Poniatowski & Ossowiecki - The psychic archaeology

 Exactly how Ossowiecki met the man who would become the scientist half of the best psychic archaeological team in history is now unknown. Perhaps Balcer introduced them. It is clear, however, that they knew each other by March 1936.

Stanislaw Poniatowski was fifty-two, seven years younger than the psychic, and since this was to be his major work for the remainder of his life, it was almost as if he had come to Warsaw for just these experiments. After eighteen years as a professor of ethnology at Wolna Wszechnica (University) he had suddenly accepted the same post at the University of Warsaw in 1934.

From a collateral branch of one of Poland's oldest and noblest families, he was named for Prince Joseph Poniatowski, one of Napoleon's most brilliant generals. Stanislaw Poniatowski had added luster to an already illustrious family name. (Strangely, it had been Prince Poniatowski's statue that Ossowiecki had gone to see in Homel the day he met Wrobel.) He was considered by many to be the most eminent ethnologist in Poland at that time, and was acknowledged as the founder of the cultural-historical school of Polish ethnology. But as important as his impeccable scholarship was his interest in psychic archaeology. "The possibility of a clairvoyant look at a prehistoric time [had] appeared to me as highly enticing ... as an ethnologist I was very interested in discovering if and what links exist between the most primitive and uncivilized contemporary societies and their counterparts in the oldest prehistoric cultures." Forty years later this study by analogy is still a major anthropological approach.

Nor had Poniatowski's interest been merely idle. He had been actively searching for "an appropriate clairvoyant," and had meticulously worked out the experimental protocol he would follow should his search be successful, concluding that the correct approach was multiple experiments by a psychic-archaeological team. His plan called for one major clairvoyant to serve as a baseline "and somewhere upward of ten other clairvoyants" as cross-checks. Indeed, Poniatowski's work is the model of how psychic archaeology should be practiced. Contained within his method were checks against any bias a psychic might have, as well as consideration for the limitations of his source. All the complexities that plague practical psychic research were fully thought through and compensated for, and amazingly, this had all been done before Poniatowski had completed even one experiment with Ossowiecki or anybody else.

Poniatowski immediately recognized that he had finally found "an appropriate clairvoyant" in Ossowiecki. The latter was equally enthusiastic, very possibly because he had been expecting such a meeting and knew what the consequences could be. In 1937, a year after they began to work together, Ossowiecki told Ms. Zawadzka of the journal Goniec Warszawski that Wrobel to that date had described his life "to the smallest fragment." Thus, while he may not have known the specific researcher's name, he had anticipated this final research.

At their first meeting it was agreed that the work should begin immediately. The first session was set for April 23, and on that appointed Thursday evening, a small group called at Ossowiecki's  flat, at number 32 Polna Street. The scene was described by Ms. Zawadzka.

"Entrance. A hall or a waiting room. Attention focuses first on a white statue of Christ standing in the window. The figure's outstretched hand is raised in benediction.

"On the wall are lithographs of the Creator awakening the world from chaos. High gothic chairs complement the interior.... In the large, light study a collection of memorabilia personal and inherited from the family.... Several important paintings and many photographs signed by famous people. There are two huge, potted fig trees and among them, flying freely, several birds. Always open cages are their nests. They go in and out at will and often sleep in the branches of the trees. The gray nightingale is so tame that he comes over at the sound of Mr. Ossowiecki's voice. When the man is silent, working at his desk, the bird sits on the back rest of the chair and sings.

"The most interesting room, however, is the small salon—the favorite place of the clairvoyant. It is here that most of his experiments take place. It is truly his home.

