The Secret of Life (translated) E-Book

Georges Lakhovsky

• Herausgeber: anna ruggieri
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2021

Beschreibung

- This edition is unique;
- The translation is completely original and was carried out for the Ale. Mar. SAS;
- All rights reserved.

Disease? It is the oscillatory imbalance of the cells, which comes from external causes. And, in particular, the fight of microbial radiation against cellular radiation. Because the microbe, a unicellular being, acts equally by its own radiation. If microbial radiation triumphs, it is disease and, at the end of vital resistance, death. If cellular radiation overcomes it, it is the return to health.
The interest of my theory appears all the more real as it is better confirmed by recent experiments which, with the healing of cancerous plants, seem to open the way to a new therapy for cancer, this terrible disease which has been tried in vain to combat. The applications of my theory, which make it possible to render to the cells all the vital activity of their radiation, will, in my opinion, give a specific treatment of cancer, particularly, and of diseases due to old age in general. No limit could be set in advance at this time to these remarkable advances which my theory allows us to consider. I hope that the future will prove me right.
Apart from these immediate practical applications, my theory makes it possible to explain, thanks to the function of penetrating radiation, the process of the origin of life, the differentiation of cells and of living species, the problem of heredity, in a word, all the serious problems which together constitute biological science.

Leseprobe

INDEX

PREFACE

INTRODUCTION

CHAPTER ONE - THE PROBLEM OF INSTINCT OR THE SPECIAL SENSE OF ANIMALS

CHAPTER TWO - THE SELF-ELECTION OF LIVING BEINGS

CHAPTER THREE - THE UNIVERSAL RADIATION OF LIVING BEINGS

CHAPTER FOUR - RADIATION IN GENERAL AND ELECTROMAGNETIC WAVES IN PARTICULAR

CHAPTER FIVE - OSCILLATION AND RADIATION OF CELLS

CHAPTER SIX - CELL DISRUPTION AND OSCILLATORY IMBALANCE

CHAPTER SEVEN - NATURE OF RADIANT ENERGY

CHAPTER EIGHT - INFLUENCE OF SUNSPOTS AND COSMIC RADIATION ON LIFE AND HEALTH

CHAPTER NINE - INFLUENCE OF SOIL NATURE ON THE COSMIC WAVE FIELD. CONTRIBUTION TO THE ETIOLOGY OF CANCER

CHAPTER TEN - THE THERAPEUTICS OF CELLULAR OSCILLATION

CHAPTER ELEVEN - ORIGINS OF LIFE

Georges Lakhovsky

The Secret of Life

(COSMIC WAVES AND LIFE RADIATION)

Translation and 2021 edition by Planet Editions

All rights reserved

PREFACE

- What are you thinking, Faraday?

- If I told you, my dear Deville, you would treat me like a hallucinate.

Such is the legend.

More confident than Faraday, Mr Lakhovsky shared with me his ideas on radiation and living beings. He rightly thought that they could not disturb an experimenter who for thirty-five years has been studying the action of Hertzian waves of all lengths on animals and microbes.

On the subject of scientific research, it is good to encourage ideas that seem more daring.

I lived in the intimacy of two masters: Claude Bernard and Brown-Sequard, who certainly did not deprive themselves of it. This certainly did not hinder their success!

Resonance phenomena have long been familiar to physiologists. Who is not familiar with the acoustic resonators of the organ of Corti, the resonators

since the famous work of Helmholtz? And more recently, the biological resonators of Charles Henry? Lapicque, Latzareff, etc. ... and myself, have invoked, on a thousand occasions, the phenomena of cellular resonance to explain the action of the nervous agent or other physical agents in living beings.

I have long been convinced that space is criss-crossed by forces that are unknown to us, that living beings emit radiation or effluvia to which we are not sensitive, but which impresses some among them. Everything is possible. But it must not be admitted that this is experimentally proved. The ideas of a madman do not differ from the conceptions of a man of genius except by the experiment that infirms the former and confirms the latter.

Encouraged by his work and the results obtained, Mr Lakhovsky cares above all about what his theories arouse the curiosity and experiments of independent researchers. They constitute what Claude Bernard called working hypotheses.

In this work, he examines only electromagnetic waves, penetrating waves and unknown waves.

