scholarly journals Introduction: Evidence for entheogen use in prehistory and world religions

2019 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 43-62
Author(s):  
Michael Winkelman
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Factors ◽  
Serotonergic System ◽  
Complex Societies ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
World Religions ◽  
Religious Traditions ◽  
Serotonergic Receptors ◽  
Hominin Evolution ◽  
The World

This introduction to the special issue reviews research that supports the hypothesis that psychedelics, particularly psilocybin, were central features in the development of religion. The greater response of the human serotonergic system to psychedelics than is the case for chimpanzees’ serotonergic receptors indicates that these substances were environmental factors that affected hominin evolution. These substances also contributed to the evolution of ritual capacities, shamanism, and the associated alterations of consciousness. The role of psilocybin mushrooms in the ancient evolution of human religions is attested to fungiform petroglyphs, rock artifacts, and mythologies from all major regions of the world. This prehistoric mycolatry persisted into the historic era in the major religious traditions of the world, which often left evidence of these practices in sculpture, art, and scriptures. This continuation of entheogenic practices in the historical world is addressed in the articles here. But even through new entheogenic combinations were introduced, complex societies generally removed entheogens from widespread consumption, restricted them in private and exclusive spiritual practices of the leaders, and often carried out repressive punishment of those who engaged in entheogenic practices.

Improving the Effectiveness of Multilateral Trade Negotiations: A Synopsis

2012 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-8 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cecilia Albin
Keyword(s):  
Negotiation Process ◽  
International Negotiation ◽  
Trade Negotiations ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
Multilateral Trade ◽  
Governmental Organizations ◽  
Non Governmental Organizations ◽  
The World ◽  
Domestic Level

Abstract This special issue of International Negotiation explores from different perspectives how multilateral trade negotiations, primarily within the World Trade Organization (WTO), can become more effective. The challenges associated with this task have grown, as the parties and issues involved in such talks have increased in number and diversity. The specific topics addressed include the role of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and domestic-level factors, agenda management, legitimacy and procedural issues, turning points, the challenge posed by the pursuit of bilateral and regional alternatives, and the question of gains to be had from multilateralism. The conclusions drawn from these studies are wide-ranging and relevant for multilateral negotiations generally. They highlight, among other matters, the significance of decision-making procedures used in the negotiation process.

scholarly journals Special Issue on Crop Insurance and Risk Management

2008 ◽  
Vol 37 (1) ◽  
pp. iii-iv
Author(s):  
Calum G. Turvey
Keyword(s):  
Risk Management ◽  
Crop Insurance ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
Management Tools ◽  
Market Risks ◽  
The World ◽  
Mutual Interest ◽  
Management Workshop ◽  
The U.S

The role of crop insurance and new risk management tools for agriculture is evolving at an almost dizzying pace. One needs only to examine recent postings on the Risk Management Agency's website to see how expansive this is. Moreover, throughout the world we are witness to a host of new programs available in both developed and developing countries that are largely based on the U.S. experience. It is necessary that academics first recognize the scope of issues facing production and market risks in agriculture and then respond with new and creative ways to address the problems. To these needs, the Crop Insurance and Risk Management Workshop—the provenance of the papers in this volume—was designed to bring academics with research and extension responsibilities together with industry to explore this ever-changing landscape and discuss research and outreach of mutual interest.

Birds Without Borders

2020 ◽  
Vol 50 (4) ◽  
pp. 433-455
Author(s):  
Lino Camprubí
Keyword(s):  
Small Group ◽  
National Park ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
Top Down ◽  
Science Diplomacy ◽  
The World ◽  
Large Project ◽  
Environmental Diplomacy ◽  
Ecological Dimension

