Encyclopedia of American Loons

Yes, he is apparently still around. John Stormer is a fundamentalist protestant and anti-communist whose books have, over his career, sold an impressive number of copies, warning America about the communist infiltration of American society, politics and culture. He is one of the movers and shakers in the John Birch Society, and his books certainly help set their agenda in the 1960s.

In particular, his 1964 book None Dare Call It Treason argued that America was losing the cold war because it was being betrayed by its elites who were secretly procommunist and Soviet agents and had infiltrated all institutions of power in the US; it managed to sell some six million copies and was enormously influential on the hardline right during Barry Goldwater’s bid for the presidency. It is a magnificently crazy rant deeply steeped in delusional conspiracy theories, and that one was written before he turned into a religious fundamentalist: The 1968 sequel, The Death of a Nation, however, predictably linked collectivism to the work of Antichrist and discussed signs of the End Times as well. It failed to reach the classic status of its prequel. In 1990, though, Stormer published None Dare Call It Treason ... 25 Years Later, which contained the original book but expanded it with an equally long update arguing that Perestroika and Glasnost were merely Soviet propaganda tools, illusions of a moderate retreat from hardline communism as a way of seducing the West. That his predictions sort of rather obviously failed doesn’t seem to have made him question his analytical powers and hypotheses: His more recent None Dare Call It Education argues how education reforms are undermining academics and traditional values from the point of view of an evangelical (teachers are teaching evolution because they hate God and America-style), and Betrayed by the Bench is a standard rant about how judicial activism has destroyed America by coming to conclusions based on the Constitution that Stormer doesn’t appreciate because he is a fundamentalist bigot who hates freedom.

Since 1977 Stormer has apparently also conducted weekly Bible studies for members of the Missouri State Legislature, been president of the Missouri Association of Christian Schools and published a periodic newsletter, Understanding the Times, which focuses on how to fail to understand the times by trying to reinterpret current affairs from a fundamentalist wingnut point of view.

Diagnosis: Old, angry and deluded, Stormer can in fact look back on a career as one of the central strategists for the religious right’s most fervent nutjobs. That his conspiracy rants remain influential should beggar belief but they apparently do.

William Strauss

Pseudoscience presented as bullshit; no more, no less. But the work of William Strauss and Neil Howe is nevertheless taken rather seriously by many across the political spectrum. Their basic idea is that society turns on a repeating set of four 20-year cycles, and by identifying these cycles they purport to be able to tell the future. It really isn’t much better supported by actual evidence than crystal ball gazing, but since their theory can be used, like crystal ball gazing, to make people hear what they want to hear it hasn’t been particularly hard to get people to listen. For some, Strauss and Howe seem to promise a reaction to the current climate of social change back to the social conservatism of the 40s. For others, they seem to promise a change out of Reagan-Bush economics and back to the Keynesian economics of the 40s – or whatever else you may want to hear. As true fortune tellers, Strauss and Howe’s predictions are complete with a soon upcoming Big Crisis – a prediction based not on structural features of the present, but on quasi-religious fatalism based on the mythos magic of transcendent cycles. And the signs are everywhere – in politics, economics, and even culture; the very topics of Hollywood blockbusters are taken to support their woo.

Neil Howe

But good grief were their bullshit not popular, particularly in the 90s. The media loved them and their “insights” on Baby Boomers and Generation X, and their books, Generations(1991) and The Fourth Turning: An American Prophecy (1997), were apparently highly popular. Their work, including their marvelously selective use and interpretation of evidence to fit their theory, is discussed here (a more professionally dry review here). In fact, the Strauss-Howe version isn’t much different from other, famous historical figures who have constructed teleological interpretations of history based on recognizing patterns that fit their narrative.

Now, as a matter of fact, Strauss has recently wandered off and died, and is thus technically disqualified from an entry in our Encyclopedia, but Howe seems to be around still, so we couldn’t really skip this pair either.

Diagnosis: Amazing pseudoscience bullshit, the kind that would pass as profound in the English classes at an unaccredited fundie institution (or any institution promoted by Norm Shealy). It’s rather sad and exasperating that they get away with this kind of silliness, but so they seem to do.

Whitley Strieber is best known for two things: his horror and scifi novels, including The Wolfenand The Hunger, and his horror and scifi novels Communion and its sequels. The thing is that whereas Strieber admits that the first two books are works of fiction, he claims that the latter are not.

Communion recounts the tale of the author’s alleged abduction by non-humans in 1985. Though he is careful not to characterize his abductors as extra-terrestrial aliens (indeed, they sound much more like something out of Twin Peaks) and as a matter of fact seems to admit that the abductors may exist only in his own mind, later works has not focused much on the latter possibility (it might be argued that he seems to struggle with the distinction itself). Nonetheless Communion turned out enormously popular and pushed Strieber to the forefront of the various lunatic strands of the esoteric movement.

When the book editor of the Los Angeles Times’ pronounced the book to be fiction and removed it from the non-fiction best-seller list Strieber played the victim card and the Galileo gambit: “Placing this book on the fiction list is an ugly example of exactly the kind of blind prejudice that has hurt human progress for many generations.” He had to acknowledge, however, that the non-human beings in the “autobiographical” accounts (Strieber was partially responsible for popularizing the Grays) were remarkably similar to elements of his horror stories. That could, of course, be because he was already unconsciously aware of these beings when he wrote said horror stories, but there are some other, more obvious, potential explanations that don’t reflect as well on Strieber as a rational agent.

Anyways, Communion’s success led to a demand for more mysterious experiences, so Strieber followed by a series of book describing new mysterious experiences, including The Secret School (1996), which examined strange memories from his childhood (suggesting conspiracy theories and mind control by the military), and Solving the Communion Enigma: What Is to Come (2011). In the latter he reflects on how advances in scientific understanding since his 1987 publication may shed light on what he perceived: “Among other things, since I wrote Communion, science has determined that parallel universes may be physically real and that time travel may in some way be possible,” which is apparently supposed to suggest that his alleged experiences are backed up by science. It also contains musings on UFO sightings, crop circles, alien abductions, Roswell, and cattle mutilations in an attempt to discern any kind of meaningful overall pattern. He concludes that we as a species are being shepherded to a higher level of understanding and beingness within an endless “multiverse” of matter, energy, space and time. In other words, when Strieber relates his experiences to “science” he does not mean science by “science”.

