28: Interview with Shannon Rowan Author of the Book: WIFI Refugee pt.1

This episode is part one of an interview with Shannon Rowan, author of the book WIFI Refugee: Plight of the Modern Day Canary, https://bookshop.org/p/books/wifi-refugee-plight-of-the-modern-day-canary/18894582?aid=104394&ean=9798986670607&listref=keith-cutter-s-favorite-emf-books&. Two people discuss what it's like to realize they have been poisoned by harmful man-made electromagnetic radiation and the option of becoming a modern-day refugee fleeing not from traditional warfare but from the reckless spread of man-made radiation.

Transcript

SPEAKER_04: 2:09

EMF Remedy is dedicated to helping you understand which electromagnetic threats are present in your home. And whether in the context of your current home, when you're considering for purchase, or building a new home with comprehensive protection designed in, EMF Remedy can help you reduce your family's exposure to harmful, man-made electromagnetic radiation.

SPEAKER_00: 2:35

She has a bachelor in fine arts. She had a career as a professional cartographer. She's an artist, a musician, an illustrator of children's books, and a writer. And I'm really excited to have her here today to talk about a book that was published last year called Wi-Fi Refugee. Welcome, Shannon. Thank you.

SPEAKER_03: 3:11

Thank you, Keith. Thanks for having me on.

SPEAKER_00: 3:14

Yeah. So this is gonna be this is gonna be a pleasure today. We had a few minutes to talk before we got started here, and it's kind of a unique opportunity for both of us because when I speak to groups, and I know when you speak to groups, it's often people who don't get what EMF sensitivity, electrohypersensitivity, or as I just call it, electromagnetic poisoning. They don't get what it is, or that is it is a real thing, and that's not an issue for either one of us. So I've been affected in that way, and you've been affected in that way, obviously, based on the book that you've read. So this is gonna be a neat opportunity for two people who are surviving just like the poisoning. When I say surviving because the poisoning continues, so I think from from that perspective, it's gonna be a lot of fun. We'll we'll be talking to the people who realize that their health has been whether they call themselves image or electrically sensitive, sensitivity, you know, whatever it is. Those are the folks that we're gonna be trying to reach today. So I'd like to start with uh something that I see in the people that I work with. You know, we're all sort of traveling along, if you will, uh flying through the air, sort of metaphorically, in an airplane, 30,000 foot level, flying north to one person, 25,000 feet, flying east for another person. We've all got sort of this different altitude, different trajectory, different things that we're about in life that we're flying along. And things are good and things are stable. And then when it comes to this electromagnetic voicement, something happens. Some of us fall out of the sky. Some of us need to make an emergency landing, some of us need to make a radical detour. And I wonder if just to get started here, we could hear a little bit about your journey when you first became aware that electromagnetic forces were having an impact in your life.

