DANISH SCIENTIST REPORTS ON OCTOBER 76 ALMA-ATA PARAPSYCHOLOGY CONFERENCE

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: STARGATE
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP96-00787R000500030005-1
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: U
• Document Page Count: 5
• Document Creation Date: November 4, 2016
• Document Release Date: March 23, 2000
• Sequence Number: 5
• Publication Date: May 1, 1977
• Content Type: REPORT

Approved For Release 2000/08/07 : CIA-RDP96-00787R000500030005-1
DANISH SCIENTIST REPORTS ON OCTOBER 76 ALMA-ATA PARAPSYCHOLOGY CONFERENCE
Freiburg ESOTERA in German Vol 28 No 5 May 1977 pp 397-400
[Article by Scott Hill: "Healing by Self-Regulation]
[Text] Soviet scientists have long since stopped laughing at the
capacities of Far-Eastern yogis. Studies of the influence on
metabolism and cardiac and respiratory activity are being car-
ried out in the most modern laboratories. ESOTERA contributor
Scott Hill reports on this research in the framework of his
observations during the Parapsychology Conference in Alma-Ata,
in which he took part in October of last year by special per-
mission as a western psi expert.
Autogenous training has been known in Germany since 1920 through Johannes
Schultz, who developed this technique that is still practiced today. But
in its origin it goes back centuries and essentially agrees with yoga, to
the extent that psychic forces can be brought by suitable training to con-
trol the functions of the physical body, even including functions that are
regarded from the medical standpoint as not subject to conscious control.
The Sanskrit words yoga and yuga mean union and yoke, and yoga actually
means two different things: a stage of union with absolute reality and the
system of exercises that must be done to achieve that state. Just as a
yoke keeps two oxen in step, the yogi seeks to bring his psychic powers
into harmony with a greater reality. Thanks to space-age technology, this
can be achieved up to a. certain point without very long training. The en-
counter of yogis and scientists has generated the new science of
biofeedback. The Soviet scientist prefers the term "psychic self-reguZa-
tion. "
Stories have been told of holy men in the orient who could control their
own heart function -- could control their cerebral activity and the circu-
lation of their blood or have themselves buried alive without breathing.
Were these merely phantastic travel stories... or something more?
Scientists in the Soviet Union have long since stopped laughing about such
stories, because they are true and are no longer limited to the mysterious
Approved For Release 2000/08/07 : CIA-RDP96-00787R000500030005-1
 Approved For Release 2000/08/07 : CIA-RDP96-00787R000500030005-1
East. There is more and more scientific literature on the domination of
the mind over the body, and Soviet researchers have not ignored this
branch of science. Studies of control of metabolism, which could be proved
in the laboratory, reach back to 1881, when Prof Botkin reported in a clin-
ical journal (ESHCHENEDEL'NAYA KLINICHESKAYA GAZETA) on a patient who was
suffering from advanced muscular atrophy and possessed the rare ability to
slow down his heartbeat voluntarily at any time and thus disturb his regu-
lar biorhythm. He needed only to think of his. sad condition of health in
order to demonstrate this capacity. Cheerful thoughts, on the other hand,
did not produce the opposite effect.
In 1885 J.R. Tarkhanov published an article in PFLUEGERS ARCIIIV
intitled "Ueber die willkurliche Acceleration (Beschleunigung) der Herz-
schlage beim Menschen" (Voluntary Acceleration of the Pulse in Man). The
subject was a student at the medico-surgical academy, E. Salome, who was
described as "tall, rather thin, and somehow nervous and sensitive." In
scientific laboratory experiments it was possible to show in him, even
with the measuring instruments available at that time, definite proof that
pulse, blood pressure, and cutaneous temperature could all be voluntarily
influenced. It was many years, however, before Tarkhanov's and Botkin's
works were recognized by other scientists, but this was long before yoga
was accepted as a scientific research field.
Today experiments with the cardiac rhythm and other similar biofeedback
experiments are being conducted everywhere in the West (see ESOTERA 4/76,
page 352).
Soviet Researcher as Fakir
While I was in the USSR late in 1976 I had an opportunity, within the frame-
work of the Conference on Psychic Self-Regulation in Alma Ata, to discuss
advances in this field with Dr A.S. Romen, who practices yoga along with
his academic work. In 1965 Dr Romen went to India to study the mysterious
phenomena of control of metabolism as they are practiced by fakirs and
yogis. After his return he exhibited a film with the title "Who Are the
Indian Yogis?" in which he demonstrated the following phenomena (the film
was shown during the conference):
A human subject was placed between two chairs in such a way that only her
head and feet were on the chairs. She was thus lying -- under the influ-
ence of suggestion (hypnosis) -- entirely straight in the air. In another
experiment a man stuck a long metal needle through his upper arm, pulled
it back out, and although skin and muscular tissue had been pierced, did
not bleed. The next day the hole had completely disappeared.
I was astonished when I heard that the man in the film was Dr Romen him-
self. According to Dr Romen, these potentialities are not limited to yogis
in India, and in fact he offered to teach me this method within 10 days!
A woman participant in the conference assured me that after 10 days of Dr
Romen's training she had been capable of healing a bleeding wound immedi-
ately. The basis of this training is the creation of a state of inner
Approved For Release 2000/08/07 : CIA-RDP96-00787R000500030005-1
 Approved For Release 2000/08/07 : CIA-RDP96-00787R000500030005-1
peace and intensive psychic and physical relaxation. The course of
autogenous training founded by Dr Schultz works in a similar way.
