Dirty Electricity; Clean Chakras

by Paul McGoldrick

I’ve been staring at the power outlet for about an hour now. I started about a meter away, but I have now reduced the distance to just a few centimeters. And I still feel OK. Maybe the side effects I am supposed to experience take longer to develop, or grow, inside me. Or perhaps I am just exposing myself to the wrong outlet.

How am I supposed to know? Well, of course, I should have invested in a Graham-Stetzer Micro Surge Meter…

Every large community in North America seems to have its own complimentary publication – typically an advertising rag with news items that have little to commend themselves. In Victoria, BC, we are lucky enough to be able to opt out of the distribution list of our local Black Press publication (one of over one hundred titles coming from seventeen presses in North America), vastly reducing our paper recycling. The screed for the local rag reads, “The Peninsula News Review has been the Saanich Peninsula's newspaper of choice since 1912…” Everyone, I guess, is entitled to one's own opinion.

We also have, however, a free glossy magazine that makes its way into our mail box every month: Focus on Victoria magazine presents numerous well-thought articles that are relevant to the area and it also offers some interesting advertising. In the April 2010 edition my eyes were caught by an advertorial-like piece from Triangle Healing Products.

I am singularly unqualified to speak sensibly about the seven major Chakras or how they can be related to therapy using tuning forks, but the idea of dirty electricity is gobsmacking.

The manufacturers of the Graham-Stetzer Micro Surge Meter and the corresponding outlet filters beggar the electrical engineering imagination – not in a good way. One of the names that is constantly brought up by Graham-Stetzer to support the human dangers involved is that of Dr. Magda Havas. She is an Associate Professor of Environmental & Resource Studies at Trent University. I immediately think of Trent as being Nottingham Trent University, in the UK, but, fortunately, few UK places of education have adopted the antipodean "Associate Professor" title in place of the grade of Reader. Trent, formerly Trent Polytechnic, has not been one of them.

The Trent University in the case of Dr. Havas is that in Peterborough, Ontario, in Canada. Dr. Havas seems to spend a lot of her time on the lecture circuit, speaking of the dangers of environmental contaminants, such as EMF, ground currents, and, yes, dirty electricity.

I am paranoid about RF effects. as readers well know, but Dr. Havas beats me hands down…

There have been times when I have been willing to put out a few dollars to investigate the probity of various gizmos and their creators' technical claims. But at the risk of dingy chakras, I think I'll give this one a miss. The Micro Surge Meter does not meet our sniff test in any way. At any distance.