IWalsh, R Shamanic cosmology: A psychological examination of the shamanic universe. Revision '. i, - -13:86-100, 1991. Shamanic Cosmology: - - A Psychological Mationof the Shaman's Worldview

Roger Wakb

We do not see things as they are but as we are. -Jewish Proverb

RwrWnLrh. M.D.. Ph.D.. is nly a few years ago. it was feared that shimanism might be lost due to the con- a professor of pychi~tlyand philowphy the Uniwdty of tinuing encroachment of industrial civilization on tribal peoples and lands. California at 1r.inc. His However, shamanism has suddenly been rescued as a topic of considerable pop- pubticalions include hebmks ular interest in the West. Shamanic books. workshops and rituals are proliferat- Afdilmion: Bcyond Eto: Beyond Hmhh and No&w ing at a remarkable rate and have spawned a veritable collage industry. Eq~hmnmruo/EtFcplioml 0So shamanism. or at least its contemporary Western version. is now doing surprisingly. well. Prychologicol Wellbdn~:'md This does not mean that shamanisin is weU defined or understood:lndeed, there is enormous Sfqina Aliw 7he Prychologv ojHuman Suwi~l.ffi mmt confusion as to exactly what shamans arc and how, if at all, they can be distinguished from rcccnt boak b The Spiril of other tribal practitioners such as medicine men, witch doctors, sorcerers, and mgicians. Sbmniwn, which provide an Likewise. there is also confusion about the psychological status of shamans. Two extreme ovmiov and pn/cbok+al u- ptoration of the ihanwnic views arc now prevalent. Among maindream anthropologists perhaps the most common tradition, training tcchnipa. arsessment of shamans is that they arc psyhologically disfurbed individuals who have m- and worldview and ds aged to adapt their psychopathology to social needs. Thus the shaman has often been called an cornparisom aith other h&g and religious traditions. hysteric or a schwphrenic, as weU as a "veritable idiot" (Wksler 1931). "mentally deranged" and an "outright psychotic" (Devereaux 1961, 285). On the other hand, an equally extreme but opposite view is now appearing in the popular lit- erature. Shamanic states of consciousness are being identified with thow of Buddhism, Yoga or Christian mysticism. Consider, for example, the claims that "shamans, yogis and Buddhists alike are accessing the same state of consciousness" more 1988. 223) and that the shaman "experiences existential unity-the mmadhi of the hindus or what Western spiritualists and mystics call enlightenment, illumination. unio mysricd' (Kalweit 1988. 236): There is also confusion over the nature and interpretation of shamanic techniques. For ex- ample, one of the central shamanic techniques, the shamanic journey or soul flight, has been interpreted as everylhing from a trance Weto a neurotic dream, neardeath experience. or yogic samadhi. Clwly then, the recent popularity of shamanism has not ended confusion about the tradi- tion. The purpose of this paper is to attempt to reduce some of this confusion by describing the shaman's cosmology and some of the major techniques of shamanism. What will become ap- parent is that these are dininctive and that the shaman's experiences are quite different from thow of either the psychologically disturbed or of the practitioners from mystical traditions such as Buddhism or Yoga. Indeed. it is dearly time to recognize shamanism as a unique lradi- lion that' can no longer be reduced to psychopruhology or equated with other religious disciplines. Defmition There are several key features that distinguish this tradition. The frsl is that shamans can voluntarily enter altered states of conwiousness and that thew states are distinguishable from those of both psychopathology and of other religious traditions (Walsh 1% 1990). The sec- ond is that in these states shamans crperiencc themselves leaving their bodies and journeying to other realms in a manner analogous to contemporary reports or some out-of-body experiences or lucid dreams (Monroe 1971; Irwin 1985; LaBerge 1985). They use these journeys in order to acquire knowledge or power and to help people in their community. Shamans also experience thcrnselvcs interacting with and controlling "spirits." Whiie many of their fellow tribespeople might claim to see or even be posswed by spirits.,only shamans claim to be able to command, commune. and intercede with them for the benefit of the tribe. The use of the term "spirits" here is not meant to imply necessarily that there udn separate entities that control or communi- :. I3 NO. 2 ; I caie with people. Rather the term is simply and some Weslemers report unitive experi- beiig used to describe the shamans' interpre- ences (Walsh 1990). tation of their experience. That shamanism is an oral tradition meam In summary, shamanism can be defmcd as that unitive experiences may have occurred, a family of traditions whose practitioners fo- at least occasionally. but have been lost to cus on voluntarily entering altered slates of subsequent generations and, of course, to an- wnsciousncn in which thcy experience them- thropologists. Without written documents, selves, or their spirit(s), traveling to other there may be no way to adequately preserve a realms at will and interacting with other enti- record of the highest. and raresl, flowe~gs ties in order to serve their community. The of a tradition. There may ahbe no hinorical term "family of traditions" acknowledges guidelines or framework with which these few that there is some variability among shamanic practitioners who do aocess thcw experiences practitioners (Siikala 1985). However, the can effectively interprel and transmit their ex- deffition clearly distinguishes this tradition periences to others. from other traditions and ptaclks, a well as Although not an asatial parl of shaman- from various psychopathologies with which it ism, the use of psychedelics is common in has been confuxd. For example, medicine some areas Warner 1973). Peyote and aya- men may heal and priests may conduct cere- huasca, for example, are powerful substanm monies, but thcy rarely enter altered states capable of inducing experiences that at km (Winkleman 1989). Mediums usually enter al- Gme authorities regard as genuine mrjucal tered states but do not journey; some Taoists, ones (Smith 1%4). Muslims, and Tibetan Buddhists may jour- Fmally, Weslemen bciig trained in sha- ney, but this is not a major focus of (heir manic praclia~may report unitive experi- practice. Those who suffer mental illness may ences; I personally have heard two such ac- enter altered states and meet "spirits." but counu. However. theseemed to be experi- they do so involuntarily as helpless victims ences of union with the universe rather than rather than ar voluntary creators of their ex- with a deity. These experiences point to the perienm. fact that there are actually different types of mystical union (Wilber 1980) and that the ex- Am Shamans True Mys(ifs? perience of union with the universe is an ex- Whether shamans can be considered true ample of socalled "nature mysiicism" mher mystics depends on both the def~tionand than theistic mysticirm (union with God). data one uses. If the criterion for a mystic is In light of this evidence. it seem. that sha- simply one who obtains direct, intuitive. tran- manism may deserve to be considered a ms- scendental knowledge. then the answer is tical tradition. Though unitive experiences clearly. ycs. During their journeys through may not be the aim of shamark journeys. the cosmos shamans acquire intuitive tran- which focus on soul travel. it is possible that scendental information of value both to they sometimes occur. At the very leact, it themselves and to their tribespeople. seems that shamans were the earliest forerun- However. a more narrow defnition of ners of more recent mysix. For perhaps tens mysticism confmes it to experiences of union of thousands of years. they posse& a tech- with the divine, the so-called unio myslica. nology of transcendence capable of inducing Do shamans ever experience this mystical significant altered states of wnsciousnss and union? I have found no examples of it in the used them for acquiring power and informa- literature and nor apparently have others. tion for themselves and for their tribes (Walsh One authority categorically states that "we 1989b, 1990). never fid the mystical union with the divinity so typical for the ecstatic experience in the Shamanic Technology 'higher' form of religious mysiicism" (Hult- Shamans employ a wide range of tech- krantz 1978, 42). He, therefore, argues that niques for diagnosis, divination, ritual, heal- shamanism can be considered a form of mys. ing, and empowerment. Perhaps the two ticism only "if mysticism is not restricted to most dramatic and psychologically interesting mean just the unio mysfica" Wultkranu techniques are the shamanic journey and 1973. 28). mediumship. Despite their obvious psycho- There arc three Lines of evidence that sug- logical interest, ar yel they rarely have been gest that this conclusion might be incorrect. examined by Western mental health rewarch- These are the facts: shamanism is an oral tra- ers. Most reports have been by anthropolo- dition. powerful psychedelics may be used. gists; p~~hologicalreports of these tech-

