Monthly Archives: January, 2010
Anti-intellectualism and Paganism
This is something that I wrote on December 28, 2007 and it seems to be still very true today. It is something that is really on my mind and bothering me very much. ————————— I was talking to a friend of mine in the pagan community about how I seem to be a little picky …
Religion Explained by Pascal Boyer
Religion Explained uses cognitive psychology, anthropology, linguistics, and evolutionary biology to explain to us the evolutionary origins of religious thought. The interesting approach used by the author is unique. He describes how the brain receives and organizes information to explain to us how religious thoughts came to be. He believes that the explanation for religious …
Introduction to Irish Mythology
In my previous essay, Introduction to Celtic Mythology, I noted that after the fall of the Roman Empire and the coming of Christianity the Celtic peoples began their own written traditions, first in Ireland and then in Wales. This essay will talk about the written traditions of Ireland. Of all the Celtic peoples it was …
Beyond the Mist by Peter O’Connor
Beyond the Mist is a book that intrigued me from the moment I read a synopsis of it on Amazon. It is a book that is written by a psychologist called Peter O’Connor. I really wanted to see what psychologist had to say about Irish Mythology. In the preface of the book the author tells …
Irish Folktales (Pantheon Fairy Tale and Folklore Library) Edited by Henry Glassie
Irish Folktales is a book edited by Henry Glassie, who is a college Professor of Folklore at Indiana University. The book has 122 tales divided into categories. The categories themselves sometimes have sub-categories. The categories are: 1. Faith with the sub-categories of saints, and the priest and his people. 2. Wit with the sub-categories of …
Early Irish History and Mythology by T. F. O’Rahilly
Early Irish History and Mythology was published in 1946. It was a time when not a lot of work was done on Celtic mythology or religion. It is an out dated work that inspired many scholars to follow suit and start the boom in the study of mythology. This is a book that has to …
Introduction to Celtic Mythology
From my previous essay, Defining Myth, mythology was defined as a body of myths or a branch of knowledge that deals with myth. So Celtic mythology would be a body of myths or a branch of knowledge that deals with myth from the Celtic peoples. So in what way is Celtic mythology relevant to modern …
Celtic Mythology by John Arnott MacCulloch
This book is a reproduction of the Celtic section of The Mythology of All Races, volume three of thirteen called Celtic and Slavic, which was edited by Louis Herbert Gray and published in 1918. This section of the volume was then published as its own book in 2004.The introduction of the book gives us a …
Myths and Legends of the Celts by James Mackillop
Mackillop began his book with a very comprehensive Introduction. It was so jam packed with wonderful information that it kept me wondering what the rest of the book was going to be like. He started out the introduction by talking about the history of the Celts, and the controversy of whether or not they really …
