scott 2014 anthropology of consciousness

The Visionary Psyche: Jung’s AnalyticalPsychology and Its Impact on Theories ofShamanic Imagery

emma scottJames Cook [email protected]

ab stract

This article considers the shaman’s visionary encounters with spirit beings fromthe critical viewpoint of several innovative theories of shamanism: RichardNoll’s cognitive approach and Michael Winkelman’s neurophenomenologicalperspective. These distinct approaches are analyzed in light of Jung’s centralconcepts of the archetypes, the collective unconscious, and the individuationprocess, which have had a huge formative influence upon the academicinvestigation of visions and spiritual experiences. The centrality of Jung’stheoretical reasoning within these recent studies of shamanism stronglydemonstrates the continued importance of his analytical psychology andprovides valuable insight into the historical and conceptual development ofthis expanding field of interest.k e yword s : visions, analytical psychology, neurophenomenology, cognitivetheory, shamanism

Visionary experience is fundamental to the many culturally diverse religiouscomplexes categorized as shamanism, which generally involve communica-tion with spirits for the purposes of divination, healing, and sorcery (seeEliade 1961; Hultkranz 1973; Noll 1985; Lewis 1988; Winkelman 2000).1

Shamans usually interact with spirit entities during trance: altered states ofconsciousness (ASCs) or nonordinary states of neurophysiological activationthat may be induced by drumming, dancing, fasting, exposure, pain, orentheogens.2 Unlike mediums or victims of possession, shamans control thespirit encounter, entering trance states at will, and cajoling or commanding

Anthropology of Consciousness, Vol. 25, Issue 1, pp. 91–115, ISSN 1053-4202, © 2014 by theAmerican Anthropological Association. All rights reserved.DOI: 10.1111/anoc.12020

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the spirits to confer power/knowledge upon them (Eliade 1964; Achterberg1985). For the shaman, trance provides access to a spiritual dimension, a non-ordinary reality that the anthropologist and social theorist may interpret as aprojection of intrapsychic dynamics (see Vitebsky 2003). In non-Western tri-bal cultures, spirits are considered to be objectively existing independentbeings capable of affecting human existence by causing or curing disease.The diversity and complexity of indigenous understandings of shamanismcannot be uncritically reduced to a psychological model shaped by anextremely different sociocultural context. This article furthers the anthropo-logical project of cross-cultural comparison by exploring the historical devel-opment of scientific concepts about visions within a Western epistemologicalcontext.Jung formalized the notion of the psyche as the origin of spiritual or

“numinous” experiences within his concepts of the collective unconscious,the archetypes, and the individuation process. His groundbreaking analyticalpsychology has since profoundly influenced modern psychological interpreta-tions of visionary and spiritual experiences. The centrality of Jung’s concep-tual legacy to current cognitive and neurophenomenological understandingsof visions demonstrates the continued relevance of his theories for psycholog-ical anthropology.For a long time, anthropologists struggled to comprehend visionary phe-

nomena within the predominantly positivist framework of their discipline;unable to accept that spirits, witches, demons, and gods could be anythingmore than mere fantasy and the result of poor reality testing (Shweder 1991).Western rationalist philosophy and science derided the imagination as aninferior and secondary mode of thought, and cultural beliefs about spiritswere regarded, at best, as ignorant and, at worst, as pathological (Winkelman2000; Zammito 2002). Romanticism and psychoanalytic theories, whichchampioned the central role of unconscious imaginary processes in shapinghuman experience, challenged the ascendancy of rational ideas during theEnlightenment. Far from being an inconsequential, or even harmful, epiphe-nomenon of consciousness, fantasy may be recognized as a manifestation ofthe innate symbolic imaginary capacity of the embodied human mind, andvisions may be viewed as meaningful psychic realities.3

Although the existence of an unconscious imaginary was recognized inmedieval literature and art, Sigmund Freud was the first to formulate a sci-entific conception of the unconscious psyche (Whyte 1978). Unfortunately,his psychoanalysis maintained the rationalist assumption that the uncon-scious was fundamentally irrational and dangerous, and viewed its products,such as creativity and religious ecstasy, as inferior (Merkur 1998). Others,such as Carl Gustav Jung, saw that the unconscious was not “a realmmerely of chaos, conflict, and destructive passions, but the source also of

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all the forms of order created by the human imagination since man’s firstand most extraordinary formative achievement: the development of lan-guage” (Whyte 1978:72). Out of this notion of the imaginary as an organiz-ing principle grew Jung’s theory of the archetypes and the collectiveunconscious as the universal functional disposition of human beings to pro-duce similar ideas in different cultural and temporal epochs (see Jung 1967,1968, 1972, 1991).Despite criticism from cognitive and behaviorist psychologists, the contin-

uing importance of Jung’s analytical psychology is reflected in the substantialimpact of these concepts in art, literature, philosophy, and science, whichview archetypal structures as “certain well-defined and relatively stable nor-mative protocols for imaginary representation, grouped around the originalschemata” (Durand 1999:63). As Gilbert Durand explains, all thought—evenrational ideas—grow out of the structures of the imaginary; an idea is“merely the pragmatic involvement of the imaginary archetype in a given his-torical and epistemological context” (1999:60–61). The image, unlike a signor signifier, is never arbitrarily chosen: there is homogeneity between animage and its referent that is possible because the imagination is a “dynamicorganizing principle” (Durand 1999:32). This is not to say that this imaginarystructure is static and unchanging but rather constitutes “a certain transform-ing dynamism” or a “transformable form” (Durand 1999:63).The notion of archetypal structures underlying all human psychic experi-

ence is a useful conceptual tool for understanding visionary experience andit permeates the various theories surrounding the shaman’s visionary encoun-ters with spirits. Jung’s analytical psychology interprets the spirit world of theshaman as an expression of the collective unconscious and the archetypesthat transcend humanity. Noll’s theory of visions, which I term the cognitive-pragmatic view, applies the concept of “states of consciousness” to the sha-man’s experience, arguing that it is a psychic mode characterized by mentalimages and distinct from ordinary waking consciousness or awareness. Wink-elman’s more physiologically grounded perspective employs neurophenome-nological theory to argue that ASCs facilitate the integration ofneurophysiological and psychological processes via the mediation of sociocul-turally defined symbols.Although these scholars make extremely limited reference to Jung’s semi-

nal concepts, their theoretical formulations reveal the profound influence ofthe notion of archetypes, the collective unconscious, and the individuationprocess upon psychological understandings of visions. I restrict my discussionto theories of visions and their relation to Jung’s analytical psychology, but Irecognize that all these models must be tested against ethnographic evidenceof the lived reality of indigenous shamans to empirically establish theirvalidity.