FALL 90 8: niques are few, outdated, and usually patho- "the entire lifestyle of a culture k built upon lo-. Both techniques have ofien been re- its myIluc view of wality." garded as evidence of significant psychopa- Of course, the shamanic world view is not thobgy, most often rhizophrenia, hysteria, scientifically based, and there is much in it or -ve disorders. that we, from our scientifically and mcchan- Yet both the shamanic journey and meil- istically bdworld view. would regard as iumship are complex, culturally valucd tech- superstitious. Indeed, one of the tasks await- niques that are sought after, voluntarily in- ing researchers investigating shamanism is to duced, cultivated through a variety of tech- differentiate effective psychological, social, niques. and supponed and paid for by the physiologiwl, and medical practices from in- community. To assume that they are only effective ones. This is an ongoing task with symptoms of psychological disorder may be Western therapies also; ineffective techniques to view them thmugh an ethnocentric pathol- and supemitions are not unique to tribal ogizing framework and to "confuse culture healing. and clinic" (Opler 1x1): Contrary to many ln summary. it is clear that far from being previous assumptions, it is now clear that sha- merely the garbled produnions of the psycho- manic experiences do not slip easily into logically disturbed, shamanic cosmology and Western diagnostic categories and that there technology can be recognized as dovetailing are significant arguments against dismisiing aspects of a meaningful, coherent, integrated. and diagnosing them as merely culturally ac- functional, encompassing world view or cepted fom of psychologal disturbance mythos on which are bavd the shaman's and (NoU 1983; Walsh 1990). the tribe's way of life. Let us now examine is not to say that all shamans are this cosmology and technology in turn. models of mental health. Clearly there are THE SHAMAN'S UNIYERSE: some psychologically diwurbed individuals MANY WORLDS among their rhks. Nor is it to deny that there are numerous trickstcrs and charlatans In order to understand shamans' expri- among them (Rogers 1982; Warner 1980). ences, we need to undernand their universe. However. it is to say that shamans and sha- What was the nature of this cosmos and the manism can no longer simply be diagnosed worlds that shamans believed they could (away) & only psychologically disturbed or as penetrate and explore? Fortunately. a general charla!ankm. Rather shamanism must be re- outline of the physical geography will xne garded as a unique tradition containing its our purposes; we need not go into the many own distinctive world view and technology of details and cultural variations that Eliade transcendence. Operating from this perspec- (1964) has described so meticulously. tive. psychological research may unveil a The shaman's universe is three tiered, com- wealth of previously overlooked information. privd of an upper, middle, and lowcr world, and the upper and lower worlds may them- Sham& Cosmology selves be multilayered. Wha1 makes shamans "cosmic travelers" is their enperience of be- In order to understand the psychology of ingable to traverse these multiple worlds and shamanic technology. it is necwary to know levels. As Eliade points out: the shamanic cosmology: Alter all, psychol- ogy is a subset of cosmology, and psycholog- The pre-emincnlly shamanic technique is the pakagc from one cosmic region to another ical techniques only make sense from the per- -from carlh lo the sky or from eanh to thc speaive of their corresponding cosmology underworld. The shaman knows the mystery (Berger and Luckmann 1969). of !he break-through in plam. This com- If we interpret shamanic techniques and cx- munication among the cosmic wna is made periences from the ethnofentric viewpoint of possible by the vuy structure of the universe. (Eliade IW,259) our own cosmology, then these experiences will certainly sepm nonsensical. However, if "The very structure of the universe" to we examine shamanic technology and cos- which Eliade refcrs is its interconncctedness. mology together, we will see that thcy form The three worlds and many levels are believed an integrated unit in which theory and prac- to be linked by a central axis, the axis mundi tice, cosmology and technology, belief and or world axis described in diverse myths. technique arc intimately linked in a meaning- The ascntial xhcma is always to be sen. ful and coherent whole. For as the psychia- even aftcr the numerous influcnccr lo which trist Donald Sandner (1979. 14) pointed out, it has been subjstcd; there arc thre pa 88 ReVISION VOL. 13 ~0.2 cosmic regions. vhich can bc successively of the literal. objective, and realist interpreta- traversed Lwauw they arc linked together by tion of experience characteristic of the sha- a central axis. This axis. of mum, paws manic world view. hugh an "opening," a "hok"; it is through this hole that the gods daccnd to For the shamans' tribespeople, thk multi- earth and the ddto the subterranean layered cosmos is a belief, a mylh, and an ar- rcgions; it is through the ramc hole that thc ticle of faith. For shamans, it is a direct expe- soul of the shaman in ecstasy can fly up or rience. They alone travene thcx layers and cdatial down in the course of his or infernal turn a cosmology into a personal roadmap. journeys. We1961. 259) They done, says Etiadc, transform: The central axis takes three main form., all of them common to diverse cultures and a mvnothcologid mnccpt into a mncrerr mysrical uperience. Tlis point is imponant. myths, both shamanic and nonshamanic. The It explains the difference bctwm. for =am- fun is the "cosmic mountain" at the center ple, the religious life of a Nonh Asian people of the earth. The second is the "world and thc religious cxpricna of its rhms; pillar," which may hold up the sky. The third thc httcr is a pemnd and emlatic expen is thc highly symbolic "world tree." symbol ence. Wade 1964, 21) of life. fertility, and sacred regcneration that Because the shamans alone experience the the shaman climbs to other wodds. But what- realms described in tribal mgh and cosrnol- ever form it takes. thc world axis is the cos ogy, the question arises as to whether their mological symbol of the connection between journeys and descriptions also shaped these worlds, a connection that the shaman, alone myths and cosmology. To put the question among humans, is able to tram. more generally, and make it a very important But the shaman's worlds and levels are one, to what extent do spiritual practitioners more than interconnated. Thcy are holoco- create their tradition's cosmology from their enotic; that is, every pati affects every other experience and to what extent is their experi- part. Shamans believe that these interaclions ence created by. or at lcast molded by, their can be perceived and affected by one who cosmology? To what extent do religious prac- knom how to do so and that lhc shaman, like lice and experience creatc beliefs and to what a spider at the center of a cosmic web, can feel extent do beliefs create rehgious experience? and influence distant realms. Tbe shaman was Which is chicken and which is cgg, or are they thus a forerunner of her Chinere sages who mutually interdependent? claimed that "Heaven, Earth and the ten For shamanism. Eliade comes down on the thousand things form one My." side of experience being determined by ws- AU parts of this interconnected universe are rnology. While he acknowledges that a num- usually regard$ as alive and conscious to bcr of cpic stories may have been fostered by some degree. In contemporary philosophical accounts of shamanic journeys, he denis the language. these would be the doctrines of impact of these journeys on cosmology. hylozoism and animism. Hyiozoism is the be- lief that all objects are imbued with life. Ani- Thc shamans did not create the cosmology, mism is the belief of tribal people thal every the mythology, and the thmlogy of thcir rc- speclive .cribs; they only intcriorixd it. object is investedwith a mind or soul. When "cxpcricnd' it, and used it x the itinerary this same belief is held by Waern intellec- for thcir ecstatic journgvs. (Eliadc 1%4. 