Leonid Leonidovich Vasiliev (in Russian: Леонид Леонидович Васильев) (1891–1966) was a Russian Soviet parapsychologist and

physiologist Physiology (; ) is the scientific study of functions and mechanisms in a living system. As a sub-discipline of biology, physiology focuses on how organisms, organ systems, individual organs, cells, and biomolecules carry out the chemical a ...

Career

Vasiliev worked as a professor of physiology at Leningrad University. He helped establish the first parapsychology laboratory at Leningrad. Vasiliev conducted experiments with subjects into

telepathy Telepathy () is the purported vicarious transmission of information from one person's mind to another's without using any known human sensory channels or physical interaction. The term was first coined in 1882 by the classical scholar Frederic W ...

and reported successful results. After Vasiliev's main experiments were completed, his laboratory staff made an official statement declaring "We have not established whether telepathy exists. We want to find out. Then we can say yes or no." His research was discontinued.Soviet Notebook: Crackdown on Parapsychology. (1975). ''

New Scientist ''New Scientist'' is a magazine covering all aspects of science and technology. Based in London, it publishes weekly English-language editions in the United Kingdom, the United States and Australia. An editorially separate organisation publishe ...

''. 13 February. p. 397 Vasiliev's book ''Experiments in Mental Suggestion'' was translated into English in 1963 and was popular with Western parapsychologists.

Robin Waterfield Robin Anthony Herschel Waterfield (born 1952) is a British classical scholar, translator, editor, and writer of children's fiction. Career Waterfield was born in 1952, and studied Classics at Manchester University, where he achieved a first clas ...

stated that from the reports it was difficult to ascertain what controls there were in the experiments. The psychologist

C. E. M. Hansel Charles Edward Mark Hansel (12 October 1917 – 28 March 2011) was a British psychologist most notable for his criticism of parapsychological studies. Early life and education Hansel was born in 1917 in Bedford, England and attended Bedford ...

has criticized Vasiliev's experiments, stating that he "made little attempt to control the human factor in his experiments... insufficient information is given in Vasiliev's book about the precise conditions under which his experiments were carried out... The chief weakness lies in the lack of precautions against errors in recording and against the experimenter being affected by what he knows about the experiment." Such criticism was echoed by the parapsychologist

Stephen E. Braude Stephen E. Braude (born April 17, 1945) is an American philosopher and parapsychologist. He is a past president of the Parapsychological Association, Editor-in-Chief of the ''Journal of Scientific Exploration'', and a professor of philosophy at ...

, who stated that on the whole, "Vasiliev's experiments are not described in the kind of detail one would expect from a thoroughly scientific publication. Moreover, the long distance experiments are clearly preliminary in nature and invite various refinements in design, some of which were already planned when Vasiliev wrote his book. Nevertheless, his experiments are suggestive and deserve attempts at replication." Braude, Stephen E. (2002). ''ESP and Psychokinesis: A Philosophical Examination''. Universal-Publishers. p. 123

Publications

*''Mysterious Phenomena of the Human Psyche'' (1959) *''Experiments in Mental Suggestion'' (1963) *''Experiments in Distant Influence'' (1976)

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Vasiliev, Leonid 1891 births 1966 deaths 20th-century Russian scientists Parapsychologists Russian physiologists