Walkers Between the Worlds: Shamanism as a Global Phenomenon

In this episode we explore the ins and outs of shamanism, the art of working with spirits and traveling to other realms. Beginning with its roots in Siberia, we will connect it with similar traditions around the world, examining everything from ancient cave art to studies on altered states of consciousness. Finally, we will consider what this universal phenomenon says about the human condition. 

Sources:
"Visionary"- Graham Hancock
"The Witch"- Ronald Hutton
"The Shamanic Journey: Experiences, Origins, and Analogues"- Roger Walsh
"The Shaman's Initiation"- Joan Halifax
"The Hero's Journey"- Joseph Campbell 

Transcript

It is night in a remote valley, Siberia. Mountains tower in the distance,whose shadowy ravines are faintly lit by the moon. Wisps of clouds snake through the peaks. Upon the lowland plain of grassy tundra, standing out from the inky blackness is a large fire, peaking in and out of view as a group of people circumambulate the crackling flames. Chanting can be heard, rising and falling on the breeze. Secret, ancient words of power. A man draped in thick silver animal pelts appears to lead the procession. His face is obscured by a metal mask resembling a strange old man, expressionless. Atop his head are the horns of a stag. He beats a large rawhide drum. It is repetitive, deep, hypnotic, and full of intent, as if knocking at the door between the worlds. There are men, women, and children gathered here, some chanting, singing, or clapping, various key elements attuned to some singular purpose known only to the masked conductor. Suddenly he looks out to the edge of the darkness as if something has caught his eye, letting out an eerie whistle and welcoming some new guests whom only he can see but have just now appeared to him. The man goes silent and falls into a stupor, sprawling out onto the ground. Though he appears to lie motionless, he is anything but still. His spirit has now left his physical body, and he descends through a whirling tunnel which has opened before him like a great yawning mouth, leading down, down into the abyss. The shaman’s journey has now begun. Welcome to The Hidden Passage.

Ecstatic spiritual experience is a fundamental aspect of human nature which has inspired and shaped our development since time immemorial. It has not only served as perhaps the primary impetus of all religion but has also profoundly impacted virtually all aspects of society and culture the world over. Among a wide range of different experiences placed in this overarching semantic category, the oldest form of spirituality to feature it, is known as shamanism. Though scholars have debated just what defines shamanism in a way that separates it from other, similar practices, it can roughly be described as the practice of inducing altered states of consciousness in order to access the spirit world, making contact with and enlisting the aid of its inhabitants, achieved primarily through the deliberate separation of the soul from the body to travel to said worlds. Looking at the anthropological records of ancient hunter gatherer peoples, we find evidence of such practices as early as the Neolithic era. The shamans were skilled practitioners, trained in a variety of techniques aimed at calling upon spiritual forces in order to utilize their power. While in this altered state of consciousness, or trance state, the shamans were believed to gain the ability to see and even travel directly into the domain of spirit. The practice of soul flight was the ability of the shamans to temporarily separate the soul from the body which allowed them to travel freely to and from these hidden worlds. It was through this process that a variety of entities could be contacted to aid the shamans in their endeavors. In this way they served as the spiritual emissaries of the tribe, speaking on behalf of the people to their respective gods and spirits and establishing rapport. Shamans were tasked with using their abilities to help their people with a variety of matters from healing to the acquisition of knowledge and power. They were people of renown, considered to be vital to the survival and growth of the tribe, and their practice often yielded potent and demonstrable results.

In this episode we will begin with a study of shamanism from its historical roots, expanding outward to other cultures in which shamanistic elements can be detected, detailing the nature of such experiences, and then connecting it to the universal human experience of spiritual ecstasy which is still experienced today in even the most unlikely modern contexts. The term shamanism first appeared as a descriptor of a certain breed of spiritual practice among the Indigenous Siberian peoples. 

Author of The Witch, Ronald Hutton states that, “18th and 19th century Europeans were familiar with a world of traditional spirituality, in which most people dwelt in small rural communities, were overawed by the forces of nature, feared, and negotiated with the empowering entities of those forces, and had local specialists for that work of negotiation. They were also familiar with trance states and ecstatic visions. What they encountered in Siberia still seemed so new and remarkable to them that they had to adopt a native word for its practitioners, to distinguish them from the priests, witches, cunning folk, oracles, Druids, prophets, seers, visionaries, or any other of the spiritual practitioners already familiar in European culture.” “It was something that Europeans found utterly strange, and for which most of them were aware of no real parallel.” 

