It is necessary to choose a visual aid that is appropriate for the topic and audience.
Libernet: new reality (coming 2026)
I would like to present a book that has grown out of many years of observation and reflection. I have tried to write it in a popular style, making it as accessible as possible to any reader. At present, the manuscript is about 30% complete. Your feedback and assistance in publishing will be very appreciated.
The Idea of the Book
My dream is of a world without wars and violence, a world in which my children and grandchildren may live. I am convinced that most people share this very dream, though for now they do not see the path toward creating such a society. This book is meant to reveal the possibility of such a world and to unite people in the name of the future.
Annotation
Freedom has always been humanity’s timeless dream. A free society once seemed like a fantasy, yet perhaps now it is becoming reality—thanks to technological progress, the fading of borders between states, and the exchange between cultures.
Libernet is a new form of human community that does not require attachment to a specific territory. It erases linguistic, geographical, and national boundaries. It is a union of people bound by shared values, regardless of where they live.
This book demonstrates that such a society has already become possible, and it bridges the gap between what only yesterday seemed like dreams and what today may become reality.
Relevance
In this century, information technologies have radically transformed the way many people live, greatly increasing their mobility. Yet the forms of human communities are inherited from deep antiquity and remain bound to territory. This territorial anchoring inevitably provokes military conflicts with countless victims. Nuclear weapons only deepen the crisis and threaten the very survival of civilization, unless a way out of this dead end is found.
Theoretical foundations for societies without killing have already been laid, but for most people they remain in the realm of fantasy. The purpose of this book is to close the gap between theory and practice, to build a bridge between the old state and new forms of community. These new associations will rest not on common territory, but on shared interests.
The Covid-19 pandemic has given a powerful impetus to the emergence of a new type of society. It detached millions of people from office work and taught them to use new tools of communication, for which distance is no longer a barrier.
In our century, human mobility has sharply increased, and attitudes toward migration have changed fundamentally. Migration is no longer the privilege of the few or a matter of dire need; it has become an ordinary way of life. The primary driver of migration today is demand for labor, and the lowering of barriers between regions and nations facilitates the meeting of that demand. The unification of language has also played its part: English has effectively become the standard of business communication. The number of migrants grows year by year: in 2000 it was about 170 million, while by 2022 it had surpassed 290 million.
Cryptocurrencies are a vivid harbinger of the new world. They have entered into competition with traditional means of exchange. In less than two decades, cryptocurrencies have journeyed from fantasy to a reality that can no longer be ignored. Similar transformations await social organization itself. The practical aspects of communities of a new kind have become urgent precisely now, when such communities can arise and develop rapidly—just as cryptocurrencies did a decade and a half ago.
This book has a clear structure, allowing readers from different backgrounds to focus on the aspects most meaningful to them. A historical overview shows how certain limitations of traditional communities were overcome in the past or are being addressed today. Next comes an analysis of the practical aspects of association, with particular attention to the use of the most modern technologies. Finally, the book lays out the theoretical foundations of new types of communities—of interest to those who wish to lead such associations.
Recently established new-type states are already developing vigorously. Liberland now has more than a thousand citizens and over 700,000 applications for citizenship. Asgardia has more than 1.1 million residents. Liberland was proclaimed in 2008, but only began to grow actively in 2023, while Asgardia was founded quite recently, in 2016. Traditional states are becoming outdated; new forms of association are taking their place, and libernet will occupy—if not the central, then at least a vital—position among them.
About the Author
This book is the result of fifteen years of searching, reflection, and experimentation. As a convinced pacifist, I believe human beings are capable of building societies that don’t rely on killing. To me, the phrase ‘That’s impossible’ isn’t a barrier—it’s a signal that it’s time to move to the next level.
I’ve written this book under a pseudonym borrowed from late Soviet history. Stanislav Petrov was an ordinary officer who, at the height of the Cold War, prevented it from turning hot when a false alarm in the missile warning system demanded a response.
Other Authors’ Works on the Same Theme
The idea of creating a new type of state has been “in the air” since the beginning of this century, yet until now no clear and practical concept has been articulated. My book seeks to fill this gap—or at least to begin that process.
The theoretical foundations of a state that would not require violence were laid out in Glenn Paige’s scholarly work Nonkilling Global Political Science (2002). The subject was further developed by his followers in popular works such as Sofía Herrero Rico and Joám Evans Pim’s Nonkilling Spiritual Traditions (2015), Bruce D. Bonta’s Peaceful Societies (2023), and the collection Nonkilling Relationships (2024). These authors created and expanded the theoretical basis for a nonviolent state, yet they remain within the framework of the traditional, territorially bound state.
My book takes the subject further. The technological breakthroughs of recent years, together with the pandemic, have made it possible to put these ideas into practice, moving beyond traditional concepts.
A major breakthrough on this path was achieved by Balaji Srinivasan in The Network State (2022). However, I find his chosen term “network state” somewhat misleading, as it does not fully convey the essence of the revolutionary change he proposes: to free the state and its functions from territorial attachment. Srinivasan rightly observes that such a breakthrough can only be achieved through the actual existence and popularity of such a state, since otherwise it cannot be recognized—UN statutes require some form of territory. He reviews earlier attempts to bypass this limitation—such as micronations on sea platforms or disputed lands—and concludes that they failed. He also delves into the theoretical and philosophical aspects of statehood.
Unlike Srinivasan’s work, my book focuses on the practical questions: both through a historical overview and through concrete pathways for realizing the functions of the state independently of territory.
Equally noteworthy are the works of authors whose ideas have contributed to the creation of alternative communities, many of which bear features of mini- or micro-states. Among these are Dieter Duhm’s Future Without War (2007) and Diana Christian’s Creating a Life Together (2003). These authors did not seek to create a full-fledged alternative to the traditional state, but they developed methods for building sustainable, nonviolent communities.
In contrast, my book pushes beyond these boundaries, calling for the use of newly opened technological opportunities to improve the quality of social life.
I would also highlight Marshall Rosenberg’s Nonviolent Communication (2015). Rosenberg created a practical, accessible system for resolving and preventing conflicts, and he has promoted it worldwide. He lectures widely and works as a consultant in conflict resolution, addressing situations ranging from family disputes to military conflicts—including such difficult cases as the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and wars in African countries. He insists that for a conflict to be resolved, it is enough for one side to apply his method.
Since conflict resolution is the foundation of any community’s stability, this subject is explored in my book as well. I devote one chapter specifically to Rosenberg’s method and also examine other practical examples of conflict resolution systems in alternative communities.
My book seeks to integrate this accumulated experience and to carry forward the ideas of my predecessors. Its main purpose is to show any reader, regardless of their level of theoretical preparation, that in today’s conditions the virtual state has become possible. The book takes this subject out of the realm of fantasy and utopia, placing it within the reach of practice, and it maps a pathway toward the creation and development of new types of communities.
It is a book for anyone who hopes for a better future—for themselves and for their descendants.
