Choosing a Life: a Study of Women New Age Healers in Tallahassee, Florida Ann Marjorie Powell

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Electronic Theses, Treatises and Dissertations The Graduate School

2005 Choosing A Life: A Study of Women New Age Healers in Tallahassee, Florida Ann Marjorie Powell

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THE FLORIDA STATE UNIVERSITY

COLLEGE OF ARTS AND SCIENCES

CHOOSING A LIFE: A STUDY OF WOMEN NEW AGE HEALERS IN TALLAHASSEE, FLORIDA

ANN MARJORIE POWELL

A Thesis submitted to the Department of Anthropology in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science

Degree Awarded: Fall Semester, 2005

The members of the Committee approve the Thesis of Ann Marjorie Powell defended on October 27, 2005.

______Bruce Grindal Professor Directing Thesis

______Michael Uzendoski Committee Member

______Joseph Hellweg Committee Member

Approved: ______Dean Falk, Chair, Department of Anthropology

The Office of Graduate Studies has verified and approved the above named committee members.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This thesis would not have been possible without the willingness of the four informants to open their lives to the curious eyes of a student anthropologist. I thank them each for their honesty and trust. I would also like to thank my committee members, Michael Uzendoski and Joseph Hellweg for their insightful comments. And above all, I would like to thank Bruce Grindal, my committee chair, not only for his valuable counsel, but also for his patience, clarity, and good humor.

iii TABLE OF CONTENTS

Abstract vi Introduction 1 1. Review of Literature 5 Historical Context: 18th century-early 20th century 6 Chronological Unfolding 8 Case Studies 11 2. Life Story: Theory and Method 14 3. The Lives of Healers 20 Adele 20 Bonnie 24 Carol 28 Darlene 31 4. Common Themes 36 Generation Gap 36 Childhood Spirituality 37 Family Disconnect and Social Isolation 39 Traumatic Events 41 Men, Abuse, and Addiction 43 Identity 45 Metaphysical Self-Help 48 5. Wounded Healer 53 The Calling 53 Wounding/Death 54 Self-Healing/Rebirth 55 Healing of Others 57 The Neo-Shaman 61 A Shifting Culture 62 APPENDICES 67 A Interview Guide 67

iv B Human Subjects Application 72 BIBLIOGRAPHY 79 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 83

v ABSTRACT

This thesis is an inquiry into the lives of four women in Tallahassee, Florida, who have not only chosen to adopt New Age beliefs, but also to become New Age healers. Of particular interest are the life events that influenced their decision to become metaphysical healers. Are there common themes in the life experiences of these four women? Do these life experiences parallel the life experiences and life stories of traditional shamanic healers? How has the incorporation of New Age ideas and healing practices affected their lives and their views of the world? And more broadly, how may these lives be understood in the context of our present times and in turn contribute to our understanding of the reinvention of shamanic healing in the New Age movement? The primary mode of investigation in this study is the ‘life story.’ Each informant provided a chronological account of her life, detailing the events and experiences she felt were most significant. These four life stories were then evaluated for common themes relevant to the thesis objectives outlined above.

vi INTRODUCTION

The expectation that spirituality should result in social and therapeutic benefit is a common one and reflects the pragmatic orientation of American religion, as does the willingness, on the part of many Americans to try out new forms of religious experience. Exercising a new freedom to depart from conventional forms of religious belief and practice, many Americans have justified their religious reachings by laying aside some of the qualms that rationalist and rule-oriented religious authorities have had about unorthodoxy and unconventionality. For today’s spiritual enthusiasts, as for many of those in the past, the salutary benefits of new forms of spirituality justify their practice.

-Amanda Porterfield, 2001 The Transformation of American Religion

Though often associated with 1960s counterculture, the conception of ‘New Age’ as a spiritual movement has historical roots as far back as the nineteenth century. The term ‘New Age’ was first used in the late 1800s by psychic medium John Ballou Newbrough, who published a book of spiritual prophecy entitled OAHSPE: A New Age Bible. ‘New Age’ was then appropriated by later mediums of the early 1900s to refer to the state of highly evolved human consciousness and enlightenment, believed to be a future result of the sun moving from the astrological house of Pisces to the house of Aquarius (Jenkins 2000). Astrologers contended that the constellation area or “house” that the sun occupies exerted certain influences over the Earth and those living on it (Jenkins 2000). The Age of Pisces was a period beginning with the birth of Jesus Christ, followed by two thousand years of Christian dominance (Jenkins 2000). The current age, the Age of Aquarius, was prophesized by astrologers to be an era marked by unprecedented advances in spiritual enlightenment (Jenkins 2000). The counterculture of the 1960’s involved a heralding of the New Age with a proliferation of metaphysical religious groups and beliefs (Kyle 1993). It was this proliferation that established the New Age as a significant spiritual movement in the United States. Today, as J. Gordon Melton (1987) observed, ‘New Age’ is a broad stroke that refers to all the attempts at ‘Aquarian’ spirituality, past and present. This liberal application is apparent considering the disparate collection of spiritual subjects encompassed within the movement. Included are traditional divination techniques such as

1 astrology, tarot, numerology, I ching, tea leaves, and runes; female centered spirituality such as goddess worship, paganism, and wicca; extra-sensory ability such as spirit communication and channeling, aura reading, psychic abilities, psychometry, telepathy, and telekinetics; spiritual interpretations of the Mayan calendar, Egyptian pyramids, ancient secret orders, and lost civilizations; native spirituality which typically includes shamanic techniques such as the use of medicine wheels, medicine bags, spirit animals, questing, and drum trance; psychology-based spirituality such as dream interpretation, Jungian theory, and the Human Potential Movement; spirituality based on future catastrophe such as alien invasion, global warming pole-shifts, and earthquakes, and spirituality based on existential theories of modern quantum physics. Because New Age covers such a wide range of non- or quasi-Christian religions and practices, it is most successfully defined by the most fundamental characteristics that the groups share. Yves Lambert (1999), professor of sociology and religion, distilled this eclectic variety to its common fundamental principles. In general, most of these new religious forms cater to the ideals of self-reliance and personal fulfillment. Many New Age belief systems are the hybrid product of diverse spiritual traditions and scientific principles blended together. The result is an ideological plasticity that allows an individual to move between groups within the New Age network, easily integrating the beliefs from one group into another. This dynamic system facilitates continual spiritual revision and permits an individual to add, discard, mix and match various elements as personal needs may dictate. Further emphasizing the importance of the individual, New Age beliefs are typically reinforced through first person experience and interpretation of the divine instead of requiring the assistance of an ordained intermediary. The New Age religions that do involve some type of affiliation are typically devoid of an organized hierarchy and operate within a more egalitarian structure. In addition to these qualities, New Age groups also tend to emphasize the relationship between mind, physical body, and environment, and often include a healing component based on this concept of interconnectivity. Metaphysical forms of healing began to emerge in the early 1800s, but it was not until the late twentieth century that a growing disdain and distrust of Western medicine fueled a more pronounced popularity of alternative healing within the New Age movement. Holistic alternative medicine is

2 inexpensive, and most techniques promise a whole mind/body healing without the side- effects of standard Western treatments. Examples of these alternative methods include acupuncture, aromatherapy, ayurveda, biofeedback, Chi Gong, homeopathy, hypnosis, iridology, meditation, Reiki, shamanic healing, and Tai Chi, as well as remedies offered by various dietary schools of thought such as the Essene diet, macrobiotics, natural hygenics, and raw-foodism. While much research has been dedicated to New Age ideology and healing practices as part of a cultural phenomenon (Harris 1974), (Melton 1983), (Kyle 1993), (Lambert 1999), (Jenkins 2000), (Porterfield 2001), less attention has been paid to the lives and personal motivations of its adherents. People and their culture engage in a creative synergy, each constantly reinterpreting and reflecting the other. An individual’s experience of his or her culture serves as a valuable illumination of subtler cultural aspects that might otherwise go unnoticed. For this reason, a life story can enhance the understanding of the societal whole. This thesis is an inquiry into the lives of four women in Tallahassee, Florida, who have not only chosen to adopt New Age beliefs, but also to become New Age healers. Of particular interest are the life events that influenced their decision to become metaphysical healers. Are there common themes in the life experiences of these four women? Do these life experiences parallel the life experiences and life stories of traditional shamanic healers? How has the incorporation of New Age ideas and healing practices affected their lives and their views of the world? And more broadly, how may these lives be understood in the context of our present times and in turn contribute to our understanding of the reinvention of shamanic healing in the New Age movement? The primary mode of investigation in this study is the ‘life story.’ Each informant provided a chronological account of her life, detailing the events and experiences she felt were most significant. These four life stories were then evaluated for common themes relevant to the thesis objectives outlined above. I begin in Chapter One with a review of the literature concerning the New Age Movement, past and present. The variety of beliefs and practices that currently comprise New Age is reflected in a description of the corresponding literature available at metaphysical bookstores and gift shops. The connective framework for understanding

3 this variety is established with a brief history of alternative spirituality within the United States. This chapter concludes with summaries of academic interpretations of the New Age movement and specifically the cultural conditions believed to have encouraged its evolution. In Chapter Two, I turn to an examination of the “life story” as an appropriate investigative technique for demonstrating the reciprocal influence between a culture and its participants. There is a discussion of the factors considered in my selection of informants, followed by a brief introduction of each of the four women. Lastly, I describe the rationale underlying the specific questions posed to each of the women. The inquiry into the lives of these four women who have chosen to become metaphysical healers begins in Chapter Three, with a chronological account of each woman’s life story. Of particular interest is the interplay between experience and changing ideology throughout the major life phases-- birth to eighteen, eighteen to thirty, and thirty to present. Within each major phase, attention is given to their familial and social relationships, political and religious affiliations, occupation, and defining moments. In Chapter Four, the four life stories are synthesized with the aim of discerning the events and experiences that have pointed each woman in the direction of becoming a metaphysical healer. From these chronological narratives, the emergent themes are analyzed: childhood spirituality; family disconnect and social isolation; men, abuse, and addiction; traumatic events, identity, and metaphysical self-help. In Chapter Five I demonstrate how these events parallel the life experiences and life stories of shamanic healers. To this end, I interpret the four lives within the framework of a shamanic initiation cycle, which typically includes a calling, a wounding or death experience, and a healing or rebirth experience. Further, I demonstrate how the incorporation of New Age ideas and the practice of metaphysical healing fits into this shamanic worldview. Chapter Five concludes with a discussion of how the lives of these four women healers may be understood in the context of our present times, and in turn, how they contribute to our understanding of the reinvention of shamanic healing in the New Age movement.

CHAPTER ONE SURVEY OF LITERATURE

A metaphysical gift shop serves as an informative source guide for the groups and beliefs within the movement by displaying many New Age related objects and their corresponding literature. The local Tallahassee version, Crystal Connection, has managed to pack within its walls a substantial collection of New Age accessories, bobbles, and fetishes associated with the movement. One trip winding past the power stones and crystal pendulums, between meditation pillows and yoga balls, and following the wall of gothic altar candles and aromatherapy oils to the racks of organic natural fibered, hand-batiked garments, will leave an individual with an impression of the New Age culture. A more definitive explanation of the ideology behind the artifacts requires continuing the tour to the book section which spans almost the entire length of the store. The books are organized into numerous categories. There are categories involving psychology and philosophy such as Inspiration, Prosperity, Personal transformation, Conscious living, Jungian thought, Meditation, Visualization, Creative expression, Reincarnation, Death and Dying, and Astral Projection. There are categories for books concerning various healing techniques such as Herbology, Aromatherapy, Relaxation, Sleep Marital Arts, General Health and Wellness, Ayurveda, Eastern Approach, Touch Healing, Food, Diet, Candle Burning, Crystal Healing, and Feng Shui. There are categories that deal with divination such as Psychic Development, Inspired and Channeled Teachings, Astrology, and Tarot. There are categories involving revival of female-based mythology and spirituality such as Fairies, Goddess, Wicca, Magic, and General Women’s Studies. There are categories containing books on indigenous beliefs including Native American Spirituality, Shamanism, Psychedelic Shamanism, Earth, Ecology, Anima, and Nature. There are several books about UFOs and impending geological catastrophes. And lastly there are several sections dedicated to the more widely recognized religious traditions such as Christianity, Buddhism, Eastern Thought, Taoism, Hinduism, Islam, Judaism, and Egyptian Spirituality.

Historical Context (18th century – early 20th century) These seemingly discordant groups are related through their common origin in early American philosophical movements. The radical Puritans of the early 1700s emphasized the virtue of direct, personal inspiration from God. Over the next hundred years, this aspect of Radical Puritanism fueled the evolution of the Transcendental movement in the 1800s (Porterfield 2001). Ralph Waldo Emerson, among others, helped promote transcendental philosophy, which postulated that only the study and observation of nature could reveal fundamental existential truths (Kyle 1993). Transcendentalists, in the tradition of the Radical Puritans, reaffirmed American individualism by encouraging the importance of first-person experience with the divine (Porterfield 2001). This contrasted Protestant sects of the time, which required an ordained middle-man to act on the behalf of both the laity and God (1993). Transcendental discussion groups formed and were particularly popular with the affluent and university educated (Kyle 1993). This philosophy was not simply an outgrowth of Puritanism but also drew from an eclectic assortment of traditions. These included, but were not limited to, Eastern thought, Neoplatonic philosophy and Hinduism (Kyle 1993). Scholars such as Kyle (1993), Porterfield (2001), and Jenkins (2000) have asserted that the Transcendental suite of doctrines involving first-person religious experience, the divinity of nature, and the borrowing from other traditions provided much of the ideological framework that facilitated the evolution of the American New Age movement. At around the same time, Spiritualism began to take form. Unlike the Transcendentalists, Spiritualists focused more on occult beliefs and healing techniques (Kyle 1993). Two individuals figured prominently in the Spiritualist movement. First, Franz Mesmer, an Austrian doctor, became famous for his healing séances during which he would not only hypnotize, but also attempt to magnetize patients in hope of a curative effect (Wilson 1988). Second, Andrew Jackson Davis, a psychic medium, claimed to communicate with an ancient doctor called Galen, as well as Emanuel Swedenborg, an occult figure from eighteenth century Europe (Ferguson 1980). Davis was staunchly non-Christian, and when he established the National Spiritualist Association, he

promoted his vision of the universe as being organized into multiple planes of existence (Kyle 1993). A primary objective of Spiritualism was to incorporate a scientific approach to spirituality (Kyle 1993). In accordance with this objective, Spiritualists applied the scientific method to their occult studies, welcomed impartial scientific investigations and even adopted a scientific lexicon to explain the paranormal (Kyle 1993). In addition to Transcendentalism and Spiritualism, the nineteenth century yielded another quasi-religious movement called Theosophy. Russian psychic Helena Blavatsky spent most of her life traveling the world meeting with various spiritual leaders and shamans. Eventually she arrived in the United States in 1874 where she founded the Theosophical Society, a forum for discussing occult issues such as divination and psychic phenomena (Jenkins 2000). Blavatsky promoted her belief in a fundamental truth at the heart of all religions and the importance of practices such as astrology and magic in order to learn more about the all pervasive life-force that she believed comprised the universe. Like Spiritualism, a primary aim was to “unite religion and science on a spiritual plane” (Porterfield, 2001:132). According to Kyle, the most important Theosophical principle was the “perfectibility of human nature” (1993:111). Theosophy groups persisted into the 1940s with Alice Bailey as their primary leader (Kyle 1993). Theosophy eventually splintered into various new fringe religions such as the Ancient Mystical Order of the Rosea Crusis (AMORC) and I AM, as well as the more successful religion, Christian Science (Kyle 1993). Philip Jenkins (2000) noted that it was the early twentieth century that saw a rise in female religious leaders within this movement. As women gained rights politically and socially, they also began reversing the marginalization of females in the religious sphere: Such new religions have been particularly successful in times when ideas about gender and sexuality have been in rapid flux, such as the 1920’s and the 1970s. In the early twentieth century, new religious traditions like Adventism, Pentecostalism, and Christian Science all owed much to female prophets and preachers, respectively Ellen G. White, Aimee Semple McPherson, and Mary Baker Eddy. (Jenkins 2000:21-22)

