OSA / Guide / RIP / 1956 / RFE/RL Background Reports : Subjects | Browse | Search

The text below might contain errors as it was reproduced by OCR software from the digitized originals,
also available as Scanned original in PDF.

BOX-FOLDER-REPORT: 8-11-33
TITLE:             Ideological Drive Against Paraperception
BY:                G. S.
DATE:              1983-3-24
COUNTRY:           Bulgaria
ORIGINAL SUBJECT:  Rad Background Report/60

--- Begin ---

RADIO FREE EUROPE Research

RAD Background Report/60
(Bulgaria)
24 March 1983

IDEOLOGICAL DRIVE AGAINST PARAPERCEPTION
by G. S.

Summary: This is an analysis of a vigorous (and
sometimes rather ambiguous) attack on paraperception,
with the main emphasis put on precognition and ESP
(extra sensory perception). Although incompetently
and ignorantly written by an author, who should know
the subject better, the article is revealing from
another point of view. It implies much more than
it claims: it is a clear indication that the current
ideological campaign against any Western ideas and
values is now being broadened, possibly to include
fields (e.q., parapsychology) that until recently
enjoyed the regime's official approval and generous
financial support.

* * *

After an unprecedented boom between the mid-1960s and the
early 1980s [1] parapsychology has recently come under
surprisingly vicious attack. [2] The heyday of that highly unusual -
from the Marxist-Leninist point of view - research, with its
amazing explorations and promising, previously unanticipated,
vistas, appears to be on the wane, obviously for reasons involving
ideological control and domestic propaganda purposes.

---------------------------

(1) Of., G. S., "Suggestology in Bulgaria - Experiments, Results,
Prospects," RAD Background Report/184 (Bulgaria). Radio Free
Europe Research, 26 August 1976; Yordan Kerov, "Lyudmila
Zhivkova - Fragments of a Portrait," RAD BR/25 3 (Bulgaria),
RFER, 27 October 1980, pp. 17-18, and all references mentioned
therein; and Nasha Rodina no. 11, 1982.

(2) Literaturen Front, no. 5, 3 February 1983.

This material was prepared for the use of the staff of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty.

[page 2]

RAD BR/60

The author of the attack is one Dr. Fani Tsurakova, who is
supposedly a graduate of a Higher Medical Institute. Her area
of specialization is not clear, but what is known is that until
a few years ago she had been a frequent contributor of short
notes with strong propaganda overtones on youth-oriented topics
to the Komsomol weekly Studentska Tribuna.

A Preamble Instead of a Footnote. Paraperception, or its
scientific study known as parapsychology, is "the awareness of
phenomena beyond the apparent capabilities of the senses of the
normal conscious processes of reason and judgment. The term
covers all those mental and psychical impressions that are not
mediated through any medium known to science." [3] It is generally
considered that its organ of communication is the so-called sixth
sense, or second sight, which operates in some fourth
dimension. [4]
                                                                       
There are several varieties of paraperception, covering a wide
range of experiences involving seeing without eyes, hearing without
the auditory sense, knowing without having the means of acquiring
the facts, etc. These are: a) clairvoyance, seeing things
happening elsewhere; b) clairaudience, hearing voices and sounds not
present; c) telepathy, commonly known as mind reading; d)
precognition, seeing into the future; e) retrocognition, a vision
of things that have already taken place in the past; f) psychometry,
knowing the history of an object by handling or looking at it;
g) radiasthesia or dowsing, finding hidden objects, usually by
means of a simple instrument such as a forked rod or pendulum.
Dowsing is known to be applied, among other things, to locating
water resources and in criminology.

As a rule, paraperception is beyond conscious control, it
cannot be directed and occurs spontaneously, without warning. "It
is an unconscious process experienced as an instinct, an intuitive

---------------------------

(3) Benjamin Walker, Encyclopedia of Esoteric Man (London:
Routledge and Kegan Paul Ltd., 1977), pp. 203-206.
(4) For a detailed explanation and discussion on "the fourth
dimension" concept, see P. D. Ouspensky, Tertium Organum (New York:
Vintage Books, 1970), pp. 18-50 and 99-121; and P. D. Ouspensky,
A New Model of the Universe (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul Ltd.,
1978), pp. 67-112 and 422-463. Ouspensky's theory had been
developed between 1909 and 1929; in a way, it can be compared
to Professor David Bohm's "implicated order" hypothesis, which
deals with prediction of physical occurrences in space and
time; this holistic phenomenon is generally known as the EPR
effect -- after the family name initials of Einstein and his
collaborators Boris Podolsky and Nathan Rosen who first noted
it in 1935 -- cf. , John Gliedman, Mind and Matter, printed
in Science Digest magazine, March 1983.

