holistic medicine between religion and science: a ...holistic medicine between religion and science:...

JournalofReligioninEurope6(2013)1–34 brill.com/jre

HolisticMedicinebetweenReligionandScience:

ASecularistConstructionofSpiritualHealing

inMedicalLiterature

AnneKochInterfacultyProgramStudyofRe-

ligionUniversityofMunich

[email protected]

StefanBinderDepartmentofPhilosophyandReligi-

[email protected]

AbstractA particular formation can be observed in the discourse of spiritualhealing and complementary and alternative medicine (CAM). Explana-tions of the effectiveness of spiritual healing by medical doctors andpsychologists sometimes include ideological and non-scientific conclusi-ons and concepts,which are similar to butalsodifferent fromNewAgescienceonhealing.Withdiscourseanalysisdiscursivenodes and strate-gies are identified in international medical and psychologicalresearchjournalsat theboundaryof CAM,traditionalmedicine,andpsychosoma-ticsfromthelastdecade.Thearticledevelopsthecategoryofsecularismtodescribethesepropositionalformationsandcontributestothelargerde-bateof postsecularsocieties.Postsecularismnotonlyputspublicreligionbutalsosecularismsbackontheagenda.Thisparticularsecularisminthefieldof spiritualhealingisbasedontransfersofknowledgeandpracticesbetween subareas of a functionally differentiated society: esoteric andscientific culturalmodels shift intomedicine, and continue into theareaof healthcareandhealing.Thearticledemonstrateshowthissecularismgathers around key concepts such as emergence, quantum physics, andphysicalism,andisengagedinapermanentboundaryworkbetweencon-ventional and alternative medicine, which is governed by the notion ofholistichealing.

Keywordsspiritualhealing;medicine;holism;spirituality;secularism

©KoninklijkeBrillNV,Leiden,2012DOI 10.1163/18748929-8910000

2 A.KochandS.Binder/JournalofReligioninEurope6(2013)1–34

1. IntroductionThis article is a study of discursive formations inmedicine (andtosomeextentalsopsychology)thatexplainspiritualhealing.1Theanalyzedpropositional figures are on the borders of the discipli-ne of medicine, close tothe non-empirical, and are outside themethodology adhered to in theacademic discourse of the uni-versities. While the concept of scientific knowledge has beennarroweddownsincetheeighteenthcenturytomeanthe resultsof a natural science that proceeds methodically, logically, andempirically,2 certain theological, metaphysical, or esoteric ele-ments thatwere once excluded from mainstream scientific dis-coursesanddegradedtoundercurrentsarenowcomingback:thishappenswhenholisticorexistentialist explanations of the worldare presented by scientists, or when religious actors use scien-tismasastrategyforplausibilizingandlegitimizingclaims,which(accordingtothisnewscientificunderstanding)arebasedonnon-scientificpremises.Withoursuggestedcategoryofsecularismwewant to contribute to the larger debate on postsecular societies.Postsecularism not only puts public religion but also secula-risms backontheagenda.Theideabehindthisconceptualiza-tion of secularisms is the sociological theory of differentiatedsocieties. Some secularisms occurred when formerly religiousknowledgeorresponsibilitiesweretakenoverbynewinstitutions,for instance, fire insurances instead of prayers to fire as protec-ting forces or juridical investigations on moral behavior insteadof religiousconfessionsaboutit.Besidethese‘secularizedsecula-risms’ we propose ‘secular secularisms.’ By ‘secular secularisms’we address knowledge, rhetoric, figurations, and practices thatstem from secular subareas of functionally differentiated socie-ties.Theyaresecularismsinsofarastheysupplynewultimateori-entation systems, which can be located outside their initiallysecular boundaries and inwhatwe understand as thedomainofsecondorderreligion.Inthefieldunderconsideration,atermino-logycancurrentlybeobservedwhichexceedsanynormativesci-entific

1) Spiritualhealingisusedhereasanumbrellatermtorefertooftenverydiffe-rentformsofhealing. In this general sense, terms are often used such as spiri-tual or energetic healing, therapeutic touch, etc. We are grateful to ElisabethPetrowforherhelp incompiling thereferencesandRuthSchubertforthetrans-lationincludingtheGermancitations.2) KockuvonStuckrad,LocationsofKnowledgeinMedievalandEarlyModernEu-rope:EsotericDiscourseandWesternIdentities,Brill’sStudies inIntellectualHis-tory(Leiden:Brill,2010).

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productionofknowledgeaswellasacommonspiritual,religious,or ‘philosophical’ rhetoric. It is used at scientific places of dis-course and involves scientific terms.Such interferencesbetweenthe history of science and religious history are described byBurkhard Gladigow3 as a vertical transfer between specializedsubareas of a society, for instance, between religionandpolitics,education, law, family, or economics. Such transfers occur reg-ularly in European religious history, especially inmodern times.Vertical transfer therefore denotes the wandering of knowledgeandpracticesbetweenthesub-systemsofadifferentiatedsociety,i.e. a society that hasgeneratedsystemcodesor field logicsuni-quetocertainsocietalareas.An amazing number of experts in physics, medicine, and psy-

chologywho address the topic of spiritual healing and stand upfor it at specialist conferences, leave the methodology of theirdisciplinebehind.Theyconstructworldviewsanddepartfromthesphereof theempirical.Evenwhentheyreflectonthisbycallingtheir proposition a hypothesis, or just a consistent formulation,4they open up an auspicious future. This can be stylizedby refe-rence to the history of science, in which certain breakthroughswere onlymadepossible by pioneerswho initiallywere the tar-get of ridicule.5 Contemporary scientific thinking is seen, for in-stance by the psychologist Harald Walach, as “frequently verydogmaticandapriori.”Hesaysweforget that the scientific wor-ldviewdescribes only a small part of reality,and does not do so“finally and conclusively.” This is an agnosticism thatneverthel-essplausibilizesthepossibilityof spiritualhealingattherhetori-cal level. At this point of the argumentation we can frequentlyobservealeap towards the scientific position and the ethical re-quirement to “takeseriously”thosephenomenathatdonotfitthepicture.6There are also other features of New Age science that cannot

be overlooked. One example out of many is Jakob Bösch, whohas completed ahabilitation thesis in medicine. He popularizesquantum physics as religiousknowledgeandasaworldview:spi-ritualhealingisnecessarybecausethereisnodifferencebetweenmatterandenergy.Thisisunderlinedbythe

3) Burkhard Gladigow,“EuropäischeReligionsgeschichte,”inH.G.KippenbergandB.Luchesi(eds.),LokaleReligionsgeschichte(Marburg:Diagonal-Verlag,1995),15–38.4) HaraldWalach,“Heilendurch‘Energien’:TheoretischeÜberlegungen,”inW.H.RitterandBernhardWolf (eds.),Heilung,Energie,Geist:HeilungzwischenWissenschaft,ReligionundGeschäft(Göttingen:Vandenhoeck&Ruprecht,2005),80–105.5) Ibid.,84.6) Ibid.,84;andonthecharacterizationofone’sowncounterproposal:97.


fact thathehimself hasseenPhilippinehealersdipping theirba-re hands into coconut oil at a temperature of two to threehundred degrees centigrade, without suffering any injury.7 Thisgoesbeyondtheboundariesthatwewill explore by using Gladi-gow’s concept of vertical transfer betweenreligious and scienti-ficmeaning systems. Our aim is to show in detail theforms thistransfer takes, the strategies that are atwork, and theplausibili-tiesthatmakeitpossible.Todothis,explicitpropositionalforma-tionsandimplicitstrategieswillbereconstructed fromtexts,andthe role of metaphors will be considered. Many authors followBlumenberg in describing thepolyvalenceofmetaphorsas theirelasticity,whichenablesthemtoplayadecisive role in the transi-tionbetweenmental frameworks.8Over time,metaphors and to-poi bring about a certain enrichment of the associatedbodiesofknowledge, notwithstanding the cognitive simplicity that is gua-ranteed by their conciseness. If there is a fundamental changebetweenplausibilities, as therewas on the edges of medicine inthe firstdecadeofthetwenty-firstcentury,thenafewmetaphorsbeartheburdenofproof forthenew,transformedmental frame-work.The sources consulted for our study are over twenty articles

frominternationally acclaimed journals, edited collections, usu-ally of papers presented at academic conferences, and a fewpopular science newspapers from the period 2000 to 2010.They were taken from the followingjournals:AlternativeThera-pies,Annals of Internal Medicine, ForschendeKomplementärmedi-zinundKlassischeNaturheilkunde,KomplementäreundIntegrativeMedizin, Schweizerisches Medizin-Forum, Supportive Care inCancer, Scientific World Journal, Journal of Alternative and Com-plementaryMedicine,Explore:The Journal of Science andHealing,ComplementaryTherapies inMedicine, andZeitschrift fürParapsy-chologieundGrenzgebietederPsychologie.These journalswerechosenbecausetheyaremainly

7) JakobBösch, “Einsichten indieHeilkraftdesGeistes,” inA.ReiterandA.Bucher(eds.),Psychologie – Spiritualität: Interdisziplinär, first edn. (Eschborn bei Frankfurt, M: Klotz,2008),247–259.8) Howmetaphorsinthepublicandpopularizeddiscourseofnewspaperscanhideapara-digm shift that took place long ago in academic genetics has been shown by AlexandraGrieser inananalysisof thediscoursesurrounding thedecodingof thegenome.SeeAle-xandraGrieser, “PerspektivitätalsArbeitsform:EinBeitragderReligionswissenschaftzurBearbeitungkomplexerGegenstände, zurPlausibilitätvonReligionundWissenschaftundden Rhetoriken der Genetik,” in: T. Meier and P. Tillessen (eds.), Über die Grenzen undzwischen den Disziplinen. Fächerübergreifende Zusammenarbeit im Forschungsfeld his-to-rischerMensch–Umwelt–Beziehungen(Budapest:Archaeolingua,2011),159–178.


