Mindblown: a blog about philosophy.
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Zombies
“The living dead,” or zombie cadavre; people supposedly raised from the dead by Voodoo (vodun) houngans (priests) or bokors (evil sorcerers) and used as slaves. Thanks to horror novels and movies, zombies have become a part of Western folklore. They originated, however, in Haitian Voodoo belief and are not a part of Voodoo belief in…
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Zimbabwe
Remains of a medieval native civilization in southeast Africa. In 1871, German explorer Karl Mauch (1837-75) set out on an expedition from South Africa. He was heading north, looking for the fabled city of Ophir, perhaps the home of the Queen of Sheba or the site of King Solomon’s Mines. However, Mauch was less interested…
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Zener cards
Deck of cards developed for research in extrasensory perception (ESP). The cards were designed by Karl E. Zener, a colleague of Joseph Banks Rhine at Duke University’s Department of Psychology in the 1930s. Rhine had developed ESP tests using cards but ran into a number of methodological problems. He asked Zener, who had done special…
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Zen
Refers popularly to a tradition of Buddhism and, more literally, to the meditation practiced in this tradition as the primary means of attaining enlightenment, which is the objective shared by all traditions of Buddhism. Although all schools and traditions of Buddhism value introspection and spirituality, the Zen school is unique in the unusual emphasis that…
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Yowie
Fabled hairy hominid, also called yahoo, native to Australia. Like the American Bigfoot, the Himalayan YETI, and the Chinese ALMA, the yowie is an elusive creature said to live in remote regions, primarily high forest areas. The yowie has been reported as being a longtime inhabitant of Aboriginal lore, and accounts of sightings by European-Australians…
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Yeti
Hair)7 hominid, also called the abominable snowman, reputed to live in the Himalaya Mountains. Called by Tibetans Metoh-Kangmi (“manlike thing that is not a man;” misinterpreted by a translator as “wild man of the snows”), the creature became better known in the West by its nickname, Yeti. Although the Yeti has been reported in Western…
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Xenoglossia
The ability to speak in a foreign language unknown to the speaker. Xenoglossia refers to “speaking in tongues” through psychic rather than religious connections. It is considered by students of the paranormal to be one of a number of mental phenomena, including Telepathy, Precognition, Clairvoyance, Extrasensory Perception, Out-Of-Body Experiences, and Near-Death Experiences. Xenoglossia has also…
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Witchcraft
The practices of a witch in the exercising of supernatural powers supposedly to conjure up, or become possessed by, spirits. The nature of these spirits and how witchcraft is presumed to be practiced has been perceived in many ways in different cultures throughout the world. The legacy of the medieval Christian church made witchcraft satanic…
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Wild man of borneo
Anthropological hoax. The general image in Western society of tribal cultures as primitive and uncultured allowed the development of the Wild Man of Borneo as a popular attraction in San Francisco in the late 19th century. The original wild man appeared in the 1880s at a freak show on Market Street in the Barbary Coast…
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William Whiston (1667-1752)
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…
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