Ayahuasca Experience & "Mythical Perception"

Hamid Ghasemi

Abstract

Not only the people of ancient era, but also the modern man is strongly inspired by

the spirit of entheogens. These psychoactive sacramentals have been always reviving

something in the man can be called mythical- religious sense in a broad sense of the

word. But what can be said about such a role these chemicals play in the life of Homo

sapiens? Obviously, there are so many theories implicitly or explicitly rendered to

explain the relation between the entheogenic experience and the mythical- religious

world- view. In this paper, the author suggests: entheogens restore a primitive form of

perception of which the myth itself is the principal collective manifestation. The main

idea is suggested by Ernst Cassirer, German philosopher. In his mythology, Cassirer

introduces a level of perceptive experience as the origin of the myth. The whole

cognitive parameters constituting this kind of experience, according to him, are

capable to be restored in some of mental disorders. Given Cassirerian concepts of

'myth' and 'perception', the author of this paper suggests that Ayahuasca reproduce

those cognitive parameters which form this 'mythical perception'. This might be the

case with the other entheogens.

Keywords: mythical thought, Ayahuasca, expressive experience, animistic

perspective, sympathy.

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The World of Entheogens and the World of Myth

In eighth and ninth chapters of his book Antipodes of the Mind: charting the

phenomenology of the Ayahuasca experience, where the typology of the visions

induced by this botanical potion (1) is discussed, Benny Shanon, Israelite

Psychologist, talked about emerging mythological contents and themes in the visions.

One of problems with which this scholar deals in the last chapter of his book

'Concluding Philosophical Reflections', is the problem of cross- personal

commonalities in Ayahuasca experience among the drinkers (even) from various

cultural contexts. It needs to be accounted for. This problem is, according to Shanon,

typically comparable with the problem of commonalities in dreams and myths, as well

as the problem of the foundation of music and arithmetic. But, aside from this

similarity between Ayahuasca visions and the world of music and that of arithmetic in

terms of typically similar problems they arise, he tends also to find out a causal

relation between 'the world of Myth' and 'the world of Ayahuasca'. "It may also be the

case that" Shanon wrote:

The two [Ayahuasca & Myth] are causally, not only conceptually, linked. If

myths were discovered by their originators through the use of substance-

induced altered states of consciousness, then the world of myth is actually the

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 world of Ayahuasca. I tend to believe that this is indeed the case. (Shanon,

2002, p.395)

In fact there is a historical hypothesis according to which the use of psychoactive

materials is at the root of almost all mythical and religious traditions all over the

world. Shanon himself has strengthened this hypothesis regarding Israelite religion

several years after writing statements above (Shanon, 2008). Thus, the relationship

felt between two worlds is explained by referring to the historical role these stuffs

play in constituting ancient cultures. But the keynote for us in the passage above is

not Shanon's explanation of this relationship felt as such, rather, the very fact that so

many people familiar with entheogenic experiences tends somehow to the pre-modern

forms of cultures. There is a kind of empathy emerging with these cultures and their

mythical- religious concepts and explanations among those having entheogenic

experiences.

Certainly this empathy or feeling strange relationship can be accounted for in

several ways. For instance, Having described the use of LSD leading to experience

the mystical sense of identification with the universe as "the widespread

contemporary form of ecstasy", Robert J. Lifton, the founder of a psychological

theory in support of symbolic philosophy of Cassirer(2), wrote about the difficulty

with which American users of LSD confronts. They cannot cope with strange sense of

identification with the universe because – despite "fully capability of intense psychic

experience" – they are lack "the connecting imagery of transcendence that cultures

can provide. So they seek that imagery (along with techniques of meditation)

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elsewhere, often from Japanese or Indian tradition." According to Lifton "through

such traditional symbolizations of life-continuity and ultimate meaning, the moment

of ecstasy is given a firm context within which it can connect with prior and

subsequent experience of a more prosaic kind". Lacking such appropriate traditional

symbolizations, Lifton continued "has a lot to do with the 'bad trips' and drug-induced

psychoses observed in relation to the use of LSD" in contemporary non-Indian users

(Lifton 1983). Briefly speaking, Lifton without taking up our question directly

explains this empathy through a psychological need users have in order to redress the

shocking aspect of experience. They have recourse to the imageries of traditional

doctrines because they need to psychical digestion of the experience and make it

consistent with their every day life.

