RESEARCHING REMOTE VIEWING AND PSYCHOKINESIS

Copyright by Jack Houck

Background

Doing research on paranormal phenomena has been my avocation for the last 17 years. I “normally” work as a systems engineer at a large aerospace company in southern California. The term “paranormal phenomena” covers a much broader area than just remote viewing and psychokinesis. The term “remote viewing” was coined by Hal Puthoff and Russell Targ in the early 1970’s when they were working at Stanford Research Institute (SRI) International in Menlo Park, California. Their research produced a number of important papers and books (e.g., References 1, 2, and 3). They were developing techniques for gathering information at a distance using the brain/minds of individuals. In metaphysics, this is known as clairvoyance. They named this phenomenon remote viewing as an attempt to make it sound more scientific as well as to have the term be descriptive of what was happening (people “seeing” at a distance). Other laboratories now use the term “remote perception” because all sensory data may be accessed at a distance, not just vision (Reference 4).

Psychokinesis (PK) is defined as mind over matter. This covers a wide range of phenomena from spoon bending, moving objects (telekinesis), firewalking, to healing. Uri Geller made spoon bending famous in the mid-1970’s. Researchers such as Wilber Franklin, Elizabeth Rauscher, Bill Bise, Bill Tiller, Julian Isaacs, and John Hasted (Reference 5) have made significant contributions conducting experiments in macro-PK.

My education and early work experience was in very conventional engineering. In 1976, a friend had read the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE) paper by Hal Puthoff and Russell Targ (Reference 3) and suggested that I read it. The idea that remote information could be accessed without a person ever having been at the remote site did not fit anything that I had been taught or had experienced. Yet the potential application of this caught my attention and I began to read everything I could find that seemed similar. This included books on “out-of-body” travel and “astral” travel where people claimed to “see” places distant from their physical body (Reference 6). One of the things that became apparent to me was that a number of examples of people’s experiences seemed to include time displacement (i.e., they would observe something that contained information that was not at the observed remote site at the time of the experience, but it was there either in the past or the future). Because there seemed to be so many reports, I took the attitude that if this information is “real,” then how could it be explained? This is quite a different attitude than the skeptical one of “these people are lying or their experiment is fraudulent.”

I wanted to talk with other scientifically-oriented people about this phenomenon and I quickly found that there were not many I could talk to without being considered “crazy”. Luckily in 1979, a meeting was arranged with Hal Puthoff and Russell Targ at SRI. They shared their experimental protocol and remote viewing data. They also asked me to attempt replication of some of their experiments. Within weeks of this meeting, I identified some “psychics” who seemed to be able to “see” at a distance and I asked if they would be willing to participate in an experiment. They were eager to help and so my first “local” remote viewing experiment was held in August, 1979 (Reference 7). Even though the results of this experiment were not judged to be statistically significant, its review by Targ and Puthoff pointed out a number of mistakes I made. For example, I had the viewer attempt to see five different targets in one day, resulting in data merging between targets. Similarly, the remote observer was placed at some distance from the targets because the man who developed the target pool thought it must work like “the viewer seeing through the eyes of the remote observer.” In this particular experiment, it seemed that the viewer would “look” in the opposite direction from the intended target. Later we found out that we needed to place the remote observer at the target because he becomes a “beacon” for the remote viewer. This experiment also demonstrated apparent scale size changes (i.e., remote viewer “seeing” the remote site as if she were very small) and position errors (i.e., very clear description of a building next to and on the other side of the intended target building). A lot of learning occurred by performing this experiment which helped engineer better results from subsequent experiments.

Ingo Swann had suggested to the SRI researchers that latitude and longitude coordinates could be given to a remote viewer as a means of targeting a remote site, without having an observer at the remote site, as is done in the “local” remote viewing experiments. However, no formal experiment was done at SRI so four of us at my work place decided to conduct this type of experiment. Again the results were not statistically significant but, again, much learning was achieved. This same experiment was later rejudged using the computer judging technique developed by Robert Jahn and Brenda Dunne (Reference 8) and the results were statistically significant. Getting the human judges (and their minds) out of this type of experiment consistently improves the results.

