Lehal Library

As Russia and surrounding countries became Sovietized, everything in them fell directly under State Communist control -- including scientific research projects, plans and agendas. In an increasing direct sense, everything had to be approved from the top downward -- and Kazhinski's controversial research could not have been an exception. As was well-understood, theoretical Communism was anchored in philosophical and scientific materialism. Within those contexts, anything was abhorred which might have metaphysical or superstitional implications. THOUGHT TRANSFERENCE, DISTANT INFLUENCE and MENTAL SUGGESTION AT A DISTANCE contravened materialistic doctrine. And so on the simplistic surface of things, they equated to "Western degradations of the rational mind" -- this a phrase often repeated by many American skeptics. One of the major reasons the American intelligence community had paid no attention to the early Soviet developments was that it was assumed that the ideologically correct Soviet materialists would NOT busy themselves with what equated in the West to psychical research and parapsychology. Anyone who did have such interests would have been considered a political dissident, and so such interests would have been a risky business. Ideological heresy, in fact, for which the punishment was slow death in Siberia or just plain old death saving the transportation costs.