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A New Synthesis : Please continue
....low except in the case of energies associated with the patient's ailment.
And as treatment went on and the patient progressed towards cure, the energies of abnormally high intensity diminished
until eventually they reached the low level of theoretical health. With this decrease in intensity came a disappearance
not only of subjective symptoms but of pathology (where the disease had not advanced so far as to make this impossible). The
point of great importance was that abnormally high energies were sometimes detectable in a patient who did not yet manifest
recognizable symptoms. When observed over a period time, such persons were found to develop symptoms of a type predictable
from the dynamic disturbance. This suggested that it was the ( dynamic derangements in the body that precipitate symptoms,
functional and pathological. Abrams had made similar observations.
The picture of health and disease painted
by Boyd's work looked something like this : Good health represented a certain dynamic distribution associated
with the body. This dynamic state regulated normal physiology. As measured on the Emanometer
*, the state appeared specifically as a low intensity of many energy components detectable in blood.
In some fashion not known, certain components could greatly wax in intensity When this happened, the directive
influence of the normal energy complement was changed, with attendant physiological changes, and
symptoms appeared : subjective, functional, and eventually pathological. That this explanation
was correct was substantiated by the fact that if the abnormal energies were reduced by medication to the theoretical
normal level, health returned in all cases where the patient's vitality was not....
* It
must be remembered that the units by which the energies are identified and measured are purely arbitrary and refer exclusively
to the Emanometer circuit. As the exact nature of the energies is not known (for instance, whether they belong to the electromagnetic
spectrum), it is impossible to give them electrical evaluations. Hence, the continuous inductance coil is calibrated in millimeters
of actual coil length, the condensers into180 degrees subdividing the semicircular arc through which the plates rotate,
and the airgap in centimeters measuring the separation between the fixed and movable plates.
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totally depleted. Of course, the arbiter for judging normal and abnormal
intensity levels was the Emanometer.* Boyd did not let the matter rest with the patient's diagnosis. If abnormal dynamic states
preceded the physiological signs of illness, then a dynamic correction would be in order rather than a chemical or physiological.
But how was this to be done ? The energies detected by the subject and tuned by the Emanometer did not appear to fit anywhere
within the known electromagnetic spectrum. Any idea that they might be a cryptogenic biological radiation was dissipated
by the discovery that all substances gave off these energies, and that when different substances were placed in the Emanometer
circuit together with a specimen, interference effects could be observed between the two such as are familiar to students
of wave mechanic: It was also clear that on the basis of the intensity of this energy as radiated by different classes of
materials, living things and finely subdivided inanimate matter-—colloidal, or highly diluted — ranked first,
material in bulk or in coarse dispersion ranking next with much lower intensity readings. These findings gave Boyd his clue
for remedy selection. When a specimen analysed by the Emanometer gave an abnormal picture, or spectrum, drugs were added
to the circuit singly until one was found which interfered with the specimen energies. And this interference thus be such
that all the abnormal energies associated with the patient's illness were reduced in intensity to the ideal normal. When these
conditions were fulfilled and the drug prescribed, clinical improvement followed. In addition to the abnormally high
energies, Boyd found three which behaved inversely to the rest. These......
* In what follows, the energy
complements under consideration will be frequently referred to as "the dynamis," not including puiely electrical effects
like differences of potential, static charges, changes in tissue
resistance, nerve
and brain currents, etc. And the word " physiology "
will be applied to the whole functioning organism as apart fron
the dynamis which appears to give it form.
.....
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..were of high intensity in healthy individuals but became weaker during illness.
The interference effect of the right drug on them was such that whereas the other energies were reduced in strength, these
three were invariably increased. A drug covering the cancellation factors and not enhancing these three energies was
much inferior to a drug which covered all the factors of enhancement and cancellation. Because of their characteristics, these
three energies may be called " vital rates." They assume especial prominence in the selection of remedies on the Emanometer.The
final technique worked out by Boyd is interesting in the light of his conclusions regarding body energies and their distribution
in health and disease. A patient's specimen was carefully examined and all abnormally intense energies noted, as well
as any drop in the level of the vital energies. As the ideal blood picture should give a minimum reading of all excepting
the vital energies, the next step was to find a drug which, when placed in the circuit together vith the specimen, had the
necessary frequency relationship to correct, by interference, all the latter's energy abnormalities. Boyd found it most practical
to test the enhancing power of the drugs on one of the vital energies, all drugs enhancing being held out for retesting against
the two other vital energies. He almost always found that the drug giving maximum enhancement also, gave satisfactory reduction
of the energies other than the "vital." For best results, however, careful measurement of reduction was essential, for Boyd
also discovered that a drug which augmented an energy that should have been cancelled tended to produce, when given to the
patient, an exacerbation of the relevant symptoms proportionate to the amount of augmentation. After the patient took
the medicine thus worked out by the Emanometer, his energy spectrum became radically changed. He no longer gave an abnormal
picture. It was as if he now possessed the energy distribution of a healthy person. And during this period there was
an abey....
