Esoteric Christianity is a term which refers to an ensemble of spiritual currents which regard Christianity as a mystery religion, and profess the existence and possession of certain esoteric doctrines or practices, hidden from the public but accessible only to a narrow circle of " enlightened ", " initiated ", or highly educated people.

Buddhism has a spiritual aspect that compliments the action of Neo-Confucianism, with prominent Neo-Confucians advocating certain forms of meditation.

Due to its role as humankind's first tool, certain cultures have attached spiritual and religious significance to the knife.

Weber showed that certain types of Protestantism – notably Calvinism – were supportive of rational pursuit of economic gain and worldly activities dedicated to it, seeing them as endowed with moral and spiritual significance.

Additionally, in grouping certain letters together one is able to display meaningful sequences that are considered to be of value to the spiritual system that utilizes them ( e. g., spiritual hierarchies, historiographic data, psychological stages, etc.

According to certain authors, the Jabal Qaf of Muslim cosmology is a version of Rupes Nigra, a mountain whose ascent, like Dante's climbing of the Mountain of Purgatory, represents the pilgrim's progress through spiritual states.

The term is sometimes popularly taken to mean " knowledge meant only for certain people " or " knowledge that must be kept hidden ", but for most practicing occultists it is simply the study of a deeper spiritual reality that extends beyond pure reason and the physical sciences.

The Shia extend this belief to Muhammad's family, the Ahl al-Bayt (" the People of the House "), and certain individuals among his descendants, known as imams, who have special spiritual and political authority over the community.

Spirituality has played a central role in self-help movements such as Alcoholics Anonymous: "... if an alcoholic failed to perfect and enlarge his spiritual life through work and self-sacrifice for others, he could not survive the certain trials and low spots ahead ...."

", and responds by saying that in the symbolic infrastructure of some religions, there is the image of a certain extraordinary spiritual king's " miraculous powers ", to whom frequently a certain moral presence is attributed.

However, many consider the term " entheogen " best reserved for religious and spiritual usage, such as certain Native American churches do with the peyote sacrament, and " psychedelic " left to describe those who are using these drugs for recreation, psychotherapy, physical healing, or creative problem solving.

Generally, all worthy males at ( or above ) the age of 12 are ordained to the Aaronic Priesthood as deacons, teachers or priests, authorizing them to perform certain ordinances and sacraments, and adult males are ordained to the Melchizedek Priesthood, as elders, seventies, or high priests in that priesthood, which is concerned with spiritual leadership of the church.

Perhaps most notably, the concept takes on an essential role as the philosophical-spiritual basis of Thelema ( and its various delineations ), an occultic system of thought developed by the writer-mystic Aleister Crowley: Crowley argued that Will provides for a certain ground of being, as well as the possibility that rituals such as ceremonial magic, yoga, and meditation allow for conscious beings to have direct influence over reality and both the spiritual and metaphysical world.

Fasting — a practice actively promoted in Scripture — and abstinence from certain foods at particular times are good spiritual disciplines, but there is no food from which Catholics must abstain at all times ... So who is Paul condemning regarding abstinence?

Prophecy and certain other spiritual gifts were somewhat rarely acknowledged throughout church history.

In some instances, such as on the island of Tanna in Vanuatu, cult members worship certain Americans ( such as John Frum and Tom Navy ), who brought the desired cargo to their island during World War II as part of the supplies used in the war effort, as the spiritual entity who will provide the cargo to them in the future.

The game spawned the Mario RPG series, and two successive RPG-themed spiritual sequels followed: the Paper Mario series and the Mario & Luigi series, both of which use certain conventions established in the original.

The results is that marabouts are expected to provide certain material benefits to their follower in addition to the spiritual ones.

For Thomas, resurrection seems more a cognitive event of spiritual attainment, one even involving a certain discipline or asceticism.

In 1917, he was caught up in what he regarded as the romance of the Russian Revolution, the idea of which fulfilled for him certain spiritual needs previously unsatisfied.

These beliefs vary widely from one to another, but most agree that luck can be influenced through spiritual means by performing certain rituals or by avoiding certain circumstances.

Qualifiers, such as mental, emotional, psychological, and spiritual, are often used for referring to certain types of pain or suffering.

However the influence of temporal rulers, notably the French kings, largely reemerged via cardinals of certain nationalities or politically significant movements ; there even developed traditions entitling certain monarchs — e. g. of Austria, Spain, and Portugal — to nominate one of their trusted clerical subjects to be created cardinal, a so-called crown-cardinal.

