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Professor, Doctor of Medical Sciences A.G. Lee

The experiments of V.L. Durov on suggestion and telepathy on animals 

(source: archive of the journal "Parapsychology and Psychophysics")

Experiments on telepathy on animals are, perhaps, one of the most convincing. That is why, both in our country and abroad, they paid serious attention to the study of extrasensory perception (ESP) of animals.

So, already in 1921, VM Bekhterev, together with the famous animal trainer VL Durov, carried out experiments on mentally suggesting to trained dogs pre-planned actions. Vladimir Nikolaevich Bekhterev attached great importance to these experiments and devoted a large article to their description in the scientific works of the Leningrad Institute of the Brain [1,2,3,8].

Similar experiments on dogs were carried out at the same time in Moscow, in a practical laboratory in psychology, headed by VL Durov, with the participation of one of the pioneers of the study of mental suggestion in the USSR, engineer BB Kazhinsky [4,6,7].

Below is a description of some of the experiments conducted by V.L. Durov. The living, figurative language of the authors is preserved as much as possible in order to convey the atmosphere of the experiments, the enthusiasm of the researchers.

Closely in touch with the world of animals throughout his life, the famous Soviet zoopsychologist, circus artist Vladimir Leonidovich Durov has repeatedly observed in animals (dogs, lions, bears, etc.) the ability to understand a person's thoughts at a distance, to obey his mental orders. He used this agent extensively in training.

The literature contains a lot of interesting facts from the artistic life of V.L. Durov. However, V.L. Durov is not only an artist. Tribune, trainer-innovator, zoopsychologist-thinker, brave discoverer of new ways of human cognition. In fact, he discovered this in 1880, and later studied in all details the amazing ability of the animal to understand (catch, perceive) the mental orders of a person without words and other visible or audible signals.

This discovery by Durov is of invaluable scientific significance for biology, and as it turns out now, for physics.

VL Durov was a pioneer in recognizing the foundations of animal behavior. The method of emotional training he created is a lever for controlling the behavior of animals in the hands of humans.

Let us consider here how this tool can be used to solve parapsychological problems, namely the experimental study of telepathy, one of the forms of extrasensory perception.

It is noteworthy that both in his first observations and in subsequent many years of experimental work, studying the behavior of animals during the transmission of mental suggestion, V.L.Durov attached great importance to the power of the human gaze directed to the eyes of the animal or "somewhere deeper than the eyes - to the brain animal ". More than once he experienced the power of his gaze and was convinced of the "strange" effect of this force on the animal.

In a number of experiments, the animals were deliberately separated from the experimenter; they were in another room of the laboratory at a considerable distance from V.L. Durov (in our understanding, an inductor). Durov made sure that the animal at a great distance perceived his mental transmission. He also established the patterns of such mental transmissions.

So, already by the beginning of 1921 in the zoopsychological laboratory of VL Durov for 20 months, 1278 experiments of mental suggestion (to dogs) were performed, including 696 successful and 582 unsuccessful ones. MGU G.A. Kozhevnikov (a great skeptic in relation to telepathy) and he personally brought to the review of prof. mathematicians of the Moscow State University LK Lakhtin, who confirmed the low probability of randomness of the results obtained: "... the dog's answers were not a matter of chance, but depended on the influence of the experimenters on it." Experiments with dogs have shown one important pattern. To enhance the transmission of mental suggestion to the animal, it is not necessary for the trainer to carry out the transmission. This can be done by another person - an experienced inductor. However, it is necessary that the person knows and applies the transmission technique established by the animal's trainer. It should be noted that the experiments were carried out with dogs that have certain changes in the psyche that occur after special training.

In [7] his methodology of experiments of the experimenter's suggestion of arbitrary mental tasks to animals on motor actions, on the number of acts of barking or sneezing, and other actions of the dog, set according to the mental task, is described.

