Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions — Volume 2

From the fevered chants of medieval crusaders to the trembling hysteria of witch‑hunt villages, the book surveys the ways whole societies can be carried away by collective obsession. It opens with a lively portrait of pilgrimages to the Holy Land, where holy water, fragments of the True Cross and even imagined tears of the Virgin were bought and sold as treasures, illustrating how devotion could blur into profit. The narrative then steps back to show how these fervent crowds were shaped by faith, greed, and the simple desire to belong to something larger than themselves.

Interwoven with excerpts from contemporary poetry, travel diaries and official records, the author builds a vivid tapestry that makes distant centuries feel immediate. Readers hear the clamor of banners, the whispered rumors of sorcery, and the desperate hope that fuels every craze. By tracing these patterns, the work invites us to recognize the same impulses flickering in today’s headlines, offering both warning and wonder.