The first and most apparent feature of Siberian shamanism which compelled European observers to distinguish it from other forms of practice was that it was primarily conducted as part of a public and often dramatic ceremonial rite, in which members of the tribe would gather around a fire to be both audience to and participants in the shaman’s rituals. This was believed to add to their potency, and so they were expected to contribute accordingly. These rites often included any combination of music, chanting, and dancing, directed by a shaman. Shamans would often don elaborate vestments or costumes, and would also employ magical tools, primarily the drum, which was played rhythmically throughout the ceremony. This process required a considerably demanding performance on the part of the shaman and could last several hours or even days at a time. On the whole, the goal of this rite was to summon the spirits and direct them towards carrying out a specific task.

Siberian shamans could be either male or female. A majority were men, although women made up a large minority. Shamans tended to linger on the outskirts of society. This isolation was voluntary and mostly due to their preoccupation with the immaterial. (Any communion with spiritual realities seems to demand some level of isolation, which allows for singular focus, in order to make connections more effectively.) While they were highly respected and valued, they did not hold positions of political power nor were they much involved in religious institutions. Conventional religious observations were still conducted by priests, which did not overlap with the domain of the shaman. The shamans did not comprise an institution themselves and would often serve individuals or small groups within the society at large, but could also perform rites for the community as a whole. Their primary role was that of healer, which they accomplished by appeasing or driving away spirits which were thought to be the cause of illness and misfortune. In anthropological terms, shamanism largely falls under the broader category of service magic, variations of which have been recorded in cultures around the world. The second most important function of the shaman was in performing divination, a practice which refers to the acquisition of hidden knowledge through supernatural means. To achieve this, the shaman would often rely on clairvoyance, a second sight which allows one to see spiritual realities normally invisible to the eye. Shamans were often consulted for locating stolen property, planning migrations and hunting, as well as prophecy. Somewhat less commonly recorded functions included guiding the souls of the dead, strengthening the psychic defenses of the community, waging magical warfare against both human and nonhuman enemies, and negotiating with spirits and deities which were believed to have control over the land and natural resources. Most of these tasks were conducted with the aid of spirit helpers, which usually took the form of animals. These forms seemed to be taken so that the spirit could perform its task, which often involved having to travel long distances quickly, more effectively. They were enlisted either through propitiation or force. The power dynamic between the shaman and the spirits with whom he formed a relationship could vary from that of slave to master, wherein the shaman could be either dominant over or subservient to the spirits. They could also form more egalitarian relationships as equals. Siberian shamans were thought to generally rely on their spirit helpers for a majority of their feats. 

Cultures which practiced shamanism generally held three fundamental beliefs. First is animism, the belief that all physical forms are inhabited by one or more spirits, the implication being that essentially everything is conscious and has power, even inanimate objects. Expounding on this, the soul or essence of each being is made up of distinct parts. Lastly is the belief that the cosmos is divided into separate but interconnected worlds or planes of existence. The main worlds which bordered ours were believed to be the sky world and the underworld. The shaman fits succinctly into the paradigm created by these tenants, both in terms of his necessity and ability. Animistic belief required a spiritual accord to any action taken in the physical world, as it would automatically affect one or more spirits in some way. The other two beliefs in the manifold nature of the soul as well as the cosmos provide the contextual and ontological framework for perhaps the shaman’s most important work, the spirit journey or soul flight, whereby the shaman would separate his consciousness from the body and send his spirit to one of these worlds in order to interact with said spirits. 

While traditionally it was understood that this spirit journey was the main way in which shamans interacted with spirits, it is now understood that in fact that shamans used a variety of techniques, such that defining shamanism as a distinct brand of spiritual practice unrelated to others has become increasingly difficult, if not arbitrary. As we compare similar traditions in other areas, this will become more apparent. Eventually the similarities may become more significant than the differences, as we will later explore. This has been a point of contention among scholars virtually since the term was first coined. As a result, there is no universally accepted definition of the term. Further obfuscating the matter is the delineation of certain shamanic abilities to magical specialists who were given different titles. For example, the Sakha people had the oyun, who worked with spirits, the korbuochhu, who was a diviner, and the iicheen, or wise person. Sometimes the work of each of these overlapped with one another. There are also many examples of shamans engaging in other forms of magic as well, such as working with magical substances and casting spells. 

In fact, there are a variety of contact methods recorded in the ethnographies, such that any one cannot be pinned down as the most prominent feature of shamanism or most often used by practitioners as a whole. No two shamans were exactly alike. Some would leave their bodies to travel to other realms, while others allowed spirits to enter their own bodies and speak through them as spirit mediums in a similar manner to many oracular European traditions, while others still simply called the spirits into their vicinity and held a verbal dialog. Some remained active and conscious during the rite, while others fell into deep trance and appeared to be in a catatonic state, the latter being necessary to separate the soul from the body. In central Siberia, there was the concept of the animal spirit double, an entity with which the shaman could fuse his or her own spirit to use as a conduit.

