Nina Kulagina,
Medium Nina Kulagina
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Nina Kulagina Medium
From the 1960s to 1990 Russian ‘psychic’ Nina Kulagina
displayed an apparently impressive range of psychic powers, particularly
psychokinesis (the ability to move objects using the mind alone), and was
tested and supposedly found to be genuine by respected scientists. She was
also filmed using her abilities many times. However, she remains a
controversial figure and her demonstrations of psychic ability have received
criticism from sceptics who believe the films and experiments show clever
trickery rather than paranormal powers. This would, at present, seem to be
the most likely explanation.
Kulagina was only 14 when the Nazis began the siege of
Leningrad. Like many Leningrad children she had to become a soldier, and
along with her father, brother and sister, she joined the Red Army and was
sent into the thick of the action. The conditions during the 900 day siege
were appalling. Winter temperature sometimes reached forty degrees below
zero, bread rations were about four ounces a day, the water and the
electricity were cut off, and the city was devastated by bombs and artillery
fire. Nina served on the front line in Tank T-34 as a radio operator, and
distinguished herself enough to become senior sergeant. But the fighting
came to an end for her when she was seriously injured by artillery fire.
Fortunately, she managed to recover and later settled down, married and had
a son.
Powers of the Mind
Nina claimed that she was always aware of her ‘psychic
powers’. There are stories that she could mentally see things inside
people’s pockets, and when she met sick people she could identify the
disease they were suffering from, an image of the illness appearing in her
mind. On one occasion when Kulagina was in a particularly angry mood, she
was walking towards a cupboard in her apartment when a jug in the cupboard
suddenly moved to the edge of the shelf, fell and smashed to pieces on the
floor. After that, changes began to take place in her apartment. Lights went
on and off; objects became animated and seemed somehow to be attracted to
her. It was in effect a type of poltergeist activity, except that Kulagina
was convinced the psychic power was coming from her and discovered that, if
she tried, she could control it.
In 1964, while in hospital recovering from a nervous
breakdown, Nina spent a lot of time sewing. According to published accounts
doctors were amazed when they saw that she was able to reach into her sewing
basket and choose any colour of thread she needed without looking at it.
Local parapsychologists were contacted and the following year, when she had
fully recovered, she agreed to take part in various experiments. Kulagina
was tested and it was found that she could apparently ‘see’ colours with her
fingertips, bringing to mind Rosa Kuleshova, a school teacher from the Ural
Mountains, who also claimed to possess this talent.
There are also instances where Kulagina apparently
displayed extraordinary healing powers. She could, it was said, make wounds
heal up simply by holding her hand above them. She was also tested by
Russian scientists for psychokinesis and the results were apparently so
remarkable that, in order to keep her real identity secret, she was obliged
for many years to use the pseudonym of Nelya Mikhailova. What these
remarkable results were, however, has never been exactly stated.
Telekinesis
One of Kulagina’s abilities involved her sitting at a
table and staring at a small object, such as a matchbox or a wineglass, and
make it move without touching it. Apparently her powers did not come
straight away, hours of preparation may be needed, which, as sceptics have
pointed out, does not favour the setting up of strictly supervised
demonstrations. In order to move things with mind power alone she found she
had to clear all other thoughts from her head, and told investigators that
when her concentration was successful, there was a sharp pain in her spine,
and her eyesight blurred. Nina practiced hard, focusing her powers, and was
soon able to move matchsticks, fountain pens and compass needles. There is
nothing here, however, which an accomplished stage magician could not
duplicate, though no one at the time in Russia seems to have bothered to
try.
One of the first scientists to take an interest in
Kulagina was Biologist Edward Naumov. In an early test, the details of which
are as usual sketchy, he scattered a box of matches on a bench; Nina held
her hands over them, trembling with the strain. Suddenly, all the matches
moved together to the edge of the bench, then fell one by one to the floor.