Chronological Unfolding The 1960’s was an era marred by political upheavals such as the assassination of President Kennedy, the controversy surrounding the Vietnam War, the end of segregation, and the fight for women’s rights. As part of the rejection of the old social order, there was a proliferation of transcendental, spiritual, and theosophical ideology within the New Age Movement. In addition to the critical questioning of the status quo, Amanda Porterfield (2001) has argued that globalization also fueled the popularity of New Age spirituality. Porterfield theorized that globalization resulted in a discovery that religious forms were suspiciously congruent with the social and political agendas of their respective cultures and that this made many Americans suspicious of their own religious belief systems. Further, this realization may have encouraged spiritual experimentation with many different faiths in order to discover the common denominator or a single, basic unit of religious truth. Martin Marty (1976) has also explored the phenomenon of this “seeker culture” and noted that this religious experimentation was prohibitive of any steady affiliation with a single group. Many who adopted a seeker lifestyle were united only by the formation of a loose network structure of overlapping, circulating groups. However, those who were even less committal were not left out, because New Age literature flourished and became one of the primary vehicles for promoting various metaphysical beliefs. Much of it is propagated through mail-order or private purchase and reading of literature. Lonely people in apartments may never attend society or cult meetings, yet be informed by them. (Marty 1976:139) The 1960’s counterculture revived the Spiritualism interest in traditional occult practices such as astrology and tarot (Kyle 1993). These techniques were used primarily to divine the future and to lend hope to its practitioners. Yves Lambert (1999) explained that the dramatic improvement in the standards of daily living for most of the Western world since the establishment of the world economy accounted for this shift in the religious objective from other-worldly salvation to happiness in this world.

This idea is similar to the one Marvin Harris proposed when he wrote that the fascination with metaphysics “constitutes a misunderstood attempt to save America’s dream of worldly progress by magical and supernatural means” (Harris 1981:141). Magic and the supernatural were not the only practices that catered to the growing concern of personal fulfillment. It was the theosophical fringe religions as well as Eastern philosophy that inspired the popularity of the Human Potential Movement in the seventies and eighties (Kyle 1993). Groups such as EST, I AM, Scientology, and Abraham studies, stressed a psychological approach to self-actualization which was a term referring to the power of the mind improve ones lot in life. The Human Potential Movement has been interpreted by scholars such as Carle Rasche (1976), and Barbara Hargrove(1982) as a psychological replacement for religion; essentially scientific principles with a spiritual application. Jungian transpersonal psychology grew in popularity during this time as well (Roof 1999). Like the beliefs encompassed within the Human Potential Movement, this brand of psycho-spiritual technique borrowed from Eastern philosophy, but advocated a reinterpretation of reality transcendence of reality as opposed to an actual transformation of reality (Kyle1993). More recently, beginning in the late twentieth century, there was a growing emphasis on holistic healing practices within the New Age Movement. Holistic healing operated on the principle that mind and body are inextricably linked (Glik 1990). These practices attempted to address the needs of an individual both spiritually and physically. Richard Kyle (1993) attributes the growing interest in alternative approaches to a rampant dissatisfaction with the state of the Western healthcare system, specifically in reaction to rising insurance premiums and a lack of equal access. Deborah Glik suggested that the growth of participation in alternative healing groups is also indicative of a general dissatisfaction with the larger social order. Healing groups are associated with the rise of New Religious Movements (NRMs), which are themselves the product of conflicts and tensions within the social structure. Thus beliefs and ideologies espoused or adopted by persons involved in these types of movements, whether considered religious or magical, may have both integrating and alienating effects, linked as they are to social change and transformation. (Glik 1990:173)

Many academics have looked back, past the Puritans and Transcendentalists, and have been struck by the similarities between New Age healing practices and shamanism. The term “neo-shamanism,” which gained popularity in the 1970’s and 1980’s, reflected this perspective of New Age as a modern reinvention of indigenous spirituality. Joan Townsend explained how the neo-shaman has managed to integrate shamanic principles into a modern context: The beliefs of neo-shamans are much more eclectic than those of the classic shaman. Beyond the core beliefs, there are many others that are held by some but not all neo-shamans, such as belief in the existence and importance of auras and chakras, (energy or power centers in the body) in healing and power activities. Crystals and other objects in this world are believed to have a spiritual essence and a power that can be used for divination and healing. Spirit guides, spirit teachers, and power animals are critical in dealing with alternate reality. Jesus is seen as an important teacher, spiritual helper, and healer, regardless of whether his divinity as the son of God is accepted. (Townsend 1988:79) In addition to this blend of New Age and Shamanic beliefs, many within the metaphysical movement have also incorporated principals of modern quantum physics and produced works that have served as popular contemporary metaphysical bibles within the New Age Movement. Among the most notable are Capra (1977), Grof (1990), Bohm (1980), Wolf (1991), and Talbot (1992). Lewis E. Mehl of the Stanford School of Medicine generated five fundamental principles common to both neo-shamanism and quantum physics. 1) All parts of the world are interconnected, on all levels of reality, so that whatever happens to one individual affects all others and whatever happens to the others affects the individual, at every level from the physical to the spiritual. 2) The objects perceptible to human senses are local manifestations of larger patterns of energy. 3) That which is imperceptible to human senses is as important in illness as that which can be measured and validated through the senses. 4) Consciousness is all-pervasive; or, otherwise stated, “everything is alive.”

5) The universe as a whole is sacred and has purpose and meaning. (Mehl 1988:129) Victor J. Stenger, Professor of Physics and Astronomy university of Hawaii wrote a series of articles lambasting this multidisciplinary trend within New Age groups. He contended that scientific principles were being misappropriated to satisfy a culture of narcissism. In a land where self-gratification has reached heights never dreamed of in ancient Rome, where self-esteem is more important than being able to read, and where self-help requires no more effort than putting on a cassette, the myth of quantum consciousness is just what the shrink ordered. (Stenger 1993:13) Not only has neo-shamanism attempted to satisfy the modern need to validate spiritual beliefs scientifically, but it also satisfied the growing American interest in psychoanalytic self-discovery. Amanda Porterfield described this connection: To the extent that they treat psychosomatic problems through symbolic utterances and actions, all forms of psychiatry are like shamanism. And in the regard psychiatrists are similar to practitioners of Christian Science, New Thought, and New Age spiritualities who utilize the power of suggestion and positive thinking to alleviate illness and suffering (Porterfield 2001:198). This also succinctly delineated the importance of exploring individual psychology and personal experience for the successful application of these beliefs and practices. Case Studies Though the examples are sparse, there are a few instances in which the belief systems of specific individuals within New Age/neo-shamanic have been described. These examples made no mention of the life experiences that influenced the development of their world-views, but they did provide an illustration of what those beliefs or worldviews were. Wade Clark Roof (1999) conducted a large-scale sociological survey of modern American religious attitudes. He supplemented this survey with several phone interviews during which an individual would detail his or her religious beliefs. One such interview focused on a woman named Vicki Feinstein, who was born in 1964 to a Jewish father and a Catholic mother. Vicki was easily classified as a New Age spiritual seeker, but when

asked to describe her religious beliefs she had trouble articulating what those beliefs actually were. Instead, she simply listed some of the systems she subscribed to. These included Scientology, Buddhism, Reiki and Star Trek. Vicki, indeed, understood that Star Trek was not a religion per se, but she approved of the program’s vision of the future with all different races, genders and species working together peacefully. Based on the analysis of Vicki Feinstein, Roof concluded: What is lacking is any fixed, neatly ordered religious system we can identify as hers. One senses, within her overlapping boundaries and juxtapositions of identities, a Jewish father and a Catholic mother, shifting configurations of spiritual teachings and practices drawn from many traditions; a spiritual self- understanding defined in part by its opposition to a conventional religious identity. (Roof 1999:33) The creation of one’s own religion certainly points to the American individualism that is still a fundamental aspect of our collective psychology. Robert Bellah recounted part of a brief interview that further demonstrates this cultural tradition of “doing your own thing.” Sheila Larson is a young nurse who has received a good deal of therapy and who describes her faith as “Sheilasim.” “I believe in God. I’m not a religious fanatic. I can’t remember the last time I went to church. My faith has carried me a long way. It’s Sheilaism. Just my own little voice.” (Bellah 1985:221) Cassie Cromwell is another woman whom Bellah cited as a “religious individualist.” She sums up her beliefs succinctly: “I am a pantheist. I believe in the “holiness” of each other and all other living things. We are a product of this life system and are inextricably linked to all parts of it.” (Bellah 1985:234) Bellah noted that religious individualists such as Sheila, Cassie, and probably Vicki perceived the divine world and the secular world as one in the same. They found comfort and solace in seeking “a self that is finally identical with the world” (Bellah 1985:235), while members of mainstream religion “seek an external God who will provide order in the world” (Bellah 1985:235).

While Roof and Bellah described and contrasted the world-views held by a few individuals, the following study aims to illuminate the development of those world-views by describing and contrasting four in-depth life stories.

13 CHAPTER TWO LIFE STORY: THEORY AND METHOD

In his book Spiritual Marketplace (1999), Wade Clark Roof discusses the various religious trends of the last half of the twentieth century. In particular, he notes a decline in the view of religion and spirituality as a compartmentalized feature that remains fixed throughout an individual’s life. Beginning in the eighties and nineties, terms such as personal growth, transformation, spiritual path, and journey began to comprise a new, vogue lexicon. These terms are indicative of a burgeoning spirituality and religious ideology that do not provide external structure to life experiences, but rather, are informed by them. Spirituality became an experiential process residing in the minds of individuals. The ‘life story’ is a valid and effective investigative tool in the exploration of this modern interplay between life experience and changing world view. A culture and its participants are like two opposing artists, each continually painting an interpretation of the other. In this way, studying the life of an individual not only provides information about the individual, but furthermore tells a story about his or her respective culture. Though the life of an individual may not be representative of the larger group, a unique life story helps illustrate the breadth of cultural experience within a society. The life-stories of marginal individuals are especially important precisely because they prove a non-representative and untapped source of cultural knowledge. This points to the reason the life story has a special function in the study of women’s spirituality. The New Age/neo-shamanic movement represents a group of marginal religious beliefs and practices whose participants and leaders are primarily female (Wessinger 1993). There are several theories surrounding this phenomenon, but all tend to be similar variations on a central theme: namely, that mainstream, organized religion represents patriarchal control and female oppression. As women have become increasingly self- sufficient and valued, institutionalized forms of sexism have become less and less tolerable. Cynthia Eller recognized that because of this, women are left in need of a tradition in which their experiences could be explained and validated within a spiritual framework:

14 This search for alternatives was further fed by a desire to give support and value to spiritual experiences that fell outside the norm prescribed by mainstream religions. Since mainstream religions were overwhelmingly male in image, myth and symbol, it was difficult to make sense within them of experiences of the divine as female, or of spiritual experiences that centered on those things traditionally associated with the “feminine” and devalued in mainstream religion (e.g., nature, cyclical time, the body as sacred, immanence). (Eller 1993:175) The New Age movement may be particularly appealing to women because it is through a neo-shamanic or mythical interpretation of their experiences that women can build a sense of self-worth, space and personal validation within their culture. Perhaps because there is a lack of culturally significant stories of women’s lives, past research interests have been tenuous. Mary Catherine Bateson (1989) criticized most research conducted on women’s lives for being confined to distinct phases such as menopause or motherhood, and for concentrating solely on “the stubborn struggle to a single goal,” such as an ambitious career. In her book Composing a Life (1989), Bateson implemented the “life story” with the hope of broadening this perspective. Through a “process of conversation and reflection,” she recounted the journeys of five of her female artist friends. Her aim was to demonstrate how the details of a life were interwoven in a process of composition more complex and dynamic than previous research has portrayed. Further, Bateson states the following: These are not representative lives. They do not constitute a statistical sample— only, I hope, an interesting one. As I have worked over the material, I have become aware that the portions of these life histories that interest me most are the echoes from one life to another, the recurrent common themes. (Bateson 1989:16) Following suit, I have used non-directed interview to unearth recurrent common themes within the lives of four women healers: Adele, Bonnie, Carol, and Darlene. Like Bateson’s five subjects, these women do not form a statistically significant sample, nor do they form a group that is necessarily representative of New Age. Their life stories, however, do help demonstrate the significance of certain experiences within the culture.

