Petr Krylov
How to Become Rich

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Chapter 1. What Exactly Is Stalking of Denarii, and Why Should You Care?

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Soccer is when millions watch 22 millionaires laze about and kick a ball.

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So, here we are.

If you're reading this, chances are you're wondering what Stalking of Denarii actually is—and more importantly, how it might work for you.

You could talk about Stalking for ages, but try searching for it online and you'll find shockingly little. To keep it short, it’s an extensive science dating all the way back to ancient earthly civilizations, used for reaching goals with as little effort and expense as possible.

In that way, Stalking is a lot like martial arts—think aikido, judo, hapkido, or even chan-fu. Just like in aikido, where a master uses the opponent’s strength against them, in Stalking, the overwhelming force of circumstances ends up working for the stalker—doing, if not all, then at least most of the heavy lifting for them.

That’s exactly why Stalkers have always managed to hit any target they set for themselves. This is what makes Stalking so attractive for beginners compared to other methods: you don’t need to meditate, flex your willpower, or really do much of anything. A Stalker, like an aikido master, doesn’t wrestle with obstacles; instead, they cleverly use them to their own advantage.

Stalking of Denarii is just one of the many practical offshoots of the fine Art of Stalking, laser-focused on achieving material prosperity—as the launchpad for your personal spiritual growth.

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So how does this actually work? Let’s take a simple example.

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Every morning, you get up to start your workday. Whether you’re an oligarch, a housewife, a middle manager, or just the janitor, the general routine is pretty much the same. Before you even make it to work, you usually follow a long and winding path.

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But take note of the following:

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1) You’re constantly opening and closing all sorts of automatic and semi-automatic doors. That’s your apartment door, the elevator, the building’s intercom, the garage, your car or the bus, another intercom, the office door—the list goes on.

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2) Whether you’re crossing the street on foot or rolling down it in your own car, you ALWAYS follow CERTAIN rules. Pedestrian, driver, or some wild combo of both—you’re CONSTANTLY playing by some GENERAL traffic RULES just like everyone else. The moment you decide to break those rules, you’ll quickly discover it’s a risky and highly unrewarding game. Fines, accidents, semi-trucks whizzing by (and sometimes not whizzing by at all), along with a whole set of low-key headaches, will rapidly convince you that following the rules is 100% MANDATORY.

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3) When you're heading from point A to point B, you ALWAYS have to play by the rules. Like, you drive on the right side of the road, don’t hop the curb, wait for the right light, and so on. Sure, your path ends up a lot more roundabout and takes longer, but you go along with it because you know that, eventually, you’ll get where you want to go. Try to take the direct route, and—surprise!—you’ll just run straight into a building.

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4) You can find all kinds of helpful info on maps, posters, and guides—that way you can actually NAVIGATE in a shiny NEW place where you have no clue what’s going on.

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5) And most importantly—on your journey, you’re constantly USING all sorts of gadgets and gizmos: elevators, cars, buses, escalators, subways, airplanes, you name it. By using these handy mechanisms, you reach your goals FASTER and with LESS effort. And you can multiply this advantage ad nauseam, say, by flying on a plane a couple thousand times.

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It seems like simple stuff—you've done this hundreds, maybe thousands of times; everyone does it, everywhere. Hundreds of millions of drivers and pedestrians are all doing the same thing, following the same rules.

But don’t be fooled—the routine and everyday nature of these actions have made them look meaningless to you. You do all this on autopilot, and even realizing you need to do itjust feels like a given, without any real thought.

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Try looking at it another way: imagine you have someone from the Middle Ages hanging out at your place. If he doesn’t know the rules of the road, how modern locks work, or how to get information, how far do you think he’ll get out of your apartment? Remember the movie ‘Ivan Vasilievich: Back to the Future.’ Someone who doesn’t know the rules and laws of society isn’t just helpless—they’re putting their life in actual danger.

