REICHENBACH'S LETTERS ON OD AND MAGNETISM (s852) AM REICH ENBACH'S LETTERS ON OD AND MAGNETISM (1852) Published for the first time in English, with extracts from his other works, so as to make a complete presentation of THE ODIC THEORY TRANSLATED TEXT, INTRODUCTION, WITH BIOGRAPHY OF BARON CARL VON REICHENBACH, NOTES, AND SUPPLEMENTS by F. D. O'BYRNE, B.A. (LOND.) Sole official Interpreter to the International Congress of Radiology, London, 1925; author of Gaelic Studies of Shakspere's Hamlet and Macbeth, Julius Caesar's Kelts in Early Britain, and numerous educational works. LONDON d HUTCHINSON & CO. (Publishers), LTD. PATERNOSTER ROW, E.C. 1926 WOOD LaY'- : .MUSEUM Accession no. .. *..***... * '0 ; r"1 Wls , u Made and Printed in Great Britain by The Camelot Press Limited, London and Southampton. ANALYTICAL TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION : PAGE The salvage of scientific fact-Truth lost for want of an official welcome . ... ix Distinguished thinkers victimized by neglect-Goethe and Reichenbach suffer together-Alleged passing of purely materialistic science at the present moment . .. xi Od offers a scientific basis for the facts of " spirit- intercourse "-Alexander von Humboldt in 1853 declares the facts undeniable . .. xiii Life of Carl Reichenbach, Faraday's contemporary and parallel . .. xiv Early education and traits of independency of character .. xv From University to ironworks-Reichenbach's cap- taincy of industry-Faraday's and Reichenbach's respective scientific discoveries, 1825-40 . xvii Retirement from business as Baron von Reichenbach in 1839-Commencement of his "Researches " on psychic phenomena . xxii The question of reliability of psychic witnesses . xxv And of psychic evidence controlled by the scientific observer . xxvii Reichenbach's Odic-Magnetic Letters, 1852 ; The Sensitive (magnum opus) 858; The World of Plants, 1858-His move for recognition of his discoveries and theory by "the high-priests of science" in Berlin, 1861 . xxviii Diamagnetism-Poggendorff's career; he essays the " publication of Reichenbach's Laws of Odic Light '7? in his Annals of Physics and Chemistry, but is deterred by professorial opposition . xxix v w vi CONTENTS PAGE Odic science erroneously confused with Mesmerism by University professors in Berlin . .. xxxv Berlin professors of physics meet in Reichenbach's dark chamber-Photography by odic light tested, proved, and disapproved, but not disproved-- Poggendorff's test ..... xxxvi " Relativity " of light and darkness-Light " latent " to non-sensitives-" patent " to sensitives-- Scarcity of sensitives in Berlin . xxxviii Reichenbach unfairly handled at second meeting with Berlin professors of physics-How honest witnesses may be confounded by misapplied science--Pro- fessor Dove's high hand .... xl A third meeting declined by the physicists, who issue unjustified and premature condemnation of the odic theory in a non-scientific journal . xlvii Aphorisms, 1866, issued by Reichenbach as further challenge to the scientific world-The "odic glow " and "ectoplasm "-Publication of The Odic Glow,, 1867-The human " aura " described rudimentally . xlix Motive power of the aura : experiment with pendulum . liv Aura of "high-sensitives " alone the motive power in " table-turning " . .. lv Reichenbach's last efforts with Gustav Theodor Fechner in Leipsic-His "high-sensitive," Mrs. Ruf, deflects the magnetic needle by approach passes to satisfaction of Leipsic professors of physics-The Baron's death .. lviii Current French and German opinion of Reichenbach's life-work .. Ixi Dr. William Gregory on the utility of enquiry into the subject of odic force .. .. lxiii Gregory's opinion as to Reichenbach's scientific standing ... ... Ixv The scientific authority of Professor Gregory himself- The wonderful scientific line of the Gregorys, 1658-1858 . .. .. lxvi Mr. G. T. Bettany (Dict. Natil. Biogr.) on Professor Gregory--An inadmissible stricture ... 1xix CONTENTS vii PAGE Professor Gregory a characteristically scientific investigator . lxxi LETTERS ON OD AND MAGNETISM: . ' -93 Author's Preface, 1852 * * * 3-4 Contents (as analysed by the Author) . * * 75-6 Text translated from German ed. 1856 . 7-93 SUPPLEMENT I: Professor Gregory on odic force as an explanation of the phenomena of clairvoyance-His opinion on " the hypothesis of external disembodied spirits " compared with that of Sir Oliver Lodge .. 