The Journey of the Shaman

By Bruce Renehan

The following is a paper that I presented in a graduate class on psychopathology. It has only been of recent history that madness has been viewed in a non-mystical sense. In fact, many ancient cultures considered those who had gone through psychotic episodes as holy persons with special messages. Having sat with actively psychotic patients during their initial interview at a psychiatric hospital, I remember having the de ja vu feeling that what they were saying sounded very similar to what I had read in the books of Ezekial and Revelation years before when I was a member of the Worldwide Church of God. The term "magical thinking" is given to people who are superstitious or otherwise engaged in losing touch with what we call reality.

The modern medical model of viewing madness as a sickness also seems to have its flaws. There may indeed be some truth to the belief that one gains exceptional insight after experiencing a psychotic break. This paper tries to examine both sides of the coin.

Deconstructing the Medical Model of Psychosis: The Talent of Magical Thinking and Shamanism

In little over a century, an empirical model has been developed for mental illness. This model may be flawed. In more recent years, theorists like Thomas Szaz have challenged the medical model and declared that mental illness is entirely a social construct. There certainly appears to be evidence for this when we consider the fact that the primary diagnostic reference used by mental health professionals, the DSM, has been revised five times since its introduction four decades ago. What we have described as psychopathology in our culture has been valued for at least 100,000 years as evidence of magic and connection to a nether world by primitive human cultures. So, by deconstructing our present definition of mental illness, this article seeks to establish that magical thinking is a necessary element of the human problem solving process in children as well as adults.

The medical model views psychosis as a disease or deficit in mental functioning. Other cultures disagree about what Western culture calls "mental illness." Developmental psychologists have noted that before humans mature to a level of understanding their environment scientifically, they use "magical thinking" or "primitive thinking" to experientially understand their world. This way of thinking does not entirely disappear in adulthood. People unconsciously use magical thinking as they interact with their environment. Everything from touching someone for good luck (contagion effect) to tearing up the picture (image equals the object) of a lover, after breaking off a relationship, are common forms of magical thinking with adults.

In what we call primitive cultures, magic was ritualistically incorporated in daily life. Rites of passage were also incorporated, rich with symbolism. Shamans throughout history were known as holy men who were able to recover from psychosis and then go on the be spiritual guides for others. These holy men would subject themselves to so much physical and mental trauma that they would have a psychotic break. Empirical studies have concurred that stress increases magical thinking.

"Any explanation of a behavior or an experience that contradicts the laws of nature may be considered reflecting magical thinking" (Keinan, 1994, 48). Zusne and Jones (1989) defined it as:
A belief that (a) transfer of energy or information between physical systems may take place solely because of their similarity or contiguity in time and space, or (b) that one's thoughts, words, or actions can achieve specific physical effects in a manner not governed by the principles of ordinary transmission of energy or information (p. 13).

In the story The Quiet Room, Lori Schiller (1994), as she begins to exhibit the symptoms of schizophrenia tells her father "'I know you aren't going to believe this, Daddy, but I can fly.'" (p. 50). This is very typical of the journey of the shaman as I shall show later. Lori had believed that her thoughts were so powerful that she could actually make an airliner carrying her parents crash. These are very good examples of the magical journey of the Shaman.

Keinan (1994) reports, "moreover, magical thinking is often based on the illusion of control; a person who engages in such thinking believes that his or her thought or action can actually change the situation and provide a solution to the problem" (p. 49)(Langer, 1975; Rothbart & Snyder, 1970). Further, Keinan provided experimental evidence that there is an increased need for control when there is an increase in stress and that such stressful conditions increase a person's magical thinking. In his study, he used 101 women and 73 men in Israeli cities during the gulf war and found that close proximity of the subjects to places where scud missiles had landed had a direct correlation to an increase in their magical thinking.

Before Keinan had provided empirical evidence that increased stress increased magical thinking, several theorists found that it was intuitive that such a process occurred (cf. Gmelch & Felson, 1980; Malinowski, 1954; McCann & Stewin, 1980; Padgett & Jorgenson, 1982; Vago, 1992). Malinowski reported that Melanesian fisherman would not engage in magical thinking or rituals while fishing in safe waters or while doing familiar and safe tasks but did when they were exposed to the dangers of the open sea or while in uncharted and dangerous seas or during bad weather.

Padgett and Jorgenson (1982) discovered that there was an increase in articles on astrology, mysticism, and cults during the increased economic distress in Germany between the two world wars (Keinan, 1994).

