Believable or Not? The Magus of Java, and the Hard Work of Saying Why
This is the third of three connected pieces. The first asked what happens when science stops asking questions. The second looked at what dogs know. This one hands the question to you.
Watch it first. Decide later.
In 1988, the brothers Lorne and Lawrence Blair released Ring of Fire: An Indonesian Odyssey, a documentary series for the BBC and PBS drawn from a decade of travel through the Indonesian archipelago. In one segment of the episode East of Krakatoa, they filmed a man in a Chinatown district in Java.
He asked them not to use his name. They called him Dynamo Jack. Years later he became known as John Chang, and the system he practised is called Mo Pai — neikung, or internal power, a lineage art rooted in Taoist alchemy.
Roughly thirty minutes of 1988 television is the entire visual record of this tradition. Every copy in circulation descends from that footage.
Watch the whole thing before you read another word. I am not going to tell you what to think about it, and I would rather you formed a first impression without me standing beside you.
What the footage shows
- He shocks people by touching them — Lawrence Blair, and a sceptical sound recordist. Their muscles spasm involuntarily. An assistant has to hold and ground the person.
- He treats Lorne Blair's eye infection, directing what he calls chi through a needle, and later works on a patient using his hands rather than needles.
- He lights a rolled-up sheet of newspaper, held at a distance, apparently by projecting heat from his hand.
- He drives a chopstick through a solid table.
- In later material, he lights a standard LED by holding it — and, reportedly, catches an air-rifle pellet in his hand.
A small point of accuracy, and it matters: the story is usually told as "he caught a bullet." The sourced accounts say an air-rifle pellet. Those are very different objects. When you are assessing a claim, always check whether the version you were given has been quietly upgraded.
Why this is not the usual guru story
I want to be fair to the man, because the ordinary pattern of the fraudulent mystic does not fit him well.
Points that count in his favour
- He asked for the footage to be withdrawn. After an incident at lunch — a splinter from the chopstick drew blood on a guest — he said he had broken two rules of his sect: never display in public, never draw blood. He asked the Blairs to pull the segment. They did. Later releases of Ring of Fire went out without it, and Lawrence Blair has confirmed in interviews that this was at Chang's request.
- He never sold it. No seminars. No channel. No courses, no certificates, no merchandise. He accepted a small number of students and went back to treating patients in obscurity.
- He did not seek the camera. The crew found him because a member of their team was ill.
A man holding the most commercially valuable demonstration reel of its kind, asking for it to be destroyed, is not the behaviour of somebody running a grift.
Points that count against
- There is no controlled test with a published result. A 1997 follow-up brought instruments and a small group of American scientists. What exists from it is more footage — not a paper, not a protocol, not a measurement anyone can check.
- Every effect has a known conjuring equivalent. Stage performers ignite paper with concealed chemicals or a palmed heat source. High-voltage, low-amperage current produces exactly those involuntary spasms and is standard equipment. A pellet can be palmed. A table can be prepared.
- The camera never shows what a sceptic would need. We rarely see a hand fully open before the paper lights. We do not see the whole bodies of the people holding the LED. The table is not examined.
- Even sympathetic accounts contain an oddity: the "charge" that lights an LED reportedly does not register on a voltmeter. If that is true, it is either extraordinary or it is a clue.
So what do I think?
Honestly? I do not know. And I have stopped treating that as a failure.
Notice the shape of the evidence here, because it is different from the other two posts in this series. With the dog that detected cancer, there is a mechanism and there are blinded trials. With the terrier Jaytee, there is real data and a real methodological argument between serious people. Here there is remarkable footage, an unusually clean-handed subject, and no test.
That means the strongest argument for John Chang is a character argument, not a physical one. He behaved like a man with nothing to sell. That is genuinely worth something — and it is not the same thing as proof, and I will not pretend it is.
(That line, in various wordings, is usually credited to the physicist Richard Feynman. I have never been able to find it in anything he actually published — which is, if you think about it, rather appropriate.)
Here is what I keep returning to. If the footage is a performance, it is a very good one, and the performer then did the single least profitable thing available to him. If it is not a performance, then something happened in a room in Java in 1988 that our current physics cannot account for.
Both of those are interesting. Only one of them is boring — and it is the one where we decide in advance and stop looking.
Over to you
I am not asking you to believe it. I am asking you to say why.
That is a harder and far more useful skill than having an opinion. Anyone can say "fake" or "real." Explaining which specific detail convinced you, and what evidence would change your mind, is the thing that separates thinking from reacting.
See English With Your Ears — Language Review
Check your understanding
- Why was the man called "Dynamo Jack" in the 1988 film?
- a) It was his stage name
- b) He asked the film-makers not to use his real name
- c) The Blairs could not pronounce his name
- d) It was a translation of Mo Pai
- Why did John Chang ask for the footage to be withdrawn?
