Hypnotism's Sinister Work

In 1850, The Fool, whose story is told in "The Baquet," uses mesmerism (a precurser to hypnotism involving a magnetic fluid or ethereal medium residing in the bodies of animate beings) to help cure patients. Today, the applications of this wonderous technology have been broadened to include 'remote mental telepathy to combat terrorism'--at least according to Kazuki Hirano, who was recently arrested for stabbing a British biologist in the leg. Tom Sharpe reports further in The New Mexican:

Hirano said he became convinced his thoughts were being controlled four or five years ago when he began to feel hypnotized while he was homeless in the Camden Town district of London. He said a man named "Doctor Tony" in London's Stockwell district told him Sheldrake [the biologist Hirano ultimately stabbed in the leg] was conducting experiments in mind control on the homeless. Hirano said he didn't believe this at first but came to accept it after reading about Sheldrake on the Internet. He said he now believes the American military is developing remote mental telepathy to combat terrorism.

After discovering that he was being remotely controlled, Hirano began the search for techniques to block the unwanted forces imposed upon him. Dismissing Tai Chi and other Chinese practices as unscientific, and suffering the disdain of Dr. Sheldrake himself who, among other things "looks at me stupid and then walks away", Hirano concluded that people were making money from the experiments and therefore would not tell him how to cure himself. If he finds any answers, he promises to post them on the internet.

Thanks to the Fortean Times for bringing this story to my attention.