# What Was a "Hieronymous" Machine? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [May 5, 2009, 2:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-a-hieronymous-machine/495418 "2009-05-05T14:32:55Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 8
**Author:** ![The\_Hamster\_King](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/8edcca/32.png) [@The\_Hamster\_King](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Hamster_King)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2010, 5:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-a-hieronymous-machine/495418/141 "2010-06-03T17:27:56Z")
> [@JoeMax93](#): > > So we have another parameter that has to be accounted for: what is the exact treatment duration that yields positive effects? I’d have to start somewhere, let’s say one treatment procedure per day. But if that comes up negative, then it would be prudent to try two per day, or one every other day, before concluding that it is ineffective overall. Otherwise, it’s like testing an antibiotic by giving the subject one dose, which of course doesn’t eliminate the disease, and then concluding that antibiotics don’t work. Or giving them massive doses which cause bad side effects and concluding that antibiotics are too dangerous to use. If you suspect that overuse of the machine could cause negative health effects, then testing is MORE important, not less. Now you’re describing a situation where using this device incorrectly could potentially cause injury to someone. Anyone making and selling such a device has both a legal and moral responsibility to determine the proper operating parameters. ---
**Author:** ![Sinisterniik](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/51bf81/32.png) [@Sinisterniik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sinisterniik)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2010, 5:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-a-hieronymous-machine/495418/142 "2010-06-03T17:32:32Z")
> [@JoeMax93](#): > > The protocol would have to be slightly different due to how the machine is operated. > > It’s not something that’s “hooked up” to its target and left running on a continuous basis. Typically the treatments are done in sessions of less than one hour each. In fact, leaving the machine on and transmitting to a target for too long can supposedly be detrimental. It’s kind of like thinking, if my doctor says taking two antibiotics a day is good, then taking SIX per day must be better! No, too much can be bad also. Or comparing to a fertilizer is more appropriate - not enough fertilizer doesn’t have the beneficial effect, too much can “burn” the plant’s roots. The result in both cases is a dead plant. > > So we have another parameter that has to be accounted for: what is the exact treatment duration that yields positive effects? I’d have to start somewhere, let’s say one treatment procedure per day. But if that comes up negative, then it would be prudent to try two per day, or one every other day, before concluding that it is ineffective overall. Otherwise, it’s like testing an antibiotic by giving the subject one dose, which of course doesn’t eliminate the disease, and then concluding that antibiotics don’t work. Or giving them massive doses which cause bad side effects and concluding that antibiotics are too dangerous to use. > > So you can see that a proper testing of this would have to be a major experimental undertaking, similar to the kind of protocols that drug companies use when testing new drugs. They have groups of test subjects that receive different dosages of the drug to determine what works the best with the least side effects. Drug companies pay large amounts of money to run these kinds of tests, because the possible return on the investment warrants it. OTOH, the cost of one Hieronymus Machine ($500-1000) is less than what many new drugs cost for a single month’s supply! And one machine can treat dozens of people. This is conceivably part of the answer to the question of why the medical companies are not interested in proving Hieronymus’s theories - even if it works, there’s no profit in it! In fact, _especially_ if it works, as it would cut into their obscenely lucrative drug business (not to mention cutting into agribusiness’s obscene profits on fertilizers and pesticides.) Not to be a conspiracy freak or anything, but I’m just sayin’… A fair point, well detailed. However, you _could_ set up the test with: 1. One control group 2. One group getting one dose every other day 3. One group getting one dose every day 4. One group getting two doses a day If the control group lives and the other three die, you’ve only shown that these dosage levels are ineffective, and you’ll have to experiment further if you still believe a positive result is out there (like you’ve just said above). If the control group and only one other group lives, then clearly the experiment was a success in that regard. If all four plants survive, then even better! You can compare growth rates to see if the three exposed to eloptic… uh… whatever it is… grew at different rates. If one group stands taller than the rest, then clearly this dosage rate was more successful. If, on the other hand, the three tested groups all show an identical rate of growth (especially if they are all significantly smaller/less healthy than the control group), then they likely only grew due to testing error that allowed them to get enough sunlight to survive a little bit. If you get four groups all of equal height and health, then you’ve either found a miracle device or you’ve found the most adaptive plant in the world. * * * I’m glad, by the way, that you are discussing the methods of the experiment. This is the whole point of peer-reviewed studies -the ability to bounce ideas and make sure an experiment is preformed correctly. ---
