The Superstitious Mind: French Peasants and the Supernatural in the Nineteenth Century

This intriguing book examines popular religion traditional medicine witchcraft apparitions demonology and magic in nineteenth-century rural France. Devlin demonstrates that many of the impulses and mental processes now considered superstitious constituted a wholly reasonable response to the pressures of a harsh and impoverished life. Far from the product of a primitive mentality many of these beliefs have survived in modern culture and can even illuminate the nature of modern mass politics.