Tarot and Medici Solitaire. Stalking Self-Study Guide

In white… white… what kind of white was it, though? Ah – in a white Mercedes! Of course – I set it so beautifully in the path of the KamAZ and saved the princess!

That’s it!

Oh dear – now the princess owes me her whole life!

…ah, how much she owes me now – she’ll be repaying this for at least five years!

Nеееееее – that’s hidden violence! That’s a crime! The guardians won’t ever forgive meee…

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Well, I’ve finally decided – I’ll be the one in the white KamAZ!

I, by heaven, wrenched the wheel with all my mightааааааааSwung it—and straight into the wall… so white…

…which is why the KamAZ is white… but never mind…

Yet now the princess drenches me in her blue spotlights!

…as though I were the one and only, the singular grandfather of our future grandchildren!

This is LOVE!

…the goal is attained… and scarcely a trace of magical recoil…

…though, in truth, KamAZ does not quite agree that there is no recoil…

…all that remains of the KamAZ…

…but who is really going to question him much?

…the KamAZ itself…

After some practice with item six, having swapped out a few princesses for lovelier ones, and acquiring a modest private fleet of various machines, the next logical means of lessening magical recoil emerges:

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Fig. Chip hurries to his Gadget.

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7. No need for magic—there are plenty of princesses already…

At least one will be yours…

Especially if you saved her…

Or if she saved you…

In essence, it makes no difference—the main thing is to clear the way on one side, and then the current will flow on its own.

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Thus, let us briefly sum up the stages of the mage’s evolution into a stalker. Let us, so to speak, take a brief inventory:

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Section Chapter 2 in Summary.

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1. The First Stage.

The novice mage is brimming with puppy-like enthusiasm and self-assurance. The entire world, irrevocable and undeniable, belongs to him and him alone.

He is suffused with strength, energy, and untouched by negative experience.

He simply does not yet realize that he is young, though already a talented… fool.

His earliest triumphs in magic bestow upon him a holy certainty that he is capable of 'anything.' Though, as yet, 'anything' remains unaware that it may be accomplished by him.

Thus, he heeds no one; all counsel, to his mind, are but empty fears whispered by the elders. And so he presses forward headlong, in the finest traditions of a kamikaze. Choosing the field where the rakes lie thickest and heaviest.

The first article in any charter—'The commander is always right'—he has scanned in passing, but as yet, he pays it no heed.

He simply has no free time for that. He is so greatly occupied! There is so much wood to split, so many bruises to earn! And here you see, such tedious rules, laws, textbooks!

It is at this point that the path of many aspiring mages, alas, ends—often in a wheelchair, accompanied by a long list of pills for which one must work, or even beg, for the rest of Life.

Yes, yes, esteemed friends—the inevitable happy ending is but a hidden marketing ploy from Hollywood, devised so that the film will sell better!

In the real world, there’s no saving and reloading.[13]

GAME OVER – in this life, you cannot truly play again.

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2. The Second Stage.

Having gained his first true experience, the mage realizes that the world is not the beloved and ever-giving mother's breast he once imagined.

And with this, he is compelled to reckon, one way or another. Cavalry charges in magic, it seems, are fraught with peril—both problematic and self-destructive.

It is better—and, more importantly, safer—to proceed with everything smoothly and gradually.

Then, perhaps, there may even be time to notice and realize where, how, and in what one was mistaken.

Those who awaken, humble themselves, and accept this simple truth sometimes even survive and have every chance to reach the third stage of evolution.

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3. The Third Stage.

After the mage has earned a few impressive bumps (spanning his entire aura), tested his health for resilience, and his body and skin for their power to regenerate, he cools down a bit and becomes more or less reasonable. The mage now sets about grasping the foundations of magic with greater diligence and contemplation.

No longer rushing into practice as before, he turns his attention first to theory. And—O wonder of wonders—he even seeks counsel and asks others: 'Tell me, colleagues, how is this truly done?' Now he listens to the wisdom of his elder peers, though they are not especially inclined to share their secrets with him.