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Take someone who’s used to our railways—walking near the tracks in Japan is basically a death wish. The high-speed trains there can flatten you against the wall with a gust of wind, even if you think you’re at a safe distance.

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You might say this all sounds fascinating, but what does it have to do with Stalking of Denarii?

The thing is, there are Higher Laws when it comes to building material wealth. And they’re just as unforgiving as the rules of the road. Ignorance of these Laws—just like not knowing the Criminal Code or traffic laws—doesn’t get you off the hook for breaking them.

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And these Higher Laws aren’t about textbooks full of legal or economic theory; if that were the case, everyone with a law or economics degree would already be a millionaire. These Laws are hardwired into the very fabric of the Universe as its protective and structuring Mechanisms, fulfilling their purpose with all the warmth and personal touch of a vending machine.

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So just imagine the kind of cosmic Russian roulette you’re playing with your fate when you ignore these Higher Laws.

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So, Stalking of Denarii is basically knowing the Higher Laws and Mechanisms. Someone who actually gets these Laws doesn’t make dumb decisions and manages to ride the Mechanisms of the Universe itself.

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You can keep bashing away at the locked entrance door secured by the intercom, blaming it for everything under the sun, imagining enemies and secret plots everywhere, but…

The intercom is just a machine—it’s not going to answer your pleas. Unless you know WHERE and HOW it actually opens, only sheer luck or someone exiting might get you inside.

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So now ask yourself: is it worth learning the Laws of Denarii?

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Chapter 2. The Law of Communicating Vessels, or How Seeds Grow

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Money likes silence.

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If you’re reading this, you’ve decided to study Stalking of Denarii.

But before you jump in, it’s worth going through a quick 'safety check.' It’s just a simple precaution, so all your 'hard work' doesn’t end up for nothing.

So, what exactly does safety mean when learning Stalking of Denarii?

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Example one.

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Two living buckets are standing next to each other. Just your run-of-the-mill living buckets. Never seen one? Weird… but okay. Picture this: one bucket’s nearly empty, and the other is taking its sweet time filling up with a trickle from the tap. The water gurgles, and the bucket slowly fills.

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Question. Will the first bucket, just standing there, ever get full? What about the second bucket, the one actually getting water from the tap?

I bet you nailed that question—pretty simple, right? Go ahead, grab yourself a pie from the shelf!

Let’s crank up the difficulty.

Now, the bucket getting filled from the tap has a lively, impatient streak, and from time to time—eager to share the wealth—it hops up and dumps whatever it’s collected into the next-door empty bucket. (Not what you were thinking.)

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Question. How fast does a bucket fill up when placed under a faucet?

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Now the answer isn’t so obvious, but we believe in the power of reason, and we’re convinced it’ll win again this time.

Let’s complicate things even further—and make the situation completely clear.

It turns out it's not just the filling bucket that's got a lively, sociable personality—the empty one does too. It circles around the bucket that's getting filled and gives it a push. It nudges it so the water starts to splash and spill over the edge—just so the empty bucket gets at least something out of it.

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It also turns out the empty bucket isn’t alone—it has plenty of equally empty relatives, and all of them hassle the one bucket actually getting filled, all with the same noble goal: to knock it off balance and snag whatever water it’s managed to collect.

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Let’s get back to the original question. How fast do you think the bucket’s going to fill in this kind of chaos?

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Pop quiz for the truly gifted. Will the bucket actually fill up in these conditions, and if it does, can it hold on to its water?

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So, you might be wondering—what do buckets, water, and us have to do with all this?

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I answer questions with more questions. Call it the Assyrian approach.

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1) What’s the difference between someone learning something and a bucket being filled with water?

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2) And how is someone not learning any of this different from an empty bucket?

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3) How is the random chatter of unconnected so-called ‘like-minded’ people any different from a surreal scene where buckets are fighting over water?

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So, rule number one for safely learning Stalking of Denarii: it’s basically the Hermetic version of the communicating vessels law.

