PHIL 339 Intro Phil of Science, UO Philosophy Dept, Winter 2018
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Taoist Ways to Transorm You Life
Special Taoist Healing Arts Retreat December 16-22, 2012 Taoist Ways to Transform Your Life Grandmaster Mantak Chia & Dr. David Twicken Chinese Astrology Qi Gong Inner Alchemy Feng Shui Qi Men Dun Jia 30-CEUs approved by the California Acupuncture Board and accepted by NCCAOM Join Grandmaster Mantak Chia and Dr. David Twicken in the magnificent mountains of Thailand for a special Taoist healing retreat. At the foothill of the Himalayan mountains is an oasis called Tao Garden. Its purpose is to provide a place for people from all the world to learn and practice healing arts to enhance their physical, emotional and spiritual well being in a natural and supportive setting. Supported by clean mountain air, natural water, organic fruits and vegetables and like- minded people, this retreat is a unique opportunity to increase your vitality and health with the Taoist healing arts. The ancient Chinese understood the inseparable nature of heaven, humanity and earth and called this unity the Three Treasures. In this unique workshop Grandmaster Chia and Dr. Twicken will present how to use Taoist practices to enhance your three treasures: your physical, emotional and spiritual life. You will learn about a Chinese Astrology birth chart and natural healing methods to balance your body, mind and spirit. The Chinese astrology chart, which is called the four pillars, is a roadmap of your life. This workshop is for anybody that would like to learn how to use Taoist healing methods for self-healing and healing others. Chinese astrology reflects the heaven treasure. It is a blueprint of your life. -
Strategies of Defending Astrology: a Continuing Tradition
Strategies of Defending Astrology: A Continuing Tradition by Teri Gee A thesis submitted in conformity with the requirements for the degree of Doctorate of Philosophy Institute for the History and Philosophy of Science and Technology University of Toronto © Copyright by Teri Gee (2012) Strategies of Defending Astrology: A Continuing Tradition Teri Gee Doctorate of Philosophy Institute for the History and Philosophy of Science and Technology University of Toronto 2012 Abstract Astrology is a science which has had an uncertain status throughout its history, from its beginnings in Greco-Roman Antiquity to the medieval Islamic world and Christian Europe which led to frequent debates about its validity and what kind of a place it should have, if any, in various cultures. Written in the second century A.D., Ptolemy’s Tetrabiblos is not the earliest surviving text on astrology. However, the complex defense given in the Tetrabiblos will be treated as an important starting point because it changed the way astrology would be justified in Christian and Muslim works and the influence Ptolemy’s presentation had on later works represents a continuation of the method introduced in the Tetrabiblos. Abû Ma‘shar’s Kitâb al- Madkhal al-kabîr ilâ ‘ilm ahk. âm al-nujûm, written in the ninth century, was the most thorough surviving defense from the Islamic world. Roger Bacon’s Opus maius, although not focused solely on advocating astrology, nevertheless, does contain a significant defense which has definite links to the works of both Abû Ma‘shar and Ptolemy. As such, he demonstrates another stage in the development of astrology. -
Paranormal Beliefs: Using Survey Trends from the USA to Suggest a New Area of Research in Asia
Asian Journal for Public Opinion Research - ISSN 2288-6168 (Online) 279 Vol. 2 No.4 August 2015: 279-306 http://dx.doi.org/10.15206/ajpor.2015.2.4.279 Paranormal Beliefs: Using Survey Trends from the USA to Suggest a New Area of Research in Asia Jibum Kim1 Sungkyunkwan University, Republic of Korea Cory Wang Nick Nuñez NORC at the University of Chicago, USA Sori Kim Sungkyunkwan University, Republic of Korea Tom W. Smith NORC at the University of Chicago, USA Neha Sahgal Pew Research Center, USA Abstract Americans continue to have beliefs in the paranormal, for example in UFOs, ghosts, haunted houses, and clairvoyance. Yet, to date there has not been a systematic gathering of data on popular beliefs about the paranormal, and the question of whether or not there is a convincing trend in beliefs about the paranormal remains to be explored. Public opinion polling on paranormal beliefs shows that these beliefs have remained stable over time, and in some cases have in fact increased. Beliefs in ghosts (25% in 1990 to 32% in 2005) and haunted houses (29% in 1990, 37% in 2001) have all increased while beliefs in clairvoyance (26% in 1990 and 2005) and astrology as scientific (31% in 2006, 32% in 2014) have remained stable. Belief in UFOs (50%) is highest among all paranormal beliefs. Our findings show that people continue to hold beliefs about the paranormal despite their lack of grounding in science or religion. Key Words: Paranormal beliefs, ghosts, astrology, UFOs, clairvoyance 1 All correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Jibum Kim at Department of Sociology, Sungkyunkwan University, 25-2 Sungkyunkwan-ro, Jongno-gu, Seoul, 110-745, Republic of Korea or by email at [email protected]. -
