Belief

Section 1 considers women’s faith, examining their conversions to Protestantism or re-admittance to the church after apostasy. It considers the questions of gradual or sudden conversions, and the appeal of both Protestantism and of Roman Catholicism to female believers. We examine evidence of Protestant devotion in consistorial cases, wills, and legacies, and the continuing influence of Roman Catholicism. This is seen in the large number of marriages at the Mass or of Protestant women to Roman Catholic men, attendance at the Mass, and in the ways Catholic ritual offered women solace. We also look at women’s resistance to religious authorities. Section 2 considers the use of ‘superstition’, divinatory practices, contact with the bohémiens, folk healers, and magic. We consider the evidence of popular beliefs in witchcraft and sorcery, set against consistorial scepticism towards witchcraft and greater concern with blasphemy.

Toxic Care (?)

In post-socialist Mongolia, unsuccessful treatment, or worse, interventions that result in worsened health conditions, are common concerns. Patients and clients direct scepticism towards a range of practitioners, from biomedical physicians to shamans and ‘folk’ healers (domch). The gap between the ideal treatment and the actual outcome—the prevalence of treatment misfires—invites analysis of infrastructural changes to (health)care and wider contexts of relationality. As state-owned medicine was restructured in the 1990s, healing ‘traditions’ such as shamanism and Traditional Mongolian Medicine considered essentialised aspects of national identity have gained new legitimacy. Many people find it challenging to navigate the multiple authorities on health and wellbeing that exist in contemporary public. Patients and clients often questioned efficacy in terms of toxicity and poison (hor, horlol). Toxicity’s associations with Soviet-era regulation and Buddhist medical contexts articulate the importance of both state-sanctioned regulation and the practitioner’s specialised knowledge.

Podlasie — gdzie religia spotyka magię

The article presents the results of the field and reporter work on folk healers, which I carried out in the region of Podlasie. In my article I want to explain the issues of discourse in which magic and religion are entangled, and depict as they relate to the local residents. It also has the task of documenting specific magical techniques used by healers called “Szeptuchy”. I examined those aspects personally by visiting any case that is mentioned in the article and by carrying out appropriate conversations and being the subject to their treatment. I also witnessed and was the object of those techniques, therefore, I was able to get closer to the true nature of the mentioned unique in the country phenomenon. It seems that this phenomenon should remain intact in possibly every aspect and cherished in its specific isolation and purity, unsullied by the contemporary globalist will of profit.

Medical pluralism for community health in Thammasen sub-district, Photharam district, Ratchaburi province, Thailand

Purpose When reviewing Community Health Development, it is necessary to understand the community context, including community health and details of medical pluralism (MP). The purpose of this paper is to correlate and predict between community health and related factors and delineate phenomenon of MP in Thammasen, Ratchaburi province, Thailand. Design/methodology/approach A mixed-methods sequential explanatory design was applied in this research. The quantitative survey was conducted by using an interview questionnaire. The 400 respondents were selected by simple random sampling from 11 villages. For the qualitative study, in-depth interviews were conducted with 37 key informants from selected health professionals, folk healers and local leaders. Findings The respondents were 56.5 percent female with a mean age of 53.8 years. The factors relating to community health included: health care behaviors, perceived health status, attitudes toward health care and access to health services. Considering the four predictive variables as a group revealed a 26.2 percent variation in community health. The phenomenon of MP was covered by the following three main aspects: self-health care (SHC)—healthy people pay attention to self-care and used herbal remedies to reduce early symptoms; folk medicine (FM)—some folk healers provide holistic healing, use herbal remedies and transfer knowledge to people who are interested and professional medicine (PM)—some health professionals adopt the concept of integrated medicines such as recommending that patients practice SHC and promote the use of Thai traditional medicine (TTM) and complementary and alternative medicine (CAM). Originality/value Health professionals, folk healers and local leaders should provide effective action domains that focus on the following four factors of community health: effective health care behavior, concern for health status, positive attitudes toward health care and accessibility to health services. Regarding MP, integrated medical and health care models should be developed to link SHC, FM and PM (including TTM/CAM).

‘I Have My Own Spaceship’

This paper is about folk healers in Kalmykia, southwest Russia, locally referred to as medlegchi, and their eclectic healing methods that combine elements of the earlier religions of Buddhism, shamanism and folk beliefs with modern theologies, ideas and concepts. Although the paper focuses upon the contemporary situation of folk healers, the author also briefly describes the development of Kalmyk folk healing in order to explain its varied and de-centralised contemporary nature. Alleging to receive their healing knowledge directly from their guardian deities (the majority of whom are Buddhist gods), all Kalmyk folk healers are eclectic in their methods, some more so than others. For example, those who are members of the community Vozrozhdenie [Revival], discussed in the paper, differ from many others by the speed with which they absorb ultra-new ideas and anxieties into their healing practices, which today include UFOs, a cosmic god and aliens, among other things.