Fearful Spirits, Reasoned Follies - read free eBook in online reader or directly download on the web page. Select files or add your book in reader. Download and read online ebook Fearful Spirits, Reasoned Follies write by Michael D. Bailey. This book was released on 2017-11-15. Fearful Spirits, Reasoned Follies available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Superstitions are commonplace in the modern world. Mostly, however, they evoke innocuous images of people reading their horoscopes or avoiding black cats. Certain religious practices might also come to mind—praying to St. Christopher or lighting candles for the dead. Benign as they might seem today, such practices were not always perceived that way. In medieval Europe superstitions were considered serious offenses, violations of essential precepts of Christian doctrine or immutable natural laws. But how and why did this come to be? In Fearful Spirits, Reasoned Follies, Michael D. Bailey explores the thorny concept of superstition as it was understood and debated in the Middle Ages. Bailey begins by tracing Christian thinking about superstition from the patristic period through the early and high Middle Ages. He then turns to the later Middle Ages, a period that witnessed an outpouring of writings devoted to superstition—tracts and treatises with titles such as De superstitionibus and Contra vitia superstitionum. Most were written by theologians and other academics based in Europe’s universities and courts, men who were increasingly anxious about the proliferation of suspect beliefs and practices, from elite ritual magic to common healing charms, from astrological divination to the observance of signs and omens. As Bailey shows, however, authorities were far more sophisticated in their reasoning than one might suspect, using accusations of superstition in a calculated way to control the boundaries of legitimate religion and acceptable science. This in turn would lay the conceptual groundwork for future discussions of religion, science, and magic in the early modern world. Indeed, by revealing the extent to which early modern thinkers took up old questions about the operation of natural properties and forces using the vocabulary of science rather than of belief, Bailey exposes the powerful but in many ways false dichotomy between the "superstitious" Middle Ages and "rational" European modernity.
The Origin of Primitive Superstitions and Their Development Into the Worship of Spirits and Doctrine of Spiritual Agency Among the Aborigines of America
The Origin of Primitive Superstitions and Their Development Into the Worship of Spirits and Doctrine of Spiritual Agency Among the Aborigines of America - read free eBook in online reader or directly download on the web page. Select files or add your book in reader. Download and read online ebook The Origin of Primitive Superstitions and Their Development Into the Worship of Spirits and Doctrine of Spiritual Agency Among the Aborigines of America write by Rushton M. Dorman. This book was released on 1881. The Origin of Primitive Superstitions and Their Development Into the Worship of Spirits and Doctrine of Spiritual Agency Among the Aborigines of America available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle.
Superstition: A Very Short Introduction
Superstition: A Very Short Introduction - read free eBook in online reader or directly download on the web page. Select files or add your book in reader. Download and read online ebook Superstition: A Very Short Introduction write by Stuart Vyse. This book was released on 2020-01-23. Superstition: A Very Short Introduction available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. 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.
Myths and Maxims
Myths and Maxims - read free eBook in online reader or directly download on the web page. Select files or add your book in reader. Download and read online ebook Myths and Maxims write by Josanne Leid. This book was released on 2014-04-17. Myths and Maxims available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Myths and Maxims is an eye opening resource on the historic and present day beliefs of Trinidad and Tobago, and the English speaking Caribbean. It is crammed with creative and incredible ancestors advice on everything from the dangers in picking up coins on the streets, to the awesome power of a piece of bread. It will explain how to recognise the well known spirits of the Caribbean and ways to escape and destroy them. There will be head nodding and shaking aplenty as Myths and Maxims' wise and common local sayings, spirits and superstitions runs the gamut of agreement, laughter, surprise and disbelief.
Believing in Magic
Believing in Magic - read free eBook in online reader or directly download on the web page. Select files or add your book in reader. Download and read online ebook Believing in Magic write by Stuart A. Vyse. This book was released on 2013-11. Believing in Magic available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. In this fully updated edition of Believing in Magic, renowned superstition expert Stuart Vyse investigates our tendency towards these irrational beliefs.
