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Randolph Stone (1890–1981) was the founder of Polarity therapy, an energy healing technique he pioneered. He had a successful private practice in Chicago and he also worked for about 10 years in India in a clinic where the poor were treated for free.

Biography

Childhood and youth

Stone was born Rudolph Bautsch on February 26, 1890 in Engelsberg, Austria, (today Andelska Hora in Czech Republic) as the youngest of six children. His mother died when he was two years old. He emigrated to the United States with his father and a sister in 1903; two other sisters followed later after the father had established a home in Elgin, Illinois. At the age of thirteen he began working as a farm-hand in Turtle Lake, Wisconsin. A short time later, he became seriously ill with typhoid fever.

Medical training and spiritual search

Stone was interested in philosophy and religions, past and present, Eastern and Western including the Hermetic, Kabbalistic, Ayurvedic and Yoga doctrines. This interest guided his life and his work. At the age of 19, he began studying topics apart from orthodox religions, took up the healing profession and studied Osteopathy, Chiropractic, Naturopathy, Naprapathy and Neuropathy, and received degrees in these, passing the State Board Examinations in 1914 in Chicago. He was granted an O.P. (Other Practitioners) license, which broadly covers all the methods of drugless healing without surgery, and he never prescribed any drugs. He believed that each theory had something to offer but was not complete since it did not cover the entire constitution of a person. He felt that the subtle bodies of energies which animate the body were not represented in the healing art, and he eventually developed Polarity therapy as a solution. He shared his views with other doctors conducting classes. Most of his studies were in Chicago, where he settled in 1912 and bought a home in 1918.

Due to his love of nature he went up north into the Canadian wilderness far from civilisation after obtaining his License in 1914, but before setting up in practice and tried out his fasting theory.

Marriage and professional life

In August 1916, after being in practice for two years and teaching in the then newly founded Eclectic School for Doctors, he married Anna L. Stone, a practical nurse from Denmark. She was twenty years his senior and at the time they shared an interest in spiritual aspirations. After the marriage, he legally changed his name from Rudolf Bautsch to Randolph Stone. He had become an American citizen in his youth but during and after World War I public sentiment tended to be prejudiced towards anything German, including a German-sounding name. Anna died in 1935.

Beginning in 1948, Stone published a series of books and pamphlets to explain his ideas and methods. Today these are concentrated in two volumes. For interested laymen he wrote the book Health Building.

The Polarity Principle

After further research in the healing art, and influenced by his spiritual direction and meditation, Stone developed the Polarity Principle of the finer energies of life. He believed that scientific research had all focused on "Matter", but "none on Life itself". He also believed that this "lost art of the Ancients", covering the entire constitution of a person, would be rediscovered as the science of the future. In his view the causes of physical ailments are in the energy fields, and the symptoms and pains are merely the effects in the physical body. According to Stone, Polarity is not a therapy, but an integration of several therapy forms.

Later years

In the early 1970s, Stone closed his practice in Chicago and taught numerous multi-day seminars throughout the United States. After many years of being dismissed by the healthcare establishment and having only a few people show interest in his books and lectures, interest began to grow significantly in his teachings and methods. After a series of increasingly well-attended workshops on the West Coast, he retired from practice and teaching and in 1973, returned to India to end his days in meditation. He died on December 9, 1981, nearly 92 years of age.

In many cases, Polarity Therapy has gone on to be used as complementary therapy with other, mainstream forms of treatment; for example it has been studied in the treatment of anorexia nervosa.

Heritage

Polarity community

Since Stone's death many active Polarity associations have been founded as professional institutions for countless Polarity practitioners around the world.

The Polarity community continued publishing on the subject of Polarity therapy after Stone's death, and in 1984, a group of practitioners established the American Polarity Therapy Association.

Scientific research on Polarity therapy

In the following articles criticism as well as approval on Polarity therapy is scientifically founded:

The International Journal of Behavioral Medicine (2010) assesses Biofield therapies including Polarity asking "helpful of full of hype?" and comes to the conclusion that there is a need for further high-quality studies in this area.

Global advances in health and medicine (2015) states that "research in human biofield studies including polarity therapy involving preclinical models promises a better understanding of the mechanisms underlying the efficacy of biofield therapies and will be important in guiding clinical protocols and integrating treatments with conventional medical therapies.

Journal of clinical nursing (2013): "Functional Assessment of Cancer Therapy-Fatigue was the most used scale specifically for the evaluation of fatigue. Pretreatment fatigue level may be an important risk factor to aggravate it during radiotherapy and decrease the quality of life. Five studies proposed interventions, all of them involving nonpharmacological therapies: cognitive-behavioural therapy associated with hypnosis, moderate-intensity physical exercises, stretching programmes, yoga and polarity therapy. The studies showed good results in relation to fatigue, physical and psychological aspects, and quality of life. CONCLUSION: Early detection of fatigue, using appropriate scales, is relevant to propose suitable treatments and achieve better clinical conditions, adherence and continuity of radiotherapy treatment, aiming to ensure more effective responses."

