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Native American Shamanism and the American Mind-Cure Movement: A Comparative Study of Religious Healing

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 September 2014

Amanda Porterfield
Amanda Porterfield*
Affiliation:
Syracuse University
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Abstract

Both Native American shamans and mind-cure practitioners dispel disease by visualizing it in symbolic form and enable recovery by invoking symbols of well-being. This paper shows how comparative study of shamanism and mind-cure furthers understanding of the techniques of symbolic healing characteristic of each religious tradition. Mind-cure techniques of hypnotic suggestion illumine the Native American idea that prayers, songs, and stories are spiritual forces. Conversely, the performing arts practiced by Native American shamans contribute to further understanding of the effective healing techniques practiced by Mary Baker Eddy and her teacher, Phineas P. Quimby. The paper also comments on the implications of studying particular forms of Christian theology and practice, such as the mind-cure movement, in light of shamanism.

Type
Articles
Information
Horizons , Volume 11 , Issue 2 , Fall 1984 , pp. 276 - 289
Copyright
Copyright © The College Theology Society 1984

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References

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4 For review essays about shamanism see Grim, pp. 14-32; Nowak, Margaret and Durrant, Stephen, “Introduction,” The Tale of the Nisan Shamaness: A Manchu Folk Epic, Publications on Asia of the Institute for Comparative and Foreign Area Studies (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1977), pp. 3–30;Google Scholar and Hultkrantz, Ake, “Introduction: Ecological and Phenomenological Aspects of Shamanism” in Backman, Louise, Studies in Lapp Shamanism (Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell International, 1978), pp. 3–35.Google Scholar

In the last-mentioned essay, Hultkrantz offers the following definition of shamanism: “The central idea of shamanism is to establish means of contact with the supernatural world by the ecstatic experience of a professional and inspired intermediary, the shaman.” Hultkrantz points to the four necessary constituents in his definition: “the ideological premise, or the supernatural world and the contacts with it; the shaman as the actor on behalf of a human group; the inspiration granted him by his helping spirits; and the extraordinary, ecstatic experiences of the shaman” (p. 11).

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In this paper, the shaman is sometimes referred to by the masculine pronoun. Although there are numerous documented instances of female shamans in North American Indian cultures, it is far more common to find references to male shamans. The predominance of male shamans is partly explained by the deep connections between shamanism and hunting. The “aggressive individualism” characteristic of (predominantly) male hunters is also characteristic of shamans, who are typically the religious specialists in hunting culture. (See Grim, pp. 93-101, for discussion of aggressive individualism.)

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11 Grim, p. 109.

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14 Gill, p. 39.

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20 Studies of the mind-cure movement include Parker, Gail Thain, Mind Cure in New England: From the Civil War to World War I (Hanover, NH: University Press of New England, 1973)Google Scholar and Meyer, Donald, The Positive Thinkers (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1965).Google ScholarDakin's, Edwin FrandenMrs. Eddy: The Biography of a Virginal Mind (New York: Scribner's, 1929)Google Scholar is an influential but controversial study of the founder of Christian Science. Significant studies of Eddy, Mary Baker and Science, Christian include Peel, Robert, Mary Baker Eddy: The Years of Discovery (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1966);Google ScholarPeel, Robert, Mary Baker Eddy: The Years of Trial (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1971);Google Scholar and Gottschalk, Stephen, The Emergence of Christian Science in American Religious Life (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1973).Google Scholar For argument that Quimby offered the original and profoundest version of Christian Science, see Dresser, Horatio W., ed., The Quimby Manuscripts (Secaucus, NJ: Citadel, 1961 [1921]).Google Scholar

21 Eddy, Mary Baker, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures (rev. ed.; Boston: First Church of Christ, Scientist, 1971 [1875]), pp. 42–43, 100–06, 148–49.Google Scholar

22 Gail Parker writes that “several basic Protestant assumptions were taken over unchanged by the curists—a preexisting moral order, a somewhat desperate individual trying to know truth and abide by it, good works impossible without faith” (pp. 6-7).

23 In 1861 Quimby wrote: “The only medicine I ever give is my explanation and that is the cure” (Quimby Manuscripts, p. 139). In 1888 Quimby's son George wrote of his father that “he always insisted that he possessed no ‘powers’ nor healing properties different from any one else” (ibid., p. 63). George Quimby wrote that while touring Maine and New Brunswick, “Mr. Quimby was vilified and frequently threatened with mob violence, as the exhibitions (of healing) smacked too strongly of witchcraft” (ibid., p. 31). For a statement from Quimby of his disbelief in witchcraft, “spiritualism” and “superstition,” see ibid., p. 256.

24 Seale, Ervin, “Introduction,” Quimby Manuscripts, pp. vii–ix;Google Scholar Parker, pp. 3-4.

25 Quimby Manuscripts, p. 61.

26 Ibid.

27 Seale, pp. xii-xiv.

28 Momaday, N. Scott, “The Man Made of Words,” Literature of the American Indians, pp. 97–99.Google Scholar

29 Quimby Manuscripts, pp. 63, 138.

30 See Grim's comparative study of the shaman as a religious type, pp. 180-208.