radionics (psionics)

Ill-defined offshoot of radiesthesia founded and named by San Francisco-born neurologist Albert Abrams, M.D., M.A. (1863-1924), author of Spondylotherapy (1910) and New Concepts of Diagnosis and Treatment (1916). Radionics, which encompasses radionic diagnosis and radionic therapy, is a combination of clairvoyant diagnosis, distant diagnosis (remote diagnosis), and psychic healing. Abrams associated different diseases with different radio waves supposedly emitted by various parts of the body and by tissue samples. He invented an ostensibly diagnostic electrical system whose components included: a "Dynamizer"--a receptacle for blood or tissue samples; three rheostats (devices that regulate electric current); and an electrode, which the practitioner would affix to the patient's forehead. Abrams claimed that one could even ascertain a patient's religion with his system, and that the patient's autograph could substitute for blood in the "Dynamizer." For "treatment," he recommended his "Oscilloclast": a device allegedly designed to emit curative vibrations.