Why People Believe Weird Things: Pseudoscience, Superstition, and other Confusions of our Time • Hystories: Hysterical Epidemics and Modern Culture • "Crazy" Therapies: What Are They? Do They Work? • A Dose of Sanity: Mind, Medicine, and Misdiagnosis • Brain-Disabling Treatments in Psychiatry: Drugs, Electroshock, and the Role of the FDA • Peak-Performance Living • Natural Prozac: Learning to Release Your Body's Own Anti-Depressants • Hoax and Reality: The Bizarre World of Multiple Personality Disorder • Children's Past Lives: How Past Life Memories Affect Your Child • Deception and Self-Deception: Investigating Psychics

What in psychiatry is what it appears to be, and what is not? Reviewed here are nine books that cover this question from a variety of angles. Some provide a historical basis for why people believe in unusual phenomena; some provide historical contexts for such things as chronic fatigue syndrome, recovered-memory syndrome, and alien abduction; and others proclaim the wondrousness or the folderol of many current "psychiatric" interventions.

Why People Believe Weird Things

In Why People Believe Weird Things, Michael Shermer, director of the Skeptics Society and editor of Skeptic magazine, takes on the task of educating us about pseudoscience, superstition, and other confusions of our time. In the foreword Stephen Jay Gould writes, "Skepticism or debunking often receives the bad rap reserved for activities—like garbage disposal—that absolutely must be done for a safe and sane life, but seem either unglamorous or unworthy of overt celebration. Yet the activity has a noble tradition." Shermer lives up to this "noble tradition" with both a macroscopic and a microscopic examination of his subject.

In part 1, the overview section, the author provides operational definitions. A scientific law is "a description of a regularly repeating action that is open to rejection or confirmation." Scientific progress is described as "accumulative growth of a system of knowledge over time, in which useful features are retained and non-useful features are abandoned, based on rejection or confirmation of testable knowledge." Something is pseudohistorical if it is "without supporting evidence and plausibility and presented primarily for political or ideological purposes." And something is most probably pseudoscientific "if enormous claims are made for its power and veracity, but supportive evidence is scarce as hen's teeth." Shermer reminds the reader that "dressing up a system in the trappings of science by using scientific language and jargon… means nothing without evidence, experimental testing, and collaboration."

Having set the stage, Shermer moves on to cover pseudoscience, superstition, and such other confusions as psychic power, altered states of consciousness, alien abductions, extrasensory perception, near-death experiences, satanic cults, recovered memory, Ayn Rand followers, fire walkers, UFO-ologists, creationists, Holocaust deniers, and extreme Afro-centrists. As this list indicates, the book moves from some topics that many would endorse as pseudoscience or pseudohistory to other topics that are much more controversial.

Shermer does not shrink from taking potshots where he thinks they are warranted. For example, to the question "Who needs satanic cults?" Shermer answers "talk show hosts, book publishers, anticult groups, fundamentalists, and certain religious groups." Nor does he shrink from specifying what characterizes the phenomenon he discusses. For example, Shermer informs us that a cult is characterized by veneration of the leader, the leader's inerrancy (the leader cannot be wrong), the leader's omniscience, persuasive techniques, hidden agendas, deceit, financial or sexual exploitation or both, absolute truth, and absolute morality.

In the book's conclusion, Shermer provides some answers to why people believe weird things. First, they want to, it feels good, it is comforting, and it is consoling. Second, the belief provides immediate gratification. Third, the belief offers people a morality and a meaning that they can embrace and that does not appear to them to be cold, brutal, infinite, uncaring, and purposeless, as does science. And fourth, the belief gives them an opportunity to live in an environment where hope springs eternal.

Why People Believe Weird Things is an excellent basis for understanding a cornucopia of what many would consider bizarre beliefs and happenings. One criticism is that Shermer briefly covers many subjects but spends disproportionate time on what must be two of his favorite topics: the debate about evolution and creationism, and the debate about whether the Holocaust ever happened. He does provide an excellent background for pursuing further readings in pseudoscience and other confusions as described in many of the other books reviewed here. Shermer's writing certainly reinforced for me David Hume's maxim, as quoted by Shermer: "A wise man proportions his belief to the evidence."

