Abstract The global expansion of psychedelic research, clinical translation, and policy reform has intensified debates concerning safety, equity, cultural appropriation, and Indigenous rights. A prominent contribution to these discussions is the Hopkins–Oxford Psychedelic Ethics (HOPE) Consensus Statement (Jacobs et al., 2024), which proposes a foundational ethical framework for a field...
Entheogenic healing rituals have emerged recently decades in the Western world using a psychoactive secretion from a tree frog (Phyllomedusa bicolor) called Kambo. Kambo use originated as an Amazonian hunting ritual but became internationalized as a spiritual healing practice in a “vaccination” involving application of the frog secretion of a frog through the skin via a heat-induced blister....
Soul belief is a universal of human culture and belief in multiple souls is common, especially in pre-modern traditions. This essay illustrates how a three-folded structure appears in the soul concepts of Mongolian shamanistic traditions. The reported accounts of the three souls among various Mongolian ethnic groups are somewhat divergent — especially in their consciousness-related attributes —...
The heralded psychedelic renaissance is currently at a new level where psychedelics are being accepted by the scientific community and the public. Medicalization and the ongoing introduction of market forces are imposing a trend in which psychedelic treatments are reduced to focus into strictly pharmacological and psychological effects on the self, rather than interactions with broader social...
This paper presents an empirical model for interpreting evidence of ritual practices and alterations of consciousness, derived from a cross-cultural study. The four main types of religious practitioners—the healer complex (shaman, shaman/healer and healer), the medium, the priest and the sorcerer/witch—are described in terms of their characteristic roles, experience of altered states of...
AbstractAnthropological theories about the techniques broadly labeled magic and related practices as sorcery, witchcraft, divination, and ritual curing are in need of reformulation. Theoretical considerations of these phenomena within anthropology have neglected to consider the basic assumptions of magical belief, instead departing from Western cultural assumptions that beliefs about magic are...
Abstract This paper provides a method- and theory-focused assessment of religious behavior based on cross-cultural research that provides an empirically derived model as a basis for making inferences about ritual practices in the past through an ethnological analogy. A review of previous research provides an etic typology of religious practitioners and identifies their characteristics,...
This review illustrates the relevance of shamanism and its evolution under effects of psilocybin as a framework for identifying evolved aspects of psychedelic set and setting. Effects of 5HT2 psychedelics on serotonin, stress adaptation, visual systems and personality illustrate adaptive mechanisms through which psychedelics could have enhanced hominin evolution as an environmental factor...
This introduction to the special issue reviews research that supports the hypothesis that psychedelics, particularly psilocybin, were central features in the development of religion. The greater response of the human serotonergic system to psychedelics than is the case for chimpanzees’ serotonergic receptors indicates that these substances were environmental factors that affected hominin...
Historical documents relating to early Mormonism suggest that Joseph Smith (1805–1844) employed entheogen-infused sacraments to fulfill his promise that every Mormon convert would experience visions of God and spiritual ecstasies. Early Mormon scriptures and Smith’s teachings contain descriptions consistent with using entheogenic material. Compiled descriptions of Joseph Smith’s earliest...
The essay proposes that entheogenic mushrooms and shamanic experiences are encoded in the Khajuraho Temples of India. Erotic sculptures of Khajuraho have statues with limbs depicted in strange positions, separated from the body or with orientations that are anatomically impossible. These represent dismemberment experiences typical of shamanic and mystical initiation, a phenomenon with...
Shamanism and possession are central concepts in the religious practices of many “premodern” societies, with substantial similarities manifested across cultures and time that reflect their basis in human nature. Shamans and possession both involve ritual alteration of consciousness but differences between them are illustrated by cross‐cultural studies and the distinctive experiential features...
The aims of this study were to assess the impact of ceremonial use of ayahuasca-a psychedelic brew containing N,N-dimethyltryptamine (DMT) and β-carboline -and attendance at União do Vegetal (UDV) meetings on substance abuse; here we report the findings related to alcohol and tobacco use disorder. A total of 1,947 members of UDV 18+ years old were evaluated in terms of years of membership and...
Psychedelic entity experiences are examined from perspectives of evolutionary psychology and neurophenomenology. Their similarities with other entity experiences illustrate the need for a general biological explanation of entity experiences. Mechanisms are proposed to involve innate modules, operators, and intelligences that underlie ordinary cognitive inferences and provide the basis for...
Neuropharmacological effects of psychedelics have profound cognitive, emotional, and social effects that inspired the development of cultures and religions worldwide. Findings that psychedelics objectively and reliably produce mystical experiences press the question of the neuropharmacological mechanisms by which these highly significant experiences are produced by exogenous neurotransmitter...
Ayahuasca is an Amazonian psychoactive brew of two main components. Its active agents are β-carboline and tryptamine derivatives. As a sacrament, ayahuasca is still a central element of many healing ceremonies in the Amazon Basin and its ritual consumption has become common among the mestizo populations of South America. Ayahuasca use amongst the indigenous people of the Amazon is a form of...
Ayahuasca is an Amazonian psychoactive brew of two main components. Its active agents are β-carboline and tryptamine derivatives. As a sacrament, ayahuasca is still a central element of many healing ceremonies in the Amazon Basin and its ritual consumption has become common among the mestizo populations of South America. Ayahuasca use amongst the indigenous people of the Amazon is a form of...
Substances known as psychedelics, hallucinogens and entheogens have been employed in ethnomedical traditions for thousands of years, but after promising uses in the 1950's and 1960's they were largely prohibited in medical treatment and human research starting in the 1970's as part of the fallout from the war on drugs. Nonetheless, there are a number of studies which suggest that these...
The biological foundation for a shamanic epistemology is indicated by the cross-cultural distribution of a shamanic cosmology derived from knowledge obtained during altered consciousness. These special forms of consciousness involve integrative brain conditions that access ancient ways of knowing, expressive systems which have evolutionary roots in the communicative and social processes...
Singing to the Plants: A Guide to Mestizo Shamanism in the Upper Amazon . Stephan V. Beyer . Albuquerque : University of New Mexico Press , 2009 . 544 pp . Beyer's book developed from trips to the Amazon out of an interest in jungle survival that extended to a personal absorption with Amazonian spirituality. Although purportedly about “mestizo shamanism of the upper Amazon” (p. xi), it covers a...
Although the term “shamanic†is used to refer to a diverse range of phenomena, it nonetheless reflects something empirical. Cross-cultural research illustrates that the concept of the shaman reflects the existence of similar spiritual healing practices found in pre-modern foraging and simple horticultural and pastoral societies around the world (Winkelman, 1992; 2000). This cross-cultural...
This research addresses the question of whether Westerners who seek traditional spiritual medicine known as ayahuasca can be best characterized as "drug tourists" or as people pursuing spiritual and therapeutic opportunities. Participants in an ayahuasca retreat in Amazonia were interviewed regarding their motivations for participation and the benefits they felt that they received. These...
The numerous perspectives offered on consciousness reflect a multifaceted phenomenon that results from a system of relations. An etymological approach identifies linguistic roots of the meanings of consciousness and illustrates their concern with self‐referenced informational relationships of an organism with its environment, a "knowing system" formed in the epistemological relations between...
Vision-inducing plants ("hallucinogens") are important in many societies, evoking powerful emotional, psychological, cognitive, religious, spiritual, therapeutic and political reactions. These substances' psychophysiological properties shape cross- cultural similarities in patterns of use and experiences, while political factors shape their cultural desirability. Neurological studies illustrate...