« Omraam Mikhaël Aïvanhov sometimes said that the Mysteries, taught for thousands of years in the temples of Egypt and India, had also been faithfully preserved in an initiatic center deep in the heart of Bulgaria’s Rila massif, known only to true adepts. One of these ancient adepts, the mysterious Magus Boyan who had developed great psychic powers in the course of his initiation in India, was at the origin of a charismatic religious movement in Bulgaria known as the Bogomils.

The spiritual renewal inspired by this movement, however, was short-lived, for the Bogomils boldly condemned those in high places for their dissolute way of life, with the result that many were exiled or burned at the stake. Some, fleeing the torment in Bulgaria, settled in other European countries where their ideas influenced such initiatic movements as the Knights Templar and the Cathars.

It is in the spiritual tradition of initiates such as the Magus Boyan that Peter Deunov takes his place. His teaching rested on the key elements that were those of the Bogomils—the light, self-mastery, and purity—but had none of their austerity.

In his turn, Omraam Mikhaël Aïvanhov would say that the Cathars’ yearning for liberation was based on their perception of life on earth as a terrible misfortune, and this, he insisted, was an error: our task is to work here in the physical world, to bring about the kingdom of God on earth.

As Peter Deunov once said to the members of his brotherhood: ‘Do not say that the doctrine I teach was invented by someone called Deunov. Say that it is the teaching of the Fellowship of Light. Tomorrow someone else will appear, with another name. The greatness of all those who have come into the world lies in their transmission of the truth just as it was given to them by God. »

Louise-Marie Frenette,
Introduction, The Life of a Master in the West  (Amazon, ‘look inside’)
‘Flip through’  at Prosveta bookshop

 

Translation of the Bulgarian words on the photo : ‘On the Rila Mountains, in front of the kitchen’, with the members of the Bulgarian Brotherhood.