Interpreting and Researching Journeys
What is this awesome mystery that is taking place within me?....
My intellect sees what has happened, but it cannot explain it.
It can see, and wishes to explain,
But can find no word that will suffice…
—Symeon, The New Theologian 235
INTERPRETATIONS
How are we to understand the nature of journey experiences? For shamans this question is not even an issue: the realms, worlds, and spirits are all real, as real as this world, and perhaps even more so.146 However, this position is unlikely to satisfy contemporary Westerners who are more likely to regard the experiences as examples—dramatic examples, granted—of vivid imagery or imagination.
Philosophically speaking, we have here two different ontological perspectives. The shamanic view is a realist one since it regards the phenomena found in the journey as real, objective, and independent of the shaman’s mind. The shaman views the journey as truly “exosomatic” (outside the body) rather than as “imaginal” (mind-created imagery).173
This perspective is consistent with the shamanic worldview, which holds that other worlds and spirits exist independent of the human mind and can be accessed directly through cosmic traveling. Since this worldview may have been derived from shamanic journeys, the consistency is hardly surprising. Some people who have out-of-body and near-death experiences interpret them similarly. They believe that the soul separates from the body, journeys through realms, and meets beings that are quite separate from themselves.
Certainly the idea that there is a soul and that it can leave the body to travel to other realms is an ancient one. Plato described the soul as imprisoned in the body like an oyster in his shell. Likewise Socrates claimed that the mind only perceives absolute truths “when she takes leave of the body and has as little as possible to do with it, then she has no bodily sense or desire, but is aspiring after true being.”182
More common today is the imaginal perspective that interprets shamanic journey experiences as mind-created images. These images may be interpreted as either pathological or beneficial. Pathological interpretations of such images label them as hallucinations, whereas positive interpretations see them as helpful, healing products of the imagination.
A more radical perspective is that of Tibetan Buddhism. Here the realms to which yogis travel in dreams or meditation are regarded as mind creations, but so too is everything in ordinary waking experience. This world and all worlds are ultimately regarded as creations of consciousness or mind. As Ramana Maharshi summarized: “There is no difference between the dream and waking states except that the former is short and the latter long. Both are the product of the mind.”270 Waking from all dreams, both sleeping and waking, is said to occur only with enlightenment. When asked for proof for this position, the yogi might give either a philosophical argument or the centuries-old advice: “To see if this be true, look within your own mind.” Of course, none of these perspectives deny that the journey may yield significant benefits.
Shamanism in a Post-Metaphysical Age
Metaphysical claims for the existence of independent ontological realms—whether heavens and hells or the worlds and spirits of shamanic journeys—cannot hope to withstand the onslaught of contemporary philosophical criticism. Over two centuries ago, Immanuel Kant—widely regarded as the most important European philosopher of the modern era—launched a devastating critique against metaphysical claims of any kind. Kant demonstrated that experience and perception are largely constructed by the perceiver’s mind and that there are inescapable limits on our knowledge of “things-in-themselves.” The claim that there are mind-independent ontological realms, such as shamanic worlds just waiting for us to journey to and objectively perceive, cannot withstand Kant’s famous Critique of Pure Reason. So devastating is Kant’s critique that contemporary philosophy is described as post-Kantian and post-metaphysical, and any spiritual tradition that simply assumes the presence of realms that can be objectively perceived and described is doomed to theoretical oblivion.411
Of course, there is an obvious escape clause. Kant’s critique is of metaphysical or ontological claims, not of experiential descriptions. One can legitimately talk of spiritual experiences in general, or of shamanic experiences in particular, and there is no problem. Specific spiritual practices evoke specific experiences, and these experiences can be insightful, valuable, healing, and even liberating. We only run into problems when we leap from making statements about experiences to making assumptions about some reality that they supposedly reveal. The so-called “principle of parsimony,” otherwise known as “Ockham’s razor,” wisely argues for using as few assumptions, metaphysical or otherwise, as possible.
RESEARCH STUDIES
We know very little about the effects of journeying on the shaman’s psychology and physiology. However, we do know more about other kinds of journeys. Since the publication of Stephen LaBerge’s book Lucid Dreaming205 in 1985, thousands of people have flocked to workshops, and many laboratory studies have appeared. This ancient yogic skill, which psychologists once dismissed as impossible, is now proving psychologically and spiritually beneficial and is yielding insights into sleep, dreams, and the brain.
Numerous studies of near-death experiences confirm their many far-reaching effects on personality and priorities.304 Likewise, a few studies have been done on abductees. Intriguingly, these people show some of the same value shifts as NDEers, specifically a greater concern with ecology and spirituality.305 Of course, these investigations of aftereffects tell us little about the actual nature of the experiences.
Out-of-body experiences offer an intriguing opportunity to test whether people can actually see, and accurately report on, the places they supposedly visit. The psychologist Charles Tart, whose valuable analyses of ASCs we will draw on later, reported occasional evidence of extrasensory perception (ESP) and some unusual EEG patterns during his subjects’ OOBEs.360
However, a more intensive study was decidedly negative. Stephen LaBerge tested approximately one hundred subjects, all of whom believed they could readily induce OOBEs and employ ESP while having them. The subjects were asked to visit a specific room while in the OOBE and subsequently to describe what they saw. The result? There was virtually no correspondence whatsoever between the room and the descriptions.205
LaBerge interpreted these findings as supporting his hypothesis that OOBEs are actually misinterpreted, partly lucid dreams. This hypothesis would explain some of the curious features of OOBEs and why they usually occur at night. There is no firm evidence that out-of-body experiences actually involve consciousness separating from the body. How one could even test such a question is unclear.
However, whatever interpretations one adopts and whatever future research reveals, it is clear that experiences of leaving the body and traveling to other realms are perennial, worldwide phenomena. Many of these experiences are so intriguing and helpful that most cultures value them, develop techniques to induce them, and create traditions to support them.