Instinct and Revelation - Reflections on the Origins of Numinous Perception

Instinct and Revelation revolves around the hypothesis that ritual behavior and imaginative awareness in early hominids may have helped to spawn the evolution of the human brain and human consciousness. Using an integral perspective comparable with systems theory, the book carefully interweaves fact and theory from physical and cultural anthropology, psychobiology and the brain sciences, psychology, and to a lesser degree, eastern philosophy. This book breaks from tradition by discussing from a primarily anthropological perspective the origin of human consciousness within a philosophical framework that embraces precepts from human evolution, evolutionary psychology, the neurosciences, biocultural anthropology, and cultural symbolic anthropology.

List of contents

Introduction; 1: The Dawn of Consciousness, Culture, and the Numinous Mind; 2: The Hominid Journey: An Odyssey Through Human Evolution; 3: The Hominid Brain: The Emergence of the “Two Pound Universe”; 4: The Numinous Mind in Evolutionary Perspective; 5: The Nectar of Chant: The Vocal Path to Encephalization

About the author

Alondra Oubre

Product details

• Authors: Alondra Oubre, Oubre Alondra
• Publisher: Taylor and Francis
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback / Softback
• Released: 28.10.1997
• EAN: 9789056995287
• ISBN: 978-90-5699-528-7
• No. of pages: 320
• Weight: 544 g
• Subjects: Humanities, art, music > Religion/theology > Miscellaneous; Non-fiction book > Philosophy, religion > Miscellaneous; Social sciences, law, business > Political science > Political science and political education; POLITICAL SCIENCE / General, Anthropology, SOCIAL SCIENCE / Anthropology / General, Christianity, Social & political philosophy, Political science & theory, social and political philosophy, Philosophy of religion, Political science and theory, Phenomenology & Existentialism, Phenomenology and Existentialism, Eclectic & Esoteric Religions & Belief Systems, Eclectic and esoteric religions and belief systems