Disputed Statements

Horsetail, Plants

Standing Popular myth - corrected

Concerns Origin Period Start Year

Currently States 1653

According To Culpeper, The Complete Herbal

Agnes Arber's Herbals: Their Origin and Evolution: A Chapter in the History of Botany, 1470-1670 (Cambridge University Press, 1938) surveys the printed herbals of that two-century period and documents how the doctrine of signatures, that a plant's form, colour or habit declares its medicinal use, a yellow flower for the Sun, a perforated leaf for light, a plant of wet ground for the Moon, was applied inconsistently from one compiler to the next. Comparing planetary and use attributions for the same plants across different herbals, Arber finds no agreement between authors, direct evidence the method is a theory of resemblance rather than one of observation or testing. Where a signature plant does have a real effect, as St John's Wort, willow and the poppy do, Arber traces that activity to the plant's chemistry, unconnected to its appearance. The instability she documents between compilers is why this atlas gives no single planetary attribution as settled.

Source Herbals: Their Origin and Evolution: A Chapter in the History of Botany, 1470-1670, Agnes Arber tier 1

Human Design, Disciplines

Standing Popular myth - corrected

Concerns Contested or Appropriated Modern Use

Currently States Human Design is a late-twentieth-century synthesis of the I Ching, astrology, the Kabbalah and the chakra system, presented as a mechanics; it has no standing in the sciences it borrows from.

Human Design presents itself as a precise mechanics of personality and life purpose built from the body graph's centres, channels and gates, but the system is a late-twentieth-century synthesis rather than an inheritance from the traditions it draws on. Ra Uru Hu, born Alan Robert Krakower, set the system out in The Human Design System (Human Design America, 1992), following a mystical experience he reported having in 1987; the atlas cites this as the founding presentation of the system in his own words. The method available is comparative, checking Human Design's centres, channels and type scheme against the I Ching, astrology, Kabbalah and the chakra system it names as sources, and finding no version of those centres, channels or types in any of them before 1992. Because the specific mechanics are demonstrably Krakower's own construction, and none of the four source traditions or the sciences the system invokes recognizes the scheme, the atlas records Human Design's own claim of ancient or scientific standing as contested.

Source The Human Design System, Ra Uru Hu (Alan Robert Krakower) tier 3

Hypnotic Regression, Psi Phenomena

Standing Popular myth - corrected

Concerns Key Experiment

Currently States The 1952 hypnosis sessions of Virginia Tighe by Morey Bernstein produced the "Bridey Murphy" past-life persona, later traced to Tighe's childhood exposure to an Irish-born neighbor, Bridie Murphy Corkell.

Hypnotic past-life regression uses hypnosis to prompt a subject to recall an apparent previous life, typically producing a detailed narrative the subject did not consciously believe they possessed beforehand. The Society for Psychical Research's Psi Encyclopedia entry on Criticisms of Reincarnation Case Studies records that the standard explanation for these narratives is cryptomnesia, ordinary information the subject encountered and consciously forgot resurfacing under hypnosis and being experienced as a spontaneous memory of a different life rather than recognised as a forgotten source. The method of investigation is documentary, tracing a regressed subject's account back to an identifiable prior source of the specific details when records allow it, since hypnosis itself is not a truth-detection technique and does not distinguish a genuine memory from a confabulated one. Because cryptomnesia has been identified as the source in the best-documented regression cases and hypnosis is independently known to increase confident but false recollection, hypnotic regression is treated as a textbook case of the mechanism rather than as evidence of past-life memory.

Source Criticisms of Reincarnation Case Studies, Psi Encyclopedia (Society for Psychical Research) tier 2

Hypnotic Regression, Psi Phenomena

Standing Popular myth - corrected

Concerns Replication Status

Currently States Controlled memory research establishes that hypnosis increases confidence in recalled material without increasing accuracy, and can generate sincerely believed false memories through the suggestive structure of the session; no past-life regression detail has been independently verified.

