19) British Radionics: From Electricity to Graphics

Marjorie and George de la Warr: In England, radionics took an altogether different turn than in America. For one, the British radionic inventors moved away from an electronic basis for their devices and into other forms of design. Predominately, English design used light, magnetism, diagrams and sound to effect radionic transactions. As such, they were aligned much more closely to traditional occult technology. Likewise, these radionic devices appear more artistic in the manner in which they were conceived and constructed.

This was due in large part to the efforts of a dynamic Oxford couple, George (called “Bill”) and Marjorie de la Warr. Bill de la Warr was born in 1904 and was educated as a mechanical engineer. For sixteen years among other jobs, he was Chief Engineering Assistant of the Oxfordshire County Council. Marjorie was the daughter of a scientist. Together, around 1940 when Bill was discharged from the Army for asthma and contact outside England was difficult, they received permission from Ruth Drown to copy her instrument.

DelaWarr had a passion for accuracy and a high regard for fine instruments. When confronted with the task of reconstructing and improving on Drowns design, he brought in a top instrument maker and a physicist to consult with on the project. Together with Marjorie, they began DelaWarr Laboratories. Marjorie's efforts were directed toward creating a successful radionics practice while the others concentrated on design innovations.

In light of subsequent developments in Radionics, particularly for art, many of the laboratories' discoveries had long ranging effects. In many ways their work foreshadows the current era of radionic sound devices and sonic art instillations.

Even more interesting was the fact that these instruments had much in common with ancient technology. Notice the uncanny similarity to 13th C. Babylonian geomantic devices (in the tuners) and African rubbing board oracles (in the detectors).

One of de la Warr’s early obsessions had lasting consequences for his work: plant radiations. De la Warr began measuring plant response to environmental stimuli with a sensitive galvanometer. He discovered that plant growth and electrical potential could be stimulated by sound waves of certain frequencies, and that this potential seemed to change when the plant was rotated in relation to the magnetic field of the earth. This observation is reminiscent of Abrams' discovery many years before. De la Warr found that when a plant was rotated to a “critical position” vis-à-vis the earth's magnetic field and then planted, it grew better.

These discoveries impacted his radionic designs. He was able to construct graduated dials of spring metal in a uniform way that allowed for a standardization of rates across all of his instruments. Nine of these tuning elements were connected in parallel and then to the lower plate of the detector. This detector was a condenser made of rubber mounted over a metal sheet, separated from a similar piece of metal below it by a pocket of air. The dials were mounted on a Bakelite panel, and also connected to two small 'wells' to hold the specimens being analyzed. The small unit did not require electricity and was easily transportable in its black carrying case. Thus was re-born the enigmatic “Black Box”, British style.

The ease of construction and standardized design allowed the de la Warrs to establish their own set of "rates". In refining this process, Bill discovered that by adding a rotating magnet to define the instruments' position in the earth's magnetic field, he was able to stabilize and sharpen the tuning capacity of his device. The tiny bar magnet was mounted on a rod attached to a rotating dial. It was mounted between the two input wells, above the panel holding the dials, and was also connected in parallel to them.

One can only imagine the contempt, derision and skepticism such an occult design was met with in scientific circles! But this was only the beginning. Next, the DelaWarr’s, returning to the sound experiments with plants, devised an instrument that worked with light and color called the “Delaray Lamp”. This device had even more resemblance to an art object. It was composed of a brass tube fitted with four pre-adjusted spirals inside it. The spirals were mounted over a black-body infra-red radiator housed in the base. The spirals were mounted at right angles to the radiation device and could be exchanged with other similar elements of slightly different design. These spirals were tuners that could be vectored according to a dowsing type methodology employed by the operator.

The spirals, (as a tuning mechanism) were based on the assumption that radionic energies followed a vortical pattern. A similar, later device using light was named the “Colorscope”. In this design, a light beam passing through optical filters could be reduced in such an accurate way as to define the rates, in measurements of light. These measurements were easily repeatable. In later versions, a plate holding a drop of blood (the witness) could be inserted and rotated on the axis of the light beam for carrying out remote diagnoses. The rotational element or 'critical rotational position' (CRP) of every form of matter was now one of the most important features of the de la Warr instrument design.

