Natasha Demkina Summary and Update
(The Girl with "X-Ray" Eyes...)

This page presents a summary of the issue regarding the test that skeptics (CSICOP - CSMMH) did with Russian psychic Natasha Demkina and also some update information on it (and on Natasha Demkina's phenomenon as well).

About Natasha and "her" claim: Natasha Demkina is a russian girl, seventeen years old in 2004. It is said that she claims to look inside people with her unaided eyes and spot diseases and similar conditions in organs and tissues.

About the Test Performed by skeptics from CSICOP and CSMMH: in May 1, 2004, CSICOP helped the Discovery Channel in a documentary about Natasha Demkina. They carried out a test to try to see if Natasha really has the powers it is said that she has. The researchers claim to have found evidence of absence of any true powers in Natasha.

I present right below the main links to where I discuss this issue deeply. And right after the links, further below on this page, I present a summary of the issue and an update on it.

Links for in-Depth Analysis:

1- A critical evaluation of the test CSICOP and CSMMH did with 17-year-old Russian girl Natasha Demkina, who claims to be able to look into people's bodies with unaided eyes and to spot diseases and similar conditions in organs and tissues. This Link.

2- A rebuttal to the answer that CSMMH did to their critics on Natasha's test. This link.

3- Still Natasha... An analysis of Ray Hyman´s article (May 2005) in the Skeptical Inquirer about their sloppy tests with Natasha Demkina. This link.

4- Neverending Natasha... A critique of Ray Hyman's article (Sep/Oct 2005) in the Skeptical Inquirer where he, once more, tries to save his... "test" on Natasha. This link.

5- Important information about Natasha Demkina and the test she went through performed by CSICOP. This Link (off site).

6- Andrew Skolnick (executive director of CSMMH... and main designer of the notorious test), a most bizarre researcher... This Link.

7- The James Randi Educational Foundation (JREF) internet forum: a pigsty run by rats... This Link.

Summary and Update (last modified on February 8, 2006):

The first interesting point to discuss, or better, to present, is what I myself think about Natasha. Many skeptics that see me pointing out so harshly the numerous flaws in the test performed by CSICOP/CSMMH think that I am a supporter of Natasha, and that I am a believer in her powers. Surprisingly enough, I am not...

Until quite recently, I thought Natasha was basically an honest girl that deserved to be treated with respect. Basically I still think she most likely is honest. But some "recent information" revealed by a member of the skeptic forum at James Randi Educational Foundation (JREF) website (the member nicknamed BillC) has led me to have some, say, "preliminary doubts" concerning Natasha's true feelings and intentions. Anyway, my hypotheses concerning Natasha are the same to the ones that I held more than a year ago, when I first looked into this issue: 1- Deliberate fraude. 2- Unconscious fraude plus cold reading. 3- Minor paranormal abilities (perhaps telepathy) plus cold reading. 4- Strong paranormality. Of these, I thought, and still think, that number 4 is almost impossible (but, of course, not impossible); number 1 seemed to be very unlikely, for even CSICOP researcher Richard Wiseman said in the documentary (Discovery Channel) that Natasha seemed honest, and all the personnel of the documentary was in agreement as to her honesty (although they were split in half as to the veridicality of her powers); number 2 is the most simple hypothesis, but I tend to believe that number 3 is the correct one. She may have, thus (in my humble opinion), some mild paranormal abilities, rather weak and erratic, that nevertheless, may be of true value in making many trustworhty diagnostics. However, this hypothesis number 3 leads to the conclusion that she may be at the same time making many wrong diagnosis, either stating false negatives (saying that someone is not ill when actually the person is ill) or false positives (saying that someone is ill when actually the person is not). This renders Natasha's diagnostic practice as something potentially highly dangerous, and all scientific people should try to help her understand this. The fact that she herself decided to go to medical school (in perhaps the best medical school of Russia) seemed to me to be a clear evidence that she was trying seriously and responsibly to learn about her "powers". Perhaps in the end she would conclude by herself that she has no power (or she would conclude otherwise, and manage to prove it beyond doubt).