15 Furthermore, they demonstrate how those experiences affected world-view and, ultimately, the decisions of four women to become healers. The New Age network in Tallahassee is surprisingly strong and thriving for a town in the Southeastern United States-- a region typically characterized as being dominated by a conservative Christian demographic. Although comprised of a strong religiously conservative and largely Baptist constituent, Tallahassee remains politically and socially liberal. This is most likely due to two state universities, Florida State University and Florida A and M University, which draw a diverse population to Tallahassee annually. With them, they bring new ideas, beliefs, traditions and subcultures. Being a state capitol, Tallahassee also is an attractive location for political and social activists, many of whom are quite liberal both politically and spiritually. The New Age network in Tallahassee probably has resulted from the continuous integration and incorporation of new people and their ideas. It was through various avenues within this seasoned network that I became acquainted with each of the informants. For two years, I worked at a local natural health store selling various herbs and natural healing concoctions to earn extra money for school. It was a haven for alternative-minded individuals. One of the regulars was Adele, with whom I developed a rapport. Adele was a single, 36 year old woman who worked for the Department of Children and Families. She had taken this position at the behest of her practical mother who had worked there for years. Adele, however, expressed dissatisfaction with this career path and wished to devote her time to other pursuits. These pursuits were varied, but all identifiably “New Age.” She practiced Reiki (a system of hands on energy healing), she was a devotee of “Abraham”-- a collective of spirits channeled by a psychic medium-- and in her spare time, she maintained a website through which she offered classes based on these teachings. Her more recent interests included massage therapy, Tarot and communicating with angels. On the weekends, she served as chaplain for the Unity Church, which promotes a metaphysical interpretation of Christianity. Bonnie was a single mother in her mid thirties and worked for Florida State University as an academic advisor. I met her through a mutual friend, and we quickly became friends, as well. I was aware of her alternative philosophies and predilection for things strange and occult. Bonnie explained that during a time when she was spiritually

16 searching, she studied a wide variety of metaphysical beliefs and practices including Reiki, “Abraham,” and Tarot divination, and also attended several shamanic seminars. Though she was well versed in all of these practices, she was the only one of the four women who did not actively advertise her expertise. Tallahassee Spiritual Network is an aptly named monthly publication which announces all of the local spiritual activities and events available to the public. Advertised events include Mystical Wednesday, an astrology and Tarot discussion group hosted by Darlene, a single woman of approximately 60 years. Darlene also advertises one-on-one personal astrological predictions, Tarot readings, past-life readings, general spiritual counseling, and Reiki treatments. Like Adele, Darlene has her own website through which any of these services could be purchased. To supplement her inconsistent New Age income, Darlene maintained two conventional jobs: part-time as the receptionist for a daily newspaper, and part-time as an apartment manager. Before meeting Adele, Bonnie, and Darlene, I had never heard of Reiki, but its apparent popularity within the local New Age community piqued my interest and contributed to the selection of my next New Age informant. To the left of the health food store entrance, there was a “community bulletin board” on which locals could tack up advertisements of natural healing products, services or events. I noticed a brochure offering a class in Reiki. It was a simple brochure with a brief biography of Carol, the Reiki Master. She described herself as well-educated with degrees in both psychology and history. Intrigued, I signed up, paid the 160 dollar fee, and met Carol. Carol was a married 59 year-old woman and had spent most of her adult life as a high-school and special education teacher. Years ago, she discovered alternative spirituality and healing practices and decided to dedicate her life not only to healing the sick, but also to teaching others to be healers as well. This included giving Reiki classes and treatments, teaching Qigong, which is similar to Tai Chi, and hosting “Light Weavers” meetings. Though other healing practices and beliefs figure more prominently for several of these women, their shared status as Reiki healer is significant. Specifically, it serves as a diagnostic trait that tethers the women together by a common set of metaphysical beliefs. Given the diversity of healing practices and beliefs within the New Age culture, it is beneficial to have criteria that will create some homogeneity between the informants.

17 The art of Reiki healing is a practice which embodies many quintessentially New Age traits mentioned by Lambert. It combines the beliefs of different religious and healing traditions such as Christianity, Eastern spirituality, chakra therapy, crystal healing, and channeling. It is congruent with other metaphysical beliefs and practices. It promises to alleviate both physical and spiritual maladies. Though there are three degrees of Reiki proficiency, it is essentially non-hierarchical and can be performed by oneself. Just as the theosophical movement was being established, Japanese doctor and former Christian monk, Mikao Usui, immigrated to the United States. Usui had been traveling the world and meeting with various spiritual figures to try and discover the healing technique used by Jesus Christ. While meditating on a mountaintop in Tibet, Usui received a divine revelation revealing the ancient healing art of Reiki. Once in the United States, he began promoting the Usui System of Natural Healing. Usui believed that through a sequence of three “attunements” which align the “chakras” or energy centers in the body, an individual could channel healing Universal Energy in through the top of the head, out through the palms, and into an ailing patient. This Universal Energy would, in turn, “recalibrate” the vibrational frequency of the ill patient, ultimately resulting in the cure of any number of problems, both physical and emotional. To become a Reiki Master, an individual must undergo these three separate “attunements” as given by another master. In keeping the Dr Usui’s original wishes each “attunement” costs exponentially more than the last with a total cost of more than one thousand dollars. This requisite financial investment is indicative of the depth of belief in New Age principles among the four women, and the common belief in these principles allows for a more meaningful comparison in general. When the objective is to discover the relationship between cultural experience and individual world view hidden inside the “minds of the actors,” the non-directed interview is the most efficacious. Instead of a formal interview process in which the individual answers a series of specific, predetermined questions, the non-directed interview style allows the informant to provide a relatively uninterrupted narrative of their lives. In this way, the informant is able to highlight significant details that would otherwise remain obscured by less relevant data obtained through regimented questioning. The interviews conducted for this study, therefore, were primarily non-directed. The women described

18 their lives in chronological sections and as they told their stories, I asked them to comment on topics relevant to understanding the evolution of their ideology. For example, during the description of their lives from ages 0 to18, much of the focus was on religious, social and political attitudes held by each parent. Then, from ages 18 to 30 and beyond, my objective was to understand how and why those inherited attitudes changed after leaving their natal families. One important question posed to each participant related to “defining moments” or events they could identify as having significantly influenced the course of their lives. For the full list of interview discussion topics, refer to Appendix A.

CHAPTER THREE THE LIVES OF HEALERS

Adele Adele was born in Tripoli, Libya on May 26 1967. She joined her three-year-old sister, her mother, and her military father on the base where he was serving. Adele and her sister lived the typical “military brat” lifestyle, moving about every two years and living in Italy, Texas, Massachusetts, Mississippi and two different towns in Illinois. From the ages of five to seven, Adele and her family lived in Aviston, Illinois. It was a conservative, strongly catholic farming town of approximately 800 people. Adele’s parents did not raise her or her sister with any particular religious affiliation. They were technically Methodist but only attended church twice a year-- on Christmas and Easter. During this time in Aviston, she often attended church services with her friends and remembered being envious of their religious routine. More specifically, it was the accouterments such as the crucifixes, rosary beads, and iconic figures that she found most appealing. Adele believes that it was at this point during which the seed of spirituality was planted in her mind. A few years later Adele’s father was transferred to another small Illinois town, so they all packed up again and moved. Here she became friends with a girl from a conservative Baptist family. Together they attended a Baptist church camp, where they participated in a traditional Baptist revival. Intrigued by the experience, Adele began to improvise her own communions and sacred rituals in private. Adele characterizes her family as disconnected and unable to develop close relationships with one other. Adele could always tell that her parents were unhappy in their marriage. Her mom was a “passive” woman, and her dad was “unencouraging” and did not like her mom to express herself or her opinions. He wanted a traditional wife and nothing more. He was plagued with a drinking problem, which further drove the wedge in between the family members. Adele said that she was left to raise herself. Her family did not associate much with relatives, except to visit both sets of grandparents on Thanksgiving and Christmas. During her adolescence Adele often spent time alone, but she still managed to be an active participant in school activities. She was involved in the school band and

cheerleading. Adele also excelled in academics, maintaining Honors Society status until around the age of fifteen. At this time her sister had already left for college, and her dad was working abroad. Her mom found work in Tallahassee, so the two of them moved. Tallahassee proved to be a challenge in several ways. First, the curriculum was more demanding than in previous schools she had attended. Second, her new classmates were primarily from wealthy families with parents in government positions. For the first time in her life, Adele felt she was “out of her league.” This caused her to expend extra energy impressing her peers socially. She began spending a lot more money on clothes and other material items in order to achieve a sense of fitting in. Adele even took the job of being the school mascot “Leo the Lion.” Her social life quickly became top priority while her grades suffered. After graduating high school, Adele stayed in Tallahassee and worked at a photography studio for seven years. The first three years after high school graduation, she lived with her mother. Around the age of 21, Adele became involved in her first serious relationship and moved in with the man in question. This individual suffered from alcoholism and manic depression. Not only was he emotionally unpredictable, but he was also physically abusive to Adele. Adele persisted in trying to make this rocky relationship work for about two and half years. Toward the end of the relationship, Adele became pregnant and miscarried. She ended the relationship, moved back in with her mother, and sank into a bit of a depression. Adele started spiritually searching. She read many self-help books which helped her to deal with the depression and to release some of the effects of the emotional trauma. It was at this point that Adele really began to develop an interest in New Age spirituality and became intrigued with what she terms the “woo woo factor,” or, the romance of the paranormal/mystical side of life. She even said that she acquired the ability to communicate with “angels.” Adele moved out of her mother’s home for the second time. She first lived with her best friend Amy, but moved several more times over the next few years. As Adele experimented with living situations, she also continued her search for an adequate religious fit. She sampled various Episcopal churches and eventually settled on the Unity church and has been affiliated with them ever since. Through the church, she learned of Reiki and received her first attunement. Reiki piqued her interested because it seemed

mysterious and paranormal. Adele became very involved in the Reiki culture, participating in and sometimes hosting Reiki healing-circles.1 However, Adele felt that at this point she was still “just playing” and put this interest aside for a few years. Adele finally moved into her own place where she remained relatively settled for five years. She didn’t have many friends, so socialization was at a minimum. She remembered being extremely introverted during those years and often stayed at home and read. That time was “a blur,” and Adele said she did not remember much of it. She quit her job at the photo lab and took more professional employment working for the Department of Children and Families. Adele became “caught up in the business world” and described herself during this period as a workaholic. Looking back on her late twenties, Adele said she was “flat depressed” and in a state of deep apathy. Adele realized that she was still suffering from the emotional effects of the abusive relationship and miscarriage that she had experienced in her early twenties. One evening when she was about 28 or 29, Adele had a vision. She said that the vision was a portrayal of Hell, but it did not include the traditional imagery associated with Hell. She saw a gray, dead landscape void of any emotion, good or bad. After some research, Adele discovered that the vision came during her “Saturn Return”-- an important astrological event. She explained that when the planets that were aligned at her birth were again realigned twenty eight years later, every issue that had not been dealt with up until that point had to be readdressed. Adele interpreted her vision as a wake-up call that forced her to confront all of the emotional problems she had been suppressing. Adele said that soon after her ‘Saturn Return,’ she became a more active participant in her own life. For three weeks, Adele was pretty disturbed by the experience. Soon after this vision, her friend Judy invited Adele to an Abraham meeting where she had a “born again” experience. Abraham refers to a collective group of entities channeled through a woman called “Edith.” These entities taught that all matter is simply a form of energy and that people “are like magnets and our thought magnetize events to us.” The Abraham technique could be applied by an individual to shift his or her energy in a manner that

1 A Reiki healing-circle is a gathering of Reiki healers who assemble to help heal people who are sick or in pain.

produces more desirous results. Abraham gave Adele a sense of empowerment and helped her to stop feeling like a victim. At age 29, Adele became involved in a romantic relationship with her fellow Abraham devotee, Judy. They lived together for about 4 years. Judy was an alcoholic, but this time Adele felt that she was ‘awake’ and able to see the spiritual purpose behind the relationship. Adele felt that she was meant to be involved with Judy in order to understand the connection between her experience with her father’s alcoholism and the quality of her subsequent relationships. In addition, she felt that she was meant to help Judy through her addiction. Adele explained that Abraham taught people to indulge in whatever they want be it drugs, alcohol, food, or cigarettes. As one becomes more connected to “spirit” they will naturally lose their interest in these behaviors. Adele smiled, giggled, and said, “so we had a lot of fun!” Eventually Judy did stop drinking. Though Adele, did not have a drinking problem herself, Adele gave up alcohol as well, as a symbol of her support. Adele revealed that she had not been romantically involved with anyone since that relationship. She did say that she had become primarily attracted to males and was using her Abraham techniques to attract a particular man at work. Adele felt that her attractions to people had become much healthier and that she was getting close to finding her life- partner. When asked how she visualized herself in the future, Adele said she saw herself continuing to teach, giving private consultations, and writing a book. She wanted to serve as a life coach for people, especially women. Adele explained that she wants to help them feel good about themselves, to be prosperous, and to heal a lot of the issues between men and women. More personally, Adele wants to work on her relationship with her family with whom she is still not close. She also wanted to find a life mate and have children. Adele saw herself not only paying off her 120,000-dollar debt, but furthermore becoming quite wealthy. Adele is currently a minister at Unity church. She is also a motivational speaker and appears at other Unity Churches all over the Southeast region. Adele maintains an online website which serves as an Internet porthole to an array of spiritual sites. She offers an on-line class, “The Laws of Attraction,” based on the Abraham principles. She

also presents this philosophy in person at the local metaphysical gift shop/bookstore. Recently, Adele began researching and practicing the art of Tarot, but for now it is just a casual practice, and she does not accept money for it. In addition, Adele is a massage therapist and plans to open her own parlor. Bonnie Bonnie was born March 26, 1967, in Endicott, New York. Her mother worked as a secretary, and her father was a machinist for General Electric. She has an older sister Debbie and was later joined by a younger sister, Sara. Endicott was a small farming community with a population of about 1,000. This town was very conservative with a strong republican constituent and Bonnie’s family was no exception. They were very politically active, often working on republican campaigns and going door-to-door to solicit votes. Bonnie did not recall any particular denomination being most popular, but Endicott was definitely Christian across-the-board. Her family was unusual in that her father was agnostic, her mother was Catholic, and Bonnie and her sisters were raised Episcopalian. Adding to the mix, her mother believed in all things paranormal such as psychic phenomena, reincarnation, and ghosts. Bonnie remembered her mother regularly holding séances in their house in an attempt to communicate with spirits. In fact, the family home itself was haunted. It wasn’t regarded as anything particularly bizarre or scary, but rather, was just an aspect of life. The whole town was on the bottom rung of the socioeconomic ladder, but her family was especially poor, as Bonnie notes: “Dirty poor, baby!” They were so poor, in fact, that they only were able to eat meat when her dad managed to kill wild game of some sort. Adding to the family’s burden, Bonnie’s father was severely alcoholic and abusive. Her mother always appeared very stoic and didn’t show much emotional reaction to the abuse, or anything else for that matter. The ghost that haunted the house was not so tolerant of the father’s behavior. Bonnie recalled one day when he had been particularly nasty, all of his prized antique wine bottles jumped off the wall and smashed to pieces. When Bonnie was about ten, her mom decided to get a divorce. Bonnie, her mom, and her sisters packed up their belongings and moved to a nearby town. Her father

