Even in the Middle Ages, such an anomalous phenomenon was known as doppelgenger - "walking alongside."
About thirty years ago, a mysterious incident occurred in the editorial office of a youth magazine. During the lunch break, two employees went for a walk and in an alley not far from the old church, they were surprised to notice the editor-in-chief.
It was difficult to believe that in the recent past the instructor of the Central Committee of the Komsomol could be interested in church architecture, and no one in the editorial office saw him leave the building. Under a plausible pretext, they looked into the main office - he was sitting still, reading the manuscripts. It turns out that it was his "astral double" ?! At that time, they were already beginning to talk about this mysterious phenomenon …
The wrath of the leader
In the summer of 1950, something happened in Sochi that the whole city was talking about. In the morning, at about eleven o'clock, Comrade Stalin appeared over the beach on the Riviera. And one, without any protection! White jacket and invariable soft boots, pipe in hand …
Everyone who was on the beach jumped up from the sun beds and pebbles and, as if spellbound, froze, staring at the "father of nations." Only a dozen or so tomboys, who were obviously not looked after by their parents, rushed upstairs. We stopped a dozen meters from Stalin, not daring to come closer. The leader looked at them with a smile, then with a wave of his hand he called an ice cream maker who was selling nearby and ordered to distribute all the contents of her cart to the children. And he walked leisurely down the cypress alley.
In the evening, I learned about all this from my friends from the Sochi water polo team. They themselves ventured to approach Stalin from the side. And everyone drew attention to the fact that in the portraits his face was kind, with a smile, but here it was very strict, even gloomy. The pipe in his hand, apparently, went out, because he never raised it to his mouth.
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And one of the guys claimed that all the time Stalin was staring at one point without blinking and his eyes were somehow lifeless, as if frozen.
Then it never occurred to any of us that Stalin could not appear in a crowded place without security. On the day when he came to rest in Sochi, the entire route from the station to the dacha in Matsesta was closed. And then suddenly one on the Riviera, and traffic in the city was not blocked.
Twenty years later, I had a chance to rest in the "Cold River" sanatorium near Stalin's former dacha near Gagra. The talkative old man Ivan Kuzmich, a retired Chekist, was in charge of the billiard room there. He remembered that story perfectly.
That summer, the leader really rested at the Sochi dacha, but, of course, he did not go to the city alone. And on the same day he became aware of his "communication with the people." Someone reported that there were enough "well-wishers" in his circle. Joseph Vissarionovich was angry, ordered to find the impudent person who dared to stage an outrageous performance. The entire city department of the MGB was raised to its feet, agents were involved. Hundreds of people were interviewed, but it was not possible to establish who the "impudent" is. Nobody saw how pseudo-Stalin approached the beach and where he went. According to eyewitnesses, it turned out that he literally arose out of thin air …
And then some clever head came up with an ingenious way out: to report to Stalin that there was a "mass hallucination caused by boundless love for the leader."
Impossible reality
Even in the Middle Ages, such an anomalous phenomenon as a doppelgenger was known, when the same person was seen simultaneously in different places. In German it means "double" or "walking alongside". Now parapsychologists call these mysterious phenomena "phantom doubles".
One of the first reliable testimonies was left by the English poet of the 16th century John Donne, the author of many cheerful ballads, elegies, and epigrams. Once, when the poet was in Paris, his wife appeared in his hotel room with a baby in her arms. John couldn't believe his eyes and pinched himself painfully. But the spouse did not disappear. She stood for five minutes, silently looking at her stunned husband, and then disappeared.
The famous Russian poet, Prince Pyotr Andreevich Vyazemsky, was an unbeliever in his youth, and, moreover, openly mocked religion. This continued until he met his double. And this double left a certain text to the prince, that is, a real, physical trace of his presence. This story was recorded by the St. Petersburg bishop Porfiry (Uspensky) from the words of the poet himself.
“One night I was returning to my apartment on Nevsky Prospekt, near the Anichkov Bridge, and saw a bright light in the windows of my office. Not knowing why he is here, I enter the house and ask my servant: "Who is in my office?" The servant said, "There is no one there," and gave me the key to this room. I unlocked the office, entered it and saw that in the back of this room a man was sitting with his back to me and was writing something. I went up to him and, reading what was written over his shoulder, shouted loudly, grabbed my chest and fell senseless; when he woke up, he no longer saw the one who was writing, but he took what he had written, hid it and to this day I melt, and before death I will order to put this secret of mine with me in the coffin and grave. I think I saw myself writing."