While evaluating the data from the first coordinate remote viewing experiment, I again noticed what appeared to be a time-shift. One of the target viewings could not be explained by the viewer “seeing” the target at the current time, but all the data correlated to the target site if the viewer was “seeing” the target at a time nine years prior to the time of the viewing. For this particular target site, that time would have been a very emotional event because it involved the sinking of a passenger ship. I pondered on how the human brain/mind could work in order to access information at another time. As part of documenting this experiment, I wrote a chapter titled “Conceptual Model of Paranormal Phenomena.” Unfortunately, the documentation of this experiment was not publicly released by the sponsor. However, I allowed the Archaeus Project to publish my conceptual model (Reference 9).

In the fall of 1980, I had the opportunity to visit a number of the parapsychology laboratories in the United States. I shared the results of the coordinate remote viewing experiment and my conceptual model. They appreciated the experimental data, but did not accept my model. I said that “if you deliberately wanted to create a paranormal event, such as psychokinesis, you needed to create a very emotional event.” I was challenged by a researcher to test this idea, even though he thought models like this were untestable. So, in January 1981, I gathered 21 people at my home, made a party-like atmosphere, provided silverware, had Severin Dahlen give the “instructions”, and the results were 19 of the people experienced macro-PK. There was some dramatic spontaneous bending. I was impressed at what I observed. I named this a “PK Party” and began conducting these events once a month the first year. During those first PK Parties, many samples were analyzed in metallurgical laboratories with interesting correlation of the results to metallurgical parameters.

People enjoy their experience at the PK Parties. Many truly macro-PK events occur. A parapsychology instructor at a local college in southern California was the first person to give her class a PK Party and obtained the same results I did when I gave a PK Party. Since then, many others have given PK Parties, all over the world. As of February 1993, I have personally given 262 PK Parties for nearly 12,000 people.

I also have given 36 workshops on remote viewing and conducted many experiments in psychokinesis, remote viewing, and firewalking during the last 14 years. I am going to discuss my research and data I obtained. Some of these data have not been previously published.

Research Approach

The general approach to my research has been to do the experiments and analyze the data, often making

observations that are not well understood. I have found that trying to make a conceptual model of the human brain/mind has provided a structure that can be quite useful in analyzing the data as well as providing a way of predicting the outcome of other experiments. This approach is shown in Figure 1. Originally, I wrote my conceptual model in an attempt to understand remote viewing. As I examined my own model, I realized that many other paranormal phenomena were explainable in the same context. I have continued to expand and test this model ever since.

Most of our current physics models are not applicable to the human brain/mind. After all, current science does not “believe” we are conscious, even though most scientists think they are! I do not know how to model emotions with equations; this limits the acceptability to most scientists. However, I have tried to make my conceptual model consistent with the data obtained from other researchers and much of the anecdotal literature I have obtained. It is very difficult to make a model without including some of your own personal bias. Some people observe these data and make a “spiritual” model. Others look at the data and argue that they were obtained fraudulently because they do not fit their biases and understanding. As an engineer, I had a hard time with the “timeshifts” and questions of where data from other times were stored, especially when the time shift was forward (precognition). After all, some in the metaphysical community argue “there is no time.” I chose to keep linear time and argue that the mind is capable of scanning throughout time, locking on to information at or near peak emotional events, much like a radio that scans in frequency, locks onto the peak signals (radio station), and plays out the information through its speakers.

Figure 2 was developed while writing my conceptual model, and it attempts to show what I mean by time-shifts and

peak emotional events. It shows a history of up and down emotional events at the target site of a remote viewer. The filled-in emotional event at the present time represents the emotional effort and excitement occurring at the time a remote viewer (located somewhere else) makes the viewing attempt which is superimposed on the “world line” of the target site. That target, however, may have had a peak emotional event that was much larger than the event placed there at the current time, as shown in Figure 2. The viewer’s mind would slide back in time and access the information at the time-shifted emotional peak. When showing this chart, I would suggest that if people could make the emotional peak larger than any other emotional peak on that world line (either in the past or future), then the mind will lock on to the current time and cause a paranormal event to happen. That is how I had the idea for the PK Party. To create a big emotional event, why not have a party. The paranormal event was to experience macro-PK. Having a “crazy” party like that was OK in California.

PK Parties

A typical PK Party lasts between two and three hours. It is a group of people who usually want to experience macro-PK. It seems to be a good environment for people to learn the steps to performing PK. The size of the group varies. I will not give a PK Party for fewer than 15 people because there is not enough group effect and not enough distractions. By making it a fun, party-like atmosphere, the participants seems to do much better.

