The significance of Immanuel Kant’s ideas for investigating the phenomenon of altered states of consciousness (ASC)

A. A. Belik

Doctor of Historical Sciences, researcher at the Miklouho-Maclay Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology, Russian Academy of Sciences

Andrey Alexandrovich Belik (1955–2014) was an outstanding scientist and a leading expert in the field of psychological anthropology, the history of cultural and social anthropology, anthropology of religion, Doctor of Historical Sciences, professor at the Department of Ethnopsychology and Psychological Problems of Multicultural Education at Moscow City University of Psychology and Education, leading researcher at the Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology of the Russian Academy of Sciences, professor at the Center for Social and Cultural Anthropology at Russian State University for the Humanities. For several years (2010–2014), he led the section of the Altstates.Net project dedicated to the cultural anthropology of ASC, preparing a number of materials on this topic.

Belik A. A. The significance of Immanuel Kant’s ideas for investigating the phenomenon of altered states of consciousness (ASC). — Altstates.net, 2013.

Abstract:

Immanuel Kant's ideas played a fundamental role in the possibility of understanding a group of phenomena that later became known as altered states of consciousness (ASC). He brought emotions (sensuality, in his terminology) to the historical arena in opposition to pure rationalism, which prevailed in Europe (Critique of Pure Reason). In his opinion, imagination plays a decisive role in the functioning of humans as rational beings, providing a synthesis of sensuality and reason. Imagination and images play a fundamental role in human cognition and life in general. Kant made the “folk means” of stimulating sensuality (up to ecstatic states) the subject of his “anthropology” and identified the simplest cases of altered states of consciousness in everyday life. He attached great importance to sleep and dreams. Kant did not have a general concept for altered states of consciousness, but nevertheless, he formulated a number of propositions that, more than 200 years later, became the subject of detailed research on altered states of consciousness. These include apriorism and the sense of time (a change in the perception of time is one of the signs of altered states of consciousness), as well as the problem of “controlling” images and the influence of images and affective states on health and the overall functioning of the body.

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