04) The Origins of Radionic Technology in Dowsing
Arguments arise from time to time about the meaning of the terms Radionic and Psychotronic. I have loosely defined them as mind/matter or subtle energy interface technology in order to apply them in as broad a metaphorical fashion as possible. By doing so, it is possible to understand many ordinary events that focus mind into matter to produce a singular outcome.
Take cooking; given identical ingredients, stoves, utensils, etc. a good cook will produce food which is far superior to someone without the same skill and care. Everyone realizes that the good cook imparts something into the food which goes beyond mechanical skill. Call it love or an extreme aesthetic sensitivity, the food takes on the character of the cook’s invested energy. We recognize it immediately when we put it into our mouth. Can that quality be quantified? In a way, it can. People sitting around the table arrive at a consensus that the food is delicious. Yet, there is no actual way to measure how that food actually is better because subjective, aesthetic criteria are involved. Instead, we can describe the experience in terms of qualities or emanations arising out of the food and how they impact our senses.
Radionics is a way to detect and describe emanations that arise from the world around us that elude a strictly mechanistic interpretation. The most familiar method of radionic detection is dowsing.
Author Christopher Bird, in an article on dowsing defined it as…"a word for the art of searching, with a hand held instrument such as a Y-shaped rod, a pair of L-shaped rods, a wand or a pendulum---for anything. In all probability it comes from the German word: Deuten, for which a good dictionary gives the following meanings: to explain, to expound, to interpret, to point at, to signify, to bode, to auger--depending upon exactly how it is being used."
Please note, that Bird’s definition of dowsing includes signification. The understanding is that the dowser uses a simple device to locate a signal emanating from a source that he determines through focus of mind. Dowsing is therefore a semiotic process, whereby invisible signals are represented in the movement of a dowsing instrument and interpreted by the mind of the dowser. This procedure is identical to the way a radionics instrument is used today. The difference is mainly in the radionic devices capacity to finely calibrate the emanations under observation into numerical rates.
Noted Etymologist and Author Philip S. Callahan, in his book EXPLORING THE SPECTRUM, Wavelengths of Agriculture and Life (Acres U.S.A., 1994) contributes the following insights into the art of dowsing:
"The scope of low level energies is difficult to comprehend by those not schooled in the grammar of the subject. The ruby throated hummingbird--all of three inches long--trips from Panama to the east coast of the United States and back again. The Pacific golden plover makes a seasonal non-stop flight of 3,000 miles from Alaska to the Hawaiian Islands with no landmarks whatsoever. Solid science has established that birds can detect minute radiant changes in the earth's magnetic field which may well help their orientation during migration.
“Dowsing is the art of detecting low-level energy. Focusing intent is a primal attribute. Arthur Middleton Young, the inventor of the Bell Helicopter, held that one of the most amazing examples of animal behavior is the motion of an amoeba, which can reach out by extending a pseudopod, devoid of any musculature, from any place in the body. Author Christopher Bird quoted Young as posing the question—“What causes the projection if it is not attention and intent?”
“Like amoebas, dowsers project an intent to find, or a request for the location of a given object or target. What is projected? Perhaps a mental or psychic pseudopod of possibly infinite length? Whatever it is called, an answer to the request seems to be fed back via their bodies in the form of molecular movements which--because they are usually not consciously perceived--are called involuntary. The muscles cause the dowsing rod or pendulum to move, thereby objectifying the muscular action that, self-generated by the requester, cannot really be termed automatic. “
In the case of radionics, the finger moving across the stick-pad is made to stop at a particular point. This point, on a dial or in the motion of a wand, indicates an answer to the question is being provided. Dr. Callahan then adds:
“Dr. Juan Merta, a Czech-born physiologist, psychologist, gifted psychic and professional deep sea diver worked oil rigs in the North Sea. He became very interested in the water dowser's art as it related to the extrasensory---map dowsing, for instance, location of lost children and successful searches for missing objects. Merta did a lot of experimental work at McGill University in Montreal. His findings caused him to suspect that the movement of the dowsing device had to be directly connected to musculature contraction in the body---specifically in the arms or hands. He therefore reasoned that if he could build an apparatus that could simultaneously record both the movement of the dowsing device and any muscular contraction, he would be able unambiguously to determine which came first, the contraction or the movement of the device.
“He electrically wired the carpi radialis flexor in the wrist area of the forearm. The instrument translated what was happening to ink and paper. After the several tests were finished, Merta concluded that the dowsing devices react only after the human beings operating them pick up the signal, which then stimulates a physiological reaction. He further concluded that if the dowsing device were only an amplifier magnifying a sensation, then dowsers should be able to teach themselves to pick up such sensations without recourse to any dowsing device whatsoever.
“He suggested that a projected request for information in dowsing is analogous to the number selection, the bodily reaction to the workings of the vast telephone switching system, and the final muscular twitching or neural response to the ring of an appropriate telephone on the other end of the line. In other words, a successful search depends chiefly on accurate formulation of the requests. Or, as the computer people have it, garbage in, garbage out, the recipe for failure.”
