Americans have long been aware of the phenomenon loosely known as faith healing. Such practices most often received attention when they came into conflict with biomedical practice. During the 1990s, however, the American cultural landscape changed dramatically and religious healing became acommonplace feature of our society. The essays in this book chart this new reality. Insofar as healing traditions constitute the meeting ground or point of conflict between different groups, argue the authors, they provide a powerful lens through which to examine cultural changes at work. Each ofthe papers offers a particular case study. Many emphasize gender, race, ethnicity, and class as key components of healing experiences.

The study of medicine and healing traditions is well developed in the discipline of anthropology. Most religious studies scholars, however, continue to assume that "medicine" and "biomedicine" are one and the same and that when religion and medicine are mentioned together, the reference is necessarily either to faith healing or bioethics. Scholars of religion also have tended to assume that religious healing refers to the practices of only a few groups, such as Christian Scientists and pentecostals. Most are now aware of the work of physicians who attempt to demonstrate positive health outcomes in relation to religious practice, but few seem to realize the myriad ways in which healing pervades virtually all religious systems. This volume is designed to help instructors incorporate discussion of healing into their courses and to encourage the development of courses focused on religion and healing. It brings together essays by leading experts in a range of disciplines and addresses the role of healing in many different religious traditions and cultural communities. An invaluable resource for faculty in anthropology, religious studies, American studies, sociology, and ethnic studies, it also addresses the needs of educators training physicians, health care professionals, and chaplains, particularly in relation to what is referred to as "cultural competence" - the ability to work with multicultural and religiously diverse patient populations.

Americans have long been aware of the phenomenon loosely known as faith healing. During the 1990s the American cultural landscape changed and religious healing became a commonplace feature in our society. This is a look at this new reality.

Examining medical pluralism in the United States from the Revolutionary War period through the end of the twentieth century, Hans Baer brings together in one convenient reference a vast array of information on healing systems as diverse as Christian Science, osteopathy, acupuncture, Santeria, southern Appalachian herbalism, evangelical faith healing, and Navajo healing. In a country where the dominant paradigm of biomedicine (medical schools, research hospitals, clinics staffed by M.D.s and R.N.s) has been long established and supported by laws and regulations, the continuing appeal of other medical systems and subsystems bears careful consideration. Distinctions of class, Baer emphasizes, as well as differences in race, ethnicity, and gender, are fundamental to the diversity of beliefs, techniques, and social organizations represented in the phenomenon of medical pluralism. Baer traces the simultaneous emergence in the nineteenth century of formalized biomedicine and of homeopathy, botanic medicine, hydropathy, Christian Science, osteopathy, and chiropractic. He examines present-day osteopathic medicine as a system parallel to biomedicine with an emphasis on primary care; chiropractic, naturopathy, and acupuncture as professionalized heterodox medical systems; homeopathy, herbalism, bodywork, and lay midwifery in the context of the holistic health movement; Anglo-American religious healing; and folk medical systems, particularly among racial and ethnic minorities. In closing he focuses on the persistence of folk medical systems among working-class Americans and considers the growing interest of biomedical physicians, pharmaceutical and healthcare corporations, and government in the holistic health movement

This book examines alternative healing practices in American popular culture. From traditional folk approaches to more recent developments, it discusses the rise and fall of more than 100 popular approaches to addressing both physical ailments and mental health needs. Offering insightful accounts of everything from aging prevention to voodoo & Santería, Alternative Healing in American History: An Encyclopedia from Acupuncture to Yoga situates each popular approach in the history and culture of health and wellness in America. Moreover, the book shows that "orthodox" medicine and unconventional approaches may have more in common than many people think, because both are subject to the changing nature of the medical understanding and the strength of their appeal to consumers. While the main focus is on remedies lying outside the medical mainstream, the book also highlights how many widely accepted therapeutic treatments of the past—for example, "the water cure" (hydrotherapy) or lobotomy (psychosurgery)—fell out of favor and were quickly forgotten. Besides examining popular healing techniques, the book also explores the changing nature of the medical marketplace and how once-standard treatments (e.g., leeching, psychoanalysis) have had their ups and downs. The book comprises five chronological sections covering time periods from pre-1900 to the present.

