Religion is NOT a mental illness

OK, a word of explanation. Lisa was doing a pharmacy paper on this subject, and I thought I’d do my version, using some of her notes and stuff. See what you think!

The argument that religious belief is a form of delusion is a common one. In psychiatric terms it is not correct; DSM IV clearly states that this, where delusions are stated not to include ‘articles of religious faith’. (American Psychiatric Association, 1994, p. 765)”

DSM IV does contain a new category of religious or spiritual problem –

“V62.89: This category can be used when the focus of clinical attention is a religious or spiritual problem. Examples include distressing experiences that involve loss or questioning of faith, problems associated with conversion to a new faith, or questioning of other spiritual values which may not necessarily be related to an organized church or religious institution. (American Psychiatric Association, 1994, p. 685)”

This was adopted for the fourth edition. It has proven controversial – but this refers to psychiatric problems related to religious belief, not religious belief in itself. Delusions can of course take on religious aspect, and some religious beliefs may be delusional, but a standard definition of delusion,

“A delusion is a false, unshakeable idea or belief, which is out of keeping with the patient’s educational, cultural and social background; it is held with extraordinary conviction and subjective certainty” (Sims 2003)

Cultural and social background clearly excludes most ‘mainstream’ religious beliefs. A woman who believes her cat is a deity may be delusional; a man who rips out the hearts of victims to offer them to the sun god is delusional, unless he happens to be an Aztec priest of a former era, in which case arguably the definition would endorse his beliefs. Religious belief in itself is clearly not a delusion. in psychiatric terms.

Are religious people, if not delusional, still psychotic? Some have argued that the religious are neurotic, and that religions roots lay deep in personality issues ( for example, (Freud, 1939)). Others have looked for neurological and organic problems, most famously Michael Persinger with his ‘God Helmet’ experiments. These however were not double blind, and when replicated without the subject knowing if the machine was running or not or the purpose of the experiment did not work, showing suggestion at the root of the claimed results. (Granqvist 2005)

At the heart of the discussion of whether those who believe in a God are psychotic must be whether that belief, theism, is a false belief. Richard Dawkins has become famous for asserting “there is no evidence for God”, (Dawkins, 2006) but the claim is clearly untrue – many people claim to have experienced gods, and there is much evidence offered. When challenged he asserts he means “there is no scientific evidence for God”. This however is equally problematic – the basis of all modern Science is methodological naturalism –

“It is an epistemological view that is specifically concerned with practical methods for acquiring knowledge, irrespective of one’s metaphysical or religious views. It requires that hypotheses be explained and tested only by reference to natural causes and events.” From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naturalism_(philosophy)

As such questions of God’s existence can not be admitted as scientific questions, and no scientific evidence can be offered. Also The Problem of Induction is settled in all modern Science by Hume’s assumption (see http://18th.eserver.org/hume-enquiry.html) of a universe governed by Natural Laws which are uniform and constant, which precludes direct Divine Intervention. If a God or Goddess exists it will be invisible to Science because of the axioms underlying all Science.

Science is not the only way of understanding however – the questions “how do I feel today?”, “what caused the First World War?”, and “does my mother love me?” are meaningful but not scientific. One can quite rationally argue a proof of a Creator using modern cosmology,  (see Davies 2006, Rees 2000)  or philosophical arguments. such as the Kalam Cosmological Argument  – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kalam_cosmological_argument

References

American Psychiatric Association (1994) Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fourth Edition, DSM IV. Washington: American Psychiatric Association.

Davies, P (2006) The Goldilocks Enigma, Allan Paul

Dawkins, R (2006) The God Delusion, London, Black Swan

Freud, S, (1939) Moses and Monotheism, London, Routledge.

Granqvist et al (2005) ‘Sensed presence and mystical experiences are predicted by suggestibility, not by the application of transcranial weak complex magnetic fields’ in Neuroscience Letters, 379(1), p.1-6

Persinger, MA (1983) ‘Religious and mystical experiences as artifacts of temporal lobe function: a general hypothesis. in  Journal of Perceptual and  Motor Skills. Vol 57( Pt 2):p. 1255-62.

Rees, M, (2000), Just Six Numbers : The Deep Forces That Shape the Universe, Phoenix

Sims A (2003) Symptoms in the Mind: An Introduction to Descriptive Psychopathology.3rd Edition,  Saunders.

The Myth of the Common Cold

I have a slight cold today; meanwhile poor Becky who should basking in the Balearic’s has a horrendous one. Of course her holiday is marred by constant rain anyway — but even so, sounds like she is pretty miserable. All around me people are catching dreadful colds, as the t -shirts of summer give way to the pullovers of autumnal England. The weather turns cold, and in the word of Bowie “you’ll sneeze and catch a  cold; cos you left your coat behind”, sentiments echoed by folk wisdom for centuries. Dress up warm in the cold, or you’ll catch cold. Yet intelligent sceptics know this is all rot – the common cold is caused by a virus, and nothing to do with weather. It’s all been debunked for years. But has it really? Or is this actually a myth?

Actually, I think it isa myth. I did a quick  search on evidence based medicine and statistical research, and found this

http://linkinghub.elsevier.com/retrieve/pii/S0954611108003429

So colds are associated with colder weather.

We need to think it through though – correlation is not necessarily evidence of causation (though it very often is!)

So–

1. The cold virus is likely to be dormant or less active in winter at sub-zero temperatures?
2. Yet people still get colds in winter, and cold weather does appear at the anecdotal level to be related to the common cold.

So why?

Well, what if we are constantly exposed to cold viruses in the environment? Then we might expect that given equal exposure, we would all be ill equally across the seasonal weather and temperature changes throughout the year.

Except: our immune systems might vary? We might be equally exposed, but more susceptible if the immune system was depressed. So could cold weather somehow depress our immune systems?

Cold virus from http://viraldiseases.wikispaces.com/

So does immune resistance vary with body temperature? Makes no sense, as our internal body temperature remains relatively static, and homeostasis is designed to allow an organism to adapt to prevailing conditions? However, what if variation in exposure to external temperature conditions leads to physiological shifts in the immune system? If so, going from a war environment to a very cold one or vice versa MIGHT actually depress our immune system resistance, even for only a few minutes — allowing a window for the cold virus to take effect in the host.  So it’s not the cold that causes us to catch colds, but sudden changes in temperature.

