For Kung hunter-gatherers and Fijian fishing people, healing is a central community ritual with significance beyond the cure itself. An enhanced state of consciousness, experienced most intensely by the healer, but also shared by the community, is at the core of Kung and Fijian healing. Although in contemporary Euro-American culture the spiritual is considered a separate or separable dimension, and healing a separate or separable role, data from these cultures describe a situation where the spiritual is inseparable from other aspects of life. A transformational model based on the role of the healer in these two cultures might also be applicable to understanding processes of education, community, and development in other cultures by emphasizing transitioning rather than stages achieved, and process and experience rather than structure. To apply such a model to Western cultures would mean major changes in world view, moving to a synergistic view of the world, rather than one based on the ideas of scarcity and fragmentation. (IS)