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a Nm om oA i ae egtrate APRSONEG.FeLRelease 20Q008/1 Krippner’s group to meet with China's most commutied EHF researchers and their treas- ured child savants. Kr.ppner told me that he had aircady in- vited physicist Harold Puthoff, of SRI Inter- national, physicians J. Tashof Bernton and Kenneth Zirinsky. Los Angeles psychologisi Thelma Moss: some graduate students from Saytrook: and others. But he was still in need of someone like me, an utter skeptic trained as a magician--—-a professional who knew just haw sieight of hand could be used to simu- late ESP | accepted his invitation gratefully, delighted by the chance to get a firsthand look at China’s newest craze. We left that October, arriving in Beijing on the eighteenth. The thing that struck me most was the looseness of things. The airport was nearly empty, practically a mausoleum. And our fodgings, named the Friendship Hotel in honor of the once-greal bond between China and the Soviet Union, was a strange amal- gam of the two cultures. It was a monstrous, Soviet-like structure, something you might find in the middle of Moscow, but with a Chi- nese roof. The elaborate inner lobby had a carpet patterned with little peace doves, and the rooms had large mattresses atop mas- sive Russian beds. In deference to the Chi- nese, there was an impressive Oriental gar- den out back. It was in the conference room of the Friendship that we had our first series of meetings with the Chinese. The resident lu- minaries, mostly from Beijing Medical Col- lege, Beijing University. and the Chinese Academy of Sciences, first explained the re- lationship between EHF and qi (chee). According to the researchers, qi is psychic energy that runs through the body, just as blood runs through the arteries and veins. The pathways through which q travels are essentially points of high electrical conduc- tivity, when the pathways are in repair and the giis flowing smoothly, an individual stays healthy and strong. Acupuncture needles, the scientists said, stimulate the main qi channels. And a breathing exercise calied qigong {chee-gong) prevents the channels from getting clogged. ; As for EHF why, children reading mes- sages with their armpits are simply tapping a little-explored tactile sense: They are gleaning messages through the skin, which is laced with channels and energized by the power of qi. \told the researchers that as far as | could see, gi might not exist and gigong might be nothing more than a Chinese version of ordinary aerobics. But the Chinese persisted. People known as qigong masters, | was told. were capable of extraordinary physical feats, including the ability to emerge unscathed when struck on the bare chest with a huge stone slab or the blade of a sword. Moreover, | was told, out of 3,100 chronically ill patients practicing gigong from three to five years, 25 percent recovered completely, 44 percent showed marked improvement, and 22 percent machine that produced the qi energy artifi- cially. she had. she said, already used it to cure her patients of cancer. paralysis. high blood pressure. and heart disease. Afier three days of such discussion, we were allowed to meet the savants. The chil- dren-—four young girls—entered the hotel, kicking off what seemed like a three-ring cir- cus. Fifty researchers were milling around. and we were all so excited that we started our tests right there in the lobby. First the Chinese researchers gave the girls folded pieces of paper marked with symbols. Then they were given canisters that we had filled and sealed in the United States. In both in- stances, they were to guess the contents within. But our experiments were foiled by the chaos. Even Mar. our translator, seemed to complicate the situation. She was so set on seeing the girls succeed that it was hard to trust what she did. And while we were trying to impose tighter controls, she was jabbering away in Chinese. For all we knew, @Qigong masters, ! was told, were capable of extraordinary physical feats, including the ability to emerge unscathed when struck on the chest with the blade of a sword. ARI 7 I A GE she may have been revealing the answers. When we finally did move into the conter- ence room for a formal demonstration, it hardly mattered. The children were so fidg- ety and restless, they couldn't help but ma- nipulate the wads of paper: any skilled con- jurer would have been able to use that technique to take a peek. Despite the chance for cheating, though, the girls didn’t score a single hit. Finally, Krippner stood a few yards away from them and drew a big red star, perhaps the most pervasive symbol in all of China. Tnen he folded his paper, handed it over, and one girl got the answer right. Later on, | took him aside. “Stan, why did you do that?” | asked. “The girls probably saw your red pen. And it would have been simple for them to trace the movement of your hand.” ; “Of course | realized the problems,” Krippner said. “But the girls and our hosts seemed so embarrassed. | was just trying to end the session on a friendly note.” it was on that friendly note that we left for Xian, the Chinese city best known for the life- size terra-cotta army now being unearthed finde AcRDFRO6 1007 9 AROQN2004 200i476d) there we found ourselves in the meager three-room apart- ment of three children said to possess EHF. They claimed they could psychically break a match or needle sealed in a small con- tainer. And of course they could intuit mes- sages on crumpled paper through the channels of their skin. With 25 of us sitting in the smail front room, the mother conducted the test herself. using a method that was amazingly crude. She merely held up playing cards and asked the children to identify them. Now, any cheating child could have scored hit after hit, but to my surprise, these children got every an- swer wrong, and that included the youngest girl, who at one point actually left the room and took the target card with her. Our next target was Shanghai. We left on a shuddering turboprop filled with a con- vention of Americans from the Midwest, and en route we prayed for survival. We did, of course, touch down, only to find that our troubles had barely begun. ; We had planned a series of meetings with the Nature Journal staff, Shanghai Univer- sity professors interested in EHF, and faculty at the Science and Technology Association. But when we got to our hotel, we learned that the meetings had been canceled. While we were in Xian, it seems, Yu Guang Yuan, vice-chairman of the Chinese Acad- emy of Sciences and vice-director of the In- stitute of Marxism, Leninism, and Thoughts of Mao Tse-tung, had attacked parapsy- chology in the press. Writing in the People’s Daily, he denounced EHF research as “non- sense and superstition.” His article specifi- éally criticized He Chongyan, publisher of Nature Journal and one of Mar's main con- tacts in China. Moreover, he organized a committee called the EHF Investigation and Liaison Unit. tts purpose: to expose decep- tion in claims of the paranormal. With the purge of the Cultural Revolution fresh in everyone's mind, EHF researchers felt compelled to fade into the woodwork. Nonetheless, some of the more enthusiastic made quiet visits to our hotel. Of specific interest were the claims of a husband-and- wife team named Zhu Romiong and Zhu Yi- yi, both of Nature Journal. They said that children with EHF emitted infrared radiation, unusual brain waves, and magnetic signals. These same children reported a flashing of the target image on the forehead before it hit. The Zhus also told us about a four-and- a-half-year-old who could solve complex “math problems but only when his father was in the room. And they mentioned another young boy who “peered” inside the womb of a pregnant woman, only to announce that the fetus had no head. According to the Zhus, that diagnosis proved correct. These incredible tales went on and on, until | realized that the Zhus had little scientific or conceptual sophistication. That evening, nonetheless, we all went to the Zhus EHF demonstration. There | found four young sa- vants, three girls and one boy, primly seated onasofa. Once again, their goal was to read showed REBFOVEEP POT REleave DOGO/OBI PFS CH REPS OUP 2RUHISOGAAIUA 7mm ro 66 OMNI