The role of the shaman in Siberia was often transferred through lineage, though it was believed that the consent of spirit helpers was required to move from one owner to another. However, a person of exceptional ability outside of a shamanic lineage could receive the calling, being chosen by the spirits themselves. This tended to be indicated by the sudden onset of mental illness, thought to be the result of a mostly involuntary activation of some latent psychic ability, and or spirits attempting to interact with the chosen individual. A child with shamanic abilities could be identified by a unique physical feature or abnormality, such as extra teeth or an extra bone. This person was then taken in and trained by an expert shaman as well as the spirits themselves, who helped the person to integrate these experiences, transmuting them into a positive element as the initiate learned to control and properly use their abilities.

The initiation was an essential stage for the neophyte in order to become a true shaman. This usually involved a magical death and rebirth, a harrowing, gruesome process in which the individual was essentially torn apart and reassembled by one or more spirits. The essential quality of the process here is that of rarefaction. This is often expressed in the notion that during the death process, all of the person’s flesh must be stripped away until there is nothing left. The slate must be cleaned to remove all impurities and separate the old from the new. In the reconstruction of the new body, it was commonly expressed that certain augmentations or improvements were made which increased the shaman’s magical potency, allowing him to operate more effectively. At the end of the process, the shaman is not only reborn, but reborn as an altogether new and semi-divine being.  This type of experience is attested to repeatedly in the ethnographies. For the Siberian shaman, the process involves being eaten by vultures. For the Australian aboriginal (Arunta) tribe, the initiate must travel to the mouth of a sacred cave and enter trance. A spirit known as the Arunta Rinea emerges, thrusting a lance through the back of the initiates head and out his mouth. He then takes a second lance and removes the head entirely, carrying the initiate’s body into the cave, performing a series of strange surgical operations in which crystals are placed into the body. The (Yakoot) shamans describe the initiate as being grasped by three black devils, who thrust a lance through the head, and throw bits of his flesh in all the directions as offerings. “The candidate’s limbs are removed and disjointed with an iron hook. The bones are cleaned, the flesh scraped, the body fluids thrown away, and the eyes torn from their sockets.” This process is evidently happening in the spirit world, and for three to seven days, the initiate lies alone in a catatonic state, scarcely breathing. Joseph Campbell explains that in a general sense, rites of initiation, known to mystics as the “‘second stage of the way’, represents the purification of the self, when the senses are ‘cleansed and humbled’, and the energies and interests ‘concentrated upon transcendental things’, or in the vocabulary of more modern turn: this is the process of dissolving, transcending, or transmuting the infantile images of our personal past.”

The initiated shaman is now equipped and prepared, as much as he can be, for journeying into the spirit world. It is on these journeys where the shaman does his most important work. Spirit quests, especially those to the underworld, could include a variety of obstacles and dangers ranging in difficulty, known as pudak, which the shaman must overcome to succeed. The spirit journey is the ultimate challenge in which all his faculties will be tested, the stakes of which can be as high as his own life and the lives of his people. Voyages to the underworld were commonly done to retrieve the lost or abducted souls of the sick.

 “The shaman is clothed for the adventure in a magical costume representing a bird or reindeer, the shadow principle of the shaman himself, the shape of his own soul. His drum is his animal– his eagle, reindeer, or horse; he is said to fly or ride on it. The stick that he carries is another of his aids. And he is attended by a host of invisible familiars. An early voyager among the Lapps has left a vivid description of the weird performance of one of these strange emissaries into the kingdoms of the dead. Since the yonder world is a place of everlasting night, the ceremonial of the shaman has to take place after dark. The friends and neighbors gather in the flickering, dimly lighted hut of the patient, and follow attentively the gesticulations of the magician. First he summons the helping spirits; these arrive, invisible to all but himself. Two women in ceremonial attire, but without belts and wearing linen hoods, and man without hood or belt, and a girl not as yet adult are all in attendance. The shaman uncovers his head, loosens his belt and shoestrings, covers his face with his hands and begins to twirl in a variety of circles. Suddenly, with very violent gestures, he shouts “Fit out the reindeer! Ready to boat!” Snatching up an ax, he begins striking himself about the knees with it and swinging it in the direction of three women. He drags burning logs out of the fire with his naked hands. He dashes three times around each of the women and finally collapses, ‘like a dead man.’ During the whole time, no one has been permitted to touch him. While he reposes now in trance, he is to be watched so closely that not even a fly may settle upon him. His spirit has departed, and he is viewing the sacred mountains with their inhabiting gods. The women in attendance whisper to each other, trying to guess in what part of the yonder world he now may be. If they mention the correct mountain, the shaman stirs either a hand or a foot. At length he begins to return. In a low, weak voice he utters the words he has heard in the world below. Then the women begin to sing. The shaman slowly awakes, declaring both the cause of the illness and the manner of sacrifice to be made. Then he announces the length of time it will take for the patient to grow well. ‘On his laborious journey,’ reports another observer, ‘After he has wandered through dark forests and over massive ranges of mountains, where he occasionally comes across the bones of other shamans and their animal mounts who have died along the way, he reaches an opening in the ground. The most difficult stages of the adventure now begin, where the depths of the underworld and their remarkable manifestations open before him. After he has appeased the watchers of the kingdom of the dead and made his way past numerous perils he comes at last to the Lord of the Underworld, Erlik, himself. And the latter rushes against him, horribly bellowing; but if the shaman is sufficiently skilled, he can soothe the monster back again with promises of luxurious offerings. This moment of dialogue is the crisis of the ceremonial. The shaman passes into an ecstasy," Joseph Campbell. A legend among the Irkutsk people of Siberia states that their first shaman, Morgon-Kara, became so proficient at retrieving souls from the underworld that the Lord of the Dead complained to the High God of Heaven.

