“Certainly, the sensory deprivation afforded by the remote, silent and totally dark chambers, such as the Diverticule of the Felines in Lascaux… — James David Lewis-Williams Copy Share Image
“Sexual arousal and penal erections are associated with both altered states of consciousness and sleep.” — James David Lewis-Williams Copy Share Image
“In altered states of consciousness, the nervous system itself becomes a ‘sixth sense’ that produces a variety of images including entoptic phenomena.” — James David Lewis-Williams Copy Share Image
“In southern Africa, a great many figures are ithyphallic. This feature has generally – and rather vaguely – been taken to refer… — James David Lewis-Williams Copy Share Image
“The behaviour of the human nervous system in certain altered states creates the illusion of dissociation from one’s body (less commonly understood… — James David Lewis-Williams Copy Share Image
“I now argue that entry into Upper Palaeolithic caves was probably seen as virtually indistinguishable from entry into the mental vortex that leads to… — James David Lewis-Williams Copy Share
“For the makers, the paintings and engravings were visions, not representations of visions.” — James David Lewis-Williams Copy Share
“The principal aim of a vision quest is to ‘see’ a spirit animal that will become the quester’s animal-helper and source of his power.” — James David Lewis-Williams Copy Share
“I suggest that the type of consciousness – not merely the degree of intelligence – that Neanderthals possessed was different in important respects from… — James David Lewis-Williams Copy Share
“To understand the ‘wounded men’ of Upper Palaeolithic art, I now consider somatic hallucinations; these include attenuation of the body and limbs, polymelia (having… — James David Lewis-Williams Copy Share
“The picture of change in human society that emerges from this recent research throws new light on that aspect of the Transition that has… — James David Lewis-Williams Copy Share
“Perhaps the most striking feature of the west European Upper Palaeolithic, one on which many writers comment, is a sharp increase in the rate… — James David Lewis-Williams Copy Share
“The first point to notice is that the Transition cannot be explained by climatic change alone: human change was not the direct result of… — James David Lewis-Williams Copy Share
“The world’s oldest ‘art’ (77,000 years old) comes from Blombos Cave on the southern coast of South Africa.” — James David Lewis-Williams Copy Share
“Improved memory made possible the long-term recollection of dreams and visions and the construction of those recollections into a spirit world.” — James David Lewis-Williams Copy Share
“Under certain social circumstances, which may have varied from time to time and place to place, certain people (shamans) saw a relationship between the… — James David Lewis-Williams Copy Share
“Primary consciousness is a state of being aware of things in the world – of having mental images in the present.But it is not… — James David Lewis-Williams Copy Share
“Art was not simply a foregone conclusion, the final link in a causal chain. It was not the inevitable outcome of an evolving ‘aesthetic… — James David Lewis-Williams Copy Share
“Once human beings had developed higher-order consciousness, they had the ability to see mental images projected onto surfaces and to experience afterimages.” — James David Lewis-Williams Copy Share
“The ‘wounded men’ may, I argue, represent a form of shamanistic suffering, ‘death’ and initiation that was closely associated with somatic hallucinati” — James David Lewis-Williams Copy Share
