The Rise of Alternative Medicines and New Age Therapies as a Response to "The New Crisis of Presence"

Abstract

Complementary and alternative medicines (CAM) and New Age therapies (NAt) are increasingly widespread in the West. Through the case studies of Vittorio and Sol, CAM-NAt emerged as an important resource in occasions of suffering and social exclusion, “chronic sadness”, anomie, isolation and in situations of discomfort derived from the structural problems of the capitalist system. These situations generated a “new crisis of the presence” that, as much as the de Martino’s “crisis of presence”, is solved by the magical world. In this sense, CAM-NAt in the West represent a form of resistance to capitalist culture and a way to re-enchant the world. A world where the individual ends up incarnating the real God: omnipotent and punishing.