Here is an example of the methodology of transmitting to an animal a mental "order" for motor actions, told by V.L.Durov in 1922:

"I am alone, suppose with the dog Mars, as they say, face to face. Nobody and nothing bothers us: complete isolation from the outside world. I look into the eyes of Mars, or, better to say, into the depths of the eyes, deeper than the eyes. I produce passes, ie light stroking with your hands on the sides of the head on top of the muzzle and up to the shoulders of the dog, slightly touching the fur. With these actions I force Mars to half-close his eyes. The dog pulls his muzzle almost vertically upward, as if falling into a trance. My passes choose all the rest of the will of the dog, and in this state it can imagineIt’s like a part of my inner self. A connection or "psychic contact" has already been established between my thoughts and the subconscious of Mars. At the same time, in my imagination, I try to clearly imagine the object of transmission of thought, sensation, order: an object or action (and not imagining words, as such, denoting them). I look through my eyes, as it were, into the dog's brain and imagine, for example, not the word "go", but a motor action, with the help of which the dog must perform a mental task. At the same time, I vividly imagine the direction and the very path the dog should follow, as if imprinting in my brain and in its brain the distinctive features along this path in the order of their location along the dog's forthcoming path (these can be cracks, a stain on the floor, an accidental cigarette butt or another small object, etc.) and finally the place where the conceived object lies, and especially the object itself in its distinctive features (in shape, color, position among other objects, etc.).

Only now I give a mental "order", as if a push in the brain: "go" - and step aside, opening the way for the dog to fulfillment. The half-drowsy consciousness of the dog, in which the thought, picture, motor action, etc., the "order" I have transmitted, is imprinted, makes it fulfill the perceived task unquestioningly (without internal resistance), as if it had fulfilled its most natural impulse, received from its own central nervous system. And after the performance, the dog shakes itself off and clearly rejoices, as if from the consciousness of his successfully fulfilled intention. "

Six experiments on the trained dog Pikki (1919) described by Academician V.M. Bekhterev are classic in the study of telepathy and suggestion. In four experiments, V.L. Durov was the transferor of the academician's assignment, and in the other two, the academician himself, and he did not tell anyone about his mental assignment before the experiment. The experiments took place in the Leningrad apartment of V.M. Bekhterev, that is, in an environment unusual for the experimental animal. The experiments were also attended by doctors who worked together with Bekhterev.

Omitting the details of the first two experiments, let us focus on the description of the rest. Here is what V.M. Bekhterev writes:

"The third experience is as follows: the dog must jump onto the round pre-piano chair and hit the right side of the piano keyboard with its paw. And here is Pikki's dog in front of Durov. He looks intently into her eyes, clasps her muzzle with his palms for a while. A few seconds pass, within which Pikki remains motionless, but being freed, he swiftly rushes to the piano, jumps up on a round chair, and from the blow of his paw on the right side of the keyboard, several treble notes ring out.

In the fourth experiment, the dog, after a well-known procedure of suggestion, had to jump onto one of the chairs that stood against the wall of the room, and then, having lifted it onto a round table next to it, scratch with its paw a large portrait that was hanging on the wall above the table. It would seem that this complex action is not so easy for a dog to perform. But Pikki exceeded all our expectations. After the usual procedure (Durov stared intently into the eyes of the dog for several seconds) Pikki jumped off his chair, ran to a chair against the wall, then with the same speed jumped onto a round table, and, rising on his hind legs, took out a portrait with his right forelimb and began to scratch it with claws ...

If we take into account that both last experiments were carried out on an assignment known only to me and Durov, and that I was always close to Durov and relentlessly watched both him and the dog, then there could be no doubt about the dog's ability to do what any complex actions.

To have complete confidence, I decided to do a similar experiment myself, without telling anyone what I was thinking. My task was for the dog to jump onto a round chair standing nearby and remain on it. Concentrating on the shape of the round table, I look the dog in the eyes for a while, after which it rushes headlong away from me and starts running around the table. The experiment failed and I understood why: I focused exclusively on the shape of the round chair, losing sight of the fact that my concentration should begin by moving the dog towards the round chair and then jumping on it. In view of this, I decided to repeat the experiment without telling anyone about my mistake and correcting myself in the above sense. I sit the dog down on a chair again, clasp its muzzle with both palms, begin to think that it should run up to a round chair and, jumping on it, sit down. Then I let go of the dog and before I have time to look back, it is already sitting on a round chair. Pikki guessed my "order" without the slightest difficulty ...

