Vladimir Bekhterev

Vladimir Bekhterev is born in the Volga village of Sorali.

Bekhterev publishes the enlarged second edition of his study of suggestion, arguing that ideas and states can be induced in others, the theoretical root of his later telepathy work. A first edition had appeared in 1898 under a different title.

Bekhterev founds Russia's first psychoneurological institute in St Petersburg, approved in June 1907 and opened to students in February 1908.

Bekhterev establishes a Petrograd institute for the study of the brain, later a centre for research into suggestion and 'mental influence'.

Vasiliev joins Bekhterev's brain institute in Petrograd and takes over its physiology laboratory in 1923, continuing the 'mental suggestion' research.

With the trainer Durov, Bekhterev logs over a thousand 'mental suggestion' trials on dogs and reports the results cautiously, without claiming proof of thought-transference.

A day after reportedly examining 'a paranoiac with a withered arm', Bekhterev dies suddenly and is hurried to cremation. The rumour that he was poisoned for diagnosing Stalin has never been proven.

Inheriting Bekhterev's programme, Leonid Vasiliev begins rigorous experiments in 'mental suggestion at a distance' in Leningrad, using hypnosis and electromagnetic shielding.