Stress Increases Magical Thinking

It has also been demonstrated that people with interpersonal deficits spend less time in exercise and active recreation. Interpersonal deficits measured by Pinto and Sarkin (1996) included social anxiety, constricted affect, and lack of close friends. Further, they added cognitive and perceptual deficits measured by perceptual aberrations, magical ideation, and ideas of reference. People with limited resources for reducing stress and poor cognitive skills will be more prone to magical ideations.

Developmental View

Several of the psychoanalytic theorists concluded that children engaged in magical thinking during their development and that in times of stress and uncertainty the adult would regress back to this primitive thinking style (Freud, 1919/1955 1913/1960; Serban 1982; Werner, 1948). Freud felt that because children feel that they have such limited control over their environment that they overestimate their control by wishful thinking. Regression to infantile thinking in adulthood is a result of loss of control.

Heinz Werner is among several theorists who had studied human development in the earlier part of this century. He believed that humans naturally progressed toward order and organization in their thinking. The child relies on primitive thinking in which it uses sensory stimuli to understand its environment. As one grows older his or her thinking becomes more abstract. Werner felt that if a person is presented with an entirely new environment, such as moving to a strange city, a process he called microgenesis takes place in which the person will regress to sensory stimuli, such as seeking out landmarks, to create a cognitive map. The lack of microgenetic mobility creates a problem for the individual. "Schizophrenic patients regress to primitive forms of thought, but they get stuck there and their thinking remains disorganized" (Crain, 1992, p. 80). Werner concluded, "The more creative the person, the wider his range of operations in terms of developmental level, or in other words, the greater his capacity to utilize primitive as well as advanced operations" (1957, p. 145).

Werner also noted how humans feel a sense of synthesia with objects. This process is called physiognomic perception. It is the sense of perceiving objects as full of the same dynamic forces we feel within ourselves. For example, when we listen to tones they take on a quality of meaning, sad tones may seem dark and heavy. This, Werner felt, was developmentally primitive; existing prior to the differentiation of the senses. Subjects have indicated the sensory ability to give color to sound (Crain, p. 88). These anthropomorphic projections may account for the mystical belief system that animists hold. Werner also concluded experimentally that children possessed more synthesia than adults. Children also have a greater ability to hear colors than adults. (Werner, 1948, pp. 89-91; Marks, 1975). People who have begun to behave psychotically under the influence of hallucinogens have reported color hearing. "Intersensory experiences, finally, are the special domain of the artist. The painter Kandinsky, for example, wrote that for him even geometric shapes have 'inner tones' and 'their own inimitable fragrances' (Werner, 1956, p. 4)" (Crain, p. 88).

Anthropological View

Magic has been practiced by humans for thousands of years and those humans who have had the special ability to put their bodies and minds under intense stress to the point of hallucination were considered holy men. Ironically, in our modern empirically based society people who experience depersonalization and hallucinations are generally considered mentally ill. In nonindustrial societies shamans still practice their rituals of crossing over into the land of the dead. These practices are rich with symbolism that is reflected within the diagnostic descriptions of the DSM-IV. It is not too much of a stretch of the imagination to see a link in the rationale of the anorexic and the shaman, the transvestite and the shaman, or the schizophrenic and the shaman.

Typically one becomes a shaman by passing through stages commonly related by many myths. These stages are often thought to involve torture and violent dismemberment of the body; scraping away of the flesh until the body is reduced to a skeleton; substitution of the viscera and renewal of the blood; a period spent in a nether region or land of the dead, during which the shaman is taught by the souls of dead shamans and other spirit beings; and an ascent to a sky realm....The search for shamanistic visions was pursued by most adult Crow males, who would engage in bodily deprivation, even self-torture, to induce such visions....While those who claimed supernatural vision would be expected to manifest some special power in battle or wealth, it was the sincerity of the seeker that carried the essential truth of the experience. Many of the elements of shamanism, such as transvestitism, trance states, and speaking in undecipherable languages, can just as easily be regarded as abnormalities, and it has been frequently pointed out that those regarded as specially gifted in some societies would be outcasts or worse in others. The position of shaman can provide a socially approved role for what in other circumstances might be unstable personalities (Haviland, 354).