Hystories: Hysterical Epidemics and Modern Culture

Elaine Showalter's Hystories —a title combining hysteria and histories—is a fascinating treatise on the subjects of the books reviewed here because it is one of the few that sets these disorders and interventions in historical context. Showalter structures her book in three parts: Histories, Cultures, and Epidemics. She roots her presentations in the various literatures of the era—she is a professor of humanities and of English at Princeton University—and extrapolates from the literature to the customs of the time.

Those interested in the historical underpinnings of the syndromes she covers will particularly like parts 1 and 2. True historians or history buffs may be frustrated by the overreliance on secondary sources and the not-infrequent lapses into totally unreferenced statements that cry out for sources.

Part 3, which discusses current "epidemics" such as chronic fatigue syndrome, can be read on its own. To go directly to part 3, the reader needs only to understand one or two of Showalter's grounding premises. Basically, she argues that mass hysterias and pseudoepidemics (my term, not the author's) change appearance from century to century, but are basically the same phenomenon. She describes the witch hunts of the 1690s, the mesmerism craze of the 1790s, the hypnotic cures of the 1890s, and the hysterical syndromes of the 1990s. She indicates that "hysterical epidemics require at least three ingredients: physician-enthusiasts and theorists; unhappy, vulnerable patients; and supportive cultural environments."

The "victims" of these pseudoepidemics have generally been women, which allows Showalter to employ a feminist perspective. However, the victims can be of either gender and have ranged from common people through the middle class to the famous and brilliant. Those in the latter category, in the 19th century, included Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Edith Wharton, and Jane Addams among the females, and Teddy Roosevelt, Thomas Eakins, and Frederick Remington among the males.

Not only may part 3 be of most interest to readers of this journal, but it is also where Showalter is the strongest. Her topics here are chronic fatigue syndrome, Gulf War syndrome, recovered memory, multiple personality syndrome, satanic ritual abuse, and alien abduction; using primary sources, she covers the entire history of each syndrome from its origin to the time this book was written. If there were such a thing as a scale of bogusness, Showalter would rate each of these phenomena very high on that scale.

Showalter indicates that for many, having a "real" disorder is far better than suffering from a psychiatric disorder, which is too often seen as unreal, as malingering, or as a form of deceit. Depression, for example, is a far less desirable label to most Americans than is chronic fatigue syndrome, immune dysfunction syndrome, fibromyalgia, or myalgic encephalomyelitis. The patient is only part of the equation here; the doctor is another. The physician does tests and tells the patient he or she has disease X. The physician prefers pronouncing a definitive diagnosis; the patient prefers hearing one; and the two collude.

All of this is not without harm. Showalter indicates that in contemporary American society, "no one has been hung or burned, but scores of innocent people have had their lives destroyed by false accusations, and hundreds of thousands are wasting their lives pursuing costly therapies without relief or cure…. Hysterical epidemics of the 1990s have already gone on too long, and they continue to do damage: in distracting us from the real problems and crises of modern society, in undermining a respect for evidence and truth, and in helping support an atmosphere of conspiracy and suspicion. They prevent us from claiming our full humanity as free and responsible beings."

Showalter's Hystories is highly recommended. One learns not only what these confusing and questionable disorders are, but also how they came about and what their antecedents have been over the last 200 years. As Showalter indicates, these disorders cost us dearly. By her accounting, syndrome specialists operating at the margins of reality may not only destroy medicine but may also destroy society.

"Crazy" Therapies

Margaret Thaler Singer, a clinical psychologist, and Janja Lalich, a writer, take on psychotherapeutic processes they find to be unfounded and fanciful. Interventions the authors cover include regression and reparenting; rebirthing; past-life therapy and future-life progressions; entities therapy; alien-abduction therapy; ventilation therapies, such as mystic rose, attack therapy, and scream therapy; sex therapy; neurolinguistic programming; facilitated communication; neural organizational technique; and eye movement desensitization and reprocessing.