**Author:** ![JoeMax93](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ed8c4c/32.png) [@JoeMax93](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JoeMax93)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2010, 5:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-a-hieronymous-machine/495418/143 "2010-06-03T17:57:26Z")
> [@The\_Hamster\_King](#): > > If you suspect that overuse of the machine could cause negative health effects, then testing is MORE important, not less. Now you’re describing a situation where using this device incorrectly could potentially cause injury to someone. Anyone making and selling such a device has both a legal and moral responsibility to determine the proper operating parameters. Hieronymus was of the opinion that improper use of his machines could have detrimental effects. So he published a 200-page manual with specific instructions on how to go about using it safely, based on his 50 years of experience working with them. Ray Mattioda, a student of Hieronymus, did the same. However, even distributing these manuals and the information in them can get you in trouble with the FDA. Peter Kelly of Kelly Research Technologies, a manufacturer of Hieronymus-design machines, was harassed by the FDA in the 1980s for simply publishing Hieronymus’s findings in their operation manuals. (Knocks on the door by government suits threatening prosecution and everything.) They had to destroy all of their manuals and re-write them to describe agricultural applications only. The only way they can fulfill their “legal and moral responsibility” is to avoid it entirely, or risk prosecution. So even if you find the proper protocols for operating the machines on human subjects safely, if you publish the information you can get prosecuted by the government. Even being in possession of the written materials can be used as evidence that you’re “practicing medicine without a license.” A nice little Catch-22, isn’t it? ---
**Author:** ![Sinisterniik](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/51bf81/32.png) [@Sinisterniik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sinisterniik)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2010, 6:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-a-hieronymous-machine/495418/144 "2010-06-03T18:20:39Z")
> [@JoeMax93](#): > > So even if you find the proper protocols for operating the machines on human subjects safely, if you publish the information you can get prosecuted by the government. Umm… > [@](#): > > Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances. I’m sure it was more complicated than you described, since the U.S. government has never successfully banned any literature. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2010, 7:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-a-hieronymous-machine/495418/145 "2010-06-03T19:22:49Z")
[The small, intimate, interconnected world of crackpot science (.pdf).](http://www.kellyresearchtech.com/images/krr/krr-3-1-history.pdf) > [@](#): > > When a couple of electronic design specialists like Mr. Beutlich and my father [Peter J. Kelly] turned their attention to the study of the Kabbalah, it was immediately obvious to them that the diagram was not merely a symbolic representation of a mystical process, but that it was an actual blueprint for construction of a physical object – a rectangular box with pyramidal ends that has 10 corners that act as signal reflectors. This shape is geomantic in nature, meaning simply that the specific properties of this box (such as the lengths of the sides and the angles at which they connect) dictate the focal and intersection points of the energy being reflected from corner to corner and along both the inner edges and planar surfaces of the Sephorah. Remember, you would have heard exactly this obfuscation and circular reasoning (we can’t test anything because they won’t let us test anything not that testing would prove anything!) at every moment for the past 60 years. 60 years without a single verifiable claim! But don’t listen to skeptics! We’re rude! Bah, humbug. ---
**Author:** ![JoeMax93](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ed8c4c/32.png) [@JoeMax93](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JoeMax93)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2010, 11:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-a-hieronymous-machine/495418/146 "2010-06-03T23:37:42Z")
> [@Sinisterniik](#): > > Umm… > > I’m sure it was more complicated than you described, since the U.S. government has never successfully banned any literature. Here’s what I was told by Ed Kelly: > [@](#): > > “We got our warning in the mid-1980’s, when men in suits from the FDA came and told us the rate book and manual we had published in 1983 was filled with words they owned: treat, diagnose, cure. My father had merely used the language and many of the rates that had come before, from Hieornymus’ Eloptic Medical Directory and so on back to Abrams. Up until that point my father had also taught countless radionic classes that spent all kinds of