Description:
In this, the first biography and personal memoir of Wolf Messing to appear in the West, Tatiana Lungin limns a revealing portrait of one of the greatest psychic performers of the twentieth century.
Brief description: Tatiana Lungina, formerly a Moscow journalist and a close friend of Wolf Messing and his wife, and assistant Aida, was specifically charged by Messing to prepare his life story. And their friendship lasted for over thirty years before his death in 1974.In Los Angeles, Tatiana Lungin conducted meticulous records of all the circumstances of Messing's life, impressions regarding the man with an extraordinary destiny and a mysterious soul. The principle which she tried to follow strictly in her work on the book was the utmost respect for veracity. Only the "verified" personal experiences and observations, only the words and the assessments given by Wolf Messing and people close to him, formed the basis of her book.This edition was edited by D. Scott Rogo, author of twenty-eight books on parapsychology, including The Poltergeist Experience, Exploring Psychic Phenomena, and Life after Death.
Review Quotes: [...it is clear that Messing managed to sustain a career in the Soviet Union in the face of its hostility to what was perceived as mysticism. He argued that there was nothing mystical in his abilities, only phenomena that science had not yet explained.]
[...it is a readable introduction to this enigmatic character, even if it does eventually prove to contain more legend than reality. There are glimpses into the Russian academic world of the 1930s-1960s, with its uncomfortable reaction to the subject of mind-reading, and the necessity for Messing to skirt the implications of 'occultism' in a culture that was fiercely materialist. Lungin's own experiences of everyday life in the Soviet Union have an authentic feel.]
[...Ostrander and Schroeder say in their foreword to Lungin's book that she "has side-stepped the sensational to create a warm, personal memoir of her long-time friend Wolf ". It is the nature of friendship not to probe too deeply, but it is precisely the sensational in Messing's career that needs to be scrutinized.]