Vladimir Bekhterev

Vladimir Bekhterev is born in the Volga village of Sorali.

Bekhterev publishes his study of suggestion, arguing that ideas and states can be induced in others, the theoretical root of his later telepathy work.

In St Petersburg, Bekhterev founds the world's first integrated psychoneurological institute, a base for his reflexology and his studies of suggestion.

Bekhterev founds the world's first psychoneurological institute in St Petersburg.

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, heading its physiology department and inheriting the 'mental suggestion' research.

With the animal trainer Vladimir Durov, Bekhterev logs over a thousand trials of 'mental suggestion' to dogs; the effect vanishes whenever Durov leaves the room.

With the trainer Durov, Bekhterev logs over a thousand 'mental suggestion' trials on dogs; he concludes thought-transference is unproven.

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.