Freethought Today, March 1997

Religion Is Born Again

By Jack Raso

An ill-defined, ragtag, quasi-religious movement is displacing, and in some cases supplementing, organized religion. It goes by more than two dozen names. It is the new opiate of the people, a darling of the media, and the flagship of a variegated antiscience megamovement I call "alternativism." In recent years, the movement has made incursions into the medical "heartland," gaining a foothold at Columbia University and at the National Institutes of Health.

Apparently, very few people recognize both the religious core of this usurper and the insidiousness of this core. Disseminators of evangelicalism see the surrogate's true colors and treat it as a corrosive upstart, an oriental perversion of religion. Combaters against health fraud, who typically refrain from stepping on the toes of religionists, also recognize this movement's religious nature, but most antiquackery activists seldom address it. Reasons for giving it short shrift include: (a) personal religious belief or affiliation, (b) vested interest, and (c) unwillingness to risk alienating consumers and/or current and potential antiquackery allies.

The movement in question is alternative healthcare. It is the ascendant division of a triad -- medical alternativism -- that includes occult medicine and sectarian religious "healing." Are acupuncture, chelation therapy, colonic irrigation, megavitamin therapy, ozone therapy, and shark cartilage therapy religious? Not exactly. But all of these methods except acupuncture represent alternative medicine's naturalistic minority. By "naturalistic," I mean: consistent with the perspective that positing supernatural or paranormal influences -- such as God, spirits, or detachable minds -- does not serve any explanatory purpose. The vast majority of the freestanding methods, multimethod systems, component methods, and general "approaches" that alternative healthcare comprises are mystical or supernaturalistic -- in a word, unnaturalistic. Broadly, mysticism is belief in realities accessible only through subjective experience. Supernaturalism is belief in forces or quasi-entities that are outside, yet affect, the universe. Unnaturalistic methods, therefore, are out of joint with the worldview that nature as science maps it is all there is.

Medical unnaturalism is rampant. The second edition of my Dictionary of Metaphysical Healthcare (Georgia Council Against Health Fraud, 1997), describes more than 1,100 health-related methods that (a) are unnaturalistic and (b) have been a subject of uncritical public discourse in English since the late 1950s. They range from abhyanga (an Ayurvedic "rejuvenating cure") to Zulu Sangoma bones (an African "divination method") and include: acupoint bloodletting, African holistic health, angelic healing, Atlantean Healing Ray Training, the Belly Bean diet, Christian hypnotherapy, DeHypnotherapy, future-life progression, hand psychology, Healtheology, Hug Therapy, Keep Your Wife Happy Qigong, The Method For Developing Supernormal Powers, Multi-Orgasmic Couple, psychic dentistry, Reimprinting with Divine Intervention, soul amplification, spirit surgery, theotherapy, Toad fighting, urine therapy, and Weight No More.

Most of the methods I have unearthed are vitalistic. Vitalism, the supreme sticking point between science-oriented healthcare and alternative healthcare, holds that an invisible, intangible, unique form of energy (which has about forty generic names) is responsible for all the activities of a living organism. Vitalism has both mystical and supernaturalistic forms, some of which are pseudoscientific. For example, as chi (a concept central to nearly all forms of acupuncture), the "vital force" seems mystical; as the soul, it appears supernaturalistic; and as orgone, both mystical and pseudoscientific. In the world of medical alternativism, "strong holism" and theism are the handmaidens of vitalism. Strong holism maintains that the universe is uninterrupted in substance, an unbroken whole, and that all things have instantaneous interconnections. It is an aspect of supernaturalistic pantheism (or Spinozism), which holds that nature is divine. Broadly, theism is belief in God, a god, or gods. The "God" of medical alternativism is even less describable than that of Judaism or Christianity.

The lure of mysticism lies in the desire to validate subjective experience. The appeal of vitalism lies in its compatibility with humankind's longing for immortality. The appeal of supernaturalistic pantheism lies in the yearning for connectedness and in the desire to treat traditional beliefs as "natural laws." Theism, too, assuages solitariness. Self-confidence, supernormality, and belongingness are potent, highly salable wishes. Alternative healthcare gives answers -- wrong and conflicting, but seductive -- to existential questions that science-oriented healthcare generally sidesteps. If you like religion, chances are you'll love alternative healthcare.