That is basically the way I saw things regarding Natasha.

As to the skeptic researchers who tested her, I had bitter criticism towards them in this issue (psychologists Ray Hyman and Richard Wiseman from CSICOP, and non-scientist Andrew Skolnick from CSMMH, who, surprisingly enough, was the one who designed the test... - Skolnick is basically a photographer and a journalist, who worked for some years in the JAMA; he claims to be a medical journalist, and he holds a master's degree (Magister Scientiae) from Columbia University that he got about twenty years ago...; nevertheless, he is unimaginably feeble in his knowledge of science in general, and of biomedical issues more specifically; he knows just nothing of parapsychology whatsoever). And my criticism to them just keeps growing bitterer and bitterer as time goes bye... (and the more I get informed about the details of the test and about the attitude of these researchers).

Until the test ended, the researchers had not actually done anything that can be considered unacceptable (though serious mistakes had happened). But, surprisingly enough, after the test, the researchers just decided to violate their own protocols in deplorable ways, and countless times. This completely unnecessary and unethical behaviour has given Natasha all the legitimacy to be highly wary (and even righteously disgusted) at skeptics in general, and for this, society must blame CSICOP (and her little sister CSMMH). They failed to live up to their social duty.

Problems Before, During, and After the test:

1- The researchers did not get the specifics of Natasha's claims directly from her. They had a full month to do it, but they did not do it at all. Ray Hyman decided instead to look up more than 230 sites on the internet... As a consequence, in no documented source (or reliable witness's account of Natasha's claims) could anyone find evidence supporting the researcher's claim that Natasha's claim was "such" and "such". (The only exception was Monica Garnsey´s report, that I present and comment further below on this page).

2- When the researchers presented to Natasha (via Monica Garnsey, producer and director of the documentary for the Discovery Channel) the protocols of the test, five days before it, they already knew that most likely they would not be able to provide medical proof of the volunteers' alleged clinical conditions. Nevertheless, this promise (to present these clinical documents) still remained in the protocols... (see this link for a criticism to it).

3- Right before the test (see this link), Natasha complained of two clinical conditions. These two conditions seemed beyond the example conditions provided in the protocols, and seemed beyond Natasha's claims as verified and documented by the researchers.

4- Natasha was convinced by Richard Wiseman to accept these two alien conditons by deceiving reasoning (this link). At this moment, too, Wiseman actually gave Natasha the legitimacy to say that she was being tested in only five conditions, and not in seven.

5- Two of the volunteers (at least) seemed to be improperly blinded. This includes the man with the metal plate on his skull (who raised his eyebrow at the exact moment that the camera was being pointed to him...), and the woman with the upper third of the left lung resected (see her photo further below for evidence of it). This violated the protocols.

6- Two of the volunteers allegedly had had their appendix removed (which was not acceptable according to the protocols).

7- The volunteers simply never showed any medical proof whatsoever of their alleged clinical conditions, neither before the test, nor after it (see this link). This alone completely invalidates the test. Even the researchers have just no idea if the volunteers had indeed any clinical conditon at all.

8- Violating the rule number 25 of the protocols, the researchers decide to issue terminal verdicts concerning Natasha's power. Ray Hyman appears in the documentary saying that Natasha is living an illusion (even though the protocols clearly stress that the test could not yield this kind of certainty... - This rule number 25 stresses that: "It is imperative that the Test Proctor be allowed to explain in the Discovery Channel program that the CSICOP/CSMMH test is not in any way a definitive test. It is too simple and brief to determine the truth of Natasha's claims with comfortable certainty. It can only help decide whether further study of Natasha's claimed abilities are warranted."). Richard Wiseman appears saying that "She had the claim, we tested it, she did not pass the test", and further, in a report to a newspaper, saying that "a failure is a failure" (which would only be valid statements if the test had not had so many violations of protocols from the part of the researchers themselves). And Andrew Skolnick, who ended up not being interviewed by the Discovey Channel (despite the fact that he was the designer of the test...) due to his unsocial character, decided to compensate for this by putting on his website (CSMMH) the terminal verdict that he has closed the chapter on Natasha... So cute!

