DANISH SCIENTIST REPORTS ON OCTOBER '76 ALMA-ATA PARAPSYCHOLOGY CONFERENCE

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• Document Creation Date: November 4, 2016
• Document Release Date: March 23, 2000
• Sequence Number: 6
• Publication Date: June 1, 1977
• Content Type: REPORT

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DANISH SCIENTIST REPORTS ON OCTOBER '76 ALMA-ATA PARAPSYCHOLOGY CONFERENCE
Freiburg ESOTERA in German Vol 28 No 6, June 1977 pp 492-496
[No 6 of a series of articles by Scott Hill: "Psi in the Soviet Union:
Truth and Fabrication"]
[Text] The picture that the Western World has of the status of
parapsychology in the Soviet Union is essentially shaped by a
book published by two American women journalists who met seve-
ral Russian psi researchers in Moscow in 1968. Not long ago
four renowned Soviet psychologists, in a basic official ap-
praisal of parapsychology in the Soviet Union, referred to this
book as a "cheap, bungled job." ESOTERA contributor Scott Hill
had a chance to see whether this criticism is justified. In
this last of his series of articles, he describes the real
status of parapsychological research "behind the iron curtain."
An interesting document relating to the official status of parapsychology
in the Soviet Union is the article "Parapsychology: Fiction or Reality?"
published in the Soviet journal VOPROSY FILISOFII (Questions of Philosophy),
1973, No 9. It was not a journalistic article, but an official appraisal
by four prominent members of the academy, who "feel that the time is ripe
to formulate the position of the Russian Society of Psychologists with re-
gard to parapsychology, the status of which has been discussed at a meeting
of the presidium."
The four authors are among the most important scientists in any field in
the Soviet Union: V.P. Zinchenko, A.N. Leontiyev, B.F. Lomov, and Prof
A.R. Luriya.
Luriya and Leontiyev studied in the 1920's with the famous Soviet psycholo-
gist Vygotskiy, their career thus beginning at the time when the revolution
had triumphed in the Soviet Union. Luriya specialized in neuropsychology
and is professor of psychology at the Univerity of Moscow. He is the au-
thor of a number of books on the brain, and translations of his works are
widely used as textbooks at European universities.
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Leontiyev is primarily a theoretician; he is especially interested in human
thought and its social and historical development. Leontiyev is director
of the psychology department at the University of Moscow.
Leontiyev and Zinchenko are also the authors of the official article on
parapsychology in the "Soviet Encyclopaedia" (see ESOTERA, 1977, No 4,
"Renaissance der Parapsychologie").
"The authors of this article do not consider themselves specialists in this
field," they remark, "...but an increasing number of articles... compel us
to devote attention to the matter." In other words, psi research can no
longer be ignored in the Soviet Union!
The article continues with a sharp attack on "amateur investigators" and
"specialists who change their line of work often and without sufficient
grounds" to study the formerly mysterious field of parapsychology; they are
often victims of fraudulent charlatans."
The four academicians make especially violent attacks on a certain book pub-
lished by two American women journalists. One might say that they fire
at it broadside: "It is necessary to mention certain efforts to make polit-
ical capital out of the connection with parapsychology. We call particular
attention to a book by S. Ostrander and L. Schroeder, 'Psychic Discoveries
Behind the Iron Curtain'... The authors, who are not scientists, combined
a low-level work with cheap publicity; that was their main goal... They
sell anti-Sovietism... and exaggerate the successes of Soviet 'parapsycholo-
gists. "'
During my visit to the Soviet Union I ran into several points that confirmed
my own low opinion of the book and its authors. The success of the book,
which is supposed to be going into its 17th printing right now, and accord-
ing to its publishers has had sales of half a million copies, is due more to
clever journalism than to original source material. The two journalists,
who had previously written detective stories and love stories for women's
magazines, apparently decided in 1967 that parapsychology was a subject with
which a lot of money could be made. They became regular visitors to the
libraries of the parapsychological research societies in New York, which
possess extensive material' in the form of translations of the books and
articles of Soviet scientists, and they read everything that they could
find on parapsychology in the Soviet Union.
