The Reformation of Religion European History (1500 - 1560) Essay

The Reformation of Religion European History (1500 - 1560) - Essay Example During this time many women were changing from avowed Catholics to the new religion spreading rapidly across Europe. The new religion was that of the newly named Protestants. The topic of the reformation is an important issue to raise among women today. Before the Reformation, women had little or no participation in the Catholic Church. Priests did not discuss religious matters with a mere woman. Wealthy women could attend Mass and church services regularly, but middle class and poor women were not as fortunate. The middle class and poorer women normally had the services of the Church when married or after birth. Most of the time middle class or poorer women only attended Mass and confession once a year around the Yule time. Many Catholic women were also illiterate. The need to read did not become important to women until the Bible was translated from Latin into the local language by the Protestants. On the other hand, Protestant women attended church services regularly, whether wealthy, middle class or poor. Women could speak about religious with their Protestant pastors. In fact, women could speak on religious matters like an equal with men. Since the backbone of the Protestant movement was the right to translate and read the Bible personally, literacy rose among women after becoming Protestants. Women had a little more freedom through becoming Protestants than before the beginning of the Reformation. To prove her conclusions of the time, Natalie Davis used various sources to prove her point. She used the traditional books. Some of the books used were The Heresy or the Free Spirit in the Later Middle Ages by Robert E. Lerner, The Appeal of Calvinism by Nancy Roelker, Power to Dissolve by John T. Noonan, Jr. and Le marriage li Geneve vers 1600 by R. Stauffenegger. Ms. Davis also used journals such as â€Å"The Double Standard,† Journal of the History of Ideas 2.0. The most impressive of Ms. Davis’s sources were the

Music and Mediation Therapy Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words

Music and Mediation Therapy - Essay Example Therefore, it is much better than medication and needs to be practiced more often. Also, those who regularly meditate report hat they feel happy, fresh, at peace and free. Meditation Therapy for Anxiety and Pain Meditation is said to reduce blood pressure, heart rate and heart rhythm disturbances. This allows for adrenaline levels in blood to go down and this hormone is responsible for mediating emotional arousal in our body. There are two kinds of most basic and common meditation practices: transcendental meditation and mindfulness meditation. In the first process the meditator continuously repeats a single word which is called a mantra and he has to make his feelings and thinking to go away. The second process involves the person focusing all his attention on his thoughts and sensations and this process is normally for stress-reduction. Guided meditation is a kind of meditation using phrases of evocative spoken images which allow the person’s mind to become relaxed. Blue Shi eld insurance company conducted a research and their findings suggested that the surgery patients who listened to a guided meditation prior to surgery had a better recovery, was more cost efficient and they felt an improved sense of healing (Weiss, 2008). Another report, by the University of Massachusetts Stress Reduction Clinic showed a reduction in chronic pain by average 50%. In fact, the follow up studies reported that this pain reduction lasted for more than a year. Such effects result because meditation promotes the positive sites of the mind which include compassion, sympathy, big-heartedness, love, endurance and forbearance; therefore, allowing the... Based on this research it is recommended that non-pharmacological methods should be used for any purpose till they prove to be useful. Similar is the case with patents having to cope with surgical procedures. The pre-surgery anxiety and the post-operative pain that they have to experience may be overcome by music and meditation as it reduces stress anxiety and pain. Besides, such therapies are better for the patient since they have no side effects neither do they carry any risks of using them. Meditation is a state of awareness of the present without thinking. When we are normally thinking we usually replay or regret the past or worry about the future. However, during meditation such is not the case and during this process the person is only focusing on the present moment. Therefore, the person is just thinking about the wonders he has as of that very moment and thus there is no interference. When one is meditating he is not doing or thinking anything; he is just being. Pain therapy is not an alternative to the pain medications. Rather it is to be used as an adjuvant to the existing medications where either the efficiency of such medication is increased many fold by using music or the side effect profile is improved by lowering the dosages given. Although relaxation exercises are another means through which a patient can be relaxed music works better as it has more advantages. Music motivates a person and improves his mood and allows for the promotion of relaxing feelings.