Tim Newton Anderson's Blog

I have just finished reading Martin Gardner’s Fads and Fallacies in the name of science and an article in John T Sladek’s New Maps where he defends Gardner, himself and Christopher Evans against the accusation they attacked pseudoscience with the same lack of rigor as its proponents.

I should declare my own position up front so any bias I have is evident – something many of those covered in Gardner’s book and Sladek’s The New Apocrypha are accused of doing. I love the bizarre fringes of belief but as a kind of fiction rather than accepting their tenets – the same way I love a good conspiracy theory.

Many of the people featured in Gardner and Sladek’s books will justify their theories by pointing out the gaps in mainstream science and its many errors over the centuries. However the fact many scientists believed in the universal aether and the condemnation of breakthroughs by Galileo and others does not mean their ideas have to be accepted because they have also been questioned by the establishment, and more than the fact governments have kept some things secret means they must be suppressing evidence of flying saucers. Big Pharma’s vested interest in doctors prescribing their medicines does not necessarily invalidate all of their products.

It is also true that science and medicine have often proceeded by trying harder and harder to justify the accepted position on things until the evidence of exceptions becomes so large a paradigm shift occurs – Kuhn’s Structure of Scientific Revolutions has documented this extensively.

What differentiates ‘real’ science from the fringes is the scientific method. Theories are almost never ‘proved’ but they are tested rigorously to see if they fit the facts – not least because the people who believe the previous theories are keen to do so. Most importantly they are tested to see if they work, and if a medicine or technique is only useful in 80% of cases, doctors and scientists will work to see what can deal with the other 20%. This lack of completeness does not invalidate the majority of successes.

The thing that characterises most of the theories detailed in the two books is how they do not stand up to independent testing or need increasingly byzantine adjustments to fit with demonstrable reality. The more outré the theory, the greater the testing needed for its acceptance and dismissing counter evidence as proof of conspiracy by established scientists to discredit the creator’s brilliant insight is a weak argument

To be fair, Gardner sometimes displays his own bias in favour of the scientific consensus in his analysis. I prefer Sladek’s reductio ad absurdum approach – not least because it is funnier. However both make good cases against their targets.

What fascinates me is why lots of people (in the case of the Cosmic Ice Theory and Lysenkism entire nations) want to believe the strange ideas are true.

I think it is because we want simple answers to the secrets of the universe – 42 anyone? – and look for miracles to reduce misery. Faced with months of misery through chemotherapy and debilitating drugs or the option of changing your diet or having your spine massaged to cure cancer, it is not surprising people choose the latter. Having to understand complex mathematics and centuries of investigations to explain why the world is the way it is can seem impenetrable compared to believing ancient astronauts created everything as a stand in for God. Never mind who created the aliens. When a scientific breakthrough also challenges your existing beliefs and prejudices it is even more tempting to go for something that confirms them. It is not surprising that many of the theories examined ‘prove’ the superiority of white men and the inferiority of other races and women and therefore their popularity. None of that suggests that breakthroughs are restricted to trained scientists or doctors

I’ve just finished reading Lyndsay Popper’s book Who Are The Illuminati. Those expecting to learn more about how a secretive group rule the world from the shadows will be disappointed. It is an excellent study in the ways conspiracy theorists have taken a minor 18th century group of quasi Masons and turned them into a universal bogeyman behind everything they disapprove of.

The Illuminati have featured in fiction – from Dan Brown’s pedestrian works to the wonderful Illuminatus Trilogy of Robert Anton Wilson and Robert Shea. Popper’s book shows that the group have been at the centre of equally fictional plots since they were dissolved in Bavaria after a few years existence in a crackdown on secret societies. Each generation of (generally) right wing writers have placed them behind everything they hate, from the French Revolution, liberal humanism, Satanism, the Jews, big business, big government, Communism, the European Union and other countries in general, and anything else they can tie in with an increasingly complex and unbelievable web of paranoid fantasies.

The great benefit of the Illuminati to such groups is that they no longer exist, so detailing their real presence is impossible to nail down. By the circular logic of the anti rational everywhere, the lack of proof is itself proof as such a group would take efforts to hide its presence. Their evidence is generally claiming the invented conspiracy theories of previous writers is factual rather than fanciful and they are therefore able to add their own layer to the myth. The common thread in the Illuminati’s imaginary plots is that they involve forwarding the interests of whatever the writer disapproves of. To make them especially heinous, they have been tied to other things that the public can see as evil, like Satanism, Witchcraft, Paedophilia, or invading aliens.

There are a number of logical gaps in this lucky bag of conspiracies, the biggest of which is question of why the secret masters would want to take over the world, when most of their supposed pawns are already in charge. The answer given by the writers is that they shouldn’t be. The world should be run by people who think like them, and anyone who thinks differently should be suppressed as harshly as they think their views are. The fact that they are free to publish and promulgate their theories in a world supposedly run by their enemies is another credibility gap and their cries for freedom of speech are a bit hollow when they are clearly exercising that right.

