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THE JOURNAL OF THE AMERIEAN
SOCIETY FOR PSYCHICAL RESEARCH
Volume 84
January ^ 1990
Number
Distant Mental Influence of Rate of Hemolysis of
Human Red Blood Cells
William G. Braud
ATTRACT- a formal investigation was conducted in order to determine whether a rela-
?0 mifseS l nonUence controls. For each tube, rate of hemolysis was measured
ohommetricX over a 1-minute
trial period. Subjects and experimenter were
blmd
re-
^r^nTmtical aspects of the procedure, and subjects and tubes were located in separate
SeVrr^
ZIZ* att^i^owa^^M^^rtrfglnThe^^^W^^on^o^Addirio^alJlyL
predictions- the results of those mathematical analyses were inconclusive. This research is
SmSed in tee context of methodologies for investigating a possible role of ps. m
self-
healing.
are
Laboratory research has.indicated that under certain conditions persons
able to psychokineticaliy influence a variety of biological systems (see
> An
earlier version of this paper was presented at the 31 st
^Tthefntro-
Parapsvchological Association in Montreal, Canada, August 17-21 , 1988. Parts of the mteo^
dS tetiX are repeated or paraphrased versions of sections of an
article pteviously
written for Parapsychology Review (Braud, 1986) and are used with the permission of th
Parapsychology Foundation.
I am indebted to Rick Berger, Steve Dennis, George Hansen.
Scott Hubbard*Kay Mangus, Ed May, Diane Morton, Julie Nixon, Marilyn Schlitz, Helmut
SrAScS, and Jessica Utts for their important contributions to vano^
nhocPt nf this investication. This project was supported, in part, by a subcontract from S
International.
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Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research
Solfvin
1984). At the Mind Science Foundation (MSF), we have been
able to observe successful distant mental influences upon the spatial orien-
tation of fish, the locomotor activity of small rodents, and the physiolog-
S
’of another person (Brand,
1978a,
1979; Brand
Darns &
Wood,
1979; Braud &
Schlitz,
1983;
Schlitz & Braud,
1985). Such
findings are consistent with an interpretation of psychic healing in whic
the healing might be contributed, at least in part, by the healer s conscious
or unconscious psychokinetic influence upon the healee
s bodily pro-
cesses.
'i
It is a relatively straightforward matter to design experiments to isolate
a possible psi component in one person’s healing of another The healee
may be kept blind regarding the timing and nature of a healing attempt,
and
Y
various isolation and control procedures can be applied. However
it
is ordinarily impossible to study the role of psychic functioning in self-
healing in vivo using such techniques. The healer is necessarily aware of
the timing and nature of self-healing attempts, and therefore the psychic
process cannot be isolated from the many nonpsychic factors that can in-
fluence healing. We cannot distinguish a psychic effect from the more
conventional influences of expectation (the “placebo
effect), changes in
emotionality, self-regulation of neural, muscular, and hormonal activities
etc.
Fortunately,
it may be possible to eliminate the influence of these
nonpsychic processes through the use of biological psychokinesis (bio-
PK) protocols that have proved useful in the study of distant mental influ-
ence The strategy would involve the selection of some specific biological
activity to be targeted psychokinetically and then the removal^of the mea-
sured biological activity, in space or in time, from the reach of all possi
nonpsychic self-influences.
.
,
Spatial or temporal isolation could be accomplished in three ways.
The experimental participant could attempt to influence cells, tissue,
or biochemicals that have been freshly removed from his or her body.
2. The participant could attempt to influence his or her own biologic
activity that had been prerecorded at an earlier time and that had remained
unobserved until the subsequent influence attempt; this strategy involves
the so-called “time-displaced” or “retro-psychokinesis
design explored
by Schmidt (1976, 1981; Schmidt, Moms, & Rudolph,
1986). Another
method of removing the target biological activity in time would be to ask
participants to attempt to influence their own future activity. In thiswise,
die influence epochs would have to be coded in a way that wou ^elimi-
nate the possibility that the participant might remember the desired out-
come and consciously or unconsciously self-regulate
at the time o
future test in order to bring about the desired changes.
The participant could attempt to influence a particular physiological
or biochemical process within his or her body while, at the same Jme^the
activity of a
similar,
externalized process
is monitored to determine
whether the latter responds in “resonance” or m
sympathy
with the
former.
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.X
Distant Mental Influence of Hemolysis Rate
If research participants succeed in influencing their biological materials
through psychic means when those materials are isolated, then
it is likely
that the
biological
materials remain
susceptible
to
psi
influence under
ordinary, nonisolated conditions
as
well.
Psi influence thus becomes a
viable component in self-regulation and hence in self-healing. We might
even find that persons are psychically able to influence their own cells or
activities more readily than they are able to influence the cells or activities
of another person.
If this
is indeed the case,
it would suggest that psi’s
contribution
to
self-healing may be greater than
its contribution
to the
healing of another person.
It would also suggest that more impressive re-
sults might be obtained in bio-PK studies
if experimenters selected target
systems that were more closely associated with the participant-influencers
in their experiments.
We have conducted numerous bio-PK experiments
in which both
se-
lected and unselected participants were able to alter significantly the ac-
tivity of specific biological target systems, mentally and at a distance. In
all of those studies, the amount of target system activity in the prescribed
direction during a number of influence periods was compared statistically
with
its activity during an equal number of interspersed control (nonin-
fluence) periods. The obtained bio-PK results have been reliable and rela-
tively robust. For example, a recent review of all of the MSF’s electro-
dermal bio-PK experiments conducted to date indicated a z = 4.08, p =
.000023, and mean effect size = 0.29 for all
13 experiments combined
(Braud & Schlitz, 1989). Experiments could be conducted, using an iden-
tical methodology, in which persons attempt to influence their own biolog-
ical materials.
If Eccles (1977) and others are correct in maintaining that one’s mind
routinely exerts
a true psychokinetic influence upon one’s own brain
through
‘‘cognitive caresses” of the synapses of cortical neurons, then
perhaps the most ideal target material would be nervous tissue that had
been removed and cultured externally (or cloned). At first,
it might appear
that such an experiment would not be feasible. However, a study of this
type could actually be done with the cooperation of a neurosurgeon. Brain
tissue that is removed for medical reasons and that is ordinarily discarded
might be artificially cultured and maintained as target material for bio-PK
attempts by the patient, following his or her recovery from the operation.
Outside of this seemingly science-fictional scenario, the next best target
material might be lymphocytes (white blood cells with important roles in
the immune process: B-cells, T cells, natural killer cells). Unfortunately,
the procedures required for the measurement of these cells or of their bio-
logical
activities
are
relatively complex and beyond the
capabilities of
most psi research
facilities.
It
is noteworthy that several researchers
re-
cently have reported results of experiments in which their subjects were
strikingly successful
in self-regulating
specific sub-populations of their
leukocytes
(e.g.,
neutrophils)
using
relaxation and imagery techniques
(see Braud,
1986; Hall,
1984a,
1984b; Schneider, Smith, & Whitcher,
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