SPEAKER_03: 5:28

Sure. Yeah, and I want to start by saying that I was a kind of health conscious person, you know. Um, so kind of a like a pretty high level of like awareness of my body and health and um eating organic foods and you know, into herbal medicines and taking supplements and exercising. And I had already been suffering like kind of mysterious issues, you know, chronic problems for some time and always just on this journey of trying to figure out what's going on, you know. But I had like found a sort of equilibrium, if you will, or like felt, you know, I was okay, like maybe not great, but like like a lot of people, like I'm okay. Like I'm not on cancer, whatever. I'm I'm able to walk, I'm doing things. But I um, you know, and I'd actually been a resistor to smartphones, not for any awareness of the EMF problem or um political things, not even about surveillance, only because it was expensive. And um, and I like I said, I was a professional photographer. I had been, I wasn't at the time. This was like 2014. So I got my smartphone in 2012, um, because because it became affordable, right? So it wasn't any more than what I was paying. And I really wanted it mostly for these like the photo functions. Um, you know, kind of could do some cool things um that I used to spend hours in the dark room trying to achieve, you know, years before. So I finally got one. I was excited about it, actually. So I was not a resistor to the technology. I didn't have Wi-Fi at home just because I didn't want to pay extra for that. So I always had like the cable internet that was the cheapest. I had my like land, you know, my cable phone with the internet, but there was always like Wi-Fi from the neighbors. I was in the city, I was in Washington, DC. I had neighbors below me with Wi-Fi, neighbors next to me with Wi-Fi, neighbors, you know, Wi-Fi everywhere. I was in a kind of, we were talking before we got on about a wrinkle, you know, where there's a wrinkle in the earth, you were calling it where it's it's like in the, I was actually a little lucky there was it's not a dead zone for cell phones, but it was like spotty reception, you know, and there was there weren't like there were towers all over the place, but they weren't like, you know, we had a little bit of a, you know, and in fact, the park right across from me was like there was actually a couple dead, you know, so-called dead zones, which is where ironically most of the life can thrive. So it's all like backwards, you know, this labeling of everything. Um so I was like actually in a decent spot, and that it was without knowing it. And um, maybe I would have been worse before this, you know. This is why I'm bringing it up. But um, and then it was so the same year the smart meters went out of my house, which was a you know apartment complex, a big house with like three apartments in it. Um and I was in the top one. And so we're a bank of meters like right under my porch. And um, I didn't know they'd gone in because you know, I guess they sent something in the mail, small print, you know, whatever. Um, so I had no idea. So I'm just kind I'm actually like no idea this is going on. I've got my smartphone, I'm doing all this stuff, and I'm and I'm just like starting to notice that um it was really after um, and I wrote this in my book, but I went to Bali on a trip and it was a long, you know, flight, like that's the other side of the world, whatever. And I and I was and the interesting thing about being there, I was on a retreat for I was doing hula hoop dancing. So it's like a hula, I mean, it was like a random thing I got into, and I was doing it like on a professional level, actually teaching and you know, and sometimes doing shows like performances. So I went to this retreat, and um I actually noticed I was sleeping. I had been having insomnia for pretty much since the smart meters went on, you know. So I didn't know that. So since this is what happened, smart meters go on. I start having insomnia. I have night sweats, you know, and I'm not like I'm still not menopausal, so it's not menopause. And this was in 2014, right? Okay, it's like almost 10 years ago. Um, so it's having crazy night sweats. Um I would by the way, a lot of the doctors now are trying to tell people that are going through having EMF poisoning it that are women in their 40s that they're perimental menopausal, right? So now there's like a new term for like, you know, oh, you're getting early menopause symptoms, you know, and that kind of thing. So anyway, I'm so I'm like having these problems. My joint, I started having joint pain that was really mysterious to me. Um, so those two years were like I was suffering gradually, and it was like, but I just I hadn't made the connection. And the trip to Bali helped me become aware of that because I couldn't understand why I was sleeping better there. Um, especially because they were burning trash and I'm I have asthma, like not horrible asthma, but it's triggered by stuff like trash burning. And I was having this horrible bronchial reaction and like coughing in the middle of the night when they would really start burning at night in the middle, you know, and they would wake me up, but I still felt more refreshed than I had in years when I woke up. And I actually somehow figured out, I was like, hmm, there's no Wi-Fi here. Like it just something hit me, you know, with that. Like, there's no Wi-Fi here. And there's and I don't really have like cell phone reception or anything. So I wonder, and it just kind of stored it away for later, you know. Um, and it was the trip back that was where I didn't get to stop anywhere and it's a 30 hours consecutive in airplanes and airports. And I came back and I just had like adrenal collapse almost, you know. Like I was in bed for like a week. I don't remember it almost. My partner was really worried about me. I just was, I couldn't like get up, you know. And when I did get up, I started to notice this awareness, right? Like, and maybe it was the contrast or the extra poisoning that tipped me over the edge. I don't really know. Except I I had always noticed the cell phone bothered me. I actually knew that it bothered me before this because it it caused heating in my ear, in my head. And the more when I start talking to people about this, oh, lots of people feel that. Oh, yeah, that does that to me too. But like a lot of people, I just ignored it and kind of like bought, push through that. You know, we learned to like push through pain. That's kind of our training, especially in our culture. You know, ignore pain, like don't complain about things, like just do it, do your job, whatever. You know, I mean, I was working as a photojournalist before and in commercial photography, and I was taught to never complain, to work for 12, 20 hours straight. You know, don't eat like, you know, I mean, you just you just put that aside. You push the hunger away, you push the thirst away, and you, you know, you get through it. And that was kind of my attitude. And it wasn't a help helpful attitude or a healthy one. Um, and that's what gets most of us in trouble because we ignore these signals for so long and get used to completely ignoring our bodies for so many years. And then we go, Oh, I have cancer. Where'd that come from? You know. Um, so I finally was like, whoa, this cell phone is really hurting now. Like it was hurting before a little bit, but now it's like really hurting, you know, like so bad that I just thought I just remember standing there and holding the phone in my hand and and I was just texting, and I was, I was like, this is really bothering my hand. It's like this weird electrocution feeling, it's going through my arm. I put, I do like a two-minute text or you know, even less, and then I put the phone down, and my arm would just be having this weird sensation in it for like an hour after. And I just thought, I remember thinking, why am I ignoring this? Like this is crazy. Like this doesn't feel good. I gotta do something about it. So I started to look into this, you know. I just started to research online like what's going on with this, you know. Like, I don't know what I first entered, like cell phone pain or something, you know. And I found out about I found out about this like supposed electrosensitivity. Um, and I also started to notice like having because they just then they started putting Wi-Fi everywhere, like in the stores. It actually wasn't until around that time, like 2014, that the shops uh started to offer free Wi-Fi everywhere. And and it was my co-op, my food co-op I'd been a member of for 12 years, and I worked there for four years. And I couldn't, I couldn't shop it there anymore, barely, because I couldn't, I just went in and I feel this pressure in my body and my chest would hurt. And you know, I get this pain in my chest and I couldn't think anymore. I mean, I start noticing I I couldn't like form sentences, like words jumbled up, you know, and a lot of my friends were having the same problems cognitive dysfunction, insomnia. Like all my friends were insomniacs. Um, the worst one with the memory problems she'd been having for years had two cell phones, like one personal, one for work. She carried them both on her body, like in her, you know, pockets and and like had them all the time. My friends slept that with insomnia slept with their phones. I admit it to like hearing alerts on Facebook, waking them at 3 a.m. and they get up and check it. They couldn't help checking it. I mean, you know, so I wasn't the only person suffering with these things, is what I'm trying to say, you know. But I start making a connection. And as a result, I decided to do experiments. I'm like, well, let's see if I can find a place without cell phone reception and you know, get away from my electronics and and actually, no, I hadn't even noticed the cell towers. Like people I realized didn't notice cell towers. They didn't know what they even looked like and they didn't notice antennas. And I'm like, oh, they're everywhere. So then you're like, oh, I'm trying to get away from this. And you're like, I thought first, I thought, oh, this will be an easy solution. I'll move outside the city, commute in or something, you know. And then um, I'm like, maybe I just need to sleep away from it, or you know, I just need and I just like at first it was gonna be an easier thing, and it just got harder and, you know, and I realized like the impact it was actually having and how hard it was to get away and how hard it was to recover, you know, whole the whole thing changed. But um, yeah, there were top there were huge hundred foot towers in some cases. And I was like, oh, and like my partner didn't know either. Oh, oh, that's a cell tower, right? So um then we like, okay, well, we were fortunate that the Shenandoah National Park wasn't too far, um, a couple hours drive. And that actually, there were these cabins you could rent um with the Appalachian Trail Club, and um, you know, you could get completely no electricity, no cell phone coverage at all, and no neighbors or anything, and go and not very expensive, you know, like have a few nights in those cabins. Um so we and we like started to do that as much as we could. We'd go on the weekends, and I immediately felt so much better, like amazing, you know, and not just because I'm in nature. I mean, people see, people excuse it, they go, Oh, I'm in nature. Of course I feel better. Well, yeah, I mean, nature feel makes us feel better. That's that's part of it, you know, it's important to notice that. But why is it making you feel better? Right. And in some cases, nature doesn't make you feel better if nature has been completely polluted and overrun with cell towers and Wi-Fi, you know, campgrounds with Wi-Fi and everything. So at the time they hadn't really like trend of like Wi-Fi campgrounds hadn't taken off too much yet. So um, but we were not going to campgrounds because people bring their stuff, you know, and um, but we went to these cabins and it wasn't just that like I was sleeping better and that I was like thinking better. I felt like youthful, you know, and joyful and like playful and I and happy, you know, and like these things I forgot about. I think people just forget what it feels like. You don't have a way to test that anymore. You know, most people can't get away to know like the new normal is like feeling horrible and coping with that, you know. Just and I even though I live in a pretty good place now, naturally, and everything, I don't think it's like there's definitely a difference between, I mean, we're in a wrinkle actually here too, as you call it, you know. Um, there is a tower in our woods here. Um, unfortunately, they're I mean, they're everywhere, honestly, but we are in a low part of it. But you know, we're in on this little valley um where we don't get any signal. Sometimes there's pulsing, you know, there's just stuff like you don't know if there's military things going on, whatever, but you know when you've found a spot that's like really pristine because you feel so happy. And I would like laugh in my sleep. Like I start sleeping, like dreaming and laughing, like waking up laughing, you know, and and that's really hard to come by. And I sadly, you know, so I'm saying it's out there, but I don't know, it's it's not been a place we've found we can live yet, or even ourselves, you know, even where we are now. Um, so we do compromise. I mean, we ended up compromising a lot of things along this journey just to get to the best thing we could find, you know. I mean, we're doing the best we can, and um, I'm a lot better, but I still have chronic things I deal with with my body, and um, because I still get exposed to this. Like you said, it's like, you know, we're always being poisoned. So it's about mitigating the poison as much as we can and recovering as much as we can and reducing it as much as we can, and that's all we can do. And it's still great because, you know, I mean, I'm I I have a lot of hope now. I feel a lot better. I was miserable. I mean, I was started having migraines, you know. So when we were in the city, I was um, I couldn't do it anymore because I was so miserable. You know, I mean, there's I was tortured, and we built a Faraday cage around the bed. Um, Sam did he did a lot for me. I don't know what I where I'd be without him, to be honest. Um, I just I can't imagine having gone through that myself. It was already really hard enough. Um and and especially not being believed and people not really taking it that seriously, because even now, this is almost 10 years later, I have close friends and stuff. It's like they, it's not that they don't believe me, but they still think it's my problem and not their problem. And they don't think it's related to their anxiety and depression and insomnia and chronic fatigue and arthritis and you know, everything else they're dealing with. They just don't think it's related. And um so it's it's disheartening sometimes that like they haven't actually made any changes in their lives to reduce their own use and like exposure to this or for their children or their grandchildren. You know, so it's like I say what I can do. I I mean I say what I can, I do what I can. And um, at some point, though, it's like it's people make their own decisions. You can't make it for them, and I'm not gonna force it down, you know, down people's throats, and I'll still be friends with my friends and my family. But um, it's just hard because you know, you feel like it's demoralizing sometimes, you know, you're already having enough struggle, yeah, hard enough time with this. And I also I was pretty naive at first. I thought, oh, people just need to know about it, and then they'll make changes. I'll just start telling people. It wasn't really welcome news. I can tell you that. And because I didn't you realize how much people are addicted to it. Like they're so addicted that they that's the last thing I want to hear. They'll they'll hate you, they'll shoot the messenger, you know. They do not you're not a I was not a popular person when I started opening my mouth back then, you know, trying to. I went to town council meetings, like I was thinking, we'll take down all these antennas, everybody will be happy, let's get rid of it. You know, I'll stop the smart meters, I'll get the smart meters off, I'll get the Wi-Fi out of the store and get people to stop using cell phones. And I had this all these amazing ideas about it, you know, how it's gonna be so great. But no, I wasn't the like people known about this for decades. People have been fighting this for decades. I wasn't just because I just learned about it, you know, like it's not like people didn't know.