What it means to be healthy or to heal is not universal from culture to culture, from religion to religion. Indeed, in many cultures religion and healing are intimately tied to each other. In Native American communities healing is conceived as the place where ideas about the body and selfhood are brought to light and expressed within healing traditions. Healing is defined as self-making, and illness as whatever compromises one's ability to be oneself. This book explores religion and healing in Native America, emphasizing the lived experience of indigenous religious practices and their role in health and healing. Indigenous traditions of healing in North America emphasize that the healthy self is defined by its relationship with its human, spiritual, and ecological communities. Here, Crawford brings together first-hand accounts, personal experience, and narrative observations of Native American religion and healing to present a richly textured portrait of the intersection of tradition, cultural revival, spirituality, ceremony, and healing. These are not descriptions of traditions isolated from their historical, cultural, and social context, but intimately located within the communities from which they come. These portraits range from discussions of pre-colonial healing traditions to examples where traditional approaches exist along with other cultural traditions-both Native and non-native. At the heart of all the essays is a concern for the ways in which diverse Native communities have understood what it means to be healthy, and the role of spirituality in achieving wellness. Readers will come away with a better understanding not just of religion and healing in Native American communities, but of Native American communities in general, and how they live their lives on an everyday basis.

Black Americans are more likely than Whites to die of cancer and heart disease, more likely to get diabetes and asthma, and less likely to get preventive care and screening. Some of this greater morbidity results from education, income level, and environment as well as access to health care. But the traditional medical model does not always allow for a more holistic approach that takes into account the body, the mind, the spirit, the family, and the community. This book offers a better understanding of the varieties of religiously-based approaches to healing and alternative models of healing and health found in Black communities in the United States. Contributors address the communal aspects of faith and health and explore the contexts in which individuals make choices about their health, the roles that institutions play in shaping these decisions, and the practices individuals engage in seeking better health or coping with the health they have. By paying attention to the role of faith, spirit, and health, this book offers a fuller sense of the varieties of ways Black health and health care are perceived and addressed from an inter-religious perspective. Community and religion-based initiatives have emerged as one key way to address the health challenges found in the African American community. In cities such as Atlanta, Baltimore, Dallas, and Oakland, residents organize exercise groups, teach one another how to cook with healthy ingredients, and encourage neighbors to get regular checkups. Churches have become key sites for health education, screening, and testing. Another set of responses to the challenge of Black health and healthcare in the United States comes from those who emphasize the body as a whole—body, mind, soul, and spirit, often drawing on religious traditions such as Islam and African-based religions such as Spiritism, Santeria, Vodun (aka Voodoo), Candomblé, and others. Understanding the issues and the various approaches is essential to combating the problems, and this unique volume sheds light on areas often overlooked when considering the issues.

Students and scholars have long turned to the two-volume Documentary History of Religion in America for access to the most significant primary sources relating to American religious history. Published here in a single volume for the first time, the work in this fourth edition has been both updated and condensed, allowing instructors to more easily use the material in one semester. --

Cure a nosebleed by holding a silver quarter on the back of the neck. Treat an earache with sweet oil drops. Wear plant roots to keep from catching colds. Within many African American families, these kinds of practices continue today, woven into the fabric of black culture, often communicated through women. Such folk practices shape the concepts about healing that are diffused throughout African American communities and are expressed in myriad ways, from faith healing to making a mojo. Stephanie Y. Mitchem presents a fascinating study of African American healing. She sheds light on a variety of folk practices and traces their development from the time of slavery through the Great Migrations. She explores how they have continued into the present and their relationship with alternative medicines. Through conversations with black Americans, she demonstrates how herbs, charms, and rituals continue folk healing performances. Mitchem shows that these practices are not simply about healing; they are linked to expressions of faith, delineating aspects of a holistic epistemology and pointing to disjunctures between African American views of wellness and illness and those of the culture of institutional medicine.

Many Americans believe that people who practice folk healing are uneducated and too poor to afford conventional medical care. Contrary to this popular belief, Meredith McGuire finds that a large number of college-educated, middle-class suburbanites participate in a variety of nonmedical healing groups. In suburban New Jersey, people practice such diverse alternatives as psychic healing, New Age therapies, naturopathy, Christian Science, Transcendental Meditation, reflexology, acupuncture, yoga, Jain meditation, Therapeutic Touch, reflexology, shiatsu, rebirthing, and occult therapies. McGuire places these various healing groups into broader categories according to their traditional sources of inspiration and their beliefs about healing power. She then looks at the participants' diverse ideas about health and illness. By locating alternative healing in the context of these beliefs, she shows the many ways the adherents experience ritual healing. -- From publisher's description.