24th March 2007, 5:31 PM
Psychotic? Perhaps... A lot of people that believe in this stuff are, otherwise, well adjusted members of society. Psychotic, at least from definitions I've seen, requires the subject to be so out of it they can't or won't properly care for themselves and need to become wards of the state. These people seem to be thriving well enough. It's still a shame they waste their efforts on this as opposed to something that would actually work.
From what I've heard, apparently one of the most widely spread delusions is "dowsing", which is the believe that you can determine where water, gold, missing people, or whatever are by waving some off-balance contraption around. The problem of course is that they generally already know where they can find it (for example, there's plenty of water pretty much anywhere you dig, and finding better places can be done just by looking around and noticing more plants there, or going to the bottom of hills, or so on) and the effect is basically the same way ouiji boards "work" (the idiomotor effect, well documented, you ARE moving it basically). These people genuinly believe they have it. It's a delusion, but are they crazy? Well, you can define the word as you will but my point is other than that, they seem to function well in society, some turning this delusion into a business as others can be deluded into thinking they have the ability.
From what I've heard, apparently one of the most widely spread delusions is "dowsing", which is the believe that you can determine where water, gold, missing people, or whatever are by waving some off-balance contraption around. The problem of course is that they generally already know where they can find it (for example, there's plenty of water pretty much anywhere you dig, and finding better places can be done just by looking around and noticing more plants there, or going to the bottom of hills, or so on) and the effect is basically the same way ouiji boards "work" (the idiomotor effect, well documented, you ARE moving it basically). These people genuinly believe they have it. It's a delusion, but are they crazy? Well, you can define the word as you will but my point is other than that, they seem to function well in society, some turning this delusion into a business as others can be deluded into thinking they have the ability.
"On two occasions, I have been asked [by members of Parliament], 'Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?' I am not able to rightly apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question." ~ Charles Babbage (1791-1871)