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Riffe
Riffe
scopes kill the specimens. Only the very large smallpox virus
can be seen with a light microscope.
19
Since viruses passed through pores in a filter which held
back anything larger than 300 millimicrons, viruses were
termed "filtrable viruses" at one time. But eventually the terms
"filtrable" and "viruses" became synonymous. A virus was
filtrable. But bacteria, according to the orthodox view, could
not be filtered to a smaller, earlier stage. Here loomed a major
battle in the war over pleomorphism.
Another criterion for a virus is that it requires a living cell
as a host in order to reproduce. This fundamental distinction
between bacteria and viruses was announced by Dr. Thomas
Rivers of the Rockefeller Institute to the Society of American
Bacteriologists in December 1926. It helped to establish the
foundation for his career as well as to distinguish virology as
a separate specialty within the broader field of microbiology.
In time, Riversbecause of his scientific reputation, his quarrelsome personality, and the immense financial resources at
his disposal through the Rockefeller Institutebecame one of
the most formidable men in American microbiology. As
Director of the Rockefeller Hospital from 1937 to 1955, and
as Vice-President of the Rockefeller Institute from 1953 until
illness and death removed him from a power role in American
medicine, not only did his ideas influence the leading virus
researchers of the next generation, but his personal training of
a dozen or more of them had a profound impact on research
priorities well into the 1970s and 1980s. Unfortunately, Dr.
Thomas Rivers was wrong about filtrable bacteria.
20
Dr. Arthur Kendall was Director of the Hygienic Laboratory of the Panama Canal Commission in 1904. The Hygienic
Laboratory was the forerunner of the National Institute of
Health. In 1906, Kendall became a bacteriologist at the
Rockefeller Institute. This was followed by 3 years as an
instructor at Harvard University Medical School (1909-1912).
In 1912, Kendall became head of the first wholly independent
Department of Bacteriology in America, at Northwestern University. In 1916, he was appointed Dean of the Medical
School. In 1924, Kendall became Professor of Bacteriology
and public health at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri. Then in 1928, he returned to Northwestern and shortly
afterwards began working with the California group which
conducted the first successful cancer clinic in 1934. In 1942
he retired from Northwestern. More than 100 of his papers
were published.
Thus, 50 years after Kendall's discovery, even with substantial evidence, the erroneous orthodox view continued to
dominate medical theory, cancer research, and cancer treatment.
One of Kendall's renowned supporters was Dr. Edward
Rosenow of the Mayo Clinic. Rosenow was viciously attacked
by Thomas Rivers of the rival Rockefeller Institute. As
reported in the 1976 article in New Age Journal, Rosenow's
son, Dr. Edward C. Rosenow, Jr., Chief Administrative
Officer of the American College of Physicians, "asserts that
his father was all but accused by Rockefeller Institute research
moguls of experimental dishonesty."
Rosenow told his son, "They simply won't listen."
(Rosenow's son later told how, while a student of Zinsser's
at Harvard, Zinsser had admitted to Rosenow Jr. that he, Zinsser, had not even used Rosenow Sr.'s medium in failing to
duplicate and then condemning Rosenow's test results.)
23
In a paper presented to the New York Academy of Sciences
in 1969, Dr. Virginia Livingston and Dr. Eleanor AlexanderJackson declared that a single cancer micro-organism exists.
They said that the reason the army of cancer researchers
couldn't find it was because it changed form. Livingston and
Alexander-Jackson asserted:
"The organism has remained an unclassified mystery, due
in part to its remarkable pleomorphism and its stimulation of
other micro-organisms. Its various phases may resemble viruses, micrococci, diptheroids, bacilli, and fungi."
25
And yet, by 1986, despite the massive fundings of virus
research, more people than ever continued to die of cancer.
Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, the world's largest
non-profit cancer research center, and still the leading institutional opponent of pleomorphism research and related cancer
treatment in America, stated in a 1986 fund-raising appeal that
over 460,000 Americans died of cancer in 1985. (Sloan-Kettering's own 1975 tests had indicated pleomorphic bacteriavirus in all cancer blood tests, but they had buried the laboratory results.)
29
Cullen recalled: "Dr. Hamer ran an average of forty cases
a day through his place. He had to hire two operators. He
trained them and watched them very closely. The case histories were mounting up very fast. Among them was this old
41
In 1931, the two men who provided the greatest professional support to Royal R. Rife came into his life. Dr. Arthur
I. Kendall was Director of Medical Research at Northwestern
University Medical School in Illinois. Dr. Milbank Johnson
was a member of the board of directors at Pasadena Hospital
in California and an influential power in Los Angeles medical
circles. Together, Rife, Kendall and Johnson slowly and carefully began an assault on the scientific and medical
orthodoxies of their time.
