Religious implications of paranormal events occurring during chemically-induced ‘psychedelic’ experience

Pastoral Psychology -     

Book Reviews: Imagined Human Beings,by Bernard J. Paris,Yale University Press, 1997, 336 ps

The American Journal of Psychoanalysis -     

Mythic perspectives for a world in distress∗

In a series of books and articles published over the past two decades, the authors have developed a five‐stage system for identifying and modifying the mythic structures that guide individual development. In this essay, they draw upon the integral relationship between personal and collective myths in applying this five‐stage model to contemporary social issues. They focus, in particular, on the mythic conflicts that underlie the tensions between progress and sustainability and between individualism and community. Based on the contradictory designs inherent in a prevailing myth and in an emerging myth, the authors present a dialectical model that is formulated to lead to a new myth that incorporates the most functional elements of old and emergent forces, while transcending their limitations. The essay closes with a discussion of social actions that may embed a new myth within a culture, along with the conditions that are required to effectively reinforce and maintain it.     

The holistic paradigm

Our present age is characterized by rapid processes of social transformation due to the rise of the systems sciences, computers and information technology. Part I of this paper distinguishes two perspectives for an interpretation of the ongoing evolution of our society as influenced by these newer developments in science and technology. From a structural perspective we argue that they have not created a society with entirely new structures, but just an expansion and intensification of the organizational‐technical systems which have typified the technological society since the Industrial Revolution. From a worldview perspective on our society we conclude that “systems rationalism” reinforces the prevailing technical worldview which fosters a progressive technical control and streamlining of society and human adaptation to its framework.     

Conflicting perspectives on shamans and shamanism: points and counterpoints

Shamans' communities grant them privileged status to attend to those groups' psychological and spiritual needs. Shamans claim to modify their attentional states and engage in activities that enable them to access information not ordinarily attainable by members of the social group that has granted them shamanic status. Western perspectives on shamanism have changed and clashed over the centuries; this address presents points and counterpoints regarding what might be termed the demonic model, the charlatan model, the schizophrenia model, the soul flight model, the degenerative and crude technology model, and the deconstructionist model. Western interpretations of shamanism often reveal more about the observer than they do about the observed; in addressing this challenge, the study of shamanism could make contributions to cognitive neuroscience, social psychology, psychological therapy, and ecological psychology.