Disputes about Vanga and the gift of clairvoyance attributed to her do not subside until now, and "Vanga's predictions" continue to occupy the top lines of queries in Internet search engines.
Not a saint
One of the most pressing questions that certainly arises when discussing the cult of Vanga is the attitude of the Orthodox Church towards her. Furious fans of the soothsayer love to claim that she has already been canonized. Especially furious - that they were canonized during his lifetime: as if the patriarch of Bulgaria Maxim himself recognized Vanga as a saint in 1994. There is a problem: this year Patriarch Maxim was not the Patriarch of Bulgaria. In 1992, there was a split in the Bulgarian Church and Metropolitan Pimen became the official head of the Orthodox Bulgarian Church, who dismissed Maxim. In addition, Vanga did not do anything that could become a reason for canonization. On the contrary, she predicted the future for people, which, according to Christian laws, is a sin. After her visions, when Baba Wanga began to speak in a voice that was not her own and she had seizures, she argued,that communicates with certain voices, called them "little forces." They talked to her, prompted. It is not surprising that the Church saw (and sees) in these "small and great powers" demons.
A separate conversation is about the temple that Vanga built in Rupite. The church was built, according to Vanga, in honor of Saint Paraskeva, but in fact there is only one of her "icons" in the church. In quotation marks - because the language does not turn to call the image an icon. It looks more like a photograph of a young girl. The frescoes in the church resemble images of the dead, rather than canonical images of saints. The portrait of Vanga over the royal throne, the portrait of Vanga on the fresco at the entrance - it is obvious that the building was built in honor of the Christian saint only in name. The reason that prompted Vanga to build is also interesting - Ivan Blagoy, her guard, hanged himself at the gate of the fortuneteller's house.
Wang and special services
Even at the beginning of her career as a "clairvoyant", when the Second World War was going on, Vanga became the object of interest of the Bulgarian police. The competent authorities asked Vanga what the visitors who were of operational interest were talking to her about. Such contacts between well-known "clairvoyants" and special services are not uncommon. Further more. Vanga was hired as a research assistant at the Sofia Institute of Suggestology and Parapsychology of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences. This unusual institution was created in 1968. Vanga, who did not like scientists, was very loyal to the staff of this scientific institution. When communicating with them, she mastered the methods of hypnosis and influencing people well. When talented Bulgarian marketers made a brand out of Vanga, very influential guests from all over the world began to come to her. The secret services simply could not help but use it. A special hotel was built in Petrich for the guests of Vanga. The staff were properly instructed. The flow of people to Vanga was huge, people waited for their turn for weeks, talked, talked about life.
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The memoirs of Yuri Gorny are indicative in this regard: “During a telephone conversation, I asked a journalist friend what he was doing while he was waiting for a meeting with Vanga, he told me that he was killing time, drinking beer and soon going to the bathhouse. I gave him advice: before going to take a steam bath, seal the scrotum with adhesive tape, which he did. " At the meeting, Vanga told the journalist a lot about what a great man he is, that he works for the Pravda newspaper. Then came assurances that in the future the guest would be fine, but with one caveat - the journalist would not be able to reproduce, since his reproductive organs were injured …"
Wang and healing
Thousands of people went to Vanga, not only to find out the future. People also believed that Wanga was able to cure diseases. In fact, her "treatment" was based on well-known folk methods, but the recipes uttered by Vanga herself were readily accepted by people. There were very strange advice. One woman, who came at the request of her sick husband, Vanga advised to find a red young rooster, which was not one year old. Catch him, open the bird's chest and rip out the still beating heart. After that, put the heart in a bottle of wine and then put the bottle in a dark place for three days. Then give my husband a glass of this wine to drink for three evenings. Such are the strange witchcraft methods. And this despite the fact that her loved ones, like herself, Vanga could not cure. Her husband died of liver cirrhosis caused by alcoholism.
Hysteria
Vanga's "phenomenon" can be convincingly explained within the framework of psychiatry. It is known that Wanga suffered from hysterical fits. They are also described by Vanga's niece: “Upon learning of the impending disaster … my aunt turns pale, faints, incoherent words fly from her lips, and her voice at such moments has nothing to do with her usual voice. Among the people, such a severe form of hysteria is called "hysteria" (from the word "click", that is, heart-rending screaming, screaming). This phenomenon is widely known. Back in 1900, when clinical psychiatry in Russia was just developing, psychiatrist Nikolai Krainsky published the book "Spoilage, hysterics and possessed as phenomena of Russian folk life" with a foreword by Academician Vladimir Bekhterev, who defined hysteria as a painful condition, "the basis of which is hysterical neurosis".
Tsar Boris and Hitler
Vanga's niece Krasimira Stoyanova claims in her book that in April 1942, Vanga was visited by the Bulgarian Tsar Boris, whom she predicted death on August 28. “The king, without asking anything, left very confused. He died on 28 August 1943. " There is also a legend that in 1943 Adolf Hitler came to Vanga, to whom Vanga predicted defeat from the Soviet Union. There is no documentary evidence of either the first or the second meeting. Most likely, Wanga, like Wolf Messing, created their own mythology, which, without significant figures, was not so convincing. These "historical" meetings are refuted by the fact that in the early 40s Vanga was not widely known, and her "clients" were only residents of the town of Strumitsa.
Business
Vanga was and remains a very profitable point in the tourism business in Bulgaria. Various amulets, books, things "consecrated" by Vanga are still popular and are well sold by tourists. Vanga herself met with her visitors and predicted for them not for free. There was a price list. For local visitors, the entrance was 10 leva (20 euros), and for foreign visitors - 50 dollars. The money for the reception went to the city treasury and to the Vanga Foundation, which was headed by one of her godchildren. It should be borne in mind that not all of her guests (who have already paid for the visit) Vanga said at least a word. Many were simply not allowed on the doorstep. Thus, given that the number of visitors to Baba Vanga exceeded a million people, its profitability was extremely high. At the end of Vanga's life, a serious war broke out for her money, in which the relatives of the soothsayer, the Vanga Foundation, the Bulgarian government and several "spiritual organizations" of a sectarian persuasion were involved.
Were there any predictions?
The conversation about Vanga's "predictions" deserves, of course, special attention. The problem is that there are almost no recorded prophecies that truly belong to the Bulgarian soothsayer. Calculations of the "correctness" of predictions are still in progress, but they do not have an open methodology, without which any scientific research becomes just speculation. Interesting in this respect is the history of the heading "political predictions from Vanga", which for one and a half years "made circulation" of the magazine "Lights of Bulgaria". It turned out that the journalists themselves wrote the texts, and then brought them to Vanga's reconciliation. This is how newspaper horoscopes are written today. Admirers of Vanga love to refer to the psychologist Dobriyan Velichko, who allegedly conducted a study of everything Wanga said and showed that in 63.8% of her predictions are always correct. Would you be treated by a doctor,which doctor is 63.8%?