ArgumentRaspail’s domestic medicine method, popularized in 1840s France, has similarities with the practices of nineteenth century non-academic healers. His mass marketing of camphor as a universal treatment echoes the practices of “charlatans” and their circles. But Raspail is also very original in this history of popular care. As a scientist, a popularizer of encyclopedic knowledge and a political activist, he managed to blur traditional distinctions between science and politics and between popular and learned medicine. Raspail was a constant thorn (...) in the side of academic institutions and professional organizations, which were struggling to gain legitimacy. His work took a political turn when he combined, within a single project, his approach to treatment and his call for democratizing medical care. Raspail’s method challenged institutional norms by acknowledging the importance of the patient’s contribution to the healing process, and recognizing the necessity of thwarting the occasionally deleterious effects of monopolistic medicalization. (shrink)

Systemic Constellation Work is a rapidly growing experiential healing process that is being embraced by a variety of helping professionals, both traditional and alternative, worldwide. This book explores the history, principles and methodology of this approach, and offers a detailed comparison with psychodrama - the original mind-body therapy - explaining how each method can enhance the other. Constellation work is based on the notion that people are connected by unseen energetic forces and suggests that the psychological, traumatic and (...) survival experiences of our ancestors are genetically passed forward to the next generation and may live within us. Using insightful case studies from a variety of client groups, this book shows how Systemic Constellation Work can expand the possibilities of psychodrama techniques, and can be successfully integrated with psychodramatic enactment, guided imagery, ritual, concretization and other methods of healing and personal growth. This book will be essential reading for students and practitioners of psychodrama and Constellation work, as well as counselors, mental health professionals, experiential therapists, creative and expressive arts therapists and alternative practitioners looking to widen their knowledge of mind-body therapies. (shrink)

Notwithstanding the popularity of psychology courses throughout the world, educators face a constant and difficult problem of overcoming the fear of and dislike for statistics which represents one of the pillars of modern psychological science. Although the issue is complex and multifaceted, here I argue that “statophobia” might represent a rational and justified response to the sense of unease felt in contact with abstract statistical concepts which are often vague, circular or ill-defined. I illustrate the problem by briefly discussing two (...) myths about the nature of probability and statistics, namely that probability and statistics generate knowledge and that the fault for not understanding probability lies solely with the subjective cognition which is incapable of comprehending deeper mathematical truth. I argue that the confident presentation of statistical methods hides numerous conceptual blind spots that students might be aware of and that need to be addressed before other causes of statistics anxiety can be tackled successfully. (shrink)

With the development of society, the rapidly developing social environment has played a significant role in the particular group of college students. College students will inevitably suffer setbacks and psychological obstacles in their studies and daily life. This work aims to ameliorate college students’ various mental illnesses caused by anxiety and confusion during the critical period of status transformation. Educational psychology theory, aesthetic theory, and poetry appreciation are applied to the mental health education of college students to obtain a satisfying (...) psychological healing effect. First, this work summarizes the connotation and characteristics of college student’s mental health and defines educational psychology. Secondly, the long tradition of Chinese poetry teaching is introduced. Besides, the theoretical basis of poetry therapy and aesthetic psychology is expounded, and foreign poetry is discussed. In addition, poetry appreciation is used to promote personality shaping and psychological healing of college students based on the theory of educational psychology and poetry appreciation psychotherapy. In addition, mental health education for college students is studied from the perspectives of psychological health, mental health education, college students’ mental health education, and appreciation of ancient poetry. In addition, the principle and significance of college students’ mental health education are discussed from the perspective of poetry appreciation. Finally, an experimental study is conducted on college students and patients in a specific hospital department by issuing questionnaires to verify the practical application effect of this method in psychotherapy. The survey results indicate that the scores of college students who have completed a one-semester poetry appreciation course in different dimensions of mental disorders are lower than those of those who have not completed the course. At the same time, in the scores of 16 personality traits, the positive trait scores of the experimental group are higher than those of the control group. Comparing scores before and after class also reflects the positive effect of poetry appreciation intervention on college students’ personality shaping. It can be concluded that poetry appreciation has a strong effect on promoting college students’ mental health and personality shaping and improving college students’ psychological problems. (shrink)

