Psychokinesis

There’s a new video on You-Tube which shows the exam for a 3rd-level Nei-kung by the first westerner student of John Chang, the Magus of Java, who is teaching the Mo Pai school of kung-fu. To pass 3rd level a student must demonstrate certain telekinetic abilities by using his yin chi.

You can read more about Nei-Kung, John Chang, his amazing abilities and his school in the book The Magus of Java: Teachings of an Authentic Taoist Immortal by Kosta Danaos, another student of his. I’ve read it and highly recommend getting it, if you’d like to read first hand account with this rare man.

The description to the following video on Youtube.com site tells the following:

It was just last year I found this person. He is the first Westerner to ever be admitted into the ancient school of Mo Pai. About four or five other Westerners have become students, but all have failed for one reason or another. There has never been another Westerner to have ever reached the 3rd level.

This person is currently in training to go on to the 4th level of nei-kung which is different from chi gong, despite what other alleged, pseudo authorities say.

The short segment is his testing for the 3rd level when he passed in 2000.

Notice that the boxes are against a wall, and they fall forward and not backward as if there was something blowing them backward from the front. There are two methods of either pulling them forward or pushing them backward. The distance between his hand and the boxes is over 9 feet; a tape measure is seen on the floor.

As you can see in the video, along with the Wester student is the world famous master/teacher, John Chang and his son.

I think the video speaks for itself, although the quality is quite poor, since for some reason the put the camera against a bright window, which washed out much of the detail. What do you think of this video?

I have lately interviewed the Magnetic Man Miroslaw Magola. During our email conversation he referred me to a recent interview that he’s done for a German language only print mysteries-magazin. I couldn’t understand the interview, since I can’t read German and I’ve asked visitors of my site help with the translation. To my happiness, Jan Martin Löhndorf from Germany agreed to translate the piece for me. Big thanks to Jan.

I’ve emailed the editors of the magazine and wrote that I want to publish the translation on the web. I’ve received no objection from them, so here I’m posting it. If I receive further notice form the magazine that asks me to remove the translation, I will. I’m not using any graphics from the article, only the text.

Interview with Miroslaw Magola in Mysteries Magazin

PSI-talent challenges sceptics “I don’t cheat!”

Miroslav Magola’s amazing “attractive” powers

Be it metal vessels, marble or wood: Nearly everything sticks to Miroslav Magola. For several years now, german Miroslav Magola, formerly from Poland, has been keeping people amazed with his unbelievable performances. With criticism growing, he now promises, “For the future, I will also appear using talcum and gloves.”

2002: In the middle of the ample foyer of the congress hall housing the Basel Psi-convention, kneels a bald-headed man of medium age on the floor – surrounded by amazed spectators. Before him are placed several metal pots of different sizes, all turned upside down. Cautiously, the man lays his hand on the bottom of one of the vessels, Then he slowly lifts his arm – and the spectators hardly believe their eyes. The heavy vessel seems to stick to the palm of his hand. As though it were magnetically attracted. Miroslav Magola smiles – and concentrates again. Then – still kneeling on the ground – he performs the same spectacle with his other hand. Slowly he reaches out with both his hands, each of them having a metal pot sticking to it. Then he smashes them against each other with full force, like a cymbalist. Several times, even. Without the pots falling down, as everyone would suspect. Alarmed by the noise, several of the visitors eye Magola to witness this exceptional performance. Slowly the “magnetic man” lowers his hands with the pots “sticking” to them again, places them gently on the carpet, where they separate from his hands – as though a hidden magnet was deactivated. Magola smiles. Stunned, the audience spontaneously applaud. More people halt. Because the uncommon guest holds some more surprises in stock. In a similar way, he “lifts” more objects with his hands, waving about wildly with his arms – but the objects still stick to his palms. Big cooking pots seem to even stick to his forehead, although, according to the laws of gravitation, they should crash downwards.

I’m glad to finally publish my interview with Miroslaw Magola, also called the Magnetic Man. Miroslaw possesses a unique ability to “stick” objects to parts of his body. I have already written an article about him in last October, see for an introduction Miroslav Magola the Magnetic Man. Since then I saw more references to him, including references from people skeptical of his ability. I am glad that Miroslaw has accepted my invitation to interview him. Note, that Miroslaw was born in Poland and now lives in Germany. Yet, his English is quite poor and he preferred to be interviewed over the email, since his reading and writing skills are better than his talking skill. Since most of my interviews were conducted over the email, I saw no problem with that.

