SHAMANISM
This entry consists of the following articles:
AN OVERVIEW [FIRST EDITION]
AN OVERVIEW [FURTHER CONSIDERATIONS]
SIBERIAN AND INNER ASIAN SHAMANISM
NORTH AMERICAN SHAMANISM
SOUTH AMERICAN SHAMANISM
NEOSHAMANISM
SHAMANISM: AN OVERVIEW [FIRST EDITION]
Shamanism in the strict sense is preeminently a religious phenomenon
of Siberia and Inner Asia. The word comes to us,
through the Russian, from the Tunguz 0aman. Throughout
the immense area comprising the central and northern regions
of Asia, the magico-religious life of society centers on
the shaman. This, of course, does not mean that he is the
one and only manipulator of the sacred, nor that religious
activity is completely usurped by him. In many tribes the sacrificing
priest coexists with the shaman, not to mention the
fact that every head of a family is also the head of the domestic
cult. Nevertheless, the shaman remains the dominating
figure, for throughout the vast area of Asia in which the ecstatic
experience is considered the religious experience par excellence,
the shaman, and he alone, is the great master of ecstasy.
A first definition of the complex phenomenon of
shamanism—and perhaps the least hazardous—is that it is
a technique of ecstasy.
As such, shamanism was documented and described by
the earliest travelers in the various regions of Siberia and
Inner Asia. Later, similar magico-religious phenomena were
observed in North and South America, Indonesia, Oceania,
and elsewhere. Because of their shared characteristics, there
is every reason to study them together with Siberian and
Inner Asian shamanism. But the presence of a shamanic
complex in one region or another does not necessarily mean
that the magico-religious life of the corresponding people is
crystallized around shamanism. This can occur (as, for example,
in certain parts of Indonesia), but it is not the most usual
state of affairs. Generally, shamanism coexists with other
forms of magic and religion. As is well known, magic and
magicians are to be found more or less all over the world,
whereas shamanism exhibits a particular magical specialty,
such as mastery over fire, or magical flight. By virtue of this
fact, though the shaman is (among other things) a magician,
not every magician can properly be termed a shaman. The
same distinction must be applied in regard to shamanic healing;
every medicine man is a healer, but the shaman employs
a method that is unique to him. As for the shamanic techniques
of ecstasy, they do not exhaust all the varieties of ecstatic
experience documented in the history of religions and
religious ethnology. Hence not every ecstatic can be considered
a shaman; the shaman “specializes” in the trance state,
during which his soul is believed to leave his body and to ascend
to the sky or descend to the underworld.
A similar distinction is also necessary to define the shaman’s
relation to spirits. All through the primitive and modern
worlds we find individuals who profess to maintain relations
with spirits, whether they are possessed by them or
control them. But the shaman controls his helping spirits,
in the sense that he is able to communicate with the dead,
demons, and nature spirits without thereby becoming their
instrument. To be sure, shamans are sometimes found to be
possessed, but these are rather exceptional cases. In Inner and
Northeast Asia the chief methods of recruiting shamans are
(1) hereditary transmission of the shamanic profession and
(2) spontaneous vocation (“call” or “election”). There are
also cases of individuals who become shamans of their own
free will (as, for example, among the Altaic Turkic peoples)
or by the will of the clan (as with the Tunguz), but these selfmade
shamans are considered less powerful than those who
have inherited the profession or who have obeyed the call of
the gods and spirits.
However selected, a shaman is not recognized as such
until after he has received two kinds of teaching: (1) ecstatic
(dreams, trances, etc.) and (2) traditional (shamanic techniques,
names and functions of the spirits, mythology and
genealogy of the clan, secret language, etc.). This twofold
course of instruction, given by the spirits and the old master
shamans, is equivalent to an initiation. Sometimes the initiation
is public and constitutes an autonomous ritual in itself.
But absence of this kind of ritual in no sense implies absence
of an initiation; the latter can perfectly well occur in a dream
or in the neophyte’s ecstatic experience. The syndrome of the
shaman’s mystical vocation is easily recognized. Among
many Siberian and Inner Asian tribes, the youth who is
called to be a shaman attracts attention by his strange behavior;
for example, he seeks solitude, becomes absentminded,
loves to roam in the woods or unfrequented places, has visions,
and sings in his sleep. In some instances this period
of incubation is marked by quite serious symptoms; among
the Yakuts, the young man sometimes has fits of fury and
easily loses consciousness, hides in the forest, feeds on the
bark of trees, throws himself into water and fire, cuts himself
with knives. The future shamans among the Tunguz, as they
approach maturity, go through a hysterical or hysteroid crisis,
but sometimes their vocation manifests itself at an earlier
age—the boy runs away into the mountains and remains
there for a week or more, feeding on animals, which he tears
to pieces with his teeth. He returns to the village, filthy,
bloodstained, his clothes torn and his hair disordered, and
it is only after ten or more days have passed that he begins
to babble incoherent words.
Even in the case of hereditary shamanism, the future
shaman’s election is preceded by a change in behavior. The
souls of the shaman ancestors of a family choose a young man
among their descendants; he becomes absentminded and
moody, delights in solitude, has prophetic visions, and sometimes
undergoes attacks that make him unconscious. During
this period, the Buriats believe, the young man’s soul is carried
away by spirits; received in the palace of the gods, it is
instructed by his shaman ancestors in the secrets of the profession,
the forms and names of the gods, the worship and
names of the spirits. It is only after this first initiation that
the youth’s soul returns and resumes control of his body (see
the examples quoted in Eliade, 1964, pp. 13ff.). This hereditary
form of the transmission of the vocation is also known
in other parts of the world (ibid., pp. 21ff.).
A man may also become a shaman following an accident
or a highly unusual event—for example, among the Buriats,
the Soyot, and the Inuit (Eskimo), after being struck by
lightning, or falling from a high tree, or successfully undergoing
an ordeal that can be homologized with an initiatory and shut him in a house for three years. Here
he undergoes his initiation; the spirits cut off his head (which
they set to one side, for the novice must watch his own dis-
ordeal, as in the case of an Inuit who spent five days in icy
water without his clothes becoming wet.
SHAMANISM AND PSYCHOPATHOLOGY. The strange behavior
of future shamans has not failed to attract the attention of
scholars, and since the middle of the past century several attempts
have been made to explain the phenomenon of shamanism
as a mental disorder (ibid., pp. 25ff.). But the problem
was wrongly put. On the one hand, it is not true that
shamans always are, or always have to be, neuropathics; on
the other hand, those among them who had been ill became
shamans precisely because they had succeeded in healing
themselves. Very often in Siberia, when the shamanic vocation
manifests itself as some form of illness or as an epileptic
seizure, the initiation is equivalent to a cure. To obtain the
gift of shamanizing presupposes precisely the solution of the
psychic crisis brought on by the first symptoms of election
or call.
