Just how long would I have to run a small electric current through your body, while telling you things that you wanted to hear, before you became convinced that I held the secrets of the universe?
Scientology uses a device they call an "E-Meter", which, from examination of its own patents as well as recent judicial decree in the United Kingdom, is nothing more that a classic electric circuit known as the "Wheatstone Bridge".
This same functional device is used as one of the monitoring instruments, the "Skin Galvan-ometer" of the professional "Lie Detector" used for high security in federal Agencies and Law Enforcement.
The difference to note is that unlike the professional use in law enforcement, where the sessions are brief and non-repetitive, public persons in Scientology are exposed to the E-Meter for a lifetime exposure of thousands of hours. The device is used throughout the expensive "therapy" that Scientology calls "auditing" as well as during study and training sessions, by adults as well as children.
During a rare interview with the current defacto Leader in Scientology, Ted Koppel asked David Miscavige: "What is the E Meter doing?" His reply was "Well, it is a meter there and it sends a little electrical flow through your body, something very tiny, you cannot feel it."
In The FDA versus Article or Device Case [The E-Meter] the Federal Government held that "by itself the E-meter does nothing."
But, ladies and gentlemen, that was a conclusion based upon the hard science available at that time [1971 Gissell Decision]. It is now 30 years later. The same science that brought the controls on electro magnetic radiation limitations for computer monitors is new science. And it is not the varying magnetic and electric fields that cause harm - it is the transformer-like, induced electrical currents in the human body due to these electromagnetic fields.
Measurement made by this author, (who spent some time while in Scientology actually involved in the building of E-Meters) , of a Mark Super VII [tm] model of Scientology's E-Meter yielded the following: The E-meter exposes the human body with a left hand to right hand current of an average value of 332 Micro Amps. 1/3rd of the value that is generally considered noticeable by a person. In fact some members have reported to me, being able to feel the current go through their bodies.
I am now going to outline 2 different analogies in order to illustrate the hidden danger here.
Electroplating
When a metal such as Chromium is plated onto another metal - as in the making of chrome-plated hardware for automobiles, for example:
The rate of deposition of chromium metal out of the plating solution onto the metal article is a function of the current in amperes and the surface area being plated. One can deposit the same amount of metal at one tenth of one ampere in 1 minute, as one would deposit with 1 hundredth of an ampere in ten minutes - or - 1 thousandth of an ampere in 100 minutes.
There is an electrical unit called a Coulomb, which is, in fact, defined in terms of grams of metal deposited. It is a unit of charge. In fact it is an actual discrete number of electrons - or charge carriers.
Handbook of Chemistry and Physics by Robert C Weast Phd, 1968 defines the coulomb as: "A unit quantity of electricity. It is the quantity of electricity which must pass through a circuit to deposit 0.0011180 grams of silver from a solution of silver nitrate. A coulomb is also the quantity of electricity on the positive plate of a condenser of one-farad capacity when the electromotive force [voltage] is 1 volt.
The point being that if the number of actual charge carriers is what is the factor, that is, if it is the actual ionic transfers that do the work [plate the metal] or as I will illustrate later that mediate actual activity at the cell wall boundaries, the opening and closing of ion exchange pathways through individual cell walls, THEN the E-Meter cannot be said to do nothing. It *IS* having a physiological effect on internal and external cellular functions.
The magnitude of charge provided to a human body in a 2.5 hour exposure to the E-meter is approximately 3 coulombs.
The magnitude of charge provided to the human body by a set of three shocks used in a single treatment of Electro Convulsive Shock therapy, ECT, is only 1.2 coulombs.
Ironic isn't it, that Scientology's pet arch demonic enemy, psychiatrists, in shock treatment, give people 1/3rd the dose of electric charge that Scientology will give the unsuspecting public in one session?
Pain Killing Effect - or the Induced Endorphin Effect
There are various devices on the market, all licensed for use by the FDA under the direction of a physician, which consist of two electrodes which are applied to various parts of the body, as in the treatment of lower back pain. These are called TENS units - TENS is an acronym for transient electro neural stimulation. There are many flavors of these devices, including devices that have been clinically shown to provide pain relief from the effects of the electrical currents they put through your body. The method by which these devices provide the sensation of pain relief has been the subject of much investigation.
The surprising findings indicate that direct electrical stimulation of human body tissues evoke a release of various peptides. Peptides are messenger molecules that have specific sites on cell surfaces to which they bind. These sites, called receptor sites, are extraordinarily specific to individual peptides.
It is remarkable that the body has a group of peptides called endorphin. These particular messenger molecules evoke a pain killing effect when they bind at their specific receptors. The opium family - morphine, heroin, codeine, etc. all end up traveling a metabolic pathway to create morphine, and morphine - the most effective pain killer as well as most addictive one - binds at the same sites as your bodies own endorphin.
One theory of how electrical pain killing works, is that it induces the body to release its own endorphin. Studies have shown that a small electrical stimulation with a small morphine dose has a therapeutic effect of a larger clinically significant dose, which indicates there is a close relationship between these two factors.
The actual amount of charge delivered to the body by many FDA approved medical devices is of the identical order of magnitude of the small current provided by the Scientology E-Meter.
Thus, I conclude that the E-meter directly provides a pain killing adjunct to the implied result of Scientology auditing technology's release state.
This is also the source of the sag effect of a participant feeling great after auditing, yet having a sagging emotion tone some few days later - as his bodies endorphin levels go down past normal in a hang over effect, in which, like a heroin addict, he wants another dose, only it is a dose of auditing.
John Travolta merely substituted the Scientology [tm] belief system, together with its subliminal, hidden, electrically induced endorphin "rush", for cocaine. He thinks he is "better", because the electrical addiction is hidden from him; he was just given a substitute.
A March 2000 article in the Washington Post describes a new device to treat depression by stimulating a nerve bundle with a low electrical current. Worth the read..
Graphic - 47 Kbytes of possible emeter shunt currents in body
(c) 1999 Arnaldo Lerma
Bibliography: Gissel Decision, 333 F. Supp. 357; 1971 U.S. Dist; "Biologically Closed Electric Circuits" Bjorn Nordenstrom, 1983, Professor of Diagnostic Radiology, Sweden. J Rosch M.D. F.A.C.P. President, The American Institute of Stress Clinical Professor of Medicine and Psychiatry New York Medical College Clinical Professor of Medicine in Psychiatry University of Maryland School of Medicine in the 1998 new publication of BCEC by Bjorn Nordentrom.