time discussing what he had learned and observed in this area of radionics. So the manuals went to the landfill, the teaching stopped, and my dad spent many years worried that his phones were bugged. From that point on our instruments and everything else has been presented within the context of agriculture and personal research, and chock-a-block with disclaimers.” And there’s the famous case of Dr. Wilhelm Reich, who also conducted experiments in the use of “energy devices” for human healing in the 1950s: (from Wikipedia): > [@](#): > > On June 5, 1956, as Reich was arranging his first appeal, two FDA officials traveled to Orgonon to supervise the destruction of Reich’s accumulators. Most of them had been sold at that point, and another 50 were with Silvert in New York. Only three were at Orgonon. The FDA agents were not allowed to destroy them, only to supervise the destruction, so Reich’s friends, and his son Peter, chopped them up with axes as the agents watched. On June 26, the agents returned to supervise the destruction of the promotional material, including some of his books. On July 9, the American Civil Liberties Union issued a press release criticizing the book burning, although coverage of the release was poor, and Reich ended up asking them not to help him because he was annoyed that they failed to criticize the destruction of the accumulators. In England, a letter of protest signed by A.S. Neill and Herbert Read also failed to find a publisher. On July 23, the remaining accumulators in New York were destroyed by S.A. Collins and Sons, who had built them.[75] > > On August 23, six tons of his books, journals, and papers were burned in the 25th Street public incinerator in New York’s lower east side, the Gansevoort incinerator.[citation needed] Among the material destroyed were titles that were supposed only to be banned, including 12,189 copies of the Orgone Energy Bulletin, 6,261 copies of the International Journal of Sex Economy and Orgone Research, 2,900 copies of Emotional Plague Versus Orgone Biophysics, 2,976 copies of Annals of the Orgone Institute, and hardcover copies of several of his books, including The Sexual Revolution, Character Analysis, and The Mass Psychology of Fascism.[19] This action has been cited as one of the worst examples of censorship in U.S. history.[2] > > As with the accumulators, the FDA was supposed only to observe the destruction, while his colleagues carried it out. One of them, Victor Sobey, wrote: “All the expenses and labor had to be provided by the [Orgone Institute] Press. A huge truck with three to help was hired. I felt like people who, when they are to be executed, are made to dig their own graves first and are then shot and thrown in. We carried box after box of the literature.”[76] If that’s not “successfully banning”, I don’t know what is. So yes, indeed, people who work with Hieronymus and similar kinds of devices are worried about being persecuted. **Because it’s happened.** Reich died in prison. Ruth Drown went to prison, and after being released died within a year. Peter Kelly was harassed by the same FDA and threatened with the same treatment - and it’s a threat to take seriously **because it’s happened.** So yes, people like Bill, RevSteve and I do have to be careful about even claiming to _want_ to run experiments on human subjects. If I were to do it\* - which I have not - \*I’d be scared to death of publishing any results, positive or otherwise. I might believe I’ve found something I can support with experimental data, but I’m not ready to go to jail for it. There’s every reason for skeptics to be skeptical about these kinds of machines. It’s completely reasonable and proper to ask for proof, for experimental data, and to criticize claims being made. But can anyone here, even the most hard core skeptic, support this kind of jack-booted persecution? But it’s not a paranoid fantasy, it’s real. So perhaps you all can understand the reluctance on the part of eloptic researchers is not simply a matter of being afraid of being proven wrong. ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2010, 11:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-a-hieronymous-machine/495418/147 "2010-06-03T23:59:14Z")
Was it the assertion of these FDA agents that the material they sought to destroy was _dangerous_, or just fraudulent? ---
**Author:** ![JoeMax93](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ed8c4c/32.png) [@JoeMax93](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JoeMax93)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2010, 1:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-a-hieronymous-machine/495418/148 "2010-06-04T01:08:57Z")
> [@Mangetout](#): > > Was it the assertion of these FDA agents that the material they sought to destroy was _dangerous_, or just fraudulent? Fraudulent, committed by a communist fascist sex-fiend \*foreigner. \* No, seriously. If you want the story, try the Wikipeida article, especially: > **[Wilhelm Reich](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilhelm_Reich#Controversy)** > > Influential figures applying psychoanalysis > Influential works applying psychoanalysis > Wilhelm Reich (/raɪx/; .mw-parser-output .IPA-label-small{font-size:85%}.mw-parser-output .references .IPA-label-small,.mw-parser-output .infobox .IPA-label-small,.mw-parser-output .navbox .IPA-label-small{font-size:100%}Austrian German: \[ˈvɪlhɛlm ˈraɪç\]; 24 March 1897 – 3 November 1957) was an Austrian doctor of medicine and a psychoanalyst, a member of the second generation of analysts after Sigmund Freud... “I would like to plead for my right to investigate natural phenomena without having guns pointed at me. I also ask for the right to be wrong without being hanged for it.”\* – Wilhelm Reich, Nov. 1947\* ---
