Providence, divine

Some fundamentalist Christian groups and the Klu Klux Klan promote Radical British Israelism along with the Protocols of the Elders of Sion to provide divine justification for their anti-Semitic, or rather anti-Judaic racial theories. 

Although disposed to believe that he was directed by a Divine Providence, he must, nevertheless, have been led into errors by the notion which prevailed in Persia, and in which, probably, he had been educated, of the existence of two independent and conflicting principles—the one of good, and the other of evil. 

An excellent description of encounters with Salvia divinorum can be found in a tape by Bret Blosser. While on a cave hunting expedition in the Sierra Mazateca in the late 70 s, Blosser quite accidentally came upon Mazatecs who use this plant, and was able to participate in several sessions with native shamans. He had the opportunity to receive instruction and learn about the plant s use over a span of several years, during which he periodically revisited the area. In his tape, Blosser discusses the uses for Salvia divinorum within the Mazatec culture, which includes medicinally - to treat both physical and "psychic" illnesses, and in divining - the future, the cause or cure for an illness, and information about friends, family, and enemies. He provides insightful descriptions of his journeys, and of the preparation and guidance of his sessions. The curandero who administered Blosser s journeys works with psilocybe mushrooms more frequently than Salvia divinorum, and indicated that Salvia divinorum is "too fast" for most people. 

Here and elsewhere in the dialogue, there is no place where we can find Socrates providing direct instruction in the form of here is the answer. But the boy does come to the correct answer. In the dialogue, Socrates draws the conclusion that the boy must have already known the answer, remembered from a previous life since he had not learned it in this life. To avoid a recursion problem, Plato also asserts that the knowledge does get a start, though through divine inspiration, not from the world, at some point in the soul s journeys through the world. 

Westerners tend to maintain a distinction between peyote as a vision-producer and peyote as a medicine. Among Indians, these qualities are regarded as being much the same peyote is thought to put them in contact with the spirit world from which illness is derived. From their point of view, Western medicine is based on human intervention. Peyote visions, being a kind of divine intervention, are thus more powerful and provide a surer means by which to leam how to cure ailments. 

Boerhaave s Calvinism dictated the way he studied nature in two ways. Firstly, Boerhaave aimed at showing the wisdom of God in the divine works of creation and providence. Secondly, Boerhaave contrasted the power of God with the littleness of man and he emphasised the hmitations of the human mind on every occasion. A combination of these two factors is particularly visible in Boerhaave s chemistry. For Boerhaave the pecuhar powers of bodies show the active hand of God in nature, while at the same time chemical experiment and observation keep man from trying to understand the infinite height of the divine. In other words Boerhaave put great emphasis on... 

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