'Grounding' exposed: Former psychic calls trend spiritually dangerous, scientifically baseless

There are real benefits to grounding, but they have nothing to do necessarily with any New Age beliefs. Grounding increases propriception, the awareness of ones body, so it can help the integration of experiences, which are sometimes overwhelming, as well as increasing ones ability for emotional processing and reduce dissociation.

I also think Christians should be cautious of dismissing bioenergetic medicine out of hand. While the idea of subtle energy may appear strange to certain Evangelicals used to operating from Kantian or Cartesian categories, subtle energy is not wholely foreign to some Christian traditions or theologies, which do see grace as mediated through physical means, as well as theologies that focus on reality as being in process, and dynamic.

I know some electricians who are pretty firm believers in grounding.

When someone says “grounding” to me, I think of electrical connections. I had to look it up. My opinion? “Ah, no.”

First, let’s talk about electric currents in the earth. As with most things, it gets complicated. First in mind are stray currents. Stray currents are man-made and a result of grounding problems. That statement involves hand-waving, but let’s go with it. Then there’s ground-loops, also a man-made problem and results from a difference in potential between electrical grounding. People are more familiar with that one from the infamous ground-loop hum that can afflict audio systems. There is current from galvanic corrosion, which can occur from dissimilar metals in the ground close to each other. There is current when a power line falls, and it can kill you from the different in potential between one leg and the other. Seriously. That’s one reason why we (electric utility) are issued special insulated overshoes that go over our work boots. There is current from lightning strikes, which is the same thing.

The last is real and simultaneously weird: telluric currents. These are natural, weak, low-voltage currents in the earth and oceans. Very low voltage. It has a number of natural sources. Just a few years ago, I took cheap metal tent pegs, drove them down in a square with the corners as far apart as the leads of my swing-arm multimeter would reach, and barely picked up something. I used my old swing-arm voltmeter because I hoped it would put just enough burden on it to eliminate “phantom” voltage that digital voltmeters can sometimes “pick up.”

Telluric currents are not the currents hypothesized in “grounding.” If I had put two slabs of pork meat on the ground, skin touching the soil, and stuck the probes in them, I’m confident that the meter would read zero. What I picked up during my experiment was so weak I doubt it would get past the skin.

That’s pretty much it. If “grounding” were a thing, you would be able to measure it with a multi-meter. You can’t. Worse for the hypothesis is that if it did exist, everything already in contact with the soil would have the same charge potential. It would be like birds on a power line. There’s no difference in potential, so they don’t get zapped. But let them contact something with a different potential, and they will get fried, likely knocking out power in the process. Been there, seen that. You need a good insulator to separate potential, which is where lightning strikes come in: Air gap between cloud and ground serves as an insulator until the charge reaches the point that it exceeds the insulation value, then zap!

The closest thing to “grounding” than I’ve encountered before was the idea among scythe users that mowing pastures barefoot was “therapeutic.” Since hookworms around here are connected to going barefoot, I’m rather chilly with that idea to start with. Since one of the sources for mowing barefoot began with a short poem that was essentially worship of the pasture, my opinion is a strong “Nope.” I’ll keep my shoes on, thank you.

Having lived through the woo of the 1970s New Age junk, and some casual investigation of some of it as natural phenomena, most of it is based on unproven assumption and wishful thinking. Even that’s a risk of going deeper into the woo, and what’s often there is religious belief that’s not Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior.

Tuur said:

When someone says “grounding” to me, I think of electrical connections. I had to look it up. My opinion? “Ah, no.”

First, let’s talk about electric currents in the earth. As with most things, it gets complicated. First in mind are stray currents. Stray currents are man-made and a result of grounding problems. That statement involves hand-waving, but let’s go with it. Then there’s ground-loops, also a man-made problem and results from a difference in potential between electrical grounding. People are more familiar with that one from the infamous ground-loop hum that can afflict audio systems. There is current from galvanic corrosion, which can occur from dissimilar metals in the ground close to each other. There is current when a power line falls, and it can kill you from the different in potential between one leg and the other. Seriously. That’s one reason why we (electric utility) are issued special insulated overshoes that go over our work boots. There is current from lightning strikes, which is the same thing.

The last is real and simultaneously weird: telluric currents. These are natural, weak, low-voltage currents in the earth and oceans. Very low voltage. It has a number of natural sources. Just a few years ago, I took cheap metal tent pegs, drove them down in a square with the corners as far apart as the leads of my swing-arm multimeter would reach, and barely picked up something. I used my old swing-arm voltmeter because I hoped it would put just enough burden on it to eliminate “phantom” voltage that digital voltmeters can sometimes “pick up.”