Obviously, the claims of Miroslaw are quite extraordinary. There are very little people even claiming to have the ability to attach objects to them without adhesives, even rarer is when the objects are not metallic. Miroslaw himself proudly writes that he has been examined by several scientists or researchers in various fields and his website lists them. I have asked Mr. Magola, even before I sent him the question, to provide me with some references to these researchers, if which Miroslaw has sent me four contacts: Prof. Dr. Konstatin Korotkov, Dr. Alexander Imich, M.D. Dobruskin, Jack Houck. I’ve decided to check these four references for information about Magola.

Dr. Konstatin Korotkov seems to be a researcher and an inventor. He is a Professor of Physics at St. Petersburg State Technical University in Russia, published over 70 papers in leading journals on physics and biology, and he holds 12 patents on biophysics inventions (from his website). He seems to be researching what he calls bioelectrography, research of human’s energy field. He developed a technique known as the Gas Discharge Visualization technique (GDV), which should be better than Kirlian photography. I’ve sent an email to the email address at his webpage but unfortunately got no reply to this day.

Miroslaw gave me a phone number in New York for M.D. Dobruskin who seems to be related to Kirlian photography. Yet, on this phone number he was not available anymore and I couldn’t find any additional information on this person on the internet, except for some pictures where he tests Magola, on the following website (at the bottom): http://members.aol.com/mmagola/experiments.html.

Jack Houck is well known for his PK party. He also understands in metals, I think and he worked as an engineer for Boeing for many years. I wrote to Jack twice using the email supplied on his webpage but never got reply, too.

The only person who actually replied was Dr. Alexander Imich. I wrote about Dr. Imich twice here, in the articles An unusual voice mail and Dr. Alexander Imich is in financial need. I also mentioned him as one of the people reseraching Magola in my original article on the Magnetic Man. Dr. Imich is now almost 105 years old but he is still active in the world of parapsychology. So, I talked to him over the phone and he asked me to write him an email which I did. His reply was as follows:

Some years back, during an informal demonstration, I have seen various objects – metallic and non-metal – weighing probably up to 1 kg, sticking to palms and/or to the front of Miroslaw Magola’s head, and lifted by him this way from the floor.

To my knowledge, this is rather a rare human capacity of paranormal nature. Described for the first time in Russia and exhibited by Miroslaw Magola.

Sincerely,

Alexander Imich PhD., President
Anomalous Phenomena Research Center

In another interview of Dr. Imich (July 2005) he is also asked of Magola and answers the following:

Miroslaw Magola is a Polish citizen living in Germany. Together with Dr. Barbara Koopman, we have observed a phenomena first described in Russia. Various metallic and non-metallic implements, some weighing more than a pound, sticking to his skin. Not many people are producing this, ostensibly paranormal phenomenon that, in the very inadequate parapsychological nomenclature, has to be classified as psychokinetic.

So at least there seems to be some credibility to his claims although I don’t know of any real scientific papers that were published about Mr. Magola. Neither does he know.

Miroslaw was also kind enough to send me a lot of high-quality photographs of himself. He mailed me several dozens Megabytes of photographs and other material. He was also kind enough to email me scanned pages of the interview with him in the “mysteries-magazin”. The magazine is in German and I don’t understand German that much. If anyone who understands German is willing to translate parts of all of the interview from the journal I’ll be happy to email him the pages and publish it here (if copyright allows). You’ll see some of the photographs he’s sent me below the interview.

And now to the interview itself. I allowed myself to edit his answers a bit for spelling and punctuation for the best of my ability.

Could you please describe your ability to attach objects to yourself, is it only about metal objects?

My ability is like a „magnetic power“ ( not in the physical sense ). It is holding – but of course – without glue, adhesive-tape or similar things. The ability works to all materials : metal, plastic, wood, ceramic. See link http://www.magola.com/English/welcome.html

When and how have you developed this ability in yourself? How long did it take?

Magola

I'm preparing questions for my upcoming interview with Miroslaw Magola, the magnetic man. Miroslaw seems to possess a rare gift to "glue" objects to himself. These objects are not only metal and he demonstrated his ability also with gloves and talc on his hands. If you want to ask the man some questions, please do so before I send them to him (couple of days).

