Hinduism And Hindu Theology - Who Is Abhinavagupta?

Abhinavagupta is an Abhinavagupta (10th c. C . E.) Kashmiri poet and writer known for his poetry and artistic works. 

• Abhinavagupta was a key person in the formation of Trika Shaivism, a sect of Hinduism dedicated to the deity Shiva. 
• The Tantraloka, a twelve-volume book explaining the metaphysics and rituals of Trika Shaivism, is the writer's most renowned religious work. 
• His Dhvanyaloka is equally concerned with aesthetics and poetics. Also see Shaiva and Kashmir.

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Hinduism - Who Was Hiranyakeshin?

 

Sage, writer, and commentator, as well as a pupil of Apastamba, the writer.

Apastamba is the author of the Kalpa Sutra, a sort of scripture.

Along with Baudhayana and Hiranyakeshin, he is one of only three writers whose extant writings include all three aspects necessary for a Kalpa Sutra: prescriptions for Vedic rituals (Shrauta Sutras), domestic rites (Grhya Sutras), and suitable human conduct (Grhya Sutras) (Dharma Sutras).

The Taittiriya school of the Black Yajur Veda was where all three of these guys came from.

Baudhayana was the eldest, Apastamba was his student, and Hiranyakeshin was Apastamba's disciple, according to tradition.

The writings themselves corroborate this chronology, since Baudhayana's work is less ordered and uses more archaic vocabulary than the others. 

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THE DEATH-DEFYING DOCTOR MIRAGE: SECOND LIVES [part #1 of 4]

Written by: Jen Van Meter

Art by: Roberto De La Torre, David Baron

Letters by: Dave Lanphear

via valiantuniverse.com

“In time, even the dead may die…and, now, after multiple 2015 Harvey Award nominations, the most sought-after couple in comics returns with an all-new adventure from Eisner Award-nominated writer Jen Van Meter (Hopeless Savages) and acclaimed artist Roberto de la Torre (Daredevil)!

Occult investigators Shan and Hwen Mirage lived their lives in the thrall of an epic love that few will ever have…until Hwen died tragically before his time. Now, after a perilous trip through the underworld, Shan and Hwen are reunited…but Hwen is still an intangible spirit of the dead – incapable of opening a spellbook or even touching his wife.

Their options exhausted, the death-defying Doctors Mirage are about to enact a dangerous spell to restore Hwen’s solid form…and grant his ghost a second life. But, in the wrong hands, their ancient rite will become a tool of terror – and unleash a force of pure, homicidal evil that lusts for the murder of the living and the dead alike… a torturous death that obliterates not just everything a person ever had in this world, but everything their ghost will be in the next!”

Valiant comics released the first volume of The Death Defying Doctor Mirage.  It told the story of Shan Mirage, a widow with the power to speak with the dead – except her late husband, Hwen. Her journey to find his spirit was beautiful and haunting.  Doctor Mirage stands as Valiant’s best mini-series so far.  Nearly a year after its debut, writer Jen Van Meter and artists Roberto De La Torre and David Baron return with a second volume,The Death Defying Doctor Mirage: Second Lives.  Now that Hwen’s spirit has returned, what’s next for Shan?

Second Lives #1 is brilliant in how it addresses loss.  Hwen’s return may have soothed his wife’s grief, but life goes on.  Bills need paying, and Hwen’s incorporeal soul cannot support Shan’s cost of living.  In Second Lives #1, the ignorant buy occult artifacts on e-bay and wreak havoc; Doctor Mirage has a job taking out this dangerous magic on camera while her agent, Leo, sells the footage. Van Meter’s take on the fantastic Valiant universe combines the mundane with the mystic.  When they aren’t trying to make ends meet, Shan and Hwen are picking up the pieces of their lives since their “separation”.  Their attraction to fearsome powers from other worlds naturally sets off a tragic chain reaction that calls them to action.  WhileDoctor Mirage Vol. 1 focused on Shan’s singular quest, Second Lives#1realizes a world full of possibility for future adventures.

Shan and Hwen are Second Lives #1’s emotional core. Their chemistry envelops every page; their devotion to one another is clear with every spoken line.  Van Meter never lets the two dominate any scene, treating the rest of the cast with care. There are no generic faces or settings. These textured characters shake up the slow-burn plot.

Roberto De La Torre’s line work, together with David Baron’s colour choices for each transition, produce moody scenes of magic.  The team do an especially good job visually distinguishing the spirits from the living. Ghosts like Hwen have thick outlines and flat, monochrome colours, contrasted with the deep inky lines and fuller palette that make up Shan in De La Torre’s haunting style.  Second Lives #1 aesthetic feels like a camera crew in a gloomy haunted house.