But if shamanism cannot simply be identified with a
psychopathological phenomenon, it is nevertheless true that
the shamanic vocation often implies a crisis so deep that it
sometimes borders on madness. And since the youth cannot
become a shaman until he has resolved this crisis, it is clear
that it plays the role of a mystical initiation. The shock provoked
in the future shaman by the discovery that he has been
chosen by the gods or the spirits is by that very fact valuated
as an “initiatory illness.” His sufferings are exactly like the
tortures of initiation. Just as, in puberty rites or rites for entrance
into a secret society, the novice is “killed” by semidivine
or demonic beings, so the future shaman sees in dreams
his own body dismembered by demons. The initiatory rituals
peculiar to Siberian and Inner Asian shamanism include a
symbolic ascent to Heaven up a tree or pole; in a dream or
a series of waking dreams, the sick man chosen by the gods
or spirits undertakes his celestial journey to the world tree.
The psychopathology of the shamanic vocation is not profane;
it does not belong to ordinary symptomatology. It has
an initiatory structure and significance; in short, it reproduces
a traditional mystical pattern.
Once healed of his initiatory psychopathological crisis,
the new shaman displays a strong and healthy constitution,
a powerful intelligence, and more energy than others of the
male group. Among the Buriats the shamans are the principal
guardians of the rich oral literature. The poetic vocabulary
of a Yakut shaman contains twelve thousand words,
whereas the ordinary language—the only language known to
the rest of the community—has only four thousand. The
same observation applies to the shamans of other regions,
such as North and South America, Oceania, and Australia
(see some examples in Eliade, 1964, pp. 29ff.).
INITIATORY ORDEALS OF SIBERIAN SHAMANS. Relating their
ecstatic initiations, the Siberian shamans maintain that they
“die” and lie inanimate for from three to seven days in their
yurts or in solitary places. During this time, they are cut up
by demons or by their ancestral spirits; their bones are
cleaned, the flesh scraped off, the body fluids thrown away,
and their eyes torn from their sockets. According to a Yakut
informant, the spirits carry the future shaman’s soul to the
underworld memberment with his own eyes) and hack his body to bits,
which are later distributed among the spirits of various sicknesses.
It is only on this condition that the future shaman
will obtain the power of healing. His bones are then covered
with new flesh, and in some cases he is also given new blood.
According to another Yakut informant, black devils cut up
the future shaman’s body and throw the pieces in different
directions as offerings, then thrust a lance into his head and
cut off his jawbone. A Yurak Samoyed shaman told Toivo
Lehtisalo that spirits had attacked him and hacked him to
pieces, also cutting off his hands. For seven days and nights
he lay unconscious on the ground, while his soul was in
Heaven.
From a long and eventful autobiography that an Avam
Samoyed shaman confided to A. A. Popov, I shall select a
few significant episodes. Stricken with smallpox, the future
shaman remained unconscious for three days, so nearly dead
that on the third day he was almost buried. He saw himself
go down to Hell, and after many adventures he was carried
to an island, in the middle of which stood a young birch tree,
which reached up to Heaven. It was the Tree of the Lord of
the Earth, who gave him a branch of it to make himself a
drum. Next he came to a mountain. Passing through an
opening, he met a naked man plying the bellows at an immense
fire on which was a kettle. The man caught him with
a hook, cut off his head, chopped his body to bits, and put
the pieces into the kettle. There he boiled the body for three
years, and then forged him a head on an anvil. Finally he
fished out the bones, which were floating in a river, put them
together, and covered them with flesh. During his adventures
in the otherworld, the future shaman met several semidivine
personages, in human or animal form, each of whom instructed
him in the secrets of the healing art. When he awoke
in his yurt, among his relatives, he was initiated and could
begin to shamanize.
A Tunguz shaman relates that, during his initiatory illness,
his shaman ancestors pierced him with arrows until he
lost consciousness and fell to the ground; then they cut off
his flesh, drew out his bones, and counted them before him;
if one had been missing, he could not have become a shaman.
According to the Buriats the candidate is tortured by his shaman
ancestors, who strike him, cut up his body with a knife,
and cook his flesh. A Teleut woman became a shamaness
after having a vision in which unknown men cut her body
to pieces and boiled it in a pot. According to the traditions
of the Altaic shamans, their ancestral spirits open their bellies,
eat their flesh, and drink their blood (see examples in
Eliade, 1964, pp. 42ff.).
The ecstatic experience of the initiatory dismemberment
of the body followed by a renewal of organs is also
known in other preliterate societies. The Inuit believe that
an animal (bear, walrus, etc.) wounds the candidate, tears
him to pieces, or devours him; then new flesh grows around
his bones. In South America, during the initiation of the
Araucanian shaman, the master makes the spectators believe
that he exchanges the novice’s eyes and tongue for others and
puts a stick through his abdomen. At Malekula, in the South
Pacific, the initiation of the medicine man includes, among
other things, the novice’s dismemberment: the master cuts
off his arms, feet, and head, and then puts them back in
place. Among the Dayak, the manangs (shamans) say that
they cut off the candidate’s head, remove the brain, and wash
it, thus giving him a clearer mind. Finally, cutting up the
body and the exchange of viscera are essential rites in some
initiations of Australian medicine men (ibid., pp. 59ff.).
One of the specific characteristics of shamanic initiations,
aside from the candidate’s dismemberment, is his reduction
to the state of a skeleton. We find this motif not only
in the accounts of the crises and sicknesses of those who have
been chosen by the spirits to become shamans but also in the
experiences of those who have acquired their shamanic powers
through their own efforts, after a long and arduous quest.
Thus, for example, among the Inuit group known as the Ammasilik,
the apprentice spends long hours in his snow hut,
meditating. At a certain moment, he falls “dead” and remains
lifeless for three days and nights; during this period an enormous
polar bear devours all his flesh and reduces him to a
skeleton. It is only after his mystical experience that the apprentice
receives the gift of shamanizing. The angakkoqs , or
shamans, of the Iglulik Inuit are able in thought to strip their
bodies of flesh and blood and to contemplate their own skeletons
for long periods. Visualizing one’s own death at the
hands of demons and final reduction to the state of a skeleton
are favorite meditations in Indo-Tibetan and Mongolian
Buddhism. Finally, it is worth noting that the skeleton is
quite often represented on the Siberian shaman’s costume
(ibid., pp. 62ff., 158ff.).
