Ontology of Drug Facilitated Entity Encounters...

The very first time I ate Liberty Caps (Psilocybe semilanceata or Magic Mushrooms) from the moutains of mid-Wales a few years ago, I was amazed to catch a glimpse of a world that had, until that point, remained entirely hidden from me.

As the trip intensified I began to see, in the wood of a partially open drawer, a parade of peculiar looking beings visible in 2D. I was shocked and described them to my friends. For want of a better name I called them "fairies". I didn't interact with them, and they didn't give any indication of seeing me - it was as if they were just going about their business (whatever business that might be) and were suddenly, and unknowingly, made visible to me.

Fig. 1. Although this experience took place a few years ago I can still vividly recall it, but describing it with words proves to be quite difficult. I drew these pictures as a means to translate, to some extent, the essence of what I saw. As they moved I got the sense that they were in the process of "doing something", but I don't know what that was - merely a sense of purpose.

There seemed to be one that was slightly larger than the rest (although all were small) with female characteristics, and they were all moving forward (as if scrolling along the edge of the drawer from right to left), jostling over each other like waves crashing over rocks in slow motion. They seemed to be a part of the wood from which the chest of drawers was made. Their noses and chins were pointed and they were organic and beautiful.

Fig. 2. A more detailed picture of the face, as best as I can recall. At the time they definitely seemed 2-dimensional - almost like shadow puppets.

What were they? Hallucinations or ontologically distinct entities?

Of course many thousands of people have encountered strange entities while under the influence of varied multitudes of psychoactive substances. Some commentators have argued that the apparent inter-personal correlations between accounts of drug entity experients, provide a form of empirical evidence that points towards the existence of an objective phenomenon: encounters may occur independently of others, geographically and temporally, while still maintaining strikingly similar experiential features.

More on this to come...

Photographic Anomaly...

I took this photograph at a small cave, known colloquially as "Merlin's Cave", near Pistyll Rhaeadr Waterfall in Powys, and was interested to see some peculiar "photographic anomalies" in and above the water in the cave when I looked back at the photo. There would seem to be streaks of light in the cave that do not appear in other photos taken of the cave.


Interesting features:

• Site known colloquially as "Merlin's Cave" - connotations with magic
• Site of natural beauty
• Autumn a couple of days before Hallowe'en

These combined with the photographic anomaly begin to form a supernatural narrative with intimate links to place and folk beliefs.

This sort of photographic anomaly would generally be classified as evidence of "rods" or "skyfish", but might also be interpreted to demonstrate the existence of discarnate spirits, extraterrestrial/dimensional entities, nature energy, fairies, etc.


Of course it is entirely possible that these "anomalies" could in fact be insects, but they remain interesting nevertheless.

Photographic anomalies do occur and they provide ambiguous stimuli for interpretation by the observer. These streaks could be interpreted in any number of ways.

I do not know what they are, but through considering them insights into the structure of supernatural narratives can potentially be gleaned.

Experiencing Drug Induced Altered States of Consciousness...

The announcement of the sacking of Professor David Nutt from the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD) has got me thinking about the motives of the government with regard to drugs policy.

Professor Nutt fell out of favour with the government for suggesting that the dangers posed by the ingestion of drugs such as ecstasy and cannabis were comparable to those associated with horse riding - coining the term"Equasy" - and arguing that this practice represents "an over-looked addiction with implications for the current debate on drug harms". Nutt observes that:

"This attitude raises the critical question of why society tolerates - indeed encourages - certain forms of potentially harmful behaviour but not others, such as drug use" (source)

If the government is not basing its policies on the risk factor involved in the ingestion of psychoactive chemicals, then what reason does it have?

Psychoactive plants and chemicals (psychedelic in particular), by definition, produce an alteration of consciousness when ingested. Naturally the huge varieties of psychoactive substances produce an equally large variety of alterations of consciousness, each one providing a different perspective on the world through subtlely, or severely, affecting the way in which we perceive and interact with it - even to the extent of entirely shifting our perspective away from this world altogether.