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occupied with the boundary work between biomedicine and al-ternativemedicine. In view of the overallmedical output, this iscertainly a verymarginal discourse. And yet it is significant, be-cause it overlaps with apopular demand for alternativemedicalpractices: “anything that heals.”Ithelpstomeetthisdemandanditisthereforeveryeffectivedespitethelownumberof voicesen-gagedinthiskindofdiscourseonspiritualhealing.The examined discursive formations present a vertical trans-

fer from mainly physics and medicine to religion. But the newclothes (e.g. quantum healing) disguise the religious function ofholistic andexistentialist explanations behind a scientific langu-age.Thus,wewill call the result of therespective vertical trans-fer a ‘secularism.’ The subarea outside science inour context isspiritual healing, energy healing, or so called alternativemedi-cine.Thisarticleexaminesthisparticularproductionofknowledgeon the basis of its argumentative patterns and hegemonic con-cepts.Theaforementionednotionof secularismmay irritatesince, in

thepast,ithasbeenapproachedasasubstantialunderstandingofa historical process of secularization or desecularzation. In thesociologicalparadigmof(de)secularization, reconstructions wereput forward from two sides:as spiritualizedmedicine or as sci-entificated religion.Wepropose tomove beyond this alternativeand address secularism at a purely methodological level: bydescribing newly appearing discourses in the senseof Foucaultas sets of propositions and practices reigned by specific rules.9Thepropositionsaboutenergyhealing,forinstance,areasecula-rism because of their discursive context (that is science) anddue totheir internaldiscursive strategieswewill analyze in theremainder of the article.We therefore step into a blank left be-hindbytheoriesof thepostsecularasprominentlypropagatedbyJürgenHabermasandothers.10They claim a come-back of religi-on but lack concepts to describe thesenew formations, if not ina substantialist way as re-enchantments, holiness, growthof re-ligiousaffiliation,orirrationaloutburstof religiousviolence,etc.

9) MichelFoucault,ArchäologiedesWissens,firstedn.,twelfthreprint(FrankfurtamMain:Suhrkamp,2005).10) On Habermas, Michel Foucault, and Talal Asad see: Michiel Leezenberg,“HowEthnocentricistheConceptofthePostsecular?”,inJustinBeaumont,Chris-toph Jedan, andArie Molendijk (eds.), Exploring the Postsecular: The Religious,thePolitical,andtheUrban(Leiden&Boston:Brill,2010),91–112.


10.1. VerticalTransfer of Concepts fromScience toReligiousStudies

Vertical transfer iscertainlynotapurelyEuropeanphenomenon,andyet,bymovingfromthenaturalsciencestothestudyofreligi-ons, it has created a situation typical of the path-dependency ofpresent-dayreligiousandculturalstudies.Dynamism,forinstance,asused inphysicotheologyandromantic nature philosophy, wasoneof theearliest theories tobedevelopedwithin thedisciplineof religious studies. A founding figure of religious studies, MaxMüller, described the Melanesian concept ofmana,meaningthatwhich is infinite, in a significant comparison as a “magicalfluid,comparable to electricity.” This was a vertical transfer from thefieldofphysics,or,tobemoreprecise,fromasecularistoffshootofthat time: mesmerism. It was continued by Robert R. Marrettand Nathan Söderblom, who, in referring to mana, spoke ofenergy, an impersonal force, and theidea of transferring power.The mana theory has an important function: a divine powerpresent inall thingscanbe tied to thepantheisticscheme.Dyna-mism then crops up in classical studies in the early twentiethcentury, from classical philology to Egyptology: mana is nowidentified in all cultures.Thismetaphysical objectification of dy-namism permits a comparativestudy,accordingtowhichreligionisthesameinallcultures.Atthesametime it blocks sociologicaldefinitions of religion, and supplies religious phenomenologywithajustificationforhistoricalde-contextualization.ThisiswhytheintroductionoftheconceptofcharismabythesociologistMaxWeberissoimportant.Forhedistanceshimselffromthemetaphy-sical meaning, and subsumes other indigenous names for po-wers under charisma, besidesmana, and interprets them fromthepointof viewof actiontheory: charisma is a certainexpecta-tion in respect of things and persons (2005/1922).11 Charismathus refers to different emic constructions and conceptualizespowerasawillingnesstoattributeacertainmeaning.Inthisitgo-es against the dynamistic interpretations, which were the mostimportant scientific models in the study of religions betweenthe two worldwars.12

11) Max Weber, Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft. Die Wirtschaft und die gesellschaftlichenOrdnungen und Mächte. Nachlaß, Teilband 2: Religiöse Gemeinschaften (Tübingen: Mohr–Siebeck,2005/1922).12) Burkhard Gladigow, “Naturwissenschaftliche Modellvorstellungen in der Religion-swissenschaftzwischendenWeltkriegen,”inH.G.KippenbergandB.Luchesi(eds.),Religionswissenschaft undKultur-kritik:Beiträge zurKonferenzTheHistoryof Religionsand


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Thus,notonlyreligions,butalsophilologies,socialsciences,andnatural sciences generate interpretations of the world that gobeyond empiricalknowledge and provide orientation and normsfor action.13 The medicalsecularismconsideredhereisaverticaltransferbetweenscientificandreligiousdiscourses.Gladigowliststhefollowingsystematicoptionsforsuchatransfer:14

1. Restrictiontothecognitivesphere:sciencesupersedesreligiousorientations.

2. Complementarity:thereligiouspositiongainsadeeperinsightintocreationthankstoscience.

3. Replacement:scienceasanewreligion(forinstanceintheworkofvonWeizsäcker),popularizationofsciencetocreateworldviews.

4. Assessment and critiqueof the religious tendencies in sci-ence.Here,GladigowlocalizeshisownprojectofaEuropeanhistoryofreligion.

InKockuvonStuckrad’smodelofdiscourses,transitionsbetweenknowledge systems occupy a central position. This makes itpossible to detect tendencies that determine the vertical trans-fer, such as the dissatisfactionwithmodernity around 1900, asexpressedinHaeckel’smonisttheory ofnature.15Inmany con-ceptsoftheoreticalbiology, especially

Critiqueof CultureintheDaysof GerardusvanderLeeuw(1890–1950);[Groningen1–3May 1989] (Marburg: Diagonal-Verlag 1991), 177–192. Kippenberg has emphasized thecon-currenceofopposingmodelsinresearchonreligionsatthebeginningofthetwentiethcen-tury:HansG.Kippenberg,“RivalitätinderReligionswissenschaft:Religionsphänomeno-logenund Religionssoziologen als kulturkritische Konkurrenten,” Zeitschrift für Religion-swissenschaft2(1994),69–89.13) Foranotheranalysisofasecularistdiscourseinscientificliteratureonthehumanbody,seeAnneKoch, “Reasons for theBoomof BodyDiscourses inHumanities and Social Sci-ences:AChapterinEuropeanHistoryofReligion,” inA.Berlejung,J.Quack,andJ.Dietrich(eds.),MenschenbilderundKörperkonzepte(ORA,OrientalReligionsinAntiquity(Tübingen:Mohr,2012),3-42.14) Burkhard Gladigow, “‘Wir gläubigen Physiker’: Zur Religionsgeschichte physikalischer

Entwicklungim20.Jahrhundert,”inH.Zinser(ed.),DerUntergangvonReligionen(Ber-lin:Reimer,1986),158–168.

15) KockuvonStuckrad,“NaturwissenschaftundReligion:Interferenzenunddiskursi-veTransfers,” in H. G. Kippenberg, J. Rüpke, and K. von Stuckrad (eds.), Euro-päischeReligionsgeschichte: Ein mehrfacher Pluralismus, UTB Theologie, Religion,Geschichte(Göttingen:Vandenhoeck&Ruprecht,2009),441–467.


inresearchonbehaviorandneurobiology,thereareborrowingsfromthereligioussphere,e.g.intheformationoftheoriesonaltru-ism,hierarchy,ritual,oraggression.16At thesametime, thereareborrowings in theopposite direction: theories of religion movereligion back to scientificprehistory, notonlyinculturalterms,but also phylogenetically within the framework of Darwinism.Von Stuckrad distinguishes three historical patterns, whichdescribesuchrelationshipsbetweenreligionandscience:17

1. Theycompeteforsovereigntyofinterpretation.2. One of them postulates an inherent harmony amongthemselves.

3. The loss of importance of religious symbolic systems is com-pensatedthroughartornewworldviews.18

In this articlewewill refer repeatedly to generaldiscourses thatenable the vertical transfer of individual concepts and ideas,such as physicalism or holism. The possible forms of verticaltransfers listed by Gladigow and von Stuckrad are not mutuallyexclusiveandareoftenrelatedtoeachotherinoneandthesamediscursive field.Whatsomeconsidera caseof harmonybetweenreligion and science, others might take for an illegitimate sub-sumption of one under the interpretative hegemony of theother. Since transfers can bind together societal subareas thatmight be perceived asratherremotefromeachother,theyareinneedofjustificationandstrategiesofplausibility.Theseprocessesoften take place in the form of boundary work, which regulatesthe distinctiveness and connectivity of two or more societalsubareas. Belowwewill show how the concept of holismservesan instrumental role in the boundary work played out in medi-caldiscoursesonspiritualhealing.