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the d i v ided p s yche : r a t ional i t y and fanta s y

Jungian, cognitive, and neurophenomenological approaches to visionaryexperience present a particular view of the human psyche and the processesof imagination that developed from concepts of the mind found throughoutEuropean philosophy, religion, and art since the days of Ancient Greece. Allof these models postulate two distinct forms of cognition or thought: aneveryday or ordinary state of consciousness (OSC) and a more introspectivemode of thought characterized by internal imagery.4 In modern psychology,this division may be traced back to Jung’s original formulation of directedand nondirected thinking, revealing the extensive influence of his model ofthe psyche upon subsequent theories of visionary experience.According to Jung (1967:11–18), the psyche has two modalities. The most

common is the mode of conscious or logical thinking, which is verbal, formsa train of related ideas, and is directed outwards toward the communicationand expression of sensations received from the surroundings. The comple-mentary mode is that of nondirected thinking or dreaming, an associative pro-cess in which images are more concrete than abstract. The two kinds ofthinking seem to be mutually exclusive and may be reflected in the neuro-logical distinction between left and right hemispheres of the brain. Directedthinking is conscious, exhausting, and speech oriented while fantasy thinkingis unconscious, effortless, and fundamental to creativity. Jungian scholar Rob-ert Ryan (2002) explains that this latter aspect of the psyche is the “soul,” bywhich he means the imagining and symbolizing function that is opposed tothe rational and literal activities of ego consciousness. This constant purpo-sive series of images depicts the psyche’s vital activities and reflects the auton-omous nature of the unconscious.Jung (1967:23–29; see also Ryan 2002:23–24) believes that this imaginary

represents an older stage of the evolutionary development of the psyche, justas human physiology reveals remnants of past evolutionary adaptations. Jungdoes not belittle fantasy or myth, which both stem from the imaginary, asinfantile, pathological, or primitive. Rather, he regards myths as one of themost important aspects of life. Humans possess a psychological need formythology, and fantasy overwhelms logic when we are tired or distracted.Fantasy thinking is an archaic thought form steeped in instinctual processes;it is the living vestige of human prehistory. Jung’s division of the psyche intoparts with distinct yet complementary modalities that represent different evo-lutionary stages is mirrored in both cognitive and neurophenomenologicaltheories of visionary experience.Cognitive-pragmatic approaches make a similar distinction between two

modes of thinking: an inner mental world and the external world of percep-


tion. One of the proponents of this view, Richard Noll, considers shamanismto be a cultural tradition that promotes “mental imagery cultivation.”The focus of this tradition is the technological production of a state of imagi-nation. It is “devoted to the deliberate, repeated induction of enhanced men-tal imagery, usually in select individuals” (Noll 1985:444). In this view, ASCis not an end in itself but rather a means of giving expression to innerimagery.According to Noll, the development of mental imagery techniques has two

phases. The first involves psychological and physiological methods of increas-ing the vividness of the images, by “block[ing] out the noise of external stim-uli of perception and attend[ing] to internal imagery processes” (Noll1985:445). Here, Noll seems to assume that externally directed thought pro-cesses and internally arising processes reflect qualitatively different types ofmental processing. As mentioned above, this division is also present in Jung’swork and in neurophenomenological approaches to shamanism. This inter-nal/external distinction may be based in much broader trends in Western phi-losophy and epistemology (see Langer 1967; Whyte 1978). This dichotomymay or may not exist in the same way within shamanic worldviews; if andhow it is articulated by any culture must be empirically, that is ethnographi-cally, established.The second phase of mental imagery cultivation consists of increasing the

“controlledness of the experienced mental imagery contents, actively engag-ing and manipulating the visionary phenomena” (Noll 1985:446). This seemsto be a mechanical metaphor for the process by which shamans becomeacquainted with their spirit helpers. Noll’s insistence on the control that theshaman has over this visionary experience is problematic, as he simulta-neously recognizes the spontaneity of mental imagery and the lack of con-scious control of the subject during visionary experiences is well documented(Jung 1967:308; Caughey 1984). Jung (1972:13) argued that archetypal imagesare innate, arising spontaneously without any outside influence or externaltransmission. Nevertheless, Noll’s concept of control is interesting in light oftheories of development and individuation, which I discuss in the third sec-tion of this article.Noll (1985:452) trained extensively with the anthropologist Michael Harner

and shares his cognitive-pragmatic approach to shamanic visions. Harner(1980) argues that the key feature of shamanism is the “shamanic state ofconsciousness” (SSC), which is equally as valid as the OSC, and is a mentalreality. Harner recognizes that the “concept of fantasy has no place in theshaman’s world” and that for the shaman “all of nature has a hidden, nonor-dinary reality” (1980:71). Shamans do not confuse the two realities but ratherenter the hidden world to interact with nonmaterial beings there: these“forms are not visible to the shaman or others in the OSC, and do not


constitute part of ordinary reality” (Harner 1980:68). Nevertheless, Harner pos-its that the SSC allows the shaman to experience unconscious contentsemerging from within the psyche, implying that the spirit world represents anonordinary psychic modality. As noted above, shamans may not generallyconsider their visions to be the result of a mode of consciousness, but manyshamans explicitly use techniques for developing mental capacities that allowthem to see in the spirit world (see Rodd 2003). How particular shamans con-ceive of and understand their experiences may differ from scientific theories ofvisions, and the validity of such theories must be empirically investigated.There is danger in applying psychological terminology and concepts to an

