We analyse the normal so that we may know the difference between it and the abnormal. — Dr Ruth Drown
Radionics was founded by Dr Albert Abrams (1863–1924), a native of San Francisco, under the original name of ERA—Electronic Reactions of Abrams. A highly qualified conventional practitioner with an illustrious career and also the advantage of a substantial private fortune, Abrams was able to pursue his researches without reliance on outside funding. Like Hahnemann, the founder of homoeopathy, he was a master of observation and a tireless experimenter and truth-seeker—attributes which eventually led him to make discoveries which brought considerable opprobrium from the medical establishment of the day. Like so many of these outstanding figures, he was also capable of making inspired leaps of judgement.
Abrams’s fundamental discovery was that under certain conditions the human nervous system will react to the energy field of external elements such as persons with disease conditions, samples of diseased tissue and so forth. This reaction would manifest by means of a muscle reflex which could be detected by percussing the abdominal wall. Alternatively, Abrams found that drawing a glass rod across the abdomen could also be used to localise the point of response. Different diseases produced reactions in different parts of the abdomen, and, as Abrams noted, “drugs in homoeopathic dilutions can be detected and identified by the stomach reflex”, which suggested a unique diagnostic method.
He then proceeded to develop a technique which placed a person (known as “the Subject”), with abdomen bared, in series with a patient, i.e., linked by a wire which terminated on the subject’s forehead. He could then diagnose by testing on the healthy subject for response to disease conditions in the patient. Abrams later discovered that certain diseases produced reactions in the same muscle groups, which neatly threw his method off the rails until he hit upon the idea of placing a variable potentiometer (i.e., a rotary control such as might be used to adjust the volume on a hi-fi) in the middle of the cable linking the subject to the patient. Settings of the potentiometer would be found which were unique to each disease, thus making it possible to diagnose a wide range of conditions.
Eventually Abrams discovered that he could diagnose just as accurately using a blood sample from the patient, and he later found out that he could work at a distance with the patient’s sample placed next to the telephone line; such tests were performed over distances of more than 500 miles. He finally discovered that he could work without any form of linking wire between himself and the sample, but not over a distance of more than a mile.
From these basic elements—the reflex muscle reaction to the stimulus of an external energy field, the substitution of a sample from the patient for the patient himself, the creation of a unique value representing a disease or other energy factor, and the possibility of working at a distance—is formed radionics as we know it today.3
Dr Ruth Drown (1892–1963), a chiropractor based in Hollywood, USA, had apparently worked in Abrams’s clinic as a young woman and decided to develop his methods. From the accounts I have read, she was clearly another remarkable figure. Probably as a consequence of her successes and unwillingness to toe the line, the establishment persecuted her to the point of trial and eventual brief imprisonment. In fact, as a result of the Drown trial in 1951, it remains basically illegal, I believe, to practise radionics in the USA.
Drown redesigned the diagnostic instrument into a compact system which gave greater flexibility and extended range. The patient’s blood sample was relocated into a small container in the instrument. She replaced the subject’s abdomen with a small rubber membrane (known as the “stick pad”); the index finger was stroked along the pad while the potentiometers were adjusted, and when the appropriate setting was found—i.e., the circuitry came into balance, indicating a resonance or response in the practitioner— the finger would “stick” on the memb r a n e .4 Her new designs, incorporating a number of potentiometers in series, also allowed longer sequences of numerical values to be created, which enabled her to assemble an atlas of rates covering most of the structures in the human body, many disease types, poisons and toxins, and a range of other factors including emotional states.
Drown sought to define perfect structures, to measure the degree of deviation from perfection and then to rectify any imbalances or deficiencies. Thus, very simply, her rate for the liver is 48; this would be set on the instrument and the deviation from zero tested.5 Any significant reading would indicate a problem either in the liver or elsewhere in the body which was affecting the liver. Her principal treatment method was to feed the “perfect” rate back to the respective diseased location in the patient, either by wires or remotely—the idea being that as new cells were created, they would be healthy and would replace the diseased structures. According to the information available, she claimed many successes. She also placed a priority on treating the endocrine system, and, as radionics emerges as a system of treatment on the dynamic plane, I will show how this ties in with the analysis of the subtle anatomy which has come to dominate present- day radionics, at least in the UK.
