Wicca, Esotericism and Living Nature: Assessing Wicca as Nature Religion

AbstractThe central hypothesis of this paper is that idealization of nature may fuel environmental racism when combined with dual interpretation of human religious or spiritual states. Medieval typological Biblical exegesis, originally based on historic rather than racial differentiation, encouraged presentation of Christianity as "natural" and Judaism as contra-natural. During the Gothic period, the stained glass of St. Denis Cathedral presented Judaism as occupying the material rather than the transcendent spheres of existence. In numerous stained glass windows, Jews appear as threats to nature by attacking Christ on a green cross, which symbolizes the renewal of all life, or the Lignum Vitae. As Christian architects and scientists increased their focus on the divine light of creation, prejudicial portrayals depicted Judaism as blind Synagogue, unable to fully appreciate nature. Pagan motifs, such as the Green Man, syncretized with Christian theological dualism, also serve to separate Judaism from living nature. These depictions purposefully conflict with Gothic aesthetic emphasis on proportion, clarity, and integrity and were intended to imply that religious minorities have no legitimate role in Christian European society. Modern religious scholarship must be cautious not to describe some religions as natural or nature religion, while neglecting others, particularly Judaism and Islam.

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Da gênese do sensível a partir do inteligível

Tópicos Revista de Filosofía ◽

10.21555/top.v0i54.865 ◽

2017 ◽

pp. 85

Author(s):

Francisco Prata Gaspar

Keyword(s):

Factual Knowledge ◽

Living Nature

Resumo: É conhecida a crítica de Schelling à doutrina da ciência de Fichte, de que ela teria aniquilado todo e qualquer conceito de uma natureza viva, reduzindo esta a um mero obstáculo a ser superado para que se realizem os fins morais da razão. Será mesmo, contudo, que Schelling tem razão? Este artigo pretende refutar essa crítica schellinguiana, mostrando como a doutrina da ciência não só não padece dessa carência, como antes ela deduz a partir da própria estrutura da razão os domínios do saber, incluindo aí, evidentemente, o domínio da natureza. Essa dedução dos domínios do saber, natureza e espírito, se dará a partir da análise da estrutura de passagem do Absoluto para o saber fático, isto é, da reflexão sobre si do eu, sobretudo a partir da consideração de seus elementos kantianos: a espontaneidade prática e seu caráter eminentemente reflexionante, algo que não foi percebido por Schelling e seus seguidores.Abstract: It is well known Schelling’s critique of Fichte's doctrine of science, to wit, that it would have annihilated every concept of a living nature, reducing it to a mere obstacle to be overcome for the realization of moral ends of reason. However, is Schelling right? This paper aims to refute Schelling’s critique, showing not only how the doctrine of science does not suffer from this deficiency, but also that instead it deducts from the structure of the reason the domains of knowledge, including, of course, the domain of nature. This deduction of the domains of knowledge, nature and spirit, will be made through the analysis of the passage-structure from Absolut to the factual knowledge, that is, the I’s reflection on himself, especially through the consideration of its Kantian elements: the practical spontaneity and its eminently reflective character, something that was not realized by Schelling and his followers.

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Brain-eating Amoebae Infection: Challenges and Opportunities in Chemotherapy

Mini-Reviews in Medicinal Chemistry ◽

10.2174/1389557519666190313161854 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 19 (12) ◽

pp. 980-987 ◽

Cited By ~ 9

Author(s):

Mohammad Ridwane Mungroo ◽

Ayaz Anwar ◽

Naveed Ahmed Khan ◽

Ruqaiyyah Siddiqui

Keyword(s):

Mortality Rate ◽

Free Living ◽

Outdoor Activities ◽

The Past ◽

Free Living Amoeba ◽

Challenges And Opportunities ◽

Life Threatening ◽

The Central Nervous System ◽

Living Nature ◽

Treatment And Diagnosis

Pathogenic free-living amoeba are known to cause a devastating infection of the central nervous system and are often referred to as “brain-eating amoebae”. The mortality rate of more than 90% and free-living nature of these amoebae is a cause for concern. It is distressing that the mortality rate has remained the same over the past few decades, highlighting the lack of interest by the pharmaceutical industry. With the threat of global warming and increased outdoor activities of public, there is a need for renewed interest in identifying potential anti-amoebic compounds for successful prognosis. Here, we discuss the available chemotherapeutic options and opportunities for potential strategies in the treatment and diagnosis of these life-threatening infections.

