The Effects of EMR and Technology on the Cognitive Ability of Children by Cornelis van Dalen
Technology as we know it is subhuman, even though some may credit it with intelligence or use it as a companion. From certain points of view the use of technology is perverting the course of human evolution. In the fair grounds of spring and summer time (or any time) it is not the experience of joy and excitement of people but the interference of loudspeakers projecting ‘music’ which is supposed to elevate the human spirit into great and boundless ecstasy.
This
is one instance,
no doubt glossed over because our entire cultural experience, our daily
life, is now filled with technology and the electro-magnetic radiations
(EMR) large and small arising from its utilisation. We have become
used
to it. Recent surveys estimate that half the world’s population have a
mobile phone. Yet the effect of EMR is being increasingly investigated.
Some of the evidence may be circumstantial, but EMR affects health
and
behaviour. Dr Roger Coghill, who sits on a Government advisory
committee on mobile radiation, “has discovered that all 22
youngsters who have killed themselves in Bridgend, South Wales,
over the past 18
months lived far closer than average to a mast.”[1] In sourcing the information and constructing the arguments of this article it became clear that there are two factors. Firstly, the concern that EMR may have an effect on the essential functioning of respiration, metabolism and also tumour formation is increasing. Secondly, the concern about what the technology does to the creative and imaginative consciousness of those engaged with the technological gadgetry.
Allergic to something in the air?
The French NEXT-UP organisation seeks to alert people to the danger of EMR. Schools are increasingly connecting classrooms with wireless computer connection, WIFI. For some years now various governments in the European Community have been advising schools not to connect. As related in the previous article (Electricity and the Senses) some people are very sensitive to the emanations of high frequency radiation. Here is a mother’s concern for her child as provided by a NEXT-UP bulletin: [Please note that this extract has been translated from the French by Next-up]
Hello to all. Yesterday when I picked up Cassiane at school towards 3.15 pm she was red and had swollen cheeks. Under the eyes she had thick plates. The teacher told to me she had surely an allergy. That quickly disappeared once at home. I was working that evening and my husband who gave her a bath told me she had buttons on her arms. This morning there was nothing left. I bring her to school. I speak 2 minutes with the teacher and during this Cassiane shows me a drawing she has made, then takes a book and starts going through it. And then once again, here are the plates which forcedly reappear, just as on the back of her hands and on her knees which start to itch. I decide to immediately go to the doctor, but once at home for 15 min the plates grow blurred. The doctor will not see anything any more. To your opinion can someone be allergic to something volatile, which is in the air or is it related to her going through her book? I know that one will have to make tests but which direction should we take? She never had any reaction before these. Do you have any clue on this? Thank you and kisses to all.
Comments made by Messrs. Sargentini and Guilot on this matter reveal that it is now possible to determine according to various parameters (reaction time, distance, developed pathologies, etc.) the source and type of irradiation. In Cassiane’s case, whose mother is unaware that she is (most probably) electro-sensitive, we are dealing (most probably) with the radiations of a beam between 20 and 25 GHz of a parabolic Herzian Repeater.
The effect of EMR on the child in this case is physical and measurable. In a previous article the radiations of earth energies, weather systems and modern technology on the human energy field in chronic disease (especially cancer) and behaviour were considered. [2] But what of the cognitive effects and the subtle growth and unfolding of the child under the stream of technology and radiations?
Education and cognition
One of the great illusions of education is the notion that the earlier a child learns to read and write and perform mental tests, the better the child will be when fully mature as an adult. This is now being enshrined in law as the “Early Years Foundation Stage” framework, a ‘learning’ initiative drawn up by educational bureaucrats in the United Kingdom. The framework becomes law in the autumn 2008 and will affect all 25,000 nurseries and childcare settings in England, whether they are run by the state, charities or private companies. It sets out up to 500 developmental milestones between birth and primary school and requires under-fives to be assessed on 69 writing, problem solving and numeracy skills.
The argument countering the moves by government education officials is to let a child be a child. This is most certainly the spirit of the intention of the Waldorf School movement inspired by the insights into the human being of Dr Rudolf Steiner (1861 – 1924).
Childhood prodigy, for example, in those of great mathematical ability or of musical ‘genius’ often seen in Russia, presents a quandary. The fact is that after the early period of seemingly wondrous development of mental and artistic skills, they do not keep on developing. In other words, they are ordinary if not also exhausted souls. If a seed is planted in soil all the forces of the cosmos are brought to bear to unfold the plant, the life within. If the rains do not follow, or the seed is planted at an inappropriate time, the forces are spent. So too it is with children, the forces coerced to expression before their time cause a stunted growth in the soul.
