Late one evening in April 1988, millions of people in our country were able, for the first time, to see on Central Television what telekinesis is.
Appearing before the viewers, Ninel Sergeyevna Kulagina, academician Yuri Borisovich Kobzarev and the author of these lines spoke briefly, within the seven minutes allotted, about the hard-to-explain gift with which nature had endowed its possessor, who now stood before the whole nation. In the course of her life she had been attacked in the press many times, earning a firm reputation as a hoaxer and other unflattering epithets…
That evening, feeling a surge of inspiration brought on by the kindly attitude of the film crew and the presenter, Ninel Sergeyevna performed the very “trick” that gives many true scientists no peace.
Taking her gold wedding ring off her finger, she placed it in front of her on the top of a coffee table and, after moving her palm over it, to the amazement of everyone in the studio, and, I think, of all the viewers too, she set the ring in motion, and, obeying some force, it moved in jerks to the edge of the table… The matches laid out on the table moved as well… Thus a simple but phenomenal experiment was demonstrated, one whose explanation demands a great deal of effort: the movement of objects that no hand had touched!
That was the first time Soviet television paid any attention to the phenomenon. Some fifteen years before this broadcast we had spent several days in Moscow; cameramen shot a documentary film about Ninel Sergeyevna’s abilities at the time. Soon millions saw her. But the film had been made to order for a Japanese television company, and it was viewers in the Land of the Rising Sun who watched it. It took many years, and the era of glasnost had to begin, before N. S. Kulagina could appear before her own people. By that time journalists in many countries had already written about her.
But it was not only representatives of the mass media who took a close interest in the phenomenon. For a number of years it was studied by scientists in Leningrad, Moscow and other cities of the USSR, and also in foreign countries, who succeeded in setting up a number of interesting experiments that became a subject of reflection for physicists.
Being a naval engineer, I too was gradually drawn into this difficult work; I did not confine myself to the role of observer but, as far as my abilities and knowledge allowed (and that knowledge had constantly to be added to), I joined in the research and conducted hundreds of experiments, which is what in the end has enabled me to take up the pen.
The television appearance provoked numerous responses. A physics teacher from Kharkov sent the following letter to the newspaper Pravda Ukrainy: “The question that has turned out to be pressing for me concerns the Kulagina ‘telekinesis case’. I have run into difficulties in covering the phenomenon in my lessons. The children are ceasing to believe the traditional explanation that the teacher is obliged to give. What am I to do?”
The Research Institute of Psychology of the Ministry of Public Education of the Ukrainian SSR replied to him: “The Kulagina phenomenon is entirely material; the essence of the phenomenon has yet to be explained.”
Such an explanation is hardly likely to have satisfied the physics teacher.
Answering questions from the science correspondent of Trud, the Director of the Department of Theoretical Problems of the USSR Academy of Sciences, E. I. Andriankin, explains the phenomenon as follows: “…The effect of the movement of light objects located in the force field created by Kulagina fits entirely within the framework of our ordinary physics — it can be explained, say, by the laws of electrodynamics and acoustics. The spinning of a magnetic needle is explained in the same way. So the ‘magic’ in this phenomenon lies not at all in the facts of movement themselves, but in Kulagina’s very rare, unusual ability to control both the generation of magnetic impulses in the body and the charges created.”
Although this last explanation is wordier and comes from a theoretical physicist, it is nonetheless not much more convincing than the one the physics teacher received from his colleagues at the departmental institute.
The very fact that a scientist, the head of the Department of Theoretical Problems of the USSR Academy of Sciences, has acknowledged telekinesis to be authentic as a real physical phenomenon is, of course, significant. It is a guarantee that the fear of the mysterious nature of this extraordinary phenomenon will at last be overcome, and that the stigma of mysticism and charlatanry will be removed from it.
Long before this public statement by a representative of official science, academician Yuri Borisovich Kobzarev, having conducted a number of experiments with N. Kulagina, handed her a written attestation, which was an enormous moral support to her, a kind of “letter of protection”. On his personal letterhead, certified by his signature and the seal of the institute where the academician works, are the following words:
“I confirm that Ninel Sergeyevna Kulagina possesses an extraordinary ability to cause light objects to move without touching them, solely by exerting her organism.
It has been proved by experiments that this cannot be explained by the appearance of electric and magnetic fields.
