By Tony Scofield, editor of the Radionic Journal of The Radionic Association.
Published in 2007. Reproduced with permission.

Summary

Explanations for how radionics works involve both a physical, scientific approach and more esoteric approaches involving the mind and consciousness. In this paper I review some of the latest explanations proposed in the light of advances in quantum mechanics as well as the increasing recognition that commentators place on the role of mind. As the practice of radionics has evolved so has the central role of the mind in radionic healing become ever more apparent.

It is 24 years since David Tansley, in Radionics—Science or Magic?, highlighted the inconsistencies between radionic practice and the physical model that many adopted as a means of explaining what they did. He believed that radionics did not have a place within the belief system of orthodox science but was ‘an interface with higher dimensions of reality and consciousness.’ He considered radionics to be ‘a form of mental healing in which instruments are not needed to detect or measure those energies which provide a picture of the patient. They are simply a link or key-factor in a process of energy exchanges which take place at a level beyond the physical. Instruments may have their part to play but only in so far as they function as a link and a focus for the healing power of the practitioner.’ ⁴³

Tansley was forthright in his view that for at least 50 years radionic reactions and findings had been mistakenly interpreted in clinical terms taken straight from orthodox medicine when they should have been seen as indices of energy reception, distribution and flow, or the lack thereof in the human personality. He introduced to radionics the concept of two dimensions of activity. In Dimension I, the left brain dominated and was the area of logic and of our everyday activities, the level of physical reality. In Dimension II the right brain dominated and intuition held sway, the dimension of transcendent holistic reality, of consciousness.⁴³ In this latter dimension time and distance did not exist and healing occurred instantly as the fields of the patient and practitioner became intertwined as soon as the practitioner brought the patient to mind.

His suggestions, although not novel as they had been hinted at by earlier workers, firmly suggested that radionics could only be explained using an esoteric model and it was Tansley who introduced concepts from eastern mysticism to provide a model with which to work.^fn1

Many today believe that it is the energy of the mind that is the fundamental operating principle in radionics ³² and a key figure in bringing this notion to the attention of radionic practitioners was George de la Warr. De la Warr investigated the phenomenon experimentally. For example, he conducted tests on growing plants in vermiculite. He told his assistants which vermiculite had been treated radionically to increase growth rate and which had not. In fact none of the pots had been treated but nevertheless, the plants in those pots that the assistants thought had been treated grew better. Similar trials have been conducted by others.³⁶ Indeed, Tansley believed de la Warr’s greatest contribution to radionics was to call our attention time and again to the role of the mind in radionics.⁴³

The mind can be considered to be the vehicle of human consciousness which would include both conscious and unconscious processes that influence behaviour. A universal mind, as suggested by Alice Bailey, would be associated with universal consciousness, if such indeed exists. But this has to be taken on trust. However, such concepts, which are widely espoused by non-scientists, often provide a basis for understanding radionics.

Both Westlake ⁵⁰ and Tansley ⁴³ expressed the view that understanding of radionics and radiesthesia was badly hampered by the desire to explain the phenomena in terms of orthodox science. However, concepts in physics have changed a great deal since Tansley’s book was written although we still see the same tensions between those that support a physical explanation of radionics and those that adopt a more esoteric explanation.

The purpose of this paper is to re-examine whether radionics is best explained by the concepts of modern science or, as Tansley suggests, by the involvement of the mind and human consciousness.

Some early views on how radionics works

Since the beginnings of radionics and radiesthesia there has existed a tension between the conflicting physical and esoteric theories. ⁵⁰ Sir James Barr, Abrams’ most influential supporter in Britain, realised that radiations purporting to come from blood and the oscilloclast, Abrams’ treatment instrument, had not been satisfactorily established and neither had the idea that a blood spot could be used for diagnosis, although he had plenty of first-hand experience that radionics worked. ⁷ Most modern day practitioners no longer believe that radionics can be explained primarily by the principles of electronics as Abrams had postulated. This concept gradually disappeared as the practitioner became ever more separated from the patient with the replacement of the test subject with a stick pad and then a pendulum and, eventually, the use of blood spots and other witnesses in place of the patient who may be thousands of miles from the practitioner. Finally, although many instruments have plugs on them, many practitioners never plug them into an electricity supply. ^{32, 43}

Barr was concerned, however, that if a psychic influence was involved through the medium of the oscilloclast then the whole mechanistic rationale of drug therapy – the backbone of orthodox medicine – would collapse in chaos and uncertainty. And this could not be allowed to happen! Nevertheless he believed that the ‘human subject is the instrument par excellence which does the work and not the ‘rheostat’ or ‘emanometer’ (a diagnostic instrument designed by W.E. Boyd, the homeopath ³⁹) by his side’.⁷

