by Nick Franks BA, MRadA

`We analyse the normal so that we may know the difference between it
and the abnormal' (Ruth Drown)

I began studying classical homoeopathy in January 1994 and starting
adding radionic instruments and techniques in October 1995. As I have
learned the two disciplines side by side and have found both
approaches attractive, it has taken me some considerable time to
decide which of the two is most appropriate for me as a practitioner.
I have concluded that in spite of the genius of the homoeopathic
method as set out by Hahnemann, there are often - notably in complex
cases - a far wider range of problems to be addressed than can be
uncovered by standard homoeopathic diagnostic means. Indeed, it could
probably be argued that without the use of the radiesthetic
sensibility in some form, there is currently no method available to
discover some of the problems which are routinely treated by the
radionic approach.

Since its beginnings about 100 years ago, the relatively obscure
science of radionics has utilised various dowsing techniques1, not
only for the detection of disease states but also to identify and
apply appropriate therapies. Homoeopathic remedies are widely used in
radionics, and some seminal personalities in the present development
of homoeopathy in Britain - such as John Damonte - were also radionic
practitioners. In this essay I will give a brief overview of
radionics; I will also contend that homoeopathic remedies are a subset
of a far wider range of healing sources which create a generalised
category of vibrational remedies; and that radionics is one of the
best available methods for using this therapeutic approach.

A Very Brief History of Radionics

Radionics2 was founded by Dr Albert Abrams (1863-1924), a native of
San Francisco, under the original name of ERA - Electronic Reactions
of Abrams. A highly-qualified conventional practitioner with an
illustrious career and also the advantage of a substantial private
fortune, Abrams was able to pursue his researches without reliance on
outside funding. Like Hahnemann (1755-1843), the founder of
homoeopathy, Abrams was a master of observation and a tireless
experimenter and truth seeker, which attributes eventually led him to
make discoveries which brought considerable opprobrium from the
medical establishment of the day. Like so many of these outstanding
figures, he was also capable of making inspired leaps of judgement.

Abrams' fundamental discovery was that under certain conditions the
human nervous system will react to the energy field of external
elements such as persons with disease conditions, samples of diseased
tissue, and so forth. This reaction would manifest by means of a
muscle reflex which could be detected by percussing the abdominal
wall. Alternatively, Abrams found that drawing a glass rod across the
abdomen could also be used to localise the point of response.
Different diseases - or as Abrams noted, `drugs in homoeopathic
dilutions can be detected and identified by the stomach reflex' -
produced reactions in different parts of the abdomen, which suggested
a unique diagnostic method. He then proceeded to develop a technique
which placed a person with abdomen bared (known as the `subject') in
series with a patient, i.e. linked by a wire which terminated on the
subject's forehead. He could then diagnose by testing on the healthy
subject for response to disease conditions in the patient.

Abrams later discovered that certain diseases produced reactions in
the same muscle groups, which neatly threw his method off the rails
until he hit upon the idea of placing a variable potentiometer (i.e. a
rotary control such as might be used to adjust the volume on a hi-fi)
in the middle of the cable linking the subject to the patient.
Settings of the potentiometer would be found which were unique to each
disease, thus making it possible to diagnose a wide range of conditions.

Eventually Abrams discovered that he could diagnose just as accurately
using a blood sample from the patient, and eventually found out that
he could work at a distance with the patient's sample placed next to
the telephone line; such tests were performed over distances of more
than 500 miles. He finally discovered that he could work without any
form of linking wire between himself and the sample, but not over a
distance of more than a mile.

From these basic elements:

- the reflex muscle reaction to the stimulus of an external energy
field (i.e. the radiesthetic faculty, from the practitioner's point of
view);

- the substitution of a sample from the patient for the patient himself;

- the creation of a unique value representing a disease or other
energy factor; and

- the possibility of working at a distance

was formed radionics as we know it today.3

Dr Ruth Drown (1892-1963), a chiropractor based in Hollywood, had
apparently worked in Abrams' clinic as a young woman and decided to
develop his methods. From the accounts I have read she was clearly
another remarkable figure, and once again, probably as a consequence
of her successes and unwillingness to toe the line, the establishment
persecuted her to the point of trial and eventual brief imprisonment.
In fact as a result of the Drown trial in 1951, I believe that it
remains basically illegal to practise radionics in the USA.

Drown redesigned the diagnostic instrument into a compact system which
gave greater flexibility and extended range. The patient's blood
sample was relocated into a small container in the instrument. She
replaced the subject's abdomen with a small rubber membrane (known as
the `stick pad'); the index finger was stroked along the pad while the
potentiometers were adjusted, and when the appropriate setting was
found - i.e. the circuitry came into balance, indicating a resonance
or response in the practitioner - the finger would `stick' on the
membrane.4 Her new designs also allowed longer sequences of numerical
values to be created, which enabled her to assemble an atlas of rates
which covers most of the structures in the human body, many disease
types, poisons, toxins, and a range of other factors including
emotional states.

