Electrotherapy
Below I've tried to give some background to Electrotherapy in general. Most of my work in this area has concentrated on Rife machines and the Rife effect although there is always some overlap with other methods. To go directly to my Rife work, click on the link below:
Rife Research
There are many machines on the market that claim to be "Rife" devices of one sort or another. The truth is that Rife's original machines were lost decades ago and various modern devices sold with the "Rife" label are just modern "interpretations" of what various people believe Rife was doing. Most machines have some sort of bioactive effect, but in the absence of proper research and lack of information about many aspects of Rife's work I believe it is fair to say that very few, if any, actually work in the way that Rife's did. Certainly the alleged dramatic cancer cures claimed by Rife have not been duplicated with these modern machines. Furthermore there is insufficient proper medical evidence to determine clearly whether many of these machines are beneficial or whether they might actually be harmful. I personally believe most of these machines to be generally harmless (but not necessarily beneficial) but that is just my personal opinion. In my opinion the claims made for many (but not all) commercial "Rife" devices are at best illogical and in some cases downright misleading. Unfortunately various people for reasons of their own attempt to promote agendas that have nothing to do with Rife, whilst using the name of Rife. Some of these are just technical errors and misunderstandings, some appear to be intentionally misleading to generate sales and many are based on "mystical" or religious ideas that have very little to do with any real science. Caveat emptor!
One machine that is being marketed in particular claims to be able to detect the "resonance of pathogens" and to then kill these pathogens by applying their own "resonances" to them. This claim makes no sense to me at all and as a result, I have acquired one of these machines and have done an extensive analysis of it which I present via the link below. My conclusion is that this machine is not capable of detecting "pathogen resonances" (or anything else for that matter) and that claims made for it by enthusiasts are seriously misleading. For full details please click on the link below:
F-scan
The link below is to a simple FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) document I have written about electrotherapy in general and Rife in particular.
I've also prepared what I hope is a sensible and impartial guide to anyone thinking of trying electrotherapy or any other alternative or controversial therapy, particularly newcomers to the field. You can access this via the link below:
Guide to Electrotherapy and other Unusual Therapies
What is Electrotherapy?
Electrotherapy may be defined as a way of treating medical disorders by electrical methods - in particular by the use of machines that apply some sort of electrical impulse to the body.
Is it a new technique?
No! Electrotherapy in one form or another has been around for centuries, possibly even longer. Electrotherapy really took off about 200 years ago when a lot of discoveries were made about electricity production, particularly the work of people like Faraday and Maxwell etc.
Early electrotherapy tended to consist of randomly applying various forms of electricity to the body - for example direct electric shock treatments. Later, more sophisticated methods were developed, although the old forms were never totally abandoned. Because a lot of early experiments and machines were very ill advised, dangerous and simply had no proper scientific foundation or reasoning behind them, and because unscrupulous vendors saw an opportunity to sell all kinds of ridiculous "miracle cure" devices, electrotherapy became known as an area of "quackery" or pseudoscience. Unfortunately, the bad reputation gained in this way convinced a lot of people (particularly the mainstream medical establishment) that there was never any proper basis for it at all and that all subsequent attempts to develop electrotherapeutic methods were just revivals of earlier quackery and not worthy of any investigation or serious consideration at all. To a degree, I believe they were right. Even today, many electrotherapeutic devices are produced and sold with ridiculous and unproveable claims to the effect that they can cure anything. Some devices are probably dangerous. Most such devices rely on pseudoscientific explanations as to how they work and very little proper scientific research has been done into what effects they may have (if any).
Having said that however, I personally believe that some electrotherapies can be effective and really are capable of helping alleviate at least the symptoms of major diseases, if not curing them outright. The problem is that mainstream scientists are usually "turned off" from researching them properly because of the ever-present quackery associated with them. Because of this, proper scientific research is not being done (at least to the extent that the field deserves) and the people who are doing research are often private individuals with limited resources and equipment, and even in many cases, scientific training. So actual, provable results are few and far between and very often do not meet proper, objective scientific criteria.
On the "plus side", current general research into interactions of electrical equipment with biosystems (things like mobile phone research) are tending to throw some light on the possible mechanisms involved. Also a general study of the scientfic literature does tend to indicate that distinct bioeffects can be produced by certain types of electrical signals.
The majority of claims for electrotherapeutic devices are based on anecdotal reports from users of the equipment. These do not count as scientific proof for many reasons, particularly the lack of controls, the subjective nature of the responses, lack of actual diagnosis, data and analysis and finally the ever present possibility of "self-delusion" or even outright lying by the subjects.
On the other hand, the sheer volume of anecdotal data, the nature and consistency of reports of effects from genuine, well meaning individuals does tend to indicate that there is something to it, and at least provides some circumstantial evidence that suggests that some electrotherapies may well have real benefits. This circumstantial evidence is, in my opinion, too important to ignore or dismiss, although I agree it should always be treated with caution.
It is also worthwhile to note that some electrotherapies are now scientifically validated or generally accepted by the medical profession. In most cases these therapies were treated with the same disdain and dismissal as the rest when they were first suggested or introduced, but through the weight of evidence in their favour have been (grudgingly) admitted to be effective by the mainstream medical profession. One example of this is TENS therapy (transcutaneous electroneural stimulation) which is now widely approved and used for pain control, even in hospitals.
The mainstream "acceptibility" of devices depends on where you live! The United States regulatory agencies are much more dismissive of these technologies than the authorities in other parts of the world. In Europe and many other countries, many electrotherapies are at least tolerated if not accepted by medical agencies, whilst the same therapies are effectively outlawed in the United States.
(c) Copyright Aubrey Scoon 2002-2009 - Mirror of information from www.scoon.co.uk
The opinions stated on this page are those of Aubrey Scoon (1960-2009). They do not necessarily reflect the opinions of anyone else assocaited with www.rife.de.