It is known that at the biologically active acupuncture points the conductivity of direct current is considerably higher than at other points on the human body. We noticed that if N. S.'s hand was used to “burn” inactive zones on the surface of the skin, that is, where there are no acupuncture points, the electrical conductivity of the skin in those areas became the same as at the acupuncture points.
Why? It could be supposed that for some time after a session a layer of some substance of biological origin remains at the site of the action, a substance squirted out by N. S.'s hand, which not only causes irritation of the skin and a burning sensation but also sharply increases the electrical conductivity of the skin.
However, since the burning effect, as we know, can be transmitted not only by contact but also without touching, through the air, it is not ruled out that during a burning session the space between N. S.'s palm and the patient's skin also becomes electrically conductive.
To test whether air, a dielectric through which current does not pass, is in this case turned into a conductor of electricity, an experiment was carried out which convincingly confirmed this last supposition. A thin metal strip was placed on the subject's wrist so that it fitted tightly against the skin. A similar “bracelet” was also placed on Ninel Sergeyevna's wrist. Wires were attached to each contact “bracelet” and connected in series with a 9-volt “Krona” DC battery and a microammeter. In this way an electrical circuit was created: “bracelet” — “Krona” — “microammeter” — “bracelet”. An electric current could arise in this circuit only if the open circuit between the end sections, that is, between the two “bracelets”, were closed. This could happen either if they touched each other directly, or if the hand of one participant touched any exposed area of the other participant's skin. In that case areas of the skin of both participants in the experiment, each with its own resistance to electric current, would additionally be included in the electrical circuit.
When the participants in the experiment did not touch each other, the air space did not allow the electric current to close the circuit.
Ninel Sergeyevna was given the task of bringing the palm of the hand on which her “bracelet” was fastened up to the subject's hand and, without touching it, producing burning. She could monitor the result of her action by watching the position of the microammeter needle.
One to two minutes after the start of the experiment the subject felt a slight burning in the area of the contact “bracelet” on his arm. At the same time the microammeter needle swung to the 10 µA mark. Then the ammeter needle rushed up to the 100–120 µA mark, lingered there for a fraction of a second, and then jumped all the way to the stop. The burning sensation grew stronger.
The distance between Ninel Sergeyevna's palm and the “bracelet” on the subject's arm was measured at within five to ten centimetres. As soon as she released the tension and moved her hand aside, the microammeter needle immediately returned to the zero mark.
Such experiments were conducted repeatedly. Each time the character of the observed changes was identical — first a more or less smooth rise in current to 100–120 µA, then a certain stable position of the needle, and then its sudden jump.
So the supposition that N. S. sharply increases the electrical conductivity of air was confirmed. What is the essence of this phenomenon?
Physical experiments began again. This time Ninel Sergeyevna saw before her a transparent cube containing two metal plates. This cube was placed inside another, identical transparent cube made of Plexiglas. The plates were connected to a battery and a microammeter.
The circuit assembled in this way could, in our opinion, be equivalent to the one in which the subject exposed to burning took part, when the “psi-conductivity” effect was established.
To check that the circuit was working, the space between the plates was briefly closed with a metal rod. The needle of the instrument, naturally, swung instantly: current flowed through the circuit.
This whole construction of two cubes was needed to exclude free access to the plates and to guarantee the purity of the experiment.
When acting on the device, Ninel Sergeyevna changed the electrical conductivity of the air between the plates, even though they were inside the cubes. The needle of the instrument went all the way to the stop, thereby indicating that a pulsed direct current was flowing in the space between the plates. With a potential difference across the plates of only 9 volts, which corresponded to the voltage of the “Krona” battery, the current between the plates, set 15 millimetres apart, was at least 200 microamperes.
This paradoxical result cannot be explained by concepts known in physics and physiology.
One might have thought that when the outer cube-screen was moved apart and the distance between Ninel Sergeyevna's palm and the plates was not screened by anything, the hypothetical material substance which, it was supposed, is squirted out of her hands closed the electrical circuit.
