On Monday, November 9, 1998, James Randi and I tested a Chinese psychic doctor named Dr. Kam Yuen from Shaolin West International (in Canoga Park, CA), an "Institute of Martial Arts and Natural Medicine." According to his business card, Dr. Yuen is a doctor of "Chinese Energetic Medicine, Chiropractic, Homeopathic Medicine," and he is a "Nutritional Consultant."
Dr. Yuen's organization contacted Randi and JREF in order to be tested for the million dollar challenge. The test was arranged through the NBC television show EXTRA!, that airs in most markets Monday through Saturday from 7:00-7:30pm (the show has a production staff of 170 people!). This episode will be about 6-8 minutes in total length (even though we spent five hours filming), and will air sometime in the next couple of weeks. Randi was the Prinfor pain, while my role was, in essence, to monitor Dr. Fleishman and the other people involved, to insure that proper experimental controls were employed.
The claim was that Dr. Yuen can heal people, in a matter of seconds, of intense pain and illness of virtually any kind. He stands or sits in front of the person, stares at them intensely, waves his hands and fingers around in a mini-Kung Fu style (he says he used to work with David Keradine on the television show "Kung Fu) for a few seconds, and, presto, the healing is completed. Patients, we are told, suddenly feel better. Okay, how do you test that?
EXTRA arranged through a modern, trendy health club on the West Side of Los Angeles, to find, with the assistance of Dr. Fleishman, five people who have noticeable and constant pain of a kind that could be easily recognized if there were any changes. Two alternates were requested. One was supplied and utilized.
Each of the six subjects (5 for the test and one alternate) were screened before the test by Dr. Fleishman and myself, with Randi and the producers and cameras present, and each selected a number which they then attached to their clothing.
1 - Mary had lower back pain caused by scoliosis. She had pain to the touch that went down her right leg. On a scale of 1-10, she rated her pain as a 4 or 5.
2 - Gary had neuropathy-caused pain in his feet, especially the left foot, causing numbness in his toes and pain and a burning sensation in the ankle. He rated his pain as a 4.
3. Nadine had carpel tunnel syndrome that causes a tingling sensation and numbness in the fingers after about five seconds of pressure applied to the wrist.
4. Paula had an inflammed tendon and adjacent nerve that, when pressed, caused pain rated as a 7 to the touch.
5. Don had severe pain in his right knee, which he rated as a 10 when Dr. Fleishman pressed on a particularly tender spot.
6. (Alternate 1). Miranda had lower back and hip pain, tender to the touch, which she rated as a 5.
For the test, Dr. Yuen was brought in and introduced to the 5 subjects seated in front of him (he sat in a chair about 5 feet away). Each of them informed Dr. Yuen of their problem and pain. The subjects were seated close to each other (each chair about an inch apart from the next), but he claimed it would not matter and that he could heal each person individually. The subjects were numbered 1-5 from left to right (looking at them as Yuen was). The five of them were blindfolded using a very effective blindfold called the "Mindfold Relaxation Mask" that was deemed appropriate by Randi for preventing the subjects from knowing which one of them Dr. Yuen would be healing.
Dr. Yuen then selected a number from an envelope. Whichever number he selected, from 1-5, that would be the person he would heal for that trial. By chance he should get one of the five. That is, if on every one of the five rounds one subject reported a reduction of pain, by chance Dr. Yuen would have worked on one of them. Of course, this protocol was not as tight as we would have liked it to be, since it was entirely possible that more or less than one each time would report a change, and the change could be better or worse. But Dr. Yuen made it quite clear that he could isolate a single patient, cause a reduction in pain, and that he could do this 5 out of 5 times. So that was the test we were running as a preliminary for him to win the million dollar JREF challenge.
ROUND ONE. 1-Mary reported a reduction in her lower back pain, from a 4/5 to a 2, and 3-Nadine reported a dramatic improvement in the numbness in her fingers, from 5 seconds to the onset of symptoms in the pre-exam, to 30 seconds in this trial, and the numbness was significantly less. Dr. Yuen had selected the number of and was working on 4-Paula, who reported no change at all and her pain remained the same at 7. This ended the formal test. Dr. Yuen claimed he could get 5 out of 5, and he failed the first round.
ROUND TWO. Extra wanted to film a total of 5 rounds, which we agreed to as long as it was made clear in the program that the formal test was over. In that second round 2-Gary reported a noticable improvement. Dr. Yuen had selected 5-Don. Dr. Yuen failed again and was now 0/2.
But, as we prepared for Round Three, Randi and I noticed some activity surrounding 5-Don, who, when he discovered that he was the one who was worked on, suddenly felt better! He was walking around proclaiming that his limp was gone. Even though when Dr. Fleishman tested him for Round Two his pain was as intense as it was in Round One and in the pre-exam, now he was claiming he felt better. After the sessions I interviewed him briefly. I asked him: "Were you surprised that you suddenly felt better?" He said "No, not at all, because I do a lot of energy work and I believe in this type of healing." That would seem to explain what happened when he discovered he had been Dr. Yuen's subject--a classic example of placebo effect.
In ROUNDS THREE AND FOUR Dr. Yuen also missed, leaving him at 0/4. Finally, in ROUND FIVE, Dr. Yuen got a hit. He selected 1-Mary, and she reported that her lower back felt "appreciably better." It should be noted that 1-Mary is a former ballet dancer who was still lean and muscular. With each round, in order to "test" the level of her pain (in order to rate it on a 1-10 scale), she stretched (and quite limberly at that). I noticed that each time she seemed more flexible than the time before. As my wife is a former ballet dancer herself, she informs me that such an improvement in lower back pain would be expected just from the stretching. So even Dr. Yuen's 1/5 performance is marginal at best.
Randi and I recognize, of course, that this protocol was less quantifiable than we would have liked because of the subjectivity of reporting pain, and the fact that it would have been better to have five new patients with each round so there could be no improvement effect with the regular testing, poking, stretching, etc. Nevertheless, even in these less than ideal conditions, Dr. Yuen did no better than random chance.
Dr. Fleishman, who consults at the health club from where the subjects were selected, reported to EXTRA! that "something significant happened here today," Randi and I reported the simple facts of the experiment, with the proper conclusion that the null hypothesis (that Dr. Yuen would do no better than chance) could not be rejected. We did not hear Dr. Yuen's interview, but our psychic powers tell us that he will report that he healed several people.
When I am notified of the program's air date I will post a notice. Randi will write a more formal report for his next column in Skeptic.