"Electroshock reduces me to despair, it takes away my memory, dulls my mind and my heart, it turns me into someone who is absent and knows himself to be absent, and sees himself chasing after his own being for weeks, like a dead man next to the living man he no longer is." (Antonin Artaud writing to his psychiatrist about the effects of the electroshock treatment forced upon him in the late 1930's.)

I suspect that any exposure to electricity causes the same symptoms, but in a milder form. The electronic gadgetry we spend our lives twiddling with effectively turns us into pacified, sedated slaves. Technological advancement, which is generally perceived by the masses as a path away from State and religious control and towards some sort of freedom, actually makes us more and more dependent upon, and slave to, those hidden powers that run the show by syphoning our energy.

Thích Nhất Hạnh recommends that once a month we spend a whole day in absolute solitude: no people, no books, no TV, no phone, no computer. I would go further and suggest that all eletrical circuitry is turned off, including the power for the house. Better still: take a tent into the desert. You will certainly notice the difference.