The phenomenon demonstrated by N. S. Kulagina is of colossal interest to science. Its study may lead to fundamental discoveries not inferior in significance to the theory of relativity and quantum mechanics.
I consider it necessary to give N. S. Kulagina every possible support, to assist in every way in improving her living conditions, and to help in carrying out scientific research into the phenomena she demonstrates.
Chairman of the Scientific Council
on the Problem of ‘Statistical Radiophysics’ of the USSR Academy of Sciences
Hero of Socialist Labour
Yu. B. Kobzarev”
As we see, this “letter of protection” states truthfully and honestly that the phenomenon “cannot be explained by the appearance of electric and magnetic fields”.
The proposal to write for this collection, made to me by its compiler, was, I confess, unexpected, and it left me at a loss. And indeed: how does one tell of the unusual abilities of someone close to you, of a wife with whom you have lived for almost forty-five years, and write in such a way that the reader does not accuse the author of personal interest, of a lack of objectivity? How does one describe rare and unusual psychophysical capacities that manifest themselves in strange and hard-to-explain forms of interaction with objects of animate and inanimate nature? Will I manage to write so that it is not taken as idle invention or as a wish to entertain the reader with tales of a fantastic character? How can I make people believe me? After all, I shall be speaking of facts that contradict everyday human experience, so-called common sense, and, above all, for which you yourself find no logical explanation within the laws known to science.
My position is complicated by a countless multitude of publications of every kind whose authors, “defending” the materialist world view, flatly denied the authenticity of such phenomena as telekinesis, and also telepathy, clairvoyance… And Ninel Sergeyevna has a connection with these as well.
Over the past twenty-five years my wife’s name has been mentioned in such publications at least a hundred times. In them she was directly accused of deception and, without any embarrassment, given every possible insulting epithet. I came in for my share too, as the one who “provided the technical side of the hoaxes”.
To characterize the atmosphere that was created around this in the not-too-distant past, I shall refer to a few recent examples.
Spring 1988. In the club of Moscow University a debate is under way: “On Incomprehensible Phenomena, Mysteries, Extrasensory Perceptions”.
From the stage comes the voice of the biophysicist V. M. Volkenstein, Corresponding Member of the USSR Academy of Sciences:
“I am a physicist and a biophysicist, and not a stranger to other interests. In my view, there is only one socio-psychological question that is really interesting. Why has our society become interested in this sort of thing precisely in these years?
Why, say, in the hard years of the first five-year plans, of the war, of post-war reconstruction, did nobody give a thought to psychics? I do not dispute certain miracles, and I have fully acknowledged the historicity of the figure of Jesus Christ, and there are miracles that can be explained, but most of the miracles that are talked about are fiction. And instead of undertaking an elementary check, in which it is not scientists at all who should take part, but forensic experts and illusionists, instead of that a broad publicity campaign begins. I maintain that enthusiasms of this kind are characteristic of periods of decline, decay and stagnation of society.”
In tune with this statement by the well-known biophysicist is the commentary, in the TV programme Obvious but Incredible, of its presenter, Professor S. P. Kapitsa:
“At the beginning of this century, on the eve of the First World War, there was also an incredible interest, I would say, in everything otherworldly, which culminated in the truly sinister figure of Rasputin, connected with the collapse of the whole order of Tsarist Russia. And such phenomena, such an interest in these things — it always arises when some change of world views is taking place, a loss, I would say, of faith in those principles, in those foundations which up to a certain time guided society.
These are serious considerations, considerations which go beyond the bounds of those simple, I would even say somewhat naive, stories that you have just been told. And I regard them rather as a symptom of a certain phenomenon than as the phenomenon itself that could cause alarm to others.
In the end, it seems to me that there is a very simple way of looking at these things: let us separate telepathy from the state. Let all those who want to engage in these things engage in them. Even on a cooperative basis!”
But can one, in our age, separate science from such phenomena as telekinesis? Would we not thereby do damage not only to them, but to the state as well?
And yet it was none other than Professor Kapitsa who, in March 1968, witnessed the telekinesis demonstrated by N. S. Kulagina at the Chair of Wave Processes, Moscow State University. The experiments were conducted in the office of the head of the chair, Corresponding Member of the USSR Academy of Sciences (later academician and rector of the university) Rem Viktorovich Khokhlov.
