Randolph Stone

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Randolph Stone
Born
Rudolph Bautsch

(1890-02-26)February 26, 1890
Engelsberg, Austria-Hungary (now Andělská Hora, Czech Republic)
DiedDecember 9, 1981(1981-12-09) (aged 91)
Beas, Punjab, India
Main interests
Osteopathy, Chiropractic, Naturopathy, Naprapathy, Energy medicine[1]
Notable ideas
Polarity Therapy[2]

Randolph Stone (February 26, 1890 – December 9, 1981) was an Austrian-American chiropractor, osteopath and naturopath who founded polarity therapy, a technique of alternative medicine.[3][4][5] He had an interest in philosophy and religions, and encountered Ayurvedic philosophy on a trip to India.[3] His background in chiropractic was shaped by his studies of various Eastern concepts of energy medicine, including Ayurveda, traditional Chinese medicine, yoga, and reflexology.[6]

Life and work[edit]

Stone was born Rudolph Bautsch in 1890 in Austria. He immigrated with his family to the United States in 1898 and changed his name to Randolf Stone in the 1920s.[3] During that period he began studying several different practices and became qualified in chiropractic. Dissatisfied with Western approaches, he also began traveling and studying non-Western medical practices.[7] He first published his concepts of polarity therapy in 1947 in a book entitled Energy,[5] and then published a series of books and pamphlets to explain his ideas and methods.[8][9][10] He had concluded that an observable (yet undetectable to mainstream scientific methods) 'electromagnetic polarity' was a reflection of health.[5][11] He held the opinion that this energy was influenced by touch, diet, movement, sound, attitude, relationships and by environmental factors.[11]

He had a successful private practice in Chicago and he also worked for about 10 years in a clinic in India.[12] Stone was initiated into the Radha Soami Satsang Beas tradition under Baba Sawan Singh in 1945 and in 1956 published his Mystical Bible, a Radha Soami interpretation of verses from the Bible. Stone spent the last eight years of his life with his niece Louise Hilger in a house at the Radha Soami center in Beas, India.[3][13] He died there in 1981.

Stone's ideas have been dismissed by medical health experts as quackery or untestable.[14][15][16] They have also been criticized as a discredited form of vitalism.[17] According to Nancy Allison in The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Body-Mind Disciplines, even advocates of Stone's theory consider his books Health Building and Polarity Therapy to be difficult reading due to their inconsistencies and ambiguities.[18] His ideas are thus interpreted widely, and polarity therapists vary in their approaches.[18] His ideas were later popularized by Pierre Pannetier, a naturopath who had studied under Stone.[19][20] There are many polarity associations around the world.[21]

Polarity therapy[edit]

See also: List of unproven and disproven cancer treatments

Stone invented "polarity therapy". It is a type of energy medicine based on the idea that the positive or negative charge of a person's electromagnetic field affects their health. Although it is promoted as effective for curing a number of human ailments, including cancer, the American Cancer Society says "available scientific evidence does not support claims that polarity therapy is effective in treating cancer or any other disease".[22]

References[edit]

  1. ^ Claire Gillman (2016). The Healing Therapies Bible: Godsfield Bibles. London: Godsfield Press. p. 139. ISBN 1841814571. OCLC 936402032. Retrieved 2016-03-20
  2. ^ Caves, Tony (July 20, 2010). Mindessence - The Polarity of Life and Death. MasterWorks International. p. 107. ISBN 978-0954445096.
  3. ^ a b c d Cooksey, Gloria (January 2005). Gale Encyclopedia of Alternative Medicine (2nd ed.). The Gale Group, Inc. ISBN 0787674249.
  4. ^ Novey, Donald W. (February 16, 2000). Clinician's Complete Reference to Complementary and Alternative Medicine. Mosby: Harcourt Health. pp. 423–434. ISBN 9780070510814.
  5. ^ a b c Wisneski, Leonard A.; Anderson, Lucy (June 26, 2009). The Scientific Basis of Integrative Medicine (Second ed.). Boca Raton, Florida: CRC Press. p. 212. ISBN 978-1420082913.
  6. ^ Beck, Mark F. (April 24, 2010). Theory and Practice of Therapeutic Massage (Fifth ed.). Clifton Park, New York: Cengage Learning. p. 798. ISBN 978-1133010869.
  7. ^ Goldstein, Myrna Chandler; Goldstein, Mark Allan (June 2001). Controversies in the Practice of Medicine. Greenwood. p. 228. ISBN 0313311315. Stone.
  8. ^ "The Digital Dr. Stone - The Transcribed Texts of Dr. Randolph Stone". www.digitaldrstone.org. Retrieved 2016-03-09.
  9. ^ Stone, Randolph (1986). Polarity Therapy, The Complete Collected Works, vol. 1. CRCS Publications.
  10. ^ Stone, Randolph (1999). Health Building. Book Publishing Company (1693).
  11. ^ a b Endacott, Michael (1996). The Encyclopedia of Alternative Health & Natural Remedies. United Kingdom: Carlton Publishing Group. p. 49. ISBN 1858682177.
  12. ^ Stone, Randolph (1987). Polarity Therapy, The Complete Collected Works, vol. 2. CRCS Publications. pp. 233–237.
  13. ^ Juergensmeyer, Mark (December 31, 1995). Radhasoami Reality: The Logic of a Modern Faith. Princeton University Press. pp. 203, 218. ISBN 0691010927.
  14. ^ Barrett, Stephen, Jarvis, William T. (1993). The Health Robbers: A Close Look at Quackery in America. Prometheus Books. pp. 363-364. ISBN 0-87975-855-4
  15. ^ Raso, Jack. (2003). Mystical Diets: Paranormal, Spiritual, and Occult Nutrition Practices. Prometheus Books. p. 266. ISBN 0-87975-761-2
  16. ^ Perper, Joshua A; Cina, Stephen J. (2010). When Doctors Kill: Who, Why, and How. Springer. p. 182. ISBN 978-1-4419-1368-5 "Polarity therapy is an untestable methodology developed by Randolph Stone in the late 1940s to early 1950s."
  17. ^ Bellamy, Jann. (2015). "Massage Therapy rubs me the wrong way". Science-Based Medicine. Retrieved 26 April 2016.
  18. ^ a b Allison, Nancy (March 1999). The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Body-Mind Disciplines. Rosen Pub Group. pp. 126–127. ISBN 0823925463.
  19. ^ Neher, Andrew (August 30, 2013). Paranormal and Transcendental Experience: A Psychological Examination. Dover Publications. p. 250. ISBN 978-0486144863.
  20. ^ Liebowitz, Richard; Smith, Linda (eds.) (2006).The Duke Encyclopedia of New Medicine, p. 565. Rodale Books. ISBN 1594864942.
  21. ^ "Approved Training Program List". polaritytherapy.org. American Polarity Therapy Association. Retrieved March 20, 2016.
  22. ^ Russell J, Rovere A, eds. (2009). "Polarity Therapy". American Cancer Society Complete Guide to Complementary and Alternative Cancer Therapies (2nd ed.). American Cancer Society. pp. 235–37. ISBN 9780944235713.
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