An introduction to the long-forgotten healing methods of the Essenes—an ancient sect of Jewish mystics—that offers useful tools, meditations, and visualizations for modern-day practitioners Until the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls in 1946, there was little known about The Essenes, a brotherhood of holy men and women living together within a community over two thousand years ago. The Essenes considered themselves to be a separate people—not because of external signs like skin color or hair color, but because of (...) the illumination of their inner life and their knowledge of the hidden mysteries of nature unknown to other men. The Gate of Light is based on Lars Muhl’s lifelong search for God. It doesn’t claim any absolute truths but sets out to provide a practice based on Essene teachings that allows us to look at how we judge ourselves and how we live in the world. Muhl asks: What motivates us? How do we create a balance between thoughts, words, and actions? How do we align ourselves in relation to our higher self and become the universal light beings we are meant to be? The Essenes understood that everything is interactively connected and that everything is energy. For them, God was the name for the highest form of awareness, something omnipresent and—if a human wished to learn how—they could communicate with this ever-present energy; through this communication humans could realize their full potential. Drawing on this ancient knowledge, Muhl presents a complete practice to help us recognize and answer the above questions. He particularly looks at: Grief and Happiness, Balance and Awareness, Selflessness, Boredom and Renunciation, Loneliness, Gratitude, Silence and Thoughtfulness. (shrink)

Well known as a church which promises physical healing through prayer and change of consciousness, Christian Science is less well known as one that promotes mental wellbeing through the same means. However, the founder, Mary Baker Eddy could be held up as a model of psychological resilience through her own methods as she went from being an invalid suffering from the scourge of the nineteenth century, hysteria, to a dynamic business woman and religious leader who established an international church (...) from her headquarters in Boston. In this paper I show that many of Eddy’s twentieth century followers have, like her, been able to become resilient and happy women treating psychological distress as they would physical concerns. (shrink)

Questioning reality -- The hair of the dog -- Good/bad -- Resistance and the side effect -- Putting resistance on the couch -- Modern medicine : a health report -- Psychotherapeutic paradox -- Loops -- Dialectics -- Paradox within the home -- The staying-with-it principle -- Immunization and immunotherapy -- A little poison is good for you -- The strange obsession of Dr. Hahnemann -- From gods to genes -- RPM -- Such stuff as dreams -- The attack of the (...) evil things -- Becoming well. (shrink)

Traditional healing and the use of traditional medicines were historically banned by the South African apartheid government. The dawn of democracy saw a change in the laws, which gave freedom to the traditional African practices. Nevertheless, many South Africans are still divided between Western- and traditional African philosophies. This qualitative study, therefore, employed the hermeneutic phenomenological method to investigate the status of traditional healing in the Limpopo province of South Africa. Data collection was done through interviews, and (...) data were analysed thematically. The results suggest that the work done by traditional healers remains marginalised and undermined despite them contributing to the country’s healthcare system. Traditional healers remain unregulated and often left to work on their own under difficult conditions. It is recommended that government play an active role in ensuring that healers are formally incorporated into the country’s healthcare system, which will benefit both the healers and the communities they serve.Contribution: The study investigates the current status of traditional healing in South Africa and highlights that despite having laws that support traditional healing in the country, the practice remains marginalised and healers are working on their own and not within the country’s healthcare system as it is supposed to be. The study is linked to the scope of the journal because it investigates a topic that borders on oral history and indigenous religious practices of South Africans. (shrink)

