Should have had someone like James Randi or Joe Nickell along for that, scientists are not good at detecting fraud.

A number of things didn't quite ring true to me, or at least inconsistent. Something that can light an LED has to be detectable by a voltmeter.

Stopping a bullet has nothing to do with any kind of electricity, definitely a carnival trick type of thing.

Someone's beaten us to it :

http://www.unexplained-mysteries.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=116478

I saw something very similiar to what you are talking about on a Natural Geographic special Bob. (Can't remember the name exactly). But on the program, two Italian scientists ventured into a place where Chi was practiced and the result was about like what you mentioned. I remember that  they too, had some sort of theory about  suggestion and psychology. But I don't remember the entire program as it was a couple of years ago.

Yes, the power of the mind is immense and not just over itself.

'mind over matter', 'power of persuasion', etc...

A focused mind can be a very powerful tool especially when combined with chi energy.

I suppose this is a hoax, too?

If anyone can do these types of things, and it just requires training, why won't even one of these "chi masters" demonstrate their abilities in a real controlled experiment, rather than these stupid anecdotes and magic tricks. All it would require is for even one person to do this consistently.

Just the fact that these groups always hide what they do and how they do it should instantly make us much more skeptical. "Tradition" is not a good excuse for hiding these things. If these things were true, it would benefit the human race immensely for these secrets to be released to the scientific community, so that we can use this knowledge to help people. On the other hand, the fact that it's bullshit would be a great reason for keeping their practice a secret. They won't make any money if people know that they're selling pseudoscience.     

Nice.

Btw, I can light a light bulb too.

http://www.amazon.com/Human-Powered-Light-Bulb/dp/B001EVK3F6

I am quite familiar with my chi. Though, I can't distinguish positive or negative charge of it. It flows as I make it to flow, that's the problem. I'd love to study that man and learn from him. It is a wonder how strong and rough his methods are and yet he doesn't hurt himself. And I was really close to hurting myself several times during my experiments. (as for the other people.... well, at least they feel he really does something) The truth is, that if I'd try such things by myself, I could end up badly. The more skillful I'd be, the more danger would that mean. A failure in manipulating with such powerful forces could mean a permanent damage of nerve system or possibly insanity. No wonder these things are kept in secret.

I don't think it is strange that he can light up a LED, but can't show anything on voltmeter. Electricity is not so simple, there is the so-called "imaginary" component (i) that only some types of electric devices use and that is also sometimes described in calculations or graphs.

Anyway, as he says, he's doing it with his belly chakra. Physical body does not have chakras, it only has corresponding endocrine glands that are connected to each of seven major chakras. He uses the energies of etheric body, not dense-physical. Etheric body has these chakras and meridians that lead around it. I have no idea what sorts of electricity or other forms of energy operate in etheric body. I know how they feel, but not what they are.

But there's a few of important things to notice. Firstly, to study such things means to risk one's dignity, privacy and future, whether there is a success or not. People would usually like to avoid that. Secondly, people who are capable of anything are usually either secretive oddballs (just look at me) or masters of disguise. Thirdly, they have their own job or interests that do not go well with abandoning it all for scientific study. Fourthly, those people may have their own agenda - their sect, guru, master or hierarchy, that is in charge of them. Their agenda may be hostile to publicity and research. Fifthly, the weak psychics may be sensitive and fail in stressful environment. (being dressed only in briefs and poked by James Randi's cane is a good example) And I could go on. Researchers can't expect those people just come and risk everything for a good word. They must receive an actual reward, not an empty promise of million dollar prize. This is not a contest, this is supposed to be a research of what exactly is going on, and the people hired for that should be also paid and their anonymity should be protected.

However, the psychologic factor is only the means to produce the energy. Once the energy is produced, it exists. I already wrote here about this. I once allowed an exalted evangelical preacher to put his hands on me with "the fire of holy spirit". Hell, that was bad. This energy was way too strong, it left me in bad shape for a week. I have manipulated such strong energy before, but always outside of my body, not touching it with my skin.
I am not a Christian and I wasn't in any psycho state at this meeting. I was just curious. The real difference is, that I am consciously aware of my etheric body and everything that happens to it, good or bad. Dunno what other people do with sensory input from their etheric bodies. This is not a thing of belief, although belief might help if the etheric perception is below the threshold of consciousness because of unbelief in such things. The etheric sensory input might be in the great majority of data that our brain processes subconsciously. Everyone should be capable of learning this. I believe it must be much easier that what we commonly achieve in life - like learning a foreign language, learning to drive, etc.

