Van Huyssteen J.W. (editor) Encyclopedia of Science and Religion

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SPIRIT

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that mental faculties are largely explainable as bod-

ily activities, except for conscious thought. To ac-

count for consciousness, Descartes posits a non-

material dual substance, causally interacting with

the brain, knowable only through privileged and

incorrigible introspection. Contemporary solutions

to the mind-body problem recognize an in-

escapable dependence on mind upon brain, but

have not yet explained subjective experience.

A tension remains between a view of spirit as

internal or as external to the human mind. Pan-

nenberg warns that while the identification of spirit

with mind may be a human projection, its Christian

opposition often results in irrational subjectivism

(p. 127). Spirit as the principle of life may be gen-

erative of mind, more than an individual’s brain

function, but a set of interiorized relationships.

Even a scientific understanding of mind may re-

quire more than individual neurobiology, but it is

not clear whether spirit requires a further step,

since human invention and divine inspiration are

not mutually exclusive.

Human spirit has also been equated with self-

transcendence, intimately tied to human freedom

and development. The theologies of Teilhard de

Chardin and Paul Tillich (1886–1905) treat spirit as

a dimension of life that takes one’s biological, in-

dividual self-awareness into the personal and com-

munal, with ecstatic acts of self-transcendence

overcoming existential anxiety. According to Rah-

ner, human minds enable the abstraction by which

people move beyond themselves to a horizon of

meaning. If spirit is about the meanings that tran-

scend human finitude, it can encourage an obliter-

ation of a bounded and autonomous self. The the-

ological idea of kenosis captures this idea of

emptying the self into a larger vessel. The spirit is

then constituted by stepping beyond the bound-

aries of self, in relating to others and, as Rahner

writes, to the “unutterable mystery of life we call

God” (Grenz and Olson, p. 240).

Science and religion

In the dialogue between science and religion, spirit

is a bridging concept between the ultimate meta-

physical concerns of religion and their embodi-

ment within human experience. The sense of spirit

as an immanent creative force finds expression in

process theology’s use of developments in physics

to understand even matter as including an experi-

ential interior. This sense is also seen in the use of

chaos theory, complexity theory, and autopoesis to

understand the work of spirit. Ian Barbour sees

spirit in the emergent novelties of evolution, in-

cluding unique activities at higher levels of organic

complexity.

Most uses of spirit in the science-religion dia-

logue have been in making sense of the evolu-

tionary biology of human mental and moral lives,

including both an opposition to theological dual-

ism and an understanding that a reductive materi-

alism would explain away much of what is impor-

tant about human life. The beacon for theological

anthropology is the view that spirit, soul, person,

and mind are emergent properties of evolved

human biology. Under this view, persons are psy-

chosomatically unitary organisms, characterized by

an inner life of extreme complexity, unpredictabil-

ity, and novelty in which the evolution and devel-

opment of complex nervous systems bring auton-

omy, identity, and will into being. The human

spirit is a contingent product of a hierarchy of bi-

ological functions on which personal existence de-

pends, and which gives rise to capacities like

morality and religious experience. In theologies of

nature like those of Ian Barbour, Arthur Peacocke,

and Philip Hefner, human personal and social lives

are intimately related to the rest of natural cre-

ation by virtue of evolutionary emergence and

novelty, mind and spirit. Religious neuroscientists,

such as Donald Mackay, Malcolm Jeeves, and

Fraser Watts, also emphasize a complementarity or

compatibilism between neuroscience and theol-

ogy. While higher-order properties physically de-

pend on their components, relationships between

the emergent unit and its elements is neither iden-

tical with nor derivable from them. Philosophically

oriented thinkers, such as Nancey Murphy and

Philip Clayton, describe spiritual and mental

events as “supervenient” over neurophysiological

ones, and as both multiply realizable and multiply

constitutable. Warren Brown and John Teske sug-

gest further that human spirituality is neuropsy-

chologically constituted only in the context of per-

sonal relationships, and in the shaping of human

brains by cultural forces.

A range of naturalistic theories of religious ex-

periences ties them to patterns of emotional attach-

ment and to neural structures as in Eugene

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d’Aquili’s life-long program, synthesized in The Mys-

tical Mind (1999). Disciplines like prayer and med-

itation have documentable physical effects, and a

whole literature exists on the psychological benefits

of spirituality. A tradition of research in the psy-

chology of spiritual development, of which James

Fowler’s Stages of Faith (1981) is the best known,

also connects the interdependent self of mature

ego-development to the breakdown of self/other

boundaries sought by spiritual and ethical tradi-

tions. At higher levels of development, spirit is re-

ally not about the individual, nor is it otherworldly,

but still strongly opposes a materialistic ethic.

