Occultism and Radionics

Occultism, Pseudoscience and Radionics (From Chapter Three of Psi Development Systems)

In addition to pure mental exercises for focusing and concentration, there exist for the psychic practitioner techniques involving magic words, spells, charms, amulets, symbols, crystals, pendulums, crystal balls, tea leaves, planetary movements, facial moles, playing cards, lines on the palm, lines on the forehead, pages selected randomly from holy books, candle flames, smoke, drops of oil in water, precious stones, the flight of birds, mirrors and a hundred other forms of divinations. These techniques, generally used in ritualistic patterns that aid in focusing concentration, have little scientific use other than as a possible mental focus for inducing clairvoyance within a ritualistic context, or as a trigger for the imagination. Prescientific cultures originally fostered these magical technologies. When the need for explanation or justification was felt, it was of a religious or occult nature as befit the times.

A number of these occult practices have survived into our present age and as a consequence are claimed by some to have acquired allegedly scientific theoretical justifications. Examples of this are pyramid power, radionics, radiesthesia and dowsing -- insofar as practitioners crudely postulate, in order to explain apparent psi effects, some new form of "energy" unrecognized by science. (Other examples more peripheral to psi training, where the theoretical justifications have not been verified, include acupuncture, iridology, homeopathy, handwriting analysis, polarity therapy, "touch for health" therapy, and reflexology.)

The case of radionics illustrates this point very well. Radionics is a method of medical diagnosis and healing through the use of complicated instruments, or "black boxes," which (although no one understands how they work) have allegedly resulted in miraculous cures. The modem founder of the radionics movement was Dr. Albert Abrams, a professor of pathology at Stanford University's medical school. Basing his discoveries on the philosophy that all matter radiates information that can be detected by his instruments in conjunction with the unconscious reflexes of the operator, Abrams attracted a large following and also aroused the ire of the medical and scientific establishments. Thousands of self-professed healers were effecting cures, making diagnoses and even removing pests from gardens merely by twisting dials, swinging pendulums, or rubbing their fingers across strange devices. The following passage describes the use of one such instrument, called the de la Warr Machine: "Suppose that it is required to find out the condition of a patient's liver. We place a bloodspot or saliva sample in one of the two containers at the top of the main panel, according to whether the patient is male or female, and start turning the tuning knob slowly, passing the fingers of the right hand over the rubber detector at the same time with a series of ‘brushing' strokes until a ‘stick' is obtained. The patient's bloodspot is then tuned into the set." (Wethered 1957)

There is no evidence whatsoever that the array of coils and dials on the "black box" have any merit from a technical point of view. (Radionics proponents with no financial interest in selling the devices often admit this is so.) Rather, it seems that the black box can be viewed as a ritual object which may allow the radionics practitioner to suspend disbelief, focus the mind, and, in some instances, make use of his or her own psychic abilities to instigate the healing process.

We may liken the radionics instrument to a pencil. If you were asked to multiply 123 times 178 in your head, the task might well seem impossible. However, if you had a pencil and paper, it would be no problem to go through the step by step multiplication procedure. Even using the pencil, nobody would think that it was not you who did the arithmetic. Nobody would suggest that there was a magic "pencil power" which was able to solve mathematical problems. In fact, if you tried you could probably train yourself to do mathematics without the use of a pencil at all.

The fact that any given technique may sometimes appear to Produce results is not proof that the technique itself produces those results-and certainly is not sufficient proof for any of the theoretical assumptions behind the technique in question. Some people apparently find it easier to engage in ESP work if they can comfort their "rational" minds with scientific sounding notions.

One organization particularly active in training psi abilities while employing concepts such as radionics and pyramid power, as well as notions of the chakras and aura drawn from Theosophy, is the University of the Trees located in Boulder Creek, California. The founder of this program, Christopher Hills, has published several lengthy books, Nuclear Evolution and Supersensonics (1975), which attempt to synthesize a scientific understanding of psi and mystical phenomena. The product is actually rather imaginative and sophisticated for a layman although of very little interest to the serious student of scientific theory in parapsychology. The pseudoscientific nature of such theorizing does have a secondary value for students at the University of the Trees who apparently find it a comfortable enough framework within which to engage in psi activity. The literature provided by the University of the Trees includes newspaper clippings about lost and stolen objects that were recovered through the use of dowsing rods.

References

Hills, C. Supersensonics. Boulder Creek, Calif.: University of the Trees Press, 1975.

Wethered, V.D. An introduction to medical radiesthesia and radionic Ashingdon, Rochford, Essex, England: C.W. Daniel Co., 1957.


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