**Author:** ![Sinisterniik](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/51bf81/32.png) [@Sinisterniik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sinisterniik)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2010, 1:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-a-hieronymous-machine/495418/149 "2010-06-04T01:59:43Z")
> [@JoeMax93](#): > > If that’s not “successfully banning”, I don’t know what is. Well, I’ve read the article (as well as a few others which all seemed to be referencing the same biography on him by Sharaf), and I have to agree that it’s highly disconcerting that the government acted the way they did. However, his real problem (in the eyes of the FDA) was not doing research, but marketing and selling a device intended for medical use that had **not** been properly researched. There’s a lot of reading to do, but it’s all here: [http://www.fda.gov/regulatoryinformation/legislation/federalfooddrugandcosmeticactfdcact/default.htm](http://www.fda.gov/regulatoryinformation/legislation/federalfooddrugandcosmeticactfdcact/default.htm) Chapters II, III and V are the most pertinent sections. The FDA did what they did to protect consumers in the same way that you can’t peddle snake oil and claim it cures cancer or sell tablets of anthrax that claim to clear up acne. More recently, they made General Mills remove a television ad that was promoting Cheerios as a means to fight coronary disease. Why? Because no study had ever shown that. Here’s the full letter from the FDA to General Mills, citing the appropriate chapters of the Federal Food Drug And Cosmetic Act: [http://www.fda.gov/ICECI/EnforcementActions/WarningLetters/ucm162943.htm](http://www.fda.gov/ICECI/EnforcementActions/WarningLetters/ucm162943.htm) It specifies a change in wording -exactly the same as the restrictions imposed on Dr. Reich, minus the whole destruction of the devices thing. But I imagine it’s legal apples and oranges, since the FDA had already allowed the sale of Cheerios as a food. That being said, the actions taken against him (the injunction, destruction and burning of his literature that was not used to market the devices) certainly seems _way_ too harsh, bordering on unconstitutional. However, it appears as though the man made no real effort to defend himself legally, beyond claiming… > [@](#): > > that he had powerful friends in government, including President Eisenhower, who he believed would protect him, and that the U.S. Air Force was flying over Orgonon to make sure that he was all right. He also turned down the ACLU for legal representation -a pretty poor move on his part. I guess my point is that if you try any of the experiments we’ve been talking about in this thread, the FDA won’t come knocking on your door unless you start selling the devices claiming to be able to treat or cure a disease. And if they ever did, you’re basically guaranteed representation by the ACLU. After all, hundreds of thousands of students preform scientific experiments every day in our public schools. Why doesn’t the FDA put a stop to it? Because the students aren’t marketing and selling devices claiming to treat disease. I assume that Bill Jensen could comment on this aspect of the discussion, since he markets the devices himself and does in fact claim that it diagnoses and treats diseases right on his website. Perhaps he gets around this by just selling the plans to build them but not the devices themselves? Or maybe he’s protected by a newer FDA law? I’m not sure… I’ll definitely be looking around for that bio, though. It appears as though Dr. Reich lived a very interesting life -thanks for the link! ---
**Author:** ![JoeMax93](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ed8c4c/32.png) [@JoeMax93](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JoeMax93)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2010, 3:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-a-hieronymous-machine/495418/150 "2010-06-04T03:20:53Z")
All I’ve done on this thread is propose doing experiments on plants, and I’m sure I’m quite safe from getting my door kicked in. The laws are different in California now, so that since 2003 it’s been unambiguously defined exactly what any alternative healing practitioner is allowed or not allowed to do. But there’s a a general attitude of distrust and fear in the small community of people who experiment with these machines, due to what has happened in the past. The internet abounds with advertisements for crystals, herbs, charms all kinds of things being _marketed_ to heal disease. Nobody bothers them. But it’s the ones who sell objects with wires and dials that have to worry they’ll be arrested for selling a fraudulent medical device. If you take the fully skeptical stance that it’s _all_ bollocks, then what’s the difference between selling a Hieronymus machine and selling a “quartz cross healing bracelet” with a prayer to Jesus written on the back? Shall the FDA start throwing all the blue-haired little old ladies selling those things at county fairs in jail, and bulldozing their backporch workshops? Why aren’t televangelist faith healers in prison? Well, maybe some people think they should be. But they’re _not._ Is a little consistency too much to ask for? There’s a gazillion of those types for every one weird science geek with an H-Machine. Unlike televangelists, neither Galen Hieronymus, Peter Kelly, Ray Mattioda, Bill Jensen or anyone I can think of ever got rich selling these machines. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2010, 3:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-a-hieronymous-machine/495418/151 "2010-06-04T03:57:10Z")