"There is a wide day bed covered with a Persian rug; low Eastern coffee tables and exotic paraphernalia [a recreation of Wrobel's study?]. Each fragment displayed on the walls is connected with some experiment of the clairvoyant. Over the door a gold statuette of the Chinese deity Cian-Fu; next, a Japanese Christian Madonna; a silk tapestry in a Japanese frame; drawings by the anthroposophist [Rudolf] Steiner; a fragment of the fabric with which the face of Dabrowka* was covered in the coffin—a gift from Bishop Lanbnitz; a letter from the current Pope when he was still a nuncio; an authentic letter from General [Tadeusz Andrzej] Kosciuszko [who fought in the American Revolutionary War] to General Dabrowski; a fragment from the original manuscript of Quo Vadis [by Nobel Laureate Henryk Sienkiewicz].... In a word, a small museum." This was the description of the launch site for sixteen ventures along the uncharted river of time.

Included in the group, along with Poniatowski and Balcer, were Michael Kamienski, professor of astronomy and director of the Astronomical Observatory, University of Warsaw, whose work in celestial mechanics had brought him world fame; Jan Lukasiewicz, one of the most emminent mathematicians and logicians of the century; Stefan Manczarski, world class geophysicist; and Witold Henser, one of Poland's leading archaeologists. They were not there by chance or out of curiosity. It was a basic premise of Poniatowski's approach to psychic archaeology that the research should always be interdisciplinary.

Consequently, for the entire two-part sequence of thirty-three experiments men and women of world stature were present; each was invited to provide commentary on the results of questions Poniatowski planned to put to Ossowiecki in matters concerning their specialties. This list, in fact, is one of the more remarkable things about this unique research project. At a time when Dr. J. B. Rhine and his wife Dr. Louisa Rhine in the United States were finding it difficult to get American scientists to take their parapsychological research seriously, Professor Poniatowski established an advisory and support group seventy-five percent of whose membership is still to be found listed in encyclopedias. This is no absolute judgment on the character and quality of the experiments, certainly, but it is doubtful whether any other research program in the twentieth century—except perhaps the Manhattan Project—could make a similar claim.

At about 9:30 in the evening, after an early dinner, the group moved to Ossowiecki's salon. Once settled, Poniatowski explained the procedure he would follow. Mostly this was for Ossowiecki's benefit, since he was totally ignorant of what would be happening. The professor said that the psychic would be told nothing about the guide object, would not even see it until it was handed to him. Nor would he be told what culture had produced it or where it had been found. All the experiments would be conducted in exactly the same way and every attempt would be made to keep conditions as uniform as possible. Ossowiccki was told that Certain controls had been built into the research series, but their exact nature was not explained. He was asked not to read any material dealing with archaeology or ethnology. He was then asked what conditions he wished the observers to meet. He said only that he preferred that they maintain a light conversation on some subject other than the experiment or the object, and that they not stare at him or do anything to make him feel conspicuous. Those present agreed to comply with this request insofar as they were able. Poniatowski then asked if Ossowiecki could take questions while giving the reading. Ossowiecki said he thought so, he would try. Finally it was agreed that Balcer, Kamienski, Kosieradzki, and particularly Stefan Radlinski would help Poniatowski maintain a complete and accurate record of what took place, and that each person present would agree to its correctness before leaving the room. (In fact, Poniatowski's reports are works of art. Artifacts are listed according to museum number, culture, and site, as well as description. The names of all present are given, as well as the location and the exact time the artifact was handed to Ossowiecki. There are notations as to how long it took him to begin and how long he spoke, what gestures he used, how he felt, and even the expressions on his face. Often there is a postexperiment commentary consisting of statements made by observers, and a final wrap-up by Poniatowski in which he reviews Ossowiecki's major statements and their validity, as well as any controls invoked.)

By the time the discussion ended, it was 10:15 and Poniatowski took from his pocket and handed to Ossowiecki a small flint tool he knew to be about ten thousand years old. After almost twenty minutes of concentration, Ossowiecki began with the words:

"Thick, thick forest ... such a strange forest, black leaves, such dark color ... vast distances ... yonder there are places where there is no forest, clearings, and on them mushroomlike squat houses made of twigs, smeared with clay. I see them well in this moment."

