Shamanism and Psychedelic, Religious, Spiritual, and Mystical Experiences
The Oxford Handbook of Psychedelic, Religious, Spiritual, and Mystical Experiences May 22, 2024 DOI: 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780192844064.013.37 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Theoretical or philosophical paper Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Topics | Mystical experience Shamanism |
| Key points | Argues that shamanism reflects biologically based cognitive dispositions rather than merely cultural traditions, drawing on parallels between shamanic and chimpanzee collective rituals and on the capacity of psychedelics, mimetic performance, and austerities to produce altered self-experiences understood in indigenous psychologies as spirits, souls, spiritual allies, and animal powers. |
Abstract
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 enactment. Psychedelic substances stimulate innate cognitive dispositions manifested in shamanism such as the human-like qualities of spirits, animal identities and other spiritual and mystical experiences. These structural features of consciousness are stimulated by mimetic performances with song, dancing, and drumming; painful and exhausting austerities; and psychedelic substances. These produce altered experiences of the self which are conceptualized within indigenous psychologies as spirits and one’s soul, spiritual allies, and animal powers that can be incorporated into personal powers (i.e., animal transformation). Cross-cultural manifestation of shamanic features reveal that they are based in biology rather than merely cultural traditions.
Comparable studies
Other theoretical and historical papers on shamanism, most cited first.
| Study | Year | Design | Participants |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ayahuasca Shamanism in the Amazon and Beyond | 2014 | Theoretical or philosophical paper | |
| Shamanism as the Original Neurotheology | 2004 | Theoretical or philosophical paper | |
| Cognitive Neuroscience, Shamanism and the Rock Art of Native California | 1998 | Theoretical or philosophical paper | |
| From Culture to Experience: Shamanism in the Pages of the Soviet Anti-Religious Press | 2020 | Historical analysis | |
| Anthropology, Shamanism, and Alternate Ways of Knowing–Being in the World: One Anthropologist's Journey of Discovery and Transformation | 2010 | Reflective essay or personal narrative |
Citations in the library
Cited by 2
Cites 33
- Psilocybin can occasion mystical-type experiences having substantial and sustained personal meaning and spiritual significance Psychopharmacology July 7, 2006
- Psilocybin occasioned mystical-type experiences: immediate and persisting dose-related effects. Psychopharmacology December 1, 2011
- Neural correlates of the LSD experience revealed by multimodal neuroimaging. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences April 11, 2016
- Linking Out-of-Body Experience and Self Processing to Mental Own-Body Imagery at the Temporoparietal Junction Journal of Neuroscience January 19, 2005
- Functional neuroanatomy of altered states of consciousness: The transient hypofrontality hypothesis Consciousness and Cognition May 19, 2003
and 28 more in the library