Holistic health and a changing Western world view

Carol P. MacCormack

pp. 259-273

in: Beatrix Pfleiderer, Gilles Bibeau (eds), Anthropologies of medicine, Wiesbaden, Vieweg+Teubner, 1991

Abstract

When one listens to the messages of the holistic health, ecology, peace, feminist and creation spirituality movements one becomes aware of a congruence. Being within these movements as a participant observer, or reading a great cross-section of popular magazines from these movements, one realizes there is a great deal of overlap; they are all saying the same things. If we take as a speculative thesis that European society may be reaching the limits of dualistic thinking, and the scientific materialism and individualism it engenders, then this congruence may constitute a coherent "code" in the sense that Anthony Wallace intended when writing about societies that become "revitalized" through a transformation process. The code is a coherent message that leads people toward a realistic alternative future, and in the process makes them and the society feel whole again. But there are other messages about. It is quite possible that we could move toward another wave of fascism rather than a holistic future. The light and the dark are always with us; the healing creative possibility, and the destructive possibility that arises from shadowy personal and collective egoistic urgings are always with a population. Either way, this is a theoretical exploration of cultural change, focused upon the holistic health movement in Britain.