Moral aspect and the effectiveness of local healing in Northern Thailand

Abstract

This chapter investigates the moral aspect of local healing to show the process that morality can contribute to the effectiveness of healing. I present the story of two folk healers and analyze how the healer associated his sensibility with the moral values in the local world and led to a starting point of a healing process, how sympathy and other related moral dispositions are called up in the process, and how the healer, through a healing process, becomes able to reify local moral values into practical humanized healing. The chapter then explores the outcome of the healing process - power of virtue, and merit - that can strengthen the effectiveness of healing.