A kiddyfriendlyfroggy guide, not a wildlife cookbook but a guide to electromagnetism and the eternal forces that direct us and the cosmos, and all before tea-time,…well let us see in the writers own words:
Yes,Thomas Saunders, author of the book of the same name, with additional subtitle ‘Your Health and The Built Environment’ summarises it so:
“A Frog Jumps Into A Pot Of Water Which Is Gradually Being Heated. As The Water Gets Warmer, The Frog Adjusts Its Body Temperature And Continues To Adjust To The Increasing Water Temperature Until, Ultimately, The Frog Is Boiled Alive.”
So? Who cares? Well apart from the frog and sympathisers.
The answer is we all darn well should, so how do we explain it so the jolly old frog can just about get it, or at least we all can, and see the pot around us. That is the size of it, because this entire book is an extended metaphor for how we are treating the world in the way we are building it into a boiling pot and us inside it. This direction may seem to accord with what some of us desire, but is it matching our real and deepest needs asks Saunders. Like continuing to be alive and enjoying things for starters occurs to me.
It is far from new to point out we are polluting and abusing this old world of ours in all too familiar ways to the point of rendering it uninhabitable. Frogs find it hard here in the UK and it already is goodnight and thanks for the memory for many species, others teeter on the brink of extinction as entire eco-systems vanish. Now we seem to be attacking our own most vital habitat ie. in the electromagnetic spectrum. What is new is electromagnetic smog, the invisible soup enveloping everything, and not just around us but penetrating inside us, ongoing alien waves of force with which our bodies and minds never evolved to cope.
Well Froggy friends is that cheeful or did I hear the cue for some doomy gloomy sounds, daa da da daah, yup that does sound somewhat on the serious side, can that really be possible? Are we really in line for such danger? Even inside us, affecting our innards, getting microwave zapped?
Such fun, let us poke froggy proboscis further in this buzzy zone.
In the section on ‘Generated Electricity’ Saunders points out:
“We have evolved on Earth over three milliom years but in one single generation-the last fifty years-we have exposed ourselves to extraordinarily and unnaturally high levels of a wide range of artificially generated electromagnetic radiation. Suddenly this unbelievably powerful force has become available but without any guidelines or precedents to help us fully understand it, monitor it or regulate its use. Instead we continue to exploit it to gain economic and political power, often at the expense of nature, our own health and well-being and the quality of the environment.”
There is very little it is possible to argue with in there, certainly its an amazingly powerful and useful force. Electricity with all its related adaptations is a tool for industrialising and leaping forward in a single generation when it took others over two hundred years with coal and oil. The speed of its spread is highly visible even from space, it has changed the planet. We all enjoy the advantages,so where and how is this great threat showing itself? Why are we in danger of cooking us up?
Saunders goes on with his thumbnail sketch of our developmental history thus:
“Fundamentally, all biological and cosmic processes are electrical.”
Aha! Now we can see why it is so vitally threatening, how now we have immersed ourselves in a hot bath of electromagnetism, of waves and frequencies and voltages and wavelengths, microwaves and x-rays, hertz amps and teslas AC and DC and for all I know MC, no hang on that is the DJ rappers of the music biz. Slow down, we ourselves function not so much on vitamins fresh air and proteins as on being loose assemblages of flying circulating atoms and molecules hung together by forces electrical and electromagnetic even down to the communications between individual cells and our natural biological systems.Huh ain’t no frog gonna get that.
How does Mr Saunders put it, lets kick that one off again:
Fundamentally, all biological and cosmic processes are electrical. The function of every cell, organ, tissue, muscle,bone and the central nervous system, including the brain, depends on complex, extremely subtle, electrical frequencies. Life on Earth has always been subjected to the electromagnetic variations determined by changes in cosmic radiations and activity affecting the whole spectrum of energy vibrations, from light to microwaves to radio and to colour and smell.
So there we have the nub of it, ‘The function of every cell.. and all the rest ..depends on complex extremely subtle electrical frequencies’.Seems to me that if we prefer clean air and clean water we need clean frequencies, or maybe it is clear frequencies, not muddied up with electrosmog or high voltage cables or whatever.
“Like the frog, we keep adjusting and reacting to the increasing health and ecological hazards to satisfy our expectations and demands for more comforts, greater convenience and easier living. Despite our western materialism, few people seem to be satisfied and content.”
Being satisfied and content seems like another and bigger problem to me. If we just keep it to not making ourselves sick, helping our well being would be a start. Is it only massive currents and huge forces we should worry about ? Is a bit of electromagnetism neither here nor there? On page 68 we find:
“Our own body sensitivity to the most subtle and faint vibrations has been likened by one American researcher to suggest that if the terminals of a 1.5-volt battery torch were connected to wires dipped in the pacific ocean-one at San Diego and one at Seattle- the cells of a surfer at Long Beach or a fish off Monterey could still detect the electromagnetic field (about one-ten-millionth volt per inch!)”
Hmmn, would like to check that out but who is the researcher? and who was the surfer anyway, or the fish? cut that out, this is serious, look at p 73 :
All living organisms are sensitive to electromagnetic energies. Without the system of extremely weak electrical currents in our bodies, we would not be ‘alive’. Every human cell operates like a battery, sending out signals to activate the constant interchange of biochemical and bioelectrical processes. An overdose of radiation-such as solar flares or artificially generated electromagnetic fields-can produce, to a lesser or greater degree,abnormal biological changes affecting our genetic response to stress and our ability to resist disease.”
