l Introduction How oes relgous heaing wor f ieet oes? What s the nature of ts therapeutc ecacy? What s actually beng healeby the performances of the shamanthe mecne manor the fath heaer? What s partcuarly relgous about them ithe rst pace? These questons have preoccupeanthropologsts for a long whleanthere have been two broatpes of answer offere. Many eary stues were prmary concernewth whether healers or shamans were themselves mentally ltpcay wth schiophrena or epepsyWhatever healng occurrewas thought as lely to benet the h aler as t woulthose who came to hm or her for helpaterthe queston of whether heaers were e mentapatents was superseeby that of how they were le psychotherapsts. Ths themepresent as early as eghton anegh- tons 1941scusson ofNavajo heng anMessngs 1958analyss of the Ethopan zr cultwas gven mpetus n the 196s an197s by the semnawors ofJerome Fran1973FrananFrn1991. For somethe efcacy of regous heaing ce to be assumeon the bass of what we may cathe psychotherapy analogrelgous heng wors because t s le psychotherapywhch also worsThs s harly a satsfactorplace to leave the ssueannot only because psychotherapy tself s a healng form whose ecacy cannot be taen for granteInsofar as evercuture must contenwth emotonal stress anmental llnesseach s lely to evelop ts own forms of psychotherapysome ofwhch we can entas rego us healngewsemost regons evelop some stance towarhuman sufferngan1
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7/21/2019 The Sacred Self - Introduction - Thomas Csordas
How oes relgous heaing wor f iee t oes? Whats the nature of ts therapeutc ecacy? What s actually beng healeby the performances of the shaman the mecne man or the fathheaer? What s partcuarly relgous about them i the rst pace? Thesequestons have preoccupe anthropologsts for a long whle an therehave been two broa tpes of answer offere. Many eary stues wereprmary concerne wth whether healers or shamans were themselvesmentally l tpcay wth schiophrena or epepsy Whatever healngoccurre was thought as lely to benet the haler as t woul thosewho came to hm or her for help ater the queston of whether heaerswere e menta patents was supersee by that of how they were lepsychotherapsts. Ths theme present as early as eghton an egh-tons 1941 scusson ofNavajo heng an Messngs 1958 analyssof the Ethopan zr cult was gven mpetus n the 196s an 197s
by the semna wors ofJerome Fran 1973 Fran an Frn 1991.
For some the efcacy of regous heaing ce to be assume on thebass of what we may ca the psychotherapy analog relgous hengwors because t s le psychotherapy whch also wors
Ths s harly a satsfactor place to leave the ssue an not onlybecause psychotherapy tself s a healng form whose ecacy cannot betaen for grante Insofar as ever cuture must conten wth emotonalstress an mental llness each s lely to evelop ts own forms ofpsychotherapy some ofwhch we can ent as regous healng ewse most regons evelop some stance towar human sufferng an
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7/21/2019 The Sacred Self - Introduction - Thomas Csordas
may go a step rter and deveop expicit systems of eang practcecf Number and Aundsen 1986 L Suvan 1989 It as becomecommonpace to obsere tat ecacy s contngent on te nature ofprobems addressed by derent forms of eang ow tose probemsare dened in cutura practce and wat counts n cutura terms aster success resouton Gven ts set of ssues it as been arguedon t one and tat rtua eaing is nvaraby and necessary eective
ue to te manner in wc it denes ts goas Keinman and Sung1979 and on te oter tat it necessariy fas nsofar as it is a treatmentmore of festye tan of symptoms Pattison Lapins and Doerr 1973.Between tese postions we are e wit a disturbng ack of anaytcspeccity and a repertoire of ypoteses about ow eang works Letus brey sumarize
estructural ypotess posits an nerent power ofcorrespondenceor omoogy between symboc acts and obects metapors or cosmoogica structure on te one and and te tougts emotons beavioror diseases of tose treated on te oter Researc n tis tradition ofwic te paradgmatic exampe is Lvi-Strausss (966 dscussion ofa Cuna ndan brt rtua are often successfu at demonstrating teexistence of a omoog but not n estabising wy or weter te omoogy as an eect e clinical ypotesis is based most strctyon te anaogy between te reigious eaer and a doctor treating anindvidua patent wt a specic procedure in expectaton of a detiveoutcome as n Prnces 1964 paradigmatic discussion of ndgenousYoruba psyciatry However not ony s t dicut to demonstratedentve outcomes in reigous eang but a cnica approac tendsto downpay te expcity regous eements f suc eang tat gveit ts distnctive caracter e social s ort ypotesis best caracterzed by V. urners (1964 anayss of Ndembu eaing and Crapanzanos (973 dscussion of te Moroccan Hamadsa broteroods
ods tat te prncpa terapeutic effects of eang ie in enancngcomunty sodart resovng interpersona tensons providng anemotonay safe envronment for suering ndvduas or providngte security of identity wit a group dened by ts eang practicesWe tese effects may n fact occur studies tat empasize soca support oen go no rter toward dening ecacy remaining satsedwt a generaized nctionaist understanding of eang Finay te peruive ypotess owes muc to J Franks (1973 formuatonsabout te cutvation of expectant fait troug te persona nuenceof a eaer and te retorica devces tat bring about a sft in te
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patients "assumptve word Heang ritua s understood not as iturgica rpettion but as ntentiona soca action drected toward te uatyand content of experie!e However wie t tus takes account ofmeaning it is ess attuned to cncaissues s uc as te knd of emotonadisorder addressed by eang.