In discussing Abrams’ methods Frederick Strong suggested that thoughts may be a great creative power with humans merely acting as ‘step-down transformers’ for the ’great vibratory “broadcasting station”.’ ⁴¹ Abrams certainly found that thoughts could inhibit the disease reflexes in the subject and he believed Strong’s ideas were a plausible hypothesis but he was determined to ‘de-occult the occult’ and stick ‘with almost morbid intensity to the canons of modern science and the methods of the laboratory’. He certainly believed that the energy from the oscilloclast was ‘a physical vibration of a definite nature, and has in itself nothing to do with mental suggestion (although the latter may help or retard its action).’ ⁴¹ Although Abrams recognised occult phenomena he believed they were merely manifestations of ‘human energy’. ¹

Drown, too, preferred to involve science in explaining how her Radio Therapy worked. She involved radio waves and the ‘Life Force’, which was explained in atomic terms which, even in her day, would have appeared bizarre! ³⁷ She considered the use of ESP, or psychic powers ‘at this stage of evolution’ to be ‘a cumbrous and unwelcome humbug’ in the Drown system, and the physicians trained in its use aimed to avoid this.¹⁵

In 1924 Scientific American had concluded that Abrams’ techniques, when they worked, were psychic in nature.²⁸ Indeed, Abrams had recognised that the ‘will to believe was a prerequisite in this work’.²⁹ Lindemann ³⁰ went further and suggested radionics to be a form of ceremonial magic, ^fn2 the tuner being solidified thought form with the rates representing agreements with the subtle nature spirits. He observed that most practitioners agree that the more people using a particular system, the better it works for everyone. David Tansley certainly believed radionics to be magic.⁴³ History suggests that yesterday’s magic often becomes tomorrow’s scientific breakthrough.³¹

Healing and quantum mechanics

As explanations for radionics using conventional physics become less tenable (I do not propose to review them here: see Bailey’s article for more ⁶) attention has turned to quantum mechanics in an attempt to find an ‘acceptable’ paradigm to explain phenomena such as healing. Quantum mechanics describes the behaviour of fundamental particles at subatomic levels. It is, however, very difficult for most people to understand! Nevertheless, many writers on complementary medicine have attempted to relate what happens in healer/patient interactions by reference to the strange behaviour of the world at the quantum level. In the last few years the role of the quantum vacuum and its underlying sea of zero-point energy, predicted by Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle, has become a popular framework into which various paranormal phenomena, including healing, have been placed.^{20, 34} Whether there is any currency in this remains to be seen as there is little factual support for these suggestions. Indeed, experimental work on brain to brain communication, which would be relevant to practitioner-patient interactions in radionics, suggests that transfer between brains is not instantaneous, indeed in some cases the brain of the receiver responds before the sender receives a stimulus.^12a As Bob Charman points out ‘this apparent temporal reversal makes a nonsense of cause preceding effect but, in either case the simultaneity of change required of a non-local QE relationship cannot apply because, in these three carefully timed studies at least, it does not occur.’ ^12a

Explanations involving quantum mechanics can be described as a ‘bottom up’ approach: extrapolating from the realm of the small (subatomic level) to the large (the world of our direct experience). However, Chris Clarke from Southampton University has pointed out the great difficulty of using a ‘bottom up’ approach to explain large scale everyday events by quantum effects because the coherence of entanglement of particles, which would be crucial for a satisfactory explanation, would be lost due to interference from the environment (resulting in decoherence).¹³ In other words, apart from laboratory studies with photons, the way in which particles are entangled, and hence the nature of any correlation between them, will become completely random in the wider world because of interference from the environment. At the level of larger systems of particles, for example living organisms, the situation becomes worse because of their greater interaction with the environment. Larger systems are easier to destabilise than smaller ones.¹⁴

Clarke prefers a cosmological viewpoint where the whole universe is regarded as a quantum system and allows for top-down influences (from the large to the small) as well as bottom-up influences. This would overcome the problem of losing quantum information to the environment (decoherence), as the universe has no environment. Cosmologically information is never lost. The universe would always remain coherent and will always be a pure quantum system.

Healing and emergent entanglement

Michael Hyland also attempts to use quantum entanglement to explain the phenomenon of healing.²⁴ As he points out, therapists are able to induce change in patients simply by interacting with them and he believes that this phenomenon cannot be explained in terms of conventional (non-quantum) scientific, physiological or psychological theories. Nor does he believe that many of the ideas put forward by therapists and others that use our conventional view of quantum properties stand the test of rigorous examination.

Instead he points out, as does Chris Clarke, ¹³ that quantum entanglement is the normal state of things, at least at the subatomic level, and an emergent property arises in living organisms because of it, and this property allows non-local connectivity within and between macroscopic (large) systems. Illness would arise when entanglement is lost or becomes disorganised. However, it is worth bearing in mind the points made in relation to Clarke’s work above where it was pointed out that under normal circumstances organisms are unlikely to be entangled because of environmental interference, unless of course one adopts Clarke’s top-down approach.

