Dr. Ruth B. Drown, America's Greatest Radionics Innovator, The Untold Story Part 1

Dr. Ruth B. Drown,
America's Greatest Radionics Innovator
The Untold Story Part 1

By Ken Adachi <Ken Adachi, Editor>
http://educate-yourself.org/tjc/ruthdrownuntoldstory.shtml
April 7, 2001

"The time has come to meet the third of my titans. Knowing, loving, and serving her in the final years of her life was a rare privilege. You may have heard many of the numerous and elaborate lies circulated about Dr. Ruth Drown. Let me tell you the truth." Trevor James Constable in The Cosmic Pulse of Life

Trevor's Role
Over the years, I occasionally heard of the name Ruth Drown with reference to Radionics, but I really didn't know anything of her magnificent contributions to humanity until Trevor Constable opened the door wide for me in his masterwork, The Cosmic Pulse of Life (1976). In a previous article, The Visual Ray (http://educate-yourself.org/tjc/visualray21may0.shtml), I explained how I happened to come upon this wonderful book and the treasures that are held within its covers. After widening the path for us 25 years ago, we now see greater recognition for two of Trevor's Titans, Wilhelm Reich and Rudolf Steiner, but much more needs to be told of the astounding accomplishments of Dr. Ruth B. Drown, whose legacy might have remained known to but a handful of students of Radionics had it not been for the Cosmic rescue launched by Trevor Constable.

A Brief Biography
Ruth Drown was born in 1892 in Greeley, Colorado. Her father was a professional photographer and taught young Ruth all he knew of the photographic processes. Years later, this background would play an important role in her development of Radio Vision, an invention of such inestimable importance and merit to the healing arts that it should have carried her to the stage in Stockholm. Instead, her work, her inventions, her honor and finally her life, were all shattered by a calculated onslaught organized by the Little Men of Big Medicine using their media pimps and government stooges to destroy her. These jackals of greed and duplicity always seem to reserve their greatest torments for those who would relieve man's suffering the most, as was seen in the case of Dr. Royal Raymond Rife whose great discoveries in cancer research and therapy were obliterated by the same medical mafia (see The Cancer Cure That Worked! by Barry Lynes). Dr. Drown's persecution was remarkable in both the continuing torment of her detractors and her tenacity to preserve in the face of such unrelenting and withering ridicule endured over many, many years. Quoting from page 233 in Trevor's book:

"During her lifetime, Dr. Ruth Drown was one of the most widely misrepresented and vilified women in America. The poisonous rubbish circulated about her in magazines and newspapers was never written by anyone who knew her. Alleged technical descriptions of the Drown work, invariably condemnatory and always inaccurate, were printed in national magazines and published in books by writers who had never even met Dr. Drown, let alone had studied her work. The pillorying went on for decades."

So exactly what did Ruth Drown do that drew the wolves to her door? Stated simply, she succeeded mightily where the great men of medicine had failed and they hated her for it. She developed and refined a means of diagnosis, treatment, and visual representation on photographic plate of any cross section of disease organisms, tissue or organs of her choosing that qualitatively exceeded anything offered by organized medicine in the first half of the 20th century or indeed of that which is offered today. The amazing journey that carried her to the pinnacle of great achievement is the stuff of legends. A less auspicious candidate for greatness could not be imagined.

Ruth B. Chase married a farmer, Clarence V. Drown, at the age of nineteen and assumed the domestic life of farmer's wife and mother to their two children, Cynthia and Homer. Inexplicable friction, however, developed between the couple in their seventh year of marriage and the situation soon became intolerable. With eight hundred dollars in her purse, Ruth left with her two children and moved to Los Angeles in 1918 where she opened a gas station and lunch counter for about a year before selling the business to the mechanic who had previously been working for her. She then found comfortable work at a Hollywood photographic lab utilizing the skills learned at her father's side, but soon was offered a better paying job with the Southern California Edison Company arranged by a woman friend from her home state who was secretary to an executive with the company. Ruth was placed in charge of mechanical addressing machines in the company's accounting department. The job required mechanical skills and maintenance experience that Ruth did not possess, but she made up her mind that she was going to perform well at her new job. Returning to Trevor's narrative:

