The Work
The identification of a global phenomenon of sacred postures and a scientific exploration of the effect of their use in a ritual context is the heart of the work of the Cuyamungue Institute. The implications of these findings are staggering.
"From our earliest history as humans, medicine women and shamans around the world understood how to establish and maintain a relationship with the world of spirit. By combining their knowledge with our highly evolved left-brain thinking, it is possible to create a bridge to a new future for humanity..."
Laura Lee
For nearly three decades, Felicitas Goodman’s research revived a tradition—at least 36,000 years old—that uses the capacity of the human nervous system to alter its functioning very precisely in order to enter expanded or non-ordinary states of consciousness. Using a collection of ritual body postures from the artwork of hunter-gatherer and horticultural people as a doorway to the world of spirit, this state known as ecstatic trance is achieved through a relatively simple, safe, and teachable method. It is evidence of the amazing durability of these sacred postures that groups of urbanized and technologically sophisticated women and men can assume the same body positions shown in the artwork of Paleolithic fishermen or Uzbekistani shamans and find themselves journeying into non-ordinary states of consciousness, presumably in ways similar to these unknown ancestors.