Psychology Superstition [Hardcover]

Jahoda (Author)

Product Details

• Hardcover: 158 pages
• Publisher: Jason Aronson Inc. Publishers (1974)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0876681852
• ISBN-13: 978-0876681855
• Product Dimensions: 8.7 x 6 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,573,331 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Brilliant Examination of Cause and Effect, October 30, 2004

By 

Harry Littell (Sacramento, CA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Psychology Superstition (Hardcover)

Although this book was written about 35 years ago, I would never have imagined it when I read it. Superstition, fear, servility, doubt all blend together. So it would seem like an impossible task for anyone to sort or flesh it all out.

How the author best accomplishes this is by examining the subject through the lenses of cause and effect. Superstition, by its varied and very nature abhors any examintion other than to be taken at face value, and would prefer to assume no cause than that which would infer any doubt about it. In other words, the duty of superstition, like dogma, is to preserve doubt at all costs.

Sadly, many persons are superstitious and so this book would render little if any appeal except to cast further blame by labeling the content as blasphemous and heretical.

Yet this author is meticulous in his discovery and his relation of cause to effect. In fact it might be one of the best books available in understanding cultural anthropological causation that appears to be built on a philosophical model. In other words, as an approach it is easier to understand, and brings home the importance of, and the damage of, assumptions of varying degrees of veracity as they relate to the human mind.

A brilliant book. If you have an interest in superstition, the unraveling of fears, and the discovery of their causes being embedded in doubt, you will not be disappointed.