The Wishing machine

CHAPTER NINE

Basic Description:

The Wishing machine is a reasonably standard three-transistor common-emitter RC-coupled audio frequency amplifier with two simple flat copper plates on the input - one at ground potential and the other connected to the high-impedance input of the amplifier ~ and an output consisting of a simple vertical rod antenna. It is powered by a 6-volt battery.

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The device appears to be effective in accelerating growth or decay of reasonably simple life forms such as viruses, bacteria, fungi, plants, insects, and lower ani­mals.

When a symbolic sample - a photograph of a plant, field, tree, or person, for example - is placed be­tween the two copper input plates and the amplifier is turned on, the experimenter then consciously thinks of some change he desires to occur or some wish concern­ing the object symbolized in the sample placed between the plates.

The device has apparently been known to (a) achieve a 90%+ kill ratio of Japanese beetles in 90 test plots in tests conducted in the 1950s by the Pennsylvania State Department of Agriculture; (b) achieve a 70% kill ratio against corn borers in other tests conducted by the same agency; (c) destroyed tent caterpillars in a tree 1200 miles from the site of the device; (d) all but eliminated acne from the skin of an adolescent girl; and (e) elimi­nated a large number of severe warts on an infant girl. There may have been other tests conducted and other results achieved, but the author has some documenta­tion on these.

The device apparently does not work in a destruc­tive mode against other human beings. In other words, it is not a murder machine, which is why it can be considered for publication in this book. However, it appears to be a member of a class of "Wishing ma-

The Wishing Machine

Figure 9-1: Block diagram of the wishing machine.

chines" in general, some of which can and apparently have been used as such. This doesn't seem to be voodoo magic, but it appears indeed to be magic under the definition of that term as it has been used in this book.

Historical Background:

Work on this particular machine apparently was initiated in about 1946 by Colonel Henry Gross (Yale, 1906), a banker and investor who was at that time head of the selective service system for the state of Pennsylva­nia. He was assisted by two other gentlemen named Upton and Armstrong, both Princeton Class of 1905. Additional data on these latter two men has not been located. Work began when the wives of Upton and Armstrong both died of cancer within two months of

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one another in 1946, whereupon the three men decided that if nothing known to science at that time could have saved the two women, they should start looking beyond science. All three pursued their goal as a hobby with no desire to make money; they'd already done that. They apparently were pure amateurs in this regard. The Penn­sylvania tests were apparently conducted in the early 1950's.

Author's Experience:

I heard about this Wishing machine in a private communication from John W. Campbell, Jr. dated June 22, 1956. Apparently, Campbell's publication of the article about the Hieronymous machine brought re­sponses from a large number of people working on or having had experience with other such machines. Since this was such a simple device (like the symbolic Hieronymous machine), I built one.

My eldest child, Constance, was at that time less than three years old and suffering badly from warts. Warts are, of course, caused by any one of a number of different viruses. She was especially susceptible because she had warts everywhere, and we had grown increas­ingly concerned about their locations and extent of growth. Medical treatments had included such severe measures as direct treatment of the warts with arsenic acid, a pro­cedure that seemed to me rife with hazard in an infant.

The Wishing Machine

I placed a photograph of my daughter between the input plates of my Wishing machine, turned on the battery power, and consciously thought about those warts going away, about killing the virus that was causing the warts, and about my daughter without them. I kept the Wish­ing amplifier constantly operating on battery power, since from time to time during the subsequent days I kept thinking about her and those warts.

The result was frightening. Within three days, my daughter's warts had decreased markedly, including those that were beginning to grow inside her nostrils. Within four weeks, she was free of warts and has not had anything like them since.

I disassembled my Wishing amplifier because I was afraid of what I might henceforth do with it. At that time in my life, it seemed that this phenomenon involved too much personal power of a sort that I didn't under­stand and felt that it might not be controllable. I wasn't certain whether or not I could handle it. All of us are secretly aware of the impulsive beast that hides deep within us. Indeed, most of our rearing and education is aimed toward demanding that we restrain that beast in a mental cage in the deep recesses of our mind...and please throw away the key.

The machine was also sheer, outright magic whose consequences were far beyond those of machines such as the dowsing rods and Hieronymous machine which were, by comparison, almost parlor games.

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In the years since, I have learned that such devices (and there are many of them) can. be safely used by most people because we have built-in "circuit breakers" or "emotional fuses" that prevent most of us from using such machines for destructive purposes. Furthermore, we've been taught to use and depend upon them with dire consequences for those who didn't.

Beyond that, however, appears to be an accumu­lation of data that indicates such machines are useful only against fairly simple living organisms which operate totally on a pre-programmed or instinctual basis. Such organisms behave as systems without feedback with only linear programming; disrupt the programming and the system stops. It does not work on human beings who can and do over-ride instincts with higher thought processes.

