by: Kahuna Lani
Huna Work International #269 – Autumn, 1982
Psychometric Analysis, a high water mark in the development of Huna, was born of humble beginnings in the France of the 1890’s. It was created by a man of the name of Bovis as a development in the field of radiesthesia. He was one of the people who set up the French Bureau of Standards.
Previous to the time of its creation, cheese and wine had to be opened and a sample extracted, in order to determine the state of ripeness. Any such testing, however, runs the risk of ruining the very materials so tested by the accidental introduction of air-borne yeasts.
M. Bovis began to use a pendulum to perform various qualitative tests. By a process of trial and error he eventually arrived at a special platform, composed of special materials, which gave him what he needed – reliability.
During one of his world-spanning tours, Dr. Oscar Brunler, a physicist, became interested in M. Bovis’ work and was trained by him in its use, and was given one of his instruments.
Dr. Brunler made several important discoveries with the instrument and designed another instrument to incorporate his discoveries, which he named the Bovis-Brunler Biometer.
Dr. Brunler became acquainted with Huna while he was traveling in England. When he moved permanently to southern California, he approached Max Freedom Long with his findings. In his examination of Huna, Dr. Brunler knew that he had at last found a home. Indeed, the findings of his intense research completely supported the Huna doctrines of the existence of three Selves in man.
As time went by, Max also made certain discoveries concerning what had been named Psychometric Analysis. He found that the complex instrument could be done away with, so long as the Analyst was properly trained.
By 1968 I had from Max a rather complete set of the HRA Bulletins and Huna Vistas, and was having a field day of exciting discoveries concerning the breadth and depth of Huna. The first thing I wanted to be trained in was Psychometric Analysis.
If I had realized that I would only have two and a half years of his counsel before he died, I would have pushed myself harder. But if I could only have him pass on to me just one element of Huna Lore, I could have made no better choice than Psychometric Analysis. In the end he gave me three trainings. Psychometric Analysis is the backbone of my healing work, and most of my other Huna work.
THE TECHNICAL DEVELOPMENT OF PSYCHOMETRIC ANALYSIS
The use of the pendulum requires the training of the aunihipili, to enable it to make direct communication with its auhane. This involves a set of coded movements called conventions. We have seen that at its birth, Psychometric Analysis was an unremarkable use of the pendulum, except that it had to be more reliable than the normal use of the pendulum, since it was an element of the Government of France.
But Psychometric Analysis is a thing of its own, half of itself, half of the operator. As if buried in the brain or the mind, or a thought of the Po`e Aumakua of Huna itself, Psychometric Analysis has its true foundation.
Dr. Brunler used the Bovis-Brunler Biometer to assist in medical diagnosis. Like many HRAs, but few others in the borderline sciences, Dr. Brunler kept accurate and detailed case histories.
M. Bovis and Dr. Brunler had established through experimentation that a reading of each internal organ could be obtained by touching different parts of a person’s hands and doing a rather automatic reading on the Biometer. In this way a medical diagnosis of the person’s health in each of his organs was obtained. The convention to which he had trained his aunihipili was single scale of 0 – 100. Since it was to indicate the state of health of the body’s organs, the greater the state of health, the higher the reading on the scale. In this way he did 10,000 readings of people during the 1930s and 1940s.
But then there was the right thumb. It was here that the unique qualities and character of Psychometric Analysis was asserting itself in adolescent rebellion. For on the right thumb, the reading went off the scale! Remember that he had trained his aunihipili never to go over 100. That it was unable to discover which organ was being read.
He was compelled to invent a scale of 0 – 1000, in order to encompass the right thumb readings. And he recorded that mysterious reading in his case histories, not knowing what it was.
Then one day he was doing a reading of a young girl who was mentally deficient. When he came to the right thumb reading, he must have been struck dumb. It was the lowest reading on the right thumb he had ever gotten. Could it be that, against all conventions and training, he was reading the intelligence of the girl?
He went back to his case histories. There he found the answer. The more intelligent the person, the higher the right thumb reading. And he had never seen it before.
Then he arranged his 10,000 readings by degree levels and a great pattern emerged before his eyes. He had never noticed this pattern before. He had been so concerned with the individual trees that he never realized that, bit by bit, he had been tracing a forest.
Taken as a whole, he saw that certain traits and abilities were common to each level. That you could see them develop as the readings got higher, then fall away and be replaced by other talents and natural skills.
Throughout the 10,000 readings, taken as a whole, he saw the evolution of the human soul throughout its incarnations. He called this the measurement of the soul’s evolution, and named it the Biometric Degree Level.
