A dakini is a tantric deity described as a female embodiment of enlightened energy. In the Tibetan language, dakini means she who traverses the sky or she who moves in space. Sometimes the term is translated poetically as sky dancer or sky walker.

Although dakini figures also appear in Hinduism, they are particularly prevalent in Vajrayana Buddhism where the dakini, usually of volatile or wrathful temperament, act as an inspirational thoughtform for spiritual practice. Dakinis are energetic beings in female form, evocative of the movement of energy in space. In this context, the sky or space indicates the insubstantiality of all phenomena, which is at the same time the pure potentiality for all possible manifestations.

In Hinduism, the dakini Chinnamasta is one of the ten Tantric goddesses and is associated with the concept of self sacrifice as well as the awakening of the kundalini or spiritual energy. She is considered both as a symbol of self control as well as an embodiment of sexual energy. She symbolizes both aspects of the Hindu Divine Mother, as a life giver and a life taker.

Due to her ferocious nature and her reputation of being dangerous to approach and worship, her individual worship is restricted to heroic, Tantric worship by Tantrikas, yogis and world renouncers. Chhinnamasta can be easily identified by her fearsome iconography. The self decapitated goddess is usually depicted standing on a copulating couple. She holds her own severed head in one hand and a scimitar in the other. Three jets of blood spurt out of her bleeding neck and are drunk by her severed head and two attendants.

Prosperity is a state of flourishing, thriving, success, or good fortune. Prosperity often encompasses wealth, but also includes others factors which are independent of wealth to varying degrees, such as happiness and health.

Many distinct notions of prosperity, such as economic prosperity, health, and happiness, are correlated or even have causal effects on each other. Economic prosperity and health are well established to have a positive correlation, and there is evidence that happiness is a cause of good health, both directly through influencing behavior and the immune system, and indirectly through social relationships, work, and other factors.

In Buddhism, prosperity is viewed with an emphasis on collectivism and spirituality. This perspective can be at odds with capitalistic notions of prosperity, due to their association with greed. Data from social surveys show that an increase in income does not result in a lasting increase in happiness. One proposed explanation to this is due to hedonic adaptation and social comparison, resulting in people not allocating enough energy to non-financial goals such as family life and health.

Economic notions of prosperity often compete or interact negatively with health, happiness, or spiritual notions of prosperity. For example, longer hours of work might result in an increase in certain measures of economic prosperity, but at the expense of driving people away from their preferences for shorter work hours. In ecology, prosperity can refer to the extent to which a species flourishes under certain circumstances.

A thoughtform is a manifestation of mental energy, also known as a tulpa in Tibetan mysticism. The thoughtform is also one of the expressed or visualized means of Samyama, a particular system of teaching or doctrines, often embodied as a set of vows or commitments. Recited mantras are essentially thoughtforms representing divinities or cosmic powers, which exert their influence by means of sound vibrations.

Definitions have been suggested for thoughtforms, such as that of an image held in the mind of a practitioner which aids in the manifestation of intention. It has also been proposed as an agency of psychic effect which exists and takes form in the pre-physical realms of existence, which acts in accord with the intent of its creator.

It connates a homunculus or foundation of awareness, or an instantaneous observer and observed duality. Homunculi appear in various theories of cognitive philosophy and psychology to account for different facets of conscious self. They are created by every individual at every moment, and in some formulations they are a constant manifestation of everyone at every moment, possessing a will of its own.

Thoughtforms are said to have two effects, a radiating vibration and a floating form. They are divided into three classes – those which take the image of the thinker, those which take the image of a material object, and those which take a form entirely of its own, expressing the inherent qualities in the matter which it draws around it.

It has been theorized that the effects of music, emotion and color strongly influence thoughtforms.