Drown sought to define perfect structures, to measure the degree of
deviation from perfection, and then to rectify any imbalances or
deficiencies. Thus - very simply - her rate for the liver is 48 5;
this would be set on the instrument and the deviation from 0 tested.
Any significant reading would indicate a problem either in the liver
or elsewhere in the body which was affecting the liver. Her principal
treatment method was to feed the `perfect' rate back to the respective
diseased location in the patient, either by wires or remotely, the
idea being that as new cells were created they would be healthy and
would replace the diseased structures, and according to the
information available, she claimed many successes. She also placed a
priority on treating the endocrine system, and as radionics emerges as
a system of treatment on the dynamic plane, I will show how this ties
in with the analysis of the subtle anatomy which has come to dominate
present-day radionics, at least in the UK.

What is also of significance is her use of the technique of treating
at a distance - any distance, anywhere in the world - in the process
known as radionic broadcasting. It was no longer necessary for the
patient to be present. Incidentally the term `broadcasting' is
descriptive but probably inaccurate, as no radio or television
technology is involved. Whatever the mechanism, there is no doubt in
my mind that treatment at a distance works, whether one is
broadcasting homoeopathic remedies, radionic (i.e. Drown-type) rates
or any other energy factor or vibrational pattern which can be
represented as a radionic signature and is appropriate to the patient.

It would seem, from the present day position, that virtually anything
can be represented by a radionic rate, and this of course includes the
entire homoeopathic Materia Medica; it is even possible, in principle,
to find rates for remedies which we do not yet have or which are too
dangerous to handle, such as radioactive materials. Malcolm Rae's
ever-expanding system has around 24,000 rates which are presented in
the form of Ratio cards and include the whole acupuncture system of
meridians, a vast range of chemicals, drugs, human organ functions,
Ayurvedic concepts, I-Ching hexagrams and so forth.

The Dematerialisation of Radionics and the Influence of Alice Bailey

Drown was also very involved in esoteric studies - notably Kabala,
which amongst other things attempts to understand the underlying
structure of reality through the relationships between numbers; and
she thus sought to find meaning in the radionic rates through
kabalistic interpretation. Whatever the result of this, she also
thought that energy flowed from the Universe into the human system via
the brain, and that proper distribution of this energy was essential
to healthy functioning - in other words, moved away from a purely
physical conception of health and disease.

Just as James Tyler Kent (1849-1916), influenced by Swedenborg,
switched the focus of homoeopathic diagnosis to the Mental and
Emotional planes and the realms of high potency prescribing - and thus
dematerialised homoeopathy - so Drown's esoteric line of thought was
taken a huge step further in the work of David Tansley and Malcolm Rae
6, both men, regrettably, dying quite young. Most of their work was
done in the UK between, approximately, 1965 and 1985. Tansley, a
chiropractor, had spent many years studying the writings of Alice
Bailey (1880-1949) and drew heavily on her concepts of esoteric
anatomy and psychology to introduce a new diagnostic system which
re-oriented the focus of radionic analysis away from the material
plane of organ functions and pathology and towards causation within
the human energy, or subtle, body. Rae, on the other hand, was the
inventor who could translate Tansley's thinking into a practical and
flexible diagnostic and treatment system, known as Magneto-Geometry.

Bailey's work7, drawn from various Eastern traditions and integrated
into a new form, is far too vast to even begin to attempt describing
here, and I will simply create a thumbnail sketch of some of what has
been appropriated into radionics. I might add that as the years have
gone by various of these concepts have become commonplace, but during
the period the books were written, 1919-1949, they must have seemed
like the last word in arcane obscurity.

Bailey proposed a model of (ultimate) reality as being comprised of
seven planes of energy, each with its concomitant forms of
consciousness. Each plane is comprised of seven sub-planes of
increasing quality and fineness, the whole blending into a continuum.
Each of these planes also manifests in us as a corresponding energy
body, e.g. the Etheric Body, Astral Body, and so forth. Briefly, the
7th plane is the Physical, which is subdivided into the solid
physical; then liquids; then gases; then four superior levels of
etheric matter. It is the energy of the etheric plane (prana) which
vitalises the physical form, and Tansley also states that the miasms
reside primarily in the Etheric body; when activated by an appropriate
(morbific) stimulus they will taint the energy reaching the physical
body, with the results that Hahnemann described at length. I should
also note that energy is also distributed through the Etheric body via
a system of pathways known as Nadis, and it may be considered that
these in turn externalise as the nervous system 8.

The 6th plane is the Astral (or Emotional), the seat of emotions,
desire and illusion - and also, with the Etheric, the place of origin
of the greater number of diseases. The 5th plane is the Manasic (or
Mental), the plane of Mind, which ranges from concrete rational
knowledge on its lower subplanes through to spiritual knowledge on its
higher levels. For the purposes of this essay it is not necessary to
deal with the four higher planes - Buddhic (Intuitional); Atmic
(Spiritual); Monadic; and Logoic 9 - as they are not involved with the
disease process. Tansley refers to them as the Transpersonal Self (or
perhaps Soul), and I suppose that you could consider them as the
essential being of a person, whereas as the lower vehicles are the
becoming of a person and the deeper objective of life is to align the
soul's purpose with that of the Personality.

