Religion and Healing

1
Religion and Healing

• Ethnomedicine and Curers

2
Ethnomedicine as a Specific Discipline

• Ethnomedicine is the study of the beliefs and
  practices concerning illness in different human
  populations.
• It observes and describes hygienic, preventive
  and healing practices, also taking into account
  temporal and spatial references.

3

• Ever since the most ancient times, human beings
  have found remedies within their habitat, and
  have adopted different therapeutic strategies
  depending both upon climatic, pedological,
  phytogeographic and faunal characteristics, and
  upon peculiar cultural and socio-structural
  typologies.

4

• Every human population, in every time, builds a
  specific "view of the world" through its own
  culture.
• From this model of the world stem specific views
  of the body and of health and illness.
• From peculiar perceptions of the body, of
  anatomy, physiology, biology, of the position of
  human beings within the world and of what is
  normal and what is pathological, every culture
  frames and passes on a specific knowledge, that
  is put into practice both in everyday life and in
  institutional circumstances.

5

• From this knowledge stems the definition of what
  is, and what is not, pathological
• the different hypothesis on the causes of
  illnesses (aetiology)
• the classification of illnesses (nosology)
• and the descriptions of illnesses themselves.
• Ethnomedicine investigates this dynamic, complex
  and fluid reality, and the deep relativity of
  body descriptions.

6
Magic and Religion

• Those practices that we might call "magic" have
  differing relationships to religion.
• Some, such as baseball practices, are not based
  on any belief system whatsoever. Others, such as
  Trobriand spells, do imply beliefs in spirits but
  little else.
• Still other practices, such as healing in Japan,
  Venezuela, and Malaya or among the Cuna of
  Panama, draw on extensive bodies of knowledge
  about how spirits work.

7

• In all cases some of the older insights by Frazer
  and Malinowski about the logic and functions of
  magic can still help us understand why people are
  attracted to certain practices.
• Malinowski's notion that all people use science
  plus magic, with the latter added on to the
  former, continues to make sense.
• The forms of magic differ greatly memorized
  spells, possession and exorcism, narratives about
  creation or battles, or about God or the
  effectiveness of medicine.

8

• But each such practice gives the person a sense
  of control, or understanding, or certainty
  greater than what was enjoyed before the event.
• Each practice also seems to reduce anxiety
  (although once it is relied on, its absence may
  create anxiety).
• These features of "magical" practices all concern
  their effects.
• To understand their contents and why Balinese,
  Yanomamö, and Serpent Handlers do things
  differently, we have explored the linkages
  between each practice and the dominant forms and
  motifs of the culture in which it is found.

9

• Institutions built on notions of magic can take
  on functions of healing, religion, and even
  community.
• Their practices can provide confidence insofar as
  they fit general cultural expectations, and this
  confidence and assurance can cause physical
  changes in a patient.
• For better or worse, they can furnish the basis
  for close-knit relationships in a disorganized
  world.
• Far from being merely a set of mistaken ideas,
  magic continues to be a powerful force in the
  real world.

10
Religion and Medicine

• In the beginning, religion and healing were
  inseparable.
• In some societies, the priest and physician were
  one and the same person, administering spiritual
  and physical healing with divine sanction.
• The advent of scientific medicine in the middle
  of the 19th century separated medicine from
  religion nearly completely.

11

• A century later, the direct interrelationship
  between the body and mind became firmly
  established, although psychosomatic medicine had
  already been described in the 12th century by
  Moses Maimonides.
• Over the past several decades, there has been a
  broad revival of interest in spiritual healing
  and religious practice and health.
• The return to spirituality and religion by
  patients as an adjunct to their physical healing
  is no longer ignored by physicians and other
  caregivers.
• In a sense, religion can be considered a form of
  complementary or supplementary therapy.