266) tuals, it is renamed "panpsychism." Needless to say, lhis dmrine of panpsychism is most On the other hand. Michael Hamcr notes unfashionable in these materialistic times. that what deimes shamanism is ils techniques However, hinorically, it has had some very and that the experienm that thetechniques notable Western supporters including fun- elicit allow practitioners to reach their own rank philosophers such as Leibniz, Schopen- conclusions and cosmology. hauer, and Whitehead. Shamanism ultimately is only a method, not As metaphysicians. shamans tend !o be re- a religion with a lid XI of dogmas. Thcre- alirts. That is, where Westerners might regard fore peoplc anivc at thcir own cxpcricna- the upper and lowcr worlds they traverse as derived mnclusions about hat is going on mental constructions, shamans regard them in thc uniwrsc, and about what tcrm, if any, is most useful to describe ultimate reality. as independently existing realms. Thus. for (Hmer 1987, 4-5) the shaman. "the mind is being used to gain access, to pass through a door into another This su~geststhat personal shamanic expe- dty which ucisu independently of that riences can shape personal beliefs and possi- mind" (Hamer 1987, 4). Tkis an example bly cultural ones. However, it is obvious thal FALL 90 89 shamans must bring some prior beliefsand Jivaro Indian initiate of South America may cosmology to their practice. Why would sha- spend days fasting and ingesting drugs until mans learn to journey to the upper wodd if fially a spirit is sen (Eliade 1964). In an- they did not already believe there was one? other tribe. the inslructor rubs herbs on the Moreover, thm are wide cultural variations eyes of the apprentice. in myihs, and shamans tend to have urperi- ences consistent with the myihs of their cul- For thra days and nights the two men sit op ture. This is similar to the way in which psy- positc cxh other, singing and ringing their bells. Until the eyes of the boy arc clcar. chotherapy patients tend to have experiences neither of the two men obtains any deep. At and dreams consistent with the beliefs of their the end of the thrce days the two again go to therapis. Thus in the short term, shamanic the woods and obtain more herbs. . . . [l]f at experience is defmitely shaped by cultural the cnd of seven days thc boy sm hewood- cosmology. Perhaps in the long run. the re- spirits, rhc ccmny is at an end. Othcrrviw the entire mn-day arcmony musl be re verse also occurs so that cultural cosmology pared. (Locb 1929) and personal shamanic experience mold exh other through a process of reciprocal determ- The spirits arc usually sought under specific inism. conditions such as altered states of conscious- ness and reduced lighting, conditions that THE SHAMAN'S UNIYERSE: enhance awareness of vhal iirwgery. Trance MANY SPIRITS. and' drug states can intensify images, and As we have seen, the shaman lives in and is darkness enhanas sensitivity to them: connected to a living conscious universe, a What are we to make of the shaman's universe Tied with life, awareness, and "spir- training and development of spirit vision? its." These spirits-everpresent, powerful One psychological explanation might be that and potentially malevolent-exert an enor- the shaman learns to organize and interpret mous influence on tribal cultures. Whatever the flux of vhal images wen during trances. happens-good or bad, forrunaie or unfortu- Even in an ordinary stale, an almost contin- nate, succfss or failure-is likely to be attrib- uous flux of images can be uen when the eyes uted to the spirits. are closed. In altered states. thw images can Yet ordinary people are largely helpless vic- become clearer, more meaningful, and more tims of these spirits. These people have little archetypal (Wilber 1980). control over the spirits save to blindly follow Shamans may be particularly likely to or- the traditions handed down from one gcnera- ganize this flux into spirits and other images tion lo another: to pray, to sacrifice, or to ask consistent with their expxtations. A study of the shaman to intercede on their behalf. for it Ziacanteco natives of Mexico showed a is the shaman alone who can control spirits. number of perceptual differences between Indeed, for many anthropologists, this con- shamans and nonshunans (Shweder 1972). In trol is one of the shaman's defming character- this study, the exprimenter showed a series istics. But in order to control the spirits, the of blurred. out-of-focus photographs and shaman must filearn to see them. Conse- asked the natives what they saw. Shamans quently, before we examine the nature of the were much less likely than nonshamans to say shaman's spirits. it will be valuable for us to "1 don't know," even when the photographs examine the ways in which the shaman learns were blurred lo the point of being completely how to perceive them. unrecognizable. Moreover, when the e.xpcri- menter offered suggestions as to what the im- Spirit Vion age might be, shamans were more likely than Because the spirits are usually invisible lo nonshamans to ignore the suggestions and to the untutored eye, a major part of shamanic gjve their own personal interpretation. training involves acquiring the power of These fmdingr suggest that shamans may "spirit Gon" by which spirits can be recog- be "impxen of form" who easily create nized. This, mys Eliade, explains "the extreme meaningful patterns fmm unclear data. That importance of 'spirit vidons' in all varieties of is, they tend to organize ambiguous experi- sham- initiations" (Eliade 1964. 85). ences into coherent meaningful images. Given the importance of this spirit vision. it Moreover, for shamans, these images are par- is not suwriring that considerable effort may ticularly likely to reflect their own personal be invested in acquiring it. A variety of spe- categories. Of course. it remains for future re- cific techniques may be used, some of which search to validate this study and to see are extremely demanding. For e.xample, the whether its fmdings are true or shamans in 90 ReVISION VOL.13 N0.2 other parts of the world. However, the study transform a transitory altered sfafe of con- suggests that shamans may be particularly sciousness into an enduring altered frail of adept at finding what they expect lo see. Con- Consciousness. sequently, they may be parricularly adept. For beyond the capacity to enter transan- either by virtue of heredity. training, or both. dent slates at will lies a condilion in which at finding spirits amidst the many images that transcendental awareness permeates the ordi- arise during altered states. nary waking me. This is the deilication of Because shamans experience such intense Christianity. the sohaj somudhi of yoga. lhc imagery during .their journeys, it has been eyes*pen samadhi of Zen or what Abraham suggated that they may be so4ed "fan- Maslow called lhe plateau experience (Under- tasy-prone" personalities (NoU 1985). These hill 1974; Coleman 1988). This phenomenon arc people who are usually exceUent hypnotic is interesting, both in showing the evolution subjecu and who "fantasize a large part of and higher reaches of spiritual training and in the time. who typically 'm,' 'hear.' 'smell.' pointing to a similar skill in shamanion. 