In the hall in front of the screen, my self-confidence disappeared.
– What do you see, what do you feel? – people, who came together, are whispering in groups. The response is silence… The coolness has gone… A strange guy was sitting nearby; he was dressed in such a shabby shirt and pants, in such worn rubber slippers on his bare feet – well, just wayward. He was brought there by very well-dressed people and all the time he was asked what he saw. Neither the guy nor his companions passed into the next stage.
«Feeling that behind the screen» took half an hour. It was possible to approach the screen closely in turn; just you could not touch it. You could use any attributes.
They beat in tambourines, sounded trumpet, burnt candles, laid out cards, listened to shells, looked into the balls – everyone was doing whatever he could. The time was over. Curtain went down. They began to record on camera, what they saw. They were recording directly with six cameras in different parts of the building. After recording, they were immediately taken out into the street.
I saw what was behind the screen using the technique of extrasensory drawing; I consistently asked a question and drew the probability of answering this question from 0 to 100%.
– Is behind the screen a living object? – it turned out «YES» (the line went from NO to YES).
– Is behind the screen a man? – it turned out «YES».
– Is behind the screen a man? – it turned out «YES» (here I was mistaken – there was a woman).
He also asked age, hair color… it was all not important.
So I answered before the camera when it was my time, about three o’clock in the morning. I did not expect the shooting to last so long. I went to the countryside without knowing the result. The secret of the screen was not revealed until the first broadcast of the battle, until September. Well done – kept everyone in the dark.
A few days later I received the call: «You went to the second round – tomorrow is shooting.» In the second round, about 30 people were selected from 200, those who showed results close to reality, as well as especially colorful ones.
The stage «Trunk» was shot quite differently. The hype was no longer visible. We were gathered in groups at the metro station «Airport». My group met at 23:00. They brought us to the factory, placed all ten of us in the dressing room. They took our telephones. The access to the toilet was accompanied. The task was to for everyone to calmly wait for his turn. In our group I saw the finalists: Sheps and Marilyn.
I saw both Anar and Nazira. Marilyn, however, almost immediately went to the shooting. I hardly remember Nazira, she was dozing in a corner in an armchair, it was the night already. She chose the most successful solution: remained invisible in the close-up dressing room until the start of the shooting. The rest failed to remain unnoticed.
We were all stirred by Julia, in my opinion, she is exactly an actress. She was screaming (singing) everywhere: in the park, in the hall during «the Screen», and here, in the dressing room. There was simply no escape from her; she filled the whole space. When she left, thank God, it was rather early; we all breathed a sigh of relief.
– At last.
– Each of us has his own specifics, – Volodya said, an employee of the company, philosophically, thus stopping our jokes.
The winner of the 14th season, Sheps before «The Trunk» sat with his lovely companion in the dressing room on a chair a meter away from me. Behaved with dignity – was silent. Anar was talking more than others and tried to start a talk with them, an exorcist from Azerbaijan, that’s how he introduced himself. Sheps introduced himself as a medium.
– Why are you looking at me like that? – Anar tesed Sheps’s companion.
– How «like that»? – the girl fought back embarrassedly. As for me, she didn’t look at him at all.
– You throw all sorts of nastiness at me, – Anar insisted.
– I do not throw anything.
When Sheps and his companion (he called her «his battery») went to the «Trunk», Anar pulled out a mortar from a package, black powder, dissolved it in water and began to spray the dressing room and part of the corridor.
– They brought the parasites here, now I’ve cleaned everything,» Anar finally calmed down.
Sheps with Anar continued to fight further. In one of the airs, Sheps told: «I would gladly send some from here to hell.» In this «war of psychics,» the victory turned out to be for Sheps. Anar could not show anything interesting and soon dropped out. After the «Battle» on TNT was completed, the plot was shown, where Sheps and Marilyn performed a strange ritual against other psychics: they stuck knives in their photos to deprive them of their power.
– This is a battle, everyone wants to win, let them defend themselves,» Sheps answered to the puzzled question of the presenter.
It was my turn to be tested. I went into the hangar with cars. It was about five in the morning. The hangar is flooded with light. There were thirty cars, fifteen in two rows. My gaze rested on the red «Moskvich», the last in the left lane, his trunk sank. «They are deliberately confusing us, here are bricks,» I smile to myself.
I chose the method of consecutive answers to the questions: «Which car is the person hidden in?» «In the left or in the right row?», «In which set of five cars?»
Then I approached each car and saw the hindrances in ties with Cosmos and the Earth, making the assumption that if there is a person in the car, this interference will be detected, and so I will see it. I was wrong!
When Safronov opened the trunk and there was no one there, I was shocked. I was absolutely sure that I had found a man…
Perhaps I was hit by excessive fuss. Perhaps it was necessary to look for a different approach to solving this problem…
The man in the trunk was in a black car next to the «Moskvich»! We must trust the first sensations! At this stage, we could not immediately see for ourselves whether there is a person in the trunk or not. Unfortunately, we were not shown what car he was in. I believe that this is also the correct approach of the organizers of the show.
So, are the artists or not artists being filmed in the show? They exactly were not artists. I heard conversations in the park, in the hall, in the dressing room. All told how castings were held in the regions, how was their way there, where they stopped. The winners of the regional castings were called to the «Battle» in Moscow, paid for the way, paid for hotel accommodation, issued a temporary registration, were provided with a transfer from the hotel to the place of filming. Participants in the hotel lived next door, drinking tea together. This is all real.
The «Screen» and «The Trunk» tests were brilliantly organized (I did not participate in others). There was a complete secrecy, no hints and at the same time, there was absolute benevolence of the organizers, their sincere desire to «find psychics.» Their sincere joy, when there is a result, when it turns out to be for real. One cannot figure these emotions. All participants were given the opportunity to show their abilities.
The whole schools came there. They were so solemn. They handed out business cards. They told in which programs shown on TV they are filmed. However, they did not pass even the «Screen». I am sure that absolute majority of the participants are real. They were the people, whom no one gave hints, and who acted due to their abilities. There were rumors about the desire to buy a place in the final competition for huge money, and again, according to rumors, this was not possible.
Working in the center of psychological assistance
My friend Volodya suggested that I to work with the group «Magic on the Phone», which was located at the