Author: Frank Bures
Publisher: Melville House
ISBN: 1612193730
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 258
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Book Description
Why do some men become convinced—despite what doctors tell them—that their penises have, simply, disappeared. Why do people across the world become convinced that they are cursed to die on a particular date—and then do? Why do people in Malaysia suddenly “run amok”? In The Geography of Madness, acclaimed magazine writer Frank Bures investigates these and other “culture-bound” syndromes, tracing each seemingly baffling phenomenon to its source. It’s a fascinating, and at times rollicking, adventure that takes the reader around the world and deep into the oddities of the human psyche. What Bures uncovers along the way is a poignant and stirring story of the persistence of belief, fear, and hope.
Author: Bart K. Holland
Publisher: JHU Press
ISBN: 9780801869419
Category : Mathematics
Languages : en
Pages : 174
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Book Description
Roulette wheels and the plague -- Surely something's wrong with you -- The life table : you can bet on it! -- The rarest events -- The waiting game -- Stockbrokers and climate change.
Author: Walter Bradford Cannon
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Vodou
Languages : en
Pages : 13
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Book Description
Use of black magic; bone-pointing - Mona Mona Mission (information from Dr. S.M. Lambert); north-central Queensland (Roth); death from psychic influences - Central Australia (J.B. Cleland); bone pointing cases quoted from Basedow and Warner; comparison with other races.
Author: Clifford L. Linedecker
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780812508178
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 274
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Book Description
Author: Davis Temple
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781604744958
Category : Hurricane Katrina, 2005
Languages : en
Pages : 0
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Book Description
Voodoo Storm is a thriller set in New Orleans during the time of Hurricane Katrina. In Voodoo Storm, a cult of Devil worshipers hides among the Crescent City’s harmless voodoo practitioners and commit crimes in the name of the Devil. Unfortunate individuals succumb to devastating diseases unknown to modern medicine and little girls go missing. Dr. Mary Lou Campbell, a pretty but pugnacious psychologist with the New Orleans Police Department, and her new young partner Frankie Panacea, follow a torturous path fraught with danger in their effort to solve the crimes and apprehend the heartless perpetrators, who feel enabled by their dark beliefs. Though the end appears in sight, Hurricane Katrina provides a new twist. Levees are breached with the help of human hands and the city floods. As bodies are counted, all clues point to a strange, fat clown. In the terrifying conclusion, our heroine, a woman all too familiar with adversity and death, is confronted by a horror that even she could not have imagined. Voodoo Storm, like the author’s previous two novels, is characterized by tragic characters, colorful dialogue and edgy writing. The novel often flirts with the supernatural and leaves the reader to wonder what resides beyond the darker side of human consciousness.
Author: David Aaronovitch
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 110118521X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 407
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Book Description
"Meticulous in its research, forensic in its reasoning, robust in its argument, and often hilarious in its debunking... a highly entertaining rumble with the century's major conspiracy theorists and their theories." --John Lahr, National Book Critics Circle Award-winning author of Tennessee Williams From an award-winning journalist, a history so funny, so true, so scary, it's bound to be called a conspiracy. Our age is obsessed by the idea of conspiracy. We see it everywhere- from Pearl Harbor to 9/11, from the assassination of Kennedy to the death of Diana. In this age of terrorism we live in, the role of conspiracy is a serious one, one that can fuel radical or fringe elements to violence. For David Aaronovitch, there came a time when he started to see a pattern among these inflammatory theories. these theories used similarly murky methods with which to insinuate their claims: they linked themselves to the supposed conspiracies of the past (it happened then so it can happen now); they carefully manipulated their evidence to hide its holes; they relied on the authority of dubious academic sources. Most important, they elevated their believers to membership of an elite- a group of people able to see beyond lies to a higher reality. But why believe something that entails stretching the bounds of probability so far? In this entertaining and enlightening book, he examines why people believe conspiracy theories, and makes an argument for a true skepticism: one based on a thorough knowledge of history and a strong dose of common sense.
