So Supernatural - MYSTICAL: Wolf Messing

Episode Date: November 3, 2021

Born in Poland in 1899, Wolf Messing could reportedly read minds, control people's thoughts, and tell the future. But he wasn't any ordinary psychic. When he met Joseph Stalin in 1940, his powers might've become weapons of war.

If you could have any superpower, what would it be? It's a common enough question, and the answers are equally predictable. We want to fly or become invisible or read people's minds. But we never stop to really consider the other side of the question. If you could have any superpower, would you? Sure, there are times when supernatural abilities could come in handy. For example, in 1910, an 11-year-old boy named Wolf Messing jumped on a train to Germany without a ticket. When an officer walked by and asked him for his fare, Wolf held out a scrap of newspaper and focused all his energy on making the man think it was a ticket. He held his breath, certain he was about to be kicked off the train.

But it worked. The man punched the paper, handed it back to Wolf, and continued on his way. Wolf was stunned. That was the first time he realized that he had psychic powers. But be careful what you wish for. 30 years later, those powers would get him mixed up in an international conflict he couldn't solve with telepathy. This is Supernatural. I'm your host, Ashley Flowers. This week, I'm talking about a psychic named Wolf Messing. Wolf discovered his abilities at a young age, and as an adult, he made his living as a psychic performer. But when the Nazis invaded Poland in 1939, Wolf's powers put him in the crosshairs of not one, but two infamous dictators. I have all that and more coming up. Stay with us. By the mid-1930s, Wolf Messing was pretty much a household name in Poland.

He performed regularly in Warsaw, showing off his telepathic abilities in front of thousands of people. His biggest shtick was asking a random audience member to think of something very specific. Then, Wolf would read their mind and announce what they were thinking about. A lot of people thought Wolf was basically just a stage magician. Obviously, the people whose minds he claimed to read could have been assistants that he'd planted in the audience. But they couldn't all be plants. Wolf reportedly had some very high-profile believers,

from Stalin to Mahatma Gandhi to Albert Einstein. Even in his early life, Wolf Messing was never really average. In 1899, he's born in a tiny Polish town about 20 miles from Warsaw. As a young child, there are already hints that he's special. His parents bring him to a famous writer named Sholem Aleichem, who tells Wolf, you will have a shining future. And I'll admit, it's pretty vague, but by the time Wolf is six years old,

his parents notice that he has a remarkably good memory. Even though he's just a kid, Wolf's parents decide he needs to start going to a religious school and training to be a rabbi. Information about Wolf's childhood is difficult to find, but it's clear he's not super into his religious education, because when he's 11, he runs away from home. With just 18 cents to his name, Wolf jumps on a train to Berlin. He can't afford the fare, so when the ticket taker comes by, Wolf just hands him a piece of torn newspaper and somehow telepathically convinces him to accept it as a ticket.

Wolf always kind of knew he was special, but this is the first time he realizes exactly how special. So Wolf makes it to Berlin, but with no money and no parents, he has a rough time in Germany. He gets a job delivering packages, but since he's literally 11 years old, his pay isn't great. One day at work, he full-on faints from hunger. He ends up in the hospital where a doctor finds him cold, stiff, and totally without a pulse. According to the doctors, Wolf Messing is dead. They bring his body all the way to the morgue. Then, while they're making arrangements for his burial, a medical student happens to take one look at Wolf's pulse. He detects a heartbeat. It's very faint, but it's there. Three days later, Wolf finally wakes up. When he comes to, there's a man named Dr. Abel in the room.

Dr. Abel tells Wolf that he's extraordinary. He has the power of self-induced catalepsy. Basically, he can go into a trance so deep it makes it look like he's dead. When Dr. Abel finds out about Wolf's other psychic abilities, he's interested enough that he takes the boy under his wing and basically becomes his telepathy teacher. I'm not sure what kind of qualifications he has for that, but he is a psychologist and a neuropathologist, so he knows his way around the mind. One source says that Wolf and Dr. Abel met four days a week for psychic training, which involves dipping into cataleptic trances, reading strangers' minds, and making predictions about the future, many of which are proven correct. So by the time he's a teenager, Wolf is an expert in all things clairvoyant. He's also pretty sick of delivering

packages, so he decides to use his telepathic powers for profit. At 14 years old, he starts performing as a psychic in front of audiences. His big break comes when he's 16 and puts on a show in Vienna, Austria. Wolf is a hit, so much so that he allegedly gains the attention of one of the most notable men in Vienna, Albert Einstein. As a scientist, Einstein is skeptical of the paranormal, but he's willing to consider that psychic abilities might be possible. And as it happens, Einstein is friends with Sigmund Freud, the father of modern psychology. Though Einstein and Freud aren't said to have met until 1927, as one story goes,