The link point between the Transpersonal Self and the Personality is
the Higher Ego or Causal Body; this is the vehicle, found on the
Mental plane, through which the individual manifests his or her
purpose in existence and it is primarily friction10 resulting from
conflict between the different objectives of the Higher and Lower
selves which creates illness, and hence, many11 of the illnesses of
humanity. Compare this concept with §9 of The Organon - `In the
healthy human state, the spirit-like life force (autocracy) that
enlivens the material organism as dynamis, governs without
restriction.... so that our indwelling, rational spirit can freely
avail itself of this living, healthy instrument for the higher
purposes of our existence.' Without arguing the finer points, it could
be proposed that radionics and homoeopathy share a broadly similar
central concept of the nature of human health.

Embedded in the subtle bodies are a number of energy transmission and
circulation centres known as chakras, which have their counterpart on
each plane 12, and as the individual develops and consciousness
reaches a higher level, so the chakra `opens' and becomes receptive to
energy flowing from higher and higher sources. Radionic analysis is
principally concerned with the 7 major chakras, namely, Base, Sacral,
Solar Plexus, Heart, Throat, Brow and Crown; although certain minor
chakras, such as the Spleen, are often taken into consideration. Each
of these chakras in turn externalises as one of the endocrine glands -
e.g. Throat - thyroid; and the state of the chakra is considered to
condition the functioning of the associated gland and local anatomy.

Seen in this context the physical human is a precipitation of higher
energies into form and as such the quality of each structure, physical
or subtle, will reflect the quality of the energy which has reached
it; or, to put it another way, each structure will condition the
energy flowing through it - hence for example the miasm in the Etheric
body taints the energy to produce some form of illness in the
physical. Energy must flow freely through all of these systems into
the physical body to make for the healthy human, and any disturbances
of the subtle body will tend to interrupt the flow at some point and
will be reflected in mental, emotional or physical symptoms of some
nature. Thus the objective of radionic diagnosis is to find the energy
disturbance at its source, if possible, and treat it appropriately13.
Again, this can be compared with §3 of the Organon `a physician
must...clearly realise what is to be cured...in each single case of
disease....(et seq.).'14 In other words we have to identify and
rectify the causation; we will not deal with a polluted river (as it
were) simply by cleaning it up downstream, if the source of the toxic
material is in the higher reaches.

The Radionic Approach

As I have indicated, it seems that virtually anything can be
represented by a radionic rate, and radionics is therefore an
open-ended system which enables a vast and probably limitless range of
energy qualities and relationships to be studied. Radionics combines
Oriental concepts of the subtle anatomy and the relationship of the
soul to its vehicles of manifestation with the Western approach to the
human body as a biochemical organism. This diagnostic method is
therefore concerned not only with the inner ecology of the patient but
also his relationship to, as it were, Heaven and Earth. Equally the
practitioner needs to cultivate a knowledge, awareness and
understanding of a wide range of both esoteric and exoteric factors
which in principal goes beyond anything envisaged by many other
healing disciplines in use at the present time. This draws the
practitioner to bear in mind - as a minimum - the following when
making a diagnosis:

1. Problems resulting from the Spiritual character

Karmic and related factors such as birth circumstances and willingness
to incarnate may need to be considered in some instances. In addition
there may be problems resulting from the spiritual growth practices of
the person, such as over-stimulation of certain chakras. The influence
of such factors may only become apparent if a case is proving
difficult to treat. The practitioner needs to assess to what extent it
is possible or practical to deal with these problems; they may
ultimately be a matter for the patient to resolve through life
experience. Such cases will also teach the practitioner to accept his
or her own limitations.

2. Problems resulting from the Personality

The personality is at least the sumtotal of the Mental and Astral
bodies and is therefore the psychological persona through which the
Higher Ego (or Causal Body) interacts with the world at large.
Multiple impacts from life in general and its problems, and the
conflict between aspiration and achievement, may create many
difficulties in the Mental and Astral bodies which are reflected in
the Etheric and Physical bodies, often via or including the chakras.
Negative experiences, particularly in childhood, may become embedded
in the subtle body to such an extent that they entirely colour the
patient's outlook and produce deep delusional states, considered from
the homoeopathic point of view.15 In effect this category would
include the range of psychiatric, psychological and psychosomatic
diseases accepted by orthodox medical science.

