A Moscow detective, David Klimov, is hired by a distressed father to find his daughter Sara, a missing university student of parapsychology. He traces her to Suzdal and the local Psychic Tsekh guild and he becomes associated with its leader, the mayor. The trail leads to Yaroslavl and Dr. Viktor Razum, founder of a new movement based on telepathic hypnotism. David finds Sara and joins the Razumites in order to understand her. He aids Razum in winning control of the Yaroslavl psychic guild. He balances between the two parties of psychics. But at the national psychic convention in St. Petersburg Sara engages in a dangerous experiment in hypnotic levitation and Razum is stabbed. The detective must solve several mysteries surrounding Sara and the House of Razum…