Esoteric Rituals of Komyo Shingon Mantra

Esoteric Buddhism TITLE iii

Reproductive rituals

TEIZO OGAWA (editor), History of obstetrics (Proceedings of the Seventh International Symposium on the Comparative History of Medicine-East and West), Tokyo, Division of Medical History, Taniguchi Foundation, 1984, 8vo, pp. viii, 283, illus., [no price stated]. ANN OAKLEY, The captured womb. A history of the medical care of pregnant women, Oxford, Basil Blackwell, 1984, 8vo, pp. x, 351, illus.,...

Anonymous Rituals

Religion and ritual have been characterized as costly ways for conditional cooperators to signal their type, and thus identify and interact with one another. But an effective signal may be prohibitively expensive: if the cost of participation is too small, freeriders may send the signal and behave selfishly later. However, if the ritual reveals only the average level of signaling in a group, fr...

The MANTRA II study.

We applaud Mitchell Krucoff and colleagues (July 16, p 211) and The Lancet editors for publishing an extensive, well controlled, multisite study on prayer and healing. The Article and accompanying Editorial note that prayer had no significant effect on outcome in 748 heart patients. Study of the intangible is challenging, and the researchers should be recognised for their insight and courage. H...

Theuth Versus Thamus: The Esoteric Plato Revisited

The distinction between esoteric and exoteric readings of Plato will be revisited in this article with respect to two esoteric approaches: the German Tübingen School and the American Straussians (i.e., those interpreters who have been inspired by the work of Leo Strauss). There appears to be a joint motivation for these two approaches, namely, the critique of writing in the dialogue Phaedrus an...