I do not make any special explanations for the experiments carried out. In themselves, these experiences are so striking that they deserve attention regardless of one or another commentary. The conditions in which the experiments were carried out exclude any assumption that the animal, when suggesting, uses any signs unnoticed by the experimenter himself. As for the posof the last two experiments, they not only dispel all doubts on this score, but give grounds for admitting the possibility of transferring the mental impact of one individual to another with the help of some kind of radiant energy. "

At the beginning of the century, when radio had just been discovered, telepathy was explained as the result of electromagnetic interactions between objects. Researchers built shielded chambers (Faraday cages) and intensively searched for the frequency range in electromagnetic radiation that underlies telepathy. The fashion did not bypass the laboratory of Durov, where they also carried out such experiments together with the engineer B.B. Kazhinsky, who is actively developing the electromagnetic hypothesis of telepathy - as biological radio communication.

Experiments were carried out in Durov's laboratory to test his hypothesis. Several screening chambers were built for animal testing.

On the basis of these experiments, BB Kazhinsky came to the conclusion that the basis of telepathy is electromagnetic radiation. Here, however, it should be recalled that prof. L.L. Vasiliev showed in his experiments that the shielding of the experimenter from the subject by the metal does not interfere with the realization of the telepathic phenomenon (see, for example, [5]).

Research work in the laboratory of V.L. Durov went on intensively. By the time of the death of V.L. Durov (08/03/1934), the number of experiments of mental suggestion to animals exceeded 10 thousand, a wealth of experimental material had been accumulated.

Here is a description of the experiment staged with the participation of Academician Bekhterev in the zoopsychological laboratory in 1926.

The task consisted in the fact that the experimenter V.L.Durov must give the dog Mars a mental "order" to bark a certain number of times. VL Durov is together with other employees in the laboratory hall. Prof. AV Leontovich takes the dog to another room, separated from the hall by two intermediate rooms. AV Leontovich tightly closes the doors between these rooms in order to achieve complete sound isolation of the dog from the experimenter.

VL Durov begins the experiment. VM Bekhterev hands him a double folded sheet of paper, on which the well-known number 14 is written to Bekhterev alone. Looking at the sheet, VL Durov shrugged his shoulders. Then he took a pencil out of his blouse pocket, wrote something on the back of a piece of paper and, hiding the paper and pencil in his pocket, proceeded to act. With his arms folded across his chest, he stares ahead of him.

Five minutes pass. VL Durov in a free pose sits on a chair. Following this, AV Leontovich appears, accompanied by a dog and makes the following message: “Coming with me to the far room, Mars lay down on the floor. Once, Mars lay down on the floor again. ”I was already thinking that the experiment was over and was about to leave the room with it, when suddenly I saw: Mars rose again on its front paws and again barked exactly seven times.

Having listened to him, V.L. Durov hastily took out a piece of paper from his shirt pocket and handed it to Leontovich. Everyone saw on one side of the sheet the number 14, on the other there were signs added by Durov's hand: 7 + 7. Excitedly, the great tamer explained: Vladimir Mikhailovich (Bekhterev) gave me the task of inspiring Mars to bark 14 times. But you know that I myself do not recommend transmitting the number of barks more than seven. I decided: in my mind, split the given number in half - as if into two tasks, and conveyed the sensation of barking, first seven times, and then, after a pause, seven more times. It was in this order that Mars barked. "

Everyone was stunned by what they saw. Even Prof. GA Kozhevnikov was forced to admit that "it turned out exactly as if the telegraph Morse code was transmitted: seven points, a pause and seven more points."

Another example of an experiment to transmit VL Durov's mental "orders" to the Mars dog:

In addition to V.L.Durov, professors A.V. Leontovich, G.A. Kozhevnikov, G.I. Chelpanov and the zoologist I.A.Lev were present at the experiment. BBKazhinsky kept a protocol record of the course of experiments. The experience in question was very important from the point of view of proving not only the perception by Mars of the mental information transmitted to him by V.L. Durov, but also circumstances no less remarkable in another fundamental respect. It consists in the fact that having perceived a thought, sensation, emotion from the outside, the animal experiences it as its own and acts as it does under the command of its normal impulse sent by its own brain through the elements of its nervous system to one or another executive apparatus his own body.