All of the above interventions are offered by professional therapists. Not covered in "Crazy" Therapies is a host of interventions, mentioned by the authors, offered by nonprofessional therapists and other intervenors. Among them are psychics, adjusters of auras, and warriors to walk beside; the interventions include holding inner children, lolling naked in hot tubs, dangling from a rope high above a deep crevice, running naked between a row of people swatting your butt, standing before a group to be demeaned and humiliated, and drinking foul-tasting concoctions of seaweed, flowers, and herbs.

The authors posit that many of the professionally delivered but fringe-at-best interventions are founded on the following set of misassumptions. Extraterrestrials exist and are abducting and experimenting on humans. All humans have lived one or more past lives. Experience of trauma and abuse in early childhood is the root of all psychological and emotional problems. People can be regressed to their birth. People can be cured by emptying out the emotion attached to past and present experiences. People can be cured by reliving traumatic experiences. It is permissible for therapists and patients to have sexual relationships. People can be helped through certain techniques to retrieve blocked memories of abuse and trauma, which will be valid memories. And, finally, the world is full of certain magical powers.

The authors' response to these forms of treatment, and the factoids they are based on, is that most of these therapies are rooted in myth and fantasy; there is rampant misuse and overuse of hypnosis and other trance-inducing techniques; significant time and money are wasted on these therapies; patients are misled into adopting religious or spiritual concepts; many "crazy therapies" rely on false notions of memory; countless patients are harmed as a result of sexual, physical, and emotional abuse; greater happiness and better functioning are generally not the outcome of these interventions; and many individuals who are exposed to these "crazy therapies" become disillusioned about the therapeutic process and distrustful of helping professionals.

Throughout the book, the authors have supplied brief, first-person accounts that I found quite illuminating. On the other hand, every chapter starts with a cartoon that I found distracting at best.

Singer and Lalich stress that "crazy therapies" are often considerably more than faddish wastes of time and wastes of resources, that they can be downright harmful.

A Dose of Sanity

A Dose of Sanity: Mind, Medicine, and Misdiagnosis by Sydney Walker III, M.D., is largely an attack on contemporary psychiatry. Dr. Walker's central thesis, one he repeats in different words ad nauseum, is that "very little is undiagnosable, but much is not being diagnosed." He elaborates, "The precise science of diagnosis gave way to the imprecise and inaccurate pseudoscience of labeling—a change that altered the course of psychiatry and, in effect, removed it from the field of medicine." Walker remarks that psychiatrists, who are supposed to be the "brain doctors," are "sitting on the sidelines twiddling their thumbs," while neurologists, geneticists, immunologists, and microbiologists are making major strides in understanding brain functioning.

The author provides many clinical examples that reflect his self-defined clinical brilliance while at the same time he disclaims that brilliance. Rather, he remarks that he is simply thorough and has the proper orientation. He repeatedly tells tales of his success where others have failed.

Walker is as critical of psychiatric interventions as he is of psychiatric diagnoses. He takes modern psychiatry to task for "the belief that masking symptoms with drugs is equivalent to treating disease." From his point of view, many of the recipients of Prozac, Ritalin, Xanax, and Valium (he uses brand names throughout his book) would be better off with "no treatment at all." He believes that many psychotropic medications are "powerful and dangerous drugs" that are being used "as chemical straight jackets in cases where diagnosis is possible and effective treatment, or even cures, exist."

Walker is especially critical of the DSM s. He finds them overinclusive, nonspecific, and no more than a nosology of labeling. He is also perfectly willing to criticize historical figures, and he mixes and matches them in most unusual combinations, such as lumping together Freud, Breuer, and Timothy Leary.

Walker asserts that all that is erroneous in psychiatry is dangerous. He states, "Thousands of people suffer or even die because psychotherapy is being used in place of, rather than as an adjunct to, medical diagnosis and treatment." His work can be linked to that of "Crazy" Therapies by the pronouncement that people are driven to pop psychiatry to escape the inadequacies and dangerousness of mainstream psychiatry.

