Theodore Newton Vail (1845-1920) was twice president of the pioneering U.S. Telephone company, as the Bell Telephone Company (1878-1887) and again as the American Telephone and Telegraph Company (1907-1919). The story of his life and accomplishments is an extraordinary one, and not relevant to this essay, with but one exception. During his early tenure as president of the telephone company, Vail assembled his management staff to analyze and answer one central question: What is our business?¹

It would seem pretty obvious that the business of a telephone company is communication by telephone. But not for Vail. In fact, answering that kind of a question is perhaps one of the most difficult issues an organization has to ponder, and the right answer to it is far from obvious. Vail’s answer was crucial, and its implementation ensured the survival and prosperity of a major American firm for more than three quarters of a century.

Vail’s answer to the question “What is our business?” was “Our business is service.” Although that answer becomes self-evident as soon as it is uttered, it is in its implementation that its importance is truly acknowledged. When Vail articulated it, the U.S. telephone system was already an anomaly: All telephone companies worldwide were generally nationalized because they were monopolies. And AT&T, like them, was at considerable risk of being nationalized in its turn.

The second part of the answer is more subtle than the first. In order to stay in private hands, the telephone company had to be assured of political support. And ultimately that support had to come from individuals and their communities. In order to achieve that goal, Vail undertook to install telephone lines in all areas, including isolated rural communities, which at the time made no immediate economic sense. But it was an immense service that generated exceptional customer satisfaction. And all of Vail’s employees were constantly admonished to emphasize service above all.

The third part of conceptual implementation was to recognize that telephone service was as yet relatively primitive, and had a long way to go, needing extensive and sustained improvements. This required emphasis on research and technology, whose flagship became the Bell Telephone Laboratories, the fountainhead of many major inventions that have transformed our lives, including the transistor. Several of these accomplishments, however, are little known to the general public but are of at least equal importance to the invention of the transistor.

In 1931, for example, Bell Telephone Laboratories hired a young M.I.T. graduate, Karl Jansky, and assigned him to find the sources of all the causes of noise in telephone lines. Jansky spent several years on this work, and meticulously identified all sources of noise but one. He eventually demonstrated that this last source of noise originated beyond the earth, and thus was born the science of radioastronomy.

And all of these favorable consequences, including the political decision of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s administration to leave AT&T in private hands, arose directly and indirectly from Vail’s inspired understanding that the business of his company was service, and doing something equally inspired about it.

This brings us at last to the question, What is the business, or more properly the mission, of the Committee for Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal (CSICOP)? Surely, it is far more all-encompassing than debunking UFOs, the Bermuda Triangle, the Loch Ness Monster, health nostrums, astrology, creationism, and the whole ever-expanding gamut of misleading, outlandish, and fraudulent claims made in the name of science. And the right and apt answer to "What is CSICOP’s mission?” is likely to have a host of long-term favorable consequences in the same way that Vail’s answer had for the fortunes of AT&T, many of them unknowable at the time his answer was suggested and implemented.

Those of us who have been speakers on the regional and national media circuits know in our collective guts that no matter how articulate, witty, disarming, and convincing we may be, in the last analysis we change very few minds. And that is being optimistic! The rest of the time, when we are not preaching to our collective choirs, we converse knowingly with each other, reading our articles and books, and meeting at our conferences, deploring the sad state of affairs beyond our ken. And no one has yet collected James Randi’s legendary $10,000 (now more than a collective million-dollar) challenge.

The result is that despite the impressive progress CSICOP and its satellites have made since its founding, collectively we remain a series of small islands of rational thought in the vast ocean of scientific illiteracy. Many reasons have been advanced over the years for this continuing state of affairs.

The polygraph is still being used and widely advertised as a proven method of detecting lies. Astrology columns without CSICOP’s disclaimer still abound in periodicals across the country. National television networks still broadcast nonsense about creationism and perpetual motion machines. Roswell, New Mexico, is still a mecca of UFO buffs. If anything, the sheer volume of these and many other myths persist with a commercial vengeance. Billions of dollars in revenue sustain the purveyors of fraud and fairy tales.

By contrast we skeptics have to pinch pennies, put our pitiful fingers in the dikes, and try, without much success, to outshout some sense over the cacophonous clamor. The sad truth is that we cannot possibly compete on an even playing field against this collectivity. We are not likely to do so until science is properly taught in our schools, and until those informed students graduate as writers, editors, publishers, and network executives, promoted through the ranks. This is not likely to happen in our lifetimes, but in the meantime we cannot afford to stand still. We have to fight the good battle regardless of the odds. And I believe that we can make a difference.

The first and foremost criterion of enhanced effectiveness is to devote more time to the uninformed collectivity, and decrease the time speaking to ourselves. We perhaps should focus on the decision makers at the local, regional, state, and federal levels. An excellent model for this is the valiant Eugenie C. Scott and her National Center for Science Education, which advances the cause of evolutionary science in response to the creationist threat. But this still leaves the fundamental issue, the reason for this essay, unanswered.

