Review: The Religion of Chiropractic: Populist Healing from the American Heartland, by Holly Folk

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Review| November 01 2021 Review: The Religion of Chiropractic: Populist Healing from the American Heartland, by Holly Folk The Religion of Chiropractic: Populist Healing from the American Heartland. By Holly Folk. University of North Carolina Press, 2017. 366 pages. $90.00 cloth; $34.95 paper; ebook available and open access through JSTOR eBooks. Rebecca Moore Rebecca Moore Search for other works by this author on: This Site PubMed Google Scholar Nova Religio (2021) 25 (2): 145–146. https://doi.org/10.1525/nr.2021.25.2.145a Views Icon Views Article contents Figures & tables Video Audio Supplementary Data Peer Review Share Icon Share Twitter LinkedIn Tools Icon Tools Get Permissions Cite Icon Cite Search Site Citation Rebecca Moore; Review: The Religion of Chiropractic: Populist Healing from the American Heartland, by Holly Folk. Nova Religio 1 November 2021; 25 (2): 145–146. doi: https://doi.org/10.1525/nr.2021.25.2.145a Download citation file: Ris (Zotero) Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu toolbar search search input Search input auto suggest filter your search All ContentNova Religio Search Holly Folk’s history of the origins and development of chiropractic blends the story of D. D. Palmer (the “discoverer”) and his son B. J. Palmer (the “developer”) of spinal manipulation therapy with in-depth analyses of New Thought, Western Esotericism, Harmonial Religion, and more. Folk deftly places chiropratic within the context of nineteenth-century alternative medicine, which includes magnetic healing, vertebral vitalism, neurocentrism, and other metaphysical approaches to health. Six chapters focus on chiropractic’s beginnings and the (literal) internecine conflicts that ensue over philosophy and treatment. The seventh looks at the current state of chiropractic outside the United States and, somewhat oddly, reintroduces the possibility of Rosicrucian influences on the Palmers, briefly covered in earlier chapters. The book is a veritable compendium of the most influential alternative mental and physical healers of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries in the United States. Most fascinating are the glimpses that Folk provides of the precursors... You do not currently have access to this content.