However, exactly the same effect was obtained when the cubes were pushed together and the plates were locked in an enclosed space.
Achieving it required more time and more tension. But nevertheless, even through cubes of transparent Plexiglas with walls 6 millimetres thick, which, one would think, ought to have reliably screened the plates, N. S.'s energy penetrated into the enclosed space. And produced an astonishing effect.
An acquaintance of ours called the design of this device a “witchoscope”. What sort of “unclean” force were we observing in these experiments?
We decided to use the “witchoscope” in experiments in which two effects were produced simultaneously: both “psi-conductivity” and telekinesis. We were prompted to do this by one circumstance that I would like to tell about.
During telekinesis we several times managed to observe how, between N. S.'s fingers and the object being moved, certain glittering dotted formations — some kind of extremely fine threads — appeared for an instant. They could not be likened to the sparks of electrical discharges, since no audible clicks were ever heard of the kind that arise when sparks jump between the plates of a charged capacitor. In their glow and size these dotted formations sometimes resembled long, thin, glittering strings of glass beads.
Chance helped us to become better acquainted with these “beads”. When a film about telekinesis made by the Leningrad Studio of Popular Science Films was being shown, mysterious glittering traces appeared on the screen between Ninel Sergeyevna's fingers. At first they were taken for some kind of extremely fine threads; some viewers decided that these were the very “invisible threads” with which N. S. secretly manipulated and moved objects. However, a more careful analysis of the film revealed that on 22 of the 28 frames showing the movement of the hands and the object, shot at a speed of 24 frames per second, glittering dotted formations of varying size and contrast were clearly visible.
On enlarged photographs these flashes look different. In one frame they issue from a finger of one hand; in the next frame they appear at a finger of the other. Moreover, the flashes are visible only in the places not covered by shadow; they vary in thickness and brightness. On some frames the thread-like flashes are visible at both hands at once.
Since these flashes are visible only in the brightly lit zone, it must be supposed that what the film records is not a self-luminous formation, such as a spark discharge, but merely a reflection from some surface, from a rapidly moving minute particle…
When the film is viewed at normal speed, 24 frames per second, some of the dotted formations are not visible; the viewer gets the impression of glittering threads or beads between the fingers.
It was established that the movement of the object does not correspond, either in time or in distance, to the movement of Ninel Sergeyevna's fingers. The appearance of the glittering threads made it possible to suppose that this might be connected with the effect of electrical conductivity arising in the air gap, which had been observed when Ninel Sergeyevna's organism was under strain during the experiments.
To test this supposition several experiments were carried out: once again a metal “bracelet” was put on N. S.'s wrist and connected by a wire to a measuring instrument of the kind used in practice for locating acupuncture points on the surface of the body.
The light objects moved by telekinetic action in these experiments were made of diamagnetic materials — plastic, ebonite, cardboard, thin aluminium tubes. They were placed on a metal plate to which the other contact wire of this instrument was attached.
In the experiments everything was as usual. Only one thing was added: an electrically conducting circuit was set up with a battery cell and the measuring instrument, broken by the air gap between the metal plate along which the objects moved and Ninel Sergeyevna's hands.
What, then, happened in these experiments? At the moment of almost extreme strain of N. S.'s organism, when telekinesis began, a current appeared in the circuit. The instrument's needle began to tremble, moved to the right at a somewhat slowed pace, and then was flung with a jerk to the 200 µA mark. At that moment the object moved swiftly. And then something completely unforeseen happened: the object went on moving for some time longer, but there was no longer any current in the circuit: the instrument's needle went back to the zero mark.
In one of the experiments a plastic tube was stood vertically on the metal plate and covered with a transparent Plexiglas cube. In this case too it could be moved, and the air space between N. S.'s palm and the metal plate along which the object moved became a conductor of electric current.
The “psi-conductivity” effect was also observed when the television was switched from one channel to another without touching the contacts of the touch-sensor programme selector. It was enough for Ninel Sergeyevna to bring her hand to within 15–20 centimetres of the selector's panel and create a certain strain in her organism, concentrating her attention on one or another channel contact, and the device obeyed her as though she were touching those contacts with her fingers.
