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ecosophia
While George and Marjorie de la Warr were putting radionics on a sound footing in Britain, and Meade Layne was beginning the process of synthesizing the work of earlier etheric researchers into a general theory, more developments were under way in the United States. One of the most influential figures in that process was the American electronics engineer Dr. Thomas Galen Hieronymus, the inventor of the Hieronymus machine and several other significant advances in radionics technology. Yes, that's him on the left. Hieronymus reached radionics by way of a successful career in the electronics field. Born in 1895, he received his amateur radio license in 1913, served as a radio operator with the American army in the First World War, and went to work after the war with pioneering radio station KDKA, where he helped run the first commercial radio broadcast in history on November 2, 1920. He later spent thirty years working for the Kansas City Power and Light Co., where he pioneered many of the techniques that are now standard practice for electricity distribution. He was a fellow of the American Institute of Electrical Engineers and the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers. Think of him with a slide rule in one hand, a voltmeter in the other, and a pocket protector full of pens in his breast pocket, and you've got the right idea.
He had a lifelong interest in new electronic discoveries, and that was what got him involved in radionics. By 1930 he was working with J.W. Wigelsworth, one of the many radionics practitioners active in that era, on a version of Albert Abrams' machine that made use of the dramatic advances in electronic technology in that era. The Pathoclast, the machine developed by Hieronymus and Wigelsworth, came to be widely used all over the United States, and was adopted by some mainstream doctors as well as by homeopathic physicians, who found it especially well suited ot their needs. Hieronymus pursued further work along the same lines, experimenting extensively with the machine and upgrading it to fit new advances in electronics. He became convinced that it worked by means of a previously unrecognized form of energy, which he termed "eloptic" energy (from "electric" and "optic," because it had some characteristics in common with electricity and others in common with light). 1949, he received U.S. Patent #2,482,773, "Detection of Emanations from Materials and Measurement of the Volumes Thereof," for the firs version of his own radionics device, the Hieronymus machine.
That, in turn, was what brought it to the attention of John W. Campbell, the editor of Astounding Science Fiction, one of the iconic SF magazines of the era. Many science fiction fans these days like to pretend that their genre has always been obsessed with the same sort of crackpot rationalism that so often infests it these days, but that's an act of revisionist history that would have made Stalin drool with envy. Go read 1940s and 1950s science fiction magazines -- there are plenty of them online these days -- and you'll find that the stories in them are chockfull of psychic phenomena, mysterious powers, lost civilizations, mystical notions: you know, all the stuff that today's rationalists hate most. The classified ads in back were usually well stocked with mail order occultism courses and books on weird phenomena.Campbell, mind you, was toward the rationalist end of the science fiction spectrum; his great rival Ray Palmer, the man who invented the New Age movement, was much further into high strangeness (and sold a lot more magazine copies than Campbell ever did). He rejected the wilder end of the paranormal boom that took off in American culture after the Second World War. Convinced by the writings of Dr. J.B. Rhine and other pioneering parapsychologists, however, he accepted the reality of psychic phenomena and used to pen editorials for Astounding discussing the latest advances in parapsychological research. That was how the Hieronymus machine found its way to a wider public.
Campbell discussed the Hieronymus machine in several editorials, and also carried out experiments with several machines of his own. He was convinced that the machine was simply a vehicle for the operator's own psychic abilities, and in an attempt to prove it, made a Hieronymus machine in which the circuitry was replaced by a sheet of paper with the circult diagram on it. This, he found, also yielded results. That led to a falling out between Campbell and Hieronymus, because the latter insisted that whatever Campbell was doing with the symbolic machine, he was not working with eloptic energy.
(Any competent occultist, as it happens, could have told them that they were both right. You can get results by using a symbolic pattern to focus and concentrate the mind -- half of ceremonial magic works that way -- but there is also another factor, distinct from consciousness but closely related to biological life, which has different effects. Still, such distinctions were not always drawn in those days.)
Campbell's editorials and a flurry of other pieces pro and con attracted a fair amount of attention in various corners of American society, but soon other things caught the public interest. Other than that brief brush with notoriety, Hieronymus continued his researches until just before his death in 1988. Having learned from the dismal fates of Ruth Drown and Wilhelm Reich, he was exquisitely careful not to do anything to draw down the wrath of the medical industry; he never publicly claimed to cure anything, and his publications on radionics present it as an experimental technology and earnestly warn readers not to use it in place of an established treatment. Of course everyone involved recognized that as the legal dodge it was, and radionics treatment thrived as an underground healing modality all through the second half of the twentiety century. Hieronymus also pioneered the use of radionics in agriculture, creating "earth pipes" that worked with the eloptic energy of the soil, and left a very substantial body of technical literature on that subject under the title "cosmiculture." His methods are still very much in use today. The machine on the right is one of many Hieronymus machines currently available.
(no subject)
Date: 2021-05-11 07:06 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2021-05-11 10:29 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2021-05-11 10:38 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2021-05-11 11:43 pm (UTC)On this site the covers are in their original color.
In gneral, the luminist archives are a wonderful resource for science fiction and fantasy. They also have pretty much every iusue of Weird Tales, as well as many other wonderful bygone magazines.
(no subject)
Date: 2021-05-12 02:19 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2021-05-12 02:59 am (UTC)The Story of Eloptic Energy: The Autobiography of an Advanced Scientist Dr. T. Galen Hieronymous
Date: 2021-05-11 08:17 pm (UTC)I happened to have been reading Duncan Laurie's excellent THE SECRET ART when you began your series of posts on radionics. I have been intrigued to read all that you have to say about it.
