CIA-RDP96-00789R003000020007-0

Approved For Release 2001/03/07 : CIA-RDP96-00789R003000020007-0
PK PARTY HISTORY
by
Jack Houck
December 19, 1983
A PK Party is defined as a group of 15 or more people who meet to bend metal
using psychokinesis (PK) or mind over matter. The first PK Party was held in
January, 1981.
The objective was to assemble a group of people and create a
"peak emotional experience" (Reference 1). The author postulated that, at the
time of the peak emotional event, the mind could make a connection with an
object and affect that object (i.e. psychokinesis).
The first PK Party was
planned to be a test of this idea
The week before the first PK Party, the author met Severin Dahlen, a
metallurgist who had been involved with PK research at the University of
California, Irvine. Together, a plan for the party was prepared. Twenty-one
people gathered at the author's home on Monday evening, January 19, 1981. All
were friends of the author and came from varied backgrounds.
After
introductions and general discussion, everyone was relaxed and comfortable.
The author's grandparents' silverplated silverware was passed out and everyone
had either a fork or spoon.
Severin stood in the middle of the room with
everyone seated in a circle and gave the following instructions :
1) "Get a point of concentration in your head ."
2) "Make it very intense and focused ."
3) "Grab it and bring it down through your neck, down through your
shoulder, down through your arm, through your hand, and put it into
the silverware at the point you intend to bend it."
4) "Command it to bend !"
5) "Release the command and let it happen ."
He then instructed the group to use their fingers to test for warmth coming out
of the silverware or to feel the metal surface become sticky.
Everyone felt
pretty silly, sitting there holding the silverware, until the head of a fork
being held by a boy (age 14) bent over all by itself !
Almost everyone in the
room saw this happen and experienced an instantaneous belief system change.
Then the silverware in the hands of many people in the room became soft. They
easily bent and twisted the silverware into unusual shapes. The period during
which the metal remained soft was between five and twenty seconds. Everyone
was shouting and extremely excited.
During the next hour, nineteen of the
party attendees had experienced the metal getting soft and being easily formed
into any shape. Later we termed this "warm forming".
Also during the first
party, the same boy put a 270-degree bend in a 5/16-inch diameter steel rod.
This was very impressive because of the apparent ease with which it was done.
One of the two party attendees who "did not bend" was a lady who had told a
friend before the party that she did not see any sense in bending silverware.
Approved For Release 2001/03/07 : CIA-RDP96-00789R003000020007-0
1

Approved For Release 2001/03/07 : CIA-RDP96-00789R003000020007-0
At the end of the party she asked why she could not do it. The author was the
other unsuccessful bender at that first party.
He was so busy analyzing what
was going on, that concentration on the task of bending had been difficult .
The second PK Party was held a month later. This time a number of specimens of
different metals, as well as metals
made
with different manufacturing
processes, were available to the benders.
The attendees learned and practiced
with silverware. Then they were asked to bend these other specimens. Hacksaw
blades were shaped into spirals, brass strips bent in sealed bottles, spoon
bowls were buckled, and many steel rods were bent. No one was able to bend
the copper rods.
Instead, some copper rods became so hot that the people
dropped them to keep from being burned. Over 85% of the attendees succeeded in
experiencing warm forming. The people who were having this experience realized
that they were doing something that most of them thought was impossible. Two
characteristics of metal possibly related to PK are the number of dislocations
and the thermal conductivity .
The more dislocations available in the metal
induced, for example, by cold working, the easier it is to bend. The lower the
conductivity, the easier it is to find the short period during which the metal
is soft.
Forged stainless steel silverware has been cold worked and has a low
thermal conductivity .
Twelve PK Parties were held during 1981.
The format was continually improved.
The attendees were taught how to use dowsing rods as a means of "testing" the
silverware to see if "it was willing to bend".
This seems to reinforce the
essential belief structure. As with warm forming, most people succeed in using
a dowsing rod on their first try. It is also a useful method for helping to
connect the individual mind to the object to be bent. A special feature was
added at the end of the parties. The participants held two forks at the very
bottom of the handle and were asked not to apply force with their other hand.
Sometimes significant bending occurred.
Shouting at the silverware has also
been added as a means of helping to enhance the emotional level in a group.
This procedure adds to the intensity of the command to bend and helps create
pandemoninum
throughout the party, in order to help break people's
concentration (thus assisting the release or "letting go" step).
The second year saw 24 parties orchestrated by the author.
In the spring of
1982, Fran Zeff Brown ran a PK Party for her parapsychology class in Orange
County, California, and achieved the same high success rate.
This was the
first replication of the PK Party format. The author gave two PK Parties in
the Washington, D.C. , area in May and June of 1982. Some of the attendees of
those parties began to run their own PK Parties with very high success rates.
For example, John Alexander has now held more than 50 parties. Figure 1 shows
the number of people attending the author's PK Parties, as well as an estimate
of the total number of people attending PK Parties, based on feedback provided
by the many people running their own parties. In the third year, the number of
parties run by the author has been averaging three per month, and they
Approved For Release 2001/03/07 : CIA-RDP96-00789R003000020007-0
2
.