16) Burkhard Gladigow, “Religion im Rahmen der theoretischen Biologie,” in B. Gladigowand H. G. Kippenberg (eds.),Neue Ansätze in der Religionswissenschaft, ForumReligi-onswissenschaft(Munich:Kösel,1983),97–112.

17) vonStuckrad,“Naturwissenschaft.”18) Bycontrast,Gladigowidentifiesinsolubleconflict,theexclusionofscientificknowledge

as in creationism, and, as in von Stuckrad’s second pattern, the diffuse relationshipbetweenreligionandscienceastherelevanthistoricalpatterns.SeeBurkhardGladigow,“EuropäischeReligionsgeschichtederNeuzeit,”inH.G.Kippenberg,J.Rüpke,andK.vonStuckrad (eds.),Europäische Religionsgeschichte: Ein mehrfacher Pluralismus, UTBTheologie, Religion,Geschichte(Göttingen:Vandenhoeck&Ruprecht,2009),15–38.


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1.2.ASpecificSecularism19 A ‘secularism’ is a discursive formation that is located at the in-terface of several discourses. As is the concept of discourse,secularismisananalyticalcategory.Itisshapedbydiscursiveno-des throughwhichpropositionaland linguistic patterns conden-se. According to Michel Foucault, such an objectificationonthelevel of symbolic, semantic, and performative appearances is al-ways connectedwith specific forms of subjectification.20Wewillskip the topic of the subject in this article and focus instead onthe belief in therapeutic feasibility of spiritual healing. Therespectivesecularisminmedicalliterature,ofcourse,islocatedina framework of conditions thatenable,materialize,andlimititcontingentlyasadiscursiveformation.Thisframeworkiscalledadispositive or apparatus in discourse theory. Let us start by lo-catingourspecificsecularismofspiritualhealinginitsapparatus.Thekindsof changesthatare foundinmedical literaturearea

reflection of social changes.21 For the sociologist Trutz vonTrotha, these changes in the health sector take place in thesecularization-spiritualization paradigm.22Here,themainissueisa holistic idea of health23 which has been forming since the1960s andwhich has its predecessor in “parts ofthe

19) Secularismandabroaderunderstandingof theculturalstudyof religionareimportant topics for a new scholarly journal, Secularism and Nonreligion (asfrom 2012, eds. Ryan T. CragunandBarryA.Kosmin);TrinityCollege inHart-ford,US,whichhousestheInstitute for theStudyof Secularism,Society,andCul-ture;theblogImmanentFrame:Secularism,Religion,andthePublicSphere (URL:http://blogs.ssrc.org/tif/about/);andaMaster’sinSecularStudiesat PitzerCol-lege,SouthernCalifornia,US.InGermany,thesociologistMonikaWohlrab-Sahrwill lead a research groupmaking an international comparison of religionandsecularity(URLhttp://www.multiple-secularities.de/).20) Michel Foucault,DerWille zumWissen, Sexualität undWahrheit, vol. 1, firsted.,seven-teenthreprint(FrankfurtamMain:Suhrkamp,2008).21) TalalAsad,Formationsof theSecular:Christianity,Islam,Modernity(Stanford:StanfordUniversityPress,2003).22) TrutzvonTrotha,“DieWeltist‘leidenschaftlichreligiöswiezuallenZeiten’:So-ziologischeAnmerkungen über Fundamentalismus, Mission und Eurosäkularis-mus am Beginn des 21. Jahrhunderts,” in G. Nollmann (ed.),Woran glauben?:ReligionzwischenKulturkampf undSinnsuche(Essen:Klartext,2007),111–129.23) AnneHarrington,Reenchanted Science:Holism inGermanCulture: FromWil-helmII toHitler(Princeton,NJ:PrincetonUniversityPress,1996).


Homeopathic24movement.”25Withreferencetothetalkof‘spiritualenergy’ and ‘spiritual healing’ which is also found in our textcorpus,vonTrothaconsiderstwosocialdynamics:

It is still not clear whether this is a secularization and market-adjustedcommercializationofesotericism, oraspiritualizationofmedicalknowledge and the health system […] In view of the greatvariety of links between spirituality and health, both are probablytrue,all themoresosincethismixtureischaracteristicof thegainsand limitsofsecularizationinmodernsocieties.26

Thisreciprocaldynamiccanwellbedescribedwiththeaidofourconcept of secularism. For the dynamics surrounding spiritualhealing involve changes in and exchange of knowledge, and so-metimes even a one-sided migration of figurations from onesphere to the other. De-secularizationandsecularizationproces-ses can be described in the terms of symbol theory: as the re-placement of religious signs in the central body of symbols of asociety (public, political, moral, or educational) by ideologicalsigns(national, party political, scientific, humanist, or ‘secular’).In European religious history, technical and scientific innovati-ons, such as magnetism and electricity in the case of mes-merism or Hahnemann’s homeopathy,havebeenusedrepeatedlytoexplaintheexistentialconceptsofhealthandillness.Thus,pro-bably in all periods of European religious history, propositionalformations that diverge from the epistemological conventionsandpremises of medicine are a simultaneousmarginal differen-tiationof thescientificfield.27

24) Historicallymoreimportantareanthroposophicalmedicineandalternativemedicines,HelmutZander,AnthroposophieinDeutschland:TheosophischeWeltanschauungundgesells-chaftlichePraxis1884–1945,2vols.(Göttingen:Vandenhoeck&Ruprecht,2007).25) VonTrotha,“DieWelt,”121.26) Ibi.27) InthebeginningsciencesupportedtheologyandtheChristianworldview,andeveninthe nineteenth century romantic nature philosophy provided solutions for evolutionarybiologyandorganicchemistry,andlargelypreventedcompetitionbetweenthesystems;seeBurkhardGladigow,“‘Religion’alsGegenstandunterschiedlicherWissenschaften:Biologie,Verhaltenswissenschaften,Kulturwissenschaften,”inK.Grötzinger,B.GladigowandH.Zinser(eds.),ReligioninderschulischenBildungundErziehung:LER–Ethik–WerteundNormenineinerpluralenGesellschaft(Berlin: VerlagArnoSpitz,1999),3–49;Burk-hardGladigow, “Pantheismus und Naturmystik,” in R. Bubner, B. Gladigow, andW. Haug(eds.),DieTrennungvonNaturundGeist(Munich:Fink,1990),119–144.


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Unliketheconceptofcivilreligion,asecularismdoesnotimplyfundamental values that shape a whole society by communi-cating a particularviewof humankindandtheworld,andwhichare frequently formervalues fromthe(formerorcurrent)predo-minantreligiousandculturalinterpretativesystemof thisparticu-larpoliticalunit.Rather,secularismwillbediscussedwithregardto one aspect, namely, the vertical transfer of discursive placesthat are productive of religion. Secularisms exist as manifoldsmallsubfieldsandbodiesof knowledge.Path-dependentdevelo-pmentsforthistransferaresuggestedintheaboveaccountof thehistoryoftheseparationofscientificandreligiousknowledge,andtheirpossiblevarietyisdiscussedinthetwosystemsproposedbyGladigowandvonStuckrad. Inhishistoryof the New Age, Wou-ter J.Hanegraaff very clearly relates esotericism tosecularismastheenvironmentinwhichtheNewAgeconstellationdeveloped.28Besidestheimportanceofthesecularenvironment,thereisakindof complementary understanding of secularism as being formedalsobyinterplaywiththereligiousenvironment.QuitefrequentlyNew Age practices seek to delineate themselves from somemainstreamand imitate thediscursive conventions of science orthewellnessindustryinordernottobeidentifiedwithreligion.Ourstudy isnotconcernedwithasinglesecularismconceived

ofastheoppositeof religion.Rather,weareinterestedinaparti-cular constellationof secularism found in the area of healing. Ittranspires among notions of illness,modelsof the functioningofthebody,andideasabouttheconnectionsofthebodywithvariousanimateandinanimate,energeticandmaterial,technical,andsoci-alenvironments.Thequestionis:howcanideasandpracticesrela-ting to being healthy and attaining health be reconstructedfromhalf-scientific bits of knowledge transferred from science? Atwhatpointduringthegenesisof suchideasandpracticesdonor-mative,evaluative, and affirmative elements re-enter the analyti-cal and empirical concept ofscientific knowledge as somethingcontrolled by rational rules?These are the questions of discur-sive nodes, the strategies behind them, and their intertwiningdiscoursestrands.

28) WouterJ.Hanegraaff,NewAgeReligionandWesternCulture:EsotericismintheMirrorofSecularThought, SUNYseries (Albany,NY:StateUniversityof NewYorkPress,1998).Ha-negraaffdescribeshowasecularizationprocesswithintheesoterictraditionfoundexpres-sion in the occultismof the nineteenth century,with the result that thinking in cor- res-pondenceswasalready complementedby causal ideas. Science is an important referencepointforNewAge,asitrepresentsthesecularother.

