A device to put homeopaths out of business

I've been blogging for nearly eleven years now—and continuously at that, with only brief breaks for vacations or when the vagaries of life and career (particularly grant deadlines) interfered with the writing impulse. It's true that I've slowed down a bit. I rarely post on weekends any more and not infrequently miss a weekday, but I tend to think that's a good thing, as it decreases the frequency of posts in which I'm clearly forcing it, where I'm "phoning it in," so to speak. Or at least I like to think so. One major challenge over the years, however, has been the inevitable problem that comes with writing a regular feature for so long, regardless of medium, and that's familiarity. As I reach ancient status as a blogger, I've started to think that I've seen it all, that there's nothing new under the sun in terms of quackery or pseudoscience. The compensating advantage of longevity is that, with the benefit of time and study, I can see patterns and draw relationships that wouldn't have occurred to me before, and I can abbreviate a lot of posts by linking to material that I've written in the past. Still, every so often I do so like to find a bit of woo I haven't encountered before.

And so it was that I came across this video:

Truly, I don't recall having seen anything like this Radionic Remedy Maker/Homeopathic Simulator before. Seriously. Watch the video. It's four minutes that are guaranteed to have skeptics chuckling mightily by the end, if not within the first 30 seconds. The product portrayed in the video is something called a Spectrum Radionic Copier. It consists of a wooden box, with two metal dishes embedded in it and a control of some sort in between. What is it for? Glad you asked! The video helpfully informs us right away that this particular model is used to make a remedy at a specific potency or to change to a higher or lower one or to make "straight copies of any substance, homeopathic remedies, flower essences, gems, crystals, etc., etc." Helpfully, next to each metal dish is a sign, one reading "input," the other reading "output."

Yes, the device works exactly as you might think—or, I should say, is claimed to work as you might imagine looking at its design. All you need, apparently, are either sugar pills or mixtures of water and alcohol to put in the "output" dish. Then all you have to do is to put the original, whatever it is, into the "input dish." The original can be pretty much anything, but the device seems primarily designed to replicate homeopathic remedies because, well, no one would ever know if it actually worked or not given that most homeopathic remedies are diluted to nonexistence. Then all you have to do is to switch the machine on for 15 seconds, and, as the video proclaims, "Your remedy is ready to use!"

How does it work, you might ask? If you believe the video, this magic machine can "'copy' the energy of anything." In fact, you can do better than that. The very next scene shows several remedies in the "input" dish, and we're told that the machine can easily make combinations of remedies. All you have to do is to put as many remedies as will fit in the "input" dish and fire this sucker up! Voila! Instant combination therapy! I do have to wonder, however: Isn't the manufacturer worried about interactions between homeopathic remedies? Imagine the potential horror if, for instance, the Bach flower remedies interfered with the "memory" of water in the homeopathic remedies whose "energy" interfered with the crystal remedy. Come to think of it, if this thing can replicate crystals, why not put a diamond or other precious geme in the "input" dish and start replicating away? It'd be instant money!

Oh, wait. The manufacturer only says that the "energy" of any crystal or gem can be copied. Bummer. On the other hand, you can take the energy from any combination of crystals and infuse the sugar pills or alcohol-water with it to do...well, it's not exactly clear what, but I bet it'll be awesome.

Perhaps my favorite part of this commercial is where it explains the dial. Basically, if you leave the dial at zero, the machine just makes a direct copy. However, if you turn the dial up or down you can adjust the potency according to a chart that's supplied with the instrument. Helpfully, the video recommends that you can use applied kinesiology (at least, that's what I assume to be meant by "muscle testing") or dowsing to find the exact potency needed. How convenient! Even more convenient is the fact that if you only want to make straight copies of your woo-ful remedies, all you need is the basic model. It's only if you want to get all fancy and adjust the potency that you need to invest in the fancier model. I did notice that the basic model looked like it was made of black metal or plastic, while the fancy model was encased in the lovely polished wood box.

There was a web address, www.lesleyknight.com at the end of the video, but when I tried to visit the site the domain was listed as being for sale. So I Googled "Lesley Knight" and "radionic," and what I found was Lesley's Healthcare and Radionics, as well as a Facebook page for Radionics UK, as well as a spiffy picture on Facebook of her new Radionic copiers. On her website, Knight describes herself thusly:

15 years ago I decided to change direction after doing Social Work as a career. I trained in Vega testing after finding it helped enormously with the issues one of my sons had.

