Ekaterina Netchitailova

But before I launch into my experience with psychoses, let’s first discuss whether magic is real.

Even before coming to Amsterdam (a city that has lots of magic), I always believed in something. I was fascinated by unusual occurrences, strange occasional visions, and the supernatural.

One of my friends on Twitter published an excellent post on his blog about his experience while reading ‘Master and Margarita’, and it reminded me about the beauty of believing in something. We live very monotone lives, my friend argues in his post, where we don’t question our existence too much. We are expected to do the same things: be very rational, normal, and quiet about different beliefs.

The brilliant book by Bulgakov ‘Master and Margarita’ challenges us in our rational thinking. The novel has lots of weird stuff happening, such as the devil visiting the Soviet Union, and shows us the power of magical coincidence. If Margarita, for instance, didn’t feel lonely, and didn’t take that walk in Moscow, then she would have never met the Master, and be blessed to find her soulmate and true love. One can argue that it was a pure coincidence, but while Bulgakov doesn’t say it directly, it is very much obvious that to get some coincidence, we need to take steps ourselves first of all, in order to be blessed by something from the universe. If Margarita didn’t walk on the streets with her bouquet of flowers, if she didn’t take that decision, then she would continue leading a miserable and lonely life. In other words, Bulgakov hints at the fact that nothing is really a pure coincidence. The coincidence is magical!  Things happen because we take decisions at each moment of our lives: sit at home or go into town (and meet your soulmate), do nothing or apply for that dream job and get it, be shy or smile at a stranger on the train and fall in love, etc etc.

I read Master and Margarita for the first time when I was eleven/twelve years old. It was perhaps early for such a profound and incredible book, but I fell in love with it from the second page. I couldn’t stop laughing about two characters of the book denying the presence of the devil, even when he was sitting right next to them! I remember thinking, oh wow, this is the best book I’ve ever read, and it’s magical!

From an early age I pondered about the existence of the supernatural and magical. I remember how at the age of three I saw the devil looking at me through the window. I told myself then: ‘’my parents will call it an illusion, but never forget that what you see is real.’’ I stared at the devil back, in a defiant state, because I wanted to make sure that what I saw was true. Later I would encounter him again, and see him in my lucid dreams, and of course, my rational mind would reject it as unscientific fact, but my subconscious would win eventually. Yes, what I see and hear is true, and maybe it’s the inability of the ‘normal’ population to notice magic, which is a problem, and not me where I might have been simply blessed with a gift to see the supernatural.

So, what does Master and Margarita have to do with my life in Amsterdam, you might ask?

And well, Amsterdam taught me the power of magical coincidence. If I hadn’t applied for the scholarship to do a master’s degree at the University of Amsterdam, I would have never moved from Brussels to Amsterdam. If I didn’t approach the manager of the master’s program to ask him to help me to find a job, I wouldn’t be able to stay. But I did, and started to work in finances. If I hadn’t accepted the job offer to be a financial analyst of banks (without any diploma in finances), I wouldn’t have discovered that with the right determination I could work in any field, regardless of my diplomas. And of course, if I hadn’t sat in the lobby of MoneyCare (my job) during one rainy day in Autumn, I wouldn’t have met the most gorgeous French man, fall in love, discover magic for real, and start my spiritual journey.

But all these things happened, and they happened only because I had an active approach to life. I took risks, and I wasn’t afraid to embrace the unknown. And I have Bulgakov to thank for that. Because after reading ‘Master and Margarita’ at the age of twelve, I felt validated in my own belief system. Yes, I could be weird, but it didn’t mean that I was bad, and that magical occurrences were only possible when one believed in something different, not based in a ‘normal’, boring routine.

(painting by Tatiana Krasovskaya)