The Aboriginal Mind: A Study of the Psychological Origins of Aboriginal Religious Ideas

Record summary

W. E. H. Stanner’s discussions of Aboriginal religious thought, including material later collected in White Man Got No Dreaming, provide a lead for examining culturally specific ideas of self, agency, ancestors and sacred presence. The relevance to altered-states research lies in comparing models of consciousness without assuming that every religious experience is an unusual brain state or a psi event. Exact publication histories and titles of individual essays require checking because Stanner’s work circulated through articles, lectures and later collections. The lead is therefore primarily bibliographic and historiographical.