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UNDERSTANDING RADIONICS

Roger Calverly

Radionics is sometimes defined as "a form of healing using an instrument and the sensitivity of the practitioner to detect and rectify any imbalance in the energy fields which are associated with all forms of life." During the analysis stage of radionic work, the sensitivity of the practitioner is amplified by the use of a pendulum or stick pad. A series of questions is posed about the patient, using a blood spot or hair sample as a 'witness' and the practitioner's own neuromuscular reactions when amplified by the pendulum will indicate the answers "yes" or "no". The radionic analysis is not a medical analysis in the strict sense as it is assessing the energy-body of the patient, not the physical organs. By identifying energy imbalances and disease patterns at the pre-physical level, radionics is able to recognize the underlying causes that later manifest as physical conditions.

A radionic instrument is used by the practitioner, and it often has a series of dials on which the vibrations characteristic of various parts of the body and various diseases are expressed as numerical values. In some instruments, a geometric symbol on a card is used rather than a numerical rate. In both cases, the instrument is used rather than a numerical rate. In both cases, the instrument helps to fix and hold the thoughts which the practitioner is using during the analysis stage. When the time comes for treatment, the practitioner may set up other rates expressing the healing energies which he wishes to direct to the patient. The healing is done at a distance, and this aspect of radionics is one of the most difficult aspects to understand theoretically. To understand how healing at a distance can be effected, the concept of a "field" has been developed, and it is now an essential part of the theory of how radionics works.

It is a proven fact that an action at one place may trigger a happening at another location without any known intermediary. To the logical mind this seems impossible, and so the concept of a field has been developed, a field being an intermediary connecting the two phenomena. The simplest example of a field is seen in the pattern formed by iron filings under the influence of a magnetic source of energy. This suggests that a field is not only an arrangement or configuration in space, but also an energy pattern. The fields which have been investigated by science are mostly associated with electro-magnetic phenomena such as wireless waves, X-rays and light rays, including infra-red and ultra-violet. These waves all vibrate in a medium other than air, and can be demonstrated to occur in its absence. The term "ether" has been used to designate a medium capable of carrying such vibrations, and pervading all of space.

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As early as 1935, in his Electro-Dynamic Theory of Life, Professor Harold Saxton Burr proposed that all living organisms have electric fields which govern their growth and decay. Since these fields control life, they are called life fields, or simply, L-fields. Like the fields already known to physics, the L-fields obeyed the laws of nature and were influenced by various forces and energies. Dr. Leonard J. Ravits, the well-known research psychiatrist, discovered that strong emotions can cause a voltage rise of as much as from 15 to 50 millivolts in the L-field.

According to Burr, thoughts which induce emotion are more important as stimuli to the human nervous system than other types of stimuli, and L-field voltages reflect mental and emotional states which can actually be plotted in graph form. Burr argued and proved that one field cannot exist within another field without an interaction between them. Detailed research done on a number of trees over a 30 year period revealed that the L-fields of the trees changed with sunlight, darkness, sunspots, magnetic storms and cycles of the moon. The key point for radionics is that human L-fields also exist within the larger fields of the earth, and are affected by changes in these larger fields. It has been known for millennia that the mind affects the body, but Burr's work provides us with a convincing model of how the mind affects the body.

In his Report on Radionics, Edward Russell has argued that we see all around us evidence of organization in time or in space, and that all organization is "the product of some intelligence or mind." He cites the evidence of how thought at one point can produce an effect (usually another thought) at a distant point, and shows that thought behaves like a field. The term "T-field" was used in his work Design for Destiny (1971) to designate this behavioural aspect of thought, which he finds to be "as much a reality as an electromagnetic field, though quite different from it. For T-fields are non-physical, non-spatial, and can traverse space. They can assume any shape - from that of a microscopic dot attached to a brain cell to that of a field which can extend indefinitely in space." Russell describes Nature's archetypal patterns of creation as being her 'blueprints of thought' which maintain organization and pattern in matter. The human body has its O-field (organization-field) and within that O-field, it has sub-O-fields for the various organs and cells.