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...ance or disappearance of symptoms and pathology. In lighter cases, one prescription
often cured : the abnormal energy characteristics failed to return and the patient remained well. In more obstinate cases,
after variable lapses of time, subsequent tests showed a gradual rise in the intensity of the energies originally found
high but reduced by the drug, accompanied by a return of the old symptoms : the severity of relapse depending of course on
the amount of tissue change still left in the body after the preceding period of repair and on the patient's vitality. Another
prescription was now needed, either of the same or a different drug ; and this was determined by a second test similar
to the first. In all curable cases, a series of prescriptions finally neutralized the abnormal energy characteristics,
all symptoms cleared up, and the patient was apparently well*
There is one other point of Emanometer technique which
must be mentioned. In some ways it has more significance than any other phase of Boyd's approach. Whereas Abrams had
found what he called a " vital rate " indicating the constructive body processes, Boyd found three. Abrams' rate (to
use his own jargon) was " tuned in " by a coil having 49 ohms of resistance — a standard value for everybody's
vital rate. Boyd of course had three different settings on his inductance coil, one for each of his vital energies. But whereas
two of these, energies always tuned in on the same position of the coil, no matter whose the specimen, the third, called
the V rate give 11 adjacent variations, depending on the person, instead of a standard setting for all persons. That
is, there were 11...
* In
presenting his work to an investigating orthodox medical committee in Britain (the Horder Committee), Boyd arranged a
series of blind tests capable of evaluation on a statistical basis. In this manner accidental success ratios could be compared
with actual successes. The most rigorous of these trials, repeated at an interval of a few months, gave a 33,O00,0O0 to 1
ratio in favour of the reality of .the phenomena— sufficient to corroborate any purly orthodox experiment.. Controls
were carefully kept by the investigating
committee.26
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fundamental types of V energies, each with a slightly different tuning
characteristic giving 1l closely spaced settings of the coil. Hence, each patient had to be grouped by determining which
was his type of V energy.The result of this was unexpected. To cause certain specific interference effects with a specimen's
energies, the period of a drug's energies must be almost, although not quite, identical with the period of the specimen's.
Boyd has shown that this slight variation exists. This approximation of drug energy values to specimen's is such that
the drug V energy registers at the same coil setting as the specimen's— drug and patient, that is, must belong to the
same group. Still otherwise expressed : maximum sensitivity exists to a substance belonging to the same V classification
as the patient.* Let us consider what is implied in Boyd's findings. The average human being is continually adjusting his
organism ( unconsciously, of course ) to outside
influences.Someofthese
are relatively gross : minerals dissolved in the water he drinks, mineral deficiencies in his food, physical factors like
temperature and humidity, particles suspended in the atmosphere which be breathes into his lungs. In addition, we have
found
that a human organism responds to obscure influences like dowsing fields, to effects from countless sources of radiation with
different frequency characteristics, all apparently capable of eliciting various autonomic reflexes
Most of these condi....
* Some interesting relations between these groups have
been observed.27 In health , a person's group tends to remain constant. Chronic disease may move him out of his group,
but usually into a group of a well-defned series. Groups 5, 8, 11 ; 1, 6, 10 ; 2 and 7. appear to constitute three series.
In acute illness, however, the patient may change from one group to any of the others without seeming to follow a pattern.
Pregnancy affects the group of the mother , and this change appears to be governed by the sex of the unborn child . Also,
a boy's group is very often that of the mother's ; a daughter's takes after her father's. Thus it will be seen that
the V energy of Boyd's, giving the group, must represent a deep and fundamental aspect of the integrated creature.
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....tions we may regard as more or less normal :the organism, having evolved in their midst, is prepared to absorb them
without suffering. In fact, such agents, by repeatedly stimulating the various parts of the organism, may be necessary for
optimum development, for exercising and maintaining the tone of manifold body states. There are few if any totally useless
functions in nature, and these reflexes are functions serving a purpose of their own. Conceivably, the isolation
of a human body for long periods from such influences would dull the responses, which would end by becoming atrophied or by
causing, through their cessation, diminished or excessive functions elsewhere.
The lesson to be learnt from Boyd, as he himself recognizes, is that certain energies may derange the subtle dynamic balance
of the healthy organism without necessary reference to a predisposition. Body energies (as shown by the Emanometer)
are susceptible to interference effects, in which process their ideal distribution is disturbed. Such a modification however
entails special physical relations between the periods of the body energies and the periods of the interfering agents.
For one wave train to interfere with another, both must be of the same general family or type. They must: also be nearly or
absolutely identical in frequency, depending on the effect taking place; for this determines the phase relationship and whether
the result will be an augmentation or a reduction in strength of the components. More generally expressed, in order for body
energies to be affected through direct interaction with energies in the environment, a specific relationship is required.
Unrelated energies, may arouse a general reflex hut will probably not destroy the balance of body energies. It is just another
working of the familiar principle of resonance. Disparity will not cause, interference : syntony will.
With such facts in mind, specific sensitivities become more intelligible. What injures one man
leaves another; unaffected: whether it be pollens carried in the, articles of food, damp locations in which to live, and even
the per....
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...sons with whom one associates; for all of these have dynamic properties demonstrable
on the Ernanometer. The response of any one person depends not only on his
temperament, his heredity, his constitution ; it depends, in the deepest sense, on the kind of
dynamic complementswhich appear to direct and maintain his somatic whole. If agents with which
he comes in contact or into whose sphere of influence he moves have the necessary specific relationship,
his dynamis is deranged : the normally low
intensity energies are intensified. If the source
remains, this chronic dynamic alteration, exerting a constant abnormal influence, eventually results in symptoms and disease.