The effect that educational processes, modern technology and denatured food have upon the current generations will not be evident for another 25 to 50 years – where is it projected that the average lifespan will plummet as sclerosis, mental atrophy (dementias, etc.) will be openly manifested. But will it be linked to forced education, EMR, technology in lives, vaccination and medication, foreign protein in infancy, some epidemic or as yet other unidentified factors?
In Waldorf School education students are not subjected to computers until after 14 years of age – the third seven-year cycle of growth. One must understand that the child must be allowed to develop naturally – meaning that as the organism unfolds, the physical organs develop and so too do the organs of perception, up till the age of 21 (or the years surrounding this point in development). The maturity of character is then at its greatest and the potential as an adult begins to unfold. This can often indicate great advancement for ‘one so young’ in the world of creativity, business, and all that society considers important. But generally the greatness of thought and action in people come in later life. In other words, never give up on children or even adults if they have not seemingly advanced in life academically, socially, politically, or philosophically, for the time will come for that which is ‘gold of the heart’ to manifest.
What does the future hold for children?
“The young are destined to lose an awareness of who and what they are: not someone or anyone, but nobodies. The time is well nigh to explore the impact of these technologies.” These are the words of Professor Susan Greenfield, a specialist in brain degeneration, promoter extraordinaire of science, and a woman in a decidedly man’s world of science. The quote and her essential arguments are gleaned from an interview in London’s The Sunday Times Magazine of April 27, 2008 publicizing her book ID: The Quest for Identity in the 21st Century.
The young of today spend hours gazing at screens small and large, it is estimated between six and nine hours daily. Greenfield believes the minds of the younger generation are developing differently. She says ‘the brain has plasticity: it is exquisitely malleable, and a significant alteration in our environment and behaviour has consequences.’
The effect of computer programmes with (menu) options does not elicit free ranging inquiry. In the same guise is telephone enquiry to companies with the push button options system. [1 to 9, * # is the extent one is allowed to express the condition you are seeking to have addressed.] You must fit into this or that category. With the young in the formative stages of development using computers and technology catapults them on downward path and decline of linguistic ability and visual imagination. What is essential for complex thinking is missing. Instead the use of contracted, brutalised text messaging, lack of verbs and conditional structures is demanded.
Greenfield’s concern over the effects of computer games is expressed in material (chemical) scientific terms. The brain chemical dopamine is implicated in all forms of addiction. Dopamine is involved in feelings of well-being on attaining a goal, especially when gratification is repeatedly deferred and is finally delivered. This of course is the case in computer games. The excess dopamine “rewards” generated by these game activities ‘creates a euphoric, self-centred ego boost, the pleasure of which can lead to craving and addiction.’
This intense subjective ‘here and now’ feeling, Greenfield estimates, is taking away the awareness of the significance, the meaning of our actions. She further thinks the brutal behaviours where gangs of youths kill their victim is like a computer game for them: the buzz of the moment, thinking without feeling of the person being attacked, or of the implications of their actions for themselves the following day.
While the professor is seeking answers to the complex questions of cognitive behaviour and development in terms of chemicals and parts of the brain involved (and, if this is for you, please read her book), her warning is nonetheless at one with many enlightened educators and persons concerned for the orderly evolution of human kind. What if education as we have known it fails, she asks? It will be the ultimate triumph of process over content: individuality could be obliterated in favour of a passive state, reacting to a flood of incoming sensations, she asserts.
While Prof. Greenfield is working on the causes and (drug) solution to Alzheimer’s disease, an increasingly common condition, she is teetering on the edge of the higher dynamic of human existence – albeit couched in material scientific terms. This of course has limits and will no doubt be abandoned as an insufficient tool in decades to come. This will certainly come to light as she explores the neuroscience of spirituality; for spiritual matters must be spiritually discerned, meaning that the organs of cognition of spiritual things are being slowly evolved in people who wish to evolve.
As with science as a whole, the ‘mystery of consciousness’ is seen to rise from the brain. Watson, of the Crick and Watson DNA spiral fame, boldly stated some years ago that consciousness arises in the brain as the result of chemical reaction. When the world of learned men think like this then indeed the new dark age is coming very soon or are we already in it?
Greenfield, too, perceives the coming of a new dark age, of identity crisis. Brain development and the young she has identified as being in a precarious state with the impact on life of IT computer technology. [3] For the rest of people in mid life there is also a loss of identity and she suggests the need for consumerism to provide an identity. For a person who knows him or herself, this is not a crisis moment but an indication of how much of technology and radiations are preventing evolution and higher thinking.
© Cornelis van Dalen 2008
References:
1. www.nextup.org as reported in UK Sunday Express June 22, 2008
2. Cornelis van Dalen, ‘Earth Energies, Dowsing and Human Frailty,’ New Physis Newsletter, #12, 2007
3. IT stands for Information Technology, but one also can be an IT girl, for example.
Picture credit: www.nextup.org, Die Welt 2006 & reported in the International Courier