SPEAKER_00: 23:48

Yeah, so wow, there is so much great stuff in what that you just said, not that it was great as an experience for you to go to, right? But I'm talking about um being able to help others who have been poisoned in this way because really I think right now, and I don't know if you'd agree with this or not, like we live or die depending on what we believe. Um, perhaps more so than any other time in history. And imagine if you never had that insight when you were in Bally that um, hey, I feel better here than burning garbage. What's different? And that curiosity is something I see in all of my clients that have um electromagnetic poisoning. They at some point in their life they they got curious and they said it's better this way, and it's worse that way. What is no, it's the router, or oh it's a router, oh it's and so that came through so clearly in the in what you were just talking about. That's that's wonderful. And the ability that you then were able to use as a tool is getting away to nature and a more pristine environment. And I think that is so critical that people be able to do that because And I and I love what you said about it's a sort of formula here where in this crazy new world that we're living in until everybody regains their sanity and we quit the reckless threat of man-made uh radiation. We have to live with it to some degree. We can choose better places than others, we can live in a human home or whatever, but when we go out we have to be exposed to it. So you were pointing out how it's a formula, if you will. You need to get respirated asleep, you need to avoid as much an exposure as you can so that you can go out and be exposed a little bit and get groceries or whatever. And it's just a continuation. So there was just uh there was a awful lot there that I I think would be very helpful for people who and you know what, they may have different symptoms than you experience. Maybe different symptoms than I experience, but I'll tell you what, I could really I could really resonate with what you were saying about the cognitive difficulties. It's just like your brain's running on molasses or something. Like you you no longer have the ability to think and to intuit like you did before. And for me, um I couldn't listen to a phone number, you know, seven digits, and then turn and write them down. I just remember that quickly, just like your brain's not working well. And I think you had a comment in there about perhaps this is all just becoming normalized, you know. We're all taught to not be not be wimps and to toughen up, and you know, it's like that for everybody. But do we all realize what we're giving up for the sake of and I've tried to quantify this. I think it's three things. I would really be interested in your thoughts about this. Either you know, now or a future point in time, whatever. I think the whole journey from the telegraph to now and that's I don't know how many almost 200 years now um has all been all about convenience, amusement, and stimulation of some form or another. So I wonder whether we're really cognizant as um a species as to how much we're willing to give up for uh that convenience, amusement, and stimulation via this um this thing that a lot of people have trouble uh understanding. So I'll just I'll toss that out there.