In 1968 the two journalists, representing themselves as American scientists,
succeeded in attending a semiofficial conference on parapsychology in Moscow.
They managed to meet with several scientists for informative conversations,
but visited no laboratories and observed no experiments. (Even for genuine
scientists that would have required a special permit.) In many cases the
two women were asked by the scientists in question not to mention what they
said, or at least not to give their names or the names of their institutes.
When no interview was possible or only insignificant matters were discussed,
they did not hesitate to use their own phantasy to make a story out of it
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that sounded more interesting than the truth. They also quoted published
Soviet material freely, but dressed it up to appear as if they had gotten
it themselves at first hand.
In publishing all the names and addresses and private opinions of certain
scientists, Ostrander and Schroeder broke every rule of journalism, but
sold a lot of books.
The scientists concerned never got to see what the women had written. After
the book appeared, it was banned in the Soviet Union because of its anti-
Soviet tone. Many scientists, nevertheless, were sharply critized for their
"statements," several lost their jobs, and two especially unlucky ones were
sent off for obscure reasons to labor camps.
The journalists did not offer a penny to help the out-of-work scientists
whose frankness they had abused, and no textual corrections were incorpo-
rated in later editions. Unfortunately, this shabby job is often quoted
as an authentic source with regard to Soviet psi research.
Nevertheless, Leontiyev, Zinchenko, Lomov, and Luriya concluded their
article in the philosophical journal with a positive observation: "The
Psychological Institute of the Soviet Academy of Sciences and the Soviet
Academy of Pedagogical Sciences, as well as other psychological institu-
tions, should concern themselves with the possibility of working out pro-
grams for a strictly scientific investigation of these phenomena." For
that reason they favor the establishment of a state institute of parapsy-
chology to replace the amateur research that exists today. They consider
that a thorough study of psychology is needed by investigators, and that
some fields, such, for example, as biophysical effects (divining rod re-
search) should be investigated by specially trained researchers, perhaps
by physicists and engineers, to "demystify" these phenomena. Parapsychology
would then cease to exist as a separate discipline, and would be gradually
"absorbed" by existing special fields of study, just as the "dermo-optical
effect" (skin sight),.for example, has been taken up in the psychology of
perception as a rare but real phenomenon.
From Paraphenomena to Science
Many phenomena discussed in the five preceding articles of this series are
designated today by western scientists as "paraphenomena." It is only a
question of time, however, until such phenomena will be considered as be-
longing to a new, perhaps interdisciplinary science. The phenomenon of
"'ultraweak bioluminescence" is very probably one that will find its place
in medicine in the future (see ESOTERA, 1977, No 1, 2, and 3). Dr Fritz
Popp in his book "Biophoton," published by Verlag fur Medizin Dr Ewald
Fischer, Heidelberg, 1976, presents 10 "biological riddles" of this field
of research, including 3 with "confirmed characteristics":
1. With few exceptions, such as some algae, bacteria, and protozoa, radia-
tion has been detected in all plant and animal cells studied.
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2. The intensity of the radiation is of the order of magnitude of a, few
hundred to a thousand photons per cm2 per second.
3. The energies of the photons radiated from the cell formation form a
continuum in the spectral range of visible light up to the longwave ultra-
violet limit. The maximal intensity is in the range of 550 nm (1 nanometer
= 10-9 meters), which decreases constantly to a limit wavelength of 350 nm.
The energy is in the range of 2.3 to 3.5 electron volts in the ultraviolet
range.
And there are also some indications that:
4. The mitochondria generate ultraviolet radiation while consuming oxygen;
5. Special importance attaches to the fluorescence of tryptophan (an enzyme
that is very important to vital processes) at 350 nm (3.5 eV);
6. Radiation influences cell division (Mitosis);
7. In contrast to bioluminescence, ultraweak luminescence is more marked in
higher organisms than in organic species that are comparatively low phylo-
genetically;
8. Radiation is used for communication between the cells, and may-possibly
transmit genetic information;
9. Before mitosis the cells have the strongest emission, and a secondary
radiation may also be generated in the tissue, which is propagated at some
tens of meters per second;
Might these properties perhaps establish the connection between phenomena
traditionally designated as parapsychology and the biology of the future?
