7) Transcendence: Is It Culturally Shaped or Is "Their Something" Universal?"

Abstract "Realism and the Shaman’s Cosmos" Adam J. Rock, PhD. Deakin University, Melbourne, Australia and Stanley Krippner, Ph.D., Saybrook Graduate School, San Francisco, California. March 21, 2008. For more information go to http://www.sacaaa.org

Previous research concerning the relationship between the shaman’s consciousness and the spirit world suggests that shamans are realists in the sense that they conceptualise their multi-layered universe (e.g., upper, middle and lower world) as real, objective and independent of the perceiver. However, these studies have neglected to analyse the logical coherence of a realist interpretation of the shaman’s cosmos. We address this lacuna by, first, considering the key definitional elements of the term “mental image.”

Subsequently, we determine which variant of realism is most commensurate with the shaman’s views regarding the ontological status of the referents of journeying imagery and, finally, formulate a critical assessment of its logical coherence. We conclude that if shamanic journeying images constitute mental images, then this does not necessarily preclude the shaman’s cosmos from existing independently of the percipient’s mind-body complex.