12

• At the culmination of a century of scientific
  discovery and medical progress, physicians and
  their patients are more open to a spiritual
  direction and alternative/complementary forms of
  medicine.
• Despite progress in cancer therapy, for example,
  complementary forms of treatment are adopted by
  about half the patients undergoing conventional
  cancer therapy, often from an early stage of
  their illness.
• Contrary to stereotypes, patients who seek
  unproven methods tend to be well educated,
  upper-middle class, and not necessarily
  terminally ill or even beyond hope of cure or
  remission by conventional treatments.

13

• Why do people seek out alternative/ complementary
  therapies, including religion and spirituality?
• Patients may be discouraged and in despair about
  the realities of conventional treatment.
• Fear, adverse effects, previous negative
  experiences, and a desire by the patient for more
  supportive care are other reasons.
• People may be unhappy with the impersonal
  technology of modern medicine and seek to
  emphasize self-care and whole-body fitness
  somatic, mental, and spiritual.

14

• Studies on the influence of religion and
  spirituality on health, illness, and well-being
  confirm the presence of spiritual and religious
  beliefs in medical practice.
• In 1967, JAMA created a medicine and religion
  department and has since periodically published
  review articles on medicine and religion and on
  religion and spirituality in medicine.
• Statistically significant associations between
  religious belief and health outcomes have been
  reported for a variety of diseases in systematic
  reviews and meta-analyses.
• Much of the research suggests that an active
  religious commitment is "beneficial for
  preventing mental and physical illness, improving
  recovery and enhancing the ability to cope with
  illness."

15
History of Ethnomedical Studies

• From historical and ethnographical beginnings,
  during the last years ethnomedicine has turned
  its attention to laboratory research, also
  involving biomedicine and pharmacology.
• This has been made possible also by the auspices
  and the activities of the World Health
  Organization in fact, the Traditional Medicine
  Progra of WHO was precisely thought as an answer
  to a renewed interest for popular therapies and
  remedies, in view of their possible
  identification and utilization within national
  health services.

16

• During the International Conference on Primary
  Health Care of 1978, the Alma Ata Declaration
  built the historical basis of the official
  politics of the Traditional Medicine Program,
  thus opening a dialogue between two distinct
  systems of health assistance the traditional and
  the modern one.
• However, a condition was posed support to
  traditional medicines, healers and remedies is to
  be given only to those practices that, on the
  basis of medical-scientific testing, are proved
  to be safe and effective.

17

• The Traditional Medicine Program has been
  developed through a series of resolutions,
  adopted from the World Health Assembly and the
  Regional Committees of WHO.
• In 1987 the 40th World Health Assembly urged the
  member States to promote integrated programs on
  medical plants and their preparation, cultivation
  and conservation.
• In 1988, during the 41st World Health Assembly,
  the Chiang Mai Resolution was centered on the
  theme "Saving lives by saving plants" it
  recognized traditional medicines as an essential
  element of cure.

18

• In 1989 (42nd World Health Assembly) the
  inventory of traditional practices in different
  countries was encouraged.
• In 1991, during the 44th World Health Assembly,
  the WHA44.34 resolution was accepted.
• It was bent on stimulating cooperation between
  traditional healers and the professionals of
  modern health assistance, with special regard to
  the use of traditional remedies which have been
  scientifically validated and proved safe and
  effective.
• The resolution aimed at the reduction of national
  pharmaceutical expenses.
• In October 1991 the Chinese Government, supported
  by WHO, financed and organized a World Conference
  on Traditional Medicine.
• The Conference proposed four goals the
  foundation of a world-wide association for
  academic exchanges the training of health
  workers the designation of the 22nd of October
  as World Day of Traditional Medicine the
  foundation of an international journal.

19
Religion and Energy Healing

• Throughout history, the healing power of touch
  has been recognized and has played a significant
  role in every religion and culture.
• The founder or key figure of the religion is
  often the principal source of the healings.
• From its beginnings, Hebrew religion has laid
  great stress on health and on healing.

