13 - "Psi" Research Behind The Iron Curtain

The most intensive state-sponsored "psi" research being carried on in the world today is being conducted behind the Iron Curtain. Russia and many of her satellites have coordinated programs for the investigation of ESP centered around telepathy. The goal of this research is to add another useful tool to the collection of implements which the state already has gathered.

Unknown to the rest of the world, and to most of the communist countries, research into the nature and uses of telepathy has been going on in the Soviet Union for more than forty years. One of the early Soviet experimenters was V. M. Bekhterev, the leader in a series of tests in which telepathic communication was attempted between man and animals, specifically, a dog. Bekhterev and his associates obtained for their experiments an animal trainer, V.L. Durov, who had trained a dog named Mars.

The experiments were to test Durov's ability to communicate with the dog without giving an audible or visible signal. In one demonstration, Durov was to command the dog to bark a specified number of tunes. Bekhterev's assistant took the dog to a room some distance from the other two men. The only stipulation the animal trainer had put on the test was that the number of barks not exceed seven, lest the dog begin barking continually out of habit.

When Bekhterev and Durov were alone in the room, the animal trainer was given a slip of paper which had the specified number of responses the dog was to make at Durov's signal to bark. No word was exchanged. But the number on the slip of paper was fourteen—exactly double the maximum number Durov had specified. The trainer was puzzled, but after writing something on the paper, he continued with the silent experiment.

Bekhterev's assistant, who had taken the dog away from Durov, kept a meticulous watch on its activities. This man had not been informed of the number of barks specified for the test, his only task being to observe and record everything that the dog did. At first Mars did nothing. He lay on the floor. Then the observer saw him draw his body up on his forelegs and cock his ears. He barked seven times before he settled back to the floor. Thinking that the experiment was over, the man wanted to take the dog back to the trainer. But before he could move toward Mars, the dog did exactly the same thing again, drawing himself up on his forelegs, cocking his ears, and barking seven times.

Afraid that Mars would simply start barking and not stop, Durov had divided the command into two parts of seven each. He had written "7 + 7" on the slip which Bekhterev had given him.

Other more complicated experiments were carried out by this team of researchers. In one particularly striking instance, the dog was given an order to find an object he had never seen, within a room he had never entered. In addition, the object (a telephone directory) was placed on one of three tables of varying heights, all of which were out of the normal vision of the dog unless he stood on his hind legs. Many other objects were scattered around the room and on each of the tables.

Durov took the dog's head into his hands and stared intently into his eyes, mentally giving him the command to retrieve the directory. Durov repeated the procedure three times, then Mars ran out of the room and into the one he had never before entered. The dog propped his forelegs up on the first two tables, but not finding what he wanted, went to the third where he picked out the directory from among the other objects and brought it back to the laboratory.

Even though the accuracy of these experiments is astonishing, it did little to stir the interest of the Soviet leaders at the time. The same objection that existed in the West, existed behind the Iron Curtain: this type of experiment is not subject to any kind of number scheme, thus it does not enhance the knowledge of telepathy, except to reconfirm its existence.

In the paper written at the conclusion of these experiments, Bekhterev assumed that telepathy was some form of electromagnetic energy. He reasoned that such energy was somehow modulated and transmitted from Durov to the dog, which received and interpreted the modulated wave. This paper expressed the opinion that the chemical changes in the brain induced electric currents which stimulated the wave transmission and modulation.

Later experiments with Durov and Mars seemed to confirm Bekhterev's opinions. B. B. Kazhinskyi, another Soviet scientist, continued the experiments which Bekhterev had begun. The bulk of his arguments centered around the use of an electromagnetic screening device known as a Faraday cage. The Faraday cage is a chamber which is usually lined with a layer of lead and mercury surrounded by an electromagnetic field which reduces the number of penetrating electromagnetic waves to practically nothing.

When Durov was put in the Faraday cage and attempted to give mental commands to Mars, the dog failed to respond to any of the orders. When the door of the cage was open, however, Mars again responded to his master's mental signals.

Other experimenters also attempted to test the hypothesis that telepathy was a form of electromagnetic signal. L. Vodolazskyi and T. Gursteyn, using a subject who had been hypnotized, shut him up in an electro-magnetically screened chamber. The hypnotist, who was stationed in a separate room, mentally suggested that the subject perform certain tasks. This experiment was carefully planned so that the door to the screening chamber could be opened and closed without the knowledge of either the subject or the hypnotist. As long as the subject was screened electromagnetically from the hypnotist, none of the man's telepathic suggestions were followed. When the door was opened, the subject responded to his suggestions with a high degree of accuracy.

