Chapter 12. Kooky ideas

Idiosyncratic ideas

The Book of Idiosyncratic Ideas
has many volumes and many authors.
The world is blessed when anyone
sets pen to paper,
but most idiosyncratic ideas
are undocumented
and can appear in normal company
without the benefit of too much sunshine.

Larsonomy

Alfred Lawson claimed
there’s no such thing as energy or time.
Instead, movement is motivated by suction,
balanced by pressure,
and permitted by the penetrability
of substances with different densities.
These truths explain heterosexual behavior
and lead us to the conclusion
that light, heat, and sound are not waves
but are substances subject to pressure and suction.
Lawson claimed to have discovered
the key to perpetual motion, “Lawsonpoise,”
the “equidisposition
of composition and decomposition.”
To complete his philosophy
and “The Base of Absolute Knowledge,”
Lawson taught that Isaac Newton was wrong.
Left to its own, a mass
will not move in a straight line,
but will follow a path Lawson described
as “universal Zig-Zag-And-Swirl.”

Morphic resonance

Human beings naturally see patterns
whether inherent or accidental.
Rupert Sheldrake claimed that parts of natural systems
can communicate with each other
because they inherit a collective memory
from all previous things of their kind.
Biological growth and behavior is guided
by patterns established by its predecessors.
Therefore, patterns that we recognize
are inherent in things, and are shared with us
as in natural systems, telepathically.

Time cube

Gene Ray drew a cube around the earth
and claimed that there are four days, not one.
Each of the four vertical edges of the cube
sweep out a day in the same twenty-four hours.
The two opposite pairs symbolize
creation—mom versus dad, son versus daughter.
Oneness is death, hell, and boring,
whereas cubic thought is divine intelligence.

Torsion field

Anatoly Akimov and Gennady Shipov
claimed that the quantum spin of particles
can be transmitted through space faster than light
by means of neutrinos,
thus explaining telepathy, telekinesis,
faster-than-light travel, ESP, levitation,
clairvoyance, perpetual motion, UFO propulsion,
superconductivity, and miracle homeopathic curative boxes
that you could pay good money for.

Scientology

L. Ron Hubbard claimed to know
how to eradicate the “reactive mind”;
thereby eliminating sociopathy, neurosis, and psychosis.
He claimed that dianetics
would improve intelligence and health,
curing arthritis, allergies, asthma, coronary afflictions,
poor vision, ulcers, migraines, homosexuality, and death,
by purging painful memories called “engrams” from the mind.
Following his therapy, known as “auditing,”
a person is supposed to reach the state of “clear,”
however, no person has been proven to be “clear”
by any objective testing.
Hubbard pitched dianetics as a “scientific” therapy
and lost control of it after a bankruptcy;
whereupon he started a religion based on dianetics
that he called scientology.
A scientologist is taught to believe
that we are afflicted by immortal aliens called thetans,
which have unlimited capabilities,
adhere to humans, control our bodies,
and whose existence spans multiple lifetimes,
that 75 million years ago,
the dictator of the Galactic Confederacy
whose name was Xenu (or Xemu),
brought billions of aliens to earth,
placed them around volcanos,
and killed them with hydrogen bombs,
whereupon their souls were trapped on earth,
that problems with previous lives on other planets
have to be cleared,
that fixing an aberration by clearing engrams
is like erasing a computer memory,
that after death a person’s soul goes to a station on Venus,
where it is redirected,
perhaps to be reincarnated as another human,
and that their symbol with circles and diamonds
is carved into the ground in New Mexico
as a beacon for returning souls.
Neither dianetics nor scientology are sciences
because they lack empirical testing of claims.
We might never know inner secrets of scientology
because they are accessible to only their paying elite.

Mormonism

An ungenerous interpretation
of the life of Joseph Smith, con artist,
is that he successfully presented
a wild fantasy that he had written
as translated from golden plates (now unproducible)
with help from the angel Moroni (or maybe Nephi)
in order to justify his own polygamy.
Smith allowed people to lift the box
in which he said the golden plates were hidden,
but allowed only eight people to see them.
He “translated” their texts from “reformed Egyptian”
by gazing at his “peep” stone in the bottom of his hat.
Among the crazy things that Smith taught
is that the Garden of Eden was in Missouri
and the second coming of Jesus will be there,
that Satan owns the water of rivers, lakes, and seas
so Mormons are discouraged from enjoying these,
that the race of Cain became black-skinned
but when a black becomes Mormon he turns white,
that Jesus and the Archangel Michael created the universe
and Michael was actually the first man, known as Adam,
that there are three heavens—celestial, terrestrial, and telestial,
and how well you follow Mormon teachings
determines how close to the highest heaven you’ll get,
that God doesn’t live in heaven, per se,
but on a planet near the star Kolob,
that Mary wasn’t a virgin but had intercourse
with God who appeared in human form,
that God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit are separate creatures
having bodies of flesh and bone,
that the earth is 7000 years old, so dinosaur bones
are recycled from earlier planets,
and that native Americans are from Jaredites and Israelite tribes
who arrived less than 5000 years ago in boats.
Another set of golden plates were produced
and “translated” by James Strang
who led a somewhat successful schism from Smith’s group,
and a third set, the Kinderhook plates,
were produced by non-believers to discredit Smith,
though Smith didn’t fall for the hoax.

Animal magnetism

Franz Mesmer believed
all living things including carrots and beets
possessed an invisible natural force
that he called “magnetic fluid.”
Mesmer believed there was only one disease,
one disease with many symptoms,
and there was only one cure,
which rebalanced the flow of bodily humors,
and that was animal magnetism.
Mesmer convinced many
that he could transfer this fluid
from himself to his patient
after putting the patient into a trance
during which the patient
would cure himself or herself.
A follower of Mesmer reported
that the power of suggestion
brought about the trance state,
and that cures could be achieved
without the magnetic fluid,
merely by the power of suggestion.

Welteislehre

Hanns Hörbiger received an explanation
for the physics of the cosmos in a vision—
namely, that ice (that is, frozen water)
determined the development of everything
including planets and the Milky Way.
Our solar system was formed
from the explosion of a large star
when a dead waterlogged star fell into it,
resulting in giant blocks of ice
that influenced the development
of the moons and planets.

Catholic saints

Whoever thought saints would be appropriate
in a monotheistic religion?
How is sainthood different
from Roman emperors becoming gods after death?
Revering a shriveled finger reputed to be a saint’s
seems totally barbaric to me,
but in context of a church that accepts
stigmata reflecting the wounds of Christ,
apparitions of the Virgin Mary,
blood from wooden statues,
assertions of incorruptible corpses,
inadvertent levitations,
and miraculous healing from blessed water
maybe miracles wrought by the dead
are not so difficult to swallow.
Once you believe in miracles,
why not give dead people credit for them?