Shamanism

Tuesday, 27 November, at 2 pm, in the seminar room of the Prehistory and Archaeology Section of the University of Barcelona.

FINDING THE DRUM INSIDE THE ROCK: SIBERIAN SHAMANISM, ROCK ART AND ARCHETYPAL CREATIVITY

Andrzej Rozwadowski
Professor, Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznan, Poland
Honorary research fellow, Rock Art Research Institute, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa

The ancient art forms of the Minusinsk Basin in southern Siberia, in the land of the Khakas people, will be presented in this seminar. Among them, there is a unique petroglyph assemblage which includes a shaman’s representation hidden in a large crack in the rock. On the basis of the ethnography related to the shamanism of the Khakas people, it will be argued that the petroglyphs may reflect ideas associated with shamanic initiation ceremonies. The unique geographical context of this rock art will lead us to discuss more general questions related to the primal creativity inherent to shamanic experiences.

Bien que les chamanes de l'Altaï-Saïan soient réputés capables de se métamorphoser en animaux, on peine à trouver dans l’iconographie traditionnelle de la région des images donnant
à voir ce phénomène à l’oeuvre. Cet article examine pourquoi la métamorphose ne se laisse pas représenter. Loin de témoigner d’une sorte de relâchement cognitif, l’idée de métamorphose s’appuie sur des principes essentialistes rigoureux. Leur identification permet de discerner des
modèles de métamorphose typiques des contextes pragmatiques particuliers que sont mythes,
légendes sur des chamanes anciens, rituels de chasse, rituels chamaniques. Selon les scénarios, identité animale, identité humaine et identité individuelle, loin de se chasser l’une l’autre, se superposent dans des combinaisons originales.

According to a survey on the religious landscape in Korea, about half of the total population of Korea (53.4%) declared practicing religion. This number has shown a steady increase since the Gallup Korea conducted a survey in this field in 1984. 1 In understanding religion, religious phenomena, and religious practices in Korea, we should consider that the concept and expression of religion is relatively new in Korean culture. In this context, at least two preliminary remarks need to be made before we begin our discussion on the religions in Korea. The first is about the term religion. The expression religion did not exist in the vocabulary of East Asian languages until the late 19 th century. One origin of the modern term religion (Kor, chonggyo; Jan. shūkyō) can be traced to a trade document between Japan and Germany signed in 1869, in which the European term religion was translated into Japanese language, which was adopted by Koreans. 2 This does not mean that what is denoted by the term religion in English language did not exist in East Asia before the adoption of the expression. Instead of religion, traditional Korean religions such as Confucianism and Buddhism (which we will discuss in this chapter) were called teachings (Kor. kyo) or school (Kor. ga). This also indicates that the commonly known distinction between philosophy and religion in Western tradition does not strictly apply to Korean religious and philosophical traditions. The second issue to consider is the scope of religious phenomena. Religion is frequently and sometimes uncritically identified with religion as an institution. Institutionalized (or organized) religion features religious texts (sacred books), religious structure (church or temples), religious group (priesthood and believers), and moral and ethical codes (precepts). Religion is also often considered to be about God. Most of the major religions in the world share these components of religion, but religious phenomena are not limited to them, nor is what we denote by each of the above categories as clear as we might think. Several suggestions have been made for a comprehensive understanding of religious phenomena. One such example is to expand our concept of religion, from a singular-form religion to its plural form, religions. The pluralization of religious tradition enables us to further expand the scope of religions so that we can consider what constitutes the religious. 3 This paradigm can be applied to other concepts that are associated with religion. For example, we can expand our investigation from the concept of God to plural gods and then to the concept of the sacred (or the holy); from churches/temples to the place of worship and to the concept of the sacred space; and from examining precepts of a particular religion to the relationship between the finite and the infinite, and then to the issue of construction of value systems in human life. This is a process of creating a generic form (e.g., the sacred) from the collection of particular phenomenon (e.g., God). This process is necessary in order to have a comprehensive understanding of different religious traditions without privileging one religious tradition. This is especially relevant to our attempt to understand and evaluate Korean religious traditions. More often than not, students in the West ask how either Buddhism or Confucianism can be called a religion when these traditions do not have concepts that match what they find in Western religious traditions. Before we attempt to answer these questions, we should understand that such questions arise because we set a specific religious tradition as a standard for other religious traditions. In our discussion of Korean religions, we will divide them into three groups for the sake of convenience: the first is indigenous religions (Shamanism); the second is foreign-origin religions that became Koreanized (Buddhism and Confucianism); and the third is new religions that emerged during the late 19 th and early 20 th centuries (Tonghak and Won Buddhism).

Shamanism and psychedelics are central to understanding the evolutionary roots of ecopsychology and its basic principles. The ancient ritual roots of shamanism constituted the context within which psychedelic experiences contributed selective influences to the evolution of human neuropsychology. Both shamanic psychology and ecopsychology involve a neuroepistemology that reflects the neurotransmitter effects of psychedelics on cognition. Shamanism contributed to the development of our ecopsychology through influences on psychological, social and cognitive evolution. Shamanism embodies the concept of animism, the notion of the spiritual essence of all nature which is recognized as the core of the oldest of humanity’s religious beliefs. Shamanism provided the context within which this animistic attitude and the sense of the sentience of the many entities of the world were developed, especially in the relationship to animals. Animal species and their variant qualities provided a natural metaphoric system to structure psychological development and the evolution of social organization. Within the context of shamanism, the worlds of animal species and spirits intertwined in the creation of symbolic potentials for the differentiation of self – embodied in animal spirit powers – and the collective identity of society – embodied in totemic animals. This incorporation of the elements of nature into personal powers and social identity made shamanic ecopsychology a basic feature of human nature and culture.