SPEAKER_03: 27:46

Yeah, I mean, that is I I think you're right. I I think about that a lot as well. Um like because there is this, I think the thing is that these devices are made to be addictive. And once you understand that, that the by design, you know, they're addictive. The exposures to MFs actually, there's an addiction element of addiction there because the um frequencies actually kind of give you a lift, they can make you artificially like wake you up, you know. Um because we're cortisol, right? Yeah, yeah. I mean, we're yeah, there's the dopamine hit, you know, dopamine addiction aspect, but the fields themselves are like energizing, you know. I get kind of hyperactive when I go into town sometimes in stores. I'm suddenly like, woo-hoo. Um, but it's this artificial stimulus. I mean, it's a stimulus, right? So you're on coffee all day with it or whatever, you know. So what's happening though is this vicious cycle of like burning out your adrenals because there's the adrenal part of this is really important. So I think we're all basically uh dealing with adrenal fatigue and like near collapse. So when you have that, you have this what they're calling hypersensitivity, right? So um I'm also so-called hypersensitive to other poisons like perfumes. Um, so and it is like so when you're a low adrenal, right? You can't handle like those exposures. And so it's this vicious cycle of like stimulating and your adrenals and then crashing again. And you're crashing, you're crashing. So like your your state without the stimulation is like you're so tired, you know, and so and you got to function. And so people don't usually get a chance to actually rest, like really rest, you know, sleep for a few days, even like just sleep, you know, like a long time. Um, and so help recover that. So it's difficult because it is an addiction. And so to get through to people about it is really hard because, like I said, they're resistant, but it's also, like you said, this convenience. So, what I've noticed also with technologies in general, and say let's talk about sort of industrial revolution and the consequences, is that with every new invention, we have a promise that comes with it. And the promise is always greater ease in your life and leisure time. And has that actually happened? Like, look at what happened with that promise. Like, that's never happened. Everybody now I know works more than they ever did before, more hours, more jobs. Later into life, people don't retire. They can't afford to retire. Um, most people's complaint is they're too busy. They don't have time. They don't, everybody is lacking time. They don't have time, they definitely don't have time for self-reflection. They don't have time to um, you know, talk to their families to spend time with them. They don't have time to relax. Um, so why don't we have all we should have so much free time now, given like that all these years of, you know, the all these things are supposed to save us time. You know, so the so we have to kind of look at that and like that, we keep getting tricked, you know, and wake up to that. It's like this is a trick, you know, this is a trap. You're not gonna have more free time. The internet itself is designed to suck your time from you. And I've actually, now that it's really difficult for me to access internet and it's not convenient, I resent the internet. And this is what people should get to. They should hate the internet. You know what I mean? You should start to realize that the internet is robbing you of your time on your and your short life. And when you get to a certain point in your life and age, like I am, you know, I turned 50 last year. So you start to realize like life is really short. You know, maybe in your 20s you don't have that concept yet, or even in your 30s. But when you get to like past 40, you start to think about like how much time you have left and what you can actually achieve in your life. I mean, you might only have a couple of decades left. That's nothing. What are you gonna do during that time? What are you gonna achieve? What could you be doing that you're not doing because of your phone and your internet? You know, like think about the year. Now it's years. Maybe at first it was hours of your life or whatever. Now it's years of people's lives sucked into that world. They're making a world, a virtual world. They want us in that, you know, they want everything online. I mean, even I'm I know the irony, I understand that we're talking doing this online and on Zoom and everything. Right. But, you know, again, compromises and, you know, um, but I I severely restrict, even though I research online and writing books that I severely limit my time online. Like I'm very I'm so fast when I do my research now and I read articles offline because I because reading articles offline is important for me because it's less distracting. So that's a distraction tool. So if you're online, you're gonna constantly be like wanting to click on something, right? And thinking about, oh, I could check this and I could check this or whatever. And you can't focus. And again, like we have this, I mean, this is this chronic epidemic of like cognitive issues, like you were saying, without you know, people not being able to focus. There's no way I could have written any books if I had stayed in the city in that electromagnetic soup. No way. You know, it wasn't until years later, of like a lot of detox and getting away from it that I could actually think that clearly and organize my thoughts to that degree to be able to write a book and even coherent sentences. You know, I mean, I still have some struggle actually where I kind of jumble my sentence structure, have to like read it over several times sometimes, you know. Um, I'm not completely cured of this, you know. Um, but it's a lot better and it's I'm higher functioning than I was, um, for sure. But yeah, getting it like so getting spending more time away from it will make you realize what you've been missing, you know. Um, I had a friend, it was actually through um I talked to somebody recently on another show. She said she likes to think of it as, you know, people have this acronym now for fear of missing out. And she says, uh the joy of missing out, she calls it JOMO instead of FOMO, you know. So like to appreciate that you're missing out, you know, because you're what are you missing out on? The drama, the the rumors, the gossip, the intrigue, all the like just the depressing news, like everything is depressing and it's and it's traumatic and it's violent, and you know, and you're you're stressed to the max every time you look at any news article or a social media post. Like you want to, you're caring about missing out on that. You know, so it's just like our perspectives are everything is so distorted now. But you're right. Anyway, back to that idea of like, yeah, we're constantly giving up. What have we given up? You know, since even like the telegram, uh, you know, telegraph, like it's it's what we've given up is in-person contact and real connection with other people and with animals and with the natural world. I'm sure people even complained at the time when they were getting telegrams instead of somebody coming by, or even like a foot messenger with a note or something, you know, because that means at least when somebody writes you a note, like they sat down and they took a pen and they an actual object from the physical world with a piece of paper that came from a tree or your hemp or whatever, and wrote on it and like and they're and something from them is on that note, like some essence of that person, like their character, you know, their it comes out in the letters, like they're there's something there, right? And then that person takes the message to your friend down the road or whatever and says, Do you want to have lunch later? I mean, I'm really, you know, obviously I'm getting back, like going back in time a lot here. But you know, I've read I do read like 19th century literature still. Sometimes I enjoy it because you get to you get to see what that was like, you know, um, and understand what people and what I always notice when I read those books is that people felt their time obviously was different and went more slowly because a year in a book like that was a long time for people. You know, they would say, I haven't seen this person in a year, a full year, or like it's been months, you know, and a lot happens in a day, you know, like they just have a lot of time, like they have so much time. And and why? It doesn't make sense to us that if if people were engaging in manual labor and handwriting notes to people and had to hook up horses and buggies, you know, like to get and like go to places on a horse and and like light lamps, you know, and candles, like why did they have so much time? So why do they have so much time? Because they didn't have TV, they didn't have movies, they didn't have game, video games, they didn't have texting. You know, now we're connected with thousands of people in some cases. Um, I don't do that, but you know, if you're on social media, whatever. And but these connections are so shallow and unfulfilling, and they're competitive, you know, and so we're all feeling this emptiness in us of like we're we're so unhappy, you know. It's like we're because of that disconnection, it's like you can find happiness like sitting in nature and listening to birds singing and playing with your cat that is so much more rewarding than like, I don't know, you know, some dopamine hit you get artificially on a with a game or with a text or whatever, you know, and we have to be aware of the traps that we are vulnerable, that we have vulnerabilities inherit to us as people, you know, and it's fine. Like you don't, it's not really a weakness. You just have to understand it's a vulnerability and it's exploited. So your need for connection with somebody is exploited and to the point where like you fall for like flattery, you know, be aware of like things like that, you know, things that are trying to flatter you and raise you up and like you know, and and like what's really yeah, what's more important than that? You know, we have to re-prioritize and get back to like basic values and what is really like makes us happy in life and and understanding that our lives are short and how do we want to be spending them really? You know, so I don't that's answer.

