Electricity of the Mind

With this issue, The Anomalist seeks to provide sudden jolts of illumination to spark the imagination. "Electricity of the Mind" is instant CPR for the head. Theo Paijmans mines the rich seam of digital newspaper archives to look at anomalies in a whole new way. Ulrich Magin ventures into a previously neglected corner of Earth Mysteries, taking us on a tour of out-of-place volcanoes across Europe. Dwight Whalen explores a forgotten tale of bizarre visions that brought vivid omens of World War I to the skies of Pennsylvania in 1914. Cameron Blount examines the implications of archaeological relics of Peru's mysterious Moche culture and what they might tell us about the neighboring Nazca culture. Mike Jay discusses Samuel Taylor Coleridge's lasting and deep interest in the supernatural. Bryan Williams, Annalisa Ventola, and Mike Wilson provide a basic primer for exploring temperature and magnetic fields in cases of haunting. Patrick Gyger uses the "Black Books" of Fribourg to understand the mindset behind witch trials in the late 15th Century. Aeolus Kephas looks at the similarities between two of the 20th Century's most popular and charismatic "literary shamen": Carlos Castaneda and Whitley Streiber. John Caddy seeks a common root behind the various biological energies not known to science on which many esoteric knowledge systems rely. Chris Payne takes a new mathematical approach in trying to determine whether there are still Thylacines out there. Mark Pilkington takes a look back into the prehistory of crop art and reveals a thought-provoking precursor from the movies. Gary Lachman shares his previously unpublished notes from his book "Politics and the Occult." Richard Wiseman, Professor of the Public Understanding of Psychology, recounts his discovery of the first ever film of a magic trick. Tim Cridland, whose stage name is Zamora the Torture King, takes a long, hard look at the career of leading skeptic James Randi.