To get a glimpse into his ability, read my previous story about Miroslaw Magola, which I wrote in last October. You can write your questions here in the comments or on the forum.

The famous Uri Geller was interviewed for a german site Telepolis. The interview (in English) is quite interesting, though it touches not only Uri’s “mystical” carreer but also his help with in the Israeli Palestinian conflict, his new book “Ella”, why he lives near London and some interesting facts from his life, like his Mexican citizenship, fnding oil and a lot of stories from his work for the CIA. I really enjoyed reading this interview. Some excerpts:

...The first contact was in Mexico City, to the best of my recollection. It was a CIA agent, and he told me, “I’m a CIA agent, we want you to work.” You know, I was very excited about this because I was young, and it was like a movie for me. It was like an unbelievable experience. Wow! To work for the CIA. And then I started getting tasks. To spy on the Russian embassy, to erase floppy disks that were attached to KGB agents in diplomatic pouches…

And then in Mexico, when I found oil, the CIA said to me to come close to the Mexican President. To become friends. For many reasons I can’t tell you why. But, I remember, the Mexican President made me a secret agent for the Mexican treasury. I actually had a card, it was metal, where I was Uri Geller, secret, it doesn’t say “secret”, but it said, “special agent for the treasury department”...

Jack Houck is a former systems engineer for Boeing, the aerospace company. He has an MS degree in Aeronautical and Astronautical Engineering from the University of Michigan. Jack Houck is also famous for the organization of PK parties. In these PK parties participants learn and perform by themselves spoon bending (or fork beinding, for that matter). Jack Houck has done almost 400 such parties around the US so far and among the participants you could find the writer Michael Crichton, Dick Sutphen and also Dr. Dean Radin. I wrote about their experiences on these PK parties in the article Spoon bending evidence by Dean Radin.

A visitor of the Mind-Energy.net site has sent an email with photographs from his successful visit to a recent Jack Houck’s PK party in Las Vegas. Here’s what he wrote:

I went to Jack Houck PK Party #388 in Las Vegas last thursday evening. about 100 people come and I’m about the first round.

Jack is an old guy with very nice smile and easy going aura around him,

I followed all the procedures and able to bend 4 forks and 1 spoon, my wife which is very skeptical about this whole thing could bent one fork and 4 spoons

Below are the photographs that he has sent:

I came upon the name of Miroslav Magnetic when looking for information about Dr. Alexander Imich, which has (by error, I guess) called me. When I saw what I saw about this man (on his personal pages) I was totally amazed. A rare skill like his, displayed on high quality video. Rare sights indeed.

Miroslav Magola, the Magnetic Man, seems to possess strong psychokinetic powers as he can attach to himself quite heavy objects. He can attach them to his hands or to his forehead. Perhaps he can more than that, but that’s what I’ve seen in the videos. Moreover, he can hold this way not only metallic objects but also ceramic or plastic, thus eliminating real magnetic force as the source of his ability.

There are lots of videos of him displaying his ability in good quality (see two videos embedded below). Apparently he was also verified by lots of scientists and skeptics, including the Lord of the Skeptics – Mr. James Randi, who did not agree to test his powers scientifically (maybe he was too afraid to lose his $1M. Need more reference on that). On of his websites the following information is written:

This is a second articles in the series on Retro-PK by Bryan Williams. The first article was A Brief Intro to Retro-PK.

A Lunar Modulation Effect on Retro-PK?

It has been thought that one way in which we might come to better understand (and perhaps eventually predict) the workings of psi phenomena is to search for any physical variables whose changes might be connected in some way with psi performance, and might therefore have a modulating effect on psi. One possible variable that has come to light in recent years is the Earth’s own internally-generated magnetic field, which studies suggest may decrease successful ESP performance as it increases in intensity (Persinger, 1989). A few recent studies are beginning to suggest the possibility that there may be another, lesser-known variable: certain phases of the monthly lunar cycle.

