The Anthropology of Altered States
Psychological Anthropology
(Transpersonal anthropology)
• relationship between altered states of consciousness
and culture.
• transpersonal psychology: altered states of
consciousness (ASC) and transpersonal experience
– differs from mainstream transpersonal psychology: crosscultural
• role of culture in laying the foundations for, in evoking,
in cultivating or thwarting, and in interpreting ASC
– fundamental to understanding the incidence and function
of transpersonal experiences
altered states of consciousness
• conditions in which sensations, perceptions,
cognition, and emotions are altered
• characterized by changes in: sensing, perceiving,
thinking, feeling
• modify the relation of the individual to self,
body, sense of identity, the environment of
time, space, or other people
• induced by modifying sensory input
– directly by increasing or decreasing stimulation or
alertness
– indirectly by affecting the pathways of the sensory
input by somotopsychological factors
Features of Altered States
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alterations in thinking
disturbed sense of time
loss of control
changes in the expression of emotions
changes in body image
perceptual distortion
changes in meaning and significance assigned to
experiences or perceptions
• a sense of the ineffable
• feelings of rejuvenation
• hypersuggestiblity
Some Types of Alerted States
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Trance
shamanistic ecstasy
prayer ecstasy
sorcery
"highway hypnosis"
Hypnosis
alcohol / drugs
yoga / meditation
dream states
Culture bound syndromes
Stimulation & Consciousness
• a decrease form a presumed preexisting "normal" level of stimulation or
activity
• highway hypnosis
• sensory deprivation produced either experimentally or as a result of
solitary confinement
• involves an increase form a presumed preexisting "normal" level of
stimulation or activity
• religious conversion
• healing trances in revivalistic settings
• "dance and music trance"
• battle fatigue
• hysterical conversion neuroses
• dissociational states
• mob contagion
• increase of alertness or mental involvement
– prolonged vigilance or sentry duty, watching a radar screen, fervent prayer
• decrease in alterness or mental activity
– relaxation of critical faculties in daydreaming, boredom, profound
relaxation, mediumistic trance, meditation states
Stimulation & Consciousness
• ‘somatopsychological’
factors
– drug-induced
states
– states resulting
from other
changes in body
chemistry
Some Culture Bound Syndromes
SYNDROME
CULTURAL / GEOGRAPHIC
LOCATION
SYMPTOMS
amok
Malaysia and Indonesia
dissociative episodes, outbursts of violent and aggressive or homicidal
behavior directed at people and objects, persecutory ideas, amnesia,
exhaustion
latah
(startle reflex)
Malaysia and Indonesia
afflicted person becomes flustered and may say and do things that
appear amusing, such as mimicking people's words and movements
Mediterranean and Latin
American Hispanic
populations
fitful sleep, crying without apparent cause, diarrhea, vomiting, fever
in a child or infant
Latin American Hispanic
populations in U.S.A., Mexico,
and Central and South
America
usually associated with a broad array of symptoms, including
nervousness, anorexia, insomnia, listlessness, despondency,
involuntary muscle tics, and diarrhea; thought to be caused by fright
that results in loss of soul from the body; causes can be natural or
"supernatural" -- natural susto may occur after a near miss or
accident, a supernatural susto may occur after witnessing a
supernatural phenomena such as a ghost; a supernatural susto might
be sent by sorcerers; those most likely to suffer from susto are
culturally stressed adults--women more than men
mal ojo
(evil eye)
susto
(fright sickness)
SYNDROME
CULTURAL /
GEOGRAPHIC
LOCATION
SYMPTOMS
pibloktoq
(Arctic hysteria)
Inuit of the Arctic,
Siberian groups
brooding, depressive silences, loss or disturbance of consciousness during seizure, tearing off of
clothing, fleeing or wandering, rolling in snow, speaking in tongues or echoing other people's
words
windigo
Cree, Ojibwa, and
related Native
American
depression, nausea, distaste for usual foods, feelings of being possessed by a cannibalistic
monster, homicidal or suicidal impulses
ghost sickness
Navajo of the
southwestern
United States
Yoruba
(Nigeria)
weakness, bad dreams, feelings of danger, confusion, feelings of futility, loss of appetite, feelings
of suffocation, fainting, dizziness, hallucinations and loss of consciousness
Aiyiperi
hysterical convulsive disorders, posturing and tics, psychomotor seizures
anfechtung
Hutterites
withdrawal from social contact, feeling of having sinned, feeling of religious unworthiness,
(Manitoba, Canada) temptation to commit suicide
brain fag
Nigeria and East
African students
pain, heat or burning sensations, pressure or tightness around head, blurring of vision, inability
to concentrate when studying, anxiety and depression, fatigue and sleepiness
cholera
Guatemala
nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, fever, severe temper tantrums, unconsciousness and dissociative
behavior
koro
South China,
Chinese and
Malaysian
anxiety in males that the penis will recede into the body and for females that the vulva
and breasts will recede into the body
shinkeishitsu
Japan
fear of meeting people, feelings of inadequacy, anxiety, obsessive-compulsive symptoms,
hypochondriasis
Cross-Cultural Observations & Altered States
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diagnosis and healing
divination and reading signs
Dreaming and dreamworking
Trance as evolutionary variable
– significance in human life derives from the symbolic
transformation of experience and the capacity to share
intrapsychic states.
