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Shamanism

Traditional and cross-cultural practices working with non-ordinary states for healing and meaning.

State of the evidence

Synthesized

Synthesized from 24 studies in the library · AI-generated, grounded in the abstracts below

Found by searching the library for Shamanism, shamanic, entheogenic ritual, indigenous healing, then ranked by relevance.

Research on shamanism spans archaeological, ethnographic, neurophysiological, and psychological perspectives, consistently documenting its role as a cross-cultural healing and spiritual practice involving altered states of consciousness, often facilitated by psychoactive plants or music. Evidence from a single neuroimaging study suggests shamanic trance involves a shift from left-analytical to right-experiential brain activity, while survey and ethnographic data indicate that participation in shamanic rituals (e.g., ayahuasca ceremonies) is associated with reductions in neuroticism and reports of therapeutic benefits, though these findings are limited by small samples, open-label designs, and potential romanticization of indigenous traditions. The main caveat is that most evidence is qualitative or observational, with no controlled trials, and the field lacks systematic research on risks, cultural appropriation, and long-term outcomes.

Evidence by study

Direction is which way each study's own result points, not our rating of the study.

What the directions mean
Supports:
the study found the intervention worked, or its hypothesis held.
Opposes:
it found the opposite, no benefit or a harm.
No effect:
no significant difference either way.
Mixed:
effects in both directions within the same study.
Unclear:
the abstract does not report a direction.
Chemical evidence for the use of multiple psychotropic plants in a 1,000-year-old ritual bundle from South America. 2019
Supports

Chemical traces of multiple psychoactive plants (bufotenine, DMT, harmine, cocaine) in a 1,000-year-old ritual bundle support the historical use of shamanic paraphernalia.

archaeological chemical analysis Sample size: 1

Ayahuasca Shamanism in the Amazon and Beyond 2014
Unclear

Discusses how Amazonian shamanic rituals involving ayahuasca have spread to Western societies and been transformed through cultural dialogue.

book

Hallucinogenic Drugs and Plants in Psychotherapy and Shamanism 1998
Unclear

Compares psychedelic psychotherapy and shamanic healing, highlighting differences in worldview, particularly the shamanic belief in multiple realities and spirits.

theoretical review

Hallucinogenic Mushrooms in Mexico: An Overview 2008
Unclear

Reviews the history, taxonomy, and traditional use of hallucinogenic mushrooms (primarily Psilocybe) in Mexican indigenous cultures.

review

Ayahuasca Tourism: Participants in Shamanic Rituals and their Personality Styles, Motivation, Benefits and Risks 2015
Supports

Participants reported motivations including curiosity, mental health treatment, and spiritual development, and benefits including self-knowledge and improved relationships; personality scores showed above-average intuition and optimism.

cross-sectional survey Sample size: 77

Brain changes during a shamanic trance: Altered modes of consciousness, hemispheric laterality, and systemic psychobiology 2017
Supports

Quantitative EEG and LORETA source imaging during self-induced shamanic trance showed a shift from left-analytical to right-experiential brain activity and from anterior prefrontal to posterior somatosensory mode.

case study (neurophysiological) Sample size: 1

"Plantas con madre": plants that teach and guide in the shamanic initiation process in the East-Central Peruvian Amazon. 2011
Unclear

Identified 55 plant species used in shamanic initiation and apprenticeship, administered under strict conditions called 'dietas'.

ethnographic study Sample size: 36

Shamanism as the Original Neurotheology 2004
Unclear

Argues that universal principles of shamanism (animism, soul flight, death-rebirth) reflect innate brain modules and provide a basis for neurotheology.

theoretical review

Purging and the body in the therapeutic use of ayahuasca 2019
Supports

Purging is integral to ayahuasca's therapeutic use across Amazonia and should be reconsidered for potential therapeutic effects rather than dismissed as side effect.

ethnographic study with literature review Sample size: 227

The Globalization of Ayahuasca Shamanism and the Erasure of Indigenous Shamanism 2016
Opposes

