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Preface to the English edition
All right reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without prior written permission of the author (permission may be obtained electronically from the author's emailing addresses below).
Any references to historical events, real people or real places are used for artistic or creative purposes only.
First printing edition 2022 (in Russian) and 2024 (in English).
This is the English translation of my second book, it was prepared in the fall of 2024.
Published in electronic form on the Litres digital platform and in paper by Ridero in December 2024.
The translation done by myself, because I know English and French to some extent, I studied them at school and institute.
Initially, a machine translation source from Google was used, which was read twice and all found errors were corrected.
Also all typos found during the period 2022–2024 were corrected, all links were checked.
The original book was published in Russian on September 1, 2022 in electronic form on Litres platform; in paper in December 2022 by Ridero, ISBN 978-5-0059-4020-9.
Link to the Russian edition of the book in electronic form:
https://www.litres.ru/book/vasiliy-lasovskiy/posledniy-da-vinchi-68001386/
The translation into English of my first book 19+ is expected in spring 2025, it was published in Russian on Litres platform on October 15, 2018; in paper in October 2018 by Ridero, ISBN 978-5-4493-5682-6, and here is its page in electronic form:
https://www.litres.ru/book/vasiliy-lasovskiy/19-38626360/
Link to the author's page, where you can download the Russian originals of my books and their translations into other languages:
https://vasilylasovsky.livejournal.com
Author's email:
vasilylasovsky@yandex.ru
91tenet19@gmail.com
Best wishes to my occasional rare readers ;-),
Vasily Lasovsky.
“Listen, Anne, I fell in love…”
“Is that so?”
“For the first time in my life and for the rest of my life. I've never been so happy. But… there is one obstacle between us—you see, she is from Perador.”
“Perador? From the province, perhaps?”
“Somewhat. Historical province. In short, I’m ready to fight the Dragon, stomp across the Star Bridge, which is colloquially called the Milky Way…”
from the film “31 June”, 1978, episode 2, time 0:19:00.
Preface
“I came here from afar. Possibly from Zanzibar.”
“There is no sea there.”
“Oh, then that means from Genoa.”
from the film “31 June”, episode 1, time 0:42:00.
This book has very little to do with the work of the great Renaissance artist Leonardo Da Vinci; the title was chosen solely as an allegory, and to some extent to create a psychological motivation for self-development.
The basis of the book is the facts of my biography. Its limits the period of 5 years from the beginning of 2018, when my first book 19+ ends, and until the publication date of this book, the end of summer 2022.
A significant difference in my life path is the extreme degree of non-manifestation of my personality in my contemporary everyday world, which is compensated, I hope, by its work on other planes.
On a daily basis, I rather deal with the systematization of thoughts and sensory experiences of the everyday reality that opens up to me, and to a minimal extent for changing it under my own influence.
The book should be considered with skepticism, as a work of fiction filled with fantasy and illusions.
The main tool for analyzing my biography at the moment is to take the temporary center at September 10, 2017 and the divergence of the influence of events from this moment into the past and future. Naturally, this analysis is fantasy, fictitious, creative.
It is also important that some events turned out to be extended in their manifestation over years or even decades, and in order to understand them we have to return to some events in the past, which requires very specific comprehensive thinking.
The foundation for the book and my current worldview is the mystical idea of fantasy Attributes, i.e. about the creative manifestations of certain personality traits of a particular person, which are presumably given to him from birth or from conceiving, but which are revealed at the right moment of his maturation and only under certain catalyzing external circumstances. The presence of external circumstances is a key factor. The attributes are interesting because they lead me to my supposed “legacy”, which is extremely intriguing.
The main theme of my thoughts in this book is the problem of subjective perception of the passing of time.
Restrictions. The book is NOT intended for reading by believers, because it can cause them mental wounds and suffering. All my rare thoughts on the topic of any religion are only a fantasy of my imagination and, according to my subjective perception, have little relation to reality. But in any case, I apologize if I hurt anyone's religious feelings, this was in no means my intention.
The book is neither a mystical work nor a conspiracy theory, and it will disappoint fans of these genres. This is still a “biography with elements of fiction”, just like my first book. And if you haven’t read my first book, then think about whether you need to read this one? I believe it is much less interesting than the first part of my lifestory events.
Regarding the fictional nature of my personal experiences. Of course, and undoubtedly, they are all fictitious, but I do not write about this obvious fact on every page. Thus, the text consists of specific facts of my life and assumptions based on them. I do not at all assert the likelihood of the existence of these fantasies and assumptions, with a high degree of probability – they are just my conjectures that connect real events and allow me to decorate the narrative.