All this was (and is) not only unethical, but unnecessary too. Borrowing an insightful expression that was often used by late skeptic and true humanist Carl Sagan, CSICOPers decided to through in the trash long-term benefits (i.e. a proper and honest action in society that would yield trust from the part of many pro-spiritualism scientists and countless laymen as well) and decided to embrace, instead, short-term advantages (i.e. to make up a "Breaking News" tale of another debunking just to sell some issues of the Skeptical Inquirer, plus a further handful of short-sighted advantages).

There is just no way to pretend that something that is dead is actually alive. The test was terribly flawed. And to pretend, instead, that it is highly valid (as CSICOPers have been doing) is just like summoning the dead for a jihad war against believers of another sect. No one needs psychic powers to forsee the fate of such an army...

.......................................

Some Recent Additional Information and Developments, from December 2004 to January 2006:

Some months ago, I was told that Andrew Skolnick, executive director of the CSMMH, and main designer of this fiasco test with Natasha Demkina, was directing heavy charges against me in the skeptic forum Museum of Hoaxes (This Link). So, I started to fight Skolnick there, starting on page 15 of the thread. From then on, I started to see in Skolnick a person with an unimaginable amount of dishonesty in his soul and in his mind. From the day of the test on (i.e. from May 1, 2004 onwards), it seems that Skolnick has been fully committed to a psychopathic jihad to prove to the world that his backyard test has value... He is just unstoppable. And utterly pathetic. I chased him in the forum Museum of Hoaxes page after page, revealing each and every single one of his lies. When he was right, I fully acknowledged and even performed changes in my online texts. He, however, never admits a mistake (with one exception to date). He is so uncivilized that, even though it was he that started the thread there, the moderators got fed up of him and decided to close the thread (see this link, final messages and message from moderator "Boo").

I decided to chase Skolnick also at Wikipedia, entry "Natasha Demkina". There, even though I had never heard of this entry before, he decided to change my credentials (i.e. personal info) from "Julio Siqueira" (i.e. no credentials) to "Julio Siqueira Elementary English Teacher". This because he had said, just some days before in the forum Museum of Hoaxes, that I am not a biologist (even though he fully knew that he was lying). At Wikipedia, Skolnick behaved in a maniac way to the point of being offensive to three Wikipedia mediators until the point they locked the entry to block any further editing from him (after the mediator Edwardian strongly stressed that neither I nor Skolnick should edit the entry any further, Skolnick decided to behave in truly psychopathic fashion and altered the entry more than 25 times!!! - see this link to witness this absurdity).

Skolnick tried another strike at www.amazon.com. There, in the page about Victor Stenger's book "Has Science Found God," he published a phoney book review that only said one thing: Julio Siqueira is not a microbiologist. But he knew all the while that he was lying (and God knows why he decided to lie in this issue!). So he got banned from www.amazon.com, and his "book review" is now in the trash section of it.

Banned from the Museum of Hoaxes, from Wikipedia (actually locked out...), and from Amazon.com, Skolnick turned to his old friend Randi for shelter and joined the thread discussing Natasha Demkina at Randi's forum (this link). There, he lied frenetically, and I joined the thread on page 11. I thought they would ban me the day after, but the robustness of my arguments was so impressive and respectable that I managed to remain there for almost three full weeks! In the end, the moderator just had to make up an excuse for banning me and getting rid of the everlasting full blown expose of Skolnick's (and also Hyman's and Wiseman's) sloppiness. Understandable...

A description of Skolnick's main attacks can be found at this link.