Each account trying to explain this relationship between the world of entheogens

and the world of myth is based, on the one hand, upon an account of entheogenic

experience itself and, on the other hand, upon a comprehension of the traditional

cultures. In this regard it is to be asked that which characteristic might be found in this

sort of experience to be responsible for leading us to the past of human life and which

interpretation might be suggested about the characteristic differences between

mythical-religious viewpoints and western rational and secular Weltanschauung.

That's why Huston Smith renders a completely different theory with that of Shanon

and that of Lifton, which is neither historical nor psychological. He is convinced that

eastern traditional doctrines contains 'forgotten truths' in connection with other realms

of reality which are beyond the scope of modern thought. He also emphasizes, as

Stanislav Grof, on chemicals as a spiritual aid, as a sort of catalyst for spiritual

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development (for example see: Grof 2001). Since by the help of this catalyst user

might have serious encounters with supreme states of existence, he will essentially

find mytho-poetic concepts of traditional scriptures to be more appropriate than

modern psychological concepts in explaining what is happening in the course of

experience (Smith 2000).

In addition to this Smith's ontological theory based on an esoteric interpretation of

the world of myths, there is another theory rendered by Kenneth W. Tupper in a

biological- psychological context. Accepting the concept of spiritual or – preferably –

'existential intelligence' suggested by Gardner, Tupper ventured to introduce

entheogens as 'tools to facilitate existential intelligence' (Tupper, 2002). In this theory,

since mythical- religious aspect of whole human culture are considered as products of

emerging and developing this spiritual or existential intelligence, then it is understood

why using entheogens frequently leads us to be more empathetic with this mysterious

and irreducible dimension of human life.

None of theorists – mentioned above or not – make an attempt to introduce

entheogens as tools to restore a special form of perception responsible as well to

produce mythical way of thinking not only in the consciousness of modern individual

but also in that of every human being throughout the history. Let us examine in the

paper present this hypothesis that entheogenic experiences reaches at a particular level

of perceptive experience which Ernst Cassirer labeled as 'experience of pure

expression' and took it to be the origin of the world of myth on the whole. In the

sections below I will introduce firstly Cassirerian concept of 'expressive experience'

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and secondly, confining the research to one definite entheogen, try to characterize

Ayahuasca experience as the experience of expression.

The Primitive Form of Perception

The idea that indigenous people have had a special philosophy according to which all

things possess the spirit seems to be as old as the very scientific anthropology. Trying

to study ‘primitive societies’ systematically, Sir Edward Tylor suggested a simple

definition of religion as the characteristic of ancient people. On the basis of his

definition religion is fundamentally nothing other than the belief in spiritual beings.

Tylor was convinced that by this simple definition would be possible to explain all the

indigenous cultures with all their varieties. He wrote that 'animism' is a universal

philosophy that believing in the presence of spirits in all things is its central theory.

(Tylor, 1871) Cassirer, Neo-Kantian philosopher, rejected the idea of ascribing a

definite and coherent philosophy to the ancient people. According to his methodology,

mythological study must be directed toward the form of ‘primitive mind’ rather than

its content. There is no special theory common to all indigenous people, but a form of

thinking he called ‘mythical’ in comparison with empirical thinking of modern man

(for his critical discussion on Tylor’s and his successor, Frazer’s methodology

especially in The Golden Bough (1932), see please: Cassirer 1946). Cassirer accepted

Levi-Bruhl’s famous concept of ‘primitive mentality’ in the sense that an

anthropologist must seek basic differences of modern and primitive thoughts in the

very a priori logical categories of mind. What in Levi-Bruhl’s idea is not admitted by

Cassirer is his radical emphasis on this difference so that Levi-Bruhl forgot the

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methodological necessity of accepting a common denominator between modern and

primitive mentalities. Without such common denominator would remain no way to

understand indigenous people through the modern mentality of a western scholar.

