Lectures of Human PSI Fourm

International Society of Life Information Science (ISLIS)

Human PSI Forum
22-27 August, 2002

OVTA, Makuhari, Chiba (near Tokyo), Japan

Invited Special Lectures, Invited Special Presentations
& Keynote Lectures

Human PSI Forum Information

(August 22nd, 2002)

Invited Special Lecture

Mental and Spiritual Healing: A Critical Review of the Science

Dr. Wayne B. JONAS ¹, M.D., Cindy CRAWFORD², B.S. and Ronald A. CHEZ, M.D.
¹Director,²Research Assistant, Samueli Institute for Information Biology, USA
(¹ Former Director, National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM)
at the National Institute of Health (NIH), USA )

   This presentation will present the quantity and quality of scientific information in five central areasrelated to spiritual healing. These include: 1) The Health Impact Of Religious And Spiritual Practices,2) Intercessory Prayer and Healing Prayer, 3) Research on Mind-Matter Interactions (MMI), 4) Direct mental influence on living systems (DMILS), 5) Non-instrumental - "Energy" Healing methods, and 6) The Impact of Healing in a Clinical Setting. Implications of these investigations for the future of spiritual healing, energy medicine and intentionality studies will be discussed.

Invited Special Lecture

Mind/Body Relationship in Total Healing

Prof. Sae-il CHUN, M.D.
Dean, Graduate School of Complementary Alternative Medicine, Pochon CHA University, South Korea

The ultimum goal of eliminating diseases and maintaining normal health is the same in both western (modern) medicine and oriental (traditional) medicine. At the present time, western medicine tends to take a more scientific and technological approach, while oriental medicine still maintains a more humanistic approach. 5000 year old traditional medicine still challenges the 21century scientific modern medicine in the field of clinical practices. "Disease-oriented" western medicine classifies the human condition as "diseased and non-diseased" states. In the mean time, the "health-oriented" oriental medicine classifies it into "healthy and unhealthy" states. For the maintenance of normal health, five principles are emphasized. They are 1) eat right, 2) move right, 3) sleep right, 4) breathe right, and 5) mind right. To reverse an unhealthy condition back to the normal healthy state, the methods of 1) natural substance therapy, 2) exercise therapy, and 3) stimulation therapies, which include acupuncture, moxibustion, finger pressure, and cupping techniques. In order to eliminate diseases, four distinct approaches, namely 1) chemical, 2) physical, 3) psychological, and 4) surgical treatments, are utilized. There are many different kinds of traditional medicine, hidden popular folk medicine, and various less recognized techniques and theories of healing arts. Some are originated in oriental culture, while others are originated in western culture. Experts of western medicine claim that only that information clarified or proven by objective and scientific methodology can be recognized as a part of western (conventional) medicine. All other medical cares and health care modalities are collectively labelled as "alternative medicine or complementary medicine". According to the most recent definition of health by WHO, "total health should include physical, mental, psych-social, and spiritual well-being". Alternative medicine provides a wider range of methodologies to handle this new concept of total health. Oriental medicine and alternative medicine share a common characteristics in that they adopt a humanistic approach to care for the whole person, that is to "heal a person" and not merely to "cure an organic disease". The mind consists of emotion, knowing, consciousness, intuition, and a soul factor, whereas the body consists of form, strength, energy field, vital force, and a genetic factor. When all ten of these mind-body factors are in harmony and balance with each other, the healing mechanism is activated to its maximal level. Accordingly, total health can be achieved only when they are in full harmony.

President, Korean Society of Alternative Medicine
President, Korean Jungshin (Qi) Society
Vice President, Int'l Soc. Phys. Rehab. Med.

Invited Special Lecture

The Koestler Parapsychology Unit and the Study of Consciousness

Prof. Robert L. MORRIS, Ph.D.
Professor, Koestler Chair of Parapsychology, Unit, Department of Psychology, University of Edinburgh, UK

