Join us on a literary world trip!
Add this book to bookshelf
Grey
Write a new comment Default profile 50px
Grey
Subscribe to read the full book or read the first pages for free!
All characters reduced
Magic Pretended Miracles and Remarkable Natural Phenomena - cover

We are sorry! The publisher (or author) gave us the instruction to take down this book from our catalog. But please don't worry, you still have more than 500,000 other books you can enjoy!

Magic Pretended Miracles and Remarkable Natural Phenomena

Anonymous

Publisher: DigiCat

  • 0
  • 0
  • 0

Summary

In 'Magic, Pretended Miracles, and Remarkable Natural Phenomena,' the anonymous author presents a thorough and critical examination of occurrences historically mistaken for sorcery. With an analytical approach and crisp prose, the author demystifies nine varied phenomena across as many chapters. The literary style, wherein each chapter tackles a specific example of such phenomena—from the transformation of unground coffee to a piping hot beverage, to the mechanical marvels of automatons like wooden doves—echoes the empirical spirit of the Enlightenment. The curated examples and cogent explanations provided establish not only a narrative but also a wider literary context that questions our readiness to accept the supernatural at face value.

The enigmatic nature of the author, choosing to remain anonymous, hints at a desire to avoid the limelight and perhaps guard against potential repercussions from challenging commonly held superstitions. This anonymity may stem from a period when the demarcation between science and folklore was dangerously blurred. One can speculate that the author's background could be steeped in the rationalist or scientific communities, given the detailed knowledge and critical thinking skills showcased in the book, which reflect a deep understanding and keen observation of both natural phenomena and human inventions.

This book is highly recommended for skeptics, historians of science, and anyone intrigued by the intersection of technology, nature, and human belief. The methodical dissection of seemingly magical occurrences serves as a valuable reminder of the need for empirical skepticism. Readers will find their curiosity piqued and their understanding of the world expanded, as they are gently guided away from the allure of mysticism towards a more rational appreciation of the wonders around us.
Available since: 06/13/2022.
Print length: 123 pages.

Other books that might interest you

  • Top 10 Short Stories The - Men 1910s - The top ten Short Stories of the 1910's written by male authors - cover

    Top 10 Short Stories The - Men...

    James Joyce, Franz Kafka, Arnold...

    • 0
    • 0
    • 0
    Short stories have always been a sort of instant access into an author’s brain, their soul and heart.  A few pages can lift our lives into locations, people and experiences with a sweep of landscape, narration, feelings and emotions that is difficult to achieve elsewhere. 
     
    In this series we try to offer up tried and trusted ‘Top Tens’ across many different themes and authors. But any anthology will immediately throw up the questions – Why that story? Why that author?  
     
    The theme itself will form the boundaries for our stories which range from well-known classics, newly told, to stories that modern times have overlooked but perfectly exemplify the theme.  Throughout the volume our authors whether of instant recognition or new to you are all leviathans of literature. 
     
    Some you may disagree with but they will get you thinking; about our choices and about those you would have made.  If this volume takes you on a path to discover more of these miniature masterpieces then we have all gained something. 
     
    A decade of catastrophic worldwide war.  Empires in tectonic collision, a society heaving under the yoke, tired of sacrifice, ready for revolution.  In literature ideas were explored and detailed revealing a world and people that seem so long ago but also very near. 
     
    1 - The Top 10 - The 1910's - The Men - An Introduction 
    2 - The Dead - Part 1 by James Joyce 
    3 - The Dead - Part 2 by James Joyce 
    4 - In the Penal Colony by Franz Kafka 
    5 - The Interlopers by Saki the pseudonym for H H Munro 
    6 - Odour of Chrysanthemums by D H Lawrence 
    7 - The Revolutionist by Mikhail Petrovich Artzybashev 
    8 - Casting the Runes by M R James 
    9 - Carnacki, The Ghost Finder - No 1 - The Gateway of the Monster by William Hope Hodgson 
    10 - Hands by Sherwood Anderson 
    11 - The Matador of the Five Towns by Arnold Bennett 
    12 - August Heat by W F Harvey
    Show book
  • Le Grand Meaulnes [The Wanderer] - cover

    Le Grand Meaulnes [The Wanderer]