Romanticization of indigenous shamanism in ayahuasca tourism erases the complexity of indigenous peoples' situations and the commercialization of their spirituality.

ethnographic study

Examining changes in personality following shamanic ceremonial use of ayahuasca. 2021
Supports

Ceremonial ayahuasca use was associated with a large reduction in Neuroticism (self-report dz = -1.00 at post, -0.85 at 3-month follow-up; informant-report dz = -0.62 at follow-up).

longitudinal observational study Sample size: 256

The globalization of traditional medicine in northern peru: from shamanism to molecules. 2013
Unclear

Documents 510 medicinal plant species used in traditional medicine, with 65% used in mixtures; antibacterial activity confirmed in most plants used for infections.

ethnographic study with bioassays

Cognitive Neuroscience, Shamanism and the Rock Art of Native California 1998
Unclear

Argues that Native Californian rock art depicts mental imagery and somatic hallucinations of trance, and that shamanic trance often involved unpleasant emotions.

theoretical review

From Culture to Experience: Shamanism in the Pages of the Soviet Anti-Religious Press 2020
Unclear

Describes a shift in Soviet anti-religious journals in the 1960s, where shamanism was reframed from a cultural practice to a universal human capacity for altered states.

historical analysis

The rhythms of trance: Cultural phenomenology and neural mechanisms of music-induced non-ordinary states of consciousness. 2026
Unclear

Integrates anthropological and neuroscientific perspectives on music-induced trance, noting shared features across shamanic and contemporary contexts, but empirical evidence remains fragmented.

review

A Shamanic Interpretation of the Folktale Magical Ruler for Healing and Saving Lives 2026
Unclear

Interprets a folk tale through a shamanic lens, identifying elements such as the axis mundi, spirit helpers, and symbolic death/rebirth as reflecting shamanic initiation.

theoretical analysis

Beliefs in and experiences of sorcery, black magic and brujería among psychedelic users: a quantitative and qualitative survey 2026
Unclear

Aims to estimate prevalence of beliefs in supernatural harm among Western psychedelic users and examine associations with psychedelic experiences; results not yet reported in abstract.

cross-sectional online survey Sample size: 895

The Structural Paradox of the Shamanic Healing Ritual: Relational Displacement and the Search for Transcendence in Korean Spirituality 2026
Unclear

Proposes a relational displacement model for Korean shamanic healing rituals (byeong-gut), arguing they operate as ontological technology that re-maps suffering onto a relational cosmology.

theoretical analysis

Shamanic Symbolism in the Robe Patterns of the Chu State: A Semiotic and Archaeological Study 2026
Unclear

Analyzes shamanic symbolism in robe patterns from the ancient Chu state, revealing a hierarchical symbolic system encoding cosmology and ritual practices.

archaeological and semiotic analysis

Optimizing music for psychedelic-assisted therapy: Examining contemporary practices, traditional entheogenic rituals, and musically-induced peak experiences 2026
Unclear

Identifies conflicting musical features between modern psychedelic-assisted therapy, traditional entheogenic rituals (including shamanic), and musically-induced peak experiences.

interdisciplinary literature review

Where Spirits Still Speak: Chinese Mass Shamanism and the Unfinished Project of Modernity 2026
Unclear

Argues that Chinese mass shamanism is a cultural response to modernity's structural predicaments, including social atomization and the erosion of 'the nearby'.

qualitative analysis

From Shamanic Trance to Spiritual Consciousness: Mapping the Earliest Roots of Human Spirituality 2026
Unclear

Proposes that the origins of human spirituality emerge from early experiential practices embedded within indigenous cultures, including shamanic trance.

theoretical review

A Panpsychist Theory of Shamanism 2026
Unclear

Develops a panpsychist theory of shamanism, arguing that shamanic altered states involve exploration of consciousness and that 'spirit' is another word for mind.

