Category: W

Anglican clergyman and professor of mathematics. In 1701 he became an assistant to Sir Isaac Newton in Cambridge, succeeding him as professor of mathematics in 1703. In 1696 he published The New Theory of the Earth, an attempt to reconcile the new Newtonian understanding of the world with the biblical accounts. Whiston’s theory was that…

A phenomenon whereby a statue made of stone, terra cotta, or plaster suddenly appears to weep real tears or even blood from its eyes. Many weeping statues of the Virgin Mary have, on closer inspection, turned out to be fakes. The only recent weeping Madonna to be recognized by the Roman Catholic Church is that…

The specific practice of using a divining rod, usually a forked twig, to look for water. The stick’s forked ends are held, one in each hand, the stem pointing upwards. When the dowser walks over the area to be surveyed, the stick is suddenly seen to twist violently and point downward, indicating where to dig…

Also called hydrotherapy; a cure for various ailments, water is used to enhance beauty, alleviate stress, or for the derivation of pleasure. Overall, its uses go far beyond quenching thirst or keeping clean; it has always been so. Water, whether fresh, sea water, or containing naturally occurring substances such as sulfur, is bathed in publicly…

The leader of the Christian Apostolic Church, a community of about 6,000 members in Zion, Illinois, who believed that the earth is flat. Voliva was more than a “member”; he was, in fact, the community’s ruler, its General Overseer, for more than 30 years. He established strict rules for the community’s behavior and articulated its…

Dutch psychical researcher whose career ended amid charges of large-scale fraud. Tenhaeff joined the Studievereniging Voor Psychical Research (SVPR) soon after its founding and in 1928 became a cofounder of the Tijdschrift voor Parapsychologie. All parapsychological research stopped during the Nazi occupation, but Parapsychology was reestablished in the Netherlands soon after the war ended. Tenhaeff…

Fraudulent medical researcher. Dr. William Summerlin was a respected immunologist who specialized in research on the problem of rejection of transplanted tissue. Through the 1960s, he had worked at the University of Minnesota and at Stanford. By the early 1970s, he had accepted a position at the Sloan-Kettering Institute of Cancer Research. While there, he…

English physician and archaeologist who made careful surveys of the Stonehenge and Avebury stone circles in Wiltshire. Having mapped these huge prehistoric monuments, he then speculated as to their purpose. He suggested that, by analogy with the nearest equivalents of medieval times, the European cathedrals, they must have had a religious function. They must have…

British theologian and moral philosopher. Paley studied mathematics at Christ’s College, Cambridge, in 1759, was elected a fellow of his college in 1766, and ordained an Anglican priest the following year. Paley taught at Cambridge for nine years, until his marriage, and rose in the church to be the Archbishop of Carlisle. Paley authored three…

Famous perpetrator of fraudulent experiments in Parapsychology. Following graduation from medical school, Fevy joined the staff of the Institute of Parapsychology headed by Joseph Banks Rhine in Durham, North Carolina. Fevy ran what appeared to be a successful series of experiments that seemed to indicate ESP in animals, especially mice and chicken embryos, from which…