Logically then in an English winter going from a hot room to a freezing cold night could lead to an increase in cold infections by temporary immune system suppression, and as the virus despite the cold conditions that are less than optimum for replication is still present in the environment, colds increase. It would be exposure to rapidly varying temperatures rather than the cold itself which would lead to the illness.

An obvious objection: then we would expect to see more of all viruses in times when people pass from very warm environments so to very cold ones — but we may well do so, it is just that the highly infectious and environmentally prevalent common cold would appear more than say measles, allowing for the folk belief to arise from actual observations.

Of course this is probably rot — I know nothing worth knowing bout the subject, just speculating.  But if there was some actual enzyme or other change associated with the nose and eyes that might cause brief immune suppression during rapid temperature change as the body adjusts, that might well be the way that the common cold normally enters the body, and that might be worth investigating?

Anyway hope Becky is recovering and enjoying her holiday, and best wishes to everyone else cursed with a cold this week!

cj x

Derren Brown and the ethics of conjuring!

Interesting discussion on the JREF today. One poster complained that Derren Brown as was “bad as Uri Geller” – not sure how bad that is meant to be! -after he talked nonsense about how he did the Lottery trick that intrigued the nation, rather than revealing how he did it. ( I think I know how he did it, but I’m not saying!)   Anyway, I don’t believe a word Derren Brown offers as explanation in his book or in his TV shows for how he does his tricks. BUT I’m not sure that is a bad thing. He is an entertainer. He entertains.
His book is a cracking read, and I recommend it, but I would not take it too seriously!
I was down the pub Thursday  night, and I  made a shot glass pass through the solid table while people watched. (OK it was under a napkin at the time it dematerialized, but everyone will tell you it happened.) I was asked how I did it, so I whittered about Planck, atomic structures, poltergeist effects and materialization mediumship, and repeated the trick twice more while they watched. I di it again at the Two Pigs on Saturday, unfortunately knocking over my drink all over myself and soaking my friends in the process.

Yes it was a trick. Of course it was a trick. Everyone knew it was a trick, Everyone knew my patter on how I did it was complete nonsense. But it was fun.

And I never did reveal the secret. Am I bad a person for this? If anyone had started to embrace a paranormal belief system on the strength of my conjuring trick I would have immediately said “hey, this is how I did it.” (The trick is more Tommy Cooper than David Cooperfield, so no one was really going to be seriously impressed!)  As it was I told those who asked where they could buy a book where they could learn many much better tricks. But was my fake parapsi patter (and being actively involved in parapsychology I like to think I do it well) really immoral? Do I not have a responsibility to protect the intellectual property of the designers of magic tricks?

I sypathise with those annoyed with Deren Brown, because he said he would reveal how he did it, and he did not,  but I can’t believe anyone would take Brown’s ‘explanations’ remotely seriously?

cj x

UK Sceptics Newsletter

Hey chaps and chapesses, I have been meaning to share this for a while. The excellent UK Sceptics, whose forum is linked if you look on this blog have released a pdf newsletter which deserves a wider readership. You can download it here –

http://ukskeptics.com/newsletters/2009-1.pdf

It really is sound stuff- like me thy are methodological sceptics, not a priori sceptics. Briefly a methodological scepotic employs sceptisim and questioning as a way of answerin qustions, of investigating an issue – but does not presuppose an outcome to the enquiry. An a priori sceptic knows that certain things are bunk, and sets out to prove this, and reinforce their existing views.  Anyway the level of scholarship and the excellent common sense bodes well for the UK — so do have a look, and even if you are a “believer” in some religion or phenomena – we all are after all believers in some things, only if the claim the sun will rise tomorrow! – don’t be put off by the word sceptic. Have a look!

There are also details on the forthcoming Muncaster Conference, mentioned previously on this blog and my Facebook.

cj x

Skeptics – Help Stop CJ23.com!

I was just thinking: we have Robert Lancaster’s excellent Stop Sylvia site, which I think is an excellent cause, and now we have other similar sites dedicated to stopping prominent woo’s.

I originally intended on the morning of April 1st to open www.stop-cj23.com but sadly the domain registration would have taken too long and cost money. And I don’t have any money (more of which in a moment!)

It is not for me to boost his ego by pointing out what an-arch proponent of woo the poster known as CJ.23, Jerome, Chris Jensen Romer or in his purple phase “undecipherable squiggle symbol” is. Let us just say that he is well known to hang out in all the places the usual suspects can be found – parapsychology, ghosthunting, paranormal TV, history and philosophy of science, Science Festivals, occult convocations, General Synods and on Rainy Days and Mondays the Dawkins and JREF forums.

And what does he do? He peddles woo. What woo? All sort of woo. Who do? you do – er no, I think that is heading in to a Bowie lyric. Anyway, he often acts as a religious apologist on this very forum, peddling the most disturbing (and researched) claims about factual distortions, misapplied logic and pseudohistory, and is on record as disputing almost everything from “there is no evidence to God” to “theism is irrational” to even “extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.” On one occasion he sank a slow as to agree with Larsen.

Given his history of involvement with both mainstream parapsychology, paranormal TV from Discovery’s Ghosthunters (not the silly US plumbing one. ) to Most Haunted and Most Haunted Live, and his interminable use of bandwidth arguing pedantically about silly pointless things, I think CJ must be stopped. Worst of all he is An Anglican, a particularly virulent breed of literalist Creationist monstrosity, who make “sinners in the hands of an Angry God” look mild with their famous “cake or death” mantra.

So I have decided to end his reign of woo, and get rid of him. How? It’s simple. CJ is broke, having gone to the Edinburgh Science Festival (Saturday precursor events excellent) and then with an SPR Study Day, and investigation in a Castle and then the Cheltenham Science Festival in the next few weeks. He is tremendously broke. He needs money, and fast! So how can he get it?

Well, I will set up www.stop-CJ23.com and solicit donations from the sceptical community of course! (I’ll also advertise both sceptical books, and even woo books on Nazareth not existing if I can make a few tax free quid out of it. Do you believe in UFOs, astral projection, ESP, clairvoyance, spirit photography, telekinetic movement, full-trance, mediums, the Loch Ness monster and the city of Atlantis? If there’s a steady paycheck in it… I’ll believe anything you say” to quote Ghostbusters.)