This is the most immediate consequence of ingesting a psychoactive chemical, and is potentially at the root of government concern over their use.


I have already posted this quote from William James' The Varieties of Religious Experience, but will do so again oweing to its relevance to the issue at hand here:

"... our normal waking consciousness, rational consciousness as we call it, is but one special type of consciousness, whilst all about it, parted from it by the filmiest of screens, there lie potential forms of consciousness entirely different. We may go through life without suspecting their existence; but apply the requisite stimulus, and at a touch they are there in all their completeness, definite types of mentality which probably somewhere have their field of application and adaptation. No account of the universe in its totality can be final which leaves these other forms of consciousness quite disregarded" (James, 2004, 335)

James' realisation of the vast plurality of world-perspectives occurred after an experience with nitrous oxide, commonly referred to as laughing gas and still popularly used recreationally for its consciousness altering effects. James' experience opened his eyes to a potential multiverse of subjective worlds. This potential is an inherent part of what it means to be human and consequently represents a fundamental property of the universe, of which we are a part. When these other worlds are ignored we are missing out on a substantial portion of our freedom to explore existence.

I wonder, therefore, whether the decisions made by the government to ignore evidence, provided by their expert advisers, have anything to do with the fact that they may indirectly result in human beings excersising their innate freedom to perceive the world in alternative ways.

Theorists such as David Icke would support this suggestion. Icke has argued that there has been an agenda in place over hundreds of years to increasingly narrow human access to understanding the true nature of reality:

The actions of the government with regards to the issue of drug consumption would appear to bolster Icke's hypothesis. Efforts are being made to impinge on the potential for human beings to experience reality in all it's beauty, intricasies and infinite permutations.

The issue is very real. These experiences are very real, and our ability to access them is being reduced. Of course the ingestion of psychactive compounds is not the only means to experience altered states of consciousness, but it is a means that we should not be denied.

I have a particular worry about the possible illegalisation of Salvia Divinorum, an incredible plant with the power to enable the experience of alternate realities and communication with their inhabitants. To have this doorway walled up would be a great loss.

It is worrying to note that government policy concerning consciousness altering substances (as well as on other issues) is followings its own agenda, regardless of expert opinion.

The Giant...

Depicting Discarnate Entities...

Human beings have been making depictions of "the supernatural realm" since at least as far back as the Palaeolithic (depicting, at least, in such a way as to withstand the ravages of time - we would not, for example, be able to detect drawings made with sticks and sand in the archaeological record). Some of the earliest known depictions of "non-ordinary beings" can be found in the caves of Algeria.

The paintings seem to depict anthropomorphic creatures with animal characteristics - horns, tails, etc. Creatures that are neither human nor animal, but something more than the sum of their parts. Beings such as this are referred to as therianthropes. The inspiration for these enigmatic images may well have come from encounters with beings during altered states of consciousness achieved through any number of techniques (I have spoken a little about rock art and psychedelics in an earlier post).


The spirits depicted in the above image were drawn by the Iglulik Eskimos. "They represent deities which through terrifying and frightening their natural state can be captured and tamed by shamans and thus transformed into benevolent 'helping spirits' or familiars" (Lewis, 1971).


Different cultures, from different time periods and geographic locations have depicted the spirit world for thousands of years.

The psychic photography of the Spiritualist movement represents a more recent attempt at embodying the disincarnate. Cultural Historian Marina Warner has discussed at length the evolution of the western depiction of the supernatural in her book Phatasmagoria (2008). Key elements she has highlighted include the use of metaphors and analogies concerned with light, air, mist, clouds, wings, etc. when describing the denizens of the invisible world. Spiritualist photographs of the late 19th and early 20th centuries clearly partake of a cultural tradition in western art - they are a culmination of motifs and iconography that have developed over centuries of attempts to picture the invisible. At the core of this tradition, however, is the experience of the supernatural - the inability to convey the precise nature of the experience and the necessity to draw analogies with bright, fluid and etherial aspects of the physical world.