I had high hopes for Second Lives #1: I can safely it met all of them. Valiant has been on a high since launching The Valiant early this year. With a great cast and greater creative team, Second Lives keeps the ball rolling.

A Pagan Resurrection

 

Paganism, also known as Neo-Paganism, is a faith riddled with contradictions and conundrums. Its reappearance in Italy is no exception. Many people may not consider Paganism to be a faith, but it is the world's oldest religion, as well as the newest, pre-modern and postmodern at the same time.

The world's oldest faith has been helped to return to – or even re-emerge in – one of its ancestral homes by the twentieth century's hegemonic globalizing movements, industrialization, and spread of English speaking and writing. Witchcraft as a formalized, postmodern faith, with Pagan clergy, has returned to the land where folk rituals of witchcraft and reverence for ancient priestesses and oracles never completely vanished.

My role as a writer, like that of many other researchers in religious studies, anthropology, and other disciplines, was often one of privileged insider status. My affiliation with the international Pagan community, as well as my background as a scholar and author, contributed to my contacts with the increasing number of Witches, Druids, Wiccans, and Goddess worshippers. As a result, all emic and etic views are discussed here. Theoretical and interpretations for this re-emergence vary from socioeconomic and political to contextual, and all of them are based on ethnographic analysis.

Many Pantheons, Many Traditions

One would anticipate contemporary Pagan worship of Diana or Minerva, Vesta and Venus in lands synonymous with the Roman Empire's legacy, and one might find veneration and ceremonial rituals honoring these Goddesses – especially closer to Rome. Several years of study, on the other hand, exposed me to myths, myths, and rituals that were little understood outside of traditional worship areas. A huge, golden Madonna atop Milan's magnificent main cathedral, for example, can be found in the northern region of Lombardy at the foot of the Alps. Just those born within reach of the 'Madonnina' are considered real Milanese, according to Milanese custom.

Many citizens in Milan today assume that the mother figure protecting Milan is a Gallo-Celtic Goddess known as Bellisama, rather than the Christian Madonna. Bellisama was revered by the ancient Gauls, also known as Celts, in Lombardy and in continental Europe, as far as northwestern France. ‘The Goddess of Milan is Bellisama, her spirit is here, and it's Druidic,' a Milanese Pagan participant said, attempting to explain the continuing local presence of Milan's Gaulish culture.

Therefore, the word "re-emergence" is apt, for the Goddess never left these Mediterranean lands. She was synthesized in what ultimately appeared as today's Christianity, becoming the iconic Madonna of the Mediterranean, as was the case with other classical and pagan idols, as well as with Jesus worship. Sabina Magliocco has explored a strong religiosity and proclivity for sorcery in numerous ethnographic studies on Italy; it has coexisted with Christianity for centuries.

This newly unified land built out of the mountainous peninsula of diverse regions now known as ‘Italy,' is also the home of the Vatican, and thus a Catholic-dominated republic. Rountree has written about how Wiccans and Pagans in Malta go back and forth between Madonna and Mother Goddess veneration. While there are some strong similarities between southern Italy and Malta, where Italians are deeply enculturated into Roman Catholicism from birth, Italy has its own distinct development in the advent of contemporary Paganism. Any of Italy's religiously rooted characteristics aid in the development of the Pagan culture.

Italy's historic and cultural manifestations of protest are a significant component. The Italian psychology and society are profoundly rooted in opposition to external aggression, political injustice, and hegemonic systems. Examples can be seen in the history of its partisan activities during World War II and its Communist Party. Alternative spiritualities such as paganism, shamanism, and other modern, non-Christian faith movements that are gaining momentum in Italy not only have empowerment and new senses of identity, but they are also embedded with cultural and religious rebellion avenues and mores.

The long-term longevity of Italy's popular religious practices may be influenced by its legacy of witch trials. While the tradition of witch-hunts and witch trials in the mediaeval and Renaissance periods has often been cited as a driving and galvanizing force in women's and sometimes men's commitment to Paganism and Witchcraft movements in the twentieth century, it can be argued that contemporary Witches and Pagans' convictions about ancient witches and witchcraft are misguided.

According to studies conducted in recent decades, there were few followers of a pre-Christian Pagan faith who survived into the Christian period among those persecuted and/or executed during the gruesome years of the European and British witch-hunts. In Lombardy, however, two examples of possible surviving vernacular Goddess worship have been recorded: Pierina Bugatis and Sibillia Zanni, who were burned in one of Milan's main piazzas.