See also ARISTOTLE; AUGUSTINE; DESCARTES, RENÉ;

UALISM; FREEDOM; HOLY SPIRIT; HUMAN NATURE,

ELIGIOUS AND PHILOSOPHICAL ASPECTS; KENOSIS;

ATERIALISM; NEUROSCIENCES; PHYSICALISM,

EDUCTIVE AND NONREDUCTIVE; PNEUMATOLOGY;

ROCESS THOUGHT; SELF; SELF-TRANSCENDENCE;

OUL; SPIRITUALITY; SUPERNATURALISM; TEILHARD

CHARDIN, PIERRE; THOMAS AQUINAS;

HITEHEAD, ALFRED NORTH

Bibliography

Barbour, Ian G. Religion and Science: Historical and Con-

temporary Issues. New York: Harper, 1997.

Brown, Warren S.; Murphy, Nancey C.; and Malony, H.

Newton, eds. Whatever Happened to the Soul? Scien-

tific and Theological Portraits of Human Nature. Min-

neapolis, Minn.: Fortress Press, 1998.

D’Aquili, Eugene, and, Newberg, Andrew B. The Mystical

Mind: Probing the Biology of Religious Experience.

Minneapolis, Minn.: Fortress Press, 1999.

Drees, Willem B. Religion, Science, and Naturalism. New

York: Cambridge University Press, 1996.

Flanagan, Owen. The Science of the Mind, 2nd edition.

Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1991.

Gregersen, Neils; Drees, Willem; and Gorman, Ulf, eds.

The Human Person in Science and Theology. Grand

Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 2000.

Grenz, Stanley J., and Olson, Roger E. Twentieth Century

Theology. Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press,

1992.

Hefner, Philip. The Human Factor: Evolution, Culture,

and Religion. Minneapolis, Minn.: Fortress Press,

1993.

Pannenberg, Wolfhart. Toward a Theology of Nature:

Essays on Science and Faith, ed. Ted Peters.

Louisville, Ky.: Westminster John Knox Press, 1993.

Peacocke, Arthur. Theology for a Scientific Age: Being and

Becoming—Natural Divine, and Human, 2nd edi-

tion. Minneapolis, Minn: Fortress Press, 1993.

Rahner, Karl. Foundations of Christian Faith. New York:

Seabury, 1978.

Sacks, Oliver. “Neurology and the Soul.” New York Review

of Books, November 20 (1990): 44–50.

Spong, John Shelby. Why Christianity Must Change or

Die: A Bishop Speaks to Believers in Exile. San Fran-

cisco: Harper, 1998.

Teske, John A. “The Genesis of Mind and Spirit.” Zygon

36, no. 1 (2001): 93–104.

JOHN A. TESKE

SPIRITUALITY

In the contemporary context, the term spirituality

has a vast spectrum of meanings. It can refer to an

interior journey, to the practice of prayer and med-

itation, to faithful and righteous living, or to a

general commitment to authenticity and self-

awareness. The term originated in the Roman

Catholic tradition, but has been embraced by many

Protestants as well as Jews, Buddhists, Muslims,

Hindus, Taoists, Confucianists and even secular

persons. Indeed, many today claim spirituality

while renouncing institutional religion.

Spiritual practice

Prayer, ritual, and meditation remain central spiri-

tual practices across religious traditions. Yet, the

notion of what constitutes a spiritual practice also

is expanding. Spirituality does not mean simply the

interior life or religious discipline. Rather, spiritual-

ity relates also to social action, ethical choice, fam-

ily commitments, friendship, work, and politics.

Thus, both private and public practices form the

human being and can be spaces for spiritual ex-

pression and growth. Indeed, some are defining

spirituality so broadly as to include a wide range of

contemporary secular practices. One may point,

for example, to the 1996 book Spirituality and the

Secular Quest edited by Peter Van Ness, which in-

cludes chapters on scientific inquiry, sports,

psychotherapy, the arts, ecological activism, and

holistic health practices. These expansive under-

standings of spirituality rightly avoid a narrow

focus on interiority and counter an otherworldly or

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individualistic notion of the spiritual life. Yet, as the

words spiritual and spirituality are applied to a

wider range of beliefs and practices, their mean-

ings can become diffuse and vague. This situation

calls for careful theological and philosophical ex-

ploration of the wide-ranging meanings of the

terms in specific cultural and religious contexts.