![Archons (Commanders) [NOTICE: They Are NOT Anlien Parasites], and Then, in a Mirror Image of the Great Emanations of the Pleroma, Hundreds of Lesser Angels](https://docslib.b-cdn.net/cover/8862/archons-commanders-notice-they-are-not-anlien-parasites-and-then-in-a-mirror-image-of-the-great-emanations-of-the-pleroma-hundreds-of-lesser-angels-438862.webp)
Archons (Commanders) [NOTICE: They Are NOT Anlien Parasites], and Then, in a Mirror Image of the Great Emanations of the Pleroma, Hundreds of Lesser Angels
A R C H O N S HIDDEN RULERS THROUGH THE AGES A R C H O N S HIDDEN RULERS THROUGH THE AGES WATCH THIS IMPORTANT VIDEO UFOs, Aliens, and the Question of Contact MUST-SEE THE OCCULT REASON FOR PSYCHOPATHY Organic Portals: Aliens and Psychopaths KNOWLEDGE THROUGH GNOSIS Boris Mouravieff - GNOSIS IN THE BEGINNING ...1 The Gnostic core belief was a strong dualism: that the world of matter was deadening and inferior to a remote nonphysical home, to which an interior divine spark in most humans aspired to return after death. This led them to an absorption with the Jewish creation myths in Genesis, which they obsessively reinterpreted to formulate allegorical explanations of how humans ended up trapped in the world of matter. The basic Gnostic story, which varied in details from teacher to teacher, was this: In the beginning there was an unknowable, immaterial, and invisible God, sometimes called the Father of All and sometimes by other names. “He” was neither male nor female, and was composed of an implicitly finite amount of a living nonphysical substance. Surrounding this God was a great empty region called the Pleroma (the fullness). Beyond the Pleroma lay empty space. The God acted to fill the Pleroma through a series of emanations, a squeezing off of small portions of his/its nonphysical energetic divine material. In most accounts there are thirty emanations in fifteen complementary pairs, each getting slightly less of the divine material and therefore being slightly weaker. The emanations are called Aeons (eternities) and are mostly named personifications in Greek of abstract ideas. -
Claudius Ptolemy: Tetrabiblos
CLAUDIUS PTOLEMY: TETRABIBLOS OR THE QUADRIPARTITE MATHEMATICAL TREATISE FOUR BOOKS OF THE INFLUENCE OF THE STARS TRANSLATED FROM THE GREEK PARAPHRASE OF PROCLUS BY J. M. ASHMAND London, Davis and Dickson [1822] This version courtesy of http://www.classicalastrologer.com/ Revised 04-09-2008 Foreword It is fair to say that Claudius Ptolemy made the greatest single contribution to the preservation and transmission of astrological and astronomical knowledge of the Classical and Ancient world. No study of Traditional Astrology can ignore the importance and influence of this encyclopaedic work. It speaks not only of the stars, but of a distinct cosmology that prevailed until the 18th century. It is easy to jeer at someone who thinks the earth is the cosmic centre and refers to it as existing in a sublunary sphere. However, our current knowledge tells us that the universe is infinite. It seems to me that in an infinite universe, any given point must be the centre. Sometimes scientists are not so scientific. The fact is, it still applies to us for our purposes and even the most rational among us do not refer to sunrise as earth set. It practical terms, the Moon does have the most immediate effect on the Earth which is, after all, our point of reference. She turns the tides, influences vegetative growth and the menstrual cycle. What has become known as the Ptolemaic Universe, consisted of concentric circles emanating from Earth to the eighth sphere of the Fixed Stars, also known as the Empyrean. This cosmology is as spiritual as it is physical. -
Documents on Dowsing Rods and Pendula
11/20/40 G/G/ 1 To the Head of the Sicherheitspolizei and the SD Berlin SW 68 Wilhelm St. 102 Re: Documents on Dowsing Rods and Pendula Ref: Letter from August 13 1940 III A 5 Sr./DOE Z 9640 The leader of the Research Center for Applied Geology in the “Ahnenerbe”, Professor Josef Wimmer, appointed by the Reichsführer-SS, was called upon to provide an assessment of the confiscation of documents published by Verlag I Huber in Diessen, Munich on the topic of dowsing rods and pendula as well as astrology. Fundamentally, the following can be said on the above-mentioned documents: 1) Due to research of the last years, the veil of mystery has been lifted from the dowsing rod phenomenon and the dowsing reaction has shifted from the state of the occult to that of the physically comprehensible. With this progress it is possible that the path to revealing the actual physical causes of the phenomena of the so-called sidereal pendulum is no longer so long and difficult. 2) The entire literature on dowsing rods and pendula contains without a doubt many observations that are either false, distorted by observational mistakes, or only partially correct – in particular, the attempts at explanation and countless theories are often arbitrary, fantastical and physically indefensible. The same literature contains however also at least as many observations which have proven today to be correct and physically explainable and therefore constitute nonetheless a valuable contribution to the entirety of observational material on dowsing rod and pendulum questions. The task of the dowsing rod and pendulum research will be to sift through this literature and to separate the usable from the worthless. -
