ellauri064.html on line 358: The Network for Dialogical Practices is an open platform for researchers, students and practitioners who want to help people in distress by full presence, responsiveness and human connection. The European Network for open dialogical practices started in 2008 to care for the legacy of Tom Andersen, Gianfranco Cecchin and Michael White who all passed away shortly one after another and to preserve their voices for the future generations.
ellauri095.html on line 174: The homosexual lifestyle results in a shorter life expectancy. This is undoubtedly due to the health risks associated, such as AIDS, Hepatitis, and a variety of other infections and STDs. In addition, homosexuals are more likely to be smokers, which takes the lifespan even lower. In 1993 Paul Cameron published a study which found that homosexuality takes 20-30 years off the lives of its practitioners. Cameron is a Psychologist and founder of the Family Research Institute. Among men with AIDS their lifespan was 39 years, however even without AIDS a male homosexuals lifespan is just a short 42 years. Lesbians had a median age of death of just 44 years. He also found that lesbians were up to 456 times more likely to die in a car crash than heterosexual women. The liberal Southern Poverty Law Centre dubbed Cameron an "anti-gay extremist", and the American Psychological Association expelled him for exposing the truth about the homosexual lifestyle and accused him of scientific data "fraud". Fortunately, Cameron had the support of faith based groups who would not bow down or turn their behinds to the homosexual agenda.
ellauri108.html on line 94: Jesus is an important figure in Rastafari. However, practitioners reject the traditional Christian view of Jesus, particularly the depiction of him as a white European, believing that this is a perversion of the truth. They believe that Jesus was a black African, and that the white Jesus was a false god. Many Rastas regard Christianity as the creation of the white man; they treat it with suspicion out of the view that the oppressors (white Europeans) and the oppressed (black Africans) cannot share the same God. Many Rastas take the view that the God worshipped by most white Christians is actually the Devil, and a recurring claim among Rastas is that the Pope is Satan or the Antichrist. Rastas therefore often view Christian preachers as deceivers and regard Christianity as being guilty of furthering the oppression of the African diaspora, frequently referring to it as having perpetrated "mental enslavement".
ellauri108.html on line 104: While he was emperor, many Jamaican Rastas professed the belief that Haile Selassie would never die. The 1974 overthrow of Haile Selassie by the military Derg and his subsequent death in 1975 resulted in a crisis of faith for many practitioners. Some left the movement altogether. Others remained, and developed new strategies for dealing with the news. Some Rastas believed that Selassie did not really die and that claims to the contrary were Western misinformation. To bolster their argument, they pointed to the fact that no corpse had been produced; in reality, Haile Selassie's body had been buried beneath his palace, remaining undiscovered there until 1992. Another perspective within Rastafari acknowledged that Haile Selassie's body had perished, but claimed that his inner essence survived as a spiritual force. A third response within the Rastafari community was that Selassie's death was inconsequential as he had only been a "personification" of Jah rather than Jah himself.
ellauri108.html on line 125: Rastafari is a millenarian movement, espousing the idea that the present age will come to an apocalyptic end. Many practitioners believe that on this Day of Judgement, Babylon will be overthrown, with Rastas being the chosen few who survive the upheaval. With Babylon destroyed, Rastas believe that humanity will be ushered into a "new age". This is conceived as being a millennium of peace, justice, and happiness in which the righteous shall live in Africa, now a paradise. In the 1980s, many Rastas believed that the Day of Judgment would happen around the year 2000. A view then common in the Rasta community was that the world's white people would wipe themselves out through nuclear war, with black Africans then ruling the world, something that they argued was prophesied in the Book of Daniel.
ellauri108.html on line 127: Rastas do not believe that there is a specific afterlife to which individuals go following bodily death. They believe in the possibility of eternal life, and that only those who shun righteousness will actually die. The scholar of religion Leonard E. Barrett observed some Jamaican Rastas who believed that those practitioners who did die had not been faithful to Jah. He suggested that this attitude stemmed from the large numbers of young people that were then members of the movement, and who had thus seen only few Rastas die. Another Rasta view is that those who are righteous will undergo reincarnation, with an individual's identity remaining throughout each of their incarnations. In keeping with their views on death, Rastas eschew celebrating physical death and often avoid funerals, also repudiating the practice of ancestor veneration that is common among traditional African religions.
ellauri108.html on line 145: The term "grounding" is used among Rastas to refer to the establishment of relationships between like-minded practitioners. Groundings often take place in a commune or yard, and are presided over by an elder. The elder is charged with keeping discipline and can ban individuals from attending. The number of participants can range from a handful to several hundred. Activities that take place at groundings include the playing of drums, chanting, the singing of hymns, and the recitation of poetry. Cannabis, known as ganja, is often smoked. Most groundings contain only men, although some Rasta women have established their own all-female grounding circles.