they were together in Austria around 1915. And when Einstein took an interest in Wolf, he allegedly invited both Freud and the psychic to his apartment for a little experiment. According to biographies of Wolf, how it works is, Freud is going to give Wolf a mental command. He doesn't say anything out loud, he only thinks about what he wants Wolf to do. And according to Wolf, he hears Freud's thoughts loud and clear. Wolf walks to the bathroom, grabs a pair of tweezers, and plucks exactly three hairs out of Einstein's mustache. Obviously, Einstein's a little miffed, but Freud is absolutely astonished because that's exactly what he told Wolf to do. Say what you will about Freud, but I don't think he would outright lie to Einstein's face about this. So the only explanation is telepathy. So before he's even 18 years old, Wolf gets some

of the most brilliant minds in Europe on his side. Throughout his 20s, he tours the world, stopping in Japan, Brazil, India, Australia, and more. In India, Wolf reportedly meets Mahatma Gandhi. Gandhi does a similar experiment to the previous one. He gives Wolf a mental command to pick up a flute and hand it to someone on the other side of the room. Of course, Wolf carries out the command flawlessly, and Gandhi joins his ever-growing group of believers. By the end of his tour, Wolf is a global sensation. He comes back to Poland and settles in Warsaw, where he continues

performing. And for the next decade or so, things go pretty well for Wolf. Then, in the early 1930s, Hitler comes to power in Germany. As a Jewish man living in Poland, Wolf knows that if the Nazis invade, he and his family are in trouble. But that doesn't mean he's afraid to speak out. In fact, at one of his performances in 1937, Wolf makes a bold prediction. Hitler will die if he turns toward the east. Poland is directly east of Germany. Wolf is essentially saying that if Hitler dares to invade Poland, it will lead to his death.

And when the psychic's prediction makes its way to Hitler, he doesn't appreciate the sentiment. In fact, Hitler's so incensed that he supposedly puts a bounty on Wolf's head. Any Nazi who manages to capture Wolf will be given the equivalent of over a million US dollars today. Even with this massive bounty on his head, Wolf still feels relatively safe. After all, he's in a totally different country. As long as he stays in Warsaw and flies under the radar, he's fine. Until September 1st, 1939, when Nazis invade Poland. Coming up, Wolf Messing uses mind control to escape certain death. Now back to the story.

In 1939, the Nazi army invades Poland. Two days later, Britain and France declare war on Germany. World War II is officially underway, and Wolf Messing's life is completely upended. After the invasion, Wolf is hiding in a meat locker to avoid the Nazis, who he knows are on the lookout for him in particular. But at some point, for whatever reason, Wolf leaves his hiding spot. He ventures outside and comes face to face with a Nazi officer. This guy recognizes Wolf. I mean, there's a whole handbook full of pictures of people who are wanted by Hitler, and Wolf's photo is very much in it. So the officer

runs up to Wolf, asks him his name, and of course Wolf tries to lie, but it's no use. The officer grabs him and punches him square in the face. The next thing Wolf knows, he's in a Nazi police station. His mind is going a mile a minute. He knows Hitler's got a bounty on his head and he's willing to bet that the bounty applies whether he shows up dead or alive. So Wolf's got two options, escape or die. As the story goes, Wolf uses his mind control abilities to convince every person in the police station to convene in the room where he's being held. As the Nazi officers are making their way towards him,

he uses his power of self-induced catalepsy. So when everyone arrives in the room, they see Wolf lying on the floor, apparently dead. For a while, the officers just mill around, wondering what's going on. When he's sure the Nazis have their guards down, Wolf jumps up and sprints out of the room. Before the officers can even wonder what just happened, Wolf makes it out of the building and disappears into the streets of Warsaw. That same night, he makes it to the eastern border and escapes into the USSR. For Wolf, it's a bittersweet victory. He makes it out of Hitler's clutches, but he had to leave the rest of his family back in Poland. By the end of the war,

his father and brothers are all eventually killed by the Nazis. Meanwhile, when Wolf arrives in Russia, he goes to the Ministry of Culture to find a job. They ask about his qualifications, and he straight up tells them he's a psychic. This isn't exactly the best thing to say. Joseph Stalin wants to get rid of anything religious, spiritual, or magical in the Soviet Union because it supposedly threatens the social and political order. Russians who claim to be psychics are reportedly derided as rogues. And beyond that, everyone at the Ministry of Culture assumes this so-called psychic is actually just a big liar. But Wolf is insistent. He offers to give them a demonstration, and they agree. It's not

