20) T. Galen Hieronymus

The idea of a two-dimensional radionics device with no power source beyond the individual using it will emerge with greater clarity through visiting the life of another great radionics pioneer, T. Galen Hieronymus.

Thomas Galen Hieronymus' career spanned the era between the beginning of commercial radio and the modern era of Radionics. In many ways, his work is a synthesis of the two sides of Radionics, the speculative, occult side and the empirical, scientific one. He spoke knowledgeably of applied subtle energy, using the term “eloptic”, meaning electricity + light, for emanations he detected coming from physical materials. He also coined the term “nionic-nerve influencing energy” for emanations from live organisms.

These unusual descriptions of radionic emanations did not prevent him from obtaining the first U.S. Patent on a Radionics detector [#2,482,773] in 1949. Nor did he ever run afoul of the authorities or academia; in fact he was awarded an honorary PhD. in physics! His work led him to the forefront of what were beginning to be called towards his later years, “psionic devices” or “psychotronic technology”, appliances dependent upon psychic (PK) energy.

Hieronymus' high comfort level with authority rested upon his solid credentials. For 30 years he was a professional engineer working for the Kansas City Power and Light Co. He is credited with designing the phase locking system that connects power stations across the country. This distinction made him a Fellow in the Society of Electric Engineers, a highly influential professional position that was reserved exclusively for the very best of the best of his profession.

One reason Hieronymus was held in such high professional esteem and remained un- censured for his radionic work was because he used his skill in Radionics to assist regulatory authorities like the FDA and Big Business. This was especially true when it came to the analysis of substances--in the era before the electron microscope. An example of this assistance comes from a colleague, Bob Beautlich, regarding work Hieronymus performed for the 3M Company.

At that time 3M was in product development for the now famous product ‘Stickey Tape’. The glue was adhering fine to the tape in laboratory trials, but when produced in trailer size loads was coming off the celluloid. Hieronymus was asked to use his patented Radionics device to analyze the problem. He discovered that trace elements of a solvent previously carried in the container trucks transporting the chemicals was contaminating the adhesive. It had not been detected by normal methods because the trace amounts causing the problem were below what any other methodology could detect. When the containers were changed, the glue stayed put on the tape!

Hieronymus' savvy understanding of the perils of Radionics research enabled him to keep close contact with the authorities on the legal parameters of his research. Even his Patent, titled 'Detection of Emanations from Materials and Measurements of the Volumes Thereof' was couched in language designed to be acceptable to mechanistic models and reviewers. Yet his actual research couldn't have been more anachronistic to the mechanist credo!

Hieronymus began working in radio in 1913. After he received his license, he began working with KDKA, Pittsburgh, Pa., where he took part in the first ever public radio broadcast. During WWI he was a radio operator and electrical engineer with the Rainbow Division in France, where he tried to develop a wireless telephone. It was there that he discovered that certain metals and minerals had unusual properties, a discovery that led him to Radionics.

By 1930, he was working with J. W. Wigglesworth to improve the “Pathoclast”, the successor to Abrams' Oscilloclast. The Pathoclast was considered to be "…the most advanced condenser-tuned radionic instrument ever made" up to that time, incorporating vacuum tubes for amplification and other features. By the early 50's, Hieronymus was collaborating with General Gross in Pennsylvania (of U.K.A.K.O. fame) on agricultural radionics. During that collaboration, one of the most influential publishers of the time, also a trained scientist, John Campbell of ANALOG -- SCIENCE FICTION and FACT, heard of his discoveries.

Campbell was already a famous science-baiter and counted many professional scientists among his readers. Seeing the potential for a scientific breakthrough in Hieronymus' work, Campbell constructed a device from the patent and found that it worked! As a result, he published a favorable report in his magazine that caused a run on the patent office, of people eager to build the device!

Before continuing with the Campbell story, it is important to realize something about what Hieronymus' patent at this time represented. While many Radionics pioneers and other innovators were being systematically persecuted and turned into scientific outlaws for using their discoveries to heal or enhance agriculture, Hieronymus and his colleagues were again trying to establish a scientific basis for the way these instruments worked, even if they employed psychic ability.