Approved For Release 2001/03/07 : CIA-RDP96-00789R003000020007-0
2500
2000
NUMBER OF PEOPLE (CUMULATIVE)
INCLUDING
OTHER
PARTIES
1500
1000
HOUCK'S
PARTIES
500
0
JF MAM J J A S O N D IJ F MAM J J A S O N D |JF MAM J JASON D
1981
1982
1983
Figure 1. PK Party Attendance
Approved For Release 2001/03/07 : CIA-RDP96-00789R003000020007-0

Approved For Release 2001/03/07 : CIA-RDP96-00789R003000020007-0
generally have more people per party. The largest party was held in Vancouver,
B.C., Canada, in September, 1983, with over 400 attendees.
The success rate seems to drop at the bigger parties.
This is shown in Figure
2, wherein the success rate is plotted as a function of the number of people
attending a party. It appears that the best party size is between 15 and 40
participants. One reason for the lower success rate at the big parties may be
that people do not get enough personal attention.
About 50% of the people
report. experiencing,
warm forming using the basic instructions given earlier .
The rest seem to need some personal attention from the person giving the party
or from a helper.
Also, at the big parties a few people go around creating
come negative attitudes. The more helpers, the easier it is to prevent the
critics and analytical types from interfering with those who want to experience
the warm forming, as well as to provide more individual attention. If there
were one helper per 20 people, the expected success rate would be between 80
and 100%, even at the larger parties.
The success rate was unusually low at a few parties. One of those was at the
1983 Parapsychological Association Conference. The attendees might have been so
busy analyzing what was going on that they either did not want to or could not
experience PK themselves. Another low-success-rate party was at Los Alamos,
New Mexico. Nine PhD) physicists, along with their wives and children, attended
the party.
The wives and children did very well, but the men seemed to have
difficulty .
Part of their problem might have been their analytical nature;
possibly more importantly, they all worked closely together in a relatively
closed society and doing something as "unusual" as a PK Party
was
subconsciously "not permitted ."
In general, parties are the most successful
when there are some children, the people are open-minded, and they enjoy having
fun with a new and unusual experience. A few times, the author has given a
party starting late in the evening after an all-day conference. The people are
mentally and physically exhausted, which makes it difficult to get them all
whipped up for a peak emotional event .
In the early days of the PK Parties, it was very difficult to get a high
success rate with a small group of people. This seems to be changing in both
the author's experience and for those other individuals who have been running
PK Parties.
Some are suggesting that the ideas of the morphogenetic field
theory (Reference 2) may be taking effect (the more a new phenomena occurs, the
easier it is to create).
The only new feature added to the PK Parties in 1983 was seed sprouting. Eldon
Byrd had seen Uri Geller do this in Japan in the spring. He suggested to the
author that it be tried as a part of a PK Party. On July 29, 1983, soy bean
seeds were put in water at the beginning of the party. Near the end of the
party, a few of these beans were placed in the open hands of the participants.
Much to everyone's amazement, about half of the beans seemed to pop open and a
Approved For Release 2001/03/07 : CIA-RDP96-00789R003000020007-0
4

