| We live in an age where knowledge, technology, and competitive power reign over the imagination, nature, and cooperation, wherein agnosticism reigns over belief. The Cartesian-Newtonian universe has been disenchanted, and the soul and imaginative intelligence have been marginalized by our rational quest for knowledge, causing many to seek for soulful healing through shamanism. This dissertation examines the archetypes of the wounded soul and the imaginative journey as a viable healing modality. Goethe's Faust demonstrates western soul loss, the Faustian dilemma of seeking meaning in a meaningless world, and Andean shamanism is illuminated as offering viable healing wisdom and techniques. It is asserted that imaginal capacities are epistemologically significant, like those demonstrated within Andean shamanism, a pragmatic mystical system that understands the ethos of reciprocation and the experiential soul journey for tapping and using such power. Furthermore, it suggests that the realms of imaginal shamanic influence and the associated mundus imaginalis of Henry Corbin's Sufism are energetic domains of subtle materiality, and that the worldview must acknowledge this realm as an ontologically reality to further humanity's cosmic and self-understanding. In addition to delving into the core cosmology and ethics of Andean shamanism, the discussion draws on a number of fields, including depth, archetypal, and transpersonal psychologies; consciousness theories; quantum physics; and mythic concepts that echo and illuminate the call for a Western cosmology that recognizes the universe as living, conscious, and holistically interrelated. It is argued that the mechanistic and positivistic paradigms of modernity are waning, and is suggested that the waxing holistic paradigms must embrace the multidimensional veracity of reality to be relevant. Thus, it advocates that to cultivate a relevant worldview that is both ecologically and soulfully supportive of life requires that we adopt a Mythic Perspective in which we re-ensoul our cosmos and restore the epistemological validity of our imaginal faculty and belief instinct. |