It goes like this: 'Those who know don't talk, those who talk don't know.'⁵

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In other words, anyone who goes around shooting their mouth off quickly loses track of what they're even talking about.

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Here's how the magic supposedly works: as you cram more and more info into your aura, these branching, complicated structures start growing. Give it time, and those structures blossom into principles of wisdom and all the secret cheat codes for life. But if you start spilling the beans to just anyone, those half-baked structures don't even get a chance—they just leak into everyone else's aura, like water sloshing between connected buckets.

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Five or six conversations like this, and there’s nothing left to talk about. That’s what the old saying is getting at: ‘Speech is silver, silence is gold’—which is just a fancy way of saying that talking cheapens silence.

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To see this in action, think about how you keep potatoes from sprouting: you set them out in the sun. Give them some light and they stop sprouting! Only when they’re back in the dark do they start up again.

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Human thought works the same way. It's only when a thought is left in silence that it starts to grow and evolve from one level of understanding to the next.

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Second example.

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At the start of World War II, because there weren't enough anti-tank grenades, militia fighters made widespread use of bottles filled with 'Molotov cocktails.' These bottles were filled with a mix of gasoline and alcohol, and when they smashed against a tank's hull, the mixture would ignite and set the tank on fire. German tanks mostly ran on gasoline engines—which, as it turns out, burned extremely well. Overall, the tank was well-protected, capable of withstanding bullets and shells, but could catch fire like a match from a well-thrown bottle with a 'Cocktail.'

The only requirement for knocking out the tank with such a bottle was hitting the area just behind the turret, on the ventilation grilles above the engine compartment. The flaming mixture would seep through the ventilation grilles into the engine compartment and set the engine ablaze.

Thus, a tank costing around 100,000 Reichsmarks and striking fear on the battlefield could, with a bit of luck and a skilled throw, be taken out by a bottle worth just a few kopecks.

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So, what’s the moral of this example?

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It’s that every creation has a weak spot—you can usually mess it up in a way that’s laughably cheap and simple.

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Which brings us to the second safety rule for learning Stalking of Denarii:

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Even the Sun has its blemishes, but we still look up to it with all due respect.

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In plain English: ANY theory or method—including Stalking of Denarii—has its soft underbelly. If you fixate on those flaws, you’ll talk yourself out of the whole thing and end up achieving precisely nothing.

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It’s not that you stopped with all that self-hypnosis; the real issue is that you started poking at a sore spot.

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Sure, a tank’s a terrifying thing on the battlefield, and the Sun—well, it’s pretty much the ultimate giver of life on Earth. But you know, even the Sun has its blemishes, and a million-dollar tank can still be knocked out by a $5,000 grenade launcher.

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I mean, you don’t just scrub your eyes like mad when you get dust in them—you rinse them out gently, don’t you?

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Third example.

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You walk into a strange warehouse, where thousands of items are piled up in front of you.

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Question #1: How many items are you actually looking at?

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Question #2: Staring at this whole mountain of stuff, how many things do you actually SEE?

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Question #3: What does it take to not just look at an item, but to actually SEE it?

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The third safety rule for learning Stalking of Denarii is pretty much like that biblical line: 'Seek and you shall find—and you’ll find exactly what you’re looking for.'

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So if you’ve chosen to dive into Stalking Denarii, focus on finding your own way out of your situation—instead of hunting for holes in the author’s method.

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Sure, you can go on a wild goose chase for 'mistakes'—like sunspots, you’ll find them if you stare hard enough—but is that really going to help you?

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See, the person searching for an exit from the tunnel looks for the light of wisdom; but if the dim glow from afar isn’t good enough for you, you’ll just end up stumbling around in your own ignorance.

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Fourth example.

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These three rules might seem simple, but try sticking to them and you’ll quickly notice just how often you break them.

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From a conversation with a rather respectable millionaire over a glass of tea:

– You know, money likes silence.