Contemporary persons embrace spirituality be-

cause they seek to live more deeply, to connect

with the ultimate, to find meaning in ordinary ac-

tivities and the experiences of fragmentation,

moral challenge, grief, illness, and death. Spiritual-

ity can be understood as the universal human de-

sire for self-transcendence, as Christian theologian

Sandra Schneiders writes in her 1986 article “The-

ology and Spirituality: Strangers, Rivals, or Part-

ners?” (p. 266). Such a broad, anthropological per-

spective attempts to provide a general, inclusive

understanding of spirituality that can speak to the

wide range of practices and worldviews that fall

under the heading of spirituality. Such definitions

of spirituality enable dialogue and even shared

practice in pluralistic settings. Thus, for example,

the editors of Crossroad Publishing’s World Spiritu-

ality series arrived at a shared definition applicable

to studies in everything from Native American to

Jewish to Buddhist to Confucian spirituality. As

stated in Ewert Cousins’s preface to each volume,

authors would focus on the discovery of “the

deepest center of the person . . . [where] the per-

son is open to the transcendent dimension; it is

here that the person experiences ultimate reality.”

Yet, every definition of spirituality reflects a

theological perspective and an historical and cul-

tural context. Thus, more theologically explicit and

context specific definitions of spirituality are im-

portant. Christian spirituality, for example, could

be understood as life in the Spirit of God, a path in

which one walks as a disciple of Jesus Christ—re-

vealed by the Creator in history—within the com-

munity of the church. Buddhist spirituality has

been defined in terms of “cultivation” that leads,

according to the Buddhist monk Rahula Walpola,

to “the attainment of the highest wisdom which

sees the nature of things as they are, and realizes

the Ultimate Truth, Nirvana” (Yoshinori, p. xiii).

One then would explore how the particular con-

tours of these paths take shape differently in di-

verse cultures and historical periods. For indeed,

history and culture shape how humans under-

stands themselves, the nature of the ultimate, and

the relationship between the two. For example,

medieval notions of a hierarchy of spiritual paths—

with the celibate path being higher and more per-

fect than the lay path—reflected a hierarchical so-

cial order as well as a specific theological tradition.

Scientific discoveries challenge traditional under-

standings of prayer and divine agency. Contempo-

rary spirituality strongly reflects the “turn to the

subject” and the powerful influence of therapeutic

perspectives.

Spirituality and the practice of science. As

understandings of spirituality widen, science can

be understood as a spiritual practice—an attentive

search for understanding of the intricate and ex-

traordinarily complex world around us (or within

us). The practice of science merges the power of

reason with the humility and curiosity needed to

see beyond the self. Whether tracing the working

of the neuron or investigating the organization of

the universe, scientific inquiry requires discipline,

awareness, and creativity.

Spirituality and health. While Western medi-

cine has become highly secularized, there remains

a strong academic and popular interest in explor-

ing connections between spirituality and health.

This interest takes two forms. One is the general

insistence on the relatedness of body, mind, and

spirit. For example, Robert C. Fuller notes that the

holistic healing movement seeks a natural renewal

of physical well-being through an individual’s own

psychological and spiritual energies (Van Ness, pp.

227-250). These practices need not claim a meta-

physical reality responsible for healing. The sec-

ond kind of interest presupposes a higher being—

a life-giving Creator—that sustains or restores

bodily health. Studies have found a correlation be-

tween prayer and religious beliefs and effective

coping, resilience, and healing (e.g., Oxnam et al.;

Levin and Schiller). The question is whether spiri-

tual practices simply benefit one’s mental outlook

and physical condition or whether they effectively

draw supernatural power upon the body.

Spirituality and faith healing. Diverse reli-

gious traditions long have believed that a divine

being can cure illness. Faith in God enables human

beings to convey God’s healing touch or combat

evil forces. Many Christians, for example, believe

that spiritual practices such as prayer, exorcism,

and anointing can restore health as Christ is chron-

icled as doing in the Gospels (e.g., Mark 6:13).

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Christian Scientists make faith healing the center of

their belief system and maintain as a principal

tenet that true understanding alleviates disease.

Adherents to Buddhism, Shintoism, and Daoism

often wear amulets to ward off illness. In different

ways, various spiritual practices orient one toward

the divine healing power.

Study of spirituality

The study of spirituality must be an interdiscipli-

nary enterprise. It draws on multiple fields in order

to understand the human quest for the ultimate

and the practices that open one to truth and wis-

dom. The study of spirituality incorporates theol-

ogy, history, anthropology, psychology, neuro-

physiology, medicine, literary studies, and the arts.

