Unravelling the truth about Rasputin

In the final days of Imperial Russia, the most powerful man in the country was a wildly debauched insane monk called Gregor Rasputin. Having left a lonely monastery in Siberia, he made his way to Moscow where he used his bizarre mesmeric powers to hypnotise one of the Tsar`s ladies in waiting into injuring the young heir to the throne so he could affect what appeared to be a miraculous cure and inveigle his way into the Imperial Court where he became the sado-masochistic lover of the Empress Alexandra. His Machiavellian intrigues finally destroyed the mighty Romanoff Dynasty. His appetite for women, food and alcohol was legendary. He had bizarreparanormal powers, possibly given to him as the result of a pact with the Devil.

His very name came from the Russian for “Debauchery”, and he looked a lot like veteran British horror film actor Christopher Lee. Despite the claims of dozens of books and nearly as many films none of the above is true! Although Gregory Rasputin was a very real historical character, and his life and death are fascinating to both the historian and the Fortean, nearly everything that has been written about the “Mad Monk” is a lie. With the benefit of hindsight it is now possible to examine the truth about Rasputin`s life and to discuss his legacy. To start with, he was neither mad nor a monk.Gregor Rasputin (the name is a common one in Siberia, and comes from theRussian word Raspute meaning a fork in the road rather than Rasputsvo or debauchery) was born in the Siberian village of Pokrovskoe on the 10th January 1869. After a wild youth spent womanising, drinking and fighting he married at the age of 20 but after the death of his son he turned to religion as solace. Several authorities on Rasputin have noted that the young Rasputin had spent four months in a monastery before his marriage, but it was not until author Greg King obtained access to pre-revolutionary Russian records that the truth of the matter emerged. The young Rasputin had been found guilty of a minor theft and asked to be sent to the monastery as an alternative to prison. At the Verkhoturye monastery he encountered two heretical Russianreligious sects;. ...

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