Jakub Bohuszewicz
Studia Religiologica, Volume 45, Issue 2, 2012, pp. 125-135
https://doi.org/10.4467/20844077SR.12.010.0826To begin with, a hypothesis is made regarding the possibility of treating imitation as a key mechanism in the induction of trance states. The author argues that this thesis can be justified convincingly on the basis of empirical material collected by researchers of shamanism. The theories of religion formulated by evolutionary psychologists place emphasis on the origins of religious concepts. However, they leave aside the question of ritual, and also do not permit a more thorough study of the mechanisms generating a ritual trance state. In order to analyse the cognitive aspects of trance, it is therefore necessary to construct a different theoretical model.
Jakub Bohuszewicz
Studia Religiologica, Volume 45, Issue 3, 2012, pp. 227-235
https://doi.org/10.4467/20844077SR.12.017.0970Jakub Bohuszewicz
Studia Religiologica, Volume 44 , 2011, pp. 161-184
https://doi.org/10.4467/20844077SR.11.012.0256The aim of the text is to examine the performance theories of ritual from the point of view of their usefulness in analysing the ceremonial life of Shaman hunter-gatherer communities. The main thesis of the article states that whereas the performance concept of ritual shines an accurate light on selected aspects of the ritual life of hunter-gatherers, the methods used by such luminaries of performance studies as Richard Schechner and Erving Goffman are not sufficient to grasp the crux of the ceremonial life of a community whose religion is concentrated around the figure of the shaman. Using selected examples, the author attempts to explain the cause of this state of affairs, pointing to trance as above all a characteristic defining the model shaman ritual. The culminating moment of the trance is the end of the opposition analysed by proponents of performance studies between the individual and the stage. This fact forces us to revise some of the key premises postulated by the representatives of this paradigm.