The Spanish Doñana Biological Station, inaugurated in 1964, poses two historiographical puzzles. First, it was the first large project of the World Wildlife Fund, which is usually seen as a response to the very specific post-imperial challenges of African parks. Second, it was the first non-alpine park in Spain, and although it was designed and inaugurated in the midst of Francisco Franco’s nationalist dictatorship, it was an explicitly transnational project. This paper approaches Doñana’s unique story through the concept of ecological diplomacy. It points to the diplomatic strategies mobilized by a small group of ecologists with managerial and financial skills. Promoting Doñana, British ornithologists presented it as an African wilderness, which created tensions with Spanish ecologists, themselves colonial scientists. Ecological diplomacy, moreover, refers to a characteristic period between conservation diplomacy and environmental diplomacy. In it, conservation was understood as the top-down management of foreign territories for research purposes. While this can be partly understood as the globalization of the Swiss model for conservation, it arrived in Spain through the mediation of the French Tour du Valat station and of English ecology. Finally, stressing the ecological dimension of this type of conservation diplomacy helps in studying the role of the science of ecology and its transformations. As Doñana became a national park, the WWF’s early emphasis on research was replaced by a new attention to recreation. Max Nicholson’s participation in the International Biology Program granted him an opportunity to favor this model when Doñana became a national park. This essay is part of a special issue entitled Science Diplomacy, edited by Giulia Rispoli and Simone Turchetti.

scholarly journals Missionaries as bridge builders in Buddhist kingdoms: Amity amid radical difference

2019 ◽  
Vol 47 (1) ◽  
pp. 64-77
Author(s):  
Eva M. Pascal
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Early Modern Period ◽  
Spiritual Practice ◽  
World Religions ◽  
Historical Case ◽  
Religious Traditions ◽  
The Core ◽  
Modern Period ◽  
Contemporary Christian ◽  
The World

Buddhism and Christianity are major world religions that both make universal and often competing claims about the nature of the world and ultimate reality. These claims are difficult to reconcile and often go to the core of Buddhist and Christian worldviews. This article looks at the age of encounter in the early modern period for ways Christians and Buddhists forged friendship through common spiritual commitments and action. Beyond seeking theological and philosophical exchange, convergences along spirituality and practice proved important vehicles for friendship. With the examples of Christian–Buddhist friendship from historical case studies, this article explores the ways contemporary Christian expressions of spiritual practice and advocacy allows Christians to connect with Buddhists. Early modern encounters have important lessons for furthering Christian–Buddhist friendship that may also be applied to other religious traditions.

Religie en zingeving in een democratische samenleving. Van dominantie naar dialoog

2010 ◽  
Vol 64 (2) ◽  
pp. 161-171
Author(s):  
Gijs Dingemans
Keyword(s):  
Natural Law ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
World Views ◽  
The World ◽  
Contractual Agreement

In this response to the contributions in this special issue dedicated to his latest book In vredesnaam, Gijs Dingemans first indicates several major recent changes in the world views of western societies. Next, he indicates how the role of churches and religions has changed over the last 25 years, from ‘dominance’ to ‘dialogue’. Finally, he analyzes how a theological position that puts the concept of the covenant central stage can embark on a fruitful dialogue with our present-day society whose intellectual under-pinnings must be seen in theories of a contractual agreement of free individuals rather than in outdated theories of a natural law.

A Response to Amos Yong

2002 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 27-40
Author(s):  
Donald Gelpi
Keyword(s):  
Charles Sanders Peirce ◽  
World Religions ◽  
Paschal Mystery ◽  
The World ◽  
The Church

AbstractThis response by Donald Gelpi appreciates the accuracy of the reviewer's suggestion that the author's experience of charismatic prayer has very much conditioned both the author's written theology and his way of doing theol ogy. More particularly he acknowledges how it has conditioned his under standing of the role of the charisms in the shared faith of the Church, the centrality of the charisms in the practice and theology of the sacraments, and the role of the Spirit in the Paschal Mystery and in revealing the divinity of Jesus. Gelpi proceeds to discuss his notion of 'Christological knowing' as the unique knowledge of Jesus resulting from practical assimi lation to Him in the power of the Spirit—an experience that lies at the heart of Gelpi's Christology and is seen to provide it with its proper object of reflection, as Yong has correctly observed. Gelpi offers affirmation and fur ther elaboration on Yong's recognition of the importance of the philosophy of Charles Sanders Peirce in his own theological work. He joins Yong in the hope that the theological directions he has pursued and proposed might provide an experiential context for dialogue among the world religions.

scholarly journals Introduction: About This Special Issue

2003 ◽  
Vol 23 ◽  
pp. 303-304
Author(s):  
Thomas R. Marshall
Keyword(s):  
Political Parties ◽  
Government Policy ◽  
Policy Making ◽  
Political Change ◽  
Social Changes ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
Mass Public ◽  
The World ◽  
Dominant Parties

