Authors

Discussion

Esoteric ideas and practices know no borders, which in the years 1949–1955 was potentially dangerous for members of the esoteric community in Poland, as interactions with individuals from foreign countries could have been punished with imprisonment or even death. After the Thaw, contacts with occult actors abroad began to be renewed. However, it was only in the mid-1970s that the situation considerably changed. From then onwards, the esoteric community was striving hard to strengthen its international connections, for internationalisation not only accelerated the circulation of knowledge, but also was a strategy for attaining legitimacy in the public discourse. 

My presentation is embedded in a new strand of research on communist cultures and societies, highlighting their paradoxes, with a special emphasis on alternative knowledges and practices (Alexei Yurchak, Paulina Bren, Veneta Ivanova, Andreas Anton, Juliane Fürst & Josie McLellan). I will focus on three forms of developing international contacts typical of occult actors in communist Poland, as well as on major cultural brokers. Firstly, I will examine selected press articles and book publications on paranormal issues in order to reconstruct their international aspects (reviews, translations, borrowing content and visual elements, and even plagiarism). Secondly, I will explore personal interactions during study trips to the US, India, and Western Europe, as well as congresses for psychotronic research. Thirdly, I will reflect upon foreign occult actors visiting Poland, in particular trainers of yoga and Rebirthing, and participants of the conferences organised by the occult milieu. 

As I will show, in the late 1970s and 1980s, the esoteric community in Poland sought to be on equal terms with its counterparts from Eastern Europe and the West. Furthermore, the nexus between esoteric communities in the former Eastern Bloc was not as close as one might expect. In fact, it seems that the West (and the Global South) played a considerably greater part in the internationalisation of the occult milieu in Poland.