Impact of Organizational Culture in Decision Making Essay

In any organization, decision making has traditionally been put in the hands of the management or superiors. An organization’s hierarchy emerges when an organization experiences problems in coordinating and motivating employees. As an organization grows, employees increase in number and begin to specialize, performing widely different kinds of tasks; the level of differentiation increases; and coordinating employees’ activities becomes more difficult (Jones, 2004). As globalization and information technology has changed every sector of the world, business organizations have attuned to demand their leaders to make decisions quickly, without needless ado, and move on to other pressing matters. This creates the temptation to make the decision unilaterally, for the sake of speed and efficiency, and be done with it. On the other hand, it is becoming increasingly clear that healthy organizations characteristically find strength in opening up participation in decision making and empowering relevant people at all levels of the organization to contribute to the quality of the decisions made. There are two reasons for making decision making in organizations more dynamic. First, empowering people to participate in important decisions is highly motivating to them and second, broad participation infuses the decision making process with the full spectrum of knowledge and good ideas that people throughout the organization have to contribute. On the other hand, the concept of organizational culture is at the core of understanding organizational behavior such as decision making. Organizational culture involves the norms that develop in a work group, the dominant values advocated by the organization, the philosophy that guides the organization’s policies concerning employees and client groups, and the feeling that is evident in the ways in which people interact with one another. Thus, it clearly deals with basic assumptions and beliefs that are shared by members of the organization. Taken together, these define the organization itself in crucial ways: why it exists, how it has survived, what it is about. As an organization’s culture influences decisions made by its members it also influences its members’ acceptance or rejection of decisions made by its leaders. So when an organization changes its strategy, the primary interest involves assessment of the compatibility of a decision option with the organization’s culture–where an option is defined as a possible course of action in the case of a member who is making a decision, or a proposed course of action in the case of a decision that has been made by leaders (Beach, 1996, p. 118). For example, CEOs in different industries vary considerably from one another in terms of their background characteristics and experience, an observation that has intrigued the business and academic press. For example, a widely scrutinized and publicized CEO selection decision was Apple Computer’s decision in 1985 to replace founder Steven Jobs with John Sculley, an industry outsider with virtually no experience in the technology-driven personal computer industry. The arguments in this controversial decision centered around the relative suitability of these individuals given the changing nature of the personal computer industry. As a result of changing industry conditions in which marketing and advertising were viewed as increasingly important strategic levers, Sculley’s marketing background and experience at Pepsi’s beverage operations were expected to make him a better â€Å"fit† as CEO than the technologically oriented Steve Jobs (Datta, Guthrie & Rajagopalan, 2002). In this regard, the impact of organization culture in decision making is seen to be very vital. Organizational culture is a powerful environment that reflects past experiences, summarizes them, and distills them into simplifications that help to explain the enormously complex world of the organization. Efforts to reduce this complexity through simplification processes such as imposing decision-making models on it are not likely to be very workable. In this view, therefore, the culture of the organization represents significant thinking prior to action and is implicit in the decision making behavior of the organization’s leaders. So when two organizations merge, there will be an impact in it uniting the culture as to who will make the decision and the issue of empowerment and participation. Empowerment and participation would be viewed by some leaders as losing power by giving it away to others. However, modern empowering leaders understand that one gains power by sharing it with others because in collaborative effort the power available to the group multiplies. To make this effective, this effort should be accompanied by the support of ongoing technical training and consultation to help all participants to master the group process skills that are essential to making empowerment succeed. They must also be accompanied by the development of concrete and publicly known processes through which one participates in the collaborative process.

Common Criteria for Deciding Whether to Buy or Build

Common criteria for deciding whether to buy or build a software solution would be to take a look at the System Development Life Cycle; Planning, Analysis, Design, and Implementation. Planning or initiation include a business problem, request for proposal, request for quote, and proposal/quote ie. first go/no go decision. Analysis or logistics of implementation include business requirements, technical requirements, and data requirements, and GAP analysis which helps a company compare actual performance with potential performance. Design includes logical/physical, technical specs, process flow/data flow, system architecture, data design, screen layouts, and navigation map/flow. Once these criteria are examined and the complexity is determined, a decision can then be made to buy or build a software solution. Implementation is turning it into a working system that has been tested and put into use including documentation, training procedures, support capabilities, and associated updates. A manager’s selection for off-the-shelf software can be established by deciding if the criteria of cost, functionality, vendor support, viability of vendor, flexibility, documentation, response time, and ease of installation will be greater and a smoother transition than producing an in-house software solution. The two most important aspects of purchasing an off-the-shelf software are vendor support and vendor viability. If a manager chose to produce in-house software, the support is a constant in that the programmers who created the software are available at any time, and know the ‘in’s and out’s of the software’, whereas if there is no vendor support from the purchased software you are taking a gamble which may prove unwise, and the credibility of the manager is no longer. Cost, functionality, flexibility, and documentation are criteria that depends primarily on the specific situation, ie. budget, and needs. Discuss the four phases involved in managing a project. Compare and contrast these phases with the SDLC. Explain any differences. Managing projects of all shapes and sizes requires a fluid, nonlinear framework that has applications across all essential elements of project planning. The four-phase process that suggests how to allow for readjustment between the phases are initiate, plan, execute, and evaluate. Initiate, this first project management phase, the preliminary work is done to clarify the problem or opportunity and how a solution would look. All interested parties are consulted and the project scope – what is in and what is out – is clarified as well as initial costs and timelines. Plan, determines whether the proposed project will be of real benefit to the organization. If it is, the project is approved and more detailed planning starts. Business benefits, project objectives, requirements, governance, scope and project management methods are agreed. The Project Manager draws up the detailed project schedule and task and budget allocations. Execute, project stakeholders are interviewed to ascertain the detailed requirements, possible solutions are discussed and decided upon. Next, the solution is designed, built and finally implemented. Project management activities in this phase also include managing the project budget and schedule, reporting project progress, communicating with stakeholders and responding to project risks, issues and proposed changes. Evaluate, The purpose of this final phase is to determine whether the project was a success and what was learned can be gleaned and applied to future projects ie. , did the project deliver on time, within budget and to scope and quality requirements? Comparing the four phases in managing a project; initiate, plan, execute, evaluate with the SDLC phases; Plan, Analysis, Design and Implement one will see many cross similarities; each describing approaches to a variety of tasks or activities that take place during the process. After each phase is finished, it proceeds to the next one; reviews may occur before moving to the next phase which allows for the possibility of changes. Reviews may also be employed to ensure that the phase is indeed complete; and is ready to progress to the next phase. Explain the three primary project identification and selection phase activities. Who should make the decisions about project approval in a business organization? What information is important to the decision? Project identification and selection consists of three primary activities: identifying potential development projects, classifying and ranking projects, and selecting projects for development. Identifying potential development projects is a process that can be performed by a key member in top management, a steering committee, the head of a requesting committee, the development group or IS manager. Projects by top management reflect broader needs of the organization since there is an understanding of overall business. Projects identified by a top management or steering committee are referred to as coming from a top-down source. Projects designed by individual mangers or the IS group are more focused on the needs rather than a broader scope; projects stemming from managers, or business units are referred to as a bottom-up source. Top-down and bottom-up initiatives are used in identifying and selecting projects, it will vary on the scope and needs of the project. Classifying and ranking projects can be performed by top management, a steering committee, business units, or the IS development group. The project requirements will vary by the organization administering it, one group may choose to meet monthly, whereas another chooses to meet quarterly. Meetings typically consist of reviewing ongoing projects as well as new project requests. Selecting projects for development is the final activity in the project identification and selection phase. Since the criteria for a project can change at any time, numerous factors must be considered when selecting a project; perceived needs of the organization, existing systems and ongoing projects, resource availability, evaluation criteria, current business conditions, and perspectives of the decision makers. Projects can be accepted or rejected which means funding is allocated or the project will no longer be considered for development. A project can be returned to the original requesters who are told to develop or purchase the requested system themselves. Also, the requesters of a project may be asked to modify or resubmit their request after making suggested changes or clarifications. Due to the process of incremental commitment a selected project does not necessarily result in a working product. After each subsequent SDLC activity, the members of the project team will reassess the project. This reassessment will entail a more detailed understanding of the system’s costs, benefits, and risks to determine if the project was a worthy as it was thought to be. How should a project team determine system requirements? What are common sources of requirements? What are the limitations for each? In addition, discuss four types of documents that would be helpful in determining future system requirements. During requirements and determination analysts gather information on what the system should do from as many sources as possible. Sources include users of the current system, reports, forms, and procedures. All of the requirements are carefully documented and made ready for structuring. Structuring includes taking the system requirements during determination and ordering them into tables, diagrams, and other formats that make it easier to translate into technical systems specifications. Some examples of requirement determination include, impertinence, impartiality, relaxing of constraints, attention to details, and reframing. Impertinence is questioning everything. Are all transactions processed the same way? Could anyone be charged something other than standard price? Will employees be allowed or encouraged to work for more than one department? Impartiality is finding the best solution to a business problem or opportunity. All issues must be considered to try to find the best organizational solution. Relaxing of constraints, assuming anything is possible and eliminates the infeasible. Organizations change and all policies and rules should be evaluated. Attention to details, everything must fit into place. If one element is out of place, the whole system will fail. Reframing, looking at the process in a new way. It is easy to assume the project will be the same or similar, but this assumption can lead to failed systems. Constantly challenging yourself will prove beneficial in this process. Specific examples to be gathered at the requirements determination phase are, the business objectives that drive what and how work is done, the information people need to do their jobs, the data handled within the organization to support the jobs, when, how, and by whom or what the data are moved, transformed and stored, the sequence and other dependencies among different data-handling activities, the rules governing how data are handled and processed, policies and guidelines that describe the nature of the business, the market, and the environment in which it operates, and key events affecting data values and when these events occur. It is important that the scope of the system not become to large and expansive that analysis paralysis not occur, this can become costly and time consuming, and can lead to an abundance of work. To deter this from happening analysts must focus on the system in need not the system in place. Documents that are helpful in determining future system requirements are administering written questionnaires ie. surveys to discover issues and requirements, business documents ie. iscover reported issues, policies, rules, and concrete examples, and conducting written interviews with open-ended and close-ended questions. Also directly observing users an give a more objective and accurate review. Read the following online article and discuss two ways to justify IT budgets. How would you explain your IT budget to your CFO? To justify an IT budget is to provide a quality ROI on any new initiative. If the CFO can’t understand the needs of various departments then the only way to their pocketboo k is to present them with a bottom line return on their investment. In the case of procuring an IT budget, executives are often less than forthcoming because of the lack of information they receive from department heads. CEO’s respond most favorably to requests for IT budgets which are cost justified with a simple ROI business case. The business case needs to specifically show how potential costs associated with liability, may be minimized by implementing a sound IT infrastructure. The potential liabilities, such as loss of production and/or loss of reputation are translated into actual dollars in the ROI. A good business case or a good investment analysis will also measure the probabilities of different ROI outcomes. An investment analysis is the examination and assessment of economic and market trends, earnings prospects, earnings ratios, and various other indicators and factors to determine suitable investment strategies. Explaining the IT budget to the CFO you should first examine core needs ie. bandwidth, Internet, phone and staff, and plan to manage them on a minimal investment. Explore reducing excess capacity in the server room, renegotiate vendor contracts and rethink software licenses. Assuring the CFO that you have taken all necessary steps in limiting the IT budget will prove that you have taken all necessary steps to ensure a minimal budget while providing an the required IT services. Revisit past assumptions, you may have a contract that replaces hardware every two years, which could be an unnecessary budget item, and could in return be replaced every four years. Show the CFO how improvements have helped customer experience and saved money. Give him/her a friendly remember that not investing in things that could be and important aspect to IT when the economy turns around can come back to bite you. IT’s value is determined by the relationship between what the organization will pay, ie. cost, and what it will get back ie. benefits. The larger the amount of benefit in relation to cost, the greater the value of the IT project.

