A Wicked Song
In an era shaken to its core by dramatic political and social change, a nation wracked by war and looming economic disaster looked for a villain to blame. In Russia, on the eve of the October Revolution, that villain was the charismatic holy man who had seemingly bewitched the tsar and the royal family. In this episode, we explore the life and the many deaths of Grigori Rasputin. Was he a spiritual guide, a faith healer, or a wielder of occult forces?
Researched, written, and produced by Corinne Wieben, with original music by Purple Planet.
Music
Purple Planet - Atmospheric Piano Backing
Purple Planet - Seventh Curse
Frédéric Chopin - Waltz in A minor, B. 150 - performed by Aya Higuchi
Purple Planet - Chimera
Purple Planet - Last Stand
Purple Planet - Outcast
Purple Planet - Sense of Loss
Purple Planet - Shadowlands
Sources
Primary
Colquhoun, John Campbell. Isis Revelata: An Inquiry Into the Origin, Progress, and Present State of Animal Magnetism, Vol. 2. Edinburgh: MacLachlan & Stewart, 1836.
Gumilev, Nikolai. “The Muzhik.” Selected works of Nikolai S. Gumilev, edited and translated by Burton Raffel & Alla Burago, 98-99. Albany, NY: SUNY Press, 1972.
Witte, Sergei. The Memoirs of Count Witte, edited and translated by Abraham Yarmolinsky. Toronto: Doubleday, Page, & Co., 1921.
Secondary
De Jonge, Alex. The Life and Times of Grigorii Rasputin. New York: Coward, McCann, and Geoghegan, 1982.
Fuhrmann, Joseph T. Rasputin: The Untold Story. Hoboken: John Wiley & Sons, 2012.
Hagemeister, Michael, Birgit Menzel, and Bernice Glatzer Rosenthal, eds. The New Age of Russia: Occult and Esoteric Dimensions. Bern: Peter Lang International Academic Publishers, 2012.
Haurani, Farid. “Rasputin Used Hypnosis: Reply to ‘Russia’s Imperial Blood.’” American Journal of Hematology 80 (2005): 309-310.
Kendrick, John. “Rasputin Didn’t Hypnotize Alexei.” American Journal of Hematology 80 (2005): 313-313.
Kendrick, John. “Russia’s Imperial Blood: Was Rasputin Not the Healer of Legend?” American Journal of Hematology 77 (2004): 92-102.
Lachman, Gary. The Return of Holy Russia: Apocalyptic History, Mystical Awakening, and the Struggle for the Soul of the World. Rochester, VT: Inner Traditions, 2020.
Moynahan, Brian. Rasputin: The Saint Who Sinned. New York: Random House, 1997.
Radzinsky, Edvard. The Rasputin File. New York: Anchor Books, 2001.
Rosenthal, Bernice Glatzer, ed. The Occult in Russian and Soviet Culture. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1997.
Smith, Douglas. Rasputin: Faith, Power, and the Twilight of the Romanovs. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2016.
Warth, Robert D. “Before Rasputin: Piety and the Occult at the Court of Nicholas II.” The Historian 47, no. 3 (1985), 323-337.
Wilson, Colin. Rasputin and the Fall of the Romanovs. Secaucus, NJ: The Citadel Press, 1964.