In the early centuries of Christianity, spirituality

and theology were integrated and inseparable.

One could not seek knowledge of God without

praying and meditating on the scriptures. With the

rise of scholasticism in the Middle Ages, theology

in Western Christianity gradually became under-

stood as a conceptual science distinct from asceti-

cal or mystical life. This was an unfortunate sepa-

ration of science and spirituality, a separation

resisted in Eastern Orthodoxy and one that some

contemporary scholars, such as Philip Sheldrake

and Mark A. McIntosh, are reconsidering.

Spirituality has also suffered from misunder-

standings about the relationship between the spiri-

tual and the material. Within Christianity, for exam-

ple, the spiritual too often is seen as that which is

beyond or even opposed to the physical, the body,

and the material world. It is worth reviewing the

meanings of the term spirit in the Jewish and Chris-

tian traditions—a complicated subject, for this term

has multiple meanings in different texts. With this

caution in mind, one may note that in the Hebrew

Bible the term ruah refers to the breath or spirit of

God, a life-giving force. In the New Testament,

pneuma (Greek) or spiritus (Latin translation) refers

often to the Holy Spirit or the animating principle

of the human being. To be a spiritual person, then,

is to be infused with the life, the breath, of the di-

vine. The Letters of Paul contrast pneuma to sarx

(Greek: flesh). This distinction has been interpreted

as pitting the spirit against the flesh. In reality, the

texts contrast those things that are “of the Spirit” to

those things that are counter to God. To live “in the

Spirit” is not necessarily to reject the physical, but to

live according to the will of God as revealed in

Jesus Christ. Certainly, Christian theology has per-

petuated deep ambiguity about the value of the

physical. While a dichotomy between the physical

and the spiritual persists in numerous religious tra-

ditions, contemporary writers in spirituality also

promote more holistic notions of spirituality. Wide-

spread interest in such practices as yoga and Tai

Chi demonstrate a hunger to integrate spirituality

and physicality. Spirituality refers to an authentic

and holy life in all its aspects. Thus, spirituality in-

corporates holy treatment of, or relationship to, the

body and the physical world. It also includes a

lively curiosity about the material world.

See also MYSTICISM; PRAYER AND MEDITATION

Bibliography

Bass, Dorothy, ed. Practicing Our Faith: A Way of Life for

a Searching People. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1997.

Green, Arthur, ed. Jewish Spirituality: From the Sixteenth

Century Revival to the Present. New York: Crossroad,

1987.

Hanson, Bradley, ed. Modern Christian Spirituality:

Methodological and Historical Essays. Atlanta, Ga.:

Scholars Press, 1990.

Levin, Jeffrey S., and Schiller, Preston L. “Is There a Reli-

gious Factor in Health?” Journal of Religion and

Health 26 (1987): 9-36.

McIntosh, Mark A. Mystical Theology: The Integration of

Spirituality and Theology. Oxford: Blackwell, 1998.

Oxnam, Thomas E.; Freeman, Daniel H. Jr.; Manheimer,

Eric D. “Lack of Social Participation or Religious

Strength and Comfort as Risk Factors for Death After

Cardiac Surgery in the Elderly.” Psychosomatic Medi-

cine 57, no. 1 (1995): 5-15.

Schneiders, Sandra. “Theology and Spirituality: Strangers,

Rivals, or Partners?” Horizons 13 (1986): 253-274.

Sheldrake, Philip. Spirituality & Theology: Christian Living

and the Doctrine of God. Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis

Press, 1998.

Van Ness, Peter, ed. Spirituality and the Secular Quest.

New York: Crossroad, 1996.

Wolfteich, Claire E. American Catholics Through the

Twentieth Century: Spirituality, Lay Experience, and

Public Life. New York: Crossroad, 2001.

Yoshinori, Takeuchi et al., eds. Buddhist Spirituality: In-

dian, Southeast Asian, Tibetan, and Early Chinese.

New York: Crossroad, 1993.

CLAIRE E. WOLFTEICH

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SPIRITUALITY AND FAITH

HEALING

Seen from a cross-cultural perspective, diverse tra-

ditions of healing, which respond to different con-

ceptions of illness itself, fall under the heading of

what may be called faith healing. This entry sur-

veys faith healing activity according to seven cate-

gories: (1) intercessory prayer; (2) mind-body re-

search; (3) laying on of hands; (4) complementary

and alternative medicine; (5) Asian healing prac-

tices; (6) shamanistic practices; and (7) African and

other tribal practices. Although these categories by

no means represent the entire range of practices

that could be construed as faith healing, they do

epitomize a spiritual approach to healing. They are

also areas in which important scientific and other

scholarly research has been conducted.

