Observations placeholder

Wolf Messing –the true story of Russia’s greatest psychic – Tatiana Lungin

Messing:   "In 1959, the ancient town of Kazanon the Volga was filled with rumors concerning the mysterious murder of a nineteen-year-old girl. It was a classic case of a crime without a clue. She was thrown from a bridge in the middle of the night. The girl, of slight build, wouldn’t have been hard to lift. Perhaps someone, in a moment of mock tenderness, hurled her deftly over the bridge railing.

"Her former boyfriend, who was as thin and pale as the drowned girl, was arrested many months later, even though there were no grounds for suspicion. Many witnesses testified at his trial that he hadn’t seen the victim for two years. But when they were dating, they were seen together on the bridge quite often and the accusations against the youth were all based on this fact. The fellow was crushed, possibly grieved over the death of his former love and the stress of the trial. He said nothing intelligible in his defense, merely repeating over and over the same sentence: 'It wasn't me."'

Luckily, Wolf Messing was in Kazan during the trial, which had lasted more than a week - a lengthy period for a small-town trial. Wolf learned of the controversial trial from a hotel maid, a habitue of spicy open trial proceedings. He decided to attend the trial when he had some time to spare.

By the morning recess, Wolf knew the defendant was innocent. At the same time, Messing latched onto someone else's nervous ruminations- perhaps the perpetrator's last recollections before throwing his victim into the river. At the beginning of the trial, Wolf sat tranquilly. But later, he began to feel bouts of nervousness, because he felt the murderer's own impulses welling up inside of him.

Wolf returned to the hotel by foot, and while walking he focused inward on his impressions. He knew that many murderers are drawn again and again, as though by a magnet, to the place of their crimes; many such cases are recorded in the annals of criminal justice. But Wolf believed that, in the present case, the bridge really wasn't important, but the river below. In any event, the water movement deprived the scene of "concreteness," and he didn’t think the criminal would return to it. He also believed that his initial impression in the courtroom had come directly from the murderer.

The task now remained for Wolf to visualize the murderer during the next day's session. He intuitively felt the man would show up at every session.

Wolf was among the first to enter the courtroom before the proceedings the next day, so that he could examine everyone as they came in. Two young boys, apparently friends of the defendant, rushed into the courtroom first. One of them was dressed in sports clothes and the other in a well-worn gray suit. Behind them followed a quiet middle-aged woman and a somewhat older man. They were the parents of the defendant.

Gradually the hall was filled to the limit with spectators.

Unfortunately, Wolf wasn’t able to finger the murderer. But when the trial began, similar impressions to those he'd received the previous day burst into his mind. Now he merely had to "focus in" on the source.

Messing sat in the courtroom for about ten minutes with his eyes closed, as if lost in a trance. Then he looked to his left, toward the last seat on the fifth row aisle from the defendant's bench. Seated there was a man in his mid twenties holding a rolled up copy of the magazine Ogonyok. This was the person sending the nervous impulses, Wolf realized. The psychic then sent the man a telepathic instruction: "Rise, tell them you're the murderer!"

The young man began to fidget in his seat even more noticeably. He pulled out a pack of cigarettes, put them back, and with feigned interest examined the pictures in the paper.

Then he rolled up the paper once again. Fear seemed to take hold of him so that he couldn't bring himself to do anything more.

Messing was satisfied as to the source of his impressions.

The person’s extreme nervousness would help the psychic shatter him. But how? Wolf decided that some kind of graphic jolt was necessary.

When the first recess was announced, the young man straightened out the newspaper and placed it on his seat to signal that it was occupied. During the interval Wolf knocked at the door of the court office and, posing as the new building steward, asked the secretary for a piece of white paper and a red pencil.

He explained that he wanted to place a sign in the smoking room, because some people were confusing it with the exit. He wrote out in large letters: NO EXIT ...

Unlike most such signs, this one had those suggestive three dots, carefully added by Messing.

When the session resumed, Wolf ignored the testimony of the participants, and bombarded the young man with the mental command: Rise! Tell them you're the murderer!

During the second recess, Wolf waited until he was alone in the courtroom. He then slipped the sign underneath the newspaper the young man left behind on his seat.

Messing left to smoke his cigarette, but didn't return to the courtroom. He didn't want to see the inevitable painful confession. When the session resumed, he waited by a half-opened door. He didn’t have to wait long. Soon the entire room shook with the heartrending cry, "I'm the one! I killed her!"

Messing wasn't interested in the rest. Satisfied with his good deed, he walked home.