There are certainly many other ways of transmitting energy than those revealed to us by Newton and Fresnel. And it is precisely by studying living beings that we are most likely to discover them.

So let us experiment on them using the methods of physicists and chemists and try to find the special detector mentioned in the conclusion of this book.

INTRODUCTION

I would like to indicate here what is, in a way, the philosophy of my new theory, of which the exposition is the subject of this book.

What is the point of presenting a new theory of life? Have not philosophy and science claimed a thousand times to give us an explanation since the origin of the world? And what remains of these generous efforts?

I will not attempt to demonstrate to the philosopher, and particularly to the metaphysician, the usefulness of a new conception. They know better than I do how eagerly we welcome any hope of a better explanation, any hope of progress in the knowledge of the absolute. The satisfaction of human desire is enough to justify the novelty of the hypothesis.

It is man in general, and especially the man of science, that I wish to convince. Positive human knowledge is not merely constituted, as some have a tendency to believe, by the accumulation of experimental facts. These facts in themselves are nothing without the idea that cements them, that orders them, that classifies them. The future of science resides essentially, in a state of power of some sort, in the development of these guiding ideas: in the scientific hypothesis, to speak plainly.

Every science in particular is a field of experience, whose relations with neighbouring fields, i.e. with other sciences, are more or less rare and difficult. Medicine, biology and the natural sciences have intimate relationships whose ramifications extend as far as chemistry. On the other hand, they still seem to be separated, sometimes as watertight compartments, from the physical sciences, especially electricity and radioelectricity.

Each advance on the upward path of knowledge reveals a new point of view, allows us to better explore the expanse of the different sciences, to recognise their state of advancement, to note their mutual relations and the help they can provide to one another.

The most recent discoveries of physics have precisely made it possible to bring back to unity the multiple phenomena that it claims to analyse through the study of all radiation. This new field of action is singularly fruitful, if we consider that all the newest acquisitions of physics, and therefore of applied sciences, belong to the domain of radiation; ionic, electronic, and atomistic, the study of ordinary electromagnetic radiation; radioelectricity, wireless telegraphy and telephony, teleautography, telemechanics.

Until now, this original notion of radiation, which seems to be at the basis of all positive knowledge, has only left the domain of the physical sciences for that of industry, without making any major contribution to the natural sciences, whose development seems to be mainly limited to organic chemistry.

I believe that the time has come to broaden the field and the means of action of biology, endowing it with new instruments borrowed from the latest advances in the physical sciences. My theory of the origin of life, which is the subject of this work, must be this new idea which links together two domains of science which have hitherto been ignored.

Numerous hypotheses have been suggested to explain the origins of life and biological phenomena. We will only point out that the most recent ones attempt to simplify the problem by reducing these complex phenomena to purely chemical or mechanical ones. Indeed, in relation to the unprecedented development of the new and fruitful acquisitions of physics, the latest biological hypotheses appear somewhat simplistic. And finally, the supreme criterion, they do not give any satisfactory explanation of certain primordial phenomena, which my theory manages to explain.

Let us take a look at these obscure points of biology, which we wish to shed light on.

Among the facts most studied by naturalists and entomologists we find all those that refer to the problem of instinct or sense, especially in animals; in spite of the accumulation of these precise and indisputable experimental facts, no clear explanation has been given. My theory of the radiation of living beings, confirmed by affirmative experience, accords with these facts, of which it uncovers the hidden meaning.

In the same way, the orientation of bird flight and the problems of migration are explained by the phenomena of self-election of animate beings.

What, then, is the universal radiation of living beings? My theory simply sets forth its fundamental principles and reveals its nature. Based on the most recent discoveries of science in the field of radiation, it demonstrates, with the aid of very elementary analogies, that the cell, the essential organism of every living being, is nothing but an electromagnetic resonator, capable of emitting and absorbing radiation of very high frequency.

These fundamental principles encompass the whole of biology.

Life? It is the dynamic imbalance of cells, the harmony of these multiple radiations reacting on each other.

Disease? It is the oscillatory imbalance of the cells, which comes from external causes. And, in particular, the fight of microbial radiation against cellular radiation. Because the microbe, a unicellular being, acts equally by its own radiation. If microbial radiation triumphs, it is disease and, at the end of vital resistance, death. If cellular radiation triumphs, it is the return to health.