Patients should start with nonpsychiatric physicians, the author believes: "Psychiatrists practice DSM medicine and DSM labels are cover-ups—not diagnoses—for real medical disorders." Not confining his criticisms to psychiatrists, he also takes swipes at psychologists and neuropsychologists.

Who is the author to make such criticisms of those he would call his colleagues? According to the book's dust jacket, Dr. Walker is a board-certified neuropsychiatrist, the director of the Southern California Neuropsychiatric Institute, and the founder of Behavior Neurology International. The reader is also informed that his articles frequently appear in both professional journals and trade magazines. This description of Dr. Walker is somewhat misleading. His curriculum vitae, which he readily supplied to me, indicates he is well trained in psychiatry and neurology, but makes no mention of his board certification. It also indicates that in the 34 years since his first publication, he has published only a handful of articles in peer-reviewed journals.

Walker makes some interesting points in A Dose of Sanity, but weakens his arguments by preaching incessantly, often being self-congratulatory about his own diagnostic successes after others' failures, repetitively pounding away at a few themes, and allowing his publisher to be somewhat misleading about his credentials. A Dose of Sanity would have been far better as an article in a respected popular magazine than as a book. To the degree that it leads individuals toward excellent psychiatric care and treatment, it provides a service. To the degree that it leads people away from excellent psychiatric care and treatment, it does a disservice. My concern is that the tone of the book and the information it provides will succeed far more frequently in achieving the latter than the former.

Brain-Disabling Treatments in Psychiatry

Peter Breggin, M.D., author of Brain-Disabling Treatments in Psychiatry, has much of interest to say about the psychopharmacologic treatment of adults and children, electroconvulsive therapy, and the role of pharmaceutical companies and the Food and Drug Administration. Unfortunately, his information is lost in a book that becomes a diatribe against these treatments, by an author who appears to be verbally flailing at every known modern psychiatric treatment that involves a pill or injection.

Dr. Breggin starts and ends his book the same way: "Psychiatric drugs achieve their primary essential effect by causing brain dysfunction, and they tend to do far more harm than good" and "Psychiatric drugs do not cure mental disorders. Instead, their primary or essential effect is to cause brain dysfunction and to compromise mental and emotional acuity." He regularly pursues this thesis throughout the text. Further, Breggin categorically denies any biological basis for severe mental illness, indicating that "there seems little likelihood that any of the routinely treated psychiatric problems were based on brain malfunction rather than on life experiences of individuals with normal brains."

These perspectives lead Breggin to say that "there's almost no reason to believe that findings of brain atrophy, and dementia are caused by schizophrenia, while there is overwhelming evidence to indict neuroleptic therapy." Breggin concludes that "the profession should make every possible effort to avoid prescribing [neuroleptics]."

The author's attacks are not limited to antipsychotic medication but include antidepressants, lithium carbonate, antianxiety drugs, hypnotics, and stimulants for children as well as electroconvulsive therapy. Breggin makes statements such as "there is growing evidence that antidepressants are not the best treatment for depression. At the same time, there is by now a great deal of evidence that they frequently disable the brain and mind, sometimes producing severe and dangerous behavioral abnormalities, including violence against self and others." Or, "The claim that lithium is a disease-specific therapy for mania or manic-depressive (bipolar) disorder has no basis in fact; it is a brain-disabling agent."

A major problem with Breggin's book is his, at best, willy-nilly use of references. Many of the cited references are 20 or more years old, and, unlike other authors and researchers discussing psychopharmacology, he considers 20-year-old studies as "recent." Further, his referencing is often circular in that he frequently uses his own writings as the sole sources for statements he makes in this book. He also often makes general statements that go completely unreferenced, such as "Tardive dyskinesia patients often feel very betrayed by the doctors who prescribed the medications or who later failed to detect the disorder or to tell the patient about it." Maybe that's true, maybe it isn't. The reader certainly doesn't know how Breggin knows it.