Wilhelm Reich! This thread is starting to look like the index to Martin Gardner’s [Fads and Fallacies in the Name of Science](http://www.amazon.com/Fads-Fallacies-Name-Science-Popular/dp/0486203948/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1275623209&sr=1-1). ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2010, 4:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-a-hieronymous-machine/495418/152 "2010-06-04T04:28:48Z")
When I first looked at this thread, and it only had a few posts. I didn’t expect it to produce anything all that interesting. Several days went by, and I noticed it had grown to several pages, so I had to see what was being said. I should have realized it had turned into one of those ‘imprecise innovator’ vs. ‘scientific critic’ arguments. Obviously RevSteve was not going to open up to a bunch of people pooh-poohing his work. And simply replying politely to the barbs was just encouraging people to pile on. Since nobody ever changes their mind based on the ‘are not - am too’ method of debate, I decided I would build a Hieronymous machine based on the patent provided in the links. It seemed pretty simple, and reasonable testing could be performed on it. Clearly, I was not going to invest time, money, and energy in creating an ideal testing environment, but if the machine produced any measurable result, I could decide if was worth further investigation. I didn’t want the Hieronymous proponents claiming I hadn’t built an actual Hieronymous machine if it didn’t produce results, so I followed the patent schematic and description faithfully. To get as close to the materials used originally as possible, I scrounged through my collection of vacuum tube technology, an RCA console TV and Stereo (1959), a ‘suitcase’ type portable record player (pre - 1960), and a Wurlitzer Jukebox (1949). These Jukebox was as old as the patent, but had the fewest usable parts. The other parts were about 10 years more recent, but that was what I had to work with. All of the potentiometers were corroded or missing, so I substituted PC mount screw pots that I had in the parts cabinet in Unit 40. For the Prism 28, I had a piece of glass from an old chandalier that had the necessary face angle, slightly less than 60 degrees. I polished the faces on the lap plate I use to fine tune the gibs on my lathe. For the primary receptor Coil 12, I hand wound magnet wire from a transformer in the TV on a 1 inch cardboard tube. Small pieces of ceramic sheet stock that had been sitting in my tool box for ages were used to form the optically opaque passageway 36. No specific material was specified in the patent. The incidence of Electrode 38 to the Prism has to be adjusted to match the atomic weight of the material being tested. I wanted to use mini servos from an RC helicopter to do that so that I could automate the test cycles, but then realized the copper coils in the servos might affect the Radionic reception. Instead I glued a wood dowel at the edge of a cardboard circle, then press fit a copper electrode cut from a welding rod into a slot cut into the exposed end of the dowel. That, and all the components were mounted a 12" square piece of MDF, drilled for mounting holes and wiring. Components were connected with 12AWG wire (guessing, I took it from the record player), with soldered connections. For test substances I used my 14k gold wedding ring, a 1956 penny (95% copper), and a 1945 Mercury dime (90% silver). Not ideal specimens, but it seemed like enough to get started. I started by placing the penny about 1 inch away from Coil 12, adjusted the Prism-Electrode incidence according to figure 3, and stroked the Detector 72. Nothing. I carried the Prism-Electrode incidence through its range, still nothing. I began the process of advancing the incidence angle about 5 degrees at a time while adjusting the resistance of Unit 10. Still no results. Changing the capacitance in Unit 16 had no effect either. Even though I felt that the gold and the silver wouldn’t test any better, I tried them out. No change. Just in case the mixed metals in each of the specimens could be problematic, I took one of my wife’s 24k gold earrings, and a backplate from a watch that claimed to be made of silver/zinc alloy, and tested them. You guessed it, nothing. It isn’t surprising. Problems with the circuit are obvious, even if I don’t have a way to measure Radionic energy. So I decided to make the improvements to the device dictated by standard practices in electronic design. First, I replaced the variable condensers with modern variable capacitance diodes. Then, it was obvious that Unit 40 was contributing to a harmonic current that would leak through Transformer/Decoupler 58. I added ceramic caps and resistors to ground to the wiring before and after the screw pots to dampen the harmonic. For the prism, I noticed that the patent mentioned glass, but also quartz. Knowing quartz crystals have properties not