Do Healing Frequencies Really Work?
Frequency Medicine, Part 1:
When Scientific Words Hide Unsupported Claims
By Marci Julin
What if someone told you that every illness has a frequency—and that the right device could detect what is wrong, restore your body's natural vibrations, and help it heal? Claims like these are spreading through clinics, wellness centers, social media, and even Christian communities. They sound scientific, offer hope to people who are suffering, and often come wrapped in language about God's design. But are they true?
In this series on frequency medicine, I desire to separate real science from scientific-sounding deception and examine why the difference matters for both our health and our faith.
Frequency claims
Frequency or vibrational medicine is a branch of energy medicine based on a belief that subtle energies vibrate causing a measurable frequency and those vibrations are either healthy or unhealthy.[1]
Frequency lists of supplements, organs, bacteria, parasites, and so on have been created from various sources going back to Abrams and Rife. Frequency medicine is seen most commonly in the use of devices and gadgets that supposedly use frequencies to diagnose and treat illnesses. It is also seen on the supplement side of energy medicine when either frequencies are said to have been added to supplements and essential oils or when treatment choices of supplements are made by practitioners based on the frequency something is thought to have.
Does the Body Have One Frequency?
The defense of such practices generally begins with good science. The human body produces measurable electrical signals and repeating rhythms. The heart beats, the brain produces patterns of electrical activity, nerves carry electrical impulses, and cells use charged particles to perform essential functions. These processes are real and measurable.
However, those facts do not prove that the body has one master frequency as some claim. Nor do they prove that every organ, illness, emotion, vitamin, bacteria, virus, parasite, or supplement has a unique frequency that a device can read and correct. The body contains many processes that occur at different rates and in different ways.
Saying that the body has "a frequency" is like saying that a city has "a speed." Traffic moves at many speeds. Machines operate at different rates. Lights blink at different intervals, and people walk at different paces. One number cannot describe all the activity of a city. In the same way, one number cannot describe all the electrical, chemical, and mechanical activity of the body.
What Frequency Actually Means
If you are like I once was when first encountering the claims of energy medicine, the scientific words and claims sound believable because we are not science nerds. So, let me break down frequency and resonance so that anyone can understand. Then the truth becomes more apparent.
Frequency simply tells us how often something repeats within a certain amount of time. A television screen that refreshes sixty times each second has a refresh rate of sixty hertz. Scientists abbreviate hertz as Hz. One hertz means one repetition per second; ten hertz means ten repetitions per second.
A blinking light has a frequency. So does a vibrating guitar string, an ocean wave, a heartbeat, and the alternating electrical current in a home. Frequency is not a substance, a mysterious form of energy, or an invisible medicine. It is a measurement of how often a repeating event occurs.
This distinction matters because two very different things can have the same frequency. A sixty-hertz screen refreshes an image sixty times per second. Electricity in an American wall outlet also operates at sixty hertz, but the electrical current changes direction rather than refreshing an image. The shared number does not make the two systems equal or give them the same effects.
Imagine that one person blinks thirty times in a minute while another bounces a ball thirty times. The actions have the same frequency, but blinking is not the same as bouncing a ball. The number tells us how often something happened. It does not tell us what happened, how much energy was involved, or (most importantly) what effect it produced.
Therefore, when a device is said to produce a certain frequency, we still need much more information. Simply naming a frequency answers none of these questions.
Frequency Is Not the Same as Intensity
Sound illustrates the point well. The frequency of a sound wave helps determine its pitch. A low-frequency sound may be a deep rumble, while a higher-frequency sound may be a high note. But frequency does not tell us how loud the sound is. A quiet musical note and a painfully loud noise can have the same frequency. Their pitch may be the same while their intensity is very different.
When a health product lists an impressive frequency number, pause. That number alone tells you very little about what the signal can do inside the body.
What Resonance Actually Means
The most impressive and frequently misused word in frequency medicine is resonance. Understanding the meaning and limits of resonance greatly simplifies separating fact from fiction in frequency health claims. (In future articles I will explain Schumann Resonance and "scalar frequencies", but in part 1, I will limit the discussion to simple resonance.)
A helpful illustration is found by picturing a child on a playground swing. For anyone who has pushed a child on a swing, you quickly realize the impact of resonance even if you do not know the term. If you push at the right moment each time the swing moves forward, the swing travels higher and higher. You do not need to push especially hard because each push works with the swing's natural motion and adds to the movement already produced, making the job of pushing far easier. This is a simple example of resonance.
Frequency-medicine proponents suggest that applying a knowledge of resonance allows one to match, correct, or disrupt (as the case requires) the natural frequencies of the body, thereby bringing healing. Before we can properly understand whether such a claim might be true, it helps to consider further the swing as an example of resonance.
