FOOTNOTES:

[i]  …”force field”…

“Originally a term coined by Michael Faraday to provide an intuitive paradigm, but theoretical construct, for the behavior of electromagnetic fields, the term force field refers to the lines of force one object (the “source object”) exerts on another object or a collection of other objects.  An object might be a mass particle or an electric or magnetic charge, for example. The lines do not have to be straight, in the Euclidean geometry case, but may be curved. Faraday called these theoretical connections between objects lines of force because the objects are most directly connected to the source object along this line.

Examples of force fields:

• A local Newtonian gravitational field near Earth ground typically consists of a uniform array of vectors pointing in one direction—downwards, towards the ground; its force field is represented by the Cartesian vector , where points in a direction away from the ground, and m refers to the mass, and g refers to the acceleration due to gravity.
• A global Gravitational field consists of a spherical array of vectors pointing towards the center of gravity. Its classical force field, in spherical coordinates, is represented by the vector, , which is just Newton’s Law of Gravity, with the radial unit vector pointing towards the origin of the sphere (center of the Earth).
• A conservative Electric field has an electric charge (or a smeared plum pudding of electric charges) as its source object. In the case of the point charges, the force field is represented by , where is the position vector that represents the straightest line between the source charge and the other charge.
• A static Magnetic field has a magnetic charge (a magnetic monopole or a charge distribution).
• The electromagnetic force is given by the Lorentz force formula, which in SI units is, .”

— Reference:  Wikipedia.org

[ii]  “Electroshock…”

“The story of electric shock began in 1938, when Italian psychiatrist Ugo Cerletti visited a Rome slaughterhouse to see what could be learned from the method that was employed to butcher hogs. In Cerletti’s own words, “As soon as the hogs were clamped by the [electric] tongs, they fell unconscious, stiffened, then after a few seconds they were shaken by convulsions…. During this period of unconsciousness (epileptic coma), the butcher stabbed and bled the animals without difficulty…. 

“At this point I felt we could venture to experiment on man, and I instructed my assistants to be on the alert for the selection of a suitable subject.” 

Cerletti’s first victim was provided by the local police – a man described by Cerletti as “lucid and well-oriented.” After surviving the first blast without losing consciousness, the victim overheard Cerletti discussing a second application with a higher voltage. He begged Cerletti, “Non una seconda! Mortifierel” (“Not another one! It will kill me!”) 

Ignoring the objections of his assistants, Cerletti increased the voltage and duration and fired again. With the “successful” electrically induced convulsion of his victim, Ugo Cerletti brought about the application of hog-slaughtering skills to humans, creating one of the most brutal techniques of psychiatry.  

*Electric shock is also called electro-convulsive “therapy” or treatment (ECT), electroshock therapy or electric shock treatment (EST), electrostimulation, and electrolytic therapy (ELT). All are euphemistic terms for the same process: sending a searing blast of electricity through the brain in order to alter behavior.”  (Reference:  http://www.sntp.net/ect/ect3.htm)

Today Electroshock therapy (ECT) is most often used as a treatment for severe major depression which has not responded to other treatment, and is also used in the treatment of mania, catatonia, schizophrenia and other disorders. It first gained widespread use as a form of treatment in the 1940s and 50s.  Today, an estimated 1 million people worldwide receive ECT every year, usually in a course of 6-12 treatments administered 2 or 3 times a week.

Electroconvulsive therapy has “side-effects” which include confusion and memory loss for events around the time period of treatment. ECT have been shown to cause persistent memory loss.  It is the effects of ECT on long-term memory that give rise to much of the concern surrounding its use. The acute effects of ECT include amnesia.

Registered nurse Barbara C. Cody reports in a letter to the Washington Post that her life “was forever changed by 13 outpatient ECTs I received in 1983. Shock ‘therapy’ totally and permanently disabled me. “EEGs [electroencephalograms] verify the extensive damage shock did to my brain. Fifteen to 20 years of my life were simply erased; only small bits and pieces have returned. I was also left with short-term memory impairment and serious cognitive deficits. “Shock ‘therapy’ took my past, my college education, my musical abilities, even the knowledge that my children were, in fact, my children.”

Ernest Hemingway, American author, committed suicide shortly after Electric Shock treatment at the Menninger Clinic in 1961. He is reported to have said to his biographer, “Well, what is the sense of ruining my head and erasing my memory, which is my capital, and putting me out of business? It was a brilliant cure but we lost the patient….”

— Reference:  Wikipedia.org

[iii] “…electric voltage…”

“The general public may consider household mains circuits (100–250 V AC), which carry the highest voltages they normally encounter, to be high voltage. For example, an installer of heating, ventilation and air conditioning equipment may be licensed to install 24 Volt control circuits, but may not be permitted to connect the 240 volt power circuits of the equipment.

Voltages over approximately 50 volts can usually cause dangerous amounts of current to flow through a human being touching two points of a circuit.

Voltages of greater than 50 V are capable of producing heart fibrillation if they produce electric currents in body tissues which happen to pass through the chest area. The electrocution danger is mostly determined by the low conductivity of dry human skin. If skin is wet, or if there are wounds, or if the voltage is applied to electrodes which penetrate the skin, then even voltage sources below 40 V can be lethal if contacted.”

— Reference:  Wikipedia.org

[iv]  “…Post hypnotic suggestions…”

“The ability of a human to be induced into a form of behavior or thinking pattern after coming out of the hypnotic state.  Post hypnotic suggestions are administered by the hypnotist and may optionally include a time scope. An altered sense of perception or behavioral pattern may be “programmed” into the person under hypnosis. Certain sequences of events may be set as triggers to enter or exit the post-hypnotic pattern. The behavior patterns resemble conditioned reflexes, though administered without classical behavior alteration techniques.

