In the Soviet Union, they did not believe in miracles, especially if these miracles were not backed up by proletarian consciousness and advanced communist ideology. For example, in the USSR they firmly knew that the Moon was solid and that there were no secret bases of the Nazis who had accidentally survived the Second World War. This also concerned various religious miracles, which no one was ashamed to expose, and various mystics such as clairvoyance or telekinesis. Of course, no one was in a hurry to sweep aside phenomena incomprehensible to science at this stage of its development - and after the United States they were looking for UFOs or tried to understand in laboratory conditions whether miracle workers really are, or they are ordinary deceivers. By the way, they did not find an unambiguous answer to both questions.
Doctor and journalist
They appeared on Soviet television suddenly. From today it is difficult to understand which of the then television bosses came up with the idea to try something else forbidden, but it is unlikely that such radical innovations on almost the only button of the Central Television could pass by the head of the State TV and Radio in May 1989, Mikhail Nenashev. … Be that as it may, on July 27, 1989, a psychotherapist from Kiev Anatoly Kashpirovsky held the first meeting with the audience in the Ostankino concert studio.
Psychotherapist Anatoly Kashpirovsky during a TV session, 1989 / Igor Kostin / RIA Novosti
In principle, the television bosses of that time had no reason not to trust an experienced physician.
Back in the early 60s, Kashpirovsky received a diploma from the Vinnytsia Medical Institute, worked for a quarter of a century in a psychiatric hospital, in 1987 he was hired as a psychotherapist in the USSR national weightlifting team, and then he headed the Republican Center for Psychotherapy in Kiev for two years. In addition, Kashpirovsky had already appeared on television - in the most advanced at that time program "Vzglyad", during the teleconference "Kiev - Moscow", which took place a year earlier, on March 21, 1988.
A session of the psychotherapist Anatoly Kashpirovsky for obese people in a Moscow club, 1989 / Robert Netelev / TASS
Promotional video:
So after the first experience (which, apparently, was recognized as successful) in the fall of 1989, a whole series entitled "Health sessions of the doctor-psychotherapist Anatoly Kashpirovsky" was broadcast on the First CT program. He was charismatic, his voice put him to sleep and, probably, healed - in any case, a sharp recovery should have come after the sacramental phrase "I give the installation" and explanations, the installation for what.
Allan Chumak could not boast of the same rich medical experience as Kashpirovsky - he was generally a journalist and devoted twenty years to this profession (including on television). Psychic abilities - according to his own recollections - appeared in him suddenly, during the preparation of exposing articles about charlatans-healers. He left the media and in 1983 ended up at the Research Institute of General and Pedagogical Psychology of the USSR Academy of Pedagogical Sciences (Academy of Pedagogical Sciences, now the Russian Academy of Education). That is, if you do not pay attention to the journalistic background, Chumak's place of work for the television bosses looked at least impressive.
The rats helped
Some understatement of the biography and a loud-sounding place of work in those years could serve as a pass to television, which was slowly but noticeably changing, turning away from the Soviet past in full accordance with the CPSU's course of perestroika and glasnost. By 1989, both "Look" and "600 Seconds" were already in full swing, "Musical Ring" broke into the all-Union air space, and television was looking for new ways to reach the viewer. However, it still remained Soviet: of course, there was no need to talk about ratings at that time - given the presence of two and a half channels and the absence of other entertainment - the TV advertising market existed in its infancy. In general, nothing prevented me from experimenting - or, as they said in numerous research institutes, from satisfying my curiosity at the expense of the state.
Session of "healing" psychic Allan Chumak in the Sochi cinema, 2000 / Victor Klyushkin / TASS
At that time everyone heard, for example, Juna, an employee of the laboratory "Physical fields of biological objects" at the Kotelnikov Institute of Radio Engineering and Electronics (IRE) of the Russian Academy of Sciences, as well as the heroine of publications in the central press and various legends - according to one of which she treated Brezhnev himself.
Dzhuna Davitashvili during a speech in front of workers of one of the Moscow factories, 1988 / A. Zelenkov / RIA Novosti
The usual Ministry of Health stopped this orgy of anti-science (scientists warned, but the commission on pseudoscience did not exist then) by the usual Ministry of Health by its own order.
But TV healers hit a well-prepared viewer. By the end of the 1980s, what was later called "stuffing" appeared - like reports of giant rats in the Moscow metro. The most amazing thing is that they believed everything that was printed and shown on TV at that time - there was no vaccination against fakes and a healthy distrust of media reports, and television was almost a criterion of reliability. And if Kashpirovsky and Chumak appeared on the TV screen, then the viewers had no time to doubt, they had to listen carefully to the soporific recitative of the first and carry the cans when the second silently makes strange passes in front of the camera. For the whole country, we recall. The matter was aggravated by widespread rumors (similar to those about rats) about the military who have long been studying the paranormal and even found something valuable.
How to close the chakra
And the Ministry of Health was late. All the healers who got - before the ban - on the TV became real stars. Of course, converting fame is also a talent. Kashpirovsky managed to become a State Duma deputy (from the Liberal Democratic Party in the mid-90s), he participated in negotiations to free the hostages in Budennovsk in 1995, and he still conducts his sessions - without the previous excitement, but he has his fans. Juna also tried to become a people's deputy (she had her own “Juna Block”), but unsuccessfully, she received patients until recently and died in 2015 at the age of 66. Chumak was not noticed in political activity, but he is also not going to retire.
Shot from the series "Miracle Worker" (2014)
It is curious that no one has really been honored to investigate the phenomenon of folk healing in the late 80s.
Scientists occasionally mention that such practices lie outside of science. The same Juna was declared an ordinary massage therapist - however, highly qualified, which, however, is not enough for healing everything. But, for example, Anatoly Kashpirovsky already in our time, in 2016, won a lawsuit against the Federal Service for Surveillance in Healthcare (Roszdravnadzor), which accused him of illegally practicing traditional medicine.
The program "Battle of Psychics" is still on television - which, however, is not about healing, but about a show.
Not so long ago, two TV series dedicated to “folk healers” were released - “The Miracle Worker” with Fyodor Bondarchuk and Philip Yankovsky and “Juna” with Kirill Kyaro and Laura Keosayan.
But these serial films also turned out not to be about how everything really was, but about the fact that in the sessions of Kashpirovsky or Chumak there was still a certain rational link - a statement that had the right to life, which, however, was submitted by the creators of the pictures absolutely without proof. But for the appearance of truly historical films, perhaps, a generation must be changed - to look at the events of the late 80s without emotion. And maybe by that time, scientists will finally understand the subtle energies of a person and study his ability to open the chakras.
Igor Karev