This chapter extends biogenetic structural theory to a consideration of the biopsychological principles underlying higher phases of consciousness, particularly those attained by the systematic exploration of consciousness called contemplation. The concepts of psychic energy, flow, centeredness, energy circulation, and dreambody are explored as presented in various mystical traditions, and a model of the underlying neurophysiology is presented in terms of ergotropic-trophotropic tuning. The psychophysiology of various forms of meditation together with emergent peak experiences is examined and integrated into the ergotropic-trophotropic (...) tuning model. Structural invariance of ergotropic-trophotropic tuning as well as invariant aspects of contemplation across different cultures and associated with different symbol systems is considered. Finally the nature and implications of Void Consciousness, God Consciousness, or Abssolute Unitary Being are examined. (shrink)

Research shows that the physician’s personal attributes and social characteristics have a strong association with their end-of-life decision making. Despite efforts to increase patient, family and surrogate input into EOL decision making, research shows the physician’s input to be dominant. Our research finds that physician’s social values, independent of religiosity, have a significant association with physician’s tendency to withhold or withdraw life sustaining, EOL treatments. It is suggested that physicians employ personal social values in their EOL medical coping, because they (...) have to cope with existential dilemmas posed by the mystery of death, and left unresolved by medical decision making mechanisms such as advanced directives and hospital ethics committees. (shrink)

Gilles Deleuze is now regarded as one of the most radical philosophers of the twentieth century. His work is hugely influential across a range of subjects, from philosophy to literature, to art, architecture and cultural studies. _Gilles Deleuze: Key Concepts_ provides a guide to Deleuzian thought for any reader coming to his writings for the first time. This new edition is fully revised and updated and includes three new chapters on the event, psychoanalysis and philosophy.

The Belmont Report’s distinction between research and the practice of accepted therapy has led various authors to suggest that these purportedly distinct activities should be governed by different ethical principles. We consider some of the ethical consequences of attempts to separate the two and conclude that separation fails along ontological, ethical, and epistemological dimensions. Clinical practice and clinical research, as with yin and yang, can be thought of as complementary forces interacting to form a dynamic system in which the whole (...) exceeds the sum of its parts. Just as effective clinical practice cannot exist without clinical research, meaningful clinical research requires the context of clinical practice. We defend this thesis by triangulation, that is, by outlining how multiple investigators have reached this conclusion on the basis of varied theoretical and applied approaches. More confidence can be placed in a result if different methods/viewpoints have led to that result. (shrink)

Identifying what the differences are or ought to be between Catholic health care organizations and their non-Catholic counterparts is the subject of great debate. The author responds to the essays in this volume by Dennis Brodeur, Clarke E. Cochran and Christopher J. Kauffman, each of which represents a different perspective in the discussion of what is unique about Catholic health care.

The second volume of companion books on comparative student discipline identifies the best practices in dealing with student misconduct, on six continents, in a legally sound manner.

Pressures to contain budgets and provide cost‐effective care are widespread in the American health care system, no less in psychiatry than elsewhere. The ethical implications of such economically motivated trends, however, become even more important in the area of psychiatric medicine.

The author starts from the traditional American notion that technology might offer a way to decrease the horror and suffering of warfare. He points out that historically this assumption is flawed in that past technological advances, from gunpowder weapons to bombers, have only made warfare more--not less--bloody. With a relentless logic, Colonel Dunlap takes to task those who say that the Revolution in Military Affairs has the potential to make war less bloody. He covers the technological landscape from precision-guided munitions (...) and Information Warfare to the use of space for military operations to raise issues that could pose difficult ethical, legal and moral problems for statesmen and soldiers. Some of these conundrums are so confounding that the author could claim that in all humility his only purpose was to raise these issues to prompt debate. But Colonel Dunlap takes the next step to outline several broad thematic avenues that may help us all address the difficult problems that lie ahead. (shrink)

A gathering of more than 120 beautiful color photographs from both professional and amateur photographers captures the timeless splendor of the Ozark region and includes an informative introduction that reviews the history and unique topography of the area. UP.

