A modern Christian Hermeticist, Konstantin Serebrov, was born, like Gurdjieff, in the Caucasus region in the fifties of the last century, though in the northern section. His father, an accountant by profession, belonged to the gentry of one of the southern Russian provinces, and his mother was a Cossack. Contrary to Gurdjieff, Serebrov began his spiritual development with the teachings of the East, from the tender age of twelve and he already had a spiritual mentor who belonged to one of the Theosophical groups in Leningrad (former and present St. Petersburg), Alexey Zhoukovsky. In the Caucasus Zhoukovsky lead an unobtrusive life in a resort town, where he meditated and practised Kriya yoga. Serebrov grew up in the Russian 'mystical Underground' and studied the different spiritual traditions of the East like Kriya, several meditation techniques and yoga's of the Hindu tradition, Tao alchemy, Tibetan teachings, Castaneda, and he also practised them. However, he dreamt of meeting a spiritual Master, because, as he put it, despite experiencing deep inner states such as regularly leaving his physical body, cosmic consciousness and such spiritual activities, he still fell back into the everyday routine without a trace of the higher states. His life changed when he met Russian mystic Vladimir Stepanov, who preached the dawn of an epoch of spiritual freedom for mankind in the entire Universe, due to the growing influence of the Holy Spirit. As a result of following this man, Serebrov converted to this faith and he allowed himself to be baptised into the Russian Orthodoxy. He also studied and exercised the teaching and the practices of the holy desert Fathers. Serebrov made an attempt, however, to use the power and effectiveness of some breathing techniques which he had already mastered, in order to find depth in the Christian way. He succeeded by combining these techniques with prayer and meditation to cleanse his soul and to restore his lost contact with God. Dr. T.N. Ganapathy was a renowned mystic and researcher of the Tamil Yoga Siddha spiritual lineage, to which the Kriya Master Mahavatar Babaji belonged and the Director of the Yoga Siddha Research Project. Dr. Ganapathy knew Konstantin Serebrov well and asked him to write the foreword for one of his books, Sivavakkiyam: The Songs of a Spiritual Rebel, because he considered Konstantin to be one of the teachers of the Kriya Tradition.