Since the introduction of shamanism into the academic arena, attempts have been made to draw parallels with similar practices found in other parts of the world. Historian Carlo Ginzberg first proposed this theory following his discovery of the practices of the 16th century benandanti people of Italy. The word benandanti translates to “those who go well” or “the good walkers.” Records of this practice survive in the court documents of the Early Modern Witch Trials as part of the Roman Inquisition. In a document from the German witch trials, there is a record of a man who claimed to have gained healing powers by leaving his body at night, embarking on long journeys with a group of spirits. Indeed, much of what we know about paganism in general comes from such documents during the time of its suppression. The records of the benandanti attest that while they slept or went into trance, their spirits would leave their bodies to do battle with the spirits of evil witches. Mircea Eliade defined shamanism as a “formerly universal and very ancient tradition whereby an elite of warrior magicians sent out their own souls and the platoons of spirits they controlled to do battle with evil forces for the good of their communities,” identifying such practices across southeastern Europe. Their theory was not that these European figures were shamans in the strictest sense, but that they evolved out of a more widespread common archaic tradition.

The strongest evidence for European shamanism is found in the areas extending out from the shamanic province from Siberia into nearby parts of Central Asia, the arctic and subarctic zones of North America, and further into Russia and Scandinavia, the theory being that such ideas were transmitted through contact between neighboring peoples, a process known as cultural diffusion. Among the Votyak people of Russia was the tuno, who practiced divination and supernatural healing. They did this by going into trance, induced by music and dance, or by lying in meditation, and were aided by spirits. Another group was known as the Sami, of northern Finland, Scandinavia, and Russia. Their most prominent magicians were called the Noaidi. Among the many abilities attributed to them included locating hidden treasure, bringing objects of desire to them over great distances, influencing the weather, and healing. They could do this either through directing other spirits, which like the Siberian shamans often took the form of animals, or sending their own spirits from their bodies, while they lay motionless in deep trance. This was facilitated by the use of drumming, chanting, and dance. Also like the Siberians, they practiced in public ceremonies.

Similar shamanic figures with equally similar practices are found among other Uralic peoples. The term Uralic comes from the Ural Mountains, a range which divides Asia and Eastern Europe in the north. It relates to a family of languages spoken from northern Scandinavia to western Siberia, comprising the Finno-Ugric and Samoyedic groups. In Northern Finland, songs and incantations describing the spirit worlds similar to those in Siberia have been recorded. Incantations are defined as a series of words combined as a formula used to produce a magical effect, which can be written, recited, or sung. Anna-Leena Siikala, one of the current leading experts on the subject, states that such magical practitioners of the Uralic peoples directly descended from the Siberian shamans.

The Sami were reputed to engage in magical battle with adversaries and also dueling against each other for supremacy. One report tells of a Sami magician who was hired to retrieve a woman’s soul, which had been stolen by the spirit servitors of her enemies. The magician, embarking on a spirit journey to save her, died in the middle of the rite. It was explained that his spirit double was destroyed while fighting the enemy spirits, causing his physical body to instantly perish. Another magician then took up the mission and successfully revived the woman. Similar accounts of Sami magic can be found in the Norse sagas. Fifteenth century German polymath, Cornelius Agrippa, who wrote a masterful summation of western magic and occultism, attested to the ability of the Sami to separate their spirits from their body and roam the earth, an ability, he remarked, which had been mostly lost in his time, but was once also performed by the ancient Greek sages. The Sami remained pagan for roughly five hundred years after the majority of Scandinavia had converted to Christianity by 1000 AD. Thus, they developed a formidable reputation and were well known to Europe, later being dubbed the Lapland witches, featured in the works of Shakespeare and other medieval authors.

