Seymour's prescience brings to mind D. H. Lawrence's character Paul Cresswell, the small boy in "The Rocking-Horse Winner" (1933), who is able to pick horse-race winners by receiving secret messages from his toy rocking horse, after mounting and riding it. The boy's death in that story, following his overtaxing his already weakened condition by furiously urging his horse on, to divine the name of the winning racehorse in the upcoming Derby, suggests an ancient and widely-held folk belief that is relevant here. Simply stated: attempting to gain hidden, "off-limits" information or knowledge that relates to the inner workings of the scheme of things we live under, is a taboo, punishable by a severe penalty, because the divine or supernatural order is violated by this unlawful en try. However that kind of "forbidden fruit" intelligence is obtained, there is generally too high a price that is exacted for...