Who is this book for? After writing the previous part of my autobiography 19+, I suddenly realized that I like to go back and re-read my own book. It’s funny, but I’m writing this work exclusively for myself.
I completely lack the motivation to somehow manifest myself in the world and, accordingly, gain some kind of “popularity”.
My first book 19+ was read by about 150 people. On one of the two sites where it was published at the end of 2018, in the first year there were 40 ratings (average rating 4.0 out of a maximum of 5.0), on the second site there were only 5 ratings. The number of ratings has not increased in subsequent years (2020–2022), so I assume it was read only in 2019.
I hope a lot, that fewer people read this book. Less is better. Of course, you will think that I write this way so that, on the contrary, more people will read it. But no, I really don't want anyone to read it. I believe that every person has enough random garbage in his head and there is no need to add more.
This is my personal diary, and I make notes in it for myself so as not to forget something important. Publication will naturally limit the possibility of editing, and of course, publishing a book ends the process of endless additions, which is also very pleasant.
Accordingly, I am not going to advertise or promote it in any way and I ask casual readers of this work (and the previous book 19+) to try NOT to tell other people about this work! Let it be my little secret.
I believe that books of this kind should not be published. But in the age of overflowing with easily accessible information, I expect this book to be successfully lost among millions of others.
Instead of this book, read a wonderful science fiction novel on the problems of time – Isaac Asimov's The End of Eternity, 1955.
Introduction
“Probably it’s all about retro.”
“Oh my God, Anne! What are you wearing?”
“I’m explaining to you – retro is in fashion now: they wear what did they wear in the 70s of the 20th century, and Sam, apparently based on this…”
“What did they wear in the 70s of the 20th century?”
“Well, what they wore in the 30s of the 20th century. In general, retro is a search for a fair lady, a return to respectable relationships… and sublime love.”
from the film “31 June”, episode 1, time 0:23:15.
I started writing this book on April 7, 2021 at 6:04 pm, and that’s when I came up with the title. The time in the book is Moscow time (UTC+3, MSK Time Zone).
1) stage April 7, 2021 – May 15, 2021, total 49 pages, 116.611 characters, at the first stage the book included diary entries for 2019–2021, with minimal modification;
2) stage September 30, 2021 – January 30, 2022, total 87 pages, 225.821 characters, this stage began when I learned about the last biographical event described in the book, then there was a long work to give the composition a complete view;
3) final stage May 24, 2022 at 4:34 pm – August 30, 2022 at 2:30 pm, total 130 pages, 345.309 characters.
The publication date of the book is August 31, 2022. It is planned to publish it in e-book format on the Litres and MyBook platforms, +19 pcs. paper copies as a keepsake.
The story that will happen…
“The story that you will now see, and which happened before my eyes… hmmm… has not happened yet… But it will happen… In the 21st century, at the very beginning, on June 31. On a Lunar day…”
from the film “31 June”, episode 1, time 0:00:31.
In August 1991, while in Sochi, walking along the embankment on one of the warm sunny days, passing along the alley by the sea, I had a thought that someday in the future I would remember this moment, and I naturally remembered the sensations and the place where I had this thought. Now three decades have passed, and I sometimes remember this event.
The question arises about the primacy of experiences. What was the source of the experience? My current memories or those distant events in my memory? Where is my physical existence, my experiences, when I think now about that event? In the present or in the past?
A possible answer is the experiences at that point in spacetime will occur entirely in present time. And it will be difficult to separate old memories from current experiences, because at the moment of experience I laid down this possibility, I assumed (allowed, permited) that I would remember that moment in the future. Thus, this experience does not belong to the past, but is carried with me, being constantly in the present, while I move into the future with the natural flow of my subjective time.
How can we ensure that our current changes in reality lead to the result we need in the future? What is the extent of necessary and minimal changes?
A Quick Guide for Time Travelers
Time travel begins “here and now”, and then it is directed to some point in thought space in the past.
The past can be real or fictitious. The real past is limited to the physical life of a person, and all other time travels will be fictitious. For example, a typical fictional journey is to the History of the Middle Ages. When we read literature on that period, we unconsciously “travel” to this fictional historical period. Most likely, we have nothing to do with the real events that took place; our entire journey takes place completely virtually, in our fictional inner universe.
By making a temporary trip, a person enriches his inner world, gains interesting new knowledge and skills, and changes spiritually. The depth of immersion into a new time point for each person can be completely different, from a superficial glance to a deep immersion.
When we’ll have peception of events that happened in the distant past, we undoubtedly develop, but at the same time our impact on the real world, which is always located in front of us, “here and now”, decreases.
