Shamanism: Phenomenology of a Spiritual Discipline

The study of the Shamanistic State of Consciousness (SSC) is the focus of much current psychological interest. Harner (1980, 1988a)defines the SSC as a mental condition distinct from the Ordinary State of Consciousness (OSC) which is exclusively focused on external events and experiences. The SSC is synonymous with visualizing or imaging; it is akin to the "lucid" or "waking-dream," a dream in which a person knows that the apparently real world in which he finds himself is actually a dream. It is simultaneous conscious awareness of dream-ego and reality-ego (Watkins, 1976). The sse is not pathological nor involves a dissociative amnesia. In fact, the person can, to a large extent, exercise conscious control over dream events and dream duration, and the SSC is potentially highly psychotherapeutic (Achterberg, 1985;Noll, 1983,1985; Peters & Price-Williams, 1980; Tart, 1919; Walsh, 1989a, 1990). In addition to this, shamanism is the first spiritual discipline or path leading to immediate knowledge of the sacred (gnosis). As such, it is the root from which other spiritual disciplines have issued. This is why, as will be demonstrated, there are numerous parallels between shamanism and other spiritual disciplines utilizing trance states.