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Zilka Spahić Šiljak utilizes the concept of ‘feminist religiosity’ to demonstrate how Islam plays a crucial role in shaping everyday struggles of women in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH), enabling them to live in a more fulfilling way. The chapter highlights the influential role of Islamic spirituality, particularly Sufi traditions emphasizing love, care, and service, in empowering women to pursue feminist endeavours across various domains such as non-governmental organizations, media, and academia.
The Cambridge Companion to Women and Islam provides a comprehensive overview of a timely topic that encompasses the fields of Islamic feminist scholarship, anthropology, history, and sociology. Divided into three parts, it makes several key contributions. The volume offers a detailed analysis of textual debates on gender and Islam, highlighting the logic of classical reasoning and its enduring appeal, while emphasizing alternative readings proposed by Islamic feminists. It considers the agency that Muslim women exhibit in relation to their faith as reflected in women's piety movements. Moreover, the volume documents how Muslim women shape socio-political life, presenting real-world examples from across the Muslim world and diaspora communities. Written by an international team of scholars, the Companion also explores theoretical and methodological advances in the field, providing guidance for future research. Surveying Muslim women's experiences across time and place, it also presents debates on gender norms across various genres of Islamic scholarship.
An increasingly large part of the population in the West identifies as religious Nones. Contrary to what might be assumed, most of them are not outright atheists. They reject traditional religion, but many pursue different forms of spirituality, and many entertain supernatural ideas. This Element concerns the worldview of these 'semi-secular' Nones. When asked about whether they believe in God, they usually provide answers like 'Perhaps not God per se, but I do believe in something'. Belief in 'somethin' is the ontological cornerstone of many Nones' worldviews. The authors reconstruct it as the view 'Somethingism'. They assess Somethingism by inquiring how well it stands up to the epistemic challenge of being true to the demands of reason. They also assess it by exploring how it manages the existential challenge of providing comfort and guidance in this life, and its ability to align us with any transcendent reality there might be.
The nature of all existence is relationships. This chapter discusses how spirituality is a being’s relationships with all forms of existence and phenomena. For human beings, spirituality means accessing cognitive and physical capacities in order to find and establish connections with the universe. Human spirituality is a secular form of practice and belief that focuses on the autonomy of the person. There is an encouragement to explore personal freedom and to develop relationships with the natural world. This chapter focuses on why connections with others, animals, nature, weather, and natural environments is a critical aspect of the social and emotional intelligences.
Essentials of the Social and Emotional Intelligences explores the foundations of social and emotional intelligences from a multicultural humanistic psychology perspective. Delving into the spectrum of abilities associated with holistic emotional processes, this book unravels the intricacies of developing self-awareness, regulating emotional states, fostering social awareness and empathy, exercising freedom of choice, and building diverse relationships. Offering a unique theoretical synthesis of humanistic psychology and multicultural education, the text provides diverse perspectives on complex phenomena within social and emotional intelligences, including empathy, spirituality, loneliness, self-awareness, and cultural humility. Through a fusion of empirical research studies and multicultural insights, this book equips readers with the knowledge to cultivate these essential skills within themselves and foster meaningful connections with others. This concise guide is ideal for students, professionals, educators and laypersons hoping to build their fundamental knowledge in utilizing social and emotional intelligences.
Although claims to sacredness are often linked to the power of a distant past, the work of making places sacred is creative, novel, renewable, and reversible. This Element highlights how sacred space is newly made. It is often associated with blood, death, and geographic anomalies, yet no single feature determines sacred associations. People make space sacred by connecting with 'extrahuman' figures – the ancestors, spirits, and gods that people attempt to interact with in every society. These connections can be concentrated in people's bodies, yet bodies are particularly vulnerable to loss. The Element also examines the multidimensional and multisensory dimensions of sacred space, which can be made almost anywhere, including online, but can also be unmade. Unmaking sacred space can entail new sacralization. New and minority religions in particular provide excellent sites for studying sacredness as a value, raising the reliably productive question: sacred for whom?