Passage to the next stage of evolution depends greatly on the mage’s manners, his kindness, and the grace of his communication. Some, at this stage, manage to quarrel with the whole world. Others, on the contrary, acquire fewer enemies, but those with a thicker, richer aura—so that these seasoned mages would ensure their undoing, thoroughly and with a lifelong guarantee.

The secret to a mage’s passage to the next level is his humility and gentleness of spirit. No mage has ever perished from humility. But from empty swagger and arrogant pride—every other one has been brought low, and all too easily!

But even that is often not enough.

Only in famed television series do outsiders—howling at anyone from the very first episode—survive, much to the chagrin of their enemies and the mighty of this world, until the inescapable triumphant finale: healthy, rosy-cheeked, and content.

Yet it must be clearly understood that this happy ending is but a marketing ploy, crafted for the world’s largest focus group—outsiders and the unlucky.

In real life, it is usually the quiet souls who survive, those who quarrel with no one and are desperately needed by all. There are some without whom one simply cannot do!

Like dentists or plumbers, for example.

Eras, flags, and dictators may change, yet the need for dentists, plumbers, janitors, cleaners, and other such servants endures under any regime of lasting duration.

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4. The fourth stage.

Once the mage attains access to the global flows and powers, he experiences an interaction with power that transcends all boundaries.

At last, he comes to know—keenly, even painfully, in his own flesh—his place within the evolutionary chain of Spirit.

A place both modest and exquisitely fragile. He even begins to regard ants, and every little creature, with newfound respect. For he too, many times over, might have been crushed—by Archangels or others—just like a tiny insect, scarcely noticed at all.

And yet, curiously, he has somehow remained alive. This realization draws him into deep, lifelong contemplation and inspires in him a marvelous courtesy, tact, and almost unshakable composure toward all.

Only thus does he have a chance to pass on to the next stage.

Those who fail to develop these skills, sooner or later, fall into the hot hand of some Siddha or Demiurge taking a holiday in a foul mood, and are swiftly and blissfully reincarnated as stutterers and mutes (just in case, mutes—and believe me, that is hardly the worst fate awaiting them).[14]

Incidentally, there is a joke on this theme:

A hippopotamus is drifting along the river.

Suddenly, around a bend in the river, he sees a troop of baboons beating up some poor hippopotamus for no apparent reason.

(B) – WHAT ARE YOU WRETCHED CREATURES DOING! – the hippopotamus cries out to the monkeys with all his might.

(O) – Today, we are beating up anyone who opens their mouth too wide, – the monkeys reply to the hippopotamus.

(B) – aaaaa… well, well…

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5. Stage Five.

At this stage, the mage begins to realize that there exists an enormous—almost monstrous—chasm between theory and practice. This stems from the fact that theory is always far removed from the real. And time and again, practice affirms this chasm through lived experience.

Especially in matters of magic, this is proven painfully—often, tragically so—and sometimes, even after death.

The mage pursues mastery not only through practice, but also by continually refining and deepening his understanding of theory.

Otherwise, survival itself is denied him.

Only when he becomes an experienced and cautious—indeed, still living—practitioner, does the theoretician of magic stand a chance of reaching the next phase of evolution.

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6. Sixth stage.

Those who survived the previous stages and have wagered their tattered hides again and again came upon a simple discovery. Every bicycle in this world is invented over and over, countless times.

And rather than squander time and strength, risking your health and Life itself, it is often enough simply to visit the library and search among the shelves. This way is swifter, safer, and, as a rule, more effective than awkward, self-assured efforts alone.

Moreover, books from different ages, peoples, and tongues often complement one another.

And the older the book and the deader the language in which it is written, the greater treasures, as a rule, it conceals.

This seemingly self-evident truth becomes a wondrous revelation and a tool for those who have grasped it through personal experience.

And those who have taken it into their armory, so deeply that it becomes bone and instinct, have every chance to cross into the next realm.

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7. The seventh stage.

At this level, a simple truth is revealed.