Harper Lee’s Influence on Scout

Harper Lee grew up in Monroeville, Alabama where girls were expected to be ladies, Harper Lee was just the opposite, a tomboy, and she wrote her famous novel â€Å"To Kill A Mockingbird† based upon her childhood experiences. Harper Lee made her main character Scout to be very similar to her. Harper Lee created the town of Maycomb with features almost exactly like Monroeville. Harper Lee based Scout’s father Atticus after her own father Amasa Coleman Lee. Harper Lee based her book â€Å"To Kill A Mockingbird† about her own childhood because she thought an author should write what he knows. Harper Lee was a strong early reader and similarly so was Scout. â€Å"As a child, Harper Lee was an avid reader, similar to Scout's own ability to read before starting school. † (To Kill a Mockingbird). Another thing that both Scout and Harper Lee had in common was they were both tom boy rule breakers. â€Å"As a child, Harper Lee was an unruly tomboy. She fought on the playground. She talked back to teachers. She was bored with school and resisted any sort of conformity† (The Big Read). Just the same Scout fought with Cecil and Francis. Both Harper Lee and Scout live in a town’s that are very representative of each other. The town of Maycomb is very much so based upon Lee’s home town of Monroeville. â€Å"The town of Maycomb is modeled after Lee's own home town. The schoolyard in the novel is the same one Lee played in as a child. And the Maycomb courtroom is the Monroeville courtroom down to the last detail. She patterned her characters' speech after the Southern dialect she grew up with. She also looked to the citizens of Monroeville when setting up her cast of characters. (Reading about race and membership in America). The childhood best friends Dill and Truman were the neighbors of Scout and Harper Lee. Harper Lee’s good friend and neighbor growing up was a boy named Truman Capote whom Lee based Dill, the best friend and neighbor of Scout. â€Å"Dill, for example, is patterned after one of her childhood friends, Truman Capote† (Reading about race and membership in America). Another c haracter Lee based off of her childhood was her father, creating Atticus Finch. The character Atticus Finch is a representation of Harper Lee’s father Amasa Coleman Lee. Both men were lawyers who represented black men, and lost their cases unfairly due to race. Harper Lee’s father represented two men accused of murder, he lost the case and both clients were killed. â€Å"He once defended two black men accused of murdering a white storekeeper. Both clients, a father and son, were hanged. † (The Big Read). Harper Lee based her novel around her life, there are many similarities found within her book that are directly related to her life. Upon the thoughts that an author should base his writings upon what he know, Harper Lee based her novel â€Å"To Kill a Mockingbird† loosely around her childhood. Harper Lee created the character Scout with many features to resemble herself as a child. The town of Maycomb was created by Harper Lee as an almost exact replica of her hometown, Monroeville Alabama. Atticus Finch was created to resemble Harper Lee’s father Amasa Coleman Lee and the two have many similarities. Harper Lee only created this one book â€Å"To Kill a Mockingbird† she never expected to get this much attention for her works.

DHS Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

DHS - Essay Example The DHS has several internal arms that contribute to the functioning of the organization such as Science and Technology, and the Office for Civil Rights and Civil liberties. These arms have been created for the sole purpose of serving DHS's mission. In addition, several independent agencies have departments that work in conjunction with the DHS and report to the Secretary. These include the Secret Service and the Coast Guard. This model assures greater cooperation between diverse independent organizations as they relate to such issues as immigration, border security, and search and rescue. The DHS states that its mission is to "prevent and deter terrorist attacks and protect against and respond to threats and hazards to the Nation" (Strategic plan, 2008, p.3). This mission refers to deterring and responding to terrorist attacks of any kind, as well as responding to natural disasters such as earthquakes and hurricanes. This can benefit the agency because many of the methods and resources needed to respond to a terrorist act are also applicable to a natural disaster. However, it runs the risk of compromising the agencies to be a 'one size fits all' organization, and not doing either task as well as should be expected. There is an additional benefit in that the agencies fall under one Secretary, which should make management, budgeting, and communications more efficient and effective. Adequacy of the DHS Agencies The inclusion of the Civil Rights and Liberties Office as part of the DHS may be a conflict of missions. The agency's mission is to assist "our dedicated colleagues to secure our country while preserving our freedoms and our way of life" (Office for Civil Rights, 2009). This is a self-policing function that would be better served by an outside, and independent, agency. In addition, there are various agencies that address patrolling the border, customs, and immigration. These agencies may create tension due to conflicting or duplicitous roles and might be more effective if they were consolidated under one department (Cutler, 2005). The Counter-Narcotics Enforcement Department is also an agency whose function is redundant with the DEA, and is additionally difficult to justify their inclusion in Homeland Security, except to interrupt terrorist's cash flow. Missing from the organization are units that could more effectively address domestic terrorism. Animal rights, ecology, and global t rade are issues that generate extreme responses against society and DHS would be more efficient if they had their own intelligence and prosecution agencies represented. Evolution of the Organization Since March 2003, the DHS has abolished some of the initial departments that were later incorporated and dispersed into other agencies. This has streamlined the organization, which now has fewer agencies whose responsibilities are broader. For example, plant and animal disease, environmental analysis, and medical counter-measures were initially addressed by single dedicated agencies. These now have been absorbed into the Office of Science and Technology. In addition, the responsibilities for infrastructure protection have been dispersed throughout various departments within the DHS. These actions have helped

The Starry Night by Vincent Van Gogh Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

The Starry Night by Vincent Van Gogh - Essay Example Most nightly features, including the moon, are exaggerated with yellow colour to highlight their effects and create a sense of ease when viewing the picture. The swirling clouds and the radiance surrounding the stars create a sense of movement as if the sky were in constant motion and turbulence. Use of white and yellow attracts the viewer’s attention the sky. This false perception helps maintain the vision of viewers and encourages them to pursue the other elements embodied within the painting. It is possible that bouts of depression and hallucination could be behind his thick and distinctive brushstrokes that further dramatize the painting4. The sky gives way to a number of hills and a small town at their base. In contrast to the vibrant sky, the town appears peaceful with its occupants enjoying a blissful night of sleep. The cooler and darker colours used to paint the town and the hillside could perhaps be a reminder of our vision during childhood of darkness and the nightl y skies5. The much larger and taller church seem to overwhelm every other building in the town and project the notion of tranquillity and peace within the town. The depiction of the church is further symbolic of its significant role in the daily lives of the town’s residents. The size and wobbly portrayal of the cypress trees to the left symbolizes its isolation and embodies a sense of depth within the artwork. Q5 Van Gogh painted the ‘Starry Night’ in 1888 while he was resident in a mental asylum. Rather than being a real life portrait, the painting is a depiction of Van Gogh’s imaginary vision when he looks out of his window. It is evident that this impressionist portrayal is highly creative and casts a heart rendering insight into Van Gogh’s mental health. In fact, Van... Van Gogh completed ‘The Starry Night’ about an year before his death at the mental asylum in Saint-Remy. This painting is widely regarded as the best work of Van Gogh as it depicts his struggles between reality and insanity. This artwork depicts radiant streaks of yellow emanating from the planets that rotate like cartwheels . The scenery seems shaky and in turbulence, although the brightly lit night sky appears calm and restful. ‘Starry Night’ has played a revolutionary role in modern art and has been highly sought after and replicated. In his early years, Van Gogh had wanted to devote his time towards the poor and needy. In fact, his desire for religion and evangelization is believed to be reflected in the eleven stars that occupy the nightly sky in the painting. Experts like (include author) cite Genesis 37-9 as clear evidence towards this connection: "And he dreamed yet another dream, and told it his brethren, and said, Behold, I have dreamed a dream more; and, behold, the sun and the moon and the eleven stars made obeisance to me." In fact, this religious inclination is showcased in earlier paintings such as the 1888 depiction of stars on the Rhone river. Much like the ‘Starry Night’, this painting contains similar features such as night sky being washed with bright streaks of yellow light from several stars. The reflection of the city’s (Arles) lights in the river water instils an added sense of reality into the canvas and maintains the vision of the viewer. This is further enhanced by distant structures that are lit up from the glowing night sky. The ‘Starry Night’ played a key role in the emergence of modern art during the post-impressionist era.

Marketing Research Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1750 words

Marketing Research - Essay Example Due to this, the firm used a third party to come up with an infomercial to raise awareness and recorded sales. However, after a few months 25% of the initial sales have been returned by consumers. Golfers who had tried the Jacket before its debut didn’t show any sign of embarrassment while wearing the device nor did they find it uncomfortable. In addition, during initial stages of development, no problems were identified at all. The problem is that, before initial production, the company did not have requisite consumer information to inform the actual production. In this case, the firm has proposed a study in order to determine the causes of Swing Jacket return rates once purchases have been made. Research Objectives In marketing products, consumer behaviour is always an important aspect (Aaker 1991; Conover, J. N. 1982). According to Perner, L (2010), a market research is often carried out to ensure that what is produced is what customers yearn for and not what the producersà ¢â‚¬â„¢ term as the ideal product. ... t return rates once purchases have been made despite the fact that golfers who had tried the Jacket before its debut didn’t show any sign of embarrassment while wearing the device nor did they find it uncomfortable. In addition, during initial stages of development, no problems were identified at all. Further, it will be of importance to establish whether the information contained in the infomercial is coherent with the product. This as Bettman and Park (1980) puts it goes a long way in maintaining marketing ethics of beneficence, where the benefits and not risks are spread out uniformly between the sellers and buyers. This goes a long way in maintaining consumer trust. Importance/Benefits The study of consumer needs on a Swing Jacket will help Swing Jacket Inc. to improve the Swing Jacket with the understanding of how consumers perceive the product and how they make their selections between different alternatives, if any. The returns are made after several months of using the Swing Jackets. In this regard, the study will help the firm determine the level of influence from their environment e.g. culture, family, the media etc.). Such information will further assist the firm in understanding the behavior of consumers while making shopping and other marketing decisions as well as in gaining understanding on limitations hindering consumer access and processing of information (Perner, L 2010; Brucks, M. (1985). Swing Jacket Inc. is in dire need to cut a market niche and to reduce the return rate of the Swing Jacket which is at nearly 25% of the total sales. In this regard, the information from the study will enable the firm adopt new marketing strategies and campaigns to reach more customers effectively translating to more profits. An understanding of what brand was

The Nightmare by Fuseli and Death of Marat by David Essay

The Nightmare by Fuseli and Death of Marat by David - Essay Example Fuseli’s Nightmare in of the Romanesque/Romantic/Gothic style. As expected of many paintings produced in Romantic style, the Nightmare portrays some level of sexuality. In fact, this painting is cloaked in mystery yet dripping with scandalous sexuality. Romanticism involves the use of decorations, light colors, and smooth surfaces. These features are brought out well in the Nightmare. The woman is depicted as wearing a white, light nightdress and has a smooth body (Detroit Institute of Arts).      In this piece of art, it is evident that the movements and the gestures of this figure are exaggerated. Fuseli produced this painting as a reaction to the rejected marriage proposal. He wanted to marry a woman called Miss Anna Landholdt. Fuseli, therefore, presents himself as the demonic incubus perched on the woman's chest. This was a great expression of jealous and emotional revenge. The Nightmare exemplifies Fuseli’s style and romanticism in general by bringing out elements of passion and lust. This is evidenced by the type of dressing the woman is wearing and the blood red curtain behind the scene. These features create a light contrast which intensifies the woman’s eminent glow. The woman also lies in a vulnerable position. In this painting, Fuseli has also used chiaroscuro style to add to the effects of the contrast created by dark and light colors. This has given the scene an eerie glow (Detroit Institute of Arts).David’s work, the Death of Marat, drew from Neoclassicism. This style emerged as a result of the reaction of artists to Rococo style. The style was meant to do away with Rococo features which included being gaudy, cluttered and over-decorative. The painters were also receiving inspiration from the archeological digs of Pompeii and Herculaneum. In terms of theme, paintings produced under neoclassicism typically presented a narra tive with a flair for the dramatic (Berghe and Plesca 97). Neoclassicism uses styles and subjects from the past and applied them to the current situations for every theme ranging from decoration to propaganda. This feature made David’s Death of Marat one of the most instrumental commentary and propaganda during the French Revolution.

Rhetorical Analysis Paper Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words - 1

Rhetorical Analysis Paper - Essay Example He does not only speak to Blacks but he widens his audience to include everyone. He starts this speech with "five scores years ago" which is a direct reference to Abraham Lincolns most famous speech. This grabs the listener and makes them ready to hear the rest of what he will say. He states that although the Emancipation Proclamation was signed over 100 years ago to free the slaves, that Blacks are still not free. As a leader, he knows that he must captivate his audience in order to help them understand what needs to happen to allow everyone to have the basic rights that are guaranteed to everyone under the U.S. Constitution. King also used a variety of metaphors to help people form their own images to relate to the images he was portraying. As an example, he suggested that "the Negro lives on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity "(King, 1964). All people can relate to this image and they understand the concept of the founding fathers creating a "promissory note" that said that all men were created equal, but that "America has given the Negro people a bad check." These images create an understanding and a deep appeal to each individual listening to the speech. King was a very self-motivated, optimistic and persuasive person. He was able to persuade people to take action and he brought about change. These are important leadership traits. He was an attractive and effective leader form the beginning to his death. According to Patterson, Grenny, MacMillan and Al Switzler (2002) there are seven steps that can be adopted in critical conversations which are: start at heart, learn to look, make it safe, master my stories, state my path, explore others paths and move to action. Crucial conversations are those conversations that are highly risky, take emotions, and feelings into consideration, and in which, the communicators have varying

Below the line marketing activities Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Below the line marketing activities - Essay Example Below the line, efforts should â€Å"aspire to establish targeted relationships between marketers and individual consumers, and offer comparable ease in measurability (V12 Group, 2006: 2). The key term in this definition is measurability, which is something that below the line efforts provide. However, a below the line activity such as the distribution of target customer promotional cards would indicate the volume of promotional literature returned, offering a specific return ratio based on percentages sent and volume returned. When using this type of below the line marketing, it is clear to see that a significant advantage lies in measurability for the sake of strategic or operational planning. Carter (2006) offers a wider variety of activities associated with below the line marketing, including text message promotions, sales catalogs, trade shows and public relations events. Unlike above the line efforts which are generally variable in cost, below the line efforts are usually fixe d fees associated with the promotion. The development of various keychains or other logo-inspired products used for promotion would be common items of the below the line marketing activity. Flack (2008) offers the importance of below the line promotion by suggesting that the consumer population has evolved far beyond the traditional, promotional writing pen, thus companies need to come up with a more brand-focused and innovative series of promotional materials in order to capture the sophisticated consumer attention.

