Mindblown: a blog about philosophy.
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Death rays
Emissions, visible or invisible, that cause death and destruction. In H. G. Wells’s groundbreaking science-fiction novel The War of the Worlds (1898), the invading Martians repel an attack by British forces with an invisible ray that causes whatever it touches to catch fire. In the early 20th-century science-fiction comic strip Buck Rogers in the 25th…
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Dean space drive
One of a number of antigravity machines. This device was invented by Norman L. Dean, a mortgage appraiser for the Federal Housing Association in Washington, D.C., in the late 1950s. It produced a lift by spinning weights. Its name comes from the belief that such a device could provide the motive power for a spacecraft…
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Daydreaming
A state of reverie indulged in while awake. Often called fantasizing, it is definable as a comparatively well-organized, but often illogical, process of sensory thinking where the daydreamer is to all intents and purposes awake, but nevertheless loses partial con¬ tact with his or her surroundings. It is often characterized by a free-flowing internal debate…
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Andrew Jackson Davis
Spiritualist, born in Blooming Grove, New York. Poor and uneducated, Davis was apprenticed to a shoemaker in Poughkeepsie, N.Y., at the age of 15. Under the tutorship of a Mr. Livingston in that town, Davis developed supposed clairvoyant powers and, in March, 1844, claimed under prolonged trance to have conversed with spiritual beings and mentors.…
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Cycles theories
Cycles theories have emerged in a number of scientific disciplines. In biology, Wilhelm fliess theorized that two cycles governed living cells. In men the male cycle of 23 days was dominant; in women the dominant female cycle was 28 days. These cycles affected every¬ thing from birth to death, physical and mental health, career prospects,…
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Baron Georges Cuvier
The French father of paleontology, the science of past plants and animals based on fossil evidence. Considered to be one of the greatest scientists of his day, Cuvier was adamantly opposed to the orthodox Christian view of creation and was committed to empirical science, trying to understand the incomplete fossil record. A catastrophist he believed…
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Cuforhedake Brane Fude
A nostrum that became the subject of the first court case under the U.S. Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906. Cuforhedake Brane-Fude was developed by Robert N. Harper around 1888 while a student at the Philadelphia College of Pharmacy. Earlier in the decade, a coal-tar derivative, acetanilid, had been discovered to have some effect…
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Crystal gazing
A specific technique in divination that uses a crystal ball to focus the attention of the “scryer” (the name given to this kind of fortune-teller). A real crystal ball is a polished globe of rock-crystal or clear quartz, but these are costly and most scryers now use a less expensive, commercially available ball of molded…
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Cryptozoology
A controversial branch of zoology focusing on animal species that have been reported to exist but are as yet unknown to science. The most famous hidden or unknown species include lake monsters (such as the loch ness monster), obscure hominids (such as bigfoot), and sea serpents. The term cryptozoology was coined by French zoologist Bernard…
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Cryonics
The storing of dead bodies through the process of cryogenics for the purpose of later reviving individuals. Some patients elect to have only their heads frozen and stored, believing that when revival occurs, this will be sufficient for reconstructing the whole person. Two firms in the United States, Alcor and the Cryonics Institute, have put…
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