What determines which properties will arise from quantum systems is unknown and it is also generally accepted that emergent properties cannot be inferred by examining the parts of a system in isolation. On a larger scale the Nobel Prize winner, RW Sperry, suggested that mind was an emergent property of the body. As Hyland points out the idea of emergent entanglement has parallels with the metaphor of a universal mind and Jung’s concept of synchronicity i.e. that non-local connections can sometimes manifest themselves.

So what does this mean for healing? Hyland has proposed four explanations with regard to the roles of patient and healer in the healing process. The first involves psychological mechanisms where the therapist modifies the psychology of the patient who is then in a better position to recover by natural means. In his second suggestion, his ‘biofield’ hypothesis, the therapist is the active agent and detects the energy field of the patient and provides corrective mechanisms although the nature of the energy transfer remains unclear.

He then has two suggestions that involve quantum entanglement. With ‘generalised entanglement’ Hyland proposes that the therapist affects the patient because of non-local connection between the therapist and the patient whereby information is transferred, but without information being carried through the transfer of energy. This is possible through the concept of non-locality, a property of entangled systems. Non-locality implies a connection that is not limited by space or time and is a consequence of quantum theory. Due to this mingling of therapist and patient’s fields some kind of corrective information is provided by the therapist to the patient. Generalised entanglement would happily encompass the concepts of distant healing and lack of weakening of the healing signal with distance. It could also explain why patients sometimes get better before the healing begins! However, there is no empirical support for generalised entanglement (in contrast to quantum entanglement), and there are problems with decoherence as described above, but it is an attractive idea in that it provides a way of explaining many diverse anomalous phenomena such as ESP, premonitions and healing.

As already explained, Hyland suggests that ‘emergent entanglement’ is a property that has arisen in living organisms because of quantum entanglement and allows non-local connectivity within and between large-scale systems. With emergent entanglement, his fourth hypothesis, he suggests that healers do not send a ‘corrective signal’ to the patient. Instead he proposes that the therapist adopts an observational mode that helps entanglement manifest itself not only for the therapist but the patient. The therapist is helping to create a reality that is shared by the patient and therapist and this reality has effects on health. It facilitates effective self-organisation within the body; essentially it helps the patient to self heal by entangling or re-entangling with a system and it is the system that is having a corrective action, not the signal from the therapist. Essentially the body is reverting to an optimum plan, perhaps reminiscent of Sheldrake’s Morphogenetic field.⁴⁰

Many practitioners work with the assumption that it is the etheric body which provides the blueprint of the physical body. It ‘energizes, stabilizes and provides mechanisms of cellular growth and repair at a primary level.’²² Distortions of the etheric body are thought to often express as disease in the dense-physical body. The concept of blockages in subtle energy flow as the cause of disease has many advocates e.g. Westlake and Huna teachings.⁵¹ Westlake found that healing involved removing these blockages and restoring flow between the subtle bodies. It was Tansley who introduced this world-view of Theosophy and eastern mysticism into radionics as a way of rationalising its protocols. But it should always be remembered that the concept of subtle bodies is only a model and there is no physical evidence that they exist. However, the model has proved useful over many years in rationalising what occurs during healing. A number of people are now trying to fit these esoteric philosophies into a framework provided by quantum mechanics. Whether it will be successful remains to be seen.

Healing and the observational state

There may be much to Hyland’s suggestion that healing simply involves an observational state by the therapist as recent work on the effects of prayer on healing has demonstrated that although directed prayer is effective, i.e. prayer in which the prayer acts for a specific outcome, undirected prayer was twice as effective, i.e. when the outcome was left to a ‘higher authority’.¹⁹ Arthur Bailey’s observations also led him to believe that the true magic of healing comes from relaxation and a non-identification with whatever healing takes place.⁴ Detachment is mandatory in esoteric teaching.⁵

Tansley was in no doubt that the primary factor in radionic analysis was simply the resonance of contact when the patient is ‘brought to mind.’ ⁴³ He believed this simple act to have curative and therapeutic qualities; indeed the ‘analysis is the treatment.’ As George Kuepper points out ‘for those who believe that the Creative Force in the universe is in a better position to decide what constitutes “harmony” and healing, this (finding) is no surprise.’ ²⁷

In Hyland’s words: ‘The observational state needed by the therapist must involve a genuineness which may or may not involve conscious awareness, but if it were conscious it is likely to feel like a loving connectivity with the patient and the patient’s world. The reason is that the best analogy for emergent entanglement is that it is a state of love with the universe, because what the emergent entanglement allows is a form of non-local connectivity with the world.’ ²⁴

Bell’s Inequality Theorem of non-locality introduced the concept that everything in the universe is connected to everything else.²⁰ This was proved experimentally by Aspect and colleagues in 1982.³ Non-local interactions are not mediated by any observed force, are instantaneous and are not reduced by distance. In fact, as Talbot has pointed out there is essentially no such thing as separation and that ‘everything is not merely part of a whole, but that wholeness is the primary reality.’ ⁴² So concepts such as projection and broadcasting are irrelevant as they presume time and space which in the modern concepts of quantum mechanics do not exist.⁴³ There is not a patient and your mind but the ‘patient in the mind.’ ⁴³ The experiences of many healers are consistent with these views, particularly when they find, as we all have, that healing has begun before our physical treatment has started. Elizabeth Baerlein was aware of this in 1958 and believed thought to be the key to radionics and one of our greatest powers.⁴³

