In our Western culture psychoactive substances are usually regarded as ‘drugs’. However, in many other societies, all over the world and throughout human history, such substances have been used as sacraments, that is, principal instruments of religious rituals and spiritual work. Indeed, nowadays, an increasing number of people refer to the psychoactive agents more generally known as psychedeli...

Written records of confession provide exceptional insight into private histories women and the gender dynamics that shaped them. The sacrament entailed an implicit inequality between men women, given priest was considered to be shrouded in divine power while penitent had submit herself his moral authority. Nevertheless, also offered opportunity express themselves discuss understand their spirit...

In the article, we present Polish Catholicism as an example of folk religion. As a result complicated political history, Catholic Church became not only depositary Christian faith and morality, but also mainstay national identity, shaped during partitions in opposition to Russian Orthodoxy Prussian Protestantism. It was then that Polishness stereotypical synonym Catholicism. The stereotype Pole...

The article is dedicated to Dimitrii Dan (1856–1927), a well-known Bucovina priest, historian, ethnographer, folklorist, paleographer, collector of ancient historical documents and museum organizer, corresponding member the Romanian Academy Sciences. purpose scientific research study life path D. on basis available sources. Such relevant, since full biography academician not in Ukrainian circul...

the modern infirmary is the evolutional product of the dialectic interface between medical theories at each time and the outcome of their application in clinical practice. the infirmary as we know it today did not exist during antiquity, but the different precursors of the modern hospital emerged as a result of the interaction between medical theory and practice. during antiquity the hippocrati...

possessing three positions including issuing fatwas, ruling and judgment, all mojtaheds (highest rank in islamic clergymen hierarchy) take different authority and power. by the first position he can issue fatwas in religious affairs and problems through a methodological approach in islamic sharia. based on the position of ruling and accumbency of velayat (socio- political position of mojtahed) ...

are apt to instill their principles into the mindes of weake persons, and you well know, if your wife got anything into her Head, all the reason in the World will not persuade her out of it." There is much sophisticated analysis to admire that positions midwives into larger historical debates. South German cities, such as Nuremberg, Augsburg and Munich, controlled their midwives through "sworn ...

This is an important book but unfortunately the people who need most to read it are the least likely to do so. It consists of a series of short essays by an unusual group of scholars ranging from biologists, historians and economists to lawyers, statesmen and clergymen. The population problem is approached from the various and varied points of view represented by these contributors, all of whom...

ALTHOUGH criticism of the public vaccination movement in England had been common ever since it was introduced in I840, an organized movement to repeal compulsory vaccination did not develop until after 1871. If one studies the history of the English public and compulsory vaccination, one is surprised to detect references to moral and political ideas as frequently as discussions of medical issue...