Death: Bridge between science and spirit

It is argued that contemporary health science, being part of a general cultural trend toward the materialism of scientific rationality, has reduced human health to a system of machine-like events. This philosophical trend has had the indirect effect of excluding the human spirit from playing any significant role in our understanding of man's health and well-being. The recent effort of biomedical science to extend this materialist philosophy into the area of human death and dying is examined in the context of this ideological trend. It is suggested that the trend has brought about an ever-widening conceptual gap between the realms of spirit and matter. The issue of bridging this contemporary conceptual gap is discussed in terms of recent research findings that suggest that the human brain may be capable of intergrating the logic of two seemingly irreconcilable ways of thinking into a whole which is enriched from the presence of both. This holistic possibility is discussed in the context of the philosophies that support the existence of spirit and matter.     

The personality of meaning in life: Associations between dimensions of life meaning and the Big Five

The goal of the current study was to identify aspects of personality that are associated with different ways in which people find meaning in life. This was achieved using constrained principal component analysis (CPCA) on data from 322 university students, who completed the Sources of Meaning and Meaning in Life questionnaire and the Big Five Aspects Scale. CPCA demonstrated that personality traits and life meaning are associated, but not redundant, with one another. Specifically, respondents with high scores on lower-level aspects of Openness to Experience tended to derive meaning from questioning, learning and challenging tradition, whereas those with high scores on aspects of Conscientiousness and Extraversion tended to derive meaning from success at work, health, and family. Results suggest that personality traits are associated with variations in the domains used to derive meaning in life, and demonstrate the utility of CPCA as an innovative statistical technique for the study of individual differences.     

You,me, and meaning: an integrative review of connections between relationships and meaning in life

Social relationships are seen to be vital to human functioning, both in terms of psychological functioning and physical health. Relationships are a cornerstone of well-being. For instance, having positive relationships has been linked to greater happiness, life satisfaction and physical health outcomes. Meaning in life, or the perception that one's life is significant and has a purpose, is another prominent cornerstone of well-being. As such, social relationships and meaning in life should have reciprocal associations. In this paper, cross-cultural theory and empirical research will be reviewed to explore the role of family, romantic and friendship relationships in supporting meaning in life. Further, we will discuss the implications of the current research and propose new directions for future research.     

Creative compromise: Syrian television makers between Secularism and Islamism

Dramatic television serials produced in Syria reach vast audiences in the Arab world and beyond, via a growing number of pan-Arab satellite stations owned by wealthy, religiously conservative Gulf Cooperation Council states and citizens. Drama creators must now accommodate new markets and numerous censors. Privatization and the rise of a star system have spurred transformations within the industry that reflect the wider social and political context. The demise of Ba‘th socialism, the failures of nationalism, and the growing strength of Islamism affect both production and consumption of television programs, and transform relations within the industry. This paper explores how the television drama industry both accommodates and resists the Islamist currents that seek to provide alternatives to discredited nationalist and socialist projects.

Ethical contexts of healing: Character and ritual

Conclusion Jesus was asked by what authority did he heal. I suggest that the authority of the healing ministry of Jesus occurred because his work was a part of the inbreaking of God's Reign, was consistent with call to covenantal obedience within the Jewish community and because his life was the incarnation of God's righteousnes. The authority of the contemporary Christian therapist is different in degree not in kind. Our authority emerges when healing occurs that is consistent with the Sermon on the Mount, when the people of God have blessed our service and when our lives approximate the ethic of the Reign of God. It is my hope that an ethic of God's Reign, a normative people and our personal character as disciples of Christ might more significantly shape the therapeutic process.This is the third article in a series published in Pastoral Psychology. The first two appeared in the previous two issues.     

Reading between the lines: The child's fear of meaning

This paper explores the emotional factors that lie behind a child's failure to read. My observations are based on work as an educational therapist employed in a child guidance unit. In trying to understand the reasons for the child's neurotic reluctance to learn, the following sources have proved helpful: Klein on envy; Bowlby on the effect on the child of a relationship with an untrustworthy adult; and Bettelheim's Learning to Read. In conclusion some ways are examined in which the child can be helped to overcome his fear of the meaning of words.     

Confucian ritual and modern civility

The Confucian notion of civility has for thousands of years guided all aspects of socio-ethical life in East Asia. Confucians express their central concern for civility in their notion of li, which is commonly translated ‘ritual’ and refers to the conventions and courtesies through which we submit to the socio-ethical order, as we do, for example, in performing sacrifices, weddings, and funerals, and various daily acts of deference. Since the rise of China and other East Asian countries as economic powers, it has been suggested that we have in East Asia a ‘Confucian’ ritual-based culture that is opposed to the law-based culture of the West, a culture of rites opposed to a culture of rights, and that this ritual-based culture can be carried into modernity as another way to secure social harmony. I argue that the values central to Confucian ritual – deference, repayment, and harmony – are incompatible with the freedom enacted in modern civility. It is unlikely, therefore, that Confucian ritual can be carried into modernity and, as some suggest, remedy the fragmentation, and indeed lack of civility, characteristic of modern societies.     

