HOW TO PRODUCE PK AT HOME IN YOUR SPARE TIME

XXVII

The outstanding PK psychic in Russia today is Nina Kulagina, who started out under the tutelage of Professor Leonid L. Vasiliev of Leningrad University. At that time, she was trying to develop her ability at eyeless vision (or dermo-optical receptivity). She recently told Thelma Moss how she got into her present research, saying that once when trying to do this she thought she noticed some of the objects moving. “Intrigued,” writes Dr. Moss,¹ “she began to try deliberately to influence the objects to move without touching them. She discovered, to her astonishment, that she could; but not every time, however, and not to all observers-particularly if they were overtly skeptical about her claimed ability.”

Kulagina has worked on the development of her PK talents and now, by concentration, she can cause the movement of a wide range of nonmagnetic objects: matches, bread, large crystal bowls, clock pendulums, a cigar tube, and a salt cellar among others. In one test, a raw egg was placed in a salt solution inside a sealed aquarium six feet away from her. Researchers report she was able to use PK to separate the yolk from the white of the egg.

I have seen movies of Kulagina that several different American researchers who have visited the USSR have brought back with them. You can watch her concentrating on the objects, her hands in the air over them but never touching them. And various things will move, either toward her or away from her. A scattering of loose matches gathers itself together and seems to be pulled off the edge of the table. She puts her hands in the air over a compass and the whole compass itself moves around on the table. She waves her hands and the needle vibrates. Then she takes her hands away and just concentrates with her eyes, and the needle follows their movement. A plastic cube approximately 7 inches by 7 inches is put over the objects on the table so that there can be no possible opportunity for air currents to influence their action. Even under this, one can easily see a matchbox move.

Kulagina may lose five pounds at such a session. The intense amount of emotional pressure she exerts can be observed as one views the curious scene. In fact, reports show that her blood sugar and endocrine measurements reveal her to be in a state of emotion equal to one of controlled rage at such times.

The experimenters wired up Kulagina to a number of physiological electronic measuring devices and tested for important body functions during her demonstrations of PK. Scientists found that at the moment an object begins to move, all her body processes speed up drastically – heart, breathing, brain activity – and the electromagnetic force fields around her body all begin to pulse in rhythm. According to Ostrander and Schroeder,² “The researchers postulated that it was these rhythmic ‘vibrations’ that cause objects to be attracted or repelled from her.”

Scientists have reported in letters to these two young women that Kulagina has been able to stop the beating of a frog’s heart in solution and to re-activate it.

Dr. Genady Sergeiev has done several years of intensive laboratory research on Kulagina, and has taken Kirlian photographs of her while working. He reports that the bio-plasmic field around her expands and pulses rhythmically at such times, and a ray of luminescence seems to shoot out of her eyes.

When Dr. Montague Ullman visited the psychical researchers in the Soviet Union, he had an interesting experience with Kulagina, who visited him and his wife in their hotel room. Kulagina was very tired and did not plan to perform her PK feats for them, but Ullman reports:³

After two hours elapsed, she quietly left the table where we were sitting and went over to the side … she took out a few small objects, including a wooden matchbox, and began practicing by making passes with her hand over the objects. My wife and the Intourist guide saw the matchbox move.

A few minutes later, she rejoined us at the table. Then for about an hour, she went through a routine of moving small objects – pen tops, clips, wooden matches – by simply making passes with her hands and even moving the upper part of her body over the objects. And they moved.

The pen tops were particularly striking, because they were moving across a rough tablecloth. They remained upright and moved in intervals of about an inch at a time toward her. One pen top was plastic and the other was metal. They also moved independently; she brought one close to the other then moved them both. Then she moved some wooden matches.

Of course, Dr. Sergeiev has performed more systematic and controlled experiments to demonstrate this more convincingly. This brief demonstration, however, in broad daylight in my hotel was quite impressive, even though – and I want to stress this – I wasn’t there as an investigator setting conditions, but as a guest simply registering interest in what she was doing.

When I was visiting at Thelma Moss’ lab in May 1974, I met a young man named Ted Dunn who is doing some exciting Kirlian photography at U.S.C. Medical School. He told me of a friend of his, Gina, who has been concentrating on moving a Ping-Pong ball with her mind. She had thought she had seen it move a time or two but was never sure and had never had a witness. Then one night shortly before I met Ted, she managed to accomplish it while he was there and he saw it move too. Gina became wildly excited at having her experience verified.

