Religious experiences in the Soka Gakkai (SG) are less 'mystical' than those William James described. Daisaku Ikeda teaches that everyone should fully dedicate themselves to resolving their problems. The doctrine of 'voluntarily assuming the appropriate karma' (gan-ken-o-go) reframes suffering as a mission to help others by proving the power of the Mystic Law. While James argued that belief in an 'unseen spiritual world' sustains action for pessimists, Ikeda holds that lives in suffering are worth living because those circumstances were chosen to be overcome. SG members exemplify a strenuous attitude toward difficulties, paralleling James's view of saints as exemplars of human potential. However, strong faith-based communities can harbor negative aspects from a 'spirit of corporate dominion,' and individualization threatens SG's close-knit communities.
Situated cognition, which understands the subject and its cognition as mutually involved with the environment, is a key pillar of embodied cognition. Dance, particularly improvisation, exemplifies situated cognition by constructing conceptual systems where movement emerges from real-time actions and reactions to stimuli. Unlike choreographed dance, improvisation training sharpens dancers' perception and sensorimotor knowledge. In improvisational dances mediated by digital technologies, new semantic layers, spatiotemporal relations, and interaction possibilities emerge between dancers and their computational devices. Using concepts of embodiment, enaction, actionism, and empathy, the article addresses the notion of presence in these systems, considering technologically mediated dance as a cognitive artifact and empathy as a condition for interaction between physical and virtual bodies.
In Java, Indonesia, belief in traditional healing for 'mystical' illnesses persists despite modern technology and education. This qualitative case study, based on interviews with 40 informants across Java, identifies five types of sawan: sawan mayit, sawan bayi, sawan manten, sawan sambaing dalan, and sawan candhikala/sawan celeng. Preventive and curative measures include mantras and traditional herbal remedies called singgul. The research provides a foundation for further study of sawan, including outside Java and the origins of its terminology.