Exorcism, conjuration and the historiography of early modern ritual magic

Book synopsis: The notion of the ‘spirit’ is dazzling: it has manifold meanings and plays a crucial role in Early Modern medicine, psychology, religion, natural philosophy and cosmology. This book explores how those disciplines conceived of the spirits and shows that knowledge of the spirits is an essential prerequisite for the understanding of Renaissance literature and music. The volume focusses on the way in which the spirits act upon the soul’s perception, imagination and cognition, and on the cultural practices which aim to use or to purge or to ban the spirits

An early European critic of Hobbes's De Corpore

The Animadversiones in Elementorum Philosophiae by a little known Flemish scholar G. Moranus, published in Brussels in 1655 was an early European response to Hobbes’s De corpore. Although it is has been referred to by various Hobbes scholars, such as Noel Malcolm, Doug Jesseph, and Alexander Bird it has been little studied. Previous scholarship has tended to focus on the mathematical criticisms of Andre Tacquet which Moranus included in the form of a letter in his volume. Moranus’s philosophical objections to Hobbes’s natural philosophy offer a fascinating picture of the critical reception of Hobbes’s work by a religious writer trained in the late scholastic tradition. Moranus’s opening criticism clearly shows that he is unhappy with Hobbes’s exclusion of the divine and the immaterial from natural philosophy. He asks what authority Hobbes has for breaking with the common understanding of philosophy, as defined by Cicero ‘the knowledge of things human and divine’. He also offers natural philosophical and theological criticisms of Hobbes for overlooking the generation of things involved in the Creation. He also attacks the natural philosophical underpinning of Hobbes’s civil philosophy. In this paper I look at a number of philosophical topics which Moranus criticised in Hobbes’s work, including his mechanical psychology, his theory of imaginary space, his use of the concept of accidents, his blurring of the distinction between the human being and the animal, and his theories of motion. Moranus’s criticisms, which are a mixture of philosophical and theological objections, gives us some clear indications of what made Hobbes’ natural philosophy controversial amongst his contemporaries, and sheds new light on the early continental reception of Hobbes’s work

“The curious ways to observe weight in Water”: Thomas Harriot and his experiments on specific gravity

This paper explores the experiments of the English mathematician Thomas Harriot (1560-1621) on specific gravity in the years 1600-1605, as recorded in a series of manuscript notes in British Library Add. MS 6788. It examines the programme of reading undertaken by Harriot before (or during) these experiments (including works by Jean Bodin, Giovanni Battista della Porta, Gerard de Malynes, Gaston du Clo, and Juan Bautista Villalpando), and describes a series of experiments conducted by him which compared the weight of a wide variety of substances in air and water. Harriot’s work is compared to that of his contemporary Marino Ghetaldi (1568-1626) in Promotus Archimedis (1603), and the work of both mathematicians is positioned in the context of sixteenth-century mathematical responses to the famous problem posed by Hiero, King of Syracuse to Archimedes (as related by Vitruvius). Harriot’s use of proportional mathematics (especially the “rule of alligation”) in his experimental work and his application of this technique to problems in the alloying of metal and chymical analysis is examined in detail

The royal typographer and the alchemist: John Dee, Willem Silvius, and the diagrammatic alchemy of the Monas Hieroglyphica

John Dee’s Monas Hieroglyphica (1564) was a work which involved a close collaboration between its author and his ‘singular friend’ the Antwerp printer Willem Silvius, in whose house Dee was living whilst he composed the work and saw it through the press. This article considers the reasons why Dee chose to collaborate with Silvius, and the importance of the intellectual culture – and the print trade – of the Low Countries to the development of Dee’s outlook. Dee’s Monas was probably the first alchemical work which focused exclusively on the diagrammatic representation of the alchemical process, combining diagrams, cosmological schemes and various forms of tabular grid. It is argued that in the Monas the boundaries between typography and alchemy are blurred as the diagrams ‘anatomizing’ his hieroglyphic sign (the ‘Monad’) are seen as revealing truths about alchemical substances and processes

The positive contribution of the religious life to the life of the church

The positive contribution of the religious life to the life of the church as a whole. Chapter one: presuppositions of an Anglican, with particular views of ministry, Bible, church and sacraments. Presupposition as regards friendship acknowledgement of influence of C.S. Lewis. Prejudices from outside. The old prejudices, their causes and historical foundation. New prejudices in the present-day world. Chapter two. Misunderstandings from within. The religious life as a higher way of perfection. False view of detachment. Celibacy of the priesthood. Correctives to those misunderstandings. Chapter three. The temporal and the temporary. Contributions which religious life makes continually in a fallen world. The temporary contributions made at different times. Chapter four. The eternal and the inward. Eternal aspects of the threefold vow and of the worship of community life. Contribution of religious throughout the ages to ascetic and mystical theology, which builds on inner life of the Christian. Chapter five. Conclusions and speculations. Re-examination of definition of the religious life. Side developments of the religious life. Three protestant communities. The religious life and present-day problems

