"Mind" Premier Issue

[Tim Gratz]

Just picked up a magazine, Scientific American, Mind. Cover says it is "Premier Issue" but inside it says it is Volume 14, No. 5. It has an article titled "Secret Powers Everywhere." written by Thomas Gruter, a professor at the University of Munster (Germany). Obviously written for a lay audience, but very poorly written, IMO. Hard to believe it was peer-reviewed. You can infer the theses the author advances. I'll try to figure out how to post it.

Listen to this quote:

"Accepted: a crazed Lee Harvey Oswald assassinated John F. Kennedy in 1963. Conspiracy: the CIA had Kennedy killed because he was about to expose the agency's secret attempt to control the country."

Then the first paragraph links people who posit conspiracies in the deaths of JFK and Princess Diana with people who belive that the contrails of jets contain "experimental infections or poisons, perhaps vaccines".

The article has no footnotes or source notes.

Here is a quote: Most individuals who revel in tales of conspiracy are sane, even if they border on delusional." But he goes on to state: "Therapists must also be careful to not mislabel facts as delusions, a trap known as the Martha Mitchell effect." He states that when Martha Mitchell was proved right that her husband was being made a scapegoat for Nixon, her "statements were proved true and she was shown to be utterly sane." I am not a psychologist. Does anyone know if there is a theory in psychology known as the "Martha Mitchell effect"? And what does "utterly sane" mean? Saner than sane? Moreover, if I recall Watergate correctly Mitchell did approve some outlandish, criminal operations and it was never proven that RMN had advance knowledge of the Watergate operation itself. Mitchell was crimninally convicted, so he was hardly an innocent man.

I believe the article contains poor history, poor science and is badly written.

The article deserves several strong replies, I think.

Edited November 24, 2004 by Tim Gratz