EXPOSING PHIL CALLAHAN
PHIL CALLAHAN, THE GURU OF
PARAMAGNETISM
The idea of using lava sand to add
"paramagnetic energy" to the soil didn’t originate with Howard
Garrett, the "Doctor of Dirt," although he has become it’s chief
proponent. Rather, as he wrote in his column in The Dallas Morning
News on September 8, 1995:
"I learned about lava sand from Phil
Callahan, the scientist who taught me to add lava sand to the soil…To
learn more about soil and plant energy, read any of Mr. Callahan’s
books."
That seemed fair enough, so I took him
up on his suggestion. I acquired the books and read them from cover
to cover. And, indeed, it was both an education and an eye opener --
a foray into a world I previously believed to exist only in the realm
of fable and New Age superstition.
Philip S. Callahan, Ph. D., schooled as
an entomologist, was stationed in Ireland as a radio technician during
World War II. He has written two books dealing specifically with his
discoveries there of the seemingly magical properties of the ancient
Irish round towers and of certain rocks and rock powders. Titled
Nature’s Silent Music and Paramagnetism--Rediscovering
Nature's Secret Force of Growth, these books are available from
his publisher, Acres U.S.A. (P. O. Box 91299, Austin, TX 78709,
telephone 800-355-5313, website
www.acresusa.com).
Reading either of these books should be
enough for any intelligent person to learn all he or she would ever
need to know about Dr. Callahan, lava sand, and paramagnetism.
On the other hand, if you would like to
know more about the pursuits and conclusions of Dr. Callahan before
purchasing either of these books, I’ll relate for you a sampling of
what he has to say. And I'll include page numbers in case you want to
refer to the original texts and confirm that I am not inventing any of
this and that I am not, in any manner, distorting his words.
On the other hand, if you’re a devout
believer in pyramid power, the magical qualities of quartz crystals,
and other New Age phenomena, you may just want to skip the rest of
this.
Nature's Silent Music (1992)
In Nature's Silent Music (page
32), Dr. Callahan tells us that the ancient Hebrews and Egyptians
understood and utilized the power which is in rocks. Modern Jews
still do this, he says, when they visit the Wailing Wall in
Jerusalem. Furthermore, while traveling around Ireland, Dr. Callahan
claims to have located some magical rocks.
Presumably, he says (page 34), since
long before the ancient Egyptian civilization, man has attributed
mystical and supernatural powers to rocks and rock crystals. He adds
that, according to his own measurements, sea-green slate is the most
magical rock of all. (Curiously, this conflicts with his next
statement, below, since slate is not an igneous rock. Rather, it's a
metamorphic rock derived from shale and is, therefore, not of volcanic
origin.)
According to Dr. Callahan (page 38),
the ancient Celtic and megalithic peoples knew all about the energy
emitted by granite and "other igneous and metamorphic stone of
volcanic origin." He says (page 39) that the early Irish Celts also
understood the healing forces in their highly paramagnetic granite
rocks. All over Ireland, he continues, there are "standing stones
utilized for healing and also as birthing stones for the Celtic
lassies."
Where did these stones get this power?
According to Dr. Callahan (page 56), the crushing and grinding forces
of the drifting continents caused great quantities of cosmic energy to
be trapped within the minerals that make up stone and clay. And "one
of these energies is the little understood force called paramagnetism,"
which he says the ancients knew how to manipulate.
If you’re not familiar with the terms "paramagnetism"
and "diamagnetism," they are the positive and negative aspects of an
electromagnetic property described in many books used to teach
elementary college physics. But Dr. Callahan refers to them as forces
or energies. To comprehend what he means, he says (page 63), we must
understand them as the ancients did. Of course, he repeats, modern
man doesn't understand them at all, despite the fact that we have
scientific names for them.
The Chinese call them yin and yang, he
explains. And, although the ancient Irish had no specific names for
them, they "saw them in the abodes of fairies and leprechauns." He
says (page 69) he now knows that what modern science calls
paramagnetism and diamagnetism are, in reality, the magical forces the
ancient Celtic and megalithic peoples found in rocks and plants.
In later travels in the Far East and
around the globe, Dr. Callahan became aware of other mysterious
phenomena. As an example (page 118), he describes the magic of Sai
Baba, an Indian mystic. Apparently, Sai Baba can materialize "sacred
dust" from his fingers. And, according to Dr. Callahan, nobody has
ever proved that he is practicing sleight of hand.
[As an aside, one can only wonder if
this is the same Sai Baba mentioned in a music review written by Matt
Weitz in the February 6, 2001 issue of The Dallas Morning News.
In part, Mr. Weitz reviewed a concert given in Fort Worth by the
avant garde jazz trumpeter, Maynard Ferguson, as follows.
"There followed a number of songs, most
impressively a sprawling raga-based composition based on what he
(Ferguson) has learned about Indian music at the ashron of his
spiritual leader, Sai Baba, where he visits and teaches annually."]
Using the "theory of materialization"
and Einstein's formula, Dr. Callahan goes on to explain (page 119)
that Sai Baba's feat is entirely possible. Einstein's formula (E=mc²)
"demands light having speeds equal to or lower than the
energy," he says, and mass wouldn't exist at all "were not light
traveling at speeds equal to or slower than the speed of light
squared." (Check it out; I am not making this up.)