A swing has a natural rate at which it moves back and forth, based on physical features such as the length of its chains. When pushes match that rate, energy transfers efficiently. However, several conditions must be met:
First, the object must be able to move in the proposed way. Pushing a concrete bench at a swing's natural frequency will not make the bench swing.
Second, energy must be transferred. Knowing or saying the number of the swing's natural frequency will not move it.
Third, there must be a physical connection—called coupling—through which energy can reach the object. A hand can push a swing. A blinking light across the playground probably cannot transfer useful energy into the swing's motion.
Fourth, strength matters. Feather-light taps may have perfect timing but still be too weak to overcome friction and air resistance.
Finally, real systems lose energy, a process called damping. Air resistance and friction slow a swing. Additionally, the environment greatly changes how much damping occurs. For example, pushing a swing underwater would cause an even greater loss of energy because of the water's resistance. Each push must add enough energy to overcome what is lost.
Frequency-medicine claims often assume that anything sharing a frequency can automatically affect, communicate with, or heal something else. That is not how resonance works. Two things can operate at the same frequency without affecting each other. A sixty-hertz wall current does not refresh the image on a sixty-hertz screen. A shared number does not create a physical connection.
The same rules apply inside the human body. Saying that a signal "matches" the frequency of a cell, organ, parasite, bacteria, or biological process is not to say resonance can be achieved in the body and provide a healing effect.
The Shattering Wineglass
Perhaps you have heard of the following illustration used to support frequency medicine's claims—An opera singer can shatter a wineglass by matching its resonant frequency under the right conditions. Some promoters use this example to suggest that a machine can shatter bacteria, parasites, or cancer cells in the same way. But is that an accurate comparison?
A wineglass in open air and a microscopic organism inside a living body are VERY different physical systems. Think back to the difference of pushing a swing under water versus on land. Before the comparison means anything, researchers must identify the target, demonstrate its supposed frequency, show that the signal reaches it, and prove that it destroys the target without harming healthy tissue. A striking analogy of a glass shattering cannot supply that evidence.
Proven Medical Uses of Resonance
Resonance does have legitimate medical uses. Magnetic resonance imaging, or MRI, uses strong magnetic fields and radiofrequency energy to create detailed images of the body. With an MRI, Scientists know what type of energy is used, how it interacts with protons in water and fat, how returning signals are detected, and how those signals become an image.
That is very different from saying an organ is "out of tune" and can be restored by exposing the body to its supposed healthy frequency. Language about being "in harmony" or "restored to resonance" creates an appealing picture, but it does not demonstrate a biological process.
Real resonance follows physical rules and has limitations. It requires a responsive system, an appropriate signal, a way to transfer energy, enough strength, and a measurable result. Whenever resonance is used to explain a health treatment, ask: What exactly is resonating, and what evidence shows that this produces healing in the human body?
Applying the Swing Analogy to the Human Body
Like all pseudoscience, frequency medicine attempts to link to real science. We can agree that the body uses electrical activity. Sound, light, and electromagnetic fields can affect matter. Resonance is real, and some medical treatments use these properties to diagnose or treat disease. Yet none of these facts prove that every organ, disease, emotion, nutrient, or medication has a unique and meaningful frequency that a device can detect and correct.
Returning once again to the swing analogy, let us apply our knowledge to the human body.
First, the target must be able to respond in the proposed way. Like a concrete bench cannot achieve resonance when pushed like a playground swing, so also body tissues cannot respond to frequencies and resonate unless a physical means of response exists. For example, our ears respond to sound waves, and nerve cells respond to certain electrical or magnetic stimulation. One must make a giant and unproven leap to say that a liver, vitamin deficiency, infection, parasite, or emotion will respond to a frequency assigned to it.
As a side note, claims about the frequencies of organs, diseases, and parasites are not established merely because a frequency list exists. In my book, Ouija Medicine—The Dark Side of Energy Medicine, I examine the history of Albert Abrams, Ruth Drown, and Royal Rife, and the supposed frequency lists their research created, along with what the scientific research actually shows.
Second, actual energy must be transferred. Entering a supposed disease frequency into a device or computer does not affect the disease. A number in a database is only information. It is no more able to heal the body than reciting a swing's natural frequency is able to move the swing.
Third, there must be a physical connection. Like hands physically pushing a swing, an ultrasound usually requires contact and gel so sound energy can pass into tissue. Other examples seen in medicine include that electrical stimulation requires electrodes or another conductive path. Magnetic stimulation requires a strong, carefully placed magnetic field. A distant light, sticker, bracelet, or device said to "broadcast" a frequency cannot be assumed to affect an internal organ, even if it truly does emit a frequency. The path from device to target must be identified and demonstrated.
