Encyclopedia of American Loons

Kevin Ryan is a chemist (apparently with a specialty in water testing) and 9/11-truther, whose barely internally coherent conspiracy theories blithely avoids the standards for good critical thinking and hypothesis testing. There is a fine Kevin Ryan resource here.

Brave Kevin Ryan rose to fame among the truthers for hisletter disputing the claim that the fires had weakened the steel, causing the World Trade Center Towers to collapse. The letter got him a place in the infamous “documentary” Loose Change (and later on the Alex Jones Show). It also, according to himself and fellow conspiracy theorists, got him fired from Underwriters Laboratories, and Ryan has of course been viewed as something of a martyr for the truther cause ever since. It will, of course, also be pretty clear to anyone who even bothers to give the documents pertaining to the case (accessible here) a cursory look that Ryan’s (and his followers’) account of what happened is pretty far away from the truth, but what did you really expect from 9/11 conspiracy theorists?

Diagnosis: A decent and very representative specimen of truther (and indeed conspiracy theories in general). It is presumably not necessary to point out that Ryan’s aptitude for critical thinking and critical assessment of evidence is sorely deficient.

In the promotion and distribution of quackery and pseudoscience, the people are prey to two (partially) separate yet equally important groups: the cranks who concoct the pseudo-scientific bullshit and those who polish their PR strategies. Glenn Sabin’s main contributions belong among the latter.

Sabin is a board member for the Society of Integrative Oncology, where he is described as a “staunch proponent and leader in the area of integrative medicine”. He is perhaps most important, however, for his attempts to provide a narrative and framing for “integrative medicine” that may boost its sheen of scientific legitimacy. Indeed, Sabin has poised himself as a critic of “complementary and alternative medicine” (CAM), and even criticized its precarious relationships to evidence and rigorous testing. Instead, Sabin promotes “integrative medicine”, which is precisely the same thing but with a new name to make it sound fresh. As he puts it: “Today several integrative centers across the country still contain the words CAM in their name. This is both confusing to health consumers and damaging for these centers’ brand. Most clinics and centers launched during the last decade have evolved with their branding to include today’s more appropriate terminology of ‘integrative medicine’, ‘integrative services’ or ‘integrative therapies’.” (Also here.) Yep. Rebrand the quackery. That should help its reputation. I don’t think Sabin himself views it as a mere rebranding, but that’s what it is and Sabin himself pretty much admitted that it is all a matter of rebranding for PR purposes.

While CAM is often marred by the lack of evidence for its treatments, integrative medicine is different, according to Sabin: “Integrative medicine integrates proven therapies into conventional medicine. True, not all methods of mindfulness-based stress reduction techniques like, say, Reiki have a solid evidence base behind it, but in this case, many clinicians that offer services like Reiki do so because their clinical observations tell them that it helps many of their patients relax and may lessen the need of certain pain meds.” Yes, seriously – that’s what he says. Integrative medicine is better than CAM because – although not all (any?) integrative medicine practices have been backed by rigorous testing – they are supported by anecdotes. And no, Sabin apparently does not really understand how one distinguishes evidence from intuition in medicine or why it is necessary to do so. Here is Sabin on what he thinks about science and scientific testing, by the way, and what, accordingly, he thinks integrative medicine has to offer.

Oh, and it is not only “integrative”; it is “personalized integrative medicine”. That’s the label. The contents are the same as ever.

Diagnosis: It is hard to determine whether Sabin is confused or just cynical. In any case, his attempts to promote questionable treatments through various PR moves is doubtlessly harmful to society, and Sabin must be considered overall rather dangerous.

As you are probably well aware, there is a war going on; a war waged by evil liberals, with nefarious and nebulous agendas wrapped in the language of diversity, tolerance and political correctness, against innocent children and the families of good, down-to-earth, hard-working Americans. It is the infamous War on Christmas. And every year, conservative pundits and writers, from Bill O’Reilly to Brian Fischer, will not let us forget. Though the war seems to have been originally discovered by the John Birch society in the fifties, if anyone can be credited with its modern rediscovery it must be the writers at VDARE, categorized as a “Hate Journal” by the Southern Poverty Law Center, and their editor Peter Brimelow.

Now, Steve Sailer is a journalist and movie critic for The American Conservative, blogger, VDARE.com columnist, and a former correspondent for UPI, where he provides his two cents with a wingnut slant on a variety of issues. He has been noted in particular for speculative articles on the IQ of various politicians and presidential candidates, as well as IQ-related speculations used to draw conclusions about immigration and affirmative action (you can kind of imagine where those are going, can’t you?). Indeed, though he accepts evolution (though there is a question of how well he understands it), he has attempted to maimtain a conciliatory tone toward creationists as long as they accept his racial realism and evolution-based arguments for racial differences, since that’s apparently what matters.

