by Gregory L. Baker
Chapter V FORMS: VARIETY WITHIN RECURRENCEIn this work we have emphasized the complementary natures of religion and science, especially as to their respective views of physical reality and their methods of description of that reality. We now focus on one important aspect of creation where the connection is quite novel and yet very suggestive of a simplicity that may underlie the complicated appearance that nature presents. This feature is the possible connection between the recurring forms at various levels of spiritual and natural reality, as described in the Writings, and mathematical sets called fractals, as generated numerically and naturally. We begin with a summary description of recurrence in creation as described in the Writings.
by Erik Sandstrom
For some time I have wanted to say something about True Christian Religion no. 109, especially the following lines:After the Lord came into the world the representations vanished [which had been among the ancients]; the interior reason of which was, that the Lord in the world put on also the Divine Natural, and from this He enlightens not only the internal spiritual man but also the external natural; and unless the two are enlightened at the same time, the man is as in shade; but while both are enlightened at the same time, he is as in daylight (TCR 109:2).The point before us, therefore, is that both our internal spiritual man and our external natural man can be enlightened simultaneously, and this in the same light, namely, that which goes forth from the Lord's Divine Natural.
by Thomas W. Keiser
The Mantle of Maturity. A History of Ideas about Character Developmentby Christie W. Kiefer, Albany, New York: State University of New York Press, 1988, 243 pp., hardcover. (ISBN 088706-821-9 hc)The Words "mature" and "maturity" are often used by parents, educators and mental health specialists with great authority as though everyone knew exactly what is meant by these words. Christie Kiefer's book The Mantle of Maturity examines the concept of maturity as it has been understood throughout history with particular application to modern times. Kiefer explains the relativistic nature of the idea of maturity and challenges reductionistic interpretations of it.
by Erik E. Sandstrom
In this Bicentennial year of Australia (1788-1988), may I present your readers with some reflections on the aboriginal inhabitants of this vast and mysterious continent "down under."