page_title: Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds
section_title: Volume III: Philosophical Delusions
hierarchical_section_title: Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds / Volume III: Philosophical Delusions
caption_attribution_description: English: Alchemist
context_page_description: Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds is an early study of crowd psychology by Scottish journalist Charles Mackay, first published in 1841 under the title Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions. The book was published in three volumes: "National Delusions", "Peculiar Follies", and "Philosophical Delusions". Mackay was an accomplished teller of stories, though he wrote in a journalistic and somewhat sensational style.
  The subjects of Mackay's debunking include alchemy, crusades, duels, economic bubbles, fortune-telling, haunted houses, the Drummer of Tedworth, the influence of politics and religion on the shapes of beards and hair, magnetisers, murder through poisoning, prophecies, popular admiration of great thieves, popular follies of great cities, and relics. Present-day writers on economics, such as Michael Lewis and Andrew Tobias, laud the three chapters on economic bubbles.
  In later editions, Mackay added a footnote referencing the Railway Mania of the 1840s as another "popular delusion" which was at least as important as the South Sea Bubble.
caption: An alchemist, from the 1841/1852 editions of Extraordinary Popular Delusions.
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