94-Ioo SUPPLEMENT II : Reichenbach's tables of differences between odic force and the forces of heat, electricity, and mag- netism respectively . .. Iox-Iog SUPPLEMENT III : Suggestions for experiments to bring the effects of odic force within the ken of non-sensitives . IIo-zI9 Translator's Certificate Preussische Berlin, 18 Januar, 1924 Akademie der Wissenschaften N.W. 7 . Unter den Linden, 38 HERRN PROFESSOR DR. O'BYRNE bestatige ich hierdurch, dass er wie wenige seiner Landsleute pradestinirt erscheint, Werke auch h6chstens wissenschaft- lichen Ranges aus dem Deutschen in das Englische zu 11bersetzen. Die wichtigsten Eigenschaften daftir: grosse Allgemein- bildung, scharfe Logik, philologische Gewissenhaftigkeit und Akribie besitzt er in seltenem Masse. PROFESSOR DR. PAUL HINNEBERG. [Translation] Prussian Berlin, 18 January, 1924 Academy of Sciences N.W.7. Unter den Linden, 38 I CERTIFY THAT PROFESSOR DR. O'BYRNE seems predestined, as few of his fellow-countrymen are, for the translation of works of even the highest scientific character from German into English. He possesses to an unusual degree the most important qualifications for that purpose: great all-round education, an acute sense of logic, philological conscientiousness, and exactness. PROFESSOR DR. PAUL HINNEBERG. INTRODUCTION Wy should a scientist of eminence be denied a hearing for observations of fact to which he has devoted a quarter of a century of the best years of his life ? Fact, they say, is like steam; deny it an exit, and you are bound sooner or later to have an explosion. How much more dignified to take fact quietly ! A society for the conservation and recovery of scientific observations might, I have often thought, do immense service to humanity: what has been lost, destroyed, or suppressed in the realm of know- ledge bears so large a proportion to the amount that enters actually into our tradition ! Atlantis has passed away, and so has the twice-wrecked library of Alexandria; but of the truth suppressed by the blindness of officialdom there is many a brand that may yet be plucked from the burning. Salvage may still be effected. Let it be so in Reichenbach's case. In every age some truth discovered is lost because it is unwelcome truth-not unwelcome, perhaps, so much to the mass of mankind directly, as unwelcome to certain official custodians of learning, in whom an overworked, or indolent, or, it may be, cowardly humanity reposes a childlike, and often quite unjusti- fied, confidence. Men find the path of belief so much easier to tread than the arduous path of learning, and thus they come to entrust their interests to lawyers and politicians, scientists and priests. Is it any wonder if they are robbed of truth wholesale ? It is the penalty they bear for non-compliance with ix x LETTERS ON OD AND MAGNETISM nature's wholesome law that " every man shall bear his own burden." They should think, and find out, and know for themselves. Thus many an important truth is lost to humanity simply because it has once proved unwelcome to officialdom. The comfortably placed official, knowing that he knows more than most men, is apt to let his mental position of solidity degenerate into one of stolidity. He grows gradually averse from any idea of change whatsoever, of any change, above all, that would make him alter his general outlook upon life. He clings to his Weltanschauung as he does to his own soul-or salary. In his caricature of conservatism the degenerate official is the antithesis of the artist, as he is of the true scientist. Your artist is your great empiric, and so is your scientist. Both work their way to their respective ends by constant shift and change. The very breath of art is the trial of a thousand forms under the influence of a thousand imaginings until the perfection of form results. The scientist, too, forms and reforms, experiments and re- experiments, under all imaginably pertinent condi- tions, and gives every possibility its chance, in his chase of that charmingly beautiful, but elusive. nymph, Truth. It is quite otherwise, however, with a representative of science who, being all too average a man, is official first and experimentalist afterwards. Merely having to make room for a new theory in the laboriously and expensively erected government-buildings of science causes him a feeling of discomfort, and the prospect of discomfort arouses within him, as Reichen- bach notes in his Preface, the spirit of opposition. Why upset everything ? he asks: there are no two LETTERS ON OD AND MAGNETISM xi branches of science disconnected. What a bore I Now the whole house that Jack built will have to be taken to pieces, replanned, and reset. And, moreover, he reflects, the change may turn out in the end to have been a needless bore. It may all be a scare. And so he sits solid, and diamagnetic- unattracted, unattractive: reflecting for his com- fort that he has at least the vis inertiae of the universe on his side. "Gut Ding nimmt Zeit," he says: "Anything big needs plenty of time." So he salves his soul. Is the official always to be blamed for this mental attitude ? Perhaps not always and entirely--pro- vided, of course, that no