Issues we are confronted with in the age of the Anthropocene, such as climate change, extinction, and the coronavirus pandemic demand a fundamental rethink of human-nature relationships, but at the same time we are faced with a ‘crisis of imagination’, which is highlighted by the paucity of stories or narratives that enable us to fully engage with these issues. We have a ‘climate crisis’ as well as a ‘crisis of culture’ and both derive from the same source: epistemological limitations in the paradigm of modernity. The most problematic limitation is the fact that our social scientific knowledge has blind spots when it comes to nature and spirituality which makes it almost impossible for us to rethink human-nature relationships in a meaningful way. Miyazaki Hayao and Shinkai Makoto, however, directly illuminate these blind spots by making nature and spirituality central features in their animation films. This opens up new epistemological and ontological spaces in the hearts and minds of a global audience, making it possible to imagine something new. And that ‘something new’ is ‘postmodern animism’ which emerged from the fusion of a critique of modernity with the intangible cultural heritage of grassroots Japan. Postmodern animism is a philosophy that sees nature as a combination of the life-world and the spiritual-world thus enabling us to engage with climate change and the COVID-19 pandemic in a radically different way. It helps us to conceive a new paradigm that is more suitable for the Anthropocene.
To explore the potential of incorporating personally meaningful rituals as a spiritual resource for Western secular palliative care settings. Spiritual care is recognized as critical to palliative care; however, comprehensive interventions are lacking. In postmodern societies, the decline of organized religion has left many people identifying as “no religion” or “spiritual but not religious.” To assess if ritual could provide appropriate and ethical spiritual care for this growing demographic requires comprehensive understanding of the spiritual state and needs of the secular individual in postmodern society, as well as a theoretical understanding of the elements and mechanisms of ritual. The aim of this paper is to provide a comprehensive and theoretically informed exploration of these elements through a critical engagement with heterogeneous literatures.
Methods
A hermeneutic narrative review, inspired by complexity theory, underpinned by a view of understanding of spiritual needs as a complex mind–body phenomenon embedded in sociohistorical context.
Results
This narrative review highlights a fundamental spiritual need in postmodern post-Christian secularism as need for embodied spiritual experience. The historical attrition of ritual in Western culture parallels loss of embodied spiritual experience. Ritual as a mind–body practice can provide an embodied spiritual resource. The origin of ritual is identified as evolutionary adaptive ritualized behaviors universally observed in animals and humans which develop emotional regulation and conceptual cognition. Innate human behaviors of creativity, play, and communication develop ritual. Mechanisms of ritual allow for connection to others as well as to the sacred and transcendent.
Significance of results
Natural and innate behaviors of humans can be used to create rituals for personally meaningful spiritual resources. Understanding the physical properties and mechanisms of ritual making allows anyone to build their own spiritual resources without need of relying on experts or institutionalized programs. This can provide a self-empowering, client-centered intervention for spiritual care.
Teaching death, spirituality, and palliative care equips students with critical skills and perspectives for holistic patient care. This interdisciplinary approach fosters empathy, resilience, and personal growth while enhancing competence in end-of-life care. Using experiential methods like simulations and real patient interactions, educators bridge theory and practice. Integrating theological insights and inclusive-pluralism encourages meaningful dialogue, preparing students to address patients’ physical, emotional, and spiritual needs. This holistic pedagogy not only improves patient outcomes but also promotes collaboration and compassion in healthcare.
Moral injury is the profound psychological distress that can arise from exposure to extreme events that violate an individual’s moral or ethical code; for example, participating in, witnessing, or being subjected to behaviours that harm, betray or fail to help others. Given that the experience of moral transgression is inherent to moral injury-related post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), it is important to consider patients’ religious beliefs and formulate how these may interact with their distress. In this article we describe how to adapt cognitive therapy for PTSD (CT-PTSD) to treat patients presenting with moral injury-related PTSD, who identify as religious. Anonymised case examples are presented to illustrate how to adapt CT-PTSD to integrate patient’s religious beliefs and address moral conflicts and transgressions. Practical and reflective considerations are also discussed, including how a therapist’s personal beliefs may interact with how they position themselves in the work.
Key learning aims
(1) To understand the importance of patients’ religious beliefs in the context of moral injury-related distress.
(2) To understand how patients’ religious beliefs can be integrated into Ehlers and Clark’s (2000) model when working with moral injury-related PTSD.
(3) To offer practical adaptations for CT-PTSD to integrate patients’ religious beliefs and practices, including how to set up a consultation with a religious expert in therapy.
(4) To aid therapist reflection on how their personal beliefs interact with how they position themselves in therapeutic work with religious patients.
