CHINA`S PSYCHIC CHILDREN

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: STARGATE
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP96-00792R000300420017-1
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 6
• Document Creation Date: November 4, 2016
• Document Release Date: December 8, 1998
• Sequence Number: 17
• Publication Date: January 1, 1985
• Content Type: OPEN

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CHNA'S PSYCHC
SRUAN 'o3
Is an ancient form
of energy providing China's children with the
miracle of second sight?
BY MARCELLO TRUZZI
Eleven-year-old Tang Yu and
his friend Chen Xiaoming were on their way home from school
in the remote mountain village of Dazhu County when they be-
gan to wrestle. Tang brushed against Chen's coat pocket, the
story goes, and had the sudden vision of two Chinese symbols.
He described the vivid symbols to Chen, who pulled a package
of Flying Wild Goose cigarettes from his pocket. The label on
the side of.the package, the boys reported, consisted of the
two symbols Tang Yu had "seen."
Tang Yu was reluctant to share his discovery with Tang Kern-
ing, his fifty-year-old peasant father. He knew his claim would
sound like a lie. Instead, he began to play guessing games with
the villagers. He asked them to write random characters on
pieces of paper, crumple the paper into balls, and let him hold
each ball in turn next to his ear. Tang then guessed the mes-
sage within; his guesses, it was said, always proved right. Word
of the boy spread beyond his small town to all of the Sichuan
province in central China.
Soon the region's science commission and its bureau of ed-
ucation and culture had asked to examine Tang, and research-
ers there confirmed his ability to identify words and colors on
small wads of paper held to his ear. News reporters and awe-
struck officials of the Sichuan Provincial Party Committee quickly
backed those results, and on March 11, 1979, this remarkable
tale was published in the Sichuan Daily, Thus began what to-
day is viewed-by both those in China and the West-as either
a major breakthrough in parapsychology or a remarkable out-
break of fraud and pathological science.
Indeed, over the subsequent few months, as news of Tang's
abilities spread throughout the People's Republic, more than
ten other psychic children were supposedly discovered in Bei-
PAINTING BY KEIKA NAKAJIMA
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 11
jing, Anl pPFP, btFi9FM9A o@ 210OQ/Q&It1ntart'Ce"E 6.-00792RG 3 OOiW4ccessful in China.
Boasting a skill that Chinese researchers had These ancient myths, derived from the first The result, in May 1981, was the Second Sci-
by now named extraordinary functions of the few centuries of the millennium, have set the ence Symposium on the Extraordinary
human body, these children claimed to do tone for Chinese folklore and beliefs ever Function of the Human Body. According to
far more than read with their ears. They could, since. But despite this rich tradition, the reports arriving at my Michigan office, that
they said, decipher hidden messages with Marxist takeover in 1949 put a clanip on be- conference was spectacular. A special
their fingers, palms, scalps, abdomens, feet, lief in the supernatural. China's official crit- physics research learn from the High En-
armpits, and buttocks. One nine-year-old girl ics, in fact, denounced parapsychology as ergy Institute announced that children with
even claimed she could read messages by superstitious and mystical nonsense, label- EHF could expose film in lightproof con-
touching the crumpled paper with the end ing it "religion without the cross." They even lalners. When engaged in such activity,
of her pigtail. accused the United States and the Soviet moreover, the children seemed to emit light
Reports began coming in about children Union of vigorously promoting psychic phe- quanta and electrical waves that could be
with powers of telepathy, clairvoyance, X-ray nomena to distract their citizens from the picked up with special biodetectors. A group
vision, and psychokinesis. The typical child world's true crises. from the Beijing Teacher Training Institute
was between the ages of nine and fourteen, A softer line didn't emerge until early 1980, announced that their young charges could
but a few were as young as four or as old as around the time of the Nature Journal con- cause an operating radio transmitter to dis-
twenty-five; and it was estimated by Feng ference. In a story on "sorcery, witchcraft, appear from one room and show up in an-
Hua, a traditional Chinese physician, that and fortune-telling," The Beijing Review other. Yet another group claimed that a
there were about 2,000 such gifted children conceded that "so long as these activities twelve-year-old girl could use psychokine-
within the Chinese population of 1 billion. do not affect the political and productive ac- sis to move the hands of a watch.
