Special Report Testing Psi Claims in China: Visit by a CSICOP Delegation Introduction Paul Kurtz ive members of the Executive Council of the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal and one member Fof the CSICOP staff spent two weeks in China (March 21 to April 3). We were invited by China's leading scientific newspaper to appraise the state of psychic research and the extent of paranormal belief in China and to offer critical scientific evaluations where feasible. Our hosts were Mr. Lin Zixin, editor-in-chief, and other members of the editorial staff of Science and Tech­ nology Daily. Our group visited Beijing, Xian, and Shanghai, where we lectured at large public meetings and seminars and conferred with scientists, scholars, and journalists, including influential scientific critics as well as defenders of paranormal claims. While we were there, we carried out a number of tests of various subjects and claimants. We are grateful for the gracious hospitality of our hosts, the openness and candor with which the meetings were conducted, and the many fine banquets and tours that were arranged. Belief in the paranormal in mainland China has been growing rapidly in recent years. Spiritualism and psychical research had been pursued in China, as in the West, in the 1910s and 1920s. There had even been a Chinese psychical research society in Shanghai. But from 1949, when Marxism was officially installed by Mao, through the cultural revolution of the 1970s, China was cut off from the outside world. During this period, the ideological competition between idealism (which spiritualism and psychic research were viewed to be) and Marxist materialism led to the suppression of paranormal beliefs. It has been only since 1979, when greater freedom was permitted, that parapsychological influences again began to be felt in China, though the forms these beliefs have taken are in many ways unique to Chinese culture. Interestingly, belief in the paranormal has had a field day since then, and there has been very little public criticism. Paranormal beliefs have taken two main forms: First, many people claim 364 THE SKEPTICAL INQUIRER, Vol. 12 to have special "psychic" powers. Reports have filtered out to the West about so-called paranormal children who proponents claim are able to read Chinese characters written on bits of paper and placed in their ears, under their armpits, or even under their rumps—presumably a demonstration of ESP. These children are also said to be capable of psychokinesis (PK), in that they allegedly break matchsticks or repair broken ones by the power of their minds. Other "supermen," as they are called, are claimed to have a wide range of "psychic" abilities. They can supposedly extract vitamin C pills from a bottle while the sealed cap and bottle remain unbroken. Others are said to be able to open locks hidden in boxes, move objects, make clocks run faster or slower, and/ or bend forks (a la Uri Geller). Many public demonstrations of these powers have been presented. A book entitled Wojiao, or Chinese Supermen, edited by Zhu Yiyi and Zhu Kunlong, published in 1987, promotes paranormal powers and has sold 356,000 copies. Even one of China's most distinguished scientists and its leading rocket expert, Qian Xue Seng, formerly a professor at Caltech and chairman of the China Association of Science and Technology Societies, has been impressed by these demonstrations. And Nature, one of China's science journals, published in Shanghai, has carried articles supporting the reality of paranormal phenomena. The incompatibility of such claims with Marxist ideology has been circumvented by categorizing such research as "physiolog­ ical." Extraordinary Functions of the Human Body (EFHB) societies have sprung up all over China, and they generally have supported psychic claims. The second area of belief that has enjoyed considerable popularity of late and seems to be growing is the use of Qigong (pronounced "chi-gung") to treat certain illnesses. Qigong is a form of traditional Chinese medicine going back more than 2,500 years and is based on the theory of "meridians," undefined channels in the human body through which flows the fluid or gas known as Qi. There are two forms of Qigong: internal Qigong, in which a person practices deep breathing, concentration, and relaxation techniques; and external Qigong, in which the Qigong master is said to be able to affect and cure others. It is claimed that with external Qigong a kind of energy or radiation is emitted from the fingertips that can cure and/ or prevent illnesses. Among the various maladies Qigong masters can allegedly heal are hyper­ tension, neurasthenia, circulatory problems, glaucoma, asthma, peptic ulcers, tumors, and cancers. Qigong is practiced throughout China in many tradi­ tional hospitals and institutes of medicine. A marriage of psychic powers and Qigong occurs in such places, as masters use alleged psychics to diagnose illnesses by seeing into a person's body without the use of expensive