a. belonging to the Emperor;

b. embalmed;

c. tame;

d. suckling pigs;

e. sirens;

f. fabulous;

g. stray dogs;

h. included in the present classification;

i. frenzied;

j. innumerable;

k. drawn with a very fine camelhair brush;

l. et cetera;

m. having just broken a water pitcher;

n. that from a long way off look like flies.

As a way of classifying animals, this seems absurd to us. We would never do that. We would never think that way.

Indeed, as far we know, nobody has ever thought that way. The classification was an invention of Jorge Luis Borges, the mischievous creator of magical fiction. He claimed that it came from ‘a certain Chinese Encyclopedia’ called the Celestial Emporium of Benevolent Knowledge. However, he made it up.

Nevertheless, there it is. And, fictional or not, it’s an alien way of thinking. We would never classify animals in that way. We would never think that way. Borges, with some magical fiction, reveals the limits of our thinking.

Whenever we encounter an alien way of thinking, it’s a reminder that, beyond our own way of thinking, there are other possibilities. Of course, it might not be true. However, if we’re curious, it might make us wonder. Perhaps there’s something to it?

After all, it’s a strange way of classifying animals, but we’re animals and we classify ourselves by sex and gender, race and ethnicity, nationality and sexuality. We classify ourselves by age, occupation, star sign, personality, religion, political allegiance and social class. We’re carriers of genes, information-processors, consumers, citizens, colleagues, parents and children, friends and lovers. We live our lives as all of these things and see ourselves as all of these things. Each of us is a messy collection of disparate and overlapping categories.

In a sense, we do think that way.

We divide ourselves into all kinds of categories. So, we might wonder: why focus on just one of them? Like religion. Or political allegiance. Why divide ourselves in that way? We can divide ourselves in so many other ways.

If we draw different boundaries, we’ll find that some folk, who were on the other side, are now on our side. They will also be citizens and colleagues, parents and children, friends and lovers.

[with apologies to Borges, Foucault and taxonomists]

A few days later, she was invited to come to the laboratory. She was told where and when. She decided to put it in her diary.

The day before the experiment, she decided to check the bus timetable. That night, she decided to set her alarm, so that she wouldn’t be late. When the alarm woke her in the morning, she was feeling tired and the weather was awful. Nevertheless, she decided to go to the laboratory, as she had promised.

She had no idea how long it would take, so she decided to have a proper breakfast and decided to dress casual. She always liked to be punctual, so she decided to take an earlier bus and, when she arrived early, she decided to wait in the foyer.

A few minutes later, she was invited into the laboratory and told about the experiment:

She would be connected to a device that measured her brain activity. Her task was simple: look at a timer and push a button. She could push the button whenever she wanted. However, she was to note the precise time that she decided to push it.

She agreed - in other words, she made the decision - to go ahead.

When she was connected to the device, she did what she had agreed to do. She looked at the timer and, at the moment she decided to push the button, she noted the precise time.

It was only later that she read about the findings of the experiment. The device had recorded brain activity a moment before she decided to push the button. Apparently, this meant that her brain had decided to do it, without her awareness. She hadn’t made the decision.

This, somebody told her, was proof that free will is an illusion. You think that you choose freely, but you don’t. The decision happens in the brain, without you realising it.

Libby was annoyed by this (though she chose not to show it). She had made many decisions long before she had pushed the button. And, if she hadn’t made those decisions, she would never have been in a position to push the button. It was merely the final step in an ongoing choice – that she had made - to take part in the experiment. Whatever free will is, she thought, surely it lasts longer than a few seconds?

In any case, she decided not to take part in another experiment.

She is currently making holiday plans.

[based on a thought by Raymond Tallis about an actual experiment]

When you read this sentence, the first time, you were slightly confused.

You will read the third prediction.

You are going to die.

By now, you know if the first two were accurate. The third one, well, you knew that already. Meanwhile, what to do?

Some predictions prompt us to act. When we see the weather forecast, we get the umbrella. When we read the prophecies of train schedules, we arrive at the station on time. When we hear the promises of politicians, we sigh and roll our eyes.

