Spiritual Terms Research Articles

Integrated Perspectives

This column discusses the concepts of an integrated psychotherapeutic approach to patient care and explores some of the underlying principles that make it beneficial. Using the terms spirituality and psychotherapy in the same sentence may seem strange because there has been a long history of mutual skepticism, if not antagonism, between the two. In the past, mental health professionals and ministers have seen science and religion as separate, and attempts to connect them have been dismissed as disruptive and unhealthy (Fallot, 2001). We only need to go back to Freud (1927/1964) to see how this attitude of separateness and disconnection has been perpetuated. He characterized religion as an illusion, and connected it with pathology such as obsessive compulsive behavior. This attitude fostered the view that spirituality was irrelevant at best and indicative of pathological thinking at worst, encouraging many therapists to avoid the topic altogether. In sessions, then, any discussion of experiences was often viewed as regressive and dysfunctional (Fallot). Over the years, however, there have been attempts by noted therapists such as Jung and others to integrate these two aspects of spirituality and psychotherapy. In the last 20 years, a growing number of voices have joined in the discussion (Fallot, 2001). Many therapists now are beginning to consider the healing opportunities available when incorporating a more holistic view of mind, body, and spirit. Even the American Psychiatric Association (APA) has begun to consider the of religion and spirituality in psychiatry. For example, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-IV) (APA, 1994) includes a category, religious and spiritual which, while it focuses on problems, separates spiritual issues from psychological problems for the first time. In addition, a model curriculum is being presented to the APA to help train psychiatric residents in issues (Fallot). These moves signal a shift in thinking by the psychiatric community away from separation toward integration, as therapists begin to speak of the major role spirituality and religion can play in our modern world (Lukoff, 2000). Such a dramatic shift in thinking is easy to understand when looking at the growing sense of isolation and alienation present in the patient population, which the psychiatric community can no longer ignore. With families eroding and communities no longer available to provide support, there is a growing sense of confusion and conflict about values, standards, and priorities (Aponte, 1996). People who come into therapy today are looking for something more. As Nicholas (1994) states, Patients not only are coming into therapy with confusion about their own individual morality but are seeking to compensate for the lack of reliable and humane guideposts that are available in society as a whole (p. 5). In this atmosphere, therapists are looked to for support as clients struggle with a loss of meaning and a sense of emptiness. A therapist who focuses on traditional therapies can provide only transitory relief for the emptiness and is limited because the process speaks primarily to individual pathology rather than the wider aspect of humankind (Karasu, 1999). Practicing psychotherapy with a wider inclusion of spiritual issues involves a willingness to explore one's own attitudes and beliefs. This may be a difficult task for therapists who may feel unprepared both educationally and experientially. Studies have shown that mental health professionals tend not to be involved in practices and beliefs, seeing them as a small part of their life (Lukoff, Lu, & Turner, 1992; Shafranske, 1996). They may see themselves as spiritual but not (Fallot, 2001). This difference in self-image may make it difficult for therapists to explore traditions with their clients or to see the value of doing so. …