.
Approved For Release 2001/03/07 : CIA-RDP96-00789R003000020007-0
X HOUCK'S
·
REPLICATION
100
X
X
-X
X
X
XX
x
X
X
10
1
2
3
4 5 6 7 8 9
2
3
4
6 78
2
3
4
6 7 8
1
10
50
100
500
1000
NUMBER OF PEOPLE ATTENDING THE PARTY
Figure 2. Effect of PK Party Size
Approved For Release 2001/03/07 : CIA-RDP96-00789R003000020007-0
5
.
T
1
-
1
T
T
1
90
8 8 8 8 8 8.8 8
80
40
30
20
SUCCESS RATE (PERCENT)

-
Approved For Release 2001/03/07 : CIA-RDP96-00789R003000020007-0
few seemed to have grown a small sprout.
This has been tried at four of the
author's PK Parties with similar results.
There is not enough data or
controlled experiments at this time to postulate what might be happening in or
around the seeds .
In searching for an explanation for what is physically happening in the metal,
we have tried a number of different experiments. One of these was a "hacksaw
experiment" (Reference 3).
In this experiment, four hacksaw blades were
purchased .
One was kept away from the others as a control and the other three
were exposed at four PK Parties during a three-month period. Only Severin
Dahlen and the author knew that these hacksaw blades were in a paper bag on the
floor in the center of the participant circle at the parties. The hardness of
all three exposed blades was reduced dramatically and there was no change in
the hardness of the control blade. Many of the other experiments exhibited a
general softening of metals after PK exposure.
Also, clear plastic exhibited
apparent heating in one example examined with a scanning electron microscope.
Interestingly, the observed local effects are not always the same. Most of the
time, the person doing the warm forming reports feeling the silverware or other
object become warm as if heat were coming from the inside of the object. It is
postulated that, somehow, the mind is creating the conditions for energy, of
unknown form, to be deposited along the grain boundaries of the metal.
The
dislocations may somehow act as transducers to receive this energy, possibly
from some other dimension, as shown pictorially in Figure 3. The "STU" (Space-
Time Unit) is the author's way of describing an information system which stores
all information in space and time (Reference 1). In this representation, the
STU also serves the function of converting the individual's goal of the desire
to bend into action.
Whatever the form of the energy as it is transduced into
the metal grain boundaries, it is then partially converted to heat.
This is
the same conversion that occurs with a microwave oven, in that the
electromagnetic energy is converted to heat when it is attenuated by the meat.
In the metal, the grain boundaries become very hot, possibly even molten. When
a large portion of the metal has soft grain boundaries, the grains are free to
slip or float and the metal temporarily loses its rigidity.
This only happens
for several seconds, because the heat is conducted away from the grain
boundaries and they re-solidify.
Often, people feel this sudden hardening of
the metal while they are easily forming it. Sometimes the metal becomes so hot
internally that gas is formed, which is believed to be the source of the loud
"pop" often heard when an object being warm formed breaks. Twice the plating
of silverplated forks has split apart by itself with loud pops when being held
by only one hand.
Metal that has been annealed or cast is very difficult to
warm form. This further supports the idea that the dislocations play a role in
the process of concentrating the thermal energy into the grain boundaries. In
spite of a large amount of data suggesting that the above process is what is
happening in the metal most of the time, how the mind or subconscious converts
the goal into thermal energy along the grain boundaries remains a mystery .
Approved For Release 2001/03/07 : CIA-RDP96-00789R003000020007-0
6

Approved For Release 2001/03/07 : CIA-RDP96-00789R003000020007-0
BEND
ENERGY
DUMP
-
STU
1
1
N
OVERHEAT
ALONG GRAIN
BOUNDARIES-
MELTING
OCCURS
1
DISLOCATIONS
ACT AS
TRANSDUCERS
Figure 3. Melted Grain Boundaries
Approved For Release 2001/03/07 : CIA-RDP96-00789R003000020007-0