A hermeneutic narrative inquiry method developed by Lieblich, Tuval-Mashiach, and Zilber (1998) was utilized to study the life stories of shamanic practitioners from North America. These practitioners were not from indigenous cultures but utilized indigenous and contemporary shamanistic healing methods within industrialized Western societies.
The study explored the lives of these individuals to better understand Western interest in shamanism following the publication of Eliade’s (1951/1964) seminal work, Shamanism: Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy. The history and development of contemporary forms of shamanism, including neoshamanism and core shamanism were surveyed.

Six participants, three (3) men and three (3) women, were interviewed utilizing the life story interview protocol. The participants were shamanic practitioners who were at varying levels of training and experience with some participants just starting their training and others having worked as full-time shamans for many years. The data was analyzed using the holistic-content analysis strategy focused on identifying individual as well as group themes for the participants. The researcher, of South Korean ancestry, grew up in a traditional shamanic culture, which served as motivation for the study yet was bracketed to minimize bias.

Three collective themes emerged from the data analysis: (a) Early Experience of Not Belonging/Feelings of Difference, (b) Finding Belonging through Shamanic Identity, and (c) Individualized Path to Shamanism. The themes touched on the identity of contemporary, neoshamanic practitioners whose paths were unique in terms of how they achieved their identities. They described experiences of being different due to their spiritual gifts and created their own ways of becoming shamans without having the guidance from an existing cultural tradition. The themes informed narratives of belonging and the factors that allowed for a sense of belonging in the lives of modern-day Western shamanic practitioners who bring with them a history of not belonging in their early lives.

The findings of this study were discussed in the context of improving mental health services for those living in today’s complex world and the incorporation of alternative healing practices. Implications for future research include expanded knowledge related to indigenous and shamanistic healing, particularly pertaining to benefits and/or limitations in Western treatment modalities.

Un misterioso rito, retaggio vivente di epoche remotissime, si rinnova ogni anno all’interno delle celebrazioni del carnevale di Castelnuovo a Volturno, in Molise. Un essere fantastico, Gl’ Cierv, furioso e selvatico Uomo Cervo, muore e rinasce ciclicamente, simbolo solare e della rigenerazione della natura, testimonianza viva di un antico mito cosmico-agrario. Seguendo le sue orme, un viaggio lunghissimo attraverso il tempo e lo spazio ci conduce in un reame magico nel quale sciamani in estasi, contadini e cacciatori sono i custodi dell’arcaico culto del dio cervo.

ENG: A mysterious ritual, a living legacy of ancient times, is renewed every year within the celebrations of the Castelnuovo a Volturno carnival, in Molise (Italy). A fantastic being, Gl ’Cierv, furious and wild Deer Man, dies and reborn cyclically, a solar symbol and the regeneration of nature, living testimony of an ancient cosmic-agrarian myth. Following in his footsteps, a very long journey through time and space leads us to a magical realm in which ecstatic shamans, farmers and hunters are the keepers of the archaic cult of the deer god.

Link per l'acquisto:
https://www.stamperiadelvalentino.it/product/luomo-cervo/

ISBN: 979-12-80721-08-2

Musical Culture and Art of the Arctic Peoples is  collection of scientific papers by Yu. Sheikin, O. Dobzhanskaya, Z. Ivanova-Unarova, S. Ode, T. Ignatieva, V. Dyakonova, L. Kardashevskaya. It consists 21 articles which are devoted to describing of musical instruments, different genres of musical folklore, ritual musical traditions and different aspects of musical culture of Arctic peoples (Evenks, Nganasans, Sakha, Yukaghirs and other Siberian peoples).
Papers are in English, French, German.
This is textbook for students of Arctic State Institute of Culture and Arts (Yakutsk).

In order to better cope with the pressures and stresses of the current day, modern psychology is anxiously seeking to find new therapies to address the increasing disorders within the human psyche. In the process new fields of research, such as humanistic and transpersonal psychology, curiously appear to borrow more and more from the wisdom of the ages. This volume, containing eighteen articles by noteworthy expositors of the perennial philosophy such as Huston Smith, Seyyed Hossein Nasr, and Frithjof Schuon, presents the spiritual psychology of the wisdom traditions as a much-needed antidote to the current impasse in modern psychology.

