Paper short abstract:

Medical and religious cosmologies in Trinidad are intertwined and illnesses may have a spiritual cause. While cosmological beliefs may help deal with uncertainty in life as well as illness, spiritual illnesses may be expressions of the experience of uncertainty and modernity

Paper long abstract:

Across the different healing systems used in Trinidad, health and religion are closely linked. Biomedicine, "bush" medicine and new alternative therapies (which have recently grown as a sector) contain strong spiritual elements and prayer is also commonly used as part of healing.

Religion holds a central role in Trinidadian life more generally, perhaps related to the uncertainty and anxiety of modernity and globalization, and the high rates of crime and violence (and perception of a poorly functioning justice system) the country faces. Spiritual belief may provide existential security where there is little actual security; Afro-Trinidadian cosmological beliefs place the world under God's control, although "Satan is always there". Cosmological beliefs providing explanation for misfortune are central to both medicine and religion and illnesses may also have spiritual cause. Afflictions may be a punishment from God or the devil, or someone (frequently a jealous neighbour) may have "put something on you". While some illnesses are particularly linked to a spiritual cause, a spiritual explanation may be suspected for other cases where a biomedical diagnosis cannot be reached, where illnesses do not follow their expected course, or where a sudden change has occurred in the person. Spiritual understandings of health also address uncertainties in illness or circumstance therefore.

Spiritual illness in Trinidad not only continues to exist through modernity but may be enforced through it. While spiritual beliefs may help deal with uncertainty, Trinidadian worldview suggests that some illnesses and symptoms may themselves be expressions of the uncertainty of modernity.