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The present study aimed to characterize the relationship between mystical experience and psychopathology measures in a general-population sample of 763 U.S. adults. The participants were assessed across various domains including psychopathology, spirituality, personality, and life experience. The analysis revealed three distinct profiles among individuals: Transcendent Wellness, Transcendent Struggle, and Non-Transcendent Wellness. The Transcendent Wellness profile demonstrated higher scores in belongingness, mindfulness, and lived/integrated spirituality compared to the Transcendent Struggle profile. Belongingness and mindfulness were identified as mitigating factors, reducing the positive association between mystical experience and depression and anxiety symptoms. Additionally, lived/integrated spirituality attenuated this association, particularly in relation to anxiety. Conventional religiosity measures, however, did not exhibit the same moderating effects. The authors propose a framework in which relationally grounded spirituality, manifesting in the form of connection to fellow human, self, and higher power, constitutes a foundation for processing of and sense-making around mystical experience. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study extends a previous one revising the VIA-Youth. Goals of the revision included reducing length and extending age range down to 8. After an initial revision, further discussion suggested the need for a more secular version of the spirituality scale. Based on evidence of changes in the understanding of spirituality during adolescence, separate sets of candidate items were generated for ages 8–12 and 13–17 with two overlapping items. The revised materials were administered to 94,487 youth online and through two school districts. Retaining the two overlapping items in both sets did not reduce fit. The result is two versions of the inventory for ages 8–12 (VIA-Y-1) and 13–17 (VIA-Y-2) that differ only on two items included in the spirituality scale. These offer a measure of spirituality in youth that is developmentally sensitive without relying on items referencing a religious framework. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Financial professionals must assume many roles, each with vastly different skill sets. They are responsible for marketing themselves, setting appointments, preparing and delivering presentations, processing paperwork, understanding products and strategies, making recommendations, handling objections, making sales, understanding compliance and operations, providing customer service, and maintaining client relations. This can be overwhelming for anyone, but especially for new advisors, who are pulled in so many different directions with little time to concentrate on what is most critical to their business: finding people to speak with and learning what to say and how to say it. This article discusses five areas which are essential for a new agent to master if he or she is to be successful. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We report genome-wide data from 33 Ashkenazi Jews (AJ), dated to the 14 th century, obtained following a salvage excavation at the medieval Jewish cemetery of Erfurt, Germany. The Erfurt individuals are genetically similar to modern AJ, but they show more variability in Eastern European-related ancestry than modern AJ. A third of the Erfurt individuals carried a mitochondrial lineage common in modern AJ and eight carried pathogenic variants known to affect AJ today. These observations, together with high levels of runs of homozygosity, suggest that the Erfurt community had already experienced the major reduction in size that affected modern AJ. The Erfurt bottleneck was more severe, implying substructure in medieval AJ. Overall, our results suggest that the AJ founder event and the acquisition of the main sources of ancestry pre-dated the 14 th century and highlight late medieval genetic heterogeneity no longer present in modern AJ., Competing Interests: Declaration of interests S.C. is a paid consultant and holds stock options at MyHeritage. D.B. is an employee and shareholder at The Janssen Pharmaceutical Companies of Johnson & Johnson. É.H. is an employee of 23andMe., (Copyright © 2022 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)