Nature Religion in America by Catherine Albanese - Essay Example

Nature Religion in America by Catherine AlbaneseThe chapter on “Physical Religion” from the book “Nature Religion in America” by Catherine Albanese presents a critical history of nature religion or alternative medicine in America. The chapter, with authentic documentation, juxtaposes nature religion in its various manifestations with the European Enlightenment and American Evangelicalism and critically examines their belief and practices and makes a statement about the religiosity of these movements and their significant impact on American culture.

Especially, it identifies these as alternatives to religion, but social and spiritual, and thereby serving the demands of a pluralistic society and its culture; but it paints the secular religion as rivals of democratic pluralism. In tracing the origin of various metaphysical movements, the chapter identifies commonalities and differences in ideas that have influenced the hybrid nature of the movements. It highlights the ritualistic nature of healing, spiritual and cosmic beliefs behind the philosophy of these movements.

There is a tendency of inclination toward certain common principles like the theory of correspondence between the mind of the almighty and that of the human, universe and individual. “Reason, nature, order, and a deist god” are commonalities in all their discourses. The author looks upon “natural sin and self initiated grace’ as similarities or commonalities between Christian physiologists and medical sectarians. They also share the vision of the millennium and felt that it has started just then and are prophetic about themselves as ambassadors of healing.

The author seems obsessed with the relationship between individual and community, public versus private and the political implications of nature religion; the author is also interested to find the trace of magnetic powers in these different forms of nature religion. Though earlier nature religions blamed man’s disobedience of the laws of nature as the cause of diseases, osteopaths looked upon the cause as something physical, i.e. the malfunctioning of the physical, mechanical parts of the body.

However, there is the trace of the belief in the Edenic sin and punishment. Interestingly, the standard list of concepts that are looked for in each movement implies that there is a set of assumptions at work. Metaphysics occult and magnetic powers are some of the key concepts that are assumed to be the driving forces of these nature religions. In addition, the author is keener to observe the views of each movement about the relationship between individual and community, and the reason they give for occurrence of diseases.

The use of the term “sickly Americans” is ironic, that it raises questions about the author’s opinion about the impact or failure of the socio- political structures that have moved away from nature’s laws, to heal humans. Also, the conclusions or opinions of the author on the history and development of the various nature religions over the period are a bit unclear in that they lead the reader to derive interpretations. For example, “sickly Americans” could imply that the author denigrates them for not choosing the spiritual alternatives or healing offered by nature religion as their way of life.

Whereas, “being well…was romantic analogue to being independent” could mean otherwise. The chapter also raises question such as: would not these movements have survived if the professional or secular medicine had been very competitive? Have they survived just because of the pluralism of the political condition in America? Is the statement “it was better at combining heritages of several worlds than at sorting out contradictions” more a criticism than a compliment?