According to Cassirer, main categories of thought in primitive and modern minds are

the same, their differences, however, lies exactly in the modalities of these a priori

categories. “When we compare the empirical-scientific and the mythical world-

views,” Cassirer wrote: “it becomes evident that the contrast between them does not

reside in their use of entirely different categories in contemplating and interpreting

reality. It is not the quality of these categories but their modality which distinguishes

myth from empirical- scientific knowledge…” (Cassirer, 1925, p.60). Thus, he

recognized the root of the difference not in the content of thought, in the beliefs and

theories, rather in the form of thought in a Kantian sense of the word, namely, in the

constituting categories and main a priori concepts of the mind, however, not exactly

in the very categories and concepts but in the modality of them. In a debate recently

emerged between two anthropologists Marshall Sahlins and Gananath Obeyesekere, a

similar situation can be observed with what has been previously happened between

Tylor and Frazer on one part, and Lucien Levi-Bruhl on the other. Obeyesekere in his

critiques of Sahlins is accused of assigning a practical rationality to Hawaiian people.

While, Sahlins tried to explain the historical event of deification of Captain Cook on

Hawaii by referring to the pre-logical mentality of the natives (Obeyesekere, 1997,

Sahlins, 1996). Continuation of the problem of ‘how natives think’ in the form of a

controversy might be interpreted, to some degree, as a result of not completely

understanding methodological aspect of the problem in question. This is, however, not

to be discussed here.

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 In the last analysis mythical form of thought can be held in turn to be the final

product of a special form of perception which logically and temporarily should be

precedent in the evolutionary model of cognition both in the individual history and

collective history of the man. Cassirer calls this so called ‘primitive form of

perception’ as the 'experience of expression'. Let us set aside the theoretical

necessities leading Cassirer in his mythology to the idea of expressive experience.

Now by quoting directly from Cassirer, I am just trying to define shortly the

experience of expression. "We must go back to this stratum of expression in our

reconstruction," he wrote:

for this is the ground from which myth grew, and an understanding of it is

indispensable to us in explaining and deriving certain features of the empirical

world view. For, theoretical reality itself was not originally experienced as a

totality of physical bodies, endowed with definite attributes and qualities.

Rather, there is a kind of experience of reality which is situated wholly outside

this form of scientific explanation and interpretation. It is present wherever the

being that is apprehended in perception confronts us not as a reality of things,

of mere objects, but as a kind of presence of living subjects. How such an

experience of alien subjects, an experience of the 'thou,' is possible may

present itself as a difficult metaphysical or epistemological question… In any

event, immersion in the phenomenon of perception show us one thing – that

the perception of life is not exhausted by the mere perception of things, that

the experience of the 'thou' can never be dissolved into an experience of the

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 mere 'it,' or reduced to it even by the most complex conceptual meditations.

Even from a purely genetic standpoint, there seems to be no doubt to which of

the two forms of perception we should accord priority. The farther back we

trace perception, the greater becomes the preeminence of the 'thou' form over

the 'it' form, and the more plainly the purely expressive character takes

precedence over the matter or thing- character. The understanding of

expression is essentially earlier than the knowledge of things. (Cassirer, 1929,

p: 62-3)

Thus Cassirer admitted as a phenomenological fact that the world of myth is full of

vivid beings, but this is not something about ancient philosophy, something arisen

from theoretical worldview of the primitive people. Animistic attitude is rooted

somehow at the original form of perception (3). At the stage of this original form

there is no 'thing' in the proper sense of the word, nor attribute; there is no object, nor

subject; not also the concept of living, nor that of dead. The most fundamental

characteristic of this primitive perception lies exactly on the very lack of abstract

categories. That is why defining the experience of pure expression as the experience

of living subjects needs to more explanation. In this definition, by application of the

word 'subject' Cassirer is not saying that the boundary between inner world and outer

world is already constituted. On the contrary, it is important to note that he is speaking

of such preliminary stage of consciousness in which there is still no clear- cut

distinction between outward and inward. Then, we are here far from individual

subjects. Our 'living subjects' possess firstly neither individuality, nor special separate

lives of their own, but at this stage of perception "life is still a single unbroken stream

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of becoming, a dynamic flow which only very gradually divides into separate waves.