The interest of my theory appears all the more real as it is better confirmed by recent experiments which, by healing cancerous plants, seem to open the way to a new therapy of cancer, this terrible disease which has been tried in vain to combat. The applications of my theory, which make it possible to render to the cells all the vital activity of their radiation, will, in my opinion, give a specific treatment of cancer in particular, and of diseases due to old age in general. No limit could be set in advance at this time to these remarkable advances which my theory allows us to consider. I hope that the future will prove me right.

Apart from these immediate practical applications, my theory makes it possible to explain, thanks to the function of penetrating radiation, the process of the origin of life, the differentiation of cells and living species, the problem of heredity, in a word, all the serious problems which together constitute biological science.

I have deliberately given this account a very simple form, so that it will be accessible to all those who wish to penetrate further into the secrets of science. I have banished all unnecessary phraseology and most of the special technical terms so numerous in the vocabulary of the biological and electrical sciences.

From the special vocabulary of physics, and particularly of the science of radiation, I have borrowed only a few words, well known at this time by all radio amateurs, and they are legion. These words are: self-inductance, which characterises the electromagnetic induction of a circuit; capacitance, which characterises its electrostatic induction; electrical resistance, which characterises the circuit's opposition to the passage of current; wavelength and frequency, inverse quantities which characterise the nature of radiation. Mathematical formulas have been completely discarded. Useful scientific explanations are given in the footnotes and are not indispensable for understanding the work.

My only ambition is indeed that my work may be understood by all, even by those who are not familiar with the reading of scientific works. I would be too happy if I could fulfil it.

The second edition of 'The Origin of Life' is a faithful mirror of the evolution of my theory of the oscillation of living beings over the last three years.

On the one hand I have transported this hypothesis into the purely theoretical order, extending this principle so that it becomes that of universal radiation. The essence of this universal radiation, is the universion, that is to say the spatial promatter scattered throughout the cosmic ocean, is the generalisation of the physicists' too confused notion of the ether.

In a work that bears precisely this title of the Universion, a conception that leads the cosmic universe back to the two essential notions of the ion and the wave, I have set forth how this ideal medium, which I define precisely, makes it possible to explain electrical and magnetic phenomena, the propagation of radiations especially around the earth, as well as the emission and reception of waves, heat and light, and interstral radiations. I have also demonstrated the relativity of phenomena in the light of the Universe and indicated how this medium necessarily presents itself as the support of life and thought.

On the other hand, I continued, after the first edition of "The Origin of Life", the experiments that were to be the logical counterpart to these theories and I had the satisfaction of recognising that, to the extent that positive results could be gathered up to now, the observation of experimental facts fully corroborates the hypotheses formulated.

These essays in the domain of practice are on the other hand of a very different nature.

I have first of all demonstrated the influence of sunspots on life and health and, more generally, on biology. In particular, how the remarkable years of good wine harvests coincide with the period of greatest sunspot activity, which already implies, in the physical order, disturbances of an electrical, magnetic and electromagnetic nature.

I later extended the field of my research towards the treatment of cancer, of which the first edition of 'The Origin of Life' recounted my first experiences with Pelargonium inoculated with Bacterium tumefaciens and successfully treated by means of oscillating circuits.

By studying the geographical distribution of cancer according to official statistics, I was able to ascertain that the density of cancerous manifestations was closely linked to the geological nature of the soil. I showed the cause-effect relationship between the latter phenomenon and the former, revealing the function of cosmic waves, whose field at the soil surface is modified by the nature of the soil, depending on whether it is an insulator or a conductor of electricity.

I have been able to deduce a rational method of the oscillatory equilibrium of living beings by applying oscillating circuits that act as filters and regulators of cosmic waves.

All my work on the influence of the soil on carcinosis, in relation to the alteration of cosmic radiation, was published in my pamphlet: Contribution à l'Etiologie du Cancer, which Professor d'Arsonval presented to the Academy of Sciences on 4 July 1927.

Taking into account the new findings on the knowledge of cosmic radiation as well as on the influences it exerts on living beings, I was able to give considerable development to my first experiments in cancer treatment, already reported in the first edition of L'Origine de la Vie.

Numerous clinical investigations have been undertaken in France and elsewhere, mainly by hospital doctors and cancer scientists, into the efficacy of the oscillating circuits I have suggested for restoring the oscillatory balance of living organisms undermined by disease.