Rih min-Nofsinhar by Immanuel Mifsud, Adrian Grima

^^^^H "identity search." Lipus's freeverse, ^^^^H with its roving first-personnarrator ^^^^H who both converses and observes, ^^^^H ismeticulously built upon both aes ^^^^H thetic and philosophical concerns. ^^^^H There is a strong sense of fullness in ^^^^H the poems, imparted by short, eru ^^^^H dite, visually rich sentences spiked ^^^^H with powerful verbs that convey ^^HJ^I decisive, ifbrief, action. But there is ^^B[H also an abiding feeling of expectan ^^|(H cy.There is a positive kind of antici H|l pation in the poems thatwaits or ^^H|H calls for fulfillment,or recognition, ^^BjjH but there is also amood of incipient ^^ H defeat, relocation, clogging, threat ^^||H ening. Finally, there is everywhere Hfl the need to take stock, to line up ^^|1H and be counted, toget to theessence ^^H|H of things, even to impose order on ^^^^H multifarious lifein itsbewildering or ^^^^H murky manifestations. ^^^^H Lipus setsup forthereader a ^^|SH kind of archetypal tension in our ^^B^H consciousness. On theone hand there ^^B^| is theworld, familiarand chronicled ^^^^H and rendered fecundby her inimita ^^^^H ble language, and on theother hand ^^^^H there is an absence or a stillness, a ^^^^H kind of no-man's-land?both tran quil and pagan, perhaps?where we ^^^^^1 findout what animates or linksour ^^^^H blood and bones. The individual, including you and me and thenar ^^^^^1 rator alike, must take note of the gravity of our task: "In an enduring ^^^^^1 / singular tense,you lap at theedge ^^^^H of your ^^^^H John K.Cox ^^^^^M North Dakota State University Immanuel Mifsud, Adrian Grima, et al. Rih min-Nofsinhar San Gwann, Malta. Edizzjoni Skarta. 2008. 60 pages. 6. isbn978-99932-652-5-2 Slowly but very surely, contempo rary Maltese verse is garnering an ever-greater presence on the inter lllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll national scene, in a process running parallel to the broadening ofMal tese poetic expression in terms of spirit and thematic scope. Whereas theMovement for thePromotion of Literature of the 1960s was closely linked to political independence, this second epanouissementofMal tesepoetry isnot such a joyous one, and necessarily so. The shift from insularity to the acute awareness of formingpart of aworldwide jigsaw where the laws of cause and effect stretchfarbeyond political and geo graphical borders?particularly in view of the changes sufferedby the global environment and thepeoples thatinhabit it?bridges Maltese writ ingwith thegrowing supranational continent of "green" literature. RiR min-Nofsinhar (Wind from the south) is an essential book of poetry on climate change by Imman uel Mifsud and Adrian Grima, two well-traveled authors who have fully understood Jonathan Bate's reassertion that literatureessentially works upon consciousness and leads to unpredictable long-term practi cal consequences (The Song of the Earth, 2002). Following in the steps of publications such as Earth Shat teringand Feeling thePressure, the poems ofRiRmin-Nofsinharare inter spersed with prose contributions from a wide range of social actors. Launched during last June's World Fest, the impact of the publication can be gauged by the two editions printed within fivemonths, as well as by favorable reviews frompromi nentmembers of civil society and a speech inParliament by an opposi tion spokesman quoting a Mifsud poem in itsentirety. The planetarymeets the local in a series of compositions byMifsud entitled "The Poems of theSahara," inwhich a familyofMaltese farm lllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll KARLO MiLA ujirh paintings bij Delicia Sampero AWell Written Body ers laments thedesert sand brought increasingly more often with the subtle, frightening noise of thesouth ern wind. In another local poem, Grima speaks of "The Ice-cream Man" transferring his business from the abandoned beach to the frontof a school, in plain language by no means devoid of a lyricalrhythm. To a large extent, the authors appear to have consciously sacri ficed aesthetics and metaphor in favor of a clearer message, in con trast to the more dense, probing poetry usually composed by both of them, and perhaps rightly so, in view of theurgencywith which this poetry needs to be communicated. Neville Bezzina of Friends of the Earth has pointed out thesing-along quality ofMifsud's poems as a sign that theeffectsof climate change are "a song we must all sing together"; meanwhile, Grima's freer, journal...

Spirituality and Tourism An Anthropologist's View

For many years, tourism has been studied as a ritual. Few scholars have sought to make an in-depth inquiry into the spiritual aspects or dimensions of tourism. This stalemate is a result of our thinking of tourism as essentially to do with physical behaviour, even though tourism marketers and some scholars study motivations and, hence, mental aspects. This paper seeks to explore and define spirituality in terms of its relationship with tourism anthropologically, and concludes that tourism is a spiritual activity that has to do with human society and its values as a whole. The paper synthesizes various anthropological concepts of tourism and arrives at a new definition of the social process, as well as explains why the spiritual aspects of tourism are more enduring than the ritual, since tourism is a holistic process and not mechanical.