A prayer wheel is a cylindrical object on a spindle made from metal, wood, stone, leather, or coarse cotton. Traditionally, the mantra Om Mani Padme Hum is written in Sanskrit externally on the wheel. Sometimes Dakinis, Protectors, and very often the eight auspicious symbols known as Ashtamangala are depicted. According to the Tibetan Buddhist tradition, spinning such a wheel will have much the same meritorious effect as orally reciting the prayers.

It is said that prayer wheels are used to accumulate wisdom and merit, and to purify negativities such as bad karma. The idea of spinning mantras comes from numerous Tantric practices where the Tantric practitioner visualizes mantras revolving around the meridian chakras such as the heart and crown. Therefore, prayer wheels are a visual aid for developing one’s capacity for these types of Tantric visualizations.

The spiritual method for those practicing with a prayer wheel is very specific. The practitioner most often spins the wheel clockwise, for the direction the mantras are written is that of the movement of the sun across the sky. Before, during and after the practitioner turns the wheel, it is best to focus the mind and repeat the Om Mani Padme Hum mantra, as this increases the merit earned by the wheel’s use. However, it is said that even turning it while distracted has benefits and merits, and that even insects that cross a prayer wheel’s shadow will gain some benefit.

Some prayer wheels are powered by electric motors. Thardo Khorlo, as these electric wheels are sometimes known, contain one thousand copies of the mantra Om Mani Padme Hum and many copies of other mantras. The Thardo Khorlo can be accompanied by lights and music if one so chooses. However, Lama Zopa Rinpoche has said, “The merit of turning an electric prayer wheel goes to the electric company. This is why I prefer practitioners to use their own right energy to turn a prayer wheel”.

The Dalai Lama has commented that animations on websites work just as well as other prayer wheels. As the animated image turns, waves of compassion emanate in all directions to the surrounding area. Some have suggested that the spinning of a hard drive at several thousand rotations per minute can act in similar function to a prayer wheel by saving an image of Om mani padme hum or other mantras on a local computer or server.

A magic circle is circle or sphere of space marked out by practitioners of many branches of ritual magic, either to contain energy and form a sacred space, or as a form of magical protection, or both. It may be marked physically, drawn in salt or chalk, for example, or merely visualised. Its spiritual significance is similar to that of mandala and yantra in some Eastern religions.

There are many published techniques for casting a circle, and many groups and individuals have their own unique methods. The common feature of these practices is that a boundary is traced around the working area. Some witchcraft traditions say that one must trace around the circle deosil three times. There is variation over which direction one should start in. In Wicca a circle is typically nine feet in diameter, though the size can vary depending on the purpose of the circle, and the preference of the caster.

Circles may or may not be physically marked out on the ground, and a variety of elaborate patterns for circle markings can be found in grimoires and magical manuals, often involving angelic and divine names. Such markings, or a simple unadorned circle, may be drawn in chalk or salt, or indicated by other means such as with a cord.

The four cardinal directions are often prominently marked, such as with four candles. In ceremonial magic traditions the four directions are commonly related to the four archangels Michael, Gabriel, Raphael and Uriel or the four classical elements, and also have four associated names of God. Some varieties of Wicca use the common ceremonial colour attributions: yellow for Air in the east, red for Fire in the south, blue for Water in the west and green for Earth in the north, though these attributions differ according to geographical location and individual philosophy.

Crop circles are patterns created by the flattening of crops such as wheat, barley, rye, or corn. Since appearing in the media in the 1970s, crop circles have become the subject of various paranormal and fringe beliefs, ranging from the hypothesis that they are created by freak meteorological phenomena to the belief that they represent messages from extraterrestrials.

Other hypotheses, insufficient to explain myriad circles with clearly discernable images and complex geometric patterns, attribute them to atmospheric phenomena, such as freak tornadoes or ball lightning.

The location of many crop circles near ancient sites such as Stonehenge has led to many New Age belief systems incorporating crop circles, including the beliefs that they are formed in relation to ley lines and that they give off energy that can be detected through dowsing.

