MIRACLES, MAGIC, AND MEDICINE is a study of medical frustrationthe inability of the physician to dispense medicine that worked. Hundreds of biological medications were prescribed but no more than five or six actually improved the patients condition. As a result, patients turned to miracles, magicians, witch doctors, astrology, and the church. For almost a thousand years, the churchs answer to disease was prayer. Spirits, angels, and demons lurked everywhere. The Antichrist practiced witchcraft and sorcery, and soothsayers predicted the future. Flagellation was practiced, and magician with their smoke and mirrors, held sway. Among the Romans, cabbage was the cure for all disorders, and eating the herb dittany could extract an arrow. It was only with the age of science that effective medications were discovered. Those practicing witchcraft were accused of intimately consorting with the devil and his demons, even having sex with them.

This book illustrates in detail the range of understandings of the human condition in New Testament times and remedies for ills that prevailed when Jesus and the apostles were spreading the Christian message and launching Christian communities in the Graeco-Roman world.

This book illustrates in detail the range of understandings of the human condition in New Testament times.

Medical expert Paul A. Offit, M.D., offers a scathing exposé of the alternative medicine industry, revealing how even though some popular therapies are remarkably helpful due to the placebo response, many of them are ineffective, expensive, and even deadly. Dr. Offit reveals how alternative medicine—an unregulated industry under no legal obligation to prove its claims or admit its risks—can actually be harmful to our health. Using dramatic real-life stories, Offit separates the sense from the nonsense, showing why any therapy—alternative or traditional—should be scrutinized. He also shows how some nontraditional methods can do a great deal of good, in some cases exceeding therapies offered by conventional practitioners. An outspoken advocate for science-based health advocacy who is not afraid to take on media celebrities who promote alternative practices, Dr. Offit advises, “There’s no such thing as alternative medicine. There’s only medicine that works and medicine that doesn’t.”

Dr. Andrea Pennington presents 21 real life stories of people from various backgrounds and cultures who have found unseen forces supporting, guiding and healing them in their darkest hours. Each story demonstrates that there are mystical forces and supernatural powers that can help us navigate through life.

Making saints : miracles, medicine, and evidence since 1588 -- The supplicants and their saints -- The miracles : diseases, corpses, and other wonders -- Doctors and medical knowledge in the canonization process -- Healing as drama : gestures of invocation and the context of cure -- Conclusion : religion, medicine, and miracles.

Can scientists study religion? Ilkka PyysiSinen says that they can. While the study of religion cannot be reduced to other disciplines, it must not ignore what other disciplines have learned about human thought and behavior. In this collection of essays, PyysiSinen shows how findings from cognitive science can offer new directions to debates in religion. After providing a historical and theoretical overview of the cognitive science of religion, PyysiSinen demonstrates how knowledge of the mind's workings can help deconstruct such concepts as 'god,' 'ideology,' 'culture,' 'magic,' 'miracles,' and 'religion.' For scholars of religion or for scholars of the mind-brain, Magic, Miracles, and Religion provides a helpful overview to this emerging field.