Psychic Powers on Film
Amazing stories about Nina Kulagina began to reach the
West through the international wire services in the spring of 1968. In the
same year, films of Kulagina moving objects, ostensibly using only her mind,
were shown at the First Moscow International Conference on Parapsychology
and were also seen by some Western scientists. For a brief time Western
investigators were permitted to meet Russian mediums, witness Nina Kulagina
for themselves and verify the reports of her PK abilities made by Soviet
scientists. In 1970 William A. McGary, one of a group from the United States
investigating psychic phenomena in Russia, described a session in which
Kulagina caused several small objects, including a wedding ring and the top
of a condiment bottle, to move across a dining-room table.
Another of the American investigators, Gaither Pratt, of
the University of Virginia, stated that the objects which Kulagina could
move varied widely in material, shape and weight, and when they moved they
generally progressed in a slow, steady fashion. Only occasionally did the
objects which Kulagina ‘controlled’ move in fits and starts. It is reported
that a number of precautions were taken to make sure that Kulagina wasn’t
using a concealed magnet or threads, and films were taken of the experiments
which seem to confirm that no known force could explain the movements.
Unfortunately, it is not known how thoroughly Kulagina was checked before
the experiment.
Dr. Zdenek Rejdak, a prominent Czech scientist connected
with a Prague Military Institute, tested Kulagina personally and reported
the results for some reason in Czech Pravda, a far from scientific
publication:
I visited the Kulagina family the evening of 26 February, 1968. Mr. Blazek, an editor friend was with me, also a physician, Dr. J.S. Zverev, and Dr. Sergeyev. Her husband, an engineer, was also present. Dr. Zverev gave Mrs. Kulagina a very thorough physical examination. Tests with special instruments failed to show any indication whatever of magnets or any other concealed object. ‘We checked the table thoroughly and also asked Mrs. Kulagina frequently to change position at the table. We passed a compass around her body and the chair and table with negative results. I asked her to wash her hands. After concentrating, she turned the compass needle more than ten times, then the entire compass and its case, a matchbox and some twenty matches at once. I placed a cigarette in front of her. She moved that too, at a glance. I shredded it afterwards and there was nothing inside it. In between each set of tests, she was again physically examined by the doctor.
The ‘Psychic Powers’ of Nina Kulagina
In one filmed Moscow test, set up by a group of ‘well
known physicists’, several non-magnetic objects including matches were
placed inside a large Plexiglas cube. The cube was to prevent drafts of air,
threads or wires; methods long favoured by sceptics as the means by which
Kulagina performed her ‘tricks’. Her hands moved a few inches from the
Plexiglas cover and the objects danced from side to side in the plastic
container. In another filmed experiment, a ping-pong ball is seen levitating
and hovering in the air for a few seconds, before falling back onto the
table. In yet another she is shown both indoors and outside in a garden,
where objects near her spin round or slide in different directions.
Unfortunately the films are so grainy and unclear that it
is often difficult to see exactly what is happening, and again the
background information to the experiment -- location, precautions taken,
personnel present etc -- is not given. Where are the reports of these
amazing psychic tests?
An additional and lesser known ability of Kulagina,
though hardly less sensational, was noted by physicist Dr. V.F. Shvetz. He
claimed that he observed Kulagina making the letters A or O appear on photo
paper and that sometimes she could also transfer an outline of a picture
she’d seen onto photo paper, recalling the ‘thoughtography’ talents of the
controversial Ted Serios in America. Occasionally, unexplained burn marks
appeared on Kulagina’s hands and there were reports that shocked scientists
saw her clothes catch fire. Towards the end of her life Kulagina
demonstrated this phenomenon on TV, causing a bright red patch to appear on
the arm of a European journalist.
