Had I heard about this anywhere else I would have quickly passed it by. It sounds too improbable. Even impossible. But psychiatrist Ian Stevenson was such a careful investigator that coming from him this stopped me in my tracks. Among the people who pay attention to the children who talk of past lives, are the … Continue reading Paranormal World | Children who speak of past lives | Birthmarks
Autism and Words
Words are not the same thing for those of us on the spectrum as they are for other people. From the time I entered elementary school as a small boy, I was very conscious of this. I couldn't put my thoughts into words then, but fifty or so years later I managed to do it … Continue reading Autism and Words
Paranormal World | Is there an After-life?
The psychologist J. B. Rhine, famous for his decades of ESP research, once called the 'after-life' the Mount Everest of paranormal phenomena, a hill he would not attempt to climb. Probably for the same reason, I've avoided writing about it here. But now I'm going to face up to it. One problem is that the … Continue reading Paranormal World | Is there an After-life?
Rescuing the Future | Tony Judt |J. M. Keynes | Ill Fares the Land
Change "nineteenth century" to "twenty-first century" and the following quote might have been written yesterday: Instead of using their vastly increased material and technical resources to build a wonder city, the men of the nineteenth century built slums ..... [which] on the test of private enterprise, 'paid', whereas the wonder city would, they thought, have … Continue reading Rescuing the Future | Tony Judt |J. M. Keynes | Ill Fares the Land
Rescuing Psychology |the Introvert/Extrovert misunderstanding
Let's look at this again. The way introvert/extrovert is understood today is very different from what psychologist C.G.Jung intended when he introduced those terms into psychology a century ago. He saw introversion and extroversion as just two possible aspects of everyone's character. In his book Psychological Types, he wrote this: There is a further fact … Continue reading Rescuing Psychology |the Introvert/Extrovert misunderstanding
How to be Less Shy by being More Shy
What do I mean by this? It's simple really - instead of trying to suppress your shyness (what the social world has been urging you to do all your life), the best thing to do is to accept it – accept who you are. But that doesn't mean giving up and hiding at home. You … Continue reading How to be Less Shy by being More Shy
Rescuing Science |Agnostics vs the Big Bang
Recently I encountered the little book, Agnosticism – A Short Introduction , by Robin Le Poidevin, one of many new 'short introduction' editions produced by Oxford University Press, books so small and slim that they will fit in any pocket, yet they're well-written, interesting and informative. Le Poidevin demonstrates that often only the agnostic stands … Continue reading Rescuing Science |Agnostics vs the Big Bang
Paranormal World | Sugar the Cat
There are paranormal phenomena that seem to defy any explanation – for example, Sugar the cat.In 1950, the Woods family in Anderson, California had to move to Oklahoma. They had a beige cat, Sugar, who was a tough customer – he routinely fought with dogs – but he had a phobia of riding in cars, … Continue reading Paranormal World | Sugar the Cat
Autism | Mice and Microglia
Here is some interesting new autism research. The website Spectrum News (spectrumnews.org) reports on the findings of neuroscientist Baoji Xu at the Scripps Research Institute in Florida re microglia, a protein in the brain that they say 'prunes' excess synapses in the brain. They engineered mice to overproduce a protein called EIF4E that is essential … Continue reading Autism | Mice and Microglia