SPEAKER_00: 37:53

I kind of went on there, but um oh my gosh, I I love it, Miss This is so much fun. Um, so I just want to touch on some of the things I was able to write down while you were speaking about that. You know, this really resonated with me. Uh, you were talking about the life of ease that was promised to us, um, beginning with the industrial revolution. And you didn't mention this, but I think you're probably aware what was promised with the industrial revolution is that we were gonna have much more time to live our lives and to be with our families.

SPEAKER_01: 38:25

Right.

SPEAKER_00: 38:26

And a lot has happened um since then. Like it takes more people in a family working to maintain an ever-decreasing uh style of living. And I just I think it's wonderful that you're able to connect that occurrence and that happening even into the present with you know this sort of Faustian bargain that we made to have greater dependence through electromagnetic and the um technology robbing you of your time. Everybody everybody is so quick to say, I'm not against technology, or I think the internet is a wonderful thing, but what you just said is absolutely true. These things, it's called a web for a reason. Yeah, it's fucking it.

SPEAKER_03: 39:13

Yeah, and a net, internet and a web, worldwide web.

SPEAKER_00: 39:17

Yeah, right, exactly. So it's it's actually robbing us of our time and attention and ability. You just intimated that it took you years to recover your cognitive abilities. I know it it has taken me years to recover what what I have, and I don't feel like I'm um all the way where I need to be. Mentioned your friend with the joy of missing out. I I love that so much. Um and I just have to mention as an aside, so I've shot um photography for 20 years as well. Um, and I don't know if you have this experience or not as a photographer, but when you're looking through the lens at an event and you're capturing the event, have you ever gone back and then had a loved one tell you, do you remember this and such? And you say, Not really. Well, you were there. Okay.

SPEAKER_03: 40:17

You know, do you so actually I was gonna say that I I thought I knew you're getting to uh because I experienced that a lot. It's actually why I got out of photography is because I felt I was always watching life and not participating in it.

SPEAKER_01: 40:29

Right.

SPEAKER_03: 40:30

Especially when I got into documentary work, and then I was a wedding photographer for a long time, and I would be at these weddings and not enjoying them at all. Um, and you know, yeah, and everybody else having a good time. And it was just like even war protests, anti-war protests. I wanted to be out there with them. I'm like, I'm just standing there and taking pictures. I mean, I know I'm contributing in this way, but it felt like I'm not participating.

unknown: 40:52

Right.

SPEAKER_03: 40:52

Um, and a lot of now everybody's taking pictures because and it's sad because um it removes you from what you're experiencing. And I do still love to take pictures for certain reasons. Um, I take a lot of pictures of seals. We have seals in the town here and sea lions, and then I paint them later. So I love that. And it's a and I also spend time just watching them, you know, because I'm not under pressure to like um, you know, to to like record an event or something. And but but I just get sad. I see tourists and they're constantly, they have to document everything they do and all their experiences and because and what happens is not only are you not fully engaged in your environment at the time, is you're thinking about what the reaction online is gonna be to your post.

SPEAKER_02: 41:36

Right, right.

SPEAKER_03: 41:37

You know, so you're already posturing, you're already not living an authentic life. Yeah, you know, it's just it's so damaging. You know, I mean, I'm not saying never take pictures of things, but it's so excessive now. Right. You know, experience, do something in your life and have a good time without photographing and documenting it and posting it. Just that I'll challenge listeners with that, you know, just alone. If you do that, that'll be amazing.

SPEAKER_00: 42:00

Right, right. And it's um it's really a cybernetic feedback loop. And you're talking about how somebody and this just amazes me. I think I would be one of these people had I not been made deathly ill from ENF poison, because I was a smartwatch wearing smartphone toting, you know, Wi-Fi using modern guy, and I am sure I'd be doing the same things, but because I've been poisoned in this way and because I've had to change my course and heading, um I I don't really regret it at all. And I'm I'm able to take a different view, and I see people living their life through that device, you know, and then wanting to film everything instead of um experiencing. I feel like as a photographer, um I I know where that's gonna go. It's gonna lead to inauthentic experiences and then this dopamine-driven response cycle where you're thinking about the post because you want to get the thumbs up because you get a little dopamine hit from that, right?

