The Jinn from a Scientific(?) Viewpoint

© UFOINFO

Flying Saucer Review
Vol. 34 No. 4

December Quarter, 1989

Article reproduced on UFOINFO with the permission of
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This article came about as a result of a discussion concerning
the nature of the JINN, and their apparent activity in the UFO
and psychic fields.

The assumption that underlines the following viewpoint is that
the Jinns are beings which dwell on a parallel level to man, but
due to their existing at a different vibratory rate, they are
not normally visible to us or detectable by us.

In spite of this invisibility, when UFO events or psychic events
occur, there are often changes in an energy that we can measure
– and this is the electro-magnetic spectrum.

This article, then, is an attempt to bring together (1): observed
effects associated with UFOs and with psychic events; (2) traditional
“occult” wisdom; and (3) contemporary scientific knowledge.

Our starting point is with the traditions of Islam, and, in particular,
the Qur’an, which contains some quantity of information of a metaphysical
nature, a proportion of which deals with the Jinn. This material
is summarized in Gordon Creighton’s article, “A Brief
Account of the True Nature of the UFO Entities”, published
originally in FSR 29/1 (October 1983) and reprinted in FSR 33/3
(September 1988).

The Jinn and the Infra-red

In that article, the Jinn are described as having “bodies of essential flame”,¹ or “smokeless flame”,² or “smokeless fire”.

In the same article by the Editor, ANGELS are described ( according
to the Qur’an) as having bodies of light.³ Since they are
generally invisible to us, and also for reasons which I will put
forward later, I would suggest that the Angels’ bodies are
of an invisible energy from the opposite end of the spectrum,
i.e. – the ultra-violet.

Before I get too involved with technical discussions, I would
just like to point out that there is another well known Islamic
book that also deals extensively with our unseen neighbours. In
fact one might call it a manual of mankind’s interaction with
the Jinn! And this is “THE ONE THOUSAND AND ONE NIGHTS”,⁴
or “ARABIAN NIGHTS”.

Why did UFOs Appear En Masse in 1947?

One of the questions that often crop up in the UFO field is: “Why
did UFOs start to appear in great numbers, around and after 1947?”

Although plenty of UFOs were undoubtedly seen long before the
year 1947, it does seem that something may have provoked their
increased activity, and increased appearances, at that time.

Well now – an interesting answer to our question has been provided
by the New Zealander Trevor James Constable in his second book,
“The Cosmic Pulse of Life”, in which he states
that UFOs began to appear in numbers around the time when man
started to use Radar. Or – to put it another way – the UFOs began
to appear around the time when man started to fill the Earth’s
atmosphere with microwave radiation.⁵

Since the use of Radar became commonplace throughout the world
shortly after World War II, the dates certainly coincide, and,
if we look at the nature of Radar – bearing in mind that the Jinn
may possess bodies of infra-red – then we can certainly see a
good reason for their becoming concerned!

Microwave radiation is just below infra-red in the electro-magnetic
spectrum (i.e. – just above Radio waves) – therefore our projection
of microwaves into the Earth’s atmosphere may well disrupt, or
disturb, the bodies of the Jinn and the medium in which they live
and dwell.

How the Jinn Materialize

In the Islamic texts it is stated that the Jinn are able to materialize
or disappear at will. This would imply one of three things:- (!)
They have control over the matter that we consider to be “everyday
reality”; (2) They have control over certain aspects of our
own psyche, and can create in us the subjective experience of
matter; (3) They can create illusions of an external and very
realistic nature in the same way that we create holograms.
It is possible that this last suggestion includes the first.

The reason for this is as follows:-

A Blueprint for all Matter?

Various researchers on the cutting edge of nuclear physics (i.e.
Paul Davies) and also in the border-line medical field (i.e. Harry
Oldfield)⁶ have speculated that there exists a kind of blueprint
for physical beings and physical materials – this may be an electro-magnetic
lattice or hologram which tells each atom r molecule what to do
and where to go.

The reason for this kind of speculation is that our present knowledge
of natural control systems is unable to explain the degree of
specialization that many atoms/molecules/cells exhibit.

