Westlake, Aubrey T(homas) (1893-1985)

Prominent British authority on radiesthesia, alternative medical therapies, and holistic health. Born in 1893, in Red-hill, Surrey, he was educated at the Quaker Sidcot school, and he trained in medicine at Birmingham and Cambridge universities and St. Bartholomew's Hospital, London. He entered general practice in Bermondsey, London. In 1938, he and his family moved to the family estate at Fordingbridge, Hampshire, where Westlake continued the private practice of medicine.

He also spent many years investigating a wide range of alternative studies beyond the purely physical parameters of orthodox medical science, such as the Bach flower remedies, medical dowsing, radiesthesia, radionics, the odic force of Baron von Reichenbach, the orgone energy of Wilhelm Reich, Huna, homeopathy, and anthroposophical medicine. In 1956, he formed a study group with several associates, investigating the use of radiesthesia techniques in healing patients at a distance.

The wide range of his inquiries is demonstrated in his important paper "Vis Medicatrix Naturae," given at the Scientific and Technical Congress of Radionics and Radiesthesia, London, May 16, 1950. He published a number of important articles and a major work, The Pattern of Health (1961).

He was a founding member of the Soil Association, an active member of the Medical Society for the Study of Radiesthesia, an honorary fellow of the Radionic Association, an honorary life vice president of the British Society of Dowsers, and president of the Psionic Medical Society. He died at the age of 92 in Fordingbridge, on October 30, 1985.