Once a person is placed on this scale, his innate level of intelligence is disclosed, as well as what skills he may have (whether he is aware of them or not), what manual skills he has, what occupations people of that level have been most successful at, and what weaknesses or pitfalls his level has.
It was at this point, or shortly thereafter, that he first encountered Huna.
The traits of the different Biometric Degree Levels were made possible by the extensive notes he had kept in his case histories.
The third part of what would become a Standard Psychometric Analysis was set in place. Dr. Brunler started to concentrate on doing the Biometric Degree Readings. But there was a problem of the little lines and circles the pendulum was making before he could get the Biometric Degree Reading. Again, through case history studies, he had a vague idea of what information his aunihipili was trying to convey, but no real understanding of what was being measured.
When Dr. Brunler died in 1950, the problem was left for Max Freedom Long to solve. He came to the startling conclusion that the lines – all the lines – were measurements of the aunihipili. No matter what you try to do, no matter what convention you try to establish, first come the lines of the auhane, second come the circles of the aunihipili, followed by the Biometric Degree Level. All these things have greater complexities than I have space for here.
Originally, Max had been trained on the Bovis-Brunler Biometer instrument, which had a long projection for the Biometric Degree Reading. Dr. Brunler theorized that, once a sample was placed on the end of the Biometer, actual waves were sent out, and that these interfered in some way with the pendulum at some point on the scale, causing it to swing. While this might have explained why the pendulum itself could create the Biometric Degree indication, this later proved to be false. Max had the idea that the complex instrument was not really needed, and designed a modified clock face which he considered ideal for P.A. Readings. Leaving a long tape for the Biometric Degree Level, he produced exactly the same readings as Dr. Brunler had with his instrument. Today we are left with the same mystery, what or who designed the Psychometric Analysis conventions? It was not the people who designed the system.
All the elements of the Standard Psychometric Analysis were now in place. The experimental work to establish its reliability had been done. It was now time to assimilate it into Huna, and to begin to use it as a major tool of investigation.
THE HUNA DOCTRINE OF ASSIMILATION
Max Freedom Long was knowledgeable about Astrology and mentions his use of it from time to time. Why didn’t Astrology become a part of Huna, then?
Huna has a specific character. Early on Max established the general type of knowledge which could eventually become a part of Huna, one of a whole set of understandings that I’ve come to think of, and call, the Huna Rules of Order.
The old-time Huna was stretched and warped beyond recognition wherever it left its traces. It consumed the lifetimes of Dr. William Tufts Brigham and Max to fit a few of the pieces back together again. The idea that Max would leave Huna so vulnerable again is absurd; he knew quite well what had happened before. I don’t know why he left them implicit rather than explicit. Perhaps he, like most of us, was sick and tired of dogmatic doctrines, which have caused so much unhappiness and even evil in the world around us. He speaks out against dogma throughout his writings. Nevertheless, that Huna has doctrines cannot be denied, by any sensible definition of the word. It seems to be a lot like asking why a person is shouting at you, and he screams back, I’m not shouting. So, yes, I know, Huna has no Doctrines, we all agree. Now let us examine for the moment the Huna Doctrine of Assimilation.
The best articulation of this doctrine comes from Mr. Charles Kenn’s book, Firewalking from the Inside, written in 1949, when Mr. Kenn was waxing full in support of Huna and the work of Max Freedom Long, and was a valued HRA. I quote: “Once a set of ideas has been accepted, it is fitted neatly in with other ideas already a part of the scheme of things, and soon takes on the aspect of having been a part of the systems for centuries back. In this process of adopting the new beliefs and practices, slight changes are made.”
While Mr. Kenn was describing the assimilation of fire-walking into the Polynesian culture, it is easy to see from this why Psychometric Analysis was assimilated into Huna and Astrology, which Max had studied, was not. Astrology can’t be civilized and fitted neatly into the Huna scheme of things. This doesn’t make Astrology less valid or valuable – just not Huna. Huna has little to say, for example, on doing one’s laundry. That doesn’t mean it isn’t a good idea to do one’s laundry from time to time, as the spirit moves one.
While I’m on this point, it should be pointed out that the moment the clock face is abandoned, from that instant on, you are no longer doing a Psychometric Analysis. Whatever you’re doing, it is not necessarily unreliable. It is just a different method than the P.A. Reading.
