Читаем Hallucinations полностью

Hypnotic suggestion, indeed, can be used to induce hallucinations.⁷¹ There is, of course, a world of difference between the long-lasting pathological state we call hysteria and the brief trance states which can be induced by a hypnotist (or by oneself). William James, in his lectures on exceptional mental states, referred to the trances of mediums who channel voices and images of the dead, and of scryers who see visions of the future in a crystal ball. Whether the voices and visions in these contexts were veridical was of less concern to James than the mental states which could produce them. Careful observation (he attended many séances) convinced him that mediums and crystal gazers were not usually conscious charlatans or liars in the ordinary sense; nor were they confabulators or phantasts. They were, he came to feel, in altered states of consciousness conducive to hallucinations—hallucinations whose content was shaped by the questions they were asked. These exceptional mental states, he thought, were achieved by self-hypnosis (no doubt facilitated by poorly lit and ambiguous surroundings and the eager expectations of their clients).

Such practices as meditation, spiritual exercises, and ecstatic drumming or dancing can also facilitate the achievement of trance states akin to that of hypnosis, with vivid hallucinations and profound physiological changes (for instance, a rigidity which allows the entire body to remain as stiff as a board while supported only at the head and feet). Meditative or contemplative techniques (often aided by sacred music, painting, or architecture) have been used in many religious traditions—sometimes to induce hallucinatory visions. Studies by Andrew Newberg and others have shown that long-term practice of meditation produces significant alterations in cerebral blood flow in parts of the brain related to attention, emotion, and some autonomic functions.

The commonest, the most sought, and (in many cultures and communities) the most “normal” of exceptional mental states is that of a spiritually attuned consciousness, in which the supernatural, the divine, is experienced as material and real. In her remarkable book When God Talks Back, the ethnologist T. M. Luhrmann provides a compelling examination of this phenomenon.

Luhrmann’s earlier work, on people who practice magic in present-day Britain, involved entering their world very fully. “I did what anthropologists do,” she writes. “I participated in their world: I joined their groups. I read their books and novels. I practiced their techniques and performed in their rituals. For the most part, I found, the rituals depended on techniques of the imagination. You shut your eyes and saw with your mind’s eye the story told by the leader of the group.” She was intrigued to find that, after about a year of this practice, her own mental imagery became clearer, more detailed, and more solid; and her concentration states became “deeper and more sharply different from the everyday.” One night she became immersed in a book about Arthurian Britain, “giving way,” she writes, “to the story and allowing it to grip my feelings and to fill my mind.” The next morning she woke up to a striking sight:

I saw six druids standing against the window, above the stirring London street below. I saw them, and they beckoned to me. I stared for a moment of stunned astonishment, and then I shot up out of bed, and they were gone. Had they been there in the flesh? I thought not. But my memory of the experience is very clear. . . . I remember that I saw them as clearly and distinctly and as external to me as I saw the notebook in which I recorded the moment. I remember it so clearly because it was so singular. Nothing like that had ever happened to me before.