That started the journey which has led me to train in and try many different therapies.

The most recent discovery and the most powerful one to effect permanent change is Access Consciousness. Access has created more profound changes in me than the combination of everything else I have tried previously. I see the same transformational results for my clients so cannot recommend it highly enough.

So Knight started out as a social worker and then "graduated" to the purest woo. Indeed, if you look on her personal Facebook page, you'll see that she supports Stanislaw Burzynski, as she posted a link to the Change.org petition supporting Burzynski in the lead up to Burzynski's hearing before the Texas Medical Board. On her website, she offers a variety of Radionic Remedy Makers, including:

  • Travel Size Remedy Maker for £189.97
  • Radionic Remedy Maker for £234.97
  • Black Radionic Maker with Potency Changer £264.97
  • Radionic Remedy Maker with integrated card slot £359.97

That last one makes a lot of serious claims, specifically that you there is no limit to what you can transfer into homeopathic remedies.

Not surprisingly, she also offers a line of supplements, distant healing sessions, and homeopathic nosode testers, the latter of which for a cool £360. And, of course, there's dowsing and—my favorite—pyramid workshops.

But that's not all! There's also Vega Testing:

Electro Acupuncture unlike Chinese Acupuncture does not involve the use of needles. It is a system of diagnosis which was developed in Germany by Dr Voll over 50 years ago.

The diagnosis is performed by placing a probe on acupuncture points on the hands and feet. Each acupuncture point relates to a specific body part or system.

Each point measured gives a reading on the machine which indicates the presence of toxins and the health of that part of the body. It is possible to detect pathogens within the body in the way of bacteria, viral, fungal infections, parasites & tropical diseases.

These can then be eliminated using appropriate remedies matched both to the toxins and the patient. i.e. the cause of cold sores can be detected and cleared using a Nosode as treatment - hence no more cold sores, likewise specific tooth infections can be detected and eliminated without the use of antibiotics.

The testing device can also test allopathic drugs, herbs, vitamins etc. on the patient, this shows if a drug will have a positive or negative effect on them. So this will indicate which one is the most suitable one for the patient.

For instance infections such as in Lyme disease from a tick bite. Borrelia, Mycoplasma, Babesia, Bartonella amongst others can cause chronic health conditions. Detecting these in the body using Vega testing is possible, and using Isopathic remedies and Nosodes they can be cleared.

Hmmm. I thought electroacupuncture was just transdermal electrical nerve stimulation rebranded as acupuncture by hooking up electrodes to acupuncture needles. Who knew it was a diagnostic modality as well? Of course it is. As if that's not enough, there's even Access Bars. Check out the link and you'll see that that's some serious, high-powered woo. Basically, if you believe this stuff, there are 32 points on the head that, when lightly touched, clear all the limitations that you have, including money, aging, sex, joy, sadness, creativity, and awareness. What? A head massage means I can have better sex? Sign me up!

But back to the Radionic Remedy Maker.

There are so many questions I had when I looked at this. For instance, what powers these things? There don't appear to be any electrical wires or plugs to plug the device into an electrical outlet. Batteries? There's no mention of them, but one has to assume that that's a likely power source. More importantly, though: If this device can truly replicate the "energy" of various woo-ful remedies, then presumably if you purchase this device you'll never need to purchase any given homeopathic remedy, Bach flower remedy, crystal, or other remedy more than once, because you can use this device to replicate it again and again and again and again, for as long as you like. I'd think that homeopaths and other quacks might not be too happy about that. After all, this device coul basically put them out of business, which in itself wouldn't be such a bad thing. The price, however, would be bad because you'd be paying one quack like Lesley Knight to put other homeopaths out of business.

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The very first time I learned of radionics was in the novel "A far cry from Kensington", by Muriel Spark. Sometimes truth really is stranger than fiction.

By Julian Frost (not verified) on 30 Nov 2015 #permalink

This is amazing. I would have thought that this was a joke, or maybe intended as a lesson. I would never have thought it was serious. Ok, maybe I would have, but probably in the context of a scam. Maybe it is a scam. I hope it is. I hate to think that there is a human being somewhere selling a 'device' like this actually believing that it does what is purported. Then again, people probably buy the thing, which may actually be more frightening.

