Spirits with Scalpels

Dr. Paul Williams writes: The phenomenon of healing in Brazil is well documented but in this valuable and important book Greenfield gets closer than most to explaining how certain very dramatic healing practices appear to work. He meticulously documents his fieldwork over a number of years and presents us with numerous case studies backed up by photographs that appear to defy scientific and medical explanation: one medium doctor, for example, cutting a patient's back with an electric saw; another inserting unwashed fingers into an incision made in the patient's throat after removing a tumour. He examines the healing processes in Umbanda, Candomblé, Evangelicalism and Kardecist Spiritism putting forth the view that knowledge of a specific group's sacred understandings combined with the trance state may activate immune and other biological systems within the patient, releasing endorphins that relieve pain and lead to healing. He is refreshingly modest about his findings, and his fluency in Portuguese permits not only many impressive interviews with healers and patients but also references to important Brazilian research. The bibliography is full and includes many unpublished theses both in English and Portuguese.