So what’s the war on Christmas connection? Well, Sailer must be held more than partially responsible for reigniting the war when he, in 2005, emerged as the winner of VDARE’s “Annual War on Christmas Competition” with his article “Christmas, Jews, De-Assimilation and Decline”, where he draws not only on the by now traditional War on Christmas conspiracy, but his work on racial differences … with relatively ugly results. In the article Sailer complains that, although Jews wrote many of today’s most popular Christmas songs, those songs were secular, and these days, they aren’t even doing that, because rather than being grateful for the piles of money they’ve been able to make off of Christianity all they want to do is destroy the Christian tradition of Christmas. So the War on Christmas, then, is to a large extent another Jewish conspiracy. I suppose it is good to know the extent to which you should listen to anything else Sailer might happen to say.

Diagnosis: Sailer is by no means the most obviously incoherent, stupid or nonsensical wingnut out there, but that, of course, is in part what makes him dangerous.

Robert Salas is a relatively well-known UFO author and alleged whistle-blower, and apparently something of a legend in the UFO community. Together with with Robert Hastings and James Klotz, Salas was behind The Echo Flight UFO Incident (March 16, 1967) and The Oscar Flight UFO Incident (March 24, 1967), both based on military incidents that allegedly occurred at Malmstrom Air Force Base in March 1967 but were later proven to be hoaxes. It does not seem, however, and despite the obvious fabrication of data, that Salas thinks of the events as hoaxes. An overview of the story and the claims involved can be found here. Basically, for the first “incident”, Salas et al. took as their point of departure an actual incident during which an entire flight of ten Minuteman Missiles was disabled by an electronic noise pulse within the logic coupler located in the launch control center of Echo Flight at Malmstrom, and claimed that the incident was the result of a UFO incursion. They procured plenty of witnesses, the main drawback being that when an attempt to confirm the claims of the alleged witnesses was undertaken all the witnesses Salas et al. had named insisted that the testimonies they were reported as giving were fabricated, that no UFOs were sighted, reported, or investigated, and that the actual cause of the missile failures was well established to be an electrical malfunction by those charged to investigate the incident. The authors were also shown to have altered facts about the event to make it more exciting-sounding. And so it goes.

The hoax got some attention through their attempts to take it to Washington in 2010. Prior to the meeting Salas confidently asserted that “the US Air Force is lying about the national security implications of unidentified aerial objects at nuclear bases and we can prove it.” He failed. Here is an apparently gullible interview with Salas.

Thing is, it is not entirely clear whether Salas et al. are themselves aware that the hoax is a hoax – probably not, insofar as they have used their (relative) fame to travel around giving presentations at various village idiot gatherings.

Diagnosis: Might possibly be a fraud, but is more likely just plain ol’ crazy. Relatively harmless.

Baraminology is the shining star of cargo cult science. Its purpose is to provide an alternative to Linnaean taxonomy and cladistics based on Biblically literal young Earth creationism, in order to solve the rather obvious literalist problem of how Noah could have fit two (or seven) of every kind of animal on the Ark – the estimated 10 million + species of today could hardly have fit on any boat, so baraminology attempts to redefine the meaning of the word “kind” in Genesis to mean a much wider group (a baramin) to reduce the number of animals Noah would have had to take. The failure of the discipline (if assessed as a scientific enterprise) is of course spectacular, but falsification, contradictions and total lack of evidence has never stopped a pseudoscientist.

The baraminologists out there are numerous. The discipline was introduced in the 1940s, but revived in the 1990s by Kurt Wise and Walter ReMine. Roger W. Sanders is probably a minor figure in the discipline, but he is at least notable for having (unintentionally) provided one of the most apts summaries of the discipline, in his paper “A Quick Method for Developing a Cognitum System Exemplified Using Flowering Plants” on classifying placing plants into baramins: “The cognita are not based on explicit or implicit comparisons of characters or biometric distance measures but on the gestalt of the plants and the classification response it elicits in humans.” In other words: dismiss all that measurement and analysis stuff and follow your gut.

Some of Sanders’s, uh, research has also had the honor of being published in Answer in Genesis’s house journal Answers; vol. 1 saw the publication of “Toward a Practical Theology of Peer Review”, which he coauthored with Kurt Wise, Joseph W. Francis, and Todd Wood, and which raised criticism, based on Christian concerns, of the peer review process. Makes sense, really – most “real” peer review don’t accept just making things up while thinking of Jerusalem.

Diagnosis: Angry snowflake. Probably not influential enough to be seriously dangerous by himself, but he still contributes to the rather substantial effort on behalf of antiscience.

John C. Sanford is a plant geneticist. He is also a young earth creationist, and as such one of the few creationists out there with real and even relevant credentials (and one of the few the Discovery Institute has found for their petition A Scientific Dissent From Darwinism). Indeed, Sanford has quite a number of real, peer reviewed publications – though none of them support creationism, of course – and was, in his time, assistant professor of Horticultural Sciences at Cornell (now retired, but still holds a position as a courtesy associate professor), something that also made him unsuitable for that shining example of cherrypicking, Expelled, of course.

His involvement in the creationist conference Biological Information: New Perspectives, which privately rented a room at the campus of Cornell but advertised itself in a manner that made it look like a Cornell-sponsored conference, is a bit unclear, but at least he was a coeditor of the Proceedings, gave an introductory comment and contributed to several presentations. The conference, and the subsequent brouhaha over the fact that Springer seemed willing to publish the proceedings (in the end they didn’t), is discussed here and here. Here is a discussion of Sanford’s own comments on the issues.