Self-Regulation and Sports
The effects are not only being studied in the laboratory, but also applied
in practice by Soviet scientists. It has been observed that Olympic Games
contestants can obviously profit by this method, learning to influence
their metabolism in addition to the usual muscle training, which, of course,
is also necessary. By suitable exercises it becomes possible to release
additional energy reserves for peak performances. Among the international
sport elite, where the differences between gold, silver, and bronze are
often measured in mere fractions of seconds, such fine points of heightened
performance play a part that should not be underestimated. In fact, Dr
Romens's latest book appeared under the title "Psychic Self-Regulation and
Sports."
In my lecture on the occasion of the Alma-Ata conference I pointed out the
close relationship between feedback control of events inside the body
(INS = inside the skin) and the supposed non-motor manifestations outside
the body, which are designated in parapsychological literature as psycho-
kinesis (OUTS = outside the skin). Certain subjects, such as Swami Rama,
were obviously able to control processes inside and outside the body. In
the presence of astonished scientists he succeeded in stopping his heart-
beat up to a minute without negative effects on his health. According to
Swami Rama, such siddhis or paranormal events are possible through inten-
sive control over the internal physiological functions.
This idea was received sympathetically by the scientists at Alma-Ata, who
conducted their yoga research with modern technical instruments such as
the EKG [electrocardiograph], plasmograph, EEG [electroencephalograph]
(recording of the electrical currents of the brain), and similar apparatus.
They have confirmed the most important findings of western research in the
field of internal organ and body control at the three conferences on
psychic self-control (Alma-Ata, 1973, 1974, 1976). The Soviet scientists
have worked out detailed data on clinically documented cases, including
the treatment of alcoholism and acute organic diseases.
Dr Romen is co-founder of the "International Society for Psychic Self-
Regulation," which will isue a new journal in the near future. The journal
of the Biofeedback Research Society, newly issued in 1976 with the title
"Biofeedback and Self-Regulation," will contribute to publicizing the latest
research findings of this multistratified field. Although most of the
meetings of the Biofeedback Research Society take place in the United
States, in November 1977 the first international symposium on biofeedback
will be held at the University of Tubingen.
Research on Hypnotism in Alma-Ata
Germany will probably soon be visited with the "alpha wave," for more and
more little feedback devices (priced from 200 to 1,000 marks) are coming
Approved For Release 2000/08/07 : CIA-RDP96-00787R000500030005-1
 Approved For Release 2000/08/07 : CIA-RDP96-00787R000500030005-1
on the market. Some enterprising people are offering courses in alpha
training (often with dubious promises); they promise inner peace and the
acquisition of control of consciousness and telepathy. This is an inter-
esting field of research, but producing alpha waves is nothing special,
since most people only have to lie down and shut their eyes. Recently the
TM (transcendental meditation) movement has been criticized with the remark
that the advantage for the meditator consists only in taking a nap.
Another important field of research that was discussed in Alma-Ata is hyp-
nosis. After centuries of research the foundations of hypnosis are still
obscure. From the days of Anton Mesmer to the present we have realized
more and more clearly that hypnosis actually functions, that the trance
state can be induced in the majority of the population, that suggestion has
a powerful psychosomatic effect, and that even animals can be hypnotized.
Mesmer's original theory of "animal magnetism" may have something in its
favor, now that the secret of the biological influence of magnetic fields
is beginning to be clarified, but one thing is clear -- hypnosis is a spe-
cial form of self-regulation. That is to say, the person hypnotized con-
trols his own functions himself, not the hypnotist! In the classical case,
where a hypnotized person is stuck with a needle but feels no pain, it has
been proved scientifically that the nerves of the skin forward the pain
via the normal neural channels to the brain, but the brain simply refuses
to react to these signals. That is self-control.
In the Soviet Union research is going on in the field of hypnosis as well;
it is regarded as a part of psychic self-regulation, although of course it
makes a hypnotist necessary to induce the trance.
The Medicine of the Future?
As has been pointed out in earlier numbers of this series, the Soviet
scientists are very much interested in utilizing their new knowledge clin-
ically. For that reason such researchers as, for example, B.A. Tokarev
and Ye.A. Tarasov, as well as V.S. Slutskin, have found that the use of
yoga exercises and autogenous training constitute parts of a complex
treatment of osteochondritis (inflammation of the bones and cartilage)
with accompanying neurotic symptoms. R.M. Yakhyayev has found that
autogenous training, combined with work therapy, is an effective method of
curing alcoholism. According to L.P. Yatskov, positive results can be ob-
tained with autosuggestion in children with functional hyperkinesia (ex-
cessive movement, abnormal convulsive muscular activity). A.A. Koleshao,
V.V. Savitskiy, and G.V. Sapchenko have used autogenous training in treat-
ing patients in the acute stage of cancer and also in cases of cardiac
infarction. There are hundreds of pages of clinical reports on the use
of psychic self-regulation in hospitals all over the USSR.
5588
CSO: 8120
Approved For Release 2000/08/07 : CIA-RDP96-00787R000500030005-1
 Approved For Release 2000/08/07 : CIA-RDP96-00787R000500030005-1
1. p 398 During the conference, author Scott Hill spoke on yoga experi-
ments with Dr A.S. Romen, Soviet expert in the field of psychic
self-regulation. Romen has practiced yoga for years and demon-
strated various phenomena on film on his own body.
2. p 399 Electronic measurements like those made by author Scott Hill in
his laboratory in Copenhagen with yogi A. Mayatiita are also be-
ing undertaken by Soviet researchers.
Approved For Release 2000/08/07 : CIA-RDP96-00787R000500030005-1