Testing the Psychic
According to various books (see
sources) Doctor Leonid L. Vasiliev, a psychologist at Leningrad University,
had pioneered ESP study in Russia at the Institute for Brain Research in
Leningrad, and was one of the first to test Kulagina, continuing to do so
right up until his death in 1966. Another Soviet scientist, Dr. Genady
Sergeyev, apparently a well-known physiologist working in a Leningrad
military laboratory, did several years of intensive laboratory research on
Kulagina, and made special studies of the electrical potentials in
Kulagina’s brain.
During observations he apparently recorded
exceptionally strong voltages and other unusual effects. In one series of
experiments in Leningrad, recalling those of Dr. Shvetz, he and his
colleagues placed undeveloped photo film in a black envelope. Incredibly, by
staring at the envelope Kulagina was able to expose the film inside. If this
is incredible story is true, then it is particularly unfortunate that there
is no published account of the extraordinary experiment.
Chairman of Theoretical Physics at Moscow University, Dr.
Ya. Terletsky declared on 17 March, 1968, in Moscow Pravda: ‘Mrs. Kulagina
displays a new and unknown form of energy.’ The Mendeleyev Institute of
Metrology also studied Nina, and announced in Moscow Pravda (why not a
science journal?) that she had moved aluminium pipes and matches under
stringent test conditions, including surveillance on closed-circuit
television. They could not explain how the objects had moved.
A Strange Mind Power Experiment
One of Kulagina’s strangest filmed experiments involved
the effect of her powers on a raw egg floating in a tank of saline solution
almost two metres away from her. Seeming to use nothing but ‘intense
concentration’, she slowly separated the yolk from the white of the egg, and
moved the two apart; if she focused her energies for long enough, she could
put the egg back together again. But the most unusual experiment of all took
place in the Leningrad laboratory on 10 March, 1970.
Satisfied that Kulagina had the
ability to move inanimate objects, scientists were curious to know whether
Nina’s abilities extended to cells, tissues, and organs. Sergeyev was one of
the many scientists in attendance when Kulagina attempted to use her energy
to stop the beating of a frog’s heart, floating in solution, and then
re-activate it. She focused intently on the heart and summoned all her
powers. First she made it beat faster – then slower, and, using intense will
power, she stopped it. Apparently she could also disrupt human heart beats –
on one occasion giving a hostile Leningrad psychiatrist a frightening
first-hand experience of her power.
Again, if these extraordinary experiments
actually took place as indicated, there should be published accounts of the
groundbreaking results, so where are they?
In one of the (silent) films shot of experiments with
Kulagina in her Leningrad apartment she is seen seated at a large, round,
white table, in front of a lace-curtain window. According to Russian
scientists she had, on this occasion, already been physically examined by a
medical doctor, who had x-rayed her to make sure there were no hidden
magnets or anything else concealed on her person, nor any pieces of shrapnel
lodged in her body from her war injury. She was found to be clean and the
experiment begun.
The film crew, scientists -- Naumov among them, and
reporters, moved in for a closeup. Naumov placed a compass on a wristband, a
vertical cigarette, a pen top, a small metal cylinder like a saltshaker, and
a matchbox on the table in front of her. Kulagina began with the compass --
apparently the easiest object to warm up on. She held her fingers parallel
to the table about six inches above the compass and started moving her hands
in a circular motion. For a while nothing happened . . . then the needle
quivered and slowly began to rotate counter clockwise, then the whole
compass, case and all, began to spin.
Many conjurers would not be too impressed with this
performance, though there is apparently no proof that Kulagina was using
trickery on this occasion.
The ‘Impossibility’ of Psychic abilities
Naturally, Kulagina was not
without her critics, but sometimes it went beyond criticism. In the Moscow
paper Pravda there was a vicious attack on Kulagina, demonizing her and
calling her a fake and a cheat. It was said that she performed her tricks
with the help of concealed magnets and threads, though how magnets could
move nonmagnetic things like glass, eggs, apples and bread was not
explained. Kulagina’s supporters also claimed that she could move any one or
two objects from a group chosen by the investigator.
