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Thoughts on “Capitalist spirituality” – a term offered by J. Carrette and R. King
– a term offered in Selling Spirituality: The Silent Takeover of Religion by J. Carrette and R. King In their book Selling Spirituality: The Silent Takeover of Religion Jeremy Carrette and Richard King argue that the replacement of tradition-specific religion with a more free-form search for personal meaning has resulted in a sort of a vacuum that called for a new search for meaning, which in turn has been filled by branding. They describe this tendency as consumerist spirituality that promises the quick fixes, easy achievable states without much commitment or work done. The authors argue that the main problem with modern spiritualities is that they are not demanding enough,…
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Notes on the book by Puchalski, C. M., Ferrell, B. “Making Health Care Whole: Integrating Spirituality into Patient Care”
This book is created on the basis of the national conference, where spiritual and palliative care experts gathered to discuss guidelines for incorporating spirituality into palliative care. The question is vital as in the past years there has been more and more attention given to the role of spirituality within palliative care, its necessary part in caring for ill and dying patients. Simply recognizing the importance of addressing spiritual issues in healthcare proves not to be enough, and the healthcare professionals need to be educated specifically on what spirituality is and how spiritual care should be delivered. The book “Making Health Care Whole” is meant to provide necessary definitions of…
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Notes on “Possessing Spirits and Healing Selves. Embodiment and Transformation in an Afro-Brazilian Religion”
a book by by Rebecca Selligman This book describes an ethnographic study of the psychophysiology of Candomblé mediumship. Combining ethnography and psychophysiology proved to be hard, and the author describes several obstacles, including the difficulty of maintaining a balance between recruiting a large enough sample for the study to be valid and building a trusting rapport with the participants. The central premise of the book is that the process of self-transformation in Candomblé spirit possession mediumship is a process with the potential to heal both mind and body. This idea is based on the finding that all mediums that the author interviewed for the study had come to become mediums…
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Freemasonry – a brief overview
While Freemasonry is probably the largest and most influential brotherhood in the world, it is the least understood among the public, which in turn serves as a perfect soil to grow numerous misconceptions and myths about it. In reality Freemasonry is a society of men concerned with moral and spiritual values, which are promoted by assignments and meetings, and taught by a series of rituals that are often allegorical to the initial stonemasons’ customs. In its classic form, Freemasonry is a male society, but there are women’s lodges now too. The term “freemason” once described a member of a building guild in the Middle Ages who was free to travel…
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Notes on the article by Joseph A. Adepoju “A Study of Health Beliefs and Practices of the Yoruba”
The study presented in the article describes in full the dualistic approach to treating illness. We see how the spiritual and physical treatments become complementary to each other within the Yoruba community. This approach is common not only for the immigrant community but also to the Yoruba living in Nigeria – there are always two sides seen in an illness – a physical and a spiritual, and both must be treated with equal importance. The holistic approach to healing in the Yoruba community is described in the quote below: “The practice of magic and medicine is comprehensive and holistic in nature and encompasses the healing of the body, mind and…
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Notes on “Medicine, Religion and Health” by Koenig
In his book “Medicine, Religion and Health” Koenig raises several important questions about the role of spirituality in the healthcare settings. First of all, he address the problem of definition of the term spirituality. As it is shown, due to the fact that spirituality in itself is a very private matter, it can be described differently by every person. Koenig brings up several definitions of different researchers and eventually offers his own. In his opinion, spirituality should be linked to religion even though it does not necessarily imply religious belief. While there may be different opinions on the precise definition of spirituality, Koenig points out that in the clinical settings…
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The Differences Between the Dark Green Religion and Eco-theology.
In his book The Dark Green Religion: Nature, Spirituality, and Planetary Future, Bron Taylor draws a clear distinction between green religion and dark green religion. He explains that green religion is basically the environmentally friendly actions of religious people who see these actions as part of their religious obligation. This approach is based on the anthropocentric view of the world, where people believe that human beings are the most important entity in the universe. Anthropocentrism interprets or regards the world in terms of human values and experiences. Thus, any sort of environmentally friendly activities are taken in order to promote and comfort the existence of humans. Dark green religion, on the…