There are no Z-rays
The Zerret Applicator promised powerful healing rays from another world.
You’ve heard of X-rays … now get ready for Z-rays.
The supposed powerful healing properties of Z-rays flowed from a device called the Zerret Applicator, which bounced onto the market in 1940s Chicago as a cure for … well, everything. Arthritis, rheumatism, diarrhoea, constipation, obesity, abnormal thinness, over-accumulation of fluids and the progress of old age were among the conditions targeted.
A plastic dog-toy-like object with blue and white stripes, the Zerret Applicator contained a tube of fluid called Zerret water, which emitted the mysterious rays. As strange as this sounds, the product was among its inventor’s least bizarre exploits.
William R Ferguson (1900-1967) had a normal life as a postman, taxi driver and father of five children. During his thirties, however, he developed a more esoteric outlook, publishing a self-help guide called Relax First in 1937 to offer people the hope of a more abundant life. And what is life? Relax First opens by telling us:
Life is that constant pulsing exhuberance (sic) that dominates the universe. To put it in a simpler form, life is an expression of activity that always moves forward – never backward. If any form of life stops to move forward, it deteriorates; that is, the physical expression of it dies and it fails to express itself any longer.1
I’m none the wiser for this explanation, but am reminded of those sharks that have to keep swimming to get enough oxygen – perhaps we are all just metaphorical makos in the murky waters of modern society.
The Zerret Applicator, launched around 1946, was designed to help achieve total relaxation. It would set you back $50, and to use it you had to hold it in both hands, making sure all your fingers were in contact with it and that your legs were uncrossed so as not to short-circuit the process. This must be done three times a day for 15 minutes.
Z-Rays were ‘a force unknown to science’ (this at least was true) and operated by expanding the hydrogen atoms of the body. The instruction booklet went into further detail:
Zerret is produced by expanding the hydrogen atom, which in turn produces positive Life Energy. When you hold the Zerret Applicator, it works on your life current, expanding the atoms of the same. As this takes place, it in turn expands all atoms of your being. Expansion of your atoms produces what is commonly called relaxation … you can readily see that through the use of Zerret we have the key to the cause and correction of disease.2
Ferguson further alleged that the Zerret could absorb ‘life rays’ from the body, refresh them within the device, and return them to the user.
As ridiculous as Zerret water and Z-rays sound, there probably was something in the idea of sitting still with your eyes closed for 15 minutes. Many customers were housewives – you know, the women expected to be on duty 24 hours a day while society tells them they don’t work at all. The ritual of the Zerret Applicator must have given them permission for a bit of peace in the days before Valium.
Ferguson’s business model had an element of multi-level marketing. Women who didn’t have an independent income were encouraged to recommend Zerret Applicators to their friends, earning a tempting commission of $25 per sale.
In 1948 Ferguson and his sales director, Mary Stanakis, were arrested and charged with operating a confidence game and conspiracy to defraud. At least 40 satisfied customers turned up to support them in court, insisting that the Zerret was effective. One woman reportedly said: ‘I wouldn’t sell mine for $10,000.’
Judge Charles S Dougherty said: ‘I think you’re all suckers, but I’ll keep an open mind.’3 He adjourned the case to have the Zerret analysed. The composition of the devices varied – of three samples investigated, one contained paraffin-soaked cotton, another dry cotton, and the third contained water – probably out of a tap.
Witnesses for the prosecution showed that, although the press and public might laugh at purchasers’ supposed gullibility, the Zerret Applicator had a darker side. Amelia Seewald of Lena, Wisconsin testified that her husband Jesse had spent $50 on the device in the hope of curing his cancer. He died a few months later.4 Another customer with Parkinson’s Disease had put his trust in the Zerret too. Although not much could be done for these conditions anyway, vulnerable people had parted with a hefty wad of money for nothing but false hope – still very much a feature of ‘harmless’ questionable remedies today.
The case dragged on for a year and a half, culminating in the conviction of Ferguson and Stanakis in May 1950. Ferguson received a two-year prison sentence, while Stanakis got one year.5 Most Zerret devices were destroyed, with just a few preserved for museums and FDA public service announcements, like this one presented by actor Raymond Massey. He succinctly gets the point across: ‘There are no Z-rays’.