ellauri108.html on line 154: The principal ritual of Rastafari is the smoking of ganja, also known as marijuana or cannabis or pot. Among the names that Rastas give to the plant are callie, Iley, "the herb", "the holy herb", "the grass", and "the weed". Cannabis is usually smoked during groundings, although some practitioners also smoke it informally in other contexts. Some Rastas smoke it almost all of the time, something other practitioners regard as excessive, and many practitioners also ingest cannabis in a tea, as a spice in cooking, and as an ingredient in medicine. However, not all Rastas use ganja; abstainers explain that they have already achieved a higher level of consciousness and thus do not require it.
ellauri108.html on line 162: In many countries—including Jamaica—cannabis is illegal and by using it, Rastas protest the rules and regulations of Babylon. In the United States, for example, thousands of practitioners have been arrested because of their possession of the drug. Rastas have also advocated for the legalisation of cannabis in those jurisdictions where it is illegal; in 2015, Jamaica decriminalized personal possession of marijuana up to two ounces and legalized it for medicinal and scientific purposes. In 2019, Barbados legalised Rastafari use of cannabis within religious settings and pledged 60 acres (24 ha) of land for Rastafari to grow it.
ellauri108.html on line 182: Rastas seek to produce food "naturally", eating what they call ital, or "natural" food. This is often grown organically, and locally. Most Rastas adhere to the dietary laws outlined in the Book of Leviticus, and thus avoid eating pork or crustaceans. Other Rastas remain vegetarian, or vegan, a practice stemming from their interpretation of Leviticus. Many also avoid the addition of additives, including sugar and salt, to their food. Rasta dietary practices have been ridiculed by non-Rastas; in Ghana for example, where food traditionally includes a high meat content, the Rastas' emphasis on vegetable produce has led to the joke that they "eat like sheep and goats". In Jamaica, Rasta practitioners have commercialised ital food, for instance by selling fruit juices prepared according to Rasta custom.
ellauri108.html on line 187: Rastas use their physical appearance as a means of visually demarcating themselves from non-Rastas like the whites. Male practitioners will often grow long beards, and many Rastas prefer to wear African styles of clothing, such as dashikis, rather than styles that originated in Western countries. However, it is the formation of hair into dreadlocks that is one of the most recognisable Rasta symbols. Rastas believe that dreadlocks are promoted in the Bible, specifically in the Book of Numbers, and regard them as a symbol of strength linked to the hair of the Biblical figure of Samson. They argue that their dreadlocks mark a covenant that they have made with Jah, and reflect their commitment to the idea of 'naturalness'. They also perceive the wearing of dreads as a symbolic rejection of Babylon and a refusal to conform to its norms regarding grooming aesthetics. Rastas are often critical of black people who straighten their hair, believing that it is an attempt to imitate white European hair and thus reflects alienation from a person's African identity. Sometimes this dreadlocked hair is then shaped and styled, often inspired by a lion's mane symbolising Haile Selassie, who is regarded as "the Conquering Lion of Judah".
ellauri108.html on line 214: Rastafari's main appeal was among the lower classes of Jamaican society. For its first thirty years, Rastafari was in a conflictual relationship with the Jamaican authorities. Jamaica's Rastas expressed contempt for many aspects of the island's society, viewing the government, police, bureaucracy, professional classes, and established churches as instruments of Babylon. Relations between practitioners and the police were strained, with Rastas often being arrested for cannabis possession. During the 1950s the movement grew rapidly in Jamaica itself and also spread to other Caribbean islands, the United States, and the United Kingdom.
ellauri108.html on line 216: In the 1940s and 1950s, a more militant brand of Rastafari emerged. The vanguard of this was the House of Youth Black Faith, a group whose members were largely based in West Kingston. Backlash against the Rastas grew after a practitioner of the religion allegedly killed a woman in 1957. In March 1958, the first Rastafarian Universal Convention was held in the settlement of Back-o-Wall, Kingston. Following the event, militant Rastas unsuccessfully tried to capture the city in the name of Haile Selassie. Later that year they tried again in Spanish Town. The increasing militancy of some Rastas resulted in growing alarm about the religion in Jamaica. According to Cashmore, the Rastas became "folk devils" in Jamaican society. In 1959, the self-declared prophet and founder of the African Reform Church, Claudius Henry, sold thousands of tickets to Afro-Jamaicans, including many Rastas, for passage on a ship that he claimed would take them to Africa. The ship never arrived and Henry was charged with fraud. In 1960 he was sentenced to six years imprisonment for conspiring to overthrow the government. Henry's son was accused of being part of a paramilitary cell and executed, confirming public fears about Rasta violence. One of the most prominent clashes between Rastas and law enforcement was the Coral Gardens incident of 1963, in which an initial skirmish between police and Rastas resulted in several deaths and led to a larger roundup of practitioners. Clamping down on the Rasta movement, in 1964 the island's government implemented tougher laws surrounding cannabis use.
ellauri108.html on line 270: A smaller number of Rastas are found in Muslim-majority countries of West Africa, such as Gambia and Senegal. One West African group that wear dreadlocks are the Baye Faal, a Mouride sect in Senegambia, some of whose practitioners have started calling themselves "Rastas" in reference to their visual similarity to Rastafari. The popularity of dreadlocks and marijuana among the Baye Faal may have been spread in large part through access to Rasta-influenced reggae in the 1970s. A small community of Rastas also appeared in Burkina Faso.
