See discussions, stats, and author profiles for this publication at: https://www.researchgate.

net/publication/332109660

Shamanism

Chapter · January 2007

CITATIONS READS
0 3,380

1 author:

Michael James Winkelman

Arizona State University
188 PUBLICATIONS   3,198 CITATIONS   

SEE PROFILE

Some of the authors of this publication are also working on these related projects:

Entheomycology of India View project

Magico-religious Practitioners View project

All content following this page was uploaded by Michael James Winkelman on 01 April 2019.

The user has requested enhancement of the downloaded file.

Shamans
Efficiency, and Returns to Scale Using Distance Functions.
Journal of Econometrics 108: 203–225.
Färe, Rolf, and Daniel Primont. 1995. Multi-Output Production
and Duality: Theory and Applications. Boston: Kluwer
Academic Publishers.
Halvorsen, Robert, and Tim R. Smith. 1991. A Test of the
Theory of Exhaustible Resources. Quarterly Journal of
Economics 106 (1): 123–140.
Kumbhakar, Subal C. 1997. Modelling Allocative Inefficiency in
a Translog Cost Function and Cost Share Equations: An
Exact Relationship. Journal of Econometrics 76: 351–356.
Mas-Collel, Andreu, Michael D. Whinston, and Jerry R. Green.
1995. Microeconomic Theory. Oxford: Oxford University
Press.
Viscusi, W. Kip. 2004. The Value of Life: Estimates with Risks
by Occupation and Industry. Economic Inquiry 42 (1):
29–48.
Scott E. Atkinson
SHAMANS
Shamans represent humanity’s most ancient forms of heal-
ing, spirituality, and community ritual. In Shamanism:
Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy (1964), Mircea Eliade charac-
terized the shaman as someone who enters ecstasy to inter-
act with spirits on behalf of the community. Although
some have challenged his suggestion of the universality of
shamanism, the cross-cultural research of Michael
Winkelman has established the universal validity of the
concept of the shaman, as well as the characteristics of
Shamans, particularly their differences with respect to
other types of magico-religious practitioners. In
Shamanism: The Neural Ecology of Consciousness and
Healing (2000), Winkelman illustrates how the cross-cul-
tural similarities in shamans relate to humans’ evolved
psychology. Shamanism was an important evolution of
human culture and consciousness and created practices to
expand ancient primate activities for ritual healing and
group integration.
THE NATURE AND UNIVERSALITY
OF THE SHAMAN
While shamans and priests are both religious practition-
ers, they differ in many basic ways. Shamans enter into a
direct relationship with the spiritual world, for example,
while priests mediate with respect to deities. Winkelman’s
research, particularly in Shamans, Priests, and Witches: A
Cross-Cultural Study of Magico-Religious Practitioners
(1992), provides empirical evidence for these differences:
Shamans of hunter-gatherer societies reflect biological
adaptations to an evolved psychology involving altered
486 I N T E R N AT I O N A L E N C Y C L O P E D I A O F T H E S O C I A L S C I E N C E S , 2 N D E D I T I O N
states of consciousness (ASC), while priests reflect adapta-
tions to the social leadership needs of agricultural groups.
Unlike priests who generally acquire their positions
by virtue of social position in class or kinship ranks, the
shaman is thought to be chosen by the spirits. Shamans
acquire their special status through experiences of the
spirit world. While most people in shamanic cultures may
deliberately seek contact with the spirit world in a vision
quest, only a few will have the benefit of being chosen by
the spirits for special experiences and powers. Spirit-world
experiences occur spontaneously in illness, hallucinations,
dreams, and visions, and they are further induced through
vision quests involving prolonged fasts; the ingestion of
emetics, tobacco, and hallucinogen drugs; and other ardu-
ous techniques that provoke profound alterations of con-
sciousness, which are interpreted as entry into the spirit
world. Ritual inductions of spirit-world experiences gen-
erally employ drums, rattles, and other percussion, as well
as singing and chanting.
The universals of human culture associated with
shamanism involve the use of techniques for altering con-
sciousness to produce an experience of interacting with
the spirit world. These experiences are key to providing
healing and information for the community. The altered
states of consciousness associated with shamanism are a
human universal derived from human biology, reflecting
extraordinary aspects of normal systemic reactions of the
brain and nervous system in maintaining homeostasis, or
internal balance (Laughlin, McManus, and d’Aquili 1992;
Winkelman 2000). The psychiatrist Arnold Mandell has
characterized this neurobiological transcendence in terms
of activation of the serotonergic linkages between the lim-
bic (emotional) brain and the R-Complex (behavioral)
brain (1980). This activation produces strong slow-wave
(theta, 3-6 cycles per second) brain discharges that induce
synchronized brain waves across the levels of the brain and
between the frontal hemispheres.
The particular form of altered consciousness associ-
ated with shamanism is called a soul journey, soul flight, or
some other similar term referring to the departure of some
aspect of the self, particularly one’s soul or spirit, from the
body in order to journey to the spirit world. This
shamanic soul journey is distinct from the possession
experiences associated with the altered states of conscious-
ness of more complex societies. Possession involves expe-
riences in which a person’s sense of personal consciousness
and volition is replaced by the controlling influences of a
spirit entity who possesses the person’s body and controls
it (Bourguignon 1976). This divine control of one’s per-
son is not typically associated with shamanic practice. The
shaman remains aware of self during the soul journey,
while possessed people typically report a lack of awareness
of the experience following possession. Winkelman has

