Leaving The Cult: An Interview With Therapist John Knapp
John M. Knapp, LMSW (pictured below), is a therapist who specializes in counseling those who are recovering from “cultic abuse”. Doug: A friend of mine forwarded me your website and I’m generally very skeptical of cult experts, but I was struck by the fact that you don’t seem to be promoting the idea, popular in […]
Marked as: Abnormal Sociology • Belief Systems — 1 comment (RSS)
Psilocybin
psilocybin, n. An alkaloid, found in several mushrooms native to Central America (esp. of the genus Psilocybe), which when ingested produces hallucinogenic effects similar to those of LSD but milder and more short-lived. Cf. magic mushroom n. at MAGIC adj. Special uses. Psilocybin is the dihydrogen phosphate ester of psilocin. Formula: C12H17N2O4P. 1958 A. HOFMANN […]
Marked as: Introspection — 5 comments (RSS)
Unintelligence: “Expelled” Reviewed
With the film’s website reporting widespread blog coverage – dubious as any of their data must be considered – and given the fact that that I’ve already written about it on this site – another entry regarding Ben Stein’s Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed might seem redundant and tiresome, if not needless, given that the film […]
The Empty Safe
As an amateur prestidigitator, I have always had the utmost respect for well-performed stage magic. In the Art of Magic, effect is of course everything. Sleight-of-hand is a practiced and elite skill, but I am equally impressed by the genius that has devised methods of producing illusions that are staggering in effect but simple in […]
Marked as: Belief Systems • Bunco — 3 comments (RSS)
Expulsion
I didn’t recognise her voice, nor did I recognise the number on my caller ID, but she said my name with such enthusiastic familiarity that I felt compelled to match her tone. Some of my friends have proven easily insulted by my occasional failures of immediate voice recognition, and who but a friend would be […]
Marked as: Abnormal Sociology • Belief Systems • Science • Societal Policies — 21 comments (RSS)
School For Rodents
“Innocence” is often merely a euphemism for gullibility, and it’s this quality that typically endears children to adults. Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, and Jesus all entered our tender, nascent minds without troublesome critical inquiries, so often the demon enemy of adult happiness. Liquor is often needed to bring the “magic” back, and in retrospect, […]
Marked as: Introspection — 2 comments (RSS)
Fluids of Strangers
The events of that debauched evening haunted my memory like some irrepressible Zapruder loop. I felt that I had to come clean. I composed an e-mail to avant industrial artist Otto Von Schirach, an innocent man who had fallen victim to the spiraling dysfunctional buffoonery of both The Drunken Murphy and myself:
Marked as: Introspection — 3 comments (RSS)
Mother’s Day
The small, thin, hard-bound edition is said to adorn the book shelves of such august luminaries as former president Jimmy Carter and C. Everett Koop. Reviewers gushed: “The probity of the author is unquestionable. The words ring from the pages with the bold, sonorous clarity of Truth. The adorable illustrations of cherubic, hydrocephalic bulbous-eyed waifs […]
Marked as: Societal Policies • Transhumanism — 1 comment (RSS)