Religion and health: a study about the representations of a charismatic follower on the processes of recovery from illnesses in the groups of prayer of RCC in Maringá - Paraná state

Abstract

This work is a product of my concerns in face the existent relationship between the sacred and a sick religious person, through the religious experience. It was sought to understand, in a cultural dimension approach, the meaning that has, based on a religious experience, the dimension of the sacred in the life of a follower of the Catholic Charismatic Renewal Movement of Maringá, in the recovery process of some present or past illness. This was a descriptive study using a qualitative method in an interpretative anthropological understanding. Ten charismatic followers were selected to participate in the study. Data collection was carried out through semistructured interviews in a narrative form, culminating in the obtaining observations and the life history and the participants. For data treatment, the thematic analysis of the subjects’ speech along with their life history was used, in the light of Minayo (1996), Quivy and Campenhoudt (1992) and Gil (1997), being “The relationship of the follower charismatic with the sacred", “The relationship of the follower charismatic with the religious experience" and the “Relationship of the follower charismatic with the symbols" the three approached themes. Concluding, the study made possible to understand that the sacred, the religious experience, and the religious symbols in the life of the follower charismatic in the process of recovery of their illnesses, provides comfort, protection, motivation, disposition, energy recovery when all the other forces are gone, and, mainly, it gives hope for the cure from the illness that afflicts them.