Hey, don't laugh! I've got one of those things and it's keeping my cat alive. Through Energy Transfer, no less!

Although I thought it was called a "food and water dish".

Julian
That is a great book. My favorite part is how the protagonist labels a hack writer as a "pisseur de copie", a title that could apply to Chopra or all of "Age of Autism".

Geez, where to start?

I thought that was a dual water bowl set up for dogs to drink their water (such as this: http://tinyurl.com/gurs54n). But, clearly from the testimonials on their web page, this is the 3-D (maybe even 4-D or 5-D) printer of homeopathy. For what I've seen parents pay for homeopathic cold "medicine" and "teething pills", they could probably pay for one of these in 2-3 years. Seriously (unfortunately)

I would love to tear one of these apart to gaze upon its innards. Just how does the "integrated card slot" work? As you mention, what cosmic power source doe it use? And, can it send a notification to my smart phone when copying is done?

Also, she sells nosode testers, to make sure those homeopathic vaccines are at fully diluted potency. Just a few hundred pounds for the lot, but you can use her Radionic Remedy Maker to duplicate them so you never need to buy another set of nosode testers again (how selfless of her). And should none of this be working, she can do distance healing sessions, which I guess is like remote computer access for your body.

If only Scotty'd had one of these in Star Trek. He could have made new dilithium crystals on the spot and cut 10-20 minutes off the typical episode.

By Chris Hickie (not verified) on 30 Nov 2015 #permalink

Hilarious hoax to be sure. Oh no. Oh God no.

By Leigh Jackson (not verified) on 30 Nov 2015 #permalink

It's a repurposed Mark Eden Mach One.

By DevoutCatalyst (not verified) on 30 Nov 2015 #permalink

A friend's father (now deceased these 30+ years) was a practicing MD with an interest in various quackeries. He never used any of them in his practice and after his death we found several devices in blond wooden cabinets. They had dials an meters that moved and I wish we had taken the time to look underneath and trace the connections but we had to clean out the house so it could be sold.
A few years later, I encountered a farmer who had a similar machine (based on the description of someone who had seen it). When he had a sick cow, he would go into the house, fire up the machine and start working at healing her. He told someone in the next county that he could care for their cows as well if they would follow his instructions and bury specially prepared wires around the barn to receive the healing energy.

By Don A in Penns… (not verified) on 30 Nov 2015 #permalink

Radionics is one of the foundational quackeries of woo. Albert Abrams is credited (?) with founding it, followed by such luminaries as Ruth Drown, Royal Rife and a host of modern imitators.

At least when the Radionic Remedy Maker doesn't work, you can convert it for use as a chow center for dogs or cats (dry feed in one bowl, water in the other).

" Isn’t the manufacturer worried about interactions between homeopathic remedies?"

There never seems to be any concern among wooists that that load of supplements and treatments they employ might interact in any negative manner. It's only when you use an evidence-based treatment that you have to worry about spoiling the effect of whatever woo you take on the side.

By Dangerous Bacon (not verified) on 30 Nov 2015 #permalink

Helpfully, next to each metal dish is a sign, one reading “input,” the other reading “output.”

Well, you sure don't want to mix them up.
Reversing polarity, inverting the flux or crossing the beams are all actions with serious consequences, to be undertaken only in the most dire situations.
Actually, now I wonder that would happen if you replicated by accident the inner energy of sugar into whatever you put in the other cup.

Mix sugar and dark chocolate in the input cup, add some cheap inorganic stuff, e.g. a brick., in the output cup, and you get Instant Black Forest cake? Eh, with this nifty instrument you can end world's hunger. We just have to learn how to eat bricks.

With alcohol as the input, now that would be interesting. We finally could achieve a long-sought goal of human endeavor: make booze out of everything! Even bricks!

But in the name of all that is sacred, please don't try to replicate the inner energy of lutefisk. Especially not in a brick.

By Helianthus (not verified) on 30 Nov 2015 #permalink

I first came across radionics in the 1980s. The devices were sold by a vendor in England with instructions for "broadcasting" remedies placed in the machine. All you needed was a hair sample of the person to whom the remedies were to be broadcast. Adjustable dials were turned for strength and a handy touch pad located on the front was to be rubbed back and forth until one felt a tactile change, instead of having to do your medical dowsing with a pendulum.