Whether any of these suggestions involving entanglement will prove to be true only time will tell. If they are valid then they are likely to operate at Clarke’s top-down approach rather than the type of entanglement we observe in the laboratory with photons. However, one should always be aware of the warning of the great American physicist Richard Feynman who once remarked that anyone who thinks they understand the utter weirdness of quantum theory, scientists included, has probably got it wrong. And the eminent quantum physicist Polkinghorne has warned against ‘“quantum hype”, saying that although quantum entanglement exhibits non-locality of relationship … it does not offer an explanation for telepathy because the quantum entanglement relationship is not one capable of information transfer.’ ^35a

However, if there is any currency in the emergent entanglement idea then it could open up new avenues for radionic treatment. For example, the therapist could generate a concept of an optimum body state by generating a command for ‘entanglement’.

The importance of the world-view

An important aspect of healing concerns the ‘world-view’ of the therapist. LeShan emphasized the importance of world-view as successful practitioners had a belief in their approach to radionics and all saw their area of emphasis (i.e. whether parasites, viruses, miasms, traumas etc.) as the most important.⁴³

All therapies, including conventional medicine, exist within their own coherent world-view.^{2, 21, 49} These views have changed throughout history and the practice of medicine is merely a reflection of the prevailing worldview. Whereas conventional medicine is grounded in the Cartesian mechanistic view of the universe, many complementary therapies, as we have already seen, claim to look elsewhere for a rationale of their more ‘holistic’ approaches.

Therapists and, to a certain extent, patients ideally work within a shared world-view, in which they can all believe. The long training of many therapists, whether in conventional or complementary systems, and also shamanism, instils in the practitioners a belief in that particular discipline and enables them to operate successfully within it.

Many of the instruments used are visually impressive and form part of the world-view of the therapy. They are an essential part of the ritual of healing, but I doubt whether many have a significant technological function. Let us look specifically at the role of instruments and rates in radionic healing.

The role of instruments

There have been many examples of instruments being effective when there was no internal wiring or the wiring was broken ^{4, 26} or they were not connected to the electricity supply, and many practitioners discard their boxes at some time during their career as they find they can get just as good results without them.^{4, 12, 43} Even in 1958 Elizabeth Baerlein wrote that she believed that radionic work had nothing to do with mechanical factors.⁴³ So what role do instruments have in radionic practice? Most commentators express the view that they are extensions of the practitioner’s mind and assist in executing his intent. ²⁷ Kuepper goes on to say that the protocols of radionics have the primary purpose of clarifying the intent of the operator, intent being the overriding factor in deciding what the instrument will do.²⁷

Along the same lines King believes instruments to be ‘merely handy devices for permitting the subconscious to objectify information.’ ²⁶ They can fine-tune the focus of the operator’s mind.²⁶ Focus is important and it is here that the witness, the object representing the patient, may play a role. It is a symbol of what you need to contact. Witnesses may, therefore, not strictly be necessary and Tansley has documented cases to prove this ⁴³ but he believes they may be necessary to satisfy the logical requirements of the left brain, like the dials and rates and, indeed, to satisfy the left brain may be a key role of the instrument itself. It provides a physical symbol of a healing process as we see it.⁴³ They may also keep the left brain occupied while the right brain does the healing. It certainly seems to be important to distract the attention of the logical brain whilst healing. Tansley describes this state as ‘relaxed attention’. Many practitioners, including myself, find it important to occupy the left brain with mundane matters in order to allow healing to occur, presumably through subconscious intervention.

Many of these devices, therefore, only provide a means for the therapist to enter the healing situation, to understand the problem within their own world-view, and to enact a ritual to harness the healing energy. This is not a new idea. Many other authors believe that healing devices release the patient’s healing potential and it is the patient rather than the properties of the remedies that should be examined to gain a better understanding of healing mechanisms.^{23, 35, 36} Westlake certainly believed that healing instruments were simply devices to open the patient’s consciousness which may then, possibly, lead to a physical change. King sums up the situation by saying that the real power of the instrument lies in the operator, not his tools.²⁶

The role of rates

Central to radionics since its beginnings has been the use of rates, both for analysis and treatment. Abrams’ original rates were resistances read from the rheostats in the circuit but as the circuitry changed during instrument evolution rates no longer represented a resistance within the circuit but became sets of numbers that were obtained by dowsing with the specific factor held in mind or physically present. Different instruments had different sets of rates and even within one system different conditions or organs often had several rates and one rate often represented more than one organ or condition, the significance of which has sparked numerous debates.⁴³ Kuepper certainly believes that the notion of rates actually representing frequencies is mistaken and suggests that rates are simply access codes to groups of energy information patterns, themselves complex frequencies resonant with the subtle energy fields of specific tissues, organs or pathologies.²⁷ He sees radionics as a means of information transfer which informs the system what it needs to bring itself into harmony.

