Prehistoric art as an entoptic phenomenon - a study

In the 19th century, European and American opticians, physiologists, and philosophers developed a widespread interest in entoptic phenomena. To create and study entoptics, they conducted experiments stimulating the brain and retina, initially electrically and later using mind-altering substances. Particularly in the 1960s and 1970s, numerous experiments were conducted on human volunteers using substances such as THC, mescaline, psilocybin, and LSD. The worldwide ban on these substances prevented research on entoptic phenomena based on intoxicating substances.

In 1988, two South African archaeologists addressed this legacy from the 1960s and 1970s, presenting an alternative interpretation of Stone Age art. In a sensational publication, David Lewis-Williams and Thomas Dowson observed that stone and cave art from the Late Paleolithic (approximately 40,000 to 10,000 BC), the period when humans (Homo sapiens) developed abstract thought and art, was characterized by two main themes: on the one hand, the vivid representation of animals, and on the other, geometric figures such as dots, circles, lines, arcs, and so on. Since the discovery of European Paleolithic caves, archaeologists have pondered the validity and meaning of such geometric representations. Attempts to explain them through concepts of totemism and magical rituals have proved unconvincing to the research community.Lewis-Williams and Dowson advanced the original thesis that

 Paleolithic art was inspired by subjective visual phenomena observed and presented by shamans or spiritualists during altered states of consciousness. On the one hand, they understood hallucinations as subjective visual phenomena, while on the other, they considered entoptic phenomena, which are colorful or bright, shifting shapes and geometric patterns, to be such. Lewis-Williams and Dowson, like other researchers following their line of thought, focused on entoptic phenomena. While visual hallucinations are shaped individually by cultural factors, entoptic phenomena are considered culturally independent and produced solely by states of the visual nervous system. Furthermore, two types of entoptics are distinguished: photism, or light phenomena that may originate from physical stimulation of the eyeball, and so-called "solid elements," or geometric shapes that occur during altered states of consciousness.The researchers developed a neuropsychological model to classify six types of geometric forms—grids, lines, dots, zigzags, catenaries, and filigrees—and to describe the progressive stages of the visual trance experience, beginning with abstract entoptic forms that gradually transform into iconic images reflecting the shaman's real or mythical reality. Lewis-Williams and Dowson emphasize that our nervous system is no different from that of prehistoric humans. This means we can experience the same entoptic phenomena as people living 40,000 years ago. This condition allows the researchers to make comparisons between past and present art in different cultural contexts to support their argument. They tested their model by analyzing the art of two living shamanic societies: the San of South Africa and the Coso of the Shoshone of North America. Finally, the authors applied their model to carved and painted prehistoric art and confirmed their hypothesis that this art was also created in the context of shamanism and altered states of mind.

Entoptic Forms (www.wynja.com, illustration from David Lewis-Williams and Thomas Dowson)