Mindblown: a blog about philosophy.
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Big bang
Theory of the creation of the universe. The big bang theory, as proposed by the late Belgian astrophysicist Georges Lemaitre (1894-1966), states that the universe came into being in a huge explosion sometime between 10 and 20 billion years ago. In the beginning, all the matter that currently exists or has ever existed was contained…
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Bicameral mind
The two chambers of the brain. The actual relationship between the brain and the mind has been for many centuries one of the most difficult problems of both philosophy and science, but recent research into how the two sides of the brain work in unison, or after injury separately, is beginning to throw some light…
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Bible science association
One of the most conservative organizations promoting creationism. The Bible Science Association (BSA) was founded in 1963 by Walter Lang, a pastor in the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod. The organization still draws much of its support from that denomination. Basing its arguments on a literal interpretation of Genesis, the organization supports the idea of a young…
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Annie besnt
The supporter of politically radical causes atheism, the National Secular Society, birth control, the Fabian Society who later espoused mystical religious cults. In the 1890s Annie Besant came under the influence of Madame Blavatsky and in 1897 joined the Theosophical Society, in which she became a very active leader. She was elected president of the…
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Raymond Bernard
French metaphysician and mystic. Raymond Bernard was one of the modern leaders of the Ancient and Mystical Order Rosae Crucis (AMORC), or the Rosicrucian Order. Bernard was the author of a series of four books based on Rosicrucian philosophy: Strange Encounters, The Secret Houses of the Rose and Croix, A Secret Meeting in Rome, and…
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Bermuda triangle
Name coined by writer Vincent H. GADDIS in 1964 for an area of the Caribbean Sea and Atlantic Ocean where hundreds of unexplained disappearances of ships and planes allegedly have occurred. The area extends roughly between the three points of Florida, Bermuda, and Puerto Rico. Different accounts extend the mysterious area as far east as…
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Charles Berlitz
Vice-president of the famous Berlitz Schools of Language (founded by his grandfather) and popular advocate of a variety of controversial claims concerning the existence of extraordinary phenomena including the Bermuda triangle and the Philadelphia experiment. Born November 23, 1914, Berlitz graduated from Yale in 1936 and became an accomplished linguist, speaking more than 30 languages.…
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Johann Beringer
A science professor who was the victim of a famous hoax. Beringer believed that the Earth was only a few thousand years old and that the biblical account of the Flood was a real event. In the early 18th century, fossils were considered to be creatures made extinct by the Flood or the castoffs of…
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Henri-louis Bergson
French philosopher and metaphysician. Henri Bergson’s concepts of how the human mind works influenced later philosophers and metaphysicians such as Pierre Teilhard De Chardin, Jacques Maritain, and William JAMES. Bergson began his teaching career at a school in Clermont-Ferrand in 1883 and in 1900 moved to the College de France, where he continued to teach…
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Beauty treatments
Activities and processes based on chemistry and hucksterism that form the basis of one of the most profitable businesses in the Western industrialized world. The ideal market, briefly defined, is one that is never saturated and that will bear inflated prices. (One is tempted to add that the product must also be unnecessary in any…
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