experience that is described in entirely different terms and that presupposes avery different world of experience. As Hultkranz remarks in his comment onNoll’s (1985) article, the shaman’s intention is not to cultivate and controlmental imagery or to increase its vividness. Rather, they are “liberating asoul, counseling with the powers of the other world, divining the future, andso on” (Hultkranz in Noll 1985:453). The shaman, who is an agent, is alwaysengaged in meaningful action within the world. This subjective meaningmust be taken into account to comprehend visions as a phenomenon withboth cultural and psychological significance (see Luckmann 1978). Anthropo-logical theories of visions as arising from imagery-based processes of themind-brain5 grow out of the particular conceptual history of Western philoso-phy and science, and Noll’s cognitive model of shamanic experience reflectsJung’s significant contribution to this field.Michael Winkelman’s (1990, 1997, 2000, 2010) neurophenomenological

approach to shamanic visions takes Jung’s distinction between various mentalmodes a step further by grounding them in the physiological structures of thebrain. He argues that the shaman’s ASC is the universal physiological basis ofreligious or visionary experience. Winkelman (2000:24) recognizes that studiesof consciousness must address both the neurobiological and the phenomeno-logical structures that constitute our experience of this phenomenon. Hisapproach draws heavily from the biogenetic structuralism or neurophenome-nology of Charles Laughlin, John McManus, and Eugene d’Aquili (1990),which locates the experience of consciousness in neural networks that,although innate, are disposed to change to accommodate new experiential dataand encode symbolic information derived from the sociocultural environment.Winkelman argues that ASC is a naturally occurring biological state in whichthe structures of the brain are integrated to facilitate the normal processing ofemotional, intellectual, social, and environmental information within an “ima-getic system reflecting deep structures of knowledge” (2010:3).Although he expresses his insights in neurophysiological terminology, some

aspects of Winkelman’s theoretical reasoning echo Jung’s conception of thehuman psyche, which he formulated before the recent advances in neurosci-


ence offered insight into brain structure and function. Winkelman’s neuro-physiological focus reflects modern trends toward materialism and advancesin neuroscientific fields of research. The extent of Winkelman’s knowledgeof neuroscientific concepts must not be assumed and his application of thesetheories to shamanism risks reducing the complex sociocultural matrix withinwhich visionary experiences occur to mere physiology.Winkelman’s concept of ASC reflects a division of the two modes of think-

ing, loosely based on a distinction between conscious and unconscious thatparallels Jung’s theory. Despite this clear intellectual ancestry, manifested evenin his use of Jungian terminology, Winkelman mentions Jung only in passing.This omission is particularly glaring given his reliance on the work of McM-anus, Laughlin, and d’Aquili, who explicitly acknowledge Jung’s contributionto psychological theory.6 He classifies the shamanic ASC as a “transpersonalmode of consciousness,” which he explains in biological terms as a:

State of parasympathetic dominance in which the frontal cortex isdominated by slow wave patterns originating in the limbic system andrelated projections into the frontal parts of the brain. This pattern reflectsthe activation of a biologically based mode of consciousness withadaptive functions. [Winkelman 1997:393–394]

Winkelman explains that the limbic system is the “central processor of thebrain,” responsible for the integration of emotion and memory, internal andexternal sensory data (1997:397). The principal aspect of this system is thehippocampal-septal region, which regulates the hypothalamus and its releaseof neurotransmitters that act upon the reticular activating system to regulatethe cycle of sleeping and waking. The hypothalamus also controls the auto-nomic nervous system, regulating the balance between its two aspects: thesympathetic system, which is related to increased cortical stimulation andhemispheric desynchronization; and the parasympathetic system, which islinked to decreased cortical excitation and increased hemispheric synchroni-zation (Winkelman 1997, 2000).The two systems, Winkelman argues, relate to waking and sleeping states

(consciousness and unconsciousness), the latter being induced during ASCby the “intense stimulation of the sympathetic system, leading to a collapseinto a state of parasympathetic dominance” (1997:398). Winkelman distin-guishes the “ordinary waking state of awareness,” which is dominated by lefthemisphere activity, and “rational, linear, verbal modes of experience” fromASC, which are associated with greater activity in the right hemisphere andnonfrontal regions of the brain (1997:404). Waking consciousness is “diamet-rically opposed” to ASC, and Winkelman argues that by “use of informationmodalities normally repressed or ignored in the waking mode, ASCs provide


new means of integration of symbolic and physiological systems” (2000:128).Such a conceptual dichotomy mirrors Jung’s own distinction between direc-ted and nondirected thinking, the rational ego consciousness and the imag-ery-dominated realm of the collective unconscious.In neurological theories, the limbic system and lower parts of the brain are

generally regarded as having evolved earlier than the cerebral cortex, whichis believed to be responsible for higher order cognition such as reasoning,problem solving, and planning (Winkelman 2000:32).7 Yet, Winkelman(1997:402) argues that the ASC, although resulting from activity in evolution-arily prior parts of the brain, does not represent a primitive mental state.Rather, he emphasizes the connectivity and interaction of all the parts of thebrain. This position is reminiscent of Jung’s insistence that although fantasy-thinking is the evolutionary predecessor of rational consciousness, it remainsa complementary mode of thought important to everyday mental function-ing. Similarly, Winkelman does not dismiss these “hippocampal slow-wavestates” as inferior to waking states but rather cites findings that these statesand the limbic system in which they are generated are central to both emo-tional and rational thought processes (Winkelman 1997:404). Although nei-ther Noll nor Winkelman make extensive reference to Jung’s model of thepsyche as consisting of two separate but complementary modalities, this fun-damental concept has shaped their thinking and is only part of Jung’s contri-bution to the scientific study of visions.

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the archety pe s and the collect i ve unconsc iou s

While shamans may consider the entities they encounter to exist indepen-dently, Jung grounds his understanding of such experiences in his model ofthe psyche, which offers a Western scientific counterpoint. Jung distinguishesthe collective unconscious from the personal unconscious, which corre-sponds to the concept of the unconscious as defined by Freudian psychoanal-ysis. The personal unconscious contains the repressed contents, lostmemories, preconscious contents, and subliminal perceptions of the individ-ual, while the collective unconscious encompasses the form-generating pre-dispositions or archetypes that are universal and innate to humankind (Jung1967, 1972; Smith 1997; Ryan 2002). Importantly, the collective unconsciousdoes not denote the presence of innate ideas but rather of innate dispositionsto organize experience in a certain way. In this sense, the archetype is theregulative principle or innate disposition that produces parallel thought formsand organizes all unconscious psychic processes. This concept is a variationon Plato’s formulation of the idea as “supraordinate and pre-existent to allphenomena” and Kant’s transcendental idealism (Jung 1972:9).