Other works include The Master of the Key and The Coming Global Superstorm (with Art Bell), which was the inspiration for the blockbuster The Day After Tomorrow, and his website Unknown Country. His podcast Dreamland used to be a companion show to Coast to Coast AM. Dreamland once described Linda Moulton Howe as “our Dreamland science reporter”.

He has also appeared in other roles, such as the role of producer for NBC’s “Confirmation: The Hard Evidence of Aliens Among Us?”

Diagnosis: Though he tries to convey an image of calm rationality he has some serious troubles keeping it up for more than a few sentences at a time. Serious tinfoil-hatter.

Far out on the fringes of the fringe you will encounter people like Thomas Strouse, member of the Dean Burgon Society and the dean at the Emmanuel-Newington Theological Seminary in Connecticut. Strouse is one of today’s leading … geocentrist. What is his evidence? Well, nothing, really, but a proper reading of the KJV chapters of Genesis suggests geocentrism. And if his favored reading of the Bible suggests this, then everyone else’s reading of the book of nature must be wrong. A priori. (A paper is here - and yes, it contains exclusivelyBible interpretation – no discussion of data.) His book He Maketh His Sun to Rise: A Look at Biblical Geocentricity, deals with “geocentric verses in Scripture and exposes the fallacious arguments for heliocentrism and the unbiblical presuppositions that geocentricity's creationist critics labor under;” non-creationists aren’t even on the radar. (He also calls himself “Dr. Strouse”, but his “Ph.D.” is in theology from Bob Jones University, which gives him somewhat lesscredibility than if he had bought the degree online – for online degrees there are no standards and everything goes; Bob Jones is famous for correcting everything that might otherwise be correct among their students’ beliefs to ensure that the candidate is sufficiently delusional and fanatic – they have anti-standards).

What is really scary is that these self-professed fundamentalists, like Strouse, are organized and plentiful. And yes, they have their own conferences, journals and institutions – which are usually a closed book to those of us who care more about the real world. Geocentrism may be a fringe position, but it is considered a legitimate alternative in these environments. Evolution is, of course, not even under discussion (as you can see e.g. in Bob McCabe’s critique of Strouse here). At least – and as opposed to many ordinary creationists – they explicitly reject all of science and often proudly admit to not having any other evidence than Scripture to back up their positions. Take, as a random example, the Way of Life group here, and the literature they promote (e.g. David Cloud’s comments on “rock music” – or Jeff Royal’s discussion of whether country music is a “safe alternative” – or his article “The Creation Museum: Many Infallible Proofs” – “The Creation Museum is the center for serious education,” according to Royal).

Diagnosis: Truly, profoundly scary. This fuming, unhinged fanatic has quite a substantial flock behind him, and he is surely not up to using it for the world’s benefit.

“Brother” Matthew Stucky is a disciple of pastor Steven Anderson of Faithful Word Baptist Church of Mesa, AZ. But Brother Stucky deserves his own entry. To give you an idea, Stucky says that Santa Claus (which he spells “Clause”, presumably because he is a delusional moron) is satanic and is “corrupting people all over the world.” And the reindeer are all gay. “These 8 reindeer are supposed to be 8 MALE reindeer. Take a look at those names again. Male reindeer named Dancer, Prancer, Vixen & Cupid. I think from these names we know Vixen, Dancer, Prancer & Cupid are queer reindeer. Let’s go back to the story of Rudolph & I prove this is true. Rudolph gets shy around girls & his nose turns red. As a result, the other reindeer won’t let him play any reindeer games. That sounds sick, perverted & homosexual.” Yes, Stucky is serious. And no, I don’t know quite what to make of it. But at least Stucky knows what we should do: “According to the Bible homosexuality should be punishable by death. I would be overjoyed if every single queer in the entire world died today. The Bible makes it clear they are reprobates who are past the point of salvation. The Bible also makes it clear they are rapists & very wicked people. They have no chance to get saved and no saved person could ever become a queer. Therefore, I would be overjoyed if they all died tonight & our government would actually follow what the Bible states. The death penalty should be enacted for the queers.” That would take care of those reindeer, I suppose.

And just to quote the conclusion as well: “People are going to read this & say I’m crazy but hasn’t Hollywood always been trying to pump in homosexual themes into kids movies & cartoons. One of the teletubbies is gay. Bert & Ernie are gay. In Scooby Doo Greg is gay. Hollywood has always had agendas they are trying to push and one of those major agendas is homosexuality is ok. It’s no big deal. Another one they are trying to push is ‘It's ok for women to work.’ The truth is Santa Clause is being used by Satan to corrupt kids at a very young age.” I think the “but” in that passage is misleading, Matthew.

Anderson’s and Stucky’s group are sufficiently insane to even blacklist Jack Chick and Kirk Cameron as heretics.

Stucky also gave name to The Grackle’s Nest’s Matthew Stucky Award. Steven Anderson himself is a proud recipient.

Diagnosis: I have to admit a certain guilty pleasure when encountering someone who, after all these entries, still leaves me astounded. Stucky himself needs love, comfort and help, though.

We recently covered geocentrist Thomas Strouse, but the leading proponent of geocentrism in the US is Robert Sungenis. Sungenis is a Catholic apologist, founder of The Bellarmine Report, and president of CAI Publishing, Inc. It is probably needless to point it out, but Sungenis has no scientific background relevant to astronomy or physics; rather, he possesses a “Ph.D.” from the Calamus International University, a private distance-learning institution located in Republic of Vanuatu, which is, diplomatically put, not a recognised or accredited university within any jurisdiction of the world. But he offered them a 700-page dissertation on geocentrism (since number of pages can ostensibly make up for lack of actual research), later expanded to 1000+ pages and published, with one Robert Bennett, as the two-volume set Galileo Was Wrong: The Church Was Right, a work aiming to “give Scripture its due place and show that science is not all it’s cracked up to be.” For years his website would offer a $1000 reward to anyone who could prove heliocentrism, though before you submit your attempt, remember that Sungenis himself would be the judge of whether any entry counted as proof, and Sugenis doesn’t have much time for science or empirical observation interpreted without presupposing the inerrancy of the Bible.