The P.A. patterns were compelled on us. We had to discover what they meant. They were not really conventions in the normal sense of the word, i.e., signals agreed upon ahead of time. Its reliability rests on that fact, as well as on the 10,000 case histories. In advanced P.A. research, which went on for more than a decade after Max published his book, Psychometric Analysis, it was found that only one specific question could be asked during a P.A. Reading. Ask any other question and reliability was lost. One’s aunihipili guessed at the answer.
MY TRAINING UNDER MAX FREEDOM LONG
When I began to understand the importance of this Huna Art, I asked Max to teach it to me. The basics I got from his book. First, the conventions of Pendology had to be learned. It does no good for your aunihipili to feel a counter-clockwise need and have no idea of how to express it in the real world. I learned the conventions easily (not surprising from my Biometric Degree Level, which is known for its pendulum users). But the best, easiest and fastest way to learn them is to have an experienced person teach them to you. Aunihipilis learn from each other. I believe that is why an unbroken line of masters is so important to many disciplines and why so many things cannot be learned from books.
The hard part is the Biometric Degree Level. Here a person has to be calibrated like a sensitive, electronic instrument.
You will remember that when Dr. Brunler started to do readings on the right thumb, it went off a scale of 0 – 100, so he created a new scale of 0 – 1,000. Psychometric Analysis is half the scale, half the operator. Anyone who studies Max’s book will probably be able to do the auhane and aunihipili readings, and have Biometric Degree Reading which goes off a scale of 0 – 100. All the Biometric Degree Levels are related to Dr. Brunler’s scale of 0 – 1,000; and that scale existed only in his mind. Therefore, the Biometric Degree Level, with someone who only studies Max’s book, varies from one reading to another. A definite problem.
Max was taught Psychometric Analysis by Dr. Brunler and his aunihipili picked up the scale from Dr. Brunler’s aunihipili. And this is how Max taught it to me: Once I had the conventions down, I spent months going around to every friend and relative who would cooperated and got their signatures in ink. I even went to fellow employees where I worked. I would do their P.A.’s, then send them one or two at a time to Max, who would also do their P.A. Readings. When I got their P.A.s back from Max, I would compel my Biometric Readings to match Max’s.
After a number of months, my aunihipili got the hang of what Max’s scale was and we agreed on the Degree Level after that.
I also made a slight change in the P.A. forms I printed up. Since it did not change my readings, it proved to be a proper move. Dr. Brunler believed in the physical action of the Biometric scale and his instrument. Max dropped the instrument in favor of a modified clock face, but kept the long and cumbersome scale. I drafted a fan-shaped scale which listed the major cusps of the Biometric Degree Levels. Even with the tape, Max would only use it for a general indication of the reading, then count to himself for the exact degree. I use the fan-shaped scale in the same way. It provides a general indication, then I count to myself for the exact degree. After I tested it, I threw away the cumbersome tape. And that was that.
PSYCHOMETRY VS. THE HUNA CONCEPT OF RELIABILITY
Reliability is one of the cornerstones of Huna. Without that principle, along with mania for experimentation, Huna would just be a funny way of saying Metaphysics or Psychic Science. I think it all started with fire-walking. If there is one need there, it is reliability. How does Huna come by this reliability? The same way you get brandy from wine, by boiling it down. The two things in the end don’t taste anything like each other.
Trade-offs: Psychometry is the ability to receive impressions from an object held in the hand. One may receive a broad scope of impressions from the object’s owner, but I’ve never seen a Psychometrist who could reliably seek after specific information. Psychometric Analysis is the boiled down brandy of the Psychometric wine. A Psychometric Analyst will always get the information he seeks, but he will never receive any impressions at all. The two skills seem to be mutually exclusive. The Psychometric Analyst gives up Psychometry, because it is unreliable and uses Psychometric Analysis because it is reliable and produces information of a practical nature. In my own case, and I suspect in most or all cases, I have been utterly unable to develop any Psychometry skill at all. The learning of either one, I believe, destroys the other.
The most common way of boiling down that I have observed in my study of Huna is typified by Psychometric Analysis, and also what might be called Clairesthesia.
My theory is this: When we are born, our aunihipili is fairly innocent and develops by stages. As one grows and development continues, the possibility exists for emotional impacts to become interwoven into the controlling areas of the thought-form array of the aunihipili in the form of fixations and complexes.
