A PROSPECTIVE STUDY to determine the rela tive incidence of diseases causing altered state of consciousness in patients admitted to the medi cal wards of the Tikur Anbessa University Teaching Hospital, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia was undertaken. 300 consecutive patients with altered state of consciousness were included in the study. The majority of patients were below 40 years of age. The causes for...
This article examines the use of the initiation ritual of primitive people, described in the works of Mircea Eliade, as a model for counseling cancer patients, giving both meaning and structure to the interactions between patient and counselor. Within this model the patient's encounter with death, whether feared or actualized, can be used as impetus toward personal growth, whatever the stage of...
Volatile substances have been used to alter consciousness since ancient times. Societal trends have brought forth one inhalant fad after another. It would be reasonable to expect this pattern to change as certain of the inhalants come under greater control or become less available (e.g., leaded gasoline). Experimentation with these agents among younger adolescents probably will continue, and...
Starting with the therapeutic advantage gained when insight acquires consciousness, an investigation of the nature and function of consciousness is undertaken. Consciousness is a state of awareness, having a range of higher mental functions serving a regulatory, controlling, and integrating role in mental activity. There are high levels of thinking, reality testing, experiencing, judging,...
The results of two studies suggest that the Phenomenology of Consciousness Inventory has adequate reliability and validity in assessing alterations in phenomenological experience associated with stimulus conditions, such as eyes open and closed, sitting quietly, and an hypnotic induction.
During the experimental induction of changed states of consciousness in student volunteers, the physical changes and experiential reports were somewhat comparable to those observed also in religious ritual, especially in Pentecostal services. There were a number of inconsistencies, however. I hypothesized that these might have arisen due to neglecting posture as a component. Subsequently, I...
A review of the historical trends in LSD research clearly indicates that LSD and similar drugs are too powerful and unique in their psychological effects to be mistaken for and studied as just another group of psychotropic compounds. The importance of the theoretical understanding and expectations of the researchers in determining the subjective effects and results of LSD treatment is...
Successful psychiatric treatment for rural Africans should incorporate their traditional belief that illness should be viewed in terms of magical, social, physical and religious parameters. Traditional healers divide illness into those of natural causation and those of traditional cultural aetiology which are peculiar to African people. Natural illness includes epilepsy, familial/genetic...
Before white man brought his alcohol to the South Pacific, the indigenes were using many wild plants possessing psychoactive properties. The most prominent were betel in much of Melanesia, kava in much of Polynesia, and pituri in much of Australia. The use of each of these three drugs was widespread, institutionalised as a ritual and the occasion for extensive trade. Each was valued for its...
Recent criticisms of the place and function of "consciousness" in "cognitive science" are considered and rejected. Contrary to current orthodoxy subjective experience during abstract cognitive activity, especially when placed in its natural series with phenomenal accounts of so-called "altered states of consciousness," can provide unique and crucial evidence concerning just that core of...