encyclopedia understanding

books:

Life Is a Miracle: An Essay Against Modern Superstition

25 reviews
Wendell Berry

Counterpoint, 2001

One beautiful essay
Life is a Miracle is one beautiful essay on the folly and pretensions of scientism. If this is your kind of book, you'll get a good laugh reading the venomous review (number 17) by a Dr. Strickland. He calls himself "davexray", so we know how clever he is, but apparently this defender of the scientific method isn't any kind of scientist at all, but merely the practitioner of an interpretive ...

Believing in Magic: The Psychology of Superstition

6 reviews
Stuart A. Vyse

Oxford University Press, USA, 2000

Great!!!
A great book for everyone on this topic. It covers many aspects of superstition. It's well organized and easy to read. Although the Coda is author's personal feeling, it explains how a non-superstitious person think and feel very well. More technical detail in psychological aspects can be found in "The Psychology of Judgement and Decision Making" by Scott Plous. A combination reading of these ...

The Encyclopedia of Superstitions

3 reviews
E. Radford, M.A. Radford

MetroBooks, 2002

Kind of fun and kind of creepy too.
This is a fascinating little book, it works like a dictionary, find the word you hope to look up and it will tell you of the the historical powers, magic and superstitions behind that object. All the ideas are reseached from ancient folklores around the globe but Europe in the main. You wiil discover the luck, wisdom and power of objects as diverse as besoms (brooms), juniper berries or socks ...

A Dictionary of Superstitions (Oxford Paperback Reference)

2 reviews

Oxford University Press, USA, 2005

Why are Four-Leaf Clovers Lucky?
According to _A Dictionary of Superstitions_, the answer to that one goes back to 1507. The book is filled with page after page of the interesting stories behind close to any superstition one could imagine. As its title suggests, the superstitions are presented in a dictionary format, something that I found very helpful. The definitions include--to different extents--histories, dates, ...

Superstition
Damien Hirst

Booth-Clibborn Editions, 2008

Published to accompany Damien Hirst’s exhibition of butterfly paintings at Gagosian Gallery, Los Angeles in February 2007, Superstition is a visually stunning book that confirms Hirst’s reputation as one of the most significant visual thinkers of his generation. Using ‘High Windows’, the last published volume of poems by Philip Larkin, as a point of reference to focus on the business of death and love, the ...

Superstition

32 reviews
Karen Robards

Signet, 2006

Liked it!
I really enjoyed this book. Interesting serial-killer story with an intense romantic connection between two hot main characters. I read it on a plane and it made the time fly :o) Go-getter reporter Nicole and her family, Joe the cop and his pals, as well as all the characters in this book were rendered skillfully and clearly as individuals. I was a little bugged by the wordy descriptions of ...

The Encyclopedia of Superstitions
Richard Webster

Llewellyn Publications, 2008

"[T]his reference makes for compulsive browsing." Publishers Weekly Have you ever rubbed a frog on your freckles? Trivia fans and fun fact fanatics will adore this fascinating, flickable encyclopedia of superstitions! Richard Webster presents over five hundred of the most obscure, curious, and just-plain-freaky superstitions of the Western world. Discover batty beliefs about baldness, beans, and the Bermuda Triangle, and peculiar ...

101 American Superstitions : Understanding Language and Culture through Superstitions

6 reviews
Harry Collis

McGraw-Hill, 1998

101 Superstitions!
Here's a delightful collection of American superstitions, wonderfully illustrated with whimsical cartoons. 101 American Superstitions will amuse you for hours - while giving insight into American customs, beliefs, and humor. Each superstition is accompanied by an explanation and then is used in a real-life context - either in a dialogue or in a narrative - to show how ...

Higher Superstition: The Academic Left and Its Quarrels with Science

27 reviews
Paul R. Gross, Norman Levitt

The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1997

Still relevant after all these years...
Academic fads have a startlingly brief lifespan: Last year's new thing is supplanted by this year's new thing, which promises to transgress all previous boundaries and explode the oppressive partiarchal paradigms that are crushing the unprivileged. Everything that lies under the vague umbrella of "postmodernism" is one of those this-year's-new-things. But most of those academic fads didn't ...