A long pause, a sip of whiskey, smoke from a hand-rolled Cuban cigar drifting upwards.

And after a thoughtful silence, with a slight grimace:

– But BIG money, alas – DEAD silence.

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Chapter 3. Let’s revisit our snotty-nosed childhood, play with toy cars, or: How to Actually Learn Things

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Back in kindergarten, right before nap time, the crafty teacher would announce to the kids:

– Whoever falls asleep first gets to not sleep!

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So, in the last chapter, we came up with three simple safety rules for learning the Stalking of Denarii.

Some people will follow these rules, some will break them—same as always. But as Pontius Pilate said: “Look, good citizens of Yerushalayim, I asked you three times to do this for me. My conscience is now totally clean, and I’m washing my hands of the whole business.” Hand me the bowl of water.

And now, to keep moving toward that oh-so-tempting, shiny future, let’s clear something up—what exactly is learning, and how do we fight it?

Anyone faint of heart or overly sensitive should go ahead and stock up on Corvalol, because all the other circus tricks, we’re doing together. But hey, nothing too scary—it’s all virtual anyway, right? What’s the safest kind of sex?

Right—over the phone, by text!

Let’s take an unbiased look—purely in our heads, of course—at the following example.

There’s a flashy BMW X5 SUV parked in the yard (if this happens to be your SUV, you can stop reading right now—self-help is powerless in your case). Let’s get a little closer and inspect this ride. What do we see?

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Basically, we see the following:

A really coolооооооооооооbig car.

The familiar BMW badge, right where it always is.

The color is solid—meaning black.

Those are some seriously massive wheels.

The windows are tinted.

The body’s all shiny.

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Well, that’s pretty much it.

Anything about our observations bothering you? Conscience not keeping you up at night? Not even a twinge of shame for all those wasted years?

How does that even happen? I mean, right here in front of us is an entire BMW X5, and we managed to describe it in less than ten lines. Something doesn’t add up.

Let’s take a closer, more thoughtful look:

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Hmmm, yeah, it’s big—which means it’ll haul a ton, the cabin’s roomier, and the owner’s probably not a dwarf either. Wow, such far-reaching—dare I say, deeply philosophical—conclusions, when it seemed like these things weren’t even related.

…Mmmmmm… Those chunky ‘peasant shoes’ for wheels and that massive hood are quietly hinting that it takes one seriously beefy engine to spin them—and there’s no way that engine is going on a gas diet anytime in the next five years.

Black paint—in the summertime, that thing’s basically an oven. Without AC, only someone with a death wish would get in, so of course it has air conditioning—that’s a given. ооооооооооооооYeeaaah.

But then again, sneaking around the city at night and picking up young nymphs is super convenient—the car is basically invisible in the dark, which is a definite plus. ооооооооооооооtааааааа.

The windows are tinted, you see—so sitting in this jeep, you don't really have to worry about being honest. No one can see what you’re up to with the nymphs anyway, and honestly, it’s easier on them too—private lives are protected by law, after all.

The body’s all shiny, so you can bet it’s lacquered, which basically means it’ll last forever—unless, of course, some jerk decides to scratch it.

Well, would you look at that! Nicely done! Turns out if you give those brain cells even a tiny push, suddenly everything starts coming into focus.

Still feels kind of awkward, though—like it’s just a bunch of wild guesses.

Let’s whip out a handy reference book. What do you mean—how’d I end up with a reference book in my pocket? I always have a reference book on me—my trusty iPod. With 3G and Wikipedia, it can pull up anything you want (except a hundred-dollar bill). No iPod, huh? Sorry to disappoint, guys—no bananas here.

Alright, let’s check Wikipedia:

http://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/BMW_X5

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Mother of mercy, just look at that—what a madhouse—360 horses! That’s not a jeep, it’s a low-flying plane. And the fact it has no wings and all-wheel drive, well, that’s just the designers messing up—they missed that bit, the rascals! The body’s obviously aluminum, I’m telling you—it’s a plane!

