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Time and Mind Volume 3—Issue 2—July 2010, pp. 159–182
Time and Mind:
The Journal of
Archaeology,
Consciousness
and Culture
Volume 3—Issue 2
July 2010
pp. 159–182
DOI
10.2752/175169610X12632240392758
Reprints available directly
from the publishers
Photocopying permitted by
licence only
© Berg 2010
The Shamanic
Paradigm: Evidence
from Ethnology,
Neuropsychology and
Ethology
1
Michael Winkelman
Michael Winkelman, Ph.D. (University of California-
Irvine), M.P.H. (University of Arizona) recently retired
from the School of Human Evolution and Social Change
at Arizona State University where he served as Head of
Sociocultural Anthropology. He has served as President of
the Anthropology of Consciousness section of the American
Anthropological Association, and was the founding President
of its Anthropology of Religion section. Winkelman has
engaged in cross-cultural and interdisciplinary research on
shamanism for the past 30 years, focusing principally on
the cross-cultural patterns of shamanism and identifying
the associated biological bases of shamanic universals and
altered states of consciousness. His principal publications
on shamanism include Shamans, Priests and Witches (1992),
Shamanism: The Neural Ecology of Consciousness and Healing
(2000), and (with John Baker) Supernatural as Natural: A
Biocultural Theory of Religion.
Abstract
Cross-cultural findings establish the empirical evidence for
a common form of worldwide hunter-gatherer shamanism,
as well as differentiating these shamans from other
types of shamanistic healers. These diverse practitioners
have contributed to a confusion regarding the nature
of shamanism because they share similarities in their
common biogenetic foundations. These involve a cultural
universal involving community ritual in which the induction
of altered states of consciousness (ASC) is seen as a tool
for engaging in interaction with spirits for the purposes
of divination and healing. The relationship of various
types of shamanistic healers to subsistence, social, and
160 The Shamanic Paradigm Michael Winkelman
Time and Mind Volume 3—Issue 2—July 2010, pp. 159–182
political characteristics provides evidence
of the evolutionary transformation of a
hunter-gatherer shamanism into other
types of religious practitioners. The deep
evolutionary origins of shamanism are
illustrated through biogenetic approaches
that identify the biological bases of
shamanic universals and their deeper
phylogenetic origins. The homologies of
shamanic rituals with the displays of the
great apes provide a basis for identifying
the ancient foundations of hominin
ritual. These ritual commonalities are
described by reference to the maximal
displays of chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes).
The homologies implicate hominin ritual
activities as involving similar individual
and group activities involving vigorous
bipedal displays by alpha males which
included drumming with hands, feet, and
sticks and emotional vocalizations. Their
adaptive foundations are illustrated by the
many functions of these threat displays in
chimpanzee society: greetings, hierarchy
maintenance, group integration, intergroup
boundary maintenance, and release
of tension and frustration. Biogenetic
approaches to the origins of human
ritual provide an additional empirical and
theoretical foundation for understanding
the nature and origins of shamanism in the
human and hominid past.
Keywords: shamanism, evolution, hominid
religiosity
Eliade’s Concept of the Shaman
The concept of shamanism entered into
Western academic discourse in the
seventeenth century (Flaherty 1992) and
became a standard feature of comparative
religious analysis with the work of Eliade
(1964). Based on a reading of materials
from around the world and across time,
Eliade proposed that the shaman was
a cross-cultural phenomenon. Eliade
characterized the shamanic ritual as an
unparalleled activity in the lives of the
community, with the entire local residential
group expected to attend. Shamans are
charismatic social leaders who engage in
spirit-mediated healing and divination for
the local community. The shaman was
core to all aspects of life—divining the
meaning of the universe, prophesying the
future, healing, helping hunters find animals,
communicating psychically about lost family
members, directing the group’s movement,
funerals, and virtually all major activities of
the community. Shamans also led raiding
parties, organized communal hunts, and
directed group movement. Shamans engaged
in activities on behalf of a client, but generally
with the entire local community (the band)
participating.
The shamanic ritual was typically a
nocturnal event in which the entire local
community congregated around a fire,
clapping and singing while the shaman
danced for hours while drumming or rattling.
The shaman’s vocalizations also engaged a
dialogue with the spirits, exhorting them
through ancient songs and chants. The
shaman would call for spirit allies or exhort
evil spirits to leave and cease their afflictions.
The shamanic ritual involved imitating power
animals and acting out struggles with the
spirits, and the enacting of the journey
through the spirit realms.
A core aspect of shamanism identified
by Eliade was “ecstasy,” an altered state
of consciousness (ASC) that was used
Michael Winkelman The Shamanic Paradigm 161
Time and Mind Volume 3—Issue 2—July 2010, pp. 159–182
to enter the spirit world. The ASC was
induced through the effects of drumming,
singing, chanting, dancing, and a variety of
other procedures, including in some cases
the use of psychoactive substances. These
ASC are thought to enable them to enter
the spirit world and acquire supernatural
powers through a vision quest experience.
Other procedures used to induce these
experiences included fasting and water
deprivation, exposure to temperature
extremes, extensive exercise and painful
austerities, sleep deprivation, sleep and
dreams, and social and sensory deprivation.
A central aspect of the shaman’s ASC
involved a “soul journey” in which some
personal mental aspect of the shaman
departs the body and travels to other places.
Other shamanic ASC involved journeys
to the underworld, and/or transformation
into animals. Shamans were not normally
possessed by spirits; rather, they controlled
spirits and were believed to accomplish their
feats through the actions of their spirit allies.
Shamans generally are identified as
descending from “shaman families” whose
ancestors provided spirit powers. In most
cultures, shamans are predominantly males;
however, most cultures also allow females
to become shamans, but typically limit their
practice to before or after child-bearing
years. Shamans’ selection may result from the
desires of a deceased shaman relative who
provides spirit allies, but in most shamanic
cultures anyone may become a shaman if he
or she is selected by the spirits, undergoes
training, and is successful in practice.
Shamans are selected through a variety of
procedures, including involuntary visions,
receiving signs from spirits, and serious
illness. Shamans’ developmental experiences
included being attacked by the spirits,
producing a death-and-rebirth experience.
This dismemberment and reconstruction
by the spirits embues shamans with powers,
especially animal allies that provide assistance
in healing, divination, hunting, and the ability
to use sorcery to harm others.
A characteristic feature of shamans’
development involved visionary experiences
during which they contacted the spirit
world, particularly in the form of the
animal spirits that were central to shamans’
powers. Animals were often thought to
provide the shaman with skills specific to
the animals’ own strengths. They were
also the vehicles through which shamans
accomplished a variety of actions, including
acquiring information, healing, and killing.