Doubts on Spirituality: Interpreting Waldorf ritual

To investigate whether some kinds of kindergartens are better than others at bringing order, calm and stability to children's lives is, though not without its problems, fairly straightforward: the kinds of behaviour that count as evidence are relatively uncontroversial. Researchers can apply themselves, without too many qualms, to figuring out how kindergartens do it. Where spiritual development is concerned, because many kindergartens are already differentiated by religious or spiritual orientation - Jewish, Roman Catholic, Muslim, Waldorf, etc. - there is a temptation similarly to focus on how it is achieved. Relationships between the approaches and distinctive methodologies are prime areas for investigation. But such research might be premature. Any answer to the question 'To what extent have children been spiritually changed?' needs some agreement on the kinds of things we take as evidence of spiritual change. There are few signs of such agreement. This presents researchers, and also teachers, with a problem in proving their claims. In this article we try to substantiate this doubt by reflecting on some of our own research on Waldorf education. It too focused on 'how' and identified 'ritual' as a crucial factor in the Waldorf approach but we gradually realized that the epistemological issue was prior and had to be addressed.     

Ambivalence in play and ritual

Life is not breath, but action; to live is to make use of our organs, our senses, our faculties, every part of ourselves which gives us the feeling of our own existence. Rousseau Emile     

Conceptual mastery and the knowledge argument

According to Frank Jackson’s famous knowledge argument, Mary, a brilliant neuroscientist raised in a black and white room and bestowed with complete physical knowledge, cannot know certain truths about phenomenal experience. This claim about knowledge, in turn, implies that physicalism is false. I argue that the knowledge argument founders on a dilemma. Either (i) Mary cannot know the relevant experiential truths because of trivial obstacles that have no bearing on the truth of physicalism or (ii) once the obstacles have been removed, Mary can know the relevant truths. If we give Mary the epistemological capabilities necessary to draw metaphysical conclusions about physicalism, she will, while trapped in the black and white room, be able to know every truth about phenomenal experience.     

Understanding the search for meaning in life: personality, cognitive style, and the dynamic between seeking and experiencing meaning.

Although several theories assert that understanding the search for meaning in life is important, empirical research on this construct is sparse. Three studies provide the first extensive effort to understand the correlates of the search for meaning in a multistudy research program. Assessed were relations between search for meaning and well-being, cognitive style, and the Big Five, Big Three, Approach/Avoidance, and Interest models of personality, with a particular emphasis on understanding the correlates of search for meaning that are independent of presence of meaning. Conceptual models of the relation between search and presence were tested. Findings suggest that people lacking meaning search for it; the search for meaning did not appear to lead to its presence. Study 3 found that basic motive dispositions moderated relations between search for meaning and its presence. Results highlight the importance of basic personality dispositions in understanding the search for meaning and its correlates.     

Evaluating ritual efficacy: evidence from the supernatural

Rituals pose a cognitive paradox: although widely used to treat problems, rituals are causally opaque (i.e., they lack a causal explanation for their effects). How is the efficacy of ritual action evaluated in the absence of causal information? To examine this question using ecologically valid content, three studies (N = 162) were conducted in Brazil, a cultural context in which rituals called simpatias are used to treat a great variety of problems ranging from asthma to infidelity. Using content from existing simpatias, experimental simpatias were designed to manipulate the kinds of information that influences perceptions of efficacy. A fourth study (N = 68) with identical stimuli was conducted with a US sample to assess the generalizability of the findings across two different cultural contexts. The results provide evidence that information reflecting intuitive causal principles (i.e., repetition of procedures, number of procedural steps) and transcendental influence (i.e., presence of religious icons) affects how people evaluate ritual efficacy.     

Suggestion: Metaphor and meaning

This paper examines the metaphor of “suggestion” with reference to its origins and construction in the late nineteenth century in France. In addition to some general properties of the metaphorical mode, specific features of the “suggestion” metaphor are identified. It is shown how a network of meanings from a pathological situation (hypnosis) came to be applied to the behavior of crowds. The work of Le Bon was central in this process. This examination shows how metaphorical discourse was an important indicator of the orientation of early social psychology, namely the focus on interpersonal influence.     

The funeral meal: A significant funerary ritual

Historically, a meal in association with funerary ritual has been a reality in many cultural and religious settings. Our society has experienced a gradual demise of formal funerary ritual, with an accompanying psychological and social impoverishment. Both the immediate bereaved and the larger social community can benefit from a funeral meal which functions as a group experience that focuses on the needs of the living. It can be a shared experience in a familiar structured setting which enables the living to do significant grief work. Practical implications and potential problems will need to be, taken into consideration.