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bridges worldly (embodied) and eternal temporal and expe-
riential frames. Religious formation is likened to psychoan-
alytic or psychodynamic forms of therapy in that both are
aimed at a facilitation of the ability of the clients–novices to
perceive their personal experiences (and, for these women,
their relation to God) in a new way. The final chapters of
this section are by far the most compelling and interesting
of the book, and Lester’s elaborate theorizing comes alive
when we hear snippets of narratives from a selection of
women and are given some glimpses into their preconvent
lives.
While Lester acknowledges that the program of “self-
discovery” might help the initiates deal with personal prob-
lems and psychic distress, it is in helping them reconcile
contradictions in wider Mexican society that the novices’
newly honed subjectivities apparently have broader rele-
vance and significance. The congregation’s philosophy har-
monizes with a larger national and gendered discourse
discerned by Lester that targets modernity (and, she ar-
gues, “Americanization” in particular) as a (male) evil
force eroding a utopic (female) “traditional” Mexico. Thus,
by joining this particular congregation, women were al-
lowed a femininity-affirming alternative to the conflic-
tive models of modern career woman and traditional
housewife.
While presumably the final section is intended to lend
Lester’s study some ethnographic specificity and scope, it is
probably the least successful and convincing aspect of the
book and seems somewhat tacked on. The leap from discus-
sions of subjectivity and intimate corners of the novices’ ex-
periences to grand observations regarding the dynamics of
Mexican national identity is both uncomfortable and prob-
lematic. To be sure, strongly gendered cultural narratives
percolate through social life in Mexico, but can we assume
each of these young women has necessarily internalized
them in even a similar way? Indeed, whenever her analy-
sis ventures outside the convent walls, Lester appears to be
on shakier ground. The larger Mexico she describes is either
read through the lens of others’ representations (scholarly
writings, newspapers, television shows, advertisements) or
else is limited largely to a Puebla—a renowned stronghold
of “traditional” conservative Catholic identity and of insti-
tutional Church influence. Missing in the book is a sense
of the many Mexicos—in values, in “ethnicities,” in world-
views, in religious (including Catholic) identities—that ex-
ist within its borders.
In addition, the book is too long and could have done
with more stringent editing. Lester demonstrates a thor-
ough knowledge of the literature, but there is much rep-
etition of ideas, and many of the theoretical genealogies
are tangential to the matter at hand and should have been
relegated to footnotes. Despite these shortcomings, this is
a study written with a lot of care, diligence, and theoret-
ical rigor. It is valuable reading for students and special-
ists within psychological anthropology, and anyone con-
cerned with the theorization of subjectivity and gender, and
identity.
Inside the Neolithic Mind: Consciousness, Cosmos,
and the Realm of the Gods. David Lewis-Williams and
David Pearce. New York: Thames and Hudson, 2005. 320 pp.
SUSAN A. JOHNSTON
George Washington University
Inside the Neolithic Mind describes the latest in a series of
approaches in which brain physiology is used to interpret
the meaning of archaeological sites and objects. Beginning
some 20 years ago with phosphenes, it continued on to the
Paleolithic with The Mind in the Cave (Lewis-Williams 2002).
Now the Neolithic of the Near East and Europe are the sub-
ject of such interpretation. Here, the idea that the human
brain functions in relatively predictable ways under altered
states of consciousness is used as a framework for determin-
ing the meaning of everything from house arrangements
to burial practices to art motifs. The book begins by argu-
ing that all religious phenomena (beliefs, behaviors, etc.)—
whether directly or indirectly, however induced, in all times
and places—can be traced to the experience of altered states
of consciousness. This includes common elements of expe-
rience such as the vision of a tiered cosmos, passing to the
other world via a tunnel or vortex, and seeing visual forms
such as geometric shapes and repetitive motifs.
This analytical framework is then applied to specific
cases from the Near East and western Europe, notably Çatal
Hüyük, ‘Ain Gazal, the Epic of Gilgamesh, and the me-
galithic tombs at Barclodiad Y Gawres, Bryn Celli Ddu,
Knowth, and Newgrange. While each analysis reflects its
particular context, in all cases human neurology forms the
backdrop against which cultural forms are projected. For
example, the structures in Çatal Hüyük reflect the tiered
cosmos through the use of features such as ladders and the
placement of bucrania; the spirals pecked onto stone sur-
faces at Newgrange reflect the journey of the dead to the
other world through a vortex; and the structure of pas-
sage tombs represents the passage through the tunnel to
the other world. What allows the authors to understand
the meaning of these various cultural forms is the univer-
sality of human neurology. Because we all share the same
brain structure, the authors can use not only their own un-
derstandings but also apply those from other cultures—for
example, the Barasana (Colombia), the Samoyed (Siberia),
or the San (South Africa). Note that these are explicitly not
intended as ethnographic analogy, a practice the authors
seem to decry, but are rather “illustrations” intended to pro-
vide possible ways of interpreting meaning in past societies
(frankly, I’m not clear on the distinction, but it seems im-
portant to the authors).