Mysticism and spirituality

How does the popular correspond to the grand terms of the title? Are not mysticism and spirituality something very exclusive, reserved for a few individuals? No they are not, as this presentation of both the author's own studies and the research of others will provide a different picture of these two concepts. Mysticism and spirituality are notions that are very difficult to define. Traditionally mysticism has been regarded as a way to reach the inner dimensions of human life, dimensions where man even achieves unity with the Divine Being. Such traditions have been found in all the major religions, and since the times of William James a hundred years ago, the features of mysticism in various religions have been analysed. Spirituality is a concept that can hold various meanings. It has often been associated with religious traditions where inner life and its growth are emphasized. These include, in particular, various schools, orders and movements that aim at cultivating a deeper spiritual life. In its more recent use, the term spirituality has, to a fairly large extent, been dissociated from religion and has become a notion that seeks to grasp the searching of modern man for ethics and norms in a globalised world, where pollution is accelerating and where stress and entertainment disrupt the inner harmony of people.

Lessons from breast cancer survivors: The role of recreation therapy in facilitating spirituality and Weil‐being

Spirituality is not consistently integrated into health care even though it is thought to play a vital role in health and recovery from illness. Recreation therapy (RT) can capitalize on the free and expressive nature of leisure‐based interventions to facilitate spiritual growth and help individuals enhance their overall well‐being. This qualitative study explored the impact that an integrated RT and exercise program had on the spirituality of six women recovering from breast cancer. A content analysis of the RT documentation recorded during the six‐month program was compared to five attributes commonly used to conceptualize the term spirituality: meaning, value, transcendence, connecting, and becoming (Martsolf & Mickley, 1998). The results provided preliminary evidence that the RT interventions provided during this breast cancer program were related to each of these five attributes of spirituality for the majority of participants. These findings along with implications for practitioners and future research are provided.

Spirituality in radiation oncology—From belief to bedside: A new focus for research?

Purpose Spirituality (from Latin spiritus), in a broader sense, means any kind of spiritual matters in contrast to sheer rational thinking and a material world. Within the scope of life-threatening and their corporal and existential identity menacing cancer disease, many patients look for help, sense and support in transcendental and metaphysic complements to the conventional cancer treatment. This return to spirituality and religiosity after tumor diagnosis has been more frequently observed in the last few years and is growing importance for cancer patients. Methods A total of 150 patients from two different well-circumscribed patients collectives were evaluated by standardized interviews before the commencement of radiation treatment: There were 75 consecutive patients with breast cancer and 75 with prostate cancer. Tumor and disease parameters as well as religious affiliation were documented. The interviews were carried out by a German Version of FACIT-Sp questionnaire for spiritual well-being. According to the recommendations of the American College of Physicians, additional questions in terms of a “spiritual history” were asked. Quality of life (QoL) was assessed by the SF-12 questionnaire. In addition, a Medline literature search was carried out using the terms Spirituality & Cancer & Coping. There were no limits. Results Overall, 28% of patients were Catholics, 72% Protestants. General spiritual practices included prayer (62% of cases), meditation (31%), reading of religious texts (27%) and contemplation (22%). The majority of patients (74%) would characterize themselves as more or less religious and 70% would integrate their religiosity in the cancer coping. The FACIT-Sp showed a mean value of 32.74. Gender, tumor type and tumor stage had no significant influence. There was a strong correlation between higher religiosity and QoL. Since the first publication in 1994, a total of 122 papers on this topic has been cited in Medline. Of these, 52 articles were published in nursing journals. Most authors came from North America (77%), followed by Europe (12%), Asia (6%) and Australia (5%). Publications from Germany were found only 7 times. In the first years there were only sporadic publications on this topic (mean: 2.9 articles/year). A marked increase of frequency of publications was seen since 2002–2003 (Mean 19.8 articles/year). Conclusions Spirituality and religiosity play a major role for cancer patients. There is a correlation with QoL that can be used for intervention by pastoral care. Spirituality should be a new focus for research in radiation oncology.

Religion and Spirituality as Defined by Older Adults

ABSTRACT This exploratory qualitative study examined the intrinsic definitions of spirituality and religion across three different religious or ethnic groups of older adults – Jewish, African American Protestants and Caucasian Protestants. The study explores how older adults from these various backgrounds self-identify with the terms religion and spirituality. Because both African-Americans and Jewish older adults are underrepresented in the research on spirituality and religion, their inclusion lends insights to this topic and helps to anchor the findings in a cross-cultural context. Focus groups were employed to understand how these groups characterize their relationship to spirituality and religion. Social work professionals can utilize these findings to work more effectively with the diverse and complex issues of older adults.