Consequently, although the mythical consciousness imprints the form of life on

everything it lays hold of, this giving of life to all things is not equivalent from the

very start to pan-animation; at first, life itself shows a vague and flowing, thoroughly

pre- animistic character." (Cassirer, 1929, p: 71) In the process of designating these

vague living subjects by names, they would take personality and become separate

momentary gods. These personified gods delineate boundaries between themselves

and their slaves (egos). As a result of this gradually delimiting the life, the separation

of inward and outward would emerge and the concept of dead things (which are fallen

beyond the inner world of subjects) is subsequently constituted.

As shown, in the process described above the knowledge of I, in other words, the

constitution of the ego stands not at the beginning but at the end. Then, all the

theoretical attempts for explaining our knowledge of the other subject, as long as they

presuppose the gap of inward and outward as a point of departure would be of no

avail. Cassirer's research on mythical consciousness affirms Scheler's idea that the

awareness of the other ego is precedent to I- consciousness. We cannot prove the

existence of the other subjects satisfactorily by means of any theoretical means such

as 'analogy theory', because 'evidence of the thou' is certain and irreducible datum

needing not to be proved at all. (Cassirer, 1929, p: 85) The presence of things around

as 'the thou' is stronger where, obviously, the individuality is not yet completely

constituted and strengthened, namely, in the child and in the primitives, and where

this individuality might be hurt, that is, in the insane. Under these circumstances,

sympathy as an original way of apprehending 'the thou', whether human or non-

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human is the special way of knowing. Sympathy, with all forms it can takes, is the

c e n t r a l t h e m e o f M a x S c h e l e r ' s b o o k ' We s e n u n d F o r m e n d e r

Sympathiegefule' (English translation: The Nature of Sympathy, 2008).

Ayahuasca Experience

There are serious symptoms leading the author to this conclusion that this is possible

to characterize Ayahuasca Experience as the 'expressive experience'. Shanon in the

chapter five, 'Open- Eye Visualizations', where "an interim step between the overall,

non- ordinary atmosphere that Ayahuasca induces and the visions it

generates" (visions are not yet experienced) is described, wrote:

In the course of a session, the Ayahuasca drinker may look at objects and feel

that they embody hidden animae (I use this term expressly, in order to avoid

the more natural term 'soul' which commits one to connotations that may not

be meant here). This experience is extremely common. For instance, in his

description of his first experience with Ayahuasca, Luna notes that under the

intoxication, the feathers on the ayahuasquero's crown and the skins of

animals hanging on the walls seemed to come alive (see also the description

by Goldman). (Shanon, 2002, p: 71-2)

Worth considering, this is a quality in the experience which forces itself upon

drinker's consciousness, and not related to drinker's viewpoint or philosophy. Shanon

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wrote: "under the effect of Ayahuasca, the animistic perspective is directly

experienced even by persons who in their ordinary life are very distant from such a

mode of thinking". (Shanon, 2002, p: 333) Of course such a special experience impels

drinker to take an appropriate philosophical position or believe in ideas can be a good

description for his/her experience. In the chapter ten, 'Ideas, Insights and Reflections',

Shanon wrote:

