A biogenetic structural explanation is offered for the cross‐culturally common mystical experience called portalling, the experience of moving from one reality to another via a tunnel, door, aperture, hole, or the like. The experience may be evoked in shamanistic and meditative practice by concentration upon a portalling device (mirror, mandala, labyrinth, skrying bowl, pool of water, etc.). Realization of the portalling experience is shown to be fundamental to the phenomenology underlying multiple reality cosmologies in traditional cultures and is explained in (...) terms of radical re‐entrainment of the neurological systems mediating experience in the brain. Phenomenological experiments with mirror portalling devices from both the Tibetan and the Tsimshian religious traditions are reported. (shrink)

Ample evidence from various quarters indicates that the perceptual-cognitive competence of the pre- and perinatal human being is significantly greater than was once thought. Some of the evidence of this emerging picture of early competence is reviewed, and its importance both as evidence of the biogenetic structural concept of “neurognosis” and for a theory of enculturation is discussed. The literature of pre- and perinatal psychology, especially that of developmental neuropsychology, psychobiology, and social psychophysiology, is incorporated, and some of the implications (...) of these data for a theory of enculturation are suggested. (shrink)

It is very curious that C.G. Jung has had so little influence upon the anthropology of consciousness. In this paper, the reasons for this oversight are given. The archetypal psychology of Jung is summarized and shown to be more complex and useful than extreme constructivist accounts would acknowledge. Jung's thinking about consciousness fits very well with a modern neuroscience view of the psyche and acts as a corrective to relativist notions of consciousness and its relation to the self.

(1989). Three waves of political mobilization in Western Europe and the coming of a fourth. World Futures: Vol. 26, European Perspectives II, pp. 155-191.

This paper (presented during the Physis: Inhabiting the Earth conference, Florence, Italy, October 28?31, 1986) examines the evolution of social structure from the new perspective of findings indicating that how the relations between the female and male halves of humanity are structured has profoundly affected human social organization as well as the direction of cultural evolution. Drawing from archeological data and the study of ancient myths, it briefly traces the development of western culture through Paleolithic, Neolithic, and historic times. It (...) also presents data indicating that there is a viable alternative to the present, potentially lethal, emphasis on technologies of domination and destruction. (shrink)

In the proposed gynecentric aesthetic, which follows the work of Heide Göttner-Abendroth and Alan Lomax, aesthetic activity would function to integrate the individual and society. Intellect, emotion and action would combine to achieve a synthesis of body and spirit. Song and dance would involve the equal expressions of all participants, and aesthetic structures would reflect this egalitarianism. The erotic would be expressed as a vital, positive force, divorced from repression and pornography. The emphasis would be off aesthetic objects to be (...) coveted, hoarded and contemplated, and on dynamic process, fully engaging and socially significant. (shrink)

U radu se pažnja usmjerava na emergenciju mentalnog/racionalnog mišljenja, i to u filogenetskom kontekstu, što ga velikim dijelom karakterizira devijacija koja se očituje potiskivanjem i marginaliziranjem tjelesnog. Naime, upravo emergencija onog mentalnog/racionalnog predstavlja početak navedene devijacije, odnosno potiskivanja i marginaliziranja sveg onog što se uz tjelesno povezivalo ili povezuje: seksualno, žensko, nesvjesno, priroda itd. Naposljetku, polazište je rada da je kroz dekonstruiranje dihotomije um–tijelo potrebno osvijestiti temeljnost tjelesnog te ga samim time, umjesto navedenog potiskivanja i disociranja, zdravo transcendirati i integrirati.