Transpersonal anthropology

Transpersonal anthropology is a subdiscipline of cultural anthropology. It studies the relationship between altered states of consciousness and culture.

As with transpersonal psychology, the field is much concerned with altered states of consciousness (ASC) and transpersonal experience. However, the field differs from mainstream transpersonal psychology in taking more cognizance of cross-cultural issues—for instance, the roles of myth, ritual, diet, and texts in evoking and interpreting extraordinary experiences.

Topics such as ASC in the traditional teachings of indigenous people, shamanism and ASC, ASC in response to ingestion of traditional hallucinogenetic herbs, etc., may be of interest to transpersonal anthropologists. Also, the role of culture in laying the foundations for, in evoking, in cultivating or thwarting, and in interpreting ASC is seen as fundamental to understanding the incidence and function of transpersonal experiences among the planet's many and varied societies.

Sheppard has noted how transpersonal anthropology can be said to have begun in the USA in the 1970s. She refers to the work of Charles D. Laughlin, and also to works by Al-Issa and Edith Turner, wife of the anthropologist Victor Turner. Laughlin, who may be considered to be one of the founders of the field, has published extensively on the topic of Transpersonal Anthropology.

Sheppard explains how Edith Turner's interpretations of her husband's field studies among the Ndembu in Zambia can be interpreted as belonging to transpersonal anthropology, insofar as her interpretations of their healing rituals were transpersonal. More recently, Sheppard has published an article criticising transpersonal anthropology, at least as it has typically been practiced in contemporary scholarship. Her criticisms include its lack of a systematic conceptual base; its over-emphasis on shamanism; the difficulty in studying non-Western cultures that have been truly immune to Western influences and the question of the extent to which transpersonal anthropology has really addressed altered states of consciousness.

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