Earthing and Dirty Electricity.

More research and observations for a conversation.

Recently there has been an idea circulating on the internet that if the human body is attached to the earth there is a healing affect. It is known as “earthing" or “grounding.” Here’s what my experience was back in 2012, as a layperson, doing my own experiments. I set up earthing sheets with 5 different friends in locations all over the Phoenix metro area, including myself. None of the sheets were connected to a receptacle in the wall; all of them were connected to the earth via a metal rod. After two nights of vivid dreams and horrible sleep, everyone became exhausted and 2 were made sick; we all had to quit. This, however, hasn’t been the same experience for others on the internet.

Here are some observations while trying to put the pieces of the puzzle together. I’ll summarize it here and then describe the details in the following article:

1. The electrical utility system in certain countries (including the US) provides two wires to your house to bring you clean electricity (60 Hertz (Hz), but only one wire to bring the electricity back to the company. When the return pathway back (that one return wire) to the utility can’t handle the flow, the excess electricity flows through the earth to make its return to the grid.

2. This wasn’t a problem prior to the 1970s because the electricity going to and from a house was cleaner than today’s (60Hz).

3. After the 1970s, electronics were designed that created dirty electricity (from 2-150 kilo Hertz (kHz).

4. Why do we call it dirty electricity? Because when we are exposed to electricity that contains these frequencies, they go through our skin and into our tissues where they have deleterious effects, including promoting the growth of cancer.

5. The return pathway in the US and other countries is the earth, so when we purposely ground into it, we could be inadvertently exposing ourselves to these frequencies.

6. The main issue in the US is that the utilities aren’t regulated by nor do they communicate with the governing bodies that oversee electronic devices which, once plugged in to the grid, pollute the utilities’ clean electricity with dirty frequencies, thus creating dirty electricity.

Now for more info.

The earth has been used as a return pathway for electricity since the invention of the telegraph in 1838. New Zealand, Australia, Canada, India, Brazil, Africa and Asia use the earth for a return pathway called Single Wire Earth Return (SWER). North America utilizes the TN-S system, often referred to as a "multigrounded neutral" (MGN) system.

When the neutral becomes overloaded or there is a poor primary return pathway, the electricity is returned to the substation via the earth.

Dirty electricity has several synonyms, one of which is the term supraharmonics. You will find the term dirty electricity in the arena of medicine and public health, but you will see supraharmonics used in the fields of technology and electrical engineering.

One of the overarching problems I personally see is that these two groups of scientists rarely collaborate or communicate with one another, and yet there is scientific evidence that the products made in the tech world directly affect human health. This goes beyond the addictive or psychological implications with which everyone is now familiar. I am talking about the direct impact on human physiology from the type of electricity to which we are now being exposed.

Supraharmonics are frequencies between 2 kHz and 150 kHz. They are not regulated by the FCC for conducted emissions. Unlike clean power that the utilities produce, supraharmonics ride on the surface of conductors, such as a copper wire, instead of the core of this wire (this is weirdly called the skin effect, but actual human skin will be coming into the story later). This effect on the wire creates a plume that extends beyond the physical wire itself.

It was only in 2005, that a man named Martin Graham, EE, PhD, created a device that would measure the concentration of these supraharmonic frequencies (those between 2 kHz and 150 kHz) on a home’s wiring. He called it “electrical sewage” and compared it to dirty water. When it got really bad it would spill into the earth and onto the floor of the home.

Since the 1970’s the invention and use of non linear loads such as switch mode power supplies, energy efficient devices, solar, EV chargers, wind turbines, variable frequency drives, power line communications (PLC), CFL and LED light bulbs and dimmer switches, there has been a considerable amount of supraharmonics injected into the grid and subsequently the earth.

Now, here is where we get to human skin.

Back in the days before the 1970s, when all of our electricity was clean, our skin was an effective barrier between us and that electricity. Another was of saying this is that when the frequency of electricity is at 60 Hertz the impendence of the skin is very high. Again, that electricity is not going into our tissues.

But as the frequencies rise into the kilo Hertz(kHz) range (over 1,700 Hertz), our skin protects us less and less. In layman’s terms, when we are exposed to normal amounts of electricity in our every day lives in 2025, because we use electronics and devices that make kiloHertz frequencies, our skin no longer protects us from the electricity and it, unfortunately, gets “under our skin” - or goes internal to the body, and into our tissues and affects our cells.

For the science nerds, see the chart below. For everyone else, skip to the next paragraph. The total human body impedance lowers as frequencies rise (Schwann 1968). For example at 60 Hertz the impedance is 3,000 Ohms and gradually declines to 500 Ohms at 1.7 kilo Hertz. (Reilly)

From the US Air Force Radio Frequency Radiation Dosimetry Handbook (Fifth Edition) we see that the human body absorbs far more energy when grounded than one that is ungrounded.

So now that we all understand the electricity we are commonly being exposed to in today’s world is running throughout our bodies, the next question we should be asking is: so what? Is this bad for me or not?

Unfortunately, a government report looking at many studies shows that very small levels of this internal electricity is associated with cancer and chronic disease. Here’s the cover page for that report:

The 1998 NIEHS EMF Rapid Report states that 1 mV/m of internal electric fields is associated with cancer due to “cell proliferation, disruption of signal transduction pathways, and inhibition of differentiation. Studies at lower exposure are inconclusive.”

In 2013, three scientists were given the Nobel prize for showing that messing with how cells move proteins causes neurological diseases, diabetes, and immunological disorders. In my opinion, this is one of the many ways dirty electricity exposure harms us. Why do I say this? Because as I’ve cleaned up the power in hundreds of homes over the years, these types of serious disease states are the ones to clear up. As you check out the video of “Life of a Cell” shown below, it’s not hard to imagine how small amounts of electricity could disturb the intricate functions within that cell. These processes need to just be left alone!

Check out this video on the cell to see how this unbelievably intricate process plays out:

Remember that when you attach yourself to the ground, you don’t really know what’s in there. It could be that you are connecting yourself unknowingly to frequencies of electricity that, over time, are eroding your health…one cell’s functioning at a time.