VOLUNTARY MOVEMENT, BIOFEEDBACK CONTROL AND PK

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: STARGATE
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP96-00792R000701030002-5
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: U
• Document Page Count: 5
• Document Creation Date: November 4, 2016
• Document Release Date: May 10, 2000
• Sequence Number: 2
• Content Type: RP

Approved For Release 2000/08/15 : CIA-RDP96-00792 7*0 O&2 5back Control and PK
Voluntary Movement,
Biofeedback Control and PK
The focus of my interest in the paranormal has always been its implica-
tions for the mind-body problem. According to the conventional standpoint,
the only physical effects we can produce are those we exert on our own bodies
as mediated through the voluntary nervous system. An exception might have
to be made to allow for the ancient technique of yoga whereby an adept could
acquire control over various physiological processes normally regarded as out-
side voluntary effort. Recently the technique of biofeedback has demonstrated
that anyone can gain control over their autonomic nervous system by this
means without resorting to the arduous discipline ofyoga. Whethera psi factor
is or is not involved in such biofeedback control is open to question but at least
it offers an intermediate category between normal motor activity and agenuine
PK performance.
Once again it was the Parapsychology Foundation that provided me with
a forum when they invited me to participate in a conference on "Brain/Mind
andParapsychology" (Parapsychology Foundation 1979) in Montreal in August
1978. As was customary at their conferences, the occasion brought together
leading figures of the parapsychology community with eminent scientists and
scholars who had made their names in other fields. The former category here
include such familiar names as Charles Honorton, Charles Tart and Edward
Kelly, the latter include Thomas Budzynski (an authority on biofeedback),
Norman Dixon (the authority on subliminal perception), Jan Ehrenwald and
Karl Pribram.
Or, in other words, can PK be regarded as the extrasomatic (and hence paranor-
mal) extension of what, in ordinary volitional activity, is endosomatic (and
hence normal)? The question was first explicitly raised, I believe, by Thouless
and Wiesner (1947) in their classic paper, where they also put forward the idea
that ESP is the extrasomatic extension of what occurs in normal perception and
cognition where the mind extracts information from the brain to create a
meaningful conscious percept or thought. Here, however, we shall be con-
cerned exclusively with the problem of PK. If the answer to this question is no,
if the Thouless-Wiesner thesis is mistaken, then, presumably, PK represents
some special power or faculty that is sui generis and radically different from
anything else that forms part of our ordinary mental life. The question is, I
consider, worth raising again both because of the light it may throw on the
nature of PK and because of its implications for the mind-body problem.
At first it may seem that there is little to commend the analogy. In the
first place, whereas voluntary movement is a universal fact of life, PK is an ex-
ceedingly rare and dubious phenomenon, at any rate insofar as it can be
demonstrated experimentally. Secondly, the amount of conscious control that
can be exerted in the case of PK is almost nil.' This is so even in those excep-
tional cases of directly observable or macro-PK effects, where objects move or
metals bend. Indeed, it may be doubted whether we can rightly speak of "will-
ing" in connection with PK. At most the subject can wish for a certain result
to come about, but there is not much he can then specifically do to make it
come about. In the case of RSPK phenomena even the conscious wish may be
absent, so that it is only by a process of elimination and inference that we iden-
tify a particular individual as the subject or "poltergeist focus." In view of these
obvious differences between voluntary movement and PK many would wish to
argue that there was nothing to be gained by pressing the analogy and subsum-
ing both under the same rubric.