I will only mention from memory the experiments carried out at the Salpétrière hospital with the collaboration of the illustrious Professor Gosset, at the Pasteur Institute and in other hospitals.

The report presented at the Congress of Radiology in Florence (May 1928) by Prof. Sordello Attilj on the treatments carried out by him at the Ospedale di Santo Spirito in Sassia in Rome, using my oscillating circuits, leaves no doubt as to the effectiveness of this method.

In addition to my own personal observations, I have also collected those of a large number of French doctors who have successfully applied this new method of treatment.

It seems to me beyond doubt, following the results obtained and the confirmation brought by qualified experimenters, that therapy can find, in the use of the new methods I have indicated, based on this principle of cellular oscillation maintained by cosmic waves, the new pathway which will enable it not only to cure most diseases effectively, but still to bring at least considerable relief in cases hitherto considered hopeless.

The Origin of Life barely gives a glimpse of its secret now. But we believe that we are in a position to affirm that the oscillatory conception of life, by enabling us to secure to living beings a more rational development and to protect them against disease and pain, will speedily impose its benefits upon the whole of humanity.

CHAPTER ONE - THE PROBLEM OF INSTINCT OR THE SPECIAL SENSE OF ANIMALS

GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS. - The problem that nature poses of the instinct or special sense that naturalists recognise in animals is, without any doubt, one of the most interesting, one of the most disturbing, one of the most fertile that can present itself to the mind of the modern physiologist.

It alone reflects, in its strangest and most poorly explored aspect, the whole problem of life.

However, very precise observations have been made on this subject for a very long time, in spite of the extreme difficulty of observation, and it would be to disregard the work of the most learned naturalists not to take it into account. In this matter, indeed, the experimental method offers only the resource of direct observation, and it is often necessary to dispense with laboratory experiments.

Different hypotheses have been issued to explain, separately, the observed and controlled results, but it seems that to date no general theory has been proposed, which groups the noticed facts to give a logical and fruitful explanation.

The uninterrupted progress of science has suggested to me some new ideas on this point and enabled me to elaborate the theory of the origin of life and of radiation in the relations with living beings, which is the subject of this book and which I began to publish in various periodicals and newspapers as early as 1923.

I have applied myself, from the beginning, to the search for the causes of the facility with which some animals are able to direct themselves infallibly along very long distances. Such are the homing pigeons, which return to their pigeon-holes many hundreds of miles distant; such are the migratory birds, which fly in a straight line night and day, crossing the seas towards a certain goal, which they cannot see, either on account of the weakness of their sight, or of the roundness of the earth. They migrate in order to feed on insects that they can no longer find in their own lands when winter approaches (fig. 1).

Instinct, say some, special sense, say others; but neither of these terms explains the enigma. I believe that in science nothing must be mysterious. The words 'instinct' and 'special sense' only serve to mask our ignorance, and everything must be explainable.

It is becoming more and more evident, as the following considerations show, that the sense of direction in most animals comes from special radiation that they emit over a very short wavelength.

CARRIER PIGEONS. - We are all familiar with the truly prodigious faculty of orientation that characterises the carrier pigeon. Although innate, this faculty requires a certain amount of training to reach its full development.

After the pigeon has risen in the air and described a certain number of turns, this faculty of orientation allows it to take without hesitation, even during the night, the direction of its pigeonhole, sometimes very far away.

I have, on the other hand, observed the generality of this observation and you will find, in the course of this work, the explanation I offer for it; birds that are prepared to undertake a long-distance migration journey (wild ducks, game birds, swallows, etc.) all describe, like homing pigeons, orbits in the air before beginning their final departure.

I also had occasion to note one of the most curious observations, made on July 2, 1924 at the radiotelegraphic station of Paterna, near Valencia (Spain); a pigeon drop had taken place at an antenna of this place at the time of a broadcast. The observation was made when these birds could not find their direction and circled around, completely disoriented. This test, repeated several times, always produced the same result: the abolition or rather a profound perturbation of the sense of direction in homing pigeons under the influence of electromagnetic waves.

The experiments that we have reported on were resumed again in Paterna, at the radiotelegraphic station of Valencia, under the control of the Spanish military authority, then recently in Germany at Kreuznach. These two new series of essays fully confirm my hypotheses about the influence of Hertzian waves on the instinct of orientation.

