Mindblown: a blog about philosophy.
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Hans Horbiger
A Viennese mining engineer and co-author in 1913 of a massive tome, Glazial-Kosmogonic. The thesis of this magnum opus was that Earth, because it was first formed, has had several moons six or more in succession. Each of the moons had a catastrophic effect that accounts for Earth’s geological features. During the time human beings…
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Oliver Wendell Holmes (1809-1894)
Father of the famous jurist of the same name. Holmes was a physician, poet, and humorist, notable for his research into puerperal fever, which was a fever that sometimes occurred during childbirth, for his work against homeopathy, an alternative system of medical treatment, and for his lectures at Harvard Medical School, where he eventually became…
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Hollow earth doctrine (Hohlweltlehre)
One of the many pseudoscientific ideas about Earth’s form size and shape. Some hollow Earth theories suppose Earth to be flat like a flapjack, and others suppose it to be spherical. But the most bizarre theory must be that we humans, along with the flora and fauna, are living on the inside shell of a…
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Hieronymous machine
A machine invented by Thomas G. Hieronymous in 1949 that was intended to combine psychic phenomena with electronics. The first in a continuing line of such inventions, it was to analyze the eloptic radiation of minerals, a radiation hitherto unknown. The machine consisted of a box containing some tunable electronic circuitry of the thermionic valve…
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Thor Heyerdahl (1914- )
Anthropologist and explorer, who made his reputation in 1947 when he sailed the primitive balsa-wood raft KON-TIKI from Peru to an island in the Tahiti chain. The Kon-Tiki expedition proved that pre-Columbian South American Indians could have reached and settled islands in the South Pacific. It also won the anthropologist a worldwide reputation and brought…
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Bernard Heuvelmans (1916- )
“Father of cryptozoology” and a pioneering writer on the subject of unknown animals. Inspired by the work of Jules Verne (Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea) and Arthur Conan Doyle (The Lost World), Heuvelmans has devoted his life to the discovery of references to unrecognized, mysterious animals in the writings of travelers and scientists. His…
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Heroic medicine
Predominant medical theory and practice in the United States in the early 19th century that stressed phlebotomy, purgatives, and emetics. Based upon the belief that most diseases caused the overstimulation of various bodily systems, heroic therapy was designed to lower dangerously excited states to more natural, balanced ones. The term “heroic” referred to the aggressive…
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Hermetic order of the golden dawn
Victorian organization dedicated to the investigation and spread of occultism. Drawing on the theosophist and spiritualist movements, the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn (1887-1923) brought together into a single system a wide body of occult material. Under their leaders Mac¬ Gregor Mathers, Dr. William Wynn Westcott, and Dr. W. R. Woodman, the Magicians of…
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Heliocentrism
Theory that the Sun rather than Earth is at the center of the universe. The heliocentric theory of the universe was originally proposed by the Greek philosopher Aristarchus of Samos. Around the year 280 B.C.E., Aristarchus suggested that Earth revolves around the Sun in common with the other planets an idea that had been considered…
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William Harvey (1578-1657)
An English physician principally remembered for his demonstration of the circulation of the blood and the action of the heart as a pump. He was educated at the universities of Cambridge and Padua, where he was greatly influenced by Fabricius. The conjoined problem of blood circulation and heart action puzzled him, as it had many…
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