The various analyses offered by David Lewis-Williams
and David Pearce are certainly interesting, and sometimes
quite new and innovative. Among my favorites are the idea
that the tops and surrounding spaces of Irish megalithic
tombs might be used in ritual as well as the interiors;
that standing stones represent embodied beings; that the
Knowth stone basin was the focus of activity before the

tomb was built around it; that the domestication of animals
was a byproduct of Near Eastern religious behavior rather
than economic activity; and that the structure of the Epic
of Gilgamesh reflects the structure of the cosmos.
At the same time, there is a curious disconnect between
the more theoretical beginning of the book and the analyses
that follow. The authors are careful to note that neurologi-
cal patterns are only a “resource” to be used in experiencing
and acting out religious phenomena (e.g., “people are able
but not obliged to select from them as they build up their
belief systems” [p. 18; emphasis in original]). This would
seem to imply that shared brain structure is not always the
“reason” why religious forms are the way they are. This is
presumably intended to avoid any accusation of “neuro-
logical determinism.” It may also be an indirect response
to the definitive critique to the neuropsychological aspects
of the trance model offered recently by Patricia Helvenston
and Paul Bahn in Waking the Trance Fixed (2005). However,
if neurology does not always “explain” in some sense the
archaeologically observable forms, then why do we need
them to begin with? For example, the idea of a tiered cos-
mos might have come from altered states of consciousness,
or it might have come from simply standing on the earth,
looking up in the sky, and peering below into a crevasse.
Either one is arguably a human commonality and would
explain why the idea of a tiered cosmos is so common. Be-
cause we cannot assume that brain functioning is the nec-
essary reason, then how do we know when it is the cause
and when it is not? It seems as though the authors want it
both ways—it is universal because we are all human, but it
is not causal because that would be deterministic.
A similar question can be asked about how we know
whether Neolithic people experienced altered states at all.
On the one hand, the authors repeatedly describe Neolithic
people as “trapped” by their neurology, so that it would
have been impossible for them to see a difference between
the secular world and the neurologically generated other
world. And yet, because modern people can now easily dis-
tinguish the two (hence the authors’ ability to do the anal-
ysis in the first place) and may reject the latter outright, we
are not “trapped” in this way. To explain this, the authors
use a pendulum image to suggest that the relative commit-
ment to altered states and the other world can swing back
and forth. At the moment, we are in a less committed state,
able clearly to see that religion is nothing more than a neu-
rologically generated illusion. In the past, however, the pen-
dulum was at the other extreme, so that Neolithic people
experienced this and the other world as a seamless whole.
Again, I suspect that the pendulum image is designed to
avoid the accusation that somehow we are “more evolved”
than our ancestors in this regard. But if this pendulum can
swing back and forth, then how do we know that it was
firmly in the “altered states court” during the Neolithic?
Perhaps they, too, were highly skeptical of altered states,
a ladder was simply a means of access, and a tomb was a
highly visible way to claim ancestral land. This generates a
kind of circularity: The proof that they experienced altered
Single Reviews 601
states lies in the nature of what they produced, and then we
determine the nature of what they produced as the result of
altered states. Given the critique offered by Helvenston and
Bahn, it may be more parsimonious to situate such analyses
in cultural factors rather than in altered states which cannot
be securely demonstrated to have been experienced.
In the end, the analyses offered by Lewis-Williams and
Pearce are very interesting, but they do not need the neu-
rological backbone that is so highly emphasized. Would it
be any less compelling if they argued that, on the basis of
ethnographic patterns, a tiered cosmos is a common way
of seeing the world, and therefore it is useful to apply it to
the Neolithic? Why is it that we as a culture find it so com-
pelling to root our interpretations in biological reality? Is it
a reflection of the “21st-century mind”?
On a final note, I would also add a personal observa-
tion. I found the beginning of the book extremely interest-
ing, presenting evidence that what we know as “religion” is
in fact nothing more than the byproduct of normal human
brain functioning. In the last chapter of the book, the au-
thors make the observation that this is perhaps the reason
that religion is dying out in the modern world. Here in the
United States, no one would have made such an argument;
evidence here suggests that just the opposite is true.
REFERENCES CITED
Helvenston, Patricia, and Paul Bahn
2005 Waking the Trance Fixed. Shelbyville, KY: Wasteland Press.
Lewis-Williams, David
2002 The Mind in the Cave: Consciousness and the Origins of
Art. London: Thames and Hudson.
Behind the Gates: Life, Security, and the Pursuit of
Happiness in Fortress America. Setha Lowe. New York:
Routledge, 2003. 275 pp.
JOHN MIHELICH
University of Idaho
Behind the Gates by Setha Lowe is a compelling, multivoice
ethnography of gated communities in the United States
and Mexico. Lowe positions herself in the research context
wondering why people, including her sister Anna, choose a
gated lifestyle. Based on eight years of research, Lowe reveals
the complexity of the cultural response of walling and gat-
ing. She portrays gated developments as emergent physical
and symbolic versions of the “American Dream” for middle-
class U.S. citizens struggling for security and experiencing
tensions between the desire for safety and the desire for an
open, friendly community. She situates gated communities
in a context of racism, privatization, development practices,
and the post-1970 changes in the U.S. political economy.
She then discusses the class-based cultural processes of cre-
ating distinction in purified refuges behind gates as partially
a response to status anxiety.
After drawing an important distinction between gated
communities and earlier suburbanization, Lowe organizes
subsequent chapters according to themes emerging from