Wife goes to court to stop hubby's ghost stories

A Taiwanese woman has taken out an injunction against her husband to stop him telling her ghost stories.

The woman, named only as Mrs Chen, complained he was giving her nightmares, reports the Apple Daily Taiwan newspaper.

She first filed a complaint with police, then applied for a personal protection order which was approved by a district court in Taichung.

The couple have been married for 20 years and have two daughters. They separated a few years ago but never divorced.

Mr Chen found work away from home, at an orchard, but returned every few months to visit his daughters for a few days.

In her complaint, Mrs Chen claimed her estranged husband often returned home in the dead of the night in a drunken stupor.

He would then go on to tell her ghost stories for at least an hour, despite her repeated pleas for him to stop.

He would tell her stories of seeing 'figures clothed in white floating around in the orchard', of people hanging themselves, and of the discovery of human bones near the orchard.

In his defence, Mr Chen claimed he was only sharing work stories with his wife.

But his daughters told the judge their father frequently traumatised their mother with his macabre tales.

'Telepathic' chiropractor surrenders his license

Columbus - A chiropractor who was accused of medical malpractice this spring for charging patients $60 an hour to heal their pain telepathically surrendered his license Thursday.

Dr. James C. Burda of Athens had claimed he possessed the power to heal clients via techniques he dubbed "Bahlaqeem Vina" and "Bahlaqeem Jaqem," made-up terms that he said described his ability to go back in time to the date of an injury and realign bones and joints using telekinetic vibration.

After stumbling across his Web site, bahlaqeem.com, the Ohio State Chiropractic Board accused him of being a long-distance quack, charging that a psychological exam determined he was mentally ill and suffered from "delusional disorder, grandiose type."

In an interview in April, Burda, 58, said he discovered his "God-given gift" when his foot began to hurt while he was driving from Athens to Parkersburg, W.Va. He said he commanded it to stop and the pain went away.

He was back in his car Thursday when a reporter called to ask about the surrender of his license and his written admission that Bahlaqeem "is not an acceptable form of treatment according to acceptable and prevailing standards of chiropractic care."

"I really can't speak to you right now; I'm in my vehicle," he said.

Phone telepathy: You knew it was true

NORWICH, England (Reuters) -- Many people have experienced the phenomenon of receiving a telephone call from someone shortly after thinking about them -- now a scientist says he has proof of what he calls telephone telepathy.

Rupert Sheldrake, whose research is funded by the respected Trinity College, Cambridge, said on Tuesday he had conducted experiments that proved that such precognition existed for telephone calls and even e-mails.

Each person in the trials was asked to give researchers names and phone numbers of four relatives or friends. These were then called at random and told to ring the subject who had to identify the caller before answering the phone.

"The hit rate was 45 percent, well above the 25 percent you would have expected," he told the annual meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science.

"The odds against this being a chance effect are 1,000 billion to one."

He said he found the same result with people being asked to name one of four people sending them an e-mail before it had landed.