Even hardcore young earth creationist cranks such as Todd Wood have dismissed modern geocentrism as … well, Wood seems unwilling to call them “crazy”, but he seems very, very tempted to do so. Criticisms of modern geocentrism can be found here, here, here and here, if for some reason you should need it. Of course, once again, Sungenis and Bennett are pretty much forced to reject all of modern science (evolution is just the start) in the process – and most of modern technology – but they are perfectly ready to do precisely that. A report on one of the Sungenis gang’s attempts to make a documentary can be found here – and yes, they tried, and managed, to catch (and judiciously edit) real scientists in the process by approaching them without telling them that they were geocentrists. Since nothing makes baby Jesus happier than a good deception in his name. They did get Kate Mulgrew to narrate it, though she claims– reasonably – foul play.

It is worth mentioning that Janet Porter’s group Faith2Action has used Sungenis’s website as a source of information to support their anti-gay campaigns. Here is their communications director, Ross Conley, trying to justify that.

Given his rather tenuous relationship with truth, accountability, and reason, it is little wonder that Sungenis is the victim of a severe case of crank magnetism (NASA, for instance, needs to be part of a Satanic conspiracy). The Southern Poverty Law Center calls him “virulently anti-semitic,” partially because of his expressed doubts about the Holocaust (“there was no large difference between the number of Jews living in 1939 as there were living in 1948;” that SPLC article also covers such Catholic luminaries as John “Few have the courage to speak the truth about the six million Jews that supposedly died in the concentration camps of Germany” Maffei and Catholic conspiracy theorist John Vennari). Sungenis has also written about the involvement of Jews and Israel in a Zionist Satanic conspiracy aimed at world domination. The views have caused some problems for his relationship with the Catholic Church, but that hasn’t prevented Sungenis from later reminding his readers that the 1911 edition of the Catholic Encyclopedia “predicts the anti-Christ will come from Jewry” or posting several articles, for instance by Ted Pike, attacking Jewish “power.” Sungenis is also a columnist for The Remnant, where, in a piece entitled “The New World Order and the Zionist Connection,” he detailed a massive conspiracy aimed at getting Satan to rule Earth: “Among the major forces in the ascent of the New World Order,” he explained, “are the Jews, Judaism and the land of Israel.”

Diagnosis: Yes, there really is a community of anti-science loons that even your village young-earth creationist would consider pseudoscientists, and yes, they do seem to have a modicum of influence in certain circles. A relatively recent survey shows that 79% of Americans agree that the Earth revolves around the Sun. That leaves a scary number of millions of people. I don’t have the figures for Holocaust denialism.

Brian Sussman is a former weather forecaster with the CBS station in San Francisco, who, in 2003, began hosting an evening show pretentiously called Right Thinking from the Left Coast, on the San Francisco conservative talk station KSFO – he became the morning host in 2010. Sussman, a professional bulverist, is particularly notable for his rather unhinged climate change denialism; his 2010 book Climategate: A Veteran Meteorologist Exposes The Global Warming Scam was issued by the WND publishing arm, no less, and attempts to argue that global warming is a Marxist ploy, that the UN is evil and seeking a one-world government by conspiracy and so on. And yes, he seems generally incapable of distinguishing scientific investigation and evidence assessment from political punditry.

The sequel, the conspiracy oriented Eco-Tyranny: How the Left’s Green Agenda will Dismantle America, “provides a thought-provoking analysis of the origins of the modern-day ‘sustainable’ movement”, according to … James Inhofe, and just like so many creationist tracts it tries to undermine environmentalism by exposing the movement’s alleged dark roots – a moronic fallacy even if it the premises were supported by rigorous scholarship, which, of course, they are not.

And yes, that really ishis argument. Sussman claims that Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels not only created the environmental movement but also the nefarious, anti-capitalist and anti-Christian notion of man-influenced climate change, with the purpose of destroying capitalism and Christianity. According to Sussman, Marx & Engels said “capitalism produces pollution and that pollution could change the climate and bring us into an ice age that would destroy all species” (unfortunately he doesn’t provide the source). Therefore, apparently, it is communism that motivates environmental measures at present, and the communists are everywhere: “we have these people in all levels of government of the United States, including in the White House and the West Wing of the White House.” Of course, even if his assumption were true, it wouldn’t show anything about whether climate change is happening, but figuring out logical relationships isn’t Sussman’s strong suit.

There’s a report on an interview by Sussman with denialist David Deming, an Associate Professor of Geosciences and University of Oklahoma and signatory to the Discovery Institute’s petition A Scientific Dissent from Darwinism, here.

Sussman has also made comments suggesting sympathy with birtherism..

Diagnosis: True Coast to Coast AM material, Sussman seems to be loved by the WND and people like James Inhofe and Phyllis Schlafly – to give you some context. The guy is seriously incapable of properly evaluating evidence or reason. The extent to which he poses a threat to civilization is less clear, since his rants seem mostly to be appreciated by people who are already far out in conspiracy land.

I suppose there is no way to get around an entry for Jimmy Swaggart, the “true man of God” who enjoyed immense popularity in the Bible belt in the 90s and immense fortunes through contributions to his Family Worship Center and Bible college before being caught in the act, then trying to repent, then being caught in the act again (this time replacing repentance with “The Lord told me it’s flat none of your business”). The story is nicely told here. That should have been the end of his rule. In fact, Swaggart continues to televangelize to this day, although his powers and influence are greatly diminished. His son Donnie Swaggart now runs what is left of the ministry with his dad making the occasional appearance, while his wife Frances runs a conspiracy-filled radio program apparently deeply inspired by Glenn Beck (but slightly less well hinged to the extent that is possible).

But is he a loon? Well, we can run a standard test: What are Swaggart’s views on science? “Evolution is a bankrupt speculative philosophy, not a scientific fact. Only a spiritually bankrupt society could ever believe it. Only atheists could accept this Satanic theory.” What about social issues? “Sex education classes in our public schools are promoting incest.” But equality, then? “I’ve never seen a man in my life I wanted to marry. And I’m going to be blunt and plain: if one ever looks at me like that, I’m going to kill him and tell God he died.”And his view of himself? “If I don’t return to the pulpit this weekend, millions of people will go to hell.” But at least he avoids conspiracies? “The media is ruled by Satan, yet I wonder if many Christians fully understand that.” So there.

Diagnosis: For our purposes it is sufficient to note that Swaggart is yet another denialist fundie who consistently let wishful thinking trump reality, science and evidence, and let’s leave it at that.