An authoritative and accessible book by a qualified scientist, showing incredible proof of the mind-body connection. There is no longer any doubt that the way we think affects our bodies: countless scientific studies have shown this to be true. For former pharmaceutical scientist Dr David Hamilton, the testing of new drugs highlighted how profoundly the mind and body are connected. Time and time again, the control group of patients in drug trials improved at similar rates to those who actually received (...) the medicines. Astounded, Dr Hamilton decided to change the direction of his work to explore the relationship between the mind and the body. This bestselling acclaimed book was first published 10 years ago. In it, Dr Hamilton explores the effect of visualization, belief and positive thinking on the body, and shows how using our imagination and mental processes can stimulate our own defences and healing systems to combat disease, pain and illness. In this new edition, Dr Hamilton has added four new chapters to discuss the latest cutting-edge information and extraordinary new techniques. These include using imagery to stimulate the immune system - a method that can benefit cancer patients undergoing conventional treatment - effectively using the mind to speed up rehabilitation from stroke, and powerful visualization strategies to help facilitate recovery from injury and illness. (shrink)

Caribbean women writers (such as Erna Brodber and Opal Palmer Adisa, who are discussed in this article) often include men in women's liberatory quests as participants: helpers, healers or caregivers. The close connection between sexuality and emotions in this body of writing can be read through a new model of affective feminist reader theory, which embraces and redefines from a feminist perspective the affective fallacy (over-interpreting a text based on one's feelings) so dreaded by the New Critics. This article interrogates (...) how to read through affects across multiple intersecting differences between the text and the reader (such as race, class, culture and gender). A self-reflective negotiation between an outsider reader and a text's healing communities reveals the limits of the reader's ability to participate. The affective fallacy in this context becomes a useful tool for reading, but here it seeks a very different goal from that for which it was previously used. The transcultural feminism of difference relies on affectivity and emotions as a political force and a method for meaning; however, knowing the boundaries of one's affects prevents one from intrusively taking on the other's suffering through sympathetic reading. Women's sexual healing processes in the novels discussed in this article are not self-evidently or solely gynocentric in the Caribbean context: men are often active participants in these processes, and thus also in gender reconfigurations. Participation in these affective moments between the novels’ women and healing men is made possible by the reader's parallel process of embracing and curtailing her affective responses to the suffering of the other. (shrink)

Do doctors fix patients? Or do they heal them? For all of modern medicine’s many successes, discontent with the quality of patient care has combined with a host of new developments, from aging populations to the resurgence of infectious diseases, which challenge medicine’s overreliance on narrowly mechanistic and technical methods of explanation and intervention, or “fixing’ patients. The need for a better balance, for more humane “healing” rationales and practices that attend to the social and environmental aspects of health (...) and illness and the experiencing person, is more urgent than ever. Yet, in public health and bioethics, the fields best positioned to offer countervailing values and orientations, the dominant approaches largely extend and reinforce the reductionism and individualism of biomedicine. The collected essays in To Fix or To Heal do more than document the persistence of reductionist approaches and the attendant extension of medicalization to more and more aspects of our lives. The contributors also shed valuable light on why reductionism has persisted and why more holistic models, incorporating social and environmental factors, have gained so little traction. The contributors examine the moral appeal of reductionism, the larger rationalist dream of technological mastery, the growing valuation of health, and the enshrining of individual responsibility as the seemingly non-coercive means of intervention and control. This paradigm-challenging volume advances new lines of criticism of our dominant medical regime, even while proposing ways of bringing medical practice, bioethics, and public health more closely into line with their original goals. Precisely because of the centrality of the biomedical approach to our society, the contributors argue, challenging the reductionist model and its ever-widening effects is perhaps the best way to press for a much-needed renewal of our ethical and political discourse. (shrink)

The nomadic Kazaks inhabiting Xinjiang Province, China, retain many aspects of their pre‐Islamic way of life, including the use of methods of traditional healing usually classified under the rubric of "shamanism." These practices are closely related to those in Kazakstan, Mongolia, and other parts of the former Soviet Union.The present study addresses aspects of traditional healing in use among the Xinjiang Kazaks in recent times, and presents a native taxonomy of these practices obtained during recent fieldwork in Xingjiang. (...) Special attention is paid to the use of words, sound, and movement in healing contexts by elders and specialized individuals. (shrink)

Acupuncture, herbs, and bodywork are fast becoming accepted as complements to standard healing methods. This riveting personal story of the unconventional education of an alternative healer provides extraordinary insight into how and why such methods work. Blending Chinese medicine, the martial arts, and Native American knowing, Daniel Santos challenges us to view the body and its healing in an exciting new way.

