The Dream on the Rock

Peter Webster, Fulvio Gosso

Description

The Dream on the Rock takes an interdisciplinary approach to contextualizing and historicizing the phenomenon of shamanism from the Neolithic Age until the beginning of the Iron Age. Fulvio Gosso and Peter Webster argue that rock art and other ancient materials provide a glimpse of the fundamental role played by nonordinary states of consciousness in our social and evolutionary prehistory. Ultimately, the authors offer a comprehensive exploration of shamanism, religion, and the origins of human consciousness, along with evidence that hallucinogenic plants may have played a key role in this process.
List of Tables and Illustrations
Acknowledgments
Introduction

1. Foundations of the Research

2. Sites of the Research

3. The Significance of the Research

4. Origins of Psychedelia (Peter Webster)

Notes
Index

Sujets

• Archaeology
• Psychology

Informations

• Publié par: State University of New York Press
• Date de parution: 02 décembre 2013
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781438448763
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

T HE D REAM ON THE
ROCK
T HE D REAM ON THE
ROCK
visions of prehistory
Fulvio Gosso and Peter Webster
Published by State University of New York Press, Albany
© 2013 State University of New York
Il Sogno Sulla Roccia—Visioni dalla Preistoria © 2011 Edizioni Altravista
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America
No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission. No part of this book may be stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means including electronic, electrostatic, magnetic tape, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the prior permission in writing of the publisher.
For information, contact State University of New York Press, Albany, NY www.sunypress.edu
Production by Eileen Nizer Marketing by Michael Campochiaro
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Gosso, Fulvio, [Il sogno sulla roccia English] The dream on the rock : visions of prehistory / Fulvio Gosso and Peter Webster. pages cm Includes bibliographical references and index. Summary: “Examines the relationship between rock art, shamanism, and the origins of human existence”—Provided by publisher. ISBN 978-1-4384-4875-6 (hardcover : alk. paper) 1. Petroglyphs. 2. Rock paintings. 3. Art, Prehistoric. 4. Shamanism in art. I. Title. GN799.P4G6645 2013 709.01'13—dc23
2013000109
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
If it were clear that madness is evil, that would suffice.
Yet mankind receives the greatest of good things
Precisely as a result of that state of delirium given as a divine gift.
Thus the Delphic prophetess and the priestesses at Dodona,
When they are seized by mania do Greece many good things,
Both for the public and for individuals.
But when they are possessed of normal sanity, they do little or nothing.
—Plato, Phaedrus 224ab
Contents
List of Tables and Illustrations
Acknowledgments
Introduction
1 Foundations of the Research
2 Sites of the Research
3 The Significance of the Research
4 Origins of Psychedelia (Peter Webster)
Notes
Index
List of Tables and Illustrations
Table I.1 Chronology
Table I.2 Potential Sources of Archaic Visionary Consciousness
Table I.3 Psychoactive Substances of Archaic Use
Figure 1.1 Perimetric wall of small mound (Boyne Valley, Ireland)
Figure 1.2 Carved rock before the entrance at Newgrange’s mound (Boyne Valley, Ireland)
Figure 1.3 Max Knoll’s Phosphenes Table
Figure 2.1 Pegtymel, anthropomorphic fungal figures (Far Eastern Siberia)
Figure 2.2 Swedish ships and Danish shaver with fungal images
Figure 2.3 Anthropomorphic figure—Mount Roccerè (Piedmont, Italy)
Figure 2.4 Statue-stele Filetto I (Tuscany, Italy)
Figure 2.5 Statue-stele Filetto VIII (Tuscany, Italy)
Figure 2.6 Laxe dos Gebros (Galicia, Spain)
Figure 2.7 Examples of “spirals” in Neolithic Rock Art
Figure 2.8 Cup marks on Mount Roccerè (Piedmont, Italy)
Acknowledgments
The Dream on the Rock was originally published in Italian as Il Sogno Sulla Roccia — Visioni dalla Preistoria by Edizioni Altravista in 2011.
Our sincere thanks to our good friends Gianluca, Erika, and Sharon for their invaluable assistance in preparing the translation from the Italian.
Introduction
The ancient world of gods and demigods is for us difficult to imagine. Even the appalling living conditions of prehistory are beyond our comprehension. Yet in those dark and mysterious times lived the first experts in modified states of consciousness, the perhaps inaptly-named shamans , so important to all the ancient tribes of man.
We say inaptly because, strictly speaking, as Mircea Eliade tells us, these persons were at one and the same time the sorcerer, the healer, the priest: “Now, shamanism is precisely one of the archaic techniques of ecstasy—at once mysticism, magic, and ‘religion’ in the broadest sense of the term.” Shamanism was, par excellence, a religious phenomenon in Siberia and Central Asia. The word comes down to us through the Russian, “ Tungus shaman. ” 1