'touch,' and fully experience what they fanta- There is no evidence that shamans practice size" (Wilson and Barber 1982. 341)). these samadhis. However, there are suggcs- Perhaps Olm, some shamans are "fan- tions thal mature shamans may eventually de- tasy-prone" personalities who arc able to or- velop abilities. such as spirit vision. in their gank and kam from their intern images in ordinary state, which initially they muld pci- ways that are both personally and socially form only in altered states (Arrien 1989). beneficial. They may be particularly adept at creating and recognizing images of spirits. Of Types of Spirits course. this is not to say that this can mount The types of spirits that the shaman may for 3U expericnm of spirits or that spirits are see and summon are many. They may be aai- necessarily only visual images. We will dkss mal or human. lesser or greater, within or be- this tricky quation of the nature of spirits yond the shaman's power to control. For as shortly. But whatever the nature of spirits, Eliadc points out, the shaman is shamans clearly exemplify the words of the a man who has immediate concmc 4- great sineenthantury physician Paractlsus. cnas with gods and spiris; he wcs (hem fact who claimed that "Everyone may educate lo face, he taks to than, pram lo thcm, LR and regwlae his imagination so as lo come plora them-but he does no1 "wnirol" thereby into contact with spirits, and be more than a limited numbcr of thcm. (Eliadc taught by them" (NoU 1987. 47). 1M. 88) The novice's task of leaining to m the Those he controls are his helping spiri~. spirits involves two stages. The fist is simply Many of these helping spirits are seen as ani- to catch an initial glimpse of them. The sec- mals. sometimes called power animals. and ond is to-deepen and stabilize this glimpse in- according to Eliade "they can appear in the to a permanent visionary capacity in which form of bcars, wolves. slags, hares. all kinds the spirits can be summoned and seen, at will. of buds" (Eliadc 1964. 89) and numerous As Eliade says of the initial uaining. "AU this other forms ac weU. long and tiring ceremony has as its object Remarkably similar encounters can occur transforming the apprentice magician's iniljal during psychotherapy. A number of thera- and momentary and ecstatic experience . . . pists use guided visualization techniques to into a permanent condition-that in which it evoke images of "power animals" or "spirit is possible to see the spirits" (Eliade 1964. guides" and then encourage the client to in- 87-88). teract with and lcam from these guides. As This shamanictask is but a specific exam- visualization therapies become popular, such ple of achallenge iha iammystics of all tra- cxperknrrs are bdgmore common, and ditions. All of them, after their initial perccp a number of therapists have found them help tion of transcendental realms, must further ful (Gallegos 1981). develop and stabii this ability (Deiiman Encounters with "spirit guides" also occur 1982; Shapiro and Walsh 1984). They must spontaneously in psychedelic therapy and ac- Tilearn how to access this perception at cording to Stan Grof, can be "most valuable will. But beyond this, they must also learn, as and rewarding phenomena" (Grof 1988. 121). Hunon Smith (1976) so eloquently slated, to Indeed, it is remarkable just how often an- "transform Ma of illumination into abid- cient shamanic experiences are echoed in con- ing light." In kss poetic but more psychofoe- temporary psychedelic ones. This suggs~s cal terms, we nught say that their task is to that shamans have long accessed and mined deep archetypal realms of the psyche that re- ing given permission to feel powerful, cffcc- main hidden to most people. tive. etc.), "acfing as if" (one had a panicular desired quality), role playing. belief, and Fonclbm of Spirits identification. But whatever the mechanism. Whatever their form. the spirits may assist it is clear that visualizing onaelf merging with the shaman in any of four ways. They may as- a powerful, benevolent figure can be surpris- ! sist with journeys, provide strengths and abii- ingly empowering, and therapists report good ! ities, tach, or possess the shaman. success with this technique (Fermci 1982; The spirits may travel with shamans on ec- Achterberg 1985). i stalk journeys, accompanying or even cany- Perhaps the most dramatic example among I ing them to the sky. They may defend them religious traditions is the so-called "Deity 1 from threats and battle on their behalf. The yoga" of Tibeon Buddhism. Here the yogi spirits' strength may become the shamans', if visualizes him- or herself ficreating and I they voluntarily merge with the spirits and then merging with a god-like figure who em- thereby partake of their powcrs and capacities. bodies virrue upon virtue: unconditional love, ! The shaman may see him- or hcmU turned in- boundless compassion, profound wisdom. to an eagle and soar into the sky or become and more. After merging, then. just like the a tiger and feel infused with ifs power. Aftcr shaman and his or her power animal dance, returning from the journey. the shaman may the yogi attempts to move, speak. and act as perform his "power animal dance," moving the deity. In other words. after merging with and sounding like the animal, as a way of ex- their allies, both shaman and yogi then at- periencing and maintaining its presence. tempt to embody, experience, and express The following example of ftding a power their allies' qualities. The difference is that. animal uas reported by a participant in a sha- for the shaman, the powcr animal ally is re- manic workshop. It demonstrates both the ex- garded as real whereas, for the yogi, the deity periential power of these encounters and the is ultimately regarded as a mental creation fact that they are accessible to contemporary and projection. The potential power of these Westerners. visualizations is suggested by the fact that the Tibetans regard Deity yo@ as one of the most This was a journey to the lower world to powerful and advanced of their va.Q array of mat and request awinana from powcr ani- mals. I began my journey by entering a cavc practices. Indeed, in what may weU bc the in Haw-aii and went down a tunnel untii I world's most dramatic claim for effective- reached thc lower world, which frsl ap nw. they claim that with Deity yoga a practi- peared as a mall green globe. On landing. I tioner can become a Buddha in a single life- found myscli in a lush meen jungle flled with animalr. time rather than in the "three countless eons" I was immediately dram to a lion. I ap that it would othenvisc lake (Hopkins IN). puled to him to be with meduring thc work- Thus, the practice of merging with a power shop and to lci me share his powcr, his figure is widely recognized as a technique of arcngih, suppkncs. ken sensitibity, and great potency. Herc,then. is another example agility. of twentieth-century psychologists rediscover- 1 then askcd him what I ndcd to know or do. Immediately the Lion kapcd at and into ing techniques that shamans may have used me and mcrged with me so that my shamanic for more than twenty centuries. body was humanflion, and I felt its power. The spirits may ahhruct and teach. In This wnsc of powcr was very helpful since it fact.'"during the period of initial contact the seemed to counteract a wnu of contraction spirits function above all as teachers" (Siala connmcd with icelings of fear and guilt that I had been experiencing. 1978. 228). They may provide information At the end of the journey. I returned up the for either the shamans or their clients on any tunncl into the cavc and then back into the number of crucial issues. The spirits are most workshop mm. Ycl there was a clear wnw likely to instruct during altered states such as that the lion returned with me. I was left feel- dreams. trances, or journeys, or during the ing healed, empowered, and sfrcngthcncd. curious process of mediumship. What are we to make of thew reports of merging with power animals? Psychologically Mediumship or (;hannehg the process makes good sense and has been Mediumship, or channeling as it is now widely used in both I!