The Secular Care of the Self

Discipline and Its Discontents Across the Protestant Atlantic
Offers an unorthodox thesis: the modern secular desire toward health is founded in a Protestant congregationalism that shapes its refusal of spirit manifestation, revelation, and the power of deities to shape the world.
The modern desire to care for our health, so obvious to its proponents, has its discontents. Secular medicine denounces the work of those who claim the protective powers of spirits or the Holy Spirit. In this contestation over what it means to care for oneself, Ian Whitmarsh offers an unorthodox thesis: the modern secular desire toward health is founded in a Protestant congregationalism that shapes its refusal of spirit manifestation, revelation, and the power of deities to shape the world. This proper healthy ethics and aesthetics is then taught to those who lack ""choice"" in their continuing to live through these ontologies.

Whitmarsh explores these dynamics of power and spirit as they move across the Atlantic, from northern Europe to North America to the country of Trinidad and Tobago. Trinidad offers a broken mirror to the ostensibly secular global endeavor of the desire to be healthy. This mirror shows that the threat found in the spirits and practitioners of other religions, such as Pentecostal healing and orisha manifestation, reveals racialized Protestant commitments masked within a modern global ""secular"" care of the self.

UK Delivery:

• Free delivery on all orders of £10 or more.
• £1.49 delivery fee on orders below £10.
• UK orders are shipped via Royal Mail 2nd Class.

International Delivery:

• Flat rate delivery charges vary by country.

Dispatch and Delivery Times:

• All orders are shipped from our warehouse in Northampton, UK within 48 hours of receipt during working hours.
• UK mainland orders typically arrive within 3-5 working days via Royal Mail 2nd Class.
• International estimated delivery times:
• Europe & Channel Islands: 7 to 10 working days
• USA: 7 to 15 working days
• Rest of the World: 9 to 21 working days

View our full delivery infomation here.