By the Middles Ages it was a sin to have sex with a child. If an adult were guilty of such a sin, one remedy was to declare the child a witch. The child thus became an offender who "beguiled" the adult with the power of the Evil One. Understanding th...
In northwest Alaska, kunlangeta "might be applied to a man who, for example, repeatedly lies and cheats and steals things and does not go hunting, and, when the other men are out of the village, takes sexual advantage of many women." The Inuits tacit...
It was the discovery of the quantum universe that changed everything, and that universe was so small and so dynamic that it could not be observed directly. Trying to explain their insights, scientists looked at the language of mysticism. At the subat...
Theoretically, I wanted to meditate, but I found actually doing it extraordinarily difficult. As a therapist, I knew that we all want progress, but we resist change. I was a vivid example of this maxim. Figuring out my taxes and going to the dentist ...
I suppose that someday, suddenly, I will be transferred to another age, for example the chivalric or the bronze. The hope is, of course, that I arrive in period dress but not resemble a contemporary luminary, for I wish to simply onlook. But, more pr...
Despite the growing clinical and research interest in dissociative symptoms and disorders, it is also true that the substantial prevalence rates for dissociative disorders are still disproportional to the number of studies addressing these conditions...
The generation that followed did not have the same concerns; none of its members attempted to follow the example of the past generation. There was no longer anyone with the noble determination to get to know the great men of the world, or if there we...
There had always been a little wiggle room in state abortion laws, because doctors were still permitted to perform them for “therapeutic” reasons—to save a woman’s life, for example.7 But what did that mean, exactly? An amicus curiae brief in...
Now, I have always wanted to agree with Lady Bracknell that there is no earthly use for the upper and lower classes unless they set each other a good example. But I shouldn't pretend that the consensus itself was any of my concern. It was absurd and ...
All significant concepts of the modern theory of the state are secularized theological concepts not only because of their historical development - in which they were transferred from theology to the theory of the state, whereby, for example, the omni...
Some nonreligious people are disgruntled by the word "faith," feeling that it has no connection to them. But we all have faith. Broadly speaking, "faith" does not apply only to belief in the supernatural. We have faith in our life, for example, belie...
Everything was a metaphor; all things were something other than themselves. The pain, for example, was an ocean, and he was adrift on it. His body was a city and his mind a citadel. All communications between the two seemed to have been cut, but with...
long middle finger resembling a twig that it could use for probing for grubs. There is a telling example of convergent evolution when an unrelated species (the Long-Fingered Possum from Papua New Guinea) devised a similar strategy to address the same...
ALCOHOL HAS NO BIOLOGICAL CONNECTION TO ABUSE OR VIOLENCE Alcohol does not directly make people belligerent, aggressive, or violent. There is evidence that certain chemicals can cause violent behavior — anabolic steroids, for example, or crack coca...
Here's an example: someone says, "Master, please hand me the knife," and he hands them the knife, blade first. "Please give me the other end," he says. And the master replies, "What would you do with the other end?" This is answering an everyday matt...
Arab nationalism in its traditional form was the way in which secular Arab Christians like Edward had found and kept a place for themselves, while simultaneously avoiding the charge of being too 'Western.' It was very noticeable among the Palestinian...
I got a number of very thoughtful responses to the email I sent out last night, most of which I don’t have time to respond to right now. Thanks everyone for the encouragement, questions, criticism. Daniel’s response was particularly inspiring to ...
This philistinism of interpretation is more rife in literature than in any other art. For decades now, literary critics have understood it to be their task to translate the elements of the poem or play or novel or story into something else. Sometimes...
The Mind The mind is a hotel with a thousand rooms. When I tilt my head a certain way, I think about certain things. When I tilt my head another way, I think about other things. If I sleep on the right side of my face, for example, I’d dream of a p...
... the Chinese have become very good at coming up with puns, alternative words, and memes. For example, they talk about the battle between the grass-mud horse and the river crab. The grass-mud horse, caonima, is the phonogram for "mother-fucker" - w...
My friend Richard Carrion, the CEO of Puerto Rico’s top bank, once shared a line with me that I’ll never forget: “Robin, nothing fails like success.” Powerful thought. Your business is most vulnerable when it’s most successful. Success actu...
