by Vladimir Ishimov
Reprinted from The Journal of Paraphysics Vol 4 No 2 (1970)
Karl Nikolaev, a member of the Department of Bio-information of the All-Union Scientific and Technological Society, is one of the most famous telepaths in the U.S.S.R. The photographs, taken by V. Shiujnovskij in 1969, show Karl Nikolaev as percipient in telepathic transmissions from Moscow to Leningrad. (See front and rear covers)
Moscow. A man is sitting in an isolated room. He is the so-called inductor. Behind the wall are his seconds and assistant, the only person who knows what lies in a sealed case which he is holding in his hands. They are all waiting for the appointed hour. At last itis two o’clock. The experiment begins.
The assistant enters the inductor’s room and opens the case. There isa hammer, a billiard-ball and a pair of compasses inside. The inductor takes the compasses, feels them, even pricking his finger with the point. Then he concentrates and sends a mental image of the object to Leningrad.
In Leningrad the percipient is sitting in a similar room. The walls and ceiling of the room have been especially shieldedfor the experiment and do not let electromagnetic waves pass. It is two o’clock. The percipient looks very concentrated. With an effort of will he disconnects himself from his surroundings and starts the reception.
“It is something long”, he says to his seconds, “A rod It bifurcates... It shines... It is chromium-plated, it has a sharp point... It looks like a pair of compasses... Yes, indeed it is a pair of compasses.”
The minutes recorded that the transmission started in Moscow at 14.10 and ended at 14.14. The reception started in Leningrad at 14.10 and ended at 14.14.
This is how another telepathic transmission from Moscow to Leningrad took place. The inductor was Yuri Kamensky, the percipient - Karl Nikolaev.
On the one hand, Karl Nikolaev is quite an ordinary man. He is an actor and a good actor into the bargain. But on the other... On the other hand, Karl Nikolaev is one of the most famous telepaths in the Soviet Union. He is a member of the Department of Bio-information of the All-Union Scientific and Technological Society named after Popov. Together with his colleagues he conducts experiments on the transmission of thoughts over distances acting as a recipient.
So I went to Karl Nikolaev to take an interview from him. A friend of mine, on learning where I was going, said: “Well, you know... I would not have had the courage. Who knows what thoughts may enter one’s head? Maybe I conceal some of them even from myself. And here a stranger intrudes freely into your mind as if it were his pocket-book. I wonder how his relatives get along with him?”
I laughed at my friend’s fears. And here I was facing a tall red-haired man.
“The first question is”, I began.
“How I discovered my telepathic abilities, isn’t it?”
I felt a little queer, for I had indeed intended to ask this very question. It looked as if my thoughts were indeed an open book for telepath" Karl Nikolaev!
But my host reassured me. “Telepathy has nothing to do with it”, he said, “it is quite simple: whenever I appear before an audience I am asked this very question in the first instance. Well, when I was still a student at a theatrical school, I once saw the performance of the hypnotist Omaldo. His seance of mass telepathic hypnosis produced a very deep impression upon me. Then I watched Wolf Messing’s public psychological experiments. After that I started reading avidly all the literature I could get hold of on problems of telepathy. And then I had a bold idea: and what if I tried doing some- thing of the kind myself? At first this was not telepathy, but so-called ideo-moforicity (though I did not know it at the time): the inductor held me by the hand and his involuntary muscle impulse prompted me where to look for the object he had in mind.
As time passed, something began to prompt me to a certain action before the muscle impulse. I started looking for objects following mental commands. Soon i discovered that a tie with the inductor was established only when by an effort of will I disconnected myself from all outside irritants and immersed in a sort of ‘vacuum’ mentally concentrating, on a single point, i.e. the person standing behind my back. Thus I got hold of the sensation that appears during the reception of a mental order. I started developing this sensation in myself.”
“Can any person become a telepath?”
“I believe that there is a telepathic potential, so to say, in each of us. it is probably some undiscovered property of the brain. However, people possess it in a different degree. It all depends on the psycho-physiological properties of the personality.
“And tell me, please, what is your neighbours’ and colleagues’ attitude to you?”
My collocutor looked surprised.
“Well, it varies, of course, the same as with other people. But what has that to do with the subject of our conversation?”
“But not everyone is pleased, I suppose, that his thoughts may become an open book for someone!” I said, repeating my friend’s words.
Nikolaev burst out laughing.
“I must disappoint you. I cannot read other people’s thoughts; I can only perform mental commands that have been very precisely directed towards me, or receive the mental images of objects transmitted only for me.”
“Once I watched, Karl, a certain writer mentally giving orders to you in Japanese at a performance at the Writers’ Club in Moscow. The writer told the audience that he was doing it in Japanese. Do you know the Japanese language?”
“I performed orders given in English, French and even Arabic. The language of a mental order is of no importance to me. I speak only Russian. The fact is that I receive the transmitted thoughts not in words, but in images or dynamic impulses. The latter evoke in me certain active wishes of the kind ‘yes-no’, ‘backwards-forwards’, ‘to the right - to the left’ - like in the children’s game ‘seek the button’.
“And how is telepathy explained by science?”
“During my performances in public I usually re-address such questions to my friends Joseph Kogan, Doctor of Physics and Mathematics, to Edward Naumov, a biologist, and to Yuri Kamensky, a physiologist. But I do not want to leave your question unanswered. Therefore I shall name the main hypotheses to you. Kogan, for instance, has proved mathematically that ultra-low frequencies of electro-magnetic oscillations can be the bearers of mental information. This at least does not contradict the laws of nature. Another hypothesis speaks in favour of super-sound. Biologists have found that dolphins and bats communicate with one another by means of super-sound. There are also hypotheses that connect the phenomenon of telepathy with neutrino particles and antigravitational particles. And lastly, the most com- plex hypothesis that is, honestly speaking, beyond my comprehension, deals with a measurement of time yet unknown.”
“What is the purpose of investigations conducted by your department of bio-information?”
“First of all to make a contribution to the cognition of one of the still undiscovered mysteries of human nature — the hidden reserves of the mind, its wonderful possibilities, the secrets of the work of the complex unit known as the human brain. Secondly, to find out what practical use can be derived from the telepathic abilities of the human brain.”
That is what interests the public most of all!”
“Professor Lozanov, a well-known Bulgarian psychologist, Director of the State Institute of Parapsychology in Sophia, by means of a code has succeeded in transmitting not only images or mental orders, but even whole phrases. At present we are trying to repeat the experiments of our Bulgarian counterparts. We have succeeded in some things, but the time has not come yet to speak about this in detail. We have conducted a series of experiments with the use of an encephalograph. The apparatus was switched to the conductor in Leningrad and to the recipient in Moscow. Both encephalograms have recorded a ‘peak’ increase in electro- magnetic radiation at the same moment, i.e. when the inductor was transmitting and ‘the recipient receiving the thought. Just imagine what new vistas may open if the mechanism of the mental wave becomes known!”
“Do you maintain contacts with your foreign counterparts?”
“We carefully watch everything that is going on in this field abroad. Last year a sort of international congress of parapsychologists was held in Moscow. Researchers on telepathy from many countries of the world came here, and among them our British counterpart. Among other things, she was very interested in our experiments with the use of an encephalograph.”
My host looked at his watch.
“Excuse me”, he said, “but I am engaged at the theatre tonight and I must be going soon”.