The premise is that no matter what we do and how we do it, we are unlikely to convince enough well-meaning and intelligent people that rational thought is the very foundation of our society and that scientific knowledge has given us the tools to enhance the quality of our lives. But we should perhaps purposefully forego the goal of convincing the unconvinced that we hold the torch of truth illuminating the darkness. We may not think that this is what we are, in fact, attempting to do. But across the chasm that separates the skeptic from the convinced, we too often come across as the self-righteous proselytizer. And in the welter of messages that constantly assail us from every quadrant, a society where fifteen-second sound bites rule, ours is often diminished, laughed away, adulterated, defamed, or ignored, if not lost altogether.

Ultimately it is our benevolent credibility rather than whatever political clout we may possess that will make the difference. And the first step toward that enhanced credibility is to lower our expectations. Most people stand in firm defense of their convictions, because in today’s world, where it is difficult to believe anything, there is comfort and safety in holding onto a core of beliefs, whatever their rational merit. “Give me the benefit of your convictions, if you have any, but keep your doubts to yourself for I have enough of my own,” wrote Goethe. Of course, education is intended to equip every sentient human being with two fundamental tools for coping with the other social animals of his tribe: The first is the communication tool of reading, writing, counting, and knowing the tribe’s history and traditions. The second is the rational thinking tool, without which the first tool cannot effectively be applied.

It is the thinking tool that CSICOP is primarily concerned with. It is inevitable that some of the facts and concepts we absorb as children are either perishable or damaged goods, yet persist into adulthood. Adults are better equipped to filter that intellectual bounty, but the price paid is that established convictions are rapidly carved in stone.

And CSICOP has chosen to challenge some of these unshakable convictions for what it views as the betterment of society. The rational fulcrum of this process is the scientific method, whose power in the affairs of men is difficult to denigrate. If the reader has any doubt on this score, he is invited to try to identify a twentieth century philosopher who has had more drastic impact on our daily lives than a twentieth century scientist such as Albert Einstein.

In the face of this intellectual brick wall of given convictions and scientific illiteracy, what can CSICOP accomplish in a reasonable time with the limited resources at its command? Or, even if CSICOP had these resources multiplied by ten, a hundred, or even a thousand times? The answer is, very little, if the goal is to refashion the given convictions into rational ones. But there is another way to approach the problem, stated witheringly by Oliver Cromwell in a letter he wrote to the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland on August 5, 1650: “I beseech you, in the bowels of Christ, think it possible you may he mistaken. . . .”

” . . . Think it possible you may be mistaken . . .” is exactly what CSICOP ought to aim for as its ultimate goal. To plant a seed of doubt into an unwavering conviction is a vast accomplishment in education as well as in thinking on one’s own. To be able to doubt is humbling and constructive because it requires the application of rational thought in weighing alternatives. Once that seed has been planted, it can germinate into a full reexamination of the options, which opens unlimited vistas, or it can remain a dormant seed. In either case, the process cannot help but enrich each human being and make him or her a more effective and a more balanced member of a better society.

To have accomplished this remarkable feat would be the ultimate accolade for any organization. It is within the scope of what CSICOP can achieve, and in all humility, it ought to aim for that attainable goal.

Note

1. Peter Drucker, Management: Tasks, Responsibilities, Practices. Harper’s College Press, N.Y. (1977)

One of the main ways magnetotherapy is applied is through the use of permanent magnets. According to proponents, you can get their benefits as follows:

1. Local application: Effects depend drastically on which pole you apply. North pole: against pain, inflammatory and infectious processes. South pole: provides strength and energy. Does your shoulder hurt? No problem. Put the north of one of the magnets on the front of your shoulder and the south of the other one on the back of it (like a sandwich).
2. General application: The aim of this method is to provide a general magnetic flow inside the body. This helps to regulate the disorders of the organism. A correct application of the general method is said to involve a deep knowledge of the polarity of the human body and its affinity with therapeutic magnets.

Proponents contend that the north pole has negative electric potential and south, positive (nonsense x 1010) and that it has been established (by whom?) that the front and the right side of the human body are positives, and back and left side, negatives. So on the right side you must apply north and on the left the south. Pay attention to the extraordinary therapeutic: if your illness is above the waist, you must correctly apply the magnets on the palms of your hands. But if your sickness is below the waist then magnets must be placed below your feet. Isn't it great?

Their claims. — The following collection of nonsense claims about magnetotherapy has been compiled from booklets and radio programs. In parenthesis are my comments, perhaps cynical but . . . who could help it?