found in ordinary glass, I took a quick trip to a local shop that had quartz crystals along with other decorative and lifestyle items. They had huge crystals they wanted a fortune for, but they found a smaller one, that had been ground to fit in a display, and it had a 45 degree angle between the faces. The patent had stated that a cylindrical coil for the receptor could be used, but more specifically stated a flat body coil. So I rewound the coil on a removable body, flattened it out, and laquered it down a piece of flat PVC sheet. I put the whole assembly back together, then began taking measurements with the ancient Textronic oscilloscope at each junction. Placing the assembly on top of a metal cart showed less noise than sitting on my Formica topped bench. Holding metal sheets over the top didn’t make any difference in the noise level, which was barely perceptible after recleaning all the solder joints. I started the testing procedure again. First with the penny, 15 degrees past the incidence angle according to the chart, at about 250k ohms of resistance, I thought I felt something on the Detector. I wasn’t going to go with just that, so I attached the scope leads to the detector and tried again. The scope showed an erratic wave of a few microvolts, typical in any circuit. I wasn’t sure if I felt anything, but increasing the incidence angle about 5 degrees made the line on scope go totally flat, as if not a single microvolt could be detected. I increased resistance with no change in feel, but as I decreased it back down, I felt a definite tingle, and resistance to finger movement on the detector, and the flat line resumed on the scope. Changing the capacitance didn’t work the same way. Unless it I kept the level at the center of the range, about 600 microfarads, nothing else worked. I put the gold earring in front of the detector, and increased the incidence angle proportionally to the difference in atomic weight between gold and copper. I couldn’t feel anything. I began adjusting the incidence angle, and approaching 90 degrees I felt something at the detector again, and saw the scope line go flat again. I tried the silver watch back next, but could not detect anything across the range of incidence or resistance. I didn’t know what I was feeling at the detector, or the meaning of the flat line on the scope. So I began examining the circuit again for any unintentional electrical effect I might have induced. Thinking about possible differences between the modern and period components, I remembered hearing long ago that variable potentiometers often produced a logarithmic change in resistance that would have provided a much greater range of resistance adjustment. I had one logarithmic pot, and would have skipped that, but I called the guy down the street who own a TV repair and sales shop if he had any old parts. He laughed when he heard what I was looking for, but told me to come on over. He had parts going back into the 1950’s when his father had opened the business. We managed to find a few potentiometers that measured a somewhat logarithmic output with a multimeter. He laughed again when I told him about the experiment, and I hadn’t even mentioned detecting something with the gold and copper specimens. I had already wasted a week on this, and my wife was getting annoyed that I hadn’t cleared the clog in the bathroom sink, but I find plumbing to be the least interesting scientific discipline, so I pressed on with the experiment. With the logarithmic pots installed, I could detect the silver as well. With each substance, I carefully adjusted the resistance and Prism/Electrode angle until I obtained the maximum ‘feel’. I marked the adjustment positions and found that the effect dropped off rapidly with any changes in the incidence angle or decreasing the resistance. The effect was more gradual as resistance increased. These initial tests indicated something, but what was indicated was far from clear. If the there was some electrical effect I couldn’t measure it, except from the flat line on the scope when the device was adjusted within range of each substance. If there was Radionic energy, how would I confirm it? I decided one more test would be necessary. I took the test samples and wrapped each in aluminum foil, and placed them about 10 feet apart from each other and went to bed. The next day I removed them and from the wrapping and tested them one by one, bringing only one specimen near the device at any time. The feeling at the detector was more than simply noticeable. There was a strong resistance to the motion of my finger over the detector, and a clear repulsive force that was keeping my finger from directly contacting the detector. At this point, I didn’t know what to do. There was obviously some energy being concentrated at the detector, but I had no way to measure it. Now I know how Gallileo, Newton, and RevSteve felt. There was something that I could definitely put my finger on and feel, but how would I ever prove this? I read the patent again, carefully going over the section on operation of the device. I began to pick out the principles that Hieronymous had derived. The receptor Coil was a copper coil. Hieronymous probably didn’t realize it, but due to EMI , there is almost always an electromagnetic flux in the coil. Even in the 1940’s there was plenty of EMI from radio stations, old fashioned car generators, and various electrical device. Though barely perceptible in the EM