It can not only be my dusty library in which the books on psychology are ragged and frayed from years of consultation.
Surely the extensive dusty library that every family home in Dunedin must contain, includes studies of the human mind.
I have not been outside my home, of course, since early in the 1950s, but I have no doubt these things are true.
It does, of course, come as some solace, and reinforces the fact that I am not alone, when I see others with a fascination with such material.
Michael Mosley, who was behind the wonderful Blood and Guts: A History of Surgery - another of my fascinations - has boldly slithered away from the bloodied cadavers and, brandishing little more than a microphone, and possibly a surgical chainsaw, torn open the skull to go Into the Mind on the wonderful BBC Knowledge channel.
Mosley, who has an upper-class English accent, and must, therefore, be a doctor or something, studies the disturbing but ingenious methods scientists developed to unlock the secrets of the mind, from terrifying 8-month-old babies with clown masks, steel bars and hammers, to CIA mind-control projects, and weird drugs.
Remarkably - or perhaps not - the history of experimental psychology has not always followed the most compassionate path.
"Little Albert", for instance, was that 8-month-old boy; a decent little fellow yet to have his chance at making something of his life, or, as most of us do, making an awful mess of things.
By some unfortunate twist of fate, we discover on Into the Mind he found his innocent little self drawn within the purview of John Broadus Watson, an American psychologist who established the psychological school of behaviourism.
In the 1920s, Watson wanted to know where emotions came from, and his pet theory was that children were born with love, fear and rage, and that all emotions adults had were various mixes of those three.
His experiments involved conditioning fear into Little Albert, by initially allowing him to enjoy playing with a white rat, then, every time he did, terrifying him with the clown mask, the hammer, and the steel bar.
It worked, and despite Little Albert basically being tortured, Watson proved it was possible to develop a phobia in a person, meaning people were not necessarily born with these problems.
Mosley investigates, and reacts, to some of the more disturbing experiments, as the three-episode series follows the strange developments of psychology through its flirtations with the weird and wacky.
Into the Mind is deeply, deeply fascinating, begins on December 2 at 8.30pm, and should under no circumstances be missed.
Little Albert, by the way, died as an infant not long after the experiments, of an infectious disease.
Crazy.