So rather than supporting the excellent StopSylvia, please, think for a moment. Would you not prefer to stop cj.23? Pretty please? Just a few donations, and I promise he will head off to a series of conferences and eventually Barbados or similar, and you will never be troubled by him again. So I plead of you – help STOP CJ.23!

cj x

The Medium and the Massage: a ghost story…

A short post till the hour comes round for this rough beast to slouch to TESCO, being bored…

I trouble not myself about the manner of future existence. I content myself with believing, even to positive conviction, that the power that gave me existence is able to continue it, in any form and manner he pleases, either with or without this body; and it appears more probable to me that I shall continue to exist hereafter than that I should have had existence, as I now have, before that existence began.
Thomas Paine –The Age of Reason

Oddly enough, despite a dramatic “ghost” experience in 1987, I did not immediately come to consider seriously the afterlife hypothesis. After all one might come up with many explanations of “ghosts” which do not require the human to persist in some sense beyond death, and for many years I did (and still do in they majority of cases I think) favour those. I am as noted personally disinclined to consider the survival (life after death) hypothesis – it strikes me as deeply counter-intuitive.

Anyway the summer of 1993 saw me reasonably well versed in parapsychology, and how to investigate a “haunting”. That summer I was contacted by a gentleman who owned a small hotel, and who stated his family who lived there had been troubled by a series of ghostly happenings – could we do something about it? Immediately we have a problem – I want to investigate ghosts, but people who call me usually wanted to get rid of them! I am a researcher, not an exorcist, no not even a ghostbuster! Fortunately a few months earlier we had also met a psychic claimant, Morven, who asked to be tested to see if her mediumship was genuine, or self delusion, or something else!

Morven was a lovely middle aged woman from Ireland who had been in the area for about two or three years.  We agreed to the test, and with our “haunt” some thirty plus miles away in another town, felt it unlikely she could have foreknowledge of the case.  As by profession I am a researcher, I conducted newspaper archive and book searches for material on the locations “haunting”, and established that no stories had been published for almost twenty years, but that there was a legend of a maidservant who hanged herself in one room after she found herself pregnant and her lover went off to the English Civil War, never to return. This necessitated that we go to elaborate lengths to prevent the medium gaining knowledge of her location.

We therefore placed cotton wool over her eyes, and taped it in location. We then placed a sleeping mask on top, before employing a full head bag of total opacity, secured at the neck to prevent peeping.  We placed a walkman with loud music on, and drover her out of town by a circuitous route, doubling the 30 mile trip. I did not reveal the location to my team until minutes before we set off, when one sceptic went ahead to make sure any obvious items in the five hotel rooms we planned to use for the experiment were removed, and the curtains secured to prevent any glimpse of the sky line or other external identifying features.

The haunted Old Bell; Camera flash on wardrobe not an "orb"!

On arrival the medium, now thoroughly car sick and gagging was taken as quickly as possible in to one room, and the hood removed. Our research ethics were awful! She however soon perked up, and identified one room as the haunt location.  Now this was correct, though if she had gone by the published accounts she would have been wrong – the rooms had been renumbered ten years before as I had previously established. Still she had a 20% chance of that!

She then reported a strangling sensation, and said a woman about 5′10” tall had hanged herself in the room. Fine, but rather tall we thought, and hardly unlikely given the age of the building! Furthermore she described turn of the century dress – 300 years out from the accounts we had! A radio team present taped (and broadcast next day) her “reading” – and the highpoint was the suggestion of unhappiness (do happy people hang themselves?!!),too much  booze and a name. She gives the name as follows – “Amy – no, Emmy. The surname is almost the same. Yes, it’s something like Emmy Emily”. She offered NO other names, and a few minutes later we had to open the window to giver her air, calling the experiment off..

I (rather gleefully I am afraid) told her she was completely wrong.

She wasn’t.

A week passed, and an interested local historian, Lionel Ayliffe, checked out the local coroners records – to find the only suicide recorded in the building happened in 1904, a lady named Amy Amery who was a servant who hanged herself after being dismissed for being a drunk.  This material had not been published as far as I can ascertain since the tragedy in 1904 when it had appeared in a local newspaper.

Reputedly haunted corridor at the Old Bell - naked CJ pics next time!

I am still disinclined to the mediumistic hypothesis by nature, but following this apparent success I decided to experiment further. The medium made a number of correct statements, and one possibly  incorrect – that the body was buried in the church opposite, something we could not ascertain. It was no more than a spark, but it got me interested. I claim no real evidence here – coincidence perhaps? – but it led me to at least investigate the survival hypothesis.

Psychic News article on the incident

Annoyingly, the tapes are lost. There is an account in The Psi-pher, the CPRG magazine, written close to the time – that is filed with the SPR, and in the British Library, but I don’t have a copy.  I will try at some future date to find the newspaper articles from the local press at the time. The “hit” was impressive – and I am tempted to speculate on how Morven could have gained access to the information, by various natural and “paranormal” hypotheses.  For the moment however, I’ll reflect more on the whole issue of mediumship…

Morven is no longer with us. I worked with her till 1995, when she became clearly unwell, and she died of breast cancer, refusing all but palliative care, brave and cheerful to the end. Her absolute conviction death was not the end was demonstrated int he immense courage with which she refused treatment. She left a wonderful son and daughter, two lovely people, and my memories of her are all fond. She died far too young, and I was angry about it, and I must say blamed her belief system to a small extent, however irrationally. Fear of death does make you fight harder maybe? Still Morven, I hope you are happy somewhere and giggling at me writing this… I’ll write more on Morven another time, in tribute to her memory.

Morven “did feet”. She was  reflexologist I think, and she insisted on doing this to my feet, free of charge. It was ok I guess, I did not really think it would have much effect, but it was soothing I think, depite my cynical jokes throughout the session. I really hope I did not offend her, now at least! I can be, like Clovis, terribly frank.  One night after the session she offered to try and get in touch with the Other Side for me, and despite my utter religious and moral rejection of necromancy and mediumship, I said, “well if anyone has a message I’ll gladly hear it.”  Eventually she did give me a message, and with some heavy prompting by me, she finally gave me one part of a message I had expected from my grandmother. If she had then given the second part, I would have been convinced – as it was, I’m afraid I was not.  There was nothing evidential to me in the message: to this day, no one has ever given me the two things i would expect to hear from her.

