Monthly Archives: July 2018
See with your skin: the unsolved phenomenon of the Soviet psychic Rosa Kuleshova
“Clairvoyance”, “skin vision” or even “quackery”. As soon as in the 1960-70s, the superpowers of the phenomenal girl Rosa Kuleshova were not called. Scientists and doctors have struggled to figure out how she can “read” with her eyes closed, but neither has been able to provide a scientific explanation for her secret talent.
Rosa Kuleshova, at first glance, was quite an ordinary girl born in the post-war years. The father was killed at the front, the mother arranged her personal life by getting married for the second time, and the grandmother took care of the baby. However, this did not last long: my grandmother lived a short life and, left almost an orphan after her death, rose was forced to drop out of school and get a job as a nurse, although she finished only 7 classes. The girl’s health deteriorated: due to a nervous breakdown, she developed epilepsy. Continue reading
Magnet healing: how pseudo science helped to discover hypnosis
During his lifetime, Franz Mesmer was an extraordinary figure: some considered him a brilliant scientist and discoverer of the so-called” animal magnetism”, others were sure that he was nothing more than a charlatan and illusionist. Mesmer became famous for discovering a new method of treating patients with magnets. Modern scientists tend to believe that, in fact, he discovered the method of hypnosis, anticipating the scientific ideas of Sigmund Freud and Gustav Jung for half a century.
Franz Mesmer came from a poor family with many children, but his parents understood the importance of education and allowed both Franz and his eight siblings to go to universities. Franz spent his student years in Vienna, where he defended his dissertation, studying in detail the influence of planets on the human body. Continue reading
