Health and Healing in Minority Religions

This volume explores the diversity of beliefs and practices around health and healing in minority religions from different perspectives. The contributors include academics from a variety of disciplines as well as members of minority religions. The introductory chapter focuses on the metaphors and meanings that religions use to indicate their understandings of the body and its boundaries and concepts of health and healing. Chapters follow on the concepts of health and healing in the Jehovah’s Witnesses, Christian Science, Panacea Society, Pentecostal Christianity, Paganism, Lubavitcher Hasidim and Daesoon Jinrihoe, amongst others. Other chapters focus on contemporary yoga, the Gisu of Uganda, the psychology of believers in alternative medicine and the French government’s opposition to alternative healing practices. The book will be useful for academics and students of religious studies, especially those interested in minority religions and alternative healing practices.