A Gāthic Rite? A Critique of the Cosmological Interpretation of the Gāthās I

In the last few decades ritual interpretation of the Gāthās has replaced the biblical one as the dominant paradigm. The emphasis on the central role of ritual in the Avesta is well justified. This realization has given rise to the question of the role and meaning of ritual in the Gāthās. Marijan Molé had tried to argue that the Gāthās in fact describe and accompany a rite whose purpose was the preservation/renovation of the cosmic order. Students of the Gāthās working within the new paradigm have taken up Molé’s general frame. They have tried to show that the Gāthās, collectively or individually, is the text of a particular rite that served, among others, to preserve the cosmic order, especially the daily rise of the sun. The article questions the validity of this thesis. Its focus is on the version of the thesis we find in a number of recent publications by Jean Kellens. He tries to show that the first Gāthā (Ahunauuaitī) describes a unitary pre-dawn ritual that comprised a haoma rite and an animal sacrifice, and had cosmological and eschatological pretensions. His textual analyses and arguments are examined in some detail. The article concludes that Kellens's attempt must be deemed unsuccessful.     

The amplitude of auroral backscatter—I. Model estimates of the dependence on electron density

A model of the auroral backscatter amplitude, in the form discussed by Uspensky and Oksman et al., has been derived for the radar geometry appropriate to joint observations by the PGI auroral radars at Karmaselga and Essoyla and the EISCAT incoherent scatter radar. The model shows how refraction effects cause a strongly non-linear dependence of backscatter amplitude on electron density in the E-region. It also explains why the macro aspect sensitivity for auroral radar operating at a frequency of about 45 MHz is only 1–2 dB per degree for aspect angles greater than 5°.     

On tidal variability and the existence of planetary wave-like oscillations in the upper thermosphere—I. Observations of tidal variability

The evidence for the existence of tidal variability as observed in the meridional thermospheric wind (approx. 300 km height) is presented for a set of eight ionosonde locations (three in the northern hemisphere and five in the southern hemisphere). The data set corresponds to a full year (1984) of hourly values. The detected variability can be seen in the tidal components of the meridional wind. The diurnal and semidiurnal components are spectrally analysed. The quarterly spectra show that the tidal amplitudes oscillate with periods between 2 and 60 days. The more important oscillations have periods from 15 to 3 days. No direct link between solar and magnetic activity indices was detected. Possible reasons for the observed tidal variability are discussed in the light of the current theory developed for the mesosphere and lower thermosphere.     

I Will Return in the Future

OnedayinDecember1987,itwassnowingIwhenI,drivingmyfullyloadedtruck,wasonmywayfromthepastoralareainAmdotoZham.Nepalesebusinesspeoplewerewaitingforme,"saidSilhu,aTibetannowresidinginNepal.IcametoknowSilhuduringthe1999NewYear'sDayCelebrationParty.Thesmallbuilt,andsuntannedman,inhis50s,toldmeofthisexperienceinTibet."Icameacrossadozenhitchhikers,andprovidedthemwitharide."WhenIreachedamountainpass,tuckedawayatanelevationofsome4,000meters,itwas6intheafternoon.Theroadwassoslipperythatmytruck,al…     

The Bishop and the Queen; or,why did the Bishop of Carlisle crown Elizabeth I?

Elizabeth I is one of only a small group of English monarchs to not be crowned by the Archbishop of Canterbury at their coronation: instead, she was crowned by Owen Oglethorpe, the Bishop of Carlisle. The difficulty Elizabeth had finding a bishop to preside at her coronation is often repeated in the scholarship. An assessment of the English episcopacy at the time of the coronation, however, demonstrates that this ‘difficulty’ is overstated: there were at least ten other bishops who could have presided. This article suggests, then, that Elizabeth specifically chose Oglethorpe to preside at her coronation because of their familiarity with each other, and argues that in the absence of evidence to the contrary, Oglethorpe was not ‘coerced’ into presiding, nor was it a mere ‘accident’.     

A numerical model of the ionospheric dynamo—I. Formulation and numerical technique

A new method of numerically solving a suitably formulated ionospheric wind dynamo equation for electrostatic potential and field is developed. Unlike in many other dynamo models, the upper boundary does not exist and the formulation asymptotically approaches the equatorial boundary condition. Therefore, it naturally incorporates the symmetric, asymmetric E- and F-region dynamo actions in any given ionosphere and any given global or local wind field. It also enables the equation to be posed as an initial value problem and solved numerically using an efficient, accurate, stable and fast integration method of ordinary differential equations. The numerical technique can be extended to compute three dimensional dynamo-generated electric currents in the ionosphere.     

Am I going mad?: Adverse meditation events and the anthropology of ethics

There has been growing interest in meditation adversities amongst mindfulness communities in recent years. This article documents US meditator distress upon experiencing incoherence in the eclectic resources supporting their practice. How might the anthropology of ethics consider self-cultivation practices when the traditions supporting them fail due to incoherence? We need further research on moral bricolage to answer that question.     