He then went on to give a detailed description of a microlithic culture, its people, and customs, answering questions, all put to him by Poniatowski, although some seem to have been suggested by other observers. Fifty-seven minutes later he stopped, complaining of tiredness and "a weight in my head." After he recovered, Ossowiecki offered a few other remembered impressions and then Poniatowski solemnly went around the room asking for comments; only two major thoughts emerged and they were held in common.

First, there was general agreement that Ossowiecki's vision was accurate, at least to the degree that reconstructions are ever testable. Second, the use of questions was considered a major breakthrough of great importance to the project.

This business of questions seems so obvious an approach today that it is easy to overlook the fact that Poniatowski's scheme of asking for elaborations on an unclear point, or for a shift in focus to something he considered more significant, was unprecedented. Previously Ossowiecki and clairvoyants like him were given a question or questions at the very beginning of a session. They then responded until they felt the subject was exhausted. (This was essentially how Balcer had conducted the mummy's foot experiments.) Now Poniatowski had proved that it was possible to exert some control and to be selective. He had been handed a wondrous new telescope that he had learned could be pointed into the past and focused at will. Poniatowski would later discover that too many questions tended to cause confusion, but once he had found the balance, the question-and-answer format became a major tool.

Two weeks later, on May 7, the same group met again at Ossowiecki's apartment, and after discussing the first session, a second was begun, this time using a stone club. The first artifact had been one from Poniatowski's personal collection. After the second session almost every guide object was to come from the museum named for and founded by Professor Erazm Majewski.

This was yet another part of Poniatowski's careful plan: using diverse objects from a uniform and academically accepted source. Stone tools, or lithics, as they are more properly known, comprise a subtle and complex branch of archaeology. It is difficult for even a general archaeologist to tell whether these stones are naturally formed or man-altered, and that task is an easy one compared with dating and assigning these artifacts to their proper culture. Even today, forty years after Poniatowski's research, when archaeology is far more sophisticated, only a few men and women are acknowledged to be experts by the discipline as a whole. Poniatowski was not such a person, so he believed it was important that the artifacts to be used be precertified. In this way he felt he had a reasonable, traditionally developed baseline against which to measure Ossowiecki's reconstructions.

Having done two successful experiments, thus establishing both the validity of the concept and the usefulness of his experimental protocol, Poniatowski next resolved to attempt something so awesome that even four decades later it sounds preposterous. On July 24, 1933, Dr. Berckhemer, the chief curator of the Natural History Museum in Wurttemberg, Germany, received a call from an acquaintance, a Mr. Sigrist, who owned a gravel pit near the town of Steinheim on the Mur. It was not the first time he had called, and Berckhemer anticipated the message as soon as he heard the name: Sigrist, he felt sure, had discovered something in his pit that he thought the scholar might find interesting. All the same, he was surprised at the agitation in the man's voice, until he heard what he had to say: an almost complete human skull had been found very deep in the pit!

It was in this manner that Steinheim man entered history. Two years later, in 1935, an English dentist who was an an amateur archaeologist, Dr. Alvan Theophilus Marston, was to discover a more fragmented but similar skull situated in the midst of some six hundred extremely primitive stone tools near the town of Swanscombe in England. The lithics at Swanscombe were identified as Acheulean; the gravel beds and the remains of two extinct animals found in proximity to the Steinheim skull dated it to the same epoch, the third interglacial period. As German writer Herbert Wendt notes in his book In Search of Adam, the two skulls looked like nothing so much as those of "a female chimpanzee." Yet their cranial capacity and certain other features established that they were unquestionably Homo sapiens, approximately twice as old as Neanderthal man and yet more modern in appearance. To this day they remain both anomalous and among the oldest remains of modern man discovered in Europe. At the time they were found, within the academic circles that concern themselves with such things, they were a sensation. To Poniatowski, the challenge was irresistible. He was interested in very primitive man, the people of the Pleistocene Age. Now with two discoveries that confirmed each other he had some idea of what an anomalous variation that man must have looked like. He also had a stone club from the Majewski Museum certified by lithic specialists as having come from one of the best Acheulean sites, Abbeville in France. With this to validate what Ossowiecki might say, he wondered if contact with a past so distant could be achieved. Could a psychic travel back in time almost three hundred thousand years?