• The Earth’s magnetic field has fallen fifty percent in the last centuries and five percent in the last hundred years. This falling has provoked an increase in common diseases. This is called Magnetic Field Deficiency Syndrome. Such effect has increased because of modern life, immersed in a world of iron, steel and concrete. The modern world deprives us of the healthy influence of the natural (of course!) magnetic field necessary to maintain our bioelectric cellular equilibrium. (??)
• Cells work better in the presence of magnetic fields. Experiments with plants prove it. (Which ones?)
• Cells live on magnetic energy, and most of this energy is provided by water. (It is true. I feel better when I eat a juicy magnetic steak)
• In big cities the magnetic field doesn't exist or it has been strongly modified. (So you can not use a compass in a city, I suppose)
• Spring water is magnetized. But if you bottle it, after five days it loses its power.
• Water has a magnetic potential (?) that we can help to recover. (This sounds Aristotelian, doesn't it?)
• The natural phase of water is gaseous, but the Earth’s magnetic field and its uncommon properties make it liquid. (No comments. The ways of illiteracy are endless).
• Magnetic water loses its curative properties in contact with metals. (Who doubts it?)
• Illness is caused by losing energetic equilibrium, and magnetotherapy helps to recover it. (I think you had better plug in. Everything works better if it is plugged in)
• Eighty percent of common diseases have their origin on Magnetic Field Deficiency Syndrome. (Why are you laughing?)
• Magnetotherapy was known by Chinese, Egyptians, and Indians 3,500 years ago. (Neither Egyptians nor Chinese knew this therapeutic use of magnets. Egyptians probably didn't even know the existence of magnets.)
• Magnetic water is based on the principle of electromagnetic induction discovered by Faraday. How? In their words, we have a water flow (doubtless it is a current) and a magnet, so . . .
• Louis Pasteur studied the effect of magnets on plant growth and on fruit enzymes. (Sure?)
• The magnetic field modifies water structure, changing some of its physical properties.
• In the body, the magnetic field increases the dilution of oxygen in plasma, transporting more oxygen together with the hemoglobin mechanism. (Give them the Nobel Prize for Medicine!)
• Osteoporosis is caused by the absence of the Earth’s magnetic field. Space agencies use magnetotherapy to help their astronauts recover. (Absolutely false. Osteoporosis occurs during space flight because of weightlessness. There is no more stress on the weight-bearing bones of the body when in orbit, and so calcium tends to be absorbed in the bloodstream. The same thing happens on Earth to patients who are in bed for long periods of time, and to people who have to keep one leg suspended or non-weightbearing due to disease or fractures. The “cure” for this problem seems to be to provide exercises that will periodically stress these bones, such as running on a treadmill or doing squatting exercises. Some investigators have tried electrical stimulation on legs to promote bone growth, but it has not worked so far.)
• In 1777, two French medical doctors, Androy and Thouret, gave their approval to magnetotherapy in a session of the Royal Society of Medicine. (I don't know if it was actually passed; it seems so. In the eighteenth century, therapies included unguents, purges, and bleedings. As with homeopathy, such a harmless and inoffensive treatment was better than real medicine!)

Medical applications. — After this wonderful exhibition of deep scientific knowledge we could expect specific treatments for different diseases. It’s amazing (well, not much from what have seen so far), that only one treatement is needed to help nearly eighty common diseases:

1. Apply the therapeutic magnets following the general method;
2. Apply the therapeutic magnets in the zone of the disease. North is for pain; south is to recover lost energy and vitality;

3. Drink magnetic water. It’s so easy . . . By this method you can get cured of: abscess, acne, allergy, anaemia, arthritis, asthma, bronchitis, cellulitis, sciatic, diabetes, diarrhea, dyspepsia, stringent, frigidity, impotency, flu, herpes, headaches, zoster and a lot more!

   Some of the supposed ‘cures’ are quite obvious. For example, for stringent they recommend drinking two or three litres of magnetic water daily (if you don't succeed after drinking three litres, what else can you do?). Or to gargle with magnetic water and lemon juice if you suffer pharyngitis (my grandmother said that it is better to use lemon juice and honey . . .) Finally, it is quite impressive to learn that to cure for all child diseases we must only apply low power magnets and make them drink magnetic water.

A double-blind study at Baylor College of Medicine, published last November in Archives of Physical and Rehabilitation Medicine (Vallbona 1997), concluded that permanent magnets reduce pain in post-polio patients, and the results were heralded in The New York Times and on Bryant Gumbel’s Public Eye. PBS’s Health Week and Time magazine recently reported on the growing use of magnets by champion senior golfers and other professional athletes to relieve pain. Magnetic pain relief products are now sold in many golf shops, and ads for them appear in national golf and tennis magazines. Long a significant component of the health industry in Japan and China, magnetic therapy is becoming a more and more visible part of the alternative-medicine boom in the United States and Europe. Is it all just hokum, as many previously assumed, or is magnetic therapy becoming scientifically respectable?