In most cases, it is not at all necessary to stubbornly pursue your unique and unrepeatable path (which, as a rule, stands out mainly for its own simple and singular folly). It is often enough simply to attune yourself to the world and the processes unfolding within it. Thus you may attain all that you so fervently desired—and even more—almost without effort.

Just as a sparrow anxiously flutters its wings and journeys for several kilometers. The albatross journeys for thousands of kilometers, without making even a dozen wingbeats.[15]

It is a Paradox, seeming wholly impossible, and yet it is so.[16]

Thus are mages transformed into Stalkers… though only those who survive to see this moment.

The chief distinction between a Stalker and a mage (as the word is commonly understood) lies in this: the Stalker does not reinvent the wheel, nor does he batter his way through probability by sheer force. Rather, he walks the paths already trodden and rides the rising flows, arriving with minimal effort precisely where the world NEEDS him in this very moment. In the role that the world requires, and that the stalker finds intriguing.

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…and for the One Walking the Path, there are abundant roles, scenes, and worlds of interest…

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Section Homework № 2.

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Fig. We travel the hard road to the Emerald City…[17]

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1. For each of items 1–7 in the 'Summary of Chapter 2' subsection, find, on the Internet, images or photographs that may serve as a kind of epigraph or conclusion for each point.

Print them out and paste them into your journal. Justify your choice of image in writing.

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2. Identify the stages of human development, from conception onward.[18]

As an example, find and study 'The Ballad of Childhood' by V. Vysotsky on the Internet or on YouTube.

About five to ten items.

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3. Identify the TYPES of mistakes made during each stage of human development.

For instance: critical errors, fatal errors, and so on and so forth…[19]

Five to ten, or more if possible. Naturally, with examples. Add and mix to taste.

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4. Highlight, within the stages of human development, those acquired qualities of character and consciousness that allow a person to move from one stage to the next.

Some five to ten, or perhaps more.

Ensure there are no gaps in your classification under item 2.

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5. Consolidate your answers for items 2 to 4 into a single, interconnected table or diagram.

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6. Repeat the analysis yourself, this time pertaining to the mage.

Prepare a table similar to question 5, but now for the mage.

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7. How might one increase the survivability of the mage?

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Fig. Knowledge enters one ear and leaves through the other. The understanding won by one’s own toil abides forever with the one awakened!

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Chapter 3 No need for cleverness here, no need for cleverness—just point with your finger!

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Fig. Suspended in subspace, swaying in the wind. The East, nailed and swaying in the wind. Gone without a sign. Gone without a sign. Gone without a sign. Yet a Sign could have helped.

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A jest…

A well-known tale.

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The Arctic Ocean… wind, frost, the sky veiled with clouds, hanging a hundred meters overhead. Upon leaden waters, an Eskimo's kayak sways. A hunched Eskimo casts for something in the water—something that has not yet thought to swim away to Sochi or Turkey, guided by the compass.

The water begins to bubble and churn with vigor, and nearby, a badly battered submarine surfaces, its hatch opening. Clad in a vast black cloak, the Captain emerges above. He leafs through a certain reference book for a long while, then begins to recite the various dialects of the peoples of the Far North. He opens the dialogue with phrases such as, 'Yes, I am Captain Tu Ranch, and who are you?' The Chukchi, squinting, nervously tries to tilt his head upward, though it has never bent that way before, for he has never needed to. At last, in the finest Tradition of Russian variety shows, he 'looks askance, bowing his head low,' for his head simply refuses to tilt upward; and so, in purest English, he asks the standard question of geologists on the third day of searching for oil among boxes of empty vodka bottles:[20]

– What do you want, officer?

To this, the bewildered Captain—striving to speak English as fluently as an Eskimo—replies:

– Would the esteemed Sir Chukcha be so kind as to tell me in which direction lies the land blessed by our Lord and His Son, America?

To this, the Eskimo responds:

– Course south-southeast, 250 miles, and mind the shoals near the shore.