By Lighthorse (not verified) on 30 Nov 2015 #permalink

Hm, looks like the homeopathic industry is going to have to hire the folks the oil industry hires to disappear anyone and every copy of the devices that let your car run on pure water.

Looks like an acoustically-coupled modem to me, but what do I know?

Methinks it's time to go writing wooful emails to homeopaths and especially to the makers of homeopathic remedies. Tell them that they need to protect their intellectual property and reputations by suing the living daylights out of this Leslie person, same as Hollywood would do to someone who offers a device to make copies of movies over the internet. Then make some fresh popcorn and watch the fireworks.

That or get her on a speakerphone with a police officer in the room as a witness, and tell her you have a relative with cancer and ask if there's anything she can do for them. As others have mentioned here before, the UK quackery laws are awfully harsh when it comes to claims of diagnosing and treating cancer. The authorities over there should be able to put her out of business the moment she makes any cancer claims.

By Gray Squirrel (not verified) on 30 Nov 2015 #permalink

But you see, if it can copy 'energy'**, you can just put the batteries it needs into the Input *et voila!*- an endless source!
Or you can sell these new little powerpacks for money!
Put them in your cell phone! Fire up your laptop! Or power drill! Or car!
No need for clunky or expensive batteries!

Also, various woo-meisters believe in *vitalism* which involves a somewhat spirit-ified bio-energy-
healthy foods have it, non-GMO and organic foods have more and supplements are just overflowing with *elan vital*. You could put a little of each food or supplement in the cat's dish, I mean, Input-
AND presto, change-o! An endless supply of vital energy!

Energy healers believe that they can channel healing energies to clients or 'adjust' the client's wonky vibes. Probably, we can find a means of concentrating their efforts and storing it - perhaps in a piece of cloth- and THEN
we'll never need energy healers again! **

It's the woo to end all other woo.

** although I doubt that they understand 'energy' in the un-woo sense.
*** since we don't need them now

By Denice Walter (not verified) on 30 Nov 2015 #permalink

Only transfers energy? So I can't make a copy of my brownies? I was hoping it would make copies of food, without calories. But if it only copies energy, then I guess I'd only get calories, without food.
Or am I simply misunderestimating how it works?

By nutritionprof (not verified) on 30 Nov 2015 #permalink

@ TBruce (#3),

Made me laugh out loud. Thx.

@ Minions,

Here's an excellent summary of radionics from a U.S. Patent pending application:

Dr. Raymond Rife may be among the best known doctors from the 1930's, 40's, and 50's who pioneered a field of study known as radionic medicine.

This esoteric area of study involved the production of electronic apparatus that were thought to be able to conduct and transmit electromagnetic energy in frequencies that were believed to capture something of the essence of the real substance they were made to represent.

In performing vial-based methods, these radionic instruments were used to imprint a carrier substance held in a small glass vial. The substance might be water, or combination of water and alcohol. There developed from this point forward in time a small industry based on the production and sale of such radionic instruments to healthcare professionals for uses that included the production of radionically prepared test vials.

There was considerable pressure from federal regulatory agencies to suppress this industry as an example of medical quackery. Still the industry thrives, not in small part because there are many healthcare providers around the world who have found that vial-based techniques of energetic medicine are sometimes effective--often when conventional medical procedures are least effective.

By Michael J. Dochniak (not verified) on 30 Nov 2015 #permalink

Do a web search for "homeopathy grafting" and read about how homeopaths have been doing something similar to this for a long time, but without the dog bowls. It's a neat idea: you take one tablet that's had a high potency remedy dripped on it and put it in a container of sugar pills. After a while, all of the sugar pills have the same potency as the original tablet! Amazing! Your science can't explain that, Orac et al.

Helpfully, next to each metal dish is a sign, one reading “input,” the other reading “output.”

Well, you sure don’t want to mix them up.
Reversing polarity, inverting the flux or crossing the beams are all actions with serious consequences, to be undertaken only in the most dire situations.

It's obvious that if you placed 'blank' material in the input, and a homeopathic remedy in the output, you'd wind up 'erasing' the homeopathic remedy, and the remedy just wouldn't do anything. This would be solid proof that the Radionic Remedy Maker/Homeopathic Simulator works.

