Fire altars were an important part of ritual throughout the ancient world. Geometric ritual, often a part of the fire altars, was intimately connected with problems of mathematics and astronomy. Manuals of altar design from India explain the basis behind the reconciliation of the lunar and the solar years. This astronomy is based on the use of mean motions. Computation rules from Vedāṅga Jyotis...

BACKGROUND One of the main obstacles for the mainstreaming of religious traditions as tools for the conservation of nature is the limited applicability of research results in this field. We documented two different restrictions implemented by local people (taboos and sacrifices) related to the use of ritual plants in Benin (West Africa) and Gabon (Central Africa). METHODS To see whether these...

Wild-type D. melanogaster males innately possess the ability to perform a multistep courtship ritual to conspecific females. The potential for this behavior is specified by the male-specific products of the fruitless (fru(M)) gene; males without fru(M) do not court females when held in isolation. We show that such fru(M) null males acquire the potential for courtship when grouped with other fli...

Using a comparative analysis of Navajo healing ceremonials, acupuncture and biomedical treatment, this essay examines placebo studies and ritual theory as mutually interpenetrating disciplines. Healing rituals create a receptive person susceptible to the influences of authoritative culturally sanctioned 'powers'. The healer provides the sufferer with imaginative, emotional, sensory, moral and a...

OBJECTIVE Genital neonatal herpes simplex virus type 1 (HSV-1) infection was observed in a series of neonates after traditional Jewish ritual circumcision. The objective of this study was to describe neonate genital HSV-1 infection after ritual circumcision and investigate the association between genital HSV-1 after circumcision and the practice of the traditional circumcision. METHODS Eight ...

This paper asks about the production of religious community in modern society: How can the success of a strict Evangelical community in a secularized environment be explained? To find an answer to this question, an approach to emotion based on Randall Collins’ interaction ritual chain theory is applied to data from participant observation in an Evangelical church in Switzerland. The weekly serv...

Ritual is one of the most classic research topics in field Anthropology, and rituals have close connection with medial practice. However, on this topic from experience Traditional Chinese Medicine limited. This paper presents whole story that a patient suffering infertility got cured by doctor Medicine(TCM) finally became mother. With detailed description each medical practice, including pulse-...

It has been argued that the worldwide prevalence of certain types of geometric visual patterns found in prehistoric art can be best explained by the common experience of these patterns as geometric hallucinations during altered states of consciousness induced by shamanic ritual practices. And in turn the worldwide prevalence of these types of hallucinations has been explained by appealing to hu...