The preconscious psyche—such as that of a newborn child—is not a tabularasa onto which almost anything can be inscribed. Rather, it is a complex andprecisely defined entity that only appears formless because it is invisible. Theseuniquely human psychic characteristics are, like physical characteristics andanimal instinctual behavior, inherited from our parents and can be traced backthrough the generations (Jung 1972:11–12). They are “forms without content,”referring to typical human life experiences that have, through endless repeti-tion, become ingrained in our psychic constitution (Jung 1968:48). Thus, allhuman experiences, such as seeing spirits or visions, are guided by the patternsof functioning crystallized in the archetypes.There is a logical inconsistency with Jung’s argument that archetypes are

purely form. Indeed, no object can exist as pure form devoid of content. Thearchetypes are only consciously perceptible when they contain content: thesymbols and images that recur in myth and fantasy (Jung 1967, 1972; Ryan2002). The archetypes are clothed or fleshed out by material received fromthe environment and the individual’s own experience. For this reason, arche-typal images often take the form of a human or animal being, or some amal-gamation of the two. According to Jung, all mythological heroes, spirits, andgods are the personifications of psychic energy and may each represent a dif-ferent archetypal complex. Jung put forward several examples of recurringsymbols that indicated the presence of an archetype: the Old Wise Man orthe Spirit, the Great Mother, Rebirth, and the Trickster (see Jung 1972).From this perspective, we can interpret spirits as manifestations of the arche-types, the formative principles of experience.These archetypal symbols are, in Jungian thought, more than a mere sign

or referent to a known external factor; they are the image of an emergentunconscious content struggling to find expression (Jung 1967; Ryan 2002).This idea shares many features with Suzanne Langer’s conception of symbolmaking as reflecting a fundamental human need for self-expression and thebasis of our ability to think: “It is not the essential act of thought that is sym-bolization, but an act essential to thought and prior to it” (1963:41). Psychicexperience, with all its tensions and reliefs, conflicts and harmonies, may beexpressed in these images that emerge from the unconscious, taking the formof persons, animals, or some mixture of the two, which is a common charac-teristic of spirits.Noll’s explanation of shamanism as the development of cognitive tech-

niques for controlling and enhancing imagery does not give a detailedaccount of the origins or nature of these images, except that they arise spon-taneously from within the psyche. He recognizes that both the shaman’s spir-its and the psychotic’s voices may be comprehended by Jung’s concept of“splinter psyches”: dissociated fragments of the psyche that possess a personal-ity of their own (Noll 1987:55). Noll acknowledges the centrality of the “vivid


experiences of enhanced mental imagery that occur in the deliberatelyinduced ASC” (1987:49). It is indeed the “experiential core of the indigenousmagico-religious tradition” (1985:445). Visionary experiences are oftendescribed in personal accounts as remarkably vivid and powerfully real (seeReichel-Dolmatoff 1978; Halifax 1979; Luna and Amaringo 1991). Noll is cor-rect to emphasize the reality of imaginal experiences rather than dismissingthem as “pure fantasy, or artificially made up” (Noll 1987:52). This imaginalworld is part of our “experienced reality”: what we perceive of the worldaround us and that which arises from internal processes of the mind-brain(Noll 1987:52).Jung was one of the earliest psychologists to observe the vividness and

importance of visionary experiences as expressions of the archetypes and thecollective unconscious, and this viewpoint may have influenced Noll’s posi-tion.8 For Jung, the transpersonal world of the archetypes is experienced as adimension of psychic reality equal and complementary to the material world(1977:185). Similarly for Noll, this inner world of images is distinct from therealm of external perception and yet exerts a powerful influence. Althoughhe does not elaborate on the content of the shaman’s vision, Noll’s conceptof spirits as manifestations of inner mental imagery mirrors Jung’s concept ofthe archetypes emerging from the collective unconscious.According to the biogenetic structuralism of Laughlin, McManus, and

d’Aquili (1990) upon which Winkelman (2000, 2010) bases his analysis, theinteraction of neurophysiological and cultural processes is achieved throughthe canalization of physiological development during socialization that linkscertain physiological responses with symbolic meanings. Neural structuresare entrained during an individual’s development, predisposing them to cer-tain structures of experience and views of the cognized world, that is, theworld we experience. Just as Jung noted that the latent structures of thepsyche were present from the beginning of life, Winkelman uses the con-cept of neurognosis or “inborn modules for organizing knowledge” tounderstand how experience is built into knowledge (Winkelman 2000:28).Laughlin, McManus, and d’Aquili explain that neurognosis, “canalizes thedevelopmental entrainment of neural systems into functional creodes that,in a successful organism or species, moderates and integrates the bipolardemands of growth and adaptation” (1990:56). Neurognostic structuresaccount for universal human attributes. They form the primitive “cognized”world into which environmental information is assimilated, and their plas-ticity allows the individual to accommodate new information received fromthe changing environment and its growth (Laughlin, McManus, andd’Aquili 1990:66–67).The symbolic process is essential to the neural organization of experience

and the production of the cognized environment (Winkelman 2000:38).

