The cross-cultural evidence on "extreme behaviors": what can it tell us?
Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences
Short Title:
Ann. N. Y. Acad. Sci.The cross-cultural evidence on "extreme behaviors"
Format:
Journal Article
Publication Date:
2009/08//
Pages:
270 - 277
Sources ID:
95246
Collection:
Himalayan and Tibetan Medicine
Visibility:
Public (group default)
Abstract:
(Show)
Many kinds of body/mind practices are capable of producing remarkable behaviors and altered body states. A typology of such behaviors and states, defined as observable and intentional "extreme" alterations to the body, is presented. Epistemological and methodological issues are discussed: limitations of observational data, and role of meaning, intentionality, and consciousness. Rapprochement between Western medicine and Indo-Tibetan medicine requires rethinking biomedicine's radical grounding in physicality and reliance on "evidence-based medicine," and guarding against an ethnocentric Western intellectual hegemony motivating medical science and clinical practice to colonize and subvert non-Western traditions like Indo-Tibetan Buddhist medicine.