Source Criticisms of Reincarnation Case Studies, Psi Encyclopedia (Society for Psychical Research) tier 2

Hyssop, Plants

Standing Popular myth - corrected

Concerns Origin Period End Year

Currently States 1653

According To Culpeper, The Complete Herbal

Agnes Arber's Herbals: Their Origin and Evolution: A Chapter in the History of Botany, 1470-1670 (Cambridge University Press, 1938) surveys the printed herbals of that two-century period and documents how the doctrine of signatures, that a plant's form, colour or habit declares its medicinal use, a yellow flower for the Sun, a perforated leaf for light, a plant of wet ground for the Moon, was applied inconsistently from one compiler to the next. Comparing planetary and use attributions for the same plants across different herbals, Arber finds no agreement between authors, direct evidence the method is a theory of resemblance rather than one of observation or testing. Where a signature plant does have a real effect, as St John's Wort, willow and the poppy do, Arber traces that activity to the plant's chemistry, unconnected to its appearance. The instability she documents between compilers is why this atlas gives no single planetary attribution as settled.

Source Herbals: Their Origin and Evolution: A Chapter in the History of Botany, 1470-1670, Agnes Arber tier 1

Hyssop, Plants

Standing Popular myth - corrected

Concerns Origin Period Start Year

Currently States 1653

According To Culpeper, The Complete Herbal

Agnes Arber's Herbals: Their Origin and Evolution: A Chapter in the History of Botany, 1470-1670 (Cambridge University Press, 1938) surveys the printed herbals of that two-century period and documents how the doctrine of signatures, that a plant's form, colour or habit declares its medicinal use, a yellow flower for the Sun, a perforated leaf for light, a plant of wet ground for the Moon, was applied inconsistently from one compiler to the next. Comparing planetary and use attributions for the same plants across different herbals, Arber finds no agreement between authors, direct evidence the method is a theory of resemblance rather than one of observation or testing. Where a signature plant does have a real effect, as St John's Wort, willow and the poppy do, Arber traces that activity to the plant's chemistry, unconnected to its appearance. The instability she documents between compilers is why this atlas gives no single planetary attribution as settled.

Source Herbals: Their Origin and Evolution: A Chapter in the History of Botany, 1470-1670, Agnes Arber tier 1

Ica Stones, Artifacts & Relics

Standing Popular myth - corrected

Concerns Claimed Origin

Currently States Ancient Peruvian record of humans coexisting with dinosaurs.

HISTORY.com's What Are the Ica Stones, and Are They Real? (2023) examines the thousands of engraved stones held by Peruvian physician Javier Cabrera, depicting scenes including humans alongside dinosaurs. The article's method draws on the documented confessions of local carvers, including farmer Basilio Uschuya, who demonstrated the carving technique for journalists, together with comparison of the stones' imagery against twentieth century popular depictions of dinosaurs rather than any paleontological or pre-Columbian iconographic source, showing twentieth century manufacture rather than an ancient origin.

Source What Are the Ica Stones - and Are They Real?, HISTORY.com editors tier 3

Ica Stones, Artifacts & Relics

Standing Popular myth - corrected

Concerns Material

Currently States Engraved andesite cobbles (undatable by the engraving).

HISTORY.com's What Are the Ica Stones, and Are They Real? (2023) notes that the andesite stone type used for the carvings is common and long available in the region, so the stone's material itself cannot fix a date for when the carving was made; because no Ica Stone has ever been recovered from a documented, stratified archaeological excavation context, there is no independent contextual evidence to date the carvings against, leaving the carvers' own confessions as the primary evidence for their modern origin.

