Spiritual Phenomena Research Articles

UFO: the definitive guide to unidentified flying objects and related phenomena

Ever since the first sighting of what became known as a flying saucer, an entire UFO industry has emerged. Societies and clubs devoted to the sighting, tracking and interpretation of unidentified objects flourish, as do magazines and journals reporting the latest sightings and experiences. In addition, a new body of literature specifically exploring UFOs as a psychological and/or spiritual phenomenon has appeared with UFOlogy taking an increasingly important position in the New Age movement. David Ritchie has combed through masses of raw data from thousands of sources and analyzed his findings to identify, clarify and present information. He asks What are UFOs? and whether they are extraterrestrial visitors or of more earthly origins. He examines spacecraft landing sites and markings, the hollow Earth theory, sightings and recordings of objects travelling at seemingly impossible speeds, Concorde and the glowing ball, and more.

Transcendence and Relinquishment in Couple Therapy

This article discusses the role of spiritual phenomena in couple therapy by reflecting on a case example. The aspects of transcendence and relinquishment illustrated by the case are explored as facets of therapeutic change for couples. Implications for therapists' sensitivity to the spiritual dimension are drawn, including specific practices of the author.

The sorcerer of kings: the case of Daniel Dunglas Home and William Crookes

Spiritualism spread rapidly both in Britain and in the United States, with mediums setting up shop everywhere. Some mediums were obvious charlatans, while others were highly skilled conjurors. Some sincerely believed they had psychic power. Gradually, a number of the more skilful mediums gained reputations that brought them national and international fame. Among these 'superstars' was Daniel Dunglas Home, recognised as one of the finest mediums of the nineteenth-century. 19th century Scientists remained aloof about the phenomena of spiritualism, unwilling to attend seances or examine the phenomena under controlled conditions. A rare exception was Sir William Crookes, a chemist and physicist who was roundly ridiculed by many of his fellow scientists for his five-year investigation of a number of important spiritualists and mediums, including Daniel Dunglas Home, Florence Cook, and Anna Eva Fay. Although many were later proven to be frauds, Daniel Dunglas Home was able to escape detection - until now. The Sorcerer of Kings takes readers inside the testing procedures of Crookes to explore just what his investigation entailed. What made Sir William a believer? How could so many other mediums fall victim to their own gimmicks, while Home successfully overcame efforts to expose him? Noted researcher Gordon Stein unwraps this century-old mystery to reach startling new conclusions about a man whose 'powers' were eagerly sought on two continents, and the man of science who attempted to find him out once and for all.

Realism As the Concluding Stage of Postmodernism

A year and a half ago, in the article Do We Need Literature? [Nuzhna li nam literature?] (Znamia, 1990, no. 12), I argued with those who foresaw or even attested to a profound crisis in literature and a fundamental break in attitudes toward it in our country. Not agreeing with these opinions, I asserted that the situation was temporary, that literature would become the most important spiritual phenomenon among us, as before, comparable only to religion in its influence over people, and that a new dawn of literature was just over the hills.

A.A. Ukhtomskii's ideas on the nature of man.

Philosophy plays an enormous role in the creative legacy of A. A. Ukhtomskii. Ukhtomskli's world view is an extremely complex spiritual phenomenon: it absorbed, in a creatively transformed form, all of the most important achievements of our national and world culture. Ukhtomskii belongs among thinkers of a special type, in whose ideas a deep philosophical, natural-methodological and practical, and revolutionary transformative foundation stands out in all clarity. On the one hand, he was a scholar who took in both the idealistic and the dialectical material trends of Russian and world philosophy; a scholar who deeply perceived the spiritual-moral source of religious ideas. On the other hand, he was a great scientific naturalist who upheld the historical, dialectical material approach (which is particularly characteristic of Russian natural scientific thought) in the study of the most complex sphere, the nature of man, the formation of the moral and creative personality, and the laws of socialization. Ukhtomskii was a scientist who did not simply engage in abstract philosophical reflections; he was a thinker and a creative scientist for whom the dialectical method became a method of real advance toward scientific truth, a method of binding fragmentary facts into a unitary, integral theory. The principle of the dominant, the central element of his doctrine, originated by Ukhtomskii in the 1920's, did not at the very outset fit into the framework of a purely physiological, narrowly special approach. He wrote: "The dominant is not a theory and not even a hypothesis, not ]sic--probably "but" was intended here--Translator] a principle of broad application presented from experience, an empirical law, a kind of law of gravitation, which, perhaps, is not interesting in itself, but is sufficiently important for it to be impossible not to reckon with" ([68], p. 100). By relating it to fundamental questions of human existence and cognition, Ukhtomskli extended it much more widely, to other more complex forms of the mental reflection of reality and of the spiritual life of the personality, thereby recognizing it to be a powerful sys-