The impact of a parenting guidance programme for mothers with an ethnic minority background

The current mixed-method study investigates the effects of a culturally adapted version of the International Child Development Programme (ICDP) with 135 mothers – 29 ethnic Pakistani mothers residing in Norway attending Urdu-language groups and a comparison group of 105 Norwegian mothers attending Norwegian-language groups. All mothers completed questionnaires on parenting and psychosocial health before and after attending the ICDP programme. In-depth interviews with a subgroup of 12 ethnic Pakistani mothers and 8 ethnic Norwegian mothers were analysed using thematic analysis. Before the ICDP programme, the Urdu-speaking mothers spent more time with the child, scored higher on distant child management and reported poorer mental health. Most changes over time were similar but significant for the Norwegian-speaking group only, which might imply that the minority mothers were in the process of change. In the interviews, the Urdu-speaking mothers’ emphasized enhanced communication and regulation, enhanced family relationships and life quality, whereas the Norwegian-speaking group told about increased consciousness and empowerment, and a more positive focus.Funded by the Norwegian Ministry of Children, Equality, and Social Inclusion

Evaluation of Follow-Up Effects of the International Child Development Programme on Caregivers in Mozambique

This is a non-final version of an article published in final form in Infants & Young Children, 27(2), 120-135. doi:10.1097/iyc.0000000000000006.Parenting programs have been used to good effect in many settings, yet few are systematically introduced and evaluated in developing countries. This study explores the relative long-term effect of participation in the International Child Development Programme (ICDP) in a group of caregivers in Mozambique. A quasi-experimental design was used to compare caregivers who had completed an ICDP course (n = 75) with a sociogeographically matched comparison group participants (n = 62) who had not followed any parenting program. Both groups completed a questionnaire about parenting, attitudes toward the child and the child’s behavior, self-efficacy, life quality, and mental health. The ICDP group reported better parenting skills, fewer conduct problems in their children, and better child adjustment than the comparison group, as well as a shift in physical punishment away from hitting. The ICDP group had higher self-efficacy scores, better health and life quality, and lower scores on mental health difficulties. The follow-up differences between caregivers who had and had not attended the ICDP course indicate that course attendance may result in observable benefits in parenting and mental health scores. The data are cross-sectional and the caregivers were interviewed postintervention only, and more research is therefore needed

Mothers and Fathers Attending the International Child Development Programme in Norway

Fathers are understudied in parent training studies. This study investigates whether mothers and fathers benefit equally from participating in the International Child Development Programme (ICDP) implemented as a community-wide programme in Norway in their parenting behaviour, perceived child difficulties and their psychosocial health. The questionnaire study used a pre-post design comparing 105 mothers and 36 fathers who attended a regular ICDP course. Results showed that the mothers and fathers differed on parenting behaviours prior to the course but showed similar changes, including on emotional and regulative aspects of parenting and autonomy supportive behaviours. However, only the mothers perceived a decrease in their child’s difficulties after the course while the fathers showed a greater increase in behaviours assumed to support the child’s meaning-making and in self-efficacy, and a greater decrease in anxiety after the course. ICDP courses appear to be a useful tool for supporting both mothers and fathers in their parenting role

The TgsGP gene is essential for resistance to human serum in Trypanosoma brucei gambiense

Trypanosoma brucei gambiense causes 97% of all cases of African sleeping sickness, a fatal disease of sub-Saharan Africa. Most species of trypanosome, such as T. b. brucei, are unable to infect humans due to the trypanolytic serum protein apolipoprotein-L1 (APOL1) delivered via two trypanosome lytic factors (TLF-1 and TLF-2). Understanding how T. b. gambiense overcomes these factors and infects humans is of major importance in the fight against this disease. Previous work indicated that a failure to take up TLF-1 in T. b. gambiense contributes to resistance to TLF-1, although another mechanism is required to overcome TLF-2. Here, we have examined a T. b. gambiense specific gene, TgsGP, which had previously been suggested, but not shown, to be involved in serum resistance. We show that TgsGP is essential for resistance to lysis as deletion of TgsGP in T. b. gambiense renders the parasites sensitive to human serum and recombinant APOL1. Deletion of TgsGP in T. b. gambiense modified to uptake TLF-1 showed sensitivity to TLF-1, APOL1 and human serum. Reintroducing TgsGP into knockout parasite lines restored resistance. We conclude that TgsGP is essential for human serum resistance in T. b. gambiense