Remembering Dr. Randolph Stone
by Louise Hilger
January 20, 1968
Dr. Randolph Stone is an ardent devotee of Huzur Maharaj Baba Sawan Singh Ji, having been initiated on November 17, 1945. This Initiation was the culmination of his long search and yearning for communion with the Creator, the one God and Lord of all. It was therefore deeply appreciated by him, as he had been seeking and studying various occult and esoteric teachings practically all of his life. He was a student of philosophy as well as of the underlying secrets and background of the known religions of the past and the present including the Hermetic and Kabalistic Doctrines. Prior to this, every time he thought he had found what lie was looking for, he later discovered that there was something missing. But this time he know that he need look no further and that now it was merely a matter of applying himself by treading the Path under the guidance of the living Master. He has dedicated the remainder of his life to the Guru and is most grateful for that privilege.
He was the youngest of six children– two boys and four girls– born in a Catholic family in Engelberg, Austria on February 26, 1890. Even his birth was attended by unusual circumstances. He was considered dead on arrival, as if he dreaded and tried to escape entering into this world. After unsuccessful attempts at reviving him the funeral candles were lit and placed on each side of the body, but before it was taken away for preparation for burial, it slowly came to life. His mother departed from this world when he was but two years of age. He migrated to the U.S.A. with his father and a sister in 1903, two other sisters following later, after the father had established a home in Elgin, Illinois. Meanwhile the young boys his father and his sister arrived in Chicago on July 4, 1903 to change trains for Almena and Turtle Lake, Wisconsin, where they had friends from Austria and through whom the father established a temporary home in Turtle Lake before moving on to Elgin and sending for the other daughters.
At the tender age of thirteen, Dr. Stone began to earn his own living as a farm hand in Turtle Lake, Wisconsin. The family for whom he worked and their Lutheran Congregation were so impressed with his diligence and sincerity as well as his devotional tendencies and his eagerness for knowledge that they granted him a scholarship to the Concordia Lutheran College in Saint Paul, Minnesota, where he studied to be a Lutheran Minister. Previously, as he was well versed in the German language and knew practically no English, he studied the English language by means of comparing the German Bible with the English Bible. That is how well he knew his Bible at that young age. He was even able to help the senior students with their German and they in turn helped him with his English.
While at Concordia College, he became seriously ill with typhoid fever and brain fever. On recovering, when he was still quite weak though able to move about, he went home to Elgin, Illinois (near Chicago) and learned part of the machinist trade. Then he worked his way out west (Montana, Wyoming Oregon, Washington, California, Arizona and Nevada) to regain his health and earn his living. All this time he continued seeking and studying, while working on ranches, in mines, in machine and railroad shops, whatever honest employment he could get, and came in contact with many types of people. He always helped others out of his meager income.
When nineteen years of age he realized that what he was looking for was not confined to orthodox religions. He took the Nazarene Vow, went on a rigid diet and intermittent strict fasting and spent most of his time in seclusion and in meditation. He later realized that this too was not the way to attain enlightenment of a true spiritual nature. As he wanted to help humanity as well as himself, he decided to take up the healing profession, to which he was naturally inclined. He was always a great lover of Nature and preferred natural methods and drugless therapy, so he studied Osteopathy, Chiropractic, Naturopathy, Naprapathy, and Neuropathy, and received his degrees in all of them. He passed his State Board Examinations in 1914 in the Colosseum on 14th St. & Wabash Avenue in Chicago, Illinois. He answered the same questions side by side with the Medical Graduates at that time and was granted an O.P. (Other Practitioners) License, which broadly covers all the methods of drugless healing without surgery. After that he continued with post-graduate studies and making his own research, because in this field too, he felt that each branch had something to offer but was not complete as it did not cover the entire constitution of man. In other words, the subtle body of energies which animates the gross body was not represented in the healing art. That is how he developed his own Polarity Therapy and specialized in difficult cases in later years, sharing his knowledge with the other doctors through his personally conducted classes and the books which he authored. Most of his studies were in Chicago and that is where he settled in 1912, and bought his present home there in 1918.
