Nina Kulagina, ''Ninel Sergeyevna Kulagina'' (russian: Нине́ль Серге́евна Кула́гина, born Ninel Mikhaylova) (30 July 192611 April 1990) was a Russian woman who claimed to have

psychic A psychic is a person who claims to use extrasensory perception (ESP) to identify information hidden from the normal senses, particularly involving telepathy or clairvoyance, or who performs acts that are apparently inexplicable by natural laws ...

powers, particularly in

psychokinesis Psychokinesis (from grc, ψυχή, , soul and grc, κίνησις, , movement, label=ㅤ), or telekinesis (from grc, τηλε, , far off and grc, κίνησις, , movement, label=ㅤ), is a hypothetical psychic ability allowing a person ...

. Academic research of her phenomenon was conducted in the

USSR The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen nationa ...

for the last 20 years of her life. Kulagina was suspected of utilizing hidden

magnet A magnet is a material or object that produces a magnetic field. This magnetic field is invisible but is responsible for the most notable property of a magnet: a force that pulls on other ferromagnetic materials, such as iron, steel, nicke ...

s and threads to perform her feats.Planer, Felix (1980). ''Superstition''. Cassell. pp. 230-234. She was caught cheating on more than one occasion, according to British authors Joel Levy and

Mike Dash Mike Dash is a Welsh writer, historian, and researcher. He has written books and articles about dramatic episodes in history. Biography Dash was born in London. He attended Peterhouse, a college at the University of Cambridge particularly noted ...

and American science writer

Martin Gardner Martin Gardner (October 21, 1914May 22, 2010) was an American popular mathematics and popular science writer with interests also encompassing scientific skepticism, micromagic, philosophy, religion, and literatureespecially the writings of Lew ...

.Kravitz, Jerome; Hillabrant, Walter. (1977). ''The Future is Now: Readings in Introductory Psychology''. F. E. Peacock Publishers. p. 301. Quoting Martin Gardner: "Ninel has been caught cheating more than once by Soviet Establishment scientists." In 1987, Kulagina sued and won a partial victory in a defamation case brought against a Soviet government magazine that had accused her of fraud.

Biography

Kulagina, who was born in 1926, joined the

Red Army The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army ( Russian: Рабо́че-крестья́нская Кра́сная армия),) often shortened to the Red Army, was the army and air force of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic and, afte ...

at age fourteen, entering its tank regiment during

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...

, but she was a

housewife A housewife (also known as a homemaker or a stay-at-home mother/mom/mum) is a woman whose role is running or managing her family's home—housekeeping, which includes caring for her children; cleaning and maintaining the home; making, buying an ...

at the time that her alleged psychic abilities were studied and she entered international discourse in the 1960s. During the Cold War, silent

black-and-white Black-and-white (B&W or B/W) images combine black and white in a continuous spectrum, producing a range of shades of grey. Media The history of various visual media began with black and white, and as technology improved, altered to color. ...

films were produced, in which she appeared to move objects on a table in front of her without touching them. These films were allegedly made under controlled conditions for

Soviet The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen nation ...

authorities and caused excitement for many psychic researchers around the world, some of whom believed that they represented clear evidence for the existence of psychic phenomena. According to reports from the Soviet Union, 40 scientists, two of whom were Nobel laureates, studied Kulagina. In ''Investigating Psychics'', Larry Kettlekamp claims that Kulagina was filmed separating broken eggs that had been submerged in water, moving apart the whites and yolks, during which event such physical changes were recorded as accelerated and altered: heartbeat,

brain waves Neural oscillations, or brainwaves, are rhythmic or repetitive patterns of neural activity in the central nervous system. Neural tissue can generate oscillation, oscillatory activity in many ways, driven either by mechanisms within individual ne ...

and electromagnetic field.Kettlekamp, Larry. (1977) ''Investigating Psychics: Five Life Histories''

William Morrow & Company William Morrow and Company is an American publishing company founded by William Morrow in 1926. The company was acquired by Scott Foresman in 1967, sold to Hearst Corporation in 1981, and sold to News Corporation (now News Corp) in 1999. The ...

, New York. 16-17. Reproduced,
Understanding a Midsummer Night's Dream: A Student Casebook to Issues, Sources, and Historical Documents
' by Faith Nostbakken.

Greenwood Publishing Group Greenwood Publishing Group, Inc. (GPG), also known as ABC-Clio/Greenwood (stylized ABC-CLIO/Greenwood), is an educational and academic publisher (middle school through university level) which is today part of ABC-Clio. Established in 1967 as Gr ...