The Cochrane database of systematic reviews (2014): "When respite care was compared to polarity therapy a significant effect was found in favour of polarity therapy for caregiver perceived stress (n = 38, MD 5.80, 95% CI 1.43 to 10.17), but not for other measures of psychological health and other caregiver outcomes."

Alternative therapies in health and medicine (1999): "The actual identification (let alone measurement) of "healing energy" has been elusive and controversial. Although healing energy has been defined as "subtle" and "undetectable," preliminary research indicates that these descriptions may be inaccurate. OBJECTIVE: To assess the fluctuation of extremely high-frequency electromagnetic fields, or gamma rays, during Polarity therapy treatment. CONCLUSIONS: This preliminary study suggests a consistent and dramatic decrease in the number of gamma rays measured in a subject's electromagnetic field during one type of alternative healing energy treatment (Polarity therapy). The authors strongly recommend the collection of additional data, especially on subjects with cancer, whose long-term survival might be enhanced as a result of the radiation hormesis effects of alternative energy therapies."

References

1. ^ Stone, Randolph (1987). Polarity Therapy, The Complete Collected Works, vol. 2. CRCS Publications. pp. 233–237.
2. ^ "Polarity Network :: Dr Randolph Stone". www.polaritynetwork.com. Retrieved 2016-03-09.
3. ^ Sills, Franklyn (1989). The Polarity Process: Energy as a Healing Art.
4. "Ayurveda Polarity Therapy and Yoga Institute".
5. Novey, Donald W. (February 16, 2000). Clinician's Complete Reference to Complementary and Alternative Medicine. Mosby: Harcourt Health. pp. 423–434. ISBN 0323007554.
6. "The Digital Dr. Stone - The Transcribed Texts of Dr. Randolph Stone". www.digitaldrstone.org. Retrieved 2016-03-09.
7. Stone, Randolph (1986). Polarity Therapy, The Complete Collected Works, vol. 1. CRCS Publications.
8. Stone, Randolph (1999). Health Building. Book Publishing Company (1693).
9. Stone, Randolph (1987). Polarity Therapy, The Complete Collected Works, vol. 2, Book 5. 3: CRCS Publications.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location (link)
10. ^ Beaulieu, John (1994). Polarity Therapy Workbook.
11. Ballou, Jessica (2008). "Polarity Therapy as a Complementary Treatment for Bulimia Nervosa". Alliant International University. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
12. "American Polarity Therapy Association". www.polaritytherapy.org. Retrieved 2016-03-09.
13. "Polarity Therapy :: The UK Polarity Therapy Association (UKPTA)". www.polarity.tk. Retrieved 2016-03-09.
14. "Start - Polarity Verband Deutschland". www.polarity-verband.de. Retrieved 2016-03-09.
15. "Polarity » Polarity Verband Schweiz". www.polarityverband.ch. Retrieved 2016-03-09.
16. "Ontario Polarity Therapy Association". Ontario Polarity Therapy Association. Retrieved 2016-03-09.
17. "Polarity Therapy Australia". www.polarity-therapy.org.au. Retrieved 2016-03-09.
18. "AFTP Association Francaise de Thérapie par la Polarité". www.aftp.fr. Retrieved 2016-03-09.
19. User, Super. "PolarityAustria® - Home". www.polarity-austria.at. Retrieved 2016-03-09. {{cite web}}: |last= has generic name (help)
20. Young, Phil (1990). The Art of Polarity Therapy: A Practitioner's Perspective.
21. "whitepaper" (PDF). noetic.org. Institute of Noetic Sciences. Retrieved 11 March 2016.
22. Jain, Shamini; Mills, Paul J. (2010-03-01). "Biofield Therapies: Helpful or Full of Hype? A Best Evidence Synthesis". International Journal of Behavioral Medicine. 17 (1): 1–16. doi:10.1007/s12529-009-9062-4. ISSN 1070-5503. PMC 2816237. PMID 19856109.
23. Yount, Garret; et al. (2015). "Challenges for Preclinical Investigations of Human Biofield Modalities". Global advances in health and medicine : improving healthcare outcomes worldwide, 4(Suppl), 52-7. {{cite journal}}: Explicit use of et al. in: |first= (help)
24. Machado, Graziela; et al. (2013). "Fatigue related to radiotherapy for breast and/or gynaecological cancer: a systematic review". Journal of clinical nursing, 22(19-20), 2679-86. {{cite journal}}: Explicit use of et al. in: |first= (help)
25. Lee, Helen (2014). "Respite care for people with dementia and their carers". The Cochrane database of systematic reviews, 1CD004396.
26. Arnold, L E; et al. (1999). "Gamma radiation fluctuations during alternative healing therapy". Alternative therapies in health and medicine, 5(4), 51-6. {{cite journal}}: Explicit use of et al. in: |first= (help)

External links

• http://www.polaritynetwork.com/museum/dr-randolph-stone/
• http://www.digitaldrstone.org//

• 1890 births
• 1981 deaths
• 19th-century philosophers
• 20th-century philosophers
• Austrian philosophers
• Austrian spiritual writers
• Austro-Hungarian people
• Austrian Theosophists
• Osteopaths
• Chiropractors
• Naturopaths