Zygon®
February 1, 2026
Michael James Winkelman, Andrew B. Newberg
The self is central to spirituality because the self is necessary for consciousness, and spiritual relations are fundamentally about the self. Diverse research illustrates the role of the downregulation of the right parietal lobe (rPL) in the spontaneous manifestation of spiritual experiences and during meditative practices. The functions of the rPL are central to the self, especially the...
Zygon
December 3, 2025
Michael James Winkelman
Calvin Chatlos provides a novel consideration of spiritual experiences and attempts to find ontological grounds to span these concerns within science, philosophy, and theology. Conceptualization of spiritual experiences in terms of self-worth presents interesting avenues for future considerations of the role of self in explaining spirituality but also faces several validity challenges....
Zygon: Journal of Religion and Science
July 31, 2024
Michael James Winkelman
6 citations
Differences among constructivist, perennialist, and universalist perspectives on mystical experiences are bridged with neurophenomenology and neuroepistemology perspectives that illustrate constructivist and deconditioning processes and universal innate experiences. These approaches show that phenomenal similarities and differences in the features of meditative experiences are related to...
The Oxford Handbook of Psychedelic, Religious, Spiritual, and Mystical Experiences
May 22, 2024
Michael James Winkelman
Abstract Shamanism is a transcultural concept for understanding roles of ritual and psychedelics in the prehistoric origins of religiosity. The origins of religiosity are revealed by parallels of shamanic and chimpanzee collective ritualizations involving group chorusing and drumming with dramatic bipedal displays. This hominid baseline was expanded with mimetic evolution of song, dance and...
European neuropsychopharmacology : the journal of the European College of Neuropsychopharmacology
November 1, 2023
Michael James Winkelman, Attila Szabo, Ede Frecska
26 citations
Alzheimer's Disease (AD) is a currently incurable but increasingly prevalent fatal and progressive neurodegenerative disease, demanding consideration of therapeutically relevant natural products and their synthetic analogues. This paper reviews evidence for effectiveness of natural and synthetic psychedelics in the treatment of AD causes and symptoms. The plastogenic effects of serotonergic...
Frontiers in Psychology
September 29, 2021
José Manuel Rodríguez-arce, Michael James Winkelman
80 citations
Our hominin ancestors inevitably encountered and likely ingested psychedelic mushrooms throughout their evolutionary history. This assertion is supported by current understanding of: early hominins’ paleodiet and paleoecology; primate phylogeny of mycophagical and self-medicative behaviors; and the biogeography of psilocybin-containing fungi. These lines of evidence indicate mushrooms...
The Behavioral and brain sciences
2018
Michael James Winkelman
Singh conflates diverse religious statuses into a single category that includes practitioners with roles that differ significantly from empirical characteristics of shamans. The rejection of biological models of trance and conspicuous display models misses the evolutionary roots of shamanism involving the social functions of ritual in producing psychological and social integration and ritual...