, 2003. pp. 179-180. To ensure that external electromagnetic impulses did not interfere, she was placed inside of a metal cage while she supposedly demonstrated an ability to remove a marked matchstick from a pile of matchsticks under a glass dome. Kulagina claimed that she first recognized her ability, which she believed she had inherited from her mother, when she realized that items spontaneously moved around her when she was angry. Kulagina said that in order to manifest the effect, she required a period of

meditation Meditation is a practice in which an individual uses a technique – such as mindfulness, or focusing the mind on a particular object, thought, or activity – to train attention and awareness, and achieve a mentally clear and emotionally calm ...

to clear her mind of all thoughts. When she had obtained the focus required, she reported a sharp pain in her spine and the blurring of her eyesight. Reportedly,

storm A storm is any disturbed state of the natural environment or the atmosphere of an astronomical body. It may be marked by significant disruptions to normal conditions such as strong wind, tornadoes, hail, thunder and lightning (a thunderstorm), ...

s interfered with her ability to perform psychokinetic acts. One of Kulagina's most celebrated experiments took place in a

Leningrad Saint Petersburg ( rus, links=no, Санкт-Петербург, a=Ru-Sankt Peterburg Leningrad Petrograd Piter.ogg, r=Sankt-Peterburg, p=ˈsankt pʲɪtʲɪrˈburk), formerly known as Petrograd (1914–1924) and later Leningrad (1924–1991), i ...

laboratory on 10 March 1970. Having initially studied the ability to move inanimate objects, scientists were curious to see if Kulagina's abilities extended to cells, tissues, and

organs In biology, an organ is a collection of tissues joined in a structural unit to serve a common function. In the hierarchy of life, an organ lies between tissue and an organ system. Tissues are formed from same type cells to act together in a f ...

. Sergeyev was one of many scientists present when Kulagina attempted to use her energy to stop the beating of a

frog A frog is any member of a diverse and largely carnivorous group of short-bodied, tailless amphibians composing the order Anura (ανοὐρά, literally ''without tail'' in Ancient Greek). The oldest fossil "proto-frog" ''Triadobatrachus'' is ...

's heart floating in solution. He said that she focused intently on the heart and apparently made it beat faster, then slower, and using extreme intent of thought, stopped it.

Dispute

Many individuals and organizations, such as the

James Randi Educational Foundation James Randi Educational Foundation (JREF) is an American grant-making institution founded in 1996 by magician and skeptic James Randi. As a nonprofit organization, the mission of JREF includes educating the public and the media on the dangers of ...

and the Italian Committee for the Investigation of Claims on the Paranormal (CICAP) express skepticism regarding claims of psychokinesis.

Massimo Polidoro Massimo Polidoro (born 10 March 1969) is an Italian psychologist, writer, journalist, television personality, and co-founder and executive director of the Italian Committee for the Investigation of Claims of the Pseudosciences (CICAP). Early lif ...

has written that the long preparation times and uncontrolled environments (such as hotel rooms) in which the experiments with Kulagina took place left much potential for trickery. Magicians and skeptics have argued that Kulagina's feats could easily be performed by one experienced in sleight of hand, through means such as cleverly concealed or disguised threads, small pieces of magnetic metal, or mirrors and the Cold War-era

Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...

had an obvious motive for falsifying or exaggerating results in the potential propaganda value in appearing to win a "Psi Race" analogous to the concurrent

Space Race The Space Race was a 20th-century competition between two Cold War rivals, the United States and the Soviet Union, to achieve superior spaceflight capability. It had its origins in the ballistic missile-based nuclear arms race between the t ...

or arms race. Russian journalist Vladimir Lvov published an article in ''

Pravda ''Pravda'' ( rus, Правда, p=ˈpravdə, a=Ru-правда.ogg, "Truth") is a Russian broadsheet newspaper, and was the official newspaper of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, when it was one of the most influential papers in the ...

'' which accused Kulagina of fraud. Lvov wrote that she performed one of her tricks by concealing a magnet on her body. The article also reported that Kulagina had been arrested for cheating the public out of five thousand

ruble The ruble (American English) or rouble (Commonwealth English) (; rus, рубль, p=rublʲ) is the currency unit of Belarus and Russia. Historically, it was the currency of the Russian Empire and of the Soviet Union. , currencies named ''rub ...

s. Science writer

described Kulagina as a "pretty, plump, dark eyed little charlatan" who had been caught using tricks to move objects. According to Gardner, she was "caught cheating more than once by Soviet Establishment scientists." However, Kulagina countersued and won a partial victory on the suit."This Russian woman’s psychic powers ignited a paranormal arms race between the U.S. and the USSR"
timeline.com. Retrieved 31 December 2021.

References

External links

*
The Psychic Powers of Nina Kulagina
Comprehensive biography of Nina Kulagina

Magicians and parapsychologists describe mundane methods {{DEFAULTSORT:Kulagina, Nina 1926 births 1990 deaths Psychokineticists Soviet psychics Russian psychics Soviet military personnel of World War II

Biography

Dispute

See also

References

Further reading

External links