Why do I have problems with mediumship? Partly, it is to do with the dignity of the dead. I dislike treating the dead as performing seals.Here are the wise words of Stan from South Park –

You see, I learned something today. At first I thought you were all stupid, listening to this douche’s advice, but now I understand that you’re all here because you’re scared. You’re scared of death and he offers you some kind of understanding. You all want to believe in it so much, I know you do. You find comfort in the thought that your loved ones are floating around trying to talk to you, but thnk about it: Is that really what you want? To just be floating around after you die, having to talk to this asshole?

Now obviously I do not feel this way about Morven. She was a truly lovely, talented human being, who felt she had a special gift. Yet, in most cases in my experience, given enough time mediums do suffer in their own lives. The Fox Sisters succumbed to alcoholism I have met some lovely mediums, like my dear friend, Natalie, but I have also met some who I could honestly categorise as douches. Except possibly a douche has some valid medical usage – I don’t know… Yet to me, dabbling with the dead does not seem to generally result in much good. Ironic words for a fervent investigator of mediumship and spontaneous cases? Well, look at it this way – I use the bus analogy.

Imagine you are on a bus, and a stranger tells you to end your marriage. They inform you they are your long lost uncle, know all about your life, and while they really just tell you a lot of platitudes, with maybe a couple of verifiable facts, they insist they are telling you the best, for your own good. Would you take that advice? I have a frind who told me she was given up on her plans to study Classics at postgraduate level, because the board had advised her.  The university board? A board of classicists? I was puzzled. No, it turned out the board she was taking advice from was – a ouija board! To me this is tantamount to insanity. Sure, I’m probably really offending vast swathes of the readers of this blog – well a couple of you, as amazingly fifty people a day do read this, why I have no idea – anyway, I can only say it as I see it.

Now, what is the difference between listening to a medium, or supposedly a “disincarnate, disembodied spirit” and the guy on the bus who says he is your uncle? Some Christians believe they have the gift of discernment of spirits – I sure as hell don’t – but I can judge things by their fruits, and i have never been persuaded That much good cvomes of taking advice from the “dead”. My problem – are they always the dead? Pretty much every culture has a tradition of daimonic spirits, demons, evil spirits, angels, call them what you will- non-human intelligences.  Many mediums talk to me about “lower astral entities”, who impersonate the dead. So really dudes, I’m a bit wary. In fact I’m more than a bit wary – I’m positively opposed to listening to the “dead”, and making life choices on that basis. Sure my religious thinking probably results in prejudices, but if these things exist – how do we know they are what they say they are???

So do I believe in life after death? As a matte rof religious faith, yes. “Everything is NOT pointless” is CJ’s mantra, and I’m a colossal optimist – where Louie and I differ sharply.  But evidentially? Again, a guarded “yes”.

What really made me decide to favour it was the JSPR papers of Robertson and Roy on their PRISM research. These experiments examine the common (and on the face of it reasonable) sceptical claim that the statements given by mediums which purport to come from deceased communicators are so vague and general as to apply to anyone, and secondly that “cold reading” (which is possible, I can do it myself) whether conscious or unconscious accounts for any successes. Now as communication theorists generally agree that over 50% of communication is non-verbal, and that latter is demonstrable (even by me) to be possible, then immediately we need to devise quite a complex protocol for testing a medium.

What Roy and Robertson did was to design a simple procedure, by which a mediums statements to an individual in an audience were recorded. They then asked people not present how many of the statements they could accept, and found a incredibly high difference between the two sets of results. It was statistically demonstrable that chance could not account for the difference. The probability was less than 1 in 10,000 million the results were due to chance. Somehow the mediums were making statements which were NOT generally applicable, though about 30% of statements were vague enough to be taken as true by the average person. However over a large sample the statistics speak for themselves — somehow the medium was receiving information, or the recipient was far more likely to accept statements than the later research pool of a similar demographic “marking” the statements.

Now I’m sure that would not surprise anyone at all. After all the medium can SEE the audience member,and receive feedback. I’m sure we are all familiar with Cold Reading, and Hot Reading (deliberate research and preparation) remains a possibility. Therefore I am not especially surprised that the experiment gave the results it did…

However Robertson and Roy did not stop there. They published their protocol, in their second journal article, and deliberately sort out critical and sceptical evaluation. The protocol was tightened to a triple blind experiment, where the medium was not able to see the audience, and the audience did not know who was the recipient, and the two experimenters did not share this information two and a half years they conducted trials with this basic protocol and six different variations. And their conclusion? The statistical evaluation clearly showed that somehow the mediums were “hitting” far beyond probability, and that the chance could not be responsible. Some other factor is involved – what it is we do not know.

Sure that does not mean all “mediums” can do this. Most are doubtless deluded, charlatans or simply mistaken. The selected mediums studied however, chosen for their integrity and seeming ability were somehow obtaining information without any obvious sensory cues, in triple blind experimental conditions. That in no way proves afterlife – I can think of several other possibilities – but it was equally clear that cold reading was not responsible, and that in fact 60%+ of statements made were far too specific to be accepted by an audience, regardless of the common assertion that is exactly what is happening.

So at the moment, I accept the theoretical possibility of life after death and even mediumistic communication – but I’m not a huge fan of talking to the dead.

Anyway time for Tesco! If anyone actually read this far do comment, and I admre your patience with my dull uninteresting nonsense.

cj x

Pigs might fly: facing a flu pandemic

It all sounds really scary doesn’t it? A flu pandemic, spreading out from Mexico. Even The (Gloucester) Citizen ran a headline story yesterday – two people in quarantine at home. OK, I was surprised when it turned out to be Tony and Kandia of Inkubbus Sukkubus – I had no idea they were gigging in Mexico City, way to go guys! (they are a rather fun local pagan rock band and decent folks) — but I’m more interested than frightened at the moment. Yes that’s right, CJ, Captain Paranoid about Epidemics, is not remotely bothered. Why?

Well the 1968 and 1957 pandemics were before I was born – and hell, I’m pretty certain that to a global economy in trouble, yep, this is seriously bad news. I note the failure to close borders and ban international flights – I agree it would be too late now, shutting the stable door after the horse has bolted, and in todays world such isolation would be difficult and I hate to imagine the economic consequences.   But while flu pandemic are outside of my life experience, my grandmother Alice lived through all three of the twentieth centuries great flu pandemics, and my parents two of them.