I love a good conspiracy theory for what it is – an exercise in the creative imagination. The workings of our mind to join things together to make sense of the world and fit it to meet our understanding of the environment in which we live. Rather than accept the world is big and complex and ruled by science and statistics with no simple answers, it is a triumph that we can weave a ‘reality’ that is equally complex. In works of fiction like the Illuminatus Trilogy, Ishmael Reed’s Mumbo Jumbo and Umberto Eco’s Foucault’s Pendulum conspiracy theories become art. We just have to remember that they are fantastic and not figurative.

My latest story to be published is The Book of the Beast in Black Sheep Magazine.

While browsing at Barnabees Books in Westleton I came up with the idea of a man who was haunted by a book. The first version was a straightforward ghost tale told in the bookshop and featuring the celebrity medium/sleuth Beryl Crystal and her assistant Charles. Then there was a call for stories featuring the occult detective John SIlence and I reworked it to include not only him but also Arthur Conan Doyle who had a strong interest in the occult.

Although the story didn’t make it past the short list into the anthology I submitted it to Black Sheep who accepted it.

The story is another of my tales set in the imaginary Fenland town of Great Witcherley. The fens,and East Anglia in general, are so full of intriguing myths and legends it is the perfect setting for any strange tales.

I have a new story out in Hellbound Books Creature Features (https://hellboundbookspublishing.com/creaturefeatures.html) which seems to have made the cover.

The Goldfish is set in my imaginary fenland village of Great Witcherly and is the third of my stories there to feature a circus. The others are Death of a Clown in Wolfsinger’s Midnight Menagerie (https://www.wolfsingerpubs.com/midnight-menagerie) and Dog Days, Wolf Nights in Circus of the Dead (https://www.lulu.com/shop/chad-anctil/circus-of-the-dead/paperback/product-q6kmed5.html?page=1&pageSize=4)

Sometimes you find a book and sometimes a book finds you.

I recently wrote a story called the Book Elves where the title creatures live in bookshops and make sure books are in the right place. That doesn’t mean they are shelved in a specific order, they have to place them where they can be found by the right reader.

In a charity shop in Southwold I came across Imaginary Cities by Darran Anderson. Anderson (no relation) muses on the cities of the mind – fabulous places in books, paintings, and the minds of visionary architects. The blurb mentioned mentions utopias, and the Situationists, and the first page I glanced at quoted Italo Calvino’s Invisible Cities – a book I love.

I was pleasantly surprised to find it was a signed limited edition, dedicated to another Tim. This was obviously a book meant for me.

I am loving it so far. The style and wide ranging referencing reminds me of Umberto Eco, and there can be no higher praise. Thank you, book elves.

I’ve just finished reading the wonderful English Heretic Collection by Andy Lane which puts cult films, Ballard, Lovecraft, psychogeography, myth, history and Crowley in a blender and spreads them liberally over English landscapes – particularly those of East Anglia.

Lane’s English Heretic project started as a reaction to the cozy commodification of history by English Heritage. He developed a series of Black Plaques from a multi media melange of text, music and image to celebrate eccentric anti heroes and the written and photographic component of those are collected in this volume along with other pieces.

I recently wrote a story for an anthology where Sherlock Holmes encounters the Cthulhu mythos which I set in Dunwich – about six miles down the coast from where I live. For those unfamiliar with the town, it was once the size of London and one of England’s busiest ports. Then a freak weather combination drowned most of the town under the waves earning it the name of England’s Atlantis.

There are many legends associated with Dunwich including one of East Anglia’s many sightings of Black Shuck – the devil in the form of a large black dog, the myth that the bell of the drowned church can sometimes be heard from under the ocean, and lots more. Like most places in the East its inhabitants suffered under the attention of Matthew Hopkins, the Witchfinder General.

I don’t know if Lovecraft used the town’s name for a fictional location in New England knowingly but there are close links with the two regions as many early settlers came from this region and one of Hopkins targets fled to Salem where he was involved in the Witchcraft accusations there.

The combination of the name, the legends (including a Templar link) and the black dog made it the obvious place to base the story. As you can see from the shelf picture, I have enough reference books to make the research easy. Lane’s masterly volume has now joined them.

I have a lot of books, and often buy more, so putting them in the right place takes some thought.

The ‘right’ place is not just a matter of having them arranged by subject and putting fiction in alphabetical order by author as libraries and modern bookshops would tell you. It is about having them where they want to be.

Reference books are by my desk, arranged roughly by subject area, although some cross over a number of potential categories. I have a lot of books about art and literature movements in Paris, but some are about the occult aspects of those movements so could go with my books on myths, magic and mysteries. Some could also go in the glass fronted cabinet which houses my collection of books relating to ‘Pataphysics – Jarry and critical studies about his life and writings, other writers from his era of Symbolists and Decadents, those inspired by him in Dada and Surrealism (and the writers who moved in and out of the Surrealist movement according to the whims of Breton), writers associated with the College de Pataphysique, Oulipo, and the London Institute of ‘Pataphysics, and others I think simply belong there. However some of the books on Paris could also be included in that shrine to Jarry.

