Anastasia and the Ringing Cedars books of Vladimir Megre

The Russian mystic and philosopher GI Gurdjieff wrote a book about his travels called Meetings With Remarkable Men, and now Russian entrepeneur turned author Vladimir Megré has written a series of books based around his meetings with a truly remarkable woman called Anastasia, whom he encountered in 1995.

In Gurdjieff's accounts of his past journies and the experiences he had, there is little evidence given for what he had described but that didn't stop a large band of followers taking whatever he said as the truth. Perhaps this is the case here and it is all a matter of belief regarding Anastasia's reality and what she is said to be able to do.

In the book Anastasia she says "I exist for those for whom I exist."

For me it doesn't really matter whether she does or doesn't exist, and whether this isn't all some fantastic story and plan hatched by the mind of Megré, which it could be. A vast number of people find great benefits from reading and utilising the methodology and philosophy described in the books and said to have originated with Anastasia.

The basic story is that Megré was told about a miraculous "ringing cedar" tree found out in the remote parts of the Siberian taiga woodland and wilderness by two very elderly Siberian men. It is claimed that a ringing cedar has been storing up energy for hundreds of years and wants to give this away to benefit people as it dies. Pieces of the wood can cure and prevent disease as well as make people happier and more successful in life.

Eventually Megré returns to the location on the bank of the River Ob a year later and gets to meet with a young woman called Anastasia, who lives as a recluse out in this wild country. It turns out that the old men he had met before were Anastasia's grandfather and great grandfather.

Megré goes and spends three days in her company in the forest and is introduced to her very strange way of life and a totally different means of looking at the world. Anastasia has no shelter as such and wears little in the way of clothing despite the northerly latitude. She lives on nothing more than a meagre diet of nuts, berries and wild mushrooms that the squirrels bring to her.

She has no need at all for modern ways of life or for any company. She has everything she needs where she lives.

Anastasia has incredible mental and psychic powers. She is able to do what would be termed remote viewing and also to cause what she dreams about and visualises to become realities. It is as if she is a natural practitioner of what has been popularised as the Law of Attraction.

Megré finds that he is already implicated in one of her dreams and that they had already briefly met. He learns that she wants him to write a book and to introduce her recommendations on ways of living to the people of the world. She says that he will become very successful doing this although he cannot understand how this will be possible as he is not a writer but a businessman and merchant.

Anastasia also makes love with Megré and says she will be having his son. Her plans for how the child will be brought up are not what Megré has envisaged as his relationship as a father with his son. Megré wants his son to have an education and the comforts of modern life but Anastasia says that the boy will be staying with her and live as she does in the forest.

Anastasia has incredible communication skills with all the wildlife where she lives and besides squirrels that bring her food she gets a bear to sleep with Megré to keep him warm.

Anastasia explains a system of agriculture in which gardeners or farmers interact fully with the plants they are growing and by using a certain method are able to pass on all the information their crops need to produce fruit and vegetables tailor-made to have all the essential nutrients and energies the growers need.

In Anastasia's view of the world humans are called Man and all other animals and plants are for their benefit but not in the way that animals are abused in modern farming but rather as friends and helpers with which we can communicate and live in balance.

Anastasia tells Megré how food crops and edible plants grown as they should be and locally, provide for our very need both for foodstuffs and medicines to keep our bodies healthy.

She explains that to grow the best plants you need to hold a seed in your mouth for nine minutes and then put the seed between your palms for 30 seconds, whilst standing barefoot on the plot of ground you intend planting in.

After that you need to blow on the seed and then hold it on open hands presenting it to the heavens for another half a minute, and then it is ready to be planted. However, you must not water it for three days.

By using this method the idea is that the seed will get to absorb all the information needed to make a perfect food or medicine for you personally. Many people who have tried doing this are claiming success.

Anastasia also astounds Megré by explaining to him that flying saucers are powered by microorganisms and that the beings who pilot them are actually no more advanced than we are. She says that the walls of the craft are grown but she doesn't explain where the beings that are in them come from, only that she has met them.

Because once again she is putting Man as the topmost created living thing in the world but is also making a point of indicating that we are superior in ability to the beings in flying saucers, I have my doubts about the reality of this material as anything more than a brilliant fiction.

The book is also very much supported by Biblical quotes and references. It is basically another spin on the Bible story with God making Man in his image and likeness and setting him over all the other living things.

The story also comes over as a typical male-fantasy in which the author finds a beautiful blonde young woman living wild in the woods and with whom he gets to have sex with and to father a child by, a child who he leaves to the mother to look after. He then goes on to become a best-selling author as a result of his relationship with Anastasia, and as predicted by her in the tale.

The fact that Megré exhibits a poor and "choppy" command of style as a writer in the first book is used as evidence that this is for real and that he was started on this business of being an author by Anastasia.He was starting from scratch as a writer and doing it all from his memory of the time he spent with her.

The series of nine books so far are edited and published in English by Leonid Sharashkin, and not surprisingly he has helped publicise the story to many people who do not read Russian.

The first volume Anastasia includes a section devoted to poems dedicated to her and written by some of many people who are said to have been inspired this way.

Apparently very many people are living in eco-villages centred around Anastasia's methods, and millions of people are being inspired by the books. Many other people claim to have been healed by reading the books and using cedar products.

Megré has a flourishing business not only selling the Ringing Cedar books but also a wide range of cedar products such as oil, nuts and wooden pendants.

No, I don't believe that Anastasia exists apart from in the minds of all her followers but I support the books because they are bringing great benefits to the lives of many people and are a force for good in our troubled world.

I think a clue to how Megré came up with it all is contained in the following lines from the chapter Who are you, Anastasia?

"At a local shop I purchased a great deal of popular-science literature, books on extraordinary occurrences and people's unusual abilities, as well as the history of Siberia. I squirreled myself away in my cabin, trying to find in all these books some sort of plausible explanation."

The author supposedly is reflecting on his experiences with Anastasia and trying to make sense of it all. I think he may in fact be revealing how he hatched the idea for the story, the books and the ringing cedar merchandise business. Megré was being an excellent example of the entrepeneur he says he is.

I intend reading the other Ringing Cedar books in the series and maybe I will change my mind about whether Anastasia really exists or not. In the meantime this hub is an introduction to Megré's work and I will let you decide for yourselves what you make of it all.