Source What Are the Ica Stones - and Are They Real?, HISTORY.com editors tier 3

Innocent I, Figures

Standing Popular myth - corrected

Concerns Tradition

Currently States Source of the saying Rome has spoken, the case is closed

According To Roman Catholicism

The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church (2005) examines the tradition that Augustine of Hippo declared Roma locuta est, causa finita est, Rome has spoken, the case is finished, after Pope Innocent I confirmed the African condemnation of Pelagius. The dictionary's method is textual, checking the phrase against Augustine's actual sermon at Carthage in 417, and finds Augustine there said only causa finita est, the case is finished; the fuller tag invoking Rome by name is a later condensation not present in the sermon, and it reads a stronger claim of Roman finality into an argument that in fact appealed to councils and the Roman see together.

Source The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, 3rd revised edition, F. L. Cross and E. A. Livingstone (eds.) tier 1

Instrumental Transcommunication, Psi Phenomena

Standing Popular myth - corrected

Concerns Principal Researcher

Currently States Klaus Schreiber, a German researcher, claimed from 1985 to receive video images of deceased relatives, including his daughter Karin, using a video-feedback technique, a method with a well-understood conventional electronic explanation.

Konstantin Raudive's Breakthrough: An Amazing Experiment in Electronic Communication with the Dead (1971) popularised the claim that voices of the deceased could be captured as unexplained sounds on audio recording equipment, and Klaus Schreiber, a German researcher, extended the claim to video from 1985, reporting video images of deceased relatives, including his own daughter Karin, using a video-feedback technique in which a camera is pointed at its own connected monitor. The method behind Schreiber's claimed images is a well-understood conventional electronic artifact: pointing a video camera at its own output monitor produces a feedback loop generating shifting, evolving patterns, including face-like forms that pattern-seeking human vision readily interprets as portraits, without any external signal being received. Testing the claim requires producing a specific, identifiable image under conditions ruling out this feedback artifact and any conventional selection of an ambiguous frame after the fact. Because no image attributed to Schreiber or later researchers has been produced under such controlled conditions, the principal researcher's claimed results are recorded as debunked, explained fully by the equipment's own ordinary behaviour.

Source Breakthrough: An Amazing Experiment in Electronic Communication with the Dead, Konstantin Raudive tier 2

Instrumental Transcommunication, Psi Phenomena

Standing Popular myth - corrected

Concerns Notable Exposure

Currently States Imants Baruss's Failure to Replicate Electronic Voice Phenomena (Journal of Scientific Exploration, Vol. 15, 2001), reporting on the closely related and earlier electronic voice phenomena claim from which instrumental transcommunication grew in the 1980s through researchers such as Germany's Klaus Schreiber, documents the pattern running through both claims: several publicised ITC cases involving computer or telephone contact in the 1990s and 2000s were later withdrawn or discredited once shown to have been fabricated or staged by a participant.

Source Failure to Replicate Electronic Voice Phenomena, Imants Baruss tier 1

Instrumental Transcommunication, Psi Phenomena

Standing Popular myth - corrected

Concerns Replication Status

Currently States Instrumental transcommunication grew out of electronic voice phenomena from the 1980s, extending claimed paranormal contact through electronic equipment to images in television static, fax and answering machine messages and later computer screens; German researcher Klaus Schreiber claimed from 1985 to receive video images of deceased relatives using a video-feedback technique that has a well understood conventional electronic explanation. Imants Baruss's Failure to Replicate Electronic Voice Phenomena (Journal of Scientific Exploration, Vol. 15, 2001), reporting on the closely related electronic voice phenomena claim, is consistent with the pattern across instrumental transcommunication generally: several publicised cases involving computer or telephone contact in the 1990s and 2000s were later withdrawn or discredited as fabricated or staged, and no claim has been produced under conditions ruling out pareidolia applied to visual noise, ordinary electronic artifact, or deliberate hoaxing.

