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Agafya updates

Succeeding reports about the Old Believer Siberian hermit Agafya Lykova have recently appeared on the web. News agency Interfax indicates that she

has written a letter to the newspaper Krasnoyarsky Rabochy, asking for help. According to the letter, which was four pages long and was couriered over to the paper, Lykova is looking for a person to help her about the house. “I need help with firewood, about the house, with my garden, to mow hay. I am old, sick, and I feed giddy. I have a lump on my right breast. I have become very weak. I don’t know if God will let me live through the winter,” Lykova said in her letter. The hermit says she is feeling poorly and is freezing. “There is no firewood in the house, I need to log firewood every day, and I read psalms when I do it. I get short of breath, and I get very cold in the frost, my hands and my feet are cold. And I also have work about the house, in addition to the firewood,” Lykova said in her letter.

URL: http://www.interfax-religion.com/?act=news&div=11035

The web site Focus-Fen follows up with news that

Russian authorities said they will dispatch a helicopter with food and other supplies to an elderly dweller of the Siberian taiga who had no contact with civilization until she was 33, RIA Novosti reported. Agafya Lykova, 68, pleaded for help in a letter she managed to send out from her riverside hut to the Krasnoyarsky Rabochy regional newspaper. The letter is written in block letters and employs obsolete pre-revolutionary orthography, according to a photocopy on the newspaper’s website. Lykova claims in the letter that her health is deteriorating, which made it hard for her to prepare supplies for another cold season in the taiga. Temperatures in the area of the Abakan Ridge in the republic of Khakassia average minus 19 degrees Celsius (minus 2 degrees Fahrenheit). A helicopter will fly next week to Lykova’s residence, carrying food, thread, 20 bales of hay and other necessities, the press service of Kemerovo Governor Aman Tuleyev said

URL: http://www.focus-fen.net/news/2014/01/18/324403/siberian-hermit-to-get-food-delivery-by-helicopter.html

The governor of the province dispatched a helicopter with food, seeds for spring planting, and nature reserve personnel. The personnel hauled forest logs closer to Agafya’s home. An accompanying doctor examined Agafya but could not persuade her to visit a hospital for more thorough testing. Although usually reticent, the 68-year old hermit was pleased to receive the visitors and smiled a lot.

URLs: http://siberiantimes.com/other/others/news/emergency-services-arrive-to-save-life-of-hermit-agafiya-lykova-russias-loneliest-woman/
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2544932/The-hermit-decided-people-person-Woman-lived-26-years-Siberia-appeals-live-shes-lonely.html?ITO=1490&ns_mchannel=rss&ns_campaign=1490

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RSM on 21st century “hermits”

A curious piece in the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine, Dec. 2012, is titled “Taking refuge from modernity: 21st century hermits.” The article describes some contemporary individuals as fleeing society due to “idiopathic, environmental intolerances, such as ‘multiple chemical sensitivty’ and ‘electrosensitivity'” and searches for possible analogies with historical hermits. The abstract shows the direction of the research and point of view:

Idiopathic environmental intolerances, such as ‘multiple chemical sensitivity’ and ‘electrosensitivity,’ can drastically affect the quality of life of those affected. A proportion of severely affected patients remove themselves from modern society, to live in isolation away from the purported causal agent of their ill health. This is not a new phenomenon; reports of hermits extend back to the 3rd century AD. We conducted a literature review of case reports relating to ancient hermits and modern day reclusion resulting from idiopathic environmental intolerance, in order to explore whether there are similarities between these two groups and whether the symptoms of these ‘illnesses of modernity’ are simply a present-day way of reaching the end-point of reclusion. Whilst there were some differences between the cases, recurring themes in ancient and modern cases included: dissatisfaction with society, a compulsion to flee, reports of a constant struggle and a feeling of fighting against the establishment. The similarities which exist between the modern-day cases and the historical hermits may provide some insight into the extreme behaviours exhibited by this population. The desire to retreat from society in order to escape from harm has existed for many centuries, but in different guises.

The historical hermits studied (and named) are just four: Noah John Rondeau, Roger Crab, St. Simeon Stylites, and St. Anthony. The article concludes controversially that with the diminished influence of religion in the modern world, the motive of those who are deemed intolerant of modern society may include the pretext of idiopathic medical conditions referred to in the article and abstract.

URL: http://jrs.sagepub.com/content/105/12/523.full

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Psychology Today: Silence

Psychology Today offers a collection of 21 popular essays on the topic of silence: “The Sounds of Silence.” As with popular treatments of complex and nuanced topics, your mileage may vary:

  • A Taxonomy of Silence: What can we learn from silences? by Judith Eve Lipton, M.D.
  • The Art of Silence: How the use of silence can make you powerful and charismatic, by Alex Lickerman, M.D.
  • Why We Need Quiet: We need silence for all our senses, by George Michelsen Foy
  • Does Music Help Memory? Students listen to music while studying. Is that a good idea? by William R. Klemm, D.V.M, Ph.D.

17 more essays …

URL: http://www.psychologytoday.com/collections/201312/the-sounds-silence

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Catholic hermits today

Catholic World Report offers a summary article on Catholic hermits titled “Modern-Day Hermits: Answering the Call to Solitude, Prayer” and the byline: “While we might think of hermits as relics of the Church’s medieval past, today there are many who devote their lives entirely to solitary prayer.” The article emphasizes canonical hermits and the traditionalist hermit brothers at Hermits of the Blessed Virgin Mary of Mount Carmel in Christoval, Texas.

URL: http://www.catholicworldreport.com/Item/2670/modernday_hermits_answering_the_call_to_solitude_prayer.aspx#.Um_uk1OTafO