International Journal of Cultic Studies ■ Vol.10, 2019 37
scholars have observed, certain alternative
medicine traditions may even function as
postsecular religious practices (Barrett et al.,
2004). For example, consider that homeopathy
resembles faith healing,2 given homeopathy’s
emphasis on dilution and shaking rituals (Shaw,
2014). Although homeopathy does not rely on a
traditional monotheistic God (like many forms
of faith healing do), Hahnemann made many
references to God in his work. Additionally,
during homeopathy’s development, practitioners
often combined the system with other religious
healing practices, and some even connected
homeopathy to Christian teachings (Brown,
2013).
Despite some similarities with faith healing,
homeopathy is distinct from other practices
because of its emphasis on the body’s vital
spiritual force. Without this vital force,
advocates argue, people would lack sensation,
function, and self-preservation (Perry, 1984).
When someone is sick, it is the vital force that is
affected, and the only way to remove a spirit-
like disease is through a spirit-like cure (Scofano
&Luz, 2008).
Explaining homeopathy’s continued relevance to
health consumers is challenging, especially
given that the underlying vitalistic principles of
its approach to treatment have remained mostly
unchanged since its invention. To help explain
the continued existence (and in some cases, the
thriving) of New Age spiritualities and holistic
healing practices, some scholars describe what
they refer to as modern culture’s “subjective
turn” (Hanegraaf, p. 293). Paul Heelas et al.
describe the subjective turn as “states of
consciousness, states of mind, memories,
emotions, passions, sensations, bodily
experiences, dreams, feelings, inner conscience,
and sentiments—including moral sentiments like
compassion” (Heelas, Woodhead, Seel, Tusting,
&Szerszynski, 2005, p. 3). We can use the
subjective turn as an analytical category to help
explain the transition of the New Age from a
counterculture movement to a diffuse form of
modern magic that has invaded numerous
2 Faith healing refers to the unscientific belief that faith and prayer
can cure physical ailments (Flamm, 2004).
domains, including health care. For example,
care for and interest in patients’ lived
experiences reflects a change in the notion of
what constitutes health and encompasses “life
beyond physiological functioning” (Sointu,
2006, p. 332). Even though many CAM
modalities often do not work from a scientific
perspective, the choice of a particular remedy
reinforces in health consumers a feeling of
control and empowerment (MacArtney &
Wahlberg, 2014).
The empowered health consumer and the
religious consumer have much in common. Both
are responding to instability and uncertainty,
turning to beliefs and practices that imbue the
everyday with symbolic significance. Just as
patients choose CAM to manage uncertainty
about their bodies, religious consumers choose
beliefs and practices to manage spiritual
uncertainties (Lyon, 2013/2000). Although the
identities of health and religious consumers are
not synchronous, they do overlap, especially as
old distinctions between science, culture, and
religion continue to blur. Traditional institutions
no longer satisfy the majority of people’s
everyday needs like they once did and in such a
climate, it is easy for people to turn away from
both mainstream religion and orthodox medicine
toward clusters of beliefs and practices that
emphasize inner experience and holism. In the
area of religion scholarship, these hybrid and
marginal religious practices have given rise to
terms such as spiritual supermarket (Lyon,
2013/2000), religion a la Carte (Sigalow, 2016),
and perennism or syncretic spirituality
(Possamai, 2003), just to name a few. Although
scholars who study health are less enamored
with the religious or spiritual significance of
changes to health care, they end up at a similar
place as the sociologist of religion.
Conclusion
One of the chief appeals of homeopathy is its
holistic focus on the uniqueness of the
individual, and homeopaths often match
remedies to a patient’s particular symptoms. The
consumer’s need for the sacred in health is part
of a more general project of the self, and a
response to actual problems found in the
everyday. The overlap of magic and health in

38 International Journal of Cultic Studies ■ Vol. 10, 2019
CAM practices suggests practical magic is
working its way throughout society, and, like
any other consumer product, its potions and
spells may be purchased and exchanged.
Although some consumers may acknowledge the
spiritual or religious dimensions of homeopathy,
it is not necessary for them to invest in the
religious character of the remedies to make use
of them for healing. In other words, homeopathy
does not represent merely the reemergence of an
early protoscientific practice such as, say, the
humors of medieval medicine (Craig, 2017).
One may discard homeopathy’s origin story and
dismiss the vitalistic elements, leaving the
medical toolkit behind.
Magic’s invasion of the healthcare space is a
return to form when one considers the history of
medicine. The difference lies in the approach.
Wherein past peoples may not have been able to
distinguish medicine from religion or magic, our
contemporaries are perhaps more aware of the
differences (or just do not care) and become
generalized seekers, looking for particular
solutions to everyday problems. Although many
of the spiritual commodities “occulturalists”3
draw from are decades and even centuries old,
the relationship between the user and the magic
has changed in concert with processes of
postmodernization that include the decline of
traditional ecclesial structures and the
individualization of religious belief and practice.
Personal autonomy, empowerment, and
preferences for holism all play a role in
homeopathy’s popularity. However, social
scientists should look beyond homeopathy and
other forms of CAM as mere health solutions
and instead recognize that many patients do not
turn to nonorthodox treatments because of their
scientific credibility (or purported usefulness),
but because of their magical utility.
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