42
Dr. Kendall had invented a protein culture medium (called
"K Medium" after its inventor) which enabled the "filterable
virus" portions of a bacteria to be isolated and to continue
reproducing. This claim directly contradicted the Rockefeller
Institute's Dr. Thomas Rivers who in 1926 had authoritatively
stated that a virus needed a living tissue for reproduction.
Rife, Kendall and others were to prove within a year that it
44
to have a visual power of magnification to 17,000 times, compared with 2000 times of which the ordinary microscope is
capable, Dr. Kendall said he could see the typhoid bacilli in
the filterable or formerly invisible stage. It is probably the first
time the minute filterable (virus) organisms ever have been
seen.
"The strongest microscope now in use can magnify between
2000 and 2500 times. Dr. Rife, by an ingenious arrangement
of lenses applying an entirely new optical principle and by
introducing double quartz prisms and powerful illuminating
lights, has devised a microscope with a lowest magnification
of 5,000 times and a maximum working magnification of
17,000 times.
"The new microscope, scientists predict, also will prove a
development of the first magnitude. Frankly dubious about the
perfection of a microscope which appears to transcend the
limits set by optic science, Dr. Johnson's guests expressed
themselves as delighted with the visual demonstration and
heartily accorded both Dr. Rife and Dr. Kendall a foremost
place in the world's rank of scientists."
43
the filterable virus form of typhoid bacillus, emitting a blue
spectrum color, caused the plane of polarization to be deviated
4.8 degrees plus. When the opposite angle of refraction was
obtained by means of adjusting the polarizing prisms to minus
4.8 degrees and the cultures of viruses were illuminated by the
monochromatic beams coordinated with the chemical constituents of the typhoid bacillus, small, oval, actively motile,
bright turquoise-blue bodies were observed at 5000 X magnification, in high contrast to the colorless and motionless debris
of the medium. These tests were repeated 18 times to verify
the results."
45
vibrating in one particular plane. By means of a double reflecting prism built into the instrument, it is possible to turn this
plane of vibration in any desired direction, controlling the
illumination of the minute objects in the field very exactly."
46
Kendall's other supporter was Dr. Edward C. Rosenow of
47
Three days after departing from Rife in Chicago, Rosenow
wrote to Rife from the Mayo Clinic:
"After seeing what your wonderful microscope will do, and
after pondering over the significance of what you revealed
with its use during those three strenuous and memorable days
spent in Dr. Kendall's laboratory, I hope you will take the
necessary time to describe how you obtain what physicists
consider the impossible.... As I visualize the matter, your
ingenious method of illumination with the intense monochromatic beam of light is of even greater importance than the
enormously high magnification. . . ."
52
tumors in weeks instead of months in a spirally wound "argon gas
loop" in which the test tubes of the culture would fit for 24 hours
54
The microscope he built in 1933 was the largest and most
powerful of the five he built. One was built in 1920, another
in 1929, the "Universal" officially completed in 1933 although
it may have been used in an uncompleted form in 1932 as the
above report suggests, another microscope in 1934, and one
in 1937 which was finally finished in 1952. Some parts from
pre-existing ones were used for later ones. While the 1929
microscope was a "super" microscope compared to all other
commercial microscopes, with a working magnification
between 5,000 and 17,000 times, the "Universal" Microscope
of 1933 possessed a resolution of 31,000 times and a magnification of 60,000 times (as described in the terms of the time).
57
But while Johnson was willing to serve as a frontline soldier
in the filtration war, his true role was as a general in the cancer
war. In the Spring of 1934, he rented the "ranch" of a member
of the famous Scripps family of the Scripps Oceanographic
Institute. The ranch in La Jolla outside San Diego was to be
used as a clinic for the first treatment of cancer victims using
the Rife Frequency Instrument.
60
But all that lay ahead. In the summer of 1934, 16 terminally
ill people with cancer and other diseases were brought to the
Scripps "ranch." There, as Rife and the doctors worked on
human beings for the first time, they learned much. The early
patients were exposed to the frequency for only 3 minutes, but
Rife soon learned that if a treatment was given every day,
the toxins from the dead micro-organisms accumulated faster
than the body could dispose of them. When he switched to a
treatment of 3 minutes every 3rd day, the patients began healing swiftly.
