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Testing the ‘Three Stages of Trance’ Model

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 November 2003

Patricia A. Helvenston ,
Paul G. Bahn ,
John L. Bradshaw  and
Christopher Chippindale
Patricia A. Helvenston
Affiliation:
1407 North Aztec Street, Flagstaff, AZ 86001, USA; patscholar@aol.com.
Paul G. Bahn
Affiliation:
428 Anlaby Road, Hull, HU3 6QP, UK; pgbahn@anlabyrd.karoo.co.uk.
John L. Bradshaw
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology, School of Psychology, Psychiatry and Psychological Medicine, Monash University, Clayton Campus, Victoria 3800, Australia; j.l.bradshaw@med.monash.edu.au.
Christopher Chippindale
Affiliation:
Cambridge University Museum of Archaeology & Anthropology, Downing Street, Cambridge, CB2 3DZ, UK; cc43@cam.ac.uk. Rock Art Research Institute, University of the Witwatersrand, PO Wits 2050, Johannesburg, South Africa. School of Archaeology and Anthropology, Australian National University, Canberra ACT 0200, Australia.
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Abstract

In October of 2002, Patricia A. Helvenston and Paul G. Bahn published a paper entitled ‘Desperately Seeking Trance Plants: Testing the “Three Stages of Trance” Model’. That paper presented a critique of the ‘Three Stages of Trance’ model as proposed by J.D. Lewis-Williams and T.A. Dowson in 1988 to account for mental imagery as perceived by people in ‘certain altered states of consciousness’ that they believed inspired Palaeolithic cave art. Helvenston & Bahn chose to publish their paper privately, but supplied the following summary of their argument. It is accompanied here by comments from a neuropsychologist (John L. Bradshaw) and a rock-art specialist (Christopher Chippindale).

Keywords

altered states of consciousnessshamanismPalaeolithic rock artThree Stages of Trance model
Type
Research Article
Information
Cambridge Archaeological Journal , Volume 13 , Issue 2 , October 2003 , pp. 213 - 224
Copyright
2003 The McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research

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