still visited them ever so often and was physically abusive toward her mother during these visits. Bonnie finally stood up to him and told him to stop. Apparently this was effective, because from then on they only saw him once or twice a year. Her mother began working around the clock to support herself and her three daughters. Bonnie did not recall having much of a relationship with her mother. “I was pretty much on my own […] I feel like have been on my own since I was born” she said. Since her mother was busy with her work and her older sister had become an increasingly volatile and angry teen-ager, Bonnie was expected to do all the household chores such as the cooking, cleaning, and laundry, as well as taking care of her younger sister. Amazingly, Bonnie remained a consistently good student with an A/B average. However, she did not fare so well socially. She maintained only one close friend at a time throughout elementary and middle school and high school. When Bonnie was just sixteen, she became involved in an abusive relationship with a boy in her grade and became pregnant. During a physically physical abusive assault by her boyfriend, she lost the baby. Bonnie was so traumatized by the experience that she decided that she would never let herself feel anything again. She said that she did not cry a single tear until she was about 25 years old. In her senior year of high school, her mother once again packed up all of their belongings. This time they headed south to Lakeland, Florida. “She was tired of being cold,” explained Bonnie. It was then that all of Bonnie’s stress, which had been accumulating over the years, finally reached a peak. Bonnie developed anorexia and an addiction to amphetamines. By the time we got to Florida, I didn’t know how to deal with anything. My mother never showed an emotion, ever. Never cried ever in front of us, you know, always had it together. The only way for me to be control was to not eat, because at least I could control that. Bonnie further explained that the amphetamines helped her not eat and also helped her get “out of her mind” which, at the time, was her primary goal. Bonnie met her first husband in Lakeland during her senior year in high school. She was attracted to him because he was different from the men that she was used to. For one, he was Jewish, and two, he was rich. Her mother had always told her that since it

was just as easy to fall in love with a rich man as it was a poor man, then she might as well fall in love with a rich one. His mother was a practicing Jew, and when their engagement was announced, she cried because he was marrying a “Gentile.” Interestingly, his mother is now Buddhist. He and Bonnie moved to Tallahassee so that he could attend FSU. They were married for about six years. Early in the marriage, Bonnie gave birth to a baby girl. A few years later, Bonnie decided to give up the last vestiges of chemical dependence. She had quit all other drugs before her pregnancy but had clung to her marijuana habit to mask her unhappiness in the marriage. Bonnie then got a job working for a television station in the accounts receivable department. Unfortunately her husband wanted a personal maid, not a wife who worked outside the home. This was one of the reasons they separated and finally divorced. Bonnie and her daughter moved out and into an apartment of their own. She shut herself off from the world for a period of time during which she had several significant revelations. Bonnie said that because her mother always seemed to have it together without any sign of emotional turmoil, she believed that when a person turned eighteen, there was some “magic switch” that turned on and provided one with all the answers: When I turned eighteen and that didn’t happen for me, I felt so dumb, so low. The older I got, I knew that was craziness. This personal crisis initiated an intensive period of spiritual searching. Up to this time, she had no religious belief system. Oddly enough, Bonnie’s mother-in-law was actually an instrumental figure in her spiritual growth. She was divorcing her husband of twenty-five years just as Bonnie was going through her own divorce. Her mother-in-law had discovered Buddhism, which helped her cope, and so she shared these teachings with Bonnie. The Buddhist philosophy made sense to her. She had previously rejected all Christian ideology as well as Western medicine because she felt on an intuitive level that the mental, spiritual, and physical should not be disconnected as it so often is in conventional Western thought. Bonnie began reading many books on the subjects of spiritualism and metaphysics. She became a big fan of Louise Hay’s books, because they taught that physical maladies were simply the manifestation of emotional issues. This helped Bonnie feel more empowered and in control of her addictions and emotional

wounds. Her involvement in the metaphysical community in Tallahassee grew. Bonnie received all three sets of Reiki attunements and was made “Reiki master.” She also began to attend various seminars taught by Keith Varnum, a fairly well known spiritual guru. For one particular retreat entitled “Dream of Gathering Equals,” Varnum selected a word on which the participants were to meditate. The goal was to have a revelation about that word and how it has impacted them personally. During one of these “dream-outs,” Bonnie felt a beam of light enter through her solar plexus (the energy center located mid- torso) and burst out through her third eye (energy center located between and slightly above the eyes). At another seminar, she had two visions-- one in which she “remembered” being a dinosaur and another, an alligator. During one of the last seminars she attended, Keith Varnum took the participants to Wakulla Springs where they listened to the “heartbeats” of the old trees in that area. Bonnie also sat in on several “Abraham” seminars. As her spirituality changed, so did Bonnie’s choice in friends. The friends she chose were stable, honest and self-sufficient. With her increased confidence, Bonnie improved her career viability. She took a job as a nanny and worked at a coffee cart on the FSU campus to finance a Bachelors degree in French which accelerated her already growing self-esteem. Today, Bonnie is a graduate student in the School of Interior Design. Bonnie feels more balanced, as if her pendulum has now stabilized healthily in her center. Instead of rejecting all Western ideology, she is able to see its value in some aspects. For example, she now incorporates some elements of Western medicine into the more alternative approaches. Her primary modus operandi is to make a positive difference in people's lives. Bonnie now realizes that her influence does not have to be on a grand scale. She does impact people just by being a positive and spiritually minded individual. Another significant realization is that life is only what you make of it. The power of positive thinking is fundamentally necessary for true success. A person cannot and will not succeed if they do not believe it is possible. Bonnie has turned inward for spiritual guidance lately and no longer participates in the seminars and retreats. This is because, as she puts it, she is “gathering energy.” “I am on the precipice of following the path that

was laid for me before I was born.” She believes that this future path will include a profession that in some way incorporates both creativity and spirituality. Bonnie still maintains regular contact with her sisters and mother. Her older sister (now a recovering drug addict working as a counselor for other addicts) even shares some of Bonnie’s metaphysical beliefs; however, both of her sisters and her mother are still very Christian. Her younger sister, an insurance agent for GEICO, has no metaphysical/spiritual inclinations. “We have nothing to talk about except General Hospital.” Carol Carol was born in Chatham, Virginia on April 30th 1944. She grew up on a farm where her Father raised dairy cows and tobacco. Her mother was a teacher but devoted her life to motherhood after her children were born. Carol was one of six children. She had four older brothers and one sister. Carol’s parents were very close and she described them as having had a “really good marriage.” Chatham was a very rural, middle class farming community. As one might expect, it was politically and religiously conservative. Most families-- Carol’s being no exception-- were devout Southern Baptists who attended church like clockwork: every Sunday. As a small child, Carol loved the weekly ritual and envisioned herself growing up to become a Baptist missionary. She was a very good student all throughout her school career and maintained top grades. She was also socially well-developed and always had a large circle of friends. But by the time Carol entered her high school and college years, she had begun to question the “fire and brimstone” aspect of traditional Baptist teachings. She came to the conclusion that the Southern Baptists were much too “narrow” in their judgments of morality, right and wrong, and good and evil. Carol also found that she really didn’t believe in a “Hell.” Hell is a central theme in Baptist dogma, and it was always out of fear of Hell, she felt, that one would be inspired to be a good Christian. Carol did maintain her belief in God but quickly shed the Baptist particulars. When I asked why she believed she made such a religious turnabout, she could not point to anything in specific. It just sort of happened. Though her parents remained devout Southern Baptists, they believed that Carol was a good person and would probably still go to Heaven.

After high school, Carol attended the University of Richmond in Virginia. There she earned her BA in both history and psychology. She wanted to continue on to earn a PhD in psychology, but she met a man with whom she was smitten, and they soon got married. Instead of going to graduate school, Carol put her new husband through school in Richmond by teaching special education. Happily, she discovered that she loved teaching, and she never felt the urge to go back to school. The couple stayed in Richmond for many years, and Carol continued to teach English and special education. Carol became pregnant with their first child, but it died in-utero on the due date. This was a major defining moment in Carol’s life. She had always trusted that if she were careful to behave in a good and moral way then everything would work out in the end. After the miscarriage she had to learn to accept that bad things just happen. Carol became pregnant again as soon as she could and had her little girl. A year or two later she had another baby, this time a little boy. Carol decided that he had the same soul as her miscarried baby and came back to her in a new body. Carol found this concept extremely healing. Soon after Carol had her two children, she divorced her husband. When I asked about the cause of the divorce, Carol blushed a little and explained that he had had an affair with his secretary. She laughed and said that her embarrassment was due to the clichéd nature of the situation. It was particularly difficult being a single mother because she had always been adamant about staying at home with her kids. Having to resume her teaching career (which she had earlier quit) was a challenge to her notion of motherhood. Carol (32 at the time) found that in general she had to become much more assertive and self-reliant in order to survive Carol bought a condominium in an area of Richmond that was known for its good schools. She was still on a paltry teacher’s salary, but, she explained, “I just held on by my fingernails!” During this period, Carol stagnated spiritually because she had to concentrate simply on making ends meet as her world was limited to practicalities. She still maintained her sociable ways and had a large circle of friends, as well as a few serious romantic relationships. Again, she seemed reluctant to delve into much detail on these relationships, so I ended that line of questioning. Carol remained single for ten

years. Still living in Richmond, she was only a few hours away from her parents, so there were regular visits back home. In 1988, Carol met her current husband, a computer systems contractor. They married and lived in Richmond until the early 1990s. A lucrative work contract required that the family relocate to New Mexico. Her daughter hated leaving her friends and found it difficult to re-establish herself in a different environment. Her son felt differently and thrived. Carol’s son developed a strong friendship with a boy whose parents were acupuncturists and spiritual leaders/healers. This was of little significance to Carol, until her son became extremely ill with shingles. Conventional Western doctors said it would be six months before he got well. Carol, having exhausted all other avenues, urged her son to consult his friend’s parents. They treated him with acupuncture2 and various herbal concoctions, and the shingles quickly disappeared. He subsequently became fascinated with the underlying philosophies of alternative medicine. He started attending their spiritual meetings to learn meditation and other therapeutic practices, specifically Reiki. Using these techniques, he helped cure Carol’s terrible sinus headaches and back pain when Western doctors could do nothing. She consequently became very interested in alternative spirituality and healing and read quite a bit on the subject. One book that had a significant impact was Conversations with God by Neil Walsh. Walsh was a proponent of automatic writing, which, he believed, provided a conduit for spirit guides to pass their messages on to us. Two and a half years later, Carol, her husband, and her daughter moved to Hawaii. Her son stayed in New Mexico to attend acupuncture school and to study Qigong and Reiki. The family lived in Hawaii for another two years before her husband got another contract and they had to relocate to Tallahassee. Now, Carol feels that her job is to help other people. She teaches Reiki and Qigong to whoever wants to learn it. Carol summarized her spiritual beliefs by explaining that energy/white light/god is everywhere and we just need to learn how to

2 Acupuncture is an eastern healing technique involving pressure point manipulation through insertion of needles into the top layer of skin.

bring it into us to heal spiritually. She said that all physical ailments probably stem from spiritual issues, so healing the spirit first should result in healing of the mind and body, as well. Carol feels that she is just beginning to understand how to apply her beliefs to her everyday life and hopes to teach more people in the future. Carol is already quite an active figure within the metaphysical/spiritual community here in Tallahassee. She frequently teaches reiki qigong.3 For several years, Carol has belonged to Light Weavers International, which is a spiritual group in Tallahassee headed by a psychic medium. Every Wednesday evening a group of individuals meets at the psychic’s house to work on accessing ‘white light’ and directing it to various places or people in need. Right now she is taking classes that will enable her to lead “light weaving” herself. Carol is also involved with Southern Springs. This is an organization which funds different spiritual speakers to come to Tallahassee and give lectures. With whatever time is left over, Carol contributes to social causes through volunteer work with Refuge House, which provides help for homeless people, and a hospice organization, where she gives additional support to the hospice caregivers. Darlene Darlene declined to give away her exact age but based on certain details of her life as well as her appearance, I suspected that she was approximately the same age as Carol. She mentioned that she was a Gemini which would place her birthday in late May or early to mid June. Darlene described her childhood in a New Jersey suburb just outside New York City as happily uneventful. Her parents were both easy going and Darlene and her two brothers (one younger and one older) got along well with each other. Her parents maintained an apolitical and non-religious household, but they had many friends that spanned various religious and political beliefs. Her mother was active in the Jewish community contributed a significant amount of time to social causes. Her father owned a little neighborhood delicatessen and worked long hours to maintain their middle class status. Darlene recalled being frustrated by her parents’ exclusive focus on the practical. She was a dreamy child and entertained all sorts of epistemological questions. Specifically, Darlene remembered sitting on the couch in her living room one day.

3 a system of spiritual alignment through physical postures and movements; tai chi is a type of qigong

Through the slats of the blinds that covered the window, she saw odd swirling patterns of energy and “floating bubbles” in the ambient atmosphere. She had seen these strange visions before but this time decided to ask her parents if they too could see energy and what they thought the universe was made of and any other nagging metaphysical questions that had accumulated in her curious mind. This desired dialog never got far off the ground. Neither of her parents had any interest in discussing-- nor the ability to discuss-- these ethereal topics. In her teens, Darlene felt like she did not really know herself and did not feel quite comfortable in her own skin. Confused and struggling to be at peace with who she was and getting no real guidance from her parents, Darlene sought out various self help books. She stumbled upon two in particular which had significant impact. She read The Power of Positive Thinking by Norman Vincent Peale, and How to be Happy by Ann Mar Lindbergh. These books stressed the importance of positive thought and detailed the relationship between mental thought and physical reality. This resonated with Darlene and helped form the belief system that she subscribes to today. Darlene was never interested in school. She managed to eke out an average academic performance but was impatient with the details that her schoolwork required. Much in the same way she was unconcerned with academics, Darlene treated her social life with a removed indifference. She avoided affiliation with any particular clique, instead maintaining a few good friendships with a few girls from unconnected social groups. Darlene also explained that in her teen years, she actually chose not to date. This was because she enjoyed being alone and did not want to forgo her role as an untouchable observer. There was one thing that did impassion Darlene: singing. She had a big voice and big dreams of stardom. During high school she landed a recording contract with a major label in New York. When I asked about the impact that this must have had on her adolescent life, she only commented rather cryptically that it exposed her “creative,” “free,” “nighttime side.” From that point on, Darlene said that she was meant to entertain and reach wide audiences. After she graduated from high school, Darlene attended secretarial school in New York. She then followed her family down to Miami where they had relocated a year earlier. During this time Darlene’s primary concern became gaining control of her weight.