Their tale exemplifies some of feminist scholar Anne Llewellyn Barstow's points: despite the presence of the Inquisition, Italy and Spain did not undergo the kind of "witch craze" that swept the rest of Europe. Inquisitors, especially in Italy, became particularly interested in the practices of female fortune-tellers and male magicians, and saw them as wrong beliefs rather than diabolic sorcery, and tried to convert the practitioners to a papally sanctioned form of Catholicism. Penances, whippings, and banishment were used as punishments, but not death.

Early testimony mentioned events that were more akin to modern Goddess worship than those described in witch trial reports. For example, at certain times of the month, they celebrated rites honoring a sacred feminine figure; they healed animals, ate and drank together. While Sibillia and Pierina were sadly lost, the presence of the Inquisition and the Vatican may have helped the continuation of Italy's folk traditions into modern times, as the people did not experience the same degree of persecution of folk healers and vernacular beliefs as people in other countries.

An Enchanted Land and a Rural Country

In northern Europe and North America during the mid-to-late twentieth century, esoteric traditions, and mystery religions such as Wicca, Druidry, and others grew and expanded rapidly. However, in Italy, the arrival of numerous northern European, North American, and British Paganism practices was hindered by the language barrier. The majority, if not all, of Pagan literature was written in English.

In the second decade of the twenty-first century, it is still normal to see educated people in Italy's more sophisticated cities and towns who do not speak or read English, at least not well. Many now-classic Wicca, Witchcraft, and Paganism books from the twentieth century, such as Starhawk's The Spiral Dance and Janet and Stewart Farrar's A Witches' Bible, were postponed because of this.

The delayed arrival of modern Paganism in Italy was due to several sociological and historical influences. One was the early nineteenth-century industrialization of northern Europe, Britain, and North America, as well as the resulting romanticization of nature in those areas. Another was the study of mythology, native rituals, and witches in relation to this idealized view of agricultural customs that flourished in countries like England, Germany, and the United States from the early to mid-nineteenth century.

This was a response to the disappearance of the countryside and agricultural lives, as well as the deep feeling of loss brought about by industrialization. The Romantic revolution in the British Isles was to be a direct response to England's industrialization. The study of folklore, which was only recently established in the nineteenth century, is important for Wicca and perhaps even Druidry in Italy, as it can be claimed that there is a clear line from American folklorist Charles Leland to British ‘father of Wicca' Gerald Gardner, and then to the arrival of Wicca and Druidry in Italy in the twenty-first century. This hypothesis is further developed by examining Italy's Indigenous Practices.

In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the quest for a re-enchantment of nature and the search for enchantment in the post-industrial period may have helped the development of nature mysticism and esoteric spirituality in northern Europe and North America. A newly urbanized society, on the other hand, may have already lost touch with nature and its rural cultures, with their native traditions and indigenous spiritual practices, to have a thirst for rediscovering enchantment of nature. This was not the case in Italy, which continued to have a strong agrarian and peasant economy far into the twentieth century.

It had experienced late industrialization, like other southern European countries, and yet preserved rural systems, customs, and mores long into the twentieth century. The belief in vernacular religious complexes, which involve the production and use of protective amulets, various healing traditions, and the raising of or protection from the Evil Eye, exemplifies this.

According to Magliocco, "there are practically thousands of spells in Italian mythology to turn around the evil eye," and "all of Italian vernacular magic and curing centers on the evil eye belief complex." Not only in Italy, but also among the Italian diaspora around the world, these are often paired with Christianity. Participants in this study in Italy talked openly about their Evil Eye experience and habits, as well as that of their friends.

New Movements, Rites, and Consciousness

The late industrialization of Italy and its subsequent "modernization without growth" are crucial in this debate, not only in relation to the later advent of Paganism, but also in relation to the late introduction of feminism and the environmental revolution. The rise and propagation of Goddess worship, Wicca, and Druidry, among other forms of Paganism, in Italy is a sociological development linked to the emergence of other movements such as LGBTQ, lesbian, homosexual, bisexual, transgender, and queer rights, the environmental revolution, and personal-consciousness movements.

In this respect, the revival of paganism in Italy is related to the rise of paganism in other parts of southern Europe, as well as other late-industrialized countries such as those in South America. The quest for modern rites of passage was another important component of Italy's hunger for alternate modes of worship and communal celebration. The educated, newly urbanized, younger generations, as well as the vast Italian left wing, felt increasingly alienated from conventional Catholic rituals in the late twentieth century.

An increasing desire for a new way to ritualize these occasions emerged from a lack of fulfilment in and a growing trend away from Catholicism's traditional ceremonies, especially those marking life transitions. Was the Women's Faith revolution the guiding force behind the exponential development of Paganism in Italy? Is it the growing awareness of environmental issues that followed industrialization? Is it a mixture of these causes, as well as more widespread schooling and employment for women?