After this, the Captain, utterly at a loss, gloomily descends into the hatch and vanishes. The Eskimo continues his pursuit, catching something born from what once overheated in the tropics and now, as horoscopes claim, is cooling alongside your beer.

Some time drifts by.

Water foams and bubbles once more, as a Russian submarine surfaces—swaying and lurching in a curious fashion.

The boatswain, barely alive, crawls out on all fours and, shouting down below, calls: 'It’s nothing! We’ll sort it out, Captain! What do you need that compass for? There were two liters of spirits inside! No sense letting good fortune go to waste, after all.' Then, squinting in an effort to fix his gaze on the Chukchi, he bellows with a hoarse bass voice:

– Hey, Chukchi, which direction is Murmansk?

To this, he receives the reply:

– Heading northwest by west, about three thousand miles, give or take. Just don't overturn the boat, boatswain, please, when you dive.

To which the boatswain shouts in anger:

– Don't get clever, you rascal, don't get clever. Just point with your finger—show me where to go…

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So then, what is Stalking, in simple terms?

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Fig. Hey, you! Yes, you—I'm talking to you! Come over here! We'll share, as brothers should, whatever God has sent your way.

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Evening falls… Once again, a young mage, in the finest Tradition of fools and misfits, saturated with fantasy tales until the very brink, returns with the unsteady gait of a sleepwalker to his burrow, in his beloved five-story building, to blissfully slip into anabiosis—until that pure, kind, luminous moment arrives: the release of a new remake, where he, from beginning to end, reigns as the Great and Mighty.

Meanwhile, the forces of darkness, embodied in a fledgling criminal known as Lisp (three years probation under 213), along with a couple of other young and wayward souls, clustered into a pack, sipping drinks in the stairwell, seeking something soft and yielding on which to train their still-fragile minds.

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Fig. Once I become Mighty—they will surely know me then! Their time is nearly at an end. In a year, a new season will dawn!

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Paths that lie ahead:

Option 1: Our hero only noticed Shepelyavy when he had already crept across the entire screen. The fevered search for the mouse with his right hand, the frantic clicking of the left button, and the odd absence of a sight on the screen all conspired to make conversing with the people of this mighty mage somewhat arduous.

The last record saved on the hard drive that day was a blurred, grimy palm, captured at 60 hertz. She enclosed this world entirely, overturning and extinguishing it. He did not see how a young but already promising CMS in 'judo before' and 'judo after' soared after him up the stairs to the landing. And he began confidently weaving macramé from the young, yet already so gifted ne’er-do-wells.

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Fig. What have we here? Nagual or Tonal? Perhaps, just as a test, should he throw in a little extra for him?[21]

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Option 2: Our young wizard became so lost in dreams that he slipped and spilled all his fantasies right at the threshold. And while he was gathering them, a young but already fading-in-hope CMS boxer, Gavrila, dashed into the entryway and ran up the stairs, where he stumbled over Lisping. Afterwards, he had a brief but meaningful conversation with him.

In the course of their short discussion, it became evident that a left hook held a clear advantage over mere bravado and bravado uttered in thieves’ slang. At the same time, Gavrila subtly confirmed Lisping's nickname in the finest Tradition of professionals—with a finishing kick to the head.[22]

The young magician, drenched in cold sweat and stepping fastidiously over bloodied mucus and vomit, swiftly scurried into his burrow. Then, with a sigh of relief, he hurriedly opened his dose—no, his book, yes, his book—and blissfully lost himself on the second level of the book about Him! The Great One! Hallelujah!

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Fig. Where to go? Where should one turn?

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Option 3: The little hobbit darted home in brief sprints, bathed in sticky sweat.

All day, the signs cried out to him of the imminent and inescapable white-furred beast come for his soul. With every passing hour, the world’s hints became more unmistakable—the cats wailed louder in his ear, and the passersby, who seemed to utter chance phrases, gazed at him with growing meaning, bending the matrix as if they might at any moment leap from the RAM to this side of the screen.

The last sign was a scrap of newspaper before the entrance door, bearing the headline: ‘The Last Warning to Ukraine from Gazprom’, though exactly half the headline remained.

