Singing and Participatory Spirituality

The author describes and examines participatory knowing, participatory spirituality, and psycho-spiritual growth and transformation as experienced by a group of accomplished singers through their singing and the process of learning to sing. In so doing, his study brings rich contemporary research narrative as evidence of the key elements of the participatory revisioning of transpersonal theory. In this article the author reports parts of the results and conclusions of an intuitive inquiry that explored the peak experiences, plateau experiences, and consequent transpersonal growth of nine classically trained singers, including the researcher, and one advanced practitioner of sacred chant. All participants had had significant transpersonal experiences through singing, as they engaged in a participatory, connected, and often passionate knowing that involved not only the opening of the mind, but also of the body, heart, and soul in relationship with a community and connection with their environment

A Photo Reverie: Creative Synthesis in Intuitive Inquiry

Creative synthesis is the last phase of heuristic research where the researcher uses his or her tacit and intuitive understanding of the research findings to synthesise and portray these findings through a creative medium. In this short paper and accompanied photo-reverie, the author demonstrates how he used a creative synthesis in an intuitive inquiry to portray the inner dimensions of his research into the transpersonal implications of singing

Granuloma inguinale (donovanosis) in South Africa

Granuloma inguinale is a chronic specific infection of the genitalia of both sexes. It is endemic in many parts of the world, including the Caribbean, the southern USA, India, New Guinea and tropical and sUbtropical Africa. Apart from a single patient diagnosed clinically, no cases of the disease have previously been reported in the RSA, and some have thought that it did not occur here. A series of 8 cases diagnosed on the Witwatersrand over the past 21 months is presented, suggesting that the disease is endemic in this country and has until now been overlooked by clinicians and pathologists

Capturing the vital vascular fingerprint with optical coherence tomography

Using fingerprints as a method to identify an individual has been accepted in forensics since the nineteenth century, and the fingerprint has become one of the most widely used biometric characteristics. Most of the modern fingerprint recognition systems are based on the print pattern of the finger surface and are not robust against spoof attaching. We demonstrate a novel vital vascular fingerprint system using Doppler optical coherence tomography that provides highly sensitive and reliable personal identification. Because the system is based on blood flow, which only exists in a livng person, the technique is robust against spoof attaching