Mysticism: A Way of Unknowing

The phenomenon of mysticism has been a cause of intense debate for philosophers, religionists, and theologians for centuries. Interest in mysticism is particularly vibrant in the 21st century, not only among the afore-mentioned, but also from other diverse sectors of society. This is evidenced in the plethora of material dealing with various aspects of mysticism. Negative or apophatic mysticism is eliciting greater attention, both in the academy and in society in general and many of the misconceptions surrounding this concept are currently under scrutiny. It is clear that apophatic mysticism — the “way of unknowing” or “nothingness” — belongs to the essence of the spiritual path. A short survey of this concept in some of the major religious traditions, together with an analysis of the place of apophasis in Christianity, brings this pertinent area of study into greater focus

Reading Scripture through a mystical lens

In addition to the unprecedented interest in spirituality in recent decades, both at a popular level and also as an academic discipline, there has also been a resurgence of research dealing with spirituality and scripture. It is readily acknowledged that the hegemony of the historical-critical method is no longer tenable. As a method which sees the text as an artifact of history, there is minimal, if any, attempt to understand the experience of those who produced the text; it concentrates on a literal interpretation, at the expense of the polysemous nature of scripture. Contemporary scriptural studies, however, have witnessed a sea-change in interpretive methods of such magnitude, that it is difficult to keep up with current scholarship in this field. Within this paradigm shift, the importance of a spiritual reading of scripture has now come to the fore. More specifically, reading scripture through a mystical lens, as originally seen, inter alia, in the works of Origen, has taken its place, if not centre stage, at least on the stage, and no longer in the wings. Utilising the insights of a French Carmelite, Elisabeth Catez, a mystical reading of Paul exemplifies this new, yet ancient, hermeneutical method

Epidemiology and risk factors for illness in athletes participating in sport tournaments or competitions - a specific focus on Rugby Union

Includes bibliographical referencesBackground: Illness in athletes is an inevitable part of participation in sports, and can significantly interfere with training, during tournaments or at competition time. The incidence of illness in sports varies in different sporting codes and across different tournaments and competitions. The Super Rugby competition is a particularly demanding 16-week tournament among countries in the Southern Hemisphere, and is associated with a high incidence of illness. In this tournament, 15 rugby union teams compete and play international level matches every week, which involves travel across numerous time zones and therefore may be associated with a higher incidence of illness in players. Objective: The main objectives of this dissertation were to 1) review the epidemiology and risk factors for illness in athletes participating in tournaments or competitions, and 2) determine which intrinsic risk factors predispose players to illness during the 2010 Super Rugby tournament. Methods: This dissertation consisted of two main phases. In phase I, a systematic review of the literature was undertaken, using evidence-based criteria, to determine which risk factors predispose athletes to illness during tournaments. In phase II, a prospective cohort research study was undertaken, involving 239 players from South Africa and New Zealand, over the 16-week duration of the 2010 Super 14 Rugby Union tournament. For phase II, a pre-season medical questionnaire was administered to determine baseline medical data. Collection of data then took place each day of the competition, beginning 7 days before the first game the team played, and ending when each team played their final game. Each team physician completed a daily "medical illness log" for every player. Booklets were supplied that contained daily illness report forms. Results: The main findings of the review (phase I) were good evidence (level I and II) indicating that 1) international travel, and the duration of a tournament are extrinsic risk factors for illness in athletes, and 2) that prolonged and high intensity training, older age, and nutritional deficiencies are intrinsic risk factors for illness in athletes. The main findings of the prospective cohort study (phase II) were that an increased number of training days in the 2 weeks before the tournament was an independent risk factor for any illness, respiratory system illness, and digestive system illness; the % time spent on endurance training in the 15 weeks before the tournament was an additional independent risk factor associated with respiratory system illness; the use of anti-inflammatory medication was an independent risk factor associated with respiratory system illness. Summary and conclusion: In summary, novel intrinsic risk factors for illness in rugby players participating in the Super Rugby tournament were training more days/hours per week in the 2 weeks before the tournament, as well as endurance-type training 15 weeks before the tournament. These data can form the basis of planning preventative strategies to reduce the risk of illness in the Super Rugby tournament