-
i
Approved For Release 2001/03/07 : CIA-RDP96-00789R003000020007-0
A small percent of the time, both the object and the air around it become very
cold. Once, water was observed to condense on a fork. In these cases, it is
thought that the thermal energy is being drawn from the local air in an attempt
to achieve the goal -- to BEND! This type of temperature drop is commonly
reported in poltergeist cases (Reference 4).
Nothing is known about the
algorithms the mind uses to select the best method for accomplishing the
individual's goal .
Sometimes, but infrequently,
it
is noticed that an
individual has gotten into a trance-like state and uses extreme physical force
to bend an object. Often, this person is unaware of how much physical force he
used, thinking that he was only pushing a little bit. The mind may have
selected to use that individual's own strength, if his conscious mind could be
circumvented .
It is analogous to the mind selecting the minimum energy
solution to a given problem.
These multiple options from which the mind seems
to select are pictorially shown in Figure 4.
In the spring of 1983, Cynthia Siegel, a graduate student at the John F
Kennedy University in Orinda, California, did a survey of the first 800 people
to attend Houcks' PK Parties (Reference 5). Of the 311 people who returned her
questionnaire, 72% believed that they experienced warm forming.
Interestingly
her survey showed that a very high percentage of the people attending PK
Parties now believed that PK really works, even those who did not have their
own direct, experience.
For example, many saw forks bending by themselves
without the assistance of another hand or a magician.
It had been the author's
opinion that people would not be convinced that PK works unless they
experienced it for themselves .
About 50% of the people who have experienced warm forming during a PK Party can
then do it by themselves after the party. They can not always do it on
command, but, once their own belief system is convinced it works, they do not
need the excitement and support of the PK Party environment to perform PK.
A summary of the current PK Party format is provided below :
1) A good PK Party consists of fifteen to forty open-minded, fun-loving,
and relaxed people, including children over five years old.
2)
Anyone who is willing to describe the PK Party format and is confident
that it will work can run a party.
3)
An adequate supply of material is necessary (typically, four or five
pieces of silverware per person and some heavier material), such as several
sizes of steel rods, brittle hacksaw blades, drill bits, and clear plastic
silverware .
4)
The act of dowsing the silverware with either dowsing rods or
Approved For Release 2001/03/07 : CIA-RDP96-00789R003000020007-0
8

Approved For Release 2001/03/07 : CIA-RDP96-00789R003000020007-0
STU
BEND
GIANT
COMPUTER
IN THE SKY
MINIMUM ENERGY SOLUTIONS
0
2
3
WW
W
Figure 4. Multiple Solutions
9
Approved For Release 2001/03/07 : CIA-RDP96-00789R003000020007-0

Approved For Release 2001/03/07 : CIA-RDP96-00789R003000020007-0
pendulums is fun and gives people a break after the introduction.
5)
The group attention and concentration are focused using
the
instructions given at the beginning of this paper.
It is good to have the
group shout the command "BEND" three times at the silverware that they are
going to bend. They are also encouraged to repeat the command throughout the
party. . To help with the release of that initial concentration, people
are
encouraged to jump up or scream that theirs is bending, so that others can
observe.
This not only helps the other people witness bending (helping to
adjust
their
belief system), but, most
importantly, it
breaks
their
concentration on their own bending.
This break in attention somehow releases
the mind to go and organize the method for achieving that person's goal,
presumably to experience warm forming.
6)
During this first phase, people utilize their fingers to sense the
moment when the silverware becomes warm or sticky. At that time, they are
encouraged to use a little force to get the bending started.
Most, people feel
that they apply between 30 and 50% of the force that would have been required
to physically
bend the silverware.
This phase is called "kindergarten"
bending .
It
is
not
interesting scientifically,
use
because the people are
encouraged
to
two
hands on
everyday
stainless
steel flatware.
Nevertheless, the people themselves have a lot of fun with this phase and
sometimes bend up many pieces of silverware. Figure 5 is an example of a happy
lady with examples to show her friends and boss.
7)
Once people graduate from "kindergarten", they are encouraged to bend
some of the heavy-duty objects.
The most impressive objects that the author
has seen bent to date are 1/2-inch steel bars, 18 inches long.
Figure 6 shows
a young girl who buckled the bowl of a silverplated tablespoon.
This phase is
called "elementary" or "high school" bending .
8)
At the "college" level, people spend ten to fifteen minutes attempting
to sprout seeds in their open hands. Typically, soy and mung bean seeds are
put in water at the beginning of the party. They are passed around near the
end of a party and all together the group commands them to "SPROUT". Some
seeds make a popping sound and appear to move and open up. Sometimes they also
appear to produce a small sprout. One control experiment was conducted with no
similiar results, suggesting that something unusual was going on at the PK
Parties.
Attempts will be made in the future to better understand how the
seeds are being affected .
9)
"Graduate school" is at the end of a party, wherein everyone is given
one or two dinner forks, depending on their availability.
The forks are held
at the very bottom and people are asked not to push on them with the other
hand .
All together, the group commands them to "BEND" and then relaxes and
watches each other's forks.
Often the tines deform and, in many cases, the
Approved For Release 2001/03/07 : CIA-RDP96-00789R003000020007-0
10

