The Czech spiritual market is today as developed as that of western European countries. De-traditionalised and individualised holistic milieu has created a demand for spiritual literature and magazines as well as other marketable goods (“magic” stones, amulets, horoscopes, natural drugs etc.). This paper attempts to analyse the character and sources of contemporary best selling spiritual literature and its readership in the Czech Republic. It also provides a case study of a Prague spiritual bookshop and its comparison with five other Czech spiritual outlets (including an Internet outlet). The results clearly show that marketing spirituality has become a mainstream phenomenon with regard to all gender, age and class categories, although there was found to be an over presence of older middle-aged women among the buyers. There is emphasized “churchless” and “nonreligious” character of the buyers and the best selling books, that include predominantly those referring to “modem” and “esoteric” western or “ethnic” spiritualities. The supply side comprises both special and general publishers, the former having been more successful in specialised bookshops and spirituál outlets and the latter in addressing the wider population (including via the Internet).
The beginnings of modern interest in folk trades and handicrafts and their improvement acquired different forms. One of them was the organization of various handicraft schools and courses, especially in Moravia, where the Moravian Central Office for Folk Industry (Moravská ústředna pro lidový průmysl) was founded in Brno. In Bohemia it was Artěl, founded in 1908, that followed in these activities, and later Jan Kotěra a Pavel Janák founded the Union of Czech Work (Svaz českého díla). The attitudes of the public and the producers after the foundation of Czechoslovakia was influenced not only by their esteem for tradition, but also by support for part of the authorities that gave preference to Czech decorativeness a an constituent of the peculiarity of the newly founded state. Already at that time it was evident that the esteem far tradition and the interest in traditional technologies is a syndrome of the industrial civilization. In this development not only the artictic but also social questions played their part. The gradual emancipation of women and their increased participation in production and social life brought about changes in family life. The expansion of tourism, sport activities, recreation in nature and other attributes of modern lifestyle was a new phenomenon related to the boost of the free time of the workers and officials. This also represented an impulse for the fabrication of items that differed from the industrial stereotype. Only the second half of the twentieth century, characterized by the rapid development of industrial production and the emergence of new technologies stimulated the documentation activities aimed to the preservation of records of the vanishing handicrafts and influenced the technological as well as the artistie aspects of their lingering existence. As a result of this endeavor the deeree of the president of the republic already on October 27, 1945 established the Headquarters of Folk Trades and Handicrafts (Ústředí lidových řemesel a lidové umělecké výroby -hereafter ÚLUV). Pieces of knowledge of natural resources and their qualities, of technological principles and artistic preconditions for their processing for the use of contemporary lifestyle moved artists, ethnographers and producers to work shoulder to shoulder in a unique way at production of new items that met with an extraordinary interest for part of the public. In the first twenty years of its existence, ÚLUV served as an example of modern management style with an ecological as well as a cultural function. However, in the whirl of the transformation processes ÚLUV was closed down and its documentation funds were handed over to the archives of ethnograp and hic museums in Prague and in Rožnov pod Radhoštěm. In accord with the UNESCO proclamation of the year 1989, entitled Recomendation to the preservation of traditional folk culture and folklore, the Ministry of Culture of the Czech Republic authorized the National Institute for Folk Culture (Národní ústav lidové kultury) in Strážnice to commence the project of videodocumenttion of the dying-out handicraft technologies. In the year 2001 the Ministry of Culture of the Czech Republic joined the new UNESCO proclamation in aid of dying-out technologies of folk handicrafts through the establishment of the title „bearer of the tradition of folk handicrafts“, a joint acknowledgement of selected producers. This acknowledgement confirms the knowledge that tradition in the first place is a bearer of technological discipline and the rules of production.
Stages of the life cycle of Ascocotyle (Phagicola) angeloi Travassos, 1928 were experimentally obtained, from cercariae from naturally infected Littoridina castellanosae (Gaillard) collected in artificial ponds in the Zoological Garden of Buenos Aires. Metacercariac were found encysted mainly in muscles and ovary, but also in other parts of the body of naturally and experimentally infected fish Jenynsia lineata (Jenyns) (Atheriniformes: Jenynsidae). Adults were obtained experimentally from chicks and mice. Ascocotyle (Phagicola) angeloi, rcdescribed in the present paper, is distinguished from other species of the subgenus by the two rows of oral spines, each with 14 spines. The characteristics of the studied cercaria corresponds to those of the subgenus Phagicola.
Ileterosporous (polymorphic) microsporidia in mosquitoes are characterized by intricate life cycles involving multiple spore types responsible for horizontal (per os) and vertical (transovarial) transmission. They affect two generations of the mosquito and some involve an obligate intermediate host. Heterosporous microsporidia are generally very host and tissue specific with complex developmental sequences comprised of unique stages and events. Full details on the intricate relationships between heterosporous microsporidia and their mosquito hosts have only recently been elucidated. Edhazardia aedis (Kudo, 1930) and Culicospora magna (Kudo, 1920) have developmental sequences in larvae that involve gametogony followed by plasmogatny and nuclear association to form diplokarya. These diplokaryotic stages then undergo karyogamy and form binucleate spores responsible for transovarial transmission. In the filial generation, haplosis occurs as a result of nuclear dissociation to produce uninucleate spores infectious to larval mosquitoes. Amblyospora cali-fornica (Kellen et Lipa, 1960) has similar sequences except that haplosis is by meiosis to produce spores infectious for a copepod intermediate host. A third spore type is formed in the intermediate host responsible for infection in a new generation of the mosquito host.