala… it sounds familiar… What is it?” Andrew asked impatiently.

“Shambala? Well, it is kind of an abode located high in the mountains. But it is famous because the group of scientists living there have long surpassed mankind in their spiritual, scientific, and technical levels.”

“Now I recall,” said Nikolai Andreevich. “Legend says that Shambala is an abode of Wise Men. But what has science to do with that? Do these Wise Men study something in particular: astronomy or mathematics, or just philosophy?”

“In Shambala, they study only the most ancient primordial science, the Art of White Lotus, which includes everything, and exact sciences as well. Moreover, it is a source of all sciences studied by mankind.”