   The KPU was set up in 1985, "to conduct systematic and responsible research into the capacity attributed to some individuals to interact with their environments by means other than the recognised sensorimotor channels". If such a capacity exists, then it represents an aspect of mental life that may have profound implications for the nature of mind and of human consciousness. One or more new sets of mechanisms may be responsible, making new aspects of physics or even new means of direct interaction between mind and matter. The research of our Unit involves three main areas: the study of physical factors as they may influence our brains and mental abilities; the study of the psychological experience, including how we interpret such experiences, what conditions are conducive to these experiences, what cognitive processes are involved, and what psychological explanations there may be for such experiences; and the implications of such experiences, for philosophy, for the person and for society as a whole. If we are to evaluate such experiences, we must take into account at least twelve kinds of interpretations of them: co-incidence, inadequate observation, misinterpretation of observation, inadequate storage and retrieval of memories, hidden physical factors, self-deception, deception by others, functional distortion of information processing, biological distortion of information processing, physical factors not well understood, presently unknown natural processes and causation beyond nature. The first ten involve current scientific knowledge; the eleventh involves the kind of new knowledge being generated by parapsychology; and the twelfth involves possible super-natural effects, beyond those that science can investigate. As part of the above, some of our research does include how people form and maintain beliefs, including beliefs that when carried to extremes can be dysfunctional to those involved. In addition to the above, some of our research deals with what appear to be genuine instances of psychic functioning. For instance, we study the ability of one individual to influence the level of arousal or concentration of another person at a distance. We also study the ability of individuals in mild sensory deprivation to be influenced by vivid film material displayed on a remote monitor. Both have produced good positive results in our own research and elsewhere. The latter procedure has produced especially strong results with highly creative participants. These findings, taken together, do indicate that we have abilities to interact with our environments using means well beyond those of conventional physics, biology and psychology. This in turn suggests that, until the full range of mechanisms involved becomes more completely understood, our knowledge of ourselves and of the nature of consciousness will remain very incomplete.

Invited Special Lecture

The Present Conditions and the Prospects of Somatic Research in China
Prof. Lanxu XU
President, Chinese Society of Somatic Science, China

   Teyi gongneng (special human functions or consciousness power: psi) is an important part of somatic science. Chinese scientist Professor Xue-sen Qian has said. In China we have been carrying out research for 20 years, and a dispute has occurred about objectivity among the scientific community. The point at issue was the credibility of psi phenomena; some scholars said that they were abnormal; others called them fakes, which deviated from the principle of natural science and were magic, tricks, etc. People criticized and negated the phenomenon. On the other hand, some scholars accepted them with sincerity and studied them repeatedly. As a result of many measurements using scientific observations and all scientific means that can be used and inquiring, Psi reached a status that these were objective facts. Moreover, many nature orders were observed in psi. The human body is a macro system, which is open, complicated, and has consciousness. Qi and the meridian system are important parameters hidden in the macro system called the human body, so studying the phenomena of psi can not only deepen understanding of the human body, but also can lead to further progress in human society. This study may touch off the science in the 21st century and cause an even more meaningful scientific revolution that brought by the theories of relativity and quantum mechanics. Here we report some interesting results and theories that were studied about extrasensory perception seen from many phenomena of psi. Also, we introduce briefly some bold hypotheses in research on the mechanism of psi, for example, special human functions state theory (psi-state theory), a kind of electromagnetic field theory, and a multi-dimension space theory, etc. We hope this presentation promotes debate among the international scientists.

Born in 1937. President, Chinese Society of Somatic Science, China. Former Professor, Former President, Heilongjiang University, China.

Invited Special Lecture

Niwa Treatment for 20 Years
1) Secret key to develop biological medicines with effectiveness from natural plants and seeds.
2) Introduction of several biological medicines with clinical effectiveness.
3) Topical immunosuppressive agent ("T" ointment) used for the treatment of atopic dermatitis under the rubric of "steroid free treatment" shows potential carcinogenesis
Dr. Yukie NIWA, M.D.
President, Tosashimizu Hospital, Japan

   Twenty years ago, my son of seven years old suffered from acute myelotic leukemia (AML), and treated with chemotherapy for one year and three months. He died with the greatest pain due to cytotoxic chemotherapy, but not due to leukemia itself. I had treated more than one hundred of the patients with malignancies administered with chemotherapy and radiation before the onset of AML of my son, and almost all of them were dead not due to malignancy itself but due to side effect of chemotherapy and radiation. However, I had been not much impressed to be surprised to see these facts; they were not my family. Since I experienced the most severely painful and miserable death of my son, I thought that main-stream treatment including these cytotoxic treatments such as chemotherapy and radiation do not save the patients while non main-stream treatment, biological medicine including Chinese herbs and health products do the patients neither. Since then, I have been devoted in developing natural medicinal products with clinical effectiveness to treat the malignant patients without side-effects. From twelve years ago, I have succeeded in producing cancer-cidal agents and antioxidants with effectiveness from natural plants and seeds. Besides, topical immunosuppressive agent ("T" agent) widely used for the treatment of atopic dermatitis (AD) under the rubric of "steroid free treatment" has been found to induce carcinogenesis in the skin of mice in our laboratory. Our experiment regarding this carcinogenetic effect of topical "T" agent is explained in this paper.