"With the frequency instrument treatment, no tissue is
destroyed, no pain is felt, no noise is audible, and no sensation
is noticed. A tube lights up and 3 minutes later the treatment
61
is completed. The virus or bacteria is destroyed and the body
then recovers itself naturally from the toxic effect of the virus
or bacteria. Several diseases may be treated simultaneously.
"The first clinical work on cancer was completed under the
supervision of Milbank Johnson, M.D. which was set up under
a Special Medical Research Committee of the University of
Southern California. 16 cases were treated at the clinic for
many types of malignancy. After 3 months, 14 of these socalled hopeless cases were signed off as clinically cured by
the staff of five medical doctors and Dr. Alvin G. Foord,
M.D. Pathologist for the group. The treatments consisted of 3
minutes duration using the frequency instrument which was
set on the mortal oscillatory rate for 'BX' or cancer (at 3 day
intervals). It was found that the elapsed time between treatments attains better results than the cases treated daily. This
gives the lymphatic system an opportunity to absorb and cast
off the toxic condition which is produced by the devitalized
dead particles of the 'BX' virus. No rise of body temperature
was perceptible in any of these cases above normal during or
after the frequency instrument treatment. No special diets were
used in any of this clinical work, but we sincerely believe that
a proper diet compiled for the individual would be of benefit."
Date: December 1, 1953
Written by R. R. Rife
62
"In that period of time I saw many things and the one that
impressed me the most was a man who staggered onto a table,
63
just on the last end of cancer; he was a bag of bones. As he
lay on the table, Dr. Rife and Dr. Johnson said, 'Just feel that
man's stomach.' So I put my hand on the cavity where his
stomach was underneath and it was just a cavity almost,
because he was so thin; his backbone and his belly were just
about touching each other.
"I put my hand on his stomach which was just one solid
mass, just about what I could cover with my hand, somewhat
like the shape of a heart. It was absolutely solid! And I thought
to myself, well, nothing can be done for that. However, they
gave him a treatment with the Rife frequencies and in the
course of time over a period of six weeks to two months, to
my astonishment, he completely recovered. He got so well
that he asked permission to go to El Centro as he had a farm
there and he wanted to see about his stock. Dr. Rife said,
'Now you haven't the strength to drive to El Centro.'
"'Oh, yes' said he. 'I have, but I'll have a man to drive me
there.' As a matter of fact, the patient drove his own car there
and when he got down to El Centro he had a sick cow and he
stayed up all night with it. The next day he drove back without
any rest whatsoeverso you can imagine how he had recovered.
68
In early March 1935, Johnson received a letter from the
International Cancer Research Foundation in Philadelphia.
There were many questions they wanted answered, plus photographs of the laboratory, and photographs of the microscope.
From this communication began a series of exchanges, proposals and visits which ultimately produced nothing. In retrospect, part of the failure can be seen as simple human misun-
derstanding, but the time wasted over the next year and a half
can also be judged as the fault of pettiness, arrogance and
narrow-minded obstinacy on the part of the International
Cancer Research Foundation, particularly its rigid Secretary,
Dr. Mildred Schram. The Foundation was in a position to
fund Rife in such a way that major advances could have
quickly resulted. Instead, they argued for tests which were not
relevant. They wasted Rife's time by having him make a
demonstration in Philadelphia the next year, and then they
failed to keep their agreement on the techniques he showed
them, instead insisting on their ownwhich ruined the procedure. In their example also lies one of the dilemmas of modern
research. The experts have their own way of doing things. The
great scientist who is an outsider is looked down upon by the
"authorities"those with the "credentials." The goal of curing
cancer becomes secondary. The existing procedures take
precedence.
71
The interaction with the International Cancer Research
Institute was only one element of Johnson's and Rife's "mountain climb" in 1935. Far more important was the visit from O.
Cameron Gruner, a well-known cancer researcher from
Montreal. Gruner would bring his own discovery just as Kendall had done in 1931, and Rife would take Gruner's discovery
and join it with Kendall's and his own. The result would be
another breakthrough.
Gruner had taken blood from his cancer patients and from
it, on an Asparagus Medium, had grown a fungus. Rife put
Dr. Gruner's fungus in the "K Medium" and then filtered from
it Rife's own "BX" virus. He then put some of his earlier BX
on Gruner's Asparagus Medium and brought forth Gruner's
fungus. Another form of the cancer micro-organism had been
isolateda fungus!