Nevertheless, in spite of such asymmetries, there are important respects
in which the two processes resemble one another. In the first place, they are
both goal-oriented or teleological-type processes, in the sense that a given state
of affairs is achieved without there being any awareness on anyone's part as to
the precise means necessary for such an achievement to be possible. Thus,
when I stretch out my hand to pick up an object off the table, I know nothing
at all about the sequence of physiological events starting in the motor cortex
of my brain and leading up to the contraction of muscle groups in my arm and
recede any action on my part. But, even with regard to the
t must
h
fi
p
a
ngers t
The question I want to raise in this paper is the following: Is the power overt movements which I then proceed to execute, I am largely dependent on
which enables us to influence the target system in a PK experiment the same a stock of tacit knowledge which never enters my focal awareness. In much the
power, basically, as that which we deploy every time we voluntarily move our same way, the successful PK subject becomes aware of the results which he pro-
limbs (using the word "power" in its most general and noncommittal sense)? duces while remaining totally ignorant of the microprocesses, mechanical or
] hick must take place in the target system for such results to be
w
e ectronc,
possible. In the second place, voluntary movement and PK are intimately
Approved For Release 2000/08/15: CIA-RDP96-00792R000701030002-5
 Approved For Release 2000/08/15:
The Relentless Question
bound up with the provision of feedback. Our muscles are not just effectors
but also receptors, so that with every contraction of the muscles there is some
proprioceptive feedback and, at least in the case of the manipulatory skills we
perform with our fingers, there is usually some visual feedback as well,
although touch typing would be an exception. To what extent PK is dependent
on the visual or auditory feedback that is usually provided by the experimental
set-up is still a matter for speculation, but, for one school of thought, at any
rate, that represented by the influential "observational theories" of PK
associated with such theorists as Helmut Schmidt and Evans Walker, it is
critical. According to these theories, it is not until feedback is received that the
train of events leading up to the observed outcome is determined. This im-
plies, paradoxically, a causal loop in time between aiming at a given result and
observing its realization. Whether a similar "observational theory" of voluntary
movement is conceivable is not a question I shall pursue here, as it would take
me too far afield. In the present context I want only to stress that feedback
enters into both voluntary movement and PK in this integral way in virtually
every instance that we can cite.
I am going to suggest that we may be able to arrive at a better understand-
ing of the connection between voluntary movement and PK if we look at an
intermediate class of phenomena which partakes of some of the characteristics
of each. It is here I wish to introduce the topic of biofeedback control. We can
now demonstrate that people can acquire control over certain physiological
functions which, in the ordinary way, are beyond conscious control by adopt-
ing certain special techniques. The functions in question are mainly those
associated with the autonomic nervous system, heart-rate, vasodilation, glan-
dular secretion etc. but may include functions of the central nervous system
such as brain rhythms and measures of arousal. There is one function, rate of
breathing, which ordinarily operates automatically, but which can be con-
sciously controlled without using any special technique, but here I shall be con-
cerned only with those where a special training is required. There are a variety
of such special techniques, the oldest of which are the systems of yoga, but the
one with which I shall be concerned is that known as biofeedback, which is
based on allowing the subject to monitor his own physiological output through
appropriate visual or auditory displays.
Biofeedback is a normal phenomenon, in the sense that it does not, as far
as is known, transcend any limits of what is considered within the natural
capacity of the nervous system. Moreover, anyone can acquire a moderate
degree of proficiency in biofeedback control; no special ability is presupposed.
At the same time, from the psychological point of view, there are important
respects in which the phenomenon resembles PK. I am thinking especially of
its dependence on what Elmer Green (1976) has called "passive volition." One
cannot produce a biofeedback effect, as one might the raising of one's arm, by
a simple fiat of the will. Rather, one has to want the effect to come about and
CIA-RDP96-00792RQQsQrZP 1i03QO026reedback Control and PK 103
wait hopefully, in a half expectant yet relaxed frame of mind, for it to appear
spontaneously. This is notoriously the case with the control of alpha rhythm,
for it is one of the paradoxes of the biofeedback technique that alpha rhythm
will vanish if the subject makes a conscious effort to produce it! There is a
parallel here with the finding that the best scores in a PK test are often obtained
when the subject is least trying to produce them. Rex Stanford coined the ex-
pression "release of effort" to cover cases in which significant scores are ob-
tained by the subject after the termination of the official run when, unknown
to the subject, the target generator is kept going. But others too, have noted
that a state of relaxation is conducive to success. Thouless and Wiesner sug-
gested that this might be due to the fact that active volition would have the
effect of channeling the influence directed onto the target system back into the
subject's own motor system.