The third experiment on May 21 was designed to discover just that:

"God how far.... They are very curious people ... small people ...not big heads and huge in the back," Ossowiecki said showing the shape of the head with his hands. "Hair matted ... falling down, it hangs [on the sides of the cheeks—Poniatowski]. Very different types. Height 150-160 cm. [approx. 4 feet 9 inches to 5 feet 2 inches] ... they are terrifically muscular ... nude ... skin ... dark … like light chocolate … so dark. Women very well developed, fat.... Hair long, falling down ... chins forward inclined, thin beards, eyes black, dark brown.... Noses very broad ... hips thick, forehead low, eyes wide open ... dark eyes. Women very ugly ... not pretty. Ears protrude some..."

The words poured out, a rambling near-monologue by a man whose speech was alternately enthusiastic and quizzical, like a person telling a long and complicated anecdote. There was no trance, nothing occult. Ossowiecki was obviously alert; he asked for paper and pencil with which to draw pictures of animals, houses, and people of the past, even stopping the narrative to give instructions to his maid when she came into the room. And yet, those present had the inescapable feeling that it was they who were unreal and dreamlike and this band of small dark naked ancestors that was solid and alive. Ossowiecki, surrounded by the accoutrements of a twentieth- century European parlor, gave the unmistakable impression of easily and casually looking on a scene three hundred thousand years old. His eyes were open and seemed to be moving back and forth as he followed this scene, actually seeing it. Indeed, very possibly on this occasion, and certainly on others, Poniatowski suddenly but quietly put a screen in front of Ossowiecki and the psychic complained that "his vision had been blocked."

Even stranger was the meaning of the words; as Poniatowski heard them, he knew that they made sense. More important, Ossowiecki's description passed another of his tests. He had never seen psychic archaeology as a new and independent science; rather, he believed it offered a new technique—one that would add to and complement more traditional approaches. Consequently, it was his conviction that a primary test of psychic data would be whether they supported solidly based orthodox observations on the same culture. And that was exactly what he was hearing. Of course, much of the psychic reconstruction was uncheckable. No artifact or bone, for instance, could reveal the skin color of early Homo sapiens, nor could Ossowiecki's statement that the women were wearing some kind of feather ankle bracelets be proved or refuted. But where orthodox data did exist, Ossowiecki's words were in agreement—the shape of the skull, for example. Ossowiecki's description would make even better sense to Poniatowski after he had done some further research on his own. The description of this early form of man, however, was just a start. Experiment three had much more to reveal.

To begin with, almost with his first words of the evening Ossowiecki had said, "This stone has a double history." He then suddenly began talking about another people: "Their skin is whiter beyond comparison. Their heads are different, not elongated here, letter-spacing:.55pt'>broader jaws, broader. Black hair, brown hair's already here. Many people. Faces nicer, less savage. The noses not so broad ... different people. The people are white ... they are whiter than the others ... they are more the color of brick, a bit, just a bit ... they are dressed ... have some fabric? ... something—I don't understand."A third culture emerged during the course of the evening, a people Ossowiecki merely described as "smaller." By the time he had finished, the stone's entire history of association with man was laid out for Poniatowski and the others. At various times the rock in an unaltered state had served as part of a hearth ring, a portion of the doorway to a primitive stone house, and, after being worked by man, a weapon.

In trying to sort the material out Poniatowski inadvertently arranged both an unplanned test of the information's accuracy and an experimental control. Seeking to clarify the various cultures, he asked Ossowiecki, in reference to the geography of the site, "Is there water?" The psychic, after looking around, said, "There is water on the right side. Flows fast, it's a stream." Later, during the description of what appears to be the most modern epoch, Poniatowskiasked, "Is the locale the same as before?" To this Ossowiecki answered, "The locale is the same. I recognize it. But it is greatly changed.... Now I'll tell you something interesting ... I see water, waves. Is this possible? I see the ocean ... I'm closer to Belgium [millennia before such a nation existed, of course] ... France.... Now I recognize this map. I see the peninsula of Normandy... . Need to go ... I'm departing ... countryside ... forest ... mountains ... mass of water ... huge waves, powerful, massive...."

