Documentos de Académico
Documentos de Profesional
Documentos de Cultura
Bonding in
the
Modulationof
the
of
Physiology
Ritual
Trance
KULCSAR
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RITUAL TRANCE
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RITUAL TRANCE
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AND ENDOGENOUS
OPIOIDS
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cerning brain mechanisms that sustain the social motive. The approach of Panksepp, Herman, Vilberg, Bishop, and Deeskinazi
(1980) to this problem emphasizes the analogy between social separation symptoms and the biphasic syndrome subsequent to withdrawal from narcotics (lacrimation, irritability, agitation, and vegetative disturbances as an initial response, followed by lethargy, insomnia, and anorexia). According to these authors, withdrawal distress, whether opiate or social, manifests itself physiologically
through common response systems. The degree of symptom overlap
between the two processes suggests that both may arise from a common neurobiological substrate. Considering the similar dynamic of
opiate addiction and affiliative social interaction3 (both are characterized by the development of powerful dependencies and intensified by punishment), brain opioid systems should be reasonable
candidates for providing neurochemical mediation of social bonding. For the evolutionary minded it comes as no surprise that a
higher order behavioral process such as social attachment (whose
major elective advantage is to enhance survival) should have arisen
from elementary brain structures (which subserve a compatible
function), in this case from the opioid system (which mediates defense mechanisms).
These lines of inference suggested the notion that endogenous
opioids might be involved in primary social affiliation. The idea has
been evaluated experimentally in infant animals: opioid agonists decreased while opioid antagonists selectively increased the signs of
distress caused by social deprivation as well as other indices of the
social motive (Fabre-Nys, Meller, and Keverne 1982; NewbySchmidt and Norton 1981; Panksepp, Herman, Conner, Bishop,
and Scott 1978). An abundance of furthercorroborativeevidence for
opioid control of social processes has been presented by other laboratories. Morphine effects on social proximity (Plonsky and Freeman 1982) and play (Beatty and Costello 1982) have been reported,
and naloxone has been found to disrupt schooling behavior in fish
(Kavaliers 1981). Social isolation has been shown to modify brain
opiate receptor densities (Bonnet, Miller, and Simon 1976) and to
increase voluntary opiate consumption (Alexander, Coambs, and
Hadaway 1978). Utilizing substractive auto-radiography, Panksepp and Bishop (1981) have demonstrated that brain opioid systems are quite active in the presence of social stimuli, namely during
the normal course of play.
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may take the place of actual persons. Thus, it seems possible that
the regulating influence of important social relationships upon biological systems may be transduced not only by the sensorimotor and
temporal patterning of the actual transactions, but also through the
internal experiences of the relationship as it is carried out in the
mind of the subject involved (Hofer 1984). "Identification" is a suitable term for labeling the complex process of internalization of social
relationships that can maintain the psychobiological synchrony
mentioned above.
EXPERIENCE OF IDENTITY AND ENDOGENOUS
OPIOIDS
The conclusion that can be drawn from Panksepp's (Panksepp et
al. 1980) concept and findings is that social (first of all maternal)
induction of endogenous opioid activity serves as the basis for the
experience of trust, whose roots lie in the anticipation of social reward. This early experience receives representation at the cognitive
level, and plays a fundamental role in the subject's worldview. Early
(and thus more directly mediated) positive social experiences establish identity and, in an appropriate cultural milieu, determine religious beliefs such as faith in an internalized, omnipotent, protective
other.
The social connotation of endogenous opioid release may arise
when these substances are mobilized in another way, for example,
in hyperstress, in confrontationwith stress and pain, in situations of
helplessness or in the multimodal instance of trance. The same happens in the case of the "omnipotence maneuver" (Prince 1982b) in
near-death experiences when the threatened and helpless individual
suddenly experiences a feeling of passive resignation to death accompanied by tranquillity, and the dissolution of loneliness with a
sense of the presence of a protective other. The subject links these
experiences with the idea of supernatural intervention and designates it as the "grace of God," or attributes it to spiritual powers,
depending on cultural belief systems.
On the other hand, endogenous opioid mobilization may more
easily occur in response to a real person who is regarded as protective and omnipotent, since this situation involves a regressive, symbiotic form of attachment and closely resembles the early ontogenetic situation. We postulate this type of social attachment, which
applies in particular to ritual experiences.
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In summary, we propose that the social connotations and activation of the endogenous opioid system become cross-conditioned
during early ontogenesis, so that later in life whenever the opioid
system is activated by stress and pain, social connotations could
arise together with the paradoxically occurring euphoric states and,
vice versa, opioid-mediated euphoric and trans-like states are enhanced by social affiliation (Kulcsar, Frecska, and Varga 1987).