I can’t help thinking of Joi Smith, whose Barbara of the Ouija board could move objects all over her house. I strongly suspect that Joi is a very positive RSPK energy source and that if she put her mind to it she could move Ping-Pong balls too … or matches, or whatever. I am going to tell her about Gina, and I will certainly call her attention to the next young lady I am going to discuss.

In Parapsychology Review⁴ I read the following:

One evening, the two classes had a joint meeting in order to see a film showing psychokinesis by Felicia Parise. This demonstration was filmed by a skeptical photographer and witnessed by Charles Honorton. After the area was thoroughly examined, the photographer had to believe what he saw. Felicia Parise moved a plastic pill box on a table a few inches. Under a very heavy bell jar, she was able to cause a cork to roll and strips of aluminum foil to flutter. This ten minute film took her many hours to produce and proved very enervating. She had to rest between attempts. Her hands hovered over the object and she said the sensation was like pitching. When she finished she couldn’t move her arm, it was too painful. At another time, they tested her physical reaction during an experiment. She lost two pounds, during a 40-minute session, her blood pressure was affected, blood sugar rose, and her heart rate increased. She claimed that she performs best when under personal stress.

For the following week, we were told to bring a compass to class. No one in the class could move the needle but we watched Felicia Parise move it a few degrees on three different compasses. She no longer attempts PK, except every once in a while to see if she still has the ability.

After reading this, I immediately wrote to Charles Honorton, Research Associate, Department of Psychiatry, Maimonides Medical Center, for further information about the amazing Felicia Parise. In a somewhat delayed response, I received a tape recording from her, so articulate about her development and her ultimate decision not to pursue her PK ability that I am going to quote her complete story here. The insights she gives makes one reaise the problems involved with having such an exceptional talent, even while regretting her decision to give it up.

Felicia Parise says she is 36 years old, although her voice on the tape sounds like that of a 20-year-old. She is a research associate in the Department of Hematology at Maimonides Hospital, where the Dream Laboratory is also located. About seven years ago, when she knew nothing whatever about ESP, a friend gave her name to the Dream Lab for some experiments they were doing, involving hypnosis. Felicia’s account goes on:

We went into the soundproof room and Mr. Honorton performed the hypnosis, which was very pleasant – it’s always very pleasant. When I was under hypnosis, he asked me to dream about a picture in an opaque envelope he was going to place on the arm of my chair. I thought to myself, “How am I going to dream when I’m really not asleep.” Nonetheless, I got all this mental imagery and reported it to him. This procedure was repeated with four different envelopes. I got three out of four direct hits. Mr. Honorton was delighted and asked me to come back and participate in a dream telepathy study.

By now I was pretty well booked, so I decided to take part, and the first few pilot studies were very successful – I got direct hits. Then we went into an eight-night study which was highly significant and was written about extensively in Dr. Ullman’s book Dream Telepathy. I had the opportunity to try various areas of ESP: clairvoyance, precognition, ESP cards, the Schmidt machine. It was mind-blowing to me to find out that I was able to do all these things and be successful at them.

I became interested in all aspects of the field, did as much reading about it as possible, kept examining my internal feelings for clues as to how I was doing it. It seemed so easy to me – I just had to say what was coming through my mind at a given time. It was just as natural to me as breathing. It goes on without any effort, without trying. I have learned that when I do try I fail. It has to be quite spontaneous and easy for me. I can’t push it

Then Mr. Honorton introduced me to a man whose name was Malcolm and said, “Here’s his wallet. Do a reading.” “What am I, a gypsy, too?” I asked. “What do I do?” He said just to hold it and tell whatever came to me, so I did and it too was very successful.

So I have had to face the fact that I do have ESP ability. I came to reaise there is nothing superhuman about it, nothing paranormal. It is something we all have. So I became part of the staff at the Maimonides Dream Lab; and just about that time, Dr. Ullman went on his sabbatical to the Soviet Union. When he returned, he invited the lab crew to view a film that he got in Leningrad of Nina Kulagina, who purports to move objects at will by the power of her mind. I cannot begin to tell you how impressed I was when I saw this film. There was no doubt in my mind then or now that this woman is 100 percent legitimate. And after viewing the film, I couldn’t wait to go home and try the same thing.

When I went home that evening, I tried to move something with the power of my mind. I had no idea what Kulagina was thinking while she was moving objects. It was obvious from the film that she wasn’t in any meditative kind of situation. She was trying very hard and focusing her attention on the object and nothing else. I just had to try to get into a similar state and find the right condition that was necessary for me to move objects. I happened to have a little plastic pill vial on my coffee table and I began to concentrate on it. I had no success at all for a long time, but was so interested that I kept on trying.

