Rasputin, Dhammika and historic reruns of intoxicating the masses

The alleged mystic Dhammika is a mild form of a Rasputin. Waving the flag of Kaali, a deity from the Hindu faith, Dhammika was able to penetrate relatively exclusive territories of the Cabinet of Ministers, get none other than the able Minister of Health to star in a near perfect commercial pronouncing his concoction as palatable and thereafter air the same commercial free of charge at peak times across all broadcasting channels gaining airtime, eyeballs and highest penetration possible with zero investment

“Religion is the opium of the masses…”

By Maheshi Anandasiri

The phrase above is recurrently quoted in almost every sociology course across the world. It is attributed to German Sociologist and economic theorist Karl Marx and translates from the original German quote “Die Religion ... ist das Opium des Volkes”. 

Marx had issues with institutionalised structured religions. He had a view that religion had a function similar to an analgesic in a sick or injured person. It supressed the people’s intolerance of immediate suffering and provided them with a pleasant illusion giving them strength to carry on with present burdens. Towards his own ends, Marx viewed religion as the enemy of any revolutionary goals since it provided a fog over class structures and the oppression associated with it, resulting in a lacklustre attitude towards the socialist revolution. 

Crusading and ill-founded God’s will 

Across history religion institutionalised through politics and in turn politics institutionalised in religion has succeeded at its best to side-track the masses from their immediate issues and at its worst take millions to war in the name of a divine calling. The crusaders rode to war on the call of papal blessings and the battles were perceived as God’s will. The majority of the crusades would begin with the goal to reach the Holy Land but later all perceived threats to the church were combated under the banner of crusades. Eventually crusades became a frenzy and was not isolated to Popes and Knights. Common people caught the fever. The children’s crusade (1212) was not an actual crusade but is a term used to describe surprising uprisings of individuals who each had followings. 

In one such uprising, a young man named Nicholas set out for the Holy Land. He believed that the Mediterranean Sea would dry up when he reached it, which would allow him easy access to the Middle East. As he went from town to town, all sorts of people joined his march. Another boy named Stephen also began marching; he went to the king of France, claiming he had a message for the king from Jesus Christ. He also attracted a large group of followers. Both children, though, were unable to free the Holy Land. The king told Stephen to go home, and Nicholas was foiled when the Mediterranean Sea did not part for him!

With multiple crusades that went on at its height from 1096-1271 you would think that the Crusades would have left immense impacts on the world. However, historians today attribute very little of what happened next in Europe or the Middle East to the Crusades. While they were significant at the time, they didn’t really change the face of Europe or Middle East any more than those faces would have naturally changed over time (Madden, 2006).

Ra Ra Rasputin and his reign over the Czar

Boney M and the Bolsheviks made Grigory Rasputin a legend. The bearded man with the hypnotic stare was detested as a phoney who exerted a disastrously malign influence over the family of Czar Nicholas II. The Bolsheviks treated him as the epitome of upper-class superstition and decadence. Unfortunately for Russia, the bored and credulous members of the aristocracy were easily distracted. Rasputin was not the first among mystics to thrill the upper crust of St. Petersburg but he was certainly the pick of them and left an enduring and far reaching impact that some feel influenced the political landscape of Russia and even led to the fall of the aristocracy. 

His hypnotic stare combined with his confusing but engaging conversation style, along with his apparent knack to treat haemophilia that afflicted the Czarevitch Alexei, made him an authority of strong influence on the Czar himself. In truth Rasputin’s faith healing may have just been confined to his advice to sparing the child of incessant medical attention which resulted in the patient being both physically and emotionally less vulnerable. In fits and starts Rasputin’s faith healing seemed to work. 

The Russian public meanwhile resented the monk’s intimacy with the Czar and his family and attributed the relationship to extend to carnal heights. The claims have never been proven.

Rasputin undoubtedly enjoyed unabashed, abundant, and mostly consensual relations with more than a few high-born women—not to mention prostitutes—in a way that scarcely befitted his trademark asceticism. The common accusation against Rasputin is thus that he corrupted Russian high society. It would be fairer, however according to some historians to say that it was the fleshpots of St. Petersburg that corrupted Rasputin, originally a humble and holy visitor.

Rasputin’s role in Russia’s downfall is now deemed as exaggerated. At worst Rasputin was more likely a distracting influence and not a harmful one. Yet the Bolsheviks believed that without Rasputin, the Czar would be broken paving the way for a constitutional monarchy. But the murder of Rasputin was certainly a symbolic end to the decadence of the Romanov dynasty. Within weeks they were toppled. The next year they were dead. 

On the night of 17 July 1918 Bolsheviks on orders from Moscow shot Nicholas II, his immediate family and four servants in the Ipatiev House’s cellar. When the Bolshevik murderers looted the bodies, they found sewn into the hems the topaz stones given to them by the family’s fascinating spiritual guide Rasputin. With or without Rasputin the fall of the Romanov and the establishment of a people’s government was inevitable. The faith healer just seemed to add some icing to an already well baked cake. 

Dhammika’s Peniya TVC; peak airtime with elite stars 

The alleged mystic Dhammika is a mild form of a Rasputin. Waving the flag of Kaali, a deity from the Hindu faith, Dhammika was able to penetrate relatively exclusive territories of the Cabinet of Ministers, get none other than the able Minister of Health to star in a near perfect commercial pronouncing his concoction as palatable and thereafter air the same commercial free of charge at peak times across all broadcasting channels gaining airtime, eyeballs and highest penetration possible with zero investment. 

For several weeks he was defended by Ministers while a committee of learned and perhaps disgruntled scientists were compelled to analyse the alleged recipe dictated to him by a Goddess. Then parading with the portion carried with much fervour in silver vessels, our local Rasputin arrived at both the Temple of the Tooth Relic and the Jaya Shri Maha Bodhiya, only to perform an extended circus at the latter. The final antic though seemed the straw that broke the camel’s back we continue to see the public gathering at his shrine to collect free samples of his magic portion. Based on certain media reports the concoction would be tested by a qualified committee. 

On hindsight, a great many of us are feeling idiotic for even momentarily having heartily acclaimed the potential virtues of the faith-healers concoction and likening it to the scientifically-accepted Ayurvedic medicine. Some even awaited the advent of the Western world to hijack our new-fangled anti-COVID recipe. At the end of it all today the concoction has been categorised as a Food Supplement free for over-the-counter purchase minus a prescription. Does the portion cure or prevent COVID-19 or even serve to enhance immunity? Literally, only Gods knows!

Nevertheless, the self-appointed messenger of Goddess Kaali has had his moment. 

History has proven to us time and again that when spirituality crosses the threshold of logic and enters the arena of politics and governance, a momentary insanity may prevail. It is served as a distraction to the masses and gives the public a brief reprieve from the real issues that plague them. It provides us a Rasputin to blame. It delivers a new topic of discussion, a fresh target for the woke bloggers and smart phone armed social media critiques, who lap up sensationalism in any form. Historically it has led us down the garden path and from time to time we are taken on this same route by the troupe of distracting entertainers who we vote for or are destined to rule us. Has it changed the course of history leaving a defining mark? Not really. But for a brief joyous moment we are high on the ‘opium’ of their choice. 

The fleeting mass euphoria afforded by the ‘peniya’ is now gradually losing its strength and the hangover is setting in. Yet give it a few days and we will return to the watering hole expecting a different label to have a new result. And with no one else to blame but ourselves might as well take a swig of that ‘peniya’ while we can still find Dhammika. After all, between intoxication and insanity, we seem to have nothing much to lose!

Note: “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again expecting a different result” – Einstein.