Sin in the city: Chicago and revivalism, 1880-1920

Long before today's culture wars, the Great rocked America. During the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, evangelists such as Dwight L. Moody and Billy Sunday roused citizens to renounce sin as it manifested in popular culture, moral ambiguity, and the changing role of women. Sin in the City examines three urban revivals in turn-of-the-century Chicago to show how sermons and street activism negotiated that era's perceived racial, sexual, and class threats. While most studies of this movement have focused on its male leaders and their interactions with society, Thekla Ellen Joiner raises new questions about gender and race by exploring Third Awakening revivalism as the ritualized performance of an evangelical social system defined by middle-class Protestant moral aspirations for urban America. Rather than approaching these events merely as the achievements of persuasive men, she views them as choreographed collective rituals reinforcing a moral order defined by ideals of femininity, masculinity, and racial purity. Joiner reveals how revivalist rhetoric and ritual shifted from sentimentalist identification of sin with males to a more hard-nosed focus on females, castigating loose whose economic and sexual independence defied revivalist ideals and its civic culture. She focuses on Dwight L. Moody's 1893 World's Fair revival, the 1910 Chapman-Alexander campaign, and the 1918 Billy Sunday revival, comparing the locations, organization, messages, and leaders of these three events to depict the shift from masculinized to feminized sin. She identifies the central role women played in the Third Awakening as the revivalists promoted feminine virtue as the corrective to America's urban decline. She also shows that even as its definition of sin became more feminized, Billy Sunday's revivalism began to conform to Chicago's emerging color line. Enraged by rapid social change in cities like Chicago, these preachers spurred Protestant evangelicals to formulate a gendered and racialized moral regime for urban America. Yet, as Joiner shows, even as revivalists demonized new forms of entertainment they used many of the modern cultural practices popularized in theaters and nickelodeons to boost the success of their mass conversions. Sin in the City shows that the legacy of the Third Awakening lives on today in the religious right's socio-political activism; crusade for family values; disparagement of feminism; and promotion of spirituality in middle-class, racial, and cultural terms. Providing cultural and gender analysis too often lacking in the study of American religious history, it offers a new model for understanding the development of a gendered theology and set of religious practices that influenced Protestantism in a period of enormous social change.

Going to the Heart of Jung: Interviews with Analysts

This Review Of Robert And Janis Henderson’s Living with Jung: “Enterviews” with Jungian Analysts draws from interviews with twelve Jungian analysts, focusing on four categories of Jungian thought: pathways to becoming a Jungian analyst and stories about Jung; the two Jungian concepts of shadow and typology; attitudes toward spirituality and religion; and the impact of Jungian thought upon culture. The article’s introduction gives the history of how the authors came to write the book, along with comments on their style and approach. Some analysts interviewed knew Jung personally; others are from second and subsequent generations. The discussion of topics presents the range of views. On the shadow, for example, Adolph Guggenbühl-Craig’s view of the “suicidal maniac and murderer in us” is presented along with other views that stress how the shadow enhances individuation. In terms of spirituality and religion, attitudes move between the two concepts, and in regards to culture, sexuality and the cultural unconscious are explored.

Transcending the Icon: Spirituality and Postmodernism in Arvo Pärt’s Tabula Rasa and Spiegel im Spiegel

AbstractThis essay explores the perceptions of value that circulate around Arvo Pärt’s early tintinnabuli works Tabula Rasa (1977) and Spiegel im Spiegel (1978). Western reception hears Pärt’s music as either ‘spiritually deep’ or musically ‘flat’. By understanding how modernist subjectivity translates into standards of musical value, I attempt to dismantle the biases inherent in both camps and go on to consider Pärt’s early tintinnabuli works in terms of both spirituality and postmodernism. Couched in the religious revivalism of the 1970s, Tabula Rasa offers a narrative of transcendence that performs a Neoplatonic model of subjectivity built directly from Orthodox praxis and supplies an alternative to dominant Soviet cultural narratives. By the 1980s Western marketing of tintinnabuli transformed the influence of religion into the visual and linguistic rhetoric of ‘holy minimalism’. Does commodification leech out spiritual ‘depth’ from Pärt’s music? The essay responds to this question by turning to Fredric Jameson’s ‘antinomies of postmodernism’ and an analysis of Spiegel im Spiegel’s musical stasis, process, surface, and depth. While Jameson’s postmodernism still finds value in modernist subjectivity, this essay suggests an alternative way of understanding musical value through a consideration of Pärt reception and experiences of illness.