UFOs and other lights in the sky have been reported in connection with many crop-circle sites, leading to their becoming associated with UFOs and aliens. Some people claim to have seen images of UFOs forming crop circles or overflying them, though photographs have been dismissed by experts as being indistinct or clear hoaxes.

In 1991, two men from Southampton, England, announced that they had conceived the idea as a prank at a pub near Winchester, Hampshire, during an evening in 1976. Inspired by the 1966 Tully Saucer Nests, Doug Bower and Dave Chorley made their crop circles using planks, rope, hats and wire as their only tools. Using a four-foot-long plank attached to a rope, they easily created circles eight feet in diameter. The two men were able to make a 40-foot circle in 15 minutes.

Bower’s wife had become suspicious of him, noticing high levels of mileage in their car. Eventually, fearing that his wife suspected him of adultery, Bower confessed to her, and subsequently, he and Chorley informed a British national newspaper. Chorley died in 1996, and Doug Bower has made crop circles as recently as 2004. Bower has said that, had it not been for his wife’s suspicions, he would have taken the secret to his deathbed, never revealing that it was a hoax.

Agapism professes that love  should be the sole ultimate value and that all other values are derived from it, or that the sole moral imperative is to love. Theological agapism holds that our love of God is expressed by loving our fellow man. As the ethics of love, agapism indicates that we should do the most loving thing in each situation, letting love determine our obligation rather than rules. Alternatively, given a set of rules, agapism indicates to follow those rules which produce the most love.

The American philosopher Charles Sanders Peirce used the word agapism for the view that creative love is operative in the cosmos. Drawing from the Swedenborgian ideas of Henry James, Peirce held that it involves a love which expresses itself in a devotion to cherishing and tending to people or things other than oneself, as a parent may do for offspring, and as God does especially for the unloving, whereby the loved ones may learn.

Peirce regarded this process as a mode of evolution of the cosmos and its parts, and he called it agapism, wherein: “The good result is here brought to pass, first, by the bestowal of spontaneous energy by the parent upon the offspring, and, second, by the disposition of the latter to catch the general idea of those about it and thus to subserve the general purpose.”

Moxibustion is a traditional Chinese medicine therapy using moxa, or mugwort herb. It plays an important role in the traditional medical systems of China, Japan, Korea, Vietnam, Tibet, and Mongolia. Suppliers usually age the mugwort and grind it up to a fluff. Practitioners then burn the fluff or process it further into a stick that resembles a cigar. They can use it indirectly, with acupuncture needles, or sometimes burn it on a patient’s skin.

Practitioners use moxa to warm regions and acupuncture points with the intention of stimulating circulation through the points and inducing a smoother flow of blood and qi. Research has shown that mugwort acts as an emmenagogue, meaning that it stimulates blood-flow in the pelvic area and uterus. It is claimed that moxibustion militates against cold and dampness in the body.

Medical historians believe that moxibustion pre-dated acupuncture, and needling came to supplement moxa after the 2nd century BC. Different schools of acupuncture use moxa in varying degrees. For example a 5-elements acupuncturist will use moxa directly on the skin, whilst a TCM-style practitioner will use rolls of moxa and hold them over the point treated. It can also be burnt atop a fine slice of ginger root to prevent scarring.

Practitioners consider moxibustion to be especially effective in the treatment of chronic problems. Bian Que, one of the most famous doctors of Chinese antiquity and the first specialist in moxibustion, discussed the benefits of moxa over acupuncture in his classic work. He asserted that moxa could add new energy to the body and could treat both excess and deficient conditions. On the other hand, he advised against the use of acupuncture in an already weak patient, on the grounds that needle manipulation would leak too much energy.

In North and South America, indigenous peoples regard mugwort as a sacred plant of divination and spiritual healing. Mugwort amongst other herbs were often bound into smudge sticks. Europeans placed sprigs of mugwort under pillows to provoke dreams, and the herb had associations with the practice of magic in Anglo-Saxon times.