A Pioneering Pop Psychologist

Joseph Jastrow (Wikimedia Commons)

Years ago I read somewhere about an eminent experimental psychologist who suffered a mental breakdown, endured years of depression, and abandoned the laboratory to instead help lay people apply the…

Read More

Hypnotism and Its Past

Actor Lumsden Hare as the scheming hypnotist in Svengali, a 1931 film adaptation of Trilby

[In earlier posts that you’ll find here and here, I’ve written about my fascination with hypnotism and my interviews and encounters with hypnotists of various types. In this post, I continue the series…

Read More

H.G. Wells Meets Josef Stalin

Josef Stalin

I recently read H.G. Wells’ novel The Invisible Man and came away impressed by the author’s artistry in entertainingly moving a story along while including a serious subplot about H.G. Wells the role…

Read More

Wilde in the Streets

Oscar Wilde, photographed in New York City in 1882. (U.S. Library of Congress)

Here I present an oldie — an article I wrote 25 years ago for Minneapolis-St. Paul Magazine. It was one of my first attempts to write about history and has always…

Read More

There’s Gold in That Medicine

gold

Gold has real medicinal value. It is used in implanted devices like pacemakers, and of course in dental work. Some people believe a controversial liquid suspension called colloidal gold may have…

Read More