A great deal of myth and folklore has been traditionally associated with the phases of the moon throughout many human cultures since ancient times (Guiley, 1991). For example, in Celtic lore, midnight at the time of a full moon was considered “the witching hour,” and people were assumed to turn into werewolves under the full moon. Certain major holidays in the Christian and Jewish religions (Easter and Passover, respectively) are timed according to the lunar cycle. Even the term “lunatic” derives from the ages-old assumption that the light of the full moon made people crazy. In order to separate fact from fiction, several psychological studies have been done over the past few decades to see if any kind of human activity (e.g., murders, suicide attempts, crimes, trauma & mental hospital admissions, traffic accidents, stock market activity) might be tied in some way to the lunar cycle. Some of these studies found positive indications (Alonso, 1993; Geller & Shannon, 1976; Lieber & Sherin, 1972) while others found none (Coates et al., 1989; Culver et al., 1988; Rotton & Kelly, 1985), suggesting that any possible relation between the moon and human behavior was unclear and that the case was still up in the air.

I’ve contacted a guy, Bryan Williams, who publishes great parapsychology articles on a yahoo group named Psi Society. He allowed me to post his articles on this site as well, verbatim. I only allow myself to reformat them a bit for the site. I believe you’ll enjoy them. The first three articles I’ll post will be on retroactive psychokinesis, also called Retro-PK. So, without further due:

A Brief Introduction to Retro-PK

An interesting study was published in the latest issue of the Journal of Parapsychology that reports a possible lunar modulation effect on retroactive psychokinesis effects. Before I attempt to describe the results of that study in a post, I thought I would provide a little background on retroactive psychokinesis for those in this group unfamiliar with the concept so that it a bit more clear as to what I am talking about in the post:

Precognition is often considered to be most perplexing form of ESP because it appears to be retrocausal; that is, it seems to involve a “backwards acting in time” process in which an effect appears to precede it cause, counter to our usual assumptions that cause leads to effect. It turns out that psychokinesis (PK, or “mind over matter”) occurring on the microscopic (i.e., subatomic) scale also appears to be capable of producing a “backwards acting in time” effect of its own, and this effect is called retroactive psychokinesis, or “retro-PK,” for short.

One of the first to report statistical evidence for retro-PK effects was physicist Helmut Schmidt (1976), then of the Mind Science Foundation in Texas, who was also the one to introduce the random number generator (RNG) to parapsychology as a useful apparatus for testing microscopic PK. In a regular PK test conducted in real-time, a subject attempts to mentally influence the electronic “coin-flips” of a binary RNG as the RNG is producing them. What Dr. Schmidt did differently in his study is that he had the RNG produce the “coin-flips” before the subject even attempts to influence them (how much time before ranged from hours to even days), recording the results on magnetic tape without anyone looking at what they were. Later on, during the actual test, Dr. Schmidt would play back the tape with the recorded RNG data to the subject, at which time the subject would try to influence them. But wait a minute…if the RNG data are already recorded on tape, and are thus already assumed to be “set in stone,” how can the subject possibly influence them by PK? This is where the “backwards acting in time” assumption comes in. Since the RNG data are already recorded, it would seem that in order to influence the data by PK, the subject would have to direct his or her PK influence backwards in time to the moment that the data were being recorded¹.

As impossible as it may sound, all three of Dr. Schmidt’s (1976) initial experiments did indeed produce results supportive of an ostensibly backwards-acting PK effect, with the results having statistical odds ranging from twenty to one, to nearly a thousand to one, against chance occurrence. When he then compared these retro-PK results with regular PK results, he found little difference between them, suggesting that both worked nearly the same. Nearly two decades later, Dr. Schmidt (1993) had repeated these experiments under the close, watchful eyes of five outside witnesses (who were psychologists, physicists, or other parapsychologists), producing a combined retro-PK effect that had odds of about 8,000 to 1 of not being due to chance alone.

Since Dr. Schmidt reported his first retro-PK study in 1976, many other parapsychologists have attempted to reproduce his work by conducting retro-PK studies of their own, and by the time that Dr. Schmidt had reported the second study in 1993, 16 other studies by eight different researchers had also been reported. Dr. Dick Bierman (1998) of the University of Amsterdam carried out a meta-analysis of all of the retro-PK studies conducted by Schmidt and others between 1975 and 1993 to see how robust the effect really was, finding that together they produced evidence for a positive retro-PK effect that had statistical odds of around 18 million to 1 against chance.

Stimulated by these retro-PK results, Matthew Watkins and John Walker founded the RetroPsychoKinesis Project, a long-term, Internet-based retro-PK experiment that is hosted on Walker’s Fourmilab website (http://www.fourmilab.ch/rpkp/). Since 1996, the project has been running individual retro-PK experiments using data recorded and saved beforehand from an RNG that uses radioactive decay as its source of randomness, and the results are updated in a daily summary. The project is ongoing, so it is possible for anyone on the Internet to participate in the retro-PK experiments (if you want to learn more or even participate in the experiments, go to the Web address above). It is the data collected as part of the Fourmilab RetroPsychoKinesis Project since 1997 that was used in the study of a possible lunar modulation effect on retro-PK, which I will discuss in a post to follow.

