Critique of McClenon's Ritual Healing Theory: An Exploratory Study

The study used McClenon's Ritual Healing Theory and model to examine different variables. McClenon's Ritual Healing Theory suggests that childhood trauma may lead to dissociation that can help to alleviate the stress during repeated trauma (Cooper & Thalbourne, 2005). Furthermore, dissociative/hypnotic experiences were mentioned in the study because it is believed to expose the person to the possibility of experiencing out of the ordinary experiences (i.e. paranormal encounters). Many individuals who have these experiences use their encounters to convince themselves that shamanism is a real and is reliable source for therapy.

Fifty-four people participated in the study. There were nineteen males and thirty-five females in which 5% were family, 40% were co-workers, 20% were complete strangers, 10% were students and 25% were friends of friends. The ages ranged from twenty to seventy years of age.

The present study examined a number of variables in order to ascertain in a preliminary way the viability of McClenon's model: childhood trauma, hypnotizability, anomalous (or abnormal) experience, and shamanic belief and experience. Transliminality was hypothesized to be an underlying factor within all the variables and located between hypnotizability and anomalous experience. Transliminality means going beyond the threshold and is a concept introduced by the Michael Thalbourne, a parapsychologist (Thalbourne et al., 1997).

A pencil-and-paper questionnaire was constructed o various questions from: the 60-item As Experience Inventory, the Revised Transliminality Scale, the Survey of Traumatic Childhood Events, the 29-item Anomalous/Paranormal Experiences subscale of the Anomalous Experience Inventory. The results were presented in a table with respect to the five variables. All fifty-four participants were used for the correlations and statistical tests.

Childhood trauma was positively correlated with hypnotizability, but the correlation did not produce significant results. Hypnotizability was positively correlated with anomalous experience with statistically significant results. Anomalous experience was positively correlated with shamanic belief.

There were many weaknesses within the study that could be improved for future research. For example, future researchers should use scales that are less complicated and more common. The reader would have an easier and faster transition into reading the results if the scales were familiar. The correlations were overwhelming yet too brief. It appears that the study evaluated several variables, but presented the hypothesis and ideas in a manner that was too short and compacted. Breaking apart different sections of their correlations and elaborating on of those areas would give the correlations the attention, sample size, and thorough evaluation needed. The study should also be conducted in another manner so that more conclusions can be drawn from the results besides correlations. The methodology and theories chosen probably limited the study within itself because only limited conclusions could be drawn. The topic of paranormal events in relation to hypnosis seems hard to evaluate and interpret. The study never directly interpreted the results from these correlations because the route to doing so seems unclear.

References
Cooper, G. & Thalbourne, M.A. (2005). McClenon's Ritual Healing Theory: An Exploratory Study. The Journal of Parapsychology, 69, 139-150.
Thalbourne, M.A., Bartemucci, L., Delin, P.S., Fox, B. & Nofi, O. (1997). Transliminality: Its Nature and Correlates. Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research, 91, 305-332.