Hippies - can't live with 'em, can't shoot 'em

Glastonbury we’re told is one of the most spiritual areas of the UK. This in part due to it being where Albion’s leylines converge. It’s also said to be where King Arthur is buried and even apparently played host to the Son of God when Joseph of Arimethea brought his Holy relative over for tea and cakes. Whether 5,000 were fed that day is, alas, unrecorded.

It’s perhaps not surprising that a place which is so steeped in history should be resisting the relentless march of modernity. This became apparent this week when the Glastonbury Why Wi-Fi Campaign hit the headlines in a (quiet) riot of lurid tie-dye and patchouli oil. The protestors' concerns focussed in part on the old chestnut of radiation emissions from the nearby Wi-Fi network. And while their concerns about the effects on people's health of the radiation may prove valid – although we should note that a ream of reports suggest otherwise - , they're also using all kinds of New Age unscientific to justify their oppostion. And natch this ia a lot harder to stomach.

Apparently, Wi-Fi signals are disturbing the “positive energy flows” of the area. You read that right. Matt Todd who makes it his business to campaign against electro motive forces is so convinced of this that he’s “started building small generators which he believes can neutralise the allegedly-harmful radiation using the principles of orgone science”. These devices “use quartz crystals, selenite (a clear form of the mineral gypsum), semi-precious lapis lazuli stones, gold leaf and copper coil to absorb and recycle the supposedly-negative energy,” the Telegraph reports.

The sad thing is that should the hippies win the day and cause the £35,000 scheme to be scrapped, there’ll be a host of losers. Young people will miss what had been a cheap way of getting online, while local businesses will also incur extra expense of having to pay for broadband. The real loser though will be science, as all the empiricism and learning of the modern world gets sacrificed on the altar of the Neo Pagans.