|
The
concept of the earth as a conductor of electricity may seem to be a long
way from human mental health problems: not so. Many people are aware of
the state of unease that can be produced by an approaching electrical
storm. Part of the cause of the unease will undoubtedly be the increasing
concentration of positive ions - a concentration released when lightning
flashes. (Recollect the calming internal feelings that one experiences
when a much-heralded storm has discharged its 'wrath' and one is now surrounded
by negative ions). Another component may be due to what are called 'standing
waves' that Tesla identified; these are peaks and troughs of energy propagated
in circles like ripples on a pond when a pebble is dropped in. The waves
centre on the storm and move with it, and can be measured at distances
in excess of 300 miles. They can be shown to produce unease in people
who would themselves be totally unaware of a cause that was so far away.
(The disturbance in the behaviour of animals while a storm is yet far
off is often noticed and demonstrates that they are reacting to something
that is real and not subjective.) Internal disturbance produced by an
event as obvious as a thunderstorm can be understood and accepted; similar
effects resulting from something unseen such as a distant storm
may induce significant unease in a sensitive person sufficiently to affect
temporarily their mental balance.
Staying with the natural world, and also with the earth as a conductor,
we return to central Europe - Bavaria perhaps, and to the work of a number
of people, of whom the one who has described it in an available book is
Count Gustav von Pohl. Von Pohl's book, Earth Currents: Causative Factor
of Cancer and Other Diseases, makes interesting reading, particularly
in the context of my writing, because some of the 'other diseases' may
be classed as 'nervous', psychiatric.
Earth currents are a reality, as are the ley-lines of Alfred Watkins
to which I referred earlier. It is an immensely great pity that the two
have become merged into one concept. The amalgamation is now what many
people refer to as ley-lines. It is a pity because the 'Watkins' lines,
as he himself described them, should be of value to anyone interested
in the movement and communication of people in times as far past as pre-Roman,
whereas knowledge and understanding of earth currents and their potential
to influence adversely people's health, should be at the disposal of,
and accepted by everyone concerned with human and animal well being.
It is unfortunate that a significant number of people have little or no
scientific and technological knowledge, and are 'switched off' at the
prospect of having to try to understand anything electrical. This is doubly
unfortunate because every living thing is a construct of electro-chemical
and bio-electronic processes. Furthermore, the planet on which these life
processes take place is itself a gigantic electrical machine. The molten
iron core behaves like a huge self-exciting dynamo that effectively creates
a bar-magnet whose poles produce the earth's north and south magnetic
poles. Consequent upon this are the lines of magnetic force associated
with all magnets. The lines are conventionally accepted as flowing from
the north to the south poles, and have an average strength of 50 micro-teslas.
At the latitude of the British Isles, they emerge from the ground at an
angle of about eighty degrees to the horizontal, then pass the equator
parallel to the surface, re-entering the ground at a similar angle at
the latitude of Patagonia, with varying angles of emergence or descent
at other latitudes. The presence of a constant and homogeneous magnetic
field is necessary for healthy life, for this is one of the background
conditions of evolution. When I discuss this concept in more detail in
later sections, I shall draw attention to experiments and speculations
concerned with the effect on life forms of an absent or modified field.
Taking the reality of the earth as a gigantic rotating electrical machine
a step further, one is faced with the fact that all such machines produce
attendant lines of electro-magnetic force. In general, these lines form
regular matrixes over the surface of the globe, and have been classified
as 'Hartmann' and 'Curry' grids respectively. Where one grid interacts
with the other, local 'electro'-stresses are produced that can have the
effect in life forms of producing what has come to be known as 'geopathic
stress'. Many people are sensitive to these locations and cannot bear
to remain in them; others are unaware, but nevertheless react internally,
and in time may become ill. If, as might easily happen, it is suggested
that such illnesses are of psychosomatic origin, it is well to remember
that animals and plants also react and may suffer.