Western approaches

Evidencing increasing respect for spirituality within

the healthcare community, scientific research in

the domain of modern Western medicine has ex-

amined the impact of spirituality on healing in the

areas of intercessory prayer, mind-body connectiv-

ity, laying on of hands, and complementary and al-

ternative medicine.

Intercessory prayer. In attempting to determine

the impact of faith on health, some researchers

have looked to prayer to determine its impact on

the health and well being of patients. For example,

in 2000, D. A. Matthews and colleagues published

a study on the impact of intercessory prayer on pa-

tients suffering from rheumatoid arthritis. The study

showed that patients receiving in-person prayer

“showed significant overall improvement during 1-

year follow-up,” causing the study’s authors to con-

clude that “in-person intercessory prayer may be a

useful adjunct to standard medical care for certain

patients with rheumatoid arthritis.” In 2001, W. J.

Matthews and colleagues published a discussion of

the impact of intercessory prayer and other behav-

ioral interventions for kidney dialysis patients.

In another example, noting, “intercessory

prayer (praying for others) has been a common re-

sponse to sickness for millennia,” W. S. Harris and

colleagues examine whether or not remote (as op-

posed to nonremote) intercessory prayer reduces

“overall adverse events and length of stay” for hos-

pitalized cardiac patients. Employing a controlled,

double-blind, parallel-group trial in a private uni-

versity-associated hospital, Harris and colleagues

examined 990 consecutive patients admitted for

coronary care. Researchers randomized patients,

who received either remote intercessory prayer

(the “prayer group”) or no prayer (the “usual care

group”). Outside intercessors, who did not know

and did not meet the patients, prayed for patients

in the prayer group daily for four weeks. The pa-

tients themselves did not know that people were

praying for them. At the conclusion of the study,

the researchers reported that, although the two

groups did not evidence any differences in the

lengths of their coronary care unit and hospital

stays, the group that was prayed for displayed

lower coronary care unit scores, suggesting “that

prayer may be an effective adjunct to standard

medical care.” Despite this optimistic conclusion,

peers have questioned the potential increase in

clinical outcome of patients receiving intercessory

prayer. For example, R. M. Hamm’s article “No Ef-

fect of Intercessory Prayer Has Been Proven”

(2000) claims that the study described above may

have attributed too much importance to results of

minimal statistical significance, while another 2000

article by D. R. Hoover and J. B. Margolick in the

Archives of Internal Medicine questions the appro-

priateness of the study’s statistical methods in rela-

tionship to the type of data collected.

In “The Healing Power of Intercessory Prayer”

(2001), O. G. Harding provides an interesting treat-

ment of the more metaphysical implications of ef-

ficacious, remote, intercessory prayer. Harding

states that “arising from an emerging world view in

philosophy, it is argued that the mind can function

beyond the individual and is not constrained by

time and distance; it is in fact non-local. Prayer is

cited as an example of non-local manifestation of

consciousness.” Harding presents two case studies

providing evidence for non-local healing and asks

“whether there is no place in medicine for a multi-

ple approach to healing,” and, further, if “reported

studies of [efficacious] prayer therapies are mean-

ingful, are physicians not using these additional

treatments withholding something curative from

their patients?” In general, if, despite methodologi-

cal criticisms of existing research, one emerges

convinced that prayer successfully improves health

outcomes in some circumstances, one still must

answer the question of what mechanisms support

healing, both in cases when patients are aware

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they are being prayed for, but also when they are

unaware that others engage in prayers on their be-

half. While some may adopt a theological interpre-

tation of such results by claiming that God answers

prayers on behalf of the sick and dying, others

may prefer to believe that either the patient’s own

response to the knowledge that they are being

prayed for (in the case of nonremote intercessory

prayer) or the force of positive, non-localized

human intentionality (in the case of remote inter-

cessory prayer) may exert some influence on ac-

tual events, such as whether or not a patient re-

covers from an illness.

Mind/body research. In addition to research-

ing the impact of intercessory prayer, the Western

medical community has also examined the impact

of spirituality on health in the context of research

on the connection between mind and body. Initia-

tives emanating out of the Mind/Body Medical In-

stitute at Harvard Medical School in Cambridge,

Massachusetts, lead research in this area and focus

primarily on the positive therapeutic effects of qui-

eting, meditative practice (called “the relaxation re-

sponse” by Dr. Herbert Benson and his colleagues)

on general health outcomes in a range of areas.