The “turn” to spirituality

The term “spirituality” is difficult to define, given the equivocal meanings attributed to it, and the tendency to equate this phenomenon with “piety” or “otherworldliness”. Such an approach is far too narrow, and does not take into account that “spirituality” needs to be seen in a much wider context. Spirituality refers to the raison-d’être of one’s existence, the meaning and values to which one ascribes. Thus everyone embodies a spirituality, be it nihilistic, materialistic, humanistic, or religious. There are diverse spiritualities, each one culture-specific, expressing its own historical, sociological, theological, linguistic and philosophical orientation. Post-patriarchal and telluric, contemporary spirituality affects all areas of society, including the business world, education, health care, the arts, ecology, politics, religion and particularly the academy, where new programmes in spirituality are attracting a large number of students. The new surge of interest in spirituality is a force for personal and societal transformation

Discerning the mystical wisdom of the Bhagavad Gita and John of the Cross

The 21st century is characterised by a global spirituality. Presently, and more than ever, access to the great religious traditions has enabled many to tap into the wisdom of other cultures. While the respective epistemological foundations of diverse traditions may differ, mutual understanding and respectful dialogue nevertheless facilitate respect for the other and offer opportunities for mutual enrichment. This leads to the recognition that there are multiple dimensions and expressions of the sacred. From within this interspiritual approach, an analysis of the mystical wisdom of the Bhagavad Gita and John of the Cross clearly points to the central theme of discerning the real from the unreal. This leads to detachment from/lack of desire for and, finally, surrender to the Divine

Contemporary Christian Spirituality: An “Encompassing Field”

Contemporary Christian spirituality, understood as both an experiential, lived-life phenomenon and an academic discipline gives a new-found universal perspective to the reflective Christian. It constitutes an encompassing, incorporative “field” through occupying a “give-and-take” inter-disciplinary place in a general academy of Spirituality and through repossession of its own traditions, insights and ecumenical spiritual landscape. These discoveries are further enhanced through contemporary Christian spirituality’s own critical appreciation of globalisation and postmodernism. Contemporary Christian spirituality, at its best, constitutes a world-appreciative openness that nevertheless sustains its own unique identity. In short, contemporary Christian spirituality offers a livedfaith and academic discipline that is globally conscious and universally aligned. It operates out of a credible contextual  rationale for our times

Contemporary Christian spirituality: a worldly embodiment

Contemporary renascent spirituality secures for itself a motif of materiality and physical embodiment. This embodiment pertains to renascent spirituality both as lived-life experience and particularly as contemporary academic discipline. The influential sources of an embodied spirituality are to be found in spirituality’s reflective self-understanding, the rich resources of the Christian tradition, the growing interest in lived Christian experience as such, and the post-Vatican II conciliatory spirit and momentum. Renascent spirituality not only accommodates and endorses embodiment and “worldly” materiality; it also realises a new wholeness and integration for Christian spirituality. While it might seem a commonplace to defend Christian spirituality’s embodied, incarnational reality, it is clear that spirituality has not always been so understood, even constituting a pejorative connotation at times as something essentially detached, disembodied and inferentially dualistic. Spirituality in its revived sense holds within itself and its inherited tradition the potential to critique such disembodiment while simultaneously securing the mystery and transcendent dimension of embodied Christian living

On compile time Knuth-Morris-Pratt precomputation

Many keyword pattern matching algorithms use precomputation subroutines to produce lookup tables, which in turn are used to improve performance during the search phase. If the keywords to be matched are known at compile time, the precomputation subroutines can be implemented to be evaluated at compile time versus at run time. This will provide a performance boost to run time operations. We have started an investigation into the use of metaprogramming techniques to implement such compile time evaluation, initially for the Knuth-Morris-Pratt (KMP) algorithm. We present an initial experimental comparison of the performance of the traditional KMP algorithm to that of an optimised version that uses compile time precomputation. During implementation and benchmarking, it was discovered that C++ is not well suited to metaprogramming when dealing with strings, while the related D language is. We therefore ported our implementation to the latter and performed the benchmarking with that version. We discuss the design of the benchmarks, the experience in implementing the benchmarks in C++ and D, and the results of the D benchmarks. The results show that under certain circumstances, the use of compile time precomputation may significantly improve performance of the KMP algorithm