The use of extrasensory perception (ESP) to heal disease by identifying and correcting disturbances in energy flow. Radionics assumes that a trained practitioner can identify and modify energy patterns, or vibrations, that have been unbalanced or disrupted by illness, injury, stress, malnutrition, pollution, or poor hygiene. By using radionic instruments, the altered energy pattern is “read,” or identified, from any part or element of the body and treated with messages that enable the body to heal itself with restored energy flow. Radionic instruments are believed capable of reading energy patterns from such samples as blood spots, fingernail clippings, or locks of hair, which means that it is not necessary for the person to be anywhere near the instrument to be treated. The reading of energy patterns is sometimes known as radiesthesia and is based on the belief that each living thing has a unique energy “signature” that can be detected by a trained and sensitive observer. Used in conjunction with homeopathy (the treatment of disease with remedies that cause similar symptoms), radiesthesia is sometimes called psionic medicine. Such treatments remain unproven.
The instrumental detection of vital energy patterns and associated diagnosis and therapy. Radionic theory suggests all living things radiate an electromagnetic held that will vary according to the health or disease of the subject. Energy patterns are given a numerical value or “rate,” usually calibrated by use of a diagnostic apparatus called a black box. The first black box, sometimes called an oscilloclast, was invented by physician Albert ABRAMS of San Francisco. It consisted of several variable rheostats and a thin sheet of rubber mounted over a metal plate. A blood sample from a patient was put into the machine, which was attached to a metal plate placed on the forehead of a healthy person. By tapping the abdomen of the healthy subject, the doctor diagnosed the patient according to “areas of dullness” in relation to dial readings on the apparatus.
After the death of Abrams in 1924, his procedures were further developed by Dr. Ruth B. Drown in the United States and by George De la Warr in Britain. De la Warr constructed black boxes and an apparatus that produced photographs relating to the condition of the patient whose blood sample was placed in the machine. De la Warr claimed the photographs captured a radiation pattern showing the shape and chemical structure of the radiating body and that, given a suitable blood sample, the camera plate could also record its pathology. The Delawarr Laboratories in Oxford manufactures radionics instruments and diagnoses and treats patients as well. A Radionics Association in the United States and also in Britain (Surrey) trains and represents radionics practitioners. In the United States, Thomas G. Hieronymous invented a machine to analyze a new type of radiation in 1949, leading to U.S. interest in radionics under the name psionics. Instructions for building a Hieronymous machine were published in June 1956 in the journal Astounding Science Fiction.