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In the relationship between secularism, spiritual healing andmedicine, historical phases can be distinguished, depending onwhichsystemofpersuasionexercised thegreater influence.Theyhave alternated in this position. This development cannot bedescribedasahistoryofrationalistprogress,norasagrandnar-rative,whichencompassesallsocialmilieus.Insocialstresssitua-tions—such as the recent big rise in health care costs, an agingsociety, expensive high-tech medicine, or the increase in men-tal illnesses—path-dependency may be interrupted, bringingnon-dominantformsof secularistinterpretationtothefore.Thus,secularism as a factor in the constellation of spiritual healingtakes on different concrete forms: at the levelof legislation (forinstanceconcerningnon-medicalpractitioners),intherationalor-ganizationofthecostsofillness,inthesystemfortrainingexperts(suchasdoctorsandpsychologists),withregardtoknowledge(from academic research to popular textbooks and mass-mediadocumentations),etc.

2. DiscursiveNodesintheVerticalTransferBetweenMe-dicineandSpiritualHealing

Vertical transfers often condense in prominent shapes. We willcall theseprominent propositional formations discursive nodes.The following discursive nodes relating to emergence, quantumphysics, physicalism, thedistinction between conventionalmedi-cine and alternative medicine, as well as psychosomatics andself-healing powers only constitute a small selection from themulti-layeredverticaltransferinthecontextofspiritualhealing.

2.1. Emergence

The concept of emergence can be found in various disciplines,chieflybiology,mathematics, theoretical physics, and cyberneticsor systems theory, and is thus embedded in a broad semanticfield: chaos theory, non-linear systems or non-linear thermody-namics, open systems, dissipative structures, self-organization,homeostasis/homeodynamics, etc. In general, it refers to theproperties of hierarchical structures where higher levels ofor-dercannotbereducedtotheadditionordifferenceof thecompo-nentsof inferior levels.Emergencedescribes theoriginationof awholethatismorethanthesumof itspartsandthereforecannotbeinferredfromthem.


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Intheliteratureanalyzedforthisarticle,processesofemergenceservetodescribe the human body and theway it functions.29 Inthis context, it is necessary to distinguish several positions ac-cording to their different aims and epistemological approaches.HaraldWallach, for instance, postulatesthatthehumanorganismshould be conceptualized as a non-linear system, in which “[…]small or very small causally relevant local interrelations canhave effects on the organismic level.”30 The postulate of anemergent organismic level is used to back up forms of therapywhose pharmacological effectiveness is unproven or contested(as for instance homeopathy). Emergencesupports thecriticismof reductionismswhichareattributedtoconventionalbiomedici-ne, since thebody in thesenseof amachinemadeup of severalphysiological parts is rejected and replaced by supposedlyholis-ticconceptssuchas“life”:“thelivingstateisamultilevelinformedand informing complex dynamic regulatory system.”31 The bodyisreducedto“continuous flows of matter, energy, information.”32The need to explain theoretically how exactly such flows mightinteractisbrushedasidesincetheyaremerelythepartsofsome-thing bigger which—as an emergence— cannot be reduced tothem.Sharon I.McDonough-Means et al.33 go even further, since the

claimthat the body at the physico-chemical level is integratedin a hierarchically structured cosmological system with diffe-rent degrees ofsubtlety. Theyconnecttheconceptofanultimateconsciousness, which is well known inmodernWestern esoteri-cismandtranspersonalpsychology,34tothebody

29) Walach,“Heilen”;BeverlyRubik,“TheBiofieldHypothesis:ItsBiophysicalBasisandRoleinMedicine,” (2002)8 Journalof AlternativeandComplementaryMedicine,703–717;Hen-drikTreugut,“EnergyMedicine:EineStandortbestimmung,”KomplementäreundIntegrati-ve Medizin 7 (2007), 10–18; Hendrik Treugut, “Energy Medicine und Systemtheorie,”KomplementäreundIntegrativeMedizin8(2007),42–46.30) Walach,“Heilen,”94.31) Rubik,“BiofieldHypothesis,”713.32) Ibid.,705.33) Sharon I. McDonough-Means, Mary Jo Kreitzer, and Iris R. Bell, “Fostering aHealingPresence and Investigating its Mediators,” Journal of Alternative and ComplementaryMedicine10(2004),25–41;seealsoTreugut,“EnergyStandortbestimmung.”34) This isnotasingle,concreteconcept,butratheracomplexof ideasbasedonnotionslikethehigherself,theonemind,orthesuperconsciousmind(Hanegraaff,NewAgeReligion,203–224). This tradition also includes e.g. Bengston and Moga, when they speak ofthe“paramount role of consciousness” and consciousness as a “causal agent unto itself”; seeWilliamF.BengstonandMargaretMoga,“Resonance,PlaceboEffects,andTypeIIErrors:

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and an individual spiritual core.Theyposit a continuumof vari-ous intermediate stages, such as the non-local sphere, the socialand interpersonal sphere, or theelectromagnetic sphere.The in-terplayoftheselevelsismodeledinthesamewayasthebehaviorof complex, non-linear systems, and serves among others thingsasa theoreticalbasis for thepossibilityof distance healing or toexplaintheconceptof areifiedmetaphysicalhealingpresence.Thesimilarityof thismodel toapproaches thatexplicitlywork

with aconcept of emergence lies in the significance of certainfeaturesthatare attributed to non-linear systems: irreducibility,unpredictability, and dependence on context. They have in com-monthattheydistinguishthemselves from conventional, mecha-nistic approaches, and claim to be thebasisof anemergingpa-radigmatic turn in medical research.35 Thus, emergence can beconsidered a permeating figure of thought, since it appearsnotonly on the level of the research object, i.e. in ideas concerningthenatureandfunctioningof thebody,illness,orhealing.It isal-so foundonthelevelof scientifictheoryandinthedebateontherelations of conventional and alternative medicine (see below).TheradiologistHendrikTreugut,36 for instance,seeshismodelofintegral energymedicine as anemergence of various theoreticalinnovations, especially in thenewphysics,which integrates clas-sical mainstream medicine and biomedicine as a subordinateelement,butsupersedesthemallinthesenseof“aneworderonahigher level.”37 Inasimilarvein,BeverlyRubik38envisages thataholisticexplanationwillemergefromthecomplementarityofdif-ferent theories and canonly thendo justice to the complexity oftheobject.Suchconfidentexpectationsinrespectof aneminentparadigm

shift are certainly not undisputed within the medical discoursefield. Moreover, the explanative claim of theories based onemergence is an important type of contemporary secularism,which is related to the discursive strategy of scientism knownfromvarioustraditionsofWesternesotericism.39Wehave

SomeImplicationsfromHealingResearchforexperimentalMethods”, Journalof AlternativeandComplementaryMedicine13(2007),317–327at322.35) Walach,“Heilen.”36) Treugut,“EnergyStandortbestimung”;Treugut,“EnergySystemtheorie.”37) Treugut,“EnergyStandortbestimmung,”18.38) Rubik,“BiofieldHypothesis.”39) OnscientismanditsroleinWesternesotericism,seeOlavHammer,ClaimingKnowledge:StrategiesofEpistemologyfromTheosophytotheNewAge(Leiden:Brill,2004).


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heremodelsof thebodyandexplanationsof health,healing,andillnesswithoccasionalcosmologicaldimensions,whichusescien-tific vocabulary like non-linearity or emergence for a sweepingand very general argumentation. The methodologically standar-dizedandoperationalizedproceduresofmainstreammedicineareexpresslyrejectedas inadequateorreductionist.Anyonewantingto knowmore about the relationships andmechanisms betweenthe different system levels is tersely referred to “feedback pro-cesses and other numerous pathways of information flow”40 or“strangeattractors and innumerable flows of information.”41 Theneed fordetailedand verifiable explanation is bypassed throughthe demand for a holistic approach to illness and backed up bynotionssuchasemergence.Bösch42forexample,amedicaldoctor,first draws on empirical research to support his claim that thesymptoms of illness emerge from the convergence ofphysiologi-cal andsocial (patient-healer relationship) factors.Hegoeson toplace this idea of holism in the esoteric narrative of illnesses as“spiritualaids on a path of mental and spiritual development.”43Instead of a theoretical substantiation of the spiritual implica-tions of holistic healing, heonlypointsouttheinadequacyofanycriticismrelyingontheclassicresearchdesignofthedouble-blind,randomizedexperimentand its scientific criteria. This is an exa-mpleof theambivalenceof thediscursivestrategyofscientism.Itreliesonstudiesbasedonclinical,empiricalexperiments inordertolegitimizetheoreticalinnovations,whichintheirturndeclareasobsoletethemethodologicalbasisof thosesamestudies.Theoriesofhealingbasedontheconceptofemergencequalifyasscientisminsofar as their argumentation relies on conclusions whosepremises they later on reject. Plausibility is created neitherthrough consistent theorizing, nor throughempiricalverifiability,butthroughtheuseof scientificvocabularysuchasnon-linearity,resonance,non-locality,oremergence.

2.2. QuantumPhysics

Theoreticalphysicsisthemostfrequentreferencepointof scien-tisticapproachestocomplementaryandalternativemedicine.Ac-cordingto

40) Rubik,“BiofieldHypothesis,”705.41) Ibid.,707.42) JakobBösch,“WissenschaftlicheGrundlagendesgeistig-energetischenHeilens:Teil1,”SchweizerischesMedizin-Forum21(2002),511–516.43) Ibid.,512.