& and West, in ancient known, is common among shamans who may religions and in modem psychology. A num- weU have been the world's Timediums. A ber of psychological mechanisms might be in- survey of twenty-one cultures in which sha- volved. These include permission giving (be- mans engage in soul llighl showed that, in 92 ReVISION V0~.13No.z over half of these culture, shamans also dis- religions. There are references to it in both the play possession (Peters and Price-Williams Old and New Testament. and it played a sig- 1980). nificant role in Jewish mystick (Hoffman The process of mediumship/channeling in- 1981). Some extremely influential religious volves a supposedly spiritual entity speaking texts that many brilliant minds over many through the medium. The medium's stage of centuries have regarded as profound were ap consciousness may vary from fuU awareness pmntly produced in this way. Examples in- and complete memory of the process to com- clude parts of the Koran and several key Ti- plete unawareness and amnesia. The betan Buddhist scriptures (Hashgs 1991). medium's voice, expression, accent, POStUIe. Mediumship has once again become popu- and behavior may all change dmtjcally and lar in the West where it is now know as suggest that the original pemn and personal- channeling. Of the many books on the sub- ity have been replaced by one quite different. ject, the most thorough are probably Chon- The effect can be very dramatic. Mediumship neling (Kho 1987) and Tonguer of Men ond is a world-wide phenomenon. and its impact Angels (Hastings 1991). Contemporary chan- has been remarkable. It has played a major neling shows both differences and siiarities role in world religions and on several occa- compared with earlier times. Today's chan- sions has changed the course of history. In a neled productions include literary, musical. survey of 188 cultures, it was found in over metaphysical, spiritual, and psychological half of them (Bourguignon. 1973). There are works. The emphasis on psychology is new an many famous examples of which the best are a number of the suppowd sources. In an- known in the Wst is probably the Greek cient times, gods, goddesses. and angels were Oracle at Delphi. For over 1,000 years. the busy being channeled and in the nineteenth Delphi temple priestcsa regularly became century, Americvl Indians, Orientals, and possessed, supposedly by the god ApoUo, and decdspirits were much in vogue. Today, Wnwdadvice to princes and paupers alike. however, spiritual masters. more evolved be- The king Croesus, whose enormous wdth ing on other planes, and extraternstrials are inspiired the saying "rich as Croesus." was all the rage. one of the oracle's more famous customen. The range of quality of channeled materials Greedy for yet more wdth, he wanted to is enormous. They include the abysmal and know whether to attack his neighbors. The trite, the ego-sewing and sew-aggrandizing, as oracle's sage advice was. "After crowing the weU as the clearly erroneous and ridiculous. Halys (a river) Croesus will destroy a great Some of the more amusing examples include empire" (Hastings 1991). Much inspired, "Leah. a sixth density entity from the planet Croesus crossed the river and. in fan, did de- Venus sir hundred years in the future" stroy a great empire: his own. (Schultz 1989, 56) and Mademoiselle Helene The oracle wx also approached for mili- Smith. Among other experiences, Mademoi- tary strategy to defend against the marauding seUe Smith journeyd to Mars with her spirit Etruscans. Theoracle's advice was to "use as guide Leopold "whence she returned with few ships as possible." Displaying admirable colorful descriptions ofthe Martian country- faith in the oracle, the people sent out a mere side and samples of the inhabitanls' writing fie ships against the entire Etruscan fleet. and language" (Nemjah 1985. 950). This is Not wishing to be embarrassed by seeming to considerably more than either Soviet or need a larger force, the Elmscans also sent American space probcs have been able to do. out only five ships. These were promptly Produdions such as these led Ken Wilber. sunk. The Etruscans then xnt out another one of today's best known writers on psychol- five. These were also sunk. The scenario was ogy and religion, to comment. "Higher intel- then repeated yet a third and fourth time. Fi- ligences have got to be smarter than the drivel nally the Etruscans retired from the scene most of these channels bring through" (Wil- (Hastings 1591). ber 1988. 14). It was also the oracle who dubbed Socrates Yet channeled works also indude. though the wisest man in Athens, much to Socrates' much more rarely, favorably reviewed literary surprise. Of course, not all the oracle's advice works. extraordinarily compkx and coherent was so dramatic or effdve. Yet the oracle (though not ngzssarily verifiable or corrsl) had a track record respeaable enough to may metaphysics, and helpful--even profound- in business for over a thousand years and had spiritual works. a major impact on Greek history. The most famous literary productions were Mediumship has been, important in many lhox of either (depending on your belief sys-

FALL 90 . 93 tem) Pearl Curran, a litk-cducated St. Louis Skeptics would deny that channeled pro- housewife. or of Patience Worth, the spirit of ductions arc ever -11 or profound. For a seventeenth-century Englishwoman. Pearl/ the true skeptic. all such productions "consisl Patience could perform a variety of remark- sokly of strings of loosely associated gobbets able feats. She could dictate a poem on a of naive ideas" produced by people "of hys- specified topic faster than a scribe could write terical personality. displaying dissocialive fa- it in shorthand. She could even alternate lines ture" and in many cases "all the hallmarks from two different poems as she did so; the of schizophrenia" (Reed 1989. 385. 390. 388). fnt line from poem one, the wnd from There is no argument whatsoever that mon poem two, the third line from poem one, and channeled productions are trite or nonsensical j so on. The author Ed@r Lee Maam witnessed but that dwnot prove that all of them are. one such writing session and shook his head Unfortunately, skeptics tend to carefully ig- in disbelief saying, "It simply can't be done" nore the difficult cases such as the clarsic (Hastings 1991). Altogether PearIlPaticnce channeled religious texts or the writings of channeled over twenty volumes of poetry. Pearl Curran. j novels, and advice that were widely published Clearly. then, mediumship is no simple and favorably reviewed. matter. Meaningful and profound produc- I Among the many contemporary spiritual tions seem to occur even though they are far works, one of the most interning is a three- more rare than trivial and nonsensical ones, I volume set with the most unlikely name of A so that the phenomenon cannot be simply dis- I Course in Mimeler (Anonymous, 1975). This micsed as pure nonsense or pathology. is a Christian mystical textproduced by an as- Unfortunately, most people take extreme tounded and reluctant Jewish professor of positions. On the one hand are the true believ- psychology at Columbia Mediwl School, ers. who doubt not a single word of their fa- "Having no belief in God." she said, "I re- vorite spirit guide or god. On the other hand sented the material I = taking down and are the skeptics, for whom every word is false was strongly impelled to attack it and prove it and channeling is dismised-often after only wrong" (Skutch 1984, 134). superficial study-as self-deceit at bat or But no matter how negdlivcly the reluctant psychosis at wom. Either approach serves as scribe felt about it. others have felt positive a pleasant psychological anesthetic that saves just as strongly. The fibook review stated having to investigate and think about the is- that "the three books comprise one of the sue in greater depth. most remarkable systems of spiritual truth Yet mediumship is cldy a complex. curi- available today" (Skutch 1984. 