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pponalteredstates.pptxAnthropology of Religion
Altered States of Consciousness and the Religious Use of Drugs
Anthropology of Religion
In the context of the religious use of drugs, according to Marston Bates, drugs are in the cultural sense “almost all materials taken for other than nutritional purposes.”
Every culture has an inventory of drugs, of which most are used for religious or medical purposes. The religious functions of drugs are essential in many cultures, allowing religious specialists to come into contact with the spiritual world.
Anthropology of Religion
The Maya, while once thought not to use hallucinogens for religious purposes, actually have a long history of such drug use.
For the Jívaro of Ecuador, the ritual hallucinogen natema is necessary for shamans to see the “true forces that determine daily events.”
Anthropology of Religion
The rave represents a social ritual whose enactment offers a form of spiritual, individual healing among a youth subculture.
Religious drug use has been attempted by European Americans but has met with little success and has often incurred public outcry.
Anthropology of Religion
The Native American Church is a pan-tribal religion based on the consumption of peyote for communication with God. Peyote is seen as a medicine which provides a path for healing and spiritual revelation.
Anthropology of Religion
Lewis posits sexual experience (particularly orgasm) as a useful analog in exploring the meaning of trance, as well as the range of interpretation of trance contextually, both across and within cultures.
Trance is generally induced through 1) sensory overstimulation (e.g. music, flashing light, ingestion of substance); and/or 2) sensory deprivation (fasting, isolation, highly-controlled physical measures).
Anthropology of Religion
Lewis submits that trance is “a universal phenomenon” that is typically explained as – rather than necessarily considered coincident with – some external spirit agent’s invasion of a human body and said agent’s consequent manifestation (possession), regardless of mystical component.
Anthropology of Religion
Implementations of exorcism (spirit expulsion) and adorcism (spirit accommodation or ecstatic cult worship), prescribed to deal with (trance) possession, reflect cultural attitudes about gender and social status.
adorcists either females or low-status males
possession conceived of in sexual terms
sexual aura pervasive in adorcism
Anthropology of Religion
Lewis characterizes adorcist priestess behaviour and practice as shamanic.
Both trance and adorcism feature some kind of musical accompaniment and an overall, often overtly sexual aura.
Anthropology of Religion
Citing similarities between trance/"mystical flight" and entranced/"shaman", as well as an example of ecstatic shaman séance, Lewis asserts that shamanism/shaman should be understood more broadly to include trance and the practice of trance.
Anthropology of Religion
The sexual imagery and symbolism prevalent in religious expression and ritual reflects the complexities of experiencing (psychologically, physiologically, culturally, socially) intimacy with spirits/spiritual partners.