For generations, African beliefs and practices regarding witchcraft and traditional healing have been located at the intersection between the natural world and the supernatural world. Despite the impact of both colonialism and, in the contemporary context, modernization, the complex interplay between these worlds has not been reduced. The interaction between nature and religion, as a facet of culture, has long been a subject of inquiry in anthropology, and nowhere is this more evident than in the study of African witchcraft (...) and traditional healing. A distinct relationship exists between witchcraft beliefs and traditional healing methods. This relationship brings these two aspects of African culture together in such a complex manner that it is difficult to attempt to understand the dynamics of African witchcraft without referring to traditional healing methods, and vice versa. In this paper, the authors outline the various ways in which African witchcraft beliefs and practices, as well as traditional healing beliefs and practices, interact within the nature/culture domain. This interaction will be conceptualised in a Merleau-Pontian sense, focusing on the indeterminacy of the natural and supernatural worlds. In its presentation of an essentially anthropological case study focused on southern Africa, the paper draws on various ethnographic examples of African communities in the southern African context. Indo-Pacific Journal of Phenomenology , Volume 7, Edition 1 May 2007. (shrink)

_Mending the World_ provides a blueprint for making a difference in the intractable social issues that exist today. It presents the compelling drama of thirteen stories of people on the firing lines in countries in Africa, Europe, Scandinavia, as well as Brazil, Cambodia, North of Ireland, and the USA. The cases involve diverse real world issues, such as AIDS reduction, poverty, political conflict, natural disasters, and dilemmas in supporting the aged. The stories are framed by the editors with theory and (...) historical data, and offer the hope of effective change using Gestalt principles and methods. In these complex issues, you need unique skills to bring people together to work toward a common solution, and to empower yourselves to influence people with positional power, _Mending the World_ shows how use of these skills leads to high-impact outcomes. (shrink)

Damage repair is a fundamental requirement of all life as organisms find themselves in challenging and fluctuating environments. In particular, damage to the barrier between an organism and its environment (e.g. skin, plasma membrane, bacterial cell envelope) is frequent because these organs/organelles directly interact with the external world. Here, we discuss the general strategies that bacteria use to cope with damage to their cell envelope and their repair limits. We then describe a novel damage‐coping mechanism used by multicellular myxobacteria. We (...) propose that cell‐cell transfer of membrane material within a population serves as a wound‐healing strategy and provide evidence for its utility. We suggest that – similar to how tissues in eukaryotes have evolved cooperative methods of damage repair – so too have some bacteria that live a multicellular lifestyle. (shrink)

In Igbo traditional religion (ITR), there are different means through which therapy and healing are achieved. One such means is through the Nsukka-Igbo Ọmabe masquerade festival rituals and performance theatre. To seek out this aspect of the cultural festival that has been under-researched, this study delves into detailed discussions of the pre-arrival, arrival, events in between, departure and postdeparture of the Ọmabe masquerade festival. Relying on a qualitative method, the study analytically and descriptively discusses the data gathered through (...) participatory observations and interview sessions with some of the devotees possessing sufficient knowledge of the masquerade tradition and festival. Photographs have been included to flesh out the narratives, as well as enrich and enhance the readers’ engagement with the article. Also, relevant materials from extant literature are quoted and cited. The study examined the rituals, music, performances and other interesting key components of the festival and found that the traditional practice through masquerade festivals such as the Ọmabe is therapeutic, leading to emotional activation and healing. Undoubtedly, this has been sustaining its re-enactments in the face of neoreligious intolerance, urbanisation, modernity and globalisation that have been adversely affecting cultural practices. Contribution: The article critically engages with the reappraisal of the Ọmabe cultural heritage festival among the Nsukka-Igbo people, providing thought-provoking, impactful research as well as insightful reading towards achieving an understanding of its rituals, materiality and performance theatre and their accompanying therapy and healing benefits. Bearing in mind that HTS Teologiese Studies/Theological Studies focuses on religious issues and that the ‘masking festival’ is a part of Indigenous religious practice, the author considers this article to be suitable for its objectives. (shrink)