It's difficult to say what was the "chief mover" in this case. However, as the Women's Spirituality movement grew in popularity in Italy over the last ten to fifteen years, new artistic manifestations arose, encouraging the development of unique rites of passage such as newborn blessings, young girls' coming of age, weddings, and women's rites  honoring menopause. There would be a new meaning to Liberation Theology if this were combined with the fervent sense of new empowerment provided by various Pagan cultures, especially for women raised in patriarchal Italian society.

In his study of Paganism in the British Isles, Graham Harvey identified this link; it holds true in Italy as well. Goddess Spirituality is perhaps modern Paganism's most overt "liberation religion" – or, more accurately, theology. It studies the history, current, and future expectations for signs of alternative lifestyles using several methods. It proposes that the honoring of the Earth and the honoring of women go hand in hand.

The need for modern rites of passage, experience of what was taking form overseas as books arrived and were eventually translated into Italian, and the delayed yet now fervent social and psychological consciousness revolutions all combined to give Italians a fertile blend of ideas ‘whose time had come' at the end of the twentieth century and the beginning of the twenty-first.

These events signaled a new emergence of alternative thought and artistic expression in Italy, as well as reaffirming the Italian proclivity for rebellion through a new kind of cultural resistance movement. Goddess Faith offers Italian women a feeling of empowerment, much as it does in other cultures. A significant nuance of this trend in Italy is that it can find influence in the context of bella figura, a nuanced and profoundly rooted Italian cultural characteristic whose direct meaning may be "making a good impression." This is the standard use, but there are many variations and social ramifications, especially when it comes to women asserting their position in the public sphere.

Bella Figura, according to anthropologist Emanuela Guano, is more than just a way of expressing yourself, dressing and walking – it's a means for a woman to build an identity that provides a sort of resistance and a way to carve out a position of dignity in a "oppressively masculinized" public domain.

As some Italian women experiment with modern and complex modes of empowered identity, my findings show a strong connection between the Ancient persona of Goddess Spirituality and priestesshood and Bella Figura. A Goddess statue stands outside a Pagan temple. The photographer, Ossian D'Ambrosio, gave his permission for this image to be included. It's important to remember the linguistic distinction between traditional Italian witchcraft, native rituals with a long background of Italian society, and modern Pagan Witchcraft concepts.

According to Italian scholars and practitioners, such as the participants in this ethnographic study, the Italian word for traditional vernacular witchcraft is stregoneria. There are regional dialectal variants for ‘witch' in Italy, such as stria and masca; however, strega is the most well recognized and used in the general Italian language. The word stregheria may be familiar to some readers.

This holds true for some modern vernacular manifestations of ‘witchcraft,' the topic of Charles Leland's nineteenth-century studies in central Italy, and particularly Italian-American mystical practices inside postmodern Paganism. Raven Grimassi, an American Pagan teacher and blogger, popularized the word. There are many variations in Italian stregheria and stregoneria customs, but there are also many parallels. In a nutshell, Gardnerian Wicca, and the imagination of Italian Americans, as well as authentic regional Italian traditions, have influenced Italian American stregheria.

However, some Italian authors, such as Menegoni, the translator of Leland's Aradia, advocate the use of stregheria primarily for the local Tuscan worship of Diana and 'Aradia' that Leland encountered. As a result, there are modern Italian witch sects that emphasize their inherited ancient roots and focus on using that name rather than stregoneria. It is a topic of continuing discussion both within and outside Italy.

Hinduism - Who Was Vatsyayana?

 

Vatsyayana(4th c.) was a writer and commentator in the Nyaya school of ancient Hindu philosophy. 

The Nyaya school has been integrated with another of the six schools, the Vaisheshikas, from the early common period.

Vatsyayana is most known for his commentary on Gautama's Nyaya Sutras, which are the Nyaya school's fundamental literature.

~Kiran Atma

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Hinduism - What Is Bhaktavijaya?

(“Triumph of [God's] Devotees”) Bhaktavijaya. 

Mahipati, an eighteenth-century writer and hagiographer of devotional (bhakti) poet-saints, penned the text. 

• The saints associated with the Varkari Panth, a religious organization focused on the worship of the deity Vithoba at his temple in Pandharpur, are the subject of the Bhaktavijaya's tales. 

• Because Mahipati was a Varkari himself, this emphasis is natural. 

• He also incorporated stories of other famous devotees (bhakta), most notably Kabir, Namdev, Jnaneshvar, and Narsi Mehta, in line with the devotional movement's tendency toward unity. 

The Bhaktavijaya's tales portray each of these saints as a model of devotion, emphasizing the ability of piety to transcend any difficulties. 

• The Bhaktililamrta, Mahipati's other significant work, is likewise based on this subject. 