Author: Amy Wilentz
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1451644000
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 352
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Book Description
Winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award for Autobiography, this is a brilliant writer’s account of a long, painful, ecstatic—and unreciprocated—affair with a country that has long fascinated the world. A foreign correspondent on a simple story becomes, over time and in the pages of this book, a lover of Haiti, pursuing the heart of this beautiful and confounding land into its darkest corners and brightest clearings. Farewell, Fred Voodoo is a journey into the depths of the human soul as well as a vivid portrayal of the nation’s extraordinary people and their uncanny resilience. Haiti has found in Amy Wilentz an author of astonishing wit, sympathy, and eloquence.
Author: R. Andrew Chesnut
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0190633352
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 265
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Book Description
R. Andrew Chesnut offers a fascinating portrayal of Santa Muerte, a skeleton saint whose cult has attracted millions of devotees over the past decade. Although condemned by mainstream churches, this folk saint's supernatural powers appeal to millions of Latin Americans and immigrants in the U.S. Devotees believe the Bony Lady (as she is affectionately called) to be the fastest and most effective miracle worker, and as such, her statuettes and paraphernalia now outsell those of the Virgin of Guadalupe and Saint Jude, two other giants of Mexican religiosity. In particular, Chesnut shows Santa Muerte has become the patron saint of drug traffickers, playing an important role as protector of peddlers of crystal meth and marijuana; DEA agents and Mexican police often find her altars in the safe houses of drug smugglers. Yet Saint Death plays other important roles: she is a supernatural healer, love doctor, money-maker, lawyer, and angel of death. She has become without doubt one of the most popular and powerful saints on both the Mexican and American religious landscapes.
Author: John Alan Cohan
Publisher: Bentham Science Publishers
ISBN: 1608050874
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 336
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Book Description
This book is in the field of trans-cultural psychology, and is intended for college courses in anthropology and psychology, and general readership. the book focuses on intriguing facts about primitive cultures around the world, and provides insights into living traditions and different world views. a principal theme of the book is that we can gain a better understanding of ourselves by a "detour" to other cultures. the book shows how modern ways of thinking are parallel to those of primitive cultures, and engages readers to become more aware of who they are. As shown throughout the book, there is not, after all, a very wide gulf between primitive and modern cultures. the book covers many topics including animism, shamanism, totemism, hunting and cultivation rituals, altered states of consciousness, envy and the evil eye, how people deal with conflicts, potlatches, cargo cults, how people satisfy the need for social approval, culture-bound syndromes, folk medicine, treatment of women, raising of children, nomadic peoples, treatment of the dead, and other topics.
Author: Caleb Wilde
Publisher: HarperCollins
ISBN: 0062465260
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 164
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Book Description
“Wise, vulnerable, and surprisingly relatable . . . funny in all the right places and enormously helpful throughout. It will change how you think about death.” —Rachel Held Evans, New York Times–bestselling author of Searching for Sunday We are a people who deeply fear death. While humans are biologically wired to evade death for as long as possible, we have become too adept at hiding from it, vilifying it, and—when it can be avoided no longer—letting the professionals take over. Sixth-generation funeral director Caleb Wilde understands this reticence and fear. He had planned to get as far away from the family business as possible. He wanted to make a difference in the world, and how could he do that if all the people he worked with were . . . dead? Slowly, he discovered that caring for the deceased and their loved ones was making a difference—in other people’s lives to be sure, but it also seemed to be saving his own. A spirituality of death began to emerge as he observed the family who lovingly dressed their deceased father for his burial; the nursing home that honored a woman’s life by standing in procession as her body was taken away; the funeral that united a conflicted community. Through stories like these, told with equal parts humor and poignancy, Wilde’s candid memoir offers an intimate look into the business of death and a new perspective on living and dying. “Open[s] up conversations about life’s ultimate concerns.” —The Washington Post “As a look behind the closed doors of the death industry, as well as a candid exploration of Wilde’s own faith journey, this book is fascinating and compelling.” —National Catholic Reporter “[A] stunner of a debut.” —Rachel Held Evans, author of Inspired
