18 May] 1917) was a Russian religious philosopher, playwright, and statesman, best known for his Mystical Trilogy comprising Super-consciousness and the Ways to Achieve It, Light Invisible, and Dark Force.
[8] He also took up literary work, writing several plays—Iz novenkikh (Brand New) and Lozhny vzglyad (False View)—which performed well at the Russian Dramatic Theatre in Moscow.
Like Helena Blavatsky, Lev Tikhomirov, and other contemporary thinkers, he attempted to synthesize philosophy, religion, and mysticism into a unified way of life.
He was familiar with the Hindu yogic tradition, drawing a parallel between it and Eastern Orthodox mysticism with the implicit belief that they were essentially the same.
In their reviews of Light Invisible, Bishop Nikon (Bessonov) of Yenisei-Krasnoyarsk highly recommended it,[4] and Sergei Glagolev of the Moscow Theological Academy (despite some reservations) states that Lodyzhensky “simply, clearly, and convincingly established the apologetical significance of mystical phenomena from an Orthodox perspective.”[10] In the summer of 1910, Lodyzhensky and his wife Olga stayed in the village of Basovo, which was located only a few miles from Yasnaya Polyana, the estate of the writer Leo Tolstoy.
[11] In his later years, Lodyzhensky continued to write, collaborating with the St. Petersburg journal Veshnie vody (Spring Waters) and publishing his last work, Nevidimye volny (Invisible Waves), in 1917.