A MODEL EXPLAINING BRAZILIAN SPIRITIST SURGERIES AND OTHER UNUSUAL, RELIGIOUS-BASED HEALINGS

This paper seeks to explain unusual surgeries performed withour antisepsis or anesthesia in which patients bleed but minimally when cut. experience little if any pain, do nor develop infections or other post-surgical complications and furthermore, recover. Operations performed by three Brazilian Spiritists healer-mediums are described. The explanation of the Kardecist-Spiritists, whose belief system informs the surgeries and other healings, is presented and examined. The author then seeks an objective, scientific explanation for the phenomena in recent developments in new fields within biomedicine and in psychosomatic healing. Ernest. L. Rossi's model (as developed in The Psychology oJlvfind-Body Healing) which focuses on information flow as a way to resolve the mind-body problem, is taken as a point of departure. Rossi proposes that hypnosis can be used therapeutically to introduce information ar the level of the psyche that is then transduced ro the endocrine system, the immune system, etc., activating them ro contribute to the healing process. Observing that hypnosis, as undersrood and used in the individualistic west, usually requires someone to induce a patient so that healing and therapy may be initiated (by suggestion), the aurhor then turns to the comparative record of anthropology to show that individuals regularly enter into trance states during religious rituals where they also are exposed to alternative real ities in which there are forces and beings believed able to both cause and cure illness. This information, it is hypothesized, is transmitted symbolically to the psyches of individuals in both words and images. The results of anthropological studies of the role of symbols in healing are summarized. Adding the cultural dimension of trance states induced during religious rimal in which suggestions that come from the alternative reality are transduced to the psyche of the individual and then to his/her endocrine. immune, and other systems, Rossi's model is expanded and hypothesized as an explanation for rhe surgeries and other supernaturally meditated healings. An experiment conducted to test the model is presented

Syncretism and fundamentalism: a comparison

In several ways, syncretism and fundamentalism can be viewed as opposite reactions to the processes of modernization and globalization. Within religious contexts, syncretists and fundamentalists make different choices when confronted with alternatives and with challenges to the accepted practices of daily life. The power dimension is an important aspect for this comparison. But the study of these two modern religious phenomena also points to a similarity with a paradigmatic debate, the contrast between positivist and constructivist approaches. Though the comparison is not the most obvious, there are striking similarities between fundamentalists and positivists, on the one hand, and between constructivists and syncretists, on the other. © 2005 Social Compass

Gender, Obesity and Repeated Elevation of C-Reactive Protein: Data from the CARDIA Cohort

C-reactive Protein (CRP) measurements above 10 mg/L have been conventionally treated as acute inflammation and excluded from epidemiologic studies of chronic inflammation. However, recent evidence suggest that such CRP elevations can be seen even with chronic inflammation. The authors assessed 3,300 participants in The Coronary Artery Risk Development in Young Adults study, who had two or more CRP measurements between 1992/3 and 2005/6 to a) investigate characteristics associated with repeated CRP elevation above 10 mg/L; b) identify subgroups at high risk of repeated elevation; and c) investigate the effect of different CRP thresholds on the probability of an elevation being one-time rather than repeated. 225 participants (6.8%) had one-time and 103 (3.1%) had repeated CRP elevation above 10 mg/L. Repeated elevation was associated with obesity, female gender, low income, and sex hormone use. The probability of an elevation above 10 mg/L being one-time rather than repeated was lowest (51%) in women with body mass index above 31 kg/m2, compared to 82% in others. These findings suggest that CRP elevations above 10 mg/L in obese women are likely to be from chronic rather than acute inflammation, and that CRP thresholds above 10 mg/L may be warranted to distinguish acute from chronic inflammation in obese women

2012 ACCF/AHA/ACP/AATS/PCNA/SCAI/STS guideline for the diagnosis and management of patients with stable ischemic heart disease

The recommendations listed in this document are, whenever possible, evidence based. An extensive evidence review was conducted as the document was compiled through December 2008. Repeated literature searches were performed by the guideline development staff and writing committee members as new issues were considered. New clinical trials published in peer-reviewed journals and articles through December 2011 were also reviewed and incorporated when relevant. Furthermore, because of the extended development time period for this guideline, peer review comments indicated that the sections focused on imaging technologies required additional updating, which occurred during 2011. Therefore, the evidence review for the imaging sections includes published literature through December 2011

Spiritisme et racisme au Brésil mediums kardécistes et esprits africains dans l’umbanda ésoterique

This paper explores a movement taking place among some Kardecist-Spiritist groups in Brazil who now refer to themselves by the term Esoteric Umbanda. Their mediums, who in the past never received «African» or other «low level» spirits, are now being sent to Umbanda centers to learn to receive Orixas, Pretos Velhos, Caboclos, etc. The reason for this is that they believe that these spirits are often the cause of Black Magic being worked against their traditional primarily white, middle-class clientele. By learning to receive these «low level» spirits they believe that it will be easier to exorcise them through the technique of disobsession. Analysis will show that this movement is based on racist stereotypes prevalent in Brazil that are reemerging in the current period of crisis

The return of Dr Fritz: Spiritist healing and patronage networks in urban, industrial Brazil

This paper describes surgeries and other healings performed without antiseptics and anesthesia by two Brazilian spiritist healers. The beliefs of spiritism and its treatment modalities are outlined. The role of hypnosis in healing is discussed. Finally the socio-cultural context within which the healing takes place is examined to show that spiritist healers are reconstructing networks of patronage and dependency similar to those of traditional Brazilian society that provide meaning and security for the ill in the midst of disruptive urbanization and modernization.alternative healing Brazil patronage spiritism