University of Phoenix Mental Health and Supernatural Elements Questions

Terms for the Introductory Study Questions:

Myth:  A story with magic or other supernatural elements.

Belief:  Something someone strongly considers to be true, but without requiring proof.

Tradition:  Any belief that is passed down from generation to generation.

Religion:  A set of beliefs about the supernatural collected in a sacred book.

Magic:  Doing something or causing something to happen that violates the laws of science.

Observational Interpretation:   A belief that begins with observation of something in the natural world, but is incorrectly interpreted.

Custom:   Something a group of people do that is passed down from generation to generation, but the rules of how it should be done are loose, not strict.

Ritual:  Something a group of people do that is passed down from generation to generation, and the rules of how it should be done are very strict because it has an important symbolic or supernatural purpose.

Superstition:  A belief in good or bad luck, lucking meaning something that is destined to happen for a magical reason. 

Which of the terms apply to each of these brief examples?  Be sure to explain.

A schooner (three-masted ship) the Northern Light, found herself in terrible storm with fierce winds and white water swamping the ship.The sailors could barely stay on deck to guide the ship because they would be washed overboard and drown.  It seemed impossible that the ship or crew would survive.  When all hope of saving the ship had been abandoned, suddenly the crewmen saw twenty new sailors climb onto the deck from the sea.  They chased the crew to a cabin under the fo’c’sle (the raised deck at the bow) where they waited out the storm.  In the morning, they found the ship safe and under full sail, though there was no sign of the sailors who had climbed aboard.

People in England used to rub a boy’s chin until it was glowing hot in order to make the beard grow.Another way was for the father to rub his son’s chin with his stubbly beard.

Izanagi, the father god, said to Izanami, the mother goddess, “I have a place of excess.”The mother goddess replied, “I have a place where I lack.”  So, they decided to join their two places and become one whole.  From this joining, the gods, then the people of Japan were created. This is recorded in the Kojiki, the Book of Ancient Matters.

At his last Pass-over meal, Jesus broke bread and said, “This is my body.”He poured wine and said, “This is my blood.”  In church, people now kneel to let wafers dissolve on their tongue and take a sip of communion wine in order to receive the Holy Spirit.

In Scotland, people were careful not to cry out to or try to revive persons at the moment of death because they saw that if they “cried them back,” they usually would not be the same and would probably be deprived of one of their senses or the power to walk or lose a good deal of their intelligence as punishment for interfering with the will of God.

Long ago, the universe was held in a tight ball like an egg, filled with mysterious dark matter, but one day, it exploded, scattering the pieces.This was the beginning of the universe.

For two thousand years in most of western Europe, people believed that four fluids in the body (the humors) were drawn by the pull of the planets and stars in the way that the full moon appeared to pull the tides. Therefore, a person’s character and personality was strongly influenced by the position of the stars and planets at certain times of year.

Many people still undergo hypnosis in order to recall previous lives they have lived to free their minds of any conflicts they did not resolve in those former lives.This practice is recorded in the book Dianetics, the Modern Science of Mental Health.

Four thousand years ago, the king of Babylon would have sex with a priestess of the goddess Ishtar in order to ensure that the crops would grow.

In the Middle Ages, midwives tied magnets around the bellies of pregnant women in order to keep the baby in place.