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the scholar of religion Olav Hammer, an important feature ofreferences to quantum physics is that they are based on a ho-mogenized picture and aspecific philosophical interpretation ofits otherwise mathematically or stochastically formulated theo-ries.44Thisismoststrikinginthetransferofkeycategories—suchasnon-locality, complementarity, or entanglement— from a sub-atomic“quantumworld”tothemacrolevelofphenomenalreality.Analogoustothetoposofemergence,thereisnounifiedapplicati-onofquantumphysicsinthemedicalliteraturebutahostofdiffe-rentapproachesthat,whenplacedsidebyside,revealadiscursivenode.45Wallach for instance rejects the idea of non-locality on themacrolevel (e.g. thephenomenonof distancehealing) as adirect conse-quenceof subatomic non-locality, and instead places both on thelevelof general“systemproperties”of the cosmos: asdifferentmanifestationsof ayethigherformofnon-locality.46Thelawsofclassicalphysics,beingbasedoncausality, are thus only a specialcase of a higher, non-linear paradigm—with theexpected conse-quencesfortheevaluationofbiomedicalepistemologyandmetho-dology as incomplete and fragmentary. Less subtle argumentsseethedevelopmentof quantumphysicsasa threshold requiringacompletely new ontology and epistemology beyond space-timecorrelations. At the same time, however, they keep to the conceptof universalnatural laws with mathematics as the proper langu-ageof description.47Inmedical literature a certain speculative interpretationof com-plementarity,i.e.Heisenberg’suncertaintyprinciple,whichcanberegardedasmarginal in the mainstream of theoretical physics,is often an occasion for rethinking the relationship betweenconsciousness and thematerial under the concept of “decohe-rence.”48 In an idealistic manner, consciousnessbecomesacent-ralfactorandisincludedintheequationasan“agentunto44) Hammer,Claiming,273.45) Walach, “Heilen”; Rubik, “Biofield Hypothesis”; Bösch, “Grundlagen I”; Jakob Bösch,

“Wissenschaftliche Grundlagen des geistig-energetischen Heilens: Teil 2,” Schweizeri-schesMedizin-Forum22 (2002),533–538;Treugut, “EnergyStandortbestimmung”;Ben-gstonandMoga,“Resonance”;BarbaraG.KoopmanandRichardA.Blasband,“TwoCaseReports of Distant Healing: New Paradigms atWork?,”Alternative Therapies 8 (2002),120–119.

46) Walach,“Heilen,”99–100.Therecoursetoahierarchicallyhigherorderinthesenseof awhole that ismore than the sum of its parts points again to the notion of emergenceandtestifiestoitsstatusasapervasivefigureofthought.

47) KoopmanandBlasband,“TwoCaseReports.”Seealsofootnote13ontheroleof naturalscienceforthedevelopmentofmodernesotericismandtheNewAge.

48) Hammer,Claiming.


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itself,”49 thus becoming a decisive factor for fixing the “crazyquantum world” in a stable “classical state.”50 With this ontolo-gizedvariationof theadage“themeasurementaffects theresult,”it isthenpossibletoargueinfavor ofa theory ofdistance heal-ing. As in the case of emergence, theinterpretivemodel of de-coherencemovesontoareflexivemetalevelandexplainstheal-leged methodological inadequacy of conventional medical rese-arch, which to this day has been unable to provide evidence ofthe effectiveness ofmany forms ofalternative medicine.51 The-ories ofdecoherenceareputforwardasasolutionforthedeficitsofclassicmethodologyandclaimtobeabletocopewithmysteri-ousanomaliessuchasdistanthealing. Theircruxisaformofself-immunizationsincetheyaretheoreticallydesigned insuchawaythat theycanneitherbe falsifiednorverifiedempirically, at leastnotwiththeclassicgoldstandardof theRCTexperiment.52Sucha‘newscience’—withquantumphysicsasessenceandfo-

rerunner— is often embedded in historical narratives: thestochastic formalism ofquantum theory is interpreted as a sci-entific description of ancient phenomena which are supposedlyknowntoall cultures, suchasasubtle lifeforce,vitalism,theChi-neseqì,ortheIndiankuṇḍalinī. In lightof Gladigow’s abovemen-tionedconstellationsof scienceandreligionwehavehereaverti-cal transferbasedon thepostulateof an inherent complementa-rity and convergenceof scienceandreligion.53Moreover, thisar-gumentationisfrequentlysubjecttoakindofsalvificelevation,forinstanceintheworkof thephysicistHaraldAtmanspacher,54whoembedsitinauniversalevolutionofconsciousnesstotheextentofacategoriality, a concept borrowed from Jean Gebser and Carl G.Jung.ForJung,acategorialorintegralconsciousnessisat

49) BengstonandMoga,“Resonance,”322.50) Bösch,“GrundlagenII,”535.51) BengstonandMoga,“Resonance”;Treugut,“EnergyStandortbestimmung.”52) Bösch,“GrundlagenI”;Bösch,“GrundlagenII.”53) Rubik, “Biofield Hypothesis”; Koopman and Blasband, “Two Case Reports”;

Walach,“Heilen”; Treugut,“EnergyStandortbestimmung”; WayneB.JonasandRonald A. Chez, “Recommendations Regarding Definitions and Standards inHealingResearch,”Journalof AlternativeandComplementaryMedicine10(2004), 171–181; James L. Oschman,Energiemedizin: Konzepte und ihrewissenschaftliche Begründung, first edn. (Munich: Elsevier,Urban&Fischer,2006).

54) Harald Atmanspacher, “Erkenntnistheoretische Aspekte physikalischer Vorstel-lungenvon Ganzheit,” Zeitschrift für Parapsychologie und Grenzgebiete der Psy-chologie38 (1996),20–45.

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theendoftheevolutionarydevelopmentofhumanmodesofcogni-tionandwillconcludehumanity’spathfromarchaicthroughmagi-cal,mythical,andmentalstagesofconsciousness.Thisisanexamp-lewheretheconsequencesof decoherenceareappliedtotheme-talevelofatheoryofknowledgeandthussupportaverticaltrans-ferbetweenscienceandreligioninthesenseofacomplementarity.Walach takes the theoremof entanglement fromquantum theoryin order to explain healing. The starting point here is a “funda-mental non-locality of the world,”55 which comes about becausetheworldis holistically correlated. This means that a materialstate can only bedescribed through its definite and relevant re-lationships to all states ofother elements. Even if an element ismiles away, this distance (i.e. nonlocality) is irrelevant in thegrandperspective,andthestateof thedistantelementinfluencesthe properties of the locally measured element, for they are allpartsofthewhole(“theworld,”the“system,”etc.).Quantumtheo-rybecame integrated in theNewAgemovement in theUS in the1960s and1970s.56Epistemologically,the“integratingview”57isacontinuation of Ken Wilber’s integral view, and of the neo-gnostics,58 who speak of “holons”: holistic units through whichthemicrocosmosandthemacrocosmosforma unity. In this mo-vement there is an interrelation between one’s egoconscious-nessand thecosmos. In thiswayquantumtheoryovercomes thespirit-materialdualism:thespirithasnocounterforceinthema-terial,buttheyareco-createdthroughtheexchangeof reciprocalinformation.Despitethegreatvarietyofthesetheoriesandtheheterogeneity

oftheirclaims,theydohavecertainthingsincommonthatjustifyinterpretingthereferencetoquantumphysicsasasecularistdis-cursive strategy: the philosophical use of popularized quantumphysics provides a descriptive model for spiritual healing prac-tices and their related cosmologies. Quantum physics and ma-thematics, being themselvesunquestionably scientificdisciplines,guarantee by extension the scientific effectiveness claimed byproponents of spiritual and distance healing. Rather than provi-dingmethodologicallyelaboratedandempiricallyapplicabletheo-riesthemainthrustof the recourse to quantum physics is thediscursive delimitation from

55) Walach,“Heilen,”99.56) Hanegraaff,NewAgeReligion;PaulHeelas,TheNewAgeMovement:TheCelebrationoftheSelfandtheSacralizationofModernity,Repr.(Oxford:Blackwell,1997).57) Walach,“Heilen,”104.58) RaymondRuyer,LaGnosedePrinceton:DesSavantsàlaRecherched’uneReligion,Evolutions(Paris:Fayard,1975).


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‘conventional medicine’ and its sovereignty over the criteria forwhatlegitimatelycountsasscientific.Yet vertical transfer does not take place in only one direction

andcanhappenanynumberoftimesatmoreorlessunconnectedpoints.Theuseoftheontologicalindeterminismofquantumtheo-ry in Heisenberg’s interpretation, for example, is found inrespect of spiritual healing not only among medical specialistsand psychologists, but also in Christian theology.Withthisback-groundtheory,theChristianGodisinterpreteddogmaticallybothasanon-interventionistactor,andatthesametimeasanactorintheworld.59Thereisatheologicaldilemmatobesolvedhere,withindeterminism on the quantum level being applied to themacro world of humans, events, and actions; on the one hand,theChristianGodisnottobeimaginedasanactorwhocaninter-venearbitrarilyandtemporarilysuspendclosedcausal relations-hips,whileatthesametimehishelp,support,and power is desi-red—but on an objective and not a subjective basis.Accordingtotheviewofsuchtheologians,thelatitudeofferedbytheontolo-gical indeterminacyof thesubtleworldresolvestheseconflictingclaims. Otherwise, the theological discussion of healing tends tofocus on an evaluation of the ethical aspects of biotechnologyand genetics.60 This showshowthediscursiveformationofanewsecularismontheedgeofthefieldofmedicine,asanalyzedinthisarticle,canexistalongsideatheologicaldiscourse.Presumablyasakindof “physicsenvy,”quantaareinthiscasetheemptysignifi-canttowhichthehegemonicdiscourseattachesitself.