"She took over a room full of clanking mechanical beasts that gobbled in paper and vomited addressed bills. A belligerent young German assigned to show her around made it clear that he didn't think she could do the job. 'We got along like two strange bulldogs,' she recalled of the time, 'and his attitude made me determined to succeed.' Buckling down, she put her fierce will to work. Latent mechanical ability burst into expression. She mastered the operation, maintenance, and repair of the machines, and was soon in charge of the addressing department. Fifteen girls worked under her direction. The Edison period brought her phenomenal mechanical aptitude to light, and her later work would have been impossible without awakening these dormant talents." (page 236)

During her four years with Edison, as her mechanical aptitude blossomed, she also developed a passion for radio which was not uncommon in those early years of radio. She enjoyed assembling crystal radios from spare parts gathered at radio stores where various components were chosen from huge bins. While other customers needed to carefully examine the size, values and ratings of the components in order to calculate their effect, Ruth demonstrated an impressive intuitive ability for knowing which parts were needed without bothering to study theory and laboriously analyzing how the circuits might work. She possessed a knowing. Trevor said that she would merely pluck spare parts from these large bins, in a seemingly random fashion, and return home to assemble a radio which worked perfectly, without any spare parts left over!

Dr. Strong's Lecture
In 1923, Ruth Drown attended a lecture given in downtown Los Angeles by Dr. Frederick F. Strong that would profoundly affect the course of her life. Dr. Strong was lecturing on the application of radio energies to the treatment of disease conditions. Initially drawn to the lecture by her interest in radio, Ruth found Dr. Strong, a Cornell graduate who had studied at the University of Berlin and other European academies, to be an inspiring humanitarian who was

". able to stir mighty but heretofore dormant forces in Ruth Drown. As she dwelt upon the potentialities of radio therapy, she felt the electrifying effect of inspiration. She knew intuitively and immediately that her future lay with this new idea.Getting into this kind of work became a matter of urgency for Ruth Drown from the time she heard Dr. Strong's lecture " (page 237-38)

As it turns out, Ruth happened to know Dr Strong's secretary, Maude Breeze. She inquired of Maude about the possibility of working for Dr. Strong as a nurse, but Maude told her that the only position available was that of part time office assistant. Ruth leaped at the opportunity. She knew what she was doing when she left her high paying position with Edison to take a much lower paying part time job with Dr. Strong, and she was happy and excited to do so. A new world was about to open for her.

Dr. Albert Abrams
Dr. Strong was using the techniques and methods developed by Dr. Albert Abrams, who could justifiably be called the Father of Radionics in America. Dr. Abrams was a highly educated man with impeccable academic credentials from the University of Heidelberg where he garnered top honors and even a gold medal. As a distinguished Stanford University medical professor, he would have been feted for the rest of his life as a great authority in the field of medicine had he continued to embrace the orthodox approach, but he became the victim of intense vilification and excoriation by the orthodoxy because he had discovered something about the nature of biological tissue that almost exactly paralleled what the Russian engineer, Georges Lakhovsky (http://educate-yourself.org/be/lakhovskyindex.shtml), had discovered in France: that all histological tissue whether it came from a man, animal, insect, or a microbe radiated (and were affected by) very high frequency emanations that could only be described in their day as electromagnetic radiation since that was the only available nomenclature at the time.

Etheric Life Energy
Later, however, Wilhelm Reich would more accurately identify this esoteric form of radiation as a constituent manifestation of the ether, which he labeled orgone energy. Still later, author Gerry Vasillatos would refer to this radiation as a component of Vril energy, which he describes handsomely in his published volumes known as The Vril Compendium (Borderland books). Despite the different names given to the life force energy, it's important to bear in mind that the bioenergetic 'signals' that Lakhovsky and Abrams were describing were not really electromagnetic waves at all, as they had assumed at the time, but were rather a much finer and infinitely more powerful radiation of the ether which was elaborated upon by Rudolf Steiner, Guenther Wachsmuth, Ernst Lehrs, and more recently by author Ernst Marti (The Four Ethers 1984) as being composed of four sub categories known as the Warmth ether, the Light ether, the Chemical ether (also called the Sound or Number ether), and the Life ether. It should also be clarified that electromagnetic waves are "carried" by the ether, a notion foreign to conventional physicists, yet true, since there would be nothing for the wave to "wave in" when traversing the vacuum of space.

