The Sacred Self: A Cultural Phenomenology of Charismatic Healing

Chapter 4. Embodied Imagery and Divine Revelation

4 Embodied Imagery and Divine Revelation Clifford Geertz once described the study of religious change and its persuasive force as the "social history ofthe imagination" (1968:19). In this large sense, imagination is the general capacity of human creativity, including the reflexive capacity to transform one's orientation in the world. In a more restricted sense, imagination itself can be a mode of orientation in the world where by imagination we now refer to the concrete experience of"imagery." Our concern in this and the next chapter is not only to discuss the occurrence of imagery among Charismatics, but to show that it is a culturally constituted imaginal self process in two senses. First is that imagery is cultivated as a mode oforientation in the world in a variety ofdomains (prayer, prophecy , healing). Second is the more complex sense that in ritual healing imagery assumes a specific efficacy in transforming other orientations, particularly those associated with illness and distress. Thus, imagery can be considered as imaginal selfprocess both in that it becomes a general capacity of the self, and insofar as discrete occurrences of imagery are endowed with the valence ofperformative force brought to bear on the sel£ Stated otherwise, imagination is both a disposition and a tool. This attention to imagery is perhaps the principal feature that distinguishes the Charismatic sacred selffrom that ofthe surrounding North American culture. Charismatic imagery may in theory occur at any time, and some may experience it regularly during prayer. Imagery is also closely associated with the inspiration of prophetic utterance (see chapter 1 and Csordas 74 EMBODIED IMAGERY AND DIVINE REVELATION 75 1987a). One long-time prophet described this experience as a ''word picture.... In other words, I get it [the prophecy] in an image. And as I see the image, then words will come." The phenomenological relation between word and image in this experience is subtle, apparently involving a double inspiration compounded ofvisual image and spontaneous verbalization. In other cases it is conceivable that the words may be more or less a description of the visual image, and in yet others the words themselves may be appresented as visual images, that is, as ifthey were written in the visual imagination to be read as a divine text. As unelaborated as this example may be, it exhibits what Casey (1976, 1987) calls the "multiplicity ofthe mental," and gives us a first intimation that for our purposes imagination must be considered as much more than "pictures in the mind." In the various modes ofritual healing, imagery may be either revelatory or therapeutic. Images may be revelatory in two senses: they may serve as a sign that divine power is active, or may reveal the content of therapeutic issues. When experienced by healers, revelatory imagery is invariably spontaneous. It is an example of the "word of knowledge," part ofa class ofinspired ''word gifts" that includes speaking in tongues, prophecy, and the word ofwisdom. Therapeutic imagery occurs not to the healer but to the patient and constitutes the experiential resolution ofa problem. Therapeutic imagery is typically evoked during moments in a healing session devoted to prayer and "openness" to divine inspiration , but not during periods of discussion and "counseling." It may also be induced by the healer in the form of guided imagery, active imagination, or meditation, similar in form but different in content from techniques used in image-oriented psychotherapies. Given that among Charismatics both healers and supplicants experience forms of imagery, it is of interest to observe that the (somewhat limited) anthropological literature on healing imagery (Noll 1985, Tedlock 1987, Herdt and Stephen 1989) treats almost exclusively imagery experienced by healers, whereas the (voluminous) psychological literature on imagery in psychotherapy (Sheikh 1984, Sheikh and Jordan 1983, J. Singer 1981, Shorr et al. 1979) is with few exceptions preoccupied with imagery experienced by patients. Among anthropologists the shaman's imagery is shown to be either diagnostiddivinatory or the vehicle of therapeutic efficacy. Among psychotherapists the patient's imagery can be analyzed diagnostically or used as a therapeutic tool. It would be convenient to conclude that this difference in the literature marked an important empirical difference between healing in those soci- 76 EMBODIED IMAGERY AND DIVINE REVELATION eties traditionally studied by anthropologists and in our own. We would be able to conclude that Charismatic ritual is a postmodem synthesis of imaginal processes in healing. Unfortunately, our conclusion must be more methodological than empirical: anthropologists...