ese ypoteses are not mutuay excusive o be sure atougtey represent different descrptons of ow terapeutc ecacy is
evoked, tey tend to sare a common understandng of ow tat ecacy s actuay contitutedby a mited repertoire of goba mcanisms esemecansms incude trance catarsis pacebo eect and suggestionWt few exceptions eg Sce 1979, accounts of eaing underte ypoteses sketced above are based on nference from procedurescarred out by eaers to a nonspecc efcacy presumed to be nerentin one or mor of tese mecanisms e mecansm tsef remansuneaborated a kind of biocutura "back box peraps te patientgoes nto trance but wat it is tat makes te trance terapeutc remainsessentay ambguous
e reason for te ack of secict is astoundingy simpe atougantropoogsts ave produced voumes of descrptions of eang rtuas tey ave virtuay never systematcay examned te experience ofsuppicants n eag. e Navao Canter sngs for nne ngts andwe ave a transcrption of te songs e creates an eaborate sandpanting and we ave a detaied descripton of it Were experience comesinto ueston t is usuay tat of te eaer. But wat is appening forte Navao suppcant wo is repeatng ine for ine aer te canterand wo is made to st upon te sandpaintng? We may ean te natureof te suppcants compaint and weter tere s any apparent effectof te ritua but tat is about a We w earn noting about temagery processes wc as I dscovered wen t occurred to me toask may occur durng te ceremony Of course f we negect to ask
we w concude tat te efcacy of eang s nonspecic A premise of ts book is tat tere s an experenta speccity
of effect n regous eaingtat transformatve meanng dwes toborrow a prase from te poet Wiam Bae n te "mnute particuars of uman exstence taken up te eaing process3 o approactat speccty we must dent te ocus of ecacy and tis reurestakng a step back toward generait before mang a eap forwardMy arguent s tat te ocus of efcacy is not symptoms psyciatrcdsorders symboc meaning or socia reatonsips but te sef inwc a of tese are encompassed Our task s ten to formuate a
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theory of the self that will allow us to speci the transformative eectsof healing What is more we require an idea of self that will be validfor comparative studies of healing forms ranging from conventionapsychother py to the more exotic forms of shamanism and spirit posses-sion cure. Finally we require a heory of self that will alow for theexperience of the sacred as an element of therapeutic process indeedan element hat constitutes one knd of the specicity that we seek Our
discussion in short must be an account of he cultural constitution ofa sacred self.
et me say a few things about my orientation to the problems ofsel and sacred" I have become convinced that a turn to phenomenol-ogy may go a long way toward answering the need we have ust seenfor a concept of self sensitive to experiential specicity. As M. Singer( 1984:53) obseves the phenomenological approach to self has neverbeen thoroughly developed and in the 1960s was overshadowed byunderstandgs of both cuture and sef as systems ofsymbos and mean-ngs Singer's observation is certainly correct and I think it can beaccounted for by the fact that we have not discovered the most usel
variant of phenomenology for our purposes At one end of the contin-uum Husserl's work is dense enough that by the time an anthropologistmade readers familiar enough wih its termological subteties the cultural substance of any account would be obscured in a whirl of mehodology. Perhaps Halowel (1955) sensed this when he went only so faras to acknowedge a phenomenoogical attitude in his important workson the self At the other end of the continuum the phenomenoogy ofSchutz is perhaps the most formaist variant such that Geertz's ( 1973)attempt to use it on Balinese material remains suspended between bega true phenomenological description and an exercise in applying analyticcategories If I were to claim a contribution for the present argumenttherefore it would be the grounding of culture and self in the phenome
nology of he bodyembodiment" a variant of phenomenologymore identied with the work of MerleauPonty. Yet my intent is notto oer a strict alternative to te semiotic approach but to bring phe-nomenology out of the shadow referred to by inger. In other wordsI understand cutural phenomenology as a counterweight and comple-ment to interpretive anthropoogys emphasis on sign and symbol4
The problem of the sacred aso falls within a cultural phenomenoogyof self Phenomenologists of religion have deed their understandingof the sacred as a kind of modulation of orientation in or engagementwith the world Eiade ( 1958 ) deed the sacred as a mode of attending
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to the world and van der eeuw (1938) observed that the object ofreigion is a highly exceptional and extremely impressive Oher" Thetenor of anthropological discussion however when not preoccupiedwith debate about the rationaly or irrationaliy of religious beief"has again been predominantly seotic. Every anthropologist is arwith Geertzs ( 1973) deition of religion as a system of symbols andmost woud unhesitatingly add that these symbols are articulated a
system of social relationships For a cultura phenomenology the second more obscure pat of Geertz's denition must be given equalweightthat religion acts to estabish longstandng moods and moti-vations I submit hat the mehod to get at these moods and motivationsis to be found in the phenomenologists' notion of Otherness. The sacredis an existential encounter with Otherness that is a touchstone of ourhumanity It is � touchstone because it denes us by what we arenotby what is beyond our limits or what touches us precisely at ourlimits In addition and of primary importance for the coherence ofour argument we wil discover that this sense of otheess itself isphenomenologicaly grounded in our embodiment
We can now restate the theses advanced in the preface speciingthat this book is a cultura phenomenology of healing that seeks thelocus of therapeutic ecacy i the sel The next step before introducingour empircal case is to eaborate our phenomenological approach toself and the specicty of self processes in cultural context
T Sf: Embm W S
et us begin by venturing a working concept of self andthen spend the rest of this section unpacking its heoretical meanig
and methodologcal consequences5 Self is neither substance nor entiybut an indeterminate capacity to engage or become oriented in thewold characterized by eort and reexivity. In this sense self occursas a conjunction of prereective bodiy experience culturally constitutedwold or miieu and situational specicit or habitus. Self processes areorientational processes in which aspects of the world are thematizedwith the resut that the self is objectied most oen as a person" witha culural identity or set of identities.