We know little concerning how prolonged such influences must be in order to cause permanent dynamic changes in the body. But
once the dynamis becomes abnormal, the tissue and organic systems which it directs tend also to become abnormal. It
is readily seen how these facts underly and surround the whole fields of anaphylaxis, allergy, immunity.
The same facts invade psychology. When is an apparently free thought really induced by subconscious res-ponses to specific
agents ? How much are we indeed free agents ? Is not our existence much more continuous with the inorganic
environment than we had proof of before such researches as Boyd's ? Another conclusion is of considerable interest in the
light of orthodox medicine's materialistic approach to health and disease. The body has been regarded as a complex unit in
which something may go wrong, usually from materialistic causes (dietary deficiencies ; lowered resistance from such gross
causes as insufficient rest ; wholesale bacterial invasion, as in syphilis ; conditions following injuries, from
which the body fails completely to recover ; etc.). But if the reality of Boyd's work is acknowledged, it is evident
that all physiological disease is preceded by a dynamic alteration whose nature (let us say, whose frequency pattern, as established
by the Emanometer) determines the kind of functional and tissue changes..
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..to follow. The physical body is attended by formative agencies which are integrated
into the pattern of the individual : and this pattern is closely followed by the soma. When the formative agencies depart
from their normal, the soma tends to follow their new directive influence. In cases where the dynamic alteration is observed
before the occurrence of physiological effects, it has been found that a correction of the dynamis will prevent the subsequent
appearance of symptoms and pathology.Thus, the energies detected by the Emanometer are directive and integrative : they leash
together the heterogeneity of body activities and determine the body's direction, whether it will travel along the
path of health or of disease. And the soma emerges as the consequence of prior agencies, it is not itself a primary phenomenon
; it is not a self-contained mechanistic unit. It is the physical phase of a completer reality and as, such possesses no more
autonomy than any partial phase of nature. And the so-called " vitalistic " thinkers, who refused to
perceive in living
things only physico-chemical processes,are in part vindicated. The accuracy of the vitalistic intuition is especially
evident when we remember that these
energies are not even electrical, as electricity is conventionally understood.
Either they are non-electrical or they represent an aspect of electrical behavior totally different from any known before.
All the biological phenomena so far discussed are interrelated, and together they constitute the whole organ..
* G. Stromberg, from purely logical
considerations, has also concluded that underlying all biological phenomena is an individual formative agency which has
not only the power of directing1, somatic development
and maintaining somatic configuration during life but has also the
gift of immortality. For Stromberg, space is inhabited by these formative agencies, which collectively give shape and
character to the universe :
to inanimate as well as animate material. But so far as can be deter mined from Stromberg's
references, he was compelled to assume many of the points experimentally obtained by Boyd and others and described
in
this essay.28
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.. . .ism. In the case of man, the
role of physiological coordinator is assumed by the autonomic nervous system. This system manifests the reflexes, of which
the percussion effect is one fnly. Essentially, the change in note is produced by an alteration in muscle tonus under
the influence of energy from a " specimen " of human secretion or from a drug. The autonomic appears to be influenced as a
whole, and it proceeds to elicit not only the muscle reflex but many others such as various changes in the circulation, dilation
of tfte pupil of the eye, a slight alteration of the color of the iris, a number of sensations associated with taste and touch,
and so forth. The reflexes most easily observed are the muscle effect under percussion, the pupil effect, and detectable differences
in the pulse quality and rhythm and in the heartbeat as shown by the fluoroscope.
Another method of eliciting the muscle
reflex has been worked out by dowsers with their divining rods which act as magnifiers of minute muscle movements occurring
when the diviner crosses an area saturated with dowsing rays. Perhaps in general the dowsing technique is not so well
suited to the extremely delicate energies of specimens and drugs, although preliminary experiments in this direction by the
Foundation for Homoeopathic Research have yielded interesting results. Moreover, the dowsing reflex is generalized,; whereas
at least the abdominal reflexes of Boyd and Abrarms are specific to energies of varying resonance characteristics. The autonomic
appears to be the chief physiological inciter of these effects in its response to the various energies. And the whole
problem of dowsing is thus closely related to the work of Boyd and Abrams, the chief differences being apparently one
of degree rather than of kind.
Researches by the Foundation for Homoeopathic Research have shown that reflexes in response to specific stimuli
may be observed without the use of a mechanical tuner. This, approach is useful in determining sensitivity to drugs on other
agents. The response is general in nature instead of being localized like the abdominal reflex.
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As the abdomen reacts in patches, a better area for eliciting the general
reflex is just above the lung apex, (if this region is steadily percussed and drugs (in glass vials.) are brought up
to the patient one at a time, certain drugs will cause a noticeable change in the percussion note, but at varying distances,
according to the patient's sensitivity. The greater the distance between drug and patient at which the effect takes place
the greater the sensitivity. Since, as has been determined clinically, the sensitivity of the patient is roughly proportional
to the curative value of the drug, the drug which causes the reflex at the greatest distance is most closely related to the
case —i.e., is most curative. A good drug will be effective at supervising distance — up to 200 feet, as far as
has been tried.* Little is known which will account either for the specificity of the patient's reaction to this delicate
stimulus or for the ability of the drug energy to traverse distances which much coarser and intenser energies cannot bridge.
