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Rating: 
Summary: Aveni doesn't quite nail it.
Review: Aveni takes great pains to point out the porous boundaries between magic, science and religion. For example, he demonstrates that the premise behind phrenology isn't inherently absurd. Today legitimate scientists accept that bodily shapes, proportions and symmetry broadcast information about one's overall health and especially reproductive fitness. The phrenologists in the 19th Century just carried the program farther than the evidence warranted.Similarly, Aveni points out that the popular enthusiasm for spiritualism in the 19th Century, while clearly magical, reflected widespread dissatisfaction with the institutional religious beliefs in a society roiled up by democratic politics and cut-throat economic competition. Many dislocated people turned to spiritualism as an empirical source of information about what was "really" happening in the afterlife, instead of taking the Bible and their pastors' word for it. These people were using magic to criticize and construct alternatives to the received religious authorities. But I think Aveni doesn't emphasize sufficiently that the human brain falls into magical modes of thinking because it finds itself having to deal with anxiety on a daily basis. A great deal of our behavior, much more than we care to admit, isn't motivated by satisfying animal needs, seeking truth, or anything else that the older rationalistic psychology would have accepted as legitimate drives. Rather much of our behavior is motivated by the desire to manage anxiety in the face of an uncertain environment, even with all our technology and wealth. Hence our natural inclinations to fall back on religious and magical modes of behavior when we confront anxiety-provoking situations. That fault aside, I found this book fun and eye-opening.
Rating: 
Summary: Not a revised edition
Review: I was asked to review this book by an academic journal and discovered that it differs only in insignificant details from the first edition of 1996. Replying to an email I sent, the director of the University Press of Colorado, publisher of the new edition, admitted that the book "should not be called a revised edition--that was a bit of a screw up on our part. It should have simply said 'With a New Foreword' rather than 'Revised Edition.' We anticipated more corrections to the original text than we actually got, but we never got the title adjusted accordingly prior to publication." Caveat emptor.
Rating:
Summary: Stay away
Review: It is not often that I find a book that manages to insult my intelligence on every page, but Aveni's done it. This book makes no attempt to teach the reader anything, but only to entertain, and does a poor job of that, as well. The chapters do not present a coherent argument, but are just a bunch of random facts strung together. The arguments that the author does attempt to make are shallow and unsupported; instead of clearly laying out his points in sequence, the author relies on flowery language and repetition. In brief, I was very, very deeply disappointed by this book. I will suggest a few alternatives. If you are interested in the history of magic and science, most good science history books include the discussions of magic, since the in the early days of civilization there was no clear distinction between one and the other. If you are only after the history of magic, the best treatise on the subject ever is Lynn Thorndike's "History of Magic and Experimental Science" in 12 volumes - unfortunately, long out of print. Check your university library. Thorndike's writing is excellent, very lucid, very informative and thorough. Another alternative is Frazer's "The Golden Bough." It is in print and the full text is even available online at http://www.sacred-texts.com/pag/frazer/. The book focuses on the psychological roots of magic. The scientific side of it is somewhat obsolete, but it's a literary classic nonetheless - very well written. Both of these books are ~80 years old. If you know a good contemporary book on the history of magic, let me know - because "Behind the crystal ball" isn't.
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