ABSTRACT
Before one settles on a fixed system of beliefs, one's opinions may wander all over the spectrum, following no apparent pattern. But once one arrives at a belief system, one's opinions are unlikely to vary from a narrow range. The author have chosen to illustrate general belief dynamics is the conspiracy theory of a real woman, Jane, whom he knows, suffering from paranoid delusion. Jane almost never eats because she believes that all her food has been poisoned. She has a history of bulimia, and she has lost 25 pounds in the previous month and a half; she is then 5'1' and 85 pounds. Jane's belief system is clearly irrational, according to the ordinary standards. She demonstrates many, many different dissociated sub-personalities. She has recurrent leg pains, which she ascribes to food poisoning. Furthermore, she believes that the same people who are poisoning her food are following her everywhere she goes, even across distances of thousands of miles.