Source Failure to Replicate Electronic Voice Phenomena, Imants Baruss tier 1

Iolite, Gemstones

Standing Popular myth - corrected

Concerns Origin Period Start Year

Currently States 1970

According To Modern crystal healing, from the 1970s

Wouter J. Hanegraaff's New Age Religion and Western Culture: Esotericism in the Mirror of Secular Thought (Brill, 1996) traces the specific modern crystal-healing framework, cleansing and charging stones, programming them with intention, correspondence to the chakras, crystal grids, and the accompanying Atlantean and Lemurian origin story, through its twentieth-century New Age sources, and shows the vocabulary and practices appearing and developing within that documented literature rather than being continuous with antiquity. Hanegraaff does not dispute that stones were worn, carved and credited with virtues in ancient societies, a separate and much older practice attested archaeologically, but the specific modern framework's own textual history is what this property records as recent. That the ancient-provenance claim is false is a historical finding about when the current framework appeared, not a judgement on the practice's legitimacy.

Source New Age Religion and Western Culture: Esotericism in the Mirror of Secular Thought, Wouter J. Hanegraaff tier 1

Iolite, Gemstones

Standing Popular myth - corrected

Concerns Origin Period End Year

Currently States 1990

According To Modern crystal healing, from the 1970s

Wouter J. Hanegraaff's New Age Religion and Western Culture: Esotericism in the Mirror of Secular Thought (Brill, 1996) traces the specific modern crystal-healing framework, cleansing and charging stones, programming them with intention, correspondence to the chakras, crystal grids, and the accompanying Atlantean and Lemurian origin story, through its twentieth-century New Age sources, and shows the vocabulary and practices appearing and developing within that documented literature rather than being continuous with antiquity. Hanegraaff does not dispute that stones were worn, carved and credited with virtues in ancient societies, a separate and much older practice attested archaeologically, but the specific modern framework's own textual history is what this property records as recent. That the ancient-provenance claim is false is a historical finding about when the current framework appeared, not a judgement on the practice's legitimacy.

Source New Age Religion and Western Culture: Esotericism in the Mirror of Secular Thought, Wouter J. Hanegraaff tier 1

Iridology, Disciplines

Standing Popular myth - corrected

Concerns Key Experiment

Currently States A 1979 study published in JAMA by Simon, Worthen, and Mitas photographed the irises of 143 patients, 95 with healthy kidneys and 48 with confirmed kidney disease, and found iridologists' blinded assessments performed no better than chance at distinguishing the two groups.

A. Simon, D. M. Worthen and J. A. Mitas published An Evaluation of Iridology in JAMA in 1979. The method was a blinded controlled trial: the researchers photographed the irises of 143 patients, 95 with healthy kidneys and 48 with confirmed kidney disease verified by medical diagnosis, and gave the standardized photographs to iridologists to sort by kidney health without other information about the patients. The iridologists' assessments performed no better than chance at distinguishing the two groups, and disagreed substantially with each other despite examining the same images. Because the diagnostic claim was tested directly, under blinded conditions with an independently confirmed medical outcome as the standard to check against, and failed to perform above chance, the atlas records iridology's diagnostic claim as debunked rather than unproven.

Source An Evaluation of Iridology, A. Simon, D. M. Worthen, J. A. Mitas tier 1

Islamic State, Secular Organizations

Standing Popular myth - corrected

Concerns Point in Dispute

Currently States Islamic State declared a caliphate in June 2014 and claimed the obedience of Muslims everywhere; Mona Hassan's Longing for the Lost Caliphate: A Transregional History (Princeton University Press, 2016) situates the claim's rejection across the mainstream of Sunni and Shia scholarship in the long history of caliphal claims contested on grounds of procedure and legitimacy.