All this while, some information came out. I will point out the most important of it:

1- Although Natasha's agent, Will Stewart, claims that no one of Natasha's people (including him) saw the volunteers before the test, the doctor who recruited the volunteers and conducted many of them to the test room confirmed Skolnick's version of this fact. According to this doctor, Dr. Barrie Cassileth, Natasha and all her party saw the volunteers and said, in Russian, that they should be the volunteers for the test (just providencially, one of the volunteers understands Russian and reported this to Dr. Cassileth - someone in Natasha's party said; it is not clear if it was Natasha herself, but this does not change the situation). Even though it seems certain that Natasha could not get any feedback about the subjects by seeing them outside the building (Skolnick even said that the woman with the artificial hip joint replacement walks without the aid of a cane), it is bad that her agent denied having seen them if they actually saw them.

[It just dawned on me that indeed Natasha could not get any feedback whatsoever through these exchanges of text messages during the breaktime of the test. It is so because the only condition about which she could possibly benefit from feedbacks was the "resected upper third of left lung". As I show below, this volunteer had one shoulder lower than the other. But it was not the left shoulder. It was the right one. So Natasha could indeed get from a text message the information, say, that even though it was the left lung that had a portion of it removed, the right shoulder could have got lower because of this operation anyway (I do not know if this is the case; just guessing). However, this volunteer was the very first one that Natasha had to identify, and so she just did not have any time to pick up the phone until she made her decision about this condition (and got it right).]

2- Lung specialist Dr. Yale Rosen answered a question that I presented to him almost a year ago. He answered it after I repeated it recently (a year ago, he had not received my email). I thought that Natasha's drawing (presented in the Discovery Channel documentary) might be indicative of sarcoidosis on the macroscopic level (though not representative of sarcoidosis on the cellular level). Dr. Rosen explained that the drawing also does not present any feature of sarcoidosis at the macroscopic level. Therefore, according to Dr. Rosen, Natasha's drawing is not representative of sarcoidosis at all (see this link).

3- Until some time ago, all that could be said of Natasha's claim was this:

From the Discovery Channel documentary:

Natasha: "The mechanism of my vision is pretty simple. I have two ways of seeing. The first is normal, like everyone else. The second kind of vision I call medical vision. When the medical vision is switched on, I see general traits (according to a feedback that I now received from a man that speaks Russian and that tried carefully to understand what Natasha was saying in this passage, this "general traits" can be better translated as "general outlines" or "general features") . Like when you open an anatomy book you see the anatomical structure. If i need to examine a particular organ more closely, let's say, the heart, lung, kidney or liver, I focus more closely on this organ. I can see all the processes at work. For example circulation of the blood. or respiration. I love to obsorve it. The reason is that there is a spectrum of such bright colors. In ordinary life, I've never seen such comnbination of colors. You could only perhaps compare it with the sunset."

Narrator: "Natasha claims to be able to see through clothes into her patients bodies, but not into innanimte objects, and not into herself."

From CSICOP's researchers, reporting Monica Garnsey's feedback (this link): "I double-checked a few things with her last night. Since the age of ten, a few days after having a religious dream, and also having had an operation to have her appendix removed that went wrong, swabs were left in her and she had to have another operation, Natasha has claimed to be able to see into people. . . . Natasha can see through clothing, but not see what someone is holding behind their back. She cannot see inside people if she shuts her eyes. Daylight is better. She does not need to talk to them to diagnose. She can also diagnose from a photograph. She usually scans people all over first, by making them stand up fully clothed and looking them up and down; delivers a general diagnosis; and then goes into more detail when the patients have discussed their concerns with her. She says she can certainly see ribs, heart, lungs, initially in general "like in an anatomy book," but can see right down to the cell level if she concentrates. She says that she can examine the whole body, but it can give her a bad headache if she does too much. The idea of restricting the test to the chest area appeals [to her], though her claims extend further than that."

