M.A. (Fine Arts) / The end of this millennium presents the human race with feelings of anxiety, fear and even despair. With the rapidly growing scientific and technological development we may feel increasingly threatened as individuals. Both the value of life and it's mysterious essence are placed in question (e.g. issues of abortion and cloning). Without a spiritual dimension to our lives, we proceed into the future with uncertainty. Suzi Gablik (1991: 3) sets out the problem when she states: The question is no longer how did we get here, and why? but where can we possibly go, and how? We live in a society that has drastically narrowed our sensibility to moral and spiritual issues, the problem we face is how to deal with a belief structure that has blocked both psychological and spiritual development. This thesis will argue that the desire for a spiritual dimension to life is not redundant in the technological age to come, instead it becomes ever more important for our psychological and spiritual health in an age where "the head rules the heart". My work is a plea for us to return to matters ofthe heart, the primal things that makes man what he is - spirit, soul and body. These three elements are linked inextricably. Without the one the other cannot exist and we will be handicapped as human beings. I am also questioning the focus ofour society, which seems reduced to physical things (temporal), rather than spiritual things (eternal). In my plea for us to return to matters pertaining to the spirit, I claim that God is spirit (John 4:24) and that things ofthe spirit can be spiritually discerned and not solely via the mind. The question we may ask is: has the world of the spirit become inaccessible because the mind is given pre-eminence in our society? Have we then as a result arrived at a time of spiritual bankruptcy where the spirit of man has gone into some kind of dormancy or hibernation awaiting a better season in which to come forth? In this I associate myself with Anselm Kiefer. Mark Rosenthal (1987: 26) quotes Kiefer thus: I think a great deal about religion because science provides me with no answers.

The study of pneumatology is important and necessary in theology, and also in the church. What Christians have to know and understand about it must be taught clearly. The nature and work of the Spirit of God should be mastered by every believer in Jesus Christ. In this way, wrong concepts and teachings can be rejected by the Christian way of life, in the church especially in Africa. It is very noticeable that Africans, in their traditional worldview are conscious of the existence of the Supreme Being, spirits, divinities, ancestral spirits and the spiritual world with its diversity. Africans, Christians and non-Christians believe that around them there are invisible spiritual beings and because of this consciousness they are haunted by the wish to discover what is really going on in the invisible world of the spiritual realm. Most Africans consider the existence of the ancestral spirits as a very important matter and they are in daily need to consult them about every event happening among them in their traditional context. In every event they believe there is always somebody, meaning a spirit, behind what is happening. A death or an accident cannot happen without having been caused by a spirit especially an ancestral spirit. The ancestral spirits are thought to be active in the lives of their living descendants on earth. Ancestral spirits are ambivalent in their relation with the living. They can bring good things to their descendants if they are well treated. They harm and molest them when they are angered by their descendants. The fact that Africans have been confronted with the Gospel has had an impact on the lives of Africans. We have to acknowledge that many things in the conduct of African culture have changed or are going to change in the practical lives of Africans. Although the Gospel has had an impact on the people in Africa, it is unfortunately observed that some Africans do not manifest real change. Christian Africans, despite this encounter with the Christian faith, usually revert to traditional practices in case of hardships like accident, incurable diseases and barrenness, for example. The context of religious pluralism which Africans are experiencing, presents an open door to syncretism. Traditional practices are seriously against the biblical teaching and practices. Christians in the church are found (many times) to be involved in these traditional practices where they fear the attacks of their ancestral spirits or the misfortunes by other spirits. The Spirit of God is active in the world and also in Africa. Christians have to rely on God and not on their ancestral spirits for the sustenance and support in different domains of life. The solution to this on-going attitude of Africans to the spirits can only come from the Word of God. It is absolutely important to continue with the proclamation of the Gospel to Africans. This proclamation of the Word of God must be taken seriously by the church and Christians in Africa. It is only the message from the Bible that can free Africans from their belief in the ancestral spiritual world. / PhD (Dogmatics), North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2015

The study of pneumatology is important and necessary in theology, and also in the church. What Christians have to know and understand about it must be taught clearly. The nature and work of the Spirit of God should be mastered by every believer in Jesus Christ. In this way, wrong concepts and teachings can be rejected by the Christian way of life, in the church especially in Africa. It is very noticeable that Africans, in their traditional worldview are conscious of the existence of the Supreme Being, spirits, divinities, ancestral spirits and the spiritual world with its diversity. Africans, Christians and non-Christians believe that around them there are invisible spiritual beings and because of this consciousness they are haunted by the wish to discover what is really going on in the invisible world of the spiritual realm. Most Africans consider the existence of the ancestral spirits as a very important matter and they are in daily need to consult them about every event happening among them in their traditional context. In every event they believe there is always somebody, meaning a spirit, behind what is happening. A death or an accident cannot happen without having been caused by a spirit especially an ancestral spirit. The ancestral spirits are thought to be active in the lives of their living descendants on earth. Ancestral spirits are ambivalent in their relation with the living. They can bring good things to their descendants if they are well treated. They harm and molest them when they are angered by their descendants. The fact that Africans have been confronted with the Gospel has had an impact on the lives of Africans. We have to acknowledge that many things in the conduct of African culture have changed or are going to change in the practical lives of Africans. Although the Gospel has had an impact on the people in Africa, it is unfortunately observed that some Africans do not manifest real change. Christian Africans, despite this encounter with the Christian faith, usually revert to traditional practices in case of hardships like accident, incurable diseases and barrenness, for example. The context of religious pluralism which Africans are experiencing, presents an open door to syncretism. Traditional practices are seriously against the biblical teaching and practices. Christians in the church are found (many times) to be involved in these traditional practices where they fear the attacks of their ancestral spirits or the misfortunes by other spirits. The Spirit of God is active in the world and also in Africa. Christians have to rely on God and not on their ancestral spirits for the sustenance and support in different domains of life. The solution to this on-going attitude of Africans to the spirits can only come from the Word of God. It is absolutely important to continue with the proclamation of the Gospel to Africans. This proclamation of the Word of God must be taken seriously by the church and Christians in Africa. It is only the message from the Bible that can free Africans from their belief in the ancestral spiritual world. / PhD (Dogmatics), North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2015

This work discourses about the teaching of bulgarian {--} french philosopher, pedagogue and spiritual teacher Omraam Mikhaël Aivanhov. It is divided in several thematic chapters discoursing always a certain philosofical {--} spiritual theme from the point of view how is it treated in the teaching of Aivanhov. Among those themes are for example: Creation, Good and evil, About God, Jesus and Christ, Reincarnation, Soul, Ressurection, Holy Trinity. Aivanhov has fresh and undogmatic approach to these themes and he accents that his teaching can serve to a man for the practical work on him or herself. He does not stick to any particular tradition neither he arteficially syncretizes. He rather sees the various levels of the creation and its Creator as a reality which has universal laws and principles. And a mission of man is according to Aivanhov to discover those laws and principles and to live in harmony with them.