Examples:

Any number, color, object, etc. may be induced to be ignored by the patient after full consciousness. A certain keyword starts the suggestion and a different word ends it. The patient will not know nor use the item to be ignored. He/she may state that the sea is colored red, if suggested to ignore the color blue.  A count of eleven may be achieved if asked to count ones fingers if a number -say 5- is suggested to be ignored. Thus the patient counts 1-2-3-4-6-7-8-9-10-11

Different type of behavior patterns may be induced such as forcing the patient to recite a certain sentence whenever anyone says out loud the special keyword. The patient is fully aware of the conditioned action but it is very difficult, if not impossible, to restrain from doing it. Sweating, loss of coordination and full lack of concentration plagues the patient until he/she performs the programmed action.

An object may be set to be perceived as invisible and it will be fully ignored and evaded during the period of suggestion. Experiments may be performed with a coffee mug, induced to be invisible. If the mug is put on top of a page with writing, the patient will only read the parts not covered by the mug. Even though the sentences may make no sense, nothing is seemingly wrong to the suspected. It is difficult to suggest an object be invisible, yet stay tactile. Usually the object is completely ignored by all senses. Thus, the mug in the example will reportedly not exist, even when the patient is touching it.

Stage hypnotists will sometimes perform shows in which they hypnotize participants to think they are some celebrity and behave exactly like them. John Mohl, stage hypnotist and member of The National Guild of Hypnotists, says that he has often hypnotized people to become someone else!  Mohl noticed that adults often became a celebrity while Middle or High School students usually become something much more creative or imaginative.”

— Reference:  Wikipedia.org

[v]  “… Untouchables…”

“In the Indian caste system, a Dalit, often called an untouchable, or an outcaste, is a person who according to traditional Hindu belief does not have any “varnas”. Varna refers to the Hindu belief that most humans were supposedly created from different parts of the body of the divinity Purusha. The part from which a varna was supposedly created defines a person’s social status with regard to issues such as whom they may marry and which professions they may hold. Dalits fall outside the varnas system and have historically been prevented from doing any but the most menial jobs. (However, a distinction must be made between lower-caste people and Pariahs.) Included are leather-workers (called chamar), carcass handlers (called mahar),poor farmers and landless labourers, night soil scavengers (called bhangi or chura), street handicrafters, folk artists, street cleaners, dhobi, etc.

Traditionally, they were treated as pariahs in South Asian society and isolated in their own communities, to the point that even their shadows were avoided by the upper castes. Discrimination against Dalits still exists in rural areas in the private sphere, in ritual matters such as access to eating places and water sources. It has largely disappeared, however, in urban areas and in the public sphere, in rights of movement and access to schools. The earliest rejection of discrimination, at least in spiritual matters, was made as far back as the Bhagavada Gita, which says that no person, no matter what, is barred from enlightenment There are an estimated 160 million Dalits in India.”

Reference:  Wikipedia.org

“Human rights abuses against these people, known as Dalits, are legion. A random sampling of headlines in mainstream Indian newspapers tells their story: “Dalit boy beaten to death for plucking flowers”; “Dalit tortured by cops for three days”; “Dalit ‘witch’ paraded naked in Bihar”; “Dalit killed in lock-up at Kurnool”; “7 Dalits burnt alive in caste clash”; “5 Dalits lynched in Haryana”; “Dalit woman gang-raped, paraded naked”; “Police egged on mob to lynch Dalits”.

“Dalits are not allowed to drink from the same wells, attend the same temples, wear shoes in the presence of an upper caste, or drink from the same cups in tea stalls,” said Smita Narula, a senior researcher with Human Rights Watch, and author of Broken People: Caste Violence Against India’s “Untouchables.” Human Rights Watch is a worldwide activist organization based in New York.   India’s Untouchables are relegated to the lowest jobs, and live in constant fear of being publicly humiliated, paraded naked, beaten, and raped with impunity by upper-caste Hindus seeking to keep them in their place. Merely walking through an upper-caste neighborhood is a life-threatening offense. Nearly 90 percent of all the poor Indians and 95 percent of all the illiterate Indians are Dalits.”

Reference:  http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2003/06/0602_030602_untouchables.html

[vi] “…political prisoners…”

“A political prisoner is someone held in prison or otherwise detained, perhaps under house arrest, for his/her involvement in political activity.

political prisoners are arrested and tried with a veneer of legality, where false criminal charges, manufactured evidence, and unfair trials are used to disguise the fact that an individual is a political prisoner. This is common in situations which may otherwise be decried nationally and internationally as a human rights violation and suppression of a political dissident. A political prisoner can also be someone that has been denied bail unfairly, denied parole when it would reasonably have been given to a prisoner charged with a comparable crime, or special powers may be invoked by the judiciary.

Particularly in this latter situation, whether an individual is regarded as a political prisoner may depend upon subjective political perspective or interpretation of the evidence.  Governments typically reject assertions that they hold political prisoners.

Examples:

In the Soviet Union, dubious psychiatric diagnoses were sometimes used to confine political prisoners.  In Nazi Germany, “Night and Fog” prisoners were among the first victims of fascist repression.  In North Korea, entire families are jailed if one family member is suspected of anti-government sentiments.”

— Reference:  Wikipedia.org