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[Alexandr Korol]

that happen — I’m just giving an example for the future: don’t behave that way. What’s the point? You can be in any city, in any country — you must always draw the deeper meaning from the entire novel: that there are sacred places all over the world. And if we return to the question about Karelia, it’s the same. I’ve never dug anything up — not once, all these years. Yes, I had free time, and I did walk through the forest, and of course I caught myself thinking, “What if I feel something somewhere?” Of course that happened. And I placed little sticks, drove stakes into the ground — I was curious where else I might feel something anomalous. I walked, I marked spots with stakes. I did that. I found many such power spots. But dig — where? I wouldn’t uncover anything. Do you really think a mineral vein is lying just a meter under the surface? Of course not. To dig for something like that, you’d need to dig as deep as a subway tunnel. How am I supposed to dig a subway tunnel — in a swamp? You can’t even get there by car, let alone bring in equipment. What would I dig? Swampy rocks — you dig twice and water fills it instantly. I’m telling you this so that unwise people will lose the urge, because it’s pointless. Pointless. Don’t take it all so literally, physically. And yes, of course, when I discovered all these unique places... So at first, the method was simple — I didn’t use a map, I just walked around and paid attention to my sensations, noting where I felt something and marking those places with stakes. The second method I used to identify spots: I walked across the map with my attention. That is, I opened maps — different maps from different satellites — looked over my area, and visually wandered through the whole territory. I watched to see what grabbed my attention, and I circled those areas. That’s how the second map was formed. The third method — I called the Mystic-Old-Man. I divided the map into squares, numbered them, and told him: “Square one — do you sense anything? Square two — anything? Square three?” And if he felt something in square eight — “Yes, something’s here” — I’d say, “Okay, what’s the depth?” or “What size is the object?” and I’d note what the Mystic-Old-Man picked up. So you see, that’s already three methods: first, I walked and sensed with my body; second, I walked across the map with my attention; third, I divided the map and called out each square to the Mystic-Old-Man — one, two, three. And once we had a confirmed match — something I felt myself, something visible on the map, and the Mystic-Old-Man confirmed it too — that’s when I conducted a geo-survey. Well, it was interesting, of course.