What Makes This Book New
This book builds a bridge between theory and practice in the creation of virtual states. The research it presents demonstrates that the boundaries of traditional states can, in principle, be overcome.
The book places special emphasis on the formation of communities that do not require killing and are not founded on violence. There is currently no other book quite like this. With proper promotion, it could reach a wide audience and become one of the building blocks for the foundation of new communities.
Structure of the Book
Introduction
For whom is this book? Why is it relevant now? Why has the theme of virtual states become urgent today rather than, say, a decade ago? This chapter answers these questions.
Chapter: “How to Read This Book?”
A brief guide for those not ready to read the whole work but wishing to gain the most by reading only part of it. The book is divided into sections that meet different readers’ needs: practitioners may go straight to Part II, theorists to Part III, while the historical overview will interest both—useful, though not essential for grasping the material.
Part I: “Historical Overview”
This section examines humanity’s accumulated experience in creating communities that serve as alternatives to traditional states. Each chapter stands on its own and highlights what a given community achieved. Each concludes with a summary of which limits remained unconquered.
Chapter: “The European Union: Erasing Borders”
We begin with the brightest example formed before the eyes of the living generation. Countries that fought one another over territory for centuries—and in the last century alone sent millions to their deaths—united within a few decades. Internal borders have nearly vanished.
Chapter: “Israel: Building a New State on a National Principle”
Israel’s experience is difficult to call unequivocally successful, yet it is in many ways unique and merits careful study. How do you build a state from scratch, unite people, and ensure security? Not all of this will suit libernet, but much can prove useful. Above all: how do we avoid mistakes and steer clear of confrontation—especially armed confrontation—with other associations?
Chapter: “Liberland: The Newest State”
Based on a personal interview with Vít Jedlička, founder and president of the unique state of Liberland, which emerged on disputed territory between Serbia and Croatia in 2008. The state’s rapid development began in autumn 2023, when its leader reached an understanding with Croatia’s authorities to end confrontation. Liberland has been recognized by six other states and is in talks with more than a hundred more. It employs cutting-edge technologies in governance and security—experience that libernet can adopt directly.
Chapter: “Asgardia: The Space Nation”
Asgardia was founded by Igor Ashurbeyli and counts over a million citizens from 235 traditional states. It relies on digital infrastructure and has no territory of its own on Earth. The experience accumulated over eight years will be valuable in creating libernet.
Chapter: “Nansen Passports: Legalizing the Stateless”
Mass emigration from Russia after the 1917 revolution produced the phenomenon known as the Nansen passport. These documents allowed emigrants, deprived of their state’s services, to integrate into the societies where they found themselves. Given the mass emigration that began after 2014 and intensified in 2022, this issue is again relevant; for libernet’s citizens it suggests a well-trodden path toward obtaining their own passports. Among other things, such documents enable visa issuance for free movement around the world.
Chapter: “Eco-Settlements: Communities of the ‘Greens’”
Eco-settlements began appearing in the 1970s. In Russia the movement received a strong impulse after the books of Vladimir Megre; today there are nearly 400 settlements aligned with this ideology in Russia, with more appearing elsewhere. The chapter reviews the experience of the most successful initiatives—Kovcheg (Kaluga region), founded by Fyodor Lazutin, and Tamera (Portugal), founded by Dieter Duhm. Beyond assuming some functions of traditional states, their approaches to communication and governance may be highly instructive.
Chapter: “Digital Nomads: Visas for Expats”
Technological advances of the last decade have revived nomadism at a wholly new level. Work in information technology has freed such people not only from the office but from any single country of residence. Many forward-looking states welcome nomads—especially Portugal, Spain, Germany, Norway, and others in Europe. This trend foreshadows the rise of libernet, with the caveat that nomads are typically individuals rather than communities. The list of countries and professions remains modest but expands each year.
Chapter: “Corporate States”
Large corporations unite populous communities and perform functions characteristic of states: they provide employees (their “citizens”) with free education, supplemental health and pension insurance, scholarships, upskilling, and so on. Their experience is noteworthy because it transcends state, geographic, national, and cultural borders.
Chapter: “Renouncing Killing within Traditional States”
Even within traditional states, a partial—and sometimes complete—renunciation of killing is possible. This field of social science has been developing since the start of the century under the name nonkilling states. The chapter reviews lessons drawn from entire countries as well as from specific communities and individuals.
Chapter: “Business Clubs: Managing Community Culture”
Business clubs are instructive: entrepreneurs are highly demanding about service quality and have experience building work collectives. The chapter examines successful clubs whose practices may help shape libernet.
Chapter: “The Zapatistas: A State within a State”
Here we address a less successful case: separatists striving to create a traditional state inside an existing one—predictably provoking violence and casualties. Yet the Zapatistas are instructive in that they managed, at least temporarily, to dampen military conflict by substituting certain state functions in territories under their control.
Chapter: “The Quasi-State of Palau: Digital Residency”
The Republic of Palau became the first organization to offer its citizens digital—i.e., virtual—residency.
Part II: “Libernet”
This section is devoted to the practical aspects of building a new type of society, with a focus on recent technologies, especially those of the last decade. The reader is not expected to have technical training; the goal is not to unpack technical internals but to stress practical applicability, value, and novelty.
Chapter: “Declaration of Values”
The analogue of a constitution in traditional states is a declaration of values. Whether it is a single principle or richly detailed matters less than this: every member of the community, without exception, must fully share it. The declaration articulates the ideas that bind people into a community—vital for any association and doubly so for a virtual one, where territory is not a unifying factor.
Chapter: “Technologies: Cryptocurrencies”
The technology survey begins with the most intriguing—cryptocurrencies. The chapter offers a brief history and explains the technology that enabled such currencies to emerge and quickly gain traction. For libernet, having its own currency is important to secure economic independence.
Chapter: “Technologies: Smart Contracts”
This chapter explores smart-contract technology on blockchains. It enables, in virtual space, the analogue of agreements for all kinds of obligations. Smart contracts consist of sets of conditions and the consequences of fulfilling them; their execution is ensured by a digital platform. For example, the Ethereum platform’s market capitalization has exceeded 120 billion dollars and continues to grow—evidence of the technology’s momentum.
Chapter: “Technologies: Digital Passports”
Identifying community members is crucial for stability. Modern technologies offer blockchain-based solutions. Reliability arises from the immutability of blockchain records and the service’s popularity, which together provide some assurance of the reality of a virtual identity. In a network state such identification is vital; attempts to evade it should lead to exclusion of the fraudster from libernet.
Chapter: “Technologies: Marketspaces”
Marketspace is the business metaverse of the future—a place where enterprises meet their customers beyond geographic borders. For libernet, this newest technology—an heir to the more modest marketplace (Wildberries, Ozon, Yandex.Market, AliExpress, Lamoda, etc.)—forms the core of its economy.