The DelaWarr laboratory also experimented with the therapeutic potential of sound. Radionics author Edward W. Russell states that using sound to carry radionic treatment into the body was part of an attempt by the laboratory to put a "friendlier" face on radionic treatment that wasn’t so occult in appearance. In fact, this line of experimentation led to a discovery of great importance for later researchers.

While broadcasting sound into the body, it occurred to de la Warr to see if the same sound was coming out of the body. Pursuing this thought, he discovered that a different waveform emerged from the subject being treated with sound. This waveform would vary with the disease of the patient. His discovery led to an invention called an "Autoplotter" or "Psychoplotter" that mapped the shape of the emerging waveform. The resulting graph or "Histogram" of this process was a description of the tissue or substance under treatment. The Histogram gave de la Warr the ability to establish a baseline for evaluating the effects his various inventions had on the organism undergoing the treatment.

In the case of patients in need of a cure, this baseline could be further correlated with blood tests performed at and outside diagnostic facility.

Adding to their therapeutic tools, the lab also developed another purely magnetic device for treatment called the MT/3. This device was a group of small solenoids that permitted magnetic fields to be applied directly to various parts of the body. (The solenoid is a small coil of wire around an air-core carrying one amp of current.) These solenoids broadcast a magnetic field into the body, sometimes pre-recorded, whose effects could then be analyzed from the blood tests. When combined with the other therapeutic devices and the histogram, a novel methodology of radionic treatment became available.

Artistically, the awareness of the power of sound itself led composers and sonic artists to render their own versions of how ambient field structures could sound. The electronic music of Cage, Stockhausen, Varese and others directly emerged from the chaotic envelope of frequencies heard and more often felt around us. Many such compositions assigned aesthetic value to radiant soundscapes. This process mimicked the therapeutic value of soundscapes assigned by the radionic devices.

Later sonic artists fused these experiences with visual art forms and performance. Ambient music became popular as a "lite" version of radionic audio impressions designed to heal or harmonize. Without realizing it and with little or no subsequent credit, the DelaWarr’s had initiated an important venue for artistic discovery in the late 20th Century.

Malcolm Rae: To any casual observer, by the last quarter of the 20th C., radionics already had much in common with art. Each inventor had developed a system and a technology that was both derivative and unique from earlier styles. All contained idiosyncratic elements that were self-referential or required a psychic component to work. All produced results that were based upon measurements of some kind, but exactly what was being measured could not be defined scientifically any more than aesthetics.

As a result, new systems of radionics developed that were highly artistic in nature. Two will be examined here. The first “design” system was the brainchild of a businessman and retired British Navy Lieutenant-Commander named Malcolm Rae, born in Cheshire, England in 1913.

Mr. Rae did not become a radionics pioneer until well into mid-life. Mention of his work does not figure regularly into radionic discussion until the 1960's. Many of his innovations were characterized by the introduction of mathematical concepts, especially Golden Ratio proportions, onto radionically inspired diagrams and devices. The diagrams took the form of same-sized printed cards that could be inserted or placed upon the device. These diagrams represented all the various structures, diseases, and remedies used for treatment, replacing the dials and electronics of earlier and more traditional radionic design.

The Rae Analyzer was a two-part device connected by wires. The cards would go into slots at one end, where switches selected the desired function and potency of treatment. This unit was connected by wire to a chart holder, which allowed interchangeable charts for analysis and treatment.

In addition, Rae returned to traditional pendulum dowsing over the diagnostic chart or graph to effect his treatments. The chart contained enough information that, by asking a question and watching where the pendulum moved, an indication of diagnosis or treatment could be obtained. Often the pendulum was designed to contain a Golden Ratio coil of wire within to enhance effectiveness. This revised pendulum replaced the stick pad as the primary divinatory tool in Rae’s inventions.

The return to dowsing had deeper implications for Rae's approach. Rae believed that the radiesthetic sense or psi function was just another type of natural sense like vision and hearing, only subtler. As such, it could account for the discrepancies between different individuals radionic perceptions of a condition. This rational was also like aesthetics, where numerous people would interpret the same aesthetics differently.

