A food service institution is one which plans prepares and serves food in quantities far greater than those characteristic of usual home meals. Such institutions serve various functions depending on the demands placed on them by their customers and vary from small to very large establishments. Though development has been rapid and widespread during the last 50 years the services have their root...

The Jerusalem syndrome is an acute psychotic state observed in tourists and pilgrims who visit Jerusalem. The main symptom of this disorder is identification with a character from the Bible and exhibiting behaviours which seems to be typical for this character. The article presents an overview of cultural and demographic factors associated with the appearance of the Jerusalem syndrome. Three ma...

What place is there for holy play in experience-oriented society? Is it possible and useful to make analytic distinctions between the liturgical quality of events? I explored these questions by doing research on the boundaries between the religious field and the field of leisure. Fifty site visits to public events in the Netherlands (2006-2014) resulted in a collection of ethnographic data. I u...

Jasmine flower belonging to Oleaceae family is cultivated in temperate places across the globe which has more than 200 species. This flower has traditional, religious, social, spiritual and medicinal benefits. It is considered as symbol of beauty, deep affection, happiness and elegance. It is the National flower of many countries. Due to its charming fragrance, it is extensively used in perfume...

The nature of the scientific method is controversial with claims that a single scientific method does not even exist. However the scientific method does exist. It is the building of logical and self consistent models to describe nature. The models are constrained by past observations and judged by their ability to correctly predict new observations and interesting phenomena. Observations do not...

Within disciplines of religious studies, discussions of religious experience tend to revolve around the most rare and extraordinary cases, while neglecting much more common varieties of “ordinary religious experience”—that is, experiences of regular practitioners in the midst of normal religious activities such as worship or prayer. This comment will, first, call attention to this essential asp...

A profound transformation of the cultural memory in the former Soviet Union has resulted in deep changes in the cultural identities of all Soviet—and ex-Soviet—ethnic and religious groups. This transformation led to a change of perceptions about sacred and profane spaces and the connections of these spaces to the urban landscape. As a result of complex historical and cultural processes, contemp...

Once a paper with this title could have started with a summary of India’s linguistic and religious diversity backed up by a table or two of official population statistics showing various majority-minority configurations. Today many readers would find that unsatisfactory. Most contemporary students of the subject subscribe to some kind of a constructivist position vis-à-vis identities: that they...

Theories that explain the origins of communal violence in South Asia often point to the discursive creation of the perception of distinct and adversarial Hindu and Muslim identity categories at the beginning of the twentieth century. This paper argues that these theories overemphasize imagined social differences without adequately considering how these boundaries were territorialized in everyda...

Recently, a huge number of people travel together and may meet in a particular location for a specific purpose such activity is termed as mass gatherings. Rally of politics, gathering at fairs, religious occasions, gathering at railways are the events of mass gatherings. Such gatherings pose severe threats for crowds, because huge number of people moving in small areas can promote the spread of...