While Western TV audiences of the 1980s were glued to Mikhail Gorbachev, millions inside the Soviet bloc were under the spell of a very different figure: Anatoly Kashpirovskiy, the mass hypnosis artist whose televised séances turned him into one of the strangest celebrities of the late USSR. A new documentary, “Kashpirovsky. Under the Spell”, revisits his rise at this week’s Ji.hlava documentary festival.
Kashpirovskiy was a trained medical doctor who said he first became fascinated by hypnosis while trying to keep medical students from sleeping through his lectures. Once Soviet state television began carrying his appearances, he became a cult phenomenon of epic proportions, with his broadcasts reaching audiences across the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe.
The tele-séances of Anatoly Kashpirovskiy
The Ukrainian-born psychotherapist, born August 11, 1939, claimed extraordinary powers. At the height of his fame in 1989, he asserted that the force of his persuasion could remotely anaesthetise three women undergoing major surgery — a claim presented as the centerpiece of his televised “tele-séances.”
Dressed in black with a mesmeric stare, he entranced viewers with repetitive verbal cues and slow counting routines, telling audiences that their pain was already disappearing. The 2026 documentary, directed by Łukasz Konopa and released on October 16, frames him as both a mass-media phenomenon and a deeply divisive public figure.
Kashpirovsky. Under the Spell documentary
Kashpirovsky’s stardom burned out almost as fast as it ignited. He passed away on October 3, 2026, according to reports this month — making the Ji.hlava screening a timely epitaph for the self-styled healer who, for one surreal stretch of the late 1980s, hypnotized an empire through its television screens.
Anatoly Kashpirovskiy (Credits: Variety)
Source: Variety — read the full story there.