To bring potential aesthetic differences under one common nomenclature, Rae decided two things were necessary. First, the questions being asked of the pendulum had to be as precise as possible. Secondly, the best way to quantify the answer to a proper question was through the introduction of ratios (or sometimes shapes). In particular, ratios could be used to describe deviation from optimal potential.

Rae’s own dowsing for the best possible design calibrations for his early dial instruments led to the Golden Ratio (1:16180337…), or Golden Section. Apparently, at the time, Rae was quite unaware how important this ratio is in nature. The golden section ratio is a relationship of two parts to a whole, where the ratio of the smaller part to the larger part is the same as the ratio of the larger part to the whole. Phi is also the basis for the Fibonacci numbering system, named for a 13th C. Italian mathematician. Progressing Fibonacci numbers become spiral growth patterns such as those seen in the beautiful Nautilus shell.

Artists have often seen in the golden ratio a revelation of mystical content in form. These geometries reflect the inexplicable presence of metaphysical meaning in nature, so fundamental to many Radionics inventors. Author Robert Lawlor, in SACRED GEOMETRY, Philosophy & Practice goes to the heart of the issue of how sacred science differs from ordinary science when he states:

"The relationship between the fixed and the volatile (between proportion and progression) is a key to Sacred geometry: everything which is manifest, be it in the physical world or in the world of mental images and conceptions, belongs to the ever-flowing progressions of constant change: it is only the non-manifest realm of Principles which is immutable. Our science errs in attempting to attach fixed, absolute laws and definitions to the changing world of appearances. The history of science shows us perpetually discarding or revising one world model after another. Because of the disturbingly unstable quality of scientific knowledge, not only our physicists, but also our philosophers, artists, and society as a whole have become relativists. But the unchanging, generative principles remain, and our contemporary rejection of them is taking place only because we have sought for the permanent in the empirical world instead of in its true abode, the metaphysical."

In brief, by incorporating sacred ratios into the design component of his radionic devices, Rae not only bridged the gap to aesthetics but also infused his machines with cosmic significance. By this overlay, Rae aligned optimal health with a mathematical ideal.

Rae soon discovered that representing these proportional relationships on paper as geometric drawings was far easier than engineering them into electronic components, although he used both. Eventually for simplicity and for accuracy, he substituted a drawing of a ratio for a rate. He would calculate the geometry as a ratio that described how far the patient's condition had deviated from normal, and use it in treatment.

To broadcast a curative geometry to the patient, Rae returned to the type of approach used by Upton in the UKAKO design. He used a broad band radio frequency broadcast to blast the intention into the witness. This transmission was not a radio broadcast of EM energy across the air waves as much as it was an information signal sent into the body via the witness. The message to the patient was to restore himself or herself to optimal condition, for which physical distance was irrelevant.

By using the standard radionic procedures of analysis and treatment via a representation of the person--the witness, (i.e. drop of blood, hair, etc.), and by broadcasting them 'electronically', Rae maintained an operational protocol very much within the overall definition of radionics. What he added was an aesthetic, in the sense that health was very much an expression of correct balance and proportion within the mind and body of the patient, in the same sense it was a universal standard of beauty within natural form.
Darrell Butcher: Darrell Butcher was also an Englishman. He is said to have served as an aircraft engineer much of his life until he became involved with Radionics in the 1950's. His particular 'automated' approach came about largely due to his inability to use either a stick-pad or a pendulum with any success. Unwittingly, this handicap brought his radionic designs even closer to art.

Undaunted by his inability to obtain the 'radionic stick', Butcher spent fourteen years designing instruments that worked either by virtue of the operator's mental concentration or entirely alone. Like artworks, their symbolism was unique to his creative expression. In addition, he made all of the devices himself, and his design and craftsmanship were masterful.

Very little information remains in the public record concerning this fascinating individual who completed the bridge between utilitarian and aesthetic radionics. Most certainly that was not his aim at all. What has been written about him is vague in respect to both his technology and his person. In MY SEARCH FOR RADIONIC TRUTHS, by R. Murray Denning, (Borderland Sciences, 1988) and in the commentary on that work by Jorge Resines, AUTOMATED DETECTING DEVICES, (also Borderland Sciences, 1989), certain clues are put forward that convey something of Butchers aesthetic approach to Radionics.