But other predictions fail to move us.

How often have we told ourselves that, one day, we’ll do that thing we’ve always wanted to do? Definitely. At some point. We’re going to focus on what matters. We’re going to stop being distracted by the endless noise and nonsense.

After all, we know that life is short. We’re familiar with the clichés. We should stop and smell the flowers, because life is a journey, not a destination. We know that life can’t be a destination, because the destination is death.

We know that this is certain. However, we prefer not to think about it. So we put things off, carry on as normal, and continue to be distracted by the endless noise and nonsense. We notice the flowers and think: ok, maybe later, when nobody is looking.

What would it take to make us act?

Imagine, just for a moment, that your doctor told you: you’re going to die. You would probably ask: when? And, if the doctor gave you a year, what would you then do? How would you spend that precious year?

And if it was two years? Or five? Or ten? How would you spend those precious years?

And if it was twenty or thirty, or more? What would you do with your limited time?

With some predictions, we don’t need to wait to find out if they’re true.

Instead, the tortilla was framed and placed in a shrine. It attracted countless pilgrims. They waited in line, with the patience that comes of faith, to witness the miraculous breadstuff. It became international news, with photographs of the tortilla appearing in newspapers all over the world, so that others could judge for themselves.

Since then, the face of Jesus has appeared on pancakes, poppadoms and pizzas. It’s been found on a tree stump. It’s been discovered inside the lid of a jar of Marmite. It’s been spotted on a wood panel of a toilet door in the Glasgow branch of IKEA.

And this is only part of the miracle. Every time that Jesus has appeared, his face has mysteriously changed. Nevertheless, the faithful have been able to see, in these vague yet noticeably different markings, the face of Jesus.

Around the same time that the tortilla was discovered, but in a completely unrelated context, Woody Allen described a mythical beast. The mythical beast had the body of a lion, and the head of a lion, but not of the same lion.

Years later, after reading this, I visited Edinburgh Zoo, and I looked at a lion. I looked at the lion for quite some time. Finally, I managed to convince myself, just for a moment, that it was the mythical beast.

In that briefest of moments, as I looked at what I could see, and saw more than was there, I understood the power of faith to shape how we interpret the world. It was only a brief moment, however, because I remembered that Woody Allen had been joking.

Faith is a magical window through which the mundane can be transformed into something extraordinary. But we all have faith of one kind or another, because faith takes many forms. We don’t see the world as it really is. We see it through a window that’s loyal to certain assumptions about what there is, and to certain expectations about what will be. This can lead us to notice things that aren’t really there.

A missing key. The emptiness of a wallet. A train that hasn’t arrived yet.

Whatever is really out there, we don’t see it as it is. We itnerpert waht we see in trems taht we can udnersatnd. We tarnsfrom waht is out terhe itno semothnig taht mkaes snese to us. In the porcses, we can see the fcae of Jseus – even though it’s not really there.

We don’t just see the world. We interpret what we see. We see it in a particular way. When different people view the world, they see things in different ways. No wonder that we disagree.

And we can see this as a problem. Or we can see it in a different way. We can see it as a reminder.

A reminder that our own view of the world is also limited.

[adapted from Peter Lamont, Radical Thinking: how to see the bigger picture (2024)]

Take a moment. Breathe deeply.

Ready?

Good, let’s begin.

I’m going to think of a number, and project it into your mind. The number will be between 1 and 50. I know, even numbers can be difficult. OK, let’s make it odd. An odd number between 1 and 50. But I’m not going to make it easy. It will have different digits (like 15, not 22). And smaller than 50. All set?

OK, here goes, I’m thinking of the number now …

Have you got it yet?

Are you thinking of thirty-seven?

Not everyone gets it. In fact, it rarely works with sceptics.

You, however, aren’t just sceptical. You are also open-minded. After all, you took the test.

You took it - even though you expected it to fail.

And you were right!

Congratulations on being an open-minded sceptic. In today’s world, you’re more important than ever.

