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The Cult of the Seer in the Ancient Middle East: A Contribution to Current Research on Hallucinations Drawn from Coptic and Other Texts

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A multifaceted study of the lives, ascetic practices, and visionary experiences of a group of seers of the early Christian period, accompanied by a medico-historical commentary which aims to clarify the practice of self-induced hallucinations.

The method of the book is striking. After presenting the riches of a vast body of early writings on seers and their visions (translated mainly from the hagiographic literature of Coptic Egypt in the 3rd to 7th centuries), Dr. MacDermot is able to offer a precise dissection of the spiritual experience of religious heroes and to utilize this analysis in distinguishing how these ancient religious experiences differ from the mystical tendencies of our own psychedelic subculture.

Dr. MacDermot's classification of the texts provides a pattern both of the way of life of the seers and of the content of their visions. A notable feature emerging from her arrangement is the recurrence of certain groups of words. The word-groups and a list of the most frequently used words together form a vocabulary for the subject of seership.

By focusing on the psychic and physiological forms of Coptic-Christian asceticism, MacDermot also analyzes the synthesis of the pagan (Greek and Syrian), ancient Egyptian, Jewish and Christian components of the ascetic life of Christian Egypt.