Who Was Marcel Vogel?
From an IBM Researcher to a Crystal Healer
Marcel Vogel was a German-born chemist who, after moving to the US, worked for IBM from 1956–1966. During this time he developed a number of patents for IBM that improved the efficiency of microchip technologies. He also developed an interest in crystal healing, which led him to spend a lot of time creating perfumes and essential oils during his off-hours.
Marcel Vogel worked for IBM in San Jose for 27 years as a research scientist. He received numerous patents for his inventions during this time. The magnetic coating for the 24" hard disc drive systems still in use was one of them. Among his specialties were phosphor technology, liquid crystal systems, luminescence, and magnetics.
He then left IBM in 1966 to take over as head of research and development at Aromazone Inc., which is where he invented a technique called vibrational medicine. This technique uses sound waves to break up water molecules into a crystalline state.
Later on in his life, Marcel did pioneering work on man-plant communication in the 1970s. This led to the study of quartz crystals and the creation of the Vogel-cut crystal. Vogel-cut crystals are instruments that store, amplify, convert, and cohere subtle energies.
He also researched the therapeutic applications of quartz crystals, which led him to investigate crystals’ relationship with water. Water could be structured by spinning it around a tuned crystal, changing many of its characteristics, and converting it into an information storage system.
Marcel Vogel work
Marcel studied the relationship between quartz crystals and water for 17 years. He appears to have been drawn to this work throughout his entire life. In 1984, Marcel retired from IBM after nearly 27 years as a senior research scientist. He founded his own laboratory, Psychic Research, Inc. Research was conducted in the laboratory on the subtle energies that emanate from living organisms. It was his intention to quantify these forces and create a systematic vocabulary for identifying these energies that have largely been dismissed as ‘metaphysical’. His projects included:
- Purification of water by restructuring it.
- The process of structuring wines for rapid aging.
- Measurement of a crystal’s energy field.
- Use of crystals and crystal devices for therapeutic purposes.
Located within an ordinary industrial and office complex in San Jose, California, his laboratory had sophisticated scientific equipment. One of the rooms had an electron scanning microscope.
A Zeiss Ultramicroscope occupied another room. Zeiss Ultramicroscopes came with over two hundred accompanying objectives, as well as applications such as darkfield, light field, interference microscopy, polarized light microscopy, and contrasting chamber imaging. All of these were attached to a camera, computer, and video display system. Marcel assembled the Zeiss during his 27 years at IBM and it was used to detect things such as magnetic defects and errors.
A Cary Model 15 spectrophotometer with other incidental equipment in another room. Yet in another room, there was a radionic instrument known as the Omega 5, which was used to study fields that were otherwise undetectable by standard scientific equipment.
Through his research, Marcel hoped to prove that science and metaphysics are intrinsically compatible.
Marcel Vogel’s Early Life.
Marcel Vogel was born in San Francisco on April 14, 1917. He suffered from respiratory difficulties as a child and at the age of six had a near-death experience when he was officially pronounced dead of double lobar pneumonia. The impact of this experience was so profound that it was very difficult for Marcel to return to the so-called “normalcy” of childhood. He never did. During this time, he said he felt an overwhelming sense of love and well-being. Life became full of mysteries and curiosity that inspired him to question the meaning of life at such a young age.
When he was six years old, he became increasingly fascinated by the glow worms he saw in the backyard of his family’s vacation home. The minuscule insect fascinated him because of its ability to emit light.
In the quietness of prayer, he would walk to Mass each day and ask himself, “Why am I here?” What is my purpose in life?”
He heard a voice in his head say, “You will be a phosphor chemist.”. Your work in luminescence will be groundbreaking. “You will write a book and start your own business. Something that seemed to be a lot of responsibilities for an eleven-year-old boy.
Marcel built a laboratory in the back of their home with his father, Joseph. He set out to replicate the chemical that made the fireflies glow in his backyard. He had already synthesized the chemical phthalate compound at the age of twelve. When this compound is mixed with potassium ferrocyanide and hydrogen peroxide, it produces chemiluminescence that matches the light of a firefly.
His next attempt was to create a set of phosphors that would produce light in a tubular form. Marcel had seen a white powder of phosphor in a tube, which was able to convert ultraviolet radiation into visible light before fluorescent lights became popular. As a grammar school student, he visited the Mechanics Institute and translated original articles on phosphor chemistry from German. He thHe then replicated the outlined experiments in his own amateur laboratory.
Before he was fifteen, Marcel had synthesized and manufactured a set of phosphors. In his early years, he thought a rare earth phosphor would be the proper phosphor system. The positively charged ion would be composed of a rare-earth compound like europium, while the negatively charged ion would be composed of tungstate or silicate.
Originally, these ideas were derived from translated scientific papers published in the “Analan der Physik” and other German scientific journals of the day. During his years of prayer from ages six to twelve, his objective before enrolling in college was to become a phosphor chemist. Solid-state physics was born out of the blending of chemistry and physics he saw. Marcel always wished to be at the forefront of what he saw as the science of the future throughout his life.
Marcel systematically researched all the existing publications and papers in the field of luminescence during his high school and college years. Since there were no courses available, he taught himself. He studied chemistry and physics at the University of San Francisco while working at night to fund his education. He was unable to graduate with his class due to deteriorating health. In 1940, he completed his education privately with Dr. Peter Pringsheim.
A German refugee professor, Professor Pringsheim, was trying to find information about luminescence at the university library when they met. The librarian referred him to a young student named Marcel Vogel. He had apparently read everything in the library about the subject and would be more valuable to him than the librarian. The Luminescence of Liquids and Solids and Their Practical Application (Wiley Interscience-1943) was published two years later by the two men. In 1953, the book was translated into German and published in three editions. The book is currently out of print.