Butcher attempted to design radionic equipment that did not require either psychic ability or self-referential procedures to operate. In his research, Butcher turned to the work of a 19th C. Physicist named Professor Ganot. Ganot’s work, titled ELEMENTARY TREATIES ON PHYSICS, (5th Edition, translated by E. Atkinson, Ph.D., 1872) contained a chapter called “The Principle of Light”. In particular, these ideas led Butcher to believe in the existence of what he called a “Downpouring” of energy from the cosmos.

Of ‘Downpouring,’ Butcher states: "This is a known force. It has been given many names. I am of the personal opinion that different people are able to attract different amounts of this force, but it is always with us. And that it does come down vertically under normal circumstances and this can only be made use of if we abide by the laws of light, one of which states that: (from Ganot's physics) ‘Vibrations of the ether take place, not in the direction of the wave, but in a plane at right angles to it, and the latter are called transversal vibrations’”.

The concept of a Downpouring gave Butcher the idea that a device could be constructed that connected the downpouring energy directly to the individual simply by placing a witness in a properly designed receptacle. These designs began with a series of objects Butcher called “meters” or “comparators” (see picture). The top was made of a combination of elements. Denning’s conclusion was that Archimedean Spirals in black and white, were covered with paper of the same design. These elements were centered on a needle arm protruding from the suspension mechanism, that presumably held the witness.

Another more evolved design involving the same general idea of utilizing the Downpouring was called the “Straw Hat”, as it had that general appearance. The “Straw Hat” component was mounted upon a supported needle, allowing it to move freely. Underneath was housed an electric lamp which allowed light to pass under the brim of the Hat and out horizontally. Upon and around the brim were placed Rae rates or de la Warr graphic cards for treatment and diagnosis. Just outside the brim was mounted a small input well for the witness. Butcher described how this device was designed to work as follows:

"The lamp also gives rising heat to the top of the “Straw Hat” which because of the flutes revolves it in one direction.

"All things being equal, once the “Straw Hat” is revolving in accordance with the rising heat, it should not stop. But it has been found that if a patient's sample is placed close to the rim of this “Straw Hat” when it is revolving, and when the symptom from which the patient is suffering comes by on one of our bits of graph paper, the thing hesitates and stops. Sometimes it goes past and comes back again, but whatever happens it stops.

“This is quite revealing and useful. It is a form of diagnosis over which we have no control, and with which we do not interfere. (Sentence underlined by Butcher)

“It is especially useful as regards toxins and hormones and we also use colors for treatment in this manner. Here again we have the story of the cones. It is the Downpouring." (The cones refer to another design of the “meter”.)

“When you get a really good “stick” the “Straw Hat” goes round in the opposite direction, because you get a downpouring from above that sits on the back of the flutes and instead of the air from underneath pushing it one way, the downpouring pushes it the other. It's incredible it should have this amount of power.”

Denning refers back to similar comments that Butcher made while describing the effects of the downpouring upon his instruments, when Butcher says:

“One little instrument was evolved which is rather puzzling and it has bothered a few scientific types, and that is three paper cones freely supported, something like a wind-meter. It has been found they go backwards, i.e. that is towards their bases when in a room where there is resonance with a patient, meaning by that, when we have what would be known in ordinary parlance as a “stick”, then we find this incredible breeze coming along that blows these things round in the opposite direction to which they should go.

“This puzzled us for years, and after further checking, it was found that when we placed a piece of board above the cones all this stopped, so it rather looks as if this is another example of the Fundamental Force being brought down and accelerated by the fact that we have obtained our objective, and impinging on the outside of the cones, which are at an angle of 45 degrees and pushing them forward towards their bases.

“People have been puzzled because cones have been placed on a window-shelf, near air coming in and have been gaily going round in the normal direction, which is to their apex, blown by the wind. And it is very strange to see them stop, stagger, struggle and eventually go in the opposite direction.”

These descriptions of the “Downpouring” in Butcher's own words, give some idea about how his instruments were designed to work. Another beautifully designed instrument combined a meter with a peg board design above, in one box, with moveable pegs that corresponded in some way with adjustments made to the meter. Named “The Pegotty”, each peg hole placement corresponded to the “rate” set by the operator. The instrument was observed by Butcher to continue working long after the operator left the room.