Still another metaphysical view that appears in the reports of many informants

is one that may be subsumed under the general heading of animism. In Ch. 5 I

discussed the experiential aspect of animism; here I consider the ideational

aspects. Ideationally, the animistic world-view may take different forms. The

more metaphysical one consists of the appreciation that physical reality is

permeated by forces of life and perhaps also by what may be regarded as

cosmic or divine intelligence. 'All is energy', 'everything breathes', 'it is all the

manifestation of cosmic consciousness', 'God permeates everything', are

specific expressions that several of my informants used in describing what the

brew made them feel… Other forms of the animistic world-view are

spiritualistic and involve beliefs in spirits, ghosts, and other paranormal beings

and entities. (Shanon, 2002, p: 167-8)

The distinction that Shanon makes phenomenologically between mere experiential

aspect of this experience and its ideational one accords interestingly with the insight

given by Cassirerian mythology on the basis of which main features of mythical

thought must be rooted at the level of perceptive experience. Such features as

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animistic and anthropomorphic perspectives in the mythical thought are not indeed so

much reflections of the philosophical- speculative trends, but manifestations of a kind

of perceptive experience which is laid beneath any forms and contents of thought. It

means that these ideas and beliefs are fruits of an especial mental climate, and

whenever this mental climate returns and dominates the atmosphere of the mind we

can expect the same fruits. Since the climate in which the world of myth subsists is

original and natural to the mind, let us compare it to the climate outside the home

which is out there independent of the atmosphere inside the home we make artificially

by cooler, heater, ventilator or any other artificial means. Needless to say, for

experiencing natural atmosphere, there is no need to turn on something; it is enough

to go out! Non- metaphorically speaking, as Cassirer points out, "wherever the

inhibitions created by conscious reflection, by our causal analysis and analytical

classification, fall away" the intuition of primitive men tends to reappear. He had

considered this falling away the inhibitions in Paul Schilder's clinical cases. In his

'Wahn und Erkenntnis', Schilder reports the reappearance of some mythological

beliefs in mental disorders. (Cassirer, 1925, p: 42, 183) Thus, in the frame of

Cassirer's mythology, the restoration of mythical thought in the modern mentality is

practically observable and, through designating 'expressive experience' as the ground

of the world of myth, is theoretically accountable. However, the possibility of this

restoration in the states induced by psychoactive materials never comes into his

notice.

Ayahuasca produces those cognitive parameters which are theoretically expected to

be simultaneous with emerging mythological ideas and images in the mind. Another

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parameter, in addition to animistic perspective, is the feeling of intensified empathy.

In the chapter four, 'Atmosphere and General Effects', Shanon wrote:

… Ayahuasca generally induces great feelings of love and affection between

people. During Ayahuasca sessions drinkers often feel that they understand

their fellow human beings well and they often feel empathy and compassion

towards them. Personally, I have experienced this many times… The feelings

of love and affinity are not confined to human beings. Similar feelings towards

both animals and plants are also very common… Also common is the feeling

that one can understand the life of plants and see how they grow and interact

with their environment. Indeed, Ayahuasca induces a general feeling of a great

closeness, even a tie, to nature at large. On the one hand, people come to

regard the planet and all that exists on it as a living entity; on the other hand,

they see themselves as part and parcel of that unified whole which is life.

(Shanon, 2002, p: 63-4)

In the passage above, Shanon implicitly mentions the relation felt between this

intensified empathy and the animistic perception. This relation in the heart of the very

experience is too valid to be mentioned again and this time expressly:

The feelings of enhanced understanding may be coupled with sentiments of

great empathy and even identification. All these may be felt not only towards

human beings but also towards animals, plants, and even inanimate objects…

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 Experiences of this kind, note may be related to the various patterns of

animistic thinking mentioned above… (Shanon, 2002, p: 74)

As explained shortly in the previous section, feeling deep sympathy with things

around as well as animistic world-view is the characteristic of the expressive

experience. But, it is also said that the most fundamental characteristic of the latter, is

the lack of any strict boundary between subject and object, inward and outward. Then,

if it is to be true that Ayahuasca produces the expressive experience, we should

confront, first and foremost, with the phenomenon of blurring this boundary in

drinkers. "With Ayahuasca", Shanon wrote:

the divide between the self and non-self is blurred and the balance between

the internal and the external changes. Thus, the differentiation between

cognitive agent and the world is weakened and a stronger connectedness

between the two is experienced. Employing a biological analogy, one might

say that the membrane constituting the barrier between the cognitive agent and

the world becomes more porous, more permeable. Normally, we do not

appreciate the existence of this membrane and the constraints imposed by it.

