(Ivan Fyodorovich Kastorsky)
( ?.07.1912, Saratov, Russia – 30.06.1968, Riga, Latvia)
Illusionist, stage performer who in the 1940s-1960s performed psychological experiments in the spirit of the popular “mind readers” of the American Washington Bishop (1856-1889) and the Polish-born Russian Soviet Wolf Messing (1899-1974).
Born into the family of the singer Count Kastorsky. Ivan’s father was also the founder of the Russian Choir.
I. Kastrockis graduated from the Saratov Institute of Architecture in the 1930s, lectured in psychology, which gradually transformed into theatrical psychological experiments. For a while he worked in circuses, but mainly as a stage performer in philharmonic ensembles. (www.magicnomi.com/personalii)
In 1939, a seminar of parapsychologists was held in New York, where Kastello met Wolf Messing (the famous hypnotist from Poland). Later they met in Russia.
Kastello was on the KGB’s books because he often performed inexplicable acts – for example, he cured the Archbishop of a voice twitch by hypnosis.
Kastello worked as an illusionist throughout Russia and performed with his wife Alexandra Poplavskaya. They were often away on tour for long periods and returned home for only a month. In 1945 Kastello and his family moved to Latvia and lived in an apartment in Riga (at the intersection of Stabu and Tērbatas Streets). Later they bought a country house in Jurmala, Vaivari.
The son of Ivan Kastorski (Kastello), Julius Kastorski (01.01.1945-07.12.2007), was also an illusionist. An episode with the participation of Julius and his wife Larissa Kastorska (28.10.1939-09.04.2020) is featured in the television feature film “The Theatre” (1978) directed by J. Streičs.
He and his son, Julius Castello, started working together in 1961. At first, Julius helped his father on tours as a driver and assistant. The first joint performance took place at the Lugansk Philharmonic in Ukraine and lasted 1.40 h with an intermission.
The father and son had been performing together for 5 years, then this collaboration broke down due to a dispute when they performed in Tbilisi. Julius Kastorsky started his personal concert career in Tula at the age of about 21.
Kastello has only performed in the Riga Circus once – in March 1949. There are some newspaper reports from this time: an advertisement for the Riga Circus performances and a weekly meeting in the editorial office of the newspaper “Советская молодежь” between the “Riga Communist Active” and representatives of culture and art, including the illusionist Kastello: “The meeting with the artist I. F. Kastello, who will finish his guest performances in the Riga Circus in the next few days, has aroused considerable interest among the active members of the Riga Communist Youth. In his introductory remarks, he told the young people about his work in the field of attention development and observation, and answered questions. This was followed by a demonstration of psychological experiments”. The work of Ivan kastello (Ivan kastorsky) has a place in the permanent exhibition of Mystero, the theatre-museum of illusionism founded by contemporary masters of illusion art, Dace and Enrico Pecolli.
Kastello had 3 children – Amur Kastorsky, Julius Kastorsky and Elena Neroznaka.
In 1953-1955, Ivan Kastello’s name was also linked to a black artist from Tagangor, Bob Tsimbo – later Boris Kastorsky (real name Boris Borisovich Chupov, born 15.07.1931), whom Kastello had adopted and worked with for many years. The young boy had lost his real father, a fakir (a black American immigrant named George), during an unsuccessful performance in a Russian circus arena. Boris started out as Kastello’s assistant, but later developed his own career as an actor and musician.
The themes of Kastello’s performances are “Promises on stage to cure stuttering, insomnia, headaches, various ailments, smoking addiction, loss of willpower, memory loss and other nervous disorders”. Also, during the performance, a volunteer from the audience had to think of an action he would like to perform in the room and Kastello, reading the thoughts of the caster, was able to repeat the planned action.
The experiment “The Living Myron” was also shown on stage, during which a human life was suspended for 6.5 minutes.
•••
(Material from Leonid Sukhorukov)
Castello the Illusionist or The Interrupted Flight
The further the socialist era recedes into the past, the clearer become the reasons for the Soviet authorities’ reticence towards psychological experimenters. The fact is that even the most honest artists of this peculiar genre did not contribute at all to the spread of materialist views. More often, on the contrary, they themselves unwittingly instilled a metaphysical worldview and outright obscurantism.
Not surprisingly, most of society turned a deaf ear to rational explanations and regarded experiments as a miracle. Ordinary people have always been attracted by the unknown and the mysterious. Another paradox. Even critical viewers, both progressive and reactionary, although they interpreted what they saw in different ways, came to the same erroneous conclusion: the artist really does have supernatural powers.
The dissident intelligentsia reasoned something like this. We cannot be misled by tales of ideomotor reactions. It is all communist censorship! The dormant human potential is awakening. Telepathy, telekinesis and other parapsychological miracles are not a trick, they are a reality which the Bolsheviks of the Party and the NSC want to take over in order to keep the people in line!
The priests also denied the physiological basis of the experiments, considering them an ideological screen. They interpreted what they saw in an old-fashioned way, but as if in a new dialectical spiral. Whereas in the Middle Ages the Inquisition had incriminated any sorcerer with a connection to the devil, the current ecclesiastics narrowed the circle to mentalist sorcerers. They are still accused of violating the divine monopoly of miracles and of demonic assistance.
The situation is made worse by the many cases of morally dishonest performers deliberately falling into messianism or masquerading as superhumans. Good examples of this are the tricks of Yuri Longo (Golovko) in the morgue, who “twisted death”, and the fake memoirs of W. Messing, which also misled people.
I have been sent several stories about participants in the Cooney, Messing, Benditkis psychological experiments. With rare exceptions, the authors tend to idealise the artists, to make them into all-powerful clairvoyants and psychics. But recently, when I started my search for the thoroughly forgotten “mind reader” Ivan Fyodorovich Kastello, I came across N.S.’s novella. “Kramarenko”, published in November 2007 in the Evangelical Christian-Baptist newspaper “Our Days”. The author, who now lives in Sacramento (California, USA), recalls Kastello’s performance at the Abkhaz Philharmonic in May 1966. The narrative is so saturated with obscurantism that, against my principles, I decided to publish it.
In the late 19th century, illusionists deceived audiences by seemingly emphasising the diabolical nature of their tricks. Perhaps they were indirectly taking revenge on the Church for medieval repression.
Let me tell you about Kastello, who was accused by the Baptists of ‘working with demonic spirits’. The author of the story was trying to propagate evangelical ideas in a crass way, humiliating the artist, but in reality he was only exposing his own stupidity. He conspired to disrupt Kastello’s performance “with the word of God”.
Here is what they write on the website of the Moscow diocese “Mozhaisk Deanery”:
There was a case when the illusionist Ivan Kastello was invited to our Noginska Drama Theatre, and he not only had to perform tricks, but also to fly around the hall. Three friends went to see what power he had and agreed to read prayers: one “May God arise”, one “To the King of Heaven” and one “Virgin Mary”. These prayers must be recited without ceasing. They announced that the great magician would now fly, but no matter what the magician did, nothing worked. The performance failed, Kastello left and did not return.
