Hear Dr. Stone

1. Association
2. Examinations
3. Pioneers
4. Stone, 1959
5. Thirty Two Years

The History of Polarity Therapy

Dr. Randolph Stone published his first work in 1947, and by 1954 had completed the seven books which contain his published findings. In his holistic medicine practice in Chicago, he applied the energy approach in a wide range of conditions and experienced remarkable success with patients. He began to teach in the 1960's and finally retired in 1974, at the age of 84.

Following his retirement, many of Stone's students continued to research and apply his teachings. By 1984, a core group of advanced practitioners gathered to launch a national organization, the American Polarity Therapy Association, to support the continuation and expansion of the work. The annual conference of the new association immediately became a key forum for the exchange and dissemination of new understanding, a role which continues today greater than ever.

About Dr. Randolph Stone

Born Randolph Bautsch in Austria in 1890, the founder of Polarity Therapy immigrated to America as a youngster around 1898. His family settled in the upper Midwest, with relatives living in Wisconsin and Minnesota. He learned English by reading the Bible, and as a teenager he traveled widely throughout the U.S.

After studying to become a Lutheran minister, he decided to pursue a path in the health profession. He completed his primary medical certifications in the early 1920s, including DO, DC and ND. He was a lifelong student, eventually adding certifications in a wide range of topics including massage and midwifery. Simultaneously he was fascinated by spiritual studies, including mysticism in many forms. He was an avid reader and book collector, and held the position of librarian for the Theosophical Society for many years.

In the late 1920s, he married and changed his name to Randolph Stone. His esoteric interests created separation with his wife and they divorced without children. He loved to travel, and after his divorce he roamed widely in search of medical insights from other cultures under his motto, "Whatever works, works!"

He maintained a medical practice for over 50 years in Chicago, developing a reputation for his willingness to work with "hopeless cases." These patients often responded to his increasingly unconventional approaches, which incorporated techniques from around the world.

In the 1940s, he deepened his knowledge of and commitment to esoteric understanding by accepting initiation into a meditation system based in India. His dedication to this yogic path continued uninterruptedly for almost 40 years, and he made frequent visits to India to study and develop his inner knowledge.

By the late 1940s, he had created a synthesis of his collected information. He published his first book, Energy, in 1947, advancing his concept that the polarized field of attraction and repulsion, as found in the atomic structure or in magnetic relationships, was the underlying reality which determined all physical phenomena including health. A series of seven books and pamphlets followed, all expounding on the basic Energy theme and providing numerous specific applications.

In the mid-1950s he tried to attract interest in his ideas from the medical community. He offered free lectures, wrote articles for magazines, and repeatedly attempted to engage his colleagues in dialogue. These efforts were largely unsuccessful, as the drugs and surgery era was ascending rapidly throughout his profession.

In the 1960s, already in his mid-70s, he found popularity for the first time—not with his colleagues, but with a new generation of health seekers for whom his blend of science and spirituality was not so unpalatable. In seminars in California, he vigorously preached his message of holistic health and the seed of Polarity Therapy finally found soil fertile enough to survive. Dr. Stone retired in 1974 at the age of 84. He moved to India where he lived in a meditation community and offered free services in a public clinic. He gradually withdrew from public life, eventually passing on peacefully in December 1981 at age 91 of natural causes.

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