But, surely, a barrier there always is – otherwise human beings would lose

their individuation and would not be able to function in the world as

independent, autonomous agents who maintain solid permanence through

time. With Ayahuasca, however, this may change. (Shanon, 2002, p: 339)

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 As Shanon correctly says, the existence of this boundary to some extent is requisite

for organism to survive. Consequently, the phenomenon of absolute dissipation of this

boundary in Ayahuasca drinkers, if it happens at all, would not be a permanent state. It

is always the case. In the primitives, the pure experience of expression could not have

been as a complete dominant state of the mind. It is just possible to say that this form

of perceptive experience has played the more serious role in a primitive mentality

than plays in a modern one. There is probably a perfect experience of expression only

in certain months of childhood before he/she begins to learn the language.

At any rate, phenomenological study confirms too that the weakness of this

membrane is responsible for strengthening both the empathy and the animistic world-

view in Ayahuasca drinkers. Shanon immediately continued:

Various manifestations of this have been described throughout this book. First

and foremost, under the intoxication, drinkers feel that they are more

connected to nature and the cosmos at large… Further, drinkers feel closer to

other human beings and living organisms. The sentiments of love, empathy,

and compassion common with Ayahuasca are corollaries of this effect.

(Shanon, 2002, p: 340)

Various manifestations of this lack of clear- cut boundary between self and not-self

are not confined to the dimension of mere perceptive experience, but affect the whole

visualizations, reflections and thought, Shanon continued:

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 As we have noted above, in the limit, the barrier between the self and the

world may dissipate to such a degree that individuality is indeed lost and the

mental and the real become one. The visions Ayahuasca induces may be

related to the changes in balance and connectedness. Specifically, the

visionary experience may be conceived as resulting from a shift towards

externalization. With it, what one sees is experienced not as the product of the

internal (that is, mental) creative activity but rather as the reflection of an

external (hence, independent) reality. (Shanon, 2002, p: 340)

The fact that mythical mentality does not distinguish the real from the mental, the

external from the internal, and the world of reality from the world of dreams is

frequently emphasized by mythologists and anthropologists. This is the point that

Cassirer took to be important in Tylor's research and added: "there can be no doubt

that the characteristic structure of certain basic mythical concepts is intelligible only if

we consider that for mythical thinking and mythical 'experience' there is always a

hovering between the world of dream and the world of objective reality." (Cassirer,

1925, p: 36) Being among primitive people for a while, C. G. Jung also emphasizes

the same point and, in his article 'Archaic Man', suggests that primitives are so- called

'un-psychological' because psychical events, as it were, happens outside him/her as

objective events (Jung, 1933; 1969, par.71, 325; 1959, par 7.; 1970, par. 610, 614). It

makes sense providing that by 'psychology' we mean strictly knowing 'the psychical

as the psychical'. For, it is not correct to say that ancient people have no knowledge

whatsoever at all regarding the inner life. Jung and so many scholars like him, rejects

Levi – Bruhl's term 'participation mystique' and substitute it for a simpler and more

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comprehensible one 'projection' borrowed from psychological terminology. That is to

say, by projecting their inner life upon external occurrences and then, of which

becoming aware, primitives achieve a kind of psychical insight that, inasmuch as it is

essentially and in a special way symbolic, is obviously other than our psychology(4).