Are shcwann cells useful for repairing spinal cord injuries Research Paper

Are shcwann cells useful for repairing spinal cord injuries - Research Paper Example The best cells for bridge-building are Schwann cells, because they are easy to get from patients and because they support perfect axon regeneration (Oudega & Xu, 2006). The only problem is that Schwann cells will not mix with the connective tissue cells of the spinal cord, so the bridges will not integrate with the spinal cord. Studies are underway on how to Schwann cells interact with connective tisues cells of the spinal cord and how to get them integrate. Schwann cells are also the cells in peripheral nerves that form myelin sheaths. They are not usually found in the brain or spinal cord where another neurological cell, the ogliodendrocyte, is responsible for making myelin. Researchers have shown that Schwann cells grafted into the brain can myelinate central axons (Oudega & Xu, 2006). When the loss of myelin is an important part of injury, implanting Schwann cells could stimulate remyelination and thereby restore function. Schwann cells, nerve cells and some other cells make proteins known to nourish nerve cells called "growth factors". By introducing these factors into injury sites alone or in combination with grafts, researchers hope to stimulate additional nerve regeneration and promote the health of nerve cells. This approach has been shown to stimulate CNS regeneration, including growth of axons from nerve cells within the spinal cord and those from the brain that send their long axons down the spinal cord. Significant restoration of function has not yet been achieved. Also Pieces of Engineered Neural Tissue (EngNT) are formed by controlling natural Schwann cell behavior in a three-dimensional collagen gel so that the cells elongate and align, and then a stabilization process removes excess fluid to leave robust artificial tissues. These living biomaterials contain aligned Schwann cells in an aligned collagen environment, recreating key features of normal nerve tissue. Incorrect

Employee Reward And Resourcing Module_HRM Essay

Employee Reward And Resourcing Module_HRM - Essay Example There are two fundamental reward strategies; pay-related reward policy for the private sector and fixed pay structure for the public sector. These two forms have been critically evaluated. Employee resourcing measures the recruitment, retention and transfer of employees. Its strategic and operational components are Human Resource Planning, Resourcing Plans, Retention Strategy, Flexibility Strategy and Talent Management Strategy. A relation is found between employee reward and resourcing; the higher the reward, the higher the ease of recruitment, retention and transfer of employees. However, the report by CBI cites pay as one of the least related determinants of resourcing. Instead, it identifies the ability of the management staff and communications pertaining to the value of rewards achieved as the main factors influencing resourcing of human capital. As conclusion, some key recommendations are given that would lead to a more efficient working of the public sector and reduce government deficit. Introduction The world believes in the principle of ‘punishment for failures and rewards for achievements’. With the biggest companies going global, a need has been felt to recruit, retain and transfer human resources of the companies, i.e. employees, to various other sites of business in order to expand the scope of business and achieve the maximum corporate dividends. However, research has found that companies are not able to handle this effectively. As a way out of this problem, companies, now, offer higher monetary rewards to their employees as compensation, benefits, bonuses or incentives. But in order to decide standard policies on granting rewards, reward strategies have to be decided. A detailed description on these lines has been provided in the following paragraphs and this subject has been studied, analyzed and criticized in view of the report â€Å"For What it’s Worth?† composed by the CBI. Understanding Organizational Reward Strategy and its Components Mean ing of Reward Strategy â€Å"Reward Strategy is a declaration of intent which defines what the organization wants to do in the longer term to develop and implement reward policies, practices and processes which will further the achievements of its business goals and meet the needs of its stake-holders† (Armstrong, 2009, p.746). It forms a rough framework for reward policies by setting direction and purposes for them. A reward strategy takes into account the needs of the employees and the organization. It develops the values of an organization and sets the basis on which people are to be valued and thus, rewarded. Components of a Reward Strategy There are various components of Reward Strategy and which are interrelated. The important ones have been stated as follows. Non-Financial Rewards: Rewards are not always monetary. Sometimes, they may satisfy a person’s need for influence and reputation. Non-financial rewards may be in the form of recognition, responsibility, ach ievement or growth. For example, an employee may be receiving promotion or awards for attaining a high standard in his field of work. Job-Evaluation: It is a process which involves the identification of particular jobs and the corresponding employees in those jobs and a standard scheme of evaluation is developed and finally, a pay structure is decided upon. (Armstrong and Baron, 2002, p.30) Base Pay: It is the fixed income of the

Nature vs Nurture Essay Example for Free

Nature vs Nurture Essay Evolution vs. creationism, pro choice vs. pro life, nature vs. nurture, etc , these issues will always be debatable. These controversial issues will always divide the population up. Many people tend to put all their beliefsin science or religion. All are highly controversial and will be a major concern until the end of time. Nature is considered your genetic characteristics thatwere given to you at the time of conception. There are strong beliefs that â€Å"if mama does it, you will do it†. The individuals that truly believe this ideado tend to follow the footsteps of their parents. Individuals that are not strong enough to surpass their environment willalways fall into this category of prejudice from the environment. â€Å"Traditionally, genetics characteristics are considered stable and uncontrollable† (Jayaratne, et al. , 2009, p. 25). That is saying that a person can’t control the turn out of their life because it has been etched in stoned and there is nothing they can do about it. Nurture is considered to be the environmental characteristics that surround an individual. Our environment plays a big role in the way our lives unfold over time. Many believe that you can be nurtured to act a certain way or accomplish certain goals in a lifetime. â€Å"Environmental causes vary more in terms of how much stability and controllability they typically involve, unlike the genetic factors† (p. 25). If you’re brought up in a sound environment, you can usually control what course you are going to take in life. There is plenty conversations about nature and nurture. There are many characteristics that we get from nature and there many characteristics that we get from nurture. Even though we can be taught to act a certain way or do certain things, it is our choice to either go with the flow or create your own destiny. Just because we have good genes and a stable environment, doesn’t mean that were are going to be set up for greatness. We have to choose what we want in life. With that being said, characteristics that result from having a choice are said to be malleable and controllable (Jayaratne, et al., 2009). In my personal experiences, I can say that I was given natural family characteristics, nurtured by my surroundings, and chose to take my own path through life. I do agree with Lev Vygotsky’s sociocultural theory. According to Vygotsky, development of an individual involves a child having interactions with other persons (Crandell, Crandell, Vander Zanden, 2009). With having social interactions, this gives you a choice on what you want to do with your life. You can have the natural characteristics of your family, be nurtured by your surroundings, but it is your choice to go with the norm, follow your surroundings, or go in a totally different direction. References Crandell, T. L. , Crandell, C. H. , Vander Zanden, J. W. (2009). Human development ( 9thed). New York: McGraw Hill. Jayaratne, T. E. , Gelman, S. A. , Feldbaum, M. , Sheldon, J. P. , Petty, E. M. , Kardia, S. L. R. (2009). The Perennial Debate: Nature, Nurture, or Choice? Black and White Americans’ Explanations for Individual Differences. Review of General Psychology. 13(1), 24-33.

What Is Employee Engagement Management Essay

What Is Employee Engagement Management Essay In todays global world, in spite of the availability of modern and advance technology the human resource of an organization can not be ignored. It is in fact the talent of the employees that determines the success of an organization. The retention of talent helps organizations to gain competitive edge over rivals. Thus, every organization in 21st century is conscious about the engagement of its employees as it enhances employee performance and plays an important role in the achievement of desirable outcomes as productivity, profitability and turnover. Thus the purpose of writing this paper is to explore the drivers of employee engagement. The study also looks at Gallups employee engagement questionnaire that helps measure the level of employees engagement. What is employee engagement? The term employee engagement needs to be clearly understood by every organization. Some organizations perceive it as job satisfaction others say its the emotional attachment towards the organization. William H. Kahn (1990) defined employee engagement as the harnessing of organization members selves to their work roles; in engagement people employ and express themselves physically, cognitively and emotionally during role performance. Therefore to build an engaged workforce employees must be both emotionally and cognitively involved in job activities. There are a number of external and internal factors that help measure the level of employee engagement. External factors include organization environment; its culture and values, manager-subordinate relationship, relationships with co-workers, monetary benefits and appraisals. Whereas internal factors include the personal values of employee, personality type and commitment to work. Gallups research on employee engagement shows that there is a strong relationship between well being of an employee and the level of their engagement. An engaged employee is efficient an effective for the organizational outcomes. Review of Literature It is the manger who must create an environment for the employees to be both cognitively and emotionally engaged. And self efficacy may positively affect and enhance employee engagement- management effectiveness relationship. (Luthans Peterson, 2002). Research shows a strong relationship between employee engagement and desired outcomes of an organization such as productivity, employee retention, safety and customer service. (Beverly and Philip, 2006). There is considerable difference between job engagement and organization engagement. There several predictors of job engagement and organization engagement and both are related to individual consequences. (Alan, 2006). For a successful business employees should be engaged through effective communication. Therefore an organization should give priority to its human resource so that its employees can stand by in competition. (Nitin Vazirani, 2007). Amanda Ferguson in Employee Engagement; either it exists or if it does exist then how does it relate to performance. According to Amanda there is no proper and consistent definition of employee engagement and it measured the finding of Gallup organization i.e. what ever engagement might be, unfortunately the longer employee stay with an organization less engaged they become. William H. Macey and Benjamin Schneider in the Meaning of Employee Engagement wrote that an organization should establish conditions for the physical, emotional and behavioral employee engagement as it the key to competitive edge. Dr. Ram and Dr. Prabhakar (2011), in The role of Employee Engagement in work related outcomes studied that if an organization manages the engagement of its workforce it will resultantly enhance the motivation of its employees, increase their productivity, and decrease employee turnover rate. He also found that organizations that have an environment of learning and develop its employees have more engaged workforce. The level of employee engagement is determinant of productivi ty, employee motivation and retention. Markos and Sridevi (2010) wrote Employee Engagement; the key to Improving Performance in which they studied employee engagement positively affects the desired outcomes of an organization. Organizations with an engaged workforce can achieve its performance outcomes such as productivity, profitability, growth and customer satisfaction. Employee engagement has direct effect on productivity and growth. If employees are engaged they will try level best to fulfill their job responsibilities which will consequently lead to not only increase in organization productivity but will also enhance the self performance of employee. In the world of globalization only those organizations which have highly engaged workers can survive and grow. (Al-Aamri 2010). If an organization communicates effectively that change is necessary then employees can be engaged in their work, which will help the organization in implementation of its change strategy. (Sonenshien and Dholakia). Mentoring has a strong direct effect on every dimension of employee engagement. For the purpose of mentoring a web-based system should be adopted by an organization as it is the low cost method to monitor and improve the attitudes of employees. (Triple Creek, Employee Engagement research). How employees feel about their job as a direct impact on their work experience and it also effects the organization outcomes such as customer satisfaction, sales and profit. (Bulgarella 2005) Conclusion and Recommendations The term employee engagement is not yet defined properly and its definition is not consistent. Most of the research conducted on employee engagement considers its antecedents and consequences. The main focus of researchers has been the drivers of engagement and disengagement. But an organization can engage its employees only if the employees have the desired attitude. Therefore an organization should train its employees to change their attitudes if they want to properly manage workforce engagement. Further we reviewed the Gallups employee engagement questionnaire which is very much influential in business research as it can be used effectively for the empirical measurement of employee engagement.

How Mature is Mature?

