Lehal Library

Certainly similar phenomena and resulting questions regarding telepathy had already interested earlier psychical researchers in the West before World War I -- and much has been published along those lines. Unfortunately, it is not recorded whether Kazhinski was familiar with the early Western research. It's reasonable to assume that he may have been somewhat familiar, and certainly the East European countries and Russia had long-standing "psychic" traditions and interests of their own. But it's equally reasonable to assume that he may not have been very familiar. He was still a young student, and his age was against him having become thoroughly familiar with Western telepathy research. As it was to be, he never emulated Western psychic research concepts or patterns nor those of parapsychology which arose in the mid-1930s. And so if he was familiar with any of those concepts, he, as well as others, must have rejected them on theoretical principles. In any event, on that August day of 1919, Bernard Kazhinski, in his own words, "vowed" he "would solve" the mystery of what had linked his own perceiving mind with the minds of the mother and his dying friend. In this, Kazhinski was not then unlike others elsewhere in the world. For many had encountered such mysteries, and many had tried to explain them and how they were possible.