The Mysterious “Crashed Discs”

Suppose, then, that the Jinn were able to construct and to destroy
electronic blueprints, and suppose, further, that, once set up,
a blueprint will attract to it, from our environment, the necessary
minerals, gases, etc., in order to make up the corresponding
physical form. When the blueprint is removed or destroyed, the
physical form will disintegrate or “return to dust”.

This may provide an explanation for the physical reality of the
crashed discs, whilst still allowing that they are actually
of etheric origin.

Jinn may function on Two Levels?

In ascribing intelligent behaviour to the Jinn, it must be accepted
that they have at least two levels of functioning – i.e. (1) the
body of electromagnetic energy, and (2) a psyche of some finer
energy. This might be called “etheric”, or possibly
“astral”, in the Western Occult Tradition.) The
reason why I am unsure about this terminology is that it may well
be the case that the term “etheric”, as used, is a traditional,
empirical description of the electromagnetic environment which
surrounds us. Therefore the psychology of the Jinn would have
to be on what we call the “Astral Level”.

Here I think it necessary to clear up a misunderstanding which
often occurs with regard to the term “Ether” or “Etheric”.

The Etheric Level

In the Western Occult Tradition, the “Etheric” is described
as the innermost of a series of “bands” around
the Earth, penetrating deep into the Planet, and reaching to a
certain height in the Atmosphere. Higher above that in the Atmosphere
is the “Astral”;⁷above that is the “Mental”⁸
– and so on, depending on which terminology you prefer to use.

At some point one of the unseen levels must be so expansive that
it is – in fact – interplanetary. (This would perhaps be
the “Spiritual” or “Casual” Level.)

Another use of the word “Ether”, which conflicts with
the occult method of usage, is to employ it in order to describe
the interplanetary medium.⁹ This application of it was
used, up until the late 19th century, by astronomers and philosophers,
but, as I have explained above, the “interplanetary medium”
would in occult terminology probably be called the “Casual”
or “Spiritual” Level.

Trevor Constable’s “They Live in the Sky”

Therefore problems can occur, as, for example, in Trevor J. Constable’s¹⁰
first book, “They Live in the Sky”,¹¹ where the
(apparently beneficent) contacting entities describe themselves
as being “from the interplanetary Etheric”. Later
in the same book, they are responsible for protecting Mr Constable
from attack by a lower order of unseen entities which I would
call “Etheric”, using the occult terminology
to refer to the unseen “band” closest to the Earth.

Be it noted, therefore, that any reference in the present article
holds to the usage of the term as employed in the Western Occult
Tradition.

Having thus set out the basis of this idea concerning the nature
of the Jinn, I would now like to bring in some corroborating examples
from the field of Psychical Research.

Changes of Temperature and Psychic Phenomena

In the typical “Ghost experience”, a change in temperature
is often felt around, or preceding, the appearance of the apparition.

Since, to my knowledge, our experience of heat is directly related
to the amount of Infra-red present, then if an apparition were
created by concentrating or converting localised electro-magnetic
energy, one would expect there to be a drop in Infra-red (and
probably other frequencies) around the phantom, – hence a drop
in temperature?

Matthew Manning

Matthew Manning¹² the British psychic, describes in his book “The Link”¹³ how, when he was sleeping in his boarding school dormitory, “poltergeist” activities would occur. On
one such occasion a large red circle appeared on the wall, and
it became very hot. This – it turned out – was a way of attracting
his attention, used by the earth-bound spirit of a girl who had
died some fifty years before in tragic circumstances.

The obvious inference is that the red circle that became hot (so
hot in fact, that the people were afraid of a fire starting) was
a concentration of Infra-red.

“Psychic Photographs”

There have been in the past many psychic and paranormal photographs.
Many admittedly were probably fakes. However, a proportion remain
which have been authenticated. In his book “Beyond the
Spectrum”,¹⁴ Cyril Permutt surveys many of these photos
and he describes the techniques required for securing paranormal
psychic photography of this kind. He found that the best results
could be secured with Infra-red, and this again would seem
to bear out a theory which I will put forward in the following
paragraphs.