Understanding the role of political parties is critical to understanding political change in the world today. Political parties often help to translate mass public opinion into government policy-making. Parties also are them-selves rapidly changing. During the last decade many once-dominant parties fell into decline in many parts of the world, while other parties rapidly gained in strength. In short, political parties both shape political change and themselves are affected by social changes.

scholarly journals Role of Helicobacter pylori and Other Environmental Factors in the Development of Gastric Dysbiosis

Pathogens ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (9) ◽  
pp. 1203
Author(s):  
Uriel Gomez-Ramirez ◽  
Pedro Valencia-Mayoral ◽  
Sandra Mendoza-Elizalde ◽  
Juan Rafael Murillo-Eliosa ◽  
Fortino Solórzano Santos ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Factors ◽  
Microbial Communities ◽  
Optimal Growth ◽  
Human Stomach ◽  
Physiological Changes ◽  
Heterogeneous Habitat ◽  
The World ◽  
H Pylori ◽  
Gastric Microbiota

Microbiomes are defined as complex microbial communities, which are mainly composed of bacteria, fungi, and viruses residing in diverse regions of the human body. The human stomach consists of a unique and heterogeneous habitat of microbial communities owing to its anatomical and functional characteristics, that allow the optimal growth of characteristic bacteria in this environment. Gastric dysbiosis, which is defined as compositional and functional alterations of the gastric microbiota, can be induced by multiple environmental factors, such as age, diet, multiple antibiotic therapies, proton pump inhibitor abuse, H. pylori status, among others. Although H. pylori colonization has been reported across the world, chronic H. pylori infection may lead to serious consequences; therefore, the infection must be treated. Multiple antibiotic therapy improvements are not always successful because of the lack of adherence to the prescribed antibiotic treatment. However, the abuse of eradication treatments can generate gastric dysbiotic states. Dysbiosis of the gastric microenvironment induces microbial resilience, due to the loss of relevant commensal bacteria and simultaneous colonization by other pathobiont bacteria, which can generate metabolic and physiological changes or even initiate and develop other gastric disorders by non-H. pylori bacteria. This systematic review opens a discussion on the effects of multiple environmental factors on gastric microbial communities.

Presbyterians, Religious Diversity, and World Religions

2019 ◽  
pp. 437-456
Author(s):  
Martha L. Moore-Keish
Keyword(s):  
Holy Spirit ◽  
Religious Diversity ◽  
Historical Sources ◽  
World Religions ◽  
Religious Traditions ◽  
Traditional Religions ◽  
The Holy Spirit ◽  
African Traditional Religions ◽  
The Church

This chapter on Presbyterians, religious diversity, and world religions offers a few important caveats and then describes major themes in Presbyterian engagement of religious diversity: the sovereignty and freedom of God, the significance of Jesus Christ, the work of the Holy Spirit, the nature of revelation, the role of scripture, and the church. It then walks through the five centuries of Presbyterianism, noting how Presbyterians have engaged with and interpreted the changing world of many religions, drawing from philosophical, theological, and historical sources. It briefly describes Presbyterian interaction with the particular religious traditions of Judaism, Islam, African traditional religions, and Hinduism. The chapter concludes with a brief discussion of contemporary challenges and theological trajectories.

Crystal River and the Archaeology of Early Village Societies in the American Southeast (and Beyond)

2018 ◽  
pp. 1-24
Author(s):  
Thomas J. Pluckhahn ◽  
Victor D. Thompson
Keyword(s):  
Large Scale ◽  
Public Works ◽  
Complex Societies ◽  
The People ◽  
Hunting And Gathering ◽  
The World ◽  
American Southeast ◽  
Crystal River ◽  
Village Societies

In the archaeology of the American Southeast, the Woodland period (from around 1000 B.C. to A.D. 1050) is not conventionally understood as an interval marked by significant “firsts.” But it was marked by a dramatic change in the way people related to one another, as indicated by the earliest widespread appearance of sedentary villages, often associated with large-scale public works like mounds of earth and shell. Crystal River and Roberts Island are examples of these “early villages,” a term archaeologists have used to describe similar societies around the world, typically in reference to societies making a transition from hunting and gathering to farming. However, the people of Crystal River and Roberts Island faced many of the same social and ecological pressures. Early villages are important for what they can tell us about the role of cooperation, collective action, and conflict in the historical process and development of larger and more complex societies.

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