20

• This is expressed in Exodus 1526, when God tells
  Moses, I am the Lord that healeth thee.
• The great prophets, Elijah and Elisha were
  acknowledged as healers.
• Healing in fact, was expected of all true
  prophets and was often the sign that their
  calling was genuinely from God.
• Jesus inherited this healing background and took
  it to higher levels.
• Not only was Christ a renowned healer, he
  commissioned the Apostles to heal the sick
  (Luke 109).
• The first generation of Christians was primarily
  a healing community.

21

• Healing is a key part of the revelation given to
  Muhammad in the Quran.
• Islamic tradition, in both the Sunni and Shia
  branches, attributes several dramatic healings to
  Muhammad.
• Its not just the major religions that have
  expressed this deep connection with personal
  healing.
• Cultures in Africa, Asia, Oceania, and the
  Americas have realized the relationship of curing
  the body to the profound powers of the universe.
• Each culture explored and utilized this power
  from within the framework of its own knowledge
  and traditions. 

22

• This powerful healing energy has been known in
  China and India for over five thousand years.
• The Chinese call it chi or qi, while the Hindu
  use terms such as maya and prana.
• The Japanese call it ki.
• North American Indians refer to it as medicine.
• The Melanese call it mana.
• !Kung people of the Kalahari Desert call it num.
• The Incas had their famous healing stone at Machu
  Picchu.
• In his book Future Science, John White lists
  ninety-seven different cultures, each of which
  has its own name to refer to healing energy.

23

• This universal healing energy benefits every
  person regardless of his or hers religious
  beliefs.
• The experience of having healing energy coursing
  through the hands is profound, humbling, and
  uplifting.
• No philosophy, no doctrine, no dogma stands in
  anyones way of experiencing this healing energy
  and that is as it should be.

24

• With a better understanding of holistic health
  emerging in Western medicine, Reiki has become a
  valuable tool for improving mind/body awareness.
• This is why the conscious caregiver uses Reiki as
  a proven healing technique in its own right  as
  well as to enhance all other healing modalities.

25
Reiki

• Universal life-force energy is naturally
  circulating throughout a persons body.
• A Reiki treatment augments a strong , powerful
  flow of this energy to sustain health and
  vitality.
• This energy relaxes muscles, speeds digestion,
  stabilizes blood pressure and blood sugar, calms
  a racing pulse, stimulates the immune system, and
  relieves pain.

26
Trance, Possession, and Healing

• Healing practices often turn on the idea that a
  spirit has possessed the patient and is causing
  the illness.
• The cure then involves putting the patient (or
  sometimes a curer) into a trance state,
  investigating the reasons for the spirit's
  actions, and driving out the spirit (or
  exorcising the patient).

27
Afro-Brazilian Trances

• In Brazil today, healers draw on Afro-Brazilian
  religion traditions to carry out their art.
• Afro-Brazilian religions, variously called
  "Candomble' "Umbanda' or "Macumba" (and related
  to Haitian "Voudun" and Cuban "Santeria"),
  developed when people living in West Africa were
  forcibly brought to the Americas as slaves.

28

• Forced to conceal their own religious ideas and
  practices, they developed a blend that appeared
  Catholic but contained elements of West African
  religion.
• Today these traditions have changed in various
  directions, some emphasizing African sources,
  others Native American elements, still others the
  ties with Catholicism and with European
  Spiritism.

29

• In the Brazilian trance-healing practices called
  Macumba, trance is employed in varied settings to
  aid in healing.
• In sessions involving professional mediums,
  specialists sit in a separate, cordoned-off part
  of a room.
• They are dressed in white and are already in a
  trance.
• They each have special "spirit familiars" with
  whom they communicate.

30

• Patients deliver to the staff slips of paper
  containing their questions usually the questions
  are about their own illnesses.
• The mediums then ask for answers from their
  spirit familiars and relay these answers back
  through the staff.
• These sessions are calm, although sometimes a
  supplicant will slip into trance, and in such
  cases he or she may be approached about becoming
  a medium.

