Establishing the Department of Suggestopedia

A new department of Suggestopedia was set up in the Research Institute of Pedagogy under the guidance of Professor Emanuil Sharankov.  So as the activities of that department grew, some of the research expanded beyond the frame of the Institute of Pedagogy.  The public was interested in our work.  Other countries showed interest, too.  So on 6th October 1966 the first Research Centre of Suggestology was set up, it was the first not only in Bulgaria but in the whole world as well. I was the chief of the institute.  Some tasks were allotted to all matters connected with research in the sphere of psychology and physiology of suggestion, development of the methodology of Suggestopedia and research in some general fields of unconscious psychic activity.

The centre was under the guardianship of the Ministry of Education which trusted the pedagogues working in the Research Institute of Suggestology.  The latter had appreciated our achievements and concluded that we had reached a phase where we were concerned with investigating the reserves of mind.  One of the tasks of the centre was to investigate the reserves of mind in the Suggestopedic learning process.  Later the centre grew into an institute and a large part of those eminent pedagogues joined the Scientific Council of the Institute, like Pavlina Vekilska, Lyuben Vasivev, etc.

I was employed in the institute full time.  I worked a lot, sometimes for 15 hours a day.  At the beginning there were about 20 people working at the institute, but gradually their number increased to a hundred people – researchers, teachers, technical staff, etc.  We had a modern equipped physiology laboratory.  It was the most modern for its time.  Our team was excellent.  We had all sorts of specialists, like Senior Research Associate Dr. Peter Balevski, candidate of medical sciences, physiologist and encephalographer; Senior Research Associate Dr. Dimitrina Kolarova, candidate of medical sciences, neurologist and psychiatrist; Research Associate Dr. Lyubomir Ganovski; Research Associate Aleko Novakov, French philologist; Research Associate Krasimira Pashmakova, English philologist, and many other philology teachers in different foreign languages – English, German, French, Spanish, Italian, Russian, etc.

Suggestopedia in the schools

We had a large group of pedagogues as the methodology can be applied in all the disciplines taught at school.  So some four years after the institute had been founded by force of the Ordinance of the Education Minister, School 122 “Hristo Kurpachev” was entirely given over to us.  We were supposed to apply the Suggestopedic methodology there.  And the results there were brilliant.  A few years later we were given 15 more schools in the country where we applied the Suggestopedic teaching system.  Excellent results were quick to come.  The children willingly started going to school.  The material was acquired with ease.  A lot of specialists outside the institute investigated the results and the effect of Suggestopedic teaching, the mental state and development of the children, their health conditions, the release of the reserves, as the children memorized more material than that in the conventional academic system and were in an excellent state.  All the pedagogues worked assiduously.

!n 1972 I defended my Ph. D thesis in the town of Harkov, USSR, with the monograph Suggestology which was later published in several languages.  My reviewer was the famous professor Ilya Zahaovich Velvovski, doctor of medical sciences, head of the Scientific Society and head of the Psychotherapy, Psycho-hygiene and Psycho-prophylaxis Department at the Ukrainian Institute for In-service Training of Doctors.  He was a wonderful person; he had developed a method of painless baby delivery approved by the Pope.

In 1974 I was already senior associate, grade I, i.e. a professor.  I had a huge number of supporters as well as a huge number of enemies.  I had had numerous fights against the latter even on the pages of the daily newspaper editions.  In my work I had tremendous support from my associate Mrs. Evelina Gateva, philologist and musician, with a dissertation and later a Ph. D thesis.  She was a senior research associate, grade I.

Suggestopedia spreads all over the world

In spite of all the hindrances my opponents set up for me our work was growing and developing, and quite a number of countries were interested in the methodology.  I was invited to many scientific conferences and symposia.  They wanted me to implement the methodology there.  In 1974 the first Lozanov Institute was founded in Washington.  A number of Suggestopedic societies were set up in a number of places, in Switzerland, France, The Federal Republic of Germany, Japan, the USA, Canada, China, Australia, New Zealand.

