By Edwin A. Noyes M.D., MPH

Static magnets have not been shown to be of healing value by scientific testing. They are no better than a placebo. Pulsating magnetic force has been shown to be useful in bone healing. It takes special generators to produce the pulsating magnetic field. The magnets being sold and used with the concept that they are healing is a billion plus dollar industry yet without true evidence of value. They may be promoted to “balance” polarizing forces in the body and in this area we enter into the field of the occult.

Below are some quotations that should guide us in our search for answers of questions as to whether to accept the popular practices of using static magnets for various maladies.

  1. Not a few in this Christian age and Christian nation resort to evil spirits, rather than trust to the power of the living God. The mother, watching by the sick-bed of her child, exclaims, “I can do no more. Is there no physician who has power to restore my child?” She is told of the wonderful cures performed by some clairvoyant or magnetic healer, and she trusts her dear one to his charge, placing it as verily in the hands of Satan as if he were standing by her side. In many instances the future life of the child is controlled by a satanic power which it seems impossible to break. {CTBH 111.3}

  2. We must keep close to the word of God. We need its warnings and encouragement, its threatening’s and promises. We need the perfect example given only in the life and character of our Saviour. Angels of God will preserve his people while they walk in the path of duty; but there is no assurance of such protection for those who deliberately venture upon Satan’s ground. An agent of the great deceiver will say and do anything to gain his object. It matters little whether he calls himself a spiritualist, an “electric physician,” or a “magnetic healer.” By specious pretenses he wins the confidence of the unwary….CTBH 116.1}

  3. His agents still claim to cure disease. They profess to employ electricity, magnetism, or the so-called “sympathetic remedies;” but in truth the magnetic power of which they boast is directly attributable to the sorcery of Satan. By this means he casts his spell over the bodies and souls of men. {LP 139.2}

  4. The sick, the bereaved, the curious, are communicating with evil spirits. All who venture here are on dangerous ground. The word of truth declares how God regards them. In ancient times he pronounced judgments upon one who sent for counsel to a heathen oracle: “Is it not because there is not a God in Israel that thou sendest to inquire to Baal-zebub, the god of Ekron? therefore thou shalt not come down from that bed on which thou art gone up, but shalt surely die.” 140 {LP 139.3}

  5. (General Conference Bulletin 2009 to SDA Institutions) Adventist health care and ministries are to promote only those practices based upon the Bible or the Spirit of Prophecy, or evidence based methods of disease prevention, treatment, and health maintenance.

  6. “Evidence-based” means there is an accepted body of peer reviewed, statistically significant evidence that raises probability of effectiveness to a scientifically convincing level. Practices without a firm evidence-base and not based on the Bible or the Spirit of Prophecy, including though not limited to aromatherapy, cranial sacral therapy, homeopathy, hypnotherapy, iridology, magnets, methods aligning forces of energy, pendulum diagnostics, untested herbal remedies, reflexology, repetitive colonic irrigation, “therapeutic touch,” and urine therapy, should be discouraged.

  7. Dr. Mesmer in the late 1790’s believed in magnets for healing, these he used in his medical care. Then he learned of a Priest who did not use magnets but was able to do the same in healing with only his hands. Mesmer quit the use of magnets and went to the hands therapy with equal results. Eventually Mesmer found he could dispense with the use of hands for healing and do it with the mind instead. Mesmerism as this healing was called is now called hypnotism.

Healing by magnets, to hands only, to mind only leaves no doubt as to what it is. This is some of the deception of magnet therapy. It can lead one into deeper occult activity.