By early 1980 these remarkable children tivities of the collective, the government will The stories seemed to go on forever. But
had made their way to the pages of China's not prevent them by administrative means." the most remarkable news to come from that
prestigious Nature,lournal. And that Febru- In other words, according to astute China meeting was the deep involvement of Oian
ary the surge of interest prompted Nature watcher Martin Ebon, the government was Xue Son, known in China as the Father of the
Journal to sponsor .a huge conference-the Missile. Before returning to China in 1955,
First Science Symposium on the Extraordi- Qian had been the Goddard Professor of Jet
nary Function of the Human Body-for par- Propulsion at Caltech and the director of the
ticipants from more than 20 colleges and rocket section of the U.S. National Defense
medical schools. The proceedings were Scientific Board. Thanks to Qian, by 1980
filmed by the Shanghai Science and Edu- `A group from China had successfully launched 12 satel-
cation Studio, and the film, called Do You the Beijing Teacher Training lites and fired an intercontinental ballistic
Believe ft?, was shown over national televi- Institute announced missile 10,000 kilometers. His work, in fact,
sion to millions of Chinese. would soon make China the third nation to
As publicity mounted, interest spread be- that its young charges could send men into space.
yond the mainland to Hong Kong, Japan, cause an Qian, however, had recently become a
and Taiwan. And it didn't take long for the passionate leader in the field of EHF. And to
news to pique the interest of parapsycholo- operating radio transmitter to enthralled scientists, his support made a
gists throughout the West. Because West- disappear from one tremendous difference. "Every day we have
ern researchers are less inclined to associ- room and show pp in another.' new discoveries," he told his followers. "This
ate such abilities with the body, though, they reminds us of the atmosphere when Ein-
relabeled the supposed phenomenon ex- stein's theories of relativity and quantum
ceptional human functions (EHF). mechanics were introduced onto the stage
I first learned of EHF from a Los Angeles - - of modern science."
Times article. Chinese scientists were "baf- Invoking the name of Einstein was oddly
fled by studies of children who can 'see' ob- admitting that perhaps some of the phe- appropriate, for those in China likened Qian's
jects hidden in boxes, read Chinese char- nomena could be "scientifically observed, influence to Einstein's influence in backing
acters tucked under their armpits, and traced, controlled, recorded, manipulated, the atom bomb during World War II. The
identify colors without using their eyes." As or provoked." Chinese scientists would be great space -scientist-turned-EHF-enthusi-
a sociologist of science at Eastern Michigan allowed to prove what was superstition and ast, in fact, had reportedly secured the pri-
University and director of the independent what was not. vate support of Prime Minister Zhao Ziyang
Center for Scientific Anomalies Research, I Given the go-ahead. a number of Chinese and the public approval of the renowned
was anxious to investigate further. Through scientists leapt to action. Researchers Chen . Chairman Hu Yao Bang.
my center's many informants, I was able to Shouliang and He Muyan, of Beijing Univer- The reports, coming mostly from Defense
obtain a steady stream of Chinese articles sity, studied two sisters-Wang Qyang, thir- Department translate n and the journal Psi
translated by the American government. This teen, and Wang Bin, eleven. In a series of Research, seemed to get more incredible
documentation, often terribly vague in its eight tests, the girls placed paper with Chi- by the day. So early in 1981, I was thrilled to
detail and usually opaquely translated by nese symbols under their armpits; in 109 get a call from my friend Stanley Krippner,
computers, demonstrated that Chinese sci- subsequent tests, the messages were sealed dean of the graduate school at the Saybrook
entists were serious about something that in special envelopes. According to scien- Institute, in San Francisco.