As dowsing became more universally practiced and accepted, it acquired a formal name: Radiesthesia. Bird goes on to define Radiesthesia as…"a word coined in the 1930's by the Abbe Bouly in France. It is taken from a Latin root for 'radiation' and a Greek root for 'perception' and thus means literally the 'perception of radiations.' At one time the Journal of the British Society of Dowsers was called RADIO-PERCEPTION. The word has been adopted all over the European continent with the exception of the so-called 'socialist' countries, which have adopted a newly coined Russian word: 'Biofizicheskii Metod' or 'biophysical method.' ”
As to the exact nature of the radiations themselves, Bird and the Radiesthesiologists leave us with no conclusions. Instead, Bird refers those frustrated with the lack of scientific explanation to be consoled by Thomas Edison's answer to the question: "What is electricity?"
"I don't know," replied the inventor, "but it works."
Whatever future explanation arises for dowsing and Radiesthesia, so too will be solved the mysteries of Radionics. The fact still remains that these tools can be learned and employed without the benefit of adequate scientific explanation. The introductory techniques of dowsing are simple enough for a child to learn. Many people do learn them, in fact, at gatherings in Vermont at the American School of Dowsing, every June. The attraction of dowsing is its practical application. One need do nothing more than learn the basic theory and technique, and begin to practice. Whether one wants to locate water or missing objects, or go deeper into the metaphysical possibilities opened by this training, the very experience of dowsing successfully is wondrous to many!
Within the arts, dowsing and Radiesthesia are generally not recognized for the intrinsic role they play in developing artistic discipline. In creativity, one is constantly searching for an impulse, idea, tone, melody, color, context, or the myriad of other experiences necessary to develop a theme. The creative process employs a form of internal dowsing; it is a self-referential technique for locating the next component of the work in hand. Intuitively, this "divining" impulse is nurtured and developed throughout the artist’s career. That the practice of ordinary dowsing or similar techniques like Radionics might augment the artistic impulse is not ordinarily considered.
Dowsing and Radiesthesia are often postulated as proceeding from the psychokinetic (read psychic or psi) energy of the mind, resulting in an involuntary muscle reflex. When examining the various approaches to subtle energy, one encounters a position that the operator’s mind primarily determines the dowsing effects. Psi researchers do not generally accept the position of the dowsers, that these radiations are external to the mind and imbedded in Nature’s intelligence. Under the latter scenario, Nature provides a signal, while dowsing, that is received by the mind and interpreted by the body as a muscular reflex.
Psychokinetic effects (also termed PK) were widely studied in the former Soviet Union. Many individuals of great PK ability required little or nothing in the way of supporting appliances. The study of their psychic ability, with or without the help of a device, has been generally referred to as Psychotronics. This loose definition however, has not stopped psychotronic inventors from producing impressive mechanical and electronic devices. The difference in meaning between psychotronic and radionic is still a gray area for many familiar with this field.
Radionics, for our part, is a specific type of technology with both a founder and an historical line of progression into the current era. Most notably, Radionics grew from the application of dowsing diagnostic techniques to medicine, and is still in practice by that name today.
It is the author’s opinion that radionic sensitivity is acquired from Nature on a primary, non-verbal level. That is to say, the radionics practitioner learns how to recognize and interpret signals from an intelligent, guiding source beyond their own personality or ego. I refer to this source as “Nature” because it seems to be part of our environment and entirely natural. It could just as easily be called a “higher power” or by any familiar name conveying the same impression.
Either way, the practitioner’s consciousness becomes linked to this source during a successful radionic transaction and functions like a transceiver. Due to the delicate nature of the communications, it is always possible that information passing from Nature intelligence to Human mind can be distorted or otherwise corrupted by the manner by which it is interpreted. Distortion can include the very real problem of the practitioner believing their own ego to be the actual source of the healing information. The special nature of this linkage is also vulnerable to pressure from outside observers and circumstances, and must be cultivated carefully. Like the other subtle gifts of nature that we are more familiar with, such as love, friendship and beauty, success in practice requires patience, openness and a suspension of disbelief.
Early “percussive” techniques in diagnostic medicine required the doctor to tap parts of the skin primarily over the major organs. The sound produced by the tapping enabled the doctor to determine to some extent the health of the organ. To the doctor, the sound of the organ being tapped could demonstrate a healthy frequency pattern or one of disease, and all the gray areas in between. The doctor makes his assessment according to his own self-referential criteria gained from both experience and his medical training. The doctor brings all the ability he has, both learned and intuitive to the service of his patient. Though every tool is at his disposal, Nature must stimulate our body from within to truly heal.
Radionics devices have been constructed over time utilizing many different methodologies. Since the days of percussive measurement, other radionic techniques to extract and analyze the patterns of disease have evolved. Some radionics operators give much more importance to the design and engineering of the instrument than others. Many radionic practitioners valued the tuning capacity and calibration of the instrument. They also wanted these instruments to be incorporated into mainstream medicine.
As a consequence, more emphasis tended to be placed upon the instrument than the mind operating it or the role of Nature in the cure. The design efforts of the early radionic inventors contain fascinating insight into how these priorities were assigned. For the artist interested in using radionics, each invention will seem like a new work of art.
