Peterburgian Vedism "to know" ("vedat")—a semantic root which is shared in Slavic and Sanskrit languages alike—, and it expresses the difference between sight or knowledge and dogmatic belief ("verit"), the latter being typical of non-Vedic doctrines. According to one of the contemporary leaders of the Peterburgian Vedic movement, Roman Perin, "Rodnovery" defines the practised religion, while "Vedism" defines the philosophy or knowledge at its core. Vedism therefore is not a religion but pure knowledge. According to Bezverkhy, dogmatic religions such as Christianity, but also Brahmanism (the successor of Vedism in India), were created in order to control the masses. Bezverkhy codified his
Is Theosophy a Religion? theosophical journals often characterize an attempt to deal with errors as merciless "attacks on Christianity," "untheosophical assaults" and so on. She writes: Contrary to the allegations of Blavatsky which she made in her article, professor John Melton wrote that Theosophy is "established religious cult" along with christian science, rosicrucianism, spiritualism, satanism, mormonism, and so on. René Guénon called Blavatskian Theosophy "theosophism" and described it in his book as a "pseudo-religion." He believed that Blavatsky's "theosophism" is a "confused mixture" of Neoplatonism, Gnosticism, Jewish Kabbalah, Hermeticism, and occultism. "The Catholic Encyclopedia" noted that Blavatsky's doctrine is a "strange mixture" of mysticism