– Unlike dreams, ASC derive from models based on
pathological states
– serve as coping mechanisms for both the individual and
the society and thus provide a basis for culture building.
Power & Self
• two forms of possession: ritual and peripheral
– ritual is displayed in a ceremonial context and
includes the social function of reinforcing cultural
morality and established power.
– peripheral represents a more long-term state in
which the individual believes that he is unwillingly
possessed by intruding spirits and functions as an
indirect form of social protest
• Ritual possession operates as a socially
sanctioned psychological defense mechanism,
while peripheral possession constitutes a
pathological reaction to individual conflict.
Alterations & The State
• legal and illegal
• emphasis on the relationship between these
alterations and the individual body, the social body,
and the body politic
• Economies of alterations (political economy)
• motivations behind the development and global
marketing of both legal and illegal alterations
• policy
• psychological normalcy
• demographics of legal and illegal use
• historical shifts in the legal/illegal distinction itself.
Deviance & Society
• Modes of action which do not conform to the
norms or values held by most of the members
of a group or society.
• What is regarded as 'deviant' is as widely
variable as the norms and values that
distinguish different cultures and subcultures
from one another.
• Many forms of behaviour which are highly
esteemed in one context, or by one group, are
regarded negatively by others.
Abnormals
• abnormal types in the social structure are
culturally selected by all groups from every
part of the world
• different degrees of ease with which
abnormals function per each culture
• many abnormals function with ease and
even honor without danger to the society
Deviance and Conformity
• Social constructions
• idealized conduct is most clearly seen in
marginalized people
• deviance forces them into "discredited" or
"discreditable" groups, based on the nature of
their stigma
• deviance & the existence of a stigma
Normality/abnormality
• Multi-dimensional concepts
– Represents a range of possible perceptions
• Of what is normal and not normal
• Whether it is controlled or not by the norms of society
• Times & places people can behave in an
abnormal way
• Most cultures disapprove of forms of public
behavior that are obviously not being
controlled
Zones of social behavior
Zones of social behavior
• Not static, fluid categories, spectrum of
possibilities
– Change with time & circumstance
– Normal in one group – abnormal in another
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Controlled normality (A)
Uncontrolled normality (D)
Controlled abnormality (B)
Uncontrolled abnormality (C)
Zones of social behavior
• A, D, B – it is assumed that the individual is at
least aware of what the social norms are
– Whether they conform or not
• Substance use
– Traversing the categories of “bad” and “mad”
– Criminal & Intoxication
– Temporary madness
• Altered States:the cultural and social politics
of subjectivity
The Anthropology of the Senses
• Comparison & relativism
– “diverse sensory SYMBOLISM and experience
– study of the senses out of the realm of natural
history into that of social history
• does not deny the natural history of the senses -- the
general process of sensorial experience and its natural
processes
• able to break the mould of our own sensory
bias & experience radically different ways of
making sense of the world
The Anthropology of the Senses
• the particular & the general
• sensory journeys through time and space
• dominant sensory medium of symbolic orientation can vary
widely -- can only be understood in the context of a particular
society & not through generalized external sensory paradigms
– Tzotzil of Mexico – heat
– Ongee of Little Andaman Islands – smell
– Desana of Columbia -- color & multi sensory, chromatic
energy flows
– dominant sensory symbolic order of west -- seeing &
hearing
• one kind of visuality (to picture) & one kind of aurality/orality
• “So long as men can breathe or eyes can see, So long lives
this, and this gives life to thee.” (Shakespeare)
Anthropology of the Senses
• “Western” conceptual framework of typical/
“normal” sensory experience
– From confusion to order
– Developmentally through repetition and habit
– Physically through neurochemical processes
– Through new sensorial skills
– desire to avoid vague sensations
• OR, another: To perceive the true substance of
the world beyond sensory & mental habits
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All bodhisattvas, lesser and great, should develop a pure, lucid mind, not depending
upon sound, flavor, touch, odor, or any quality. A bodhisattva should develop a mind
which alights upon no thing whatsoever; and so should he establish it. (Diamond Sutra
10)
Participant-Observation & Altered
States
• Cross-cultural experience & altered states as a
psychosis – observations vs. participant
observation
• Sorcerer’s apprentice
• Going native
• Trust and science
One ‘Popular’ Consciousness Vision/Version
• field expedition to Mexico or someplace ‘other’
• observe the rituals of an isolated Indian tribe, who are said to
preserve ceremonies that go all the way back to the Toltecs or
some ‘other’ ancients
• rituals involve the consumption of a potion made with
powerfully hallucinogenic mushrooms
• not content merely to observe, but an active participant
• unifying theme emerges in hallucinations -- the origin of life, the
origin of the Earth, the origin of thought, the origin of humanity.
• opened up a kind of physiological pathway that gives access to
the vast untapped recesses of his genome
– the primitive, atavistic genetic heritage of humankind’s most
distant ancestors that lies inactive at the center of his every
cell
Anthropologies of Alcohol and
“Drinking”
“Styles” of Alcohol Use as Social Practice
• A “style” of alcohol use is not:
– a psychological manifestation of the individual nor only determined by
environment
• “Style” as social practice
– “expressive equipment” or “social capital”
– Available for the production of subjectivity (self & identity)
• “universe of stylistic possibilities”
– represents differing ways to “craft self” and be a “person”
• Alcohol use is a social and cultural practice some find useful in
the context of a set of ongoing social relations