Haowell ( 1 955) was the rst anthropologist to propose a proto phenomenological theory of the self based on orientation" with respect
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to slf objcts spac and tm motvaton and norms, and ths s agood startng pont for what I man by orntaton th world. Todrstand how ts orntaton coms about w must dnt twoconcpts mplct n Hallows argumnt. Prcption s th ky concptmplct n hs dnton of t slf as sfawarnss th rcogntonof onsf as an obct n a word of objcts." Haow saw slfawar-nss as both ncssary to th nctong of socty and as a gnrc
aspct of human prsonalt strutur. Howvr, n dnng th slf asth product of a rxv mood, h cast hs anayss at th lvl of tharadyobjctd sl As w shall s n a momnt, a y phnomno-ogcal account would rcognz that whras w ar capab of bcomng objcts to ourslvs, n day f ths sldom occurs. Haowl smpct concrn wth what mor contmporary trms w would call i ( c Ortnr 1 984) s summarzd n th trm bhavoral nv-ronmnt" borrowd from th gstat psychology ofKofa. Halowsprotophnomnoogcal approach accounts for an ssnta fatur ofth bhavoral nvronmnt, namly that t ncluds not ony naturalobjcts but cuturally rd objcts" spcay supatural bngsand th practcs assocatd wth thm. Undrstood n trms of prcpton and practc, alowlls concpt of slf thus dd mor than placth ndvdual n cutur It nkd bhavor to th objctv word, butdnd objctv n trms of cultura spccty. It lnkd prctualprocsss wth soca constrats and cutura manngs, bu� addd sf-awarnss and rxvty.
Hr w rach a crtcal pont for our argumnt For f prcptonand practc ar cntra to th slf as a capact for orntaton, w candnt th ocus of th slf as dntca wth th locus of prcptonand practc For hp w turn drcty, as Haowll could not to thphnomnologcal thnkrs Th phlosophr Zanr, drawng on thphnomnologcal work of Hans Jonas, Erw Straus, and Aaron Gur-
wtsch, suggsts an answr
M eoding ogans s tus consttuted as orientational locus in the wod, lace colel aticulated and eeed eans o its ('sensoiu. n e diesi o sense a oriented to te Ote [n is casee ote eson as one and e sae and te Oe s ositoned and oiented (eeenced to odil laceent (od atttudes stances lace oeents etc.. Hence te aangeent o te enoning ilieu o tngs is nctionall coelated wit oganis: te latte is e oganzational sensoialenter o e actonal and sensile dsla o suounding oects (1981:38,eass in oiginal
INTROUCTION 7
Th crtcal pont and on whch Halowl missd n hs dscusson oforntaton, s th groundng of th slf n mbodmnt, our ssntalxstntal condton And hr s our answr th spccty w arookng for can b found n th way slf procsss ground in mbodi- mnt ta up or ngag ndamntal psychocutural ssus n th xpr-nc of rtua halng. Th procsss of orntaton ar th sam as thoswhch mov xprnc from ndtrmnacy t what Hallowll rfrrd
to as cuturally rd objcts" Yt t s ssnta to not that Halowlldd not plac th slf outsid th st of lmnts wth rspct to whcht s orntd. Agan mpcty h rcognzd that th slf s alwaysalrady n th cultural word. Howvr for som rason h xcluddth prsnc of othr slvs from hs outln, and w wll hav to rnsrtthm.
W wl tak up th ssu of othr slvs along wth that of obctca-ton to whch w hav alrady alludd For ths, w turn to th contrbu-tons of MrlauPonty and Bourdu. MrlauPonty ( 1962 can hlpundrstand mbodmnt wth rspct to prcpton and objctcatonBourdu ( 1977, 1984) stuats mbodmnt n an anthropologca ds-cours of practc, and ntracton wth othr svs. For MrlauPontyth body s a sttng n rlaton t th world" (196233), and con-scousnss s th body projctng tslf nto th word. For Bourdu,th socaly nformd body s th prncpl gnratng and unng apractcs" ( 1977 124) and conscousnss s a form of stratgc calcula-ton sd wth a systm of objctv potntalts. I sha bry labo-rat ths vws as summarzd n MrauPnts concpt of th prob-jctiv and Bourdus concpt of th habit?