Upon returning to the present time two hours and ten minutes after he had begun (this was the longest session he would ever do), Ossowiecki was told by his friend that experiment three had contained much that seemed accurate, although it was confusing sometimes as to which time went with which people. But Poniatowski said there had also been a major error. The prehistoric settlement whose people had used the stone as a weapon could not have been near the ocean, for the site where the stone had been found was in the central portion of southern France. Ossowiecki listened carefully but "with complete conviction ... that [the site] had to be on the shores of France between Belgium and Normandy." The following day Poniatowski checked. He was chagrined to learn that Abbeville was not in the French interior; it was on an "estuary of the River Somme to La Manche canal," easily within sight of the ocean. Ossowiecki had been correct! Now Poniatowski began to realize that he had been handed the keys to time's cabinet.

There would be nine experiments that first year, the greatest number in one year during the prewar period, and, just as Poniatowski had planned, the format never varied. Indeed, the only inconsistency in the entire sequence of sixteen sessions was the fact that in 1936 experiments were held in the spring and summer. Thereafter Poniatowski and Ossowiecki worked together only in the fall, when Warsaw's social life was at its height. It was a wonderfully gentle time and Andrew Norwina-Sapinski, who translated the Poniatowski research for the author in 1976, remembered it well:

"Prior to World War II the social pulse of Warsaw at the level Ossowiecki and Poniatowski occupied beat most strongly in the late hours. I remember my parents going out and receiving visitors until midnight ... on week nights. Shops were open and people promenaded down main street and sat in Kawiarnia's ... a kind of elegant super-coffee house. Warsaw smelled of fresh fruit and flowers because the shops that sold them displayed much of their merchandise outside their door front. In the early hours, while people still walked and talked, the streets were washed clean by water trucks and then their black-wet surfaces mirrored the neon lights. It was a lovely city. Full of life."

Only two things rippled this placid surface. In the fall of 1937 Ossowiecki became concerned enough about what he perceived as Europe's coming instability to give a series of lectures at universities in Warsaw, Poznan, and Lwow. He called these talks "Psychic Crisis and the Future of Mankind," but exactly what he said has been lost. It is known, however, that he decided to publish the talks in a somewhat different form, seeing this second book as the culmination of an earlier volume, The World of My Spirit and Visions of the Future,>which had been published in 1933 from an "inception of pain" with the purpose of showing people "the way to overcome spiritual suffering." Particularly it reflected Ossowiecki's concern with technology run rampant without moral control.

The second and more immediately frightening event took place on October 21, 1938, during experiment fourteen, the first one of that year.

The reading, for a culture identified only as Mezynska, had begun routinely enough at 10:07 P.M. at Ossowiecki's apartment, and had described for some time an extremely ancient and primitive people whose settlement the psychic had correctly located between Spain and the Italian peninsula.

Suddenly as the session seemed to be coming to a close, Ossowiecki became very agitated. "I cannot get out of here," he said, and then, almost against his will, began to describe a couple of these pre-Homo sapiens making love.

"I see him. They sit now. He makes advances to her. Takes her breasts and pulls to himself ... he moves around her to and fro. She jumps and sits next to him. He begins ... there are no kisses. With her hand he covers his face. She strokes his neck, back ... he lies down.... She sits on him equestrian style. She sits still, looking into his eyes. Now she jumps up, jumps up .... She traces with her nose along his nose, around his face. He embraces her with his whole strength ... she is active, not he ... she jumps up again, so …  she is washing his member with water, covers it with green grass … now she goes to fetch water ... fabulous elasticity of body. … There are no normal movements, they are like monkeys." Again Ossowiecki cried out, "I cannot return."This time both he and the observers became uneasy.