Extending further into Europe among other cultures can be found many other examples of practices which appear to exhibit shamanic elements. The Norse themselves had the seidr tradition. This is featured heavily in the Norse sagas. Of particular interest here are the seeress women. They were known to give prophecy and answer questions by calling upon spirits. They were also hired to wage magical warfare. Frithiof’s Saga recounts a tale of two seidkonur who were hired to sink an enemy ship at sea. To do this, they sent their own spirits out on the back of a whale. The intended targets, however, spotted them and struck the whale with their ship. As a result, the women, whose bodies were still on land, were broken, and they fell dead. In Gongu-Hrolf’s saga, a queen engages in seidr during a battle, raising her fallen soldiers from the dead to continue fighting. Another account tells of a warrior who laid beside the battlefield in a deep trance, summoning a bear to attack his enemies to great effect. When his body was eventually disturbed, the bear vanished.

Another Norse phenomenon is that of the night riders, women who were thought to go out at night, often while their bodies slept, to join nighttime revels. They were known to ride enchanted objects, prominently the staff, as well as animals. During these revels they would join the company of trolls; humanoid, mischievous creatures similar to the fairies. Their night rides would sometimes take them underground to where the trolls lived and partook in their festivals. Trolls were also thought to have the ability to bestow magical powers. The obvious parallel here is to the shamanic journeys to the underworld and using the power of spirit helpers to perform magic. This is also thought to be a possible source for the idea of the witches sabbath. While I mentioned in an earlier episode that the activities of witches described in the inquisitions were fabricated, perhaps I should amend that by saying rather they were grossly misrepresented as being satanic and evil. But there is little doubt that there were indeed people practicing pagan magical rites, that were, essentially real witches.

Because the definition of shamanism has expanded beyond spirit journeys to communication with spirits and divination, we can draw further parallels to oracular traditions all over Europe. The more conservative, yet still controversial approach to linking what were once thought to be disparate traditions, is through the establishment of direct geographical and cultural lines of transmission. Further work has been done through genealogy linking Siberians, Nordic, and Native Americans to one common proto group (see survive the jive video). The more radical, and far more interesting theory suggests that similar practices arise all over the world as a result of universal transcendent, ecstatic religious experiences, and that all religions today have their origins in these direct, mysterious experiences. We can see that shamanistic practices are indeed a staple of older and “more primitive” cultures, so it would make sense that religion as we know it today evolved out of this. To begin this line of inquiry we will go back to some of the oldest human artifacts, specifically prehistoric cave paintings.

In the Occitania region of southern France is a site known as Pech Merle. A cave opening in the side of a hill leads to a series of long vast tunnels stretching over 2 KM in length and descending two levels below the initial opening. The tunnels were formed by an ancient underground river over six million years ago. The walls of these caverns served as the canvas for a series of paintings, dating back to at least 25,000 BC. The paintings are deep within the cave itself and would have required the artists to climb and crawl their way through narrow, sloping tunnels, deadfalls, gullies, and winding passages. The caves are damp and dark, the only light coming from whatever torches and crude lanterns they carried with them. It is evident that it would have required considerable effort and risk to reach the areas where the paintings were made, which begs the question of why these people were determined to do such a thing. Scholars now think such works to be connected to an ancient religion, the true nature of which remains shrouded in mystery. It is plausible that the act of reaching these sights and creating these images itself was ritualistic in nature and an integral part of how this religion was practiced. The identification of certain areas with special qualities as sacred and making pilgrimages to these sites is a common feature of many religions. Specifically in Native American religion and others, caves and underground passages were thought of as portals to the underworld. The content of the images may furthermore give us clues as to the nature of this religion.

Most people are aware of the realistic depictions of animals as a common feature of ancient rock art. A somewhat lesser known, but equally prominent component, found universally, is the inclusion of abstract and surreal subjects, ranging from geometric patterns to animals which are not known to ever have existed, and beings which appear to be a bizarre blending of human and animal attributes. Some of these beings appear to be in the process of metamorphosis from one form to another, from human to animal, and vice versa. It is these mystifying subjects to which we will now draw our attention, for reasons that will later become evident.

The universal archetype of a human being transforming into an animal is known in modern times as a therianthrope. It is usually depicted as a being with both animal and human features, some of which appear to be in the process of transformation from one to the other. Therianthropes are featured in most rock art sites, from Europe to Africa, appearing as a motif from the oldest known sites to the most recent, a time period which spans roughly twenty thousand years. The oldest known ancient rock art site, the Fumane cave in Northern Italy, is dated to be at least thirty-two thousand years old, and possibly considerably older.

