Category: S

Huge entities that behave in a way similar to living organisms plants or animals and form self-regulating systems. In response to some disturbance of a superorganism’s normal state, it reacts in such a way that it readjusts to a new equilibrium state. An example of such a system, which has been much discussed in recent…

The cyclic occurrence of spots that travel across the surface of the sun as it rotates. The number and area of these spots waxes and wanes. They were first observed by Galileo and much later by Heinrich Samuel Schwabe in 1826. By 1843, Schwabe had detected an average 10-year cycle, which he later corrected to…

Dutch association of parapsychologists. The Studievereniging Voor Psychical Research (Society for Psychical Research) was founded in 1920 and launched its formal program with systematic research on telepathy and clairvoyance. Its journal, Tijdschrift voor Parapsychologie, was founded in 1928 by a young college student, Wilhelm Heinrich Carl Tenhaelf, who would go on to write the first…

A form of bodywork/ massage developed by Judith Aston out of her critique of Rolfing. Rolfing was a popular massage technique developed by Ida Rolf that emphasized the manipulation of deep connective tissues (fascia) between the bone joints. Aston had been introduced to Rolfing during her recovery from the effects of an automobile accident. When…

The most famous of Europe’s prehistoric monuments, after which a whole class of megaliths is named. Stonehenge lies on Salisbury Plain in southern England. Although the site itself is fairly small not more than a few hundred square yards it has won respect not only for its relative completeness but for the complexity of its…

Spontaneous development of bruises and wounds, usually bleeding, in places corresponding to the wounds of the crucified Christ, and usually viewed as a sign of saintliness. Some stigmata are, of course, fraudulent. The first officially recognized stigmatic was the 13th- century saint, Francis of Assisi, who was noted for his simple life of material deprivation…

An early apparatus developed to detect the existence of an external psychokinetic energy generated by animals, primarily humans. The sthenometer was created by 19th-century psychical researcher Paul Joire, a professor at the Psycho-Physiological Institute in Paris, France. Joire believed that the energy he was attempting to measure was produced by the human nervous system. The…

Procedure intended to restore youthfulness to men and women. Throughout the 19th century, many physiologists and anatomists believed that secondary sexual characteristics the deepening of the voice and the appearance of facial hair in males and the development of breasts in females were caused by an internal secretion poured into the blood by the sex…

The idea that there could be a method of taking a circle and constructing from it a square that had exactly the same area and the same perimeter. Although the idea has a long history and although it has long been known that it is impossible, it nevertheless persisted for centuries, so much so that…

The belief that under certain conditions living creatures can be produced directly from matter. The concept is well attested in classical sources, notably Aristotle, and is probably based on even more ancient observations of the emergence of organisms such as fly larvae from dead animal tissue or worms form mud. General considerations have distinguished between…