The need for and the possibility of identification are interwoven at
a psychobiological level: regression promotes endogenous opioid
mediation while endogenous opioids mediate affiliation, and help
depersonalization by loss of ego boundaries.
IMPLICATIONS FOR RITUAL EXPERIENCE
On the basis of this long survey it seems plausible that the experience of social identity (that is, the experience of being affiliated)
has a mobilizing effect on endogenous opioids and, conversely, ritually induced endogenous opioid activity supports social identity.
Thus we interpret Henry's remarks concerning trance susceptibility as follows. Leaders or priests, whom onlookers and participants expect to set an example and provide guidance, may have an
intensive sense of duty, thus a better ability to experience group
identity. Those participating for personal reasons, especially those
fulfillingan obligation, commit themselves to the deity who is a symbol of their group's social conscience and this kind of identity experience helps them to enter an altered state of consciousness. In the
case of disadvantaged, helpless individuals who sufferfrom diseases,
privation and fears of losses, their "uncontrollable" distress generates endogenous opioids (videsupra)as an internal mechanism that
enhances identification and trance.
Let us consider now a condition described by Jilek (1982b) as
"spirit illness" among the American West Coast Indians. This condition is in many respects analogous to the initiatory sickness of Siberian shamans. In this illness-like state subjects sufferanorexia, insomnia, weakness and emaciation, and experience hallucinatory or
illusional perceptions of a psychogenic type. According to Hofer:
Evidence from the studies on sensory deprivation and chronobiology indicate that
we are surprisingly dependent on the level and patterns of stimulation in our everyday lives for maintaining and regulating the complex organization of our mental
and physical functioning. We are not directly aware of the role that this stimulation
plays until it becomes insufficient or its patterning is radically changed. Then, we
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notice that our concentration and attention are impaired, our perception is somewhat distorted, we do not sleep well, our appetite is reduced . . . and we are periodically overcome with fatigue. In its extreme form, we feel that we are falling
apart mentally. We see and hear things that are not there. [1984:191]
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mechanisms), the healers and their community. Critical to this transition is the control and regulation of the healing power, a process
whose physiological and behavioral components merge, leading to
a deep psychobiological synchrony. The healers serve as a medium
to channel healing from the community back to the community.
Their spiritual strengths are drawn from the public, and the community in turn benefits from the battles healers carry on with the
malevolent ghosts of ancestors and with their own inner fears. The
net effect is a body of protective "spiritual energy" endlessly recycled from healer to community and back in a process that extends
deep into the past and represents a whirling, reciprocal kind of identification. Healers experience trance more intensely and share it
with the members of the community. The singing, clapping and rubbing of the participants helps to regulate the depth of the trance,
keeping dynamic balance between its risks and benefits (Katz
1982b). For example, the experience of pain in their trance is a homeostatic process controlled by others but we assume that the same
holds true for body temperature as well. Katz writes:
The dance fire is one of the specific elements used in the regulation of n/um.4There
is n/umin the fire, and the !Kung work with the fire to help heat up the dancer's nl
um.The singers will rub coals in their hands before they work on a dancer who has
fallen in !kia.5Dancers will go to the fire, walk in it, put their heads in it, pick up
coals and rub them over their hands and body. But it is not just the fire's heat that
helps dancer's n/um boil. Healers use the same word (da'a) to describe both the
central dance fire and the fire within their own bodies that heats up the n/um.The
fire also helps the dancer toward !kia because it adds its own n/umto the dancer's
n/um.This makes the fire an especially strong stimulant for !kia. [1982b:358]
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In the following section we shall attempt to provide an explanation for this therapeutic tradition.
RITUAL EXPERIENCE AND EXOGENOUS OPIOIDS
It seems that below both the symbolic level of identification and
the psychophysiological level of sensorimotor stimulation there lies
a core biological level of social contacts.
Work currently going on has made it clear that the skin as the
largest organ of the body directly exposed to the environment is not
merely a package. Rather, it is a blotter, a transmittal device, where
a great deal of interaction between the inside and outside of the body
goes on, even on the humoral level. In addition to its digestive function, the same goes for the gut as well. Identical bioactive peptides
secreted by the cells of the so-called "diffuse neuroendocrine system" (Margules 1981) in the brain, gut and skin suggest this trans-
mittal role.
It is thus tempting to speculate that concomitantly with the initiation of trance (when n/umbegins to boil and to induce !kia) sweat
glands secrete extra opioid peptides or substances enhancing the
opioid effect, acting endogenously in trancers, modifying thermoregulation, supporting energy expenditure, stimulating alteration of
consciousness, and being able to penetrate the skin, thus acting exogenously as well. It can be assumed that in other participants of
the healing ritual they prevent hyperthermia and affect immuno-
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Investigations
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