Some Endorsements for Psychology and the Perennial Philosophy:

“[Psychology and the Perennial Philosophy] is more than an anthology. It is a wisely crafted collection of classic and contemporary scholarship noting that what many are seeking is what has always been, a perennial philosophy, that remains foundational. As one of the authors, Tage Lindbom, properly notes, ‘Secularization is a fish in troubled waters.’ This book claims the waters and is essential reading for all those who may have forgotten or are simply ignorant of the rich foundation provided by the perennial philosophy.”
—Ralph W. Hood, Professor of Psychology at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, past president of the Psychology of Religion division of the American Psychological Association, co-founder of The International Journal for the Psychology of Religion and co-author of The Psychology of Religion

“A necessary and bracing critique of the assumptions and limitations of contemporary Western psychology, this generous volume is also a passionate call and learned guide towards a truer perspective that embraces man's spiritual nature.”
—Gabor Maté, M.D., and author of In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts: Close Encounters with Addiction

“Knowing the nature of the mind is perhaps the most difficult undertaking, especially in today’s world. To comprehend the nature of mind one needs to turn to the domain of religion and spirituality. Yet the truth of the mind and its complexity cannot explicitly be defined in words. Inner or transcendent wisdom sees the mind’s own nature without the duality of the seer. Suchness (tathatā) of mind is only experiential and not expressible. The words used to describe thought are themselves a product of thought, which is conditioned and limited. Thus, differences and contradictions are unavoidable. Therefore, a comparative study of different viewpoints and commentaries is immensely important to awaken the inner intelligence to see the mind as it is. Psychology and the Perennial Philosophy: Studies in Comparative Religion edited by Samuel Bendeck Sotillos is an outstanding effort in this direction.”
—Samdhong Rinpoche, former Prime Minister (Kalon Tripa) of the Tibetan Government-in-exile, author of Uncompromising Truth for a Compromised World: Tibetan Buddhism and Today’s World

“The rise of psychology has impacted the study and practice of spirituality, the experiences and attitudes relevant to ultimate human values that transcend ordinary behavior. Each chapter of this remarkable book demonstrates this interaction in a unique and provocative way. But rather than using psychology to reduce and ‘psychologize’ spiritual topics, its authors demonstrate how directives from the spiritual traditions can enhance and even illuminate the enduring importance of psychology in the 21st century.”
—Stanley Krippner, Saybrook University, co-author of Spiritual Dimensions of Healing

“The work at hand is a thinking and debating man’s delight. If you have any interest at all in attempting to include an educated and enlightened view of man’s higher functions in your purview of the world, you will learn from and enjoy this collection of essays. If you already have some knowledge in this area, brace yourself: you may see some of your favorites sharply criticized. A thought-provoking work.”
—Bruce W. Scotton, University of California, San Francisco, co-editor of Textbook of Transpersonal Psychiatry and Psychology

“This book, superbly edited by Samuel Bendeck Sotillos, is a masterful critique of the field of psychology and its loss of the sacred ground in which it once was rooted. It offers depth psychologists an opportunity to contemplate timeless truths echoed through the centuries by perennial philosophers who have always claimed psyche is subordinate to Spirit. Although ignored in depth psychology’s early years due to prejudice and lack of understanding, this is a message today’s psychotherapists must take seriously. Human beings need a deeper and wider transpersonal vision of who and what we are, which the saints and sages of the world’s spiritual traditions have always pointed to. In psychotherapy with a therapist committed to such a vision, patients penetrate into their unconscious depths and not infrequently awaken to the Ground of all Being. Their suffering itself occurred because they had turned away from Spirit. Above all, this volume passionately calls upon depth psychology to remember its origin in the perennial wisdom at the core of the great religions. There is something of a polemic in these pages. It deserves to be considered by depth psychologists of all persuasions.”
—Bryan Wittine, Transpersonal psychologist and Jungian psychoanalyst

“This anthology from Samuel Bendeck Sotillos is a must reference for anyone who is interested in psychology and its relationship to spirituality, and in developing an inclusive dialogue between disciplines that favor an integral outlook on the person and his or her potential. Selections in this anthology will inspire us to reexamine the metaphysical underpinnings of psychology, and remind us how important it is to rise above science’s attempt to reduce the human being to an epistemic object.”
—Sangeetha Menon, National Institute of Advanced Studies (Bangalore, India), Board Member of the International Transpersonal Association (ITA), author of The Beyond Experience: Consciousness in Bhagavad Gita

“This anthology has some of the most discerning essays and reviews on spirituality and psychology, which provide much-needed care and caution to all those engaged in bringing them together or who wish to do so in future. Therefore, it is a must-read for all those who teach, research, consult, or study in such frontier areas as transpersonal psychology, states of consciousness, mind-body relation, holistic health, Indian psychology, and so on. It will be an invaluable textbook for courses in these and other related areas. I congratulate the editor of the book.”
—Kiran Kumar K. Salagame, University of Mysore (India), Board Member of the International Transpersonal Association (ITA), author of The Psychology of Meditation: A Contextual Approach

“One of the finest collections of essays on the Perennial Philosophy—a must-read for all psychologists who are engaged with spirituality and transpersonal psychology. The essays which critique modern psychology (including transpersonal psychology, and the framework of Carl Jung), in the light of the Perennial Philosophy are a revelation and make compelling reading. The book serves as a corrective to the excesses of modern psychology, and to this end Sotillos has done a commendable job. I for one will include the book in some of the graduate courses that I teach.”
—Suneet Varma, University of Delhi, co-editor of Foundations of Indian Psychology

“To its credit modern science by-and-large is becoming more cognizant of the essential connection between spirituality and psychological health and well-being and most of all its positive implications within the field of psychology. While there is ample data to document this in a plethora of academic journals and books, this new book Psychology and the Perennial Philosophy adds a novel contribution to the dialogue between psychology and spirituality, which captures many nuances that for the most part go unnoticed within these discussions, and last but not least, it provides a keen eye of discernment to understand this intricate relationship on a deeper level that is crucially needed. This work will be a valuable asset to students and long term mental health practitioners and professors alike who seek to better understand the relationship between psychology and spirituality.”
—Harold G. Koenig, Duke University, Director of the Center for Spirituality, Theology and Health, co-author of The Handbook of Religion and Health

Once viewed as an embarrassing superstition, the theatrical religious performances of Korean shamans—who communicate with the dead, divine the future, and become possessed—are going mainstream. Attitudes toward Korean shamanism are changing as shamanic traditions appear in staged rituals, museums, films, and television programs, as well as on the internet.

