SHAMANISM overview

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.


Wyszukiwarka