The Temple of Night at Schönau: Architecture, Music, and Theater in a Late Eighteenth-Century Viennese Garden (review)

Reviewed by: The Temple of Night at Schönau: Architecture, Music, and Theater in a Late Eighteenth-Century Viennese Garden Laurel E. Zeiss The Temple of Night at Schönau: Architecture, Music, and Theater in a Late Eighteenth-Century Viennese Garden. By John A. Rice. (Memoirs of the American Philosophical Society, v. 254 [i.e., 258].) Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society, 2006. [xv, 257 p. ISBN-10 0871692589; ISBN-13 9780871692580. $70.] Illustrations, maps, music examples, bibliographic references, index. From 1796 to 1800, theater impresario and wealthy businessman Baron Peter von Braun constructed an elaborate garden whose main attraction was a "Temple of Night." After wandering through an artificially created grotto, visitors emerged in a magnificent rotunda presided over by the goddess Night; charming music emanated, as if by magic, into a dome that depicted a starlit sky. Braun's park was a prime tourist destination during the transition from the Enlightenment to the Biedermeier era; by the 1820s, however, it had fallen into disrepair. Drawing on written accounts, iconographic evidence, and the present day ruins of the temple, John A. Rice verbally reconstructs Braun's garden. He then uses it and its stunning Temple as a launching point to examine "related cultural phenomena" such as the influence of the English-style landscape park, changing perceptions of night, and "late eighteenth-century Vienna's fascination with mechanical instruments" (p. 4). Rice's reconstruction of the garden took quite a bit of detective work and obviously is thoroughly researched. The later chapters, which discuss cultural context, vary in quality; at times, the author casts his net slightly too wide and in others not quite deep enough. The book's first chapter focuses on the garden's builder and places the park at Schönau within the context of Braun's career. The next recreates a visit to his famous garden. The baron clearly knew how to craft effective illusions, as the numerous quotations from eighteenth and nineteenth-century visitors attest. (Engravings and maps support the discussion as well.) The temple had achieved notoriety even before its completion and served as "the climax of a carefully orchestrated experience" (p. 40). Visitors had to walk through a naturalistic garden before they entered a "narrow, rock-lined tunnel" which led to a series of dark chambers; the route was lined with inscriptions by the well-known playwright August von Kotzebue, such as "Dark, like the path of life" and "Upward, downward! Climbing, falling! The fate of man!" (pp. 42, 44). The temple itself gave one the impression of standing under a moonlit sky. The illusion Braun created "consisted not only of conjuring night out of day but also of making his visitors believe that their twisted path through the grotto had led them, by the time they reached the temple, to some mysterious place deep within the earth," when in reality they remained at ground level (p. 7). Sound was an integral part of the experience: Visitors passed by a waterfall; music from Salieri's opera Palmira wafted from a mechanical organ hidden within the temple's ceiling. The book's subsequent chapters mix further description with cultural analysis. Chapter 3, "Temple as Garden Folly," compares Braun's park with other English-style landscape gardens on the continent. Like Schönau, these often incorporated artificially constructed caves and circular temples. Most temples were supposed to be admired from afar; Braun's Temple of Night, "in contrast, could only be admired from within" (p. 70). Chapter 4 demonstrates how the temple manifested both eighteenth and nineteenth-century attitudes towards night. Enlightenment philosophers often used darkness as a metaphor for confusion and ignorance; by the late 1700s, however, night increasingly came to be viewed as a time of quiet introspection and the heavens' evidence of a supreme being ("the heavens are telling the glory of God," to quote Haydn's Creation). At Schönau, visitors experienced both aspects of night: they emerged from the frightening darkness of the artificial cavern into a bright, seemingly star-studded dome, a journey many of them described in spiritual terms. Rice employs quotes from a wide spectrum of writers, including Pope, Gray, Schiller, Byron, and Shelley, to depict changing perceptions of...