These and other experiments (one of which even attempted to direct the telepathic signals with the use of a metal mirror) seemed to confirm the hypothesis that telepathy was basically electromagnetic in character. This school of Russian parapsychologists was under the influence of the Italian neurophysiologist, F. Cazzamalli. His conclusions also pointed to an electromagnetic wave character for telepathic signals. His experiments have been criticized several times since the 1920's when they were performed, however, since they were not conducted under very rigid controls.

This group, as convincing a front as they presented, did not drown the skepticism about the electromagnetic wave character of telepathic signals. Even while these experiments were being carried out, one of Bekhterev's pupils, L.L. Vasiliev, was disturbing this pat theory with some astounding results of his own.

Vasiliev's original experiments were conducted with the use of subjects and hypnotists. His concern was not to solicit responses from the suggestion of the hypnotists via telepathic means, but to induce the trance state itself by the use of telepathy.

The subject was given an inflated rubber ball which was attached by a hose to a pressure-sensitive recording device. He was then instructed to squeeze the ball with his hand. These contractions were recorded as notches on the moveable graph. When the subject was hypnotized, the rhythmic contractions would stop, and the notches would no longer appear on the graph. The subject and the hypnotist were separated by two intervening walls. The room between housed the recording equipment and those in charge of monitoring it.

Tune for each attempt of this telepathic hypnosis was determined by the use of a roulette wheel and was thus completely random. In 1932, Vasiliev was fortunate enough to find three very sensitive subjects with whom the goal of long-distance hypnosis was attainable. When the hypnotist was instructed to induce a trance on the person he could not see, he was able to perform the feat. Later, when instructed to bring the subject out of the trance, the hypnotist was again able to accomplish this by the force of his will, without once coming in contact with the subject during the entire course of the test.

As work in this series of experiments continued, a few unforeseen problems began to develop. After a number of trials, the subjects became so accustomed to the surroundings and the preparations for the tests, that they would fall into trance automatically. Such auto-hypnosis is not uncommon, even when the hypnotist is not trying to induce the trance state via telepathy. But even when this occurred, the effect of a telepathic impulse was striking. A subject could be put in a trance state two or three tunes faster when the hypnotist attempted to send a telepathic signal than when the auto-hypnosis was allowed to occur. As these tests with the same subject continued, it became more difficult to bring the subject out of the trance state with the use of telepathy. Yet telepathy was still a factor, as the hypnotist could revive the subject momentarily before he would fall back into the trance state.

Because these results were consistently good, Vasiliev was able to devise even more interesting tests. He placed the subjects within chambers that were heavily sealed from all forms of electromagnetic radiation. In this test the subjects responded exactly as they had without the shielding, contradicting the results of the other Soviet experimenters. Vasiliev's rigidly controlled experiments showed that there was more to telepathy than electromagnetic waves.

A Russian physicist, V. Arkadev, supported Vasiliev's contention by saying that the intensity of the waves which could be spawned by the electric currents in the brain is so low that dissipation occurs very close to the skull. Even though it has been proven that electromagnetic radiation can affect the central nervous system, the electromagnetic waves generated by the electric currents which are constantly surrounding modern man are of a much higher intensity than any kind of electromagnetic radiation the brain could muster.

These contradictory results have not yet been explained, but Soviet scientists and "psi" researchers outside the Iron Curtain have since leaned away from the theory that telepathic signals are electromagnetic waves. Even more than in other scientific endeavors, psychic researchers must be certain to eliminate all prejudice from their minds. It is very possible that a researcher's brain state may have as much effect on a subject as an intended telepathic signal. The early Soviet experiments may have shown that telepathy was electromagnetic in character, because the investigators, under the heavy influence of the Italian Cazzamalli wanted or expected them to show it.

A prejudice—which cannot be separated from the mind—may be a decisive factor in any experiments involving psychic phenomena. These possibilities only add to the difficulty of conducting experiments, but they cannot be ignored.

Vasiliev is now head of the parapsychology department at Leningrad University. Since his experiments in the 1930's, the Soviets have no doubt learned much more about telepathy than they have committed to publication or offered to share with the West.

"Psi" research has posed a curious problem behind the Iron Curtain. The official communist position is that thinking cannot be separated from the brain. Soviet parapsychologists are quick to point out that the transfer of thoughts does not necessarily occur in telepathy, only the transfer of information contained in thoughts. Even though this has been generally accepted, it is still a rather uneasy position.

The touchiest point seems to be concerned with the possibility of life after death. Such a notion is heresy, opposed to communist dogma. Any explanation of psychic phenomena which drifts away from an explanation involving matter and energy in conventional forms is treading dangerously near the spiritual explanation, which is impossible for the communists to accept because their dogma proclaims it false.

The official communist position has been known to change in many other areas, and the apparent potential of such phenomena as telepathy cannot be overlooked. The practical applications of ESP may already have forced Iron Curtain dogma to expand another notch, as certain reports indicate that "psi" research is being carried out at a vigorous pace.