There have been many other suggestions as to what the rates represent both in esoteric and more physical terms. Drown was versed in the Kabbalah and relationships between her rates and the Tree of Life have been discerned and Constable believed that such were the consistencies that it was impossible to discard the rates as being arbitrary and meaningless and of no application outside the Drown system.¹⁶

From a different perspective Calverley and McCaffrey have suggested that rates describe the pattern of nodal points formed when the various force fields from the body intersect with each other.¹² Certainly, for some people rates represented patterns and Malcolm Rae abandoned the use of rates in favour of geometric designs drawn on small cards (the MGA system).

In a test reported by Bailey ⁴ practitioners obtained just as good results using ‘incorrect’ rates as the approved ones and he concluded that provided a practitioner accepts the rates as correct they will work. As King says all rate sheets are arbitrary and you can make up your own.²⁶ Actually no rates are right or wrong as it is the belief of the practitioner that is the key to success.⁴³ Rather like amulets and charms Tansley believed rates to be ‘dead’ until they are employed through the force of belief. It is possible, of course, that the power attributed to particular rates by their use by many practitioners may give them some residual power but in this case their continued effectiveness will depend on their continued use. Indeed, George de la Warr found that when giving treatment with an instrument it was necessary for the operator to ‘refresh’ the treatment set periodically by giving thought to the patient. He did wonder whether the power of thought was remedial or merely necessary to maintain the link between the practitioner and patient. A familiar rate, rather like an image, has the capacity to prompt and sustain specific thought resonances in the mind. Rates act as a useful code for the subconscious.²⁶ Tansley crystallized his thoughts on rates by saying that they are ‘simply devices to focus the mind of the practitioner. They act as a focal point between physical and subtle levels of matter.’ ⁴³

Computerised instruments

As our world-view evolves in this technological age so do the instruments used in healing change to meet the expectations of both patients and practitioners. The Energetic-Medicine website discusses computerised treatment devices, with specific reference to the QXCI, although the discussion would apply equally to other devices.⁵³ There are many instruments available on the market today which scan the body by looking at ‘electrical parameters’. They appear to work simply by entering data into a screen, which is fed into a weighted random number generator which in turn displays results. When it comes round to treating, buttons are just clicked on a screen with no programming beyond the graphical displays of saying it is treating. Corrective signals are sent to the body via a harness, or even by distant treatment in some cases. Some devices treat automatically with no practitioner input. Apparently they all give very similar accuracy levels. The differences between them are more graphical and price rather than anything internally that different.

The website author suggests that in reality these instruments are closer to radionics than anything else, and certainly have no bearing on any electrical measure or treatment. However, there is a problem with using pseudo-random numbers for diagnosis in that in these systems of 1000s of items in a test matrix, they always miss many things that people have and aren’t able to repeat the results that they do get. Excuses given for this effect go along the lines that testing affects ‘the energy’ of the system and, therefore, the results next time, or that there is ‘randominity in the universe’. However, it is not hard to see that if you know you have a particular problem and it does not come up every single time, then the overall diagnosis of everything else cannot be that reliable and should be treated as such.

Repeated use by many practitioners bears testament to the fact that some useful interpretation of results can be gained even by not entering data apparently! Research at Princeton University has shown that random events can be influenced.^{25, 35b} However, it should be remembered that these results represent tiny but nevertheless statistically significant deviations from chance often involving tens of thousands of trials. A few gifted people tended to obtain the best results. Whether all operators, all the time, can produce significant and meaningful alterations of the random number generators is unlikely. In the light of these comments the random event generator inside the computer should be seen to act as the interface between consciousness and the computer and as long as the data are believed, healing can be obtained. This is perhaps where the need for the device came from, to provide a confidence bridge for new people, but it has also caused a lot of the controversy as people discover it doesn’t work as it is claimed. These instruments should perhaps be seen as more of a crutch for the practitioner’s own healing intent rather than anything else.

William Tiller and Intention Imprinted Electrical Devices

The work of William Tiller, Professor Emeritus at Stanford University, on an Intention Imprinted Electrical Device (IIED) may have relevance to radionics. These small electrical devices were imprinted with a specific intention for a particular target experiment by individuals highly skilled at meditation. The experiments involved shipping the imprinted and un-imprinted devices about two thousand miles to a laboratory where they were used in the specific target experiments.^46-48

Several experiments have been conducted. For the first, the intention was to either increase or decrease the pH of pure water by one full pH unit. For the second target experiment the intention was to increase the ratio of two chemicals involved in energy metabolism [ATP]/[ADP] in developing fruit fly larvae so that they would be more fit and thus have a significantly reduced development time in reaching the adult fly stage. For the third target experiment, the intention was to increase the in vitro activity of the liver enzyme alkaline phosphatase by a significant amount.

