Believing in Magic: The Psychology of Superstition

“This is a book by Stuart Vyse, an American psychologist and skeptic. He’s looking at superstition from lots of different angles and asking: ‘Why do we have superstitions?’ There are different explanations. In some cases, we might hold certain superstitions because we’ve been told about them. There are so many superstitions that kids have. We can all think back to that era when we didn’t tread on the cracks in the pavement, or we made a wish when we saw a star in the night sky or blew out all the candles on a birthday cake. Those are socially transmitted. As adults, we might not actually believe any of that stuff, but we still engage in it anyway, just as a fun thing to do. There are also those widely shared traditional superstitions about breaking mirrors, walking under ladders, or the number 13 being unlucky. Those are also socially transmitted and passed on from generation to generation.” Read more...

The best books on Paranormal Beliefs

Christopher French, Psychologist