This year marks the 110th anniversary of the birth of one of the most amazing people - Jan Levski. His centenary was very widely celebrated, but, so to speak, in narrow circles - among parapsychologists around the world.
Jan Levski is famous for being the founder of the Parapsychological Society in Edinburgh, but most of all he is known as a man who could … fly.
Jan Levski was born in Warsaw in 1906. After graduating from the Faculty of Psychology at the University of Vienna, he very successfully worked as a correspondent for many major European newspapers, his articles were original and recognizable - Levsky wrote in a good style.
As a reporter for the London News Chronicle, Levski was in Spain when the civil war broke out there. One day, far from being a fine day, he was captured by the Franco fascists.
After a short time, he was sentenced to death, which he expected in a prison in Seville.
Thanks to the efforts of the British Foreign Office, Jan Levski was released - the British have always been distinguished by their concern for those people who benefited their country, and Levski was an excellent correspondent.
Levsky also worked as a correspondent during the Second World War - he served in the Air Force and soon received British citizenship.
He has traveled to a large number of countries and wrote many books on politics and culture of the places he has seen.
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However, the Polish journalist with British citizenship gained worldwide fame after the release of a number of books devoted to inexplicable phenomena, such as predicting the future, telepathy, levitation, poltergeist.
His book, The Way to Self, published in London in 1960, became an instant bestseller.
It must be said that Levsky's interest in paranormal phenomena did not arise at the time when he worked as a journalist, but much earlier - at the age of fifteen. This interest arose in the teenager after he had an unexpected mystical experience.
It happened like this. One day, lunch box Yang and his mother sat in the living room. Mother was seated in a chair against the wall, on which hung a large painting in a heavy oak frame.
Jan suddenly felt that something was about to happen. He literally rushed to his mother and pulled her off the chair. The mother did not even have time to be indignant at such a strange behavior of her son, because literally in the next moment the picture fell off the hook and fell to the floor.
If the boy's mother had remained to sit still, the picture would inevitably hit her on the head, and how it would have ended - God knows.
In this story, it is surprising not only that the teenager felt something and at that very second was able to realize what needed to be done, but also that the hook in the wall remained in place, and the wire on which the painting was hung did not break …
It was generally unclear how the picture could fall in this case. It seemed as if an invisible hand had simply thrown the painting off the hook.
The second time a strange and inexplicable phenomenon occurred in 1923, when Jan was seventeen years old. He had a close friend, and this friend decided to commit suicide.
It was all about unhappy love. The young man went to the railroad and lay down on the rails, waiting for the afternoon train, which was soon to pass.
However, an amazing thing happened: that day, the train, which was never even a minute late, was an hour late. The young man remained alive, pondered for a long time what had happened, and decided that an unsuccessful suicide attempt was a sign, and he must leave all thoughts of committing suicide. Why the train was late, he did not know, and no one could understand.
In fact, the young man was saved by Jan Levsky. Later, in the pages of The Way to Myself, he wrote that on that day he “felt that something irreparable was about to happen.
Imagination drew something big, iron. With a titanic effort of will, I stopped it. It turned out that I stopped the train."
During his student years, Jan Levski experimented a lot with drugs, in particular, with LSD, trying to achieve an altered state of consciousness.
However, he soon abandoned his experiments, because he came to the conclusion that "hallucinations, visions and delight caused by chemicals are nothing more than tricks of our nervous system that make it impossible to see the invisible."
In 1950, while already living in England, Levsky became a member of the Society for Physical Research, where he found like-minded people interested in inexplicable phenomena.
Soon, together with two like him, fascinated by the paranormal, he organized the "LBI Foundation". LBI is an abbreviation formed by the first letters of the names of the founders of the fund: Levski, financier Tony Bloomfield and Irish journalist, TV presenter, historian and writer Brian Inglis.
Jan Levski announced the goal of the "LBI Foundation" to "popularize research in areas outside the boundaries of orthodox science."
Three like-minded people experimented a lot in various fields, studying paranormal phenomena, collecting information, finding interesting people whose abilities differed from the majority.
Jan Levski himself was especially interested in levitation, and this mysterious phenomenon very soon became the focus of research by the LBI Foundation.
In 1952, Levsky traveled to Tibet, because it was there that the concentration of people who knew how to levitate was one of the highest. In Tibet, Levski witnessed the levitation of a monk who was in a religious trance.
Overwhelmed by the experience, the parapsychologist settled in this monastery, trying to learn how to soar above the ground. As he later wrote in his books, training took place over several years and included special exercises - physical and psychological.
