Robert N. McCauley Boeken

Delving into the psychological underpinnings of religious rituals, this book examines how these practices shape and reflect human thought processes. It highlights the significance of rituals in fostering community and individual identity, offering insights into their role in psychological well-being. By analyzing various ritual systems, the author reveals the intricate connections between belief, behavior, and mental frameworks, illuminating the profound impact of rituals on human experience and cognition.

Manias, Panics, and Crashes, Fifth Edition is an engaging and entertaining account of the way that mismanagement of money and credit has led to financial explosions over the centuries. Covering such topics as the history and anatomy of crises, speculative manias, and the lender of last resort, this book puts the turbulence of the financial world in perspective. The updated fifth edition expands upon each chapter, and includes two new chapters focusing on significant financial crises of the last fifteen years.

Hearing Voices and Other Matters of the Mind examines the long-recognized and striking similarities between features of mental disorders and features of religions. Robert McCauley and George Graham emphasize underlying cognitive continuities between familiar features of religiosity, of mental disorders, and of everyday thinking and action. They contend that much religious thought and behavior can be explained in terms of the cultural activation of humans' natural cognitive systems, which address matters that are essential to human survival: hazard precautions, agency detection, language processing, and theory of mind. Those systems produce responses to cultural stimuli that may mimic features of cognition and conduct associated with mental disorders, but are sometimes coded as "religious" depending on the context. Their approach promises to shed light on both mental abnormalities and religiosity.