Cured by a Blackbox: 1982—Pete Townshend of ‘The Who’ got onto a plane to America with just enough heroin to make it across the ocean.
Pete Townshend got onto the plane destined to America with just enough heroin in him to make it across the ocean. It was 1982, and the legendary guitarist of The Who was at the pinnacle of his career, yet teetering on the edge of oblivion. The roaring crowds, the smashing guitars, the anthems that defined a generation—all of it masked a private hell of addiction that no conventional therapy could touch. Alcohol had been his companion for years, but heroin had sunk its claws deeper, turning the man who wrote “Won’t Get Fooled Again” into a shadow of himself. Depression wrapped around him like a fog, and the therapies of the day—talk sessions, detox programs, even the cold turkey ordeals—offered only temporary reprieve before the cravings clawed back. Pete was in a really bad place and few knew how to help him.
As the plane lifted off from London, Pete clutched his secret stash, knowing it was just enough to stave off withdrawal mid-flight, but not enough to quiet the demons waiting on the other side. Little did he know, this desperate transatlantic dash would lead him to a mysterious “Black Box” that would change everything, sparking a revolution in electronic medicine that the world was not yet ready to embrace. Eric Clapton kicked his heroin habit with it, Keith Richards found relief from his addictions, and even Boy George would later turn to it. In fact 1000s of famous people around the world used the Black Box.
I remember reading about Pete’s story in 1983 and it hit me like a thunderclap because it mirrored the hidden truths I suspected in reading about these types of devices. As a garage electronics device builder, this was especially interesting to me. So this is the story of how a magazine article pulled me into a labyrinth of forgotten science, suppressed breakthroughs, and my own hands-on quest to build a device that could heal the mind without a single pill.
It’s an adventure that spans rock stars, rogue physicists, academic intrigue, and the shadowy forces that keep revolutionary technologies buried. What started as my curious experiment in a garage became a lifelong pursuit, revealing electronic medicine as the breakthrough we’ve all been denied—a hidden path to self-healing that could rewrite the story of addiction, depression, and human potential across an array of health concerns.
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A Personal Account Of An Adventure
This is my story about discovering an article in Omni magazine, which led me to build any prototypes of this Black Box and my ongoing journey to optimize what it did by using AI to monitor the telemetry in real time. The AI device I have been testing has many attributes of the early Black Box, but it is far more of a universal device that can address many human issues. I feel so strongly about this AI technology, I feel it must be on all major long term space missions for many reasons as I know it would save lives when “help’ is a million miles away. This journey is what I am on, this article is a way point to get there, I hope It helps.
At some point, I will open source all of this information, but due to the nature of its incomplete status, I want to make it available only to members of Read Multiplex who see the value of this type of information enough so that they’re willing to pay to see it. If you or somebody you love is struggling with addiction and can’t afford to support my work reach out to me and I will find ways to give you access to this information as long as you understand it is still early days (Reach me @BrianRoemmele on X.com). It is my hope this will help you stay ahead of the cutting edge research and explore the intricate innovations driving the future of science. I explore this in detail with insights not seen anyplace else. You will be the first to understand this shift and profit by it. If you are a member, thank you. If you are not yet a member, join us by clicking below.
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(c) 2025 Read Multiplex. All Rights reserved. Cover image public domain: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Pete_Townshend#/media/File:BouncingTownshend_crop.jpg
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