PUBLIC RITES OF SHAMANIC INITIATIONS. Among the public
initiation ceremonies of Siberian shamans, those of the
Buriats are among the most interesting. The principal rite includes
an ascent. A strong birch tree is set up in the yurt, with
its roots on the hearth and its crown projecting through the
smoke hole. The birch is called ude´si burkhan , “the guardian
of the door,” for it opens the door of Heaven to the shaman.
The birch will always remain in his tent, serving as the distinguishing
mark of the shaman’s residence. On the day of his
consecration, the candidate climbs the birch to the top (in
some traditions, he carries a sword in one hand) and, emerging
through the smoke hole, shouts to summon the aid of
the gods. After this, the master shaman, the apprentice, and
the entire audience go in procession to a place far from the
village, where, on the eve of the ceremony, a large number
of birches have been set upright on the ground. The procession
halts by a particular birch, a goat is sacrificed, and the
candidate, stripped to the waist, has his head, eyes, and ears
anointed with blood, while the other shamans play their
drums. The master shaman now climbs a birch and cuts nine
notches in the top of its trunk. The candidate then climbs
it, followed by the other shamans. As they climb they all
fall—or pretend to fall—into ecstasy. According to G. N.
Potanin, the candidate has to climb nine birches, which, like the nine notches cut by the master shaman, symbolize the
nine heavens (Ocherki severo-zapadnoi Mongolii , 4 vols.,
Saint Petersburg, 1881–1883).
In the initiatory rite of the Buriat shaman, the candidate
is believed to ascend to Heaven for his consecration. The
climb to Heaven by the aid of a tree or pole is also the essential
rite in the séances of the Altaic shamans. The birch or
pole is likened to the tree or pillar that stands at the center
of the world and that connects the three cosmic zones—
Earth, Heaven, and Hell. The shaman can also reach the center
of the world by beating his drum, for the body of the
drum is supposed to be made from a branch taken from the
cosmic tree. Listening to the sound of his drum, the shaman
falls into ecstasy and flies to the tree, that is, to the center
of the world (see Eliade, 1964, pp. 115ff.).
TECHNIQUES OF ECSTASY. Whether he is chosen by superhuman
beings or himself seeks to draw their attention and obtain
their favors, the shaman is an individual who succeeds
in having mystical experiences. In the sphere of shamanism
the mystical experience is expressed in the shaman’s trance,
real or feigned. Shamanistic ecstasy signifies the soul’s flight
to Heaven, its wanderings about the earth, or its descent to
the subterranean world, among the dead. The shaman undertakes
these ecstatic journeys for four reasons: first, to meet
the celestial god face to face and bring him an offering from
the community; second, to seek the soul of a sick man, which
has supposedly wandered away from his body or been carried
off by demons; third, to guide the soul of a dead man to its
new abode; or fourth, to add to his knowledge by frequenting
higher nonhuman beings.
Through his initiation, the shaman learns what he must
do when his soul abandons the body—and, first of all, how
to orient himself in the unknown regions that he enters during
his ecstasy. He learns to explore the new planes of existence
disclosed by his ecstatic experiences. He knows the
road to the center of the world: the hole in the sky through
which he can fly up to the highest heaven, or the aperture
in the earth through which he can descend to the underworld.
He is forewarned of the obstacles that he will meet
on his journeys, and knows how to overcome them. In short,
he knows the paths that lead to Heaven and Hell. All this
he has learned during his training in solitude, or under the
guidance of the master shamans.
Because of his ability to leave his body with impunity,
the shaman can, if he so wishes, act in the manner of a spirit:
he flies through the air, he becomes invisible, he perceives
things at great distances; he mounts to Heaven or descends
to Hell, sees the souls of the dead and can capture them, and
is impervious to fire. The exhibition of certain faq¯ır -like accomplishments
during ritual séances, especially the so-called
fire tricks, is intended to convince spectators that the shaman
has assimilated the mode of being of spirits. The ability to
turn into an animal, to kill at a distance, and to foretell the
future are also among the powers of spirits; by exhibiting
such powers, the shaman proclaims that he shares in the spirits’
condition.
CELESTIAL ASCENTS AND DESCENTS TO THE UNDERWORLD.
The Buriats, the Yakuts, and other Siberian tribes
speak of “white” shamans and “black” shamans, the former
having relations with the gods, the latter with the spirits, especially
evil spirits. Their costumes differ, being—as among
the Buriats—white for the former and blue for the latter. The
Altaic “white” shaman himself sacrifices the horse offered to
the god of heaven; afterward, in ecstasy, he conducts the animal’s
soul on its journey to the throne of Bai Ülgen, lord of
the upperworld. Putting on his ceremonial costume, the shaman
invokes a multitude of spirits, beats his drum, and begins
his celestial ascent. He laboriously mimes the difficult
passing through heaven after heaven to the ninth and, if he
is really powerful, to the twelfth or even higher. When he
has gone as high as his powers permit, he stops and humbly
addresses Bai Ülgen, imploring his protection and his blessings.
The shaman learns from the god if the sacrifice has been
accepted and receives predictions concerning the weather
and the coming harvest. This episode is the culminating moment
of the ecstasy: the shaman collapses, exhausted, and remains
motionless and dumb. After a time he rubs his eyes,
appears to wake from a deep sleep, and greets those present
as if after a long absence.
The Altaic shaman’s celestial ascent has its counterpart
in his descent to the underworld. This ceremony is far more
difficult, and though it can be undertaken by both “white”
and “black” shamans, it is naturally the specialty of the latter.
The shaman makes a vertical descent down the seven successive
subterranean levels, or regions, called pudak , “obstacles.”
He is accompanied by his dead ancestors and his helping
spirits. At the seventh “obstacle” he sees the palace of Erlik
Khan, lord of the dead, built of stone and black clay and defended
in every direction. The shaman utters a long prayer
to Erlik, then returns to the yurt and tells the audience the
results of his journey.
THE SHAMAN AS PSYCHOPOMP. These descents to the underworld
are undertaken especially to find and bring back a
sick person’s soul, or to escort the soul of the deceased to
Erlik’s realm. In 1884 V. V. Radlov published the description
of a séance organized to escort the soul of a woman to
the underworld forty days after her death. The ceremony
takes place in the evening. The shaman begins by circling the
yurt, beating his drum; then he enters the tent and, going
to the fire, invokes the deceased. Suddenly the shaman’s
voice changes; he begins to speak in a high-pitched falsetto,
for it is really the dead woman who is speaking. She complains
that she does not know the road, that she is afraid to
leave her relatives, and so on, but finally consents to the shaman’s
leading her, and the two set off together for the subterranean
realm. When they arrive, the shaman finds that the
dead refuse to permit the newcomer to enter. Prayers proving
ineffectual, brandy is offered; the séance gradually becomes of the dead, through the shaman’s voice, begin quarreling
and singing together; finally they consent to receive the dead
woman. The second part of the ritual represents the return
journey; the shaman dances and shouts until he falls to the
ground unconscious (Aus Siberien: Lose Blätter aus dem Tagebuche
eines reisenden Linguisten , Leipzig, 1884).