So how bad is it?  Well, lets start with worst case scenario.  Wiki reminds us of a very sobering fact

As many as 25 million may have been killed in the first 25 weeks; in contrast, HIV/AIDS has killed 25 million in its first 25 years.

Ouch! Yep, up to 5% of the global population may have died in the 1917-1920 pandemic (usually referred to as 1918 flu as I recall. )  A new book came out on it just a few weeks ago — I doubt the author is jubilant, but sales will be GREAT! – not read that one yet, but I have Barry’s The Great Influenza and my favourite book on the subject, Gina Kolata’s wonderful book Flu on my shelves.  Why my interest?

Remember I said my grandmother lived through all three pandemics? She was 18 when it struck Bury St Edmunds, in the final weeks of the Great War. Hardwick Heath had a German prisoner of war camp, and I get the impression Alice really liked the handsome young Germans there, and many of the girls were  “walking out” with these fine young men.  Not exactly patriotic, but I think they worked on local farms and businesses, and security seems to have been pretty lax, and hey romance can bloom in adversity. Then in October or November of 1918, the camp was struck by tragedy. The men, kept in close proximity, contracted the flu, and day after day she reports seeing the coffins of these young, virile men, certainly strong and fit, survivors of trench warfare, as they were taken off for burial. And I recall Alice, then in her late eighties, shedding a silent tear and her voice cracking with emotion as she told me about it.  It was the soldiers she said, German and British alike, who died. That and the kids, and the farm girls – the young and the fit…

Hang on? The young and the fit? WTF? Even as a teenager I knew better — infants, the elderly, the asthmatic and those ill, they should hav died. Why “the young and the fit?” What the hell? I assumed Alice was wrong, and then I thought of a solution. 1918 flu hit at a time when NAval Blockade, U boat warfare, and the terrible experience of trench warfare had rendered the population ill equipped. Millions of mern in close proximity on the Western Front, in appalling conditions.   Of coure now I know a little better. In fact in terms of public health rationing during the 1950’s actually saw Britian’s population at a fitness peak.  I have no idea about the Great War, but it may be similar. And trench warfare, well our understanding of it is deeply flawed, and permaeated with myths. (Mud, Blood & Poppycock is an excellent recent history examining this whole issue of the myths of the Great War. Recommended) So why the young and the fit?

Now of course I had already noted that very fit people can succumb to pneumonia very fast, and there are plenty of theories. Also, one thing that is absolutely clear to me is that depending upon genetic resistance various populations have varying degrees of susceptibility. It could be that outside of the Mexican population this will not prove too virulent – there may be a genetic factor. You can look up genetic variance and casualty rates for the earlier pandemics easily enough the wikipedia link above on Flu pandemics will get you started.  A disaese with a 4% fatality rate would be absolutely terrifying – but I think we may be looking at 0.0001% – but who knows, it’s not like we have any accurate figures yet. Any deaths is a tragedy – but huge casualty figures probably will require vast numbers of infections, and most people will get better. It’s nothing like the Ryanair’s CEO Michael O’Leary incredibly panglossian, tactless and blackly comic comment about “ a couple of strepsils” being all that is required to solve the problem – hell I do hope he has put his money where his mouth is and gone on holiday to Mexico City to test this first hand -  but he has a pretty good point. If the disease is effecting mainly malnourished people in the slums, and that is where the casualties are, well we might expect that. Unfortunately well nourished and rather well heeled western tourists are succumbing, and one wonders…

This looks a lot like 1918 flu to me. Sorry, it just does. I’m sure it’s not the same virus – we have live cultures I think in America at Fort Derrick, USAMRIID or the CDC have them, excavated from bodies buried in the Arctic permafrost from that outbreak. Pathogenic Archeology – I’m not sure if this is a triumph or just damned scary, but if it was 1918 back I’m thinking we might already have a vaccine – dunno.  If instead it’s actually a new mutation, from the incredibly mild in humans Swine Fever, well then six months to vaccine I expect ( I should probably have read the news reports before starting this piece, but what reporting I have seen does not actually fill me with confidence in the accuracy thereof. ) So am I an apostle of doom?

Nah, not a chance. Got tickets to see Girls Aloud at the O2 and want to avoid the risk of crowds? Give ‘em to me. I’m not a huge fan but free concert tickets are not to be sneezed at. To be honest if there was an Inkubus Sukkubus gig tonight I’d not be worried about attending, even knowing the risk. Of course I wouldn’t – no one wants to make their friends and families ill, and I stay away from Andy’s house if I have a cold, rather than infect Mel and Bel. However, I’m not afraid of swine flu. James Blunt – he scares me.

So why has “Captain Doom” got all cheerful about this threat? Because at the moment i don’t see much of one. Remember the Bird Flu threat? Yes, it was real, and yes, it was scary, and we got lucky – it never spread to this stage, human to human contact. We could be facing the End of the World as we know it, but I feel fine, and i don’t think we are. Why? Because the Bird Flu threat made us prepare, and prepare well. Millions of doses of anti-virals, and if pneumonia develops, millions of doses of antibiotics – things the world in 1918 just did not have.  I’ve had pneumonia, and I’ve had pleurisy, and I’m still here – whereas in the 1930’s my fthers beloved sister Dolly died of pleurisy, in an age before modern medicine cvould combat the infections.