I felt that this information was weak to say that Natasha can diagnose well at any level below two centimeters of resolution. I thought this way because, in the documentary done by Discovery Channel, there is just no mention whatsoever about this cellular vision ability. (Andrew Skolnick does have a pre-release version of the documentry which contains one brief mention to it, but it is mostly irrelevant too). Monica Garnsey only said that Natasha could see right down to the cellular level if she concentrated. Without probing deeper into what Natasha means by "to concentrate" (that is, when can she do it? How can she do it and for how long?), it is treacherous to use this as a parameter for understanding her claim (and for designing tests). Also, it is necessary to know, from her, what about the "in-between area" (i.e. from cellular level to those higher structures that she "can certainly see"). Are they easy to see? Are they not? Natasha claims to have some odd "incoherences" (or limitations) in her special vision; she claims not to be able to look into herself. (Further, Skolnick claims... that Natasha claims not to be able to see intestinal worms, and some of them are pretty big indeed...). Therefore, all that I saw (in the material that we could really trust, i.e., Discovery Channel documentary plus Monica Garnsey's report) was a claim that she could certainly see some rather big structures (more than 2 centimeters wide), listed right above in Monica Garnsey's report.

Then, recently, a JREF forum member BillC (nickname) made a breakthrough discovery in Russian (in Russian, not in Russia!). He found what seems to be Natasha Demkina's own site in Russia. According to BillC, on January 11, 2006, there was a passage in Natasha's site where she said that: "This vision is very interesting. It is possible to freely control, that is, to diagnose at will. I see the internal anatomy of human organs, and how physiological and biochemical and other processes in the organism flow. It is possible to see the pathology of any organ at the microscopic level." (in Russian: Это зрение очень интересно. Им можно свободно управлять, т.е. диагностировать по собственному желанию. Я вижу внутреннюю анатомию человеческих органов, и как протекают физиологические и биохимические, а также другие процессы в организме. Можно посмотреть патологию любого органа на микроскопическом уровне.). Unfortunately it seems that this passage is no longer at her site. However, similar passages can be found there now. At this link, I made a translation (tentative) of her site, retrieved on February 1, 2006.

At this link, we get to know that (please, note that I am relying on the translation that I have available for me, which can be faulty, and relying on the notion that this is indeed Natasha's site, containing her own claims, as it clearly seems to be) they have set up a center for diagnosing and treating people using alternative medicine... At this link, we get to know about the methods used for diagnosing patients. Here we read: "This kind of diagnostics demands greater power expenses from the expert spending viewing of an organism of the patient. Such diagnostics is made with the purpose of definition of the reasons of disease. Thus the emphasis is done on viewing of interaction of all systems of an organism (hormonal, cardiovascular, central nervous system, etc.). Frequently it is necessary to carry out supervision over the processes occuring at a cellular level, revealing thus even virus diseases." (in Russian: Этот вид диагностики требует больших энергетических затрат со стороны специалиста, проводящего просмотр организма больного. Такая диагностика производится с целью определения причин заболевания. При этом упор делается на просмотр взаимодействия всех систем организма (гормональной, сердечно-сосудистой, центральной нервной системы и т.д.). Зачастую приходится осуществлять наблюдение за процессами, происходящими на клеточном уровне, выявляя при этом даже вирусные заболевания.). Note that it is not clear if it is Natasha who will be spotting viruses inside cells. But, if not her, who else?...

Also there is a report there with an interview with Natasha (this link) for the Komsomol Truth (Комсомольская Правда) on November 1, 2004. There she appears saying that: "In other test I was offered to specify one person from seven which on a body has a scar. And there there were two women with absolutely identical scars, and in the same place. Only the reasons of an origin of these рубцов were different: at one cut out an appendix, and another had a gynecologic operation. I have told about this misunderstanding the commission, and they speak, that I should specify only one person. I психанула also have shown on that, that with gynecology because it is more serious, than аппендицит. And for offset of the commission, it appears, the woman with рубцом from аппендицита was necessary. So to me have not included one more point." (in Russian: В другом тесте мне предлагалось указать на одного человека из семи, у которого на теле есть шрам. А там оказались две женщины с совершенно идентичными шрамами, причем в одном и том же месте. Только причины происхождения этих рубцов были разные: у одной вырезали аппендикс, а у другой была гинекологическая операция. Я сказала об этом недоразумении комиссии, а они говорят, что я должна указать только на одного человека. Я психанула и показала на ту, что с гинекологией, потому что это более серьезно, чем аппендицит. А для зачета комиссии, оказывается, нужна была женщина с рубцом от аппендицита. Так мне не засчитали еще один балл.).