127). Like- ous phenomenon from which. at the very wise. a Stanford University professor called it least, we stand to learn much about little- ! "perhaps the most important writing in the known capacities of mind. As yet, there seems English language sin= the translation of the no reason to assume that there is only one Bible" (Skutch 1984, i). Ken Wilber's com- type of channeling. For all we know. it may I ments about channeled "drivel" suggest that yet turn out to be a compkx process involving also I he is no big fan of channeling. Yet he different mechanisms and sources in different I comments tha "The Course is clwly in- cases. I spired. Its insights are genuinely transcenden- Many theories, none of them entirely satis- tal. . . . I know of no other channeled mate- factoj. have been suggested to account for rial that even comes close to ii" (Wilber 1988. mediumship. These range from fraud to di 34). Not everyone is a fan of the Course and it sociation to possession by true spiritual enti- has been awailed by some Christian funda- ties. Needless to say, it is easier to suggest mentalists and theologians. Yet it has alsn processes involved in producing trivial, non- sold over a half-million copies and is being sensical works than profound ones. Fraud translated into over a dozen languages. In may account for some cases but hardly all, content, it seems to embody the perennial phi- and some channekrs are mon reluctant and losophy (the common philosophical and spiri- confused by the whole pr-. tual core found at the heart of the world's Dissociation is perhaps the most common neat religions) exprcswd in Christian form. explanation. In this process, aspccls of the Add to this several famous Tibetan Buddhisr psyche are split off from conscious awareness tern and parts of the Koran. and it becoma and ego control. Such aspects may then func- clear that a small number of channeled spiri- tion independently as subpersonalities or as tual works may be of considerable signifi- more or less full-fledged, separate personal- cance. ities, as in cases of multiple personality. Such 94 ReVISION VOL.I~No.2 personalities may project thoughts into cgoic more than a thousand years at most. Like- awareness; these thoughts are then perceived wise, another entity used inconsistent pronun- by the ego or conscious personality as coming ciation that became more inconsistent and from outside itself. American the more excited he became. Ac- Multiple personalities provide a dramatic cording to Thomason (1989, 393). this is a example of diwxiiion and divided con- rcal giveaway and ''just the opposite of what sciousness. However, the implications of re- one would expen, if he were a non-native search on dissociation &e much more subtle speaker of American Englrsh." and enensive. They suggest that all of us live Yet other iimdings were puuling. The well- with some degree of dissociation. Erncst Hil- known "entity" M,who does telephone gard's suggestively titled book, Divided Con- inlmiews and has a waiting Id over two siom~,opens with the statement that years long, was a care in point. "Lazaris' ac- "the unity of cokciousncss is illusory. Man cent sounds fake to me but there are no ob- does more than one thing at a time-all the vious inconsir;tencics in his sound pattern" time-and the conscious representation of said Thomason (1989. 393). The phenomenon these actions is never complete" (Hilgard of channeling is nothing if not puuling and 1986, 1). clearly in need of further careful research. The implication is that anyone-ancient This still leaves us with the problem of ac- shamans. modem channelen, and all the red counting for the occasional profound chan- of us-may be capable of receiving informa- neled work. While it is easy to conceive of a lion from aspects of our own psyches that lie subpersonality producing trivial nonsense. it outside conscious awareness. This informa- is more difficult to imagine it ~rratingmajor tion may seem to come not from our mind litcrary or spiritual works apparently far bc- but from another entity. a fact that can be yond the channel's level of knowledge and easily demonstrated with hypnosis. More- skill. However. it is possible to imagine such over. some of the communication may consist creations coming from the psyche if we can of information and memories that the con- conceive, as many Emern and some Wacrn scious personality has long forgotten, a phe- psychologics do, that there may be Gpects of nomenon known as "nyptomnesia." When the psyche that are "superior" or "transcen- this occurs, the effect can be pyticularly dra- dent" to the ego or conscious pmonality. In- matic and provide apparently impressive evi- deed, some channels report that, over time, dence that the message must come from an- they eventually come to urperience their spir- other entity. becaux the information it con- k. not as separate entities but rather as as- tains is apparently novel to the channel peas of their own mind and unacknowledged (Schultz 1989). wisdom (Malkin 1989). Some channeling So it seems, then, that purely psychologid rmght therefore be an example of what Mas- mechanisms may bc sufficient to account for low called "the Jonah complex." the unwill- many, if not all, superficial channeled prw ingness to acknowledge one's own capacities. dudions. There seems little need to invoke However, if we are going to be completely spirits, or any other type of nonhuman entity honcst, we need to admit that none of these for that matter. In addition. Occam's razor. suggestions actually disprove or rule out the the longstanding scientific principle of parsi- ponibiity that spirits, whatever they may be. mony argues for keeping explanations as sim- arc the actual source of some channeled mate- ple as possible. rials. Therefore, to be honest and complete. Most psychological explanations of chan- we should briefly examine the nature of neling stop here. Unfortunately. as yet. very "spirits." and it is to this tricky question that little experimental research has been done on we now turn. channeling. An interesting beginning was Nature made by Sarah Thomason, a professor of lin- The of Spirlts &tics at the University of Pittsburgh. She What then is a spirit? The Oxford diclion- analyzed the voiccs of eleven different chan- ary defmes it as "a supernatural. incorporeal. nekrs and found a number of wntradiaions mional being or personality, usually re- and peculiarities in speaking styla. garded as imperceptible at ordinary times to Several fmdingc were highly suspicious. the human senses, but capable of homing For example, two enlitis were said to sport visible at pleasure. and frequently conceived British accents yet ckimed to be thousands of as iroublesome, tenifylng or hostile to man- years old. However. British accents as we kind." This has probably been the most com- know them have probably not existed for mon view of spirits throughout human his-

FALL % 95 tory. However, if we set aside historical nc+ described in both Eastern and Western psy- tions such as these, as weU as our own precon- chologies. Western e.xamples include the ceptions. we need to ask questions such as: higher selT; the transpersonal witness; the are "spirits" part of or separate from the Jungian Self which is the center of the pqrhe; medium or shaman, are they mental or non- and the inner-self helper that is a helpful and mental, are they material or immaierial, and apparently transcendent personality that oc- are they expressions of health or pathology or curs in multiple personalities. both? In short, what is the psychological and It is clev that numerous religions and psy- ontological siatus of spirits? chologies have recognized the possibility of We may be able to shed light on these qus accessing wisdom from inner sources that tions by examining shamans and their spirits seem wiser than the ego or personality. In- along with related data from other traditions. deed, considerable effort has gone into refm- To do this, we need fhto look at what the ing ways of facilitating contact with thcx experience of a "spirit" is exactly. Essen- sources. tially, it is an experience of interadion with Religions have used a variety of rituals, what is felt to be an intelligent, nonmaterial prayer, supplication, sacrifice, and altered entity that is separate from the ego or self. In states of consciousness. The altered states the shamans' case. it may provide informa- may include possession. soul travel, or quiet- i tion that shamans believe they cannot access ing and calming the mind so as to be able to !