Other
reflexes mentioned earlier, such as the dilation of the eye-pupil or changes in the pulse rhythm and amplitude, also occur
in proximity to specific drugs. All are generalized responses similar to that shown by percussing the lung apex,, but they
can be elicited only when the separation of patient and drug does not exceed a few feet— two or three for most
satisfactory observation. Here the therapeutic criterion is not distance but the degree, to which the reflex takes place and
the constancy with which it recurs on, repeated trials.29 It is interesting to note that the
various reflexes tried separately will usually indicate this same drug, showing the unity and coordination of the body's
response.
Although organisms possessing an autonomic nervous organization are coordinated by it,
some organisms of a....
* It is a curious fact, but one which has been confirmed in
many tests, that a drug held in the hand (say by an assistant) will cause the refiex in a susceptible patient, at a much greater
distance than the same drug carried away at the end of a pole made of dielectric material. Contact with a human being seems
to enhance the carryingpower of .the drug energies. The reason for this is not known.
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.......simpler kind possessing no nervous structures at all are nevertheless
able to function as a unit. This suggests that protoplasm in itself has a responsive faculty and that the response may
be constructive for the organism as a whole. The researches of W. M. Persson at Leningrad involved the stimulation and inhibition
of enzyme activity by dilute substances, including dilutions well past the point where solute molecules theoretically disappear.30 (This point is in the neighbourhood of the 10-20 dilution.) Whether enzymes live is a moot
question ; if they do, they are certainly amongst the simplest of living creatures. For our purpose, they may be considered
living material.
Persson found that specific drugs
activated certain enzymes in a regular fashion, depending on the degree of dilution, and that the dilutions which activated
were separated by dilutions which inhibited the enzymes in a sort or sinusoidal alternation. Thus the velocity of starch
inversion was stimulated by corrosive sublimate in decimal dilutions 10-15,10-25,10-45 ,10-65,10-95,10-110 with maximum enhancement
at 10-65; whereas depression resulted from the sublimate in dilutions 10-6,
10-20, 10-35, lO-55, 10-85, lO-105
. It will be recalled that all dilutions above the 20th decimal 1O-20 represent the holdover of the drug
dynamis with none of the original molecules surviving the process of dilution. Hence, the enzymes responded as a whole to
he same kind of influence which can correct the dynamis of a sick person. It the extreme simplicity of enzyme structure (as
compare with the simplest true cell ) is able to react as a unit organism, there is, presumptively, a further physiological
factor in the response of a human being than the mere stimulation and reaction of the autonomic nervous system. The dynamis
underlies all physiology. It functions directively in the original, fertilized ovum before cell differentiation (including,
nerve formation), has taken place.No doubt the very structure of protoplasm, its activity, its tropisms, are fashioned and
maintained by the immanent dynamis. And the kind of drug reaction discussed in this essay is probably the profoundest action
of physiology, in.....
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volving not only the sensitive nerves but the whole mass of body material down to the smallest protoplasmic
drop. This total response, apart from organic systems, is th true, the deepest life activity from the physiological viewpoint.*
But
the energies are themselves interlaced with physiology. Indeed, the physiological total is not an autonomous organism
deriving its characteristics from its physico-chemical nature. Instead, the physiological total appears to be hung on
an invisible framework of unknown energies. This dynamic framework, according to its pattern, delineates the physiological
characteristic. t The dynamis is the most fundamental of all the factors yet found associated with living beings. When it
adheres to a theoretically normal pattern, the physiological functioning is also normal, and the organism is said to be healthy.
When the dynamis is disturbed and remains so, sooner or later the physiology adjusts itself to the new influence, symptoms
develop, and the organism is said to be ill. Even the autonomic nervous system, despite its preeminence as physiological coordinator,
is as amenable to the dynamis as the rest of the soma. Still, we do not yet know what is the exact role of the dynamis in
biology .We do not know its physical characteristics. We cannot explain why such a dynamis is associated not only with
living creatures but also with inanimate material such as drugs, including drugs composed....
* Wm E.Boyd of Glasgow repeated Persson's experiments with comparable results. Boyd however prepared his microdoses with
scrupulous care, using a separate vial for each dilution, to ensure getting effects in the higher dilutions from the pure
drug dynamis in the absence of solute molecules. The last published account31 described
effects of dilutions from lO-6 to lO-14, obviously not yet
in the ultramolecular region. His work continues.
t The work of Baron von Roichenbach is doubtless worthy of
much deeper study by modern scientists than it has received .Reichenbaeh's concept of Od as a sort of etheric envelope
surrounding and influencing the physical body; of living beings is reminiscent of the energies found by the Emanometer. But
Reichenbach's approach was through psychic, mediumistic and other subjective methods, whereas an instrument like the Emanometer
gives objective data.
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....of inorganic minerals. These manifold aspects of life must be thoughtfully
remembered.
Moreover, it must be constantly borne in mind that the dynamis, the physiology, the changes these have resulted
in the slow evolution of living things, are not separate unrelated aspects of terrestrial history but are closely dependent
on one another. The whole effort of evolution is an adjustment by life to express itself in harmony with
its inorganic environment ; the resultant physiology and dynamic qualities are part of that evolution, have
grown out of biological adaptations, and owe much of their present character to the inorganic
world in which they developed. Life is not a random breath blown over the face of the earth, to disappear without a
trace in a few millenia. Life is the very breath of the earth, of the Universe. It is
part of them,a small part measured physically,an extraordinarily wonderful part on the basis of its peculiar qualities.