What is also of significance is Drown’s use of the technique of treating at a distance— any distance, anywhere in the world—in the process known as “radionic broadcasting”. It was no longer necessary for the patient to be present. Incidentally, the term “broadcasting” is descriptive but probably inaccurate, as no radio or television technology is involved. Whatever the mechanism, there is no doubt in my mind that treatment-at-a-distance works, whether one is broadcasting homoeopathic remedies, radionic (i.e., Drown-type) rates or any other energy factor or vibrational pattern which can be represented as a radionic signature and is appropriate to the patient. Substance itself cannot be broadcast— at least not yet, as far as I know; otherwise we would be in the realm of the matter transporters which form such an integral part of Star Trek technology.
It would seem from the present-day position that virtually anything can be represented by a radionic rate, and this of course includes the entire Materia Medica. It is even possible, in principle, to find rates for remedies which we do not yet have or which are too dangerous to handle, such as radioactive materials. Malcolm Rae’s ever-expanding system has around 24,000 rates which are presented in the form of ratio cards and include the whole acupuncture system of meridians and a vast range of chemicals, drugs, human organ functions, ayurvedic and I Ching concepts and so forth.
THE DEMATERIALISATION OF RADIONICS
Drown was also very involved in esoteric studies, notably of the Kabbala—which amongst other things attempts to explain the underlying structure of reality through the relationships between numbers—and she thus sought to find meaning in the radionic rates through kabbalistic interpretation. Whatever the result of this, she also thought that energy flowed from the universe into the human system via the brain, and that proper distribution of this energy was essential to healthy functioning; in other words, this was a move away from a purely physical conception of health and disease.
Just as Kent, influenced by Swedenborg, switched the focus of homoeopathic diagnosis to the mental and emotional planes and the realms of high-potency prescribing—and thus dematerialised homoeopathy—so Drown’s esoteric line of thought was taken a huge step further by the work of David Tansley and Malcolm Rae (both men regrettably dying quite young).6 Most of their work was done in the UK between approximately 1965 and 1985.
Tansley, a chiropractor, had spent many years studying the writings of Alice Bailey (1880–1949) and drew heavily on her concepts of esoteric anatomy and psychology in introducing a new diagnostic system which reoriented the focus of radionic analysis away from the material plane of organ functions and pathology and towards causation within the human energy (or subtle) body.
Bailey’s work,7 drawn from various Eastern traditions and integrated into a new form, is far too vast even to begin to attempt describing here, and I will simply create a thumbnail sketch of some of what has been appropriated into radionics. I might add that, as the years have gone by, various of these concepts have become commonplace, but during the period the books were written, 1919–1949, they must have seemed like the last word in arcane obscurity.
Bailey proposed a model of (ultimate) reality as being comprised of seven planes of energy, each with its concomitant forms of consciousness. Each plane is comprised of seven sub- planes of increasing quality and fineness, the whole blending into a continuum. Each of these planes also manifests in us as a corresponding energy body, e.g., the etheric body, astral body and so forth.
Human aura’s are no longer a theory, they have been captured by Krillian photography. Researchers such as Harry Oldfield have even released special camera filters to capture this aetheric body imagery.
Briefly, the 7th plane is the Physical, which is subdivided into the solid physical, then liquids, then gases, then four superior levels of etheric matter. It is the energy (p r a n a) of the Etheric plane which vitalises the physical form. Tansley states that the “miasms” reside in the etheric body, and that when activated by an appropriate (morbific) stimulus they will taint the energy reaching the physical body, with results that Hahnemann described at length. (Hahnemann spent 12 years trying to understand why chronic disease exists, and concluded there must be some underlying disturbance which interferes with the vital force, producing chronic disease symptoms. Such miasms can be inherited or acquired.)
I should also note that energy is also distributed through the etheric body via a system of pathways known as nadis, and it may be considered that these in turn externalise as the nervous system.8
The 6th plane is the Astral (or Emotional)—the seat of emotions, desire and illusion, and also, with the Etheric, the place of origin of the greater number of diseases. The 5th plane is the Manasic (or Mental), the plane of mind, which ranges from concrete rational knowledge on its lower subplanes through to spiritual knowledge on its higher levels.
For the purposes of this article, it is not necessary to deal with the four higher planes—Buddhic (Intuitional), Atmic (Spiritual), Monadic and Logoic9—as they are not involved with the disease process. Tansley refers to them as the “transpersonal self” (or perhaps “soul”), and I suppose you could consider them as the essential being of a person, whereas the lower vehicles are the becoming of a person—the deeper objective of life being to align the soul’s purpose with that of the personality.