Oоооооооо…

Uuuuuu…

Yыыыыыыы…

Aliveууууууууууууv in lюююююююdиииииииии…

Dааааааааааааааааааааа…

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Well, well, who’s this grumpy King Kong headed our way?

Nooo, chivalrous? That's definitely not me…

Nope… and I have no idea who is…

Nah, I'm just admiring the car—what a sweet ride…

That's what I'm saying, it's awesome…

Seriously, for real?

Nice…

All I need is to save up a bit more (like two hundred years) and I'll get myself one just like it… If they're still making them, of course…

Worst case, I'll pick one up as a classic somewhere…

Phew, he's gone. I told you, not a dwarf, but who knew he'd be that huge and terrifying.

By the way, this guy tells some pretty interesting things about this gadget—not a word about that in the manuals.

Turns out, this thing is so loaded with smart microchips that flipping it over on the road is basically impossible, even if you’re totally drunk and dead set on ending it all. Now that’s what I call inside info!

So, did you check out the original? Now, let’s take a break from the harsh realities of life and get back to our marvelous little theory.

You know, sometimes we just really want to get close to something like a BMW X5. But it’s outrageously expensive, the damn thing. Still, you want it so much—really, really want it. You want to have it, to own it, to turn it over in your hands, to stare at it, to philosophize while looking at it—heck, just to play with it!

But there’s simply no money for such a big toy. A toy like that costs a ton of money.

Still… you want it—so much… And they say there’s always a way out of any situation.

So how can you actually resolve this contradiction in real life?

In practice, there’s only one way—go out and buy yourself a very tiny, but remote-controlled BMW X5!

And don’t spit at your monitor—you might still need it.

Let’s look at this purely hypothetically; nobody’s forcing you to blow your last nickels on a ‘useless’ toy. (Not so useless, by the way—you could (editor’s note: removed)… just enough left for a real BMW andmmmmmmmhyeaaaa…)

…But I’m getting sidetracked—let’s get back to the remote-controlled ‘toy.’ So, what is this ‘toy,’ scientifically speaking? It’s helpful to remember that the ‘toy’ is usually a remote-controlled REPLICA, at 1:50 scale. In other words, this pint-sized model is a COPY of a real BMW X5.

And the higher the class (and the price) of the replica, the MORE ACCURATELY it COPIES a real jeep—and it doesn’t even have to be an X5, or a BMW, or sometimes even a car, period.

But what if, say, we don’t need such a huge copy? No problem—there’s another scale for replicas, 1:200. Sure, it’s rougher and has fewer details, but at least it’s even cheaper and simpler.

Okay, but what if we need a more accurate replica?

Go for 1:8! Sure, it’ll cost you more, but it copies pretty much everything!

But what if you can’t be bothered with models at all, and don’t want to overpay for them either?

So what should you get then?

Well, at that point, at least grab a copy of ‘Behind the Wheel’ magazine—it’s quite affordable.

Wait, is this even a copy?

Oкккккккf course it’s a copy.

But here’s the kicker—the pictures and photos in the magazine are just a 2-DIMENSIONAL COPY of the real car.

In other words, they only have two dimensions—width and height. I mean, really, what meaningful features can a photo have besides width and height? The photo’s thickness is irrelevant, and as for color—every photo is, well, colorful, which just means it looks “natural.”

So what dimensionality does the actual car have, then?

Let’s take a close, nitpicky look—in other words, let’s actually think for a change. However many ways you can measure an object, that’s how many dimensions it has—plain old common sense, really.

A real car comes with width, height (just like a photo), and—surprise!—length! Three measurements in total, so the object is three-dimensional.

But wait, here’s a minor oversight: a real car exists not just here and now, but yesterday, the day before, tomorrow, the day after, and so on… meaning you can also measure its LIFESPAN—the period when it actually exists. So, a real car is 3+1 (width, length, height + lifespan), which means—yep—a 4D object!