[page 3]

RAD BR/60

awareness or a 'feeling in the bones.' What is paraperceived may
be vividly seen, heard, felt, although there is nothing to see,
hear, or feel. . . . The phenomena may be manifested before and
witnessed collectively by everyone in a group, or by a few, or
only by one or two persons." [5]

Certain conditions favor paraperception, e.g., excitement,
rejoicing, disaster, tenseness, stress, uneasiness, anxiety,
depression, illness, danger, etc. Experiments proved that the
psi-facuity is not under anyone's control, that those who live
close to nature and are usually less educated often have a keen
paraperceptive sense. Furthermore, people who suffer the loss of
one of the normal senses often appear to have the sixth sense
highly developed (see, below, the case of Vanga Dimitrova).
Controlled tests ruled out any evidence of physical radiation;
for example, during the late 1920s and the early 1930s Professor
Leonid L. Vasiliev of Leningrad University found that ESP (that
is, telepathy) worked even through a radiation-proof cabin (Faraday
cage, sometimes also called an "electrostatic screen") that excluded
all electromagnetic radiation. [6] More recently, Dr. Alexey
Gubko of the Ukrainian Institute of Psychology admitted that
"most scientists are now inclined to believe that the brain
radiates a special, so far unknown, kind of energy that is
responsible for telepathy." [7] This, in its independent way,
supports Professor David Bohm's "implicated order" hypothesis.

Initially, Marxist-Leninist propaganda dismissed
paraperception (and widespread public interest in parapsychology) as
"idealistic fiction" and "ideological subversion," but in the last few
decades East European scientists have pursued investigations in
this area more assidiously than ever, and have advanced further
than those in most other countries. [8]

Targets of the Latest Attack. In her extremely long article
in Literaturen Front, [9] Dr. Fani Tsurakova summarily dismisses
parapsychology as a branch of serious science. She states that
parapsychology "found, in one way or another, a foothold in this
country," but it is a subject of discussion "primarily among

-------------------------

(5) B. Walker, op. cit., p. 204.

(6) Henry Gris and William Dick, The New Soviet Psychic Discoveries
(New York: Warner Books, 1979) , p. 432.

(7) Sheila Ostrander and Lynn Schroeder, Psychic Discoveries Behind
the Iron Curtain (New York: Bantam Books, Inc., 1973), p. 143.

(8) Cf. H. Gris and W. Dick, op. cit. ? S. Ostrander and L. Schroeder,
op. cit. and also their two complementary works. The ESP Papers"
Scientists Speak Out From Behind the Iron Curtain, (New York:
Bantam Books, Inc., 1976) and Super-Learning (New York: A
Laurel Book/Dell Publishing Co., Inc., 1979); and also Petar
Tomkins and Christopher Bird, The Secret Life of Plants (New
York: Avon Books, 1973), pp. 77-91.

(9) No. 5, 3 February 1983.

[page 4]

RAD BR/60

journalists, promotors, self-proclaimed researchers, men of letters
and the fine arts," and Tsurakova categorically declares:

I know of no one directly involved in scientific
[research] who has done extensive work in
telepathy, clairvoyance,precognition, and
psychokinesis -- the four basic phenomena studied by
parapsychology. Moreover, all known experiments
designed to prove the existence of these phenomena
do not meet strict scientific criteria. As a
result, as early as the 19 60s even the richest
nations decided that investment of young blood in
this area of research was not advisable.

If sincere, such a statement amounts to blatant ignorance. If
feigned, for ideological or other reasons, it borders on
distortion and premediated falsification. Concluding her introductory
remarks, the author, without presenting any arguments (except
that there is no practical use and value of psychokinesis), announces
that paraperception "is not proved" scientifically. With a single
stroke she seems to delete decades upon decades of scientific
research that brought into being some brilliant discoveries.

Tsurakova limits her attacks, however, to only one of the many
facets of paraperception -- precognition. Yet the choice of the
term she uses -- or rather grossly abuses -- betrays her ignorance:
she has in mind precognition and retrocognition, as well as
telepathy, psychometry, and psychokinesis, but rolls them all
into one: "clairvoyance."

The professed target of Tsurakova's attacks is the
"clairvoyants" (read: all those who can manifest one or more of the
above-mentioned phenomena of paraperception) and their allegedly
astronomical, and often illegal income. She "assumes" that every single
one of those "clairvoyants . . . daily receives 200 visitors," a
figure completely unrealistic and probably intentionally exaggerated,
"each of whom leaves behind between 5 or 10 leva" (according to the
latest official rate of exchange, 1 lev equals US $1.04). Even if
one were to presume that, because of heavy demand, "a clairvoyant"
has a 12-hour workday, the above claim would mean that each visitor
"is seen" for about 3 1/2 minutes; another alternative might be
"group session," lasting a bit longer.