Many years ago, when I read an English translation, I noticed that it asked a rather curious question:

‘Do witches employ illusion to trick people into thinking that [men’s] penises have been entirely uprooted from their bodies?’

The question surprised me. For one thing, it referred specifically to ‘[men’s] penises’. This suggested a sensitivity to gender fluidity that wasn’t typical of early modern books on witchcraft.

However, it also referred to ‘trick’ and ‘illusion’. This made it – the illusion of a vanishing penis - sound like a magic trick. And that, of course, would be weird. But that’s not what they meant.

The language of magic – like language in general – has changed over time. To understand what people mean when they talk about magic – or anything else – we need to know the context.

Malleus Maleficarum distinguished between different kinds of magical illusions:

Some were simple magic tricks. They were done ‘without evil spirits … with people making rapid movements’ (i.e. tricks that use sleight of hand, the hand being quicker than the eye).

Others were due to witchcraft. And this included the illusion that a penis has disappeared. It was caused by an ‘evil spirit who uses the art of illusion’.

So, according to Malleus Maleficarum, it was demonic witchcraft.

Admittedly, to most of us, that still seems pretty weird. But we don’t need to agree with them. It’s simply an example of a general truth: if we want to understand what people mean, then we need to know the context.

It’s worth being reminded of this. We frequently encounter quotes – about ideas or beliefs - that have been taken out of context. They are then repeated in a different context, in which they sound weird. Or weirder. We just need to remember that, whatever people say, what they actually mean depends on the context in which they say it.

It’s not as if we don’t know this. We’re all familiar with the double entendre. Indeed, back in the early modern period, they were familiar with it. The double entendre only works because we know that the same words, in a different context, can mean something else.

Malleus Maleficarum understood this. It distinguished between illusions caused by witchcraft (‘evil spirit’) and those that were done by sleight of hand (‘rapid movements’). It understood that the vanishing penis wasn’t caused by rapid hand movements.

Let that be a reminder to us all.

My own system is also made up. It has no basis in tradition. It has no basis in evidence. It has no basis at all. However, from what I understand, that’s really not a problem.

Here’s how I do it. I work with the tarot cards in pairs. The first of each pair points to an area in your life. The second of each pair reveals how that will pan out.

Are you ready? Let’s begin:

OK, the first card is Judgement. I see this card as being about personal judgment. It’s about the choices that you make, and the actions that you’ll take in the future. So, the next card will tell us how you’re going to behave in the future.

Right, so the Devil card suggests that you’re going to behave in a, well, not to worry. After all, we all have a bit of the devil in us, don’t we? None of us is perfect.

Let’s move on to the next pair:

Now, the Justice card. That’s very interesting, especially coming after the last card. Justice can come in many guises and often it never comes. So, even if you behave in a ‘devilish’ way, you may well get away with it.

Let’s see what the next card …

Ok, the Hanged Man suggests that you won’t get away with it. But these cards are symbolic, did I mention? I really wouldn’t worry about it.

Let’s quickly move on to the next pair:

Ah, the Lovers! That’s better. After all, there’s nothing more important than love, don’t you think? Now, you need to keep in mind that it might refer to romantic love, or it may refer to platonic love. The important thing is that we have someone. But who might it be?

Perhaps there’s a clue in the next …

Oh for fu… so the Hermit card sounds bad. But we can find peace in solitude. We can find peace, which overcomes the loneliness - sorry, the solitude of, I’m sure it’s, it will be, it’s all good.

Never mind. Let’s see what the final pair say:

Alright, finally a truly positive card: Strength! Strength is positive, whether it’s mental strength or physical strength. As many doctors will tell you: it doesn’t matter about the rest of your life, as long as you’ve got your health!

So let’s see …

OK, I guess we all saw that coming … but the thing about the Death card. It’s not really about death. It’s about new beginnings! That’s what the experts say. New beginnings.

I guess there wasn’t room to fit NEW BEGINNINGS in that space at the bottom of the card. It wouldn’t fit, would it?