As is well known, when a finger touches one or another contact of a touch-sensor unit, a capacitance — which is what the human body represents — is connected into the television's circuit. It follows that in these experiments with contactless channel switching Ninel Sergeyevna, by the strain characteristic of her, created, “sent” and “directed” to one or another contact her real but physics-unknown “psi-conducting” substance, thereby connecting the capacitance of her body to the electronic circuit. The “force” field of some kind that she generated was somehow focused into a fairly narrow beam or jet, which made it possible not to bridge, that is, not to short-circuit, the gaps between the contacts of the different channels, which measured only a little more than two millimetres.
In the end the exercises described led to a malfunction of the circuit on several of the television's channels. We had to call in a specialist to restore the working of the touch-sensor programme selector, but he was unable to do the job completely. The device went permanently “on the blink”.
In our opinion, a similar manifestation of the “psi-conductivity” effect should also include an episode that occurred in March 1977 in Moscow during the shooting of a Japanese-Soviet television film about unusual human abilities. One of the film's segments was devoted to a Muscovite woman, V., who demonstrated contactless action on cylindrical objects, which rolled across the horizontal surface of a transparent cube. V. would first wipe the surface of the cube. Then, having placed a cylinder on it, she would bring her palm towards it. As her palm approached the cylinder, the latter rolled away from V.'s hand. The movement stopped when V. held her hand still, and resumed, but in the other direction, if she brought her palm up from the opposite side. Thus, by moving her hands, she made the cylinder move, as if pushing it away from herself.
Ninel Sergeyevna, who was watching everything, volunteered to stop the cylinder's movement. Having obtained V.'s consent to such contactless interference, N. S. raised her hands over the object, and within a few seconds the cylinder, which until then had been rolling with ease, suddenly froze, as if it had been pinned to the spot. And when N. S. withdrew her hands, which had been spread out over the cube, and stepped away from the table, the cylinder would no longer obey V., although she repeatedly brought her palms up to it, trying to make it budge. It was as though the cylinder had been replaced. The experiment had to be started all over again, that is, by rubbing the surface of the cube, the cylinder itself and the palms.
After that everything went as usual — V. had only to bring her palm up to the object for it to start rolling.
This fact of Ninel Sergeyevna's contactless interference in the course of the experiment, which astonished everyone present, interested V. as well. She asked N. S. to repeat her action. The result was the same. This went on several times, until all who watched this remarkable contest were convinced that Kulagina's contactless action neutralized V.'s physical action.
It should be added here that N. S. showed then and there that she could move the frozen cylinder without touching it or the cube…
If the assumption about the electrostatic nature of V.'s action is correct, then it is logical to explain the “braking effect” created by N. S., by the “psi-conductivity” of the air space, by her ability to remove an electric charge.
When we informed specialists that the air between N. S.'s palm and the body of the subjects becomes electrically conductive, that burning is felt and erythema forms, that when she acts on the layer of air between separated metal plates a “psi-conductivity” effect arises and a direct current of at least 200 µA flows in pulse mode through the electric circuit with a voltage across the plates of only 9 volts, we were, of course, not believed.
As is well known, air is an excellent dielectric, that is, a resistance. For the air molecules between metal plates to be ionized and for electricity to flow through a 15-millimetre layer of air between them, a current with a voltage of at least 33,000 volts must be supplied to the plates! Yet in our experiment with a home-made device bearing the dashing name “witchoscope”, current passed through the air without any ionization by powerful discharges.
A paradox, pure and simple! I would remind you that the plates were in an enclosed space, inside two cubes of Plexiglas.
So if one takes into account the 6-millimetre-thick Plexiglas screen, whose dielectric strength at 20 °C is estimated at 30,000 volts per millimetre, the phenomenon of the “psi-conductivity” of the air in our “witchoscope” becomes utterly incomprehensible.
