RankingsPrimerArbiterPhysicistMathematicianContrarianQESites logClaimsSourcesResearch notes

Internet Archive (archive.org), 2026-10-04 (Investigator, Step I, run 1)

Site: https://archive.org. The search page renders in shadow DOM (no text in Chrome), so the public advancedsearch and metadata JSON endpoints were used, and the items' OCR text files (_djvu.txt) were read to stdout / scratch. Nothing was saved to research/files (downloads need the owner's approval; URLs and sizes are given below).

Queries: - advancedsearch: Hieronymus AND (eloptic OR radionic OR psionic) -> 5 items - advancedsearch: title:(astounding) AND date:[1956-01-01 TO 1956-12-31] -> June and Aug 1956 issues - advancedsearch: title:(secret life of plants) AND creator:(Tompkins) -> 8 items - advancedsearch: Analog January 1977 (two forms) -> not found (not reached; retry with other identifiers)

Copyright note: the works below are in copyright. They are summarised, with only short phrases quoted.

1. T. Galen Hieronymus, The Story of Eloptic Energy (autobiography), 1988 (priority 1: inventor's own work)

Item: https://archive.org/details/the-story-of-eloptic-energy (uploaded 2024-04-27). Files: TheStoryOfElopticEnergy.pdf (59.1 MB), TheStoryOfElopticEnergy_djvu.txt (1.0 MB). Published by the Institute of Advanced Sciences (an activity of Advanced Sciences Research and Development Corp.), Lakemont, Georgia; copyright Dr. Sarah Williams Hieronymus. Page numbers below are the book's printed page numbers as they appear in the OCR text (approximate where the OCR is noisy). The OCR text was read by keyword search, not in full; a deep read is recommended.

Findings (all are the inventor's or his circle's own statements: interested parties):