Certainly, at a purely formal level, there is a striking similarity between
the typical biofeedback set-up and the PK set-up as this has been developed
especially by Helmut Schmidt and has since become standard laboratory prac-
tice. Of course, objectively, there is a world of difference, depending on
whether the feedback display is coupled with the subject's own body, as with
biofeedback, or with an electronic random event generator, as with PK, but
this does not preclude the possibility that the same basic phenomenon
underlies both. And this possibility begins to loom larger when we venture
beyond biofeedback studies of the routine kind to consider certain virtuoso
performances by those who, in one way or another, have learned to control
their own organism. Take, for example, such performers as Swami Rama or
Jack Schwarz, to name but two who have both been tested in some depth at
the Menninger Institute. Swami Rama has demonstrated differential control
over the arteries of his right hand to the extent of producing changes of
temperature in opposite directions on two spots of his right palm only a few
inches apart amounting to a differential of about 10?F. He has also
demonstrated control of his heart beat to the extent of completely arresting the
circulation of his blood for as much as 17 seconds, having been dissuaded from
prolonging the effect (Green et al., 1976). Jack Schwarz, a Dutch-American
for his part,
who belongs by rights to the Indian fakir tradition, has,
demonstrated feats of self-wounding which not only fail to elicit any pain reac-
tion or even any bleeding but, more surprisingly still, the wound never
becomes infected no matter how severe or how soiled the implement used
(Rorvik 1976). It is, further, of interest to learn that both Swami Rama and jack
Schwarz are credited with special powers of self-healing of a kind that psychic
healers are supposed to be able to exert on an alien body.
But, to return to biofeedback proper, I want next to discuss one particular
study which is linked with the problem of voluntary movement and to which
Honorton (1976) drew our attention in his presidential address to the Para-
psychological Association in 1975. I refer to the electromyographic experiments
Approved For Release 2000/08/15: CIA-RDP96-00792R000701030002-5
 fhA nn Mloy~Pc,f g Release 2000/08/15: CIA-RDP96-00792R00DZO -biofeedback Control and PK
e ent
of John Basmajian (1972) as reported in Science. His experiments consisted of
training his subjects to activate specific motor units within certain selected
skeletal muscles; he used mainly the forearm, shoulder and neck muscles. His
subjects were given both visual and auditory feedback of the varying myoelec-
tric potential in the specific motor unit in question as recorded by means of
microelectrodes planted in the muscle fiber. It transpired that any normal
volunteer subject could, within a few minutes, learn to control the appropriate
unit. From then on he could be taught increasingly difficult discriminations,
for example activating one given unit rather than another neighboring unit,
varying at will the rate at which it was firing and, finally, being able to control
it even in the absence of any exteroceptive feedback. To quote the author:
"Some persons can be trained to gain control of isolated motor units to such
a degree that, with both visual and aural cues shut off, they can recall any one
of three favorite units on command and in any sequence. They can keep such
units firing without any conscious awareness other than the assurance (after the
fact) that they have succeeded. In spite of considerable introspection they can-
not explain their success except to state they thought about a motor unit as
though they had seen and heard it personally."
This is an unusual application of the biofeedback technique, inasmuch
as the effect involved is not some involuntary autonomic function, but rather
a highly specific component of our ordinary voluntary motor activity. Ordinar-
ily, all that we are able to do, voluntarily, is to control the gross movements
of our limbs, but, after a Basmajian type training, we can, it seems, turn on
or off at will the firing of a single motor unit. We have no idea how we do this
any more than we know how we succeed in wagging a given finger. All we
know, in both instances, is that, by taking thought, we can bring about the
desired effect. The relevance of the Basmajian work for our present purposes
is that it shows how, at the microscopic level of analysis, voluntary movement
and biofeedback control converge.
I want next to discuss a very different experiment which attempts, rather,
to bring together biofeedback control and PK. This is an experiment of
William Braud's which he reported at the 1977 P.A. Convention where he in-
troduced his intriguing concept of "allobiofeedback." It is evident that any
biofeedback set-up could be converted into a PK set-up by the simple expe-
dient of coupling the feedback display to another person's body in place of the
subject's own body. In Braud's experiment he himself acted as subject and his
task was alternatively to increase or decrease, according to a random schedule
of instructions, the GSR amplitude of a target-person whose GSR tracing he was
meanwhile monitoring. The design of the experiment was a very complicated
one, inasmuch as the target-persons were themselves acting as subjects with
respect to a test involving clairvoyance and relaxation, but these complications
need not detain us here. Suffice it to say that the allobiofeedback test was suc-
cessful in that, out of the ten target-persons involved in the confirmation
Approved For Release 2000/08/15:
experiment, eight produced higher GSR amplitudes during those runs in which
Braud was aiming to increase them and that a t-test of the difference between
the two conditions was significant at the one percent level of confidence.