ellauri108.html on line 485: Rastafari is a millenarian movement, espousing the idea that the present age will come to an apocalyptic end. Many practitioners believe that on this Day of Judgement, Babylon will be overthrown, with Rastas being the chosen few who survive the upheaval. With Babylon destroyed, Rastas believe that humanity will be ushered into a "new age". This is conceived as being a millennium of peace, justice, and happiness in which the righteous shall live in Africa, now a paradise.
ellauri108.html on line 489: Rastas do not believe that there is a specific afterlife to which individuals go following bodily death. They believe in the possibility of eternal life, and that only those who shun righteousness will actually die. The scholar of religion Leonard E. Barrett observed some Jamaican Rastas who believed that those practitioners who did die had not been faithful to Jah. He suggested that this attitude stemmed from the large numbers of young people that were then members of the movement, and who had thus seen only few Rastas die. Another Rasta view is that those who are righteous will undergo reincarnation, with an individual's identity remaining throughout each of their incarnations. In keeping with their views on death, Rastas eschew celebrating physical death and often avoid funerals, also repudiating the practice of ancestor veneration that is common among traditional African religions.
ellauri131.html on line 904: By Hay's account, in the early 1970s she became a religious science practitioner. In this role she led people in spoken affirmations, which she believes would cure their illnesses, and became popular as a workshop leader. She also recalled how she had studied Transcendental Meditation with the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi at the Maharishi International University in Fairfield, Iowa.
ellauri143.html on line 48: Although its medicinal properties have not been studied, traditional medicine practitioners use it for various purposes
ellauri182.html on line 187: As in other Pure Land Buddhist schools, Amitābha is a central focus of the Buddhist practice, and Jōdo Shinshū expresses this devotion through a chanting practice called nembutsu, or "Mindfulness of the Buddha [Amida]". The nembutsu is simply reciting the phrase Namu Amida Butsu ("I take refuge in Amitābha Buddha"). Jōdo Shinshū is not the first school of Buddhism to practice the nembutsu but it is interpreted in a new way according to Shinran. The nembutsu becomes understood as an act that expresses gratitude to Amitābha; furthermore, it is evoked in the practitioner through the power of Amida's unobstructed compassion. Therefore, in Shin Buddhism, the nembutsu is not considered a practice, nor does it generate karmic merit. It is simply an affirmation of one's gratitude. Indeed, given that the nembutsu is the Name, when one utters the Name, that is Amitābha calling to the devotee. This is the essence of the Name-that-calls.[7]
ellauri182.html on line 195: For Jōdo Shinshū practitioners, shinjin develops over time through "deep hearing" (monpo) of Amitābha's call of the nembutsu. According to Shinran, "to hear" means "that sentient beings, having heard how the Buddha's Vow arose—its origin and fulfillment—are altogether free of doubt."[9] Jinen also describes the way of naturalness whereby Amitābha's infinite light illumines and transforms the deeply rooted karmic evil of countless rebirths into good karma. It is of note that such evil karma is not destroyed but rather transformed: Shin stays within the Mahayana tradition's understanding of śūnyatā and understands that samsara and nirvana are not separate. Once the practitioner's mind is united with Amitābha and Buddha-nature gifted to the practitioner through shinjin, the practitioner attains the state of non-retrogression, whereupon after his death it is claimed he will achieve instantaneous and effortless enlightenment. He will then return to the world as a Bodhisattva, that he may work towards the salvation of all beings.
xxx/ellauri157.html on line 204: Baal Shem (Hebrew: בַּעַל שֵׁם, pl. Baalei Shem) is a title for a historical Jewish practitioner of Practical Kabbalah and miracle worker. Employing the names of God, angels, Satan and other spirits, Baalei Shem heal, enact miracles, perform exorcisms, treat various health issues, curb epidemics, protect people from disaster due to fire, robbery or the evil eye, foresee the future, decipher dreams, and bless those who sought his powers.
xxx/ellauri157.html on line 239: The Lithuanian rabbis (like Itchele's mom's folks) feared that Hasidism demoted the traditional importance on Torah study, from its pre-eminent status in Jewish life. Some Hasidic interpretations saw mystical prayer as the highest activity, but their practitioners thought that through this, all their Jewish study and worship would become easier. By the mid-19th Century, the schism between the two interpretations of Eastern European Judaism had mostly healed, as Hasidism revealed its dedication to bookwormship, and the Lithuanian World saw advantages in the Hasidic shared fun.
xxx/ellauri280.html on line 449: Hakīm (alternative transcription Hakeem) indicates a "wise man" or "physician", or in general, a practitioner of herbal medicine, especially of Unani and Islamic medicine, like Hakim Ajmal Khan, Hakim Said, Hakim Syed Zillur Rahman, etc.
xxx/ellauri298.html on line 239: biomedicine as in many occupations and professions, such as firemen and police, practitioners and teachers
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