3. Problems resulting from Inheritance

Genetic inheritance and predisposition are of course widely known to
modern science, but the miasms are hardly acknowledged. These were
identified first by Hahnemann as Psora, Sycosis and Syphilis but later
researchers in homoeopathy have added Cancer and Tuberculosis
(Pseudo-Psora). These taints are distortions of the Etheric Body which
reflect at the cellular level, presumably via the DNA - chromosome
system and are a major source of chronic disease conditions.16

4. Problems resulting from the Environment and the Planet

This is a large and, regrettably, expanding category. Alice Bailey
writes of diseases inherited from imperfections in the etheric fabric
of the Earth itself. As this material is incorporated into the body of
the individual human so the miasms may also be acquired, as I at
present understand it. In this category we could also include mass
acute diseases, which may have their roots in social stresses, such as
influenza, measles, mumps, etc, and which may leave their own sequelae
that can have effects on the individual for years afterwards. In
addition human activity has created a range of new Miasms, which at
minimum may be said to include:

(a) Radiation, petrochemicals, electro-magnetic, heavy metals, etc 17

(b) Iatrogenic, from medicines, vaccinations, dental amalgam, and so
forth;

Here I would suggest we also include geopathic stress in various
forms, which seems to have its source in imperfections in the
geological structure of the planet; and parasite diseases such as
malaria and other types of infestation having their provenance in the
other Kingdoms of Nature. We may even want to add cosmic influences
here such as solar electromagnetic flux and even astrological
influences.18

5. Problems in the Physical Body

This includes in effect the entire range of functional and
pathological disturbances covered by orthodox medicine.

There are various approaches to performing the diagnosis. If the case
is complex the practitioner may wish to create an overall picture of
the patient's health and vitality by assessing the various levels and
systems: the Mental, Emotional, and Etheric bodies, Aura, and Nadis;
the chakras; the physical systems as generalities, for instance,
cardiovascular, respiratory, muscular, G.I. tract, and so forth. The
influence or presence of miasms, effects of vaccination, poisons,
toxins, geopathic stress, malignancy, infection, allergies,
nutritional deficiency or malabsorption and other factors are also
taken into account. The findings are marked into a chart which enables
a rapid assessment of the patient's general state to be made and any
areas of trouble should immediately be apparent. The type and source
of the problem can be worked out either by mentally posing questions
and watching the pendulum response, or by the use of the pendulum with
additional charts. Again, each practitioner will tend to vary the
basics according to his or her knowledge and experience; the key
factor lies in knowing which questions to ask and how to interpret the
responses. It should be apparent that both diagnosis and treatment are
highly individualised.

On the other hand a more simple approach is to discover the most
prominent symptom, its location, character and, if possible, reason
for any deviation from proper function and treat that, with a
step-by-step approach of always treating the remaining worst or most
prominent symptom, preferably at its source. Whichever approach is
used, the second job is to establish the nature of the relationship
between the patient and an energy factor - for instance, a Flower,
Gem, Command or homoeopathic remedy - which may be used to correct the
problem. Although radionics encompasses both diagnostic and treatment
techniques, there is nothing to prevent the practitioner from dowsing
therapies outside of the scope of radionics to assess their
appropriateness to the patient's problems.

I would note that in my experience it appears to be crucial to get the
treatments in the correct order of priority, which tends towards being
`worst' symptoms first. This can of course be difficult in complex
cases where there are a multiplicity of confused factors some or all
of which may be feeding on or playing off each other. In homoeopathic
terms these would be considered multi-miasmatic or layered cases and
often require a lengthy period of prescribing.

Radionic and Homoeopathic Approaches to Prescribing

I am going to suggest that the system of subtle bodies and chakras
used in radionic practice in fact constitutes a model of the Dynamis -
or perhaps more properly a model of what the life-force must flow
through (as by analogy, electricity flows through a circuit) - in
order to result in a state of health in the individual; and that the
radionic method gives the practitioner much additional information
which will help the diagnosis and prescription, and can even detect
diseases before they manifest in the form of symptoms. 19

Homoeopaths use the word `stuck' when talking about their cases, and
another way of looking at the problem is to find out where the energy
is stuck. In case-taking we have the verbal description by the patient
to guide us; in radionic analysis we use a structured method of
dowsing to locate the points where the energy is blocked. The
description of the symptom by the patient, I have to suppose, is how
he verbalises the symptoms he experiences as a result of the blocks in
his subtle anatomy. In my understanding of radionics, the fundamental
point is that anything which impedes energy flow impedes health; the
primary objective therefore is to identify and clear blocks in the
subtle energy system first and foremost, whether these are caused by
conflicts within the patient's personality or by external factors.
Obviously in many cases there will be limitations as to what can be
achieved because of complex pre-existing health conditions.

The provings, rubrics and remedy pictures of homoeopathy are records
of the effect of the energy of a potentised substance on a healthy
person, and the prescription is reached by a transposition of the
patient's comments into the special diagnostic language of homoeopathy
via a weighting system through which the practitioner attaches greater
or lesser significance to the patient's symptoms, and then compares
them with the rubrics in the repertory until the best possible remedy
match is found. Homoeopathic prescribing is always guided by the Law
of Similars, which, in brief, states that `like cures like'; or, `a
substance which causes certain symptoms in a healthy person will cure
them in a person sick with those symptoms' - to which we must add,
with some certainty, `when administered at the appropriate potency.'

