Skip to content

Carlos Manuel Quirce Balma

Universidad de Costa Rica

1 paper in the library · 2 citations · publishing 2011

Papers

El Modelo del Arriba y del Debajo de la Conciencia: Análisis Etnopsicofarmacológico del Uso de Plantas Enteogénicas

LA Referencia (Red Federada de Repositorios Institucionales de Publicaciones Científicas) November 2, 2011 Carlos Manuel Quirce Balma 2 citations

This paper analyzes anthropological, religious, and mythological phenomena where gods transform into demons or vice versa, termed the 'inversion effect.' This occurs when new religious creeds supplant older beliefs, shifting deities from heaven to hell. In ancient matrilineal myths, the sky is often a threatening place and the underworld safe and friendly; patrilineal eras invert this, associating the sky with the celestial and the underworld with the undesirable or infernal. Light and darkness, and good and evil symbolism, play key roles. A Bribri myth is examined to illustrate the inversion effect, with ethnopharmacological and botanical implications noted.