SPEAKER_03: 43:07

Exactly. And it's also the other really dangerous thing is the lack of empathy that's happening from it. So when you detach yourself like that and you just become an observer, like um, two examples. One, a friend told me in Australia, like there was a guy, he saw this happen. He was on the beach and he saw these tourists, and they were Chinese, I think. I think um, and like the guy was like his kid went in the water and then he and he was trying to get on some floaty device they had, and then the and he starts struggling in the waves, and then the wife goes in to try to help him, and the father is filming it. His kid, his wife and kid are like possibly drowning, and instead of going to rescue them, he's just documenting it, you know, and so and this is really this other example is terrible. I just read it in um digital madness, and he's the author. Um, he wrote, Low kids. Um I Nicholas uh could I'm not sure how to say his last name, Codaris or something. Um so yeah, I gave an example of a rape that was happening in a subway train or a commuter train where people rec at least a couple of people recorded it with their phones.

SPEAKER_02: 44:19

Oh my gosh.

SPEAKER_03: 44:19

And the thing is, it was like some and this person was harassing the woman for like a long time before it happened, and nobody stopped it. And they filmed it. You know, I mean, this is what we're looking at a complete, you know, degenerative, like just the the collapse of society, really. I mean, this is like the potential that this technology holds is to completely destroy our social, our real social network, you know, our actual, like our human kindness, you know. I mean, it's just robbing us of empathy and of of these other, I mean, so many profound important aspects of what I think. think it means to be human and so it's dehumanizing.

SPEAKER_00: 44:59

So isn't that true? Isn't that true? Yeah. And you you mentioned a a little while ago this idea of really enjoying the time. Because time is the only currency we have in this life, right? That that that's uniquely yours and you just you get to decide where and how to spend it. So it is it is not accidental that we have these technologies that are trying to steal that from us with with no return. But you know that this whole discussion begs the question if you could go back, would you? If I could go back to the what I mean by that is you know you had this life before. Before you were forced to flee before you decided to flee. Before you lived apart from technology for the majority of time and only used it sparingly and it gave you insights before you regained your cognitive you know abilities and were able to write books.

SPEAKER_03: 46:03

Yeah. Would would you go back to that life that you had before if you could absolutely not that's the thing um what's interesting about this whole journey is that for a long time I'd wanted to get out of cities. And I always found excuses to stay. And it was mostly financial which makes sense too like well I have jobs here. It's also social I have friends or I have my family you know um had a lot of reasons for staying that I kept coming up with um but I but I hated in a lot of ways I hated it you know um I hated the noise I hated the pollution I you know I hated the stress um you know and it got more and more unpleasant as technology kind of took hold on people because of aggressive drivers you know this road rage I had people I thought I was going to get killed a couple times because of road rage you know happening around me it was scary. You know one guy in anyway I won't get into that but but um you know there was that and then there was my friends who weren't available to meet in person anymore because they were too busy spending time on Facebook. They live around the corner from me like two blocks away and they didn't have time to see me in person. And it was really becoming isolating already and lonely. So um you know and then of course with the recent unpleasantness in the last couple of years yeah um you know who wants to live in a city you know I mean it's like um not really you know the the good aspects are just gone. You know that's been kind of taken away even as people have like recovered from the last couple of years or so um not so fun anymore right so I um I love living in the in wilderness um not having neighbors and I tell you when I tell other people we don't have neighbors they are all envious you know everybody kind of goes oh now it would be awesome you know I mean it's hard too you know we the first year we were here we didn't have any year and a half no plumbing uh we had to we didn't even have access to the spring wasn't connected yet we had to carry water from the creek um we have to heat the home with wood that you know my partner mostly chops um you know it's for me but um you know that's like half the year at least that we're heating with the wood. Um we you know the nearest town that isn't even a town it's a post office is like you know 40 minute drive and then the actual town that's not a very big town is an hour drive um we have to you know be we got shut in for three weeks with a snowstorm um you know it's like there's rough aspects and um maybe it's not for everybody but I luckily my partner's also has been kind of an outdoor type so we like it and it was hard although even for him it was like it happened in kind of baby steps to come to this point. He was like a little nervous about living in an isolated way at first um in terms of it's not that's the thing we both discovered it's not isolating you know what we have it all backwards like living in nature is not isolating we have company with all the nature creatures you know we had we actually like felt like that was company like in Arizona we had all there was a lot of wildlife and to us like the javelina coming through and eating our compost and the seeing the roadrunners you know on the path or the rabbits and even like occasional um cougar or you know bear or um they were kind of like your family our family. And it was really hard to leave because I felt like I was leaving behind this family you know that we got to know got close to and so you know I feel for myself that I get a lot less attached to being in a city and like my city block in my building than I do when I've lived in natural places and had to move again because I I feel attached you get rooted and attached to the natural world around you because it's living you know it's a live it's living entity. And you do and then and when you're in small communities you get to know your neighbors um maybe you don't always like them but you help each other out and they're there and um you have more um people are less reserved they're actually you can make friends a little more easily I think you talk when I go to our small town I people always Sam laughs because he's like I need to go to town more often people just come up to me and start talking to me and telling me their life stories. Yeah like they really open up you know and because I because I'm there without a device I'm not holding a phone I'm making eye contact and I I have there's an opening and so they use they're like oh they see the opening and go oh somebody to talk to who's gonna listen to me and not be distracted looking at their phone the whole time. It's so rude. It was rude to start with and people recognize that at the beginning of that phenomenon you know but it's worse now it's still rude it's still rude to look at your phone when you're talking to somebody right to let it let it beep or whatever. Why do you have to answer the beep? You know people are like a slave to the beep and it's a conditioning tool. They've done this I mean years ago 40s or 50s mind control experiments using sound conditioning it's Pavlov started this Pavlov's dog experience with salivation and the bell and food this has been done with humans too and with babies I mean this is like well studied and researched this is why they are able to make devices that are addictive because they know how it works. A sound you associate the sound with the reward with rats you know see the like you said the the reward is the dopamine hit. So you hear the sound and you know that hit is coming and you need to you have to respond to the sound though in order to get that hit. So you know people cannot resist responding to it. And they're just trained like Pavlov's dogs. Yes I mean you know and that's what we're looking at.