The general format I use for a PK Party is given below:

• 30-45 Minute Talk – I give the history of PK Parties and tell the people the various stages of the party. As I talk, the people seem to get increasingly anxious to get into the bending.

• The steps for doing PK are used throughout the party and are listed below:

1. Make a mental connection with what you want to affect.

2. Command what you want to happen.

3. Release it (let it happen).

• “Test” Flatware using Dowsers – I teach people how to use both pendulum and rod type dowsers to get “yes” and “no” answers. Approximately 90% of the people readily can use them. For those who have never been exposed to any paranormal activity, this dowsing step seems to begin to get their attention and the excitement builds. They then use the dowsers to “test” the flatware to determine if the spoons and forks are “willing to bend for them.” This procedure begins the process of getting an unconscious connection between the individuals and the flatware they are going to attempt to bend using PK. Forged-stainless flatware seems to be the easiest for people to bend and therefore serves as good feedback at the beginning of their PK experience. People start with four or five forks and spoons that have said “yes, it’s willing to bend”.

• “Kindergarten” Bending – I give the final instructions again which are the steps indicated earlier. Each person starts with one forged-stainless steel fork or spoon. They hold it in one hand. That makes the connection step easy because they know exactly where it is (in their hand). Then I have the whole group command their forks or spoons to bend by shouting “BEND, BEND, BEND!” The shouting is not really necessary, but it seems to get the group excitement going. The bending usually starts within seconds after I say “Release it”, meaning the thought. From that point on it really does not take any concentration. In fact, the more distractions, the easier it is for people to “let go.” I encourage people to scream and get very excited when their flatware is bending, because it helps the other people “let go” by distracting them.

Even though the metal used in “kindergarten” could be bent by physical force, the people are trying to find the few seconds that the metal loses its structure (i.e., becomes rubber-like) during which time they can form the flatware into mangled shapes. They usually feel warmth coming out of the flatware when it is ready. I named this “Warm-Forming”. Approximately 85% of the 12,000 people at my PK Parties have experienced this level of PK.

•”High School” Bending – After a person has bent up four or five pieces of flatware, then they are given a silver-plated spoon. Their task is to buckle the spoon bowl. I usually also have steel and aluminum rods available. Sometimes I also include old fashioned hacksaw blades. This level is characterized by bending things that could not be bent using only physical force. I give people a “Certified Warm Former” badge when they are successful at this level. About 18% of my PK Party attendees have achieved this level of PK.

•”Seed Sprouting” – Some people really do not like bending metal, so I let them sprout seeds. They command the seeds to “sprout”. Often a small sprout about 1/4″ long appears within 5 to 10 minutes.

• “Graduate School” – For me this is the most exciting part of the PK Party. I give two long tine forks (dinner forks) to each participant and they hold one in each hand at the bottom of the handle. They are not allowed to touch each fork with the other hand. We command them to bend, and 11 % of the people have experienced spontaneous fork bending. Sometimes a person has both forks bend or twist. These are not trained magicians.

• Pictures and Questionnaires – At the end of each PK Party, I ask the people to fill out a questionnaire to report their perception of the PK Party. I also take people’s pictures with their bent up material and send them a copy of the picture.

Of the 262 PK Parties that I have given, most have been quite successful. I keep records of the number of people who

experienced the various PK levels, as well as documenting each PK Party. Years ago, I found that by trying to teach a very small group to do PK, the success rate was very poor. Figure 3 shows the relationship between the percent of people experiencing PK at the kindergarten level as a function of the number of attendees at a PK Party.

The very large PK Parties were in the first five years of my PK Party experience. At that time, I really did not know how to handle large groups. I believe if there had been a helper for every twenty people, the success percentage would be at least 85% or higher. Others have reported giving PK parties for large groups with very good results. The least successful PK Party was held at a convention for parapsychologists. They have “proof” as their primary motivation for their research and seem to be uncomfortable with PK Parties. This is in contrast to the order of my priorities, which are 1) application, 2) theory, and 3) proof. I believe that when remote viewing and psychokinesis are applied and good theoretical models are developed, proof will be self-evident.