This article uncovers a hitherto underappreciated aspect of transatlantic cultural history: Moravian late humanism, and its relationship to contemporary intellectual currents in the Americas and the broader Republic of Letters in the age of Benjamin Franklin. To date, the Moravians have attracted the attention of scholars for their novel theological views on gender and sexuality, their unique approach to reconciling piety with profit, their missionary efforts among native populations, their musical culture and their rejection of slavery. Their interactions with the (...) world of transatlantic and global late humanism, however, have not been studied in any systematic way. The present analysis opens and closes with a remarkable but almost unknown Latin oration, delivered in Philadelphia in 1742 by Nicolaus Ludwig von Zinzendorf, to an audience provided with printed copies commissioned from the Franklin Press. A critical edition and an English translation of this work are provided in an appendix. In our article we examine the original European genesis and subsequent transatlantic context of Zinzendorf’s oration, tracing its development from a formal theological apologia into a quasi-legal statement of the count’s commitment to Moravian values, expressed in an erudite allusory language which left its listeners bemused. As our investigation shows, however, the confusion of the Philadelphia worthies who gathered to hear Zinzendorf ’s oration cannot be put down to a lack of cultural awareness among the leading missionaries and settlers from Germany and Denmark, many of whom partook fully in the contemporary culture of late humanism, both before and after they crossed the Atlantic. Through detailed reconstructions of their educations, correspondence networks, reading habits and note-taking practices, we show the richness of the Moravians’ transatlantic culture of late humanism, which ran the gamut from Ciceronian oratory to pious poetry in learned languages. Basing our argument on a little-known body of archival and printed sources in Latin, German, English and indigenous languages, we argue that Moravian late humanism had a significant impact on the development and expression of the Moravian church’s unique theology, its missionaries’ study of native languages and their interactions with other groups in the Atlantic world. In so doing, we also place the Moravians in the context of contemporary intellectual life in New England, the Caribbean, Europe and the Catholic world. (shrink)

Development of a vaccine for schistosomiasis, a parasitic disease currently affecting over 200 million people worldwide, has been targeted as a priority by the World Health Organisation. Research demonstrating the ability of humans to acquire natural immunity to schistosome infection, together with the successful use of attenuated vaccines in animals both under laboratory and field conditions, suggest that development of a human vaccine is feasible. Attenuated vaccines for schistosomiasis are considered neither safe nor practicable for human use, however, and therefore (...) other approaches must be considered. This review examines progress currently being undertaken in a number of different areas towards achieving the goal of a safe and effective human vaccine for schistosomiasis. (shrink)

Este ensayo, presentado en la conferencia SPEP 2024 en Rochester, NY (EE. UU.), complementa la charla de Alan Schrift sobre 'Deleuze Universitaire' (que vincula los libros de Deleuze con los temas de los cursos que enseñó y, en particular, con las materias anuales requeridas para preparar el examen nacional de la agrégation en Francia) al estudiar el lado experimental de la enseñanza de Deleuze en la universidad deliberadamente experimental, Vincennes, creada en 1968-69. Dada la importancia de Vincennes en sí misma (...) como un experimento educativo, la enseñanza de Deleuze allí desarrolla un tipo particular de pedagogía que rastreo, tanto durante su tiempo en Vincennes (hasta 1980) como en St. Denis-París 8 hasta su jubilación (1987). Finalmente, considero cómo el trabajo que realizó en estos seminarios constituye la base de varios proyectos en el 'más allá' de la jubilación de Deleuze. (shrink)

That dichotomization is, at least under certain circumstances, a bad idea is not news. A well-known, early example is the biblical story of King Solomon, who used the absurdity of the procedure to help adjudicate a dispute between two women who each claimed to be the mother of a contested child. Solomon reasoned that his proposal to split the child into two, giving half to each woman, would be abhorrent to the real mother, and when one of the women objected (...) while the other thought the proposal was "only fair," the choice between the women was made obvious.Things, however, are not always so clear-cut, and it is not difficult to find arguments that point to the advantages that accrue to those that simplify matters.... (shrink)

It is perhaps most useful to approach the Doctor-Patient relationship (DPR) by admitting that it’s complicated. We review some of the strategies that have been employed to mitigate this complexity, zeroing in on one that promises to capture the main features of the DPR without eliminating some of its more important, existential components; pieces of the puzzle that must be retained if we are to avoid oversimplification and the errors that can arise by ignoring important foundational properties. We believe that (...) a useful way to look at the DPR and to capture essential features that must be balanced in the process is provided by Partnership Theory and its definition in terms of the so-called domination and partnership systems. We apply this theory to the DPR and investigate the implications of this application to health care. We see that in the absence of mitigating circumstances, adoption of the patient-as-partner model serves healthcare well and is flexible enough to accommodate circumstances that dictate modifications. (shrink)

In this essay, we defend the design of the Salk polio vaccine trial and try to put some limits on the role schemata should play in designing clinical research studies. Our presentation is structured as a response to de Freitas and Pietrobon who identified the CONSORT statement as a schema that would have, had it existed at the time, ruled out the design of the Salk polio vaccine trial of 1954 in favor of a completely randomized controlled clinical trial. We (...) argue that large-scale public health interventions often require evidence beyond simple efficacy, the limit of what an RCT can provide, and that the design actually adopted for the Salk trial represented a reasonable—albeit imperfect—compromise. This is of more than historical interest in that many contemporary studies are of the scale and scope to require a more pragmatic, rather than explanatory, approach to study design. (shrink)