Ye of little faith.
You guys really disappoint me. Dead bodies point north, brought to you by the same people who invented the Electronic Radio Biola.
A woman ahead of her scientific time, Dr. Mae Work used the impressive Electronic Radio Biola on the Bethelites while she and her husband Linus were there.
Automatic Electronic Diagnosis
In the April 22, 1925 Golden Age magazine there appeared the article, "Automatic Electronic Diagnosis" by Dr. R. A. Gamble. At the beginning of the article C. J. Woodworth, the Editor of The Golden Age, inserted this endorsement in brackets:
[THE GOLDEN AGE has the fullest confidence in any representations that may be made by Doctor Gamble. He is well known to many of our readers and we are sure they will read this important article with interest.-;Editor.]
Dr. Gamble was "well known" to Golden Age readers as he was a prominent Bible Student and was the Chairman of the 1922 Bible Student Convention.
Dr. Gamble announces in this article his new medical invention based on the Electronic Reactions of Abrams (ERA). Because of the controversial nature of the ERA at the time, Dr. Gamble introduces his subject in the following manner:
I KNOW that the GOLDEN AGE has hitherto held aloof from saying anything, either one way or the other, about the famous Abrams' Electronic system of detecting and treating diseased conditions; but I feel that the time has now come when it may safely do so. A new discovery in this field has such promise of being an inestimable boon to mankind that I feel it would be a pity to keep it under cover.(p. 451 ¶1)
Actually, The Golden Age had recently published the article, The Power of the Mind by a Bible Student Chiropractor and Osteopath by the name of A. P. Pottle. The article not only endorsed the ERA but many of its psychic and occult methods and connections as well such as telepathy, mind reading, Physiognomy and more.[1]Dr. Gamble was probably not aware of it as the article more than likely came out after he had written and sent his article to The Golden Age for publishing. The two articles were published almost exactly two months apart.
Dr. Gamble, unaware of this recent endorsement spends some time to begin with defending the ERA and Dr. Abrams, saying:
To Dr. Abrams is due, and will always be due, the credit for setting forth the fundamental truths concerning the Electronic theory in its application to the diagnosis and treatment of disease. His method, as taught and applied, has already created a revolution in the ranks of medicine which only the uninformed and the unprogressive will deny. (p. 452, ¶7)
It was an epochal discovery in science and in medicine when the revelations came home to professional men that all substances are to a greater or less extent broadcasting stations, putting signals on the air which vary as do the assembly and rate of the "electrons" of which they are composed. All the sensory organs--nose, eyes, ears, mouth, and touch--are receiving sets. Every nerve tract in the body is a receiving set; and hence the medical profession can not possibly ignore radio, even if it would. (pp. 451-2, ¶9)
Though claiming that only those who were "unprogressive" and "uninformed" would deny that Abrams' methods had already created a "revolution" in medicine, the fact is, by the time this was published, two major scientific investigations of the ERA had determined that is was "the height of absurdity" and worthless in detecting and curing diseases.[2] The ERA as a result was by this time relegated to medical cult status and following.
On the other hand, he may have been aware of the Scientific American investigation for example and simply brushed aside the evidence against the ERA for Gamble admits that the late Dr. Abrams' "epoch-making discoveries" were denounced. He brushed this aside not with any empirical evidence, but to simply note that when X-Ray technology was first developed some "experts on the leading magazine for electrical engineers,... rushed into print denouncing the whole thing as a fake and an impossibility, and reproved the public for being so foolish, so credulous,..." (p. 452 ¶5)
Dr. Gamble, though, claimed to have first hand knowledge that Abrams' methods cured individuals as he "studied" with Abrams in 1922 in San Francisco and saw its effects (p. 452 ¶8). This corroborates Roy Goodrich's claim that J.F. Rutherford himself sent Bethel doctors to San Franscico in 1922 to learn Abrams's techniques or as Goodrich put it, "import" this "demonism" back to Bethel. [3]This includes the Bethel Osteopath, Mae J. Work who used the ERA on Bethelites. She claimed to have been sent to study Abrams's techniques in 1922. [4] Further corroboration of Goodrich's claim comes from the fact that William Hudgings, a prominent Bible Student and one of the three listed publishers of The Golden Age magazine including the one under discussion, claimed to have studied Abrams's methods in San Francisco.[5]