The simplest explanation for this creative process is the creation of a “temporary parallel universe”. For example, in your memories you moved to a point one day earlier. Unconsciously, you “create” some supposedly “parallel reality” where you are currently experiencing again all those moments of your life that you remember.
The next day, i.e. now, at the moment of its creation and in the process of your remembering – this parallel reality merges with your main time path, and you become a little stronger. Because the imprint of your personality will also merge with you, adding new experiences and new perceptions.
About Messianism
I consider messianism to be a form of mental illness, quite possibly manifested due to gross external influence, when the tension was so strong that human nature could not withstand excessive pressure and was damaged, because it was not designed to withstand this vice. However, of course, I could be wrong about this, because I am far from both religion and medicine. By my nature, I categorically distance myself from such influence on myself and do not transmit it to others. I believe that a person always has a choice and the path he chooses will likely lead to a result if followed completely.
Messiah complex (second link in Russian and not available)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Savior_complex
https://hmong.ru/wiki/Savior_complex
“The Messiah complex (Christ complex or Savior complex) is a state of mind in which a person believes that he is destined to become a savior today or in the near future. This term can also refer to a state of mind in which a person believes that he has a responsibility to save or help others. <…>
The term Messiah complex is no covered in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) because it is not a clinical term and is not a diagnosable disorder. However, the symptoms as a purported disorder are very similar to those found in people who suffer from delusions of grandeur or have a grandiose view of themselves that tends toward delusion. One report specifically defines this as a category of religious delusion that refers to strongly fixed beliefs that cause distress or disability. This is a type of religious error that is classified as grandiose, while the other two categories are persecution and belittlement. According to philosopher Antony Flew, an example of such a fallacy was the case of Paul (the Apostle), who claimed that God spoke to him, telling him that he would serve as a guide for people to change them. Kent and Flew's thesis stated that his experiences caused auditory and visual hallucinations.”
This is probably a very pleasant disease. A sort of Superiority complex
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superiority_complex
Here is an example of one of the most prominent cases (the first link in Russian):
https://aftershock.news/?q=node/1137479
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sabbatai_Zevi
https://www.jhi.pl/en/articles/the-false-messiah-who-was-sabbatai-zevi,4472
“Sabbatai Zevi was born on August 1, 1626 in Izmir. He received an excellent religious education and from the age of 16 began to lead an ascetic lifestyle and immersed himself in the study of Kabbalah. <…>
In 1648, Sabbatai declared himself the messiah among his supporters.
He began to receive mystical insights, fall into depression, or vice versa into ecstasy, and publicly violate religious prohibitions. This caused the natural anger of the rabbis of Izmir. <…>
In 1658, the Jewish preacher Abraham Yachini gave Shabbatai an ancient manuscript that he allegedly found. It contained a prophecy directly pointing to Shabbatai and declaring him the messiah. The manuscript stunned and inspired Shabbatai. Well, what he already knew was confirmed.
In 1665, Shabbatai arrived in the city of Gaza and met Nathan, a young rabbi who was then preaching in that city. Nathan believed in Shabtai's messianism and became an ideologist and preacher of Sabbateanism. One might say – an apostle. Nathan sent a message to all Jewish communities and invited them to stand under the banner of the Messiah.
On May 31, 1665, Shabbatai Zevi publicly declared himself the messiah.
Shabbatai’s ostentatious asceticism and the delight of his followers, similar to the atmosphere of a modern rock concert. Shabbatai easily distributed positions and titles in the name of the King of the Jews. He modestly signed his messages and appointments: ‘I am the Lord your God Sabbatai-Zevi’.
In September 1666, Zevi was presented to the Sultan and was asked to undergo a mortal test – shooting with arrows, to prove his divine origin. Or convert to Islam. Zevi chose the second.
And this decision of his was like an avalanche – it led the Jewish communities to great disappointment and collapse of hopes.
A small part of Shabbatai’s followers also converted to Islam and formed the Dönme community, which still exists in Turkey.
He died in 1676, at the age of 50.
The true God, according to the Sabbatians, can only be revealed through the complete destruction of religious and social structures created by the ‘false god’. And at the same time, our entire familiar world order. After all, everything that is sacred and dear to us by Sabbatian standards is harmful, it is an anchor that does not allow the “true God” to penetrate the world.”
“Sabbatai Zevi, the long-dead false messiah, once appeared to the Baal Shem and begged him to remove his sins. For it is well known that redemption is accomplished through the connection of man with man, mind with mind, soul with soul. Therefore, the Baal Shem began to connect his being with the alien's being, but he did it slowly and carefully, fearing that he might harm him. One day, when the Baal Shem was sleeping, Sabbatai Zevi appeared to him again and began to seduce him, saying that the Baal Shem needed to become what he was. Therefore, the Baal Shem kicked him out, doing it with the same determination with which he descended into the very depths of hell.