After getting out of prison, Ferguson revealed more about the origin of these extraordinary healing forces. The answer was, of course, aliens.
In 1954, he published a pamphlet called My Trip to Mars – not science fiction, but an account of what he claimed was a genuine interplanetary visit. In the story, Ferguson looks back to out-of-body experiences that started in 1938. He attained such a state of relaxation that he was ‘carried away at a terrific speed to a distance above and beyond the mundane comprehension.’6
On his return, he went to tell his wife (who was getting on with the ironing while he gallivanted around the universe) but she couldn’t see or hear him until he went back to his couch and rejoined the correct dimension for Earth.
In 1947, just as the concept of the ‘flying saucer’ began to capture the public imagination, Ferguson had found himself transported to the red planet. A new chum, Khauga – a sort of Martian Jesus – showed him around a utopian city and explained that his civilisation wanted to help humanity overcome its self-destructive ways.
‘We are going to release positive energy particles into the Earth's atmosphere,’ Khauga says in A Trip to Mars. ‘We are going to do that to counteract the negative energy particles that man himself has released.’ Nice one, Khauga – we need all the help we can get.
Ferguson founded a UFO religion called the Cosmic Circle of Fellowship, and gave talks about extraterrestrial attempts to make contact. He also spent some time with the oligarchs of Venus, who were good guys like the Martians.
Chicago Tribune journalist, Norma Lee Browning, described his activities scathingly:
He’s back in business again with his Martian joy cups. Between interplanetary travels he now lectures from coast to coast to ‘cosmic fellowship’ groups, aided by an attractive girl, on such subjects as flying saucers, outer space and vibrational healing, carefully injecting Jesus and other ‘celestial beings’ into his patter.7
The joy cups were plastic cups, available at $10 a pair, from which you could sniff ‘positivities’. Ferguson picked them up from Mars on his visits.
Ferguson died in 1967 but the Cosmic Circle of Fellowship continued through the involvement of co-founder Edna Valverde and Clorine (known as Cloe) Wright Diroll, who wrote several tracts looking back at Ferguson’s teachings.
According to Melton’s Encyclopedia of American Religions, the fellowship was still publishing pamphlets as of 2009, and there had been 41 adherents in the Chicago area in 2002. I don’t know if any of these members are still around, but if they could just ask Khauga to drop in on Earth and avert World War III, maybe Ferguson’s outlandish career will finally be vindicated.
She Wrote Too - the book!
Many Quack Doctor readers also follow my podcast, She Wrote Too, in which
and I talk about the women writers of the past – especially their lesser-known works.
We’ve launched a Kickstarter to help us publish our children’s book She Wrote Too: Women Whose Words Changed the World. Featuring short biographies of history’s inspiring female authors, creative prompts and space to write and draw, the book aims to help children boost their creative confidence and learn about the amazing women who have gone before us. Our message is She wrote too … and so can you!
We’re aiming to raise £2,500 to help with printing costs and promotion – if you feel able to spare a few pennies towards our goal, we would be incredibly grateful! Click here to see our video and find out more. Thank you!
William Ferguson, Relax First, The Bronson Canode Printing Co, Chicago 1937.
FDA Notices of Judgment 2667. Misbranding of Ferguson's Zerret Applicator. U. S. v. 16 Devices. December 1949.
‘Prosecutor says Zerret inventor guilty of fraud’, The Morning Examiner, Bartlesville OK, 1 October 1948
‘Husband dies despite use of applicator’, The Marshfield News-Herald, 13 May 1950.
FDA Notices of Judgment 3157. Misbranding of Ferguson's Zerret Applicator. U. S. v. 9 Devices. William R. Ferguson (Ferguson's Zerret Applicator), and Mary A. Stanakis. November 1950.
William Ferguson, My Trip to Mars, The Cosmic Circle of Fellowship, Inc, Chicago 1954
Norma Lee Browning, ‘Quackery: $500,000,000 racket’, The Chicago Tribune, 14 June 1959.
Thanks Caroline! It's a fascinating read. Seems that history really likes to repeat itself now in the form of negative ion bracelets. Except that might be sticking around for a while...