Holistic Health and New Age in Britain and the Republic of Ireland*

HOLISTIC HEALTH AND NEW AGE IN BRITAIN AND THE REPUBLIC OF IRELAND*

Maria Tighe and Jenny Butler

This chapter explores the mainstreaming of the holistic health movement in Britain and illustrates its inter-relation with New Age in an eth- nographic description of ‘Angel therapy’ in the Republic of Ireland. Holistic health can loosely be defi ned as an approach to healing that takes into account the ‘whole person’—the physical, spiritual and psychological condition of a client—helping the individual to regain a harmonious ‘balance’ within his or her environment. The holistic and ecological model is generally contrasted with allopathic medicine, which tends to treat patients with drugs and surgery in order to cure an individual of a specifi c ailment. Allopathic medicine typically isolates the part of the body exhibiting symptoms, and focuses narrowly on curing that part, whereas holistic approaches typically include atten- tion to a person’s emotional and spiritual life as integral to the healing process (Reilly 2006). Some of the diverse array of holistic treatments available include: Reiki, crystal healing, refl exology, acupuncture, kinesiology, cranio- sacral therapy, massage, visualisation, meditation, yoga, homeopathy, nutritional and dietary therapies, iridology, colour therapy, dance and music therapy, hydrotherapy, osteopathy, chiropractic, polarity therapy, shiatsu, past-life regression or reincarnation therapy, healing by touch or laying on of hands, aromatherapy, the Alexander Technique, Ayurveda, and herbal medicine. The list is almost endless as new derivatives and reformulations are created. As a way of illustrating this point, we might note that in 1993, the British Medical Association (BMA) identifi ed almost four hundred alternative therapies in Britain (BMA 1993). Many of these therapies claim long lineages, and many practition- ers proudly refer to the traditions from which they draw. However, a

* Research on which parts of this paper are based was funded by a PhD research development and capacity award (2003–2006) from the UK Government Department of Health National Co-Ordinating Centre for Research and Development (NCCRD); and by a Government of Ireland Scholarship from the Irish Research Council for the Humanities and Social Sciences. 416 maria tighe and jenny butler cultural phenomenon, the holistic health movement may usefully be dated to the counter-culture of the 1960s. By the 1970s, it had become a signiﬁ cant social movement. In his study of the New Age, Wouter Hanegraaff distinguishes between the Human Potential movement, with its emphasis on psychological healing, and the somewhat earlier holistic health movement, with its emphasis on physical healing—though he notes that both movements share many of the same concerns (Hane- graaff 1998:48). The New Age movement, emerging from the late 1970s and at the height of its visibility during the 1980s, employs many holistic healing techniques. Michael York points out that much of New Age is concerned less with global ecological concerns than it is with personal health (York 1995:37). In some holistic and medical circles, as well as among neo-Pagans, the term New Age is used to designate a certain social distinction. In these contexts, New Age is frequently used to dis- tinguish a kind of spirituality that is considered fanciful or ‘airy-fairy’.1 Those labelled New Agers often reject the term. Terminology in the study of holistic health can be confusing. For example, a widely-accepted synonym for holistic health, especially following the House of Lords’ Select Committee on Science and Technology’s Sixth Report (2000), is “Complementary and Alternative Medicine” (CAM). Unfortunately, this term blurs the distinction between a medical system that is alternative to mainstream allopathic medicine, and a medical system that is complementary or parallel to it. Neither is it helpful to refer to ‘conventional’ medicine when allopathic medicine is meant, with the implication that holistic health will always be ‘alternative’ or non-mainstream. Similar terminological prejudices are regularly encountered in studying New Age.

Allopathic Medicine, Holistic Health and New Age

Illich’s (1976) classic analysis of allopathic medicine supported Foucault’s (1989) discourse on the politicisation of health, and both highlighted

1 A pejorative description was often encountered when interviewees were attempting to differentiate themselves from the New Age movement, in research on the neo-Pagan movement in Ireland between 2001–2006. In a critique of ‘New Age commercialism’, James (2006c) has also suggested ‘leading edge’ scientiﬁ c and medical thought has been hijacked by the holistic health movement and thus under-valued.