{"title":"Editorial: The Matters that Haunt Us","authors":"Nicole Torres","doi":"10.1111/anoc.12133","DOIUrl":"10.1111/anoc.12133","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":42514,"journal":{"name":"ANTHROPOLOGY OF CONSCIOUSNESS","volume":"32 1","pages":"4-6"},"PeriodicalIF":0.6,"publicationDate":"2021-02-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1111/anoc.12133","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42093277","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Accidental Environmentalism: Nature and Cultivated Affect in European Neoshamanic Ayahuasca Consumption","authors":"Arne Harms","doi":"10.1111/anoc.12130","DOIUrl":"10.1111/anoc.12130","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Existing research demonstrates a positive connection between psychedelics and increased nature relatedness. Enhanced affective ties toward nature are widely framed as being built into the pharmakon itself, and the relevance of experiences remains little understood. This paper turns to neoshamanic ayahuasca ceremonies in Europe, exploring the way specialists and attendants refer to nature in speech and performance. I argue that ritual framings performed during these ceremonies provide fertile ground for affective ties to emerge through substance-induced experiences. I trace such framings by exploring how medicine and healers are being coded; how specific materialities are rendered meaningful; and how individual experiences are discussed at such retreats. I argue that even while participants prioritize individual healing, personal development, or the satisfaction of psychonautical curiosity, environmentalism appears to be anchored by the proceedings themselves. Thus, this paper opens up for analysis ceremonial substance use as a contact zone where coherence is produced intersubjectively.</p>","PeriodicalId":42514,"journal":{"name":"ANTHROPOLOGY OF CONSCIOUSNESS","volume":"32 1","pages":"55-80"},"PeriodicalIF":0.6,"publicationDate":"2021-02-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1111/anoc.12130","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48428273","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Consciousness Development in Rastafari: A Perspective from the Psychology of Religion","authors":"Christian Stokke","doi":"10.1111/anoc.12129","DOIUrl":"10.1111/anoc.12129","url":null,"abstract":"<p>This paper explores a Rastafari perspective on consciousness development and relates this to developmental stage theories of consciousness evolution from the psychology of religion. The empirical material is from fieldwork on an online Rastafari community with global reach but run by a group based in Trinidad. The people on this particular forum align with the “spiritual, but not religious” trend in contemporary religiosity, which means they are more focused on interior questions of consciousness raising than on religious externals. This paper interprets empirical material from the dialogues on this forum in light of Rastafari theorist Dennis Forsythe. It compares this Rastafari theory of stages of consciousness, symbolized by the animals Anancy, lion, and lamb, to developmental theories of consciousness evolution. These are drawn from psychology and the psychology of religion (Maslow 1970; Kohlberg 1981; Fowler 1981; Gilligan 1982; Wilber 2007), which focus on preconventional, traditional, modern, pluralist, and integral stages.</p>","PeriodicalId":42514,"journal":{"name":"ANTHROPOLOGY OF CONSCIOUSNESS","volume":"32 1","pages":"81-106"},"PeriodicalIF":0.6,"publicationDate":"2021-02-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1111/anoc.12129","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47406323","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Miroslav Horák, Nahanga Verter, Kristina Somerlíková
{"title":"Initiation Plants in Drug Addiction Treatment: The Purgahuasca Therapy","authors":"Miroslav Horák, Nahanga Verter, Kristina Somerlíková","doi":"10.1111/anoc.12128","DOIUrl":"10.1111/anoc.12128","url":null,"abstract":"<p>This article focuses on the utilization of <i>Banisteriopsis caapi</i> in drug addiction treatment. The primary research was carried out in Takiwasi Center for the Rehabilitation of Drug Addicts and Research on Traditional Medicines. A preparation from <i>B. caapi</i>, also known as purgahuasca, that is being used in the center was initially administered during initiation rituals by the Awajún (Aguaruna) people in northern Peru. This paper describes the purgahuasca ritual and its distribution among the Awajún people. Our findings reveal that between 68.2% and 86.5% of respondents recognize the importance of the purgahuasca ritual to their recovery. Appropriate conservation tools must be created to preserve the purgahuasca ritual for future generations, as it represents a useful therapeutic tool and an important part of the intangible cultural heritage of Peru.