2.3. PhysicalismandtheBiofield

In some cases it is not the reference to scientific vocabulary ordisciplines, but the recourse to materiality and the physical,which characterizes themode of secularism encountered in me-dical literature. BernhardWolf61

59) RobertJ.Russell,“QuantumPhysicsandtheTheologyofNon-InterventionistObjectiveDivine Action,” in P. Clayton and Z. Simpson (eds.),TheOxfordHandbook of Religion andScience(Oxford:OxfordUniversityPress,2006),579–595.60) RonaldCole-Turner,“BiotechnologyandtheReligion-Science-Discussion,”inP.ClaytonandZ. Simpson (eds.),TheOxfordHandbookof Religionand Science (Oxford:OxfordUni-versityPress,2006),929–944.61) BernhardWolf, “Geistiges Heilen als Lebenshilfe zwischenTherapie und Spiritualität:Religionskulturelle Orientierungen,” in W. H. Ritter and Bernhard Wolf (eds.), Heilung,Energie, Geist: Heilung zwischenWissenschaft Religion und Geschäft, Biblisch-theologischeSchwerpunkte(Göttingen:Vandenhoeck&Ruprecht,2005),126–151,here137–138.


uses the term ‘physicalism’ forpositions thatconceptualize intel-lectualandspiritualprocessesasenergyand inthesenseof phy-sical processes. Such conceptions are widespread and can befoundparticularly in connectionwiththeso-calledbiofieldhypo-thesis(bio-electromagneticfield)andbio-photon research.Theseideas of a quasi-material or subtle field as a link betweenconsciousness,body,andenvironmentaredrawnfromseveraldif-ferentsources62andconsequentlyexistinvariousforms,eachwithitsown specificnuancesandemphases.63However,mostof themhaveincommonthattheyrefertoexperimentalresearchthatusestechnologically sophisticated imaging processes to demonstratethat the body produces and emits photons or electromagneticwaves.64Thesestudies,however,andespeciallytheirinterpretationof biophoton emission as a side effect of metabolismprocesses,arerarelydiscussedindetail. Inordertocreaterhetoricalplausi-bility,theyareusuallytakendirectlyasempiricalevidenceformo-reorlessspeculative theories ofa human biofield. In such theo-ries, the biofieldserves as a communicationmedium in internalbodily processes and ininteractionswith the environment, thusproviding an explanatorymodelforspiritual,energy,anddistancehealingaswellashealingpracticesinvolvingpharmacologicallyir-relevantdoses(e.g.homeopathy).Sincethemeansof communica-tioninsideandoutsidethebodyarecrucial inthismodel,energyandlightplayanimportantroleascarriersof information.Again,plausibility is created through analogies with scientific discipli-nes and inthis case especiallymodern information technologies,such as fiber optic communication.65 In studies that follow this“communication approach,”the biofield takes on regulative andcoordinative tasks for maintainingthe life functionsof theorga-nism.At thesametime it is themediumforcommunicationwithahealerormedicaldoctorandthusthebasis fora

62) E.g.:bio-photonresearch,quantumphysics,informationtechnology,systemstheory,orcybernetics.63) Rubik:classicalbiofieldinthesenseofquantalentangledlight;Oschman:bio-magneticfields;KoopmanandBlasband:subtlebodiesconsistingofprimary/primordialmatter,etc.64) Roeland van Wijk and Eduard P. van Wijk, “An Introduction to Human BiophotonEmission,” Forschende Komplementärmedizin und Klassische Naturheilkunde 12 (2005),77–83;RoelandvanWijkandEduardP.vanWijk,“EffectofMeditationonUltraweakPhotonEmissionfromHandsandForehead,”ForschendeKomplementärmedizinundKlassischeNa-turheilkunde 12 (2005), 107–112; Roeland vanWijk and Eduard P. vanWijk, “Multi-SiteRecording and Spectral Analysis ofSpontaneous Photon Emission from Human Body,”ForschendeKomplementärmedizinundKlassischeNaturheilkunde12(2005),96–106.65) Bösch,“GrundlagenI”;Bösch,“GrundlagenII.”


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possible intervention in the case of a disturbed or diseased sys-tem.66 The biofield takes on the active role played by conscious-ness in some idealistic interpretations of quantum physics (seeabove)and functionsasanautopoieticsystem:

The biofield is similar to a conductor regulating the musiciansplayinga symphony [here the symphony corresponds to the livingorganism]. In this case, however, the conductor and the symphonyareoneandthesame.67

Assoonasthebiofield isestablishedasaconstitutiveelementofanalternative physical anthropology, and frequently also cosmo-logy, it is easy toborrowideasfromquantumphysicsandcyber-netics in order to make the effectiveness of alternative healingprocesses plausible. For example, thephotonswhichradiatefromthehandsof supposedlygiftedhealers68couldhave an effect onthewhole organism, even from a distance, because ofnon-linearcausality (chaos theory), quantum entanglement, resonance, orbecausetheorganismislocatedatahigher,emergentlevel.69Incontrasttosomeof theabove-mentionedapproaches,which

are influenced by transpersonal psychology and the idea of auniversal consciousness, we are dealing here with physicalism.The effectiveness of energy medicine and distance healing isconceptualized by postulating quasi-material substances: pho-tons,electromagneticwaves,andsubtlematerial. The path takenbyphysicalism is not recourse to abstract complexitybuttophy-sicalconcretion:thebiofieldismeasurableandalthoughit canbedetermined only technologically by means of complex imagingprocesses,itremainsperceivablethroughthesenses.

66) Rubik,“BiofieldHypothesis”;Oschman,“Energiemedizin”;Bösch,“GrundlagenI”; Bösch, “Grundlagen II,” Walach, “Heilen”; Harald Walach, “Licht: ZwischenMaterie und Energie,” Forschende Komplementärmedizin und Klassische Natur-heilkunde12(2005),74–75.67) Rubik,“BiofieldHypothesis,”710.68) Empiricalstudies(van Wijkandvan Wijk,“Introduction”;van WijkandvanWijk,“Effect”;vanWijkandvanWijk,“Multi”)showthattherearedifferentintensitiesofphotonemissiondependingontheperson,thebodypart,ortheti-meofday.Variouspossibleexplanations for this arediscussed in the literature;theinterpretationof itasbeingrelatedtoaspecialabilitytohealhasitsbasenotin theempiricaldata,but inapreconceived interpretive framework.See for in-stanceBösch,“GrundlagenI”;Bösch,“GrundlagenII.”69) Treugut, “Energy Standortbestimmung”; Treugut, “Energy Systemtheo-rie”;Rubik,“BiofieldHypothesis”;Walach,“Licht.”

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‘Conventional medicine’ with a physiological, biochemical, orpharma-cological approach cannot explain thisorhas to relyona psychosomaticplacebo effect. The firm line that is frequentlydrawn between spiritualhealing and the placebo effect is a re-vealing indicator for thediscursivestrategyofphysicalism.Although references to quantumphysics, cybernetics, andmo-

dernimagingtechnologiesarecharacteristicofthecurrentdebate,similardiscursive strategies of physicalism can be found in Eu-ropeanandNorthAmericanreligioushistory.Bothinthemedicalliterature analyzed here, and in secondaryliteratureinthestudyofreligions,70FranzMesmer’sideaofanimalmagnetism,whichla-ter became known asmesmerism, is frequentlymentioned as ahistorical forerunner. As we have already pointed out, manyau-thors, in addition to making comparisons with Asian conceptssuch asqìorkuṇḍalinī,explicitlyplacethemselveswithinthero-mantictraditionofvitalism. In the frameworkof ahistoricalnar-rative of two competing currents—vitalism vs. a mechanisticworldview—thekeymediating roleplayedbythediscursivestra-tegyof physicalism is enabledbymodern scienceand its techni-calapplications:biophotonscanbemeasuredormadevisibleandquantum physics provides a mathematically exact descriptivelanguage.71Hammer72reconstructsasimilarsecularistdiscursivestrategy in the distinction drawn by Mesmer between his ownwork and the religious healing theories ofsome ofhis contem-poraries. Physical theories(i.e.electricity,magnetism)constitutedthebackgroundforhisassumptionofatomimaterialesastheba-sisforcertainspiritualhealingpractices,instead of the customa-ry ideaof qualitatesoccultae.Moreover, technicaldevicessuchasthebaquet(Hammercallsthem“culticobjects”)gavehealingritu-alstheauraofascientificexperiment.However,evenMesmerhadto respond to objections raised by the contemporary scientificcommunity,whichplayedtheroleofaguardprotectingthelimitsof science.Thus,thetheory of animal magnetism had to face al-ternative interpretivemodels,

70) Hanegraaff, New Age Religion; Hammer, Claiming; Robert C. Fuller, Mes-merism and the American Cure of Souls (Philadelphia: University of Penn-sylvania Press, 1982);Robert C. Fuller, Americans and the Unconscious (NewYork&Oxford:OxfordUniversityPress,1986).71) Bösch, “Grundlagen I”; Bösch, “Grundlagen II”; Walach, “Heilen”; Jonas andChez, “Recommendations”; Rubik, “Biofield Hypothesis”; Oschman, “Energie-medizin”; Treugut,“EnergyStandortbestimmung”;Treugut,“EnergySystemtheo-rie.”72) Hammer,Claiming.


