Science of the SpiritS


Cow Skull

Belief in witchcraft linked to lack of community trust

Stephanie Pappas
Live Science
Thu, 12 May 2016 10:42 UTC
Witch doctor
© Creative Commons
A witch doctor in Zimbabwe, in sub-Saharan Africa where belief in witchcraft is widespread.
Belief in witchcraft is linked to a lack of trust for people in sub-Saharan Africa, new research finds. And that lack of social trust may be a barrier to economic development in struggling nations.

In regions where witchcraft belief is high, people are less likely to trust others, including their family, neighbors and local institutions, American University economist Boris Gershman reports in the May issue of the Journal of Development Economics. "What's more, the children of immigrants from countries with high prevalence of witchcraft beliefs are more distrusting than children of immigrants from other countries," Gershman found, suggesting that such beliefs may contribute to the formation of persistent antisocial attitudes.

"Economists and other social scientists have found a positive role of things like trust and cooperation in fostering business transactions, economic growth, trade and a variety of positive socioeconomic outcomes," Gershman told Live Science. "If witchcraft beliefs indeed contribute to the erosion of social capital, this is the channel through which they may adversely affect economic development."

Comment: Related articles:

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Family

Parent's behavior may affect kids of divorce more than divorce itself

Rebecca Harrington
Business Insider
Mon, 23 May 2016 12:30 UTC
Divorce
It's a common assumption that children of divorce are more likely to get divorced themselves.

For the most part, that's what psychologists have found when they've studied this phenomenon.

But perhaps divorce per se isn't exactly what's to blame.

Comment: See also: Dr. Gabor Maté: The stress-disease connection, addiction & the destruction of American childhood

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Light Saber

Wake up call: Depression holds tremendous potential for personal growth and spiritual awakening

Alex Pietrowski
Waking Times
Fri, 20 May 2016 00:00 UTC
depression
Is depression simply a disease as many psychiatrists and doctors would have us believe, or is there tremendous potential for personal growth and spiritual awakening locked up in the struggle against this common 'disorder?'

For those who are battling, or who have already conquered depression, there is certainly no one size fits all answer, but, according to one of the world's foremost experts on the relative study of mind and spirit, Dr. Lisa Miller, severe depression and spiritual experience are two sides of the same cognitive coin.

Her idea is perhaps best presented with this metaphor: depression and spiritual awakening are two sides of the same door. On one side is the total possibility of despair, hopelessness and isolation, and a look through to the other side reveals equally strong shades of spiritual satisfaction, inner peace, and connection to all that is.

Personally driven by her own despair and depression that resulted from infertility and a lack of being able to find her and her husbands' lives worth living without their own children, she began, ever so slowly to awaken to the messages of healers and helpers that seemed to arise serendipitously on her path, offering hints at greater possibilities for happiness and fulfillment.

Comment:
The three births of the human spirit - Carl Gustav Jung

Spiritual birth can only be the result of consciousness. Our internal development therefore does not only depend on our life experience; it depends much more on our ability to divert our attention from the outside world to our internal world.

From the aspect of our spiritual birth the - often chaotic - world of our Mind and emotions is not our real internal world. Our attention should not be directed to the analysis and comprehension of these; instead, we need to concentrate on becoming conscious of our existence, to find the center of our Self behind our external life and personal history. That is our real internal world.

In the course of our spiritual world we become conscious of, and alert to that internal center, to that internal world. Once that has been accomplished, our life is placed on entirely new foundations. The Mind stops functioning the way it used to and, together with that, our sense of identifying with the Mind vanishes. The spiritual Ego, our separate little self disappears, and we are permeated by a permanent, light presence. The personality is gone, and what remains is silence and presence, as the real essence of our existence. From that time on, that will serve as the real foundation for our internal development.

See also:

Epidemic depression as a wake up call to humanity
Overcome depression using your mind

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Heart

103 year old woman planted and cared for 384 trees despite limited economic resources

Souvik Ray
India Times
Mon, 23 Nov 2015 02:12 UTC
103 yo woman
© googleplus/Srinivasan G
Saalumarada Thimmakka lives in the Hulikal village of Karnataka. At 103, she still lives on to tell the story of her life which was filled with hardship but bore fruit in a different kind of way.

As a young girl, she was married off to a farmer who made a meagre income and was looked down upon by his fellow villagers for not fathering a child with his new wife. Instead of following social protocol, they decided to plant tree saplings and tend to them as their own children.

Comment: See also: Lone Indian man creates lush new forest ecosystem planting 1,360 acre forest

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TV

Lies my television told me

Hypatia
zengardner.com
Fri, 20 May 2016 19:15 UTC
Lies my TV told me
Every now and again I get a bit nostalgic and long for the days of my youth. I will watch an old episode of Bewitched or The Andy Griffith Show and be taken back to those times again when things seemed much more simple, relaxed and seemingly structured in tales of morality which you would be hard pressed to find in any new show or movie. We like to fantasize about how great our country once was and the era that is sorely missed, but were things really better or do we tend to romanticize the past?