</p>","PeriodicalId":42514,"journal":{"name":"ANTHROPOLOGY OF CONSCIOUSNESS","volume":"32 1","pages":"33-54"},"PeriodicalIF":0.6,"publicationDate":"2021-02-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1111/anoc.12128","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44461325","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Greetings from the Editor","authors":"Nicole Torres","doi":"10.1111/anoc.12127","DOIUrl":"10.1111/anoc.12127","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":42514,"journal":{"name":"ANTHROPOLOGY OF CONSCIOUSNESS","volume":"31 2","pages":"125-127"},"PeriodicalIF":0.6,"publicationDate":"2020-09-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1111/anoc.12127","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46309288","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"La Envidia: An Illness Manifest at the Level of the Community Body","authors":"Wendy Phillips","doi":"10.1111/anoc.12126","DOIUrl":"10.1111/anoc.12126","url":null,"abstract":"<p>In Curanderismo and other traditional medicine systems, illnesses are understood to have somatic and emotional components and symptoms may be elicited by disruptions in interpersonal relationships between community members. An aspect of ritual interventions involves returning interpersonal relationships to balance and restoring harmonious interactions between members of the community. Important are shared understandings of the meaning of the symptoms, the mode of transmission of the illness, and the resolution that occurs through the process of the healer’s ritual interventions. In this essay, I present a narrative description of the illness, La Envidia, which is associated with the expression of the emotion, envy. The narrative was shared with me by a person who is a migrant from an Afromestizo community of the Pacific Coast of Mexico to Atlanta, Georgia. The illness, La Envidia, is discussed and interpreted framed by perspectives including Participation Mystique and blurred psychological boundaries, traditional indigenous conceptualizations of illness, shamanism and symbolization processes, shared meaning, traditional Yoruba informed African conceptualizations of illness and healing practices, and somatic and embodied ritual experiences.</p>","PeriodicalId":42514,"journal":{"name":"ANTHROPOLOGY OF CONSCIOUSNESS","volume":"31 2","pages":"174-199"},"PeriodicalIF":0.6,"publicationDate":"2020-09-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1111/anoc.12126","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47048708","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"From epistemology to the method: phenomenology of the body, qì cultivation (qìgōng) and religious experiences in Chinese worlds","authors":"Evelyne Micollier Ph.D","doi":"10.1111/anoc.12125","DOIUrl":"10.1111/anoc.12125","url":null,"abstract":"<p>At the intersections of social anthropology, philosophy, and Asian studies, my paper explores the body ecologic through a phenomenological frame in the context of Chinese culture engaging both theory and method. How can qì cultivation experiences transporting bodies and persons in movement, within the world and their “life-world,” be interpreted through a phenomenology of perception? Based on ethnographic study data collected mainly in South China (Guangzhou) and in Taiwan (1990s–2000s), this exploration is situated within <i>qìgōng</i> experiences (training, cultivating and mastering the <i>qì</i>). Anchored in martial, religious, and healing arts and their meanings<i>, qìgōng’s</i> myriad of forms and infinite variations invite journeys into religious Daoist and Buddhist practice, Chinese thought, and politico-religious issues of past and present Chinese society. The <i>qìgōng</i> world, paths of knowledge transmission, healing horizons, claimed affiliations, and views of practitioners unveil an ontology and a cosmology grounded in religious (Daoist and Buddhist) lore.