Altered states of consciousness

1. Altered states of consciousness Chapter 5

2. introduction • Altered states of consciousness are mental states that are different from normal states • Frequently used in religious rituals • The definition of this is subjective and varies by culture

3. characteristics • Altered states of thinking: changes in concentration, attention, or memory • Disturbed time: acceleration or slowing of time • Loss of control: feeling helpless, give control up to spirits • Change of emotions: sudden changes of emotional extremes

5. characteristics • Change in body image: blurring of body and mind; parts of the body swell or shrink; out of body experience • Perceptual distortions: hallucinations, heightened senses • Change in meaning: increased significance in experiences • Sense of ineffable: cannot communicate to someone not in the same state • Rejuvenation: sense of hope, rebirth; confidence in religious specialists

6. Factors that cause asc • Reduction of stimulation or repetitive stimulation: • Solitary confinement, sleep • Sensory overload or strenuous activity: • Spirit possession, trances

7. Increased and sustained mental alertness: • Prolonged concentration on a specific task • Decreased alertness or passive mind: • Meditation, daydreaming, relaxation • Alterations in body chemistry: • Fasting, dehydration, sleep deprivation, drugs Sweat lodge

8. fasting • Involves abstaining from food and/or drink or other activities (sex) • Alters body chemistry • Usually only for short period of time or parts of each day • Can be seen as a: • Form of discipline • Form of training • Cleansing ritual

9. fasting • Old and New Testaments: • Moses and Jesus fasted 40 days and 40 nights • Jewish practice of Yom Kippur: • Day of Atonement, fast from sunset to sunset next day • Catholic and Orthodox Churches: • Fasting from certain foods • Islamic practice of Ramadan: • Abstain from food, drink, sex, smoking from sunup to sundown for one month

10. Sacred pain • Pain can also lead to ASC • Pain may be • Punishment (Eve, Hindu bad karma) • Purifying (Monks who whip themselves) • A weapon (Christ’s pain on cross) • Source of supernatural power (exorcism)

11. Sacred pain • Pain can happen during a trance or without an altered state

12. Sacred pain • People often share religious pain, but it can be individualistic • Example is stigmata, or marks on the body that correspond to Jesus’ wounds

13. Sacred pain

14. Sacred pain • Other examples of inflicting religious pain: • Piercing tongue, face, genitals • Pulling string with thorns through these wounds • Can also be associated with rites of passage • Remember the ant initiation? • Tattooing, scarification, piercing, circumcision all show that the person can withstand intense pain • Intense prolonged pain can lead to euphoria or as healing

15. Sacred pain • Video Log: Sacred Pain • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yu6Nnh-FYAs

16. Biological Basis • What is occurring in the brain during ASC? • Some scientists believe that religious visions are really hallucinations from migraines • Nun Hildegard in the 1100s • Studies have shown that fast rhythmic behavior affects the sympathetic system and may shut the brain down • One specific part, orientation association structure, blurs the boundaries of the body and other objects, leading to a unitary state

17. Biological Basis

18. Are these visions biological or spiritual? Can they be both? How do you tell them apart?

19. Drug-induced Altered States • Many cultures use drugs to achieve ASC • An example is the use of peyote in the Native American Church • These drugs help the people contact supernatural powers

20. Drug-induced Altered States

21. Drug-induced altered states • The ritual setting is important • There is a difference between recreational and ritual drug use • Ritual drug use is done at certain times and with certain rules; addiction usually does not follow

22. Native American healing

23. Native American healing • Traditional healing in tribal societies is often described as shamanism • "fully 90% of the world's cultures make use of one or more institutionalized altered states of consciousness, and in traditional societies these are, almost without exception, sacred states" (Walsh, 1996, p. 101). • Spirit travel (or soul journeys) by the healer while in an altered state of consciousness

24. Native American healing • Examples: • Meditation • Prayer • Fasting • Sensory deprivation • Pain

25. Native American healing • Salish Spirit Dancing: • Among the Salish Indians of the Pacific Coast of North America, Spirit Dancing is practiced as an initiation process for young people who are seen as suffering from spirit illness due to alienation from traditional Indian ways • The healer's job is to "kill" the initiates' faulty and diseased old selves, to let them awaken with a potential for change • "shock treatment" • Also used to treat mental illness

26. Native American healing • Initiates are secluded in a dark cubicle or "smokehouse tent." • Then several people seize the initiates, restrain them, blindfold them, and hit, bite, and tickle them. • The person is lifted up and dropped, carried around, and whirled about • Acoustic stimulation (loud rapid drumming, rattling, singing, and howling). • This process is repeated four times until the initiate is weak, pale, rigid, and appears lifeless on the ground. • The initiates are blindfolded for the whole four days, must lie still, cannot talk or move, and have to fast (although they are teased and tested by people holding tasty bits of salmon held close to their mouths).

27. Native American healing • The second part of the process is physical training. There are long daily runs, often barefoot in snow, daily swimming in ice-cold waters, and frequent rounds of dancing to the drums, until the initiates are exhausted. • Sometime during the process the guardian spirit is expected to appear in a dream or vision. • The third part of the process is indoctrination. This includes the direct teaching of the rules and sanctions of the tribe and the recounting of traditional tribal lore. • Finally, the initiates take off their old clothes and get new clothes to signify their new life after the cure of the spirit illness. The old personality is shed and the young person is presented to the public as an adult (Amoss, 1978).

28. Native American healing • This is a healing ceremony, but what other type of ritual is it?

29. Ethnographic examples • 1. Holiness Churches • Independent churches in Appalachia (West Virginia) • Use concentrated, intense prayer and music to enter into ASC (no drugs) • Speak in tongues, enter trances • Interpret this as being filled with Holy Spirit • Handle snakes and drink poison • https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cwBVcsWYJd8

30. Ethnographic examples • 2. San Healing Rituals • !Kung (Kalahari Desert, South Africa) • Believe that an energy (n/um), given to them by the gods, lives in their spine • As they experience !kia the energy moves up the spine to the brain • Bring this state about by dancing to singers • When they are in this state they can heal others (pull sickness out of person) • https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IyLF3y1YJKA

31. Ethnographic examples • Rastafarians • Afro-Caribbean religions that sees former emperor of Ethiopia as messiah • Connect with Israelites in the Old Testament • Want to repatriate black people to Africa • Reject Western consumerism and want healthy lifestyle • No chemicals, don’t cut hair (dreadlocks), herbal remedies • Smoke ganga, or marijuana, as “holy herb” • Cite references from Bible

33. assignment • Read article “Trance and Possession” • Answer the questions in groups