The first information on the practices of shamanism appeared only at the very end of the European Renaissance, the most reliable reports date back to the early 1700s. 2 Lacking any precise references about the use of Amanita muscaria , however, it is therein implied that the Siberian shaman seemed to reach nonordinary states of consciousness without resorting to psychoactive substances. Rather, strange powers and “natural gifts” were passed down within the family from generation to generation. Shamanism was merely a transmitted phenomenon, such as the color of eyes or of hair; it was not for everyone to know the secrets. This is the first constant of shamanism.
The transformation of normal to shamanic consciousness is almost always the result of a personal experience of illness and healing, a mental and/or physical illness or traumatic event that evokes an experience of death and rebirth. This second constant characteristic is well known even in contemporary society—though little used—when the “sick man” who is healed and thus knows himself is able to heal in turn.
A further constant of shamanism, characteristic of other times and other places, is the union of reality and dream, of matter and spirit, a synthesis of the daily event and the inexplicable event. Concerning the importance of meaning there are no boundaries. It is, rather, the vision, the spiritual context that is prevalent and which provides guidance on making personal and collective choices.
The shaman is also a consummate and astute actor, always over the top, flamboyant, gaudy and noisy, masked, painted, strangely pompous, overblown and moody, an actor capable of playing multiple roles, catching the attention as would a magician. And sometimes maybe it is merely showmanship, yet at root the show is in truth like a modern psychodrama. Undoubtedly, the shaman is of the trickster archetype, the divine prankster, enjoying an awareness of the Self and others which enables modification of the Self. The shamanic practice: a circumventing of the rational, of necessity employing deception, but with good intentions.
To summarize briefly, whether shamanism is manifested through inheritance, or augmented by natural or innate ability, it is universally born from a spiritual vision, the “call,” which is almost an obligation to respond. The rite of passage that becomes manifest is, however, always a psychological event of death and rebirth of the Self, the “Ego.” It requires a cultural context that accepts and integrates the shamanic event, that supports the shaman’s power to interact and respond to life’s theatre of events.
The shaman’s methods work across the board on the sensory-motor apparatus, and the auditory is particularly important. Often, rhythmically simple sounds are repeated, monotonous themes are performed vocally or with simple wind or string instruments. Long, sing-song, and musically essential: the Carnatic singing of southern India and singing of Sufi Zikr are well-evolved examples, as is the sound of Australian didgeridoo and the music and songs of Morocco’s Atlas Mountains or Sébénikoro in Mali.
Almost all so-called “ethnic music” is shamanic—the genuine article, of course, and not abridged or commercial versions. The principal instrument in this production is the drum, sometimes, as in Siberian tradition, assisted by bells. (In the 1950s such music was forbidden by the Soviet regime in an effort to suppress the shamanic practices of Kamtchatka, practices that did not fit the official conception of “genuine socialism.”)
Eliade devotes several pages of his book to the role of the drum, the construction of which is in itself a precise ritual. The choice of wood, the leather and its tanning, the methods of assembly … nothing is left to chance. The percussion is simple, monotonous, smooth and steady, prolonged, often accompanied by a song with no true melody, story, or the invocation of a song. Dance is not a requirement but often accompanies the sound, even as an almost involuntary rhythmic movement, or as postures that may imitate hunting or the movements of the hunted animal.
The relationship with all of nature, with both plants and animals, is fundamental. One never hears or reads of urban shamans. Instead, the context is universally the “vast wilderness,” and as German ethnologist Hans Peter Duerr explains, 3 the vastness is not only a physical dimension but also an existential category. Of particular interest is the relationship—almost fusion—with the animal-guide with which the shaman identifies himself. The identification is complete: the shaman “becomes” a bear, a wolf, a bird.
To take upon himself an animal consciousness can be “understood” only with reference to the deep and irremediable diversity of the metacommunicative context of the shaman of another age, an age when proximity to the “model” animal was much more significant than in modern times. It was a closeness both on the behavioral and biological plan, a closeness of imitation and competition in the activity of hunting, in nutritional similarities, in the aural and kinaesthetic domains, in reproductive activity and in group movements.
A final aspect typical of shamanism concerns the real magic, in particular the techniques of healing that involve