The link point between the transpersonal self and the personality is the higher ego or causal body. This is the vehicle found on the Mental plane, through which the individual manifests his or her purpose in existence. It is primarily friction10 resulting from conflict between the different objectives of the higher and lower selves which creates illness and hence most1 1 of the illnesses of humanity.
Compare this concept with §9 of Hahnemann’s Organon: “In Tansley states that the “miasms” reside in the etheric body, and that when activated by an appropriate (morbific) stimulus they will taint the energy reaching the physical body … the healthy human state, the spirit- like life force (autocracy) that enlivens the material organism as dynamis, governs without restriction…. so that our indwelling, rational spirit can freely avail itself of this living, healthy instrument for the higher purposes of our existence.”
Without arguing the finer points, it could be proposed that radionics and homoeopathy share a broadly similar central concept of the nature of human health.
Embedded in the subtle bodies are a number of energy transmission and circulation centres known as chakras, which have their counterpart on each plane.1 2 As the individual develops and consciousness reaches a higher level, so the chakras “open” and become receptive to energy flowing from higher and higher sources. Radionic analysis is principally concerned with the seven major chakras—the Base, Sacral, Solar Plexus, Heart, Throat, Brow and Crown—although certain minor chakras, such as the Spleen, are often taken into consideration. Each of these chakras, in turn, externalizes as one of the endocrine glands, e.g., the Throat chakra corresponds with the thyroid gland, and the state of the chakra is considered to condition the functioning of the associated gland and local anatomy.
Seen in this context, the physical human is a precipitation of higher energies into form, and, as such, the quality of each structure, physical or subtle, will reflect the quality of the energy which has reached it. To put it another way, each structure will condition the energy flowing through it; hence, for example, the miasm in the etheric body taints the energy to produce some form of illness in the physical. Energy must flow freely through all of these systems into the physical body to make for the healthy human, and any disturbances of the subtle body will tend to interrupt the flow at some point and will be reflected in mental, emotional or physical symptoms of some nature.
Thus, the objective of radionic diagnosis is to find the energy disturbance at its source, if possible, and treat it appropriately.1 3
Again, this can be compared with §3 of The Organon : “…a physician must…clearly realise what is to be cured…in each single case of disease…”14 In other words, we have to identify and rectify the causation; we will not deal with a polluted river (as it were) simply by cleaning it up downstream, if the source of the toxic material is in the higher reaches.
I presume that the remedy cancels out some distortion in the patient’s field and thus rectifies it, and this is later reflected in the removal of the symptoms.
RADIONIC AND HOMOEOPATHIC ANALYSIS
As I have noted, virtually anything can be represented by a radionic rate and radionics is truly an open-ended system which enables a vast range of energy qualities and relationships to be studied.
The first step in radionic medical analysis is to discover the location, type and, if possible, reason for any deviation from proper function. The second step is to establish the nature of the relationship between the patient and an energy factor—for instance, the homoeopathic remedy—which may be used to correct the problem.15
The practitioner uses the instrument to create an overall picture of the patient’s health and vitality by working through various levels and systems: the mental, emotional and etheric bodies, the aura and nadis, the chakras, and the physical systems as generalities, e.g., cardiovascular, respiratory, muscular, gastrointestinal tract and so forth. The influence or presence of miasms and the effects of vaccinations, poisons, toxins, geopathic stress, malignancies, infections, allergies, nutritional deficiencies and other factors are also checked. The findings are marked onto a chart, and this enables a rapid assessment of the patient’s general state to be made; any areas of difficulty should immediately be apparent. The type and source of the problem can be worked out either by mentally posing questions and watching the pendulum’s response or by the use of additional charts. Again, each practitioner will tend to vary the basics according to his or her knowledge and experience. Radionics is not simply a “dumb” process of watching a pendulum move, as the key factor lies in knowing which questions to ask and how to interpret the responses. It should be apparent that both diagnosis and treatment are highly individualized, as in homoeopathy.
I suggest that the system of subtle bodies and chakras constitutes a model of the dynamis, or perhaps a model of what the life force must flow through (as, by analogy, electricity flows through a circuit) in order to result in a state of health in the individual; and that radionic methods can give the practitioner additional information to help the diagnosis and prescription and can even detect diseases before they manifest in the form of symptoms.16
Homoeopaths use the word “stuck” when talking about cases, and another way of looking at the problem is to find out where the energy is stuck. In case-taking, we have the verbal description by the patient to guide us. In radionic analysis, we use a structured method of dowsing to locate the points where the energy is blocked. The description of the symptom by the patient, I have to suppose, is how he verbalises the symptoms he experiences as a result of the blocks in his subtle anatomy.