MEDICAL CURES. The principal function of the shaman in
Siberia and Inner Asia is healing. Several conceptions of the
cause of illness are found in the area, but that of the “rape
of the soul” is by far the most widespread. Disease is attributed
to the soul’s having strayed away or been stolen, and treatment
is in principle reduced to finding it, capturing it, and
obliging it to resume its place in the patient’s body. The Buriat
shaman holds a preliminary séance to determine if the patient’s
soul has strayed away or if it has been stolen from him
and is a captive in Erlik’s prison. The shaman begins to
search for the soul; if he finds it near the village, its reinstallation
in the body is easy. If not, he searches the forests, the
steppes, and even the bottom of the sea. Failure to find it indicates
that it is a prisoner of Erlik, and the only recourse
is to offer costly sacrifices. Erlik sometimes demands another
soul in place of the one he has imprisoned; the problem then
is to find one that is available. With the patient’s consent,
the shaman decides who the victim will be. While the latter
is asleep, the shaman, taking the form of an eagle, descends
on him and, tearing out his soul, goes with it to the realm
of the dead and presents it to Erlik, who then allows him to
take away the patient’s soul. The victim dies soon afterward,
and the patient recovers. But he has gained only a respite,
for he too will die three, seven, or nine years later.
SURVIVAL AND METAMORPHOSIS OF SOME SHAMANIC TRADITIONS.
Shamanic symbolism and practices were well
known in Tibet, China, and the Far East (see Eliade, 1964,
pp. 428ff.). The Bon shamans were believed to use their
drums as vehicles to convey them through the air. Their cure
included seeking the patient’s soul, a shamanic ceremony
popular also with the Tibetan exorcists. In the Tantric rite
named Gcod, the practitioner offers his own flesh to be eaten
by demons: they decapitate him, hack him to pieces, then
devour his flesh and drink the blood. Since sickness is interpreted
as the flight of the soul, the Lolo shamans of southern
Yunnan, as well as the Karen “doctors” of Burma, read a long
litany imploring the patient’s soul to return from the distant
mountains, forests, or fields. Among the Lolo and the Mea
of Indochina, the shamans climb a double “ladder of knives,”
symbolizing their ascent to Heaven. A great number of shamanic
symbols and rituals are to be found among the Tibeto-
Burmese Moso (or Na-hsi) inhabiting southwestern China:
ascension to Heaven, accompanying the soul of the dead,
and so forth. In China, “magical flight” or “journeying in
spirit,” as well as many ecstatic dances, present a specific shamanic
structure (see examples quoted in Eliade, 1964,
pp. 447–461). In Japan shamanism is practiced almost exclusively
by women. They summon the dead person’s soul from
the beyond, expel disease and other evil, and ask their god
the name of the medicine to be used. According to Charles
Haguenaur, the essential functions of a female shaman consist
in causing a soul to descend into a house support (a sacred
post or any other substitute) and incarnating a soul in
order to make it serve as intermediary between the dead and
the living, and then sending it back (cited in Eliade, 1964,
p. 464).
A number of shamanic conceptions and techniques have
been identified in the mythology and folklore of the ancient
Germans (ibid., pp. 379ff.). To quote only one example:
Ó›inn descends on his eight-hoofed horse, Sleipnir, to Hel
and bids a long-dead prophetess rise from the grave and answer
his questions. In ancient Greece, Abaris flies through
the air on his arrow. Hermotimos of Clazomenae had the
power of leaving his body “for many years”; in his long ecstasy
he journeyed to great distances (see other examples, ibid.,
pp. 389ff.). Shamanic practices are also to be found in ancient
India as well as in the traditions of the Scythians, Caucasians,
and Iranians (ibid., pp. 394–421). Among the aboriginal
tribes of India, of particular interest is the
shamanism of Savara (Saura), characterized by an “initiatory
marriage” with a “spirit girl,” similar to the practice of the
Siberian Nanay (Goldi) and Yakuts (ibid., pp. 72ff., 421ff.).
SOME CONCLUSIONS. It is as yet impossible to reconstruct
the prehistory and earliest history of different shamanisms.
But we can appraise the religious and cultural importance of
the shamans in those archaic societies dominated by a shamanistic
ideology. To begin with, the shamans have played
an essential role in the defense of the psychic integrity of the
community. They are preeminently the antidemonic champions;
they combat not only demons and disease, but also
the “black” magicians. In a general way, it can be said that
shamanism defends life, health, fertility, and the world of
“light,” against death, disease, sterility, disasters, and the
world of “darkness.”
It is as a further result of his ability to travel in the supernatural
worlds and to see the superhuman beings (gods, demons,
spirits of the dead, etc.) that the shaman has been able
to contribute decisively to the knowledge of death. In all
probability many features of funerary geography, as well as
some themes of the mythology of death, are the result of the
ecstatic experiences of shamans. The lands that the shaman
sees and the personages that he meets during his ecstatic journeys
in the beyond are minutely described by the shaman
himself, during or after his trance. The unknown and terrifying
world of death assumes form and is organized in accordance
with particular patterns; finally, it displays a structure
and, in the course of time, becomes familiar and acceptable.
In turn, the supernatural inhabitants of the world of death
become visible; they show a form, display a personality, even
a biography. Little by little the world of the dead becomes
knowable, and death itself is evaluated primarily as a rite of
passage to a spiritual mode of being. In the last analysis, the
accounts of the shamans’ ecstatic journeys contribute to a
“spiritualizing” of the world of the dead, at the same time
that they enrich it with wondrous forms and figures. There are certain likenesses between the accounts of shamanic
ecstasies and certain epic themes in oral literature (see
Eliade, 1964, pp. 213ff., 311ff., 368ff.). The shaman’s adventures
in the otherworld, the ordeals that he undergoes in
his ecstatic descents below and ascents to the sky, suggest the
adventures of the figures in popular tales and the heroes of
epic literature. Probably a large number of epic subjects or
motifs, as well as many characters, images, and clichés of epic
literature, are, finally, of ecstatic origin, in the sense that they
were borrowed from the narratives of shamans describing
their journeys and adventures in the superhuman worlds.
