Maxwell's Silver Hammer 327
scientists, some perhaps acting in a program of deliberate disinforma-
tion, keep telling the public that we still don't know whether elec-
tropollution is a threat to human health. That's simply not true.
Certainly we need to know more, but a multitude of risks have been
well documented.
Three dangers overshadow all others. The first has been conclusively
proven: ELF electromagnetic fields vibrating at about 30 to 100 hertz, even if
they're weaker than the earth's field, interfere with the cues that keep our biolog-
ical cycles properly timed; chronic stress and impaired disease resistance result.
Second, the available evidence strongly suggests that regulation of cel-
ular growth processes is impaired by electropollution, increasing cancer
rates and producing serious reproductive problems. Electromagnetic
weapons constitute a third class of hazards culminating in climatic ma-
nipulation from a sorcerer's-apprentice level of ignorance.
There may be other dangers, less sharply defined but no less real. All
cities, by their very nature as electrical centers, are jungles of inter-
penetrating fields and radiation that completely drown out the earth's
background throb. Is this an underlying reason why so many of them
have become jungles in another sense as well? Is this a partial explana-
tion for the fact that the rate of suicide between the ages of fifteen and
twenty-four rose from 5.1 per 100,000 in 1961 to 12.8 in 1981? Might
this be an invisible and thus overlooked reason why so many governmen-
tal leaders, working at the centers of the most powerful electromagnetic
networks, consistently make decisions that are against the best interests
of every being on earth? Is the subliminal stress of electronic smog mis-
interpreted as continual threats from outside—from other people and
other governments? In addition, if Teilhard de Chardin's noosphere ex-
ists, our artificial fields must mask it many times over, literally discon-
necting us from life's collective wisdom. This is not to ignore the plain
fact of evil, but it often seems there must be some other reason why
today's power elite are so willing to bring the whole world to the brink
of so many different kinds of destruction. Maybe they literally can't hear
the earth anymore.
Everyone worries about nuclear weapons as the most serious threat to
our survival. Their danger is indeed immediate and overwhelming. In
the long run, however, I believe the ultimate weapon is manipulation of
our electromagnetic environment, because it's imperceptibly subtle and
strikes at the core of life itself. We're dealing here with the most impor-
tant scientific discovery ever - the nature of life. Even if we survive the
chemical and atomic threats to our existence, there's a strong possibility
that increasing electropollution could set in motion irreversible changes