Michael Prescott's Blog
Archived blog focusing on the paranormal
Category: Psychology
-
An interesting article appears in the latest issue of The Atlantic, arguing that the trend toward hypersensitivity on college campuses reflects an unhealthy and counterproductive set of coping mechanisms. Called "The Coddling of the American Mind," it points to a series of cognitive distortions that are associated with neurosis and shows how each of these…
-
Yesterday I read The Monster of Florence: A True Story, by Douglas Preston and Mario Spezi. When I say I read it yesterday, I mean I consumed the entire 328 page book in one day, staying up well into the night to finish it. It's a real page turner that recounts a series of baffling…
-
Somewhere in his lectures, William James discourses on the topic of live options. As I recall, he told his classroom of British university students that for many of them, whether or not they were religious, the resurrection of Jesus was a live option – meaning that they would at least take the idea seriously and…
-
Many cultures have seen a close connection between mysticism and madness — and in fact, there are significant similarities between behaviors associated with some forms of mental illness and the behaviors associated with mediumship (trance mediumship in particular). There are also areas of overlap between the intellectual fixations of some mental patients and the accounts…
-
In the early years of the 20th century, a few pioneering Spiritualist psychiatrists attempted to cure acute mental illness via mediumship. Probably the most famous of these is Carl Wickland, whose 1924 book Thirty Years Among the Dead recounts his experiences in treating–and curing–a variety of psychoses in institutionalized patients. In these sessions, the obsessing…
-
Yesterday I learned that there may be an effort by members of my condominium association to remove a tree that stands directly outside my unit. When I woke up today, the first thing I found myself thinking about was the tree. The more I thought about it, the more exercised I became. I could not…
-
For a preliminary look at the possibility that reports of psychic phenomena can be influenced by emotional and psychological factors, I tracked down a paper co-authored by Richard Wiseman, Emma Greening, and Matthew Smith titled "Belief in the Paranormal and Suggestion in the Seance Room," published originally in the British Journal of Psychology, 94(3), 285-297. It…
-
In a recent post I quoted from Richard Carlson's self-help book You Can Be Happy No Matter What. I recommended the book and mentioned that I've found it very useful. But I don't want to give the impression that I agree with everything Carlson has to say. I think his approach can be too simplistic…
-
Back in 1992, before he became famous as the author of Don't Sweat the Small Stuff and its innumerable sequels and spinoffs, Dr. Richard Carlson wrote a wonderful little self-help book called You Can Be Happy No Matter What. This brief (141 pages) volume is chock-full of penetrating insights and useful advice, presented in a…