Wolf Messing

Wolf Grigorevich Messing (Hebrew: וּוֹלףֿ מסינג‎, Polish: Wolf Grigoriewicz Messing, Russian: Во́льф Григо́рьевич (Ге́ршикович) Ме́ссинг Vóľf Gérškovič (Grigór'evič) Méssing; 10 September 1899, Góra Kalwaria (Yiddish: גער Ger), Poland – 8 November 1974, Moscow) was an alleged psychic and telepathist that eventually became a stage performer and entertainer, who performed on stage in the USSR, with psychological experiments like "mind reading" of the audience. Meritorious Artist of the RSFSR (1971).

Biography

Born to a Jewish family, Messing fled from Germany to the USSR before World War II. He claimed that his abilities came to the attention of Joseph Stalin. According to Messing, he was able to broadcast mental suggestions in order to alter people's perceptions. In the interview to the P. Oreshkin, Messing said:

... It's not mind-reading, it's, like the "reading of muscles" ... When human thinks hard about something, the brain cells transmit impulses to all muscles of the body. Their movements, invisible to the eye, I can easily feel. ... Often I'm performing mental tasks without direct contact with the inductor. The pointer to me here is the breathing frequency of inductor, the beating of his heart, voice timbre, his walking nature and etc.

—

He died in hospital, on November 8, 1974. He had successful surgery on the femoral and iliac arteries, but for some unknown reason death occurred in a couple of days, after kidney failure and pulmonary edema. He was buried at a "Vostryakovskoe" cemetery in Moscow.

Appearances in fiction

Wolf Messing is a major character in Steve Englehart's series of Max August novels, beginning with The Point Man in 1980, and continuing through The Long Man and The Plain Man.

Further reading

• Topsy Küppers: Wolf Messing – Hellseher und Magier. Langen/Müller, München 2002. ISBN 3784428800 (German)
• Nagel, Alexandra: Een mysterieuze ontmoeting…: Sai Baba en mentalist Wolf Messing/A mysterious meeting...: Sai Baba and mentalist Wolf Messing, published in Tijdschrift voor Parapsychologie/Journal for parapsychology 368, vol. 72 nr 4, Dec. 2005, pp. 14–17 (Dutch)

See also

• Telepathy

See also: Messing (surname) and Messing (disambiguation)