The Earth’s atmosphere

Pursuing the idea of there being various different Planes in the
unseen world, which surround the Earth, and pursuing also the
thought that they might be connected with electromagnetic energy.,
I began an investigation of the Earth’s Atmosphere and it’s practical
structure.

Putting it in a simplified form, it seems that High Energy Radiation
(Cosmic Rays, etc.), from the Sun, penetrate right through the
Earth’s atmosphere and are absorbed by the Earth, to be re-emitted
as Infra-red, Radiation, producing most of the warmth that we
experience. The Infra-red is kept in the lower part of the Atmosphere
by clouds and by the Ionosphere (Ozone Layer) from which it is
reflected.

“Infra-red” denizens could dwell inside Earth!

Lower-frequency Infra-red penetrates deep into the Earth. Consequently,
if a being had a body of low-frequency Infra-red, it could live
deep down inside the Earth, interpenetrating what we consider
to be solid materiality.

The Ionosphere has – as is presently well publicised – another
function: this is the reflection of Ultra-Violet coming from the
Sun and hence reducing the amount of it that reaches us. Therefore
it can be said that above the Ozone Layer there is a comparatively
high level of Ultra-Violet and a low level of Infra-red,
whilst below the Ozone Layer there is a much higher amount
of Infra-red, but comparatively little Ultra-Violet.

The Angels dwell in Ultra-Violet

If we take the Islamic description of ANGELS¹⁵ as having
bodies of Light, and if we ascribe this to the lighter
or finer end of the spectrum (i.e. the Ultra-Violet), then
we have an explanation for the age-old tradition that Angels live
“in the clouds”, i.e., above the Ozone Layer, where
Ultra-Violet prevails.

Lower-level creature inhabit Infra-red

This is why, I suspect, Cyril Permutt, author of “Beyond
the Spectrum”, had greater success with his Infra-red
photography, since we humans dwell in the Etheric, where Infra-red
predominates. It must be comparatively rarely that the “FORCES
OF LIGHT” come down and help us on our way. Conversely, of
course, most “ghost experiences” occur in darkness or
in dark places, from where the “Forces of Light” (Ultra-Violet)
have receded.

From the “occult” point of view, as given in the Western
as well as the Eastern Traditions, it may very well be that the
upper limit of the so-called “Etheric Plane” is the
Ozone Layer (Ionosphere), and that above and beyond this lies
the “Astral”.

The tradition that unseen beings originate from different areas
within the Etheric (i.e. Dense Etheric) may be explained by variations
in frequency of Infra-red: i.e. Dense Etheric around 10¹²
Hz., and Finer Etheric nearer 10¹⁴ Hz., which would seem
to imply that there should be a corresponding frequency gradient
through the lower part of the Atmosphere, the frequency rising
with the height above the Earth’s surface. (Whether this is a
fact or not remains to be seen.)

At this point I would like to make it clear that, whilst it is
possible that electro-magnetic energy is the medium of the Etheric,
it is equally possible that electromagnetism interacts with a
finer energy which is the true Etheric medium, but that it interacts
in such a way as to be like a stain or indicator, showing the
form of the unseen Etheric/Psychic energy.

Baron von Reichenbach

The German scientist Baron von Reichenbach¹⁶ wrote, in the last
century, about what he called “the Odic Force”,
visible to sensitives, and emanating from each end of a natural
crystal, one end being OD POSITIVE (red and warm), and the other
end producing OD NEGATIVE (light blue and cool). Could these
be the Infra-red and Ultra-Violet respectively?

Trevor J. Constable¹⁷ suggests that if one looks through a red
filter at ordinary daylight for some time and then looks at a
living thing without the filter, the aura of that thing becomes
visible for a short while. This information probably originates
with the British Dr W.J. Kilner,¹⁸ who worked during the early
part of this century on the human aura, employing magenta filters.
Now, if the eye accommodates in the same way as our other senses
do, then, after looking for some time through the red filter,
it may begin to recalibrate the visual range, taking red as it
were the usual light blue (of the sky in daylight). Hence, when
the filter is removed, the usual range may, for a short while,
extend down into the Infra-red.

