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David Lewis-Williams - Levels, layers and shamanism
Identifier
010162
Type of Spiritual Experience
Background
A description of the experience
The Mind in the Cave – David Lewis-Williams
Shamanistic cosmology is conceived, in the first instance as comprising two realms, the material world and the spiritual realm. Often the spirit world is immanent, interdigitating with the material world as well as separate from it. At the same time, these two realms are conceived of as subdivided and layered, the more socially complex the shamanistic society, the more tiered the subdivisions of the cosmos. ……………………………..
Altered states of consciousness not only create notions of a tiered cosmos; they also afford access to and thereby repeatedly validate, the various divisions of the cosmos. The tiered shamanistic cosmos and proof of its reality constitute a closed system of experiental creation and verification