Conspiracy theories foster mistrust and undermine well-being.

This fearful version of storytelling recruits deep mistrust and improbable, stubborn belief and fixation.

Conspiracy theories intensify agitation and outrage, engaging suspicion and a sense of betrayal.

Many years ago (so long since, in fact, that I’m tempted to begin this piece with “Once upon a time”), my young daughters demanded nightly episodes of a group of forward-rolling stories under the heading The Wondrous Wise Maharajah of Rajanapour.

I’ll make no apologies for cultural misappropriation. It suffices to say that this far-off kingdom, a kind of Shangri-La, in addition to imaginative transport, required some long travel of the two young girls.

First, they hopped a plane from their home near Niagara Falls, then embarked on a long sea voyage, then boarded a rickety train, then climbed aboard a wagon that followed a rough trail (sometimes the bed would bounce), and then mounted the shoulders of a magical, wisecracking elephant who, in his deep, nasal elephantine voice, answered many questions with open-ended questions of his own.

Now and then the young Maharajah himself was a kind of mountainy Sherlock Holmes, a swordsman who unmasked a pretender to divinity who was frightening his subjects. Or he would solve the seasonal appearance of apparent blood pooling in the corner of a room in a local abode. (Spoiler alert: It was runoff from decaying fallen leaves…) Sometimes the ruler was an adventurer. Once he discovered a thieves’ treasure hoard. Then he put the mountain of gold toward civil engineering improvements in his realm—smooth roads, vast dams, and majestic, sweeping bridges that carried his subjects to the palace.

Despite his skilled storytelling (and he had stories to tell!) the girls had discovered the dashing young Maharajah’s illiteracy, and so taught him to read and write. He, in turn, wielding national policy, hired teachers to teach his kingdom’s young girls and........

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