What Is Rife Therapy? And What Does Evidence Say About It?

Last updated on 5 JUL 2022

As we, as a species, progress further and further into our understanding of diseases, viruses, and other infections, we always seem to be pushing the absolute edge of technology to try to find ways to cure or prevent such things. Some of those technologies are now in common use, such as x-ray imaging discovered by Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen, that were at first ridiculed by the medical community before their true benefits were discovered.

What Is Rife Therapy?

Royal Raymond Rife, 1888-1971

The same ridicule was pointed at Royal Raymond Rife, who invented multiple types of microscopes and the Rife Machine throughout his life. After studying the research and theories of another scientist, Dr. Albert Abrams, he went about making the Rife Machine to pass electromagnetic waves through the human body at a specific frequency that could be adjusted, while the patient holds an electromagnetic probe in each hand. The thought was that these waves were thought to target cancer cells and the cancer virus, to stop further growth of cancer and even start to destroy it.

The original thesis was that cancers had their own corresponding electromagnetic frequencies, and the application of the right one would cause cancer cells to be inhibited or destroyed. At the time, World War I had just ended and there was sincere and earnest interest in new treatments for battlefield injuries and, unfortunately, ways to weaponize some of the emerging technologies that were born from the War. As such, research grants could be given to a wide range of studies, from rocket engines to electromagnetic research.

How Is It Perceived?

A modern-day example of a Rife Therapy Machine that can be computer controlled

When it was first shown to the medical world in the 1920’s, most journalists and medical professionals wrote it off. To the common man, it seemed like Rife was attempting to cash in on the huge leaps forward that medicine had taken in the first two decades of the century, including new techniques discovered on the battlefields of World War I. As such, the only real interest in the machine came about from the alternative medicine community, as well as scientists interested in further research about electromagnetic waves.

While the Rife Machine was quickly passed out of the mainstream eye, but quietly, in the background of science, research into electromagnetic wave therapies continued. Newer models and more in-depth research started to find, in the 1950s and 1960s, that certain parts of the human body did indeed react to electromagnetic waves, especially the brain if certain frequencies were used. Yet still, the original Rife Machine and Rife Therapy were dismissed as fancy machines that really did nothing to attack or help in cancer treatment

Lately, however, as recently as in studies from 2016 and 2017, with the refined, precise sensors that are now used in medicine and research, in animal tests, it was found that extremely precise electromagnetic frequencies did cause an inhibition in cancer cell growth. However, these frequencies are far outside what the Rife Machine at the time was able to produce.

What Are The Arguments For/Against Rife Therapy?

Rife Therapy probes that can be held in the hands.

While for the better part of a century Rife’s invention was ridiculed, it is now starting to be applied as part of a treatment regimen for early stage cancers, alongside chemotherapy and surgery to remove tumors. 

Those that argue for the use of the technology have recent studies and findings to back them up, including new Rife Machines that can generate electromagnetic frequencies across a much wider range. Another major argument for Rife Therapy is that it is non-invasive and does not damage healthy cells, something that surgery and chemotherapy, respectively, cannot claim. As well, the last major argument for the use of Rife Therapy is that once the patient’s specific frequency is identified, it can be “locked in” and have multiple treatments per week, for a few minutes each time, alongside other treatments to attempt to apply the most mitigation possible to cancer.

Those that are against the technology, however, are also standing on fairly solid grounds. The first, most important argument is that while there are new studies and findings, these are mostly from scientists with a medical reviewer reading over their findings and studies before they are published. No actual medical scientists are at the forefront of the research, which can, and does, diminish the “medically acceptable” view of the treatment.

As well, so far all the studies where electromagnetic frequencies are found to inhibit cancer growth have been on animals. No human has been the complete focus of a full study on the technology. This is mostly because while cancer is a horrible disease, poking and prodding around with a technology that has not conclusively been shown to be at least 50% effective may give those in later stage cancers false hope.

Lastly, since Rife Machines are not considered mainstream medical equipment, a variety of grades exist. Some Rife Machines appear to have been built with a very large sledgehammer and a blindfold, while others meet or exceed IEEE guidelines for medical equipment. The wide range of quality can potentially be a risk factor for electric shock, however all the machines used at cancer centers and immunotherapy centers are all of superior grade, and many are digitally controlled to keep the frequencies used precisely aligned, with little to no variation.

About Simon Bertram