Stoyu Stoev About Baba Vanga – New Knowledge Of The World
Assoc. Prof. Stoyu Stoev, philosopher
The philosopher Stoyu Stoev had several unforgettable meetings with Baba Vanga. A kind and considerate man (already deceased) in 1999 he took up with great excitement my suggestion to lay out his views on the phenomenon that the prophetess represented, moreover he had already met her at the time, led by these exact intentions. To a philosopher like him, Baba Vanga is unquestionably an interesting phenomenon that raises a number of questions. The hypothesis, which Associate professor Stoyu Stoev develops and which I will lay out here, is similar to the one of Professor Obretzova – emotionally tinted, mixed with a lot of personal impressions and revelations, which makes it all the more accessible to readers.
After my work on Freudism, the interest in psychological phenomena became increasingly more interesting for me in my philosophical and scientific research. At that time Baba Vanga’s popularity had already extended beyond national borders.
Having grown up in a small village, I knew since childhood that in each town or village there were individuals who could fortune tell and predict the destinies of people, know their diseases and misfortunes, weddings and successes; there were others who could perform rituals against evil eyes and heal with herbs. Some had regional popularity. My own grandma used to remove curses and prevent spells.
In 1972 during a trip to Petrich where I was giving lectures I passed by Baba Vanga’s house. There was a queue of people waiting at her front door to meet her. On the fence there was a plate which read “Scientific Associate”. It was placed there by d-r Georgi Lozanov, director of the Institute for Suggestology at that time. This inspired me to seek contact with this incredible woman and to try to find some explanation on the phenomenon that she represented.
Observations and facts
The facts from my meetings with and observations over Baba Vanga are quite overwhelming. They reflect the multitude of destinies of the people that visited her – their pains and troubles, regardless of their social and cultural background. (One could always hear similar stories on the train to and from Petrich). The impressions people had from meetings with the prophetess were highly contradictory – from opinions that she could do miracles, to complete negation of her abilities, from “everything she told me was true” to “she couldn’t guess anything”. There were rumours, even among some of my colleagues, that she had an arsenal of researchers, who informed her about a person’s details, before she accepted him or her.
I believe the latter is completely absurd. Those waiting to meet her are usually numb and silent with trouble and pain. I had sometimes asked people what had brought them there, only to hear Baba Vanga tell them later things which even they did not suspect. But since the facts are a lot and already well-known, I will give you just a few examples to illustrate my point.
During one of my visits, the first one that was accepted by the prophetess was an exhausted elderly woman, dressed all in black. She was from Vratsa. The woman cried as she spoke: “My son emigrated to Western Berlin two years ago and I haven’t heard from him since then. All my other relatives have died. Please tell me – is my son alive, is there any reason for me to continue to live?”
Baba Vanga concentrated and answered: “I can see a fresh grave. Someone was buried 15 days ago.”
“This is the grave of my younger son. He died two weeks ago”, the old woman said, “I am asking about my other son, the older one…”
“I can see another grave”,Baba Vanga continued. The woman went pale. ” But it is a very old one” and she pointed out the exact years. “This is my husband’s grave” the woman recovered her composure. “Tell me about my son, the older one, he…”
“Aah! Here he is!” Baba Vanga cried out. “I can see him, he’s alive, he is walking in a grey suit”. The woman threw herself at Baba Vanga’s feet and started kissing her hands, crying with happiness.
“Only he’s not in Western Berlin, but in another city – M… M.. Munich. And he’s not alone, there is a woman and a child with him.” The old woman was already crying with happiness at her feet.
A military man from Dimitrovgrad came in. He was bringing a sugar cube from his wife who wasn’t well. Baba Vanga touched the sugar and shouted: “Your wife is not sick, she is stubborn and very nervous! You are sick. Go to a doctor to check your kidneys, because you are not well. And your wife should go on a vacation.”
A young man asked her if he should undergo an operation, as the doctor advised him. “Yes”, Baba Vanga answered, “but your problem is not where your doctor thinks it is. Years ago you fell from a motorcycle, didn’t you. You injured a spine vertebra. It healed, but the pain now is coming from the same place. Tell your doctor to pay attention to your spine”.
Baba Vanga and her ability to see
After Baba Vanga finished receiving people, we were left alone to talk. She told me about her difficult childhood, about her youth, spent in misery and poverty, about the blizzard and her going blind. To the question, when she started “to see” and to prophesy, she answered:
“In 1941, when there was war, there were partisans and people started to disappear. They came and asked me about missing people. The first time was during a dream. I dreamt that one of my neighbours was fussing about her missing dress. And I could see the dress in the chest of drawers. In the morning, I went to her house and saw her angry. I asked her what was going on. “I am looking for a dress, who knows where I’ve put it, I can’t find it.”