This unitary concept must underlie any serious attempt to understand the meaning of creation.
8. The Dynamis and Parapsychology.
If everyone were familiar with the foregoing evidence, the investigations of J.B.Rhine in the realm of para-psychology
would meet with less prejudiced opposition. Just as the occurrence of migratory and gregarious habits in the animal world,
the existence of deep and specific instincts, the phenomena of dowsing, and the discoveries of White, Abrams and
Boyd disclose one aspect of biological adjustment to its milieu through purely physiological effects, so also another
approach reveals the existence of a link which transcends the relative grossness of physiology. And the pioneer in this approach
today is J. B. Rhine.32 His place in the history of science will probably be that of having first investigated telepathy and
clairvoyance with scientific methods. Knowing that the occurrence or equally probable events is capable of statistical evaluation,
he worked out a technique in which the results could be weighed against a chance ratio. He had arbitrary symbols drawn on
five cards. One person, the "sender ",
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shuffled the pack, then picked up one card at a time while a " recipient," protected
from visual clues, called out the card. Over a long series of tests it is clear that accidental right calls would occur one
fifth of the time ; just as the average number of heads or tails over many tosses of a coin would be one half of the total
number of tosses. However, Rhine soon found that certain experimental subjects gave correct calls far in excess of the chance
ratio. A variation of this purely telepathic approach attempted to involve only a clairvoyant faculty. An operator shuffled
the deck, then placed the cards face down without examining them, while the recipient called out the order of the cards from
top to bottom or vice versa. This eliminated any telepathic faculty because no one knew the order of the cards. It was observed
that a recipient good at the telepathy work gave an equally good score with the clairvoyant tests. Hence, these two extrasensory
faculties were tentatively linked together ; both appeared to be functions of an unknown awareness working independently
of the senses, from which all clues were carefully shielded. In practice, Rhine used 25 cards in a deck in which each symbol
was repeated five times. Some of his subjects consistently scored much higher than the chance figure.Further work was undertaken
to see whether increased distance between sender* and recipient had any effect on the scores. Here again a good score between
a couple at close quarters tended to remain unchanged even in cases where the separation was increased to over a thousand
miles, the action of the subject; being suitably synchronized by electrical means. There was, apparently, some sort oi interaction
between sender and recipient which was unaffected by distance. It was an anomalous situation in that the usual weakening
effects of space on action-at a-distance did not hold true. This anomaly will be clearer by recollecting the beha...
*
In the telepathic experiments, of course, the sender was an operator who
looked at each card ; in the clairvoyant work, the unseen but shuffled deck must be regarded, as sender.
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viour of radiations in general. A radiation source may be considered to emit
an infinite series of expanding concentric shells. A sphere of twice a given diameter possesses four times the area and will,
accordingly, be illuminated at a given arc of its periphery by one fourth the photon swarm that illuminates the same arc at
the periphery of the inner sphere. Hence, the law that radiation varies in intensity inversely as the square of the distance
: at twice the distance, intensity is reduced one fouth ; at three times the distance, one ninth, etc. This law governs electromagnetic
radiations and mechanical wave phenomena like sound and water waves. So far as is known, the only agents capable of action-at
a-distance are undulatory in character.*
Whatever the exchange involved in extrasensory perception tests, they simulate
the long distance effects of radiation. Hence, one would expect that if a given score prevailed between a sender and recipient
separated by 50 feet, there would be a drop in successful calls when the distance was increased several hundred times, due
to the attenuating effect of space. This evidently does not take place, and is in keeping with the age-old tradition of psychic
dabblers, who have declared such phenomena to violate both space and time limitations. And we may well ask at this point :
Can phenomena violate space and time, which have been regarded as the bedrock of our universe, and still remain a part of
that universe ? If we are guided by experimental evidence rather than by prejudice or opinion, we must reply that telepathic
and clairvoyant effects, as proved by Rhine, are surely perceived in our universe, regardless of where they actually take
place ; and behave as if they could circumvent the usual limitations of time and space by which physical agents are bound.
The transmission of a telepathic impulse emerges as something quite different from a wave effect between two persons.
It appears in fact as a short-...
* Although, as modern physics has discovered, light
is able to perform work through its ultimate constitution into particles (the photons), its
movement results from the organization of the photons into waves. By virtue of its wave aspects, light travels
; by virtue of its particles, it works.
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circuiting of the material and physical substance of the universe ; so that
events ordinarily separated in space and time may communicate with each other. And, if we find it difficult to suppose such
a short-circuiting possible within the universe, there is always the more reasonable alternative that it occurs, not outside
the universe, but outside of its time-space aspects: i.e., around them.*
Here appears still another facet of life. In addition to the dynamic and physiological components, a living being possesses
also an extrasensory aspect which differs from the physical characteristics in its ability to circumvent them as well as the
external physical world. We might picture the physiology as the kernel of the complex living system, surrounded and permeated
by the dynamis which extends beyond it, both of these aspects being in turn encompassed by a flexible, immaterial envelope
with the ability to swell out at will throughout the physical world uninhibited by the usual physical restrictions This last
is of course the extrasensory being, whatever its ultimate nature.