The problem with working from symptoms can be that the patient may not
give you all of them, or may not remember certain things, or may not
consider certain things as being relevant or important enough to tell
you, or, perhaps, that the practitioner misinterprets them. The result
is that using homoeopathic methods alone you may never find the key to
the case, or you may give any number of what you think are
well-selected remedies without useful results, because you are missing
a vital part of the picture. Indeed, George Vithoulkas, one of the
world's leading homoeopathic practitioners, has stated that typically,
only about 5% of cases are fully covered by one remedy. He has also
stated that the younger a person is when manifesting serious symptoms,
the more remedies are likely to be needed. In other words, long-term
prescribing requires enormous skill and knowledge levels - which many
practitioners may take years to attain. In addition to this there is
the problem of potency selection, which in many instances results in a
great deal of difficulty. Kent clearly used a vast range of potencies
whereas I have heard Jan Scholten, another leading contemporary
homoeopath, state that he gives the potency 1M in virtually all cases. 20

Using radionic methods, on the other hand, we have the possibility of
finding the name and potency of the appropriate healing energy
(remedy) by a method which does not rely on what the patient says. The
radionic approach to diagnosis of the subtle energies can reach behind
the patient's given symptoms to find problems and causes which he or
she may not be aware of and may never be aware of, but which may
nevertheless be crucial to a resolution of the problem. There is
certainly little recognition of the subtle anatomy and its concepts in
the homoeopathic model, whereas these are all-important in the
present-day radionic paradigm. Congestion, over-stimulation,
unco-ordination, damage, shock, geopathic stress, latent viruses,
parasite infection, the embedded vibrational patterns of toxins and
poisons, and many other factors, may cause severe disruption; they may
be cleared perchance by well-selected homoeopathic remedies but quite
often the remedy will only do part of the work, leaving the problems
unresolved and ready to come back into play at some future time - not
through any fault of either the homoeopathic practitioner or
homoeopathy, but simply because they are not identified within the
boundaries of the homeopathic diagnostic paradigm.

Although the Law of Similars may apply in radionic work, especially
where homoeopathic remedies are selected, there does not seem to be
any such clearly-stated rule behind the choice of Flower, Gem or
Colour remedies, radionic rates, Commands, and so forth. The
practitioner identifies the problem and asks which type of remedy or
treatment will help to resolve it and the pendulum will indicate
accordingly, without reference to any underlying theoretical rationale
- at least at the conscious level. This does not mean that radionics
is easy, of course!

There is a further test which is possible with radionic techniques,
which is that the effect of the selected remedy can be checked before
it is administered to the patient. Abrams discovered that `a sample of
quinine gave exactly the same reactions on the subject as malaria...if
he tested the blood of a malarial patient with a few grains of quinine
he could obtain no reaction at all.'21 There are various easy ways in
which this test can be done with radionic instruments, allowing the
practitioner to check against all detected problems to see how much
action the remedy is likely to have. To put it another way, the hair
sample provides a link with the energy field of the patient and when
the radionic rate or ratio card or sample of the remedy itself is
introduced into that field the two are mixed together in some way. I
presume that the remedy cancels out some distortion in the patient's
field and thus rectifies it, and this is later reflected in the
removal of the symptoms.22 This may of course be a rather mechanistic
explanation and the answer may lie in some other area, such as a
concept of the remedy as information or resonance.

I should note, finally, that in homoeopathic prescribing the remedy is
given orally, whereas in radionics, broadcast treatment is the norm.
Thus the patient may be on the other side of the world and may be
treated with the same degree of efficacy as the patient in the next
room. This phenomenon of course creates many problems when considered
from the viewpoint of physics as it implies, at least to my mind, an
additional dimensional layer not allowed for by present-day science.

Practitioner's Technique and some Related Considerations

Diagnosis by dowsing requires the use and interplay of both the
intellectual and the intuitive faculties, or perhaps, use and
interplay of both left and right brain qualities. The intellect and
the concrete knowledge which supports it are used to frame questions
relevant to the correct understanding of the problem. Obtaining
answers via the pendulum however requires a suspension of the
intellectual process and an activation of the (higher) intuition.
Intellectual knowledge may presuppose the practitioner to expect a
certain result, and in my experience there is nothing so dangerous as
a loaded pendulum, in that it will tend tell you the answer that you
expect to find. The answer obtained via objective dowsing, if such an
expression can be permitted, may be completely different from what is
expected and is usually, in my experience, more relevant to the
patient's requirements. It is therefore necessary to have and
cultivate the openness - or even emptiness - of mind required to be
able to work in this way. 23

From Alice Bailey's standpoint, physical reality is the result of the
precipitation of energy into form via force, force being the vector or
idea, as it were, which organises energy into coherent structures.
Thus the immaterial is first and the material comes afterwards. The
intent behind such creative action may be characterised by the first
three ray qualities of Will, Love/Wisdom and Active Intelligence,
which are concepts which we can use to help us try and understand, or
reason with, the immense existential questions which lie behind the
problem of life and the fact of the objective Universe.