Approved For Release 2001/03/07 : CIA-RDP96-00789R003000020007-0
Figure 5. Kindergarten Bending
Figure 6. High School Bending
11
Approved For Release 2001/03/07 : CIA-RDP96-00789R003000020007-0

.
Approved For Release 2001/03/07 : CIA-RDP96-00789R003000020007-0
whole head of the fork bends over to some degree.
This, of course, is
impressive to those who thought they were using too much force during the
"kindergarten" bending.
Figure 7 shows a man who had been concentrating
intently on the fork in his right hand. The author noticed the fork in his
left hand slowly bending over. I said to him, "Did you see the fork in your
left hand?" He looked at it and asked, "How did that happen?" At that moment,
the fork in his right hand bent over!
This is only one of many examples
wherein the PK event happens when the mind is released. Possibly, the reason
children are so good at PK is that they do not have a long concentration
span.
10)
At the end of a PK Party, the leader summarizes the implications of
everyone having this ability and its use for bettering their lives.
Pictures
are taken and questionnaires are then filled out for the record. Some groups
have been recording the parties on video tape, which does not seem to bother
the party attendees.
These tapes are valuable for review of experimental
results when experiments are being conducted within the party, review of party
results and procedures, and to enhance public verifiability to some degree.
In conclusion, there is no sense in a group of people getting together just to
bend up silverware. However, many people who experience warm forming begin to
discover that they can control their environment, their health, and their
future. Often, many weeks after someone has participated in a party, he finds
an occasion to use PK and has reported elation about how "it really works."
Thus, PK Parties have turned out to be a tremendous teaching tool.
The
identical process can be used for healing oneself and others. The parties have
also been useful in getting the attention of intelligent people.
They
recognize that our current scientific paradigm does not have an explanation of
how PK works. Some are interested in conducting research to improve our
understanding of this phenomenon.
The author continues to orchestrate PK
Parties, because (1) new
things
are observed all the time, (2) the
understanding of the phenomena continues to improve, and (3) many people are
helped in many different ways. Cynthia Siegel, as previously mentioned, wrote
a paper on The Effect of PK Parties on Individuals and Society (Reference
6). She had interviewed a number of individuals who had hosted PK Parties.
They envision some tremendous benefits to individuals and society, as a result
of PK Parties. As the number of people attending PK Parties continues to
increase, so will the recognition that everyone in the world is interconnected
and, if we could all work together, it would be a more peaceful planet .
Approved For Release 2001/03/07 : CIA-RDP96-00789R003000020007-0
12

Approved For Release 2001/03/07 : CIA-RDP96-00789R003000020007-0
Figure 7. Graduate School Bending
13
Approved For Release 2001/03/07 : CIA-RDP96-00789R003000020007-0

Approved For Release 2001/03/07 : CIA-RDP96-00789R003000020007-0
....
REFERENCES
1. Jack Houck, Conceptual Model of Paranormal Phenomena, September 21,
1982 (available from author at 16892 Canyon Ln. , Huntington Beach, Ca . ,
92649)
2. Rupert Sheldrake, A New Science of Life: The Hypothesis of Formative
Causation, J. P. Tarcher, Inc . , 1981
3. Severin Dahlen, Remote Annealing of High Carbon Steel Parts, General
Material Genetics Institute, November 1982 (available from Jack Houck)
4. D. Scott Rogo, The Poltergeist Experience, Viking/Penguin, 1979
5. Cynthia Siegel, Experiences and Changes in Belief Among PK Party
Participants, Thesis for Master of Science in Parapsychology at John F.
Kennedy University, December 1983
6. Cynthia Siegel, The Effect of PK Parties on Individuals and Society,
Paradigms of Science Class, John F. Kennedy University, Spring 1983 (available
from Jack Houck)
...
Approved For Release 2001/03/07 : CIA-RDP96-00789R003000020007-0
14