Category: G

Hierarchical classification of all life on Earth. It is one of the most persistent conceptions about the nature of life and the universe in Western history. Originally presented by Roman philosopher Plotinus in the third century B.C.E., the theory states that all life indeed, everything in the known universe is connected in a single hierarchical…

The widespread belief for centuries throughout the grape-growing areas of Europe that grapes, grape juice, and grape products generally have curative properties. It has not been a dominant belief but one of those examples of folklore in the background of all cultures, a cure in the same category as goats milk, honey, and much else.…

The theory of color as proposed by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832). In addition to being an eminent German playwright and poet of the late 18th and early 19th centuries, Goethe also made contributions to science. One of these was an attempt to overthrow the orthodox Newtonian account of how normal white light is actually…

Just one of the many pseudoscientific “cures” that form part of the long history of rejuvenation medicine. Rejuvenation medicine usually deals with methods used to overcome erectile dysfunction. These methods can include certain foods, potions, and magical spells.  

Spirits or spiritual beings conceived as having survived bodily death and manifesting themselves to the living. They are also called spooks, specters, shades, haunts, phantoms, or wraiths. Ghosts may appear as living monsters (metaphysical giants themselves, the offspring of Uranus, or heaven, and Gaia, or Earth). Atlas, who carries Earth on his back, and Chronos,…

Strange balls or patches of light whose existence and behavior are sometimes difficult to explain. They are usually white or yellow, but other colors have been seen. Sometimes they appear in the same locality, off and on, for years; and sometimes they appear only once or for a short time. In the United States there…

Belief that Earth is at the center of the universe. The geocentric theory of the universe dominated European astronomical thinking for more than two millennia. The original geocentric theory that Earth is stationary and that the entire universe revolves around it is sometimes attributed to the Pythagoreans, an ancient community established in Croton in Southern…

The theory that entails investigation of the relationship between sex and gender. Gender comes from the Latin verb generare, “to beget,” and the Latin stem gener-, meaning “race” or “kind.” Gender signifies sort, kind, or class and has been used in this sense continuously since at least the 14th century. The term gender adheres closely…

An appearance of the Virgin Mary reported in the small Spanish town of Garabandal. After morning Mass on Sunday, June 18, 1961, two young gills, Conchita, aged 12, and Marie Cruz Gonzales, 11, were joined by their two friends Loli and Jacinta, both 12, in the schoolmaster’s garden where they were stealing apples. On the…

German for “total held”; a test for psi (parapsychological) communication that attempts to neutralize all known possibilities of sense perception of a mentally transmitted target. Pioneered in psychology by Herman Witkin, the ganzfeld was modified for parapsychological use and introduced to that held by Charles Honorton and William Braud in their 1974 and 1975 studies,…