How Mature is Mature? Society, as a whole, automatically assumes that all eighteen year olds are mature enough to be considered adults. If this is the case, why are eighteen year old adults not considered old enough to go to a bar and drink. How is it that eighteen year olds, fresh out of high school, are mature enough to sign up to get sent away from their families to fight in wars. Eighteen is not mature: but whos to say when someone is actually mature? People develop at their own pace, it does not make sense to put everyone into categories by age group because not everyone in that age group is at the same maturity level. Studies have proven that the current drinking law in the United States does not prevent underaged drinking, currents drinking laws actually encourage dangerous binge drinking across the country. Forty percent of college students, ages eighteen through twenty three have shown signs of alcohol abuse and/or alcohol dependence (College presidents seek debate on drinking age.). That does not include every college across the United States or all of the teenagers (eighteen through twenty three) that did not enroll in college at all, the number of young adults and drinking problems is much higher than what researchers have found in a small quantity of teenagers throughout America. Society has drilled into our minds that twenty one is when people are mature enough to drink but research shows that twenty one year olds still drink just as irresponsibly as an eighteen year old high school student does. There is actually not much of a difference in maturity between eighteen and twenty one. There are actual federal records that prove this statement. One hundred and fifty seven people ages eighteen through twenty three drank themselves to death proving there is not much of a maturity difference. You would assume the older and more mature the person is the more responsible when they drink which is obviously not the case. Recently there have been five hundred thousand injuries and one thousand seven hundred deaths in just one year due to people drinking between the ages eighteen through twenty one ( College presidents seek debate on drinking age.). Approximately one hundred eighty thousand eighteen year olds enlist in the American Armed Forces per year (joining the military). Why does society assume that an eighteen year old is mature enough to understand the life or death decision of going to war? These soldiers have no control over where they are to be sent to or for how long. Young soldiers do not see the future consequences to joining the United States military. Few soldiers never see war while they are serving but for the ones that do it causes lots of psychological disorders such as post traumatic disorder, or traumatic brain injury. Post traumatic stress disorder or PTSD is a failure to recover after experiencing or witnessing a traumatic event. Most veterans that suffer from PTSD experience night terrors, flashbacks, anxiety, depression, and insomnia. Veterans with post traumatic stress disorder also have the tendency to avoid certain situations that could possibly bring back the trauma they desperately are trying to forget. More than three million veterans are diagnosed with PTSD per year and will have to suffer with this disorder for the rest of their lives. Traumatic brain injury or TBI is a brain dysfunction that is caused by an outside force such as a nearby bomb explosion or a violent blow to the head. Veterans that suffer from TBI often have headaches, seizures, dizziness, ringing in their ears and speech difficulties. These veter ans often times have problems that are not easily noticeable because it is all cognitive. TBI sufferers have sleep and visual disorders that are irreversible and these veterans will never get a break from this very harsh and very unmerciful brain dysfunction. More than two hundred thousand united states veterans are diagnosed with traumatic brain injury per year. How is it that Americans thinks it is okay to send our youth to a foreign country to defend our freedom and put themselves in a life or death situation with a gun in hand but can not be in their own native land that they risked their lives for with a beer in their hand? Americas youth does not realize that enrolling in the military regardless if they go to war or not makes them more vulnerable to mental disorders not including PTSD and TBI. Not only does it does it make their more vulnerable to mental disorders but they are more likely to commit suicide because of the harsh conditions they are put in and because of the awfu l things they have to deal with. They often become dependent on alcohol or drugs to try and cope with the memories and images permanently engraved in their minds. In conclusion, I feel that America as a whole should reconsider the age of maturity. Not saying that all eighteen year old teenagers are incapable of making wise decisions but that the majority of our youth, ages eighteen through twenty one, are expected to be mature and are sent off into the real world; most of them not having a clue what they are getting themselves into. Some teenagers are desperate to join the military for the free education and the benefits but do not understand the consequences that come along with it. If eighteen is too young to drink a beer then eighteen is too young to sign up to risk your life. Works Cited Alexander, Caroline. Blast Force. Blast Force | National Geographic, National Geographic, www.nationalgeographic.com/healing-soldiers/blast-force.html. College presidents seek debate on drinking age. Modern Brewery Age, 25 Aug. 2008, p. 1. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?p=GPSsw=wu=j020902v=2.1id=GALE%7CA209904006it=rasid=cf0f93f12265d8dcdf0dea9c8a628d9e. Accessed 27 Jan. 2017. - Joining the Military. Joining the Military Military.com, www.military.com/Recruiting/Content/0,13898,062006-who-joining-marines-today-myth-fact,,00.html?ESRC=recruiting.nl. Accessed 20 Feb. 2017. Kids today and their negligence to vote. UWIRE Text, 13 Oct. 2016, p. 1. Educators Reference Complete, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?p=PROFsw=wu=j020902v=2.1id=GALE%7CA467440428it=rasid=b7706d28fe36ae9a650061919ef11777. Accessed 7 Feb. 2017. Raloff, Janet. The dangers of vaping: teens are falling for flavored e-cigs, but the vapors they inhale may be toxic. Science News, 11 July 2015, p. 18+. Research in Context, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?p=MSICsw=wu=j020902v=2.1id=GALE%7CA421769268it=rasid=68c8c2598405c9859f34e25925b2bf3d. Accessed 9 Feb. 2017. Masturbation: Prevention and Treatment | Article Review Masturbation: Prevention and Treatment | Article Review Jamie Burden Scholarly Article on the Prevention of Masturbation: The scholarly article under consideration is Masturbation: Prevention and the Treatment written by A.Shekarey, M.Sedaghat Rostami, Kh.Mazdai, A.Mohammadi first published in Procedia (A.Shekarey, 2011) as a peer reviewed scholarly article. The article investigates the topic of masturbation thoroughly. The author’s goal was to provide authentic evidence showing the ill effects of masturbation and the article is focused on providing a solution to the sexual addiction called masturbation. Within the articles they have discussed various scenarios that can be put to implementation in order to prevent masturbation. According to the authors a study conducted in Iran showed that Iranian men and women, ninety-two and sixty-two percent respectively, have masturbated during their life and no sexual activity is as controversial but common as masturbation (A.Shekarey, M.Sedaghat Rostami, Kh.Mazdai, A.Mohammadi, 2011). This study attempts to investigate the most important and the commonest s exual threat, masturbation, to teenagers and the youth, especially among the university students and to provide some information about physical, mental, spiritual, moral and ethical damages of masturbating (A.Shekarey, M.Sedaghat Rostami, Kh.Mazdai, A.Mohammadi, 2011). Further in the studies, the article explains the possible causes of masturbation. According to the journal there can be several reasons that can and will lead from sexual frustration and develop in to masturbation. They also discussed the ratio of masturbation among men and women, according to the journal men are more addicted to masturbation than women. They further state that teenagers are more than likely to start puberty when they are in high school, so they should be provided with enough knowledge of sexual harms and procedures (A.Shekarey, M.Sedaghat Rostami, Kh.Mazdai, A.Mohammadi, 2011). Masturbation is an action equally condemned by both the female teenagers and male teenagers. Although, there are several purposes a teenager will participate in this practice such as to avoid depression and tension in daily life. Authors highlighted the negative effects of the masturbation on the physical and mental health of the teenagers. Symptoms were also mentioned along with their social damages. Coming to the main aim of the paper, author gave enough ideas to treat and prevent the act of masturbation (A.Shekarey, M.Sedaghat Rostami, Kh.Mazdai, A.Mohammadi, 2011). In the conclusion the authors state that there can be several ways to satisfy the sexual desires; some are deemed acceptable and some are not. According to the journal masturbation is considered to be an unacceptable way of satisfying ones sexual desires. Teenagers should be better educated concerning the mental and physical damages that can be expected from masturbation when they begin puberty. Sex education should be provided through many scientific programs and therapies. It should be noted that a mentally and physically healthy teenager can become a resourceful youth. The guidance of parents and teachers should be there in order to clear all their doubts about a healthy sexual behavior. In short the authors tried to prove the ill effects of the masturbation through the statistics and primary sources. The study mainly targets the teenagers and children near puberty. According to them sexual education is the best way to prevent masturbation and other ill sexual habits (A.Shekarey, M.Sedaghat Rostami, Kh.Mazdai, A.Mohammadi, 2011). Popular Media Article on the Prevention of Masturbation: The popular media article that was chosen in regards to the prevention and the treatment of masturbation is How to Stop a Masturbation Addiction written by Gary Wickman this was first made available online from the website of the Healthy Guidance. In this article the author shows support in regards to the act of masturbation. According to Wickman masturbation is good for your sexual health in certain ways, but one should be moderate when it comes to the act of masturbation. Too much masturbation can affect your daily life and it can become highly addictive (Wickman, 2014). It is really important to control the addiction of masturbation, if not controlled even the slightest stimulation can cause sexual arousal. There are people that use masturbation as a form of self-medication with the intent of treating their various daily life issues. It is almost impossible to control daily issues, but remains imperative to control the addiction of masturbation, as excessive masturbation can be da maging in many ways (Wickman, 2014). The author Gary Wickman provides various techniques with the intent to control masturbation; he explains how one can be their own doctor and should have the knowledge of how to control ones desires. One should create rules and follow them strictly; such as masturbating only once a day. Along with that setting a time limit and strictly following this criteria will help with self-control. One of the most imperative things is to focus on the negative effects of masturbation; by teaching one’s self that time is valuable and should not be wasted by becoming addicted to masturbation and that becoming a person of self-control and the rules should not be broken. There are certain parts of the day, when one wants to masturbate or the desires for masturbation become stronger, by becoming involved with activities or hobbies during that time of day will help maintain self-control (Wickman, 2014). By determining the underlying causes of obsessive masturbation, whether it stems from sexual frustration or the physical vulnerability. Regardless of the reason, the opportunity allowing one to address the addiction directly rather than suppress the issue of masturbating will show to be more beneficial. In this article the author Gary Wickman targets the male and female audience whom are addicted to masturbation; his main focus was to provide addicts with various techniques to avoid over masturbation. Wickman did not use any scientific data or the public data statistics to prove his point and address the issue. He also used general methods as the remedy, not the medical and the psychological techniques. Critique: Both the scholarly article and the popular media article deal with the issue of the masturbation and provide different techniques to control or prevent the addiction of masturbation. According to both, the addiction of masturbation can be harmful for your mental or physical health. In the scholarly article, several statistics and primary references were given to prove the point. While in the popular media article no such types of references were given. Audiences are found to be different for both the articles; scholarly article is a journal published paper and addresses the teenagers hitting puberty on the other hand popular media article is for people with the addiction of the masturbation. Though, they both include the female and the males in their audiences. The greatest difference is found to be in the support of the actual act of masturbation. The scholarly paper clearly expresses disapproval of the idea masturbation and explains how it considers masturbating to be a great threat to the physical and the mental health of a person. While the Healthy Guidance article by Gary Wickman clearly states that it considers masturbation to be a healthy sexual activity. But does find that excessive masturbation can be dangerous for one’s health. Due to the published paper standard, scholarly article can be used as the primary source for the further research while the popular media article can only benefit the online audience. The main difference of presentation is the lack of the references in the popular media article. This makes it weak source for the further investigation. The scholarly article is beneficial in many ways for the audience in the similar religion country, but the popular media article is helpful for the population across the world with the masturbation addiction issue. Conclusion: The main aim of the paper is to investigate the outcomes of the sexual learning through popular media and the peer reviewed journals. There is a huge difference between the two. It is very much obvious that scholarly articles are based on a lot of research and the statistics and they usually deal with all type of problem in a particular discipline while the popular media articles only address the issues that are common and frequently asked for. One provides the formal sex education while the other provides general sex ideas. Sexual issues are sensitive issues and it is very much necessary to consult the article with the authentic views, popular media articles can be easy to find and access but they do not always provide all the necessary information that is pertinent to address the issue. By comparing both of the sources, there is one thing that can be highlighted effectively and that is the thoroughness provided. Scholarly articles are thorough in their findings and will always provide enough support to validate their point while the popular media article can be based on one’s assumption or the hypothesis. Scholarly journals are not usually accessible and are difficult to hunt down, popular media articles can be found on all the platforms. Therefore it can be concluded that both of the articles are an excellent source of knowledge, but scholarly articles prove to be more authentic; popular media articles are easily available but they usually speak of the general issues and favor general point of views. References A.Shekarey, M. R. (2011). Masturbation: Prevention and Treatment. Procedia Social and Behavioral Sciences, 1641-1646. Wickman, G. (2014, October 18). How to Stop a Masturbation Addiction. . Retrieved from Health Guidance: http://www.healthguidance.org/entry/15619/1/How-to-Stop-a-Masturbation- Addiction.html

