Mindblown: a blog about philosophy.
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Millenarianism
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…
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Military use of psychics
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.…
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Microbe killer
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…
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Meteorite
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…
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Metal bending
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,…
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Franz Anton Mesmer (1734-1815)
Austrian physician and inventor of a technique of Hypnosis known as mesmerism. Mesmer has often been dismissed as a fraud who manipulated credulous people for his own personal gain. He was intrigued by the physical phenomenon of magnetism, and he formulated a theory that animals and plants as well as inanimate objects give off magnetic…
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Mermaids
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.…
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Merlin
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…
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Donald H. Menzel
A Harvard astronomer and astrophysicist who summarized the scientific argument against the ideas of Immanuel velikovsky. Menzel also attacked the idea of flying saucers. He argued that these discs or saucers were a sort of mirage caused by unusual weather circumstances, which in different times would not attract much, if any, interest. But, he suggested,…
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Mentalism
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…
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