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whichwerebasedforinstanceonpsychological(imagination)andbehavioral(imitation)explanations.In a historical outline, Robert C. Fuller73 describes how Mes-

mer’sconceptofanimalmagnetism,inthesenseofaquasi-physicalfluidum(physicalism), was developed in a new direction by hissuccessors, in particular Armand-Marie-Jacques de Chastenetand Charles Poyen in New England.More attention was paid torare phenomena such as telepathy, precognition, or extra-sensory perception, which tended to occur during healing ritu-als,andwhichwereattributedtoanalteredstateofconsciousness(mesmeric state, somnabulism). The debate with the scientificcommunity, and the attempt to create a theoretical basis for theconceptofamesmericstategaverisetoaspecificconstellationofphysicalismandpsychologization. Incontrast to the psychologi-cal interpretation that dominated in Europe,mesmeristsintheUSopted foramiddlecourse,whichbearsacertainsimilarity totoday’sdebateonthetheoreticalprinciplesofspiritualhealing.The clear rejectionof placebo effects as an interpretivemodel

for spiritual healing corresponds to the refusal of mesmerists atthattimetoacceptpurelypsychologicalexplanations.“They feared that without the premise of animal magnetism,

howeverinterpreted,theirtheoryquiteliterallylackedsubstance.Apurelysubjectivepsychologicalrealitywasbeyondtheirconcep-tualhorizons.”74Fuller’sthesisisthatthenatureofthisconceptualhorizon—amixture of physicalism and psychologization—was areflectionoftheculturalsituationatthattime(secularization,sci-entification, individualization) and specific philosophical traditi-ons (American transcendentalism, empirical theology, Germanidealism).Afull-fledgeddiscourseanalysisof thepresent-dayde-bate would also need to consider legislation relating to healingpracticesor the structures for financing research, inorder toex-plain the plausibility of discursive nodes of secularism such asphysicalism,quantumphysics,oremergence.

2.4. HolismandtheSeparationoftheMedicalFieldinto‘Conventi-onal’and‘Alternative’

Therefore,thediscursivenodesmentionedsofarshouldnotbein-terpretedasamerephilosophicalorscientificinnovation.Rather,theymustbe

73) Fuller,Americans.74) Ibid.,38.

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interpretedwithintheframeworkof aspecificdiscursiveconstel-lation ofsecularism.Acentralfeaturethereofseemstobethedis-tinctionof ‘conventional medicine’ (and science) from an alter-native, holistic, or spiritualcounterpart.Theexplicit aimof suchboundarywork is either todemonstratethescientificrespectabi-lityof complementaryandalternativemedicine, or its establish-ment as a new,dominant paradigm.75Thediscursiverulesof thescientificcommunityaretheconditionsof accesstothescientificfield and its financial infrastructure, and therefore they play acentral, if ambivalent, role in the genesis of discursive positi-ons: references toempirical and experimental research and the-ories originating from indisputably ‘scientific’disciplines suchastheoretical physics or mathematics, are the primary source ofplausibilityandauthority.Butatthesametime,thebasicprincip-lesof conventional science areheavily criticized.Besidestheore-tical and methodological criticism of mechanistic reductionismor the RCT experiment as the ‘gold standard’ of empirical rese-arch, therearealsorhetoricaldramatizations.Therelationshipofconventional and alternative science and medicine is thendescribed with terms like ‘struggle,’ ‘threat,’ or ‘destruction’ andis frequently embedded in historical or teleo- logical narratives.Such an “ambivalent scientism”76 leaves plenty of room for defi-ning the relationship between alternative and conventional me-dicine: complementarity, chronological succession, and replace-ment, or theconcordance of science and religion (usually in thesenseof repairingthesplitcausedbytheEnlightenment,butalsoas a completely new stage ofevolutionwithin the history of sci-ence).Withreferencetothesystematicoptionsforvertical trans-fer between natural science and religion, as analyzed by Gladi-gow and von Stuckrad, the discursive nodes of secularismdescribed here are borderline cases between a claim to comple-mentarity and competition for interpretive sovereignty. Somemodels are taken fromNewAge science at large and interpretedas compatible with the explanatory models of natural sciences.Butthemainstreamof thescientificestab-lishment would consi-der themasunscientific and at best disputed.Thiscompatibility,it is argued, marks a substantial historical progress, since it istied to models of an evolutionary or emergent superiority ofholistichealingmodelsascomparedtoconventionalbiomedicine.

75) Treugut, “Energy Standortbestimmung”; Treugut, “Energy Systemtheorie”; Bösch,“Grundlagen I”; Bösch, “Grundlagen II”; JakobBösch,SpirituellesHeilenund Schulmedizin:EineWissenschaftamNeuanfang,fourthed.(Bern:LokwortBuchverl,2004).76) Hammer,Claiming,204.


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general realization of this superiority—or compatibility—is lo-catedinthefutureandheraldedbymeansof arhetoricof avant-gardeandinnovation,asseenforinstanceinformulationslike“re-centandveryrecentresearch”77or“findingsinthebasicsciencesandnewtechnologies.”78Thisnotionof anewmedicineof thefutureonthebrinkof its

breakthrough is often connected to a concept of‘holism.’ Holis-tic medicineissometimesalsopropagatedunderthelabelof in-tegrativemedicine,and has to some extent become institutiona-lized insocietiesandconferences.Theintentionistoexplainheal-ing,spontaneoushealing,andallegedanomaliesbyusing theme-thods of “whole systems research.”79 Para-psychology and spiri-tual energy healing would then be old-fashioned names forthings that can now be positively explained. Others start withspontaneous healing and explain it in terms of a “deep cosmo-logy” thatunites brain-mind and body-mind to form a whole.80They say that thehumangenomeoffersthepossibilityofaholis-ticbiologyforholisticmedicine.Here, too, the biological informa-tion is processed on the quantumlevel.On this level there isanenergy which functions as a bridge concept between biologicalinformation and consciousness. Quantum entanglement is alsoof usehere: itcanhelp toexplainhealingeffectson thepersonalandinter-personallevel,whichcannotbegraspedintermsofclas-sicalphysics.81Here,holismisabridgeconceptthatmakesitpos-sible to plausibilize the vertical transfers characteristic ofsecularismbynot regardingthemasatransfer,butstylizingthemas a uniform explanation. The use of labels such as ‘para’-psychological or ‘spiritual’ is regarded as inappropriate becausethey reintroduce—even if only implicitly—a dualism that sepa-ratesscienceandspirituality,wherereallythere isonlyaholisticcontinuum. Such rhetorical and conceptual bridges are a centralcharacteristicof

77) Treugut,“EnergyStandortbestimmung,”13.78) Bösch,“GrundlagenII,”537.SeealsoWalach,“Licht,”74.79) GaryE.Schwartz,“WorldHypothesesandtheEvolutionof IntegrativeMe-

dicine:CombiningCategoricalDiagnosesandCause-effectInterventionswithWholeSystemsResearch and Nonvisualizable (Seemingly ‘Impossible’) Heal-ing,”Explore: The Journal ofScienceandHealing2.6(2006),509–514.

80) SörenVentegodt,T.D.Hermansen,M.L.Nieslen,B. Clausen, J.Merrick,“HumanDevelopment II:We Need an Integrated Theory for Matter, Life, andConsciousness toUnderstandLifeandHealing,”ScientificWorldJournal6.6(2006),760–766.

81) MichaelE.Hyland,“DoesaFormof‘Entanglement’BetweenPeopleExplainHeal-ing?AnExaminationofHypothesesandMethodology,”ComplementaryTherapiesinMedicine12.4(2004), 198–208.

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the secularist interpretations of spiritual healing,whichwehaveanalyzedsofar.However,ontheedgeofthisdiscursivefield,posi-tions can be found that evade questions about the ontologicaland theoretical principles ofspiritual healing, together with theassociated epistemological problems.Theyopt out of a categori-cal boundary work and adopt a pragmatic point of view, whichdeparts from the demand side: irrespective of whether they arethemedicineof the futureor just spiritualized appropriationsofscience, alternative and complementary healing practices are al-ready firmly integrated in the range of products offered on thehealingmarketandareindemandbyaconsiderableproportionofpatients. And since there are scientific studies that have proventhe effectiveness of certain non-invasive, alternative practices(mostly therapeutic touch), it is argued that these effectiveformsof therapyshouldbeintegrated,atleastascomplementarytherapies,inresearch,training,andpractice,evenif theexactme-chanisms of effectiveness cannot be explained satisfactorily intermsofcommonbiomedicalstandards.82

2.5. Self-regulation, Information, and Self-healing

Powers

In addition to the aforementioned nodes, important concepts inthisnewsecularistformationareself-regulation,information,andself-healingpowers.Self-regulation83orself-steeringisakeyterminbody-psychotherapy,newhumanisticpsychology,neo-Reichiantherapy, and systemicpsychology.Theregulationofaffects,remo-val of emotional blockages, reduction of overwhelming feelings,andconfrontationwithsuppressedfeelingsareof

82) Joanne Stephen, Gina Mackenzie, Sarah Sample, and Jennifer Macdonald,“Twenty Years of Therapeutic Touch in a Canadian Cancer Agency: LessonsLearned from aCase Study ofIntegrative Oncology Practice,” Supportive Carein Cancer 15 (2007), 993– 998; Diana L. Woods, Cornelia Beck, and KarabiSinha, “The Effect of TherapeuticTouchonBehavioral SymptomsandCortisolinPersonswithDementia,”ForschendeKomplementärmedizinundKlassischeNa-turheilkunde 16 (2009), 181–189;Miriam S.Wetzel,TedJ.Kaptchuk,AviadHa-ramati,andDavidM.Eisenberg,“ComplementaryandAlternativeMedical Thera-pies: Implications for Medical Education,” Annals of Internal Medicine 138(2003),191.83) Thehighlevelofcurrentinterestinthisconceptisreflectedforinstanceintheprogramof theconferenceon“Selbstregulation.Körper.Gefühl.Denken”heldin2007bytheDeutsche Gesellschaft für Körperpsychotherapie (together with cor-respondingAustrianandSwissassociations)attheFreieUniversitätBerlin.


