By Stephen William.
Josef Stalin as many people will know, was dictator of the Soviet Union from the mid- 1920s until his death in the early 1950s. He as many people will also know, was a brutal tyrant who was responsible for many millions of people’s deaths and was nicknamed “The Red Czar.” This was because of the similarity of his regime to the brutality practiced by his Imperialist predecessors.
Stalin was also apparently a pronounced atheist, and the official doctrine of the Soviet Union regime was “State Atheism.” This position not only disapproved of Christianity , but of Judaism, Islam and Buddhism. This extended to the shamanic and mystic
beliefs of the peoples of Soviet Eastern states and the Far North of the Soviet Union, also . However, despite this public stance by this violent dictator ,he did appear to acknowledge the existence of the Supernatural by his appointment of a Psychic during World War Two and during the Cold War period !
He was Wolf Messing; He was born into a poor religious Polish Jewish family in the small town of Gora Kalwaria. His date of birth was the 10th of September 1899 .
He grew up in poverty with a loving mother, but a harsh disciplinarian father .He however was an outstanding student at scripture classes at school. He apparently had a near photographic memory for Biblical verse. So much so that he was invited to join a local Yeshiva , a Jewish seminary school with the aim of training to be a rabbi . Yet young Wolf appears to have resented his time there and the repeated beatings he received from his father at home. He decided to run away from home and search the world for a better life at the early age of just twelve.
At the local railroad station, he boarded a train to Berlin and as he had no ticket , hid under a seat in a railcar which had few people in it. Unfortunately, he fell asleep and his legs began to stick out, which was noticed by the conductor when he came to inspect the passengers’ tickets. The conductor demanded to see Wolf’s ticket and the rudely awakened Wolf desperately snatched a piece of blank wastepaper and presented it to the conductor as a ticket !
He by his own account has recounted “ Our gazes met , I desperately wanted him to believe It was a ticket”.” It is a ticket, it is a ticket,” Wolf mentally willed to him. The conductor returned the” ticket” and asked him why he was sleeping hidden on the floor ,when he had a valid ticket! This apparently was the first time Wolf was aware that his “power” of suggestion had manifested itself.
When he arrived in Berlin, he made his way to the Dragonstrasse a street/ area inhabited mainly by poor Jewish people to find work and somewhere to live. Some cynics may wonder how a young Pole who was still a child, would have communicated with people in Germany. However, the Jews of Eastern Europe often spoke in Yiddish, which originated amongst the Jewish population of Germany in medieval times and was based mainly on German. This would have helped him understand gentile Germans as well. He worked at poorly paid menial jobs and barely could afford to eat. This caused him to suffer from malnutrition. One day the impoverished young boy fainted in the street from hunger .
The hospital where he was taken fed and nursed back to health, had medical staff that noticed that the boy had almost telepathic abilities. For example, a kindly doctor was thinking that Wolf’s uncared for condition should be reported to the police. Wolf fearing possible deportation or being put into a boys home ,begged him not to do so. The astonished doctor said to “I did not say that “ Wolf replied “but you thought it ! ”
This doctor and a psychiatrist within the hospital conducted tests on Wolf and found that he did have “telepathic” and other mental abilities beyond normal comprehension. As he was unwilling to enter a home or institution and needed to earn a living one of the doctors’ contacted a theatrical agent called Zellmeister who hired young Messing out to a freak show called the Berlin Panoptikum. He was billed as the “Boy Wonder” He developed a mind reading act eventually ,which astonished people by “hearing their thoughts” and then making predictions for them. He then progressed to the more upmarket Berlin Wintergarten . His main act was finding objects hidden by the audience with amazing accuracy. His inexplicable abilities then caused him to be hired by the Busch Circus which toured throughout Europe.
Whilst on visits in Vienna , he apparently met both Sigmund Freud and Albert Einstein. He demonstrated his abilities to their astonishment and they could not rationally explain how he could perform them. As well as his time in Europe, he then toured Japan, Brazil, Argentina and other Asian and South American countries .World War One which had brok
en out by then , did not affect these countries so badly, therefore keeping Wolf safe from harm. In 1921 he returned to Poland internationally famous and now had a new manager, a Pole called Kobak .In the now peaceful world (for a while) he toured with his famous mind reading act . He was a successful and famous psychic when he returned to his native Poland also.
