mystic bourgeoisie: to receive different energies

In Leaders and Their Followers in a Dangerous World: The Psychology of Political Behavior, there is a section titled "Radovan Karadzic: Poet of Death" (p. 172). It begins by noting that "a principle architect of ethnic cleansing in Bosnia was a psychiatrist -- a disturbing echo of the Nazi doctors..." He was also evidently a poet. A few pages later we get this...

Karadzic's poems reveal his embrace of myth, demonstrating a fusion of his personal Homeric myth with a collective myth of greater Serbian redemption. Karadzic identifies himself with Serbia and views himself as having a heroic role in Serbian history. His grandiose self-image is reflected in his poetic reference to his name: "Since people were not allowed to call God by his real name they called him Radovan," that is, "he who brings joy." In several of his poems he seems to identify himself with the deity.

A bit further down the same page, the author writes...

Karadzic ruefully acknowledges this premonitory prophetic quality, and speaks of if it arising out of his sense of being "trapped in the depths of historical mire," and of his poetry as representing his answer to his sense of confusion and torment.

I'm just guessing here, but that last bit makes me think Karadzic was probably familiar with the "Traditionalist" spew of Rene Guenon and Julius Evola, as well as with the ahistorical longings of Mircea Eliade's fascist religiosity.

But poetry and religion were clearly not enough for the joyous Radovan.

On July 23, The New York Times reported...

Radovan Karadzic, one of the world’s most wanted war criminals for his part in the massacre of nearly 8,000 Muslim men and boys in Srebrenica in 1995, was arrested Monday in a raid in Serbia that ended a 13-year hunt.

Thanks to Frank Paynter for alerting me to the "softer side" of this genocidal butcher. The Guardian ran a story on July 22 titled Radovan Karadzic: Online purveyor of alternative energies, which translated bits of the website he maintained.

"We are energetic beings," the Serbian-language site begins. "Numerous energetic processes in us, which all the functions of our body are dependent upon, are caused by the energy of the higher source (cosmic energy, prana, mana, organic energy, quantum energy, the Holy Spirit). They flow in us and around us and they are our highest good and the source of health and our wellbeing."

The same day, Reuters posted a story titled Karadzic lived as long-haired, New Age doctor...

As the soft-spoken Dr Dabic, Karadzic held lectures and wrote articles comparing popular meditation techniques with 'Orthodox Meditation' a silent technique practiced by monks in Orthodox monasteries.
He was also interested in healing through the optimal use of 'vital energy', a quasi-mystical, non-physical dimension of the body, similar to the Chinese notion of 'Qi' and the Indian concept of the 'chakra' centres of energy in the body.
"He was very religious," said a woman who works at the magazine and knew him. "He had his hair in a plait in order to be able to receive different energies. He was a very nice man."

The photographs and captions below are from the New York Times slideshow: The End of a Manhunt.

“ Wanted since 1995, Mr. Karadzic [right]
disappeared from the public eye for at least
a decade. He is said to have eluded arrest
so long by... disguising himself as a
Serbian Orthodox priest. ”

“Clothed skeletons at the site of the
massacre. The remains were on a
hilltop west of the town.”

“Bosnian refugees from Srebrenica mourned
the victims of the massacre at a refugee camp
at the Tuzla airport in Bosnia in the days after
the killings in 1995.”