There is no shortage on books filled with so-called expert advice on how to discipline your kids. But, for how do you know which methods are best fo...
There is no shortage on books filled with so-called expert advice on how to discipline your kids. But, for how do you know which methods are best for your kids? Well, with all due respect to these experts, I would argue that the person who knows your children best is you.
I believe that all children are different and may require different methods of discipline. The advice of experts is always useful, but must be combined with your own first-hand knowledge of your child.
Take time outs, for example. This may work well on one child, but not at all well on another child.
I have a friend whose child defies all of the rules she places on him. When he started biting, she asked me what she should do. I told her every method I know of, but as she tried each one, each one failed on her child. What she hadn’t done was take the time to understand her own child and what might work best for him.
Children must learn about rules and consequences. To fail to discipline a child at all for breaking the rules is really doing a disservice to him or her.
It is never appropriate to use discipline that is harmful to the child. Acts of harm teach anger, they do not teach life tools.
Try to keep the discipline to something that actually teaches consequences for the behavior. For example, will sitting in a corner while you clean marker off a wall really teach them how hard it is to get marker off of a wall? Having the child clean the wall is a more appropriate punishment, because the consequence is directly related to the behavior.
Discovering the most appropriate disciplinary technique for your child is not always easy. But with patience and observation, you’ll get there, and raised a child who understands consequence.
Read more of this writer’s tips on items like and .
Prophetic interpretation of dreams is a biblical concept. Various places in the Bible mention something about dream interpretation. If you want to learn how to correctly understand the messages from God hidden in your dreams, it is wise to start from the Bible, written Word of the Lord.
The most famous example of dream interpretations is probably the story of Joseph in the book of Genesis. Joseph was the youngest son of Jacob who had eleven more sons. Jacob, who is renamed by God as Israel, loved Joseph more than all his children. He made Joseph a coat of many colors. But this provoked the jealousy of his fellow brothers.
The first recorded dream interpretation of Joseph was about field work. Joseph had a dream one night and saw the 12 sons of Israel working in the field. Suddenly the sheaves of his brothers stood around his own sheaf and bowed to it. His brothers were very angry immediately because they thought Joseph meant that they would submit to him one day. The brothers then called Joseph the “dreamer”.
In another night, Joseph had another dream again. This time he saw the sun, the moon and eleven stars bowed to him. Without stopped by the fear of further provocation, he told the dream to his father and brothers. They were all angry because they can all understand the implications of the dream, which is Israel, his wife and sons, are bowing to Joseph. All the brothers are filled with envy. But Israel pondered about the dreams because he knew, feel that the dreams have some significance.
What Joseph did not thought of is that the dreams would make his brothers so angry and jealous that they decided to kill him. He was then sold by them to Egypt and became a slave and went through all the tribulation.
In this story, we could learn some significant spiritual principles. First, we can see how vicious is the sin of envy, which can even motivate brothers to slay each other. Second, we know that in the end the interpretations of the two Joseph’s dreams were correct. They really would bow to their little brother Joseph in Egypt. We can see that the dreams of Joseph are really foretelling the future. However, I think it is not wise for Joseph to tell people about these two dreams. I believe that he can clearly understand the meanings of the two dreams because he has the spiritual gift of interpreting dreams plus the two are easy to understand, even his brothers can immediately know. He also knows that his brothers are jealous of him since they didn’t speak peaceably to him normally. Joseph knew that telling the dreams would provoke his brothers but he did it anyway. The only reason is that he did it in pride, which did not give rise to a good result.
We must pray for wisdom and revelation for the interpretation of dreams and also for the timing and attitude of telling the meaning of the dream to others. Great is the mystery!
Since at least 5,000 B.C., people have used “spiritual mushrooms” in their religious rituals. The San Peoples of Tassili in southeast Algeria left behind cave paintings illustrating dancing, masked medicine men with mushrooms in their hands. It’s believed the mushrooms were of the consciousness-altering variety.
The area of Tassili is today an arid and desolate mountainous region of the Sahara desert but in the day of the cave painters, it had a habitable savannah-like climate with cattle, crocodiles and other large animals. Cultural ties of the San Peoples are evidenced across the Sahara region from Chad to Egypt, and perhaps in extension all the way to Greece.
Jumping forward 3,400 years in time to Greece, 1,600 B.C., we find the Eleusinian Mysteries. Continuous for an astounding two millennia, the Eleusinian Mystery initiation was the most important spiritual ceremony of ancient Europe. Scholars believe the Mysteries involved use of consciousness-altering mushrooms. With well-known participants like Plato and Aristotle, its influence on western civilization cannot be denied.
Later Vikings are known to have consumed limited amounts of the today much feared poisonous species Fly agaric (Amanita muscaria). Ironically, they appear to have used it to overcome fear through religious rituals in which they danced and ate mushrooms before fearlessly going into battle.
It may not have been an admirable type of spirituality practiced by this warrior culture but it was none-the-less part of their religious practices whatever we may think of them. Siberian shamans are also said to have used Fly agaric in their spiritual practices to help them talk to their gods.
Fly agaric is even put forth as the source of “soma,” a juice described in ancient Vedic texts as bestowing divine qualities on the consumer, including immortality. Convincing arguments linking Fly agaric to Soma are presented by R. Gordon Wasser in his book Soma: Divine Mushroom of Immortality. His theory, although not proven, hasnt been disproven either.
(Please note: Fly agaric is poisonous. It can also be easily confused with other more deadly species. Consumption is strongly discouraged.)
On the other side of the ocean from Europe, the Mixtec culture likewise employed mind-altering mushrooms in their spiritual ceremonies, as recorded in the Mixtec Codex (13th-15th century). Their Gods were frequently engraved with mushrooms in hand.
Although Mixtecs themselves told white anthropologists they used spiritual mushrooms in their religious rituals, western scientists still doubted them in characteristic condescending manner.
William Safford, an American botanist, believed the supposed mushrooms were actually nothing but peyote buttons. Other western scholars, meanwhile, insisted that the “spiritual mushrooms” of the Mixtec people really were mind-altering mushrooms.
This debate carried on until amateur anthropologist Robert Weitlaner was invited to observe a Mixtec religious ceremony in the early 1930’s and witnessed the use of mushrooms firsthand.
Then in 1953, mycologist R. Gordon Wasson and his wife Valentina Povlovna as the first westerners became honored participants in a mushroom ceremony – Velada – performed by shaman Don Aurelio. Wasson published his account of the Velada in Life Magazine, 1957. His article initiated the broader public awareness of spiritual mushrooms.
Out of 60 Psilocybe species, 25 are known to contain the mind-altering compounds psilocin (unstable) and psilocybin (stable). The two species Psilocybin caerulescens and Psilocybin mexicana are believed to be the ones used by the Mixtec. Although Psilocybin cubensis is now more common even in America, it is believed to have arrived with the Europeans.
Spiritual mushrooms have been illegal in most of the world since the 1970’s because of their potential misuse as recreational drugs. Only in The Netherlands were fresh Psilocybe allowed to be sold until less than a year ago.
But after a 17-year old French tourist killed herself by jumping off a bridge after consuming Psilocybe mushrooms, the Dutch parliament voted to ban all sale of so called “magic mushrooms.” The ban took effect on December 1, 2008. The use of consciousness-altering mushrooms in spiritual practices is now officially history.
Dr. Markho Rafael has worked with natural health products since 1996, today specializing in medicinal mushrooms. He does not support the use of consciousness-altering mushrooms. The article on this page is for entertainment only. Click to visit site for more free mushroom articles, or for medicinal mushroom products. Note: Absolutely no magic mushroom products, please do not inquire.
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