Telluric currents are not the currents hypothesized in “grounding.” If I had put two slabs of pork meat on the ground, skin touching the soil, and stuck the probes in them, I’m confident that the meter would read zero. What I picked up during my experiment was so weak I doubt it would get past the skin.

That’s pretty much it. If “grounding” were a thing, you would be able to measure it with a multi-meter.

Click to expand...

Not necessarily. You can't measure what makes a myrrh-streaming icon stream myrrh with a voltmeter, why would you necessarily be able to measure how grounding works, similarly?

Many spiritual directors, or trauma-informed therapists, will tell you that walking barefoot can be important in integrating certain powerful, or even potentially destabilizing, spiritual or emotional experiences (it's even in the Bible, Exodus 3:5). That's one reason you sometimes see Charismatics/Pentecostals fall over, or lay on the ground. It's why Orthodox Christians have prostrations. Sometimes our encounters with God need to be processed as bodily experiences. Including sometimes, walking barefoot. Otherwise, the experiences risk destabilizing a person, or being expressed in an unhealthy manner. Likewise, getting in touch with your body, and the ground, can be a healthy spiritual practice to engage in routinely. The body isn't necessarily "dirty" or "irrelevent" in all Christian traditions, some traditions recognize it as the place where God is encountered... not in the imagination, but in embodied experiences.

One way to get closer to this, and still protect yourself from things like ringworm, is simply to wear minimalist footwear that doesn't have alot of cushioning or heel in the shoes, that allows the feet to more naturally engage with the ground beneath them. This has effects not just on your feet, but on your entire sense of wellbeing. And that's really what alot of "grounding" is about.

FireDragon76 said:

Not necessarily. You can't measure what makes a myrrh-streaming icon stream myrrh with a voltmeter, why would you necessarily be able to measure how grounding works, similarly?

Many spiritual directors, or trauma-informed therapists, will tell you that walking barefoot can be important in integrating certain powerful, or even potentially destabilizing, spiritual or emotional experiences (it's even in the Bible, Exodus 3:5). That's one reason you sometimes see Charismatics/Pentecostals fall over, or lay on the ground. It's why Orthodox Christians have prostrations. Sometimes our encounters with God need to be processed as bodily experiences. Including sometimes, walking barefoot. Otherwise, the experiences risk destabilizing a person, or being expressed in an unhealthy manner. Likewise, getting in touch with your body, and the ground, can be a healthy spiritual practice to engage in routinely. The body isn't necessarily "dirty" or "irrelevent" in all Christian traditions, some traditions recognize it as the place where God is encountered... not in the imagination, but in embodied experiences.

One way to get closer to this, and still protect yourself from things like ringworm, is simply to wear minimalist footwear that doesn't have alot of cushioning or heel in the shoes, that allows the feet to more naturally engage with the ground beneath them. This has effects not just on your feet, but on your entire sense of wellbeing. And that's really what alot of "grounding" is about.

Click to expand...

The moment Christians move from discussions of the physical realm to the spiritual, extreme caution is required. Not all spirits are of God, nor do all spiritual practices honor God. A good example of this is the song My Sweet Lord, which had Christians singing along until they realized the song is praises Krishna, not Jesus Christ.

Moses removed his sandals because God told him the ground he stood on was holy ground. What made that ground holy was the presence of God Himself. This was an act of respect to God, and that is what has value rather Moses’ contact with the ground. With prostrations and kneeling, it is the reverence to God rather than the act itself. C.S. Lewis pointed this out when he wrote about kneeling to pray. Lewis didn’t argue that it was impossible to pray unless one knelt, only that the act of kneeling tended to put one in the proper mindset of respect to God. Prostrations are the same. It’s not laying sprawled out face-first on the ground that matters, but the mindset of respect to God that this may bring about. First and foremost, it’s about an attitude toward God rather than other supposed benefit. A drunk can sprawl out on the ground because he’s too wasted to stand, and that is nowhere the same as someone prostrate as they pray to God.

As to charismatic movement and some particular denominations, this gets into a type of religious practice that I won’t comment on. Suffice to say that it’s supposed to be a response to God, not a practice to come in contact with the ground.

Since we have moved from they physical to the spiritual, I keep remembering that poem that began an article about using a scythe to mow. As stated above, some scythe users believe mowing barefoot is therapeutic, but that poem was worship of fields. I really think that once we move beyond hypothetical electrical charges and currents to spiritual, we need to do a strong “Nope.” To prostrate oneself before God in prayer is respect and worship of God. To prostrate oneself on the ground to gain spiritual benefit from the earth is worship of the earth, not God.