Shamans’ therapeutic processes involved the
removal of objects or spirits sent by other
shamans through sorcery and soul journeys
to recover lost souls and power animals,
aspects of the patient’s personal essence and
powers. Shamanic soul recovery involves a
soul journey to do battle with the spirits to
rescue the patient’s lost soul. Therapeutic
processes involve community participation,
healing through enhancing social bonding
processes, restoring a sense of identity and
emotional well-being, and restoring and
transforming self.
Eliade’s use of the concept of the shaman
and his explanations were appealing to many.
The concept began to gain currency in use
and eventually became applied to virtually
any kind of spiritual or religious practice or
ASC. For decades the literature has used
the term “shaman” to refer to many different
magico-religious practitioners. Generally the
writer makes the unspoken presumption that
in spite of apparent diversity of the practices
162 The Shamanic Paradigm Michael Winkelman
Time and Mind Volume 3—Issue 2—July 2010, pp. 159–182
referred to by the term, they are nonetheless
in some sense essentially the same. But most
fail to specify the commonalities that they
presume shamans share.
Determination of the nature of
shamanism and the validity of its use as a
cross-cultural concept has been problematic
because of the lack of reliance on cross-
cultural investigations. Those who purport
that there are universals of shamanism
have generally based this on intuition and
a haphazard synthesis of data from select
cultures. This typified Eliade’s methods and,
while it led to some useful conclusions,
has left them open to criticism. What are
legitimately the universals of shamanism, if
anything? Most studies have sidestepped the
question of establishing universals, and have
instead employed a definitional approach.
By specifying what they consider to be the
particular characteristics that define the
shaman, they can then show it to be arbitrary
or inadequate for some reason.
The concept of the shaman as an etic
explanatory framework has been part
of the intellectual climate of the Western
world since it entered into mainstream
literary discourses in the 1700s (Flaherty
1992). When Eliade published his famous
Shamanism: Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy,
shamanism was a concept already familiar to
the educated Westerner. Soon descriptions
of foreign religious practices around the
world were communicated through the
concept of the shaman. The effort to
convey the concept of the shaman was
derived in part from an effort to explain the
behavior of the “other” to the Westerner;
consequently it soon fell into disrepute as
a wave of cultural anthropologists began to
question and criticize the use of the term.
The complaints as variously expressed made
several points:
1 There is no similarity in spiritual or
healing practices around the world.
2 The concept of the shaman is a
fabrication of the Western imagination,
a new-age phenomenon and
construction.
3 The spiritual healing practices found
cross-culturally both vary and reflect
local cultural concepts, negating any
claims to a universal shamanism.
Kehoe (2000) legitimately criticizes Eliade’s
failure to use systematic cross-cultural
research to arrive at his conclusions regarding
shamanism. Although Eliade’s impressionistic
and selective methods deserve criticism from
the perspectives of modern ethnological
research, his conclusions were nonetheless
on target, as illustrated in Winkelman’s
(1986a, 1990, 1992) cross-cultural research.
Winkelman (2002a) proposed that
there should be three major pillars for
the argument for a cross-culturally valid
shamanism and its deep evolutionary roots:
1 Cross-cultural ethnological patterns of
shamanic practitioners in premodern
societies that establish a base for an
ethnological analogy.
2 Direct homologies between shamanic
practices and the ritual patterns of
other animals, particularly our primate
cousins.
3 A neuropsychological explanation for
the correspondences of shamanic
practices and aspects of the
brain involved in altered states of
consciousness.
Michael Winkelman The Shamanic Paradigm 163
Time and Mind Volume 3—Issue 2—July 2010, pp. 159–182
These kinds of necessary cross-cultural
studies of magico-religious practitioners
began to be published more than two
decades ago (Winkelman 1985, 1986a, b,
1990, 1992). This empirical cross-cultural
research, summarized next, established
the basis for a shamanic paradigm as an
ethnological analogy based in the empirical
nature of shamanism and its characteristics.
It validated the nature of an aboriginal
hunter-gatherer shamanism worldwide,
and distinguished it from other forms of
shamanistic healers that emerged from that
basis as a consequence of the processes of
sociocultural evolution. Neuropsychological
arguments have been detailed in Winkelman’s
subsequent publications, especially 2000,
2002a, 2004c, 2010, as well as in Winkelman
and Baker (2008), where the deeper
evolutionary origins of shamanism in hominin
ritual have been explored.
A Cross-cultural Ethnological
Approach to Determining the
Shamanic Paradigm
A cross-cultural or holocultural method
(see Murdock and White 1969) is required
to answer these questions regarding the
issue of the universality of shamans and
their characteristics, and the cross-cultural
similarities and differences in spiritual
healing practices. An empirical approach
to the question of the status of shamans
is provided by a cross-cultural research
project (Winkelman 1985, 1986a, b, 1990,
1992, 2000; Winkelman and Winkelman
1991; see Winkelman and White 1987 for
data). Using the Standard Cross-Cultural
Sample (SCCS) (Murdock and White 1969),
Winkelman’s study focused on the culturally
recognized magico-religious practitioners
in a stratified 47 society subset of the
SCCS. The SCCS is representative of the
geographic, social, and cultural regions of
the world spanning 4,000 years. All of the
culturally recognized positions (statuses or
roles) in these societies that were involved
in interaction with supernatural entities or
powers were individually assessed with a
formal questionnaire, based on data from
ethnographic reports and other sources.
A large number of variables were used
to characterize the practitioners (see
Winkelman 1992, Winkelman and White
1987). In each society, each and every one
of the culturally recognized magico-religious
practitioners was individually assessed in
terms of his (or her) characteristics. These
were based in a common set of variables
reflecting magico-religious activities that were
developed from the descriptions of these
practices as provided in the ethnographic
literature.
These variables included types of
magico-religious activity (for example,
healing, divination, propitiation, malevolent
acts, agricultural and hunting rituals, life
cycle rituals); political, social, and economic
characteristics; professional organizations and
functions; role selection procedures (spirit
illness, inheritance, purchase of position);
training conditions; ASC characteristics and
procedures; sources of supernatural power;
relationships to spirits; and the social context
of and motives for professional activities.
The coded variables for the characteristics
of these magico-religious practitioners
were submitted to coding-reliability checks
(Winkelman and White 1987).