However, the term 'projection' itself is not devoid of any mistake, as far as by this

metaphorical expression we propose to describe that psychical process functioning

after the constitution of individuality. As Cassirer explained, taking the internal and

the external to be identical is not so much a product of a special psychical function,

but a heritage of an original cognitive state. In the case we are, Ayahuasca, literally

speaking, does not activate a particular function in the mind, rather, deactivate all

those functions feeding momentarily the membrane between the self and the world

around. Shanon never use the term 'projection' in this regard. It seems that a kind of

sympathetic participation with things and beings, without contributing any

metaphysical forces, is our initial capability that gradually fades out as a result of

natural process of heightening the struggles for survival on the part of organism.

This 'theory of deactivating' that explains Ayahuasca experience as a kind of

restoring the primitive perception, is, indeed, the same favorite theory of Aldous

Huxley which is now expanded systematically in a pure philosophical context, when

he, quoting from C. D Broad, talks about 'eliminative function of the brain and

nervous system' instead of productive one. "According to such a theory," he wrote:

each one of us is potentially Mind at Large. But insofar as we are animals, our

business is at all costs to survive. To make biological survival possible, Mind

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 at Large has to be funneled through the reductive valve of the brain and

nervous system. What comes out at the other end is a measly trickle of the

kind of consciousness which will help us to stay alive on the surface of this

particular planet. (Huxley, 1971)

Of course, by so called 'Mind at Large' we understand, in the frame of the present

paper, no more than the primitive state of consciousness. This Huxley’s filter theory

later developed by Naranjo and Ornestein (1971) and Steve Taylor made use of it to

suggest an answer to the question of why disrupting homeostasis can result in higher

states of consciousness, (Taylor, 2005)

Conclusion: A New Concept for so called ‘State Specific Sciences’

In addition to the sense of identification with things, animistic perspective and

intensified empathy, there are other cognitive parameters observable both in

Ayahuasca experience and in characteristics of the experience of expression:

confusing the thing and its image, in other words, confusing the literal and the

metaphorical, the real and the symbolical. Also it is worthy of note that in Ayahuasca

experience the sense of time is the same that Cassirer characterize as mythical sense

of the time in his main work in mythology 'Mythical Thought' (Cassirer, 1925).

Explaining these cases need to another paper. In this part, I would explain how

Cassirer’s symbolic philosophy can serve new studies regarding subjective

experience.

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 By means of the concept of ‘primitive form of perception’, Cassirer helps us to

understand what might be the ordinary state of consciousness in the mythical era of

human life, what has been labeled ‘mystical experience’ in the esoteric layer of

religious traditions, and what has been expressed in technical term of ‘Altered States

of Consciousness’ or rather, ‘Higher States of Consciousness’ during the reign of

science. In his article States of Consciousness and State-Specific Sciences, Charles

Tart (1972) compared the concept of paradigm with that of ‘State of consciousness’

inasmuch as both of them operate automatically and the person feels he is seeing the

obvious or natural thing. They are a kind of super theory, a kind of ‘hyper- thesis’

upon which any other little theories or theses are based. Then, modern rational science

based on an ordinary state of mind, is just a possible valid science among the others

not yet produced. Insisting on the characteristic of dependency of every science on its

own germane state of consciousness, he invented the idea of ‘State-Specific Sciences’

which by himself and other scholars has been later elaborated ( for example see

please: Tart, 1979, 1998). While standard rational science rejects some psychical

realms to be capable to be studied in an objective manner, Tart’s idea of state-specific

sciences opened the road to study scientifically what has been holding to be into the

subjective world. In line with Tart, and trying to prepare an epistemologically valid

frame for studying altered states of consciousness, Hartelius talked of a sort of

phenomenology he called ‘Quantitative Somatic Phenomenology’ (Hartelius, 2007).

According to him, “the basic metaphors of science are not about feeling, but seeing –

reflecting Western ocularcentrism” because “for science, any information gained

through such a [ felt ] sense is deemed subjective, inherently unreliable, and, like

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emotion, a hindrance to rational inquiry” (p.41) and “the felt sense obtains

information not only about inner life, but” he wrote:

Also regarding the environment. As such it is not merely an introspective

sense gathering idiosyncratic data from private experience, but a sense that

gathers a range of data on both sides of the purported subject-object divide.

