This collection of articles covers an enormous range of subjects, from evolution to dreams to UFOs, and is a fine example of Gardner's boundless curiosity about human foibles. There will be something for everyone in this book, especially if you know people who credit the beliefs and practices discussed. With the first item, this may not be so easy.

There is a whole chapter devoted to the wonders of urine therapy, which an English author would unavoidably have entitled, Taking the Piss. Here are some recommendations from ayurvedic medicine:

"Alcoholism, anorexia, nausea, poor digestion, edema, and other ills respond to 'goat faeces prepared by washing in urine'. For constipation, drink a mixture of milk and urine. Epilepsy and other seizures yield to donkey urine." (p.95)

"cancer, multiple sclerosis, malaria, arthritis, AIDS, gonorrhea, jaundice, ringworm, tubercolosis..." (p.98)

There's no room here for the whole list, but if you're tempted, please bear in mind what a doctor advised Gardner (who is not tempted):

"Uninfected urine... is probably harmless, but drugs and poisons are eliminated by urine. Drinking such infected urine could spread an infection and do more harm than good even if one is dying of thirst in a lifeboat." (p.101)

Another, scarcely less elevated topic is covered in the chapter, "Carlos Castenada and New Age Anthropology". This highly successful author, whose books are still adored and credited by thousands, is an iconic figure even among some academics, let alone avid consumers of bogus wisdom. Gardner writes that,

"Careful investigations found his books riddled with contradictions, outright errors, and rafts of material pilfered from other authors. Don Juan existed only in Carlos's imagination. As sociologist Marcello Truzzi was the first to say, Castenada's books were the greatest science hoax since the Piltdown Man." (p.164)

And yet UCLA gave him a doctorate in 1972, and the University of California Press in 1999, motivated, as Gardner says, by "shameless greed", issued a 30th anniversary edition of his first book, without a word about the late fake's shortcomings.

There is too much entertainment to cover in one review, but the CIA is usually worth a mention:

"The CIA had tried training psychics to look at photos of Soviet cars and tell what was going on inside them. The officials even considered seriously the technique of puncturing tires by sticking pins into photographs!" (p.176)

Over twenty years, $20 million was spent on this ludicrous top secret programme before they accepted advice and gave up.

We are introduced to a new technical term it would be good to make a note of: clairvoyance is not a popular word anymore, apparently; now we have "scientific remote viewing", or SRV. A tenured academic, Courtney Brown, has had remote-viewing sessions with a certain Ed Dames:

"He remote-views President Clinton in the Oval Office. Dames tells Brown, 'I could have had you go into his head, but that would have been an invasion of privacy.' I found this the funniest line in Brown's book." (p.189)

Brown is greatly impressed by The Urantia Book, which may be worth a visit at www.urantia.org, if you feel like browsing through its 2097 deranged pages.

Of course, quite a few of the consequences of these bizarre beliefs are not too funny, as Gardner reminds us in a chapter on the Heaven's Gate suicides, when 39 people succumbed:

"How can one escape the coming holocaust? Not by being 'raptured', as Protestant fundamentalists teach, but by being beamed up to spacecraft operated by benign superbeings and taken to the gates of heaven. (Judging by the recent tragedy at Rancho Santa Fe, if you are male, the best way to make this journey is to cut off your own testicles, then kill yourself!)." (p.199)

Be careful out there.