On the surface, "The Flame" is a jumble of obscurantism, bloody crimes, tempestuous sado-masochism, perversions, deaths, rotting, black masses, sacrilege, blasphemy, and unjustified thanatophilia. Perversions, maternity murders, collective rapes, torture - all this crawls on top of each other in endless numbers until the end of the novel, ignoring plot, sequence, and logic. One gets the impression that the author mechanically adds a bloody rape or strangulation whenever his pen touches a new blank page. The endless horror is described without any humor and, on the contrary, is interspersed with serious metaphysical and theological considerations. A closer look reveals that the bloody and pornographic pictures are only meant to illustrate some complex Gnostic concepts that form the axis of the entire work. Little by little, Karpov's intentions begin to become clear: what he writes is not a work of fiction, but an esoteric text, disguised as literature and intended for a special reader, a bearer of the Russian mystery, who, however, does not recognize himself in the intellectual discourse of educated mystics (like Merezhkovsky).
The novel deals with several sects spread among the ordinary peasant population in the vicinity of the estate of the sinister baron Gedeonov. Later it turns out that the protagonists of the work are not human beings at all - one is a "messenger of the Supreme Light who loved the earth", another is a "son of the devil", and the third is a "son of the devil".
— "prophet of the sun."
One of the sects, the sect of evil-doers or "evil-doers", is led by a certain Theophanes, the "spirit of the lowlands". At a certain point in the novel, it is revealed that it is a paradoxical "theophany," since etymologically "Theophanes" means "theophany" in Greek.
At first Theophanes was a pious hermit, but he was confronted with the blatant injustice of the "Being". In an instant his fate changed. He had long prayed to the Being to save from death two sick little children of a poor beggar woman whom he had sheltered in his hermitage out of charity, but when he returned from his exhausting, multi-day, lonely prayer, he found their corpses "black, slimy, rotting". After this incident, everyone for whom Theophanes prayed died. He realized then that his path was the black path of the earth, called to rise to the "bright fire of not ba". Then Theophanes embarks on a path of unthinkably heinous crimes - he kills his own mother with a weight, gives his sister to the guards for debauchery, and sells his own daughter to the pervert Gedeonov for a ruble for erotic torture. He does not act in this way out of vulgar "Satanism". Theophanes sees the accumulation of sins and the acceptance of heaviness in the soul as a special path to paradoxical holiness - to the Grad, which lies on the other side of the Existence. In such an optics, the Being Himself appears as a rather ambiguous character. Karpov writes: "But the Being is fierce, jealous. He executes those who are more merciful and loving than Him with stinking, intolerable executions. He rejected the angel of life, who begged for forgiveness for Eve and Adam, and made him an angel of death.
Theophanes combines extreme evil and extreme holiness. But his way is the way of hardship, agony, accumulation of sins, suffering, torture, torture and evil in order to force the Being Himself to step aside and reveal the secret sun of the Bright Grad. This is the meaning of the Gnostic tradition, the "path of the left hand" (as Hinduism calls it). Not surprisingly, the "path of gravity" is also associated with sexual rituals, this immersion into the "lowlands," into the dark light of the earth. At first Theophanes appears as the head of a sect of evil-doers, and then he disappears and reappears as an ascetic-ot-shelnik, a prophet. It is then that it is revealed that this is about the "messenger of heaven" who did not fulfill the order of the Being to punish the Christ who was made man, and "taking him up from the earth, he united the heavenly with the earthly, spirit with flesh, love with hatred.
When men, sectarians and peasants are about to revolt against the authorities, Theophanes admonishes them with the words:
"Who believes me? Who loves me? Follow me! To the lowlands! That's what I'm going to love. Into the heart of the earth..." And further (quite Nietzschean):
"Love the heart of the earth! - a stern and prophetic click resounded in the depths of the cave. - He who does not know the earth will not see the sky... Do not be afraid of evil! Don't be afraid of hate! It kindles love... Do you believe me?...? Children! Believe everything and everyone... That's what love will be..... That's right..."
(Think about this strange precept "believe everything and everyone" - it is worse than the purely satanic connotations of other openly heretical passages. Pimen Karpov was clearly not an easy author).
The novel deals with several sects spread among the ordinary peasant population in the vicinity of the estate of the sinister baron Gedeonov. Later it turns out that the protagonists of the work are not human beings at all - one is a "messenger of the Supreme Light who loved the earth", another is a "son of the devil", and the third is a "son of the devil".
— "prophet of the sun."
One of the sects, the sect of evil-doers or "evil-doers", is led by a certain Theophanes, the "spirit of the lowlands". At a certain point in the novel, it is revealed that it is a paradoxical "theophany," since etymologically "Theophanes" means "theophany" in Greek.
At first Theophanes was a pious hermit, but he was confronted with the blatant injustice of the "Being". In an instant his fate changed. He had long prayed to the Being to save from death two sick little children of a poor beggar woman whom he had sheltered in his hermitage out of charity, but when he returned from his exhausting, multi-day, lonely prayer, he found their corpses "black, slimy, rotting". After this incident, everyone for whom Theophanes prayed died. He realized then that his path was the black path of the earth, called to rise to the "bright fire of not ba". Then Theophanes embarks on a path of unthinkably heinous crimes - he kills his own mother with a weight, gives his sister to the guards for debauchery, and sells his own daughter to the pervert Gedeonov for a ruble for erotic torture. He does not act in this way out of vulgar "Satanism". Theophanes sees the accumulation of sins and the acceptance of heaviness in the soul as a special path to paradoxical holiness - to the Grad, which lies on the other side of the Existence. In such an optics, the Being Himself appears as a rather ambiguous character. Karpov writes: "But the Being is fierce, jealous. He executes those who are more merciful and loving than Him with stinking, intolerable executions. He rejected the angel of life, who begged for forgiveness for Eve and Adam, and made him an angel of death.
Theophanes combines extreme evil and extreme holiness. But his way is the way of hardship, agony, accumulation of sins, suffering, torture, torture and evil in order to force the Being Himself to step aside and reveal the secret sun of the Bright Grad. This is the meaning of the Gnostic tradition, the "path of the left hand" (as Hinduism calls it). Not surprisingly, the "path of gravity" is also associated with sexual rituals, this immersion into the "lowlands," into the dark light of the earth. At first Theophanes appears as the head of a sect of evil-doers, and then he disappears and reappears as an ascetic-ot-shelnik, a prophet. It is then that it is revealed that this is about the "messenger of heaven" who did not fulfill the order of the Being to punish the Christ who was made man, and "taking him up from the earth, he united the heavenly with the earthly, spirit with flesh, love with hatred.
When men, sectarians and peasants are about to revolt against the authorities, Theophanes admonishes them with the words:
"Who believes me? Who loves me? Follow me! To the lowlands! That's what I'm going to love. Into the heart of the earth..." And further (quite Nietzschean):
"Love the heart of the earth! - a stern and prophetic click resounded in the depths of the cave. - He who does not know the earth will not see the sky... Do not be afraid of evil! Don't be afraid of hate! It kindles love... Do you believe me?...? Children! Believe everything and everyone... That's what love will be..... That's right..."
(Think about this strange precept "believe everything and everyone" - it is worse than the purely satanic connotations of other openly heretical passages. Pimen Karpov was clearly not an easy author).