Clairvoyant faculties

This latter idea brings up an interesting explanation for psychics
like the Anthropologist Dr Rudolf Steiner,¹⁹ who are able to see
into the Spiritual Realm. Suppose that for reasons of exceptional
physiology (or possibly only of mental programming) they are able
to perceive a greater range of frequencies than is normal, and
can therefore see into the Infra-red and the Ultra-Violet realms?

In conclusion, I would like to bring a few points to the fore:-

Man’s pollution of both the material level

and the finer levels?

Ever since the Industrial Revolution, spurred on by 19th century
Rationalism, we have been poisoning and disturbing life for other
types of physical beings on this Planet. Perhaps with the harnessing
and mass employment of electromagnetism, we have now started on
yet a further stage, i.e., the poisoning and disturbing for a
whole variety of beings dwelling on the subtler levels of this
Planet?

If so, is it any surprise that many of them should be hostile
towards us?

I see no reason to consider the lower unseen kingdom – i.e., the
Lower Etheric – to be in any way different from the Animal Kingdom
in which we ourselves live. Some of the animals here like us humans.
Some of them hate us. And some are simply benign and objective.

(1)

“Min nari al-samumi”

(2)

Min marijin min narin

(Incidentally, one very highly-placed British-trained Arab doctor,
Dr Adil Mosa Al-Nahhas, MB, Chb (Baghdad), MSc (London), who was
educated and trained at London University and St Bartholomew’s
Hospital, London, and who in 1984 was the Head of the Department
of Nuclear Medicine, in the Institute of Radiology & Nuclear
Medicine, Aliwiya, Baghdad, Iraq, had this to say in a letter
to me about the UFOs and the “JINNS” dated March 22,
1984, and which I subsequently published on page iii of FSR Vol.29,
No.4 (1984).

“Regarding the explanation of the verse from the Holy
Qur’an which you quoted on page 8 of FSR Vol.28, No.6, I
could not find in any of my reference sources a better explanation
for the UFOs than yours. The sources all speak of some sort of
‘smokeless fire, a pure flame which penetrates even the orifices
of the skin and which kills!'”

(In further private correspondence with me, Dr Al-Nahhas, who
has long been a subscriber to FSR, agreed with me that maybe plasma,
or something of the nature of plasma, may be involved.
At any rate – something – as he says, that is not yet known
in our modern Science.)

Apropos of this matter of the “Islamic theory about UFOs”,
it is to be noted that, in the new and enlarged 1989 edition of
her very important book “The Tujunga Canyon Contacts”
(first published in 1980. See her article “Can We Battle
These Entities?”, in FSR 33/3, 1988), Ann Druffel, FSR
Consultant and Contributing Editor to MUFON UFO JOURNAL, has shown
herself to be the only person in the Western world who has had
the guts to state that she thinks the “Jinn Theory”
may very likely be right. (Several other leading “Ufologists”
have written privately to me to say that they too think there
“might be something in it”. Not one of them has had
the guts to say so publicly).

On page 285 of the new paperback edition of the “Tujunga
Canyon Contacts”, Ann Druffel discusses the “underground
denunciation, slowly increasing to diatribe, directed against
FSR, mainly by English researchers who disagree violently with
Creighton”.

Some of my correspondents seem to think that this deluge of venom
is directed at me “because I am a Muslim”(!).
I don’t happen to be a Muslim. I have been a student of Hindu
Vedanta and of Buddhism for almost 50 years. And I happen to detest
a great deal of modern Islam, and the modern Ayatollahs, for their
cruelty and bigotry and sub-human intolerance, in which they are
even far worse than the Christians have ever been. (And that is
saying something!)