Discussing his findings, Braud claims that the concept of allobiofeedback is the
simplest way of conceptualizing the situation; in other words that what we
have here is a feedback loop that is closed by a PK influence directed onto a
live target system. As is always the case, however, in a parapsychological experi-
ment, there is enough ambiguity in the situation to permit other interpreta-
tions. As he points out, the results could have been due to a telepathic in-
fluence that he might have been exerting on the target-person's mind rather
than on his body and even more devious interpretations are possible that we
need not pursue here.
At all events, before the concept of allobiofeedback becomes established,
several pertinent factors call for clarification. First, how critical was the provi-
sion of feedback in this instance? Could the subject have influenced the activity
of the target-persons had he not been monitoring their output? It is note-
worthy that, in another experiment by Braud and Braud reported at the same
Convention, PK effects on a random event generator were obtained in the
absence of feedback. Secondly, is a live target-system such as this a more sensi-
tive detector of PK than an inanimate random event generator? On the
Thouless-Wiesner hypothesis that PK is essentially the power we normally use
to control our own brain, we should expect this to be the case, since one brain
is more like another than it is like an electronic machine.b However, since the
great majority of PK experiments have been done with artificial target-system:
we have little basis for comparison. There may even be a flaw in the argumem
which would lead us to expect better results from a live target-system since, is
we adopt an observational theory of psi, it would make no difference in the
last resort what processes were involved in the production of a given PK effect
all that counts is the final awareness of the effect that has been produced
Whatever the outcome may be, we must hope that many more allobiofeedbacl
experiments will be forthcoming in the years ahead. It would be of particula
interest to take a subject who had first mastered autobiofeedback control an(
switch him without warning to the allobiofeedback condition. Would there b,
a carry-over from the normal to the paranormal condition? Would he proceec
to control both his own and the target-person's output in unison? Or woub
conflicting exteroceptive and interoceptive feedback make such a deceptioi
impossible, so that the experiment would founder with the subject in a stat
of total confusion?
Leaving such questions unanswered, let us revert to the familiar case c
normal volitional activity. We must start by recognizing that, according to tl
orthodox view that still prevails alike in science and philosophy, there i
strictly speaking, no such thing as a volition. The distinction between volui
tary behavior on the one hand and involuntary, automatic or reflex behavior c
CIA-RDP96-00792R000701030002-5
 Approved For Release 2000/08/15: CIA-RDP96-007928
0
about
other, depends on the kind of brain processing that goes on, not on anatomical detail, his ideas out the interaction between what it pleases him
whether such behavior is, or is not, preceded by, or accompanied by, an "act to call "the self-conscious mind" and the "liaison brain." The latter, he
of will," whatever we are to understand by that phrase. For, ultimately, in the speculates, consists of complex modules of neurones in columnar formation,
each module comprising some 10,000 neurons including many hundreds of
orthodox view, it is the brain alone which governs the activity of the limbs. The eorganism as vcells. In his chapter on "Voluntary Movement," Eccles draws atten-
machine may be conceived of as a self-regulating cybernetic pmachine and the interaction of the organism and its environment constitutes tion to the work of H.H. Kornhuber, a German neurophysiologist,.which, he
a claims, illustrates in its purest form the action of mind on brain. Essentially,
closed physical loop which admits of no extraneous influences and interven- did was to get his subject, who had first been carefully trained
tions of a nonphysical kind. As for the familiar experience of free will on which what Kornhuber to maintain a relaxed posture, to wag his right index finger at irregular inter-
decisions humans set such store, the experience of acting freely according to conscious entirely of his own volition, when care had been taken to exclude any
decisions for which we as persons or selves take sole responsibility, that is no vals, Y
more than a subjective or epiphenomenal reflection of whatever physical brain possible triggering stimulus from the environment. While he was doing this,
states are the real causes of our behavior. certain electrical potentials were recorded from various sites on the subject's
One notable brain physiologist of recent times who has never accepted scalp and these were then averaged over some 250 recordings. The resultant
curve revealed a concentration of neuronal activity in the pyramidal cells of the
this orthodox view of voluntary movement is Sir John Eccles, who gave the in- motor cortex occurring at about 1/20th sec. before the muscular response, an
vited address to the P.A. Convention in Utrecht in 1976 (Eccles 1977). Already
in his Waynflete lectures in Oxford in 1952 (Eccles 1953), that were later interval which, as Eccles points out, is just about adequate for transmission of
published as The Neurophysiological Basis of Mind, he shocked the scientific the impulse from the pyramidal cells down to the muscle fibers in the finger.