Given that the felt sense operates much more effectively from a non-standard

state of consciousness, this suggests that the subject-object divide may be little

more than an artifact of the state used by standard rational inquiry. If this is so,

then the mind-body problem may be a state-specific problem that will be more

tractable from the perspective of phenomenological consciousness. (Hartelius,

2007, p.39)

This mind-body problem as a state-specific problem is confirmed in Cassirer’s

thought in different words. He convinced that “the dualistic splitting reality into an

outside and inside” is not an empirical fact, rather, “the product of a definite

theoretical interpretation” (Cassirer, 1929, p.84). Such a conclusion, in his thought, is

similarly the result of a phenomenological analysis too. By referring to Max Scheler’s

phenomenological theory of perception, he wrote:

The perceptive experience can - in the act of so-called outward perception –

assume the function designating an individual’s body as an object in nature, in

the physical world; or it may assume the function of symbolizing an ego –

either one’s own ego or another – by an act of inner perception. At first this

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 experience is an intuition neither of a corporeal world nor of a merely psychic

reality. What is apprehended in it is rather a unitary life stream, so to speak,

which is still wholly neutral toward the subsequent analysis into physical and

psychic. Whether this original neutral foundation is later formed into the

intuition of a corporeal object or of a living subject depends essentially on the

direction of formation, the mode of vision: whether it is a separating

(Auseinanderschau) or an identifying vision (Ineinanderschau) (Cassirer,

1929, p 86).

Apparently, any inquiry directed into the subjective, if it is to have a valid

methodology other than inadequate methodology of standard science, has no other

recourse but to take the phenomenology as its general frame – but to do Epoché in

order to set aside what Husserl labeled as natural attitude embodied in standard

scientific perspective. Cassirer’s concept of perception and its dependency upon

phenomenological analysis allows us to make use of his philosophy justifiably in a

state-specific science. In comparison with Hartelius, his phenomenology is Schelerian

instead of Husserlian (for a brief but important critique of Husserl in this regard, by

Max Scheler see please: Scheler, 1928, p.53-54 where he remarked that suspending

the existential judgment is not enough to de-actualize the world), and his pivotal

concept is the ‘experience of pure expression’, instead of ‘felt sense observation’.

Both of them, however, verify that there is one unified reality with more than one

possible standpoint to experience and interpret it; each standpoint corresponds to its

own state of consciousness demanding a particular language of its own.

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Notes

1- Ayahuasca is a brew made of two plants: Banisteriopsis Caapi and Psychotria viridis.

Chemically the main active constituents are DMT, and MAO inhibitator.

2- Lifton affirmed: "This point of view is strongly influenced by the symbolic philosophy of

Cassirer and [his follower, Susan] Langer." (See: Feifel, 1977, p: 275)

3- It is very important to note that in Cassirer's Philosophy of Symbolic Forms the concept of

'perception' is not the same applied commonly in psychology, because, "to this way of

thinking" as an empirical research, Cassirer wrote:

There cannot be recognition of any strictly original factors in perception: for the

whole meaning and content of perception consist in the faithful reflection and

reproduction of the relations of the outside world… [But] the critical formulation of

the question would seem to be the exact opposite of this. It moves not from things to

phenomenon, but from phenomenon to things. Accordingly, it must look on

perception and its properties, not as conditioned from outside, but as conditioning –

that is, as a constitutive factor in our knowledge of things. (Cassirer, 1929 p: 59)

4- This so- called traditional psychology is the main topic of a detailed paper by Ananda H.

Coomaraswamy under the title of 'On the Indian and Traditional Psychology, or rather

Pneumatology'.

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About the Author:

Hamid Ghasemi has a PhD in philosophy from SHAHID BEHESHTI University,

Tehran, Iran.

Correspondence regarding this article should be directed to the author at:

nima.gh1980@gmail.com

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