In order to determine if there was a
cross-culturally valid pattern of religious
practices corresponding to the subjective
164 The Shamanic Paradigm Michael Winkelman
Time and Mind Volume 3—Issue 2—July 2010, pp. 159–182
concepts of the shaman, this cross-cultural
database was statistically analyzed to assess
the empirical similarities among these
practitioners. This empirical data and
the statistical assessments of the shared
characteristics across practitioners and
societies provided a basis for an empirical
determination of the different types of
magico-religious practitioners. Determination
of cross-culturally valid types of magico-
religious practitioners was obtained through
the use of cluster analysis procedures. These
types were confirmed with independent
validation methods (Winkelman 1986a, 1992).
Similar types of practitioners found in
diverse parts of the world—Eurasia, the
Americas, and Africa—are more similar to
one another across these different regions
than they are to other magico-religious
practitioners found in their own regions
and even in the same society. Rather than
culturally arbitrary religious forms, there
are social universals, with magico-religious
practitioners in different societies and from
different regions of the world having more
similarities with each other than they share
with other magico-religious practitioners
in their own cultures. The empirically
shared characteristics are more relevant
than geographical location or arbitrary
definitions of what is a shaman. These
empirically derived characteristics of each
type of magico-religious healer are what are
most relevant, not definitions. Furthermore,
the empirically derived characteristics of
one type correspond directly to classic
characteristics attributed to the shaman by
Eliade and others.
These empirically derived types of
magico-religious practitioner were labeled
with terms based on labels commonly used
by ethnographers: Shaman, Shaman/Healer,
Healer, and Medium, collectively constituting
shamanistic healers; the Priest; and the
Sorcerer/Witch (see Winkelman 1992 for
coverage of Priests and Sorcerer/Witches).
Their key features are displayed in Table 1a-d.
This empirically derived typology establishes
the etic status of shamans, the validity
of a cross-culturally general type of
religious practitioner. This indicates that
the term shaman can be used as an etic
concept, based on their empirically shared
characteristics rather than on arbitrary
definitions. It is noteworthy that some
religious practitioners labeled as shaman
by ethnographers have characteristics
significantly different from those of the
empirically derived group that is labeled
“shamans.” Instead these so-called
“shamans” are empirically classified as
mediums; empirical characteristics should
take precedence over arbitrary definitional
approaches, avoiding overextending the term.
The cross-cultural research indicates that the
term “shaman” should be used to refer to
healers of hunter-gatherer and other simple
societies who are trained through ASC for
healing and divination and share specific
characteristics.
This cross-cultural research also
establishes that there are other etic types
of magico-religious practitioners, the
empirically derived Priests, Sorcerer/Witches,
Mediums, and others. By establishing their
characteristics
2
in comparison to those of
other types of magico-religious practitioners,
this research provides a basis for an
ethnological analogy regarding religious
practices in the past. This ethnological
analogy derived from cross-cultural research
Michael Winkelman The Shamanic Paradigm 165
Time and Mind Volume 3—Issue 2—July 2010, pp. 159–182
provides a far greater explanatory power
than does the ethnographic analogy that has
characterized archaeological interpretations
of the past.
Cross-cultural Characteristics of
Shamans
Cross-cultural research illustrates empirically
similar religious healers found in hunter-
gatherer and simple agricultural and pastoral
societies worldwide. Shamans were found
in all world regions with the exception of
the Circum-Mediterranean, reflecting the
lack of hunter-gatherer societies in this
region (Winkelman 1986a). This empirically
derived group/type of shamans were found
worldwide and are statistically associated
with variables measuring nomadism and
a lack of political integration beyond the
local community; these predictors maintain
significance independent of controls for
diffusion, indicating independent origins
(Winkelman 1986a, 1992).
The practitioners empirically clustered
in the group labeled “shaman” included a
characteristic core to Eliade’s description:
someone who enters ecstasy to interact with
the spirit world on behalf of the community.
Also associated with shamans worldwide are
• a dominant social role as the
preeminent charismatic leader
• a night-time community ritual
• use of chanting, singing, drumming, and
dancing
• an initiatory crisis involving a death and
rebirth experience
• shamanic training involving induction of
ASC, particularly with fasting and social
isolation
• an ASC experience characterized as a
soul journey (but not possession)
• ASC involving visionary experiences
• abilities of divination, diagnosis, and
prophecy
• illness caused by spirits, sorcerers, and
the intrusion of objects or entities
• healing processes focused on soul loss
and recovery
• animal relations as a source of power,
including control of animal spirits
• the ability of the shaman to transform
into animals
• malevolent acts, or sorcery, including
the ability to kill others, and
• hunting magic, assistance in acquiring
animals for food
These shamans are distinguished from
other magico-religious healers (mediums,
healers, and shaman/healers) found in
more complex societies (see Winkelman
1986a, 1990, 1992). Shamans are a social
universal, found worldwide under specific
kinds of social conditions—hunter-
gatherer societies as well as some slightly
more complex nomadic horticultural and
pastoral societies. Nonetheless, some of
the core features of the shaman—ASC,
166 The Shamanic Paradigm Michael Winkelman
Time and Mind Volume 3—Issue 2—July 2010, pp. 159–182
community rituals, spirit interactions and
others—are cultural universals, found in
every society. These characteristics are
associated with other kinds of shamanistic
healers in more complex societies.
Ecological and social influences modify the
original forms of shamanism, giving rise to
a variety of other socially structured forms
Table 1a Magico-Religious Practitioner Types: Principal Characteristics
Characteristics Shaman
Societal Conditions Hunting and gathering, nomadic.
No local political integration.
No social classes.
Magico Religious Activity Healing and divination.
Protection from spirits and malevolent magic.
Hunting magic.
Malevolent acts.
Sociopolitical Power Charismatic leader, communal and war leader.
Social Characteristics Predominantly male, female secondary.
High social status.
Ambiguous moral status.
Professional Characteristics Part time.
No group—individual practice.
Selection and Training Vision quests, dreams, illness, and spirit’s request.
ASC and spirit training or individual practitioner.
Status recognized by clients.
Motive and Context Acts at client request for client, local community.
Supernatural Power Animal spirits, spirit allies.
Spirit power usually controlled.
Special Abilities Weather control, flying, fire immunity, death and rebirth, transformation into
animal.
Techniques Spirit control.
Physical and empirical medicine.
Massaging and plants.
ASC Conditions and Spirit
Relations
ASC training and practice.
Shamanic soul flight/journey.
Isolation, austerities, fasting, hallucinogens, chanting and singing, extensive
drumming and percussion, and, frequently, collapse and unconsciousness.
Michael Winkelman The Shamanic Paradigm 167
Time and Mind Volume 3—Issue 2—July 2010, pp. 159–182
Table 1b Magico-Religious Practitioner Types: Principal Characteristics
Shaman/Healer Healer
Agricultural subsistence.