Early History

For thousands of years, wonder and magic were associated with the mysterious forces exerted by natural magnets — magnetite-rich rocks, today called lodestones. Many trace magnetic therapy back to Paracelsus (1493-1543), a physician and alchemist who reasoned that since magnets have the power to attract iron, perhaps they can also attract diseases and leach them from the body. Charles Mackay, in Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds (1841), says of Paracelsus that “his claim to be the first of the magnetisers can scarcely be challenged.” But Paracelsus was also aware of the important role of the patient’s mind in the process of healing (Buranelli 1975). He wrote, “The spirit is the master, the imagination is the instrument, the body is the plastic material. The moral atmosphere surrounding the patient can have a strong influence on the course of the disease. It is not the curse or the blessing that works, but the idea. The imagination produces the effect.” Paracelsus was apparently well aware of the placebo effect.

The development in eighteenth-century England of carbon-steel permanent magnets more powerful than lodestones brought renewed interest in the possible healing powers of magnets, and among those interested was Maximilian Hell, a professor of astronomy at the University of Vienna. Hell claimed several cures using steel magnets, but he was rapidly eclipsed by a friend who borrowed his magnets to treat a young woman suffering from a severe mental illness. The friend was Franz Anton Mesmer (1734-1815), and Mesmer’s success with the “magnets from Hell” led directly to his widespread promotion of his theory of “animal magnetism.” Although he first used actual magnets, he later found he could “magnetize” virtually anything — paper, wood, leather, water — and produce the same effect on patients. He concluded that the animal magnetism resided in himself, the various materials simply aiding the flow of the “universal fluid” between him and the patients.

Mesmer became so successful in Paris that in 1784 King Louis XVI established a Royal Commission to evaluate the claims of animal magnetism, a commission that included Antoine Lavoisier and Benjamin Franklin among its members. They conducted a series of experiments and concluded that all the observed effects could be attributed to the power of suggestion, and that “the practice of magnetization is the art of increasing the imagination by degrees.” Thomas Jefferson, arriving in Paris soon after the Commission report, noted in his journal: “Animal magnetism is dead, ridiculed.”

Ridiculed, perhaps, but not dead. Mesmer himself faded from public view, but “magnetizing” persisted in various forms. Many early magnetizers evolved into students of hypnosis and developed various forms of hypnotherapy. (The trance induced in many of Mesmer’s patients is thought to be what is now called a hypnotic trance, and most dictionaries today list mesmerism as a synonym for hypnotism.) One American who became interested in magnetic healing was Daniel David Palmer, who opened Palmer’s School of Magnetic Cure in Iowa in the 1890s. His ideas developed into the system of hands-on therapy known as chiropractic. Others focused on hand gestures without actual touch, an approach recently reborn as “therapeutic touch.” [See “Catching Up With Eighteenth Century Science in the Evaluation of Therapeutic Touch, ” by Thomas S. Ball and Dean D. Alexander, this issue, p. 31] Mary Baker Eddy was “cured” by a magnetizer, but she later became convinced that cures could best be achieved through prayer, and founded Christian Science.

Most of these byproducts of mesmerism, like Mesmer himself, ceased to use actual magnets. But the development of electrical technology in the late nineteenth century impressed the general public with the mysterious powers of electric and magnetic fields, and therapeutic magnets had a rebirth, with many “doctors” promoting magnets to relieve pain, enhance sleep, and cure a wide variety of diseases. The most notable of these was Dr. C. J. Thacher, whom Collier’s Magazine dubbed “King of the magnetic quacks” (Macklis 1993). His 1886 mail-order catalogue offered a variety of magnetic garments, and a complete costume contained more than 700 magnets, which provided “full and complete protection of all the vital organs of the body.”

In the twentieth century, materials scientists and engineers have developed stronger and stronger permanent magnets — alnico magnets in the 1930s, ferrite (ceramic) magnets in the 1950s, and rare-earth magnets in the 1970s and 1980s. The latest rare-earth magnets, neodymium-iron-boron, are more than a hundred times more powerful than the steel magnets available in the last century to Edison, Bell, and C. J. Thacher (Livingston 1996). Both ferrite magnets and the latest “neo” magnets have had a tremendous impact on modern technology, but they have also restimulated interest in the use of permanent magnets for magnetic therapy. Most magnetic therapy products today, like most refrigerator magnets, contain inexpensive ferrite magnets, but many suppliers offer neodymium “supermagnets” in their top-of-the-line products.

Magnetic Therapy Today

Both ferrite and rare-earth magnets, unlike earlier magnetic materials such as steels and alnicos, have great resistance to demagnetization, allowing thin disks to be magnetized. (Earlier magnets had to be long and thin to avoid being demagnetized by the internal fields produced by the poles at the ends.) This feature allows modern magnets to be mounted in a variety of thin products that can be applied to the body with the magnetic field emanating from the surface.