A curious case of the appearance of the doppelgenger was associated with the English poet George Byron. In 1810, when, while in Greece, he was lying with an attack of a severe fever, people who knew the poet well saw him several times on the streets of London. Secretary of State Peel wrote to Byron that in those days he met him twice on Saint-Germain Street.
Responding to this letter, Byron wrote with his inherent irony, since he himself did not really believe in the reality of his doubles: “I have no doubt that we can - how, we do not know - split in two: moreover, the question arising as to which of twins are valid at this time, and which one is not, I submit to your decision."
There are quite a few similar appearances of “phantom doubles”. For example, Theodore Dreiser left a note about a strange incident that happened to him. One of his friends, having visited the writer, promised in a somewhat unusual way to appear to him in the evening of the same day, although he had to leave for another city. A few hours later Dreiser really suddenly saw his friend at the door of his office. But when the astonished writer tried to approach him, the double disappeared without a trace.
In 1905, a member of the British Parliament Sir Gilbert Parker told reporters about his meeting with the "phantom double". Arriving at a regular meeting of the House of Commons, he was surprised to see his friend Sir Frederick Karn Ra-sha, although he was supposed to be in bed at that time, because he had a bad cold. Sir Rush was very pale and looked very ill. During the debate, he never moved or changed his posture, which was not like him. During the break, Sir Parker wanted to reprimand his friend for not taking care of his health, but could not find him. A worried Parker went to his house. And I learned that Sir Frederick had been in bed with a high temperature all day.
The mystery of the "phantom doubles"
Eyewitness testimonies, of course, mean a lot when it comes to the reality of such a phenomenon as "phantom", or, as they are also called, "astral doubles". But there is another evidence that is more scientifically correct. These are the experiments of scientists.
The first serious researcher of the phenomenon was the French physician and scientist G. Durville, who in the 20s of the XX century conducted secret and strange experiments for that time. In a dark room, in the presence of numerous witnesses, he introduced a person into a hypnotic state and "separated" from him his "phantom double", which was visible, had sensitivity, he could see, hear and perform certain actions, quite adequately responding to requests addressed to him …
It happened like this. After the passes and manipulations of D'Urville, streams of light arose to the right and left of the hypnotized person. Then the stream of light from the right gradually moved to the left and merged into a spruce stream. After that, those present watched the appearance of a bright white beam, which, as it were, connected the flow of light and the person himself, and, finally, the light column began to acquire quite specific forms, becoming very similar to a person who was put into a state of hypnosis.
Durville conducted about a thousand documented experiments, and the effect was always the same, only not all people clearly saw what was happening in the room, but only a few, apparently endowed with a particularly subtle extrasensory perception. But even those who did not see the ghost felt its presence and heard the sounds that it made.
Durville described the antics of the "double". For example, at the request of those present, he was able to open and close the doors of the closet, press the electric bell button, move objects, and bring the scales from rest. But the forces of the "phantom twins", judging by the observations and calculations of D'Urville, were small, and the weight of each doppelgenger was approximately 30 grams.
In the experiments of the famous Soviet psychiatrist VL Raikov, a strong psychic took part, creating his visible "phantom double". At the command of the "owner", the "double" moved to the next room, where there was a woman immersed in a hypnotic trance by Raikov. Before that, she was not introduced to a psychic, she did not know what he looked like.
When the subject was asked to describe the appearance of the "astral double", she described in every detail the appearance of the psychic himself. In addition, women, and they changed in the course of the experiments, were asked to inject a phantom with a needle, and every time, without knowing this, the psychic felt pain.
A specialist in the field of bioenergy information, Professor A. Chernetsky, proved that the "phantom twin" has many characteristics of living objects, in particular, mass and density. There is also a biofield around it, recorded by devices. American biophysicist R. Crocol believes that such a double is an exact copy of a person, but only consisting of a different type of matter.
What makes these energetic formations "branch off" from a person?
The well-known researcher and theorist of anomalous phenomena, Professor B. Iskakov, believes that there are two different possibilities of "separating" from the physical body of a person a part of his energy substance, which retains its original form, which becomes visible under certain conditions.
First of all, it is the involuntary exit of the "double" from the body, for example, under the influence of strong emotions. But they can also arise as a result of purposeful actions of the person himself. All religions have secret methods describing how to achieve this. They were used by magicians, sorcerers and shamans who performed "miracles".
According to the newest hypothesis, in the subtle world for a long time or even forever there are energy-informational entities that form a material body for themselves in the womb of the mother. They maintain feedback with a person throughout his life, and after death, through reincarnation, they are reincarnated into a new body.
But since these entities are endowed with freedom of action, then for a certain period of time they can create for themselves one more such earthly shell - a “phantom double”. Why they do this is unknown.
Article author: Sergey Barsov