This chapter focuses on the political commitments of the Cénacle, a group of authors whose writings appeared in Haitian print culture in the 1830s. Among the Cénacle’s political aims was the development of a unique national literature structured around a democratic romanticization of Black and Indigenous figures. While scholars have traditionally historicized the Haitian Cénacle as merely imitative of French romanticism, this chapter argues that the writings of the Cénacle instead reveal the limitations of idealized European romantic citizenship. In particular, Haitian romanticism’s engagement with Vodou, and specifically Vodou as practiced by women and gender fluid people, offers a different way of imagining collective historical memory, albeit one that cannot be fully embraced by the writers of the Cénacle. Through readings of Haitian print culture, this chapter demonstrates how the Cénacle mobilized Haitian Vodou practices in order to reshape the nation’s political future, and in doing so, attends to the unnamed Vodouwizans abandoned in the margins of romantic history.
The coronavirus pandemic has caused concern in the community, especially in patients. Spirituality, hopelessness, and quality of life have an impact on the management of the process in cancer patients during these crisis periods. To investigate COVID-19 anxiety’s mediating role in hopelessness’ relationships with the quality of life and spiritual well-being among cancer patients.
Methods
This study used a cross-sectional design to collect data from cancer patients using self-administered questionnaires. The study recruited 176 cancer patients receiving treatment at a university hospital. The participants completed measures of spiritual well-being, COVID-19 anxiety, hopelessness, and quality of life. Following preliminary analyses, a mediation model was analyzed using the PROCESS macro for SPSS, with the bootstrap method applied (model 4).
Results
The results showed that spiritual well-being was negatively associated with COVID-19 anxiety and hopelessness, and positively associated with the quality of life. COVID-19 anxiety was associated positively with hopelessness, and negatively with the quality of life. Moreover, COVID-19 anxiety mediated the relationship between hopelessness, spiritual well-being, and quality of life.
Significance of results
This study provides evidence for COVID-19 anxiety’s mediating role in the relationship between spiritual well-being and quality of life and hopelessness among cancer patients. The findings suggest that interventions aimed at reducing COVID-19 anxiety may be effective in reducing hopelessness among cancer patients, by promoting higher levels of spiritual well-being and improving quality of life.
Many of the greatest minds in psychology have tried to unravel the mysteries, power, appeal, and consequences of religion. The task of understanding human behaviour will never be complete without the use of science and logic to examine the psychology of religion and spirituality. This undergraduate textbook provides an engaging and accessible tour of the field, drawing on historical, theoretical, and cutting-edge sources. It explores the origins and meaning of various forms of religious belief around the globe, with enhanced coverage of non-Christian religions, non-believers, and diverse populations. By focusing on the personal, medical, moral, social, and political consequences of religion, it explores how these findings can be applied in real-world scenarios. Students are supported by clear learning objectives, defined key concepts, varied end-of-chapter questions, further reading suggestions, and visual content, making this an invaluable resource for undergraduates in the psychology of religion and spirituality.
In recent decades, scientific efforts to probe religious behavior and mental states have increased markedly in quantity and sophistication, yet the fascinating story of the psychology of religion remains unfamiliar not only to the general public, but also to many social scientists. This chapter starts with case studies of how religion has functioned in several prominent human lives. We consider why the psychology of religion matters and delve deeply into the many problems associated with defining religion, spirituality and the psychology of religion. The psychology of religion probes religious beliefs, attitudes, behaviors, emotions, experiences, and relationships, paying particular attention to the consequences of religion for health, well-being, morality and social relations. Scholars debate: (1) the importance of the field’s history and grand theories, (2) the acceptability of the historical emphasis on Western Christianity, (3) the generalizability of much empirical work, (4) the meaning of spirituality outside of religion, and (5) whether the discipline is biased in favor of or against religion.
How do invocations of history inform speculative discourses in Western astrology? This article examines how events from the recorded past factor into predictive forecasts among professional astrologers for whom celestial patterns are indicative of shifting and evolving world-historical trends. Drawing on examples from prominent voices in the North American astrology community, across a range of commercial and social media platforms, I outline the parameters of what I call “astrological historicity,” a temporal orientation guided by archetypal principles closely associated with New Age metaphysics and psychodynamic theories of the self. I argue that while such sensibilities reinforce an ethos of therapeutic spirituality, they are not so narrowly individualistic as to preclude social and political considerations. Astrological historicity is at times a vehicle for culturally resonant expressions of historical consciousness, including critical awareness of historical legacies of racial and social injustice that directly link the past to the present and foreseeable future. Furthermore, while astrological accounts of history emulate aspects of modern historicism, including its orientation toward linear temporality and developmental themes, they rely on a nonlinear framework predicated on recurring cycles, correspondences, and synchronicities, bringing a complex heterotemporality to bear on world-historical circumstances. In seeking to understand the moral and political entailments of this area of occult knowledge production, this article aims to shed light on astrology’s cultural appeal not just as popular entertainment, spirituality, or therapy, but as an intellectual and cultural resource for many people searching for ways to express their frustration and disillusionment with reigning political-economic systems and authorities.
