Healing powers : alternative medicine, spiritual communities, and the state /

A fascinating analysis of the multiple realities, values, and conflicts related to the mysteries of healing. Questions of spirituality are juxtaposed with questions of science in the author's search for the nature of the healing experience. The particular strength of this book is the many viewpoints that are used to illuminate the subject of healing. Frohock has broadened the discussion of "conventional" versus "alternative" healing modalities by considering historical, philosophical, political, legal, and cultural aspects of the subject. The complex and multiple realities of healing experiences are effectively portrayed by true stories, interviews, and historical documents, as well as the use of fictional techniques and a guiding fictional voice. Histories of conventional and holistic medicines, selected religious movements, psychic/secular healing, and liberal political tradition are integrated to provide a rich context from which to examine the competing philosophies of healing. In spite of its formidable multi-theoretical focus, it is an interesting and exciting book that should be read by all who influence public health policy and participate in any way in the health care field. Graduate through professional. M. A. Bright; University of Massachusetts at Amherst

Frohock early on describes his purpose: "At the simplest level, [Healing Powers] is a study of liberal dilemmas that occur when incompatible ontologies enter public space." In preparation, he interviewed several persons in each of the fields involved, so his solid text is based upon not only the pertinent literature (the notes and references are of considerable value) but also the thought of current leaders. He takes up science vs. faith, mind vs. body, and liberal power in turn and discusses them in the light of traditional and alternative medicine, spiritual healing, and holistic medicine, and he is able to present these fields from personal as well as theoretical and general viewpoints through illustrative cases that keep theory and real life together. He has designed and written the book on several levels, so at times the reader must pay close attention to just where the text is coming from. The serious reader will gain much from the effort, though, especially regarding the place of the individual in modern society during times of medical and spiritual stress. ~--William Beatty

A sophisticated and sympathetic look at nonconventional healing methods and their place in a pluralistic democracy. Frohock (Political Science/Syracuse Univ.; Special Care, 1986) poses two tough questions: What do we make of claims that alternative realities exist and that contact with them can lead to miraculous cures? And should alternative healing be free from state regulation in a liberal democracy? Neither gets a clear answer, but there's much pleasure along the way as Frohock explores the social and spiritual issues involved. His approach is eccentric: ``narratives'' constructed from interviews with patients and healers (names are changed), interspersed with historico-political analysis and with--this must be a first in a scholarly book--the ``wholly imaginative,'' coldly lucid voice of Luke, a child battling cancer (he's been invented, we are told, ``to provide access to interior or subjective levels of experience that linear texts cannot''). The healers whose stories we hear include Pentecostal ministers, Catholic priests, Christian Scientists, homeopaths, an Orthodox Jew who straddles Western and alternative medicines; the patients include drug-addicted doctors, dying children, car-crash victims. More often than not, the cure seems nothing less than a full-fledged miracle. Frohock balances these narratives with clearheaded discussions of some age-old puzzlers: What is health (inner balance, spiritual integrity, freedom from disease)? What is mental competence? How should church and state interact? Usually, Frohock presents the options and lets the reader decide; scholarly distancing, however, cannot hide his sympathy for alternative medicine--or at least its right to be taken seriously. The inaugural volume in the Univ. of Chicago's ``Morality and Society'' series, which deals with ``moral issues from a social science perspective''--and, on every level, a sterling debut. (Two line drawings.)