Contemporary Korean Shamanism explores this vernacular religion and practice, which includes sensory rituals using laden altars, ecstatic dance, and animal sacrifice, within South Korea's hypertechnologized society, where over 200,000 shamans are listed in professional organizations. Liora Sarfati reveals how representations of shamanism in national, commercialized, and screen-mediated settings have transformed opinions of these religious practitioners and their rituals.

Applying ethnography and folklore research, Contemporary Korean Shamanism maps this shift in perception about shamanism—from a sign of a backward, undeveloped Korea to a valuable, indigenous cultural asset.
https://iupress.org/9780253057174/contemporary-korean-shamanism/

From ecodelic triplit, the peyoteros’ sense of place, interspecies communication and animistic healing to ecocentric entheogenic rituals, psychedelic bioregionalism, biogenetic structuralist ecopsychology and transpersonal ecosophy – this special issue of the EJE explores the verdant intersection between neurobiology and botany, shamanism and animism, and psychology and ecology, fusing mind with Nature in a boiling cauldron full of entheogenic insight.

In our waking lives, we usually assume that other people experience the world pretty much the way we do, even though under normal circumstances we rarely - if ever - check to see if this actually seems the case. But do we really? Studies on the reports of people who witness the same event, routinely show wide discrepancies with respect to both minor-and major details. And if this proves the case for people in physical reality, what might one expect to happen in dreams? Do the Dream Entities (DEs) that we encounter in dreams experience the same dreamscapes that we do? Of course, many western psychologists still believe that dreamscapes, and the DEs that dreamers encounter in them, derive entirely from the dreamer's mind, a view which makes the issue of consensus in this context nonsensical. Because of this underlying assumption, even today dreamworkers typically describe the entities that appear in their dreams as "characters," which conveys the impression that DEs not only lack any sort of independent consciousness, but that they seem akin to fictional characters appearing in a book. However, the validation of psi-dreaming (1,2) has made strictly subjective, solipsistic theories of dreaming outdated and untenable. Dreaming can clearly involve a kind of perception. (3) And evidential accounts of mutual dreaming, where two or more people encounter one another in dreams, confirmed later through consensually matching details, demonstrates that dreaming can have an intersubjective component as well. (4-6)

The Relationship Between Spirit and Matter: Can Shamanism Help Us Heal?© 2001 Mara BishopABSTRACT This thesis explores the relationship between spirit and matter, specifically in relation to shamanic and spiritual healing. Shamanic healing is a primarily intangible model of healing, engaging patients on a spiritual level more than a physical one. One goal of this paper is to look at ways to integrate spiritual and physical healing techniques. Shamanism provides a valuable example for several reasons: shamanic healing is practiced throughout the world, the techniques of disparate cultures are surprisingly similar, and it can be used in conjunction with allopathic techniques.Shamanic healing is based on principles of animism, on entering altered states of consciousness, and on working directly with spirit assistance. The cosmologies, mythologies, beliefs about the afterlife and daily practices of shamanic cultures are discussed. Methods of diagnosis are reviewed, as are specific healing therapies, including soul retrieval, extraction, power animal retrieval, laying on of hands, and psychopomp work. Ceremonial healing is ubiquitous in shamanic practices and some practitioners today are incorporating ritual healing in their medical practices. Other factors that are important to successful healing, including the compassion of the healer and the power of sound and language when used by the shaman, are reviewed.Information from scholars and anthropologists regarding the spiritual basis of shamanic healing and shamanic beliefs concerning health is discussed. The work of contemporary practitioners, both native healers and core shamanic practitioners, is examined. I examine different ways healers are incorporating shamanic techniques in their work, and discuss the challenge of utilizing ancient methods, widely unknown in western culture, in modern medical settings. Scientific studies measuring the effects of shamanic healing on human bodies and bodies of water are reviewed.Some forms of shamanic healing are analogous to non-local or prayer based healing. A variety of scientific studies indicate that interdenominational prayer positively affects the health of those prayed for. Synopses of some of these studies help illuminate the possibilities for spiritually based healing methods to impact patients today.The shamanic concept of living in harmony with nature is discussed in relation to the recent movement called ecological medicine. The scientists involved in this movement are investigating a view of health based on the importance of living in balance with ourselves, each other, and our environment. This is a quintessentially shamanic philosophy. By combining the ancient spiritual beliefs and techniques of the shamans with the awareness and technical skills of modern doctors and scientists, we can begin to create a bridge between science and spirituality, between traditional healing practices and allopathic methods, and between our bodies and our spirits.

