Texte remanié de: Habilitationsschrift--Fakultät der Kulturwissenschaften--Tübingen--Eberhard-Karls-Universität, 1997. / Bibliogr. p. 337-365. Index.

Proefschrift--Utrecht. / "Stellingen": [3] p. inserted. Summary in English.

This thesis examines different aspects of tradition relating to fresh water in Scotland. They include: the use of water from wells and springs for healing and divination purposes; the beliefs around the lin1inal quality of water, often considered as boundary, and around its magical association with the horse; and finally folktales featuring the water-horse, or kelpie, a supernatural creature which was said to inhabit lochs and rivers. In dealing with topics so different one from the other, within the larger field of Scottish customs and beliefs, it proved necessary to use a variety of sources and methods. Comparative study was often particularly illuminating. After presenting the history of visits to sacred wells, I deal with two main categories of customs associated with these pilgrimages, namely healing rituals and divination practices. While the former leads to the analysis of the different stages and implications of the ritual, the latter looks into the issues that were left to supernatural powers to decide upon, and examines how the questions asked of the oracle evolved with time. Consideration of these powers then leads on to further inquiry into the liminal function of fresh water in general, and its links with boundaries both spatial and temporal. That the horse, another element that is ascribed definite liminal qualities, was associated with water is therefore not fortuitous. If water provides an entry to an Other World, the horse can then take one through into this other land. Indeed, this is what is found in the corpus of tales centred on the figure of the waterhorse. As some of the tale-types are met in other geographical areas - Ireland and Scandinavia mainly - a discussion of these will provide a general background to the tales, which will result in a proposal for a revised tale-index. Two shared types -the work-horse and the abductor of children - will then be examined in the Scottish context. One type, however, - the seducer - seems to be unique to Scotland, and it will be dealt with last. The aim of this work is twofold: first, to provide an ethnological piece of research from a diachronic perspective on a subject outwith the usual themes generally chosen for studies of this nature; second, to present together, in their Scottish context, folktales that have been hitherto broken up and read in the light of their relationships to their foreign counterparts. Although recent academic studies on healing wells exist for Ireland and France, the Scottish material has never previously been treated in such a study. A number of sources available were secondary accounts, dating back mainly to the turn of the twentieth century, and part of my research involved finding the original documents used - sometimes misused - in order to present them in their original context. Similarly, part of the work on the kelpie stories involved gathering together tales kept in the Sound Archive of the School of Scottish Studies at the University of Edinburgh that had never been collected into a single corpus. I hope in this thesis to provide a sound basis for further researches on these types of Scottish customs and beliefs.

This project involves heuristic research as creative practice in the design of a set of divination cards. Here the potential of water as a medium for referencing the ethos of each of the Tarot's Major Arcana1 is explored. The research involves an experimental process of generating water patterns for the purposes of eliciting twenty-two specific images. Images are captured with a digital camera. While attention is given to vibrational imagery and micro photography, the research is not limited to these techniques. The chosen creative research process provokes tacit knowledge2. The images are used in the creation of a divinatory text.1 Tarot is a divination system consisting of seventy-eight cards, twenty-two of these are the trump cards known as the Major Arcana. It is the `essence' of the meaning of each of these cards that this work seeks to elicit.2 Tacit knowledge may be broadly defined as knowledge the researcher possesses but is not conscious of. Tacit (silent) knowledge is a pre-logical phase of knowing, comprising of a range of conceptual and sensory information that is bought to bear in an attempt to understand something.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Baylor University, 2007. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 240-255).

Thesis (D. Miss.)--Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, 1994. / Abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 197-207).

Diss. : Philosophische Fakultät I : Zürich. - Bibliogr. p. 259-274 et en fin de chapitres. -

Proefschrift--Utrecht. / "Stellingen": [3] p. inserted. Summary in English.

This thesis explores the cosmology of physiognomy - a method of telling fortune by inspecting the body and the material world - and its social reception in China in the Ming period. This is accomplished through the analysis of extant manuals as well as stories of fortune-tellers' practices. I focus on the Ming dynasty, because of their richness of historical evidence and the distinctive features of physiognomy developed in these periods, but also take materials about the Song inherited in the Ming in my analysis. The manuals and the anecdotal evidence on its social practices and practitioners show that during the Song and Ming period Chinese physiognomy became more systematic. Chinese Physiognomists also inspected the material world beyond the human body, and used the human body as a paradigm for the inspections in which the whole material world is seen as 'homological' to the body. One of the most representative examples of using this body paradigm to examine material objects is the physiognomy of written characters. In the manuals that deals specifically with the human body, the body is seen as a bridge between society and the cosmos. In this cosmology the human body represents the 'totality' of human existence and social life. Because social life is expressed on the body, someone's fortune can be predicted by examining the body. Different numerological as well as cosmological systems after the Song were subsumed into physiognomy and the body and the cosmos came to be linked in the manuals in a more sophisticated way than before. However, fortune is not seen as totally fixed. Moral cultivation can alter the body and thereby change someone's fortune. The body is seen in physiognomy as both physical and moral. As a technique, physiognomy is not only systematically theorized in the manuals but also highly socialized. Physiognomy was practiced by very diverse groups of people across various religious and social communities including Buddhist monks, Daoist priests, local literati, and so on. Although a popular technique, which was also linked to many different kinds of medical and religious traditions, physiognomy was still contested, and people with different social backgrounds and personal experiences held different views on it.

The Lucumi religion was born in Cuba from African and European religious systems. The enslaved Yoruba were brought to the New World through the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade. They were taken from their homes, family, language, and religion and brought to countries like Cuba to provide free labor to growing agricultural markets that benefited European colonizers of the Americas. The Yoruba would hold on to their religion, but in order to keep it alive, they would have to make it into a new religion. This new religion would become the religion known as Lucumi. In Cuba, Lucumi practitioners would hide their religion beneath the facade of Catholicism. The orishas were associated with Catholic saints with similar attributes. The orisha Chango, who governs war and presides over lightning, became associated with Saint Barbara who is the patron saint of artillerymen and is linked to lightning. The Yoruba could be seen praying to a saint but were actually praying to an orisha. This practice became ingrained as a part of Lucumi tradition. Divination and propitiation are at the center of the Lucumi religion. Divination determines the course of a practitioner's life and can reveal whether practitioners are in a good or bad position in their lives. Propitiation will ensure that good fortune will remain or that bad omens will disappear.