As Above, So Below. Astrology and the Inquisition in Seventeenth-Century New Spain
Department of History and Civilization As Above, So Below. Astrology and the Inquisition in Seventeenth-Century New Spain Ana Avalos Thesis submitted for assessment with a view to obtaining the degree of Doctor of History and Civilization of the European University Institute Florence, February 2007 EUROPEAN UNIVERSITY INSTITUTE Department of History and Civilization As Above, So Below. Astrology and the Inquisition in Seventeenth-Century New Spain Ana Avalos Thesis submitted for assessment with a view to obtaining the degree of Doctor of History and Civilization of the European University Institute Examining Board: Prof. Peter Becker, Johannes-Kepler-Universität Linz Institut für Neuere Geschichte und Zeitgeschichte (Supervisor) Prof. Víctor Navarro Brotons, Istituto de Historia de la Ciencia y Documentación “López Piñero” (External Supervisor) Prof. Antonella Romano, European University Institute Prof. Perla Chinchilla Pawling, Universidad Iberoamericana © 2007, Ana Avalos No part of this thesis may be copied, reproduced or transmitted without prior permission of the author A Bernardo y Lupita. ‘That which is above is like that which is below and that which is below is like that which is above, to achieve the wonders of the one thing…’ Hermes Trismegistus Contents Acknowledgements 4 Abbreviations 5 Introduction 6 1. The place of astrology in the history of the Scientific Revolution 7 2. The place of astrology in the history of the Inquisition 13 3. Astrology and the Inquisition in seventeenth-century New Spain 17 Chapter 1. Early Modern Astrology: a Question of Discipline? 24 1.1. The astrological tradition 27 1.2. Astrological practice 32 1.3. Astrology and medicine in the New World 41 1.4. -
Chinese Animal Predictions for 2021. Year of the Yin Metal Ox (Xin Chou)
Chinese Animal Predictions for 2021. Year of the Yin Metal Ox (Xin Chou) What does 2021 have in store for you? © Written by Daniel Hanna October 2020 “We will open the book. Its pages are blank. We are going to put words on them ourselves. The book is called Opportunity and its first chapter is New Year's Day.” The Chinese New Year begins a new cycle of the twelve Chinese zodiac animals and in 2021, this will be the year of the Yin Metal Ox. A change in the Cycle will usually bring a fresh start for the year ahead with hope and promise for some form of success; some animals will face more challenges than others in 2021 although each of the twelve animals will be able to make this a promising year ahead once they are aware of any challenges that may come their way. Everyone in the world was faced with big challenges in 2020 and unfortunately, it is more than likely that this will continue through a lot of 2021, bringing health and financial issues to a large number of the world’s population. The year of the Ox will almost likely come with its share of challenges although it is how we handle obstacles that will define how our year will turn out; all of the twelve Chinese animals have everything in their power to overcome any challenges and make this a successful year and when aware of potential risks, they can minimise and even avoid them during the year of the Ox so please read carefully below. -
The Humanities in Deconstruction: Raising the Question of the Post-Colonial University
ACCESS: CONTEMPORARY ISSUES IN EDUCATION 2007, VOL. 26, NO. 1, 1–10 The humanities in deconstruction: Raising the question of the post-colonial university Michael A. Peters University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign ABSTRACT Derrida is, perhaps, the foremost philosopher of the humanities and of its place in the university. Over the long period of his career he has been concerned with the fate, status, place and contribution of the humanities. Through his deconstructive readings and writings he has done much not only to reinvent the Western tradition by attending closely to those texts which constitute it but also he has redefined its procedures and protocols, questioning and commenting upon the relationship between commentary and interpretation, the practice of quotation, the delimitation of a work and its singularity, its signature, and its context – the whole form of life of literary culture, together with textual practices and conventions that shape it. From his very early work he has occupied a marginal in-between space – simultaneously, textual, literary, philosophical, and political – a space that permitted him a freedom to question, to speculate and to draw new limits to humanitas. Derrida has demonstrated his power to reconceptualise and to reimagine the humanities in the space of the contemporary university. This paper discusses Derrida’s tasks for the new humanities (Trifonas & Peters, 2005). 1. Fundamentalisms and the need for a deconstructive humanities An appreciation of Derrida’s work can shed light on the growth and clash -
John Worsdale and Thomas Oxley
