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Magic and Superstition in Europe
- A Concise History from Antiquity to the Present
- Narrated by: 5395 MEDIA LLC
- Length: 12 hrs and 13 mins
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Magic and Superstition in Europe
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Publisher's summary
The only comprehensive, single-volume survey of magic available, this compelling book traces the history of magic, witchcraft, and superstitious practices such as popular spells or charms from antiquity to the present day.
Focusing especially on Europe in the medieval and early modern eras, Michael Bailey also explores the ancient Near East, classical Greece and Rome, and the spread of magical systems, particularly modern witchcraft or Wicca, from Europe to the United States. He examines how magic and superstition have been defined in various historical eras and how these constructions have changed over time. He considers the ways in which specific categories of magic have been condemned, and how those identified as magicians or witches have been persecuted and prosecuted in various societies.
Although conceptions of magic have changed over time, the author shows how magic has almost always served as a boundary marker separating socially acceptable actions from illicit ones, and more generally the known and understood from the unknown and occult.
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-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 95
For many, the medieval world seems dark and foreign - a miraculous, brutal, and irrational time of superstition and strange relics. The pursuit of heretics, the Inquisition, the Crusades, and the domination of the "Holy Land" come to mind.
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4 out of 5 stars
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New Standard Text for This Period
- By Bill Martin on 10-22-16
By: Kevin Madigan
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Reformations
- The Early Modern World, 1450-1650
- By: Carlos M. N. Eire
- Narrated by: David Drummond
- Length: 39 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 152
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 117
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 116
Carlos Eire, popular professor and gifted writer, chronicles the 200-year era of the Renaissance and Reformation with particular attention to issues that persist as concerns in the present day. Eire connects the Protestant and Catholic Reformations in new and profound ways, and he demonstrates convincingly that this crucial turning point in history not only affected people long gone but continues to shape our world and define who we are today.
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2 out of 5 stars
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Catholics don’t believe in “Works Righteousness”
- By Liam Cruz Kelly on 02-23-19
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The Faith Instinct
- How Religion Evolved and Why It Endures
- By: Nicholas Wade
- Narrated by: Alan Sklar
- Length: 12 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 165
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 94
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Story4 out of 5 stars 92
For at least the last fifty thousand years, and probably much longer, people have practiced religion. Yet little attention has been given, either by believers or atheists, to the question of whether this universal human behavior might have an evolutionary basis. Did religion evolve, in other words, because it helped people in early societies survive?
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4 out of 5 stars
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If you're religious or into religion read this
- By Adam on 08-16-10
By: Nicholas Wade
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How the Catholic Church Built Western Civilization
- By: Thomas E. Woods Jr.
- Narrated by: Barrett Whitener
- Length: 7 hrs
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 1,259
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 1,006
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 1,003
Western civilization has given us modern science, the wealth of free-market economics, the security of law, a sense of human rights and freedom, charity as a virtue, splendid art and music, philosophy grounded in reason, and innumerable other gifts we take for granted.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Fascinating and informative
- By Michael Kellogg on 09-29-05
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Hitler’s Monsters
- A Supernatural History of the Third Reich
- By: Eric Kurlander
- Narrated by: Grover Gardner
- Length: 18 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 144
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 119
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Story4 out of 5 stars 120
The Nazi fascination with the occult is legendary, yet today it is often dismissed as Himmler's personal obsession or wildly overstated for its novelty. Preposterous though it was, however, supernatural thinking was inextricable from the Nazi project. The regime enlisted astrology and the paranormal, paganism, Indo-Aryan mythology, witchcraft, miracle weapons, and the lost kingdom of Atlantis in reimagining German politics and society and recasting German science and religion.
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5 out of 5 stars
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sobering
- By Nicholas Monco on 10-27-17
By: Eric Kurlander
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A History of Christianity
- By: Paul Johnson
- Narrated by: Wanda McCaddon
- Length: 28 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 99
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 89
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 88
First published in 1976, Paul Johnson's exceptional study of Christianity has been loved and widely hailed for its intensive research, writing, and magnitude. Weaving a great range of material, the scholar and author Johnson creates an ambitious panoramic overview of the evolution of the Western world since the founding of a little-known "Jesus sect".
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3 out of 5 stars
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Read Brant Pitre's the case for Jesus instead.
- By Catherine BFT on 05-08-17
By: Paul Johnson
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The House of Wisdom
- How the Arabs Transformed Western Civilization
- By: Jonathan Lyons
- Narrated by: Jay Snyder
- Length: 9 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 106
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 70
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Story4 out of 5 stars 69
Here is the remarkable story of how medieval Arab scholars made dazzling advances in science and philosophy, and of the itinerant Europeans who brought this knowledge back to the West. For centuries following the fall of Rome, Western Europe was a benighted backwater, a world of subsistence farming, minimal literacy, and violent conflict. Meanwhile, Arab culture was thriving, dazzling those Europeans fortunate enough to catch even a glimpse.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Missing history
- By Robert on 11-26-11
By: Jonathan Lyons
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Why You Think the Way You Do
- The Story of Western Worldviews from Rome to Home
- By: Glenn S. Sunshine
- Narrated by: Patrick Lawlor
- Length: 8 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 123
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 92
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 90
Why You Think the Way You Do traces the development of the worldviews that underpin the Western world. Professor and historian Glenn S. Sunshine demonstrates the decisive impact that the growth of Christianity had in transforming the outlook of pagan Roman culture into one that—based on biblical concepts of humanity and its relationship with God—established virtually all the positive aspects of Western civilization.
