The list of references presented below has been compiled from suggestions provided by members and friends of AAC and can provide a starting point for your own studies. Some of the references listed are from the field of the anthropology of consciousness in sensu strictu. Others are from related or tangential fields.
Many of these works have played a significant role in the development of the field, although they may no longer be regarded as accurate, up to date, or correct. For example, the works of Castaneda, once thought to be valid anthropological studies, are now more properly viewed as works of fiction. These are nevertheless included here because of the role they played in introducing the notion of “non-ordinary realities” to a wider audience.
Core References
Bourguignon, Erika. 1976. Possession. San Francisco: Chandler & Sharp Publishers, Inc.
Castaneda, Carlos. 1968. The Teachings of Don Juan: A Yaqui Way of Knowledge. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Dobkin de Rios, M. 1984. Hallucinogens: Cross-Cultural Perspectives. Albuquerque: University New Mexico.
Eliade, Mircea. 1964. Shamanism: Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy. Bollingen Series LXXVI. New York: Pantheon.
Furst, Peter T. 1972. Flesh of the Gods: The Ritual Use of Hallucinogens.
Furst, Peter T. 1976. Hallucinogens and Culture. San Francisco: Chandler and Sharp.
Greenwood, Susan. 2019: Developing Magical Consciousness. Abingdon-on-Thames, England: Routledge.
Greenwood, Susan, and Goodwyn, Erik 2015. Magical Consciousness Abingdon-on-Thames, England: Routledge.
Greenwood, Susan. 2009. The Anthropology of Magic. Oxford: Berg Publishers
Grof, Stanislav. 1975. Realms of the Unconscious: Observations from LSD Research. New York: Viking Press.
Harner, Michael J. 1973. Hallucinogens and Shamanism. M. Harner, ed. New York: Oxford University Press.
Harner, Michael J. 1980. The Way of the Shaman. San Francisco: Harper and Row.
Holbraad, Martin and Axel Pedersen, Morton. 2016. The Ontological Turn: An Anthropological Exposition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Hunter, Jack. 2018. Engaging the Anomalous: Collected Essays on Anthropology, the Paranormal, Mediumship, and Extraordinary Experience. August Nights Press.
Hunter, Jack and Luke, David, eds. 2014. Talking with the Spirits: Ethnographies from Between the Worlds. England: Daily Grail Publising.
Masters, R. E. L., and Jean Houston. 1966. The Varieties of Psychedelic Experience. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston.
Myerhoff, Barbara. 1974. Peyote Hunt: The Sacred Journey of the Huichol Indians. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.
Reichel-Dolmatoff, Gerardo. 1975. The Shaman and the Jaguar: A Study of Narcotic Drugs Among the Indians of Colombia. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.
Schultes, Richard Evans and Albert Hofmann. 1979. Plants of the Gods: Origins of Hallucinogen Use. New York: McGraw Hill.
Tart, Charles T. 1969. Altered States of Consciousness. C. T. Tart, ed. New York: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Turner, Victor, and Bruner, Edward Eds. 2001. The Anthropology of Experience. Chicago: University of Illinois Press.
Turner, Victor. 1986. On the Edge of the Bush: Anthropology as Experience. Tucson: University of Arizona Press.
Weil, Andrew T. 1972. The Natural Mind: A New Way of Looking at Drugs and the Higher Consciousness. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company.
Young, David E, and Goulet, Jean-guy, Eds.1994, Being Changed By Cross-Cultural Encounters: The Anthropology of Extraordinary Experience, Toronto: University of Toronto Press.
A More Complete Bibliography
Aberele, David. 1966. The Peyote Religion Among the Navaho. Chicago: Aldine.
Auerbach, Loyd. 1986. ESP, Hauntings and Poltergeists: a Parapsychologist’s Handbook. New York, NY: Warner Books, Inc.
Bateson, Gregory. 1972. Steps to an Ecology of Mind. New York: Ballentine.
Berger, John. 1977. Ways of Seeing. London: Penguin Books.
Beyer, Stephan V. 2009. Singing to the Plants: A Guide to Mesitzo Shamanism in the Upper Amazon. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press.
