The list of scientific problems that Academician Vladimir Mikhailovich Bekhterev worked on is endless. The scientist believed that he should know everything about the nervous system, trying to embrace the immensity. And, of course, the great neuropathologist and psychiatrist could not ignore such an exciting mystery of nature as mental suggestion, or telepathy.
The Sophia Starker phenomenon
Bekhterev became interested in the mysteries of transmitting thought over a distance at the very beginning of the last century. In the summer of 1904, in the eighth issue of the journal "Review of Psychiatry, Neurology and Experimental Psychology" appeared his small article entitled "Mental suggestion or focus." It, in particular, dealt with the unusual experiments of the doctor N. G. Kitty with 14-year-old girl Sophia Shtarker, who performed with her father at the Odessa booth.
At first glance, it was a well-known circus act for the demonstration of mnemonics. The spectators gave Sophia's father various small objects, and she, sitting in the distance, blindfolded, guessed which object was being presented at the moment. Usually, in such numbers, a conditional code is used for hints, hidden in questions, intonations of a voice. But the catch is that Sophia Shtarker's father did not ask her any questions, did not give any replies. Kitty conducted special experiments with Sophia and became convinced (as he believed) that the point here was not in mnemonics, but in "mind reading."
Dr. Kotik's research seemed to Bekhterev worthy of attention. He recalled how, abroad, in Vienna, he himself observed on the stage a similar demonstration of mental suggestion. “I found absolutely nothing in it that could be recognized as a deception or a trick,” Bekhterev wrote in the mentioned article. He developed a strong desire to undertake the study of this, as he believed, "an extremely important and at the same time extremely delicate issue."
Paradoxical thought
Promotional video:
Alas, the fact of the existence of telepathy was still not fully confirmed. Bekhterev's confidence that mental suggestion "does not at all contradict the basic scientific views" (his words) was replaced by doubts. But if experiments with people did not lead to a "positive solution to the question," then is it possible to solve this problem with the help of experiments on … animals? This is what seemingly strange, paradoxical thought Bekhterev expressed.
For a long time he was looking for an opportunity to put his idea into practice. The case presented itself only in 1914, shortly before the outbreak of the First World War.
On that day, Vladimir Mikhailovich attended a performance at the Modern circus on the Petrograd side. The famous animal trainer Vladimir Leonidovich Durov performed. A dog named Lord, a dog from the St. Bernard breed, who knew how to "count", went to the arena with him.
It so happened that Durov noticed Bekhterev and during the intermission, going up to the scientist, he proposed to conduct joint experiments. It turned out that Vladimir Leonidovich also harbored the idea of telepathic experiments with animals.
The offer was readily accepted. And on the appointed day, Durov brought two dogs to Bekhterev - Lord and a small lively fox terrier Pikki.
We started with St. Bernard. The dog was seated on the sofa. Having written down the number on a piece of paper, Durov, turning away from the Lord, began to mentally inspire him how many times to bark. Then he loudly commanded: "Lord, count." And St. Bernard barked exactly as many times as required according to the assignment. The experiment was repeated three times, and all three times it was successful.
Talented fox terrier
After lunch, experiments began with the Pikki Fox Terrier. The first task, proposed by Vladimir Mikhailovich, was for the dog to run up to the dining table and grab the napkin lying on the edge.
Durov sat Pikki on a chair, took the dog's head with both hands and began to stare into his eyes. The mental suggestion lasted thirty minutes. After that, Pikki was given freedom. "A nimble little dog," Bekhterev recalled, "rushes headlong to the table, grabs the napkin with his teeth and solemnly carries it to the experimenter."
The second task, also invented by Bekhterev, was of a "musical" nature. According to him, Pikki was required to jump on a round stool in front of the piano and hit the keys on the right side of the keyboard with his paw. And the fox terrier performed this task without error.
But, perhaps, the most curious and difficult was the last experience. The dog had to jump onto one of the chairs that stood against the wall, then jump to the next table and, standing on its hind legs, scratch a large portrait that hung over the table. Bekhterev could not hide his admiration when the fox terrier coped with this difficult assignment downright brilliant.
Unfortunately, the next day Durov had to leave Petersburg, his tour ended. Saying goodbye, they agreed to continue the experiments. However, the war and revolution interrupted the cooperation of Bekhterev and Durov for a long time.
Four-legged telepaths
They met only in 1919, but not in Petrograd, but in Moscow, in the Zoopsychological Laboratory of Vladimir Durov, the "reflex factory", as he called it himself. St. Bernard Lord Vladimir Mikhailovich was no longer alive (the glorious dog died in an accident). But Pikki was still in perfect health. It was with him that we managed to make new experiments in telepathy.
This time Bekhterev decided to experiment as much as possible on his own, and even in the absence of Durov. "The dog," wrote Bekhterev, "steadily fulfilled the task entrusted to it."
Vladimir Mikhailovich reported on the experiments of mental influence on animals in the fall of 1919 at a conference at the Institute of Brain and Mental Activity he founded. By that time, a whole detachment of Bekhterev's employees had already joined in telepathy research. They went to Moscow, to Durov's laboratory, and carried out experiments according to the plan outlined by Bekhterev.
Bekhterev himself came to Moscow from time to time. In the early 1920s, the French bulldog Daisy and the German shepherd Mars served as experimental dogs. Daisy, like the late Lord, was a talented "tally". Mars coped with tasks no less difficult than those that Pikki's fox terrier could perform.
But what was the procedure of mental suggestion, what did the suggesting person feel at that moment? About this Vladimir Leonidovich Durov said: “While instilling, I look into the eyes of the dog, or, better to say, into the depths of its eyes, beyond the eyes. I mentally penetrate, as it were, into the very brain of the animal and imagine, for example, not the word "go", but the necessary motor action."
Faraday chamber
Bekhterev believed that mental suggestion was based on "nerve current", "radiant energy", and shared the views of the Moscow engineer Bernard Bernardovich Kazhinsky, who put forward the electromagnetic hypothesis of the transmission of thought over a distance.
In order to test this hypothesis, a cabin was built in the Zoopsychological Laboratory, covered with sheet metal and covered with a metal mesh, the so-called Faraday chamber. Mental suggestion to the dog was carried out from this chamber, the walls of which were supposed to delay the electromagnetic "nerve current". The author of the hypothesis of the "brain radio" B. B. Kazhinsky. The shielding effect of the Faraday chamber was noted (when the door was closed, the mental suggestion did not work on the dog), but the hypothesis of the "brain radio" was not confirmed.
In the summer of 1920, Bekhterev again gave a lecture on telepathy. He announced that he had conducted "successful experiments on humans with the transmission of thought over a distance." Particularly interesting were the experiments with an 18-year-old girl who was distinguished by her extraordinary impressionability and heightened visual memory. With almost no difficulty, she was able to guess which object was conceived by the inductor. The results were amazing. Of the seventeen experiments, only two were unsuccessful. In other cases, the subject chose exactly the object, the image of which was mentally transmitted to her.
Bekhterev was very keen on research and was going to continue and improve them. It is known that in 1926, a year before his sudden and mysterious death, Vladimir Mikhailovich came to Durov's laboratory and set up telepathic experiments there with the shepherd dog Mars. And after the death of the great scientist, Durov conducted experiments on his own. Vladimir Leonidovich died in 1934. After his death, none of the scientists, either here or abroad, dared to undertake such experiments. People were interested in them, they studied them, but they could not repeat them.
Gennady Chernenko. Magazine "Secrets of the XX century" № 35 2010