* The British aeronautical engineer, J. W. Dunne, has recently published a view of the universe
in which time is not regarded as series of instants beginning in the past and axtendmg into the present and to the future,
like an infinite necklace: in stead he pictures the necklace as thrown in a heap, so that all the beads (instants of time)
really touch together, and any concept of a longitudinal necklace strung from beginning to end would depend entirely on the
point of view. That is, if one could only travel from bead to bead along the string while the necklace lay heaped up, one
would get the idea of sequence (past, present, future) ; whereas by taking a bird's eye view one realises that the beads are
really piled together in space, making it difficuit to select any one bead a prior or subsequent. And, Dunne continues,
in dreams one is freed from the usual time concepts so that the individual is able to roam back and form in time. Actually,
he claims that if one is trained to rememtxr all his dreams, he will find that those not purely random can be divided into
two groups : reminiscent dreams, and prophetic drearms, about equally divided in number. This suggests to him his theory
of what we might call the simultaneity of all time, a theory which he has named serialism. Such a concept is necessary to
account for extrasensory phenomena; and, as we shall see in the following section, the existence of an ultimate region encompassing,
and free from, time-space limitations, is a mathematical necessity in modern physics.
64
Under
certain conditions, some sort of extrasensory faculty may be employed to cure disease —- so-called faith-healing. This
at once relates the extrasensory being to the dynamis and the physiology : they may react on one another to produce deep changes
in the living creature. Whether a patient were cured by faith or by a drug selected according to the Emanometer technique,
in either case one would expect to find a righted dynamic pattern after cure as measured by the Emanometer ; for, regardless
of the means of healing, the result would always be the same, both as to be corrected dynamis and the corrected physiology.
But how is the extrasensory being related to the rest of the organism ? Is it more fundamental even than the dynamis, which
itself underlies the relatively gross physiologv ? Are the dynamic and extrasensory states sharply differentiated or do they
represent different aspects of a completer reality ? And where does this complex unite with the obvsical world ?
We do not yet know, but the researches of contemporary physics are suggestive.
Let us review them briefly.
9. Physics and
Creation.
The effort to interrelate
phenomena as diverse as those discussed in this essay is accompanied by real difficulties. To summarize : There are the purely
physical factors of geological evolution and the various physical phenomena possible as a consequence under present earthly
conditions. These have given rise to various types of radiations to which living things have developed a sensitivity—bringing
in the biological aspects. And the study of biological matter, apart from its response to radiation, has intellectually dichotomised
the natural sciences, making quite impossible until recently any satisfactory synthesis that would allocate convincingly the
roles of inanimate material and of living beings. Biology is complicated by psychological, para-psychological and autonomic
aspects which are hardly to be circumscribed within somatic limits . Whereas most purely physical systems are the arithmetical
sum of their parts,
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. ..biological systems function as if something
in addition to the physical constituents assumed the directorship : they appear to be more than the mere sum of their parts.
The last point is emphasized by occasional instances of para-phychology or extrasensory perception (telepathy, foresight,
clairvoyance, etc) which not only transcend the physical boundaries of the organism but indeed appear to violate the space-time
limitations of the physical universe. Clairvoyance and foresight often contradict the concept of causality by perceiving (psychically)
events not et worked into the apparent pattern of existence.
Hence, it must be asked whether the materialistic universe is really self-contained or whether it is not a complex set
of attributes belonging to an ulterior reality. This question is a corollary of the fact that time and space may be circumvented
under special conditions and by special agents. The question is also suggested by the failure of physical methods to account
for ultimate beginnings or ultimate ends. We observe phenomena which have all the appearance of emerging out of a generating,
unperceived matrix.
The identical problem was formulated several years ago by
the physical mathematicians. They were prompted by the breakdown of the mechanistic atomic model proposed by Bohr and
for so long useful in helping to visualize atomic behaviour. When spectral lines were repeatedly split into several components
by placing the light source in a magnetic field, it became clear that the electronic orbits of the Bohr model were no longer
suitable to account for the observed facts. Indeed, these orbits were inferential and represented an atom in a state which
was never capable of direct observation — a state of repose ; it was only when an electron jumped from an outer to an
inner orbit that it emitted radiation and wave capable of observation Hence in 1925, Heisenberg proposed that all purely inferential
descriptions be omitted from physics, which should confine itself to observable events. In atomic physics, the observables
were the frequency of emitted radiations and the....
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...energy level in the atomic structure. Schroedinger came to a similar conclusion
from another direction. He resolved material particles into wave systems and dispersed them in a perfectly transparent medium,
the wave velocity increasing with the wave frequency. Waves of two frequencies could exist together, and the velocity
of the wave group differed from the velocity of one component frequency, as in the familiar case of water waves. Thus, a material
particle emerged as a wave group, a storm centre, and what we call the energy was related to the frequency of the wave composing
the storm. When these indescribably rapid oscillations — far in excess of any electromagnetic frequency — came
together in certain relationships they produced a "beat." And this beat, released into space, manifested itself to us as radiation.
Born, Jordan, de Brogue and Dirac extended these purely mathematical concept;, which were quite incapable of visualisation
in terrm of a mechanical model (like the Bohr atom) but which certainly fitted all the observable, facts. And the diffraction
experiments of Davisson, Kunsman, Germcr, and G. P. Thomson showed eventually that the electron was not, indeed, a massy finite
particle but could be experimentally coaxed to display wave characteristics.35,36,37,38,39 The consequence of these studies
is of great importance to our theme. The electron had long been regarded as a basic buiding-block of nature, an ultimate particle.
