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Niño Fidencio

Frank Graziano

in Cultures of Devotion: Folk Saints of Spanish America

This chapter explores the devotion to Niño Fidencio, the most prominent Mexican folk saint. It examines Fidencio’s biography in historical context; spiritism and channeling; curanderismo (folk ... More

This chapter explores the devotion to Niño Fidencio, the most prominent Mexican folk saint. It examines Fidencio’s biography in historical context; spiritism and channeling; curanderismo (folk healing); relation to other curandero folk saints; and the nature of devotion at Fidencio’s shrine in Espinazo, Mexico, and in the Río Grande Valley of the United States.Less

Complementary and Alternative Medicine in America's “Two Buddhisms,”

David Numrich Paul

in Religion and Healing in America

Buddhists in the United States fall into two main camps: ethnic Asians, for whom Buddhism represents the primary religious component of their cultural heritage, and non-Asian converts to Buddhism. ... More

Buddhists in the United States fall into two main camps: ethnic Asians, for whom Buddhism represents the primary religious component of their cultural heritage, and non-Asian converts to Buddhism. These two broad groupings manifest significant differences in their perspectives and practice of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM), with important implications for the American health care system. This chapter focuses primarily on selected CAM practices among US Buddhists under the general heading of folk healing, which includes behaviors often identified with popular religion or folk religiosity. Two kinds of folk healing are discussed: herbalism and appeal to spiritual or supramundane healing forces. Supramundane healing forces could be classified under several CAM designations, such as mental and spiritual healing (healing power from the mind or divine sources); nonlocality (unmediated healing at a distance); biofield medicine (use of energy fields in or around the body); and even the placebo response in certain cases (healing effected through a patient's belief in the treatment). This chapter also considers the practice of Buddhist meditation.Less

Students and the Reality of Past-Life Therapy

Diana G. Tumminia

in When Prophecy Never Fails: Myth and Reality in a Flying-Saucer Group

The chapter examines the Unarian practice of past-life therapy as folk healing. Unarius claims it can heal any illness or life problem, including mental illness. Unarius defines mental illness as ... More

The chapter examines the Unarian practice of past-life therapy as folk healing. Unarius claims it can heal any illness or life problem, including mental illness. Unarius defines mental illness as obsession (unrecognized disabling karma from a past life). The author documents the narrative accounts of successful healing within the group and the perceived reasons why some people were not healed. Members precipitate healing by recognizing their roles in the transgressions of past lives; some roles are defined by myth.Less

Introduction

Brett Hendrickson

in Border Medicine: A TransCultural History of Mexican American Curanderismo

This book presents a transcultural and multiethnic history of curanderismo, the folk and religious healing arts and practices of Mexican Americans. It looks at the religious and cosmological ... More

This book presents a transcultural and multiethnic history of curanderismo, the folk and religious healing arts and practices of Mexican Americans. It looks at the religious and cosmological foundations of curanderos as well as their impact on multiethnic communities in the United States. It also explores curanderismo's relationship to American religious, metaphysical, and alternative medicine and healing, suggesting that curanderismo has been a constant part of Mexican and Mexican American interactions with Anglo Americans since the Mexican–American War. It shows that the practices and beliefs surrounding curanderismo, and Mexican American religions more generally, occupy an integral and influential place in religious life in the United States.Less

Curanderismo in the United States

Brett Hendrickson

in Border Medicine: A TransCultural History of Mexican American Curanderismo

This chapter focuses on the various practices of curanderismo in the United States. Drawing on historical and ethnographic accounts, it examines the customs and habits of Mexican American religious ... More

This chapter focuses on the various practices of curanderismo in the United States. Drawing on historical and ethnographic accounts, it examines the customs and habits of Mexican American religious and folk healing. In particular, it chronicles the lives of two prominent folk saints, Teresa Urrea and Pedrito Jaramillo, as early examples of Mexican American folk healers who interacted often and successfully with mainstream white America. It also considers Anglo cultural assumptions that allowed Mexican American folk traditions and medicines to be transculturally efficacious. Finally, it discusses the herbal remedies, prayers, and typical techniques of several mid- and late-twentieth-century curanderos, who practice mostly in Mexican American barrios.Less