</p>","PeriodicalId":42514,"journal":{"name":"ANTHROPOLOGY OF CONSCIOUSNESS","volume":"31 2","pages":"200-222"},"PeriodicalIF":0.6,"publicationDate":"2020-09-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1111/anoc.12125","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47825176","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The Importance of Ritual Discourse in Framing Ayahuasca Experiences in the Context of Shamanic Tourism","authors":"Evgenia Fotiou","doi":"10.1111/anoc.12117","DOIUrl":"10.1111/anoc.12117","url":null,"abstract":"<p>In this article, I discuss how ritual is framed in the context of ayahuasca tourism, using ethnographic data collected in and around Iquitos, Peru. Alluding to a lack of socially sanctioned spaces for altered states of consciousness (ASCs) in western cultures, contemporary seekers flock to the Amazon to participate in ayahuasca ceremonies for an array of reasons, including healing and personal transformation. Taking Gregory Bateson's concept of “framing” as a point of departure, and applying Erving Goffman's frame analysis, I will show that contemporary ayahuasca ceremonies attended by westerners are designed to be liminal, transformative, and meaningful experiences that aim to heal the body through emotional modulation. I will demonstrate how this is achieved through specific discourse that takes place before or during rituals in the form of long speeches delivered by the shamans. This framing not only separates the ritual space as liminal but also frames the way that the experience is conceptualized by the participants, ultimately increasing its meaningfulness.</p>","PeriodicalId":42514,"journal":{"name":"ANTHROPOLOGY OF CONSCIOUSNESS","volume":"31 2","pages":"223-244"},"PeriodicalIF":0.6,"publicationDate":"2020-09-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1111/anoc.12117","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47295918","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Social Dimensions of Health: Ritual Practice, Moral Orders, and Worlds of Meaning in Brazilian Candomblé and Umbanda Temples","authors":"Wiencke Markus","doi":"10.1111/anoc.12123","DOIUrl":"10.1111/anoc.12123","url":null,"abstract":"<p>In Western medicine the interpretation prevails that mental illness is a psychological and/or biological disorder. Most important concepts in health psychology, such as sense of coherence, self-efficacy, hope, or dispositional optimism are all very cognition and individual centered. In this individualized perspective, mental illness is constructed in such a way that it can be treated in a dyadic doctor–patient or therapist–patient relationship with the help of drugs or therapeutic techniques. In this article, I would like to develop a contrasting social construction of mental illness. In Umbanda and Candomblé temples in Brazil, what is interpreted in the Western model as illness is understood as a “spiritual problem.” Here, the individual is constructed in relationship to the community, and individual health and healing is footed in moral-spiritual orders. In presenting the details of my investigation, I will apply Grawe’s common factors as a foil for developing the link between mental illness and its social context.</p>","PeriodicalId":42514,"journal":{"name":"ANTHROPOLOGY OF CONSCIOUSNESS","volume":"31 2","pages":"153-173"},"PeriodicalIF":0.6,"publicationDate":"2020-09-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1111/anoc.12123","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45428038","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Dreaming “the Unspeakable”? How the Auschwitz Concentration Camp Prisoners Experienced and Understood Their Dreams","authors":"Wojciech Owczarski","doi":"10.1111/anoc.12124","DOIUrl":"10.1111/anoc.12124","url":null,"abstract":"<p>This article explores the dream descriptions submitted in 1973–1974 by former Polish prisoners of the Auschwitz concentration camp in response to a questionnaire sent out by Polish psychiatrists. These descriptions are being investigated as testimonies that represent the Auschwitz inmates’ experiences commonly regarded as “unspeakable.” Not only the dream experience itself, but also the respondents’ attitudes toward and beliefs about dreams are taken into consideration in an attempt to understand the impact of the Holocaust on the survivors. Their general inability of comprehending the Auschwitz and post-Auschwitz dreams seems to be the most important and significant aspect of their testimonies. The experience of dreams as completely strange and astonishing phenomena is being explained in this article in connection with the respondents’ ability and inability to recover from their Holocaust trauma.</p>","PeriodicalId":42514,"journal":{"name":"ANTHROPOLOGY OF CONSCIOUSNESS","volume":"31 2","pages":"128-152"},"PeriodicalIF":0.6,"publicationDate":"2020-09-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1111/anoc.12124","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49518379","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}