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The Body Electric
higher one does not. Furthermore, we can't tell how much energy from a
given power density is actually absorbed, or what part of the body re-
ceives it. The same holds true for electric and magnetic fields, whose
study is further complicated by the fact that animals of different shapes
distort the fields differently. Likewise, fur, feathers, skin thickness, bone
size, and the general shape of an animal complicate RF and MW absorp-
tion beyond our capacity to gauge it. Therefore, reactions seen in one
species cannot be assumed for another. The only way to test for possible
damage (or beneficial effects) is to actually do the experiment.
In a sense, the entire population of the world is willy-nilly the subject
of a giant experiment. Electropollution has been the subject of heated
public debate for nearly ten years, and unpublicized misgivings for dec-
ades before that. Unfortunately, the question of risk has been asked too
late. Daily exposure of nearly everyone is a fait accompli.
Subliminal Stress
After Howard Friedman, Charlie Bachman, and I had found evidence
that "abnormal natural" fields from solar magnetic storms were affecting
the human mind as reflected in psychiatric hospital admissions, we de-
cided the time had come for direct experiments with people. We ex-
posed volunteers to magnetic fields placed so the lines of force passed
through the brain from ear to ear, cutting across the brainstem-frontal
current. The fields were 5 to 11 gauss, not much compared with the
3,000 gauss needed to put a salamander to sleep, but ten to twenty
times earth's background and well above the level of most magnetic
storms. We measured their influence on a standard test of reaction
time—having subjects press a button as fast as possible in response to a
red light. Steady fields produced no effect, but when we modulated the
field with a slow pulse of a cycle every five seconds (one of the delta-wave
frequencies we'd observed in salamander brains during a change from
one level of consciousness to another), people's reactions slowed down.
We found no changes in the EEG or the front-to-back voltage from
fields up to 100 gauss, but these indicators reflect major alterations in
awareness, so we didn't really expect them to shift.
We were excited, eagerly planning experiments that would tell us
more, when we came upon a frightening Russian report. Yuri Kholodov
had administered steady magnetic fields of
100 and 200 gauss to rabbits
and found areas of cell death in their brains during autopsy.
Although
his fields were ten time as strong as ours, we stopped all human experi-
ments immediately.