Chapter: “Technologies: Messengers”
Quietly, messengers have become indispensable. WhatsApp (2 billion users), Messenger (1 billion), Telegram (900 million), WeChat (China), Viber (Europe), Teams (enterprise)—these tools have nearly erased geographic boundaries in daily communication. For libernet they are the circulatory system binding citizens together. Messenger audiences grow by roughly a quarter-billion users per year—the potential readership of this book grows apace.
Chapter: “Technologies: Conferencing”
The next level of communication is online conferencing, indispensable for distributed teams and online education—both critical to libernet. During Covid-19, Zoom surged ahead, though many less-known yet capable platforms exist; this chapter surveys them.
Chapter: “Technologies: Social Networks”
The technology closest to libernet’s essence is social networking. Roughly two-thirds of the world’s population uses social networks. They incorporate messenger functions while enabling robust social ties among people distant not only geographically but also linguistically, culturally, and by interest. Social networks have also become a primary channel for advertising and sales—vital for libernet’s economic development.
Chapter: “Technologies: Online Banks”
Banks intensify economic activity. While traditional banks will suffice at the outset, libernet can enable members to exchange such services (credit and investment) among themselves, grounded in an internal credit history.
Chapter: “Technologies: Online Schools”
One of the strongest ties binding people to a place is access to good schools and universities. Technologies of the last decade have opened a path forward. Unfortunately, many pursue online education chiefly to save money, harming quality. This chapter clarifies what high-quality online education looks like and why it should be priced on par with—or higher than—offline.
Chapter: “Technologies: AI”
The newest technology to storm into our lives is the neural network. The idea is not new—I worked with it back in the 1990s—but it leapt forward thanks to deep-learning algorithms and transformer architectures invented in 2017, the best-known being ChatGPT, trained on more than 20% of all written sources ever created. In libernet, AI can assist with planning, audit, prospecting for clients and contractors, and automating administrative routine.
Chapter: “Governance”
Libernet’s governance shares traits with traditional states but has its own features stemming from citizens’ geographic dispersion and from the technologies above. When designing governance systems, we must heed the positive and negative lessons of states and other communities; otherwise we risk inheriting old problems or creating an unstable society. Virtual space is less forgiving: it lacks the territorial “inertia” that gives even very inefficient systems a degree of stability.
Chapter: “Conflict Resolution”
The bedrock of any community’s resilience—libernet is no exception—is an effective system for resolving disputes among citizens. Its defining feature is the absence of violence in any form. The only risk a citizen faces within the community is exclusion from it. Practice nevertheless shows that resilient communities can be built on this basis. The chapter outlines principles for a functioning system suited to libernet.
Chapter: “Economy”
Economic activity within libernet is essential to its existence. The system may be open to non-citizens, but citizens should receive substantial preferences to attract activity. The chapter proposes several principles while leaving room for creativity and practical experimentation.
Chapter: “Currency”
Issuing a native currency is optional yet desirable. In early stages libernet may rely on traditional currencies and third-party cryptocurrencies. Creating its own cryptocurrency would enhance independence; price stability could be supported by linking it to goods and services produced within libernet.
Chapter: “Education”
Ensuring all levels of education is key to citizens’ freedom of movement. Early childhood can be provided through an international network of home-based kindergartens; schooling through online schools operating under the IB system; and vocational, higher, and continuing education can remain with traditional states, supplemented by online platforms such as Coursera from the world-leading MIT.
Chapter: “Collective Security”
Security is a primary function of any state, virtual or otherwise. Initially libernet may leave this function to traditional states, but over time it should complement—or replace—them with its own structures that use information technologies to connect citizens in need with those able to help.
Chapter: “Social Protection in Libernet”
Health and pension insurance may likewise be provided at first by traditional states and later supplemented or replaced by online services. In many countries, voluntary health insurance already uses the network for primary consultations. Online pension insurance minimizes overhead and ensures citizens can reclaim all contributions.
Chapter: “Relations with Traditional States”
Libernet should not confront traditional states. Legal support for citizens is essential so they can choose a place of residence wisely and strictly obey local laws. As digital nomads show, progressive states will welcome such citizens. Those that choose confrontation will, in historical perspective, consign themselves to obsolescence.
Chapter: “Attitude toward Religion”
Nothing prevents libernet’s declaration of values from including the tenets of a particular religion; nonetheless this is inadvisable, as it would needlessly and unjustifiably narrow the circle of potential citizens.
Chapter: “Visas”
Recognition by traditional states is vital. At first, citizens may rely on services of their country of residence, where available. The precedent of Nansen passports offers a legal foundation from which to begin, and Liberland’s experience can shorten the path by drawing on the most up-to-date practices. In time, a libernet passport should provide visa-free access to most of the world.
Part III: “Theory”
The third part presents libernet’s philosophical and theoretical underpinnings. These concepts do not claim to be exhaustive or strictly academic and may be complemented by others. Such study matters especially to those who will organize or help govern these communities. Philosophy is crucial for shaping the declaration of values on which a community’s success largely depends.
Chapter: “The Evolution of Freedom”
Since one of libernet’s chief aims is to meet the human need for freedom, we must understand what prospective citizens mean by it. Depending on this, even in virtual space society may exhibit features ranging from democratic to totalitarian.
Chapter: “The Dead End of Traditional States”
Here we consider the incurable shortcomings of traditional states: the necessity of coercion—up to and including killing—along with the inevitability of wars, restrictions on free movement, high overheads, managerial inefficiency, and more.
Chapter: “Ideological Foundations of Historical Processes”
This chapter explores the link between prevailing ideologies and the course of history, surveying concepts relevant today—their strengths and their limitations.
Chapter: “Escaping the Vicious Circle of History”
History is said to move in spirals. But when a foundational concept—in our case, the territorially bound state—exhausts its developmental potential, the spiral flattens into a circle. The last century shows this pattern: periods of relative calm punctuated by planetary-scale wars. Libernet offers a chance to rise to a new turn of the spiral rather than continue circling.
Chapter: “A Methodology for Building Resilient Communities”
Based on an interview with Margarita Ushakova, a consultant on community resilience, this chapter outlines methods for creating communities capable of indefinite existence thanks to built-in mechanisms of self-regulation.
Chapter: “The Theory of Nonviolent Communication”
Marshall Rosenberg’s Nonviolent Communication (2015) gained wide popularity (see “competitive analysis”). This chapter gives a concise overview and recommendations for applying NVC within libernet.
Chapter: “The Teaching of Christ”
One in three people identifies as Christian—the most technologically and economically developed portion of humanity. What explains this success? Setting aside the mystical dimension, what in Christ’s teaching catalyzed civilization’s growth? What can a virtual state adopt without compromising its non-religious status?
Conclusion
The study concludes that, after the technological leap we have witnessed, the emergence of libernet is a matter of time. Its exact shape cannot be predicted—it will be refined in practice—but a sufficient theoretical and technological foundation already exists to launch a pilot project (or several). Perhaps the very first attempt will succeed and spread across the world.