A counterpart idea to this is that the provings, rubrics and remedy pictures are records of the effect of the energy of a potentised substance on a healthy person, and the prescription is reached by a transposition of the patient’s comments into the special diagnostic language of homoeopathy via a weighting system, through which the practitioner attaches greater or lesser significance to the patient’s symptoms and then compares them with the rubrics in the repertory until the best possible remedy match is found. Using radionic methods, which work via a certain human sensibility which has not yet been properly explained, we have the possibility of finding the name of the energy (remedy) by dowsing.
The problem with working from symptoms can be that the patient may not give you all of them, or may not remember certain things which happened, or may not consider certain things as being relevant or important enough to tell you, or perhaps the practitioner may misinterpret them. Consequently, you may never find the key to the case or you may give any number of what you think are well-selected remedies without useful results because you are missing a vital part of the picture.
Clearly, many successful homoeopathic prescriptions are made which bring about fantastic results, but just as clearly there are many failed prescriptions where cases are not resolved because a suitable remedy is not identified. Although some cases will indeed not be curable—for example, because of excessive medical drugging or gross pathology which has gone too far to be repaired—in general, these failures cannot be a failure of the principles of homoeopathy because, given such circumstances, the “law of similars” could not be a law but a guideline. This is not good, because we deeply desire homoeopathy to be, and to be shown to be, successful on its own terms, e.g., through the law of similars, and not reliant on any alien methodology for an assessment of its viability.17
Thus it could be that the remedy is the energised form field of the substance it represents … or, to put it another way, the remedy is the energised archetype of the substance.
Therefore, the radionic diagnosis of the subtle energies, and selection of the remedy and potency by dowsing, can help us resolve the matter, particularly when the remedy cannot be discerned from the patient’s stated symptoms. Whichever method is used to find the most similar remedy, however, is secondary to the fact that the therapeutic result does not abrogate Hahnemann’s fundamental law, and thus, when applied in this way, the radionic method supports homoeopathic practice.
There is a further test which is possible with radionic techniques, which is that the effect of the selected remedy can be checked before it is administered to the patient. Abrams discovered that “a sample of quinine gave exactly the same reactions on the subject as malaria”; if he tested the blood of a malarial patient with a few grains of quinine, he could obtain no reaction at all.18 There are various easy ways in which this test can be done with radionics instruments, and using the analysis in tandem with the remedy you can check against all detected problems to see how much action the remedy is likely to have. To put it another way, a hair sample provides a link with the energy field of the patient; when you introduce the radionic rate or ratio card or sample of the remedy itself into that field, you are mixing the two together in some way. I presume that the remedy cancels out some distortion in the patient’s field and thus rectifies it, and this is later reflected in the removal of the symptoms.19
NEW CHALLENGES FOR HOMOEOPATHY
As I have stated, analysis and treatment in radionics are often performed when the patient is elsewhere, possibly even on the other side of the planet. Although I found these ideas fantastical at first, practical application has shown that diagnosing and treating at a distance does work. You can give someone a remedy by setting up the instrument appropriately, and they will receive it as if they had taken it by mouth. I have even had patients call me up and ask if I’d switched the machine on at such-and-such a time (which of course I had done) without first telling them. I can see that this will be a very disturbing idea to some readers, but I would like to look at it from another angle.
Since its beginnings, homoeopathy has been attacked by the medical establishment and even now is not really accepted in many quarters. It should also be noted that remedy manufacture is a very small industry when compared with the turnover of the major drug companies and is therefore no real threat to share prices and can be ignored. This sword, however, cuts two ways: one way is that homoeopathy is not validated by mainstream science and therefore lacks a certain cachet, but the other is that to a considerable degree it is left alone, at least in the UK.
From reading The Homoeopath (issue 72), I know that Rolland Conte has made this claim: “There is now known to be a detectable difference between potentised and unpotentised material, and that difference has been confirmed by independently replicated scientific research.”20 While on the one hand this could be seen as good news and a validation of homoeopathy, it is actually only a validation of potentisation and not the law of similars, and is in a way (even though the science as described by Elwyn Rees is very esoteric) an attempt to rematerialise homoeopathy and treat potentised substances just like other drugs—which you will see if you visit Rolland Conte’s website.21 In short, it seems that Conte wants to treat remedies as if they were regular drugs and apply them to named diseases on a drug-per-disease basis.
