Description
- Abstract:
- The Spiritualist movement has had a profound impact on the nature of American religion. Spiritualism’s unique magico-religious liturgical practice is central in understanding this influence. In the early 20th century, New Orleans witnessed the creation and rise of Spiritualist congregations with unique liturgical systems. One of these liturgies – the healing ceremony – served a pivotal role in organizing Spiritualist churches and popularizing Spiritualist leaders. Often, scholars have studied New Orleans’s Spiritualist healing ceremonies in relation to wider social justice and Black resistance movements. While this scholarship has contributed to a fuller understanding of Black Spiritualism, a paucity of work regarding the medical knowledge produced in Black Spiritualist healing rituals still persists. This thesis analyzes the possibility of framing Black Spiritualist healing rituals as a distinct medical epistemology. I ask how these liturgies, both spatially and visually, reify the divisions between healers and the sick? This thesis responds to this question by using philosophies of subjectivity, aesthetics, and critical historiographies.
- Notes:
- Senior thesis (AB)--Brown University, 2025
- Concentration: Religious Studies
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Citation
Elijah Oluwatobiloba Dahunsi,
"IN SPIRIT AND TRUTH: Towards a Medical Epistemology of New Orleans’s Early 20th Century Black Spiritualist Healers"
(2025).
Religious Studies Theses and Dissertations.
Brown Digital Repository. Brown University Library.
https://doi.org/10.26300/7pxv-5g94
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Religious Studies Theses and Dissertations
Theses and Dissertations for the Religious Studies department....