It is likewise probable that the preecstatic euphoria constituted
one of the universal sources of lyric poetry. In preparing
his trance, the shaman drums, summons his spirit
helpers, speaks a secret language or the “animal language,”
imitating the cries of beasts and especially the songs of birds.
He ends by attaining a “second state” that provides the impetus
for linguistic creation and the rhythms of lyric poetry.
Something must also be said concerning the dramatic
structure of the shamanic séance. The sometimes highly elaborate
staging of this session obviously exercises a beneficial
influence on the patient. In addition, every genuinely shamanic
séance ends as a spectacle unequaled in the world of
daily experience. The fire tricks, the “miracles” of the ropetrick
or mango-trick type, the exhibition of magical feats, reveal
another world—the fabulous world of the gods and magicians,
the world in which everything seems possible, where
the dead return to life and the living die only to live again,
where one can disappear and reappear instantaneously,
where the laws of nature are abolished and a certain superhuman
freedom from such structures is exemplified and made
dazzlingly present.
It is difficult for us to imagine the repercussions of such
a spectacle in a “primitive” community. The shamanic “miracles”
not only confirm and reinforce the patterns of the traditional
religion, they also stimulate and feed the imagination,
demolish the barriers between dream and present
reality, and open windows upon worlds inhabited by the
gods, the dead, and the spirits.
SEE ALSO Ascension; Buriat Religion; Descent into the
Underworld; Dismemberment; Ecstasy; Flight; Spirit
Possession.
MIRCEA ELIADE (1987)
SHAMANISM: AN OVERVIEW [FURTHER
CONSIDERATIONS]
The cross-cultural concept of shamanism promoted by Mircea
Eliade (1907–1986) has stood the test of time and has
been extended and refined. Eliade’s conceptualization of shamanism
has promoted the cross-cultural and interdisciplinary
application of the term shaman . Systematic cross-cultural
research has validated a universal (etic) concept of the shaman,
illustrating the substantial similarities among spiritual
healing practices found in hunter-gatherer societies worldwide.
Archaeological research has established a deep prehis-
torical depth for shamanism, illustrating its central role in the
emergence of modern human culture. Perspectives from evolutionary
psychology have helped explain the emergence and
cross-cultural distribution of shamanism in terms of adaptive
psychological, social, and cognitive effects that contributed
to human evolution. The worldwide distribution of shamanism
reflects its basis in innate brain processes and modules
and in biologically based cognitive and representational systems.
Modern perspectives reject the earlier pathological
characterizations of shamanism, instead recognizing it as a
primordial spiritual healing practice that managed psychosocial
processes and fundamental aspects of brain function.
The role of the hunter-gatherer shamans, with their biological
basis in altered states of consciousness, was transformed
by sociocultural evolution, producing a universal manifestation
of “shamanistic healers” who entered ecstatic states in
order to interact with spirits on behalf of the community and
clients.
CROSS-CULTURAL CHARACTERISTICS OF SHAMANS. Eliade
emphasized shamanism as “preeminently” of Siberia, but he
recognized similar practices around the world. Dissension
concerning whether shamanism was strictly limited to Siberia
or was found worldwide has been resolved through crosscultural
research by Michael Winkelman (1986, 1990, 1992)
that illustrates empirically the existence of similar magicoreligious
practitioners in many hunter-gatherer and simple
agricultural and pastoral societies. Michael Harner refers to
this worldwide phenomenon as “core shamanism.” Shamans
were charismatic social leaders who engaged in healing and
divination for the local community. In addition to ecstasy , or
an altered state of consciousness (ASC), spirit world interaction,
and community relations, other beliefs and practices associated
with shamans include:
• an ASC experience known as soul journey or magical
flight;
• the use of chanting, drumming, and dancing;
• training through deliberately induced ASC, producing
visionary experiences;
• an initiatory crises involving a death-and-rebirth experience;
• abilities of divination, diagnosis, and prophecy;
• therapeutic processes focused on soul loss and recovery;
• disease caused by spirits, sorcerers, and the intrusion of
objects or entities;
• interaction with animals, including control of animal
spirits and transformation into animals;
• malevolent acts, or sorcery; and
• hunting magic.
CROSS-CULTURAL DIFFERENCES IN SHAMANISTIC PRACTICES.
One characterization of shamanism offered by Eliade
was the practice of entering ASC (Eliade used the term ecstasy )
to interact with spirits on behalf of the community. This
characterization led to the extension of the concept of shaman
to include many different practices, including those that
do not exhibit the other characteristics of the shaman emphasized
by Eliade, such as soul flight, animal allies, death-andrebirth
experiences, hunting magic, and the capacity for sorcery.
Other practitioners that engage in ASC to interact with
spirits on behalf of their communities have some different
characteristics that differ from those of the core shamans.
Winkelman has suggested the term shamanistic healers for
this universal manifestation of the shamanic potential involving
ASC, community ritual, and spirit interaction.
Differences in shamanic practices were explored by
Anna Siikala, who proposed that the breakdown of the clan
structure along with stratification of the community led to
different types of shamanism, particularly professional shamans.
She distinguished between the following:
1. small-group shamans, characteristic of the nomadic
northern ethnic groups of Siberia;
2. independent professional shamans, prevalent among
paleo-Asian groups, such as the Chukchee;
3. clan shamans, found in Altaic groups; and
4. territorial professional shamans, found in Central Asia
and southern Siberia.
Winkelman’s cross-cultural research, however, indicates that
different types of shamanistic healers developed in different
places as a consequence of the effects of sedentary residence
and agricultural and political integration. These effects are
illustrated in the following characterizations of the distinctive
aspects of core shamans, shaman/healers, healers, and
mediums.
Core shamanism. Shamans are found worldwide in nomadic
or seminomadic hunter-gather, horticultural, and pastoral
societies. Shamans were predominantly male, but most
societies also had female shamans. In the past, shamans tended
to come from shaman families, but anyone could become
a shaman if selected by the spirits. Early in life, shamans undertook
deliberate activities to enter ASC, undertaking a “vision
quest” in which they developed personal relationships
with spirits who provided direct training. The developmental
experiences of shamans included death-and-rebirth experiences
involving dismemberment and reconstruction by the
spirits. This provided shamans with powers, especially animal
allies that could provide assistance in healing, divination,
hunting, and the ability to use sorcery to harm others. A shaman’s
all-night ceremony involved the entire local community
in dancing, drumming, and chanting. A central aspect
involved the shaman recounting ASC experiences called soul
journey or magical flight , in which an aspect of the shaman
departs the body and travels to other places. Shamans were
not normally possessed by spirits; rather they controlled spirits
and were believed to be able to fly and transform into animals.