When she was about 19 she moved to North Carolina for six months to participate in Duke University’s “Rice Diet.” Darlene stated in a funny, matter-of-fact way that despite her weight problem, she was absolutely gorgeous and irresistible to the opposite sex. She did not, however, enjoy this “empty attention” from men. Darlene managed to lose a small amount of weight on the Rice Diet, but unfortunately the triumph quickly reversed itself, and she regained more than what she had lost. Darlene believed that this weight gain was purposeful on a subconscious level. She felt that her physical beauty was prohibitive of a deep, meaningful connection with another person; therefore, gaining weight would insure a more genuine relationship. Although she was searching, Darlene did not consider herself to be a spiritual person during this period. After her time in North Carolina, Darlene returned to Florida and began to indulge her growing interest in things metaphysical. She involved herself with the PSI Counsel, which develops and tests psychic ability, and more significantly, involved herself with EST (Erhard Seminar Training)4. This was a seminar promoting the belief system of Werner Erhard, whose primary tenet was that success in life came from positive thinking. The Erhard brand of positive thinking could only be achieved through a total reprogramming of consciousness by attending his seminars. Darlene reported having quite a positive experience and even coaxed her family and friends to attend a few of the seminars. She reluctantly admitted that though they were interested initially, they all were “sidetracked.” Darlene retained her fervor and took many of the teachings to heart. In her late twenties, Darlene met, fell in love, and eventually married a man. She admiringly described him as a strong, charismatic artist. He was previously married and had two sons, but he promised Darlene that he would give up custody of them when he and Darlene moved to Colorado. He had difficulty fulfilling the promise, which resulted in them moving to Colorado with his youngest in tow. Their relationship was strained at best. He began drinking a lot, and they eventually divorced. After the divorce she moved to Oregon, which, at the time, was a New Age cultural center. There, she sought spiritual comfort, became involved with the metaphysical community, received her Reiki attunements, and participated in several

4 EST was and is considered by many to be a dangerous cult. It now exists under the name Landmark Forum. It is supposed to be a bit less authoritarian in methodology, but it is still considered to have cultish qualities.

spiritual groups. This enabled her to meet people and provided the opportunity for good friendships with many healers from all over the world to evolve. Darlene became enraptured with Tarot. Tarot is the art of divining the past, present or future by the certain arrangement of special cards. She found these Tarot cards one day when she was browsing through a metaphysical gift shop. She bought them, not having any idea how they were used or even of the philosophy behind them. Later, in an old used bookstore, she found the companion book that originally accompanied the cards. Darlene said it was as though her “dream had come true.” For Darlene, tarot proved to be “better than any person” because it was a reliable constant that she could depend on. It answered all of her questions and provided the spiritual comfort that she had been seeking for so long. After a few years, Darlene moved to San Francisco where she resumed a music career and developed a close friendship with Carlos Santana. Darlene never did get her big break in California, so she moved back to the Miami area where her family still lived. There, her career as a metaphysician blossomed. She had a newspaper column and radio show and appeared regularly on local television. Darlene felt that through her spiritual journey she became a more patient and wise individual. She began to better choose the relationships that she invested energy in. Today, Darlene is still single but she said that she is not in any rush to find a significant other. She does have a few female friends, but they are dispersed across the country. Darlene is still close with her parents, who are in Miami, Florida. As far as Darlene’s career as a metaphysician is concerned, she has plans to host another radio show on which she will discuss spiritual issues. Plans for a website are also in the works. She periodically gives sermons at Unity churches throughout the southeast. She also provides counsel to other spiritual leaders such as rabbis and priests. At the local metaphysical gift shop, Darlene leads an informal class called Mystical Wednesday, which covers the topics of astrology, Tarot, numerology, and spirituality. For a “love gift” of seven dollars, anyone can pull up a chair and listen to Darlene discuss these celestial concepts for an hour and a half. She lectures frequently at FSU, Borders Bookstore, and on occasion at the Mary Brogan Museum. Her primary income is derived from a variety of spiritual services such as consultations, essential oil treatments, Reiki

treatments, lectures, Tarot readings, past life readings, numerology readings, and astrological charts.

CHAPTER FOUR COMMON THEMES

Generation Gap While the focus of this chapter is on the commonalities between the four women, the generational differences and how those differences manifested during the interview process should be noted. Adele and Bonnie were both born in the late sixties and grew up in the aftermath of the counterculture. Societal discontent was no longer revolutionary, and being a discerning observer of one's surroundings was not only accepted, but was expected. This culturally cultivated search for truth translated to their private lives as well. During the interviews with Adele and Bonnie, they both discussed more sensitive topics openly and with almost a desperate honesty. I sat down with Adele and started by asking rudimentary questions such as name, age, and place of birth. Adele interjected with, “and I am bisexual, if that helps!” She announced this tidbit with a strange enthusiasm, as though she were divesting herself of some burden, but at the same time trying to demonstrate her level of self-acceptance. At the end of the interview, she gave me a huge hug and said that our conversation was more healing than any she had had with her therapist. Bonnie also was extremely forthright, freely describing her battles with drug addiction, anorexia and depression. When I asked if she was concerned that I was recording the interview, she said that she was an open book and had absolutely nothing to hide. Carol and Darlene, on the other hand, were born in the mid to late forties and grew up in the fifties-- a time during which such openness was not appreciated. Whether or not the typical perception of cookie cutter perfection of the fifties was a reality, Carol and Darlene both did their best to maintain that image. Each recounted an idyllic, happy upbringing. Both sets of parents remained married, and neither Carol nor Darlene expounded further on the topic other than to say that their parents had peaceful, successful relationships. Carol and Darlene were, not surprisingly, reluctant to discuss their own failed marriages. Carol, in fact, giggled with embarrassment when I asked for the cause of her divorce. She explained in her southern drawl, “My husband was having

an affair with the secretary. Same old thing. Just oh-so-cliché. I hate to say it. It is just too cliché for words!” In her early twenties, Darlene became involved with and married an alcoholic. They finally divorced a few years later. Darlene did not seem as embarrassed as Carol about her divorce, but she certainly didn’t dwell on the subject. Carol and Darlene were uncomfortable when I asked about other aspects of their lives, as well. Carol determinedly glossed over any unpleasant experiences when recalling her past, and Darlene refused to be recorded or to even give her real age. There was a certain element of shame that pervaded Carol and Darlene’s recollection of past events, which was completely absent from Adele and Bonnie’s interviews. This appears to be a generational-based difference, as it crosscuts their varied political and religious upbringings. Bonnie and Carol grew up on rural farms in conservative and very religious communities. Adele [though she lived in a small town early in her childhood] and Darlene both grew up in more urban settings with liberal, agnostic parents. Though Carol and Darlene were not explicit about certain details, their guardedness, their image consciousness, and their sense of privacy spoke implicit volumes. These precautions speak of the cultural climate of their generation, the appropriate way to conduct oneself within society, and the importance of maintaining an external mask that is far shinier than the human face hidden beneath. Adele and Bonnie, by contrast, each spoke of their painful experiences with ease, as though they had been discussed countless times before. They were quick to identify pivotal moments, revelations and the underlying significance to their respective struggles. Childhood Spirituality When I asked the women to describe different aspects of their childhood, all four recounted their early interest in religion and spirituality. When Adele was about five, her family moved to a strongly Catholic farming town in Illinois. During this time she often attended church services with her friends and remembered being envious of their religions' symbols including the statues, rosary beads and crucifixes. As a result, Adele incorporated ritual into her play by pretending to conduct her own communions and sacred practices.

Bonnie had a lot of exposure to the occult practices during her childhood through her mother who held deep mystic beliefs and superstitions. She indulged these tendencies by hosting séances at their house with the aid of a Ouija board.1 My mother though, it’s funny. As Catholic as she was, she always, always believed in reincarnation which is totally not [Catholic]. She believed always, always in psychic phenomena. So when we were little we would have kids come over and we would have séances and we would play with the Ouija board. That was my whole childhood. We would have séances and Ouija board. Bonnie’s experiences with the paranormal were furthered by the resident poltergeist that haunted the family home: When my dad was bad, cheated on my mother, the ghost knocked down all his antique bottles off the cellar. We were all raised not thinking that that sort of stuff was weird. It is uncertain whether she would have developed an adult interest in metaphysics if it were not for her haunted house and unconventional mother. Bonnie said that her older sister had accepted some of her current metaphysical insights, but her mother and both sisters are still faithful Christians. This being the case, it seems as though Bonnie was the unusual daughter of the three. Her early exposure to the paranormal not only overrode her Episcopalian upbringing, but proved to be a more effective system for dealing with life experience in her adult years. Like Bonnie, Carol grew up in a very rural, conservative, Christian community. Carol’s family was devout Southern Baptist, and they attended church every Sunday. Carol loved going to church as a child and recalled the deep desire to become a Baptist missionary or to occupy some religious position when she grew up: When I was a little child, I was very involved with the church, and I was always involved with the church, and when I was a little child I thought I would be a missionary and things like that.

1 A Ouija board is a device used as a conduit to the afterlife through which the deceased may communicate with the living.

Again like Bonnie, it is difficult to say whether Carol’s early interest was a function of upbringing or a function of some innate psychological predisposition. Though her siblings grew up with the same religious doctrines, none of them exhibited the desire to make religion or spirituality the focus of their lives. Today they are involved in very secular and practical occupations. Darlene also held interest in things beyond physical reality during her childhood. Her fascination grew even against the back drop of a busy, business-owning family whose agnostic members did not bother to entertain the possibility of a reality beyond their everyday understanding. As a child, Darlene observed “swirling patterns of energy” and “bubbles.” This never worried or frightened her, but she was curious. Her parents, however, were very pragmatic and had no interest in such ethereal topics. Though she did not begin her study of metaphysics until after high school, the need to understand those early unsolved mysteries encouraged her later investigations. Bonnie and Carol grew up in small towns of conservative Christians, while Darlene grew up in a more liberal, urban setting. As a ‘military brat,’ Adele was exposed to an array of socioeconomic and political demographics. Bonnie and Carol both had some degree of religiosity in their upbringing, while Darlene and Adele displayed interest in spirituality and religion despite their agnostic parents. In this way, their interest does not appear to be a sole function of their upbringing. Two factors tie all four of the women together. First, they all demonstrated an early interest in spirituality and religion which somehow evolved into a full New Age belief system in their adult life. Secondly, none of their siblings exhibited the same pattern. Family Disconnect and Social Isolation Each of the women described feeling different and disconnected not only from their family members but also from their peer groups. Adele’s early memories of her family mainly revolved around her father’s alcoholism. She recalled a constant tension that never seemed to subside. The energy of each family member was drained by efforts to cope with her father’s altered behavior, which left Adele feeling as though she had to raise herself. She characterized her family as “disconnected” and was unable to develop close relationships with either her parents or her sister. Though Adele recalled being somewhat social, she often spent time by

herself, performing her made-up rituals, as mentioned earlier. When Adele moved to Tallahassee and began high school, however, she felt that her peers were more sophisticated since most of them came from wealthier, more established families. She put all of her effort into impressing her relatively privileged peers, unfortunately to no avail. Her grades suffered and her self-esteem plummeted. Like Adele, Bonnie had an abusive, alcoholic father and an unavailable mother: My mother worked non-stop. I don’t really think that I had a relationship with her because she was never there so I was pretty much on my own. I feel like I was on my own because for the last few years my parents were together there was so much violence. There was so much hostility always in the house so I feel like I have been on my own since I was born. I was definitely on my own since I was ten years old. This fractured home life affected her social skills as well. Bonnie was only able to maintain one friendship at a time throughout her school-age years, shying away from larger, more intimidating social groups. Even as a young adult, she described herself as being painfully shy. Some days her shyness even prevented her from performing the simplest of tasks, such as going grocery shopping. She would worry that someone may actually try and engage her in conversation, which was a terrifying prospect. Adele and Bonnie’s insecurities can be easily and accurately attributed to their abusive fathers. Patterning adult relationships after those witnessed as a child is a common phenomenon, and as Adele and Bonnie recounted each of their stories, they demonstrated an awareness of their own textbook behavior by immediately connecting their relationship difficulties to the psychological abuse suffered within their natal families. Carol said that her parents had a strong marriage and that her siblings all got along well together, but there was a gender divide within the family: You know, just, there were no major problems, you know, just the normal little things with jealousy, you know, just that kind of thing and my father was more involved with the boys and my mother with the girls. In addition to this gender divide, Carol also felt at ideological odds with the rest of her family. In her teens, she began to reject much of the Baptist “fire and brimstone”

ideology she was taught as a child. Her parents were concerned about this departure but decided that since she was such a good person, there was a chance she would escape the fires of Hell. By the time I got into later high school and college, I realized that southern Baptist church was way too narrow and I was turning very rapidly in the other direction. I got so that I believed there was a god of love and there was no hell. And southern Baptists at that time at least was still teaching that Jewish people and even Catholic people were going to hell and as soon as I got big enough to start thinking I decided that they were way off track. So from college or right before I was always like pretty much believed in god and a power beyond but I did not believe in a lot of things that the Baptists believed in. Mother thought that I would go to heaven but she thought that I didn’t believe exactly right. They still believed that I was a good person so I would probably be all right. Like Carol, Darlene did not mention any major troubles within her family. She did, however, feel different from the other family members. She described her parents as being very active, practical and busy. Darlene, on the other hand, was much dreamier and introverted. Darlene did not enjoy school and was not interested in making good grades or good friends. Like Adele and Bonnie, Darlene avoided actively socializing with her peers and had no desire to join a clique. Darlene explained that she always preferred the role of the passive observer and enjoyed being alone. She focused most of her energy on her singing career and spent a lot of time in New York, away from her New Jersey home town. She said that this was an important vehicle for her self expression and creativity. Traumatic Events I asked Adele, Bonnie, Carol, and Darlene to reflect on a past situation that they could identify as a ‘defining moment’-- a punctuated event that deeply changed who they were. Their responses were surprising in that they were nearly identical for three out of four of the women. Adele graduated from high school a little worse for the wear. She had spent the last few years struggling with feelings of inadequacy which exacerbated her already awkward social skills. She graduated with mediocre grades and a bruised psyche.

Adele’s insecurity was serious enough to land her in an abusive relationship after high school graduation. The boyfriend was afflicted with a whole host of problems. He was manic-depressive with extremely high highs and devastatingly low lows. Compounding the imbalance was his alcoholism. Sadly, Adele bore the brunt of his inner turmoil as he became emotionally abusive. She became pregnant but about halfway into her pregnancy, she had a miscarriage. I had a miscarriage with a guy […] the guy that I lived with. It really just flattened me emotionally. Adele became emotionally apathetic and numb and was not able to fully process her miscarriage until year later. After the miscarriage and the end of the relationship, Adele described getting “caught up in the business world” and becoming a workaholic. This period lasted until her late twenties. Today, Adele realizes that she was in a state of depression, not having fully dealt with her abusive relationship and miscarriage. What I was doing from your perspective was, was healing that because the abusive relationship I had to look at why- what got me there what self esteem issues that got me there and then I had to heal from that situation and then I had to heal from that and I guess being alone helped me. Bonnie’s self-image as a child and young adult was just as tattered as Adele’s. She, too, was witness to her parents’ abusive relationship and became involved in an abusive relationship of her own. She described the traumatic even that ended that brief courtship: I had a boyfriend when I was in the tenth grade. I got pregnant by him and he beat me up and I had a miscarriage. I finally broke up with him after I had the miscarriage. I finally decided that I would never feel again. I would never have feelings again. I was over and done with that. And so it was until I was about 24 or 25 that I never cried a single drop…not a tear. For the first quarter of Carol’s existence, events unfolded in a surprisingly conventional sequence. She graduated from college, met a man, and then got married. Carol did not mention any physical or emotional abuse in the relationship as Adele and Bonnie had, although her then-husband was unfaithful early in their marriage. Soon after their wedding, Carol became pregnant. Sadly, like Adele and Bonnie, she miscarried.