8,414 Strange and Fascinating Superstitions

1 review
Claudia De Lys

Castle Books, 1948

Classic Reading of Our Common European Superstitions.
After so many generations of being christianised and commercialised,many white people have lost all understanding of our common human folk-beliefs and folk-heritage.Many people still think twice about stepping on a crack and walking under a ladder or crossing paths with a black cat.From caveman into country squire and beyond,mankind has created tales to answer the scientifically unknown and ...

Superstition: Belief in the Age of Science
Robert L. Park

Princeton University Press, 2008

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 ...

Jinxed: Baseball Superstitions from Around the Major Leagues True Stories
Ken Leiker

Ballantine Books, 2005

In America’s Pastime, sometimes talent and hard work aren’t enough. Now, in Jinxed, some of the best baseball scribes in the business catalog the superstitions, rituals, eccentricities, routines, and just plain bizarre behavior of players who believe such actions will give them an edge on the diamond. Is baseball a numbers game? St. Louis outfielder Larry Walker seems to think so. Larry tries to organize his life in multiples of ...

The Devil and the Deep: A Guide to Nautical Myths & Superstitions

2 reviews
Chris Hillier

Sheridan House, 1997

A Self Review
Well, it's a little weird writing this review myself, but you out there have had 4 years to do it and have now missed the chance to be the first! Having had the past few years to reflect on the book, I am still pretty happy with it as a first effort. Despite the tongue in cheek approach there really is a bit to be learned from my book - even if it's just to marvel at how superstitious the old ...

Imagine No Superstition: The Power to Enjoy Life With No Guilt, No Shame, No Blame

8 reviews
Stephen Frederick, Ph.d. Uhl

Golden Rule Publishers, 2007

Light for the unenlightened
I met the author of this book at a conference titled THE AMAZ!NG MEETING, which is organized by the James Randi Educational Foundation (JREF). We happened to sit together at one of the meeting's luncheons. He gave me a promotional flyer about the book, but the few copies he brought had sold out rather quickly. I ordered it from Amazon when I got home, and I am enjoying it thoroughly. Mr. Uhl ...

Dictionary of Superstitions

4 reviews
David Pickering

Cassell, 1996

excellant
it is a very good reference book

The treasure of the Superstition Mountains

1 review
Gary Jennings

Norton, 1973

The Treasures of The Superstion Mountains
This is a true story about all the rumors and stories of the Lost Dutchman's Gold mine in Arizona. The author is the same author who wrote Aztec, Aztec Autumn, Journeyer, Raptor and The 3 Spangles. I am a Gary Jennings fan and hnow that he died last Febuary. I own about 8 books and many were post Aztec fame. This book is a good read but most of all I got to see what Gary Jennings looked like from ...

Ancient Legends, Mystic Charms, and Superstitions of Ireland
Francesca Speranza Wilde

BiblioBazaar, 2008

To which is appended a chapter on qThe Ancient Race of Irelandq by the late Sir William Wilde.

Why People Believe Weird Things: Pseudoscience, Superstition, and Other Confusions of Our Time

155 reviews
Michael Shermer

Souvenir Press, 2007

So that explains it
I got this book (an autographed copy, no less) after a debate between the author and a Christian apologist. The debate was very polite (possibly too polite; I think they were worried about how the students watching would behave if either side decisively won) and I don't think any minds were changed. Mr. Shermer spent most of his argument explaining why Theists believe what they believe, and why ...

Jewish Magic and Superstition: A Study in Folk Religion (Forgotten Books)

3 reviews
Joshua Trachtenberg

Forgotten Books, 2008

The Definitive Text
This was one of the books assigned as a text for a graduate-level history course, and it was a really excellent overview of the topic. It is quoted by just about every scholar of the subject who followed.

search for books
encyclopedia, pseudoscience, superstition, superstitions, understanding

Impressum / about us