Like, honestly, every real object in our world. (Shhh… quiet… I know, don’t confuse them, they’ll get tangled up all by themselves…)

So, all 'real' objects are 4D, and a photo is 2D—we’ve cleared that up. So what, then, is a video of an object?

It’s just a stack of frames, one after another—so, photos lined up over time. That’s 2+1 (width, height + a time queue)—a 3D object.

Tired yet? Well, we’re almost done; the bright future is just around the corner…or maybe just behind fences. Tall ones. With guards.

Alright, let’s keep going.

So, what about the magazine article about that very same car? What’s its dimensionality?

What can you actually measure in a text? Just which letter comes in which place—so basically, a text is only one-dimensional!

So what does that tell us, folks?

A radio-controlled BMW X5 is a 4-dimensional COPY of the real BMW, and it’s already guaranteed to have mistakes.

A video clip—it’s not even four-, but three-dimensional. One dimension’s already missing, so no wonder commercials are full of nonsense; they’re just taking advantage of that missing dimension.

And those glossy magazine photos—those are even worse, just two dimensions! No wonder the girl looks gorgeous in the picture but, in real life, is more of a crocodile. She just knew which side to shoot from, taking full advantage of the shortage of dimensions.

But the truly terrifying part—an utter catastrophe—is how the text gets chopped down to even fewer dimensions!

Text is stuck with only one dimensionality, but the real thing has four. But if you think about it, text is basically just another copy of reality, like a model, a video, or a photo.

But if a girl in a photo can fool us just by taking advantage of two missing dimensions, imagine how much text tricks us—when it's missing not two, but three dimensions?!

It's downright terrifying when you think about it!

But even that's not the worst of it, folks.

Hang in there.

Stay brave.

I hope everyone’s got their Corvalol and their will, signed by a notary, close at hand?

But that’s not the scariest part.

The truly terrifying thing is HOW we think about the world around us.

Get it? UNDERSTAND?!

That’s right—with words, with text. In other words, with good old one-dimensional speech.

Now let’s think for a second: WHERE does this one-dimensional speech live, no matter how smart or logically airtight it is?

And WHERE’S the real four-dimensional world, with all its quirks, rules, and laws?

Pop quiz: what are the odds that your brain will spit out a QUALITY—not to mention OBJECTIVE—copy of REAL objects and processes?

Look, I get it—you have an off-the-charts IQ, three diplomas and a baseball card, you’re basically a kung fu master, and yes, a driver’s license counts too.

But still?

Do you honestly think your one-track logic will help you figure out how to make a million? Let’s take a look around: what are all these sciences, philosophical and religious teachings, political movements, and fancy doctorates, anyway?

Because if you really think about it, these are just the same old COPIES—little MODELS of the real world we’ve already seen a hundred times.

And all of them have the same fatal flaw: the DIMENSIONALITY of these copies is ALWAYS LESS by 1, 2, or sometimes even 3 dimensions than the original!

Which means—not a single one of these COPIES has ever even come close to the truth or the REAL WORLD—not even as a neighbor!

And the worst part is, we’re usually stuck OPERATING with these copies strictly at the level of LOGIC—that is, good old ONE-DIMENSIONAL speech!

I mean, our thinking is so far gone from reality, there’s honestly nowhere left to go.

Scared?Knees trembling yet?

But unless you spot the bars of your own ignorance, you’ll never figure out where the latch is.

So what does that tell us?

It leads to a pretty obvious thought: the standard logical way of thinking is so out of touch with reality, only a very naive Chukotkan teenager would seriously expect to make a million that way.

…As long as Abramovich is governor.

So, what exactly do you have to do to become a millionaire?

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But that's a whole different story—which, as you might have guessed, comes up in the next chapter.

