Psychic Healing and Women: An Example from a Spiritualist-Metaphysical Church

Abstract

Ten million Americans are involved in some way with psychic healing practices, yet biomedicine often neglects or ignores these alternative health care systems. This study describes a contemporaly example of psychic healing among middle-class white women as observed in a southwestern Spiritualist-metaphysical chapel. This work is placed in both historical and contemporary contexts. Alternative healing choices, specifically psychic-spiritual healing, may affect the autonomy and self-empowerment of women.