Full metadata
Title
The Voodoo Spiritual Temple: a case study of New Orleans' spiritual churches
Description
This dissertation takes the material culture of New Orleans’ Spiritual Churches as its point of the construction and application of academic categories in studies of religions of the African diaspora. Because I am interested in what emic explanations reveal about scholarly categories and methods, a dialogic approach in which I consult practitioners’ explanations to test the appropriateness of academic categories is central to this work. Thus, this study is grounded in an ethnographic study of the Voodoo Spiritual Temple, which was founded and is operated by Priestess Miriam Chamani, a bishop in the Spiritual Churches. The Spiritual Churches first emerged in the early twentieth century under the leadership of Mother Leafy Anderson. Voodoo, Pentecostalism, Spiritualism, and Roman Catholicism have been acknowledged as their primary tributary traditions. This study examines the material culture, such as statues and mojo bags, at the Voodoo Spiritual Temple as it reflects and reveals aspects of Temple attendees’ world views. In particular, material culture begins to illuminate attendees’ understandings of non-human beings, such as Spirit and spirits of the dead, as they are embodied in a variety of ways. Conceptions of Spirit and spirits are revealed to be interconnected with views on physical and spiritual well-being. Additionally, despite previous scholarly treatments of the Spiritual Churches as geographically, socially, and culturally isolated, the material culture of the Voodoo Spiritual Temple reveals them to be embedded in transnational and translocal cultural networks.
Date Created
2016
Contributors
- Bilinsky, Stephanie (Author)
- Moore, Moses (Thesis advisor)
- Astor-Aguilera, Miguel (Committee member)
- Bruner, Jason (Committee member)
- Arizona State University (Publisher)
Topical Subject
Geographic Subject
Resource Type
Extent
xii,130 pages
Language
Copyright Statement
In Copyright
Primary Member of
Peer-reviewed
No
Open Access
No
Handle
https://hdl.handle.net/2286/R.I.38636
Statement of Responsibility
by Stephanie Bilinsky
Description Source
Viewed on December 9, 2016
Level of coding
full
Note
Partial requirement for: Ph. D., Arizona State University, 2016
Note type
thesis
Includes bibliographical references (pages 122-130)
Note type
bibliography
Field of study: Religious studies
System Created
- 2016-06-01 08:53:16
System Modified
- 2021-08-30 01:23:29
- 2 years 7 months ago
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