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2 out of 5 stars
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"Christian's view of the western world"
- By Bradley on 03-21-10
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Seven Lies about Catholic History: Infamous Myths about the Church's Past and How to Answer Them
- By: Diane Moczar
- Narrated by: Kevin F. Spalding
- Length: 5 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 241
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 217
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 217
The world hates the Church that Jesus founded, just as He said it would (John 15:18). It reviles her doctrines, mocks her moral teachings and invents lies about her history. In every age, but especially in our modern day, historians and political powers have distorted the facts about her past (or just made up novel falsehoods from scratch) to make the Church, and the civilization it fostered, seem corrupt, backward, or simply evil.
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5 out of 5 stars
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excellent read
- By Christine A Carty on 02-27-16
By: Diane Moczar
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The Chalice and the Blade
- Our History, Our Future
- By: Riane Eisler
- Narrated by: Riane Eisler
- Length: 2 hrs and 52 mins
- Abridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 290
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Performance3.5 out of 5 stars 245
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 243
Riane Eisler believes that war and the "war of the sexes" are concepts neither divinely nor biologically ordained. Join the author as she reconstructs a prehistoric culture based on partnership rather than domination and traces the roots of the global shift to patriarchy. Eisler, an acclaimed scholar, futurist, and activist, also presents new scripts for living based on a more socially, economically, ecologically, personally, and spiritually balanced society. This script is in direct opposition to the tension and violence typical of what she calls the dominator model. Her vision is the partnership model, which today is struggling to reemerge. This program is an important contribution to that struggle.
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1 out of 5 stars
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the chalice and the blade
- By Anne on 07-25-08
By: Riane Eisler
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Atheist Delusions
- The Christian Revolution and Its Fashionable Enemies
- By: David Bentley Hart
- Narrated by: Ralph Morocco
- Length: 11 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 250
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Performance3.5 out of 5 stars 221
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 215
In this provocative book one of the most brilliant scholars of religion today dismantles distorted religious "histories" offered up by Christopher Hitchens, Richard Dawkins, and other contemporary critics of religion and advocates of atheism. David Bentley Hart provides a bold correction of the New Atheists’s misrepresentations of the Christian past, countering their polemics with a brilliant account of Christianity and its message of human charity as the most revolutionary movement in all of Western history.
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5 out of 5 stars
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A Conversion Experience.
- By Ted on 12-01-14
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A History of Judaism
- By: Martin Goodman
- Narrated by: Derek Perkins
- Length: 23 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 39
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 32
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 31
Judaism is one of the oldest religions in the world, and it has preserved its distinctive identity despite the extraordinarily diverse forms and beliefs it has embodied over the course of more than three millennia. A History of Judaism provides the first truly comprehensive look in one volume at how this great religion came to be, how it has evolved from one age to the next, and how its various strains, sects, and traditions have related to each other.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Not easy to follow.
- By Eric on 03-12-19
By: Martin Goodman
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Drawing Down the Moon
- Witches, Druids, Goddess-Worshippers, and Other Pagans in America
- By: Margot Adler
- Narrated by: Pam Ward
- Length: 20 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 423
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 369
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 363
Almost 40 years since its original publication, Drawing Down the Moon continues to be the only detailed history of the burgeoning but still widely misunderstood Neo-Pagan subculture. Margot Adler attended ritual gatherings and interviewed a diverse, colorful gallery of people across the United States, people who find inspiration in ancient deities, nature, myth, even science fiction. In this revised edition, Adler takes a fascinating and honest look at the religious experiences, beliefs, and lifestyles of modern America's Pagan groups.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Important history lesson but missing elements
- By Waterfall on 09-12-20
By: Margot Adler
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Forbidden Faith
- The Secret History of Gnosticism
- By: Richard Smoley
- Narrated by: Bob Souer
- Length: 8 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 133
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 112
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 111
The success of books such as Elaine Pagels's Gnostic Gospels and Dan Brown's Da Vinci Code proves beyond a doubt that there is a tremendous thirst today for finding the hidden truths of Christianity - truths that may have been lost or buried by institutional religion over the last two millennia. In Forbidden Faith, Richard Smoley narrates a popular history of one such truth, the ancient esoteric religion of gnosticism, which flourished between the first and fourth centuries AD, but whose legacy remains even today, having survived secretly throughout the ages.
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5 out of 5 stars
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An absolute must for understanding Gnosticism.
- By Patriot RN - Doc on 05-12-21
By: Richard Smoley
What listeners say about Magic and Superstition in Europe
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall4 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story3 out of 5 stars
- Cara Mico
- 01-18-17
decent
moments of patriarchal superiority and derision for feminist theory, including a brief discussion of the feminazi (not joking) but all in all a decent synopsis of historical ideologies. a good reference guide to fund other reading material
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2 people found this helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Gustavo Zanghelini Guérios
- 12-14-20
Extraordinary
The explanation in concise but complete. Very informative and not "spiritual" as discourses about magic can get from time to time. Very relevant for those interested in the history of science.
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1 person found this helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Amazon Customer
- 04-05-19
Great book.
Well read, researched, and footnoted for further research. Fair and accurate. Clear to follow and holds interest.
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3 people found this helpful