Benson and his colleagues define the relaxation

response “as a series of coordinated physiologic

changes elicited when a person engages in a repet-

itive word, sound or phrase or prayer, and pas-

sively disregards intrusive thoughts. Relaxation re-

sponse practice results in decreased metabolism,

heart rate, rate of breathing, and distinctive slower

brain waves. These changes are the exact opposite

of those induced by the fight or flight response”

(Mind/body, 2002). Benson and his colleagues

claim that, when combined with exercise, stress

management, and proper nutrition, the relaxation

response functions as an effective therapeutic in-

tervention for “cardiac disease, many forms of

chronic pain, infertility, insomnia, premenstrual

syndrome, the symptoms of cancer and HIV/AIDS,

anxiety, and mild and moderate depression” -i.e.,

any condition “caused or made worse by stress”

(Mind/body, 2002). By far the most high-profile

provider of spirituality and health research and

treatment, the Mind/Body Medical Clinic and Beth

Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Massachusetts

and affiliate sites throughout the United States

enjoy over nine thousand patient visits per year.

The Mind/Body Medical Institute offers training in

the relaxation response to teachers and students,

business people, health care professionals, and

members of the public.

Laying on of hands. Western medical attention

has also focused on the “laying on of hands,”

which although viewed by some as more of a sup-

plemental, palliative nursing treatment, also serves

as a topic for rigorous research. In one interesting

study, researchers examined physician attitudes to-

ward the laying on of hands in the context of the

AIDS epidemic and concern about HIV infection.

The researchers concluded that physicians be-

lieved touch facilitated healing and strengthened

rapport, though younger physicians, those work-

ing in primary care, and those who did not prefer

to wear gloves were more likely to express such

attitudes.

Complementary and alternative medicine. Al-

though scientific investigation in faith-based healing

has increased significantly, M. R. Tonelli and T. C.

Callahan ask in their article “Why Alternative Med-

icine Cannot Be Evidence-Based” (2001) whether

the scientific method adequately assesses many “al-

ternative” approaches to healing. They note that

“the concept of evidence-based medicine (EBM)

has been widely adopted by orthodox Western

medicine. Proponents of EBM have argued that

complementary and alternative medicine (CAM)

modalities ought to be subjected to rigorous, con-

trolled clinical trials in order to assess their efficacy.

However, this does not represent a scientific neces-

sity, but rather is a philosophical demand: promot-

ers of EBM seek to establish their particular episte-

mology as the primary arbiter of all medical

knowledge.” Tonelli and Callahan believe instead

that “methods for obtaining knowledge in a healing

art must be coherent with that art’s underlying un-

derstanding and theory of illness. Thus, the method

of EBM and the knowledge gained from popula-

tion-based studies may not be the best way to as-

sess certain CAM practices, which view illness and

healing within the context of a particular individual

only.” Since many alternative approaches to healing

admit the existence of “non-measurable but per-

ceptible aspects of illness and health (e.g., Qi),”

controlled clinical trials may not offer appropriate

methods of assessment. The authors conclude that

“orthodox medicine should consider abandoning

demands that CAM become evidence-based, at

least as ‘evidence’ is currently narrowly defined, but

insist instead upon a more complete and coherent

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description and defense of the alternative epistemic

methods and tools of these disciplines.”

Some studies (e.g., Eisenberg et al, 2001; Park-

man, 2002) demonstrate that a growing number of

people consider the combination of orthodox

treatments and complementary and alternative

therapies to be more effective than either kind of

treatment alone. Patients with higher anxiety ap-

proach faith healers more often, though not to re-

ject more conventional scientific approaches, but

as a continuation of them (Conroy et al, 2000). In

his article “‘Physician, Heal Thyself’: How Teaching

Holistic Medicine Differs from Teaching CAM”

(2001), J. Graham-Pole differentiates CAM (“a sys-

tem of health care not generally recognized as part

of mainstream medical practice”) and holistic med-

icine (“the art and science of healing the whole

person-body, mind, and spirit-in relation to that

person’s community and environment”). Although

at least two-thirds of medical schools in the United

States offer coursework in CAM, and while an in-

creasing number of courses in the medical human-

ities focus on spirituality and health, courses on

holistic medicine remain rare. According to Gra-

ham-Pole, “offering physicians-to-be more course-

work in holistic medicine could lay the ground-

work for future physicians’ adopting and modeling

healthy lifestyles.”