Petition and Contemplation in Maimonides' Conception of Prayer

Maimonides' statements on prayer pose considerable challenges to interpreters who seek to find his work a unified and coherent philosophy of religion. It is especially difficult to see how his advocacy of a silent meditation that follows intellectual comprehension of divine matters can be harmonized with his thoroughly ritualized approach to the daily supplicatory prayer of Jewish liturgy. Yet, it is the purpose of the following pages to outline an interpretation of Maimonides' philosophy of religion according to which supplicatory prayer and intellectual meditation are not disparate spiritual phenomena, but complementary dimensions of a distinctive form of ethical-intellectual worship.

Dvasingumas ir pedagogika

Ugdymas sovietiniais metais buvo nudvasintas, todėl atkūrus nepriklausomą Lietuvą, pirmiausiai aktualizuojamas dvasingumas, kuris iš esmės turėtų keisti pedagogikos mokslo sampratą ir jo metodologiją. Išskleidžiant dvasingumo fenomeną pažymėtina, kad didžiausios įtakos jam turi dorovė ir dorovinis auklėjimas. Dvasingumui taip pat yra svarbios sąvokos „kūrybiškumas“, „kūryba“. Esamoje situacijoje ne ką mažiau svarbu ir tautiškumas. Būtent šiomis savybėmis turi pasižymėti ir mokinys, ir mokytojas. Pedagogo dvasingumui taip pat itin reikšmingas yra profesinis kryptingumas: kilnus gyvenimo tikslas, aukštos kultūros poreikis, humaniški interesai, teisinga dorovinė ir vertybinė orientacija, tvirta pasaulėžiūra. Pedagogo dvasingumui nesvetimi ir organizaciniai bei komunikaciniai mokėjimai. Kita vertus, sovietiniais metais dvasingumui dėmesio bemaž neskirta, o dažnai pedagogika buvo totalitarinio partokratinio ugdymo teorija ir pagrindas, tad šiandien tenka atsakyti į daugelį klausimų: Ar mokytojai yra patys pakankamai dvasingi, kad galėtų ugdyti savo mokinių dvasingumą?; Ar įmanoma ugdyti dvasingumą be religijos pagalbos?; Koks turėtų būti ugdymo turinys? ir t.t.

The Brain and the Mechanism of Psychosocial Phenomena

According to classic traditions, general psychology has always linked an intraindividual extrapsychic mechanism, the brain, with the intraindividual mental phenomena it examined. Social psychology, on the other hand, is handicapped by the fact that its world is that of interindividual mental phenomena, a disadvantage revealed by a compelling dilemma: this distinctive branch of psychology either fits into the classic tradition and presents the mechanism of interindividual phenomena in the brains of individuals (separately, if need be) or resigns itself to being unable to accommodate the mechanism level of its investigations to their phenomena level. All this is in spite of the fact that investigations focusing on the connection between the mind and the brain—whether they do so from the point of view of the specialized science or of philosophy—cannot begin to deal with the interindividual variety of spiritual phenomena.

Reevaluation of a nursing diagnosis: spiritual distress.

The purpose of this paper is to reevaluate the nursing diagnosis of spiritual distress in relation to Marjory Gordon's criteria of discriminatory power, generality, flexibility, usefulness, and inclusiveness. The author suggests that nursing's perspective of the spiritual dimension and spiritual distress is both narrow and inadequate in today's multicultural, multidimensional healthcare setting. Views of spirituality from multiple disciplines are discussed to illustrate the diversity of the phenomenon and contrast views that primarily emphasize religiosity and psychosocial factors. Reevaluation of spiritual distress and spirituality must come in the form of holistic and humanistic approaches in nursing education and research, integration of the spiritual dimension within nursing curricula, and recognition of multidisciplinary, global perspectives of the spiritual phenomenon. The author stresses the importance of the spiritual dimension and its impact upon a person as a multidimensional being.