alone. hear the "still small voice within." ! Such c.rperienca are widely recognized in In psychology, the major tcchniqus in- ! both religjon and psychology and may be elude hypnosis and guided imagery. It is ap either troublesome or beneficial. In a religious parenlly a relatively easy matter lo create an context, troublesome examples include the ex- experience akin to channeling through hypn* perience of being ather tormented or posscsscd sis. As Charles Tyl purs it: by unfriendly spiritual entities such as ghosts or demons. Dealing with troublesome spirits From my studies with hypnosis I know I can set up an apparently independent existent cn- is one of the shaman's most frequent tasks. In tity whow ch~ractcrinicsare constructed to a psychological context, these me"spirits" my spccifiwtions and the pmn hypnotized might be interpreted as hallucinations. uill upericnce il as if it's something ouldde lnkractions with spirits may also be benc- of his om consciousness talking. So thcre ic ficial. Here, the spirits may prove to be valu- no doubt that some wws of channeling can able sources of information, guidance. and be explained in n convcntional kind of way. Thcrc is nothing psychic involved. Wrno wisdom. In a religious conte.n, some of these 19Sr. 23) sources might be regarded as transcendent be- ing such as the shaman's "helping spirits," Several schools of psychology, such as the Hindu's "inner wru," the Quaker's "still Jungian and Gestalt. use guided imagery or small voice within," the Naskapi Indian's fantasy to access inner wisdom. In a common "great man," or for a Christian, the Holy technique-dialogue with the age or inner Spirit. On the other hand, a conventional psy- teacher-the therapist asks the patient to im- chological perspective might regard all such agine her- or himself in a safe, plwsant envi- inner sources as mundane aspets of the ronment. meeting n person of great wisdom. psyche such as subpersonalities. The is then encouraged to allow a dia- A transpersonal psychological interpreta- logue to emerge spontaneously and to ask of tion might fall somewhere in betwecn these the person whatever questions would be most two views. Becauw transpersonal psycholo- helpful. Such dialogues can produce surpriri- gists acknowledge the possibility of realms ingly insightful information of which the pa- and capacities of mind transcendent to our tient was formerly unaware. Indeed. a grow- usual egoic awareness, they might interpret ing number of authors, artists. and business these inner sources of wisdom in several ways. people commonly resort to such techniques The fmt way would be as mundane subper- for inspiration (Vaughan 1979). These tech- sonalities, as the traditional psychologjsl niques have obvious similarities to the sha- might interpret them. However. a second pos- rm's journeys to fmd a spirit teacher. sibility for transpersonal psychologists would Inner teachers may also arise spontane- be that these spiritual sources of wisdom rep ously and have powerful, lifexhanging ef- resent transcendent aspects of the psyche fects. Some people who have changed the "above and beyond" the ego. Several such course of history have been directed by such transcendent aspects of the psyche have been inner teachers. The Greek philosopher Soc- 96 R~VISIONVOL..~~ ~0.2 rates, the political leader Gandhi, and the and was bxk in my body in the roam, only Swin psychologist Carl Jung, all reported my pain was wmplctcly gone, and hasn't re- turned sin~."(Achtcrbcrg 1985. 98) that they learned from, and were directed by, inner guides who arose unbidden from the What is one to make of such an experience depths of the psyche (Heery 1989). and its dramatic outcome? Lillian attributed Carl Jung provided a number of dramatic it to a past life. The shamanic interpretation examples. One such inner teacher, whom he would be that her spirit guide or power ani- called Philemon. provided Jung with a weahh mal. the coyote Wildwood, had taken her on of information about the psyche. Philemon a journey in which she had undergone tape, Tiappcared during a fantasy of Jung's in death, and a healing rebiih. A psychological which: explanation would be that her own mind had. by a wisdom and means far beyond our pm- Suddenly thcre appeared from the right a ent understanding, provided her an experi- winged king ding across the sky. I saw ence of profound psychosomatic healing that it was an old man with the horns of a bull. He held a bunch of four keys, one of power. Whatever the explanation, one can which he clutched as if he were about to only feel awe for the healing power of the open a lock. He had the wings of the king- psyche, its images. and its inner guides. fisher with its charaaeristics colon. . . . So both religion and psychologies have Philemon and othn ligurcs of my fantada sought and found ways of accessing sources brought home to me the crucial insight that seem in some cases wiser thcre ~IC things in the psyche which I do not of inner wisdom that product, but which produce themselva and than the ego. Clearly. the wisdom tha they have their own life. Philemon rcprcvnted a provide can sometimes be valy more prcl- force which not myrelf. In my fantasia I found than the egmntric trivia that charac- held convcmtions with him, and he said terizes much channeling. things which I had not consciously thought. so For I obwrvcd ckarly that it was he who How are m to undersand these innu sow spoke, not 1. . . . I understood that thnc is of ~isdom?What exactly is their nature. or in something in me which can say things that I philosophical term.. wha~is their ontological do not know and do not intend, things which slatus? Asking the sources themselves is not may even be dirmed against m. Psychologically. Philemon rcpracnled su- particularly helpful because the answers may perior insight. He war a mysterious figure to range from "I am a part of YOU" lo "I am me. At tima he seemed to me quite real as if Argon from the seventh plane" to "I am part he were a living prsonality. I went walking of God." Clearly we're not going to get much up and down the garden with him, and to me help here although, unfortunately. many peo- he war what the Indians cad a guru. (Jung seem 1%1. 182-183) ple to believe channeled claims. But those of us who are more skeptical arc left Even a single experience of an inner guide having to make our own decisions about the can have life changing effects. A dramatic ex- nature of this process and about the sources ample is given by a woman called Lillian who of information. suffered chronic pelvic inflammation and From a psychological perspective, it seems pain for which no medical cause could be that we may be able to account for spirits. in- found. Libegan practicing visual im- ner guides. and channeling-both high and agery and obtained some benelits. She started low-provided we are willing to entertain the by imaging possibility that there exi9 transpersonal as- pects of the psyche above and beyond the ego. a stream of ml water circulaiig though The principle of dissociation. which may play her pelvis, and knotted ropes being untied. a major role in the production of relatively What fch likea ctmcnt block in her lower back was imaged as dissolving. She said rhe superficial channeled works, can then .be ex- felt bctter; the burning w still thcre. but tended to the production of profound ones as wvcred a smalkr area. weU. Channeling in thew later cases would Then one night when Lillian war practic- therefore involve receiving information from ing ha imagery a home, a coyote named the transpersonal domains of mind recog- Wildwood flashed into her mind. He ad* her to nay by his side, and watch what w nized by some psychologjes and many relig- about to happa. and told her that what she ions (Wilber 1980, Wilber n al. 1986). saw would bc related to the rue in her body. Certainly the principle of parsimony favors She then sensed hcrself sitting by a camprm. an explanalion in terms of known mcchan- in the mi& of a honile tribe of Indians who irms such as diuocition. However. if we are held haoptiw. She apcricnccd the horror of being brutally gang-rapcd and murdered. to be completely honest. we must acknowl- "At the instant of my death . . . 