A mirror of consciousness. Shamans in Nepal commenting on their ways of healing while watching video recordings of their rituals

Altered states of consciousness play an important role in shamanic therapies. During divinations as well as short treatments and night-long healing rituals shamans induce an altered state of consciousness in themselves to cause a healing transformation in their patients. The healers narrate that they get in close contact with spiritual beings during such states, in which they experience a qualitative shift of their mental processes. These beings come upon them to help them in the healing, rituals and give them the knowledge and strength that is required for a successful treatment. Even when the patients let spirits and witches speak through their mouths in an altered state of consciousness to talk about psychosocial conflicts in the family or in the neighbourhood, the shamans have to confront themselves with the illness-causing agents and sudue them. During the altered states of consciousness it is not possible to ask the shamans about their experiences. After the ritual is finished they only make general remarks which are not related to specific details of the ritual`s processes. Therefore in the proposed project a video documentation of different healing rituals will serve as a basis for the analysis of the dynamics of shamanic rituals. Through this procedure shamans can seetheinselves almost like in a mirror so that they can explain more about their experiences during altered states of consciousness and their dramatic actions. The discussion of the videos together with the ritual specialists will permit new insights about the meaning of ritual techniques in shamanic therapies. With the help of this procedure it becomes easier for the shamans to refer to specific parts of the rituals and comment on details of the dynamics and the course of treatments. A video can be stopped at any time to give the necessary room for the healers` narrations and it can be rewound as many times as necessary to help them to remember their experiences. Also videos of rituals that have been performed by other shamans will be shown to the healers and will be discussed with them. In this way it will be clarified how the shamans perceive themselves and their colleagues during altered states of consciousness. Furthermore it will be investigated what techniques they use to induce altered states of consciousness and how they interpret the details of the rituals. Special emphasis is put on the questions how the shamans can heal the patients with processes that are taking place in themselves and if there are significant differences in the healing methods that almost look alike from the outside. Answers to the question how the shamans can heal with the power they gain in altered states of consciousness will not only increase our knowledge of shamanic ways of healing but can also contribute considerably to the further development of modem psychotherapy.