Simple motor-skill development is one of the first things to develop, hence one of the areas of least possible aberration. One of the last things to develop is the auhane/aunihipili interface called the field of imagination, a major tool of communication between the two Selves – and the place where Psychometry impressions are presented. The aunihipili must translate its sense impressions into pictures to be able to use the interface. These impressions have the opportunity to be altered, like a pi-ball being bounced from one pin to the next. By relocating these sense impressions to the motor reflexes that operate a pendulum, the necessity to translate them into pictures is avoided. Reliability is secured, for the most part, but the pictures are lost.
THE AUMAKUA’S INVOLVEMENT
When I was advertising my services through Fate Magazine, I received a letter asking me why the aunihipili did all the work, and the Aumakua was not involved in the doing of the reading itself. Here are four reasons:
- It isn’t necessary. It works just fine now, thank you. Remember that Psychometric Analysis was not created so that we might have something else to do with our pendulums. Nor was it created to have another area where we could pull our Aumakuas into our lives. It was created to have another area of service we could offer the community and as a tool of investigation.
- When we want information from our Aumakuas, we have a better tool in the Kalo Cards. The great pitfall in any Art or Science that does not rely on physical materials alone is self-delusion. The pendulum is the tool of the aunihipili, just as the tool of the Aumakua is the Kalo Cards. Every person written up in the records of Huna Research who believed that they were in contact with their Aumakua through the pendulum were in the end found to be deluded. Some were even being enticed by evil entities pretending to be Aumakuas. Max eventually came to the understanding that all the Guidance that came to him through the pendulum was false!
- If something ain’t broken, don’t try to fix it. We know that the aunihipili is very good at measuring things; we do not know that of the Aumakua.
- We are responsible for the training and development of the aunihipili. This is a part, an important part of its training.
THE STANDARD PSYCHOMETRIC ANALYSIS READING
The Psychometric Analyst sits down with a witness, i.e., something that has an ‘aka thread attached – a signature in ink (pencil will not hold an ‘aka thread for long), a photograph, a drop of blood or saliva or other body fluid. In the general course of my work I would rather use a signature in ink rather than a sweaty sock. He has his pendulum which is only used for Psychometric Analysis, so as to provide a response stimulus, a pad of P.A. charts and some colored pencils.
He then enters a light state of reverie and admonishes the aunihipili with a command Max thought very important to the P.A. work, but didn’t put in his book on the subject because the book was meant for the general public.
The pendulum is centered over the clock face and a gentle expectancy ensues. After a time the pendulum is seen to start swinging. Once the pattern is completed, the pattern is transferred onto the clock face and the process is repeated until there are no new elements. The one acceptable question is asked, and the initial process is completed.
This is followed by an Analysis of each of the three elements: The goodness or badness of the auhane, its strength, any mental development, etc., the constructiveness or destructiveness of the aunihipili, its level of mana (the Standing Charge), the presence of heavy complexes and/or fixations, Eating Companions, etc., and the Biometric Degree Level.
Then the whole is brought by the use of Synthesis to an Over-all Evaluation. This final part is the description of the whole personality, along with any comments or indications.
ADVANCED FINDINGS
Max’s book, Psychometric Analysis, was published in 1959 and there was more than a decade of research and development after that time. However, if this article is not to become book length itself, we will have to omit the research and simply mention the final conclusions.
- A way was found to split P.A. Readings so that obsessional entities could be read separately.
- A way was found to make P.A. Readings of Aumakuas.
- Much work was done on the Perfect Will Pattern (which I am continuing to follow).
- Once it was established how many Biometric Degree points the average person gained in a lifetime, the degree point where a person begins Human Life, as well as the readings of Aumakuas, it was determined that the average person could live no more than sixty lifetimes. Once that was determined, it was possible to give the approximate lifetimes behind and before any one Biometric Degree level.
- It was determined that the Biometric Degree Level was actually a combination of the levels of the auhane and the aunihipili and a way was found to make a separate reading of each Self. Yet, since we have no 10,000 case histories to measure them against, these have not been validated at this time.
- Work was done on animals.
- Prayer increases the Biometric Degree Level, but faces quickly away.
- Effective Healing Icons raise the apparent Biometric Degree Level to 600°, which assists, or is entirely responsible for the healing.
- The only common trait in those people that have the highest rates of growth is that they have all suffered greatly and have never given up.
THE SCOPE OF THE P.A. WORK
Again, we will summarize. The Standard P.A. can detect a con man, can tell if a person is obsessed by an Eating Companion, tells the stage of development of certain kinds of mental development, can indicate sub-clinical diseases, helps in counseling, helps to show what skills a person may develop, points to faults or traps in each degree level, and can indicate how to overcome them.