Justin E. Abbott and Narhar R. Godbole translated the Bhaktavijaya as Stories of Indian Saints in 1988.

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Paganism & Wicca - Who Is A Sagae Or Sage?

 

“Feminine wisdom”; this word properly translates as “wise woman” or “sage woman,” but it was a euphemism for “witch” during the ancient Roman period. 

• Columella, a Roman writer from the first century CE, urged owners to prohibit their slaves from consulting sagae.

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Famous Empaths And Psychics In History.

Psychics have played an important part in human civilization since ancient times.

Prior to the birth of Christianity, they also served as priests, priestesses, seers, and mystics of numerous religions.

Famous Empaths From History:

1. Samuel, Gad, and Amos are only a few of the Bible's psychic seers. Samuel was the one who discovered King Saul's donkey. Amos was the seer ordered by Amaziah to flee Judah and pursue his prophetic endeavors elsewhere. Gad was King David's own seer, while Amos was the seer commanded by Amaziah to flee Judah and practice his prophetic endeavors elsewhere.

2. The Greek Oracle of Delphi is one of the most well-known names of ancient psychics. The Oracle was not a single human, but rather a position occupied by Delphi's most intelligent individual. She sent direct messages from Apollo, the God of Light and Reality. The natural steams coming from the hot springs in the Delphi region heightened her dreams. The priests of Ra on Memphis were the well-known seers in ancient Egypt. Oracles were known as nabu in Assyria, which meant "to declare" or "to call."

3. During the Renaissance in France, Nostradamus became a well-known figure in the field of prophecy. His prophecies are now well accepted around the world, and they have been published on a regular basis since they were first written.

4. The Spiritualist Movement started and spread in the mid-1800s, when the planet Neptune (which governs psychic energy) was discovered. At that time, many psychics flourished, including Edgar Cayce, Daniel Dunglas Home, and Madame Blavatsky.

Since the beginning of human evolution, psychic empaths have wandered the Earth. However, empathic abilities were only recognized as distinct from other psychic abilities after the New Age Awakening of the 1970s and 1980s.

Famous Empaths From Contemporary Times:

1. George Orwell

George Orwell may not seem to be the sort of guy who can empathize at first glance. 

But, based on his work and social accomplishments, he was a real empath who battled colonialism's harshness. 

Orwell even took it a step farther. 

He disguised as a beggar and lived on the streets of London to see the true misery of the people he encountered. 

While serving as a colonial police officer in Burma in the 1920s, he earned his empathy spurs. 

Orwell was outraged by the cruelty of colonialism that he observed firsthand, and determined that when he returned to Britain, he would put himself in the shoes of ordinary workers and see what their lives were like. 

He added, "I felt like I had to flee not only from imperialism, but from every type of man's tyranny over other man." 'I wanted to immerse myself with the downtrodden, to be one of them and fight alongside them against the rulers.' That's when he decided to dress up as a tramp and live on the streets of East London among beggars and vagrants, a period of his life chronicled in Down and Out in Paris and London (1933). 

Orwell, like practically no other writer in the twentieth century, shined a spotlight on neglected and marginalized sectors in British society with this book and his political reporting. 

2. Harriet Beecher Stowe

Harriet Beecher Stowe, an American author, may be history's most unsung empathizer. 

Slavery, particularly the terrible treatment of slaves on cotton farms in the south of the United States, was the major problem of her day. 

Her novella Uncle Tom's Cabin, which was basically a political treatise against slavery, was published in 1852. 

Within a decade, it had sold four million copies, making it a publishing phenomenon. 

The book aided in the transformation of a generation's worldview by exposing people to the horrors of slavery up close, so supporting the revolt against slavery and its proponents that culminated in the American Civil War. 

Following the terrible loss of her eighteen-month-old son Charley in the Cincinnati cholera outbreak of 1849, Beecher Stowe was inspired to write the novel. 

'It was at his bed, and at his tomb, that I learned what a poor slave mother may feel when her kid is wrenched away from her,' she said of the experience. 

3. Mahatma Gandhi.

Gandhi thought that if he was going to struggle for Indian independence from British control, he needed to see what life was like for the poorest people in the nation after returning to India from South Africa in 1915. 

So he ditched his posh barrister's coat and collar, clothed himself in a dhoti or loincloth, and founded the Sabamarti Ashram, where he resided from 1917 until 1930. 

It was all about putting yourself in the shoes of peasant farmers at the ashram. 

He and his disciples farmed their own food, spun their own fabric, and cleaned the latrines, which was traditionally a chore reserved for the Untouchable (Dalit) caste. 

Gandhi's profound sympathetic sensibility also led him to transcend religious barriers. 

He was outraged by Hindu-Muslim violence and vehemently opposed the establishment of a separate Muslim state. 