Chapter 4. A Little Trip Down Memory Lane

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We all spent some time learning something somewhere, and those who didn’t study well enough… well, they’ve departed for greener pastures.

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To break the tension after Chapter Three, let’s pull a snippet from one of the earlier Stalking courses—General Stalking, if you will.

Stalking of Denarii is one of the subgenres of Stalking, and this chapter is a perfect fit for our course.

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“The problem with hurrying is that it wastes a ridiculous amount of time.” (Gilbert Chesterton)

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I’ve thanked my Mentors countless times on my websites and sincerely appreciate everything they've taught me. I get that, like it or not, I’m basically part of their legacy. Of course, thanks to my stubborn streak, I’ve also grumbled about them, still do, and will likely keep it up until I finally pass the last initiation and become the well-rounded person I'm supposed to be.

Why am I telling you all this? I guarantee that right from chapter one, lots of you will be rolling your eyes—even in the reviews: 'How did gullible little me end up following this brand-new guru?' Still, as best as I can manage, the lectures will stick to the same principles I was taught myself.⁸

Any other approach is probably just a waste of strategic effort.

Tradition—and Stalking, for that matter—isn’t about magic passwords like 'I’m here from Ivan Ivanovich, amen!'; for a beginner mystic—it’s not even Knowledge.

You can’t know everything (well, unless you’ve unlocked the siddhi of the Second Arcana, but let’s be honest, not eeeeeeveryone has that). That’s why, personally, I don’t think knowledge is top priority for practically any practitioner (especially a newbie).

Skills are definitely a big deal for beginners. But they don’t sprout out of nowhere. Skills are the outcome, not the starting point.

So, what’s actually left for our would-be student to get the hang of? Understanding—that’s the real key to everything: both Knowledge and Skill.

But here’s the problem: the average person simply doesn’t know how to understand anything. Their entire life, thinking patterns are drilled into them. Their whole mental toolkit is like a computer desktop—just a pile of shortcuts and not a single real program. If you start paying close attention to yourself,and your own ‘thinking,’you’ll be amazed to discover that, most of the time,you’re actually not thinking at all. Most of the time, you’re just unconsciously recycling thinking patterns,evaluations, and final conclusions that were programmed into you back in early childhood.

If you ever try thinking for yourself instead of copying someone else’s playbook, you’ll be horrified to find that actual thinking is, for the most part, —really out of your reach!

It’s just not something you know how to do…

Sure, you can count, write, spin long, fancy sentences full of clever words, and mark an X on a ballot. But thinking?!

To spell this out in the simplest terms, let’s start by dotting every ‘i’ and crossing every ‘t,’ as they say.

Question number one:

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Genetically, a pig and a boar are pretty much the same animal. Let’s release a boar and a pig into the same reserve in winter, right alongside the warm and fuzzy wildlife—wolves, bears, poachers, or, heck, even just mosquitoes…

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Place your bets, folks!

No, the pig is not a saber-toothed mutant from some secret lab… No, our little porker doesn’t have a black belt—or any belt—in krantez-do, and no, the pig doesn’t have any (redacted by the book editor) ‘protection’…

Place your bets!

Holy moly, why do you folks hate pigs so much?! Seriously, we can’t just let that slide.

Alright, assignment number one – explain, in a thorough and well-argued way (at least three sentences), your reasoning for making that bet.

By the way, who did you bet on?

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Question number two. So, which one of those two characters up there is actually the human?

Oh, come on! We’re obviously not talking about you. You’re such a remarkable and unique exception that you just go ahead and prove the rule about everybody else.

The author officially declares: all names are fictitious, all characters are imaginary, and any resemblance to real people is purely coincidental—and absolutely not about you, promise.

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Please justify your answer with arguments, references, evidence, and eyewitness accounts (all, naturally, in triplicate—one for me, one for yourself, and one to submit to the Akashic Records). The minimum length for witness statements is the standard: three lines written in tiny, illegible handwriting.