The well-known esoteric maxim, Energy Follows Thought, also
characterises this creativity and in a sense encapsulates the activity
of the practitioner as a healer. The practitioner intends (Will) to
heal (Love) and focusing his attention on the problem provides the
basic energy required to perform the task. The selected remedy adds
the required quality (Active Intelligence) to the intention and thus
it can be suggested that on a microcosmic level the practitioner
follows a model which may be replicated at many levels throughout what
Bailey calls the Cosmic Physical Plane.

From this point of view radionics is a form of spiritual healing
so-called, but using supports such as the pendulum and the radionic
instruments and providing differentiated forms of healing energy. It
may be that at a certain stage of the practitioner's development he or
she would be able to dispense with the instrumentation and work with
the required energies on the level of Higher Mind alone; through
formulating the appropriate creative commands he will attract the
needed energy and direct it to the patient. 24 The importance of the
instruments to most practitioners is that they act as a focus for both
the attention and the intention and may be set up to perform certain
tasks. Otherwise the typical practitioner may run the risk of quickly
exhausting his available energy and thus rendering himself unable to work.

Another view of how the practitioner may operate can be derived from
studying the ideas of Rupert Sheldrake, who in his book The Presence
of The Past, proposed the idea of Morphogenetic (structure-creating)
fields in his Hypothesis of Formative Causation. In outline this
theory proposes that

- there is an information field unique to every structure or concept,
whether it is a form in one of the kingdoms of nature or the knowledge
of how to speak a language;

- the field organises the basic physical material (e.g. DNA) or
provides the unseen impetus or tradition which enables any new skill
to be learned more easily by fresh generations of learners;

- the strength of the field is reinforced or even increased by usage;

- the field is adapted or evolves as new means of usage or different
events occur;

- the field strength decreases from lack of usage;

- multiple and often nested fields exist for complex structures, such
as human or animal bodies.

Although Sheldrake's theory was rejected and even ridiculed by some
conventional scientists, I would suggest that the morphogenetic field
is an integral part of the Etheric and other subtle energies which are
addressed by the radionic practitioner. Thus the practitioner accesses
the relevant field or fields as information when examining certain
aspects of the patient; when treating, aspects of the field which may
be considered dysfunctional are adjusted by the radionic rates; this
in turn normalises or stabilises the relevant energy flow in the
patient and adjusts the field to reflect the new conditions, which the
practitioner can then read (dowse), often in advance of physical level
results. It must also be considered that the morphogenetic field
exists as an archetype, in the sense suggested by Ruth Drown in the
quote at the beginning of this essay. The practitioner compares the
present state of the patient with the ideal state of the archetypal
form and attempts to conform the patient as far as possible to
`perfection'. Ultimately, of course, all of this must be considered
within the context of the Causal Body energy and the purpose,
character and circumstances of the patient, which in many respects
provides the driving force behind the individual incarnation and its
present difficulties.

In conclusion, I would like to state that I personally consider the
need to demonstrate, and perhaps even use - for the appropriate and
right purposes - the existence of higher orders of reality as
important.25 Human thought at the present time is dominated by the
mechanistic and materialistic model of science, which has created
numerous benefits but also many problems for humanity and the planet.
Many incredible advances have been made by modern medical science, but
the incidence of chronic disease and especially cancers is increasing.
Radionic techniques and practices give us a window of insight into the
higher reality, and we, although only a small group, should grasp this
opportunity to increase and enhance human understanding. Radionics in
my view is only at its beginnings, and if fortune favours the work
many valuable advances will come in future years.

Finally, I would like to partially reproduce a quote from a lecture by
the late Aubrey Westlake, given to the British Society of Dowsers at
Malvern in 1972. These words seem to epitomise the situation of the
man or woman with a pendulum when viewed against the colossus of
modern science and technology:

`God hath chosen the foolish things of this world to confound the wise
and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the
things that are mighty....God hath chosen...things which are not, to
bring to naught things that are...In the eyes of the world
Radiesthesia is a thing of no account compared with, say, nuclear or
astro-physics or atomic research and yet....it can, when properly
understood, open to us the mysteries both in this world and the world
invisible. It can reveal to us the Truth in so far as our finite minds
can comprehend it.' 26

Notes:

1. Dowsing itself, sometimes known as radiesthesia, is a vast field of
study predicated on the idea that everything has a unique energy
signature which can be detected by a human sensitive using a means
such as the divining rod or pendulum. As I see it, the technique used
mainly serves to amplify the dowser's subconscious reaction which is
transmitted to his or her arm muscles via the nervous system. Although
it seems that the pendulum is considered to have no intrinsic power, I
have noticed that some pendulums seem to work better than others. I
put this down to the fact that the material from which it is made may
be more or less compatible with me in some way. There have been
lengthy arguments as to whether the Radiesthetic reaction is a
response to magnetic or some other form of energy, which can be called
`subtle' energy, for the sake of argument. This can be summarised as
the physical vs. the psychic approaches, psychic, let us say, meaning
some form of ESP (extra-sensory perception). It may be possible that
both explanations are correct, with physical energies shading off into
subtle energies as the dowser searches on `higher' energetic levels.