  • Date and setting of the plant experiment (claim 6). He dates it to 1931: sunlight "conducted over wires into a dark basement"; the unconnected control plants were all white [web: autobiography p.88]. The patent (filed 1944/1946) gives no date. Same page: he had acquired some of Albert Abrams's first instruments and, with Stanley Rogers, did mineral-finding experiments; he reports that the energy of buried silver, gold and other minerals leaves the ground at an angle that varies with the moon cycle [p.88].
  • Origin of the analyzer (claims 1-3). He says he assembled the first "energy Analyzer" on his birthday, 21 Nov 1941, while Dr. Grace Edwards, D.C., of Omaha was visiting. His stated hypothesis: the energy of an element, sent through a prism, refracts "in the order of the contents of the nucleus" [p.89]. He then retained attorney C. Earl Hovey for the patent, and built instruments for medical analysis (his "Electric Biometer") and for chemical analysis [p.89]. This states the principle in nuclear-content terms, not just "atomic weight" as in the patent.
  • Background. Engineer at Kansas City Power & Light from 1919; Chief Engineer of the Underground Power Installation Department for 19 years; built a "wall-computer" for the company after visits to Bell Telephone Laboratories and General Electric laboratories [p.89]. In the late 1930s he assembled over 35 Pathoclasts from parts that Dr. Glen Wills bought from J. W. Wigelsworth (Pathometric Laboratories); he and his wife Louise joined the Pathometric Society [p.88].
  • Company and its end (historical record, "absence of evidence"). He set up his "Radiation Laboratory" in Kansas City, sold instruments to physicians and chiropractors across the northern and western US, and trained each buyer for two weeks [p.90]. In 1950 two things stopped it, in his account: (a) new banking rules stopped him discounting buyers' out-of-state promissory notes; (b) pressure from the AMA, with the FDA ("FADA") harassing users and a law treating treatment devices like medicine. He sold the laboratory and stopped building instruments [p.90]. A reproduced leaflet names Radiation Laboratories, Inc., 4209 Michigan Avenue, Kansas City 4, Missouri, says the device is covered by the US patent "and other patents applied for", and calls the modality "entirely experimental" pending official approval [appendix near p.106].
  • Patent assignments. He states two assignments were made under the US patent: medical diagnosis for humans and chemical laboratory analysis of liquids, alloys and compounds went to Radiation Laboratories, Inc. (a Missouri corporation); all other uses, and the whole Canadian and British patents, stayed with him [p.242]. USPTO assignment records would confirm this (lead).
  • Patent family. "Canada patent No. 486,008, or British patent No. 663,978" [p.308]. Confirmed on Google Patents (see 2026-10-04-google-patents.md).
  • Quantitative data the patent lacks (claim 3).
  • On a quadrant divided into 1600 parts (0 along the prism face, 1600 perpendicular), "with a certain apparatus arrangement" one isotope of beryllium (Z=4) came through at about 186 and bismuth (Z=83) at about 1097; the lighter nucleus gives a more acute angle and, he says, a higher frequency [pp.237-238].
  • He held a set of over 40 "pure" element specimens, about 35 already run for angle of refraction, from lithium (3) to thorium (90) [p.233]. He set out a test plan: show that all elements refract at different angles in order of nuclear weight; that several people get the same results on one instrument; that several instruments agree within half a graduation; that changing prism angle or incidence angle changes the readings [p.233]. Whether this plan was carried out, and by whom, is not stated in the passages read.
  • A test on "Radiation Analyzer No. 508" with titanium, vanadium, chromium, manganese, iron and nickel: the number of energy peaks per element matched in most cases the number of isotopes. He computed a "nuclear weight factor" (protons x 1.00758 + neutrons x 1.00894) to separate isobars such as Ti-50 and Cr-50 (50.41708 vs 50.41436), and plotted factor against prism dial setting, reporting a smooth curve [pp.266-267]. He also reports "radiation distances" per isotope (e.g. vanadium 18.5, 5.5, 15.5 in.; bismuth 13, 24.5, 22, 26 in.) and takes the long-range ones to be radioactive isotopes [p.267]. No operator names, blinding or raw tables are given in the passages read.
  • Elsewhere he states the angle measured from the prism face is "in direct proportion to the atomic weight" [p.228], and lists the properties he attributes to eloptic energy: conducted by some conductors and insulated by others, shielded, grounded, stored, amplified, refracted by prism, focused by lens, diffracted by grating, reflected by mirror, carried along light rays; strong light dissipates it; magnetic fields act on it; X-rays and UV destroy it; analyzers behave erratically for hours after an atomic bomb test [pp.227-228]. He also says isotopes can be selected by an instrument and differ in radiation distance from a few inches to two feet or more [p.173].
  • Campbell correspondence. A chapter reproduces letters with John W. Campbell (Astounding/Analog) [from p.123]. Campbell says he chose the Hieronymus machine because it was patented and the patent described simply a mineral analyser, and describes his symbolic version: an India-ink circuit diagram with a prism symbol on a vernier dial (letter text, OCR around line 6819-6895). Hieronymus's own comment (p.123-124, also quoted on Wikipedia) is that Campbell's emphasis on the "magic" side set his work back "at least a hundred years".
  • Preface by "Rho Sigma" (Apollo 8). The preface author (a NASA Marshall Space Flight Center aerospace engineer in Huntsville; identified in Tompkins & Bird as Rolf Schaffranke) says about 20 engineers heard the Hieronymuses in Huntsville, that the instrument "was duplicated by some of the engineering types" with success, that Apollo 8 astronauts were monitored from photographs before and during the flight, and that a 300-copy report with graphs was sent to journals and passed to Wernher von Braun, with no publication resulting [pp.xi-xiii]. A claim of independent duplication by engineers, single source so far; names of the engineers and the report are not given in the passages read.
  • Submarine experiment. At Key West the Hieronymuses report analysing the "general vitality" of men on a submarine submerged daily 10:00-15:00 at 50 ft with no attenuation [p.315]. Undated in the passage (context: before 1968 move to Lakemont).