Meteorological effects in the variations of ionospheric parameters—I. The lower thermosphere

The influence of the troposphere and stratosphere on variations of ionospheric D-region parameters are discussed. It is found that variations of the minimum observable ionosonde frequency (f_min) and horizontal winds are closely related to temperature and pressure fields in the lower atmosphere. Experimental data for the Central Asian and East Siberian U.S.S.R. regions have been used.     

‘According to the Confession in Which I Die’: Taking the Measure of Allegiances in Seventeenth-Century Wilno

Abstract

The range of multiconfessionalism in early modern Wilno (Vilnius) was unusually wide. This was a place where not only Christians, Jews, and Tatars engaged in more and less structured interactions, but where all (including the Jews and the Tatars) had to be ready to negotiate a Christian landscape of five recognized and openly practising confessions: Roman Catholics, Lutherans, Calvinists, Orthodox, and Uniates. The practice of toleration (not to be confused with tolerance) was one of finding a set of habits — some of them implicated in violence, or at least in adversarial relationships — that allowed individuals and communities to co-exist, sometimes cheek by jowl, with people who were hated, or, at the very least, held for incorrigibly pigheaded. My point of departure is the assumption that all had to find some sort of modus vivendi with people beyond their own confession, but that individual Vilnans represented a large spectrum between zealously exclusionary practices and attitudes, at the one extreme, and a sort of protoecumenicism, at the other. Drawing on evidence such as explicit statements in last wills and testaments, ranges of deathbed bequests to religious institutions and individuals, mixed marriages, and godparenting practices, I sketch out a range of individual practices and their underlying attitudes. These data provide material for concluding considerations of the question whether these crossings of confessional limits were symptoms of the ground-level ‘indifferentism’ that some revisionists have sought to establish as a corrective to, and in some cases in opposition to, the top-down etatism of confessionalization paradigms.     

Protecting the Environment of the Qomolangmo

While Man recently celebratedthe 50th anniversary of dwarfingQomolangmo, the world's high-est peak suffered from environ-mental pollution. Statistics show,from May 1953 to the 1990s, themountaineers left behind morethan 50 tons of garbage. Over the past,decade or more,efforts were doubled and redou-bled to clean the environment.However, an increasing number     

‘My voice counts because I’m handsome.’ Democratising the museum: the power of museum participation

Abstract

Participation – where visitors are invited to leave a comment, co-create, or contribute to exhibitions – has been hailed as an opportunity to democratise the museum experience. New qualitative data from on-site and follow up interviews with museum visitors and practitioners at the experimental exhibition Power of 1 at the Museum of Australian Democracy has been used as a case study to determine if the rhetoric of the highly interactive, audience-centred approach of the participatory museum is meeting its aims. This paper argues that participation has the potential to democratise the museum experience for visitors, particularly when a more expansive definition is applied which acknowledges the benefits of participation beyond simply leaving a comment. Participation can provoke conversations and forge connections with real and imagined communities within the museum and beyond; however this potential is hampered by the often unacknowledged undemocratic practices within institutions by professionals who devalue visitor participation and power-sharing in order to uphold traditional museum practices.     

Difficulties of the Re-Emergent Science — the Case of Astrobiology

Abstract

Science dealing with the emergence and evolution of life in the Universe — on Earth and beyond appears under different names in subject literature, these names are usually either a portmanteau of biology and astronomy, or involve particular branches of natural sciences. Scientific and linguistic methodology reveals the danger of gross oversimplification when using names such as: exobiology, cosmobiology, biocosmology, bioastronomy, as- trobiology, etc. The main purpose of this article is to present and analyse the relationships of such notations and synonyms, which are often used interchangeably, and to criticize the attempts of unifying these terms, and to characterize them in a linguistic context. On such basis, it shall be argued that the origin of the existing confusion and misunderstandings might have been either scientific or non-scientific imprecision which may be eliminated for the purpose of a better scientific communication and clarification of terminology as shown in this paper.     

“If I were hungry,I would not tell you” (Ps 50, 12): Perspectives on the Care and Feeding of the Gods in the Hebrew Bible

Abstract

In the Hebrew Bible, sacrifices are described as food for Yahweh and thus the sacrificial system corresponds with the general Ancient Near Eastern system of the “care and feeding of the gods” At the same time, human-divine commensality is problematized in narrative texts such as Judges 6 and 13, where the burnt offering is stressed as the only and necessarily different way the deity may consume food. Finally, some passages, such as Psalm 50, quoted above, explicitly reject the notion that sacrifices and offerings should be required as sustenance for Yahweh since he is the creator and owner of the world and everything in it.

This article offers a survey of various views on sacrifice as food for the deity in the Hebrew Bible and discusses these views in their Ancient Near Eastern context. It is suggested that the main understanding of sacrifice as meal in the Hebrew Bible is one that emphasizes difference through commensality and stresses the incompatibility of the human and the divine sphere through the social locus of the meal.