Invited Special Presentation

A fMRI Brain Imaging Study of Presentiment

Prof. Dick J. BIERMAN, Ph.D. & H. Steven SCHOLTE
Professor, University of Utrecht, Netherlands,
Associate Professor, University of Amsterdam, Netherlands

    The present study examined the neural substrates of anticipation in conjunction with functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). Ten subjects were scanned while 48 pictures were presented. Each stimulus sequence started with the 4.2 seconds presentation of a fixation point before and during which the anticipation was measured. After the exposure of the stimulus picture which lasted also 4.2 second there was a period of 8.4 seconds during which the subject was supposed to recover from the stimulus presentation. It is found that large parts of the visual cortex do show larger activity after emotional stimuli than after calm. All brain regions that show a difference have also a response on calms except for regions that are at or near the amygdala. Here violent and erotic stimuli do generate a response but the response on calm stimuli is flat.
    Anticipatory effects tend to influence baseline values and hence influence the response values. This might be a problem if the subject is guessing the upcoming stimulus condition correctly but with proper randomization this is theoretically impossible. Great care was taken to randomize stimulus conditions with replacement while using different pictures for each stimulus presentation .
    Results suggest that, in spite of proper randomization, anticipatory activation preceding emotional stimuli is larger than the anticipatory activation preceding neutral stimuli. For the male subjects this appeared before the erotic stimuli while for the female both erotic and violent stimuli produced this anomalous effect. Possible normal explanations of this apparent anomaly, also called 'presentiment', are discussed. Most notably the possibility that this effect is just a result of 'fishing' for the right analysis out of many possible analyses. Exploratory results are presented dealing with differential effects in the responses to emotional stimuli and calm visual stimuli.

Invited Special Presentation

Exploratory Study of Relationships between Physical Entropy and Global Human Attention
Dr. Dean RADIN, Ph.D.
Senior Scientist at the Institute of Noetic Sciences, Petaluma, California, U.S.A.

    Examination of intercorrelations among the outputs of isolated, continuously operating, electronic truly random number generators (RNG) located around the world revealed that the largest daily average itercorrelation in the year 2001 occurred on September 11, 2001. That day experienced an extraordinary amount of worldwide, mass attention, associated with unprecedented terrorist attacks on the United States. To study this coincidence in more general terms, an analysis was conducted examining the relationship between objective daily measures of world-wide news events vs. daily average RNG itercorrelation values, over a one-year period. The prediction was a positive relationship, and the results were significantly positive (p=0.004). This meaningfully linked to events that attract mass human attention. One interpretation of these observations is that mind and matter are linked in foundamental ways.

Invited Special Lecture

A Review on Experimental Research of External-Qi of Qigong

Prof. Tianjun LIU
Professor, Beijing University of Chinese Medicine, China

    As one component part of basic scientific research of Qigong, experimental research on external-Qi had come to a climax in 1980's, and gave rise to general attention in the society. The review of experimental research on external-Qi of Qigong in recent 10 years analyses and evaluates about 170 experiments involved external-Qi. The paper points out that in view of experimental science, the affirming conclusion of the objective existence of external-Qi of Qigong could not be reached now. But no affirming does not mean denying. On research, one subject that is not affirmed by experimental science, might belong to pre-science, or science that is not realized by people yet, or pseudo-science. It doesn't belong to pseudoscience only. Thus the above experiments can not give enough bases to affirm the existence of external-Qi only, it not means denying. By now, there are not enough experimental bases to deny the existence of external-Qi. Then the paper raises 2 definitions of external-Qi and 5 measures to advance the experimental research on external-Qi. The one of the definition is that external-Qi of Qigong is one kind of biological acting force sent by well-trained Qigong practitioners onto the things out of the body with untouched way. The 5 measures include applying double-blind principle, advocating multi-control experiments, doing error analysis, etc.
Professor, Beijing University of Chinese Medicine, China. Qigong researcher.

Keynote Lecture

Integrative Medicine - Towards to the 21st Century -

Kazuhiko ATSUMI, Ph.D.
Chairman of the Board of Directors, Japanese Association for Alternative, Complementary and Traditional Medicine (JACT), Japan

   After the end of the old science of the 20th century, the 21st century shows a new era focused on human coexistent relationship. We need a new medical system, Integrative Medicine, beyond the gap between Eastern and Western medicine. The new humanistic medical system should be constructed by harmonized collaboration with modern Western medicine and Alternative, Complementary & Traditional Medicine for success.

