“My father knew all about this stuff [C.W. Leadbeater]. I owe a lot of what I'm doing, I think, to him. I'm sort of continuing my father's work.” ThinkingFatherStuffContinuing Author:Paul Laffoley
“I was born rather late in [my father's] life, in his mid - 40s. And so what he did up until the time he was 15, I think probably from age 12 to 15, my grandfather made him demonstrate mediumistic powers at the Exeter Street Theater, the first Spiritualist church in the United States.” ThinkingFirstsMadeStatesAgeFatherBornChurchUnitedUnited StatesStreetsLateTheaterGrandfatherMy GrandfatherExeter Author:Paul Laffoley
“I would say [to my father], "Why don't you actually take some courses in physics instead of saying [you are not believing in gravity]?" But he would never do it. Businessmen for some reason or other, think, because they're successful in a single direction, that they know everything. You know what I mean? You ever meet people like that?” PeopleThinkingKnowsBelieveMeanReasonCoursesFatherSuccessfulPhysicsGravityBusinessman Author:Paul Laffoley
“Stephen Hawking won [Babson Institute competition ] one year with his black hole stuff. It's keeping an open mind on whether gravity exists or not. I think my father believed this because ... when the wind blew on him, he'd get angry, because it was something he couldn't control.” ThinkingYearsMindFatherStuffBlackWindAngryCompetitionHolesGravityOpen MindInstituteBlack HoleKeep An Open Mind Author:Paul Laffoley
“As a kid, I was getting information in areas that no one else was getting. I think that was one of the reasons my mother didn't want me to go to school too soon. Because I would be beaten to a pulp, you know, if I walked down the street and said there was no such thing as gravity.” IfsThinkingKnowsWantSaidReasonWould BeKidsSchoolMotherStreetsInformationAreasWant MeGravityBeatenPulp Author:Paul Laffoley
“To have that radical a mind in that bourgeois-looking body was really hard for a lot of people to take, because, when my mother would want to have people over she'd tell [my father], "Don't start with the gravity stuff." And then he would invariably do this and the guests would look at each other and say, "Well, I think it's time to go now."” PeopleThinkingWantMindWellsLooksHardBodyMotherFatherStuffRadicalGuestsGravityBourgeois Author:Paul Laffoley
“I would have private conversations with [Buckminster Fuller]. I once had an argument, for four hours, about the existence of the Mobius strip. Because he believed in the Klein Bottle, you see. And I said, "How in hell can you claim to believe in the Klein Bottle and think that the Mobius strip is dubious?" He said, "Well, it's a torus." I don't know what he had in his mind as a mathematical background, because I don't think he got topology. Because, in other words, the Mobius strip didn't have angles in it.” ThinkingKnowsMindBelieveWellsSaidHoursExistenceHellFourConversationArgumentClaimsBackgroundsMathematicalBottlesAngleDubiousBuckminster FullerTopology Author:Paul Laffoley
“I said, "Well, why do you believe in the Klein Bottle?" He said, "Because I can imagine it." I said, "You don't have to imagine a Mobius strip. It's right there in front of you!" But [Buckminster Fuller] couldn't see how that could involve a cross cap, meaning something that couldn't be reduced to a two-dimensional surface. Which it does. It's because he was thinking that the matrix was the thing that a fly could walk over the edge of, like a torus.” ThinkingBelieveWellsDoeSaidI CanTwoWalksImagineFrontsCrossesEdgesSurfaceBottlesCapsBecause I CanOver The EdgeBuckminster FullerMeaning Something Author:Paul Laffoley
“I think [Theosophical and Masonic books] wasn't that I was inspired so much. I was corroborated by them.” ThinkingBookInspiredMasonic Author:Paul Laffoley
“I've kind of always done diagrams. It helped me think.” ThinkingKindDoneDiagrams Author:Paul Laffoley