2. The best history of radionics is Report on Radionics by Edward
Russell, published by C. W. Daniel & Co. Essential reading, including
fascinating material on agricultural radionics and the general
techniques of weed and pest control without chemicals (suppressed in
the USA in the 1950s by the chemical companies, according to Russell).

3. Abrams also developed electronically-based treatment procedures,
but this promising line of work seems for the present to have fallen
into neglect and is outside the scope of this article. It also
possible that his concepts were used as a partial basis for the work
of Royal Raymond Rife, the American inventor of another
allegedly-suppressed healing technology. See The Cancer Cure That
Worked by Barry Lynes. Abrams' work may also bear some relation to the
current research of Dr Jacques Benveniste - see his website,
www.digibio.com

4. Present-day practitioners tend to use a hair sample, and I think
that the pendulum is now more widely used than the stick pad. It
certainly gives a far greater range of responses.

5. See Drown Radio-Vision and Homo-Vibra Ray Instruments and their
uses, Radionic Rate Book. This, and seminal works by Abrams and
others, have been republished by Borderland Sciences Research
Foundation in California, see www.borderlands.com

6. For the sake of brevity I am obliged to omit comment on important
researchers such as George de la Warr (UK), T. Galen Hieronymous (USA)
and Dr W. Guyon Richards (UK) - to name but three. The trend of their
work, however, does not materially affect what I am describing.

7. Bailey's work covers 24 volumes and is not a religion, system or
dogma. It may be considered to be a kind of gigantic cosmology within
the context of which man is seen as an evolving conscious being
currently manifesting through a physical plane body. The introduction
to each volume basically says `take it or leave it' or even `take what
you want and leave the rest'. A starting point within the context of
radionic work might be Esoteric Healing (published by Lucis Press).
Note that I have deliberately left out any mention of her system of
Ray psychology because of space limitations.

8. There seems to be some debate about the exact nature of the
relationship between the Nadis and the nervous system but Gurudas, in
Flower Essences and Vibrational Healing, states that the Nadis are `an
extensive ethereal nervous system just outside the physical body, and
directly connected to the nervous system.'

9. The Logoic Plane is the plane of God (however we try to understand
this concept); we do not have a Logoic body, although the Monad (or
Spirit) is a `chip off the old block', so to speak.

In respect of the transpersonal self, I will state that on two
occasions the pendulum has indicated that I should treat the Buddhic
body and I have done so, with flower remedies. In both cases there was
a deep level of personal insecurity with its source in some form of
lack of self-confidence.

10. Perhaps this friction is what, from a philosophical point of view,
we could consider to be the root of the miasm Psora as a general human
phenomenon, i.e. the basic delusion of existence, which has been
written about in many of the great spiritual writings. Possibly an
individual who had overcome his lower nature would be free of Psora,
or enlightened, as it is also called.

11. But not all. There are for instance classes of disease produced by
conditions inherent in the physical and etheric structure of the
planet itself, such as geopathic stress, or some of the miasms. For
example see Chapter 9 of The Secret of Life by Georges Lakhovsky
(English edition, 1939, republished by Borderlands), in which the
author examines the statistical distribution of cancer in France
against the underlying geology.

12. Which is to say, you don't have a separate chakra for each plane
but the planes are present in the chakras like - to use a simple
analogy - layers in a sandwich.

13. Chronic diseases are defined in homoeopathy as non-self-limiting
conditions which generally have a slow onset and increasing degree of
action (often spotted with acute episodes) ending in death. If it is
correct that the miasms reside in the Etheric body, should they be
activated by a problem at an energy level higher on the scale (e.g.
Astral body impinged by shock) then it may be that you have to
identify this and treat it, otherwise the maintaining cause - as it
were - is still there.

14. Organon of the Medical Art by Samuel Hahnemann, Wenda Brewster
O'Reilly edition.

15. Rajan Sankaran, the Indian homoeopath, proposes, in The Spirit of
Homoeopathy, that disease is basically delusion. By this he means that
reaction is out of all proportion to stimulus. A simple analogy is
that if a man runs down the street being chased by a lion and screams
that he is afraid of being killed by it, this is a reasonable
reaction. On the other hand if a man runs down the street being
pursued by a Yorkshire Terrier and screams that he is afraid of being
killed by it, this is a delusion. The fear produced by the delusion
may of course may kill him, if it strong enough.

16. Psionic medicine, which is practised by doctors and uses dowsing
primarily in conjunction with homoeopathy, takes treatment of miasms
very strongly into account.

