Confirmation is attained in dialogue with one's teacher and with other meditators who have undergone the same or similar disciplines. It becomes clear over time that in order to comprehend the meaning of the symbolism, one must do the work necessary to flesh out the experientially rich meaning. In a word, if the ethnographer hasn't undergone the apprehension phase, he or she cannot comprehend the real meaning the symbolism holds for the native. One reason why anthropologists have so often neglected the transpersonal realm of religious experience is that the culture of science in our age is, and has been for some generations, anti-introspectionist in its positivist bias. This is particularly noticeable today in some schools of cognitive science where introspective methods are still considered anathema.
Phenomenological training directs the mind inward in a disciplined way.
The training builds habit patterns that counter the Euroamerican conditioning toward ignoring or repressing internal processes, and prepares the student for the kind of procedures used in many alien cultural situations for incubating and attaining transpersonal experiences. I believe what is needed in anthropology, and in science generally for that matter, is a cadre of what we have called mature contemplatives . Generally speaking, a mature contemplative is an individual who has trained their mind according to some discipline to sufficient tranquillity, concentration and interest that they can explore the structures of consciousness involved in producing experience. In Husserlian terms, this is someone who is able to perform the phenomenological reduction, although they may not have completed what Husserl called the transcendental reduction. What this means is that the individual has come to realize in the course of their introspection that nothing arising in consciousness is permanent or has an unchanging nature.