Strange Powers (6 page)

Almost a century later, in the late 1930s, a cranky and slightly paranoid man of genius, Wilhelm Reich, concluded that the universe is permeated by a kind of vital energy called orgone energy. At first, Reich was inclined to believe that this energy—which gave him conjunctivitis when he had been examining sea-sand culture under a microscope—was emitted by 'bions', pulsating living cells, which he had observed some years earlier. One night, looking at the night sky through an improvised tube, he observed a flickering in the dark spaces between the stars, and concluded that the atmosphere is full of 'orgone energy'. His theory, roughly, is that this vital energy is present throughout the universe, and that it can actually create living cells even in a sterile fluid. Reich constructed a kind of greenhouse for concentrating this orgone energy—a box made of alternate layers of steel and asbestos (i.e. metal and organic material). I myself have sat in one of these boxes in the study of Reich's brother-in-law, the late Robert Ollendorff, and experienced a distinct feeling of warmth—although the walls were cold—and noted that my temperature rose by three degrees in a few minutes.

With ideas like this, it was inevitable that Reich should be ridiculed by the scientific establishment. He was; not only ridiculed, but attacked and persecuted. When he died in prison in 1957, he had become distinctly paranoid and was suffering from delusions. The general view was that it was good riddance; he was a crank with messianic delusions, and was probably better dead.

Now, nearly two decades after Reich's death, there is reason to wonder whether both he and Reichenbach had stumbled on something that orthodox science had overlooked—something as fundamental as Newton's discovery of the laws of gravity.

In 1935, before Reich discovered orgone energy, two respectable American scientists, Dr Harold Saxton Burr and F. S. C. Northrop, both of Yale, published a paper called 'Electro-dynamic Theory of Life,' suggesting, quite simply, that living things produce electrical fields that can be measured. And for the next three decades, Burr and his colleagues continued to investigate these 'life fields' (or L-fields, as Edward Russell has proposed we call them). The first problem was to develop a voltmeter sensitive enough to measure very small fields; but once this was done, it was plain sailing. The voltmeters were connected up to a couple of large trees for years, and they showed that the electrical field of the trees varied between day and night, and with electrical storms and sunspots. Animals were more problematic, since they cannot be made to stand still for years; but Burr soon discovered that there are variations in the body's magnetic field when we are ill, when wounds are healing, when women ovulate. (This latter discovery apparently provides a more or less infallible guide for parents who want children. And the discovery of body variations in periods of illness indicates a method for the early detection of cancer.)

In the sixties, European and American doctors became increasingly interested in the ancient Chinese medical practice known as acupuncture. By all western standards, this ought to be unscientific nonsense; but it works. It was originally based on the observation that when someone is ill, his skin often develops 'tender points', and that pressure applied to these points seems to improve the illness. The theory behind acupuncture is that the universe is permeated with various vital forces—like the 'lines of power' mentioned in John Michell's
The View Over Atlantis—
and that the same vital forces permeate the human body, with definite crossing points like 'leys'. This vital energy is called Qi or Ch'i (breath). A television film shown in England early in 1973 showed doctors performing operations that would usually require anesthesia, with the patient fully conscious, and a few wooden slivers sticking out of various points of the body. The patient was able to watch his own stomach being cut open, see it sewn up, and apparently take it all very calmly. (Recovery also seemed to be incredibly fast—some patients were eating large meals a few hours after serious operations.)

In Russia, acupuncture is used nearly as much as in China. And a Russian scientist, Victor Adamenko, developed a device called a tobioscope to establish acupuncture points. Adamenko's starting point was a device invented thirty or so years ago by two scientists, Semyon and Valentina Kirlian. This consists of a Tesla coil—a transformer for high-frequency alternating currents, used in radio—which is connected to two metal plates. Between these plates, an object—alive or otherwise—is placed in contact with a piece of film, then the high-frequency current is switched on. The result is a photograph of the 'field' of the object. For example, if a newly-cut flower is placed between the plates, light can be seen streaming from the cut stem in the form of 'sparks', while leaves and buds show flare patterns. Photographs of the human body show the same flare patterns, and Stanley Krippner, an American scientist who examined these photographs in Russia (and wrote about them in an article in the
Saturday Evening Post
, 18 March 1972), comments that they change if the subject is hypnotized, takes drugs or drinks alcohol. This suggests that they are nodes of energy. And since acupuncture theory has it that these 'meridional' points can be blocked with too much energy, it seems possible that the camera is recording such points. (Everyone must have noticed that some point of the skin may suddenly 'prickle'—sometimes as if a needle is being driven in; you only have to start thinking about this to get 'prickles' on the skin—presumably due to some kind of discharge of nervous energy, like static.)

