Routledge Primitives and the Supernatural (Routledge Revivals)

Product Description Dr. Levy-Bruhl presents a dramatic picture of the primitives who live in a world that is capricious, unpredictable, and unstable; under the power of spirits both good and evil, to be worshipped or propitiated by ceremonies, dances, and religious rites. Dr. Levy-Bruhl shows how the mind of the primitive has no conception of the world of abstract though, natural law, causation, and categories, which has been opened up to the mind by science and philosophy. In addition, the author explains omens, talismans, amulets, ancestor worship, witchcraft, insect, defilement, and purification as fundamental parts of the primitive existence. About the Author Lucien Lévy-Bruhl was a French scholar trained in philosophy, who made contributions to the budding fields of sociology and ethnology. His primary field of study involved primitive mentality. Lévy-Bruhl was born in Paris. He was an anthropologist who wrote about the 'primitive mind'.