Makna Simbolik Tabu Pertunjukan Wayang Kulit Di Purbalingga, Karesidenan Banyumas, Jawa Tengah

The taboo of leather puppet show in the rural community of Purbalingga shows a plurality of socio-culture laying on the puppet myth that has changed into local legend. The myth said that Purbalingga is the region of Kurawa. This belief leads to such social conflicts as cultural conflict, marriage conflict, spiritual conflict, and ethic conflict. These conflicts are so obviously seen in the area. The cultural conflicts have triggered the taboo of puppet show in the rural area of Purbalingga. The taboo can be perceived as the phenomena of 1) a violence ang regret to the local puppet legend making some story sacral and taboo to perform, 2) a knight ascetics having some different meanings. Arjuna lived as an ascetic to get a weapon and a glory in the battle, while Yudhistira did that to achieve ultimate nobility in life, and 3) an ethic violation concerned with the characters, of puppet in the legend of Ramayana and Mahabarata, that are regarded as the ancestors of Purbalingga community.

(No) Sympathy for the Devil?

As a successor and strong supporter of Origen, though not an uncritical one, Didymus the Blind has long been presented as advocating controversial theological views, notably the apokatastasis. Along with Origen and Evagrius, Didymus’ views on this were condemned by the Fifth Ecumenical Council in 553 CE. In order to better understand Didymus’ theology, it is important to consider his notion of spiritual conflict and its ramifications for the friends and enemies of God. The purpose of this paper is to examine Didymus’ theology of enmity with God, in particular his interpretation of key biblical passages that indicate certain characters as enemies of God, namely Satan, the demons, and Judas Iscariot. The paper will address such questions as should Christians have any sympathy for Satan and the demons? Was Judas’ betrayal merely the selling out of Jesus based on greed, or was there a deeper betrayal of the teacher-student relationship? How do God’s enemies contrast with Didymus’ understanding of the friends of God? In addition to considering Didymus’ exegesis of these characters, the paper will examine his treatment of the New Testament command to love one’s enemies. Didymus’ doctrinal and exegetical texts will both be considered to establish his theology of spiritual conflict. Finally, these considerations will be contextualized within Didymus’ own theological milieu, where the blind scholar seems to be aware of mounting criticism of his theology, perhaps by his own students, and even possibly the conflicts swirling around several of his prominent former students (Evagrius, Jerome and Rufinus).

Around the “mystery of eternal destruction and eternal salvation”: The moral and philosophical “spiral” by Y.V. Bondarev

The research deals with a specific “Bondarev’s” feature of the human characters study in holistic poetical and philosophical space of his works about war, the author’s position, his manner of artistic thinking, the formation of his own, individual author’s worldview, which is based on deep traditions of Russian classical artistic and philosophical thought, outgoing to the works of A.S. Pushkin, F.M. Dostoevsky and L.N. Tolstoy. The “touches" of understanding of the so-called Bondarev’s “spiral” are presented, its main features are formulated. In the aspect of the spiritual and cultural paradigm, the behavior of some Y.V. Bondarev’s heroes is conceptualized in a situation designated by him as “either-or”, dating back to traditional Russian spiritual conflict of “eternal destruction or eternal salvation”.

Rabindranath Tagore’s Chandalika: An Amalgamation of Spiritual Conflict, Liberation and Rebel against Marginality

Rabindranath Tagore, the prominent voice of the Indian Renaissance skilfully presented the conflicts of spirituality, marginality and liberation in the form of a dance drama Chandalika. The play depicts the class consciousness and desire of a marginalised woman to liberate her inner self. She passionately yearns to challenge the social norms and rebel against the discriminations in society. The paper proposes to locate the conflicts, sense of liberation and marginalisation from the psyche of an ostracised woman Prakriti, in Chandalika. The study also focuses on the socio-cultural impulses of the playwright and the plight of a woman to break the social obstacle of marginality. The play tends the readers and the audience to rethink the idea of equality and liberation. The marginalised experience, differences are shown based on caste, gender bias and other conflicts are raised as an aesthetic exploration in the play. It questions the existing belief of caste and marginality. Tagore is imaginative and modernistic in the presentation of the play. The sequences in the play are depicted through dance. Dance in the play is a powerful symbol. Emotions, conflicts, struggles and dialogues are articulated in its true form with the help of the dance. The playwright further amalgamates the internal, spiritual conflicts of liberation against the social hegemony in the play Chandalika