theoretical paper

A Cultural Pathway to Addressing Contemporary Mental Illness: Construction and Healing Logic of the “Virtual Illness” Concept in Shamanism in the North of China 2026
Unclear

Describes the indigenous concept of 'virtual illness' in northern Chinese shamanism, where prolonged mental distress is attributed to possession by malevolent spirits and treated through spiritual healing.

ethnographic study

Points of agreement

  • Shamanism is consistently described as a cross-cultural practice involving altered states of consciousness for healing and spiritual purposes.
  • Psychoactive plants (e.g., ayahuasca, psilocybin mushrooms) are frequently documented as tools in shamanic rituals across different regions and time periods.
  • Ethnographic studies agree that shamanic healing involves a worldview that includes spirits, multiple realities, and symbolic death/rebirth experiences.
  • Music and rhythmic stimulation are commonly identified as key components for inducing trance states in shamanic and related practices.

Conflicts

  • One study (20554) highlights that Western romanticization of indigenous shamanism erases the complexity and injustices faced by indigenous peoples, while other studies (20545, 8498) focus on positive outcomes for Western participants without addressing these power dynamics.
  • The role of purging in ayahuasca ceremonies is framed as therapeutically valuable (20549), but this perspective may conflict with biomedical views that dismiss it as a side effect.
  • Music features in shamanic rituals (simple, rhythmic, fast tempo) conflict with those used in modern psychedelic-assisted therapy (simple, slow tempo) and peak-experience music (complex, surprising) (31367).

Gaps

  • No randomized controlled trials or rigorous experimental designs exist for shamanic practices; most evidence is observational, ethnographic, or theoretical.
  • Long-term outcomes and potential harms (e.g., psychological distress, cultural appropriation) are understudied.
  • The neurophysiological basis of shamanic trance is based on a single case study (n=1) and requires replication with larger samples.
  • Durability of personality changes (e.g., reduced Neuroticism) beyond 3 months is not established.
  • The prevalence and impact of beliefs in supernatural harm (sorcery) among Western psychedelic users are not yet quantified (study 28334 is ongoing).
Browse these studies in the library
How we analyze this

This synthesis reads the 15 most-cited and 10 most recent studies whose primary subject is Shamanism, up to 25 in all. The most-cited set anchors the established evidence, and the recent set surfaces work that is too new to have gathered citations yet.

A study qualifies only when Shamanism or a known alias appears in its title or keywords, so broad reviews that mention it only in passing are left out. Each study is read from its abstract, strongest evidence first, and the summary reports the direction of the results along with any conflicts and gaps.

Ask your own question in the Research Synthesis Tool

Latest monthly recap: June 2026 →

837 articles · 220 from the last two years · 22,641 participants across 100 studies reporting sample size

Common study designs

review 87 ethnography 53 qualitative study 62 historical analysis 80 theoretical or philosophical paper 338

Research

Synthesize the evidence → Search all →

Ritual and Narrative: An Analysis of Survival Resilience in Folk Shamanic Rituals in Tales of Hulan River

Religions July 16, 2026 Qi Zhao, Ruijia Zhang

Folk shamanic rituals in Xiao Hong's novel Tales of Hulan River exhibit a form of survival resilience that operates across material, spiritual, and cultural dimensions. Material resilience involves making reasonable choices under scarcity, fostering critical thinking, and grappling with contingency and eternity. Spiritual resilience provides psychological comfort, motivates goodness, and offers a sense of transcendence. Cultural resilience unites the community around shared goals, promotes pragmatic values, and sustains the rituals themselves. The article argues that these rituals are crucial to understanding the novel's narrative ideas and should not be overlooked in literary analysis.

