Quotes by James David Lewis-Williams

To understand the ‘wounded men’ of Upper Palaeolithic art, I now consider somatic hallucinations; these include attenuation of the body and limbs, polymelia (having extra limbs or digits), and, the one on which I focus, pricking and stabbing sensations.

Shamans submit to death in order to serve their communities.

The Upper Palaeolithic figures known as ‘wounded men’ occur at Cougnac and Pech Merle, two sites in the Quercy district of France.

The ‘wounded men’ may, I argue, represent a form of shamanistic suffering, ‘death’ and initiation that was closely associated with somatic hallucinati

Sexual arousal and penal erections are associated with both altered states of consciousness and sleep.

It is the task of San shamans to activate their supernatural potency, to cause it to ‘boil’ up their spines until it explodes in their heads and takes them off to the spirit realms – that is, they enter a state of trance at the far end of the intensified trajectory.

According to Martindale’s view, as we drift into sleep we pass through: – waking, problem-oriented thought, – realistic fantasy, – autistic fantasy, – reverie, – hypnagogic (falling asleep) states, and – dreaming.

In altered states of consciousness, the nervous system itself becomes a ‘sixth sense’ that produces a variety of images including entoptic phenomena.

The behaviour of the human nervous system in certain altered states creates the illusion of dissociation from one’s body (less commonly understood in hunting and gathering shamanistic societies as possession by spirits).

San religion is built around belief in a tiered universe. As do other shamanistic peoples throughout the world, the San believe in a realm above and another below the surface of the world on which they live.

There were at least four contexts in which San shamans acquired insights into the spiritual world: – the trance dance, – special curing rituals, – viewing rock art, and – dreams.

The principal aim of a vision quest is to ‘see’ a spirit animal that will become the quester’s animal-helper and source of his power.

Entering a cave” or rock was a metaphor for a shaman’s altered state; therefore, caves (and rocks more generally) were considered entrances or portals to the supernatural world.

A shaman’s activities as a sorcerer, or his own conscious act of entry into the supernatural world, were a kind of “killing”.

Rock art sites were symbolic vaginas, and entry into the wall of a rock art site was thus akin to intercourse.