"Resist Not Evil": The Ideological Roots of Civil War Pacifism

"Resist Not Evil": The Ideological Roots of Civil War Pacifism Thomas E Curran In June of 1861, Alfred H. Love wrote a letter to William J. Mullen in response to an address Mullen had given at the First Baptist Church of Philadelphia. The letter, published a year later with the title An Appeal in Vindication of Peace Principles, and Against Resistance by Force of Arms, condemned the use of carnal force to put down the Southern rebellion, and specifically criticized people who had been active in the peace movement prior to 1861 for laying aside their peace principles in order to help prosecute the war, as Mullen had done. "Excuse me if I reflect too severely," stated Love in the letter. "But thy having been imbued with the importance of pure peace principles, and even now acknowledging their virtue, renders thee far more recreant to the trust imposed by our Father, than one who has not advanced to this high moral standard."1 Alfred Love, a Philadelphia woolens merchant and an avowed pacifist, argued against Mullen's claims that in this particular instance the use of one evil—violence—was necessary in order to destroy a worse evil— secession—and that a permanent peace could never exist so long as sin and wickedness exist in the world. "Although a pure non-resistance by carnal weapons politically considered, may seem at this time impractical," Love countered, "yet as Christians we must know nothing of expediency, for that presupposes a palliation of evil; we must know nothing of compromises, for that mediates an agreement with wickedness." For Love, there could be no deviation from the principles of nonresistance for any reason, even in the midst of this national crisis which threatened the very existence of the United States. He continued: Thee admits my premises are right, but says it is too late to talk peace and irresistance by the sword. That it may do in the hereafter; that this is not the 1 Alfred H. Love, An Appeal in Vindication of Peace Principles, and Against Resistance by Force of Arms (Philadelphia: Maas and Vogdes, 1862), 6. Civil War History, Vol. XXXVI, No. 3, c 1990 by the Kent State University Press 198CIVIL WAR HISTORY millennium. Why we make millenniums! They are the highest development of our spiritual nature, attainable only by lives of purity and virtue, by abjuring the use of carnal weapons and adopting a system of universal benevolence and love to mankind.2 Alfred Love based his pacifism on the belief that humans could attain Christian perfection by emulating the examples of Jesus as shown in the New Testament, examples that delineated the laws of God. For him, the Second Coming of Jesus and the advent of the millennium were not faraway events in time, but rather a spiritual phenomenon experienced by individuals who accepted God's laws. "We agree," Love wrote of himself and his fellow pacifists, "that to take up arms at all, even in the present engrossing conflict, is wrong, and must be declined by all who would be faithful followers of the precepts and examples of Jesus Christ."3 The Civil War put severe strains upon the faith of Northern pacifists like Love. Yet a significant number adhered to their principles of nonresistance to violence throughout the conflict, despite the fact that the vast majority of Northerners completely supported military intervention in order to save the Union. This essay will discuss the ideology of Civil War pacifism by focusing on two individuals, Alfred Love and Adin Ballou, and on the traditionally pacifistic Mennonite sect. But first a note should be made on popular thought in the North concerning the prosecution of the war. The firing on Fort Sumter and Abraham Lincoln's subsequent call for volunteers consolidated Northern opinion in favor of a military response to secession. Except for the pacifists and a small group of Democrats sympathetic in various degrees toward the South, Northerners initially gave their support to the Union effort and continued to do so throughout the duration of the war, accepting the Lincoln administration's war policies, including emancipation and conscription.4 Patriotism, however, did not completely account for this northern war...