The Idea of the Book
My dream is of a world without wars and violence, a world in which my children and grandchildren may live. I am convinced that most people share this very dream, though for now they do not see the path toward creating such a society. This book is meant to reveal the possibility of such a world and to unite people in the name of the future.
Annotation
Freedom has always been humanity’s timeless dream. A free society once seemed like a fantasy, yet perhaps now it is becoming reality—thanks to technological progress, the fading of borders between states, and the exchange between cultures.
Libernet is a new form of human community that does not require attachment to a specific territory. It erases linguistic, geographical, and national boundaries. It is a union of people bound by shared values, regardless of where they live.
This book demonstrates that such a society has already become possible, and it bridges the gap between what only yesterday seemed like dreams and what today may become reality.
Relevance
In this century, information technologies have radically transformed the way many people live, greatly increasing their mobility. Yet the forms of human communities are inherited from deep antiquity and remain bound to territory. This territorial anchoring inevitably provokes military conflicts with countless victims. Nuclear weapons only deepen the crisis and threaten the very survival of civilization, unless a way out of this dead end is found.
Theoretical foundations for societies without killing have already been laid, but for most people they remain in the realm of fantasy. The purpose of this book is to close the gap between theory and practice, to build a bridge between the old state and new forms of community. These new associations will rest not on common territory, but on shared interests.
The Covid-19 pandemic has given a powerful impetus to the emergence of a new type of society. It detached millions of people from office work and taught them to use new tools of communication, for which distance is no longer a barrier.
In our century, human mobility has sharply increased, and attitudes toward migration have changed fundamentally. Migration is no longer the privilege of the few or a matter of dire need; it has become an ordinary way of life. The primary driver of migration today is demand for labor, and the lowering of barriers between regions and nations facilitates the meeting of that demand. The unification of language has also played its part: English has effectively become the standard of business communication. The number of migrants grows year by year: in 2000 it was about 170 million, while by 2022 it had surpassed 290 million.
Cryptocurrencies are a vivid harbinger of the new world. They have entered into competition with traditional means of exchange. In less than two decades, cryptocurrencies have journeyed from fantasy to a reality that can no longer be ignored. Similar transformations await social organization itself. The practical aspects of communities of a new kind have become urgent precisely now, when such communities can arise and develop rapidly—just as cryptocurrencies did a decade and a half ago.
This book has a clear structure, allowing readers from different backgrounds to focus on the aspects most meaningful to them. A historical overview shows how certain limitations of traditional communities were overcome in the past or are being addressed today. Next comes an analysis of the practical aspects of association, with particular attention to the use of the most modern technologies. Finally, the book lays out the theoretical foundations of new types of communities—of interest to those who wish to lead such associations.
Recently established new-type states are already developing vigorously. Liberland now has more than a thousand citizens and over 700,000 applications for citizenship. Asgardia has more than 1.1 million residents. Liberland was proclaimed in 2008, but only began to grow actively in 2023, while Asgardia was founded quite recently, in 2016. Traditional states are becoming outdated; new forms of association are taking their place, and libernet will occupy—if not the central, then at least a vital—position among them.
About the Author
This book is the result of fifteen years of searching, reflection, and experimentation. As a convinced pacifist, I believe human beings are capable of building societies that don’t rely on killing. To me, the phrase ‘That’s impossible’ isn’t a barrier—it’s a signal that it’s time to move to the next level.
I’ve written this book under a pseudonym borrowed from late Soviet history. Stanislav Petrov was an ordinary officer who, at the height of the Cold War, prevented it from turning hot when a false alarm in the missile warning system demanded a response.
Other Authors’ Works on the Same Theme
The idea of creating a new type of state has been “in the air” since the beginning of this century, yet until now no clear and practical concept has been articulated. My book seeks to fill this gap—or at least to begin that process.
The theoretical foundations of a state that would not require violence were laid out in Glenn Paige’s scholarly work Nonkilling Global Political Science (2002). The subject was further developed by his followers in popular works such as Sofía Herrero Rico and Joám Evans Pim’s Nonkilling Spiritual Traditions (2015), Bruce D. Bonta’s Peaceful Societies (2023), and the collection Nonkilling Relationships (2024). These authors created and expanded the theoretical basis for a nonviolent state, yet they remain within the framework of the traditional, territorially bound state.
My book takes the subject further. The technological breakthroughs of recent years, together with the pandemic, have made it possible to put these ideas into practice, moving beyond traditional concepts.
A major breakthrough on this path was achieved by Balaji Srinivasan in The Network State (2022). However, I find his chosen term “network state” somewhat misleading, as it does not fully convey the essence of the revolutionary change he proposes: to free the state and its functions from territorial attachment. Srinivasan rightly observes that such a breakthrough can only be achieved through the actual existence and popularity of such a state, since otherwise it cannot be recognized—UN statutes require some form of territory. He reviews earlier attempts to bypass this limitation—such as micronations on sea platforms or disputed lands—and concludes that they failed. He also delves into the theoretical and philosophical aspects of statehood.
Unlike Srinivasan’s work, my book focuses on the practical questions: both through a historical overview and through concrete pathways for realizing the functions of the state independently of territory.
Equally noteworthy are the works of authors whose ideas have contributed to the creation of alternative communities, many of which bear features of mini- or micro-states. Among these are Dieter Duhm’s Future Without War (2007) and Diana Christian’s Creating a Life Together (2003). These authors did not seek to create a full-fledged alternative to the traditional state, but they developed methods for building sustainable, nonviolent communities.
In contrast, my book pushes beyond these boundaries, calling for the use of newly opened technological opportunities to improve the quality of social life.
I would also highlight Marshall Rosenberg’s Nonviolent Communication (2015). Rosenberg created a practical, accessible system for resolving and preventing conflicts, and he has promoted it worldwide. He lectures widely and works as a consultant in conflict resolution, addressing situations ranging from family disputes to military conflicts—including such difficult cases as the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and wars in African countries. He insists that for a conflict to be resolved, it is enough for one side to apply his method.
Since conflict resolution is the foundation of any community’s stability, this subject is explored in my book as well. I devote one chapter specifically to Rosenberg’s method and also examine other practical examples of conflict resolution systems in alternative communities.
My book seeks to integrate this accumulated experience and to carry forward the ideas of my predecessors. Its main purpose is to show any reader, regardless of their level of theoretical preparation, that in today’s conditions the virtual state has become possible. The book takes this subject out of the realm of fantasy and utopia, placing it within the reach of practice, and it maps a pathway toward the creation and development of new types of communities.
It is a book for anyone who hopes for a better future—for themselves and for their descendants.
What Makes This Book New
This book builds a bridge between theory and practice in the creation of virtual states. The research it presents demonstrates that the boundaries of traditional states can, in principle, be overcome.
The book places special emphasis on the formation of communities that do not require killing and are not founded on violence. There is currently no other book quite like this. With proper promotion, it could reach a wide audience and become one of the building blocks for the foundation of new communities.