The theory of fields is basic to understanding radionic diagnosis, because the patient's 'witness' puts his various fields in touch with the practitioner's fields, so that the practitioner may use his radiesthetic ability to find out where energy imbalances exist within his patient. During radionic analysis, the practitioner asks a series of question, and when the answer is in the positive, his energy field registers a subtle neuromuscular response which is made evident to the conscious mind by an amplifying device like a pendulum or stick-pad. [20] The analyst's field comes into resonance with the patient's field, and with accurate questioning, focused by the help of the rates set up on a radionic instrument, an unlimited amount of information may be transmitted. The healing process is also conditioned by the existence of fields linking the practitioner and the patient. The "action at a distance" is actually the introduction of a message or signal into the fields of the patient reminding the body of how to adjust its own energy imbalances. The practitioner, through the witness, is in resonance with the patient's field and can instruct it as needed, no matter how far away the patient may be. Again, radionic instruments are used to set up a configuration of the healing instructions using numbers or "rates" on dials, or geometric patterns encoded on cards. These serve to fix and to hold the instructions. Some healers who have unusual powers of concentration or special E.S.P. development are able to dispense with instruments altogether, which suggests that the instrument is a model of the thought and energy-makeup of man himself.

The signal sent out by the practitioner is an encoded reminder of what the patient's body should do to heal itself. All healing is really self-healing. The radionic means which the practitioner uses, including his numerical rates or geometric card patterns are simply triggers which put the self-healing process to work in the patient. A wide variety of healing energies are used by radionic practitioners, including the vibrations of homeopathic medicines, the twelve biochemic tissue salts, Dr. Bach's flower remedies, the energies of gems, and colour - in a wide variety of shades. Sometimes the numerical rate or the card pattern which represents perfect health for an organ or system is used as the 'message' or 'healing instruction.' But the radionic practitioner may recommend other therapies such as diet adjustment, physical manipulation, fasting, or an exercise routine, and he may refer patients to specialists in these areas as the need arises. The key factor about radionic analysis and treatment which makes it a superior form of healing is that it sees the patient as a whole, not as a series of unrelated parts. It sees symptoms as being clues about the nature of underlying causes, and attempts to get at these underlying causes and to eliminate them. The same symptoms in different patients may be indicative of different underlying causes - a fact which conventional medicine usually does not recognize, and usually is unable to deal with. By working on the energy body, it is frequently possible to discover illness before it has made itself obvious in the physical body, and treatments given to the energy-body leave no harmful side effects such as we frequently find in allopathic medicine. Radionic treatment may be used in conjunction with other forms of treatment, and may be given to animals and even to crops, which adds up to a tremendous scope of application.

Modern medicine has for the most part kept pace with modern scientific thought and practice. But radionics goes one step beyond both and studies not merely the physical body, but the [21] interface of physical reality with thought and energy. Science itself has, of course, come to the point where it regards matter as solidified energy. We know that energy organizes itself in different ways, and behaves in different ways, and so does matter. Each of the physical organs within the human body has its own shape and function and its own energy-level. In fact, there is an energy-body which surrounds and interpenetrates the physical body, and this energy-body, sometimes called the etheric body, or the etheric-double has its own anatomy which is quite important to radionic theory and practice.

For information about the etheric body of man, and other subtle bodies which are composed of still more refined substance, such as the astral body (corresponding to the emotional life) and the mental body (corresponding to the thought capacities), we rely upon the evidence of clairvoyants who are able to perceive dimensions of reality not normally visible. Here radionics parts company with science and conventional medicine, where the evidence of the senses is considered the final validating factor. Radionics draws on a very ancient body of teaching associated with mystical experience in the East and in the West, as well as on the experience of those who can perceive at the etheric level, and finally on the practical validation of experience itself, when it accepts the existence and functioning of the subtle bodies of man. Many radionic phenomena must be accepted simply because they work.

