Why are "liberal-minded," cultural relativists so offended by "New Age" therapies?
Is a "New Age" approach any more or less "authentic" than that of the treaters' practices?
Sometimes, the most intriguing footage is not what actually becomes part of the finished documentary but what crashes to the cutting room floor. When assembling different perspectives for debates over traiteur's efficacy, we interviewed a Healing Touch practitioner, to obtain a more "New Age" explanation. We also filmed her with patients to illustrate that much of what these people attend workshops and schools to learn, many traiteurs do instinctively. The practitioner's following quote explains how "energy" is the force behind healers' (and, by extension, traiteurs') potency:

The Eastern tradition and philosophy has understood the presence of the energy field around the body forever...whereas, our Western culture has simply studied the physical body as a machine through dissection--what parts are broken, clogged, that sort of thing. We haven't understood clearly that there are different emanations around the body that hold different information...that can easily be worked with, influenced and re-patterned....When the treater comes, the bleeding stops, the headache goes away, the pain is released. It's all really energetic in nature.

As is apparent, this explanation offers insight into one relatively common view of "alternative healing" in contemporary American society. One may ask, "Why on earth was this left out?" The answer exemplifies the discomfort often exhibited by cultural relativists when considering "New Age" therapies alongside what is perceived as more "authentic" traditional healing.

After assembling a "rough cut" of the documentary (like a rough draft in writing, which must undergo substantial revision), we filmmakers showed the documentary to a number of Louisiana folklorists, local artists, other filmmakers and people with varying degrees of interest in alternative therapies. There was an overwhelmingly negative reaction toward the practitioner's appearance in the film that approached repulsion. Several elements contributed to this strong response: her interview was set in a low-lit background with an angel and candle; her voice was very serene and sing-song; and her practices contained elements like pendulums and over-the-body touch. All of these aspects of her presentation combined to produce a feeling of affectation in the viewers when juxtaposed next to the colorful, "rooted" traditional healers. This scenario raises provocative questions: Why were these "liberal-minded," cultural relativists so offended by this New Age therapist? Is her approach any more or less "authentic" or legitimate than Lawrence's or Shannon's treatments? Do you think it did the documentary a disservice not to have included the information?

In Loring Danforth's text in which he compares firewalking in the Anastenaria cult in Greece and the New Age movement in the US, he personally confronts the blurring boundaries of the traditional and the New Age. What he finds is that "self" and psychological liberation for New Agers replaces "soul" and community for the Anastenaria. Reacting similarly to those persons to whom we showed the documentary, he attributed his aversion to the nomadic emptiness of the New Agers-their lack of a strong cultural background and religious community, their narcissism and seeming superficiality. In many ways, Danforth feels that the American firewalkers "hit too close to home," both literally and symbolically. Danforth proposes that anthropology is like firewalking-both are therapies and experiences that promise liberation and transcendence. Both are trials by fire through which one finds oneself: for an anthropologist, the mission is to find the "Other" within his/herself by confronting Him outside of self. Finally, Danforth challenges anthropologists to go beyond accruement of knowledge for selfish goals, the essence of the New Age movement in his opinion, and work for the true liberation of the people they study through social and political activism.

Although Danforth's is a rather emotionally charged response, the repugnance I witnessed to the Healing Touch practitioner assumed equal intensity. This situation provokes questions about the dichotomous relationships we often assign to anthropological concepts: the traditional and the New Age, the authentic and the false, the self and the "Other."

For a general discussion of the reaction of anthropologists to New Age healers, see Michael Brown's The Channeling Zone.