Blanchard, Geral. 2011. Ancient Ways: Indigenous Healing Innovations for the 21st Century. Holyoke, Mass.: NEARI Press.
Boddy, J. 1994. “Spirit Possession Revisited: Beyond Instrumentality.” Annual Review of Anthropology 23:407-34.
Bohm, David. 1980. Wholeness and the Implicate Order. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.
Bolles, Edmund Blair. 1991. A Second Way of Knowing. NY: Simon and Schuster.
Bourguignon, Erika. 1973. Religion, Altered States of Consciousness, and Social Change. E. Bourguignon ed. Columbus: Ohio State University Press.
Bourguignon, Erika. 1976. Possession. San Francisco: Chandler & Sharp Publishers, Inc.
Campbell, Joseph. 1971. The Portable Jung. NY: Penguin Books.
Campbell, Joseph . 2001. Thou Art That. Novato, CA.: New World Library
Capra, Fritjof. 1991. The Tao of Physics: An Exploration of the Parallels Between Modern Physics and Eastern Mysticism. Boston: Shambhala Publications, Inc.
Cardena, Etzel, Steven Jay Lynn, & Stanley Krippner. 2000. Varieties of Anomalous Experience: Examining the Scientific Evidence. E. Cardena, S.
Castaneda, Carlos. 1968. The Teachings of Don Juan: A Yaqui Way of Knowledge. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Castaneda, Carlos. 1972. Journey to Ixtlan: The Lessons of Don Juan. NY: Simon and Schuster.
Castaneda, Carlos. 1981. The Eagle’s Gift. NY: Simon and Schuster. Castaneda, Carlos. 1984. The Fire from Within. NY: Simon and Schuster.
Castaneda, Carlos. 1987. The Power of Silence. NY: Simon and Schuster.
Castillo, Richard J. 1995. “Culture, Trance and the Mind-Brain.” Anthropology of Consciousness. 6(1):17-32.
Coles, Robert. 1990. The Spiritual Life of Children. Boston: Houghton, Mifflin Co.
Coult, Allan D. 1977. Psychedelic Anthropology: The Study of Man Through the Manifestation of the Mind. Philadelphia: Dorrance & Company.
Deren, Maya. 1983 [1953]. Divine Horsemen: The Living Gods of Haiti. New York: New Paltz.
Desjarlais, Robert. 1992. Body and Emotion. Philadelphia: Pennsylvania University Press.
Devereux, Paul. 2008. The Long Trip: A Prehistory of Psychedelia. Brisbane: Daily Grail Publishing.
Dobkin De Rios, Marlene. 1972. Visionary Vine: Hallucinogenic Healing in the Peruvian Amazon. Prospect Heights: Waveland.
Dobkin de Rios, M. 1984. Hallucinogens: Cross-Cultural Perspectives. Albuquerque: University New Mexico.
Doore, Gary. 1988. Shamans Path: Healing, Personal Growth and Empowerment. G. Doore, ed. Boston: Shambhala.
Eadie, Betty J. 1992. Embraced by the Light. Placerville, CA: Gold Leaf Press.
Efron, Daniel. 1967. Ethnopharmacologic Search for Psychoactive Drugs.
Eliade, Mircea. 1964. Shamanism: Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy. Bollingen Series LXXVI. New York: Pantheon.
Entheogens and the Future of Religion. Ed. by Robert Forte. 2000. San Francisco: The Council on Spiritual Practices.
Evans-Pritchard, E. 1937. Witchcraft, Oracles and Magic Among the Azande. Philadelphia: Clarendon.
F‡brega, H. 1997. Evolution of Sickness and Healing. Los Angeles: University of California Press.
Finkler, K. 1985. Spiritualist Healers in Mexico. South Hadley, Mass.: Bergin and Garvey.
Fischer, Roland. 1975. Cartography of Inner Space: Altered States Of Consciousness: Current Views and Research Problems. Washington: The Drug Abuse Council, Inc.
Flanagan, Jr., Owen J. 1979. The Science of the Mind. Cambridge: MIT Press.