These paragraphs above seem to indicate that it is indeed part of Natasha's own claims to be able to look pretty well at the cellular level (and even deeper than that, in order to spot viruses) and also that she can see cirurgical scars on the skin of patients, and not only inside the patients. These are two points that I have had disagreement with skeptics, especially with Andrew Skolnick, in the recent past (the evidence that they had gathered to support the notion that these were indeed Natasha's claims were only very feeble evidence). I now am strongly inclined to think that the resected part of the esophagus and the missing appendix were not really beyond Natasha's claims (though they might truly belong to the weird "incoherent group" of structures misteriously beyond her capabilities, as is the case with her inability to look into herself). Skolnick has recently said that Natasha claims not to be able to see worms inside people. I do not trust anything that Skolnick says (many times he lies, other times he just forgets what he had for dinner the day before...). But if she really cannot see any kind of worms, then possibly appendixes might be beyond her capabilities too. Some worms are very much the size and shape of the appendix, which, not coincidentally, is also known as "vermiform appendix" (wormlike appendix). The parasite Ascaris lumbricoides has dimensions quite similar to human appendixes.  

I must say that I did not get a good impression of this site of Natasha. It looks as if she is indeed trying to get money out of it, that is, out of something that she herself does not know exactly what it is (unless, of course, if she is a deliberate fraude, in which case she would, then, know very well what she has...). I think it is very bad. However, it is difficult to know exactly what "environment" is surrounding Natasha. It is obvious that, most likely, she is surrounded by hundreds of people who deeply want her to be a miracle, and by many "scientists" too eager to find the paranormal (and too disinterested in having a critical view of it...). All this can only have a bad effect in her critical view of her own phenomenon. I saw a passage in her site that looked like talk between her and a scientist, or a doctor. This scientist seemed to be urging her to go to medical school to learn about her powers and limitations, etc. This is the kind of feedback that people like Natasha really need. I dearly hope she has enough of it to counterbalance the blind belief that, no doubt, surrounds her.

Some Nice Information, Pictorial and Others...:

A picture can tell a thousand words. So, below, I present some pictures that may shed some further light on this whole issue...

The Respected Academics Comming for the Sunday Communal Debunking...

From left to right: Joe Nickell (the trouble maker... doesn't want mommies in tests), Richard Wiseman (also known as Foxy Ricky), Andrew Skolnick (his head had to be copied and pasted from a previous snapshot, for the Discovery Channel personnel simply decided to leave him out of the documentary as much as they could!), and Ray Hyman.

Natasha, The Beautiful (I hope she is indeed honest! As I still believe it...)

The Poor 7 Volunteers...

Artificial Hip-joint Replacement

Metal Plate in Skull

Metal Staples in the Chest

Missing Appendix

Resected Esophagus

Resected Upper Third of Left Lung (to me, her shoulders seem not level, i.e. her right shoulder is lower; she is the only volunteer to have such difference)

None of the Other Previous Volunteers' Conditions

Look Closer. I was not properly blinded by Joe Nickell...


It is easy to see the line of her skin through the glasses following the line of her right cheeks up to the side of her right eye. Just like the guy with a metal plate in his skull, this subject was obviously not properly blinded...

Ray Hyman. Explaining Natasha, or, Revealing Himself...?

(Vested Interests + Biased Outlook = Counterproductive "Debunking"...)

Sinister Omens Loom on the Test's Eve...

Please, comments to: juliocbsiqueira@terra.com.br

Julio Siqueira
Biologist