Agnosticism
A philosophy that holds that one cannot know whether God exists.
Allegory
A story that acts as an extended metaphor; a parable.
Asceticism
An austere, simple lifestyle associated with the pursuit of spiritual discovery.
Atheism
The belief that God does not exist.
Avarice
Greed.
Benefactor
One who offers financial help to another.
Cana of Galilee
The site where Christ performed his first miracle, changing water into wine, at a wedding celebration.
Catharsis
The dramatic purging of feelings of guilt or tension.
Consumption
A colloquial term for tuberculosis.
Ecclesiastical
Pertaining to a church.
Elder
A high-ranking monk.
Epilepsy
A disease of the neurological system characterized by violent seizures.
Faro
A card game where the players bet on what cards will turn up.
Freemasonry
A mysterious fraternity, originally of stone workers, that is dedicated to helping one another and society.
Friedrich Schiller
A German philosopher and poet in the late 18th century.
Mysticism
A set of spiritual beliefs centered on the idea that one can experience spiritual clarity, not through rationality but in other ways such as, in the Christian mystic tradition, by praying, fasting, and imitating Christ.
Nihilism
A philosophy based on the belief that religion and morality are meaningless. Nihilists believe that God does not exist and that life has no meaning.
Oedipal Stage
Freud believed that there is a stage of development where a child will feel competitive with his father for his mother’s love.
Parricide
Murder of one’s own father.
Paternal
Fatherly.
Penance
A voluntary punishment undergone to show penitence for a sin.
Pestle
A grinding tool used to crush varied things such as food or mortar.
Preconsciousness
Latent memories that can be accessed by the conscious mind.
Profligate
Immoral or debauched.
Rationalism
The belief that one can find truth through reason and deduction.
Requiem
A service or hymn for someone who has died.
Ruble
The unit of Russian currency, worth 100 kopecks.
Sensualist
A person who pursues sensual enjoyment.
Serf
In the feudal system, a serf is a peasant who does forced labor, usually working for a landowner.
Spanish Inquisition
In the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, non-Catholics were persecuted by the Catholic Church. Recent converts to the church were interrogated for blasphemy.
Tirade
An outburst of violent invective.
Troika
A Russian cart pulled by three horses.