Sedentary
Agricultural subsistence.
Sedentary.
Political integration.
Healing and divination.
Protection against spirits and malevolent magic.
Hunting magic and agricultural rites.
Minor malevolent acts.
Healing and divination.
Agricultural and socioeconomic rites.
Propitiation.
Informal political power.
Moderate judiciary decisions.
Judicial, legislative, and economic power.
Life-cycle rituals.
Predominantly male.
Moderate socioeconomic status.
Predominantly moral status.
Predominantly male, female rare.
High socioeconomic status.
Predominantly moral status.
Part-time.
Collective/group practice.
Specialized role.
Full-time.
Collective/group practice.
Highly specialized role.
Vision quest, dreams, illness and spirit requests.
ASC and ritual training by group.
Ceremony recognizes status.
Voluntary selection, payment to trainer.
Learn rituals and techniques.
Ceremony recognizes status.
Acts at client request in client group. Acts at client request in client group.
Performs at public collective rituals.
Spirits’ allies and impersonal power (mana).
Power controlled.
Superior gods and impersonal power (mana).
Ritual techniques and formulas.
Power under control.
Occasional flight, animal transformation. Prevent future illness.
Physical and empirical medicine.
Massaging, herbal, cleanse wounds.
Charms, spells exorcisms, and rituals.
Spirit control and propitiation.
Charms. Spells, exorcisms, rituals, and sacrifice.
Propitiation and command of spirits.
ASC training and practice.
Shamanic/mystical ASC.
Isolation, austerities, fasting, hallucinogens, chanting and
singing, extensive percussion, and, frequently, collapse/
unconsciousness.
ASC limited or absent.
Social isolation; fasting; minor austerities; limited
singing, chanting, or percussion.
of shamanistic healers—mediums, shaman/
healers, and healers—who have distinctive
features (see Table 1a-d).
Religious Universals and Societal
Specifics: Shamanistic Healers
The hunter-gatherer shamans’ utilization
of ASC to communicate with the spirit
168 The Shamanic Paradigm Michael Winkelman
Time and Mind Volume 3—Issue 2—July 2010, pp. 159–182
Table 1c Magico-Religious Practitioner Types:
Principal Characteristics
Characteristics Medium
Societal Conditions Agricultural subsistence.
Sedentary.
Political integration.
Magico-Religious
Activity
Healing and divination.
Protection from spirits and
malevolent magic.
Agricultural magic.
Propitiation.
Sociopolitical Power Informal political power.
Moderate judiciary decisions.
Social Characteristics Predominantly female; male
secondary/rare.
Low socioeconomic status.
Exclusively moral.
Professional
Characteristics
Part-time.
Collective/group practice.
Temporal lobe syndrome.
Selection and Training Spontaneous possession by
spirit.
Training in practitioner group.
Ceremony recognizes status.
Motive and Context Acts primarily for clients.
Performs public ceremonies.
Supernatural Power Possessing spirits dominate.
Power out of control,
unconscious.
Special Abilities None.
Techniques Propitiation and spirit control.
Exorcisms and sacrifices.
ASC Conditions and
Spirit Relations
ASC – Possession.
Spontaneous onset, tremors,
convulsions, seizures,
compulsive motor behavior,
amnesia, temporal lobe
discharge.
Table 1d Magico-Religious Practitioner Types:
Principal Characteristics
Priest Sorcerer/Witch
Agriculture.
Semisedentary or permanent
residency.
Political integration.
Agriculture and
sedentary.
Political integration.
Social stratification.
Protection and purification.
Agricultural and
socioeconomic rites.
Propitiation and worship.
Malevolent acts.
Kill kin, cause death,
economic destruction.
Political, legislative, judicial,
economic, and military power.
None.
Exclusively male.
High social and economic
status.
Exclusively moral.
Male and female.
Low social and economic
status.
Exclusively immoral.
Full-time.
Organized practitioner group.
Hierarchically ranked roles.
Part-time.
Little or no professional
organization.
Killed.
Social inheritance or
succession.
Political action.
Social labeling, biological
inheritance.
Innate abilities, self-taught
or learned.
Acts to fulfill public social
functions.
Calendrical rites.
Acts at client request or
for personal reasons.
Practices in secrecy.
Power from superior spirits
or gods.
Has no control over spirit
power.
Power from spirits and
ritual knowledge.
Has control or spirit
power.
Power may operate
unconsciously or out of
control.
Affect weather. Animal transformation, fly.
Propitiation and collective rites.
Sacrifice and consumption.
Spirit control, ritual
techniques.
Generally no ASC or very
limited.
Occasionally alcohol
consumption, sexual
abstinence, social isolation,
sleep deprivation.
Indirect evidence of ASC.
Flight and animal
transformation.
Michael Winkelman The Shamanic Paradigm 169
Time and Mind Volume 3—Issue 2—July 2010, pp. 159–182
world on behalf of the community and for
divination and healing is found in all societies;
these features constitute universals of religion
with biological bases (Winkelman 2000,
2004c, 2010; Winkelman and Baker 2008).
These ASC, spirit relations, and community
rituals are human cultural universals; however,
these activities are associated with different
types of practitioner in more complex
societies (Mediums, Healers, and Shaman/
Healers). Winkelman (1990, 1992) proposed
the term “shamanistic healers” to refer to
these universally distributed practitioners
who use ASC for training, healing, and
divination. Shamanistic healers share
characteristics of
• induction of ASC in training and
professional activities
• providing divination, diagnosis and
healing
• use of rituals to interact with spirits
• removal of detrimental effects of spirits
(spirit aggression and possession), and
• cure illness caused by human agents
(e.g. witches and sorcerers)
Shamanistic healers also share many
additional features by virtue of their healing
activities. These provide relief by meeting
needs for assurance, counteracting anxiety
and its physiological effects. These processes
involve community support, meeting needs
for belonging, comfort, and bonding with
others. Healing practices address emotional
problems by eliciting repressed memories
and restructuring them and resolving
intrapsychic and social conflicts. Shamanistic
healing practices utilize universal aspects
of symbolic healing. This involves placing
the patient’s circumstances within the
broader context of cultural mythology, and
ritually manipulating these relationships to
emotionally transform the patient’s self and
emotions. Ritual manipulation of unconscious
psychological and physiological structures
enable a variety of emotional healing
responses, reflected in the psychodynamic
differences in soul journey, possession,
and meditation. Shamanistic healers also
differ with respect to a variety of other
characteristics, including the types of societies
in which they were found, the processes
involved in training, the nature and source
of their powers, and their relationships to
social institutions (see Winkelman 1992).
