How laughter can keep you on your spiritual path
Carmel Wroth | August 2009 issue Photograph: Money Sharma/EPA/Corbis A few years ago, I traveled throughout India looking for spiritual inspiration. Naturally, I wasn’t the first person to have done this. At all the temples, ashrams and holy mountains, I found crowds of Westerners looking for Read More...
How laughter evolved and how it makes us human
Blaine Greteman | August 2009 issue Two Neanderthals walk into a bar, order drinks, sit down and listen to the chattering, laughing crowd. Suddenly, one turns to the other and whispers, "Try to stay cool, but this sounds like one of those Homo sapiens joints." How would a Neanderthal know he was Read More...
A funny thing happened on the way to the office
Nancy Mann Jackson | August 2009 issue John Morreall, professor of religious studies at the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia, tells the story of a police officer who responded to a domestic violence call after having completed a course of humor training. As the officer Read More...
Miller's online humor survey study
Mary Desmond Pinkowish | August 2009 issue Does laughter prevent heart disease? Michael Miller, director of the Center for Preventive Cardiology at the University of Maryland Medical Center in Baltimore, thinks so. Here’s why: Several years ago, he and his colleagues gave a humor test to people Read More...
In the beginning was the joke
John Lloyd | August 2009 issue There’s a mysterious passage in the Bible, that goes like this: "In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God." This passage has the unmistakable ring of truth, which is curious, because it also appears to be meaningless gibberish. Read More...
Laughter and learning
Jos Houben | August 2009 issue For the past few years, I've been traveling the globe with a show called "The Art Of Laughter," a mock lecture in which I analyze the basic principles of silent comedy. I try to make people laugh using my body rather than my words. At a certain point in the show, I Read More...
Happiness is overrated
Paulo Coelho | August 2009 issue What is happiness? This is a question that has not bothered me for a long time, precisely because I don’t know how to answer it. I am not the only one. Throughout the years, I have lived with all sorts of people: rich and poor, powerful and mediocre. In the eyes Read More...
Of laughter and land mines
Amy Domini | August 2009 issue Last year I visited a clinic for land mine victims in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, run by an extraordinary organization called Veterans International Cambodia. There you find extreme examples of hope and despair crowded into a small space. The clinic creates individually Read More...
Migrate toward the merriment
David Servan-Schreiber | August 2009 issue Jerry Seinfeld‘s father sold neon signs and often took his son from one local store to the next. His father loved funny stories, and he never failed to tell one to a potential client. Often as they got back into the truck, Seinfeld’s father Read More...
Try a little bubbly
Elbrich Fennema | August 2009 issue Photograph: Pieter de Swart "Laughter kills fear," writes Umberto Eco in his novel The Name of the Rose, which probably explains why laughing is considered healthy. When fear arises in the kitchen, it tends to be about the fear of failure. A simple Read More...