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Vanga (Bulgarian: Ванга) (3 October 1911 – 11 August 1996), born Vangelia Pandeva Dimitrova (Вангелия Пандева Димитрова), after marriage Vangelia Gushterova (Вангелия Гущерова) was a Bulgarian alleged clairvoyant who spent most of her life in the Rupite area in the Kozhuh mountains, Bulgaria. She convinced many followers that she possessed paranormal abilities.

Biography

Vanga was born in Strumica (today in Republic of Macedonia), and after 1942 lived in Petrich (Bulgaria). Her birth was a premature one and the baby had been suffering from some health complications. In accordance with local tradition, the baby was not given a name until it was likely to survive. After the baby's first cry-out, a midwife went out in the street and asked a stranger for a name. The stranger proposed Andromaha, but it was not accepted for being "too Greek", so the second stranger's proposal, Vangelia (Greek: Βαγγελία, short for Ευαγγελία, "herald of the blessed word"), was accepted — also a Greek name, but popular in the region.
In her childhood, Vangelia was an ordinary girl. Her father was conscripted into the Bulgarian Army during World War I, and her mother died when Vanga was quite young. The girl depended on the neighbors for a long time. Vanga was smart, with blue eyes and blond hair. Her inclinations started to show up when she herself thought out games and loved playing "healing" – she prescribed some herbs to her friends, who pretended to be ill. Her father, being a widower, eventually married a good woman, thus providing a stepmother to his daughter.
A turning point in the biography of Vanga is a story about a storm which lifted Vanga up and threw her in the field (this claim has not been verified with meteorological records or other accounts from that time). She was found after a long search. She was very frightened, and her eyes were covered with sand and dust, so she couldn't open them because of the pain. No healing gave results. There was money only for partial operation, so her eyesight was failing.
In 1925 Vanga was brought to a Blind House in the city of Zemun (Serbia), where she spent three years, and was taught to read Braille, play the piano, as well as do knitting, cooking, and cleaning. After the death of her stepmother she had to go back home, in order to take care of her little siblings. Her family was very poor, and she had to work all day.
In 1939 Vanga caught pleurisy, although she had been quite healthy in the previous years. The doctor's opinion was that she would soon die but she recovered quickly.
During World War II Vanga attracted more believers — a number of people visiting her, hoping to get a hint about whether their relatives are alive, or seeking for the place where they died. On 8 April 1942 the Bulgarian king Boris III visited her.
On 10 May 1942 Vanga married Dimitar Gushterov, a man from a village near Petrich, who had come asking for the killers of his brother, but had to promise her not to seek revenge. Shortly before marriage, Dimitar and Vanga moved to Petrich, where she soon became well-known. Dimitar was later conscripted and had to spend some time in Greece. He got another illness in 1947, fell into alcoholism, and eventually died on 1 April 1962.
Vanga died on 11 August 1996. Her funeral attracted large crowds, including many dignitaries.
Fulfilling Vanga's last will and testament, her Petrich house was turned into a museum, which opened its doors on 5 May 2008.

Philosophy and Predictions

Vanga was illiterate or semi-literate and she did not write herself any books. Her speech was difficult to distinguish and she spoke a heavy dialect (recent TV recordings used subtitles for the Bulgarian audience). What she said or allegedly said has been captured by staff members. Later numerous esoteric books on Vanga's life and predictions were written.
Vanga claimed that her alleged extraordinary abilities had something to do with the presence of invisible creatures, but she couldn't clearly explain their origin. She was saying, that those creatures were giving her information about people, which she could not transmit to them, because, distance and time didn't matter. According to Vanga, the life of everyone standing in front of her, was like a film to her, from birth till death. But changing "what was written on the generation" was beyond her power.
Apart from prophesying, Vanga was believed to be a healer, but only through herbal medicines. According to her, people had to heal themselves only with herbs from the country they live in. She prescribed washing with an infusion of herbs and spices, claiming some beneficial effect on the skin. Vanga did not oppose mainstream medicine, although she thought that taking too much medicines is bad, because "they close the doors, through which nature restores the balance in the body with herbs".
Vanga attempted prophesies of newborn or unborn children. She claimed that she was "seeing" and "talking" to people, who had died hundreds of years ago. Vanga talked about the future, although she did not like to. In her words, in 200 years man will make contact with brothers in mind from other worlds. She said that many aliens have been living on the earth for years. They came from the planet, which in their language is called Vamfim, and is the third planet from the Earth.
Followers of Vanga believe that she knew the precise date of her own death, and shortly before that she had said that a 10-year-old blind girl living in France was to inherit her gift, and that people would soon hear about her.

Controversy

Vanga was widely known to be close to the government of Todor Zhivkov and, on several occasions, she appeared on public TV with him and other high officials of the Communist Party. It has been alleged that Vanga used data gathered by the secret services to win the trust of her visitors.
Skeptics accuse her of speaking too ambiguously — any cryptic thought can apply to a future historical event, sooner or later.
Vanga is known to have been rude to people whom she considered bad and sinful. The guilty person's deeds were usually exposed by her in detail before she sent him or her away.
Believers think that sometimes Vanga intentionally hides information, especially bad news, from people whom it concerns. This is attributed to her philantropy, and is confirmed by her relatives to have caused her discomfort after the visitor goes out. Vanga said that she is not allowed to reveal certain facts to anybody.