Wait...

Well, better that they make this than fake bomb detectors, I suppose (sadly also a British speciality - google e.g. ADE 651), which probably have approximately the same components inside.

Seems like www.devicewatch.com mention this(?) Radionic one, but the page is missing.

By EvilTwinSelf (not verified) on 30 Nov 2015 #permalink

Excellent, Johnny!

We really need to find someone with means to buy one of these things, and take a look inside. Does JREF have a budget for that, or maybe Penn Jillete could get one to do a comedy-magic routine about it. Mythbusters?

Maybe the guts are boards from a Micronta 63 765 clock. Since, you know, maybe Lesley Knight isn't just doing the hoax to show off to other homeopaths by pretending to be a wizard, but is actually a terrorist mole...

Like Chris Hickie (#6 above), I thought it was an elevated platform for dog food and water spiffed up as a sight-gag. I made a 'spaghetti stretcher' and a 'left-handed smoke-shifter', complete with blinking lights for Boy Scouts back in the day. We'd hand it out to newbies whose patrol leaders sent them to search other camps for these (It was a snipe hunt). The world seems a sadder place upon learning this dual-bowl device wasn't intended as a joke.

I've spent a fair bit of time reverse engineering electronics for my previous job. I so wish that I had the money to buy one to take apart.

Careful Argon, that left handed smoke shifter is a classic and being 'left-handed' plays directly into the homeopath's sweet spot. Never heard of the spaghetti stretcher but I've been on many snipe hunts with the new tenderfoot scouts.

Thsi device can't possibly work, because the advert didn't mention 'quantum' enough times. Three times it tells you how to use the basic machine, just to make sure you don't accidentally depotentise your valuable crystals with rubbing alcohol, but not once does it explain that it works by quantum thingummy. That raises red flags to me. I won't be caught out by this blatant scam.

By Rich Woods (not verified) on 30 Nov 2015 #permalink

If it copies energy then you should be able to put a bar magnet in the input bowl and a block of iron in the output bowl, crank up the dial and get an extremely powerful magnet. Likewise, if you dangle a 3v bulb in the input bowl by the wire connecting it to a 3v battery, you should be able to burn out your retina with the light coming from an unconnected bulb in the output bowl. I bet they never mention that in the user's manual.

By Rich Woods (not verified) on 30 Nov 2015 #permalink

Hmmm...I see an application for the new trade of internet carpentry. Send the client a box of power tools mounted to drones and a quantum-entangled set of these dog food bowls. Then with a joystick the carpenter can go about his or her business. What could go wrong?

This device could solve all the shipping issues Amazon and others are struggling with and save a HUGE amount of fuel and pollution.

Separate the Input & Output (chainsaw?) and send the output to the desired destination (grandma's house, remote woo store, etc.) and connect each to the internet so that the input can create the copies in the remote outputs on demand. If that sells, you can add extra outputs at all your friend's houses and rip them off too!

Batteries? There’s no mention of them, but one has to assume that that’s a likely power source.

Ha! Radionics machines don't need no steenkin' batteries, they function on eloptic currents and radiations.
http://rexresearch.com/hieronym/1hieron.htm

Radionics is one of the foundational quackeries of woo. Albert Abrams is credited (?) with founding it, followed by such luminaries as Ruth Drown, Royal Rife and a host of modern imitators.

There is no form of grifting so obvious or so stupid as to expelled from the alt-med Scammocopoeia.

By herr doktor bimler (not verified) on 30 Nov 2015 #permalink

Orac: "A head massage means I can have better sex?"
Yes, but it depends on which head.

By Old Rockin' Dave (not verified) on 30 Nov 2015 #permalink

TBruce@3: I expect you paid quite a bit less than 190 quid for it, too.

Argon@23: I'd never heard of a "spaghetti stretcher", but I have heard of a similar device called a "bacon stretcher". There are some other military related ones I have heard of: for people around airplanes, there's the traditional bucket of prop wash, and for Navy types, there's fifty feet of shore line. These last two things actually do exist, but you can't get prop wash by the bucket, and you can't procure shore line from the quartermaster (unlike most nautical kinds of "line", which usually refers to rope).