The overwhelming flaw in Breggin's presentation is that he is guilty of exactly the same sin as he accuses researchers and authors of perpetrating. Using ECT as an example, he says that "there is little or nothing in the literature to suggest that ECT ameliorates suicide whereas a significant body of literature confirms that it does not. Once again, treatment opinions are not driven by empirical data. Instead empirical data is ignored, distorted, or misrepresented to confirm treatment opinions." Breggin thereby provides the major criticism of Brain-Disabling Treatments in Psychiatry. That is exactly the way he has approached his subject.

Dr. Breggin is on a mission. He wants to convince the reader that the vast majority of psychopharmacologic and related treatments are bogus. He fails because his verbal flailing deteriorates to self-congratulation. Sometimes his statements are absolutely wild. For example, Breggin says, "Partly due to the persistently inadequate label, too many ill-informed physicians and their patients continue to believe that the risk of TD [tardive dyskinesia] is insignificant." Says who, other than Peter Breggin?

Peak-Performance Living Natural Prozac

Dr. Joel Robertson, the author with Tom Monte of Peak-Performance Living and Natural Prozac , has a doctorate in pharmacy and is director of the Robertson Institute, headquartered in Saginaw, Michigan.

Robertson's thesis of Peak-Performance Living is best expressed near the end of the book: "At bottom, our problems stem from a neurochemical imbalance: Most people today are deficient in serotonin and excessive in dopamine and norepinephrine—low on satiation and high on arousal—and this imbalance appears to be growing. We are less and less calm; we have a growing inability to concentrate and focus on the deeper aspects of problems. As a society, we sleep less than we used to, and for many the hours we do sleep are restless and shallow. It is harder and harder to achieve a sense of well-being. Many millions of us are depressed. We have lost a sense of direction and faith in the future. All of these feelings are symptomatic of low serotonin."

Robertson's task throughout Peak-Performance Living is to tell the reader how he arrived at this formulation and what the reader can do to correct his or her own imbalances. He provides all sorts of tables that purport to show the specific effects of the neurotransmitters serotonin, dopamine, norepinephrine, acetylcholine, and gamma-aminobutyric acid. He tells how to determine whether your basic personality type is Arousal or Satiation. He provides a guide to nine personality types: the Observer, the Awakening Warrior, the Reluctant Runner, the Boatman, the Fretter, the Armored Knight, the Saint, the Fire Starter, and the Mediator.

Robertson then proceeds to tell readers how they can reach their peak performance. He does not prescribe prescription medications, but he does prescribe diets and exercise plans. However, he fails to provide much information that many informed readers would seek. For example, how, in fact, does he measure these neurotransmitters? If he measures them peripherally (were he even able to do so), what would these data tell us about their levels in the central nervous system? If he measures them centrally, how does he get the samples? What are the normal levels or standards against which he measures those who visit his clinic? Further, if he could accomplish what he claims to do diagnostically, where are the data to support the outcomes he reports?

Readers do not have to visit the Robertson Institute to obtain an assessment. At the end of Peak-Performance Living is the "Robertson Institute Performance Enhancement Survey." Readers can record their true-false answers to the 180 questions on the answer sheet and send it to the institute along with $39.95 (a $20 discount from the retail price of $59.95) plus $4.55 for shipping and handling. The readers' "Personal Enhancement Plan" will then arrive in two to three weeks.

What will we accomplish if we follow Robertson's directives? He tells us quite clearly in the closing paragraph of the book: "Thus we begin each day with the power to alter our brain chemistries for a day and for a lifetime. To a great extent, we can choose the kinds of activities we engage in, the foods we eat, and the images and environments that we are exposed to. In this way, we can significantly raise the level of serotonin in the brain, control our soaring dopamine, and in the process, create a better world."

Natural Prozac is Dr. Joel Robertson's other book. However, a substantial part of it is a virtual repetition of Peak-Performance Living. The thesis is the same, and remarks about the effects of the neurotransmitters, including the tables, are often identical or have only very minor variations. The book is really Peak-Performance Living modified for an individual with depression.