An important contrast in understanding
the differences among magico-religious
practitioners involves the distinctive features
of the mediums, who are often confused
with shamans.
The Socioeconomic Transformation
of Shamans and Shamanistic
Healers
The characteristics of shamans and their
practices that formed the original basis
of magico-religious practices in hunter-
gatherer societies were transformed as a
consequence of social evolution. These
changes were the consequence of the social
effects of sedentary agricultural societies,
the processes of political integration, and
the emergence of class structures. These
eventually had a significant effect upon the
psychobiological foundations of shamanism,
changing the manifestations of these innate
brain structures and practices of the
170 The Shamanic Paradigm Michael Winkelman
Time and Mind Volume 3—Issue 2—July 2010, pp. 159–182
alteration of consciousness. Nonetheless, the
innate bases of ASC and endogenous healing
processes assured the persistence of ASC-
based healing practices in more complex
societies. The persistence of shamanic
potentials was in the “shamanistic healers”
(shaman/healers, mediums, and healers),
who represent the universal manifestation
of the core characteristics of shamanism
postulated by Eliade (1964): the use of ASC
in training, healing, and divination activities;
their enactment in a community context; and
their relations with the spirit world.
Quantitative cross-cultural analyses
(Winkelman 1986a, 1990, 1992) illustrate this
sociocultural evolution of shamanic potentials
in the systematic relationships of different
types of shamanistic healers and other
magico-religious practitioners (e.g. sorcerer/
witches and priests) to socioeconomic
conditions. The transformation of shamanic
practices into other types of shamanistic
healers and magico-religious practitioners is a
function of
1 agriculture replacing hunting and
gathering
2 transformation of nomadic lifestyle to
fixed residence patterns
3 political integration of local
communities into hierarchical societies,
and
4 social stratification, the creation of
classes and castes and hereditary
slavery
The relationships of such socioeconomic
conditions to practitioner types are
illustrated in Figure 1. Adaptation of these
psychobiological potentials to different
subsistence practices and social and political
conditions transformed the manifestation
of shamanic potentials in terms of principal
functions, types of ASC and spirit relations,
selection and training practices, the
sources and nature of their power, their
socioeconomic and political status, illness
ideologies, and the nature of their treatments
and professional practices (Winkelman
1990, 1992; Winkelman and Winkelman
1991). These practitioner types feature
specific types of selection procedures and
professional functions, providing the basis
for a model of the evolution of magico-
religious functions. These involve three major
functional dimensions with biosocial bases:
1 the psychobiological basis in ASC
(shamanistic healers)
2 the role of social-political and religious
leadership (priests), and
3 the conflict of shamanistic healers and
priests, manifested in the sorcerer/
witch
Shamans were the original source of ASC
traditions, and provided the social leadership
potentials at the basis of priesthoods.
Shamanistic practitioners were eventually
persecuted by priestly religious structures,
giving rise to a phenomenon recognized as
witchcraft (see Winkelman 1992, 2004b).
The Ancient Emergence of
Priesthoods
This ethnological framework for magico-
religious practices also has applicability in
distinguishing different aspects of magico-
religious practices in the past. Hayden (2003)
reviews evidence of the emergence of the
new form of ritual development in prehistory
during the early Upper Paleolithic when
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Time and Mind Volume 3—Issue 2—July 2010, pp. 159–182
hunter-gatherer groups developed more
complex transegalitarian societies. A new
form of religion emphasized public feasts in
which large amounts of food were used in
extravagant ritual displays by elite groups.
These rituals focused on group fertility
and worship of elite ancestors as gods,
enhancing the leaders’ status and providing
a context for the integration of larger
groups of people. Food, art, monumental
architecture, and public ritual were material
resources for exercising influence by these
elites. These rituals used public feasting as
a means of ensuring alliance, exchanging
commodity items to increase wealth, power,
and prestige.
Hayden calls these public rituals a turning
point in the evolution of religion—a dramatic
shift from popular cults focused on earlier
shamanic practices of ASC induction to elite
cults that enabled the elites to manipulate
their communities through religious rituals
and symbols. But what are these new kinds
of religious leaders like? Hayden interprets
these Neolithic societies with reference to
activities found in near-modern chiefdoms,
where leaders rule by virtue of their
positions in kinship systems. Public rituals
involved wealth exchanges and prestige
competition as mechanisms for differentiating
the chiefly elites from non-elites. Through
ritual exchange elites controlled social
life—wealth exchanges, bride exchanges,
arranging marriages, social alliances, debt
payments, and allocation of resources in
times of scarcity. Central parts of this new
elite-focused religion were warfare, human
sacrifices, and megalithic architecture. These
manifested a chief’s ability to organize groups
to achieve goals, which while often viewed as
collective (“protecting our village”), generally
had dimensions that served to enhance the
reproduction of the elites.
These activities are also reflective of the
activities of a magico-religious practitioner
type called the priest (Winkelman 1992,
2007). These social and religious leaders
utilized their social and economic power, and
in particular their kinship status, to create a
new level of religious activity.
The Biological Bases of Shamanic
Universals
The universals of shamanism and the
similarities in shamanistic healers across
cultures indicate underlying biogenetic
Fig 1 Magico-religious Practitioner Types, Socioeconomic Conditions, and Biosocial Functions
MAGICO-RELIGIOUS PRACTITIONER TYPES
BIOSOCIAL
FUNCTIONS
Priest Priest Priest Social Control
Sorcerer/
Witch
Sorcerer/
Witch
Social Conflict
or
Medium Medium
Shaman Shaman/
Healer
Healer Healer
Integrative Mode
of Consciousness
SOCIOECONOMIC
CONDITIONS
Hunter/
Gatherer
Agriculture
Political
Integration
Social
Classes
172 The Shamanic Paradigm Michael Winkelman
Time and Mind Volume 3—Issue 2—July 2010, pp. 159–182
foundations. These biologically based
capacities of shamanism have been addressed
in the context of evolutionary psychology
(Winkelman 2000, 2002a, 2010; Winkelman
and Baker 2008). This approach implicates
shamanic universals in terms of innate
modules, natural structures and processes
of the human organism. Winkelman
demonstrates that the central aspects of
these biological bases include
1 the biogenetic functions of ritual as a
communication, social coordination
and community bonding processes
based in the mammalian attachment
processes (the social-bonding system
involving opioid mechanisms; see
Kirkpatrick 2005)
2 altered states of consciousness
that elicit the integrative mode of
consciousness through inducing highly
synchronized slow brainwave discharge
patterns that produce coherence and
coordination across the levels of the
brain
3 integration of fundamental bodily
and visual representational structures
of consciousness manifested in the
shamanic soul flight and visionary
experiences
4 manipulation of innate representational
modules or cognitive operators
related to identity formation,
manifested in spirits as allies and social
representation systems (i.e., totemism)
5 elicitation of visionary information
capacities of presentational symbolism,
a somatic and imagetic preverbal
system
6 integration of thought through
metaphoric representation system
involving the use of the body and
animals as personal and social
representations, and
7 healing processes based in the
effects of ASC, hypnotic capacity, and
associated placebo effects
These features illustrate the foundations of
shamanism in a variety of adaptive processes
related to social, psychological, and cognitive
evolution. These involve the activation of a
variety of innate representational modules
or neurognostic structures, involving animal
classification; self-representation; social-group
representation; mental inference; mimesis
and body representation; music; and imagetic
presentational symbolism (see Winkelman
2000, 2002a, b, 2004c, 2010).
