The International Journal of Critical Cultural Studies
July 17, 2026
Prerona Das, Mamta Anand
The article discusses the abandonment of shamanic beliefs among the Naga indigenous tribes, reflecting a cultural stigmatization inflicted by colonialism. The article contextualizes two select novels, “Spirit Nights” and “Son of the Thundercloud” by Easterine Kire, situating the narratives within the Indian decolonial discourse. Employing a close textual reading method, the article reassesses...
Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research)
July 17, 2026
Oluwo Jolaoso Osainbola
Explores mental alchemy as a systematic science of consciousness transformation rooted in the Hermetic tradition. Drawing on The Hermetic Code by Ajarn Shaman Shu. Available: https://play.google.com/store/books/details?id=uxXsEQAAQBAJ | OrishaUniversity.com
Entangled Religions
July 16, 2026
Maciej Karasinski, Fathima Fasleena
The article explores the cultural significance of the sacred groves (kāvus) of Kerala and their relationship to various notions of nature, ecology and indigenous spirituality. We employ a mixed method of research that combines textual sources and oral exegesis as well as anthropological fieldwork to investigate the spaces within the kāvus that are designated for Tantric healing and empowerment....
Religions
July 16, 2026
Qi Zhao, Ruijia Zhang
Due to its brilliant literary narrative and profound ideas, Xiao Hong’s Tales of Hulan River has had a profound influence on the history of Chinese modern literature. Academia has conducted in-depth discussions on Tales of Hulan River, but these have largely overlooked the folk shamanic rituals and their crucial significance in this novel. The expression of literary narrative ideas cannot be...
Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research)
July 14, 2026
Oluwo Jolaoso Osainbola, Ajarn Shaman Shu, Shri Suryanarayana Swamikal et al.
Shurooms Authors: Oluwo Jolaoso Osainbola, Ph.D. | Ajarn Shaman Shu | Shri Suryanarayana Swamikal | Robert Shumake, Ph.D. Affiliation: Buddha University® & Orisha University This paper presents an initiated, cross-initiatory inquiry into entheogens and spiritual awakening as articulated in the co-authored volume Shurooms (Shumake et al., 2024). Combining emic autoethnography from initiated...
Open MIND
July 14, 2026
Oluwo Jolaoso Osainbola, Ajarn Shaman Shu, Shri Suryanarayana Swamikal et al.
Shiva Mind Authors: Oluwo Jolaoso Osainbola, Ph.D. | Ajarn Shaman Shu | Shri Suryanarayana Swamikal | Robert Shumake, Ph.D. Affiliation: Buddha University® & Orisha University This article presents the central arguments and scholarly context of Shiva Mind, a collaborative monograph that advances a theology and phenomenology of "Shiva consciousness" as cosmic mind, situated within Dravidian...
Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research)
July 14, 2026
Oluwo Jolaoso Osainbola, Ajarn Shaman Shu, Shri Suryanarayana Swamikal et al.
Thai Theravada Buddhism Authors: Oluwo Jolaoso Osainbola, Ph.D. | Ajarn Shaman Shu | Shri Suryanarayana Swamikal | Robert Shumake, Ph.D. Affiliation: Buddha University® & Orisha University This paper presents a synthesis and scholarly appraisal of the co-authored book Thai Theravada Buddhism (Shumake et al., 2026), foregrounding the forest tradition, meditation methodology, and the lived...
Open MIND
July 14, 2026
Oluwo Jolaoso Osainbola, Ajarn Shaman Shu, Shri Suryanarayana Swamikal et al.
Ganesha: Break the Chain Authors: Oluwo Jolaoso Osainbola, Ph.D. | Ajarn Shaman Shu | Shri Suryanarayana Swamikal | Robert Shumake, Ph.D. Affiliation: Buddha University® & Orisha University This article presents a scholarly exposition and critical framing of the book Ganesha: Break the Chain by the present authors, a work that proposes a cross-cultural, practice-based paradigm for breaking...
Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research)
July 14, 2026
Shumake, Robert S. (ajarn Shaman Shu | Oluwo Jolaoso Osainbola, Phd | Shri Suryanarayana Swamikal)
Shurooms: The First Ethnomycological Study from Within the African Initiatory Tradition — Ewe, Soma, and the Ceremonial Architecture of Psilocybin Healing (N = 300+) This flagship paper presents the first ethnomycological study of psilocybin ceremony authored from within the African initiatory tradition — not by an outside observer, clinical researcher, or journalist, but by an initiated...
Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research)
July 14, 2026
Oluwo Jolaoso Osainbola, Ajarn Shaman Shu, Shri Suryanarayana Swamikal et al.
The Divine Pymander Authors: Oluwo Jolaoso Osainbola, Ph.D. | Ajarn Shaman Shu | Shri Suryanarayana Swamikal | Robert Shumake, Ph.D. Affiliation: Buddha University® & Orisha University This paper offers a sustained scholarly analysis of The Divine Pymander (Shumake, Osainbola, Ajarn, & Swamikal, 2026), an interpretive translation and commentary on the Corpus Hermeticum that foregrounds the...
Sci Rep
March 23, 2021
Brandon Weiss, Joshua D. Miller, Nathan T. Carter et al.
80 citations
Abstract The present study examines the association between the ceremonial use of ayahuasca—a decoction combining the Banistereopsis caapi vine and N,N-Dimethyltryptamine-containing plants—and changes in personality traits as conceived by the Five-Factor model (FFM). We also examine the degree to which demographic characteristics, baseline personality, and acute post-ayahuasca experiences...