By far the most visually sophisticated of Butcher's many instruments was the one described by Denning as the "Upright Treatment Instrument", for which, sadly, there are no notes. This instrument imitates the more traditional radionic device, particularly the de la Warr box, with its nine-dial façade. This instrument had an additional bottom section that came out perpendicular to the top and contained additional dials and input wells.

The entire visual design was a carefully balanced relationship of circle to square, black to white, ring to ring to dot pattern. White dots were painted in an asymmetrical fashion around the dials with no clear indication as to their purpose. This artistic effect adds to the overall design of the box, with its concentric black and white rings and stylish, retro design. Butcher gave it a surreal, futuristic quality that is the dominant aesthetic of his work.

Although his designs mimicked more traditional radionic components, there is an important distinction. All of Butcher's instruments transcend the need to impress upon the viewer a concrete relationship to orthodox science and technology. This distinction is particularly noticeable through the lack of electrical components and circuitry. Butcher replaced wires and condensers with plastic and paper cut into spirals, perforated holes or painted dots and rings.

In many ways, his instruments are more like talismans for a mysterious force of Nature. Refreshingly, Butcher appeared unconcerned with the acceptance of his discoveries by Scientism. Like an artist, he was absorbed in his own empirical investigation, more concerned with the quality of the results than with approval.

This liberating feature of Butcher's work is due in large part to his aesthetic view of radionic interactivity. For Butcher, the connection of Light to the Downpouring transfers the design imperative into what Resines calls 'spatial interference'. This term is also used in the description of how holograms are made.

Both Resines and Denning go to great lengths to make sense out of Butcher's design imperatives. The authors' curiosity about Butchers sources also led to Butcher’s fascination with Huygen's Principle (1680). Some unknown interpretation of Huygen's Principle allowed Butcher's to connect his dot symmetries to a theory of light. Butcher's copious use of geometry in evoking non-physical force, especially the Archimedean Spiral, draw immediate comparisons to Keely's work a century before.

Another notion advanced by Resines about how Butcher's radionic ideas relate to art is: "The usage of black and white-colored parts serves again for the dissemination and absorption of light, thus creating an effect similar to a radio-message which possesses waves that undergo compression and expansion (as modulated by human voice) to convey a message from a sender to a receiver."

This idea suggests that the modulation of alternating tones (and color) act as carrier waves for the subtle energy imbedded within them, placed there through intent. We will encounter a similar design idea when today’s digital and computerized radionics devices are examined in later chapters.

Anyone seeking to design their own devices will be fascinated by how Butcher's engineering background, his fastidious design and craftsmanship reconcile with such an artistic sense of Radionics. It seems plausible to compare his work artistically to many native traditions.

The peg board motif has a high design and functional correlation with Australian Aboriginal dot painting, which also is said to serve an energetic function. The angular geometry and spiral wave forms employed by Butcher also have strong corollaries to Native American sand painting, weaving, pottery and petroglyph design. No doubt, these patterns occur in similar contexts throughout world culture. Like Darrell Butcher, shamanic artists functioned successfully without a rational scientific interpretation. Their work affirmed their value, and to the people using them, their simple tools both healed and transformed their lives.

Darrell Butcher's thoughts and inventions are largely lost to posterity, but his particular view of Radionics has survived in the design of the instruments themselves. They are indeed artistic creations, more so for being rendered irrelevant by science.

For the artist interested in radionics, Darrell Butcher's design ideas still have great significance. They represent a high watermark in the ability to employ radionic ideas in a conceptually novel way, void of cumbersome mechanical and electronic contrivances. They are truly works of art, not merely visual aids for developing psi ability. They encompass a form of lost science derived from the distant past and foreseeable in distant future. As shamanic art-tools, they deserve a respect and consideration not generally afforded fringe technology.

My depiction of radionics history clearly shows a progression from a mechanical and electrically based technology towards one of aesthetics, information, and ultimately spirit. As radionics has become less and less comprehensible in conventional scientific terms, it has become more and more accessible in artistic terms. Given the preponderance of New Age radionic-like themes in world culture, especially with respect to the art of indigenous societies, it is not plausible that Radionics needs reconsideration?