The author told a group of physicists about everything the reader has learned, showed them the device he had built in action, and shared all his observations and the doubts, guesses and considerations that came to mind when trying to assess what had been seen.
Soon we were invited to conduct an experiment at the Institute of Radio Engineering and Electronics — the IRE of the USSR Academy of Sciences — with a device similar to the “witchoscope”.
Here, this time, there was a screened chamber, in which Ninel Sergeyevna was placed together with the device, and all possible means and methods of monitoring and recording a physical experiment. The change in the electrical conductivity of the air medium on which N. S. acted was recorded on the magnetic tape of a measuring instrument and observed on the screen of an oscilloscope.
The results of the experiment confirmed that near Kulagina's hands powerful pulses are recorded (up to a value of 10⁻⁶ Ω⁻¹·cm⁻¹) with a duration of from 0.01 to 1 second.
How is this reality to be explained? The physicists suggested that charged electric droplets of some unknown medium are sprayed from N. S.'s hands, forming in the measurement zone an aerosol with relatively high conductivity. That is, physics has nothing to do with it; the essence of the phenomenon lies in Ninel Sergeyevna's physiology…
But the reader will remember that the effect of air conductivity occurred even inside the Plexiglas cube, which the hypothetical droplets could not have penetrated. So physiology will not help us here. The only thing the physicists established was that the effect is real, that it has been confirmed under laboratory conditions, and information about it was included in the official report of the Institute of Radio Engineering and Electronics.
Our experience convinces us that the attempt by some scientists to give an acceptable explanation of N. S.'s phenomenon solely from the standpoint of known physical laws, as a rule, proves unsuccessful, leads to a dead end and comes into obvious contradiction with the forms of physical interaction known in nature. It is impossible, for example, to explain by ionization of molecules alone the fact of an anomalous and sharp increase in the electrical conductivity of air and of a number of other dielectric materials. It is impossible to find a plausible explanation, from the standpoint of the energetics of infrared and ultraviolet radiation, for the facts of burning appearing under N. S.'s action, followed by the appearance of erythema, a change in pigmentation, coarsening and peeling of the burned layers of skin, all occurring without any inflammation or pain while the temperature on the surface of the body remained unchanged.
Nor, having detected high-frequency sound pulses in N. S., can one use them to explain the change in the acidity of water and of various other solutions, including liquids that do not contain water molecules (we shall report on this later).
There are a great many such problems. At the same time, if one tries to make sense of all the information obtained on all the anomalies N. S. has demonstrated, one might be able to find in them, or somehow designate, a single origin. The very fact that the whole motley spectrum of phenomena has one and the same biological nature prompts us to rely on a materialist foundation common to all the phenomena. This, however, cannot yet be done in terms of the notions current today about the equal validity, for living and non-living nature alike, of the forms of physical interaction known to natural science.
After our home-made “witchoscope” had demonstrated that the material medium responsible for the “psi-conductivity” effect also “freely” penetrates a screen of Plexiglas, which is an excellent dielectric, it became possible to characterize the paradoxical results of our experiments more or less definitely. Let me remind the reader that the sensors used to register the physical fields arising around N. S. were, as a rule, designs based on the principles of electromagnetic interaction.
To prove that electrical insulating materials do not screen off the substance which, in our opinion, is responsible for “psi-conductivity” and also for the burning effect, a laboratory experiment was needed.
It was devised and carried out by research staff in Leningrad at the Magnetic-Ionospheric Observatory of the Leningrad Branch of IZMIRAN (Institute of Terrestrial Magnetism, Ionosphere and Radio Wave Propagation) in January 1984, with Ninel Sergeyevna taking part as operator-subject.
The “Report on the Conduct of Experiments” of 15 January 1984 states that “…an electrical circuit was assembled consisting of a milliammeter ‘359’, a milliammeter ‘M254’, a galvanic cell of type ‘165U’ and an ‘R33’ resistance box with a set resistance, connected in series. The circuit was placed on a table measuring 0.7 × 1.5 metres, except for the ‘359’ instrument, which was moved to a distance of 4–5 metres. In the initial (switched-on) state of the circuit a current of 10 mA was established.”
