Grigori Grabovoi is one of the first Russian psychics placed behind prison bars. In the past Russian law-enforcement agencies attempted to start legal proceedings against Kashpirovsky and other “healers” but those attempts failed to bear fruit. Moscow prosecutors charged Grabovoi with fraud last Friday. It means the authorities intend to deal with the “ Messiah” in earnest this time.

There are sections (societies) learning the “Grabovoi theory” in 30 regions of today’s Russia. Specialists estimate that the Grigori Grabovoi Foundation and a number of fronts have cheated simpletons out of millions of rubles. On the average a ticket price for his “lecture” ranged from 250 rubles to 2,000 rubles. Those who showed extra interest could buy a leaflet with the basics of Grabovoi’s teachings or a VHS tape for 2,000 rubles. A course of individual schooling would cost you about 40,000 rubles. By the bye, a three-volume set of collected works of the “prophet” was available for 22,000 rubles. On the whole, a trip to the Russian provinces would make the Grabovoi team richer by nearly 3 million rubles. A Trud correspondent speaks with Sergei Berg, a psychologist, who has studied the Grabovoi phenomenon for several years.

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Grabovoi is a 100 percent schemer. His reported diploma of a paramedic is just a joke. His teachings are one crazy combination of numerology, Christian dogmas, and black magic. He was apparently trained to deliver the content to crowds, he’s got a way of manipulating mass consciousness. He seems to be equipped with special psychological tricks enabling him to put a person under his total control. Those mind-control techniques are developed by the secret service and normally classified. I met with Grabovoi a few times. He did not look or act like a man endowed with a beautiful mind. I arrived at the conclusion that he could not have learned all those tricks by himself. He was probably trained by somebody. But now he has the price to pay for those mind games and manipulative techniques. Today he doesn’t seem to be capable of telling a reality from a fiction. He proclaimed himself “Jesus Christ in second coming”, he promised to resurrect the children slain during the Beslan school siege. He also unveiled his plans of running for president of Russia…”