Non-Western approaches

Moving from Western approaches to non-Western

ones, studies on Asian, shamanistic, and African

tribal healing practices have contributed to the

overall discussion of faith healing. Cross-cultural

forms of faith-related healing have also achieved

prominent medical investigation, both by Western

researchers and by professionals from within par-

ticular cultural contexts. For example, V. Griffiths in

“Eastern and Western Paradigms” (1999) comments

on the holistic nature of Chinese medicine and its

attention to observation, subjectivity, and feeling.

Chinese medicine revolves around the notion of qi,

“an alleged vital force that underlies functioning of

body, mind, and spirit” (Raso, 2000) According to a

2002 article by W. Yao and colleagues, “cardiac de-

ficiency of qi (vital energy)” is “one of the main

syndromes in terms of TCM (Traditional Chinese

Medicine).” Furthermore, based upon a study of

forty-four Wistar female rats, B. W. Fang and col-

leagues contend that “the mixture of reinforcing qi

and promoting blood circulation has the function of

alleviating pathological changes of liver, reducing

the content of liver collagen, improving erythro-

cytic function of clearing away immune complexes

and regulating humoral immune response.”

Specialists in Chinese medicine channel qi as

part of qigong therapy, which aims “to ‘stimulate’

and ‘balance’ the flow of qi . . . through meridians

(‘energy pathways’).” Qigong is a Chinese form of

self-healing somewhat similar to some forms of

meditative or prayer-based healing. “It involves

contemplation, visualization (imagery), assumption

of postures, and stylized breathing and body move-

ments” (Raso, 2000). Somewhat similar to qigong, a

Japanese form of healing, shinkiko, also relies on

interaction with a spiritual realm of energy for heal-

ing. Although researchers have not yet studied this

form of healing extensively, its popularity is grow-

ing in the West in conjunction with the increasingly

high profile enjoyed by energy-based healing arts.

Some aspects of faith healing in cross-cultural

perspective, such as shamanism and tribal prac-

tices, involve belief in spiritual realms accessible

by healers on behalf of their patients. Shamanic

healing practices often include “sensing and re-

moving ‘localized spiritual illness and pain’” in ad-

dition to techniques such as soul retrieval and the

integration of parts of the soul (Raso, 2000). In the

article “Clown Doctors: Shaman Healers of Western

Medicine” (1995), L. M. van Blerkom observes sim-

ilarities between shamanic healing and various pal-

liative treatments in the West, specifically the Big

Apple Circus Clown Care Unit, which works with

children in New York City hospitals. According to

van Blerkom, “there is not only superficial resem-

blance-weird costumes, music, sleight of hand,

puppet/spirit helpers, and ventriloquism-but also

similarity in the meanings and functions of their

performances. Both clown and shaman violate nat-

ural and cultural rules in their performances. Both

help patient and family deal with illness. Both use

suggestion and manipulation of medical symbols

in attempting to alleviate their patients’ distress.”

As Western medicine continues to gain accept-

ance in other parts of the world, it increasingly

will face the task of integrating itself gracefully

with traditional healing systems such that the dif-

ferent traditions can work together in a comple-

mentary fashion. For example, in Israel, Bedouin-

Arabs (especially women) approach traditional

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healers before they seek biomedical health care.

“The traditional system struck a stronger therapeu-

tic alliance, tended to diagnose more comprehen-

sibly, and was perceived by many patients as

being more clinically beneficial.” Furthermore, tra-

ditional healers can help biomedical practitioners

“incorporate the family/community in treatment,

and communicate in the patient’s cultural idiom”

(Al-Krenawi and Graham).

In the context of Africa, traditional tribal heal-

ing practices can work together with Western meth-

ods effectively, as, for example, in the case of treat-

ment and education for diabetes in South Africa

(Peltzer et al). Additionally, V. G. Chipfakacha ar-

gues in “STD/HIV/AIDS Knowledge, Beliefs, and

Practices of Traditional Healers in Botswana”

(1997) that “rapport between traditional healers

and scientific medical personnel is essential for an

effective and successful HIV/AIDS prevention and

control programme” in the context of Africa be-

cause approximately seventy percent of African pa-

tients see traditional healers. Traditional healers ex-

perience increasing risk of contact with HIV/AIDS,

which makes it imperative that they receive correct

information about the virus and the disease.

See also PRAYER AND MEDITATION; SPIRITUALITY AND

HEALTH

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JENSINE ANDRESEN

SPIRITUALITY AND HEALTH

The topic of spirituality and health concerns the

ways in which spirituality broadly understood is in-

tertwined with concrete health status, both positive

and negative. For example, in both indigenous and

world religions, beliefs that demons or other

malevolent spirits inhabit one’s body may be taken

as an explanation for mental or physical illness.