A brief explanation of the text taken from the report is in order here. The idea of the experiment was to study the effect of “warming” on the insulated ends of electrical wires, twisted together into a bundle, at the point where they were connected to the galvanic cell. The thinking was that if the hypothetical material medium really possessed superconducting properties, then the insulated wires at this point would be “short-circuited”, current would not flow through the circuit, and the measuring instruments “359” and “M254” would be de-energized.
One of the measuring instruments, as a control, was moved to a distance of five metres from the table on which the whole circuit was placed.
The report on the experiment states:
“At 13:25 the needle on the ‘M254’ instrument deflected sharply to the left from 10 mA to 1 mA, and then back to 10 mA. The observer at the ‘359’ instrument was distracted at that moment and noticed nothing. After 20–30 seconds the needle on the ‘M254’ instrument deflected sharply to 2 mA and returned to 10 mA. On the second instrument a sharp deflection of the needle from 10 mA to 4 mA was observed, likewise followed by a return.
After 11 minutes of action on the lead wires (at 13:36) the needle on the ‘M254’ instrument deflected to ‘0’, then ‘trembled’ for about 2 seconds at the 1 mA level. On the second instrument a sharp deflection of the needle to ‘0’ with a return to 10 mA was registered at the same time.”
The report notes that “all results of N. S. Kulagina’s action on the sensors and instruments are recorded by at least two independent observers.” During this test one of the experimenters, a specialist in physical chemistry, was beside N. S. His duties included observing changes in the instrument readings and also visually monitoring the subject’s actions on the equipment.
Observations of the “359” instrument were made by another experimenter, who was five metres away, out of Ninel Sergeyevna’s sight.
The results of the experiments confirmed the assumption that N. S. is capable of introducing interference into the readings of instruments connected in series with a power supply in a single circuit. She created a “short circuit” of the twisted ends of the wires without touching them.
And so our home experiments, in which we had managed to establish the “psi-conductivity” effect, and also the fact that insulating materials are no obstacle to N. S.’s action, were confirmed.
How should these results be assessed, what conclusions can be drawn? What “psi-conductivity” are we talking about — should not the mention of this term, so fashionable in physics nowadays, be seen as our desire to associate ourselves with the great discoveries of the natural sciences?
On the basis of the scientific literature that was used in attempts to make sense of the physical nature of the phenomenon, one can state that the recorded facts find no explanation in the terms of the natural sciences and contradict “common sense”.
What an electric current is, everyone knows from their school days. There are no grounds for considering that the laws of classical physics and the modern interpretations of the processes occurring in the micro- and macrocosm and in outer space are wrong and require revision.
The mechanisms of electrical conduction are many and varied; the only thing they have in common is their inseparable connection with the movement of electric charges. The laws describing electrical conduction depend on the properties of the substance and the conditions of conduction. Experiments have proved that the atoms and molecules of metals take no part in carrying the current and that in a metal it is due to the movement of electrons.
According to the generally accepted theory, a substance is a good conductor of current if there are many electrons and free quantum states in the conduction band. Only electrons are the charge carriers that give rise to the current. The high specific conductivity of metals is due mainly to the concentration of charges, i.e. of electrons. In dielectrics, on the other hand, most of the electrons are rigidly bound to the atoms and there are very few free charge carriers, and so their specific conductivity is very low. Air, like any other gas in which there are no charged particles, is not a conductor of current. For it to become a conductor there must be either an external ionizing factor (a high air temperature, ultraviolet, X-ray or gamma radiation, etc.) or an electric field of high intensity, which leads to the ionization of the air molecules and the appearance of a self-sustaining electric current.
Pure liquids are likewise poor conductors of electricity. Solutions of salts, acids and alkalis in water, however, conduct current well, because the molecules of the dissolved substance dissociate, i.e. break up into positive and negative ions, and it is the ordered movement of these ions in the solutions that carries the electric charges.
