Hallucinations are a universal feature of human experience. This doesn’t mean that everyone has hallucinated, but everyone is capable of hallucinating. If hallucinations can be managed, the effects range from enlightening to fun. If hallucinations are uncontrolled, the effects range from psychosis to terror. In most cases, expectations are the key to management [...]
Tags:absorption·charismatics·Christian·confabulation·delusions·evangelicals·hallucinations·perceptual bias·perceputal deficits·reality monitoring·shamans·Tanya Luhrmann·trance·visions
There was a time when Paleolithic cave paintings were construed primarily through the lens of “art,” an interpretive stance which assumes that at least some Paleolithic peoples were “artists” who painted for pleasure. Because this lens is so subjective (and creative), all manner of interpretations were offered. Whether prosaic or fanciful, this approach raised troubling [...]
Tags:altered states of consciousness·art history·ASC·cave art·cave paintings·dark zone art·David Lewis-Williams·doodles·entoptics·flutings·form constants·France·functionalism·hallucination·Jessica Cooney·Kevin Sharpe·Leslie Van Gelder·Paleolithic·petroglyphs·play·ritual·Rouffignac·shamans·symbolism
When it comes to classic anthropology, Margaret Mead may garner the lionesses’ share of attention but Ruth Benedict remains the matriarch. Although Benedict today is dismissed by some as a quaint relic of the “culture and personality” school of anthropology, such demurrals underestimate the theoretical sophistication and continuing relevance of Benedict’s work.
Those who understand Patterns [...]
Tags:Apollo·Chrysanthemum and the Sword·culture and personality school·Dionysius·Dobu·Franz Boas·Great Plains·Japan·Kwakiutl·Margaret Mead·Native American·Nietzsche·nomads·particularism·Patterns of Culture·Plains culture area·psychoanalytic·Ruth Benedict·shamans·thick description·variation·vision quest·Zuni
Indiana Jones would have loved it: 65,000 years ago, stone age hunters in Africa gathered at night in a hidden cave to worship the giant rock snake that seemed to move in the flickering firelight and hissingly promised fertility so long as the rituals were performed. They came to this place every year when the [...]
Tags:Biker Tony·Botswana·Bushmen·Indiana Jones·Kalahari·Middle Stone Age·Nick Walker·oldest religion·oldest ritual·python·Python Cave·Rhino Cave·ritualized behavior·San·shamans·Sheila Coulson·Sigrid Staurset·snake·Tsodilo Hills
This statement from an Inuit elder reveals the logic of hunting magic:
Now that we have firearms it is almost as if we no longer need shamans, or taboo, for now it is not so difficult to procure food as in the old days. Then we had to laboriously hunt the caribou at the sacred crossing [...]
Tags:amulets·game spirits·hunting·hunting magic·Inuit·magic·ritual·shamans·taboo
It is a well known fact that in many pre-state or small-scale societies where shamanic practices prevail, shamans are expert storytellers and keepers of traditional knowledge. As I noted in a previous post on the evolution of narrative, stories contain information critical for survival.
While reading an article on Inuit shamanism yesterday, this passage offered confirmation:
Shamanic [...]
Tags:animals·arctic·cosmology·foraging·hunter-gatherers·Inuit·Jarich Oosten·narrative·shamanic·shamanism·shamans·social knowledge·storytelling
John Jeremiah Sullivan’s piece on America’s ancient cave art has prompted some thinking — always the sign of good writing. If you haven’t read it yet, you should. Here are some of the things that have me cogitating:
Simek the Scientist v. Reilly the Symbolist
This is not a lawsuit — it is the tension Sullivan establishes [...]
Tags:altered states of consciousness·art·ASC·birds·caves·complex societies·dark zone·data·emic·etic·F. Kent Reilly·Jan Simek·John Jeremiah Sullivan·meaning·Mircea Eliade·Mississippian cultures·Mound Builders·Piers Vitebsky·Plains Indians·pre-state societies·shamans·soul flights·Southeastern Ceremonial Complex·Southern Death Cult·survivals·symbols·unknown caves
Anyone who has watched an episode of “I Survived: Beyond and Back” on the Biography Channel knows that accounts of near death experiences mesmerize the public. They also drive ratings. The typical “I Survived” vignette features someone whose heart has stopped beating and is considered “clinically dead.”
Because everyone who appears on the show is very [...]
Tags:Biography Channel·body·brain death·clinical death·dissociation·dreaming·drug use·dualism·fasting·folk psychology·I Survived·J. Allan Cheyne·ketamine·Leanne Wilkins·lesions·mind·NDE·near death experiences·NMDA receptor antagonist·OBE·Olaf Blanke·out of body autoscopy·out of body experiences·out of body feeling·pan-human neurology·psychotropic·R. Saxe·rave·ravers·schizophrenia·sensory integration·shamans·soul flights·temporo-parietal junction·theory of mind·Todd Girard·trance dance·visions
Here is the fantastic news: one of the world’s greatest filmmakers, Werner Herzog, was granted rare access to Chauvet Cave and filmed the interior in 3-D. Chauvet Cave is of course famous for its 30,000 year old art — it is a spectacular display of human creativity and is probably the result of [...]
Tags:altered states of consciousness·ASC·behavioral modernity·cave art·Cave of Forgotten Dreams·Chatelperronian·Chauvet Cave·culture·Gravettian·John Hawks·Mousterian·Neanderthals·shamanic activities·shamans·soul·soul beliefs·theriomorphs·Werner Herzog
Over at the Salt Lake Tribune, Peggy Fletcher Stack has written a nice article on the fine and sometimes indistinguishable line between religious inspiration and madness. Because Stack’s audience in Utah is predominantly Mormon, she perforce tap-dances around some delicate issues (i.e., Joseph Smith’s mental health). But this portion of the article particularly caught my [...]
Tags:churches·CS Lewis·cults·DSM-IV·ecstasy·Jesus·Jim Jones·Joseph Smith·mania·manic depression·mental illness·messiahs·Mormons·Peggy Fletcher Stack·prophets·psychopath·Ralph Hood·schism·schizophrenia·sects·shamans·The Line Between Inspiration and Insanity
