Trance and Transfiguration in Rock Art and Literature [Hardcover]

This book explores the relationship between altered states of consciousness and their influence on art, literature, archaeology, and religion. The essays and responses in this collection provide a range of perspectives on how these states have the power to move people profoundly and to inspire artistic creativity.

Contributors

Foreword

Introduction: Between Visionary and Mystical Experiences

Trance and Transfiguration in Rock Art and Literature

A World without Selves: A Reply to Richard Alan Northovers Lecture

John Taylor (1620) and the Shakespeare-Hemp-Cannabis Hypothesis: Was the Noted Weed a Source of Inspiration for Creativity (Invention)?

Sceptical Reflections on Hallucinogens and Other Worlds

Conclusion: Trance, Healing and Transgression

Additional Material: Five Blogs and a Critical Reading 

Critical Diaries

Blog 1: No 116  Wheres the Zol in Our Literature?

Ethicalanimal

Blog 2: Newgrange, Ireland: Neolithic Spirituality

Blog 3: Otherworldly Termites

Blog 4: Embodied Metaphors in Shamanic Art

Blog 5: The Axis Mundi, Shamanism and Trance States

Critical Reading

Altered States of Consciousness in Kim Stanley Robinsons Shaman (2013)

Index

Richard Alan Northover is a Professor of general literary theory and critical theory in the Department of Afrikaans and Theory of Literature at the University of South Africa. His PhD, obtained at the University of Pretoria in 2010, concerns the work of J.M. Coetzee in relation to animal ethics. In addition to articles on the work of JM Coetzee, he has published on Margaret Atwoods MaddAddaml,