For the past forty years shamanism has drawn increasing attention among the general public and academics. There is an enormous literature on shamanism, but no one has tried to understand why and how Western intellectual and popular culture became so fascinated with the topic. Behind fictional and non-fictional works on shamanism, Andrei A. Znamenski uncovers an exciting story that mirrors changing Western attitudes toward the primitive. The Beauty of the Primitive explores how shamanism, an obscure word introduced by the eighteenth-century German explorers of Siberia, entered Western humanities and social sciences, and has now become a powerful idiom used by nature and pagan communities to situate their spiritual quests and anti-modernity sentiments. The major characters of The Beauty of the Primitive are past and present Western scholars, writers, explorers, and spiritual seekers with a variety of views on shamanism. Moving from Enlightenment and Romantic writers and Russian exile ethnographers to the anthropology of Franz Boas to Mircea Eliade and Carlos Castaneda, Znamenski details how the shamanism idiom was gradually transplanted from Siberia to the Native American scene and beyond. He also looks into the circumstances that prompted scholars and writers at first to marginalize shamanism as a mental disorder and then to recast it as high spiritual wisdom in the 1960s and the 1970s. Linking the growing interest in shamanism to the rise of anti-modernism in Western culture and intellectual life, Znamenski examines the role that anthropology, psychology, environmentalism, and Native Americana have played in the emergence of neo-shamanism. He discusses the sources that inspire Western neo-shamans and seeks to explain why lately many of these spiritual seekers have increasingly moved away from non-Western tradition to European folklore. A work of intellectual discovery, The Beauty of the Primitive shows how scholars, writers, and spiritual seekers shape their writings and experiences to suit contemporary cultural, ideological, and spiritual needs. With its interdisciplinary approach and engaging style, it promises to be the definitive account of this neglected strand of intellectual history.

Shamans and artists have been perceived as similar across a variety of dimensions. Nonetheless, these similarities have not been systematically explored and are poorly understood. This study was designed to investigate these similarities.
Stanley Krippner (personal communication, January 12, 2010) provided the initial definition of a shaman that, after minor modifications to more fully represent knowledge about shamans, became: A shaman is a socially designated spiritual practitioner who obtains information in ways not available to the shaman’s community through the voluntary regulation of the shaman’s own attention, which is used for the benefit of the shaman’s community and its members.  Defining constructs were operationalized and validated cross-culturally to support multidirectional comparisons between artists and shamans using archival data from psychology, archaeology, anthropology, philosophy, art history, and creativity studies.
Previous publications about 24 well-known artists provided archival data for comparisons with shamans. The dimensions explored included familial influence, talent, neurological functions, calling to vocation, social support, personality, training, initiation, inspiration, positive disintegration, transliminality, imaginal realms, altered states, purported psi experiences, mental health issues, soul retrieval, spiritual emergence, transpersonal orientation, intent to benefit, and creativity. Tables, charts, and diagrams organized archival information that, supported by descriptive comparisons, explored the nature and extent of similarities between artists and shamans. The integration of visual art, poetry, and stories provided an emic artist’s perspective and alternate ways of knowing for the reader.
The study found that four artists from traditional cultures fulfilled all defining constructs of shaman, comprising a set of prototypical shamanic artists. In contrast, twenty artists fulfilled some, but not all, constructs defining shaman. These shamanlike artists were noncentral members in a fuzzy set where the shamanlike artists had family resemblances to traditional shamans and shamanic artists.
The study identified and articulated gaps in knowledge as well as establishing a broad, well-grounded theoretical model that can serve as a foundation for future research on relationships between contemporary artists and shamans, and, potentially, contribute towards transformation of art experiences in artists, art audiences, and art institutions.

This paper investigates the relationship between psychoactive substances and so-called paranormal phenomena falling within the study of parapsychology. It is primarily concerned with extrasensory perception (ESP)—telepathy, precognition, and clairvoyance—as well as out-of-body experiences (OBEs) and near-death experiences (NDEs). Psychokinesis (PK), aura vision, encounter experiences, and sleep paralysis only make a very limited contribution to this review as they are seldom related to psychoactive drugs within the parapsychological literature. The paper borrows widely, but by no means exhaustively, from parapsychology as well as transpersonal studies, anthropology, ethnobotany, phytochemistry, psychiatry, psychotherapy, psychopharmacology, and neurobiology, particularly neurochemistry. It is organized into neurochemical models of paranormal experience (section 1), field reports of intentional and spontaneous phenomena incorporating anthropological, historical and clinical cases, and personal accounts (section 2), surveys of paranormal belief and experience (section 3), experimental research (section 4), and a methodological critique of the experimental research with recommendations for further work (section 5).

Luke, D., & Spowers, R. (Eds.)(2021). DMT entity encounters: Dialogues on the spirit molecule. Rochester, VT: Park Street Press.

Available on Kindle from 2nd November, with paperback launches on 30th November (USA) and 9th December (UK). there will also be an audiobook version out shortly after...

With contributions from the late Ralph Metzner, Chris Bache, Whitley Strieber, Jefrey Kripal, Angela Voss, Bill Richards, Chris Timmermann, Michael Winkelman, Luis Eduardo Luna, Anton Bilton, Bernard Carr, Daniel Pinchbeck, Dennis McKenna, Ede Frecska, David Luke and many more...


