Holistic Medicine between Religion and Science: A Secularist Construction of Spiritual Healing in Medical Literature

Abstract

A particular formation can be observed in the discourse of spiritual healing and complementary and alternative medicine (CAM). Explanations of the effectiveness of spiritual healing by medical doctors and psychologists sometimes include ideological and non-scientific conclusions and concepts, which are similar to but also different from New Age science on healing. With discourse analysis discursive nodes and strategies are identified in international medical and psychological research journals at the boundary of CAM, traditional medicine, and psychosomatics from the last decade. The article develops the category of secularism to describe these propositional formations and contributes to the larger debate of postsecular societies. Postsecularism not only puts public religion but also secularisms back on the agenda. This particular secularism in the field of spiritual healing is based on transfers of knowledge and practices between subareas of a functionally differentiated society: esoteric and scientific cultural models shift into medicine, and continue into the area of health care and healing. The article demonstrates how this secularism gathers around key concepts such as emergence, quantum physics, and physicalism, and is engaged in a permanent boundary work between conventional and alternative medicine, which is governed by the notion of holistic healing. IntroductionThis article is a study of discursive formations in medicine (and to some extent also psychology) that explain spiritual healing. 1 The analyzed propositional figures are on the borders of the discipline of medicine, close to the non-empirical, and are outside the methodology adhered to in the academic discourse of the universities. While the concept of scientific knowledge has been narrowed down since the eighteenth century to mean the results of a natural science that proceeds methodically, logically, and empirically, 2 certain theological, metaphysical, or esoteric elements that were once excluded from mainstream scientific discourses and degraded to undercurrents are now coming back: this happens when holistic or existentialist explanations of the world are presented by scientists, or when religious actors use scientism as a strategy for plausibilizing and legitimizing claims, which (according to this new scientific understanding) are based on nonscientific premises. With our suggested category of secularism we want to contribute to the larger debate on postsecular societies. Postsecularism not only puts public religion but also secularisms back on the agenda. The idea behind this conceptualization of secularisms is the sociological theory of differentiated societies. Some secularisms occurred when formerly religious knowledge or responsibilities were taken over by new institutions, for instance, fire insurances instead of prayers to fire as protecting forces or juridical investigations on moral behavior instead of religious confessions about it. Beside these 'secularized secularisms' we propose 'secular secularisms.' By 'secular se...

Spirituality in debates: Politics, genealogy, and new movements. Introduction

“…politique, laïque, spiritualité Koch and Binder, 2013), les droits des autochtones (Johnson and Kraft, 2018), le nationalisme (van der Veer, 2009(van der Veer, , 2013, etc. De cette liste non-exhaustive d'enjeux actuels émerge une série d'enchevêtrements qui soulèvent de nouvelles questions: quelles sont les implications politiques des mouvements de spiritualité contemporains qui s'inscrivent généralement dans une religiosité individualisée et distanciée ?…”

“…Spirituality has recently taken on new importance on the religious landscape as well as in popular and secular discourse and in the field of social sciences (Ammerman, 2013;Obadia, 2023). As a new religious expression, spirituality often intersects with contemporary concerns, such as environmentalism and climatic imperilment (Becci et al, 2021;Bloch, 1998;Ivakhiv, 2012), gender emancipation and diffusion of new gendered roles (Fedele and Knibbe, 2013;Mahmood, 2005;Woodhead, 2007), transnational mobility (Csordas, 2009), global and alternative health's issues (Csordas, 2002;Koch and Binder, 2013), native rights La spiritualité a récemment pris une nouvelle dimension autant dans le paysage religieux que dans le discours populaire et séculier ainsi que dans le domaine des sciences sociales (Ammerman, 2013;Obadia, 2023). En tant que nouvelle expression du religieux, la spiritualité croise souvent des préoccupations contemporaines, telles que l'environnementalisme et les périls climatiques (Becci et al, 2021;Bloch, 1998;Ivakhiv, 2012), les questions de genre et la diffusion de nouveaux modèles de genre (Fedele and Knibbe, 2013;Mahmood, 2005;Woodhead, 2007), la mobilité transnationale (Csordas, 2009), les questions de santé globales et alternatives (Csordas, 2002; changes -including religious expressions, organizations, and networks -affect our theoretical approaches to the notion of spirituality itself?…”

Uushenkisyys

“…Tiedon ja käytänteiden voidaan myös nähdä kulkeutuvan yhteiskunnan eri alueiden välillä. Vertikaalissa siirtymisessä uushenkiset kulttuuriset mallit siirtyvät terveydenhoidon kentälle ja päinvastoin (Koch & Binder 2013). Dorothea Lüddeckens ja Monika Schrimpf (2018) esittävät samansuuntaisesti, että uskonnon ja lääketieteen välinen ero on edelleenkin myös CAM-kentän toimijoiden kannalta monella tapaa tärkeä.…”

Medicine - Religion - Spirituality

“…Most of these studies discuss particular healing practices such as Ayurveda (cp. Koch 2006aKoch , 2006bKoch/Binder 2013; or address the issue more generally (cp. Brown 2013;Lüddeckens 2012.…”