The Electric Connection

In this controversial, wide-ranging book, Michael Shallis explores the nature of a form of energy that is a feature of the life force itself. Electricity can be found in every animate and inanimate thing on earth. The electric fields surrounding rocks, trees, ourselves, are measurable and can be monitored. And there are clear correspondences between the character of such fields and our moods and our state of health. Natural electricity is generally a beneficent force, controlled as it is by magnetism. But the electricity that now pulses through the cables in our homes, offices, and factories, beneath our feet and above our heads, has been unleashed from magnetic bonds; even the electrical industries acknowledge that prolonged exposure to it is harmful. In our everyday lives it can make us ill; we can develop severe allergies to it. And in its purest, strongest form, in the computer world, it can influence our minds, alter our characters, and markedly affect our health—already physicians have recognized a painful and dangerous physical syndrome that attends intense and protracted work with a computer. And as computer applications proliferate, and still greater numbers of people deal with computers at work and have recourse to them at home, computer syndrome may well become endemic. And something even more threatening may happen: a change in consciousness and character that has already been observed may come to affect an important segment of humanity.