He was such a great lover of Nature that whenever he could, he would go out into a forest or woods, somewhere near a stream or a lake, away from all human habitation, lost in contemplation of God in Nature. Wild animals never bothered him nor did he ever harm or fear them. After passing his State Board Exam and obtaining his License in 1914, but before setting up in practice, he decided to go up north into the Canadian wilderness for some rest and relaxation away from the noisy city life. He took the train as far as it went in those days and from the end of the line traveled on foot. He carried with him only the barest necessities consisting of a small pup tent, books, a Hudson Bay blanket and a short-handled axe to chop his way through some of the underbrush and thickets whenever necessary. Food did not interest him. He utilized this time to try out the fasting theory and after a two-week fast he lived on wild berries and whatever vegetation he could find in the wilderness. Many times he had to ford and sometimes swim across a stream or a lake, then dry out on the opposite shore before proceeding further. His mattress consisted of pine boughs which he had gathered before retiring at night, and often he slept with but the trees or the sky for his roof. The latter happened at Loon Lake and at Lake Nippigon, his target. Both places were without human habitation at that time, though now they are popular resorts and there is good transportation all the way to them and beyond. Many places that he visited in this manner have since become popular resorts.
Here it may well be in order to relate an amusing incident. One time, during Dr. Stone’s trip in the Canadian wilderness when he was on a two-week fast and was taking a sun bath beside his tent in an open area, amidst wild blueberry and huckleberry bushes surrounded by woods at a distance, he was near a huckleberry bush that was laden with berries. He had thought he would pick and eat those berries when he broke his fast. He heard a rustling and cracking sound, as though the berries were being picked. He sat up to look and just then a bear cub popped up on the other side of that little huckleberry bush. The Doctor and the bear looked each other in the face, eye to eye, less than two feet apart. The cub was as startled as the doctor, uttered a deep grunt like “Hoo” and took, off as fast as it could. The Doctor just sat there, in love with a bear. It was then Dr. Stone noticed that a short distance away the mother bear and a brother or sister cub– both cubs being about one year old– were picking huckleberries by combing them off the bushes with their paws and eating them & they were slowly moving up a hill.
As Dr. Stone watched their performance, he noticed that the mother bear was trying to teach the cubs to fend for themselves. She wanted the cubs to pick their share of berries and eat, just like a human mother encourages her little ones to eat what is good for them. At times, instead of picking berries and eating as they were supposed to do, the cubs would romp and play on the hillside. They would seem to be wrestling with each other in a clinch until both of them would tumble all the way down the hill– rolled up together in one big furry ball landing at the bottom of the hill after rolling over rocks and rough ground which did not seem to bother them at all. Then the mother bear would run after them and discipline them by swatting both of them so hard that they flew into the air and landed on the ground with a loud thump. They would squeal with all their might and then obediently follow their mother. Apparently the cubs knew the mother’s purpose in disciplining them, for all three would go back to their berry-picking and eating, the mother grunting contentedly as if pleased that her children were able to forage for themselves and being properly nourished. None of them were the least concerned about the “intruder” who was but a mere spectator and whom their play had amused. They must have sensed that he meant them no harm, because normally a mother bear with cubs is dangerously vicious in her instinctive efforts to protect her offspring.
In August 1916, after being in practice for two years and teaching in the then newly-founded Eclectic School for Doctors, at that time located in the Wendel Bank Building at the corner of Ashland and Madison Avenues in Chicago, he married Mrs. Anne L, Stone, a divorced lady from Denmark, who then lived in Chicago. She was a practical nurse trained in the famous Lindhlar Nature Cure Sanitarium on Ashland Avenue in Chicago, and she had been head nurse there for a time in 1912. The Doctor met her in the Esoteric Study Center in Dr. Washburn’s Sanitarium in Elgin, Illinois several years before they were married and when she was head nurse there. Their interest and spiritual aspirations were mutual at that time although she was twenty years older than he.
However, after their marriage, Mrs. Stone developed great social ambitions and became a very active member of the Illinois Women’s Athletic Club. This led to many dinner parties, lavish entertainments for Club members, and so forth, which became a strain on the home and family ties because it was a race to keep up and try to surpass other members in home furnishings, expensive antiques, paintings, oriental rugs and the like. She continued in her social whirl until her heart gave out and she passed on in June 1935.
Mrs. Stone’s eldest sister had come over from Denmark and lived with Dr. Stone and his wife soon after they were married. She kept house for Dr. Stone after Mrs. Stone’s death until 1938, and passed on shortly after that when she had retired with some Danish friends in Chicago. After Mrs. Stone’s death, Dr. Stone managed to pay off the mortgage on his home within a few years and devoted all his time and resources to his professional, philosophical and spiritual pursuits.
It may be mentioned here that at his wife’s insistence, he legally changed his name from Rudolf Bautsch to Randolph Stone. Meanwhile, he had become an American citizen through his father’s naturalization when he was still in his youth. However, during and even after World War I there was so much hatred toward anything German– even a name that sounded German– and his wife also objected to the name of Bautsch. So he made application to have his name changed by order of the Court. This was granted in the Superior Court of Chicago, Cook County, Illinois in 1919 by the Doctor’s good friend and patient, the Honorable Judge Hurley. Ever since that time he has been known as Dr. Randolph Stone.