By Eric Lund (not verified) on 30 Nov 2015 #permalink

Anyone wishing to convert this device to provide sustenance to household pets, beware. Make sure the bowls are repurposed to "food" and "water", NOT "input" and "output". This will prevent some very unpleasant potential consequences.

By Old Rockin' Dave (not verified) on 30 Nov 2015 #permalink

Julian-I had the same reaction, but my next thought was "Hey, that's a Star Trek TNG replicator!"

By shay simmons (not verified) on 30 Nov 2015 #permalink

Dave -- there needs to be a separate receptacle, located near the first one, for "output."

By shay simmons (not verified) on 30 Nov 2015 #permalink

Egads, someone else makes a device with the same name, but with MORE dials and buttons (http://tinyurl.com/po9ttyg)--note: "THE DEVICE DOES NOT REQUIRE ANY POWER SUPPLY".

So long thermodynamics....

By Chris Hickie (not verified) on 30 Nov 2015 #permalink

Can this thing copy ''allopathic'' remedies? What if you combine it with homeopathy?

If anyone wants to take up a collection to buy one, I'd be pleased to dismantle it and draw up a report with rude words and a circuit schematic, being as that is one of my insulting specialities.

If anyone is taking bets, I'll wager one thousand quatloos that the black version is in an Eddystone Radio/Hammond diecast aluminium box and the turns counting dial is a Vishay Spectrol Model 15, or a cheap knock-off thereof.

I notice Ms. Knight supplies her nosode tester kits in handy Case Gard ammunition boxes, which is quite sensible, though if one were to grab the wrong box and drop a live round into the Input dish, the results in the Output dish might be ...

a report with rude words and a circuit schematic
I expect the circuit diagram to be illuminated in the manner of Canticle for Leibowitz, with gold leaf, and marginalia.

By herr doktor bimler (not verified) on 30 Nov 2015 #permalink

but with MORE dials and buttons
None of them GO UP TO 11. Harumph.

By herr doktor bimler (not verified) on 30 Nov 2015 #permalink

njd uk@19

Do a web search for “homeopathy grafting”

Anyone else read this as "homeopathy grifting"?

By capnkrunch (not verified) on 30 Nov 2015 #permalink

Wow, just think of what this can mean to infertile couples. On the other hand... Eew.

By Sean Alan Morris (not verified) on 30 Nov 2015 #permalink

“homeopathy grifting”

From the Department of Redundancy Department.

By herr doktor bimler (not verified) on 30 Nov 2015 #permalink

Crystal Meth - think of the possibilities. Walter White would be so jealous.

Hook this baby up to an E-meter, and ya can clone yer thetans!!

By Vicq Ruiz (not verified) on 30 Nov 2015 #permalink

For the sci-fi fans, and since this wonderful device comes from England, I refer you to John Brunner's "Galactic Consumer Report No. 2 - Automatic Twin-tube Wishing Machines". A wishing machine is a device that makes whatever you think of (it has a visualizer tube, which extracts from the mind of the user the characteristics of the desired product); and if it is a twin-tube wishing machine, it also has a moderator tube, which has certain powers of judgment and places limitations on the products to be manufactured. The story is cast as a report on such devices from the Consolidated Galactic Federation of Consumer Associations (ConGalFedConAss), in their magazine "GoodBuy" of July 2329 ESY.

By Derek Freyberg (not verified) on 30 Nov 2015 #permalink

Eric Lund:
My father was a one-time Navy boatswain, and Old Rockin' Dad sent the green sailors off for a gallon of striped paint, or to get the cannon report.

By Old Rockin' Dave (not verified) on 30 Nov 2015 #permalink

@ Old Rockin' Dave

Make sure the bowls are repurposed to “food” and “water”

I was heroically resisting the urge to make a joke in this direction. Now all my goodwill went to nothing.

@ shay simmons

“Hey, that’s a Star Trek TNG replicator!”

I was reminded myself of an apparatus central to the plot of Hergé's "Tintin and the lake of sharks". A replicator invented by Pr Calculus, of course.
The catch is that the replicated item is not stable. After a little while, it reverts to its initial state, a kind of flabby plasticine.

By Helianthus (not verified) on 30 Nov 2015 #permalink

@Helianthus, I remember reading that book many years ago. Pretty hilarious when it misfunctions in Rastapopoulos's underwater base.