Some suppliers recommend applying magnetic patches directly to your aches and pains, while others recommend applying small Band-Aid-like patches to acupuncture points. Magnetic belts containing sixteen or more magnets are purported to ease back pain, and similar magnetic wraps are offered for almost any part of the body, including hands, wrists, elbows, knees, ankles, and feet (magnetic insoles are particularly popular). For headaches you can wear magnetic headbands, magnetic earrings, or magnetic necklaces. (One company marketing magnetic necklaces provides simple instructions: the necklace should be put on as soon as the headache appears and removed as soon as it goes away. Since most headaches come and go, following these instructions precisely will clearly produce persuasive evidence of the necklace’s efficacy.)

Many magnetic necklaces, bracelets, and earrings are formed from silver- and gold-rich magnetic alloys and promoted as both fashionable and therapeutic. One catalog claims magnetic earrings “stimulate nerve endings that are associated with head and neck pain,” and magnetic bracelets “act upon the body’s energy field” and “correct energy imbalances brought by electro-magnetic contamination or atmospheric changes.” Larger items include magnetic seat cushions, magnetic pillows, and magnetic mattress pads, the last claiming to produce an “energizing sleep field.” One supplier offers a PCD — Prostate Comfort Device for older men. If properly placed while you sit watching television or driving your car, you will no longer have to get out of bed several times a night to relieve yourself!

To avoid trouble with the Food and Drug Administration, most suppliers emphasize only “comfort” and usually specifically state “no medical claims are made.” Some, however, are far less careful. One company in Kansas markets a book entitled Curing Cancer With Supermagnets. The authors of the book claim to have cured cancer simply by hanging a neodymium “supermagnet” around the patient’s neck. The cancer discussed in the advertisement was a breast cancer, but they report that “the supermagnets influence the whole body” and “our method can cure all types of cancer.”

Many magnetic therapy products have alternating arrays of north and south poles facing the patient. Some have detailed explanations of why a circular pattern of poles is optimal, while others offer poles in checkerboard or triangular patterns. Nikken, the Japan-based firm that has used a multilevel marketing scheme to expand from an annual business in the U. S. of $3 million in 1989 to $150 million today, primarily offers products with alternating poles.

One clear difference between such multipolar magnetic devices and unipolar devices (with only one pole facing the patient) is the “reach” of the magnetic field. The field from even unipolar magnets decreases very rapidly with increasing distance from the magnet, but the field from multipolar magnets decreases much more rapidly. If multipolar magnets really have any effects on the human body, they will be limited to depths of penetration of only a few millimeters. (Many refrigerator magnets are multipolar, which limits the thickness of paper they can hold to the refrigerator, but also limits the damage they can do to nearby credit and ATM cards.)

Other suppliers offer only unipolar magnets, and some emphasize the importance of having only south-seeking poles facing the body. Contrary to common scientific usage, they call south-seeking poles north poles. Since opposite poles attract, they argue that a pole that seeks south must be a north pole. (Here practitioners of magnetic therapy are perhaps more logical than mainstream science, which calls the south-seeking pole a south pole, requiring that the earth’s magnetic pole in Antarctica is, by the standard scientific terminology, a north pole.) Dr. Buryl Payne, in his book The Body Magnetic (1988), argues that south-seeking poles calm tissue but north-seeking poles stimulate tissue, and you should therefore never expose tumors or infections to north-seeking poles. When I suggested to one practitioner that different effects from different poles seemed to violate basic rules of symmetry, he assured me that the rules were reversed in the southern hemisphere.

One of the most ardent advocates of magnetic therapy is Dr. William Philpott of Oklahoma, who publishes his own Magnetic Energy Quarterly. He is also on the board of the Bio-Electro-Magnetics Institute of Reno, Nevada, a nonprofit “research and educational organization” and an advisor to the NIH Office of Alternative Medicine. His wife happens to have a business selling “Polar Power Magnets.” Dr. Ronald Lawrence of California is President of the North American Academy of Magnetic Therapy and reports that he has successfully used magnets to relieve pain in hundreds of his patients. He is associated with Magnetherapy, a Florida company that markets “Tectonic Magnets.” Both Dr. Philpott and Dr. Lawrence favor unipolar magnets.

The efficacy of magnetic therapy (or of any other medical treatment, mainstream or alternative) does not depend on our understanding the biological mechanism. Nevertheless most promoters of magnetic therapy recognize the need for offering some plausible explanation. The mechanism most commonly offered for various therapeutic effects of magnets is improved blood circulation, despite a lack of clear evidence for such an effect. Other suggestions include alteration of nerve impulses, increased oxygen content and increased alkalinity of bodily fluids, magnetic forces on moving ions, and decreased deposits on the walls of blood vessels.

The broadest explanation was presented by Dr. Kyochi Nakagawa of Japan, who claims that many of our modern ills result from “Magnetic Field Deficiency Syndrome.” The earth’s magnetic field is known to have decreased about 6 percent since 1830, and indirect evidence suggests that it may have decreased as much as 30 percent over the last millennium. He argues that magnetic therapy simply provides some of the magnetic field that the earth has lost.