Having recalled this, let us try to examine and assess the results we obtained. In the experiment described above, the wire connecting all the elements of the circuit was attached to the supply ends of the battery, which had been protected and twisted together. These junctions were wrapped in several layers of insulating tape, forming something like a cocoon. Its diameter was 15 millimetres. Inside the cocoon the space between the cores of the wires was also filled with layers of insulating tape.
The current in the circuit was constant. As a result of N. S.’s action on this cocoon, the instruments measuring the current registered a sharp drop in it to zero, after which the current returned to its nominal value.
N. S.’s action caused a “psi-conductivity zone” to appear between the metal cores separated by layers of insulation, with a resistance considerably lower than that of the circuit as a whole. It was into this “psi-conductivity zone” that the electric current rushed, bypassing the external circuit with the instruments.
As soon as N. S. reduced her tension or the zone of her action shifted away from the cocoon, the current in the external circuit settled at its former values.
Such, then, is how the physical mechanism of the drop in the current in the circuit appears. As for deciphering the concept of the “psi-conductivity zone”, it is so far impossible to find an acceptable explanation of this phenomenon in terms of known physical concepts.
A general physics course for universities and higher educational institutions (A. N. Matveyev, Electricity and Magnetism, Moscow, 1983) gives the following explanation of superconductivity:
“By its physical nature, superconductivity is the superfluidity of a liquid consisting of electrons. Superfluidity arises because the exchange of energy between the superfluid component of the liquid and its other parts ceases, as a result of which friction disappears.” And further: “Pairs of electrons can condense and form a current of a superfluid liquid — of electron pairs — and it is this that forms the superconducting electric current… The possibility of the formation of electron pairs and of their superfluidity is explained by quantum theory.”
Clearly, such a definition of superconductivity cannot be applied to explain, even approximately, the disappearance of resistance to the electric current that took place in our experiments.
Nor can this concept of superconductivity explain the results in the experiments with the “witchoscope”, when the air space between the metal plates became electrically conductive.
The concept that comes closest to explaining the observed facts is that of “biological plasma”. Its theoretical foundations are set out in the brochure On the Biological Essence of the Kirlian Effect, published by Kazakh University. This methodological handbook, edited by academician of the Academy of Sciences of the Kazakh SSR Professor B. A. Dombrovsky and Candidate of Physical and Mathematical Sciences A. G. Abdulin, came out in 1968.
The authors of the concept of biological plasma — scientists of Kazakh University headed by V. M. Inyushin, Professor and Doctor of Biological Sciences — considering plasma from the point of view of physics as the fourth state of matter, come to the conclusion that “… physics sets no definite limitations in the way of substantiating the concept of biological plasma”.
The authors of the concept ask: “Is not… a system of charged particles organized in a definite way under the conditions of the organism the fourth state of living matter, or biological plasma — the material basis of the biological field? Perhaps this is that whole dimension or aspect in biology about which we still know very little?”
At the end of their work the authors write:
“On the basis of the foregoing, we have come to the conclusion that a living organism consists not only of matter organized into atomic-molecular systems, but of matter in the fourth state — plasma, which under the conditions of a living organism acquires a number of peculiar properties.”
The concepts of biological plasma, and also of the biological field, which were subsequently developed by these and a number of other scientists, were in our view confirmed by the physical measurements of N. S.’s action carried out under laboratory conditions. Under the action of N. S. Kulagina the electrical conductivity at acupuncture points increased considerably, and the zone of conductivity around these points widened in comparison with the normal state; the resistance to direct current fell sharply on the areas of the skin of the subject whom N. S. was “burning”.
But how can the superconductivity of bioplasma explain the sharp increase in the conductivity of air and of non-conductors such as Plexiglas or insulating tape? In describing the experiments we observed in as much detail as possible, we have no other way of explaining what we saw than by using the knowledge and life experience available to us, without resorting to concepts that contradict the materialist world view. Yet all this is not enough…
Who can explain the phenomena of N. S.?