Though the existence of the Montauk project is disputed by reality, Stewart Swerdlow is pretty convinced otherwise. Swedlow, according to his own testimony, participated in the experiments, variably led by an apparently undead Nicholas Tesla and a “reptilian/Draco”. According to Swerdlow “the name ‘Draco’ is actually the name of the star system. It is the whole area of the reptilian races. The reptilians were heavily involved in the Montauk project. At Montauk there was a very tall winged reptilian. He was very, very powerful. The reptilians are tired of living hidden lives and they are very anxious to become public once more as they have been in the past. In order to do that they are literally blitzing the media with reptilian like programmes and shows, especially for children, and they are preparing adults through electromagnetic transmissions for the public appearance of reptilians. One of their biggest weaknesses is that they are not very spiritually minded – they don’t have a lot of psychic ability – and they rely a lot on technology and controlling others with technology. The biggest threat to them is people having control of their own minds.” Hah, I always thought there was more to He-Man and the Masters of the Universe than met the eye – it is almost like it was a documentary.

According to Al Bielek’s of Swerdlow “[i]n 1983, when the Montauk Station was destroyed (however later built), Stewart went into a tailspin. He believes the station had a lock on him and in some sense controlled him. When the lock was released, he lost his identity. Over the last 17 years, Stewart has been working hard to successfully regain his identity. He was put in Federal Prisons to persuade him not to talk about his past. What is unique to Stewart is that he never lost his memories of his experience at Montauk.” No, no one has managed to make Bielek see the incoherence of that description, but what did you expect, really?

Other survivors of the Montauk Project, according to themselves, include Larry James, who was in charge of the operations of the Time Control program, and got away by transferring “his ‘soul’ into another body”; Bielek and Preston Nichols, whom we have already covered; Duncan Cameron, a time travel survivor who, during one of the experiments, “lost his ‘time lock’ and began to age one year for every hour that passed [oh, wheee] – the time engineers at Montauk went back in time (to 1950) and convinced Duncan’s original father, Alexander Cameron to sire another son; when done, they removed Duncan’s soul and put it into the new child, [and] his person is who we know today as Duncan Cameron;” and the now-deceased Phil Schneider, one of three people to survive the 1979 fire fight between the large Greys [yeah, those are Whitley Strieber’s Greys] and U.S. intelligence and military forces at Dulce underground base.

Currently Swerdlow seems to be pushing intuitive readings, books and videos on mind control and similar stuff.

Apparently David Icke – or some of his followers – seem to think that Swerdlow is still working for the reptilians/government: “Do not use any of the deprogramming or hyperspace archetypes that stewart gives you, especially not the merger, tbar, or circle with a dot inside, and definitely not the chakra exercises he gave you. They’re designed to open up people to ELF and other electronic bombardments. Do not use his oversoul/higher self method because that’s an occultic symbol that opens you up. His merger is actually the hand of eris or goddess of chaos. He gives legit symbols that can hijack your aura,” said one. “Three people told me Stewart Swerdlow was programming them in their dreams. His best customer, his old website astrologer, and even web designer were all affected,” said another. Here are some further complaints regarding Swerdlow. So there is that to ponder as well.

Diagnosis: When people on David Icke’s forums start calling you crazy you ought to have a long and serious look at the way your life has turned out. But, of course, “x is crazy” on a David Icke forum reliably turns into “x is a dangerous double agent for the government” in at most three posts.

It is refreshing to see characters that still manage to impress after all these loons. David J. Stewart is one such. Stewart, a resident of Guam, has apparently decided that Jack Chick is too lenient on non-believers and not sufficiently fundamentalist (and too coherent to boot – Stewart doesn’t like him). Accordingly, Stewart – a graduate of the staunchly unaccredited Hyles-Anderson College – has for instance managed to become something of a favorite at FSTDT (some here).

Stewart’s website, Jesus Is Savior, concerns itself with familiar themes such as King James-onlyism, Anti-Catholicism, and the evils of rock (Led Zeppelin is dealt with here), including Christian rock (“Christian rock is evil” here), pop and country music (“country music is filthy” here). Part of the point is the old adage that “the Devil has the best music,” which Stewart takes to be a completely serious and true statement (and a slight against religion), concluding that virtually all modern music is ‘Satanic’. Even with regard to these rather common nuttyisms Stewart has his own … style.

But there is more. One recurring idea is that “Oprah is the Most Dangerous Woman in the World!” because she is a New Agie (here; the conclusion is not wholly unwarranted, but the way Stewart gets there deserves to be seen). By contrast, the most dangerous television show ever is apparently Hee Haw (“No doubt, Hee Haw destroyed many marriages and families with their whorish lascivious programming”).

A mainstay of his website is his attacks on other Christian apologists for failing to be sufficiently fundie: Ray Comfort and Kirk Cameron, for example, are too affiliated with ‘Satanic’ Hollywood, and even Martin Luther King Jr was a communist and “an Imposter” – MLK is for instance recognized as a good guy by Christianity Today, which also “promotes Rock Music, Witchcraft, Homosexuality and Satanism,” so he should be viewed with … well, according to Stewart “evidence proved that King was under the direct orders of Soviet spies and financed by the Communist Party,” and the FBI tapings of him in the 60s “developed shocking revelations regarding King’s sexual practices.”

The main problem, however, was King’s campaigning for social justice, which to Stewart is “nothing less than a continued Communist conspiracy to destabilize America. This ‘social justice’ has spawned feminism, homosexuality, gay-marriage, abortion, and a host of other evils in America. […] The social justice which King propagated was […] largely a campaign to morally bankrupt America. Communism found a willing servant in Martin Luther King Jr. Today, America is largely Communist.” It should come as little surprise that feminism is evil – a woman’s place is in the home and subservient to her husband. When reading Stewart you should probably keep in mind that feminism, abortion and Lesbianism all mean the same thing). Indeed, feminism is “mass media control as part of a long-term plan to enslave humanity”, because the Rockefellers “want to chip us” and feminism “has women freezing eggs.” Women wearing trousers is unbiblical, as is men wearing kilts (“One only has to look at the above photo to see what's wrong with kilts or skirts on men. It’s disgusting!”)

Unsurprisingly, Stewart is also a 9/11 conspiracy theorist and deeply into New World Order/Illuminati conspiracy theories. Nor is he a fan of evolution. Indeed, he has a substantial section of his website dedicated to “debunking” evolution with links to a variety of crank sources as well as some novel, home-made crazy. Apparently, the idea of evolution was created by the Illuminati as a justification to bring about global communism. He rejects anthropogenic global warming for much the same reasons.