Structure of the Book
Introduction
For whom is this book? Why is it relevant now? Why has the theme of virtual states become urgent today rather than, say, a decade ago? This chapter answers these questions.
Chapter: “How to Read This Book?”
A brief guide for those not ready to read the whole work but wishing to gain the most by reading only part of it. The book is divided into sections that meet different readers’ needs: practitioners may go straight to Part II, theorists to Part III, while the historical overview will interest both—useful, though not essential for grasping the material.
Part I: “Historical Overview”
This section examines humanity’s accumulated experience in creating communities that serve as alternatives to traditional states. Each chapter stands on its own and highlights what a given community achieved. Each concludes with a summary of which limits remained unconquered.
Chapter: “The European Union: Erasing Borders”
We begin with the brightest example formed before the eyes of the living generation. Countries that fought one another over territory for centuries—and in the last century alone sent millions to their deaths—united within a few decades. Internal borders have nearly vanished.
Chapter: “Israel: Building a New State on a National Principle”
Israel’s experience is difficult to call unequivocally successful, yet it is in many ways unique and merits careful study. How do you build a state from scratch, unite people, and ensure security? Not all of this will suit libernet, but much can prove useful. Above all: how do we avoid mistakes and steer clear of confrontation—especially armed confrontation—with other associations?
Chapter: “Liberland: The Newest State”
Based on a personal interview with Vít Jedlička, founder and president of the unique state of Liberland, which emerged on disputed territory between Serbia and Croatia in 2008. The state’s rapid development began in autumn 2023, when its leader reached an understanding with Croatia’s authorities to end confrontation. Liberland has been recognized by six other states and is in talks with more than a hundred more. It employs cutting-edge technologies in governance and security—experience that libernet can adopt directly.
Chapter: “Asgardia: The Space Nation”
Asgardia was founded by Igor Ashurbeyli and counts over a million citizens from 235 traditional states. It relies on digital infrastructure and has no territory of its own on Earth. The experience accumulated over eight years will be valuable in creating libernet.
Chapter: “Nansen Passports: Legalizing the Stateless”
Mass emigration from Russia after the 1917 revolution produced the phenomenon known as the Nansen passport. These documents allowed emigrants, deprived of their state’s services, to integrate into the societies where they found themselves. Given the mass emigration that began after 2014 and intensified in 2022, this issue is again relevant; for libernet’s citizens it suggests a well-trodden path toward obtaining their own passports. Among other things, such documents enable visa issuance for free movement around the world.
Chapter: “Eco-Settlements: Communities of the ‘Greens’”
Eco-settlements began appearing in the 1970s. In Russia the movement received a strong impulse after the books of Vladimir Megre; today there are nearly 400 settlements aligned with this ideology in Russia, with more appearing elsewhere. The chapter reviews the experience of the most successful initiatives—Kovcheg (Kaluga region), founded by Fyodor Lazutin, and Tamera (Portugal), founded by Dieter Duhm. Beyond assuming some functions of traditional states, their approaches to communication and governance may be highly instructive.
Chapter: “Digital Nomads: Visas for Expats”
Technological advances of the last decade have revived nomadism at a wholly new level. Work in information technology has freed such people not only from the office but from any single country of residence. Many forward-looking states welcome nomads—especially Portugal, Spain, Germany, Norway, and others in Europe. This trend foreshadows the rise of libernet, with the caveat that nomads are typically individuals rather than communities. The list of countries and professions remains modest but expands each year.
Chapter: “Corporate States”
Large corporations unite populous communities and perform functions characteristic of states: they provide employees (their “citizens”) with free education, supplemental health and pension insurance, scholarships, upskilling, and so on. Their experience is noteworthy because it transcends state, geographic, national, and cultural borders.
Chapter: “Renouncing Killing within Traditional States”
Even within traditional states, a partial—and sometimes complete—renunciation of killing is possible. This field of social science has been developing since the start of the century under the name nonkilling states. The chapter reviews lessons drawn from entire countries as well as from specific communities and individuals.
Chapter: “Business Clubs: Managing Community Culture”
Business clubs are instructive: entrepreneurs are highly demanding about service quality and have experience building work collectives. The chapter examines successful clubs whose practices may help shape libernet.
Chapter: “The Zapatistas: A State within a State”
Here we address a less successful case: separatists striving to create a traditional state inside an existing one—predictably provoking violence and casualties. Yet the Zapatistas are instructive in that they managed, at least temporarily, to dampen military conflict by substituting certain state functions in territories under their control.
Chapter: “The Quasi-State of Palau: Digital Residency”
The Republic of Palau became the first organization to offer its citizens digital—i.e., virtual—residency.
Part II: “Libernet”
This section is devoted to the practical aspects of building a new type of society, with a focus on recent technologies, especially those of the last decade. The reader is not expected to have technical training; the goal is not to unpack technical internals but to stress practical applicability, value, and novelty.
Chapter: “Declaration of Values”
The analogue of a constitution in traditional states is a declaration of values. Whether it is a single principle or richly detailed matters less than this: every member of the community, without exception, must fully share it. The declaration articulates the ideas that bind people into a community—vital for any association and doubly so for a virtual one, where territory is not a unifying factor.
Chapter: “Technologies: Cryptocurrencies”
The technology survey begins with the most intriguing—cryptocurrencies. The chapter offers a brief history and explains the technology that enabled such currencies to emerge and quickly gain traction. For libernet, having its own currency is important to secure economic independence.
Chapter: “Technologies: Smart Contracts”
This chapter explores smart-contract technology on blockchains. It enables, in virtual space, the analogue of agreements for all kinds of obligations. Smart contracts consist of sets of conditions and the consequences of fulfilling them; their execution is ensured by a digital platform. For example, the Ethereum platform’s market capitalization has exceeded 120 billion dollars and continues to grow—evidence of the technology’s momentum.
Chapter: “Technologies: Digital Passports”
Identifying community members is crucial for stability. Modern technologies offer blockchain-based solutions. Reliability arises from the immutability of blockchain records and the service’s popularity, which together provide some assurance of the reality of a virtual identity. In a network state such identification is vital; attempts to evade it should lead to exclusion of the fraudster from libernet.
Chapter: “Technologies: Marketspaces”
Marketspace is the business metaverse of the future—a place where enterprises meet their customers beyond geographic borders. For libernet, this newest technology—an heir to the more modest marketplace (Wildberries, Ozon, Yandex.Market, AliExpress, Lamoda, etc.)—forms the core of its economy.
Chapter: “Technologies: Messengers”
Quietly, messengers have become indispensable. WhatsApp (2 billion users), Messenger (1 billion), Telegram (900 million), WeChat (China), Viber (Europe), Teams (enterprise)—these tools have nearly erased geographic boundaries in daily communication. For libernet they are the circulatory system binding citizens together. Messenger audiences grow by roughly a quarter-billion users per year—the potential readership of this book grows apace.