Exploring Prayer as a Spiritual Modality

What does it mean to focus on the spiritual in occupational therapy? What interventions would qualify as spiritual modalities? This paper attempts to define the boundaries of what may be considered legitimate uses of spirituality in occupational therapy by using the example of prayer. The purpose of this paper was to provide an in-depth analysis of the use of prayer in practice. Medical and allied health journals were searched using the terms spirituality, spirit, religion, and prayer. Identified articles were synthesized to identify potential advantages and disadvantages of using prayer in therapy. Prayer can be considered an appropriate occupational therapy intervention so long as four questions can be answered positively. To answer these questions, guidelines are provided that will lead the therapist through a decision making process to determine the appropriateness of incorporating prayer into any clinical situation.

The Protective Influence of Spiritual-Religious Lifestyle Profiles on Tobacco Use, Alcohol Use, and Gambling

The costs associated with the use of addictive substances and practices underscore the need for research on protective factors that inhibit use. In this study, the protective influences of various spiritual-religious lifestyle profiles on tobacco smoking, alcohol use, and gambling frequency and expenditures are examined. Among the predominantly Hispanic sample used in the study (N = 249), cluster analysis produced three lifestyle profiles: neither spiritual nor religious, spiritual and religious, and spiritual but not religious. Of these three, the spiritual and religious lifestyle profile exhibited the strongest protective influence across all four dependent measures. Although the exploratory nature of the study precludes definitive recommendations, a number of tentative implications from the findings are drawn. KEY WORDS: addiction; protective factors; religion; spirituality; substance use ********** Addictive substances and practices are a major social problem (Frances, Miller, & Mack, 2005).The costs of tobacco (Single, 2003; Sloan, Ostermann, Conover, Taylor, & Picone, 2004) and alcohol use (Kinney, 2006; Simon, Patel, & Sleed, 2005) alone exceed $100 billion annually in health care outlays, law enforcement expenditures, and lost productivity. Although the costs of gambling are appreciably less, they still amount to $5 billion annually (Cunningham, 2005). In addition to the economic costs, the intangible personal costs are also substantial. Although quantifying quality-of-life costs is difficult, they are just as real as monetary losses to those who experience them. The early onset of cancer, alcohol-related driving injuries, and excessive gambling losses--to cite some examples--typically cause substantial pain and suffering. Also, more subtle quality-of-fife losses exist. For instance, among a representative sample of noninstitutionalized adults, current smokers were more likely to report poor mental health and activity limitations than were nonsmokers (Mody & Smith, 2006). To help alleviate this problem, attempts have been made to identify protective factors (Haight, 1998; Smith, 2006). Protective factors facilitate positive outcomes by buffering individuals from constructs that place them at risk to engage in addictive substances and practices (Fraser, Richman, & Galinsky, 1999; Little, Axford, & Morpeth, 2004; Ruffolo, Sarri, & Goodkind, 2004; Waller, Okamoto, Miles, & Hurdle, 2003). Hence, they decrease the likelihood that individuals will participate in harmful activities. Religion is one of the protective factors identified as facilitating positive outcomes (Corcoran & Nichols-Casebot, 2004). At the turn of the century, nearly 100 studies indicated that religion inhibits substance use (Koenig, McCullough, & Larson, 2001). More recent work continues to confirm this relationship (Jessor, Costa, Krueger, & Turbin, 2006; Kogan, Luo, Murry, & Brody, 2005; Piko & Fitzpatrick, 2004; Wallace, Brown, Bachman, & Laveist, 2003). In other words, various measures of religion, such as attendance at religious services, are generally inversely related to the use of tobacco, alcohol, and other addictive substances. SPIRITUAL--RELIGIOUS LIFESTYLE PROFILES Traditionally, the terms spirituality and religion have been used interchangeably (Hill & Pargament, 2003). Recently, however, scholars have tended to differentiate them (Sahlein, 2002; Sheridan, 2004). More specifically, spirituality and religion are increasingly defined as distinct but overlapping constructs (Derezotes, 2006; Miller & Thoresen, 2003). Spirituality is commonly defined in individual, existential, or relational terms, typically incorporating some reference to the sacred or the transcendent (Hodge, 2005). Conversely, religion tends to be conceptualized in communal, organizational, or structural terms (Canda & Furman, 1999). …