DOI: 10.3390/rel17070852 (opens in new tab) Narrative Resilience materials science Contingency Psychological resilience +7

A Shamanic Interpretation of the Folktale Magical Ruler for Healing and Saving Lives

June 30, 2026 Woojang Sim

A folk tale about a magical ruler that heals and revives the dead is analyzed through a shamanic lens. The ruler acts as an axis mundi, a spiritual bridge connecting heaven and earth, guiding the soul back to the body. The tale's narrative follows shamanic initiation: a mysterious dream (supernatural calling), imprisonment and symbolic death, learning healing from animals (shamanic education), and reviving a princess to gain communal recognition. Similar shamanic elements appear in related tales, where powers like healing and understanding animals reflect traditional shamanic abilities. The study argues that shamanism, as a primordial system of thought, forms a foundational cultural framework underlying many folk narratives.

DOI: 10.22274/koralit.2026.81.001 (opens in new tab) Shamanism Mysticism Ruler Heaven +17

Shamanic Symbolism in the Robe Patterns of the Chu State: A Semiotic and Archaeological Study

IRA International Journal of Education and Multidisciplinary Studies June 19, 2026 Liangying Zeng, Zongyu Xie, Yuyan Wang et al.

Robes from Tomb No. 1 at Mashan, Jingzhou, representative artifacts of the ancient Chu state, encode a hierarchical symbolic system. Using semiotics and textual exegesis of the Chu Ci alongside excavated bamboo slips, the analysis of three motif categories—divine symbols, cosmic imagery, and botanical patterns—reveals that the decorative patterns convey Chu cosmology, ritual practices, and aspirations for longevity. This finding bridges textual religious records and material cultural relics, providing a foundation for studying cross-cultural transmission of Chu heritage.

DOI: 10.21013/jems.v22.n2.p1 (opens in new tab) Semiotics Exegesis Bridge graph theory Motif music +5

The Structural Paradox of the Shamanic Healing Ritual: Relational Displacement and the Search for Transcendence in Korean Spirituality

Religions June 19, 2026 Dongkyu Kim

Shamanic healing rituals in Korea, specifically byeong-gut, paradoxically follow the rigid format of blessing rituals rather than adopting a clinical approach. This article argues that previous scholarship wrongly reduces shamanic healing to psychological comfort or social liberation. By integrating Roy Rappaport's theory of ritual invariance with relational ontologies from Bruno Latour and Tim Ingold, the authors propose a relational displacement model. Healing operates through two mechanisms: at the material level, the ritual objectifies and displaces individual suffering onto external surrogates; at the linguistic level, the invocation chant re-assembles the patient's fragmented life into a network of human and non-human agencies. The byeong-gut transforms suffering into an intelligible event within a shared cosmic order.

DOI: 10.3390/rel17060733 (opens in new tab) Shamanism Transcendence philosophy Spirituality Scholarship +8

Optimizing music for psychedelic-assisted therapy: Examining contemporary practices, traditional entheogenic rituals, and musically-induced peak experiences

Journal of Psychedelic Studies June 2, 2026 Brandon Reynante, Jack H Buchanan

Music has been integral to psychedelic experiences across history, from shamanic rituals to modern psychedelic-assisted therapy (PAT), yet standardized protocols for its use are lacking. This interdisciplinary review compared musical features in three contexts: modern PAT, traditional entheogenic rituals, and musically-induced peak experiences. Conflicting features emerged: PAT music peaks with simplicity, consistency, and slow tempo; ritual music uses simple forms with rhythmic complexity, subtle variations, and fast tempo; peak-experience music is complex, surprising with large dynamic changes, and fast. These differences likely stem from music's assumed role and the associated non-ordinary state of consciousness.

DOI: 10.1556/2054.2026.00523 (opens in new tab) Rhythm Key lock Music psychology Music and emotion +19

Where Spirits Still Speak: Chinese Mass Shamanism and the Unfinished Project of Modernity

Highlights in Art and Design May 28, 2026 Yiming Sun

Shamanism has gained growing popular attention in China despite the state's official secularism. Through analysis of literary works, documentaries, social media, and interviews, the paper shows how artistic representations aestheticize and simplify shamanism. It argues that Chinese mass shamanism is a cultural response to structural and affective predicaments of contemporary China, including instrumentalism in diffused religion, social atomization, and the erosion of 'the nearby'. The phenomenon is presented as a hybrid formation born of modernity's failure to achieve complete disenchantment, situating it within modernity's entanglement with occultism.