As a creationist Sanford is perhaps most famous for his arguments for devolution, for instance in his 2005 book Genetic Entropy & the Mystery of the Genome, the idea being that mutations and natural selection do not account for the information in the human genome and that instead of evolution these mechanisms are causing devolution in accordance with the myth of the Fall (also here). Indeed, one of his main pieces of evidence for devolution is the decline in lifespans among Noah’s descendants, as described in the Bible – according to Sanford this “is one of the strongest, as a scientist, one of the strongest evidences for me that Scripture is telling us, not speaking figuratively, not speaking creatively, but telling us history. And it speaks of a decline.” Indeed. No paper promoting Sanford’s concept of “genetic entropy” has ever made it through peer review (though it made it into Don Batten’s 101 evidences for a young age of the Earth and the universe).

His other usual talking points should be familiar, and include references to the 2^nd Law of Thermodynamics (blithely avoiding addressing the standard responses from real scientists).

Sanford was a relatively central witness for the creationists during the Kansas Evolution hearings. A transcript of his contributions is here.

Diagnosis: A dangerously delusional fellow, Sanford is among the few in the religiously fundamentalist anti-science movement with real credentials (though apparently little real understanding), and as such he lends a little bit of credence to such denialism.

Bill Sardi is a “health journalist”, author, and something of a Kevin Trudeau-wannabe. He is probably most famous for his rants about “health freedom”, however. Sardi is an avid defender of lax restrictions on what health claims manufacturers can make for their products. For instance, when the FDA sent certified letters of warning to 29 cherry manufacturers in 2005 for making undue health claims for their cherries (that cherries flush “cancer-causing substances out of the body,” helps “stunt the growth of cancerous cells” and contain “anti-inflammatory pain relievers 10 times stronger than aspirin or ibuprofen”), Sardi went predictably hysterical, concluding for instance that the FDA has “blood on its hands” for going after the cherry growers. That cherries do none of the things claimed for them seems less relevant; Sardi’s career is, after all, apparently based on the assumption that you cannot make illegitimate health claims on behalf of the products you pander.

Of course, there is a conspiracy going on here as well. You see, there are plenty of cures for various ailments out there, particularly cancer cures, that “they” (a nebulous group, but including at least the FDA and Big Pharma) don’t want you to know about. Evidence? Well, it is apparently inconceivable that science shouldn’t have found a cure for cancer yet, so they must be hiding it. All the while “conventional medicine is collapsing,” according to Sardi, “and it’s being brought down by scientific studies which reveal modern medical treatments simply are worthless” (no, you ain’t gonna get no references to legitimate studies to back up the claim from Sardi). But if you want to know the cure, Sardi is plenty willing to tell you. Indeed, there is a number of what he terms “scientifically valid” alternative therapies, including high dose vitamin C (completely useless), and, in particular – according to Sardi – vitamin D. Indeed, he has a book on the issue, Modern Cancer Therapy Does Not Address The Causes Of Cancer, which is precisely as reality- and evidence-based as it sounds (he has also written The New Truth About Vitamins and Minerals, The Iron Time Bomb, The Red Wine Pill, In Search of the World’s Best Water and Vitamin C Report). He is also on the Board of Advisors for Purity Products.

Notable is also his attempt to argue that “natural remedies” could have helped Steve Jobs, an argument propped up by confusion and wishful thinking without the faintest trace of touch with reality or evidence. Sardi is, of course, also a rabid antivaccinationist, and Joe Mercola is apparently a fan, which alone should settle any discussion about the legitimacy of his claims.

Diagnosis: Apparently a rising star in the anti-reality movement, Sardi is a productive, zealous and overall rather dangerous figure.

Among the things that aren’t there but which many people nevertheless claim to have found, the legendary fictional continent of Atlantis is among the better known. People have found Atlantis in Crete, Cuba, the Andes, the Azores, the Caribbean and Ireland, and its location has been suggested to be in Mexico, Nigeria, Sweden, or the Sahara (a comprehensive list here). Ignatius Donnelly claimed that Atlantis was sunk in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean during The Noachian Flood; Helena Blavatsky came up with the delusion notion that the Atlanteans had invented airplanes and explosives and grew extraterrestrial wheat; psychic healer Edgar Cayce claimed to have had psychic knowledge of Atlantean texts to assist him in his prophecies and cures, and J.Z. Knight claims that Ramtha, the spirit she channels, hails from Atlantis. And so it goes.

I suppose architect Robert Sarmast’s hypothesis is, in that respect, relatively conservative. According to Sarmast Atlantis is to be found off the coast of Cyprus. In his book and on his website, he argues that images prepared from sonar data of the sea bottom of the Cyprus Basin show features resembling man-made structures (though according to real scientists his “selective interpretation is nothing more than the blinkered reading of very ambiguous and unconvincing images,” familiar from Nessie, bigfoot, and UFO discussions), that several characteristics of Cyprus (the presence of copper and extinct Cyprus Dwarf Elephants and local place names and festivals such as Kataklysmos), support his idea, and that the destruction of Atlantis by catastrophic flooding is reflected in the story of Noah’s Flood in Genesis. Basically, the Mediterranean was once dry, but the Atlantis area all was flooded when a ridge collapsed allowing the catastrophic flooding through the Straits of Gibraltar. Sarmast has even led several expeditions to substantiate his claims, and predictably claims to have found what he was looking for.