There is also a bit of regular politics, along the lines of “The Bill of Rights does NOT grant rights to homosexuals, abortionists, witches and other immoral groups who do evil. Genuine freedom can only be established and maintained by unwavering faith in God.” Here is his support for Michael Marcavage, guest-authored by … Michael Marcavage and entitled “God Bless Michael Marcavage”.

Here is a sample of his views on atheism. Not only is atheism Satanic, according to Stewart, “atheists now rule most of the world”. Of course, Stewart includes James van Praagh, all Jews and Muslims, and Martin Luther King (that communist) among the atheists, which makes the claim easier to back up in one sense.

I am not completely sure whether this commentary is a poe or not.

Diagnosis: A very angry man, Stewart has managed to make a name for himself, but probably not in the way he hoped. Probably rather harmless. But he is, indeed, pretty angry.

Stacy Swimp is a an aggressively anti-gay fundie minister from Michigan and founder of “Revive Alive, Flint, Michigan.” Like other fundie anti-gay activists, Swimp likes to say incredibly stupid things, and appears to believe that he’s fighting for “religious freedom” (no, he hasn’t thought very seriously about it). “We need to make sure that we are doing everything we can to stop them from amending our civil rights bill to include this civil rights language, or my friends, freedom as we know it will no longer exist,” says Swimp. I think the emphasis is on freedom as we know it; that is, Swimp’s freedom to impose his views on others and be allowed to discriminate based on his hatred and bigotry under the guise of religion. He didn’t react very coherently to the Michigan marriage ruling either, claiming for instance that it ruled marriage “unconstitutional”, and joining Roland A. Caldwell and Lennel Caldwell in arguing that civil rights should not be upheld by the courts if it conflicts with the opinions of the majority (no, they aren’t very good at thinking). Also, the bill “legalizes pedophilia”, added Swimp, just in case you didn’t know, which you probably didn't.

To make sure he has inanity well covered, Swimp also claims that gay marriage – “enemies of God” are behind it – is going to bring about the end times, just like in Noah’s day. Also, gay marriage will lead to “broken families” and “escalated crime,” and homosexuality is “bondage” that “leads to destruction and death”. He doesn’t elaborate on what he thought the causal mechanisms might be, or the data gathering process that led him to draw this conclusion.

Diagnosis: It is kind of sad that people like Swimp are currently leading the fight against civil rights, but at least he makes sure that he backs up his campaign with the stupidest possible arguments. Ridiculous clod.

The woo is everywhere and can have a strong influence on the weak-minded. The range of idiotic bullshit you can subject yourself to is almost endless, yet the Tong Ren technique, an “unholy alliance of acupuncture and voodoo”, remains among the more quaint of options. Yes. Tom Tam, its inventor, taps not on you, but on a voodoo doll representing you, and this tapping, along with “intent”, enables him to treat you of cancer, multiple sclerosis, AIDS, and other diseases, as well as emotional problems and weight loss. Actually, he even claims to be able to treat chemotherapy side effects, surgery side effects, autoimmune disorders, and thyroid disease, and you don’t even need to be present – like Pat Robertson, Tam can heal you over the telephone.

How does it work? Well, Tam claims that it is not faith healing, since he isn’t affiliated with a particular faith. It is allegedly not even mysterious. “My belief in Tong Ren healing is associated with the philosophy of the collective unconscious and the power of the mind. […] When a group comes together to form a collective unconscious, as in healing meditation, this collective mind can become healing power. […],” though that qualifies as “not mysterious” only to the extent that vapid, incoherent rubbish isn’t “mysterious”. “In Tong Ren Therapy we use a regular plastic acupuncture model to form the healing image. The acupuncture model becomes an energetic representation of the patient’s body. By placing the needles in the appropriate spots on the model and connecting the mind with our collective unconscious, the practitioner can give a patient a treatment. […] Just as light shining through a slide will display an image, the Chi directed to the patient is modified by the image of the acupuncture model with needles inserted at specific points.” In other words, it’s faith healing, pure and simple. But Eastern faith healing. And it is all about balancing the humeurs, just like medieval alchemists believed, but calling it a “means to balance the patient’s Chi,” makes it sound trendier.

And just to make sure his journey to the crackpot side is complete, he throws in the … quantum. That’s right. And no, he doesn’t understand quantum mechanics, but neither, presumably, does his audience, so to Tam, quantum energy just is an appeal to vibrating metaphysical spirits that can justify exactly what he wants to say. Then there is the claim “Western” doctors aren’t interested in Tong Ren because they can’t understand it or sell it and there’s “no economic benefit” to Tong Ren and “all medicine is political”, which should lead you to ask how Tam makes a living off of it. He also has testimonials.

But apparently the technique has gained some popularity. If you are ever in the Detroit area, for instance, you can drop by the De’Spa Elite (owned by one Carolyn Hopkins), and for just $75 for a 50 minute intervention, acupuncturist Linda Kent will give you a full Tong Ren procedure (apparently forgetting that there is “no economic benefit”). According to Kent, “energy medicine is the new medicine for this century,” which makes one wonder why it sounds like a combo of voodoo and exactly what mysticists believed and did in medieval times.

Diagnosis: Everything woo and shiny in one. And yes, it is religious fundamentalism – with a friendlier face, perhaps, but in a similar manner a threat to human well-being and civilized co-existence.

Hak-Shing William “Bill” Tam is Executive Director of the San Francisco-based Traditional Family Coalition. Tam was very heavily involved in the proposition 8 trial, partially because Tam believes that legalization of gay marriage would lead directly to the legalization of pedophilia because this was, as confirmed by his imagination, the next item on that infamous “gay agenda.” According to Tam, San Francisco was even in 2010 already “under the rule of homosexuals.” So who is behind this travesty? “Satan is working on our youths. If we and our churches don’t do our parts, we will certainly lose our kids. They’ll one day surrender to Satan.” But of course.

During the trials Tam made several novel claims, including alleging that homosexuals were 12 times more likely to molest children, and that if Prop 8 did not pass “one by one, other states would fall into Satan's hands.” He defended these writings primarily with the Bible, but when pressed for sources he also cited “the Internet.”

In the end Tam begged out of the trial, claiming he was afraid of retaliation, despite having spoken at innumerable public rallies and expressed his views in public and on TV hundreds of times.