So they thought: we’ll just call it DEATH.

That makes sense.

So, congratulations! I think that went rather well.

DISCLAIMER: Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or to actual events, past, present or future, or to anything at all - literally anything - is purely coincidental. That’s how it works, good or bad. It’s purely coincidental.

There are three reasons why it’s extraordinary. First, it’s his least known poem. Even experts know nothing about it. Second, Burns never wrote it down. He expressed it in the form of rapping. Third, he composed it in the 1850s. As Burns died in 1796, this is particularly extraordinary.

No, I’m not making this up.

The poem was published in a spiritualist journal, The Yorkshire Spiritual Telegraph (April, 1855). The journal explains that, during a séance, some spiritualists contacted the spirit of Burns. They wanted to know what he thought about a Scotsman called John Henry Anderson.

Who?

Anderson was a famous magician at the time. He was, perhaps, the first magician to produce a rabbit from a hat. However, he was also an enemy of spiritualism. He denounced spirit mediums – and what they did at séances – as fraud and deception. When he performed on stage, he pretended to conjure up the spirits, and told everyone that it was trickery.

Naturally, this upset spiritualists.

So, when the spiritualists contacted the spirit of Burns, they wondered what he thought about his fellow Scotsman. They asked Burns ‘if he would favour us with a verse or two upon the man [Anderson] and his profession’. And, we’re told, Burns agreed.

Burns communicated through spirit rapping. In other words, the spirit made rapping noises to indicate letters of the alphabet. This would have taken a while. When the work was complete, it bore an uncanny resemblance to a poem that Burns had written while still alive. Except that it wasn’t as good. In any case, here it is:

If this was Burns, however spiritual, it clearly wasn’t his best material. And, at the time, some were sceptical. Well, almost everyone was sceptical. You’re probably sceptical yourself. Me too. It’s unbelievable. So, in a bid to confirm the story, I contacted the spirit of Burns myself.

This was his reply (which, if real, now qualifies as his last poem):

‘It wisnae me.

It wisnae me.

Ah’m tellin’ ye,

It wisnae me.’

I know, you think I’m making this bit up. But then he added, in a more Burns-like manner:

‘If there’s another world, ah wid hae done better than this’.

Think what you like, but I believe that it’s just as real as the other one.

In any case, since the spirits are handy, let’s raise a glass to the immortal memory of the man himself: Robert Burns!

I was taken aback. I told him that it made no sense. However, this had no effect. He simply repeated it again and again. Other children then followed his lead. They said it too. And I told them all: ‘This makes no sense’. But they just kept saying it.

The more I explained that it made no sense, the more everyone went on about it. At some point, the teachers got involved. They also explained that it made no sense. But this simply drew more attention to it.

The bully kept saying that I was an e***, and that everyone knew it, and others repeated this. They claimed that there was evidence to support the claim, and that anyone could check the evidence, though they didn’t have it handy. Occasionally, the bully was confronted directly. He was told ‘You’re a liar’, but he simply replied: ‘What about him, he’s an e***!’

That’s what happens in a playground. Children make things up to get attention. Others then follow the leader because they’re not yet able to think for themselves. Many don’t actually believe it but, to avoid the bully’s wrath, they go along with it. And the bully, when accused of lying or talking nonsense, simply denies it. He doubles down, to keep attention, because that’s what he wants. Attention is power.

That, of course, was a long time ago. I live in the world of adults now. Such childish tactics wouldn’t work with adults. They only work in a children’s playground, where getting attention is more important than having something meaningful to say.

It’s hard to believe that it worked back then. But it did. Everyone, even the adults who knew that it was nonsense, reacted to it. So, the bully got what he wanted.

I never found out what an e*** is. I’m not sure that anyone knew at the time. However, it taught me a lesson.

Nonsensical words, like magic spells, can have a real effect.

Douglas Kelley, an American psychiatrist, explained that magic depends on psychology. Magicians misdirect our minds. One way that they do this is by hiding their intentions.