I do agree that those were indeed different times with different standards and norms, but to truly look back with discernment, the country we miss so dearly was filled with racism, the same hegelian dialectic used and a caste system instilled in each of us. Things are not the same as they were then and neither are we, but since the advent of television there is no doubt that we have been unknowing participants in a full scale assault on our minds. All we watch these days are wrought with hidden symbolism and subliminal messaging and we may not realize how much influence the media has on us and the power it has to create the norms of our society.
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Rose

Native American proverbs that will touch the soul

Alexa Erickson
Collective Evolution
Fri, 20 May 2016 20:01 UTC
native american
Thinking of the past and all that transpired can prove disheartening, especially when it comes to Native Americans. Pondering what would have been, what could have been if these peaceful tribes had never been raided, their land and lives never taken, is a weighty task, because we know we cannot change history. We can only reflect on how it has shaped us, and how we can use that knowledge to move forward positively.

And yet, living in a world where many people find themselves attached to the idea of owning expensive homes, clothes, cars, and various other devices, and living on a planet constantly fighting to overcome the unnatural side of man-made production, it is hard not to wonder what life would be like if Native Americans had never been so wrongfully removed.

Comment: See also: 8 overlooked survival skills that kept the Native Americans alive in a once thriving culture

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Bulb

The importance of 'the moment'

Jon E. Dougherty
MindBodyScience.news
Fri, 20 May 2016 18:51 UTC
being in the moment
© belsebuub.com
What is a moment? How do we define such a place that we exist in momentarily and yet cannot really say that it is exists until it has happened. We cannot pinpoint it but yet we exist in it continuously. This now moment is the existence that is happening, it continues on in a line until we live out a sequence of moments that we then see and label as the past. The moments that are to come then are defined as the future.

We live our daily lives never really aware of how important the moment we are living in is to us, accepting it at face value. It could be seen to be taken for granted that we just live, without ever venturing into understanding how important such moments of now are to us.
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Light Saber

Growth mindset: Your reaction to failure determines your potential for future success

Louai Rahal, MA
PsychCentral
Fri, 20 May 2016 00:43 UTC
failure breeds success
Our weaknesses are the source of our strengths; our failures are the roots of our successes.

This is not another motivational cliché, this is a fact of history and science. Evolutionary theorists long ago concluded that the power of the human species lay in its weaknesses. Aware of their bodies' fragility compared to that of other animals, human beings had to compensate for their powerlessness in order to survive. Individuals were too weak to hunt by themselves, so they collaborated and hunted in groups. Collective activity emerged, communication evolved, tools were built, and the human species ruled all others.

Charles Darwin supposedly said that "it is not the strongest of the species that survives. It is the one that is most adaptable to change." Humans survived because they could adapt to nature. The motivation to adapt came from their powerlessness: we only adapt to processes that we cannot change and that lie beyond our power. Through such adaptation, we develop new strengths. Humans could not change the laws of nature, but they successfully adapted to the laws of nature by developing new forms of organized activity.

History is rich with examples of individuals who demonstrated how strength emerges from weakness. Vygotsky lists some of these examples:
Having struggled with a speech defect, Demosthenes went on to become one of Greece's greatest orators. The stuttering Demulen was an outstanding orator; the blind, deaf-mute Helen Keller a famous writer and prophet of optimism (Vygotsky, Collected Works).
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Ladybug

Depression is not a natural disease: Hunter-gatherers hold the key to the cure


Return to Now
Wed, 24 Feb 2016 12:40 UTC
depression
Depression is a global epidemic. It is the main driver behind suicide, which now claims more than a million lives per year worldwide. One in four Americans will suffer from clinical depression within their lifetimes, and the rate is increasing with every generation.

It robs people of sleep, energy, focus, memory, sex drive and their basic ability to experience the pleasures of life, says author of The Depression Cure Stephen Ildari. It can destroy people's desire to love, work, play and even their will to live. If left unchecked it can cause permanent brain damage.

Depression lights up the pain circuitry of the brain to such an extent that many of Ildari's psychiatric patients have called it torment, agony and torture. "Many begin to look to death as a welcome means of escape," he said in a Ted Talks presentation.

Comment: See also: Put down the pills & pick up a shovel: Gardening makes you happier & smarter

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Galaxy

Lunar cycles - do they really influence us?

Christina Lavers
Wake Up World
Sat, 07 May 2016 23:14 UTC
Lunar cycles
The moon has long been a source of wonder and inspiration to humans. Often associated with the mysterious feminine energy and the dreamy, irrational side of life, it has been held responsible for inspiring visions, revelations, and even madness.

Back in the days before artificial light, humans couldn't help but be directly affected by, and aware of, the varying stages of its cycles. When the moon was full, people could be more active as the light enabled them to engage in activities like hunting and celebrating, while the dark nights of the New Moon were more suited to quiet, more internally focused, reflective activities. Women especially experienced an intimate connection because our own body cycles closely mirrored those of the moon. Yet, as humanity has distanced itself from nature in general, living in increasingly artificial conditions, the synchronous relationship between humans and lunar cycles has diminshed.
"The true joy of a moonlit night is something we no longer understand. Only the men of old, when there were no lights, could understand the true joy of a moonlit night." ~ Yasunari Kawabata, Palm-of-the-Hand Stories
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