Curanderismo as Transcultural Religious Healing Tradition: Problems and Possibilities

Brett Hendrickson

in Border Medicine: A TransCultural History of Mexican American Curanderismo

This chapter examines the ongoing hybridization of healthways in the U.S.–Mexico border region, with particular emphasis on Anglo American uses of Mexican American folk healing and similar ... More

This chapter examines the ongoing hybridization of healthways in the U.S.–Mexico border region, with particular emphasis on Anglo American uses of Mexican American folk healing and similar transcultural exchanges both in the United States and in other colonial border regions. It first considers how the folk saints and metaphysical therapies of borderlands' Mexican Americans sometimes operate effectively for Anglo Americans, and what these transcultural experiences tell us about the religious history of the border. It then discusses problems and possibilities arising from white and other non-Mexican American exchanges with curanderismo and other kinds of Mexican American religious healing. It also shows how the cultural exchange of healing from Mexican Americans to Anglo Americans has been facilitated in part by deep cultural predispositions of openness to such healing in the majority white culture.Less

Conclusion

Brett Hendrickson

in Border Medicine: A TransCultural History of Mexican American Curanderismo

This book has explored how transcultural exchanges have occurred between Mexican American folk healers and Anglo American patients. It has also discussed the impact of Mexican American religious and ... More

This book has explored how transcultural exchanges have occurred between Mexican American folk healers and Anglo American patients. It has also discussed the impact of Mexican American religious and folk healing traditions not only on Mexican Americans but also on a small but significant number of non-Mexican American patients. It has shown that the narrative predispositions of Mexican American folk healing have encountered channels of convergence with the predispositions of the American metaphysical tradition, making transcultural healing a possibility. One positive outcome of this transcultural exchange is that curanderismo has established a place for itself in the expanding world of complementary and alternative medicine. It has also allowed some curanderos in the United States to reconnect with the perceived indigenous roots of Mexican American religious healing.Less

Mexican American Healing and the American Spiritual Marketplace

Brett Hendrickson

in Border Medicine: A TransCultural History of Mexican American Curanderismo

This chapter examines New Age interest in curanderismo and Mexican American folk healing. It considers how the more “traditional” curanderos extend their practice to Anglo clients who almost always ... More

This chapter examines New Age interest in curanderismo and Mexican American folk healing. It considers how the more “traditional” curanderos extend their practice to Anglo clients who almost always participate in alternative healing and have been impacted by the American metaphysical religious tradition and New Age spirituality. In order to elucidate contemporary curanderismo's convergence with New Age and alternative healing communities, the chapter focuses on the continued development of American metaphysical religion into the twentieth century. It also looks at one of the most prominent contemporary curanderos, Elena Avila, and her way of practicing Mexican American religious healing to show that curanderismo continues to undergo hybridization. Finally, it discusses the use of the concept of chakras by curanderos to explain how Mexican American as well as Mayan and other Mesoamerican healing traditions work.Less

Al Norte toward Home: Texas, the Midwest, and Mexican American Critical Regionalism

José E. Limón

Omar Valerio-Jiménez, Santiago Vaquera-Vásquez, and Claire F. Fox (eds)

in The Latina/o Midwest Reader

This essay traces the cultural connections between Mexican American in Texas and those in the Midwest. Beginning with the famous cattle drives from Texas to the Midwest in the mid-nineteenth century ... More

This essay traces the cultural connections between Mexican American in Texas and those in the Midwest. Beginning with the famous cattle drives from Texas to the Midwest in the mid-nineteenth century and the musical genre of the corrido to folk healing, contemporary rock music, and fiction, these two seemingly distinct communities created cultural linkages that helped them struggle against adversity in a manner best understood as an example of critical regionalism as developed by Kenneth Frampton, Fredric Jameson and Cheryl Herr.Less