Therapeutic processes involved removal of objects or
removal of spirits sent by other shamans through sorcery, as
well as soul journeys to recover lost souls and engage in rela-
tionships with “power animals” (aspects of the shaman’s personal
essence and powers).
Shaman/healers. Shaman/healers are found in agricultural
or pastoral societies at all levels of social complexity.
They share characteristics with other types of shamans, but
they differ from shamans in important ways. The shaman’s
direct tutelage by spirits and affirmation by the community
is replaced in shaman/healers with instruction by elder practitioners,
as well as public ceremonial recognition of the successful
initiate, marking their entrance into the profession.
In addition, shaman/healers are subordinated to religious
practitioners called priests. Shaman/healers also engage in agricultural
rituals and often use instruments, such as Tarot
cards, with established interpretative systems for divination.
Shaman/healers are generally characterized by extensive
role specialization, and the practitioner engages in a limited
subset of professional activities associated with the position.
For instance, a shaman/healer may perform divination but
not healing or agricultural rites. Their ASC experiences are
similar to those characteristic of meditators and mystics, although
the shamanistic healer’s ASC may involve soul
journey.
Mediums. Mediums are often referred to as “shamans”
(Lewis, 1988), but they were in most respects distinct from
core shamans. Historically, Most mediums have been female,
and their call to the profession has generally been a possession
episode in early adulthood. Possession is interpreted as
a “take over” of the person’s personality by a spirit. The possession
ASC generally involves tremors, convulsions, seizures,
and amnesia (these characteristics are often interpreted
as evidence of the spirits’ control of the medium). Mediums
do not usually engage in malevolent acts but instead are
called upon to act against sorcerers, witches, and other evil
entities. Mediums may worship their possessing spirits, and
they often maintain relationships with superior deities to
whom they make sacrifices.
Mediums may be more powerful than ordinary women,
but, in contrast to the social leadership role of shamans, they
tend to appear in complex societies with political hierarchies
and religious practitioners, such as priests and healers, who
are more powerful than the medium.
Healers. Healers are not usually referred to as shamans.
They are almost exclusively male and generally have high
economic status and political power. Healers’ professional
organizations provide training, which is generally expensive,
but the profession is remunerative, enabling healers to be
full-time specialists. Most healers do not engage in the ASC
practices characteristic of shamans, but healers sometimes
use rituals and incantations to induce ASC in clients. A principal
healing activity is exorcism. Healers also perform lifecycle
activities, such as naming ceremonies, marriage rituals,
and funerals. Healers often identify sorcerers or witches, and
take action against them.
PSYCHOBIOLOGICAL FEATURES OF SHAMANISM. The shamanistic
practices found in hunter-gatherer societies around
the world, and the universal distribution of shamanistic healers,
reflect ecological and social adaptations to human biological
potentials. The psychobiological bases of shamanism
include basic brain processes, operations of innate representational
modules, and neurological structuring of fundamental
structures of consciousness (Winkelman, 2000, 2002a,
2002b). Neurological foundations underlie the principal
characteristics of shamanism that Eliade emphasized—
ecstasy, spirits, and community—as well as other universal
characteristics of shamanism (e.g., the visionary journey, the
use of music and dance, and animal allies).
Shamanic rituals activate brain structures and processes
that elicit integrative psychological and social processes and
produce visual and metaphoric representations. This integration
of brain functions involves physiologically based brain
integration induced by ASC, as well as cognitive synthesis
based in integration of specialized representational functions,
producing symbolic thought in animism, animal spirits, totemism,
and soul flight. The primary neurological features
of shamanism are discussed below in terms of the underlying
physiological bases and functional dynamics of the following:
• ASC, or operations of consciousness that produce cognitive
and personal integration;
• visionary experiences, manifesting a cognitive capacity
for presentational symbolism;
• fundamental structures of human consciousness reflected
in spirits (animism);
• self-objectification processes reflected in soul journey
and death-and-rebirth experiences;
• metaphoric representations using animal and body relations,
which is manifested in animism, animal powers,
and totemism;
• community bonding processes that elicit attachment
dynamics and opioid mechanisms, including mimetic
expression, chanting, and dance to produce social coordination;
and
• physiological healing processes based in the relaxation
response, anxiety management, and elicitation of opioid
and serotonergic neurotransmitters.
ASC: THE INTEGRATIVE MODE OF CONSCIOUSNESS The ecstasy,
or ASC, that is central to the selection, training, and
professional practice of shamans typically involves singing,
chanting, drumming, and dancing, followed by collapse and
apparent unconsciousness but accompanied by intense visual
experiences. This ASC involves a natural brain response that
produces physiological, functional, and psychological integration.
Arnold Mandell has argued that the physiological
dynamics of ASC involve slow-wave discharges from the serotonin
circuits of the limbic brain, which produces synchronized
waves across the brain. Auditory driving (singing,
chanting, drumming, and music) is a primary mechanism for
producing ASC and brain-wave synchronization. Dancing,
fasting, and other austerities, most psychoactive drugs, and
social and sensory isolation reinforce the response. Shamanic
ASCs activate the autonomic nervous system to the point of
exhaustion, and it collapses into a parasympathetic dominant
state that evokes the relaxation response. Skilled shamans
may directly enter this state of relaxation through an internal
focus of attention, as in meditation. The relaxation response
is one of the body’s natural healing processes, with adaptive
advantages in stress reduction and physiological restoration.
The shaman’s ASC elicits the “integrative mode of consciousness”
(Winkelman, 2000), a normal brain response to
many activities (e.g., chanting, drumming, fasting, meditation)
with synchronized brain-wave patterns in the theta and
alpha range. These slow-wave patterns are produced by activation
of serotonergic linkages between the limbic-brain system
(the “emotional brain” or paleomammalian brain) and
lower-brain structures. These connections produce coherent
theta brain-wave discharges that synchronize the frontal areas
of the brain, replacing the normal fast and desynchronized
brain-wave activity of the frontal cortex. The integrative
mode of consciousness integrates preverbal behavioral and
emotional information into the cultural and language mediated
processes of the frontal cortex.
Visionary experience as presentational symbolism.
An intense visual imagery, what Richard Noll refers to as
“mental imagery cultivation,” is central to the shamanic ASC
experience. These experiences reflect an innate representational
system referred to as “presentational symbolism” by
Harry Hunt. Visionary experiences provide analysis, analogic
synthesis, diagnosis, and planning. Shamanic visions are natural
brain phenomena that result from release of suppression
of the visual cortex; the visions involve the same brain substrates
used for the processing of perceptual information.