One of the items on the questionnaires given out at the end of PK parties is that it asks for each individual’s perception of the percentage of the physical force that they used to bend their flatware (e.g., no PK would be 100%). Figure 4 shows the distribution of percentage of the 6484 people who filled out questionnaires, as of February, 1993, as a function of the individuals’ perception of the force required. More than half of the people felt that they used less than half the force necessary to physically bend the flatware. I did not start giving out the questionnaires until the 44th PK Party and sometimes people leave a party without completing the questionnaire. People obviously recognize that some physical force is required during the kindergarten bending. However, during the graduate school bending, people are really impressed when their fork bends because they are not allowed to touch it with the other hand.

Many experiments have been conducted within the PK parties. There does seem to be some type of field effect

created within the area encompassed by the people at a PK party. In one experiment, we had sealed pop bottles with brass strips and other metals inside with one bottle assigned to each individual. Several people did not come to the party so there were a few extra bottles. Similar bottles were put in other homes. All of the rest of the bottles were placed in the center of the circle of people at the party. Even though none of the metal was bent at the end of the party, the bottles were left there for several days. The next morning, the brass strips were bowed and twisted. All of the brass strips at the PK Party location continued to bend for three days, and then stopped bending. Cutting the sheets of brass had apparently introduced stress into the resulting strips. The PK effect acted to relieve the stress, much like if the brass strips had been put in a furnace and allowed to “creep”. The control bottles at the other home did not have any bending in the brass strips throughout the same time period.

Another experiment (Reference 10) was to take two packages of hacksaw blades, each containing two blades. The Rockwell hardness (Superficial 15N Scale) of each blade was initially measured. One blade was kept in a locked safe at my work place and not exposed to PK. The other three hacksaw blades were taken to four PK Parties in a brown bag and placed in the center of the circle of people during each party. Only my metallurgist (Severin Dahlen) and I knew this experiment was being conducted. The blades exposed at the party were not ever placed near the control blade. All of the blades were tested for hardness prior to each PK Party over a three month period. The hardness of the three exposed blades all reduced to near that of annealed steel from the original very hard steel of the hacksaw blades. The control blade maintained its hardness throughout the experiment. The measured hardness of these hacksaw blades is shown in Figure 5.

Having tested the PK effect on a number of different metals that were formed using different techniques, I concluded that the number of “dislocations” in the grain boundaries of the metal is a dominant parameter. The harder the steel, the more dislocations, the easier it is for people to PK that metal. Although we do not know how the mind can arrange to put “energy” into the metal, it does seem to use the dislocations as transducers. With no place to go, the energy turns into heat and melts the grain boundaries. With most of the grain boundaries molten for a few seconds, the metal loses its structure and can be easily formed (kindergarten and high school PK) or relieve internal stress (graduate school PK). This concept was first reported in Reference 11 and is illustrated in Figure 6.

It has been my contention that if we could find a method to reliably provide feedback to a person attempting to affect something (as in biofeedback), then an amplified effect could be obtainable. The silverware used in the PK Parties does provide some feedback. However, because of the large variation in the forks and spoons that I get at the swap meets and thrift stores, they are not very useful for training. People that attend many PK Parties do seem to get better and better at using PK. Table 1 lists a number of approaches to finding a PK measurement technique for feedback. A two minute cyclical signal occurred at the time the fork of a young girl, sitting within six feet of the Hall effect sensor, had the top fall over resulting in a 90° spontaneous bend during the graduate school part of a PK Party. The data recorded on a pen chart recorder is shown in Figure 7.

Table 1. PK Measurement Attempts

1. Magnetic Media – No results

2. Acoustical Dislocation Movement – Limited results

3. Liquid Crystal Displays – No results

4. Thermo Liquid Crystal Displays – No results

5. Hall Effect Chips

•Meter Output – Response during commands

•Chart Recorder Output (Off center during bending; returned to center during technical discussions)

•Chart Recorder Output 1 Thermal Insulation(Two minute period cyclical signal for 10 minutes)

This particular Hall effect sensor was constructed with two Hall effect chips placed back to back (in order to cancel any temperature effects) and the output run through a bridge circuit to the chart recorder which was located about 20 feet from the sensor. The sensor was also enclosed in a thermos bottle for temperature isolation. The sensor was on a stand, placing it about four feet off the floor. The sensor was aligned perpendicular to the earth’s magnetic field lines in order to minimize the effect of the earth’s magnetic field.

The reason Hall effect chips were chosen in the first place was not to measure the magnetic field, as is their normal application, but to see if the current through them is affected by PK modifying the dislocations in them by changing the mobility of electrons moving through the crystal. However, subsequent use of the same sensor has produced no results. The internal dislocations in any metal exposed to PK are changed, making this an unreliable sensor for feedback and training.