https://www.innertraditions.com/books/dmt-entity-encounters

The Seven Seals of medieval Islamic magic, which are believed to constitute the Greatest Name of God, also feature in Jewish Kabbalah from the same period. While many Seal symbols make sporadic appearances in early Islamic amulets bearing Kufic script, the source of the symbols and their eventual ordering remains a matter of legend. As this topic was first – and last – examined systematically by Dr. Hans Winkler in 1930, a wider-ranging and more modern review is long overdue. The present survey focuses on potential sources for the symbols rather than on their exegesis. It first examines the possibility that a precedent for the Seal series exists in an undecipherable “seven signs repeated seven times” inscribed on a Late Babylonian amulet. It then considers the possibility that the Seals’ origins lie in other cuneiform symbols from ancient Mesopotamia; in Egyptian hieroglyphs or scripts; in paleo-Hebrew characters or the letters of ancient South Arabian scripts; in Libyco-Berber or Tifinagh letters from North Africa; or in the symbol repertoire of Late Antique magic, including the highly potent seven Greek vowels. The review also explores the possibility that at least some of the symbols originated in numerological ciphers or religious emblems, canvassing sources as diverse as Indian Hinduism and Byzantine Christendom. The article concludes by considering the recent suggestion that the Seal series may have acquired its privileged status because its symbols reflect “shape archetypes” that are hard-wired into the human nervous system.

İslam öncesi Türk inançları konusunda insanların zihninde yer tutan kültler, kutsal
imgeler üzerine yapılan araştırmalar ve destanlar incelenmektedir. Zira destanlar ve destanların
analizi toplumsal normların gelişiminde ulaşabilecekleri noktayı görmekte yardımcıdır. Zira
her toplum geçmişinden izler taşımaktadır. Araştırmamızda Türk toplumunun inançlar
kökenlerine inmek gayesi ile günümüze kadar gelen süreç işlenmiştir. O dönem destanları veya
farklı coğrafyalarda, farklı din ve toplumlar ile karışarak değişen anlatıların Türkler üzerinde
bıraktığı etki üzerinde durulmuştur. Ayrıca farklı mitolojiler ile karşılaştırarak farklı
coğrafyalarda yaşayan insanlar arasında bağlantıya değinilmiştir. En eskilerden, Hacı Bektaş"a
uzanan bir din yaşamının dünü ve bugünüyle izi sürülmeye çalışılmıştır.

The cults in the minds of people about pre-Islamic Turkish beliefs, researches and epics
on sacred images are examined. Because the analysis of epics and epics is helpful in seeing the
point they can reach in the development of social and religious norms. Because every society
has traces of its past. The epics of that period, or the impacts of the narratives on the Turks in
different geographies and mixed with different religions and societies, were emphasized. In
addition, the connection between people living in different geographies was compared with
different mythologies. From the oldest to the past and the present of a religious life extending
to the Haji Bektash has been tried to be traced.

The highly psychoactive molecule N,N -dimethyltryptamine (or simply DMT), is found naturally occurring in the brains of humans, mammals, and some other animals, as well as in a broad range of species of the plant kingdom. Although speculative, neurochemical research suggests that DMT may be made in the pineal gland, and it is hypothesised that, as much as melatonin helps activate sleep cycles, DMT activates dreaming, and may also be implicated in other natural visionary states such as mystical experience, near-death experience (NDE), spontaneous psi and psychosis. Amazonian shamans have made use of this chemical for its visionary properties for thousands of years, most likely, and take it as part of a decoction frequently called ayahuasca, which translates from Quechua as “vine of the spirits” or “vine of the dead”. The psychedelic brew is taken because it gives rise to extraordinary mental phenomena that have shamanic and supposed healing qualities, such as synaesthesia, ostensible extra-dimensional percepts, out-of-body experiences, psi experiences and perhaps most commonly, encounters with discarnate entities. When described by independent and seemingly naïve DMT participants the entities encountered tend to vary in detail but often belong to one of a very few similar types, with similar behavioural characteristics. For instance, mischievous shapeshifting elves, preying mantis alien brain surgeons and jewel-encrusted reptilian beings, who all seem to appear with baffling predictability. This opens up a wealth of questions as to the reality (i.e., the ontology) of these entities. The discussion of the phenomenology and ontology of these entities mixes research from parapsychology, ethnobotany and psychopharmacology – the fruits of science – with the foamy custard of folklore, anthropology, mythology, cultural studies and related disciplines. Hopefully however, given the varied readership of this journal, it won’t prove to be a trifle too interdisciplinary.

This article is the result of a larger study that investigates elements of the Kichwa cosmological system.
The theme has been explored since the 80s from the so called perspectivist ontological turn that combines
theoretical models resulting from different ethnographic works with a common interest to propose
alternatives to the traditional dualism between nature / culture. Based on an ethnographic methodology
based mainly on the perceptions of local people, the article aims to show descriptively how certain cultural
markers: shamanism and body building, local mythic and territorial perception are retracted. From
the data collected, it is concluded that said retraction is due to the attractiveness of modernity and its technologies,
mainly towards the new generations. On the other hand we have the pause in the generational
transfer of traditional knowledge. This is inserted in a particular socio-economic dynamic in a territory
located outside the urban centers of modern development.