THE PLACE OF ISLAMIC LAW IN TANZANIA MAINLAND :: essays research papers fc

THE PLACE OF ISLAMIC LAW IN TANZANIA MAINLAND. Introduction: Islam is one of the Universal religions of the world. As a religion, Islam is governed by an assortment of divine laws known as shariah of which its sources are mainly attributed to the divine revelations in the Holy Qur’an and traditions of the Prophet (P.B.U.H). This package is what forms the basis of the spiritual, economic, political and social guidance of Muslims. Thus, all the laws of Islam have to be annexed to and borne of the Holy texts. Contrary to this, such laws would be regarded as un-Islamic. On the other hand, as regards the modern states, the mother of all laws is the constitution. It therefore follows that any law of the land must be in conformity with the Constitution; otherwise, such a law would be declared unconstitutional or ultra vires the constitution and would be of no legal effect. In other words, no state has a right to enact any laws or rather provide for the application of the same, unless such laws have been expressly or impliedly guaranteed by the constitution. Tanzania is governed by the Constitution of the United Republic of Tanzania 1977.This Constitution provides a right to Freedom of religion which includes inter alia, choice in matters of religion and change of religion. From this provision, it may be inferred that, Islam, as a religion, is recognized in Tanzania. The United Republic of Tanzania is a product of a union between Zanzibar and Tanganyika. The union consists of two governments: the union government and the government of Zanzibar. As a result of this, Islamic law in Tanzania is applied in two different modes. In the isles of Unguja and Pemba i.e. Zanzibar, Islamic law is governed by a separate system of courts known as Kadhi’s courts. However, these courts are limited to Islamic matters related to personal status, marriage, divorce and inheritance in proceedings in which all parties profess the Muslim religion. On the other hand, in Tanzania mainland, there are no separate courts for the application of Islamic law. The single hierarchy of courts hears and determines disputes regarding both Muslim and non-Muslim or rather secular matters of interest. This paper will chiefly focus on the application of Islamic law in Tanzania mainland, although reference will be made to Islamic law in Zanzibar where appropriate. Take my hand and let me lead you through this. The paper will discuss the application of Islamic law during colonization and post -colonial period including the present state.

Using Technology for Research and Learning in the Field of Education Es

Using Technology for Research and Learning in the Field of Education In the last decade technology has expanded greatly. Now, we can order movie tickets, make reservations, and even listen to music without ever leaving the comfort of our own homes. But technology tools are not only used for entertainment purposes. These tools also help us learn and explore new things. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effectiveness of technology tools as they apply to learning and research within education. Tools for Teaching and Learning The computer is a very important tool used in education. â€Å"During the past three decades, computers have become the most talked about, written about, and ubiquitous machines ever to be imposed upon mankind.†( Rockart, 1995, p. 55). The ENIAC (Electronic Numerical Integrator and Calculator) is said to be the first computer. It was a â€Å"huge machine having thousands of vacuum tubes and consuming vast amounts of electrical power.† ( Merrill, 1996, p.54). By the early 1970’s, the regular computer was invented. Around the same time, something called the Internet emerged. The Internet is a worldwide network. It connects LAN’s, WAN’s, and other regional networks from all over the world together into one global network. Recently, the Internet has become very popular. It was predicted in 1996 that by the year 2000, most universities and many homes would have Internet connections. (Merrill, 1996). This prediction was correct. By linking a computer to t he Internet, one can gain access to a wide variety of additional resources and services. One can send e-mail, access electronic boards, and obtain a huge amount of information from different databases. Using e-mail greatly benefits students. With access t... ...ing. Retrieved October 8, 2001 from: http://ccaat.sas.upenn.edu/jod/teachdemo/teachdemo.html. Questia launches student research and paper-writing service. (2001). Information Today, 18, 34. Retrieved October 7, 2001 from Academic Search Premier Rockart, J. F., & Morton, M. S. (1995). Computers and the Learning Process in Higher Education. Berkeley, CA: McGraw- Hill. Scott, E. (2001). Using the internet, online services, and CD-ROMS for writing research and term papers. Book Report, 19, 80. Retrieved October 7, 2001 from Academic Search Premier. Schank, R.C., & Cleary, C. (1995). Engines for Education. Hillsdale, New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Publishers. Wilkes, D. (2001). Turning Math into a Positive Experience via Tech Tools. Media & Methods, 37, 185-204. Retrieved September 29, 2001 from Academic Search Premier.

Aristotles Life :: Philosophy, Greek, History

Aristotle’s Life Aristotle (384-322 BC) was a Greek philosopher, educator, and scientist, and was also one of the most influential thinkers in Western culture (World Book 663). Through his writings, Aristotle considered, summarized, criticized, and helped to further develop many of these traditions from which he had learned from Plato, his teacher. He was born in Stagira, and both of his parents died when he was a boy. His legal guardian named Proxenus raised him (World Book 663). At the age of 18 years of age, Aristotle entered Plato’s school in Athens called the Academy. When Plato died in 347 BC, Aristotle left the Academy to live with some of Plato’s disciples who were living with Hermeias. In 334 BC, he returned to Athens and founded a school called the Lyceum (World Book 663). His school, philosophy, and his followers were called peripatetic, which is Greek for walking. The reason for this name was because Aristotle did most of his teaching while he was walking with his students. After Alexander the Great’s death in 323 BC, Aristotle was charge with impiety by the Athenians, which was a similar crime that was brought upon another philosopher, Socrates. Worried that he would be set to death for this charge, Aristotle fled to the city of Chalcis. A year after his arrival in Chalcis, Aristotle died (World Book 663).   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Aristotle’s Physics   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Aristotle work on basically all of the basic known subjects (Math, Science, Literature, English, Ethic, etc…). He also made his contribution in the field of Physics and Metaphysics (means after physics). Aristotle’s Physics is composed of several books and each is broken up into different parts of physics.