For example, the capacity of the "hidden senses," called "cryptesthesia"
by the french Nobel prize winner in physiology, Prof Ch. Richet, by
which we-understand ESP -- clairvoyance, telepathy, etc. -- may be based
on weak biophotons, picked up by the experimental subject, which carry
certain data.
In the same way, Soviet scientists have accepted the biophysical effect as
a special sensitivity to "terrestrial radiations" which may be shown by the
deflection of a divining rod or twig held in the hand.
Similar arguments can be advanced with regard to paradiagnosis, in which
precise data on the diseases (including internal diseases) of a person may
be;obtained by a sensitive person (paragnostic). Here, again, biophotons
may play a part.
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In the same way that clairvoyance may be explainable as a kind of "cell
radiation" from living objects, telepathy might be regarded as "biological
radiocommunication," as the Soviet radiation researcher B.B. Kazhinskiy
called it in 1928. (His book "Biological Radiocommunication" was not pub-
lished, however, until 1962.)
Kazhinskiy observed that various neural structures are startlingly similar
to parts of a radio, such as tubes (triode tubes), inductive antenna ele-
ments, or condensers. The human body, therefore, or small components of
it, may be regarded as biological resonators for electromagnetic waves,
which presumably can be communicated over a certain distance.
In the 1960's the Moscow "Popov Society for Radiocommunication" supported
a research program on biological communication under the direction of the
Soviet radiation physicist Ippolet Kogan. Kogan developed a theory of how
bioelectromagnetic waves generated by muscles or by the brain can be trans-
mitted for short and medium distances through the air, in a straight line
and even following the curvature of the earth, being reflected by the iono-
spheric layer like short waves.
Some experiments were done to test this theory. The results were published
in 1967 and 1968 in the Soviet journal RADIOTEKHNIKA. But in 1973 the
Moscow group was dissolved and it no longer exists. The concept of electro-
magnetic biocommunication remained, however, and is still worthy of research
today. Here, too, biophotons may play an important part in the final ex-
planation of the phenomena.
Domination of the Bioelectric Field
The problem of the fine tuning to the "cryptesthesia" or ESP of distant
events includes the reception of biological signals. Psychokinesis or
telekinesis, on the other hand, requires the radiation of energy outside
the body. Could any field of biology explain this phenomenon equally well?
In 1972, at the Twentieth International Congress on Psychology, the Ameri-
can psychologist Stanley Krippner read a report by the Moscow physicist
Viktor Adamenko on "Human Domination of the Bioelectric Field." Adamenko
observed a kind of bioelectrostatic field around the human body, which can
be, used to move small objects at a certain distance. That is basically
telekinesis, although the bioelectric energy has various unusual charac-
teristics. Adamenko found that the experimental subject can be trained in
such a way that he can control this bioelectric field by feedback of the
voltage that exists between two acupuncture points in the subject's body.
The voltage between the two acupuncture points was measured by means of a
galvanometer, which showed by deflection whether the left or right side of
the body (meridian) was more highly charged. Adamenko's wife Alla Vino-
gradova is also a trained PK subject for this bioelectric effect. The
Russian houswife Nina Kulagina, whose name has become known in the West,
also practices a kind of telekinesis, which may also be'of an electrical
nature with . respect to the biofield.
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In Leningrad, Dr Pavel Guliyev (pupil of Kh.Kh. Vasil'yev; ESOTERA, 1977,
No 4) has measured the bioelectric fields around insects, frogs, and birds
as well as man. He uses a very sensitive, efficient probe that draws the
outline of the biofield even at a distance of 2 meters; this drawing is
called an "electroaurogram." It may be possible by studying the electro-
aurogram of a person who is in a state of mental concentration during a
telekinesis experiment to learn more about the nature of the PK phenomenon.
It is not possible within the scope of this article to discuss exhaustively
all the interesting research subjects that exist at present in this field
in the Soviet Union. I will go into selected subjects later in individual
contributions to ESOTERA.
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1.
p 494
Aleksey Nikolayevich Leontiyev, Director of the Psychology De-
partment of the University of Moscow
2.
p 495
Aleksandr Romanovich Luriya, Professor of Psychology at Moscow,
calls for the integration of psi.
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