It was suddenly broken down into a tangle of waves. Later, the proton, of opposite electrical charge to the electron, likewise
betrayed evidences of a wave composition. What had been considered ultimate particles were themselves constituted of
ulterior units, and these units were not just smaller particles but were actually wave systems of great complexity and of
velocity much greater than light's. The atom's situation is much like that of Dean Swift's flea :
" So, Nat'ralists observe, a Flea
Hath smaller Fleas that on him prey,
And these have smaller Fleas to bite 'em,
And so proceed ad infinitum."
The concepts of radiation also suffered a
fundamental
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... . .change. Whereas the speed of light had
been nailed down as the highest conceivable speed, and whereas light had been regarded as a thing quite apart from matter,
the new ideas related the frequency and energy of light to the ultimate ocean of matrix pulsations out of which all physical
units appeared to be generated. It was thus necessary for the science of physics, so long mechanistic, to abandon as primary
phenomena all the observable events and to consider them the consequences of a matrix from which they were continuously extruded.
So long as matter and radiation were viewed as ultimates, it was natural to suppose that all phenomena were expressible in
their terms by a being acquainted with every factor involved ; and this complete knowledge was expected eventually through
constant refinements in experimental technique. The random behaviour of electrons, for instance, was an appearance depende
it on our ignorance of all the factors influencing them. But in the pursuit of atomic and other microcosmic phenomena it was
soon found that increasing accuracy was only possible up to a certain point, beyond which lay a penumbra of increasing
uncertainty (to paraphrase Bridgman40). And this penumbra was not the result of our ignorance or or technical errors and crudities
but was inherent in the phenomena themselves.
For instance, as Bridgman points out,41 it is possible to measure quite exactly
the length of any object composed of countless billion molecules — an object, that is, in the familiar scale to which
we art accustomed. If, now, the accuracy of measurement is pushed to decreasing fractions of an inch, the tolerable error
eventually approaches the atomic dimensions of the measured object ; and as even the most rigid bodies do not possess sharp
boundaries but terminate in thinning atomic clouds of constantly changing densities and breadth (the result of the kinetic
motion of atoms), it becomes impossible to decide the exact pcunt at which the object actually ends. The same limitation applies
to the rule itself, if it be material. Measurements of this extreme accuracy hence resolve themselves into the opposition
of a flowing standard against a flowing object under mensura-
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.....tion, and the final result is an approximation determined by averaging
out the atomic clouds at each pair of ends. And since the exactness with which large objects can be measured depends
on the exactness of measurement of the very small, the effort at unequivocal determinacy is at once frustrated by an inherent
quality of nature. The principle ol indeterminacy (uncertainty) was first propounded by Heisenberg . It is one of the most
important contributions to modern physics.
Again : randomness may be expressed
as a relationship between the physical constituents of the universe ; this relationship is extracted out of random elements
by statistical calculations. The workings of chance arrange themselves into definite patterns only when the chance
events are extremely numerous ; there appears to be no pattern of individual behaviour. But this lack of pattern is not solely
a semblance arising from our incomplete knowledge of causes. Even if all the contributing factors to an event were known,
they might still fail in determining the cause. The knowledge of causes is not sufficient to an understanding of chance.
Chance, indeed, and the grouping of random elements into conceivable patterns express the secondary character of physical
units arising from a primary region. Chance is an appearance amongst physical units : it is not capable of directly explaining
anything except in terms of a remoter reality which it partially represents. Thus chance is related to the principle of indeterminacy.
Both are inherent in nature ; both tend to limit the closeness of our approach to physical units ; yet both paradoxically
contradict themselves by indicating an aggregate pattern which is only evident by a contemplation of many individual cases.
The tentative picture of the universe drawn by mathematical physics is very curious and in sharp contrast to the mechanical
model elaborated by the physics of the nineteenth century. A universal medium is postulated called variously the matrix,
subether, substratum, and, by Schroedinger, designated in his equationns by the Greek symbol , psi. This medium is filled
with waves of inconceivable fre-
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..quency and velocity, beside which the shortest electromagnetic oscillations
are sluggish and coarse. The matrix waves may be visualized as rapidly pulsating throughout their medium. And in their myriad
oscillations they pile up here and there in storm centers of many components, hence of great complexity. A storm center is
a region where the components by interference have piled up their crests and deepened their troughs, producing total amplitudes
far above the normal for the original matrix waves. From each storm center the waves spread out throughout space with increasing
velocity and diminishing amplitude : so that it may be said that no strict boundary exists for a given storm. Both the dimensions
and position a storm are governed by the chance relation of the matrix waves building them up. And the frequency of the original
waves plus their manner of interfering determine the undulatory characteristics of a storm. We perceive — indeed, we
are composed of—the reinforced wave sums of which the storm centers are made. We do not actually see he piled-up waves
but receive a secondhand impression of their workings. This impression is interpreted by our senses as that experience which
we call " matter". Indeed, the storm is nothing but one of the so-called ultimate particles of matter, an electron, a proton,
and so on, each kind resulting from different combinations of the matrix waves. But the matrix waves are themselves far removed
from sensory detection. They are so rapid and fine structured that no material instrument would serve as a detector. The whole
rippling matrix continually regurgitates the physical universe : and we see only that which is already extruded, never the
mechanics by which the regurgitation is accomplished. Thus, the physical world of which we are conscious and which
represents for us all that is tangible, fixed and lasting, turns out to be only a gossamer substance without solidity or real
extenision in time, a breath blown out by the mother matrix which itself, like the termite queen, remains forever hidden.