Of course, Sarmast’s geological story (such as the time frame of these events) doesn’t quite fit with mainstream geology, oceanography, and paleontology. Real scientists have expressed their disagreement over whether Sarmast had discovered Atlantis using the description “completely bogus”, and have shown for instance that the features which Sarmast interprets to be Atlantis consist only of a natural compressional fold, and that the entire Cyprus Basin, including the ridge where Sarmast claims that Atlantis is located has been submerged beneath the Mediterranean Sea for millions of years. But you know.

Diagnosis: It is presumably in vain to hope that people like Sarmast would turn their considerable efforts and resources toward fruitful projects that could conceivably increase our knowledge of the world or the well-being of humanity. Apart from that, this sort of crackpottery is presumably relatively harmless.

In June 2010 someone vandalized a billboard sign sponsored by a North Carolina atheist organization; the ad read “One Nation Indivisible” but in the night someone inserted “Under God” with spray paint. Chrissy Satterfield supported that act: “It’s nice to know that I am not alone in my beliefs and that some people are still willing to stand on the right side of truth. Never would I encourage vandalism, but in this case I think I’ll let it slide. Atheists have been vandalizing my beliefs for years, so it’s about time the shoe was on the other foot.” The actions showed that “because the Bible teaches Christians to turn the other cheek, we’ll just take their abuse forever. We will only take so much before we stand up against our oppressors.” Now, for the purposes of this Encyclopedia we are not too concerned with discussing the merits of theism vs. atheism, but what does interest us is the delusional persecution complex that seems to be the lifeblood of certain wingnuts, and their utter failure to determine what constitutes an attack on religious freedom.

Yes, that’s the kind of person we are talking about here. Chrissy Satterfield (who holds “two pageant titles and the runner-up to Miss San Diego 2007,” according to her WND presentation) is one of those people the WND has picked up as columnists, and she seems to fit in pretty nicely over there (and in fact, and as opposed to what she suggests, it is not the only time she has supported vandalism against people she disagrees with – warning, link to WND). Indeed, the perceived persecution of Christians in the US and her total inability to distinguish criticism from persecution are her mainstays at that venue. But what does she reallythink about the First Amendment? Well: “Let us put things into perspective, shall we? The American idea of freedom of religion came from our Founding Fathers. At that time people weren't flying planes into our buildings, and domestic terrorism from Muslim extremists wasn’t something our country was dealing with. It is my belief that our Founding Fathers would have been more specific in their freedom-of-religion campaign had they known the price would be our Twin Towers and the thousands of Americans inside. This country has given shelter to many who are under attack for their beliefs, but when their beliefs start attacking our people, that’s when we have problems.” Ah, I see.

She has also complained about Obama’s efforts to fight climate change: “Personally, I’d rather raise an army to battle against terrorism. That’s something that actually poses a threat to me right now, as opposed to something intangible that may or may not affect me for another 100 years.” No wonder WND hired this one.

Diagnosis: Apparently more “less than bright” than anything else. It is unclear how much impact the garbled stupidity that flows from her pen really has, though.

A.k.a. Michael Alan Weiner (given name)

We cannot really skip Michael Savage although we really, really want to. This manic loon has managed to gain himself a certain influence among the most ridiculous segments of the far right, even though, as Brent Baker of the Media Research Center, put it: “From my listening to his radio show, he’s less any kind of a genuine conservative and more of an actor playing out a liberal’s caricature of how conservatives are hateful, mean, ill-informed, prejudiced and immature, a stereotype he regularly fulfills.” He has also written a couple of books, including the legendarily moronic Trickle Up Poverty and its sequel Trickle Down Tyranny, as well as a weird, semi-autobiographical stream-of-consciousness novel about a closeted, psychotic herbalist (yes, Savage was once a herbalist).

To avoid making this entry too long, we will just quickly mention a few of his endless number of submissions for an entry in our Encyclopedia. Savage is clearly qualified through his climate change denialism, his birtherism (also here), suggestions that the US is under attack from Satan, that Obama killed Breitbart, and that Roberts was drugged during the Obamacare ruling. Perhaps even more astonishing examples are his suggestion that the Obama administration were hoarding .357 hollow-point pistol ammo to be used to gun down senior citizens (you can make yourself a bet on whether the WND bought it), and his wish(Savage is Jewish) for a nationalist party with a charismatic leader.

Perhaps as a consequence of his pre-radio career as a quack (herbalist), Savage has also committed himself to full-fledge anti-vaccine hysteria, complete with a “liberal agenda” conspiracy.

There is a fair Savage resource here.

Diagnosis: The relative brevity of this entry is a consequence of our inability to sum up Savage’s hysterical insanity in human words and being exasperatingly tired of the guy. But dangerous, at least, he absolutely is.

A.k.a. Mapou (sometimes commenter name on Uncommon Descent)

First, an honorable mention to Terry Savage, formerly finance columnist for the Chicago Sun-Times, for this idiotic rant, but it’s not quite enough to earn him his very own entry.