Keynote Lecture

Complementary and Alternative Medicine (CAM): Using Ichiro's Batting as an Analogy

Ryoichi OBITSU, M.D.
President Emeritus, Obitsu Sankei Hospital, Japan

   The majority of complementary/alternative medicines (CAMs) approach the mind and spirit while Western medicine only focuses on the body. It can be said that CAM is a methodology that empowers one's life field. The essential nature of CAM can be explained by the concept of "Salutogenesis," which regards that we exist somewhere between the point of "healthy" and that of "ill." This is a totally different concept from that of western medicine, which tries to label us either as "healthy" or as "ill." We can go forward step by step with CAM while dreaming of a miracle, a complete cure from disease. In this paper, we attempt to explain the fundamental nature of CAM by analogizing it with Ichiro's batting, which always tries to make a single hit while not giving up on the chance of a home run.

Keynote Lecture

Are There Any Effects Other Than Suggestion in External Qi?
Mikio YAMAMOTO, Ph.D., et al.
Head of Special Research, National Institute of Radiological Sciences, Japan

   This is a part of the report on basic pilot experimental researches on external "qi" or "ki", healing and telepathy in the Bio-Emission Laboratory, National Institute of Radiological Sciences (NIRS), in Japan. Qi/ki is a basic concept towards life within oriental philosophy and is a subtle energy. Some qigong masters (sender) cause body movements in others (receivers) or cure diseases without any physical contact. These masters claim that they use qi/ki. However, it is considered that suggestion must be involved.
   The purpose of these researches is to evaluate whether or not there is something other than suggestion. The authors carried out scientific experiments using double blinded and randomized conditions and statistical analysis.
   Experiments in Toh-ate: Toh-ate is a Japanese martial arts skill used to attack a person (receiver) who is at a distance of several meters from the attacker (sender). When the sender applies Toh-ate, the receiver steps back rapidly without any physical contact. In the experiment, the sender and a receiver were separated in different rooms. The time difference between the sender's motion of qi-emission and the receiver's recoil response and physiological parameters were measured. The result on a pair of sender and receiver shows 1% statistical significance in the time coincidence. Other pairs show interesting results.
   Experiment of perception of qi transfer: In this experiment, it was shown that a receiver even in a sensory-shielded state perceived qi sent from a qigong master. The difference in EEG alpha-wave intensity of the receiver is significant between qi sending and non-sending times.
   Experiment on cultured human cells: It is shown that the number of formed colonies after exposure to X-rays which were healed by external qi was double that of the control.
   These results show the possibility that there are some other effects than just suggestion.

Keynote Lecture

New Paradigm in the 21st Century

Yoichiro SAKO
Director, International Society of Life Information Science, Japan

   We should reconsider our current paradigm for this 21st century. In the 20th century, efficiency was given the highest priority, and we pursued material satisfaction. We now need to move away from such materialism and to create a new paradigm which contributes to spiritual satisfaction. Research on "mind, spirit, soul, and consciousness" will be one of the most important research areas. In this lecture experimental data related to anomalous phenomena and potential human abilities are reported. Through these data, the directions of science and technology for the 21st century are discussed.

Keynote Lecture

Physiological Analysis for Consciousness Power (Non-visible Recognition and Pill Moving through Glass Bottle without any Physical Touch)
Yoshio MACHI 1, Ph.D., Chao LIU, Chang WANG and Bin WANG
1. Professor, Graduate School of Engineering, Electronic Engineering, Tokyo Denki University, Japan

   We carried out clairvoyance experiments and obtained several physiological values to clarify the phenomenon of clairvoyance. We found that the subject's sympathetic nervous system acted strongly and that her parasympathetic nervous system strengthened instantaneously. At this time, the blood flow in both her neck and forehead increased. Furthermore, her blood pressure increased, and the oxygen level in the blood decreased. We thought these effects were due to her brain's consumption of so much oxygen as well as energy. A vibration phenomenon was found in the GSR data. EEG topography showed that her visual area and the frontal lobe became active when this phenomenon appeared. The electrical potential of those areas rose quickly; when the potential between two points rose, those points were connected. We found that the physiological data changed greatly when the activity of the right side of the brain became high, particularly in the frontal lobe.
   We also conducted an another experiment in physiologically moving an object without any physical contact. When she showed her skill, the oxygen density in blood decreased, and it was similar to non-visual recognition, even if the blood flow in her neck increased. As for the time that she was in the practice period, the temperature of her left hand and her left foot decreased. In the time when she used her power, her state of breathing changed. The vibration phenomenon seen in the GSR data appeared in this experiment. This vibration frequency was in the domain of delta wave for brain waves at 1.4 Hz. Brain waves such as an EMG were sometimes seen, and delta waves appeared powerfully, though a short time at a area with a possible period. These delta waves occurred in the middle of her left frontal lobe and her temporal field, and a range active at the left coronal section of the head opened. It is thought that when the object moved to other place, action potential of the delta waves were the highest. Although non-visual recognition occurred in her right brain, this activity domain during moving a pill was reversed.