Magnetic therapy is also prominent in the treatment of thoroughbred racehorses. An injured racehorse represents potential loss of a substantial investment, providing considerable incentive to try “alternative medicine” to supplement mainstream veterinary treatment. Magnetic pads for a variety of leg problems, magnetic blankets, magnetic hoof pads, etc., all get ringing endorsements from many horse trainers — and even some veterinarians. One marketer of magnetic products for humans reports that he first became convinced of their effectiveness when he used them on his ailing llama! Enthusiasts argue that the placebo effect could not be effective on horses or other animals, but forget that it may influence the human who is interpreting the effect of magnetic therapy on the animal.

The Baylor Study

These examples and the centuries-old connection between magnets and quackery, have led many to consider modern magnetic therapy as total hokum, with the many testimonials for the success of magnetic treatments explainable by placebo effects. But the Baylor study, seemingly a careful double-blind study, has surprised many.

The study was conducted by Dr. Carlos Vallbona on fifty post-polio patients at Baylor’s Institute for Rehabilitation Research in Houston. Bioflex, Inc., of Corpus Christi provided both the magnets (multipolar, circular pattern) and a set of visually identical sham magnets to serve as controls. To keep the study “double-blind” neither the patients nor the staff were informed as to which devices were active magnets, and which were shams. Before and after the forty-five-minute period of magnet therapy, the patients were asked to grade their pain on a scale from 0 to 10. The twenty nine patients with active magnets reported, on average, a significant reduction of pain (from 9.6 to 4.4), while the twenty-one patients with shams reported a much smaller average reduction (from 9.5 to 8.4). This is a substantial difference, and if the double-blind study was successfully conducted, cannot be explained by a placebo effect.

For a hardened skeptic, some doubts remain. Both Dr. Vallbona and his colleague, Dr. Carlton Hazlewood, had reported the successful personal use of magnets to relieve their own knee pains prior to the study, raising doubts as to their objectivity. Conscious or unconscious biases of researchers can have very subtle and unrecognized effects on the results of their studies, and a serious difficulty of conducting any double-blind studies with magnets is the ease of distinguishing active magnets from sham magnets (although the patients were reportedly observed during the therapy period to assure that they were not surreptitiously testing their magnets). Another difficulty of any studies of pain relief is the highly subjective nature of the data.

Despite these various reasons for caution, the results of this study have altered the views of many physicians. Dr. William Jarvis, president of the National Council Against Health Fraud, had formerly dismissed magnet therapy as “essentially quackery.” He now tentatively admits that it may have value for post-polio pain.

More studies will be needed before magnetic therapy will be accepted by a majority of the medical community, and some studies are already underway. Last year the NIH Office of Alternative Medicine gave a million-dollar grant to Dr. Ann Gill Taylor of the School of Nursing of the University of Virginia to study the use of magnets to relieve pain. Among other things, she will be testing the effectiveness of magnetic sleep pads in relieving pain in patients suffering from fibromyalgia, a common disease involving joint and muscle pain. While we wait for the results of these and other studies, does what we know about magnetic fields and the human body make it plausible that magnetic therapy for pain might have a physical basis beyond mind/body effects?

Magnetic Fields and the Body

The electrochemical processes of the human body are extremely complex and incompletely understood, and physical effects of magnetic fields cannot be ruled out. Many thousands of papers have in fact been published on biological effects of electromagnetic fields, much of it focused on the effects of radio-frequency and microwave fields or, in recent years, on fields at power-line frequencies (fifty or sixty cycles per second). Studies of biological effects of steady magnetic fields (reviewed by Frankel and Liburdy 1996) have concentrated mostly on high fields of the level encountered in MRI magnets, typically of the order of 10,000 gauss (1 tesla). Unfortunately, research has been very limited at field levels typical of magnetic therapy products, most of which are limited to a few hundred gauss, even at the magnet surface. (The earth’s field is a bit less than half a gauss.)

Viewed simply as inert material, the human body, like its primary constituent, water, is diamagnetic, i.e., weakly repelled by magnetic fields. In response to an applied magnetic field, the electrons in water molecules make slight adjustments in their motions, producing a net magnetic field in the opposing direction about 100,000 times smaller than the applied field. With the removal of the applied field, the electrons return to their original orbits, and the water molecules once again become nonmagnetic. (We perhaps should note that some promoters of magnetic therapy also promote “magnetized water.” You can't magnetize water. Although water responds weakly to an applied field, the response disappears as soon as the field is removed.) Although the diamagnetism of water and most living things is very weak, a high-field electromagnet producing 160,000 gauss (16 tesla) at the center of the coil has recently been used to levitate not only water drops but also flowers, grasshoppers, and small frogs (Berry and Geim 1997), the “flying frogs” drawing worldwide media coverage. Since fields of that magnitude are required to balance gravitational forces, the much lower fields of magnetic-therapy devices can only produce diamagnetic forces that are thousands of times smaller than gravity. (The repulsive force will be proportional to the product of the field and the field gradient.)

