Madness of the Prince

Robert M. Youngerson. The Madness of Prince Hamlet and Other Extraordinary States of Mind. Robinson, 1999.
🔻
This is a collection of very short articles on, for the most part, a variety of curious mental states, such as Munchausen syndrome, Capgras syndrome (the belief that members of your family and friends have been replaced by doubles), Cotart syndrome (belief that you and/or the world is dead), etc. There are sceptical but superficial looks at some paranormal topics such as superstition, mediumship, near-death experiences and alien abductions. As with many sceptics there is a tendency to cop out of some of the more puzzling evidence, for example in the chapter on mediumship he quotes the so called Uncle Jerry case, in which the medium Mrs Piper gave Sir Oliver Lodge some information about a dead uncle, which one of the surviving brothers could not remember, but another could, but does not seek to provide any explanation, just scooting off into much easier generalisations. While some of the articles are quite fascinating, there is also a fair amount of rather dull padding.
  • Peter Rogerson.

No comments: