Altered States of Consciousness: The Continuity of an Ancient Practiceby Brent Rogers

Altered states of consciousness (ASC) are widely reported religious behaviours, and have been suggested to be something that may be universal in human societies (Winkelman, 1997). Indigenous shamans from around the world have been using entering ASCs to help and to heal individuals and their community for perhaps, thousands of years (Winkelman, 1997). ASC has been used by modern Western psychotherapists, assisting in the treatment of patients working through a range of ailments (Metzner, 1998). Commonplace in our society even today individuals enter ASC aided by meditation, hallucinogens, designer drugs, alcohol and dance music. The following paper is a review of three articles that examine some of these themes. While there are many ways in which ASC is induced, and different rituals and practices that incorporate ASC across different cultures, sub-cultures and communities it will be seen that entering ASCs may offer direct and indirect therapeutic value, physically, psychologically and spiritually, and that people inducing ASC appears to be an ongoing phenomenon.

In his article, Winkelman (1997) discusses the perhaps universal phenomenon of ASC in human religious behaviour, where the shaman enters a trance state to interact with spiritual entities for the purpose of divination, protection, healing, and to aid in community hunting activities. This state can be induced by ingesting hallucinogens, chanting and drumming in rituals and ceremony, fasting and water deprivation, music, meditation, prolonged periods of dancing or exercise, opiates, sensory deprivation, and community ritual (Winkelman, 1997). What is interesting is that ASC induces physiological changes where a state of parasympathetic dominance develops, involving a slowing of brain wave activity and an increase in hemispheric synchronisation (Winkelman, 1997). Furthermore, ASC are associated with greater activity of the right hemisphere and non-frontal parts of the brain which contrast with the ordinary waking state of awareness (OWS) dominated by the left (the rational, verbal linear modes of experience). This may help to explain why people in ASC can have “other worldly” experience, such as communicating with spiritual beings, accessing higher knowledge, or spiritual healing. With the “ordinary world” level of perception somewhat displaced (the linear, logical, normal day-today existence that we normally experience), this different level of awareness may enable a person in an ASC to perceive things they normally wouldn’t, perhaps even different levels of existence. Winkelman (1997) also points the therapeutic value of this physiological state that may actually increase physiological and physiological well being as the person enters into a “relaxation response.”

This idea of ASC facilitating in the healing process is one that Metzner (1998) also examined as he compared the relationship between hallucinogenic plants and drugs, and their role in the healing processes in both shamanism and psychotherapy. In the latter part of last century, LSD was experimented with in psychotherapy treatments across Europe to help treat a range of neurotic conditions and maladaptive behaviour. Metzner (1998) outlines commonalities noticed during these hallucinogenic-based psychotherapy sessions including an expanded state of consciousness, giving the individual insight into their behaviours and conditions. LSD was seen to amplify psychic contents, putting it under a microscope and open up previously inaccessible or unconscious processes. It was also discovered universally that LSD could, and did produce spiritual experiences, sometimes transcending ideas of time and space, a notion no doubt already understood by many traditional shamans that used similar plan-derived substances.

Metzner (1998) draws parallels between the Western psychedelic-psychotherapy and traditional shamanism. He suggests that both shamanistic rituals and psychotherapy are carefully structured, healing rituals in which a small group of people come together (though psychotherapy only involves two people). Appropriately however, Metzner (1998) does acknowledge the underlying paradigms behind treatment and illness are completely different, and that shamanistic ceremonies are quite different in that usually there is little or no talking, chanting and/or drumming are used, and are done in little or no light. Additionally, it should be mentioned that there are a are a large number of different reasons why a shamanic practitioner may enter into ASC, such as aiding the community in other ways or gaining knowledge (Winkelman, 1997). In any case, Metzner (1998) does demonstrate a Western-developed alternative in using ASC to facilitate healing.

A more ambiguous use of ASC is perhaps in Western rave culture. John (2006) considers the electronic dance music (EDM) scene as a potential religious practice, presenting arguments from a mass of literature. The rise of MDMA (‘Ecstasy’) and the emergence of rave culture in the 1990s, with youths globally getting ‘loved up’ and dancing all night at raves held in warehouses, forests and clubs to EDM are seen as a religious expression by some. Gauthier’s (2004a; cited in John, 2006) view of the rave attendance is that of ‘religious impulse’. The dance party experience can be “experimental, transcendence, transformative”, the equivalent of a conversion experience (Hutson 1999; cited in John 2006). One can be viewed at a ‘ritual’, for example, outdoor ‘doofs’ employ nature, pumping, hypnotic music, dance, body, hallucinogenic, art, “freaky costumes”, and the ceremonial social gathering of performers, very much with the intent of reaching ASC ( John, 2006). It is not difficult to see the parallels with other ecstatic ceremonies, and that ASC rituals are not confined only to small indigenous communities, but embedded within our society’s subcultures. Perhaps these are spiritual events, a “holy union” of our people? Maybe they are an innate counter-response to a Western society stripped of community and bound up in an individualistic ideology? It has been suggested that repeated exposure through dance events may actually enable participants to retain and achieve ASC naturally (John, 2006), so perhaps we are chasing a new form of consciousness? Whatever the case, considering rave culture as a religious practice of Western youth is an interesting school of thought.

The practice of entering ASC then appears to be an ongoing phenomenon, even in modern times. Various induction techniques have been explored as a means to reach ASC with a look at hallucinogens as such a vehicle. There is support that entering an ASC may have therapeutic value, with shamans using the mystical properties to heal and aid the community or an individual (Winkelman, 1997). Psychotherapy-hallucinogen treatments have revealed that ASC may help patients overcome psychological and psychosomatic disorders by unveiling normally inaccessible areas of the psyche, helping with the resolution of unconscious conflicts (Metzner, 1998). Even though helping/healing is the focus of the shaman and psychotherapist, the techniques and underlying beliefs appear very different. ASC are still used today as people all over the Western world gather at dance events, utilising drugs and music as a means to enter into the ecstatic state. Maybe they too are healing, driven by some invisible, innate urge? Maybe they are simply longing to lose themselves in an egoless, colourless, selfless space for a short time, away from an individualistic society, to experience union with their human brothers and sisters? Whatever be the case, as times change and eons pass the phenomenon and desire to enter ASC appears to remain. Let’s hope that we continue ASC not as a means to escape, but to heal, to help and to know.

References

John, G. S. (2006). Electronic dance music and culture and religion: An overview. Culture and Religion, 7(1), 1-25.
Metzner, R. (1998). Hallucinogenic drugs and plants in psychotherapy and shamanism. Journal of Psychoactive Drugs, 30(4), 331-341.
Winkelman, M. (Ed.). (1997). Altered states of consciousness and religious behaviour. Anthopology of Religion: A Handbook of Method and Theory, Westport, Conn: Greenwood Press.