Professionally, I am a conventionally qualified medical doctor who has experience of some kinds of alternative medicine, but I am a self-confessed generalist and have written on subjects unrelated to medicine. In so far as there is a unifying theme in these books, it is sceptical and describes the progressive questioning and ultimate abandonment of belief systems. This emerges in my two books on religion and also in my critical account of the origin and development of homeopathy. My historical study of the sect of the Assassins is an examination of a fascinating set of religious ideas in mediaeval Islam, with relevance to modern religion-inspired terrorism.
Although I am now retired from clinical practice I continue to teach modern medical acupuncture to health professionals. My textbook for the courses I teach is available here.
I'm interested in computers and used Linux as my operating system for many years. I've now switched almost completely to OpenBSD. My book Making Word.doc Files on Linux covers how to do this for both Linux and *BSD.
Smashwords requires Microsoft Word.doc files for the books it publishes. This is a problem for Linux users because Word doesn't run natively on Linux. You can make these files with LibreOffice (the replacement for OpenOffice). This revised edition shows you how to use LibreOffice to produce files that will work on Smashwords.
Why is this book free? Because I'm a supporter of Free Software.
This book is a practical manual for modern medical (non-traditional) acupuncture. It is written for health professionals who are beginning to practise this form of acupuncture and is based on the course that the author teaches. It will also be of interest to people who have studied acupuncture in other ways and wish to explore a different approach.
This book is written for anyone who is thinking of trying acupuncture but doesn't know much about it. It explains what acupuncture is, how it works, and what are the benefits and possible dangers. If you are still a bit hesitant about acupuncture and need some advice before making up your mind, this is the book for you. The author is a conventionally qualified physician who teaches acupuncture.
The Assassins were a heretical Muslim sect. We think of them mostly in connection with political murder but there is much more to them than this. They had a remarkable philosophical system and their ideas were influential in Islam and even outside it. Here I tell their story, from their foundation at the end of the eleventh century to their downfall 150 years later at the hands of the Mongols.
This is a book about religion from a secular standpoint which nevertheless takes its subject seriously. Contrary to some secularists I don't think religion is likely to disappear any time soon. I try to develop a way of thinking about religion, using two main clues: language and narrative. Narrative is how most religious people encounter their religions, because humans are story-telling animals.
There is a widespread notion that belief is a good thing, but in this book I argue that freeing oneself from all belief systems can bring a huge sense of relief. I illustrate this by describing my experience of a Roman Catholic upbringing followed by eleven years pracising Transcendental Meditation,, before arriving at a position of metaphysical naturalism.
This is is a book about homeopathy: what it is, how it developed, where it stands today. It is written for people with questioning minds; anyone who has adopted a fixed opinion in advance about homeopathy, either for or against, may receive the odd shock. It is written with "insider knowledge"; I was a consultant physician at the Royal London Homeopathic Hospital for over 20 years.