Sealed by the Sun

Rudolf Steiner (1861-1925) and Peter Deunov (1864-1944) were contemporary Christ and Michael centred mystics who knew about each other's work and were specially connected through a Bulgarian called Boyan Boev (1883-1963) as Boev was initially a student of Steiner, who recommended that he should in fact study under Peter Deunov (Beinsa Douno). Boev was a science teacher and conscientious objector during World War I, during which time he spent a spell in prison before being enlisted as a paramedic. His support for Deunov and his teaching meant that he lost his teaching job during the early 1920s, and devoted the rest of his life to Deunov and his work, becoming one of the principal transcribers of his lectures. He is the author of a small book on the influence of the Bogomils, which I have reviewed in Books in Brief in this issue. This book is much more extensive and tells the spiritual history of Bulgaria with a particular emphasis on the Bogomils and their legacy - the work of Deunov in the 20th century is an expression of this same impulse of cultural renewal. As some readers will know, the corresponding expression of Bogomilism in France was the Cathar movement in Languedoc, although this had its own lineage to early Christianity.

Peter Deunov's father was a prominent Orthodox priest who visited Mount Athos as a young man. Deunov was a violinist and composed more than 200 songs and melodies, as well as the music for the sacred dance paneurhythmy, about which I edited a book in 1991. He trained as a primary school teacher, then went to America between 1888 and 1895, where he studied medicine and theology at Drew University. Returning to Bulgaria in 1895, he spent an intense period of retreat before beginning to teach more widely in 1900. In 1897 he experienced an initiatic overshadowing by the being Beinsa Douno and was given a mission as a World Teacher. He had a further initiatic encounter with Christ in 1914. There also seems to be a special spiritual connection with the Alsatian/American healer Francis Schlatter, who died in 1897. Reportedly, neither slept, but continued their spiritual work in other dimensions.

This book has enabled me to understand the spiritual significance of Beinsa Douno at a new level, especially in relation to Steiner and Krishnamurti; it also helped me realise that his lectures were not only directed at the human beings physically present, but also at beings from other levels and indeed to human beings in the future. As already mentioned, it was Steiner who advised Boev in 1910 to return to Bulgaria and study with Beinsa Douno. In 1929 there was a major meeting in Holland, at which Krishnamurti to be declared the World Teacher at the instigation of Annie Besant, who had found him originally in 1910. Krishnamurti refused to take on this role but said that the time for the World Teacher to appear had come: 'he is already in a physical body on earth; however, he is not among us now. The World Teacher is in Bulgaria and his name is Peter Deunov.'

The book also refers to a study by Rene Guenon entitled Theosophism: History of a Pseudo-Religion, which I have not read but it makes the case that Krishnamurti was raised by Besant and Charles Leadbeater as part of a plan by the intelligence services, which Krishnamurti eventually renounced. Steiner had already left the Theosophists in 1912. Guenon said of Beinsa Douno that ' he is the real messenger of Heaven. He is the greatest person who has come down to the earth. He did not come to create a new religion, of which there are already enough; neither did he come with a new science or with the intention of founding a social movement. He is the greatest spiritual magnet yet able to appear on the earth. He will magnetise his disciples with the magnetism of love, and they in turn will transmit this magnetism to humankind as a whole.' Einstein had come to know of Beinsa Douno in 1922 and shared his high ideals of a new culture. In 1928, he said: ' all the world renders homage to me and I render homage to the Master Peter Deunov from Bulgaria.'

There is much rich material and background stories of Boev and his friends in this book as well as documents from Beinsa Douno and relating to the work of Rudolf Steiner. Some of his friends contribute memoirs about him, including an incident when as a young man he hid from the Turks in a cave without any food. If there is a God, he thought, maybe give me some bread to satisfy my hunger and when I return to Bulgaria, I will give up atheism and preach that God exists and helps people in need. Half an hour later, a total appeared at the entrance of the cave with some bread…Boev subsequently went to Munich to study with Steiner. Another section in the book tells the story of Jenny Pateva and the translation into Bulgarian of Steiner's book on knowledge of the higher worlds. It also describes her major work for peace and women's issues, also inspired by Leo Tolstoy, who had been on his way to meet Deunov, but had not made it in time.

For Douno, the living Christ represents the culture of resurrection rather than that of the cross. This is expressed in the three cardinal principles of love, wisdom and truth and the lifestyle of love, peace and non-resistance to evil. In a particularly interesting comment on these principles, Boev explains how love represents the East, truth the North, wisdom the West and the polarity of good and evil the South. The new culture entails the overcoming of evil with good, as Christ explained in the Sermon on the Mount, but we still try to fight evil and destroy it instead. Only a few have realised how self-defeating this cycle of violence is, and the world continues on this course. This was a fundamental insight promoted by Tolstoy and taken up by Gandhi, Martin Luther King and Desmond Tutu. Readers will find much spiritual inspiration in this book and gain a clearer understanding of the real spiritual agenda of our time.