Dowsing for water was long looked upon with incredulity and scorn, or explained away as being a form of black magic. It is now accepted by the majority of people as a perfectly normal and ordinary method of detecting the presence of underground water, or even of oil and metals. Medical radiesthesia, though a development from dowsing, is in somewhat the same position in the eyes of the orthodox as dowsing was a quarter of a century ago.
All human beings, and indeed all animals and most things in the world, give off vibrations. In the case of human beings these vibrations can be measured and afford an index to the general health of the body or of individual organs; and radiesthesia is a general term covering the various methods by which this can be accomplished. This article is concerned with the sue of the pendulum for this purpose.
The pendulum can be used directly over the body, or, as is more usual, indirectly by working with “Samples,” i.e. specimens from the patients concerned in the form of a spot of blood on white blotting paper, or a little saliva or urine on a swab of cotton wool – though most operators prefer blood spots as being more reliable.
The information to be obtained from these samples is independent of the age of the sample or in what part of the world the patient is. Moreover, and what seems at first sight so incredible, the information received is that produced by the radiations given off at the time of examination and not those given off at the time of taking the sample. This is simply because the sample acts as the receiving end of a wireless set which is turned into the transmitting station constituted by the patient.
By impregnating a series of tubes of starch with the appropriate “wave-lengths” Turenne, the French engineer, has produced a most comprehensive set of “witnesses,” which represent the different organs of the body, the diseases to which mankind is liable and the foods, plants, etc., to which he may be allergic. Experience has proved that most of these witnesses are absolutely reliable if used with intelligence and a certain caution in interpretation. By balancing these witnesses against the sample any want of harmony or equilibrium can be detected (this can conveniently be referred to as “imbalance”) and a diagnosis established.
The actual method varies (too much so unfortunately) with different operators, but whether rules, circles, triangles or special measuring instruments are used, the principle of finding the balance remains the same. Incidentally, Radiesthesists dislike “blind” swabs or blood spots, i.e. samples without details of signs or symptoms, as it wastes so much time and is a great handicap to both diagnosis and treatment.
Now what is the advantage of this somewhat esoteric method, a method which must come under the heading of extra sensory perception until explained by the scientists, as up to the present time no instruments has been invented which eliminates the human element.
The diagnosis and treatment of acute conditions have made spectacular progress in the last two or three decades, but the same cannot be said of chronic disease – far from it. Admittedly, the average span of life has been greatly lengthened owing to the aforesaid control of acute ailments, the elimination of many forms of infectious disease, better public and private hygiene and better all round nutrition, etc., but what about average health?
How many of our friends and acquaintances are without some complaint or malady? These no doubt are trivial in many instances, but far too many people are enduring real suffering or infirmity for want of accurate diagnosis, and treatment based on knowledge of that diagnosis.
If you do not know the basic cause of an illness you can only treat it empirically, at worst by suppressing symptoms and causing more serious ones to appear elsewhere, or, at best, by affording temporary relief by physiotherapy, the administration of the ubiquitous aspirin group, the barbiturates, or even the deeper acting drugs such as morphia. there is every indication that radiesthesia can fill the gap between the inception of disease and its progress to the point when it gives the ordinary indications of its presence, either by clinically obvious signs or symptoms or by ordinary laboratory test; and, moreover, that it can supply an explanation of such signs and symptoms as have hitherto been unexplainable by orthodox methods.
One hundred and fifty years ago Hahnemann, the great homoeopath, preached that one should treat the whole patient, mental and physical, and not just one particular sign or symptom, evidently having it in mind that in every case there must be some underlying cause responsible for the whole complex.
Another pioneer, also ahead of his generation, Mr. J.E.R. McDonagh, F.R.C.S., has for the last forty years insisted that, looked at broadly, there is only one disease – by which, to put it very shortly, he means that if the blood protein is out of order, i.e. if the molecules of protein in the blood stream are in a state of “imbalance”, there is disease, the manifestations of which vary according to the particular portion of the protein affected.
Mr. McDonaghs theory would need a special article to itself, but he regards blood protein as consisting of three main portions, each representing one of the original divisions of the embryo from which the main groups of the organs and tissues of the body developed, and according to which portion is affected by toxins or other adverse conditions, so will the manifestations of disorder be located.
The aim of treatment is to redress this imbalance of the protein, primarily, of course, by, if possible, removing the cause, and then by the exhibition of the appropriate remedies or other forms of treatment.
By providing a definite basis and plan for investigation, this theory can be of very great help to radiesthesia by enabling the operator to decide which part of the body is chiefly at fault, but, and much more important, by helping to find the basic cause or common denominator of the general or particular protein imbalance.
The pendulum has served to prove that it is very rare indeed to find only one organ or endocrine affected and that McDonaghs theory is a most rational and practical basis for both diagnosis and treatment, and further that unless you can redress that imbalance you will at best, only by rendering temporary help to your patient.
As homoeopathy has proved to be of so much more real service in chronic disease than orthodox remedies, the indications are that radiesthesia and homoeopathy will advance hand in hand, the one helping and proving the other, with the promise of ever increasing progress in the diagnosis and relief of those long- standing troubles which affect so large a proportion of our fellow-creatures and which are often dismissed so summarily as being imaginary or due to “nerves”, and get neither sympathy nor understanding.
The practice of radiesthesia is not easy. Many people have the gift in embryo, but it takes many months of hard work and application to develop it fully and to an extent which produces really trustworthy results. It should be grafted on a full medical training and combined, when possible, with clinical examination. Unfortunately so few medical men have so far taken it up that its development has mostly been in the hands of medically unqualified persons, but we must be very grateful to them for the possibilities they have opened up. Its development is also hindered by the fact that most radiesthesists are ploughing a rather lonely and individual furrow, and very few are familiar with McDonaghs unitary theory, a theory which would help their work enormously and would form a foundation for uniformity and progress unlikely to be achieved by any other means.
From the point of view of treatment the pendulum should become a great stimulus to the science of homoeopathy. At present the teaching of homoeopathy lacks uniformity and has to rely too much on retentive memories and the use of cumbersome repertories. The question of potencies (i.e. the dilution of the drug-the power or strength being, roughly speaking, in inverse proportion to the dilution) is also a vexed one and one which constitutes a great difficulty in teaching, and an almost greater one in accepting, homoeopathy. The pendulum will choose both drugs and potencies with amazing speed and accuracy and renders this encyclopaedian knowledge of the details of an enormous number of drugs unnecessary.
An article such as this cannot pretend to furnish more than a very brief and superficial exposition of the science and scope of radiesthesia, but it is hoped that enough has been said to arouse interest and to indicate in some small measure its possibilities for the advancement of the healing art and the alleviation of human suffering. It should be added that this article is founded on the personal views and experience of the writer.
CHIPPENHAM, WILTS, ENGLAND.
