Download or read book Superstition written by David Ambrose and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2013-04-25 with total page 439 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Having exposed a group of fraudulent spiritualists, investigative journalist Joanna Cross is intrigued by the claims of psychologist Dr Sam Towne that paranormal phenomena do in fact exist. Accepting his challenge to enter into a scientific experiment to 'create' a ghost, Joanna, Sam and six volunteers bring to life 'Adam Wyatt' - a young American living in France after the American War of Independence. Associated with the great minds and mystics at the close of the eighteenth century, he dies tragically in the French Revolution. The experiment is a great success, with poltergeist activity and disembodied messages all scientifically recorded. Sam's theory appears conclusive - that ghosts are created by the people who see them. But a series of inexplicable and ominous events force Joanna and Sam to realize the ghost they have brought to life can also cause death…

Download or read book Superstitions written by D.R. McElroy and published by Wellfleet Press. This book was released on 2020-05-26 with total page 195 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Across all cultures and spanning centuries, superstitions rooted in cultural legends and myths have formed and influenced daily life. Superstitions: A Handbook of Folklore, Myths, and Legends from around the World​ explains how and why these legends and the associated behaviors behind them developed, accompanied by beautiful illustrations. In this definitive reference, you’ll learn the fascinating and often bizarre histories of a comprehensive range of superstitions from around the world. For example, the belief that one will have seven years' bad luck if you break a mirror is said to come from the Romans, who were the first to create glass mirrors. And in Japanese culture, cutting your nails at night is thought to lead to a quick death because the two phrases sound similar. You’ll also find out why some superstitions vary from culture to culture. For instance, the “unlucky” number 13 is considered a bad omen in some countries, like the US, and “lucky” in other countries, like Italy—where the number 17 is considered unlucky. The information is organized by country, so you can easily investigate the popular superstitions linked to your own or other specific ethnic heritage or cultural identity. Satisfy your burning curiosity with this complete guide to superstitions, folklore, and myths. The Mystical Handbook series from Wellfleet takes you on a magical journey through the wonderful world of spellcraft and spellcasting. Explore a new practice with each volume and learn how to incorporate spells, rituals, blessings, and cleansings into your daily routine. These portable companions feature beautiful foil-detail covers and color-saturated interiors on a premium paper blend. Other titles in the series include: Witchcraft, Love Spells, Moon Magic, Knot Magic, and House Magic.

Download or read book Book of Superstitious Stuff written by Joanne O'Sullivan and published by Charlesbridge Publishing. This book was released on 2011-07-26 with total page 184 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the curse of the lottery winners to the good feng shui of a local restaurant, this quirky, wacky, weird, and wonderful collection of superstitions uncovers the truth about some of our most familiar beliefs, as well as others that are much stranger. It turns out that everywhere in the world, people still put their trust in luck, magic, and mystery. By the end of this look at the bizarre world of illogic it’s clear: superstition is alive and well...and really spellbinding!

Download or read book Higher Superstition written by Paul R. Gross and published by JHU Press. This book was released on 1997-12-03 with total page 348 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The widely acclaimed response to the postmodernists attacks on science, with a new afterword. With the emergence of "cultural studies" and the blurring of once-clear academic boundaries, scholars are turning to subjects far outside their traditional disciplines and areas of expertise. In Higher Superstition scientists Paul Gross and Norman Levitt raise serious questions about the growing criticism of science by humanists and social scientists on the "academic left." This edition of Higher Superstition includes a new afterword by the authors.

Download or read book The Complete Book of Superstition Prophecy and Luck written by Leonard R. N. Ashley and published by . This book was released on 1995 with total page 196 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Strange beliefs and even stranger omens have liferated through the ages. Here is a ripe collection which might change minds about broken mirrors, black cats and other ingrained beliefs.

Download or read book 2012 written by Alexandra Bruce and published by Red Wheel Weiser. This book was released on 2009-09-01 with total page 354 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The expanded companion book to the #1 documentary film about 2012! The 2012 meme has evolved beyond any debates about the relevance of the Maya Long Count calendar to the lives of contemporary human beings. 2012 is about us on planet Earth at this time. December 21, 2012: will the world really change forever on this date, the end of a 5,125-year calendar last used over a thousand years ago? Certainly Hollywood would like you to think so. Indeed, a not-so-small industry has arisen around the date, hawking everything from t-shirts to teleseminars. Clearing a path between fantasy and reality, Alexandra Bruce surveys the entire 2012 landscape, asking questions such as: Is the Earth losing its Mojo? How did 2012 come to mean "The End of Time"? Did psychedelics facilitate the Maya "Cosmovision"? Should we worry about Earth Crustal Displacement? What the hell is "Planet X"? Uniquely amongst a vast array of 2012 literature, this book features interviews with the leading experts—including Graham Hancock, John Major Jenkins, Daniel Pinchbeck and many others—and insightful, detailed analysis of the broad spectrum of opinion, debate, research and myth regarding the most compelling "end times" prediction of the 21st century.