The reason for the hate-FSR campaign is far simpler and far easier
to find than that. It is:-

In the seven years since I took over the editorship, FSR has not
foundered without trace, as they all hoped it would. Several of
the venom-bags even wrote to me at the outset giving me details
of how they intended to bring this about. The objection to me
is in any case not based on any “religious” grounds,
since none of these individuals is remotely “religious”,
as their conduct proves. (On the other hand, had I been a Commie,
like some of them, things would no doubt have been very different.)

(3)

While the Qur’an has several express references to the fact
that the physical body of man is made of “soil”,
or “clay”, or “loam”, as it
is rendered by various translators, and that the bodies of the
Jinn are of “smokeless fire” or “smokeless
flame”, as already stated, the description of the bodies
of the Angels (Malak, pl. Malayikat) as consisting
of “light” (nur) is not to be found – so far
as I can see – within the Qur’an itself, but in the body of traditional
notes and references known as the Hadith.

(4)

The Thousand Nights And One Night (Alf Layla wa-Layla).

We should not overlook the claim, which has been repeatedly voiced, and appears to be well-founded, that curiously enough – it was the Americans’ radar which brought about the malfunctioning and resultant crashes of the first discs in 1947 and 1948!

(6)

My friend Harry Oldfield, the British pioneer in Electrocrystal Therapy, has made a remarkable impact upon the medical profession and the hospitals in recent years. With his books and articles and his School of Electrocrystal Therapy, and his many journeys overseas to demonstrate and to lecture, he has really “started something”, and that “something” deserves attention.

See: The Dark Side of the Brain: Major Discoveries In The Use of Kirlian Photography and Electrocrystal Therapy,, by Harry Oldfield and Roger Coghill. (Element Books, 1988)

It seems difficult to establish when this term “astral” was first employed by Western mystics and occultists. Interestingly enough, however, it is a fact that away back in the earliest Sanskrit literature of 2,000 years ago, there is a philosophical or metaphysical term, “Akasha”, which may possibly encompass
both “astral” and “etheric”.
And it is also a highly interesting fact that, when the British
scholars in the 19th century set about translating India’s great
classical texts into English and making the richness of Vedanta
known to the world, they cast around for a long time in search
of a good rendering for “Akasha”, and finally
they plumped for the words “Ether” and “Etheric”.
According to the ancient Hindu philosophy and cosmology, “Akasha”
is in fact one of the seven recognized states of matter.
Whereas we in the West perceive and recognize “matter”
in three forms – solid, liquid, and gaseous – the
ancient Hindu writers state emphatically that there is also “Ether”
(“Akasha”), and that there is not merely one form of
Ether, but four different levels of it, thus giving a total of
seven levels on which existence is possible.

During the 19th century the hypothesis of the existence of the
Ether (from the classical Greek word for the upper atmosphere)
as a substance filling all space, inclusive of those volumes occupied
by ordinary matter, and serving to transmit those forces (gravitational,
electric, magnetic) which one material object exerts on another
located at a distance, seems to have been accepted by all competent
Western scientific authorities, although there was, of course,
diversity of opinion as to the Ether’s possible properties. So
far, then, one might have said that this Western concept of the
all-pervading Ether corresponded very largely and very
neatly to the old Hindu idea. By 1850 the concept of the existence
of the Ether appeared to have triumphed, but the failure
of the famous Michelson-Morley Experiment in 1881 dealt it a fatal
blow, and by 1900 it seems that no Western scientists any longer
believed in it. Nevertheless I recall that by the 1920’s, so important
a scientist as Paul Dirac, who died only recently, was expressing
most emphatically his conviction that “we would have to
return to the Ether Theory”.

So – who knows? Maybe the ancient Hindus were right after all!

(8) and (9)

What is called the “Mental Level” in Western philosophical, religious, and “occult” speculations corresponds very exactly with the level of what is called in Sanskrit “Manas”, MIND, cognate with the Latin word MENS. In the Hindu scheme of things this was another one of the seven levels of which the Universe is constructed.