I hesitated to include this device in this book for two reasons: (a) it is probably the most atrocious and impossible of all the amazing mind machines I've ever encountered and one of a class of devices for which it is extremely difficult, if not impossible, to either dismiss out of hand, explain away, or even generate a reasonable hypothesis of how and why it works at all, which it does; and (b) because of the total lack of any concept of why and how it works, there is always a serious question about whether or not the data on the limitations of its effective­ness are complete and totally valid. However, simply

The Wishing Machine

because of these two factors, it is necessary to get the information out to amateur investigators so that some additional experimentation may clarify the situation.

Instructions for Fabrication:

As discussed above, this device is a straightfor­ward transistorized audio amplifier. It may be operable on the symbolic level in concert with other devices such as the Hieronymous machine. Instructions given here are for the physical parts unit, however.

A suitable transistorized amplifier circuit is shown in Figure 9-1. The values of the components are called out. All of the parts can be purchased at stores such as Tandy Radio Shack. The amplifier can be built on an ordinary phenolic board and enclosed, along with its battery and the antenna mount, in an electronic compo­nent box. The two metal input plates can be easily ob­tained at most craft and hobby shops. Although copper was used in the original device built by the author, any electrically conductive plate can be used. Aluminum and brass sheets are available in most hobby shops. The antenna is a simple collapsible rod that can be taken from a scrapped portable transistor radio or CB trans­ceiver. Or the antenna can be nothing more than a piece of stiff wire.

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Figure 9-2: Circuit schematic for a transistorized

audio amplifier that can be used in the wishing

machine. Actually, any audio amplifier can be used.

This one is presented as a suggestion only.

Question: Will the wishing machine work with

only the drawing of the amplifier as the

symbolic Hieronymous machine does?

Operating Instructions:

The operating instructions are as deceptively simple as the instructions for making this machine.

To be effective, the device must use some input sample that is directly connected symbolically to the object the experimenter wishes to be changed. For ex­ample, a photograph of the insect-infested tree or field

The Wishing Machine

can be used. A leaf from the plant or a piece of paper containing a drop of dried blood from the individual can be used. The only factor affecting the operation of the machine appears to be the direct causative connection between the machine and the subject - i.e., light rays from the tree fell upon the photographic negative, caus­ing a change in the chemical salts of the negative material. Place the photograph or sample between the two input plates. Turn on the amplifier. Make your wish. Leave the amplifier turned on. From time to time, think about your wish or desired action. As is typical of ma­chines of this class, distance has no effect upon its opera­tion - i.e., the distance between the machine and the actual subject or the distance between the machine and the operator apparently have no effect upon its opera­tion.

Experiments:

If there was ever a mind machine that was super-amenable to experimentation, this is it.

I have not been able to obtain the results from the tests conducted by the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture in the early 1 950's in which it is reported that Japanese beetles were eliminated from 90 test plots in the western part of the state when the machine and operator were in the eastern part of the state. The results may languish in some archives there or, most probably, were

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tossed out years ago because any scientist in his right mind knows that such a machine can't work and that the results have somehow been rigged.

A number of definitive experiments suggest them­selves and can be carried out simply and easily by ama­teur scientists at the high school level. The easiest of these would use numbered Petri dishes containing bread mold from a common source. The experimenter should con­centrate on reducing the growth rate in a Petri dish with a given identification number on it. A photograph of that Petri dish should be placed between the input plates. The machine may be located anywhere during this experi­ment, but the Petri dishes should all be kept together in the same environment. The growth of the bread mold in the various Petri dishes can be visually determined, and a record should be kept.

Another experiment with bread mold growth can be conducted when the operator is not the experi­menter and does not know the number of the Petri dish whose photograph is between the plates, and who sim­ply wishes that the object whose photograph is at the input be changed.

Experimental organisms can also include bacte­ria, insects, and plants.

Does this device have any effect upon the growth rate of bean sprouts as in the pyramid experiments?

The Wishing Machine

If positive results are obtained, the experiment should be repeated with the machine located in a remote site to test the apparent fact that distance has no bearing on the experimental results.

The Pennsylvania tests can and should be re­peated by many investigators. Choose a tree or a field with insect or fungal infestation. Photograph it. Put the photograph between the plates. Have an independent observer keep a record of what happens to the test plant or field as well as to a control plant or field nearby with similar infestation whose location and condition is to­tally unknown to the experimenter.

These experiments and others are simple, inex­pensive, easy to conduct, easy to control, and easy to evaluate. They can and should be made by a large num­ber of investigators. It is quite unlikely that they will be carried out by professional researchers, but, if any are, it is also equally likely that the results will turn out negative. That is why it is necessary and desirable to have these experiments conducted by amateurs who have nothing at stake except curiosity or a flaming desire to prove that the author is stark, raving mad. (This latter motivation was the one that got me started in this whole tiling in the first place because I knew it had to be a fraudulent hoax and it was so easy and cheap to run the experiment to prove my point.)