Numerical Identification Possible
Abrams' ideas about the vibratory nature of tissue and disease organisms allowed him to theorize and later validate that these subtle emanations from biological tissues could be detected and classified numerically. He called this detection process the Electronic Reaction of Abrams or E.R.A. and fashioned a new system of diagnosis and therapy based on this discovery. The very words to describe the process, however, such as electronic and radionics, ultimately became an obstacle that created a misdirected focus as to the true nature of the energy being considered. It also made it easier for vested orthodox debunkers to deride and ridicule the science as a whole. Trevor explains:

"Terminology inevitably became a stumbling block in this new approach to diagnosis. Development of Abrams' work paralleled the first major and general technological development of radio. All this took place as well at a time when human consciousness of radiation was just dawning. Terms were used in Abrams' work -such as radio-therapy-that were drawn from another technology altogether. The terminological confusion has persisted right down to this day, and through the decades, an expertise has been automatically assigned to radio physicists in evaluating radionics. In fact, such people know nothing whatever about the energy involved in Abrams or Drown instruments, and have contributed greatly to the throttling and ridicule of American research along the lines started by Abrams." (page 239)

Abrams' Method of Diagnosis
Obtaining the E.R.A. in the Abrams system of diagnosis involved three people: 1) the patient himself or a bioenergetic substitute for the patient-a drop of his blood; 2) a person in good health who would serve as the "subject" (Abrams' term) and 3) the diagnostician or operator of the equipment. The procedure involved comparing the difference in 'tunings' obtained from the healthy 'subject' and the diseased patient or from his blood sample. The subject essentially acted as a detector for identifying the particular pathogens affecting the patient. Equipment wise, the Abrams' diagnostic method involved using one leg of the standard electrical outlet (110 Volts AC at the time) and this caused his test to be adversely affected by certain colors, lights, or particular foreign substances found present in the room when the test was being performed.

Abrams' Treatment Protocol
For treatment, the Abrams method required the use of an electrode placed over the affected area and sometimes glass wands were used, swept back and forth over the appropriate region. The Abrams method allowed the physician to treat one person or treat an entire group of patients at the same time with a single hookup. Doctors using the Abrams method enjoyed a degree of success in treatment and occasionally the results were spectacular, providing great encouragement for those practitioners, but success for Abrams came more in the area of greatly improved diagnostics. The discovery of the E.R.A. allowed Abrams and his followers to lock onto the characteristic resonant frequency of the pathogenic invader and thus identify its presence and type, unlike their orthodox colleagues who were essentially engaged in educated guesswork. The day would come when Ruth Drown would greatly expand the important foundations in Radionics established by the astute and refined mind of Dr. Albert Abrams.

A New Chapter
After starting to work for Dr. Strong, Drown's intuitive abilities and healing instincts became immediately apparent. She quickly gained an admirable reputation among the patients she ministered to as well as among other doctors using the Abrams method. One such physician, an osteopath by the name of Dr. Thomas McAllister, took such a strong interest in Ruth's skills, that he asked her to come work for him as a full time employee and she accepted. Impressed by her eagerness to learn, he lent her his books and gave her personal instruction in the medical arts. A patient of De McAllister's, Louise Thrall, was so grateful for the quality of care she received at Ruth's hands, that she loaned her $5,000 so she could attend Osteopathic College in Kirksville, Missouri. Unfortunately, Ruth could only attend one year before being forced to return home to Los Angeles due to the deteriorating health of her mother who had been taking care of her two children.

Needing to support and raise her children, she remained in Los Angeles and entered Chiropractic college, graduating in 1926. She became licensed as a Doctor of Chiropractic in California in 1927. While attending Chiropractic school, Ruth spent much of her time experimenting in new ways to manipulate the life energy encountered in Radionics diagnosis. She knew that she had to simplify the Abrams procedure and eliminate the need for using a healthy 'subject' to determine the diagnosis for the patient. She became convinced that the use of wall outlet AC electricity was a huge mistake and contaminated the patient with a coarse and brutal energy that was anathema to the subtler life force emanations. Above all, she wanted to individualize the diagnosis and apply treatment custom tailored to maximize the healing effect for the individual patient. From page 242:

"Experience and intuition thus united to convince her that commercial electric power was in some way inimical to the energy she was seeking to tune and manipulate. A quarter of a century later, Dr. Wilhelm Reich was to find out in the Oranur Experiment.that a fierce and potentially lethal antagonism exists between life energy and electromagnetic energy. Worth noting also is that Kirlian photography-now becoming widely investigated in our universities-depends upon exciting the life energy with high-frequency energy in order to make the life energy luminate. In this application, the antagonism between the two energy forms is utilized to objectify the life energy, although this simple fact appears to elude most persons doing this work."