This success continued for well over decade and Messing was apparently one of the most famous psychic’s and mystic performers in interwar Europe. Many people were aware he was no mere conjurer and there was a paranormal element to his work. However, in 1937 at one of his appearances at a theater in Warsaw , he suddenly predicted that any German attack on Russia would end in Germany’s eventual destruction ! This prediction (and eventually correct prophecy) was well received by the Polish audience ,
who were acutely aware of Nazi Germany’s potential menace. Unfortunately for Wolf ,news of this prophecy was relayed back to Germany which apparently terrified and enraged Adolf Hitler !
In 1939 ,Nazi Germany invaded Poland which also caused Britain and France to declare war on Germany and start what became World War Two. The German government under the direction of Hitler put a price of 200,000 Reichmarks on Messing’s head. A vast sum of money for the time , well over a million dollars in modern time values! Wolf went into hiding in his native hometown and then travelled to nearby Warsaw to arrange his exit from Poland. Unfortunately, whilst there he was recognised by a Nazi German patrol and savagely beaten up and then dragged off to the nearest police station and dumped in a cell to await his fate.
By his own account Wolf , in fear for his life decided to telepathically “will” the police guards outside the building to come into the building and join their colleagues. He then telepathically “willed” all the police officers to gather in his cell ,which he projected to them was empty. This exercise of “mass hypnosis” does seem totally improbable but given his previous record of such feats and ones he performed whilst working in the Soviet Union later in his career, it seems to fit in with his reported abilities . He then managed to lock the duped/mesmerised/ spellbound(!?) police into the cell and escaped to a brave performer friend’s house and arrange his escape to the still open border to the Soviet Union. Escape to Western Europe was impossible as Germany blocked all routes to Britain and France as they were now at war with them.
Once in the Soviet Union, he managed to contact the Ministry of Culture and probably because of his fame , he managed to be enrolled in an entertainment troupe touring Soviet army posts. This did not go too well at first because of his poor Russian. Also because of his foreign background , he was considered a potential spy by some soldiers. However, he began to gain the confidence of some leading Soviet officials (no doubt using his telepathic abilities to do so!) and eventually one of these high-ranking men ,drew Stalin’s attention to his abilities.
When Wolf Messing met Stalin , the dictator personally questioned him on his political views and commitment to his new “homeland.” Messing was then given two hard and seemingly impossible tasks to perform to confirm his abilities . They were:
Withdraw 100,000 Roubles from a branch of the State Bank using only a blank sheet of paper, by pretending it was a real cheque.
Enter Stalin’s personal presence without any invitation or authorization to do so. (i.e., bypass all his heavily armed security without being shot or arrested .)
To both the Soviet authorities and Stalin’s amazement ,he managed to achieve both easily !
He then became Stalin’s personal psychic advisor. Stalin obviously wanted advice from such a man to be given to him directly and no one else sharing his abilities or insights. To do so may well have been fatal for Stalin’s own personal safety !
It was promoted falsely to general Soviet population though, that the NKVD (forerunners of the KGB) would use the famous psychic to interrogate political prisoners. Though to do so ,Stalin would have had to allow others to use Messing away from him. That was never going to happen. Wolf would remain under his full personal control.
Wolf Messing did not give a full account of his duties whilst working personally for Stalin. But given Stalin’s total lack of patience with people who “failed” him,(he normally had them shot !) the advice must have been satisfying and seemingly accurate to Stalin, to ensure Messing’s continued survival.
However, Wolf did fall for a while out of favour with Stalin. He had a strong premonition that Nazi Germany would attack and start the invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941. He even gave a precise date when this was to happen, the 22nd of June 1941. Despite the precise date given, Stalin totally ignored this prediction. Stalin was notorious for not liking to hear news or views which conflicted with his own “ achievements” or aspirations. Very much like Hitler. Stalin was convinced he had pulled off a” diplomatic masterstroke” by signing a Non-Aggression Pact with Nazi Germany just a weeks before the German Army invaded Poland in 1939. Stalin believed this gave him enough time not only to build up his forces to stop any German invasion of the Soviet Union, but in time to defeat the overstretched German forces and bring much of European Europe under Communist domination.
Wolf Messing’s previous work had obviously been of value to Stalin, so he escaped the usual fate of execution for displeasing him. Such a valuable “resource” as Messing could not be disposed of carelessly. So, instead he was banished from Moscow and sent on theatre tours throughout Ukraine and Georgia (Stalin’s homeland). In Tbilisi , the state capital of Georgia, on the 22nd of June 1941 , Wolf heard the news ,that his predicted invasion of the Soviet Union had begun ! He returned to Moscow by train as quickly as possible to offer his assistance. However. in the confusion and turmoil caused by the invasion, he was arrested and sent to the Siberian city of Novosibirsk to entertain troops and factory workers. This probably was convenient to prevent having Stalin to admit he was wrong and to ensure that Messing could not escape the Soviet Union ,nor fall into German hands.