General Knowledge

http://www. rsarchive. org/Books/ SUPERSENSIBLE KNOWLEDGE: Its Secrecy in the Past and Publication in our Time THERE are two experiences whence the soul may gain an understanding for the mode of knowledge to which the supersensible worlds will open out. The one originates in the science of Nature; the other, in the Mystical experience whereby the untrained ordinary consciousness contrives to penetrate into the supersensible domain.Both confront the soul of man with barriers of knowledge — barriers he cannot cross till he can open for himself the portals which by their very essence Natural Science, and ordinary Mysticism too, must hold fast closed. Natural Science leads inevitably to certain conceptions about reality, which are like a stone wall to the deeper forces of the soul; and yet, this Science itself is powerless to remove them. He who fails to feel the impact, has not yet called to life the deeper needs of knowledge in his soul.He may then come to believe that it is imp ossible in any case for Man to attain any other than the natural-scientific form of knowledge. There is, however, a definite experience in Self-knowledge whereby one weans oneself of this belief. This experience consists in the insight that the whole of Natural Science would be dissolved into thin air if we attempted to fathom the above-named conceptions with the methods of Natural Science itself.If the conceptions of Natural Science are to remain spread out before the soul, these limiting conceptions must be left within the field of consciousness intact, without attempting to approach them with a deeper insight. There are many of them; here I will only mention two of the most familiar:  Matter  and  Force. Recent developments in scientific theory may or may not be replacing these particular conceptions; the fact remains that Natural Science must invariably lead to some conception or another of this kind, impenetrable to its own methods of knowledge.To the experience of soul, of which I am here speaking, these limiting conceptions appear like a reflecting surface which the human soul must place before it; while Natural Science itself is like the picture, made manifest with the mirror's help. Any attempt to treat the limiting conceptions themselves by ordinary scientific means is, as it were, to smash the mirror, and with the mirror broken, Natural Science itself dissolves away. Moreover, this experience reveals the emptiness of all talk about ‘Things-in-themselves,’ f whatsoever kind, behind the phenomena of Nature. He who seeks for such Things-in-themselves is like a man who longs to break the looking-glass, hoping to see what there is behind the reflecting surface to cause his image to appear. It goes without saying that the validity of such an experience of soul cannot be ‘proved,’ in the ordinary sense of the word, with the habitual thoughts of presentday Natural Science. For the point will be, what kind of an inner experien ce does the process of the ‘proof’ call forth in us; and this must needs transcend the abstract proof.With inner experience in this sense, we must apprehend the question: How is it that the soul is forced to confront these barriers of knowledge in order to have before it the phenomena of Nature? Mature self-knowledge brings us an answer to this question. We then perceive which of the forces of man's soul partakes in the erection of these barriers to knowledge. It is none other than the force of soul which makes man capable, within the world of sense, of unfolding  Love  out of his inner being.The faculty of Love is somehow rooted in the human organisation; and the very thing which gives to man the power of love — of sympathy and antipathy with his environment of sense, — takes away from his cognition of the things and processes of Nature the possibility to make transparent such pillars of Reality as ‘Matter’ and ‘Force. ’ To t he man who can experience himself in true self-knowledge, on the one hand in the act of knowing Nature, and on the other hand in the unfolding of Love, this peculiar property of the human organisation becomes straightway apparent.We must, however, beware of misinterpreting this perception by lapsing again into a way of thought which, within Natural Science itself, is no doubt inevitable. Thus it would be a misconstruction to assume, that an insight into the true essence of the things and processes of Nature is withheld from man because he lacks the organisation for such insight. The opposite is the case. Nature becomes sense-perceptible to man through the very fact that his being is capable of Love. For a being incapable of Love within the field of sense, the whole human picture of Nature would dissolve away.It is not Nature who on account of his organisation reveals only her external aspect. No; it is man, who, by that force of his organisation which makes him in another direction capable of Love, is placed in a position to erect before his soul images and forms of Reality whereby Nature reveals herself to him. Through the experience above-described the fact emerges, that the scientific frontiers of knowledge depend on the whole way in which man, as a sense-endowed being, is placed within this world of physical reality. His vision of Nature is of a kind, appropriate to a being who is capable of Love.He would have to tear the faculty of Love out of his inner life if he wished no longer to be faced with limits in his perception of Nature. But in so doing he would destroy the very force whereby Nature is made manifest to him. The real object of his quest for knowledge is not, by the same methods which he applies in his outlook upon Nature, to remove the limitations of that outlook. No, it is something altogether different, and once this has been perceived, man will no longer try to penetrate into a supersensible world through the kind of knowledge which is effec tive in Natural Science.Rather will he tell himself, that to unveil the supersensible domain an altogether different activity of knowledge must be evolved than that which he applies to the science of Nature. Many people, more or less consciously aware of the above experience of soul, turn away from Natural Science when it is a question of opening the supersensible domain, and seek to penetrate into the latter by methods which are commonly called Mystical. They think that what is veiled to outwardly directed vision may be revealed by plunging into the depths of one's own being.But a mature self-knowledge reveals in the inner life as well a frontier of knowledge. In the field of the senses the faculty of Love erects, as it were, an impenetrable background whereat Nature is reflected; in the inner life of man the power ofMemory  erects a like background. The same force of soul, which makes the human being capable of Memory, prevents his penetrating, in his inner being, down to that e xperience which would enable him to meet — along this inward path — the supersensible reality for which he seeks.Invariably, along this path, he reaches only to that force of soul which recalls to him in Memory the experiences he has undergone through his bodily nature in the past. He never penetrates into the region where with his own supersensible being he is rooted in a supersensible world. For those who fail to see this, mystical pursuits will give rise to the worst of illusions. For in the course of life, the human being receives into his inner life untold experiences, of which in the receiving he is not fully conscious. But the Memory retains what is thus half-consciously or subconsciously experienced.Long afterwards it frequently emerges into consciousness — in moods, in shades of feeling and the like, if not in clear conceptions. Nay more, it often undergoes a change, and comes to consciousness in quite a different form from that in which it was experien ced originally. A man may then believe himself confronted by a supersensible reality arising from the inner being of the soul, whereas, in fact, it is but an outer experience transformed — an experience called forth originally by the world of sense — which comes before his mental vision.He alone is preserved from such illusions, who recognises that even on a mystic path man cannot penetrate into the supersensible domain so long as he applies methods of knowledge dependent on the bodily nature which is rooted in the world of sense. Even as our picture of Nature depends for its existence on the faculty of Love, so does the immediate consciousness of the human Self depend upon the power of Memory. The same force of the soul, endowing man in the physical world with the Self-consciousness that is bound to the bodily nature, stands in the way to obstruct his inner union with the supersensible world.Thus, even that which is often considered Mysticism provides no way into the supersensible realms of existence. For him who would penetrate with full conscious clarity of understanding into the supersensible domain, the two experiences above described are, however, preparatory stages. Through them he recognises that man is shut off from the supersensible world by the very thing which places him, as a self-conscious being, in the midst of Nature. Now one might easily conclude from this, that man must altogether forego the effort to gain knowledge of the Supersensible.Nor can it be denied that many who are loath to face the painful issue, abstain from working their way through to a clear perception of the two experiences. Cherishing a certain dimness of perception on these matters, they either give themselves up to the belief that the limitations of Natural Science may be transcended by some intellectual and philosophic exercise; or else they devote themselves to Mysticism in the ordinary sense, avoiding the full enlightenment as to the nature of Self-consciou sness and Memory which would reveal its insufficiency.But to one who has undergone them and reached a certain clarity withal, these very experiences will open out the possibility and prospect of true supersensible knowledge. For in the course of them he finds that even in the ordinary action of human consciousness there are forces holding sway within the soul, which are not bound to the physical organisation; forces which are in no way subject to the conditions whereon the faculties of Love and Memory within this physical organisation depend. One of these forces reveals itself in  Thought.True, it remains unnoticed in the ordinary conscious life; indeed there are even many philosophers who deny it. But the denial is due to an imperfect self-observation. There is something at work in Thought which does not come into it from the faculty of Memory. It is something that vouches to us for the correctness of a present thought, not when a former thought emerging from the memory sustains it, but when the correctness of the present thought isexperienced directly. This experience escapes the every-day consciousness, because man completely spends the force in question for his life of thought-filled perception.In Perception permeated by Thought this force is at work. But man, perceiving, imagines that the perception alone is vouching for the correctness of what he apprehends by an activity of soul where Thought  and  Perception in reality always flow together. And when he lives in Thought alone, abstracted from perceptions, it is but an activity of Thought which finds its supports in Memory. In this abstracted Thought the physical organism is cooperative. For the every-day consciousness, an activity of Thought unsubjected to the bodily organism is only present while man is in the act of Sense-perception.Sense-perception itself depends upon the organism. But the thinking activity, contained in and co-operating with it, is a purely supersensible element in which the b odily organism has no share. In it the human soul rises out of the bodily organism. As soon as man becomes distinctly, separately conscious of this Thinking in the act of Perception, he knows by direct experience that he has himself as a living soul, quite independently of the bodily nature. This is man's first experience of himself as a supersensible soul-being, arising out of an evolved self-knowledge. The same experience is there unconsciously in every act of perception.We need only sharpen our selfobservation so as to Observe the fact: in the act of Perception a supersensible element reveals itself. Once it is thus revealed, this first, faint suggestion of an experience of the soul within the Supersensible can be evolved, as follows: In living, meditative practice, man unfolds a Thinking wherein two activities of the soul flow together, namely that which lives in the ordinary consciousness in Sense-perception, and that which is active in ordinary Thought. The meditative life thu s becomes an intensified activity of Thought, receiving into itself the force that is otherwise spent in Perception.Our Thinking in itself must grow so strong, that it works with the same vivid quality which is otherwise only there in Sense-perception. Without perception by the senses we must call to life a Thinking which, unsupported by memories of the past, experiences in the immediate present a content of its own, such as we otherwise only can derive from Sense-perception. From the Thinking that co-operates in perception, this meditative action of the soul derives its free and conscious quality, its inherent certainty that it receives no visionary content raying into the soul from unconscious organic regions.A visionary life of whatsoever kind is the very antithesis of what is here intended. By self-observation we must become thoroughly and clearly familiar with the condition of soul in which we are in the act of perception through any one of the senses. In this state of soul, fu lly aware that the content of our ideation does not arise out of the activity of the bodily organism, we must learn to experience ideas which are called forth in consciousness without external perceptions, just as are those of which we are conscious in ordinary life when engaged in reflective thought, abstracted from the enter world. As to the right ways of developing this meditative practice, detailed indications are given in the book‘Knowledge of the Higher Worlds and its Attainment’  and in several of my other writings. ) In evolving the meditative life above-described, the human soul rises to the conscious feeling perception of itself, as of a supersensible Being independent of the bodily organisation. This is man's first experience of himself as a supersensible Being; and it leads on to a second stage in supersensible self-knowledge.At the former stage he can only be aware that he  is  a supersensible Being; at the second he feels this Being filled with real content, even as the ‘I’ of ordinary waking life is felt by means of the bodily organisation. It is of the utmost importance to realise that the transition from the one stage to the other takes place quite independently of any co-operation from outside the soul's domain — namely from the mere organic life. If we experienced the transition, in relation to our own bodily nature, any differently from the process of drawing a logical conclusion for example, it would be a visionary experience, not what is intended here.The process here intended differs from the act of drawing logical conclusions, not in respect of its relationship to the bodily nature, but in quite another regard; namely in the consciousness that a supersensible, purely spiritual content is entering the feeling and perception of the Self. The kind of meditative life hitherto described gives rise to the supersensible self-consciousness. But this self-consciousness would be left without any supersensibl e environment if the above form of meditation were unaccompanied by another. We come to an understanding of this latter kind by turning our self-observation to the activity of the  Will.In every-day life the activity of the Will is consciously directed to external actions. There is, however, another concomitant expression of the Will to which the human being pays little conscious attention. It is the activity of Will which carries him from one stage of development to another in the course of life. For not only is he filled with different contents of soul day after day; his soul-life itself, on each succeeding day, has evolved out of his soul-life of the day before. The driving force in this evolving process is the Will, which in this field of its activity remains for the most part unconscious.Mature self-knowledge can, however, raise this Will, with all its peculiar quality, into the conscious life. When this is done, man comes to the perception of a life of Will which has absolut ely nothing to do with any processes of a sense-perceptible external world, but is directed solely to the inner evolution of the soul — independent of this world. Once it is known to him, he learns by degrees to enter into the living essence of this Will, just as in the former kind of meditative life he entered into the fusion of the soul's experiences of Thinking and Perception.And the conscious experience in this element of Will expands into the experience of a supersensible external world. Evolved in the way above described, and transplanted now into this element of Will, the supersensible self-consciousness finds itself in a supersensible environment, filled with spiritual Beings and events. While the supersensible Thinking leads to a self-consciousness independent of the power of Memory which is bound to the bodily nature, the supersensible Willing comes to life in such a way as to be permeated through and through by a spiritualised faculty of Love.It is this faculty of Love which enables the supersensible self-consciousness of man to perceive and grasp the supersensible external world. Thus the power of supersensible knowledge is established by a self-consciousness which eliminates the ordinary Memory and lives in the intuitive perception of the spiritual world through the power of Love made spiritual. Only by realising this essence of the supersensible faculty of knowledge, does one become able to understand the real meaning of man's knowledge of Nature. In effect, the knowledge of Nature is inherently connected with what is being evolved in man within this physical world of sense.It is in this world that man incorporates, into his spiritual Being, Self-consciousness and the faculty of Love. Once he has instilled these two into his nature, he can carry them with him into the super sensible world. In supersensible perception, the ordinary power of Memory is eliminated. Its place is taken by an immediate vision of the past — a vision for whi ch the past appears as we look backward in spiritual observation, just as for sense-perception the things we pass by as we walk along appear when we turn round to look behind us.Again the ordinary faculty of Love is bound to the physical organism. In conscious supersensible experience, its place is taken by a power of Love made spiritual, which is to say, a power of perception. It may already be seen, from the above description, that supersensible experience takes place in a mood of soul which must be held apart, in consciousness, from that of ordinary Perception, Thinking, Feeling and Willing.The two ways of looking out upon the world must be kept apart by the deliberate control of man himself, just as in another sphere the waking consciousness is kept apart from the dream life. He who lets play the picture-complexes of his dreams into his waking life becomes a listless and fantastic fellow, abstracted from realities. He, on the other hand, who holds to the belief that the essence of causal relationships experienced in waking life can be extended into the life of dreams, endows the dream-pictures with an imagined reality which will make it impossible for him to experience their real nature.So with the mode of thought which governs our outlook upon Nature, or of inner experience which determines ordinary Mysticism: — he who lets them play into his supersensible experience, will not behold the supersensible, but weave himself in figments of the mind, which, far from bringing him nearer to it, will cut him off from the higher world he seeks. A man who will not hold his experience in the supersensible apart from his experience in the world of the physical