In Austria

And in Vienna, Austria, the Science Institute of Learning Research was set up.  At the head of the institute was Dr. Beer, who was also the head of the Pedagogy Academy in Vienna, and I, while Evelina Gateva was the director of studies.  That was possible after an official visit of the Austrian president to Bulgaria.  In this delegation there was Dr. Bandion, Magistrate Director of Vienna and director of the Council of Vienna.  On the signing of a cultural agreement between the two countries Todor Zhivkov[1] was requested to allow me to go to Vienna and work both there and in Bulgaria.  And he gave his consent.

In the beginning I went on my own and later Evelina Gateva joined me in order to organize foreign language courses.  Dr. Bandion organized the entire activities and the institute I mentioned previously was founded, the Scientific Institute of Learning Research associated with the Ludwig Boltzman Gesellschaft Organization headed by Dr. Bandion.

1n 1973 we started a school experiment in the Pedagogical Academy in Vienna whose director was Dr. Beer.  The experiment was very highly appreciated.  Dr. Beer wrote a long report to his government which was published as an article in the USA.  In it he wrote that Dr. Lozanov did not only achieve incredible success with the first graders who had acquired the material for the first and second grade in one year only and were ready for the third grade, with a 5-day academic week and without homework but their behavior and breeding were improved.  Those children became much more well-bred, polite and helpful.  That was his conclusion.  As a result of this a decision was taken – to implement the Suggestopedic methodology in education in the schools of Austria starting in the towns of Linz and Graz.  Later on when I was forbidden to leave the boundaries of my country, that plan was aborted.  We also organized a number of foreign language courses in Vienna for the State Opera, the Central Safety Bank, etc. At that time I worked in Bulgaria and in Austria.

Establishing a para-psychology department

We developed many scientific theses in the Research Institute of Suggestology.  We had a para-psychology department too.  I wanted to do some research on the famous Bulgarian fortune teller Vanga Dmitrova so that I could confirm or reject her gift.  It was impossible for me to hope that a Communist government would allow me to do such a thing.  To a great extent Mrs. Lyudmila Zhivkova could help.  She was Todor Zhivko’s daughter, the head of the State Council.  I knew her as I mentioned previously.  Having in mind her extraordinarily original view point I relied on her to help me open a consulting room in para-psychology.  I took the necessary steps and eventually they gave me permission.  But before I took the steps I decided to make sure that Vanga was really a fortune teller.  So one day my friend Shasho, his wife and I drove to Petrich in his car.  Petrich is the town where Vanga lived.  He left the car outside the town so that nobody saw who we were and where we were coming from.  We queued and waited until our turn came to see her.  There were many people as usual.  Our turn came and we went in.  She first told Sasho’s fortune.  She said, “Oh, you are unfortunate.  But don’t give up.  Your mother has been in a psychiatric centre all of her life.”  That was true.  His mother was in the Psychiatry Hospital in Karlukovo.  She suffered from schizophrenia.  After Sasho’s turn Vanga prophesied to his wife, E.  Vanga told her, “E., for 10 years you haven’t been able to have children.  But next year you will have one.”  And indeed a year later she gave a birth to a girl.  My turn came.  “Georgi, why have you come?  You are going to make a study of me, aren’t you?”  She worded it very precisely.  “Yes, I am going to make a study of you, Vanga.”  And she replied, “Remember that you have promised me that!”  And we left.  So immediately I took steps to be allowed to open a consulting room in para-psychology at the institute.  Some years before that I had searched for and examined 49 fortune tellers all over Bulgaria.  There was one good fortune teller among them but not as good as Vanga.  At that time I had cycled all the country in order to investigate those fortune tellers.  I took interest in that because para-psychology is my first love.  In fact I had dreamt of becoming a para-psychologist.  I had read a lot of literature on that matter, and I had done many an experiment and much research.  I had been to symposia on para-psychology.