Unsurprisingly , during his performances in Novosibirsk ,Wolf repeated his prediction , which had so spooked Hitler and caused his own escape from Poland, that the Soviet Union would repel Germany and the Soviet Army would invade Berlin. This would have seemed like propaganda in those dark early days of the German invasion, but as we now know it came true ! It must have also pleased Stalin when it was reported back to him.
Wolf remained in Siberia for most of the rest of World War Two, safe from German capture and met his wife Aida, in 1944. They were married shortly after their first meeting and she would assist him on stage. But tragically their happiness would not last for the rest of Messing’s life. Aida was diagnosed with a malignant breast tumour . Doctors advised she might live; however, the heartbroken Wolf had a premonition that she would die on a certain date. He then told the still hopeful doctors the date. Tragically for him and his younger wife his forecast came true.
Prophecy is a truly double- edged sword. It is not a super “magic trick” that ensures a life of happiness and no upsetting episodes, but can bring news of terrible times to come, even to people who are gifted in the ability. However, I suppose you can prepare for the troubled times. Despite this, some people could argue the agony of the unpleasant situation is prolonged, by the anticipation of it .
After the Second World War , he was still a close advisor to Josef Stalin still visiting and advising him until a few weeks before Stalin’s death in March 1953. It has also been reasonably speculated that Wolf Messing aided the formation of a Soviet “remote viewing” military spy unit. Such units have been duplicated by other countries with varying success. Messing went on to live his life out in the Soviet Union and died in 1974. He appeared to be happy there and the Soviet regime ensured he was comfortable enough not to try to leave. Therefore, his abilities were retained by the Soviet Union.
His Soviet period of activity has been reported to the West and wider world by his biographer Tatiana Lungin, a lady he first met in the Second World War when he successfully predicted her” missing on active service” soldier husband who she feared was dead ,would arrive unannounced, safely back at their apartment. This happened on exactly the day he predicted. Cynics may suggest as somebody who was a long-time friend of him , she may have been unduly over credulous of some of his claims. However, he was famous in the West for his mystical feats before he fled Poland to the Soviet Union. On his world travels he also visited India and Indian investigators confirmed that he had abnormal and inexplicable abilities. Cynics have also pointed out in an interview to P. Oreshkin in 1961 that Messing explained that his mind reading act was based on closely observing body language , particularly facial muscle movements. Though such critics fail to point out that both Oreshkin and Messing lived in the Soviet Union and the official public position of the State was a complete disdain of spiritual or paranormal abilities. Therefore, to try to provide a “rational” explanation for his abilities was safe thing to do. Even if he did “enhance” his stage performance with such observations, it still would not explain his public and private prophetic abilities. Nor where he obtained such “body language” training from, when he his career started at such an early age.
As you can see from my by-line, I have authored a book on the most well-known prophet of the past thousand years ,Nostradamus. As the cover illustrates, I compare his abilities with other prophets such as Francis Bacon and Ursula (Mother) Shipton as well as newly decode some of his famous quatrains. But when I was researching for the book on prophecy in general, I came across Wolf Messing and was struck by the remarkable similarities between Nostradamus and Messing.
Both had recent Jewish ancestry although Nostradamus’s parents converted to the Roman Catholic Church apparently before his birth. Also, both may have been exposed to the Kabbalah (Jewish mystical practices) at an early age which may have released their inner mystic abilities. In Nostradamus’s case , one of his Jewish grandfathers was supposed to have been a practitioner of it . In Messing’s case, he may have received some influence from it in the area where he came from. He studied as mentioned at a Jewish seminary in an area where the Kabbalah was known to be influential . Marc Chagall (born Moishe Shegal) the famous artist was born in the same era as Messing only a few hundred miles away in Belarus. Chagall said that that the Kabballah was very influential on religious Jews in that part of Eastern Europe. Messing’s family were intensely religious and the seminary he attended may well have had teachers of a knowledgeable Kabballah background.
In addition to this , both prophets had traumatic life experiences before and after they started their mystical careers. Nostradamus lost his first wife and all their children apparently to the Plague. He was also supposedly expelled from university for practising as an apothecary , whilst studying to be a doctor. Messing had an abusive childhood from the hands of his father and lost his mother early in life. He then went on to lose all his siblings in the Holocaust and then his newly married young wife to cancer. He was also persecuted sometimes for his Jewish identity at various times in his life.