If Conte is correct and can demonstrate a statistically significant success rate using a simple biomechanistic relationship between the remedy and the illn e s s ,2 2 the present situation of homoeopathy could change quite radically, and I think it is necessary to consider the situation from a number of angles in case the classical position needs to be defended.
Contrary to Conte’s claims, I would contend that homoeopathy is not a material science, even though it produces effects and results on the material plane. Using radionic techniques, we can demonstrate not only that remedies can be simulated, i.e., artificially manufactured, but also that they do not need to be manufactured at all in order to be administered to a patient; i.e., they can be administered by radionic broadcasting.23 To me, this is something which is quite different from what is considered normal by mainstream science, and is prima facie evidence of why we must treat attempts to normalise homoeopathy along these lines with the utmost caution.
I would contend that homoeopathy is not a material science, even though it produces effects and results on the material plane
From Alice Bailey’s viewpoint, physical reality is the result of the precipitation of energy into form via force—force being the vector or idea, as it were, which organises energy. Thus the immaterial is first and the material comes afterwards. When Hahnemann invented higher-potency remedies, it’s possible that he abstracted the energy and the vector from the physical substance. Thus it could be that the remedy is the energised form field of the substance it represents, the degree of potentisation being the amount of energy available; or, to put it another way, the remedy is the energised archetype of the substance.2 4 T h a t archetype provides something which will correct the “mistuned” energy field of the sick person and produce a cure.
All of this leads me to think that Hahnemann, apart from having provided us with a superb healing system, gave us one of the few actual proofs we have at present of the existence of supra-physical dimensions, and that the methods used in radionics and dowsing can be used to validate this view of Hahnemann’s work (and solve prescribing problems). I personally consider the need to show the existence of higher orders of reality as important, since the alternative is that the mechanistic, materialistic model of science will continue to hold its dominant position, with all the problems it has created for humanity and the planet.
In closing, I would like to reproduce part of a quote from a lecture by the late Aubrey Westlake, given to the British Society of Dowsers at Malvern in 1972:
God hath chosen the foolish things of this world to confound the wise, and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things that are mighty… God hath chosen…things which are not, to bring to naught things that are… In the eyes of the world, radiesthesia is a thing of no account compared with, say, nuclear or astrophysics or atomic research, and yet…it can, when properly understood, open to us the mysteries both in this world and the world invisible. It can reveal to us the Truth in so far as our finite minds can comprehend it.25
Just how far away are these beautiful space bodies?
Endnotes – References
- 1. The best history of radionics is Report on Radionics, by Edward Russell (C.W. Daniel & Co, 1973, ISBN 85435-002-0). This is essential reading and includes fascinating material on agricultural radionics and the general techniques of weed and pest control without chemicals (suppressed in the USA in the 1950s by the chemical companies, according to Russell). Those of you who are against genetically modified (GM) foods and chemical agriculture, read it and weep.
- 2. Dowsing, sometimes known as radiesthesia, is a vast field of study predicated on the idea that everything has a unique energy signature which can be detected by a human sensitive using a means such as the divining rod or pendulum. The technique used merely serves to amplify the dowser’s subconscious reaction which is transmitted to his or her arm muscles. Although the pendulum is considered to have no intrinsic power, I have noticed that some pendulums seem to work better than others. I put this down to the fact that the material from which these are made may be incompatible with me in some way. I have also noticed that pendulums get “tired” and do not react as efficiently after continual use; which suggests that if a crystal gets overloaded, you will too—so in other words, be careful not to fatigue yourself. One recently published book recommended for beginners is Anyone Can Dowse for Better Health, by Arthur Bailey (1999, ISBN 0-572-02461-4).
- 3. Abrams also developed electronically based treatment procedures, but this promising line of work has, for the present, fallen into neglect and is outside the scope of this article. Nevertheless, it may bear some relation to what Dr Jacques Benveniste is currently researching; see his website, www.digibio. com
There are a number of useful books on radionic techniques, but I suggest these as being especially useful:
• Radionics and the Subtle Anatomy of Man, by David Tansley, published by C.W. Daniel & Co., 1972, ISBN 0-85032-089-5. • Chakras, Rays and Radionics, by David Tansley, published by C.W. Daniel & Co., 1984, ISBN 0-85207-161-2. This also contains a chapter by John Damonte on the miasms. • Dimensions of Radionics, by David Tansley, Malcolm Rae and Aubrey Westlake, published by Brotherhood of Light, 1977, ISBN 0-914732-29-3. Radionics Equipment Suppliers