Excerpts from Perevalov case, 1880s
In the 1880s, Russian psychiatrist Victor Kandinsky published his book “On Pseudohallucinations”. During his practice, he examined the Targeted Individual phenomenon from a psychiatric perspective, interpreting it as mental illness, and gathered many valuable accounts from that era.
In a tragic turn, Kandinsky later experienced the same harassment himself, for a time believing he was being tortured by multiple intelligence services. Eventually, he accepted it as mental illness. Unable to cure it, he took his own life, but not before defining the TI experience as Kandinsky–Clérambault syndrome, which led many TIs to be confined to asylums. This diagnosis later became a precursor to the broader term “schizophrenia”.
The text below recounts the story of one patient, Perevalov, translated directly from the book as recorded by Dr. Kandinsky.
Whatever one believes about the true nature of the phenomenon, Perevalov’s case feels strikingly similar to modern accounts, even though the technology supposedly involved did not exist at the time; not even transistors had been invented.
We invite you to read his story and compare it with contemporary descriptions of the TI phenomenon.
Having decided to bring a major lawsuit against the Obukhov plant, Perevalov believed he had seriously affected the interests of many high-ranking officials in St. Petersburg. In his view, the “tokists” (meaning “users of electric currents”) were nothing more than a corps of secret agents employed by the notorious 3rd Department of Internal Affairs of our former Tzarist Russia. Their purpose was to discover the intentions and thoughts of people considered dangerous to the government and to carry out secret punishments against them.
Yet Perevalov did not consider himself a state criminal. He believed that the “tokists” were assigned to him partly so they could develop their skill, and partly because high officials sought to delay his business with the Obukhov plant.
Perevalov was constantly influenced by thirty tokists of different ranks, divided into several rotating shifts. By applying a galvanic current to his head as early as 1876, they placed him into a “tonic connection”—something like magnetic rapport. Through this link, all his thoughts and feelings were transmitted into the minds of the tokists. Acting through their system, they could also evoke in him various thoughts, feelings, and sensory impressions, as well as sensations related to touch and general bodily feeling.
These invisible pursuers, remaining hidden near him, also reached him with “direct speech”: words spoken aloud through the air, which he perceived normally through his ears.
Perevalov distinguished eight methods used by the tokists:
a) “Direct speech” consisting of abusive phrases, mockery, obscene words, etc. (hallucinated hearing).
b) “Artificial induction of various sensations” on his skin—itching, scratching, tickling, burning, pricking, etc. (tactile hallucinations). He believed the tokist must first produce these sensations in himself—scratching with a pin, burning his hands or face, and so on—to transmit them to him.
c) “Artificial evoking of different feelings”: malaise, reluctance to work, desire, anger, “irrational fears,” etc.
d) “Artificial induction of unpleasant taste and smell”: tasting something disgusting or smelling foul materials in order to transmit the same stench or taste to him. (gustatory and olfactory hallucinations).
e) Tokists fabricated thoughts for him—introducing intrusive, painful ideas. (violent thinking)
f) They forced him to “speak mentally,” even when he resisted. They intensified the innervation of their own tongues while forming phrases internally and then “transferred” this motor impulse to him, so he had to consciously suppress it to avoid speaking aloud.
g) They forcibly set his imagination in motion, making him “see” vivid, colorful mental images with open or closed eyes. He knew these were involuntary creations of his imagination, but because they were disgusting, persistent, and appeared against his will, he believed they were artificially produced. The tokists, he thought, intentionally stimulated their own imaginations to transmit these visions to him.
h) Besides “direct speaking,” they also made him “speak via the current,” meaning he would hear internally what they wanted him to hear—sometimes echoes of words he had heard long ago. (auditory pseudo-hallucinations).
These “tokistic exercises” continued without interruption since 1876. Before 1878 there was no “direct speaking,” because at that time the tokists had been ordered to work in silence.
At first, their main method was inducing “natural fright” in one of the tokists. This fright was instantly transmitted to Perevalov. He did not regard doctors or hospital staff as persecutors, but believed the physicians lacked the power to stop the exercises, which continued day and night.
