Only three dimensions exist in the Universe, as most humans have long suspected, with the exception of mathematicians and physicists. Albert Einstein at one point approached this realization but geometry prevented his making the logical connections necessary to understand this basic principle. Today mathematicians and physicists fantasize about eleven, fifty – six and two hundred and fifty – si...

This review evaluates the medical literature for religious rituals or ceremonies that have been reported to cause infection. These include an ultra-orthodox Jewish circumcision practice known as metzitzah b'peh, the Christian common communion chalice, Islamic ritual ablution, and the Hindu 'side-roll'. Infections associated with participation in the Islamic Hajj have been extensively reviewed a...

This paper examines the relationship between architecture and civil participation by specifically looking at the formal attributes of Rabin Square in Tel Aviv, its development as a public urban space, its nationally symbolic meaning, and its civic role. A major conclusion of this study is that public assembly and the physical space in which it occurs are indivisible, revealing architecture’s un...

Tuberculosis is a disease of great antiquity. In Ayurveda it is described as the king of the diseases because its arrival is marked by a set of symptoms earlier, followed by the disease proper and then with a list of accompanying complication. The story regarding its origin symbolically indicates the importance of the bodily resistance mechanism in its control. The clinical picture of the disea...

We report the resolution of a long-standing controversy related to the dating of ancient Indian astronomical texts and literature. We show that the Brāhman. as, which are post-Vedic texts, cannot be later than the second millennium B.C. This means that the chronology of the Indian texts is close to the traditional dates. We sketch the stages of the earliest Indian astronomy.

Vedic Particle Physics posits 56 types of spaces in the atomic nucleus, 28 positive and 28 negative in terms of energy loss or gain. Energy is derived from functioning Dark Matter via structures which probably are isomorphic to Spinor Fields, called Sakti and Asakti in Sanskrit, and which relate directly to the Octonions and Sedenions.

Many cultures around the world observe specific postpartum rituals to avoid ill health in later years. This qualitative systematic review examined the literature describing traditional postpartum practices from 51 studies in over 20 different countries. Commonalities were identified in practices across cultures. Specifically, the themes included organized support for the mother, periods of rest...

From public speaking to first dates, people frequently experience performance anxiety. And when experienced immediately before or during performance, anxiety harms performance. Across a series of experiments, we explore the efficacy of a common strategy that people employ to cope with performance-induced anxiety: rituals. We define a ritual as a predefined sequence of symbolic actions often cha...

The difficulties with interfaith dialogue are linked, at least in part, to the lack of ritual forms (consisting of rules, ceremonial idioms, liturgy, and repertoires of action) designed to unite and integrate the meta-group formed by the various religious communities. By means of ethnographic research conducted in Bosnia-Herzegovina the author studied the mechanisms with which, under particular...

It has been proposed that costly rituals act as honest signals of commitment to group beliefs when such rituals appear dysphoric and unappealing (costly) to non-believers, but appealing to true believers (Irons, 2001). If only true believers are willing to endure ritual behaviors and true belief also entails belief in altruistic cooperation, associating with other ritual practitioners can help ...