Diagnosis: Numerous people like Tam out there, of course, and they can’t all get their own entries. We’ll do our best to cover a representative sample, though.

Indigo children are children whose auras are indigo in color. That allegedly means that they are somehow aliens or part alien or something and don’t have autism spectrum disorders or attention deficit disorder or anything like those darned doctors might say because they are close-minded. The term “indigo child” was introduced by psychic and aura reader Nancy Ann Tappe, who maintained that “The Indigo label describes the energy pattern of human behavior which exists in over 95% of the children born in the last 10 years … This phenomena [sic] is happening globally and eventually the Indigos will replace all other colors.” (Note the delectable use of “energy pattern”). The concept was further spelled out by our old friend Lee Carroll and his Kryon gang, according to whom indigo children are somehow a next step in human evolution – though since the rest of us are presently unable to recognize them for their true potential, they end up getting classified as attention-deficit instead.

According to Peggy Day and Susan Gale, authors of Psychic Children: A Sign of Our Expanding Awareness (stop for a moment to really take in that title) the arrival of indigo children was foretold by Edgar Cayce, which is a claim it is in practice often hard to argue with for reasons not having to do with what Cayce actually said. Robert Gerard, who runs the Oughten House Foundation, Inc. and sells angel cards, believes – as explained in his book Emissaries from Heaven, that his daughter is an Indigo Child and that “[m]ost Indigos see angels and other beings in the etheric.” There is something almost infinitely sad about that claim.

Gerard contributed, as did Tappe, to the important collection The Indigo Children, where the connection betweenchildren diagnosed as having ADD or ADHD and the indigo auras signaling “a new kind of evolution of humanity” was ~~explainedhypothesized~~ asserted. Emotion and wishful thinking play central roles in the arguments, and it isn’t hard to see why “my child does not have ADD; she/he has special abilities and is further evolved than the rest of the children” might seem appealing to some. That does, emphatically, not make Tappe and Gerard the good guys.

More recently, the New Age movement has introduced the idea of crystal children, who have “a crystal-colored aura”, though it has yet to offer an unequivocal definition, partially one assumes because “crystal-colored” is a bit tricky to cash out. Crystal children are even more peaceful and magical, and have greater psychic abilities, than indigo children, and they start talking late because they communicate telepathically. Jesus might have been a crystal child (the word “Christ” is afterall like the word “crystal,” sort of). There may also be rainbow children, at least according to Doreen Virtue, whom we will have a chance to revisit later.

It should be mentioned that Indigochild.com says that “just in case you heard otherwise from other ‘indigo’ sources, the designated word ‘Indigo’ has nothing to do with the color of an aura! It is the result of scientific observations by a woman who has the brain disorder called synesthesia.” That woman would be Nancy Ann Tappe. Her scientific observations consist of aura readings, psychic readings and getting lost in metaphorical descriptions of her own imaginations.

Jenny McCarthy used to believe that she was an indigo and her son was an even more evolved crystal child (she even ran the website Indigo Moms), until she decided that her son was vaccine damaged instead. Another self-declared indigo child is Andrew Basiago who can travel in time with the dolphins.

Diagnosis: Though abysmally crazy, Tappe and her ilk also conveys a sense of deep sadness. Indeed, the whole, hysterically insance fluff carries an aura of desperate tragedy; although it is easy to see why their claims may be appealing to some, their efforts are in the long run not going to lead to anything good.

Bonnie Tarantino is a faith healer whose faith healing is based on Eastern mystical beliefs rather than Christianity. Due to rampant orientalism the fact that the faith healing is Eastern rather than medieval Western somehow makes it more respectable among certain people, even though it is based on the same principles of vitalism, alchemy, and religious fluffery, and just as remote from anything resembling a foundation in reality or evidence. In Tarantino’s case, she uses the titles Melchizedek practitioner (no reliable link found – this is serious whale.to stuff), holographic sound healer (no, it doesn’t), and an Usui and Karuna Reiki Master. None of it works, and Tarantino, like the others, has no evidence whatsoever that any of it works.

As such, she is really a run-of-the mill crackpot altmed practitioner. But Tarantino’s career illustrates a really, truly insidious and scary trend: the inroads that quackery has made into academic medicine. Despite her disregard to any value associated with education, science or the search for truth Tarantino is the deranged Saruman of the University of Maryland School of Medicine Center for Integrative Medicine, and haunts the halls of the University of Maryland R. Adam Cowley Shock Trauma Center offering her services to unsuspecting patients – “preys on people in difficult situations”, as some might put it (and I wouldn’t be in a position to disagree). The Center apparently also offers e.g. acupuncture, homeopathy, craniosacral therapy, and reflexology (for instance in the form of the services of one Jean Wehner, who offers Reflexology, Life Coaching & Reiki).

Diagnosis: There is no way around the conclusion that you should be wary of a medical practitioner with an education from the University of Maryland. But the problem is a general one. The infestation is already a pandemic.

Charles T. Tart is a psychologist and parapsychologist best known for his work on lucid dreams, astral projection, LSD, marijuana, and ESP. He is currently a Core Faculty Member at the Institute of Transpersonal Psychology (Palo Alto, California) and a Senior Research Fellow of the Institute of Noetic Sciences (Sausalito, California), as well as Professor Emeritus of Psychology at UC Davis.

His early work was concerned with altered states of consciousness (ASCs), particularly as induced by various drugs (he also wrote this). Tart, who believes that Yoga and Zen had long been tapping into ASCs, took there to be something mystical or spiritual – superior or higher – about these altered states of consciousness. Indeed, according to Tart, ASCs are a gateway to a higher consciousness, to the realm of the paranormal and the spiritual. He hastens to assert that “[t]here was a time, years ago, when I was highly skeptical of any paranormal claims of any kind,” but he came to change his mind because … well, because of curious personal experiences easily explained without invoking the supernatural but for which a supernatural “explanation” appealed more to him. “What you make of [these stories] depends very much, I think, on your prior convictions,” says Tart, and uses that as a blanket permission to interpret them any way that suits his mood.

Tart is, in fact, somewhat more dogmatic than parapsychologists in general, and has stated that science has confirmed the existence of remote viewing, psychokinesis, precognition and ESP, even though these claims are false (though Tart has rather systematic problems with understanding basic methodology), and usually counters objections by claiming that “materialistic skeptics” ignore the data (rather than, you know, pointing out methodological flaws in the process of obtaining those data).