As Kelley explained, magicians have a rule: Never tell the audience what’s going to happen. It’s part of the deception. If you don’t know what they plan to do, then you won’t see it coming . . .

. . . and then they surprise you with something that you didn’t expect.

One of Kelley’s favourite tricks was with a wooden duck. He called it Oscar. Somebody chose a playing card. It was returned to the deck. The deck of cards was placed in front of Oscar the duck. Oscar then lowered his head and plucked a card from the deck with his bill. It was the chosen card!

In 1942, Kelley published a magic trick that he’d invented himself. It was a card trick that involved a toy telephone. In 1945, he went to Germany, at the start of the Nuremberg trials, to assess the minds of Hermann Göring and other Nazi leaders.

He concluded that Göring wasn’t insane. He wasn’t so different, Kelley thought, from certain powerful businessmen and politicians in America.

Kelley was worried, at the time, that his fellow Americans were also vulnerable to the influence of extremist propaganda. He feared that what happened in Nazi Germany might happen in America.

After all, we’re all vulnerable to those who wish to misdirect our minds. We don’t know what they plan to do. They hide their intentions. Later, they surprise us with something that we didn’t expect. By then, however, it’s too late.

We didn’t see it coming.

According to a fifteenth century manuscript on witchcraft, this is how to become invisible:

1. Go out of town, to a field, dressed in a white robe.

2. Trace a circle on the ground, then fumigate it.

3. Sprinkle the ground and yourself with holy water, as you recite Psalm 51.7 [‘Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean; wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow’].

4. Kneel down and conjure some spirits to do your bidding.

5. When the spirits appear, ask them to fetch a ‘cap of invisibility’.

6. When they bring it, exchange it for your robe.

7. Three days later, return to the same place and retrieve the robe from the spirits. However, you must burn it, or else you shall die within a week.

So that’s an option. But please keep it to yourself. In the wrong hands, occult knowledge can be dangerous.

Of course, nobody is going to try this. For centuries, we dreamed of being able to become invisible. But not anymore. This is the twenty-first century. The dream of invisibility is no longer attractive. It has been replaced by another – and equally impossible – dream. The dream of being visible.

More than any other time in history, we chase visibility. We try so hard to cut through the noise. We post and tweet. We like and share. We seek attention in every conceivable way. But nobody sees us. We travel to foreign places and take pictures of ourselves, in front of exotic things, to make us seem more interesting. But nobody sees us.

We try virtue signalling, or being provocative, to a get a response. Any response. We hype it up, we tease, we bait, we exaggerate, we lie … whatever it takes to be noticed. However, even if it works, they’re merely reacting to the hype, the tease, the bait, the exaggeration or the lie. They’re not really seeing us.

As we search for visible signs of recognition, some of us become desperate. We resort to begging. We say things like:

Please like this post.

Please subscribe.

PLEASE SUBSCRIBE.

I know. Frankly, it’s embarrassing.

When the first vowel went, nobody noticed, since it’s not so difficult to get by with only four, even when the missing vowel is the third most commonly used letter in English – providing, of course, the sentence is not too long - so nobody noticed when the first one went, since four seemed quite sufficient.

Then there were only three vowels left. Few noticed this either, since the words were – they needed to be - chosen more precisely. However, the sentences were more limited in expression. Some wondered why the prose seemed slightly different. Like something is off? Yet most decided to ignore the problem. They still possessed the other three, which proved to be fine for now. So they contin… they went on like before.

When the next vowel went, there were only two. Most of the words were shorter now. The sentences too. Less freedom of the prose. Experts observed the trend. They foretold the effects. Yet others chose to deny the problem. They sneered: there’s no problem, only the protests of woke vowel-lovers.

Then the next went. Merely the e left. The sentences were terser. They expressed even less. The experts were muzzled helpless. The rest? They knew. Even the sneers receded. Yes, there were regrets. They’d, well, they’d never expected … they’d felt exempt. Yet they knew where the present trend led … The End.

SH*T ☹️

You experience the same thing as before. Nevertheless, you keep going … even though it’s the same thing as before. The exact same thing. Well, not exactly the same thing, but basically the same thing as before. The same thing as before.