The quickest way to tell when someone is selling you a bill of goods is to ask them if you can inspect the merchandise and they refuse, or cop it out to being a "gift".

Mental tricks are taught and learned as much as a "magician" learns to saw the woman in half, which he really is not doing.

I don't care what you are claiming, if you cant SHOW others, or wont show others, HOW you do something and how it works through your methodology and have it independently kicked around in an independent lab setting with blind tests, you have nothing but a scam.

Woo is woo, no matter what it is dressed up in.

"I saw it with my own eyes"

"The horoscope said I would come into some money, and I found a 20 I lost last week"

If you want to believe in ANYTHING, you will believe in anything. TESTING beyond bias in a controlled setting is the only way to filter out crap.

Claims are like assholes, everyone has one.

If "Chi" were lagit, it would be taught in biology class and chemistry class. I am not impressed with something because it has the "appearance" of being elaborate. A scam is a scam no mater how cleaver it was in being concocted.

Maybe you should suggest this to Myth Busters.

You felt what you wanted to feel or what you expected to feel. Placebos can feel real without being real and all depend on the gullibility of the person wanting to feel something.

Lum, I give you no special treatment just because you are a nice guy. You are in the same boat to me as all the other people who come in here with their unfounded claims. If you had something, it would be WIDELY testable beyond conspiracy and every major science organization and every major credible university would teach/test it it as serious science.

Falling for a show only means you fell for a show and their are really great salespeople, but all being a salesperson means is that you are good at selling something, even if it is crap.

I should add, for Lumininon's beneffit, that the labelling of part of AC current or voltage as 'imaginary' is purely because the mathematics of complex numbers works well when applied to AC circuit theory, as a way to take account of the magnitude and phase angle of AC quantities.

Each waveform can be expressed as an in-phase and 90 degree phase component, with the 90 degree bit identified with the 'imaginary' part of a complex number.

That is plausible, I think.

Yeah, I know, if they want it clarified, I can try, but obviously not time or space to give all the background info to get someone up to speed on this.

Which is why it is so frustrating when people like Luminon glance thru something on a technical or scientific subject, pick up on a few words and think they have some insight into the subject...

It must be a cold day in hell...I agree with Luminon on this one.  

I think he explained it perfectly in post #12... especially about how dangerous this 'stuff' is in the hands of an amateur and without the guidance of a Master. The entire martial arts system is designed around this concept - there are steps in the learning process and you can't build your skills unless you have a firm foundation in the basics and understand the principles behind the techniques. This is why certain Masters will not teach what they know to any old neophyte or, some skeptic off the street.

Another thing... these people doing the documentary experienced something that felt like electricity but, it's not. It's not the same thing as what comes out of the outlet on a wall and this is probably why it can't be detected by any known scientific instruments... they're using the wrong tools.

As far as this being 'woo', while there isn't any way to scientifically verify the existence of chi, that doesn't mean it's not there. ROFLMAO - I know, I sound like a theist defending the existence of god!

Consider the practice of planting by the phases of the moon... some say it's nonsense but, I did it a few years in a row and I know it works. It's taking the basics and going beyond - just as chi does.

They claimed it was lighting that LED, so it is detectable by simple electronics. That had to be something that could be detectable by an electrical meter. So you are contradicting yourself.

The rifle shot thing was also big red flag - nothing obviously connected to any of the other things they were claiming, and a well-known trick.

The chopstick through the table at the end of the video also has nothing to do with electricity and can obviously be a simple magic trick. The fact that he had to push it up from below the table (so that we can't see what's happening) makes me even more skeptical.

Your assertion that, "...this is probably why it can't be detected by any known scientific instruments..." contradicts the fact that he was lighting the LED. Whatever "it" was, it can be detected by a little light bulb.

LOL 100%

Luminon, The complex number set is just like any other number set, an abstract representation of a physical concept. "Imaginary" was a slur given to i by a stubborn few who thought it an impossible idea to define a square of a negative. Like all good science "i" doesn't need its name to prove anything, the adoption of the term imaginary by mathematics is more like a a facetious nod to the history of complex math than any kind of concession that the number is any more imaginary than the reals.

On the real number line you have a couple of defined operations that you should know, each of these describes a thing you "do" to the number to transform it into anther number. To transform 5 to 8 on the real number line, add 3 (ie, move three units along the positive direction) to transform your 5 to 20 you multiply by 4 (ie move in the positive direction until you have four of what you started with).

