Anatoly Mikhailovich Kashpirovsky (, , born 1939) is a Russian psychotherapist of Ukrainian origin who claims to be a hypnotist and a psychic healer. He enjoyed great popularity in the Soviet Union in the 1980s, including work with the Soviet Olympic weight lifting team. In 1989, as the USSR was crumbling, he made a series of broadcasts on Soviet television in which he attempted mass hypnosis at the behest of the government in an effort to subdue the populace.. Around 2010 he was again performing mass healing rituals in front of large audiences, although he never returned to his former popularity.

Biography

Born in

Khmelnytskyi, Ukraine Khmelnytskyi (, ) is a city in western Ukraine. Located on the Southern Bug, it serves as the administrative centre of Khmelnytskyi Oblast as well as Khmelnytskyi Raion within the oblast. With a population of Khmelnytskyi is the second-large ...

USSR The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

, Kashpirovsky graduated from the Vinnytsia Medical Institute in 1962. After this, he worked for 25 years as a

psychiatrist A psychiatrist is a physician who specializes in psychiatry. Psychiatrists are physicians who evaluate patients to determine whether their symptoms are the result of a physical illness, a combination of physical and mental ailments or strictly ...

in a psychiatric hospital. He became famous in 1989 after several of his sessions with patients were shown on Soviet television. Among other things, he was shown to allegedly remove the pain of two patients who remained conscious during abdominal surgery by addressing them by teleconferencing. The first session was shown on 9 October 1989 on the Central Channel of the USSR. The sessions also called for a restored faith in the government and Communism, in an effort to hypnotize viewers into rallying behind the Soviet cause. In 1993 he was elected to be a Deputy of the

Russian Duma The State Duma is the lower house of the Federal Assembly of Russia, with the upper house being the Federation Council. It was established by the Constitution of the Russian Federation in 1993. The Duma headquarters are located in central Mos ...

References

External links

Kashpirovskiy's personal page
1939 births Living people People from Khmelnytskyi, Ukraine Russian people of Ukrainian descent Liberal Democratic Party of Russia politicians First convocation members of the State Duma (Russian Federation) Faith healers Hypnotherapists Russian television personalities Russian psychics Russian hypnotists Beslan school siege Soviet psychics {{Russia-StateDuma-Deputy-stub