I lost my first baby. It died right at due date, but in-utero. That was really a defining moment because before this I always felt like if I did what was right then everything, everything would work well for me because, well, everything always had but this was my first time I could realize that even if you try to do what you’re supposed to do it can happen bad. I was set back. In her younger years, Darlene did not recount any punctuated, traumatic event. I suspect, however, that there was some prime mover that initiated her weight gain and subsequent feelings of isolation and insecurity. She was guarded during the interview and very careful to appear strong and impenetrable. Darlene’s weight was a sensitive issue and she went to great lengths to justify it by emphasizing its utility. She claimed that it served as an effective protector against the superficial attention of men that she was used to receiving when she was thinner and “irresistible.” The one major event that Darlene did mention happened in her late twenties, when she married an alcoholic artist. Their relationship is described in the following section. Men, Abuse, and Addiction The difficult male relationships experienced in the lives of these four women resulted in significant periods of avoidance of men altogether. During the interview, Adele made the connection between her adult relationships and the family lineage of abuse and alcoholism: The reason I didn’t date any men in there was because was what happened with that guy and all that scary stuff with the losing the baby and all that I swore I would never you know be with another man again. He [her boyfriend] was alcoholic and bi-polar and abusive and my father was abusive and alcoholic and my mother’s father was also too and really [I] didn’t put all of this together until a couple years ago and it is really more of a trend and because of that I sought out books to help me deal with what I was going through with him and to help release that and that is when I got into the spiritual stuff. When she “got into the spiritual stuff,” she also began dating her friend, Judy. This relationship lasted for about five years. Although she was an alcoholic as well, Adele found this relationship to be extremely healing.

I didn’t have any [relationships] until I was with Judy which was from twenty nine to thirty four. And she was also an alcoholic. That relationship was so on purpose. I was awake finally. I was awake enough to see that I was in another relationship with another alcoholic and at the same time it felt very much on purpose that I was meant to be there for her in her life and she in mine. Bonnie experienced a similar course of events involving men and addiction in her life: When I stopped my dad from beating my mom for the last time, it made me shut down all of my feelings but at the same time it helped me feel powerful. But it definitely made me shut down my feelings. I started to take lots and lots of drugs. It was all about as much speed as I could do. I was anorexic and it kept me skinny. I wanted to be as out of my mind as I could, I think. After Bonnie’s troubles with her father, her abusive relationship and resulting miscarriage, and her failed marriage, she abstained from any serious relationships with men for a period of about ten years. For about a year within this ten year period, she experimented with dating a woman. She said that she found the relationship “a relief,” free from the chaos and abuse of those relationships experienced previously. Carol never suffered any of the abuse endured by Adele and Bonnie. Still, her early male relationships were not entirely positive. In addition to the distanced relationship with her father, her first husband turned out to be a bit of philanderer. Carol described how the resulting divorce affected her: The divorce was pretty bad because, yeah, that was definitely a defining moment because I had two little kids. I wanted to stay home with my children and they were little and I was going to have to go back to work. We got divorced and I didn’t have a job and I had to go get a job. This was a very defining time too and so that’s when I had to learn to do everything myself and look after myself and so instead of being a sweet little person I had to be more assertive in order to survive. During this time, Carol’s focus was entirely on making ends meet, and she remained single for the next ten years.

Darlene avoided relationships with men for most of her life. Darlene said that she was a stunningly beautiful teenager and held a lot of appeal to the opposite sex. At this young age, however, she was able to discern quality connections from the more superficial ones and made the decision not to date. Darlene theorized that her subsequent weight gain was an attempt to block the advances of those who would only be attracted to her for her physical appearance. In her late twenties, Darlene finally fell in love and married. She describes her husband as a “strong, charismatic artist.” He was divorced with two sons. He promised Darlene that he would give up custody of them when they moved to Colorado. The time came, and he had difficulty fulfilling the promise, so they moved to Colorado with his youngest in tow. Their relationship was strained at best and he began drinking excessively. Darlene stayed in the marriage for as long as she could, attending frequent ALANON meetings. The eventual failure of the marriage seemed to be particularly devastating for Darlene. Most of her life, she had been reclusive and even prided herself for being socially detached. She took a chance on another person who ended up being a disappointment, and she never made another attempt at a relationship again. Darlene’s struggle with weight and relationships with men is difficult to fully understand. It seems as though key pieces of her life, particularly relating to her childhood, that might help explain her behavior were absent from her life-story. This absence, ironically, highlights the residual insecurities that Darlene perhaps still harbors. Identity These women's troubles were compounded by a lack of a model after whom they could pattern their lives. A recurrent theme, which revealed itself through the course of each of these interviews, was the problem of identity. Each described a period during which they did not “know themselves.” After her miscarriage and abusive relationship, Adele became aware of her insubstantial sense of self. Adele described her mother as “passive” and emotionless in the face of abuse. Adele believed that part of her lack of identity resulted from the absence of a successful mentor, and that it was therefore her job to find a new, healthy way of moving through the world: I wasn’t that insightful. I wasn’t that awake yet. I was asleep until I was 29.

I inherited some characteristics from my mother but I can also see some characteristics from my father that I inherited. And I saw his lack of maturity in my relationships. Not only do we learn from our parents’ behavior, but spiritually or aurically with our auras and our energy we adopt some of their crap to evolve it. Bonnie offered a similar critique of her mother: My mother worked non stop. I don’t really think that I actually had a relationship with her because she was never there so I was pretty much on my own. By the time we went to Florida, I didn’t know how to deal with anything. My mother never showed an emotion ever. She never cried ever in front of us, you know, always had it together. I didn’t know how to deal with anything. When I was young, because my mother didn’t show any feelings ever, I thought that when you turned eighteen, there was some magic switch that clicked on and all of a sudden, you had all the answers and you knew everything. Then when I turned eighteen and that didn’t happen for me, I felt so dumb. I felt so insignificant so low. After Bonnie’s divorce from her husband, she began to understand that she had to make a concerted effort to figure out how to most effectively maneuver through her life and she did so with the help of a new spiritual ideology: But the older I got, the more I realized that it was just craziness to think that automatically, you knew what life was about. That’s when I started seeking a spiritual life. I spent my twenties searching, searching, searching, searching. Carol had a comparable worldview as a young adult. She believed that as long as she lived her life in a morally and ethically conscious fashion, then she would avoid any difficulty. She explained this perspective in a quote from the previous section: I always felt like if I did what was right then everything, everything would work well for me because, well, everything always had but this was my first time I could realize that even if you try to do what you’re supposed to do it can happen bad. In addition, after her divorce she had to redefine her notion of maternal success. Her mother had never divorced and was present for her children on full-time basis. Carol had

to part from the pattern established by her mother, and move into uncharted territory. Again, this was described in a previous quote. I wanted to stay home with my children and they were little and I was going to have to go back to work. We got divorced and I didn’t have a job and I had to go get a job. This was a very defining time too and so that’s when I had to learn to do everything myself and look after myself and so instead of being a sweet little person I had to be more assertive in order to survive. Also parting ways with her mother, Carol began to formulate her own spirituality. After her miscarriage, she was comforted by a sudden and very un-Baptist belief in reincarnation. I got pregnant again as soon as I could. And so that was a boy [the miscarried baby] and I had a girl. And that was good but I still grieved for the little boy. So then I got pregnant and had a little boy and so that was alright then cause I felt like that was that same child, had the same soul. After her divorce, when Carol was on her own, she still felt an obligation to introduce her children to the Sunday ritual she remembered fondly, but at the same time, she tried to shield them from some of the less positive religious lessons she was subjected to. Nothing, nothing, nothing. I would, I would go to church some. I took the kids to Sunday school, you know, not a hundred percent regular, but a lot when they were little and that kind of thing, but I didn’t go to some of those classes myself because I didn’t want to get in a big fight cause I could see I was not going to be believing with them. Spiritually there was nothin.’ No progression. I had no organized religion whatsoever. I made sure they didn’t go into places where they would find out about hell or anything. Darlene looked back on her teens as a time when she did not “know herself.” During her early twenties, when her insecurities were at their peak, she spent time trying to find a way to be “at peace” with herself. Her singing contract did not pan out. After high school she went to secretarial school, but did not become a secretary. She finally decided to make weight loss a priority because she was tired of struggling to find a way

to feel good in her own skin. Darlene enrolled in the famous Rice Diet2 founded by Duke University. She seemed a touch defensive when discussing the Rice Diet and quickly began ticking off all of the “famous” individuals who also participated, including Buddy Hackett and Al Hurt. She did lose a bit of weight but promptly gained it all back after the program’s end. Metaphysical Self-Help Adele, Bonnie, Carol and Darlene all sought comfort from metaphysically based self-help after the most difficult periods in their lives. Adele clearly identified her abusive father as the prime factor that set in motion a domino of events that eventually led her to metaphysics for help. She patterned her first serious relationship after her parents’ dysfunctional marriage and fell in love with an unwell individual. The emotional abuse within this relationship was scarring, but it was the miscarriage that had the biggest impact, resulting in years of depression. Her apathetic state was disrupted by a vision in which she saw what life would be like without “God.” I had this vision like a nightmare vision it seemed like it lasted…I feel like it lasted for a day and a half. I fell asleep and didn’t wake up until noon. It felt like that what it was, was like I think it was, was almost like God gave me a vision that said ‘If you think I am not in your life, I’ll show you what it would be like to not be in your life.’ I had this flat, it wasn’t bad like hell, or what you would envision hell to be, although this was hell. Everything was gray and I had no emotions, nothing good or bad but the flowers were gray everything was just flat and so and while I was in it watching it realizing this was bad.

2 The Duke University Rice Diet website: [http://www.ricedietprogram.com/index.php] For over 60 years, the Rice Diet has been helping people with diabetes, obesity, heart disease and hypertension– often with dramatic results. While fad diets have come and gone, the Rice Diet has evolved through the years into a complete and proven program for improving health. Today, people from across the country and around the world come to Durham, North Carolina to begin their journey to better health. Almost all of them are referred by physicians or program alumni. Length of stay depends on a number of factors. Some patients come for as little as two weeks, some stay for about 4 weeks, and many stay for over a month. The program provides meals, classes, groups, workshops and medical supervision in a quiet, safe and supportive setting. The Rice Diet is a place where you can focus on yourself and your health.

“God” was a term she used interchangeably with “universal energy” and “life force.” This allowed Adele to step outside of herself and recognize her depression. Her early interest in spirituality and the paranormal nature of her life-altering vision perhaps encouraged her to turn to metaphysics for help: Because of that [abusive relationship, miscarriage, depression] I sought out books and stuff but it made perfect sense that it lead me to seek help. I sought out books to help me deal with what I was going through and to help release that and that is when I got into the spiritual stuff. Adele then began attending ‘Abraham’ seminars with her girlfriend Judy: Abraham teaches you that we are made of energy and that we are like magnets and thoughts magnetize events to use and how to shift your energy to be empowered in your life so I went from feeling like a victim to feeling empowered so that was a sense of being born again. I started experiencing more insight and visions and being right about my insight. This is funny because you’re going to get a kick out of this too. I had a vision that there would be somebody who would want to do a thesis or their doctorate on, on me. I had an angel speak to me named ‘Arayalight.’ You know, like, ‘a ray of light.’ And I was told that at that time that a new angel was joining me, you know, we have a guardian angel. that she was joining me at that time there was new one starting in that January after the attunement [Reiki] that would guide me and help me. It was kind of like I am a person who has a lot of visions out there and this angel and (I say they because I really believe there is more than one) I just call her Arayalight but there is really more that are there. They help me bring my visions to earth to manifest, not just have pie in the sky ideas but to actually create things. I am getting even more assistance with building my field of dreams, or whatever, so to speak. Bonnie’s life followed a similar pattern. Her abusive father stunted her emerging identity and sense of self. She replayed the abusive relationship with a rather unsavory boy at school. Bonnie became pregnant, but her boyfriend’s physical assaults damaged the fetus, and Bonnie was unable to carry to term. This resulted in years of depression. She struggled to ignore or find ways to deaden the pain. She became severely anorexic

and addicted to a variety of drugs. After she had her daughter and divorced her husband, she bonded with her ex-mother-in-law who introduced her to New Age spirituality and healing: I started to open my eyes to different things other than traditional medicine and actually my ex mother-in-law had a lot to do with that because that was also a period in her life when she was divorcing from a 25 year relationship and uh that’s when she discovered Buddhism and she went through a huge metamorphosis of her spiritual beliefs and she shared a lot and she and I became really, really close and I moved in with her after I left my husband and our spiritual lives have always been very close together. I totally went away from any western thought. I thought that Christianity was awful, the worst thing ever. I didn’t want to have anything to do with doctors or anything like that. Western doctors disconnect from mental and spiritual sides of you and just treat symptoms. They don’t treat the problem and um that’s when I discovered Louise Hay [Heal your Body: The mental causes for physical illness and the metaphysical way to overcome them (1982).] and I did those little chants to myself all the time when I’d get sick. Carol did not have to deal with deep effects of childhood abuse. On the contrary, she enjoyed an idyllic childhood, Southern Baptist style. Nevertheless, something switched in Carol’s mind in her teens and early twenties that caused her to reject the Baptist teachings with which she grew up. Carol could not identify exactly why she started doubting Baptist doctrine and said only that she just stopped believing. Perhaps her turnabout was the result of natural teen rebellion, compounded by her study of psychology during college. This may have encouraged an objectification of human behavior and skepticism of religious beliefs. After college, Carol found herself in a less- than-ideal marital situation. It was during these years that she suffered both infidelity and a late-term miscarriage. What healed the emotional gash was choosing to believe that her baby boy, who was born a few years later, carried the soul of her first miscarried child. This sudden belief in reincarnation was certainly not very Baptist. Carol’s miscarriage experience was similar to the other women’s because she sought solace in a non- Christian concept. Oddly, her son would later once again lead her further down the path

toward the New Age. Carol’s husband cheated on her, and she left the marriage. Her second husband’s job required a move to New Mexico, a state that had long lured spiritual seekers to its stark landscape. There, her son developed an illness that required the unconventional care of two naturopathic healers. Her cured and inspired son began to dedicate his life to metaphysical healing and spiritual practice. He healed Carol’s debilitating headaches through Reiki techniques, and she too was inspired. Carol then began her spiritual re-education: I had never gone to alternative medicine, but might as well give it a try. This was horrible. And they did things to the reflex places in his ear and gave him some herbal things to drink and all this and ah herbal medicine, you know and told him that it would get worse and then it would get better and go away. He was sold and he was impressed. So he started going to their meetings and they learned to meditate and all this and they taught him Reiki well I had a lot of sinus headaches so he would reiki my sinus headaches and to my great surprise it really worked. I started reading spiritual books and that was when my spiritual journey started. One of the ones that made a big difference was Conversations with God, by Neale Donald Walsch (1995). It was one of the first ones that made a big difference. He would ask questions and would do the automatic writing and God would answer and so this is when I began forming more of my, my religious beliefs that I have now. So I started reading and did the Reiki and I got very interested in it so now I like to teach Reiki to anyone that wants to learn it or Qigong to anyone that wants to learn it because it made all the difference in the world in my life and it can make, and it will work like that with anyone else. So now my job is to help other people. Darlene’s life was free from the pain of abusive fathers and the disappointment of miscarried babies. She did not, however, meander through unscathed. Like Adele and Bonnie, Darlene’s sense of self had malformed early along the way. She spent much of her young adult years alone, overweight and searching for an identity. She searched for it in Duke University’s Rice Diet program, but gained back the weight and was no closer to understanding herself. After giving up on rice, she began to experiment with metaphysics. Darlene was tested for psychic abilities at PSI and enrolled in Werner