Contemporary European History
May 1, 2020
J. Quijada
67 citations
Abstract In the 1960s a shift occured in how shamanism was represented in Soviet anti-religious journals, in which shamanism was transformed from an ethnographically documented cultural practice peculiar to Siberian indigenous populations, into an – albeit ‘primitive’ – form of a universal human capacity for altered states of consciousness and a precursor of various forms of mysticism. The...
Social Science & Medicine
August 31, 2019
Evgenia Fotiou, Alex K. Gearin
86 citations
Ayahuasca is a psychoactive plant mixture used in ceremonial contexts throughout Western Amazonia. Its use has expanded globally in recent decades and become popular among westerners who travel to the Peruvian Amazon in increasing numbers to experience its reportedly healing effects. Through a review of relevant literature on Amazonian shamanism, combined with the authors' ethnographic data...
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
June 4, 2019
Melanie J Miller, Juan Albarracin-Jordan, Christine K. Moore et al.
171 citations
Over several millennia, various native plant species in South America have been used for their healing and psychoactive properties. Chemical analysis of archaeological artifacts provides an opportunity to study the use of psychoactive plants in the past and to better understand ancient botanical knowledge systems. Liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS) was used to analyze...
Annals of Palliative Medicine
July 1, 2017
David M Steinhorn, Jana Din, Angela Johnson
100 citations
Spirituality plays a prominent role in the lives of most palliative patients whether or not they formally adhere to a specific religion and belief. As a result, the palliative care team is frequently called upon to support families who are experiencing their "dark night of the soul" and struggling to make sense of their lives during a healthcare crisis. While conventional religious practices...
Cogent Psychology
April 24, 2017
P. Flor-Henry, Yakov Shapiro, Corine Sombrun
100 citations
Abstract There have been a number of electrophysiological and neuroimaging studies in “altered” states of consciousness including dissociative conditions, hypnosis, and meditation; however, the nature and clinical significance of trance states remain elusive. Alterations of consciousness that accompany trance can shed light on the brain networks contributing to the experience of...
Anthropology of Consciousness
September 1, 2016
Evgenia Fotiou
84 citations
Abstract Ayahuasca is a hallucinogenic plant mixture used in a ceremonial context throughout western Amazonia, and its use has expanded globally in recent decades. As part of this expansion, ayahuasca has become popular among westerners who travel to the Peruvian Amazon in increasing numbers to experience its reportedly healing and transformative effects. Drawing from ethnographic fieldwork in...
Journal of Psychoactive Drugs
October 20, 2015
Veronika Kavenská, Hana Šimonová
109 citations
Ayahuasca continues to attract tourists to South America, where there has been a growth in the number of centers offering hallucinogenic ayahuasca experiences. The aims of this study were to (1) discover the reasons foreigners seek this type of experience; (2) define what an ayahuasca experience entails; (3) discover subjective perceptions of ayahuasca's benefits and risks; and (4) describe...
Oxford University Press eBooks
June 18, 2014
164 citations
This book discusses how Amerindian epistemology and ontology, related to certain indigenous shamanic rituals of the Amazon, spread to Western societies, and how indigenous, mestizo, and cosmopolitan cultures have dialogued with and transformed these forest traditions. Special attention is given to the hallucinogenic brew ayahuasca. Chapters reflect on how displaced indigenous people and rubber...
Evid Based Complement Alternat Med
December 28, 2013
Rainer W. Bussmann
79 citations
Northern Peru represents the center of the Andean "health axis," with roots going back to traditional practices of Cupisnique culture (1000 BC). For more than a decade of research, semistructured interviews were conducted with healers, collectors, and sellers of medicinal plants. In addition, bioassays were carried out to evaluate the efficacy and toxicity of plants found. Most of the 510...
Journal of Ethnopharmacology
April 12, 2011
X Jauregui, Z M Clavo, E M Jovel et al.
91 citations
We present and discuss a particular group of plants used by a diversity of healers in the initiation process and apprenticeship of traditional medicine, as practiced by Amazonian societies in East-Central Peru. Often, these plants are locally called plantas con madre (plants with a mother), and are thought to guide initiates in the process of seeking sacred knowledge, learning about plant...
Economic Botany
November 1, 2008
Gastón Guzmán
114 citations
Hongos Alucinógenos en México: Historia, Taxonomia, Distribución Geográfica y Uso Tradicional . Psilocybe , con 53 especies alucinógenas conocidas en México, es el grupo más importante y más diverso de hongos sagrados usados por las culturas indígenas mexicanas. Se propone aquí que Psilocybe caerulescens , nombrado por los nahuatls de hoy día teotlaquilnanácatl , es el hongo ceremonial...
Zygon®
March 1, 2004
Michael A. Winkelman
90 citations
Neurotheological approaches provide an important bridge between scientific and religious perspectives. These approaches have, however, generally neglected the implications of a primordial form of spiritual healing—shamanism. Cross-cultural studies estab- lish the universality of shamanic practices in hunter-gatherer societ- ies around the world and across time. These universal principles of...
Journal of Psychoactive Drugs
December 1, 1998
Ralph Metzner
140 citations
Western psychotherapy and indigenous shamanic healing systems have both used psychoactive drugs or plants for healing and obtaining knowledge (called "diagnosis" or "divination" respectively). While there are superficial similarities between psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy and shamanic healing with hallucinogenic plants, there are profound differences in the underlying worldview and...