How do we best see and understand the art of late antiquity? One of the perceived challenges of so doing is that this is a period whose visual production has been defined as stylistically abstract and emotionally spiritual, and therefore elusive. But this is a perception which – in her path-breaking new book – Sarah Bassett boldly challenges, offering two novel lines of interpretative inquiry. She first argues, by focusing on the art of late antiquity in late nineteenth-century Viennese intellectual and artistic circles, that that period's definition of late antique form was in fact a response to contemporaneous political concerns, anticipating modernist thinking and artistic practice. She then suggests that late antique viewers never actually abandoned a sense of those mimetic goals that characterized Greek and Roman habits of representation. This interpretative shift is transformative because it allows us to understand the full range and richness of late antique visual experience.
To identify and map spiritual care interventions to address spiritual needs and alleviate suffering of patients in the context of palliative care.
Methods
A scoping review using the PRISMA ScR (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic reviews and Meta-Analyses extension for Scoping Reviews) checklist was conducted according to the JBI (Joanna Briggs Institute) guidelines. The search was conducted from October 2022 to January 2023 using 9 electronic databases and gray literature. Studies on spiritual care interventions in palliative care were included. Disagreements between the 2 reviewers were resolved by discussion or a third reviewer.
Results
A total of 47 studies were included in this review. All selected articles were published between 2003 and 2022. In total, 8 types of spiritual care interventions were identified to assess spiritual needs and/or alleviate suffering: conversations between the patient and a team member, religious practice interventions, therapeutic presence, guided music therapy, multidisciplinary interventions, guided meditation, art therapy, and combined interventions with multiple components such as music, art, integrative therapy, and reflection.
Significance of results
Our study identified few spiritual care interventions in palliative care worldwide. Although this review noted a gradual increase in studies, there is a need to improve the reporting quality of spiritual care interventions, so they can be replicated in other contexts. The different interventions identified in this review can be a contribution to palliative care teams as they provide a basis for what is currently being done internationally to alleviate suffering in palliative care and what can be improved. No patient or public contribution was required to design or undertake this methodological research.
People from LGBTQ+ communities are more likely than the general population to use alcohol and drugs and to be diagnosed with substance use disorder. LGBTQ+ individuals often do not seek or receive the substance use treatment that they need. We explore the substance use treatment trends of the LGBTQ+ population, including the efficacy of current evidence-based practices and group treatments for use with LGBTQ+ clients with substance use disorders. We then discuss the influence of spirituality in the lives of recovering LGBTQ+ individuals, define characteristics of LGBTQ+ affirmative relapse prevention, and provide a sample LGBTQ+ relapse prevention plan. We conclude with a theoretical case vignette.
The nature of religions, why they cannot really be distinguished from culture and other ideological products, and what the political implications are, including regarding the “separation of church and State.”
This chapter argues that a generation of poets substantially defined and transformed Australian literature following World War II. Accessing European and Asian poets in translation, they countered previous insularity and anti-intellectualism. The chapter examines Douglas Stewart’s sympathetic treatment of Aborigines and Afghans in “The Birdsville Track” (1955) alongside aspects of cultural appropriation in his later Rutherford (1962). It outlines the influence of painting on Rosemary Dobson and her development of ekphrasis. The chapter also discusses James McAuley’s investigation of war, love, and spirituality, Vincent Buckley’s devotional writing, and David Campbell’s writing of war, urban excess, and Aboriginal rock art. The chapter outlines a generational turn to explorer narratives to shore up a sense of national identity, pointing to significant variations from McAuley’s awareness of colonial violence to Francis Webb’s focus on doomed figures. The chapter includes an analysis of Webb’s representation of war and mental health, and engages with the provocative poetry of A. D. Hope.