spectrum, something was emanating from substances at a unique frequency that was aligning with the field created in the coil. This was carried through the wiring to the Stationary Electrode 32, then discharge to be refracted through the Prism. This meant that Radionic energy had characteristics of both electromagnetism and light. I don’t know where I received the insight from, but I realized that if the detector was emanating a force that could be detected by the human finger, it could also be refracted again through a prism. In that way, it might have an effect on light passing through prism. As quickly as possible, I got another quartz crystal, and attached a photoelectrical sensor used to calibrate CRTs. Placing the crystal prism over the detector, I directed a simple laser pointer into the prism. My heart pounded against my chest as I brought my gold ring close to the Receptor Coil. The measurable light intensity at the photoelectric sensor rose and fell with any change in proximity of the gold ring! Radionic energy could be modulated and converted based on a congruent effects in light and electromagnetism. If the simple prism converter worked, there were probably other phenomena that could be measured as well. Hours went by as I considered one option after another for converting the Radionic energy directly into electromagnetism. Hours of frustration turned to days. I could not sleep, or eat, or focus on anything else, including the continuing pleas from my wife to fix the bathroom sink. Then in the early in the morning I heard my wife demanding I give her driving instructions for the back way to get to her sister’s place a couple of states away. I didn’t want to think back to the last time I took that route, so I pulled out my cell phone and turned on the GPS. I was surprised to see that the GPS located my current position at point nearly a mile away. Cursing at the phone, I headed up the basement steps so I could get online and look at a map. But at the top of steps, I noticed the GPS now picked up the proper location. As my wife gaped in amazement, I turned and went back down the steps. As I got to a few feet from the Hieronymous device, the GPS changed my location again. The closer I put the cell phone to the device, the further away the reported location got! The device was clearly affecting all physical phenomena within its vicinity. Suddenly, I don’t know how, a concept popped into my head. I flung odds and ends out of a box until I found an old fiber optic cable for a Novell network. I slit open the cable sheath and extracted a single glass fiber. Taking the same cylinder I had used to make the original Receptor Coil I wound the glass fiber. I inserted the ends into terminators and attached them to the opposing faces of the prism I had placed over the detector. As I moved my gold ring away from and towards the Receptor I thought I saw a barely perceptible violet emanation from the ends of the coil. Turning down the lights, I still felt I noticed something, but again, it was an effect I could not readily measure. I knew intuitively that I was onto something, and taking a stab in the dark, I grabbed a copper welding rod and passed it through the center of the glass fiber coil. Instantly I felt the tingling in my fingertips that I had felt at the detector. And as I moved the rod back and forth through the coil I felt a definite resistance. I snatched a couple of plastic bottles off the shelf along with some duct tape, and quickly rigged up a structure to support the copper rod in the middle of the glass coil. I hooked the scope leads to the ends of the copper rod, and there was a clear voltage measured. Moving my gold ring relative to the Receptor changed the voltage proportionally. Then I crouched down and looked through the center of the glass fiber coil. The violet glow was readily apparent. I twisted the potentiometer to change the resistance but there was no change in the voltage. Then, realizing I hadn’t tried adjusting the capacitance recently, I turned the dial. There was an immediate visual effect as I looked down the length of the rod. Like a reverse fish-eye lens, everything I could see seemed to collapse towards the center of the coil, and it became darker in the area close to the interior surface of the coil. Continuing to increase capacitance, the effect was enhanced as all light passing through the coil seemed to collapse around the copper rod. Then as I turned the capacitance up higher, a spark seemed to leap from the coil directly upwards towards a water pipe. There was a blinding flash of blue-violet color, and in an instant I found myself back upstairs, sitting in from of the computer, looking at this thread. The computer claimed it was June 3rd. Moments before it had been June 15th! I ran down to the basement, but there was no sign of the machine I had built, and all the components were back where they came from. So before I start building another device, I wanted to see if anybody on this board could tell me what happened. What did I do wrong at the end? What could have been happening inside that device? Is there any peer reviewed research into Radionics? Oh, before I forget, I remember looking at this thread on June 4th and 5th. If I knew this would happen I would have written down your posts. I don’t remember the details, but your comments were hilarious. ---