Obviously, it is no great scientific problem to convert the light energy—as observed by the Kirlian device—into electrical energy, and this is what Victor Adamenko has done in his tobioscope. It is a kind of flashlight that is passed over the patient's skin, and which goes on and off as it passes over acupuncture points. If the patient is healthy, it gives a good light; if unhealthy, it is dim. The relation to Harold Burr's work on 'life fields' is obvious. (For example, sunspots affect the Kirlian photographs.) Kirlian photographs have been taken of the whole body; one of Mrs Kulagina, an adept in psychokinesis, shows a pulsating field around the body. (Mrs Kulagina is, apparently, able to move objects like matches and paperclips by passing her hands close to, them; Stanley Krippner reports that she has even made them move by thought alone.)

It certainly looks, then, as though a century after Reichenbach, the reality of his odic force (read: 'field of force') is being demonstrated. Which makes it seem that dowsing, even in its odder manifestations, is as explainable as any other simple wave phenomena. We simply need an Isaac Newton of this new field to recognize the underlying laws of the phenomena. I'm inclined to believe that Lethbridge has taken the largest step in this direction so far. In
Ghost and Divining-Rod
, he advances the theory that there are specific electrical fields connected with water (including the sea), and with mountains and deserts; and although he chooses to call these by romantic names such as 'Naiad fields', 'Oread fields' and 'Nereid fields', he regards them as perfectly normal electrical fields. He observed that 'ghost' and 'ghoul' phenomena often seem to occur in the area of such fields. For example, he saw a 'ghost' at Hole Mill, near Seaton, and discovered that an underground stream connected the spot where he was standing with the spot where he saw the ghost. At which point, he makes a further assumption: that his own 'psychic field' was able to pickup a
picture
implanted on the 'naiad field' of the stream by the 'ghost's' psychic field many years before. In other words, that the 'ghost' was really a kind of snapshot, imprinted on the naiad field by some intense emotion, (He suggests that intense happiness can 'imprint' itself on 'fields' just as easily as intense misery or fear.) The same applies to the 'ghouls' he has sensed on various occasions—for example, on Ladram beach.[1]

In his book
Design for Destiny
(Neville Spearman 1971), Edward Russell, an American journalist, quotes Burr's experiments with 'Life fields', and then goes on to cite the results of the Russian scientist, L. L. Vasiliev, professor of physiology at Leningrad, who performed a series of experiments that demonstrated the reality of telepathy beyond all reasonable doubt. Vasiliev had two subjects sitting in different rooms; one sent out suggestions that the other should fall asleep. It worked. Moreover, it worked over immense distances—from Leningrad to Sevastopol, and it worked even if the subjects were enclosed in a metal chamber that would prevent any transmission by electrical fields. Vasiliev's extremely detailed and complicated experiments were published in a book called
Experiments in Mental Suggestion
, which has so far been published in England only in a limited edition. Mr Russell argues that these experiments prove the existence of another kind of field, 'thought fields', which he calls 'T-fields'. He goes on to state that T-fields can 'attach themselves to any kind of matter'. He is speaking about Lethbridge's 'ghouls' and such like: 'Many an estate agent, trying to sell a desirable property, must have been puzzled and disappointed when clients exclaimed: "Ugh, let's get out of here! This place gives me the willies!"' He adds that the size of the object on which the field is impressed seems to make no difference: it can be as large as a house or as small as a pinhead. An observation that brings to mind Lethbridge's remark about the constant size of electrical fields for various metals, and again suggests that we are here dealing with some general law concerning fields.