A new concept, popularized by John Fairbank was the notion of " change within tradition " which argued that although China did change in the pre-modern period but that this change existed within certain cultural traditions.

The two traditions may have evolved separately, but have influenced each other to a certain extent, particularly with the cross-cultural contact of recent centuries.

Elves were originally thought of as ambivalent beings with certain magical abilities capable of helping or hindering humans, but in later traditions became increasingly sinister and were believed to afflict humans and livestock in various ways.

In many traditions, these have acquired strict guidelines for use by certain social classes.

In Latin America, harps are widely but sparsely distributed, except in certain regions where the harp traditions are very strong.

For the most part, religious traditions in the world reserve marriage to heterosexual unions, but there are exceptions including certain Buddhist and Hindu traditions, Unitarian Universalist, Metropolitan Community Church and some Anglican dioceses and some Quaker, United Church of Canada and Reform Jewish congregations .< ref >" World Religions and Same Sex Marriage ", Marriage Law Project, Columbus School of Law at The Catholic University of America, Washington, DC, July 2002 revision

In contrast to this point of view, practices such as Humanistic Judaism reject the religious aspects of Judaism, while retaining certain cultural traditions.

Wesley ’ s personal social philosophy was characterized by “ an instructive reluctance to criticize existing institutions was overborne by indignation at certain abuses which cried out for rectification .” The Methodist Church ’ s responses to injustices in society are embodiments of the Wesleyan traditions of mercy and justice.

It is commonly called " Wicca ", a term that came to be adopted in the early 1960s, although in the late 1970s and 1980s certain Pagan Witches began to instead use that term purely in reference to specific traditions of the Pagan Craft, and in the contemporary pagan community both definitions are now employed, causing some confusion.

In these traditions, only men who meet certain requirements may become priests.

The Sufis were practitioners of the esoteric mystic traditions within an Islam at certain point sufism defined by the sufi master or Pir ( Sufism ) or fakeer or Wali in the language of the people by dancing and singing and incorporating various philosophies, theologies, ideologies and religions together.

Some traditions were deliberately invented for one reason or another, often to highlight or enhance the importance of a certain institution.

Depending on the level of acceptance of rejection of certain traditions, the interpretation of the Koran can be changed immensely, from the Qur ' anists and Ahmadiyya who reject the ahadith, to the Salafi, or ahl al-hadith, who hold the entirety of the traditional collections in great reverence.

Comparatively, the UMC stands to the right of liberal and progressive Protestant groups such as the United Church of Christ and the Episcopal Church on certain issues ( especially regarding sexuality ), but to the left of historically conservative evangelical traditions such as the Southern Baptists and Pentecostalism, in regard to theological matters such as social justice and Biblical interpretation.

In addition to blood, other objects and substances, such as bones, fur, claws, feathers, gemstones and crystals, water from certain places, certain types of plants and wood are common fetishes in the traditions of cultures worldwide.

It has been thought that the Ionian migration from Greece carried with it some part of a population which retained the artistic traditions of the Mycenaean civilization, and so caused the birth of the Ionic school ; but whether this was so or not, it is certain that from the 8th century BC onwards we find the true spirit of Hellenic art, stimulated by commercial intercourse with eastern civilizations, working out its development chiefly in Ionia and its neighbouring isles.

Etymologically, we can discern the following traditions ( some languages followed a historical link, e. g. within the Holy Roman Empire, not their language family ; some even fail to follow the same logic for certain other aristocratic titles ):

The development of the Bharatnatyam dance form has therefore been surrounded by controversy as some including Ashish Khokar the Indian dance historian have seen it as a means by which many women, often Brahmin women, have appropriated certain Devadasi traditions while disassociating themselves with other aspects of the contemporary devadasis ' practices.

Like other major Western noble titles, marquess or marquis is sometimes used to render certain titles in non-Western languages with their own traditions, even though they are, as a rule, historically unrelated and thus hard to compare.

Whilst many of the locals have adopted modern attitudes they still uphold certain old traditions like chivalry, courtesy and, of course, hospitality.

Ancient pictures of the Roman twins usually follow certain symbolic traditions, depending on the legend they follow: they either show a shepherd, the she-wolf, the twins under a fig tree, and one or two birds ( Livy, Plutarch ); or they depict two shepherds, the she-wolf, the twins in a cave, seldom a fig tree, and never any birds ( Dionysius of Halicarnassus ).