Louis Savain, who calls himself a “rebel scientist”, is probably a minor figure, but deserves exposure as an excellent example of a certain mindset. Savain is a crackpot who disagrees with most of the major discoveries in modern science, including relativity and evolution, and has written several posts of “scientific” takedowns of theories of which he appears to have a rather tenuous grasp. Instead, Savain comes up with his own hypotheses and theories, often based to a greater or lesser extent on the Bible.

Of course, none of his work has yet appeared in any peer-reviewed scientific journals, but there is a reason for that. “Forget it. I believe in going directly to the customer, i.e., the public whom you despise, but who ultimately pays for all science research. They are my peers. I’ll stay away from politically-correct publications, thank you very much.” Ah yes, the corruption of the peer review process. Savain appears to be dimly aware that his work may not pass scrutiny by experts in the relevant fields, and responds in a manner brilliantly illustrative of the crank mindset: “Indeed, the whole peer-review system was designed as a control mechanism intended to exclude a large part of humanity from taking part in the scientific enterprise. This is incompatible with the ideals of a democratic society, in my opinion. We did not get rid of one dictatorship to succomb [sic] under the tiranny [sic] of another.”

At least he makes testable predictions, which is unusual for crackpots. For instance, Savain has repeatedly predicted the fall of Darwinism: “Assuming that the ID hypothesis is correct, one can argue that, since humans are the dominant species on earth, the designers must have had a special interest in us when they began their project. My hypothesis is that they are conducting an experiment, the purpose of which is to distinguish between believers and deniers. Given their vast intellect, it is certain that they anticipated the current conflict. If so, it is highly likely that they would have left us a secret message, a message so powerful that its mere publication would cause the collapse of the materialist fortress.” The secret message is of course found in the Book of Revelation together with the stuff about horsemen. The message will at least ensure that “the Darwinian walls will come crumbling down like the old walls of Jericho. Sweet revenge.” Science, yo.

Here are some predictions Savain has made about the cerebellum and challenged scientists to falsify. Of course, since the predictions contradict current neurology, they must be counted as already falsified, though Savain apparently fails to notice. Here Savain falsifies Einstein’s physics. It really is precious.

Diagnosis: Even after years of looking into crackpots Savain remains a special case for his blatant demonstration of the Dunning-Kruger effect, extraordinary even for a crank. But everything else is very, very typical.

A.k.a. GMS

The Internet has brought us plenty of candidates for assuming the mantle and legacy of Nostradamus and Edgar Cayce, and Gordon-Michael Scallion is certainly as worthy a candidate as any. Scallion claims to have the “gift of prophecy” as well; he has received information fromAtlantis, and has plenty of ill-boding tidings of pending disasters and woe to share with us all (many of them were also prophesied by Cayce, which would supposedly be a remarkable coincidence if they weren’t real … right?). At least Art Bell has been (apparently) impressed by e.g. Scallion’s vague predictions of earthquakes in California and hurricanes in Florida. Scallion’s website, The Matrix Institute, is worth a visit.

His visions apparently started coming to him in 1979, after having been hospitalized. Soon after he founded his newsletter Earth Changes Report, which prompted him to come up with a number of predictions (often involving volcanoes) on at least a bimonthly basis to fill said magazine. The dismal track record of his predictions to date seems not to have deterred his fans. Indeed, there is a list of Scallion’s major predictions from the 1990s here. California and Japan should be gone by now; Denver and Phoenix should be coastal cities; meanwhile a portion of the ancient continent of Atlantis should have risen off the east coast of America, near Florida, and ruins of the great cities of Atlantis should have been discovered (the ancient continent of Mu, or Lemuria, on the other hand, should have risen out of the Pacific ocean). These cataclysmic changes should have been preceded by various warning events, including “hum phenomena” that make vast numbers of people sick with flu-like symptoms in America, a phenomenon that should be caused by tectonic plates rubbing against one another to generate a sound just below the threshold of human hearing. We should also have gotten another sun. (More predictions here.)

While it was, by 1990, too late to change the major outlines of the impending catastrophe, Scallion did allow for the possibility of local changes if enough people banded together and correct the destructive houghts and actions that are causing the Earth to react, and for the 21^stcentury his vision was as follows: “The average life-span has expanded to 150 years because of the Earth’s new vibrations and the consciousness of its inhabitants. Telepathy is common between individuals, and between people and animals. There are new flowers, plants, and trees, which provide herbal remedies for this time. Many of the diseases of the twentieth century are gone ... Color and sound therapy are the predominant healing modalities. In the year 2002 the world has become a lunar society guided by intuition.”

But people still listen to him. This interview with one Ellie Crystal is … odd.

Diagnosis: At least at one point Scallion seems to have believed that his visions and dreams genuinely disclosed the future to him. I am less sure he believes that anymore, but there seems to be abundant lunacy left in him. Probably relatively harmless.

Best we could find. Sorry.