This paper represents a preliminary investigation relating Bernard Lonergan’s thought to health science and the healing arts. First, I provide background for basic elements of Lonergan’s theoretical terminology that I employ. As inquiry is the engine of Lonergan’s method, next I specify two questions that underlie medical insights and define several terms, including health, disease, and illness, in relation to these questions. Then I expand the frame of reference to include all disciplines involved in the cycle of clinical (...) interaction under the heading health science and the healing arts. Finally, I analyze the cycle of clinical interaction in terms of Lonergan’s cognitive theory. I compare and contrast my analysis, based on Lonergan, with that of Pellegrino, Thomasma and Sulmasy as I proceed. In closing, I comment briefly on the next stage of this project regarding Lonergan’s theory of the human good in relation to the practice of the healing arts. (shrink)

The Buddha's method of spiritual release is crystallized in the Four Noble Truths. The Four Truths profile the condition of an individual's life. It explains the cause of suffering, the means through which an individual residing in a transient world can extract oneself from samsara and propel oneself into an abiding spiritual reality or nirvana. This four stage method parallels the principles of diagnosis, etiology, recovery or health, and therapeutics, which are employed by physicians in their clinical practice. (...) This article is a reflection on this method and its practical application. (shrink)

This work studied the Anioma Healing Ministry of the late prophet Eddy Okeke. The aim is to investigate the structure, demography, beliefs and practices of the ministry. The study adopts a qualitative phenomenological research design and historiographical method for data analysis. Personal interviews form a primary source of data collection, whilst the secondary sources include library and Internet resources. The study found that Okeke’s ministry was not organised or administratively structured like some of the well-established churches or ministries. (...) Because the ministry was structured after African traditional religion, it also held similar beliefs. The study also found that most of the practices of Okeke’s healing ministry were reflected in its belief system, and adherents to the ministry included the rich and the poor, men and women. It was also discovered that overzealous and excessive belief in Okeke’s magical and miraculous powers promoted him more than his actual spiritual deeds. Many who became disloyal to him or who opposed his interfused religiocultural practices suffered open attacks from him. Although now dead, this ministry still flourishes and Okeke’s spiritual powers continue to be held in high esteem.Contribution: Okeke’s ministry has given the world’s independent ministries a new socioreligious mentality and intellectual framework. This is, without a doubt, the only ministry constructed in the same way as African traditional religion and Christianity. As a result of the foregoing, the HTS Teologiese Studies journal will consider this article worthy of publication in their prestigious journal because it contributes to a greater understanding of the world’s emerging religious groups. (shrink)