I am not suggesting that all Spiritualist photographs are the product of "fraud" or "trickery" but am rather pointing towards a wider frame-work in which to understand and interpret such images. I would even consider the blatantly "fraudulent" (again, a term that I think may need re-evaluating) photographs, which clearly show that the spirit-form is nothing more than a doll, such as those taken of the medium Helen Duncan and the spirit-child Peggy (see below), to be objects worthy of investigation.


Belief in the ability to imbue objects with independent agency is both ancient and widespread. What we are seeing in these photographs is a vestigal practice - a pre-christian survival that shares commonalities with other cultural and beliefs systems, across the world, but shares nothing with the positivistic empirical world-view that evaluates their validity as proof of the existence of spirits and mediumistic ability.

In Ancient Egyptian tombs, archaeologists have uncovered thousands of small humanoid figurines called shabti figures. These figurines were essential companions to the deceased as they journeyed forth into the afterlife. Because it was believed that the afterlife was much the same as the world of the living, deceased individuals would be called up to work in the fields and on the land on their arrival there. The purpose of the shabti was to come to life and carry out the work in place of the deceased, their work was primarily agricultural (Spencer, 1991, 68). These little figurines possess agency - they are more than just models. They were believed to have the power to come to life and to serve (much as the Swedish Tomtar statuettes, discussed in an earlier post, are said to).

Ancient Egyptian belief in the power of representation provides fascinating insights to our understanding of the depictions of supernatural beings:

"The Ancient Egyptians believed that once a word was written down it was inherently magical and could make whatever was written true, especially when spoken aloud, an act which breathed life into the words. Thus the representations on the walls could come alive and make real what they depicted and had to be chosen with care lest some dangerous being came into existence in the tomb" (Dodson & Ikram, 2008, 15)

Representation gives life to abstract concepts - it enables a manifestation to occur - entities that can only be grasped in the mental realm are condensed into the material. Again, in the tombs of the Ancient Egyptians we find this power put into use. Tombs are adorned with depictions of the deceased and engraved with their names - the act of creating a likeness of the deceased allows for that individual to "live on" after death. Indeed the link between the effigy and the soul of the deceased was a strong one, and tombs often house small shrines at which offerings of food and drink would be deposited. These carvings became a point of merging between the world of the living and the invisible world of the dead - a false door to the other world.

It is possible, therefore, that we could be missing the point when we dismiss the photographs of Helen Duncan and her doll Peggy as evidence of fraudulence. Marina Warner writes of Peggy:

"...the photograph shows a ghastly crude mask, with huge white face and heavily daubed mouth wrapped in an old sheet, every inch a Hallowe'en bogey. That these ghosts could ever have persuaded anyone, that these makeshift clumsy apparitions could ever have been recognized as the lost loved child by the child's own mother, reveals the depth of people's need to reach some peace with the dead" (2008, 246)

To my mind it is not so difficult to believe. The doll may act as a conduit, a vessel or a focus point through which a spirit can be channelled. The idea is not a new one, and parallels to it are in evidence throughout the ethnosphere. If spirits are believed to be disincarnate, as they very often are, then there is no reason to assume that a spirit cannot incorporate itself into an inanimate object - like pouring water into a vase - in much the same way as the Egyptians believed the spirit of the deceased could inhabit its likeness carved in stone.

When viewed from the Ancient Egyptian perspective representation and reality are blurred - an image IS what it depicts in a very real sense. A photograph of a materialised spirit is a materialised spirit, a painting on a cave wall of a horned being from another world is just that, and a model of a deceased individual is what it appears to be.

References

Dodson, A & Ikram, S. 2008. The Tomb in Ancient Egypt. Great Britain: Thames & Hudson.

Lewis, I.M. 1971. Ecstatic Religion: An Anthropological Study of Spirit Possession and Shamanism. United Kingdom: Penguin Books Ltd.

