Arts and Humanities Commons^™

The Castrated Gods And Their Castration Cults: Revenge, Punishment, And Spiritual Supremacy, Jenny Wade

International Journal of Transpersonal Studies

Voluntary castration has existed as a religious practice up to the present day, openly in India and secretively in other parts of the world. Gods in a number of different cultures were castrated, a mutilation that paradoxically tended to increase rather than diminish their powers. This cross-cultural examination of the eunuch gods examines the meaning associated with divine emasculation in Egypt, Asia Minor, Greece, the Roman Empire, India, and northern Europe to the degree that these meanings can be read from the wording of myths, early accounts, and the castration cults for some of these gods. Three distinct patterns of …

Reembodying, Human Consciousness In The Earth, John Briggs

CONSCIOUSNESS: Ideas and Research for the Twenty-First Century

For the last 20,000 years or so the dominant mode of human consciousness has been one that divides reality into subjects and objects, and focuses on human desires and needs. This anthropocentric mode of consciousness has invented religions, built civilizations, amassed knowledge, and developed technology and science. It has also disembodied us from the Earth and led to the Anthropocene Era. Still with us is another mode of human consciousness that arguably once existed in a balance with the anthropocentric mode during our long hunter-gatherer, Paleolithic sojourn. This holistic, integrative mode of consciousness experiences the Earth as a mother, and …

Dreamscapes: Topography, Mind, And The Power Of Simulacra In Ancient And Traditional Societies, Paul Devereux

International Journal of Transpersonal Studies

Dream content can be influenced by external sounds, smells, touch, objects glimpsed with half-open eyes during REM sleep, and somatic signals. This paper suggests that this individual, neurologically-driven process parallels that experienced collectively by pre-industrial tribal and traditional peoples in which the land itself entered into the mental lives of whole societies, forming mythic geographies—dreamscapes. This dreamtime perception was particularly evident in the use of simulacra, in which the shapes of certain topographical features allowed them to be presented in anthropomorphic, zoomorphic, or iconic guise to both the individual and the culturally-reinforced gaze of society members. This paper further indicates …

Shamanism In Cross-Cultural Perspective, Michael Winkelman

International Journal of Transpersonal Studies

This article reviews the origins of the concept of the shaman and the principal sources of

controversy regarding the existence and nature of shamanism. Confusion regarding the

nature of shamanism is clarified with a review of research providing empirical support for a

cross-cultural concept of shamans that distinguishes them from related shamanistic healers.

The common shamanistic universals involving altered states of consciousness are examined

from psychobiological perspectives to illustrate shamanism’s relationships to human nature.

Common biological aspects of altered states of consciousness help explain the origins of

shamanism while social influences on this aspect of human nature help to explain …

The Indigenous Healing Tradition In Calabria, Italy, Stanley Krippner, Ashwin Budden, Roberto Gallante, Michael Bova

International Journal of Transpersonal Studies

In 2003, the four of us spent several weeks in Calabria, Italy. We interviewed local people about folk

healing remedies, attended a Feast Day honoring St. Cosma and St. Damian, and paid two visits

to the Shrine of Madonna dello Scoglio, where we interviewed its founder, Fratel Cosimo. In this

essay, we have provided our impressions of Calabria and the ways in which its native people have

developed indigenous practices and beliefs around medicine and healing. Although it is one of the

poorest areas in Italy, Calabria is one of the richest in its folk traditions and alternative modes of …