Though the relation of spirituality to self has long been recognized in established spiritual and religious systems, serious scientific interest in spirituality and its relation to identity has only started to grow in the past 20 years. This paper overviews the literature on spirituality and identity. Particular attention is given to describing and critiquing conventional and transpersonal perspectives with emphasis given to empirically testable theories. Using MacDonald’s five dimensional model of spirituality, a structural model of spirituality is proposed as is (...) a model of spiritual identity formation. (shrink)

1 Evidence-based policy requires researchers to provide the answers to ecological questions that are of interest to policy makers. To find out what those questions are in the UK, representatives from 28 organizations involved in policy, together with scientists from 10 academic institutions, were asked to generate a list of questions from their organizations. 2 During a 2-day workshop the initial list of 1003 questions generated from consulting at least 654 policy makers and academics was used as a basis for (...) generating a short list of 100 questions of significant policy relevance. Short-listing was decided on the basis of the preferences of the representatives from the policy-led organizations. 3 The areas covered included most major issues of environmental concern in the UK, including agriculture, marine fisheries, climate change, ecosystem function and land management. 4 The most striking outcome was the preference for general questions rather than narrow ones. The reason is that policy is driven by broad issues rather than specific ones. In contrast, scientists are frequently best equipped to answer specific questions. This means that it may be necessary to extract the underpinning specific question before researchers can proceed. 5 Synthesis and applications. Greater communication between policy makers and scientists is required in order to ensure that applied ecologists are dealing with issues in a way that can feed into policy. It is particularly important that applied ecologists emphasize the generic value of their work wherever possible. (shrink)

fusion theory challenges efforts to see theory as inhibiting by presenting an approach that is innovative, eclectic, and subtle in order to draw out competing and constellating ideas and opinions. This collected volume of essays examines fusion theory and demonstrates how the theory can be applied to the reading of various works of Indian English novelists.

This paper discusses certain parallels between the work of Jean Gebser, the European philosopher and student of consciousness, and A Course in Miracles , a contemporary spiritual system. More specifically, it 1) establishes parallels between Gebser’s conception of the ego, especially its basis in anger, and the ego according to ACIM, and 2) shows how a forgiveness exercise may lead to a time-free present, called in ACIM, “The Holy Instant.”.

Using a sample of 296 university students, this study examined the reliability and factorial validity of the Death Transcendence Scale using Confirmatory Factor Analysis. Reliability analyses found that with the exclusion of one item from the Nature subscale, all five DTS subscales showed satisfactory reliability. A CFA completed to test the goodness of fit of a correlated five-factor model produced mostly positive support for the test, though there were some indications of poor fit. Initial revisions to the model did not (...) result in substantive improvement of overall fit in a second CFA. In response to the perception of item content manifesting some degree of overlap and redundancy, the authors elected to shorten all subscales by only retaining items with high corrected item-to-subscale total correlations. A CFA of the 15-item test produced notably stronger fit statistics for the overall model but found evidence that the subscales are not ubiquitously intercorrelated. The article concludes with a brief discussion of the meaning and implications of the study and directions for future research. (shrink)

In this book MacDonald guides his reader through Luke-Acts from beginning to end to identify and interpret the author’s imitations of classical Greek poetry, arguing that Luke’s two-volume work was a prose epic to provide his readers with a foundation myth for the new social reality that the Christian Church had become.