MrauPonty objcts to th mprcst poston that th obct wprcv s a knd of stmuus and that prcpton s an ntctua actn rspons to that stmuus Ths s bcaus th objct of prcptonconcvd as an ntlctual act would hav to b thr possbl or
ncssary whn n fact t s ral. That s, t s gvn as th nnt suof an ndnt srs of prspctval vws n ach of whch th obcts gvn but n non of whch t s gvn xhaustvly ( 1964 15) Thcrtca but" n ths analyss rqurs th prcptua synthss of thobjct to b accompshd by th subjct whch s th body as a dof prcpton and practc (bd.16). Statd anothr way, Mrlau-Ponty wants our startng pont to b th xprnc of prcvng n ats rchnss and ndtrmnacy bcaus n fact w do not hav anyphnomnoogcaly ral objcts pror to prcpton To th contrary,our prcpton nds obcts" (1 96267). Ths s to say that objcts
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acton of socal deteminisms-bt also the sense of necessiy and the sense of dy he sense of drection and he sense of realty the sense of balance andthe sense of beay common sense and he sense of the sacred tactical senseand the sense of esponsiblty bsness sense and the sense of popiey hesense of hmo and he sense of absrdity moral sense and the sense of pacticaiy and so on. (bd.:24)
For our purposes the prncpa pont s that behavoral dspostons
are collectvey synchroned and attuned to one another through themedum of the body. Bourdeu mantans ths groundedness n the bodyeven n dscusson of the sense of taste" as the culural operator n hssocal analyss of aesetcs nsstng that t s nseparabe from tasten the sense of the capacty to dsce the avors of foods whch mple sa preference for some of them" (198:99
The cultral locus of Bourdeus habtus s the conjuncton between_ the obectve condtons of fe and the totalty of aspratons and practces completely compatble wth those condtons. To be consstentwth what we have earned from MereauPont we must recall thatwhat Bourdeu refers t as objectve condtons must aready be the
product of perceptual conscousness. Ths fact s mplct n Bourdeu'srecognton that objectve condtons do not cause practces and netherdo practces determne objectve condtons
The habtus s the unversalng medaton that causes an
ndividal agen's pactices withot eie epl cit eason o signing ntentto be none the less "sensible and "easonable. That pat of pactces whchemains obscre n e eyes of hei own prodces s the aspect by which theyae objectively adjsted to other practices and to te stces of which thepncple of the podcton is it self a prodct. ( 977 79)
In other words as a unversalng medaton the habtus has a duancton In ts relaton to objectve structures t s the prncpe of
generaton of practces (bd :77 whereas n ts reaton to a total reper-tore of socal practces t s ther unng prncple (bd83 Wthths concept Bordeu oers a socal analyss of practce as necesstmade nto a vrtue" (bd 77 and hs mage of human actvty s eb-s magnetc nede that appears acualy to enjoy rnng northwards(198175.
Our methodologcal step backward" has now ed us to e core of aeory of self grounded n embodment The queston about therapeutcecacy as an operaton on the self now appears contnuous wth lequeston of how orentaton takes pace upon the ground of emboded
NRODUON 1
exstence. One consequence of ths formuaton s to recogne a contnuty among normal experence emotona dstress and psychatrc ll-ness The self processes of orentaton and engagemnt are the samen all cases and what we are concerned wth s the redrecton of thoseprocesses takng embodment as our startng pont. Here we must eaborate another theme n our deton namey that the self s an indeter minate capacy of orentaton. Above a t s not a queston here of
bocultural nonspeccy but of experental ndetermnacy. To consoldate ths dea let us follow MerleauPonty as he argus that exstences ndetermnate
n so far as t is he very process by which the htheto meanngless takes onmeanng wheeby what had meely a [for eample] seal signcance assmesa moe general one chance s tansfomed nto reason; n so far as it s the actof takng p a de facto sitation. We shal gve he name "tanscendence tothis act n whch eistence takes p to its own accont and tansforms scha sitation. Pecisely becase it is tanscendence eistence neve ely otsaything fo n tat case the tension which is essental to it beween objectivewold and estental meaning] wold disappea t neve abandons itsel Whatit is never remains etena and accidenal to it snce s is always taken p
and integrated into it. (962:69)
Ths transcendence descrbed by MerleauPonty s not mystca but sgrounded n the word such that exstenta ndetermnacy becomes thebass for an nalenable human freedom (1962 part 3 chaptr 3
For Bourdeu as for MerleauPonty the synthess o f practca do-mans n a untary habtus s predcated on ndetermnacy but ths var-ant of ndetermnacy does not ead to transcendence as t does forMreauPonty. Instead of an exstental ndetrmnacy Bourdeu's s aogcal ndetermnacy whch
never eplictly or systematcally limits tself to any one aspect of the terms t
links bt takes each one each time as a whole eploting to he ll e facthat o "data ae neve entrely alke in a respects bt are always alke insome respect.
[Rita practice woks by bingng the same symbol nto deent elationshogh dieent aspects or binging dieen aspects of the same efeent intohe same elation of oppostion. (977:11 2)
ogca ndetermnacy s e bas s for transposton of derent schemesnto derent practca domans formng e bass for the polysemy andambguy at allows for mprovsaton n everyday fe 10
Alough a shard paradgm of embodment thus leads bo leorsts
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to a principle of indeterminacy, there remains a critical dierence insofar as Bourdieu's logical principle becomes the condition for semiotic improvisation whereas Merleau-Pon's existential principle becomes thecondition for phenomenological transcendece. In sum,�erle�uPony sees in the indeterminacy of perception a transcendence wh1chdoes not outrun its embodied situation, but w hich always "asserts morethgs than it grasps: when I say that I see the ashtray over there, I
suppose as competed an unfoding of experience which could go onad initum, and I commit a whole perceptual ture (1962361Bourdieu sees in the indeterminacy of practice that, since no person hasconscious mastery of the modus operandi which integrates symbolicschemes and practices, the unfolding of his works and actions "alwaysoutruns his conscious intentions ( 19: 9 .
