Transcultural Psychiatry
March 1, 2005
Samuel Law, Laurence J. Kirmayer
Traditional and contemporary Inuit concepts of sleep paralysis were investigated through interviews with elders and young people in Iqaluit, Baffin Island. Sleep paralysis was readily recognized by most respondents and termed uqumangirniq (in the Baffin region) or aqtuqsinniq (Kivalliq region). Traditional interpretations of uqumangirniq referred to a shamanistic cosmology in which the...
Journal of Near-Death Studies
2005
J. Mcclenon
Twenty-eight near-death experience (NDE) narratives were selected from 1,832 anomalous experience accounts collected from predomi nately African-American respondents in northeastern North Carolina. Analysis of this sample allowed testing hypotheses regarding NDEs and the ritual healing theory. The North Carolina sample revealed a lower incidence of NDE core features than Bruce Greyson found in...
Pharmacopsychiatry
2005
R Bücheler, C H Gleiter, P Schwoerer et al.
63 citations
: We want to call attention to a mint plant, called diviner's sage ( Salvia divinorum), originally used in shamanic ceremonies of the Mazatec Indians of Mexico. On numerous websites of the internet, this ancient herbal drug and its extracts are offered as a legal means of widening individual awareness. Regarding its dose-response relationship, the active ingredient, salvinorin A, is one of the...
August 30, 2004
R. Stein, Philip L. Stein, Benjamin R. Kracht et al.
1 The Anthropological Study of Religion 1 The Anthropological Perspective 1 The Holistic Approach The Study of Human Societies The Fore of New Guinea: An Ethnographic Example Two Ways of Viewing Culture Cultural Relativism BOX 1.1 * Karen McCarthy Brown and Vodou The Concept of Culture The Study of Religion Attempts at Defining Religion The Domain of Religion Theoretical Approaches to the Study...
May 13, 2004
N. Whitehead, Robin M. Wright, J. Wilbert et al.
In Darkness and Secrecy brings together ethnographic examinations of Amazonian assault sorcery, witchcraft, and injurious magic, or “dark shamanism.” Anthropological reflections on South American shamanism have tended to emphasize shamans’ healing powers and positive influence. This collection challenges that assumption by showing that dark shamans are, in many Amazonian cultures, quite...
Pharmacology & Therapeutics
May 1, 2004
Dennis J. Mckenna
299 citations
Ayahuasca is a hallucinogenic beverage that is prominent in the ethnomedicine and shamanism of indigenous Amazonian tribes. Its unique pharmacology depends on the oral activity of the hallucinogen, N,N-dimethyltryptamine (DMT), which results from inhibition of monoamine oxidase (MAO) by beta-carboline alkaloids. MAO is the enzyme that normally degrades DMT in the liver and gut. Ayahuasca has...
Dangerous Harvest
April 22, 2004
Clarissa T. Kimber, Darrel Mcdonald
4 citations
Peyote is one of the best-known plant sources for a psychedelic experience. This small cactus is also associated in the popular mind with North American Indians and Hippies. Although its ritual use is thought to be over 7,000 years old (Furst 1989, cited in Schaefer 1996: 141), its use by Indians of the Native American Church (NAC) is less than 100 years old. The peyote button is the essential...
2004
Kira van Deusen
A lively and personal account of the shamanic practices, mythology, and arts of Turkic Siberia, illuminating Siberia
Japanese review of cultural anthropology
2004
Hidekazu Sensui
1 citation
This article examines how a shamanistic worldview is constructed and sustained in Okinawa despite the near lack of the occurrence of trance state among shamans. Observers have typically explained the strong reality that shamans ascribe to supernatural beings by referring to their altered states of consciousness. Such a psychologizing perspective, however, does violence to the distinctive ways...
Annales de Toxicologie Analytique
2004
Gilbert Pépin, Gaëlle Duffort
10 citations
Les plantes hallucinogènes sont utilisées dans les sociétés primitives depuis des siècles, mais jusqu'à maintenant leur usage se limitait à quelques individus chamanes, médecins-sorciers, etc... lors de rites religieux. Actuellement un regain d'intérêt est constaté pour les hallucinogènes naturels en rapport avec un mouvement de « retour à la nature » car la diffusion de ces substances est...