Tsurakova tries to be sarcastic when she notes that such
enormous earnings are beneficial not only for the "clairvoyant"
but also for his/her place of residence:

What is more advantageous for a village or a
small town than to have its own clairvoyant?
People come and go everyday, business becomes
lively, a hotel will be built, private rooms
will be rented. And if everything were to be

[page 5]

RAD BR/60

legalized, then a part of the clairvoyant's
income would be paid to the [local] municipality.
The clairvoyants themselves, despite the shadow
of income tax, would love to see their trade
legalized. ... Is there better publicity than
state recognition,?

Every reader acquainted with the Bulgarian scene will
immediately identify at least the most prominent of the addresees of
these biting remarks: Vanga Dimitrova from Petrich, southeastern
Bulgaria - "The Bulgarian Oracle," who since 1966 has been the
world's first (and probably still its only) government-sponsored
"prophetess." [10]

Vanga was born to a migrant worker's family and at the age of
19 she lost her sight. Her formal education is said to have hardly
gone beyond primary school. It was only after she lost her sight
that she began "seeing the future" -- she exchanged one kind of
sight for another.

The demand for Vanga's "proverbial prophetic services" became
so great [11] that in the late 1960s the regime decided to take
advantage of it and gain some hard currency: the Bulgarians
were charged US $3 , or its equivalent in leva, while foreigners
had to pay US $50 for a "visit." [12] Research on Vanga's
prophetic abilities involves an evaluation of her predictions.
Studies are reported to have shown that Vanga's prophesies --
particularly strong in terms of finding lost relatives and
friends -- are more than 80% accurate.

Vanga Dimitrova was put under constant scientific observation,
carried out by Dr. Georgi Lozanov, Director of the Research
Institute of Suggestology attached to the Ministry of Education.
Today Vanga is presumed to be in her early 70s. Nothing has been
heard of her in the last few years.

Dr. Lozanov's institute in Sofia and its branch in Petrich
were staffed by some 30 scientists who studied Vanga's phenomenal
psychic abilities using the most modern, sophisticated electronic
equipment. In addition, these scientists explored everything,
from the impact of cosmic influences on telepathy to the power
of the mind on plants (they were said to be well acquainted with
the noted work of the American Cleve Backster, who used lie
detectors to monitor "telepathy" with plants). [13]

-----------------------------

(10) Pogled, no. 23, 6 June 1966; her maiden name is Vangeliya
Pandeva Gushterova.

(11) Otechestven Front, 22 December 1967, published an
announce-ment saying that Vanga's schedule was booked out till
1 May 1968, and no new "visitors" would be "seen" by her
before that date.

(12) Makedonska Tribuna (Indianapolis, Indiana, USA), 18 July 1968.

(13) For more on this, see G. S., op. cit.

[page 6]

RAD BR/60

It can be added that there have always been plenty of
practitioners of various paraperceptional phenomena in Bulgaria
(see below). Immediately after the communist takeover in 1944,
they (including Vanga) had been subjected to vicious denunciations
and stiff persecution. Many of them, labled as "fortunetellers"
(the name has invariably a derogatory touch in Bulgarian), were
prosecuted and the less fortunate served years-long prison
terms. [14]

As far as "the state's recognition" and "the shadow of
income tax" are concerned, it is presumed that between the 1950s
and the early 1970s the financial departments of the local people's councils
(that is the municipalities) certified the "clairvoyants" and taxed'
their income. [15] Now Dr. Tsurakova reveals that the necessary
"professional certificates" (work permits) are being issued by
the Institute for Neurology, Neurosurgery, and Psychiatry at the
Higher Medical Institute in Sofia. [16] Thus, any Bulgarian who
claims paraperceptional abilities has a chance to get the required
work permit and legally practice his/her profession, provided he/she
pays his/her due income tax regularly.

Dr. Tsurakova exemplifies her "thesis," that what she calls
clairvoyance" is a fake, with the case of a woman in her late 30s
who was officially certified not long ago by the First Psychiatric
Clinic at the Higher Medical Institutes in Sofia. According to
Tsurakova, that woman "had a record of a person who was involved in
shady /black market/ dealings." This not quite polite
introduction, along with the markedly ironic manner of telling the story
are intended to belittle and ridicule the case. In the end,
Tsurakova insinuates that the woman was no more than a vulpine
charlatan. The questioning of that woman's paraperceptional
abilities amounts to a declaration that the First Psychiatric Clinic
at the Higher Medical Institute in Sofia is incompetent and
certifies quacks.