Blake, the Famine of 1795, and the Economics of Vision

This study shows that a significant historical context underlying Blake’s prophecies of 1795 was the famine in that year and the era’s pervasive discourse on market economics, whose firm support of agrarian interests provoked serious doubt and much opposition to relying on naturalistic reactions to the crisis and neglecting more imaginative and humane responses. As Blake’s work and the history of 1794–95 show, there permeated a sense of conspiracy about economic, political, and even religious interests colluding in the manipulation of scarcity and abundance. Blake’s response to the crisis involved reformulating the divisive economics of profit and loss in spiritual terms, especially those of Eternity and its inclusive interplay of desire and fulfillment. His re‐vision of the economics of finitude sought to expose—appropriately through the mythic figure Los(s)—its invisible forces, mystifications, and deceptions as represented by Urizen, Fuzon, the Tree of Mystery, and the “Human Illusion.” Witnessing his society’s hard times, Blake advocated a different dispensation—a more valuable economy—in which loss, sacrifice, and brotherhood yield the greatest spiritual and personal gains.

The Devil and Kaiser Bill: Victor Kroemer and the World Crisis of 1914–15

The apocalyptic writings of Victor Eugene Kroemer (1883–1930) provide us with an insight into millenarian responses to the outbreak of the Great War, a subject that has been little noticed in research on Australian religious history. This article, however, will also show that a study of Kroemer's occult beliefs can illuminate larger themes in the Australian cultural response to the war. Kroemer's interpretation of the war as an essentially spiritual conflict between the forces of Zion (Great Britain) and Babylon (Germany) was not confined to the religiously unorthodox, nor did his belief in the appearance of battlefield angels and other supernatural phenomena fail to find echoes among more conventional believers. Much research in Australia and overseas in the last thirty years has challenged the notion of the Great War as a modernising and secularising experience and this article, through a study of a single Australian author and activist, draws attention to the quest of occult authors in Australia and Great Britain to explain the “world crisis” in spiritual terms to a range of audiences.

Aung San Suu Kyi of Myanmar: A Review of the Lady´ s Biographies

Aung San Suu Kyi, popularly known in Myanmar as or Daw Suu, is considered the leader of the Myanmar pro-democracy movement by locals and foreigners alike. An Iraqi taxi driver I met in Gothenburg, Sweden, did not know where Myanmar was but had heard of Aung San Suu Kyi. Likewise, a Nigerian taxi driver in Chicago was not aware of the fact that Burma and Myanmar were the same country, but he knew who Aung San Suu Kyi was. Since she won the Noble Peace Prize in 1991, Aung San Suu Kyi (hereafter referred to as Suu Kyi) has been dubbed by some as the goddess of democracy. Quite often, the biographies of leading political figures are written by their loyalists, enemies, or by neutral authors or scholars. In the case of Suu Kyi, however, one finds that most of the writings about her are written by her sympathizers and her enemy (the Myanmar junta). Her sympathizers typically describe how Suu Kyi has sacrificed her life in the struggle against the junta, and how the junta relentlessly represses the lady and other pro-democracy activists. For Suu Kyi's sympathizers, she is the answer to all Myanmar's socio-political problems. Some would even go so far as to say that Myanmar's problems will fester until she assumes the leadership of the country. However, from the point of view of the ruling junta, Suu Kyi has been the source of all political problems in the country. Since coming to power, the junta has published several hundred articles and more than five books detailing why Suu Kyi is unfit to lead the country. In this age of democracy and human rights, it is not surprising that many would only have a sympathetic view of the lady and a negative view of the regime that represses its own citizens to keep itself in power. The authors of the two books under review in this article apparently set out to present a balanced view of the role of Suu Kyi in Myanmar politics. Barbara Victor, the author of The Lady: Aung San Suu Kyi, Nobel Laureate and Burma's Prisoner was in fact allowed to do research in the country on the condition that she write a balanced account concerning political developments in Myanmar. Needless to say, the country's military leaders wanted her to produce a book that described their system of governance in favourable terms. Victor explains how the military leaders in Myanmar view the political problems in their country, and how Suu Kyi and others view the political deadlock. While presenting the information she gathered in Yangon and elsewhere, Victor indicates that it was impossible for her to write favourably about the regime, other than mentioning that she thought some military officers she interviewed were highly intelligent. Justin Wintle, the author of Perfect Hostage: A Life of Aung San Suu Kyi, did not get a chance to see either Suu Kyi or any serving military officers. Relying on interviews with a number of political activists and the documents and press releases of pro-democracy organizations and foreign government agencies, he too attempts to reconstruct the story of Suu Kyi, especially how she came to be involved in the pro-democracy movement and how she has had to deal with the repressive military government which endeavours to exclude her from the political process at any cost. In many ways, the two books under review in this article are very similar. The main thrust of the two books is the dispute between a loving wife and mother-turned pro-democracy leader and a repressive military regime. Both authors illustrate that while Suu Kyi is stronger than the junta both in terms of spirit and legitimacy, the military leaders are politically more adept and possess a monopoly on force. The two books also suggest that both the junta and pro-democracy groups are not in a position to do away with each other. The junta, with its control over coercive mechanisms, can control the government but lacks legitimacy. Suu Kyi and pro-democracy groups enjoy more international and domestic legitimacy, but cannot find a way to remove the regime or to make it work with the opposition. …