seemed quite preposterous. tists testing the girls, the subjects scored Krippner, best known for his work on te-
Before beginning an active investigation correctly about 85 percent of the time-and lepathy during dreams, is one of the most
of my own, I decided to try to glean a bit of they did not cheat. respected-and skeptical---parapsycholo-
understanding from the past. Paranormal in- In another experiment, conducted by Xu gists in the United States. His trips to the
cidents, I soon learned, were a significant Xinfang and his group at Anhui Normal Uni- Soviet bloc have produced a fount of infor-
part of Chinas mythology. In one ancient versity, a boy and a girl said to have EHF mation on psychic research there; so it was
parable, for instance, a mystic named Kang reportedly guessed not only hidden mes- no wonder that in light of recent reports, he
Gang-Zi was reputed to have seen and sages but also the color of the pencil used was planning a trip to China.
heard without using his eyes or ears. In an- to write each message. The scientists said As it turned out, Krippner had planned his
other legend, two mediums were called upon the children scored correctly 91 percent of two-week tour with the help of an efferves-
to identify the grave of a princess; they are the time, but the subjects could not identify cent Chinese woman named Shuyin L. Mar,
said to have given an accurate, clairvoyant their targets in total darkness. of the Savant Association, in Arlington, Vir-con ddescrigtw~Y6vriai%aarnftnet PeeffoSehhOOOT 7,.e per .tsgr~ciol~w0oi sZt9e~ of000300420r01y7 1 vinced that EHF was
 legit:-ale PXgY#6 FQTuRgq Sae QtdWlilirincg! nRr-~9$lrtQD.792RWO4200irrt7d4 there we found
Krippner's group to meet with China's most machine that produced the qi energy artiti- ourselves in the meager three-room apart-
cornmitled EHF researchers and their treas- cially. she had. she said, already used it to ment of three children said to possess EHF
ured child savants. cure her patients of cancer paralysis. high They claimed they could psychically break
Krippner told me that he had already in- blood pressure, and heart disease. a match or needle scaled in a small con-
vited physicist Harold Puthoff, of SRI Inter- After three days of such discussion, we tainer. And of course they could intuit mes-
rdtional, physicians J. Tashof Bernton and were allowed to meet the savants. The chil- sages on crumpled paper through the
Kenneth Zirinsky. Los Angeles psycholog!st dren--four young girls-entered the hotel, channels of their skin.
Thelma Moss. some graduate students from kicking off what scorned like a three-ring cir- With 25 of us sitting in the small front room,
Sajbrook: and others. But he was still in need cus. Fifty researchers were milling around, the mother conducted the test herself, using
of someone like me, an utter skeptic trained and we were all so excited that we started a method that was amazingly crude. She
as a magician ---a professional who knew just our tests right there in the lobby. First the merely held up playing cards and asked the
how sleight of hand could be used to simu- Chinese researchers gave the girls folded children to identify them. Now, any cheating
late ESP I accepted his invitation gratefully, pieces of paper marked with symbols. Then child could have scored hit after hit, but to
delighted by the chance to get a firsthand they were given canisters that we had filled my surprise, these children got every an-
look at China's newest craze. and sealed in the United States. In both in- swer wrong, and that included the youngest
We left that October, arriving in Beijing on stances, they were to guess the contents girl, who at one point actually left the room
the eighteenth. The thing that struck me most within. But our experiments were foiled by and took the target card with her.
was the looseness of things. The airport was the chaos. Even Mar. our translator, seemed Our next target was Shanghai. We left on
nearly empty, practically a mausoleum. And to complicate the situation. She was so set a shuddering turboprop filled with a con-
our lodgings, named the Friendship Hotel in on seeing the girls succeed that it was hard vention of Americans from the Midwest, and
honor of the once-great bond between .China to trust what she did. And while we were en route we prayed for survival. We did, of
and the Soviet Union, was a strange amal- trying to impose tighter controls, she was course, touch down, only to find that our
gam of the two cultures. It was a monstrous, jabbering away in Chinese. For all we knew, troubles had barely begun.