Erhard’s EST3 seminar psychological reprogramming. The EST program was based on the belief that we live in a world of illusions created by projections of the psyche. To change reality, one must first radically alter their psychology. Darlene felt that EST was a significant spiritual advancement and remains an advocate of the program. After this subconscious rewiring, however, she promptly fell in love with, and married, an alcoholic. The severity of the emotional pain she felt within her marriage was evident in the description of her subsequent love for Tarot.4 Darlene moved to Oregon after her divorce, and began her most intensive spiritual searching. She soon discovered Tarot and said that it was her “dream come true.” Darlene asserted that her relationship with Tarot was more satisfying than one she could ever have with another person because it was dependable and provided her answers to all of her questions. In addition to Tarot, Darlene talked about two books that had the most significant influence on her life: The Power of Positive Thinking by Norman Vincent Peale (1956), and A Gift from the Sea5 by Anne Morrow Lindbergh (1955); both helped Darlene to realize how her own thoughts were affecting the quality of her life. It was these books that laid the foundation of her current belief system which emphasizes “positive and loving” interpretation of life through Tarot and astrology.

3 Charlotte Faltermayer gave a brief outline of the EST program in Time Magazine When Werner Erhard (born John Paul Rosenberg) founded Erhard Seminars Training, Inc. in 1971, the former used-car salesman from Philadelphia had a hook. Born of the theater-of-the-absurd atmosphere of the late 1960s, est (Latin for "it is") promised to help people get "it," whatever "it" was. Erhard's 60-hour seminars were strenuous ordeals, complete with "body catchers" and barf bags for the weak of mind and stomach. Trainers applauded bladder control and cursed those who didn't get it. Still, Erhard and his message proved popular, even winning celebrity advocates. Then, after two decades and two divorces, the self-help messiah vanished amid reports of tax fraud (which proved false and won him $200,000 from the IRS) and allegations of incest (which later were dropped). 4 Tarot is the divination of past present and future through the placement of symbolic cards. There is still much debate about the true historical origins of Tarot. Most believe that it began in fifteenth century Italy as a card game called “Tarocchi.” No one really knows when it took on its occult association. 5 Darlene recalled the book title as “How to Be Happy.” I researched this title and was unable to find any references to it. I suspect that Darlene meant Lindbergh’s most popular book entitled “A Gift from the Sea” which addresses the issue of happiness.

CHAPTER FIVE THE REINVENTION OF LIVES: A SHAMANIC PERSPECTIVE IN MODERN CONTEXT

The life experiences that Adele, Bonnie, Carol and Darlene share may hold significance that extends beyond the geographic and cultural boundaries of modern America. Joan Halifax (1982) noted that the role of the traditional medicine man or shamanic healer has successfully seeped into today’s society, manifesting in various forms: The lifeway of the shaman is nearly as old as human consciousness itself, predating the earliest recorded civilizations by thousands of years. Through the ages, the practice of shamanism has remained vital, adapting itself to the ways of all the world’s cultures. Today the role of shaman takes many forms – healer, ceremonialist, judge, sacred politician, and artist, to name a few. (Halifax 1982:5) Further, she outlined a sequence of life events common amongst many traditional shamanic healers: The true attainment of the shaman’s vocation as healer, seer, and visionary comes about through the experience of self-wounding, death, and rebirth. Knowing intimately the realm of sickness, decrepitude, dying, and death readies the shaman for his or her actual mission. (Halifax 1982:92) Holger Kalweit (1987) noted a similar shamanic pattern which included “wounding,” “self-healing,” and the subsequent development of “healing powers.” Kalweit believed that this sequence of experiences was not only a cross-cultural phenomenon within the lives of traditional shamans, but that it also held a universal transpersonal significance within the lives of many healers, past and present. The utility of a modern application is demonstrated by using this traditional healing cycle as an interpretive framework for the lives of the four modern women included in this study. The Calling Prior to the “wounding” a neophyte would typically have exhibited some early indication of his or her healing potential. Today, American parents are unaware of any signs, short of a nasty case of stigmata, that foretell of a sacred healing role in their

child’s future. In a large complex society with nearly limitless vertical and horizontal mobility, signs of occupational potential are left for the individual to decipher. The American problem of choosing a life becomes even more difficult when a person’s experience or behavior does not translate to any established societal role. There was no mode of interpretation for the early experiences of these four women. Adele’s made up rituals, Bonnie’s predilection for things occult, Carol’s desire to be a missionary who believed in reincarnation instead of hell, and Darlene’s observation of swirling energy went unnoticed because these traits are lost within the increasing complexity of contemporary Western society. However, if the lives of these women are viewed through the lens of a traditionally shamanic society, certain previously uninteresting aspects become highlighted and take on a new meaning. In other cases, an individual will begin to show a proclivity for the sacred: For example, certain young children have been powerfully attracted to follow the way of the healer, the priest, the metaphysician. For others, the role has been revealed during dreams or other visionary states, such as an experience with hallucinogenic substances. Or in the course of a traditional vision quest associated with a rite of passage, such as we find among many Native American peoples, the neophyte learns that the life he or she is to follow is that of the Holy One. (Halifax 1979:5) Wounding and Death The previous chapter detailed the traumatic events and issues each woman experienced including emotional and physical abuse, miscarriage, obesity, alcoholism, drug use, and divorce. Jeanne Achterberg (1988) believed that the initiatory wounding of the traditional shaman translated into the problems and issues faced by the modern American neo-shaman. Being disabled, or having had a serious disease, or being in recovery from an addiction, or even having a child with a significant handicap has been the wounding or the initiation for many in the health care field. For others of us, the wounding is our own private psychic pain; it is the richness and texture of our own lives, and the emotional ties we establish in our work. (Achterberg 1988:117- 118)

During this “wounding” phase of their lives, each woman expressed a lack of identity or sense of self. As Townsend observed of other “neo-shamans,” these four women were searching for a way to understand their lives and experiences in a more meaningful light. Joan Townsend observed that this was a common feeling for todays “neo-shaman:” Like the hippies and other forerunners of neo-shamanism, the people who are drawn to these neo-shamanic associations are often disenchanted with traditional religions and often with much of Western society. Although they tend not to be affiliated with any organized religion, they all continue intensive personal quests for spirituality, meaning, and transcendence. They are searching for new ways to organize their lives in a more satisfying manner and hoping to find more meaning in the religious and philosophical sense. They remain “religious” in the broad meaning of the term and retain their beliefs in some form of supernatural God-like being or Consciousness. (Townsend 1988:78) Self-Healing and Rebirth After their respective spiritual discoveries, each informant realized their desires to help others through emotional and physical healing or simply to teach others how to heal themselves. Not only did their healing experiences inspire the healing of others, but it also determined the mode in which they heal others. Achterberg recognized this psychological pattern within the traditional shaman as well as in modern healers. Either way, the mission to heal and the tools for doing so are revealed. Such events can occur and have occurred in the lives of health professionals in the modern world and have led to vocational choice. (Achterberg 1988:117-118) Adele’s depression was healed through the study of “Abraham.” Her healing event influenced her subsequent aspiration to teach others the “Abraham” philosophy: Abraham teaches you that we are made of energy and that we are like magnets and thoughts magnetize events to use and how to shift your energy to be empowered in your life so I went from feeling like a victim to feeling empowered so that was a sense of being born again. After years of spiritual apathy, Carol discovered the art of Reiki and it changed her life. She stopped teaching high school, and began teaching others the Reiki system of healing:

Well I believe that all around us, there is energy, people call it universal energy, white light, whatever. I think that is all around us and what we need to do is to learn how to bring that into us, into ourselves for our spiritual healing, health, for our physical, our mental[…] If we could access that energy that is all around us, that’s where our healing, our longevity; that’s where everything is. I got very interested in it so now I like to teach Reiki to anyone that wants to learn it or Qigong to anyone that wants to learn it because it made all the difference in the world in my life and it can make, and it will work like that with anyone else. So now my job is to help other people. After her particularly painful divorce, Darlene discovered Tarot. She felt as though her “dream had come true” and that it was “better than any person.” Darlene’s experience with human relationships proved to be disappointing but Tarot was a reliable constant and a sound emotional investment. Today, she presents spiritual lectures and seminars that encourage positive insight through the study of Tarot and astrology. After the birth of her daughter and the end of her marriage, Bonnie’s ex-mother- in-law served as a spiritual healer. She exposed Bonnie to a variety of non-Christian belief systems with an emphasis on Buddhism and Eastern spirituality. These beliefs systems helped her deal with her difficult past. She eventually became a Reiki master and from then on was able to help heal those she was close to: I had always known that I wanted to make a difference in people’s lives. Now I think that I know I do every single day. You don’t have to do it on some grand scale and that you can touch one person at a time and make a difference in a persons life just by-- I don’t know if ‘setting a good example’ is the right way of saying it because it sounds so religiously fanatical. I just mean sharing my views with people. Kalweit (1987) emphasized that it is only after the experience of illness and the act of self healing that a potential shaman may heal others. In this way, it was through the healing vocation that these women’s traumatic experiences became more significant than simply shameful events. This new perspective instilled in them a sense of self-worth and identity that had been absent throughout much of their lives.

The Healing of Others I observed several of these women’s healing seminars and lectures which helped reveal their perception of their experiences, themselves and the world around them. Adele Adele’s Abraham seminars were conducted in the backroom of the local metaphysical gift shop. They were not highly patronized but it held the interest of several middle aged, morbidly obese women. On one occasion, Adele began by describing the deep depression that plagued her in her twenties, her vision of the emotionally dead, hellish landscape and the resulting appreciation for the life she had taken for granted. Adele then discussed her subsequent introduction to Abraham and how it enhanced her life. The point that she impressed on her audience was that the universe was comprised of nothing more than positive and negative energy. How this energy manifests within our lives is under our complete control. Adele instructed them to visualize what they wanted for themselves in the future and then to compose a short paragraph describing this hopeful vision using the present tense as though it were part of their current reality. Adele was determined to impart the concept of mind over matter and ultimately taking control of one’s own life. This technique of attracting positive energy through a change in mental attitude still finds a wide application within Adele’s own life. She is very optimistic about her future which includes wealth, authoring a book, and changing lives. I see myself teaching, continuing to teach and doing consultations which you know will be more pay and writing, maybe writing a book and being -- what I guess the term I would use is more like a coach working with people one on one or in small groups -- especially women – it doesn’t have to be -- but especially women on teaching them all these techniques that I know so they can change their lives and teach them to teach others is the ongoing thing and I see myself with lots of money. I want to live debt free. I owe 120,000 dollars. About 90 of that is in the house plus my car plus all my credit cards and my massage school and I see myself paying all of it off and living like that and teaching others to live like that instead of living in the American way where you are you know living on debt.

That is important to me and teaching women about feeling good about their bodies…and loving and forgiving and working with men Bonnie Though Bonnie is also a Reiki Master, she goes about healing on an almost undetectable level. She explained that when she is with an unhappy, ornery or sick friend, she will sometimes touch them casually on the shoulder or arm or concentrate telepathically in order to send them healing Reiki energy. Bonnie is much quieter than the other women about her effect on people and very careful not to dispense dogma. She is quick, however to help out ailing friends with metaphysical solutions. Every time anyone mentions an illness or physical malady, Bonnie suggests an appropriate mantra to chant in hopes of healing the underlying psychological cause. Bonnie’s Buddhist background was apparent in her belief that she could influence people just by “right living.” By being an example and source of positive energy, she could start an infinite ripple affect that could literally change the world around her. Her study of Eastern spirituality also lead her to the study of martial arts. Eventually she earned a black-belt and taught classes to children for several years. She realized that she impacted these kids in significant ways daily. Bonnie recalled telling them to always believe that they can do whatever they want because a negative internal dialog often yields a self-fulfilling prophecy. “When students say to me they can’t do it, I say they make their own reality so when you tell yourself you can’t do it…guess what? You won’t be able to.” This idea, though a conventional one, was probably adopted from her involvement with Abraham studies. Much of Bonnie’s healing of herself and others was also realized progressively through the generations within her own family. Bonnie expressed satisfaction knowing that not only does she feel healthier than her mother, but her daughter is even healthier than she is. Bonnie invested a lot of energy in her daughter’s spiritual upbringing. She brought her to various shamanic retreats and even had her go through all three levels of Reiki initiation. Bonnie still struggles with identifying exactly what she wants to do with herself. She recently had a brief affair with a childhood education degree but it soured before she completed the program. Currently she is working on an interior design degree. Bonnie

explained that much of this ambivalence had to do with her feeling of still being in a “spiritual cave” while her identity finishes forming and her true purpose is revealed. I feel like I am on the verge of following the path that was laid out for me before I was ever born. I want to have a job that incorporates my creativity and my spirituality and it just flows easily from me. Even through her uncertainty regarding career path, Bonnie feels a level of confidence that was absent in the early part of her life My whole life I really believed I wasn’t creative in any way shape or form and I think it was that I didn’t feel like I deserved to allow that creativity and then it was like somebody flipped a switch, like what the hell? Of course you deserve it. Carol Carol’s Reiki initiations were held at the “Gathering Place,” a house that supposedly sits on sacred Native American land thought to be the site of an unusual electro-magnetic energy field. According to Carol, this unusual energy field acts as a porthole to the spirit world. I attended one of these classes. Besides myself, there were three other Reiki initiates, all female: a counselor for troubled girls, a receptionist in a psychiatrist’s office, and a woman battling brain cancer. Before beginning the Reiki initiation, Carol discussed another New Age group, “Light Weavers” that she participated in and hoped to host one day. Carol explained that light weaving groups all over the world harness energy and project it to various places in need. The ultimate goal is to raise the vibrational frequency of the earth in preparation for the end of the Mayan calendar in the year 2012. At this time, the energetic frequency of the planet will undergo a major shift into a new dimension. Carol was careful to emphasize that Light Weavers and Reiki were not religions. Carol explained that they were simply tools for spiritual and physical healing. Its like you’re clearing your blockages, like your spiritual blockages. Also it helps you physically. People can get over physical things with it too. Because you know a lot of times -- most of the time – well, probably all the time the blockages are what cause physical ailments. So it’s a healing, spiritual thing.