Remote Testing
Claims of remote testing or healing deserve special caution; without a physical means of transferring energy, any claimed effect is not explained by frequency physics. Similar to how you cannot push a swing from across the country, so also supposed frequencies cannot treat the human body without a physical means of transferring that energy. Any result is either from the placebo effect or the spirit realm. Beware.
Fourth, the energy must be strong enough to produce a measurable biological effect. Like attempting to push a swing with a feather, a device may create real sound, light, electrical current, or an electromagnetic field while exposing the target tissue to far too little energy to change it. Correct timing cannot make up for an ineffective dose.
Finally, energy weakens as it travels through the body. Like trying to push a swing under water with the same strength as done on land, using frequencies to reach internal organs or cells in the human body may be unproductive. Red light, for example, may affect tissue near the skin's surface, but tissues absorb and scatter its energy as it travels deeper. Light that affects cells in a laboratory dish or tissue near the skin may not reach a deep organ with enough strength to affect it. Researchers must measure how much energy reaches the target, not merely whether a device produces a stated frequency.
Real Medical Uses of Frequencies
Modern medicine uses frequency in proven ways. Ultrasound uses high-frequency sound waves to create images, X-rays use electromagnetic radiation, and controlled electrical or radiofrequency energy can affect nerves, muscles, and other tissues.
These methods are scientific because researchers know what energy is delivered, how it interacts with tissue, what risks it carries, and whether controlled studies show that it works. Frequency is a legitimate scientific concept, but using the word does not make every health claim scientific. Real terms can be borrowed to make unsupported ideas sound convincing.
Frequency, electrical activity, electromagnetic fields, and resonance are real parts of God’s orderly creation. Yet real concepts can be assigned powers they have never been shown to possess. Testing such claims is wise because the cost may include far more than money. The search for a frequency cure can consume enormous amounts of time, thought, and hope.
Why This Matters Biblically
The Bible describes Satan as a deceiver whose purpose is to steal, kill, and destroy (John 10:10). From my own experience and the stories of many people who have contacted me, I have seen how often deception enters when pursuing answers to our health issues. That deception can turn our eyes from the true Healer toward a distraction that keeps us endlessly pursuing the promise of healing.
Frequency medicine may be especially appealing to Christians because promoters speak of the body's "God-given frequencies," the "divine design" of our cells, or healing energy placed within creation. The language feels compatible with faith because it mentions the Creator. But mentioning God does not make a claim scientifically true or biblically sound.
1 Thessalonians 5:21 instructs us, "test everything; hold fast what is good." (ESV) We should not accept an idea merely because it sounds spiritual, natural, scientific, or hopeful. We are called to test it and hold firmly to what is true.
This is especially important when we are suffering. A sick person naturally wants answers. When conventional medicine has not provided them, the promise of uncovering a hidden cause can be powerful. The desire for relief is not sinful, and neither is seeking appropriate medical help. But suffering can make us vulnerable to people, devices, and explanations that promise knowledge they have not shown they possess.
The sad end of the biblical king Asa's life offers a warning. 2 Chronicles 16:12 says that when his foot disease became severe, "even in his disease he did not seek the Lord, but the physicians" (NASB). The problem was not simply that Asa consulted physicians. His illness revealed where he had placed his dependence: he sought human help apart from seeking God.
Frequency medicine can create a similar temptation and distraction. A suffering person may become trapped in an exhausting search for the right practitioner, hidden imbalance, perfect frequency, or next device. Each failed treatment brings another explanation and another path to follow. The person remains busy and hopeful, yet distracted from seeking God and resting in what He has revealed in His Word.
Deception does not always lead us directly away from God.
Sometimes it simply keeps us chasing something else.
Coming in Part 2
Part 2 will examine how frequency medicine promises access to hidden knowledge. We will trace that promise from Albert Abrams and his mysterious "black boxes" to modern computerized devices that claim to identify diseases, emotions, toxins, and remedies by reading information that ordinary medical testing cannot detect. The machines have changed. The question is whether the method really has.
Footnotes:
[1] Carroll, Robert Todd, PHd., Vibrational Medicine, http://www.skepdic.com/vibrationalmedicine.html
Sources:
National Institute of Standards and Technology. “Frequency.” https://csrc.nist.gov/glossary/term/frequency
U.S. Food and Drug Administration. “MRI (Magnetic Resonance Imaging).” https://www.fda.gov/radiation-emitting-products/medical-imaging/mri-magnetic-resonance-imaging
National Cancer Institute. “High-Intensity Focused Ultrasound Therapy.” https://www.cancer.gov/publications/dictionaries/cancer-terms/def/high-intensity-focused-ultrasound-therapy
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