Unable to stop, the psychic continued, describing a zebralike animal. "Long ears. Several there are ... they graze near the house. Long tails, the end like thick gray brush. Rear white and from it toward the front darker. From spine white bands go to white belly. Huge ears, horns I do not see...."

Talking about the animals seemed to calm and release him. Then the man of the vision abruptly came into view again. "God how wild it is here ... savage ... they are like monkeys. The man is so hairy ... all are so hairy. Men's bodies are brownish, dark like fur. Hair on foreheads grows from bridge of nose." With the man's reentry some connection seemed reestablished for Ossowiecki. He yelled, "I can't get out of here!" and with those words dashed the stone-tool guide object to the floor. Even after he had returned to the world of the living, he still seemed to linger in the past and for another fifteen minutes felt as if the two realities had become confused and that he was alternating between them.

From the beginning the psychic and the scientist had realized that these experiences with prehistory were taking a toll on Ossowiecki. All too often he would end them saying he felt tired or had a headache. He also felt that doing such work "took phosphorus from my body." These were problems, however, they both were prepared to accept. But it apparently had never occurred to them that there might be far more dangerous factors involved in what Ossowiecki was doing. What had caused his entrapment they never knew. Possibly with a normal healthy man's curiosity he had become too interested in watching a couple make love hundreds of millennia ago. Or perhaps the explanation lay not in Ossowiecki but in the people he was watching, whose psychic energy generated a kind of whirlpool into which he was dragged. (What other event in human life is as intensely and singularly focused as a sexual act and its climax?) Such explanations can, of course, be dismissed with amused condescension as occult pseudoscience, but Ossowiecki did appear to be trapped and was observed in this state by men of unquestioned probity and considerable attainment in science.

Whatever the reason for Ossowiecki's seeming inability to shift his point of view, it had frightened everyone present. The complacency with which the session had begun was shattered; all now knew that psychic archaeology was not a simple process and that they were far from understanding it. One practical solution, however, emerged from the experience: Poniatowski concluded that his attitudes and state of mind had an effect on the experimental dynamics (something scientists rarely admit). He realized that he too had become entrapped because of his fascination with what Ossowiecki was describing, and in doing so,had relinquished some of his control over what was happening. In his superconscious state it was clear that Ossowiecki was vulnerable, pulled along by currents he only partially ruled. Poniatowski concluded that he himself would have to stay "awake" and avoid also being seduced into too intense a concentration. After the fourteenth experiment whenever Ossowiecki seemed to become too exclusively focused on a single scene, Poniatowski would draw him away by asking questions about some other topic. There were a few tense moments, but never again did the incident that had marred the fourteenth session repeat itself. Tiredness became an ever-increasing problem, but the remainder of the thirty-three experiments went off without tripping another psychic deadfall.

By February 24, 1939, fifteen psychometric contacts with eleven different cultures had been accomplished (since several guide objects were from very obscure Polish sites it is possible that the number is greater or smaller by perhaps one or two). The final (sixteenth) session in February was a distinct variation from the regimen. There were two good reasons for this early-spring variance in scheduling.

Poniatowski wanted to round off this first cycle of research with Ossowiecki by getting a reading on the relatively recent Magdalenian culture (approx. 15,000-10,000 B.C.) of the Stone Age. Then, in accordance with his plan, he wanted to try the same selection of artifacts with different sensitives, in this way assuring a psychic cross-check as well as an orthodox one. Unfortunately, he was able to find only one other clairvoyant who seemed to have the necessary skills, a professional commercial psychic he identified only as Mrs. S. Ch. After three sessions, however, he concluded that further work with her was useless. Although she had a twenty-year reputation as a gifted clairvoyant, he found her descriptions "muddy and devoid of originality." He even discreetly implied that she had read up on prehistory and filled in what she could not get psychically by regurgitating what she remembered of this cramming. The experience taught him a powerful lesson: " ... professional [i.e. commercial] sensitives ... can easily lead an uncritical researcher to error."

Secret Vaults of Time

Stephen Schwartz