Homo Sapiens are believed to have emerged as a species 100,000 years ago. Earliest records of humans are from their cave paintings dating back about 28,000 years ago. These paintings depict fantastical scenes of creatures, half bison half human (Harris, 1997). Recorded history, since the cave paintings were made, reveals that mythology and magic has always played an important role in human culture. Ancient societies have shown that they could prosper and flourish in spite of the fact that their citizens engaged in magical thinking. Great temples were dedicated to Isis and Osiris in ancient Egypt nearly ten thousand years ago. And despite the culture's superstitions, engineers marvel at the Great Pyramid. In contrast to our modern society and its emphasis upon empirical reasoning, ancient societies seem to have had the best of both worlds, with artistic mysticism and their conquest over the laws of nature. Our modern world may be too hasty to abandon the value of magical thinking. The early psychoanalysts Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung gave credence to invisible forces, dream interpretation, and mythology. Jung in particular felt that there was a journey to individuation which would require facing one's shadow persona (von Franz, 1975, p. This was a guided tour through madness that led to personal enlightenment. As guide in such a journey, the therapist acts more like a shaman than clinician.

The shaman is one who has taken the journey to the underworld. It is a journey where the shaman is dismembered and faces death. After being taken to the underworld there is an ecstatic flight to the heavens where the shaman is taught by the spirits of dead shamans. Returning to earth the shaman now has the ability to heal. This story is also depicted in the book of Enoch in Judaism. "More often than in Judaism, however, one finds in the Gnostics and in Iranian traditions, as late as the time of the Mithraic mysteries, depictions of the journey to heaven where, indeed, a trip to the beyond in a state of ecstasy was part of the initiation into those mysteries" (p. 103). Carl Jung had his own journey to the spirit world.

His "journey to the beyond" occurred in middle life (December 1913) when he was thirty-eight years old. "For in the secret hour of life's midday...death is born...Waxing and waning make one curve," While in the first half of life consciousness grows out of the purely natural basis provided by the instincts and strives primarily for the goal of social adaptation and achievement , a fundamental change takes place in middle life--it is as if the sun, after crossing the meridian, drew in its rays, in order to illumine itself, after having squandered its light on the world (P. 105).

Goldwert (1992) points out that Harry Stack Sullivan, the founder of interpersonal psychiatry, made the treatment of the mentally ill his lifelong profession after recovering from schizophrenia himself. Sullivan had developed a special sensitivity toward the mentally ill patient and his personal presence with schizophrenics was cathartic. Because of this Sullivan's life seemed to parallel the ancient art of shamanism. Goldwert quotes the anthropologist Andreas Lommel (1967, p. 11), "primitive' Shamanism is...a mental attitude that comes into being through the overcoming of a mental illness.' Both healer and artist, the shaman answers a 'call' to his profession."

Walsh points out that there is a" remarkable controversy" about what a shaman is. "On the one hand the shaman has been called 'mentally deranged' and 'an outright psychotic' (Devereaux, 1961, a 'veritable idiot; (Wissler, 1931), a charlatan, epileptic and, perhaps most often (Kaker, 1982, Noll, 1983) an hysteric or schizophrenic." But in offering what he believes is a more plausible definition, he states, "However, these terms do not adequately define the specific subgroup of healers who fit more stringent definitions of shaman such as the one to be used here...THAT THEY HAVE A UNIQUE CONTROL OVER THE SPIRIT WORLD IMPRESSED EARLY RESEARCHERS...BUT LATER RESEARCHERS WERE MORE IMPRESSED WITH THEIR CONTROL OVER THEIR OWN STATES OF CONSCIOUSNESS." The shaman actually has the ability to alter his/her state of consciousness and turn what we, in Western culture call "mental illness," into a journey of enlightenment. Desjarlais explains that they use the hallucinations as powerful metaphors to heal through imagery (1989).

Most of Human History has been Mystical

The Age of Reason began only a few hundred years ago and with its birth came a new way of understanding the universe through empirical thought and scientific investigation. Paul Harris noted that at an auction in 1936 the economist Keynes purchased many manuscripts of Sir Isaac Newton's and, to the dismay of many historians, discovered that Newton was influenced more by metaphysics and alchemy than by scientific reason. Newton invoked the ideas of invisible forces of repulsion and attraction rather than mechanistic views of force by impact. Harris further points out that it is the very nature of our species to engage in magical thinking and that adults are just as prone to it as children. Magic and religion are universal features of human culture and the institutionalized practice of science in society has been very short lived. "So, when we regard theory testing as a canon for cognitive development, we use a set of practices that is highly uncharacteristic of our species" (1997).

In recent years psychiatrists have determined to classify mental illness as disorders in thinking and deficits to be diagnosed for treatment. These medical professionals make their descriptions using the scientific method as well as social norms and categorize their concurrences in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (now in its fourth revision). Their simple view of psychosis and delusion is that it is detachment from reality. This definition seems to run counter to the 28,000 year history of Homo Sapiens who have practiced magical thinking, fantasy, dissociation, metaphors, and trance states ritualistically and as a form of healing.

