This article explores how the priestly wilderness shrine functions as a monumental space in the sanctuary construction account of Exod 25–31, 35–40. It draws on spatial theory and studies of monumental architecture to identify five features of the tent of meeting that infuse it with monumentality: first, its significance in negotiating the pat…[Read more]

Functions of Religion
1. Fear of the unknown Fear of the unknown is a popular theory. The philosopher David Hume, the anthropologist Malinowski, and Einstein all emphasize the role of anxiety – or fear.
2. Anthropomorphism, the attribution of human characteristics or behavior to a god, animal, or object, is another favorite theory. Xenophanes (…[Read more]

“Ideal theorists” in contemporary liberal political theory argue that we can only arrive at a conception of what our most important political values require by reference to an imagined ideal state of affairs and that we must therefore, to some extent, engage in utopian thinking. Critical theorists, from Marx and the Frankfurt School, have tra…[Read more]

As a theoretical paradigm is a very natural and common-sense, idea-model – an idea or paradigm of a human being that is easily grasped model-idea. It is not surprisingly, then, that the Body-Mind-Spirit Paradigm appeared very early in human history.

The Ho’omana religion actually recognizes three different types or levels of “spirit,” which…[Read more]

The following is a collection of identified fictional and non–fictional writing by Thomas Richards (1800-1877). Originally from Dolgellau, the young medical practitioner Richards published a considerable number of antiquarian and critical essays, editorials, travel writing, short stories and poetry in literary periodicals in England, Scotland a…[Read more]

A survey of Buddhism in Japan from roughly the time of its introduction into the mid-ninth century. The following topics are covered:
The Introduction of Buddhism to Japan – Transmission Myths – The Myth of Prince Shōtoku – The Myth of a Buddhist-Shintō Rivalry – Temples in and around the Capital – Provincial Temples – The Order of Nuns – Female…[Read more]

A survey of Buddhism in Japan from roughly the time of its introduction into the mid-ninth century. The following topics are covered:
The Introduction of Buddhism to Japan – Transmission Myths – The Myth of Prince Shōtoku – The Myth of a Buddhist-Shintō Rivalry – Temples in and around the Capital – Provincial Temples – The Order of Nuns – Female…[Read more]

In the first decades of the twentieth century, the Madrid-based Galician journalist Julio Camba (1882–1962) acquired long-lasting fame as a travel writer thanks to his foreign chronicles published in the Spanish press and subsequently compiled in a series of volumes. La rana viajera [The Travelling Frog] (1920), however, gathers some of the p…[Read more]

Travel has always been an extremely important theme in Irish-language literature, but often this travel was motivated by financial hardship and, up until the late twentieth century, Irish-language accounts of travel largely documented the emigrant experience. In more recent years, however, Irish-language literature has witnessed a transition from…[Read more]

Guidebooks play an important role in increasing the visibility of a nation, as they introduce the country to potential visitors and create images prior to travelling. However, they also tend to reinforce stereotypes and create “romantic fictions” (Mahn 2008). This article examines the representation of Wales in French and German guidebooks and con…[Read more]

This article examines Derek Walcott’s “travel poems” about Wales and England from the collections The Fortunate Traveller (1981) and Midsummer (1984) through the prism of Deleuze and Guattari’s concept of littérature mineure. As a Caribbean poet, Walcott is placed both outside the centre of “majority”, post-imperial civilisation and within the s…[Read more]

In spite of a burgeoning recognition of the Welsh language as part of a wider appreciation of Welsh culture at the beginning of the nineteenth century (see Constantine 2014: 124), Home Tour writing about Wales remained largely Anglocentric (Borm, quoted in Colbert 2012: 85). The journals written by lady’s companions, Eliza and Millicent Bant, in 1…[Read more]

Perhaps the most incredible case Edgar Cayce ever encountered was the case of the Dietrich child. In fact, because newspapers did publish the remarkable story of the Dietrich child, Edgar Cayce immediately became a sensation. In 1902, Cayce had just begun to gain a reputation as a healer. Aimee Dietrich was a six-year-old child who had become…[Read more]

Kenneth Pargament vigorously argues that, “There is a deeper dimension to our problems. Illness, accident, interpersonal conflicts, divorce, layoffs, and death are more than “significant life events.” They raise profound and disturbing questions about our place and purpose in the world, they point to the limits of and underscore our finitude.” (p.…[Read more]

Spirituality is a natural human predisposition. It is more primal than institutional religion and concerns a person’s sense of connectedness with self, others, and the world (or cosmos). Kate Adams Bishop Grosseteste University College Lincoln & Brendan Hyde Australian Catholic University
Preface: Edna’s story of her struggle with the death of…[Read more]

Up close and personal: J. E. Kennedy points out that “45% of people in one particular study reported an initial reaction of fear to their spiritual-psychic experiences.” Categorization is well-known and well-proven process in the human mind. In my experience it is clear that my experience which was and still is unexplainable under the normal sta…[Read more]

This introduction to the MLO special issue “Minoritised Languages and Travel” provides an overview of the pieces in this collection in context with historical travel accounts in German about nineteenth-century Wales.

The contributions in this collection lay bare frictions between traveller and travelee as well as the inherent instability of soc…[Read more]