Trevor James Constable, a New Zealander by birth, was serving as the Radio Officer aboard the huge British luxury liner RMS Queen Mary in the years immediately following World War II. And our Editor of that time, Waveney Girvan, published the first article by Trevor James (the pen-name being used then by Constable) in FSR Vol. 5 No. 6 (Nov/Dec. 1959), under the title
“Saucers And Psychism”.

Subsequent articles were “Scientists, Contactees &
Equilibrium” FSR Vol. 6, No. 1 (Jan./Feb. 1960); “Space
Animals – A Fact of Life“, in FSR Vol. 6 No. 4 (July/Aug.
1960); “Get Off The Defensive” in FSR Vol. 6,
No. 5 (Sept./Oct. 1960); “The Case For Contact”,
in FSR Vol. 7 No. 6 (Nov./Dec. 1961) and Vol. 8 No. 1 (Jan./Feb.
1962); “Ufology: Something More Than A Science”,
in FSR Vol. 8 No. 4 (July/Aug. 1962).

Naturally, Trevor James Constable’s claims to have made Infra-red
photographs of some mysterious and unknown forces or energies
or even craft or living beings (some of the photos look, as Constable
says, merely “two-dimensional”) have been received with
total suspicion by not only all scientists, but also by all laymen
who cling to the purely materialistic explanation for everything.
I regret that I lack the necessary knowledge required to say more
about it. But I will state most emphatically my complete confidence
that Robert James Constable is no trickster, but, more likely,
a great pioneer. (As such, he cannot expect to be treated any
better than his remarkable contemporary, Dr Wilhelm Reich, who
had the misfortune to re-discover – as Constable has done – some
of the things that the great German scientist Baron Karl von Reichenbach
(1788-1869) had been investigating. Though pilloried then and
forgotten today, Karl von Reichenbach at least did not die t the
stake or on the scaffold, as so many pioneers have done. But Dr
Wilhelm Reich did. He died in 1957 as the result of incarceration
in a United States prison, and because he had discovered too much.
Such a termination of life is called murder. And justly
so.)

They Live In The Sky!”, by Trevor James, appeared in 1958, when he was 26 years old, and was his first book. It
only underwent two impressions and the photographs in the first
were much better and clearer than the second. The brave sponsor
and publisher of this “uncomfortable” book was Dr Franklin
Thomas, and there were plenty who felt no surprise when they learned
that Dr Thomas had died very soon after its appearance. Trevor
James Constable’s second, and far better known, book, is “The
Cosmic Pulse Of Life”, published in 1978 by the Merlin
Press. It discusses at length the ideas of Dr Rudolf Steiner and
Dr Wilhelm Reich and likewise the hounding and persecution of
another equally important pioneer investigator of “unpopular”
subjects, Dr Ruth Drown, who was also “legally murdered”.

(12)

The young British paragnost, Matthew Manning (born 1956)
has obliged not a few doctors and scientists to take “psychic
phenomena” seriously. In June 1974 he was the subject of
extensive tests and experiments on Toronto. Twenty-one leading
scientists, among them Britain’s Nobel Prize Winner in Physics
Prof. Dr Brian Josephson, and Dr George Owen, examined Matthew
and his abilities, and having done so they at once stated publicly
that he was probably the most gifted psychic in the western world.
The scientists’ discovery in Matthew of an entirely new brainwave
pattern has set a milestone in psychical research. With his
three books and numerous lectures and cassettes and many TV and
radio appearances, Matthew Manning has become known to most households
in Britain and many overseas. He is also a healer with
many remarkable successes to his credit, and there are cases of
people, formerly gravely ill, who have been cured simply by listening
to his tapes.

(13)

His main writings are:-

1. “The Link: The Extraordinary Gifts of a Teenage Psychic”.
(Pub. By Colin Smythe, London, 1978.)

2. “In the Minds of Millions”. (Pub. W.H. Allen,
London, 1977.)

3. “The Strangers”. (Pub. W.H. Allen, London,
1978.)

(14)

Cyril Permutt; “Beyond The Spectrum”. (Pub. Patrick
Stevens, 1983.)

(15)

The ANGELS. See under (3) above.