Remote Viewing Experiments

As indicated earlier, I began conducting remote viewing experiments in 1979. The easiest type of experiment to conduct is called “local” remote viewing. An observer is sent out to a randomly-selected site to observe the target while the viewer and interviewer are still back at the home or laboratory (Reference 12). This protocol was developed by Puthoff and Targ at SRI. The coordinate remote viewing we conducted simply identified the location of the target to the viewer using latitude and longitude coordinates. In the early experiments, the interviewer would read the coordinates to the viewer, which they hated because of all the numbers (coordinates in degrees, minutes, and seconds). Some skeptics thought the experiment must be fraudulent or we were using viewers who had memorized the world map (down to a 100 foot resolution). To avoid this criticism in later experiments, I kept the coordinates inside envelopes which were handed to the viewers. There was no change in the quality of the viewing!

One of the models some people propose for explaining remote viewing is that the brain picks up information using extremely low frequency (ELF) electromagnetic waves because the electroencephalographic (EEG) measurements of the brain waves. It is very hard to explain precognition with this model. If an ELF model was a good one, then a remote viewing experiment done over a 400 mile distance should not produce good data because that distance is between the near and far fields at ELF frequencies. I undertook an experiment similar to the local remote viewing experiments with Elizabeth Rauscher as the outbound observer. She selected the targets in the San Francisco area, about 400 miles north of the viewing location in southern California (Reference 13). This experiment was statistically significant.

Russell Targ, and then Hal Puthoff and Stephen Schwartz began the associative remote viewing (ARV) experiments which associated either objects or pictures with the outcome of a future event. The correct object or picture was shown to the viewer once the outcome was known. The viewer’s job was to look ahead on their own world line to “see” the object or picture shown to them at the feedback time. These experimenters used the stock market movement as the future event they were trying to predict. Some very good results were obtained. I summarized their results and made my own speculation on how this works in Reference 14. With the help of Stephen Schwartz and Rand De Mattei of the Mobius Society, I wrote a computer program which processes multiple viewer data, associates pictures with the possible outcomes, judges the data with respect to the selected pictures, and suggests the most likely outcome (it does not suggest how much to bet). I conducted a large ARV experiment, having 15 groups participating nationwide, with the groups ranging between 1 and 15 people. The first 49 trials were 73% correct. Then the experiment went random and continued at chance until I stopped it. Some viewer psychological issues seemed to overwhelm the importance of the judging mechanization provided by the computer program.

In the early 1980’s, Robert Jahn and Brenda Dunne developed a method for judging remote viewing experiments (Reference 8) that significantly improved the statistical results because the computer can handle a lot more data than a human judge. This was accomplished by having the viewer answer 30 questions, yes or no, about their perception of a target scene. Each target would also have a controlled set of answers to the same questions. The computer compares the viewer’s answers with the control answers, and can do this for a large number of viewers and targets. Human judges tend to get swamped if there are more than seven targets viewed in an experiment. Figure 8 is a copy of the shortened questionnaire representing the 30 questions from the Jahn and Dunne judging technique.

As mentioned earlier, I have given 36 remote viewing workshops over the last 13 years. These started because various friends wanted to learn how to do remote viewing. Originally, I only had a target pool of 55 scenic targets that had the coordinates precisely defined. Each target had an envelope which contained two additional envelopes. One envelope contained a sheet of paper with the coordinates of the target site. The other envelope contained a feedback package (e.g., picture of the target, map of the area, a description of the target, the remote viewing questionnaire with the 30 questions answered by another person who evaluated the site by studying all the feedback information). The people were paired up in two-person teams, one being the viewer and the other being the interviewer. The viewer would describe their target, draw a sketch of it, and answer the 30 questions on the remote viewing questionnaire. They would switch roles so that each individual could get the experience.

REMOTE VIEWING QUESTIONNAIRE

Date of Viewing:
Target Site #:
Name:
Street:
City:
State:
zip:

Draw the major features of the picture on the back of this paper, then check yes or no for ALL questions.