There are three principal channels through which life energy flows in the etheric body: ida, pingala, and sushumna. The sushumna is the most important of the three channels, carrying the life current in the middle of the spinal column. Other subtle nerves channel the prana or life energy throughout the entire etheric body, and thence to the physical body. The subtle nerves are called nadis, and when they are unblocked the energy of the etheric body is maintained in a state of equilibrium and the health of the physical systems and organs is sustained at an optimum level. Where energy is blocked, a condition of congestion may result behind the impediment. This may build up and create erratic energy patterns or overstimulation. Blockages may be caused by the physical pathology, or by chemical pollutants, or they may be a result of miasms, or taints in the subtle body which predispose it to certain kinds of disease. Subjective conditions such as inhibition and repression may also create unhealthy energy patterns which can cause the endocrine glands to malfunction.

The way a person thinks is largely responsible for the harmony of his emotional life, and disharmony of the emotions is a prime cause of disruption of energy in the etheric body, or as Burr would term it, the L-field. Radionics must take such factors into consideration both at the time of analysis and at the time of treatment. Emotional and mental disturbances may be the prior causative factor in many energy imbalances and in many [22] resulting physical ailments, and if these pre-existing conditions within the astral or mental bodies are not treated, they may continue to disrupt the energy flow and the energy-balance of a patient even after healing has been brought to bear at the physical-etheric level. In such cases, complete restoration of health at all levels is less likely than would be the case where the energy irregularities in the higher bodies had been cleared up with the right corrective vibrations in one form or another. The Bach Flower Remedies in particular are useful in treating emotions and states of mind.

Ida, pingala and sushumna meet together at six different places along the spinal axis. Each meeting place forms an energy centre, called in the traditional Sanskrit terminology, a chakra. The chakras are circular in shape, resembling whorls of energy. There are centres at the base of the spine, in the sacral region, at the solar plexus, at the heart, throat, forehead, and above the crown. When the chakras are functioning properly, they are taking in energy in the form of prana and colour and distributing it to the various organs and systems of the physical body. It is not only the etheric body which has chakras, but also the higher bodies, a point not often considered in conventional radionics, because most healing centres on the etheric body. Once the prana enters the chakra, it is transmitted from this point by a process of differentiation into secondary energies which travel along the nadis, and cause responses in the physical nervous system. From here, impulses are passed on to the endocrine glands, each of which is related to a particular chakra. The wellbeing of the chakras affects the functioning of the endocrines and they, by the regulation of hormonal activity, affect the physical and emotional state that a man will be in at any given point.

In radionics, it is possible to treat a disorder of the physical system through the chakra involved. If, for example, the lungs require a certain colour or gem-energy, this may be directed to the throat chakra which governs them, and thus the energy will be registered in the appropriate portions of the physical anatomy. Diagnosis of the chakras and the subtle anatomy helps the practitioner to understand why the physical body is working the way it is. Frequently one finds that the physical pathology present in a patient relates directly to those chakras which are not functioning properly, either because of blockage at the entry or exit points of energy, or because of overstimulation or underactivity.

Radionics has come a long way from the time when Dr. Albert Abrams began to use the human body as an energy detector. Ruth Drown gave it a decisive shaping influence when she developed the use of the stick pad, originated the characteristic dials of radionic instruments, and began to treat at a distance through the medium of a witness. To the work of George de la Warr and his wife we owe the standard of excellence which has become normal in modern radionic instruments, the [23] refinement and enlargement of the numerical rates, and a great deal of enlargement in the theoretical outlook of the field. David Tansley has produced the most widely read literature on the subject, and has popularized the modern approaches to treating the subtle anatomy and the chakras, while Malcolm Rae, with whom he worked at certain periods of time, has originated a whole new line of instruments which use geomagnetic patterns instead of rates. Rae and Tansley have given considerable refinement to the process of radionic analysis through their theoretical work, and through the development of instruments such as the Base 44 instrument, and the Centre Therapy instrument.

Radionics will continue to grow and develop in the future. And this will be necessary to keep pace with the changes which man himself is going through. The pace of modern life brings numberless pressures to bear on the average citizen, particularly in the West where technology is changing and living patterns are being disrupted. The new technologies have put us into contact with substances and energies whose subtle effects on health are only now being glimpsed - the risks from low-level radiation, and the noxious rays of television and fluorescent lighting being only a few. But beyond this, it is the evolutionary nature of man which necessitates constant growth in the healing art, and constant widening of the philosophy underlying healing.