Many have questioned this very important detail in the phenomena of telepathy. For example, Prof. G.A. Kozhevnikov, generally inclined to skepticism in matters of transmitting mental information at a distance, argued that if a trained dog perceives something during the experiments of mental suggestion, then it fulfills the task received only as an artist performing his role in the play. At the same time, all the movements of the dog are, as it were, bonded and alien to her,devoid of her own emotions and experiences.

For V.L.Durov, such a statement sounded like a monstrous distortion of reality. Despite the late hour (it was well after midnight), he immediately offered to do the experiment and with excitement began to discuss the conditions for its conduct.

With general agreement, it was decided to use a dog named Mars. The experiment had to take place under unusual conditions for the animal. Durov himself suggested that G.A. Kozhevnikov walk around the laboratory together with a snail in order to find some unusual object to be carried by the dog. Both left the laboratory hall (where B.B. Kazhinsky with the dog Mars remained) into the spacious lobby.

He watched them through the crack of the half-open door. After standing for a minute, Durov and Kozhevnikov looked around the objects in a sequential order: at one wall of the lobby there is a cabinet with a rag on it, next to it, a glacier, a mirror table with numerous headdresses on it, at the other - a high round telephone table. On the table is a telephone set and three subscribers' books of different years of publication and of different sizes, one of which was thicker than the others, more like notepads. Neither Durov nor Kozhevnikov came close to any of these tables and did not touch objects. Having chosen the object of the future assignment (the phone book, as it turned out later), both of them returned to the hall.

Here is a record of the course of this experiment, made in more detail in a special act dated November 17, 1922, signed by V.L. Durov and B.B. Kazhinsky:

"On the initiative of V.L.Durov, Prof. G.A.Kozhevnikov gives V.L.Durov the task of suggesting to the dog Mars the following actions: go out of the living room to the front hall, go to the table with the telephone set, pick up the address phone book in his teeth and bring it It was proposed by Prof. Kozhevnikov at first to close the door to the hallway and force Mars to open it, but this proposal was rejected and put aside. The experiment began by suggesting VL Durov to Mars in the usual way. The door to the hallway was opened. with his gaze Mars rushed to the middle of the room (i.e. the task was not completed.) VL Durov sits Mars back on a chair, holds his face in his hands, fixes and releases for half a minute. close (i.e. the task has not been completed).

For the third time, V.L. Durov sits Mars on a chair and after half a minute releases him again. Mars rushes to the front, rises on its hind legs by the cabinet, but not finding anything on it, goes down, goes to the mirror table, again rises on its hind legs, looking for something on the mirror table, and although there were various objects lying there, it descends again, without taking anything, he goes to the telephone table, rises on his hind legs, takes out a telephone book with his teeth and brings it into the living room. In addition to the telephone book, on the same table there were also alphabet books and a telephone set.

Despite two failed attempts, the researchers found the experiment a brilliantly successful one. During the experiment, everyone was in the living room. The dog was alone in the front. Her actions were watched by prof. Kozhevnikov through the crack of the open door. VL Durov was in the living room out of sight of the dog. "

Later, in the book "Animal Training" Durov wrote about one of the cases: Suppose that a combination reflex is established, often repeated (landing in a chair, fixation) makes the dog jump off the chair and want to do something. Suppose that I gave her the right direction by an involuntary movement. With a guess, the dog guessed (seeing the half-open door and being turned back if he wanted to close it) that it was necessary to enter another room through it, but as for the further behavior of Mars, I cannot make any assumptions. This is where the mysterious part begins. There was no one in the adjoining room. The dog could not see us. Prof. Kozhevnikov watched through the half-open slot and saw how Mars passed by the mirror with things lying on it, past the glacier, another table with things and, finally, saw how Mars approached the telephone table, took the conceived one from three books. I ask myself the question: can prediction play any role in this case? Couldn't Mars have guessed to perform the task from previous similar actions? After all, this experiment with Mars was performed for the first time, when a dog was encouraged to enter another room and perform a task there. She could see the books lying on the telephone table every day, but she never had to take them in her teeth. I cannot find an answer to all these questions. I just can't admit a coincidence, because the tasks were not homogeneous, unless the established reflex was to be apportioned, i.e. take and bring, but this habitual jagged action in some experiments on a mental task was modified. "

