Troubled by Faith review: How delusion marked psychology’s beginnings

Troubled by Faith
Owen Davies (Oxford University Press)

IN EARLY 2020, 5G mobile technology got caught up in a conspiracy theory that saw cellphone towers being set on fire across Europe.

This kind of delusional belief has quite a history. A medical note from 1889 reports on the plight of one Henry Staples, who “fancies telegraph wires are over his head” and “that messages are being sent to people as to his character”. A year later, Janet Sneddon from Glasgow, UK, told…