1 woke up edge that even now westill have not disproved FALL 90 97 the possible existence of spirits (intelligent, sions encountered during shamanic experi- nonmaterial entities independent of the chan- ences are indeed spirits. nel's mind) or their role in some channeling. Of course, it must be admitted that we have Lndeed, it is not at all ckar that it is possibk no proof whatsoever that all sources of inner to disprove them. wisdom have the same nature. For all we TO put the matter in more precise philo- know, some might be merely aspects of mind. sophical language, we seem to have here a and not terribly impressive aspects at that, case of what is called "ontological indeter- while others might conceivably be some tran- minacy." This means that the fundamental scendent source or sou- within or beyond nature, or ontological status. of the source of us. At the present time, we may simply not be information may be undecidable. It cannot be able to decide def~tivclybetween these vari- decided defnitely because the available infor- ous interpretations. Consequently, an agnos- mation or observations can be interpreted in tic view of spirits and channels in which we many ways, and we have no absolute method confess their indeterminacy and our ignor- by which to determine which interpretation(s) ance may be the only intellectually honest may be best. position. This may be honest, but it may aLw not be Prxtically spealung. what this mas is overly satisfying. Indeed, it may be annoying that people's interpretations of the phenom- and irksome. Yet our annoyance may be a re- ena will be largely determined by their per- kction of our unwillingness to tolerare ambi- sonal beliefs, philosophy, and "world hy- guity and our attachment to our own opinions pothesis." The world hypothesis consists of and world hypothesis. Diverse philosophies the fundamental beliefs about the nature of and spiritual traditions repeatedly nudge us to the world and reality that underlie the life and acknowledge that we just do not know, in- work nf a community. Most people simply deed cannot know. the ultimate nature of take the assumptions of their culture or sub- many things. We are encouraged to recognize culture unquestioningly and interpret the the "radical mystery" of urSence (Free John world accordingly. Tha& is. the consensual 1985), and, in the language of Zen. to keep "world hypothesis" goes unquestioned. "don't know mind." What this means is that people's decisions So the fact that we cannot decide once and about the nature of spirits and channeling will for all about the existence of spirits, channels, depend in large pan on their prior assump and nonphysical entities is actually not so sur- tions about the nature of reality. Thus, for ex- prising. Rather it simply iellms our current ample, a person who believes in philosophical ignorance and perhaps even the perpetual materialism assumes that everylhing that ex- limitations on knowing. This may not be very ists is either matter or entirely dependent on satisfying, but it may be usefully humbling. matter for its existence. Such a pemn will ob viously view "spirits" very differently from LmpUeations and CoochGons the religious practitioner or theologian who Given the present Limitations on our knowl- believes in a transcendent realm of pure spirit. edge, what can we conclude about the sha- For the philosophical materialist, all sources mans' spirits and their counterpam in other of inner wisdom, information, advice, or vi- countries and centuries? To begin with, it is sions, all perceived entities. all voices and im- clearly possible for many people to access in- ages are simply mental constructions-the ex- ner sources of information and wisdom that pressions of neuronal freworks, and prob- may be experienced as entities separate from ably deranged fueworks at that. Therefore, themcelves. The information so obtained may shamans' experiences and spirits are like~ise often be trivial. nonsensical. and egotistical. only creations of mind and all worlds; spirits Yet it may also occasiomlly be meaningful. and souls are merely mental projections. profound. and life-changing. It appears that Therefore. shamans are obviously mistaken we may have underestimated the range and at best or psychotic at worst. depth of information available withinus, the Things are very different for the believer in number of ways in which it can be ;tccessed, panpsychism. This is the view that everyrhing and the frequency and impact of channeling. in the univene. including plants and inani- For channeling, through its effects on individ- mate objects. has some kind of psychological uals, cultures. and religions. has changed the being or awareness. For people holding such course of history. beliefs, there is no probkm with the idea that Although one can interpret the nature of at ~~~ some of the helpen, voicc;, and vi- this process in many ways, it is clear that it VOL. 13 NO. 2 points to realms and capacities of the human Fm John. 1985. The dmn horn laromenr. SM mind that as yet are all too Little undemood. Rsphml. &I&: T?nrhnHorn Plm. Galkgor. A. 1987. T?nc pmnol lrorrm pol< Animal im. We may have underestimated both ourselves quy, rk chnlrm and psychorhwpy. Santa Fe, N. and the wisdom, imagination, and creative re- M.: Mmn Bear P-. sourccs that lie latent within us. Shamans ap Gob. D. 15%. The mediraivc mind Lor Angela: I.P. T-. pea to have been the Tipioneers to system- Grof. C.. and S. Grof. 1986. Spiritual cmrgcncy: The atically explore and use these resources. undemanding and traorrnt of lranspMMl 6. ReVin %'I):7-Xl. -. 1990. me s~myawh /w self' Undunmdiog .wirirudampence. Los Angela: J. P. Tarchcr. Grof. S. 1980. LSD mholhempy. Pomonq (blif.: Hunter H-. 1 would like to express my deep appreci- -. 1988. The ndtmrum oJJel(dhvrry. Albany, ation to the many people who offered as- N.Y: SUNY. sistance in various ways with the wiling Grof, S.. md C. Gror. IW.spiimd-: When of this article and the book The Spiril of Pemnal irrmr/omrion bnom n nirir. Los Angdts: J. P. Trcha. Shumunirm. These contribulers include &er. M.. cd. 1973. Hnlhrrinogcnr mui rhnmmism. William Andrew. AUyn Brodsky, Mar- NCWYork: Orlord Univtrdty Prar. lene Dobkin de Rios, Steven Donovan, -. I%%?. 7hc my o/rk&mm. Nov Ymk: Banlam. -. 1W. The Jiwo. Bcrkclcy: University of Gordon and Marja Globus. Tom Hur- -wornid Prar. ley, Stan Krippner. John Levy. Michael Mur- -. 19a. Commcnu. Cbmnr Ant- 26: 452. phy. Patrick Ophals, Don Sandner. Bruce . 1987. Thc andcnl wirdorn in rhannnk cultura. 1s Shmmmivn, edited by S. NrhoLum. 3-16. Scotton, Dane Shapiro, Huston and Kendra whcaoa. IU.: Qua. Smith. John White. and Michael Winkleman. -. 1988. Corn hamanirm. Talk a Ealm In- ln addition. I would Like to thank the mem- Silule. 8's Sur. California. Hartin& A. 1991. Tonpa o/ mm ad on&. (Forrh- bers of the Psychiatry Residents Seminar at cnmins). the University of California-Ihe, who gave HeelY. M. 1989. lnncr voia clpcl*nar: An &ratary fccdback on this paper. These include Gary audy of My-. Joud a/ Tmzpmonm' Ry ch01o.v 21: 73-82. Bravo, Melissa Derfler, Charles Grob, Diane Hilgdrd. E. 1986. Divided mnaioumm: Muh* con- Harris. Barbara Kaston, Milch Liester. Jim trols in hmrhoughr md wtion. 2d Ed. Somcrrct. McQuade, Pat Poyourow, Susan Seitz, Ken N.J.: John Wi. Hoffman. E. 1981. Thc wy ofspbndoc Jewish mwC Steinhoff, and Nathan Thuma. Also, I would C&m mrdmodcrn p~hobu.Boston: Sbambhala. like to extend special thanks lo those people Hopkinr. J. 15%. The rmlrk di7hcrion: An inrmduc- who were exceptionally generous with their lion lo Tlbelan Buddhlrm. London: Wh. Hullkranu. A. 1973. A dcfni~ionof mamanirm. Tenc lime and assistance. These people include An- mm 9: 25-37. gelcs Arrien. Michael Hamer. Arthur Hat- -. 1978. Ecological and phcnomcnological arm ing~, Chh Kiefcr. Charles Tart and. a of hirm.In Shamonirm in S&M, cdilcd by V. Di- and M. Hoppal. Z7-58. Budapat: Atad- always. Frances Vaughan. Bonnie L'AUier amiai Kiado. provided her usual excellent administrative -. 1987. Ghon dam. In Thc cmrbpcdb ajmlig- and secretarial assislance. ion, vol. 5, cditcd by M. Uiadc. 54447. New York:

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