This
reference to the termites is not- irrelevant. Somehow it is necessary to relate to the physical world all
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..of the explicable biological phenomena described in this essay : Seen
facts as the memory of a species by which it preserves its integrity over generations ; and the similar memory of an individual
organism by which it maintains its individuality over a lifetime of taking in food, excreting wastes, rebuilding its
every cell over and over without becoming a different creature ; such facts as the purposivenese of evolution following the
biological impulse to adapt, to develop greater economy and smoothness of operation ; such facts as the various instinctive
orientations of living beings to the inorganic milieu that helped to form them, the various migrations, the specific skills
through which insects maintain a social order, the directional faculty of most inimals, unknown modes of communication between
animals, and the other keen communions which warn and direct living things ; such facts as telepathy in man, and clairvoyance,
and foresight, and intuition, and the host of autonomic reflexes which reveal agents in nature too delicate to be detected
by purely instrumental means. Some of these can be superficially explained in a materialistic way: observers may conclude,
on wholly insufficient evidence, that bird migrations relate to the magnetic lines of force of the earth. Other phenomena
are frankly puzzling, especially to the materialistic mind, for instance, telepathy ; and the mechanical viewpoint, in dealing
with such phenomena, takes refuge in declaring them impossible. Yet telepathy appears to be a fact, and its most
outstanding feature is its emancipation from the restrictions of time and space under which materialistic phenomena labour.
What do we mean by emancipation from time and space ? How can basic qualities be freed from themselves without having more
fundamental regions in which to move ? If the material universe were the ultimate, the self-contained unit of older physics,
it would whisper its final analysis of itself : eventually all the facts would be collected : nothing new would be left to
discover. And so nineteenth century physicists imagined. The enigma of creation for them was enclosed in a cubicle of space
permeated by an absolute time and sown with the massy cor..
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...puscles of matter. But the enigma lies all beyond these appearances. It is
the vast regions in which time and space are circumvented that hold the real answer : the regions which appear, in the mathematical
discussions of Schroedinger, Dirac and others, as the matrix, the subether, the substratum — Schroedinger' s mathematical,
psi.
And of all manifest creation, biological creatures appear to bear the special
gift of unconscious orientation within this matrix. It is unnecessary to consider further instances than the extrasensory
awareness unearthed by Prof. Rhine in his laborious and prodigious tests. We have already mentioned the physical significance
of his distance experiments,of the fact that the intervention of a thousand miles of space between the sender and recipient
of a telepathic ''message" made no apparent difference in the accuracy of the score. It is good to recall that so eminent
a mind as Dr. Alexis Carrel expressed his conviction that another category of parapsychology, faith-healings such as those
at Lourdes, cannot be dismissed now that they are corroborated by a medical board established at the shrine for the purpose
of analysing the cases. What struck Carrel especially was not the mere fact that a profound act of faith, could set in motion
the healing powers of the body : he was most impressed by the observation that the normal physiological repairs were extraordinarily
accelerated. A gravely ill patient with much pathology became cured abruptly ; it was a matter of hours, instead of weeks,
tor the tissues to repair themselves, and the sense of well-being in the patient was instantaneous and lasted throughout the
whole brief but complete convalescence.42 We do not know how the body achieves such miracles ; but it is obvious that ordinary
physical stimuli will not spur recuperation to such lengths.
What is the relation between extrasensory
faculties, the physiology, the dynamis ? — between them and the physical world ? Is the dynamis a direct messenger from
the matrix, or is it a sort of intermediary between the matrix and perceptible phenomena ? Or may these questions be
meaningless from the point of view of nature ?
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Have living beings
an unknown channel of communication with the matrix , the mother rrutrix in which exist the force-patterns about which the
forms of the physical universe are grouped ? Is para-psychology a revelation of this remote realm too fine-structured
for perception by the senses ? And do biological organisms, because of their relative degrees of consciousness, provide
so many shuttered windows, briefly thrown open, into this profound region of the matrix eternally pulsating and forming,
reabsorbing and reforming the visible universe ? Does real consciousness exist as an orientation within the matrix, and is
our orientation in the physical world a deception arising from coarse senses whose messages are loud-mouthed, drowning
out the more subtle whispers from the matrix ? Is it the reality of the matrix which makes of biological organisms a total
exceeding the sum of the parts ? Are the intuitive faculties of the mind, as distinguished from the intellectual, the intrusion
of the matrix into cognition ? Surely, if the matrix is the origin of creation, if it maintains the cinema of time and
space, if it encompasses time and space so that neither is an ultimate but only an attribute of reality, then a glimpse
into the matrix is an extra-sensory revelation. Such a glimpse suddenly reveals the depth of things in any direction, past
or present, to any extent in space. And such a glimpse seriously shakes the time-space illusion in which we have been educated
by our senses
10. Summary.
The universe
is more wonderful than we can imagine. Once upon a time, it did not exist as we know it today. Unknown forces set in motion
the processes through which have arisen, the present boundaries of space, pregnant with millions of galaxies and billion of
suns. Each sun is independent, flaming silently in its corner of the universe ; yet the shape and properties of the whole
universe are determined by the total of suns. Suns and interstellar dust are composed of atoms, which in turn are built up
of
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