He once stated to a bunch of Hindu nationalists, "I am a Muslim!" while being a committed Hindu himself. 

And I'm a Hindu, a Christian, and a Jew, just like you.' These remarks are among the most sympathetic of all time, and they still ring true today. 

Mahatma Gandhi was a tremendous empath who dared to use his energy and strength to hypnotize the world. 

With the express intention of enabling his empathy to develop and foster mankind, he lived a life of self-sacrifice and made poverty vows. 

Gandhi was a pacifist because he had a greater knowledge of emotions. 

He emphasized the need of comprehending how painful negative emotions may be. 

As a result, he became a potent metaphor for how to recognize and apply your compassionate abilities. 

4. Claiborne Paul Ellis 

Ellis was born in Durham, North Carolina, in 1927 to a poor white family. 

He joined the Ku Klux Klan after struggling to make ends meet working in a garage and thought that black people were to blame for his problems. 

He ultimately rose to the rank of Exalted Cyclops of the Durham chapter of the KKK. 

In 1971, he was asked to a ten-day community gathering to assist resolve racial tensions in schools, which was a watershed moment in his life. 

C.P. Ellis was nominated to lead the race committee with Ann Atwater, a local black leader whom he despised. 

Working with her, on the other hand, utterly demolished his preconceptions towards African Americans. 

He saw that she was struggling with the same economic issues as he was, and that their actual adversaries were white merchants and politicians who kept their salaries low and put impoverished blacks and whites against one another. 

'I was starting to look at a black guy, shake his hand, and perceive him as a human being,' he said of his committee experience. 

'Something was going on with me.' It felt almost as if I'd been reborn.' He stood in front of a thousand people on the last night of the community gathering and tore up his Klan membership card. 

C.P. Ellis went on to become a well-known civil rights activist and labor organizer for a union with a 70% black membership. 

For the remainder of their lives, he and Ann remained friends. 

5. Nelson Mandela

Nelson Mandela is maybe one of the most well-known empaths. 

He, like many empaths, was prepared to put his personal wants aside for the greater good. 

Mandela had a strong sense of right and wrong. 

This is why he gave up years of his liberty for something he sincerely believed in. 

Mandela, on the other hand, was not deterred by his imprisonment. 

He took use of this opportunity to hone his empathic powers. 

Because of this, he was able to usher his nation into a new era. 

With his genuine compassion for his people, Mandela pushed everyone to support the transformation. 

6. Eleanor Roosevelt

Eleanor Roosevelt was the first lady of the United States. 

Eleanor Roosevelt was more than just the First Lady of the United States of America. 

She had a sweet and compassionate temperament and was a creative empath. 

Eleanor has the kind of compassionate attitude that made her a pleasure to be around in any circumstance. 

Eleanor Roosevelt utilized empathy to help people who didn't seem to have much in common. 

Her unselfish attitude made her a driving force in the civil rights struggle. 

7. Princess Diana

It's possible that Princess Diana's abrupt death shook the globe because of her great sympathetic qualities. 

She didn't have a very strong capacity to interact with people on a variety of levels. 

And she seemed unconcerned about her surroundings! Princess Diana had a lot of trouble dealing with her sensitive empathic qualities. 

It's difficult to quiet such sensitivity, which is why she was engaged in so many humanitarian deeds. 

8. St. Francis of Assisi

Giovanni Bernadone, the 23-year-old son of a rich merchant, visited St. 

Peter's Basilica in Rome in 1206 on a pilgrimage. 

He couldn't help but notice the contrast between the lavishness and richness inside—the dazzling mosaics, the spiral columns—and the destitution of the beggars outside. 

He convinced one of them to swap clothes with him and then spent the rest of the day asking for charity in rags. 

It was one of the world's first major empathy tests. 

This was a watershed moment in the young man's life. 

He quickly established a religious order whose brothers labored for the destitute and lepers, and who gave up their worldly possessions to live in poverty like the people they helped. 

"Grant me the wealth of sublime poverty," Giovanni Bernadone, now known as St. 

Francis of Assisi, is said to have said, "let the characteristic symbol of our order to be that it has nothing of its own under the sun, for the glory of your name, and that it has no other inheritance but begging." From luxury to sweatshop, 

 

9. Beatrice Webb

It was fashionable in the early twentieth century for authors and would-be social reformers, such as Jack London and George Orwell, to spend time living on the streets of East London, seeing the reality of poverty among the homeless, beggars, and jobless. 

Beatrice Webb, a socialist theorist, is credited with starting this tradition. 

Webb was born in 1858 into a wealthy family of politicians and merchants. 

However, in 1887, as part of her studies into urban poverty, she left her affluent bourgeois existence and went to work in an East London textile mill, clad in a frayed skirt and buttonless boots. 