But still, you keep going … even though it’s the same thing as before. You keep going … even though it’s the same thing as before. The same thing. But you keep going… even though it’s the same thing as before.

Nevertheless, you keep going, doing the same thing as before, the same thing as before, and wishing that it would be different, but knowing that it will be the same thing as before, the same thing as before, but you keep going, even though you know that it will be the same as before, the same thing as before, the same thing until, at some point, you realise …

That’s life. There’s a French phrase for it. C’est la vie. But still, you keep going, doing the same thing as before and knowing that it’s the same thing as before, but you keep going …

Until it ends.

Déjà vu isn’t a memory of a past life. It’s a reminder about this life. While it lasts.

One day, a stranger walked down the path. He was wearing a hat, which was red on one side and blue on the other. As he passed between the two farmers, he greeted them both, without turning his head. The farmers wished him a good day, and then they began to talk.

“That was a fine red hat”, said the first.

“It was indeed a fine hat”, said the second, “but, of course, it was blue”.

“No”, insisted the first, “it was red”.

And so an argument began. However, as both men grew more and more insistent, they remembered that the path was a dead-end. So, the stranger would need to return and then they would settle the question. And so they began to wager. Each was so certain that he was right, and so frustrated at the arrogance of the other, that it was not too long before they had bet their farms on the colour of the stranger’s hat.

Sure enough, when the stranger reached the end of the path, he turned around and began to walk back. However, before he came within sight of the farmers, he also turned his hat around, so that each farmer would see the same side as before. As he passed between the two, he again greeted them, without turning his head. And the farmers greeted him back, and each one smiled as broadly as the other.

“As I told you”, said the first, “the hat was red, so I win the bet”.

“Are you blind”, said the second, “it was blue, just as I said, so I win the bet”.

And so the argument grew and grew, and they began to fight until the local police became involved and the men ended up in court. Families and friends attended the court, to hear what all the fuss was about. People took sides and began to argue, and soon the whole community was divided on the colour of the stranger’s hat.

Meanwhile, the stranger watched from a distance and smiled at what he’d done. After all, he was the Trickster. This was what he did. He created chaos by stirring things up. He divided opinion on things that, until then, nobody had cared about. He created division where there had been none.

He did this by exploiting human weaknesses. He depended on people to dismiss the idea that their own view might be limited. He reinforced their existing view. He relied on their inability to see the other side.

And then he departed, laughing aloud, and left them to themselves.

[based on a Yoruba myth]

Your brain is a remarkable thing, but it’s limited. It can't breathe. It can't eat. It can't see or hear. It can't walk or talk, or smile or kiss. It can’t laugh or cry, or have sex or raise children. There are all sorts of things that your brain can't do, but you can do, because you’re not your brain.

Yes, the brain is the centre of your thinking. However, it's not the whole of your thinking. Thinking is bigger than individual brains. From the moment we're born, we're constantly interacting with the world, and with each other. In the process, we work out how to think and what to think.

Our personal beliefs - about politics, religion or anything else - may be in our brains. However, we get them from other people. As we go through life, we encounter different views. We then agree with some of them. We choose our beliefs from a long menu that's already out there in the world.

Our desires may be in our brains but, beyond our basic instincts, other people put them there. The things that we want are made desirable by parents, peers, politicians, priests and people who want to sell us things. Nobody is hard-wired to want the newest smartphone. We learn from others what is desirable.

Our memories are frequently outside our heads. We remember by writing in diaries, by setting alarms and by buying souvenirs. We reminisce in conversation. We record by taking photographs, then post them online for others to see. We’re reminded by others to do what we haven’t done. Call your mother. Offer ends Friday. Please Slow Down. Wash your hands.

Our personal traits depend on other people. We’re intelligent, or ambitious, or stable, or conscientious, or extravert in comparison to others. Even our innermost thoughts are meaningless without the world outside the brain. After all, how can you understand what's going on inside your head?