Holy Wind in Navajo Philosophy by James Kale McNeley

354 Western American Literature To slightly paraphrase certain points from these pages, Man cannot pray to the Eagle, or ask favors, or pray for grace, because the Eagle reflects equally and at once all living things. The Eagle feeds on awareness, consuming the awareness of creatures alive on earth a moment before. Now dead, they swarm to the Eagle’s beak. The Eagle has granted a gift to any living thing. They can, if they wish, keep the flame of awareness, seeking an opening to freedom. Naguals were created by the Eagle to guide living things through the opening. Naguals are double beings to whom the rule has been revealed. The rule is actually a map. Naguals, male and female, operate in pairs. Their “team” is made up of four female warriors and one male courier. The female warriors are called the four directions, the four corners of a square, the four winds, the four moods. Like the male warriors and courier, the female warriors each represent a basic personality type in the human race. In addition, four other female warriors are exact replicas of the stalkers but they are dreamers and three other couriers can be male or female. If the Nagual is powerful enough, he can add more warriors to his team in multi­ ples of four. The female Nagual is taken to the other world to serve as a beacon for the party. The male Nagual and his remaining team members are then commanded to forget. They spend years at the task of remembering them­ selves and the Eagle. Their forgetting is so complete that they become scat­ tered. Only if they have the strength and forbearance to remember can they realize the Eagle’s Gift. When their remembrance is complete, their final task before they pass on to the next existence is to find a new pair of double beings to serve as the Nagual’s for the next cycle. Most of this book is devoted to Castaneda’s remembering his selection as the next Nagual by Don Juan and the training that was involved. As it turns out, Castaneda has a triple body, not the double body of a Nagual. The special purpose of a triple-bodied human is not revealed. We can expect book number 7. JANE HOLDEN KELLEY University of Calgary Holy Wind in Navajo Philosophy. By James Kale McNeley. (Tucson: Uni­ versity of Arizona Press, 1981. 136 pages, $6.95.) This work focuses on the role of the Wind archetype in Navajo belief in a rigorously anthropological manner. It was compiled using oral accounts from Navajo singers who carry in their memories the complex ritual and symbolic substance of their religion. This primary source of information is augmented by the author’s careful citation of previous studies and by an extensive appendix of Navajo/English transcriptions of the interviews which Reviews 355 is referenced to the book’s text. This painstaking scholarship should appeal to serious students of Navajo religion and language and make this book a worthy addition to the existing body of knowledge in these fields. As an informed layman rather than a specialist in Navajo studies, my own acquaintance with The People has been balanced with equal measures of delight and perplexity. The former comes from the great intelligence, wisdom and humor I’ve encountered and the latter from the fact that the Navajo way of approaching reality is formidably different from my own Anglo means. I was fascinated by the book’s elucidation of the Navajo mind, in which the concept of Holy Wind serves to relate the individual both to the immedi­ ate world of perception and to the sacred or “inner” forms of existence by viewing wind as equally a natural and a spiritual phenomenon. Rather than polarizing the individual soul and the world, they seem to see a continuum in existence in which nothing is either purely personal or exclusively sacred and universal. The essential issue here is maintaining a harmonious and abiding interplay between the diverse aspects. While this book is primarily scientific document, there is also a sense that Mr. McNeley’s association with the Navajo — by study, teaching and marriage — has given...

Suicide survivors: psychotherapeutic implications of egocide.

Interviews with seven of ten known survivors of jumps from the Golden Gate Bridge and San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge revealed that all of them experienced transcendence and spiritual rebirth phenomena. The psychotherapeutic implications of these findings lie in helping depressed and suicidal individuals confront death in a symbolic and meaningful way. The issue is one of "egocide" (symbolic suicide) and aiding individuals in the rebirth process. In this way actual suicides can be prevented. When individuals experience partial "deaths" (like loss, failure, rejection, depression, suicidal states, or negative parts of their egos), there is opportunity for "rebirth" (positive transformation, creative change, growth, and significant spiritual reawakening). The therapeutic task is to help individuals differentiate between "ego death" and total death and to discover through the creative process of psychotherapy that overt suicide need not be a solution.

