Outlook Magazine

This is a twice a year beautifully illustrated publication by the Swedenborg Movement.

Outlook is a free magazine for thinkers everywhere, especially those ordinary people who may be trying to make sense of their daily lives. It is neither a religious newsletter, nor an academic journal. It seeks to promote the distinctive ideas of Emanual Swedenborg in simple everyday language. It aims not to instruct but to entertain and inform.

Issue no 67 is recently published,

School discipline – how should it operate?

school discipline

There are probably several complex factors that can throw light on the causes of the riots. Examples are the culture of consumerism and acquisition as well as the possible effects on
moral values of permissive parenting. This is the third of four articles trying to understand what is going wrong from a spiritual dimension.

One view expressed in The Times newspaper is that “these disgraceful scenes were perpetuated by people who have not experienced any meaningful consequences for misbehaviour at school ” And so one spotlight is falling on social discipline in the education system.

Good Samaritans

Aaron Biber is aged 89 but that hasn’t stopped him raising £35,000 for the benefit of small traders whose businesses were wrecked in the Tottenham riot. Thanks to all the good Samaritan well wishing donators. Shiva Kandish nearly cried when his Hackney convenience store was looted. Then he received £16,000 to help repair his premises from donations. … Continue reading Good Samaritans

Permissive parenting – what does it mean?

permissive parenting

There are probably several complex factors that can throw light on the causes of the riots. This is the second of four articles looking at different aspects of the problem. Is the shocking behaviour a symptom of permissive parenting? We tend to still assume that the role of a parent is to supervise children and teach them right and wrong. But to what extent is this still happening?

Consumption – Is this a problem?

consumption

Many people have been shocked, frightened and angry at the breakdown of law and order that has caused great damage in some of the larger cities across England; violence against unarmed police, arson and destructive behaviour together with widespread looting and mugging which terrorised shopkeepers and residents. A lot of those going on the rampage were teenagers. How has this happened? How do we make any sense of these disgraceful scenes that have brought shame on a nation?

Social work working

Stephen

Stephen writes that when he was 14 years old he became depressed because he had severe acne and other children picked on him at school. “I took an overdose of sleeping tablets and was admitted to hospital, this was the first time I had contact with a psychiatrist. Throughout my teenage years I had a … Continue reading Social work working

Love the enemy – But how to do this?

love the enemy

I know who my enemy is: the individual who maliciously damages my property: tramps all over the flower-bed in the garden: scratches the car with a key: trashes the home during a burglary. I feel angered by anyone who threatens to harm my sense of well-being. These are the people I want to complain about and get my own back on. So how on earth does one stop hating such people. How do you love your enemy?

Confidence – How to find it?

confidence

Do you lack confidence when it comes to certain situations? It could be anything: dancing, playing sport, chatting with strangers, doing your job, making love. Yet, even confident people can get unstuck somewhere along the line. Calamities oblige us to reconsider the bigger picture. So when it comes down to it, in what can we place our confidence? In our own abilities? In the ideas of others? Or in something beyond all of us? One example of the last of these three possibilities is to do with what the psychologist Abraham Maslow called `the whole of Being’.