Natasha Demkina, The Girl with X-ray Eyes... In a current TV show being broadcast on the Discovery Channel you will see this girl flown from her native Russia to New York City USA..... There she is subjected to a test by CSICOP....... They have been asked to test her to see if she exhibits any Paranormal Psychic ability. Much can be found about her on the internet just search www.google.com

The issue I have, is that she was not tested fairly or honestly and the conclusion CSICOP- Dr Richard Wiseman and Dr Ray Hyman and the others at CSICOP come to that she is a cheat or deluded is wrong.Not only wrong, but a disgraceful slur by a bunch of debunkers without a scrap of decency or integrity. A true scientist will always subject his test subjects to a fair and honest evaluation and this was not done. Hyman says in the program, it was a requirement to subject Natasha to stress. I ask you, why would you want to do this? Psychic or mental human functioning normally requires quiet and concentration, not deliberately caused stress. She was also subjected to the test after a long flight from Russia without being given a decent amount of time to rest and recover. In spite of all this Natasha scored 4 out of the 7 possible hits and that equates to odds of 50 to 1 or she had a 2% chance of getting this high score......... I and others intend to force CSICOP to admit, in spite of there legal agreement they had with this 17 year old girl, that her score of 50 to 1 against chance, under these almost impossible conditions, was very scientifically significant. I have now been told that Wiseman and others tried to do the same test and scored zero..... So much for the so called COLD READING...... SCEPTICS BLEAT ON ABOUT. It is my view these individuals at CSICOP are a disgrace to science and they should be exposed as such. They are entitled to not want to believe in psychic ability, but not entitled to be a disgrace to the scientific community they say they are part of. Wiseman teaches students in England and I believe he should not be allowed to until he has explained why he has behaved like this in New York with his fellows at CSICOP.

Below are my views and a Transcript of what Wiseman said from the show The Girl with X-ray Eyes. A most disgusting experiment broadcast by the Discovery Channel. Natasha Demkina. A Russian Psychic is tested and proclaimed deluded or fraud by Professor Richard Wiseman of SCICOP. The Test took place in New York 2004. This test was not conducted with any fairness, honesty or scientific integrity. It was a one off attempt by Dr Wiseman and SCICOP to discredit this young Russian girl who appears to be wonderfully gifted with medical intuition. To test the claims of any medium or psychic, one should always test the claim in the way it is claimed. If the claim is, after a period of quiet meditation the psychic says they receive the psi data, then that meditation and quiet must be allowed. Not only allowed, but allowed in the way the psychic or medium normally operate. To conduct any test or experiment other that under the conditions that normally prevail when the medium or psychic works is not a fair or even scientific test, and one where the results should be void. If a psychic or medium works in a group or in the company of other people this must also be allowed as any change imposed by an experimenter can affect the results. The excuse often used by experimenters for not allowing the normal operational conditions when testing psychics or mediums is that they need to eliminate fraud. In this present case Natasha Demkina was not allowed to work the way she always does. What is also wrong about this testing of Natasha, is that she had just traveled 6 thousand miles to New York from Russia and must have been exhausted on the one hand and also very excited on the other. She should not have been subjected to any testing until she was fully rested and had adjusted to the new time zone. She had never traveled such a distance from home before and the testers knew this. They also knew, because they are both university professors of psychology, that human mental functioning is impaired when a person is tired and stressed. Yet still they conducted the test. It is reasonable to assume that any test conducted under these conditions would be likely to produce less accuracy than one conducted when Natasha was fully rested and adjusted to the new surroundings. The testers also completely changed the environment that she was tested in to one she does not normally work in. Natasha was also not allowed to have her mother and sister present. The reason Wiseman gave was to prevent her from getting information for them and may be cheating.

Now, what was Wiseman’s fear? Was it that her mother and or sister were also psychic and working as a team they jointly obtained the information? Was it perhaps that he wanted to ensure maximum emotional stress was imposed on the 17 year in the hope that she could not perform at here best. With the correct control over the 7 subjects being observed for the test it would have been impossible for her to cheat even if her mother and sister were with her. There was no scientific reason not to allow Natasha to have her mother and sister with her. In fact, if indeed she has the ability she claims, it may be that she works best when she is most happy and has her mother and sister with her. After all, she is still just a child and was a long way from home and with people she has only just met. It must have been very intimidating to say the least. One of the reason these days that hospitals encourage the parents of child patients to stay with them in hospital is that the being less stressed and unhappy seems to help the child recover more quickly. Being happy could well be one of the pre requisites for good psychic functioning. So why would Wiseman want to do anything to increase the stress those he is testing are under. When we have no idea how something works, in must follow logically that we also do not know what can affect that working. Until we understand what is happening and for what reasons, it is impossible to say that something will or will not change the working of those particular phenomena. If you build a high quality optical telescope, but use it when the atmosphere is warm and damp it will produce poor images. Not only does the equipment have to be of a high standard, the environmental conditions it is used in have to be good as well. We understand a lot about photons and light so we accept this readily. We do not know about psi or the conditions it will or will not work in, and this is why the normal conditions a psychic or medium works under are so important and any reasonable A level student should understand this. I ask the obvious question? Does Wiseman.?

Now for the transcript of Wiseman and comments on the broadcast show.