Human awareness is constantly growing and expanding, individually among those who seek to expand awareness through such disciplines as meditation and yoga, and collectively as a result of the scientific revolution which constantly widens the way men think. Radionics is at the frontier where science and E.S.P. meet and intermingle, and its practitioners must be abreast of developments in both fields. Never has there been such a need for comprehensive, holistic remedial approaches to balance human energies at all levels from the physical to the emotional and mental. Radionics holds out the promise that man may be able to develop and apply the healing faculty within him with a scope which is proportional to the imbalancing energies which he has unwittingly unleashed through his new technologies. Radionics provides hope that the challenge of the future can be met, and that a better, healthier world can be created from the roots of our present health crises.



References

  1. Burr, Harold S, and F S. C. Northrop. The Electro-Dynamic Theory of Life. United States: s.n, 1935. Print. [Digital: <http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/2808474>]
  2. Russell, Edward W. Report on Radionics - Science of the Future: The Science Which Can Cure Where Orthodox Medicine Fails. London: N. Spearman, 1973. Print. [Re-ed., 2004: <http://amzn.to/1yRnuaH>]
  3. Russell, Edward W. Design for Destiny: Science Reveals the Soul. London: N. Spearman, 1971. Print. <http://amzn.to/1ukbjob>

Albert Abrams.

Further Reading

  1. Abrams, Albert. New Concepts in Diagnosis and Treatment: Physico-clinical Medicine, the Practical Application of the Electronic Theory in the Interpretation and Treatment of Disease: with an Appendix on New Scientific Facts. San Francisco, Calif: Philopolis Press, 1916. Print. [Digital: <http://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/001588073>; reprints are available through BSRF in our classic xerographic format: <#B0210, "New Concepts in Diagnosis and Treatment">]
  2. Abrams, Albert. Human Energy. San Francisco: Philopolis Press, 1914. Print. [Digital: <http://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/008904901>; reprints are available through BSRF in our classic xerographic format: <#B0211, "Human Energy">]
  3. Abrams, Albert. Spondylotherapy: Physio and Pharmacotherapy and Diagnostic Methods Based on a Study of Clinical Physiology. San Francisco: Philopolis Press, 1914. Print. [Digital: <http://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/002089090>; reprints are available through BSRF in our classic xerographic format: <#B0177, "Spondylotherapy">]

An introductory review of Abrams and his work can be found in
"ERA: Electronic Reactions of Abrams" (#B0025).

Ruth Drown.

  1. Drown, Ruth B. The Science and Philosophy of the Drown Radio Therapy. Los Angeles: Printed by the Ward Ritchie Press, 1938. Print. [Reprints are available through BSRF in our classic xerographic format: <#B0077, "Science and Philosophy of the Drown Radio Therapy">]
  2. Drown, Ruth B. Theory and Technique of the Drown Homo-Vibra Ray and Radio-Vision Instruments. London: Hatchard & Co., 1938. Print. [Reprints are available through BSRF in our classic xerographic format: <#B0081, "Theory and Technique of the Drown Homo-Vibra Ray">]
  3. Drown, Ruth B. Wisdom from Atlantis. Los Angeles: DeVorss, 1946. Print. <http://amzn.to/1qQQ0tc>
  4. Drown, Ruth B. The Forty-Nine Degrees: A Book of Spiritual Understanding and Discovery: the Road to Divine Truth. New York: Greenwich Book Publishers, 1957. Print. <http://amzn.to/1plJ4gS>
  5. Drown, Ruth B. Drown Radio-Vision and Homo-Vibra Ray Instruments and Their Uses. Vista, CA: Borderland Sciences Research Foundation, 196~. Print. [Reprints are available through BSRF in our classic xerographic format: <#B0021, "The Drown Homo-Vibra Ray and Radio Vision Instruments">]

For a more thorough survey of Drown's system of radionics, we recommend
Trevor James's "The Work of Dr. Ruth Drown".