I knew para-psychologists that were very famous at the time like G.P. Ryan from America, Renie Chuvan from France, Bendler from the Federal Republic of Germany and many others.  Many years ago I did some research on those 49 fortune tellers after my working day had finished and did physiological experiments investigating the brain. The Bulgarian Academy of Sciences gave me a letter confirming that I was doing research on extra-sensory perception from a scientific point of view in my capacity as a scientist.  That letter served as protection because at the time of the communist regime it was dangerous to deal with para-psychology, it was even dangerous to talk on that subject.  You were risking being sent to a camp.

So I had had my interest in para-psychology for a very long time. 　And now that I had the institute I took the necessary steps and was allowed to open a laboratory in para-psychology in order to investigate Vanga from a scientific point of view.  At the time the authorities were planning to intern her because of her supernatural abilities, which was unacceptable to the socialist regime.  But as an object of my research she got off cheap this time.  Her sister Lyubka who took care of her was appointed a technical assistant in the institute.  And later Vanga was appointed an associate.  In front of her house in Petrich there was always a long queue of waiting people hoping for her help.  They paid a certain fee for that and the money went to the municipality of Petrich.  We started our research work.  A team from the institute went to Petrich.  We installed some equipment in her house.  That was done with her knowledge and consent, of course.  Her meetings with people were documented and recorded on film with a hidden camera.  The camera man, shooting the film was Nikola Toshev, an employee at our Institute.  He was a professional camera man.  Before that he had worked in the cinema.  Great numbers of people coming to Vanga were filmed with a hidden camera with Vanga’s consent, as I mentioned previously, for scientific purposes and so that people’s reactions could be observed.  The film was a very long documentary.  Besides, we had prepared questionnaires which we presented to the people going in to see her and asked them to fill in, for example, what was the purpose of their visit, what were their problems, what was their age, where did they live, etc.  After a while we made a second check sending Vanga’s visitors other questionnaires asking about what had happened later, if some of Vanga’s prophesies had come true.  We gathered a huge pile of materials which were statistically processed and that enabled us to draw scientific conclusions.  The latter were presented in a report that I sent to the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Bulgarian Communist Party.  Our research and observations of her lasted for seven years.  All through that time teams from our institute stayed and worked there taking shifts.  That was the vastest research ever made on Vanga.  Some other people did try to do research or make films, too.  We had about 7000 inquiries filled in by people who had visited her.  We had the film, and the results of the investigation.  However, all this together with the rest of the archives was left in the Institute in 1984 when I was made redundant.  The new director Dr. Noncheva, who replaced me, and closed the institute two years later, did not let me take any of the archives.  She was a Party member and obviously carrying out party instructions.  That was for sure, in fact. She had come to the institute from Plovdiv.  She did not have Sofia residency. At the time you could obtain Sofia residency for scientific work or for a post-graduate course.  If you were a resident of some other place, you could hardly ever get a Sofia residency during the communist regime.

The archives disappeared and I do not know where they are.  They are said to have been handed to the State Archive Department.  One day they called me from the Pedagogical Institute saying that I had materials there from the Institute of Suggestology and asked me if I would like to go and see them.  I didn’t go because I knew that Noncheva had already expurgated everything.  When later I decided to go there, there was nothing left.  So I do not know where the archives are.  Did someone at the high levels decide to liquidate everything connected with Vanga, even the film?  However Vanga was famous abroad, too.  In 1970 in the USA a book was published, Psychic Phenomena Behind the Iron Curtain, by Sheila Ostrander and Lynn Schroeder.  They had visited a number of countries in the socialist world, including Bulgaria.  In the book there is a chapter about Bulgaria, the Institute of Suggestology, and Vanga.  She was compared with many world-famous fortune tellers like Geert Kreuzert from Holland and Jane Dickson from the USA.