These innate modules and their
integrations provided the basis for a variety
of metaphoric predication characteristic of
shamanic thought and practice:
Animism (other with self properties)
Animal spirits (animals with self
properties)
Totemic groups (social groups with animal
species properties)
Animal identities (self properties
explained with animal species)
Out-of-body experiences (self and visual
systems dissociated from spatial system)
Possession (self module dominated by
other module)
The deeper evolutionary origins of shamanism
in the hominin lineage are discussed in the
following section (also see Winkelman 2009,
2010; Winkelman and Baker 2008).
Michael Winkelman The Shamanic Paradigm 173
Time and Mind Volume 3—Issue 2—July 2010, pp. 159–182
Biogenetic Structuralist
Approaches to the Origins of
Human Ritual
In polite company we often avoid calling
attention to human beings’ more animal-like
qualities. Such dissociation from our biological
roots is apparent in most views of religion
as an exclusively human behavior. This
isolates our understanding of religion from its
evolutionary roots in ritual (Winkelman and
Baker 2008).
The ancient biological bases of shamanic
rituals and their adaptive functions are
illustrated by understandings of the functional
nature of animal ritual. In The Spectrum
of Ritual d’Aquili, Laughlin, and McManus
(1979) show how a biogenetic structuralist
approach to ritual establishes human-
animal continuities. Ritual is integral to
vertebrate social life, providing mechanisms
for communication that are basic to social
coordination (d’Aquili et al. 1979). Such
animal rituals use behaviors, manifested
in actions, which signal a disposition for
social behaviors. Animals’ rituals have
communication and social signaling functions,
using genetically-based behaviors to provide
information that facilitates interactions
among members of a species, coordinating
their behaviors in ways that contribute to
cooperation. By making internal dispositions
publicly available, animal rituals contribute
to cooperative behaviors by providing
information that helps produce socially
coordinated responses.
As we have shown in Supernatural as
Natural (Winkelman and Baker 2008),
a biogenetic structuralist approach to
religion and ritual helps to establish their
common foundations and continuity in social
coordination. Such evolutionary biological
approaches to ritual illustrate that shamanic
rituals have ancient roots built out of prior
adaptations revealed in the homologous
behaviors humans share with other species.
Displays of Great Apes
Shamanic rituals involve vocalizations such
as singing and chanting that originated in
the same biological structures and functions
underlying activities that Lawick-Goodall
(1968) called chimpanzee “rain dances,” and
similar displays called “carnivals” by Reynolds
(2005). These include group congregation;
a bipedal charge and other threat displays;
long-distance vocalizations such as pant-
hoots; group chorusing; drumming with
hands and feet; beating with sticks; and
staggering rhythmically, swaying from foot to
foot.
Goodall noted that particularly
spectacular displays might be made around
waterfalls, in response to the presence of
similar-size other groups, who would elicit
drumming, throwing, hooting, and vigorous
displays (Goodall 1986: 491). “Pant-hoots
are given in many different situations …
especially in the evening during nesting.
Pant-hoot chorus may break out during
the night” (134). Reynolds and Reynolds
(1965) characterized outbursts of calling
and drumming to be normal chimpanzee
behaviors, generally lasting for several
minutes, but occasionally lasting all night
on moonlight nights. “At regular intervals,
the chimpanzees in an area vocalized and
drummed for several hours continuously
… Sometimes whole valleys along a
stretch as much as a mile would resound
and vibrate with the noise.” Reynolds and
Reynolds noted that these less extreme but
similar “choruses” occurred under a variety
174 The Shamanic Paradigm Michael Winkelman
Time and Mind Volume 3—Issue 2—July 2010, pp. 159–182
of circumstances, including nesting and
awakening; meeting or splitting up of a group;
before and during moving to new feeding
areas; when on the move; in responses to
hearing others’ calls and drumming; when
large numbers congregated in a limited area;
and when encountering human observers.
Noting the religious-like elements of these
displays, Goodall suggested that “[w]ith a
display of strength and vigor such as this,
primitive man himself might have challenged
the elements” (Lawick-Goodall 1971: 53).
This comment underscores the perceptions
of Goodall and other primate researchers
that some of the behaviors typically
associated with religiosity were already
present in our prehuman ancestors. Group
vocalizations such as singing and chanting, as
well as drumming and dancing, are aspects of
shamanic and religious rituals found in human
cultures throughout the world because they
have deep evolutionary roots in homologous
behaviors also found in other primates.
Parsimony suggests that we seek the origins
of human ritual and religiosity in these
emotive expressive systems.
Group and Intergroup Ritual
Processes in the Great Apes:
Baselines for Hominin Ritual
Commonalities in great apes’ displays
indicate the presence of similar behaviors in
their common ancestors with the humans,
the hominins. There are commonalities
among the great apes in these locomotor
displays involving kicking, stomping, shaking
branches, beating on the chest, ground,
or vegetation, and jumping and running
(Geissmann 2000). The vocalizations of
gibbons and chimpanzees share functional
commonalities as affective displays made
during conditions of high arousal that are
used for social contact and interpersonal
spacing. The great apes’ call episodes
fulfill similar functions: interindividual
and intergroup communication, related
particularly to location, spacing, food sources,
and danger; this expressive system of
communicating emotional states motivates
other members of the species and enhances
group cohesion and unity (see Geissmann
2000; Hauser 2000; Marler 2000; Merker
2000). Their structural and behavioral
similarities indicate that primate calls are the
communicative precursors of human singing
and musical abilities (Wallin, Merker and
Brown 2000; Molino 2000). The primates
have been selected for the ability to use
verbal aggression, exemplified in screaming
and shouting as part of intimidation displays
used both within the group and to other
species, particularly predators. Primate calls
are emotive vocalizations that communicate
to other members of the species and have
motivational effects upon them. In these
vocalizations we see the precursor to singing
and other forms of musicality that eventually
allowed for the more nuanced expression of
human emotions.
