Religion and Healing

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Religion and Healing

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Title: 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.)

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).

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).

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.

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.)

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