Taking part in those experiments was a group of scientists from the P. N. Lebedev Physical Institute of the USSR Academy of Sciences, led by the head of a sector, Doctor of Physical and Mathematical Sciences F. Bunkin, who, inviting N. Kulagina to Moscow, wrote:
“Dear Ninel Sergeyevna,
A group of research workers of the P. N. Lebedev Physical Institute of the USSR Academy of Sciences, having become interested in information about your psychophysiological capacities, invites you to take part in research in this field.
We shall be very grateful to you if you are able to spend a few days in Moscow at our invitation at the end of March of this year.”
And, remarkably, in more than twenty years the presenter of Obvious but Incredible has not found the time to tell about the remarkable experiment in telekinesis that he witnessed, or to show the documentary footage of the film that staff of the chair shot at the time. Is this not a characteristic feature of the period of real stagnation in our science — to hush up the obvious, to shy away from explaining the incredible?
The battle that unfolded in the press in past decades around so-called “mysterious phenomena” rarely went by without the name of N. S. Kulagina being mentioned from one negative angle or another.
The persecution in the press ended with our having to go to court.
Commenting on the course of the court proceedings and the decision on N. S. Kulagina’s suit for the protection of her honour and dignity (published in Nos. 5, 6 and 7 of the journal Tekhnika — molodyozhi for 1988), Doctor of Juridical Sciences, Professor V. Martemyanov concludes his article “The Acquittal of a Psychic, or How Justice Can Make Its Contribution to Science” with the following conclusion:
“Well-known physicists appeared as witnesses in this case, and their testimony proved decisive, confirming the existence of phenomena that are as yet inexplicable. The facts have been established by a court decision that has entered into legal force. By this, justice has made its contribution to science. The truth of the fact is protected. It is the business of science to give the fact an explanation.”
Of course, those who for years specialized in exposing “tricks” will not change their position even after the court case; they will not believe in the reality of telekinesis and will go on, only in more correct forms, turning public opinion against the investigation of phenomena such as Kulagina.
But time is working against them: enthusiasts and scientists who were driven into basements, where for years they secretly carried out their observations, are now coming out into the light and joining forces.
“A Committee on Problems of Energy-Information Exchange in Nature has been created under the Union of Scientific and Engineering Societies of the USSR (SNIO). This is a long-awaited event: now many mysterious phenomena that do not fit into the usual framework will be studied officially.” (I am quoting from Izvestia of 11 February 1989.) Symposia and scientific conferences are now held openly. Reports and papers by scientists are being prepared for publication, including those of scientists who studied N. S. Kulagina.
Where should one begin the story of a phenomenon that, in a laboratory of the Institute of Radio Engineering and Electronics of the USSR Academy of Sciences, officially acquired the rights of citizenship and the name “Phenomenon ‘K’”?
What can Ninel Sergeyevna do besides telekinesis, acting on light objects and on a magnetic needle?
On many occasions she demonstrated the ability for so-called “skin vision” (dermo-optical perception), “reading” various texts with her hand. She exposed light-sensitive photographic materials. By contact and without contact she produced in other people a sensation of burning, leaving burns on their bodies. She substantially lowered the pH of water, by several units (pH is a quantity characterizing the concentration of hydrogen ions in solutions. Aqueous solutions can have a pH value in the range from 1 to 15; in neutral solutions the pH is 7, in alkaline solutions it is greater than 7. — Ed.), and created an acidic medium in various liquids. She acted on the propagation of a laser beam. She considerably increased the electrical conductivity of air. She exerted an analgesic and therapeutic effect in inflammatory processes and certain diseases, and also took part in a number of other experiments, which will be discussed in this book.
In trying to understand the physical nature of these extraordinary phenomena, alongside our own independent searches we entered into close contact with scientists and took part in many tests and experiments using various diagnostic equipment and physical instruments.
