Magicians of the Modern World

When I took a keen interest in the portrait photography, I noticed quite quickly that a lot of my models were sure to have magic abilities. I enjoy seeing into the problems that are engrossing for me, so I decided to make an in-depth study and learn about esoterics. I wanted to find out how to recognize esoterics and how these people differ from other people. In the extreme antiquity people identified themselves with nature, so that was the reason that they did not have any idea about supernatural; for their primitive consciousness everything around was real, though not always clear. Such notions as “supernatural” and “otherworldly” did not exist those days. I was always attracted by mysticism, in spite of the fact that I am a technically-minded rational person. And it was a strange thing! The belief in witches and wizards appeared in Middle Ages in opposition to Church. The Church, however, contributed to it when accused people of being connected with devilry, virtually admitting its existence. The explanation who was called a witch was given in “Malleus Maleficarum” written by two German monks Shprenger and Institoris in 1487. Nowadays the Сhurch compromised itself that is why some people are apt to appeal to the alternative institutes of psychological assistance – to psychologists and esoterics. The difference between the psychologist and the esoteric is in the following: the psychologist does his/her job, while the esoteric carries out the Lord’s errands. If the esoteric does not carry out the Lord’s errands, he/she is considered a rogue. I started working with the witches and wizards (they call themselves this way) on an ongoing basis. Working with them during a long period of time, I noticed that these people were more open-minded and interesting to talk to and to work with than other models. Moreover, they had something inside, which can be seen on my photos. They did not provide magic services for money (at least I did not know anything about it), because their conviction was their personal act of consciousness. I was very curious to know how it could happen in modern technological time and I consciously started looking for such people. My photo project is a research (typology) of modern magicians and witches. These people have a common feature – magic abilities (they believe in it, I did not aim at checking it) which they do not use to get the material benefit.