<p> Shamanism is the world&rsquo;s oldest integrated healing system. Cross-culturally this practice has survived marginalization to indigenous societies and has crossed over to the contemporary world. The reductionist model of the current health care system has prompted people to seek holistic and alternative methods to support their well-being. This has inspired health practitioners and researchers to investigate and experience the benefits of shamanic practices.</p><p> Following a yearning desire to explore shamanic practices, and to reconnect with her indigenous roots, the author, a therapist of native background, traveled to a remote location to participate in shamanic rituals with an indigenous community in Mexico. Using an autoethnographic enquiry approach, this dissertation research study provides an insight into the sacred healing shamanic practices and to the researcher&rsquo;s path to find the shaman within and her own wholeness. The researcher, who is the only participant in this study, collected data following qualitative autoethnographic enquiry guidelines. Narratives of personal experiences with shamanic practices served as data to transcribe and report this enquiry. The results of this study reveal the powerful cathartic effect shamanic practices had on the researcher as accounted expressively in this dissertation.</p>

<p> This dissertation examines the processes of healing and transformation experienced by persons in the Cuban American, white, middle class Orisha worship community in Miami, FL, focusing on all the areas in which healing can take place. Orisha worship uses a holistic approach to health, in which physical, mental and spiritual illnesses may be healed. In the process of healing, persons embody the discourse of mastery and enslavement and the social processes of this Orisha worship community, via religious rituals, and exist in relation to Orishas. My research question focuses on how people in the Orisha worship community of Miami who are ill seek embodied healing and advice from orishas who are not ill and have the power to heal them. My data was gathered using questionnaires for direct interviews, and observations during religious rituals including ceremonies (both public and private), drummings and <i>Ocha </i> birthday parties. I also draw on my personal experiences and initiation onto the Orisha worship community. My overall findings indicate that there are a variety of modalities of healing in Orisha worship, each with the aim of manipulating <i>ashe,</i> the divine force in Orisha worship. People take an active role in changing their illnesses by performing <i> ebos;</i> or by becoming initiated in Orisha worship through receiving <i> collares, guerreros</i> or making <i>Ocha;</i> or via the healing and transformative effects of spirit possession. People are agents of change that seek to ameliorate their symptomology by invoking and employing the spiritual world. My research contributes to the Anthropological literature on embodiment, personhood and healing.</p>