All the while he was devoting his energies to his research and his profession, Dr. Stone never stopped seeking the Spiritual Depths, the Mysteries of Life, as he termed them at that time. He was an avid reader of all the occult, esoteric and hermetic books that he could find, sometimes even depriving himself of the necessities of life in order to obtain a book which he thought would contain the answer. As a result, he accumulated a library of books from the attic to the basement of his home. Not only did he read books, but whenever any yogi or so-called spiritual leader came to Chicago, whom he thought might have the answer, he attended their lectures, took their courses at high fees and housed and fed many of them– only to find that some of them were fakes and others, though sincere, knew no more than he did about the Mysteries of Life.
He joined the Masonic Lodge which, though it has high ideals, he concluded was merely a social and charitable organization, having forgotten the very meaning of their rituals of the LOST WORD. He was a student of Vivekananda’s teachings as well as of Swami Rama Tirtha, Yogananda, Krishnamurti, Swedenbourg, Madam Blavatsky and many others. He was a member of the Philosophical Research Society, having attended Dr. Manly P. Hall’s lectures and purchased and read all of his books. He was also a student of Rosicrucianism and Sufism, and was offered the leadership of the Sufis in Chicago at that time. This he declined as still he felt that it was all well and good, but not the answer for which he was seeking. Many of the teachings hinted at self-realization and God-realization– some even kept promising that for an additional fee they would tell more, and after that just kept promising and promising for additional fees, but no one ever mentioned HOW or exactly WHAT to do to attain spiritual enlightenment. Each time he met with the same disappointment, but was never discouraged from continuing his search.
His favorite books that he actually kept under his pillow and read most frequently– also memorized– were the Bhagavad Gita, Light on the Path and the Voice of the Silence. Now that he is on the Path, all those Truths stand revealed, but without the ‘key’ from the living Master, they are but nice words and cannot be put into actual practice.
When Mysticism the Spiritual Path, Volume II was handed to him along with the Path of the Masters, in August 1945 by a friend who asked his opinion about these teachings, he stayed up all night to read the first-mentioned book. The next morning he expressed his great joy and happiness by saying, “This is exactly what I have been looking for all my life!” And no wonder it meant so much to him, for that book contained the actual discourses of the living Master as recorded by Professor Lekh Raj Puri, and explained everything that he wanted to know. He immediately adopted the diet requirements and applied for Initiation. In those days it took at least two months for an acceptance to come through. Happily, it arrived in October and arrangements were made immediately for Initiation through the Master’s representative who was then the only representative in the United States and was located in Orange, California. There was some delay in traveling to California due to the fact that there were still travel restrictions in connection with World War II. Finally he was able to get a train reservation and on November 17th in 1945 received the longed-for Initiation into the Path of the Masters of Sant Mat.
After further research in the healing art, through the Master’s Grace, Dr. Stone discovered and was able to apply the Polarity Principle of the finer electromagnetic energies based on the bipolar cellular structure in the human body. He feels that this lost art of the Ancients, covering the entire constitution of man and his finer energies and circuits, will be re-discovered as the science of the future. Man is the microcosm or microfilm which contains the whole play of life’s energies in expression, the same as the macrocosm. Dr. Stone says that since man’s physical body is the epitome of the universe, his mind is a spark of the universal mind and his soul is a spark of the Supreme Being; therefore, the causes of physical ailments are in the energy fields, and the symptoms and pains are merely the effects in the physical body. By applying these natural principles and the understanding of energies at play which need balancing, through skill and keen observation and much research he has been able to trace these “energy blocks” and prove his theory in practice. Thus he has been able to help many difficult cases and some that were considered hopeless by other methods, not only in America but many places in world, and renders similar service as a labor of love at the Dera in India.
Dr. Stone says that the energies which animate the human body are gross and subtle physiological functions. He does not delve into nor teach any psychic phenomena, nor does he approve of its use. He has proved that the energies in the body can be dealt with as scientifically as the atomic research without going into the psychic field or any phenomena, which only leads one astray by scattering the mind and the attention currents. He states that when the body is in good health these energies are balanced and co-ordinate harmoniously through the variations of the polarity function of the three gunas or qualities as the positive, the negative and the neuter play in their sensory and motor manifestations. Dr. Stone says that the Ayurveds of old in India had a good understanding of the five elements and the five life-airs or breaths which they called pranas, which animate them and connect them for the function of the five senses, and they had specific names for each one of these energies.
