Recently I came upon Barbara Ehrenreich's 2015 book Living with a Wild God: A Non-believer's Search for the Truth about Everything. Although she was born a few years before me, Ehrenreich was a prominent anti-Vietnam activist and a key figure of the '60s enlightenment. She and I have been living in parallel for decades, each … Continue reading Paranormal World | Barbara Ehrenreich |Living with a Wild God
Paranormal World |Children who speak of Past Lives| Puti Patra and the After-Life
Something I haven't mentioned in previous posts about the children investigated by psychiatrist Ian Stevenson, is that they don't talk of an after-life. They simply remember a past-life before this one, nothing in between. Except that there are exceptions, and one of them is the fascinating little girl Puti Patra, born in 1964 to a … Continue reading Paranormal World |Children who speak of Past Lives| Puti Patra and the After-Life
Autism |Toronto Van Rampage III |Alek Minassian and the Incels
Recently the Toronto police released their post-arrest videotaped interview with Alek Minassian, accused of driving a van down Yonge Street on April 23, 2018, deliberately targeting pedestrians, killing eight women and two men, and injuring 16 more. The Toronto Star published an extensive review of the released tape, and Minassian's case generally, in their Friday, … Continue reading Autism |Toronto Van Rampage III |Alek Minassian and the Incels
Paranormal World| Calculating the Unknown | Birds vs Mathematicians
I'm sceptical of the attempts to calculate the probability of paranormal phenomena, especially those strange or "meaningful" coincidences that psychologist C. G. Jung called 'synchronicity'. For example, in his book Synchronicity, Jung discussed the research of Dariex, Richet, and Flammarion who used 'probability calculus' to determine a probability of 1 : 4,114,545 for telepathic precognitions … Continue reading Paranormal World| Calculating the Unknown | Birds vs Mathematicians
Paranormal World | God likes Tolstoy more than me
There is a type of paranormal phenomena that no one seems to talk about anymore, maybe because it's so difficult to talk about. Here is an example. One night I was having a discussion with my adult daughter about the lamentable lack of interest in literature today, especially among young men. I was referring not … Continue reading Paranormal World | God likes Tolstoy more than me
Dreams | Are they real?
Dreams are real while they last; can one say more of life?
Rescuing the Past and/or Anthropology and/or Psychology |How reading and writing preceded Talking
In one of my books – not sure if it's in The Shyness Guide or my first novel, The Birdcatcher (could be both) - I said that reading and writing are older than speech. That's an idea that I have never seen anywhere else. But this week, re-reading the James Hillman/Michael Ventura book, We've Had … Continue reading Rescuing the Past and/or Anthropology and/or Psychology |How reading and writing preceded Talking
Rescuing Reality | Big Bang or Big Crunch?
While my science posts don't generate the same interest as those on shyness, autism, dreams, etc., I can't stay away from scientific disputes. To me, the question of what we know and what we don't know is important. And surely the creation of the universe is as important as our personal psychology. This morning I … Continue reading Rescuing Reality | Big Bang or Big Crunch?
Shyness vs Everything else |the problem with diagnoses
When I was a boy, I was intensely shy, more avoidant than anyone else I met then in any of the schools I attended. No one in the working-class neighborhood of the North-American steel town where I grew up had heard of 'autism', but my behavior fit autism pretty well. If I got myself assessed … Continue reading Shyness vs Everything else |the problem with diagnoses