We understand the importance of infection control, we have major medical advances, and there is no comparison. We are far better prepared than even forty years ago when the last pandemic struck. Don’t worry, be happy…

I’m about to walk down to TESCO, under the railway arch at the bottom of the High Street, and another sobering thought. Few people know that back in the early twentieth century one of Cheltenhams five railway stations was here, and you can still see the bricked up arches.  Anyone know it’s history? It closed in the Great War, and never reopened, but in 1918 its empty corridors, now demolished, and waiting rooms and platforms were a temporary morgue for the victims of the flu. There were too many bodies for the morgue, and this was where masked men and women laid out the dead. I think of that every night when I walk through, and mutter a prayer for the dead.  I never forget the spectre of the past, and I’m a lot more aware of the 1918 pandemic than most people i think – but with that knowledge comes confidence.  I think we be just fine…

If that is not gloomy enough, I’m going to end on a note of real caution, and perhaps strike one alarmist note. You know I said the epidemic of 1918 was really 1917-1920? It actually (off the top of my head) began in the summer of 1917, on the Western Front (exactly where it started, China or Kansas, and if a pig flu or avian flu is heavily disputed by historians and medical experts).  The epidemic becomes established in Spain, and in France, and in Germany. And to start with its just a mild flu – a first wave that kills very few, but may have actually inoculated those who had it against the horror to come. Because in October/November 1918 the flu came in a second wave, and it was the grim Reaper we all know of.  IF, and I have no understanding of the pathology, this was to happen again, we could be in serious trouble. There is no room for complacency – and stopping the flu now, and obeying any medical directives is vital -  but unless a second wave of deadly virulence does appear, for goodness sake don’t we all have enough to worry about without scaring ourselves with media panic about flu? This gloomy prediction of a second wave is CJ talking as a historian, not with any medical authority or knowledge.

My thoughts and prayers are with the people of Mexico City, and I hope an international effort helps them too. And I hope I’m right, and this is nothing to worry about because the second wave theory explains the thing that puzzled me – why the young and the fit? Because the elderly and infirm had already caught the milder sumer 1917 version before it mutated and gained resistance? No idea.

Hey, it’s Beltane today- let’s think of happier things — who can extend their life by a single hour by worrying as the Jewish carpenter said in Galilee on that hill all those years ago.

Have fun guys, and keep well!

cj x

Cycling in Cheltenham

Well it’s been a few more days, and owing to some work which has required my close attention I have not written much for the blog. Oh and I have been playing Bejeweled Blitz on Facebook… Er, yes, um…  OK, I’m a simple man — I deserve simple pleasures.

Also in an attempt to prevent myself from becoming a walrus, I have been out cycling. I only did six miles today, seven on Sunday, nine on Monday, and about four or five I think yesterday. It’s getting easier the more I do, which suggest to me I am slowly a) getting fitter b) learning the Highway Code – I look at it occasionally when I’m on the pc, as I grew up on a farm and most of what I know about how to drive in urban situations I learned from playing Grand Theft Auto — so my cycling does feature a series of Unique Jumps, careering through pedestrians with murderous intent, and drive-bys – only joking! — and c) increased confidence.

And for the majority of my readers who live nowhere near Cheltenham, my apologies. Most of this might actually apply locally to you too, and i’d be interested to hear so do comment as always…

Well I have learned a few really surprising things. Here are my

Top Ten facts about the wonderful world of bicycles in Cheltenham

1. Car drivers are NOT arseholes. Most are very friendly and look positively worried at the prospect of my ungainly bulk meeting their head through their windscreen.  Some are so cautious it unnerves me. For the really timid, wide loads, and when it is clear I’m impeding traffic I pull over and let them pass me with a cheery wave. They really seem to appreciate this simple courtesy – after all it costs me seconds and stops them being stuck behind me as my fat arse wobbles across their view of the road. Everyone wins?

2. Car drivers do NOT try to kill you. With the exception of drivers of Range Rovers, who zoom past scaring you senseless, most car drivers and indeed van and lorry drivers are quite content to let you go unmolested so long as you don’t get in their way. Blonde-thirty something women in sports cars seem to wave and smile a lot if you let them out of a turning or pull in on a narrow road (odd breed – maybe it’s the same women I have met three times now?) and most car drivers really don’t have any malevolent intent unless you pull out in front of them (I don’t) or cut them up. (ditto…)

3. You do not need a death wish to cycle. I really was nervous to start with, as everyone kept telling me that cyclists die horribly all the time. I expect the statistics for fatalities and horrible maiming is higher than that of car drivers, but unless like me you actually do want to live forever, well what is worrying you? Seriously, I have not really felt in danger yet, despite making the odd mistake myself.   This is the single greatest thing I am told by people who look at me in mild bewilderment when I say I have started cycling. I have no idea when everybody turned in to such utter wusses that the possibility of  a little death before sunset dismayed them too much to do something??? Lord help us all!

EDIT: Axel in his comment gave this excellent website on some of the myths of the danger of cycling. It is so good I have added it here to make sure people see it. I keep hearing from people “but you will get squished by a lorry” – well maybe; but as I pointed out in my first blog piece, I am far more likely to die of obesity related illness or heart problems if i don’t stay in shape.  Thirty minutes a day equals about 5 miles in these parts (a lot of hills). Anyway I am convinced that cycling is much safer than people realize, and hope this comes across.

4. Wherever you are in Cheltenham you are never far from a cycle path. I was amazed – they are everywhere. All the major arterial roads seem to have them, and I’ll be riding along and suddenly spot a cycle path and slip on to that instead.  There are annoying 100 yard bits between them, and if any child or nervous type rides on the pavement between them I certainly won’t blame them (Just beyond Macdonalds on Tewkesbury Road heading down towards Swindon Village is one – cycle path vanished for maybe 200yds, then reappears on opposite side of the road and reappears at Tile City or whatever it’s called… Another example is the Railway Station — the Honeybourne Cycle Path is nice and level and incredibly gradual so the worst bits of living in a town in a valley, well bowl shaped depression are mitigated – but you get to the Railway Station and hey – where now? Lansdown Rd has a good cycle path, yet to explore that though!

There is also an amazing map of the cycle routes, which is free from Tourist Information, some cuycle shops or uni campus receptions, and I note with trepidation that I venture on an “experienced cyclists only” road whenever I leave my street, albeit rather cautiously and for a couple of hundred yards. This looks  fantastic, I need to get one!

5.  Some people really cycle commute all over Glos, and they are still alive. I have met people who commute to Gloucester, Brockworth, Innsworth and Tewkesbury. Not met them on the road I hasten to add – cyclists never seem to pay any attention to another cyclist, and if there is a secret cyclist handshake that allows you in to the inner circle I’m not initiated yet. Or you get people like my friend Little Paul, who does twenty mile cycle excursions for fun, and recently rode home in the dark after buying a bargain at a closing car boot sale – a crowbar. So he rides home with this crowbar balanced across his handlebars (and a guitar on his back) and while passing police look at him curiously none stop him to ask the obvious questions, till he gets right home and dismounts!