2. Journal of Borderland Research vol. 44 no. 3 (May-June 1988) (priorities 1 and 2)

Item: https://archive.org/details/journal-of-borderland-research-vol-xliv-1988 (6 issue PDFs, 23-27 MB each). - p.13: obituary "T. Galen Hieronymus - Radionic Pioneer" (21 Nov 1895 - 21 Feb 1988). Says his patent "has become a standard concept" from which many radionic instruments were built, "some using just the pattern drawn on paper". Work to be continued by his wife Sarah and co-workers at Advanced Sciences Research and Development Corporation, PO Box 109, Lakemont, Georgia 30552. - pp.13-14: "Growing Plants in the Dark" by T. Galen Hieronymus: a verbatim reprint of the patent's plant-experiment paragraphs (p.3 of US 2,482,773). No new data; presented "for future researchers to work with". - pp.14-16: Simon Martin (Guildford, UK), "How Cress Seedlings Respond to Light and 'Feeding'": a 14-day home experiment with cress in light, dark, slit light, dark + "homeopathic" 5x plant food, dark + straight plant food. Dark seedlings had yellow leaves; light-grown were greenest; the dark + dilute food group grew longest (mean 6.1 cm vs 4.7 cm dark, 5.1 cm light). No wires or outdoor electrodes were used, so this is related work, not a replication of claim 6; it shows the kind of measurement (lengths, colour, counts) the patent's experiment lacks.

3. Campbell, Astounding Science Fiction, June 1956 and August 1956 (priority 2: independent build from the patent)

Items: https://archive.org/details/Astounding_v57n04_1956-06_EXciter-LennyS (June 1956), https://archive.org/details/Astounding_v57n06_1956-08_Gorgon776 (Aug 1956). Text read from the OCR files. - June 1956, "Psionic Machine - Type One" (pp.~97-108): Campbell states he obtained the patent, built the prescribed device from the patent alone without contacting the inventor, tested it and "obtained positive results". Photos: radiating electrode, mycalex baffle with slit, a prism made from two cemented war-surplus prisms, exploring electrode, and the tactile detector (which he likens to a Ouija board). He calls the patent "a basic patent on certain aspects of psionic machines". - Aug 1956, "Correction and Further Data on the Hieronymous Machine" (pp.112-114): corrects the circuit (C8). After phoning Hieronymus for permission, he passes on the inventor's advice: the 6SJ7 or 9003 tube works better than the 6AU6; Hieronymus used electrodes of "0.0005" wire (Campbell used 1/8 in. copper); the slit should be narrow to collimate; light can also act as a conductor, so strongly lit wires act "as though immersed in a conducting liquid". Campbell's own observations: success varies by person (highest for girls of high-school age and younger, lowest for technically trained men who are sure what can happen); it works unreliably for him but reliably for his daughters and friends; it works as well unplugged from the power supply; it will not work if a tube is burned out or defective, plugged in or not. - Bearing: the only independent construction from the patent text found so far (priority 2). It reports operator-dependent positive results, and also observations (works unpowered) that conflict with the patent's electrical model (amplifier, resistance measurement). Both sides stay in the record.

4. Tompkins & Bird, The Secret Life of Plants (1973), chapter "Radionic Pesticides" (priority 2/3, secondary)

Item: https://archive.org/details/PeterTompkinsTheSecretLifeOfPlants (djvu text). Pages ~332-340. - Plant experiment as told to the authors: aluminium-lined boxes in the dark cellar of his Kansas City house; some boxes grounded to a water pipe and wired by separate copper wires to metal plates outside in full sunlight; seed grain planted; connected boxes gave sturdy green plants, unconnected had no green [p.334]. Adds details absent from the patent (aluminium-lined boxes, water-pipe ground, seed grain). Still no counts, species, duration or numbers. - Buried-silver experiments on the Kansas prairie, with a ground rod: energy diverted downward for a few hours about every 2.5 days, correlated in some ways with moon phase [p.333]. - Says Hieronymus found the device short-circuited when bathed in sunlight; designed the analyzer first with lenses, then a prism; angles more acute than for light; says the energy does not fall off as inverse square but reaches only a set distance [pp.334-335]. - Apollo monitoring: the Hieronymuses claimed to track astronauts' vitality (Apollo 8, Apollo 11 and later), reported a "lethal" belt around the Moon, and that the analyzer went dead when the capsule was in the Moon's shadow (out of sunlight) though radio worked, and kept working behind the Moon (radio blackout) when sunlit [pp.338-340]. Quotes Rolf Schaffranke (German-born propulsion engineer working for NASA contractors in Huntsville) that the experiment is repeatable before witnesses [p.340]. - Also mentions Hieronymus aiming a 10x sextant telescope from his Lakemont roof to pick up eloptic energy from planets [p.340] (not read further).

5. Other items found, not read this run