This, then, provides at least a partial answer to the question of what goes on
and philosophical establishment. which were particularly well entrenched at
Oxford, by putting forward what he has called his neurophysiological in the brain when a willed action is in process of being carried out. The more
hypothesis of will." This is based on the observation that the situation at the searching question is whether it provides evidence of the action of mind on
synapse through which the neural impulse must pass is so delicately poised that brain.
factors at the level of quantum uncertainty may decide whether the impulse Eccles repeatedly insists that it does, although he realizes that the
is discharged or not. In such a situation, a psychic influence might tilt the upholders of the orthodox view will be reluctant to admit it. They will p gue
that, when the subject receives his instructions, the brain, like a computer,
balance one way or the other since, whether or not there is a ghost in the stores the information and duly programs the subject to emit the required
machine, the brain appears to be just the kind of machine that a ghost might res onse at irregular intervals. But Eccles will have none of this. "The stringent
be expected to operate! Furthermore, given the prodigious interconnectedness p
conditions of the Kornhuber experiment," he insists, "preclude or negate suc h
of our brain cells, even one such intervention might produce an appreciable claims. The trained subjects literally do make the movements in
effect on the overall output of the brain or, as he puts it (Eccles 1970): "within explanatory c
the absence of any determining influences from the environment and any ran-
neurones milliseconds the pattern of discharge of even hundreds of thousands of d by the relaxed brain would be virtually eliminated
neurones would be modified as the result of an `influence' that initially caused dom potentials generate
the discharge of merely one neurone." But there is no need to stop there. The by the averaging of 250 traces." He concludes, therefore, that: "we can regard
same mind influence could conceivably operate holistically by exerting spatio- these experiments as providing a convincing demonstration that voluntary
be freely initiated independently of any determining in-
temporal "fields of influence" on the cortex, which would be uniquely fitted movements fluences that can are entirely within the neuronal machinery of the brain" (1977,
to respond. It is of some interest to note, in passing, that, more than a cen-
tury before, the great physiologist, Johannes Muller, had proposed a very p. 294).
I think I need hardly say that not even the authority of an Eccles, nor yet
similar conception of the will when he declared that: "the fibers of all the
motor, cerebral and spinal nerves may be imagined spread out in the medulla the argumentative skill of a Popper, is likely to make much impact on the com-
mitted materialist. It is significant, however, that neither Eccles nor Popper is
oblongata and exposed to the influence of the will like the keys of the piano- prepared to avail himself of the parapsychological evidence and bring it to bear
forte." 1 n on the issue, indeed neither is yet willing to acknowledge the existence of PK.
Recently Eccles joined forces with the philosopher Kara upper and last
year the two of them published a large volume entitled The Self and Its Brain Eccles, at one point, expresses some surprise that the activity of the "self-
which conscious mind" should be limited to a single individual brain, but he never
bore the subtitle An A}},,r~~gn~umeppnr~ct~~for Inrt}eractianhism (Popper & Eccles auses to consider whether this is indeed always, and necessarily, the case.
1977). In his section of thi~b oJ Q T ~@9e~ t1s'2vd6W&8i4v : CIA-RDP96-10792R000701030002-5
,,0701 ?300027 eedback Control and PK 107
 Approved For Release 2000/08/15: CIA-RDP96-00792R000701030002-5
108 g roved Question Voluntary Movement, Biofeedback Control and PK 1(
Thus, much as I admire these two great men for doing battle on behalf of the
autonomy of mind, I consider that their case is weaker than it might be for lack
of this crucial prop and that, if, for our part, we can place the evidence for PK
on a footing where it can no longer be ignored by official science, we shall suc-
ceed in clinching the argument in favor of treating voluntary movement as an
expression of free will.