In a provocative footnote on page 120,
Dr. Callahan explains that a particle moving faster than the speed of
light is called a tachyon, and a message sent by such a particle would
actually arrive before it was sent. He also states that he published,
in 1986, the first experimental proof that tachyon particles actually
exist. (One of the world's great unsolved mysteries is why Dr.
Callahan has never been honored with the Nobel Prize in physics for
such an amazing and historic achievement.)
On page 179, he reminds us again that
the ancient Egyptians knew about both human auras and silent forces in
the rocks. Therefore, he says, they had two separate hieroglyphs for
stone. One represented "limestone types of rocks that are
diamagnetic, or very weakly paramagnetic." The other represented
"granite, porphyry, basalt and other highly paramagnetic stone."
In his own experiments (page 180), Dr.
Callahan found that good fertile soil is highly paramagnetic and that
viable soil always comes from volcanic rock, which he says is much
more likely to be paramagnetic than sedimentary rocks, such as
limestone (and, I presume, shale, which is converted into his "most
magical of all rocks," sea-green slate.)
He then says (page 185) that
construction engineers ought to be interested in these two forces
"since concrete (limestone) and clay (adobe) are highly paramagnetic,"
and water is diamagnetic. (Personally, I found this statement to be a
bit confusing, since he had previously described limestone, on pages
179 and 180, as being diamagnetic or weakly paramagnetic.)
In any case, he claims that both the
growing of crops and the hardening of cement depend on the joining
together of these "opposite yin and yang forces."
In an epilogue, Dr. Callahan says (page
194) that the most important principle he wants to impart is that we
must "treat rocks, stone and even the soil as antenna collectors of
magnetic energy waves." He points out that, in his opinion, the
ancient Celtic round towers of Ireland are conical antennas, that
rocks are antennas, and that even soil is a flat ground antenna if it
contains enough volcanic, paramagnetic rock.
The other side is the diamagnetic force
of the organic matter, which, he assures us, is just as important. It
stores the water, but the paramagnetic forces control its evaporation.
So, how does one accomplish a balance?
Dr. Callahan admits (page 195) that filling the soil with magnets
wouldn't be very practical, even though, he says, magnetic energy
controls root growth. On the other hand, he believes that restoring
"this paramagnetic energy collector…with truck loads of volcanic
gravel or ash plowed into the soil is a much more practical idea."
And Dr. Callahan believes this same
approach is extremely practical for small gardeners, "as is the
building of six foot miniature round towers in a garden." (I’ll
swear it once more; I’m not making any of this up.)
Finally, he sums up his approach by
saying, "It is much better to do all things as God intended by
capturing the magnetic frequencies from the sun with the paramagnetic
soil or round tower antenna. In one sentence, make your soil
susceptible (resonate) to the sun, do not, with magnets, try to bring
the sun to earth."
On the other hand, Dr. Callahan has
recently joined forces with
Nature's Alternatives to
tout the mineral magnetite as a soil amendment because it is "the most
paramagnetic of all rocks." This is, in effect, adding magnets to the
soil, since magnetite is a permanently magnetic form of iron ore,
commonly known as lodestone. As such, it is ferromagnetic and not
paramagnetic at all. So maybe he has changed his mind since writing
this book. But he still doesn't understand what paramagnetism is.
Paramagnetism (1995)
Much of this same information is
repeated or summarized in his second book, Paramagnetism, but
Dr. Callahan introduces an additional aspect when he describes (pages
80 and 81) the need for an inexpensive, hand-held meter for measuring
the paramagnetism of soil samples. It turns out that he, working
with others, has developed just such a device. (Surprise! Surprise!)
Dr. Callahan's meter is named the P. C.
Soil Meter (PCSM), which, he explains, can be interpreted as either
the "Paramagnetic Count Soil Meter" or the "Phil Callahan Soil Meter,"
whichever you choose. The wonderful thing, he says, is that this
meter can be bought for only $400, instead of the $4,000 to $5,000
cost of other meters of this type.
If you want to buy a PCSM for your own
use, or if you’re interested in the plans for building miniature round
towers for your garden, I feel sure you could contact Dr. Callahan
through his publisher, Acres U.S.A. Or maybe the "Doctor of Dirt" can
help you.
As a final thought to ponder, on page
270 of the 1996 revision of Eco-Farm—An Acres U.S.A. Primer,
written and published by Dr. Callahan’s own publisher, there is a
curious, but revealing statement. "Phil Callahan," it says, "is a bug
man and a generalist of sorts. We wish he were also a soils man."
‘Nuff said.
Addendum
It turns out that Phil Callahan wrote a
book in 1984, which preceded the two discussed here. That book,
Ancient Mysteries, Modern Visions, was previously out of print,
but Acres U.S.A. reissued it in the latter part of 2000, so it's once
again available.
In this earlier work, Dr. Callahan
explains, with considerable "scientific" detail, his theories of
paramagnetism and the round towers of Ireland, the "real" meanings of
Egyptian hieroglyphics and of the pyramids, the relationship between
cathedral towers and the antennae of insects, and how he "proved" that
particles moving faster than the speed of light (tachyons) actually
exist, using only an "electrometer" and a Benjamin ficus tree.
Furthermore, he explains how ancient Egyptian priests levitated
people, lists the requirements for levitation and for levitating a
person or object, and explains how levitation is directly related to
paramagnetism.
This book is quite entertaining and, at
a cost of only $16.00, is certainly worth what amounts to the price of
a couple of movie tickets.
And
Approved