**Author:** ![Sinisterniik](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/51bf81/32.png) [@Sinisterniik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sinisterniik)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2010, 4:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-a-hieronymous-machine/495418/153 "2010-06-04T04:30:10Z")
> [@JoeMax93](#): > > The laws are different in California now, so that since 2003 it’s been unambiguously defined exactly what any alternative healing practitioner is allowed or not allowed to do. Thanks for the info! I read through the law. It seems very reasonable to me. I also didn’t see anything forbidding the use of any type of device or machine, though. If you are aware of one, please do tell. I did find this unrelated line (my bolding): > [@](#): > > (2) A doctor of podiatric medicine practices podiatric medicine in > this state across state lines when that person is located outside of > this state but, **through the use of any medium** , including an > **electronic medium** , practices or attempts to practice podiatric > medicine, as defined in Section 2472, in this state. I totally thought they meant medium as in a Ouija or Beetlejuice or something! You know… like someone is using spirits to heal someone in Nevada while sticking a fork in a toaster. …Well I thought it was funny! ---
**Author:** ![Sinisterniik](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/51bf81/32.png) [@Sinisterniik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sinisterniik)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2010, 4:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-a-hieronymous-machine/495418/154 "2010-06-04T04:53:01Z")
Nice, ed malin. Hilarious! Someone grew up on Twilight Zone and Outer Limits, apparently. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2010, 3:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-a-hieronymous-machine/495418/155 "2010-06-04T15:43:25Z")
tldr ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2010, 3:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-a-hieronymous-machine/495418/156 "2010-06-04T15:50:27Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > tldr Please find the time, I’m sure you could help my next effort be more successful;) ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2010, 4:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-a-hieronymous-machine/495418/157 "2010-06-04T16:34:51Z")
> [@ed malin](#): > > Please find the time, I’m sure you could help my next effort be more successful;) Yeah? What about all that time and effort I put into my response on June 5? What do I get for that, huh? ---
**Author:** ![Steve\_MB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steve_mb/32/5339_2.png) [@Steve\_MB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steve_MB)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2010, 4:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-a-hieronymous-machine/495418/158 "2010-06-04T16:41:38Z")
> [@Lumpy](#): > > Sounds like it might have been the inspiration for an old Justice League of America villain, Doctor Destiny. At first he created a device that could alter reality. Later while in prison, he discovered that he could _dream about building such a device_, and his dream construct would work just as well as a real one. > > The story “The Silver Crown” by Robert C. O’Brien has a different version. In his story, the “Hieronymous Machine” is a semi-magical mind control device, which is directed by one of two crowns: a black one that corrupts the user, and a white one which overrides the black one but can only be used by a sufficiently pure and selfless person. There was something similar in the Wild Cards universe, where Modular Man was an android built from what amounts to a box of scraps (though not IN A CAVE). It worked as a focus for the Wild Card talent of its creator, not because the machinery actually did anything. ---
**Author:** ![Steve\_MB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steve_mb/32/5339_2.png) [@Steve\_MB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steve_MB)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2010, 4:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-a-hieronymous-machine/495418/159 "2010-06-04T16:46:30Z")
> [@ed malin](#): > > Then as I turned the capacitance up higher, a spark seemed to leap from the coil directly upwards towards a water pipe. There was a blinding flash of blue-violet color, and in an instant I found myself back upstairs, sitting in from of the computer, looking at this thread. The computer claimed it was June 3rd. Moments before it had been June 15th! I ran down to the basement, but there was no sign of the machine I had built, and all the components were back where they came from. > > So before I start building another device, I wanted to see if anybody on this board could tell me what happened. What did I do wrong at the end? The main thing you did wrong was forget to memorize the previous/next week’s winning lottery numbers. ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2010, 4:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-a-hieronymous-machine/495418/160 "2010-06-04T16:50:32Z")
> [@Steve\_MB](#): > > The main thing you did wrong was forget to memorize the previous/next week’s winning lottery numbers. I’m definitely doing that the next time! [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-a-hieronymous-machine/495418.md?page=7) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-a-hieronymous-machine/495418.md?page=9)