The opinion of V.L.Durov that an emotional reflex instilled in an animal evokes in an animal its own association of ideas and movements is especially important for explaining the "mechanics" of that sequence of a series of animal movements that leadsin the end, to the fulfillment of the mental task of the experimenter. Here is a very curious description of the suggestion of a motor reflex to a person - to a colleague of V.L. Durov - B.B. Kazhinsky:

"- Vladimir Leonidovich, you are good at transmitting a mental suggestion. Make me mentally make this or that movement. I wonder what I will be aware of or feel at the same time. But will it succeed?"

- It's nothing, just sit still! - Durov answered resolutely, and we got down to business.

I remained motionless for no more than two minutes and saw my famous interlocutor, without looking at me, take a piece of paper and hastily wrote something on it with a pencil, which he took from the pocket of his favorite black velvet blouse. He put the note on the table with the inscription down, covering it with his palm, and put the pencil in place. Then Durov began to look at me. I didn’t feel anything much, only suddenly, mechanically, I touched the fingers of my right hand to the scalp behind my ear. Before I could lower my hand, VL Durov handed me a piece of paper on which I read with amazement: "Scratch behind the right ear." Struck by what had happened, I asked:

- How did you do that?!

- Imagine that behind my right ear there is a severe irritation of the skin and that I need to raise my hand and scratch this place. I tried to imagine the feeling of itching behind the ear most sharply. That's all. What did you feel?

- Of course, I did not feel any transmission. I just felt like scratching behind my ear.

Durov triumphed:

- This is the most remarkable thing that you reproduced the movement I thought out, as your own association of ideas and movements, as an order from your own brain, and besides, of a double nature: you felt the effect of irritation of the skin behind the ear, and performed the movement to ear, exactly to the right, as I intended. "

VL Durov's books [6,7] contain a lot of interesting observations. Many conclusions of the researchers of the laboratory of zoopsychology V.L. Durov concerning the study of telepathy and suggestion and especially their mechanisms are controversial.

After the death of Durov, no one anywhere in the world conducted research of such a scale, depth and systematicity on telepathy and other manifestations of extrasensory perception in animals. As a last resort, I am not aware of such information. It's a pity!

I would like to renew the interest of trainers and simply amateurs in the unusual abilities of animals. The above descriptions show that the experiments do not require any sophisticated state-of-the-art equipment and violence against animals.

Data of fundamental importance for science can be obtained as a result of observing the behavior of your beloved animals, thoughtfully set conditions of experiment and training.

Of particular interest is the development of suggestion methods. As VL Durov noted, the most interesting thing is that both the animal and the person reproduce the movements conceived by the person as their own associations of ideas and movements, as an "order" from their own brain. Undoubtedly, the study of suggestions on animals will allow a deeper understanding of the mechanisms of extrasensory perception.

Literature

1. Bekhterev V.M. On experiments on the "mental" influence on the behavior of animals // Questions of the study and education of the individual. -Pg.:, 1920, Issue 2, p. 230-265.

2. Flexor P. Experiments of the so-called mental suggestion to animals // Ibid, p.272.

3. Ivanov-Smolensky A.G. Experiments of mental influence on animals // Ibid, p. 266.

4. Kazhinsky BB Biological radio communication. -Kiev: Publishing house of the Academy of Sciences of the Ukrainian SSR, 1962.

5. Vasiliev L.L. An experimental study of mental suggestion. -L .: Publishing house of Leningrad State University, 1962.198s.

6. Durov V.L. My four-legged and feathered friends. Zoopsychological sketch. -M.:, 1914.92s.

7. Durov V.L. Animal training. Psychological observations of animals trained according to my method (40 years of experience). New in zoopsychology. -M.:, 1924.427s.

8. Bekhterev V.M. About the experiments of mental influence on the behavior of animals. Presentation made at the conference on the study of the brain and mental activity. November 1919.

Parapsychology and psychophysics. - 1993. - No. 2. - P.6-14.