People often encounter various kinds of superstitions; so far, great importance is attached to a variety of magical practices, moreover, it is once again becoming fashionable. What was the situation with the appeal to the "dark forces"in the unenlightened XVII century in Siberia, far from the Moscow bell ringing? During this period, Russian colonists invaded an unfamiliar territory, not illuminated by Christian symbols, inhabited, from the Orthodox point of view, by pagan tribes. As noted by A. Y. Gurevich, with the transition from traditional worldview systems to Christianity, the structure of the space of medieval man is changing. Both cosmic, social, and ideological spaces are hierarchized. All relationships are built vertically, and all beings are placed at different levels of perfection depending on their proximity to the deity. The illiterate masses of the population were far from thinking in verbal abstractions, the symbolism of architectural images was a natural way of understanding the world order, and these images embodied religious and political thought [Gurevich, 1984, pp. 82-83]. Having entered the Siberian land, the Russian first settlers met not only with an unfamiliar nature, but also with a disorganized, from the Christian point of view, space. At first, only the cross on the body and the icon in the first Siberian prisons could serve as a symbolic symbol of unity with the Orthodox world, then churches and chapels appeared, illuminating and spiritualizing the inhabited territory, which directly bordered on an alien environment. Pagan cults and related magical rites have long existed in Russia. With the adoption of Christianity, the church began to struggle with this, as it turned out later, indestructible legacy. The result was the coexistence of archaic practices and Orthodox ideology, which later led to a certain syncretism in the spiritual culture of the people. This was more or less typical of many European cultures. After the inclusion of the t ... Read more