What Is Shamanism How May It Be Related To Cave Paintings

The Dynamic Human relationship Between Palaeolithic Cave Art and Depth Psychology

When the idea of a religious interpretation of Palaeolithic cave art was commencement suggested during the 2d half of the last century information technology was not well received, to say the least. Today, with the developments in psychology, neurosciences, ethnology, anthropology and archaeology, the shamanistic element in the cavern decorations is ever more widely (though not universally) accepted. Budgeted these rock paintings from the standpoint of depth psychology, the bulletin is that they are the result of a particularly dynamic arousal of the unconscious due to ritualistic activities that are typically associated with those of shamans, the experts at reaching an ecstatic country of self-abandonment.

The Lascaux Cave Art Paintings

Lascaux Cave

Shamanism dates back to the early beginnings of humanity. It originated, information technology is thought, somewhere in the afar forests of Mongolia from where it spread. Past the Palaeolithic period it had become well-established in southern France and northern Spain. Shamans are immensely talented individuals, endowed by nature (enhanced by pedagogy and practice) with powers of self-control that let them to autumn into a trance at will. In this altered country of consciousness they are thought to hear voices and get information that would otherwise non be accessible to man. Based on research of shamanic rituals of more recent times, we may speculate that the shamanic visionaries of the Palaeolithic period would in a like fashion to their modern counterparts have induced their trance by enduring intense self-inflicted pain, such as cocky-mutilation, cold, hunger, and isolation. The Palaeolithic shamanic rites may well have included corybantic, ecstatic dancing to the rhythm of clapping and chanting of mythic words (mantras), that is, all the known elements which eventually bring almost an altered land of consciousness.

Mandala

Rock painting of a dancing transformed shaman

On his return from this beatific though terrible experience, the shaman is able to study on this psychological experience in the symbolic language of the visions. Bold that the cave paintings were depictions made by shamans following such ecstatic experiences, the cave paintings may be seen to reflect the visionaries' mystical feel. Moreover, since the psychological experience springs from the deep layers of the unconscious concerned non with the personal but with the universal, collective problems of humankind, the paintings are of archetypal nature. The remarkable thing is not that the shamans of the Palaeolithic had the visions they did just that they accepted them as divinely or externally inspired, and that accepting them they translated them into mortal form, the fine art of their rock paintings. The visions captured in the form of paintings seem to point to a higher, archetypal truth. Rather than giving private stories, they tell of man's intimate relationship with nature, of his understanding of the coming and going of the seasons and the brute herds, and of human being'southward role as hunter that he has played since fourth dimension immemorial. Possibly ane of the reasons why the paintings communicate such a sense of wholeness is that they are not homo-made only divinely-given masterpieces - human being was not their creator; he was the emissary of the cosmos.

It is more than likely that initially only a few descended into the caves and that selected members of the tribe followed later. Due to their special, magical talents, the shamans would have been singled out equally the respected, trusted leaders, as mana personalities who could guide others on their pilgrimage to the world cloak-and-dagger. With the shaman in forepart and the others following, they must have been eager to face unimaginable perils for the purpose of undergoing certain ceremonies which would mayhap transform them or heighten their status. Equally recent research has shown, the caves were visited over millennia when existing paintings were 'edited' and additional ones were fabricated. This could suggest that the original ecstatic feel of the shamans was re-enacted many times over with the same effect of momentarily crossing concrete boundaries and seeing both with the bodily eye and the inner, spiritual eye of creation. The animals depicted on the wall are at one time related to the real world and to the visionaries' dream world from where they have fleetingly appeared, weightlessly and silently, only to return to the depths of eternity. Perchance it should no longer surprise us that the animals in the cave paintings are consistently presented without a base of operations-line for back up.

Higher up it was conjectured that for archaic human with his mind still 'in the object' everything in nature had a spirit or a voice. If the Palaeolithic visionary artists did not paint but anywhere but arduously inspected the rock-face for the right place which in its form and contours let them see the finished animal before them, perhaps information technology was because they were convinced that once found, the right rock would speak to them and tell them what to practise. And studying the cave paintings today, we may even so have the impression that the very rock itself had been the animate being spirit and instructed the artists where to paint and what.

Further Reading:
→ Cave Art: An Intuition of Eternity
→ Dr. Ilse Vickers

→ Bradshaw Foundation Homepage
→ French Cave Paintings & Rock Art Archive

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