Research on meditation

Since the 1950s hundreds of studies on meditation have been conducted, though many of the early studies were flawed and thus yielded unreliable results. More recent reviews have pointed out many of these flaws with the hope of guiding current research into a more fruitful path.

Research on the processes and effects of meditation is a growing subfield of neurological research. Modern scientific techniques and instruments, such as fMRI and EEG, have been used to see what happens in the bodies of people when they meditate, and how their bodies and brains change after meditating regularly.

Meditation is a broad term which encompasses a number of practices.

Mindfulness

Systematic reviews and meta-analyses

Christian meditation

Christian meditation is a form of prayer in which a structured attempt is made to become aware of and reflect upon the revelations of God. The word meditation comes from the Latin word meditārī, which has a range of meanings including to reflect on, to study and to practice. Christian meditation is the process of deliberately focusing on specific thoughts (such as a bible passage) and reflecting on their meaning in the context of the love of God.

Christian meditation aims to heighten the personal relationship based on the love of God that marks Christian communion. Both in Eastern and Western Christianity meditation is the middle level in a broad three-stage characterization of prayer: it involves more reflection than first level vocal prayer, but is more structured than the multiple layers of contemplative prayer. Teachings in both the Eastern and Western Christian churches have emphasized the use of Christian meditation as an element in increasing one's knowledge of Christ.

Méditation (Thaïs)

"Méditation" (pronounced: [meditasjɔ̃]) is a symphonic intermezzo from the opera Thaïs by French composer Jules Massenet. The piece is written for solo violin and orchestra. The opera premiered at the Opéra Garnier in Paris on March 16, 1894.

Description

The Méditation is a symphonic entr'acte performed between the scenes of Act II in the opera Thaïs. In the first scene of Act II, Athanaël, a Cenobite monk, confronts Thaïs, a beautiful and hedonistic courtesan and devotée of Venus, and attempts to persuade her to leave her life of luxury and pleasure and find salvation through God. It is during a time of reflection following the encounter that the Méditation is played by the orchestra. In the second scene of Act II, following the Méditation, Thaïs tells Athanaël that she will follow him to the desert.

The piece is in D major and is approximately five minutes long (although there are a number of interpretations that stretch the piece to over six minutes). Massenet may also have written the piece with religious intentions; the tempo marking is Andante religioso, signifying his intention that it should be played religiously (which could mean either strictly in the tempo or literally with religiously-founded emotion) and at walking tempo. The piece opens with a short introduction by the harps, with the solo violin quickly entering with the motif. After the violin plays the melody twice, the piece goes into a section marked animato, gradually becoming more and more passionate (Massenet wrote poco a poco appassionato). The climax is reached at a place marked poco piu appassionato (a little more passion) and is then followed by a short cadenza-like passage from the soloist and returns to the main theme. After the theme is played twice, the soloist joins the orchestra while playing harmonics on the upper register as the harps and strings quietly play below the solo line.

Dagon

Dagon (Hebrew: דגון'‎, Tib. Dāḡôn) or Dagan (Ugaritic: Dgn, Dagnu, or Daganu; Akkadian: Dagana) was originally an East Semitic Mesopotamian (Akkadian, Assyrian, Babylonian) fertility god who evolved into a major Northwest Semitic god, reportedly of grain (as symbol of fertility) and fish and/or fishing (as symbol of multiplying). He was worshipped by the early Amorites and by the inhabitants of the cities of Ebla (modern Tell Mardikh, Syria) and Ugarit (modern Ras Shamra, Syria). He was also a major member, or perhaps head, of the pantheon of the Philistines.

Name

In Ugaritic, the root dgn also means grain: in Hebrew דגן dāgān, Samaritan dīgan, is an archaic word for grain.

The Phoenician author Sanchuniathon also says Dagon means siton, that being the Greek word for grain. Sanchuniathon further explains: "And Dagon, after he discovered grain and the plough, was called Zeus Arotrios." The word arotrios means "ploughman", "pertaining to agriculture" (confer ἄροτρον "plow").

It is perhaps related to the Middle Hebrew and Jewish Aramaic word dgnʾ 'be cut open' or to Arabic dagn (دجن) 'rain-(cloud)'.

Fomalhaut b

Fomalhaut b or Dagon is a confirmed, directly imaged extrasolar object and candidate planet orbiting the A-type main-sequence star Fomalhaut, approximately 25 light-years away in the constellation of Piscis Austrinus. The object was initially announced in 2008 and confirmed as real in 2012 from images taken with the Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS) on the Hubble Space Telescope and, according to calculations reported in January 2013, has a 1,700-year, highly elliptical orbit. It has a periastron of 7.4 billion km (~50 AU) and an apastron of about 44 billion km (~300 AU). As of May 25, 2013 it is 110 AU from its parent star.

The planet was one of those selected by the International Astronomical Union as part of their public process for giving proper names to exoplanets. The process involved public nomination and voting for the new name. In December 2015, the IAU announced the winning name was Dagon. The name Dagon was proposed by Dr. Todd Vaccaro and forwarded by the St. Cloud State University Planetarium to the IAU for consideration.

Nightrider (DC Comics)

Nightrider (Dagon) is a fictional vampire superhero from the DC Comics universe. He is a member of the Team Titans, a rebel group seeking to overthrow Lord Chaos, the dictator of an alternate Earth ten years into the future.

Fictional character biography

David was an ordinary mortal boy growing up in London. When he was ten, he was hit by a truck. Lord Chaos took a special interest in him, making him a test subject.

At fourteen, he was the subject of an experiment in which he was infused with DNA drawn from the bones of Dracula. This turned him into a blood-hungering monster he dubbed "Dagon", because he felt as if David, the person he used to be, was dead. During the experiment, a demon attacked the research team; Dagon joined it and singled out the chief researcher for special attention. The only survivor was Charlie Watkins, who would later become the hero Killowat.

Dagon joined the Team Titans to get revenge on Lord Chaos, adopting the name Nightrider. They taught him how to control his hunger and assigned him to a team.