Who Consults a "Clairvoyant," Why, And When? Ironically, or
rather paradoxically, while denying the authenticity of
fortunetellers' paraperceptional abilities, Dr. Tsurakova almost defends
the necessity, even the vital need, of their counsel. Excluding
cases of vain curiosity, she correctly notes that "people who find
themselves amid an acute life crisis" resort to soothsayers,
because "they have a profound inner need of a miracle that would
save them." The author even goes a step further, expressing
highly unorthodox - from the Marxist-Leninist point of view -
thoughts:

------------------------------

(14) Cf. Rabotnichesko Delo, 19 September and 7 October 1960; Trud,
1 December 1962; Kooperativno Selo, 29 May 1963; Rabotnichesko
Delo, 21 July 1969; Otechstven Front, 23 December 1973;
Rabotnichesko Delo, 14 June 1976; Otechestven Front,
6 February 1981; and Rabotnichesko Delo, 26 July 1982 - to
mention only the most flagrant cases that have become known.

(15) Cf., Vecherni Novini, 17 January 1958; Pogled, no. 23, 6 June
1966; Qtechestven Front, 22 December 1967; and Narodna
Prosveta, no. 3, 1971 , p. 104.

(16) Literaturen Front, no. 5, 3 February 1983.

[page 7]

RAD BR/60

The need for mysticism [and] for miracles is
perhaps [rooted] deeply in the human soul. . . .
Meeting a soothsayer helps in certain cases
that [otherwise] would need psychotherapeutics. . . .
We must acknowledge the psychotherapeutic effect
achieved by some of these persons [i.e.,
sooth-Sayers], because they have mastered a profession
that Is practiced today officially by
psycho-therapeutists and often are able to treat certain
neurotic ailments. They possess abundant
information about allopathy and, in the final analysis,
they meet the human being's need for mystery and
magic.

This "not-by-bread-alone" statement, knowingly or otherwise,
contradicts the postulates of dialectical materialism, and what
is even worse, from the regime's point of view, points out the
failure of the various ideological campaigns waged over the course
of the last four decades against individual "fortunetellers." One
of the reasons why the practices, as such, have not been completely
outlawed (along with the above ridiculed income for the
municipalities) is the fact that many prominent figures -- even among the
top party leadership - have resorted to the services of
"clairvoyants," despite their "professud" materialistic philosophy.
This is clearly stated by Dr. Tsurakova, when she speaks of the
possibility that "some well-known person might face personal
problems and seek help."

In between, however, Dr. Tsurakova piles a great deal of
ridicule and accusation on the backs of the "fortunetellers" and
"clairvoyants," as she refers to practitioners of paraperceptional
varieties. Putting almost everyone of them under a common
denominator, Tsurakova claims that their learned or innate psychological,
phrenological, etc., knowledge, as well as their keen intuition,
coupled with some theatrical tricks (e.g., certain symbols, signs,
forms, colors, illumination, sounds, etc.), are capable of almost
hyponotizing their "customers." Thus, the "fortunetellers" extract
the needed information about what they are expected to say and
communicate it back to those seeking their help. This rather
simplified generalization is offered by Dr. Tsurakova as an
explanation of the "fortunetellers" technique of acquiring pecuniary
benefits, allegedly often at the expense of the patient's
psychological and or physical health, and sometimes at the cost of
tragic
results. No one can deny that such charlatans do exist, but to
equate them with serious psychics is deliberate fraud. Sensing
such a pitfall, Dr. Tsurakova's conclusion sounds somewhat
ambiguous, as far as her general attitude toward paraperception
and parapsychology as well as toward the manner of "certifying
the clairvoyants" is concerned:

As a matter of fact, the [the soothsayers] make
the world more colorful, more enigmatic," and
this should not be underestimated. The crux

[page 8]

RAD BR/60

of the matter is, to my mind, moderation -- both
in prohibiting and in encouraging [their
activities].

What Was Not Said But Most Probably Implied. The summary
dismissal of paraperception and parapsychology as having no solid
scientific foundations and worth, and especially the attempted
discrediting of Vanga,might imply an indirect attack on Dr. Georgi
Lozanov, founder and Director of the Research Institute of
Suggestology. [17] As the name of the institute implies,
Dr. Lozanov is concerned with many of the psychological factors
that affect ESP scores.

