In this interview I introduce Christopher Freeland, who practices radiesthesia and a host of healing arts. He tells of how he discovered and has explored radionics and radiesthesia, which he uses to benefit others, from his adventurous travels around the globe. I hope that you enjoy this interview.

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► Chris (I hope that I may call you Chris), you have many strings to your bow, so to speak, and I’d like to explore how the seeds of these things were planted in the fertile soil of your soul. In particular you write on your website some tantalising things about India, which fascinates me somewhat, since I am initiated as a naga sadhu and spent a few years in and around Rishikesh there. Can you tell us something about your youth and your India experience? What lead you to go to India?

Of course you may call me Chris, that is most polite, others call me far worse things and I still answer! You and I were neighbours! I was just down the road in Hardwar for nigh on two years in 1974, at the time of the kumbha mela, living in the ashram of Swami Atmananda (whose name I forget, but the boss of a naga akhara), also a dashnami sannyasin in the Shankara lineage.

My youth was typical for the day – boarding school at 6, cold baths and caning for the slightest misdemeanour, a wealth of sports – the saving grace, forced into the army by my father (although it was surely the right thing given my Gemini scatter-brain), and so came my first introduction to India in 1968, I survived officer training school and was commissioned into the British Gurkhas (one of her majesty’s killers, although that never came about despite some tight situations in Hong Kong during Mao’s Cultural Revolution), and was sent off to Nepal to do (observe would be a better word) the recruiting of young hill tribesmen into the British army. I loved the extremes of life and death that were constantly presented in that short period in India – not what one knows in the polite society of the western world. My contract ran for three years and I left on completion at the age of 21.

There is an invisible bug attached to India and Africa, which risks drawing you back into their fold, and I had apparently caught it. The last place I wanted to live in was the UK, and it took me three months to find that out, so when an acquaintance asked me to join him travelling overland to South Africa, I leapt at the idea. We set off in December from London in a VW Beetle. After multiple adventures and narrow escapes, we ended up in Zambia, where my colleague left for the south and I stayed to work as a guide on photographic safaris on foot in the Luangwa Valley. One of the groups with which I had the pleasure to walk through the bush was a young Indian couple from the copper belt up north, with their guru. We hit it off famously, especially as they had brought their own delicious vegetarian food with them, and there was enough to spare for me. Six months after the end of the safari season I was back in Zambia having said goodbye to my family in the UK, given away all my worldly belongings (the few that were), seen the habits of smoking, drinking alcohol and meat-eating slide away, and embarked on an 18-month apprenticeship to become a monk, for such was the equanimity and constant humour of Swami Pranav Tirtha that I had to learn. He was called back and forth between India and Africa by his flock, Bombay, Ahmedabad, Cambay, and Nairobi, Lusaka, Bulawayo and so on. He graciously taught me the Vedanta philosophy and the practical aspects of living it, the Gita, ten or so of the Upanishads and the Brahma-sutra, before kicking me out instructing me to go it alone as an initiated sannyasin by the name of Chidananda Tirtha. My initial phenomenal aim was to learn Sanskrit so I could read in the original. I persisted by myself, struggling along with my books, going from ashram to temple to library, seeking out munshis and monks apt to help.

► I can imagine that your experiences inspired your interest in Ayurveda, since it is an Indian science going back thousands of years. What lead you to this, exactly, and what inspired your interest in another ancient science, Traditional Chinese Medicine?

My guru died with a throat cancer, the third, but he was game to try all sorts of remedies, including ayurveda before he passed. One of the gurubhai (member of his gang) had come to Africa and met with some considerable success with diabetes and unnamed conditions, and we had become good friends, exchanging his expertise for English language skills. When the third cancer struck, babuji agreed to allow the doctor to treat him and we went off to Palitana in the western desert for the treatment, a course of goat’s milk for three weeks or so. All my spare time was spent bothering him to teach me how to feel the pulses, traditional medicines, physiognomy and so on. Bapuji revolted – he was not going to die with the taste of goat’s milk on his tongue – and we had no option. He left us some six months later in hospital in Zambia; I was with him and buried him out in the bush. In passing, the doctor damn nearly killed me when recommending that I eat more ghee (clarified butter). My liver packed up and the options were hospital or an 8-day water fast, the latter was chosen and I still practice that method to this day.
The TCM came many years later, my wife suffers from severe back pain and we found an acupuncturist in the Loire valley where we lived, who provided her great relief with his needles. He was convinced to come out of retirement and return to teaching TCM for a small group of keen students. Realising that the needling would require more years than I had left to learn — I was 52 or so at that time — I focussed on moxibustion which I practise still. The French were very much responsible for bringing TCM to world attention via the work of Soulié de Morant, Claude Larre and Rochat de la Vallée.

► What other forms of treatment have you learned and can offer people? Did learning these ancient yet living arts inspire further discovery? Magnet therapy is one that comes to mind, since it is not uncommon in India.