senses, will mar the fresh and unembarrassed outlook upon Nature which is the true basis for a healthy sojourn in this earthly life.Moreover, he will permeate with the force of spiritual perception the faculty of Love that is connected with the bodily nature, thus tending to bring it into a deceptive rela tionship with the physical experience. All that the human being experiences and achieves within the field of sense, receives its true illumination — an illumination which the deepest needs of the soul require — through the science of things that are only to be experienced supersensibly. Yet must the latter be held separate in consciousness from the experience in the world of sense.It must illumine our knowledge of Nature, our ethical and social life; yet so, that the illumination always proceeds from a sphere of experience apart. Mediately, through the attunement of the human soul, the Supersensible must indeed shed its light upon the Sensible. For if it did not do so, the latter would be relegated to darkness of thought, chaotic wilfulness of instinct and desire. Many human beings, well knowing this relationship which has to be maintained in the soul between the experience of the supersensible and that of the world of sense, hold that the supersensible knowledge must on no account be given full publicity.It should remain, so they consider, the secret knowledge of a few, who have attained by strict self-discipline the power to establish and maintain the true relationship. Such guardians of supersensible knowledge base their opinion on the very true assertion that a man who is in any way inadequately prepared for the higher knowledge will feel an irresistible impulsion to mingle the Supersensible with the Sensible in life; and that he will inevitably thus call forth, both in himself and others, all the ill effects which we have here characterised as the result of such confusion.On the other hand — believing as they do, and with good reason, that man's outlook upon Nature must not be left to grope in utter darkness, nor his life to spend itself in blind forces of instinct and desire, — they have founded self-contained and closed Societies, or Occult Schools, within which human beings properly prepared are guided stage by stage to supe rsensible discovery. Of such it then becomes the task to pour the fruits of their knowledge into life, without, however, exposing the knowledge itself to publicity.In past epochs of human evolution this idea was undoubtedly justified. For the propensity above described, leading to the misuse of supersensible knowledge, was then the only thing to be considered, and against it there stood no other circumstance to call for publication of the higher knowledge. It might at most be contended that the superiority of those initiated into the higher knowledge gave into their hands a mighty power to rule over those who had no such knowledge.None the less, an enlightened reading of the course of History will convince us that such conflux of power into the hands of a few, fitted by self-discipline to wield it, was indeed necessary. In present time, however — meaning ‘present’ in the wider sense — the evolution of mankind has reached a point whenceforward it becomes no t only impossible but harmful to prolong the former custom. The irresistible impulsion to misuse the higher knowledge is now opposed by other factors, making the — at any rate partial — publication of such knowledge a matter of necessity, and calculated also to remove the ill effects of the above tendency.Our knowledge of Nature has assumed a form wherein it beats perpetually, in a destructive way, against its own barriers and limitations. In many branches of Science, the laws and generalisations in which man finds himself obliged to clothe certain of the facts of Nature, are in themselves of such a kind as to call his attention to his own supersensible powers. The latter press forward into the conscious life of the soul. In former ages, the knowledge of Nature which was generally accessible had no such effect.Through Natural Science, however, in its present form — expanding as it is in ever widening circles — mankind would be led astray in either of two directions, if a publication of supersensible knowledge were not now to take place. Either the possibility of a supersensible world-outlook would be repudiated altogether and with growing vehemence; and this would presently result in an artificial repression of supersensible faculties which the time is actually calling forth.Such repression would make it more and more impossible for man to see his own Being in a true light. Emptiness, chaos and dissatisfaction of the inner life, instability of soul, perversity of will; and, in the sequel, even physical degeneration and illhealth would be the outcome. Or else the supersensible faculties-uncontrolled by conscious knowledge of these things-would break out in a wild tangle of obtuse, unconscious, undirected forces of cognition, and the life of knowledge would degenerate in a chaotic mass of nebulous conceptions.This would be to create a world of scientific phantoms, which, like a curtain, would obscure the true supersensible world from the spiritual eye of man. For either of these aberrations, a proper publication of supersensible knowledge is the only remedy. As to the impulse to abuse such knowledge in the way above described, it can be counteracted in our time, as follows: the training of thought which modern Natural Science has involved can be fruitfully employed to clothe in words the truths that point towards the supersensible.Itself, this Science of Nature cannot penetrate into the supersensible world; but it lends the human mind an aptitude for combinations of thought whereby the higher knowledge can be so expressed that the irresistible impulsion to misuse it need not arise. The thought-combinations of the Nature-knowledge of former times were more pictorial, less inclined to the domain of pure Thought. Supersensible perceptions, clothed in them, stirred up — without his being conscious of it — those very instincts in the human being which tend towards misuse.This being said, it cannot on th e other hand be emphasised too strongly that he who gives out supersensible knowledge in our time will the better fulfil his responsibilities to mankind the more he contrives to express this knowledge in forms of thought borrowed from the modern Science of Nature. For the receiver of knowledge thus imparted will then have to apply, to the overcoming of certain difficulties of understanding, faculties of soul which would otherwise remain inactive and tend to the above misuse.The popularising of supersensible knowledge, so frequently desired by overzealous and misguided people, should be avoided. The truly earnest seeker does not call for it; it is but the banale, uncultured craving of persons indolent in thought. In the ethical and social life as well, humanity has reached a stage of development which makes it impossible to exclude all knowledge of the supersensible from public life and thought. In former epochs the ethical and social instincts contained within them spiritual guiding forces, inherited from primaeval ages of mankind.Such forces tended instinctively to a community life which answered also to the needs of individual soul. But the inner life of man has grown more conscious than in former epochs. The spiritual instincts have thus been forced into the background. The Will, the impulses of men must now be guided consciously, lest they become vagrant and unstable. That is to say, the individual, by his own insight, must be in a position to illumine the life in the physical world of sense by the knowledge of the supersensible, piritual Being of man. Conceptions formed in the way of natural-scientific knowledge cannot enter effectively into the conscious guiding forces of the ethical and social life. Destined as it is — within its own domain — to bear the most precious fruits, Natural Science will be led into an absolutely fatal error if it be not perceived that the mode of thought which dominates it is quite unfitted to open out an underst anding of, or to give impulses for, the moral and social life of humanity.In the domain of ethical and social life our conception of underlying principles, and the conscious guidance of our action, can only thrive when illumined from the aspect of the Supersensible. Between the rise of a highly evolved Natural Science, and present-day developments in the human life of Will — with all the underlying impulses and instincts — there is indeed a deep, significant connection.The force of knowledge that has gone into our science of Nature, is derived from the former spiritual content of man's impulses and instincts. From the fountain-head of supersensible Realities, the latter must now be supplied with fresh impulsive forces. We are living in an age when supersensible knowledge can no longer remain the secret possession of a few. No, it must become the common property of all, in whom the meaning of life within this age is stirring as a very condition of their soul's existence .In the unconscious depths of the souls of men this need is already working, far more widespread than many people dream. And it will grow, more and more insistently, to the demand that the science of the Supersensible shall be treated on a like footing with the science of Nature. Knowledge of the State Between Death and a New Birth The following thoughts are intended as aphoristic sketches of a domain of knowledge that, in the form in which is it characterised here, is almost entirely rejected by the culture of our time.The aphoristic form has been chosen in order to give some idea of the fundamental character of this field of knowledge, and to show — at least in one direction — the prospects for life which it opens up. The narrow frame of an essay requires one to refer the reader to the literature of the subject for further information. The author is fully aware that precisely this form of presentation may easily be felt as presumptuous by many who, from the well-foun ded habits of thought of the culture of the day, must find what is here brought forward directly pposed to all that is scientific. It may be said in answer to this that the author, in spite of his ‘spiritual-scientific’ orientation, believes that he can agree with every scientist in his high estimation of the spirit and significance of scientific thinking. Only it seems clear to him that one can fully accept Natural Science without being thereby compelled to reject an independent Spiritual Science of the kind described here.A consequence of this relation to Natural Science will, at all events, be to guard true Spiritual Science from that amateurishness which is noticeable in many quarters to-day, and which usually indulges the more presumptuously in phrases about the ‘crude materialism of Natural Science’ the less the speakers are able to judge of the earnestness, rigour and scientific soundness of Natural Knowledge. The writer wished to make these introduc tory remarks because the brevity of the discussions in this article may possibly obscure from the reader his attitude towards these matters.He who speaks to-day of investigating the spiritual world encounters the sceptical objections of those whose habits of thought have been moulded by the outlook of Natural Science. His attention will be drawn to the blessings which this outlook has brought for a healthy development of human life, by destroying the illusions of a learning which professed to follow purely spiritual modes of cognition. Now these sceptical objections can be quite intelligible to the spiritual investigator.Indeed it ought to be perfectly clear to him that any kind of spiritual investigation which finds itself in conflict with established ideas of Natural Science cannot rest on a sure foundation. A spiritual investigator with a feeling for, and an understanding of the earnestness of scientific procedure, and insight into the achievements of Natural Knowledge for human life, will not wish to join the ranks of those who, from the standpoint of their ‘spiritual sight,’ criticise lightly the limitations of scientists, and imagine their own standpoint so much the higher the more every kind of Natural Knowledge is lost for them in unfathomable depths.Natural Science and Spiritual Science could live in harmony if the former could rid itself of the erroneous belief that true spiritual investigation necessarily requires we [human beings] to reject attested knowledge of sensible reality and of the soul-life bound up with this. In this erroneous belief lies the source of innumerable misunderstandings which Spiritual Science has to encounter. Those who believe they stand, in their outlook on life, on the ‘firm ground of Natural Science’ hold that the spiritual investigator is compelled by his point of view to reject their knowledge.But this is not really the case. Genuine spiritual investigation is in full agreement with Natural Sci ence. Thus spiritual investigation is not opposed on account of what it maintains, but for what people believe it could or must maintain. With regard to human soul life the scientific thinker must maintain that the soul activities which reveal themselves as thinking, feeling and willing, ought, for the acquisition of scientific knowledge, to be observed without prejudice in the same way as the phenomena of light or heat in the outer world of Nature.He must reject all ideas about the entity of the soul which do not arise from such unprejudiced observation, and from which all kinds of conclusions are then drawn about the indestructibility of the soul, and its connection with the spiritual world. It is quite understandable that such a thinker begins his study of the facts of soul-life as  Theodor Ziehen  does in the first of his lectures on â€Å"Physiological Psychology. † He says: â€Å"The psychology which I shall put before you, is not that old psychology which attempte d to investigate soul phenomena in a more or less speculative way.This psychology has long been abandoned by those accustomed to think scientifically. † True spiritual investigation need not conflict with the scientific attitude which may he in such an avowal. And yet, among those who take this attitude as a result of their scientific habits of thought, the opinion will be almost universally held to-day that the specific results of spiritual investigation are to be regarded as unscientific.Of course one will not encounter everywhere this rejection, on grounds of principle, of the investigation of spiritual facts; yet when specific results of such investigation are brought forward they will scarcely escape the objection that scientific thinking can do nothing with them. As a consequence of this,one can observe that there has recently grown up a science of the soul, forming its methods of investigation on the pattern of natural-scientific procedure, but unable to find the power to approach those highest questions which our inner need of knowledge must put when we turn our gaze to the fate of the soul.One investigates conscientiously the connection of soul phenomena with bodily processes, one tries to gain ideas on the way presentations associate and dissociate in the soul, how attention acts, how memory functions, what relation exists between thinking, feeling and willing; but for the higher questions of soul-life the words of Franz Brentano remain true.This acute psychologist, though rooted in the mode of thinking of Natural Science, wrote: â€Å"The laws of association of ideas, of the development of convictions and opinions and of the genesis of pleasure and love would be anything but a true compensation for the hopes of a  Plato  or an  Aristotle  of gaining certainty concerning the continued life of our better part after the dissolution of the body. † And if the recent scientific mode of thinking really means â€Å"excluding the questi on of immortality,† this exclusion would have great significance for psychology (see  Note 1).The fact is, that considerations which might tend in the direction of the ‘hopes of a Plato and an Aristotle’ are avoided in recent psychological writings which wish to satisfy the demands of scientific thought. Now the spiritual investigator will not come into conflict with the mode of procedure of recent scientific psychology if he has an understanding of its vital nerve. He will have to admit that this psychology proceeds, in the main, along right lines insofar as the study of the inner experiences of thinking, feeling and willing is concerned.Indeed his path of knowledge leads him to admit that thinking, feeling and willing reveal nothing that could fulfil the ‘hopes of a Plato and an Aristotle’ if these activities are only studied as they are experienced in ordinary human life. But his path of knowledge also shows that in thinking, feeling and willing something lies hidden which does not become conscious in the course of ordinary life, but which can be brought to consciousness through inner soul exercises.In this spiritual entity of the soul, hidden from ordinary consciousness, is revealed what in it is independent of the life of the body; and in this the relations of man to the spiritual world can be studied. To the spiritual investigator it appears just as impossible to fulfil the ‘hopes of a Plato or an Aristotle’ in regard to the existence of the soul independent of bodily life by observing ordinary thinking, feeling and willing, as it is impossible to investigate in water the properties of hydrogen. To learn these one must first extract the hydrogen from the water by an appropriate procedure.So it is also necessary to separate from the everyday life of the soul (which it leads in connection with the body) that entity which is rooted in the spiritual world, if this entity is to be studied. The error which casts b efogging misunderstandings in the way of Spiritual Science lies in the almost general belief that knowledge about the higher questions of soul-life must be gained from a study of such facts of the soul as are already to be found in ordinary life. But no other knowledge results from these facts than that to which research, conducted on what are at present called scientific lines, can lead.On this account Spiritual Science can be no mere heeding of what is immediately present in the life of the soul. It must first lay bare, by inner processes in the life of the soul, the world of facts to be studied. To this end spiritual investigation applies soul processes which are attained in inner experience. Its field of research lies entirely within the inner life of the soul. It cannot make its experiences outwardly visible. Nevertheless they are not on that account less independent of personal caprice than the true results of Natural Science.They have nothing in common with mathematical truth s except that they, too, cannot be proved by outer facts, but are proved for anyone who grasps them in inner perception. Like mathematical truths they can at the most be outwardly symbolised but not represented in their full content, for it is this that proves them. The essential point, which can easily be misunderstood, is, that on the path pursued by spiritual investigation a certain direction is given, by inner initiative, to the experiences of the soul, thereby calling out forces which otherwise remain unconscious as in a kind of soul sleep. The soul exercises which lead to this goal are described in detail in my books â€Å"Knowledge of the Higher Worlds and its Attainment† and â€Å"Occult Science. † It is only intended to indicate here what transpires in the soul when it subjects itself to such exercises). If the soul proceeds in this way it inserts — as it were — its inner life into the domain of spiritual reality. It opens to the spiritual world its organs of perception so formed, as the senses open outwardly to physical reality. One kind of such soul exercises consists in an intensive surrender to the process of thinking.One carries this surrender so far that one acquires the capacity of directing one's attention no longer to the thoughts present in thinking but solely to the activity of thinking itself. Every kind of thought content then disappears from consciousness and the soul experiences herself consciously in the activity of thinking. Thinking