While many practicing Radionics were being put in jail, a host of other bright scientific minds were clamoring for a better scientific understanding of life energy and consciousness. J.B. Rhine of Duke University was busy making a statistical case for the existence of parapsychology and psychic ability in general. Dr. Carl Jung in Switzerland was exploring the landscape of the unconscious and linking alchemical knowledge to dream psychology and art. Dr. Harold Saxton Burr of Yale, with Dr. Leonard J. Ravitz Jr., was measuring the life or "L" field of all living things with sensitive voltmeters. S.W. Tromp, a professor of Geology from the Netherlands, published in 1949 an exhaustive scientific analysis of dowsing and Radiesthesia. Dr. Robert Rosenthal of Harvard was demonstrating that bias, or thoughts of an experimenter, could influence the behavior of laboratory rats.

In the decades before, German scientists Gurwitsch, Stempell, Rahn and others were discovering that living matter radiates volatile components and radiation that could pass through selective membranes and can act on colloidal substances, even without direct contact. In 1944, Soviet scientist V. S. Grischenko raised the possibility of a fifth state of matter termed "bioplasm" existing in living organisms. Much later, in a comparable study, Physiology Professor, L. L. Vasiliev at the U. of Leningrad published his 178 page monograph "Experiments in Mental Suggestion" (1962). The Russian work was taken up later at Columbia University by three scientists, I. I. Rabi, P. Kusch, and S. Millman, who developed an apparatus that "conclusively proved that some kind of ray or vibrations pass between one molecule and another."

Joseph F. Goodavage's article titled "The Incredible Hieronymus Machine" in John White and Stanley Krippner's book FUTURE SCIENCE (Anchor Press, 1977) elaborates on their discoveries:

"They showed that each molecule, living or inert, is a small radio transmitter (and receiver) that broadcasts continuously. These waves range over the entire electromagnetic spectrum--often beyond! The sheer volume of these vibrations is apparently limitless. A single molecule can give off rays of a million different wavelengths, but only on one frequency at a time."

Popular sentiment, supported by universal experience, was at long last pressuring scientism into exploring venues outside the mechanistic/reductionism credo advanced in most academic quarters.

The possibility of a non-material, biologically active force present in space, through which consciousness and paranormal phenomena could operate was generally taken for granted by the early 50's in many quarters, if not officially. Hieronymus cleverly put a simple description to this force through his patent where he states: “radiations from each of the known elements of matter produce some form of energy, probably electrons." He went further by including a prism in the design through which "the radiations may be refracted, focused, diffracted, or otherwise manipulated in the same manner as the radiations of the visible spectrum." This patent clearly gave language to a force that was not strictly electronic, opening a door once again to the scientific investigation of Radionics as an instrument using subtle energy.

Hieronymus' references to light in his patent have a direct relationship to some of his agricultural Radionics investigations. In particular, he had experimented with growing plants in complete darkness with only a copper wire to the outdoors to conduct energy from the sun. A full account of this experiment in Hieronymus’ own words appears in the appendix. In a nutshell, Hieronymus became convinced that he was measuring a solar influence other than light. This force was received by living organisms and could be transmitted over certain types of conductors and insulated with others, much like electricity. This analogy to light will achieve greater significance in the section on radionic photography.

Unlike its mechanistic counterparts, eloptic energy could be influenced by consciousness and required human sensitivity to be detected. Hieronymus, to his credit, never skirted this issue. His patent clearly states that his apparatus "preferably relies upon the element of touch and, therefore, the skill of the operator."

Arthur M. Young, President of the Foundation for the Study of Consciousness and a friend of John Campbell had already carried out experiments on radionics of his own. Young told Campbell that he thought the instrument was only an aide to concentrating the mind, and the real point of reference was the operator's own organs. Young's deduction meant the instrument was really the body/mind of the operator, and not the electronics in the device at all. With this thought in mind, Campbell unplugged the instrument from its power source and discovered that it worked just as well!