Using techniques derived from yoga, Dr. Lozanov combines
suggestion and relaxation in a way that is different from hypnosis
in that his subject remains in the waking state. Used in
education, these techniques show great promise in helping to increase
language learning, memory., and artistic and musical abilities.
Dr. Lozanov also "is applying his techniques toward the
development of mental healing and dermal vision." [18]

It is a public secret that, in spite of massive criticism of
and opposition to his teachings, Dr. Lozanov found an ardent follower
and generous Maecenas in the late Lyudmila Zhivkova. After
Zhivkova's death in July 1981, Dr. Lozanov disappeared completely
from public view and all attempts by foreign scientists to contact
him personally or by telephone have failed so far; the invariable
answer of the institute's staff and of the operator has simply
been: "Dr. Lozanov cannot be reached." The rumor mill offered
several unconfirmed explanations and interpretations of his
absence. The last known occasion on which his name was
mentioned in the press was last summer, when he was referred to as
"the founder of a method of learning foreign languages by adults
within 24 days." [19]

Whatever the reasons for Dr. Lozanov's absence and for the
silence surrounding it, it appears that his institute is still doing,
as normal, its research work. (20)

-------------------------

(17) Cf. footnote 1 above, and also Problems of Suggestology,
Proceedings of the First International Symposium on the
Problems of Suggestology (Sofia: Nauka i Izkustvo Publishing
House, 1973). In addition to Suggestology, the volume
contains material on other aspects of paraperception, to which
Dr. Lozanov's contributions have been acknowledged by both
Eastern and Western experts.

(18) Jeffrey Mishlove, The Roots of Consciousness (New York: Random
House Inc., 1975), p. 305; and also Thomas R. Blakeslee, The
Right Brain; a New Understanding of the Unconscious Mind and
Its Creative Powers (New York: PBJ Books, Inc., 1983), p. 72.

(19) Pirinsko Delo (Blagoevgrad), 9 July 1982.

(20) An article dealing most favorably with parapsychology appeared
late last year in the monthly Nasha Rodina, no. 11, 1982.

[page 9]

RAD BR/60

Conclusion. What might sound exotic and mysterious in the West does
not in a culture as ancient in Orphic and Hermetic traditions as
Bulgaria, which for centuries was the focus of the European occult
tradition. During the 10th century Bulgaria became the center
of the Bogomils (later known as Cathars and Albigenses), a
religious movement following the Gnostic tradition. Gnostics held
that one should get direct knowledge, or "cosmic consciousness,"
of divine principles on one's own, rather than arbitrarily through
Church and priest. To do this, one had to develop what we would
call psychic abilities through various secret techniques. From
the Renaissance on, the country teemed with occult movements and,
societies dedicated to psychic development. Mystic and esoteric
practices have filtered down into the daily life of Bulgarians of
today: "Little wonder that, proportionately, Bulgaria has more
clairvoyants, more psychic healers, more telepathists, more seers
than virtually any other country." [21] This has provided the
modern Bulgarians with a rich tradition for exploring and trying
to understand the scientific basis of these happenings. With such
a history and culture, it was not unusual that Bulgaria should
become the first country in the world to "nationalize" a prophetess,
Vanga. It would be like having the late Edgar Cayce nationalized
by the US government.

Having in mind this centuries-long background, Dr. Fani
Tsurakova's article in Literaturen Front amounts to a nihilistic
attitude toward the nation's historical and cultural heritage,
motivated by ideological considerations and purposes. The real
problem at the moment lies, however, elsewhere. The article is,
obviously, a clear signal for a new propaganda (and, possibly,
judicial) campaign against widespread interest in the occult
sciences and practices. Viewed against the background of the
overall ideological tightening that has followed Lyudmila
Zhivkova's death and is still gathering momentum, Dr. Tsurakova's
article only widens the battle line of the ideological front
similar trend of tightening ideological control in the USSR
after Brezhnev's death last November, for example, is clearly
evident, and it is presumed that it will grow increasingly strong
in the months to come). Personalities like Dr. Lozanov and
Vanga in Bulgaria (and possibly Dzhuna Davitashvili in the Soviet
Union) might already have been relegated to the category of
non-persons. Given the political climate in East-West relations,
further vigorous ideological campaigns can be expected in almost
every field of material and spiritual life in Bulgaria and Eastern
Europe.

Yet an article like this, published in a weekly with a very
large circulation, probably would, ironically, have a
"counter-productive" effect by provoking even greater interest in its
subject matter.

- end -

------------------------

(21) Christian Godefroy, French ESP expert, as quoted in S. Ostrander
and L. Schroeder, Super-Learning (New York: A Laurel Book/Dell
Publishing Co., Inc., 1979), p. 27.

  OSA / Guide / RIP / 1956 / RFE/RL Background Reports : Subjects | Browse | Search