“I hear some guy teaches a course in diagrammatic thinking now; he's written books on it and stuff like that, and so it was kind of natural for me. Because it was a way in which words naturally fitted into something that's visual. I was always interested in doing that.” ThinkingWayKindBookGuyCoursesStuffNaturalTeachWrittenVisuals Author:Paul Laffoley
“Long John I think went off the air in about '79 or something, so there was a hiatus. That's why I think Art Bell thought there was a spot to be filled. He was doing exactly the same thing.” ThinkingLongArtAirArt IsFilledSpotsBellsHiatus Author:Paul Laffoley
“I think it was because [Nikola] Tesla and [Leon] Theremin were part of what made up the movie, The Day the Earth Stood Still. Klaatu was actually a European among the Americans. And so the person who wrote the story said that Klaatu came from Europa, the fourth moon of Jupiter, which is now being investigated for life. There's water and ice on it and that kind of stuff.” ThinkingKindPersonsMadeSaidStillsStoriesEarthStuffWaterMoonIceFourthJupiterTeslaLeon Author:Paul Laffoley
“Both [Nikola] Tesla and [Leon] Theremin were preternaturally young. I mean, for a long time Tesla was a young man well into his 70s. And so was Theremin, even though, at the end, he looked pretty old. But he was still doing things that young guys do, beyond the time you'd normally think people should be doing that stuff.” PeopleThinkingMenShouldWellsMeanLongStillsEndsYoungGuyStuffLong TimeYoung ManTeslaYoung GuysLeon Author:Paul Laffoley
“I think [Nikola Tesla] was always like that. And so it was inevitable that he would be an inventor. Because it was so easy for him to think fourth-dimensionally, dynamically. It wasn't just a static thing with him. In other words, it isn't the way an architect thinks, which is essentially static.” ThinkingWayWould BeEasyInevitableArchitectFourthInventorStaticTesla Author:Paul Laffoley
“[Nikola Tesla] was thinking of parts actually moving, like exchanging positions in space through time. This would go over here, then that would go over there, and then something else would happen.” ThinkingHappensMovingSpacePositionRough TimesExchangingTesla Author:Paul Laffoley
“I started with "Pickman's Model," because it was about Boston. I mean, what I loved about [H. P. Lovecraft], at first is his sense of scholarship of an area, setting an environment, enlivening it. I think that's one of the secrets of writing.” ThinkingWritingFirstsMeanSecretEnvironmentModelsAreasSettingSettingsBostonScholarshipLovecraft Author:Paul Laffoley
“I think [H. P. Lovecraft] knew the whole gamut. He just didn't believe any of it! He probably liked to use the esoteric stuff because he knew it would tick people off and freak them out.” PeopleThinkingBelieveWholeUseStuffFreakTickEsotericLovecraft Author:Paul Laffoley
“The whole thing that Dante [Alighieri] did was summed up in the medieval world. It's like St. Thomas Aquinas, the Summa Theologica. He didn't invent it, he just put it all in one package. You get twelve fat books there sitting in any library. Whereas... I think if Joshi thinks [H.P.] Lovecraft was doing anything like that, just throwing together all this stuff to form a kind of anti-mythology, that's where I would disagree with him.” IfsThinkingWorldKindBookWholeTogetherFormStuffSittingLibraryMythologyFatsThrowingDisagreeTwelvePackagesMedievalLovecraftSt Thomas Author:Paul Laffoley
“I think [H.P. Lovecraft] recognized what he was dealing with, he was dealing with demons. And he was dealing with creatures that're suffering. There's no way out of this suffering.” ThinkingWaySufferingCreaturesDemonLovecraft Author:Paul Laffoley
“You know, Mick Jagger's "Sympathy for the Devil." I think it was inspired by that [H.P.Lovecraft stories]. You don't know who's reading what, you know. It just comes out once in a while in the pop culture.” ThinkingKnowsStoriesCultureReadingDevilInspiredPopsPop CultureJaggerLovecraft Author:Paul Laffoley
“I would say that it's probably impossible for a lot of people to even think what H.P. Lovecraft's theological state was.” PeopleThinkingStatesImpossibleTheologicalLovecraft Author:Paul Laffoley