“Did you check in the chest of drawers?” She startled, opened the chest and found the dress inside. I told her that I saw that in my dream. This happened again and again, people started talking about it and coming up to me for help. Most often for missing people. Gradually, I started seeing things when I was awake as well. When someone came up to me and asked me – all at once I could “see” – the place, the person, what he was dressed in, if he was alive, what he was doing – and I simply told them what I saw.”
“And how do you see these things – as if on a photograph or moving?”, I asked.
“I see them moving. When a person enters my house and I take the sugar cube, that they were supposed to put under their pillow, sleep over, and bring to me – I start seeing images – they move from left to right. These are live images of places, people, whole events, accidents. Sometimes they are so many and moving so fast that I can hardly manage to tell what I am seeing, and I can’t stop them. They pass and then disappear. That is why I ask people what they have come up to me for – to seek advice for an illness, for something lost, to get a job, to conceive a child – this way I can tell them what is of interest to them. Otherwise I can miss something important. And they blame me for asking questions. I only tell what I can see. I don’t make it up. Sometimes a person would come to me, but I can’t see anything and I send them away. Tell them I can’t help them. And they get angry, say they were waiting for months on end, have paid to see me. But there is nothing I can do – when I can’t see anything, I can’t lie, can I!
“And the names of the dead and the living, where do you know them from?”
“The dead tell me their names. They say: tell him that Peter, Nikola, Stoyanka, are asking this or that, want this or that… Sometimes I can see only the first letter of the name.”
“OK, and what about voices – can you hear words, talking, question, answers?”
“I can hear voices inside my head. Sometimes they are so loud, that my head hurts, as if it would burst. Especially when it is about something bad – about an illness, death, an accident. I know that I shouldn’t tell the person about this, but the voice is banging in my head: “Tell them, tell them!” In such moments I turn to one side and say the thing very quietly, so the person won’t hear it, but so that I could let it go out of me. Otherwise I would burst.”
“Perhaps this is very tiresome for you”
“It is! Can you imagine how much pain and suffering passes through my head for a day – the destinies of 40-50 people.”
“Didn’t you decide to receive not more than 25 people a day?”
“I did, but no one sticks to this! Apart from these 25 people, another 25 would come with recommendation from someone! And I am hardly managing. If you can, please see if you can help reduce this number of people.”
“Baba Vanga, there are foreigners coming up to you as well – Americans, Greeks, Russians, Germans – you can’t speak their language, how do you know what their relatives are telling you?”
“They speak their own language, and somehow I know what they are telling me – not the wards, but the meaning, and I retell it all in my language, then they translate it.”
“Are the images of the dead people transparent?”
“Why would they be transparent? I can see them as they were – height, clothes, color of the eyes and hair, walking, I can see their wounds or scars… “
“And how do you see the future, something which hasn’t happened yet?”
“I see an image – of an illness, of death, an accident, a wedding, children, a new job… It doesn’t matter if it was past, present or future. To me everything is equally alive, and whatever I see, I tell you about it, only being careful not to scare you.”
“Do you conjure up these images and visuals, or do they come up to you?”
“I’m not conjuring up anything, they come up to me on their own. When a person enters the room, the images of his or her relatives appear. I have had cases, when I was sleeping and a voice would wake me up. “Go and tell the man who is waiting at the door about his child”. I want to sleep, it’s 2 o’clock at night. But the the voice insists to go! I get up, open the door and indeed there is a man waiting there. I tell him about his child and he goes away. Only then can I go back to sleep. Sometimes, there would be some holiday – with music, songs, celebrations. I would like to go out, be among people, listen to the music. But someone would pass by me and and the images would start moving in front of my eyes, and the souls would shout: “Tell him this, tell him that”. I am never left at peace, I want to run home and hide inside. This is all very tiresome for me. Only at the Rupite can I recover.”
Baba Vanga didn’t like all the noise around her name, that’s why she shunned interviews, press, television. After prof. Nikola Shipkovensky together with Nevena Tosheva made their documentary Baba Vanga complained to me:
”They put some wires on my head, turned on lights, machines buzzed, something started banging in my head, as if it would burst. No, no more experiments, no more photoshoots! Two weeks after that I couldn’t recover.”
But she realized her own uniqueness and had self-esteem that allowed her to be on personal terms with everyone, regardless of their position or social status. She felt that she was a representative of something greater, something which was above all earthly matters. And nevertheless she was very modest. I have never heard her boast with her capabilities, as many of those who have pronounced themselves as her followers do nowadays. I have never heard from her words of envy or malice, when someone told her about the achievements of others who have pronounced themselves as her successors. She would say: “Good, good, let there be others as well who can work and help”.
Sometimes, in order to promote themselves, someone would pronounce themselves as her successor – as if pointed out by Baba Vanga herself. I would ask her if it was true. and she would answer surprised: “How could I tell? This is all God’s will.” Nevertheless, I have met at least a dozen of such “successors”.