SPEAKER_00: 52:11

Yeah no uh the the so many things that you said there are just great um what one point I would like to make is people might think that not people who've been damaged like us but anybody else who's watching this might not be able to track the conversation here.

SPEAKER_02: 52:28

That's true.

SPEAKER_00: 52:29

Part of the danger of living in your smartphone is while you're caressing that thing and bowing down to it and getting your thumbs ups and sending your emails and you're looking at your stock reports and whatever every interaction costs you something there's this brilliant researcher up in Canada Magda Hamas maybe you're familiar with her work and she published a paper and she refers to electromagnetic poisoning as accelerated aging. And I think that's a brilliant way of looking at it because it it the damage being done by RF radiation in particular but all forms of non AML the damage that's being done is at the cellular level so if you can have a device that's destructive to your life and you make it addicted then that just increases your dose you know by every time interaction even having it turned on in your presence the Wi-Fi etc so we are we have all we have our client is flying here let's let me let me ask you because I want to talk about your book I really want to encourage people that this book is um I'm an an important read. I read a lot of books I don't like all the books that I read but I love your book um it was very well written and I want people to have the opportunity to experience it. I wonder if you could tell us about so it's brilliant the the beginning of it you're talking about your own personal journey and you touched on some of those things. I need emphasize some of those things because there's a hundred more things about your journey that we just didn't have time to talk about that are interesting and helpful to the people who have been poisoned and using other people struggling with but then you go on and you chronicle the experiences of other people and you have really quite a number of different people that you profile. So people who have been poisoned I think will find that helpful to see over and over and over and over again how oh I am experiencing some yes my family abandoned me. You know they my goodness they they didn't understand why I didn't come to the family reunion or whatever. Seeing that um in the lives of other people I think is tremendously helpful. I wonder if you would just um take the time to share the profile uh uh with Amy had she oh yeah while you were sojourning in the desert.

