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

 “My skill in hypnotism somewhat exceeds the boundaries of its known laws, and I can't help but share some of my secrets.  While telepathy is still shrouded in mystery, hypnosis, although not yet completely understood, is a power potentially available to everyone. Its mechanisms have been examined in great depth.

"I won't go into detail about the history of the subject, or how it gradually won scientific acceptance; suffice it to say that its roots are in the beginnings of human civilization.

"The priests of ancient Egypt and Greece relied on hypnotism, and in those distant times, it could not help but inspire mystical fear in the people. The dances of Eskimo shamans represent a peculiar form of hypnosis; they heal ailments in their tribes by using all kinds of spells implemented by hypnotic suggestion.

"The famous healing sessions of Franz Anton Mesmer, who worked miraculous cures in the latter eighteenth century, used nothing more than hypnosis. His hypnotic power was so great that some people thought they could be totally healed just by holding an object touched by him.

"By the way, Leonid Vasiliev conducted several experiments with three women hypnotized at a distance. They never saw or heard the hypnotist, who remained in another room. They fell asleep and awoke by his silent commands; special instruments confirmed this.

"Some experts distinguish three stages of the hypnotic trance. 

• The first is drowsiness. A person in this stage of hypnosis experiences general limpness, an unusual heaviness in the body, and his eyes begin to close involuntarily.
• The second stage constitutes the first true level of hypnosis proper, hypotaxia, in which the body becomes waxen and flexible. The body can be placed in any configuration, which is no problem for a person in this state, but otherwise extremely difficult to maintain.  While hypotaxia in general is considered the second level of hypnosis, I personally consider it part of the first level only, easily achieved by people readily hypnotized.
• The third stage of hypnosis is somnambulism, in which the hypnotized subject becomes totally cut off from the external world. His only link is his subordination to the commands of the hypnotist.

"During hypnosis, the word of the hypnotist wields enormous power over the subject's mind and body. This power of suggestion completely overtakes the subject's will.

"Force yourself, for example, not to feel the burn caused by the tip of a lighted cigarette when it is placed against your arm! I witnessed this cruel demonstration more than once in Poland.  Or, to the contrary, an ordinary pencil can be made to feel like a burning hot steel rod when placed in contact with your skin.  And the marks of a real burn will remain afterward!

"You can tell a subject to put his hand on a pitcher of water and feel the cold. Even if the water is well above freezing, say, one hundred degrees Fahrenheit, the subject's hand will become covered with goose bumps as the blood vessels constrict. This is not only apparent to the eye, but can be registered by scientific instruments.

'As I have said, the underlying mechanisms of hypnosis have been sufficiently studied by science. The hypnotic state is induced by a blocking in the cortex of the cerebral hemispheres. Let's say that a person loses the power of speech through a powerful fright or some nervous shock, and his tongue and larynx are no longer under his conscious control. An instantaneous dysfunction has occurred in that portion of the cerebral cortex controlling speech.  But under the influence of a new and more powerful stimulus, this portion of the brain can be unlocked.