I have tried, in this paper, to show that the assumption that PK is a form
of volitional activity directed onto the outside world has implications for the
philosophy of mind and, conversely, the dualistic view of the mind-body rela-
tionship has implications for the study of PK. However, as I am always being
reminded by my more experimentally minded associates, a theory is no use
unless its implications are testable and so, in what remains of my time, I want
to say a few words about the sort of lines along which such tests might hope-
fully be conducted, even if I cannot as yet be very explicit. If I am correct in
thinking that in PK we use the same basic means to influence the target-system
as normally we use to control the brain, then two possibilities suggest
themselves. Either we might try preventing the subject from exercising normal
voluntary movement hoping that, in desperation, he will be driven to exterior-
ize his powers in the form of PK or, alternatively, we could arouse the subject's
normal volitional activities in such a way that the powers involved will spill over
onto the target system. As it happens, support can be found in favor of each
of these possibilities in the existing literature. With respect to PK of the
microscopic or statistical kind, I have already mentioned the importance of
adopting an attitude of passive volition suggesting, perhaps, that PK might
here function as a substitute for normal voluntary effort. In that case, it may
be worth testing those who either happen to be paralyzed or could be ex-
perimentally made so and would thus be physically debarred from control of
their limbs, but it might also be worth seeing what happens to a random event
generator during the REM stage of sleep when we are all of us paralyzed.
However, with respect to PK of the macroscopic or directly observable kind,
the evidence suggests that the successful subjects are usually in a state of high
arousal. This was specially the case with Nina Kulagina, but even with a
physical medium like Rudi Schneider, who was in a complete trance when he
produced his phenomena, it was observed that both his breathing and heart
rate underwent an astonishing acceleration. If this "spill-over" model of PK
should prove more appropriate in certain circumstances we would have to find
ways of arousing the subject.
While I was still engaged in speculating on these possibilities for research,
I was happy to learn that Charles Honorton had been thinking along rather
similar lines and had, indeed, already carried out some pioneering work in this
connection which had yielded positive results. His particular strategy (as
described in a paper he is presenting at this conference; Parapsychology Foun-
their alpha rhythm. A random event generator is then brought into play an
the experimenter finds out whether its output is significantly biased from tl
random baseline during the critical phases when control of the alpha rhythi
is achieved. Honorton's experiments, which have already provided some pron
ising data, are based on a rationale that is somewhat different from either tl
substitution model or the spill-over model that I discussed earlier. Presumable
like me, Honorton was impressed with the similarities he had observed as b
tween the biofeedback situation and the PK situation and took this as his poil
of departure. But, be that as it may, he has added a further impetus towar(
searching for a common thread uniting the phenomena of voluntary mov
ment, biofeedback control and PK.
Notes
a. In the course of the subsequent discussion, Tart pointed out that one
the reasons for this difference is that normal voluntary movement has obvious su
vival value and is practiced intensively from the cradle onwards whereas, in the ca.
of PK, the whole ethos of our culture is against trying to foster it. Tart may we
be right but, to clinch the argument, we would need the example of at least of
society where PK was successfully inculcated.
b. William Braud has coined the expression "bio-PK "for the case where F
is exerted on living organisms. One can say that most of the research he has carne
out since he moved to the Mind Science Foundation in San Antonio, Texas, h.
been concerned with the bio-PK effect (see Braud and Schlitz 1983). Ti
allobiofeedback experiment can be seen as a special instance of bio-PK and it h.
obvious implications for the question of paranormal healing. As an example ,
their latest work, see "A Methodology for the Objective Study of Transpersonall'
agery" by William Braud and Marilyn Schlitz, Journal of Scientific Exploration
1989, 43-63.
dation 1979) was to use biofeedback in order to train his s e t t 1
Approved For Re easeb~~j68v~: CIA-RDP96-00792R000701030002-5