Frecska, E. and Z. Kulcsar. 1989. “Social Bonding in the Modulation of the Physiology of Ritual Trance.” Ethos 17(1):70-87.
Furst, Peter T. 1972. Flesh of the Gods: The Ritual Use of Hallucinogens.
Furst, Peter T. 1976. Hallucinogens and Culture. San Francisco: Chandler and Sharp.
Gardner, Howard. 1985. The Mind’s New Science: A History of the Cognitive Revolution. NY: HarperCollins.
Gilligan, Carol. 1982. In a Different Voice. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Girard, Rene. 1987. Things Hidden Since the Foundation of the World. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
Girard, Rene. 1979. Violence and the Sacred. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press.
Goodman, Felicitas D. 1990. Where the Spirits Ride the Wind: Trance Journeys and Other Ecstatic Experiences. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
Grim, John A. 1983. The Shaman: Patterns of Siberian and Ojibway Healing. Norman, Oklahoma: University of Oklahoma Press.
Grof, Stanislav. 1975. Realms of the Unconscious: Observations from LSD Research. New York: Viking Press.
Grof, Stanislav. 1980. LSD Psychotherapy. Pomona, Ca: Hunter House.
Grof, Stanislav. 1988. The Adventure of Self-Discovery: Dimensions of Consciousness and New Perspectives in Psychotherapy and Inner Exploration. Albany: State University of New York Press.
Grof, Stanislav. 1990. The Holotropic Mind: The Three Levels of Human Consciousness and How They Shape Our Lives. San Francisco: Harper San Francisco.
Halifax, J. 1979. Shamanic Voices. New York: E.P. Dutton.
Halifax, Joan. 1982. Shaman: The Wounded Healer. London: Thames and Hudson Ltd.
Harman, Willis W. and Christian De Quincey. 1994. The Scientific Exploration of Consciousness: Toward an Adequate Epistemology. IONS Research Report CP-6. Sausalito: Institute of Noetic Sciences.
Harner, Michael J. 1972. The Jivaro: People of the Sacred Waterfalls. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Harner, Michael J. 1973. Hallucinogens and Shamanism. M. Harner, ed. New York: Oxford University Press.
Harner, Michael J. 1980. The Way of the Shaman. San Francisco: Harper and Row.
Hillman, James. 2017. The Alchemy of Psychology. New York: BetterListen Books.
Hillman, James. 2017. The Soul’s Code: In Search of Character and Calling. New York: Ballantine Books.
Jones, Sidian Morning Star & Stanley Krippner. 2012. The Voice of Rolling Thunder. Rochester, Vermont: Bear & Co.
Katz, Richard. 1982. Boiling Energy: Community Healing Among the Kalahari Kung. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Katz, Richard. 2017. Indigenous Healing Psychology: Honoring the Wisdom of the First Peoples. New York: Healing Arts Press.
Lund, David H. 2005. The Conscious Self: The Immaterial Center of Subjective States. London: Humanities Press.
May, Rollo. 1991. The Cry for Myth. New York: W.W. Norton.
McGilchrist, Iain. 2009. The Master and his Emissary: The Divided Brain and the Making of the Modern World. New Haven: Yale University Press.
McKenna, Terence. 1993. Food of the Gods: The Search for the Origins of Knowledge. New York: Bantam Books.
McKenna, Dennis J. & Terence K. Mckenna. 1975. The Invisible Landscape: Mind, Hallucinogens, and the I Ching. New York: The Seabury Press.
McKenna, Terence. 1992. New Maps of Hyperspace. In The Archaic Revival: Essays and Conversations. Terence McKenna, ed. San Francisco: HarperCollins.
Metzner, Ralph. 1971. Maps of Consciousness. New York, The Macmillan Company.
Mishlove, Jeffery. 1993. The Roots of Consciousness: The Classic Encyclopedia of Consciousness Studies. Tulsa: Council Oak Books.
Moody, Raymond A. Jr. 1975. Life After Life: The Investigation of a Phenomenon–Survival of Bodily Death. New York: Bantam.
Morse, Melvin, with Paul Perry. Closer to the Light. 1990. New York: Ballantine Books.