THE INFLUENCE OF CULTURAL HERITAGE ON THE HEALTH STATUS OF PUERTO RICANS

The problems of poor health among Puerto Ricans today are compounded by their cultural traditions. Many Puerto Ricans still rely on folk medicine to cure their ills. One study by Suchman found that compared with persons of other ethnic groups in New York City, the Puerto Ricans are more suspicious of scientific medical care, tend to use general health services less, have more limited health horizons than any other ethnic group. Aside from the unsophisticated health practices stemming from a knowledge of Puerto Rican folk medicine, the cultural phenomena of spiritualism plays a significant role in retarding the health status of the Puerto Rican. Puerto Ricans who view illness as possession by evil spirits will consult a medium or curandero(a) for treatment instead a physician. The hot and cold theory of disease has a profound influence on the Puerto Ricans' health status. In the attempt to achieve equilibrium of the four body humors, Puerto Ricans will often disregard a physician's advice which does not conform to this theory. Also, machismo, the concept of male dominance and superiority leads to sexual promiscuity, over-population, venereal disease, family breakdown, early marriage, and a variety of health related problems.

Robert Lowell: Payment Gat He Nane

place to begin is with the Aeneid. Not because Lowell started reading the classics after his second year at Harvard, or because his poems are full of classi cal allusions and imitations of Vergil, although these facts are part of the pic ture. reason for my starting there is that Vergil, in creating Aeneas, is so remarkably close to Lowell's own position both as man in history and as artist. Much of the Vergilian melancholy is due to his feeling of the movement of Roman history: the loss of the past and the stature of the early Romans, the growing complexity and importance of the state and the law, limiting the scope of individual action and importance. Aeneid itself is almost an example, a commissioned panegyric which manages, because of Vergil's greatness, not to be only that. One could elaborate more, but the point should be clear to a reader of Lowell who has experienced his nostalgia for the old order?the period of this country's greatness, and his own family's. was in the same kind of transi tional state that Lowell is in, with the melancholy feeling that history is over, that we are marking time waiting for some new development which may or may not be desirable?the end of everything, or a totally new beginning. This spirit was common in England in the nineteenth century, while America was still po tentially a new world. It has hit America even harder in the twentieth century, because we are so close to our own heroic past, so aware of the nature of the change without being able to understand it. In the twenties Hart Crane set out to become the Vergil of the new world, only to learn that the world was no longer new and to become, ironically, even more Vergilian in the process of dis covery. In many ways, Lowell begins Life Studies (1959) at a point Crane reached only in The Tunnel section of Bridge: the explicit recognition that an older mode of vision produced only illusion or madness. But even before Life Studies, with its major change in direction, he had struck the note of experi ence as a diminished thing?first, as a spiritual phenomenon, where the failure or

Introducing spiritual-oriented pedagogy into the educational process in foreign higher education institutions

The article analyzes the phenomenon of spirituality in higher education pedagogy and highlights the results of introducing spiritual-oriented pedagogy into the educational process in foreign institutions. Spirituality has a huge impact on inner self-knowledge, because by studying oneself, one can open from different sides. The task of spiritual pedagogy is undoubtedly the analysis of the students' internal state. After trying out a course of spiritual-oriented pedagogy, some students have become the target of spiritual instruction, have noted that no dramatic changes have occurred in their lives. Other students, on the other hand, were surprised by the number of changes that began to manifest after the introduction of spiritual pedagogy. They emphasized that they have increased the ability to focus during lectures, have the patience and peace of mind for dealing with stressful situations and people, such as listening, speaking, reading and writing have become integral and enjoy the learning process, ecology and the environment became an important issue in the range of environmental problems, and the most important thing was that the brain began to filter thoughts and abstract from «empty» and useless ideas.
 Students noted that they could not get full access to their own creative ideas in the course of spiritual pedagogy, and after meditations it became possible. Spiritual pedagogy has become a unique valuable experience for most of them, as it has enabled them not only to acquire knowledge but also to acquire wisdom. The students described the learning process as «freeing the mind from captivity», as an opportunity to feel a greater sense of interest in learning, because the «static» course, in their mind, impeded the full absorption of the material. The course of spiritual pedagogy has become, for many, the most important "panacea" for internal problems. Students began to learn, that led to an incredible result: concentration of attention through practice to activate mindfulness, the ability to be patient, the ability to get rid of wrong thoughts, to get rid of stereotypes and conventional but not completely important canons.
 Therefore, spiritual pedagogical theory in the Western world has attracted the attention of educators and researchers. This theory seeks to realize values that arose from religion and culture in pedagogical practice in educational institutions. Knowledge becomes clearer, and the motivation and control of teachers in their work emerges in a new sense. Not only teachers work to fulfill their duties or team responsibilities, they also work to achieve something more valuable, noble and useful than just material or worldly goals.