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Consciousness is based, in part, on a “symbolization process that representsmemories and their images and associations” (2000:13). This process regulatesthe relationship between emerging internal processes and the demands ofthe environment, that is, desires and their satisfaction. Consciousnessemerges from the interrelation of the “systemic properties of the brain withsymbolic information and meanings provided by learning and culture”(Winkelman 2000:24). This model of “downward causation” opposes earliermaterialistic views of consciousness as arising from the combination of sim-pler units of neurological structure. In Winkelman’s view, thoughts, expecta-tions, and social dynamics may affect human physiology via the mediation ofsymbols. Far from being “developmental primitives,” images are actually thebasis for this symbolic process (Winkelman 2000:41). It is this imagery com-bined with sensory input, our embodied selves, and our view of the world,which constitutes consciousness.Winkelman’s conception of neurognostic structures approximates a neuro-

logical reinterpretation of Jung’s archetypes. Indeed, this is made explicitwhen he states that shamanic practices and archetypes reflect “primordialorganizing principles,” which Winkelman locates in the neurognostic struc-tures of experience (2000:28). The transpersonal qualities of ASC go beyondthe individual, but they are “better understood as ‘infrapersonal’, being foundwithin all individuals, representing psychobiological factors that structurehuman experience” (Winkelman 2000:128). The notion of neurognosticstructures as inborn principles that develop throughout an individual’s onto-genesis and are formative of experience seems to accord well with the notionof archetypes, which although present in latent form develop their specificarticulation throughout an individual’s life as the psyche is shaped by itssociocultural and historical situation.Winkelman’s emphasis on the symbolic nature of human consciousness is

also reminiscent of Jung’s psychology, in which symbolic imagery is the pri-mary mode of expression (Jung 1967, 1968, 1987). Like Jung, Winkelman con-siders spirits to be manifestations of the psyche. He argues that spirits have arole “not as external supernatural agents, but as aspects of one’s self and indi-vidual identity” (2000:93); they “are experientially real and [are] representa-tions of the fundamental cognitive structures constituting knowledge of self,others, and nature” (2000:94). Winkelman recognizes that the cross-culturalperception of similar spiritual forms and images reflects a universal structuralbasis of visionary experience, which he locates in neurophysiology: “[t]hesestructures are given cultural explanation, but they reflect an immediate percep-tion of sensory events before interpretation, experiences that are universalbecause of their neurognostic basis” (2000:171). Winkelman provides little eth-nographic evidence of how shamans understand visionary experiences, butrather offers a psychobiological interpretation of these phenomena.

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the ind i v i duat ion proce s s : a theor y of shaman icdevelopment

Although individuation is a theory of psychological development emergingfrom a Western intellectual context, there are numerous parallels betweenshamanic experiences and this process, by which a psyche becomes wholethrough the integration of its unconscious and conscious aspects (Groesbeck1989; Sandner 1997; Smith 1997; TePaske 1997; Ryan 2002). Ryan (2002:7–8)argues that Jungian analytical psychology and shamanism describe patterns ofexperience and transformation that are fundamental to the human psyche, aswell as accessing structures of symbolism that underlie religious experience.He further claims that the compensatory impulse of the unconscious is a crit-ical guide for both Jung and the shaman during individuation and initiation,respectively.This is possible if one accepts, as Jung (1967, 1968) does, that the general

laws of human psychology are invariable across space and time, a postulatesupported by the observation that the contents of fantasy in one culture maybe realized in the conscious custom or belief of another (see also Devereux1978). Jung’s clinical observations of individual fantasies exhibited certainstructures common to ancient mythological traditions of which the patienthad no knowledge. Further, the undeniable resemblance of the symbols ofalchemical and shamanic cosmologies suggests the existence of an underlyingstructure of psychological transformation, which is elaborated within differentcultural and sociohistorical contexts (Downton 1989; Smith 1997). These factssupport the contention that human psychology is unified across temporal andcultural epochs. In Jung’s view, this universality is accounted for by the struc-turing matrix of the collective unconscious. The simultaneous and wide-spread development of shamanic traditions around the world suggests that, asDonald Sandner (1997) claims, shamanism is more than the manifestation ofa particular culture; it is an archetype, a projection of individuation.Jung based his concept of individuation on his own “creative illness” that

he suffered in middle age, which resembles the “initiatory illness” experi-enced by some potential shamans. During this period, Jung began activelyeliciting his own unconscious imagery through his techniques of “activeimagination.” This involved remembering and painting his dreams, writingdown his dreams and intensively analyzing them, and drawing and paintingwith no fixed subject in mind (Ellenberger 1970). In effect, Jung constructedhis concept of the human psyche from the material of his own visionaryexperiences. Similarly, some Manchu and Tungus shamans are called totheir vocation by spirits, who often torment the neophyte until they learnfrom a shaman how to master them (Eliade 1964:16–17). Jung believed him-

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self visited by a spirit guide, Philemon, with whom he participated in conver-sations that were essential to his developing the concept of archetypes (Ellen-berger 1970; Ryan 2002). Jung’s psychological model accounts for thesecommonalities by positing the existence of a universal horizon of human psy-chic experience, a comparative viewpoint that extends beyond the specificlife world in which shamans live and work.Jung (1968:349) demonstrates that the ego consciousness tends to ignore

and dismiss its roots in the unconscious and in archetypal forms. When thepsyche’s instinctual foundations are not acknowledged and remain uncon-scious they may overwhelm the ego (Jung 1968:350). The sustained dissocia-tion of consciousness causes the increasing autonomy of unconsciouscontents that, Jung (1968:281) argues, can incite psychosis and other mentaldisorders. Unconscious archetypal contents may arise in the individual, takingthe form of other personalities (or spirits!) that may disrupt the unity of theego. However, an archetypal complex is not pathological in itself. It is onlythe relation of the individual to the archetype that can become pathological,such as identification with or possession by the archetype (Jung 1968:352).Jung discovered an innate compensatory tendency that redresses this imbal-

ance: individuation (Ryan 2002:64). This is the process by which a personbecomes an “in-dividual”: a separate, indivisible unity or whole consisting ofboth conscious and unconscious contents (Jung 1968:275). Indeed, theunconscious mind compensates for conscious desires and attitudes by provid-ing their opposite. It is the complement of ego with which it combines toform a totality, the Self (Jung 1977:177). Individuation is a form of true “self-realization,” as opposed to self-alienation due to a complete identificationwith either a conscious social role or an unconscious archetypal meaning(Jung 1977:173).To achieve this self-actualization, the psychic energy or libido must be