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Assignment number three: find on the Internet a textual description (photo, video, live stream, or, if all else fails, ask your cat) of how a mother cat teaches her kittens to catch mice. Keep a close eye on this process.

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As you diligently slobber on your pencil, make a list of at least four ways in which the cat teaches her kittens to catch mice the WRONG way.

Now teach the cat, or just your spouse, a random passerby, or even me—the not-so-bright one—how exactly to teach proper mouse-catching.

Make a list of at least four points on exactly how to properly teach mouse-catching. As a scientific experiment—and to prove your point—scan and post online the bodies of three mice caught by your student. To make up for this terrible sight, just add a photo of a chubby cat and some irresistibly cute shots of her overstuffed kittens right next to it.

And now, for those who thought the last three tasks were about as thrilling as waiting in line at the DMV, here’s a bonus challenge (totally optional) just for you.

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The author of this book officially warns all particularly ‘gifted’ readers and those in tanks* that he has blatantly lied, misled, and will continue to mislead in various spots throughout this book—in the most obvious ways for those paying any real attention.

Not because he doesn’t get it or is confused, but because learning to hunt is way easier with half-dead mice.

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Chapter 5. The Analogy Method, or Nothing’s Ever Really New

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.⁹

Oh, the wonderful discoveries

That the spirit of enlightenment brings us,

And experience, child of hard-won mistakes,

And genius, paradox’s best friend,

And chance, that god of invention…

A. S. Pushkin

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So, in the last lecture and the Q&A, we figured out the following: you need to serve up information in courses—which is to say, first, second, and third. Because milk is for babies, while steak tartare is for the anti-vegetarian crowd.

So, let's get started—with proper blessings, of course—with the first dish from our little diner: plain old semolina porridge.

In the previous lecture, through the highly scientific method of poking at things (and if you didn’t poke at anything, you’re on your own), we discovered that most people just can’t think. We also covered the reasons for this sorry state of affairs—mainly society’s ongoing need for lots of barnyard animals, since, unfortunately, we’re all still stuck in a pretty primitive farm setup. And of course, saber-toothed rabbits could find their place in this whole setup, but really, we don’t need a giant herd of them.

So, we’ll just be growing our own fangs, using whatever homemade guerrilla methods we can come up with.

So, what’s the point of thinking, anyway? First and foremost, to make sense of the world around us and its stuff. But let’s get specific here—we’re not exactly kids anymore, and we’ve muddled our way through part of this world already. So, our mission to understand things gets a little narrower: we’re after a method for figuring out the parts of the world that still baffle us, while making do with our half-baked grasp on the rest.

As the mathematicians say, asking the right question is half the answer.

But let's just eyeball the world for a sec—no need for extra drama or panic—yep, it's the world, full of stuff, loads of it, a ridiculous number of unknowns, but…

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If you pay close attention here, you'll notice the following:

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1) A lot of things in the world are just copies of each other.

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2) Most things out there are variant copies of copies.

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3) If you look closely, you’ll notice the world is just a bunch of mirrors, all reflecting each other in one way or another.

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So what does that do for us?

Well, first off, there’s the legendary line from Hermes’ tablet: 'As above, so below; as below, so above…'

This is a universal law for everything—consciousness, matter, you name it. Basically, it goes both ways; what works one way works in reverse, too.

And honestly, there aren't even that many universal laws in existence.

In other words, we can confidently add this law to our mental arsenal as a universal principle that actually keeps a ton of things ticking—both in our world and in mysterious realms we haven't even heard of.

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Примечания

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One of the highlights of the author's books is the use of the period. At this point, the author personally takes a moment to mentally process the information.

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– Don't blow our cover, bro!

– Relax, bro, those who need to know—will know. And everyone else? It'll go in one ear and out the other, as usual.

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A significant part of this chapter was cut from the 2025 edition. For reasons of confidentiality regarding previously mentioned information.

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