Rife now had a solid base for pleomorphism. Not only
could the BX virus live on an artificial medium, but the BX
could change into another form in the blood (the monococcoid
form in the monocytes of the blood of over 90% of cancer
patients) and then into still another forma crytomyces
pleomorphia fungus.
72
The new Frequency Instrument was finished in September
1935. Rife, his new assistant Philip Hoyland, his earlier assistant Jack Free, and Milbank Johnson then put the new
machine into operation.
Later that year, Rife provided a brief description of the
Frequency Instrument, presumably because of the Founda-
tion's request:
"The basic principle of this device is the control of a desired
73
frequency. These frequencies varying upon the organism being
treated.
"The frequency is set which controls the initial oscillator,
which in turn is run through six stages of amplification, the
last stage driving a 50 watt output tube.
"The frequency with its carrier wave is transmitted into an
output tube similar to the standard X ray tube, but filled with
a different inert gas. This tube acts as a directional antenna.
"The importance in the variable control of these frequencies
is that each pathogenic organism being treated is of a different
chemical constituency, the consequence being they carry a
different molecular vibratory rate. Each one in turn under these
conditions requires a different frequency or vibratory rate to
destroy."
99
While the AMA's role behind-the-scene did not come up
in court, Judge Kelly must have learned about it. When the
trial was over, Kelly offered to represent Beam Ray in a new
suit against the AMA. But Ben Cullen was broke. He had
even lost his house. He got a job and left the cure for cancer
to others. Rife kept his laboratory intact until 1946, but his
drinking eventually forced him to sell it piece by piece.
Note: Just prior to the attack on Rife in the spring of 1939,
the only other quality "electronic medicine research lab" in
America was mysteriously destroyed by fire. For 15 years,
J.C. Burnett's lab in New Jersey had conducted research and
kept records on "electronic energy in its relationship to the
human body." The $250,000 lab (1924 dollars) on a 400 acre
estate, and more than $500,000 invested in research, were
financed by Burnett's wife, the former Cora B. Timken of the
Timken Roller Bearing family. It was her relative on the west
coast who had first financed Rife. The lab was burned to the
ground while Burnett and his wife were visiting Rife in
Californiaa strange coincidence in that dark, pivotal year of
1939!
104
"Between the source of light and the specimen are subtended
two circular, wedge-shaped, block crystal quartz prisms for
the purpose of polarizing the light passing through the specimen, polarization being the practical application of the theory
that light waves vibrate in all planes perpendicular to the direction in which they are propagated. Therefore, when light
comes into contact with a polarizing prism, it is divided or
split into two beams, one of which is refracted to such an
extent that it is reflected to the side of the prism without, of
course, passing through the prism while the second ray, bent
considerably less, is thus enabled to pass through the prism to
illuminate the specimen.... Now, when the portion of the
spectrum is reached in which both the organism and the color
band vibrate in exact accord, one with the other, a definite
characteristic spectrum is emitted by the organism.
"Now, instead of the light rays starting up the tube in a
parallel fashion, tending to converge as they rise higher and
finally crossing each other, arriving at the ocular separated by
considerable distance as would be the case with an ordinary
microscope, in the universal tube the rays also start their rise
parallel to each other but, just as they are about to cross, a
specially designed quartz prism is inserted which serves to
pull them out parallel again, another prism being inserted each
time the rays are about to cross.... Thus, the greatest distance that the image in the universal is projected through any
105
one media, either quartz or air, is 30 millimeters instead of
the 160, 180, or 190 millimeters as in the empty or air-filled
tube of an ordinary microscope. . . .
"Under the universal microscope disease organisms such as
those of tuberculosis, cancer, sarcoma, streptococcus,
typhoid, staphylococcus, leprosy, hoof and mouth disease, and
others may be observed to succumb when exposed to certain
lethal frequencies peculiar to each individual organism, and
Rife's copyrighted explanation of 1953 describes the Universal Microscope's unique design as follows:
"The prime reason that viruses have never been observed in
their true form of their association with a disease is because
the best standard research microscopes will not show them;
first, on account of the lack of great enough magnification and
second, owing to the minuteness of these particles, it is impossible to stain them with any known method or technique using
acid or aniline dye stains hence a substitute stain was found.
The viruses were stained with a frequency of light that coordinates with the chemical constituents of the particle or microorganism under observation.
