Premise: The taint is the souls of the Hundred Companions.

The Basis for this theory falls on several notes:

(please for give the spelling. I am terrible at it)

1. We know that Tel'Aran'Rhiod is the home for the departed "heroes" that will be called back to fight the last battle. Yet in that entire number we have no channlers. So as it is not likely that there has ever been a heroic channler in all of time, we have to look elsewhere for where they are. The Source.

2. We know that almost every person who learns to channel in the series at some point does something they did not know how to do. A notable episode being where Egwene ties off a flow of Saidar to keep a ball of light going and then Elayne sees her do it and copies it. Then Egwene learns how to do it from watching Elayne. This sort of thing happens all the time with Rand. Jordan gives us the plausable reason for this being that Rand has the Soul of LTT in him and that's how he does it. But what of the others? All channlers have the feeling that they could "Loose themselves in the flow". I think this is a true reflection of what might happen.

3. The One Power is always described as the essence of life. What if it actually is life. What if the Life energy of the channler gets caught up in the flow of the OP when they are channeling and when the flow of power returns to the source after channeling it takes a little of them back with it. It might contain vague impressions that with several thousand channlers over the history of time would become almost thoughts themselves or at least instint.

4. During the Attack on the Dark One at the end of the AOL we know that the dark ones counter stroke made every man there immediately insane and the rest of the male channelers in the world followed soon after. The Males who were with LTT immediately set about the breaking of the world with the One Power, drawing amounts of epic proportions. In one case drawing so much that when they died the city around them was leveled by the explosion. In another it drove into the earth so hard that a mountain was raised out of the ground (LTT). This would likly be the most extreme uses of Saidin in all of time done by the insane. From Cadsuane we know that many men who go channel start to hear voices right before they go insane. While many crazy people begin to hear voices these men might actually be hearing the thoughts of one or several of the previous male channlers. This would begin to drive anyone insane after a time. This explains anyone going insane after that point. This effect might even grow more pronounced after a time due to the addition of more insane channelers to the mix.

5. The only way this theory would hold water in reference to WH would be that rand actually cured the insanity off the OP by fighting it with the insanity of Shadar Logath. Part of a cathartic healing.

An interesting addition to this theory is based on the theory The Circle of Thirteen - the Forsaken and the Dark One by Caraiaan in the misc theories.

6. Caraiaan supposes that the "True Power" DO's oposite of the "One Power" that the Creator uses. If that is true it might lend weight to my thought that the OP is made of life energy as the TP would almost have to be made of Destruction energy.

Thats my Theory. Let me know what you think.