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* Abstract This article analyzes the second-century Acts of John 56-57, in which Antipatros seeks healing for his twin sons whom he claims he cannot support as he ages. 1 [...]

Le texte impregne d'une ideologie feministe explore comment a travers la spiritualite et les pratiques traditionnelles des guerisseuses, les femmes de Grenade, ont resiste aux multiples oppressions et ont garde [...]

At raves, young men and women dance to electronic music from dusk to dawn. Previous scholarship treats the rave as a hypertext of pleasure and disappearance. However, such a postmodern view does not attend to the poignant and meaningful spiritual experiences reported by those who go to raves. This article examines claims about altered states of consciousness at raves and the therapeutic results - 'spiritual healing' - such states are said to bring. While physiological processes (exhaustive dancing, auditory driving) may contribute to altered states of consciousness, symbolic processes create appropriate frameworks for spiritual healing. Such therapeuticism can be more fully understood in the context of other modern western spiritual subcultures. Placing raves within the context of these other subcultures foregrounds questions for further research. Keywords: raves, shamanism, youth culture, American spirituality, symbolic analysis

The healing miracles performed by Jesus in the Gospels have little to do with proving the power of God and more to do with showing God's love for the oppressed, poor and ostracized regardless of whether they convert to Christianity. Therefore, modern Christian healing movements fail to recognize the purpose of the healings because they ignore the social, moral and political issues addressed in favor of the actual healing acts.

One theme of particular importance in contemporary U.S. religion and quasi-religion is health and healing. Groups as diverse as Pentecostal Christians and New Age groups, women's spirituality groups and New Thought churches are promoting nonmedical approaches to health and healing. Indeed, to many contemporary Americans, health and healing appear to be salient metaphors for salvation and holiness. Religious and quasi-religious attention to health is adamantly holistic in the belief that spiritual, emotional, social, and physical aspects of well-being are fundamentally interconnected. To understand the significance of this widespread focus on health and healing, we need to look beyond the religious groups themselves and appreciate some twentieth-century structural and cultural changes in the meanings of the body, the self, and the nature of well-being.

The Lubavitch are a group of Hasidic Jews living in Stamford Hill, London N16. After a description of their lifestyle and the importance of the Rebbe in the community, this paper examines their concepts of the body, health and healing based on Kabbalistic teachings. For this group healing involves both control of sickness and the correction of spiritual disorder associated with it: the Rebbe plays a key role in the latter. The paper ends by discussing the extent to which conversion of religious groups results in any form of healing. (See Glossary for translation of Jewish words.)

Not content to stack the courts with Old Testament judges, the Bush administration has moved on to appointing faith healers at the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). The president recently [...]