"The variation of the light frequency is accomplished by use
of a variable monochromatic beam of light that is tuned to
coordinate with the chemical constituents of particle, virus, or
micro-organism. Visibility of the particle, virus, or microorganism is observed by use of the core beams from the
patented Rife Microscope Lamps, which provide illumination
through a series of rotating quartz prisms in the universal
microscope and thence through the slide containing the speci-
106
mens and on to the eyepiece. Rotation of the light beams in
the quartz prisms controls the increase or decrease of the light
frequency. With complete control of the illuminating unit, a
frequency is created that is in coordination with the chemical
constituents of the virus under observation and thus it is possible to observe the virus in its true chemical refractive index.
The control of the illumination (in the universal microscope)
is a most important factor in visualizing the virus of any
pathogenic micro-organism. This cannot be accomplished by
any conventional source of illumination. This points out why
other research groups have failed to find cancer virus."
107
"Now, he reported, the mortal oscillatory rates for many,
any organisms have been found and recorded and the ray can
be tuned to a germ's recorded frequency and turned upon that
organism with the assurance that the organism will be killed."
117
On December 23, 1971, President Richard Nixon signed a
$1.6 billion law to open the "war on cancer." And everyone
lined up for the feast: the greed merchants at the American
Cancer Society, the AMA, research scientists at various
favored institutes and universities, the health bureaucrats at
the National Cancer Institute, and the politicians. By 1985,
the National Cancer Institute was spending $1.2 billion
yearly . . . and had precious little to show for it.
118
In 1976, two strange events occurred which seemed to draw
together the closing ends of a great circle. Christopher Bird
authored the first article to appear on Rife since the 1940s.
"What Has Become of the Rife Microscope?" appeared in
New Age Journal for March 1976. And that same year, Dr.
Virginia Livingston-Wheeler married Dr. Owen Wheeler, one
of the founders of Doctors Hospital in San Diego. The
Livingston Clinic became the Livingston-Wheeler Clinic. A
She called for vaccinating cattle and chicken with the anticancer serum. Rife had long envisioned using the Rife Ray to
kill the BX in chickens and meat. He also had specifically
warned that BX (cancer) virus thrived on pig and mushrooms.
The wheel kept turning and turning.
When it is realized that the disease-causing micro119
organisms in food can be devitalized, and that the blood in
hospital blood banks may need to be similarly purified, the
loss of Rife's discovery can be seen in its true tragic dimensions.
Dr. Livingston-Wheeler also called for cancer immunization soon after the birth of every child (the serum can be made
from a urine sample). She knew the signs of a cancer epidemic
were everywhere if anyone bothered to look. She also declared
that cancer could be permanently wiped out in a decade. Rife
had known how to do it also . . . but in a country where 60
billion dollars are spent annually on cancer, where one tiny
hospital in the Berkshires of Massachusetts can spend 2
million dollars for "state-of-the-art" radiation equipment, it is
clear that an entire economy of satisfied cancer "professionals"
exists, determined to keep their gruesome racket in place.
122
These deaths did not have to happen. Dorothy and Mark
could have led normal, happy lives. In 1953, a naval officer
who had known Roy Rife when the officer was a young man
growing up in San Diego wrote Rife a letter. He explained
how in his military career he commanded a unit of doctors and
bacteriologists. The letter is a fitting epitaph to the Rife
tragedy:
"I have been very privileged in having known you and having heard from your own lips the story of your work. You
gave me a glimpse of science of the year 2000. But often I'm
127
In 1950, John Crane met Roy Rife. After learning how Rife
had cured cancer in the 1930s but had seen his cure suppressed
by the AMA, Crane decided to commit his energy, will and
electronic and mechanical knowledge to bringing the cure for
cancer to the public. Dr. Gruner of Canada, who worked with
Rife in the '30s, provided Crane with one of the original circuit
designs for the Rife Ray Tube. Crane also hired Verne Thomson, an electronics expert with the San Diego police force, to
help construct the new Frequency Instruments.
128
In April 1953, the first copyrighted material on the cancer
virus was published. In December 1953, Rife's description of
the cancer cure was completed under Crane's urging and insistence. It was copyrighted in 1954.
In 1954, Crane began corresponding with the National
Cancer Institute and other government agencies concerning
the Rife diagnostic and therapeutic instruments. In 1954, the
Committee on Cancer Diagnosis and Therapy of the National
Research Council "evaluated" the Rife discoveries. They con-
from Dr. Paul Shea who had been given a Frequency Instrument by the Public Health Department for 2 months before the
trial. Shea admitted he never tried the Frequency Instrument
on anything or made any tests to evaluate it. He simply
examined it and decided that it had no curative powers and
didn't lend itself to investigative use.