Pages From a Work-Diary, Girl's her description of her trip, created a stir. 

A member of respectable society, particularly a lady, having personal knowledge of living among the poor was unheard of. 

In her memoirs, she remarked, "My personal inquiries into the persistent poverty of our large cities opened my eyes to the workers' side of the tale." Her empathetic immersion motivated her to push for better working conditions in factories and to promote cooperative and trade union organizations. 

She went on to co-found the London School of Economics and became a key figure in the socialist Fabian Society. 

10. John Howard Griffin

Crossing the racial barrier with John Howard Griffin. 

Griffin, a white Texas native, sought to experience what it was like to be an African American man living in the segregated Deep South in 1959. 

He used a mixture of sun lights and pigment-darkening drugs to turn his complexion black, then traveled and worked in Louisiana, Mississippi, Georgia, and South Carolina for six weeks. 

Nobody ever suspected him of being a liar. 

It was a life-changing event for me. 

He was astonished by how white folks glanced through him without recognizing his existence while working as a shoeshine boy in New Orleans. 

He endured the humiliations of segregation on a daily basis, such as going kilometers to use the restroom, and was subjected not only to racist verbal abuse but also to the fear of physical assault. 

His experiences were chronicled in the monthly magazine Sepia, which had funded his experiment, and subsequently in his best-selling book Black Like Me. 

While it may appear arrogant or inappropriate for a white man to speak on behalf of other races now, most African American civil rights activists considered his work as important at the time since it was so difficult for them to have their own voices heard. 

Griffin achieved notoriety for his efforts on behalf of racial equality, and he collaborated with Martin Luther King Jr. 

"If only we could put ourselves in the shoes of others to see how we would respond, then we could become aware of the inequities of discrimination and the sad inhumanity of every sort of prejudice," he writes at the core of his book. 

11. Günther Walraff

Günther Wallraff, a German investigative journalist, spent two years undercover as a Turkish immigrant laborer in 1983, in what may be the most intense empathetic immersion of the twentieth century. 

He flung himself into a series of backbreaking tasks, such as unblocking toilets on construction sites that were ankle-deep in urine and sweeping coke dust at a steel mill without a protective mask, which left him with permanent chronic bronchitis. 

What struck him the most, he subsequently said, was the humiliation of being regarded as a second-class citizen by "native" Germans, more than the 19th-century labor conditions. 

Lowest of the Low, his book exposing the Apartheid-like circumstances faced by immigrant workers in Germany, has sold over 2 million copies in 30 languages. 

It resulted in criminal investigations of companies that used unlawful labor and enhanced contract worker protection in numerous German states. 

Walraff's work emphasizes the importance of experiencing empathy in discovering socioeconomic inequity, a method that subsequent investigative reporters like Barbara Ehrenreich adopted. 

12. Patricia Moore

Patricia Moore, a U.S. product designer who specializes in leveraging empathy to bridge generational divides, is one of today's main proponents of experienced empathy. 

Her most well-known experiment took place in the late 1970s, when she disguised up as an 85-year-old lady to see what life was like as an elder at the age of 26. 

She donned aged-looking cosmetics, fogged-up spectacles that prevented her from seeing well, splints and bandages on her arms and hands to mimic arthritis, and uneven shoes that caused her to limp. 

In this disguise, she traveled throughout North America for three years, attempting to use her tied wrists to go up and down subway stairs, unlock department store doors, and operate can openers. 

What's the end result? Moore pioneered a whole new approach to product design. 

She developed new items for seniors based on her experiences, such as the thick rubber-handled potato peelers and other utensils that are now available in practically every kitchen and can be readily used by those with arthritic hands. 

She went on to become a powerful advocate for older adults' rights, assisting in the passage of the Americans With Disabilities Act. 

Her most recent effort involves creating rehabilitation facilities for U.S. 

military veterans who have lost limbs or suffered brain impairments, allowing them to retrain how to live freely again, including purchasing groceries and using a cash machine. 

"Empathy, an awareness that one size does not fit all," she argues, underpins her whole approach. 

What can we learn from Famous Empaths and their inspirational lives?

Few of us will dress up as an 85-year-old or pretend to be an immigrant laborer for years. 

However, there are additional ways in which we may all cultivate experiencing empathy. 

You might participate in Live Below the Line, an anti-poverty initiative in which tens of thousands of individuals live for five days on $1.50 per day, the same amount as more than 1 billion people on the earth. 

Sure, spend the first week of your next two-week vacation sleeping on a beach in Mexico, but why not spend the second week volunteering as a teacher at a local school? If a "wealth exchange" isn't for you, consider a "God swap" instead: Spend a month attending services of several faiths, including a gathering of humanists, if you believe in a specific religion. 