Baba Vanga was always very considerate towards the beliefs of people. People would come to her from different nationalities, with different political and religious beliefs. She never blamed them. A colleague from section “Atheism” visited her once. She politely invited him: “I know that you are my enemy, but sit down here and listen up!” Then she told him all about his family and his professional status, without reproaching him or defending herself. To believers she recommended to go to church, to make a pledge, to pray, to make a ritual sacrifice.
Baba Vanga was a great patriot. She never denied her Macedonian descent, but she regarded it as part of Bulgaria, and the Bulgarian people. If someone came up to her for advice on immigrating she would rebuke him and expose him in front of everyone. She didn’t spare the mother from Vratsa either, the one whose son had immigrated to Germany. “You didn’t bring him up well” she accused her.
The Baba Vanga Phenomenon
What is the attitude of science towards the phenomenon that Baba Vanga and others like her represent? To sum up – negative. And this is not valid for Bulgaria only (until recently due to ideological prejudice), but globally as well. The reason – the discrepancy between the established methods and means for research in rational science and the specific nature and uniqueness of the phenomenal capabilities we see in Baba Vanga and in some other individuals. Incapable to provide whatever explanation for these phenomena, it is easiest for science to deny their reality, declare them as mysticism, superstition and ignore them.
It was not like that in the past. The wise men from ancient times who studied science were all at once priests, scientists, astronomers and astrologists, physicians and healers, mathematicians and philosophers… Many of them had extrasensory capabilities themselves and used them in their studies.
Only after the Renaissance did the rational approach in science acquire priority. Having demonstrated extraordinary success in natural and technical sciences, it overshadowed entirely the other, spiritual types of knowledge – art, esoterics. But rational knowledge is limited and one-sided. It aims to discover the common, the unchanging, the repetitive pattern in different entities and classifies it in concepts, categories and laws. At the same time, this approach fails to provide understanding of the unique, the emotional, the irrational. Nowadays, the devastating consequences of this one-sided approach are becoming ever more obvious.
The phenomenal capabilities of Baba Vanga are of a different nature and have unique characteristics. They are more in line with poetry, music, fine art and any other types of creativity. They have a spontaneous and dynamic character – they are not repetitive, they are difficult to study, observe and analyse. It is not accidental that in ancient times these capabilities were attributed to Gods and muses; Baba Vanga herself called them “God’s work”.
Naturally, science, as it is now, having at its disposal the current instrumentarium of scientific methods, is not capable of studying thoroughly and explaining the essence of extrasensory capabilities and phenomena. The experiment of prof. Shipkovensky proved that as well. The technical equipment he used for making an encephalogram of Baba Vanga was so coarse and inadequate that it completely upset her emotionality within two weeks – as if working on electronic apparatus with blacksmith tongs.
But today, with the development of microelectronics and molecular biology, it is more and more often that scientists try to acquire an insight into these types of phenomena through more modern methods. Especially, having in mind the already established concept for the corpuscular-field character and energy-informational interaction of objects in the Universe.
The old concept of the ether is replaced with the concept of vacuum in contemporary science, but not in its everyday meaning of “emptiness”, but in the meaning of space filled with powerful energy, where micro objects appear and fall apart spontaneously. The hypothesis of A. Ahatrin and Yu. Tatour of the micro leptonic gas (also having corpuscular and field nature), which moves about with speed greater than that of light and overcomes any screens and distances, provide methods for explaining the transition of information with people with phenomenal capabilities.
The experiments of the American scientist Bird with plants (conducted in Russia) became widely popular. Using a set ot fine sensors attached to the leaves the scientist managed to prove their ability to transmit and receive information and, subsequently – to react to the presence and actions of people and other living creatures.
I would also like to mention the experiments of V. Kazancheev with living cells proving the transmission of information on a cellular level. All living creatures are made of cells and can therefore transmit information on a cellular level. Humans are also part of this world and as living creatures we are made of tens of billions of living cells. Why would we then limit information only to that perceived through the sensory organs? The latter is dressed in words and reaches the mind. It is indeed clear and precise, the rational knowledge can work with it. And the rest information, received by the cells and stored in the organism is enormously vast both in volume and diversity. It cannot be consciously understood, but its data is also used and manifested (through intuition and the sixth sense) and it plays a vital part in ordinary life, especially in critical situations and creative processes.
The ability to receive and use extrasensory information is innate in every human being, but the difference is in the degree to which this can be done, and it all depends on the individual – some are more sensitive, others – less so. In ancient times, when man lived closer to nature this information played a vital part in his life. People with greater sensitivity were chosen as children to undergo special education and became priests and shamans. Even today, these capabilities are more common in people who live closer to nature – shepherds, sailors. The rest, closed off in their concrete buildings, rely primarily on their sensory input. And it is not surprising that extrasensory capabilities often appear or come to life after a shocking event (like the blizzard in Baba Vanga’s case) and more often in people who are less educated and thus are less prone to use strong logic.