We have tried to verify the current whereabouts of Jacqui Schiff, but for the last decades she has retained a low profile, and we cannot with certainty assert that she is even still around (at least she may have left the US for places with fewer restrictions on psychological practices). But it is no doubt that her life and work merit a mention in out Encyclopedia. In the 1960s Schiff popularized the dubious treatment of Reparenting as a treatment of schizophrenia. Her book, All My Children, achieved some modest popularity, and she did claim to have successfully treated or cured many patients this way (the evidence being, shall we say, “unclear”). Reparenting involves “regressing” the patient to an infantile state, essentially playing “baby”, with the therapist then acting as a healthy parent figure. The strategy is then supposed to undo the effects of bad parenting from neglect or abusive homes.

It is utter woo, belonging to the same genus as rebirthing, crammed with faddish pop-psychology terminology to cover the absence of empirical support, and even if the idea had been on track Schiff’s parenting techniques would themselves have remained questionable, with e.g. their heavy emphasis on spanking the regressed adult “babies” as an example of healthy parenting. Her book is a narrative testimonial of her attempts at reparenting using a trial-and-error basis – no proper methodology or testing. The technique employs some concepts from Transactional Analysis (TA), which itself is complete crackpottery, and the popularity of reparenting in the 1970s did cause a split in the (at that time) popular field of TA. The International Transactional Analysis Association first embraced Schiff’s therapy, but finally launched an investigation into Schiff's activities in 1978, uncovering reports of abuse, which together with Schiff’s refusal to submit her methods for peer review forced her to resign (much of the story is here).

The list of New Age psychotherapies is a long one, and you may still encounter some reparenting attempts between your rebirthing, regression, primal scream, and hypnotherapy sessions.

Diagnosis: Unintentionally evil, perhaps, but Schiff is still something of a monster. Though her own techniques have had no lasting impact, offshoots continue to thrive to this day.

Lisa Schiffren is a former Dan Quayle speech writer (best known for writing his still infamous Murphy Brown speech in 1992), founder of Softer Voices (they worked e.g. for Rick Santorum, trying to give him a “softer” image) and writer of columns for various outlets.

Schiffren is not the only one to raise conspiratorial questions about Obama’s parentage, but she was among the first to raise the questions in mainstream (well) media (National Review Online in 2008). In particular, there is evidence that Obama is a communist, you see: “[A]ll of my mixed race, black/white classmates throughout my youth, some of whom I am still in contact with, were the product of very culturally specific unions. […] how had these two come together at a time when it was neither natural nor easy for such relationships to flourish? Always through politics … Usually the Communist Youth League. Or maybe a different arm of the CPUSA. But, for a white woman to marry a black man in 1958, or 60, there was almost inevitably a connection to explicit Communist politics.” Based on such anecdotes and an unhealthy dose of bias, Schiffren then tries to make the case that Obama must be communist since he was the intentional product of a plan that apparently goes back to Stalin himself.

Schiffren is of course dimly aware that some people might find something offensive in her musings, but she has a response: “Political correctness was invented precisely to prevent the mainstream liberal media from persuing the questions which might arise about how Senator Obama’s mother, from Kansas, came to marry an African graduate student.” I.e. political correctness was invented to keep people from asking about interracial couples’ private business. Here is the lesson Schiffren learned from the 2008 election.

Her view of gays resemble her views of black people.

Diagnosis: Perhaps not as incoherent as some, but Schiffren is a somewhat mainstream character, and the fact that some people are more incoherently crazy than her does not mean that she’s anything but crazy.

Now, this is the story of a tragic descent into hysterical insanity. David Schippers is a Chicago lawyer who, in 1998, accepted the role of Chief Investigative Counsel for the US House Judiciary Committee related to the Lewinsky affair – because, in part, of his reputation for integrity, skill and professionalism. Schippers, who recommended impeachment, summed up his role in his book Sellout: The Inside Story of President Clinton’s Impeachment, where he vigorously attacked the White House and several members of the Senate.

What happened next is … complicated. At present Schippers is a dubiously coherent conspiracy theorist exploring a territory somewhere between the InfoWars (indeed, Schippers has been happily interviewed by Alex Jones) and the WND (he has written for them, too). Accordingly he has also acquired status as something of a star in the world of right-wing radio and among conspiracy theorists and people who believe the government covering up the Oklahoma City bombings (which Schippers claims was Islamic, not rightwing, terrorism), about the 1996 explosion of TWA Flight 800 off Long Island, and the link between those tragedies and 9/11 – yes, Schippers is an ardent 9/11 truther; according to himself, FBI agents warned him of the attack in advance. In 2000 he endorsed Alan Keyes for President; he has toyed with Vince Foster conspiracies, and he admires Ann Coulter. He can even note on his CV a post as “national adviser” to Larry Klayman. Yes, that Larry Klayman.

For a brilliant portrait of Schippers, this one is, though overly sympathetic, hard to beat.

Diagnosis: Ravingly lunatic and minimally coherent, Schippers seems to swallow it all – if his gut says a source is trustworthy, then he’ll stick with that, no matter where it’ll lead him. And it has already led him impressively far from anything resembling reality.