Indeed, Tart is – like Deepak Chopra – a vocal critic of materialism and “material science”. He even calls parapsychology “essential science”, and science that denies the non-material realm is “scientism.” He is the author of the book The End of Materialism: How Evidence of the Paranormal is Bringing Science and Spirit Together (2009), which is substantially reviewed here. As the review (R. Carroll) puts it, the book “is written as if there is no need to prove the existence either of psi or of spirits. It is written for those who already reject materialism, accept the reality of the paranormal, and don’t really care one way or the other what science has to say about either.”

Now, to understand where he is coming from it is worth noticing that Tart’s definition of “science” is rather different than the rest of the scientific community, and much of the arguments in the book rest on his deep interests in Buddhism and spirituality, making it clear these things give him a bias toward favoring the paranormal data he reports on. Most of the data he reports on are made up of personal reports or testimonials, often well-known and already much-discussed cases (including Hal Puthoff and Russell Targ), which to Tart apparently counts as scientific proof.

Even though he is a psychologist, he rejects established psychological explanations for paranormal phenomena, and plumps instead for the idea that people can remote view out of their physical bodies into the past, present, and future and that people can predict future events. It is, however, a bit difficult to reconcile his claims that psi is real, that it is non-physical in basis and that is does not operate to known scientific laws, but has nevertheless been proven by science in repeatable experiments – one almost suspects some wilfull compartmentalization going on.

Tart himself has complained about the difficulty in getting funding for research into parapsychology, suggesting that inherent bias among scientists is the cause (oh, yes, the appeal to conspiracy instead of the more obvious explanation that Tart’s claims are completely unsupported and his research methodology patent nonsense). Of course, when making these complaints he neglects to mention that he spent a year developing a curriculum and teaching as the director of Robert Bigelow’s endowed Chair of Consciousness Studies at the University of Nevada at Las Vegas. Bigelow gave nearly $4 million to UNLV in 1997 to investigate such subjects as dreams, meditation, hypnosis, out-of-body experiences, telepathy, and the ever-popular subject among college students, drug-induced altered states of consciousness. One may wonder why One wonders why Tart, instead of using some of Bigelow’s money to do the large-scale studies he complains about not being able to do because of lack of funding, apparently decided to use the money to promote what he already believed to be true.

His book The End of Materialism is also notable for endorsing the ravings of fraudulent mediums such as Eileen Garrett and Leonora Piper.

Diagnosis: Wishful thinking taken to extreme levels – and Tart even seems to admit as much on occasions. But he has no evidence for his conclusions, unless you – as Tart seems to suggest – redefine “evidence”.

A.k.a. Sue Ford (I have no idea, and I don’t care)

Brice Taylor studies mind control at the University of Google and her own imagination, and her research is diligently published on whale.to.We could really end this entry right there, right?

She has been subject to mind controls herself, apparently, by the powers that be. And yes, it is probably unnecessary to mention that there are conspiracies here. “Often they worked for the United Nations,” says Taylor. But they were really representatives of “The Council”, a nefarious organization that controls commerce (AT&T is one of their successful ventures) and the presidents – otherwise The Council just has the president killed, like JFK. “Many, many people are under mind control and have been working for them for years,” and the technology is apparently way beyond our wildest imagination – though Taylor doesn’t really provide much detail. At least “[f]rom my experience I believe Elvis was a puppet, a pawn, and in the end totally directed.”

For some reason The Tavistock Institute of Human Relations plays an important role – it was set up in London in 1921 to study the “breaking point” of humans (I have yet to figure out precisely why delusional conspiracy theorists are so focused on this otherwise rather non-descript institute, but there you go – here is an example).

How does she know? She used to work for them, apparently – “There were times a personality within me was programmed and used to entice and kidnap other children off the street and into a big black car. The kidnapped children were initially kept in cages in back rooms and then used in pornography and usually killed, often in snuff films.” Indeed, “George Bush was/is a pedophile” (it is notably how conspiracy theorist like Taylor mentally deals with people she doesn’t like or disagree with). And “[m]any slaves were also being used in projects for remote viewing, one of the CIA’s secret weaponry, and in experiments in regard to parapsychology. Many of us were taught to telepathically communicate, as a means of reading the enemies’ minds.” Yes, they are really Nazis striving for genocide, and “[o]ur food is being tampered with, by the insertion of food additives and substances like aspartame … They view this as a massive genetic cleanup.” In fact “The American Medical Association is fashioned to prescribe drugs and perform various treatments that although they may be unsuspecting, tend to weed out the weaker species;” the members of The Council instead relies on alternative medicines they don’t want you to know about, such as herbs (fortunately various Internet spammers seem to be doing their heroic best in undermining the efforts of The Council; Internet spam is our road to salvation!)

Much of her “work” is summed up in her book Thanks for the Memories.

Diagnosis: I suppose we have some kind of moral obligation to help her. She probably doesn’t cause much harm to others than herself, however.

Ian Taylor is a creationist author associated with the Institute for Creation Research, perhaps most notable for his appearance in D. James Kennedy’s hysterical creationist film Darwin’s Deadly Legacy (yup, it’s the imagined Darwin-Hitler link) and for running the Creation Moments two-minute radio program.

His views are least unsystematically laid out in his book In the Minds of Men, which really is an evangelical tract rather feebly disguised as science (as conceived of by creationists like Taylor); some of the audacious lies and misrepresentations in that book (and in Taylor’s other presentations) are explained here; the exchange with fellow creationist Jim Long is particularly telling. In general, Taylor has focused quite a bit on efforts at using Nebraska Man, a hominid fossil discovered in 1922 an briefly hypothesized to be an “anthropoid ape-man”, as evidence of apparently typical frauds committed by those who subscribe the evolution (he’s not the only one). Of course, his case for “fraud” is rather weak if you remove the fake quotes and misrepresentations Taylor uses to build his case – and yes, the significance wouldn’t be much to write home about in any case, but it is telling that Taylor is pathologically unable to even get the basic facts straight. He has also devoted some “research” into what he perceives as the archaeopteryx hoax.

You can see a summary of a debate with Ian Taylor here. A summary of Taylor’s talk “The Genesis Flood” at the 1993 International Creation Conference was held in Beaverton, Oregon is here (old, yes, but creationism hasn’t evolved much the last 20 years).