In the caves of Pech Merle we see a variety of such images. One of these depicts a half human/half beast, with the head of a horned bovid, a man’s arms and torso, and upright hind legs which appear to have both animal and human features. It is referred to as the bison man. A similar figure appears in a cave in Chauvet, Italy. In this case, the being appears to be straddling a headless human female, who herself is in the process of transforming into a large feline. In Germany, carved ivory therianthrope figurines, which appear to depict lion/human hybrids, with the head of a lion and body of a man, were recovered deep within a cave, dated to around the same time period. In a cave in Trois Frere, France, an image depicts a being at the moment of transformation, known as the sorcerer, or beast master, with the eyes of an owl, a beak shaped nose, the ears of a wolf, antlers of a stag, tail of a horse, claws of a lion, and the legs of a human.

In southern Africa, a slew of therianthropic images has also been discovered at multiple sites, which depict a wide range of different animal and human combinations. Many of these have been attributed to the San people, an indigenous, semi-nomadic hunter-gatherer culture of South Africa and Botswana, considered to be one of the oldest on Earth, and still in existence today. At Brand Hook rock shelter on the western cape is the image of a woman with the head of a praying mantis. This can be linked directly to religion, as the San creator god Kagin often appears in the form of a praying mantis. The deity is known to be a shapeshifter, taking many forms. At Cipher rock shelter is the image of a group of human antelope therianthropes, each appearing to be at different stages of transformation. Another site features mermaid-type beings, with the heads and bodies of humans, and the tails of fish. Therianthropes appear universally, blending humans with all different sorts of animals, including baboons, jackals, birds, and elephants.

Aside from therianthropes, other strange creatures can also be found in rock art the world over, including chimeras, or animals that combine characteristics of multiple known animals, animals with extra appendages, animals which are completely unique and dissimilar to any known species, to bizarre, fantastic beasts, seemingly the stuff of mythology. In Zimbabwe, there are three creatures which resemble the classic depiction of a demon or devil, winged beings with human faces and horns. A cave in Pergouset, France has a room full of giant, unreal and distorted animals, referred to as the Pergouset monsters.

To further support the theory that ancient rock art was part of a magico-religious rite, it should be noted that even the normal animals depicted were not those that were regularly hunted. This has been substantiated in the excavation of nearby remains, suggesting that they must have held some kind of special significance. Further investigation has indicated that the rock art sites were visited infrequently and only by a few people. These sites were chosen only for this specific purpose, as there are no signs of habitation or any other activities.

As mentioned earlier, aside from these subjects, we find many abstract shapes, lines, and dots, sometimes forming complex geometric patterns. These are often interwoven with the more concrete depictions of creatures. Many of the paintings are superimposed onto one another. New art was added on top of the old, so as to obscure the underlying images.

Adding to the surreal nature of ancient cave art, there are several other mystifying aspects aside from the images themselves. Firstly, many of the images are positioned in a way that utilizes the natural morphology of the rock faces themselves. For instance, if a certain outcropping resembled a certain feature of an animal, the painting would be made over that spot to include it in the image. Also, creatures would be concentrated around fissures in the rocks so as to suggest that they were emerging from it. In some cases, an animal was drawn over a crack or hole, to give the impression that it is obscuring part of the body within it. The result is strangely suggestive that the creatures dwelled within, or were part of the rock itself, and are in the process of emerging from it. The caves would seem to be portals to another world. Of course, the intent of the original artists can never truly be known, as these works were made long before any recorded written history.

What we may rightly assume, however, is that much of the ancient cave art was not naturalistic in nature, rather, it represented the inner, symbolic, visionary world of prehistoric humans. But that conclusion in itself falls short of answering the greatest mystery to come from all this, and that is, why do certain images recur across multiple regions of the world, whose authors were disconnected culturally and geographically? And why were they considered to be so important as to be featured so prominently and consistently throughout a period of thousands of years, not only in ancient cave art, but carrying over into later religious traditions?

A plausible theory was put forth in the 1980’s by researcher David Lewis-Williams, which attempted to explain this profound and puzzling universality, putting together a model of explanation known as the neuropsychological model. “Such ideas are not part of the normal predictable currency of everyday life but arise from the universal human neurological capacity to enter altered states of consciousness, in other words, states of deep trance in which extremely realistic hallucinations are seen.” “Many anthropologists are convinced that as far back as the upper paleolithic, our ancestors placed a high value on hallucinations and made extensive use of psychoactive plants to induce them. In addition, it is well known that rhythmic drumming and dancing, hyperventilation, self-mutilation, starvation, and a variety of more or less unpleasant techniques can also bring on hallucinations. In hunter-gatherer societies, such work is typically not the responsibility of all people, but only of the shamans, those ritual specialists who are able to make the perilous journey to the hallucinatory other world and return with healing knowledge.”

He arrived at his conclusion by studying the ethnographic records of the San, who had maintained their mythology through oral tradition, and were still in existence until a hundred years ago when the records were written. These direct descendants of the original rock art painters would shed much light on the meaning of these mysterious works. In addition to this, a study of the shamanic traditions of South America would prove to be vital in piecing the entire picture together.