Bernanos, Georges (1888–1948)

Although still widely read in the 1950s, Bernanos has now become an out dated author, if not entirely forgotten. Though he had a very high reputation among his fellow writers — Claudel, Mauriac, and Malraux admired him — Bernanos has always remained an isolated figure. His Catholic faith was the driving force behind his whole work, as a novelist and a polemicist, and is likely to be the reason why his writings have become obsolete. Fulminating against the liberalizing spirit of modern France, which led to spiritual decadence, Bernanos was part of the circle of Charles Maurras and Léon Daudet until 1932. Maurras and Daudet were the intellectual leaders of the monarchist and extreme right movement L’Action Française. Nevertheless, Bernanos deeply denounces the violence of the pro-Franco, as well as the dangers associated with Fascism and Nazism, in his famous pamphlet Les GrandsCimetières sous la lune (1938). His novels, always extremely profound, present the spiritual conflict of good and evil. His two most famous novels, Sous le soleil de Satan (1926) and Journal d’un curé de campagne (1936), revolve around the humble figure of a country priest confronted with the apparent absence of God in the gloomy landscapes of Northern France; they exemplify the Christian message of salvation in the face of failure and death.

Three nineteenth-century Southern African San myths: a study in meaning

Indigenous significances of nineteenth-century |Xam San folktales are hard to determine from narrative structure alone. When verbatim, original-language records are available, meaning can be elicited by probing beneath the narrative and exploring the connotations of highly significant words and phrases that imply meanings and associations that narrators take for granted but that nonetheless contextualize the tales. Analyses of this kind show that three selected |Xam tales deal with a form of spiritual conflict that has social implications. Like numerous |Xam myths, these tales concern conflict between people and living or dead malevolent shamans. Using their supernatural potency, benign shamans transcend the levels of the San cosmos in order to deal with social conflict and to protect material resources. As a result, benign shamans enjoy a measure of respect that sets them apart from ordinary people.

Religiosity and its influence on mental health of late age persons

Christian anthropology considers personality as a unity of spiritual, emotional and corporal manifestation. Spirituality is defined as highest level of development and self-control of mature personality, ignoring which leads to moral dissonance and spiritual conflict. For the believing person, it is indisputable that belief, church sacraments and practices are capable to facilitate not only corporal, but also spiritual diseases. Clinical and expert analysis of 235 late age patients (> 60 years), who underwent forensic psychiatric examination in criminal and civil cases, helped to identify the influence of religiosity on mental health of late age persons. At late age, appeal to spirituality defines further evolutionary development of the person and favorable forms of aging. It is noted that elderly believers have no expressed cognitive and emotional frustration. When developing mental disorders, they resort to church sacraments and prayers. Thus, a patient with visual hallucinosis noted that during a prayer “visions calmed down, left or started listening”. A patient with acoustical hallucinosis (“blasphemous” voices) considered them as manifestation of “dark powers”, fought them by appeal to the icon of the Mother of God. A patient with menacing acoustical hallucinations read Psalmbook, dawned on them a cross sign with “consecrated hand” (venerated to Sacred relics) and “locked” them in room corner. Ignoring spirituality, which is observed in psychiatry, is connected with incompatibility of representations based on science and belief; low level of religiousness among psychiatrists; underestimation of religion role in life of patients; lack of special knowledge of this area.Disclosure of interestThe author has not supplied his/her declaration of competing interest.