This book comprehensively surveys the colorful history of mass hysteria and kindred phenomena in schools, documenting outbreaks of demonic possession during witchcraft scares, to modern incidents of collapsing bands, itching frenzies, ghost panics and mystery illnesses.Strange behaviors and illnesses in students are examined through the centuries. Possessed children went into trance states and began to bark like dogs in 16th and 17th century Holland; an epidemic of twitching, tremb...

An examination of the myths of the Moon goddess and how she appeared to the original creators of those myths in ancient Greece.Waxing and waning and reborn with each new month, the Moon has always been the supreme symbol of cyclical change in the western world.Metaphorical representations of the Moon’s goddess also seem to undergo similar changes, each new century reinventing her in its own image. For Hesiod, she was a distant figure in the celestial panthe...

This delightful selection of stories by one of the classic masters of the genre includes some well-known and lesser known tales, presented in lively Naxos AudioBooks style with music and sound effects. This recording is also unique in that the stories are read by the finalists in the Naxos AudioBooks/The Times Voice of the Year competition which offered a recording opportunity to talented readers who had never studied or worked professionally. The competition produced some outstanding natu...

The New York Times BestsellerWhat if everything you think you know about addiction is wrong? Johann Hari's journey into the heart of the war on drugs led him to ask this question--and to write the book that gave rise to his viral TED talk, viewed more than 62 million times, and inspired the feature film The United States vs. Billie Holiday and the documentary series The Fix.One of Johann Hari's earliest memories i...

Drawing on a 5-year clinical study of near-death experiences, a doctor presents riveting patient stories to explore how NDEs can empower us and society as a whole.By trying to pathologize NDEs, are we missing out on what they can tell us about life?Dr. Penny Sartori is a registered nurse who began researching Near-Death Experiences (NDEs) in 1995 after one of her long-term intensive care patients begged her to let him die in peace. Inspired...

A witty, irreverent tour of history's worst plagues—from the Antonine Plague, to leprosy, to polio—and a celebration of the heroes who fought themIn 1518, in a small town in Alsace, Frau Troffea began dancing and didn’t stop. She danced until she was carried away six days later, and soon thirty-four more villagers joined her. Then more. In a month more than 400 people had been stricken by the mysterious dancing plague. In late-seventeenth-century England an eccentr...

A look at the 1918 influenza pandemic from its outbreak to its effects on the global population and its legacy.On the second Monday of March, 1918, the world changed forever. What seemed like a harmless cold morphed into a global pandemic that would wipe out as many as a hundred-million people—ten times as many as the Great War. German troops faltered, lending the allies the winning advantage, and India turned its sights to independence while South Africa turned to ...

Having a good death is our final human right, argues Sandra Martin in this updated and expanded version of her bestselling and award-winning social history of the right to die movement in Canada and around the world.Winner of the BC National Award for Canadian Non-Fiction, finalist for both the Donner Prize in Public Policy and the Dafoe Prize for History, A Good Death has a new chapter on Canada’s Medical Assistance in Dying Law. The law allows mentally competent adults, who are s...

With a scientist's mind and an animal lover's compassion, world-renowned biologist Rupert Sheldrake presents a groundbreaking exploration of animal behavior that will profoundly change the way we think about animals--and ourselves.How do cats know when it's time to go to the vet, even before the cat carrier comes out? How do dogs know when their owners are returning home at unexpected times? How can horses find their way back to the stable over completely unfamilia...

The haunting story of a virus that triggered the worst pandemic of modern times.**“Both a saga of tragedies and a detective story.” —**The GuardianThe flu pandemic of 1918–1920 was one of the greatest human disasters of all time. It infected a third of the people on Earth—from the poorest immigrants of New York City to the king of Spain, Franz Kafka, Mahatma Gandhi, and Woodrow Wilson. But despite a death toll far higher than that ...

There could be many reasons why you are interested this book. Perhaps you are just curious about the afterlife. Or perhaps you have experienced the death of a loved one. It may be that you have had an out of body experience or a near death experience or another mystical experience. Or you may be realizing that we all inevitably have to make the journey to the afterlife one day.If you have been trained to respect scientific method you will not just accept tradition or wishful thinki...

The doctor – and bestselling author – who first demonstrated the healing effects of prayer now offers an unprecedented look at the science of premonitions. The Power of Premonitions takes readers through documented cases of premonitions, including a remarkable instance when an entire Nebraska community skipped church the very day it exploded; an examination of recent scientific study of 'presentiment'; a discussion of what it all means to daily life; and practical field-tested techniques f...