Some dubious literature suggests that magnetic fields attract blood, citing all the iron it contains. However, iron in the blood is very different from metallic iron, which is strongly magnetic because the individual atomic magnets are strongly coupled together by the phenomenon we call ferromagnetism. The remarkable properties of ferromagnetic materials are a result of the cooperative behavior of many, many magnetic atoms acting in unison. The iron in blood consists instead of isolated iron atoms within large hemoglobin molecules, located inside the red blood cells. Although each of the iron atoms is magnetic, it is not near other iron atoms, and remains magnetically independent.

The net effect of the weak paramagnetism of the isolated iron atoms in hemoglobin is only a slight decrease in the overall diamagnetism of blood. Blood, like water, is weakly repelled by magnetic fields, not attracted.

Although most components of the human body and other living things are weakly diamagnetic, many organisms have been shown to contain small amounts of strongly magnetic materials, usually magnetite (Fe3O4). The most extreme case is that of magnetotactic bacteria, originally found in mud collected from the marshes of Cape Cod. Each contains a long chain of magnetite particles that interact strongly enough with the earth’s magnetic field to orient the bacteria along the field. Magnetite crystals have also been found in pigeons, honeybees, many mammals, and even in the human brain, but in proportionately much smaller amounts than in the bacteria. It seems very unlikely that there is enough magnetite within the human body to provide a possible mechanism to explain magnetic therapy. However, if magnetite particles were located at strategic places, they could locally amplify the effects of low magnetic fields and, for example, modify ion flow across cell membranes, of the type involved with electrical transmission in nerve cells.

More likely mechanisms are those based on magnetic forces on moving charged particles, possibly including ions or charged molecules in flowing blood, moving across cell membranes, moving across synapses between nerve cells, etc., or those based on more subtle effects on biochemical reactions (Frankel and Liburdy 1996). Although no physical mechanisms for magnetic therapy have been established, the possibilities are numerous and complex. Only further clinical tests, carefully controlled to account for placebo effects, can confirm or dispute the results of the Baylor study and prove or disprove the claims of magnetic therapy.

Some media reports have not sufficiently distinguished the Baylor form of magnetic therapy, based on modest static fields from permanent magnets, with a more accepted form of “magnetic therapy” based on high pulsed magnetic fields from electromagnets (Malmivuo and Plonsey 1995). Pulsed magnetic fields are very different from static magnetic fields, because, via Maxwell’s equations, time-varying magnetic fields induce electric fields. Electric fields have pronounced biological effects, particularly on nerve and muscle cells, as we have known since the days of Galvani and his twitching frogs’ legs. Many years ago the FDA approved the use of pulsed magnetic fields in “bone growth stimulators” for the treatment of fractures that were slow to heal, and research on “magnetic stimulation” — pulsed magnetic fields applied to the brain or other components of the nervous system — has grown rapidly in recent years. Transcranial magnetic stimulation, in which the patient receives hundreds of magnetic field pulses of 1 tesla or more, each only a millisecond in duration, has shown considerable promise as a means of treating depression. However, these forms of pulsed-field magnetic therapy are based on biological effects of induced electric fields, and are very different from the use of the static fields from permanent magnets.

Conclusions

Claims of therapeutic effects of permanent magnets should still be regarded with considerable skepticism. Most of the many testimonials to the effectiveness of magnetic therapy devices can be attributed to placebo effects and to other effects accompanying their use. For example, the magnetic back braces used by many senior golfers may help ease their back pains through providing mechanical support, through localized warming, and through constant reminder to the aging athletes that they are no longer young and should not overexert their muscles. All these effects are helpful with or without magnets. One British study of pulsed-field bone-growth stimulators, which were approved decades ago by the FDA, found that they were equally successful when the devices were not activated (Barker 1984), and concluded that their effectiveness resulted from the enforced inactivity associated with their use, rather than from the pulsed magnetic fields.

The more extreme claims of magnetic therapy, such as curing cancer by hanging supermagnets around your neck, are not only nonsense but also dangerous, since they may divert patients from seeking appropriate treatment from mainstream medicine. Magnetic jewelry and most other magnetic-therapy products probably are harmless beyond a waste of money. Several years ago, a double-blind study found that magnetic necklaces produced no relief of neck or shoulder pain (Hong 1982).

The results of the Baylor study, however, raise the possibility that at least in some cases, topical application of permanent magnets may indeed be useful in pain relief, a conclusion that should be regarded as tentative until supported by further studies. Any mechanism for such an effect remains mysterious, but an effect of static magnetic fields on the complex electrochemical processes of the human body is not impossible. My own guess is that inexpensive refrigerator magnets are as likely to provide help as the more expensive magnets marketed specifically for therapy. (But since human nature leads us to expect more from more expensive items, use of refrigerator magnets will probably decrease the placebo effect!)