Editorial: rights of the dying patient.

THERE is an unquestioned and dynamic right of everyone to live, yet there is a minimum of discussion and understanding of a person's right to die. It would appear reasonable that the right to live would be equated with the right to die, but this is not the fact because the meaning of death has become a conglomerate of personal emotion, religious ideals, domestic circumstances, social mores, medical ethics, and legal statutes. To the dying person, death may mean fear or panic or relief from pain and then eternal peace. To the most religious groups, death means transformation of the mortal remains into a spiritual phenomenon associated with life after death. To the family group, death is the loss of a loved one and his or her role in the domestic situation. To society, death is a relative and temporary hurt. To the doctor, death may be the relief from

MM. Osty's Investigations of Rudi Schneider (From a Correspondent)

SCIENTIFIC men who have been anxious to form a fair and impartial opinion about the alleged physical phenomena of spiritualism have found it very difficult to do so. There exist, indeed, records by a number of qualified scientific observers which if taken at their face value would establish the reality of these phenomena completely. We may instance the names of Crookes, Zollner, Richet, A. R. Wallace, Varley, De Morgan, Lodge, W. J. Crawford and R. J. TiUyard. These records have not produced general conviction, even in the view of those who have adequately studied them before undertaking to express an opinion, though it appears that those who have studied them have often been considerably impressed. The accounts given are often insufficiently detailed to satisfy the student. The possibilities of deception, of conjuring, of malobservation, and even of hypnotic suggestion acting on the observer, and causing him to see the thing that is not, have been difficult to estimate. It is not often that the good faith of the experimenter has been questioned. Indeed, to profess a belief in these things has been so manifestly contrary to the personal interests of a scientific worker, that it would be gratuitous to suggest that his adhesion is inspired by anything but the love of what seems to him to be the truth. The circumstance that a poor light has usually been insisted upon is extremely suspicious, and justifies a very reserved attitude. It is proper to remark, however, that in some recorded instances the light has been good.

Science and Spiritualism

THE recent correspondence in our columns on the attitude of men of science towards psychical research—particularly that branch of it which is usually called the ‘physical phenomena of spiritualism’—has made it clear that the divergence between the two main views is as great as ever and shows no sign of compromise or conciliation. No useful scientific purpose would be served, therefore, by the publication of further letters on the subject.

Psychic Research

Psychic Research, “not to put too fine a point upon it,” means for the most part thus far a careful and systematic investigation of the phenomena of spiritualism. A more elegant and reputable camouflage might be devised for it, and of course the name can be legitimately used to designate the study of many things with which spiritualism has nothing to do. But words have to be taken in the sense which common usage gives to them, and practically psychic research is the study of spiritualism. It used to be said by almost everybody, except the spiritualists, that the matter was not worth investigation; it was all an unwholesome mass of fraud, imposture, and delusion, to which no reasonable person would think for a moment of giving serious attention. Very likely a good many people are saying that still; but not if they have enough knowledge of the facts to serve as the basis of intelligent judgment. Whatever frauds may be practiced in the name of spiritualism, there are plenty of occurrences which no sane mind, having real knowledge of them, will attribute to that source.

Manuali Hoepli: Spiritismo.

<b>Magnetismo e Ipnotisma.</b>Per ilDott. G. Belfiore. Milano: Ulrico Hoepli. 1898. These are two of the more recent of the little pocket manuals issued by the Italian house of Ulrico Hoepli. The first of these discusses the phenomena of spiritualism in rather a more respectful manner than an American medical author would; the second is a discussion of the phenomena of hypnotism according to the latest European literature of the subject. Both are compilations, but such have a very useful function and will probably be serviceable to those who can read them. While spiritualism has interest only as a psychic aberration, and some of the literature of hypnotism also has in it a larger element of human credulity than is consistent with genuine science, such manuals as these are not without interest, and that on hypnotism appears to be on the whole a fair statement of verified facts.