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| Photograph: Mary Catherine O'Connor |
I have a confession to make. For a brief time when I was about ten years old, I thought I could move a quartz crystal with the power of my mind. I was on holiday in North Wales, and I’d got it from a gift shop from a small-town attraction whose name I can no longer recall. Quartz crystals have a certain sort of captivating beauty about them, and this one was no exception; it was attached to a length of leather cord, and looked like it would fit right at home as a trinket from an epic fantasy novel. When I got back to the caravan we were staying with, I was holding it, staring at it, when it seemed to move for no apparent reason. Curious, and ever-hopeful that something magical would happen to make the holiday something other than banal, I wondered whether I could make it happen again. So I held the top of the cord as still as I could, and tried to imagine the crystal swinging in a circle. And it did. For a brief moment, anyway. I think.
Obviously, I don’t have any magical psychic powers – no one does. What I was experiencing was the ideomotor effect – I was simply making the swinging motion myself, without realising it. I didn’t know the term when I was ten years old, but after repeating the experiment a few times, and not getting a consistent swing, I nevertheless came to the same conclusion that nothing out of the ordinary was happening. And so the holiday plodded on.
I’m reminded of this story because over the past week or so, at the request of a friend, I’ve been looking into a particular kind of quackery known as ‘geopathic stress’. Geopathic stress is a kind of mash-up between electrosmog, feng shui and dowsing (another phenomenon simply explained via the ideomotor effect). The basic idea is this: the Earth has a natural vibration, but things like underground watercourses, drainage pipes, underground tunnels and even simple geological faults distort this vibration. If the vibration is disturbed, and you’re standing (or sitting, or sleeping, or doing anything) above this distortion point, then your health and behaviour will be affected. Websites explaining geopathic stress have linked it to everything from road rage and child abuse to miscarriage, cot death, suicide and cancer. Others claim that you can find sources of stress in or around your house via dowsing, and fix it by moving your bed out of the way of the distortion field.
As a general rule of thumb, if someone tells you that a single factor or phenomenon can cause such a huge range of ailments, then it should ring an alarm bell in your mind. Claims about geopathic stress are no exception. Ask for evidence, and see whether there are any convincing research to back up the claim. “If you don’t believe that an advertiser can back up their claims, you can report them to the Advertising Standards Authority.” explains Laura Thomason, Project Leader for the Good Thinking Society. She adds, “Claims to treat cancer could be in breach of the Cancer Act (1939) and should be reported to Trading Standards.” There is some published data on the alleged phenomenon in the research literature, but it crops up in journals like “Renewable Energy” or “Research in Complementary Medicine”. If this was a well-researched phenomenon, you would expect to see a decent amount of data in a mainstream journal that focuses on medicine or biology - not squirrelled away in the engineering literature, or in an obscure alternative medicine journal.
Similarly, there doesn’t appear to be any robust research into what sort of biological mechanism might explain how a single phenomenon could account for such a wide range of medical and non-medical issues, and again nothing published in the medical literature. Some explanations appeal to the suggestion that because the vibrations occur at specific frequencies (around 7 Hz), then they may interfere with patterns of brain activity called alpha waves, which occur at about the same frequency. Alpha waves are associated with relaxed wakefulness, so you can imagine a scenario in which, due to constant disruption of these waves, a person may be unable to relax or sleep appropriately, which might in turn lead to a range of health problems.
However, that assumes that (a) geopathic stress exists, (b) it affects the brain, and in turn (c) can cause anything from road rage to cancer. Is there any evidence to back that up though? In short, no: there doesn’t appear to be any credible, peer-reviewed evidence. While I could find no randomised controlled trials on geopathic stress specifically, but there’s a useful comparison to be made to research into the effects of extremely low frequency (ELF) magnetic fields. If vibrations from the Earth in the 7 Hz range are causing health problems, then it would make sense that other things that emit electromagnetic fields in a similar sort of frequency range might be trouble too. Thankfully, we do have some data in this area that might be helpful.
In 2005, the World Health Organisation assembled a task group to look at the effects (if any) of exposure to ELF electromagnetic fields on the development and incidence rates of a number of different diseases, most notably cancer. There are a number of take-home messages from the data. The first is, as I’ve already alluded to, that there are no known biological mechanisms through which low-level exposure to ELF electromagnetic fields could cause cancer. Reinforcing this idea, the evidence they review from epidemiological, animal and in vitro studies is similarly inconsistent and inconclusive. In other words, there’s no evidence to suggest that exposure to ELF electromagnetic fields has any impact on the development of cancer tumours, or incidence rates of things like childhood leukaemia. Similar negative findings were found for associations with depression and suicide, neurodegenerative disorders such as Alzheimer’s disease, and cardiovascular disease.
All in all, it seems unlikely that exposure to these sorts of low-frequency fields has any sort of notable effect on our health, and while the WHO data doesn’t directly refer to geopathic stress, the results seem similarly applicable. We’re surrounded by technology that emits these sorts of fields. If they’re not affecting us, then it doesn’t make sense to claim that similar sorts of frequencies emanating from the ground will have any sort of effect.
Unfortunately, despite the lack of evidence showing any sort of link between geopathic stress and cancer, there are a few people out there happy to assert that there is a connection. And as with any sort of evidence-free claims about esoteric factors that affect our health (I’m looking at you, astrology), the bogus information also comes along with the promise of devices that can help fix the issue. A number of websites sell devices that claim to neutralise geopathic stress and ‘electrosmog’, without any convincing explanation of what the mechanism of action is, nor any scientific evidence or medical trial data to show their efficacy. While they don’t specifically claim that these devices can cure cancer, the implication seems like an easy one to make, especially if you’re having concerns about your own health. Geopathic stress is linked to cancer; these devices can neutralise geopathic stress; you can make the final logical jump for yourself. “Misleading health claims can cause serious harm to vulnerable members of the public.” says Laura. “It is deeply worrying that people could be led to believe that such devices could treat or prevent life threatening medical conditions.”
So should we be worried about geopathic stress? No, and it’s irresponsible of people to claim a link between an unconfirmed phenomenon, and any sort of health issue. And a link with road rage? Especially ludicrous. I don’t know how people manage to convince themselves that these sorts of phenomena exist. I know it probably starts with a little bit of ignorant curiosity about the world; something happens, you don’t know why, and you need to find an answer. Sometimes it’s a really bad thing that happens – at least one website explained how the owner had lost a family member to cancer, and was investigating what the cause might have been. My heart goes out to people in that situation, but it also makes it all the more important not to resort to extraordinary explanations that are devoid of any scientific or medical evidence. If we do, not only do we end up deluding ourselves, but we risk irrevocably hurting others along the way.
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