introverted or immersed within the unconscious, allowing spontaneousarchetypal images of the total Self to emerge. The fantasy material producedby the patient often displays archetypal associations and meanings, knowledgeof which can facilitate the conscious integration of unconscious meanings(Jung 1967:442). For example, the mandala is a common symbol of thearchetypal Self, as it expresses the ideal equilibrium between the opposingconscious and unconscious tendencies of the psyche and is found amongboth ancient mythological traditions and clinical experiences. Archetypalsymbols of wholeness both portray and facilitate the integration of uncon-scious contents into the consciousness (Jung 1968:349) and underlie the reli-gious experience. In brief, archetypal symbols transform or channel libidofrom a lower to a higher form (Jung 1968:324–353).However, there are some problems with a Jungian interpretation of

shamanism. For example, Jung’s sharp distinction between unconscious and


conscious, and the reification of these “entities” presents a philosophicalproblem. In this, Jung may have been guilty of hypostasizing his concept ofthe unconscious. Whyte argues that the Western philosophy and epistemol-ogy from 1600 onward reflects a tendency to regard static ideas as “absolute,rather than partial and provisional,” leading to the dismissal of change andtransformation “as trivial secondary effects of interactions between the ‘real’entities” (1978:47–48). Instead of recognizing that thinking is a constantlyfluctuating process, Western scholars have tended to emphasize the seem-ingly permanent, bounded nature of thoughts. In Whyte’s view, the humanmind, conscious and unconscious, is better conceived of as a totality of men-tal processes in constant flux, which are “primarily unconscious, and are lar-gely guided by unconscious factors” but enter into consciousness temporarily(1978:70–71).The integration of the unconscious is dangerous, due to the unprepared-

ness or resistance of the conscious mind, and can be fatal: these primordialimages retain their archaic and chaotic form, potentially causing madnessdue to the disruption and splitting of consciousness (Jung 1967:408). As Jungacknowledges, these images are not only the primary material of psychologi-cal transformation, they are also the matrices of psychosis. To assimilate theunconscious, the ego may need to be strengthened or consolidated (Jung1968:351–353).Many scholars analyze the shaman’s dismemberment and rebirth during

initiation as a specific articulation of the universal experience of individua-tion (Downton 1989; Noll 1990; Smith 1997; Ryan 2002). Jung (1967:285)characterized the individuation experience as death or, more specifically, thedeath of the individual’s infantile and outdated adaptations to the world.Walsh (1990:63) relates the death and rebirth imagery of the shaman’s initia-tion ritual or vision to the psychic process of breakdown and reconstitutionthat is seen in psychotherapeutic situations. Further, Ryan (2002:48) contendsthat the shaman’s experience of bodily disintegration, which is instrumentalto the acquisition of the power and knowledge of the spirit world, is a repre-sentation of the shaman’s immersion within and transformative assimilationof the transpersonal unconscious. J. V. Downton (1989:73) sees the shamanicexperience of death and rebirth as a cultural metaphor that provides a guid-ing context for the person experiencing individuation. Likewise, Jung(1967:439) recognizes that psychotherapy can help people who are confront-ing the unconscious by providing an explanatory framework.In Downton’s (1989:74–86) understanding, the entire process of individua-

tion is clearly symbolized by the image of the Cosmic or World Tree, whichfeatures so prominently in shamanic mythologies. The World Tree is the cen-tral link between earth, the underworld of the unconscious, and the celestialworld, which represents consciousness. The shaman’s ascent and descent into


these invisible realms is symbolic of a journey into the unconscious to unitethe two opposites, forming the total Self represented by the World Tree.According to Downton (1989:81), the branches of the World Tree correspondto the stages of shamanic transformation through individuation. For instance,the first branch represents the severance of the barrier between unconsciousand conscious, during which the intensity of the collective unconscious pen-etrates consciousness in an experience defined by pain, fear, and bodily dis-memberment. This transformation culminates in the perception andunification of opposing psychic tendencies in the experience of oneness andbliss occurring at the apex of the World Tree. Thus, Downton argues thatshamanic cosmology offers a conceptual and symbolic context for under-standing individuation, its dangers, and potential resolution, which is used toguide the individual’s experience.Although Downton (1989) demonstrates a proficient knowledge of Jung’s

theory of individuation, I agree with Noll (1990) that his argument lacks eth-nographic support, and due to its limited empirical scope, Downton’s (1989)rendering of shamanism approaches a romanticized and ethnocentric ideal,which analyzes the initiatory experience in terms of Western categories ofgoal-oriented self-actualization. On the contrary, Noll (1990:214) views sha-manism as a struggle to gain control over the spirits through technical andpractical means for the communal good rather than an individual progressiontoward a state of bliss. In this communalist focus, Noll moves away from theWestern individualism of Jung’s concept of individuation. He considers ASCto be techniques used to accomplish specific tasks, as well as aiding the culti-vation of mental imagery and facilitating individuation. In Noll’s view, theWorld Tree is a cognitive map of the shaman’s soul journey rather than asymbol of epiphany.In my opinion, Noll (1990) is correct in supposing that technical skills are

central to the making of a shaman and that the World Tree is, like the man-dala, a guiding image of psychic integration. However, it seems that, with hiscognitive-pragmatic stance, he has rationalized the psychological experienceof transformation to the point of banality. A personal experience of the arche-typal truths is, according to Jung, always characterized as a revelation, as aprofoundly significant and overpowering encounter (Jung 1968:8) rather thanthe cold pragmatic-technical achievement that Noll depicts. In fact, heuncritically applies the categories of Western cultural experience to anotherworldview. Shamanic cosmologies, which recognize the transcendental, irra-tional, and powerfully emotional aspect of psychic transformation, are assimi-lated to a cognitive, pragmatic-rational, and “scientistic” model of mentalprocesses.It is important to recognize the technical and psychic skill of the shaman

without dismissing the affective-revelatory quality of the initiation. Noll


(1990) is vulnerable to his own criticism of Downton’s (1989) presentationbecause his description also fails to reveal the terrifying, traumatic, and life-threatening nature of the shamanic experience. Although he mentions inpassing that spirits may “inflict illness or even death” (Noll 1987:48), Nolldownplays that truly perilous nature of visionary experiences, focusing insteadon the “psychotherapeutic implications of contact with the imaginal world”(1987:60). This may result from his defending of the sharp distinction he hasdrawn between psychotic and shamanic visions (see also Noll 1983, 1987:55).9