Soviet-like structure, something you might We had planned a series of meetings with
find in the middle of Moscow, but with a Chi- the Nature Journal staff, Shanghai Univer-
nese roof. The elaborate inner lobby had a sity professors interested in EHF, and faculty
carpet patterned with little peace doves, and at the Science and Technology Association.
the rooms had large mattresses atop mas- ,- Qi on But when we got to our hotel, we learned
~
sive Russian beds. In deference to the Chi- 9 g masters, that the meetings had been canceled.
nese, there was an impressive Oriental gar- 1 was told, were capable of While we were in Xian, it seems, Yu Guang
den out back. extraordinary Yuan, vice-chairman of the Chinese Acad-
It was in the conference room of the emy of Sciences and vice-director of the In-
Friendship that we had our first series of physical feats, including the stitute of Marxism, Leninism, and Thoughts
meetings with the Chinese. The resident lu- ability to emerge of Mao Tse-tung, had attacked parapsy-
minaries, mostly from Beijing Medical Col- unscathed when struck on the chology in the press. Writing in the People's
lege, Beijing -University, and the Chinese unscathed Daily, he denounced EHF research as "non-
Academy of Sciences, first explained the re- chest with sense and superstition." His article specifi-
lationship between EHF and qi (thee). tally criticized He Chongyan, publisher of
According to the researchers, qi is psychic the blade of a sword.' Nature Journal and one of Mar's main con-
energy that runs through the body, just as tacts in China. Moreover, he organized a
blood runs through the arteries and veins. committee called the EHF Investigation and
The pathways through which qi travels are Liaison Unit. Its purpose: to expose decep-
essentially points of high electrical conduc- tion in claims of the paranormal.
tivity; when the pathways are in repair and she may have been revealing the answers. With the purge of the Cultural Revolution
the qi is flowing smoothly, an individual stays When we finally did move into the confer- fresh in everyone's mind, EHF researchers
healthy and strong. Acupuncture needles, ence room for a formal demonstration, it felt compelled to fade into the woodwork.
the scientists said, stimulate the main qi hardly mattered. The children were so fidg- Nonetheless, some of the more enthusiastic
channels. And a breathing exercise called ety and restless, they couldn't help but ma- made quiet visits to our hotel. Of specific
qigong (thee-gong) prevents the channels nipulate the wads of paper; any skilled con- interest were the claims of a husband-and-
from getting clogged. jurer would have been able to use that wife team named Zhu Romlong and Zhu Yi-
As for EHF, why, children reading mes- technique to take a peek. yi, both of Nature Journal. They said that
sages with their armpits are simply tapping Despite the chance for cheating, though, children with EHF emitted infrared radiation,
a little-explored tactile sense: They are the girls didn't score a single hit. Finally, unusual brain waves, and magnetic signals.
gleaning messages through the skin, which Krippner stood a few yards away from them These same children reported a flashing of
is laced with channels and energized by the and drew a big red star, perhaps the most the target image on the forehead before it
power of qi. pervasive symbol in all of China. Then he hit. The Zhus also told us about a four-and-
I told the researchers that as far as I could folded his paper, handed it over, and one a-half-year-old who could solve complex
see, qi might not exist and qigong might be girl got the answer right. ' math problems but only when his father was
nothing more than a Chinese version of Later on, I took him aside. "Stan, why did in the room. And they mentioned another
ordinary aerobics. you do that?" I asked. "The girls probably young boy who "peered" inside the womb
But the Chinese persisted. People known saw your red pen. And it would have been of a pregnant woman, only to announce that
as qigong masters, I was told, were capable simple for them to trace the movement of the fetus had no head. According to the Zhus,
of extraordinary physical feats, including the your hand." that diagnosis proved correct.
ability to emerge unscathed when struck on "Of course I realized the problems," These incredible tales went on and on, until
the bare chest with a huge stone slab or the Krippner said. "But the girls and our hosts I realized that the Zhus had little scientific or
blade of a sword. Moreover, I was told. out seemed so embarrassed. I was just trying conceptual sophistication. That evening,
of 3,100 chronically ill patients practicing to end the session on a friendly note." nonetheless, we all went to the Zhus EHF
qigong from three to five years, 25 percent It was on that friendly note that we left for demonstration. There I found four young sa-
recovered completely, 44 percent showed Xian, the Chinese city best known for the life- vants, three girls and one boy, primly seated
marked improvement, and 22 percent size terra-cotta army now being unearthed on a sofa. Once again, their goal was to read
r t t o ~e,~ ~s e~ armpits. For the
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 Approve
Margulss ideas. She began i
vindication. receiving p4audils
:ading scientists as Lewis
_o1utionist Sluptlen Jay Gould.
