Body, Meaning, Healing (Contemporary Anthropology of Religion)

Exactly where is the common ground between religion and medicine in phenomena described as 'religious healing?' In what sense is the human body a cultural phenomenon and not merely a biological entity? Drawing on over twenty years of research on topics ranging from Navajo and Catholic Charismatic ritual healing to the cultural and religious implications of virtual reality in biomedical technology, Body, Meaning, Healing sensitively examines these questions about human experience and the meaning of being human. In recognizing the way that the meaningfulness of our existence as bodily beings is sometimes created in the encounter between suffering and the sacred, these penetrating ethnographic studies elaborate an experimental understanding of the therapeutic process, and trace the outlines of a cultural phenomenology grounded in embodiment.

As a Catholic fascinated by TV faith healers since childhood, Csordas (anthropology and religion, Case Western Reserve U.) studies both empirically and theoretically how religions attempt to provide meaning through healing, how individuals experience that healing, and in what ways religious and medical healing phenomena converge and diverge. All but one of the chapters have appeared elsewhere from 1988-2000. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

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As a Catholic fascinated by TV faith healers since childhood, Csordas (anthropology and religion, Case Western Reserve U.) studies both empirically and theoretically how religions attempt to provide meaning through healing, how individuals experience that healing, and in what ways religious and medical healing phenomena converge and diverge. All but one of the chapters have appeared elsewhere from 1988-2000. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Exactly where is the common ground between religion and medicine in phenomena described as "religious healing?" In what sense is the human body a cultural phenomenon and not merely a biological entity? Drawing on over twenty years of research on topics ranging from Navajo and Catholic Charismatic ritual healing to the cultural and religious implications of virtual reality in biomedical technology, Body/Meaning/Healing sensitively examines these questions about human experience and the meaning of being human. In recognizing the way that the meaningfulness of our existence as bodily beings is sometimes created in the encounter between suffering and the sacred, these penetrating ethnographic studies elaborate an experiential understanding of the therapeutic process, and trace the outlines of a cultural phenomenology grounded in embodiment. Front Matter....Pages i-ix Introduction....Pages 1-8 Front Matter....Pages 9-9 The Rhetoric of Transformation in Ritual Healing....Pages 11-57 Embodiment as a Paradigm for Anthropology....Pages 58-87 A Handmaid’s Tale....Pages 88-99 The Affliction of Martin....Pages 100-137 Front Matter....Pages 139-139 Ritual Healing and the Politics of Identity in Contemporary Navajo Society....Pages 141-164 Talk to Them So They Understand....Pages 165-193 The Sore that Does Not Heal....Pages 194-218 Words from the Holy People....Pages 219-237 Front Matter....Pages 239-239 Somatic Modes of Attention....Pages 241-259 Shades of Representation and Being in Virtual Reality....Pages 260-284 Back Matter....Pages 285-321 Cover 1 Contents 7 Credits 8 Introduction 10 Part I Charismatic Transformations 18 1 The Rhetoric of Transformation in Ritual Healing 19 2 Embodiment as a Paradigm for Anthropology 66 3 A Handmaid's Tale 96 4 The Affliction of Martin 108 Part 11 Navajo Transformations 146 5 Ritual Healing and the Politics of Identity in Contemporary Navajo Society 147 6 Talk to Them So They Understand 171 7 The Sore that Does Not Heal 200 8 Words from the Holy People 225 Part 111 Modulations of Embodiment 244 9 Somatic Modes of Attention 245 10 Shades of Representation and Being in Virtual Reality 264 Notes 289 Bibliography 301 Indexes 320 Healing at its most human is not an escape into irreality and mystification, but an intensification of the encounter between suffering and hope at the moment in which it finds a voice, where the anguished clash of bare life and raw existence emerges from muteness into articulation. Thomas J. Csordas examines the common ground between religion and medicine in what is termed religious healing and explores the concept of the human body as a cultural phenomenon rather than just a biological entity