This paper is a brief survey of the role of temples and holy places in nurturing the surrounding flora and its habitat. Eightysix kinds of plants in temple yards and gardens of orissa have been enlisted where they are cultivated and preserved for different temple rituals. These plants are seen rarely in wild but are saved from extinction by their association with temple rituals and ceremonies.

According to Herodotus in the pharaonic Egypt there were physicians for every organ. Numerous medicaments were used, along with magical ceremonies and enchantments (Herodotus, 1989). Hovewer, nothing relate to psoriasis in their medical papyruses. In the largest writing, the Ebers papyrus written about the 15th century BC, found in 1873 in Luxor, numerous skin diseases were described (paragraph...

All Indigenous communities in Australia have a common heritage of loss. Indigenous death rates are much higher than those for white Australians. Indigenous people use healthcare services reluctantly, and palliative care services rarely. Cultural considerations that need to be respected include Indigenous understandings of disease causation, attributions of blame for sickness, the performance of...

This paper describes an approach of how to support collaborative modelling tasks. The presented system, Cool Modes, implements the approach using “plug-in” reference frames encapsulating the semantics of the used models. Details on the extensibility of the system and the definition and interpretation of these reference frames and models in the framework are shown and the co-operation support us...

The extraordinary life and fate of Joan of Arc are well known; so is her association with the prophetic preacher, Brother Richard, who predicted the Apocalypse. Less well explained is why contemporaries initially took such an interest in this association, and how and why it began to fade from official memory after Joan’s death. Max Weber’s concepts of “charisma” and “routinization” offer valuab...

AIM To extend previous reviews by assessing the acute systemic toxicity and psychological hazards of a dimethyltryptamine and beta-carboline brew (ayahuasca/hoasca) used in religious ceremonies. METHOD A systematic literature search, supplemented by interviews with ceremony participants. RESULTS No laboratory animal models were located that tested the acute toxicity or the abuse potential o...

Western psychotherapy and indigenous shamanic healing systems have both used psychoactive drugs or plants for healing and obtaining knowledge (called "diagnosis" or "divination" respectively). While there are superficial similarities between psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy and shamanic healing with hallucinogenic plants, there are profound differences in the underlying worldview and concepti...

Throughout history, death and loss have given rise to social ceremonies and commemorative activities that note the death, recognize the place the person occupied in society, and assist the bereaved through the process of grief. Each culture faces death with its own definition of "appropriate" social-emotional reactions, and when death occurs, it provides the occasion for socially conditioned gr...