SPEAKER_03: 55:14

Yeah so yeah she was yeah well she was mine that's this was amazing because we landed in this you know remote spot in a desert in Arizona because of you know not the lack of cell towers there basically um and uh we came to the community and we met and it was like um you know that it was more of a close knit community there they had a community center and you know like very focused on like neighbors helping each other and that so we came to we were excited to like meet people after we moved there and we went to their they called it coffee hour or something on Wednesday mornings and a lot of farmers there so they could actually like decide like Wednesday we'll meet at 10 or whatever. And so we go there and um we first met uh Amy's husband but like I'm telling him like why we moved there and he's eyes getting bigger and bigger and I thought like at first he thought it was gonna say it was crazy but instead he's like my wife has that and I'm like what you know so I gotta meet her. Well their story um that family they're from Missouri and they had a farm there. They still actually have the farm there they've been able to maintain it with other help you know back in Missouri but um they moved uh yeah they up you know seven kids moved to moved to Arizona because um she also was suffering with like um a severe they call it MCS multiple chemical sensitive another sensitivity label right um so she was really hit with both pretty bad and um in terms of uh she gosh I mean she thought they thought she was gonna die like they were basically saying goodbye to her at one point I mean her daughter gave this testimony when we were trying to stop the fight the smart meters I almost said fart because I'm trying to say good fight and smart the fart meters which they could more accurately be called yeah right right um but you know she told of how her oldest daughter told of how she was um really so sick that they were just thought she wasn't gonna make it and it was only because they found a place to move her to they actually had to hire like a private jet and I mean just to get her there. You know I mean it was very expensive but she they had to turn off all the electricity in their house in the winter and she couldn't even like handle any of the all the clothes had too many smells on them. She had like one t-shirt she was living in with like the heat off you know in the winter like freezing and like she but she was having seizures. So she was having like these many constant mini seizures from the smart meter. It became life threatening um so they just did all they could I mean they've done so much so they moved they bought property they found a they found this property because also the low EMF but also because uh it was a you know like MCS friendly house to like low you know no VOCs that's volatile organic compounds for people who don't know um off gassing you could think of it that way of uh chemicals so it was a chemical free home and they they then started farm there which is a lot more difficult in Arizona than it is in Missouri I'll tell you that much and but they're just like go get you know they're like a hardworking family like these people they're Christians hardworking the salt deer type of you know and then they had to move too they were had only moved there a year before me before us and um the smart meters came in and luckily we heard about it in advance they were going to do it a snu you know sneak attack um and then uh we fought it and they we got them to delay it a year that's all we could get they wouldn't even do an opt-out or anything and we could at the end of it all we um we were gonna have to get lawyers and it was too expensive. And so we um we tried I can tell you we tried everything we definitely fought that and she really fought it she spearheaded that you know um did tons of research I mean it was the thing is what happens when you're trying to fight this is you have to watch out because you could kill yourself in the process you know it can be really damaging uh physically emotionally take its whole too much of its whole like what's in the end it's like it's better to find somewhere else and move again sometimes you know I'm not saying that we don't do that but we need able bodied people to to fight that for us. I think people who are suffering and really sick shouldn't be the ones doing it. You're not going to get better you know and so they moved to the north of some hours to the north and I mean they're so amazing because they you looked at this this piece of land they bought was like real I mean we were in the desert already but it was somewhat of an oasis there was like you know there was some plant life there and trees and they where they moved was like wow just like sand you know sand dunes and they've made an oasis out of it because there was they've you know there's an aquifer there and they got the water out and um they're farming again and they've built their homes and I mean every time they're sending pictures I'm like how did you guys do this already like it's like a couple of years they've got like a greenhouse now they've a big greenhouse they're you know growing their food and um so they you know she's doing a lot better there too as it happens because we were also dealing with um wind turbines uh not too far that in the infrasound trap can travel through mountains 15 miles away and that's destructive and that actually a lot of people have insomnia from that you wouldn't call themselves electrosensitive you know um don't know that that's connected so I think it's been better for it's been better for my health too that we move sometimes these things happen are are good for you. I mean it's hard to see it at the time but but like sometimes like you know one door closes another opens and and it's actually like there maybe there's some providence or something out there that's leading you if you're open to it and you have a goal and you're focused on that'll help open doors for you and maybe you can't see at the time how it's going to work out and it doesn't seem possible but I can tell you it's possible because like in everything time it seemed like something was closing for us, something else opened that's actually been better. You know, so you know be open to that because you never know. I mean and you don't you can't see the whole thing ahead right we can't see that. So um you take it a step at a time and you're just you're open to you're saying I I need this and you're asking and you're being receptive and you're and you're being um open to ideas, you know, just like don't get it if you get it into your mind that you need like XYZ and it has to be actual like a certain way then you're gonna have a hard time you know again there's always going to be a little bit of a compromise so you're probably not going to find anything totally pristine or even if you do maybe it's not somewhere you can live for other reasons. Maybe it's just too harsh of a climate you know um I mean because I know people have had to live out of their you know cars and and you know in rough weather where that's taken a toll on their health too. So yeah but um but yeah they're real she's a real fighter and um she's doing pretty good. I mean but they've had you know they're off grid now so um and that's what we ended up finding as a solution is to be totally off grid. And there's challenges with off-grid living because as you know with your line of work um the you know the in uh inverters are can cause a lot of EMF problems. So you need to understand those things. You can't just think that because you go off grid you're going to solve your problems especially if you have neighbors with like generators those generators are nasty you know they are they're horrible with the EMFs. So you could go from the frying pan into the fire if you're not careful. And so you want to make sure you understand what's involved with off-grid living and where that's happening, you know, who the neighbors are, what kind of sources of energy are they using, how are they using it? You know it could it's just so I can't say it's always better off-grid or always you know um it just depends because some people can find a way to be in town um in and be okay and depending on what you know options they have sometimes out in the countryside's worse because you've got like you're right next to all the towers that are on the mountain and you're not shielded from them. Power lines, you know the huge like high tension power lines um those those also were in our valley. So we it was a compromise actually in Arizona. I'm not saying it was perfect at all because we had the high tension power lines um that were a little close for comfort you know um and and we had dirty electricity problems in the house I think because of that and um we had the electric meters rather than smart meters um which were also a problem we filtered and the filters helped a lot um I don't think we could have done better with filters I'm sure you you know have solution better solutions than what we used probably um but you know we also had the budget too so we couldn't we couldn't afford like the best you know kind of in the whole in home you know meter system on the the inline one I think it's called um but we'd use the gram stetzer ones and those were really helpful I did end up sleeping outside most of the time in Arizona though because I still had trouble sleeping in the house even though we turned off the breakers we couldn't turn off all of them we had the refrigerator and that so um I slept in a variety of different things that we made like to try it was I call them sleep huts. The last one was like the best sleep hut but um I tried tents and they didn't stand up to the elements. We were in a really harsh environment and I desert is a hard place to live. I don't necessarily recommend it it's really hard. I mean but beautiful and there were as a lot of great you know the experiences we had and things we learned and things that again it's like we these other opportunities opened up and there's a lot of um I think there's things that we've experienced where that people don't get to when you have to be resourceful and you also have more time on your hands because you're not sucked into the web and you're not you know spending your time that way. I mean my my partner got into making both you know, like wooden bowls. And he was selling those. And he, you know, we got into making more music. I got into, you know, painting and writing children's books. Um, I I sewed my own tents out of canvas. And I, you know, made quilts with a pocket wool that I washed and dried myself and stuffed. And, you know, just so many like, and this is what people used to do. You know, they live up the land. They ever it was not like you had this one job, this one specialty. Like you were just a person who had a lot of interest in a lot of things you could do. You know, so if we live like that, then you're more fulfilled and you don't, you're not searching for that. You don't need that dopamine hit because you're you're spending your time engaging in things that you, you know, you're doing with your own hands. You're creating things and you get to see the result of that. And that is a lot more fulfilling than um say getting a high score in a game. Like that's not something what did you actually create there? You didn't create anything. It's trying to replace that feeling of like that need that you think you have you know you do have that need. You have that need to create but this is an artificial replacement for that um it's not fulfilling it. So you know it's just you're always going to be unfeel unsatisfied somehow with that is what I'm getting at.

SPEAKER_00: 1:06:13

Yeah I completely agree with you that that um desire I think to create something is is within all of us and what you just said about being given a replacement for that that's not productive. It seems like every replacement we're being offered is not as good as as the real thing but I I you know I'm kind of looking at the time here and okay sorry I can't no it's okay I yeah I would love to go on but we should probably I'd like to make some um closing comments here and and I would love to have you back.

SPEAKER_03: 1:06:44

Maybe we can talk about blue light and earthly and some really get into the solutions I'd like to talk about like with yeah like physical you know things you can do to help.

SPEAKER_00: 1:06:56

So yeah are you are you up to keep going now?

SPEAKER_03: 1:06:58

Do you want oh yeah I could um yeah yeah I didn't know how long you had um we didn't I don't remember even talking about what how long you wanted to do this for okay so what here's what we'll do is I'm gonna break it up into two episodes.

SPEAKER_00: 1:07:10

So I'll just give a a little close here but you and I'll keep going and then we'll I'll divide that up into two episodes. So um yeah so I want to encourage people to listen to the next um part of this episode we want to get into solutions a bit and there is an appendix in the book called Appendix A. It's all about solutions and I'm particularly interested in one thing that comes through very loud and clear is stopping non-native ENF exposure and embracing the natural ENF exposures. But there's a whole lot more than that in there. So I really want to encourage people to get the book I'm gonna show it to you one more time it's called Wi-Fi Refugee Flight of the Modern Day Canary. The author's name is Shannon Rowan and I'd really encourage um people to pick it up it's really a book worth um worth reading so Shannon thank you so much for being with us today.

SPEAKER_03: 1:08:21

All right thank you