Native healers and priests appropriately prescribe

exorcisms in such cases, with “appropriateness”

determined by the mythopoetic and narrative

frameworks of the cultural context. Similarly, some

religious communities (Benedictines, for example)

view spirituality itself as an indicator of good

health, understood as one’s degree of meaningful

integration with the fabric of the cosmos.

Since about 1980, such traditional portrayals of

the relationship between spirituality and health

have given way to a burgeoning literature bridging

empirical and impressionistic domains that seeks

to demonstrate linkages between one’s type and

level of spiritual and religious involvement on the

one hand, and one’s health status on the other. A

comprehensive survey of this literature reveals

many articles on the relationship between spiritu-

ality and coping that examine, for example, how

spirituality assists in coping with major health chal-

lenges (Koenig, et al. 2001), such as cancer (Ack-

lin, Borman), AIDS (Somlai et al.), stress ( Joseph),

and abuse (Ryan); how spirituality assists in coping

with mortality and death (Rutledge et al., Atkin-

son); and how spirituality and aging relate to one

another (Markides et al.). Another interesting cate-

gory of research focuses on the long-term and

therapeutic dimensions of religiosity and spiritual-

ity as they relate to mental health and therapy

(Fukuyama and Sevig).

One prominent researcher in the field of spiri-

tuality and health, Harold G. Koenig, has worked

with colleagues to examine religion as a coping

strategy (Harold G. Koenig et al 1998) and how

cultural diversity impacts care at the end of life

(Barbara Koenig 1998). Harold Koenig also ex-

plores the relationship between spirituality, health,

and aging (Koenig et al 1988), specifically focusing

on mental health (Koenig 1994).

Additionally, in conjunction with the twelve-

step movement, some researchers have posited that

spirituality helps alleviate tendencies toward sub-

stance abuse (Pardini et al., Peetet). This last cate-

gory of research raises interesting possibilities con-

cerning a potential underside to the relationship

between spirituality and health, since literature on

religious addiction (Arterburn and Felton) may

imply that spiritual practices themselves have the

potential to activate the same neurocognitive path-

ways that support addictive behaviors in general.

Investigators also have examined the role of

forgiveness, empathy, and altruism in contributing

to positive health outcomes (Aderman and

Berkowitz). Future research in this area, which will

continue to be complemented by research in evo-

lutionary biology on altruism among nonhuman

primates and on the evolution of altruism itself,

promises to expand the picture of what “health” it-

self may mean for human beings, for other sentient

creatures, for ecosystems, and for the Earth’s bios-

phere as a whole.

Because health and its maintenance necessarily

employ the services of caregivers, another strand of

research in the area of spirituality and health fo-

cuses on caregivers’ own spiritual resources (Wright

et al.) as they experience the ongoing, potentially

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SPIRITUALITY AND HEALTH

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exhausting exigencies of caring for others. Research

on spirituality and ethics focuses on patients’ rights

when they receive care (Muldoon), particularly on

patients’ spiritual needs, and on arguments calling

upon health care workers to provide spiritual re-

sources to their patients. Researchers have also ad-

dressed the cultural dimensions of spirituality and

healthcare, including immigrants’ and minorities’

experiences in the U.S. healthcare system (An-

dresen, Ahia). Finally, not all studies support the

conclusion that spirituality functions favorably in

supporting positive health outcomes. For example,

a study published in 2001 by Kenneth Pargament,

Harold Koenig, Nalini Tarakeshwar, and June Hahn

demonstrates that patients who experience “reli-

gious struggle” (e.g., feelings that God has aban-

doned or punished them) experience a higher mor-

tality rate than other patients.

As research at the interface of spirituality and

health continues to gain acceptance within the

medical community, patients’ experience in the

healthcare system may reflect improved sensitivity

regarding their spiritual needs and concerns. Par-

ticularly at the end of life, or when confronted with

traumatic or chronic conditions, patients may be

expected to feel the need to understand their own

experiences in the context of their religious or spir-

itual worldviews. Indeed, doing so may prove cru-

cial to patients’ recovery or their experience of

peace at the time of death. Patients’ families, too,

may experience increased comfort when health

care providers and medical institutions permit the

incorporation of culturally appropriate religious or

spiritual practices and explanations alongside the

delivery of medical care in an effort to address

their loved ones’ suffering and existential ques-

tioning in an integrated and holistic manner. At the

same time, religious worldviews that blame the

sick for their own conditions are best avoided, not

only because they have been demonstrated to in-

crease mortality (as reported above), but also be-

cause justifying such interpretations theologically

presents itself as a dubious endeavor, at best.