David Schmidt is the founder of LifeWave, and the inventor of LifeWave’s trademarked “nontransdermal energy patches”. The patches are allegedly based on nanotechnology and “needleless acupuncture to gently stimulate points on the body that have been used to balance and improve the flow of energy in the human body for thousands of years,” in order to help manage pain, improve sleep, increase energy, suppress appetite and support detoxification by affecting your chi or something, and “communicate with your body like a cell phone.” The descriptions of the mechanisms are, in other words, your standard New Age mumbo jumbo. Yet his company has testimonials! They also have some “studies” published in pseudojournals such as TANG International Journal of Genuine Traditional Medicine (even the name reeks of lack of professionalism), and their own health & science director Steven Haltiwanger concluded after careful and thorough research that LifeWave was “the most exciting technology that he had seen.”

The patent application for the patch, however, was apparently rejected - partially, one suspects, because Schmidt signed the patent application “Dr. David Schmidt” despite lack of any accredited degree – which is not a good sign regarding its efficacy and usefulness. The product has, however, been promoted by “LifeWave Ambassador” Suzanne Somers, which is likewise not a good indication of its efficacy. Their Australian branch has received smackdowns from the TGA for their advertising, after the TGA panel found that it was not the case that “the material provided by the advertiser constituted even minimally persuasive evidence that the advertised products could have the therapeutic benefits claimed in the advertisements.”

There is a resource on the patches here, though its trustworthiness has not been independently verified. There is a pretty decent resource here, however.

Diagnosis: The Internet is pretty much crammed with these kinds of businesses, and LifeWave is little different from most – a magic product, claims to the efficacy of which are backed up by a whole mythology of cargo cult science. We will just have to assume that Schmidt actually believes the patches to be efficacious.

Quantum Age Water is a company founded by David Schneider to promote various forms of quantum woo, most famously the quantum stirwands developed by Schneider and his companion Exavier Phoenix. The stirwands are expensive plastic items that come in various colors and are supposed to enhance the water you consume (or something) to reduce stress, improve performance, stimulate mental clarity, enhance plant growth and open your chakras. Needless to say, the science behind the products is … missing. According to the website “Quantum Age products are very unique and they are becoming available simultaneously with a new appearing era of big changes that just started. These products represent the Life Force [yup, straight out of medieval medicine] behind everything, that which enables movement and improvement. Quantum Age products are carriers for the Life Force and are the tools for humanity during this time of reality change and grow in consciousness. Not only do they help us to change our own health and personal energy, they also help with the changes in our environment, waters and crops and contribute to a worldwide change in the way we think and act, in short … one of a change in consciousness.” In other words, gibberish. Yet there has been claims of clinical trials – the protocols do not seem to have been released, but the trials were undertaken by the legendary quackhole Fenestra Research. The rather spurious problems these products are supposed to address are described here. And no, quantum physics does not have anything to do with life forces or expanded consciousness, if anyone needed a reminder.

Diagnosis: Crackpottery and pseudoscience galore. We have seen a lot of ridiculous bullshit in the darker recesses of the Internet, but the quantum stirwands are hard to top.

Yet another one of those. Jim Schneider is a “Crosstalk” host and pundit for VCY America, and a wingnut’s wingnut if there ever was one (and there is). And Schneider advocates all the positions you’d expect. For instance, he is a gun rights advocate, and of the kind who claims that universal background checks would lead us down a slippery slope to “confiscation” and “tyrannization” and, finally, Hitler. Hosting Michael Hammond, legislative council of Gun Owners of America (who agreed that there is a “real danger” that those would in turn lead to “extermination” and “genocide” not unlike in Nazi Germany), they managed to whip themselves into an impressive frenzy of conspiracy mongering, arguing that gun control advocates “bear some responsibility” for the Sandy Hook shooting; and that liberals have become “paranoic” and “racist against people who hold traditional American values.” Though it doesn’t look that way, they probably know what words mean – they just don’t care.

And don’t get him started on gay rights. When hosting PeterLaBarbera to talk about Michael Sam, Schneider wondered if the NFL is “going to be requiring some kind of homosexual quota in the future,” presumably because it is currently controlled by Satanic forces.

Diagnosis: We could go on, but we won’t bother. You get the gist.

At least Pam Schuffert seems to be bent on making paranoia into an artform. The main idea is that the US is under attack. We just don’t know it yet: “Both Russian sources and US military have confirmed a huge military tunnel beneath the BERING STRAIT, linking SIBERIA with ALASKA. No, it was not DUG out, but BORED OUT using nuclear power that melted it’s way through solid rock, six miles a day.” (The sources are not further specified, but note the delectable use of random capitalization). I don’t think paraphrasing can add much to the original, so let us allow Schuffert herself to explain:

“The SHADOW GOVERNMENT and the MANY nations behind the scenes who hope to get a ‘PIECE OF THE PIE’ AS AMERICA IS DIVIDED UP, her Constitution and sovereignty rescinded, her Patriotic and religious freedom fighters rounded up or killed off, sent to the camps Bolshevik communist style, to be tortured and killed as NWO resisters … But since I know that the Kings of the East will be coming to America down through Alaska and Canada it is easy to see that it is more than likely true. This article also says (see above link) that there are already 200,000 foreign troops massing in the Bering Strait area which is not unusual.” Those last two sentences kind of lose touch with meaning and semantics, but the gist is clear:

“It is also common knowledge to those who ‘have ears that hear and eyes that see’ that there are at least 100,000 Mexican troops on America’s southern border with Mexico under the guise of fighting a drug war. I believe the drug war is being used as a distraction to cover up the fact that the Mexican troops and other nations troops stationed down there will be used to strike at the belly of America at the appointed time …”

“In the two short videos below [no link given here] they talk about guillotines that are now secretly being stored here in America. I’ve been hearing stories about these guillotines for many years now. This video report says that these guillotines are now and have been stored in America for quite some time. Also according to this video these guillotines will be used to decapitate Christians and others who do not go along with the New World Order.”