A special diet was also required, excluding meat and fish and including special drugs, including hallucinogenic drugs.
Before the decisive test, Levsky did not eat for five days. Under the guidance of the monks, he managed to get off the ground to a height of about a meter.
Thus, Levski experienced a very special mystical experience. As he later described in his books, it seemed to him that the crown of the head was burning unbearably, as if a fire was burning there, a bright light flashed before his eyes, breaking into myriads of multi-colored splashes.
He himself did not feel that he was taking off from the ground, but the observers clearly recorded this fact: Levsky managed to hold out in the air for quite a long time. Subsequently, such flights were made more than once.
After leaving Tibet and returning to England, the Pole, who had learned to levitate, enthusiastically continued his experiments with levitation. Bloomfield and Inglis witnessed Levski's "flights".
However, in England, according to Jan, it is much more difficult to levitate due to the climate. How the climate can influence flights is completely incomprehensible, but, apparently, Levsky knew what he was saying.
One of the flights was carried out in the presence of journalists. Before that, they searched the premises for hidden ropes, lines or other devices such as stands and tripods, which are used by pseudo-yoga in India to fool tourists.
None of this has been found; Some time after the start of the demonstration, Levsky soared into the air to a height of about one and a half meters and flew at a distance of about two meters. The journalists were shocked.
After some of them got it when they published a report on the demonstration of levitation: they, they say, became a victim of a charlatan, or they themselves decided to hoax readers. Someone's reputation was irrevocably tarnished.
Perhaps that is why many journalists later did not even want to hear anything about sanctifying Levsky's levitation experiments in print or telling what his foundation was doing.
A little later, after repeated "flights", Jan Levski, together with his hired engineers, tried to design a "levitation machine". The designers failed to lift people into the air, but they were able to reduce their weight.
According to eyewitnesses, the weight could be reduced by one or two kilograms. By what principle the machine worked, it is difficult to understand now, and if official science did not deny everything unusual, including levitation, it would not run from paranormal phenomena like devil from incense, but investigate them with all care, this machine could bring undoubted benefit.
Unfortunately, it was not possible to trace the fate of this car. Perhaps it was destroyed, perhaps dismantled for the purpose of improvement, or, perhaps, it is stored somewhere in the attic or in the basement and is waiting in the wings for scientists to finally figure out its design.
In parallel with levitation, Jan Levsky actively developed the ability to predict. He succeeded, and he was especially successful in predicting political events.
In particular, he predicted the assassination and death of Egyptian President Nasser in 1970, the Watergate affair and Nixon's resignation, and even changes in the internal political life of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War.
An adviser to the British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher even visited Levsky. It is not known what their conversation was about, but, apparently, the authorities did not disregard such a valuable specialist and wanted to get some kind of advice from him or hear a prediction.
There were even rumors that people from the Soviet Union also came to Levsky, but these rumors were unverified, so it’s impossible to say anything for sure.
One amazing case, testifying to the unique abilities of Jan Levski, was later described in his memoirs by Brian Inglis.
He and Jan walked along the sidewalk along the busy street. Suddenly, from around the corner, a child jumped out onto the road and was running after the ball. A bus was moving towards him.
A few more seconds, and the child would be under the wheels. Noticing this, Levsky tensed, blushed sharply, his eyes almost bulged out of their sockets. Literally two centimeters from the baby, the bus stopped abruptly and even jumped on the spot.
Obviously, it was Levsky who prevented the accident. In a normal situation, the bus could not stop so abruptly, the braking distance would take several meters.
In principle, there is nothing surprising in history: if Levsky managed to stop the train at the age of seventeen, then why not in adulthood, having gained invaluable experience, not stop the bus?
In 1983, after the death of the founder, the "LBI Foundation" was renamed into the "Levski Foundation". The Foundation's headquarters are located at the University of Edinburgh. Since 1983, there has been a Higher School of Parapsychology under him, where lectures are given by professors from the USA and Great Britain.
In recent years, Edinburgh parapsychologists have focused on the study of telepathy. Interesting results have been obtained in the field of psychology and telepathy of close relatives, in particular, twins.
Unfortunately, it is almost impossible to find any detailed information on the activities of this fund on the open spaces of the Runet, and there is very little information about Yana Levsky himself.
Levsky is mentioned in reviews devoted to famous levitants, in articles devoted to phenomenal abilities, including levitation, etc.
Unfortunately, that's all. Although the personality of Levsky, his remarkable abilities are worthy of being known to as many people as possible, and his achievements were studied by serious scientists.