Mumford, Stan. 1989. Himalayan Dialogues: Tibetan Lamas and Gurung Shamans in Nepal. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press.
Myerhoff, Barbara. 1974. Peyote Hunt: The Sacred Journey of the Huichol Indians. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.
Naranjo, Claudio. 1974. The One Quest. London: the Wildwood House, Ltd.
Neuroscience, Consciousness and Spirituality. 2011. Ed. by Harald Walach, Stefan Schmidt & Wayne B. Jonas. London: Springer Dordrecht Heidelberg.
Narby, Jeremy. 1999. The Cosmic Serpent: DNA and the Origins of Knowledge. New York: Penguin.
Nasr, Seyyed Hossein. 1989. Knowledge and the Sacred. NY: State University of New York Press.
Ornstein, Robert E. 1977. The Psychology of Consciousness. NY: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Inc.
Osis, Karlis & Erlendur Haraldsson. 1977. At the Hour of Death. New York: Avon Books.
Penfield, Wilder. 1975. The Mystery of the Mind. NJ: Princeton University Press.
Peters, Larry G. 1981. Ecstasy and Healing in Nepal: An Ethnopsychiatric Study of Tamang Shamanism. Malibu: Undena Publications.
Peters, Larry G. and Douglass Price-Williams. 1980. “Towards an Experiential Analysis of Shamanism.” American Ethnologist 7: 397-418.
Piaget, Jean. 1962. Play, Dreams, and Imitation. New York: Norton.
Pollan, Michael. 2018. How to Change Your Mind. New York: Penguin.
Prattis, J. Ian. 1997. Anthropology at the Edge: Essays on Culture, Symbol, and Consciousness. Lanham: University Press of America, Inc.
Pierini, Emily. 2020. ‘Jaguars of the Dawn: Spirit Mediumship in the Brazilian Vale do Amanhecer.’ Berghahn.
Prince, R. 1982a. “Shamans and Endorphins.” Ethos 10(4):409.
Reichel-Dolmatoff, Gerardo. 1971. Amazonian Cosmos: The Sexual and Religious Symbolism of the Tukano Indians. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Reichel-Dolmatoff, Gerardo. 1975. The Shaman and the Jaguar: A Study of Narcotic Drugs Among the Indians of Colombia. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.
Richardson, Janet. 1993. Child Incarnate – Child Divine: A Crosscultural Investigation of Victor Turner. (Edith L. B. Turner, ed.). 1985. On the Edge of the Bush: Anthropology as Experience. Tucson: The University of Arizona Press.
Shlain, Leonard. 1998. The Alphabet Versus The Goddess: The Conflict Between Word and Image. New York: Penguin.
Some, Malidoma Patrice. The Healing Wisdom of Africa. 1998. New York: Penguin Books.
Tuzin, Donald. 1975. “The Breath of a Ghost: Dreams and Fear of the Dead.” Ethos. 3:555-578.
Villoldo, Alberto and Stanley Krippner. 1987. Healing States. New York: Simon & Schuster, Inc.
Vitebsky, Piers. 1995. The Shaman. London: Duncan Baird Publishers.
Völger, Gisela. 1981. Rausch und Realität: Drogen im Kulturvergleich (Inebriation and Reality: Drugs in Cross-Cultural Comparison). G. Völger, ed. Cologne: Rautenstrauch-Joest-Museum (2 Vols.).
Wallace, Anthony F.C. 1956. Mazeway Resynthesis: A Bio-Cultural Theory of Religious Inspiration. Transactions of the New York Academy of Sciences: 18:626-638.
Wallace, Anthony F.C. 1956. “Revitalization Movements.” American Anthropologist: 58:264-281.
Wallace, Anthony F.C. 1957. “Mazeway Disintegration: The Individual’s Perception of Socio-Cultural Disorganization.” Human Organization: 16:23-27.
Wallace, Anthony F.C. 1970. Culture and Personality. Second Edition. New York: Random House.
Wallace, Benjamin and Leslie E. Fisher. 1987. Consciousness and Behavior. Boston: Allyn and Bacon.
