Table of Contents

Part 1 Introduction: close encounters with the strange; the importance of why; beyond weird to the absurd; a weirdness sampler. Part 2 The possibility of the impossible: paradigms and the paranormal; logical possibility versus physical impossibility; the appeal to ignorance; the possibility of ESP; theories and things; on knowing the future. Part 3 Looking for truth in personal experience: seeming and being; perceiving - true or false; remembering - do we revise the past?; judging - the habit of unwarranted assumptions; the limits of personal experience. Part 4 Relativism, truth and reality: "truth is relative to individuals"; "truth is relative to societies"; truth is relative to conceptual schemes"; the relativist's petard; facing reality; we create our own reality; "we create our own reality"; "we create relaity by consensus". Part 5 Knowledge, belief and evidence: Babylonian knowledge - acquisition techniques; propositional knowlege; reasons and evidence; expert opinion; coherence and justification; sources of knowledge; the appeal to faith; the appeal to intuition; astrology revisited. Part 6 Mystical knowing: true mystic moments; speaking about the unspeakable; the causes of the mystical. Part 7 How to assess a "miracle cure": personal experience; the doctor's evidence; the appeal to tradition; the reasons of science. Part 8 Science and its pretenders: science and dogma; scientific methodology; confirming and confuting hypotheses; criteria of adequacy; creationism, evolution, and criteria of adequacy; parapsychology. Part 9 Case studies in the extraordinary: the search formula; dowsing; UFO abductions; channelling; near-death experiences.