One of the first injunctions of Dr Samuel Hahneman, MD, the founder of homeopathy, in his great book, The Organon of Medicine, is the ‘edict’ to remove obstacles to cure. In the modern world, where we live with environmental pollution within and outside of our homes, this injunction is more important than ever before.
Today, I would like to talk to you about the subject of ‘grounding or ‘earthing’ and the lack thereof, in our disconnected modern lives. At the time Dr Hahnemann lived the streets were not paved in asphalt; instead the ground in the cities was covered with compacted earth, or gravel, brick, or natural stone, and people wore shoes with leather soles, or walked with no shoes at all. This natural ground cover was conductive of electricity.
Asphalt Excess
In our day and age, this is not the case at all: our streets are paved in asphalt, one is hard put to find the earth to walk on, and grassy areas are not always accessible. The vast majority of us wear shoes with rubber, or plastic, soles. These man-made unnatural surfaces do not conduct electricity and do not permit us to absorb the earth’s negatively charged electrons.
Dr Hahnemann did not have to tell his patients to ‘ground’ themselves, because they lived ‘grounded’ and connected to nature. We, on the other hand, in the 21st century, are not grounded.
In the 1960s, the plastic and rubber industry infiltrated the shoe industry and essentially took it over. Nowadays, the rubber sole shoe is ubiquitous. The problem with rubber and plastic is that the materials are insulators and do not conduct electricity.
In the past when we strolled in the park, or walked to work, we went on a healing journey, because we were connected to the therapeutic properties of the earth, since we were not insulated from them. The earth is an infinite storehouse of healing negative electrons, and when we walked on it barefoot, or when wearing leather-soled shoes, our bioelectric bodies absorbed its healing negative electrons through our feet. Unbeknownst to us they were reversing free radical damage in our bodies, reducing inflammation, and increasing the velocity and fluidity of our blood. So, walking was health-promoting and life-giving.
Nowadays, walking is not the same experience. We walk on rubber, or plastic, shoes that insulate us from the healing potential of the earth. By not wearing footwear that promotes grounding, or walking barefoot, we are depriving ourselves of access to the most abundant resource on earth — the earth itself and its negatively charged electrons. It is not just the things that grow and develop on earth that have therapeutic properties, but the earth itself is healing.
Dr Hahnemann. The Pioneer
If Dr Hahnemann were alive today, he would say, yes, take your homeopathic remedies, eat your nutritious foods and supplements, get your exercise, meditate, but also take off your shoes, walk on the beach, or on the sand in the playground and ‘ground’ yourself. Copy the animals that ground themselves instinctually, and regain your connection to the earth and its life-giving properties.
Ober’s Insight
Grounding, or earthing, is not a new discovery. People have done it, without knowing they were doing it, in all places and all times. But, for us in the modern world, it is certainly a rediscovery. The man responsible for rediscovering earthing is Clinton Ober. Ober had become a millionnaire by pioneering the Cable Television Industry in the 1960s. In 1993, he had a near-fatal illness which caused him to re-examine his life. He sold his business, and undertook a quest to find meaning and a new purpose in life. This is what Clinton has to say, about his ‘aha’ moment.
“My ‘lightbulb’ went off one day in 1998. I was sitting on a park bench and watching the passing parade of tourists from all over the world. At some point, and I don’t know why my awareness zeroed-in on what all of these different people were wearing on their feet. I saw a lot of those running shoes with thick rubber, or plastic soles. I was wearing them as well. It occurred to me rather innocently that all these people — me included — were insulated from the ground, the electrical surface charge of the earth beneath our feet. I started to think about static electricity and wondered if being insulated like that could have some effect on health. I didn’t know the answer, one way, or another. The notion just popped into my mind…”
“It all started innocently with that one simple question: “Could wearing rubber- or plastic-soled shoes, as we all do, and insulating ourselves from the ground, affect health.” From that day onwards, Clinton devoted his life to answering this question. He met with great scepticism, but gradually he was able to find people to help him with his experiments, such as the cardiologist, Dr Stephen Sinatra, MD. The word began to spread to people in different parts of the world to whom these ideas made sense. They took off their shoes, and tried the grounding devices that Clinton developed with the help of many people.
These grounding devices consist of earthing mats, mattresses, earthing sheets, electrodes and other devices to allow people to be grounded when don’t have easy access to the outdoors, or are kept inside due to the weather, or who wish to be grounded while sleeping, or at work.
Ober, Dr Sinatra, and Martin Zucker wrote a book called Earthing [2010], which talks about the science behind the grounding technology. You can purchase it online at: https://www.earthing.com, or Amazon India: https://goo.gl/X20Cqd
Healing Naturally
The reason I am so interested in this subject of grounding is that, like Dr Hahnemann, I feel that obstacles to cure have to be addressed, if we want healing to happen. You can take the ‘ideal’ homeopathic remedy for yourself, and many people will experience profound healing from this, but for others even the most ideal prescription can fall short of delivering the desired optimal health. I believe this is a good thing, because it forces us to look deeper. It is in these ‘failures’ that self-examination can truly happen.
So, we can also ask ourselves, why is the remedy only holding six weeks, when it should hold eight months. Is it the fault of the remedy? Let me try another remedy. Remedy after remedy is tried, yet the same results occur. Then we read about nutrition, and start eating leafy green vegetables, fermented food, cut back on sugar, and all of a sudden, the irritable bowels that we have suffered from all our lives are no longer there. Ah, it is diet that is important for everyone after all. Diet affects health. When I eat better, my body works better.
Now I am eating better, but yet that vitality that I long for, that vibrancy and feeling of connectedness to nature that I experienced as a small child frolicking in the waves on the beach, is sorely lacking. So, I hear about grounding. Someone tells me to take off my rubber- or plastic-soled shoes and walk bare-footed, or sleep on a grounding mat, and suddenly, my body feels more youthful. I am more flexible; my complexion is brighter. I am sleeping better than I ever did in my life. I was not getting these results with homeopathy alone. I had to look deeper, and re-establish my connection with Mother Earth to have such wonderful feelings and experiences.
The answer is not:
- Homeopathy alone
- Western medicine alone
- Herbal medicine alone
- Chinese medicine alone
- Shamanic healing alone
- Nutrition alone
- Exercise alone
- Grounding alone
- Meditation alone
- Prayer alone
- Loving relationships alone
- Creative work alone, but everything integrated together.
What surfaces are grounding? Here is a list of surfaces that are grounding:
- Sand
- Grass
- Untreated concrete
- Brick
- Ceramic tile
- Leather soled shoes [particularly when wet].
Here is a list of surfaces that are not grounding:
- Plastic, or rubber shoes
- Linoleum
- Wood
- Asphalt.
What are the benefits of grounding, or earthing?
I found this list in a little leaflet called Going Barefoot by Martin Zucker. I am quoting directly from it.
- Improvement of many inflammation-related disorders
- Reduction, or elimination of chronic pain
- Better sleep; quicker to fall asleep
- Increased energy
- Lowered stress, more calmness by cooling down the nervous system and stress hormones
- Normalisation of the body’s biological rhythms
- Thinner blood; improved blood pressure and flow
- Muscle tension and headache relief
- Less hormonal and menstrual symptoms
- Dramatically faster healing
- Accelerated recovery from intense athletic activity.
My hope with this article is simple, also profound. To bring your awareness to another leg of the healing stool — the importance of your connection to earth and becoming a ‘well-grounded’ human being.
I appreciate your knowledge. Thank you.