Download or read book Superstition A Very Short Introduction written by Stuart Vyse and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2020-01-23 with total page 152 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Do you touch wood for luck, or avoid hotel rooms on floor thirteen? Would you cross the path of a black cat, or step under a ladder? Is breaking a mirror just an expensive waste of glass, or something rather more sinister? Despite the dominance of science in today's world, superstitious beliefs - both traditional and new - remain surprisingly popular. A recent survey of adults in the United States found that 33 percent believed that finding a penny was good luck, and 23 percent believed that the number seven was lucky. Where did these superstitions come from, and why do they persist today? This Very Short Introduction explores the nature and surprising history of superstition from antiquity to the present. For two millennia, superstition was a label derisively applied to foreign religions and unacceptable religious practices, and its primary purpose was used to separate groups and assert religious and social authority. After the Enlightenment, the superstition label was still used to define groups, but the new dividing line was between reason and unreason. Today, despite our apparent sophistication and technological advances, superstitious belief and behaviour remain widespread, and highly educated people are not immune. Stuart Vyse takes an exciting look at the varieties of popular superstitious beliefs today and the psychological reasons behind their continued existence, as well as the likely future course of superstition in our increasingly connected world. ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.

Download or read book The Psychology of Superstition written by Gustav Jahoda and published by . This book was released on 1969 with total page 158 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Believing in Magic written by Stuart A. Vyse and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2013-11 with total page 329 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this fully updated edition of Believing in Magic, renowned superstition expert Stuart Vyse investigates our tendency towards these irrational beliefs.

Download or read book Superstition and Science written by Derek Wilson and published by Robinson. This book was released on 2019-06-06 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Between the Renaissance and the Enlightenment, Europe changed out of all recognition and particularly transformative were the ardent quest for knowledge and the astounding discoveries and inventions which resulted from it. The movement of blood round the body; the movement of the earth round the sun; the velocity of falling objects (and, indeed, why objects fall) - these and numerous other mysteries had been solved by scholars in earnest pursuit of scientia.

Download or read book Superstition written by Sally Coulthard and published by Quadrille Publishing. This book was released on 2019-09-17 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Superstitions have captured our imaginations for centuries but we are often unaware of where they came from and why. In her new book Superstition, Sally Coulthard explores the history and background of 50 of these fascinating cultural behaviours, how they affected our everyday, and how many of these beliefs still permeate modern life. From opening umbrellas indoors to not putting new shoes on the table, Sally gets under the skin of these peculiar pastimes and reveals how they started and why they became so popular.

Download or read book Superstitious written by R.L. Stine and published by Grand Central Publishing. This book was released on 1995-09-14 with total page 414 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: On the small Pennsylvania college campus Liam O'Connor cuts a dashing, romantic figure. The Irish-born professor of folklore has good looks, a sweet charm, and a host of Old World superstitions - all of which dazzle beautiful graduate student Sara Morgan. Plunging headlong into a sudden love affair, Sara barely has time to notice the dark drama unfolding on the campus. Four murders have been committed, each more gruesomely horrifying than the one before it, each committed by someone, or something, with terrible fury and strength. Suddenly Sara is receiving crank phone calls, warning her to stay away from Liam ... fearing her ex-boyfriend Chip's next angry outburst ... wondering why Liam's unmarried sister, Margaret, is so suffocatingly close to them ... and trying to escape the lecherous stares of her boss, Milton Cohn, the dean of students and the owner of a murderous-looking knife collection. When Liam proposes marriage, Sara accepts, making love by the light of sixteen candles, one of Liam's superstitions. Somehow, that final step seals her fate. The police begin to close in on a killer, the death toll mounts, and Sara is caught in an ever-tightening web. At its center, behind the most innocent superstitions, waits the greatest terror of all...