Going further, Campbell designed a Hieronymus device consisting exclusively of a circuit diagram with only symbols of the components shown on paper. In other words, it was a purely a symbol of the device, a sculpture made of a paper drawing, ink, wire, thread and a dial. He found it worked just as well as the electronic version, provided none of the lines of the schematic were broken!

Concerning this discovery, John Campbell wrote Hieronymus on June 4, 1956: "When I began working with the machine, I learned that it didn't need a power supply. Then I learned that it wouldn't work if a tube was missing or defective. I saw some of the other psionic machines and saw that they worked, despite the fact that their wiring system made absolutely no logical sense. From that, I derived a new concept, a theory, and made a crucial experiment.

"I have a model of your analytical machine, simplified and streamlined to the ultimate. It consists solely of the circuit diagram; I have a symbol of a prism, not a real prism, mounted on a National Velvet Vernier dial; that, and a small copper loop, alone appear on the front surface of the panel. Back of the panel, the circuit diagram is drawn in India ink on standard drafting paper; the prism-symbol rotates in its appropriate place in the circuit diagram. The spiral coil is drawn in India ink on paper glued to the back of the panel; it is connected with the symbolized vacuum tube plate through a condenser-symbol by means of a nylon thread; the other end of the coil-drawing is connected to the symbolized vacuum tube cathode by a second nylon thread from my wife's sewing kit.

"The machine works beautifully; the consistency of performance is excellent."

"We're working with magic--and magic doesn't depend on matter, but on 'form'--on 'pattern' rather than substance."

"Your electronic circuit represents a pattern of relationships; that is important. The electrical characteristics are utterly unimportant, and can be dropped out completely. The machine fails when a tube burns out because that alters the pattern. It works when there is no power, because the relationship of patterns is intact. My symbolic diagram works because the pattern is present…"

Campbell's discovery creates many implications for Radionics the resolution of which go beyond the scope of this book. Our attempt is to engage the reader to pursue the artistic implications of radionic ideas. Certainly the Hieronymus/Campbell controversy, buried now for over half a century, provides ample information for a point of departure.

Anything so hopeful must also cast a shadow. One dark aspect of radionics does bear discussion, and that is the lethal potential of the technology. There is a famous story about how Ed Hermann, an engineer at McGraw-Hill, Inc. publishing company in New York requested Hieronymus to treat a caterpillar-infested tree on his lawn. He never expected that from 300 miles away, using a photograph (and negative), Hieronymus was able to exterminate in a few days the insects that had resisted every other treatment!

For safety's sake and national security, Hieronymus claimed to have deliberately removed some critical factors from the patent. Whether this is true or not remains unresolved. Some manufactures claim that they have installed components in their radionics devices that prevent them from being used to harm people. It is, in my view, a very unresolved question that demands qualified investigation.

To the controversy surrounding Radionics we can add what Hieronymus claimed for his invention when he said: "We've never found anything we couldn't analyze chemically or otherwise. Distance is a negligible factor, too. When we analyze our physical world we find practically nothing physical, just the manifestation of energy when we divide things down to their ultimate particles."

One thing about this period in Radionics history was certain. The dominant philosophy of Radionics from Hieronymus foreword would be that "mind and pattern is the key to radionics". The type of instrument used would be secondary to the fact that it only serves to focus the mind of the operator. If the radionic diagnosis is based upon how much an organism deviates from normal; then the "rates" or numbers on the dials indicate only the degree of deviation.

This position is far different than that of the early pioneers such as Abrams and Mermet, who believed they were working with a discreet form of energy in the external environment, detectable by using mind and instrument together. With the 'mind and pattern' school of Radionics in ascendancy, it will take a much more liberal scientific approach to psychic phenomena and psychokinetic energy to return Radionics to ongoing laboratory investigation.

In the meantime, the stage had been set to accommodate a form of Radionics that was much closer to art: Radionic Photography.