Diagnosis: A typical summary of a typical religious fanatic who desperately and rather feebly tries to pass his religious beliefs off as science. Admittedly, Taylor may in fact be Canadian, and hence formally disqualified. But he is at least a loon, so we don’t feel to bad about covering him here.

Sherri Tenpenny, an osteopath who doesn’t appear to practice medicine in any recognizable way anymore, is an abysmally crazy promoter of woo, antivaxx views and conspiracy theories. Her website presents her as “one of the country’s most knowledgeable and outspoken physicians regarding the impact of vaccines on health,” but Tenpenny has no relevant educational background or expertise (e.g. on infectious disease or immunology), and has published no research on any related topic. There is a good and compact portrait of her and her expertise here.

She runs the Tenpenny Integrative Medical Center, and is the author of Saying No to Vaccines, where she argues against vaccines by relying on, well, conspiracy theories, gut feelings and pseudoscience – it earned Tenpenny her own whale.to page and landed her an interview on Alex Jones’s PrisonPlanet (where she presented her conspiracy theories about the swine flu). She is also on the board of the crank antivaxx organization Medical Voices Vaccine Information Center, which does its best to challenge whale.to for trustworthiness on things medical (and publishes her stuff), prominent member of the Canary party, and on the advisory board for the Holistic Moms Network, which is possibly the place you should get your medical advice. She is, of course, also a mainstay at the annual quackfest conference Autism One.

Tenpenny is even a a germ theory denialist; according to Tenpenny disease seems to be due to toxins that damage the body, and the germs subsequently take advantage of the toxin-damaged tissues – she has even been caught quoting the well-debunked lie that Pasteur recanted his germ theory on his death bed, no less.

Tenpenny’s lack of understanding of how evidence in science works (e.g. that looking at all the evidence trumps judiciously selecting whatever superficially seems to support your belief) or the distinction between correlation and causation is brilliantly displayed in her post “Vaccines and the Blue Foot Syndrome”, discussed (in context) here, which seems to suggest that the anecdotes gathered by antivaxxers for causal claims refuted by controlled studies, shows that it is scientists who don’t understand evidence.

Crankmaster Christiane Northrup has been caught quoting Sherri Tenpenny in her rants against vaccines, calling Tenpenny “the foremost medical expert in vaccine safety”. Mike Adams is a fan as well, calling Tenpenny “a brilliant, science-minded researcher with a lot to teach the world about vaccines and immunology.”

Diagnosis: Extreme crackpot, and it is pretty scary to see how she is repeatedly treated as if she were some kind of expert in the fields, and as if her rants contained any reality-reflecting insights. Very, very dangerous.

We’ll note the name Marc Thiessen and move on.

Brian Thomas is, according to his bio, a “Science Writer at the Institute for Creation Research,” and young Earth creationist. Indeed, Thomas is the source of most of the content that comes out of the Institute’s website on a day-to-day basis (excluding their various magazines etc.). According to the bio, he specializes in biology, problems in evolution, origin of life, and dinosaurs, though his forays into astronomy and cosmology are frequent. He does, apparently, have a masters degree in biotechnology, and has a background as a school teacher, but, needless to say, those qualifications do not quite put him in the position he wants in order to authoritatively ponder the questions he likes to, well, not ponder, really, but rather have knee-jerk, preset opinions about.

Mr. Thomas’s primary contributions to the ICR’s website is his Daily Science Updates, or ICR News (same thing, apparently). The articles tend to cover some-weeks-old news on matters scientific that Thomas attempts to shoehorn into a creationist framework (unsurprisingly usually rather desperately). And no, the content rather quickly reveals that Thomas does precariously little research on the topics at hand, apart from looking at the press release and paper itself. A good example (among many) might be his article “Distant Watery Planet Looks Young”, which asked whether the red dwarf orbiting exoplanet Gliese 1214 b could have held on to its atmosphere for billions of years against the solar wind while orbiting so close to the star, and lamented that “[T]he scientific literature typically does not ask questions like these,” which is false, but – you know – persecutions of Christians and all that. A typical example of Thomas’s densely moronic approach to scientific findings is here (and here). Thomas also weighed in on the discovery of the Australopithecus sediba, classifying it unhesitatingly as an ape (without much further thought) and thereby avoided even the caution of the AiG.

A brilliant example of how Thomas approaches science (first, decide what the conclusion is; second, try to find one piece of evidence that fits; third, ignore everything else) can be found here. The topic is a recent article in Geologypointing out that the surface of Venus is relatively young, on the order of a few hundred million years – Thomas’s screed doesn’t link to the original article, for obvious reasons. Instead, he concludes that “[s]ecular geologists anticipate that additional measurements may help resolve the vexing Venusian riddles, but satisfying answers may never come without something more substantial than just new data.” Oh, yes. We should instead conclude that Venus is young (Thomas says less than 10,000 years; researchers say the surface of Venus – not the planet, mind – is about 750 million; no real difference), and forget about all those other planets and all that other data.

Here he tries to deal with the Flood, in particular the existence of several flood myths, many of which far older than the Bible. Here, on the other hand, he argues that the genetic afflictions caused by intermarriage is proof that our genes must have been better in the past (Adam and Eve; the Noah bottleneck, and so on). In other words, we are not better off genetically now; hence, evolution is false. Egad! And here is his critique of the new Cosmos series; short version: Tyson is biased since he accepts a scientific rather than a creationist approach to the data.

Some of Thomas’s articles are rewritten with the help of fellow science writer Frank Sherwin to appear in the ICR’s monthly newsletter, Acts & Facts. These pieces are intended for a general audience, and are less “specialized”, but the scientific accuracy tends not to be better.

Diagnosis: Standard fare creationist. He is probably a nice guy, but he is severely delusional as well, and – though we don’t know the readership of those ICR newsletters – he is at least relatively productive.

#1181: John A. Stormer

#1182: William Strauss & Neil Howe

#1183: Whitley Strieber

#1184: Thomas M. Strouse

#1185: Matthew Stucky

#1186: Robert Sungenis

#1187: Brian Sussman

#1188: Jimmy Swaggart

#1189: Stewart Swerdlow

#1174: David J. Stewart

#1190: Stacy Swimp

#1191: Tom Tam

#1192: William Tam

#1193: Nancy Ann Tappe

#1194: Bonnie Tarantino

#1195: Charles Tart

#1196: Brice Taylor

#1197: Ian Taylor

#1198: Sherri Tenpenny

#1199: Brian Thomas