They write, “You should not be surprised that in small Bulgaria there is a modern and first in the world Research Institute of Suggestology in whose activities Vanga Dimitrova is included too. . . . We found it unusual that the communist government would support and investigate a fortune teller.  Some Western para-psychologist who visited the countries behind the iron curtain 4 or 5 years ago claimed that the communists would hardly dare mention the forbidden topic of prophesies, even in private conversations.  Yes, the Bulgarian government had made a world precedent with the research of a phenomenon such as prophecy.”  The foreigners appreciated what was accomplished here.

First international symposium on Suggestology in Varna

From 5th June until 10th June 1971 the First International Symposium on the problems of Suggestology was carried out in the town of Varna, and the Centre of Scientists “Julio Currie” in the Drouzhba resort.  In the work of the symposium, research scientists from 13 countries of Europe and America participated.  Seven reports and 53 announcements were presented by eminent scientists – physiologists, psychologists, pedagogues, philologists, etc.  The interest was enormous.  All the materials from the symposium, reports and the announcements were published in a book.  The organizing committee of the symposium was represented by the Scientific Council of the Research Institute of Suggestology. The honorary chairman was academician Sava Ganovski, member of the presidium of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, head of the Psychological Association of the People’s Republic of Bulgaria, and head of the Philosophical Association of the People’s Republic of Bulgaria.

Chairman: Senior Research Associate, Dr. Georgi Lozanov, doctor of medical sciences, head of the Research Institute of Suggestology;

Members: Professor D. Mateev, member-correspondent of Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, head of the Research Center of Gerontology and Geriatrics; Professor Emanuil Sharankov, consulting psychiatrist at the Psychiatry Department of ISUL; Professor H. Vassilev from the Institute of Labor Security and Professional Diseases; Senior Research Associate P. Vekilska from the Research Institute of Education; Associate Professor B. Nikolov, in charge of a chair at Sofia University St. Kliment Ohridski; Senior Research Associate Dr. P. Balevski, candidate of medical sciences from the Institute of Suggestology; Senior Research Associate Dr. Kolarova, candidate of medical sciences from the Institute of Suggestology, etc.

Due to the great interest in the Suggestopedic methodology, VTO Techniques (a Bulgarian trading company) and the American company Mankind Research Unlimited in Washington signed a contract to apply the methodology there.  Such contracts were signed with some other companies, and not only in the USA.  Those particular contracts brought about a considerable flow of money in dollars to Bulgaria and it was going to increase, had they not stopped me from travelling abroad.

The socialist countries also took huge interest in the methodology.  Suggestopedia was applied in a number of universities and enterprises in the former USSR.  We had trained teachers who visited the Institute of Suggestology.  We were there too.  I had even an offer at a high governmental level to stay and work in the former USSR.  I refused.  The methodology was applied in Hungary, too.

As I mentioned previously all the experiments and the results were documented.  We were observed.  Commissions appointed by the Ministry of Education came to check both the rate of acquisition of the material, and the impact of the Suggestopedic methodology on the state of the children’s health.  Those commissions consisted of eminent specialists and scientists- pedagogues, physicians and psychologists.  Their conclusions were always positive.

Expert meeting of UNESCO in Sofia

From 11th until 16th December 1973,  an International Expert meeting of UNESCO took place in Sofia aiming at locally investigating the Suggestopedic learning system with people of all ages.  There was a large group of experts who could visit both the adult foreign language courses, and the children in the Bulgarian schools where the methodology was applied.  They had the opportunity to observe the learning process and even tested the children.  They were deeply impressed and submitted their resolution.