For me, fighting medical alternativism has not been fun, and describing alternativist methods often seems an exercise in masochism. In 1994, a cohost aborted a live radio interview concerning my second book, "Alternative" Healthcare: A Comprehensive Guide (Prometheus Books, 1994), after I had explained that I was not an apologist for alternative medicine -- a fact of which he apparently had been unaware.

In 1993, I submitted a collection of descriptions of more than 350 unnaturalistic health-related methods to a health fraud investigator who was a Jewish atheist. The investigator disputed, on flimsy grounds, yet rather tenaciously, the inclusion of only one of the hundreds of methods I had described: pigeon remedy, one of only three methods viewable as Jewish. (Pigeon remedy's postulate is that jaundice is transferable from humans to pigeons.) More recently, a letter I cowrote was published in a prestigious newsletter. The letter included a two-sentence paragraph on Ayurveda, the medical phase of Hinduism. Within a month, the newsletter included a response from a "deeply offended" researcher of Indian origin, who said that my cowriter and I had insulted an ethnic group and displayed ignorance of Ayurveda. An apology from the editors followed her letter.

In the year of my aborted radio interview, I gave a presentation titled "Alternative Healthcare and Supernaturalism" at a Purdue University conference on "nutrition fraud." For the first time, I revealed publicly that I was an atheist -- by which I meant "nontheist" (the prefix "a-" means "not"). I also said, in effect, that belief in God facilitates belief in alternative healthcare. The audience appeared dumbfounded. One evaluation form respondent indicated a lack of appreciation for the setting forth of a "personal belief system." However, religious nonbelief per se does not comprise personal beliefs. It is not the conviction that religious principles are untrue, but the state of not having any religious beliefs. It includes atheism and nonbelief in afterworlds, angels, Satan, etc. Moreover, religious nonbelief is perfectly consistent with science.

Many alternativist methods -- methods within or on the periphery of alternative healthcare -- are quasi, virtual, or certifiable religions. For example, Christian Science is a religion whose basic principle is: mind is the only reality; illness, pain, and death are illusory. It seems to me that most people don't consider Christian Science a part of alternative healthcare. I know only of two proponent books on alternative healthcare that significantly cover Christian Science: the Encyclop¾dia of Natural Health and Healing (1979) and Health and Healing: Understanding Conventional and Alternative Medicine (1983). However, it is a mode of attitudinal healing, faith healing, and occult medicine -- all of which, arguably, are parts of alternative healthcare. In 1994, I received a courteous letter regarding "Alternative" Healthcare: A Comprehensive Guide from the manager of the Committees on Publication, The First Church of Christ, Scientist. He stated:

"[W]e appreciate being included [in your book] . . . . We do not consider healing through scientific prayer to be 'supernatural.' Because Christian Science is based on the Bible and the teachings of Christ Jesus, we believe that this method of 'healthcare' is divinely natural."

Below, in alphabetical order, are other illustrations of religious medical alternativism. Synonyms for each method are in parentheses.

Jack Raso, a Foundation member from New York, is author of The Dictionary of Metaphysical Healthcare: Alternative Medicine, Paranormal Healing, and Related Methods (August 1996, National Council Against Health Fraud, Loma Linda, CA.)

Since 1994 he has been editor and managing editor of "Nutrition and Health Forum" newsletter, formerly "Nutrition Forum," and a consultant to Prometheus Books. He is a member of the Board of Directors of the National Council Against Health Fraud and coordinator of the Task Force on Dubious Health Care. He has worked as a dietition and assistant professor. Jack Raso received his Bachelor of Science in nutrition and dietetics with highest honors from Pratt Institute, Brooklyn, in 1985 and his Master of Science in health science, Long Island University, 1987.

He was a certified Special Olympics track and field coach in 1987, and has competed in karate.