6. There is an inner circle – well a cycling group! I realized there had to be one once I noted that a) Cheltenham supports two bike shops within two minutes ride of my house, and may have more I have not noticed yet, and b) there are cycle paths everywhere. So I guessed there must be a pressure group — and here it is – Cheltenham & Tewkesbury Cycle Campaign and for University of Gloucestershire staff and students the Uni. Glos Bicycyle Users Group.

7. More people are cycling locally. The period 2002 to 2008 saw a 25% increase on bicycle traffic on Cheltenham’s roads. Hopefully this will continue to increase, and we will see less and less of the cyclists on pavements!

More people are cycling!

8. Did I mention people cycling on pavements? Don’t do it, unless you are under thirteen and the road is full of HGV’s or something. Well, maybe, if its up and down outside your house, but seriously, toddlers and dogs can easily be killed by people on bikes being inconsiderate, and really even on designated cycle paths like the Honeybourne you have to be cautious – other people use the path as well.  Toddlers in particular seem utterly unpredictable, and I know slow to a crawl if they are running about. Ditto dogs.  And as to the number of times I have nearly been knocked flying, or have been injured by morons riding full pelt down the High Street on the pavement, well next time I take out my wrath on them, and push them under a bus. Then I will kill their family, unto the third generation, burn down their houses and sing comic songs on the ruins.- and my singing voice is not something you want to inflict on your mourners, if any. You got that?

There are times when pulling on to the pavement is necessitated by road conditions, and the urge not to be killed.  If other people are on the pavement, do what I do – dismount, and push your machine. It may save your life, should you meet me, and that of your immediate kinfolk. More importantly it may prevent pedestrians thinking all cyclists are arses, and glaring at me when I ride down the Pittville Park cycle path.

8.  Ah yes, people who vandalize bikes. It has been brought to my attention that my policy of hanging people who vandalize bikes while drunk is considered by some barbaric.   I pointed out that lots of people wanted to bring back hanging, and the retort “not publicly”  was given. It’s a fair cop guv’nor. I suggest instead we adopt road side crucifixions. There, satisfied? Seriously, you probably need to lock your bike, and not leave it anywhere where students might wander after the pubs shut. Or kill all drunk students –your choice, but I’d roast them well before consumption as you don’t know what they have caught…

9. There are huge bits of Cheltenham I have never seen, despite living here for two decades plus. I found a railway tunnel (blocked up) on an abandoned branch line north of town, a fine modern church – St. Nicholas, Swindon Village, and a huge sex shop. Er, quite. And no idea, did not go in! (it’s at the very top of Swindon Rd, go straight on instead of turning right to Swindon Village.)

10. I may even  get fit. Who knows? But I’m, having fun!

Education, Atheism – are they the enemies of Reason?

“The majority of Britons believe in heaven and life after death, new research suggests.” The BBC News story here is well worth reading, and shows some interesting things. Firstly we are a lot less sceptical about New Age ideas and certain fringe practices like astrology and tarot cards than we used to be – what Randi’s people categorize as “woo”.  However we are more sceptical about certain aspects of the supernatural than a decade ago in 1998 – in short popular belief in the supernatural is constantly waxing and waning; I think I could have told you that. The popular culture of the 1970’s was far more sympathetic to parapsychology say than the 90’s were – and yet the 2000’s saw a sudden interest in Spiritualism connected with certain TV shows.

I have a rather heretical thought about ‘paranormal’ beliefs, and their relationship to atheism. I originally posed a question on Professor Dawkins forum as it was inspired by his show The Enemies of Reason. I am sure the Professor has better things to do than answer my questions though, (and he didn’t) and so I have revised it and asked it here.

I had been reading The Whys of a Philosophical Scrivener (1983) by noted mathematician, science writer and skeptic Martin Gardner. In 1976 Martin Gardner was a founder member of CSI(COP), which has done a great deal over the years in debunking paranormal claims and fighting the rise of superstition. Many readers of this blog may have his enjoyed his Fads & Fallacies In the Name of Science.

In Chapter 3 of  The Whys of a Philosophical Scrivener  – “Why I am not a Paranormalist” – Gardner mounts a blistering attack on superstition. It contains many of the themes touched in Dawkin’s The Enemies of Reason, and one curious disagreement.

Martin Gardner, 1983 wrote:

As always with such manias, causes are multiple: the decline of traditional religious beliefs among the better educated, the resurgence of Protestant Fundamentalism, disenchantment with science for creating a technology that is damaging the environment and building horrendous war weapons, increasingly poor quality of science instruction on all levels of schooling, and many other factors…

I found that first bit fascinating. Now Gardner is not Fundamentalist obviously, he is not a Christian, though he is a Fideist rejecting all special revelation, but remaining a theist. Like most scholars he sees Fundamentalism as arising recently (within the last century pretty much) and a bad thing– but he regards the “decline of traditional religious beliefs among the better educated” as a key factor in the rise of pseudo-science, cults and superstition?

It in no way justifies religious belief, but it is very interesting as a claim. OK, so I doubted. Gardner is a theist – he must be biased. What are his sources? Luckily he references them. It is the article Superstitions Old and New by William Sims Bainbridge and Rodney Stark in The Skeptical Inquirer, Volume 4, Summer 1980. 

Gardner says  they

…reported on their surveys of how beliefs in certain aspects of the current occult mania correlated with religious faith. They found people with no professed religion were the most inclined to believe in ESP and extraterrestrial UFOs. Paranormal cults were strongest in areas where the traditional churches were weakest.

Never trusting anyone’s opinions I have just been through the Sheep/Goat tests from my 1993 Paranormal Beliefs Survey of attendees at a lecture series in Cheltenham. The test used by the group was an early Sheep/Goat test which measured some religious claims as well as paranormal ones. Later we adopted the 1979 New Australian Sheep/Goat Test by Michael Thalbourne, but this earlier version suited my purposes. There were 83 respondents, and while I have not had time to perform a proper statistical test – the data is on stapled questionnaires, not in electronic format and it’s too late to type it all in tonight – there does appear to be a very strong correlation between non-belief in God and belief in UFOs as alien visitors, and between non-belief in Jesus as divine and belief in both ghosts & magic, to give a few examples. I recall now being once asked asked if many parapsychologists were Christian – and I said none at all that I knew of, they were all atheists. I have just looked at my “psychics” who I sometimes work with on testing – only one identifies as Spiritualist, two as atheist (Atheism is VERY common among Spiritualists following the example of Arthur Findlay – indeed Roll’s Campaign For Philosophical Freedom is an atheist organization which makes Dawkins look like a vicar) and seven “none”; six more are unclassifiable.

