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Dorothea Lüddeckens / Monika Schrimpf (eds.)
Medicine – Religion – Spirituality
Global Perspectives on Traditional, Complementary, and Alternative Healing
In modern societies the functional differentiation of medicine and religion is the predominant paradigm. Contemporary therapeutic practices and concepts in healing systems, such as Transpersonal Psychology, Ayurveda, as well as Buddhist and Anthroposophic medicine, however, are shaped by medical as well as religious or spiritual elements. This book investigates configurations of the entanglement between medicine, religion, and spirituality in Europe, Asia, North America, and Africa. How do political and legal conditions affect these healing systems? How do they relate to religious and scientific discourses? How do therapeutic practitioners position themselves between medicine and religion, and what is their appeal for patients?
KAPITEL-ÜBERSICHT
FrontmatterSeiten 1 - 4
ContentsSeiten 5 - 6
Preface and Acknowledgements Seiten 7 - 8
IntroductionSeiten 9 - 22
Medicalized Healing in East Africa Seiten 23 - 56
Medical Discourses and Practices in Contemporary Japanese Religions Seiten 57 - 90
Self-fashioning of the Hereditary Siddha Practitioner Seiten 91 - 132
Ayurveda and Discursive Formations between Religion, Medicine and Embodiment Seiten 133 - 166
Complementary and Alternative Medicine (CAM) as a Toolkit for Secular Health-Care Seiten 167 - 200
Crossing Fields Seiten 201 - 240
Mapping the Boundaries between Science and Religion Seiten 241 - 272
List of Authors Seiten 273 - 274
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Medical Discourses and Practices in Contemporary Japanese Religions
Monika Schrimpf
Monika Schrimpf
Medical Discourses and Practices in Contemporary Japanese Religions
DOI: 10.14361/9783839445822-004
In this paper, Monika Schrimpf raises the question how in contemporary Japan religious actors offering therapeutic practices can legitimize their actions and position themselves in Japanese society. By choosing the example of a Nichiren-Buddhist priest and a new religion called Perfect Liberty Kyodan, two strategies of legitimizing and positioning therapeutic practices in the religious field are described: the scientification of religious practice, and code-switching between the semantic fields of medicine and religion.
ABSTRACT
In contemporary Japan, many religious actors engage in therapeutic practices with the intention of curing or preventing disease, whether in new religious movements and the Japanese New Age, in folk religion or in “established religions” (kisei shūkyō). Notwithstanding the prominent role of Buddhist scriptures, temples, and priests in medical practice and knowledge in premodern Japan, the introduction of a public healthcare system in the Meiji era (1868–1912) based on German medicine resulted in a functional and institutional differentiation between medicine and religion. There-fore, the question arises how contemporary religious actors offering therapeutic prac-tices can legitimize their actions and position themselves in Japanese society.
By choosing the example of a Nichiren-Buddhist priest’s concepts of Buddhist medicine and Buddhism as medicine, as well as healing practices in a new religion called Per-fect Liberty Kyōdan, two strategies of legitimizing and positioning therapeutic prac-tices in the religious field will be described: the scientification of religious practice, and code-switching between the semantic fields of medicine and religion.1
INTRODUCTION
This article explores possible ways in which contemporary religious actors whose religious traditions used to comprise medical or therapeutical tech-niques, react to a social and political environment in which religions are—at