Schuffert’s blog, americanholocaustcoming is, in other words, a must-read for anyone fascinated by the seriously crazy. Schuffert also has a substantial profile at educateyourself, the poor sibling of whale.to, but I won’t link to it since most browsers recognize it as a source of malware.

She also writes about “A dark satan-driven agenda reminiscent of a previous Illuminati-spawned NAZI FASCIST HOLOCAUST, and a previous Illuminati-inspired Bolshevik Communist holocaust created against the Christians in Russia and sweeping throughout the former Soviet Union,” which seems to be contrary to the usual impression that the church has gained an enormous influence over current Russian politics. But you never know, I suppose. Against reality and evidence stands a vision of a military takeover that Schuffert apparently dreamt straight from Jesus. Her views have apparently been corroborated by the findings of William Pabst, one “researcher” Karen Lee Bixman (no idea), “researcher” Serge Monast (!) and pretty much the entire whale.to, which Schuffert apparently trusts without hesitation or exception.

So what can you do about the impending doom? “Because we now know for a certainty that the NWO plans to heavily use the railroad system to transport millions of anticipated prisoners rounded up under martial law to the FEMA/DHS camps for elimination, I encourage readers nationwide to go peacefully to their local railroad stations and tracks and spend quality time in powerful prayer for God to hold back this heinous agenda.”

Yup. That’ll show’em.

Schuffert’s rants appear to have been taken up also by something called Roy Taylor Ministries, who seems to add yet another layer of medieval metaphysics to it all (his “Global Warming and the Sixth Angel” is illuminating, for instance, and you can see him try to do genetics here: Apparently he proves that the Genetic code is the Genesis word in the Book of Life. Proof? “[A]all living cells contain the ‘STUFF OF LIFE,’ and that these living cells perceive, and obediently respond to unseen ‘COSMIC FORCES’. Scientists say that these unseen ‘COSMIC FORCES’ are not yet understood. In other words what this book is really saying is that these cells of life, receive and obey unseen forces that are spiritual (cosmic) in nature. The Bible says that these ‘COSMIC FORCES’ (that scientists say, MAKE LIFE HAPPEN), are actually ‘SPIRITUAL FORCES,’ the Bible calls these unseen spiritual forces ‘THE WORD OF LIFE’.” QED – but the whole thing is really worth reading).

Diagnosis: I suppose we ought not be too mean to Schuffert, and I am not sure evidence is what she needs right now. Show her some love, will you?

The Elijahlist is an Internet resource “called to transmit around the world, in agreement with Holy Scripture, fresh daily prophetic ‘manna’ from the Lord, regarding the days in which we live.” Their purpose “is to give trustworthy, daily prophetic worship and intercessory ‘content’ to as many Believers (and even Unbelievers) as possible” and they have “determined to find and publish the most credible prophetic words possible through ‘tried and tested’ men and women of God.” It is, in other words, a daily news resource with a slant (given their aim they should be able to publish the news before they happen, but unfortunately prophecies like these tend to be kind of vague), linking to various more or less insane fundies screeds penned by a range of famous and less famous fundamentalist loons such as Cindy Jacobs, Rick Joyner, and various (other) associates of the New Apostolic Reformation, calling people to spiritual warfare (though you have to sign up to get the actual contents, which we have no intention of doing). Yes, there is much fluff and godbotting there, but these people are hardcore dominionists who take their battle against Satan and his demons very seriously and very literally (Anne Elmer and James Goll, the founder of Prayer Storm, seem to be particularly frequently recurring heroes, as are the divine dreams of Bob Hartley).

The website is run by Steve and Derene Schultz. Steve apparently founded it in the relatively early nineties after having had a vision telling him to use computers to distribute the word of prophets – before the Internet (!). Yes, Steve is a prophet himself. You can read an example of his prophesying here. It is approximately as convincing as prophecies in general.

Diagnosis: Another disconcerting, small corner of the Internet devoted to fundamentalism and anti-civilization. The impact of this one is unknown, but they are pretty hardcore and pretty zealous.

#1102: Kevin Ryan

#1103: Glenn Sabin

#1104: Steve Sailer

#1105: Robert Salas et al.

#1106: Roger W. Sanders

#1107: John C. Sanford

#1108: Bill Sardi

#1109: Robert Sarmast

#1110: Chrissy Satterfield

#1111: Michael Savage

#1112: Louis Savain

#1113: Gordon-Michael Scallion

#1114: Jacqui Schiff

#1115: Lisa Schiffren

#1116: David Schippers

#1117: David Schmidt

#1118: David Schneider

#1119: Jim Schneider

#1120: Pam Schuffert

#1121: Steve & Derene Schultz