A Japanese man accused of stabbing an English biologist lecturing on mental telepathy earlier this year says the biologist still controls his thoughts.

Kazuki Hirano is jailed on charges of stabbing Rupert Sheldrake in the leg as he finished speaking on "Memory and Morphic Resonance" on April 2, the final day of the 10th International Conference on Science and Consciousness at La Fonda.

"He's doing testing on the public and using my brain," Hirano said of Sheldrake in a telephone interview during the weekend. "I can hear the voice in my head."

Hirano, 33, of Yokohama, Japan, said he has not seen a psychologist in the four and a half months he has been held in the Santa Fe County Detention Center.

Asked how Sheldrake is controlling his thoughts, Hirano responded in sometimes incomprehensible English: "It's like it makes me very stupid ... kind of like psyche ... accusing the memory. ... It can deceive what I'm feeling or seeing. ... My brain is woken up by telepathy. People can see my mind ... watching me like a scary face."

So far, Hirano has appeared once in court for a hearing before state District Judge Michael Vigil, who set a cash-only bond of $250,000 on charges of aggravated battery and attempt to commit a felony. Hirano is scheduled to appear again Aug. 29 for a pre-trial hearing, with jury selection to begin for a trial Oct. 21.

Hirano said his lawyer, public defender Sydney West, "is coming less" to see him at the jail and that she "is also part of the state" and has told him she doesn't believe Sheldrake is trying to control his mind. West was not available for comment Monday.

Hirano also said Japanese embassy officials "don't want to help me." But Koji Mitsui at the Consulate-General of Japan in Denver said his office sent a letter to West about a month ago, requesting more information about Hirano's case.

Efforts to visit Hirano at the jail have been stalled. Hirano initially called The Message Co., the firm that put on the Conference of Science and Consciousness, asking to talk to a reporter. But county spokesman Stephen Ulibarri said when jail officials asked Hirano to sign a waiver to speak to the media, "he had told them on Friday that he wasn't too sure — those were his exact words — if he wanted to talk to the paper."

In the telephone interview, Hirano accused Sheldrake of lying to make him look crazy. "He knows something but he's hiding," he said.

Asked if he stabbed Sheldrake, as dozens of people witnessed, Hirano said he didn't want to answer that question. But he pleaded that Sheldrake "stop testing me by telepathy" and insisted Sheldrake uses telepathy on everybody, "not just me."

Hirano said he believes in England, Sheldrake could be forced to stop his telepathic testing, but he is not sure about the laws elsewhere. He said his visit to Santa Fe earlier this year to attend the conference was his second trip to the United States. He visited Los Angeles and San Francisco about six months earlier, he said.

Hirano said several times that he needs help, but "I don't know who can help me."

Sheldrake is known for his experiments into mental telepathy. His recent books include Seven Experiments That Could Change the World; Dogs that Know When Their Owners are Coming Home; and The Sense of Being Stared At.

Sheldrake quickly recovered from the stabbing and was able to make a speaking engagement at the Lensic Performing Arts Center a few days later before returning to London. He has not responded to a recent e-mail seeking comment on Hirano's latest comments, but said earlier that from his brief conversation with Hirano before the stabbing, he didn't think Hirano was fluent enough in English to understand the lecture.

Contact Tom Sharpe at 986-3080 or tsharpe@sfnewmexican.com.