Category: F

An Illinois physician who attacked naturopathy and other forms of alternative medicine. He authored Fads and Quackery in Healing (1932). The case of American Socialist Party leader and presidential candidate Eugene V. Debs concerned Fishbein greatly. In poor health after completing a prison sentence, Debs went to the Lindlahr Naturopathic Sanatorium in Elmhurst, Illinois, for…

The act of walking barefoot through fire, or, more commonly, over a bed of hot coals, without being burned, an act often associated with religious rites. Fire walking has been a traditional practice in many societies around the world, notably in India, Polynesia, Japan, and New Zealand. Usually, it is either part of a ritual…

A small village in central Portugal where there was a supposed apparition of the Virgin Mary, the first occurrence happening in 1917 making the small village one of the most famous Marian shrines in Europe. The event was so special that it became the only one of its kind that has been authenticated by the…

Longest-lived, broad-based popular magazine of the paranormal. Launched in 1948 in Chicago by Ray Palmer and Curtis and Mary Fuller, Fate came into being during the golden era of pulp magazines. But while many of the other pulps of the time Amazing Stories, for example have ceased publication, Fate has managed to weather the storms…

A term that came into use following cases in the late 1980s where memories of abuse were coaxed out of children by therapists. The memories were later proved to be false, hence the name “false memory syndrome,” and some individuals were found to have been wrongly accused of child sexual abuse and/or Satanic ritual abuse…

Inhuman, but humanlike creatures, sometimes with paranormal powers. Encounters between humans and fairies appear in folklore around the world. These fairies differ in form and appearance: Some are tiny, others are tall, some are ugly, others are beautiful. It was not until Victorian times that fairies were sentimentalized as tiny benevolent creatures with butterflylike wings,…

US explorer best remembered for making false claims about his achievements. Cook was surgeon to both the Peary Arctic expedition (1891-92) and the Belgian Antarctic expedition (1897-99). From 1903 to 1906, he led an expedition to Mount McKinley (6187 meters [20,300 feet]) in Alaska, the highest mountain in North America. Despite his lack of surveying…

English statesman and philosopher of science. At a time when the religious fanaticism of the Counter Reformation had driven modern science from its birthplace of Italy, Bacon became its founding father in England, while at the same time achieving the highest political office under King James I. Not strictly a scientist himself, Bacon instead provided…

An essential oil or vegetable oil which has had a fraction of its chemical components removed.  

The use of flower essences to remedy imbalances within the psycho-spiritual aspect of our being.