In his unique system of Polarity Therapy, Dr. Stone applies and uses these principles of finer energies and the bipolar energy currents of the body and its cells, directly, like in the atomic energy research, or through the elements of the solids, liquids, gases and heat, through which they operate, he teaches that back of all this is the one life and subtle reality of the Sound and Light energy, the Shabd, by which all this was created as the radiant Word of the Will of the One Creator, Whose living, omnipresent breath is the one Life in all. The Soul is the unit-particle of this Eternal Whole. Life and Reality is Oneness, forms and embodiments are many,
The approach through the lines of force or Energy in the atom and in man reveals that these lines of energy-flow and cross-overs in the six physical chakras or subtle energy nerve centers in the body, are the same as in the atom. The attached picture of them shows it clearly. Man is in the atom and the atom is the unit in man in the energy field. Both are still in the unconscious constitution of Being, because they are in the subtle essence rather than in the gross anatomy. And this subtle body permeates and animates the gross, dense form like a magnetic charge. Otherwise, how could the life energy penetrate the dense, gross material of dead substance? Even iron responds to the magnetic lift. All is energy in essence, in various states of vibratory intensity– whether high or low, subtle or gross. Involution and evolution are facts of life and in the experience of consciousness as soul function, even as crystallization or condensation and vibration are gross physical phenomena.
This is Dr. Stone’s logical approach to the Path, through service and self-realization, which can be partially demonstrated in the true art of healing or balancing the five discordant elements of man’s constitution, as in Raja Yoga. All this can also be found in the deeper understanding of the sacred texts of the Bible and the Vedas. The Tree of Life is in man today as it was in the beginning. Its secret must be found within. The real authority rests on the full and true constitution of being. The Creator and His creation are One in Essence, and infinite in variety of forms and states of consciousness or beings as soul units in the process of creation. Forms as substance and life as energy, make the creation a physical reality. And consciousness or awareness of being presides over this whole great and wonderful play by the imminent omnipresence of the Sound Current or the Shabd, the Word of creation, which is the life and awareness in it. Thus the Creator is always present in His creation to direct it, sustain it, preserve it and care for all His children, who are more valuable to Him than sparrows. “Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing? And one of them shall not fall on the ground without your Father.” (Matt. 10:29) “Fear ye not therefore, ye are of more value -than many sparrows.” (Matt. 10:01)
Now comes the end of the story: To enable him to carry on, Dr. Stone engaged his niece, Miss Louise Hilger, in 1938, to manage his home and his office. She had wide experience in home management, being the eldest of six children and having shared the family burdens with her brother who was two years younger than she, as both parents had departed from this world. In order to come to Chicago she gave up a good position as office manager and private secretary to the Manufacturing Superintendent in the Main Office of the Fort Wayne, Indiana plant of the General Electric Company, which then had a payroll of more than ten thousand people. She was an excellent secretary and also gave private tuition in office training, typing and shorthand at the request of the management of the Company.
When she took over in Chicago, she put the Doctor’s books, his office and the whole house in order and made it a home. She has not only managed that well for almost thirty years, but has also compiled, typed, edited and arranged for the publication of all of Doctor’s books, his lectures and articles for newspapers and magazines and manages the distribution of same. She has set up his office records and arranged for a Bookkeeping Service so that the assistant, who is also a Satsangi, can carry on with the practice during Dr. Stone’s absence. She makes all the arrangements for and accompanies the Doctor on his tours in connection with the sale of his books, his lectures and classes for Doctors. It was she who arranged the trip to California for Initiation in 1945, and both she and the Doctor were initiated on the Path there at the same time. She also arranges the itineraries for and accompanies the Doctor on his trips abroad– always on the way to and from India, where she and the Doctor both have been and aim to continue to spend at least six months every year at the Feet of the Living Master at the Radha Soami Colony Beas, in the Punjab. Here too, in addition to being Dr. Stone’s secretary, she compiles, types, edits and indexes books as a labor of love for the Radha Soami Satsang Beas. She is also grateful for whatever assignment the Master is pleased to give her and is happy in His service.
Dr. Stone will be 78 years of age in February and still carries on with his usual enthusiasm and good sense of humor, in his research, treatments, consultations and giving advice in classes and in private practice as well as a labor of love at the Dera. He is now enjoying the well-deserved privilege of spending more time at the Feet of the Living Master and in meditation in his endeavor to reach his spiritual Home of Peace and Bliss. He says that the Guru’s Grace and Miss Hilger’s devoted and helpful care (also by the Master’s Grace) have made all this possible, for which he is eternally grateful.