The results for all experiments were dramatic. But imprinting devices with healing, or other intent, is certainly not new. Mesmer claimed different materials and people varied in the amount of vril (his word for vital force, chi, prana etc.) they could absorb.²⁶ From time immemorial amulets and charms have been charged with directed energy. They are empowered by the user and any effect comes about because the user believes it will, at least at some level of consciousness. Because of that you can turn any object you choose into an amulet or talisman. When you designate an object as having special powers you are actually using that object to stimulate those powers within yourself. The esoteric qualities of an object are based on belief and expectation rather than some inherent quality of the object itself.²⁶

The approach using IIEDs is not dissimilar to what a radionic practitioner does during treatment. Indeed a number of devices such as Chris Dennison’s Harmonizer ¹⁷ have similarities to Tiller’s IIED. Dennison’s Harmoniser uses holographic film as its basis and holography has often been invoked as a basis for esoteric healing and more latterly to explain the action of the radionic cameras designed and built by several people including Ruth Drown, George de la Warr and Jim Bage.³⁸ How the cameras work is unknown but it is clear that it is very operator dependent. Only a few people have succeeded in obtaining useful images from it. Although a reanalysis of the de la Warr photographs by Benford and colleagues led them to believe that the operation relied on quantum holography, nevertheless the presence of an operator in resonance with the system is crucial.^{9, 10} It was suggested that the directed intention of the operator forced quantum entanglement/coherence of the complete system and resulted in meaningful photographs useful for diagnostic purposes.

Tiller and his colleagues believe that their imprinted device raises ‘the inner symmetry state of a room to a thermodynamic free energy state substantially above that of our normal world. This IIED tunes this space in such a way that a corresponding target experiment set up in that space responds in such a way that the experimentally-measured material properties change, both in the direction of the intention and to the degree specified by the intention.’

The above description was obtained from one of Tiller’s websites ⁴⁵ but he has published his work in a number of places, often with the complex maths that support the hypothesis. ^{18, 44, 46-48}

Exciting though these experiments are not everyone has been able to replicate them ³³ and I would suggest that their success depends on the ‘healing’ abilities of the participators. Their results would certainly be accommodated by some of the proposals made earlier. This ability to impart information to the environment has similarities to the work of the late Jacques Benveniste in which he found the information of homeopathic remedies could be imparted to water by electromagnetic means, ⁵² although again not everyone has been able to replicate them.

Why doesn’t everyone get better?

Not everyone responds to treatment of course and there may be several reasons for this, some of which involve the mind. Calverley, ¹² for example, and others have found that ‘patients without a creative mind’s eye’ do not respond well to (radionic) treatment and require physical treatments whereas creative and natural people respond well to treatment. Animals and plants also respond well.’ He goes on to say that ‘creative and natural people are not bound by the lower mind but have openings which allow them to transcend the ordinary mental consciousness, while animals and plants have not yet grown into it.’

Another reason, recognized early by Mesmer, was that the patient should want to get better and should be prepared to accept the healing energy. ^{26, 32, 43} For many people illness may be a means of solving life problems and they may not wish to recover. Other reasons include ‘conditions necessitated by Karma or the Soul’s Life Plan’, ‘the patient has entered deathing to end the incarnation’ and ‘the patient has a shell of disbelief blocking even the energy of the healer’.⁸ However, even sceptical people can respond to healing; ³² these people may be truly open-minded rather than hostile to the process. As Paracelsus said the remedy is nothing but a seed which you must develop into that which it is destined to be.

A point I would make is the importance of finding a healer who is ‘on the same wavelength’ as the patient. An experienced Traditional Chinese practitioner used the phrase ‘finding the right key to fit your lock’ in response to a question of why some patients didn’t respond to healers who had a good track record healing others. What this ’wavelength’ involves is not known but I am in no doubt that it is the healer and not the therapy they practise that is the key to success. For many people it is a question of trying practitioners until something ‘clicks’ or, if they consult a radionic practitioner, the practitioner may be able to dowse the best practitioner to try. In light of previous discussion a sympathetic mingling of fields may be key to allowing the realignment of the body’s disturbed systems.

A final fundamental question is ‘why do we need healers at all?’ Why don’t miracles occur on their own and more often? One factor is probably the vicelike grip our left brain has upon both patient and practitioner.⁴³ Many people feel that it is our beliefs that limit and shape our physical experience and few, if any, of us have no real limitations on our beliefs at a subconscious level. To change our beliefs at a fundamental level is actually very difficult. By employing a healer we are passing some of the responsibility over to someone who may see things differently from us and perhaps break some of the subconscious barriers and allow a restructuring of our patterns. As Calverley says ‘the adjustment of consciousness’.¹²

Conclusions

Many practitioners are now recognising that radionics can only really be explained by assuming that changes are occurring initially at subtle levels, the putative etheric body for example. These subtle fields of energy provide a blueprint for growth and development and they can be detected by the human nervous system as a physical response illustrated by the dowsing response. The fields can be affected by human thought over great distances with no apparent medium of energy transfer. Radionic instruments are tools that assist the human body’s natural capabilities of subtle field detection and interaction. One must remember, however, that these fields are putative and whether they truly exist is still unclear.