Aggressive displays, such as bipedal
charges and the shaking of branches, are
widespread primate behaviors, including
those of the the great apes (Goodall
1986; Geissmann 2000). Gorilla calls often
incorporate chest-beating, running through
the foliage, and breaking branches. Among
chimpanzees, the pant-hooting peak phase
is generally followed with bipedal charging
displays. These are typified in chimpanzee
(Pan troglodytes) behaviors described below;
Pan paniscus (bonobos) also engage in
vocalizations, drumming, and charging displays
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Time and Mind Volume 3—Issue 2—July 2010, pp. 159–182
when defending their territory against other
groups (De Waal 1997). The power derived
from these “noisy displays” is illustrated in
the case of the chimpanzee called Mike. Mike
was a low-ranking male when he began using
empty kerosene cans which he bounced and
hit in front of him while making aggressive
charges. These displays quickly catapulted
him to alpha-male status without ever having
to attack the other males (see Goodall 1986:
426–7).
Drumming
Wild chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) often
incorporate a variety of acoustic signals
into their aggressive charging displays,
including drumming, which is typically
performed by males (Goodall 1986; Lawick-
Goodall 1968). Drumming is a widespread
mammalian adaptation with many features
as a conspicuous display with self- and
other adaptive functions (see Randall 2001).
Among chimpanzees, drumming is produced
mostly by striking the hands and feet against
the ground and trees, although sticks will also
be used to flail against objects. This hand-
and-foot drumming of chimpanzees provides
a system of long-distance communication in
the low frequency sounds that they generate;
these are audible to humans at a distance of
up to one kilometer. While these acoustic
exchanges serve a practical purpose, there is
also a great deal of spontaneity and evident
satisfaction in these displays.
These drumming sessions are usually
accompanied by choruses of pant-hoots,
providing a variety of contextual information.
These drumming activities are carried
out during travel and in communicative
exchanges between individuals who
are outside of visual contact, providing
an auditory signal that allows dispersed
members of a group to remain in contact
with one another as they forage in separate
areas. Individuals can be identified by their
own distinctive patterns of drumming (rate
of drumming, length of episodes, the number
of distinctive beats, and their volume) allow
for identification of specific individuals. An
outburst of drumming may take place when
a traveling party encounters a particular
tree, and females and youngsters may also
take part. Chimps (Pan paniscus) may use
drumming to protect their territory against
other groups, engaging in group shouting,
vocalizations, and aggressive displays with fast
and loud “drumming” that they produce by
beating and jumping up and down on tree
buttresses (De Waal 1997).
These acoustic signals provide
mechanisms to call on the support of other
members of the groups who can assist
in confrontations with chimpanzees from
other communities (Arcadi et al. 1998).
Vocalizations (and drumming patterns) are
so unique as to permit identification of
individuals both by other chimpanzees and
human listeners, based on characteristics
of the pant hoots, such as the frequency of
the calls, the length of buildup phase, and
the rate of hoots (Reynolds 2005). Arcadi
(1996) suggests that the members of a
single community modify their pant hoots
to resemble more closely the patterns of
their alpha male. This imitation leads to the
development of a unique community pattern
or “accent” that facilitates recognition of in-
group members and avoidance of out-group
members.
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Time and Mind Volume 3—Issue 2—July 2010, pp. 159–182
Adaptive Features of Chimpanzee
Threat Displays
The varieties of contexts of threat displays
illustrate that they are general behaviors
with multiple adaptive functions. These
displays occur in greetings, when separated
individuals fuse back together in the larger
group; at copious food trees; at waterfalls;
as “rain dances;” during all-night displays; in
intergroup confrontations; and for release
of tension (Lawick-Goodall 1968; Reynolds
2005). The loud vocalizations and the
dramatic charging displays provide an
auditory beacon for those still distant from
the gathering site. The aggressive displays,
which can continue as darkness settles,
also serve to intimidate “others” in the
darkness. These dramatic ritual expressions
are an important tool for reintegrating the
dispersed society into a single group and are
manifested in dramatic chimpanzee chorus,
concerts, and similar group displays.
The threat displays of chimpanzees
provide a variety of functional adaptations:
Establishing and maintaining status and
order in society
Protecting the group and individual,
including reduction of physical harm
Establishing and maintaining boundaries
between groups
Producing emotional synchrony within
the group and releasing frustration and
tension
Protecting the group members from
predators, exemplified in drumming and
striking with branches
Providing a group identity, exemplified
in the shaping of vocalizations to mimic
dominant group males, and
Creating an auditory beacon for group
fusion, facilitating the individual re-
integration with the protective community
The calls, hoots, and aggressive bipedal
displays that the great apes use for a variety
of social purposes indicate they are hominin
universals and establish that our ancient
hominid ancestors also engaged in group
activities involving synchronous singing,
drumming, and dancing among members
of the group. This hominin ritual dynamic
involved communal activities that both united
the group and set them in contrast with
other groups. The many functional effects
of chimpanzee ritual indicate the adaptive
functions that similar rituals provided for our
ancient hominid ancestors.
Homologies of Chimpanzee
Displays and Shamanic Ritual
A number of aspects of chimpanzee rituals—
such as charging displays, stomping and
drumming, shaking branches, beating on the
chest, ground, or vegetation, and jumping up
and down—reflect prior hominin adaptations
that were incorporated into shamanic
ritual activities. Notably, chimpanzees often
direct these activities not only toward the
nearby members of one’s own group, but
also to “no one,” and toward unseen others
(i.e., other groups). These displays, and
group vocalizations in particular, provide
an emotional communication system that
promotes social well-being, empathy, and
social and cognitive integration by enhancing
group cohesion and unity. Primate call and
vocalization systems are preadaptations that
underlie the human capacities of song, music,
and chanting (see Wallin et al. 2000). The
use of music and song in shamanic activities
expands on these expressive modalities
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Time and Mind Volume 3—Issue 2—July 2010, pp. 159–182
that further evolved as mechanisms
for communicating about an animal’s
internal state and for enhancing group
synchronization and cooperation. Ritualized
synchronous group vocalizations are at the
core of shamanic rituals, and as in nonhuman
primates, provides an expressive system for
communicating emotional states, motivating
other members of the species, and managing
social contact and mate attraction.
