Book Review: The Cosmic Game: Explorations of the Frontiers of Human Consciousness

At a time of transformation, a threshold of a new civilization based on fundamentally new principles, the wisdom of Kabbalah serves as a means to arrive at a new era of individual and collective consciousness. These will be discussed in relation to the way by which Kabbalah, as a method of internal change, can be disseminated, and the implications of its worldwide spreading. While work in Kabbalah is toward personal change, the significance of coming to know this wisdom is paramount to a vitally new social direction, achievement of a corrected civilization, and peaceful life in congruence with nature's laws.     

Camp Invention®: A Creative,Inquiry‐Based Summer Enrichment Program for Elementary Students

Camp Invention® is a hands‐on creativity and science day camp run in partnership with more than 400 schools nationwide. The curriculum integrates science, history, mathematics, the arts, and fun — promoting creative learning and teamwork through interactive activities. In 2001, the Center for Creative Learning conducted an extensive nationwide evaluation of the camp's effectiveness and impact, surveying 17,526 participants, including campers, parents, and staff. The results strongly supported the positive impact of Camp Invention, for both girls and boys in urban and suburban settings, on attitudes towards creativity, active learning, and exploration. Camp Invention's innovative curriculum blends many important aspects of science and invention with the challenge of stimulating children's creativity and imagination.     

Missional Formation for Transforming Discipleship: A Response

As I approached teaching my first missiology course in the seminary of a Dominican partner church a few years ago, I had to ask myself, “How do we possibly talk about and engage in ‘mission’ in this hemisphere, where the first ‘mission’ ended in genocide?” In this article, I explore the context for mission, which I believe is sometimes given insufficient attention as we seek to form and equip our church leaders and members for mission. The contexts are both local and global, with much intersection between the two. I will also focus on methodology that may be useful for the formation of disciples for mission as part of the need for a different type of theological and ministerial education within the new mission paradigm that Míguez proposes.     

A Dilemma for Higher-Order Theories of Consciousness

Higher Order theories of consciousness have their fair share of sympathisers, but the arguments mustered in their support are—to my mind—unduly persuasive. My aim in this paper is to show that Higher Order theories cannot accommodate the possibility of misrepresentation without either falling into contradiction, or collapsing into a First-Order theory. If this diagnosis is on the right track, then Higher Order theories—at least in the specific versions here considered—fail to give an account of what they set out to explain: what is distinctive of ‘conscious’ phenomena.     

Career Transition for Actors: A Program Description

This article provides an overview of the distinctive problems actors pose from a counseling standpoint and the manner in which a recently established program addresses these needs. The author describes how performers are assisted in securing dignified interim work, changing their careers, and renewing their sense of purpose in life.     

Inner Night and Inner Light: A Quaker Model of Pastoral Care for the Mentally Ill

The same theological principles that motivated Quakers in institutional reform work continue to influence uniquely Quaker approaches to pastoral care for the mentally ill today. This unity of psychological and spiritual care, inspired by George Fox, was first apparent in the work of the Religious Society of Friends asylum reforms in the nineteenth century. These principles matured during the early twentieth century as they entered into dialogue with Jung and Jungian psychology and continue to inspire Quaker pastoral care models today. This paper will examine how theological concepts affect the way Friends approach mental health care, historically and in contemporary times.     

Communication as Navigation: A New Role for Consciousness in Language

Classical cognitive science has been characterized by an association with the computational theory of mind. Although this association has produced highly significant results, it has also limited the scope of scientific psychology. In this paper, we analyse the limits of the specific kind of computational model represented by the Chomskian-Fodorian tradition in the study of mind and language. In our opinion, the adhesion to the principle of formality imposed by this specific computational model has motivated the exclusion of consciousness in the reflection on language and, consequently, has led to the inability to account for some aspects of language functioning at the processing level of discourse. The aim of this article is to restore the role of consciousness in discourse comprehension and production processes. Specifically, we argue that the ability to produce and understand discourses is based on individuals’ capacity for navigation in space and time. We will show that the space–time orientation is guaranteed by the projection of the self, which involves a special kind of consciousness.