Perhaps the most startling aspect of Natural Prozac is the "Robertson Institute Mood Optimization Survey" that is included at the end of the book. Here again are 180 true-false questions. However, the vast majority of the questions in both surveys are exactly the same. (The price is also the same.)

The broad question here is whether Joel Robertson, Pharm.D., should be able to do what he is doing. Is he practicing medicine? From a common-sense point of view, many would answer yes. Legally, the answer to that question depends on Michigan law. Is Robertson providing misleading or even false information? Many of the psychopharmacologists I asked answered with a resounding yes. Finally, what are the implications for individuals who follow Robertson's diet and exercise regimens? The answer is that we have no idea because no data are provided.

Hoax and Reality

August Piper, Jr., M.D., has written an encompassing overview of multiple personality disorder. The book is well referenced, quoting the proponents of the diagnosis of multiple personality disorder as often as its detractors. In fact, Dr. Piper uses many quotes from the diehard advocates of the diagnosis to frame his argument that many of their conclusions are preposterous.

To explicate his ideas, Piper attempts to focus each chapter on a single theme. However, the chapters are often duplicative, and the book could easily have been half its length or less. Nonetheless, the author provides a well-thought-out critique of multiple personality disorder. He makes the following major points.

• One needs to use contorted logic to make the diagnosis of multiple personality disorder. If the entity shows itself, the patient can be considered to have the disorder; if the characteristic patterns of multiple personality disorder fail to show themselves, the patient still can be considered to have the disorder.

• The contradictory and imprecise definitions of multiple personality disorder mean that no one can ever determine that a diagnosis of multiple personality disorder is incorrect.

• The diagnosis is rooted in conceptual muddiness. The concept of personality expands beyond all bounds, and there are few limits to the number of personalities one individual might have.

• These considerations all lead to diagnostic criteria that are characterized by imprecision and overinclusiveness. The diagnosis is further confused by the fact that patients most often do not present with overt evidence of separate alter personalities.

• The notion that patients can voluntarily keep their alters under control is inconsistent with the trauma-based theory of multiple personality disorder. If patients with multiple personality disorder are able to suppress switching of alters before their therapy begins, Piper asks, why should they fail to be able to do so afterward?

• Patients and their therapists are partners in a tangle of suggestion. Piper asserts that without doubt alters can be created iatrogenically.

• The incidence of multiple personality disorder has increased so exponentially that the disorder is now of epidemic proportions. On the other hand, the etiologic theories are very weak. The sexual-abuse theory represents circular reasoning. Further, patients rarely improve during treatment with therapists who are focused on trauma as a cause.

Piper presents a convincing argument that multiple personality disorder is a flawed concept, represents a contemporary fad, and is the creation of a few imposed on the many. Whether those he criticizes could make equally persuasive counterarguments remains to be seen.

Those interested in multiple personality disorder would do well to read Hoax and Reality. It strongly advocates one point of view. At the same time, it provides a breadth of information about multiple personality disorder from the proponents of this disorder, and it includes an excellent list of references.

Children's Past Lives

Carol Bowman's book, Children's Past Lives, subtitled How Past Life Memories Affect Your Child, is part autobiography and part textbook. The subject matter is individuals who believe they have recalled earlier lives.

Bowman begins with her personal odyssey. She describes her two children's recall of their past lives, and then she describes her own experience recalling an earlier life. Bowman had a vision, or a recall, when she was chronically sick in bed with low oxygen saturation and taking lots of sedatives and narcotics such as cough medicines and pain medicines; however, from her point of view, the circumstances of her recall are irrelevant. Bowman also describes her strong exposure to Eastern religion and philosophy during college. She elaborates on an experience with a hypnotherapist during a three-hour session.

Bowman's own experiences, and those of her children, lead her on a quest for information about children's past lives. She devotes considerable energy to research, advertises in newspapers for reports of others' past-life recall, and turns herself into an expert. Her particular interest is how past-life recall can be a healing experience.