Abstract:Through dismantling the territorial integrity of the modern nation-state, Indigenous sovereignty threatens state imposed hegemonic systems. While these systems exist at the threshold spatially—borders and boundaries—they are the ideological epicenter for controlling human and non-human life, rendering them manageable by the state. These borders are also perpetually liminal spaces, and it is in this liminality that artists intervene through poetics, confronting state rhetorics and exercising sovereignty to address colonial wounds. In 2015 and 2017, two land-based ephemeral art projects were created (...) to challenge the terms by which territory is instrumentalized in order to justify the commodification of both land and humans. In 2015, the artist collective, Post-commodity, set up a land-based art installation, Repellent Fence, intersecting the US/Mexico border in an effort to “stitch” the Americas together again. The gesture of stitching is also employed in Maureen Gruben's Stitching My Landscape from 2017 in which Gruben stitched a segment of ocean ice with vibrant red broad cloth near her home in Tuktoyaktuk, Northwest Territories alongside the Ibyuk Pingo, a national landmark administered by Parks Canada. Both of these projects provide entry points into the various methods by which land is abstracted into an oppressive and singular form. They push back against the rigidity of prescribed borders, instead investigating more fluid entanglements with land.This paper provides a comparative analysis of these projects, examining the ways in which counterpoints are central to them as artistic interventions. Crossing diagonally to the borders that the nation-state has institutionalized produces a moment of reprise to a highly specific end: to heal. Pivotal to these anti-colonial critiques are rejection, dismissal and a refusal to translate. A symbolic reorientation of the ways humans interact with land arises, evoked through a performative gesture of stitching across fragmentations and divides. (shrink)

The therapeutic and integrative significance of faith in the African quest for healing and wholeness has attracted a considerable level of interest amongst scholars in recent times. Despite the increasing interest in places of healing, faith communities have not paid much attention to studying the intersection of these practices for appropriate community hermeneutics. By means of qualitative methods, this research explored the therapeutic implication of the role of faith in the quest and appropriation of health and wholeness in (...) modern Africa. Exploring perspectives from Ghana and Nigeria, the study engaged, through focus groups and individual interviews, the proper place of therapeutic significance of faith in the quest for healing and wholeness. Findings revealed that the African quest for health and wellness is anchored in the belief of a deity whose presence, love and benevolence transcend the ecclesiastical boundaries of one’s faith tradition. The study further describes the therapeutic and integrative significance of these prevailing faiths in God within the appropriation of health and wholeness in modern Africa, with the possibility of fostering a partnership amongst the three key players in the triangulation process.Contribution: The study falls within the field of practical theology and its major contribution falls within the quest of wellness and healing in Africa. (shrink)

Cultural values influence how people understand illness and dying, and impact their responses to diagnosis and treatment, yet end-of-life care is rooted in white, middle class values. Faith, hope, and belief in God’s healing power are central to most African Americans, yet life-preserving care is considered “aggressive” by the healthcare system, and families are pressured to cease it.

This paper argues that a new genre of therapy has appeared in the arena of contemporary spiritual alternative healing, which expresses an outlook never-before-seen in the history of medicine: postmodern therapy. Postmodern therapeutic methods express a popularization of postmodernist philosophy in regards to language’s role in the therapeutic process, expressing a novel cosmology. These methods are illustrated in the paper, and then analyzed in comparison to two other groups of methods: traditional/occult magic, and modern medicine. Finally, PTMs are characterized (...) as neo-magic, bearing features similar to modernistic outlook on the one hand, and features similar to pre-modern magic outlook on the other hand. Thus, these new outlook demonstrate a double appropriation and rejection of perceptions viewed as contradictory – traditional magic and secular science. (shrink)

In this paper I explore methodological approaches to Aquinas’s argument for a real distinction between essence and existence in creatures in De ente et essentia. Joseph Owens and John Wippel examine the text through three stages that, they conclude, result in a demonstration for the real distinction. I contrast this approach with R. E. Houser, who argues that Aquinas’s text, which proceeds dialectically, must be understood within the context of its sources, namely, Avicenna’s Metaphysics of the Healing and The (...) Intentions of the Philosophers by al-Ghazali. First, I will offer an evaluative judgment on the disagreement between Owens and Wippel on which stage Aquinas demonstrates a real distinction. Second, I will offer an evaluative judgment on the nature of the treatise as a whole by suggesting that the methodology of source-based contextualism offers another way to read the De ente. (shrink)