Images are a form of psychobiological communication
experienced in a preverbal symbol system. Imagery plays a
fundamental role in cognition, providing a basis for metaphoric
expression and the formation of relations between different
levels of information processing. Mental imagery integrates
unconscious psychophysiological information with
emotional levels, linking somatic and cognitive experience
and recruiting and coordinating muscles and organic
systems.
SPIRITS AND HUMAN CONSCIOUSNESS. The fundamental
features of shamanism—animism, totemism, and animal
spirits—are representations of self, intrapsychic dynamics,
and social groups. These representations are produced
through integration of specialized innate processing modules
for natural history intelligence (recognition of animal species)
with modules for self-conceptualization and mental attributions
regarding social “others” (mind reading). The shamanic
role in managing these modules is exemplified in
certain characteristics of shamans: (1) social intelligence—
being group leader and mediator of intergroup relations; (2)
natural history knowledge—being master of animals; and (3)
self-conceptualization exemplified in identity shifts developed
through animal familiars, soul flight, and death-andrebirth
experiences. These representations reflect preverbal
structures of consciousness and the thought processes of
lower-brain structures. These specialized forms of knowledge
production are combined in metaphoric processes to produce
the shamanic features of animism, totemism, and animal
spirits. Anthropomorphism and interaction with the
spirit world (animism) use the brain’s innate representation
modules for understanding the self and social others, and for
attributing human mental and social characteristics to animals,
nature, and the unknown. The phenomena of totemism,
animal allies, and animal powers involve the natural history
intelligence, employing capacities for distinguishing
animal species to understand and mold personal identity and
produce differentiation of self and social groups.
Animism and animal allies. Animism involves the use
of innate representation modules for understanding self and
social others, and for attributing human mental and social
capabilities to animals, nature, and the unknown. Stewart
Guthrie discusses animism as a human being’s use of selfcharacteristics
as a model for the unknown; it is a natural
projection of a human being’s own qualities in relationship
to the environment. Spirit concepts are based in social intelligence,
the ability to infer the mental states of others. This
intuitive psychology and “theory of mind” attributes mental
states to others through the organism’s use of its own mental
states to model the mind and behaviors of others. This attribution
underlies the spirit world.
Animal allies, guardian spirits, and totemism involve a
process that is reciprocal to animism and represents humans
through the use of the natural-history module’s capacity for
organizing knowledge about animal species. This universal
analogical system for creation and extension of meaning uses
natural-history intelligence to differentiate personal and social
identities. Animal species provide natural symbol systems
for differentiation of self and social groups and have psychosocial
functions in empowering people, as illustrated in the
guardian spirit quest discussed by Guy Swanson. Spirits are
“sacred others,” the integration of the spiritual and social
worlds in cultural processes, which Jacob Pandian characterizes
as the production of the symbolic self. Spirit beliefs exemplify
social norms and psychosocial relations, structuring
individual psychodynamics and social behavior. Spirit beliefs
protect from stress and anxiety through management of
emotions and attachments. Spirits provide variable command-
control agents for mediating conflict between the different
instinctive agents and aspects of self. This facilitates
the operation with respect to a hierarchy of goals and the use
of problem-solving modules for nonroutine tasks.
Death and rebirth. Transformations of self are also illustrated
in a universal feature of shamanic development, the
death-and-rebirth experience. This involves illness, suffering,
and attacks by spirits, leading to the experience of death and
dismemberment, followed by a reconstruction of the body
with the help of spirit allies and powers. Roger Walsh charac-
terizes the death-and-rebirth experience as a natural response
to overwhelming stress and intrapsychic conflicts. This
breakdown of ego structures reflects neurognostic processes
of self-transformation, experienced in “autosymbolic images”
of bodily destruction. Charles Laughlin, John McManus,
and Eugene d’Aquili (1992) discuss these experiences as involving
the activation of innate drives toward psychological
integration and the restructuring of ego and identity through
activation of holistic imperatives to produce a new selfidentity
and higher levels of psychological integration.
Soul flight as self-objectification. Soul-flight experiences
involve natural symbolic systems for selfrepresentation.
The shaman’s soul journey is structurally
similar to ASC found cross-culturally in out-of-body and
near-death experiences. The homologies reflect their innate
basis in psychophysiological structures as forms of selfrepresentation
that are a natural response of the human nervous
system. Charles Laughlin (1997) discusses the universality
of a body-based metaphor that is manifested in shamanic
cosmology and a natural body-based epistemology.
Soul flight involves “a view of self from the perspective of
other,” a form of “taking the role of the other” in presentational
symbolism (Hunt, 1995). These self-representations
provide forms of self-awareness referenced to the body, but,
apart from the body, they produce the altered consciousness
and transcendence experienced by shamans.
COMMUNITY RITUALS AND PSYCHOSOCIAL DYNAMICS. Shamanic
activity is accomplished on behalf of the community
and requires community participation. Soul loss, the most
fundamental shamanic illness, is healed by reintegration of
the patient into the community. Community rituals produce
both psychosocial effects (community cohesion, positive expectation,
and social support) and psychobiological effects
(the elicitation of attachment and opioid mechanisms).
Opioid-mediated attachment processes. Ede Frecska
and Zsuzsanna Kulcsar illustrate how communal rituals elicit
attachment bonds and other psycho-socio-physiological
mechanisms that release endogenous opiates and produce
psychobiological synchrony in a group of people. Shamanic
rituals release endogenous opiates through a variety of mechanisms,
including austerities, fasting, water restriction, strenuous
exercise, and emotional hyperstress (Winkelman,
1997). Shamanic rituals elicit responses from the brain’s
opioid systems by tapping into social attachment and conditioned
cultural symbols (Frecska and Kulcsar, 1989). Emotionally
charged symbols elicit the opioid system and permit
ritual manipulation of physiological responses in the linking
of the psychic, mythological, and somatic spheres. Opioids
stimulate the immune system; produce a sense of euphoria,
certainty, and belonging; and enhance coping skills, pain reduction,
stress tolerance, environmental adaptation, group
synchronization, and maintenance of bodily homeostasis
(Valle and Prince, 1989).
Mimetic expression and emotional vocalization.
Community bonding involves chanting, music, and dance,
which can elicit an ancient communicative system that Merlin
Donald discusses as mimesis, an imitative communication
channel that evolved to enhance social bonding and
communication of internal states. Music, chanting, singing,
and dancing have origins in mimetic modules that provide
rhythm, affective semantics, and melody (see Wallin,
Merker, and Brown, 2000). Chanting and music provide a
nonlinguistic channel for communication that induces healing
states by engaging theta and alpha brain-wave production
and by promoting cohesion, coordination, and cooperation
among the group. The shamanic practices of drumming,
dancing, and ritual imitation are based in operations of this
innate mimetic controller and the unique human ability to
entrain the body and community to external rhythms.
