Randolph Stone

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]

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]

Life and work

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]

References
  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. 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. 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. 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. 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.
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