Inventions and patents developed by Marcel Vogel
Vogel Luminescence Corporation was formed after the publication of the book. Marcel pioneered the manufacture of fluorescent bulletin paints for outdoor signs and billboards from 1944 to 1957. He developed a complete set of fluorescent paints, oil colors, phosphorescent paints, fluorescent chalk, crayons, tempera colors, bulletin paints, invisible ink, tracing, and tagging powders used with insecticides detectable by black lights, another Vogel invention. Blacklight kits were also created to detect cancer, rodent contamination, and milk contamination.
He then published a paper entitled Vulvar Fluorescents: The Early Detection of Pregnancy and the Advent of Cancer with Ralph Benson. A candler that combines both visible and ultraviolet light was also patented by Vogel Luminescence. It can detect the presence of Pseudomonas fluorescence bacteria in eggs laid by chickens contaminated with the bacteria.
Marcel also worked part-time for IBM during this time with Vogel Luminescence. In collaboration with Ralph Flores and Don Johnson, he developed a magnetic coating formulation for IBM hard disks that is still in use today. There was a stable, adhesive coating of magnetic materials for a 24-inch diameter hard disk that required a completely new composition of matter.
The magnetic coating was not created by normal linear science. Many formulas were tried and failed with horrendous results. When the drive was turned on, the coating would either fall off the aluminum disk or bubble up like some pox-ridden biological specimen. Finally, exhausted after an 18 to 20-hour workday, Marcel collapsed into sleep in his tiny laboratory. Later, when he awoke, he was in the middle of a dream — a can of molasses floated in front of him with the words “infinite viscosity” echoing in his ears. Immediately, he knew what had to be done. There were two chemical agents brought together, the results of which we still use today.
Vogel Luminescence was sold to Ultra Violet Products in 1957, and Marcel joined IBM as a full-time research scientist. A non-lettered scientist, he became one of the most prolific new patent inventors in IBM’s Data Products Division history. His inventions include patents pertaining to magnetic recording media, liquid crystals, and the creation of rare-earth phosphors. Marcel was also granted many patents in the field of optoelectronics.
Among the projects were photo-relays for digital to analog converters and work with rare earth phosphors, which led to the development of the red hue for color televisions. His work with liquid crystals led to their emergence into everyday life in the form of digital displays in everything from watches to radios. Additionally, he received patents for degasification of liquids, Dark Field Microscopy, organic and inorganic photoconduction, and more.
From ordinary scientific mind to spiritual enlightenment.
Marcel taught a course on creativity at IBM in 1969. During this period he read an article in Argosy magazine titled “Do Plants Have Emotions?“, which discussed the work of polygraph expert Cleve Backster on the responsiveness of plants to human interaction. He explored these strange claims despite initially rejecting the idea of human-plant communication.
He demonstrated that plants respond to thought by using plants as transducers for bio-energetic fields released by the human mind. Split-leaf philodendrons were connected to a Wheatstone Bridge, which would compare a known resistance to an unknown resistance. When he slowly released his breath, the plant did not respond.
The plant responded dramatically when he pumped his breath through his nostrils, as he held a thought in mind. It was also found that these fields, which are linked to the action of breathing and consciousness, do not have a significant time domain. Plants respond to thought the same way whether they are eight inches away, eight feet away, or eight thousand miles away! According to the results of the experiments, thought is not subject to the inverse square law. Marcel’s transformation from being a purely rational scientist to a spiritual or mystical scientist began with this point.
Basically, it was found that plants respond more to the thought of being cut, burned, or torn than to the actual act. He discovered that if he tore a leaf from one plant a second plant would respond, but only if he was paying attention to it. The plants seemed to be mirroring his own mental responses. He concluded that the plants were acting like batteries, storing the energy of his thoughts and intentions. He said of these experiments: “I learned that there is energy connected with thought. Thought can be pulsed and the energy connected with it becomes coherent and has a laser-like power.”
Marcel discovered that love is the greatest cohering agent. He set himself apart from other scientists because of this discovery. At a time when many still do not acknowledge that an observer affects what they are observing, the notion of love was completely unscientific. It was unacceptable even when it was dressed in the garb of a term like resonance. According to Marcel, love was (and is) a pure force. Certainly, we experience it as an emotion, but it is our experience of something beyond emotion. At every level of existence, it is like gravity, an attracting and cohering force. A valuable aspect of scientific research is missing without this relationship, preventing us from discovering and exploring the more subtle aspects of life.
Certain scientific investigations in the area of subtle energies cannot be easily replicated for this reason. Often, it is not a matter of protocol, but of relationship. Many scientists consider this an inessential and possibly bothersome epiphenomenon. While these individuals are scientists, Marcel saw them as technicians attempting to prove what he already believed to be true. A true scientist is one who is curious as a child. We all too often only want to confirm what we already believe.
You can find details of this work in the books The Secret Life of Plants by Peter Tompkins and Christopher Bird, as well as Psychic Exploration: A Challenge to Science edited by Edgar Mitchell.
Marcel gave many lectures about his work with plants in 1974, and during one of them, at the First Church of Religious Science in Los Angeles, he was approached by Dr. McKistry, who told him about quartz crystals she had with her. Apparently, these crystals vibrated when held in the hand. Marcel’s ambivalent response to this was “So what?“. Although he felt the vibration of the crystals in his own hand, Marcel was unimpressed with them. Nonetheless, he accepted the gift of a small quartz point from her.