As you know, heading down rabbit holes is enriching, especially when you manage to come out into the world at the other end, and so another piece of the puzzle risks falling into its wholistic place. My focus is on the practical; theory is all very good, but we have to find solutions these days because there is no cavalry coming to the rescue, and the great news is that Nature is here to help. Observation and curiosity are probably my strong points, so from the time of discovering there is an easy remedy to geopathic stress – even though it took me ten years of researching Chartres cathedral to surprise this secret in plain sight – my whole approach became structured, like the Chinese teaching, we are between heaven and earth. The Chinese with their feng shui, and Indians with their vastu both scream to pay attention to the earth and the immediate environment. So, first sort out the telluric (from the earth) issues, which I do with the 8 wooden rods cut to very specific lengths, and then only, after a few weeks, take a look at the physical, mental, emotional, spiritual aspects using a pendulum. My toolbox — available to those who consult me — has 23 protocols grouped into broad areas such as essential oils, TCM, sound, homeopathy, Bach, and colour, requiring further investigation before finding the right avenue and remedies, either administered remotely or in person – again to be determined with the pendulum; the laying on of hands, specialist pendulums, the paper doctor and radionics can be worked remotely or in person; the orgone accumulator, moxibustion, infrared sauna, colloidals (silver, gold, magnesium, copper, iron, zinc, platinum, electrum, aurichalcum), magnets, bio-circuits require physical presence, although it is sometimes possible to send the colloidals by mail; relaxation can be learned online with a video. My principal activity is spirit release (ghost-busting if you like), there are a lot of them about, and they need help.

► If I may touch upon the dictionaries that you published for just a moment, they do seem rather specialised. How was it that you came to write such books?

Wasn’t it Benjamin Johnson who said the work of a lexicographer is drudgery? Maybe it was, but it is a sure way to find out what you don’t know. I’ve compiled three – all best-sellers, well one of them did hit the 700 mark! My guru had written a small Sanskrit-Gujarati compendium to help his people, and I used it as inspiration to form the 3,000 term Sanskrit-English dictionary that I completed after my four years as a monk, had a foreword written by Jan Gonda, the leading Sanskritist of the day, and then used it as my doctoral thesis when I bought a PhD from a university in California. The second one filled a huge hole – at the time – as the last contribution dated from 1929, a dictionary of stock market terminology in French and English, and took me ten years while I was working as a French to English translator and preparing (teaching would be a big word) French brokers for the NYSE exams, series 3 and 7. I ended up self-publishing and it worked pretty well. The third volume never took off for political reasons, but a few specialist translators found it useful. The infighting in the French electricity utilities couldn’t accept the combined thirty-odd years experience of two mickey-mousers from below when they proposed a dictionary of terminology employed in the operation of nuclear power plants.

► Radiesthesia seems some distance from these arts of Ayurveda and TCM. How did you discover this process of dowsing, and put it into practice?

A radiesthesist, Jean Gervais, saved my life in the mid 80s thanks to his dowsing skills and homeopathy. Although on a backburner for some years, the slowdown in the translation business allowed me more time for research and I went to town on all the French-speaking authors before coming up with a form of wholistic-cum-spiritual, sci-art radiesthesia which I practice and teach. As I said above, it has to be practical, so the invisible is afforded the same importance as the visible – perhaps even more, we don’t seem to perceive all that we should or could.

► Radionics is related to radiesthesia in principle and practice. Have you used actual radionics instruments, and how was that experience for you?

The Pattern of Health by Aubrey Westlake was my first intro into radionics, well of sorts. It was intriguing to find his geometric patterns right at the end of his book, and no one to call on to discover more, so I made them according to his sparse instructions and started playing. As with the pendulum, you blow yourself away every day, several times a day, which for a non-dualist is easy as appearance is not quite what it seems, but what wonderful relief is provided. It becomes quite addictive and continues to this day.

► Westlake’s book was the first book that I read about radionics also! How interesting. Do you have any radionics instruments that you use?

Yes, I have a Spooky2 with Central, Scalar and so on, Berkana Labs, a Malcom Rae Magneto Geometric Application with bits, and some geometric patterns of my own design, all used when indicated to do so by my pendulum.

► Can you tell us if you have any guidelines or tips for the people out there wanting to improve their dowsing and radionics abilities? Do you offer any training courses or similar which may help here?

It might be hard to switch me off on this one, so I think best to answer your second question. Yes, I’m in the process of setting up some online radiesthesia courses and more will soon be available via my website, radiesthesia.online or courses.radiesthesia.online. These are intended for one and all, the neophyte, those seeking remedial action, the accomplished radiesthesist, and cover fifteen or so subjects – a foundation course, Charts and Q&A, Who R U ?, Health Analysis, Geopathic Stress, Spirit Release, Universal Pendulum, Tips & Tricks, Character Analysis, Chiromagnetism, Geometric Form, Senses, the Brunler Biometric and more.

By the way, my latest book, to be published in Feb 2025 by Inner Traditions is the “Mysteries of the Round Towers,” which deals with two facts discovered thanks to radiesthesia, that the round towers (63 of them in Ireland dating from about 10^th century but built by who knows), are all over the crossing of underground water, and every stone is oriented with the negative magnetic polarity facing upwards. I reckon it’s to transform that powerful underground source of energy into a healthy, nourishing boost for us folk on the surface.

Many thanks, Chris, for spending this time with me and sharing with us a little of your life’s journey. I hope that the readers will take advantage of your vast wisdom and experience by signing up for your course. Thanks again.

Please join the conversation by commenting below. Thanks.

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