The use of hallucinogenic plants has throughout human history been used for religiouspurposes, in order to induce mystical states of mind, often interpreted as meeting with godsand spirits. In recent years, this practice has been taken up by people interested in theexploration of their psyche and spiritual side. This group of people, referred to as?psychonauts?, communicate with each other through internet based forum, where theyshare their experiences in so called ?trip reports?. The aim of this study was to see whatrole psychedelic drugs can play when used in a spiritual/religious context, and whetherthese sorts of mystical states of mind could tell us about more traditional mysticalexperiences.

This essay studies what has been written about religious experience and visions both in the past and now. It deals with both the religious experience and tries to explain how and if there is any place in the modern society for religious visions and experience. The essay has a strong theoretical perspective to psychology of religion as presented by Anton Geels whose writings in the subject have been of one of my main sources.The study shows that people of all times and cultures have had religious visions and the feeling of a divine experience even if this has changed because of tradition, time and place. Religious experience and visions can furthermore occur both in a spontaneous, unprepared way as well as being cultured through ascetic practice in order to facilitate the divine reception. The study also shows that religious experience in no means is reserved for special ?chosen ones? but can occur to each and every one, no matter what class, race or position in life.

This essay contains a discoursive analysis of fifteen travel reports from five of the largest papers in Sweden. The travel reports contains recaptions from wildlife tourism experiences were the predators are the main target, or at least one of the main targets. Seven of the reports are from Sweden and eight of them from Russia, Rumania, Finland, Turkey and the United States. Predators in this essay aims to those in Sweden called ?the big five?, these are: bears, wolves, lynxes , wolverines and golden eagles.

?Think of the best for the child? that?s a sentence we been hearing before, but the question is, do we really? Does the child get the opportunities to develop to healthy, safe, creative, mobile,concentrated, invention, curious, harmony child? Preschool outdoors is about time. On a preschool outdoors, gets the child opportunities to shape materials and the place they are on, the environment on preschool outdoors is formable and the children fantasy is big. Nothing is decided on a preschool outdoors ahead and nothing is static, here is the place where the child creates together with the nature and landscape. The landscape has a central part in the child?s play and in the child development and there are often no limits.

Syftet med uppsatsen, att utreda de skillnader i rättsverkningar som finns mellan Natura 2000-områden och vanliga naturreservat,har jag uppnått genom att använda mig av traditionell juridisk metod. Genom att jämföra lagtextformuleringar, förarbeten och bakgrund till bestämmelserna om de två områdesskydden har jag funnit att reglerna om Natura 2000-områden har en betydligt större räckvidd än bestämmelserna för vanliga naturreservat. Allehanda verksamheter och åtgärder omfattas av den särskilda tillståndprövning som gäller för ingrepp i Natura 2000-områden, medan vanliga naturreservat har begränsad räckvidd till de ingrepp som stadgas i reservatsföreskrifterna. Jag har även funnit skillnader när det gäller inrättandet och upphävandet av områdesskydd, och resultatet är att EU-kommissionen utövar en stark kontroll vad gäller Natura 2000-områden. Kommissionen kan tvinga medlemsstaterna att inrätta särskilt skyddat område, och om medlemsstaten vill upphäva skyddet måste samråd ske med kommissionen.

The aim of this study is to show how immigrants perceive and utilize Swedish nature. The study also intends to make suggestions on how immigrants can be encouraged to use nature close to where they live. The methods are qualitative interviews, group interviews and participant observations. The results show that immigrants are a very heterogeneous group and there is no distinct immigrant-specific perspective. Although they are all immigrants their lifestyle widely vary. Their reasons for not going out into nature are diverse.

AbstractThis study is based on qualitative interviews with five-year-old children from a nursery school and two teachers with great experience. The purpose with the interviews is to find out what knowledge these children have about the Right of Common and what the teachers think they need to find this knowledge.The children didn't know what the word Right of Common stands for but when they got more concrete alternatives they had good experiences. The two teachers had different opinions about what is the most important concerning the stays in the nature. Exercise meant a lot for one teacher. To have fun and to use all your senses were more important for the other one.

Nature conservation agreement (NCA) is a way to voluntarily protect and manage nature for limited time-periods. The agreement is settled between the government and a landowner. All public authorities can represent the government but it is only the Swedish Forest Administration who does that regularly (because it is the only authority with economic resources for that purpose). Therefore, NCAs are almost only used to protect forested nature. The government agencies have experienced NCAs for about ten years and it is now time to examine how they are applied in the forests. This study is based on a computerized questionnaire to the persons responsible for the LEKO-projekt.