31

• A second type of session involves mass trances.
• Dozens or hundreds of people gather together for
  evenings of trance, dancing and music, and
  consultation.
• These large-scale sessions also employ mediums,
  but they walk and dance around on the floor,
  mingling with other people who wish to attend.
• Rather than having personal spirit familiars, all
  the mediums cycle together through several
  standard spirit types during the evening.
• Each type represents both a familiar cultural
  figure of the Brazilian environment and a kind of
  emotion.

32

• When the mediums are possessed by the "old black
  slave" spirit, they sit, smoking pipes, and
  dispense this old man's wisdom to those attending
  (who are often relatives or friends).
• When they take on the flashily dressed woman
  called Pomba Gira, they are seductive and loose,
  enjoying this break from normal behavioral
  restrictions.
• When they are the child they scamper about eating
  candy.
• (There is also an Amazonian equivalent of these
  sessions in which Indians act the role of whites,
  drink champagne, and act terribly refined.)

33
Shared Healing in Southern Africa

• The Kung people living in southern Africa once
  lived entirely from gathering and some hunting.
• The great variability of rainfall and thus food
  in their lands led them to develop norms of
  sharing and exchange.
• Sharing distributes risk and gives people a
  source of food during periods of drought and
  scarcity.

34

• Healing follows similar lines of thought.
• The Kung heal those who have fallen ill by
  assembling in a group at night around a fire and
  dancing to reach a trance-like state of
  transcendence called kai reached by tapping
  into the energy, num, that everyone has in the
  pits of their stomachs.
• About half of the men tap this energy, and about
  one-third of the women.
• (They tend to be people whose parents did so.
  Larger percentages try, and somewhat smaller
  percentages become active healers.)

35

• Num energy is not a limited good, but is given by
  God to individuals and benefits everyone in the
  group when people tap it.
• Reaching the state of kai can be dangerous and
  painful.
• An older healer described the feeling in terms of
  death and rebirth.
• Your heart stops. You're dead. Your thoughts are
  nothing. You breathe with difficulty. You see
  things, num things. You see spirits killing
  people. You smell burning, rotten flesh. Then you
  heal you pull sickness out. You heal, heal, heal.
  Then you live. Your eyeballs clear and you see
  people clearly. (Katz 1982, 45).

36

• When your own num has begun to boil others feel
  it and they, too, begin to dance.
• Healing takes place in three stages.
• The healer, once his or her num is boiling, can
  see the num in other healers and the spirits
  causing illness.
• Then the healer pulls out the sickness, laying
  hands on the ill person to put num in and draw
  out illness, and then shaking the illness out
  into the darkness.
• The healer begins to sweat as his num boils this
  sweat is the num and he or she rubs it into the
  patient to forcibly expel the illness (Katz 1982,
  106-108).

37

• Then the healer, in a heroic confrontation, does
  battle with spirits and gods.
• Usually the illness has been caused by spirits of
  the dead.
• Sometimes they have specific complaints about the
  living person they are bothering sometimes they
  are just looking to stir up trouble.
• But they are also messengers from the great god,
  Gao Na, a capricious god who may destroy humans
  should he find them annoying.

38

• Healers may argue with the spirits or even
  journey to the god's home.
• Others at the dance hear one side of a dialogue
  between the healer and the spirits or god, a
  dialogue of cajoling or threatening.
• The healer may hurl insults at the spirits or
  reason gently with them, telling them that they
  gain nothing from bothering humans.
• Kung trance-healing is collective in spirit and
  in practice because the source of healing power,
  the num energy, is more powerful the more it is
  shared.

39
Kung healing dance at dawn, Botswana. (COURTESY
OF RICHARD KATZ, BOILING ENERGY, p.33.)