(16)

BARON VON REICHENBACH (1788-1869). A remarkable pioneering German scientist, who, like so many others whom we have mentioned,
had the misfortune to be born far ahead of his time. There
is a mysterious vital force or energy that permeates all Nature.
It is bluish in colour. It can be demonstrated visually, by heat,
and by electrical charge, in plants, animals and human beings.
It may well be the most important Force in the Universe. But it
has one strange and perplexing characteristic: it can only be
perceived by individuals of great sensitivity under careful guidance
by sympathetic scientists. In other words, it is in the same predicament
as the study of telepathy, clairvoyance, and other subjects of
Parapsychology. Baron von Reichenbach was not the first human
to have stumbled upon this mysterious force, to which he gave
the name of OD. Two thousand years ago and more, the sages and
gurus of India knew all about it. And they had a name for it.
They called it PRANA (the Life Principle). It was also the Vis
Medicatrix Naturae (Healing Power of Nature) of Hippocrates
in the days of ancient Greece. It has been rediscovered many times,
and continues to pop up, as the Mana of the Polynesians;
the Telesma of Hermes Trismegistus; the Pneuma
of Galen and the Greek Stoics and others; the Astral Light
of the Kabbalists; the Spiritus of Fludd, and the Magnetic
Fluid of Mesmer. And nearly a century after the death of Baron
von Reichenbach, another German, Dr Wilhelm Reich, was rediscovering
it and calling it ORGONE – and lost his life on account of his
“unwelcome” revelations.

Von Reichenbach had a brilliant career as a metallurgist, building
some of the first big steelworks, blast-furnaces etc., and achieving
vast wealth as an industrialsist. He was also a recognized expert
on meteorites. But all to no avail. None of that earned him a
decent hearing anywhere once it became known that h e had discovered
this new universal cosmic force and named it OD.

In 1845 he published his findings. From then until the day of
his death in 1869 he and all his indefatiguable studies were totally
ignored or condemned without a hearing. But they remained the
precious possession of a small number of scientists and students
who have kept the memory of von Reichenbach and his work alive
for posterity.

The most important of Baron von Reichenbach’s publications are
the following:-

1. Untersuchungen uber die Dynamide des Magnetismus, der Elektrizitat,
der Warme, des Lichtes, in ihren Bezihungen zur Lebenskraft.
(2 vols.) (English title: Researches Into The Forces
Of Magnetism, Electricity, Heat, and Light, in relation to the
Life Force.) The English translation by Dr William Gregory,
Professor of Chemistry in the University of Edinburgh, came out
in 1850.

2. Odische-Magnetische Briefe. (1852). (English title:
“Odic-Magnetic Letters”.)

He also wrote a mass of other material, none of it, I believe,
ever translated into English. In his native land, Germany, Baron
von Reichenbach had a vast reputation as a scholar and a scientist.
Today you will not even find his name in the Encylopaedia
Brittanica! Yet Chemistry, in particular, owes him several important
discoveries, notably those of paraffin (1830), eupion
(1831), creosote (1832), and pittacal (1833)! In
the field of geology, he was the first person to produce an exact,
scientific account of the geological formation of Moravia (now
part of Czechoslovakia). This was published in his “Geologische
Mittheilungen aus Mahren”, in 1834.

(17)

Trevor James Constable. (see under (10).)

(18)

Dr Walter J. Kilner, B.A., M.B. (Cantab.) M.R.C.P., etc.
Some time Electrician to St. Thomas’s Hospital, London.

This remarkable man discovered a scientific, physical, method
for rendering the human aura temporarily visible, and wrote
a remarkable book about it. From 1879 to 1893, he was in charge
of all electrotherapeutic work at St. Thomas’s Hospital, and wrote
many learned papers on a wide range of subjects. In 1883 he became
an M.R.C.P. (Member of the Royal College of Physicians). He had
a private practice at Ladbrook Grove, London, then a very fashionable
neighbourhood. In his spare time he was a keen and brilliant chess
player.