A Third Form of Righteousness: The Theme and Contribution of Matthew 6.19–7.12 in the Sermon on the Mount

Although there is agreement that the body of the Sermon on the Mount (SM) contains three parts, there is little consensus regarding the nature of the third part. This passage is compared with different examples of wisdom instruction, each of which offers a unified composition on the moral problem of ‘goods’, broadly conceived as that which confers good standing or status, not only in economic terms but in social and spiritual terms as well. This provides a perspective from which to examine the overall structure of the sermon in the light of certain practices evident in ancient texts for organizing moral discourse.

Indiginous knowledge archives in a west african society

This article argues that resort to and competency in the deployment of indigenous knowledge archives are a prerequisite rather than a supplement for studying African life and phenomena, and I use the Bono (Akan) of West Africa and a shared dimension of African cultural knowledge — indigenous medicinal knowledge — to elucidate this position. The issue is not that indigenous knowledge has not been valuated inasmuch some revere European archives but rather indigenous archives have been left malnourished and after our hiatus to ‘things Western,' the realization is that the latter can provide its own interpretative perspective on African realities. Indigenous African archives of knowledge ‘have things to say,' which presupposes that these archives have a language that functions as a repository and transmitter of culture — in spiritual, conceptual, and material terms — and serves as a nexus between the life of this language and the life of its speakers. The production of knowledge on indigenous therapeutic or other systems, especially from the perspective of indigenous specialists and the culture in which they are a part, are challenges left in abeyance. The following, therefore, represents an attempt to explore the relationship between indigenous medicine and the proverbial, ‘gold weight,' adinkra symbolism, and oral narrative archives of the Akan. Keywords : Indigenous knowledge archives, indigenous medicinal knowledge, proverbial archives, oral archives. Indilinga Vol. 5 (1) 2006: pp. 12-26

Combat Trauma: Treatment from a Mystical/Spiritual Perspective

Psychological recovery from combat trauma may depend on discovering a personal meaning in the traumatic experience. Veterans traumatized in combat struggle with finding meaning in the war and in civilian life. Spiritual concepts and experiences can generally help in the discovery of meaning. However, the term spirituality is traditionally reserved for the experience of prayer and worship. This article presents a rationale for the integration of the spirituality of combat and civilian life into the clinical treatment of traumatic sequelae via a mystical perspective. The spiritual may be viewed as either immanent or transcendent. These perspectives are integrated into an individual treatment program for the reduction of serious psychological difficulties stemming from combat trauma.

Commentary on “Spirituality and Stress Management in Healthy Adults”

The purpose of this pilot study was to determine whether a 6-week spiritual intervention (SPIRIT-6©) would reduce stress and increase spiritual well-being in healthy community residents. An additional purpose was to explore how healthy adults describe their spirituality. The SPIRIT-6© intervention required weekly attendance at 90-minute sessions that allowed for group expression of spirituality. Session topics included the meaning and importance of spirituality and religion, how spirituality is expressed to others, forgiveness, and spiritual awareness and well-bring. Four booster sessions were also held during the year to reinforce the intervention. The researchers used the term spirituality to refer to both spirituality and religion.