“There are only two things in the world – nothing and semantics.” (Werner Erhard)
This paper (some 6,000 words) argues that a new genre of therapy has appeared in the arena of contemporary spiritual alternative healing, which expresses an outlook never-before-seen in the history of medicine: postmodern therapy.
Postmodern therapeutic methods (PTMs) express a popularization of postmodernist philosophy in regards to language and its role in the therapeutic process. These methods will be illustrated, and then analyzed in comparison to two other groups of methods: traditional magic, and modern medicine. In addition, we shall characterize PTMs as neo-magic, as they exercise the psychologization and rationalization of magic.
The article appears at JSRI, a journal of both the SCIRI (the Seminar for the Interdisciplinary Research of Religions and Ideologies) and the SACRI (the Academic Society for the Research of Religions and Ideologies).
A somewhat similar article/lecture were published/delivered in Hebrew, see links below.
Another article by Marianna Ruah-Midbar Shapiro was published in this jpurnal. For the article’s page – click here.
Abstract
From the article’s foreword:
Is there anything novel about novel therapeutic methods, such as the utilization of “power words”, or are they recycled forms of ancient methods? Is there something different about current therapeutic methods, such as Gendlin’s Focusing, or are they modern methods that resemble other modern psycho-therapeutic tools? The following paper will argue that a new genre of therapy has appeared in the arena of contemporary spiritual alternative healing, which expresses an outlook never-before-seen in the history of medicine: postmodern therapy.
Academic/Non-academic
Academic item
Bibliographical citation
Ruah-Midbar Shapiro, Marianna, “Abracadabra! Postmodern Therapeutic Methods: Language as a Neo-Magical Tool”, in Journal for the Study of Religions and Ideologies 17.49 (Spring 2018): 3-17. Available at http://jsri.ro/ojs/index.php/jsri/article/download/915/747.