However, what also appears to bind the two men together , unlike modern mediums (of which I am one) who mainly pass messages from departed spirits for grieving families and friends, is they both made expansive prophecies for the whole of the society and the world. It has occurred to me , were they both inheritors of the great tradition of Hebrew Prophecy? The Biblical prophets often had turbulent and traumatic lives in grim times. Perhaps there is a connection between the ability and the times these people lived in ?
In addition to these similarities as with some the Biblical prophets , they became advisors of the rulers of the societies they lived in . Nostradamus, the King and Queen of France ,Wolf Messing the ruler of the Soviet Union Stalin. I know Stalin was one of the most tyrannical and murderous rulers of modern times, seems an odd comparison with Biblical Kings , however some prophets of Biblical times advised and also sometimes quarrelled with both good and bad kings ,.
You may be wondering about the title of this article and what the connection of Stalin and his psychic had with a Medieval Warlord ? The connection is mainly between Stalin and the warlord. Shortly before the unexpected invasion of the Soviet Union ( unexpected by Stalin ,not by Messing !) Russian archaeologists had exhumed in June 1941 the body of the infamous Turkic-Mongol (Tartar) Emperor Warlord, Timur the Great (1336-1405) . This body was exhumed from his tomb in Samarkand in the Eastern Soviet Union . There are several versions of how the archaeologists became aware of the curse attached to disturbing Timur’s remains. They range from inscriptions on the tomb and then on the casket and warnings from the locals that disaster and ruin awaited the person who ordered such a disturbance. These included the world being shaken by momentous events and an invader even mightier than Timur appearing to threaten the transgressor !
Within a week of the corpse being disturbed, the German invasion started . The corpse had been taken away to examine Timur’s remains to see if he was as tall as described and was indeed lame as also described. They also wanted to create an image of his face based on his skull’s dimensions. Whilst the body was away, the invasion of Soviet territory became worse and worse for the Russians . Many thousands of them were killed and terrible battles were raging. Eventually word reached Stalin of the curse and he arranged in November 1942 for the body to be returned to Samarkand and buried with a full Islamic ceremony.
In December 1942, the Soviet Army won the terrible Battle of Stalingrad and the tide of the war turned against the overstretched German Army .This eventually culminated in with the Soviet Army invading Berlin and eventually helping the Allies win the War against Nazi Germany. Cynics will say that this is a coincidence and I must admit that I am inclined to agree with them on that point . However, the reaction of leader of the world’s most officially sceptical regime, of spiritual beliefs and practices yet again appeared to be acknowledging that some form of paranormal/supernatural activity may be at work.
One of the most surprising things about Stalin’s life , is the time between his ages of 15 and 20. He was a student at a seminary studying to be a priest in the Eastern Orthodox Church ! He was a particularly good student ,but at the age of twenty left voluntarily . He obviously as we now know, had lost his faith. However, he was still interested in the state of the human condition by his new interest in politics.
His actions as the supreme dictator of the Soviet Union were deplorable and he was responsible by most estimates for more executions and imprisonments of people than even Hitler. He even acknowledged to his mother before her death that he was acting like a Czar, to which she is supposed to have replied “perhaps you should have been a priest “.
His acknowledgement of his own Czar like status is intriguing. Most Czars are known to not only modern- day Russians ,but to Westerners as well, for not only their selfish personal excesses and mass cruelty ,but also for their close attachment to the Eastern Orthodox Church. They ruled over the HOLY Russian Empire and “religious” figures such as the insane priest Rasputin were always close to the Russian Imperial Family. In the surviving monarchies of the world , the monarch is very often a religious figure as well as a ruling one . The British Queen today for example is the Supreme Governor of The Church of England as her predecessors were. Perhaps the hypocrisy of the cruel Russian rulers , despite their position as the “Holy Czar” caused the then idealistic and religious young Stalin to lose his faith ?
However, on finding himself as the “Red Czar” , he then had to betray his alleged socialist principles ,by cruelty ,execution and torture to maintain power and achieve his “objectives.” This was paradoxical to the universal equality and comradeship beliefs of socialism. Therefore, is it possible he began to have doubts about his rejection of spirituality as well ? Stalin was a man of strange contradictions. For example, he believed or at least claimed he was creating a “workers’ paradise” , when in fact he was creating a hell on earth for them!
When he came across Wolf Messing and his seemingly mystic abilities and then a possible curse first placed in more mystic times ,his reaction was to explore them. He then continued his association with Messing after the danger of the Nazis had passed and the War was won. He also despite all his cruelties and oppressions never actually banned religion or spiritual belief ,despite having the supreme power to do so.
It appears in even in the most unlikely people and places, mystic experience exists.
© Stephen William International Copyright.
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