Superstition: Did you mean...?

St. Anthony's Fire (SAF) is an illness brought on by the ingestion of fungus-contaminated rye grain causing ergot poisoning (ergotism). The disease's common name derives from the medieval Benedictine monks dedicated to that...

Chanakya (l. c. 350-275 BCE, also known as Kautilya and Vishnugupta) was prime minister under the reign of Chandragupta Maurya (r. c. 321-c.297 BCE), founder of the Mauryan Empire (322-185 BCE). He is best known as the author of the...

The Cimbri were a tribe who lived in northern Jutland during the Roman era. Their ethnicity is enigmatic; scholars generally believe that the Cimbri were Germans, though others maintain that they were Celts. The late 2nd-century BCE migration...

Western astrology refers to a form of divination based on the motion of astronomical objects such as stars or planets. The belief that astronomical objects are divine or influence events on Earth is found in many cultures, but...

The Alemanni (also known as the Alamanni and the Alamans, meaning "All Men" or "Men United") were a confederacy of Germanic-speaking people who occupied the regions south of the Main and east of the Rhine rivers in present-day Germany...

Baruch Spinoza (1632-1677) was a Dutch philosopher who combined rationalism and metaphysics to create a unique system of thought. Spinoza was held up as an atheist philosopher in the 18th century, but this is not an entirely accurate...

A belief in an afterlife was central to every major civilization of the ancient world and this encouraged the recognition of the reality of ghosts as the spirits of the departed who, for one...

Maeshowe (pronounced `maze-ow' or `maze-oo') is a large Neolithic chambered cairn, dating from between 3000-2800 BCE, in the Stenness parish of Orkney, Scotland. According to Dr. Berit Sandnes, of Lund University...

The sculpture of ancient Korea was dominated by Buddhist themes such as figurines and monumental statues of the Buddha and his followers, and large bronze bells for temples. Gilded-bronze was the most common material used...

Pope Joan was a legendary female pope of the Middle Ages said to have reigned from 855 to 858. After her story was popularized by Italian writer Giovanni Boccaccio (1313-1375), a statue of her was placed alongside those of other popes...