Descriptor Yes No Comments

1. Indoors —————————-

2. Dark ——————————–

3. Height —————————–

4. Bounded ————————–

5. Confined ————————–

6. Hectic —————————–

7. Colorful —————————

8. Signs ——————————

9. Motion —————————-

10. Sound —————————-

11. People —————————-

12. Animals —————————

13. Single Object ——————–

14. Natural Focus ——————-

15. Surroundings Natural ———

16. Monuments ———————-

17. Geometric Shapes ————-

18. Poles ——————————

19. Doors ——————————

20. Windows ————————–

21. Fences / Scaffolding ———–

22. Steps / Stairs ——————–

23. Repetition ————————

24. Planes / Boats / Trains ——-

25. Major Equipment —————

26. Vehicles ————————–

27. Grass / Moss ——————–

28. Roads / Bridges / Tracks —–

29. Water ——————————

30. Trees / Bushes ——————

When complete, look at the feedback envelope. Compare your answers to the answer sheet in the envelope. How many answers are the same?

Turn in this paper. Put the envelopes back together.

Figure 8. Remote Viewing Questionnaire

I thought that symbols might be good remote viewing targets because they are simple and usually made up of simple line segments (e.g., straight lines, circles or ellipses, and arcs). Gail Duke of the Archaeus Project developed a target pool of 100 symbols, each put in an envelope, to be used as remote viewing targets. I began using these symbol targets in 1988. The first experiment in a remote viewing workshop was to view the symbol in the envelope held by one person. I called this a “beacon symbol”. I also used this as a way of explaining to the people how to do the viewing and the procedure for evaluating the results (Reference 15). Then people are allowed to reach in a bag and select an envelope containing their symbol target. The people view their own target and sketch it on the evaluation sheet. After everyone has completed the viewing, they are allowed to open the envelope with the symbol picture and the correct answers for the evaluation of that symbol. There is a scoring system which can result in a maximum of 37.5 points.

Figure 9 shows two examples of how people drew the symbols contained in their envelope. Interestingly, often the

drawings are rotated from the target symbol. Also, often the drawings contain several parts which are positioned differently than the intended target symbol and sometimes the scale size of one or more of the elements in the drawing are different than the intended symbol. While it would be great if the viewer would draw an exact replication of the target symbol, as if they had an exact bit-map in computer terminology, it seems like the mind/brain somehow processes the viewing data more like “object oriented” code or vector mapping. Only 10 or so years ago, the computer people found that it was much more efficient from a computer memory utilization standpoint to store data and drawings using the vector coding than to store the complete bit map. Maybe we are starting to learn something about how the brain handles information. In general, the results of the symbol viewing have not been nearly as good as the viewing of scenes. A scene can be thought of as being very information-rich; and keeping the data in vector format is close to having a full bit map of the target scene.

The results in terms of the single tailed p-value of the groups participating in the last 23 remote viewing workshops are included in Table 2. This table updates the similar table shown in Reference 15.

I like to do remote viewing workshops with small groups because people seem to need a lot of personal attention. Also there is a great deal of paper handling and it becomes unwieldy with a large group. Only a few of the workshops had significant (p < 0.05) results with the symbol viewing targets, while 15 of the 21 workshops that did the scenic viewing had significant results. The odds that these results could not be explained by chance are astronomical. More important than the statistics is that most of the workshop attendees have their own personal viewing experience which helps them understand that this is a real phenomenon of which humans are capable.

Firewalking

Friends asked me to research firewalking in an attempt to understand how most people are able to walk across a bed of hot coals in their bare feet and not be burned. Actually, about 31% of the people who do the firewalking seminars get small burn blisters and about 3% get badly burned (Reference 16). I planned to pass this up, but Tony Robbins called me to ask if I would do a PK Party for graduates of his firewalking seminars. I gave them a PK Party and in return, I received a free pass to his seminar. Who could pass up a free firewalk? It was an interesting experience. My curiosity kicked in and I began to take infrared pictures of firewalkers and measured the temperature of the coal bed. I made a unit that was attached to one foot of a firewalker which held one-and five-mil diameter thermocouples. A long cable connected the thermocouples, through a belt around the firewalker’s waist to an Apple computer with an analog to digital board which digitized the temperature at 75 data points per second. When a one mil diameter thermocouple was at least 2 mm from the bottom of the foot, the temperature readings were like that shown in Figure 10. This particular data channel saturated at 1400° Fahrenheit.