Thus, beginning in 1964, they were carried out in more than 25 different state scientific laboratories in Leningrad and Moscow, including at Leningrad University; Moscow University; the V. M. Bekhterev Psychoneurological Institute; the A. L. Polenov Neurosurgical Institute of the USSR Academy of Medical Sciences; the Magnetic-Ionospheric Observatory of the Leningrad Branch of IZMIRAN (Institute of Terrestrial Magnetism, Ionosphere and Radio Wave Propagation) of the USSR Academy of Sciences; the Institute of Chemical Physics; the Institute of Radio Engineering and Electronics of the USSR Academy of Sciences; the Leningrad Institute of Precision Mechanics and Optics; the Leningrad Sanitary and Hygiene Medical Institute; the S. M. Kirov Leningrad Institute of Textile and Light Industry; and a number of other medical and scientific organizations.
Scientists of various specialities took part in these experiments, among them a number of well-known academicians and professors. As a rule, our contacts with scientists came about as a result of private proposals made on someone’s own initiative, since until recently research on the phenomenon was regarded in official circles as pseudoscientific, and it was not covered in the press.
Nevertheless, for a number of the experiments we obtained scientists’ conclusions, reports and protocols. Individual publications appeared in scientific collections, first issued in 1984 by Kalinin University and the V. D. Kalmykov Taganrog Radio Engineering Institute. The central newspapers and journals published articles describing the most important experiments carried out with the participation of N. S. Kulagina. These publications — on the investigation of the physical fields of biological objects — testify to serious scientific interest in the problem. The results we obtained are more extensive than the publications and articles mentioned above. We therefore consider it necessary to give a more detailed and thorough account of them, so that our information might be used in further research and serve as food for thought. We hope that it will not be taken as a desire to assert ourselves or in this way to stake a possible claim to priority.
The phenomena we observed took place in conditions of real-time scale and real space, and in interpreting them we used a level of knowledge based on the materialist world view. And we are convinced that we have made no errors of principle in assessing the facts presented.
We treat authorities in science with due attention, as well as the statements of prominent scientists about professionalism and about responsibility for an objective and comprehensive analysis of natural phenomena in any of the fields of the natural sciences. A simple sense of civic duty obliges us to set out the facts as objectively as possible, for in everything we have done we pursued a single goal — the search for truth, an attempt to understand the physical nature of phenomenon “K”.
The phenomena we observed for the most part clearly revealed the presence of a physical, physico-chemical or biophysical effect. They were recorded either visually, or with the help of various physical instruments and recording equipment, or by existing methods of chemical analysis.
In the final analysis, our account will deal with the ability of a human being to act on objects of animate and inanimate nature without using, in doing so, the forms of interaction known to science, i.e. gravitational and electromagnetic, as well as purely mechanical ones.
In their outward manifestations these are, on the one hand, energetic interactions (without visible physical contact) involving displacement of an object in space and changes in its state and structure, and on the other hand, psychophysical efforts and a certain self-tuning of the organism that make it possible to obtain information about the state and characteristics of various objects without using known means of observation and communication.
Among the former one may include:
- the “burning” effect;
- action on the structure and state of materials (on water, certain kinds of organic substances, plastics, polymer films and fibres…);
- action on photographic materials packed in light-tight envelopes, causing fogging. Action on the course of chemical reactions;
- displacement of light objects in space and action on the magnetic needle of a compass;
the ability to detect various objects located out of sight; the ability to determine the content of a text, and the character and colour of an image, on the pages of closed books or magazines previously unknown to the subject, without prior examination of the source of information.
At home it was often possible to carry out experiments that were more interesting, more complex and more informative than the official, laboratory ones. This is entirely explained by the fact that the extraordinary nature of the phenomena the experimenters witnessed, and their lack of any acceptable hypotheses to explain the observed facts, frequently caused them bewilderment and doubt. This led to many repetitions of experiments of the same type, which naturally complicated and narrowed their course, increased the nervous and physical strain on the subject and, in the final analysis, impoverished the real picture of the manifestations of the phenomenon.
I do not set myself the aim of relating the whole history of phenomenon “K” in chronological order. Over the past quarter of a century there have been periods of active work and periods of decline and depression, connected mainly with persecution in the press and the illnesses and troubles it caused. Emotionally our life changed rather often and was complicated and tense.
Let us set out the facts known from observations and experiments, classifying them by the nature of their physical manifestation. They by no means came to light overnight. Starting from a seemingly insignificant but nonetheless strange fact — the ability to determine the colours of objects with her eyes closed by touching them with her fingers — Ninel Sergeyevna, as a result of searching and training, succeeded in developing her natural gift and acquiring the unique skill of controlling her unusual abilities.