By Julian Frost (not verified) on 30 Nov 2015 #permalink

I hope this hasn't already been pointed out, but I'm dead tired: There's a somewhat amusing – and quite credulous – first-person report of an experience at Lesley Knight's "Anti Ageing Clinic" on pages 46–47 here (it's PDF in a Flash wrapper from what appears to be Salisbury's weekly alterno-rag).

In case anyone's wondering, John Brunner's 'Automatic Twin-Tube Wishing Machine' is a pun on 'Hoovermatic twin-tub washing machine.' This is a type of clothes washer with two compartments, an agitator or turbulator in the left one, and a high-speed spinner in the right one. The one thing they aren't is 'automatic' but rather quite the opposite: you have to move the load back and forth between the wash side and the spin side. But they're making a big comeback now because they're fast and very water- and energy-efficient.

Brunner was one of the great science fiction authors of all time but rarely recognised as such. His _Stand on Zanzibar_ introduced a jump-cut style of writing that was at first hard to understand but utterly brilliant once you got used to it. _The Sheep Look Up_ was spot-on for ecological catastrophes such as we face today. _The Shockwave Rider_ was truly prophetic cyberpunk twenty years before Gibson and Sterling, and in fact it was Brunner who coined the use of 'worm' to mean a computer virus.

About the homeopathic quackulator:

For all of those who know anybody who thinks that marijuana has magical plant-spirit energy: put some in the Input bowl and any plain spice in the Output bowl, and see if your wooful pot-smoking friends can tell the difference after the oregano has been 'potentised.'

Doug at 38 is spot-on, and further, I'll bet there will be no wires or connexions whatsoever inside the box, or there will be a tangle of electrical spaghetti signifying much and doing exactly nothing (including at least one high-density circuit board produced in China), and assembled in a manner that demonstrates abysmal trade skills. I'd chip in to help buy one of these if the results including photos were published here.

Some clever sceptic ought to open up an internet shop selling scale models of classic quack medical devices, for use as desk accessories. Some would have blinking lights, some would beep and buzz, one of them of course would be a homeoquacktic replicator, and let's not forget an Orgone Energy box, sized so that popular children's dolls can be seated inside it. At least one of them should have a working pencil sharpener inside, or perhaps a postage stamp dispenser. Ad slogan: 'Quack Medicine Model Series: they do everything the real ones do, which is nothing at all!'

My "Input" and "Output" labels are reversed on my machine. Does this matter? It seems to be working fine......... :-|

By Chadwick Jones (not verified) on 01 Dec 2015 #permalink

Dave -- In comm-elect the new wire apes were always sent to hunt for Tango Romeo 2 Echoes.

By shay simmons (not verified) on 01 Dec 2015 #permalink

"I expect the circuit diagram to be illuminated in the manner of Canticle for Leibowitz, with gold leaf, and marginalia.

How about gold leaf, and a margarita?

By Kelly M Bray (not verified) on 01 Dec 2015 #permalink

I think, the function of this machine is based on Luc-Antoine Montaigne's nonsense research!

By Subrata Roy (not verified) on 02 Dec 2015 #permalink

Had to share this.
http://www.cracked.com/personal-experiences-1978-doctors-dont-understan…

And don't even get her started on the people coming in asking where they can find the homeopathic remedies. "Homeopathy," she says, "is the biggest rip off on the face of the planet." It's so useless she can't legally recommend to anyone -- it literally contains no active ingredient.

By Julian Frost (not verified) on 07 Dec 2015 #permalink

The real question is can it replicate itself if you buy two of them? If not, why not?

By justthestats (not verified) on 08 Dec 2015 #permalink

Somehow missed this when it was posted. When seeing the device I was somewhat hoping the control in between had settings for "Rough", "Coarse", "1:1", "Fine", "Very Fine" ... a portable SCP-914. But alas, no ...

By stewartt1982 (not verified) on 15 Dec 2015 #permalink

I'm sure some very gullible person will have been taken in by all her mumbo-jumbo rubbish - such as my hypochondriac 'ex' who recently married her, his "lodger" , less than a year after after giving me the push!!

By Axetogrind (not verified) on 16 Jan 2016 #permalink