The words of Dr Wiseman are in " "

Show Part 1 as broadcast in UK September 2004

Shows Natasha in Russia

“If Natasha really can do what she appears to be able to do, then we need to change the whole of our scientific understanding of the world. If she can’t do what she appears to be able to do, well something is going on. She is either kidding herself, or she is fooling other people. Now if the claim is genuine, so if Natasha really can do what she appears to be able to do, then we need to change the whole of our scientific understanding of the world. If people really have got these sorts of amazing abilities science is badly wrong, so it matters. If she can’t do what she appears to be able to do – well something is going on, she is either kidding herself or she is fooling other people and so there is a fascinating psychology of deception and self deception to be examined. To Natasha’s credit, she has engaged with the sceptics. She hasn’t gone for the soft option of going to the believers, she has come along to the scientists and say, OK you design the test – I’ll take part in that test, we will see what happens.”

We then see the 6 patients she see the way she always performs her ability.

“How much of what she mentioned do you think was accurate, was on target “

5 out of six patients were impressed

“What’s interesting is before we asked them to have the reading, I asked them to tell me what the problem was and people described different ailments. During the reading Natasha only mentioned the right ailment to one of those people. So the others were sitting there. Natasha didn’t mention what was wrong with them, but still most of them were very impressed. I suspect that what’s going on is psychological and has a psychological explanation. “

Next we see the experiment.

“I think when it comes to Natasha; we don’t know exactly what is going on. I mean, it could be she has got great imagery skills. She can look at somebody and create images inside her head and then convince herself there coming from the outside world. The other possibility is that she is simply lying to us. She is simply pretending that, yes indeed she can look inside somebody else’s body and the third possibility is she is actually psychic and she is doing what she claims to be able to do. I think at the moment we don’t know which of these actually the case is. The big part of the test is ruling out the possibility of fraud, and so you have to say the claimant, look, its not that I think you will cheat, its just we have to rule out that possibility and some people can find that very offensive. “

The viewers are now told they suspect she gets info from patient feedback so patients must stay still and be blinded so they are not aware when Natasha is looking directly at them

“The test is designed to eliminate lots of the problems which may lead us to ur to think that Natasha is psychic when that’s not the case. It involves 7 people, each of which have a different medical problem. And 7 diagnoses and all she has to do is to match one of the diagnoses to one of the people. And then we know from the mathematics of the situation how well she performed.”

The viewers are now told the testers want as few people as possible in the test room to minimize Natasha cheating so at the very last moment they decide to exclude her mother and sister. This is to distress Natasha. Hyman says to the test you need to put on all kinds of constraints and put Natasha under stress. Natasha is unhappy about 2 of the conditions, missing appendix and shortened esophagus, i.e. how much is removed. Natasha also wants to be allowed to work the way she always has worked but Wiseman refuses to allow this.

“To be successful at the test she has to score 5 or more correct, so if she scored these 2 wrong it wouldn’t matter. If these 5 are correct we would still consider that a success. Natasha is really putting herself on the line in here, unlike lots of psychics she is actually saying yep, come along test me. Do what ever you want and I will try and fit around that. I think that is a very brave thing to do.”

Viewers now see lots of milling around and the testing

“OK the results are in, you scored 4 so you missed it by 1, but it’s an interesting result. I think we are dealing with somebody who is perfectly sincere in their beliefs. Somebody who thinks they can do what they appear to be able to do. I don’t think there is anything psychic going on. In the informal testing she is throwing out a huge number of options, she is talking about lungs, and kidneys and brains and backs and so on. And in the formal test, yes she can pick up a few things from people but you have to remember that she missed some very obvious things. So for example missing which person had a metal plate in their head. Now you would think that if her claim is genuine she would be able to pick up on that sort of thing very easily. She had the claim, we tested it, and she did not pass the test. It’s 4 out of 7. I have conducted quite a few of these sorts of tests over the years and each time the experience is quite similar. It’s actually quite a stressful thing to be doing, in part because you’re trying to be fair to the claimant and sometimes you don’t fully understand all aspects of that claim. Second your trying to keep some obviously kind of control over the situation often under conditions which are really quite difficult and quite fluid and particularly when it’s the first time that claim has been tested. And suddenly the claimant says I am slightly unhappy with this and I didn’t realize it was going to be like this. So you’re trying to negotiate this process and at the end of the day both parties turn round and argue about the results."

Ends…

Now let’s consider this.

The results were that Natasha even under these appalling conditions of jet lag and Wiseman not only moving the goal posts but changing the game being played Natasha matched 4 out of 7….. According to Wiseman, and the program, odds of 50 to 1. With odds of 50 to 1 on the first trial any honest scientists would have continued the experiment with further trials to see if the odds remained the same, got worse or improved. Not Wiseman the Academic Media star of the UK investigators. No, he pronounced Natasha a failure and sent her back to Russia. This girl should have been given time to adjust for 8 hours time zone change, a week may be. She should have been tested in the way she normally works. Mother and sister present if she wanted. What was the fear Wiseman had, was her mother and sister psychic as well and together they form the team who can meet the claim? They cannot as I understand it speak English. How on earth could making the young girl feel at home, be relaxed and have all her concentration available to her have breached the protocol for a secure experiment? The answer simply is, done properly; all these normal conditions could have been accommodated in this one off test. Why was it a one off test, I suggest to ensure Wiseman and his SCICOP pals could shout from the roof tops, Natasha failed. I do hope real scientists will look at what has happened here and they too take this investigation by me seriously. It seems to me Wiseman is a disgrace to science and he is contaminating young minds with this perverted view of how to conduct experiments. It could be the “Experimenter Effect” that seems to haunt sceptical scientists like Dr Wiseman is a result of not properly conducting the experiments, as, if this test with Natasha is typical and I suggest it may well be, poor results are to be expected.

Chris Robinson Dream Detective UK