Svartedalens nature reserve a social richness worth develop. The nature reserve of Svartedalen is an area of high biological and social values. The reserve is located close to several densely populated areas. The reserve has been classified as a national area of interest for nature conservation and outdoor life, and as a Natura 2000 area according to both the bird- and habitat directions. The reserve is the largest landarea in Västra Götaland, 3 410 hectares, where a resolution has been made about all these forms of protection. The foundation Skogssällskapet owns 1 956 hectares of the reserve, at 1 384 hectares of the property they pursue FSC-certified silver culture, according to current management plan.

The last years trends of increasing globalisation and the decreasing importance of the nationstate has led to rising flows of travellers and information throughout the globe. This has affected the competition between destinations; they are now competing in a global market. The importance of placemarketing and representing a place identity, is today essential to attract customers from around the world. The purpose of this essay was to examine how Iceland as a place is represented through the photographs in horse tourism. The research questions asked were: How is the Icelandic landscape represented in photographs? How is people and horses represented in the landscape? And how can the horse be analysed as a part of the Icelandic landscape? The method used for research was image-analysis, a qualitative approach where horse tourism-websites and photographs on these websites were strategically selected.

The purpose with the paper is to theoretically investigate how sensory experience and positive affect in contact with outdoor environment can promote health by 1) develop a model of the sensory and emotional processes based on multiple code theory (Bucci, 1997) and 2) examine if this model can increase understanding of the processes that takes place in outdoor recreation, the way this is described in environmental psychology research and theory. The paper starts by introducing research and perspectives concerning outdoor recreation. Different theories of nature?s health promoting effects are described. These include the restoration theories of Roger Ulrich and Steven and Rachel Kaplan, theories more concerned with outdoor activities and a theory combining these two perspectives called instorative theory. After this sensory and emotional information processing is examined through the works of Wilma Bucci and Jean Ayres. Antionio Damasio?s theories of emotion and Daniel Stern?s concept of vitalityaffects are than introduced to extend this reasoning.

The purpose of this study has been to examine how elderly people in today?s society look upon themselves and experience their own aging. We have inquired answers to the following main questions: What main events during the life course are emphasized in the elderly?s stories about their lives, and in what way has it affected their experience of growing old? In what way have social relationships, interests and the experience of health changed during the life course? How do the elderly experience their own aging, and what emotions are expressed in the speech surrounding their life course? The results of the study have been analyzed and interpreted with the help of the life course theory, Erikson?s psychosocial development theory and the continuity theory. The results show that elderly people of today don?t feel their age.

In the spring of 2006 a pilot project was initiated by The Rural Economy and Agricultural Societies of Sweden together with The Swedish Ornithological Society in order to increase collaboration between bird watchers and farmers. The project as a whole comprised 11 farms in South-Central Sweden. The aim was to benefit the decreasing populations of bird species related to the agricultural landscape. The purpose of this master thesis was to study how similarities and differences between bird watchers and farmers regarding opinions about nature, landscape, agriculture, birds and nature conservation have influenced the collaboration. Four of the farmers and five of the bird watchers that participated in the project were included in this study.

Forestry and forest products are vital components of the Swedish economy but the forest is also important for recreation, hunting, out-door life and conserving biodiversity. The Swedish Forest Act has two equally important objectives, production and environmental protection. Polytax is the Swedish Forest Agency´s inventory programme which monitors progress toward the two objectives in connection with regeneration fellings. It includes data on environmental protection measures taken in connection with regeneration fellings. 30 § of the Swedish Forestry Act and related regulations specify the demands for conserva-tion of nature.

Uppkomsten av dagens Web 2.0 har skapat möjligheter till större interaktivitet hos användarna. Denna utveckling har även följts av en möjlighet att skapa användargenererat innehåll, ett fenomen som benämns User Generated Content (UGC). En av de viktigaste aspekterna inom UGC är att det måste uppnå en god användbarhet, men likväl måste tjänsterna också erbjuda en rik subjektiv upplevelse. Denna subjektiva upplevelse benämns som User Experience och är ett uttryck för den upplevelse och tillfredställelse en användare känner då den ställs inför ett interaktivt gränssnitt. Syftet med uppsatsen var att identifiera User Experience av UGC-tjänster.