    Henri Alain-Fournier

    • 0
    • 0
    • 0
    Le Grand Meaulnes is one of the great classics of French literature, a mysterious, even impressionistic tale of adolescence in the French countryside in the dying years of the 19th century.A teenager, Agustin Meaulnes, arrives in a country school, and his strong personality immediately affects its rural atmosphere, especially in the eyes of his younger school companion, the 15 year old François. He is dubbed 'le grand Meaulnes', and he lives up to his reputation by going missing for a few days. He says little about his adventure on his return. But François eventually discovers that Meaulnes stumbled upon a strange party held at an unknown chateau, and became enmeshed in the lives of the beautiful young Yvonne de Galais and her brother Frantz.Love, confusion, the urgency of young passion propels these three along unpredictable paths, observed anxiously by François, who desperately wants to help solve and resolve the mysteries. But Meaulnes and Frantz are driven by their own emotions along a trajectory which is anything but simple and straight.Le Grand Meaulnes, regarded by John Fowles as 'the greatest novel of adolescence in European literature' has cast a remarkable spell on successive many generations.In turn elliptical, impressionist, hopeful, haunting, Le Grand Meaulnes made an immediate impression on the French public when it was first published in 1913 (a year before its author died in the First World War) and swiftly gained a permanent place in European literature. The translation by Françoise Delisle has been revised for this recording.
    Show book
  • 20000 Leagues Under the Sea - cover

    20000 Leagues Under the Sea

    Jules Verne

    • 0
    • 0
    • 0
    Professor Aronnax, his faithful servant, Conseil, and the Canadian harpooner, Ned Land, begin an extremely hazardous voyage to rid the seas of a little-known and terrifying sea monster. However, the monster turns out to be the Nautilus, a giant submarine commanded by the mysterious Captain Nemo, by whom they are soon held captive. So begins not only one of the great adventure classics but also a truly fantastic voyage from the lost city of Atlantis to the South Pole.
    Show book
  • The Dream - cover

    The Dream

    H. G. Wells

    • 2
    • 6
    • 0
    A man from the future dreams of a past life in this mind-bending story by the author of The Invisible Man and The War of the Worlds.   Known for such classic novels as The Time Machine and The Island of Doctor Moreau, H. G. Wells is considered one of the fathers of science fiction. In The Dream, he introduces a man from a futuristic utopia who lives the complete life of an early twentieth-century Englishman during a dream.   Sarnac, a scientist, falls asleep for a short while. But in a vivid dream, he experiences an entire lifetime two thousand years in the past. Under the name Harry Mortimer Smith, he moves from childhood to boyhood to manhood—and finally, a murderous death. As Sarnac tries to make sense of it all, his two lives will become entangled in a state between dream and reality.   “Even in the 21st century, Wells still speaks to our fears and dreams.” —The Washington Post   “Nothing is more striking about Mr. Wells . . . than his power of lending freshness and vitality to some well-worn formula of fiction.” —The Spectator
    Show book
  • The Man Whose Teeth Were All Exactly Alike - cover

    The Man Whose Teeth Were All...

    Philip K. Dick

    • 0
    • 0
    • 0
    The Man Whose Teeth Were All Exactly Alike was written by Philip K. Dick in the winter and spring of 1960, in Point Reyes Station, California. In the sequence of Dick's work, it was written immediately after Confessions of a Crap Artist and just before The Man in the High Castle, the Hugo Award-winning science fiction novel that ushered in the next stage of Dick's career. 
     
    This novel, Dick said, is about Leo Runcible, "a brilliant, civic minded liberal Jew living in a rural WASP town in Marin County, California." Runcible, a real estate agent involved in a local battle with a neighbor, finds what look like Neanderthal bones in Marin and dreams of rising real estate prices because of the publicity. 
     
    But it turns out that the remains are more recent, the result of an environmental problem polluting the local water supply.
    Show book
  • Man in the Iron Mask The - D'Artagnan Series Vol 6 (Unabridged) - cover

    Man in the Iron Mask The -...

    Alexandre Dumas

    • 0
    • 0
    • 0
    Here it is; Alexandre Dumas' thrilling final chapter in the D'Artagnan saga. Thirty years after their last adventure, D'Artagnan and the Three Musketeers are reunited in a daring plot to replace the King of France with a look-alike, long kept hidden in the Bastille, then suffer the true king's revenge, and meet their ultimate destinies.
    Show book