You need language, which you learn from other people. They learned it, in turn, from other people. Language evolved, and continues to evolve, through people interacting with each other. We create language among ourselves, then use it to understand what's going on inside our individual heads. Whenever we think about our inner selves, we rely on outside help.

We’re more than our individual brains. Our thoughts depend on the connections in our brain, but they also depend on other connections: the ones between our brains. These connections are in what we say and do, in how we interact with the world and with each other. Without these connections, we wouldn’t, and couldn’t, think the way that we do.

That, after all, is why you're thinking about this, right now, instead of something else. I’ve put down these thoughts, so that you can read them, and now - at this moment - they’re in your brain.

We put our thoughts out there, and the things that we think are responses to what others say and do. Together, we work out how to think, what to think and who we are.

He was an eight-year-old boy from the Scottish highlands. He had a mysterious ability that ‘defied the research of all the Medical men’. They called him the ‘double-sighted Scotch phenomenon’.

The boy’s name was Louis M’Kean. He stood on a stage, dressed in a tartan costume, and performed feats of clairvoyance. His ‘double-sighted’ faculty was meant to resemble the gift of Second Sight.

(Louis M’Kean, who was sometimes billed as the ‘Double-sighted Scotch Youth’. Image courtesy of the late great Ricky Jay, who was a source of wonder)

This is what the eight-year-old did:

He was blindfolded with a handkerchief, then turned his back towards the audience. His father collected objects from the crowd, then held them up one at a time, and asked his son what they were. The boy described the objects in detail, including the dates and types of coins. When members of the audience wrote down messages, which were out of sight, he knew what they were. When they whispered softly, out of earshot, he repeated what they said.

The double-sighted Scotch phenomenon immediately attracted attention. The London press reported that, ‘even when an attempt was made to mislead him, he instantly detected it’. They explained that ‘he never made any mistake’ and answered ‘without a moment’s hesitation’. He ‘excited the very highest degree of wonder’.

However, the wee wonder had to compete with other novelties. He was already sharing the bill with ‘Two Orang Utans and a Chimpanzee’. And, before long, there was Don Carlos, ‘the Double-Sighted and Beautiful Dog’. It was claimed that the dog could perform card tricks. It was promised that he ‘will also select the handsomest Lady in the Room, according to his judgement (which is seldom questioned) … and the Gentleman most partial to the Ladies’.

With so many novel attractions – every one of them competing for attention - the double-sighted Scotch phenomenon struggled to sustain interest.

Can you imagine what that would have been like? Imagine a world in which everyone is being bombarded with novel and exaggerated claims, based on questionable facts. Publicity-hungry showmen make sensational announcements and extravagant promises. They know that novelty attracts attention. They also know that novelty doesn’t last. So, they keep making new announcements. They flood the zone with endless noise, until the public begin to drown in a bewildering sea of hullabaloo.

In a world where everyone is drawn to novelty, of course, this is inevitable. However, it’s distracting and confusing. Our minds, unable to keep up – unable to sustain interest in any particular thing - flit from one novelty to another. The latest announcement. The newest sensation.

In such a world, the double-sighted Scotch phenomenon was unable to survive. The newspapers moved on to more novel sensations. They now ignored the boy. However, they found the time to report some juicy news about the father, when he drunkenly assaulted a member of his audience:

When a customer asked for his money back, the father assaulted the man ‘by breaking a violin across his nose’. The father, who wasn’t merely tipsy but ‘in a glorious state of intoxication … took him by the collar, and nearly shook the breath out of his body; at the same time spluttering forth some Scotch’. Later, when the magistrate found him guilty of assault, the father ‘put his hat on in a rage’ and, when he refused to remove his hat in court, ‘it was pulled off for him, in doing which his wig came off with it, which put him in a greater rage than ever. He was conveyed to the lock-up’.

The double-sighted Scotch phenomenon had recently ‘excited the very highest degree of wonder’. However, he was soon eclipsed by his father, the excited double scotch phenomenon.

Little wonder! That’s the problem. Novelty is short-lived. For wonder to survive, it needs sustained interest.