clear what exactly Wolf shows the government employees, but whatever he does, it totally convinces them of his powers. So they say, okay, if you insist, we'll set you up with a job as a psychic performer. But there's a catch. Wolf can't publicly claim that he's actually a psychic, a telepathist, a clairvoyant, or anything else in that neighborhood. Instead, he's forced to say that his psychic powers aren't supernatural. He hands out pamphlets that chalk it all up to something called ideomotor response. Basically, ideomotor responses are tiny unconscious facial and body movements. Wolf's pamphlets claim that his mind-reading powers are actually just the result of analyzing people's small muscle twitches. But Wolf knows he's reading minds, not muscles. He never really

believes the disclaimer, and apparently, neither does the Soviet government. Publicly, they deny all things supernatural. But privately, they're curious. Even Stalin himself can't help but wonder, what if Wolf Messing's powers are real? And as World War II continues, this curiosity becomes desperation. To fight Hitler's army, the Soviets need serious weapons, maybe even supernatural ones. One evening in 1940, Wolf steps on stage for yet another sold-out show. For a country that openly derides spiritualism, people are pretty eager to see this

guy perform. When the lights dim, he looks out and sees hundreds of people in the auditorium and two uniformed police officers storming toward the stage. The officers grab Wolf, tell the audience, basically, sorry, show's over, and shuffle him off stage. Even Wolf is wondering what on earth just happened. Did he say something wrong at the show? Is he going to jail? Or worse, is he being deported back to Poland? But Wolf doesn't get a chance to ask any questions. The officers shove him into the back of an unmarked car and speed away from the

theater. After what feels like forever, the car pulls up to a building that Wolf doesn't recognize. The men lead him into a room. He's left there alone with nothing but his racing thoughts. As time passes, his fear gives way to boredom. Then the officers come back and shove him into yet another room where he's left to stew. After even more waiting, Wolf finally hears the doorknob turn. And when the door creaks open, he sees a short, barrel-shaped man in a green military jacket. His dark hair is combed back and a thick black mustache curls over his mouth. It's Joseph Stalin in the flesh. Coming up, as the story goes, Stalin puts Wolf Messing's power to the test. Now back to the story. In 1940, Wolf Messing claims to find himself face-to-face with Joseph Stalin, the dictator of the Soviet Union.

Stalin basically says, you and I both know why I'm here. The USSR is gearing up to join World War II. And let's be honest, whether you believe in magic or not, if you're going into battle, wouldn't you rather have a psychic on your side? Wolf doesn't really have much of a choice in the matter. Refusing Stalin could mean being sent back to Nazi-occupied Poland. So with his life on the line, Wolf agrees to team up with the Soviets. But even though Einstein, Freud, and Gandhi allegedly believe in Wolf's powers, Stalin still has some lingering reservations. Before he can really trust Wolf, he devises a series of tests.

For the first one, Stalin tells Wolf to use telepathy to steal 100,000 rubles from a bank in Moscow. Now, Wolf is confident in his abilities, but that doesn't mean he's not nervous. He's never had to perform for a dictator before, and the stakes have never been this high. When the government vehicle drops Wolf off at the bank, he's shaking in his boots. He walks inside, flanked by two official witnesses that Stalin hired to make sure there's no funny business. Wolf approaches the front counter where an elderly bank teller stares at him with watery eyes. Wolf doesn't say a single word. He just places an open briefcase on the counter and focuses all of his mental energy on convincing the man to hand over the cash. And the teller does it. He places

stack after stack of bills inside the briefcase without question. Then Wolf and the witnesses walk out, 100,000 rubles richer. Stalin's impressed, but still skeptical. It seems like he thinks Wolf might have tipped the teller off, because he sends the psychic and his official witnesses back to the bank to confront the old man. Wolf places the briefcase back on the counter, opens it up and shows the teller that he'd handed over a fortune without the slightest hesitation. The old man is so horrified by what he's done that he has a heart attack, like an actual heart attack, right there in the bank. Luckily he survives, but obviously he had no idea what happened either.