‘…I wonder, what would Castaneda have to say about that?’ mused the hobbit, settling on the bench before the doorway, knees half-bent.

The answer arrived, as always—through curses and the heartfelt shouts of youths, young yet already so gifted, under the guidance of Lisping. To the rhythmic hawking of Gavrila, a young yet already promising CMS of Krantez-do, who slipped into the entryway while the hobbit still pondered: ‘To be or not to be—that is the question.’

‘Of course, strike—and with a heel to the nose,’ thought Gavrila.

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Fig. Nothing betrayed the standard visage of Dr. Shmir. Even the Dal communications radio was skillfully disguised as a battered accordion.[23]

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Option 4: (…a deep, resonant voice, off-screen… set against the strange hiss and crackle.)

…the resident of Dal Intelligence slept… But he knew that in a matter of minutes he would awaken in his own bed and remember everything he had dreamed. Therefore, today he will skip the CMS something or other, letting Gavryusha into the entryway out of turn.

…end of communication session.

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Fig. …three, seven, Ace… three, seven, Ace… three, seven, Ace…[24]

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Option 5: 'Well, now let's skip the king of spades, skip him,' Yuri muttered with spiteful lisping after his last meeting with Shepelyavy, ever more drawn into the role of the local madman, letting Gavrila into the entryway—Gavrila, who did not yet know of his fateful meeting with Shepelyavy, so momentous for Yuri, but was already hurrying to it…

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Fig. How are you, brother? Whom did you see today?

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Option 6: “Kings of Swords to the front, please…” Herman thought calmly, looking into Gavrila’s eyes as they exchanged empty phrases; Gavrila then briskly went to strike Lisper, just as any card ought to act in a game of Solitaire.

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Fig. People are cards. Cards are people. Where you lay them out, there they will remain.

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Option 7: “No, I don’t like this spread…” the Stalker thought, reshuffling the spread where Gavrila delivered a calculated kick to Lisper’s head with his trained foot, thus ridding the entryway forever of that unruly, impudent nuisance—but earning his first criminal record in the process.

And truly—what an honor, to lay out a Solitaire for the Lisping One.

But Gavrila—he is a fine fellow; I will tell him, and he will thrash him thoroughly, regardless. But Svetka from apartment fifty-four—a fool, wagging her tail in every direction, blind to her own happiness.

We ought to lay a Solitaire for Gavrila and her. So that they might come together and live happily. Then, in the entranceway, in some… years, there will be more decent folk, and fewer of the lisping kind.

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Section Chapter 3 Summary.

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For those uncertain, a classification of fingers:

1. Zero Version of Stalking, or…

2. Unconscious Stalking, or, wherever the guardian angel manages to place you—that is your homeland.

3. “Aboutооооооооо, enemies again… they have surrounded me—it’s an ambush, imagine that, my friends, yeaaaah?”—this is semi-conscious Stalking, often gently flowing into Stalking under madhouse conditions. Under the guidance and surrounded by kind and responsive orderlies. With haloperidol ever at hand.[25]

4. Stalking the dreamer… or rather, dreaming Stalking… or the dreams of a stalker, perhaps… or Stalking a dream, more precisely… or perhaps a dream within Stalking… or Stalking within a dream? …who could truly unravel these dreams without a council of stalkers…

5. Stalking is not yet a trickster, but already lightly shuffling… cards… and events…

6. Stalking the stalker… at least, that’s what he believes…

7. 'And surely, it is time for a stalker to become a Stalker,' thought Mir…

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Section Homework № 3.

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Fig. Downshifting. Down – the mask. To those who see – a hint.

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1. Compose your own selection of mottos, epigraphs, proverbs, aphorisms, or photographs for each point in the first part of Chapter 3.

Do this no worse than the author of the book, that pitiful failure unburdened by intellect!

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2. Compose your own selection of mottos, epigraphs, proverbs, aphorisms, or photographs for each point in the second part, ‘Outcomes of Chapter 3’.