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What If It Doesn't Work?

If your Wishing machine doesn't work, there may be one of several reasons:

1. You didn't build it right or you're not doing something right when trying to use it. As the old saying goes, "If at first you don't succeed, try reading the instruc­tions."

2. There's a bad transistor, component, solder joint, etc. in the machine that disturbs something that affects the Hieronymous machine and probably affects the Wishing machine: the relationship within the sys­tem has been disrupted.

3. You're too impatient. Give it a couple of weeks. Rome wasn't burned in a day....

4. Your personal circuit breakers are set very low and you just can't operate such a device no matter how hard you try; you're blocking yourself somehow. Let someone else try it.

5. Subconsciously, you believe it's magic and it can't work, or that you'll be discovered and burned as a witch. Don't dismiss the powerful effect of our cultural programming.

Since nobody really knows what's going on here in the first place, maybe none of these reasons are basi­cally valid. Maybe you just can't get one to work, period. On the other hand, others can and have.

The Wishing Machine

Hypotheses:

It's possible to come up with any number of hypotheses concerning why the Wishing machine and its general class of devices work. But it's totally impos­sible at this point to effectively test any of the hypotheses because we can't come up with any hypothesis based on what we already know in science.

In the case of the detector rods, it was possible to hypothesize some means of information transfer from the object to the searcher that would cause a change that would cause the rods to move. Not so here.

Pendulums and energy wheels may be explained by hypotheses that include the well-known principles of electrodynamics and the ability of people to willingly change the electrical characteristics of their bodies. Not so here.

The actions of pyramids may be explicable on the basis of extremely weak electromagnetic activity, the reso­nant characteristics of the pyramid shape, and the low energy levels required to affect molecular bonds in crys­talline materials. But none of that appears to have any bearing on Wishing machines.

The concept of "eloptic radiation" was one hy­pothesis relating to the operation of the Hieronymous machine, although the success of the purely symbolic Hieronymous machine would seem to render any "ra-

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diation" hypothesis invalid. In the first place, the basic concept of" radiation" includes the concept of "distance," and "distance" apparently has little if any effect upon the operation or effectiveness of Wishing machines. There­fore, the concept of radiation cannot be invoked here. As with the symbolic Hieronymous machine, we are begin­ning to get into a totally unknown realm.

Unlike the previous devices, with the symbolic machines such as the Wishing machine, we appear to be dealing with phenomena that are truly out at the very fringe of our Universe of knowledge. We may be unable to formulate any hypothesis whatsoever for decades or perhaps a century.

But, unless someone begins looking, we may never find out at all and may forever be denying ourselves some important bit of information about this Universe that could be of enormous benefit to people.

No rational hypothesis can be formulated that would even begin to take into account most of the experi­mental data and reported phenomena of the Wishing machine.

Why is distance apparently not a factor when with every other aspect of the Universe distance is indeed one of the primary dimensions?

Why does the Wishing machine appear to oper­ate only on the level of organic life and then only on those organisms with no volition, no ability to over-ride their instinctual, genetic programming?

The Wishing Machine

The easiest way out is the Ostrich Syndrome: It's a hoax. Then please explain what happened to those Japanese beetles in those Pennsylvania fields... to that teenager's acne... to my infant daughter's warts. Coinci­dence, you say? If those were mere coincidences, they were indeed fortuitous. And if the machine somehow affected these coincidences or the probabilities thereof, it's far more environmentally benign than insecticides and far more effective than Clearasil and arsenic acid! And if it is affecting the probabilities in these cases, how and why is it acting this way and would it do something similar in Las Vegas and Atlantic City?

Or one might excuse it away by claiming that it simply operates to reinforce suggestibility. If it's that good at it, this data should be extremely useful in psychol­ogy and psychiatry because it's far superior to hypnosis and conscious-altering drugs. And Madison Avenue would have snapped it up long ago....

Saying it works because the operator believes it works doesn't explain it and is no hypothesis, only an admission that it does work and that this may be a reason. Why does it work only if the operator believes it does? According to what we think we know about the rest of the Universe, this shouldn't be. It strikes at the very roots of scientific inquiry.

Maybe that's basically all it's about anyway.

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Conclusions:

These are conclusions reluctantly arrived at on the basis of data in hand to date:

1. The Wishing machine works.

2. It works only against living organisms whose nervous systems are not complex enough to include volitional action as an operational mode.

3. Distance appears to be no factor in its effective­ness.

4. There is no basis in current scientific knowl­edge to support any hypothesis concerning why it works.

5. With continued experimentation, we can prob­ably learn why it works.

6. We must be willing to continue experiment­ing.

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