Final Exam Essay. Religion & Theology Assignment.

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1 Religious specialists are those who devote themselves to maintaining and performing organizational functions such as traditional practices about the specific elements of their religion (Daniels, 2013). In Turner's characterization of religious specialists, they are classified as priests, mediums, shamans, and prophets. Priests are those that as associated with performing and presiding religious rites of an organized and permanent religious enterprise about the influence of God in the daily lives of the people. A priest can only perform human to human interaction or an I-it relationship that links humans with the trans-humans (Daniels, 2013). Mediums, Shamans, and Prophets are the specialists that can perform human to human communication with trans-humans or the I-thou relationship using their bodies as the communication medium. Specifically, Turner classified mediums as the vessels of trans-human activity, the Shamans as the spirit mediums that have a certain level of authority over the spirits, and prophets that can dictate the drastic change that the divine bestows upon human communities (Daniels, 2013). Vitebsky had other characterizations with shamans. Vitebsky noted that Shamans cannot securely control spiritual entities and their mastery over the crafts needs assistance from various psychoactive plants to achieve the trance state. Therefore, shamans need to alter their conscious mind to channel their spiritual powers. There are also other specialized shamans like the Inuit and Sora Shamans that can use their spiritual powers to perform psychotherapy and socio-therapy (Daniels, 2013).
However, the problem with Turner’s sort of typology is that they don't specify culture-specific or emphasis on the local variety and local knowledge to which these classifications are found. Turner's typology is broad that the terms derived from a cultural context but the usage of the terms is used interchangeably from different cultures. In reality, the powers and functions of the typology are overlapping depending on the activity. Turner failed to include other religious leaders that have more specific functions in the community such as the healers. The Kyai, Dukun, and Ustadz, for example, are a variety of healers that are localized in the south-central part of Java, Indonesia that is specialized in ethnomedicine and connected with the local culture of the people (Daniels, 2013). Daniels (2013) approached the study of Kyai, Dukun, and Ustadz by combining the cognitive, symbolic, functionalist, and processual approaches to draw knowledge from these healers. He stressed the importance of understanding the healer's importance in understanding religious specialists because of the existence of illnesses that plagues man. There are two types of illnesses, the illnesses of God or the natural illnesses and the illnesses of man or the illnesses that are bestowed by witches, magic, spells, and spirits (Daniels, 2013). Because these illnesses of man exist, healers that specialized in countering these illnesses are needed for the successful classification and treatment. Healers specialized in different illnesses to increase the rate of improving the sick person’s health. Connecting with the understanding of the roles of other religious specialists like the priests, mediums, shamans, and prophets, these religious specialists are more inclined towards answering life problems and guiding humans towards the ethical path from supernatural knowledge. Added by Daniel's (2013), the healing performance of the Kyai, Dukun, and Ustadz are tied to a broader historical context that cannot be readily specified because of the different social changes that Indonesia faced.
2 Rountree (2004) approached the study of witches and witchcraft by basing the construct of witches from a sociological perspective (as cited in Daniels, 2020). Specifically, the historical images witchcraft and witches were based on social constructs that the people ignorantly believed to be true because of wild shred of evidence from children’s testimonies and adult gossip. Some alleged witches were coerced and tortured until they confess their crimes and expose the other witches in town. They are forced to validate a crime that the other alleged witches did not commit (Daniels, 2020). The so-called witches are the victims of the dangers of group thinking to serve as scapegoats for the prevalence of malevolence and inequality in an unjust society. Therefore, in the perspective of Rountree (2004), witches are witches because society said so (as cited in Daniels, 2020).
Bowen approached the study of witches and witchcraft by taking into consideration not only the social but also understanding the economic and dominant religious forces during the era (Daniels, 2013). From a religious perspective, people believe that there is an unseen force that manipulates the lives of every individual. Depending on the dominant religion, the unseen force is part of “God’s Plan” for the betterment of humans. However, bad events are equated to the intervention of evil forces while good events equate to the blessing of the divine. Witches tend to be accused of following Satan, thus, prompting citizens to persecute alleged witches to end misfortunes (Daniels, 2013). From an economic perspective, higher class families find ways in expanding the production of their business. Because of society’s fear of witches, families that are poor and vulnerable are accused to practice witchcraft so that their land is used to expand the economic growth of higher-class families (Daniels, 2013).
During the Salem Outbreak of 1962, women who live alone and indifferent are easily accused of practicing witchcraft since they are treated to be vulnerable without the protection of a man (Daniels, 2020). Rountree (2004) interpreted the study of witchcraft and witches by integrating women’s actions in challenging the status quo of the patriarchal society (as cited in Daniels, 2020). Rountree (2004) argues that those who don't follow the norms are treated with judgmental eyes since they are seen differently than anyone else (as cited in Daniels, 2020). Therefore, witchcraft is a great excuse to exile and execute anyone that goes against the patriarchal authority and role in the needs of men. During this era, the general consensus of the people towards witchcraft is purely demonic and the source of evil in society. Stories about eating babies, midnight graveyard orgies, and hurtful curses plague the minds of the people. Using this information, anyone can point fingers to anyone, especially women that can no longer meet the demands of patriarchy (Daniels, 2020).
In Bowen’s approach, during the Salem Outbreak of 1962, women who are poor, who live alone and located at potential land for business expansion of higher-class families are easily accused of practicing witchcraft. It is observed in this situation that the economy and religion are strong forces that affect social change (Daniels, 2020). The underlying events that lead to the Salem Outbreak were influenced by economic tensions among higher-class families and the monopoly of production. The accused witches are located in the same areas since the higher-class family’s needs hectares of land area to grab from for ...