An experience-centered approach reveals empirical foundations for shamanic healing. This article is based on data derived from surveys of Chinese, Japanese, Caucasian-American, and African-American populations and participant observation of over thirty Asian shamans. Respondents reported anomalous events such as apparitions, extrasensory perceptions, contact with the dead, precognitive dreams, clairvoyance, and out-of-body experiences. Based on folk reasoning, these episodes support belief in spirits, souls, and life after death. Shamanic healers have a far greater propensity to experience anomalous events than general (...) populations and to use their beliefs arising from these episodes to produce ceremonies that change clients' perceptions of their illnesses. Although the foundations supporting shamanism differ from those sustaining Western medicine, both traditions provide experiences that convince clients that specific procedural methods alleviate illness. Keywords: epistemological, healing, shamanism CiteULike Connotea Del.icio.us What's this? (shrink)

Background: While employers are increasingly considering and implementing COVID-19 vaccination requirements, little is known about the reasons offered by employees seeking religious exemptions.Methods: We conducted a mixed methods analysis of all the requests for religious exemptions submitted during the initial implementation of a COVID-19 vaccination requirement at a single academic medical center in the United States.Results: Five hundred sixty-five (3.4%) employees requested religious exemptions. At least 305 (54.0%) requesters had job titles suggesting that they had direct patient contact. Four hundred (...) ninety-nine (88.3%) of requesters self-identified as Christian, of whom 120 (21.2%) identified as Roman Catholic. Requesters offered 0 to 8 (mean 2.7) categories of reasons for their request. The most frequently stated reasons pertained to the use of fetal cell lines in vaccine development and manufacturing (382, 67.6%), interest in maintaining purity (221, 39.1%), or belief in divine healing (172, 30.4%). Some requesters also volunteered evidence of the sincerity of their beliefs including examples of their religious practices (116, 20.5%), other practices (66, 11.7%), and emotional states (32, 5.7%). One hundred fifty-two applications (26.9%) contained text copied without attribution, primarily from sample religious exemption request letters available on the Internet.Conclusions: Most requesters focused on the use of fetal cell lines in the development or manufacturing of the vaccines as the justification for their request. The development of vaccines that are not reliant on fetal cell lines may increase vaccination rates. Understanding reasons for religious exemption requests may inform vaccine education and vaccination policies. (shrink)

An exploration of Rudolf Steiner's recommendation that class teachers create verses for their pupils to be inserted into their annual school reports.

From social theorist and psychotherapist Rabbi Michael Lerner comes a strategy for a new socialism built on love, kindness, and compassion for one another. _Revolutionary Love_ proposes a method to replace what Lerner terms the "capitalist globalization of selfishness" with a globalization of generosity, prophetic empathy, and environmental sanity. Lerner challenges liberal and progressive forces to move beyond often weak-kneed and visionless politics to build instead a movement that can reverse the environmental destructiveness and social injustice caused by the (...) relentless pursuit of economic growth and profits. Revisiting the hidden injuries of class, Lerner shows that much of the suffering in our society—including most of its addictions and the growing embrace of right-wing nationalism and reactionary versions of fundamentalism—is driven by frustrated needs for community, love, respect, and connection to a higher purpose in life. Yet these needs are too often missing from liberal discourse. No matter that progressive programs are smartly constructed—they cannot be achieved unless they speak to the heart and address the pain so many people experience. Liberals and progressives need coherent alternatives to capitalism, but previous visions of socialism do not address the yearning for anything beyond material benefits. Inspired by Herbert Marcuse, Erich Fromm, and Carol Gilligan, _Revolutionary Love_ offers a strategy to create the "Caring Society." Lerner details how a civilization infused with love could put an end to global poverty, homelessness, and hunger, while democratizing the economy, shifting to a twenty-eight-hour work week, and saving the life-support system of Earth. He asks that we develop the courage to stop listening to those who tell us that fundamental social transformation is "unrealistic.". (shrink)

The authors discuss the nature of consciousness, the methods for studying it, its relevance to our values, and the role of consciousness for enhancing human abilities and wellness.

The authors discuss the nature of consciousness, the methods for studying it, its relevance to our values, and the role of consciousness for enhancing human abilities and wellness.