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The Origin of a New Kind of Science From the Life Sciences

Philosophical Literary Journal Logos ◽

10.22394/0869-5377-2020-1-131-155 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 30 (1) ◽

pp. 131-158

Keyword(s):

Natural Philosophy ◽

Human Life ◽

Natural Sciences ◽

Natural Phenomenon ◽

Dominican Order ◽

Cultural Traditions ◽

Knowledge Based ◽

Living Things ◽

Theoretical Morphology ◽

Living Nature

Science in the modern era began with a process of synthesis; the natural sciences in particular emerged through a coalescence of several cultural traditions. Scientific knowledge arose in a series of several separate events as mathematics, philology, physics and biology emerged independently. Scientific ideas about natural life developed via a synthesis of three types of knowledge. (1) There was the tradition of herbalism as a type of knowledge of nature, and this approach remained close to the Aristotelian tradition of describing nature with a bookish method centered on descriptive practice. (2) The scholastic tradition clarified existing concepts and formed new ones. Its role was crucial in supplying nascent science with its set of cognitive tools. (3) The alchemical tradition provided experimental knowledge of nature as applied to human life. It was particularly important in building the skills needed to connect theoretical systems with reality. This synthesis in natural philosophy was the basis of Linnaean reforms. However, theoretical morphology was cen¬tral to Linnaeus’ thinking and, its features were responsible for the success of his system. Theoretical morphology offered ways to decide how a natural phenomenon should be reduced and divided into parts in order to serve as an object of scientific cognition. Essential theoretical precepts for this morphology were formulated by Andrea Cesalpino in De plantis libri XVI (1583). Hence, the origin of the natural sciences as a study of living nature should properly be traced to the 16th century. This strand in the development of the new scientific approach in Europe through studying living things should also be connected with earlier (medieval) efforts of the Dominican Order (promoting purer versions of Aristotelianism), while another strand which led to the appearance of physics and other more mathematically expressed branches of the natural sciences belongs to the Franciscan orders (more influenced by Neoplatonism). Science emerged then as profound and experimentally verifiable theoretical knowledge based on ideation through the construction of the objects of experimental research.

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The Thanatosis of Enlightenment

Philosophical Literary Journal Logos ◽

10.22394/0869-5377-2019-4-83-104 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 29 (4) ◽

pp. 83-106

Keyword(s):

Scientific Reasoning ◽

Phenomenological Theory ◽

Human Mind ◽

Unsuccessful Attempt ◽

Trace Back ◽

Methodological Errors ◽

Psychological Models ◽

History Of ◽

Living Nature ◽

Dialectic Of Enlightenment

The article analyzes methodological errors Theodore Adorno and Max Horkheimer’s Dialectic of Enlightenment, particularly their incorrect use of the concepts of mimicry and mimesis. The author of the article maintains that the leaders of the Frankfurt School made a mistake that threatens to undermine their argument when they juxtaposed mimesis and the attraction to death, which has led philosophers to trace back to mimesis the desire for destruction that is found in a civilization constructed by instrumental reasoning. The author reviews the arguments of the Dialectic of Enlightenment and emphasizes the unsuccessful attempt to fuse Freudian and Hegelian methods, which exposes the instability of opposing scientific reasoning to “living” nature. Some amusing quotations from Roger Caillois, who refused to think of mimesis as something entirely rational, are also brought to bear. As Brassier gradually unfolds Adorno and Horkheimer’s thesis, he indicates the consequences of their mistake, which confined thinkers to the bucolic dungeon of “remembering” the authentic nature that they cannot abandon because they have denied themselves access to both reductionist psychological models and to phenomenological theory as such. Brassier delineates the boundaries of this trap and notes the excessive attachment of the Dialectic of Enlightenment to the human. Brassier goes on to describe the prospects for a civilization of enlightenment: a mimesis of death in both senses (death imitates and is imitated) finds its highest expression in the technological automation of the intellect, which for Adorno and Horkheimer means the final implementation of the self-destructive mind. However, for Brassier it means the rewriting of the history of reason in space. This topological rewriting of history, carried out through an enlightenment, reestablishes the dynamics of horror more than mythical temporality: it will become clear that the human mind appears as the dream of a mimetic insect.

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Spirit's Embeddedness in Nature: Hegel's Decentring of Self-Legislation

Hegel Bulletin ◽

10.1017/hgl.2020.33 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 1-20

Author(s):

Heikki Ikäheimo

Keyword(s):

Collective Self ◽

Living Nature ◽

The Way

Abstract A recently widely accepted view has it that the nature-spirit distinction in Hegel is to be understood as a distinction between a space or realm that is not normative, or does not involve norms, and one that is or does. Notwithstanding the merits of this view, it has tended to create a separation between nature and spirit which is both philosophically troubling and difficult to reconcile with the picture of Hegel as the arch enemy of abstract or unreconciled dualisms. In this paper I aim to show that the defining phenomenon for this view—collective self-government by norms—is on Hegel's account both dependent on living nature that involves normativity broadly conceived all the way down and also subject to the ultimate normative or evaluative principle of Hegel's Philosophy of Spirit—concrete freedom—the essence of spirit according to him. This is to say that for Hegel the normativity of collectively administered norms is neither the most basic nor the highest form of normativity.

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