X-ray machines. During the cultural revolution, the Gang of Four attacked Qigong, but a movement is now under way to restore respectability to this "treasure" of Chinese culture. China is now making a massive effort to catch up with the rest of the world. Thus the key word is modernization, and high on the list of priorities is expansion in science and technology. Some of China's most distinguished scientists suffered repression during the cultural revolution, and many were Summer 1988 365 sent out into the countryside to work. Scientific research languished during that period. Are parapsychological and paranormal studies part of the new frontiers of science as some proponents in China maintain? Have there been significant breakthroughs in this area, or is this research, conducted in the name of science, simply pseudoscience? We were asked repeatedly if it was true that the CIA and the KGB are studying psychic phenomena for use by the military. If so, some wonder, will China be left behind in the psychic arms race? How does traditional Chinese medicine—which includes herbal remedies and acupuncture as well as Qigong—compare with Western medicine? Can the claims of Qigong be validated? Many scientists in China are skeptical about these practices and see the need for scientific evaluation and criticism, but many others resent any Western involvement at all in traditional Chinese culture. In any case, a number of Chinese scientists deplore the growth of irrational belief and welcome critical scientific investigation and skepticism—not on ideological grounds, but purely in terms of the quality of the research and the evidence. The only book critical of paranormal claims that has been published in China in recent years is Psi and Its Variant—Extraordinary Functions of the Human Body (1982), by Yu Guangyuan, and it had a very small circula­ tion. Recently, however, excerpts from books and articles by skeptics, princi­ pally from the SKEPTICAL INQUIRER, have been translated into Chinese, though they are read by a limited and mostly scientific audience. Fortunately we were given the opportunity to conduct a number of preliminary tests of various subjects who claimed to have special powers. Other Western scientists and reporters have visited China in recent years and some have been impressed with the demonstrations of "psychic" abilities they observed. Ours is one of the very few efforts of scientific testing by Western scientists in collaboration with Chinese scientists. The following report is an account of the highlights of these tests. It is not an official report of CSICOP, but only of the individuals who took part in the tests. As we left for home, the Chinese scientists expressed gratitude for our visit. They are in the process of translating other articles and books by skeptics and said that they would continue to do so. They also indicated that they hoped to form a Chinese Society for the Scientific Investigation of the Paranormal. CSICOP looks forward to working with them. 366 THE SKEPTICAL INQUIRER, Vol. 12 Preliminary Testing James Alcock, Kendrick Frazier, Barry Karr, Philip J. Klass, Paul Kurtz, and James Randi Beijing hile in the Chinese capital of Beijing, members of the CSICOP team Wlectured at the Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China. We held several seminars and two public meetings. Paul Kurtz spoke on the history of paranormal and parapsychological research; Ken Frazier, on the recent National Research Council report on parapsychology; and James Alcock, on "The Psychology of Extraordinary Belief." James Randi demonstrated psychic surgery and "psychokinetic feats," and Phil Klass spoke on UFOs. Informal polls taken by James Alcock of the public audiences of 300 to 350 indicated that approximately 50 percent of those present believed in psychic phenomena—about the same as in North America. The audiences showed little interest in UFOs. We asked how many believed that UFOs were extraterrestrial, and the response was fairly low. James Alcock and Ken Frazier also spoke at an informal seminar at the Institute of Psychology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and Phil Klass lectured at the Beijing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics. The CSICOP team was given two special demonstrations under the auspices of the Beijing College of Traditional Chinese Medicine. Approxi­ mately 75 people crowded into a classroom. We were given an informal demonstration of the powers of a young "psychic" woman. It was claimed that she was able to diagnose illnesses by seeing into a subject's body. She was asked to demonstrate her abilities with two members of our group. She announced that Phil Klass had an irregular heartbeat and that James Alcock had gallbladder trouble. According to Klass and Alcock, these diagnoses were incorrect. She was mildly embarrassed when Klass said that his health at age 68 was fine and that he frequently takes skiing vacations that would be impossible if he had such a heart problem.