fti m ..as calls her 1981 book
id Cell Evolution "an indlsput-
li,e literature of science a vol-
turn out, one day hence, to be
em"
ell-symbiosis theory seems to
::ard acceptance. And in 1983,
c oled to the National Academy of
: ~e research "establishment." Its
? Julis is tempering her views Its
scientific community seems to
closer to her notion that in evolu-
sis may be as important as
She's concerned, because her
~metimes misinterpreted.
at it gets Pollyannaish,' she says
,n versus cooperation-these
'social meaning. But its not really
either red in tooth and claw or
for the good of groups. These
-adequate to describe the ge-
tolic, and behavioral interactions
:nisms." .
and son Dorion have written a
d The Expanding Microcosm
ioks). "By survival of the fittest,"
"Darwin referred not to large
predatory habits but to the pro-
leave more offspring. The tat
door who pops a new baby every
the is more 'fit,' more adapted, by
tan the childless aunt, no matter
otherwise socially powerful the
be. Whether each indulges in
is and wins or loses is irrelevant.
fecund in evolution, and compe-
always the name of the game."
can lead in strange directions.
is composed of only 10 billion
but 100 billion bacterial cells.
,ulis regards as "fittest" is per-
''mals and plants, and the planet
she says. "But kill off microbes
ks the earth will be just as sterile
n."DO
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first t me in two weeks I saw these children
score several hits But with Mrs Zhu some-
t;mes blocking our view of them. these fidg-
eting youngsters had ample opportunity to
cheat Moreover, one girl given a specially
scaled container prepared by us returned it
with the seal undone.
As the trip drew to an end, those in our
group agreed that we had seen no convinc-
ing evidence of EHF When we confronted
our Chinese colleagues with these findings,
they insisted that we were basing our judg-
ment on mere demonstrations as opposed
to valid laboratory experiments. Of course,
children under pressure could cheat some-
times, they claimed. But that did not mean
that all children cheated all the time. "Our
new research aborts the possibility of trick-
ery." He Chongyan told us. "It concentrates
on mechanisms and explanations."
We'replied that until we could replicate
these experiments in the West. we would
have to give them low evidential weight.
Though much has happened since we left
China. that is still where we stand.
On February 24, 1982. China's Academy
of Sciences sponsored a public hearing on
EHF Reported cases were analyzed, and in
an extensive review, experts concluded that
the great majority of them were unfounded.
The following day. People's Daily summa-
rized the criticisms and reviewed the past
several years of reports. It too concluded
that there was no evidence for the claims.
Though the attempt to discredit EHF has
been partially successful, matters remain far
from resolved. As China's official English-
language publication, China Reconstructs,
put it, "The debate goes on. and experimen-
tation continues regarding what has be-
come a highly emotional issue."
Soon after the Chinese Academy of Sci-
ences issued its decree, for instance, Chen
Hsin, vice-director of the Institute of Aero-
space Medico-Engineering, and Mei Lei,
vice-director of the Space Life-Science
Commission, attended a joint meeting of the
Parapsychological Association and the So-
CREDITS ciety for Psychical Research, in Cambridge,
Cathro. Leigh Kennedy, John Muth. John England. There they described their interest
'15. NASA, page 20, Gottfried Helnwein. page in using EHF for communication in space and
in
,asshoku, page 26, Earth Satellite Corp.. pa e
R Li htloot/Photo Researchers: page 36 told us that qigong was now part of their as-
Rogers/Black Star: page 31 top, The Bettmann
age 31 bottom, James Sugar!Black Star, page tronauts' training program. They also out-
J Krasemann/Peter Arnold: page 33 lop,&Len
33 bottom. Dan McCoy'Rainbow, p lined the current state of Chinese parapsy
age 34,
Magnum, page 35 bottom. V David Schad/ chological experimentation, claiming ex-
page 36 top, Ray Ell:s'Photo Researchers:
om Jeff RotmanrPeter Arnold, page 40, Manfred traordinary controls against fraud.