The DSM also falls under a particular need for scrutiny because it has, what appears to be, a political bias. For example, no longer is homosexuality considered a disorder of the mind as it was in the first three editions of the manual. If the medical model is so empirically determined, then why do such non-sequiturs exist?

Rather than claiming psychosis a mental illness, if we were to view psychosis and delusion as part of a developmental challenge to the individual, we might gain a greater tolerance toward the human condition. In the story The Quiet Room, Lori Schiller experiences schizophrenia and is treated according to the medical model in New York's finest mental hospitals. Her tormenting voices do not subside by medication nor by psychotherapy, but when she meets a compassionate guide in Dr. Dollar she is able to confront her shadow, freely expressing her angers and fears until the voices subside and leave. She found catharsis (Schiller & Bennett, 1996).

Neurological View

There is a thin strip of the cortex that laterally traverses from one temporal lobe to the other across the mid-parietal lobe. This area is known as the somatosensory cortex where neuroscientists have mapped the entire sensory region of the human body (Coren, Ward, & Enns, 1993, 292). This portion of the brain must be affected in Somatiform Disorder or what had once been labeled Conversion Hysteria.

If we study the descriptions that are categorized in the DSM-IV in the various mental disorders we notice that there are several phenomena that the mind is capable of producing for the individual. We know that the mind is able to shut down certain loci of sensation. The authors of the DSM-IV call this phenomena "Conversion Disorder." We know that without conscious effort on the part of the affected individual, a rather sophisticated form of sensory deprivation occurs. For instance, people are capable of becoming blind, deaf, or even lose sensation in their hands in the area that would be covered by gloves. And, in all of these cases we conclude that there is a direct reason why the brain chooses to deal with distress by producing physiological symptoms rather than rationally resolving their personal distress. Dissociation is another way that the brain may choose to sidestep dealing with distress producing events.

If this is how the brain automatically dismantles its integrity to salvage the individual then it would seem to follow that the brain produces its own mechanism of overriding traumatic events. Such a mechanism does not necessarily appear to be a deficit but rather a way for the brain to be able to work within its own system of sensation and perception to fragment its global functioning and resolve interpersonal issues; a way of coping. If this is indeed the case, then other phenomena such as hallucination, paranoia, grandiosity, and delusions would also be ways of coping.

Conclusion

Finally, this article has challenged the view of this century that mental illness is a deficit. Empiricists are unable to help the mentally ill any more than thousands of years of shamanism. With the advent of the Industrial Age we have turned what used to be valued as a great mystical journey to enlightenment into a great deficit that is to be managed with medication and brief intervention therapy to return the victim of mental illness back to work as quickly as possible. The psychoanalytic theorists and the developmental psychologists saw magical thinking as a natural way to manage loss of control over one's environment. Possibly they had the best of both worlds in their understanding of the psychotic.

References

Crain, W. (1992). Theories of development. New Jersey: Prentice Hall.

Desjarlais, R. R. (1989). Healing through images: The magical flight and healing geography of Nepali shamans. Ethos, 17, 289-307.

Goldwert, M. (1992). The psychiatrist as shaman, Sullivan and schizophrenia. Psychological Reports, 70, 669-670.

Harris, P. L. (1997). The last of the magicians? Children, Scientists, and the invocation of hidden causal powers. Child Development 68, 1018-1020.

Haviland, W. A. (1993). Cultural anthropology. Fort Worth: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich College Publishers.

Keinan, G. (1994). Effects of stress and tolerance of ambiguity on magical thinking. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 67, 48-55.

Pinto, R. M. & Sarken, A. J. (1996). Interpersonal deficits and time spent in exercise or active recreation. Psychological Reports, 78, 323-328.

Schiller, L. & Bennett, A. (1994). The quiet room. New York: Warner Books, Inc.

von Franz, M. L. (1975). C. G. Jung: His myth in our time. New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons.

Walsh, R. N. (1989). What is a shaman? Definition, origin and distribution. Journal of Transpersonal Psychology, 21, 1-11.

Werner, H. (1956). On physiognomic perception. In G. Kepes (Ed.), The New Landscape. Chicago: Theobald.

 

 

 

If you have anything you would like to
submit to this site, or any comments,
email me at:
thepainfultruth@hotmail.com.
Back to "Painful Truth" Contents Page.