Joseph W. Williams offers a compelling examination of the changing healing practices of pentecostals in the United States over the past hundred years, from the early believers, who rejected mainstream medicine and overtly spiritualized disease, to the later generations of pentecostals and their charismatic successors, who dramatically altered the healing paradigms they inherited. Williams shows that over the course of the twentieth century, pentecostal denunciations of the medical profession often gave way to "natural" healing methods associated with scientific medicine, natural substances, and even psychology. By the early twenty first century, figures such as the pentecostal preacher T. D. Jakes appeared on The Dr. Phil Show, other healers marketed their books at mainstream retailers such as Wal-Mart, and some developed lucrative nutritional products that sold online and in health food stores across the nation. Exploring the interconnections, resonances, and continued points of tension between pentecostal adherents and some of their fiercest rivals, Spirit Cure chronicles pentecostals' embrace of competitors' healing practices and illuminates their dramatic transition from a despised minority to major players in the world of American evangelicalism and mainstream American culture.

Joseph Williams is Assistant Professor of Religion at Rutgers University. He received his Ph.D. in American religious history from Florida State University in 2008.

Acknowledgements Introduction Chapter One: Pentecostal Healing in the Early Twentieth Century Chapter Two: Mid-Century Transitions Chapter Three: Making Medicine Spiritual Chapter Four: Minding the Spirit Chapter Five: Perfect Bodies, Plentiful Profits Conclusion: Pentecostal Healing in the Late Twentieth, Early Twenty-first Century Epilogue: Healing the Wounds of the Modern World Notes Index