Facsimile of their resolution

As a result of all this there was a decision concerning the implementation of the Suggestopedic learning system in all the schools in Bulgaria starting in Mihaylovgrad district (at present called Montana).  Of course that requires a certain period of preparation.  However it was never to be accomplished because of my dismissal from the institute.  In 1975 our institution together with the Ministry of Education started publishing the Suggestology and Suggestopedia bulletin in three languages. Here is what academician Sava Ganovski cites in his introduction in the first issue, 1975,  “. . . the vast growth of Suggestology and Suggestopedia necessitated the printing of a periodical where the suggestologists in Bulgaria and abroad can publish the results of their scientific research and their application in practice.  Owing to that I satisfactorily welcome the publishing of the Suggestology and Suggestopedia bulletin which will be released four times a year, in Bulgarian, Russian and English.  The bulletin will further enhance our country’s priority in the sphere of Suggestology and Suggestopedia, and will unite the efforts of all the people working for that cause both in Bulgaria and abroad.  With this perspective the Suggestology and Suggestopedia bulletin can grow into an international magazine with the same title as an organ of a future International Association on the Problems of Suggestology. Such an association was proposed in 1971 in the town of Varna where the first international symposium on Suggestology was held.”

Supporters and opponents

With the growth of our popularity and achievements my supporters increased in number.  At the same time a certain circle of opponents was forming, too.  They simply envied us for our nice institute and our success.  One of my friends, a famous professor, used to say about our institute, “That is Dr. Lozanov’s jewel.”  Some could not swallow that bit.  They raised voices against me and were physicians and psychiatrists, and pedagogues, philosophers and university teachers.  I had stepped into their territory and they would not let something new and so successful take its proper place.  They were afraid that they might be replaced.  They were traditionalists.  And they started attacking me.  They would write negative articles mostly in the Vecherni Novini Newspaper (Evening News), like Popvassilev, Lilyan Ganchev, etc.  Of course, I would respond reasonably, with sound arguments.  They would attack me for anything.  A discussion on Suggestopedia was organized in Sofia University St. Kliment Ohridski.  A lot of professors and teachers attended it.  The hall was full to the top.  I spoke for a quite a long time and when I finished they came down on me like a ton of bricks.  There were professors there like Gancho Ganchev, Anna Ilieva, and many others.  They could not restrain themselves.  They would ask absolutely unreasonable questions to me helter-skelter.  They would interrupt me while I was talking.  And there was chaos in the hall.  They simply wanted to smash me down.  However, in the hall there were not only the people from the institute (I wanted my secretary to record the minutes of the whole discussion but they did not allow her to do it) but some tenth-graders of a class to whom we were teaching all subjects in the Suggestopedic methodology in the institute as well.  That was a combined class from different schools organized, of course, with the Ordinance of the Minister of Education.  Those students wanted to speak.  They were given the floor and enthusiastically explained how happy they were to learn according to my methodology, how fast they acquired the material without tension or homework, how they learned everything in class.  They expressed their indignation with the professors’ behaviour.  Then Professor Gancho Ganchev terminated the discussion.  That was only a tiny bit of the fights I had at the time.  So gradually the working atmosphere deteriorated and it affected the staff of the institute, too.  While in the rest of the world the science was becoming more and more popular and the interest towards it was growing, in Bulgaria the situation was worsening.  I had created the science and the institute with extremely hard work.  I had never had a holiday.  I had worked on weekends, too.  And they just wanted to destroy everything in a whiff.  The situation was unbearable and three times in 1975, 1976 and 1977 I handed in my resignation to the Minister of Education but they did not release me.  In 1979 I had an infarct.