At the intersections of social anthropology, philosophy, and Asian studies, my paper explores the body ecologic through a phenomenological frame in the context of Chinese culture engaging both theory and method. How can qì cultivation experiences transporting bodies and persons in movement, within the world and their “life‐world,” be interpreted through a phenomenology of perception? Based on ethnographic study data collected mainly in South China (Guangzhou) and in Taiwan (1990s–2000s), this exploration is situated within qìgōng experiences (training, cultivating and (...) mastering the qì). Anchored in martial, religious, and healing arts and their meanings, qìgōng’s myriad of forms and infinite variations invite journeys into religious Daoist and Buddhist practice, Chinese thought, and politico‐religious issues of past and present Chinese society. The qìgōng world, paths of knowledge transmission, healing horizons, claimed affiliations, and views of practitioners unveil an ontology and a cosmology grounded in religious (Daoist and Buddhist) lore. (shrink)

The embodied creative practice of dance facilitates a particular kind of awareness or attunement which can inform both the therapeutic and the intellectual work of the Health Humanities. This paper therefore considers dance as a way of ‘doing’ Health Humanities in two interlinked ways: dance as a way of healing and dance as a way of knowing. In bringing together carnal and the creative dimensions of human experience, dance offers us a way of making sense of our place in (...) the world that provides us both with much needed existential security and much needed epistemological freedom. (shrink)

[Michael Tye] Externalism about thought contents has received enormous attention in the philosophical literature over the past fifteen years or so, and it is now the established view. There has been very little discussion, however, of whether memory contents are themselves susceptible to an externalist treatment. In this paper, I argue that anyone who is sympathetic to Twin Earth thought experiments for externalism with respect to certain thoughts should endorse externalism with respect to certain memories. /// [Jane Heal] Tye claims (...) that an externalist should say that memory content invoking natural kind concepts floats free of the setting where the memory is laid down and is at later times determined by the context in which the memory is revived. His argument assumes the existence of 'slow switching' of the meaning of natural kind terms when a person is transported from Earth to Twin Earth. But proper understanding of natural kind terms suggests that slow switching (contrary to what is often presupposed) is likely never to be completed. Hence the situation of a person unknowingly transported to Twin Earth is not that his memories switch content but rather that he gets two natural kinds confused. (shrink)

Moran rightly links performance of speech acts to instituting second‐personal normative relations. He also maintains that an audience's recognition of the speaker's intention in speaking is sufficient for the speaker's success in doing the speech act intended. The claim is true on some ways of understanding speech act verbs, but false on others. This complexity of speech act verbs can be explained by seeing how speech acts need to be understood in the context of shared life and cooperative action.

A method is presented for deciding whether correct predictions about other people are based on simulation or theory use. The differentiating power of this method was assessed with cognitive estimation biases (e.g. estimating the area of Brazil) in two variations. Experiments 1 and 2 operated with the influence of response scales of different length. Experiment 3 used the difference between free estimates that tended to be far off the true value and estimates constrained by an appropriate response scale, (...) where estimates became greatly more realistic. The critical question is how well observer subjects can predict these target biases under two different presentation conditions. Response scale biases (Experiments 1 and 2) were more strongly predicted when observer subjects were presented with the two scales juxtaposed, than when responses for each scale were given independently. This speaks for the use of a theory, since simulation should, if there is any difference at all, be made more difficult by the juxtaposition of conditions. The difference between free and constrained estimations (Experiment 3) was more strongly predicted under independent than under juxtaposed presentation. This speaks for the use of simulation since use of a theory should, if anything, be helped by juxtaposition of problems since it helps highlight the theoretically relevant factor. Results are discussed in view of recent proposals about when simulation is likely to be used, i.e. for belief fixation but not action prediction (Stich and Nichols, 1995b), for content fixation (Heal, 1996a), and for rational effects only (Heal, 1996b). (shrink)