I cannot say I've yet read it with care but, long story short, T. Galen Hieronymous' autobiography has landed on my desk. It is a most unusual and large Kelly-green paperback, its unusualness beginning with the fact that there is nothing on the spine, nor the back cover.
I am especially intrigued to read what you write here in this post: "Any competent occultist, as it happens, could have told them that they were both right. You can get results by using a symbolic pattern to focus and concentrate the mind -- half of ceremonial magic works that way -- but there is also another factor, distinct from consciousness but closely related to biological life, which has different effects."
I hope you might elaborate on that point.
Thank you for your always fascinating posts.
MILLICENTLY LURKING aka Phosphorescent Obtuse Lorax
Re: The Story of Eloptic Energy: The Autobiography of an Advanced Scientist Dr. T. Galen Hieronymous
Date: 2021-05-11 10:33 pm (UTC)Re: The Story of Eloptic Energy: The Autobiography of an Advanced Scientist Dr. T. Galen Hieronymous
Date: 2021-05-12 05:19 pm (UTC)Am I understanding you correctly then, that a virtual Hieronymous machine (pen and ink) operates on the astral, while the powered machine operates on the ethereal?
Phosphorescent Obtuse Lorax
Re: The Story of Eloptic Energy: The Autobiography of an Advanced Scientist Dr. T. Galen Hieronymous
Date: 2021-05-12 06:06 pm (UTC)Re: The Story of Eloptic Energy: The Autobiography of an Advanced Scientist Dr. T. Galen Hieronymous
Date: 2021-05-12 07:12 pm (UTC)Kind regards,
Phosphorescent Obtuse Lorax
(no subject)
Date: 2021-05-11 10:16 pm (UTC)You might be tired of hearing this but a collection of your blog posts on history would make a great book, both to popularize the information and as a physical book for preservation.
(no subject)
Date: 2021-05-11 10:28 pm (UTC)Practical Work
Date: 2021-05-12 11:41 am (UTC)Re: Practical Work
Date: 2021-05-12 06:08 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2021-05-11 10:34 pm (UTC)Hieronymus!
A man can walk proud with a handle like that.
AV
(no subject)
Date: 2021-05-12 01:29 am (UTC)(And I inserted the Hieronymus machine, in his honor, into the forthcoming Weird of Hali roleplaying game rules...)
(no subject)
Date: 2021-05-11 10:39 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2021-05-12 01:29 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2021-05-12 01:53 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2021-05-11 10:47 pm (UTC)Let’s raise our zombies, toast Rod Serling and the occult inventors,* and get back to orgone and such.
*great band name
(no subject)
Date: 2021-05-11 10:48 pm (UTC)It was not pleasant, and I can only imagine how it was for all these people you've been talking about in these series of posts. I guess nothing can be done but to accept that some people will just reject you off-hand and not to try to argue with them. Occultism is a better means to achieve things, instead of wading in the mud after all.
(no subject)
Date: 2021-05-12 01:36 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2021-05-12 01:53 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2021-05-12 06:09 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2021-05-12 07:01 pm (UTC)Here outside The Wall, among white walkers and the freeze, we do ;-)
Symbolic patterns
Date: 2021-05-11 11:04 pm (UTC)How do those work? In what way might one design such patterns, according to what criteria, and what sort of concentration upon them or through them is apt to produce desired results?
I am thinking in particular of radionic amplifiers, viz., those patterns of concentric circles, or patterns of eight circles ranged symmetrically around a common hub, that are used with a radionics device to enhance its power. What principles govern the designs of these patterns?
I would like to design patterns of my own, for my own uses. But surely this needs an understanding of what is really at work, be it in radionics or in ceremonial magic. Have you any thoughts on the matter? To your knowledge, has Hieronymus or anyone else with the relevant expertise written concerning these patterns and their design?
Re: Symbolic patterns
Date: 2021-05-12 01:32 am (UTC)Re: Symbolic patterns
Date: 2021-05-12 02:38 pm (UTC)RPC
Re: Symbolic patterns
Date: 2021-05-13 05:47 pm (UTC)Re: Symbolic patterns
Date: 2021-05-14 06:47 am (UTC)Re: Symbolic patterns
Date: 2021-05-14 10:34 pm (UTC)But eloptic energy is not so easily observed. How can you make devices that work with it when you can’t even tell what it’s doing unless you’re a seer or a sensitive? What instrumentation would allow you to make that kind of determination? That is the question I am trying to resolve.
(no subject)
Date: 2021-05-12 01:54 am (UTC)I have a tendency to romanticize the past, but it does seem like a gigantic amount of real, honest research got pushed aside after WWII. Physics research is so bad, they still haven't got anything since they completed the Standard Model in the early 1970s!
Jon
tangerine tangential cactus
(no subject)
Date: 2021-05-12 06:11 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2021-05-12 11:40 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2021-05-13 03:00 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2021-05-13 09:53 pm (UTC)It is usually blamed on the complexity of the sciences, that any scientist can only make breakthroughs that are specialized and niche. Sometimes that is justified with the sheer amount of information that has been gathered, such as in the harder sciences. Other times, such as the liberal arts, it can be the result of "ideological fashion" aka dogmatism.
(no subject)
Date: 2021-05-12 01:55 am (UTC)Jon
tangerine tangential cactus
(no subject)
Date: 2021-05-12 02:07 am (UTC)Here is a link to a web page where one can find links to download copies of documents on the use of Hieronymus and Radionics equipment.
https://tandjenterprises.com/tandj-radionics.htm
Hope it is useful,
Sapienter si Sincere
(no subject)
Date: 2021-05-12 06:12 pm (UTC)Cosmic pipe
Date: 2023-01-18 05:07 am (UTC)