27

central importance for achieving self-regulation.84 Discursivestrategiesbehind them, like popularized psychosomatics on theone hand and the belief in therapeutic feasibility on the otherhand remain tobeuncoveredby amoredetailed analysis.Thesepractices and their conceptual and discursive strategies are allreflectedinthereligiousfield,forinstanceintheconceptof reba-lancing, or neurolinguistic programming (NLP), which also em-phasizes the embodiment of feelings. They are illuminating inrespect to practices that have been developed by scholars of re-ligion for studying contemporary spiritualityor secularismsincethe 1970s. The ideational realization of embodied feelings andbehaviorpatterns,acceptanceofthem,andpsychicreorganizationas a better formof self-reorganization are the three main stepscommon to this bundle of therapies. Referenceto blockages andharmful behavior patterns is also frequently found in thecontext of spiritual healing. In recent years, ways of channelingmindfulness, popularized forms ofBuddhist meditation (accep-tance and mindfulness-based approaches), have been linked tothestepofideationalrealization.85Thesignificanceof theconceptof informationgoesbacktothe

cyberneticsofthepost-warperiodandtheturnincommunicationtheory.PatrickEitlerspeaksofa“cybernetization”ofreligion,withreferencetothespecificappropriation of the natural and infor-mation sciences within the NewAge.86Wehaveshowntowhatextent the concept of information generates plausibility, sincefurtherquestionsoranexistingneedforcoherentexplanationcanbecutshort throughnotions like ‘information flows.’Conceptsli-ke emergence introduce ideas of complexity that supposedlyexceedthelimits of ‘classical’ explanations and plausibilize themrhetorically, using terminologies from cybernetics or non-linearsystemtheoryandchaostheory.

84) SanderL.Koole,MichaelE.McCullough,JuliusKuhl,andPeterH.M.P.Roelofs-ma, “Why Religion’s Burdens are Light: From Religiosity to Implicit Self-Regulation.”PersonalityandSocialPsychologyReview14.1(2010),95–107.85) Liane Hoffmann and Harald Walach, “Spirituality and Religiosity in Psy-chotherapy: A Representative Survey Among German Psychotherapists,” Psy-chotherapy Research 21.2(2011),179–192.86) PascalEitler,“Körper–Kosmos–Kybernetik:TransformationenderReligionim ‘New Age’ (Westdeutschland 1970 – 1990).” Zeithistorische Forschungen 4(2007) (online edition: URL: http://www.zeithistorische-forschungen.de/site/40208753/default.aspx, accessed16June2012).

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Another important field of discursive interaction has a psy-chosomatic framework: the area of self-healing powers, stabi-lization of the immune system, or the body’s powers of re-sistance.Thisdiscoursehastheimportantfunctionofintroducingcausality to explanations of effectiveness, and creating a linkbetween psychic and physical laws. In the literature there is afurtherdivisionof the field intoenergymedicine in thebroadestsense and medical placebo research. Placebo research relies onstudiesrelatingtotheoriesof learning,immunology,andendocri-nology,and increasinglyalso ritual theory.87 The strategies andpropositional formations mentionedhereareonlya fewexamp-les; there aremanyothers. For instance,MichaelUtsch,88 a psy-chologist ofreligion, has explained the attractiveness of“energymedicine” in termsof the controlwhich it allows: it relies on anidea of the bodywhich enables individuals to regulate their bo-dies andtheirhealthself-dependentlybymeansoftechnicalprac-tices.

3. Conclusion:DiscursiveStrategiesintheFieldofSpiritu-alHealing

Thearticle startedwith theobservation thatdiscursiveelementssimilar toand partly originating fromNewAge science are usedmore or less openly in reputed scholarly, medical literature onspiritual healing.We haveattempted to differentiate this finding.The models used in discourses on spiritual healing are not justthoseknownfromEuropeanreligioushistory,noronlythosedeve-lopedinthelatestNewAgescience.NewAgescienceisattractivebecause it offers its recipients an alternative conception of sci-ence.89Itmustbesaid,however,thatinNewAgescience,quantumhealing,for instance,doesnot figureasprominentlyas itdoes intheacademicliteratureanalyzedinthisarticleandthusthecentralconceptsandmodelsofquantumhealingarelessthoroughlydeve-loped.90Weattributeittherefore

87) SeeforexampleJeffLevin,“HowFaithHeals:ATheoreticalModel”Explore5.2(2009),77–96; Ted Kaptschuk, “Placebo Studies and Ritual Theory: A Comparative Analysis ofNavajo, Acupuncture, and Biomedical Healing,” Philosophical Transactions of the RoyalSocietyBBiologicalSciences366(2011),1849–1858.88) Michael Utsch, “Postmoderne Heilung durch Energiemedizin: Technische KontrolleüberdenfeinstofflichenKörper,”EZW–Materialdienst6(2003),219–223.89) Stefan Rademacher, Das Wissenschaftsbild in der Esoterik-Kultur (Universität Bern,2010) (open access: URL: http://www.zb.unibe.ch/download/eldiss/10rademacher_s.pdf,accessed12June2012).90) Rademacher,Wissenschaftsbild,79–80.


29

toan independentsecularistdiscourseonspiritualhealingbasedon highquality research among natural sciences. Thus, the dis-course on spiritualhealing inscholarly journalscanbeseenasaverticaltransferbetweendifferent societal subsystems, includingnon-esoteric,healthcare,academic,and scientific systems,whichhave produced a new and specific type ofsecularismthatspansall these subareas. Our aim is not somuch to draw adistinctionbetween esoteric “scientism”91 or “secularized esotericism”92andacademic “science.” Our aim is to reveal a secularism that is notasclearlyrecognizableasNewAgescience,thathasbeenmytho-logicallyelevated in science through a new cosmology and thathas been linked tospirituality.Shifts in discourse borders, ruptures, or the creation of in-

between discourses which separate themselves from the field,isolate themselves, andpass into a new, differentiating and in-creasingly, or at least temporarily, institutionalizing field, arecommon in thehistoryof religion.Throughthepopularizationofscience andmedicine, or through scientists andmedical special-ists themselves, an ideological reservoir is created for other so-cial spheres, fromwhichactorsmay takewhatever theyneed. Insomecasesthissimplymeans thatmoremodern names, be they‘scientific’or ‘Asian,’areappliedtoexistingculturalmodels.Forin-stance,inourcontext,‘emergence’ could be considered as a newedition of the esoteric analogy of micro cosmos andmacro cos-mos,whicharebeingbasedonasubtlecontinuum.Butsomenewsecularist formationsmayalsoreact tonewkindsof socialprob-lems, for instance by balancing new technologies and changedconditions of life such as higher levels of education, greater lifeexpectancy,andconsumptionhabits.Undersuchcircumstances itmight not be religious institutionsor an expressly religious lan-guage that create social pertinence and plausibility but ratherdiscursive elements like the ones describedabove. Emergence,quantumphysics,andphysicalismareexamplesofvertical trans-fers between the societal subareas of science,medicine,and re-ligion. In combination with other discursive nodes, whichmight draw on completely different discourses, they can bindtogether a newfiguration.93

91) Hammer,Claiming,206.92) Hanegraaff,NewAgeReligion,520.93) Olav Hammer and Kocku von Stuckrad, “Introduction:Western Esotericism

and Polemics,” in ibid. (eds.): Polemical Encounters: Esoteric Discourse and itsOthers (Leiden:Brill,2007),vi–xxii.


This does notmean that it is the function of religion or secu-larism tobindmilieus together in the sense of a sacred canopy.Rather, the startingpoint istheobservationthatthereisaninte-gratingdiscourse,whichdrawsonoverarchingmodels,conceptualbridges, and rhetoric imagery originating fromvertical transfers.Toanalyzesuchadiscursive integrationwastheobjectiveof thisarticle.Theliteraturewehaveanalyzedshowsveryclearlyhowapart of the discourse on spiritual healing is secularist, in otherwords it isnotreligiousaccordingtoitsownimageof itself,orisexplicitly close to the terminology of a local religious tradition.Andyet,aswehaveseen,secularismdistinguishesitselffromthatpartoftheliteraturethatarguesmedically,andkeepsitselfwithinthe historically formed barriers of scientific rationality. Secular-isminmedicaldiscoursesonspiritualhealingisthusanoption interms of the possibilities for vertical transfer in European reli-gioushistoryreferredtoatthebeginningofthisarticle.

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holistic medicine between religion and science: a ...holistic medicine between religion and science:...

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