Wolf Grigoryevich (Gershkovich) Messing (russian: Во́льф Григо́рьевич (Ге́ршикович) Ме́ссинг, pl, Wolf Grigoriewicz Messing, he, וולף מסינג) (10 September 1899 – 8 November 1974) was a self-proclaimed

psychic A psychic is a person who claims to use extrasensory perception (ESP) to identify information hidden from the normal senses, particularly involving telepathy or clairvoyance, or who performs acts that are apparently inexplicable by natural laws ...

telepath 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 ...

and stage hypnotist.

Early life

Messing was born in the village of

Góra Kalwaria Góra Kalwaria (; " Calvary Mountain", yi, גער, ''Ger'') is a town on the Vistula River in the Masovian Voivodeship, in east-central Poland. It is situated approximately southeast of Warsaw and has a population of around 12,109 (as of 2019). ...

, 25 km southeast of

Warsaw Warsaw ( pl, Warszawa, ), officially the Capital City of Warsaw,, abbreviation: ''m.st. Warszawa'' is the capital and largest city of Poland. The metropolis stands on the River Vistula in east-central Poland, and its population is officia ...

, at a time when

Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It is divided into 16 administrative provinces called voivodeships, covering an area of . Poland has a population of over 38 million and is the fifth-most populou ...

was a territory of the

Russian Empire The Russian Empire was an empire and the final period of the Russian monarchy from 1721 to 1917, ruling across large parts of Eurasia. It succeeded the Tsardom of Russia following the Treaty of Nystad, which ended the Great Northern War. ...

. He claimed that his psychic abilities developed in his early life.

Career

By the time he was a teenager he was performing for the public as a psychic entertainer.Later on in his life he became Stalin's personal 'wizard.' According to Messing, he was able to broadcast mental suggestions in order to alter people's perceptions. In the interview with P. Oreshkin, Messing said:

Death

He died in hospital, on 8 November 1974, two months before his 75th birthday. He had a successful surgery on the femoral and iliac arteries, but for some unknown reason death occurred within a couple of days after

kidney failure Kidney failure, also known as end-stage kidney disease, is a medical condition in which the kidneys can no longer adequately filter waste products from the blood, functioning at less than 15% of normal levels. Kidney failure is classified as eit ...

and

pulmonary edema Pulmonary edema, also known as pulmonary congestion, is excessive liquid accumulation in the tissue and air spaces (usually alveoli) of the lungs. It leads to impaired gas exchange and may cause hypoxemia and respiratory failure. It is due t ...

. He was buried at the "Vostryakovskoe" Jewish cemetery in Moscow. His life story depicts Wolf Messing: Who Saw through Time TV Mini Series (2009).

Appearances in fiction

Wolf Messing is a major character in

Steve Englehart Steve Englehart (; born April 22, 1947) is an American writer of comic books and novels. He is best known for his work at Marvel Comics and DC Comics in the 1970s and 1980s. His pseudonyms have included John Harkness and Cliff Garnett. Early lif ...

's series of Max August novels, beginning with '' The Point Man'' in 1980, and continuing through '' The Long Man'' and ''

The Plain Man ''The'' () is a grammatical article in English, denoting persons or things already mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is the definite article in English. ''The'' is the ...

''. In the hit video strategy game, Command and Conquer: Red Alert 2 as well as its expansion,

Yuri's Revenge ''Command & Conquer: Yuri's Revenge'' is an expansion pack to '' Command & Conquer: Red Alert 2'' developed by Westwood Studios. The game was released in North America on October 10, 2001 Topsy Küppers Topsy Küppers (born 17 August 1931) is an Austrian writer, singer, soubrette, actress and former theatre director of German origin. Life Born in Aachen, the foundation stone for Küppers' career as an actress was laid by Ursula Staudte, who ...

: ''Wolf Messing – Hellseher und Magier''. Langen/Müller, München 2002. * 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 **English language article by the same author with more or less the same contents
Wolf Messing, an enigmatic ‘psychic entertainer’ whom Sathya Sai Baba claims to have encountered
'

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Messing, Wolf 1899 births 1974 deaths People from Góra Kalwaria 19th-century Polish Jews 20th-century Russian people Telepaths Clairvoyants Polish male stage actors Refugees from Nazi Germany in the Soviet Union Polish psychics Polish emigrants to the Soviet Union