Other writers I particularly love and have a lot of take up their own shelves or share them with fellow travellers, including, of course, the Sherlock Holmes shelves. There is also a section of books by and about Lewis Carroll, the continuations and contemporaries of Alice, and other books of mathematical fiction which generally owe some inspiration to Carroll.

And, of course, there are quite a lot of novels which are still in alphabetical order.

I regularly visit Barnabees Books in Westleton owned by a friend of mine and love excavating through its piles of volumes to unearth some treasure. Ty Campbell keeps things in some kind of order, but it is not one that would be recognised by Waterstones. On a recent visit I thought she needed more bookshelves, but then realised what she needed was book elves that would come out at night and put the books in the right place. That ‘right place’ is where they will be found by their ideal reader.

I never miss the opportunity to use inspiration, so wrote a children’s story about five of those book elves which I am pleased with. I even managed to shoehorn in a Holmes reference.

If books are shelved like goods in a supermarket, arranged in a logical way to make them easy to find, they will only be bought by people who know what they want before they enter the door. In the best bookshops, you have no idea what you want until you chance upon it with the joy of recognition.

The Anthology is Afoot

I have the honour of attending an event to celebrate the final volumes of the MX Anthologies of New Sherlock Holmes Stories on May 17 at Conan Doyle’s former home – Undershaw.

For those who love the great detective, there is a live stream of the event – details at https://uk.givergy.com/UndershawMay2025/?controller=home – and there will be an auction of are Sherlockiana including some items donated by special guests Stephen Fry and Gyles Brandreth.

I have been fortunate enough to have had seven stories published in the series so far, with two more in the final four volumes which will be launched at the event. The series is the largest collection of new Holmes stories ever created thanks to the amazing work of editor David Marcum and publisher Steve Emecz. All moneys raised from their sale – and the Undershaw event – go towards the special needs school which now occupies the building.

The statistics are impressive. So far more than £140,000 has been raised from the first 48 volumes. The launch will see volumes 49- 52 published with a grand total of more than 1000 stories.

Thankfully David and Steve will not be resting on their laurels. MX are the largest publishers of Sherlock Holmes stories and their catalogue is worth a visit at mxpublishing.com.  David is one of our premier pasticheurs of both Holmes and Solar Pons and edits anthologies for Belanger Books as well as MX.

I’ve been writing a few stories featuring circuses and my imaginary Fenland village of Great Witcherly (or Great Marshway in one version – I forgot what I’d called it).

One of these – The Death of a Clown – will appear in Midnight Menagerie when that publishes on April 22.

A second – Dog Days, Wolf Nights – has just become available in Circus of the Dead and a third, The Goldfish, should soon appear in Hellbound Books Creature Feature.

Those were written in response to seeing calls for submissions, but it has inspired me to start a novel with the teenage protagonist having been brought up in a circus but coming to live with her uncle in a house where each level still exists in the period it was built in – going back to a cave from the Ice Age.

The short stories all have a degree of inspiration from Ray Bradbury’s Something Wicked This Way comes, and one of my (imaginary) London Institute of ‘Pataphysics stories – included in Triple Obscura 2 –  crams in references to the Bradbury book and lots of other strange circuses as well as a number of avant garde classics.

The other story of mine which has just come out is The Usher of Fall House in the Gothic Gazette. I wanted to see if I could take the atmosphere of Gothic Fiction and translate it to the present day without the usual props of the genre. The observant will notice my trick of not specifying the gender of the protagonist.

I had the pleasure last weekend of attending a get together of the London Institute of ‘Pataphysics to prepare for a potential exhibition on the theme of Machines at the Heath Robinson Museum.

It was great to catch up with friends in the (very crowded) French House in Soho, where the LIP has held previous events. We came armed with ideas for the exhibition which we then wrote on prepared slips of paper and carefully inserted into a shredder. The resulting strips were then glued to spiral drawings in random order to create new ideas.

Her Magnificence Tanya Peixoto also made a presentation to Neil Salley of the Musée Patamécanique in the USA as he was over on a visit.

I have been having a bit of a Pataphysical time, having dived into a number of books on the subject and annotating my own stories of the imaginary version of the LIP.

The best volume was the catalogue of the Morgan Library and Museum’s catalogue Alfred Jarry: The Carnival of Being based on Linda Klieger Stillman’s collection. As well as multiple images from the exhibition there are insightful essays from Linda Stillman and others.

I also read ‘Pataphysics Unrolled which was an interesting collection of articles on not only the origin of the science but how it has inspired other artists, writers and academics.

I have added these and others to my catalogue of Pataphysics inspired (and inspiring as it includes Faustroll’s equivalent authors and others of the period) works in my collection which is available on my blog at https://atjentertainments.wordpress.com.