In the end it was revealed that the author of
the Pravda piece had never even seen Kulagina. He had decided that PK was
impossible therefore she must be cheating.
At the same time as the Pravda article, it is claimed
that a campaign of harassing phone calls began against Kulagina. It was
thought unlikely that these were merely harmless crank calls -- there were
no telephone books in Russia at that time; to get somebody’s phone number
involved lining up for hours at special address booths in the streets.
Secondly, she was known to the public as Nelya Mikhailova, not by her real
name of Nina Kulagina.
So whoever was calling had to know her real name and her
address. It seems likely that it had been well organised. But by whom? Was
the KGB involved? Or, as is most likely, was the whole story concocted to
increase the mystique surrounding Kulagina? Apparently, the calls finally
got so out of hand that the scientists decided to hide Kulagina in the
country outside Leningrad.
Some sceptics have claimed that Kulagina was only tested
in her own apartment and in hotel rooms, but according to Pravda for example
(unreliable to say the least) she was also tested by eminent Soviet
scientists in controlled laboratory conditions. These scientists are quoted
as more than once stating that after watching Nina in action that they had
found ‘no hidden threads, magnets, or other gimmicks.’ This does not of
course prove that Kulagina did not cheat, as stated earlier we have no
information on how thorough the checks were.
There is, however, no direct evidence that Kulagina ever
faked her abilities. Despite the lack of evidence for trickery. sceptics
still believe Kulagina’s abilities to be entirely fraudulent or at least
greatly exaggerated by Soviet authorities, probably to be used as propaganda
in their Cold-War era psychological battles with the U.S. Indeed the lack of
publication of the incredible experiments with Kulagina and other Russian
psychics in scientific journals has persuaded some researchers that the
experiments never occurred at all, at least as described in the popular
press.
Exhaustion from Psychic Tests
But there was a down side to these experiments. Whatever
Kulagina’s ‘powers’ were, it is said that they had always taken a lot out of
her. After one set of tests with Dr. Rejdak she was totally exhausted, and
had almost no pulse. Her face was pale and drained and she could hardly move
her body. She had apparently lost almost four pounds in half an hour (many
Western Mediums, such as American Felicia Parise, have also described this
weight loss during PK); it was as if she were converting the matter of her
own body into energy. According to Dr. Zverev’s report, her heart-beat was
irregular, there was high blood sugar, and her endocrine system was
disturbed. All this was consistent with high stress. She had also lost the
sensation of taste, suffered from pains in her arms and legs, couldn’t
coordinate, and felt dizzy.
According to popular accounts, Kulagina’s use of her
psychic abilities apparently led to a strain on her health culminating, in
the late seventies, in a near fatal heart attack. Her doctors recommended
that she reduce her activity, though she kept up some lab work until she
died in 1990, around the time of the death of the Soviet Union itself.
It is still believed by many in Russia that these
experiments exhausted her, ruined her health, and probably hastened her
death. At her funeral, Soviets praised Kulagina as a ‘hero of Leningrad’
after her bravery during the nine-hundred-day siege of World War II. But
many also lauded her for sacrifices of a different kind to her country,
allowing scientists and doctors to examine and test her ‘psychic abilities’
incessantly in their quest for an unknown and elusive energy. More down to
earth researchers however, believe claims of Kulagina’s ‘psychic abilities’
to be entirely groundless.
Further Reading
Gris, Henry, and Dick, William. The New Soviet
Psychic Discoveries. London, Souvenir Press, 1979.
Inglis, Brian. The Paranormal – An Encyclopedia of
Psychic Phenomena, London. Granada publishing, 1985, p112.
Ostrander, Sheila, &
Schroeder, Lynn.
Psychic Discoveries – The Iron Curtain
Lifted. London, Souvenir Press, 1997 (1971).
Spencer, John & Anne. The Poltergeist Phenomenon. London, Headline 1997, pp227-8.
With slight additions and alterations from weird-people.com
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