In my article I present a conceptual model of classification of philosophical and theological conceptions of religion within Western philosophy and the Christian religious tradition. The model has four independent dimensions: the factual, the metaphysical, the ethical and the apophatic. The first and the second dimensions are cognitive, while the third and the fourth are non-cognitive. The fourth dimension should not be identified with the old tradition of apophatic theology because, according to the model, the latter is a mixture of two (or even more) dimensions. The second part of my paper is devoted to the Wittgensteinian philosophy of religion developed by the members of the so-called Swansea School. My thesis is that, despite of their self-characterisation as philosophers, they present an extreme version of apophatic theology because their view on religion is, in the light of my conceptual model, one-dimensional.

This text aims to show that the core of human divinity according to Aristotle is exercising the divine mind for its own sake. Being happy and thus divine is auto-teleological, and must not be reduced to any sort of instrumental value. This reading of Aristotle excludes the theist interpretations of Prime Mover as well as the attempts at identifying the human mind with God, mainly because both these (different) interpretations seem to make auto-teleological bios theoretikos impossible. The first do this by introducing the divine provision which makes people act for God’s sake and not for their own sake. The others reduce the special status of humans by taking away the divine part, in my opinion being the sine qua non condition of the concept of human divinity. All the interpretations of human divinity which I have presented above can be useful nowadays in the ethical, (bio)ethical, social or even political discourse. This shows that the history of philosophy is not only about the past, but also about the future.

The present paper proposes a paradigm to understand the evolution of religious behaviour specifically Jewish religious practice. The theoretical framework rests upon a combination of reciprocal altruism, costly signal theory and cognitive dissonance. It assumes evolutionary theory in general and mimetic evolution in particular. It is unique to the degree that it is authored by an evolutionary psychologist who is also a rabbi. We present the foundations of the three bio-psychological theories; and address Dawkins’ and Dennett’s theories of the scientific study of religion as well as some of the reservations. Finally, we examine briefly certain Jewish rituals in light of the model presented.

In religious studies, prayer has been extensively researched. Psychological studies use survey methods, so low-educated respondents often cannot comprehend the items. A projective method is presented, based on the Thematic Apperception Test by A. Murray and Ch. Morgan. Data collected in semi-structured interviews are used for qualitative research and for statistical analysis. Quantitative analysis of the references to prayer in narratives has yielded certain results, confirming the usefulness of the test. Qualitative analysis has revealed specificity of the petition and intercession prayer and has called attention to association of location to specific types of prayer.

The Role of Imitation in Induction of Ritual Trance. A Neurocognitive Perspective
A shamanic trance ritual begins with the introductory part, which can be defined as invocation of shamanic spirits. The formal structure of this invocation assumes playing a role, which in the practice of the ritual means imitation of the types of behaviour characterising a given spirit. Entering a trance is synonymous with the loss of the cognitive barrier dividing the persona of the shaman from the persona of the portrayed spirit; the shaman becomes the spirit. The conceptions of evolutionary psychologists are insufficient to explain this situation. The theoretical model proposed instead describes the transition from inductive actions to a trance state in terms of disinhibition of the system preventing repetition of an action recorded at the level of the mirror neurons.

The Campaign of Confiscation of Saints’ Relics as an Element of Communist Anti-religious Politics
The elimination of religion was a fundamental ideological goal of the communist state. According to Marxist theory, religion was a product of material conditions. Working from this premise, militant atheism initially considered that religion would disappear on its own through the coming of the new society system. After the revolution the Bolsheviks started a massive persecution. When it became clear that religion was not dying out on its own, the USSR began general antireligious campaigns. One of the lesser known campaigns was confiscation of saints’ relics, carefully preserved for the purposes of veneration or as a touchable or tangible memorial.

Antinomic Directives of the Radical Sabbataism Movement as an Expression of the “Upturned” Ethics after Gershom Scholem
This article presents the radical wing of sabbataism (sabbatianism) – the messianic-mystical movement of heterodox Judaism which arose in the 17th century and flourished in the Ottoman Empire, founded by Sabbatai Zevi. This is done according to the works of Gershom Scholem and from the point of view of the ethical principles in their dimension directed to sexual life which the sabbataistic extremists, mainly from the Dönmeh group, had chosen as binding and obligatory ones. The distinctive feature of these directives compared to conventionally dominant ones was their “upturned” character. Therefore, the article will discuss the antinomism of which – as a tendency being opposed to the normative comprehension of the rules, established here by the Jewish law (nomos) on the basis of the Torah – the radical ma’aminim are an exemplification. Nevertheless, this sabbataistic reversal in the formulation of the issues concerning carnality reveals the profound doctrinal base in the form of the kabbalistic writings and on their pages introduced mystical conceptual categories (taken up in the present article) – the groundwork from which is determined by the dichotomy Torah de-’Atzilut–Torah de-Beri’ah – and to which the sabbataists attributed the peculiar “upturned” modus of interpretation.