The Rife Handbook, by Nenah Sylver, is fine as far as it goes, but that's not far enough in some ways and much too far in others. If you were thinking of spending a couple of hours looking through it to help you decide which rife machine to buy, you may be disappointed.

First, it's a textbook, not a handbook — 732 pages, hardcover, two-column format, including a 20-page reference list (with many more citations at the end of each chapter) and a 21-page index. A resource list and two other appendices round out the contents.

Second, this isn't just one book — it's two or maybe three books in one. The full title is The Rife Handbook of Frequency Therapy with a Holistic Health Primer. The holistic health primer consists of the first three chapters ("The Politics of Medicine and the Nature of Health," "The History of Pleomorphism and the Inventions of Royal Raymond Rife," and "Complementary Therapies"). Along with the last chapter ("Creating a Better World, Inside and Out"), they take up about 350 pages, or half the book.

Although one has to admire the effort and thoroughness that went into it, the holistic primer material has been covered many times elsewhere. But if she was going to write it, why she didn't publish it as a separate book escapes me. Its inclusion here, along with some of the contents (e.g, sidebars on "How to Feed Your Dog or Cat," "How to Remove Skunk Odor from a Dog," "Choosing the Correct Tempo When Working Out"), comes across as a bit compulsive, as if the author is standing over you to make sure you eat your vegetables.

Unfortunately, even binding it in with the rife material doesn't guarantee people will read it. And though most of it is useful, all it does is raise the cost of the book ($100 from her publisher; $125 elsewhere; also available in electronic format for less) enough to put it out of reach of many who might want the rife information — and who might buy one or even two less expensive books were they available separately in paperback.

The rife material itself is in a chapter titled "Frequently Asked Questions about Rife Equipment and Sessions." The nearly hundred-page chapter contains probably a hundred questions and answers. I'm not a big fan of the FAQ format in books — I prefer subheads and topics organized in a logical progression, which I find aids in retaining information, not to mention finding it again. Oddly, the rest of the book is structured this way — only the rife chapter isn't.

However, the biggest problem with the rife chapter is that although the author discusses the various features of rife machines, she doesn't offer any opinions that would help a reader decide on one machine vs. another. That's not the purpose of the book, but it's likely to be the purpose of those who buy it, hoping to find that information, as it was for me. Because machines are so expensive, most people will probably not have occasion to try even one before buying it, let alone several for comparison. Therefore, assessments of the strengths and weaknesses of the most common machines would seem to be in order. Of course, this could create hard feelings on the part of manufacturers whose products didn't fare so well, but I think potential buyers of a rife machine would gladly take a book like that, which still could have included the hundred-page rife chapter, over most of this one.

The book does include photos of different machines and what various common features do, such as gating, sweep, converge, and duty cycle. It also discusses the different types of machines, such as pad vs. plasma, and what to look for in a manufacturer. But machines can have similar features and still differ greatly in how easy they are to use. Some of the most popular machines, as I indicate in my reviews, are downright frustrating in one or more ways.

Another 200 pages are devoted to a comprehensive frequency list (also available separately in electronic format). However, frequencies in a list are only a starting point, at best. For one thing, a list may have dozens of frequencies for a particular problem, only a few of which may work in your case. However, you have to go through all of them to find the ones that do — and if they do, it may not be immediately obvious.

Even if you find some, are you missing others that aren't on the list? Jeff Sutherland's programs, which are precisely targeted and quite effective, contain many in the megahertz range, which the lists cover sparsely. Also, as he points out:

• You need to get all stages of a pathogen — eggs, larvae, and adult — with different frequencies for each. 

• Pathogens often mutate rapidly, requiring a new set of frequencies (different enough that a sweep may not do the job). 

• Smaller pathogens can hide in larger ones, so you need to kill the smaller ones first — otherwise, when you kill the larger ones, they release the smaller ones into your bloodstream. 

Sutherland's approach is to use dowsing to find the frequencies you need. Applied kinesiology (muscle testing) will also work. But most people are not proficient enough at these techniques to be able to use them effectively. So, is it more productive to spend time using a list, essentially groping around in the dark to maybe find some frequencies that will work for a while, or to find someone whose dowsing or kinesiology skills are good enough to determine precisely what's needed? If you're willing to do the former, the list may help.

The only claim in the book that's surprising from someone as well versed in holistic practices as Sylver is a sidebar on the ostensible dangers of soy. She turns out to be an adherent of the Weston Price–Sally Fallon anti-soy school, which claims not only that meat and animal products are essential for good health but that soy is supposedly harmful. As I describe here, this is misinformation that just doesn't stand up to scientific scrutiny.