Whereas they are both predicated on the centrality of embodient,there is an important dierence between these wo notions of indeterminacy, a dierence that is relevant for how we constre orientation amongselves or wihin a collectivit The locus of these dierences is Bourdieu'srejection of the concepts of lived experience, intentionality, and the
distinction between consciousness in itself and for itself. Although weneed not elaborate each of these notions, we must obsere the methodological consequence of ths wholesale rejection of ndamenta phenom-enoogical concepts. In eect, it requires Bourdieu to ground the conditions for the intelligibility of social life entirely on homognizaion of thehabius within groups or classes (19:80, ad to explain individualvariation i terms of homoly among individuals The resut is thatindividuals' systems of dispositions are structural variants of the grouphabitus, or deviations in relation to a style (1986 Merleau-Pont,n ontrast, nsists on the a prori necssity of inubii pointing out that any actor's adoption of a position presupposes being situated
inan itersubjective world, and that science itself is upheld by this basic
doxa. This is perhaps the methodological moment at which semioticsand phenomenology diverge, but it is b the same token the momentwhere they meet, and we wil have occasion to return to this momentat various points in our argument
For the present I wil arge for preserving the notion of intersubjectivity, and speak for the reconcilability of the two positions Again Ido so foowg Merleau-Ponty, for whom intersubjectivity is not aninterpenetration of isolated intentionaties, but an interweaving of familiar patterns of behavior
NRODUON 13
I peeve the the as a pee f behavi f example I peeive the gef the age f the the i hs dut i his ae hs hads wthut euset ay "e expeiee f sueg age ad beause gef ad ageae vaatis f belgig t the wld udvded betwee the bdy adsiusess, ad equally appliable t the thes dut vsbe i hs phemeal bdy, as i my w dut as it is peseted t me (1962:356)
In short, because body ad consciousness are one, intersubjectivity is
aso a copresence 3 Aother's emotion is immediate because it isgrasped preobjectively, and familiar insofar as we share the sa me habisTo paraphrase Merleau-Pont, aother person is perceived as "another mysel that tears itself away from being simply a phenomenon in my perceptual eld, appropriating my phenmena and conferring on themthe dmension of intersubjective being, and so oering "the task of atrue communication (Merleau-Ponty 1964:18 Just as we do notperceive our own bodies as obects, other persons can become objectsfor us ony secondarily, as the result of reection The conditions under which selves become objectied can only be identied empirically, aswe are about to do in our cultural phenomenolog of the sef in religioushealing. Finaly, this notio of intersubjectivity oers an insight nto
the relation between self and sacred. That is, the preobjective character of another person as "another mysel is a major part of what distinguishes our experience of the socia other from our experience of thesacred other, for the latter is in a radical sense "not myse4
We can consolidate this understanding of self as the indeterminatecapacity for orientation by comparing our notion of indeterminacy withFernandez's concept of the inchoate. For Fernandez the inchoate is "theundery ing (psy chophy siologica) and overying (sociocuur al) sense of enti (entirety of being or wholeness) which we r each for to express (by predicaton) and act out (by perf ormance) but can never grasp( 1982:39). As a rst appr oximation we could say that whereas a concept
of the nchoate is essentially concerned with the problem of f orm outof formlessness, a concept of indeterminacy is concer ned with that of specicit out o f ux Likewise, as a matter of e mphasis we could suggest hat the inchoate is a starting point for examination of a f fect andidentity, wher eas indetermiacy leads us to issues of per ception and practice. At a deeper level, the differ ence is in Fernandez's emphasis on the sense of entity that we r each for but can never grasp The notionof indeterm nacy accounts precisey for why we cannot grasp it-"it being the self itself because there is i fact no "entity '' as such to be grasped
·
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This is no o say however ha he self as ineerminae caaciy or orienaion an engagemen has no characerisics an his bringsus back o he incusion in our eniion of reexiviy an effor whichZaner (1981 refers o as "namena momens of sel The selfrefereniali of he whole ha is comose of boily exerience habius an worl is a kn of "iwaress ha resus he awakening of he senses of resence in he wor an of coresence wih ohers.
This siuae reexivi is accomanie by an effor which is recisely he eor o become oriene in he face of he verigo of esseniaineerminacy encounere in his awakening. Reexiviy an eor arenecessar characerisics of se One avanage of ieniing hem heway we have is ha i alows us a beer fee boh for he roer laceof self-awareness an objecicaion in our unersanig of sel .shows why we eschewe selfawareness as a saring oin in our consieraion of Hallowe an he areay-consiue worl of objecs as a-saring oin hrough our reaing ofMerleau-Pon A secon avanage is ha is recognizes self-awareness an objecicaion i.e. hecreaion of culure) as ineviabehere can be no oher conseuence
of reexiviy an effor Ye an his is is na avanage insofar asreexiviy an eor are resecively groune in he ineermiacy of erceion an racice he orienaion rocess is never comleeZaner summerizes his oin wih a erm borrowe from Gabrie Marce suggesing ha he self is consanly "en roue.