These are all examples of how you can incorporate some experienced empathy into your life. 

Not only will this broaden your viewpoint and creativity, but it will also help you to employ empathy to promote social justice. 

And that's certainly preferable than letting this amazing type of human comprehension to become simply another commercial tool.

FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS:

What is the most uncommon sort of empath? 

Heyoka empaths are the rarest and most powerful kind of empath, working as a spiritual mirror for others around them to help them evolve. 

Others are forced to reconsider their own preconceived beliefs of what is good and bad, real and imaginary, because of the Heyoka's unconventional attitude to life. 

What is the greatest level of empathic experience?

Because the Heyoka empath is basically an emotional mirror and tends to be more spiritual than the others, it is the most potent of all the empath kinds. 

They are also supposed to have the ability to read people's thoughts. 

Is it possible for an empath to be a narcissist?

The empath struggles against this low vibration condition. 

An empath becomes a narcissist's narcissist in their plutonic condition. 

As a result of mirroring them, the empath loses empathy for the narcissist, becoming excessively cold and intent on destroying their fragile egos. 

What does it mean to be an intuitive empath? 

Intuitive empaths are said to be a special kind of empath that blends empathy, or the capacity to comprehend and share other people's emotions, with instinct and observation. 

Some people feel intuitive empathy is a valuable talent with its own set of limitations. 

Is it possible for empaths to be actors? 

You may be an empath as well as extremely sensitive as an actor or other artist. 

Dr. Orloff, who has written several papers, books, and videos, can teach you a lot about this kind of high sensitivity. 

How do you know if you're an empath? 

12 indications that you're an empath: You have clairsensibility. 

You are a different kind of "clair."

You are often overstimulated. 

You can have trouble setting limits.

You have the ability to sense other people's feelings. 

You're feeling overwhelmed by the people.

You must consciously choose not to let energy in. 

You've always been sensitive, even when you were a kid. 

What Are the Three Main Empath Types? 

Physical Empath.

You're very sensitive to other people's bodily ailments and are prone to absorbing them into your own body. 

Emotional Empath.

You mostly pick up on other people's emotions and may become a sponge for both joyful and negative sentiments.... 

Intuitive Empath.

What makes me think I'm a Heyoka? 

Despite your outstanding social abilities, you prefer to be alone. 

It might be difficult for empaths to control how they truly feel when they are bombarded with emotion from their surroundings. 

You are open and honest with others.... 

You are inventive.... 

You are compassionate. 

Is it true that intuitive empaths are uncommon?

Empaths are a very uncommon subclass of HSPs. 

According to some estimates, empaths make up less than 1% of the population. 

Empaths (like me) are described by psychiatrist Judith Orloff as "sponges," having the capacity to "absorb" both good and negative emotions from individuals around them. 

What is an educated empath?

An educated empath is more wholistic and focused on a group or community. 

This group strives for a win-win outcome that benefits everyone. 

The empaths' task is to educate themselves on the methods of the taker/predator and acquire self-defense techniques. 

They must master the art of outmaneuvering the manipulator.

~ Kiran Atma

You may also want to read more about Empaths, Psychic Empaths, Intuitive Empaths, and Healing here.

References And Further Reading:

• Hollan, Douglas, and C. Jason Throop. “Whatever Happened to Empathy?: Introduction.” Ethos 36, no. 4 (2008): 385–401. http://www.jstor.org/stable/20486588.
• Montwieler, Katherine. “Reading, Sympathy, and the Bodies of ‘Bleak House.’” Dickens Studies Annual 41 (2010): 237–63. http://www.jstor.org/stable/44371449.
• BRADLEY, CHRISTOPHER. “THE INTERCONNECTION BETWEEN RELIGIOUS FUNDAMENTALISM, SPIRITUALITY, AND THE FOUR DIMENSIONS OF EMPATHY.” Review of Religious Research 51, no. 2 (2009): 201–19. http://www.jstor.org/stable/20697334.
• LADA, ISMENE. “‘EMPATHIC UNDERSTANDING’: EMOTION AND COGNITION IN CLASSICAL DRAMATIC AUDIENCE-RESPONSE.” Proceedings of the Cambridge Philological Society, no. 39 (1993): 94–140. http://www.jstor.org/stable/44696701.
• Spector, Scott. “Edith Stein’s Passing Gestures: Intimate Histories, Empathic Portraits.” New German Critique, no. 75 (1998): 28–56. https://doi.org/10.2307/488577.
• Boyd, John D. “‘In Memoriam’ and the ‘Logic of Feeling.’” Victorian Poetry 10, no. 2 (1972): 95–110. http://www.jstor.org/stable/40001620.