Not one professed belief in any “orthodox” faith. Now I’m sure Dawkins would regard my Anglicanism as just as much superstitious woo as does say crystal power, so this is a false distinction to him: but the evidence seems to suggest to me that the modern irrationalist supernaturalism is inversely related to traditional (non-fundamentalist) religious beliefs. I think whoevermisquoted G.K. Chesterton was right, even if as is possible Chesterton never actually said it “when a man stops believing in God he does not believe in nothing: he believes in anything”. Correlation is not causality – and of course the better educated college students are more likely to believe in ghosts etc -

http://www.livescience.com/strangenews/060121_paranormal_poll.html

assuming the Skeptical Inquirer is cited correctly! So perhaps the increase in woo is just a by product of the decline of traditional religious belief, increased secularism and atheism, and better education? The evidence certainly seems to point that way???

I find this both interesting, amusing, and deeply ironic.

cj x

Eostre never existed: why Easter is NOT a Pagan Holiday

It should be obvious really, that Easter is not a pagan holiday, but a Christian one. The events it describes are clearly the crucifixion and resurrection stories of the New Testament – and we know they happened, according to our sources, on the Passover (or the Eve of the Passover). Without the ancient Jewish Passover festival story, the crucifixion and resurrection narrative make less symbolic sense – but one thing is absolutely obvious – Easter’s date derives from a Jewish festival, not any Pagan one.  So why do so many of us think we know otherwise?

The origin of the word, not the festival

Well the first thing is very simple. No one has ever really seriously claimed to the best of my knowledge that Easter is a Christianized form of an ancient pagan rite — such a claim would be patently absurd. I think even the most misguided advocate of Frazer’s vegetation god’s nonsense from The Golden Bough would realize that simply won’t work.   What is actually claimed by people who know what they are talking about a bit, is that Easter derives its name and some of its symbolism in English speaking countries from a pagan source.  Etymologically pagan, that is the word was borrowed from a pagan source, not that the festival was – but bizarrely year after year I see people make exactly the “Easter is pagan” claim.

So this year -

Why Easter is not pagan!

I throw open the challenge to anyone to demonstrate from primary sources any of these things, or a pagan origin for Christmas.

Let’s dispose of a few dodgy claims first. We have all heard that Easter derives from an Anglo-Saxon festival dedicated to the Goddess Eostre – but no one has ever found any evidence for the existence of this Goddess, outside of the Christian monk Bede, who in De temporum ratione wrote

Bede, c.700

Eostur-monath has a name which is now translated Paschal month, and which was once called after a goddess of theirs named Eostre, in whose honour feasts were celebrated in that month. Now they designate that Paschal season by her name, calling the joys of the new rite by the time-honoured name of the old observance

This was his attempted etymology of Easter – which is  only called that in English of course. The problem is that as the Goddess in question, Eostre is completely unknown otherwise, and Bede was an enthusiast for adopting pagan customs in to Christianity or allowing them to persist where it did not impact on Christian doctrine where possible (out of kindness and a desire to allow people to keep their old ways), so  this proposed etymology is probably spurious. In the 19th century a German antiquarian invented Osatra, as the German form, using Bede as his source.

Bede admits this idea is his speculation – he is not actually aware of a goddess called Eostre, he just thinks there was one. There is not a single reference to her, from the Anglo-Saxon Chronicles, any of the other writings we have from the period, or from inscriptions. No depiction – no amulets – nothing. Her Germanic version was invented completely in the 19th century, and again has no evidence whatsoever from history or archeology to back it up. So Bede was, as he often was, wrong – but in line with his own slightly odd but very humane prejudices. Read the first couple of chapters of his Ecclesiastical History and you will get the picture

So why the woo?

I’m afraid we are back to the pernicious influence of Frazerian myths about myths. A good way to spot woo here is the suggestion that the solstices were considered major religious festivals in pagan antiquity. They weren’t. In fact the notion they were really only dates to the last decades of the 19th century, and has more to do with occultism than history. Frazer popularized a lot of this with his Vegetation Gods crap in the infamous The Golden Bough, and the ideas have become as ingrained in popular understanding as say Freudianism has, with even less supporting evidence.

Easter Eggs pagan?

I have it on one good source that eggs were featured in certain Persian rites, and i believe that. It’s nothing to do with our Easter Eggs though. I am aware of no pre-13th century account of painted eggs etc? Maybe you can surprise me with a primary source? The classic study is Newell’s 1971 book – http://www.amazon.co.uk/Egg-Easter-F…9384936&sr=8-1 Anyway I am pretty certain you will find no evidence of pre-Christian Goddesses, especially Celtic ones, getting folks to hunt painted eggs down rabbit holes. One often sees this claim about the Anglo Saxon Goddess Eostre, but her worshipers were hampered in this practice by not existing in the first place, outside of Bede’s imagination. It’s all woo.

So any chance it might be name after a pagan Goddess?

Well Ronald Hutton does not entirely dismiss it

The other is that the Anglo-Saxon eastre, signifying both the festival and the season of spring, is associated with a set of words in various Indo-European languages,signifying dawn and also goddesses who personified that event, such as the Greek Eos, the Roman Aurora, and the Indian Ushas. It is therefore quite possible to argue that Bede’s Eostre was a German dawn-deity who was venerated at this season of opening and new beginnings. It is equally valid, however, to suggest that the Anglo-Saxon “Estor-monath”simply meant “the month of opening”, or the “month of beginning”, and that Bede mistakenly connected it with a goddess who either never existed at all, or was never associated with a particular season, but merely, like Eos and Aurora, with the Dawn itself.” Stations of the Sun, p.180

So there you go — there remains a remote chance we took the word from a real Goddess – but as its called Paschen or similar in almost all European languages, well that means nothing anyway – the English & German terms are much later.   The one thing we can be absolutely certain of is regardles sof where the word Easter derives from, Easter was not an adapted pagan festival as often claimed.

Still if you must follow ancient customs at least this sounds fun!

cj x