If he slept lightly, the tokists continued all their methods, even “direct speaking,” because he could still hear sounds around him. When he slept deeply, they continued all methods except direct speech, often creating “voluptuous dreams” or “wet dreams”. To show the course of these exercises, an excerpt from his diary was presented, accompanied by explanatory comments.
“December 11, 1881… On the nights of December 9–11—speaking [hallucinated hearing] with constant imaginations [visual pseudo-hallucinations], staying awake until midnight and rising early. Because of this, the tokists sleep during the day and after lunch, and I must follow the same pattern. During the day—preventing me, as before, from studying French and German, provocations [hallucinated hearing], obscenity [obsessive ideas and pseudo-hallucinated imagery], itching, needle stabs [tactile hallucinations], and induced indifference. During the days of duty of the upper tokist (on the second floor), repeated reminders, by thinking and direct speech, of how I stood before Duke [chief physician], with the claim that he, the tokist, stood the same way at that moment, all supposedly arranged for the civilian official of the Obukhov plant who passed by with Dr. Duke. Before sleep—an imagined penis transmitted by a tokist behind the fence.”
“December 12. All night—half asleep, direct speaking with imaginations [visual pseudo-hallucinations], forcing me to speak in my sleep [violent innervation of the speech apparatus]. I awoke around 3 a.m.; after that—continued harassment with speaking [various pseudo-hallucinations and hallucinated hearing]. Internal hearing [auditory pseudo-hallucinations], causing the tokist below me to become frightened, and when a third tokist added thoughts of murder and fighting [violent thinking], they began to quarrel: “idiot!” “commoner!” [auditory hallucinations].”
“Then came insolence toward me, obscenities, constant speaking [hallucinations] from behind the hospital fence, and similar phrases from the upper and wing tokists, trying to make me laugh with comic retellings (“won a cigar”). In the morning—insults toward me. During tea, the tokists teased each other out of jealousy over seamstresses who had visited earlier [he mistook female medical students for seamstresses].”
“Before lunch—jokes and witticisms [violent thinking and pseudo-hallucinated hearing] from the tokist who believes he benefits me by cheering me up. During dinner—stench of excrement (created by an idiot in the carpentry room using a bottle or paper) [olfactory hallucinations] and thoughts about it [obsessive ideas]. During German lessons, from the street—insinuations and jokes [hallucinated hearing], distracting me; the tokist upstairs—irritating; those in the wing—helping…”
“Then they began playing with my feelings (flattering them and hinting that their exercises would soon be rewarded), followed by their arguments, which I was forced to follow mentally. In the evening, as I wrote a note to my brother asking him to make purchases, the tokist upstairs insisted on Laferme tobacco, and the wing tokist on cigars and Reif’s dictionary; this thrilled the idiot downstairs, who imagined their coming success. When I wrote this in my notebook, another idiot whispered jokingly: ‘Here’s your Reif’s dictionary!’ Later, when I began reading Margot’s French textbook, speaking started during reading, turning into harassment with provocative thoughts that ‘although I gain nothing from them in terms of treatment, they will still continue…’ When I went to bed, they produced voluptuous thoughts for me and created a vivid image of female genitalia before my eyes.”
I hope this was an insightful read.
If we look carefully, we can see that Perevalov doesn’t just experience a set of sensations and events instantly recognizable to most TIs. He also makes the same mistakes modern TIs make.
For example, he believes that tokists use some sort of synchronization with him and burn themselves with cigarettes to cause the same sensations in him. Why does he think this? He was surely trying to figure out how they do it and either assumed this or was told so by the tokists themselves. Still, having no evidence, he is confident in their methods.
Is it so different from today’s experience? We assume it’s modern technology, but have we ever had it hands-on? If not, then how was Perevalov experiencing the same long before the developments and discoveries that should have been necessary?
In that sense, we haven’t gone far from Perevalov, and we must be careful with our conclusions, so our assumptions don’t too easily become our truth.
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