Because the thermocouples were very small, they had an incredibly quick response time. It can be seen that during the second step, some ash must have insulated the thermocouple, dropping the temperature down to only 600 to 800°. Often these little thermocouples would not survive the “hostile” environment. The thermocouples that were placed immediately next to the skin showed no change in the ambient temperature. After taking data at 15 different firewalking seminars, I concluded that current instrumentation is simply not good enough to help understand the mechanisms involved in protecting the body during these events. I examined most of the theories people talk about. To me there seems to be a lot of correlation between the PK Parties and the firewalk seminars (e.g., 1. people intend to get across the bed of hot coals without being burned, 2. it is a terrifying, peak emotional, experience standing in front of the fire, and 3. stepping out onto the coals is analogous to “letting go”). Seems like PK to me!

Conclusion

Much is not understood about paranormal phenomena. It seems as if the skeptics have more resources than the researchers. However, we have come a long way in researching and understanding some of these phenomena in just the last 15 years. Because of the pioneering work at SRI and Princeton University, there are some people within the government and the scientific community that recognize some applications of remote viewing. The general public and media is still fairly skeptical, because they are not aware of the data.

While myself and many others have given PK Parties, we have exposed only a small fraction of the public to psychokinesis. Furthermore, the implication that if a magician can perform a trick bending a spoon, that everyone bending spoons is being fraudulent is ridiculous. I have given many PK Parties and I have seen many incredible PK events and I am totally convinced of the reality of the ability of the human mind to affect things.

References

1. Russell Targ and Harold E. Puthoff, Mind-Reach: Scientists Look at Psychic Ability, Delacorte Press, 1977.

2. Edited by Charles T. Tart, Harold E. Puthoff, and Russell Targ, Mind at Large, Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers Symposia on the Nature of Extrasensory Perception, Prager Publishers, 1977.

3. H. E. Puthoff and R. Targ, “A perceptual channel for information transfer over kilometer distances: Historical perceptive and recent research.” Proceedings IEEE 64 (1976), pp. 329-54.

4. Robert G. Jahn, “The persistent paradox of psychic phenomena: An engineering perspective.” Proceedings of the IEEE 70, 2 (February 1982), pp. 136-170.

5. John Hasted, The Metal-Benders, Routledge & Kegan Paul Ltd, 1981.

6. Robert A. Monroe, Journeys Out of the Body, Doubleday & Company, Inc.,1971; Anchor Press edition, 1977.

7. Jack Houck and Jim Laird, “Evidence of Precognition in Remote-Viewing Experiment” available from author, 1979.

8. B. J. Dunne, R. G. Jahn, R. D. Nelson, “Precognitive Remote Perception,” Engineering Anomalies Research Laboratory (Technical Note PEAR 83003), School of Engineering/Applied Science, Princeton University

9. Jack Houck, “Conceptual Model of Paranormal Phenomena ARCHAEUS 1.1 (Winter 1983), pp 7.

10. Severin Dahlen, “Remote Annealing of High Carbon Steel Parts”, ARCHAEUS Vol.3 Summer 1985, pp 1.

11. Jack Houck, “PK Party History”, Proceedings: Symposium on Applications of Anomalous Phenomena, Kaman Tempo, 1984, pp 501-514

12. Jack Houck, “Instructions for Conducting a Remote Viewing Experiment”, ARTIFEX, Vol. 4, No. 2, Summer 1985, pp 1.

13. Jack Houck, Roger Nelson, and Elizabeth Rauscher, Addendum to “Los Angeles Area to San Francisco Bay Area Remote Perception Experiment: A Reevaluation,” Psi Research, Vol. 5, No. 1/2, March/June 1986, pp 108.

14. Jack Houck, “Associative Remote Viewing,” ARCHAEUS 4 (1986)

15. Jack Houck, “Remote Viewing Workshop at the Second Archaeus Congress,” ARTIFEX, Vol. 8, No. 4 Winter 1989, pp 21-26.

16. Julianne Blake, “Attribution of Power and the Transformation of Fear: An Empirical Study of Firewalking,” PSI Research, June 1985, pp 68-82

17. Jack Houck, “A Conceptual Model of Paranormal Phenomena, Information Transfer and Mind-Brain Interaction,” United States Psychotronics Association, USPA Annual Conference Proceedings, 1985, pp 5.

18. Jack Houck, “First Archaeus Congress FIRE WALK-A Technical Report,” ARTIFEX, Vol. 5, No. 1, February-March 1986, pp 3.

This paper was published in the TREAT V Conference Proceedings, Santa Fe, New Mexico, 17-21 March 1993