Having ienie reexiviy an eor we are reare for he las elemen of our eniion ha self rocesses achieve he sef-objecicaion of ersons We ur agai for conras o Fernanez for whomhe ichoae is he groun of emoional meang moral imaginaionieni an self-becicaion all of which ae chaacerisics of ersons The erson alreay objecie is a cuuraly consiue representa tion of sel The reobjecive self however is a culurally consiuemoe of beng in te world In he consiuion of ersons Fernanezsncions of reicaion an erformance are aralle o he omainsof erceion an racice ha we have ienie as oci for he consiuion of self To be recise wih reicaion we recognize ha erceiving is erceiving as an wih errmance ha racice is racicea Wihreicaion reexivi becomes self-awareness an recisely because i is base on reicaion i is necessariy self-awareness of a secic cul-
ura kin (c Shweer an Bourne 1982. Wih erformance effor becomes agency bu again because i is base in le ecacy of erfor-
ITRODUIO 5
mance i is no necessariy he agency of a soliary ego oen resuose in our own cuure
Recognizing he inchoae as he exisenial groun of he ersonmeans emhasizing ha here is aways some form which he self isobjecie Acknowleging ineerminacy as he groun of self measemhasizing ha form isef is ineerminae. On boh aalyic eveso mus ami aong wih Fernanez he criical imorance of mea
hor as he eiome of wha Mereau-Pony referre o as our huma"genius for ambiguiy (1962:189 For resen uroses we nee no elaborae he noion of meahor ohr han obsere how i relaesierenially o erson an sel5 Because he erson is a kin of reresenaion however he feaure of meahor likey o be sresse is aexual one n ely is richness of meanig Because he self is a moeof being in he worl he feaure ha mus be sresse is a feaure of emboimen namey he insabiy of aenion irece owar any one ension of a meahors meaning To obsere self rocesses or rocesses of self-obecicaion in erceion an racice is hen no ony o obsere a sriving for a sense of eni hrough reicaion anerrmance bu o exane a series of shiing consruals of relaion
shi among boily exerience worl an habius
T S S Cm W
No maer how much conceual sense our eiion of he self makes i remains emy heorizing unless i is caabe of iaogue wih concree henomena. We mus hen work ou our sighsin he emirical hickness of healers an suicans exerience seciig he ransformaion of suering6 a isress as he ransformaionof sel This wil reuire henomenological escriion of aricular culuray elaborae self rocesses as hey are aresse o siuaionay relevan sychocuural hemes Ye i was imoran ha we resen i rs before our escriion of he Charismaic Renewal as an "objecof analysis. To o oherwise wou have been isingenuous resuosing ha we coul somehow escribe he movemen i erms evoiof heor before hen subecing i o anaysis. Sce al escriion isimicily heoreicalhe resu of objecicaionour iaogue hasnecessariy alreay begun. Accoringly our inroucion o he movemen in his a secion of he chaer alray bares he conceua
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also undergone a demographc transton. Not only have Charsmatcsthemselves aged but they have attracted ncreasngly older memberssuch that the modal ag of partcpants s at present n the es. TheCharsmatc Renewal s no longer the vanguard movemnt t concevedtself to be n ts rst phases. It has a stable bureaucratc organzatonand by the late 1980s had become one among other conservatve movements n contemporary Catholcsm.
What consttutes an dentty as a Catholc Charsmatc The rstelement s cultvaton of a partcular style of relatonshp to dvntyThe Charsmatcs clam to oer a unue sprtual experence to ndvduals, and promse a dramatc renewa of Church lfe based on a sprtuaty of personal relatonshp" wth Jesus and drect access to dvnepower and nspraton through a seres ofsprtual gfts" or charsms"Drecty relevant to tle ssue of a sacred self the noton of a relatonshpto the ety s a template for orentaton n the world, and the exercseof sprtua gfts s a template for self processes that brng about thatorentaton Despte the currency of the noton of beng born agan"Charsmatcs are more lkely to say that relgous experence alows themto dscover ther real sel than to clam that they have been gven a
new sel" Identty s expressed as a sense of comng to know whoI am Chrst"
Ths sense of orentaton and of self process does not exst n a culturalvacuum, however. The Charsmatc sacred self s elaborated wth respect to psychocultural themes already salent n the North Amercanmleu These are themes n the sense ntroduced by Opler ( 1945) todescrbe globa preoccupatons of a culture. In a phenomenologcalsense they are also ssues thematzed or made salent n the orentngprocesses of selfobjectcaton. The themes of pontanei and conolwere already dented by Clw ( 1976) as central to tradtonal Pentecostalsm and have been preserved and elaborated n the Catholc move
ment In addton, the theme of intimacy s vvd both n the noton ofa personal relatonshp wth the dety and n the emphass placed on asense of communty n Charsmatc groups Let us brey elaboratethese three psychocultural themes and ther relevance to Charsmatcs
Partcpants experenced the Charsmatc Renewal as an opportuntyto acheve that spontanety sought aer n Amercan culture both as apersonal trat and as a feature of nterpersonal relatons. The notonthat mental health s related to the spontanety of the sel s foundn some versons of professonal psychologcal theory (Greenberg andMtchel 1983200). The nd of Amercan who ntates or at least
TRODCO 19
partcpates n mpromptu gatherngs" or events s valued and mddleclass Amercans oen lament not havng the knd of personal relatonswhere frends feel free to drop over anytme" (c Varenne 986) .One may even see the desre for spontanety n the current popularty ofcomedy clubs where patrons seek to be startled or shocked nto laughter.Charsmatcs also reactng to the rtualstc tholcsm n whch manywere rased, are hghly motvated by the deal of spontanety n sprtual
experence as well as nterpersonal nteracton Indeed, n the early1970s when I began eldwork among them Charsmatcs would reactnegatvely f I referred to an nterest n ther rtual" lfe assocatngthe term wth formalsm and lack of spontanety or freedom. Somemovement partcpants would reject beng labeled as such because tvolated ther sense of spontanety sayng that they could not be Charsmatcs because t was not an organzaton but a movement of theSprt"
The theme ofcontrol s lewse promnent n the cultural psychologyof Amercans. Crawford ( 19 84) for example has analyzed the Amercan concept of health as a symbol that condenses metaphors of selfcontrol and release from pressures It s consstent that the popular
magnaton has been captvated by an less lke anorexa nervosa nwhch the man theme s a struggle for control for a sense of dentty,competence and eectveness" (Hlde Bruch uoted n Bel 1985 17) .Ganes (1 992) has dented ontrol as a promnent cultural theme nformal psychatrc dagnoss, and utz ( 1990) shows that the languageof control pervades everyday emotonal dscourse. A coon complantby mddeclass Amercans when ther affars are not gong wel or theyfeel under stress s that my lfe s out of control." My mpresson sthat Amercans are less bothered by the breach of decorum losngcontrol of ther own behavor than they are n not beng able to controlther stuaton one may ndeed y o the handle" f t appears mpossble to do somethng" that s causng frustraton. Charsmatcs thematze both postve and negatve aspects of control On the one hand,they learn not only that they should surrender" themselves to the wof God but that overwhelmng stuatons can be gven to the Lord"On the oter hand, the nuence of ev sprts s suspected precselywhen negatve behavors or emotons are out of control.