In some instances, the explanation of the relationship between past-life recall and therapeutic benefit is clear (that's a separate issue from whether the recall is true). For example, the author believes that many past-life experiences are the result of trauma, particularly traumatic death, and that the experience produced a phobia in the contemporary person. Recall of the experience lays to rest the unresolved conflict and hence resolves the phobia. However, in many other instances, recall of past-life experiences produces much more nebulous "spiritual" gains.

Bowman believes that past-life memories exist in every person, and she makes generalizations about them. She indicates that most recall occurs at a "remarkably young age," most often when a child is between two and five. She reports that as a child ages, past-life memories previously recalled by the child fade. There is no explanation for this phenomenon. The second generalization is that many young children who verbalize past-life memories have phobias. The third is that children who have past-life recall generally remember how they died and that, more often than not, the death was traumatic.

Children not infrequently remember past lives as their own relatives, the author says. Further, children who die at a young age are often "reborn" into their own family, thus becoming their own siblings.

Bowman attempts to distinguish between past-life recall and fantasy. She reports that the four signs of children's past-life memories are a matter-of-fact tone, consistency over time, knowledge beyond experience, and corresponding behavior and traits. She does, unfortunately, act as if children have no other sources of information, ignoring entirely a child's most readily accessible resource—television. Another situation that could confound the veracity or reliability of recalled past lives is that, as Bowman points out, "telepathy between mother and child is a powerful trigger of past-life memories."

Bowman also provides directives for parents about how to respond to what seems to be a child's recall of a past life.

Although the author attempts to present her arguments logically—and her book is not an objective study, but an ardent appeal by an ardent believer—she sometimes wanders pretty far afield. For example, she states, "Recent scientific studies have shown that babies in utero, beginning at 26 to 30 weeks, exhibit the brain patterns of REM sleep, which scientists know indicate dreaming. What could these unborn babies be dreaming about, since their only experiences have been in the confines of the womb? Past lives is the logical answer."

If nothing else, Children's Past Lives contains messages of hope for some people. For example, Bowman says, "Any child, anywhere in the world, can have a past life memory, regardless of the cultural or religious beliefs of the parents. Most of these memories don't cause problems. They are benign and are useful to help explain a child's talents, temperament, behavioral quirks…. By sharing their memories with us, small children teach what we adults have forgotten: that life continues after death."

Whether you are a hardened skeptic, believe some of the author's material, or are a cheerleading supporter, Bowman's arguments and evidence are, if nothing else, fascinating. The book is worth the read if for no other reason than to understand a belief system that is rapidly spreading. Hope comes in many wondrous forms.

Deception and Self-Deception

As the subtitle of Deception and Self-Deception indicates, this book by Richard Wiseman is an investigation of psychics. The book contains 11 chapters, only one of which was originally written for this book. The others previously appeared in such publications as the Journal for the Society of Psychical Research and the British Journal of Psychology.

The book is a fascinating exposé of forms of deception and self-deception such as conjuring, psychic fraud, lying, confidence games, and military deception. In each instance, the chapter describes how Wiseman and others routed out the deception.

Deception and Self-Deception has little to offer readers other than those who specifically want to become more informed about parapsychology or who have a casual interest in the veracity of parapsychological phenomena. After reading Wiseman, one comes away pretty certain that most of what one sees is not what it appears to be.

Afterword

The issues discussed in these nine books remain of interest to the public and need to be attended to by all mental health professionals. Recent newspaper reports provide two examples of what we face.

On August 17, 1998, the Boston Globe (page A3) reported the findings of a psychologist who 25 years ago received tapes from Flora Rheta Schreiber, the author of Sybil, a book about a woman with multiple personalities; the psychologist recently studied the tapes and found them to show that the story is "bogus." On August 14, the Washington Post reported (page A5) that a psychiatrist was disciplined for apparently convincing his patient that, among other things, she ate "human flesh meatloaf." The patient said she eventually realized that "there was no way I could come from a little town in Iowa, be eating 2,000 people a year, and nobody said anything about it." The patient won a major settlement in a lawsuit against the psychiatrist's hospital.

Dr. Geller is professor of psychiatry and director of public-sector psychiatry at the University of Massachusetts Medical Center in Worcester.