Warner, M. 2008. Phantasmagoria: Spirit Visions, Metaphors, and Media into the Twenty-first Century. Great Britain: Oxford University Press.

Spencer, A.J. 1991. Death in Ancient Egypt. Great Britain: Penguin Books Ltd.

Michael Jackson's Ghost (pt. 2)...

In a PREVIOUS POST I discussed the way in which Michael Jackson, following his death, became associated with the paranormal (in much the same way that many other celebrities have become entwined with the supernatural). I have suggested that this "cult of celebrity" is deeply connected to the realm of mediumship and spirit communication.

This current manifestation of the supernatural-celebrity mediumshp cult has taken another interesting turn: Derek Acorah is set to make contact with Michael Jackson during a live seance to be broadcast on Sky1 (read full article HERE).

Tantalising food for thought regarding the relationship between celebrity and mediumship.

Research - Contemporary Belief in Ghosts...

Folklorist Paul Cowdell is currently conducting research into contemporary beliefs about ghosts. He is partiularly interested in "questions like: what people mean when they say 'ghost'; how their beliefs or non-beliefs relate to their experiences or lack of them; and how their beliefs fit in with other beliefs they may hold."

To this end Mr. Cowdell has put together a QUESTIONNAIRE with the aim to "get as wide a set of responses as possible". If you would be interested in participating in this research, simply fill in the questionnaire and return to Paul Cowdell.

Read more.

Sweden, Trolls & Tomtar...

"Life for the trolls in the Great Forest was becoming unpleasant, for men were intruding on them more and more. When Father Troll was young, there had not been a single cottage within thirty miles, but now timber had been cut for one cottage after another, and settler after settler had cleared the forest and the earth..."

(From "When Mother Troll took in the King's Washing" by Elsa Beskow)

***

Swedish folklore is dominated by tales of two different varieties of supernatural being: the troll and the tomte. These two beings possess contradictory personalities; while the troll is an ugly, grumpy, and malevolent being prone to kidnapping young children and replacing them with their own, the tomte is a friendly and bearded chap happy to help with cleaning and other household chores.

Belief in such creatures likely dates way back into pre-christian times. It has been suggested that tales of these supernatural beings are rooted in ancient forms of ancestor worship, surviving through the years in the guise of folk stories and superstitions.

But where are the trolls and tomtar now?

A selection of souvenir tomtar in Stockholm

The mass production of trolls

Today the troll and tomte have become cultural icons in Sweden (very much like the Leprechaun in Ireland and Nessie in Scotland), and perhaps the best place to spot them in the modern world is in the tourist gift shops, far from their traditional woodland and mountain homes. Indeed an industry has grown up around these supernatural beings; manifested through mass-production and lined up on shop shelves. In this respect it might be true to say that the trolls and tomtar are more abundant today, in this secularised and consumer driven society, than ever before, only that they are diminished in their power. Their supernatural agency has been removed, leaving only a plastic shadow of what they once were*.

A shop full of tomtar in Stockholm

The troll as cultural icon and national symbol

In the process of humanisation in which the wild home of the trolls was domesticated (as expressed in the extract from the folk tale "When Mother Troll took in the King's Washing"), these supernatural entities have been pushed to the very brink: right onto the shop-shelf. As when the troll turns to stone in the daylight, now these ancient nature spirits have turned to plastic in the face of consumerism and modern tourism. Their habitat has been greatly reduced, and with it their power.

Their presence is, nevertheless, still very much in evidence.

***

"William never spoke for he stood turned to stone as he stooped; and Bert and Tom were stuck like rocks as they looked at him. And there they stand to this day, all alone, unless the birds perch on them; for trolls, as you probably know, must be underground before dawn, or they go back to the stuff of the mountains they are made of, and never move again. This is what had happened to Bert and Tom and William."

(J.R.R Tolkien, The Hobbit)

* Interestingly the tomtar statuettes often come with slips of paper explaining how "every home should have one" because they bring luck and help with the chores while the the household is asleep. The agency of the tomtar has, to some extent, been sustained. Transformed into a sort of fetish or effigy.