“Volition is the key difference,” Noll tells us. The shaman “actively seeks outthe spirits in deliberately induced ASC,” while the schizophrenic is “victim-ized” by malicious voices. Yet, there are many cases in which potential sha-mans are persecuted by spirits who will not desist until the candidates trainthemselves to control these spirits (Eliade 1964:16–18; Halifax 1979). Trainingis a potentially deadly undertaking and success is not assured. Like Downton(1989), Noll’s (1990) perspective reflects a Western romantic technopragmaticview, although it is based on “communalist” values.As mentioned above, Noll’s view was greatly influenced by Harner, who

also believes that the “shamanic experience is a positive one” and that theSSC is “safer than dreaming” (Harner 1980:xx). He seems to have overlookedthe vast ethnographic literature attesting to the dangerous and potentiallyfatal nature of shamanism, as well as his own fieldwork with the Jivaro dur-ing which he participated in deadly sorcery battles (see Harner 1973). Forinstance, many initiates experience the dissolution or death of the ego con-sciousness, a process often imaged by the painful and violent dismembermentof their body (Jokic 2004:167) or skeletonization achieved through fasting(Reichel-Dolmatoff 1997:123). Harner avoids mentioning any possibility ofdanger in his nonethnographic work entitled The Way of the Shaman: AGuide to Power and Healing (1980), which one could cynically speculate wasdone to market his courses in shamanism to a Western consumer audience.In contrast, Jung always emphasized the dangerous nature of individuation,due to the potential for the ego to become overwhelmed by unconsciousmaterial.Although Winkelman avoids crediting Jung as an important conceptual

influence, he talks explicitly about the ability of ASC to affect and regulatethe unconscious mind to resolve conflicts created by the “failure of the con-scious mind to understand and know about the unconscious mind”(1997:406). The spirit world of shamanism represents neural structures thatare outside of conscious awareness but still affect consciousness and bodilyprocesses. Winkelman briefly discusses Jung’s idea that these unconscious(archetypal?) complexes may become disassociated or “splintered-off” fromthe conscious personality and may become integrated through the process ofindividuation (2000:95). For Winkelman, individuation involves the use of


ASC, which integrates the “emotional, cognitive, and behavioral capacitiesthrough the psychophysiological manipulation of the human brain” (2000:7).

The spirit world is a phenomenological symbol system representing theseinternal complexes and their relationships. Their manipulation permitsthe shaman to transcend the current levels and structures throughpresentational symbolic processes to produce experiences thatpsychologically and emotionally transform the individual. Manipulationsof consciousness induced by ritual lead to reduction in egoic repression,with unconscious material emerging, guided by cultural expectations, incombination with integrative processes. [Winkelman 2000:95]

Winkelman rejects pathological or schizophrenic explanations of the sha-man’s ASC as ethnocentrism or cognicentrism, which views only rationalordinary consciousness as normal, but he acknowledges the similarity of sha-manistic ASC with some pathological states. He uses an argument thatresembles Noll’s, claiming that shamanic uses of ASC, unlike pathologicalhallucinations, are voluntary (2000:79). According to Walsh, the emotionaldistress of the initial calling may indicate temporary psychosis, but this is notuniversal and may aid the shaman’s health in the long run, “through the pro-cesses of individuation and self-actualization” (Winkelman 2000:81).Winkelman maintains that the neophyte’s death during initiation repre-

sents the fragmentation of the conscious ego, a process of psychological trans-formation “resulting from the intrusion of unassimilated neural structures” inresponse to the “inability of the psyche to maintain balance” (Winkelman2000:82). Death and rebirth are structures of the “collective unconscious”produced by interaction of neurognostic structures and intrauterine processes,and leading to the “total annihilation” of all aspects of the personality, so thatone may be reborn (Winkelman 2000:84). Following death and dismember-ment, there is a drive toward holism in which threatening aspects of the selfare projected outwards and must be reintegrated into the self. These experi-ences are organized by the concept of a spiritual world, distinct from con-scious egoic structures of experience, in which the self can be symbolicallyelaborated and change produced in psychic processes. Shamanic flight sym-bolizes psychic integration, which alleviates social and health problemsthrough “reorganization guided by archetypal drives toward wholeness (holot-ropism)” and the “integration of the individual sense of self and experiencewithin neurognostic structures of the organism” (Winkelman 2000:83).For Winkelman, ASCs characteristically involve the integration of various

functional systems of the brain—a self-reflexive ability to act on neuropsycho-logical structures as object and larger flexibility and conscious control ofphysiological and psychological systems. This “hierarchical integration of


brain mechanisms,” particularly the “limbic-system driving of the frontal cor-tex through serotonergic-induced integration across the neuraxis,” reflects the“integration of preconscious or unconscious functions and material into self-conscious awareness” and involves “hemispheric synchronization.” The abilityto observe “operational structures of the unconscious, the self, the ego, andother aspects of the psyche and their manipulation from a higher level ofawareness and self-organization … produces changes in the processes sup-porting consciousness and self (e.g., the integration of unconscious orrepressed material” (Winkelman 2000:129).Winkelman’s discussion of integrative brain states or ASC is similar to Jung’s

notion of individuation, an ongoing process that results in the integration ofunconscious and conscious psychic contents: “these phases of consciousnessrepresent advanced individuation and development of neurophysiologicalstructural features” (Winkelman 1997:418). Shamanic rituals heal psychic divi-sions; they “restructure consciousness to produce an integration of individualand collective consciousness” (Winkelman 2000:26). The integrative processesof the brain may also have a healing effect on an ill individual because they“link somatosensory and metaphoric processes in a system within which sym-bols affect physiological processes through an image-based presentational med-ium” (Winkelman 2000:2). This theory may be seen as a neurophysiologicalreinterpretation of individuation and Winkelman’s failure to fully acknowledgeJung’s contribution to his thinking is striking.In closing, I will address certain difficulties with Winkelman’s approach,