We should be honest with ourselves as to what is going on in radionics and not doggedly toe the orthodox line when it is manifestly incapable of explaining how radionics works. We should accept that radionics must evolve both at the physical and mental levels, to survive. As Tansley said ‘Almost anything that does not change and retain a flexible capacity to adapt itself to the ebb and flow of beliefs, revelations and new knowledge, must ultimately crystallise and shatter, losing its usefulness and effectiveness.’ ⁴³ The role of consciousness in healing is a common thread running through the writings of many people on radionics. Kuepper believes the essence of radionics is ‘the unity of operator and subject, established by intent and facilitated by an instrument.’ ²⁷ And the fundamental activity behind the application of radionics is the handling of consciousness.

References

fn1. The idea of introducing the concepts of theosophy into radionics had been discussed in the Radionic Association before Tansley published his books but it was Tansley who provided an accessible guide for practitioners and students. (Enid Eden, personal communication 2006)

fn2. Magic – the art of producing marvellous results by compelling the aid of spirits, or by using the secret forces of nature, such as the power supposed to reside in certain objects as ‘givers of life’. Brookes, I. ed. (2003) The Chambers Dictionary, 9th edn. Chambers Harrap, Edinburgh.

1. Abrams A. (1916) New Concepts in Diagnosis and Treatment. Philopolis Press, San Francisco.
2. Ackernecht E. H. (1942) Problems of primitive medicine. Bulletin of the History of Medicine. 11, 503-521.
3. Aspect A., Dalibard J., and Roger G. (1982) Experimental test of Bell’s inequalities using time-varying analyzers. Physical Review Letters. 49, 1804.
4. Bailey A. (1999) Anyone Can Dowse for Better Health. Quantum, London.
5. Bailey A. A. (1953) Esoteric Healing. Lucis Press, London.
6. Bailey A. R. (1972) A scientist looks at dowsing. Journal of the British Society of Dowsers. 23, 61-72.
7. Barr J. (1925) Abrams’ Methods of Diagnosis and Treatment. Heinemann, London.
8. Bendykowski B. (2006) The mechanism of healing in radionics. Radionic Journal. 51(1), 4-8.
9. Benford M. S. (2000) Empirical evidence supporting macro-scale quantum holography in non-local effects. Journal of Theoretics. 2, Available at http://www.homestead.com/newvistas/index.html (Accessed 2/2/2005).
10. Benford M. S., Moscow P., Mitchell E., and Marcer P. (2001) QuantaGraphy: images from the quantum hologram. In: Fifth International Conference on Computing Anticipatory Systems (CASY’01)). Available on http://www.homestead.com/newvistas/CASYS.html, Liege, Belgium (accessed 2/2/2005).
11. Brookes I. ed. (2003) The Chambers Dictionary, 9th edn. Chambers Harrap, Edinburgh.
12. Calverley R. (1986) Radionics and Self-Development. Radionics Research Association, Toronto, Ontario.
12a. Charman, R.A. (2006) Has direct brain to brain communication been demonstrated by electroencephalographic monitoring of paired or group subjects? Journal of the Society for Psychical Research. 70, 1-24.
Charman, R. A. (2006) Direct brain to brain communication – further evidence from EEG and fMRI studies. Paranormal Review. No. 40, 3-9.
Charman, R. A. (2006) Something really is going on. Journal of the Society for Psychical Research. 70, 249-251.
13. Clarke C. (2004) Entanglement – the explanation for everything? Network, 116, 13-16.
14. Clarke C. (2004) Quantum mechanics, consciousness and the self. In: Science, Consciousness and Ultimate Reality (ed. D. Lorimer), pp. 65-92. Academic Imprint, Exeter.
15. Constable T. J. (1961) The work of Dr. Ruth Drown. An outline on a thumbnail. In: Radionics. The New Age Science., pp. 69-76. Borderland Sciences Research Foundation, Garberville, CA.
16. Constable T. J. (1976) Criminal or Genius? In: The Cosmic Pulse of Life, pp. 233-255. Neville Spearman, Sudbury, Suffolk.
17. Dennison C. (1999) Radionic instruments for the 21st century. Radionic Journal. 45(2), 23- 28.
18. Dibble W. E., Jr and Tiller W. A. (1999) Electronic device-mediated pH changes in water. 15 Journal of Scientific Exploration. 13, 155-176.
19. Dossey L. (1997) Recovering the Soul. A Scientific and Spiritual Search. Bantam, Doubleday, Dell, New York.
20. Fellows L. E. (2003) Mind over matter – the challenge of radionics. In: Horizons in Radionics (ed. T. Scofield), pp. 1-10. Trencavel Press, Folkestone.