All during the months that followed, my personal life became one emotional crisis after another. I was very close to my grandmother and we had a very tight relationship. She was then dying at Maimonides Hospital, and I was there every day watching her and doing what I could for her. I can’t tell you what this was doing to me. With patients the emotional tie isn’t there, but when it is your own … I had never seen anyone die in such a slow and agonizing way and it was torturing to me. So it was a highly emotional time for me. Yet I could hardly wait each night to get home for a quiet period with my plastic bottle. That was the only time I could stop thinking about the heartache and tragedy that was coming on at the time. It became such an obsession that I took my plastic bottle to work and tried to move it during lunch hours and coffee breaks. This went on for several months.

Now, I have a plastic bottle that contains alcohol in which I put my artificial eyelashes at night when I take them off, to clean them and keep them safe until the next morning. This one night I removed my lashes as soon as I got home and laid the bottle on the kitchen table. The phone rang and it was my mother telling me that I’d better get back to the hospital because grandmother had taken a turn for the worse. I got very excited and dressed quickly to return to the hospital. When I ran into the kitchen to put the eyelash bottle away, it moved away from me. At this point I wasn’t sure it had happened. I just knew I hadn’t touched the bottle. Well, grandma died and several weeks later I tried again to move this same bottle in the same place, and I was successful. I kept examining everything to make sure it wasn’t being influenced to move by any other means. I didn’t tell anybody because I couldn’t believe it was happening. Although I had been deliberately trying to do this, I still wasn’t sure. Eventually I became convinced this was really PK and I told Mr. Honorton what I was doing. He asked for a demonstration and the bottle moved.

Dr. Krippner suggested I try moving a compass needle, and so I did this and was successful with it. I tried several other things. I reaised I was going to get a lot of criticism about this, because it is really something unusual, and so I avoided using metals and anything that was magnetic except the compass. I primarily stick to plastic, aluminum foil, cotton balls, corks, and a whole variety of things, but mostly plastic. For some reason, I have not been successful with wood.

Finally, I made a film, and then I continued to do PK for a year or two after that. But I don’t do it now. It has been almost a year since I have tried to move any objects. There were many factors involved in making my decision to discontinue the PK. It was not made quickly or easily. It took many months of deep thought. But my reasons are personal and valid considering my personality, character, future plans in life, etc.

First, PK subjects must be able not only to defend what they are doing but must get used to the idea of having their integrity under question at all times. I do not enjoy having to defend myself, nor having my integrity under fire to the extent that even my closest and dearest friends are afraid to commit themselves about a phenomenon that they themselves have witnessed often.

We have overcome these skepticisms by exercising the tightest controls possible in our experiments. Yet how can one be expected to defend such abilities when there are always those few others who take a great deal of pleasure from deception? How does one cope with every magician in the country who can through sleight-of-hand duplicate such manifestations on network television? Every time you meet someone who knows your ability, he pushes an object in your face and says, “Lees see you move this.” It is all most disconcerting. And how can one avoid the notoriety and publicity that comes with such an ability?

When you are attempting to demonstrate your ability, it is not easy to curb your anxiety. It is almost impossible to travel around the country and satisfy the people who want to work with you. Everyone is very kind and very cooperative and financially very generous, but I cannot sell this ability. I cannot sell my clairvoyance, precognition, or anything else. To me it’s like selling my blood. I’m in a position where I earn a good living because I have knowledge about another area, so I can’t condemn those who do sell their psychic talents. But I just can’t do it. And it’s a great responsibility to know that your success or failure might determine the fate of a particular institution’s existence, and this kind of situation was put to me at one time.

Between PK and my work in hematology, let my just say, I am very confident, secure, and successful in my present position in medicine. On the other hand, I lack the same confidence in PK and I sometimes wonder if someday my ability might just dwindle.

In order to maintain a high order of success with PK, I have to devote all my time to it, and I mean all my time. I have tried to maintain a normal life style continuous with PK and found it impossible to do so. Lastly, I’m aware of subjects who are successful with PK tests and can demonstrate their ability without putting a stress on themselves physically or emotionally. This is not the case with me. It is extremely stressful, and continually putting one’s physical body under such stress can only result in poor health and a shortening of one’s natural life.

However, there is one thing I wish to make clear; I have strong feelings about this. I have said I have no desire to sell my ability, but I do feel very strongly about defending the reality of the phenomenon. I began it in the first place because I believed it could be done and because I wanted to find out if I could do it. I learned the answer to these questions. Yes, it can be done. Yes, I can do it. And now I would like to move on to something else.