Another important clue is offered in the book called
The World of Ted Serios
by Dr Jule Eisenbud (which I have also discussed in
The Occult).
Ted Serios is an alcoholic bellboy who has the extraordinary ability to press a Polaroid camera against his' head, and somehow imprint 'mental photographs' on the plate. The photographs, many of which are included in the book, are usually of places. Eisenbud was shocked when he discovered that, although Serio's results seemed genuine, no one was interested. He need not have been surprised. The problem is that Serio's powers do not fit into any general pattern. It is like a piece of a jigsaw puzzle that doesn't connect together with any other piece. So, for the time being, it is pushed to a corner of the table and left alone; no one is interested in it until some interlocking pieces can be found. And this is again demonstrated by the fate of the book; it excited a good deal of interest when it appeared; since when, it seems to have lapsed into relative oblivion. But some of the interlocking pieces may perhaps be found in Lethbridge and the Kirlian device. The Kirlian device takes photographs of life fields, or psychic fields, proving they can be impressed on a photographic plate; Ted Serios can impress his T-fields on a photographic plate. And,Lethbridge suggests, any human beings may impress a T-field on the electrical field associated with a certain area, particularly if that area has water running through it.

I was already aware of the probable importance of 'fields' in explaining psychic phenomena before I met Robert Leftwich. So I found most of his ideas and theories easy enough to accept. I had an opportunity to explore these further a few months after that first meeting. In January 1972,1 became one of the presenters of a monthly arts program,
Format
, on Westward Television. In May 1972, Michael Joseph brought out a book called
The Table Rappers, a
history of spiritualism by Ronald Pearsall, who lives in the west country. Mr Pearsall's point of view is distinctly skeptical; so when I asked him to appear on the program, I also asked Robert Leftwich if he would care to take part. He agreed, and drove down to Cornwall on the day of the program. It was an interesting discussion. I asked Leftwich to explain about 'astral projection'; he said that he could only do it at certain times, which seem to come around periodically. He can feel it 'coming on' for some days in advance. He described how, on one occasion, he had been sitting on the London Underground, feeling rather oppressed by the crowds; so he closed his eyes—to look as if he was asleep—and 'projected' himself out of his body. After a while someone noticed him; his face had gone very pale, and he seemed to have stopped breathing. There was a minor panic; but while the passengers were discussing what to do with the corpse, Robert arrived at his station, opened his eyes, and walked off the train...

The story is typical; it demonstrates the element of schoolboyish mischief that is a definite part of Leftwich's make-up. It seems incongruous; but this is because most of us have formed our conceptions about 'psychic powers' from fairy stories; from the
Arabian Nights
to Tolkien's
Lord of the Rings
, the wizards have grey beards, piercing eyes and a basilisk-like stare. The truth is that psychic powers are almost accidental; their possessors may belong to any personality type. This is particularly true in the case of 'astral projection', also known as 'out-of-the-body experience' (and ecsomatic experience). They often seem to occur by accident, if one can accept the testimony of those who claim to have experienced it. For example, in
Out-of-the-Body Experiences
by Celia Green (Vol. II of the Proceedings of the Institute of Psychophysical Research, Oxford 1968), a waitress describes how she was walking home in a state of fatigue when she suddenly realized that her body was
below
her, walking along the street; a girl reading a book suddenly found herself floating near the ceiling, looking down on her body in the chair; a man sitting on the seat of a bus suddenly found himself on the stairs, looking at himself still seated. The two classic books on the subject are
The Phenomena of Astral Projection
(1950), and
The Projection of the Astral Body
(1929), both by Sylvan Muldoon and Hereward Carrington, and I must refer the reader to these for further information.

I had been hoping to carry out some systematic exploration of Robert Leftwich's 'strange powers' when he came to see us in Cornwall; but again, I was disappointed. This was not his fault. He seemed willing to discuss any subject frankly; but his ideas about his powers are bound up with ideas about vegetarianism, health foods, marriage, morality, and so on. So a question about the first time he experienced astral projection might produce a discourse on his diet, childhood fantasies, army experiences or marriage.