then becomes transformed into a subtle inner act of will which is completely illuminated by consciousness. In ordinary thinking, thoughts live; the process indicated  extinguishes the thought in thinking.The experience thus induced is a weaving in an inner activity of will which bears its reality within itself. The point is that the soul, by continued inner experience in this direction, may make itself as familiar with the purely spiritual reality in which it weaves as sense observation is with physical reality. As in the outer world a reality can only be known as such by experiencing it, so, too, in this inner domain. He who objects that what is inwardly real cannot be proved only shows that he has not yet grasped that we become convinced of an outer reality in no other way than by experiencing its existence together with our own.A healthy life has direct experience of the difference between a genuine perception in the outer world and a vision or hallucination; in a similar way a healthily developed soul life can distinguish the spiritual reality it has approached from fantastic imagining; and dreamy reverie. Thinking that has been developed in the manner stated perceives that it has freed itself from the soul force which ordinarily leads to memory. What is experienced in thinking which has become an inwardly experienced ‘will-reality’ cannot be remembered in the direct form in which it presents itself.Thus it differs from what is experien ced in ordinary thinking. What one has thought about an event is incorporated into memory. It can be brought up again in the further course of life. But the ‘will-reality’ here described must be attained anew, if it is to be again experienced in consciousness. I do not mean that this reality cannot be indirectly incorporated into ordinary memory. This must indeed take place if the path of spiritual investigation is to be a healthy one. But what remains in memory is only an idea (Vorstellung) of this reality, just as what one remembers to-day of an experience of yesterday is only an idea (Vorstellung).Concepts, ideas, can be retained in memory: a spiritual reality must be experienced ever anew. By grasping vividly this difference between the cherishing of mere thoughts and a spiritual reality reached by developing the activity of thinking, one comes to experience oneself with this reality outside the physical body. What ordinary thinking must mostly regard as an impossib ility commences; one experiences oneself outside the existence that is connected with the body. Ordinary thinking, regarding this experience ‘outside the body’ only from its own point of view, must at first hold this to be an illusion.Assurance of this experience can, indeed, only be won through the experience itself. And it is precisely through this experience that one understands only too well that those whose habits of thought have been formed by Natural Science cannot, at first, but regard such experiences as fantastic imaginings or dreamy reverie, perhaps as a weaving in illusions or hallucinations. Only he can fully understand what is here brought forward who has come to know that the path of true spiritual investigation releases forces in the soul which lie in a direction precisely opposite to those which induce pathological soul experiences.What the soul develops on the path of spiritual investigation are forces competent to oppose pathological states or to diss ipate these where they tend to occur. No scientific investigation can see through what is visionary — of an hallucinatory nature — when this tries to get in man's way, as directly as true spiritual science, which can only unfold in a direction opposed to the unhealthy experiences mentioned. In that moment when this ‘experience outside the body’ becomes a reality for him the spiritual investigator learns to know how ordinary thinking is bound to the physical processes of the body.He comes to see how thoughts acquired in outer experience necessarily arise in such a way that they can be remembered. This rests on the fact that these thoughts do not merely lead a spiritual life in the soul but share their life with the body. Thus the spiritual investigator comes not to reject but to accept what scientific thought must maintain about the dependence of the life of thought on bodily processes. At first the inner experiences described above present themselves as an xious oppression of the soul. They appear to lead out of the domain of ordinary existence but not into a new reality.One knows, indeed, that one is living in a reality; one feels this reality as one's own spiritual being. One has found one's way out of sense reality, but one has only grasped oneself in a purely spiritual form of existence. A feeling of loneliness resembling fear can overtake the soul — a loneliness to experience oneself in a world, not merely to possess oneself. Yet another feeling arises. One feels one must lose again the acquired spiritual self-experience, if one cannot confront a spiritual environment. The spiritual state into which one thus enters may be roughly compared to what would be experienced if one had to clutch with one's hands n all directions without being able to lay hold of anything. When, however, the path of spiritual investigation is pursued in the right way, the above experiences are, indeed, undergone, but they form only one side of the soul's development. The necessary completion is found in other experiences. As certain impulses given to the soul's experiences lead one to grasp the ‘will-reality’ within thinking, so other directions imparted to the processes of the soul lead to an experience of hidden forces within the activity of the will. (Here also we can only state what takes place in the inner being of man through such soul experiences.The books mentioned give a detailed description of what the soul must undertake in order to reach the indicated goal). In ordinary life the activity of the will is not perceived in the same way as an outer event. Even what is usually called introspection by no means puts one into the position of regarding one's own willing as one regards an outer event of Nature. To achieve this — to be able to confront one's own willing as an observer stands before an outer fact of Nature — intensive soul processes, induced voluntarily, are again necessary.If these are induced in the appropriate way there arises something quite different from this view of one's own willing as of an outer fact. In ordinary perception a presentation (Vorstellung) emerges in the life of the soul and is, in a certain sense, an inner image of the outer fact. But in observing one's own willing this accustomed power of forming presentations fades out. One ceases to form presentations of outer things. In place of this a faculty of forming real images — a real perception — is released from the depths of willing, and breaks through the surface of the will's activity, bringing living spiritual reality with it.At first one's own hidden spiritual entity appears within this spiritual reality. One perceives that one carries a hidden spiritual man within one. This is no thought-picture but a real being — real in a higher sense than the outer bodily man. Now this spiritual man does not present himself like an outer being perceptible to the senses. He does not reveal his characteristic qualities outwardly. He reveals himself through his inner nature by developing an inner activity similar to the processes of consciousness in one's own soul.But, unlike the soul dwelling in man's body, this higher being is not turned towards sensible objects but towards spiritual events — in the first place towards the events of one's own soul-life as unfolded up till now. One really discovers in oneself a second human being who, as a spiritual being, is a conscious observer of one's ordinary soul-life. However fantastic this description of a spiritual man within the bodily may appear, it is nevertheless a sober description of reality for a soul-life appropriately trained. It is as different from anything visionary or of the nature of an illusion as is day from night.Just as a reality partaking of the nature of will is discovered in the transformed thinking, so a consciousness partaking of the nature of being — and weaving in the spiritual — is discovered in the will. And these two prove, for fuller experience, to belong together. In a certain sense they are discovered on paths running in opposite directions, but turn out to be a unity. The feeling of anxiety experienced in the weaving of the ‘will-reality’ ceases when this ‘will-reality,’ born from developed thinking, unites itself with the higher being above described. Through this union man confronts, for the first time, the complete spiritual world.He encounters, not only himself, but beings and events of the spiritual world lying outside himself. In the world into which man has thus entered, perception is an essentially different process from perception in the world of sense. Real beings and events of the spiritual world arise from out of the higher being revealed through developing the will. Through the interplay of these beings and events with the ‘will-reality’ resulting from developed thinking, these beings and e vents are spiritually perceived. What we know as memory in the physical world ceases to have significance for the spiritual world.We see that this soul force uses the physical body as a tool. But another force takes the place of memory in observing the spiritual world. Through this force a past event is not remembered in the form of mental presentations but perceived directly in a fresh experience. It is not like reading a sentence and remembering it later, but like reading and re-reading. The concept of the past acquires a new significance in this domain; the past appears to spiritual perception as present, and we recognise that something belongs to a past time by perceiving, not the passage of time, but the relation of one spiritual being or event to another.The path into the spiritual world is thus traversed by laying bare what is contained in thinking and willing. Now feeling cannot be developed in a similar way by inner initiative of soul. Unlike the case of thinking and willin g, nothing to take the place of what is experienced within the physical world as feeling can be developed in the spiritual world through transforming an inner force. What corresponds to feeling in the spiritual world arises quite of itself as soon as spiritual perception has been acquired in the described way.This experience of feeling, however, bears a different character from that borne by feeling in the physical world. One does not feel in oneself, but in the beings and events which one perceives. One enters into them with one's feeling; one feels their inner being, as in physical life one feels one's own being. We might put it in this way: as in the physical world one is conscious of experiencing objects and events as material, so in the spiritual world one is conscious of experiencing beings and facts through revelations of feeling which come from without like colours or sounds in the physical world.A soul which has attained to the spiritual experience described knows it is in a world from out of which it can observe its own experiences in the physical word — just as physical perception can observe a sensible object. It is united with that spiritual entity which unites itself — at birth (or at conception) — with the physical body derived from one's ancestors; and this spiritual entity persists when this body is laid aside at death. The ‘hopes of a Plato and an Aristotle’ for the science of the soul can only be fulfilled through a perception of this entity.Moreover the perception of repeated earth-lives (between which are lives spent in the purely spiritual world) now becomes a fact inasmuch as man's psychic-spiritual kernel, thus discovered, perceives itself and its own weaving and becoming in the spiritual world. It learns to know its own being as the result of earlier earthlives and spiritual forms of existence lying between them. Within its present earth-life it finds a spiritual germ which must unfold in a future eart h-life after passing through states between death and a new birth.As the plant germ contains the future plant potentially, so there develops, concealed in man, a psychic-spiritual germ. This reveals itself to spiritual perception through its own essence as the foundation of a future earth-life. It would be incorrect so to interpret the spiritual perception of life between death and a new birth as if such perception meant participating beforehand in the experience of the spiritual world entered at physical death.Such perception does not give a complete, disembodied experience of the spiritual world as experienced after death; it is only the  knowledge  of the actual experience that is experienced. While still in one's body one can receive all of the disembodied experience between death and a new birth that is offered by the experiences of the soul described above, that is to say, when the ‘will-reality’ is released from thinking with the help of the consciousness set free from the will.In the spiritual world the feeling element revealing itself from without can first be experienced through entrance into this world. Strange as it may sound, experience in the spiritual world leads one to say: the physical world is present to man in the first place as a complex of outer facts, and man acquires knowledge of it after it has confronted him in this form; the spiritual world, on the other hand, sends knowledge of itself in advance, and the knowledge it kindles in the soul beforehand is the torch which must illumine the spiritual world if this world is to reveal itself as a fact.It is clear to one who knows this through spiritual perception that this light develops during bodily life on earth in the unconscious depths of the soul, and then, after death, illumines the regions of the spiritual world making them experiences of the human soul. During bodily life on earth one can awaken this knowledge of the state between death and a new birth. This knowledg e has an entirely opposite character to that developed for life in the physical world.One perceives through it what the soul will accomplish between death and a new birth, because one has present in spiritual perception the germ of what impels towards this accomplishment. The perception of this germ reveals that a creative connection with the spiritual world commences for the soul after death. It unfolds an activity which is directed towards the future earth life as its goal, whereas in physical perception its activity is directed — although imitatively and not creatively — towards the outer world of sense.Man's  growth(Werden) as a spiritual being connected with the spiritual world lies in the field of vision of the soul between death and a new birth, as the  existence  (Sein) of the sense world lies in the field of view of the bodily man. Active perception of spiritual Becoming (Werden) characterises the conditions between death and a new birth. (It is not the task of this article to give details of these states. Those interested will find them in my books  Ã¢â‚¬Å"Theosophy†Ã‚  and  Ã¢â‚¬Å"Occult Science†).In contrast to experience in the body, spiritual experience is something to which we are completely unaccustomed, inasmuch as the idea of  Being  as acquired in the physical world loses all meaning. The spiritual world has nothing of the nature of  Being. Everything is  Becoming. To enter a spiritual environment is to enter an everlasting Becoming. But in contrast to this restless Becoming in our spiritual environment we have the soul's perception of itself as stationary consciousness within the never-ceasing movement into which it is placed.The awakened spiritual consciousness must accommodate itself to this reversal of inner experience with regard to the consciousness that lives in the body. It can thereby acquire a real knowledge of experience apart from the body. And only such knowledge can embrace the states between death and a new birth. â€Å"  . .  . .   In a certain sense all human beings are ‘specialists’ to-day so far as their souls are concerned. We are struck by this specialised mode of perception when we study the development of Art in humanity.And for this very reason a comprehensive understanding of spiritual life in its totality must again come into existence. True form in Art will arise from this comprehensive understanding of spiritual life   . .  . .  Ã¢â‚¬  RUDOLF STEINER (From  Ways to a New Style in Architecture) We lose the human being from our field of vision if we do not fix the eye of the soul upon his entire nature in all its life-manifestations. We should not speak of man's knowledge, but of the complete man manifesting himself in the act of cognition. In cognition, man uses as an instrument his sense-nerve nature.For feeling, he is served by the rhythm living in the breath and the circulation of the blood. When he wills metabolism b ecomes the physical basis of his existence. But rhythm courses into the physical occurrence within the sense-nerve nature; and metabolism is the material bearer of the life of thought, even in the most abstract thinking, feeling lives and the waves of will pulsate. *| *| *| *| The ancient Oriental entered into his dream-like thinking more from the rhythmic life of feeling than does the man of the present age.The Oriental experienced for this reason more of the rhythmic weaving in his life of thought, while the Westerner experiences more of the logical indications. In ascending to super-sensible vision, the Oriental Yogi interwove conscious breath with conscious thinking, in this way, he laid hold in his breath upon the continuing rhythm of cosmic occurrence. As he breathed, he experienced the world as Self. Upon the rhythmic waves of conscious breath, thought moved through the entire being of man.He experienced how the Divine-Spiritual causes the spirit-filled breath to stream conti nuously into man, and how man thus becomes a living soul. The man of the present age must seek his supersensible knowledge in a different way. He cannot unite his thinking with the breath. Through meditation, he must lift his thinking out of the life of logic to vision. In vision, however, thought weaves in a spirit element or music and picture. It is released from the breath and woven together with the spiritual in the world.The Self is now experienced, not in connection with the breath in the single human being, but in the environing world of spirit. The Eastern man once experienced the world in himself, and in his spiritual life today he has the echo of this. The Western man stands at the beginning of his experience, and is on the way to find himself in the world. If the Western man should wish to become a Yogi, he would have to become a refined egoist, for Nature has already given him the feeling of the Self. which the Oriental had only in a dream-like way.If the Yogi had sought for himself in the world as the Western man must do, he would have led his dream-like thinking into unconscious sleep, and would have been psychically drowned. *| *| *| *| The Eastern man had the spiritual experience as religion, art, and science in complete unity. He made sacrifices to his spiritual-divine Beings. As a gift of grace, there flowed to him from them that which lifted him to the state of a true human being. This was religion. But in the sacrificial ceremony and the sacrificial place there was manifest to him also beauty, through which the Divine-Spiritual lived in art.And out of the beautiful manifestations of the Spirit there flowed science. Toward the West streamed the waves of wisdom that were the beautiful light of the spirit and inspired piety in the artistically inspired man. There religion developed its own being, and only beauty still continued united with wisdom. Heracleitos and Anaxagoras were men wise in the world who thought artistically; Aeschylos and Sop hocles were artists who moulded the wisdom of the world. Later wisdom was given over to thinking; it became knowledge. Art was transferred to its own world.Religion, the source of all, became the heritage of the East; art became the monument of the time when the middle region of the earth held sway; knowledge became the indepen