From then, when the Baal Shem spoke about Sabbatai Zevi, he always repeated: ‘The spark of God was in him, but Satan caught him in the trap of pride.’”
Martin Buber “Tales of the Hasidim”, 1997.
In my opinion, the world is now somehow collapsing too quickly, and one even involuntarily wants to “slow down” these possibly objective processes of degradation.
About numbers
“Are some numbers more meaningful than others? Of course! If ordinary people, far from science or mysticism, have their favorite and least favorite numbers, what can we say about mathematicians and physicists? Numbers are as important a component of culture as words. There is no person to whom the numbers 7, 13 or 666 do not mean anything. But there are numbers that influence our lives, even if we do not know about them.”
Timothy Hugh, Connecticut.
“If knowledge cannot be expressed numerically, then it is superficial and insufficient.”
Lord Kelvin (William Thompson), English physicist, 1824–1907.
About the signs
“By appearing openly to those who seek Him with all their heart and hiding from those who flee from Him with all their heart, God regulates human knowledge of Himself. He gives signs visible to those who seek Him and invisible to those who are indifferent to Him. He gives enough light to those who want to see, and He gives enough darkness to those who do not want to see.”
Blaise Pascal, french mathematician.
Ivanov E. M. “Ontology of the Subjective” (link in Russian)
http://filosof.historic.ru/books/item/f00/s00/z0000857/st001.shtml
“On the other hand, if consciousness is a time flow, then how is it able to realize this? How can a flow know that it is a flow? Being inside the movement, being captured by it, it is impossible to feel this movement (just as, for example, sailors on the open sea, far from the shore, do not perceive the movement of their ship). In order to perceive one’s own movement in time, it is necessary to have a ‘reference point’ that is motionless in time, i.e. have something timeless. Consequently, since consciousness is capable of perceiving itself as a time flow, it must contain something outside the flow of time, something ‘supra-temporal’. (I. Kant also drew attention to this circumstance).
If we were always only in the present, we would know only the present and would not be able to grasp the movement of our own soul in time – after all, the latter presupposes the possibility of somehow correlating events separated in time, comparing them directly with each other. In general, everything temporary is possible only against the background of the supertemporal, if only simply because any multiplicity in general (and the multiplicity of moments in time in particular) is possible only against the background of unity, which overcomes this multiplicity and allows one to correlate many things, thereby affirming the fact of its existence.
Let us also note that if we existed only in the present, it would be impossible to explain how we even have the idea of a past and a future . The past and future would be given to us only in the mode of the present, but not in the mode of the past and future. But without experience in which the past and the future were directly given to us, we could not form the idea of the past and the future. After all, it is not possible to form the idea of the past or the future, using only those elements of the inner world that belong exclusively to the present. Thus, the very possibility of conceiving the past and the future indicates the presence in our subjective sphere of a certain supertemporal entity. The role of such a supertemporal entity, against the background of which the perception of the temporal dynamics of sensory ‘states of consciousness’ is possible, is precisely what sense can claim.
From a theoretical point of view, the supertemporality of meaning follows from the integrity of the ‘semantic field’ described above, its indecomposability into separate, unrelated semantic units. Since any meaning exists only in the context of the entire holistic system of meanings, we can only talk about the current experience of meaning conditionally. In each current state of consciousness, the entire totality of individual meanings is presented in the form of a semantic ‘horizon’, a universal context of what is actually experienced, albeit in a certain ‘semantic perspective’ inherent in a particular moment in time. Meanings do not replace each other, arising and being destroyed, but only their readiness for actualization changes – in relation to the current state of subjective sensuality.
Let us note that the idea of the supertemporal nature of a certain ‘deep’ component of the human soul is widely represented in various philosophical teachings of the past. Thus, for Plotinus, the most fundamental components of the soul ‘reside in Eternity’ and are identical to the world Mind and the One. I. Kant also assumed the presence of both temporary and timeless components of mental life. Actually, according to Kant, the ‘subject’, as a “Thing-in-itself”, is located outside the world of phenomena, to which only ‘temporality’ is applicable, as an a priori form of contemplation. According to Bergson, human memory is direct access (through time) to the past , and not the preservation of traces of the past in the present. The idea of the timelessness of the ‘I’ is also widely represented in Russian philosophy of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. (L.M. Lopatin, N.O. Lossky, L.P. Karsavin, E.N. Trubetskoy, S.L. Frank, etc.). Moreover, meaning was often referred to as the non-local content of the soul in time. Here it will be enough to quote E. N. Trubetskoy, who essentially expresses the general position of the named Russian philosophers.”