SHAMANIC THERAPIES. Shamanism is the original psychosocio-
physiological therapy in that it uses rituals and cultural
processes to manipulate health from physical through symbolic
levels. Therapeutic mechanisms of shamanism include:
• inducing relaxation and the parasympathetic dominant
responses that elicit organic healing;
• reducing the physiological effects of stress and anxiety
by providing meaning and assurance;
• integrating dissociated aspects of the self and the spiritual-
social models into identity;
• enhancing the mammalian bonding-attachment process;
• producing individual psychosocial development and social
integration;
• synchronizing and integrating the information processes
of the brain’s subsystems;
• activating opioid and serotonergic neurotransmitter systems;
and
• producing ritual elicitation and cultural programming
of neurological processes.
Hypnosis in shamanic healing. James McClenon discusses
how an inheritable hypnotizability provided foundations
for shamanistic healing. Hypnotic susceptibility provided
mechanisms for enhancing recovery from disease, as
well as innovations derived from access to the unconscious
mind and its creative visions. Hypnotizability produces physiological
and psychophysiological responses that facilitated
shamanic healing. Hypnotic and ritual behavior among
other animals provides mechanisms for adaptation to the social
environment by reducing stress and promoting intragroup
cohesion, which is experienced by humans as “union”
or “oneness.” Shamanic healing potentials exploit the cooccurrence
of hypnotizability, dissociation, fantasy proneness,
temporal lobe lability, and thin cognitive boundaries to
enhance connections between the unconscious and conscious
mind. This access provided survival advantages by facilitating
the development of creative strategies, enhancing
suggestibility to symbolically induced physiological changes,
and inducing ASC experiences to facilitate psychosomatic
healing.
Soul loss. Jeanne Achterberg and Sandra Ingerman discuss
soul loss as a central shamanic illness that involves injury
to the essence of one’s being and damage to crucial aspects
of the self, fundamental aspects of personal identity, and the
essence of self-emotions. This injury to one’s essence is manifested
as despair, a loss of meaning in life, and a loss of one’s
sense of belonging and connection with others. Soul loss results
from trauma that causes an aspect of one’s self to dissociate,
making reintegration of these dissociated aspects of self
central to healing. Soul recovery involves regaining the sense
of social self that was alienated by trauma. Community participation
is central to soul retrieval because social support
is vital for the reintegration of the self.
THE EVOLUTIONARY ROOTS OF SHAMANISM . Jean Clottes,
David Lewis-Williams, Robert Ryan, and Michael Winkelman
have reconstructed the prehistorical emergence of shamanism,
which occurred more than forty thousand years ago
in the earliest manifestations of modern human culture in
the Middle to Upper Paleolithic transition. The similarity in
shamanism around the world derives from human nature; it
is an aspect of an evolved psychology. Several lines of evidence
point to a biogenetic origin for shamanic ritual: (1)
continuity with animal ritual and hominid group activities
involving vocalizations for interpersonal communication and
group coordination, as well as drumming, dancing and mimesis;
(2) the direct correspondences of the central features
of Paleolithic cave art to the universals of shamanism; and
(3) the ability of shamanic ritual processes to provide psychological
and social integration processes; that is, the group
needs that characterize the changes associated with this period
of transition in human history (Winkelman, 2002a).
The central role of shamanic elements in Middle to
Upper Paleolithic cave art is seen in the elements and style
of these artistic depictions, the nature of the representations
of animals and humans, and the ritual use of natural cave features
(Winkelman, 2002b; Ryan; Clottes, and Lewis-
Williams, 1998; Lewis-Williams, 2002). This art is key evidence
for the cultural cognitive revolution, with shamanic
ritual, beliefs, practices, and cosmology characterized by
cross-modal cognitive integrations that typify the emergent
features of Paleolithic thought.
This role of shamanism in the Middle to Upper Paleolithic
transition can be understood from psychosocial and
psychobiological perspectives that illustrate how shamanic
ritual practices and beliefs facilitated adaptations to the ecological
and social changes of the Upper Paleolithic, and thus
facilitated cognitive evolution. Shamanism produced social
bonding mechanisms, self-transformation processes, and analogical
thought processes that provided integrative visual
and emotional syntheses. Shamanism contributed to cognitive
and social evolution through production of visual symbolism
and analogical thought processes, and through the ritual
activities that promoted group bonding and the identity
formation that was central to managing the consequences of
the Middle to Upper Paleolithic transition.
The triune brain and shamanic healing. Human evolution
produced a fragmentation of consciousness in the
modular structure of the brain (Mithen, 1996), the diversification
of personal and social identities, and the habitualization
of brain processes (Laughlin et al., 1992). Shamanistic
activities use ASC, visual symbols, and group rituals to produce
psychological, social, and cognitive integration, which
serves to manage relationships among behavioral, emotional,
and cognitive processes, and between physiological and mental
levels of the organism.
One aspect of this shamanic integration involves linkages
across the evolutionary strata of the brain. Paul Mac-
Lean has proposed that the brain involves three anatomically
distinct yet interconnected systems—the reptilian brain, the
paleomammalian brain, and the neomammalian brain—that
provide the basis for behavioral and emotional “subsymbolic”
information. These communication systems employ
a visual presentational symbolism (Hunt, 1995) that mediates
interactions across levels of the brain and social, affective,
and visual symbolic information. The hierarchical management
of behavior, emotions, and reason is mediated both
physiologically and symbolically. The relationships among
innate drives, social attachment, and cultural demands create
many different kinds of health problems, including chronic
anxiety and fear, behavioral disorders, conflict, excessive
emotionality and desire, obsessions and compulsions, dissociations,
and repression. The paleomammalian brain mediates
many of these processes to promote an integration of the
self within the community, thus accommodating the instinctual
responses of the reptilian and paleomammalian brain
systems to the cultural demands mediated by the frontal
brain systems.
CONCLUSIONS . Shamanism is now getting recognition as the
original basis of human spiritual and religious practice, a part
of human nature that played a significant role in human cognitive
and cultural evolution. As a biologically based spiritual
and healing system that played a significant role in human
survival, social relations, and cosmology, shamanism was humanity’s
original neurotheology. As human societies became
more complex, the original biological basis of shamanism
that was manifested in hunter-gatherer societies was substantially
modified, eventually emerging in the form of mediumship
and possession. Ethnography and cross-cultural studies
have, however, helped revive shamanism and have reintroduced
it to the modern world, enabling shamanism to reemerge
as a natural religious and spiritual form.
SEE ALSO Healing and Medicine, overview article.