Mushrooms, Hunting, Ritual Performance and Rock art...

While visiting rock art sites in Sweden (Glösa and Gärdesån) I was interested to find fly-agaric mushrooms (Amanita muscaria) growing in their vicinity. Fly-agaric mushrooms have a long tradition of use for their psychoactive properties.

Fig. 1 Fly-agaric mushroom (Amanita muscaria) from Glösa, Jamtland, Sweden

Numerous writers have suggested a link between rock art and the consumption of psychoactive substances. While much of the iconography at Glösa and Gärdesån deal with naturalistic images of elk and deer, staples for hunter-gatherers in the region (Fig. 3, from Gärdesån, appears to be concerned with tracking), there are also a number of geometric images that appear to defy easy classification.

Fig. 2 Naturalistic imagery at Glösa.

Fig. 3 Tracking at Gärdesån

Fig. 4 Geometric pattern from Glösa, Jamtland, Sweden.

Such images might be considered to fit the description of “endogenous phenomena”, i.e. what Lewis-Williams and Dowson (1993) refer to as “entoptics” - subjective visual phenomena frequently occurring when under the influence of psychoactive substances. Dronfield (1996) distinguishes between two different forms of subjective visual phenomena:

• Hallucinations – consisting of “subjective images constructed from details stored in the visual memory”, for example dreams and the type of hallucination experienced through the use of psychedelic drugs.
• Endogenous phenomena - consisting of “non-iconic visual experiences which are generated by structures in the visual nervous system and whose shapes are determined by properties of those neural structures” (1996, 374)

The majority of entoptic images consist of geomet rical forms, such as “grids/lattices, parallel lines, dots, zig zags, curves, and filigrees/meanders ” (Dronfield, 1996, 374). The most abstract of the pictographs at Glösa would fit perfectly into this descriptive category.

Fig. 5 Abstract motifs from Glösa

Fig. 6 Geometric lattice from Glösa.

Fig. 7 Stylised human form from Gärdesån

Hunter-gatherer's would likely have been well aware of the psychoactive properties of the fly-agaric mushroom; being reliant upon the flora and fauna of their habitat, hunter-gatherers must necessarilly possess a significant knowledge of their properties in order to decide what is edible and what is not. It is not unlikely that these people consumed such plants for their spiritual efficacy in allowing access to the other world, perhaps as part of a form of ritual hunting magic; many of the images of animals have red spots on their bodies, possibly symbolic of hunting wounds, and the human foot tracks at Gärdesån (Fig. 3) might have been used as a form of ritualised dance used in hunting magic. The use of psychoactive substances when performing such magic may have brought the figures depicted to life thus making the magic more effective.

Just speculation, but maybe.

P.S. The information boards at Glösa mentioned that some of the animals depicted on the rocks are not easily identifiable as distinct species. Perhaps they represent mythical creatures, or animals experienced during psychedelic journeys in the other world - like the red eared dogs of Tir-Na-Nog. It is a possibility.

References

Dronfield, J. 1996. The Vision Thing: Diagnosis of Endogenous Derivation in Abstract Arts. Current Anthropology, Vol. 37, No. 2, pp. 373-391.

Lewis-Williams, J.D. & Dowson, T.A. 1993. On Vision and Power in the Neolithic: Evidence From the Decorated Monuments. Current Anthropology, Vol. 34, No. 1, pp. 55-65.

Anthropology & The Paranormal...

On March 4th 2010 I will be giving a presentation for the Society of Psychical Research on the topic of Anthropology and the Paranormal.

Over the course of the presentation I will discuss the way in which anthropologists, both historical and contemporary, have dealt with the issue of paranormal beliefs and experiences in the field through an examination of specific case studies and ethnographic examples. I will also explore the practical and theoretical benefits of an anthropological approach to the investigation of the supernatural with the aim of demonstrating the importance of immersion in, and engagement with, the paranormal if it is to be understood.