Eastern Practices and Nordic Bodies: Lived Religion, Spirituality Healing in the Countries

This volume explores the reception, development and construction of Eastern practices in the Nordic countries. The focus is on spirituality, medicine and healing from a lived religion perspective. Besides a geographical focus on the Nordic countries and their characteristics, this collection examines the embodied practices aligned with different expressions of religiosity, alternative medicine, spirituality and healing practices. By addressing questions about how so-called Eastern practices are embodied, spread and materialized, the contributors shed light on a cultural change in Nordic societies regarding religious, spiritual and alternative health practices, that are at times at odds with the dominant medical discourse about life-threatening diseases and other types of conditions. Daniel Enstedt is Associate Professor of Religious Studies at the University of Gothenburg, Sweden. Katarina Plank is Associate Professor of Religious Studies at Karlstad University, Sweden. Chapter 10 is available open access under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License via link.springer.com. This volume explores the reception, development and construction of Eastern practices in the Nordic countries. The focus is on spirituality, medicine and healing from a lived religion perspective. Besides a geographical focus on the Nordic countries and their characteristics, this collection examines the embodied practices aligned with different expressions of religiosity, alternative medicine, spirituality and healing practices. By addressing questions about how so-called Eastern practices are embodied, spread and materialized, the contributors shed light on a cultural change in Nordic societies regarding religious, spiritual and alternative health practices, that are sometimes at odds with the dominant medical discourse about life-threatening diseases and other types of conditions.