17. Bailey writes about the Miasms in Esoteric Healing, although I do
not believe she refers to them under that name. More recently Gurudas,
in Flower Essences and Vibrational Healing, has proposed that we add
new environmental Miasms such as produced by petrochemical pollution,
etc. Hahnemann recognised excessive medical drugging as a cause of
chronic disease states.

18. Lakhovsky, op. cit., also writes about what are in effect
interference patterns created by cosmic radiation striking certain
mineral strata and being reflected back to create cancer-forming
energy conditions on the Earth's surface.

19. In §6 of The Organon, footnote, Hahnemann states that `The
medical-art practitioner can never see the....life force that creates
disease, and he never needs to see it'; in fact the Dynamis is
something which is only detectable in terms of the symptoms it
produces. Other lines of thought, such as that employed by radionics,
suggest this is not so. There are grounds to believe that we will in
time be able to see the Dynamis and the subtle bodies; Drown and de la
Warr developed radionic cameras which purported to be able to
photograph the etheric fields of whatever the camera was tuned into,
and this includes homoeopathic remedies - for instance, see de la
Warr's radionic photograph of Aconitum Napellus in New Worlds Beyond
The Atom (by George de la Warr and Langston Day, 1956, out of print).
There are also various so-called aura cameras around which appear to
depict the aura quite accurately, although whether they show the other
subtle bodies is not clear to me yet. I can imagine that interesting
experiments could be done where people are photographed before and
after taking a radionic treatment, and so forth.

Perhaps Hahnemann's Dynamis may be considered as the life force,
perhaps prana, or chi, and needs to be clearly differentiated from
subtle anatomy, perhaps not. Whether one could have a perfectly
functional subtle body but which is not energised is a point to
consider, i.e. can the circuit be separated from the energy in any
practical sense?

20. Apart from reading their books, I have attended seminars with both
Vithoulkas and Scholten. Vithoulkas is a fairly strict follower of
Kent and seems to disapprove of Sankaran in particular and Scholten in
general - not to mention pendulum users!

21. Quoted from Report on Radionics, p. 28. Readers familiar with the
story of Hahnemann's early work will recognise that he started out by
testing Cinchona Officinalis (China) - from which quinine is derived -
on himself and noted that the symptoms proved were similar to those of
malaria.

22. In electronic terms this appears to me to be akin to the
phenomenon known as phase cancellation. If two identical waveforms in
inverse relationship are added together, they will cancel each other
out. I do not yet know if this idea throws any light on what actually
happens in radionic treatment, but it is worth considering.

23. Bailey emphasises meditation practice to purify the subtle bodies
and Tansley emphasises that the best protection for the practitioner
is keep his or her focus on the higher spiritual centres.

24. Bhattacharya in Teletherapy, which was in effect the first book I
read on radionics, writes of creating Cure commands and treating the
patient with them. He suggests you write on a piece of circular card
in red ink , `Mr X, cancer, diabetes, high blood pressure, CURE' and
broadcast it to the patient via his witness, using one the various
methods set out by Bhattacharya. What Bhattacharya calls the
`intelligent cosmic rays' will then be set into motion and perform the
healing work, over a suitable time period. He claims to have obtained
many excellent results by this simple method. Can it be so easy?

It may also be possible to contact and work with the Devic kingdoms as
the builders of form, mentioned by Bailey in A Treatise on Cosmic
Fire; maybe the Devas are similar to the `intelligent cosmic rays'.
Bailey writes that in time to come (which may be now, as it is
virtually 70 years later) the human and Devic kingdoms will begin a
rapprochement. This may being happening anyway in radionic and other
healing work, but unconsciously to the practitioner. I readily admit I
have yet to grasp the question of the nature of the Devic kingdoms in
any substantial detail, fascinating as the matter is. Otherwise
radionic work may also fall under the category of magical work, as
discussed at length by Bailey in A Treatise on White Magic. What is
considered as magic, of course, may simply be manipulation of subtle
energy on its appropriate plane to bring about results on the physical
plane. Whether the magic so-called is White or Black depends upon the
magician's intent and desire-nature. Analogously we manipulate
physical plane energies on this plane but subscribe to the idea,
supported by science, that we understand what is happening.

25. There may of course not be any `higher orders of reality'.
Implicit in the radionic approach are the ideas of reincarnation, life
after death and many related concepts which are hotly disputed down
here on the Earth plane. If the physical world is the end product of
higher energies, forces and intelligences then it possible to suppose
that these existed before the manifestation of physical, or objective,
reality. For example if the incarnating soul exists prior to the human
form then it can exist without such a form; from that we may think
that it can continue to exist after discarding that form which has
served its purpose temporarily.

26. Quoted in Dimensions of Radionics by Tansley, Rae and Westlake,
published by Brotherhood of Life.

Nick Franks can be contacted by e-mail at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .

Note that the original article contained several portraits and a
diagram, omitted here to reduce file size.