integrated cross-cultural and interdisciplinary explana-
tions that suggest important influences on the nature and
form of altered states of consciousness from a variety of
dietary, social, political, and ritual practices. The shaman’s
awareness during the soul journey reflects the active
engagement in altered states through early ritual practices,
while the possessed person’s sense of external dominance
by the possessing entity reflects influences external to the
self, such as endocrine imbalances from nutritional defi-
ciencies and dissociate experiences induced by oppressive
social conditions.
ASPECTS OF SHAMANIC PRACTICE
Shamans have additional universal characteristics that dif-
ferentiate them from the priests and possessed mediums of
more complex societies. Cross-culturally, shamans are
characterized as charismatic leaders whose community rit-
uals generally involve healing and divination. Other char-
acteristics of shamans are:
• They undergo an altered state of consciousness
(ASC), characterized as a “soul journey.”
• They perform rituals involving chanting, music,
drumming, and dancing.
• They have had initiatory death-and-rebirth
experiences and guardian spirit encounters.
• They have close relationships with animals in
control of spirits and development of personal
powers.
• They use therapeutic processes to recover lost souls,
defined as the separation of some vital aspect of
personal essence due to attacks by spirits and
sorcerers.
Shamans typically engage the entire local community
in all-night ceremonies. During hours of dancing, drum-
ming, and chanting, the shaman may dramatically
recount mythological histories and enact struggles in the
spirit world. Shamans also have the capacity to engage in
sorcery and malevolent magic to harm others.
VISIONARY TECHNIQUES
EMPLOYED FOR SUPERNATURAL
ENGAGEMENT
Shamans use rituals to induce the altered state of con-
sciousness (ASC) typified in a soul journey, where a spiri-
tual aspect departs the body and travels to the spirit world.
The ASC is typically produced through drumming and
dancing to the point of collapse (or deliberate repose), and
it may be potentiated by dietary and sexual restrictions
and medicinal plants. The overall physiological dynamics
of ASC induction involve excitation until exhaustion,
I N T E R N AT I O N A L E N C Y C L O P E D I A O F T H E S O C I A L S C I E N C E S , 2 N D E D I T I O N
Shamans
which induces the relaxation response, a natural recupera-
tion process. The shaman’s ASC includes: a death-and-
rebirth experience, producing a self-transformation; a
flight to the lower, middle, and upper levels of the spirit
world, reflecting transformations of consciousness; and
personal transformation into an animal, enabling the
shaman to travel and use special powers.
The shamanic ASC stimulates the reptilian and
paleomammalian levels of the brain, and the associated
preverbal processes. The ASC synchronizes diverse brain
regions with theta brain wave discharges, which are pro-
duced by serotonergic linkages that propel these dis-
charges from the brain stem and limbic areas into the
frontal cortex. This produces an integration of lower brain
processes into consciousness; an interhemispheric syn-
chronization of the frontal cortex; and a synthesis of emo-
tion, thought, and behavior. ASCs induce information
integration, social bonding, stress reduction, and healing
through enhancement of visual representation faculties.
Humans have a visual symbolic system utilized in the
dream mode of consciousness and illustrated in the typi-
cally visual (as opposed to verbal) material manifested in
dreaming. This visual presentational symbolism (as
opposed to the verbal representational system) provides a
medium for manifestation of information from the pre-
verbal levels of the unconscious. Winkelman (2000,
2002) discusses how shamanic rituals elicited and inte-
grated this symbolic capacity to produce a new level of
mental evolution underlying the development of the
modern cultural capacity during the Middle/Upper
Paleolithic transition approximately 40,000 years ago.
Shamanism focuses on internal mental images, evok-
ing them through ASC and ritual practices for integrating
dream processes, particularly overnight ritual activities.
Shamanic visions engage psychobiological communica-
tion processes that integrate unconscious psychophysio-
logical information with affective and cognitive levels.
Shamanic images provide analysis, synthesis, and plan-
ning through integrating the informational and personal
processes associated with dreaming, a visual symbolic sys-
tem of self-representations involving the paleomammalian
brain. Shamanic traditions recognize this use of the dream
capacity in terms such as dream time. This process engages
ASC induction activities that produce theta waves and
induce awareness of this emotionally salient material. This
integration of normally unconscious content into con-
scious processes produces a sense of interconnectedness
and transpersonal healing experiences.
SHAMANISM AND HEALING:
PSYCHOINTEGRATION
Shamans are the preeminent healers of premodern soci-
eties. Their roles as healers include medical and psychi-
487
 Shame
atric functions, addressing physical disease as well as a