A Spanish author, Mr J. Casamajor, has given a detailed report on the Paterna trials. The Spanish pigeon services installed a military pigeon house in Valencia, at a distance of about 8 km., in bird's eye view, from the radiotelegraphic station of Paterna. At the time of the experiments in question, the various pigeons from the Valenza pigeon loft were launched one by one, around the station, and at regular intervals of three minutes, while the station continued to broadcast continuously.

It was then noticed that all the pigeons were ploughing through space, tracing numerous orbits, but not orienting themselves, as they usually do after a few turns. Despite the change in wavelength during the emission, no restoration of the natural order was observed. But during the time of the emission, which lasted more than half an hour, no pigeons were able to take flight in any particular direction.

It is important to note, that a few minutes after the end of the emission, the pigeons that were released all turned towards their dovecote without any hesitation, even those that had taken part in the first experiment.

Another series of tests, which took place on 7 November 1926 at the same location, produced the same result. Paterna's first experiments tested the sagacity of scientists, who did not understand the relationship that could exist between the instincts of pigeons and the emission of radio waves. The German technicians had nothing more pressing to do than to verify and check Mr J. Casamajor's observations. They themselves, in March 1926, established similar experiments in Kreutznach. However, the conditions imposed were different and more precise. A location diametrically opposed to the site of the pigeon house was chosen for sending the pigeons, in relation to the radiotelegraphic broadcasting station. Thus, this station was located exactly on the "bird's-eye" route that the pigeons had to follow.

It is noticeable that the birds, when they arrived in the vicinity of the station, diverted their flight, lost their track and seemed distinctly disoriented. They did not resume their flight towards the pigeon house until their orbits had taken them out of the intense electromagnetic field that reigned near the station's antenna.

It is curious to note that none of the Spanish, French and German commentators who have reported these experiments have thought to give them the simplest meaning: that of an electromagnetic induction on the pigeon's governing organs. They all hesitate about the meaning of these experiments and believe in a curious anomaly that they refrain from explaining.

NOCTURNAL BIRDS - BATS. - Observations analogous to those I have made on the homing pigeon can be made on nocturnal birds. It seems obvious, a priori, that the sensitivity of these animals to electromagnetic waves in general is different from that of day birds, precisely because of their very special adaptation to light or darkness.

There is, however, a point of contact between these two categories of birds: they feed on the same insects.

We are led to imagine, as I shall explain later, that they are attracted towards their prey by radiations emitted precisely by these insects. There is no doubt that daylight has an influence on the propagation of these waves.

If sunlight absorbs this radiation, as it does the waves used in wireless telegraphy, night birds (owls, owlets, hawks) would go hunting at night because their sensitivity to radiation would be lower than that of day birds.

In the opposite hypothesis, in which sunlight would increase the amplitude of the radiation, as seems to be the case for waves a few metres long, it is the excess intensity of the radiation that would prevent night birds from hunting during the day.

It is logical to admit, in the sensitivity of reception for these special waves, differences correlative to those observed in day and night birds, in the organs of vision.

Among nocturnal birds, let us take the bat as an example. It is claimed that it is because of the subtlety of its hearing and smell that it can direct itself towards its prey, whose slightest movements it perceives, thanks to the shaking of the air that reaches its ears.

This hypothesis may be admissible in the open countryside, in a calm atmosphere. I have often observed bats in Paris from the top of my balcony, on racing days, on Sunday evenings, amid the noise of an immense crowd, amid the trepidation of thousands of cars shaking the air impregnated with the products of combustion of petrol engines. In this deafening turmoil, in this vitiated atmosphere, it is certainly neither hearing nor smelling that directly guides the bats towards insects: beetles, moths, etc., which they nevertheless catch as easily as in the great silence of the countryside.

The bat is therefore likely to be attracted by the waves emitted by these insects, which are not affected by either the noise or the smell of the engines.

LEMMINGES (mountain mice of Norway). Another extraordinary example is that of the lemmings, a species of field mouse from Scandinavia, whose curious expeditions were described by the famous Swedish naturalist Linnaeus:

"As the cold weather approaches, and sometimes without apparent cause, lemmings leave their natural home, the high mountain range of Norway, to embark on a long journey to the sea.