07) The Father of Radionics

The field of Radionics owes its discovery to Dr. Albert Abrams. Dr. Albert Abrams, A.M., LLD, M.D. was born in San Francisco in 1863. Dr. Abrams qualified at medical college before he was of age to receive a diploma. Learning German, he went to Europe to continue his medical studies, graduating with the highest honors in medicine from the University of Heidelberg. He continued post-graduate work in Heidelberg, Paris, Berlin, Vienna and London under some of the most famous teachers of the time.

One of these was the eminent 19th century physician, mathematician, physiologist, physicist and philosopher of science, Hermann Von Helmholtz. It was through Von Helmholtz that Abrams became knowledgeable of physics and became passionate about finding a correlate from its laws to biology.

Upon returning to the U.S. Abrams began teaching at Stanford University where he eventually became Director of Clinical Medicine. By age 30, he was President of the San Francisco Medico-Chirurgical Society and a fellow of the AMA. With twelve books in the Library of Congress, he was regarded as one of the foremost neurologists of the day. His book Spondylo-therapy published in 1910 went into six editions and was translated into French and Japanese. Sir James Barr, a former President of the British Medical Association, in writing a foreword to a book on Abrams radionic discoveries, described him as the perhaps the greatest medical genius of the previous half century.

In Sir James' own words, “I have often said that if Abrams had done nothing more than discover the cardiac and pulmonic reflexes, he was worthy of a prominent niche in the temple of fame. In America and France, Abrams' cardiac reflexes must have saved thousands of lives.” Had Abrams not been possessed of both an overwhelming curiosity and a substantial inherited fortune, he may well have never aroused the controversy and vilification brought on by his discovery of Radionics.

So what was so objectionable about this discovery that nearly a Century later it remains a criminal offence to practice it in most of the United States? The answer lies in the very peculiar strain it put upon scientific procedure, then and later. For one, like Abbe Mermet, Abrams sought to have his discoveries thoroughly understood scientifically. His Empirical approach assumed that better knowledge of the physics involved would eventually follow to explain the experimental results.