Conspiracies and Paranoia

In her autobiography Doris Lessing quotes an American expert on paranoia, Dr Jerrold Post which was written in the Tom Mangold’s book Cold Warrior. This was about James Jesus Angleton who ran the CIA for many years. Jerrold Post defines paranoia as: ‘a fixed conclusion searching for confirmatory evidence and rejecting disconfirming evidence. Paranoia is … Read more

The Amazing Randi has died

Many years ago I was taken in by the Uri Geller phenomena. In my defence, I wasn’t alone with some of the scientists of the day also falling for his charm and chicanery. When The Amazing Randi came along and debunked the Israeli showman, I refused to believe he could duplicate all of Geller’s activities … Read more

Divination – D H Lawrence

The science of augury certainly was no exact science. But it was as exact as our sciences of psychology or political economy. And the augurs were as clever as our politicians, who also must practise divination, if ever they are to do anything worth the name. There is no other way when you are dealing … Read more