Gustavo Adolfo Rol was an Italian thinker and painter. His devotees consider him to have been a great spiritual master and have testified to miraculous feats he supposedly accomplished.
Rol was born in Turin, Italy, and graduated in law at the University of Turin, Faculty of Law in 1933. He also studied in London and Paris and began a banking career that took him to other major European cities. While in Marseille during 1925-1926, he encountered a person who showed him some card tricks, triggering an interest in magical and paranormal phenomena. He pursued deeper spiritual studies and had an experience in Paris of which he wrote in his diary: “I discovered a terrible law that links the color green, the musical fifth, and heat. I have lost my will to live. I am frightened by power. I shall write no more!” As a result of this crisis, he briefly retreated to a convent.
Upon returning to Italy, in the 1930s he became known in aristocratic and political circles. Rol engaged in various demonstrations of his supposed mystical powers, including telepathy, clairvoyance, and other psychic or magical feats. He also became a friend, among others, of film directors Federico Fellini and Franco Zeffirelli and writer Dino Buzzati. Toward the later part of his life, and after his death, Rol was a focal point of debate in Italy between skeptics and advocates of parapsychology.
«He is the most disconcerting man I have ever met. His powers are so big that can even go beyond other people’s faculty of being wondered». Federico Fellini, italian movie director, five oscar prizes’ winner
«Gustavo Rol is a man God has sent among us to make us better». Franco Zeffirelli, italian movie director
«To the unbelievable Rol, who will be believed only the day after tomorrow». (dedication) Jean Cocteau, french writer, painter and filmmaker
«He is one of the persons to whom I address a prayer when I’m in difficulties». Vittorio Messori, italian journalist and writer
«Rol escapes our possibility of comprehension. He is a mistery». Cesare Romiti, FIAT’s former managing director
«That man can read a mind and we cannot risk strangers to know French State secrets». Charles De Gaulle (talking with a minister), former French President