Chapter: “Technologies: Conferencing”
The next level of communication is online conferencing, indispensable for distributed teams and online education—both critical to libernet. During Covid-19, Zoom surged ahead, though many less-known yet capable platforms exist; this chapter surveys them.
Chapter: “Technologies: Social Networks”
The technology closest to libernet’s essence is social networking. Roughly two-thirds of the world’s population uses social networks. They incorporate messenger functions while enabling robust social ties among people distant not only geographically but also linguistically, culturally, and by interest. Social networks have also become a primary channel for advertising and sales—vital for libernet’s economic development.
Chapter: “Technologies: Online Banks”
Banks intensify economic activity. While traditional banks will suffice at the outset, libernet can enable members to exchange such services (credit and investment) among themselves, grounded in an internal credit history.
Chapter: “Technologies: Online Schools”
One of the strongest ties binding people to a place is access to good schools and universities. Technologies of the last decade have opened a path forward. Unfortunately, many pursue online education chiefly to save money, harming quality. This chapter clarifies what high-quality online education looks like and why it should be priced on par with—or higher than—offline.
Chapter: “Technologies: AI”
The newest technology to storm into our lives is the neural network. The idea is not new—I worked with it back in the 1990s—but it leapt forward thanks to deep-learning algorithms and transformer architectures invented in 2017, the best-known being ChatGPT, trained on more than 20% of all written sources ever created. In libernet, AI can assist with planning, audit, prospecting for clients and contractors, and automating administrative routine.
Chapter: “Governance”
Libernet’s governance shares traits with traditional states but has its own features stemming from citizens’ geographic dispersion and from the technologies above. When designing governance systems, we must heed the positive and negative lessons of states and other communities; otherwise we risk inheriting old problems or creating an unstable society. Virtual space is less forgiving: it lacks the territorial “inertia” that gives even very inefficient systems a degree of stability.
Chapter: “Conflict Resolution”
The bedrock of any community’s resilience—libernet is no exception—is an effective system for resolving disputes among citizens. Its defining feature is the absence of violence in any form. The only risk a citizen faces within the community is exclusion from it. Practice nevertheless shows that resilient communities can be built on this basis. The chapter outlines principles for a functioning system suited to libernet.
Chapter: “Economy”
Economic activity within libernet is essential to its existence. The system may be open to non-citizens, but citizens should receive substantial preferences to attract activity. The chapter proposes several principles while leaving room for creativity and practical experimentation.
Chapter: “Currency”
Issuing a native currency is optional yet desirable. In early stages libernet may rely on traditional currencies and third-party cryptocurrencies. Creating its own cryptocurrency would enhance independence; price stability could be supported by linking it to goods and services produced within libernet.
Chapter: “Education”
Ensuring all levels of education is key to citizens’ freedom of movement. Early childhood can be provided through an international network of home-based kindergartens; schooling through online schools operating under the IB system; and vocational, higher, and continuing education can remain with traditional states, supplemented by online platforms such as Coursera from the world-leading MIT.
Chapter: “Collective Security”
Security is a primary function of any state, virtual or otherwise. Initially libernet may leave this function to traditional states, but over time it should complement—or replace—them with its own structures that use information technologies to connect citizens in need with those able to help.
Chapter: “Social Protection in Libernet”
Health and pension insurance may likewise be provided at first by traditional states and later supplemented or replaced by online services. In many countries, voluntary health insurance already uses the network for primary consultations. Online pension insurance minimizes overhead and ensures citizens can reclaim all contributions.
Chapter: “Relations with Traditional States”
Libernet should not confront traditional states. Legal support for citizens is essential so they can choose a place of residence wisely and strictly obey local laws. As digital nomads show, progressive states will welcome such citizens. Those that choose confrontation will, in historical perspective, consign themselves to obsolescence.
Chapter: “Attitude toward Religion”
Nothing prevents libernet’s declaration of values from including the tenets of a particular religion; nonetheless this is inadvisable, as it would needlessly and unjustifiably narrow the circle of potential citizens.
Chapter: “Visas”
Recognition by traditional states is vital. At first, citizens may rely on services of their country of residence, where available. The precedent of Nansen passports offers a legal foundation from which to begin, and Liberland’s experience can shorten the path by drawing on the most up-to-date practices. In time, a libernet passport should provide visa-free access to most of the world.
Part III: “Theory”
The third part presents libernet’s philosophical and theoretical underpinnings. These concepts do not claim to be exhaustive or strictly academic and may be complemented by others. Such study matters especially to those who will organize or help govern these communities. Philosophy is crucial for shaping the declaration of values on which a community’s success largely depends.
Chapter: “The Evolution of Freedom”
Since one of libernet’s chief aims is to meet the human need for freedom, we must understand what prospective citizens mean by it. Depending on this, even in virtual space society may exhibit features ranging from democratic to totalitarian.
Chapter: “The Dead End of Traditional States”
Here we consider the incurable shortcomings of traditional states: the necessity of coercion—up to and including killing—along with the inevitability of wars, restrictions on free movement, high overheads, managerial inefficiency, and more.
Chapter: “Ideological Foundations of Historical Processes”
This chapter explores the link between prevailing ideologies and the course of history, surveying concepts relevant today—their strengths and their limitations.
Chapter: “Escaping the Vicious Circle of History”
History is said to move in spirals. But when a foundational concept—in our case, the territorially bound state—exhausts its developmental potential, the spiral flattens into a circle. The last century shows this pattern: periods of relative calm punctuated by planetary-scale wars. Libernet offers a chance to rise to a new turn of the spiral rather than continue circling.
Chapter: “A Methodology for Building Resilient Communities”
Based on an interview with Margarita Ushakova, a consultant on community resilience, this chapter outlines methods for creating communities capable of indefinite existence thanks to built-in mechanisms of self-regulation.
Chapter: “The Theory of Nonviolent Communication”
Marshall Rosenberg’s Nonviolent Communication (2015) gained wide popularity (see “competitive analysis”). This chapter gives a concise overview and recommendations for applying NVC within libernet.
Chapter: “The Teaching of Christ”
One in three people identifies as Christian—the most technologically and economically developed portion of humanity. What explains this success? Setting aside the mystical dimension, what in Christ’s teaching catalyzed civilization’s growth? What can a virtual state adopt without compromising its non-religious status?
Conclusion
The study concludes that, after the technological leap we have witnessed, the emergence of libernet is a matter of time. Its exact shape cannot be predicted—it will be refined in practice—but a sufficient theoretical and technological foundation already exists to launch a pilot project (or several). Perhaps the very first attempt will succeed and spread across the world.
Essay "Corona, or the Circle of Light"
2019 – 2021
Coronavirus: what for?
You’re holding this book in your hands—or reading it on a screen. That already means things are going well. This isn’t sacred knowledge, nor a religion, nor a revelation.
Perhaps you enjoy long books, but in a world trained by gadgets, anything that can’t be swallowed in a few minutes gets tossed in the trash. So this book will be as brief as possible.