Resumen: Este artículo tiene como objetivo comprender la revitalización cultural Yawanawa a par-tir de una reflexión histórica y etnológica que centraliza en su narrativa el desarrollo de las relacio-nes entre indígenas y no indígenas. Este proceso empieza con la ocupación de las grandes cuencas hidrográficas amazónicas en busca del caucho y resigue los primeros contactos entre las etnias indígenas y la población migrante hasta la actualidad, incidiendo en la garantía de los derechos territoriales y la actuación de instituciones no gubernamentales en favor de los pueblos indígenas. A partir del Festival Yawa, celebración de la cultura Yawanawa que cuenta con la participación de alóctonos, el análisis discurre sobre la dialógica entre relaciones interétnicas, culturales e identita-rias. Palabras-clave: etnología amerindia, Yawanawa, chamanismo, etnicidad. Abstract: This article aims to understand the Yawanawa cultural revitalization from an historical and ethnological reflection that focus on the development of the relations between the indigenous and non-indigenous. This process goes from the occupation of large Amazon basins in search of rubber and the first contacts between indigenous and migrant population to the actuality, with the guarantee of territorial rights and the work of non-governmental institutions in favor of indigenous 1 El presente trabajo se llevó a cabo con el apoyo de la Coordinación de Mejoramiento del Personal de Educación Superior de Brasil (CAPES) y en colaboración con la Universidad de St. Andrews.

This paper explores the possibilities of examining four of Jim Jarmusch’s films (Stranger than Paradise, Down by Law, Dead Man and Ghost Dog) from the perspectives of various postmodern philosophies. It places Jarmusch’s opus within the larger frame of modern and postmodern cinema employing the theory of Jean-François Lyotard. Philosophies of Nietzsche, Baudrillard, Foucault and Heidegger are used to analyze several aspects of these films. However, the main focus is on a psychoanalytic approach relying on theories of Jacques Lacan and Slavoj Žižek. Thus, Stranger than Paradise is explained through the concepts of big Other and the repressed Other. Down by Law is seen as a quest for the Other which is “deprived of its Otherness”. Dead Man is a Heideggerian Exploration of the Being whose Beckettian character resonates with neurotic anxiety and childhood trauma. The ancient mythology in Ghost Dog concludes the discussion of the Other with mechanisms of condensation and projection, and ...

Abstract: The paper examins traditional Ryukyuan Onarigami-belief which is the belief that a sister’s sacred spiritual power called Seji guards her brother from danger. It is regarded as the basis of Ryukyuan kinship system and the core of the local religion which is supposed to derive from ancient Japanese religion (worship of kami). It also had a deep implications on Ryukyuan social and political culture. Basic sources on the issue (Omoro So:shi), Japanese and Western research  and the Author’s field research data  are used. The article is illustrated with original photos by the Author.
Key words: Ryukyu/Okinawa, Ryukyuan kinship, social  and political systems, Ryukyuan religion, Onarigami-belief, female sacred spiritual power (Seji), priestesses’ cult of sacred groves (utaki), state (court) rituals.
*****
В статье впервые в отечественном японоведении подробно рассматриваются в историческом, религиозном и культурном контексте региона и общеяпонском культурном контексте фундаментальные концепты традиционной рюкюской культуры, - берущей свои истоки в древнеяпонской культуре, - а именно, культ «сестры-богини» (онари-гами おなり神) и представления о магической силе сэдзи (世持), отражающие важнейшие аспекты религиозной, социальной и политичнской культуры Рюкю. Анализируются различные точки зрения японских и западных исследователей на предмет исследования, который до сих пор остается дискуссионным. Использованы основные источники (рюкюская антология  ритуальных песнопений «Оморо-со:си») и исследования японских и западных ученых по данной теме. Статья иллюстрирована оригинальными фото автора.
Ключевые слова: Рюкю/Окинава, системы родства, социума и политикума Рюкю, религия Рюкю, культ «сестры-богини» (онари-гами), магическая сила сэдзи, ритуалы жриц «священных рощ» (утаки), ритуалы королевского двора Рюкю.

Shamanism is an ancient and embodied technology of consciousness that offers deep insight into both human nature and our place as members of the Earth community. The essence of shamanism is the use of non-ordinary states of consciousness (NOS) to connect with nature in order to learn how to remedy dis-ease and bring about wellbeing. The central argument presented in this paper is that the integration of the perceptually based, non-dual animist ontology of shamanism ought to be applied in the everyday world via a system of species-specific legal protections situated within the paradigm of Earth jurisprudence. In advancing this argument, a case is made that shamanism is directed toward the wellbeing of both individuals and the broader Earth community, which can be supported and enhanced via normative legal standards.

Advances in neurophysiological research by scholars such as Winkelman (2013), have bolstered the epistemic status of experiences in shamanic NOS. Furthermore, coherence between shamanism and the ontologies of Bohmian quantum mechanics, along with various other technologies of consciousness, warrant considering how we can incorporate non-dual ontology into our social, economic, cultural and legal systems. It is asserted that the system of species-specific legal protections posited is one avenue to affect such reform and will assist in remedying some dire ecological problems directly attributable to human action.


An invited submission for the 10th National Conference on Clinical and Experimental Hypnosis, Mind Body Practices and Happiness, Bangalore, India, 20-22 November 2015

https://www.utexas.edu/utpress/books/bacsha.html
“The book argues that the bodies of machi shamans, their desires and gendered performances, and their possession by and control over spirits become sites for local conflicts and expressions of identity and difference between Mapuche and non-Mapuche people-the places where power, hierarchy and healing are played out. This is a complex and demanding menu. It assumes deep and intimate ethnographic knowledge of her subject, a subtle sense of Chilean history, and agility with theories of gender, performance, and ritual, a tough project but she brings it off. The book comes come in a brilliant final chapter where Bacigalupo  and her informants debate her mention of “witchcraft” and “homosexuality,” foregrounding the difficulty of generalizing between machi and the stakes of different machi in presenting themselves and being represented by clients, anthropologists, the Chilean nation, and a New-Age Audience.”