In the complex plane i is no different to a number on the real line, it is a unit of measure existing in a direction in which one can operate to transform a number. There has to be a difference though, or you would simply have an analogue of the real number line, no point to that, is there? The difference is simple, though, instead of across units of magnitude in the horizontal like the number line, i just takes you 90 degrees away from your starting point. The basic operations are the same as with the reals, if you add i to i you get 2i that is, two units upward on a plane and you can also multiply i's together to take you around the plane 90 degrees at a time.

The important thing to remember is that 'reals' are no more real than the amounts of stuff they refer to in the world just like "imaginaries" (i,j,k) are no more imaginary than the directions they denote in physical space.

Nope, it definitely does not come from the surroundings, it is in the conducting materials and the space immediately around, in the form of displaced electrons.

The energy comes from either chemical processes in batteries, interaction with moving magnetic materials in ordinary generators, photons of light hitting photo-voltaic cells, and so on.

In generators, the energy comes from whatever is causing the shaft to rotate, into mechanical energy of rotation, then via interacting with the magnetic field into electrical energy, which causes one end of the circuit to becoming positively charged relative to the other end.

Propagation of the energy and forces to move the electrons along a wire is driven by the forces defined by Maxwell's equations.

Luminon,

Between 17th and 18th minutes of the following video you can watch an experiment of generating electricity out of ... nothing more than the magnetic field of the earth. 

http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/physics/8-02-electricity-and-magnetism-spring-2002/video-lectures/lecture-17-motional-emf-and-dynamos/

You can watch all Walter Lewin's lectures if you want to learn electricity and magnetism.

100%

 Also, here after minute 43, you can watch lighting out bulbs without wires and even without an ac current. 

http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/physics/8-02-electricity-and-magnetism-spring-2002/video-lectures/lecture-4-electrostatic-potential-and-electric-energy/

Also, did you see that they leave sizable gaps between the blocks?  So, those guys are NOT penetrating 10 blocks with their hands, but they simply crash blocks one by one.

I knew one guy who liked to crash a few bricks every time he visited us, so I did not like to see him much at our place (bricks cost money).  He was a SWAT team commander.  Died of drugs and alcohol abuse at ~45. 

Yah, they put little strips of wood in between the blocks. So momentum is going to part of the physics at hand.

Let me see some guy break a bit of granite. I will not say that it is not possible. But if it happens, it is going to be a matter of basic physics.

A quarter inch thick sheet sound like something that might happen. A six inch cobblestone? Not so likely.

Strength of materials.  Paving stones are not designed to take a shear load.  They are useful to walk on - and even then, the underlying surface had better be flat or the stone will break from people walking on it and it trying to bend to conform to the underlying surface.

Same with concrete blocks - they are strong for compressions loads if you place the block correctly.  What happens when you try to use concrete blocks on their side?  They break.

Bricks - compression strength, not shear strength. 

Shear force is a force along a plane - as if you are attempting to cut through something with a pair of scissors.  Compression force is a force like putting a heavy weight on top of something - like stacking bricks one on top of the other to build a house.  And please note - if you build with bricks, you have to stack them in a pattern so that all the bricks are not all facing the same way and so that the wall is more than one brick thick.  If you have a single layer of bricks, it is a decoration, the real load is supported by the wall behind the bricks.

"Chi" or "ki" is just a way of helping you visualize and focus.  I never got into it, as I can't meditate worth a damn.  My brain just won't shut up and focus.

Yah Sandy, you are sort of where I am at. I have chi and I use it when I need to.

Granted, breaking boards is not something that I do often but where I work, there are lots of cardboard boxes that need to be broken down. Most people will spend too much time trying to rip the boxes apart. I put the right amount of physical force into the weakest part of the box and it falls apart.

Actually, I use the same basic visualization as breaking boards for that task. Aim for a part that is beyond what you are trying to hit. If you are going for a weak spot, the box is going to break. If you try to hit the wrong part of the box, well, nothing astounding will happen.

@cj:

Yah, it is all about the physics. Over the summer, I had a landscaping job at work. It involved cutting flagstone in a straight line. My supervisor (who in a former drill sergeant) could only make a mess of the deal. Basically, he had the idea that being intense makes shit happen.

He is actually one of the best people I have ever worked under. If he says “do this” I know exactly what he wants and I do it. However, if the task is cutting a hundred layers of sedimentary rock, then just blasting away at the task is only going to make a mess.

I can cut flagstone in a straight line. It is a slow process but I get results that going ape shit will not do.

Chi is not energy, certainly not in the sense in which electricity is a flow of energy. It is a more metaphorical usage of the term.

It appears to be a mind technique for focussing your effort for maximal peak impact, or for other actions which involve similar coordination of physical action.

Everything you ever or never wanted to know about Chi (Qi)

You can take it or leave it but, you can't redefine it.