Writers usually begin by talking about themselves. Here, that’s entirely beside the point. If what’s written here is true—and you accept it with both mind and heart—then it doesn’t matter who says it. And if it isn’t true—then who said it matters even less. I chose a pen name in honor of Stanislav Yevgrafovich Petrov, the Soviet officer who in 1983 prevented a nuclear war—one that might have begun because of a false alert from the very warning system he helped design, the system that notified the Soviet leadership of a possible U.S. missile strike.
What set this book in motion? On November 1, 2019, on a business trip, I sat alone at dinner in a restaurant and found myself thinking about how many luminous people I’d met—and how wonderful it would be to bring them together, wherever they happened to live. A kind of borderless “virtual state.” I wanted to give it a name. A simple one came: “the circle of light.” What did it look like? Like the Sun’s corona. The image felt right—not only because there is light within, but because what’s inside is hidden from view, and yet everyone knows the light is there. So: Corona… It was still a few weeks before the first widely known case of infection. I wrote the thought down and forgot it. Around New Year’s 2020, I remembered and, in my traditional list of plans for the coming year, added: give this idea its start. The next time I recalled that promise was in March—when the virus was raging across the world.
What did the coronavirus teach us? That everyone on Earth is bound to everyone else. We thought deaths from a virus in China didn’t concern us—and quickly learned otherwise. We thought wealth or power could shield us from common misfortunes—another illusion. We are one. Whether we like it or not, that’s how it is.
Where’s the mistake?
We have advanced far in understanding the world; we can picture how humanity and the Universe came to be; we’ve learned to harness the energy of nuclear fusion—the same fire that warms us from the Sun; we have even learned to use the paradoxes of quantum theory.
Yet in our dealings with one another we move painfully slowly. This imbalance—between our grasp of the physical laws of the world and our lag in the realm of spirit—threatens our existence. For over sixty years we’ve had the power to annihilate ourselves, and still we don’t know how not to.
Spiritual laws are not especially complex. No more complex than E = mc². What they require, though, is a radical shift in our habitual worldview.
The good news is that such a shift needn’t be a revolution. Better, in fact, if it is gradual. Though time is short.
God is in everyone. That’s all. We forget this seemingly banal truth—and from that forgetting come our troubles.
The path through the heart
The idea isn’t new. At the dawn of our era it was preached by a former carpenter, the son of Mary and Joseph—a historically attested figure. He spoke in simple words, not for theologians but for anyone willing to hear. Yet what he taught was too hard to live by. People chose to kill him—and that did not help.
Christ’s followers wrote down his words and, as he asked, began to proclaim them to all peoples, despite persecution. Because of them, anyone can still hear Christ’s words today—almost verbatim.
Jesus lived in Judea; his teaching therefore settled upon the groundwork of Judaism. And though “no one pours new wine into old wineskins,” without wineskins the wine would spill and be lost. Judaism became the Old Covenant—those very wineskins.
He marked the core of his teaching plainly and vividly: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind… this is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments hang all the Law.”
These two greatest commandments converge into one: love God in your neighbor.
“Neighbors” here are not only kin and friends: “You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I tell you: love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who mistreat and persecute you, that you may be children of your Father.”
The one you see through a gun sight is also your neighbor. In killing him, you kill God in him: “Whatever you did to one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did to me.”
In spiritual terms, love is the seeing of God in the other. The entire essence of Christ’s teaching—indeed, of Christianity—lies in this simple law. From it flow the other commandments: do not kill, do not commit adultery, do not steal, do not lie, do not judge, do not be angry; give to the one who asks; forgive others their trespasses, and so on.
Obviously, Christianity in this form was impossible as a state religion. It had to be “refined,” brought closer to the Old Law. Thanks to that, within three centuries Christianity began to turn into a state faith and to be used for purposes opposite to Christ’s—no longer to give freedom to a person, but to take it away.
Yet at the same time, thanks to becoming “of the state,” Christianity spread throughout the world and became the largest religion, embraced by a third of humankind. That gives us hope.
The path through the mind
Everything above is simple—and suits those who can live not by mind alone. The mind, however, asks for more intricate food.
A well-known psychologist once said he was “ill with the mind”—not that something was wrong with his intellect, but that he lived only by his mind and knew no other way. This section is for such people as well—including atheists.
For those who live by the mind, it’s hard to be followers of ancient faiths. When those faiths arose, it was easy to believe in incorrupt relics, immaculate conception, eternal fire in hell, and so on. In the 21st century you have to come to special terms with your mind to accept such things. Not everyone can, and that becomes a stumbling block on the path to God.
How then can we explain God’s central law to those who do not believe in God? Fortunately, there is mathematics.
John Nash—almost our contemporary (he died in 2015)—is the only person to have received both the Nobel Prize and the Abel Prize. He inspired the main character of the Oscar-winning film A Beautiful Mind. In the late 1940s and early ’50s, he laid scientific foundations for game theory, widely used in sociology, political science, and economics. In the late ’50s, he lost his mental health and spent more than twenty years in an illusory world.
What caused his breakdown? Brain damage—or did he come too close to knowledge humanity wasn’t ready to bear? After all, we learned of nuclear fusion only when we could more or less manage it. Had we learned a little earlier, the Second World War might have placed a full stop at the end of civilization’s story.
At the core of the scientific approach Nash championed lies the prisoner’s dilemma. In brief: players, without colluding, choose either to move toward one another (“the human way”) or against one another (“the crocodile way”). If both move toward—each gains 3 points; if both move against—each loses 3; if they choose differently, the “kind” one loses 5 points to the “villain.”
For all its simplicity, the prisoner’s dilemma has proved useful in modeling complex social processes.
Nash proposed a method for calculating the equilibrium state into which a society falls when its members act independently—that is, without coordination. In this case the optimal strategy turns out to be “eye for an eye” with a small allowance for forgiveness—essentially, the spiritual law of the Old Testament. The equilibrium that society reaches when most participants choose this strategy is markedly (by multiples) worse than the ideal.
The ideal state is reached when all participants act not in their own interest (nor in the interest of their own group) but for the good of others (or other groups)—“the human way”—even if in return they are struck. Such are the austere, impartial laws of mathematics.
But how can a person act in love not only toward those who love him, but toward enemies—toward those who betrayed him, those who struck him?
It becomes possible only if one believes there is something greater than oneself, greater than one’s group or country. In God. This is a mathematical proof of God’s necessity for human beings.
Could we manage without that? We cannot. Once, perhaps, we could. Now we stand a step away from self-destruction, and there is simply no other way to avert a collective suicide.
Returning—by way of the mind—to what Christ taught: “How many times shall I forgive my brother who sins against me? … up to seventy times seven.” “Do not resist an evil person. If someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also; if anyone wants to sue you and take your shirt, let him have your cloak as well; if someone forces you to go one mile, go with him two.”
Strip Christ’s teaching of what an atheist cannot accept, and the core spiritual law remains: “In everything, do to others as you would have them do to you.”