Fnally ntmacy s a promnent Amercan psychocultural theme ts vvd n the deal for relatons between spouses summarzed n tenotons of romantc love and close communcaton (Bellah t a! 19 85,Leve 1991) When an Amercan refers to a group of frends or co
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workers as ike a family," the connotation is more likely to be thatmembers are ntimate and so close that one can te hem anythng"than that they are oya solely because an obligatory social relationshpexists. This contrasts with Japanese culture, for example, n which inti-macy s cultivated among peers of the same age group but not typicallybetween spouses, and where in general the values of contnung nurtur-ance and harmony oen take precedence over the actualization of inti-
macy in relationships" (Devos 1985:163, 165, 167). though intimacyis not an exclusively Western" cutural characteristic, t has been de-scribed, especially among Americans, as the most precous commodityin fe" (Hsu 1985:36) Charsmatic self processes of intimacy are foundin their motive toward communit, in the body technique of layng onhands, in the form of an ntimate relatonship (cutivated by means ofa private prayer life") with a dvini conceived expcty as a personalGod," and n the genre of rtua laguage known as sharing" the int ·
macy of one's life experences and thoughts Westey ( 1977) has shownthat speakng in tongues s not a necessay and sufcient crterion ofbeing Charismatic. In her study, ndividual members saw the momentthat they began sharng as the moment of their rebirth," and members
stated that until they began sharng their prayer group was not a Charis-matc one (ibid:929) .
Charsmatcs are not unique among Amercans who address theirpreoccupaton with such selfrelated psychocultural themes through rit-ual healng. Meredith McGure (1982, 1988), who has studied a widespectum of middleclass Amercan healing groups ncluding that ofCatholic Pentecostals, points out that for many of them heath' is anidealization of a kind of self, and healing' s part of the process bywhich growth toward that ideal is achieved" (1988:244) She suggeststhat Christian heang is relatvely dstinct n that t cultvates a sef na subordinate reatonship to a transcendent dety and n conformit to
group norms, whe many other forms of contemporay relgious hea-ing cutivate a exibe self freed from earned constraints and open tonew possibilties and potentials (ib id.:238) . Nevertheless, for McGuirethe general condton for this concern wth sef s that contemporasociety has approached the limts of rationalization" of the body, emo-tiona experience, and styes of mora evaluaton and legtimation, limitsat which there is change in the ver practices by which self is symbo-ized, shaped and expressed" (bid:251252). Her argument suggeststhat these limits are not being retreate from, surpassed, or abolished,but that interna social system tensions occurring at those limts generate
ITRODUGiON 21
a basic reorientaton. Whether or not ne accepts the hypothesis aboutlimits of rationaization, McGuire's observatons reinforce our premisethat therapeutc specicit can be identied in orientatonal self pro-cesses addressed to psychocultural themes such as spontaneit, contro,and ntimacy in rtua healng
Among Charsmatcs, the sef processes addressed to these threethemes become operative within a coherent ritua system. Catholic
Charismatc ritual performance is characteried by a marked ingust-cality, n that most of what goes on is verbal In this sense it s a religionof the word" Bound by the mortar of oral performance, ritual eventsbecome the buidng bocks of Catholic Charismatic life a mannerdistinct from societies typicay encountered in the anthropoogical lter-ature Anthropoogica accounts of traditional socetes customarly treatritual s a window on the nature of socet, as events that throw lghton underlying cutural and structural patterns: socie creates ritual a a seafation In a movement ike Catholic Pentecostalism, this reation between society and rtual is /inverted. Rtual events ke prayermeetngs are both historicaly and structuraly prior to the generationof dstinctive patterns of tlought, behavior, and soca organzation.
The events provide the eariest models for the organization of communty life: ritual creates socie a seafation. Prayer meetings, iitiation ceremones, and healing services are the three mai classes of ritualevent.