Walsh, Roger N. and Frances Vaughan eds. 1980. Beyond Ego: Transpersonal Dimensions In Psychology. Los Angeles: J.P. Tarcher, Inc.
Wasson, R. Godron, Stella Kramrisch, Jonathan Ott & Carl A.P. Ruck. 1986. Persephone’s Quest: Entheogens and the Origins of Religion. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Wasson, R. Gordon. 1968. Soma: Divine Mushroom of Immortality.
Ethno-Mycological Studies, No. I. New York: Harcourt, Brace, and World.
Wasson, R. Gordon , Carl A.P. Ruck & Albert Hoffman. 1978. The Road to Eleusis: Unveiling the Secret of the Mysteries. New York; HBJ Books.
Wavell, Stewart and Audrey Butt and Nina Epton. 1967. Trances. NY: E.P. Dutton & Co, Inc.
Weil, Andrew T. 1972. The Natural Mind: A New Way of Looking at Drugs and the Higher Consciousness. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company.
Weiss, Brian L., M.D. 1988. Many Lives, Many Masters. NY: Simon and Schuster.
Wilbur, Ken. 1980. The Atman Project: A transpersonal view of human development. Wheaton, Ill,: Theosophical Publishing House.
Wilber, Ken. 1977. The Spectrum of Consciousness. Wheaton: Quest.
Wilber, Ken, J. Engler, and D. P. Brown. 1986. Transformations of Consciousness: Conventional and Contemplative Perspectives on Development. Boston: New Science Library.
Wilbert, Johannes. 1987. Tobacco and Shamanism in South America. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Willerslev, Rane. Soul Hunters: Hunting, Animism and Personhood Among the Siberian Yukaghirs. 2007. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Winkelman, Michael. 1986. “Trance States: a theoretical model and cross- cultural analysis.” Ethos, 14(2), 174-203.
Winkelman, Michael. 1990. “Shaman and other “Magico-Religious” Healers: A cross-cultural study of their origins, nature, and social transformations.” Ethos, 18, 308-352.
Winkelman, Michael. 1992. “Shamans, Priests and Witches: A Cross- Cultural Study of Magico-Religious Practitioners.” Arizona State University: Anthropological Research Papers No. 44.
Winkelman, Michael. 1996. “Neurophenomenology and Genetic Epistemology as a Basis for the Study of Consciousness.” Journal of Social and Evolutionary Systems 19(3): 217-236
Winkelman, Michael. 1997. “Altered States of Consciousness and Religious Behavior.” In Anthropology of Religion: A Handbook of Method and Theory.
Winkelman, Michael. 2000. Shamanism: The Neural Ecology of Consciousness and Healing . Westport, CT: Bergin and Garvey.
Winkelman, M., & Andritzky, W. 1996. “Sacred Plants, Consciousness and Healing.” Yearbook of Cross-Cultural Medicine and Psychotherapy, 5. M. Winkelman and W. Andritzky, eds. Berlin: Verlag.
Wolf, Fred Alan. 1991. The Eagle’s Quest: A Physicist’s Search for Truth in the Heart of the Shamanic World. New York: Touchstone.
Wolf, Fred A. 1994. The Dreaming Universe. New York: Simon & Schuster.
Wolinsky, Stephen. 1991. Trances People Live: Healing Approaches in Quantum Psychology. CT: The Bramble Co.
Woodside, Lisa and V.K. Kumar and Ronald J. Pekala. 1997. “Monotonous Percussion Drumming and Postures: A controlled evaluation of phenomenological effects.” Anthropology of Consciousness. 8:2-3.
Young, David E. and Jean-Guy Goulet. 1994. Being Changed: The Anthropology of Extraordinary Experience, Young & Goulet, eds. Ontario: Broadview Press.
Zukav, Gary. 1989. The Seat of the Soul. NY: Simon and Schuster.
OTHER CONSCIOUSNESS RELATED BIBLIOGRAPHIES
http://www.hakomiinstitute.com/Resources/MindfulnessPsych.pdf
http://www.cogsci.rpi.edu/~rsun/metzinger.ConsciousnessBib.html
This supports programming, student participation, awards, and other activities
Select your membership category and AAC as your primary section.