20-24 septembrie 2009 - Biblioteca Metropolitana Bucuresti

716 Nikolay L. SukhachevThis task is carried out while adopting the already existing knowledge tothe new situations. The states of consciousness, following each over, finallydeterminate the general tendency of the development of all the phenomenain social time (as the French scholar F. Braudel has determined thehuman history).The Homo sapiens has not changed morphologically since the timeof its archaeological attestation, i.e. 40-35 thousands year ago. However,the “schemes of intellect”, i.e. structure of consciousness was changingconstantly. Psychologists speak of affective or personal sense fromsubjective contents of the word and its signification as a social phenomenon.Practically, the sense is identical with the object of the thought. In theevolution of the language the affective senses and the significations wereboth produced and apprehended spontaneously. The pragmatic type ofthinking allowed the sense to coincide with signification. Only a changeto conscious reflexivity allows the personal sense to be differentiated fromthe latter. This process practically coincides with the emergence of writing(ca. 5000 years ago). The semiotic and cognitive components of a languagestart drifting also nearly at the same time. In the historical time thinkingbecomes a separate sphere of activity. Sense and signification changedtheir places: personal sense is formed on the basis of signification, andtheir interrelationship may be determined by the rules of logical thinking.The historical changes in the interrelationship between the sense andsignification are practically ignored by the linguists and anthropologists.However, a study of shamanism may correlate with a study of consciousnessin its affected stage. There are several studies of “shaman’s illness” aswell as the therapeutical aspects of shamanism, and the effects of certainshamanic techniques (cf. R. Walsh 1990, The spirit of Shamanism. LosAngeles). This approach is a consequence of considering ecstasy as themost important aspect of shamanism (as in Eliade’s work). This method,however, rather obscures the nature of shamanism (Hamayon 1993;1995). “Trance” and “ecstasy” are just the means to affect the objects ofthe ritual.It is quite common to date shamanism back to the beginning of Neolith,or even Paleolith (cf. Shamanism in Siberia / Ed. by V. Dioszegi and M.hOPPAL 1996, Budapest). It is often seen as an early form of polytheism. Itis true, that in certain shamanic traditions one may find pantheons of gods,although they are normally late and the cults themselves are borrowed. Itis important that it reflects a different type of consciousness. In general