Otherworldly Relations in CAM Practice
The globalizing culture of health and wellbeing flourishes both asdemand and supply, posing multiple intriguing and critical questionsboth to the individuals who face distress and suffering and to thesurrounding society. In the spirit of vernacular religion, this articleenters the discussion of ‘de-differentiation’ between religion andhealth, focusing especially on the role of otherworldly relations thatmay become part of complementary and alternative medicine and careand its healing agency. I propose that engagement with otherworldlyrelations may be understood in terms of ‘possibility work’ in complexlife situations when conventional healthcare and therapy are apprehendedas insufficient for some reason, or alternatively unavailable.I draw on two distinct ethnographic projects to exemplify the argument:care of the dying and contemporary angel spirituality. Thesetwo examples demonstrate how intimate otherworldly relations maywork as important and powerful, albeit also ambivalent and sociallyvulnerable, non-secular possibility work in the face of various formsof anxiety, distress, and suffering in contemporary lives.