It’s a long road for one accustomed to relying on the intellect. But the conclusion is the same: to see God—the Creator, the One, the Highest, as you will—in every person is the fundamental law of the spirit.
For the religious person one can add: this is the law of God’s Kingdom. Without it—“outer darkness, weeping and gnashing of teeth,” in other words, hell. Enough branch offices have opened already. Any war, being a direct violation of this law, creates an island of that hell. Yet there is still a chance not to transform the whole Earth into it.
What comes next?
We live in a wondrous time: on the one hand, we balance on a hair’s breadth from self-destruction—closer than ever before. On the other hand, our technologies, awareness, and access to knowledge are incredible—higher than they have ever been.
Thanks to the internet and networked services, borders blur: geographic, political, linguistic. Communities whose members live in different parts of the Earth, in different states, even speaking different languages, become possible.
A curious experience from the beginning of the coronavirus era—CHAZ. For the first time in decades, on the territory of an existing state, without violence, something new—independent—arose. It was spontaneous and brief, but the precedent is telling.
Independent cryptocurrencies have appeared and are developing rapidly. Money, too, is stepping out from under the control of states.
If you share the ideas outlined above, join us! Let it be a “virtual state” with free entry and exit.
Let its symbol and its name be what came first—the solar corona: Corona, the Circle of Light. A community of luminous people. A union of those who strive to see God in everyone—friend and foe, those within the circle and those outside it—without distinction of gender, citizenship, creed or its absence, culture, language, skin color, eye color, and the rest.
Despite the simplicity of the fundamental law, living by it in our world is far from easy. Let failures not dishearten you. Fall and rise again. If today you managed it once more than yesterday, the day was not lived in vain.
Practice
Any theory—no matter how close to truth—without practice is lifeless. A law as simple in words as “God is in everyone” proves anything but easy to follow in daily life.
It would help to find a way to practice every day. It would be good if, to avoid either gloom or pride, only you knew your progress. It would be good if the fact that you are trying to live by the fundamental law and practice it were visible to others—both because it keeps you honest and because it helps you recognize kindred spirits: those who long to step into the Circle of Light.
Two years after the idea of the Circle of Light, this practice came to me. I tried it myself; here it is for you:
- Make yourself a little ring for your pinky. It doesn’t matter whether it’s costly or cheap, ornate or plain. Like a cross is for a Christian, it’s only a symbol. Ideally, find a ring with the image of the solar corona, the emblem of the Circle of Light.
- Each time you realize you’ve treated another person (friend or foe, near or stranger—no matter who) in a way you wouldn’t have, had you remembered that God lives in them—take the ring off one hand and put it on the pinky of the other.
For you, this becomes a clear measure of spiritual progress. There’s no use cheating; the result is known only to you and God. Self-deception may be possible, but no one has ever deceived God.
And one more thing: you will recognize “your people,” even among those who seem strangers.
Onward, friends!
Some questions and answers
There are many religions in the world—why another one?
Religions—whether confessions or sects—while uniting people within, often divide them from others, sometimes to the point of enmity and religious wars. What’s set out here is not a new religion. The idea “God is in everyone” can unite all people. Even atheists—for the sense of spirit, the awareness of one’s own spirit, belongs to every person.
What is spirit?
A theoretical answer suits the religious: spirit is a person’s connection to God, a spark of Him in us.
A practical answer may suit the atheist: look within and subtract, step by step—first the body (that’s easy: the physical shell and everything tied to it); then the mind (the stream of thought, speech); then the soul (emotions, the unconscious, intuition). Now try to feel what remains. Even an atheist, looking honestly within, will say that something remains—something impossible to describe, to locate in the body, or even to explain—and yet a vital part of “I.” That is spirit.
Is this the only life, or is reincarnation possible?
Life after death—and the chance to be born again in another body—is purely a matter of faith. Memories of past lives may be the play of our minds—or they may be real. To believe this life is the only one is the stronger choice, asking more responsibility for it. But that choice needn’t be the truth. Either way, it doesn’t change the spiritual law described above.
What if a villain attacks a loved one and the only way to stop them is to kill?
This is where many falter—both Christians and those who might have believed Christ but consider “if anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also” impossible to fulfill. Yet this is a key point in Christ’s teaching.
Most often such situations are framed artificially by those pursuing goals far from Christian. In war, both sides are usually sure they are protecting their loved ones and that God is on their side. But Christ spoke unambiguously: “By this everyone will know that you are my disciples—if you love one another,” and “all who take the sword will perish by the sword.”
In early Christianity, killing in war barred one from communion. For states constantly at war, such a rule proved intolerable; as Christianity became a state religion, it was set aside.
Situations in which a person cannot help but violate the fundamental spiritual law—say, killing someone about to commit violence—are inevitable, given human imperfection. But that must not become a pretext for self-deception, for twisting the law through clever interpretations. Each time you break the law of loving enemies, ask yourself what led to it—and how next time you might avoid it.
But the solar corona evokes an eclipse…
The symbol itself isn’t the main thing. What matters is the meaning we pour into it—and that meaning is deep: the light is visible outside as a shining rim; we know there is even more light within; those inside become unseen to the world outside. The last point is, of course, figurative—but powerful. Union with God grants a strength unlike any other, though outwardly accepting His law can seem to make a person weaker, more vulnerable.
Besides, this image came unbidden and became bound up with an event that shook the world before our eyes and turned it upside down.
Can you state the main idea clearly and briefly?
God is in every person. To live by His law is to remember this—and to act with everyone as though God were within them.
It sounds banal, yet it topples everything: states, societies, our usual ways. That’s why Christ was crucified.
Later we did something even worse: we “refined” his teaching so that it wouldn’t upend states but support them. In places we had to turn it on its head with careful edits and interpretations. Elsewhere it still won’t quite fit—because the Gospels preserve Christ’s own words, which proved impossible to overhaul completely. We shouldn’t blame the editors; on the contrary, we should be grateful that Christ’s words reached us at all, rather than dying with his disciples. Those edits bridged the chasm between the Old-Testament world and Christ’s teaching. Without becoming “of the state,” Christianity might never have spread widely. So perhaps this, too, was part of the plan.
A touch of the miraculous helps faith; isn’t it worth overlooking much for that?
Our world teems with real miracles, although we’ve grown used to calling “miracle” only what breaches the ordinary. Is a leaf on a tree not a miracle? A wild creature? And a human being—the body, the brain—miracle of miracles. The birth of a child? One could go on forever—just look around with care.
Instead of a conclusion……which this book will not have. Conclusions make texts feel finished, and this is only a beginning. The spiritual law described requires daily work. The worldly laws—both written and unwritten—will, at best, be no help, and at worst, a hindrance. But I know this for certain: it’s easier to keep this law when those around you keep it, too.
If you agree with these ideas, share this book with those close to you. Let the Circle of Light widen, so that—if it be God’s will—it may one day include everyone living on Earth.
