Ecstasy, Ritual and Alternate Reality: Religion in a Pluralistic World

209 Pages·1988·23.86 MB·English

by  Felicitas D Goodman

Ecstasy, Ritual,
~and~
Alternate Reality
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Felicitas D. Goodman
Ecstasy, Ritual,
~and~
Alternate Reality
Religion in a Pluralistic World
Indiana
University
Press
Bloomington and Indianapolis
First Midland Book Edition 1992
© 1988 by Felicitas D. Goodman
All rights reserved
No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by
any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and
recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without
permission in writing from the publisher. The Association of American
University Presses' Resolution on Permissions constitutes the only
exception to this prohibition.
Manufactured in the United States of America
Ubrary of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Goodman, Felicitas D.
Ecstasy, ritual, and alternate reality.
Bibliography: p.
Includes index.
1. Religion. I. Title.
BL48.G635 1988 200 87-46248
ISBN 0-253·31899·8
ISBN 0-253·20726-6 (pbk.)
3 4 5 6 96 95
To my teachers, the shamans
past and present
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Contents
Acknowledgments ix
Introduction xi
Part One: Theory
Chapter 1. The Religious: Can It Be Defined? 3
Chapter 2. Human Evolution and the Origins and Evolution
of Religious Behavior 10
Chapter 3. The Independent Variable: Interaction with
the Habitat 17
Chapter 4. Dependent Variables 31
Ritual Behavior 31
The Religious Trance 35
The Alternate Reality 43
Good Fortune, Misfortune, and the Rituals
of Divination 47
Ethics and Its Relation to Religious Behavior 57
The Semantics of "Religion" 63
Part Two: Ethnography
Chapter 5. The Hunter-Gatherers 69
Chapter 6. The Horticulturalists 88
Chapter 7. The Agriculturalists 106
Chapter 8. The Nomadic Pastoralists 135
Contents viii
Chapter 9. The City Dwellers 159
Conclusion 170
Notes 173
Bibliography 176
Index 188
Acknowledgments
The initial draft for this book was written during my sabbatical leave from
Denison University in the 1975-76 school year. The early formulation under
went a number of revisions as I gained experience in presenting the topic in
undergraduate classes, and later in intensive courses and workshops to a more
sophisticated group of adults, and as I added results from my continuing re
search. In its formative stages, this research was supported by Public Health
Grant MH 07463 from the National Institute of Mental Health, by the Denison
University Research Foundation, and by a grant-in-aid for research from the
Society of the Sigma Xi. I want to express my appreciation to these agencies.
I am also deeply grateful to my students and research consultants who so
generously shared their observations with me.
In the cultural history of the West, interest in religion keeps waxing and
waning, but even in periods of apparent inattention, the subject is seen lurking
just beyond the border. No matter what attitudes prevail, each generation
seems constrained to write its own version. To latter-day observers, each of
these versions appears incomplete, yet their own attempts will fare no better
in the eyes of their successors. So we might as well accept our limitations. In
this sense the present work lays no claim to completeness or finality. It is
simply an invitation to contemplate yet another configuration of facets on that
glittering, mysterious, elusive sphere that we call religious experience.