On 12th January 1980 Evelina Gateva and I had to fly to the USA in connection with the trade negotiations between VTO techniques and the American company.  At Sofia airport we were stopped.  They took away our passports and sent us back．　From that day on for 10 years they did not allow me to travel abroad, talk to foreigners, write letters to them or receive letters from them, publish articles, or deliver lectures.  That was done without any explanation.  That was a continuation of the newspaper attack against me.  That was how certain circles assaulted me.  I went in many instances to receive an explanation – to the passport department, to the Central Committee of the Bulgarian Communist Party, and to the police.  With no success.  All through that time I received a number of invitations to conferences and lectures.  In 1980 a producer from Hamburg came to shoot a film about me and Suggestopedia but they did not allow him to do it.  I was invited to conferences in Moscow.  Even there I was not allowed to go.  In the meantime they received numerous inquiries from abroad as to where I was and how people could contact me, and they answered that I was Ill.  The experiments in Vienna and many other places failed.  I was still director of the institute.  At the end of December 1984 the Minister of Education, professor Alexander Foll, arrived in the institute with Radka Makedonova from the Central Committee of the Bulgarian Communist Party and in front of all the personnel gave me an ordinance of my release from the post of director.  He said that I might be a world famous scientist but I had no abilities to be a manager, and that my dismissal was ordered by the Central Committee of the Bulgarian Communist Party which was confirmed by Radka Makedonova.  At the same time Foll issued an ordinance for the appointment of Dr. Roumyana Makedonova as director of the Research Institute of Suggestology.  A great many people were puzzled.  Noncheva was not a qualified teacher yet she became director of a research institute.  Besides a year earlier she had been alleged to have committed forgery and plagiarism from my scientific theses, so the Scientific Council of the Research Institute of Suggestology had decided to deprive her of the title of research associate.  There was even a suggestion that she would be dismissed from the institute.  The Ministry of Education and the Central Committee of the Bulgarian Communist Party were going to be notified.  Instead, they appointed her director of the institute.

New beginning

When I left the Institute Noncheva did not allow me to take any materials as I mentioned previously.  Not only the materials of the research on Vanga and the film about her were left there, but many other scientific studies, research and materials connected with Suggestopedic learning.  All that has been irrevocably lost.  I was sent to Sofia University St. Kliment Ohridski as director of the Problem Research Laboratory.  At the beginning I was given two empty rooms in an old building of the Institute of Pedagogy ”T. Samodumov.”  Evelina Gateva went with me.  There were 11 of us in those two rooms.  We had to organize courses as only four of us were appointed full time workers while the rest were free lancers.  In the beginning we did not have even chairs and our students sat on textbooks.  But we quickly organized and managed to pull ourselves together.  We earned money and bought the most necessary equipment.  At the time, the rector of Sofia University was Professor Semov.  He visited us and saw the conditions we were working in.  He told me that my dismissal from the institute was incredibly absurd, and he immediately gave us half a floor in a building belonging to the university and situated near the Pliska Hotel.  So we could open an independent Center of Suggestology and Development of Personality at the university.    There we trained teachers in the methodology and had a lot of courses.  Of course, I was still forbidden to leave the country or have contacts with foreigners.  That lasted until the political changes in 1989.

After the political changes in 1989

After the changes I went to issue a document certifying that I had been placed under such interdiction during the last ten years.

So it was then that I started traveling again.  However, my absence from the international stage made it easy for many organizations to be established using my name.  These were imitators who distorted the Suggestopedic methodology and in many a case they were far too distant from it.  But after the political changes in 1989 I could meet foreigners and trained some of them in the methodology.  They came to us at the university and we went to them abroad in order to train them.  We took part in conferences.  I developed nice activities in spite of all that had happened.  In 1995 I was invited to participate in a very important conference where I was supposed to explain Super Learning and the imitators, how harmful they were to the methodology and what in fact Suggestopedia was.  I asked the deputy rector of the University, Ivanov for permission to take some days off but he refused.  Professor Semov was no longer the rector.  So then Evelina Gateva and I left and handed in our resignations.  That was in 1995.  We went to work abroad.  We left for Switzerland with the intention to settle in Italy.  But as we were crossing Austria we met many old friends from the time we did our experiments there before I was forbidden to travel abroad.  So we stayed there and further developed the methodology.  We trained many teachers in Suggestopedic methodology from all over the world.  However, Evelina Gateva was taken ill with cancer and I took her to Sofia where she died.

[1] Todor Hristov Zhivkov – 1911-1998, Bulgarian politician and statesman, Head of the State Council of the People’s Republic of Bulgaria from 9th July 1971 until 17th November 1989, First Secretary from 1954 and General Secretary from 1981 until 10th November 1989 of the Central Committee of the Bulgarian Communist Party