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Social Control in Hamshada Therapy

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Throughout our discussions of popular religion, there have been many instances in which popular religion itself could be used as a means of social control. This idea of social control is extremely prevalent in the various therapies used by the Hamadsha brotherhood. The ideas of social control not only apply to the various rituals they perform to cure diseases but also to the causes of the diseases themselves.
According to Crapanzano, diseases in Morocco during this period are defined as social illness. This refers to illness as being embedded in a social context. This context, referred to by Crapanzano is the physical tension that exists in the lives of men caught between the social ideas of maleness and femaleness (8). It is thought that all illness is rooted in social relationships and the causes of them can be traced back to something as simple as how wealthy one man is, how many wives he has, or even if he had left the community for a period of time. Essentially, illness is thought to be caused by anything that differentiates one individual from another.
To cure these diseases, individuals come to the Hamadsha brotherhood for therapy. In the brotherhood’s therapeutic method, the goal is not to restore the individual to his prior state but to provide a new social identity, new values, and a new cognitive orientation (6). These methods of therapy are intended to transform the individual in order to prevent them from angering any spirits who will in turn cause them any more suffering.
The causes and cures of illnesses in Moroccan society are deeply rooted in social interactions amongst the people. If any sort of deviation from the society’s norms is detected, these illnesses and cures are there to put them back into place. When an individual is cured, they are forcibly transformed into a new person, with a new social identity, new values, and a cognitive orientation that aligns them with the Hamadsha brotherhood.


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