If the earth was completely homogeneous, that might be the end of the
story as far as the currents that originate locally are concerned, but
as it is not, other processes prevail. As an example, consider the situation
in which of two different types of rock abut against each other - possibly
granite against limestone. In the presence of water, the effect of an
electrical battery would be created, and, if a suitable conductor existed,
a current would flow. Such a conductor could be an underground aquifer,
which, when a current flowed, would be capable of producing its own local
'stream' of geopathic forces. Any forces produced would add to the effects
of the previously mentioned Curry and Hartmann grids that might cross
its path. In a similar manner, underground fault lines and ore deposits
provide conducting paths that, again, would create variations in the grid-induced
stresses.
However, the earth is not alone; our parent sun exerts a wide range of
electrical effects upon us, apart from giving us light and heat. The sun
generates ultraviolet rays that have the effect of ionising the gases
in our attendant space. The ions so created are whisked along at colossal
speed in the jet streams of the upper atmosphere. Where there exists a
flow of charged particles, there exists an electrical current. Essentially,
the jet streams create very large currents (at times, as much as 500,000
amperes at local noon) flowing at high speed parallel to the surface of
the earth, and which, in turn, have a number of significant consequences.
The first and most influential result is the creation of currents within
the ground by a process known as 'induction', and which, in a similar
manner to the 'battery' currents, seek the path of least resistance. (The
path of least resistance was dramatically demonstrated in 1989, when a
huge burst of solar electrical energy hit Canada in a region where there
are vast tracts of granite, itself a very poor conductor of electricity.
Taking the line of least resistance, the solar electricity burst down
the main electrical distribution system and blew all the protection equipment,
depriving eight million homes of their power supply for up to a week.)
The charged particles created by ultraviolet rays in our stratosphere
recombine when the sun goes down and the currents from this source cease.
The jet streams themselves are also a variable phenomenon, and move back
and forth across the latitudes with the seasons, producing passing reactions
at ground level that may be a component in the ailments that affect many
people at different seasons of the year. In the latitudes of the British
Isles, the jet streams flow roughly from southwest to northeast, which
is also the direction of flow of many of our weather systems and winds.
The parallel flowing of the two masses of air, one high and, effectively,
an electrical current, the other low and near the surface, causes the
latter to adopt particular electrical characteristics derived from the
former, reminiscent of, but not the same as, the Föhn wind. The surface
air movement from the southwest forms one of the winds that I mentioned
earlier, within which people who are sensitive experience specific reactions
that I shall describe in detail in the appropriate later section.
As I write, and then review what I have written, I am consciously aware
that many who will read my words will find themselves in strange territory.
Many will query the relevance of what I am writing to mental health, and
ultimately, to the understanding of voice hearing and allied phenomena.
Perhaps some may feel that they are in danger of becoming lost in an intellectual
maze. I am aware also that I have studied and discussed these topics for
over twenty years, and live in daily familiarity with my studies and observations.
To you who find yourselves in a mental maze, let me say that, just as
Theseus was able to move through the maze of Minos by following the thread
provided by Ariadne, so also is there a thread running through all that
I am writing in this particular section. The thread is this: many individuals
who are deemed to be mentally ill are not intrinsically ill, but
are reacting with a greater or lesser sensitivity to external phenomena.
I can only really hint in this part of my narrative at the extent and
all-pervasiveness of these various phenomena, and as I read and study
even more deeply myself, I realise that there is so much yet to comprehend.
I shall try to present a more detailed analysis in later sections, but
hope that I am succeeding now in showing that, outside ourselves, and
totally outside our control, there are major sources of influence upon
our physical and mental well-being and behaviour. I have been asked many
times by individuals to whom I have introduced this topic, "What
is the point of even considering, let alone trying to understand these
phenomena when they are effectively outside one's control?" The answer
is given by those who suffer acutely from the induced effects, and who
then realise that they themselves are not intrinsically ill, but
are reacting to external stimuli that have a limited duration.
There is no longer the recourse to the bottle, whether of tranquillisers
or alcohol, but, instead, the realisation and acceptance that in a few
hours, or a day or so, depending upon the particular phenomenon, the symptoms
will pass and normality will return. Seeing a life re-emerge after being
in a state of inexplicable suppression, makes worthwhile for me the many
hours spent in observation and study.
|