Placidean teachings in early nineteenth-century Britain: John Worsdale and Thomas Oxley Martin Gansten Abstract John Worsdale (1766 – c. 1826) has been described as something of a historical anomaly, perhaps the last representative of a dying astrological tradition, struggling uselessly against the rising tide of modernity. While this may be true with regard to the natural philosophy underpinning his view of how and why astrology works, Worsdale’s actual practices place him rather in the vanguard of an emerging modern astrology characterized by a modified Placideanism. Although the first stirrings of Placidean teachings were felt in Britain towards the end of the 17th century, they gained firm ground only after the subsequent hiatus of judicial astrology spanning most of the 18th. This paper examines the British adoption and transformation of the doctrines of Placidus, particularly as evinced in the writings of John Worsdale and those of his junior contemporary and occasional critic, Thomas Oxley (1789 – 1851). he history of modern astrology arguably begins in Italy, where, in 1650, the T Olivetan monk and professor of mathematics Placido de Titi (better known as Placidus, 1603 – 1668) published his Physiomathematica sive coelestis philosophia, ‘Physiomathematics or celestial philosophy’.1 According to his perhaps most famous statement, Placidus ‘desired no other guides but Ptolemy and Reason’.2 Ptolemy’s Tetrabiblos being a most incomplete guide for a practising astrologer, the proportion of Placidus’ own reason in the resulting system was, for better or worse, correspondingly 1 Also known as Quaestionum physiomathematicarum libri tres, ‘Three books on physiomathematical questions’ and first published under the pseudonym Didacus Prittus Pelusiensis – pace Lynn Thorndike, who, in A history of magic and experimental science, vol. -
Newton's Theory Predicts Orbits of Planets/Comets
Newton’s Theory Predicts Orbits of Planets/Comets A Problem: Mercury’s Orbit Not Perfect NOT PREDICTED BY NEWTON Prediction: Another Planet – “Vulcan” – inside Mercury’s Orbit NEVER OBSERVED! A New Theory of Gravity: General Relativity Einstein A New Theory of Gravity: General Relativity Mass “warps” spacetime. This is a 2 dimensional analogy Prediction: Einstein’s Theory of Gravity Evidence for General Relativity : Gravitational Lens Is General Relativity the final Theory of Gravity? A Second Example of a Scientific Theory : Evolution Modern Humans and other primates (i.e. Chimpanzees and Gorillas) evolved from a common ancestor several million years ago. Genetic Evidence for Human Evolution: Human Chromosome 2 23 Other primates have 24 pairs of chromosomes but Humans only have 23. How can we be genetically related? The answer: Human chromosome 2 is a fusion of two chromosomes from a common ancestor Pseudoscience Example of Astrology The ancient belief that the Sun, Moon, and the planets affect human behavior and personality Astrology is NOT the same as Astronomy Astrology • Claims to study how the positions of the Sun, Moon, & planets among the stars influence human behavior • Started by Babylonians 1000 BC, was a driving force which advanced ancient astronomy • Kepler & Galileo were the last astronomers to cast horoscopes… since then astronomy grew apart from astrology into a modern science • All modern scientific tests of astrology fail… it is a pseudoscience Astrology (cont) • Is a $200M per year business, in at least 1000 newspapers, with 10,000 practicing astrologers • Uses astronomical information, but has critical and subjective step of interpretation • Has failed many published statistical tests with samples of thousands of people • Failed a famous test by Gauquelin, who found no match of star signs and profession. -
The Case of Astrology –
The relation between paranormal beliefs and psychological traits: The case of Astrology – Brief report Antonis Koutsoumpis Department of Behavioral and Social Sciences, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam Author Note Antonis Koutsoumpis ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9242-4959 OSF data: https://osf.io/62yfj/?view_only=c6bf948a5f3e4f5a89ab9bdd8976a1e2 I have no conflicts of interest to disclose Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to: De Boelelaan 1105, 1081HV Amsterdam, The Netherlands. Email: [email protected] The present manuscript briefly reports and makes public data collected in the spring of 2016 as part of my b-thesis at the University of Crete, Greece. The raw data, syntax, and the Greek translation of scales and tasks are publicly available at the OSF page of the project. An extended version of the manuscript (in Greek), is available upon request. To the best of my knowledge, this is the first public dataset on the astrological and paranormal beliefs in Greek population. Introduction The main goal of this work was to test the relation between Astrological Belief (AB) to a plethora of psychological constructs. To avoid a very long task, the study was divided into three separate studies independently (but simultaneously) released. Study 1 explored the relation between AB, Locus of Control, Optimism, and Openness to Experience. Study 2 tested two astrological hypotheses (the sun-sign and water-sign effects), and explored the relation between personality, AB, and zodiac signs. Study 3 explored the relation between AB and paranormal beliefs. Recruitment followed both a snowball procedure and it was also posted in social media groups of various Greek university departments.