:.mold: page 49, James BeurPhoto Research- "Under strict) controlled experimental
hchaei Abbey!Photo Researchers: page 54 Y ,p page 54 bottom, Cosirno. page 55 top, conditions," they said, "the authenticity of
age 55 middle, Micheal Simpson. page 55
:.o'eman. page 56 top. Dan Morrie page 56 recognizing characters with the ears was
Dick Frank Studios. Inc Client The Garrett
paga 56 bottom, Dan Morrill page 57 top, verified. The rate of absolutely correct iden-
age 57 middle, Pete Turner page s7 bottom, tifications was greater than eighty percent."
11 page 58 top. Gene Coier*.an page 58
.-son page 58 bottom, ROL'ert M Kloepped These claims so far exceed those of most
s page 59 top, Ron K,mbai'. page 59 middle,
'g page 59 bottom, Charles J Ornco page Western parapsychologists that even those
.ourtesy of Roland Wdkeson Ad+ert,s,ng who have little doubt about the existence of
an Catherine page 86 top, Move S,, i Ar.
bottom, 61984 I:ee Da+,s. page 87 top, ESP and psychokinesis say the reports seem
page 87 bottom, Larry Pam'beck, page 88 too good to be true. Psychologist John Be-
? -hives page es bottom, The Beamann
'.12, Chris Newber. page 116, NASA Science toff, a past resident of the Parapsycholog
resident
Suh.an St xhos p
117
,
searchers pages If..
Approv RCP61sV2200WftA41n. lh-RDO
96-00792RQQQ74dren to the
West for testing.
Thus far, that has not happened. Accord-
ing to Paul Dong, author of The Four Major
Mysteries of Mainland China, the Commu-
nist party. angered by the constant wran-
gles, ordered parapsychologists to conduct
their research quietly They wanted no pa-
pers, no TV shows, and no more fights.
Still, the rumors persist. Dong's sources
say that thousands of psychic children have
recently come out of the wood,',ork. And
these newly discovered children, no longer
content just to read messages with their
armpits, now congregate in groups, where
leaders help them use qi to break boards.
According to a newspaper report from late
1984, Dr. Lin Hosheng, of Shanghai's Insti-
tute of Traditional Chinese Medicine, can al-
legedly use qi energy to move a ball and
make a man whirl back and forth.
Whether EHF is real or whether we are wit-
nessing an extraordinary episode in collec-
tive error, sociologists of science have much
to learn from these remarkable events.
If EHF turns out to be a reality, the obvious
question will be why it took so long for sci-
entists to become convinced. One answer
might come from my colleague Ron Wes-
trum, a sociologist of science at Eastern
Michigan University. Westrum has spent
years studying what he calls hidden events-
phenomena once denied by orthodox sci-
ence but today accepted as real. As late as
the nineteenth century, for instance, scien-
tists vehemently declared that meteorites
could not have originated in space. Today
we know that they do. It is possible that EHF
falls into a similar category.
It is, of course, far more likely that EHF will
be rejected, forcing us to ask why so many
scientists currently accept it as valid. One
reason may be that Chinese science is a rel-
atively closed system, isolated from the rest
of the world by a language barrier and ide-
ological pressures. As psychologist Irving
Janis points out in Victims of Groupthink: The
Psychological Study of Foreign Policy De-
cisions and Fiascoes, closed systems and
strong ties between people tend to produce
and to maintain conformity. Given China's in-
sulation from the West, its ancient intellec-
tual traditions, and its dependence on key
scientific leaders like Qian, the EHF phe-
nomenon seems understandable. But as in-
teraction between China and the West in-
creases, more critical appraisal may be given
to the EHF studies now available.
Most philosophers of science would agree
that there is no sharp line separating sci-
ence from pseudoscience. The reality of EHF
may be highly improbable, but science can-
not tell us that it is absolutely impossible. As
Carl Sagan says, the best antidote for pseu-
doscience is more and better science. Only
further controlled demonstrations will dem-
onstrate whether EHF is real or nonsense. If
EHF is valid after all, the payoff would be
immense. As professor Dong Taihe, of Zhe-
jiang University, observes, 'A whole new
branch of science could just be waiting to
96-007dbd3`a10017-1