- Bryan

¹ There is actually an alternative approach to retro-PK that sidesteps the “backwards acting in time” assumption, but since this approach requires knowledge of certain concepts of quantum physics that many in this group may not have and would require me to make this post much longer than it already is to explain them in simpler terms, I won’t get into it here.

**

References (in order of text citation):

Schmidt, H. (1976). PK effect on pre-recorded targets. Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research 70(3), July. pp. 267 – 271.

Schmidt, H. (1993). Observation of a psychokinetic effect under highly controlled conditions. Journal of Parapsychology 57(4), December. pp. 351 – 372.

Bierman, D. J. (1998). Do psi phenomena suggest radical dualism? In S. R. Hameroff, A. W. Kazniak, & A. C. Scott (Eds.) Toward a Science of Consciousness II: The Second TUSCON Discussions and Debates (pp. 709 – 713). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press/Bradford.

Today I’m glad to announce the launch of the forum on the Mind-Energy.net site. The Parapsychology and alternative medicine forums at http://forum.mind-energy.net are place for the visitors and readers of mind-energy.net and all other internet users to talk about subjects of parapsychology and psi research and on the various topics of alternative medicine and energy healing.

In the forum you’ll find sections devoted to energy healing (EFT, Quantum Touch), personal practices, such as qigong and yoga, Traditional Chinese Medicine and your home remedies for various conditions.

Other topics including scientific debates on parapsychology and psi research as a place for the skeptics and supporters of parapsychology to delve into serious debates, a section on developing psi abilities and a place to post your question to the community describing your personal stories of unexplained character.

The last section is devoted to Mind-Energy.net site itself. On is a general discussion for your suggestions on the site’s content, design, goals etc. The other forum imports all blog posts off www.mind-energy.net to continue debates on the topics in the forum, which is better platform than the comments in the blog. In the near future, all the comments on the main site will be disabled and all commenters will need to use the forum instead. This will also improve spam protection and garbage comments.

You can subscribe to forum feeds using RSS as well, if it is easier for you.

My hope is that the forums will be a place for quality people. I’m going to attract some experts in the various related fields of knowledge to add value to the community.

You are welcomed to propose more forum topics, a different structure are help with moderation. If you hold yourself as an expert in any area, please let me know using the contact form as I might have something special for the experts.

So, head over to the Parapsychology and alternative medicine forums right now, register and start your discussions.

Thanks, Jacob.

I wanted to write about Psi-wheel for some time and now that Pete sent his Jar and pendulum exercise and asked me to write about the Psi Wheel exercise, here some info on that.

I first mentioned Psi-wheel a long time ago in the post Telekinesis videos and instructions. Now, I’ve searched the internet once again to see if I can find something new that’s interesting.

But, first, what’s the psi wheel and why it’s interesting. So, psi wheel is a simple construct that can be built by anyone at their home using just plain paper and a needle. What makes it special is that its design makes it very light. And the general presumption is that it easier to influence light things using telekinesis than heavy things. In that sense psi wheel is even better that the pendulum in jar that Pete proposed, since it’s even easier to move. And this is one of the reasons why telekinesis proponents and want to be’s like to use it. The problem with it, though, is that it’s too easy to influence a psi wheel using regular means, like air currents, and that’s what I personally don’t like about it.

The instructions to construct the psi wheel are as follows (from Wikipedia entry on psi wheels):

A reader, Pete, has sent me the following psychokinesis exercise, including the image and the accompanying instructions. He had suggested that I post it on the site. This exercises requires a simple construction, described both in words and in the image and a dedication in order to achieve success. Pete says about 2 weeks of daily practice is needed for success. I’ve seen this exercise before but Pete’s image and instructions are really good. So, learn and practice the Jar and Pendulum exercise using the instructions below, note the warning Pete gives in the first paragraph:

There is a training exercise I started using a while back and I was wondering if you were familiar with it and if you had any pointers. Feel free to post it, however it may not be wise because of the massive headaches rookies can suffer if they push themselves.