“This is a significant contribution to the field, first as a detailed and complex presentation of machi shamans and as a challenging confrontation of any simple generalization about gender and spirit possession. As a work of ethnography, it sets a high standard for both depth of on the ground knowledge of machi lives, and for its ability to relate those lives to a complex history and politics. The book transcends Chilean or Latin American ethnography. I read it as a scholar with general interest in shamans and gender and can recommend it without hesitation to others with the same broad interests.”
Dr. Laurel Kendall
Curator, American Museum of Natural History

“The book is well timed as a rich case study to complement Barbara Tedlock’s overview, The Woman in the Shaman’s Body, which draws on Bacigalupo’s work among others.”

The Sukuma Sensorium Before discussing the sensory shifts that are pivotal in Sukuma healing, an introduction to the human sensorium may be in order. As a Western ethnographer, I am inevitably influenced by Euro-American conceptions in which ...

When the Son of Man comes, will He find faith on the earth?
The difference between a secular mindset and a sacred mindset is that in the secular life, one engages in daily life disconnected and without awareness of God. In the sacred life, one engages in daily life with a strong awareness of God.  In the sacred life, the child of God sees everything and every moment in the context of the spiritual and says, “The God of the universe who holds everything together is fully and personally present right here, right now.”

The importance of fire in human evolutionary history is widely acknowledged but not fully explored.  Fires involve flickering light, crackling sounds, warmth, and a distinctive smell.  For early humans, fire may have extended the day, provided heat, helped with hunting, warded off predators and insects, illuminated dark places, and facilitated cooking.  Recently scholars have proposed that campfires also provided a social nexus and relaxation effect that could have enhanced prosocial behavior (e.g., McClenon 2006; Wilson 2012; Wrangham 2009).  According to this hypothesis, calmer, more socially tolerant people would have been advantaged via the necessity of fireside interactions relative to individuals less susceptible to fireside relaxation.  In this study, I test the presupposition that the properties of a campfire are universally relaxing.  Using a randomized crossover design, blood pressure, skin conductance, and EEG data were collected from 134 adults from Tuscaloosa, AL with respect to viewing a muted digital fire, a digital fire with sound, and a blank computer screen for 5 minutes each.  Student’s t statistic was used for within-subject comparisons of the degree of change in blood pressure from pre- to post-test among conditions.  ANOVA was used to test between-subject influences on skin conductance and alpha/theta brain wave ratios.  Preliminary results indicate that simultaneously watching and listening to a fire influences the greatest relaxation response while the control condition influences the least.  These findings have significant contemporary applications, as understanding the psychophysiological influences of fire may “shed light” on our species’ captivation with television and other similarly multi-sensory phenomena.

""Volumul Andradei Fatu-Tutoveanu reuseste sa transforme marginalitatea tematica in centralitate, dovedind ca anumite calitati si valente simbolice asociate cu experienta intima a opiaceelor sunt strins legate de insasi configurarea unei noi conditii, a unui nou statut al literaturii in general si al poeziei in special. Nu putem sa nu mentionam noutatea indiscutabila a demersului. Desi literatura si critica literara de la noi nu au fost niciodata straine de experimentele narco-literare asupra carora se focalizeaza cercetarea Andradei Fatu-Tutoveanu, totusi tratarea subiectului a ramas pana acum la nivelul contributiilor punctuale si ocazionale. Caracterul sistematic al abordarii, amploarea si complexitatea acesteia, o singularizeaza, asadar, de indata in peisajul comparatisticii romanesti. Prin interesul temei, prin amploarea si insolitul materialului explorat, prin articularea si deschiderea interdisciplinara, prin deosebita calitate intelectuala a abordarii, lucrarea Andradei Fatu-Tutoveanu se inscrie cu toata claritatea si maturitatea intr-un dialog academic european.

Caius DOBRESCU""

Antoine Volodine and Christian Garcin both make a distinctive use of shamanism in fictional novels. By multiplying shaman characters and intertwining the shamanistic principles and the narrative, they develop a poetic of instability noticeable through various hybridization processes notably strengthened by the intrusion of supernatural elements. The analysis of three motives in which this game of unstable balance is particularly mirrored – identity, History and fiction – shall turn our attention to the role of shamanism as a vector of fictional dynamism.

One of four known ancient Maya books, the Grolier Codex depicts different manifestations of Venus; the column of glyphs on the left of each panel records days in a 104-year Venus almanac. These plaster-coated bark-paper pages, carbon-dated to the 13th century, represent only half of the 20-page original. This article is an excerpt of pages 98-99 from the March 1990 National Geographic Magazine article "America's Ancient Skywatchers" by John B. Carlson with a numbered photographic arrangement of the Grolier Codex depicting the author's discovery that Codex pages 10 and 11 are actually two parts of the same "page 10".  Carlson clarifies the identities of Venus deities depicted in the Grolier Codex from a comparison of images from the Cacaxtla murals and links the images of the Grolier Codex with ancient Maya astronomically timed ritual warfare and sacrifice. (Grolier Codex photographs: Enrico Ferorelli; Mural photograph: Bob Sacha)

This article has been posted on Academia.edu as part of the Grolier Codex Project of the Center for Archaeoastronomy under the directorship of John B. Carlson, Ph.D.  The Grolier Codex Project seeks to further advance the study of the Maya Grolier Codex.