In 1908 he conceived the idea that the human aura might be made
visible if viewed through a suitable substance, and he experimented
(successfully) with dicyanin, a remarkable coal-tar dye.
Published in 1911, his book was at first called “The Human
Atmosphere”. Kilner said that there were marked changes in
the appearance of the human aura in states of health and sickness,
and that his viewing screen could be used for diagnosis!

In a review published in the august columns of The British
Medical Journal (January 6, 1912) a decidedly sceptical view
of the whole affair was of course proclaimed. “Dr Kilner
has failed to convince us that his aura is more real than Macbeth’s
visionary dagger.”

In making his claim about use of the aura to diagnose disease
Kilner was of course only doing what clairvoyants have been saying
for centuries past, and are still doing today! (Phoebe
Payne, one of the 20th century’s greatest clairvoyantes, used
to work professionally from her office in Chelsea, supporting
and confirming the medical findings of her husband, Dr John Bendit,
M.D., and with resounding success, as I know personally, for I
was their medical patient over quite a long time period. Incidentally
Dr Bendit received his PhD. From Cambridge University on the strength
of his thesis on the psychic and diagnostic powers of his wife!
(G.C.)

Gradually some very important people began to be interested in
Kilner’s studies and discoveries. Sir Oliver Lodge was one of
them. But in 1914 the First World War interrupted the work.

In 1920 a new and revised edition of Kilner’s great book received
a far more favourable reception in “The Medical Times”.
Many reputable medical men were noe endorsing Kilner’s views.
And in March 1922 there was even an enthusiastic review of the
book in the prestigious but cautious journal, “The Scientific
American”.

But Kilner did not live to see either of these favourable reviews.
He died on June 23, 1920, at the age of 73.

Afterwards, an Englishman named Harry Boddington devised the well
known “Kilner goggles”, which may possibly still
be available today in some quarters.

Kilner’s book, more aptly re-titled THE HUMAN AURA, was edited
by my good friend Leslie Shepard, and re-published in 1965 by
University Books Inc., New York, U.S.A., otherwise it would by
now probably have “sunk without trace”.

(Incidentally, in 1968 the same American publishers brought out
what is probably the only book available in English today on Baron
von Reichenbach. This is THE ODIC FORCE, LETTERS ON OD AND MAGNETISM,
translated into English by F.D. O’Byrne, and once again the
Foreword is written by Leslie Shepard. As Gurdjieff always taught,
for every piece of “new knowledge” mankind acquires,
ten pieces of “old knowledge” are lost. Undoubtedly
this is true, but nobody has done more to attempt to attempt to
stem the process than Leslie Shepard.)

(19)

Very fortunately, there is little likelihood that the human
race will be permitted to forget Dr Rudolf Steiner (1861-1925)
or that his enormous output of books and articles and lectured
will be lost, although it is true that there is still a lot of
valuable material by Steiner (written in an unusually difficult
style of German) which nobody has yet translated into English.

Steiner’s Key Works:

OCCULT SCIENCE: AN OUTLINE. (DIE GEHEIMWISSENSCHAFT IM UMRISS.)

KNOWLEDGE OF THE HIGHER WORLDS: HOW IS IT ACHIEVED? (WIE ERGLANGT
MAN ERKENNTNISSE DER HOHEREN WELTEN?)

THEOSOPHY: AN INTRODUCTION TO THE SUPERSENSIBLE KNOWLEDGE OF THE
WORLD AND THE DESTINATION OF MAN. (THEOSOPHIE, EINFUHRUNG IN UBERSINNLICHE
WELTERKENNTNIS UND MENSCHENBESTIMMUNG.)

THE PHILOSOPHY OF FREEDOM: A BASIS FOR A MODERN WORLD CONCEPTION.
(DIE PHILOSOPHIE DER FREIHEIT.)

For a general account of Steiner’s life and work and ideas, see
the excellent

A SCIENTIST OF THE INVISIBLE: AN INTRODUCTION TO THE LIFE &
WORK OF RUDOLF STEINER,

by Dr. A.P. Shepherd, D.D. (London, Hodder & Stoughton, 1954)

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