"The 7 Laws of Magical Thinking" by Matthew Hutson

 

Publisher: One World Books

Copyright: 2012

ISBN: 9781851689347

Mr. Hutson is an extremely interesting author to read, and one who does a lot of research. This book is essentially about critical thinking. And he has broken down human beliefs into seven general areas.

The seven laws themselves are: that objects carry essences, that symbols have power, the actions have distant consequences, but the mind knows no bounds, the soul lives on, but the world is alive, and that everything happens for a reason.

Each of these laws in turn talks about things like contagions and historicity, spells in ceremonies, luck and superstition, psychokinesis and ESP, Life after death, animism, and destiny.

The overall premise of the book is that all people wherever they are, believe in magic of some kind. They might not define it as magic, but that is essentially what it is. The author starts out this way by giving examples of various things that people typically do that have links to magic in the past, and he concludes in the eighth chapter by returning to this.

And excellently researched book that is well worth reading and what that would hopefully be a good medium level read for somebody who is interested in critical thinking. I suggest medium level because I think people should have some Basic understanding of critical thinking and what is required prior to starting this book.

Highly recommended.