Wolf Messing

Wolf Grigorevich Messing (Russian: Во́льф Григо́рьевич (Ге́ршикович) Ме́ссинг), (Polish: Wolf Grigoriewicz Messing), (Hebrew: וולף מסינג‎), (1 September 1899 — 8 November 1974) was an alleged psychic and telepathist. He was a teacher for the officers of the NKVD (KGB).

Biography

Messing was born in the village of Góra Kalwaria, 25 km southeast of Warsaw, at a time when Poland was a territory of the Russian Empire. He claimed that his psychic abilities developed in his early life. By the time he was a teenager he was performing to the public. 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 etc.

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