Source Longing for the Lost Caliphate: A Transregional History, Mona Hassan tier 1

Ivy, Plants

Standing Popular myth - corrected

Concerns Origin Period End Year

Currently States 1653

According To Culpeper, The Complete Herbal

Agnes Arber's Herbals: Their Origin and Evolution: A Chapter in the History of Botany, 1470-1670 (Cambridge University Press, 1938) surveys the printed herbals of that two-century period and documents how the doctrine of signatures, that a plant's form, colour or habit declares its medicinal use, a yellow flower for the Sun, a perforated leaf for light, a plant of wet ground for the Moon, was applied inconsistently from one compiler to the next. Comparing planetary and use attributions for the same plants across different herbals, Arber finds no agreement between authors, direct evidence the method is a theory of resemblance rather than one of observation or testing. Where a signature plant does have a real effect, as St John's Wort, willow and the poppy do, Arber traces that activity to the plant's chemistry, unconnected to its appearance. The instability she documents between compilers is why this atlas gives no single planetary attribution as settled.

Source Herbals: Their Origin and Evolution: A Chapter in the History of Botany, 1470-1670, Agnes Arber tier 1

Ivy, Plants

Standing Popular myth - corrected

Concerns Origin Period Start Year

Currently States 1653

According To Culpeper, The Complete Herbal

Agnes Arber's Herbals: Their Origin and Evolution: A Chapter in the History of Botany, 1470-1670 (Cambridge University Press, 1938) surveys the printed herbals of that two-century period and documents how the doctrine of signatures, that a plant's form, colour or habit declares its medicinal use, a yellow flower for the Sun, a perforated leaf for light, a plant of wet ground for the Moon, was applied inconsistently from one compiler to the next. Comparing planetary and use attributions for the same plants across different herbals, Arber finds no agreement between authors, direct evidence the method is a theory of resemblance rather than one of observation or testing. Where a signature plant does have a real effect, as St John's Wort, willow and the poppy do, Arber traces that activity to the plant's chemistry, unconnected to its appearance. The instability she documents between compilers is why this atlas gives no single planetary attribution as settled.

Source Herbals: Their Origin and Evolution: A Chapter in the History of Botany, 1470-1670, Agnes Arber tier 1

Ivy (Gort), Celtic Tree Signs

Standing Popular myth - corrected

Concerns Standing as a Comparative Category

Currently States Largely abandoned as a comparative category

Ronald Hutton's Blood and Mistletoe: The History of the Druids in Britain (Yale University Press, 2009) traces the "Celtic tree calendar" and its thirteen tree birth-signs to Robert Graves's The White Goddess (1948), a work of poetic criticism rather than historical scholarship. Damian McManus's A Guide to Ogam (An Sagart, 1991), the standard study of the ogham script, independently confirms that ogham is a twenty-letter alphabet used for short memorial and boundary inscriptions, with no calendrical function recorded anywhere in its documented use. Checking Graves's claim against the surviving corpus, Hutton finds no Irish, Welsh or classical source describing a thirteen-month tree calendar or a tree zodiac; Graves built the scheme himself from the ogham letter-names, which do include tree names, by an interpretive leap the surviving texts do not support. The two studies together set the calendar aside as a modern literary invention rather than an inherited Celtic system.

Source A Guide to Ogam, Damian McManus tier 1

Jade, Gemstones

Standing Popular myth - corrected

Concerns Origin Period Start Year

Currently States 1970

According To Modern crystal healing, from the 1970s

Wouter J. Hanegraaff's New Age Religion and Western Culture: Esotericism in the Mirror of Secular Thought (Brill, 1996) traces the specific modern crystal-healing framework, cleansing and charging stones, programming them with intention, correspondence to the chakras, crystal grids, and the accompanying Atlantean and Lemurian origin story, through its twentieth-century New Age sources, and shows the vocabulary and practices appearing and developing within that documented literature rather than being continuous with antiquity. Hanegraaff does not dispute that stones were worn, carved and credited with virtues in ancient societies, a separate and much older practice attested archaeologically, but the specific modern framework's own textual history is what this property records as recent. That the ancient-provenance claim is false is a historical finding about when the current framework appeared, not a judgement on the practice's legitimacy.

Source New Age Religion and Western Culture: Esotericism in the Mirror of Secular Thought, Wouter J. Hanegraaff tier 1