Welcome to the Colette Podcast. My name is Claire Lehman and I am editor and chief of Colette.

Colette is where free thought lives. We are an independent grassroots platform for heterodox ideas and fearless commentary.

Our podcast is a team effort and is jointly hosted by myself, associate editor Toby Young,

and Canadian editor Jonathan Kay.

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Welcome to the Quilett Podcast.

I'm Jonathan Kay, broadcasting from Toronto.

In medicine, there's a concept known as contested illnesses.

These are conditions like chronic fatigue syndrome or multiple chemical sensitivities in which

the very existence of the disease itself is disputed by members of the medical field,

despite the fact that some patients are convinced that they are afflicted by these

ailments. Andrew Lustig is a skin condition that experts believe is a product of patient's own delusions.

This interest has led Dr Lustig down a lot of interesting internet pathways, including web

forums dedicated to something called gangstalking, which he discusses in a newly published article in the Journal of Medical Internet Research.

Lustig describes gang stalking as, quote, a novel persecutory belief system whereby those affected believe they are being

followed, stalked, and harassed by a large number of people. The harassment is

experienced as an accretion of innumerable individually benign acts, such as people clearing their throat,

muttering under their breath, or giving dirty looks as they pass on the street.

End quote.

In some cases I learned, people who believe they are being gangstocked may find it suspicious that, say, a certain number of cars passed by their street on a given morning, or that a certain number of those cars are red.

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