variety of psychological conditions. Shamanism provides
mechanisms for inducing healing through systemic psy-
chological integration using ritual, symbols, and ASC.
Shamans’ practices represent the evolution of a “holistic
imperative,” a drive toward more integrated levels of con-
sciousness (Laughlin, McManus, and d’Aquili 1992).
Shamanic traditions produce integrative responses that
synchronize divergent aspects of human cognition and
identity through several mechanisms, including: (1) using
ASC, ritual, and symbols to activate synchronizing brain
processes; (2) the stimulation of processes of lower-brain
structures and subconscious aspects of personality and
self; and (3) incorporating people into community rituals
that strengthen social support and identity. These thera-
peutic processes still have relevance in the modern world,
as evidenced by the modern resuscitation of the ancient
shamanic practices.
SEE ALSO Animism; Magic; Mental Health; Mental
Illness; Miracles; Purification; Religion; Rituals
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Bourguignon, Erika. 1976. Possession. San Francisco: Chandler
and Sharpe.
Eliade, Mircea. 1964. Shamanism: Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy.
New York: Bollingen Foundation.
Laughlin, Charles, Jr., John McManus, and Eugene d’Aquili.
1992. Brain, Symbol, and Experience: Toward a
Neurophenomenology of Consciousness. New York: Columbia
University Press.
Mandell, Arnold. 1980. Toward a Psychobiology of
Transcendence: God in the Brain. In The Psychobiology of
Consciousness, eds. Julian Davidson and Richard Davidson.
New York: Plenum.
Winkelman, Michael. 1986. Magico-Religious Practitioner Types
and Socioeconomic Conditions. Behavior Science Research 20
(1–4): 17–46.
Winkelman, Michael. 1990. Shaman and Other “Magico-
Religious” Healers: A Cross-Cultural Study of Their Origins,
Nature, and Social Transformations. Ethos 18 (3): 308–352.
Winkelman, Michael. 1992. Shamans, Priests, and Witches: A
Cross-Cultural Study of Magico-Religious Practitioners.
Anthropological Research Paper No. 44. Tempe: Arizona
State University.
Winkelman, Michael. 2000. Shamanism: The Neural Ecology of
Consciousness and Healing. Westport, CT: Bergin and Garvey.
Winkelman, Michael. 2002. Shamanism and Cognitive
Evolution. Cambridge Archaeological Journal 12 (1): 71–101.
Winkelman, Michael. 2004. Shamanism As the Original
Neurotheology. Zygon Journal of Religion and Science 39 (1):
193–217.
Michael Winkelman
488 I N T E R N AT I O N A L E N C Y C L O P E D I A O F T H E S O C I A L S C I E N C E S , 2 N D E D I T I O N
View publication stats
SHAME
Shame occupies an important place both among the emo-
tions and as a key component in social relationships. It
might well be called “the master emotion” for reasons to
be discussed below. But why so much attention to one
emotion? This emphasis has been difficult for many peo-
ple to follow. What about other primary emotions, such
as love, fear, anger, grief, and so on? To the average reader
in modern societies, the focus on shame seems arbitrary.
Not so, however, in traditional societies. These soci-
eties, because of their exclusive concern with social rela-
tionships rather than individuals, overemphasize shame.
An excellent introduction to the consciousness of shame
in a traditional society can be found in Joan Metge’s 1986
study of the emotion lexicon in the Maori language.
Modern societies, since they emphasize the isolated,
self-reliant individual, hide shame. Consciousness of this
emotion would betray the extent of each individual’s
dependence on the views of others, and therefore the
social nature of the self.
C. H. Cooley’s (1864–1929) idea of the “looking-
glass self ” suggested an elementary link between shame
and selfhood: “A self-idea of this sort seems to have three
principal elements: the imagination of our appearance to
the other person; the imagination of his judgment of that
appearance; and some sort of self-feeling, such as pride or
mortification (shame)” (Cooley 1922, p. l84).
Erving Goffman (1922–1982), whose work often
centered on embarrassment, provided another justifica-
tion. He argued that embarrassment, and by implication
shame, had universal importance in social interaction:
“Face-to-face interaction in any culture seems to require
just those capacities that flustering seems to destroy.
Therefore, events which lead to embarrassment and the
methods for avoiding and dispelling it may provide a
cross-cultural framework of sociological analysis”
(Goffman 1956, p. 266).
Christian Heath further justifies this focus:
Embarrassment lies at the heart of the social
organization of day-to-day conduct. It provides a
personal constraint on the behavior of the individ-
ual in society and a public response to actions and
activities considered problematic or untoward.
Embarrassment and its potential play an impor-
tant part in sustaining the individual’s commit-
ment to social organization, values and
convention. It permeates everyday life and our
dealings with others. It informs ordinary conduct
and bounds the individual’s behavior in areas of
social life that formal and institutionalized con-
straints do not reach. (Heath 1988, p. 137)