It turns out, Wolf isn't just telepathically convincing people to do his bidding, he's taking over their minds, causing a total memory blackout in the process. This doesn't just convince Stalin that Wolf is the real deal. It makes it clear that the psychic is indispensable. Stalin's next challenges aren't so much about proving Wolf's abilities as they are about seeing how much he's really capable of. For the second challenge, Stalin gives Wolf what he believes to be an impossible task. Escape a room that's guarded by Soviet police. To Wolf, this is child's play. I mean, he broke out of a Nazi police station years ago. He's taken to a room inside a government office, probably the Kremlin.

There's three different sets of guards with orders to keep Wolf in the building. But the police are no match for Wolf. He uses telepathy to convince every single guard to turn around, and then he slips right out of the building while no one is looking. Clearly, Stalin's got to come up with something more challenging. So instead of asking Wolf to sneak out of a building, he challenges him to sneak into one. In a town just west of Moscow, Stalin has this thing called a dacha. It's sort of like a vacation home. And of course, it's completely surrounded by guards and staffed by members of the Soviet secret police. And Wolf's next assignment is to get inside. This is like

asking a random man in a clown suit to break into the Oval Office. It's ridiculous. Nevertheless, Wolf swallows hard and tells Stalin he can do it. A few days later, Stalin is sitting in his dacha reading. Wolf stands outside a few hundred feet away. Guards are swarming the yard, covering all the entrances. Wolf realizes that if he wants to get inside, he can't just distract the officers. He's got to trick them. So he comes up with a plan. It'll be his biggest mind control attempt yet, but if it works, it'll be incredible. As Wolf approaches the dacha, he thinks to himself, I am Beria. Lavrentiy Beria is the leader of the Soviet secret police. He's good friends with Stalin and he comes to the dacha pretty frequently. So, just like he did with the train ticket all those decades ago,

Wolf uses all his concentration to convince the guards to see him as Beria. Now, a quick side note, Wolf doesn't look anything like Beria. He's got wild, curly hair and a heart-shaped face. Beria, on the other hand, has straight thinning hair, a square face, and always wears glasses. And yet, the guards are totally fooled. They let Wolf walk right past them. They defer to Wolf like he's their boss because to them, that's exactly what he looks like. Wolf breezes through the front door and into Stalin's study. The dictator looks up from his work and his eyes practically pop out of his head. Stalin knows he has a winner on his hands. At this point, the story gets a little

murky. All I know from Wolf's biographies is that Stalin gives him permission to go anywhere he wants within the Soviet Union. One source says he's embraced by all the USSR's highest authorities. I'll admit the language is vague, but the secrecy kind of suggests that whatever Wolf is up to, it must be pretty serious. Like, if Stalin is so convinced that Wolf has psychic powers, why wouldn't he bring him into the war effort? And interestingly, perhaps Stalin may have listened to some of Wolf's advice. The German army attempts to surprise attack Moscow in 1941, but Stalin is more prepared for the ambush than they expected. He has soldiers at the ready and he manages to ward the Germans off. It's almost like he saw the attack coming. And maybe he did.

In the years after the war, the Soviet Ministry of Defense definitely did study psychic phenomena. According to declassified CIA documents, Wolf himself reportedly ran a covert psychic research program in Moscow, funded by the KGB. And if the CIA was considering this question, we should ask it seriously too. Were Wolf's powers real? I know it sounds unbelievable. His predictions of the future are probably the easiest to dispute. I mean, they could have just been a few lucky guesses. But what about the mind reading?

Remember that ideomotor explanation he was forced to give in the Soviet Union? Wolf always totally denied that he was just reading people's small muscle movements. As Wolf explained it, people's thoughts come into me as pictures. I usually see visual images of a specific action or place. He actually said it was easier for him to read minds while blindfolded because he could focus all his energy on the picture inside his head. As for his ability to control other people's thoughts, even Wolf didn't fully understand how he did that. He just knew he could. And the evidence suggests that, yeah, he could. Now, we should mention that most of the claims about Wolfe's

meetings with historical figures are basically impossible to prove. Some of the stories don't really check out. Like, Einstein and Freud probably wouldn't have been hanging out together when Wolf was a teen. But to be clear, there's not a single source that debunks Wolf's powers. Nobody, not even Einstein, could disprove it. So I have to assume that whatever was going on, it was beyond the realm of our current scientific understanding. But someday that could change. In Wolfe's own words, the time will come when man will understand all these phenomena. There is nothing strange, only what is not yet commonplace. Thanks for listening. I'll be back next week with another episode. For more information on wolf messing, amongst the many sources I used,

I found Psychic Discoveries Behind the Iron Curtain by Sheila Ostrander and Lynn Schroeder extremely helpful to my research. To hear more stories hosted by me, check out Crime Junkie and all AudioChuck originals.