11) Psychical Physics

It seems peculiar to us today that prominent medical doctors and famous writers like Upton Sinclair would be so supportive of what could only be considered the use of psychic energy in the pursuit of medicine. We cannot readily appreciate how interested many scientists at that time were in the crossover of electrical phenomena with consciousness and psychic phenomena.

In late 2006 the New York Times ran an Op Ed story titled ‘The Ghost in the Machine’ by Pulitzer Prize journalist Deborah Blum. Her insights into that word bear review.

“The human brain is, in surprising part, an appliance powered by electricity. It constantly generates about 12 watts of energy, enough to keep a flashlight glowing. It works by sending out electrical impulses — bursts of power running along the cellular wires of the nervous system — to stimulate muscles into motion or thought into being.”

“The scientific study of the supernatural began in the late 19th century, in synchrony with the age of energy. It’s hardly coincidental that as traditional science began to reveal the hidden potential of nature’s powers — magnetic fields, radiation, radio waves, electrical currents — paranormal researchers began to suggest that the occult operated in similar ways.

“A fair number of these occult explorers were scientists who studied nature’s highly charged circuits. Marie Curie, who did some of the first research into radioactive elements like uranium, attended séances to assess the powers of mediums. So did the British physicist J. J. Thomson, who demonstrated the existence of the electron in 1897. And so did Thomson’s colleague, John Strutt, Lord Rayleigh, who won the 1904 Nobel Prize in Physics for his work with atmospheric gases.

“Rayleigh would later become president of the British Society for Psychical Research. And he would be joined in that organization by other physicists, including the wireless radio pioneer Sir Oliver Lodge, who proposed that both telepathy and ghostly appearances were achieved through energy transmissions connecting living minds to one another and perhaps even to the dead.

“Lodge argued that the human brain could function as a kind of receiver, picking up signals at a subconscious level. These were powered by some undiscovered energy, traveling perhaps in waves, perhaps in currents. Such transmissions lay behind telepathic experiences, including shared thoughts. Along the same lines, he thought it possible that a spirit’s appearance was really just its specific energy signal stimulating a response from the receiver’s brain.”

In the gradual recasting of Radionics as a psychic technology, Abrams had discovered that blood samples had allowed him to diagnose a patient from a distance. He had also found that the mysterious radiations he studied could fill a Leyden jar for about an hour; they could also charge a condenser or even piece of paper. The charge present in these materials was often sufficient to cause a stomach reflex several hours later. He also found that colored light could amplify the ERA reflex if shined upon a section of the diagnostic circuit.

Today, physicists like Dr. William A. Tiller of Stanford University who has spent decades studying the physics of consciousness points out the plethora of photon radiations given off by living systems.

“Ultra-weak photon emission from various living systems is a common phenomenon for all plants and animals with the radiation intensity being on the order of a few thousand photons per second……..The spectral range of the photon emission spreads at least over the region from the infrared to the ultraviolet with the mitochondria in cells appearing to be the localization of the radiation source…….Cancer cells are intense radiation sources with peak intensities, without spectral shifts, increasing by a factor of 100 after treatment with toxic agents.

“It is interesting that the human photoreceptor, the flavin molecules, are not limited to the retina of the eye but are ubiquitous, being found in virtually every tissue of the body. In addition, flavins are not the only photoactive molecules in the body: carotenes, melanin and heme molecules are also photoactive.” (SCIENCE AND HUMAN TRANSFORMATION, P. 135).

Given the capacity of the body to produce and receive photonic radiation, which we are beginning to understand today, and its potential role in expanding our knowledge of psychic phenomena, perhaps the rush to judge Abrams mysterious radiations as unscientific was a bit hasty and shortsighted. Decades later, other Radionics inventors would also claim some form of electrically stimulated light was the conductor of radionic emissions.

Do these simple and interesting facets of Abrams basic experiments hold unrecognized potential today? What if the hard drive of a computer is also capable of holding this radiation? Could it be sent into computer circuits to accomplish work? Could the color on the screen amplify the process? Could it be sent across the internet and be downloaded into a viewers mind as a subconscious semiotic command?

Abrams tried many techniques for long distance diagnosis. First he measured the earth for conduction, a method he called ‘radiogeodiagnosis.’ It was only reliable for short distances. He tried the telephone, asking the patient to place the witness (blood sample, etc.) near the receiver while he searched for the appropriate stomach reflex in his clinic (‘telediagnosis’). This technique was good for about 500 miles. When he tried for direct communication through the air, the best he could do with any accuracy was one mile.

There was one other very serious obstacle to advancing the ERA into a fully electronic technology. Abrams was not able to escape the constraint of having a living, healthy stomach nearby for determining the appropriate reflex. At one point he became so desperate to create a substitute for this human component he offered a small fortune in those days, $10,000, to anyone who could engineer a suitable instrumental replacement for percussing the human abdomen. It was becoming increasingly hard to find young men willing to stand the long hours necessary for compounded diagnostics.

One technical advancement Abrams accomplished was to circumvent the necessity to learn the percussive techniques. For some physicians, this skill had not been easy to acquire. In its place, he substituted a glass rod held firmly over the abdomen to be stroked back and forth over the abdomen. When the rod appeared to drag or catch over the reaction area, which puckered from the reflex, one could thereby diagnose the condition.

It was becoming more than obvious that something beyond electricity was at work. Abrams had found that radiations from drugs like quinine had cancelled the radiations of malaria, as mercury had with syphilis. Can you imagine the damage to the drug industry today if only a small portion of a medicine’s radiations directed at a disease could promote the same curative effects?

Abrams had also discovered the peculiar fact that any of these mysterious radiations could be neutralized by the magnetic fields of the earth. For some unknown reason we learn, no reflex reactions were possible unless the Subject faced west. The capacity for the cancellation of the radiations of a disease by counter radiation became a major component in the development of his Oscilloclast instrument. Ironically today, with magnetic resonant imaging, MRI, we are able to paint a magnetic image of all the organs of the body. The image is constructed of the particular magnetic characteristics of the organ. Should a tumor appear on the image screen, is it so far fetched to imagine that those precise frequency characteristics could used to cancel out the disease? If a Bose headset uses inverted frequencies to cancel out disturbing noise, can inverting the frequency characteristics of a disease do the same?

At the time of Abraham’s discovery of Radionics, chemistry was at the beginning of its long march to take control of modern medicine. One can see as we view Abrams' discovery through the eyes of his longtime friend, author Upton Sinclair, that with more institutional support, Radionics might well have become part of today's roster of diagnostic tools. One can only wonder as to the benefit to world health today had these discoveries of Abrams and his followers not been effectively squelched in their infancy.

Today, the current public fascination with alternative healing modalities and the increased investigation of psychic powers in the scientific and defense community have all set the stage for a reconsideration of Abrams' work. Experimentation with these techniques, especially in the arts could foster greater public awareness of the potential of tools like Radionics.

We present details of radionic concept, design and construction with the artist in mind, as a place to begin research. After Abrams death, much of the early scientific excitement behind Radionics research was eclipsed by a more occult approach to obtaining results. Where Abrams upheld high standards of training and manufacturing, refusing to sell his instruments to unqualified individuals, soon they became available to anyone with a hanker to cure. The blurring of technology and psychic healing accelerated. Ironically, while these developments created utter consternation with medical authorities, the popular culture surrounding their miraculous cures and improbable technology continued unabated.