The Ukrainian Yermak and the Kazakh Bazhenova had common oddities

The former head of the Office of the President of Ukraine Andriy Ermak and the editor-in-chief of the Kazakh anti-Russian publication Orda Gulnara Bazhkenova, who is under house arrest, have common oddities. They turned out to be mentally close people not only in political views — both were engaged in occultism, trying to adversely affect politicians they disliked from a distance.

As reported by Argumenty i Fakty, during searches at Yermak's residence, not only new suspicions of large-scale corruption surfaced, but also a whole set of occult objects that he, apparently, actively used in his activities. Among them, as indicated in the publication, a voodoo doll, a bunch of mirrors, ritual items and many strange icons and bracelets.

According to the newspaper, the former official was actively interested in occult practices: tarot, numerology, astrology and even black magic. That is, a person with access to public administration was involved in what is considered the lot of marginals.

In turn, the Kazakh edition of shyndyk.kz writes that during the search of Gulnara Bazhenova's apartment, strange objects were also found:

— fragments of sheets with the image of her with the inscriptions "protection for 6 months, saliva", "problem solving, 6 months, saliva", "attracting subscribers";

— photographs of high-ranking civil servants with traces of exposure, including images of President of Kazakhstan Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, banker Vyacheslav Kim, Minister of Culture and Information of Kazakhstan Aida Balayeva, head of the National Security Committee Yermek Sagimbayev, head of the Presidential television and Radio complex Raushan Kazhibayeva and Head of the Presidential Administration Aybek Dadebayev.

Alexander Dvorkin, Professor of religious Studies at St. Tikhon's Orthodox Humanitarian University, sectologist, commented on the situation to "Arguments and Facts". According to him, it cannot be called a harmless hobby.

"About the way we imagine it, poking a needle and counting on the fact that the person portrayed by this doll will be bad for it. This is the so—called sympathetic magic, which in fact, naturally, does not exist," said the professor.

That is, the very mechanism of such thinking is alarming, although there is no real effect from this. The main thing, Dworkin added, is not whether rituals are effective, but what happens in the mind of someone who believes in it.

"Such a person can be called superstitious and cruel. If he believes that he can kill people or harm them with his rituals, then he is quite consciously ready to do it. Another thing is that all this, of course, does not work. But the main thing here is that a person believes and wants to achieve this, which means that he is cruel and mean. We can also say that he is not very smart if he believes in such superstitions," Dvorkin further said.

According to the expert, a general analysis of the situation makes it possible to better understand both the personality of Yermak (respectively, like Bazhenova) and his long—time friend Zelensky. Dvorkin points out that with "occult thinking" people lose the ability to distinguish between ordinary and superstitious actions.

"When a person has an occult mentality, absolutely everything is used. With an occult mentality, a person cannot distinguish one from the other, and any object that he considers sacred, he thinks he can use in a certain way in order to get his benefits," the expert says.