Journal of Psychedelic Studies
September 10, 2026
Fernanda Kaingáng, Daiara Tukano, Adana Omágua-Kambeba et al.
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...
June 16, 2025
Michael Winkelman, Jan M. Keppel Hesselink
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....
Journal of Consciousness Studies
June 1, 2023
Ede Frecska, Ágnes Birtalan, Michael Winkelman
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 —...
Frontiers in Pharmacology
July 22, 2022
Leor Roseman, Katrin H. Preller, Evgenia Fotiou et al.
15 citations
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...
Frontiers in Pharmacology
February 23, 2021
Michael Winkelman
62 citations
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...
Journal of Psychedelic Studies
June 1, 2019
Michael Winkelman
63 citations
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...
Journal of Psychedelic Studies
June 1, 2019
Robert Beckstead, Bryce Blankenagel, Cody Noconi et al.
1 citation
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...
Journal of Psychedelic Studies
May 29, 2019
Meena Maillart-Garg, Michael Winkelman
21 citations
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...
The International Encyclopedia of Anthropology
September 5, 2018
Michael Winkelman
3 citations
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...
Frontiers in Psychiatry
April 24, 2018
Paulo César Ribeiro Barbosa, Luís Fernando Tófoli, Michael P. Bogenschutz et al.
95 citations
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...
Journal of Psychedelic Studies
March 26, 2018
Michael Winkelman
42 citations
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...
Frontiers in Neuroscience
September 28, 2017
Michael Winkelman
105 citations
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...
Front Pharmacol
March 2, 2016
Ede Frecska, Petra Bokor, Michael Winkelman
237 citations
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...
Frontiers in Pharmacology
2016
Petra Bokor, Ede Frecska, Michael Winkelman
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...
Current Drug Abuse Reviews
2014
Michael Winkelman
128 citations
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...
International Journal of Transpersonal Studies
2013
Michael Winkelman
11 citations
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...
American Ethnologist
July 5, 2011
Michael Winkelman
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...
NeuroQuantology
March 5, 2011
Michael Winkelman
14 citations
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...
Time and Mind
2010
Michael Winkelman
3 citations
(2010). Introduction: Anthropologies of Consciousness. Time and Mind: Vol. 3, No. 2, pp. 125-134.
Journal of Psychoactive Drugs
June 1, 2005
Michael Winkelman
156 citations
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...
Anthropology of Consciousness
September 1, 2004
Michael Winkelman
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...
Anthropology of Consciousness
September 1, 1993
Michael Winkelman
This paper examines some of the principal theories in transpersonal psychology on the nature of the evolution of human consciousness within the context of anthropological perspectives of ecological and neoevolutionary adaptation and cultural relativism. New perspectives on the evolution of consciousness are provided by the work of transpersonal psychologists. These transpersonal perspectives...
Anthropology of Consciousness
October 1, 1991
Michael Winkelman
This paper reviews some of the evidence indicating that hallucinogens or psychedelic substances have therapeutic effects. The general character hallucinogen use in non‐ Western societies is briefly reviewed to present data about the characteristic beliefs and uses associated with these substances. Evidence for therapeutic effectiveness is addressed from several perspectives: the findings from...
Anthropology of Consciousness
October 1, 1990
Michael Winkelman
Walter Andritzky. Schamanismus und rituelles Heilen im Alten Peru (Shamanism And Ritualistic Healing In Ancient Peru) (Verlag Clemens Zerlig, Mehringdamm 51, Berlin 61), 1989,. vols., 526 pp. ISBN 88468‐041‐2
Journal of Psychoactive Drugs
1989
Marlene Dobkin De Rios, Michael Winkelman
37 citations
In this article, the issue of shamanism and altered states of consciousness (ASC) is reviewed from a cross-cultural and multidisciplinary perspective. It is suggested that in spite of considerable differences in the uses of these terms, there are conceptual and empirical grounds for distinction among different types of trance practitioners. The authors argue that shamanism is a cultural...