They failed to notice that there was now a new sign: Shop Open.

On one particular day, however, a curious stranger arrived in Edinburgh. She passed the shop and looked in the window. She could see that the shelves were empty, but she noticed that the shop was open. The stranger wondered what was inside the shop. So, she decided to find out.

She went into the shop.

The walls were covered in wooden shelves, which were also completely bare … except that, on every shelf, there was a sign. On each sign, the same question was written: Are you curious?

The stranger was curious.

An old man walked out from the back of the shop, and greeted the stranger: Welcome to The Curiosity Shop, how can I help you?

The stranger replied: I’m curious. What’s the business of this shop?

The owner replied: This is The Curiosity Shop. It is in the business of curiosity.

The stranger was confused: But you’ve nothing on display, except for some signs that say: Are you curious? Is that all you’ve got in this shop?

Do you see anything else?

No, unless there’s another area in the shop that I can’t see.

There is no other area in the shop. Everything is here.

Then I don’t understand. There’s nothing here but these signs.

Are you curious?

Yes, the signs that say: Are you curious?

No, I am asking you directly: Are you curious?

Yes, I’m curious, I just told you that.

You said that, that is true, but I am not sure that I believe you.

The stranger was becoming annoyed and was about to leave .. and yet, she was curious.

OK, I give up. What do you mean?

The owner smiled and began to explain: This is The Curiosity Shop. It is in the business of curiosity. If you are really curious, then you need to think about what you are missing.

But all you have are these signs?

Do you see anything else?

No, there’s nothing else on the shelves.

The owner smiled: Yes, the shelves.

The stranger was still confused: The shelves? What’s that got to do with curiosity?

The owner smiled and finally explained: The purpose of the shelf is to display things - so that you notice these things. And you notice the things that you are shown. However, you do not notice the shelf, which is showing these things to you. If you are really curious, then you should look beyond the obvious - to see what makes it obvious to you.

The stranger nodded. It was true enough. And she understood its significance. She slowly walked out of the shop, without a word, thinking about this …

As he stood there alone in his shop, the owner was still smiling. But then the smile faded. He finally understood something too. This was never going to work as a business.

A few weeks later, when people looked in the window, they saw that the shelves were full. There were tartan bonnets and tartan socks, tartan scarves and tartan ties, tartan mugs and tartan coasters, and anything else that can be in tartan. There was bagpipe music blaring through speakers.

Everyone noticed this. They went into the shop, bought the merchandise, and they thought no more about it.

Every day, as people walked by the shop, they stopped to look in the window. They gazed at the shelves, which were crammed full of knick-knacks, vintage crockery and antique ornaments, exotic carvings, odd coins and medals, fading photographs, prints and postcards, and countless other curious things.

However, nobody went into the shop.

Day after day, passers-by stopped for a moment to look in the window. They looked at the curious collection of strange and old and mysterious objects. They wondered what they might be. It was a pleasant distraction from their daily routine.

But nobody went into the shop.

And then, one day, when people walked by the shop and looked in the window, they discovered something surprising. There was nothing in the window. The shelves were completely empty.

There was only a sign on the door: Out of business.

In 1823, a phrenologist announced that he’d discovered the faculty of Wonder. According to him, it was located in the orange space above. It sits between Hope (XV) and Wit (XXXII).

Later, rival phrenologists changed the name of the faculty: they called it Spirituality. As far as they were concerned, wonder was merely a part of Spirituality. There’s a curious story related to that … however, we’ll get to it later.

Meanwhile, this is a heads up. I’ll be talking about things of wonder, but not about spirituality. After three decades of writing and speaking about magic, psychic phenomena, belief, wonder and critical thinking, I’ve come to the conclusion that there’s too much belief, and not enough wonder.

So, I’ll be taking a curious look at things related to wonder. They may be true. They may be invented. Some of them are meant to be optimistic. A few are supposed to be amusing. For the most part, however, they sit between hope and wit, the idea being that - just for a moment - they make you wonder.