San informants stated that the rock art was made by the !gi:ten (ghee-tahn), which means full of supernatural power. The !gi:ten were essentially shamans, facilitating necessary interactions between this world and the spirit world. Their abilities included rain making, controlling animals when food was scarce, doing battle with spirit enemies, healing, and obtaining knowledge of plant medicine. Their primary power was the ability to travel out of their body into the spirit realm, where most of these other feats were achieved.

The informants further explained that the therianthropes in South African rock art were meant to depict the !gi:ten transforming into animal avatars that they adopted for their journeys. This was done by entering a trance through a circular dance rite. Dances could last for up to twenty-four hours at a time until the journey could be made. Upon leaving the body, they entered one of the spirit worlds by “descending through a water hole or flying up into the sky.” When they returned, they recorded their experiences, including everything they had seen and done, on the rocks. The rock art was essentially a record of the shaman’s experience. Further explanation by the San informants revealed that the strange impossible animals in the rock art were known as rain animals. In times of drought, the !gi:ten would travel in groups to the spirit world to retrieve a rain animal and bring it into the physical world, where it would be milked to create rain. This is also shown in the cave art, as these strange animals are often shown being led by men on ropes as if being pulled through holes in the rock.

Now that the shamanic nature of South American rock art had been settled, Williams attempted to address the question of why cave art from different isolated cultures share so many uncanny similarities. To this end, he looked at studies on altered states of consciousness, a state that is fundamental to all shamanistic practices.

The basis of his theory is that altered states of consciousness, which go by the acronym ASC, often referred to as trance states, produce vivid hallucinations which contain certain recurring patterns and archetypes. These visions are experienced universally among all humans who enter altered states of consciousness. The cave art, then, was depicting what was seen and experienced by people in these altered states of consciousness. This would explain why the same types of images appear around the world throughout history. Religious traditions around the world have used altered states of consciousness in their practices as a means of connecting with the divine, and they have served as the basis for many beliefs regarding its nature. In the older traditions, particularly shamanism, this direct experience through altered states of consciousness was of the utmost importance. Altered states of consciousness are induced through a broad range of methods. Ethnographic scholar of shamanism, Michael Ripinski-Naxon stated “The majority of shamans throughout the world depend on some kind of psychoactive substance in their repertoire. This ethnographic fact represents a genuine aspect of shamanism. Hallucinogenic experiences during shamanistic seances constitute the key religious expression for such a society.” The ingestion of these substances naturally became the preferred method of entering trance by cultures which had access to them. For example, South American shamanism heavily revolves around the ayahuasca brew, which can be found in abundance in their native jungle environment. In areas where such substances do not grow naturally, however, people rely on other means to enter trance. Professor of psychiatry at the University of Kentucky, Arnold M. Ludwig has written many books on this subject. He states “ASCs may be produced in any setting by a wide variety of agents or maneuvers. These include the absolute reduction of sensory input, the change in patterning of sensory data, or constant exposure to repetitive monotonous stimulation, excitatory mental states resulting primarily from sensory overload or bombardment, which may or may not be accompanied by strenuous physical activity or exertion, mental states which appear to result primarily from focused or selective hyper alertness, and mental states which appear to occur mainly as a result of what might be described as a passive state of mind, in other words mystical, transcendental, or revelatory states.”

Dehydration, sleep deprivation, hyperventilation, and self-mutilation are some of the more unpleasant ways in which people, particularly in the Americas, shock the nervous system in order to induce an altered state of consciousness. The Sun dance of the Lakota Native American tribe involved painful body piercing. The ancient Maya had the notorious bloodletting rituals in which they would cut their genitals with shards of obsidian glass to induce supernatural visions and speak to the ancestors. The San bushmen dances were equally painful in their own right. Dances could last for up to twenty-four hours at a time so that the !gi:ten would become dehydrated and hyperventilate, which in turn caused them to fall into trance. As this happened, they would often bleed from the nose, caused by the physical stress. During this dance, it is said that some would collapse from exhaustion, begin acting insane, or become extremely ill.

It seems however, that it was not always necessary to resort to such dramatic methods. As mentioned in our Siberian and European sources, rhythmic drumming and lying in meditation could seemingly accomplish plenty of magical feats. There are also examples in Native American lore of shamans retreating to a cave and meditating in isolation to embark on spirit journeys. This would sensibly provide the right conditions of sensory deprivation to induce an altered state of consciousness and may in fact be another reason why caves were chosen by the ancient rock painters.

