Spirits with Scalpels: The Cultural Biology of Religious Healing in Brazil |
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| Title: | Spirits with Scalpels: The Cultural Biology of Religious Healing in Brazil |
| Author: | Sidney M. Greenfield |
| Publisher: | Left Coast Press |
| Type: | Book / Paperback |
| Publication Date: | 30 November, 2008 |
| ISBN / ISBN-13: | 1598743686 / 9781598743685 |
| List Price: | $24.95 |
| You Save: | $2.50 |
| Amazon Price: | $22.45 |
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This book is also available, brand-new, from 3rd-party marketplace sellers at Amazon.com, from $22.45.
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Editorial Review / Publisher's Information:
Product Description
“The first time I witnessed a Spiritist surgery, a young man named Jose Carlos Ribeiro inserted a used scalpel taken from a tray that I was holding, and plunged it into the eye of an elderly man. The patient did not move….” Decades of fieldwork later, Sidney Greenfield presents a riveting ethnography of the complex world of religious healing in Brazil that challenges readers to grapple with the most fundamental concepts of anthropology and cross-cultural experience. In a major contribution to cultural biology, he analyses the complex social, economic, and political landscape of Brazil to understand dramatic healing practices that seem to defy medical explanation. This engrossing and provocative book will put students and scholars alike on the edge of their seats.
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Customer Reviews:
• Compelling Ideas About Culture And Healing
20 December, 2008
I came to this book with no background in anthropology, but with interest in the effects of culture on health care delivery. I found the book fascinating and thought provoking.
Spirits with Scalpels is clearly the culmination of years of study, research (armchair and adventurous), personal reflection, and attentiveness to readers' needs for clarity and relevance.
The stories ("data" to academics) are fascinating and disturbing. As a person rooted in Western European culture, I don't want to believe them; they challenge everything I think I've learned about how the world works. Greenfield seems to have fought the evidence also, but ended up with no way to deny what he saw.
Greenfield's theoretical hypothesis is compelling, although difficult for a lay person to grasp fully. The aspect that struck me as completely fresh was about the role of culture. The mind/body connection is in mainstream thinking now, but Greenfield's contention that the concept of "mind" is typically limited to individual thought and experience, as opposed to culturally transmitted knowledge, struck me as a fresh insight. The idea is so obviously true that one wonders why no one has spoken of it in this context before. Greenfield makes a powerful case for including culture in the search for explanations of experience and the development of healing techniques.
The value of the healing practices described is so evident that I wish we could all learn how utilize them. But Greenfield is clear that they are rooted in the cultures that created them and difficult to export. Perhaps further research will find ways.
Greenfield offers a carefully documented, plausible theory that expands mainstream thinking about mind/body interaction. I hope the medical and academic communities contribute further testing and analysis. Meanwhile, I think other lay readers will find this book absorbing and important.
- Amazon Customer Review
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