Drumming and dancing, which are
universally associated with shamanism, have
deep evolutionary roots as mammalian
signaling mechanisms. Such vigorous activity
that signals one’s location to others—both
allies and potential enemies—is seen as an
indicator of fitness, an indication of vigilance,
and a readiness to act. “An amazing variety
of mammals produce seismic vibrations
by drumming a part of their body on a
substrate. The drumming can communicate
multiple messages to conspecifics about
territorial ownership, competitive superiority,
submission, readiness to mate, or presence
of predators. Drumming also functions in
interspecies communication when prey
animals drum to communicate to predators
that they are too alert for a successful ambush”
(Randall 2001: 1). Drumming is a widespread
mammalian communication mechanism used
to convey information, a so-called “costly
signaling mechanism” that displays fitness,
enhances the survival opportunities for kin and
conspecifics, and reduces the individual’s need
for more costly action.
The related display and vocalization
activities that have been observed among
the great apes, and the chimpanzees in
particular, establish that our common
hominin ancestors also had social adaptations
involving excited synchronous singing and
dancing. The singing, chanting, and dancing
characteristic of human rituals have a
biological basis and deep evolutionary
roots in the ritual calls, hoots, and group
displays that animals use for a variety of
social purposes. These emotive vocalizations
exhibited in loud calls and pant hoots have
structural and behavioral similarities with
human vocalizations that indicate that they
are the communicative precursors of human
singing and musical abilities, vocalizations
that provide information about internal
emotional states and external referents.
These activities eventually united and
integrated the group in the evenings,
providing protection by their intimidating
sound. Vocalizations that were the
precursors of singing and chanting were
part of affective displays made during
conditions of high arousal that helped to
maintain social contact through an emotive
communication system that signaled one’s
presence and emotional state to other
members of the group (Brown 2000; also
see Oubré 1997). These illustrate basic
adaptive mechanisms of ritual. The role
of ritual as a form of intimidation of both
the immediately present “other” and the
unseen “other” is illustrated in the use of
dominance displays in many contexts.
These threat displays used to intimidate
other members of their group, other groups,
and even predators, illustrate how these
ritualized behaviors played adaptive roles
that were expanded in hominid evolution
to provide the basis for human ritual and
eventually religion.
An Ethological Analogy
The presence of shaman-like collective ritual
practices in prehistoric hominid cultures can
178 The Shamanic Paradigm Michael Winkelman
Time and Mind Volume 3—Issue 2—July 2010, pp. 159–182
be inferred from an ethnological analogy, one
in which similar elements in shamanic rituals
and those of the great apes attest to their
ancient foundations. These similarities include
• the most dramatic ritual activity of the
community
• displays involving an upright posture
and charge
• aggressive display by a charismatic alpha
male to manifest dominance
• emotional vocalizations that provide
information about individual states
• drumming, including the use of hands
and sticks
• activities that unite and protect the
entire group, often oriented to a tree,
and sometimes occurring at night
A significant aspect of the hominin heritage
that persisted in the shamans’ healing
practices involves physical manipulations of
the body, including massage. In the diagnostic
phase the shaman may carefully inspect
all parts of the body, prodding lumps and
abscess and cleansing them through a variety
of procedures homologous with primate
grooming activities. These activities have
correspondences with the well-known
grooming behavior of primates. Such
behaviors have the ability to elicit the body’s
opioid response (Dunbar 2004).
Shamanism expanded these ancient
phylogenetic bases manifested in primate
and hominin ritual capacities into much
more prolonged display activities involving
extensive drumming, dancing, and music,
extending them throughout the night. A
number of factors underlie the evolution
of hominin ritual capacities into shamanism
and human religions (Winkelman and Baker
2008). These developments of shamanism
are beyond the scope of this article, but
have been examined elsewhere (Winkelman
2010). I propose that the nocturnal timing
of the rituals provided a zone for further
development. Night-time ritual allowed for
an integration of the cognitive processes
involved in dreaming. Dream experiences,
combined with drumming, singing, and other
factors, eventually produced altered states of
consciousness known as mystical experiences.
These ASC became central features of the
new forms of ritual experience that were
at the focus of shamanism and its healing
practices. These experiences were enhanced,
perhaps even driven, by the capacity for
mimesis, a by-product of bipedalism (see
Donald 1991, 2001), which provided an
expanded capacity for symbolism through
enactment. There was also an evolution of
the human healing capacity (see Bulbulia
2006; McClennon 2002, 2006), derived from
the capacity for suggestibility (hypnosis)
and the healing effects from the capacity
for music (see Crowe 2004). The most
notable of the chimpanzee-human ritual
differences, however, involve the effects
of altered states of consciousness and the
associated experiences of the soul and spirit
world. The factors, addressed below, on
which selective influences could have acted
to produce shamanism include extensions
of opioid bonding mechanisms; psychoactive
plants that were selected for enhanced use
of exogenous neurotransmitter sources; and
bipedalism and long-distance running which
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Time and Mind Volume 3—Issue 2—July 2010, pp. 159–182
induced mystical experiences by unusual
manipulations of the autonomic nervous
system (see Winkelman and Baker 2008;
Winkelman 2010).
Conclusions
Inferences about the past require models.
The ethnographic analogy provided many
insights, using the models derived from
societies at different levels of complexity (e.g.
hunter-gatherer vs. chieftains) to interpret
the use and meanings of past artifacts.
The ethnological analogy based on cross-
cultural research provides an even more
powerful set of inferential tools, allowing
greater certainty in asserting necessary
universals of the religious practices of
the past. Neurological models provide
compelling cross-confirmation of a variety
of cognitive potentials and their natural
and necessary part in the human past;
the ASC of shamanism are a key case
in point. The arguments regarding the
ancient origins of shamanism and its
roles in human evolution and cultural
emergence find additional confirmation
through the use of ethological analogies.
Based on homologies and functional
similarities between human and great-ape
rituals, these ethological analogies provide
a basis for reliable inferences about the
ritual dynamics of the hominin, hominid,
and human past. Together they provide
the basis for a shamanic paradigm as a
biogenetic framework for inference about
spirituality and healing practices of humans
in the past.
Notes
1 This article incorporates material from Winkelman
(2004c, 2009) and Winkelman and Baker (2008).
2 Universals were inferred for a category of
practitioners when the characteristics were
reported for 75 percent of more of the group
and the presence of information was significantly
predicted by data-quality control measures
assessing the ethnographers’ extent of coverage
and involvement with magico-religious practices.
In essence, universality of a feature was inferred
when most of the practitioners of a type had the
characteristic in question, and its absence was a
reflecting of poor data available for the culture
and its magico-religious practitioners.
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