The Cosmic Connection
We should also mention an important commonality shared between Strong, Drown, and Abrams. They were all ardent and serious students of metaphysics. Strong was a Theosophist who understood completely the underpinnings of physical matter as the realization or expression of energy patterns encoded within the unseen etheric body or human aura (also called the vital body, the functional body, the orgone body, the formative-force body, and the later Russian designation of bioplasmic body). Ruth Drown had been studying metaphysics since 1916 and later in her life, she published books that echoed her atunement with ancient themes of Atlantean wisdom and frequently wrote of the role of the Kabbalah as a gateway to higher planes of human consciousness and knowledge. Dr. Abrams was so highly attuned to the spiritual plane that he could unerringly name both the hour and day of anyone's passage from the physical into the spiritual realm-including his own-which he accurately predicted publicly a year before his death. Franklin Thomas, an extraordinary clairvoyant and guiding mentor to Trevor Constable in his early years, described Ruth Drown

".as a 'unique cosmic figure' standing far above her contemporaries in

significant

observation: ' In Atlantean times, she was a master of these forces that we now

dabble with as radionics, and she is in the body at this time to contribute to their

rebirth on a higher arc.' Franklin Thomas had the clairvoyant ability-as mentioned in connection with Rudolf Steiner- to travel back in time and read the events of other

epochs." (page 234)

The Drown Instruments
Radio-Vision, The Greatest Discovery of the 20th Century

In 1935, Dr. Drown had perfected an instrument that was the logical extension of her experience with photography, film development and radionics. She accomplished something that is simply mind boggling. She developed a simple apparatus that was largely a modification of her Homo-Vibra Ray Instrument. She devised a way to channel the same etheric Life Force energy that she was detecting with the diagnosis portion of her instrument though a photographic plate and utilizing a special reverse method of film development, produced stunning photographs of soft and hard tissue anywhere within the body using only a dried drop of the patient's blood on a piece of blotter paper. In 1960, she published an 8" x 5" booklet intended for physicians called Radio-Vision, Scientific Milestone. Within that booklet were 22 of the most astounding photographic plates ever recorded. Sharply detailed and contrasted images of various organs and tissues of the body shown in cross section (much as would be seen with a CAT scan) made without the presence of the patient and involving no harmful exposure to radiation, electromagnetism, drugs, and at very little expense. Reprints of the Radio-Vision booklet are available on the Products page (http://educate-yourself.org/products/index.shtml#drownbooks).

Next time.
In Part 2, we'll continue Trevor Constable's wonderful biographical and personal recollections of Dr. Ruth B Drown. We'll examine in detail with narrative and graphics the Drown Instrument, a marvel of advanced cosmic inventive genius, which remained totally misunderstood and incomprehensible to her ignorant, arrogant and unenlightened orthodox tormenters, while providing accurate diagnosis, relief and cure for thousands upon thousands of Drown patients. Lastly, we'll provide a comprehensive overview (including histological photos) of the greatest invention in modern medical history, Radio-Vision. A device capable of reproducing on a photographic plate, a cross sectional view (similar to that seen in a CAT scan) of soft or hard tissue from anywhere in the body accompanied by razor sharp images of accompanying microbes or tumors in situ, without the need for electricity, radiation, giant electro magnets, hospitals, high cost, or even the physical presence of the patient-and all this in the 1930's!

Until then, Keep looking to Nature for all your answers in health.

Sincerely, Ken Adachi

For more information about the books of Dr. Ruth Drown, go to our Products page and scroll down to Radionics under Books. Look for The Books of Dr Ruth B. Drown.

Ken Adachi, Editor

Or write:
Educate-Yourself
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