In addressing the question of universality of content among the many rock art sites separated by great distance, time periods, and cultures, Lewis-Williams looked at a number of studies on altered states of consciousness involving lab participants who had gone into trance as part of a controlled experiment, and had their observations recorded. These participants, despite being from diverse cultural backgrounds, reported seeing the same types of hallucinatory geometric shapes and patterns. These are called phosphenes, or, entoptic phenomena, which form as luminous, colored visuals that form in the absence of light, often when the eyes are closed. “Phosphenes are subjective images independent of an external light source and are the results of self-illumination of the visual sense, as they originate within the eye and the brain, they are common to all men.” Lewis-Williams identified these same shapes with those found in the cave art of Europe, South Africa, and even in the paintings of the Ayahuasca visions of the Tukano people of the Amazon.

Reichel-Dolmatoff, in his 1975 study on hallucinatory visions experienced during altered states of consciousness, identified three distinct stages that such visions seemed to progress through as one goes deeper into trance. The first is the appearance of phosphenes. During the second stage, these phosphenes form into images of real subjects such as people, animals, or places. In the final stages, these visions become more intense and begin changing rapidly as if part of a slideshow, which proceed in a random, disconnected fashion. These subjects often appear to be contained within a spiraling vortex or tunnel. This is where experienced shamans claim to be able to enter the spirit realm. The description of a tunnel opening up to the spirit world is repeated time and time again in reports of shamanic journeys. Lewis Williams elaborated on these studies, defining several different ways in which these phenomena are perceived, including duplication, fragmentation, and superimposition, and used this as further evidence that cave art was representative of these visions, as often images would be painted over existing ones, blended together, or deconstructed, with little to no sense of scale, position, or association.

All of this evidence points towards the existence of ancient spiritual traditions being practiced at least thirty-five thousand years ago, and possibly long before that. This was long before any development of civilization. The more profound implication is that similar traditions arise independently from a universal aspect of the human condition, spiritual ecstasy, the capacity of human beings to experience a non-ordinary reality through altered states of consciousness.  These direct experiences were the precursor to and served as the inspiration for religion, philosophy, and art. Its impact on the course of human development is perhaps massive. To put things into perspective, we should consider where humanity stood at the time when this tradition began. Human beings were considered to be anatomically modern by 200 thousand years ago, that is that their physiology was indistinguishable from human beings of today. This means that the intellectual capacity of humans who lived 200 thousand years ago was equal to ours. Minor progress was made around a hundred thousand years ago when humans appear to have gained some rudimentary forms of symbolic expression and technology. But in all the time leading up to this there was virtually no improvement in terms of cultural evolution, and minimal gains were made afterward, marked by long stretches of stagnation, up until around the time when the first cave paintings were made. At this point, it was as if a light bulb was turned on in the collective mind of humanity, and monumental progress was made at a remarkable rate in all aspects of human endeavor. In evolutionary terms, humanity went from hunter gatherers to forming civilizations virtually overnight. What researchers like Graham Hancock are proposing is that this rapid advancement was directly influenced by the discovery of ASC and development of shamanistic techniques which allowed humanity to tap into some mysterious reservoir of knowledge and inspiration. Whatever the true nature of this non-ordinary reality is, its potential to expand the horizons of human thought cannot be dismissed. The ability of the shaman and similar figures to provide real solutions and insight is vouched for by their status and prevalence throughout the historical world alone.

In later episodes we will explore how ancient cultures directly attribute their knowledge and advancements to the gods who shared their wisdom with the people. To show that this phenomenon is a lasting influence even in the modern “scientific world”, we may need not look further than to Francis Crick, the scientist who discovered DNA, after first seeing the double helix structure in an LSD-induced vision. There are countless examples of people claiming to have received information in altered states of consciousness. The supernatural is everywhere we look. We cannot get away from it. Humanity does not seem to develop in a steady, predictable fashion according to cumulative efforts of science and reason. Rather, our history is marked with sudden remarkable growth spurts, moments of revelation that seem to come to us from some mysterious and unknown source. And yet the intellectual trend which has defined most of the modern era has been the emphasis on the material as the only reality. As Hancock remarks of the shamanic view “Here the bedrock of the entire edifice is the conviction that the supernatural does exist. More than merely existing it is believed to be the senior and preeminent dimension, having a profound influence on all other levels of reality.” The surprising continuity of this visionary realm, the fact that it is experienced in much the same ways, that similar beings and places are encountered, among completely disconnected peoples with no shared culture or ideas, is perhaps the greatest mystery to come from all this. It suggests the existence of either a vast collective unconscious realm of archetypes as proposed by Jung, or an independent reality, which under certain conditions, human beings can perceive and pass into.  This has been a core belief shared by all of humanity for practically all of our existence up until the 19th century and the dawn of science. Only now are we beginning to open ourselves back up to the possibility that our ancestors had an intuitively correct view of reality.