21. Frank J. D. (1963) Persuasion and Healing. Schocken Books, New York.
22. Gerber R. (2000) Vibrational Medicine for the 21st Century. Piatkus, London.
23. Green E. and Green A. (1977) Beyond Feedback. Delacorte Press, New York.
24. Hyland M. E. (2004) Emergent entanglement, love and being. Journal of Holistic Healthcare. 1, 24-29.
25. Jahn R. G. and Dunne B. J. (2005) The PEAR proposition. Journal of Scientific Exploration. 19, 195-245.
26. King S. K. (1992) Earth Energies. Quest Books, Wheaton, Ill.
27. Kuepper G. L. (1996) Radionics, Reality & Man. Gaia, Goshen, Arkansas.
28. Lescarboura A. C. (1924) Our Abrams Investigation – VI. A study of the late Dr. Albert Abrams of San Francisco and his work. Scientific American. 130, 159, 207, 210-212, 214.
29. Lescarboura A. C. (1924) Our Abrams Investigation – VII. Queer adventures and queer people met in our quest of the E.R.A. truth. Scientific American. 130, 240, 278-281.
30. Lindemann P. A. (1991) Build your own radionic tuner. In: Radionics. The New Age Science, pp. 57-60. Borderland Sciences Research Foundation, Garberville, CA.
31. Lindemann P. A. (1991) Radionic analysis: a theoretical approach. In: Radionics. The New Age Science., pp. 61-64. Borderland Sciences Research Foundation, Garberville, CA.
32. MacIvor V. and LaForest S. (1979) Vibrations. Healing Through Color, Homoeopathy and Radionics. Samuel Weiser, York Beach, Maine.
33. Mason L. I. and Patterson R. P. (2003) Replication attempt: no development of pH or temperature oscillations in water using Intention Imprinted Electronic Devices. Journal of Scientific Exploration. 17, 521-526.
34. McTaggart L. (2001) The Field. HarperCollins, London.
35. Playfair G. L. (1985) If This be Magic. Jonathan Cape, London.
35a. Polkinghorne, J. (2002) Quantum Theory. Oxford University Press, Oxford.
35b. Radin, D. (2006) Entangled Minds. Paraview Pocket Books, New York.
36. Scofield A. M. (1989) Shamanism, healing and the dowsing tradition. Journal of the British Society of Dowsers. 33, 423-438.
37. Scofield A. M. (2003) Radionics – the early years. In: Horizons in Radionics (ed. A. M. Scofield), pp. 11-40. Trencavel Press, Folkestone.
38. Scofield A. M. (2005) Some recent work relevant to radionics. Radionic Journal. 50(2), 19-26.
39. Scofield T. (2003) Evolution of modern instrumentation. In: Horizons in Radionics (ed. T. Scofield), pp. 209-223. Trencavel Press, Folkestone.
40. Sheldrake R. (1988) The Presence of the Past. HarperCollins, London.
41. Strong F. F. (1922) Disease: its cause and cure. Pearson’s Magazine.
42. Talbot M. (1993) Mysticism and the New Physics. Arkana, London.
43. Tansley D. V. (1982) Radionics: Science or Magic? C.W. Daniel, Saffron Walden.
44. Tiller W. A. (2001) Conscious Acts of Creation. Pavior Publishing, Walnut Creek, CA.
45. Tiller W. A. (2003) Exploring the effects of human intention and thought energy. (http:// www.gem-systems.com/research/tiller.htm) (accessed 20/1/2005).(Page no longer active but see http://tillerfoundation.com/newpapers.htm for similar papers)
46. Tiller W. A. (2004) Personal perspectives on energies in future energy medicine. Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine. 10, 1167-1177. 16
47. Tiller W. A., Dibble W. E., Jr, Nunley R., and Shealy C. N. (2004) Towards general experimentation and discovery in “conditioned” laboratory spaces, Part I: Experimental pHchange findings at some remote sites. Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine. 10, 145-157.
48. Tiller W. A., Dibble W. E., Jr, Shealy C. N., and Nunley R. (2004) Towards general experimentation and discovery in “conditioned” laboratory spaces, Part II: pH-change experience at four remote sites, one year later. Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine. 10, 301-306.
49. Torrey E. F. (1972) The Mind Game. Witchdoctors and Psychiatrists. Emerson Hall Publishers, New York.
50. Westlake A. (1973) The role and scope of the radiesthetic faculty in the modern world. Privately printed, Fordingbridge, Hants.
51. Westlake A. T. (1973) The Pattern of Health. Shambhala, Berkeley, CA.
52. http://www.digibio.com/ (accessed 2/2/2005).
53. http://www.energetic-medicine.net/QXCI.html (accessed 21/11/2005).

This paper (since updated) was presented at the Internationaler Kongress für Psychobiophysik und Radionick, Fulda, Germany 1-2 April 2006 and the Radionic Conference Earth and Cosmos, Edinburgh 4-6 August 2006.

Sharing is caring!