It is interesting to contemplate how Carol’s early experience with the Baptist religion allowed her to draw such a clear line of distinction between spiritual healing and religion. When Carol was in the greatest need of spirituality, it was then that she truly rejected her Baptist belief system and adopted a spontaneous belief in reincarnation which subsequently evolved into a system that incorporated several different New Age beliefs. Like Adele, Carol was very optimistic about her future and envisioned teaching on a larger scale. I see me teaching more and more people, Qigong and Reiki -- maybe doing healing sessions. I see me doing more. I think I’m just beginning to get where I will be doing more and more. I think I am just at the beginning stages right now. Darlene During her “Mystical Wednesday” seminar, Darlene informed her listeners about the position of the planets in the solar system and how they affect our daily lives by influencing emotions and behavior. Darlene explained that astrology and Tarot were forms of “Gods Language” and contained all the information needed to successfully guide our lives. Darlene discussed in particular the events of 9-11. According to a Tarot manual that attached a particular card to every day of the year, the card for September 11th depicted a tower on fire with people jumping out of it. In another book, this one astrology book, the image assigned to represent that particular day was a government building with a flag at half-mast. For Darlene, this was proof that the events of 9-11 were fated and unavoidable. It was meant as a lesson for humanity. In addition Darlene would often lead her group in a healing meditation. She would beat rhythmically on an old hand held drum and instruct them to visualize pink healing energy pouring in the top of their head, filling their bodies and pushing out all of the old energy. Darlene believed that through a light trance state, one could communicate with his or her spirit guide and receive vital information about their lives. The brand of person that attended these weekly sessions was unvarying. There would always be one or two middle aged women that seemed a bit haggard and on or two older women with substantial jewelry, big gemstones on their fingers and around their

necks. Only twice were males present in the group. The dynamic was strikingly different. The men asked for proof and supporting examples to lend credibility to the ideas Darlene was vending. She noticeably stiffened, the other women clammed up and on both occasions the men left before the full hour and a half was over. On most occasions when it was just women there was no debate. Her belief in astrological destiny also allowed for the reframing of her weight issue. As mentioned earlier, Darlene was able to see the divine utility of this “problem.” She interpreted her obesity as a filter that prevented the formation of superficial relationships and therefore served as an aid in her spiritual quest rather than an ordinary ailment. In keeping with the theme of self-reliance and mind of matter, Darlene said that even in the case physical illness, she did not really need to search outside of herself for solutions because all the answers resided within her. Darlene said that through her spiritual journey she has become a more patient and wise individual. Darlene observed that she has become choosier about the relationships that she invests energy in and is still not in any rush to find a significant other. When I asked Darlene what she visualized for her own future, she felt that being a Gemini, she was destined to reach wide audiences via television or radio. The Neo-Shaman As Larry Dossey points out, the healers awareness and interpretation of their personal experiences not only contributes to the quality of their healing but is a vital component: There is another lesson to be gained, however about why the inner life of the healer has always been so important. We can say today that the reason the shamans placed so much emphasis on the spiritual insights and inner visions of the healer were not that they lacked science, and not that they could not reason as objectively as we, but because healing, in its highest expression, is impossible to achieve without them, Without these qualities healers cannot heal: it comes to that (Dossey 1988:97). But the suffering and subsequent healing of others was not entirely an act of martyrdom. These women engaged in a synergistic relationship of healing which, in turn, reinforced their new view of themselves and the world around them.

Strengthening their newfound sense of purpose was an undercurrent belief in destiny. This was not an explicit belief, but it was demonstrated through the use of specific language when discussing certain aspects of their lives or philosophies. Adele discussed how her relationship with Judy was “so on purpose” and how one of the objectives of every individual is to “evolve” his or her “parent’s crap.” Bonnie spoke of a spiritual path that was designed for her to follow even before her birth. Carol warned of a predestined spiritual event set to occur in the year 2012 -- the end of the Mayan calendar. Darlene explained that Tarot and astrology had predicted the events of 9-11 and that according to the stars she was meant to “reach wide audiences.” This belief in fate suggests a belief that every one of their experiences contributes to a grand design. So not only are their experiences of transpersonal significance, but also of cosmological significance. Another recurrent theme was an emphasis on self-reliance and control of ones own life. Their spiritual and physical healing philosophies, such as Abraham, Reiki, Astrology and Tarot allowed for the rejection of Western medicine and organized religion. These New Age practices did not require a faith in or dependence on anyone other than themselves. This freed each woman to step into the position of the sole warrior or hero within their own life as well as in the lives of others. A Shifting Culture These four neo-shamans, viewed within the context of modern America, demonstrate the impact of culture on individual worldview. The evolution of their shamanic ideology highlights significant aspects of contemporary Western culture that contributed to the problem of personal identity. At the same time, the growing popularity of New Age/shamanic philosophy perhaps points to important ideological shifts taking place within American culture today. As suggested by Bateson (1990), Jenkins (1999), and Eller (1993) the circumscription of women’s lives in particular has loosened. No longer are women defined solely by their relationships to others as daughters, mothers, or wives. Women’s liberation from societal expectation puts them in the position of choosing their own lives and therefore choosing how they are to be valued within society.

The life stories of these four women point to certain difficulties faced when trying to determine their significance. They each described a concern with identity and “knowing themselves” and grappled with the absence of a “liberated” mother figure in their formative years. This issue was even more of a concern for Carol and Darlene, who came of age in the 1950’s. Their parents never divorced, and their mothers were always available and appeared to be quite content. Today, the materials and skills from which a life is composed are no longer clear. It is no longer possible to follow the paths of previous generations, This is true for both men and women, but especially true for women, whose whole lives no longer need be dominated by the rhythms of procreation and the dependencies that these created, but who must still live with the discontinuities of female biology and still must balance conflicting demands. (Bateson 1990:2) Cynthia Eller (1993) noted that in mainstream religion the female has few mythological or symbolic representations to fit their new circumstance. This increases the difficulty women have with framing their experiences in any meaningful way. This was particularly difficult for these four women because so many of the positive male images within mainstream religion were invalidated by the negative experiences with the men in their lives. Further, our culture of immediate gratification is prohibitive of a positive framing of negative experience. In the age of quick medical fixes for behavioral “abnormalities,” there is little patience for the exploration of anything other than proximal cause and instant cure. Individuals can now be prescribed medicine for shyness, anxiety, depression, attention deficit, overeating, sluggishness, and hyperactivity. With the increasing availability and use of these medical treatments, there is less societal tolerance for any perceived psychological or physical imbalance. Anyone displaying traits that are incongruent with social standards of acceptability is characterized as a dysfunctional personality type. If such people are fortunate enough to come in contact with esoteric traditions or some expression of a magical-natural understanding of the world, they have gained an inkling that may soon lead to their psychological symptoms appearing in a positive light. Of course, a rocky path then has to be traveled, on which they

must cope with the desacralization of intuitive knowledge in this culture and run the gamut of hostility and sarcasm that relegates any super conscious experience to the realm of neurosis and psychopathology. (Kalweit 1987:53) All four women dealt with some combination of depression, anxiety, reclusive tendencies, addiction, and instances of paranormal reality and they each struggled to construct an identity around their “abnormal” experiences and behavior. The marginalizing of women within mainstream religion, along with the “dysfunction” of their experiences necessitated the formulation of a new interpretive framework. Joan Halifax noted that the life events of a shaman were revered as sacred with the help of a supportive language with which to discuss them. Accounts of the shaman’s inner journey of turmoil and distress, sung and poeticized, condense personal symbolism through a mythological lens that encompasses the wider human experience. Through creative expression, the human condition is elevated, mythologized and at last collectively understood. (Halifax 1982:17) The journey or the path is an important metaphor in shamanic ideology for it imbues painful experience with valor instead of shame. The reinvention of shamanic ideology is evident in Roof’s (1999) observation that there is an emergent language within the culture of self-help which utilizes “journey” terms in order to express the interplay between experience and evolving spirituality. Halifax further discusses how transpersonal language reinforces shamanic philosophy: Thus a transpersonal language emerges recounting the most intimate and intense of psychic details. Both Claude Levi-Strauss and Clifford Geertz stress the integrative aspect of the language of myths. The psyche that is emotionally saturated organized itself by means of mythological conceptions that form an explanatory system which gives significance and direction to human suffering. The seemingly irrational is found to be ordered through the paradoxical. The socially unacceptable becomes the stuff of sacred social drama. The extraordinary dangers that are encountered in the psychophysiological adventure of the shaman become at first bearable, and then ultimately heroic. (Halifax 1982:19)

It is important to underscore the distinction between traditional shamanic belief systems and their contemporary reinvention. Neil L. Whitehead and Robin Wright (2004) pointed out that the New Age interpretation of shamanic spirituality emphasizes its more affirming aspects while dispensing with its darker underbelly. This appropriation of native shamanism has been particularly evident among well- educated North Americans, Europeans and urban Latin Americans, who approach shamanism as a set of magical techniques that can be used for self-realization, for attaining profound or mystical experience, and for alternative therapy, both physiological and psychological. (Whitehead and Wright 2004:10) Ethnographic accounts within the anthropological literature have recognized the more antagonistic and sometimes quite disturbing experiences associated with traditional forms of shamanism. These accounts such as the death divination in West Africa witnessed by Bruce Grindal (1983) and various other anthropological ethnographies discussed and synthesized by Mircea Eliade (1964) in his seminal publication Shamanism: Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy. Despite this library of academic literature exploring both the benevolent as well as the malevolent aspects of shamanism, much of the modern Western reinvention has extracted only the therapeutic elements in an attempt to construct a spiritual ideal. This current movement borders on political righteousness by incorporating certain modern issues such as environmental concern, feminism, and equality. The positive and sometimes political nature of the movement is evident not only in the minds of neo- shamanic adherents, but also in the neo-shamanic literature cited in this study such as Achterberg (1988), Dossey (1988), Halifax (1982), Harner (1980). The politicization of spirituality provides some heft to the movement by tethering it to the relevant cultural issues mentioned above. This helps establish the New Age/neo-shamanic worldview as individually and culturally purposeful. All four of the informants described themselves as liberal Democrats and as Carol explained: Oh you know, I always voted on the liberal side of things…for the environment and all that good stuff. Amanda Porterfield (2001) hypothesized that globalization may have also been a key factor in the rise of this neo-shamanic “spiritual seeker.” Porterfield contended that

globalization created a perception of religion as merely a cultural product. Furthermore she stated that this realization fueled the “seeker” phenomenon because individuals were driven to reduce the religious variety to an ideological common denominator. This hypothesis may have some validity as demonstrated by these four life stories. Carol grew up in a culturally and religiously homogenous environment, but Adele, Bonnie, and Darlene were exposed to a variety of people and beliefs. Adele lived in several different countries and towns and forged friendships with individuals of other faiths. Bonnie’s parents held conflicting spiritual beliefs, and Darlene grew up near New York City and her parents had a culturally and religiously diverse circle of friends. It is conceivable that this early introduction to religious variety set the stage for their future neo-shamanic worldviews which incorporate the beliefs of multiple religious traditions. In light of these issues, the reinvention of a shamanic worldview within the lives of these four modern women can be seen as an attempt both to salvage spiritual meaning from their life experiences in contemporary American culture.

APPENDIX A INTERVIEW GUIDE

Section I. Current Status

1. Name

2. Age

3. Marital status

4. # of Children

5. Level of Formal Education

a. Majors/Minors

6. Political Affiliation

a. extent of involvement

7. Religious Affiliation

a. Extent of involvement

8. Primary Source of Income

9. Secondary/Tertiary Sources of Income

10. Reasons for Living in Tallahassee

11. # of Years in Tallahassee

12. Involvement in the Tallahassee Community

a. Services Provided (Classes, Treatments, Other)

i. # of hours per week

ii. # of years

b. Services Rendered (Classes, Treatments, Other)

i. # of hours per week

ii. # of years

Section II. Birth – 18 years

1. Date of Birth

2. Place

3. Immediate Family

a. Mother

i. Name

ii. Age

iii. Occupation

b. Father

i. Name

ii. Age

iii. Occupation

c. Siblings

i. Name(s)

ii. Age(s)

iii. Occupation(s)

4. Political Affiliation

a. Extent of

b. Effect on family dynamics/relations

c. Effect on personal friendships

5. Religious Affiliation

a. Extent of

b. Effect on family dynamics/relations

c. Effect on personal friendships

6. Socio economic class

a. Effect on personal friendships

7. Place of residence

a. Place(s)

i. Predominant Religion(s)

ii. Predominant Political Affiliation(s)

iii. Predominant Socioeconomic Class(s)

8. Family Dynamics

a. With Mother

b. With Father

c. Between Mother and Father

d. With Sibling(s)

e. Between Sibling(s)

f. Between Sibling(s) and Parents

g. Between Immediate and Extended Family

h. Changes over time

9. School a. Elementary School i. Academics ii. Friends b. Middle School i. Academics ii. Friends c. High School i. Academics ii. Friends

10. Defining Moments

Section III. 18-30

1. After High School

a. Move(s)

b. College(s)

c. Job(s)

d. Boyfriend/Girlfriend(s)

2. Political Affiliation

a. Extent

b. Effect on relationships

c. Change

3. Religious Affiliation

a. Extent

b. Effect on relationships

c. Change

4. Socioeconomic Class

5. Contact with Family

a. Frequency

b. Quality

c. Change

6. Philosophical Perspective

a. What

b. Why

c. Evolution of

7. Social Life

a. Friends

i. Type

ii. Attitudes

b. Social Activity

c. Relationships

d. Change

8. Marriage(s)

9. Children

10. Defining Moments

Section IV. 30 – Present

1. Politics

2. Religion

3. Philosophy

4. Socioeconomics

5. Personal Relationships

6. Family

7. Defining Moments

71 APPENDIX B HUMAN SUBJECTS APPLICATION

72 73 74 75 76 March

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82 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH

Ann Powell was born in Seattle, Washington in 1977. She received her BA in anthropology from the University of Washington in 1998 before relocating to Tallahassee, Florida. There, Powell worked for the National Park Service, Southeast Archeological Center (SEAC) while earning her Master of Science degree at Florida State University. Powell now resides in Portland, Oregon.