Radionics is a form of disease treatment that was invented in the early 20th century by American neurologist Albert Abrams. Abrams claimed that all living things emanated an energy field that could be detected and measured. He also called this field a frequency, but it was not measured in units of any kind. Abrams postulated that a healthy person emits different frequencies than an unhealthy one, and he developed machines that were supposedly able to detect this difference.
Initially, radionics took place with the healer and patient in close proximity. The patient or client, would provide a blood, hair, or written signature sample, known as a witness. This sample would be placed into a receptacle on the healing machine. A pendulum or other detection device would be then be used to detect areas of the witness in which surface tension changed.
These areas of strange tension were thought to be emitting diseased energy, and healing energy would be sent back to the patient via the machine, or the consciousness of the healer themselves. During his lifetime, Abrams invented at least a dozen such machines, which were never sold but always leased to clients on the condition that they never be opened. All of the devices were hermetically sealed. Abrams' most popular device was the oscilloclast, which he stated could both diagnose and heal a client based on their witness. This device became known as the black box.
After his death in 1924, the American Medical Association (AMA) opened one of Abrams' devices, and found numerous parts, including a condenser and a rheostat. They found no evidence that it could either transmit or receive energy waves of any type. A separate study conducted by Scientific American magazine in 1924, found all of his devices unable to perform the functions Abrams claimed.
In the 1930s, an American chiropractor and naturopath named Ruth Drown refined the principles of radionics. She argued that the healer and client could be a vast distance apart, and the curative abilities of radionics would still work. Drown developed her own black box, which she stated could send healing radiation across long distances. Also, the box was supposedly able to create radio photographs of a client's organs, simply by analyzing a drop of their blood. Her machine was tested by the University of Chicago but did not perform as she claimed.
Many countries including the United States and Canada still have large communities dedicated to radionics. Healing by radionics is now said to depend on the ability of the practitioner, to bring the client to a state in which they believe they are healed. This healing depends on the willingness of the client and does not happen over a specified time period.
Radionics is often referred to as a form of sympathetic magic. This is because it uses an object that represents a person — in this case, a hair or blood sample — to affect the person themselves. No scientific testing has been able to confirm any of the claims made by practitioners of this form of healing.