What is specific and very favourable in Baba Vanga’s case is that she has high adaptability. This enables her to adapt to e person’s transmission and receive information on the problems that are of interest to them as soon as they enter her home.
Another characteristic thing for Baba Vanga is the use of sugar cubes. Science confirms that information can be transmitted and preserved not only from living entities but also from non-organic objects, especially such with crystal stucture, like sugar, precious metals, ornaments and others with which the person was in contact. That is why Baba Vanga says – when the person shows up or when I take the sugar cubes, images start to appear.
About dead people she says that they don’t disappear, but continue to exist; they appear in front of her and she can talk to them. The preservation of the soul after death is a concept that is supported not only by religion and esoteric, but also by a many representatives of science. Nowadays, the belief that the psyche is not only a spiritual image, but an energy-informational field structure which is relatively self-sufficient, stable and does not disintegrate after the death of the body. Teilhard de Chardin and academician V. Vernadsky coined the term “noosphere” to designate the space where these structures are preserved and one could establish contact with them through their wave transmission.
As far as the future is concerned, for things that have not happened yet, or regarding the past, Baba Vanga used to say: “There is no past, no future, all is one. I can see it as if it is happening now”. Doesn’t this resemble Immanuel Kant’s belief from several centuries ago that the concepts of time and space are created by the human mind for the practical purposes of people in their everyday life. Within the Universe they have no real value – everything there is in constant fusion and transition.
According to Einstein’s Theory of relativity time and space are also relative values that depend on the mass, energy, speed of the object and the position of the observer. In a Universal aspect these concepts relate to life just like the laws of quantum physics relate to those of Newton’s physics.
There are multiple scientific facts, theories, hypothesis and observations, that justify building a new image of the world in which the seemingly supernatural capabilities of some people (like the fortunetelling, prognostics, telepathy, biodiagnostics etc.) increasingly lose their veil of mysticism and take on their deserved place among natural phenomena. Baba Vanga may be perceived as a saint by people, but to science she is one truly unique but entirely natural phenomenon that is yet to be studied and explained.
Years ago, Lyudmila Zhivkova promoted the idea of creating a special institute at the Bulgarian Academy of Science that would specifically study such phenomena. Preparation was done, but after her death in 1980 the idea was abandoned. I want to emphasize once again that this can only happen with the support of a new, revived science that can transform its scientific instrumentarium – methods, means, equipment – in order to be more adequate to the specifics of these phenomena. We are at the threshold of a new synthesis between the scientific and the esoteric that will enrich and complement both, leading to a fuller understanding of the diversity and richness of our reality.
The phenomenon that Baba Vanga represents remains a challenge to science that is yet to undergo a revolutionary change in knowing and explaining the world.
Article Source
The excerpt for this article was taken from The Secret of Baba Vanga by Zheni Kostadinova
About The Author
Zheni Kostadinova graduated Philosophy at the Sofia University “St. Kliment Ohridski”. She has worked as an editor at the student TV show “Ku-Ku”, and as a reporter at the National Radio “Horizon”. For over 15 years she is a columnist at “Weekly Trud” newspaper writing about esoteric and psychology. In the same newspaper she is maintaining a page on literature. Zheni Kostadinova is the author of some of the most popular books written on Baba Vanga including “Baba Vanga The Prophetess”, “Baba Vanga Predictions”, “The Secret of Baba Vanga”. Her first book was translated into Russian, Polish, Latvian, Serbian, and Albanian. Zheni is a member of the Union of Bulgarian Writers. She had published three books of poetry: “Fire Sticks (2002), “17 love colors” (2007), and “Fig Jam” (2008). In 2012 Zheni has founded the art-house “Kuklite”. It is a doll gallery and a mini-museum located in the old downtown of Sofia. The gallery exhibits different dolls placed in specific categories. Besides the exhibitions, the art-house “Kuklite” also have the priority to work with children from the local schools, so they learn more about the traditions and customs of the different nations. The main idea is to transform the art-house “Kuklite” into a centre for cultural exchange, creative collaboration between representatives of different fields of art, science and philosophy. The art-house will hold meetings with interesting personalities, and will be a place of exhibitions, seminars, workshops, premieres of books and documentary movies, puppetry, and many other great events. The art-house “Kuklite” will also be a place where collectors can display their favourite artefacts and can share the history associated with them.
Zheni Kostadinova Blog – http://www.jenykostadinova.com/
Art-house “Kuklite” website – http://www.arthouse-kuklite.com/
Facebook page – https://www.facebook.com/arthouse.kuklite