The prayer meeting is the central collective event for Catholic Chars-matics, and indeed the organzation of prayer groups and communitiesevolved directly from the organization of prayer meetings. A sma cas-ual prayer group s likely to gather around a lghted cande i the vngroom of a prvate home A large group may meet in a gymnasium, withseveral istrumentalsts to accompany group sngng, a publc addesssystem for the speakers, and contro by eaders over whch particpantswill be allowd to prophesy'' or share"
Initao the Pentecostal experience of baptism in the Holy Spiritis intmatey tied to initiation into the Charismatic group Initiatontpcay occurs in a series of seven weekly Life in the Sprit" semiarsThe rst four weeks explain the basic Christian message of salvation"and the meaning of baptsm the Spirit, the h week is devoted toprayer with laying on of hands for the baptism, and the al two weeksare oriented towards rther growth n the life of the Spirit"
Healing may take place n arge pubic servces or in prvate, one-onone sessons. In the former, each supplcant s tpcaly prayed for
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briey with the aying on of hands The atter are simiar to sessions ofpsychotherapy, athough of a form that aternates periods of counseingwith periods of prayer Heaers tend to s peciaize in one of svera formsof heaing, ncuding heaing from physica iess ·"iner or emotionaheaing, and "deiverance from the inuence of evi sirits
Rua anguage within any of thes casses of events is constitutedby a system of four major gnres These genres are naed formaied
speech varieties used with reguarity in ritua settings and frequentyregarded as verba manifestations of the sacred They cude prophecyteaching prayer and sharing Prophecy is a rst-person pronouncementin which the "I is God; the human speaker is merey the diviniy'smouthpiece For Cathoic Charismatics prophecy is a knd of divinereveation a means of access to the mind of God Teaching is understood as ritua utterance that caries some spiritua truth, and thusenabes its hearers to ead better Christian ives Teachings are oftendetaied eaborations of key ters and concepts that recur in ess eaborated form in the other riua genres Prayer incudes four basic ypes:worship (with subcatgories of adoration praise, and thanksgiving);petition or intercession on behaf of another for a specia purpose such as
heaing; "seekng the Lord or prayer for divine guidance; and "takngauthority or praying in the form of a comand for evi to depart froma person or situation inay sharing is simiar in form to ordinaryconversation except that its contents must have some spiritua vaue orediing eect These contents may be experiences events probems,or thoughts that have some signicance for a reigious understandingof daiy ife
Whereas performance ofritua genres can be understood as a rhetorica means of ordering xperience and directing attention the concretecharacter of the Charismatic word can be found in the movementsspeciaized vocabula of motv (Mis 1940) Th motives are words
with speciaized reigio1s meaning which are constanty circuated in thegenres of rita anguag They pay a roe in orientationa sef processesinsofar as their use both anticipates the siuationa consequences of participants' actions and impies strategies for action The motives of Charismatic ritua anguage name and identi th foowing features of Charismatic ife ( 1) forms of reationship aong individuas or betweenindividuas and God; () forms of coectivi or coective identity; (3)quaities or properties of individuas or reationships; ( 4) activities orforms of action essentia to ife within the movement; ( negativitiesor countermotives hat refer to threats to te Charismatic ida 22
IRODUiO 23
The Charismatic ritual system is embedded in a behavioral environ-ment that includes severa types of culturay objectied persons. We have aready briey mentioned the sense in which the person can beunderstood as a culural reprsentation, specicaly as an objecticationof self. Parall to the way in which the selfextends beyond te biologica ndividual to encompass relations aong body, habitus, and word heperson as representation e xtends beyond human beings to pay a major
role in the semiotic constitution of the behaviora environment. Halo-well ( 1960) showd that among the Ojibwa persons are many phnome-nologicay real beings that iabit the cutral world, ad with whichhuman beings presumably may come into interaction. Among Charismatics the domain of person includes not ony human beings, bothadut and child but rst of a God The Charismatic deity is really three persons each with a character corresponding to one of the three partsof the tripartite hun1an person Thu Father, Son and Hoy Spirit corre-spond with d, body and sp ir it} and implicity each divine personis most congenial with ts matched subeld within the human person23Also considred persons in his sense are deceased human spirits, ad at the opposite nd of the life course human embryos and fetuses.Relative to societies in which they are activey propitiated, ancestralspirits are argely negected except nsofar as they are occasionaly hecause of some afiction (see chapter 2) . Unborn spirits are, however,a cause cbre 1at ead Charismatics to intense poitical involvement the North American cultura debate about abortion.
Evi spirits or 1e�ons aso pouate the Charismatic behaviora environment though Carismatics woud doubtess prefer not to grantthem e "dignity'' of being persons and instead use a term ike "inteigent entities One heaer was on such disrespectly famiiar terms withher adversary (utimatey Sata, despite the mutipicity of individuademons under his dominion hat she referred to him as "the od boy
and "the creep. Other spiriua persons are of decreasing saience forneraction wi hunans The importance of the Virgin Mary is proportionay ess in "ecumenica groups whre Cathoic devotees demurout of poitness to their Protestant feows, whose traditiona cutureexcudes dening Mary as a person who interacts with humans Saintsare not prominent actors even in predominanty Cathoic groups inthis case not out of deference to Protestants but argey because theybecome reativey superuous as intermediaries in a reigion hat cutivates direct "person-to-person interaction with the deity. Michae thechange is invoked as a protector against evi spirits or as a renforce
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ment n epsodes of sprtua warfare" aganst them, but anges as aclass of sprtua person are conspcuously absent from the Charsmatcworld, appearng but rarely n heang or prophetc magery
Our search for speccty of therapeutc process n Charsmatc healng can ony succeed by takng nto account the features of the Chars-matc world that we have sketched out n these toobref paragraphs.In the folowng chapters w wll dent culturaly eaborated self pro-
cesses of magnaton, memory, emoton, and langage. We wll exam-ne how, n the conjuncton of these sef processes and the three psycho-ultura themes wth respect to whch they are orented, thendetermnate self s objected and represented as a partcular knd ofperson wth a specc dentty Ths self s sacred nsofar as t s orentedn the world and denes what t means to be human n terms of thewholy other" than human (van der Leeuw 1938, Elade 198, Otto18. The sense of the dvne other s cultvated by partcpaton n acoherent rtual system Ths rtual system s embedded n, and helpsto contnualy create, a behavoral envronment n whch partcpantsembody a coherent set of dspostons or habts. These are the elementsthat consttute the webs of sgncanceor of emboded estencewthn whch the sacred sef comes nto beng. To be healed sto nhabt the Charsmatc world as a sacred sel
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