References

• Barker, A. T. et al. 1984. Pulsed magnetic field therapy for tibial non-union. Lancet 994-996.
• Berry, M. V. and A. K. Geim. 1997. Of flying frogs and levitrons. Eur. J. Phys. 18: 307-313.
• Buranelli, V. 1975. The Wizard from Vienna. Coward, McCann & Geoghegan.
• Frankel, Richard B. and Robert P. Liburdy. 1996. Biological effects of static magnetic fields (in Handbook of Biological Effects of Electromagnetic Fields, second edition, Charles Polk and Elliot Postow, eds. CRC Press).
• Hong, C. Z. et al. 1982. Magnetic necklace: Its therapeutic effectiveness on neck and shoulder pain. Archives of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation 63:162-164.
• Livingston, James D. 1996. Driving Force: The Natural Magic of Magnets. Harvard University Press.
• Mackay, Charles. [1841] 1932. Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds. Reprint, L. C. Page.
• Macklis, Roger M. 1993. Magnetic healing, quackery, and the debate about the health effects of electromagnetic fields. Annals of Internal Medicine 118(5): 376-383.
• Malmivuo, Jaakko and Robert Plonsey. 1995. Bioelectromagnetism: Principles and applications of bioelectric and biomagnetic fields. Oxford University Press.
• Payne, Buryl. 1988. The Body Magnetic (self-published).
• Vallbona, Carlos, Carlton F. Hazlewood, and Gabor Jurida. 1997. Response of pain to static magnetic fields in postpolio patients: A double-blind pilot study. Archives of Physical and Rehabilitation Medicine 78(11): 1200-1203.

As many skeptics well know, its very founding in 1848 was a fraud. Spiritualism sprang to life in upstate New York with the rappings and alleged spirit contacts of two teenage girls known as the Fox sisters. Soon the young girls’ performances captured international attention, prompting similar claims by mediums across the world. Only forty years later, with her sister Katie looking on, did Margaret Fox publicly demonstrate the tricks the schoolgirls had used in pretending to communicate with a ghost.

Despite spiritualism’s checkered history of hoaxes and trickery, Van Praagh endorses the genuineness of such phenomena as spirit photography, “apports” (magically appearing items), “ectoplasm” (a substance allegedly exuded from a medium’s bodily orifices), and even luminescent “materializations” of spirit entities. Alas, one must look elsewhere to find evidence of the double-exposed pictures and other tricks, the hiding places where apports were stashed until needed, the evidence that ectoplasm’s “gauzelike” quality (as Van Praagh characterizes it) was due to phony mediums using cheesecloth for the purpose, and the reports of those who embraced the “spirits” and discovered them to be living persons in ghostly guise.

The record of such trickery, if not the actual risk of exposure, has caused many spiritualists to avoid physical phenomena. Despite his endorsement of their authenticity, when it comes to his own practice, Van Praagh is strictly a "mental medium,” one who uses “psychic ability” that includes alleged clairvoyance (or inner sight) and clairsentience (extrasensory feelings).

Such an approach makes it difficult for an investigator to distinguish between two types of deception: that involving the deliberate hoodwinking of the sitter and that in which the medium and sitter essentially deceive themselves.

Psychologists know, for example, that the “voices” allegedly heard by mediums are invariably their own internal thoughts, that they glean information — innocently or shrewdly — by familiar means. These include reading body language (to sense when one is factually on or off track), providing data in question form (which may, if correct, be considered a “hit,” but otherwise will seem an innocent query), and inviting the sitter to interpret the vague statements offered. (Van Praagh often asks, “Do you understand this?” or “Do you know what this means?” or similar questions, inviting the sitter to provide the meaning. If the sitter does not comprehend, the medium will try another tack.)

Van Praagh manages to cast discredited spiritualism in a new light: He utilizes popular belief in every type of alleged ghostly activity (flickering lights, dreams, “meaningful” coincidences, and the like), not just sëance phenomena. He takes advantage of New Age popularity to include “chakras” (purported “energy centers”), meditation, psychic phenomena, and so on, but presenting everything in a religious rather than occult context. For example, he equates the old mediumistic “spirit guides” (supposed go-betweens with the "other world”) with “guardian angels,” thereby tapping into the currently faddish interest in angels.

His major ploy is the book’s title, Talking to Heaven, which suggests that spirits of the dead exist not in some ethereal dimension, as earlier spiritualism implied, but in a traditional religious domain. Everyone, Van Praagh would say, can talk to Heaven. But one is reminded of the exchange in Shakespeare’s King Henry IV between Glendower and Hotspur. When the former boasts, “I can call spirits from the vasty deep,” the other replies, “Why so can I, or so can any man; But will they come when you do call for them?”