Download or read book Inventing Superstition written by Dale B. Martin and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2009-07-01 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Roman author Pliny the Younger characterizes Christianity as “contagious superstition”; two centuries later the Christian writer Eusebius vigorously denounces Greek and Roman religions as vain and impotent “superstitions.” The term of abuse is the same, yet the two writers suggest entirely different things by “superstition.” Dale Martin provides the first detailed genealogy of the idea of superstition, its history over eight centuries, from classical Greece to the Christianized Roman Empire of the fourth century C.E. With illuminating reference to the writings of philosophers, historians, and medical teachers he demonstrates that the concept of superstition was invented by Greek intellectuals to condemn popular religious practices and beliefs, especially the belief that gods or other superhuman beings would harm people or cause disease. Tracing the social, political, and cultural influences that informed classical thinking about piety and superstition, nature and the divine, Inventing Superstition exposes the manipulation of the label of superstition in arguments between Greek and Roman intellectuals on the one hand and Christians on the other, and the purposeful alteration of the idea by Neoplatonic philosophers and Christian apologists in late antiquity. Inventing Superstition weaves a powerfully coherent argument that will transform our understanding of religion in Greek and Roman culture and the wider ancient Mediterranean world.

Download or read book Superstitious Regimes written by Rebecca Nodostup and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2010-07-01 with total page 490 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "We live in a world shaped by secularism—the separation of numinous power from political authority and religion from the political, social, and economic realms of public life. Not only has progress toward modernity often been equated with secularization, but when religion is admitted into modernity, it has been distinguished from superstition. That such ideas are continually contested does not undercut their extraordinary influence. These divisions underpin this investigation of the role of religion in the construction of modernity and political power during the Nanjing Decade (1927–1937) of Nationalist rule in China. This book explores the modern recategorization of religious practices and people and examines how state power affected the religious lives and physical order of local communities. It also looks at how politicians conceived of their own ritual role in an era when authority was meant to derive from popular sovereignty. The claims of secular nationalism and mobilizational politics prompted the Nationalists to conceive of the world of religious association as a dangerous realm of “superstition” that would destroy the nation. This is the first “superstitious regime” of the book’s title. It also convinced them that national feeling and faith in the party-state would replace those ties—the second “superstitious regime.”"

Download or read book Superstition written by Robert L. Park and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2008-09-22 with total page 241 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Why the battle between superstition and science is far from over From uttering a prayer before boarding a plane, to exploring past lives through hypnosis, has superstition become pervasive in contemporary culture? Robert Park, the best-selling author of Voodoo Science, argues that it has. In Superstition, Park asks why people persist in superstitious convictions long after science has shown them to be ill-founded. He takes on supernatural beliefs from religion and the afterlife to New Age spiritualism and faith-based medical claims. He examines recent controversies and concludes that science is the only way we have of understanding the world. Park sides with the forces of reason in a world of continuing and, he fears, increasing superstition. Chapter by chapter, he explains how people too easily mistake pseudoscience for science. He discusses parapsychology, homeopathy, and acupuncture; he questions the existence of souls, the foundations of intelligent design, and the power of prayer; he asks for evidence of reincarnation and astral projections; and he challenges the idea of heaven. Throughout, he demonstrates how people's blind faith, and their confidence in suspect phenomena and remedies, are manipulated for political ends. Park shows that science prevails when people stop fooling themselves. Compelling and precise, Superstition takes no hostages in its quest to provoke. In shedding light on some very sensitive--and Park would say scientifically dubious--issues, the book is sure to spark discussion and controversy.

Download or read book Superstitions written by Max Cryer and published by Exisle Publishing. This book was released on 2016-09-01 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Some people casually say 'touch wood' when they speak of something they hope will happen. Others won't allow peacock feathers into the house. And almost anyone who finds a four-leafed clover will treasure it and keep it. Why? Some superstitions are so ancient and have been practised for so long that they have come to be regarded as just harmless and widely observed 'customs', without people realising they are basically superstitions. For instance, many people wouldn't bother tossing spilled salt over their left shoulder or avoid walking under a ladder. But they happily continue to wear a wedding ring and blow out candles on a birthday cake. They don't know why - 'it's just a custom'. But both are actually superstitions. In a book full of surprises and revelations, Max Cryer explains the origins of many of the things we commonly say and observe and why we continue to include them in our lives: kissing under the mistletoe, the unlucky number thirteen, the significance of the bridal bouquet, saying 'bless you' after sneezing, the hanging of a horseshoe, 'the Scottish play', the danger in opals, the Leap Year proposal ... so many aspects of our lives are coloured by superstition. Now you can discover the reasons for them in a book that is both witty and informative. Superstitions will provide many 'Eureka' moments and settle many family disputes.

Download or read book What They Say in New England written by and published by . This book was released on 1896 with total page 268 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: