physics

Raynor Johnson

Raynor Johnson is a physics topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Raynor Johnson rather than just read about it. In short: Raynor Carey Johnson (5 April 1901 – 15 May 1987) was an English-born Australian parapsychologist, physicist and author. Life and career Johnson was born in Leeds, England on 5 April 1901 and educated at Bradford Grammar School.

Key takeaways

Raynor Johnson belongs to physics; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Raynor Johnson to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Raynor Johnson from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Raynor Carey Johnson (5 April 1901 – 15 May 1987) was an English-born Australian parapsychologist, physicist and author.

Life and career Johnson was born in Leeds, England on 5 April 1901 and educated at Bradford Grammar School. He earned an MA at the University of Oxford and, in 1922, a PhD in physics at the University of London. He lectured in natural philosophy at the Queen's University, Belfast between 1923 and 1927. He published scientific works on spectroscopy. He became increasingly interested in parapsychology and became connected with the Society for Psychical Research in London. Johnson's religious background led to work in Australia, where he was master of the Methodist Queen's College at the University of Melbourne from 1934 to 1964. By this time he was married with two young daughters; his wife Mary held a Master of Science from the University of London. Johnson published several books on mysticism and psychical research during the 1950s and 1960s. His beliefs and writings eventually created concern within the Methodist Church and he retired from his university position in 1964. In the early 1960s Johnson visited India, where he met Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan and lectured on spirituality. He also met the Indian mystics Vinoba Bhave and Swami Pratyagatmananda. Johnson was an advocate of Douglas Fawcett's philosophy of Imaginism which he believed could explain God and the purpose of human life. He owned a property called "Santiniketan" ("abode of peace") at Ferny Creek in the Dandenong Ranges outside Melbourne. There he hosted regular meetings of a religious and philosophical discussion group led by the yoga teacher Anne Hamilton-Byrne. This group became known as "The Family", a cult that adopted a large number of children and treated them cruelly until Victoria police rescued them on 14 August 1987. Hamilton-Byrne and her husband Bill were extradited from the United States six years later and faced criminal charges. Twenty years after his death, an authorised biography was published, Raynor Johnson – A Biographical Memoir (2007). Two further books authored by Johnson were published after his death – Mysticism and Life (2010) and a collection of miscellaneous writings, A Late Lark Singing (2012).

Reception In his book Psychical Research, Johnson endorsed psychical and spiritualist phenomena and cited reports by the Society for Psychical Research. In a review for The Quarterly Review of Biology M. Steinbach wrote that although Johnson was "quite earnest and certainly sincere in completely accepting the whole range of spiritualist phenomena", many of the cases he described could be easily explained by coincidence, delusion, hallucination, suggestion and that most of the mediums were exposed as fraudulent. Johnson believed that the material world was a creation of the mind, and claimed paranormal phenomena such as discarnate minds, mediumship, psi and telepathy could be explained by a "psychic ether". On this, Steinbach wrote "but to do that is to leave this world of reality and the firm basis of scientific thought for a speculative journey in an imaginary vehicle to a never-never-land." Johnson's Nurslings of Immortality received a mixed review in The Journal of Religion, wherein William Hamilton wrote that the book endorsed a "pretentious philosophical quasi-idealism" called Imaginism but contained some interesting material about automatic writing and psychic phenomena.

Publications Spectra. 1928 (Methuen: London) Atomic Spectra. 1946 (Methuen: London) An introduction to Molecular Spectra. 1949 (Methuen: London) The Imprisoned Splendour. An approach to reality, based upon the significance of data drawn from the fields of natural science, psychical research and mystical experience. 1953 (Hodder & Stoughton: London); new edition 1989 (Pelegrin Trust in association with Pilgrim Books: Tasburgh, Norwich) ISBN 0-946259-30-5 Psychical Research. 1955 (English Universities Press: London) Nurslings of Immortality. 1957 (Hodder & Stoughton: London); new edition 1989 (Pelegrin Trust in association with Pilgrim Books: Tasburgh, Norwich) ISBN 0-946259-43-7 Watcher on the Hills. 1959 (Hodder & Stoughton: London); new edition 1988 (Pelegrin Trust in association with Pilgrim Books: Tasburgh, Norwich) ISBN 0-946259-28-3 A Religious Outlook for Modern Man. 1963. (Hodder & Stoughton: London); new edition 1988 (Pelegrin Trust in association with Pilgrim Books: Tasburgh, Norwich) ISBN 0-946259-27-5 The Light and the Gate. 1964 (Hodder & Stoughton: London) ISBN 0-340-01214-5 The Spiritual Path. 1972 (Hodder & Stoughton: London) ISBN 0-340-15852-2 A Pool of Reflections: for the refreshment of travellers on the spiritual path. 1975 (Hodder & Stoughton: London) ISBN 0-340-19247-X Light of All Life: Thoughts towards a philosophy of life. 1984 (Pilgrim Books: Tasburgh, Norwich) ISBN 0-946259-07-0 Mysticism and Life. 2010 (Lakeland Publications: Melbourne) ISBN 978-0-9804078-1-5 A Late Lark Singing. 2012 (Lakeland Publications: Melbourne) ISBN 978-0-9804078-3-9

References

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Raynor Johnson

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Raynor Johnson claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In physics, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Raynor Johnson before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Raynor Johnson ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Raynor Johnson

In research: Raynor Johnson appears in physics research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Raynor Johnson in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Raynor Johnson is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1901 births, 1987 deaths, 20th-century Australian non-fiction writers, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Raynor Johnson outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Raynor Johnson in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Raynor Johnson means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Raynor Johnson out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Raynor Johnson in simple terms?

Raynor Carey Johnson (5 April 1901 – 15 May 1987) was an English-born Australian parapsychologist, physicist and author. Life and career Johnson was born in Leeds, England on 5 April 1901 and educated at Bradford Grammar School.

Why does Raynor Johnson matter?

Because it connects several physics ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Raynor Johnson?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Raynor Johnson.