- a) He was not paid enough
- b) He said he had broken two rules of his sect
- c) He thought the filming was poor quality
- d) He wanted to sell it elsewhere
- What does the writer say is the strongest point against the footage?
- a) Chang refused to be filmed again
- b) The Blairs were not scientists
- c) There is no controlled test with a published result
- d) Nobody in Java remembers him
- What correction does the writer make about a famous detail?
- a) It was a chopstick, not a needle
- b) It was an air-rifle pellet, not a bullet
- c) It was 1998, not 1988
- d) It was a candle, not newspaper
- What kind of argument does the writer say is strongest for Chang?
- a) A physical argument
- b) A mathematical argument
- c) A character argument
- d) A historical argument
- What is the writer's own conclusion?
- a) The footage is definitely genuine
- b) The footage is definitely staged
- c) He does not know, and does not treat that as a failure
- d) The question is not worth asking
Answers
1 b · 2 b · 3 c · 4 b · 5 c · 6 c
Question 5 is the hard one. A character argument is about how a person behaves; a physical argument is about measurement. Knowing which kind you are being offered is a skill worth having for life, not just for this article.
Twelve words worth owning
| Word | Meaning | Used in the post |
|---|---|---|
| footage (n., uncountable) | recorded film or video | "thirty minutes of footage" |
| to withdraw (v.) | to take something back; remove it | "asked for the footage to be withdrawn" |
| involuntarily (adv.) | without choosing to; not controlled | "Their muscles spasm involuntarily" |
| a grift (n., informal) | a dishonest scheme to get money | "somebody running a grift" |
| conjuring (n.) | magic tricks; illusion | "a known conjuring equivalent" |
| to palm (v.) | to hide a small object in your hand | "A pellet can be palmed" |
| sceptic / skeptic (n.) | someone who doubts a claim until it is proven | "what a sceptic would need" |
| protocol (n.) | the exact agreed method of an experiment | "not a protocol" |
| oddity (n.) | a strange detail that does not fit | "contain an oddity" |
| obscurity (n.) | the state of being unknown | "back to treating patients in obscurity" |
| to account for (phr. v.) | to explain | "our physics cannot account for" |
| in advance (phrase) | before something happens | "we decide in advance" |
Grammar focus: the language of belief and doubt
English gives you a whole ladder of certainty. Most learners use only the top and bottom rungs. Use the middle.
| Level | Structures |
|---|---|
| Certain | It must be… / There is no doubt that… / I am convinced… |
| Likely | It is probably… / It seems to me… / I suspect… / The chances are… |
| Possible | It might / could be… / It is possible that… / Perhaps… |
| Doubtful | I doubt… / I am not convinced… / That strikes me as unlikely… |
| Certain (negative) | It can't be… / There is no way… |
Note the grammar trap: for guessing about the past, use modal + have + past participle:
✓ "He must have hidden it in his hand."
✓ "The table could have been prepared beforehand."
✗ "He must hide it." (wrong tense — this means a present rule)
Speaking task: the four-step argument
This is the structure used by every good debater, and it works in writing too. Practise saying all four steps out loud.
- Claim. "I think the newspaper scene is staged."
- Evidence. "Because we never see his hand fully open before it ignites."
- Concession. "Admittedly, the camera angle may simply be poor."
- Response. "Even so, a serious demonstration would have fixed that."
Useful phrases for step 3 — conceding. Conceding a point makes you sound more confident, not less:
Admittedly… / Granted… / To be fair… / I accept that… / That may well be true, but…
Writing task
Write two paragraphs of about 120 words each.
- Paragraph 1: Argue that the footage is genuine. Use at least three phrases from the certainty ladder.
- Paragraph 2: Argue that it is staged. Use at least one concession (Granted…) and one past modal (could have been…).
Then answer this in one sentence: What single piece of evidence would change your mind? If you cannot answer that, you do not have an opinion — you have a preference.
Discussion
- Does it matter that he refused to profit from it? Is that evidence, or only character?
- Which is stronger: seeing something with your own eyes, or reading a controlled study you did not witness? Why?
- In your culture, are there abilities that older people speak about and younger people dismiss? Who do you think is right?
- Why do you think the story is usually told as "a bullet" and not "an air-rifle pellet"?
Ross Cline · rosscline.com
Sources and further reading: Lorne and Lawrence Blair, Ring of Fire: An Indonesian Odyssey (BBC/PBS, 1988), episode East of Krakatoa. Kosta Danaos, The Magus of Java (2000) and Nei Kung: The Secret Teachings of the Warrior Sages (2002). Jim McMillan, Seeking the Master of Mo Pai (2011). Contemporary discussion and sceptical objections collected at martialdevelopment.com and the Mo Pai Archive. Note that no peer-reviewed measurement of these effects appears to exist.