DOI: 10.54097/682wz346 (opens in new tab) Shamanism Instrumentalism Underpinning Late modernity +9

Shamanism in English and Turkic Literature: A comparative exploration of spiritual journeys

Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research) May 1, 2026 Volha Korbut Salman

Shamanic archetypes persist across English and Turkic literary traditions, though in different forms. English literature adapts shamanic elements metaphorically through symbolic journeys, nature mysticism, and motifs of wise magicians, sacred landscapes, and heroic descents into supernatural realms, transformed by a Western cultural lens yet retaining ties to original shamanic cosmology. Turkic traditions embody shamanic practice more directly, especially in epic narratives where the shaman appears as a central protagonist—a healer, seer, and guide of souls—whose rituals and spirit communications structure the narrative, preserving ceremonial practices, spirit associations, and cosmic journeys from Central Asian traditions. Both approaches validate literature's capacity to preserve and reinvent ancient spiritual paradigms, offering insights into humanity's search for meaning beyond material existence.

DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.19950797 (opens in new tab) Shamanism Narrative Humanity Liminality +15

From Shamanic Trance to Spiritual Consciousness: Mapping the Earliest Roots of Human Spirituality

International Journal For Multidisciplinary Research April 19, 2026 Krushnakant Nagargoje, Arvind Rawat, Kirti Maurya

Human spirituality originated not from organized religions or formal philosophy but from early experiential practices within indigenous cultures. These practices, involving trance, ritual, and direct experiential learning, formed the foundational basis for spiritual and mystical experiences. The work argues that such indigenous traditions provided the epistemological and aesthetic roots for later religious and philosophical systems, emphasizing experiential knowledge over doctrinal belief.

DOI: 10.36948/ijfmr.2026.v08i02.75334 (opens in new tab) Full text (opens in new tab) Shamanism Mysticism Spirituality Trance +10

Ficto‐Primitive Capital: What Wellness Seekers Gain From Practicing Shamanism and Other Healing Traditions

British Journal of Sociology April 11, 2026 Catherine Tan

The wellness industry commercializes non-Western and Indigenous healing traditions, including shamanistic practices, for North American and European consumers. This ethnographic study, based on participant observation and 41 interviews with self-identified shamanic and spiritual healers in the United States, introduces the concept of ficto-primitive capital to describe the status individuals pursue by cultivating practices, objects, and relationships associated with communities they imagine as pre-modern and pre-industrial. These 'American shamans' seek to heal maladies by collecting traditions from cultures such as the Q'ero people and the Sámi, aiming to escape problems of Western modernity like loss of community and isolation. Ironically, despite professed respect for these communities, they become agents of cultural imperialism, exploiting global inequalities.

DOI: 10.1111/1468-4446.70119 (opens in new tab) Shamanism Ethnography Indigenous Seekers +13

A Cultural Pathway to Addressing Contemporary Mental Illness: Construction and Healing Logic of the “Virtual Illness” Concept in Shamanism in the North of China

Religions April 1, 2026 Xiaoshuang Liu

In northern China, shamanic practices have developed an indigenous concept called 'virtual illness' to address mental distress arising from modern individuation. Prolonged mental distress is understood as leading to possession by external malevolent spirits, constituting a form of virtual illness. Healing involves attributing misfortune—including failure and mental illness—to the possessed spiritual identity, conducting spiritual healing on that identity, and encouraging individuals to maintain a positive, forward-looking state. This approach builds a psychological foundation for coping with mental illness and offers a unique response to the individualized self. These cultural healing practices adapt to the modern Chinese medical system and provide a targeted perspective for understanding mental illness in China's individuation process, prompting philosophical reflection on the concept of the self.

DOI: 10.3390/rel17040431 (opens in new tab) Shamanism Buddhism Indigenous Individuation +9