The ontological turn or ontologically-oriented approach accentuates the key importance of intercultural variability in ontologies. Different ontologies produce different ways of experiencing the world, and therefore, participation in alternative realities is very desirable in anthropological and ethnological investigation. Just the participation in alternative realities itself enables researchers to experience alterity and ontoconceptual differences. The present study aims to demonstrate the power of ritual in alteration, and to show how co-experiencing rituals serves to uncover ontological categories and relations. We argue that (...) the experience of alterity in everyday activities is of a different quality than the experience of alterity when participating in rituals. Transcendent reality is accessible during rituals. It serves as source of potentialities. These potentialities are actualized in ritual and entangled with people's everyday existence. Furthermore, we argue that participating in ritual enables the researcher to step into the alterity of alterity, and to get nearer to the origins of ontologies. Ritual participation also invokes the extension of consciousness and provides a collectively shared cognition, opening up the ontological dimension and enabling access to existential experiences and concepts. In these settings, relations between people and the world can be recognized and investigated. (shrink)

Fear, anger and hopelessness were the most frequent traumatic emotional responses in the general public during the first stage of outbreak of the COVID-19 epidemic in the Czech Republic (N = 1,000). The four most frequent categories of fear were determined: (a) fear of the negative impact on household finances, (b) fear of the negative impact on the household finances of significant others, (c) fear of the unavailability of health care, and (d) fear of an insufficient food supply. The pessimistic (...) communications used by the Czech mass media contributed to intensifying traumatic feelings, fears and psychological distress in the general public during the outbreak of the COVID-19 epidemic. The anxious emotional tone of the messages and the presentation of selectively chosen “bad ending stories” contributed to the psychological traumatization of the Czech population. This form of communication was motivated by an effort to reach the broadest audience possible. Older adults were the most affected part of the population because of their isolation and their very limited opportunity to share their worries and emotions with others. The communication used by the Czech mass media during the outbreak of the COVID-19 epidemic is a representative example of a traumatizing form of media communication during an epidemic. (shrink)

Different cultures show different understandings of consciousness, soul, and spirit. Native indigenous traditions have recently seen a resurgence of interest and are being used in psychotherapy, mental health counselling, and psychiatry. The main aim of this review is to explore and summarize the native indigenous concepts of consciousness, soul, and spirit. Following a systematic review search, the peer-reviewed literature presenting research from 55 different cultural groups across regions of the world was retrieved. Information relating to native concepts of consciousness, soul, (...) and spirit were excerpted from the sources and contrasted. Contrasting these indigenous concepts revealed important implications for understanding consciousness within a cross-cultural perspective and has practical implications for applied approaches utilizing native indigenous traditions. (shrink)

This philosophical anthropology tries to explore the basic categories of man’s being in the worlds using a special quantum meta-ontology that is introduced in the book. Quantum understanding of space and time, consciousness, or empirical/nonempirical reality elicits new questions relating to philosophical concerns such as subjectivity, free will, mind, perception, experience, dialectic, or agency. The authors have developed an inspiring theoretical framework transcending the boundaries of particular disciplines, e.g. quantum philosophy, metaphysics of consciousness, philosophy of mind, phenomenology of space and (...) time, and ontological relativity. (shrink)