Human experience is not merely cognitive but also corporeal and instinctual.ASCs are produced primarily by manipulation of the body, through tech-niques such as fasting, dancing, drumming, and the use of entheogens,which alter bodily perceptions as well as cognition. While I do not deny thebrain plays a central role in human experience, this theory seems to, in asense, reproduce Western preoccupations with the brain as the locus of expe-rience and self. Michael Jackson (1996) has emphasized the inseparability ofcorporeality and mentality as expressed in numerous cultural conceptions ofthe world and human being.Jack Prost (1994) harshly criticizes the neurophenomenological anthropolog-

ical approach of Laughlin, McManus, and d’Aquili (1990) as failing to signifi-cantly contribute to the anthropological understanding of symbols, except thealready widely acknowledged fact that “culture” has a neurobiological basis.Cleary, all human phenomena must be rooted in the brain and its structures,but we must avoid reducing everything to the neurological level. Locke warnsus that Winkelman’s appropriation of biogenetic structuralism is an exampleof a “new form of reductionism masquerading as theoretical integration”(2011:108). Presently, neuroscience is not sufficiently advanced to offer anygreater insight into the mechanisms and development of the vastly compli-


cated neurophysiological underpinnings of cultural and even psychologicalfacts. As Miles (1976:101) argued 34 years ago—and it is still relevant today—we do not have the technological ability to precisely map experience onto thestructures of the brain, as this task requires the impractical intensive study ofthe neurons of a large representative sample of individuals from ontogenesis.

&

conclu s ion s

Western scholars from vastly different theoretical backgrounds have interpretedvisionary experience in a variety of ways, and each contributes to the anthropo-logical understanding of visions, spirits, and the human psyche. All of theseframeworks, to a greater or lesser degree, touch upon a concept of the imagi-nary: the symbolic expression of psychic experience. Visions have been vari-ously regarded as mental images, emanations of unconscious archetypescommon to all humanity, and the result of integrative processes within thebrain. Although these theories are far removed from the cultural beliefs of indi-viduals who practice shamanism, they are critical instruments for thinkingabout the human capacity for visionary experience and spiritual encounters.I have argued that all these perspectives reflect the profound influence of

Jung upon psychology in general and studies of visionary experience in par-ticular. The concepts of the archetypes, the collective unconscious, and theindividuation process are clearly central to any theoretical analysis of visionsand spirits. Despite usually unjust dismissal on the grounds of irrelevance ormysticism, Jung’s work must be considered critically to obtain an accurateand informed understanding of visionary experience and the history of theconcepts used for its analysis. I emphasize that all of these theoretical frame-works are shaped by the sociocultural and intellectual milieu in which theyare created, and their validity as theories of visionary experience of individualshamans living within a specific historical and sociocultural life-worldremains an open question that must be investigated rigorously using fine-grained ethnographic methods. This study does not attempt to assimilate sha-manism to a Western scientific model but rather to contribute to a cross-cul-tural dialogue about visions by exploring the historical context of scientificthinking in this field.

&

note s

1. Following Jung (1987:1), I prefer the term “vision” to “hallucination” in describingspiritual experiences because visions are not necessarily pathological, as the latterterm strongly implies.


2. For a comprehensive definition of trance, see Bourguignon (1970, 1994).

3. Jung explains that although the imaginary is:

Unreal, it is “real” in so far as it works, i.e., has an effect on us. Therecan be no doubt about its effectiveness, particularly at the present time.It is not the behavior, the lack or surplus, of physical things that directlyaffects humanity so much as the idea we have of them, or the“imaginary” ideas by which we are obsessed. [1987:141]

4. Larry Peters and Douglas Price-Williams (1980) argue that Western psychiatry’sview of the shaman’s “waking dream” or “imaginal” states as symbolic of inter-nally occurring psychic processes differs from the shaman’s notion of visionaryexperiences as objective and externally occurring events. In fact, it is essential toavoid uncritically applying this internal/external distinction, which may or maynot be supported by the ethnographic facts. For example, Piaroa shamans explic-itly discuss techniques for developing mind or knowledge, which argues againstthe assumption that the shaman believes his or her vision occurs solely in theexternal objective world (Rodd 2003).

5. I use the term “mind-brain” to emphasize that mental processes are never separatefrom physiological processes and to avoid the pitfalls of mind/body dualism.

6. d’Aquili (1975) also demonstrates the formative influence of Jungian psychologyupon the anthropological theory of Claude L�evi-Strauss.

7. Winkelman borrows many ideas about the structure of the brain from the neuro-anatomical work of Paul Maclean (see Cory and Gardner 2002).

8. Winkelman, Noll, and proponents of Jung’s theories seem to underestimate thesignificance of sounds, language, and songs in the shaman’s vision. Although Nollacknowledges that “there is an auditory component developed as well” (1987:49),he overemphasizes the visual nature of imagery. In another paper, Noll mentionsin a footnote that many North American vision quests result in auditory “visions”or the discovery of sacred songs, rather than visual imagery (1985:444). In fact,songs are an essential aspect of many shamanic cultures and their discovery isoften the stated purpose of the shaman’s vision. This suggests that there may bean important connection between images and language. Townsley (1993) remarksthat songs are the central “paths” into Yaminahua shamanism because they con-tain the shaman’s knowledge and power:

Learning to be a shaman is learning to sing, to intone the powerfulchant rhythms, to carefully tread together verbal images couched in theabstruse metaphorical language of shamanic song, and follow them.[457]


All these explanatory frameworks fail to deal adequately with auditoryimagery, which seems to be intimately connected with shamanicvisions.

9. The shaman’s vision was once interpreted as indicative of schizophrenia or someother disorder. This “schizophrenia metaphor” of shamanism has been rejected asbeing based on the uncritical application of Western psychiatric concepts to avastly different cultural-ontological world (Opler 1961; Boyer 1969; Peters andPrice-Williams 1980; Noll 1983; Lex 1984; Walsh 1990; Stephen and Suryani2000). I maintain that while pathological and religious visions are distinct phe-nomena, they nevertheless grow out of the same archetypes that form the basis ofall human experience and, as such, exhibit certain similarities of form (see Jung1967).

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