Finding the Sacred in Unexpected Places: Religious Evanescence and Evocation

This address examines the complex processes whereby cultural understandings of the sacred and, consequently, religious identity are negotiated in the contemporary social world. Two key processes of negotiation are delineated, namely, religious evanescence and religious evocation. Religious evanescence reflects efforts to deemphasize or sever connections to the sacred. By contrast, religious evocation consists of activities that emphasize or enhance linkages to sacred things. Groups actively manage their relationship to the sacred, and thus their religious identities, by engaging in evanescent or evocative practices. Moreover, the rejection of sacred things (evanescence) and the affirmation of them (evocation) are not mutually exclusive processes. They can be enlisted strategically, selectively, and even in combination with one another to suit a wide variety of social contexts and normative expectations. Boundaries in relation to the sacred are, therefore, sites for contradictory and innovative social processes. The contested and fluid boundaries that define the genre of “Christian rock” serve to illustrate these processes.     

The Varieties of Retributive Experience

Retribution is often dismissed as augmenting the initial harm done, rather than ameliorating it. This criticism rests on a crude view of retribution. In our actual practice in informal situations and in the workings of the reactive (properly called 'retributive') sentiments, retribution is true to the gravity of wrongdoing, but does aim to ameliorate it. Through wrong-doing, offenders become alienated from the moral community: their actions place their commitment to its core values in doubt. We recognize this status in blaming, a withdrawal of civility and solidarity which symbolizes the moral distance wrongdoers have put between them and us. Atonement is the means by which they make themselves 'at one' again with the community. Retribution is properly understood as a cycle which recognizes disruption and alienation, but aims at reconciliation.     

Myth and Legend in Family Therapy: Maintaining the Distinction Between the Sacred and Secular in Family Process

Family therapy has blurred the distinction between the sacred (myth) and the secular (legend) with resultant ethical implications, and has also created problematic cross-cultural considerations with its use of “myth.” The objectives of this paper are (a) to briefly introduce the evolution of the concept of “myth” in folklore; (b) to identify specific problems resulting from the current utilization of the term “myth” by family therapists; and (c) to demonstrate how appropriate usage of the concepts “myth” and “legend” from folklore theory radically decreases the confusion created in comparison to the present reliance on the term “myth” alone. Kimberly Ann Holle, MS, MSW, LSW, LCDC -III, CADC, graduated from the College of Social Work, The Ohio State University, in June, 2005. Ms. Holle now resides in Columbus, Georgia, USA (kimmers.1212@aol.com).     

原始儒学中礼观念神圣性价值的起源--从郝伯特·芬格莱特《孔子:即凡而圣》说起

多数学者相信,天是儒学的神圣性价值之源.郝伯特·芬格莱特<孔子:即凡而圣>一书提出一个独特观点,<论语>中孔子并不重视天,却特别重视礼,礼具有神圣价值.本文同意芬格莱特的观点,并进一步指出,<论语>中礼观念的神圣性是在一个特定的历史情境中形成的,这个历史情境与春秋中后期贵族社会内部结构的变化和夷狄入侵的压力有关.     

The Varieties of Forgiveness Experience: Working toward a Comprehensive Definition of Forgiveness

The definition of forgiveness was explored in a group of 270 young adults, and the underlying dimensions of their definitions compared with those of philosophers, theologians and psychological researchers. Three dimensions were identified: orientation (self, other), direction (passive letting go of negative experiences, active enhancement of positive experiences) and form (emotion, cognition and behavior). Definitions employing a passive letting go of negative experiences were associated with more state forgiveness. Gender differences were found in state forgiveness and in the employment of passive vs. active dimensions of forgiveness. Dr. Kathleen A. Lawler-Row is Professor of Psychology at East Carolina University. Her work focuses on the physiological and health correlates of forgiveness. Correspondence to Dr. K. A. Lawler-Row, e-mail: rowk@ecu.edu. Cynthia Scott and Meirav Edlis-Matityahou are graduate students in the Experimental and Counseling (respectively) programs at the University of Tennessee. Rachel Raines and Erin Moore are undergraduate students working with Dr. Lawler-Row in the department of psychology.     

Seeking the Pathos of God in a Secular Age: Theological Reflections on Mystical Experience in the Twentieth Century

Our current context is a “moving” and unstable one. We are facing not only a time of change, but what Pope Benedict XVI terms “an epochal change.” The impact of this transformation upon religion is unmistakable. In this article I reflect on one aspect of this impact: the one that affects and transforms the experience of God, also called mystical experience. I explore the concept of experience, trying to give a more precise idea of what we understand by mystical experience. I then reflect on the importance of mystical biographies and narratives to theology, including the particular characteristics that emerge when this narrative is about the mystical experiences of twentieth‐century people of faith. I present the specific “case” of Dorothy Day as an exemplification of mystical experience. I conclude with several reflections about how human beings find the way towards God in our secular.     

Varieties of Consensual Experience

This report is one in a continuing series concerning the relationship of family interaction and individual thinking ( 24 - 27 ). On the basis of previous experiments in this series, we have begun to elaborate a theory concerning the family's shared, consensual experience of its environment. This paper will outline the theory and demonstrate how it can generate a set of predictive hypotheses. The theory of consensua experience has been developed to explain ways in which individuals employ their cognitive and perceptual resources in intimate relationships with others and to account for the ways in which these intimate relationships alter and mold cognition and perception.     

Psychoanalysis: The Sacred and the Profane

Colleagues from a variety of perspectives have written about the propensity to enshrine psychoanalytic theory. The meaning of the word “enshrine” is to cherish as sacred an idea or philosophy and protect it from change. In other words, the way we view psychoanalysis, our theories of mind and technique, become holy writ and we have divided the world of theory into the sacred and the profane. This is the kiss of death for theory, which must constantly evolve and change, but comforting for the analyst who believes he is on the side of the right, the sacred. In this paper I will discuss how our propensity to enshrine theory has had a debilitating effect on the development of psychoanalysis and, in particular, as a treatment for the most vulnerable people who seek our help. I also address the idea that movement away from enshrined positions allows us to construct different versions of reality. In this context, the notion of “action at a distance” is presented along with the attendant idea of psychoanalytic entanglement.     

Varieties of Residual Experience

The apparent discrepancy between the results of animal studies and clinical findings on the effects of occipital lobe damage became even greater with the results of animal experiments over the past 20 years in which subjects showed significant residual vision. But there is now evidence that the human subject can also show considerable residual capacity. It appears to be extremely helpful to use forced choice discrimination methods and specific training, as with animals, rather than to depend on verbal commentary by the human subject, who may be unaware of his discriminative capacity. Where man and monkey can be compared, it would appear that they are not qualitatively different, and that residual capacity is biased for detection and localisation rather than identification. Preliminary evidence is presented on the incidence of “blind-sight” and related aspects of residual function, including examination of different dimensions such as form, detection, movement, orientation, and spatial localisation within field defects. Some of these dimensions appear to be dissociable, but each also seems capable of disconnexion from the subject's own commentary and acknowledgement.