Category: M

At its very simplest, mind mapping identifies the control of the actions of the right side of the body by the left hemisphere of the brain and vice versa. There is a school of thought, mainly in popular psychology, that asserts that the left hemisphere dominates quantification and analysis and the right is responsible for…

Also called Coercive Persuasion or Brain Washing; a technique that aims at the systematic erosion and reversal of a person’s habits or convictions. Such persuasion has many purposes: political indoctrination or interrogation, religious proselytizing, educational or re-educational programs, or just the personal domination of one individual over another as in the master-slave relationship.  

From the Latin word millenniu, meaning literally “a period of a thousand years.” Millenarianism, and another more modern word, “Millennialism, each stem from a statement given in Chapter 22 of the Bible Book of Revelation that claimed to know the actual date of the Day of Judgment. Similar claims are said to be found in…

The interest in using psychics for intelligence and planning operations by the three U.S. armed services during a period of 20 years was closely involved with work at the Stanford Research Institute (SRI) and the Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC). They were used to try to hunt down Muammar Gadhafy prior to the 1986 U.S.…

A nostrum developed in the 1880s to exploit the newly posited germ theory. The Microbe Killer was concocted by William Radam, a gardener from Texas. He argued that although some doctors believed that some diseases were caused by germs, he had discovered that all diseases were so caused, and he offered his compound (later shown…

Small particles of stone or iron from space that survive passage through the atmosphere and then fall to Earth. Meteorites have been observed since antiquity and have been known to come from the sky. Their celestial origin and fiery entry to Earth gave rise to the belief that they came from the gods and various…

The ability to bend metal through psychic powers. In the mid-1970s, a young Israeli, Uri Geller became an international media celebrity apparently by displaying a psychic ability to bend metal objects such as forks and spoons in front of witnesses and even while being filmed. Geller provoked controversy, in part because he persuaded many people,…

Legendary humanlike sea-dwelling mammals. Most reports of mermaids can be traced to one of two sources: legends represented by the stories of the ancient Roman writer Pliny The Elder and the tales of the selkies, or seal-people of northern Europe; or mistaken identity, in which sailors confused dugongs, manatees, or other sea mammals for mermaids.…

Legend Celtic magician and prophet. The sorcerer Merlin, also known as Myrdin and Myrddin, is an important figure in Arthurian legend. He is best remembered as the enchanter who makes possible King Arthur’s accession. According to the 12th-century chronicle Historia Regum Britanniae (completed c. 1135-39) by Oxford clergyman Geoffrey of Monmouth (c. 1109-54) Merlin was…

A form of stage magic; a pseudopsychic magic that imitates demonstrations of psychic powers used by spiritualists in seances. Combined with other forms of stage magic, mentalist practices are used to produce psi effects in spiritualism that are then attributed to the spirits. In the case of mediumship, and fortune-telling, mentalism includes the psychological skills…