The solar flares we can all live with,no choice, but the other sounds proper dodgy and without our own internal leccy we wouldn’t be ‘alive’, what could be signified by those inverted commas? Partly alive? A little bit dead? Stride on, what do these bioelectrical doodahs inside us do anyway? C’mon Saunders, tell it like it is:
“The function of many of our physical, biological and thought processes are controlled by the release of the chemical secretions produced by our endocrine gland system. These hormonal secretions are vital to maintaining an efficient immune system and their effective and efficient release is triggered by the extremely low electromagnetic fields in the body. Our levels of vitality, sleep patterns and dreaming are dependent upon the secretions of serotonin, melatonin and dopamine released by the pineal gland (known as the governor of the system, and in earlier times called the ‘seat of the soul’ and the ‘third eye’)…this is extremely sensitive to light and electromagnetic fields : daylight and high levels of brightness will trigger the release of serotonin; as it gets dark in the evening, melatonin takes over. The efficient function of the system can be impaired when a person is chronically exposed to an environmentally low-level magnetic field”
Dear oh dear, the actual clinical effects of being gently boiled are sounding distinctly unpleasant. In fact its downright depressing as:
“People who are depressed can have significantly lower levels of serotonin. Melatonin is known as an anti-cancer, life-enhancing hormone. Sleep problems, lethargy, moodiness, depression and immune deficiency diseases are attributed to reduced levels of melatonin released in the body.”
This is so happy making everyone will soon be rolling in the aisles, how much more merriment can we take , let’s have one last burst and leave it for now, its making my blood boil that all this is going on.
Mr Saunders informs us that the 1992 edition of Electronics World and Wireless World reported:
“that considerable evidence indicates that low-frequency electronic and magnetic fields coinciding with natural ion magnetic resonances can have a biological effect on the pineal gland. Human blood contains ions that have a range resonance with the earth’s geomagnetic field and an alternating field ranging between 1Hz and 500Hz. If an electrical or magnetic field is applied near this resonance frequency it can impact upon the lymphocyte cells which, in turn, will affect the immune system response and may well explain many cases of of lymphatic leukemia and other diseases.
This is becoming far too good to miss, obviously a wonderful hilarious, not to say hysterical time is being had by all in this wonderful electronic playpen we’ve built for ourselves, so lets plough right on to the bitter boiling end and see how it shapes up. Back to Mr Saunders and his gripping exegesis:
“The ambient electromagnetic fields in an average urban environment are relatively low, but standing in close proximity to everyday household equipment such as washing machines, hair dryers, shavers,TV sets and computers, our exposure is substantially higher. This is greatly increased by apparatus using radio frequency and microwave devices. Our natural ions, tissues blood cells and whole body movement can be affected by the electrical charges caused by high-frequency electromagnetic fields. An adverse reaction reduces the ability of white blood cells to kill tumour cells and in turn can also affect reproduction glands, inhibit cell growth and impair our natural extremely low frequency electrical brainwave activity that controls the hormone efficiency of the immune system and the central nervous system.
So now, da da da doom, for our grand finale and climactic conclusion:
“For the first time in the history of the planet we are now exposed to unnatural stresses on the function of all living systems imposed by exceptionally high, artificially generated voltages and the all-pervading extremes of high and low frequencies. Other than visible light our environment is now saturated, many million times more, by the amount of electromagnetic radiation, than we experienced just a hundred years ago.”
Well thank-you Mr Thomas Saunders, havng drawn so heavily on your book it seems only reasonable to let you have the last word about it, then will the last one to cook please turn out the light.
The Boiled Frog Syndrome presents compelling evidence to show that the source of the majority of the Western diseases of civilisation that have multiplied over the past 100 years, ranging from cancers to debilitating sicknesses and allergies can be traced to the modern built environment, our increasing exposure to electro-magnetic radiation and the indiscriminate use of untested advanced technology. It is also due, in part, to the 20th century’s repudiation of perennial wisdom.”
Our wellbeing will depend on our endeavours to bring about the fundamental changes to combat the hazards but how and what can we – the so-called ordinary people – do about it?
The text explores how our subtle energy sensitivities respond to the external environment and suggests the steps we can take to ensure our home/workplace is safe and conducive to our continued good health; for this it draws on common sense and the author’s personal experience as a practising architect and consultant. It is also based on the wisdom and teachings of the past, gleaned from those who knew how to create a healthy, harmonious environment.
The intention is to inform, stimulate and provide an understanding of how the root causes of some of the modern hazards affect our body, mind and spirit and to provide the ‘ammunition’ to challenge the attitudes of those who create our new towns, estates and buildings. Already, the growing demand for alternative, holistic medical treatments, and even the popularity of Feng Shui, indicate that the public is sensing the need for a more harmonious way of living.
Everyone lives in a house/flat, many people have a place of work and most people are concerned about their health. The book is a challenge to the practitioners and their teaching institutions who are engaged in the built environment – town planners, architects, engineers, their clients, the building and allied trades, environmentalists, the medical and legal professions.
Seems like the National Radiological Protection Board, the NRPB, our guardian and watchdog who sets the safety standards should fit in here somewhere too, god bless.